Thursday 9 July 2009

Proof of Paternity

The last few weeks, celebrity deaths aside, have been rather uneventful – which is the last thing you really want to hear at the opening of a blog entry. Let me assure you, however, that despite a lack of explosive drama, there have been enough domestic incidents which have proven a source of embarrassment and/or amusement to inspire a worthy ramble.

I’ll disregard the chest-infection I have been suffering, which required a myriad of antibiotics, all of which list more side-effects than the A-bomb. It’s tedious and not nearly as interesting as the plague I was trying to make it out to be. It has simply festered as an inconvenient cough and given me the voice of a 20-a-day Kermit. No, illness aside, the first real source of haphazard-happenstances was the recent heat-wave, which hit most of Britain with the kind of warmth we only usually experience after drunkenly falling asleep against a radiator. It wasn’t so much the temperature, but the side-effects of it which lead to my humiliation, but blaming the weather itself is so very English that it would feel remiss not to do so here.

The problem was that the humidity meant that the windows were open almost constantly, which of course fed into my paranoia that things will crawl in if I drop my guard. Specifically the “things” my imagination presents me on a Technicolor loop are former-pet tarantulas that have escaped into the wild and mutated after exposure to chemicals. In my mind they have become some sort of GM super-spider along the lines of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – but much creepier and with less of a propensity for fighting evil and more of a penchant for causing it.

My concerns were proven half-right, when I spent the hottest days of the summer so far swatting the entire cast of Disney’s a Bug’s Life, who all decided to descent upon my boudoir of an evening. Now, although I will catch-and-release moths whenever possible, when it comes to mosquitoes and spiders I have a zero-tolerance policy. If it’s going to suck my blood or creep me the fuck out then it gets whacked. It’s not pleasant, but mankind’s main excuses for killing have always tended to be self-defence and fear, so I am naught but a victim of ancestral tradition. After one particularly infested evening saw seven mosquitoes fall in battle, I went downstairs only to discover two huge daddy-long-legs spidery-things in the bathroom, who also had to be disposed of in a very girly 'jab it with a broom ‘til it stops moving and then flush it down the toilet’ sort-of-a-way. I’m not proud of this insect-genocide (insecticide?) and my murderous deeds came back to haunt me later that week. If there is such a thing as karma, then I think I got mine…

My bedroom faces a car-park and some shops, and although it’s a large window, and I have spent the majority of the summer in little more than lingerie, the net-curtain preserves most of my modesty. It becomes less effective if the main light is switched on when it’s dark outside, as everyone with any common sense will know. The trouble is, when I look up from my laptop to see a not-so-eensy-weensy spider crawling across the ceiling, my instinct is to squish it before it runs off and hides somewhere I can’t get at it. So, after a couple of minutes of gymnastic leaping around, and balancing on various articles of furniture while brandishing a feather-duster, I was victorious. …Only to realise I’d switched the light on to get a better view of the enemy, and not thought to draw the curtains first. It wasn’t until I reached over to close the window to prevent further invasion, that I noticed the security guard standing outside the opposite building, enjoying not only his cigarette, but the impromptu show.

I’ve now ordered screens that Velcro to the window to keep the bugs out. It doesn’t do much to keep me from making an exhibition of myself, but it cuts down the amount of accompanying acrobatics.

It’s also been something of a week for ‘nanecdotes,’ as I have had two comical conversations with my grandmother in as many days. The first occurred when she was sorting through some of my grandfather’s things. She stumbled across something of his that we both agreed she should throw away, but she was hesitant because of a request my auntie had made. Nan said “Are you sure I can throw them away? Your Auntie Sue said she wanted anything personal of his that we’re getting rid of.” …Now, this sounds like a perfectly reasonable query, as it isn’t unusual for family members to be very sentimental over the personal items of a loved one. Unfortunately, I had to explain to Nan that I don’t think Auntie Sue’s nostalgia extended to a NHS-issue tub containing Grandad’s gallstones, and that I think she’d be forgiven for not posting them to Wales.

Nanecdote #2 occurred today, when – following Michael Jackson’s memorial service yesterday, which she watched in full – Nan presented me with a copy of the Daily Mirror. The front page featured large photos of Prince Michael, Paris and ‘Blanket’ Jackson. She pointed to Paris and said; “I think the papers are wrong you know. All these kids look just like him! You see: she has his nose and the boys both have his chin!” I don’t need to explain to most of you why that is funny, or why a kid having a nose just like the one her Daddy bought himself isn’t really proof of paternity.

Also In The News: It's the dog's 10th Birthday this week, and whilst I only usually hold nominal celebrations, as she is entering double-figures I'm hoping to make more of a fuss of her. On my 10th birthday my mother took me into a local boutique and allowed me to choose my own clothes for the first time. I'm not going to do that with the dog.

For one thing, that shop closed down years ago.

Signed, Sealed, and (Hopefully) Delivered

This week my thoughts, many of my conversations, and – most contentiously – my   Facebook   timeline, have been consumed by the unfold...