thisiskeith

Soap

The girl who came to see (and disparage) my flat has decided to take the spare room. This leaves me in something of a quandary (I think that’s the first time I’ve ever typed the word quandary, and having typed it once I realise I have already over-used it). Having written a post about installing webcams in the room on the day she viewed it, I might look a little strange to her if she were to have a read. On the other hand, I really do need the rent.

I could just tactfully edit or delete the post. But that doesn’t sit well with my rule of never changing anything I’ve written here. The whole idea of writing on this blog is just to record what I was/am thinking. If I can go back and change the posts then what I am thinking right now becomes pretty redundant. Most of the time what I am thinking is pretty redundant. But I don’t need to hammer that point home by editing my past thoughts.

I could just let her move in, but never make friends with her on Facebook. Then she’ll never see the offending words. I hope she doesn’t make a friend request on day one. That would be awkward. Weeks and months going buy when she can have pretty much full access to my clothes-horsed damp underpants, but still isn’t allowed to look at my Wall.

In time people I know might tell her about the post. So I better not make friends with her in real life either. Just to be safe. She can move in on the explicit understanding that it is a perfunctory arrangement, put in place so that I can afford to have a roof over my head and stil buy things like chocolate and comics. We’ll stay completely independent from each other, with nothing in common other than utility bills and the fact we use the same soap. (Typing that makes me realise that a lot of people probably don’t use the same soap, and I mean hand soap, not the stuff in the shower you use to lather yourself up with - that’s definiitely in the one per person category).

One thing I do need to do is stop writing about her and the awkward situation we are now bound into together. I need to do that, and I need to do that soon.

Kev

I had my third potential flatmate over to look around the place tonight. She was very judgemental. She didn’t like the new tiles for the kitchen I have almost got round to laying, she thought my new ivory coaster was very ‘a la mode’ (means modern apparently, and judging by her face, a bit shit too) and had reason to believe that my exclusively red and black living room decor felt a bit ‘bachelor’. Really? Bachelor? Well, if only these walls could talk! They could tell a few tales. Actually, they’d have very little to say as it happens. But wouldn’t it still be fun if walls could talk.

She probably won’t move in. Which means my whole spare-room webcam investment feels a little premature. If she does move in, and does read this, then that was clearly a joke. (And if you are reading this, having moved in, and don’t believe me - it’s my word against yours. My words are only on this blog and my facebook profile anyway, where I have people on my side and can edit whatever I want anyway, so there. I’ll pollyfiller the lot in, job done, all good).

After the viewing, I watched the awfully dreary Man City/Liverpool game at my local bar. Strange crowd, it looked like Shoreditch had turned up and been sick all over the place. Lots of people who were wrapped up for winter but still forgot to wear socks under their plimsoles. Good hint here. If you need scarves, gloves and bobble-hats - you need socks. It’s simple mathematics.

A guy who I’ve met a few times before spoke to me for a bit. I usually avoid him because he has overly-tapered trousers and a larger stock of cardigans than I think is necessary. But mainly because he doesn’t know my name. ‘Kevin’, he calls me. Or ‘Kev’. Even, on one depressingly humbling occasion, ‘Kevster’. Its pretty depressing to sit with someone who tries to demonstrate his familiarity to me by riffing on a name that’s not even mine.

I left early because I felt a bit fake for not correcting him on my name, again.  

Flattie

It’s flat-mate hunting time. Again. I’ve got to get somebody in before the end of the month. Ads have gone out, and my second potential flat-mate turned up today. It’s like extreme dating seeing a potential flat-mate, particularly when it’s a two-bedroom place. “Sure, pop round. Let’s hang out. See each other again? Why not. Go for a film and a meal next time? Fuck that, get your stuff in and give me half the rent”.  

I was quite hopeful (because I’m hopelessly and naively positive as a person) as his profile on spareroom.co.uk looked fine. He had a name, a face, and a well populated “Intersted in” section. He is interested in stuff, I thought, how bad can he be? He is interested in stuff. Hobbies are definitely good signs. It could be Andrew Lloyd Webber and beastiality for all I care. Keeps him in his room and out of my way. 

He was due at 7. And turned up on time. Good sign. He was a Romanian fella, called Dave (didn’t make sense to me either) and arrived with his wife, Mari (nice name, and a very good-looking woman) along with their little baby girl (didn’t catch her name, hard to catch names, or anything else, when you are in utter shock).

They walked round the place like it was a B’n’B they were decidedly unimpressed with (join the club), roaming through the kitchen checking for dust on the surfaces. Of which there was none (ha!). Then they went into my room and complained at the size. Turns out they thought it was the whole place that was for rent. Not just the small single room, next door to mine, which is actually for rent. So, they didn’t take anything in the end. Which is a shame, I could’ve done with a ready-made family to live with. Particularly a Romanian one who left because they couldn’t afford the rent for less than half the flat they would’ve got had they decided to take the place. I should’ve offered to throw myself in to sweeten the deal.

Nostalgia

I found myself reflecting quite a bit last night. I mean that I spent time looking back at the past, not that I found a way to repel light. I spent an hour clearing out my cupboard of clothes I either don’t wear or have never worn. Some of which were apparently bought under the influence of magic mushrooms. A pair of achingly tight purple pantaloons that I have no recollection of buying went straight in the bin liner. I think they would’ve looked quite good on a nemesis of Batman’s, but just not for me at this point.

But the whole experience had me looking back at the past and pining for things. I became quite nostalgic. I’ve never been nostalgic. And now I miss that. I’ve always pitied people who are overly sentimental for a framed photograph or that particular pair of socks. Like they have enhanced meaning or value. It doesn’t matter that you wore the socks the fateful day you first met (or fingered, depending on how you rank life’s events) your ex-girlfriend. They were just keeping the cold out and smell in as best they could, same as any other day.    

But now apparently I am one of this sorry crew. I threw out a cardigan I could barely look at for sobbing about the good times I’d had in it. It was pathetic. I’d genuinely got this far thinking I had a heart of dust, then I find out my chin goes all wobbly when I look at something woollen I wore on a day when quite probably very little happened to me. If it’s so special then why isn’t hanging in a cupboard made of ornate golden pillars and sheets of ruby, that I bought with all my Euromillions cash I won the day I wore it to buy a lucky dip. Why? Cause it’s not magic. It’s a cardigan. To be exact, it’s a dis-guarded cardigan. It’s sitting at the bottom of a bin-liner outside Upper Street Oxfam, waiting to be bought by a person it will have exactly bugger-all of a positive effect on. Having said that, despite a couple of slight holes, it was quality knitwear. I miss it.

Frank

The first of Coverdale’s contributions to our Burn’s night story arrived yesterday, it excited and petrified me in equal measure. It looks great, and is perfect for the story in style. But it’s very very real. This is actually happening and I need to ramp up the writing pronto. 

I got a page of A4 out yesterday. It needs work, but there’s a couple of lines I’m pretty happy with. I don’t know if it’s actually going to be funny. But it makes me smile. Either way. With stand-up you can tell if it’s going to work, or at least be confident that it will. But this is a bit different and daunting in a new and terrifying way.

Here he is.

He’s an old curmudgeon who sits, smokes and responds to his newspaper articles by writing profanities under them. This person actually exists, he’s not as old, but I saw his newspaper last week when he left my local bar. Under a football feature discussing the merits and otherwise of defences playing a high-line, he’d simply written ‘Bollocks’. Simple, un-punctuated and concise. I imagined him screwing shut the nib of his pen. Sliding it back in to his pocket. And sitting back to enjoy the newspaper’s silence. Another debate well and truly in the bag.

It’s almost one down. With 16 days left to find 9 more. 

Bus

A short ride on he bus around noon has been the highlight of my day. To be fair it hasn’t been a very productive day. I had to go and register at a vet, not me personally obviously. Though my Holloway Road quack is not exactly God’s gift to medicine. I am pretty sure he turns to leaches as a last resort for anything less mainstream than a migraine. 

I don’t like public transport. Not being a fan of the public, I don’t see why I should look forward to getting on a stinking great vehicle with them.  Today was a particularly bad trip though. One mile and a half of utter horror. A single-mum (I am presuming here, she might have a husband or partner at home, or at least in the Pentonville nick - who am I to judge) got on the bus with her little cherub. A spotty little terror with more street-smarts than I have. He ran to the seat right behind me, jumped in it, and kicked the back of my seat for the entire journey.

She did nothing. She was too busy listening to something without any treble on her ipod. To be fair to the little degenerate, his foot kept pretty good rhythm with the bass. I am pretty sure there was an off-beat that he totally nailed by Essex Road.

There’s two things you can do in a situation like this. I could’ve turned on the pair of them and given them a mouthful. Not a well-considered dressing down suggesting their behaviour was not quite appropriate, that’d be a complete waste. I mean a stream of utter abuse, so front-loaded with profanity it would barely hold itself up as genuine dialogue. Or. I could, and I did, sit there and stare miserably into the middle-distance while working out if its the world or myself that I hate more.

The total sucker-punch is that when I pop my cloggs I have to bequeath a small share of my oxygen to this little shit. I can’t take it with me. He’ll get it. And I’m not saying he’ll definitely do nothing of any worth in his life and therefore shouldn’t get his fair share of the atmosphere’s oxygen. That his lungs shouldn’t be allowed to gulp down the sweet O2 that the rest of us can. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying maybe an independent panel would do worse than look into it. Yes, we are all born equal. But kick the back of my seat and I take the lead.

Maybe today will pick up tonight. 

Burns

I didn’t post yesterday as I was too busy being in an utter and blind panic. Mark Coverdale (find him on Facebook, he loves it when people do that) are performing a ten minute story at a local Burns night – that’s Robbie Burns, not some sort of first-degree Fireworks night support group.

I think we were asked to do it because I run a comedy night and he is friends with someone who runs a comedy night. The coincidence is uncanny. But that’s because I believe most things happen because of me. Wind, sun, the weekly shop - that sort of thing.

I’ve got no idea about Robbie Burns, which is less of an issue than having no idea about what constitutes a good ten minute short story. Mark gets the easier job of drawing pictures that illustrate (illustrations if you will) the words I am saying. I have to write a ten minute story (that’ll take about a month) and read a ten-minute story (that’ll take about 6 minutes). And I have to do this on Burns night, on the 25^th.

This is all ridiculous. I know Robbie was a right slag, according to Wikipedia, but that only gets me 30 seconds in. I need another 9 minutes 30. When I’m usually asked to do a 10 minute stand-up spot I can easily fill it up with poorly-received audience banter, long period of silence or curling up in the foetal position and sobbing like a baby. Not on the 25^th, this shit had to be loaded with narrative.

So blind panic for the rest of the weekend it is then. For now, I am going to an event in my Google calendar that has appeared as a reminder named ‘Friday night fuck-fest’. And I am 15 minutes overdue.

Abstinence

January is turning out to be a very puritan month. A worrying amount of people have announced some form of abstinence in the past two days. But I have a very busy work and social life, what with me being decidedly important and popular. My calendar is like a pyramid, blocks of activity, piled up, piled up again, and reaching a pointy crescendo at the top, but (as far as I know) without a moth-eaten corpse at the bottom. Therefore, I have little time available to abstain from stuff. Other than going to the gym or eating greens, Abstinences from which I have turned into an art form. 

But I feel left out – when everyone else gets to the end of the month and reward themselves with that vodka/cigarette/cake/fondle they have cut out of their lives for the prior 31 days, what am I going to do? I could just double my vice intake? Take one for the team, and toast them while I do. Or, maybe I could just find new ones? Indulging in sillier and more mortally dangerous vices as the months roll-on. To the point that by Spring I’ll be naked and out of my mind, teetering somewhere between a stool and a light-shade?  

I’ll probably do neither, and just carry on with the service that saw me through 2011. Ignoring the smugness of abstainers that is scarcely bearable. What’s to be impressed with? They’ve drank/smoked/snorted themselves into a mess so silly that now they are starving themselves of it. 

There is of course the option of abstaining myself of the abstainers, till February 1st. When no doubt they’ll be so smug that they’ll be only be capable of talking to me when standing on a plinth whilst being echoed by a choir. 

Monday

I’m certainly not going to say that some days are actually longer than others. But if they are, the first day at work of the year has to be a fair contender as the longest. Today couldn’t have dragged more if someone had piped the hits of Snow Patrol directly into my skull.

The Mother of all Mondays. And not even technically a Monday. Never has a day lived up to its billing so emphatically. London looked post-apocalyptic this morning. Swirling rain. Gale force winds. People staggering to and fro. All desperately coming to terms with the fact that a long bout of alcoholic excess - punctuated only by regular and shorter periods of utter binge-drinking - was finally over.

I got to work. Where were the mince pies? Where was the mulled wine? The most exciting thing I unwrapped all day was my lunch. I wanted reindeer jumpers and Cliff Richard. All I got was a complaint about my Secret Santa. And I had to work beyond mid-afternoon. 

My walk to the bus-stop was a trail of ex-Xmas trees. Each one previously a fifty pound focal-point of festive fun, newly reinvented as irrigation for dog piss. People looked miserable. I sat across from a couple on the number 19. They didn’t share a word. I found it difficult to work out which of them was actually clinically depressed. The girl seemed more likely. A vague sign of a nervous tick, and her complexion gave the impression that a slew of Valium was only a repeat prescription away. He was much harder to read. What with his sobbing and wringing of hands.

The shame is, this isn’t a one-day hangover. London will be this way for the month. It’s here for keeps. I will do my bit to lift the general mood. Definitely starting tomorrow.

Resolve

I am a brazen-tart for new year resolutions. Last year I had a list on my phone. 2011: A Keith Odyessy. Contributions included slouching less and trying to be a bit more punctual. This year I want to be more productive, so I am going to write on this blog every day (other than yesterday, I wrote my list late - 2011 was an abject failure resolutions-wise). 

After I wrote my little list of resolutions (working title 2012: Year of Keith) I went and threw eleven (relatively) hard-earned quid at a roast chicken that looked equally ashamed by her price-tag as defeated in her last remaining function of living up to it. This thing looked like it had spent the winter marching across a desert weighed down by mini ankle weights. I very rarely use my hands when eating in public, but I was reduced to picking every morsel of poultry from this poor unfortunate’s emaciated thigh and eating it back from under my finger nails. I arrived and left with starvation-rating almost completely intact.

It’s handy that the second resolution on my list is to cook more. Partly inspired by getting a Jamie Oliver cook-book for Xmas. Jamie describes a great number of dishes as pucka, I’ll let that (and the fact that he is everything that is wrong with the world) pass. I’ll just concentrate on improving beyond the portly quail that was shoved under me in the mistaken guise of a chicken earlier.

The third and final resolution is to be slower to judge people. Apparently people deserve a chance and I’ve been reliably informed that I judge too harshly and too quickly. I didn’t listen at first as the person reliably informing me was clearly an utter idiot, and is as much use to our planet as famine. But maybe he did have a point. From this point in I am going to let people express themselves before I judge them. I will do this by starting the conversation with an open-ended question then counting down from 10 before dismissing them as utterly undeserving of another second of my time. With this technique I hope to win many more friends in 2012. 

Cheese

The entry price to any good dinner party is what you come armed with, be it good cheer or a summary understanding of the day’s world news. Not that I get invited to many dinner parties. I am categorised by friends as more beer and darts material than dinner guest. Despite clearly having a lot intellectually to give. And not really liking beer or darts. 

My annual occasion of being invited to something more civilised than a quiz night left me in a muddle as to what to bring. I’d already planned to take a bottle. But planned to drink it almost exclusively myself, to the point of making a name-badge for it. So, I had to go a bit further. Cheese board, obviously. Who doesn’t like cheese? Not me for a start. Love the stuff.

I wanted good cheese. Proper stuff. So I went to a delhi in Highbury Park with a special cheese shop at the back. Manned by the most judgemental dairy salesman I have ever come across. In hindsight, starting with asking for Babybels might have got his back up. He went on to sneer at my choice of brie, demanded I get a goat’s cheese, and point-blank refused to find me any cheddar. He almost punched me when I made the golden comment about “liking a bit of blue”. I was very happy with that.

He got me back, he sold me 7 quid of swiss cheese (by the way, it is not amusing in the slightest to refer to swiss cheese as ‘fairly neutral’ - save your breath, take it from me). But this was special swiss cheese, with it’s taste on timer. He let me try it. It tasted alright. So I said “250 grammes of that please, young man” (I was on his bad side by that point so had nothing to lose). Little did I know he’d set about a 7-second delay on this cheesy beast. He’d just finished cutting me a wedge so thick it would keep a draft out, when the slither he’d stuck in my gob 8-seconds earlier nearly took my fucking head off. It was like someone had detonated a controlled fungus explosion in the back of my throat. I couldn’t speak for the taste, which was for the best because I was dreaming up all sorts of new profanities that were best left unsaid given the other clientele seemed to be happily testing shavings of nice, mild parmisan.

All in all, the dinner party went off ok. I threw in a couple of quirky (biggoted) observations about the Italian economic crisis and thoroughly ruined everyone’s meals with my funky dessert. I look forward to being invited back soon.

Identity

Today has been organised perfectly. Bag was packed. Arrangements made for the cat. And my train ticket was bought weeks ago. Meaning I could take advantage of the super-saver advanced single. £8. Which is as much as I want to pay to travel to fucking Crewe.

I felt quite quite smug as I got to Euston with all the premium-paying passengers. Less so when the self-service machine asked me for a card that I lost last weekend. So, I walked up to the service desk.

“hello, I bought a ticket but haven’t got my card on me so can’t use the machine.”
“ok, have you got your booking reference?”
“yeah, I’ve got my email on my phone - RFX8J20Z”
“right…keith foggan”
“that’s right”
“have you got any ID?”
“ID?”
“passport or driving license, with a photo on to prove it is you”
“I’ve got my work pass”
“I can’t take that, has to be a passport or driving license”
“are you saying I stole this man’s wallet and phone, found the confirmation email for a one-way ticket on a 3 hour slow train to Crewe, and thought that was an opportunity not to be missed?”
“no, but I need proper ID.”
“he looks a lot like me don’t you think?”
“that’s a work pass though.”
“I wonder what he does”
“I am going to have to sell you a full-fare single”
“I don’t fancy your chances”

I am now sat on the train armed with a booking reference and what I think is a pretty solid argument. The woman opposite me has an unfeasibly large packet of crisps and a swallow tattoo on her forearm. I am assuming this is the return leg of her journey.

Groped

I went to the theatre at the weekend, a wonderful 90 minute show that I thoroughly enjoyed for the first 60, but had the last 30 minutes ruined by my body being fondled.

What looked like a new relationship was sitting in front of me. The girl spent the last half hour with her arm behind the back of her chair, sliding her fingers through her beau’s mullet. And getting quite a bit of my knee with her elbow into the bargain.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the sentiment. But frankly, unless I am getting involved in some shared spooning - I would sooner have the legroom.

I did think about making a comment, but it’s not something you can quickly explain in the middle of a play. Aside from that in the dark they looked a bit aggressive, and I was out-numbered 2 to 1.

So I just sat there motionless, a very obliging and polite gropee. Grimly coming to terms with that being my notable sexual encounter of the week.

It did cross my mind that this was a come on? Maybe I walked away from an equally undesirable yet quite complimentary invitation. Not being a swinger I don’t know the ‘tells’, I always thought it was all middle England keys in a fruit bowl caper. Not that i have a car, the keys to one, a fruit bowl, or a fellow swinger to offer in return. Making my attendance at such a party somewhat less than fair trade.

But it could be that it goes on everywhere. Possibly I have the kind of look of a man who swings. I doubt that. I’m not even sure what ‘swings’ means. I assume it means having sex with someone who under normal circumstances you wouldn’t look at twice.

So, I tucked my knees in, got excruciating cramp and left non-the-wiser of the new-age sexual depravity that quite clearly goes on at the National Theatre.

Nemesis

I think my weekend of mis-shapen sleep may have caused a grey mood to descend on me today, because some part of Monday was invested in my thinking of ways I can avenge people who have slighted me. I’m ashamed to say that the idea of poking dog-shit through letter-boxes did loan out some of my time.

Ambition of my own disappeared backstage, as I tried to work out who I could put in their place to make my day more cheery. I think the problem is I don’t have a genuine nemesis.

All good super-heroes have them. Superman had those reverse-reality do-badders. Emu had Grottbags. And David Cameron has every sentient being on the planet. I feel left out. 

It may sound needlessly destructive, but if I could just highlight a willing candidate to be my idealogical opposite I’d be far more personally constructive. I need that sort of motivation. And what could be more motivating than trying to wipe someone from the face of the earth who tends to not completely agree with your world-view.

The search continues - you can stop it all here by emailing endme@thisiskeith.co.uk - with the words “Bring it on keithy” in the subject line.

Leave it a week though, my feline side-kick, Ringo, may have ring-worm. 

Bully

I am being a bully today. A proper good one too. Dragging Ed kicking and screaming into the world of Twitter despite him clearly not wanting to be there might sound a little selfish on my part, but if I want to re-tweet his personal thoughts then who is he to stop me.

It’s either put legitimate musings down on a registered username or I’ll come up with my own libellous nonsense and attribute them to him anyway. Watch this…

@edcaruana just stuffed a handful of dog-shit into the back of a pensioners shopping trolley

See, easy. At least with the aforementioned being plugged into the world of Twitter, he now has the right to reply. With some people there’s just no gratitude.

See what Ed gets up to next@ http://twitter.com/edcaruana