Rampage Scrampage Dampage Jampage Stampage Drampage Trampage.......

A Rampage of Home Ed kids. A Trampage of Home Ed parents. A Scrampage of all who see us coming. Perhaps. Needs work.


Updates: it was definitely a badger's skull we found last Thursday. At Kent Goes Wild last weekend in Dunorlan Park they had a fox, a badger and a rabbit's skull laid out alongside. I shall never again confuse the species. The badger specialists even demonstrated the singular nature of the badger's hinged jaw - the only mammal with such a variety. And it has a funny mohican crest which apparently doesn't do your car much good if you hit one. Doesn't do the badger much good either mind - the car will still win. Thuglet and Little Rock Godling tried to befriend the aged stuffed badger on display - which simply revealed the hasty job the nice badgery folk had done of sticking it's brittle front leg back on earlier in the day. Badger bodgering. Time to move on.

I got quite close to a tank of slow worms. Made 'Mmmmnnn' noises. Trying to be cool. I really don't like things without legs. Funny considering I spent most of my early adulthood completely legless. Got talking to the nice amphibian people (I mean people who like amphibians, not green gilled gurgling types, this is Tunbridge Wells darling. Disgusted they may be but not seeking revenge on Earth for crimes against algae and the betrayal of that Marina bint.) Ended up filling forms about when and where we'd seen frogs and stuff. And then reptile Boy pipes up about the snake skins found in our garden a couple of years ago and is asked to identify them from their jars of scale-suits. Adders then. We got adders. Oh joy.

I kept up Perky Parent for a remarkably long time. For me. Reptile Boy had one of his football chums with him so I had to pretend to be human. I'd arrived at their match with easily 7 seconds to spare before the final whistle blew. Clapped, said 'Well done, jolly good' and scooped them all back in the car with minimal muddage on boots. Parental devotion see. Driving past the back of Dunorlan I spotted space in the car park so swerved in sharply, expecting excited little faces. Got startled whiplash wobbly heads and choking noises. Still.... it's a park. They're boys. That's what cool parents do isn't it? Parks and stuff. Get out the fucking car then! 'Let's go and spot some terrapins!' Small boys are so easy to please. The bigger boys did well. Kept their disdain well reigned.

But terrapin-free zone. No terrapins, no Aquaphibians....... But we did capture a remote controlled boat enthusiast. Friendly species. The enthusiast wasn't remote controlled. (Not obviously.) His boat was a replica of the flagship of 6 vessels sent to patrol Hong Kong in the last days of British rule. It was the last one to leave British Hong Kong waters, escorting the Royal Yacht Britannia. I love finding people like this to yabber away to, picking up stories along the way. Aren't my children lucky to have such a outgoing mother who feeds them such nutritious experiences of the world around them? .......................... OK. Maybe they weren't as delighted as I with my armfuls of colouring-in pages and wordsearches and Junior Nature Recorder Packs, but we did come away with prehistoric sharks' teeth and a belemite. And balloons. Happy small boys then. And a dirty old tennis ball to kick. Happpy bigger boys then. Promised food. Got back in the car.

Now obsessed with mushrooms and toadstools. Gap in our Usborne Spotters Guides there. And not one on spiders. I need to know this stuff. Trawling through lists of Fungi books. Still reading bed-time tales of slimeys and creepies. Spend every Skate Club cafe time glued to sticker books on croakers and crawlies. Every episode of Deadly 60 digitally preserved. Will our wonder of nature ever ebb? Never did nuffink like all this at school. Even outside the kids' gymnastics class today all the grown-ups are swapping mushroom books - and bags of freshly foraged King Alfreds. We never stop us.

And adventure seems to find us. After gymnastics we all descended on yet another park, like we do. And sure enough, as we watched, a couple of tent-y things pop up, a football goal appears, the bicycle-powered smoothie gang are back - I swear they are stalking us. I downed about 3 in the other park on Saturday. Knocked back another half a dozen today. Then they lay out this obstacle course thing. The kids are circling them now. Light dawns. It's the good Christian Teen-Savers. They set up in parks and warn kids of the dangers of drink and drugs. We nicked all their freebies last year. Here we are again then. This time they got their guinnea pigs to don these Beer Goggles - that fuck up your vision - and attempt the course. Watching my Beckham-esque Reptile Boy stumbling though cones, swinging at missed balls, staggering into the ball pit was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Until one of the dads did it. Then I really thought I was going to wee myself. I refused to put the Spaz Specs on - would've brought back way too many memories.

One of our mums did make a very good point however that it was kind of fun and that maybe that wasn't quite the message the Good People were hoping to get across. Hey kids - get pissed and you can do stuff like this! As opposed to being thrown out of cabs, slipping over in your own wee, trying to right yourself like a upturned beetle in the gutter, flinging your arms around someone else's boyfriend and vomming down his leather jacket, singing Danny Boy in a strange front garden, convulsing for 3 hours over a stinking toilet, waking up in a cupboard with no clothes on covered in unexplained gashes and bruises next to a dribbling beast in a pool of sick having mysteriously spent £600. You don't know where you are, or who you are. Your brain is banging down the walls of your skull trying to get out. You have compound eyes. You crave salt 'n' vinegar chipsticks and coke. This place is a rotting shit-hole. There are pieces of pilchards on toast on every surface. You realise you are at home all along. And you are late for work. About 3 days late for work. You need a drink. But I s'pose this might be a tad tricky to set up in Calverley Gardens for the afternoon.


God I am glad I didn't put the goggles on. Haven't sung Danny Boy for years.


And I'm so glad I don't drink anymore. My night-time vice is just herbal tea now.


Still makes you wee yourself tho'.


Some things never change.

Another Fine Mess. Absolutely fine.

Another day, another wilderness. That's the Home Ed way of life. Whether you take that literally or metaphorically - you know I don't care. Just this morning I'd checked the list of creatures we'd clocked on our last Bug Safari - a fair crop as usual. I am still refusing to go back to the lake to capture a pair of ex-not-so-ninja terrapins (apparently quite a population these days of these once discarded little charmers), despite daily pleas. Then there was last week's Woodfair World of Wonder. And this week we had Wilderness Woods - more bugs to spot, ponds to dip, frogs to terrify.... And my lardy arse just got lardier.

Bigger ones got to make a fence post - looked like it was just waiting for a vampire to saunter along. Little ones got to go into the scape of Xmas trees and shake 'em and see what poor little creatures fell out onto a sheet, scoop 'em up, show the man, drop them somewhere far, far from their once happy home, and tread on 'em. And grown-ups got to wander about, build dens - or in my case - plop down at the play area spread those buttocks a little wider.

I often warn 'Be careful what you wish for' and for YEARS I have wished to sit on my arse and yabber away to grown-ups without chasing small children with outstretched arms and outstretched mouth. I have now reached that hallowed place in my blessed life. And I am consequently hunch-backed, fat-arsed and ache all over.

I had taken an extra little chum with us and so found myself the meeting point for 5 busy nearly-humans. Rarely were any in the same vicinity as each other - so naturally it was me who had to be the constant. This also left me open to other bods asking if I could keep an eye on so-and-so while such-and-such and look out for that one while this one was..... Upshot = one lardy lazy lump. 4 (or 5?) hours later I finally wobble to my forgotten feet and round them all up to go and see the camp the 2 big ones (Minx and chum) had been working on all day with some friends and their mum and dad. We pass a couple of school-uniformed things on the way. Get to the camp and............... it's been totalled. Utterly destroyed. Hours of effort and joy strewn to the four winds. I now have ranting savages where I once had bouncing sprites. Roaring log-hurling required to appease the wronged gods of 'fair'.

Back home then. Not stopping for Mc Donalds on the way. I've ruined their lives!

2 days later - here we all are again. Food-stuffed rucksacks, macs round waists, back in another tangled woods. The objective is to get to some spring, say 'Ooh', pick berries for eager fruit leather experiments, eat picnic, find our way out again - and not step in any dog poo. But we are a band of outlaws. We don't do things by the book. What we do is follow the kids off in random directions - get pinned and punctured in brambles and holly whilst squeezing thro' grape-sized gaps in nature's knitting and sliding into streams with our boots on - albeit scrambling out again without them. Oh we 'ave a laugh. Hours of it.

We did eventually find the spring. Well, the kids did. The grown-ups were busy unzipping bags of food like we were extras on Tenko. Rocks, slippery slopes, water - yeah yeah whatever kids....where's me Twiglets....

We didn't find any berries, despite the rest of the country being laden, but we did spot hundreds of mushrooms and toadstools. And this was the religion of the day. This fungi-pointing has been a bit of a grower of late. We've done the 'Look!' bit (Bug Safari), which led on to the 'We should do one of those walks with a fungi fun guy' bit (Wilderness Woods), to the latest phase which is 'Someone's got a book!' This does also explain the speed of our excursion today. I did say HUNDREDS of mushrooms and toadstools. While the spotters peered and flicked through pages, the leaders would plough on which meant much yelling to get a fix on their coordinates. But gathering around a delicate lilac-coloured mushroom and discovering it's edible was always going to be worth it! A Lilac Bonnet was it? In one ear and out the other with me but when I'm in The Now I'm right keen. Also proper fairytale toadstools which I always get excited about and yet forget their name - Fly Agaric they are! I SHALL remember! And King Alfred's Cakes - so fab. Our lone Dad had his sparking kit and got it alight - I love this stuff!!! We also found another frog (always a draw), a badger or fox skull (not hanging from a tree like a warning or anything - that would be Devon), 2 abandoned shelters, a half-buried motorbike, lots of poo and plenty of happy children.

What would be the collective name be for a gang of mucky semi-wild gobby beautiful Home Ed kids?

There's a challenge.


And the collective name for a gang of mucky semi-wild gobby beautiful Home Ed parents?

Need a book to identify these species. And get the clever latin terms to boot.



Thinking caps on chaps.

Oops....

Yesterday, still basking, the Super-Muvva-Glowy thing suddenly realised she'd forgotten one of her closest friend in the whole world's birthday.

Fuck.


Back to being the useless old slut of habit then.



* * * * Sorry C!!! * * HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! * * * *



And it's not the first time. I probably didn't need to tell you that.

I'm just crap at birthdays. And that other thing that begins with C that dare not speak it's name. I gave up the C-word cards many many years ago. And noone notices. Maybe I should just make a national announcement that I shall being doing the same with the B-word.

I know that just lame but...... it will save on text apologies. All apologies are lame really. Sorry.


Being organised ahead of time doesn't help at all. I've got piles of cards that were bought in advance but they still don't get sent. I'm too self-absorbed. Too busy lamenting about the ones I've recently forgotten to remember the next one around.

I used to make all my cards. I now buy them in bulk from that discount place. Even lowering my standards hasn't helped. I need to dump standards altogether I think. Like I dumped my standards of many things I once considered pride-worthy. Like......let's see now...... vocabulary, nutrition, hygiene, parenting..... Yes pretty much everything.


* * Sigh * *


Are Happy Birthday texts good enough? I'm happy with that but I'm weird about birthdays. Just wonder what normal people think about this?


Maybe I should find some.....



Does anyone know any?

I did it!

THE Most Unorganised Fuckwit on the Planet just shepherded about 150 real people into a popular annual event - some on a Free Entry basis and some on a Discount Entry basis (thereby needing goats and sheep style catagorising) - all by myself - and nobody tried to kill me - and I didn't cry.

This is big. This is a very big thing indeed. Sod birth and death and marriage - I made a phone call. To a real person. Who I didn't know. I made a PHONE CALL !!!!

Recap, nutshelled: (It's a big nut. Like me. Deep breath...)

Last year, out of the blue, I snapped up the phone on an impulse and rang a very nice man at the Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum - just down the road from me - and asked politely about a possible discount for a gang of Home Edders for their annual Woodfair. 'Free Entry on the Friday!' the jolly man kindly offered. On a high, I posted it up on my Home Ed lists and waited for the gush of grateful and praising replies. Got about half a dozen 'Think we're free' s. Still on a high from my phone-phobe victory, I was luminous with pride. I had proved myself worthy of being called a grown-up. At last. Then it dawned that on the date of the Fair, I was going to be in Cornwall. Bugger. Handed my baby over to someone else. But text updates reported that the numbers had crept up to an astounding 50 or so happy Fair-goers. Cool!

And that was that. I had done my bit.

'Are you going to ring Bentley again this year?' sliced through a serene bug safari earlier this summer. 'Er....(shit!) .... oh... yes of course.' (Stupidstupidstupidstupid - the phone thing! The PHONE!!!!') And so it went on for a few weeks... 'Have you rung Bentley yet?' 'What day is it this year?' 'Have we got the same offer as last year?' (Pick up the bloody phone you twat and sort it....it's just a phone for gods' sakes.....you did it last year.... sort of...)

So I did. (Thinking back, it was about this time that I started using deodorant again after 11 years of abstinence). Again very politely enquired about a possible discount, very kindly offered Free Entry on the Friday. I even tried to talk him out of it. 'But there was about 50 of us last year!' 'That's fine'. Blimey. Posted it up. Double luminosity. Then got about 170 enthusiastic 'We'll be there with bells on!' s. Blinded by sudden adulation, said 'Hooray! See you there!' to everyone. The pink clouds parted, the miniscule brain beeped. Shit. Panicked. Hid. Wrestled with The Fear. Eventually phoned again. Very nice man at Bentley obviously trying not to panic too. 'I'll have to contact the Fair Organiser'. He hid. I found him. Struck a deal. The first 75 get Free Entry, from then on a discount. A perfectly OK discount. Not a 'Star Home Ed Organiser of the Century' discount - but come on! Posted latest news up. Hid. 2 nights ago the penny drops as to why so many enthusiastic takers-up had not confirmed that the perfectly OK Discount Entry was perfectly OK: my initial Call to Free Event post had been cross-posted by someone, but the Whoops I've Fucked Up and Now All You Lot Have to Pay post had not. Plop. Visited by The Fear's big brother.

That's why my children had to witness my Scarlett O'Hara-with-a-yam stance this morning as I was cursing the gods of public humiliation for sending such a GLORIOUS sunny autumn day. 'Why isn't it pissing down??!! I don't want anyone to actually come!!!!'

But they did. And so did I. Smeared in fearsome wode and the blood of previous foes, I dealt with the angry mob bearing flaming torches and pitchforks with the bravery of Boudicca against the Romans. You should have seen me!

Actually you would have seen a pitifully apologetic middle-aged meerkat (with more than medically safe layers of mascara) waving a piece of paper about in front of delightfully understanding crowd of very nice parents and their little poppets. (I need that Adjective Anonymous number again.) The only enemy in the pack was the huffy lady at one of the tills being all puffed-up and silly. After my imaginary battles of the previous few days I speared her with no remorse and moved on.

And so, dear friends, allow me to bask in the glow of overcoming a Major Fucking Obstacle (albeit purely mental) in my pathetic little world.


Bask B a s k B a s k B a s k ........


Thanks.


So we were in. Ice-cream to start the day. And sitting on lardy arse in the play area. I know this is how most people would finish the day, but as I have now proved myself to be SuperMuvva grown-up glowy thing, I can do what I bloody well like. Big 2 long-since scampered, I only had my wee 2 to worry about - relative bliss. So we 'did' the thing. Jumped on the mini railway, peered at lots of woody creations, poked some, bashed one with a big stick, dragged Thuglet away quickly, found medieval archery - yay! Little Rock Godling beside himself at hitting the painted knight target 'right in the peanuts!', and Thuglet impressed the nice medieval lady with his apparent duck-to-water action. (It's a weapon, of course he's a natural). Got talking, as I do. Found out where the phrases 'rule of thumb', 'keeping it under your hat' and 'cock-up' originated. Next thing I know words like 'Oh that's very interesting! We're part of a Home Education group - do you come out to groups and do demonstrations and stuff?' are spewing from my stupidstupidstupid lips. What IS wrong with me?

Managed to grab myself by the scruff and frog-marched myself away before I started brewing mead. Distracted again by small boys in a hand-carved dug-out on a very small pool, even let them loose with a mallet to make wooden horses (sigh....sorry - it's a blinkin' dinosaur), meaty shire horses sporting Night Fever flares, Bronze Age roundhouses to destroy, paint to make by smashing things into gorgeous mush, sticks to collect, special stick to drop and cry about, trouser waist-band to ping leaving wearer to moon at passers by for rest of day (this wasn't me for once), friends to gang up with - and chips to smother in sugar (separate tales from reunited big 2). And back at the play area for the big finale - disappearing into the willow tunnels to swap dirty jokes. (That wasn't me either - for twice.)

But the BEST thing was, I got out of sittin' on the Group W bench for a double gymnastics lesson AND Mr GPants did the evening football run. Who knew Fridays could be fun?


Just one problem. Checking the ol' e-mails tonight..... 'So when is the archery?' 'Ooh archery? Put me down for 3' 'Someone say archery? Two please.' 'Fabulous. We'll come too.' 'I'm Spartacus!' 'I'm Spartacus!' 'I'm Brian and so is my wife!'........


Fuck.

I'm Spasticus.




Need more deodorant.


And way more mascara.




Oh and a brain would help.

Shoot them all down. Stamp on their graves. Blacken their names. This will make you feel better about yourself.

Watched a few bio-pics lately. Always turns out to be a bad thing. Obviously any famous person you ever had any admiration for is a total wanker with no redeeming features whatsoever. This is fact. If you take in this shit that is.

Over the last year or so I have gained so much insight to the creative soul through films and TV dramas. I now realise that in order to create anything beautful or entertaining you have to be an alcoholic bi-polar sociopathic sex-crazed child-hating Tourette's explosive destructive sadistic savage with a penchant for dark green wallpaper. (I think such mournful tones must contrast nicely with dripping gin or something.)

So how come I'm not famous? I can tick most of those boxes. Not telling which.

If you were to swallow all that's put on screen about the people who got off their arses and actually made something of themselves and made lots of other people very happy you would never ever ever watch another Carry On film, or watch any comedy performer of the 1960s or 1970s at all, or read a Virginia Wolf book, or indeed Enid Blyton, or listen to Ian Dury, or Edith Piaf, or ANY country singer (!) or maybe watch, read or listen to anyone/anything ever e v e r E V E R because they are all bastards and you simply can't condone such unforgivable inhumanity.

I wonder what the actors/actresses in these films are thinking while the films are being made? They all seem to be doing their best but inevitably end up looking like end-of-pier painted charicatures while all the other actors around them can do all the clever actingy bits.

Surely possessing talent doesn't automatically begat monsterdom. But 'we' must be demanding it. 'We' only buy newspapers and magazines full of stories and pictures of celebrities being brought down a peg or two. It's the British way. We only pat you on the head and stalk you all the way to the pedestal so that we can put you where we can get a really good clear shot at you.

I'm not asking for a whitewash - just maybe a balance? Or even entertainment?!! Really too suburban of me. Obviously not intelligent enough. Have no idea what film-making is all about. Not a clue about tension and drama. Should go back to Janet and John books. Hang my head in shame for saying out loud that arty films are crap....

......Oh but they bloody are! All this from an ex art student who loitered around the 'film' department for 3 years. It's not sour grapes because I left there without the capability of focusing a camera - honestly. I have goggled and frowned and stroked my chin for hours and hours of my life in front a screen. And I've worn the arty film appreciation beret at so rakish an angle you would die. And I feel totally qualified to blow raspberries at all this depressing hash.

I used to be able to sit through anything. Just in case it had one good line or one nice edit. It could simply be called getting old this impatience thing. If a film doesn't engage me within 10 minutes and hold my pelvic-floor-impaired concentration skills throughout, I just switch off now. I'm like that with books too. No guilt at abandoning somebody's labour of love. Too many mentions of some bird's curly long hair in one chapter and I really can't be arsed to wade through any more.

So if it's not sour grapes on my part, is it rank prunes on the part of these film-makers? There was a hilarious programme on C4 years ago called 'Secret Lives' or 'True Lives' - the basic premise being to besmirch some icon's memory and call it investigative journalism. They did one about Errol Flynn, mentioning his autobiography (which I had already read and gulped at) and promising that their programme would tell the real truth. All the filth they spewed out on the show was plainly IN his autobiography. And they left some juice out. So daft it was kind of admirable that they had such front. But it obviously had to be presented in this way as noone would have watched something that sounded fair. The very idea.

I had a flat-mate once who only liked happy films with white picket-fence endings and roses round the door and I used to tease her for being so dappy. Her argument was that life was rubbish enough and she didn't want to pay to see horribleness when she went out for the evening - she wanted to float on a cloud of lovely lovey love for a little while before coming back down to real strife. And now I am at one with this scene. I've used up all my grim film tokens too. Enough with the rivers of tomato sauce and flicking the volume buttons up and down all the time cos one minute they're muttering by a ticking clock and then they're suddenly screaming death threats in a pounding fetish club scene. Yawn.

Yeah I think I'd better send off for a subscription for Family Circle.

But before I go too far down the road of the vaselined screen-dream, I shall issue a challenge to a British film-maker to present a piece that doesn't take place in a dark green council flat, or a cold stately home, or in the dripping bleak back streets of some evil city. Doesn't contain grisly childhood flashbacks. Doesn't start with promise and chirpy cockerney chai-iking and slump into confused bog of tedium within half an hour. Doesn't have a death/funeral scene - probably with a pale neglected child present. Doesn't have a contrived and confusing 'chase' scene near the end. Doesn't end abruptly with forgotten dangling threads leaving the viewer feeling they have just lost 2 hours of their precious life - time that could have been better spent watching paint dry. Ah I could go on - and I know I do.

Go on you arty tossers, make me a film I CAN watch. Or should I just stick to the olden days films.... Bio-pics of Glenn Miller or George Gershwin that were fast-paced and cheerful and inspiring and happy. Seems a totally mental idea now to expect to be transported to another world for an hour and a half (tops!) and leave with a song in your heart!

So shoot me....

And the Award Goes To.....

ME!!!


The Award for Least Popular Wife of the Year that is.


As you may have deduced, we have a blinkin' expensive August, followed by a starting-everyflippin'thing-again September which requires lots of sobbing cheque-writing at the worst possible time. If we had a cheque book that is. So I have been on a mission to be the most frugal good wife a striving self-employed man of ever-disappearing means could have. You know, I still haven't replaced my favourite dark green shimmery eye-shadow after the conjunctivitus adventures! THAT's how seriously I'm taking my spartan role.

But...... remember the car? The one I just popped into the garage about 2 weeks ago cos I thought the gears seemed a bit tricky. Well, IT'S READY! And with a service to get it through the MOT (unlike last year) to boot. Good news surely?

Bye bye last little penny in the jar. Bye bye credit card which is soon to be taken away by the nice people to save it from further abuse.

Hello car who isn't worth half as much money as you've just had spent on you. Hello soup. For the next 6 months.

Sod off Xmas. We shan't be needing your services this year.

Hello Freezer of Hate to which our children shall be sending us.

Or is that just me?



Bad Wife! Staaaaaaaay.......within your overdraft limit! DOH! Bad wife!!!!!!!!!!



Euuuuhhhhh....... Someone woke up after I'd got that far the other night and that was that. Abandoned ship. Dredged it up again tonight and had Mr GPants reading it over my shoulder.

'Hmmmmmn'

I think that counts as talking to me.

Five minutes later he came back in all perky. 'I splashed out on something we needed today. Have a look!'

(Oooohh what could it be? I'm all tits and teeth. Has be been in the back room at Ann Summers?)


It's a digital thermometer.


Point those nipples back to the floor.

'Will it work?' (We've had these damn things before. Never work.)


His own happy boy nipples also slump. I've said the wrong thing again. He walks out.


From the kitchen I hear 'You certainly know how to ruin someone's life!'

I can hardly breathe in between silent cackles but manage 'And the award goes to ME!!!'


And tearfully (yes I am sniggering that much), I remember all those songs I have murdered over the years for him with a subtle change of lyrics. That naff one about my dad's dead and I never spoke to him - 'In the living years room'

'You make me feel like a natural woman yoghurt'

... what's that Bob Dylan one - oh yeah Sixteen Years - 'He wakes her up wanks her off'

Ohh - my special favourite - Circles of Your Mind. No lyric change needed. Just a timely pause.... 'Like the ripples of a coin. Someone tosses in a stream'

Ah there's loads that I can't remember until we get a Daddy Special CD in the car. It's not map-reading in our marriage that's the problem. It's not giving due respect to Todd Rundgren.



Firstly I would like to thank my family for moulding my early consciousness into the mis-shapen freak-form jelly I have then had to work with all my life. Thanks you guys. And my darling children. What can I say? You have taken me places I would never have discovered alone. Like Ward 3. And finally my amazing talented beautiful husband, Mr GPants. Without you I would have no joy. Everyone needs a dog to kick. And you are the perfect panting mutt to my shiny wedgey knee-high.

Thank you all! I love you!! God loves you!!! God elp us Get me off this bloody podium you skankhead. I've got a as-yet unblemished exhaust pipe needs this trophy shoved up it. Get out of my way........

Shame On Me

Been sloughing about in my familiar fog of arsiness - '...house is horrible, want to do something nice but can't til house is less horrible....' ad infinitum. All that counselling and I'm still doing this? And add this to the '...want to earn money but have no real way of doing it.... useless...talentless.... sociopathic.... lazy.... zzzzzzzzz'

I can't even bear to be in the same shower as myself.

And then, just as I'm looking for an excuse to delay going to bed and getting a good night's sleep once again I channel-hop into a documentary about John Callahan - the paraplegic cartoonist. I had one of his postcards on my wall years ago. And this film was really engaging. I felt he was like John Lydon on wheels. Odd and spiky here and there yet actually very sweet. Looking at him I thought well he must have got his feeling back in his hands to be able to draw. Then I saw him drawing - with the pen pinned between his hands. And he writes songs. And strums at a ukelele on his lap. Blows a mean harp. And sings. Really quite beautifully. Really quite beautiful songs. And I felt shamed. Embarrassed by my self-pitying lack of gumption.

The title of the film was one of his songs. 'Touch Me Where I Can Feel It' - at least I think that was it was. I didn't even 'get' how much that meant until after I'd cleaned my teeth. I thought I'll just check that on Wiki - I couldn't find that but at the bottom it said he died in July. Blimey. I feel completely bereft now. And shamed.

I had the same feeling sometime last year when I saw the film 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' based on the book written by a man who could only communicate with the blink of one eye. Had to read the book. Read it in one night. Awed and shamed.

Every so often I need a kick up the arse. Just to remind myself of my luck. And lack. Lack of appreciation.

Now if I really did want to write that book I keep banging on about, well I just would, wouldn't I?