Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, how blah blah blah blah blah blah

Strangely, I only know the words to this song in Portuguese. Which does not help really as I have not the faintest idea what the Portuguese words mean.

Anyway, here is my BEAUTIFUL Christmas tree. I will venture that it is the most beautiful one in the whole of Christendom. I should know, my uncle taught me how to prepare, fix and store the lights, and my dad taught me the cardinal rules of tree decoration:

Even out your branches
Put lights on first - as many as possible
View the tree for "dark patches" and rectify by moving lights around
Decorations first
Then baubles
Then trim

My own rule - NO TINSEL! IT SUCKS!

Now, judge for yourselves, oh peasants. And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too.





And I'm going to see if this self-gratifying video works.

No, it doesn't. Why am I like tinsel? I suck!

Michael Kelly has linked to me!!! I am honoured! Everyone go and have a look at his wonderful website - he's one of my few links!!! We love Michael Kelly and his page of misery!

So anyway, there we were in Souk Medina, off Covent Garden last night, for the Fourth Annual Mark Atherton-Mermaid of Moorgate Christmas Combo.

And a rip-roaring night it was too. About 40 turned up in all, throughout the evening, keeping conversation fresh.

Highlights included:

Belly dancers
Being bought champagne (ditto)
Lovely fresh houmous
Tommo announcing he'd finally got to third base with some one
Being proposed to twice, with a month-auction commencing between two contenders.

Lowlights included:
Being proposed to twice, with a month-auction commencing between two contenders. The two being John, the editor of a downmarket former rival trade publication, who made his offer at 22 months' from hence, and Geoff Ho, who is, well, Geoff. He came in with an 18-month offer.

[edited on request] Is this a conspiracy to get me up the aisle (or should that be down the aisle? Our church floor slopes. We discovered just how much once when mum and I were eating maltesers during communion and she went to take one quietly out of the bag during the prayer and they all fell on the floor and shook, rattled and rolled all the way down to the front of the church. Not that we ever eat in church or neglect to concentrate during Serious Prayers).

Which leads me onto the other low-lights:

John taking his editor role too seriously. One freelance who had worked with him for a couple of months full-time asked why, if his star reporter had been so good, why was she not promoted and why did she have to leave?
Cue: "I am the editor." Vs "I now write for nationals" "So what, you were no good when I sacked you" Vs "But you didnt give me a real chance to prove myself" and so on and so on!

3) Matty Wills starting up again on Richard Dawkins Vs Cliff Richard in a physical battle to see who is right: God vs Evolution. Cliff obviously, he's in the peak of physical health, as you can tell from celebrity come dancing. Hellooooo, no contest! Dawkins may have all the degrees, but God has all the best dancers.

4) People ordering some of their drinks on a non-existent tab, then leaving about 7 of us to foot the entire bill between us - GRRR! Partly the fault of the stupid waiter, who kept referring to the Tab as "The Table you have behind the bar".

5) Various fisticuffs in the streets between a certain downmarket editor, Westward-Ho! and a couple of random PRs who'd had a bit too much free lager.


6) the bar staff think spicy tomato juice requires soda water. HAS ANYONE EVER TASTED FIZZY tomato juice? It was like drinking baby poo. I imagine.

So... a great night in all. Merry Christmas!

"You should have children", said Ava-Jo to me last night after our Carol Service.
Ava-Jo entering into conversation with an adult is pretty amazing. She is slightly autistic, and sometimes finds it hard to talk to people.

"Really, why?" I asked.
"Dunno - you just should. Is he [pointing to THE BOY] your husband?"
"No" ( I said, thinking- ha ha ha ha ha). "He's my boyfriend."
"Are you her boyfriend? You should marry her and have children," Ava-Jo said, as if that cleared up the matter.
"OK" said THE BOY.
Well, hardly a proposal. THE BOY would not let me make an announcement to the room.
anyway, back to Ava-Jo.
"My brother gets on my nerves"
"So does my boyfriend."
Her eyes widened as wide as a 10-year old's eyes can. Which is pretty wide.
"She said you get on her nerves."
"She gets on my nerves too."
It was then that any parenting skills the poor child thought I might have exhibited failed me completely.
"THE BOY gets on my nerves so much I have no nerves left. [note to self: stop there in future] In fact, he now just gets on the nerve endings and dances around on them because there are no nerves left in my body."

The dark cloud of complete and utter incomprehension, coupled with perhaps a sudden onslaught of total boredom, descended across her face. Without saying a word, she turned on her heel and walked off as quick as she could.

"Perhaps she only exhibits signs of autism when you try to tell jokes", THE BOY commented.

I turned on my heel and strolled off nonchalantly towards the mince pies. At least they were an attentive audience.

I REALLY REALLY HATE PEDANTS

The other day I spent three minutes navigating a pointless porta-barrier in marks & spencer's. Now usually I think these are a good idea, especially around Christmas when you want to avoid some miserable pikey stealing your place in the queue, or something out of your bag.

But when the shop is empty, why oh why do they have to have those stupid things up? It's not like the Krypton factor, we don't get a gold star for being the fastest around the mini-maze.

There was no-one in the queue ahead of me, but instead of being able to nip round the side to buy my salad, some pimly-faced student worker/numbskull oik said I had to go through the barrier-maze. "But there's no-one in the queue!" I protested. "No, but there could be and then you would be pushing in front of them". Where do they find these quality jobbers? Care in the Community?

But by the time I went back to the barrier, several people had of course then started on their long trek to the counters. So pimple-head then decided to be helpful, and undid one of the barrier things, and stuck it in diagonally across one of the four (YES, FOUR!!!) line demarkations.

Of course, the bloke in front of me ended up stuck at a dead end. He then tried to turn round, but there were too many of us in the queue behind him. So the man tried to dodge under the barrier. In the end, I undid the stupid barriers and just went straight up to a till. A SALAD should NOT be this much trauma.

So I picked up a bag of chips and a blueberry muffin as well. Hey, I needed something to calm my nerves.

Where is my Crystal Ball? Was I right?

In my blog last week I said I thought it was probably a taxi driver. Here is the latest news...
Murders

A taxi driver in his part time capacity? Were the police reading my blog? And even if it were not him, the most likely person to have done these poor girls in has to have an official style mode of transport, to avoid arousing suspicion...

SIMON AMSTELL HAS BROKEN MY HEART



and I can never forgive him.
HOW was I to know he was a friend of Dorothy's? His clothes sense is too awful! And yet when I found out he liked to skip up the Yellow Brick Road I still scarcely believed it. Until I watched him flirt like a flirting thing with David wossname from Torchwood on Buzzcocks the other night.

For the Americans - Buzzcocks is NOT a euphemism. For the Australians among you, Euphemism means a word you use when you are actually referring to something else, mostly something naughty.

Anyway, so I was heartbroken. Leaving me with two options - stay with THE BOY and remain in a happy relationship, or have a sex change and stalk Simon until he agrees to go out with me.

"Um, Simon-with-an-ey, why don't you have a Schlong?"
"I got it surgically replaced with this. Clever, isn't it?"

"Um, Simon-with-an-ey... what are those?"
"Great, aren't they? I had them grafted on."
"You could have made them bigger"

"Simon-with-an-ey, why are there tampons in the bathroom?"
"Trendy art installation?"
"Please leave, now."

"I'm pregnant."
"Hullo, police?"


Speaking of trendy art installations and tampons, I once had a really bad period pain, so bad I could hardly move. I stayed home and painted what to me was a ball of exploding pain, and painted tampons to look like US missiles. Mum came round later to check if I was okay. She said: "What a lovely sunflower."

Here is the lesson to be learned. When your mum compliments your sunflower, let her.

Do not say: "Actually, that's an exploding ball of period pain. They are bullets"
"What are they made from? [peering intently... prodding...] "EW! you're disgusting. Don't let the church see this."

Ipswich murders




I am moved by what has been happening here. Not just because some of my family live in Ipswich, but just because of the nature of these killings. More so, because these women are society's outcasts, the sort of women your parents tell you to avoid if you see them on a dark street.

Ipswich Killings News Report
There seems to be a moral crusade here - has anyone heard someone say: "these women are asking for it" or "well these murders get these women off our streets"? I have. Which begs the question: is the serial killer someone who thinks he is executing moral judgment on these girls?

To me, there is so much sorrow behind these awful headlines. Just because thse women are prostitues it does not mean they do not matter. These are human beings. Just because some may be addicts, does not give anyone the right to hurt them. Prostitutes get raped, mugged, robbed and attacked every day and no-one gives a flying fart. Until now. These women are terrified. And so young. Tania Nicol, 19. Gemma Adams, 25. What sort of choices did they have in life to prevent them from having to turn to vice to survive? And now someone is out there trying to play judge on them. Perhaps it's even two or more people trying to compete with each other, thinking that no-one will care because, after all, these poor girls are just prostitutes.

Thing is, there are so many factors here.

The girls do not show signs of being sexually abused.
The murders are going on right under the police's faces
The bodies are all being dumped naked
And dumped very near to each other
The murderer has to be local, egotistic, sadistic, clever.
And have transport

1) Is the killer a rival pimp trying to clear the streets for his girls to make money
2) Is it a drug baron trying to send someone a gruesome message
3) Is it a random serial killer who has just seen something on TV or in a video and wants to beat whatever record it is for taking human life?
4) Is it another kind of lunatic- a moral crusader who has taken things way beyond the pale
5) Is it a group of men, or did it start out being one man, followed by copycats?
6) Could it be a man with a grudge? Perhaps a man who lost his sexual prowess and has now become insane?

The most likely suspect has to be someone the latest three girls would have had to trust in order to get into his (or her?) car. they would not be so desperate to get into the car of someone they have not seen before, or someone who does not look like he might be legit.

So... either they have seen him before, OR, he has to Drive the sort of car that these girls would trust...

Police? Too obvious. But he has to have transport. In my mind, all I keep seeing is a man with glasses, driving a dark green taxi cab. A legitimate, authorised mini-cab driver. Middle aged... "Hey lady, get off the street, it's too dangerous. Look, I'll give you £100 just to take you home safely. I'm going that way anyway, I'm an authorised taxi driver. Here's my card....." Safe, respectable looking, calming, seemingly gentle, luring them by being kind... he kind of looks like that taxi driver who helped to nail Ian Huntley.

Flowers


On monday, THE BOY cycled round to my house in the pouring rain to deliver a beautiful bunch of lilies. He had also chosen ones carefully that were mostly closed, but had one just open enough for me to see the colour. Aaah!

Poor Dinglenuts!

THE BOY read my blog today. I had been badgering him to have a look, knowing what was on there. But had not reckoned on him only reading the miserable laments of a hormonal nearly-30-something.

Which, it has to be said, pretty much sums up the entire site. Too bad I had not been able to post up what we did for his birthday, or nicer stuff. I don't think he is speaking to me any more.

I asked him via email - did you read the nice bits? No, he said. I only saw the one where you said I didn't love you enough and the post by your dad telling you to dump me.

Oops.

THE BOY has not emailed me back, despite several protestations. He's going away for the weekend, though, so he won't see this until monday. If he ever reads my blog again. And if I never post anything again, will someone please call the Battersea Cats Home and see if I've been left there?


So there will have to be some rectification. Or Rectumification. I'd prefer the former. So:


1) He bought me some toblerone to make up for the one I mashed into my face the other week when I was bladdered. A nice big one, from the airport after he'd been on holiday. there is still a lot left.


2) He likes my cooking and never needs to be forced to eat it.

3) He took loads of pictures of kittens on his holiday with his brother. At one point his bro apparently said: "Wait a mo, you're not taking pics of me are you? You're taking pictures of cats for Mermaid." That's a real man!

4) He loved the b'day pressies I bought him. He wasn't pretending. (A nice special effects pedal and a signed Liverpool football shirt, signed by none other than Stevie Gerrard.

But after reading my blog, the brownie points accrued through the shirt purchase may not be enough to salvage the tattered remains of our relationship. Why are men so complicated? When you annoy a woman, buy her some pretties, get into her pants - I mean, good books again. Annoy a man - there is no solution. THE BOY has taken his bugle and buggered off into the realm of MALE CAVES. And there he will stay, taking pictures of Kittens, printing them off, and impaling them on spikes or boring their eyes through with a rotary pencil.

On the positive side, however, here is a nice picture of a kitten.

WHYOHWHYOHWHY?

Why: Can I not get to sleep properly despite having planned for 8 hours' sleep?

Why: Am I tired after said sleep?

Why: Do men hate it if you "flirt" with waiters (ie, speak to them in Italian because you are learning Italian and want to practice), but think that when they are accused of "flirting" with a female friend and ignoring you, they are being unfairly treated?

Why: Do men want you to show you adore them in public in front of their male friends, but don't want to hold hands in front of their single female friends (not my personal gripe, but having heard that from a female mate of mine, I think this is a justifiable complaint).

Why: Am I craving sainsbury's BGTY cup-a-soups?


Why should I have to endure the convo. of my boyf's friends who earn/have a lot more money and yet have a warped view of the world. It's like they've been for policymaking lessons with the Daily Mail. I heard this statement last night from one such person: "People from broken homes are unable to sustain a relationship, and make for poor marriage partners."

Um.. how about the grace of God which sustains relationships?

Aforementioned person also states: "I don't mind [foreigners] coming into the country, but when they ask for rights, yes, you'll get rights, but grudgingly."
And the best one: "Mandela was a terrorist."

To get off the track for a second, what the ****? A terrorist? Yes, if that's what you call an educated black man sick of oppression, violence and government-condoned racism, who targets non-peopled areas such as bridges or road-works (unlike real terrorists, who kill people). If England were taken over by an oppressive government, and the indigenous people were pushed into slavery, poverty and servitude, and someone came along and robbed from the rich to give to the poor, and indulged in acts of "terrorism", wouldn't that person be hailed as a hero - oh, wait! Isn't that the Robber in the Hood? Who became known as Robin Hood? And hailed as a very Englishman?

I am so sick of "I'm not a racist, but" racists. And they usually are the people whose parents have money, and who by nature have landed okay and well-paid jobs because of it, but have really got no real knowledge of the world, or bothered to look beyond their little cotton-wool borders.

If I were to go for a job with lots of money, would I end up like this? become someone who strives to have the sort of lifestyle these people offer, end up sharing their stunted world visions? Would I become Middle England? Goodness preserve me from such a fate! Worse - would my children echo this? Thank God I am content as I am - "Whether in sickness, or in health, whether rich or poor, in prison or in palaces, I have learned to give thanks to God."

In any case, this has turned out to be a bit heavy. So here's a picture of a cat. In a bag. Dunno why he's wearing a bag. Maybe he's a Mooslim terrorist.

You Are Wolverine

Small but fierce, you're a great fighter. Watch out! You are often you're own greatest enemy. Powers: Adamantium claws, keen senses, the ability to heal quickly

Which of the X-Men Are You?

So I am wolverine. That's pretty cool, although I'm not sure about being hairy. All I said was that I liked a fight and got on well with animals. Still, it beats being a lesser-paid X-men character who gets killed off in the first episode...