MY VIDEOS NOW WORK

So here is a very cute video of little Monty when he was just a wee kotteb, playing Fetch with a chocolate wrapper...

Red Nose Day... or Red Mist Day

Red nose day 2009

Well, you can't have escaped the fact that, in the good ol' UK, we're celebrating Comic Relief for charity - aka, Red Nose Day. Ostensibly a day for sporting silly red noses and watching comedians making special shows to help raise money for children in Africa. Today already, I have seen The Pink Panther paw his fluffy way onto the Victoria Line. I saw a herd of schoolchildren perform a percussion noise pollution type thing outside Oxford Circus Station. Many people were wearing specially-designed Comic Relief t-shirts.

But I am not here to talk about the billions of pounds this will raise for children in Africa. I am not here to celebrate the wonder of a nation coming together in a united and charitable cause. Nor am I here to extol the virtues of laughter and the bond it creates as a social cohesive.

No. I am here to talk of a tale of failure, murder, death, feathers and 3am shrieks in the night. All in the name of Comic Relief.

IT ALL STARTED ON MONDAY, when a friend rang to ask if I could make hot cross buns for his charity sale in aid of Comic Relief.

At this point, I should have, could have, said, 'not this time'.
Stupidly, I have a habit of saying:
"Yes of course!"

And that set me on the path of doom, failure, murder, death (doesn't murder intrinsically involve death?), feathers and 3am shrieks in the night....

Thursday night, after GCU, I went to the big Sainsbury's in Streatham to buy yeast and strong bread flour. It took ages to find the yeast - a motherly older lady came to my rescue - and finally I was home, bags bursting with food and ingredients. And a good Jamie Oliver recipe for 'easy' hot cross buns, buns which are supposed to look like THIS...

Nice Hot Cross Buns

HOWEVER
The '15 minutes' that pounding the dough into a proper consistency was more like 45 minutes, during which I got cross and hot. I had to resort to singing hymns to stop myself thinking murderous thoughts.

Then I got fed up of pounding, so I just rolled it in some dry flour and put it back in the bowl.
FOR ONE AND A HALF HOURS.

OH YES. You let it stand for 1.5 hours. (by then it was already 10.30). So by 12 it would be DOUBLE in size and ready for me to make small buns out of it.

Okay, I could cope with that, although I was already knackered beyond thought. I dozed off and set the alarm for midnight.

At midnight I looked into the covered bowl. The dough had NOT doubled in size. It looked exactly the same size. It WAS the same size.

Well I made the balls out of it anyway and glazed them with egg.

I looked at the recipe. "let the buns stand for another 1.5 hours". ANOTHER 1.5 HOURS? That would take me up to... 2am.

Great.

I dozed off to sleep again. 1.5 hours later, there were NO risen buns. They were the same size. GRRRR.

I piped the crosses onto the flat buns. The cross dough just rolled off. Oh well. By then I couldn't care less, I just wanted the buns to cook.

But, just as I was getting ready to put them into the oven, the murder happened.

For Monty-The-Cat suddenly jumped in at the window from the still darkness of the 2.30am morning, with a mothering pigeon dead in his mouth. He'd waited up a tree until he saw a nesting pigeon. Then pounced and killed. And brought it in on the side where I was glazing my buns.

I screamed. He dropped the pigeon on the windowsill and ran under the bed, dropping downy grey feathers over the side and floor, a soft, delicate dusting of death. But my scream had scared two women outside who also started to scream. Lights went on around the houses. Lights went on in the police station behind my flats. Monty came out from under the bed and lay on the floor, bloodied paws stretching and wiggling in murderous, tired joy.

I slammed the buns into the oven and gave up even trying to make anything of them. If I had left the dough out or in the fridge it might have been okay. But I had given up. I knew by then, of course, that there was no way I would be taking in those buns, comic relief or no.

I then betook myself to cleaning the flat, putting the pigeon into a bag and clearing up the feathers. I then had to wash the cat, who was covered in evidence. So the poor thing is in the bathtub, being showered down, trying to crawl up the tiles (or me, eliciting more screams). During which time the buns burned. They were NOT buns at all. These buns were dead, deceased, no more. The buns were non-buns.

3:10 am I finally get to bed, with a poor, wet, bedraggled and confused cat.

It's a rare old world!

HOLA!

Dear all,

Well, it's been a while since I was able to write anything online. Thank goodness I keep a diary! I've missed blogging and I've missed catching up with all my blogging friends. But there is great hope on the horizon - I may be given the luxury of time back very soon. There are exciting plans ahead for me which will entail me being able, at least for most of the week, to work from home. This will give me back 2.5 hours of my day otherwise spent travelling. An extra 1 hour to add to this will be the lack of me having to get dressed and cleaned up. Nice. Smelly Mermaid. Mmm... arome du home-working writer. Nom de Fume.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyway, I want to thank you all who kindly sponsored me in my walk in Cuba, and who sent me kind wishes and thoughts. It was a fantastic success, and really life-changing. I will tell you more about Cuba in Cuba part ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE AND SIX. AND SEVEN.

Believe me, there are LOADS of photos for you to snore your way through. So be prepared for an onslaught.

PS. Oh yes, the mermaid has also found a mer-man.

Snow

It apparently did. Some bother with transport, a school might have closed early. £10 lost at Primark.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary though. Did any of you?

iShuffle - and iLove it!

I love my iPod nano. I know it's not the latest one, or the most technologically capable iPod out there, but it's revolutionised my gym and travelling sessions.

Now, instead of using the gym for thinking-about-important-stuff time, I listen to music
Now, instead of using travelling time to read and expand my mind, I listen to music
Now, instead of buying 50 cds a year at sale prices and uploading all the songs (probably about 1,000 songs), I buy individual tracks for $1. If I were to buy 1000 songs for my iPod over the year, I would be paying $1,000.

Ain't that brill? The best bit, however, is the potential for humorous juxtaposition of songs.

I've downloaded the entire Messiah as I love the music. But when you stick songs on shuffle, the best combination of music is possible.

Here are two recent juxtapositions which made me snort with laughter publicly (once at the gym, once travelling). I might get arrested for this one day.

The Messiah: 'And he shall stop their mouths'.
The section ends: 'And they shall shake their heads, saying.........."

"Caught in a trap/There's no way out/Because I love you too much baby...."

And then:
The Messiah: 'And suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying....

"Can you feel it? Can you feel it? CAN YOU FEEL IT???"

Snort!

Nein!

One of the stories I have been editing today is about a fund manager who does skydiving in his spare time. One particular paragraph really set me about laughing, however, as I felt my editing skills put sorely to the test in the face of very inappropriate humour.

The paragraph ran thus:

‘Eric has jumped with people of all ages. “The youngest was my daughter, who I took up for her 15th birthday. The oldest was a man aged 82 who had landed on Normandy beaches during D-Day. It was very emotional for him as the jump was onto a Normandy beach.”’

I really want to edit it to read:

‘Eric has jumped with people of all ages. “The youngest was my daughter, who I took up for her 15th birthday. The oldest was a man aged 82 who had landed on Normandy beaches during D-Day. It was very emotional for him as the jump was onto a Normandy beach and we had arranged for a German soldier to be waiting for him with a Schmeisser.”’

Oh well something had to make me laugh this miserable new year.

Mermaid's got the new shoes blues

Here's a perfect illustration of my latent stupidity... I blame being blonde, but I suspect that most women have a similar tale, and probably some men as well...

This is the story... cast your minds back to a warmer time (May), when the sun shone and the time for little kitten heels and bright yellow shoes was just what the fashionistas ordered.

There was Merms, standing on Streatham station platform in her new bright yellow shoes, with matching top and her best jeans, ready for a first date in London with some chap she met online.

Anyway, there was Merms, waiting with her best friend, Paddy's mum, who had stayed chez Mermaid overnight after a concert.

The train rolled in... and Mermins realised, to her chagrin, that her cute yellow kitten heel was caught in a trap, there was no way out, because she'd stepped onto a drain grating, baby. As she struggled to free herself, the train pulled in to a hissing stop. The doors opened. People got on, all the while looking at Paddy's Mum and the Mermins desperately attempting to set my foot free from its griddled metal prison.

The train driver got out of his carriage.

'You alright miss?'

'It's okay, I'll get the next train, thank you,' quoth I.

The driver got back into his cab, and continued to watch us from there.

'Why isn't the train moving?' I asked myself. By this point, both of us were kneeling on the station platform. I had taken my foot out of the blasted darn yellow piece of leathery overpriced crap, and was twisting the shoe this way and that while Paddy's Mum was kneeling down trying to hold the metal grating down.

At this point, I glanced up at the train. From somewhere in the train came a wispy tannoy announcement, too faint for me to hear. Was it a warning about baggage? A travel update? No no no... it was evident what the driver's message was to those passengers.

For, as the train slowly pulled out of the station, every person on our side of the train was standing up, or sitting right next to the window, watching the spectacle and videoing on their mobile phones.


I wandered lonely as a cloud... until I saw a host of golden shoes!!!

Merry Christmas one and all!

Well my darlings, I have been a neglectful mermins, not wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, or swimming onto your blogs to pass on seasonal tidings of comfort, joy and watermelons.

However, blame the busiest season for Christians, together with being in hospital with a burst ulcer, yucky yuck, as well as a lot on at work... you get the picture... mermins not lucky enough to get the opportunity to even see her own blog and the lovely comments you posted. Thank you.

I do hope you have all had a lovely Christmas; I was thinking of you all on Christmas eve at my mum's, wishing I could get onto the internet and post yuletide greetings to you. So I hope that the Christmas week was lovely for you all.

And I do wish you all a fantastic New Year. Whatever the New Year may bring. I know that whatever trials await me (including an endoscopy on 20th January and a 98k hike in February, My God is able! I can trust that I won't have another dull year this coming year. Whether redundancy, or ill health, or - no, I am sure this year will be mermin's year for love - or the loss, then, of my sanity completely, that 2009 will be a year of growth, comfort, fellowship and new opportunities.

So every blessing to you all for 2009 and beyond. And May the Mermin of happiness throw plenty of fresh fish your ways.

Mermaid, formerly of Moorgate

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Modern-day parable

I was standing for an hour in the cold, collecting in Piccadilly Circus station this morning for MIND. Of course I was there to raise money for charity, but it certainly was an interesting social experiment.

As I stood there, watching all the well-heeled people with jobs pass me by, with very few stopping (and the vast majority of those who stopped were middle-aged men in suits) I was aware of someone shuffling up to me: an old man, matted hair, very shabby clothes, crawling slowly along on crutches. But he wasn't trying to pass me by like the rest of them: balancing on one crutch, he reached into his dirty pockets, pulled out all the change that he had and put it into my collecting tin.

The Lord Jesus Christ was once standing in the temple in Jerusalem. His disciples watched people walk past the treasury box. A poor widow - no welfare state then - came and dropped in two small, copper coins. Jesus turned to his disciples and said: "You see this poor widow? She has given more than all the others. They gave out of their vast wealth, but she, out of her poverty, gave all that she had." (Mark 12:41-44)

This is the link to my fund raising site: Simoney's Mind Sponsorship Site

Thank you for stopping by

Think of the children

lolcats

Mermins should not be allowed near them. Children, that is.

Yesterday, Merms had been in a three-hour meeting, including lunch, at a clients HQ and then had to cram onto a late late train back to office. At Holborn, a pikey family or three with lots of small schoolchildren, pushed onto the already packed train and stood encircling me, pressing their heads into my bladder with every twist and jolt of the Central Line.

Given that matter (ie my digesting lunch) exists in three states: solid, liquid and gas, something had to give.

But I waited until it was time for me to escape the train before I farted in their general direction, head level. Some of them even had their mouths open.

Was that mean and unchristian?

What has the Mermaid been up to?!?!?

EVERYTHING!

Working, freelancing, doing notes for her mother, dating, putting her flat on the market, becoming the first woman editor of a christian publication, back to her youth groups and charity card making and jewellery making and in training for a 98k trek to Cuba to raise money for MIND! (because I'll need their services one day no doubt!)

EEEKY!

How does she do it, you ask? Well, easy - dating goes out of the window! But the window is still open he he he he. Merms has a fishing rod.

Anyway here's some of the exciting stuff I am making for a charity craft fair (again to raise £ for MIND - the mental health charity). And here's my fund raising page!

If you have any ideas about how to help us get our target Id' be grateful - at the moment I'm auctioning myself off on facebook, doing a cake bake, collecting at stations, holding a fund raising party, my best friend is holding a charity raffle and book sale and my old school is having a Cuba day - how cute is that?

Some days...

I know this is cheating - I have not really written anything of great social or political import... but some days you just need to laugh at another's misfortune...




This is almost my favourite one


This looks like Monty!

Poor pup

My personal favourite. I will marry the man who came up with that caption.
Basement cat
Opussy bin Laden
We are the knights that say MEW!
Watch out before you sit down







This will be me





My kind of cat

Ha ha ha!

Poor fat beggar

You just have to have a laugh... or you'd cry

Why I Love Ben Ainslie

Ben Ainslie
... by someone who is now definitely over Alan Rickman

I LOVE Ben Ainslie.

I spent an hour alone with Ben in a room. Sadly it was for the purposes of interviewing him about his sailing career and finances, but I can say that I interviewed our Olympian gold medalist! Totally down-to-earth, self-effacing, quiet, modest - and totally gorgeous, er, I mean, totally worthy of respect... um...

You can read the profile wot I wrote here The beautiful Ben Ainslie

Or you can just look at his website and feel proud of our home-grown sailing hero! Our hero!

Paris Hilton's top 10 tunes

Guido's fabulous post on the presidential candidates' 10 favourite songs Guido is here has got me thinking how great it would be if Paris became president. Let's face it, under the American constitution and Bill of Rights, it is more than possible that she should be a candidate. Presidential precedent even suggests, nay, demands it:

Ronald Regan was an actor, and Paris has been in a movie (I think it might still be on YouTube).
Bill Clinton was caught in an impassioned er, situation, as has Paris (YouTube comment still stands).
Nixon stank, and Paris has launched her own perfume.
Bush is verbally challenged; Paris is verbal and challenged.
The Kennedys were shot - there's hope for a bright, but brief, political future for her.

So what would her top 10 hits be?

I venture

1) Money, Money Money (Abba)
2) One Toke over the line (Brewer and Shipley)
3) Because I got High (Afroman)
4) Love Shack (the B-52s)
5) Honky Tonk Woman (Stones)
6) Blow, Gabriel Blow (Marti Webb)
7) These Foolish Things (Ella)
8) Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith)
9) Gangsta's Paradise (Coolio)
10) Californication (RHCP)

???????????????

Decapitated alien foetuses

Adopting six teenage girls is one thing. Training them to be ninjas is another. And removing decapitated alien foetuses from dormitory ceilings after Da Cardiff Crew left them there for a legacy is quite beyond being another thing.

But I am safely returned from camp and have a lot of reading to catch up on before I tell you about the aliens.

Love,

Mummy
Chinese Wisdom Master
Chief Ninja
milkshaker extraordinaire
Sinezza of Da Crew
x