» Putting the Fun in Funeral

grandfather time
the year before last, my granddad died on xmas eve. not a recipe for a cheery "festive" season, but shit happens. his funeral was scheduled for a couple of weeks later, during which time i'd returned home to london to pick up suitably funereal attire. all well and good until i got back to devon, only then realising that i'd forgotten my one and only pair of black shoes. not such a problem, you'd think, and you'd be right, but for two crucial factors. 1) i was acting as a pall-bearer 2) the only person with the same size feet as me in my family is, you guessed it, my grandfather. kind of a weird experience, carrying a relation to be cremated, whilst wearing a pair of his brogues...
(Mon 15th May 2006, 13:47, More)

» Housemates from hell

not so much a housemate from hell as an oportunity to mock the differently abled
four friends in a five-bed house: the only option is to advertise. we duly do so, and receive a total of one applicant (perhaps we didn't market as well as we might have done...).

interview arranged, he arrives at the door, right hand stuffed in his pocket. trying to be the friendly host, i answer the door and offer my own right for shaking in full "hail fellow, well met" fashion, to be greeted by a crooked claw of beadle-esque proportions. not a problem in itself, but having introduced the newbie to my remaining housemates, one of the first questions was, "so, do you play any instruments...?"

as the only applicant he had to move in, but this was not the best of starts to a relationship that went steadily downhill from this point...
(Sun 8th Apr 2007, 2:06, More)

» Birthdays

at the time of my 18th i sported a skinhead
foolish amounts of gin, whisky and beer (mmm, good call) led to me vomiting copiously on my friends' shoes, before falling asleep in the town square. apparently, a "friend" held a flaming lighter to my scalp in an attempt to wake me. he failed. the first i knew was shaving my head again the next day and wondering what the sore spot was about.

not the best, not the worst, just sticks in my mind...
(Sat 10th Dec 2005, 17:51, More)

» Claims to Fame

art and poker
i once had the dubious pleasure of working as a wage slave in the oxford st. branch of paperchase. this, on the whole, sucks, and was only enlivened by the incident when dylan moran (of black books semi-fame) came in looking for an art set. sadly the majority of paperchase stock is pretty crappy, so he went away empty-handed, but not before i noted (to myself, natch) that he is quite as vague as his tv/stand-up persona would suggest.

not good enough? oh, ok, you forced it out of me. i won forty quid off of matt bellamy from muse a couple of weeks back. and no, this wasn't on some online casino site. i've known them for well over a decade, and he had a game at his swanky mayfair flat
*names drop with a dull thud*
(Tue 1st Mar 2005, 13:50, More)