The torture of a tortoise.

Met up with friends (I shall call them Mr and Mrs X for their own protection) at the village green yesterday and I naturally asked after the health of Linford.

Linford is a tortoise.

I was told that Linford is not allowed to hibernate, much to his chagrin.

Mrs x tells me that it is important that the little fellow stays awake for his first winter otherwise he might develop some problems. I would imagine that keeping a tortoise awake against his wishes is going to cause some pretty serious psychological problems let alone the foul temper.

Mrs x went on to explain that she gives it hot baths regularly as well as allowing the children to prod it, sing to it, dress it up and decorate it.

I took a look at Linford; he did not look happy.

just very, very sleepy.

But, on the bright side he is one of the very few tortoises to have seen a christmas tree or felt the splot of a snowball on his shell.

Cabin fever, murder and flight.

The 'flu has passed leaving me weak and listless. The only good to come from it has been the extraordinary hallucinations that have visited me in my sleepless nights.

Being housebound with only the bag lady for company has led to the inevitable; we are at each others throats. Neither of us will dare drop our guard lest the other attacks with a broken bottle or carving knife.
I hear her late at night sharpening things. There is a book on poisons open on her bedside table. Open at the chapter on nicotine poisoning.

She is Googling 'hit men'.

I believe there is some kind of symbolism in her choice of flatware that she bring my lunch on.

I for my part am hoarding apple pips having read that they are (in large doses) deadly. How I am going to get her to consume 8 Kilos of the things is something i have yet to work out.

I must escape... I thought of going to France but the Eurostar trains have all broken down, B A is on strike, the airports are all closed due to asuggestion of snow and traffic is at a standstill on the roads.

I must find refuge!

Cauliflower, corporal punishment and coke.

I felt a little better today so offered to cook for Moll.

There was a cauliflower in the coldbox so I decided to make cauliflower cheese. I thought it a good one; made with a good bechemel sauce, bacon and 3 kinds of cheese. Then sprinkled with breadcrumbs and parmesan and baked in the oven.

Moll (who's tastebuds have deserted her) thought it bland and inedible.

To me it called up my schooldays and was redolent of headmasters (Eric Forrester) study as he brought out his cane for the first and only time in our relationship.

'I am going to have to give you six'. He said. 'It will I am sure give you no joy and hopefully an amount of pain. On the other hand I shall derive a great deal of pleasure from it'.

My crime? My crime was to have written CUNT in weedkiller on his lawn a few days earlier. Is it my fault that I am dyslexic and was only attempting to demonstrate my knowledge of early British kings.

I feel sorry for the kids these days who have to explain FCUK to their dyslexic teachers. But at least the teachers are not allowed corporal punisnhment and they must look after their pupils as they are probably their coke dealers as well.

Is it not ironic that it is now our educators who have the learning difficulties. They have problems understanding that there is no point in an education any longer.

Best to keep drones in the dark.

Irony in a pig factory.

Fluente Maiales writes from Mexico: His career as the worlds only professional Mexican waver is in tatters. The fear of swine flu among event organizers means that all of his gigs for the christmas period have been cancelled.

Ironically he has been forced back to working in the American pork products factory on the outskirts of his village.

'So'. said the overseer when he went back to work in the pig fat rendering vats. 'I see you are no longer waving Fluente but merely drowning'!

Nurse dreams in a potting shed.

When the pig flu struck Moll thought it best that she nurse me at her place... I arrived at her little home with my overnight bag and my hopes raised. She said she had built the place herself and I was curious to see her home. Needless to say I was not dissappointed with her 'Pretty Palace' as she called it.

Her cooking was somewhat agricultural and her nursing skills tantamount to mental cruelty but fortunately such was the virulence of the 'flu I soon fell through a hole in reality and entered a new world of delirium where everyone perspired noisily and conversation consisted of grunts and snorts.

At the height of my fever Nurse Caz visited me in my sick bed.

She hasn't lost her looks.

I feel that the worst is over and I shall soon be in full command of my faculties

Pig flu

It appears that I have swine-flu. No joke...

Motoring with Tiger Woods.

I have just spent a few days in Florida, trying to get a bit of heat into my aching bones.

while there I had a beer or two with an old friend Tiger. In fact we had too many beers and I told tiger there was no way he was driving.


'That's cool.' He said. 'I've got a driver.'


He climed into the passenger seat, started the car and while steering with his left hand pressed the accellerator pedal with a golf club.


The result was inevitable.

Greed

A foot fetish explained.

I, like a lot of people come from a broken home

But ours didn't break when the old man left

It broke much much later than that.

When the old man left things were hard

Mum worked in bars and pubs, did cleaning; anything she could find to keep us.

We lived in a one bedroom flat

Mum slept on the sofa in the living room

My sister and I slept in the same bed in the tiny bedroom

Head to toe.

I spent twelve years in that bed with my sister

Head to toe

I came to know her feet intimately

I knew every inch, every pore, every crease, every nail, every callous.

I learned to tell the seasons by the colour of her toes

I learned to tell her moods by the colour of her polish

I loved her feet

They were the first thing I saw in the morning

The last thing I saw at night.

We did everything in that bed together

Head to toe

Homework, super Nintendo, reading, hobbies, laughing, crying

I taught her to whistle

She taught me to knit.

I gave her hand knitted socks each Christmas

She whistled in admiration.

She taught me chiropody

I taught her reflexology

I gave her pedicures for her birthday

She cured my acne

I loved her feet.

Then one day, mum was out and that awful thing happened

The police called

There had been an accident, a girl , thought to be my sister had been knocked down by a truck

Would I go, in my mothers absence

To identify the body.

At the hospital the body was still in a bed covered by a sheet.

The doctor pulled back the sheet to reveal the dead girls head.

I exhaled with relief and said: No this is not my sister

My sisters head is at the other end of her body.

She never did come home though. Not after that.

But I found comfort in her shoes.

Rusty, tumbleweed and Envy.

Another postcard from Rusty. It was mailed from Envy, Texas but I imagine he has moved on from there. He writes:

Tumbleweed; that symbol of the Hollywood Western did not in fact arrive in North America until the 1870's. It arrived from Russia mixed in with flax seeds.

Did the Russians do it on purpose? http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/921218/

Studio talk

Jolyon my studio assistant was in a garrulous mood last night and we sat up late talking. 'Have you ever been in love'. I asked him.

He said: Many years ago, when I was in my youth, I lived with an older woman; she was very beautiful and in demand. but I too was beautiful and in demand back then so everything seemed harmonious.

Until I said one night in bed: 'I love you.'

Don't say that she said. It is just a licence for me to abuse you.

why is that? I asked. Although I already knew the answer.

'Because'. She said. 'The first person ever to tell me he loved me then went on to abuse me and I now associate love with abuse and abuse with love... I would rather associate with shallow people who have no real feelings for me because they are safe and I am not obliged to form a real relationship with them.

'But you will get old'. I told her. 'And be alone and unwanted.

'So what'. She said. 'I will just commit suicide!'

'No you won't' I said. 'you will continue to behave as if you were a young woman and you will continue to ignore the people who really love you because they will not lie to you. And the eurotrash company you crave, because you buy into that shit, the eurotrash company will move on to the next generation and the people who really love you will have given up in exasperation.

And of course your father will be dead by then and by then it will be too late.



'Too late for what?' she asked.

'Too late to tell you I love you.'

Lost coat update

That bloody coat has got lost again.

One expects to lose kittens or small children. One expects to lose wives, girlfriends, patience, ones temper, ones bearings.

But how can a coat lose itself with such regularity. I can only assume that it is careless.

This is the last time that I saw the thing was when it was being manhandled by a karate expert from Calgary.

It was being given the chop!

Romance

She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic

The first time I saw her

I thought

She has been unlucky

She was the most beautiful girl in the clinic

The second time I saw her

I thought

She had been careless

The beautiful girl in the clinic

The third time I saw her

I thought

She was promiscuous or worse

That girl in the clap clinic.　

She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic

The fourth time I saw her

I thought

Stupid me, she is a doctor.

I approached her then and said

Doctor

You are the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic.

She replied:

I'm not a doctor

I'm unlucky

I'm careless

I'm promiscuous

or worse.

But I feel that is about to change.

We left the clinic hand in hand

Separated by the thickness of a surgical glove.

Later, much later as we lay

Her head on my chest her hair in my face

the scent of hibiscrub filling the white room.

I said I love you

And she said don't love me

I am unlucky

I an careless

I am promiscuous

or worse

And nothing has changed.