My Interesting Life

It was brought to my attention by Annie Rhiannon that I had not blogged for some time.

Here then is a quick roundup of things that happened during my blogworld absence:

1. Visitors from Cornwall came, intent on spotting celebrities in That London. Within 48 hours they had racked up Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Noel Gallagher, Dustin Hoffman and Jodie Kidd, most of them in the organic wholefood supermarket in Kensington. Not to be outdone, Mr BC and I went to Sainsbury's and saw Rula Lenska. Chiswick is a hotbed of A-list stardom and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

2. I had an email from an informant, informing me that the informant had seen Peter Serafinowicz's brother in the High Road Brasserie, and that he looked just like Peter Serafinowicz (the brother, not the informant).

3. I retrieved a cat from SE27.

4. LC and I sold something we'd made* to a very big company, which made us happy. Capitalism rocks.

5. I watched Mr BC play Bioshock. At no point did he exclaim 'that's what you get for messing with the J-man!', but it can only be a matter of time.

6. The television broke. No one was unduly bothered.

7. I attended an event about how no one in the television industry knows what's going on any more. A man from Channel 4 said the channel had run out of money** and had asked the government for help. A scuffle broke out in the audience. It was a bit like the last days of the Roman Empire, but with free canapés.

8. I offered to be interviewed for an online magazine on the subject of fear of public speaking. The thought of talking to the journalist is making me anxious.


* When I say 'we' made it, what I mean is LC made it, while I hovered behind his shoulder making helpful suggestions like 'I think the logo should be bigger'. I am very much the Pointy-Haired Boss to LC's Dilbert.

** My commitment to factual accuracy and editorial integrity compels me to add that this may be a slight exaggeration. Although it might go some way towards explaining this (the bit about the sitcom, not the bit about the mobile phone).


UPDATE: In accordance with my new editorial policy of 'telling lies then correcting them in the footnotes', I should acknowledge that my informant points out that Peter Serafinowicz's brother didn't look 'like Peter Serafinowicz' so much as like 'what you would expect Peter Serafinowicz's brother to look like'.

Hobbit

The lovely Mr BC and I are dining in Pizza Express in Chiswick. A young man comes in to order a takeaway, wearing jeans that are really quite daringly tight for W4. Then he goes away again. Presently:

MR BC: That was a hobbit.

ME: Hmm?

MR BC: That was Merry. Or Pippin.

ME: Oh gosh, yes, so it was! It was him out of -

MR BC: Lost.

ME: I was going to say Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.

MR BC: That's him. Dominic, er, Thing.

ME: Yes.


CUT TO:


INT. QUINQUIREME TOWERS - MORNING

MR BC and PATROCLUS in bed, drinking tea.

MR BC: ...and we saw a hobbit.

ME: Ooh yes, I'd forgotten about that! I'm going to write a blog post about it. Something about collecting the whole set, in various chain restaurants in Chiswick. I'm going to look out for Elijah Wood in Zizzi's, that sort of thing. I'm not sure I'd recognise them all, though.

MR BC: You could recognise them from the tattoos.

ME: What tattoos?

MR BC: They got tattoos at the end of The Fellowship Of The Ring.

ME: In Rivendell? I don't remember that bit.

MR BC: (pityingly) In real life. All nine of them, they got tattooed with a 9, in Elvish, when they finished filming.

ME: Nine? I was only collecting four hobbits!

MR BC: Only John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli, didn't want a tattoo, so his stunt double got it instead. But his stunt double doesn't look anything like him, so he'd be harder to spot.

ME: This is all too difficult now. I think I'll just put up the Lord of the Rings video from Flight of the Conchords. It's funny.

Chiswick Residents Struggle To Cope With Celebrity Restaurant Outbreak

INT. LADIES TOILET, CHISWICK HIGH ROAD BRASSERIE - NIGHT

A mobile phone rings. GIRL in toilet cubicle answers.

GIRL: What? I'm having a wee!

GIRL: I'm at Ant and Dec's! Having a wee! Where are you?

GIRL: I didn't say Frankie's! I said Ant and Dec's!

Girl exits cubicle.

GIRL (to friend): Tch - I told her to meet us at Ant and Dec's, but she's standing outside Frankie Dettori's!

FRIEND: Oh. So what do you want to do, then?

GIRL: Shall we just go back to All Bar One?

Things I Don't Want To Think About Too Closely

INT. PIZZA EXPRESS CHISWICK - DAY

Me: I'd like a Nostrana salad, please.

Waiter: Um, sorry, we can't do that, we don't have any boiled eggs.

Me: Oh, right, oh, so I can't have a Fiorentina pizza either?

Waiter: No, that's OK. We've got eggs. We just don't have any boiled eggs.

Me: Um...

Worst. Post. Ever.

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder: One of the four beasts saying: "Come and see." And I saw. And behold, a white horse.

I live in Shepherd's Bush, but I work in Chiswick. I wouldn't *live* in Chiswick, because I have that whole reverse-snobbery thing going on: I like living near broken cashpoints, crackhead-infested Co-ops and the sort of pub that, if you ever ventured inside, you would almost certainly never come out again. Interspersed with charming little pavement cafés full of middle class, Guardian-reading, left-liberal types who like living near broken cashpoints, crackhead-infested Co-ops and the sort of pub that, if you ever ventured inside, you would almost certainly never come out again.

There's a man going round, taking names. And he decides who to free, and who to blame.

I also quite like walking. In fact I'm not happy unless I walk at least three miles a day during the week, and five each on Saturdays and Sundays. Lately I've started to think of it as good training for the apocalypse, which I understand is due in 2012* - about the same time as the "London" Games and the second series of Green Wing.

Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around.

So it's lucky that my cosy, centrally-heated office is almost exactly a mile and half from my cosy, centrally-heated flat. It's a great walk, and I go to work quite early, so it's also largely unimpeded by the things that irritate my fellow urban bloggers: dog-walkers, bus-stop-gatherers, mobile-phone-talkers, diminutive umbrella-wielders, expansive smokers, pimped-up double-decker buggies transporting squalling infants, and so on.

The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. For you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around.

And I get to listen to my iPod as I pick my way around the patches of desiccated vomit, wind-blown sections of the Observer, used condoms and toasted focaccia crusts that litter the pavements of W12. The music means I don't really notice the walk; the other day I fell over in the road while listening to "Safe" by Canyon Country, and I scarcely noticed that I'd cut my knee, nearly been run over *and* dropped my copy of the Financial Times. That's such a great song.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singing. Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum. Voices calling, voices crying. Some are born and some are dying. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come.

But fuck me, it's cold at the moment, isn't it? And I left my gloves with some gay men on the Isle of Wight, which means the hot-cold-hot thing has wreaked merry havoc with my hands. They've gone all grey and scaly and cracked and bleeding. Which makes me think I should perhaps hold them out in front of me, arms outstretched, and teeter slowly around the place moaning and trying to bite people.

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Err, that's it really.

In measured hundredweight and penny pounds. When the man comes around.

I really wish I'd done the hat one now.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him.


* Warning: contains mild lunacy.