go on mick, give it some stick

i love chas and dave. i really do – i dragged a group of protesting, clamouring friends to see them at glastonbury (“i don’t want to go – it’s not even the real dave!”) and from the moment they showered the crowd with the opening chords to gertcha, we were all doing the lambeth walk in the mud and the rain and the rain and the mud. actually i lie about the rain – the sun came out and continued to shine throughout their set, like a benevolent blessing over the pearly kings and queens and cockney rock.
rockney.
sadly, while dancing in the rain may seem vivacious and buoyant, like the animated replicants seen in trainer/soda/feminine hygiene product commercials it invariably leads to fever, the chills and the shivers, not to mention the type of lurid dreams i‘ve only ever witnessed during the ‘drug trip’ sequences in cheap films. the kind which don’t involve emilo estevez dancing, however.
shockney.
so if this post appears a little disjointed and blowzy it’s because it’s how i’m feeling. i blame the chills (they’re multiplying) and the tiredness. also my mate the brain, who sent me an email earlier which led to us (well, me mainly) discussing how we’d look if we were zombies. i reckoned i’d look like a cross between an ac/dc groupie after a heavy night crossed with a wilting goth girl. in terms of wounds, i imagine both my arms would be intact but i may have a slight limp, owing to a twisted ankle. oh, and both my eyes would be pure white, with two tiny dancing black dots, no bigger then the points of a pencil floating on the surface.
basically, in death as in life i would be a bit scruffy and maudlin, and a bit of a pussy.
schlockney.

story 7: what the ducking hell ?

*a note on this. i do not know what i was doing or what i was aiming for when i wrote this. i should be clear-headed - i haven't smoked or drank for a couple of days (maybe that's why) and i've been sleeping better than usual...so i don't know what went on here. it's messier than a crime scene. i do like it, in a way. but i also apologise...*

Her looks were average, but she had the legs of a duck. Slightly bowed, flat footed and webbed toed. The skin on them was scaly and tinged a vagrant orange like a boiled sweet sucked to a sliver on the tongue. When she moved the anatidae limbs caused her to stoop slightly, feet splayed slightly outwards, her rounded buttocks twitching and swaying in a neat waddle. There were soft downy feathers on her upper thigh in tawny browns, and no matter how often she plucked them they always grew back, bristling through the livid skin.
I can help you, he’d told her as she’d waddled through the park one morning. Trust me I’m a surgeon.
He was too, Dr Evern Dem Swiss no less, the swizz, the cheat, the fraud. Lara had looked down at her squat limbs, no thicker than a child’s arms and nodded tearfully. She had never dreamt of being any different but now that Dr Evern Dem Swiss had planted the seed of the idea it sprouted inside her gut with probing blind tubers. Seven days later she had arrived at the home of Dr Evern Dem Swiss, her feathered appendages tucked neatly beneath the folds of a long skirt.
The good Doctor had opened the door carrying two long, painfully sharp looking knives. He struck them purposefully together, drawing each wicked blade along the other with a metallic whicking sound. They had greeted each other, and as Lara had stepped through the door she noticed the smell of damson plums, rich and cloying.
Jam ? She’d asked.
The doctor had shaken his head. Plum sauce he’d answered, and furrowed his brow. To go with the pancakes.

good news everyone

when hungover, there are really only three cures.
more alcohol or strong coffee.
if the first two are unavailable, i strongly recommend futurama.
it works.

a big thanks to all my fiends

it was my birthday on saturday – thirty crept into bed with me at midnight on the fifteenth like a sinister uncle and woke me up on the sixteenth with a nudge and a poke. (i’ve just read that sentence back and i apologise.)
i had much fun and a slice of cherry pie, from which the filling was spilling in scarlet juices. i wore a moustache and kissed all my friends, and applauded finch’s carrot cake, which slayed us all at dinner. i managed to walk the distance home in heels until mitton pointed out how well i was doing at which point i stopped thinking happy thoughts and the heels became a handicap.
i wanted to thank everyone for birthday joy – however the reason there is a photo of lenny attached to this post is partly because he had a hand in making it super (like a hero) but principally because he emailed and asked why i never mentioned him here. so here he is, ladies and gentleman – it’s lenny.

failing not to kill people

two things. alright three, if you count my birthday on saturday when i will be thirty (count ‘em) years old.
the other two things; i’ve just been reminded of the tee-shirt sean wears in the 1980’s film ‘monster squad' which, essentially, is the goonies with added comic book monsters.
it is red with yellow lettering on it and it reads;
‘stephen king rules.’
oh yes. if anyone knows where i can locate one of these puppies please let me know.
thirdly, the last story my friend the marvellous sweetman read of mine (‘lady de mort did not believe in ghosts’) he had finished and had said, very sweetly, as is his nature,
“i’m looking forward to reading a story you write which doesn’t involve death, ghosts, pirates, highwaymen, monsters, vampires or werewolves.”
then he had gone to the bar. i’d thought about this, and had asked him what he meant on his return.
“just be interested to see what you were capable of if you wrote something…grown up.”
“grown up?”
“yeah.”
“you don’t think i’m grown up ?”
“not you. just your subject matter. i like it daisy, i’m just interested to see you with something a bit heavier.”
i think sweetman may have seen the twitch beneath my right eye at the point because he’d rapidly changed the subject and bought me a pint.
so last night, with this in mind i sat down to write a short story without the subject matter of a scooby doo cartoon. it is, i feel i have proven to myself seven pages later, not possible. it started off well, i liked the characters, they seemed to slip into their roles easily, nice and loose like clown’s trousers.
suddenly, with no prior warning i felt an inexplicable urge to imbibe them with terror and kill them off in terrible ways.
this is scary…it was meant to be a nice story about two brothers.
i don’t know where i get it from but monster squad and the goonies must surely take some blame.

supercreeps

i went to see nosferatu last night, courtesy of my kind friends finch and rich as a pre-birthday treat
i love, love, the scrolling, jittering quality of this film, almost like a stop-motion animation.
the only reason i’ve posted this is in order to use the accompanying picture, which i used to carry round with me, when i was
(a) much younger
and
(b) a goth (for about five minutes)
beautiful, isn't it ?

all the drinks were free! (up to half nine)

hello thursday, i love you. you're like friday but with more anticipation and less pressure. you hover at the end of the week like a fleeting fancy and your nights just tickle me.
on thursday night i attended an awards presentation in london, (the observer eco awards, and no of course i wasn't up for an award, which is what my mother assumed when i spoke to her). i was there as a third choice 'date' to my former flatmate and friend with the superlative hair, simon. by all accounts he needed someone he could go with who would scrub up well, behave herself and not neck all the free drinks like they were going out of style. when she fell through he asked me. (ba dom ba dom tish!)
things went pretty wrong on arrival when i grabbed a glass of champagne and a beer from the tray at the door, and was about to take a bloody mary too until si gave me look which said "please. it's not going to run away, you can't drink three drinks at once."(i can, especially if they're in the same glass).
after failing to mingle and failing to not smoke in that order i managed to bore the very arse of some girl by talking to her about the worm bin at the bottom of our garden*.
me: yeah, we've got a worm bin bla bla bla rubbish bla bla bla worm bin bla bla compost dooby dooby doo worms bla bins bla bla
her: yeah that's fascinating. do you mind if i stick this glass in my eye to liven this conversation up a bit ? would it even matter to you if i did ? tell you what, i'm going to chip off now and you still won't notice. yep, i'm over here and she's still banging on to herself. bye!
me: worm bins bla bla bla
i scared danny dyer by popping up whenever he least expected it like old episodes of columbo - i know i'm a bit of a stalker, but this was purely co-incidence, and the look of mounting distress on his face was quite funny so i kept at it.
by the end of it i was quite drunk, telling the girl who was filling up the champagne glasses;
"thatsh great, can you leave me the bottle ashwell ?"
and she did, by the mercy of the lord, she did.
however i was nowhere near as pissed as si, who, as well as seemingly losing his navigational skills, had taken to doing his double handed 'invisible pistols' at passers by.
"to the bus." said i.
"no, too drunk, too drunk. to a hotel!" said he, and so say all of us for we did. here. to be fair, despite our smart dress we looked as though we'd both been mugged by world weary punks - my hair had transformed into a tina turner fright wig and si had only one eye open - so i can't blame the staff looking at us suspiciously, and it wasn't until i woke up this morning, feeling just that tiny bit closer to death that i remembered thinking it would be funny to try the pauline quirke lie (see post 'pauline quirke has stigmata') on some poor bloke the previous night. he looked like he wanted to call the police. he should have been grateful that i wasn't telling him about the worm bin, frankly.
ow, my head. it feels like it's been scraped clean and replaced with mucas and dirty water. i don't know how i got to bed - i do know that there was none of that funny business, thank you very much, i retain my ladyshipness even under the slew of alcohol - and wasn't sure why i had a stomach that was threatening to violently revolt but i do know that when i bordered the bus at six thirty in the morning to get to victoria, wearing last night's snazzy little number, stone fox heels (see photo) and sunglasses the bus driver didn't want to let me on.
"you have ticket ? let me see ticket."
i showed him the ticket, praying i wouldn't be sick.
"you can't work here.""what ?"
"you not working here."oh jesus, let me die in peace can't you ? my stomach is really jittery and my head feels like it's got ram-man running around inside it.
"no, i'm not working here.""okay."
i think he thought i was a hooker. the only other people on the bendy bus were two old woman sat side by side like plump batton hens and an emo boy of about thirteen with a slipknot hoodie on, so if i had been 'working', trade would have been pretty slow.


*thanks for the advice, mitton. ("what shall i talk about if someone tries to talk to me ?" "just tell them about the worm bin.")

really leaving las vegas

with reference to the post below (brighton pier), i took this picture yesterday.
the game they are playing is called elvis in vegas.
it is a ten pence pushing machine.
they are using cups of change just like they do in casinos.
this scene is about as far removed from las vegas as it is possible to be without building a parallel universe and climbing inside.

you ask too many questions....

i'm endlessly fascinated by things, those little shivers of curiosity - if you mix these together, will it taste like watermelon ? who let the dogs out ? why is ben fogle ?
once, when i was seven years old a friend and i stayed up all night playing wonderboy on the sega master system (and that other game with the dwarf and the axe - 'dwarf blade', maybe ? 'golden axe' ? alan, you'll know.) we were waiting to see what the world was like at four o'clock in the morning. it was, we subsequently discovered through bleary eyes, dark and quiet.
another time in my early twenties i met up with my old friend ben dobson, and the conversation meandered lazily towards my ex-boyfriend with whom i had been devastatingly smitten for two years, and his new girlfriend. like a fool, i asked "what's she like ?"
ben lets out a long, low whistle;
"imagine helena christensen, but with long blonde hair and a bit shorter, my god, she is a hot piece of ass, and really funny too."
then, on seeing my horrified face, you could almost hear him back-pedalling;
"oh no, no daisy, i mean - she's not you right ? you have a wonderful personality."
jesus.
(incidentally, if you're reading this ben, the best time to try and reach me by phone is not three thirty, four, four fifteen, five and six thirty in the morning respectively. what are you, nocturnal ? seriously though, we'll talk soon.)
subsequently this weekend i have discovered many things which i previously did not know, had in fact spent most of my adult life wallowing in the not knowing, perfectly happy.
(1) the pier in brighton is, even if the sun does have his hat on hip hip hip hooray, the World's End. i went in there yesterday wrapped in a thick layer of happiness and walked out under a obsidian cloud of despair. if house of the dead cannot save it, nothing can. in summary, to out and out steal a phrase from a very funny man - Luckless Proles.
(2) i discovered, courtesy of one of my more sexually enlightened friends, what it is like to have a seven man orgy, what to expect on visiting a dingy fetish club and (apologies) what it feels like to fist someone (like the lining on the inside of your mouth, apparently. stick a fist in there, you're close). i staggered away from that conversation.
(3) that if you give up smoking, as i recently have, nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing can replace it, or stop you thinking about it. or needing it.
(4) that simon, another friend with superlative hair, once continuously and silently farted in front of juliette lewis in an airtight booth, until she made her excuses and left.
(5) that working on a film is no fun, combining long hours and severe discomfort, leaving you pale and short tempered and almost tearful, as my flatmate the mitton has proved. i was jealous at first mitton, now all i can do is offer you tea.
screw it, it's the weekend, let's all have a cup of tea.