Teh technology, it is very impressive and all. But! - am I the only one looking at those glassy-eyed families and kids and thinking Run, kiddies! Run before it sucks you in! Eeesh, it's like they're all buried hundreds of miles underground remembering what it was like to drive a car, or thwack a ball. It gives me the post-apocalyptic heebie-jeebies. (Except for ninja kid at the beginning. He's cool.)
So Weds, we woke up to find there was no electricity. Nophonenonetnoheatingnohotwater - and NO TEA. ONO! Young sir had an exceptionally busy morning, but managed to get hold of the right people by 11am, so I came back from Starbucks, where I had been sitting consuming giant buckets of the vital brown stuff, and settled down to wait. And wait. And wait. Finally at 4:30pm an engineer eventually shows and says Have you checked the fusebox? like I am a giant spazz or something, and when I say Of course! (meaning OF COURSE I BLOODY HAVE YOU TWONK) he says Oh, I'll have to get the emergency repair team out then, and disappears. !!!???111zomgwtf.
By this point, my dark dark house is starting to get darker. Needless to say, I do not have a bloody clue where we put the torch. Hooray for candles, only not so much as I cannot read by candlelight, and other activities are slightly limited by the whole darkandnopower and awcrapwhyismyguitarelectricandwhydidinotchargemygodsdamnedphoneormp3player thing. Lots of swearing ensues; unfortunately not at the electricity company, as this house is in a mobile-reception blackspot. Gaaah. Boy returns, with torch! - but sadly not with dinner, as he'd assumed we'd be back on by 8pm. Attempt to eat hastily made sarnies, but it's hard when your lower lip is stuck out so far it's practically in Australia. Emergency repair team finally arrive at 9:15, and announce that they have to dig up the pavement outside the house. With jackhammers and a mini-digger and arc-lights - and they don't get started until 9:45. Cue fury of entire street, whose electricity is, I forgot to mention, annoyingly fine. Engineers forced to stop around 11 by the crushing weight of massive public disapproval, still not having fixed us. We go to sleep, accompanied by the gentle sound of the contents of the freezer melting.
Power finally restored at 2pm the following day, along with fifty million alarms going off on various unhappy household appliances, after a lovely morning of listening to 8 Essex-boy repairdudes with lump-hammers practising for the National Swearing Championships outside. (Clearly they were a gold-medal team; I wasn't aware it was even possible to get that many fucks into general conversation, and believe me I was trying at one point.) So, today I am having an ORGY OF POWER. And tea! And freezer-cleaning. Oh my pesto and my filo pastry and my painstakingly frozen soups and sauces, and HOWL my home-made icecream. EDF Energy, you will pay for all this, you really bloody well will.
Where, pray tell me, in which shop where are the 13-amp fuses? And shoe-laces and polish, And velcro tabs and Dylon dye? Pick 'N Mix sweeties, I miss you and plastic folders for 50p, and multicoloured Biros. Oh where is the Woolies of yesteryear?
Where now shall I buy tea-towels and lightbulbs for inside my fridge? And if I need an umbrella in a hurry, where shall it be obtained? Where, pray tell me, the cheap plain white china And cheese-graters and geometry sets And hanging peg ensembles for over the bath. Oh where is the Woolies of yesteryear?
No week shall pass save I ask where they are; and throughout the present years my pissed-off refrain shall continue. Where is the Woolies of yesteryear?
Unusual xmaspresent ideas, part one: 'In Malaya they call it the Devil's Flower and strange, fascinating stories surround it. Originating, no doubt, from the malevolent way the eyes in the bloom seem to be following your every move!'
The tendrils grow up to 12in long. They like damp, low-light conditions, so they'll grow in the average living-room. And you can get them on Amazon, here.
Rice growers in Inakadate have been doing this since the 1990s, with two different kinds of rice plant. They're currently growing a bunch of Hokusai paintings.
united states of america - garden of earthly delights
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Classic American lit in various audiobook formats here. Also, free language-learning software in umpteen different varieties (including Arabic and Japanese) here.
Reversible Destiny Lofts - apartments for the elderly by Architecture against Death, who aim to provide a challenging environment to keep the old folks sharp.
you should watch this Betty Boop version of Snow White. Because I love Max Fleischer so much. And Cab Calloway singing on this: so very very fantastic.
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