On hating Christmas (again)

It is that time of year, again. The central heating is on (did I admit I blinked first? I have now.) The air is cold, the cat is bad tempered, the Slug is drunk, and shop is over-full (of crap you'll only buy on the promise of a skin full of half price pre-made mulled wine), prices are up, essentials are down and everyone is fed up with absolutely everyone else.

At the best of times we can't manage a price change over smoothly, but since the guru was, er, retired following a restructure things have frankly gone to hell in a hand cart. The Dodo given the job of filling Guru's boots was not given training, has no initiative and less gumption. Today when we phoned to ask why after the best part of a week such a large proportion of the offer lines are sitting in the warehouse because they're mis-priced he burst into tears.

So now we feel like a coven. More heavy sighing.

To make ourselves feel better we snipe at one another. We snipe at the shop floor staff. They snipe back. Sue goes off her trolly; she and the Maltese Terrier have a slanging match that was probably heard all over town let alone the store itself.

The customers get into the spirit of the season. The 'english' gene drives me insane and the english to an wholly irrational fear of being seen to be civil to anyone providing service. In the english mind service = servitude. Therefore, for the english, there is no honour in providing service.

So on the one hand the english generally cannot bring themselves to provide good service, as though honour bound to do the least possible as a subversive show of independence. On the other hand they cannot bring themselves to receive good service, for fear of being seen by others to have voluntarily sunk to the same level as those providing it.

This is all very tedious to an outsider, until you find yourself confronted by a surly vindictive shop worker; but bear in mind the kind of customer he or she is most familiar with.

The closer we get to christmas the more excessive this seems to get, as though the fuel of consumption desperation aggravates the general condition of englishness. We're not quite at the 'trollies at ten paces' stage yet, but it is still October. No adjudications have yet been required over ownership of the last pot of brandy butter.

We've all these seasonal delights to come. I have hateful stuck here in the freezing cold away from family who hate me anyway for being here dramas to come. No cards because I live here rather than there as though this is something I want and have done to up upset them.

I'm miserable already.

How many days until this whole bloody awful business is over for another year?

PS That's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. After last night's stupid unwelcome offering of mulled wine he's shown some sensitivity tonight and taken himself off. So I'm going for my longest stretch in months tomorrow night. Why though, is it, I've woken up with a really thick head the past two mornings. That just isn't fair when I'm being such a good girl!

Smug and self-satisfied

The Slug retired from the lists early today and not actually at the reeling stage of inebriation. But as he did so he asked me, completely out of the blue, if I'd like some mulled wine. I said no, he said 'oh' and then went on his way. Now I don't like to believe my own usually quite flippant conspiracy theories but what on earth was that about.

I mean ... well, I mean, what was that all about. Why? Do we even have any. Why would he do that if he's on his way to bed. What, oh what was that all about.

Going out for an indian yesterday postponed clambering back aboard but it has proved surprisingly easy to do, today. It certainly caught him on the hop. How enjoyable was that.

Ouch, that hurt

Landed rather heavily last night, and I was too busy being rude to admit as much, but candidly it was a several Mandela landing, but since that isn't actually what I was imbibing I suffered none of the worst consequences - just a moderate lassitude and a craving for bacon, sausages and eggs on muffins.

Well that was a whole four dry nights. Not a record but not bad going either.

Yup

Last night I walked into the lovely aroma of mulled wine. So yes I'm still walking beside the wagon as it trundles along. Heavy sigh.

I'm a WHAT?

Hate was, of course, the wrong word. What most English in my experience feel towards the Welsh is something less inaccurately labelled contempt. I used the word Hate, possibly with the fat that the Slug is a Taff Slug in mind. And of course he is the exception that proves the rule (that is to say the rule about it being contempt rather than hatred).

While I'm underlining my credentials as a non-racialist let me say this on a not entirely unrelated matter.

Three million cheers and equally many congratulations must go the Japanese for their showing in today's Rugby match. This will of course be interpreted as a typically obnoxious piece of bullying arrogance from a bullying arrogant Aussie - but notwithstanding the brutal final score line, the Nips apparently acquitted themselves quite magnificently particularly during the first half. I didn't see the match or listen to it; my impression is based only on the BBC on-line coverage of the match which presumably is based on a report of the match filed by someone who was in touch with some one who was somewhere in Europe when the match was taking place. So that's authoritative, right?

Anyway, well done, Tojo.

And the plucky kiwis also had a quite solid win over whoever they were playing. So well done to them too.

The English, on the other hand, can celebrate not one but THREE victories at international level, today. What a tremendous hat trick that is chaps. Well done! Romping to victory in the match and the Best Of series against solid opposition in the form of India is splendid. To have ground the Red Sea Pedestrians (as the Slug described them) into the turf despite Michael Owen's best efforts to keep them in the tie is a Grand effort! A veil had best be drawn over the rather patchy performance against the USA in the World Cup. A Win's A Win, as they say. Never mind the quality feel the, er, remaining in contention.

Today's piece on hate came courtesy of the deeply peculiar 'Englishman' Graeme Le Saux, a man never knowingly found to have forked out on a copy of The Sun, and once rumoured (by pretty much all and sundry) to have no interest whatsoever in that august journal's Page Three Stunna du Jour.

For that sarong and frilly pantie wearing pal of the Sir Elton John's to casually diss a fellow player in the most pejorative terms at his disposal is one thing; that he does not have the balls - be they of gold or base metal, to say "All is fair in love and war, and I routinely call anyone who can string a coherent sentence together a faggot" is quite another matter. I suspect strongly that Golden Balls views on those few footballers who don't read at the Sun/Mirror end of the journalistic market are pretty commonplace, not excluding among those who actually work in the mass media.

After that, and one or two other things that have happened to cross my path today I have decided to become a Militant Atheist Humanist Libertarian. I've tried (a bit) to come up with some alternative combination or alternative words that would provide me with a snappy acronym and failed. Perhaps if I hadn't had a couple of bottles of Hobgoblin already.... Anyway

So now I'm a MAHL, a strangulated creature stranded somewhere mid-Atlantic (between the British and American pronunciations of that dangerous little tyke of a word - m.a.l.l.).

To the two female members of staff who've announced that they've progressed in their "faith" to the point where they must wear some garment, the name for which they have I've forgotten but which seems to approximate to what you or I would call a Head Scarf, because "only their husbands should see their hair"... I say this:

You go right ahead girls. You've been going up to London and immersing yourselves ever deeper in your "faith" and if wearing a head scarf is where this has led you so be it, though I challenge you to show me where in the Koran or the Hadith the particular garment is stipulated, and if not, what is actually required of you beyond dressing modestly - an imprecation surely open to the widest imaginable interpretation and as manifested anywhere and everywhere largely reflecting a cultural imperative.

But let me also say this. The minute you stray beyond what is strictly demanded of you by your "faith" and lapse into an expression of what would more honestly be described as the culture your parents brought to this country with them when they migrated, I will absolutely assert my right to express my culture, in whatever way I interpret that.

OK?

Probably not, but I've been imbibing, and that probably goes a long way to proving your point and, as it happens, mine also.

Good night.

Curiosity killed the cat

Last night he told me that the Inner Sanctum has acquired a couple of nicknames. For one of them JK Rowling is at least partially and wholly indirectly to blame. When the Paper Shuffler in Chief is in Residence it is known as Gringotts. Yes it is the cash office and yes, there is a lot of the stuff in there at times - particularly on Monday before the first cash collection; no I'm not calling her a dragon, as such. Anyone wanting to have the stuff away would have to get through several layers of security it would be wrong of me to divulge and it very much helps to be in legitimate possession of A Key.

It was perfectly obvious that he regretted telling me this almost before the words were out of his mouth. Because I had to ask him what the other one was, and he knew that. So he had to lie (through his teeth, as usual) and tell me he can't remember what it is. So I gave him a couple of minutes and asked him again what the other nickname is. And he still wouldn't tell me. So now my blood's up. He's got many, many faults but his brain is actually in quite good shape so far for a very heavy drinker. There is no way he can't know it after a day at work.

Of course he's also had an entire day to come up with a plausible, er, falsehood.

Damn

Allow me to promote

Carlsberg (a brewer) produces total crap... generally.

But their Jacobsens Saaz Blonde is simply gorgeous. He's brought five bottles home and I've already got through one.

Oh dear... and big Sigh!

The Eyes don't get it.

This is the fifth evening I've not succumbed.* Not even to the cheap plonk (French, red) in the little fold-up, fold out arrangement that does for a wine rack in our house.

So I'm just wondering, like, well, er ... when will my eyes stop being pink where they're supposed to be white?

* that is fifth evening in a row, not in total in my entire life, like, yeah, okay?

Grr

Today I'm just angry, without having a specific target - and that's so much worse than being angry at or about something in particular. Or perhaps I'm just not sufficiently focused. Maybe it is residual annoyance at having worked an entire shift in the company of Pea Brain and building dismay that today's shift will be spent in the company of The Handmaiden ... or building tension with the prospect of spending some hours in close company with the Big Swinging Dick.

Lack of sleep too, might be playing a part. Last night I got home at about quarter past. An hour and a bit later I finally was able to start preparing a meal, after he'd fallen through the door for the last time and staggered up to his bed. And I've got another three nights of that and a day shift on Sunday ahead of me.

I have a couple of new DVDs to watch as well as the rest of Series 3 and the entire JKR oeuvre and ... I just want a little peace and a little space and I don't want the fat hairy bastard swaying about and spouting drunken meanderings when I get home from work in the evening.

Okay, getting a bit focused now. Thanks for that.

Oh, bugger

At one point today I knew exactly what I would blog about the minute it was safe to do so after I got in the door. Then I forgot. Now I've remembered. I'm too tired and I've got through too much Hobgoblin and Old Peculiar to do it now, but as an aide memoire I am jotting down Anal Fistula (spelling possibly not correct). More later.