Ten Words to Tell a Tale

Evening everyone. I love words. I mean, the etymology, the scientific fact that names with longer vowel sounds are more arousing, the puns, onomatopoeia. All of it. After a witty yet long day at the office (a two-day working week allowed for no routine or calm) I believed a bottle of beer (oh yeah, and alliteration) was in order. 

The poison of choice was Theakston’s Old Peculiar. Well-rounded, dark, full-bodied and also proud sponsor of the Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate. Interesting I thought, niche I thought, turn the bottle round for more details I did. On the reverse label is quite possibly the most prime example of old meets new I have ever seen. Nothing combines artistic literary flair of old, as demonstrated by forefathers such as Dickens, Shakespeare and Kipling with the short, snappy, contemporary Twitter-age attention span of 100 characters quite like the 10 word novel. That’s right. 

Ten words, in a sentence to form a novel. Boom. 

(See what I did there?)

My sceptical nature was erased by the humour the example provided. The Day Lonnie Went Too Far by N J Cooper:

The coke hit. Lonnie Smiled. Then Came Pain. Lonnie Died.

I’m not gonna lie, I kinda liked it. After giving up on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment after 90 pages of social awkwardness, I found it a welcome relief. I mean, what’s not to like?! Personal tragedy, raw emotion, empathy for the protagonist. Everything you need in a novel.

This prompted me to think further: If you can write a novel in ten words, then what’s to stop you describing a life in the same length of ‘prose’?

So here it goes, here's my life in ten words:

Eloquent ursine male, happy in love, life and drinking ale.

*Bonus points if you make it rhyme*

And yes, it’s harder than it looks. Much harder. That’s it for today I’m afraid. Sorry to cut to the chase. Please post your own 10 word sentence self-portraits on the Facebook page and I look forward to reading them. 

Take care everyone. 

Enjoy the bank holiday.

x

Spaghetti Hoops and MRSA

Evening everyone. I was reminded today by avid reader, former housemate and absolute star Lucy Kightley that I haven’t blogged for a fair period. For those of you who were also aware of this, I salute you and I apologise...and I’m guessing you were looking for more reasons to procrastinate. I would provide you with some sort of excuse, but work, menial household tasks and Pokemon Black have all played their part. (At least I’m honest!)

Anyway, last week in an attempt to get fit for summer I bought a rowing machine, as my legs are built like Jonah Lomu’s but my upper body looks more like Mr Tickle. After a solid eight and half hours work in the office and the luxury of a home-cooked meal I endeavour to sort out our garage (to make space for said rowing machine). I’m not sure if any of you have a room in your house which accumulates junk, but in our house it’s the garage...and the conservatory...and the spare bedroom....but mostly the garage. To put it into some sort of perspective, it’s seen two skips in as many summers. If it was a virus, it would be MRSA. Mostly concentrated in one place; but spreads like a vicious rumour. 

The problem with our garage isn’t the old furniture or paint tins or garden equipment, it’s foodstuffs. I mean, tins of tuna, packets of pasta, bottles of squash, you get the gist. The reason for this is because our larder is quite small (taken up with food which went past its best before circa the Cheynobyl disaster, nevermind Fukushima) and so it’s migrated into the garage. 

I really wish I hadn’t started to be honest. I mean, in terms of being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, this was second only to the time where my dissertation was due in two weeks, I’d written 40 words and time was so precious I didn’t have time to cook so my entire diet became Tea, Whisky and Custard Cream biscuits. (First for the diss + narrowly avoiding the signs of scurvy = Win)

But seriously, I flicked back the lock and started moving the tins around with all the good intentions in the world, but then the realisation kicked in. WE HAVE ENOUGH TINNED FOOD TO SELL BACK TO LIDL, TESCOS ET AL!

The joy of hindsight says that I wish I’d taken a ‘before’ photo but the below is after I’d got-my-OCD-on and reverted to a four year old girl and “played shop”.

                                             So....Yeah...... I wasn’t using hyperbole in the slightest.

In the picture you may notice...

11 tins of grapefruit

16 tins of pineapple chunks

15 tins of dog food (there’s a reason Molly the Mollusc [she’s a Labrador, not an actual mollusc] is so rotund!

22 tins of tomatoey saucey spaghetti & beans

9 packs of flour (of varying grains and sizes)

And so on....

I appreciate that my dad didn’t grow up with much and whilst rationing was still dictating the habits of the nation, but does it really mean that we should have enough nomz to last a zombie apocalypse? So before the waves of zombies arrive and we all head to the Winchester; just remember that however much food you have in your fridge / garage, that there are 925 million+ undernourished people in the world and you’re probably not one of them so I implore you to give what you can to charitable causes.

Have a good evening everyone. 

xxx

Too Much Cognac Makes Jong Ill

Evening all. It struck me on the morning commute how surprisingly powerful subliminal advertising is. I’m not talking about hidden messages when you play records backwards at 45rpm, or the arrow in the FedEx logo (yeah I know, I didn’t notice it either for about 21 years). I’m talking about explicitly naming brands within songs. 

The joys of driving to work via Shurdington village is that the fifteen sets of traffic lights give you ample time to ponder all sorts of useless trivia. I soon came to realise between the permian and triassic ages which occur between red and yellow that Hennessy brand Cognac (of which I am a fan) is mentioned by name in a shockingly large number of rap songs which I have been exposed to (probably the reason why I’m a fan). This isn’t me just making it up. It’s so true...it’s even on Wikipedia. Tupac Shakur, Sean Paul, Fifty Cent, Eminem, Dr Dre, Three Six Mafia...the list of Hennessy Cognac advocates is extensive albeit misogynistic. I don’t claim to understand why this particular brand of an unpopular liqueur is so popular with commercial rappers, I’m guessing it’s only because it rhymes with more words than ‘Courvoisier’ or ‘Remy Martin’?!

Rappers and ‘gangstas’ propagate a life in which they’re surrounded by homies, guns, mansions, bitches and bling but they ain’t got nuffin on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. 

 “So if you never call me I'll be somewhere down in Tennessee

Washing away my sorrows in a cold cup of Hennessy.”

If this is the best you can do gentlemen, you so called ‘poets of the street’, you better pick another beverage to market; not only because the rhyme is shoddy but because the etiquette is aaaallllll wrong. Brandy should be sipped at one’s leisure and consumed from a well rounded glass and held; to ensure that it is warmed to room temperature thus magnifying layers of flavour for the palette. It’s prestigious Cognac not Um-Bongo you Philistines. And also...one cup? Pffft, you can tell they were never undergraduates. Mr Jong-Il (this is where the colloquial expression “illin” should’ve come from) imports $800,000 worth of the stuff a year. A fact which moves him from being associated with ‘despots’ and more with ‘man-points’.

So the next time you see a rap video with some half-naked delinquent ‘pimping’ it, pretending to look tough; remember that a 5’ 2” haggard-looking man in big glasses outdrinks him, has a DVD collection 20,000 strong and controls the lives of 24 million people. Less ‘keeping it real’ and more ‘living the dream’. 

I must add here that I do not advocate North Korea’s foreign policy, or its existence for that matter. I do however hold the belief that marketing should be left to professionals and that rappers should start using words like ‘subsequently’, ‘lobotomy’, and ‘hysterectomy’ instead of tarnishing a great brand’s image. To be fair, if Eminem manages to rhyme the word hysterectomy in his next single I’ll buy him a bottle of Cognac and take it all back.  

(In regards to my previous post; the honourable mention goes to Mr D Harris who suggested GIN Stefani.)

Getting Mugged By Wayne Rooney

I’m going to come clean. I was planning to write an article stating why Premier League footballer’s wages and banker’s bonuses are great to have in the UK at this time. (Basically, a drudgingly obvious article about how the Treasury gets 50% tax on most of it and it’s better that our government had it, than someone else’s....like ‘ze Germans’.) Then, whilst casually checking my email, Yahoo (yes, I am still in 1998) prompted me to read  this article  which, if you can’t be bothered to read it - outlines that numerous footballers, most famously Mr Rooney are evading paying top-rate tax by calling themselves ‘brands’ and are being taxed on their ‘image rights’ rather than by their actual weekly paycheques: Paying Georgey Osborne’s piggybank about 20% rather than 50% of their pocket money.

This aggravated me twofold. Firstly, it spoilt the subject of my article which I had been planning in my head for a matter of minutes. And secondly, because who actually sees Wayne Rooney et al as brands? My closest friend Joe Public and I mocked (albeit with a loving patronising quality) Stuart ‘the brand’ Baggs on this year’s saga of Britain’s Got the  Business Acumen Factor...sorry, I mean The Apprentice. But who’s mocking Wayne and his chums? 

If he is a recognisable brand like Nike or McDonalds, then why isn’t his face on my trainers or why aren’t I chewing on his buns...actually, don’t answer that. If Wayne really wants to defend his position as being classed as a ‘brand’ to HM’s Revenue & Customs,  then surely he could audition to be the new face of Starbucks! Cracking idea Gromit! Now that the American coffee giant feels itself so big that it doesn’t even have to name its own products, maybe Wayne’s face can replace the relatively abstract green girl, doll...mermaid....thing. If anyone knows what it is, answers on a postcard please.

Maybe that really is the idea to cutting down the British people’s reliance on overpriced caffeinated beverages? Put an undesirable face on the container, and give it a cool, cruelly sadistic name; par example ‘mug on a mug’! Bingo! British people save money and get their coffee at work, independent shops reclaim our high-streets and our heart palpitations disappear. Hazzar! They’d probably give Mr Rooney a Peerage for services for public health you know...especially if they extended the ‘mug on a mug’ range to alcoholic beverages. Binge drinking would disappear from public life faster than a hen party can shout “get it down you zulu warrior”.  Would you buy as many drinks if you had to look at an ugly face whilst consuming them? What’s more...you could have appropriately celebrities on their namesake bottles: Janet Street PORTer, Amy WINEhouse, this stuff writes itself. 

Before I’m either sued or put in charge of the NHS for this ground-breaking idea, I would like to thank you all for reading these incredibly ad hoc thoughts and for your continued support. 

PS: If anyone can think of anymore ugly-celebrity-alcohol-name puns, let me know and the best one will get an honourable mention.


PPS: Courtesy and copyright goes to Reuters for the picture.