Rationcrination & Hominism

Why are suit trousers so criminally baggy here in England? Our suits used to be tight as a whistle here before we adopted the Italian style of tailoring. It's not Italy here, is it? We have no need for trousers which would definitely slow you down, in fact, probably make you float to the ground quite nicely, if you were to jump out of a building. And you'd probably be jumping out of a building in the first place because of the suit trousers. You'd really want to kick yourself after that, wouldn't you? So then you go to kick yourself, but you slip over because of flat, stupid English loafers. Then where are you? On your arse, crying into a handkerchief that for some reason comes with a suit, dreaming of fitted trousers and shoes with laces and some detail.

It is the same conundrum every time I try to or go to hire a suit. Why must the trousers be so parachuted? I think I get so wound up about it because you end up looking around 10kg heavier than you actually are. Plus, you just literally have to dress the same as everyone else. Black tie means black tie, not a red one, a blue one, a patterned paisley one, a houndstooth one - no. For girls, however, it is called Formal. This is basically any dress on which the skirt is not too high, and the bodice not too low. Other than that, anything goes. No wonder why so many more men in the world commit suicide than women (the ratio is 4:1) - we are piledriven by conformity, into the very ground on which we stand, becoming nothing more than stunted statues that depict the very ugly, ungroomed facets of patronisation, involuntary sameness, noncommunication, and sedate sedentariness that fill the corridors of manly self-fulfilling prophecies and dull testosterone, until the whole unlively building bulges like a bulbous over-pregnant stomach, whereupon it bursts open, and the life of man begins again. And all I wanted was fitted trousers.

I also made a trip to Walton Library today. Walton on Thames (surely you've gathered that by now? Not Walton-on-the-Naze, nor Walton-on-the-Hill, definitely not Walton Superior) library. Very limited selection of books. The majority is all recent pulp and chick lit and crime thrillers that may be turned into films one day to save their authors from complete obscurity. The rest is local history and blah. If you want to find Voltaire do not go there. If you want to find Poe, you're probably better off settling with the Teletubbies homophonic offering. Hardly any Arthur Conan Doyle either. No 'Classics' section, just Fiction, Crime, Children's, History - a very vague offering. What they have done is taken their first shabby incarnation, a terrible late-70s crammed and cramped, complete with carpet tiles, and just spaced it out on a modern top floor of a new building near the Heart. Same amount of books. Practically nothing but the decor is new. I am glad for the space, I suppose, but I'm not exactly going to start two-stepping around the shelves, am I? Only unless I'm really agitated, and today I was only irritated, so that was lucky I suppose. I did get one book out, though, an Sherlock Holmes collection, but with only two of the stories in it that I wanted to read; two out of three is not too bad though (pun intended): The Crooked Man and The Resident Patient. Missing, however, The Valley - which may be a novel for all I know - and another short one, The Speckled Band.

Why have I suddenly got into crime fiction? Well, in preparation for a new project I intend to undertake, overtake, and generally dominate until it is a decent piece of writing. The research has begun well enough - a mix of the internet (what would we do without it?) and book-flicking to start with. Heavier stuff is to follow, I am sure, but it will all provide the basis for what I hope will be worth the time involved. I hope, holistically speaking, that it will be greater than the sum of its parts; what I mean is that T(R x I x W) = N. Time, Research, Imagination, Writing, and Novel. That is probably not an accurate equation, because maths prodigiousness has basically avoided me since the last sum I did on the GCSE Maths paper. Anyway, you get the general gist of what I am saying.

Another thing, I recommend that you have a go on these games: Crimson Room, Viridian Room, White Chamber. I don't know if you've heard of them before, but they have sparked the inspiration for my new project. I would say play Crimson (as it is the first), then Viridian - being a sequel to the Crimson, and then White, because it is the newest. They're kind of hard, but I think you'll enjoy trying - for a while, anyway, before you start ripping your hair out, getting bored, and wishing that I had never showed you them in the first place. I like them.

I have to ride the Indian bike now. I am being summoned.

boys and girls on bikex4

It is very weird how hot days always fall short of expectations - that is, when you hear that this week is a heatwave & you think "Ah well brilliant" and prepare to practically walk around naked, and... well, it really just isn't that hot. It isn't. It's pretty hot, it's pretty humid, it's sweatybetty, but it isn't sweltering. There are so many adjectives for HOT that are used willy nilly. Boiling being one. If it was 'boiling', water would be steaming. It's just hot, OK? Not as hot as I would like. Boiling is too hot.

So I am watching Saunderino play Animal Crossing. She bloody loves it, especially fishing. Yeah, the fishing is pretty good. I mean, just now, or should I say about 20 minutes ago, she caught a fish called an arapaima. Quite interesting really, I mean - these fish actually exist in real life! Have a look, average size about 120 inches - longest ever found apparently 200 inches (the owl in the museum on Animal Crossing told us this).

Is this fish huge or what? It is a leviathan of a fish, truly in the true true sense of the word leviathan. Please, honestly, look that word up. Leviathan. I think it's the bible or something.

Today I went on a bike ride. I haven't been on a bike ride for years. Not a proper one anyway. I did ride up to the shops about a month ago for ingredients for a cake (Victoria Sponge, naturally). The bag split on the way back, the jam and the castor sugar went literally everywhere on the pavement. Or maybe they didn't; going at such breakneck speed, I only heard them hit the floor, I didn't have time to examine the damage. Who wants to survey damage? Especially when they have done it themselves. Needless to say I was very apologetic to Becky when I rode back like a bird who'd had its wings shot through and then cut off and then replaced with plastic bags. Over apologetic, I would say, and of course angry with myself. I should have been more angry at the bag.

Anyway the bike ride was nice. We rode to West End - does that mean anything to anyone? Not THE west end, but west end woods, near Esher in Surrey...? Well that's where we went. Nice old green with decent houses around it, cricket field, a pavillion, a little war-era tin church, a pond. Then, behind all that, there are some woods. I think that best describes them, woods. Not a forest. It is prime off-road biking area - plenty of hills to go down, loads of winding dirt paths, some good views of the general area as well. Me and Alex -- imagine this, my mouse is very annoying! Touchpad on a laptop I mean. It's working again, sorry. Me&Alex climbed down a very steep hill and climbed up an even steeper one. I was in flipflops so it was even more difficult.

We worked our way back and I stood ankle-deep in the river Mole when we stopped for a three-quarters-of-the-way-home break. It seemed that way considering how much bike riding we actually did today: copious amounts, my friends, copious amounts. Felt like I was sitting on a brick, and centrally, not just on one bumcheek, right in between, so very intense sort of ache. My ached as well. You have to expect these things when cycling though, and I clearly didn't. I skimmed a few stones in the river. Few nice pictures. Little fish (tiddlers I believe is the technical name) swimming around my feet. Stayed still for long enough so that they'd nibble my feet. Bit weird. Rode back home. Water fight with little brothers. Standard. I should be getting ready.

Getting ready for what? exactly.

Well, I'm going to see The Hangover in 15 minutes with a few people. My stance is that you should just take advantage of Orange Wednesdays. Megan should be outside in a bit. But then again we shouldn't really think that time will be kept properly. Look at that fish up the top more - it is just massive. I can't believe it. It is now 10 minutes. 9 even - or is it odd? No no, I'm being silly. I keep thinking that I need some kind of a "sign off" catchphrase/saying/nugget of knowledge/pearl of wisdom. But in reality I don't really think I do.

adventure in the Very Hot Day

the Very Hot Day begins would you believe it with heat. And then rebecca tells me, ah I've had a dream it's like a novel or a film. I get 3 or 4 phonecalls from various people, let's go pooling swimming gardening and jump maybe from the trampoline into the pool (which, Megan told me, had collapsed and her dad would have to come and fix - i guess it has now been fixed as i write this because Alex called me to let me know that 'Megan is sitting in the pool just staring at me').

What is your dream Re-bek?
"There's a girl right and her mum goes to find a place to go on holiday and she goes with her mum but she's not her real mum and she's always sort of known this and the it's like a big holiday hotel complex with big hotel apartments everywhere and as the mum goes and tries to find the reception she sees the next door neighbour's daughter and the mum goes up to her and says oh... didn't you have your wedding here samantha? and she says yes I've come back for my 40th wedding anniversary 30th whatever that's rubbish it would've been about 10th. anyway. because the girl was a bridesmaid there. and then... uh... mum finds the reception and the girl finds that the people who work there are a bit garish and don't really care about anything and then for some reason she wants to go and find her real parents, something happens at the hotel. there's this boat docking nearby so she goes on this boat (it's a big cruise ship), she gets on and doesn't tell her mum and it goes. [it departs]. so whilst on the boat the girl wanders about and i think she's with a friend or she made a friend on a boat and on the back of the boat there are these tents. there's a nasty man and she's trying to get rid of her and her friend so they have to hide somewhere. and then um. they're on this boat for ages like months and months and she makes friends. and the boat's got like a secret like it's a secret agent boat, and she's a part of it, like to do with her parents. and then i think she gets a boyfriend or... and it's like, i think it's like Wilhelm Van Trois. and then he leaves her and gets another girlfriend and he has to tell her and it's very sad. and then they dock right and they need to get off the boat but she can't get off the boat without the nasty man seeing so she hides under the water on the boat and i was like which way is up she didn't know which way is up and she starts to panic but sees the sun and goes up for air just as the Nasty Man is getting off the boat, and then he sees her. and that's all I remember. So much more happened in my dream."

So that can probably be adapted into a film, first part of a trilogy or something like that. Right now the adventure is starting to wear a little thin because it is not exactly adventurous. Not the dream. The actual real life of this Very Hot Day is what I mean. I need my head measured for a hat (graduation day coming up, you see). I need to go to portsmouth to collect more stuff collect some tickets and also get another key cut so i can hand my keys back to the landlord without them ever knowing that i lost the other set. Those ones had a very nice bottle opener from St Lucia attached to them and I was very sad to have lost them, and lost them permanently. Usually I just misplace them.

I need to learn to drive. This is important. This is a mantra. I need to learn to drive. It seems as if it is the last hurdle for freedom - it is not very fair to call my parents up all the time for lifts, and also to rely on other people. I can just hurtle around everywhere in a car of my own. I would not like a Renault Clio because I think they look obese, they bulge everywhere - obese bugs, stupidly rounded. I might as well just be driving a ball around, a meteoric ball and not in the good sense of 'meteoric', i mean in the literal meteors-are-lumpy sense. give me a square car and I will drive it. an old VW something, polo, golf, etc. basically i need to learn to drive. i am at the moment surrounded in peradventure rather than just regular adventure.

UPDATE: I have now changed into my purple swimming shorts.
UPDATE: listening to Open Letter to NYC

So we are about to make a jump from this floating world onto the bold pavements of the walton-hersham gap... 'The Gap' being the name of the ghetto/wasteland area in the point-and-click game Beneath a Steel Sky. the walton-hersham gap is even more post-apocalyptic the steel sky gap. No, no it's not really I really am joking. It's a lovely area in leafy Surrey. We obviously have graffiti, because - naturally - we are another one of those suburbs that wants to believe it is really part of the inner sanctums of London. We aren't. We're close-ish. Ah but now we are probably about to fall down and la roux is bursting summery out of the speakers and i am cross legged on the floor about to slip through the floor into the heat outside crammed and jammed supposedly close close close to the skin heavy air all about. SUMMER!