Falling off?

Becoming part of an "us" after spending my entire life as a "me" has been a bit of a shock to the system. It's a wonderful and exciting shock to the system that has made me realise that I am very disorganised and I am crap at managing my time.

When I'm not spending time with the "U of the us", I'm generally engaging in online chats with her, pulling stupid faces into a webcam, that sort of thing. As a result, I have been crap at blogging, I have a huge pile of ironing, and it's dawned on me that I'm going to Canada next Friday and I am woefully unprepared (Connie has just phoned to remind me to check my holiday insurance!). In addition to this, I have not been able to get to the gym as much as I normally would and I've done no gardening this year. Admittedly, the garden has heaved a sigh of relief because all I tend to do is kill innocent plants when I'm let loose on it.

I have put on weight, but this is still a bit of a hangover from when I was unable to exercise due to a) having to eat 24 hours a day during the Christmas period and b) having sore pap after my op.

Am I going to stop blogging? Am I bollocks! I just need to learn how to manage my time better. I also need to learn how to find things to write about I guess. With the time for posting something else this week being uncertain, I shall try to make this a mega day of blogging.

I'm learning to do all sorts of things these days, Trump is too. For example, she knows to turn off the news when I'm there because I have a terrible habit of ranting on about the reports, the news readers, the sets, everything to do with it. I am learning that I am not allowed to say words like "mong" or "spaz" in front of somebody who works in local government and has a healthy interest in the equality and diversity agenda. Spaz is OK because I can change that to "spanner", I'm having trouble with mong. I think I still get away with cunt on occasion though, so that's not too bad.

An eye for an eye
One thing I could talk about forever is my relationship with contact lenses. After not wearing them for a couple of days, I decided to wear mine this morning. The right one wasn't very comfortable, so I took it out, washed it, popped it back in. Still no luck, so I tried again, but then it seemed that the orientation wasn't right because I couldn't focus (torics, you see).

I decided to abandon them and started to poke at my eye to remove the offending bit of soggy gel. I poked and poked, but soon realised that I couldn't feel anything to get hold of. Checking my now very red and sore eye in the bathroom mirror, I realised that it wasn't in there (the contact lens, not my eye) and, scouting around on the bathroom floor, I saw it there, shrivelling at a dramatic rate and attracting all the bathroom fluff like a little black hole of a fluff magnet.

Did I give up on it and put it in the bin? Hell no! I put it back in my eye... for about 2 seconds until the pain really became unbearable.

I need to get my eyes lasered. Please send your contributions to me. I accept Paypal, cash, used notes of any denomination, all major credit cards.

Failing that, a contribution to a new pair of specs would be appreciated.

In addition to visual impairment, I am being assaulted by strange odours today. My shower gel has the aroma of eau de toilet cleaner, while my perfume smells of hairspray. Excellent.



Gig of the week
It's time for gig of the week. Regular followers of Cakesniffers - those who remain - will know that I am regular attendee at pop concerts. Sunday saw me go to my THIRD in little over a year when I saw Take That at the City of Manchester Stadium. This won't be a review of the concert, except to say it was brilliant and I enjoyed myself.

Things of note:

1. Britain's climate is crap for planning outdoor events
Barbecues, days out, pop festivals, sporting occasions, hanging out washing. You name it, don't EVER try to plan it in Britain. EVER.

The City of Manchester stadium is an open-air football stadium about 2 miles from the city centre. The certainty of gridlock meant that it was best to park in the city and walk out to the stadium. It rained. A lot. I got wet. My feet hurt.

Luckily we were seated in the stands, which are covered. The poor folk in the pitch area were victims of some pretty heavy downpours.

2. No food or drinks - Stuff That!
There are signs on the entrance to the stadium warning that punters aren't allowed to take their own refreshments inside. After paying £1.50 for three bottles of water, I wasn't in the mood to have them confiscated so that I should have to pay £2 a botte once inside. I stuffed them about my person and marched in.

Thieving cunts.

3. Support
One of the support acts was the Sugababes, a band that I have followed for quite a while. They were ace and they sang all their top tunes, including: Overload; Red Dress; Push the button; Round Round; Stronger; Dancefloor and loads more.

They alone were worth the £35 ticket - they can push my button whenever they like.

4. Fab four
Take That are OK. I'm not a huge fan, but the concert was fantastic and they looked as if they were really enjoying themselves. Gary Barlow is still better off being the voice of the band and letting the other lads get on with the dancing. They can still dance too.

Here are some photos...

Lulu even turned up for her bit on Relight my fire (my favourite track of theirs)




They did the usual rain sequence (a la the original video) for Back for good


Grand finale of Never forget

Freak like me

Let me lay it on the line, I got a little freakiness inside...

Pop concerts are just an evolution of freak shows: people pay money to watch people do something that is extraordinary.

Of course, they could save a lot of money by getting their arses down to the shopping centre near where I work here. Jesus Christ almighty!! In fact, they could do my job and then go shopping. This way they actually get paid for enjoying some of the freakiest people on earth.

The most irritating one of recent weeks (the very loud, very aggressive, very Welsh one) is off this week. As is the completely barmy Scouse/Russian one. The world is quiet here. Uh oh, I can hear an Agenda for Change whinge. Where's my MP3 player?

You know you shouldn't, but there are so many people loitering around the local shopping centre that make you do a double-take, it's really quite worrying. There is a huge chemical industry base in this area and I'm sure something has been leaking into the water that is manifesting itself in the local population.


"Oui, j'aime beaucoup le World Cup!"

Yes, I think we're half way through the World cup now. It's going OK, with a great atmosphere and most of the matches (apart from England's) providing lots of skill and entertainment.

The players look fantastic in their colourful kits - the Spaniards, Argentinians and Italians look by far the best. Kit manufacturing has come a long way and even the shirt and short numbers look snazzy, emblazoned in gold or silver numbering. Snazzy unless you play for Holland. Has anybody noticed how their shirt numbers look like they've been made out of bits of black electrical tape?

They're playing the Argies at 8pm BST - check them out, it'll be a corker.

England are crap and will get knocked out by Ecuador in the next round. At least they're not playing Angola. Getting knocked out by Angola would be terrible, but very very funny.

I do want England to do well (I have to keep telling myself this). I will certainly be laughing on the other side of my face if the Azzurri (that's Italy for those not in the know) don't make it through to the knockout stages.


Braveheart
Still, it's nice to see the Scots aren't bitter about England playing in the World cup while they sit out the finals of a major football tournament AGAIN.

Of course, we all know that the Tartan Army are the best football fans in the world. Oh how we all love to watch them wearing their ginger wigs and kilts as the get shitfaced and dance in fountains and on table tops. Such a good advert for the game. The only reason they never riot is because they're always too pissed to and they know they'd get twatted in a fight anyway. Braveheart my arse. For all the makeup and shouting, they still lost, didn't they?

What gets me is you get people all over England wearing the football shirt of loads of different nationalities - including Ireland and Scotland - and people appreciate the common celebration of football. People even have those annoying "Ecosse" stickers on their cars. No trouble. But you get somebody wearing an England shirt in Scotland and they get beaten up. There are some very bitter people north of the border. And no doubt, equally if not more idiotic ones south of it.