Sweet dreams

Last night hubby talked in his sleep. He said (and I quote):

"It's ok. I am the devil. I am the devil in disguise"

Should I be worried that a) he thinks he is beelzebub or b) he thinks he is an elvis impersonator?

Answers by qualified shrinks welcome.

Hole in my bank account?

Today I was stood behind Nigel Planer (aka Neil from the Young Ones) at a cashpoint. He's very tall - just like on the tv! - and to reach down to the cashpoint he had to spread his legs in a comedy limbo pole move and squat down. Wasn't very - erm, the male equivalent of ladylike, stone me I can't think of the word! - anyway, made me chuckle.

He was very glum, maybe he's blown all his millions of royalties on cobblers.

Why I wish I had a chaffeur...

An event witnessed by my colleague yesterday made me for the first time ever wish I had a chauffeur. Let me explain.

Where we work there are some ridiculously posh types. Yesterday, a Rolls pulls up in the car park. A posh old chap and his trophy wife (younger by a good 20 years, blonde, immaculately groomed from spending every waking hour in the salon) are helped out of the car by their smart chaffeur all dapper in his suit and cap.

(Now you have to imagine the voice of someone posh like Stephen Fry)

""We’ll be back in an hour H" barked the man and marched off.

H?! That is SUCH a cool name. This is why I want a chauffeur, just so’s I can snap out the name "H" at every opportunity!

It’s a good enough reason isn’t it?

New glasses?

I finally bit the bullet and dragged my butt into a spectacle shop yesterday afternoon. The pair I have now are scratched to buggery and I must have been wearing them for the past 4 years. I never clean them either, imagine all the muck in between the frames and the glass. Ugh. If I’d have thought of that sooner I might have had new specs before now.

Anyway for people who don’t have to wear them, buying new glasses is a terrible TERRIBLE chore. You have to first get past the trauma of having to wear glasses at all – when I was younger my mum, (who was in charge back in those days), bought me awful giant blue framed, hexagon shaped things. Think of Deirdre Barlow and you’ll get what I’m talking about. I realise now why I never had a boyfriend at school. And don’t get me started on the poodle perm she made me have either. Anyway, once you’ve resigned yourself to having to wear them, you then have to try and find a pair that suit you, with the whole world and all the shop assistants sniggering at you when you try on a really bad pair (oh yes I’m paranoid alright).

But yesterday I must have been in a parallel universe. I tried on one pair which I immediately really liked. This never happens, I usually lose heart by the 6th pair and leg it. Who needs to see anyway? But this time I got caught by a male assistant who was camp as you like. He proceeded to take me round the whole shop trying pretty much every pair they had on, with a running commentary exclaiming "Ooh they really suit you! Ooh not those ones! Ugh DEFINITELY not those ones!” It was like Glasses Idol, we eventually narrowed it down to 6 pairs, then 3, then the ones I'd tried on first won! Hurray! And to top it all off, the runner up pair came free!

In the immortal words of John Hurt: “I can see! I can see!”.

Light relief

A man went to the doctors complaining of feeling unwell.

Doctor: "I'm sorry sir, you've got bird flu"

Man: "But doctor, what can you do to cure me?"

Doctor: "I'm sorry sir, it's untweetable".

[Nb. This is the only joke in a long line of bad jokes that has made my friends laugh. Oh yes. It's been a long haul, but it was worth it in the end]

Crazy loons want to work with me horror...

One of my colleagues is leaving next week for pastures new. Which has opened the floodgates of absolutely MENTAL people applying for her job. You wouldn't believe it if you hadn't seen the applications for yourself. Well, so far, the loons have only got as far as asking for details and an application form, and in doing so have proved themselves to be out of the running already. We should have told them not to bother filling them in. But equal ops and all that...

Apart from the usual never say die applicants that have applied for every job going here for the past 5 years with no success, the best one was a lady who said she wanted to work with us as she wanted a job she could retire from. What mental person would put that on their form? She wasn't that old, had a good 20 years or so in her yet. Unfortunately for her, one of our current librarians already has the monopoly on doing as little as absolutely possible until retirement. I want someone who is WILLING TO WORK GODDAMNIT. I'm not doing it all by myself forever!

And another lady librarian wants a challenge, to tax her brain and stimulate her mind. So cataloguing is out then. And how about checking through reams of microfiche? No? Too bad. Most library jobs, indeed any job anywhere, are made up of lots of mundane admin jobs that the saner ones of us take in our stride and get on with. This lady already said it was beneath her. And she wore an orange beret when she came in with her form. Duh duh. Next!

Age is just a number (unless you're in a leotard)...

We went to the seaside on Saturday night for an engagement party of an ex work colleague. It was very nice, and highly entertaining. He is 27, his new fiancée is 20. We didn’t know this when we went, we didn’t even know her name till we met her! So they have a do above a pub, nice room and a dj who played all the classics – Abba medleys, Grease megamix, Build Me Up (Buttercup) – guaranteed to get toes tapping. Well for us older lot anyway. Then there were lots of 20 year olds friends of the fiancée there who actually made me quite worried about the next generation. Short skirts and even shorter tops, fake blond hair, drinking weird blue concoctions, and all chain smoking. And they all had HUGE pot bellies hanging over their tops! Fabulous. I was worrying about having to spend the night with lots of glamorous young’uns, and I needn’t have worried at all, I felt super fabulous and had a great time dancing to all the classics while they all stood on the sidelines looking surly. There was also a very tall blond 20 year old who was terrifying – think Rachel Hunter mixed with Jordan - who must have been 6 months pregnant and this was sagging between her mini top and mini skirt. Lovely. And hubbie got flashed at by the sister of the intended within 2 seconds of her walking through the door – she had a top that in ordinary circumstances would have required REELS of tit tape – and she had none, no bra neither. I would have decked her an hour later the amount of rum I downed – but I decided to let it go, she wasn’t impressing anyone! And the 20 year old fiancée was very pretty, had a lovely dress and was skinny as a rake, but ruined it all by spending the night asking people if she looked fat. At one point she came up to us saying she had "breathed too much" and the zip had gone on the back of her dress. I needn’t have worried at all, they were all mad as rakes and paranoid to boot. Must be the sea air!

Hang up your dancing shoes!

Dear Madge,

Oh puhlease, you’re not Kylie Minogue, stop parading around in your smalls/leotards. Hot pants worked for Kylie, doing the same in a pink leotard isn’t working for you. You are being a bit Mr Benn with all your personality transplants – a cowgirl one day, an aged gymnast the next. What’s the next look? For all our sakes I hope it’s a sensible mother of 2 brown knee length dress, cardigan and sensible court shoes.

Christmas Blues

I LOVE Christmas. L.O.V.E. with a capital L. I am of an age to know better but I always have an advent calendar, and was THIS close to having a hissy fit when Tescos had sold out of my coveted Spongebob calendar last year. There’s none so good this year I tell you. I'm pre-ordering the Muppets Christmas Carol special edition. I have lots of sparkly lights and hanging things to festoon my usual one small room with. Now I have a whole house and garden to adorn - whoo! But I have hit one obstacle that is proving rather trying. Hubbie declares he HATES Christmas. Despite getting lots of lovely presents last year and dinner made for him by me, and as much booze as he could drink in 24 hours. I suspect this is because most pubs are closed, what is a man to do?! But he is showing signs of coming round to my way of thinking, but in a most bizarre way. After professing once again his hatred, he was captivated (like a small child/me and sparkly things) by a man size dancing reindeer in B & Q. Then yesterday, a giant Homer Simpson dressed as Father Christmas complete with blowing machine to keep him up. And he wants to buy one and have it in the corner of our front room. Much as I love him, and Christmas (not sure in which order!) I can’t let him do it. It’s not even real Santa, it’s a tacky Homer Simpson and thus is bright yellow and has a huge stomach (as does Father Xmas I grant you). So how can I accede to his weird Xmas taste without turning the house into one big grotto of tat?!

Kerazy parents take over the East Side (of London)

So as I was saying, parents…visit…gawd help us. Actually as it turned out, a pleasant weekend was had by all. And it turned out to be an “Introduction to the place you bought a house in and have lived in for several months after an afternoon’s perusal by your Dad”. There are places in my town that I never knew existed, but my parents found them on their first afternoon of browsing. Honestly, I think they would rather have spent the whole weekend looking round the shops than see me, on Sunday morning I got a call to say they were up (meanie that I am, I made them stay in a hotel, it’s best all round) but they were going round the shops (AGAIN) and would roll up at our house about lunchtime. Bless them. They even talked about moving here as they loved the shops so much. Were they in a parallel universe?

I am a bit of a snob about our town centre. On a weekend I NEVER go in unless I really have to – it’s full of Essex girlz who are really scary, all bling and very little clothing. And the shops are heaving with people trying to save 10p or something ridiculous, and fight for it. With nails. So I was forced to go in on Saturday to keep the olds happy, and you know, it wasn’t too bad at all. Suspiciously quiet and quite chav-free. And it’s only 7 weeks till Christmas. Everyone must have been at Lakeside!