The kid is looking at me. The whites of his enormous eyes glisten in the gloomy room. He is three and beautiful. He has been picking his nose for the last ten minutes with one hand whilst squeezing a banana to gluey mucus in the other and is now looking for a place to wipe his fingers. He grins up at me with sudden gleeful inspiration. My face must be a rictus of polite horror – a truly British expression- […]
Phoney Sex
I am in a bit of a happy swirl today as I have received my very first blog award! Isn’t it beautiful! The ‘bunch of beer’ makes me exceedingly happy. Thank you so very much for nominating me Gordon! I am jumping for joy! Talking of jumping up and down I think I may have mentioned my ‘urban rebound’ class at the gym? Well, the class is quite tough and there is a lot of panting and gasping in the […]
Barack At Bloody Last!
Tomorrow is Barack Obama’s day! Poor sod. What a world he inherits from the Twit and the Demon Cheney. But he can do it, right? Right! So we are going to partaaayyyy in our rusty little British hearts, we are going to sing in the bath and have extra toast, we will wear clean socks and we may even make eye contact with our neighbours…well okay possibly a BIT far. So lets raise a glass to America tomorrow and cross, […]
Fiddling with the Truth.
I know my last post was a little frugal when it came to profundity. This is the thing: my grandparents on my father’s side were 2nd generation East End London Jews. They came from (my Grandmother) Russia; near Odessa and (my Grandfather) Poland, Krakow. Originally my father’s surname was Shimansky, a name with great history, meaning and magic. The Shimansky’s were healers and wise people. My grandfather was working in Shepherd’s Bush market when the Second World War broke […]
Surviving Gaza.
Nope, I am not someone who flourishes in the cold. I am in fact such a wuss that I have a tendency to clean my teeth in warm water. As Cambridge freezes around me I withdraw muttering and whimpering to pace around my little flat in search of warmer socks. I try not to keep the heat on all day but its hard when working from home (when I say ‘working’ I mean glaring balefully at my unedited book and […]
Back in the flat.
Hey there! How was your Christmas/ Hanukah/ holiday season? I’m back in Cambridge. Its cold outside, grey as concrete with frost in the air. 2009 seems tentative, nervous like my brother and my mum’s partner who like lunatics decided to swim in the sea on Christmas day! I kindly stayed out of their way and took photos. Bro and John (avec Xmas hat) and the freezing sea! Luckily it was gorgeously sunny! Lunatics! I was in Cabrille, Spain in a […]
Pope on a Rope.
Ain’t the Pope a blast? I know he in often misquoted but even so today’s news reported him as stating that saving people from homosexuality is as important as saving the rainforest. The strident woman spokesperson (why do all these very nutty Catholic ladies sound like they are bit actors in ‘Carry on Matron’?) on the Today programme this morning added to the hilarity by calling gender theory ‘bad science’. Bad science?? This…..from the CATHOLICS for crissakes! And gay condemnation […]
Christmas Tag
I’ve been tagged by the marvellous Family Affairs http://familyaffairsandothermatters.blogspot.com/and the fabulous Fleeing Muses http://www.fleeingmuses.blospot.com/! Its a Christmas themed one…who’d have thought it eh? So here we go! 7 things to do before parents arrive My dad won’t arrive here. My Dad will be in Lusaka probably seeing sick people over Xmas. (He is a doctor..not a weirdo..) I know he will put on a grotty, extremely old Santa suit and after arriving at the clinic children’s Xmas party in a […]
Nuts!
Forgive me, have been SLACKING! Its been a whole week since my last blog.This is partly due to the vagaries of my phone and internet provider who are cheap for a reason. They are shit. The only reason I stay with them is that when I actually finally speak to a technician they are usually pleasant and efficient ….unlike British Telecom. BT have the worst customer service of almost any organisation in the world. It is easier to get through […]
Thin Ice
Today I went for a walk and found myself in a bit of a bind. The sunshine was brilliant. Unfortantely so brilliant my damaged retinas couldn’t cope. This combined with ice on the tarmac and my hangover (pub last night for National Novel Writing people’s party) and transformed a simple stroll into an extreme sport. I had however got to a point where I couldn’t turn back…..ice and blindness equidistant either way. It became rather nerve wracking and I had […]