L'Una (The One)

I once fell in love

With a green T-shirt.

Or rather its wearer.

I had already fallen in love

With her words.

She was standing there

Focused, ready,

Gazing into the middle distance.

Her phone half-forgotten in her hand.

She was perfect.

Lavatorial enlightenment

While cleaning my bathroom today, I made an astounding discovery.

I don't mean anything as mundane as noticing we're almost out of loo paper, that all the towels smell of wet dog or that someone - whether human or feline - has peed in the corner underneath the sink. Again.

I'm talking about something mind-blowing. Visionary. Life-changing, even. The kind of near-mystical revelation that stops you in your tracks, makes you put down your beer, ponder the complexity of our lives and our place in the Grand Scheme of Things and maybe consider the existence of an all-controlling higher being (though not necessarily in that order). The type of lightening-bolt insight that makes you wonder how you have ever managed to get by thus far without such fundamental knowledge.

But rather than tell you outright, let me ask you this: what do you think is the dirtiest part of the toilet?

Was it something I said?

My first girlfriend was a boy.

I don’t mean literally, of course. In the parlance of the day, she was a “tomboy,” even though she met neither of the criteria of this appellation, neither possessing the requisite bodily accoutrements nor having been christened Tom. In fact, her name was Katie.

Hilarious Halloween decoration (not)

A number of people in the town of Greeneville, Tennessee called the police last week to report what appeared to be a man crushed by his own garage door. It turned out to be a harmless Halloween decoration.

My neighbour is a prostitute – or an elderly gentleman

I recently moved flat.

The apartment to the left of mine is occupied by a nice Franco-Vietnamese couple who apologised profusely to me about all the noise their kids must make, even though I hadn’t heard a peep out of them since I had moved in. I therefore suspect they keep their offspring in an airtight box.

The man is friendly enough, though the woman only ever peers sideways around the door with an embarrassed look on her face, shielding herself behind the front door as if expecting the person outside to attack her. Despite the fact that she lives on the second floor of a building protected by a sturdy locked gate followed by a locked main entrance – and the person at the door is only her husband.

The apartment to my right is more mysterious.

My kids forgot Father's Day - again

I have always abhorred so-called “Hallmark” holidays, the sole purpose of which is to prompt needless consumption and boost the profits of card-makers, florists and chocolatiers. 

My wife and I always deliberately boycotted Valentine’s Day. I have never drunk a green-dyed drink or dressed in emerald colours on St. Patrick’s Day. Nor, when I lived in the US, did I ever eat tacos or drink tequila on Cinco de Mayo, which even most Americans erroneously think is the Mexican independence day (it actually marks a victory over the French). 

By the same token, I haven’t even considered doing anything on the ridiculously contrived Grandparents’ Day or the frankly preposterous Siblings’ Day, although I had the former and continue to have one of the latter. 

But Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are different. 

From Agas and Acres To Having Less Is More . . . WTF!!!

Whilst out walking I began to ponder on the progression of the human through the ages. Obviously, I was not around for many of these ages and neither was pen or paper or, in some cases neither was accuracy even when pen and paper were the done thing; thanks, biblical text writers, you wheeze master generals you, you had us going there for a bit. This aside I got to mulling over how things have spun upon their heads over the years. 

Let us put on our mental hiking boots point our odometers to backwards and wander down the ages isle at our mental supermarket. We are not going that far, no packed lunches required. Off we pop, just to a time when being poor meant working your own field, growing your own vegetables, milking your own cow, collecting eggs from your chickens and putting wood into your oven in your small thatched cottage to make a simple meal of stew and bread. 

Identified flying objects

What is it about my third-floor balcony that objects both animate and inanimate appear to have this irresistible urge to hurl themselves off it and into the void below?

One such apparent suicide featured our large, green parasol, which lifted itself clean out of the middle of the table and over the balustrade mid-meal as we and our lunch guests looked on, our mouths agape. It then floated down Mary Poppins-like to the garden below in a somewhat surreal slow motion, surviving its unexpected flight with just a broken rib.

Of course, I then had to go and ring on our ground floor neighbours’ door and ask for it back, trying to look nonchalant as I first walked through their flat and then took the lift upstairs holding a slightly muddy and bent seven-foot parasol.

All This Positive Thinking And Affirmations Are All Mumbo Jumbo

My world, the little bubble that envelops me, is one where to allow my mind to frequent the negative currents of thought only leads me to a place where illness and unhappiness prevail . . . this is not a place I delight being in. I have seen spatterings of similar thinkings pasted all over social media akin to Banky’s work. You either get it, or you don’t.

You need what?!

The new school year here in France somehow wouldn’t be the same without a long list of back-to-school supplies.

When I was at school, shortly after the invention of the printing press, the only thing my parents had to fork out at the start of the year was a roll of adhesive film to cover my textbooks. Since I went to a comprehensive school, I sometimes had to make do with present-wrapping paper. Or, one memorable time shortly after their divorce, leftover wallpaper.

It somehow brings Monty Python’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch to mind: “We was so poor we had to chop down trees ourselves using just our siblings, chew the wood down to pulp between what were left of our teeth, then press it into paper with our bare hands to make our own exercise books. And still teacher would cane us ‘cause the cover were green, not red.”

Yeah, right, Dad

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a bit of an old fuddy-duddy. I’m 50, after all.

Despite my complete lack of understanding of modern youth culture, I do like listening to pop music. It probably doesn’t help that I can’t remember names, although French radio stations rarely bother telling you who or what they are playing. But listening to pop helps relieve the monotony of some of my more mind-numbing chores and makes a refreshing change from the news channels I usually tune into.

Now and again, a song will stick in my head. Or rather, part of it. The lyrics, that is, not my mind.

Such was the case with a song I heard repeatedly this summer, a catchy little number about a woman getting ready to go out for the evening. Her telling of the story would be interspersed with a kind of shouted aside from a backing vocalist; the aforementioned only snippet of the lyrics that lodged itself in my brain: “I don’t take pills!”

The Idiot (thinks) It Is In Charge

You speak your words. 

Yet don’t use your mind. 

You take the lead. 

Yet no-one follows behind. 

You think for others, 

Who are far more capable 

to think for themselves. 

You show them your heaven. 

They see it as their own personal hell. 

You offer your guidance. 

. . . Too close to the cliffs. 

You ask for their hearts. 

So they can be ripped. 

We have all stopped listening 

To your empty promises, your words. 

We have seen through your guise, 

Your falsehoods through your demented verse.

We have cut our strings and set our own course.

 

You have hurt too many. 

And helped to few. 

Now the only one left in your world

....Is

... YOU!

Mornings.

Most mornings, when he first comes out of his room, my 8 year old son finds me wherever I may be in the house. Rubbing his eyes, still clutching the bear blanket lovey he has had since he was born, he only grunts a response to my quiet "good morning."

Then, as is our routine, I sit down and he folds himself into my lap, all angles and bones, and rests there for a few moments, his head resting on my chest. And in that moment, he is as familiar to me as if he were part of me.

The rest of our day, we exist as almost strangers. He's intelligent and curious and prickly and engaging; all boy, full of sports and science experiments. His heroes are Adam and Jamie of Mythbusters. He knows how much TNT is needed to cause a big enough explosion to blow up a cement mixer, what a RPG is. Mom, are you okay if I talk about guns right now? he'll ask me, then proceed to tell me about how a person could save their lives if they just shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand. He knows the numbers of most every football player in the NFL and what position they play. He hates to read stories, but loves nonfiction.

Bro-Science . . You Really Can Make This Shit Up!!

THE ABULATOR BY US FOR YOU!!!!!!

Let us cut to the chase.  I have a fantastic invention that hit the market last week and is selling like hot cakes . . .healthy ones of course.

How would you like to have 6 pack abs in 2 weeks?

Well here at Ab-U-Like we are now able to buy the latest Abulator II.

The Abulator II actually increases the body's ability to build solid muscle in 28.7 minutes.  It does this by hightening crentallin mesaphotyte production from the adipose tissue, which dissolves fat like soap killing bubbles in your bubble bath (we don't know how that works, I mean bubbles are made of soap so how does soap do it?  Witchcraft is what our scientist believe).

My Body Is Deluded

I have no full-length mirrors in my house as I believe they are the work of the devil and are not to be trusted, much like cameras, they lie.  They lie like a teenager (if you are a teenager reading this stating "I don't lie", I have four words for you fuck off, you liar).  Each time I gaze upon my body in one of these demon spawned contraptions they show me a woman who is in dire need of either owning no mirrors in her house, a job with Michelin as a demo or maybe, just maybe some exercise.

I’m prejudiced. Don’t laugh: You are too.

We all like to think of ourselves as being open-minded, unbiased and non-judgemental, reacting to people and events based purely on their merits. Well excuse my French, but that’s bullshit. 

By his very nature, Man instinctively categorises what he sees in order to make sense of his surroundings and thus define his behaviour. It’s what stops you kissing your boss (except at Christmas parties), throwing out food rather than cooking it, and driving on the left when you’re on the Continent.

Sure, this intrinsic drive to understand our environment is also what leads us to mistake harmless shadows and innocuous noises for monsters come to devour us in our beds. But it’s better to have a few petrified children than mistaking your food for rubbish or having your boss thinking you fancy a shag.

The Joys of Facebook or as I like to put it “Face-Fuckers-Facelesss-Facade-Of-Friends”

Facebook, when I first heard of it in 2009 thought it a brilliant step from “Friends Reunited” in finding and catching up with old chums and past loves from aeons ago. Little did I know this innocent foray into finding folk could end up with me reading and being pulled into some insane, world spread typographical faceless war.  Before I proceed, I have been one of the arseholes I talk about below, for that I humbly and truthfully apologise.  I do, now, try and avoid emotionless jibber-jabber. . . .

#PrayFor[yet another city]

I look forward to the day when we no longer need #prayfor or #livesmatter hashtags any more.

But first we need to get our shit in order.

Weird dream (but aren't they all?)

I think I’ve finally cracked.

This afternoon, sitting in my favourite chair in the lounge, I fell asleep for two hours. That isn’t the reason I think I’ve lost it. I’m sure that many sane people have two-hour naps. Some maybe sleep for longer. Although I suspect the mean is somewhere around 30-60 minutes (with a standard deviation of I can’t fucking remember how to do statistics, you should have asked me that about 30 years ago).

Or is it the median? I never could tell averages, means, modes and medians apart.

Anyway, it was whilst sleeping that I had the weirdest dream.

Shitty Christmas

That Christmas was probably the only one I ever lost weight. And yet it had all started so normally.

We were at my mum's house, and although we hadn't yet reached the pinnacle of Yuletide gluttony – Christmas Day lunch – we had in the previous days each consumed our body weight in biscuits, cake and chocolate, avidly encouraged by my mother, who patently laboured under the misconception that food either hadn't been invented outside her house or simply wasn't unavailable.