There's an old adage that you know when you're an real X-er when you can't help but do X and for some reason I've been coming across it a lot recently. A real writer can't help but write, a real cartoonist can't help but draw, a real musician can't help but make music, that sort of thing.
As I was procrastinating this morning by checking out the first episode of David Mamet's TV show The Unit (not bad but not brilliant) and cleaning our incredibly dirty living room windows when I should have been writing or taking photos or setting up weblogs or doing something else creative I wondered if there was anything I can't help but do and nothing specific came to mind.
Is this something I should be worried about? Or is it that a real dilettante can't help but do an infinite number of creative endeavors at a superficial level?
I don't watch BBC TV so I don't pay the license fee. This is fair.
I also don't watch ITV, C4, Sky, Living or any of the other countless commercial TV stations. But I do pay for these with the products I buy, a significant percentage of which goes towards paying for adverts on these channels. This, it strikes me, is not fair.
Can I get a rebate?
I just had a couple of pieces of toast liberally covered in lemon curd for the first time in at least 15 years. It was utterly lovely, and I recommend it to each and every one of you.
Wikipedia says: "Lemon curd is a custard-like dessert sauce made with eggs, lemon juice and zest, sugar, and butter. It goes well with scones, short breads, and muffins. It may also be spread on toast."
It's also worth noting that it tastes much better than it smells.
It's very rare that a piece of email spam makes me look twice but "Fancy Wholesale Curing Products?" had me reading the damn thing just to see if they were really hawking the tools to smoke my meat and salt my fish. It took whole seconds, and a fair few of them, for me to realise they meant medicines.
Managed to get really behind with my contacts' photos on Flickr during the GDFAF fortnight with over 1000 sitting in my newsreader at one point but have been valiantly been working through them. Good stuff as ever but I was really struck by the consistent quality of Meg's photos. As I lined up more and more to mark as "faves" it started getting silly but I figured that's no reason not to. The nice thing about her shots is the always tricky balance she finds between observational snapshots and pro-level photography. Also I never really think of Meg as a photographer, blog queen that she is, so it's always a pleasant surprise.
Heard a report from a mate of a binge drinking session perpetrated by a bunch of young 20-something ladies of good stock which puts the opening hours farce into some perspective. They met at someone's house, drank absurd amounts of vodka until they were "drunk enough" and then headed off to a tacky 80's theme bar. These binge drinkers, they're rat-arsed before they go out. How long the pubs and bars are open is not going to lessen their drunkeness one iota because they're already legless when they leave the house. Deal with that, if you can, and stop faffing about grown up opening hours.
I was just reminiscing that this time last year I was sitting at my computer while my idiot neighbours in Kingstanding were setting off fireworks in their gardens that were exploding outside my window. And then a few minutes later my previously not so idiotic seeming neighbours started setting off fireworks in their gardens which, given that I'm in the attic, really are exploding right outside my window. Which is, you know, fucking scary and everything.
I'm really not looking forward to the bike ride to Moseley in, ooh, half an hour...
Working all this week in an effort to keep the agency happy and to prolong this sensation of having money for a bit. Job is quite dull in an inoffensive way but the hours do seem to spin on by at a decent pace. Did get horrifically lost in Aston though. That area from Digbeth round to the Aston Expressway is a quite deceptive maze. On the map it all looks fairly straightforward but when you're in it no sense can be found. It's not like I'm a novice at navigating around this city or anything but even having taken two different routes to and from this job I'm still at a complete loss as to where I actually went and whether it was remotely a good way to get there.
In related news I encountered a cyclist with a bigger ego than me on the way home today. I have a tendency to try to overtake everyone else and always be in front, at least when I'm cycling. Not so much in the rest of my life, which is somewhat odd, but there you go. Coming out of the usual bunched-up group of bikes between Gooch and Longmore I was behind this chap who didn't seem to be going that fast, so I nipped in front of him along the cycle path. For the next five minutes I could hear a strange mechanical noise similar but distinctly different to my bike. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, right on my ass, and I'd been giving it some welly along Clevedon. I was wondering whether I should let him pass or not, since it obviously meant a lot to him, when my phone rang saving me some face. Then later on I sat right behind a very slow man in shorts along the riverside path. I could have taken him, no bother, but he had stronger lights than me. Tore up his ass when we hit the side streets though.
Sorry, the novelty of not being the only cyclist in the entire area still hasn't worn off. It's like a Beijing rush-hour compared to Kingstanding.
Much relief in the head of this addict as the smoking ban looks set to be less draconian than expected. This whole pubs which serve food distinction can easily be made simpler though. Any pubs which serve food shall be known as "restaurants" while the remaining pubs shall be known as "pubs" and all will be well.
The Birmingham Outer Circle is a thing of myth and legend, with the number 11 bus doing a full loop around our fair city in a little over two hours. Songs have been written about it (well, a song, and you can't make out the lyrics that well) and folk often do the entire round trip for a wheeze.
However, if should be noted that using the number 11 bus to go to and from work, when you live on one side of the city and work on the other, is a fucking pain in the arse, a brain melting slug of a journey that will rob you of any spirit you may have had when you got up at some ungodly hour to catch it.
That said, if you're able to keep your wits about you there are some intriguing kitch-worthy sights in the Yardly area. Once I've got over my 11 aversion I'll have to return with a camera.
Now I have a small but significant amount of disposable income, and now the lid of my aging cdmp3player has decided to detach itself, I'm thinking iPod. Since I spend most of my listening time at the computer a Shuffle should do the trick, say a 1Gig model for £90, give or take. Except I might as well get a Nano since it has a bit more capacity and would be really small, but they're not significantly cheaper than the standard iPod and I am somewhat intrigued by the video playback, especially being able to plug it into a telly, but I might as well go for 60gig since I have lot of music and would like to use it to record stuff and we're up to £300 which I can't really afford so sod it I'll get a Shuffle, except I might as well...
By the time I get this figured out I'll have spent my small but significant sum on food, rent and beer, which is probably for the best...
