Birthdays Come But Once a Year

And Sock Monkey's birthday was yesterday!

In honour of the momentous occasion Sock Monkey and P took the day off work (so it wouldn't be ruined) and went out for the afternoon.

After the present presentation we went into town and had Tapas for lunch (where I managed to throw my glass of not-even-sipped-at beer all over the floor in an incident involving bread - don't ask) then we visited Sacred Made Real at the National Gallery. This is is an exhibition of Spanish painting and Sculpture from 1600-1700. Sock Monkey is very fond of religious art. And the creepier the better, that's what I say.

My favourites were the statues rather then the paintings although I did like this (points right) mainly because she reminded me of the lady at the start of a Columbia Pictures film.

I was interested to discover that the statues are actually several planks of wood which are joined together rather than one piece of solid wood. The head and hands tend to be solid and the rest is hollowed-out to make them easier to carry when they are being paraded through the town during religious festivals. The correct term for them is 'Polychrome Sculpture'. And another intriguing fact is that whilst the scultpor carved them he was absolutely forbidden to colour them in and so a painter was then brought in to finish them off so to speak. This was called 'Encarnation' which literally means 'bringing to life'.

Here are more of my favourites:

Ecce Homo by Gregorio Fernandez before 1621

(this is about as tall as me)

Dead Christ also by Gregorio Fernandez about 1625-30

(world famous and on some of those lists of Things You Must See)

Christ as the Man of Sorrows by Pedro de Mena 1673

After this we had a little bimble around the National which, I discovered, is stuffed with Religious Icon Art. This Pleased Sock Monkey as I love Icons (I have two at home) and I've only ever seen dismal old Dutch Masters in the National. A return trip is planned.

After our Religious experience we went for a steam, sauna and swim. We were therefore cleansed inside and out. Not for long though because as soon as we left the gym we had a cigarette and decided to avoid rush hour by having ONE drink then going home.

P decided that we should go to a very ornately decorated cocktail bar in Piccadilly Circus (as we happened to be walking past). Here she presented me with champagne cocktail to celebrate me being even older than I was the day before.

After we finished our champagne we decided that it was still a bit busy outside so would stay out longer but go elsewhere. So we trundelled along to Freedom Bar for more cocktails. This is where we started off that night we ended up singing karaoke in the O Bar...

So about 16 gallons of margarita later (P stuck to various champagne cocktails) we moved on to G-A-Y Bar. God knows why - we are about 25 years older than everyone else. Aren't young people ('yooths') skinny?

At approximately 10pm P announced that she absolutely had to have something to eat so we went to Balans. Sock Monkey ordered an all day breakfast but had a lot of difficulty eating it because it was making me feel a bit ikky (it wasn't the tequila or the Smirnoff Ice you understand) and so after nibbling at a bit of bacon and sampling the sausage I basically turned it into just beans on toast. I did however become most fascinated by a mushroom which looked like a piece of steak. As I was dissecting it I managed to propel my toast across the room. So that was two bread incidents in one day.

We then sat outside to enjoy the charm of Old Compton Street where we got talking to a young boy at the next table who P insisted was a Rent Boy.

Then we got a taxi home. Arrived back at Sock Monkey Mansions at midnight. When I got up this morning I didn't look like I had had a steam/sauna/swim. I appeared to have rabbit's eyes.

Tonight I'd quite like to go to bed early but I'm meeting a load of friends for dinner. Told P I was going to have a starter, a sip of water and be in bed by 8. She said "lol ok that's what you think."

A most satisfactory birthday indeed!

I Have Turned into my Mother!

So my Mum knew everyone who worked in every shop within a 2 thousand mile radius of our house.

Sock Monkey has lived in Crystal Palace for 3 years, really likes it and is friendly to all the local shopkeepers. It may have gone a bit far now though.

In the 5 minute walk from the train station to my flat I interacted with the following people:

1. The girl who works in Tesco. I said hello to her in the street. She said "Hi!" back. She was on her way to work

2. The lady in the corner shop (she is married to one of the men who works there - they live upstairs). I asked her how her 5 year old son is. He was in bed because he is only little

3. I waved to the man who owns the chip shop. As usual he waved back and shouted, "Allo darlin' ow ar you?" (him and his son who also works there are Turkish hence the accent)

4. Finally I said hello to the man who owns the new Indian shop (v. good by the way - lovely Halal meat and every spice and rice you could imagine) at the corner of my road. I spoke to him on Friday night (they only opened on Monday) and asked him how business was. I can't remember what his name is but it begins with an 'S'

I am sure this is a good thing but am also a bit concerned that I have turned into the local looney!

I'm Rubbish

• Sock Monkey hasn't told you about the holiday in Dublin.
• Sock Monkey hasn't told you about the trip to Paris.
• Sock Monkey hasn't even got round to writing the report of when my sister came over from America and that was in April! (but then I only just sucked the photographs out of my camera the day before yesterday and naturally I have to illustrate my report with pictures).

Sock Monkey can however tell you about a recent night out.

So we all meet up and plan to have one drink then go for dinner. We have two drinks and decide to go for dinner but got waylaid into a cocktail bar instead. It was packed upstairs so P suggested that we sit downstairs even though we had seats upstairs. This was her sneaky way of getting us into the room where they do the karaoke.

P likes singing so off she went whilst we sat and watched. Well of course we had to look at the song menu and pick stupid songs for her to sing. Then I saw something entirely suitable for a Sock Monkey to perform!

I wrote down my song title and track number and gave it to the lady. This is where my evident psychosis and split personality obviously took a turn for the worst. The name I wrote on the slip of paper I gave the lady was 'Sock Monkey', not my real name. Sock Monkey never comes out! Sock Monkey only ever writes reports on here. Its a bit like Jekyll and Hyde - we are two completely separate personas.

Anyway, the lady said, "Now Sock Monkey is going to sing".

Sock Monkey jumped up to the microphone and started the song. Please bear in mind that Sock Monkey couldn't carry a note in a bucket and shouts, as opposed to 'sings'. I dragged P up for moral support and made her stand there like my Able Assistant. Like a magicians assistant (although I had no intention of sawing her in half).

Then I launched into my song which, frankly, I don't think people appreciated anything like as much as they ought to have done.

Its quite a difficult song and the lady said that only one other person had ever chosen it. It was really the last verse which was the killer, I was running out of breath and there was the slight possibility of passing out or throwing up afterwards as its a bit like running very, very fast. But Sock Monkey managed all of the lyrics which went as follows:

"Now if you want to take some pictures of the fascinating witches who put the scintillating stitches in the britches of the boys who put the powder on the noses on the faces of the ladies of the harem of the court of King Caractacus...

...you're too late! Because they've just... passed... by!"

I can confirm that "The Court of King Caractacus" is a bloody difficult song to sing. But 1 gin & tonic, a margarita and a bucket of sea breeze helps.

We did have dinner in the end. We got to the restaurant at 11pm.

Phew that was a bit scary for a minute

Sock Monkey had a nasty fright at lunchtime.

Sock Monkey was perusing the BBC News website and spotted the following headline:
"Boyle is 'moving closer' to Porno".

Ohmygod!ohmygod!ohmygod! Susan Boyle of 'Britain's Got Talent' fame is going to be in a porn film?????

*Runs screaming plucking at eyes*

Then I clicked on the headline and read the first sentence only to discover the story was about the film director Danny Boyle who is thinking about making a film of the Irvine Welsh novel 'Porno' as a follow on to his film of Welsh's novel 'Trainspotting'.

Thank goodness for that! The alternative was unthinkable and would have scared more than the horses.

My New CD

I am very pleased with my new CD. This is a version of Track Number 1 which I've been trying to get hold of for ages.

Mission accomplished once again! I don't know how I managed before Amazon was invented.

Some Men Give the Rest a Bad Name

So last night I am on a packed, humid tube. Inside the carriage there are two rows of 3 seats facing each other and a space one either side for luggage or to stand. EVERY one of these seats had the arse of an able bodied man aged between 30s and 40s stuck to it. A woman in her early 30s got on and she was holding a baby who looked about 4 months old. She looked like she had probably gone to her office to show her new baby to her colleagues for the first time. There was nowhere to sit so she had to stand holding the baby and try her best to not fall over seeing as she couldn't hold onto anything. You know what with having armfuls of baby and all. Did any of these lazy selfish bastards give her their seat? Did they fuck. Did they notice her, it was pretty crowded? Yes. Each and every one of them looked at her then looked away. One of the selfish lazy bastards actually kept looking at her. I felt like shouting "Give her a seat you bastards!" but thought better of it. Best of it was that almost all of these men were only going two stops to London Bridge so it wouldn't have been a great hardship to give up their seat like any decent human being would have. Bastards. I hope they all break their leg and have to stand on the tube because no-one gives a shit if they are less able to stand what with being on crutches. Sometimes I hate men. On a much happier note though I read this on the BBC website today:

"A Greek woman accused of setting fire to the genitals of a British tourist in Crete is due to appear in court."

Sorry come again?? Why on earth did she do that?

"The woman admitted assault after dousing the man's private parts in alcohol and igniting them, but says she did so after being sexually harassed."

Ok so he was perving at her but really - set fire to his bollocks was that really necessary. And anyway how did she manage to get sambuca on them om the first place?

"Police on the Greek island say the tourist was drunk and had waved his genitals at several girls before allegedly groping the suspect. The man suffered second degree burns and is recovering in a private clinic. The 26-year-old suspect handed herself over to police, claiming she had acted in self defence."

Ah so he was waving them around in a nightclub. I'll bet he was shouting 'Eer girls want some ov that?" Serves him right then. But the Greeks must think she was a bit over the top though.

"She has won praise on Crete for what has been seen as defending her honour.

According to police the 23-year-old tourist was drunk when he dropped his trousers in a nightclub in the resort of Malia.

The suspect, who has not been named, said she doused the man in Sambuca and torched him after she asked him to stop harassing her and he failed to stop.

The case has been widely discussed on Greek television, and there has been precious little sympathy for the young Briton, said our correspondent.

He added that many Greeks are sickened by British bad behaviour in Malia and other resorts."

Good for her. If I'd been out with my friends and had had some pissed up tourist repeatedly waving his cock at us I'd like to think one my mates would do the same thing.

left: an artist's impression of said incident

Went to Brighton - Felt Very Proud

This (points to the left with thumb) is what Brighton looked like last Saturday. What a glorious summer's day to celebrate Brighton Pride!

Sock Monkey arranged to meet up with friends in the bar at Brighton Station as our trains got in at almost the same time. This is where the plans started going a bit wonky.

I got off my train and the closer I got to the bar the more it looked like a branch of Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Ah that would be because it was a Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Then I got a text from Jan, "We are in the Railway Bell opposite and have a pint here for you". This is the kind of text I like. Sock Monkey hadn't seen Jan & Lynn for the best part of a year so it was lovely to catch up. We had a couple of drinks, a big gossip then schlepped to Preston Park.

The walk there wasn't so bad but when we got there Preston Park wasn't looking her best. It was grey and yeuch. We had arranged to meet some other people so J&L waited for them at X marked the spot whilst I went on an errand to the beer tent. After about 20 minutes we gave up waiting for the others. Thank God because we were outside the Wimmin's Tent which appeared to be having a flashback to the 1980's and was emanating angsty songs.

Then we spent a delightful 45 minutes queuing up for a pee and by this time it was bucketing. Actually it was quite a laugh as everyone had gone into extreme Dunkirk Spirit and some of the girls were thinking of fashioning ShePees out of a variety of items they happened to have about their persons. A hollow flag pole being one one of them. And we discussed the point of actually practicing to become good at something so naff (ie Line Dancing).

I did eventually manage to meet up with Alan (after several phone calls along the lines of ,"Can you hear me??" "Yes I can hear you. Can you hear me? I'm in the queue for the loos beside the Line Dancing Tent. Yes dear. LINE DANCING".) I asked him where his boyfriend was and he laughed and said, "He refused to come. And all my friends left after half an hour! I'm going home now too." At least he lives in Brighton and could be wearing slippers and having cocoa in no time.

J, L & I took cover in the Line Dancing tent as we couldn't face looking for the Drag Tent. If in fact there was one. I must say the entertainment seemed to be a bit lame. There was a young guy standing beside us who seemed to be having a great time and told us, "I have my cigarettes, my drink and my Brokeback Mountain Jacket on. This is great." Sock Monkey just looked at him and replied, "We are stuck in a Line Dancing Tent".

We schlepped back to Brighton (young girl behind us in the mass exodus pretty much summed it up by saying to her friend, "I'm just so unhappy") and we went straight back to the bar we started in. This time to meet Lily & Jossipa who had just arrived. 2 hours late as usual. It was actually a fun afternoon believe it or not. We've all been friends for years and as such remember when we used to find all this exciting. Lynn said, "You spend years going out all the time just to meet someone you can stay in with." I think this is a fair point!

Where was P you say? She was in Norfolk at a wedding. One of her texts that day said, "Its bloody roasting here." The final one was "Am sitting on the beach with my brother having a drink". And she'd been narked to miss the Brighton trip ha ha!

I would have posted a nice pic of Jan & Lynn looking very waterlogged and miserable here but Jan declared it too hideous for human consumption and deleted it from my camera.