Moderation be Damned

When Sock Monkey & Mrs P were in Edinburgh last New Year, our friend Robin took us on a little drive to look at the sea. After almost dying of exposure in what must have been wind blowing direct from Siberia, he took us to a little tea shop to thaw out and eat scones.

It was in here that I spotted a poem which had been typed out and attached to the back of the toilet door. Its a male take on the poem 'When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple' and I thought I'd share it with you as I find it highly amusing:

Moderation be Damned

by Louis Mitchell

When I am an old Man I will wear red - bright red

A red shirt, red tartan trews, red socks, red shoes and a red cap.

I will let my hair grow long, into ringlets - dyed red

I will have an open red sports car, with a loud exhaust

and air horns which even a taxi driver will hear.

I will have a tall mast with a flag on top painted with a young lady

who for some reason has forgotten to put her clothes on

I will have a red setter dog which will be trained to chase cats, and revelers

at two in the morning, but to welcome the postman and paper boy.

In church I will hold up a placard when the preacher goes on for too long

to tell him "the end is nigh".

I will go to the bowling hut with a small drill, make holes in the bowls

to spoil their balance

I will drink red wine, more red wine and still more red wine.

I will post back prepaid begging letters with nothing in them.

I have been told I must eat more fish - so I will have fish and chips every day.

Just like a Frenchman, I shall pee anywhere, absolutely anywhere,

when I need to, not matter who is watching

But, when my time has come, I hope not to be going to where

there is a perpetual red fire.

Go to it lads - be bold - MODERATION BE DAMNED!

Lurgy

Sock Monkey had not been well.
Sock Monkey has been off work for the best part of a fortnight.
Sock Monkey was even signed-off sick by the doctor.
Sock Monkey has had...lurgy!

For non-proper English speakers (ie Americans) 'lurgy' is a catch-all word for any sort of germs like 'flu, or a sore throat, a temperature or a chest infection like what Sock Monkey had.

It all started off with a sore throat one morning. And a bunged up connection pipe between my right ear and throat that slime appeared to be dribbling down. Next day: full-blown lurgy. Two days later if Sock Monkey actually was a monkey the vet would have given me the big injection.

P came to visit me 4 days later and proclaimed, "I'm never leaving you by yourself for so long when you are ill ever again!" and brought me lemonade and Rich Tea biscuits.

Then P nagged me to go to the doctor. Naturally Sock Monkey always obeys instructions so I went to the doctor that day. At the surgery and described my symptoms:

Sock Monkey: "I never usually come to the doctor for a winter bug but I have been nagged to come because I sound like a Dickensian Consumptive and been told to ask you if my chest sounds OK."

Doctor (completely missing my immense wit): "Yes you do have a bit of a chest infection. Do you feel like you have a temperature?"

Sock Monkey (nodding vigorously): "Yes"

Doctor: "Yes, you do look a bit hot."

Then I got a week's worth of some pretty impressively coloured antibiotics. Red and yellow ones.

After a couple more days of feeling horrid, Sock Monkey perked up a bit and started enjoying lying in bed all day listening to the radio (BBC London 95.9). Although every time Vanessa Feltz made me laugh (this happened approximately every 2 minutes) it gave me a huge and impressive coughing fit that hurt. Then Robert Elms comes on and tells you loads of interesting stuff about London. I'd also been looking forward to listening to Danny Baker's radio programme but he was off sick too.

I also managed to watch loads of the Commonwealth Games when I was able to drag myself out of bed. Sock Monkey can now confirm that Table Tennis (or more accurately, 'Ping-Pong') is the world's most pointless 'sport' which is played by people who look retarded.

Sock Monkey's best fun though was lying bed reading a book about Jack the Ripper, in conjunction with my A-Z so I could identify exactly where the bodies were found. Sock Monkey also made notes as part of my research. I am now in the process of devising my own Jack the Riper walking tour and have a map with the most interesting and important parts of Whitechapel highlighted in pink highlighter pen. Well then you can imagine Sock Monkey's huge joy that evening when there was a documentary about Jack the Ripper on tv! The police researcher had even managed to figure out which street Jack the Ripper even lived in! Hooray!

So Sock Monkey's sick time was not wasted and once I felt OK again (after 10 days), on my way back from collecting my sick certificate from the doctor's I discovered a little pathway through some woods I didn't know about which I investigated that weekend. I didn't find the puma though but I still live in hope...

Unfortunately P, whilst coming into contact with a quarantined Sock Monkey also got lurgy. P's lurgy seemed to be different to my lurgy and although she obviously caught North London Germage she really ought to have taken 'precautions' whilst visiting Sock Monkey Mansions by wearing protective clothing like this:

Blogger

Sock Monkey us getting VERY FUCKED OFF with Blogger.

Recently it has been a bloody nightmare trying to post anything here.

'They' have obviously made some 'improvements' and ended up fucking everything up.

• Fonts - default to whatever they feel like being
• Images - are now uploaded via Picassa and they get fucked up too
• Typing anything - results in utter garbage like this: हेल्लो योउ वान्केर्स योउ हवे फुच्केद ऊप ब्लॉगर
• 
  

Sort it out you knobs

• 
  

Would Someone Please Tell Me What the 'Ropeway' is

One day Sock Monkey was planning to go on a guided walk from Nunhead to Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace is where Sock Monkey Mansions is so I was going to get myself to Nunhead then walk the 4 miles home.

So Sock Monkey did what everyone in London does and consulted the TFL website to see the train/bus timetable and the best route. NB whoever puts the 'best' journeys into the TFL website knows jack shit. You get some very eyebrow raising suggestions. Like the time Sock Monkey wanted to cycle from Camberwell Green to Waterloo. I thought that cycling up Kennington Road would be the best way. TFL suggested cycling up Walworth Road and over the Elephant & Castle Roundabout. To non-London people the Elephant & Castle Roundabout is known locally as "The Cyclists' Graveyard". I was close to insanity when I arrived at Waterloo.

Anyway. This is what TFL suggested:


Take the 'Ropeway' number 14609 from Crystal Palace to Nunhead. Please note that this mysterious service runs in a completely straight line from Crystal Palace to Nunhead, doesn't follow any roads or railway lines and goes through buildings.

What the Hell is the 'Ropeway'? Is it a zip wire? Is it a secret tunnel? I showed TFL's suggestion to my friend. Her husband works for TFL and he had a look at it. His opinion was, "Eh??" until he saw the diagram. Then he decided it must have been a bug in the system.

However Sock Monkey prefers to think that the Ropeway, like Brigadoon, only appears once every hundred years.

Norma Jean and Marilyn

For some odd reason I remembered a truly dreadful film I saw years ago. It was called Norma Jean and Marilyn. I saw it as part of an audience research screening. Here is my review which I posted online:

Breathtakingly Dreadful, 14 January 2009


I don't know why I suddenly remembered this film but when I googled it to see if it had actually been released I was astounded to see that it had!

The reason is that a friend and I took part in an audience research screening and we were certain that it would never see the light of day.

Even now I can remember some of my comments on the questionnaire they made us fill in before they agreed to unlock the doors and let us run screaming from the cinema.

Q. What did you like about the film? My answer: "Absolutely nothing"

Q. Is there anything that can be done to make the film better? My answer: "Rewrite the script and start again"

Q. What did you think of the music My answer: (it was something like) "one of the less bad aspects of the film"

Assuming that some amendments were made after the audience research survey what I saw must have been EVEN WORSE that what was released!!!

This is probably the worst film I have ever seen in my life. I say "probably" because usually I would get up on my hind legs and walk out of the cinema or turn the TV off. The only reason we sat through the whole thing is because they did actually lock the doors and we weren't allowed out until we had watched every single shitty minute of it and filled out their questionnaire.

Don't get it out on DVD.

Not Moscow

We didn't go to Moscow. We were supposed to. But we didn't. It was all booked and everything. We were going to stay at the Budapest Hotel which is 500 metres from Red Square. We had a suite because It was only about a fiver a night more than an ordinary room.

But about two or three months before we were due to go I started having a really bad feeling about the trip. The very idea of applying for a VISA filled me with the collywobbles and we put it off and off. I was feeling all "Danger Will Robinson!"


Then, Moscow started to look like like this:




It was covered with dense, acrid smog for weeks! People were fleeing the city and the morgues were getting full up because more people than usual were snuffing it. It was 40 degrees!


Moscow was beginning to look like the exact opposite of a relaxing holiday destination.




This year Sock Monkey and P would not going to be visiting the following:


St Basil's Cathedral

Moscow Metro, The Kremlin, The GUM Store







Space Park featuring Laika (Space Dog Extraordinaire) who is now stuffed and on display.















And we also wouldn't be visiting Statue Park this year. This is where they put all the old statues which were removed when Communism fell. Its like a big Communist Theme Park.







But the one thing I was really looking forward to go to was the Cat Theatre of Moscow

It is a theatre full of performing cats! Click on the link above. I cry with laughter every time I watch it. They have shows such as 'The Cat from Outer Space'.

I had already checked to see if they had a performance that weekend and they did! *claps hands, does a little skip* The first thing I was going to do was go trip-trip-trip-billygoats-gruff down to that theatre and get us some tickets.

The owner, Mr Kuklachev says, "We do not use the word train here because it implies forcing an animal to do something; and you cannot force cats to do anything they don't want to. We merely play with the cats."

Trip canceled, the performing kitties will have to wait until next year for my visit.

So we went to Egypt instead which was also 40 degrees. It wasn't covered in smog but it was full of English chavs and fat, ugly Germans. But when you spend a week with your head under the water looking at the fishies you can ignore them.

My Journey to Work

Sock Monkey has a morning routine. This is because That's What Sock Monkey is Like.

Sock Monkey gets the same train (almost) every morning and has to sit in the same seat. If Sock Monkey doesn't get the same seat an International Incident could occur.

Sock Monkey then reads The Guardian, drinks tea (I take a flask of tea with me for the 23 minute journey to London Bridge. I can't function in the morning until I have drank 2 pints of tea.) and says good morning to the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.

One morning, whilst I was reading the paper, drinking my tea and had said hello to the dinosaurs I sat and listened to the theme music to "Murder She Said" (the classic film starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple) on my iPod whilst gazing gormelessly out of the window. I can gaze into the middle distance, thinking my 'Special Thoughts' for hours on end.

We were just approaching the recycling dump outside London Bridge when I spotted 3 workmen. They were in their hardhats, high risibility vests and steel toe-capped boots. And they were running towards the train waving in a highly exaggerated way. I burst out laughing and waved back.

Figured they were so bored they thought they would wave at all the passing commuter trains. It was like the Railway Children and I was quite relieved that they weren't also waving a great big pair of red underpants on a stick.

I looked out for them since then but have only seen them do it one more time. Its probably against Health & Safety or something.

What made the whole thing even more surreal is that I had the theme music to Miss Marple playing in my ears.

Did you know that Margaret Rutherford is the ONLY Miss Marple?

This is Sock Money on the way to work.