N.E.G.L.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me.

Oh gnash of teeth and wail of lament!

Oh damn you hours in the day for being so paltry in number!

Oh curse you sense of prioritisation and your . . . your . . . priorities!

Just doing one of those oft-heard blogger-with-no-time-to-blog posts. You know the type. Life is hectic (which it is) and external responsibilities are too demanding (which they are) and procrastination is too [*note, insert thing that procrastination is too much of here at some point*].

It could start to get you down, although blogging shouldn't be a chore. Unless you're doing it for a living or as some sort of punishment.

I wonder if there are any punishment blogs out there?

I don't mean *waggly eyebrows* dominatrix-led punishment, with all studded collars, flagellatory equipment, leather faces and that, because they're ten a penny. I imagine. No, I mean blogging instead of doing lines or paying a fine or something.

"Professor D'Espicable, you have been found guilty of wantonly hollowing out a mountain without planning permission, and so must either serve 60 hours of community service visiting the elderly or construct a blog post on the pitfalls of setting up a nefarious empire intent on taking over the world."

"Ah come on Your Honour! Can't I just be ejected into space and get it over with?"

No, for me blogging is just for fun, and like any fun thing one shouldn't get stressed about neglecting it. Although it might be frustrating when you don't get chance to bash one out (yeah, that's where I'm going), eventually you are going to be able to relieve the pressure at some point, and end up happily ejaculating your givings onto the receiving substrate.

So here I am.

Before any of you begin feeling extra sorry for me and start planning a concert to raise awareness for my plight, I should point out that I've been having a pretty pleasant time of it over the last few months. The summer was damp but not horrible, we went on holiday, we had some enjoyable get togethers and we took the children on various educational trips to expand their brains, broaden their horizons and fuss fluffy critters.

I was particularly excited by the promise of this sign outside a farm park which suggested we could feed baby felines to cows:

Kittens! Pound a sack! Gerrem while they're mewling!

As it turned out, the kitten sale and animal feeding were separate entities. I should have realised this because cows obviously don't eat kittens. If mad cow disease has taught us anything it's that cows eat other cows.

We drank occasional expensive coffeecinos in smart cafes, one of which had a literally correct description of it's cake:

Further reductions inside!

And, at a wedding, we all stayed in a posh hotel which had not only a kettle and a telly in it, but a panic alarm on the wall:

Panic? Alarm? Which is it? WHICH IS IT?

Never mind the children, you have no idea how much self-restraint I had to show not to push that bugger just  to see who might turn up. Maybe the Best Western chapter of the Guardian Angels, or Batman in a stolen hotel robe. I'm pretty sure it would actually have been a phone call to see whether it was panic or alarm I was experiencing. Press '1' for panic.Press '2' for alarm. Press '3' for alarmed panic.To listen to these options again, please scream repeatedly.

It's not all fun and frivolity though. Yesterday, as part of my parental responsibilities, I had to steal the kids home-made play dough, craft a scary halloween hand and then chase them and their visiting friends who'd come round to play:

Anyone got any E45 cream?

I was rewarded with satisfyingly high-pitched yelps of terrorised delight and one child wetting herself. If that's not a sign of success then I don't know what is.

And if this post has taught me anything, it's that blog posts really don't have to be about anything.

Moaning Glory

Once again I find myself trying to dredge up a spare crumb of time to blog amongst the chaotic and relentless responsibilities that comprise modern living. This is a pity because blogging is one of the two things in life I find pleasurable.*

Sorry, I don't mean to moan.

Or do I?

I  appear to have reached that age when it becomes almost enjoyable to complain. I don't know if this is a phenomenon that occurs to everyone at a certain time in their life but it's happening to me. Half the time I'm not even after an apology. There's just something very satisfying about having the moral high ground for a while, even if you've been inconvenienced, be it by dodgy service, an undeserved rebuke or, as happened to me recently, a parking ticket for somewhere in Enfield, London, for a car I don't own in a place I've never been.

Ooh I enjoyed that phone call. It was marred only by the efficient and polite retraction and follow up apology letter by their annoyingly helpful staff.

Recently my sense of exasperation has become more sensitive and, like an allergic reaction to repeated bee stings, I get all flushed and raspy with just the slightest exposure. Stuff that once I would not even have registered grabs my attention and makes me tut with barely contained fury.

Tut like an animal!

For instance:

Fillums. Now free on the internet!

A two film collection?

Tut.

Since when have two things been a collection? You wouldn't get many visitors to the Natural History Museum if you only had two fossils in it. The Louvre would be less the major attraction were it to contain just a pair of pickchaz (although the tour would be nice and quick allowing you to rapidly tick off 'culture' on the compulsory Parisian itinerary and move on to spitting off of the Eiffel Tower).

No, two things do not a collection make. If they did, everyone could have collections. Look at my collection of eyeballs. I keep them in my face. Do you like that kidney? It's part of a collection. This penis? Well, have I got a surprise for you.

Here's a collection of slippers I bought during the same trip to our local supermarket:

Ooh, you so big when you slip inside.

That's right, slippers.

I've never had slippers before. It seemed the sort of thing a forty year old man should have, so I bought some.

Despite suddenly having warm feet first thing in the morning, I'm still undecided on the whole slipper issue. There are aspects of slipper etiquette I am ignorant of. Am I supposed to wear socks with them? Do I have to take them off before I put my feet up on the sofa. If you put the bins out and keep your slippers on, do they immediately become outdoor wear and thus unusable in the house? How hard are you meant to spank someone with them before it is construed as assault?

Mysteries as deep as the meaning of life itself.

The particularly sharp reader may have noticed, despite the seamlessly smooth transition of  subject using the literary trick of writing down words, that I have moved away from complaining and on to slippers. This is not a non sequitur because they are linked by an underlying thematic scaffold of age.

Another thing that isn't now a non sequitur is this drawing I saw in one of my children's books:

Oofed right in the grunt.

Those of you who have delved into the murky depths of the Gravel Farm will know I have an interest . . . no, a passion, for out of context pictures, especially published ones that demonstrate questionable appropriateness for their readership, be it the bloody groin of a sheep or the  tail ramming shenanigans of Little Bo Peep.

At least this one doesn't involve sheep.

The fun is trying to guess what the underlying story, if any, could possibly be, or perhaps making up your own. It's better than Sudoku for keeping the cerebral hinges from seizing up.

I recently discovered that out of context hilarity is not just limited to modern times. In our local village hall is a replica of a section of the Bayeux Tapestry, where French seamstresses celebrated a spat between a couple of royal ponces called Bill and Harry:

Paws for thought

Rather than discuss the unfairness of how the undeserving upper echelons of society dragged (and still drag) the lower classes into their sordid little affairs, which would probably take at least two paragraphs to fully investigate, I would like to point out that the central, trouserless figure has a dogs paw on his genitals.

Heh.

I think we can all agree on that at least.

Let's see; complaining, slippers, cartoon dragon assault and medieval animal abuse.

Yes, I think that's covered everything I set out to at the beginning of this meticulously planned post.



* Everything else is a chore. Everything.



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