Assorted Photos I’m Too Lazy To Bother Organising

The title of this post is apt to say the least.

(BTW – Finalised my ongoing drafts of letter heads and business cards here) I wish I had 6 hands and 2 heads. I’d accomplish so much.

I had a good idea for an art installation:

When I was doing my BA living with Monty in New Cross Gate we used to watched all of his Friends series videos at least 2-3 times in succession. I’d always draw because I like having something in the background but it can’t be too demanding.

Now if you watch Dave or Comedy Central long enough an episode of Friends will usually come on.

There is something vaguely soothing and comforting about coming home and watching old re-runs of Friends.

That’s what I’d have as an art installation. There would be a 24/7 Friends Channel playing in a room. (I wonder what the rights to display the video would be?)

All the episodes would be looped, running on multiple tiny screens projected inside these white tent like (subtitled I think) cocoons that the viewer needs to crawl into and has to stay there for a few hours.

The multiple tents with various cocooning pouches would fill the entire room. Like one of those spider webs that encompass the entire tree.

Now for some assorted photos.

Apple Store Street BW

Statue

If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to why don’t you go where fashion sits, Puttin’ on the Ritz

Green Yellow and Blue lights

Different coloured window lights

The Pub Stair. Apparently frequented by Nell Gwyen

This fell through the vents in the office. I think its a Hawkmoth. Very pretty.

Someone pasted this at a bus stop. Very jolly of them. A few goodies.

People looking at the Jokes

Shells in Monty’s backyard

Building & tree. Clearly, this is well in the summer. Sigh.

This photo is fairly mediocre, but I just love this colour.

Plant Tendrils

Olympic Graffiti

Olympic Graffiti closeup

Kings X Pink lights far

Kings X Gold Line

Kings X Gold Cloud

Fuller Smith Turner Typography-1

No one ever really changes

I was just thinking about kids the other day.

No no, not for me. *hurl*

And no, not even about people fucking breeding them in enormous litters and then complaining about the fate of the world, tsk tsk terrible this global warming isn’t it?

No, I was just thinking about how Riddhi’s old house had a whole bunch of baby pictures of her and her brother plastered everywhere.

Most of her brother’s were of a happy-go-lucky, cheery child.

Nearly every single one of hers were in various stages of a tantrum. Her parents had even enlarged a really large portrait of her sulking thunderously and placed it in her bedroom.

Riddhi definitely, in her 24 years has mastered all the tantrum-throwing-melodrama-diva skills of a professional.

Clearly nothing has changed.

Sure there was that brief period in school where she was always smiling and laughing but aside for that small rebellion, she’s now happily reverted back into her natural inner self. The incredible sulk.

Even the ex’s first childhood memory, when I inquired, is of a massive strop. (It figures)

I’m definitely on to something here. I’m sure of it. In fact I think it must be investigated further.

My very first memory is of walking into my mother’s bedroom as she was breast-feeding my newborn brother, belligerently and loudly demanding to know what she was doing. I must have been about 2.

This seems to (in part) explain my revulsion/fascination with pregnancy. I’m also unfortunately still loud, obnoxious and belligerent.

Leo on analysis is very curious. I’m not exactly sure what his first childhood memory is but his long running streak of rejecting women is very curious indeed.

When Leo and I were in the third standard, I decided being as magnanimous as I am, to invite him to my 8th birthday party.

It was a pool party and by third standard terms, was a posh affair.

Ok so we didn’t actually have a pool. It was one of those blow-up paddling pools on our lawn and a rubber hose. (standards weren’t that high in the third standard, what can I say?)

Leo was the only boy invited (a great honour if I do say so myself) among the many little girls (not counting my brother).

On a side note:
Do you remember when everyone always wanted to stand next to the birthday girl or boy?

As if having a birthday party automatically made you a celebrity for just one day and the closer you stood to the birthday person the higher the chances of some of the ‘birthday magic’ would rub off. You’d get loads of presents and freebies, your long-suffering mother was forced to make and decorate a cake with a theme and even your guests got gifts when they left.

Damn I miss those birthdays. They just aren’t as good any more.

One year I’m going to have a kid’s party for adults. Everyone will have to dress as if they’re 8, bring gifts, play Housie (or as the English know it, Bingo), catch & cook, land-land-sea-sea, alligator-alligator and leave with a slice of cake in the a goodie bag. There’ll be loads of booze and….other stuff of course. We’re not really pretending to be 8. Besides if anything, for most people, getting pissed is the shortest route to acting genuinely juvenile.

Anyway, before I got distracted:

As the birthday girl I recall spending a large portion of my birthday trying to pull both Leo’s and my brothers swimming trucks down. My brother being younger, more naive and far more trusting of women than Leo, had his shorts yanked numerous times to a chorus of gleefully shrieking girls (or just me) sing-songing…

“Ha HA! Loo-ook whaa-aat I di-id nyeh neyah I can seeee youur bu-uum! Ha ha-ha hah hah!”

*point* *point*

Leo with evasive coyness managed to escape my brother’s fate.

Even at the end of the day, when my brother and Leo were taking a shower in one loo (*snerk*) while the girls showered in another, Leo refused my brothers innocent request to take off his trunks.

Which was lucky for him because all the girls then burst in to point and shriek yet again. My brother once again was caught pants down but oh no not Leo.

Fast forward about 16 years and Leo still seems reluctant to drop his trousers. Girls all over Mumbai, Delhi, Denmark, Tehran, Dublin, Sydney and London are internationally struggling to get the tease to detach his shorts, which by now must have grafted themselves to his rear.

I’m unsure if Leo was always naturally reluctant to have girls remove his shorts. Perhaps he had an inborn distrust of women.
Perhaps we actually scared Leo so much that even to this day he bears a morbid dread of a group of girls bursting in to point and giggle.

Perhaps in fact Leo is just a boy more comfortable bathing with other boys but firmly insisting he keeps his pants on. Perhaps people just never change.

I like to imagine that girls all over Khar (and possibly even as far away as Juhu hah!) are having little locker room chats (in the Khar gymkhana of course) bemoaning how Leo plays so hard to get-

“Dude that Leo just doesn’t put out man, it’s like so not on. What a fucking tease!”

“Yah yaar, he only lets me get to 1st base. I can’t wait this long man.”

I like to imagine how it might have now evolved into a competitive sport to see who can get Leo’s boxers off quickest, much like when he was 8.

No, people definitely don’t change.

I shall (no doubt) report back perhaps on any future investigations.

Camille’s Dinner Party: Both Fernanda and Onnalin Pee in the Loo. It’s a MIRACLE!!

It is always a pleasant surprise when you walk to a bus stop and there are people there you happen to know.

It is even pleasanter when those people happen to be Onnalin and Martyn holding 4 dead chickens and a bag of potatoes.

Kingsland road is a scary place.

I don’t fucking care if it’s in zone one, it’s a fucking ghetto (and this is where Camille lives).

So Onnalin, Martyn and I are buzzed in and we drag the chickens up to Camille’s, which is a massive loft flat in this warehouse.

After about 3 hours of basting, stuffing and poking by Onnalin (class chef and resident foodie) the chickens were finally done. Everyone was fairly plastered by then, and much like a Natural Geographic Special, we attacked the poor chickens like ravenous hyenas. They were gone in minutes.

In between Martyn raving about Georgina’s digital camera

“WOW! These pictures are fantastic! Another one! It’s fantastic!! They are all fantastic!!”

he was also drunk enough to admit,

“I have to say actually, Foz does have a really lovely smile…”

He now denys this.

Bruna insisted Uhr was stalking her because when ever she turned around he was there.

She then spent 5 minutes petting my head. (Yes, I think she was a bit pissed)

I have a small related whine here: Delusional iPod DJ’s.

Highly annoying. Halfway through a song, some idiot thinking they can do better and wow us all with their taste in music, will change it. This happened continually at the party. My poor iPod was cast aside and plugged in, alternatively every 5 minutes or so until it’s battery died in protest.

Most of the class was at the party, including a whole bunch of random people who turned up at 1:00 am out of the blue. Camille suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, turning up the next day in the flat on the first floor.

She walked into her flat the next morning and instead of viewing a very lovely mess of cigarette butts and garbage, everything had been cleaned by Georgina and Mike who felt too guilty to leave without cleaning.

I’m so glad I left at 2:30 I must admit. Cleanup duty is really rotten.

Anyway, at about 2:30 I began the trek to the ex’s flat (The ex refused to accompany me on grounds of general lethargy).

Right next to Camille’s front door is a club with a que of drunken, dolled up people.

A little further down the road a group of girls were crying and screaming as 2 boys chased and beat each other up right in the middle of a traffic filled road. Two cops arrested them promptly. (Don’t you just love the East end at night?)

I mistakenly ran to catch an over crowded bus full of pasty red faced ‘lads’ while the very surly buss driver cursed, swore, muttered to himself and refused to let me off at my stop.

I had to take another bus back 5 stops.

The bad tempered bastard.

I hate winter.

Uhr follows an inebriated Bruna around.

He continues stalking Bruna, while she looks disgruntled.

Georgina, Fernanda and Tiphaine collectively maul Onnalin

Then they force Fernanda and Onnalin to smooch

We call out for Camille. "Caaaamiillllleee where aaaaaare youuuu?" we yell

Amalia and Fernanda on the far left make a pact to get married

Amalia and Fernanda seal their bond with a lot of tongue, and Ed joins us as an honorary woman

Uhr now seems to be scoping Bruna's behind as she looks up to where she's hearing the voices

He also seems to be checking out that guy in the white T shirt. Bruna does a quick salsa

While Ed looks deeply suspicious

Soon after Onnalin tries to smoke an imaginary cigarette

She then listens very carefully to Amalia

Georgina shows Amalia and Onnalin what a camera is

Onnalin then tries to seduce Amalia away from poor unsuspecting Fernanda

Surrounded by a multitude of women, Martyn looks serious

…seriously pissed. 'Ooo' he says to Amalia

Georgina looks to the heavens and prays that our show will go all right

What is an ‘H’?

Hs Celebration of Life. Many Hs! The excitement.

I am slowly recovering, having landed in Hyderabad this morning, from last night’s party above.

Now you might wonder, what is an ‘H’?

And it’s a good question.

A very good question.

A question with many, many answers.

Confusing answers, long and rambling pointless answers

Answering such a question deserves an entire post of its own.

Suffice to say a ‘H.’ consists of many strange things.

There are big Hs, regular Hs and little Hs (Much like Goldilocks’s bears). Then there is alternative H or, as we like to call him, just Captain H.

It is a weird and wonderful thing when you see all the Hs congregating in one single place. There were even the H extensions, the Ns and the Ms.

By midnight 2 out of the 3 more youthful Hs were completely smashed on the bartenders exotic creations, (one of which was a strawberry flavoured, frothy vanilla ice cream margarita. That genius man!)

I almost had an entire proper conversation with regular H. while he was still on his second or third drink but after that it all deteriorated rapidly.

You can immediately tell when an H is high.

Stage 0: Before 2-4 drinks, mostly sober

Stage 1: The arm slips around your shoulder and he suddenly gets very limber

Stage 2: The arm tightens around you, he starts to bends down a little (being a tall guy) and whispers confidentially in your ear.

Stage 3: Lots of bending and hugging, the whispering confidentially in your ear continues but less coherently.

Stage 4: Bending, slurring, incoherence, some obnoxiousness and general idiocy.

Stage 5: Standing and sleeping. Obliviousness to all surroundings.

Stage 6: Sleeping. Anywhere. In any place.

Any kind of sane conversation after Stage 2 and Stage 3 of High H. is impossible. Even little H. gets fiery and crazy after a few drinks.

During Stage 0 (Pre-drunken state) H interrogated me vigorously on that stupid DNA article I wrote (long story) that caused no end of trouble (and is still causing me just a bit of tension).

Instead of actually allowing me to finish my sentences and tell him what happened, the H. told me exactly what he knew happened and vociferously tried to push me into agreeing with his own little version of events.

Somehow during Stage 3-4 of H. drunkenness, little H. picked a massive fight with someone who had picked a fight with alternative H. a year ago.

Later at Stage 3 or 4 (the limber, bending stage) regular H. became unusually odd, at one point putting his arm around me and bending his head down, all the way down to my waist (H is a very tall man, but I was a little puzzled when he did this).

Later he put his arm around me again, tilted his head back and proceeded to slowly show me his tongue.

Sometime during Stage 4 he said

“Don’t hue get all cocky and shhhhhit with me. Hey! Are you like being cocky with me?”

I jusht want to make one shimple requesh ok…just one shimple requesh…listen man…it’s just..a simple..request….listen…I jusht wanna tell you…”

He went on like this for about 5 minutes after which he shoved me quite hard in the ribs. I never found out what that simple request was because by now I was pretty annoyed. I told him not to touch me again and then moved away.

Aside from that it was a great party. The cake was moist, the bartender unusually talented and most of our age group of girls and boys were both well dressed and hot.

Mane dropped me and Riddhi home by about 3 in the morning, after a quickie smoke in his car.

Those delightful red shoes I went on and on about (and here too) finally made it out for their first test drive and they were EXCRUCIATING!!! I have developed beautiful blisters on the back on my ankles now. Dammit all!

But on the positive side, they looked fucking fabulous. (I’m so shallow)

Melon And Ham Part 2

The Munt came downstairs last night, and said

“Dude……”

And I knew there was trouble in the air.

I’m trying to avoid eye contact and ward off the evil eye of the Munt but the bad feeling wouldn’t leave.

“I’ve invited your ex to my wedding party man…..so…. just deal with it”

Admittedly I didn’t request him to drop all contact (that would be mean), and said it was fine if there were friends as long as he didn’t become some kind of go-between of information

...”guess what they said! or what they did! or who they did! blah blah blah puke”

Still, it annoyed me. But what could I say?

I haven’t exactly dropped all contact either (that would be equally mean).

I knew the Munt was in touch and it was fucking bound to come up. I have no foresight obviously.

So I only end up tutting irritably at Munt because any actual words would have been a waste.

It’s not that I imagine we’d fight, it’s just I’d much rather avoid the emotional quagmire the situation might present.

We shall see.

I’m almost probably sure I’m over dramatizing.

Some New Sex Related Terminology

H****itis:

A disease caught from the elusive H. causing the victim to develop acute fear of women, inability to flirt and general celibacy.

Pulling a H****:

An individual being very, very close to getting laid yet pulling out for no particular reason and then regretting it later.

Owning a H****:

Being in possession of a dildo.

Lastest Report!

Glorious news!

Fernanda pissed in an actual toilet early this morning.

This was greeted by many cheers and whoops of delight by all spectators.

A pinyata was then bashed to its untimely death.

This was again greeted by many cheers and whoops of delight.

Wierdness

My flatmates are getting weirder and weirder (Monty and Anders).

They sleep nearly all day now. At about 3pm-4pm they might leisurely crawl out of bed. Smoke a joint, I imagine.
They never leave their bedroom, especially since they have TV on their desktop (very slick) and every movie available to download (not that slick but ok).

Yesterday at about 6pm they went out shopping. An hour later they came back with the entire shop.
Then they left again, to shop some more. Apparently for the stuff they forgot. Then they came back.

They smoked a joint and watched ‘Nanny McPhee’.

At about 9 in the evening, for no particular reason, both of them start cleaning the living room windows like mad. Inside and outside.

Why?
Who knows why
Are they bored?
Possibly.
Are the stoned?
Absolutely.
Are they crazy?
Who can say.

Leonora

Leo asked me to blog some good stuff about him, but since I can’t think of anything besides the obvious nice guy stuff, I shall tell you that Leo used to be a very cute child. True I can only speak about the third standard, before or after that he could have been a ‘proper minger’

But in the third standard he was adorable. He had a big fluffy curly-whorly hair and you just wanted to pinch him, which I did, a lot, in fact I used to bully him constantly. He probably had a lisp as well, and flat feet. I feel like pinching him right now actually.

Ah the good old days, when we were young and boys were sissy’s.

Once I painted a rock to look like a cockroach [it was the worst painted rock in the world] and brought it into class. The girls kept running away and screaming. As you can imagine I was VERY popular.

Leo probably shrieked like a little girl and ran away too but I can’t really recall.

He came to my birthday pool (it was a blow up pool) party that year. He and my brother were the only boys, I kept trying to yank their swimming trunks off. Later in the afternoon my brother tried to convince leo to take a shower together naked. Leo said no, luckily for him, because all the girls ran in the loo to point and laugh.

Leo’s Continued Gaygiri

On the 8th April 11:35:14am

Leo says to me in passing,

“Munty’s leaving tomorrow, I gotta admit, I shall miss him”

I scoff, as always.

“No man, really”

He explains,

“After a long and annoying day, it’s good to go over to the Munt’s, smoke a spliff, look at the sea and have some nice brainless conversation”