things move around

8:00, Monday morning: my daughter is trying to express the fact that hippos are not usually pink.

E: Hippos…

Y: Yes?

E: Hippos…

Y: Hippos…

E: Hippos… not good pinkers.

I cut ten slices of Ukrainian ring sausage, nine for my daughter and one for the gods.

In lieu of a roaring fire upon which to cast it, I ate the gods’ portion myself.

Today is the day, which comes around about every eight to ten weeks, when my hair becomes long enough to require the ministration of a comb in the morning. I am about two thirds of the way through my current hair-cycle.

Of course it’s not really my hair which requires the comb; rather it’s the strictures of s o c i e t y, the expectations of my e m p l o y e r, the great y o k e which bears down on me diurnally.

The people across the way took their six foot inflatable santa down yesterday, and as a result I feel that Christmas has come to an abrupt end.

I dined in the hotel, on pea soup and cod. The pea soup was from a tin, which is a guarantee of relative quality in this kind of place. I was sitting in an open booth under a wan green light, so my soup appeared colourless and gruelish, but there was something in it like ham which I relished. In the booth behind me sat a man, Mr Clegg, who seemed to be some sort of resident from the way the waitress addressed him by name and seemed to give him a big discount on his steak; he sang along, from time to time, with the local shanties piping out of the speakers: “The Schooner Mary Ann” and others.

Then the CD ended and for a time I ate in near-silence, the sole diner, the staff off somewhere. The only sound was the intermittent jingling of the fruit machines at the other end of the bar. I clung onto sanity long enough for the waitress to return and fire up the shanties again; and now it was her turn to sing along quietly as she shuffled around behind the bar.

The cod wasn’t fresh but it was okay, “pan-fried” with minimal batter. Among the carrots and peppers was a solitary floret of broccoli which I saved ’til last.

As I was leaving, two unpleasant-looking men came in, sat down in the booth ahead of me, and ordered unpleasant-sounding dinners. I was unnerved by the elder man in particular, who struck me as a source of malice, and this made me bang my knee on the table as I shuffled off my bench and limped back to my room.

1. Brain yourself by holding the ream end-on and repeatedly smashing it into your eyes.
2. Bleed to death by means of paper cuts.
3. Roll several sheets at a time into tight cylinders, ignite single sheets, build thus a bonfire, and char yourself until dead.
4. Put the ream on the floor and hurl your face at it.
5. Asphyxiation: roll the paper into balls and cram down throat.
6. Suffocation: hold paper over nose and mouth very tightly.
7. Roll single sheets and tie to create a ligature. Reinforce with transverse strips, wrap around neck and pull hard.
8. Eat raw.

Tomorrow I must remember to talk to Marv about slag.