Me by my brother 

My Dad by my brother 

Nephew #1 by his Dad 

My brother's girlfriend by my brother 

Niece #1 by her Dad 

Nephew #2 by his Dad 

Stinky Face

My nephews arrived on Friday night behaving like incarnations of our hellkittens, but without the sleeping.

"You're gay!" shouted one to the other, as they tussled in a violent heap on the sofa. "Yeah, well you're a lesbian!" retorted Nephew #2. When pressed to explain himself, he informed us that a lesbian is "someone who loves someone else".

It was a great weekend. We went bowling and ate chocolate cake and listened to Max Boyce records and drew monsters and laughed a lot.

Charlie Romeo Alpha Papa

I feel like a twat using the NATO phonetic alphabet.

So I was intrigued when someone wrote into the Notes & Queries section in the Guardian in December and asked about the words we use to spell out names over the phone. The original questioner mentioned T for Tom, A for Apple and D for Dog (old RAF usage, I believe) and wondered if there is an official alphabet.

One reply came from a smartarse called Robert Bassett, London, SW12.
“If someone asks for the spelling of my name in this fashion, I always use the following system: R for Robert, O for obert, B for bert, E for ert, R for rt, T for t.”

(I don’t actually believe that he goes through this whole process because “rt” would be very hard to pronounce. But then maybe he is very good at rolling his rs.)

It was the second reply that tickled me though. From David Clarke, Morden, Surrey:

“What about those conversations when you need to go through the motions of appearing communicative – for example, calls to the Inland Revenue? My alternative phonetic alphabet includes C for csar, P for psychiatry and T for Tchaikovsky. The following prompt an interesting reaction: Aesop, Csar, Django, Eiderdown, Gnocchi (Gnome?), Hors d’oeuvres, Jalapeno (Jojoba?), Knocker (Kneel?), Llanelli, Mnemonic, Neil, Psychiatrist, Qatar, Syzygy, Tchaikovsky, Wringer (Whore?), Xylene, Zyster. But I’m struggling for B (Bdelloid?), F (Final? – see V), I (Iannic?), O (Oolite?), R?, U (Urchin?) and V (Vinyl). And what about Y?”

Complex mathematical formulae

Uh oh... and they didn't even take into account the fact that Celebrity Big Brother has ended!

Matt, this afternoon 

The Truman Brewery, this afternoon 

The Pickle, this afternoon 

Spitalfields, this afternoon  

Beauty and a beast

This is grim but this is fab.

Obloquy

So, last night, I was walking towards the Whitechapel Art Gallery clutching my copy of Word magazine. A beggar, sitting at a wooden bench outside the White Hart, asked me, “Spare a bit of change, love?”

I once read something about how honest, genuine homeless people do understand if you don’t want to or can’t afford to give them money but they do not want to be ignored. They hate feeling invisible. Generally, I don’t give money on the street as charities like Crisis urge the public not to but at the same time I do not want to be rude.

So I shook my head and said, in the nicest, sincerest way I could, “Sorry mate”.

To which the beggar replied, “Are you a lesbian?”

Insanity has 70 gates

I hadn’t left the flat for two weeks until last night and things had certainly changed in Whitechapel. The Q Bar, which used to be the Grave Maurice, frequented by dirty old men, was hosting a Lithuanian Dance Party! It looked rather frightening and sounded fucking horrible. I miss those dirty old men holding their warm dirty pints, in silence. I have had flu since New Year’s Eve and don’t seem to be able to shake it off. It has been hard to keep track of what day it is with the monotony of delirium and sweaty sleep at all the wrong times. I have been self-medicating with Floradix and a cough mixture called Buttercup. It sounds very benign except that its active ingredient is “squill”.

It is miserable having no energy whatsoever and yet being bored to tears from doing absolutely nothing for a fortnight. Thank Christ for Celebrity Big Brother. It puts me in mind of something Julie Burchill said about psychiatrists. Quoting NME’s Ian Penman, “ Shrinks are so called because they attempt to shrink the magnificent sewer of the human mind”. She went on: “They leave you as a sausage machine of bite-sized second hand opinions. You might not be sick any more but I bet you’re not interesting either.”

She also said that she met Tracey Emin and thought she was lovely until her cats started writing letters to Burchill’s cats, saying “My mum’s a bit tired today, how’s your mum feeling?” I might get Minnie and Madge to start writing to Redmond and Bianca. Although Minnie is too lazy. And too busy staring.

Hellcat #2 

Hellcat #1