Cos nothing says how much Ive missed you like a ToTP performance form Christmas Day 1973. With added maroon chiffon puff sleeves. Incidentally, check out those 70s hairstyles � at 2�10� there�s a guy (girl?) bottom left who has clearly had a hat on for an extended period of time. Heehheee, hat-hair!
So anyways, where have I beeeeeeen? Well, Ive mostly been playing hostess to transatlantic visitors in the beefy shape of jarofporter, who has been gracing The Palace of Many Sins with his presence. I KNOW! How cool is THAT??
Obviously, most of his visit is top secret so I can only give you the very teeniest of snippets of information, and even then I may have to kill you afterwards. If I rattle through �em quickly I might just get a way with it:
Cookies. Lots of cookies.
Karaoke in a gay bar
The hunt for Captain Morgan�s spiced rum
Guitar jams til 3
Winchester�s deserted streets � even on a Friday night!
Shared love of Magnum p.i. (but for different reasons, natch!)
I fuckin� �ate pikeys!
Overdressed women and underdressed men
The Dirty Fork sketch
Cookies
New Forest ponies-in-hiding and Carlo�s icecream
Sharp Dressed Man on every CD and every radio station
Arguing over who doesnt get the mushy peas
Hunting for souvenirs and being given the hard-sell by a guy selling bongs
Laughing out loud at Blackadder
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1052/ultimate-spaghetti-carbonara
L as tour-guide (and all the horrors contained therein)
Accent Wars
Not seeing a single non-shitty band all week � including L�s gig last night
Oh, and some cookies.
Phew! There�s more, obviously, but J o�P may tell it himself if he cares to. Or he may not.
As we speak, he�s sitting on a plane, somewhere above the Atlantic, and Im in my kitchen, looking at 70s music videos on youtube and feeling mawkishly sentimental.
See!
It�s strange, meeting people you know as an online presence. JoP and I talked about this quite a lot last week. How you feel like you �know� someone but you actually only know what they choose to put out there. We all have our diaries for different reasons � mine is a shameless wish for adulation, obviously, and I try to entertain rather than accurately document, but I�d kind of forgotten that some people use their diaries as a kind of pressure release or to contain a particular side of their personality, or that others might need to get everything down so they can reflect on it at some later time. Apparently, Im �exactly like� my diary in real life, which is heartening in one respect as I am obviously �keepin� it real�, but also kind of depressing as Being a Fluffy Nincompoop was never really my life�s ambition.
Having met quite a few of my diaryland buddies now, it can make it hard to write about stuff in my life without feeling like I might somehow be called out on it. That kind of uneasy feeling you get when you�ve either told a fib in earshot of someone who knows the truth or when you�ve missed out a bit of detail and youre hoping someone in the assembled company doesn�t chime in with �but you told me that he��..� I sometimes feel like I�ll be in the middle of embellishing some hilarious tale of fabulousness and annanotbob2 and smashthegas and tstough and barefootruby will all gang up and shout �aww, come ON!�
If that ever happens I will cry. And then I�ll tell some massive great big fib of a lie of an untruth about how you all pick on me and push me in the stinging nettles. Or maybe not the stinging nettles. Maybe the Whispering Grass (omigosh those 70s cheesy hits!)
I love how Windsor Davies is just being a massive tool in this and how Don Estelle is just trying to carry on miming without laughing his head off. I watched that bit of footage a million times when I was a kid and never really noticed Davies� piss-arsing about before. I just listened to The Inkspots version of that song, too, and it sounds like Reginald D Hunter got in on the act in the middle there somewhere!
Of course, on the flip-side of being �called out� on something Ive said in my diary by someone who know knows me IRL, I get the advantage of being able to mention something in passing and know that there are an ever-growing band of wonderful, supportive people who will know EXACTLY what Im saying (or not saying) and will have my back. That�s a good feeling. Like thinking youre the only one who knows a terrible secret and then finding out that someone else knows, too.
Who did you meet, diaryland? Who went Cyber to Real-Life? Im interested to know your positive (and negative) takes on this � leave me a note/comment, do!
And in the meantime, watch some Conrad Poohs and his Dancing Teeth. A 56 second clip in which nothing at all happens for two thirds of the time.
Bon Voyage, dear Jar of Porter, and au revoir. My life has been made better by having you in it.
Later
S
X
PS I know some of y�all cant see the videos I post so if you really want to check out crappy songs from the 70s and vintage animation you�ll need to do a youtube search on:
Peters and Lee Welcome Home
Peter Paul and Mary Leaving on a Jet Plane
Windsor Davies and Don Estelle Whispering Grass
and
Monty Python Conrad Poohs