I think it's a commonly accepted fact of life now that I will inevitably attract rude people. I do, you know. Today was no exception.

I went shoe-shopping today, hunting down the perfect pair of boots to clad my feet as my 10 year old Chelsea boots had now, sadly, bit the dust. And into a shop in Glasgow I went and in this shop I was confronted by what had to be *the* most pathetic and rude assistant. I asked for a size ten and a half. "Wedunnodohalves" was her response. Excuse me? asked I - for her lingo was inpenetrable. "We DON'T DO HALVES." she snarled. I took one look at her, looked over at her colleagues and then I launched into Full Gay Bitch Mode...

I stood, held my hand out to within one inch of her ugly wee poxy-over-made face, snapped my fingers and said: "Lose the fucking attitude, sweetheart. In case you didn't notice this, you only work in a shop. Now, get yourself in the back room, and find me these in a ten and a half - and I know you have them in a ten and a half because I phoned this morning and was told they were in stock." She stood there, staring at me, mouth agape. "Are you still here? MOVE!"

Seriously, good manners to your customers is more important than the customer being courteous to you, fuckers. If you work in the Service Industry, allow me to impart some wisdom.

Put a fucking smile on your faces, pretend that my ass is the tastiest goddamned fucking thing you're going to get your cheap-lipstick-clad-lips around and you fucking suck hard. I don't give a shit if you're a waitress making coffee in Starbucks, or a fucking sandwich maker in O'Neills or even a suit salesman in Armani - when I come into your place of work? I'm the one with the ability to make or break your commission for the day, sweetcheeks. Arrogant, yes. Do I look or sound like I give two fucking shits? No. You're in a position to serve me. Not the other fucking way around. You want respect? You don't get any if your face is like a soured plate of nachos. If you can't get your fucking heads round that, get out, get a life and get a job somewhere else. End of the day, I can take my business elsewhere and hey, you're the tosser who has to explain yourself to your boss.

Fucktards.

But seriously, I hate snobby shop assistants with a vengeance. There was the pillock who insulted Priya with the "fat feet" comment two years ago who basically had her face torn off with Priya and I ripping her a new one, not to mention the crowning glory of the fucktard in Frasers who suggested to Ryan the following...

Assistant: "Is sir finding everything to his satisfaction?"
Ryan: *trying on suit* "Yeah, can I ask you how much this is?"
Assistant: *with smirk which pissed me off* "It's £450. Maybe you'd like something a little more in your...bracket?"
Ryan: *without taking eyes off his reflection in the mirror* "Maybe you'd like to go back to working in MacDonalds?" Assistant stares. "It's all right. I'm sure you've not encountered many people who make more money in interest on their savings and investment accounts than you'll ever do in your lifetime down on the estate. Now, be a good little boy and go fetch your boss for me."

We won't mention Margaret and the Tesco Incident.

But, seriously. Seriously. Shop assistants?

Learn. Some. Fucking. Manners. Or I'll do you in.

Grrr.

Two things have come to light today.

One, I missed out on that lighter. I was doing well for about six hours before the end of bidding, then some cunt put in an offer ten dollars over what I was bidding. I upped my bid, the shit upped his. Eventually I decided that fifty dollars was too much - even for a piece of beautiful Art Deco. So pah. I've now bid on a pair of gorgeous black leather biker-style boots at £7.00. Hee!

Two. Clara? Jenni's sister? Apparently she decided she's had enough of the whole shampoo, blow-dry and style shit with her hair...so she trotted over to see Jenni, and got Jenni to cut her hair off and then got a pair of clippers Jenni uses (do not ask...) and buzz-cut her hair. So now Clara, who until this morning had shoulder-length and highly enviable hair, now has fuzz.

Priya and I decided that Clara's got a good enough head to carry this off - not to mention that as her flatmate is a make-up artiste extra-ordinaire, she'll always look fab. But, it sparked a lively debate betwix us as to what women look good with skinheads. I said that only women who have a certain height and build can carry it off successfully, Priya said that it's never a good look on any woman and you need something extraordinary to distract the attention from the GI Jane look. Well, given that Clara is like Jenni but more...elegant...I don't see how that's going to be a problem for her.

Besides, knowing Clara, she'll let it grow back in and then keep it pixie-cut for a few years. Unlike her sister, who peroxided that hair to an inch of it's life and then dyed it jet-black and added blue tips to it. Sheesh.

Hi.

Do us all a favour? Shut the fuck up, give the fuck up, and get the fuck out of the race. You've lost, sweetcheeks. Stop looking like an arsehole with a pierced anal ring and show some dignity, you muppet.

love and kisses,

The World.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/sweatshop-chic-is-so-last-year-as-fashion-goes-ethical-825922.html

Hurrah!

As Priya - the biggest supporter I know of second-hand clothing - puts it: "It's better for everyone. You get to get rid of something you no longer like, someone else gets to spend pennies on it, and you'll no doubt come out of the shop with more than you went in with". So true.

There's been a series on here in the UK that has really shocked people about a group of teenagers going to India to see how poorly treated people are when it comes to manufacturing their clothing. Remember, when you pick up a £3 t-shirt or even a £1000 suit, you're picking up the end product of a cycle of sheer vicious capitalism. Some of the workers in cotton fields make less than a dollar a day, people, less than 50p a day. All to make sure that we can have our cheap Primark clothing. I've decided that I'm not going to buy any more designer gear and instead aim for the more ethical side of fashion. I already have second-hand stuff that I've found in places like Glory Hole and Starry Starry Night, and to be honest, if I can find a military uniform from the 1910s with medals? I'm going to keep going back, LOL!

I hope Oxfam - and the Visa store, of course - inspires a whole fundamental shift in how we see the fashion world, I really do. After watching how children are forced to rummage through troughs of chemical waste to find stray thread? Yeah, I'm sickened. And as we already do a lot of Fair Trade and eco-friendly stuff (with the exception of The Beast, aka Ryan's car...grr) I don't think we're going to find it too hard to do this as well. As Xav put it: you'd feel sick wearing a shirt you know costs one hundred and fifty days wages for someone in the Third World, wouldn't you?

Roll on!

http://www.pornolize.com/pornolize4?lang=en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fannemccaffreyfans.org%2Fforum%2F&submit=Translate

Good god. Whoever knew that Weyrwoman Kalina's nickname was "Afterburner"...

No, it's not a disaster, it's Pornolise!

http://www.pornolize.com!!!

*collapses onto couch and kicks off shoes*

Firstly...some music! This is "Get Over It" by Guillemots...



We've decided to start going out for drinks more. Seriously, I think we all forgot just how much fun it is to go to your favourite bar and stand and get jostled by strangers and screech along to the songs the bars playing.

Will say this though...at one point? It was so loud we were texting each other to speak!

It's been ages since I've gotten involved in a bidding war on eBay...but I'm in one right now. It's for a gorgeous - and I mean *gorgeous* black and silver Art Deco lighter. If I don't win this, I will become very upset with the seller, who is based in Cleveland. I demand anyone on my Friends list to henceforth travel to Cleveland and smite the bastard.

Grrr. 1 day and 12 hours to go...!

I'm slightly sunburnt. Teehee.

It feels rather good, you know, that weird warm feeling I get when I'm sunburnt. After a horrifically cold and wet winter, today? Has been *glorious*. Took me and the dogs (and a rather over-excited Ryan) down to the park, spent a few hours playing frisbee with the mutts, then went up to have a lovely lunch at one of our favourite restaurants (who are quite doggy-friendly, providing your pooches remain outside in the external seating) and then wandered back to the flat...

To find India sprawled in the hammock. Seriously, how the *fuck* is she getting in there? I watched Chandra try to get into it the other night - he's a superior climber and jumper-into-thingys cat - and he couldn't do it.

Eh, I'll leave her. She's comfortable. And I'm slightly pinkish-red :D

There's one thing that's generally loathed at Chez GB and that's a Bank Holiday, mostly because most of the time we don't get time off. Except today, because with the exception of Priya - who had to go into work today to deal with a problem supplier - we all had the day off.

Of course, Miss P. was not happy about that. No sir. She woke us all up at half seven, and was dressed, coiffed, fed and watered and out of the door by the time any of us decided to get up. Ryan's decided to ban her stiletto heels. She practically *danced* over the fucking kitchen floor in those things. Grrr.

Anyway, what I didn't know was that she had went to work with the intention of dazzling her supplier, who is from what I've heard from her coworkers is a "complete slutbag and a complete whore of Babylon with bad roots". Priya decided to hit this bitch - who had told her that a wrap dress was out of style and "only worn by women hiding bumps and lumps" (if she knew anything, she would know that it's only the women with bumps and lumps in the wrong places and one too many bumps and lumps that *can't* wear a wrap dress. At least, not a well-designed high quality one, you cheap bitch) - with enough fifties glamour to Formica her ass back to Sheffield where she oozed from. According to Priya, it's a well-known fact that every woman in her family has at least *one* outfit in her wardrobe, irrespective of size, shape, age, colour or sexual persuasion, that is jaw-dropping.

Priya has such an outfit. Well, she has several. She likes choice. I'm not saying she's fussy, what I'm saying is that she likes to be prepared. She has a jaw-dropper funeral outfit, I've been told.

It consists of a 1950's style ensemble, designed by a friend of Jenni's, basically a dark bronze pencil skirt, a white blouse that can only be buttoned to just above Priya's cleavage (Xav seems to like this blouse an awful lot, the perv) that has the cutest little detail - namely matching buttons to the skirt and a thin bronze pinstriping on the collar and cuffs. Team *that* with the antique pearl choker Margaret gave her and a killer pair of heels and handbag, the proper hairdo (which for Priya isn't hard - just twist it up and set in place) and matching accessories (including, as I discovered to my annoyance, my brand-new bronze-and-black Sony Ericsson phone...) and she's set.

I would have preferred she wore what we now call the Chuck Dress - a bright, cherry-red fifties dress that she only ever seems to wear when it's blazingly hot outside. But no, she took what she calls the Bronze Goddess and she apparently *worked* that outfit. And then she came home at half five, strode into the bathroom, threw Chandra out of the bathroom, had a long soak and came through, wrapped in her big fluffy white dressing gown, flopped down next to me, demanded a foot rub and then, snarled...

"I swear, if that lecherous old dyke even ever tries to touch my leg again, I'm going to implant a fucking heel right in her retina, the filthy bitch."

Bless.

That is all...

Have I posted this video? I don't think I have. Oh well. Electric Feel by the gloriously great MGMT.



Grr.

So I have a hammock now in the bedroom. It's one of the ones that have a frame, so I don't need to drill holes into walls and secure bloody pegs, etc and wotnot.

Anyway, I put the hammock up (much to Ryan's amusement) and then turned and glared at the felines. "You're not going on that!" I laughed. I headed into the living room - cats following - and grabbed me a book, went back into the bedroom, threw a comfy blanket and a pillow or two onto the hammock, arranged it just *so*, then got in, and basically was most comfortable. Nodded off...

...

And woke about half an hour ago with India curled up on my stomach, snoring quite happily.

So much for a cat-free area, huh? How Madam got into the thing without waking me is quite the puzzle - no, Ryan didn't put her there - he headed out just after I got into the hammock and it was just me, those two and the dogs in the flat. Bizarre.

Okay.

They. Had. Valiant.

Seriously, I love Valiant. I want my own Valiant. I've told Ryan - "for Christmas, I want my own aerial battlecruiser/carrier". I always get socks instead. I want more Valiant in Doctor Who.

Oh, and I'm sorry to say this, but the burning sky effect? Cheesy!

Okay. Latest episode...

( Read more... )

I've been doing some beta for a friend of mine and I think she's pissed off with me now because I sent her the following message...

"Hey J. Look, in future? When you're talking about anal sex? I'm going to assume that you and your boyfriend haven't done it up the Oxo Tower yet, so I'm going to tell you that your lack of experience really, really shows. Anal sex? It hurts. It hurts a lot.

And you need to read up on your lubricants too. Vaseline being used as a lube when the bottom protests about the top using protection is a bit of a no-no."

Honestly. Straight girls just *can't* write gay sex.

Now, lesbians. Seriously, ladies? Hot.

Well, a mate of ours phoned last night and told Ryan that he had a "slab of sliced beef if you want it". Ryan, not being one to turn down a freebie, said he would take it.

We ended up with about ten kilos - ten - of scottish beef. Ten. That's a lot of beef. So I gave a kilo to Ryan's mum, a kilo to my own mum, a kilo to Gita's mum (who shrieked and said she had ideas of what to do to it...god help us all) and cooked the rest.

When cooking in this house, it pays to make sure that you have the resident canines in the kitchen. The cats are, well, they're sporadic. If it's fish? Oh, they're in there. If it's sushi preparation, it's lockdown. We learned that the hard way when I was showing Ryan how to make rolls and we turned round to find the pair of 'em at the trout. Little shites. But the dogs are always there when cooking - it's regulation number eight hundred and sixty nine in the kitchen. The previous regulations relate to what not to touch according to how Priya says to. Seriously, move the mustard and it's "Why is the dijon in the english mustard's place on the shelf?"

Anyway, I decide to cook the beef in a nice home-made teriyaki sauce. Add some chilli to perk it up, the teriyaki beef'll do our lunches quite nicely, thanking you very much. And so this is how it goes - remember, the beef is sliced into thin steak slices?

One steak slice into the sauce to marinade. After twenty minutes in the marinade, take out, cook on super-hot hotplate for roughly forty seconds (really thin cuts, in case you're wondering) until the fat starts to blacken and then flip onto draining plate. Repeat process for, oh, about an hour. Now, once all meat has been cooked, take supersharp knife you once threatened to disembowel the neighbour with and start trimming off any meat or bits of fat. This is the important bit - do not ignore the "schlurp" sound from the two now suddenly ravenous dogs who are sitting, watching your every move. Slice the meat into little strips, ensuring to keep two end bits and the trimmed sections to the side. At the end of the process, take the trimmings and end bits and make sure is nice and cool before fending off the two dogs and place into their bowls (keep a little bit separate for the cats).

That is how you cook with Spray and Freuchie - they demand a bit of what you're making, irrespective of the final product. Freuchie loves cake mix. Spray goes nuts for a bit of venison. They're so spoiled.

Caution: seriously not work safe.

Now that's out of the way, have a snerk.

http://www.downonmyknees.com/archives/instruments/cyber_spanking_machine.php

*orders one for everyone on his friend's list - two for the ladies!!!!*

So, we've not heard from the Intrepid Patrick in some time. The last time we'd heard from him, he'd buggered off from Na Zillun and was heading north for Hawaii. He said he wouldn't stay long in Hawaii...

...he's still there.

He's also learning to surf. Oy feh.

All I'm saying, in light of the recent episode?

Six knows.