» Siblings

...But my sister is now unfortunately deceased.
My baby sister (so-called because I can no longer get away with calling her my little sister, being as she is four inches taller than me) is a couple of years younger than me. A few years ago, she was brainwashed converted to Christianity, despite many reservations on the part of my family, who are really quite atheist. I think when she got confirmed it was the first time my parents had been inside a church that wasn't Notre Dame since they were about twelve.

I'm not a Christian. I'm a militantly atheist scruffy student, studying Journalism at a second-rate (sorry, Chester, but it's true) uni by replacing 'lectures' with 'weed and South Park'. I'm a grumpy, lazy, abrasive book geek with dress sense that makes my mother sigh heavily and a taste in men best described as questionable.

My sister, conversely, is predicted straight As in her A-levels, takes no drugs, has long-term relationships with boys her own age, is polite, cheerful and probably kind to small animals. And she's tall and willowy and has huge cans. And the aforementioned God-bothering makes my granny happy at least, so.

A few months ago my dad and I somehow got onto the topic of good sister/bad sister-type dynamics. My sibling was at Greenbelt, a Christian festival, for the weekend.
"Well, it's pretty easy to tell which is which out of you two." said the aged r. "One's a pink-haired reprobate who sleeps till three and might think about possibly getting a job one day if she runs out of baked beans, the other's a good choir-singing type who goes to church and hangs out with the vicar..."

He paused and sighed.

"But the bad sister will be back tomorrow."
(Fri 2nd Jan 2009, 2:39, More)

» Unemployed

I was a student housewife.
Here, as far as I can understand it, is my housemate's current train of thought.

1. I have a Very Important Job [Saturdays only].
2. Shini, by virtue of overarching laziness and a student loan, has no job and is thus A Waster.
3. As such, she could at least make herself useful around the house by tidying my room, doing my laundry and washing up a week's worth of my plates after hauling them out from under the sofa.
4. For the rest of the week, I will be busy recuperating after the stresses of my Very Important Job [eight hours a week in a small tobacconist which is in no danger of being overrun with customers]; and so I will have no choice but to fling my crockery and socks down on the floor and then forget they're there. I can't see the floor, because I am Tall and Manly.
5. Possibly as a direct consequence of being A Waster, Shini is neither Tall nor Manly [whatever my granny says]. Therefore, it makes sense for her to pick my stuff up when it goes below eye level.
6. Onoz! My mummy is arriving from Americaland tomorrow! We must clean the entire house!
7. But I am Working at my Very Important &c., so Shini will do it.
8. It's what she's for.
9. Two nights before my mummy is due to get here, and the night before I have to get up at eight to Go To Work, it is a sensible idea to come shuffling into Shini's room at one in the morning with a two-litre bottle of Coke and discuss politics with her for four and a half hours.
10. Oh, fucksocks. I'm only going to get two hours' sleep tonight. That bitch. It's her fault.
11. Ah well, at least I can sleep with my eyes open at My Job. Shini will do a month's worth of laundry, tidy my room, hide my porn, set up the spare room ready for my mummy, do the washing up and move all the musical instruments I bought on a whim, can't play and don't really have room for into her room, because she is A Waster with Nothing To Do.
12. I wonder what she'll make for tea?

The sad thing is, we're not even married. We're not even fucking. I just owe him money.
(Sat 4th Apr 2009, 10:17, More)

» Family codes and rituals

Punnage
It's entirely my dad's fault that I grew up with an unerring instinct to indulge in puns, particularly the fishy kind (cod in the act, salmon chanted evening, if someone tickles you what you should do is stickleback, etc). Between us we can drag out conversations for hours filled with increasingly elaborate puns, driving my mother and sister slowly insane in the process; a practice which culminated in my arriving home from school a few years ago to a short story written over three pages about fish belonging to the BNP, who get facial tattoos to show their allegiance (the UK-lipped huss. We were doing trees the day before).

I am now a sort-of-grown-up, or at least I don't live at home, and a few months ago I had a nice civilised roast dinner with a few friends. Tragically, just after the meal my housemate mentioned 'soul food', and off I went.

After 'eel meet again', 'ray of light' and a few others I was threatened with violence, so I shut up for five minutes before blaming my condition on the foul influence of uni boys, their drugs, their booze and their prawnography. I was bodily flung out of my own house.

So, so worth it.
(Sun 23rd Nov 2008, 2:38, More)

» Pet Peeves

...people?
Stupid people, ignorant people, misogynists, old people, children, babies, toddlers, their parents; people who like children, babies or toddlers; people who get offended by people who don't like children, babies or toddlers; slow people, enthusiastic people, proprietors of NewsCorp, people who aren't as bright as they think they are, people in Tesco, people who ask stupid questions, people who think one sentence constitutes a paragraph, people who don't question anything, Daily Mail columnists, politicians and their supporters, anyone with a 'HELP FIND MADDY' poster in their window, people who don't read and think it's something to be proud of, people who can't cook, ditto; anyone who calls themselves mad, random or weird, particularly if they add '...but that's just me I guess!!! LOL'; pro-lifers, non-smokers, Malibu drinkers, people who chew with their mouths open, people who use the word 'cut' as an intransitive verb, anyone who ever thought charging young people for a damn education was a clever idea, people who blame parents or ex-partners for what wankers they are now, Brian McNair, hairdressers, and the TV licence people, who don't seem to have grasped the idea that I doesn't have a poxy TV.


I'm easily annoyed.
(Fri 2nd May 2008, 2:18, More)

» Celebrities part II

In which a minorly well-known journalistic type approves of my hair.
Martin Bell, the journalist and man in the white suit, did a guest lecture at my uni last year. It was "strongly recommended" that those of us on the journalism course went to it, so naturally at least three people in my year showed up. I was one of them: I am a journalism geek, had nothing better to do and was almost certainly mildly stoned.

Furthermore, on finding out we were actually going to get a halfway decent guest lecturer for once (the interesting ones tend to pass over Chester. Edwina Currie came here once, but I slept through it and so didn't get to ask her if she'd come across any Major hindrances in her political career. But I digress), I had googled Mr Bell to see if he was really as nifty and liberal as he seemed. A lifetime's association with Frank Zappa, Bill Hicks, Mark Thomas, PJ O'Rourke and the like has conditioned me with the belief that everyone has Something To Hide; that a question isn't worth asking if it doesn't make the subject uncomfortable; and that I sort of want to be Jack Parlabane when I grow up. So, internet, tell me Martin Bell's filthy secrets.

And it did, or seemed to. Multiple sources, none of which were Wikipedia, told me Martin Bell - UNICEF ambassador, former anti-sleaze MP and all-round Good Guy - had, during his time in Parliament, voted in favour of Section 28, that nasty, brutish little law forbidding schoolchildren being taught anything positive about gay people. I was torn between 'ONOZ! Not that nice man!' and 'booya! Now I can ask a difficult question and be edgy and cool'.

So, when we got to the audience participation part of the lecture, up I leapt to ask my cool and edgy question. It went a bit like this:
"Why did you support Section 28?"
"I didn't."
"Oh."

But he went on to say he was chuffed with the question, that I had balls (I paraphrase) for asking it, and that you should always ask difficult questions. Or something. Afterwards I was outside the lecture theatre having a fag when he came out; whereupon he complimented me again on my nifty question-asking skills and the colour of my hair (pink). My mother may never forgive him.
(Sat 10th Oct 2009, 18:20, More)