Some days I just think I'm some sort of sucker for punishment, and if I'm not then explain this...
I'm waiting for a bus under a bus shelter... shelter being a term I use loosely because a shelter seems to imply some sort of protection from the elements... which this 'shelter' was certainly not providing. Anyway, I digress, so I'm waiting for a bus..I'm feeling decidedly unwell as the early signs of a sore throat start to kick in, it edges closer and closer to 21.30, which means I've been standing here like a stunned mullet for almost 30 minutes now.
The rain gets heavier, my throat gets sorer and I feel sicker and sicker with each passing minute; but here is the thing, I keep telling myself ( like I did 15 minutes ago) just wait... it will be here any minute, another minute will be here any minute ...any minute now that old 228 is going to round the corner...
Meanwhile, across the road I can see the bus stop for the other bus I could possibly get home. I watch helplessly as three ( yes Three) potential 'lifts' outta here sail on by! Why oh why, and you know that if I leave my post now and defect to the other stop then you just know that the bus I've been waiting for will show and the other bus at the other stop will suddenly cease!!
So I stay put, after all I've wasted, I mean, invested 40 minutes of my life in just waiting for the bus, well hey lets make it worth my while and call it an hour, nice round figure...one hour, in the rain, cold and sick hooray!!!
What situations like this also tend to do, and I don't want to but I start to seethe with hate for this city as the most annoying people in my vacinity are suddenly highlighted and their annoying actions are amplified by 100%, it brings out the worst in me when I observe the women who finishes her M&S sandwich and just throws the cardboard packaging on the ground, just like that, blatantly littering in front of me and others. And then there is the man who sits there sniffing and spitting with gay abandon , "oh how lovely you are sir...is that seat next to you free? may sit beside you and listen as you gurgle up in prep for another big ol spit? and madame, next time you throw away your litter make it worth your while don't just toss it at your feet toss it at the feet of the man spitting see if you can throw as far as he can spit"
So at the end of it all, the 228 never shows, I jump on another bus which takes me to another bus stop where I have to wait for another bus...all in all it takes close to 1 hour and 20 minutes to get home and this fact is only made worse by the fact that had I walked it would have taken 35 minutes....
Aaaaaarrgghh!
So blame the walk home tonight... that being my daily walk home from the office which gives me approximately 40-45 min to think about this, that and the other. Tonight it hit me out of the blue...write a blog , yeah, that’s never been done before...
ok so cutting right to the chase, I figure that a 'post work-walk home' blog means that some (un) lucky person can share in my walking home thoughts..
In this first edition of 'the walk home' we will cover a small selection of the topics that 'walked' home with me tonight:
1. Fearne Cotton spotted in the Coffee Plant
2. Rider Lists
3.Shutter Island
4. Keane
1) I was ambling through Portobello on Sunday and dropped into the Coffee Plant for...errrr, well coffee and who should be sitting at the first table as you walked in but Fearne Cotton; Howzat!?! Anyhoo happen to know that Fearne or FC as I'll refer to her as from here on in, is a mahoosive fan of a certain brand handbag, whom of which I also work for and the first thing I did was look for her handbag and see if she happened to be sporting something from the ' brand that feeds me' ...and hey hey indeed she did, it was the very cute smudgy, spotty, pink clutch-esque style...Due to copy write laws I'm afraid I cannot use the bags real street name or real description so just use your imagination and trust me...it's a nice bag! FC looked well and this new hair colour suits her. Coincidently I had stayed up till 2am Sat morning just gone watching her and the others do that bike ride for Sports Relief, amazing...and yes I showed my appreciation with a donation. So back to her bag, I also happened to have my bag of the same brand, with me too, in fact you could say that mine is the grand daddy, actually grandmother is more apt, of her style. I wondered for a split second if I should interrupt her coffee break and ask for an exclusive interview for the company newsletter I write...and then I got real...decided to leave her in peace and walked on by with my coffee in my clutches as she drank coffee with her clutch....
2) Rider Lists, you know, that list of items that should be provided for the performer/band/super star/diva, before and after the show..Q Mag used to have a little segment and print one from some band each month ( hilarious) so I was walking home with a couple of bags of shopping, picked up a few essentials on way home, and I thought about how my shopping would look as a rider list ( actually it will probably look like a shopping list) BUT lets just suspend reality for a second and pretend that the following list of items is what I, Stella Big Hair, demands before each 'performance'..
STELLA BIGHAIR’S RIDER:
6 x ready to eat, ripe plums.
1 x ready to eat classic salad with all onion removed.
Johnson & Johnson Moisture Care Baby Wash (for that unmistakable baby-fresh scent)
Pack of 6 Babybel 'light' cheeses
1 Block of feta cheese
2 boxes of feminine related products
1 pack of oatcakes
3 small packs of salt and vinegar mini rice cakes
1 large pack of salt and vinegar rice cakes
3 sachets of ovaltine instant hot chocolate
... And if those items aren't in my dressing room when I arrive then someone will be fired!
3) Shutter Island (or Shuttle Island as I keep mispronouncing it) is the new Scorsese film that sees him getting old Leonardo D-Cap in front of the lens acting up a storm...the reason I was thinking of this film is because I went to see it on Saturday. Beautifully shot I thought, has that 1940's film noir feel...it hasn't been getting rave reviews but people expect a lot from Marty S and perhaps this lacks his usual panache, however it's entertaining ...it's not great, not a masterpiece, but it's good. Better than the soloist which I know isn't an MS film but man I was just thinking that was OVER hyped and boooooring. Go see Shutter Island or wait for me to make my follow up 'Shuttle Island' story of a high speed ferry service that runs from island to island and is always on time until one day when it arrives 10 minutes late at its first stop of the day...why? Find out in 'Shuttle Island' due for release in summer 2000 and never :)
4) Keane, as in the band, were my 'soundtrack' for my think-walk home tonight. Bad Dream was the main song...and I was thinking how the lead singer ( cherub cheeks) went into rehab a year or two ago and I wondered if that song was about his inner turmoil...then I stopped thinking about that and wondered if that song could be covered successfully by a women? There is a line in that song that says 'baby I'm a man, I was born to hate'. You couldn't change that to women it wouldn't rhyme, so could a woman singing that line just be referring to man as a whole, brotherhood of man-as in people-humans?
...and that brings my first blog to a close, feel free to let me know what your 'rider list' is, or if you think a women could sing that Keane song with the same lyrics or if you would like to invest in my movie "Shuttle Island"?
Until then Bye Bye from this Blog-a-rama-banana!
