Pynchon

I am supposed to be reading the next Terry Pratchett "Discworld" novel, but instead I've been been reading Keith Allen's autobiography "Grow Up". It was an impulse buy, in hardback, even though I vowed not less than a week ago that impulse buys were definitely out of the question for the foreseeable future, seeing as I have very little actual fucking money. Despite the fact that I am nearly half way through it, and he has yet to have any dealings with anybody famous, it is a really funny read. Well worth the money.

Some might disagree, but I think Keith Allen is a great talent. "Gino: Full Story And Pics" is still my favourite of the "Comic Strip" series. His documentary "Keith Allen Will Burn In Hell", shown last week on Channel 4, about the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church (purveyors of the insanity of this website and this website), is an absolute classic. They should show it in schools.

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The UK has been having a bit of rain.

(You don't say. I do say!)

I shouldn't make light of it. People have died and houses have been wrecked. It's been difficult for a lot of people. Where I live, it is easy for me to shrug my shoulders and say "It's a shame, but so what?" I have never been flooded out. (I don't count the water leak in 2002, although I have never entered the kitchen since without checking the ceiling.) I suppose my house must be on higher ground.

I got a small lesson in the effect of the flooding when visiting the Midlands Art Centre last Sunday to see a film. There was a small sign at reception which said something like this.

"We apologize for any inconvenience caused by last week's closure of the cinema. The closure was due to massive flooding in Cannon Hill Park and the subsequent flooding of the cinema. Patrons may notice, at present, a damp smell in the cinema and we wish to apologise for this. We are told that the smell will abate in time and beg for your patience and understanding."

(Lovely note, by the way. Very sincere.)

I had a walk around the park and witnessed some of the attempts to limit the devastation of the week before. (God knows what it is like now. The rain started up again, this week.) It had been tidied up, but there were sandbags and mud and shit everywhere. The lake looks like it had burst it's banks. You could see the marks on the ground.

If I ever seriously got flooded out I would freak. I don't like water where it shouldn't be. I especially wouldn't like water in my living room or by my TV or computer. Water belongs in taps, sinks and baths. And the Ocean.

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There are a lot of squirrels in Cannon Hill Park. Very skinny squirrels. I get a lot of squirrels in my back garden. It is not unknown for six or seven of the buggers to caper about my back garden, having a laugh, stealing the seed and nuts I put out every week for the poor, starving little birdies. Every single one of the squirrels in my back garden are fat.

(How fat are squirrels supposed to be? I don't know.)

In Cannon Hill Park I witnessed a teenage girl trying to entice a squirrel to eat some crisps. She had put the crisps on the ground, had stepped away and was making clicking noises with her tounge. The squirrel was having none of it. He was halfway up a tree giving the girl the evil eye. The girl's boyfriend, standing behind her, looked at me and I looked at him. He shrugged and gave me a look that spoke volumes.

Silly cow, is what the look said.

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I had not eaten and I was hungry. There was time before the film started, so I went to the Midlands Art Centre restaurant, ordered a bowl of chilli, chips and rice and sat eating it. A lady and a guy came in with a young baby. The guy ordered food and they sat down. The lady undid her blouse, took off her bra, prepped a nipple and started breast feeding the baby.

I stared. I don't think I was the only one who stared. Eventually I decided not to be so fucking rude and concentrated on my bowl of food.

This is the 21st century. A woman feeding her child in a perfectly natural way in a public place should not be of any interest at all, but it is. I don't know why it is.

True, maybe I would have been less inclined to look if she had not been a gorgeous redhead with shoulder length hair, green eyes, full red lips, creamy pale skin, great tits and wearing the kind of peasant blouse that has turned me on since I saw Linda Hayden wearing one in "Blood On Satan's Claw" when I was about 14.

Shallow. That's me.

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More tomorrow.

Labels: Reading, Sex, Squirrels, Weather