Humour

25 Things to Do in a Dull Town at Lunchtime #7: go on the “Heritage Trail” (Part Three)

There can’t be many towns that boast a tourist trail that takes three days to complete, but in that respect, as in others, Dulltown excels.

Regular readers – both of them – will recall that the office culture lovers failed to complete Part 2 of the “heritage trail” the other day, due to getting distracted by the thought of food and going off-piste to buy potatoes.

So we agreed to resume another day. I hadn’t realised it would be quite so soon, but one bright and sunny day this week one of my colleagues suggested it would be nice to get some more heritage-based exercise. So off we went, resuming the trail where we’d left off, at the former railway embankment.

At the former railway embankment.

Dulltown was one of those places where the Victorians really spread their wings when it came to railway building. Dulltown was at one time blessed with three railway lines and their respective stations, and I admire them for it. The guest list for my fantasy dinner party includes Doctor Richard Beeching, the UK government’s offical railway vandal-in-chief, who closed down nearly a quarter of the country’s railway network in the 1960s. The man was notorious for axing such a massive chunk of what was a fabulously extensive railway system, and I’d like to invite him to dinner and give him botulism.

You could go pretty much anywhere in Britain by train from the height of the Industrial Revolution until the 1960s, and don’t believe anyone who tries to kid you it was much slower than today, ‘cause it wasn’t. Yes, we have our “high-speed” railways now but the averagely-endowed suburban train doesn’t trundle up into London much faster than it did a century ago. And now, most of us have to go everywhere by car, using up valuable resources and polluting the atmosphere as we go. If someone had strung Dr Bloody Beeching up before he could do any damage, we’d still have a world-class rail network and we wouldn’t have everyone panic-buying petrol, as happened last week.

Ooops, but of course then the oil companies wouldn’t make such enormous profits – sorry, I forgot we have to sacrifice simplicity and economy on the altar of greedy capitalism so a few can make a lot. Silly of me.

Anyhow, Beeching – or another profit-seeking arsehole like him – decided to rip down one of Dulltown’s lines but he left traces of the old embankment over which the line once ran. The embankment is easy to miss unless you are milling about in the municipal car park, as we were the other day, but traces of it are still there, witness to the town’s industrial heritage.

If you’re looking at the pictures accompanying this post, you might be wondering who are the gorgeous birds who came on the heritage trail. Basically, I was reluctant to embark on another blog-foddering tour without having the chance of some stupid photos, and I’d left the Action Men at home. My colleagues, understanding the dilemma, suggested we went round the charity shops first to buy another Action Man, and we ended up going one better and finding two girly dolls. Dulltown’s charity shops are really excelling themselves at the moment and are worthy of another blog post very soon.

Exciting: the beverage recycling bank is apparently one of a few of its kind.

Anyhow, dolls in hand, we visited the embankment and then spotted another tourist attraction that wasn’t in the guide book. I’d have passed it by without a second glance as it looked much like another overflowing, unfragrant recycling bank to my untrained eye, but my colleagues got terribly excited at seeing it, identifying it as one of London’s few Tetrapak recycling banks. Apparently there aren’t many of them around as beverage cartons are hard to recycle and most end up in landfill. From the look of it, the local authorities forgot it was there in about the year 2008, but it was still something to write home about, according to my companions, and we stood around admiring the aroma and taking pictures for a while.

The girls frolicking in the flowers outside the former Methodist Meeting House

Next it was the former Methodist Meeting House (now a motor repair garage) and then onto one of the existing stations. We’ve all been there before to catch trains so we gave it only a brief glance before walking up the public footpath through the fields and over the bypass to the former lunatic asylum.

En route there is some interesting graffiti. On the path someone has chalked: “Where has the hospital gone?”, adding “What is crazy? Might be a crazy man along the way”.The writer must have felt, as we did, that there’s something quite thought-provoking and moving about mental hospitals. This one is doubly so as it’s a derelict wreck that’s in the process of being demolished to make way for 800 new-build homes, out of which a property developer might, just possibly, make a shedload of money.

Graffiti: it’s hard to read but it says “What is crazy? Might be a crazy man along the way”.

The reason the developers think they can shoehorn 800 homes onto the site is because, like so many of its peers, this asylum was built to grand country-house scale and set outside the town, amidst rolling landscaped parkland and its own farm, which the inmates helped to cultivate, making the asylum pretty much self-sufficient. This fact brings home that while the practice of Victorian mental health treatment might not always have been what we’d approve of today (notably the lobotomies, straitjackets, electric shock therapy and much-publicised misdiagnoses of Down’s children, unmarried mothers and the depressed as insane), the intention was benign and enlightened.

So dull even traffic doesn’t want to go there: the Dulltown bypass.

The philosophy behind the Victorian approach to what were variously termed lunatics, cretins and imbeciles, according to their degree of mental affliction, was fundamentally that you gave them shelter, a bed, warmth, onsite medical attention using the latest techniques in treatment, fresh air, rural surroundings, useful and fulfilling occupations like farming and craftwork (for those able and willing to undertake them) – and most importantly the company of their peers. It cost money, but the Victorians reckoned it was worth it to provide state-run care to those who couldn’t afford private asylums and as a more humane alternative to starvation or the workhouse for those whose families wouldn’t or couldn’t look after them.

Meanwhile, the out-of-town locations protected the towns from the lunatics (which of course we think of today as “segregation”) but more importantly it was intended to protect the lunatics from the townsfolk, who, by contemporary accounts were not always tolerant and understanding of the mentally ill.

Pathos: the former lunatic asylum, once the home for the poor and disturbed, now destined as the home for 800 rich people.

Is our modern approach really that much more enlightened? We have taken them from their communal environment (one that we, to salve our cost-saving consciousnesses, choose to call institutionalisation), dosed them up with chemicals to make them placid and left them pretty much to their own devices. The lucky ones were placed in shared houses, where they at least have some semblance of community, but many were left to rot alone in grubby bedsits in even grubbier areas. Those who are not fearful of social interaction often roam around until bedtime, often at great risk to themselves from the less tolerant members of our communities. Those who are scared to mix stay indoors and fester, with no-one to talk to who will understand them, apart from the occasional visit from a social worker.

If this is truly “care in the community”, then the vast profits from the sale of the former asylums to developers and the subsequent vast profits from the sale of expensively desirable apartments in rolling parkland would surely have gone to pay for that care, wouldn’t they?

My views (as is not uncommon) might have been more extreme than the others’, but I think we all felt the pathos of the place, one way or another, and we all want to return another day before it’s completely demolished. The next day, two of my colleagues sent round links to websites about the asylum and a third brought in a book about it. We are starting to take a real interest in Dulltown and as a consequence it’s starting to be far less dull.

25 Things to Do in a Dull Town at Lunchtime #6: go on the “Heritage Trail” (Part Two)

Regular readers may recall that in the last thrilling instalment about lunchtime life in Dulltown, I and my merry band of history junkies went on the town’s Heritage Trail, which culminated at the former lunatic asylum workers’ cottages, having taken in the former cinema, the former railway station and the well-head of the former pumping station, among other attractions.

At the former gap in the former escarpment.

There seem to be a lot of “former” things in Dulltown, which is perhaps not to the taste of those pleasure-seekers who like to see things that are still there, but with a little imagination you can picture how it all once was in Dulltown’s Victorian heyday.

Action Man gets religion at the Catholic Church.

Today we resumed the trail. (Dulltown is not one of those places where, having done the tourist trail, there’s nothing left to see – the town planners made sure there was plenty to occupy those with not much to do at lunchtime.)

The next part of the trail was heavy on religion, taking in the Baptist Church, the Catholic Church and the Synagogue (aka the former scout hut). The Baptist Church’s claim to fame is that it is located on the site of the former gap in the escarpment through which ran a former railway bridge. We stopped to admire the gap for a while then proceeded to the other religious sites before taking in two primary schools. We discussed whether it would be advisable to take a picture of our sixth member, Action Man, outside one of the schools, but I took the advice of a colleague that “you might get arrested for being a paedo” and we pressed on to the former forge (now a car repair workshop) and took Action Man’s picture there instead.

Visiting the site of the former town forge.

Our next port of call was supposed to be the former railway embankment. This proved difficult to locate – though we later found out it was out of sight behind the town centre car park – so we agreed to return another time to seek it out. Instead, we decided to go off-piste and visit the Town Farm. As regular readers will remember, I’d already been there on an earlier visit and had admired the potato collection. Today’s trip also revealed the presence of an impressive wood pile, and we chatted with the farm man for a while before purchasing some potatoes and returning to the office.

Over-excited by the day’s events. Action Man gets wood.

On consulting the guidebook we realised there were some further attractions we hadn’t had time for, so the trail will resume another day, allowing us to visit the railway bridge, the site of the former town centre cross and the site of the former pub (now a car park).

Ever helpful around the kitchen, the boys assist with unloading the day’s haul of potatoes

25 Things to Do in a Dull Town at Lunchtime #5: go on the “Heritage Trail”

At first sight, Dulltown doesn’t appear to be exactly steeped in history. It’s not like Bath or York or Canterbury, or places like that that have heritage oozing out of every pore. You’d have to wait a long time if you stood in Dulltown High Street waiting for the open-topped tourist bus to come along.

Fun in the sun: Action Man enjoying his day out at the well-head of the former pumping station.

So it was news to me, when I happened to stumble across the local guidebook in the library, that there was a Dulltown “Heritage Trail”. I wasn’t alone. When I asked if anyone from the office wanted to join me on the trail, the response was along the lines of “I didn’t know Dulltown had any heritage”. Sceptical and amused in equal measure was their reaction.

Consequently I had two immediate customers signing up for some heritage action, and several others promised to come along another time if it turned out to be a lunchbreak offering more interest than their usual trip to the pub or the charity shops.

Meanwhile, I’d had several requests for more of the childish Action Man photos that appeared in an earlier post (see http://fwords.co.uk/2012/02/29/25-things-to-do-in-a-dull-town-at-lunchtime-1-find-nice-and-useful-things-to-buy-in-charity-shops/), so it seemed a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by taking an Action Man out on the Heritage Trail. So, the four of us set off, complete with cameras and guidebook, to follow the trail and see what we could learn about Dulltown’s hidden history.

The first sight of special interest was the well-head on the site of a former pumping station, built in olden days to control flooding of the town centre by the river. Contemporary opinion is divided as to whether letting it flood might not have been the best thing all round, but there’s no accounting for taste.

“Architectural landmark”: Dulltown’s Post Office. Can you spot Action Man?

Our route took then took us past some Victorian railway workers’ cottages and on to the remains of the former railway station, with its scenic views of the industrial estate and the bypass. Little now remains of the railway station other than some concrete bollards, one bearing the optimistic graffiti “Peace”.

Me getting in some culture at the site of the former cinema.

Next, we were in for a refreshing view of the railway bridge, and then the Methodist Church, with its charming concrete car park. We very much enjoyed seeing the site of the former cinema. It is now a tile shop but with a little imagination one could picture the Edwardian picture-goers lining up to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow and other stars of the silver screen. Nowadays, of course, the punters line up to view instead affordable bathroom tiles (“Huge savings to be made! MUST END SOON!”) and cast strange looks at the small band of heritage-seekers milling about taking photos of the shop front.

Action Man getting in some education at the Centre for Continued Adult Education and Training.

The presence of a Centre for Continued Adult Education and Training, next on the heritage route, put paid to any ideas we might have had that Dulltown is no centre of academia, while the Post Office is billed as one of the town’s “architectural landmarks”. It’s not Ephesus or Rome, or the ancient thermal spa at Bath by any means, but its bleak 1930s brick-built splendour is heritage of a kind, though I did get some funny looks while I was taking its photo.

Heritage: the former railway station.

The last stop on the trail was the workers’ cottages for the former lunatic asylum. After an invigorating gawp at these, it was time to return to the office. Happily, there is a Heritage Trail Part Two (the route planners didn’t want to pack too much excitement into Part One and considerately left some further attractions for us to visit another time). Just as a teaser, to keep readers returning to my blog, I can reveal that next time we will be seeing, among other sights, the Christian Fellowship Church and the car repair workshop that was once the town forge.

25 Things to Do in a Dull Town at Lunchtime #4: visit the Town Farm (and look at the potatoes)

They say that if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth trying to get someone else to do it, and I have been lucky in finding a kindred spirit at work who, before my arrival in Dulltown, had already carried out several of the projects that I was later to put on my to-do list and who was willing to write about her experiences for my blog.

Notably, Lucy had visited the Town Farm, a treat that until the other day I had failed to get round to. In the spirit of investigative journalism and editorial accuracy, I swiftly popped along to the Farm myself, just to check that the account she emailed me was accurate and impartial, and my only criticism of her report is that she makes it sound far more exciting than it really is.

You’ll never go short of starch in Dulltown. Pic credit: stockimages, www.freedigitalphotos.net/ images/view_photog.php?photogid=4096

It was pissing down with rain when I visited, so perhaps that coloured my mood and made me less fascinated by potatoes than I might otherwise have been. I shared Lucy’s disappointment at reaching the end of the potholed track to the top of the hill only to find the ‘farm’ consisted of lots of potatoes, some freerange eggs, some logs – and more potatoes. Potatoes are great, but being an animal lover, I do like a farm to offer some furry friends – sheep, cows, piglets and so on. I did spot a horse having a poo in the distance but the man who presided over the potatoes said it was only renting a stable there and so wasn’t strictly part of the farm’s attractions.

As well as her account of farm life in Dulltown, Lucy also shares her experiences of the charity shops with which Dulltown is so well endowed, and of her visit to the butcher. Both of these topics have been covered by me in earlier posts but Lucy’s narrative adds a new perspective for the benefit of anyone who has yet to sample the joys that Dulltown has to offer.

As Lucy’s guest post, which follows below, shows, despite her lunchtime exertions she has found Dulltown, in accordance with its name, to be unremittingly dull. I hate cynics, don’t you? To me, Dulltown is an underestimated and potentially glamorous little gem, just begging to be explored and savoured. To Lucy, who’s worked here a lot longer than I, it’s a grim old place full of soiled nightwear, potatoes and tired natives for whom ‘dress sense’ is just an unfulfilled dream. Maybe one day, I too will become cynical and jaded about Dulltown – and start taking the piss out of it, like she has. Until then, I’ll let someone else do that dirty work and hand you over to my guest blogger, Lucy.

GUEST BLOG by Lucy, owner of http://bodgingbudgetsandbindweed.blogspot.com

“I always think you can gauge the dullness of a place by the local claim to celebrity. I grew up in a place where JK of Jamiroquai fame was the local celeb brag. He had grown up down the road and apparently got fired from the kebab shop for not washing. I have also lived in a place where people were proud to proclaim that Jordan and Peter Andre lived round the corner and could sometimes be seen driving around in a pink Land Rover or using the local tanning shop. So really, I should have known that this particular town was the dullest yet when someone walked into the office after lunch one afternoon and said: “You’ll never guess who I just saw in Tesco’s? That girl off Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, you know, the really orange one.” Well other than thinking that surely everyone on that programme was the really orange one, I just knew that I had never been anywhere duller than this before.

I have tried to make having to be here every day interesting, but with each foray into (mis)adventure, I become more resigned that maybe I should just eat my cheese sandwich at my desk and catch up on Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, lest I bump into one of its ‘stars’ in the queue in Tesco.

First came my visit to the City Farm. It was a trip that held so much promise. I could see a large flock of chickens and geese from the road and a sign at the bottom of the lane leading up to it had a list of produce including eggs, potatoes and fire wood. So far, so good. The lane leading up to the farm was on quite a steep incline so I was hoping there would be something good at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, the sign at the bottom was not a list of SOME of the produce on offer, it was a list of ALL the produce on offer. There was a man in a barn with a table of eggs, some sacks of potatoes and lots of logs waiting to be chopped. I felt obliged to buy something, so I purchased half a dozen eggs and huffed all the way back down the hill.

Next up on my list of disappointing events in Dulltown, is my trip to the local butcher – one of the only local businesses still open. I was planning on making a Mexican feast for the boyf and the recipe called for skirt of beef. I knew it wouldn’t be a cut I would be able to get in a supermarket and I like to support a local business to I headed to the butchers. Upon explaining to the gruff impatient man behind the counter, what I was making and the kind of cut I was after, he did that thing mechanics and builders do when you know something is going to cost you a lot of money. After sucking a lot of air through his teeth, he explained to me that for a slow cooked beef recipe, I didn’t want to use a cut like skirt (which they didn’t have) and that I should really be using fillet steak. FILLET STEAK? For a slow cooked dish? I may not have sounded too confident in my cut-up bits of cow knowledge but I’m not a moron. I hastily made mumbled excuses about leaving my purse in the office and popped to the supermarket three doors down and bought some stewing steak.

Dulltown’s shops have plenty of attractions for those who like their nether garments pre-loved. Pic credit: www.morguefile.com

My third experience of Dulltown is possibly the least dull but certainly the most questionable. One thing this place has in abundance is charity shops and from time to time I like to have a mooch around to see if I can find any gems. I figure that by the state of what some of the locals are wearing, they must be giving all the good stuff to charity. However, I’ve been past one of the shops several times and had to stop in my tracks at their choice of window dressing. There always seems to be some kind of negligée in the window. I’m not sure what part of this I find most disturbing – the fact that someone would give away something quite that intimate when it has been used, or the fact that the offending garment seems to change on a weekly basis, indicating that someone (or multiple people) has been buying said items. Either way, I now can’t walk past that particular shop without paying attention to the window display. You could say it’s brilliant marketing but I’m not sure Mary Portas would agree.

Despite all the disappointment Dulltown has to offer, I have got to feel a kind of begrudging liking for the place. It might be a dull place but it’s my dull place. I’m just glad I get to leave it at the end of every day.”

That was my guest blogger, Lucy, from http://bodgingbudgetsandbindweed.blogspot.com. Lucy normally blogs on matters to do with gardening and home improvement, and her blog offers interesting anecdotes and insights about doing up her home and garden. Funnily enough, she writes about growing potatoes, among other things. But she just can’t resist the temptation to cast satirical aspersions about Dulltown, given half a chance. I think we must have been separated at birth.

25 Things to Do in a Dull Town at Lunchtime #3: visit the library (and learn something new)

I had great ideas of using my trip to Dultown’s library to learn how to prune a grape vine, or throw a vegan dinner party, or read the tea leaves, or something useful like that, but in the event I had only 30 minutes to devote to number 3 on my list of 25 things to do, due to pressure of work. So I had time to do little more than find some intriguing finger exercises for the guitar. I would have borrowed the book only I realised I needed to become a member of the London library system first and didn’t have any ID on me to do so. In any case, I’ve already got three books at home about how to play the guitar and I’ve not been arsed to read any of those, so I would probably have taken home Finger Aerobics for the Guitar Player or whatever it was called, left it in the growing pile of Useful Paperwork that litters the kitchen, forgotten to take it back and got a whopping fine for late return.

There's plenty of old-fashioned knuckle-dragging still going on in Dulltown. Pic credit: www.morguefile.com

I did glean one interesting fact though. Browsing the Local History section I discovered that Dulltown has been in existence since the Old Stone Age, about 100,000 years ago. I believe it wasn’t called Dulltown back then; If they did have a word for “dull” in those days it probably didn’t have the negative connotations it does today – in fact, dullness was probably a state to be desired, what with the everyday dangers from rampaging mammoths and velociraptors and things.

Apparently there is plenty of evidence in the Dulltown area of Neolithic field boundaries and Stone Age tools – and probably dinosaurs and stuff, for all I know – for those who care to look for it. That might explain why the locals look so old and weary and are so old-fashioned in their dress. I’m half hoping to spot one or two in their loin cloths, grunting “uggg” as they perambulate down the high street in search of elk and woolly mammoth.

A Dulltown resident on his way to get his morning pint of beer. Pic credit: F Words

Come to think of it, a keen observer of the Dulltown social scene can already spot the odd grunting knuckle-dragger making his way into the Wetherspoon’s in search of a £2.30 pint of bitter at 11am or of his female counterpart seeking out a nice piece of pre-loved nightwear in the charity shops.

More on that subject in my next post, from a guest blogger I have lined up; she knows Dulltown rather better than I do and has become quite fascinated by the locals’ liking for second-hand intimate garments as seen in the window displays of the charity shops.

25 Things To Do In A Dull Town at Lunchtime #2: Ask the local butcher for culinary advice

Dulltown’s butcher is one of those proper old-fashioned butchers who stand cheerily behind a counter in a blood-stained apron, waving a cleaver about and dispensing banter and local chit-chat along with the venison and chump chops.

I figured he wouldn’t be short of opinions as to what I should have for my dinner and how I should cook it. In the event, it transpired it was his day off and his understudy, though probably very good at decapitating rabbits and disembowelling cows, didn’t have quite the same degree of imaginativeness as his boss.

“What,” I asked, “would be nice to have for lunch on Sunday?”

He looked at me a bit odd and said most people opted for roast pork, beef or lamb. When pressed as to which of these options would be his particular recommendation, he admitted that a shoulder of lamb would be nice.

And how would I cook it, I pursued?

He obviously thought I was one of those half-wits who don’t know how to boil an egg, but since a queue was starting to form, he felt he ought to come up with something to get rid of me, so he suggested smothering the lamb in rosemary, garlic and rock salt, and roasting it on a very low heat for several hours.

Ooh, I said, that sounds nice – and maybe I could pop the potatoes and other veg underneath the meat, so they’d roast in the slow-seeping juices? Yes, he admitted, I could do that if I wanted to.

What we’d come up with between us wasn’t the most exciting of lamb-based ideas – I mean, you don’t have to be a Michelin-starred chef to throw some herbs on top of a bit of meat – but it would do.

I’d started to wonder if the dullness of living in Dulltown had rubbed off on the butcher and he must have realised he’d failed to excite, as he showed a sudden glimpse of a more exciting personality by adding an afterthought of his own accord. The meal would be even more lovely, he said, if, after I’d bunged it in the oven, I were to slope off to the pub for three hours and have a few beers. That’s what he does, apparently, and it makes for an even more delicious Sunday lunch.

Picture credits

Lamb: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Rosemary: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Garlic: Simon Howden, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404″>

25 Things To Do In A Dull Town at Lunchtime #1: Find nice and useful things to buy in charity shops

I hit pay dirt straight off with this one, acquiring a pair of jeans and three pairs of work trousers – £4 a pair – all in very good condition and all in the right size and even in the ‘short’ length I need to avoid having to fool around with needles, turning hems up. I also spotted a barely-worn chocolate-brown M&S leather jacket for £10 and added that to the stash.

Things got even better when I spied a box of Action Men in another charity shop. I was seized by the thought that here was the opportunity for hours of fun, so I purchased the handsomest one and a bag of Action Man clothes, for £6. I spent a happy hour that evening putting him into ridiculous poses and taking his photo helping with the cooking, savouring a glass of wine and relaxing naked on the stairs while having his crotch sniffed by the cat.

One of my regular blog visitors, Kate, to whom I emailed the pictures as I knew she’d appreciate them, thought I ought to go back and buy another of the Action Men so he’d have a friend. I did so the next day and took some more childish pictures in the evening, but none of them are really suitable to show in public. I wonder if one ever gets to the age where putting dolls into ludicrous faux-erotic poses stops being amusing.

25 Things To Do In A Dull Town: the start of a mission to create some lunchtime entertainment

This isn't Dulltown: Dulltown is even duller than this. Pic: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The company where I’ll be working for eight weeks is located in one of those places that was once a pleasant little Victorian town but that has since been subsumed into the dull urban sprawl that is Greater London.

Part of this process has seen the high street stripped of its character and sense of community by the reinvention of many independent traders that once served the community, as bland betting shops, smelly kebab bars, dull financial advisers and soul-destroyingly uninteresting electrical discount stores.

All the locals look rather weary, as though they’ve given up on their aspirations of moving either closer into central London, with its vibrancy and history and busy-ness; or out into the countryside just a few miles away. Instead, they’re stuck in the middle, with nothing to do, in a stream of commuter traffic, amid the unfragrant charity shops, characterless chain pubs and pound stores.

I realised early on that there would be little to do during my lunchbreaks – this Dull Town doesn’t set out to offer excitement and doesn’t really want the visitor to enjoy herself there. I decided I would have to go out there and create my own leisure opportunities.

So, I decided to make a list of Things to Do in a Dull Town at Lunchtime.

I thought 25 would be a nice round number. I’ll be there for about 40 days in total, unless they extend my contract – or get the hump and cut it short if they find out I’ve been disrespectful of their chosen location – so allowing for rainy days spent brooding over a baked potato at my desk, that would still leave me lots of interesting lunchtimes out.

As things stand, I’ve got rather stuck before I’ve even reached the 20 mark, and that’s including a friend’s facetious suggestion “get your tyre pressures checked” and my own – rather desperate – “go and look at the bypass”. I did consider stopping there and starting again at number 1, which would eventually generate more than a month of lunchtime excitement, but then I decided this would be cheating. Somehow, I have to come up with more ideas.

It’s my policy to exclude most shopping, eating and drinking activities, since that would involve spending money. There will be certain exceptions, such as those necessary to carry out Number 8 on my list: “beverage-criticising” (the art of sitting in a café and muttering, in middle-aged fashion, “doesn’t anyone know how to make a proper cappuccino/decent pot of tea?”)

So, here’s the list, in no particular order, each to feature in future blog posts.

1. Have my legs waxed.
2. Purchase three nice things from charity shops.
3. Walk as far as I can northbound in half an hour, and back again.
4. Ditto, but southbound.
5. Visit the church.
6. Walk in the park.
7. Visit the “town farm” – to include finding out what a “town farm” actually is.
8. Sit in cafés, muttering to self about the inadequate beverages.
9. Walk up and down the high street, listing the shops and deciding which I would allow to continue to exist in my capacity as self-appointed Town Planner – and which I would consign to oblivion.
10. Have a manicure.
11. Go to the library and read something educational.
12. See how many dogs I can count in an hour. Breed to be identified where possible.
13. See how many ugly people I can count in an hour.
14. Talk to strangers. On any subject.
15. Ask the chatty butcher (one of the independents the town does boast) for advice on what to have for my tea – and proceed to follow his advice.
16. Ditto the bloke who runs the fruit and veg stall on a Friday. This could turn into a cookery blog before I know it!
17. Walk to the bypass and admire its talent at diverting much of the traffic, making Dulltown’s high street quieter (albeit even duller), so I can stroll around taking the piss in relative peace.
18. Have my tyre pressure checked.

I am grateful for a suggestion for 19 (go and look at the strange outdoor exercise machines in the park) to a new colleague. Our meeting was somewhat of an accident, since we don’t work directly together, but it transpires we share a mutual distaste for Dull Towns with a propensity to publish our opinions on the internet. My fellow blogger showed a great interest in my List of Things to Do at Lunchtime but rather gloomily opined that only disappointment could result – she has tried most of them out during her time working in Dulltown, and said she ended up more disillusioned than ever with “this nothing place”.

My new chum has promised to write me a guest blog about her own experiences futilely attempting to have fun at lunchtimes in Dulltown, so watch this space.

Pic credit: Tom Curtis, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=178

I get a job, become inexplicably popular and start a fire in the pub – a week of strange variety

I'm exaggerating - it wasn't quite this bad. Pic: www.freedigitalphotos.net

Imagine eight acoustic guitarists, a bazouki player and a girl on a glockenspiel, all simultaneously doing their thing in the corner of a small-town pub, doing a cover of a Turin Brakes song, when a fire breaks out on the table.

Imagine you weren’t even there at the time – you’d wandered back in from having been for a pee and found the smoke alarm going off and a right to-do going on, with the nasty acrid smell of burning plastic, and bewildered musicians beating out a burning table with their bare hands.

Then imagine it becomes evident that it was you that started the conflagration, by leaving a pile of papers and folders far too close to a lighted candle.

And an expensive violin, which had been lying on the table minding its own business, has been scorched in the flames.

Embarrassing. Very embarrassing. The only consolation was that the landlord didn’t seem to mind – he seemed kind of tired and beaten, more than angry, almost as though this was just another of the tribulations of running a British pub. And, as luck should have it, the owner of the violin just happened to be… guess what… a professional violin repairer and restorer. What are the chances of that happening? She was very nice about it and said she could sort out her charred instrument in the workshop. So things could have been a lot worse, though I did feel a bit of a berk, what with this having been my first visit to this particular music night.

Anyhow, the next day was Wednesday and I got a call from a recruitment agent about a temporary editing position I applied for a while back. “It’s for two months and they want someone to start straight away,” he cautioned. “Yeah, yeah,” I thought, having heard that particular phrase before from recruitment types. It usually means “in about six weeks, when we’ve sorted the paperwork out”. But no, he meant “straight away”. “Will tomorrow be OK?” he asked.

WTF???!!! I played for time. “How about Monday?” I suggested, wondering how the hell I was going to get the stuff done I’d been lingering over. Monday, it seemed, was far too late, and we split the difference and settled for Friday.

You can imagine the scene as I rushed to get work clothes washed and ironed, my usual uniform being leggings, a lunch-stained T shirt and slippers.

More on the new job another time. It was better than I expected: the people were nice, the bus stops outside, and there were three types of teabag, free milk and a massive fridge in the kitchen. Any employer who thinks of their workers’ beverage needs in this way can’t be bad.

Anyhow, I got home after my first day and checked my emails to find that TWO people wanted to talk to me about proofreading and copywriting work. Two! In one day! Talk about buses all coming at once. One had been recommended by a website developer I did some work for recently and I ended up speaking to him on the phone till 10.30pm about his project. The other, the owner of a marketing agency, had, believe it or not, got my details from a guitarist I met while I was setting fire to the pub. I’d been so busy apologising to everyone over the violin catastrophe that I didn’t even realise this chap was vaguely in my line of work in his day-job.

It doesn’t stop there. Had another email yesterday from an old colleague and drinking buddy, who wants to meet up to discuss some writing work he might be able to put my way.

Quite why I’m so popular all of a sudden, after a fairly quiet spell, is thoroughly inexplicable. Maybe it’s my new perfume.

Pic credit: think4photop, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2294

Technophobe male fails in bid to post a comment about my anti-men songs; I have to post it for him

One of my male acquaintances was keen to comment on my recent blog about the sexist songs I’d been writing http://fwords.co.uk/2012/01/25/my-unfortunate-reputation-for-writing-sexist-songs-leads-to-a-commission-from-a-disgruntled-friend/

Tony the Modern Folk Poet (aka Joseph Kilhane) has heard my little ditties at the pub music night so he has an interest anyway, and he seemed particularly to have taken exception to the conversation that followed my blog post in the form of comments. Kitchen Slattern http://kitchenslattern.com/ commented that women were often “driven to the knife edge of sanity by every little thing they [men] do, or don’t do as the case may be”. She told the tale of a friend who’d backed her car down the driveway and repeatedly run over a pile of gifts her soon-to-be ex-husband had given her.

I replied with another anecdote, that of a friend of mine who’d loosened the stitches in the seat of her soon-to-be ex-bloke’s work trousers, so that the next time he sat down at work his trousers split, making him unable to stand up again for the duration of the meeting.

Someone called Learning Curve (who didn’t leave a link) told how her man had complained his “balls were shrivelling” as he reluctantly did the vacuuming.

And Diane Henders http://blog.dianehenders.com/ said my song lyric  “Men, men, why is it never easy, I start off feeling horny and end up feeling queasy” – had made her “bellow with laughter”.

The Modern Folk Poet felt compelled to respond, but the poor lamb couldn’t work out how to do it. Clearly, the instructions that WordPress kindly provides, namely “Leave a reply..post your comment here… post comment” were not specific enough for him.

I’m not suggesting that he can’t follow simple instructions because he’s a man, by the way – there are plenty of men who know how to do things. If I say he’s a techno-idiot, that’s not sexist – the fact that he’s a man has nothing to do with it.

He did manage to email me his reply, though, so I’ll assist by posting it below. It’s well worth a read, as it shows how the Poet can produce a clever ditty on virtually any subject. And he can set most of them to music and perform them as comical songs on the guitar or mandolin.

“Having read this blog, I struggle
To understand its message
It must all be a joke? So?
Right! I laughed.
A woman living with a man?
Hates his guts? (but hasn’t gone)
Long-suffering? Self-sacrificing? Martyr? – or plain daft

And can somebody say from when
Women sharing homes with men
Today are still expecting
To become their slaves
I suggest it’s not the gender
That is likely to offend ‘er
But the way that said cohabitee behaves
And therefore, bad cohabitees – Are they always blokes?
Or could they be a her and not a him?!
It isn’t being male
That makes the idyll fail
It’s being inconsiderate and dim

There are males who do the cooking
(Not all of them bad-looking),
There are blokes who’ll clean throughout the house or flat
Admitted, there are others, should have stayed home with their mothers
But there’s women too, who should be doing that

The answer seems to me to be
A pre-cohabitation clause
Inserted in a document
That you both sign in blood
Is he into cooking?
Is he into cleaning?
Instead then, do you settle for a stud?

For still you stand upon the brink
With some gormless shiftless gink
Not thinking just how low you’ll sink
Or what he may become
You like ‘em muscular and tough?
Or maybe just a little rough?
I know, I know, it has to be
The contours of his bum

Some women too are dim and careless,
heartless, callous, inconsiderate ,
slovenly, preoccupied, untidy round the place
Do I sound misogynistic ?
No more than you sound misanthropic !
We’re all in this together – part of
The selfish human race”

Good, innit?

The Modern Folk Poet is available for poetry-writing commissions and live gigs. Here’s a link to his website http://www.modernfolkpoet.co.uk/ but it won’t do you much good going there, since someone else set it up for him and he doesn’t know how to update it and consequently never visits it. I’ll act as his manager and claim a commission on any bookings.

Pic credit: graur razvan ionut, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=987

My unfortunate reputation for writing sexist songs leads to a commission from a disgruntled friend

This isn’t me. I can’t play standing up yet. Pic credit: photostock, http://www. freedigitalphotos.net/images/ view_photog.php?photogid=2125

My little group of chums at the local pub music night have the idea firmly fixed in their heads that I’m a writer of sexist songs. When a bunch of musical types get together, they often ask each other “what’s your genre?” and the answer might be Folk, R&B or Skiffle – or in extreme cases Delta Blues, Ethereal Pop or Thrashcore. No-one bothers asking me, because it’s generally accepted that my particular genre is UK Pub Rock Urban Folk Comic Misandry.

This reputation stems from an early piece that had the lines “Having seen you eat asparagus, I’d rather take a monkey home instead” and “your clothes, your hair, the way you breathe, the way you drink your tea – everything you do and say annoys and antagonises me”.

A later song produced the lines “It’s a mystery that I can’t explain – he’s like a retarded slug with water on the brain” and “what can you do when a man won’t listen… I think I’ll have to buy that man a hearing aid”.

I seem to be constitutionally unable of treating songwriting as anything other than a comedy vehicle, so I’m unlikely to ever be Diane Warren or Guy Chambers or that bloke whose name escapes me who writes all the Meat Loaf songs.

Anyhow, the upshot of the retarded slug song was a challenge from one of the blokes at the pub – couldn’t I write a song that wasn’t anti-man? I tried to oblige by devising something loosely based on that nice romantic tune of Dolly Parton’s, I Will Always Love You. Somehow, though, I couldn’t find the words to match the pathos of that song. It started off well: “I said I’d write a love song, just to prove I can…” but my subsequent difficulty matching content to melody is illustrated by this later excerpt: “Oh men, oh men, why is it never easy? I start off feeling horny and end up feeling queasy”.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised then, to receive an email at the weekend from a friend who appeared to be experiencing a certain amount of irritation with her resident male. “I’ve started writing a song,” she wrote, “can you do anything with this?”

She attached a poem that told a tale of a woman driven to distraction by close proximity to her husband. It was the old, old story of cupboard doors left open, washing up left undone, dirty clothes left strewn about, the kitchen left in chaos after a “cooking” episode for which he expected to be praised.

I was messing about at the time trying to master a new chord progression on the guitar – G, Gmaj7, G7, C, G, Gmaj7, A7, D7, G – and this worked well with a line from my friend’s poem that seemed to present itself as the chorus – “Men, you make us so perplexed. We always must remember that, you are the weaker sex”. After some tweaking and pruning to get it to scan with my melody, The Weaker Sex was born. I felt the chances were slim of my being believed at the pub when I truthfully insisted that these lyrics had not come from the pen of Yours Truly, and of course performing it would typecast me even more as She Who Writes Those Anti-Man Songs.

Still, I gave it a go. It was deeply rewarding, when I got behind the mic and asked “would anyone like to hear an anti-man song?” to hear the encouraging sounds of assent from the females in the pub. The men were less vocal, for some reason. They’d seen me approach the mic with only a single sheet of music, so they knew darn well they were getting whatever was on that piece of paper, so it wasn’t so much “would you like to hear?” as “you’re going to hear”.

Still, the song got a bit of a laugh, though when one of the women approached me on her way home and asked curiously “do you really hate men?” I realised my reputation as a sexist had been well and truly established. I quite like men really – well most of them, anyway. I’m going to try and change genres to something less controversial, like Vietnamese Trance or Salsa Erotica.

Boozy housewife, boar masturbator and feisty feminist – not me, but more of my favourite bloggers

Don't fancy yours much. Pic credit: http://www. freedigitalphotos.net

After nominating 12 other bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Awards yesterday, I ran out of steam and had to go and make my dinner, so I deferred the remaining three of the 15 I was supposed to nominate. Here they are now.

http://kitchenslattern.com Kitchen Slattern writes about cookery and domesticity, and believes that doing the housework “well enough” is far preferable to doing it well. She claims to have found “the easy way to do anything that needs doing around the house”, and as part of her researches has perfected the art of drunken vacuum-cleaning.

This “boozy floozy with a bad attitude” towards her domestic chores lives in New York and says Martha Stewart’s perfectionism makes her ass ache.

http://fortyshadesofgrey.blogspot.com/ Nat is a feisty, forthright, fearless and hugely articulate feminist from the UK, who blogs about sex, politics and feminism. I’d hazard a guess that she’s never been beaten in an argument. She also has a lovely turn of phrase when it comes to describing her adversaries – “spunkwaffling dickwits” and “piece of rotting crotchfilth” are among the gems.

Once gave me invaluable back-up when I was embroiled in an online discussion with a piece of rotting crotchfilth who’d taken exception to a mention I’d made of his dickwittish sexist attitudes.

http://occupylsx.org/ The blog of the Occupy London movement, this contains lots of info including details of this week’s High Court ruling that the camp should be evicted. The protesters will be appealing. Also current are posts about this week’s “trials” being organised by Occupy, to examine allegations against Tony Blair for war crimes and against RBS concerning the rights of its major shareholders – the general public.

Oh sod it, here’s some more. I’m on a roll.

http://www.editormichael.com/ Michael LaRocca is an American whose jobs have included teaching English in China, writing novels and masturbating boars. His blog gives tips on writing, information about English language and literature, and humorous “random ranting and raving”.

http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/ Hart Williams is another American writer – a novelist, illustrator and screenwriter. He has made me laugh with his acerbic comments on LinkedIn writing groups and he stands alone as the only person with whom I have ever got involved in an email discussion about panty pads. Blogs about writing and politics. Very highbrow and, politically, a progressive Democrat (hope I’ve got that right, I was going to say “bit of a lefty” but that might not be a compliment over there). His claims to fame include being accused in American media of wanting to shoot conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

http://vanbrown.wordpress.com/ Yet another American blogger. What is it with me and American male wordsmiths? I don’t even know many Americans in real life; they scare me a bit – if I went for a pint with one I’d be worried they’d invade the pub and appropriate all the beer so there’d be none left for me. The internet’s great for discovering ones that probably wouldn’t.

Anyhow, Van’s forte is amusing stuff about “dawgs” – he’s a great fan of the canine species – but he also does general humour and political stuff. Not sure if he’s another lefty or not – appears to be disdainful of both Republicans and Democrats.

That’s the lot for now. I’ll do some more another time, as it’s been fun.

Award details: http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com/vba-rules/

Hoorah, I’ve been nominated for a Versatile Blogger Award, and in turn I name my own favourite bloggers – it’s a blogging love-fest!

Crikey, I’ve been nominated for a Versatile Blogger Award. I can’t remember the last time I was nominated for anything, other than to go to the bar ‘cause it was my round.

The awards seem to be fairly informal – it’s not like the Oscars or the X Factor or anything. There is no official judging process and no prize, other than recognition from one’s peers. In fact, cynics have described the whole scheme as being a giant internet chain letter – sooner or later, every blogger will have one. But it’s a bit of fun, and a chance to give a bit of a slap on the back to other bloggers who have amused, educated, entertained or informed you.

There are rules http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com/vba-rules/, first of which is to thank the person who nominated you.

So herewith, thanks to Susan at http://lostnchina.wordpress.com. Susan is a Chinese-Canadian whose very amusing posts include the one that first attracted me to her blog, namely the one about her Chinese relations insisting on her wearing special lucky pants. Thanks, Susan, back atcha, as you say over your side of the pond, I believe.

The next rule is to select 15 other blogs/bloggers whose output you like, and to nominate them for the Versatile Blogger Award.

I don’t have time to do all 15 right now, so I’m going to go with the 12 I’ve done so far and come back another time to nominate some more. For now, my nominations are as follows (drum roll……):

http://chroniclesofeldon.wordpress.com Amusing chatter about life, parties, friends etc from a young American chap who goes by the name of Awkward Eldon. He sets the scene with a sit-com-friendly cast of odd friends and a dog who is described as looking like the Anti-Christ.

http://roboticrhetoric.wordpress.com Fluent and amusing chatter from “an inexperienced and impressionable youth of 18”, British this time. What is it with me and young men?

http://sw9red.wordpress.com/ Ooh, another young man – at least, I’m assuming he’s young and a man. Red runs what he calls “Brixton’s best-read political blog”. One of several blogs I like for imparting to current events a left-wing perspective that we never see in the mainstream, corporate-owned media. Appears to have been learning the guitar recently, so his politics is now mixed with stuff about music.

http://laughingnoam.blogspot.com/ A strange but interesting and prolific mixture of intelligent comment and humorous chatter about politics and society, with a left-wing slant. For some reason I thought Noam was another young man, possibly because of a recent adolescently-comical Twitter exchange about “bum fudge”, but a recent post says he’s been a fan of David Bowie for 30 years, so he (or possibly she) can’t actually be a teenage boy. In light of this, I’m not sure he’s strictly eligible for my nomination, but I’ll let it go this time.

http://wrapcloth.wordpress.com/ Nigel isn’t a teenage boy either. I know this cos he has referred to his grandchildren. He and I are both in writing forums on LinkedIn and keep ending up in the same discussions with scammers, loonies and argumentative forum members. In a small-world coincidence, he lives in the same Welsh town, hundreds of miles away, where my grandmother lived briefly in 1911, and knows the owner of the hotel she worked in.

http://unemployedhack.wordpress.com/ Hack isn’t a teenage boy either. He or she (I know which, actually, but I won’t tell) is probably in his/her 30s and writes about his/her experiences of being an out-of-work journalist, offering commentary on the difficulties of finding work, the benefits system, the greedy utility companies and the British media and political system. His/her cat is a major character in the blog and anything to do with cats is fine by me.

http://pigsinwales.blogspot.com/ Right – this one’s definitely a girl. I know this because I’ve met her. Liz Shankland was on my journalism course many years ago and has since gone on to become an expert in pig-breeding, smallholdings and similar rural pursuits. Anything you want to know about piggies or farming, she’s your woman.

http://malvikajaswal.wordpress.com Another girl! Malvika lives in India and writes about an eclectic variety of topics, including Indian culture, art and cooking. She gave me a nice recipe for dall which I keep meaning to try.

http://prettyfeetpoptoe.wordpress.com/ And another girl. Pretty Feet’s writing style is perhaps more closely aligned to my own than any of the other bloggers I’ve named, though she’s got shitloads more followers. Bah – who needs followers anyway, bloody nuisance, the lot of them. Pretty writes fluently and humorously about shoes, the Underground and living in London and stuff.

http://www.thewritersremedy.com Shelley is an American who blogs about her experiences of trying to develop a freelance writing career. Her blog includes handy hints and tips, commentary on scam sites and the like.

http://talkingquestions.wordpress.com Back to blokes. These are two Americans called Lee and Gage, who do a weekly podcast of themselves chattering on humorously about all manner of things. It’s a bit like listening to a pair of harmless drunks in a pub.

http://theactivists.wordpress.com/ Socialist artists, writers, photographers, bloggers, poets, illustrators, all dedicated to creating “a revolutionary information flow”. This blogs offers an alternative perspective on current affairs and challenges readers to think more deeply about their dependence on capitalism and traditional attitudes.

That’s the end of the nominations. I hope they all realise they owe me a pint.

As the final rule in the awards scheme, nominees have to reveal seven facts about themselves. Here goes.

Seven pieces of useless information about me

1)    I know how to train cats to use a cat flap. All you need is two clothes pegs and some tuna. And some cats. And a cat flap, obviously.

2)    The most expensive item in my home is a set of saucepans. I found out only after I’d scrimped and saved to buy a really decent set that the Beckhams have the same brand in their kitchen. I tried to take the pans back when I realised this, but the shop said that sharing a liking for high-end cookware with a not-too-bright footballer was not grounds for a refund.

3)    I get really annoyed when people walk slowly. They dawdle and idle along, blocking the pavement and walking three abreast and getting in my way when I’m trying to get somewhere. Or they trail behind me, puffing like wart-hogs, when we’re out on country walks. Pick your feet up and MOVE, for goodness’ sake.

4)    I picked up a recorder recently for the first time since I was a child, and found I could remember most of the notes. It was very exciting. For me, at least. Not sure the neighbours had such a good time.

5)    I have a qualification in map-reading and navigation and have co-navigated a two-day trek on Dartmoor (one of the UK’s remaining “wild” areas, for those outside the UK). Yet I still manage to get lost with annoying regularity when taking out friends who were temporarily impressed by me boasting about my navigation skills. Now, I mostly go on my own. Most of my friends are doing doggy paddle in the Grimpen Mire, so they can’t come with me.

6)    Inspired by a friend of a friend who wrote a comic song about lady gardens, to the tune of Sonny & Cher’s I Got You, Babe (it was called I Won’t Shave, Babe), I wrote a song about breasts, to the tune of Mary Hopkin’s Those Were the Days. It’s called Your Chest is Best, and includes the line “Oh my friend, we’re older and we’re wiser, but down our tops the bazoomas are the same”. I hope to record a video of this at some stage so you’ll be able to listen to it.

7)    I get unreasonably annoyed by catering establishments that don’t understand the definition of cappuccino. It’s one third espresso, one third steamed milk, one third froth, you arses, not a cup of milky mud with some scum on the top.

Castration, tax dodgers, flowers & Assange – strange search terms that have brought people to my website

If they're looking for info on these, they've come to the wrong website! Pic by me.

It’s fascinating to look behind the scenes at a website to view the search terms that have brought people to visit.

Of those visitors to my site that were the result of a search engine search, the single biggest number came via searches for the name of the person who produced the vulgar T shirts I blogged about on a couple of occasions. That topic also provoked the largest single number of comments on any blog posts I’ve done, not all of them pleasant.

The second single biggest number of hits has come, not surprisingly, from searches for F Words – though I suspect some of these visitors may have been looking for something rather different!

The third biggest number of visits resulted from searches on my name. Again, some may have been hoping for something else – other Sue Fentons are available, so many, in fact, that I did a blog on the subject. http://fwords.co.uk/2011/06/23/me-myself-and-i-%E2%80%93-and-the-other-ones-%E2%80%93-how-i-found-i-wasn%E2%80%99t-unique/

A huge variety of search terms have brought other visitors. Some of the terms are really rather bizarre. I blame myself for this – it’s all because of my tendency to chunter on about random topics instead of sticking to the initial purpose of my blog, which was to promote my skills and knowledge as a freelance journalist. It’s funny – you start off with a policy of earnestly discussing missing apostrophes and bad spelling and before you know it, you’re rambling on with tongue in cheek about bacon sandwiches, corporate tax dodging and fantasy dog breeding. That’s the beauty of blogging, I suppose – it brings out the true inner writer – but of course Google and the other search engines are always lurking about taking notes and suggesting you as a source of fascinating information on subjects that (in my case) include: 

Bagology

American death penalty

Greek flowers

Assange

Coastal pathway

Ode to a Nightingale translated into Arabic

Some are really rather bizarre, since I don’t remember having actually written anything on these specific topics – still, Google appears to think I’m an authority:

Lapland immigration strategy

Hairy arms

William Hague fascist

Chihuahua fights

Indecent behaviour within the British Army

Naked lady jumping into water

Ugly gorillas

Topman tax dodge is quite a favourite term – I show up well on this one due to a couple of posts I did on the subject a while back.

Another favourite one is piglet castration and I wasn’t even responsible for this one – it was a guest blog written by a college friend who breeds pigs. Another guest blog, by an journalists’ union official, got me hits from people searching on sacked for Twitter comments and similar phrases.

Other phrases that have brought visitors here include:

Crap press releases

Dogging

Obnoxious responses to Facebook misspellings

Larry the prime minister’s cat

Jane Asher

Commas

Daddy long legs porn

Space Hijackers

Italian tableware

Swearing

Arms trade hoax

Circumcision

Troy David

London protest

Bad English.

Of course, it’s even nicer to be found through searches that are actually relevant to my work as a journalist. One visitor today found me after searching “I want to find a freelance journalist in Surrey”. They (or someone) even looked at my online CV, details of qualifications and clients and fees. My curiosity is now piqued – who are they, and did they find what they were looking for, or did my chunterings on about bacon and Lapland send them scurrying off to get the Yellow Pages?

“Bagology” – the career I’d have chosen over journalism had I known it existed

Pic credit: duron123, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ images/view_photog.php?photogid=3506

I’ve been in some kind of journalism ever since I sat at a manual typewriter in a college classroom in Cardiff reading about libel law, learning shorthand and writing news stories about made-up events in a made-up place called Newtown that suffered from far more of its fair share of fires, murders and motorway pile-ups.

Doing anything else was never really an option although I had previously considered other ideas – then written them off as I wasn’t qualified and wasn’t likely to become so.

Working with animals – no, not clever enough to be a vet, not tough enough to deal with ill-treated animals.

Advertising – no, didn’t want to encourage consumerism and corporate greed.

Being a film director – no, cos I don’t know how to use a video camera.

Law – no, cos I can’t retain facts for more than five minutes.

A while back I did discover a bit of a knack for analysing people’s personalities and lifestyles from the contents of their wallets or handbags. It’s great fun in pubs and an ice-breaker at parties – get someone to empty their handbag on the table and tell them all about themselves. It’s a skill akin in some ways to palm-reading or phrenology except that you don’t need any esoteric knowledge. It’s interesting to see how comprehensive a knowledge of someone you can gain from analyzing their bags – for women especially, the bag is an extension of their personality.

As I say, it was a bit of a laugh for an idle hour in the pub – no-one told me the art of handbag-gazing had a name, or that you could make a career out of it!

So I was captivated by a press release issued today about a life coach called Debbie Percy, who is billed as “the UK’s leading Bagologist”. Leading? So there’s more than one? No-one told me it was possible to make a living out of three-pint party tricks – I’d have thought twice about journalism had I known!

Debbie has apparently “developed an extremely accurate means of understanding someone’s personality and lifestyle just by analysing the contents of their bag. This then enables Debbie to identify and address particular issues in someone’s lifestyle.”

The Bentall shopping centre in London is offering free “bagology” readings from Debbie to winners of a draw being run on Facebook. www.facebook.com/TheBentallCentre.

It got me wondering how I’d fare in such a reading, so for a laugh, I thought I’d analyse myself from the current contents of my bag and purse.

Notebook Forgetful, needs to write everything down.

Five pens Obsessive, hoarder.

Camera Anti-social – always taking pictures instead of talking to whoever she’s with.

Calculator Can’t add up.

£5 off book voucher Thinks she’s intellectual.

0.02p off Sainsbury’s voucher Obsessed with saving money, however minuscule the amount – can’t see the bigger picture.

Instructions for colleague in an local group I belong to, explaining how to update the website Lazy, tries to palm work off on others.

Handwritten list of long words uttered by friend who’s gone to uni, collated for amusement of mutual friends Bully, intellectually inadequate.

Hand mirror Vain.

Tweezers Has a mono-brow.

Comb (broken) Unkempt.

Two lipsticks – one red, one brown Split personality – slut and frump.

Emery board (worn out) Needs a manicure.

Two eyeshadow brushes, no eyeshadow Disorganised.

Press card Perpetually hoping to blag her way into something exciting.

WeightWatchers membership card Eats too much.

Collection of coupons to get 70% off wine glasses at Tesco Cheapskate. Drinks like a fish.

Collection of own business cards Egotistical.

Collection of other people’s business cards Aspires to popularity.

National Trust membership card Aspires to be middle class. Likes drinking tea.

Filofax Out of touch. Probably wears shoulder pads.

Mobile phone (bottom of the range) Technophobe. Cheapskate.

London tube map and street map No sense of direction.

Southern Railway penalty charge notice Fare dodger.

Leaflet about Shut Guantanamo protest Trouble-maker.

Appointment card for blood donation session Do-gooder. Probably hasn’t got HIV or syphilis.

Well, that was fun. If anyone enters the Bentalls competition and doesn’t win a handbag analysis from a proper bagologist, send me a list of your handbag contents and I’ll see what I can do!