Interlude - Rudolpho

Rudolpho swung his cape around his shoulders and cackled insanely for a bit. He regarded himself in the mirror, and smirked so hard that his hat fell off.

The flintlock pistol jutted proudly from his waistband. The stilettos strapped to his thigh glinted in the candlelight. The vials of acid glowed in his velvet bandolier like grim emeralds. His expression promised unmentionable pain and misery to those who dared near him.

There was one final accoutrement to add to the ensemble, the last and most important weapon in his arsenal, the one item that would command everyone in his path. With a smug smile, Rudolpho clipped a big bunch of keys to his belt.

“Let’s see accounts try to stop me using their photocopier now.”

Originally penned in 2008

Places To Quaff and Quarrel - The Black Dog, Whitstable

Something wicked has come to Whitstable.

You may not know it, you cannot hear it, but walk down the high street of this quaint seaside town and it’s there, in the corner of your eye, watching you. The Black Dog…A micropub…There is no way to continue to make something sounds brooding when using the word micro...

Now that I have set the scene, and appropriately ruined it, let’s take a short interlude to explain what a micropub is, for those who don’t now or who can’t work it out from the actual name. (Yes I know we’ve only just started but I feel like an interlude!....no, YOU shut up!).

Of Doomed Beauticians and bareMinerals - Obvious Beauty Tales

In an effort to distract myself from the crippling agony that is living without the internet, I decided to venture out in to Canterbury at the weekend to purchase things for my face.

After my usual breakfast wines, I packed my finest shopping rifle and left the house. It was only when I was half way to town that I realised I’d forgotten my purchasing salts and my browsing spear. But I could not be bothered to return for them.

New to Obvious Beauty? Try the beginners' guide
 
First port of call was lunch with fellow Canterbury blogger Miscriant, at which we laughed over tea and she pointedly failed to consume the cyanide I'd slipped into the remains of her courgette cake. It was a nice lunch. Then it was on to the mecca that is Canterbury’s own Fenwicks.

Look at Clarins over there, trying to hurt us all.

Ahhhhhhhh Fenwicks. A leap up from Debenhams, on shaky ground with House of Fraser, and staring mournfully through the frosted window at Selfridges. You can buy a designer coat, or scrabble shamefully for a bargain in Oasis. I like to wander the fragrant paths of the beauty 'hall' and gaze upon the faces of each hapless beauty consultant.

Obvious Beauty - The Basics

Over the years, I have bought and used a lot of beauty products. And over the years, I have managed to still have a face. This seems like as good a reason as any to inflict my trumped up views on beauty on the lot of you.

Therefore, I will occasionally write up reviews and ramblings on the tools of the beauty trade to share with you. Plus it's an excellent way to fill those periods of time when I have literally nothing else to write about. It's just the sort of nice chap I am.

My remit is obvious beauty - the things I think you need to know and the things you shouldn't ever speak of.

But every good series needs an intro! The standard pilot show, the gallop through the basic plot, background, characters and tone, so we all know what we're letting ourselves in for and can confidently drift along with the episodes to come.

So here is my basic started guide of tried and tested beauty tips, suitable for boys and girls.

Interlude - En Route to A Router

I went shopping on Saturday, but stop asking me about that now, I'll tell you later. There was something I needed. Something for the internet.

On my way home, laden with girlish goods and a mop...for some reason, I decided to call into an electrical retailers in search of a new wireless router. Plusnet said that's what I needed. They said my phone line was still showing a fault, even though an engineer had been, but it really probably WAS the router's fault. They were sending one out but it could take a few days and...well it couldn't hurt if I bought one in the meantime? If it was the router's fault, I thought, then by plugging in a new one, I'd have internet access that very evening. And if it didn't work, I could always return it!

"Once you've opened the box, you're doomed."

I gripped the Curry's budget brand of router tightly, and stared at the tall foppish tech boy looming over me. "Oh? Really?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Ne returns unless it's faulty."

I looked at the box. £30, the cheapest model. The box said router on it, and other words like wifi, USB and speed. "But this one is okay, right? What's the difference between this model and all the other ones?"

"Oh nothing!" Foppish tech boy exclaimed, even going so far as to gesture nonchalantly. "They're all the same, some are just more expensive and bit stronger but really no difference at all."

"Oh, okay." I took it to the till, and waited for the trio of children that worked there to stop talking and to take my hard earned precious £30 (they did NOT see all the shopping bags, it doesn't count).

I got home and opened the box.

The router did not have a modem. It had. No modem.

Details of its lack of modem were only apparent once I'd opened the box. It cost £30.

......................................Damn you, Plusnet.

So which one of you lot would like to buy a new router?

DAMN YOU, YOU MODEM-LESS FREAK!!!!

A Life Without Internet

I'm living almost entirely without internet and I don't much care for it. And when I say 'I don't much care for it', what I really mean is I have a twitch now. A full on twitch. One that punches people.

I wasn't planning to write about this, as it's soooooooo boring to everyone else, but screw you, it's my blog and you will ruddy well have to sit there and like it.

My broadband, my sweet precious broadband up and died ten days ago. It was being a bit temperamental (bitchy, as the beau and I call it as we take everything personally), but now it is a total no go. Cue calls to Plusnet and a 30min wait while they deal with all the people who are being reeeeal uppity about the floods. 

Ten Things Not To Do…In The Event Of Sex

Essential advice for when you are most in need. Please don't listen to any of it.

Part Two - The Hair Continues

If you missed the first part of my hair story, read Part One here

The next day…

Oh GOD I hate it!! I hate it, I hate it! It’s too short, it is way too short, why did I get it cut so short, what in the name of Bonaparte's balls possessed me to do this?!!

This is the haircut I had when I was 18 - it’s the frigging ‘Rachel’! No one has the Rachel cut anymore, not even Rachel! Not even old episode of Friends with Rachel in them because they digitally altered every episode to give her new hair so no one ever had to think or speak of the Rachel cut again.

Part One - In Which There Is Hair...

A word of warning: this is a story about hair. And the story will be told in two parts...

I was sick of looking in the mirror and thinking “something's not quite right here”. And when I say mirror, I mean a spoon. And when I say spoon, I mean a wooden one.

I was feeling a little sluggish, a little sallow, a little excessively haired in terms of eyebrows and head. Six week until the next am dram show, I mused....I could risk a hair cut.

Places to Quaff and Quarrel - The Black Griffin

The Black Griffin, Canterbury. Curious mythical beast, winged creature of yore, hovering claws and golden of okay I’ll stop. Here is the first in what I hope will be a series of some reviews of places I have visited and did not die in.

I had to meet a friend. I had to meet them for food and to discuss the best way to make people act, on stage, without use of electricity. We normally do this over a large plate of nachos and shame in a pub far away from the city centre. 

 

But I was restless, and had been browsing the internet, looking for something more than tortillas. After looking at several bars and some pictures of worried twigs for a period of time, I chance upon my past, in the form of The Black Griffin.

A Curious Thing

A child just walked past my desk. A female one. Walking quite contentedly in the direction of something, unhindered and unperturbed.

I peer over the top of my computer screen, not at all happy and but trying not to draw attention to myself lest it ask for milk. It disappears around the corner.

It was fairly tall. In fact it was adult sized. In fact, it might have been an adult. A woman, even. In the distance, I swear I hear the words “Bring the labels” being muttered.

I look around the rest of the office. No one has raised the alarm or met my worried gaze. Where is its owner? Why is it here?

It was heading in the direction of the extra desks we’ve set up in order to accommodate the extra staff we need to take all extra calls about being alive. Perhaps this possible infant is new. Perhaps it has been here 30 years and I’ve just not noticed. I must investigate.

I stand slowly, and clear my throat, not taking my eyes off the corner wall for a second.

“Who’s for a nice cup of tea?” I announce, and lift a tray slowly to eye level (I always keep a tray handy for such occasions). There’s no one else here, everyone else is at lunch, but it was important to at least ask.

I step out from my desk, and walk forward at a steady pace. I turn the corner, tray in hand, and head straight for the kitchen, my eyes seemingly fixed forward but in reality they are scanning the office for traces of this being.

No trace, no sign. All I see are grown ups, normal people who are working and are no cause for concern. The figure has vanished....perhaps it was a ghost?

Or it could be sitting over there, where that woman I've not seen before but looks perfectly normal is sitting.

Or a ghost?

I don’t know what’s going on.

Crossing The Border

I once entered America.

I was on foot. I walked across water by means of a bridge. The Rainbow Bridge they called it. It was not rainbow coloured.

How To Make No One Want You

Valentine's Day is a mere something weeks away, and no one wants to be alone on Valentines Day. No one does, not even those people who say “I'm spending it alone, I don't care, I don't even care, Valentine's Day can suck it.” You'll find them, soon enough, in a sex club with a red rose and a smile that says “literally anyone”.

Happy New Year, There Is No Hope

New Year is upon us. Some of you are back at work. I'm not. I'm sooooo not.

Now, I had started writing a post about 2014, new year's resolutions and my thoughts on this period of transitional panicking. But the time is still not right for me to share these musings. First, you must see where I have come from.

So instead here is a piece I wrote a while ago, in 2013. I think you'll find it has that 'new year, new outlook' feel we're all looking for at this time of year...