Blokes being Blokey

I had to come home early today from the salt mine because there was a danger I was going to stab someone.  On my own team.

I love everyone on my team dearly (apart from the Freaky Developer on the end who is just fucking weird) and they are huge fun to work with but they are all blokes and blokes in the workplace can do your head in.  Hence the following list of Annoying Bloke Things that Blokes do in the Workplace.

Stare at the phone when it rings as if it is a piece of glowing Kryptonite.  Er - hello, we're supposed to be offering technical support so that means answering the phone.  Don't look at me - I'm too busy propping up a multimillion pound turnover system single handedly and I don't talk to users who want a new fucking mouse mat.

Eat crisps as if amplified down a megaphone. And then pick your teeth.

Wander off to lunch but don't actually tell anyone that you've gone for lunch so when someone finally answers the phone to a user we have no idea where you are or what time you'll be back.

Take the piss out of the users first and foremost

Take an hour for lunch and then come back and piss about on the internet for another half an hour.

Talk to your wife/girlfriend in some stupid squeaky voice like the rest of us can't hear you. Typically the conversations ends with "Love you, bye, love you".  Then you put the receiver down, scratch your nuts and have a good cough.

When you have a cold produce the loudest and wettest sneezes possible so the entire room gets sprayed.  Oh and keep sniffing phlegm down the back of your throat because that's really attractive.

Insist I check your spelling/grammar even though you're just writing out a PostIt note.

Forget to bring your office keys to work and then pretend you've left them in the car.  Even worse - sneak mine off my desk so I think I've lost the plot.

Go the to the newsagents and not ask anyone did they want anything.  You tight arsed get.

Maintain your desk tidiness level at "Fuck me. someone has let off a hand grenade in a Slinky factory" level.  When you can't get any more crap on the desk spread it around on any other flat surface you can reach.  Oh and stockpile any cardboard boxes you can for at least six months - about enough to start a homeless commune in the car park.

Borrow my scissors and not put them back.  Wankers.

Not the "C" Word Please

No, no, no - not already.  The annual frenzy leading up to a certain event on the 25th of December is already kicking in.  I hate it, loathe it, despise it.  If I could spend C*****mas D** in a coma I'd willing pay Michael Jackson's doctor for the drugs.   

FECK OFF SANTA

"But how can you not like Christmas - it's for the children?" I am asked every year.  Listen, I've only one child.  She's unwrapped everything within half an hour, then eats a mountain of chocolate, doesn't like Brussel sprouts, roast potatoes or Christmas pudding so our Yuletide is over by about 10.30am.  I might splurge on a box of After Eights but that's as festive as we get.

There are a number of other reasons why I hate the run up to and including the 12 days of Christmas.  Number one:  it's cold.  I don't move about much in the cold.  I believe winter activity should be restricted to sitting on the sofa with a huge pan of Scouse on the stove watching Scrum V.  One should be not outdoors trudging around Brent Cross car park or wandering about a garden centre looking for a smelly tree that is going to moult over your rugs.

Fakery.  Why send a greetings card to someone you haven't seen for eight years expressing the desire that they don't experience a fatality or arson attack in the next fortnight?  And, you're only buying gifts for people because they are anticipating a gift from you.  You might as well gift-wrap a cabbage for each of them so they've got "something to open".

Christmas bollocks at work.  Stuff your Secret Santa and no, I am not going to the works' party because IT'S FULL OF PEOPLE FROM WORK.  If I want to spend my time talking to some dicksplash 20 year old salesperson I'll ring my local estate agent for a chat.

God/Jesus nonsense.  I was brought up in an Irish Catholic household and once had to play Herod in a nativity play.  That marked my retirement from organised religion.

Shite festive music on the radio.  As soon as John Lennon kicks in I switch off.  Feck off with your Plastic Ono band.  And someone shoot Noddy Holder while they're at it.

What to do about Mother.  This is an annual family game where my two siblings and I feign death about six weeks before the event so there is absolutely no discussion between us about "What Mother is Doing" in the hope that none of us gets landed with her.  It's worked for the last few years and I've learned to live with the guilt by completely blotting it all out.

The expense.  We've a disposable income which appears to be shrinking month on month.  But somehow the retail world thinks I have a bottomless pit of money to spend on food, alcohol, decorations, gifts, petrol, the Royal Mail, clothing, tableware...  I haven't Sainsbury, honestly.  An acquaintance of mine every year puts a thousand pound of debt on her credit card at Christmas and then spends 12 months paying it off - Loonbag.  Like I said, we have a splurge on some after dinner mints and I might get a bag of satsumas in.

Yeah, I know I'm a miserable git this time of the year but you get used to it.  Just don't mention the event to me and I'll be fine.  Just ask me what the Ospreys/Scarlets result was from last night was instead.

Ffena Ffag Ffree?

Oh yeah, day 17 on the Champix - day 7 ffag ffree.

This Champix is bloody weird.  Last Saturday night something clicked in my head and the desire to smoke died an instant death.  So this is my seventh day of not smoking.  I even got through an entire working week without impaling a user on their own keyboard or, more successfully, punching the freaky programmer that we employ to produce fuck-all-in-six-months who winds me up just by breathing in and out.

Feeling Perky

I no longer wake up with a face like a pink screwed up paper bag.  The pills make me feel a bit sick but as long as I wash them down with a bit of water and a couple of Asda Smartprice bourbon biscuits (23p) I can cope with it.  The shop adjacent to where I work has reported a massive loss in revenue.  I can't remember my pin number because I haven't been to the Hole-in-the-Wall in over a week.  And the chickens think I'm dead because I'm not hanging about the back step for half the day flicking ash on their heads.

There are lots of warnings about Champix and some very nasty side effects including mood swings and even depression.  I appear to be having an exceptional experience in that I am feeling like a pig in shit and bouncing up and down like Tigger.  I love being a non-smoker, I love the money I'm not spending and I know Cariad & Angus are very proud of me.

And possibly something very good happening on the career front next week.  Should I wear a suit?

Day 10 - Gagging but Getting There

I bought a pack of 20 fags on Friday night and I still haven't finished them! 

The Champix has really kicked in and I am choking, retching, gagging whenever I attempt to inhale.  Like a complete fool I timed my adoption of Champix to co-incide with Wales advancing through the stages of the rugby world cup and as a Scouser would say - "Me nerves are shot". 

Watching Wales yesterday sent me out the back door a few times for a nerve-calming fag.  Eyes watering, coughing and trying not to puke on the chickens' heads I really had to work hard at getting half way down a fag.  I felt like an utter NOB.  Then Wales lost the game and I felt even worse.

I am hoping this does not induce Pavlov dog type behaviour.  Next time Wales run out on the pitch will I be feeling sick with watery eyeballs?  Oh hold on, that's what normally happens during a Welsh game.

Stupid Smoking Stuff I've Done that is Making me Pack in the Ffags

Smoking makes you stupid.  Reflecting on my smoking career here are some reasons why I am attempting to give up FAGS.

I have set fire to my hair on numerous occasions. 

One of my prized possessions is a Liberty ashtray.

It has been known for me to buy FAGs on my credit card because I'm skint but I need FAGS

When I announce to my colleagues at work that "I'm off to check the spooler in the warehouse" this means I am actually going for a FAG.  They must think "the spooler" needs some serious maintenance.

On too many occasions while pissed I have attempted to light a FAG with my USB stick.

I once threw a FAG end out of the car window straight into the face of a passing cyclist.

If I have to toss up between spending the money in my purse on something for lunch or buying FAGS then the FAGS win.

I once served a salad to guests with a FAG end in it.

As soon as I go round to someone else's house they get an ashtray out from under the sink.

I will even smoke outside while it's snowing.

The bleeding obvious - Ekky.  Nuff said.

I start on the Champix this weekend.  Apparently I am going to feel queasy, have nightmares and possibly have a complete mental breakdown.  Got to be better than setting fire to your hair with your USB stick.

Ffen Attempts to get off the Ffags

Yet another attempt to get off the fags starting in the next few days.  I will attempt to write something witty and urbane while being off my face on Champix and suffering from extreme nicotine withdrawal.

In the meantime I've got a pack to finish.

Why Do Racists Like Me?

I grew up in Liverpool where everyone is an immigrant.  And even if you were born in Liverpool I can guarantee that a generation or two back your family was just trotting down the gang plank at a landing stage.  Try and find someone in Liverpool with an Anglo Saxon surname, they must have moved up from "Down South".

Growing up in a city full of people all different colours and creeds makes you pretty open-minded. And living in London for over 20 years enforces the basic fact that people are just people.  You get nice people and you get nasty people wherever you go.  I really hope I am bringing my daughter up to have the same open mind.

I hate the BNP with a passion.  I hate the fact that the bastards only push their sordid leaflets through my letterbox overnight and won't show their faces during daylight.  If I ever encountered a member strolling up my path I would chase him/her down the street with a very blunt instrument.  I hate the EDL.  I hate the sweeping statements folk make about people coming into this country blah, blah, blah.  SHUT THE FUCK UP, they’ve been coming for hundreds of years you twats.

But I do find it amusing at the remarks some of my fellow human beings make to me in the assumption that because I've got a white face I must believe in the same crap they do.  I've had some absolute outrageous statements addressed to me and rather than get angry I have to pity the pathetic, ignorant human being and then go round the back and have a good laugh.  A collation of my favourites below:

This is a cracker from last week in Asda at the checkout.  Operator to me: "Do you want some carrier bags?"  Me, "No, I've brought my own thanks".  Operator: "Not like those Asians, they use tonnes of them".  Asians use tonnes of plazzy carrier bags do they?  Blimey, I thought those friends of mine were completely normal, but apparently not.  They're plastic bag fiends ram-raiding supermarket check-outs like packs of wild dogs.  Meanwhile at home they're packed to the rafters with purloined Asda carrier bags.
 
Once, while having my hair cut by a female dullard she asked me where I lived.  So I replied "Oh not far, XXXXX Road".  She replied "It's a nice street that, there's no blacks or Indians in it.  Are you married?"  Felt like responding "Yes to a HUGE Nigerian, but I'm only Wife No 3". We'd only just moved in so maybe I should have told her I was Irish/Welsh while my husband is a Scot - that would have probably freaked her out too.

At a doctor's appointment I was attending because of a rather nasty chest infection he peered at my notes and said "You've a history of TB in the family.  You’re probably Irish are you?”  I said "Yeah, I am partly but it wasn't the dirty Irish Catholic side that were spitting up blood, it was the Welsh lot.  Do you want to make any other wild assumptions while I'm here?"

At a bus stop waiting for transport into Luton a really sweet little old lady was chatting to me to pass the time.  She said "These buses - they're full of Muslims these days".  Fuck me, Muslims must have run out of magic carpets and are marauding up and down on public transport!  No doubt on their way to stock up on colossal amounts of free carrier bags.

When I was still living in London some twat in a pub said to me "Ealing's full of fucking Polish".  Mmmm... yes, they came to join the RAF during WWII and made an enormous contribution to the Battle of Britain.  That's why there's a fucking big Polish War Memorial on the A40 as our way of saying THANK YOU. 

When a briefcase went missing at an office I was working at (not my current place of work - happily that's like the United Nations) the Office Manager said to me, "Should we ask the cleaner if he took it - he's black?”  I nearly went over the back of my chair.

Stood in an Oxford Chinese takeaway  at the counter with a (no longer) friend she's on her mobile talking loudly to someone we're meeting later:  "I'm with Ffen in the Chinky".  'Chinky', I nearly died of embarrassment.

Another ex-colleague very casually mentioned "I'm driving to see a customer in Bradford tomorrow.  It's full of Pakis".  I looked at him and thought "Most of them are from Bangladesh actually and what's more 99.9% of them will think you're a cunt".

My personal favourite didn't happen to me but to a Jamaican friend of mine who also happens to be around 6' 5":  "Ooo, do you play basketball then?”  He replied "No, I'm training to be a jump jockey".

I still have a problem with most things Mancunian though. 

Big Fridge Aspirations

Oh, hurry up and die you pair of coffin-dodgers

Moving on from last week's ponder about products tackling the epidemic that is female bloating, the 2010 "John Lewis Always a Woman" campaign made me want to put my foot through the telly.

I don't have a problem with John Lewis - apart from I couldn't afford to buy a packet of buttons in there - but I do have a major issue with the way women are still portrayed in the media.  Before I stumbled into Geekdom I was a marketeer and I can spout endlessly on about demographics, leverage points, brand linkage and semiotics.  And I'll tell you what that particular advertisement says to my little brain:  "You're a woman.  Aspire to a big fridge".

Yup, 2010 and despite the leaps forward in equality and eliminating sexual discrimination (equal pay is still bollocks btw), women becoming confident with their sexuality, women forging careers and getting through the glass ceiling  - that's what John Lewis think we women really aspire to: a big fucking fridge.

So never mind securing the best educational and professional qualifications you can, working damn hard for a successful career,  earning your own money and paying your way, being a competent parent and contributing to the community - what you really want out of life is a humungous fucking fridge.

My parents had three daughters and they taught us that our gender wouldn't hold us back - we could go into the world and become whatever we wanted.  I went to a single sex school and picked up the same message.  Only 30% of IT employees in the UK are female - I'm one of them and I work damned hard and can hold my own in an otherwise all male department.  Why are things going backwards?  Nuts magazine, WAGS, being a size 8, Big Brother, X Factor, Katie Price, boob jobs, FHM, MTV...  When did everything become about tits and fridges???

I don't aspire to a big fridge.  What I really want is an Aston Martin DB5.

 

Bifidus Culture - Bollocks

Fuck Off Martine McCutcheon

I appear to have missed the point in time when the most common topic of conversation between female friends became constipation.  Watching television advertisements recently it appears that we should all be suffering from some kind of bowel complaint or at least "feeling bloated".  And then talk about it in front of your friends just before you stick your face in a plate of pasta.

I can't recall ever discussing this subject coming up at a girly-gathering - and if it did it wouldn't be fucking yoghurt that was prescribed by those present.  More likely you'd be told "Get some bloody Guinness down your neck and have a bag of pistachios.  That'll clear you out.  Now shut moaning". 

 

The ad/marketing agencies are making assumptions about what women are talking about.  Handbags?  Solar panels?  Buying nutritionally-crap food in Iceland?  Stain removers?

My social circle is made up of well educated, intelligent and hard working women with some disposable income.  Rather than arriving at a lunch table and announcing "I'm bloated" before sinking into a chair like Gillan McKeith, we're more likely to stagger in and offer: "Sorry I'm late, I had to catch up with Match of the Day because I was out last night shagging that bloke from the kebab shop".  Typical topics of conversation are:

Match of the Day
Would you shag Alan Hansen?
Soccer Saturday
Not going to the gym

How much free alcohol we managed to inveigle from a venue last week
Aiden Turner's arse
The latest brawl you kicked off in a petrol station
Whippets
Shagging.  Not relationships.  Shagging.
Rugby - and in particular why Wales are so shite 

Infuriating parents
How to get pissed in Majestic Wine for free

Dr Who
The scandalous price of fags

Nobody is whipping out blister packs of medication and looking wan.  We're far too busy leching at some passing barman or waiter.  So do us a favour Martine McCutcheon, take your Activia and do one.

I'm a Common Tart

The Legs O'Man on the corner of Lime Street.
Allegedly it was full of "tarts"

Cariad and I are off to The St Tropez of the North this week to visit Mother.  There are some rules I have to adhere to so as not to qualify as being "common" or a "tart" while visiting.  Listed below here are some actions I must definitely avoid, namely:

Going to the bookies and putting a line on.

Buy a pie and eat it in the street.

Refer to the utility room as "the wash-house".

Say "fuckshitwankbollocks" if I bang my head.

Drink rum & black.

Go beyond the front door still wearing slippers.

Wear an ankle chain.

Buy some orange lilies*

Order a pint instead of a glass.

Say "youse" instead of "all of you".

Go in the "Legs O'Man" - yes, I know it's been demolished but it still qualifies as somewhere only "tarts" go.

 
*This actually comes under the classification of being a "Prod" but is equally taboo

Ekky & the Case of the Toxic Pistachio Nut

Ekky suffered numerous bouts of pneumonia - one of which was self inflicted and incurred a ban of nut products from his diet for the remainder of his years.

He had been admitted into hospital once again, blue in the face and as Mother says "blowing for tugs".  The consultant was very unhappy with his prognosis particularly as he was failing to respond to his intravenous antibiotics.  I had dashed up the M6 once again to witness "The Creaking Gate" putting us through it one more time.

Mother and I were at his bedside, me wearing one his jumpers* because I'd barely had time to pack.  Mother was very anxious - Ekky was virtually delirious and didn't know where he was.  He thought he was watching a game at Goodison which sounded like he was well on his way to purgatory to me so things were not looking too good.   His chest was rattling, wheezing, rattling, rattling, wheezing.

Suddenly he sat bolt upright and gave an almighty lung-wrenching cough that nearly took his head off and spat something into his hand.

"Eurrrgghh - what's that?" Mother and I peer at the offending object.  "Fuck me"  I thought, "He has actually coughed a bit of himself up".
 
Mother located the consultant and brought him to Ekky's bedside to  inspect the material.  "Eurrrgghh" he said.  "That looks like a rotten pistachio nut".  Ekky looked a little guilty and pouted slightly.  "Oh, I think I might have breathed it in a couple of weeks ago.  I had a bit of a coughing fit while having me lunch and I think it went down the wrong way.  Why have you got my jumper on?" he said looking at me while blatantly attempting to change the subject.

Mother belted him across the head, "A bloody pistachio nut!  We're at sixes and sevens running up and down to this hospital because you breathed in A BLOODY NUT.  That's it Ekky Phenna - nuts are BANNED".

We took him home a few days later leaving the consultant even more bewildered than ever but somewhat relieved that the Phennas were off his patch.  Once home Ekky kept up a sustained campaign of underhand and sneaky methods to hoodwink family and friends to supply him with nuts.

"Do you want some trifle Eric?" a doddering relative would ask.  He'd pull his blue-eyed boy fluttery eyelashes routine and accept the offer.  I'd already frisked it for a chopped nuts topping in the kitchen and took his spoon off him while simultaneously shoulder charging the hostess back into her serving hatch.
 

"Can I have an almond slice?" he'd ask in the bakers. 
- "No, no nuts Daddy" you 'd tell him. 

"Do you want some chocolate from the newsagents?"
- "Yes please"
"What type?"
- "Cadbury's Fruit & Nut"
"Oh, behave"

* Mother is a prodigious producer of vile knitwear, the like not seen frequently outside dog baskets

Cuz & the Carrier Bag - Epic Night # 37

A Spar Carrier Bag - Not for the Likes of Cuz

Cuz used to host the NYE celebrations at her then shared flat in Haven Green.  The evening's proceedings were based around an intended civilised dinner but due to the lethal aperitifs and amount of Cava consumed, usually by the time the cheese board came out no one knew what their own names were.  We tried very hard to be adult and urbane at these events but - pissing in the bath while wearing a cocktail frock is still pissing in the bath.

This particular NYE Cuz had been summoned into work to complete a particularly dodgy international property deal.  This blew the catering timetable to shreds so Cuz decided catering duties could be delegated to a couple of responsible and reliable acquaintances until she could return home and resume the role of hostess. Unfortunately these particular grown-ups were out when she rang them so she had to resort to giving Acton Baby and I the keys to the flat together with a strict timetable of marinating/roasting.

Acton Baby and I decided to behave for once, synchronised our watches and agreed a rendezvous time of 2pm.  Like a pair of fuckwits we agree to meet in the “North Star”. This is where it all went wrong.

Angus was working the afternoon shift and we were DOOMED.  After a couple of pints we attempted an exit with the full intention of heading over to Cuz's flat to insert the wildebeest or whatever it was into the oven.  But Angus already had a couple of pints on the bar.  Then, as Angus pointed out it was a fairly cold and dreary afternoon and it would be a blinding idea to have a whiskey each.  Every time we tried to leave he had another pint/whiskey ready for us.  After a couple of hours Acton Baby and I had to acknowledge  that we were indeed pished and the suckling pig or whatever the fuck it was hadn't yet migrated to the oven and Cuz was going to stab us.

We rang Badger and pleaded for help claiming Angus had kidnapped us and we were locked in the cellar.  Badger merely sighed, put her Mac on, mounted a bus, headed to the North Star, took the keys off us and tutting mildly headed over to Cuz's flat to manhandle the wild boar into the oven.

Knowing full well that we had nearly sabotaged dinner and were probably in the shit big time, Acton Baby and I assuaged our guilt by having some more beer.  Around 7pm we staggered across the Green to the flat and, permitted access by Badger in a fetching pinny, slumped around in Cuz's living room belching Guinness & single malt fumes quietly while pretending very hard that we were not very, very pissed.

Conscious that I may slur when pissed I completely lose my Scouse accent and morph into Noel Coward.  When I start enunciating like a 1930s BBC continuity announcer you know I've lost it big time.   I was well into Noel Coward mode this NYE; chances were Cuz was going to spot it immediately and hit me with her Mouli grater.

However I think I got away with it when she staggered through the door around 8pm, monumentally pissed and wearing a carrier bag around one ankle.

"Halloo my dahlinks” she announced in the hallway while swaying mildly.  “One's been dwinking Champagne at the orifice all ahhfternoon". 

"Fuck me sideways" I thought, "She's even more langered than I am.  And she sounds like Annette Mills".

"Does one know one has a carrier bag fashioned from ethylene monomers around one's ankle my love?" I queried.

Cuz glanced down at her feet, straightened up again and replied imperiously "At least it's from facking Next" and staggered off to the kitchen.

Things I Never get Round to Because I can't be Arsed

Someone Sitting on Their Arse

Clean all the tut out of my handbag, including the Allen keys and the pair of pliers I cart around "in case".

 

Tell HSBC to sod off.

 

Update my CV, get a better job and stop bloody moaning.

 

Throw away all the shower gel bottles in the bathroom that have a dribble of liquid left in the bottom.

 

Throw away all the shampoo bottles in the bathroom that have a dribble of liquid left in the bottom.

 

Dispose of the unmatched single sock mountain in my sock drawer.

 

Clean the car and instantly improve fuel consumption by 30%.

 

De-frag the hard drive so it stops going "grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr".

 

Unfluff the filter on the hairdrier so it stops cutting out when I've only done the left side of me head.  People must think my hairdresser is a cyclops.

Clean under the microwave.

Cleaning in general.

Chuck out my school blazer which is STILL too big for me.

Ekky Pays me the Ultimate Compliment

We Had a Green One!

Not known for congratulating his daughters on their academic successes, Ekky however pushed us very hard to obtain the best education we could - anything I suppose to get us off the estate.  Whatever qualification you gained you'd receive barely a nod in return; it was a given, you were a Phenna and you did well.  

But I did get a hug on the day I passed my driving test at the first attempt.  Ekky was a truck driver until his first serious bout of illness and he loved it, he absolutely loved driving.  He'd drive his truck all week and then on a Sunday he'd shove wife, kids and dog into the car and drive another 200 miles to Cumbria and back.  He loved driving like I love reading.

Me obtaining a clutch of 'O' levels, 'A' levels and a qualification in Marketing and then landing a job with the fifth largest company in the world was barely acknowledged.

But then one day during a visit to the St Tropez of the North I'm driving Ekky somewhere in my first Nobby Nissan which I'd bought from Middle Sis.  I can't remember where we had been or what the purpose of the trip was.  I pulled into the parking space outside Ekky's flat and just as I switched the ignition off Ekky looked at me and said "You change gear really nicely".

I nearly cried on the bonnet. 

Annoying Things That Folk Do in Supermarkets

Attempt to park as close to the entrance as possible.  For fuck's sake, you'll be using a trolley with wheels on - no one is asking you to scale the Himalayas with a tonne of spuds on your back.  Just bloody park would you?

Check whether their lottery ticket was a winner at the Tobacco counter.  What?  Live in a fucking bubble do you?  Have you not heard of newspapers/Teletext/the Internet? I just want some fags and you are being a NOB.

Cling onto their trolley like it contains their life savings.  Believe me Love I really do not want the contents of your fucking trolley.  If I wanted some Findus Crispy Pancakes I'll go down the frozen aisle meself.  Let go of the damn thing, it's not a magic carpet, it's not going to fly off.

Take instructions from their spouse at home over their mobile as to what they should be buying.  They're that moronic they have to listen to "no, the blue one" because they can't work out what frigging flavour of Pot Noodle they eat for lunch day in day out without being coached.

Leave a trolley right in the middle of the busiest aisle.  God almighty, how can anyone be so spacially unaware?

Spend ages staring moronically at the shelves in the wine section.  Then pick up a bottle of Blossom Hill.  You know you wanted a bottle of piss in the first place so why not just select your usual bottle of piss?

Limp.

Snap the stalks off broccoli spears so they pay less.  You tight arsed gets.

Allow their educationally sub-normal children to push the shopping trolley when the stupid thing can't see over it. 

Leave their basket in the stack at an angle so I have to tidy it up before I can get my basket in.  Selfish bastards.

Jam about twenty items into a basket and then pay for it at the Tobacco counter.  I just want some fags, you Wankers.

Don't Let the Man in your Life Hang your Mirrors if you are a Short-Arse

Witty aren't I?

"This house is full of women" Ekky sometimes complained when were still living together in Fazakerley.  Well yes, he did have a wife and three daughters.  Mind you, he did possibly have a point:  the cats and the dog were girls and as I once him mutter morosely into the fish tank as he cleaned it, "Even the bloody fish are female".

Although he taught the three us rudimentary car mechanics and basic painting & decorating skills he did still like pretend he was the alpha male in the household and performed most of the DIY tasks like hanging curtain rails or shelves.  Us Phenna females are not the tallest  in the world, not one of us is over five foot two (Middle Sis claims to be the tallest but she is telling a whopper) and Ekky wasn't massive but he was a lot taller than we were.  He hung all the mirrors in the house according to his height - as long as he could see sufficiently while using his curling tongs he was happy.  The rest of us had to develop some contortionist skills just to brush your teeth.

If you wanted to use the mirror in the downstairs bog you had to climb on the toilet seat and lean sideways across the sink.  If you were doing your make up you had to hope it was symmetrical because you could only see half your face and you just hoped you didn't look like Sunnie Mann.

The mirror in the bathroom only displayed the top of your head.  When applying your red "Glints" the only way to get a good view was go to a bedroom, pick up a chair, drag it back to the bathroom and then stand on the bloody thing.

But the best one was the one in the hall.  Fairly tall, it was the best mirror to check you had tucked your shirt in properly and you had actually remembered to put your skirt on.  However, it was hung about five foot up the wall so the only way to get a glimpse of your latest Kumar's number was to jump up and down.  One solution would have been to stand on the bottom tread of the stairs giving yourself a bit of extra height.  But no, the mirror was hung about a foot and a half to the left of the foot of the stairs so all you could see was a bit of your feet.

I don't think it ever occurred to Ekky why the four of us went through a pogo-ing ritual in the hall several times a day.  Perhaps he thought it was what women do - leap up and down before putting their coat on and going out the door.  In return we never asked him why he sometimes polyurethaned potatoes.

1970s Buffets

In the Rankin Clan (our surname is Phenna but we still think of ourselves as Rankins because the other lot are just weird) there was an unwritten buffet menu that you had to adhere to or risk family scandal.

What the ???

This was in the nutritional heyday of the 1970s when we kids drank gallons of Kia Ora, ate Vesta Chow Mein and had never seen a Kiwi fruit.

There were frequent Clan gatherings for Christmas, New Year, birthdays, wedding anniversaries or in Ekky's case, "Look Who's Made Yet Another Miraculous Recovery" event.

You had to prepare/serve at least half a dozen of the following items or there would be raised eyebrows in the kitchen. 

Salad.  Salad in the 1970s was lettuce, cucumber and tomato.  Absolutely no deviation whatsoever, nobody had heard of rocket let alone balsamic drizzle.  Not a bit of olive oil or lemon juice either, it was Heinz Salad Cream or nothing.

Sliced bread and butter on a plate.  God forbid your guests could apply their own butter to a slice of bread. 

Celery sticks in a jug.  What the FUCK was that all about?

A tin of salmon decanted into a bowl.  Approximately five inches in width, one tin was supposed to feed about 50 kids and adults.  If you were showing off you scraped the bones out the middle first.

One packet of Cadbury's chocolate fingers arranged in a wheel shaped display.

Rank cheesey footballs.  I think they used to come in the Christmas hamper.  They were in a blue tin and tasted like they'd been stored down some old bloke's trousers for a few weeks.

Chicken legs, mountain of.  Cooked with absolutely no seasoning, not even a bit of salt or pepper.

Mini sausage rolls.  The ones with cough-inducing pastry.

Gala pie.

Ready salted crisps in a bowl.  You couldn't have cheese and onion or salt and vinegar because the al' ones didn't like them.

A Bird's trifle.  Of course, you tried to make it look posh by discarding the hundreds and thousands and used a Flake as decoration.

A frozen Black Forest Gateaux.  Still frozen in the middle.

Cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks.  You know the thing wrapped in foil they were mounted on?  It was half a cabbage, and you probably ate it for your tea the next day with pig shanks.

Jacob's Cream Crackers.  Even the dog found them hard going.

Vol Au Vents, filled with what looked like sick.

Egg and cress sandwiches on white Mother's Pride.

Tinned ham.  Think this came in the Chrizzie hamper too, it was ringed with some absolutely vile jelly that still makes me retch when I think about it.

Pickled onions, beetroot, Piccalilli, Branston, HP Sauce.

The only way you could cope with this quantity of crap catering was to get blind drunk and then attack the buffet table.  You wouldn't eat a kebab if you were sober would you?  This was the same principal.  Neck as much Cinzano or Watney's Party Seven as you could, grab your plate and do it for Mother Ireland.

Mother gave me her own chrome/glass salad bowl with accompanying salad servers a couple of years ago.  I feel an overwhelming urge to start squirting Primula cheese onto Ritz crackers every time I look at it.

Goldfinger - yer Tight Arsed Get

I watched "Quantum of Solace" recently and I thought it was shite.  I had two problems with this film:  number one, Sean Connery is the ultimate Bond and can't be surpassed.  Number two, Daniel Craig has a Scouse background and I was anticipating him breaking into a "shortwave" accent any moment.

This put me to thinking about writing a few Bond scenes with Scouse dialogue.

To Q at the gadget laboratory as Q demonstrates a dirty bomb detonator: "Fucking hell Q, you'll 'ave someone's frigging eye out in a minute"

Charging across a burning skyscraper roof pursued by a number of balaclava-clad mercenaries brandishing various weapons: "Christ Almighty, this holster doesn't arf chafe".

Entering the bar at a Casino ("The Cazzy"?) attired in black tie -he catches the bartender's eye: "Hiya mate, 'ave youse got any Aussie Whites?".

To "M" as his licence is revoked:  "Don't be giving me down-the-banks, yer fucking al' arse"

Manfully hijacking a single decker passenger bus in the riot ridden streets of Kabul with which to pursue his nemesis he screams at the driver "Am a Twirly mate".

Encountering a voluptuous blonde as she emerges from the sea wearing a bikini the size of a bit of knotted string: "Hiya Love, fancy a fuck and a pizza?".

Confronted by an assassin wielding a gas powered harpoon:  "Ooo look a harpoon!  I wouldn't harbour one meself".

This is probably is a WIP.

Happy Birthday Ekky

10th April - not a good day for me, I'm struggling to function.  Dorothy Parker sums it all up here in an extract from her short story "The Lovely Leave".

"She sat down on the sofa.  She wanted to cry: not silently with slow crystal tears, but with wide mouth and smeared face.  She wanted to throw herself stomach-down on the floor, and kick and scream, and go limp if anyone tried to lift her."

I'd better get dressed.

Make it Your Bloody Self #2: Cheese Scones

Scones straight out of the oven are to die for.  If I make a batch of these there will be a family scrum on the kitchen floor.

The key to good scones is MANKY MILK.  Fresh milk is no good for scones, you need either:

• Milk that has gone off and which makes you snap your head back when you sniff it.

• Buttermilk - you can buy this now in supermarkets.  Looks a bit like yogurt.

• Or make your own manky milk - squeeze a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice into it and leave it for five minutes or so.

Kit

A decent set of scales.  This is chemistry so make sure your scales are accurate. 

A mixing bowl.  A proper mixing bowl, not the thing you eat your bran flakes out of.  It needs to be at least 2 pints in capacity so you can get your elbows in.

A measuring jug.

A dinner knife.

A tablespoon (these are bigger than the ones you eat your breakfast with... but 2 x dessert spoons = 1 tablespoon).

A teaspoon.

A baking tray.

Fluted cutters or a glass tumbler.

A rolling pin or a wine bottle (empty it first).

A pastry brush or the tip of a finger.

An oven.


Ingredients

8oz self raising flour.
 
2oz butter at room temperature (don't use Stork - it's rank).
 
Pinch of sea salt.
 
1/4 pint of manky milk or around 3 tablespoons of buttermilk.
 
2oz grated really cheesey cheese - Cheddar usually or Lancashire.
 
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard (entirely optional but I really like it)


Method

Put your oven on and move the shelf up high.  I usually do scones at gas mark 7 or 8.

Tip your flour into a bowl and add just a pinch of sea salt.  With your dinner knife cut your butter into wee chunks and add to the flour.  Now you need to "rub in" the butter, I can't explain how to do this (I've been doing it since I was about six) so if it is a mystery perhaps look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW6H_SL_TJo

Once your butter is deconstructed into bread crumbs tip in your cheese and swirl it in with your butter knife (can you tell I hate washing up?).

Now you have to decide whether you are using manky milk or buttermilk.  I prefer buttermilk so I will put around three tablespoons in a little bowl and stir in my wholegrain mustard.  If you are using manky milk measure your 1/4 pint (complete with lumps) into a measuring jug and stir your mustard in.

Pour your liquid into your mixing bowl and take your increasingly mucky butter knife and use it to bring most of the mixture together.  Discard knife and get your hands in, you need to bring the mixture together in a ball.  If it feels a little dry add just a touch more liquid.  If it's too wet you'll need to add a fistful more flour or so, but it should be fairly pliable.

Give your hands a wash (or wipe them on the back of your jeans like I do) and clear an area for rolling out the dough.  Don't attempt to roll out on a piece of clingfilm - it will  land up wrapped around your head.  Flour the surface and flour your rolling pin or wine bottle.

Lightly spread out the dough - be gentle with it (you can even just pat it out with your hands) until it's around half an inch thick.  Cut out your rounds with either a fluted cutter or a tumbler - how wide you want them depends on you but I like them fairly small (which facilitates shoving them in your gob whole) and usually get about half a dozen in a batch.

Scatter just a little flour on your baking tray.  Place the rounds on spacing them nicely although they should go "up" and not "across".  Brush a little milk across the top of each one with either a pastry brush or your finger.

Bang the baking sheet in the oven and leave for about 10 minutes.  How long you need to cook them really depends on how your oven performs but 10 minutes minimum.  Stick your head in and have a look at them...  

If you want to know if a scone is cooked through pick one up and look at the bottom - is it nice and brown?  If not put them back in the oven for another 2/3 minutes.

When they're done you can either put them on a cooling rack that you don't own or stick them on a plate.

Now, get a big packet of Irish butter open and a clean knife ready.  When the scones are no longer like molten lava split one and place a slice of butter on each side.  Eat.

Oh God Love Him - He's Awful Thin...

This is my Father mugging people for their trifle

This was a frequent statement made about my Daddy.  He was thin, very thin. My parents' wedding photos look like Mother has just married the Invisible Man - she's posing with her bouquet in her lace dress next to an empty army uniform.  But he ate like a navvy; despite that 28 inch waist exterior the man was eating for Wales.

If I went up for the weekend to the St Tropez of the North I would spend two days in the kitchen churning out snack after snack.  I didn't see daylight until I left unless I was allowed out to Morrisons to stock up again.

His daily menu (when I was there) went a bit like this...

I'd go in to his bedroom with a cup of tea when he woke.  "Want some breakfast Ekky?".  "Oh, I'll just have a bit of toast love, my chest isn't great and I'm a bit off".

Two bits of toast done.

Then after he'd washed and dressed (sometimes pausing to carefully tong his hair - honest) he'd wander into the kitchen and say something like "I could go a bit of bacon  maybe.  And an egg. Those sausages look nice".  Breakfast part two morphed into an epic fry-up.

Around 11:  "Any biscuits or cake to go with this tea?"

Lunch had to be a knife and fork affair at the table.  No sandwiches balanced on a bit of kitchen roll.  So I'd be plating up pork pies, cold meats, salads and bread & butter.

Four o'clock would find me knocking up some scones or an egg custard.  Once that was despatched to Ekky's armchair I could focus on dinner.  He loved trying new foods and would try anything I put in front him - poncy London food like pesto, things drizzled with balsamic, spicy curries, lemon grass - he'd give it all a go.

After dinner I'm flagging but his metabolism is still going and by eight I'm making rounds of toasted cheese or ham sandwiches.

Bed time found him tucked up in bed with another cup of tea and yes, more biscuits.

Even when he was really poorly he still ate on and on.  I remember Ekky being in hospital but him telephoning me from the ward while I was at Mother's flat:  "Are you  cooking Sunday lunch then?".   So an hour later I've improvised a plate out of a cornflake packet and some tin foil and am delivering a full roast dinner to Ward 9.  And then he moaned about there being no gravy.

And he was the most terrible LIAR about food.  If Ekky had eaten lunch at home and then went to visit friends or family if they asked if he eaten he'd say "no" and get a  second round of scoff.

When people are in hospital you see their relatives bringing bottles of squash or bits of fruit and biscuits.  The Phennas arrived in a film unit catering lorry and were hauling hampers of food into the lift.  And that's after he'd eaten the hospital food - he thought hospital food was marvellous, like being back at a school canteen.

His nutritionist at the hospital pissed me off.  She was a fucking MOOSE.  A Ginger MOOSE with a face like a slapped arse.  She was such a MOOSE she had to drive with her head out of the window because her antlers didn't fit in the cab.  She caught me on the ward one day as I was heading out, "We're very concerned about your Father, he's very thin."  I looked at her and thought "People have been saying that since 1955, what do you want - a fucking medal? We know he's thin.  He's just THIN".

Somehow we ended up in a consultation with said MOOSE who wants us to keep a food diary of everything he eats in a week.  "Jesus H Christ" I thought, "We're going to have to staple a few books together".  So she droned on about what to detail about lunch blah, blah, blah.  "So for example Mr Phenna can you tell me what you had for  lunch on Friday?".  Ekky looks at me - "What did I have love?".  "Hot smoked salmon fillet with wilted peashoots and a melange of spiced couscous" (or whatever poncy  stuff I'd knocked up that day) I replied, "Followed by trifle*".

"Oh" the Ginger Moose replies taken aback, "He eats quite well then".  Like he wasn't even in the room.

On the way out I hiss into her ear, "Look bitch, just because he's from a council estate it doesn't mean we feed him on Findus Crispy Pancakes and oven chips.  Now back off".

I bet she hadn't had a shag since 1998, the ugly Ginger MOOSE.

*Please see other trifle stories on this blog to appreciate the significance.

Who's Up for Dessert?

A Picture of a Trifle

Accept an offer of dessert from Cuz with caution.  I have witnessed what she does to them first.

Cuz is the hostess of many an epic "Sinners' Dinner".  These were events where the alcohol intake was considerably larger than the consumption of food.  Things tended to get just a little messy and often people passed out before the cheese board arrived.

If the chef/hostess had had one margarita too many then backstage management would descend into chaos.

The evening the of "The Trifle Incident" I think Cuz had possibly had that one glass of wine too many.  I recall sitting in the dining area being witty & urbane and failing to impress any male company because I keep setting fire to my hair while Cuz has gone to the kitchen to fetch dessert - which includes one of her legendary trifles*

She is gone some time. "Pssstt, psssssssst" comes through the kitchen door and I thought "Well I am actually but there's no need to point it out".  "Psssssst!" comes again more persisssssstently.

I go to investigate and find Cuz kneeling on the kitchen floor.  "what's the matter?" I ask.  "I've dropped the fucking trifle" she whispers.  "Well, not dropped it but the top's slid off and it's on the floor".  I look down and there are two perfect layers of custard and whipped cream on the tiles looking like they just wafted down from heaven.  The industrial-strength sherry-soaked sponge is still in the bowl.  "Fuck me - I hope your floor's clean Love".

There is a farcical five minutes where two drunk Scouse women attempt to inveigle a fairly liquid piece of matter into a trifle bowl without alerting any of the other guests to the fact that we were scraping their dinner off the floor.  The fish slice was a genius idea.

The trifle is somehow restored and Cuz triumphantly carries it to the dining room "Ta dah! Who wants trifle?".  I slide back into my seat and hiss to Acton Baby "Don't have the trifle, I've just lifted it off the floor with a bit of kitchen towel and a fish slice.  Stick to the mousse, as far as I know nobody's trodden in it".

No one was ill fortunately.


*Ekky was an absolute trifle FIEND.  There is a slight grudge still held today about the time we sat Ekky next to an enormous trifle at Cuz's Boxing Day family party (he couldn't walk about, bless him, so we left him on a barstool in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey).  He ate the WHOLE thing with a serving spoon and then tried to pretend it wasn't him.  The fact that he had jam and cream all round his gob gave it away.