Diary
Arsevoiced and scatterfashion
People sometimes ask me why I have such a stupid voice. “Why do you have such a stupid voice?” they ask. “Why, why, why, why, why?”
It is not an unreasonable question. My voice sounds like two Mancunian butchers trying to hold a conversation while crossing a corrugated bridge on a tandem. “Yah, yah, yah,” I [...]
Electric doors all over the universe
The guy with whom I share some office space often leaves his “silver bullet” pen behind. Apparently capable of writing both underwater and in outerspace, the bullet is a very silly and ostentatious piece of stationery, resembling a Cyberman suppository.
Never having a pen myself, I inevitably make use of the silver bullet in Steve’s absence. [...]
The froth of his Ruddles
From the very periphery of my vision, I saw someone sit down at the table next to mine.
Reading a book, I was only dimly aware of his presence at first, but it soon occurred to me that the man was staring into the side of my head, like an off-duty phrenologist who doesn’t believe in [...]
Not simply reusable but resealable
I had deduced from their behaviour that adults desired two things: money and small reusable bags.
One type of small reusable bag was the sort of airtight plastic bag in which you might store an uneaten sandwich in the refrigerator. This type of bag was not simply reusable but resealable, potentially making it the ultimate in [...]
Drinking fortified wine from an egg cup. Laughing.
Depending on when you asked, his family had either died in a cult suicide or had been poisoned by exposure to radioactive material. On another occasion, they had been murdered by an angry milkman.
Whatever happened to Bladders’ family, he now lived with his uncle in a damp-smelling semi-detached house. They lived in squalor. I once [...]
Poop hatch with a jeweller’s eyeglass
Applying for immigration into another country is the bureaucratic equivalent of surrendering your bum for scrutiny by stormtroopers. Officiously they would examine the wrinkles of your poop hatch with a jeweller’s eyeglass, checking for traces of mortal turpitude with the careful precision of Dr. David Banner putting the finishing touches on a ship in a [...]
If only you had been a better ghost
“I’m going to fix myself a nice, hot cup of coffee,” I snicker childishly, “Would anyone else like one? Coffee is so tasty and warm and it’s such a pick me up on a chilly winter’s day.”
This was the Mormons’ fourth missionary visit to our flat. I had made a point of testing their faith [...]
“Things were getting critical”
A glitzy showbiz tale from Leonard Nimoy’s incredible memoir, I am not Spock:
Within a month of Star Trek going on the air I had telephone problems. There was one phone on the sound stage and between cast and crew there were about 50 people receiving and making calls. I was getting calls for press interviews [...]
Skewer us some sweet dough-oes
“It’s not what it looks like!”
I’m on my fourth hit when my girlfriend catches me in the act. Agog, she wears a towel: hardly equipped to confront the sesame-sprinkled travesty hunched at the breakfast table.
“Four bagels?” she asks, “You ate four bagels? I was only in the shower for ten minutes.”
I also wear a towel, [...]
Where Delhi Belly comes from
“Suppose you chomp down on an abscess and shatter your jaw,” says my dad in the cautionary tone of someone who knows about life or has at least been told a lot about it.
“Or suppose you get completely paralysed from the neck down. A proper superman job. How are you going to get home then?”
We [...]
