An ideal husband

My birthday was in December, I was 33.

When asked by my husband what I wanted for my birthday, I eagerly nominated a newly released anthology of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories which I had been eyeing up as we drank coffee in one of our haunts the week before. To this date, that book is still sitting on the shelf in Waterstones in Greenwich where I first saw it and not on my bedside table where I imagined it.

I just remembered this (again) today as he talked about getting someone else a birthday present Someone he has not seen in months.

Then I remembered about the Hitchcock films DVD collection I asked him for on my birthday the year before. We currently don't have the Hitchcock films on DVD in the house if anyone is wondering.

Hypothetically, If I did have the time and energy to complain to him and tell him how I was feeling, he would properly tell me that it is this person's 40th birthday and therefore "special". Then I would remember how I asked him to organise a party for my 30th, a bit over three years ago. The result was a suprise party. As in, "you know that party? Surprise! there ain't one!"

You might like to notice (as I just have) that the responses to his question "what do you want for your birthday" have got darker in nature as the years have passed. Next year I expect I shall ask for "The Dummies guide to burying your husband under the patio and getting away with it"

The thing I don't mind, not really. You cannot force someone to consider you and remember every promise they made to you. I mean, that would look like a loving, devoted, considerate, romantic husband, wouldn't it? And when we grow up, we realise that sort of husband only exists in Hollywood films of the 1950s.

When I was little my ideal husbands in no particular order were; Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster and Spenser Tracey. Demon lovers and raging romantics in every film they were in. To me, that was the sign of a real man. Now, I realise those sort of husbands are only provided by screen-writers and not real life.

There will be no services for the little piece of me that died over the past three years. It is probably best unmourned anyway.

Oh he did get me something for my 29th, when he asked me what I wanted, I said a decent draughts board we could use together. So he got me a cardboard one with the price still on from a toy shop.

Men, eh?

Vacancies open

News on the BBC News-site that Crocodile blood may be the source of powerful antibiotics to use in the fight against human infections.

Australian Adam Britton and US expert Mark Merchant spent the last fortnight combing the Northern Territory for salt and freshwater crocs.

It has been known for some time that these animals heal serious injuries rapidly and almost without infection.

Recent tests have shown alligator blood has strong antibacterial powers.

Ok, so just one issue - who is going to run the donor station to collect the blood? Anyone seen this man lately?

Man's inhumanity to man

When we first looked around the current Fiennes' towers, it smelled very strongly of damp. There was even a slimy black plant growing on a wet patch above one of the kitchen cupboards. "Nothing to worry about" said the Estate Agent "the last couple who wanted to buy this house had a survey done and everything came back fine, there is nothing to worry about, this house is ready to move into"

So four months and several tens of thousands of pounds later, the builders moved out. They had removed the mould, the damp, the rotting floorboards, the damp joists, the cracked damp plaster, the dangerous electrics, the near-dead boiler, the leaking bath, the inadequate plumbing, and the broken windows leaving behind a house that was fit for humans to move into rather than ducks.

Unfortunately, I never got the little weasel's statement about the house being "in perfect order" in writing. Silly me that I didn't. We did get our own survey done by an expert in old houses but even he only identified half the problems "it is impossible to know what you will find until you take up floorboards" is a quote that will haunt me for life.

I had thought such bare-faced and expensive lies were as bad as estate agents/letting agents got.
HAH!

This appeared on the BBC News today:
Dead girl's rent 'must be paid'

A County Armagh couple whose daughter died while at university in Liverpool have been told they must pay for her accommodation for the rest of the year.

The letting agent involved is claiming that because the girl's parents acted as guarantors on the lease, they are liable for the debt.

Sinn Féin's Mickey Brady said the agent's demand was "very unfair".

Mr Brady said the Bessbrook family had received demands for rent owed since her death and threats of legal action.

"The agent is quite clearly arguing that the young girl, because of her sudden death in January, has breached the lease agreement and is demanding that the rent be paid in full," he said.

How fucking low and despicable is that? Even the IRA, sorry Sinn Fein, think it is a shit thing to do and there goes a group who are not aiming for the Nobel peace prize.

That Letting agent is someone's son or daughter and I tell you something, if they were mine, I would disown them out of pure shame. They say what goes around comes around and if that is true, there is something awful coming around for that little toad and that whole letting company and the sooner the better.

Oh and if my Mum reads this, sorry for swearing.

Conversations of note

Some conversations motivate us, some scare us, some force us to look into ourselves in ways that make us feel uncomfortable, some challenge us and some make us deeply happy or sad.

Here is an example of a conversation I have just had:

Me: "Are you loading the dishwasher before bed?"
(What I really mean: "It is your damm job and I have washed and folded all your previously stinky jocks and socks this weekend")

Him: "If you want"
(What he really means: "Eughhhh, buuuuuuttttt, I am watching a Bond film that I have ONLY seen four times before")

Me: "Ok" (Exit front room stage left)
(What I really mean: "Aaaaaaaaghhhh, I do the clothes washing without being reminded, I cook the dinner without being reminded, so why do you turn me into your Mother and make me ask you so load the damm dishwasher? The blooming dishwasher wouldn't work either unless I had called the engineer out to fix it but was I thanked? - oh no!")

Me: (Returning to front room a few seconds later) "No of course, I don't want you to do it. I want you to sit in front of James Bond all night. Feel absolutely free to leave the washing up there for me to do in the morning as well as dressing and feeding the kids"
(What I really mean: "Do it or I will dump the whole mess of dishes and the washing up bowl on your head in the morning")

Right now, I can hear the dishwasher being loaded. I guess that was a motivating conversation then. To think some men think they don't understand what a woman is saying. Tsk.

Hypocrisy

In 1969, a Roman Catholic priest called Eamon Casey was ordained Bishop of Kerry. He was known as a good man who championed charities helping Irish emigrants in Britain, he loudly supported the supermarket workers who refused to handle produce from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. He was also a ferociously loud critic of US foreign policy in Nicaragua and as a result refused to meet Ronald Reagan when he came to visited Ireland. He, working alongside Des Wilson, founded the homeless charity Shelter.

I said 'was known'.

Unnnnnnnnfortunately, as well as a publicly moral persona, the Bishop also had a private sexual persona. This private self had a relationship with an American woman. This relationship produced a son, Peter, born the same year as me.

As the Irish joke went at the time, at least he didn't sin twice and use a condom. That would have been hypocritical.

In a completely unrelated story with Catholicism at its centre, the Vatican has updated the traditional seven deadly sins by adding a further seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming commonplace in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".

Those newly risking eternal punishment include:

Drug trafficking and consumption (So I guess there is no room here for the difference between the drugs produced by AAPharmacuticalsLtd for pain relief and the little old lady growing a bit of something for pain relief

Scientists who manipulate human genes (I think this is a subject which should be open to educated debate without the hysteria of religion)

Violation of fundamental rights of human nature (Hmmmm, WHO gets to define what the fundamental rights are?)

Those who commit environmental pollution (According to the standards of China, America or the UK? Again, who decides what constitutes environmental pollution? I once took a poo behind a hedge a few hours after eating instant noodles, would it have been less of a sin had I eaten organic vegetables for my preceding meal?)

Inflicting poverty (Can't disagree with this one)

and now my own personal favorite; Accumulating excessive wealth.
So I am guessing, the Vatican will be quickly shedding the estimated $10-$15 BILLION dollars of assets that it pays no income tax on then.

After all, who wants to be accused of hypocrisy?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell". So either, there will be the sale of the century in Rome soon or a rush to the confessional that will make Roger Bannister's four minute mile look like the effort of a toddler who has just learned to walk or hell is going to be the party destination for those who like to party in pointy hats.