. Favourite Album of the Week

My Favourite Ablum of the Week is Third by Portishead.

Remember when we first heard them? We were at your brother Nick's house on our way to a party, and we were watching TV, and when the commercials came on Nick would mute the sound and turn up the stereo. He had a pre-release copy of "Dummy" because he worked for Richard and Judy and got sent hundreds of CDs every week from bands that wanted him to book them, so he was playing that, and I really liked it. I think we all did. I didn't really like the party, but then I was not one for really liking parties back then, being so shy and self-conscious. Whose party was it anyway? I didn't know anyone there. I suppose they must have been friends of Nick. Was it a BBQ? I remember it was outside and it was cold and dark. I had borrowed one of boy Joe's second-hand coats, because I didn't have a warm coat, and you said it looked like the kind of coat our dads would wear, which made me more self-conscious. I thought you were embarrassed by me, but you were probably just joking.

Thank you for giving me this CD for my birthday. I really like it. And I miss you. But not in a gay way.

. Big Yawn

About 12 years ago while I was living above my means in a small studio flat in Belsize Park and failing to make it as a writer of anything but bad children's television (and not even doing that very well) I managed to convince a few art schools around the country to employ me as a visiting animation lecturer. The first of these things was somewhere near Cardiff, or maybe Manchester, I forget. I should probably look that up. Anyway, as my short films are generally heavy on the dialogue they asked me to talk about scriptwriting. I know bugger-all about scriptwriting (my scripts are just made up as I go along) so I spent the night before reading Robert Mckee's "Story Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting" and imagining how clever I would sound if I could remember any of it.

The following morning I got on an early train to the north or the west or wherever it was, feeling simultaneously bored, tired and nervous, all of which make me yawn. And during one particularly big yawn, my jaw locked, and I could not close my mouth. For a minute I sat there like an idiot, staring out of the window, thankful that the train was mostly empty and no one seemed to have noticed. I tried putting one hand on top of my head and the other under my chin and pushing, but that didn't get me anywhere. So I pretend-yawned my way down the train and into the toilets to assess the situation privately. In the mirror I could see that my jaw was open extremely wide, and also jutted forwards. It looked ridiculous. I was drooling like an imbecile, and it was beginning to hurt. I wondered briefly what kind of painful surgery I would have to undergo if I ever wanted to close my mouth again. Twenty minutes later we pulled into the station and in a state of mild panic I yawned my way off the train and along the platform. I thought if I could just calm down that my jaw would relax and slide back into place. So I went and hid in the station toilets, which were cold and smelly and covered in handwriting about what time to show up for a good blow-job. I did not calm down and my jaw remained stuck open. I pulled a page out of my sketchbook and wrote on it "Please take me to the nearest accident and emergency hospital." I then yawned my way out of the station, got in the back of a black cab, and handed the note to the driver. He drove me to a hospital in silence, thankfully.

At the hospital I wrote on another piece of paper "I yawned and got my mouth stuck open" and handed it to the woman at reception. She smiled kindly and asked me several questions and I wrote down answers for her. Then I took a chair in the waiting room and waited. By now my jaw hurt like hell, and I had to stare at the ceiling to keep from dribbling all over myself. Some people were sneaking glances at me. After about thirty minutes I was shown into a doctors office. The first doctor who came in was about my age. She looked, laughed, and left. A few minutes later a second doctor appeared and made no mention of the first. He stood behind me, grabbed hold of my jaw, levered it down, and forwards, and somehow unhooked it. My mouth clamped shut and I thought I would never open it again. I took a cab to the college, and taught my crappy animation class. At least I had something to talk about.

Not long after this I moved to California where the sandwiches are very large, and I have to be careful.

. Necessary

When i was 9 years old the word 'necessary' appeared on a spelling test at school. The girl at the desk next to me had read a book or something and decided she would share with us a terrific way of remembering how to spell 'necessary' by means of acrostics.

Acrostics is a mnemonic device for remembering difficult to remember stuff by associating it with a simple phrase, where the first letter of each word in the phrase gives you the information you are too dumb to remember without it. For example, “Every Good Boy Deserves Favours” can be used to recall the E, G, B, D, and F lines of the treble music staff. Acrostics was also Lewis Carroll's preferred technique for impressing pre-pubescent girls.

My classmate's acrostic phrase for remembering how to spell "necessary" was "Never Eat Chocolate Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Young". To this day I cannot spell the word necessary without reciting that stupid bloody phrase to myself. It has become necessary.

I believe this could be an example of "situational irony", which is viewed by some as the lowest form of irony, and by some as not even irony at all.

. Banana Attack Theory

The difference between Americans and the British is that Americans love to pronounce the R's in words, and the British really can't be bothered. Try it with me now. Say the word "Doctor ". Did you make a nice "R" sound at the end of the word with big fat pursed lips? Like "Doctrrrrr" Then you're probably American. Did you say "Doctuh"? Then you're British.

The exception to this rule is known as Banana Attack theory.

Banana Attack theory (also known as Vodka and Tonic theory) suggests that if one word in a phrase or sentence ends with a vowel, and the following word begins with a vowel, then the British will stick an R sound between the two words, just for the hell of it.

Try it with me now. Say the phrase "Banana attack". Did you actually say something like "Bananarattack?" Then you will probably find that you are English. Possibly Welsh. Maybe drunk. If however you said "banana attack" with nothing but a small and uncomfortable silence between the two words, then you will probably find that you are American.

If you find that you are Spanish, you probably say everything with a lisp, because King Pedro of Castile did in the 14th century and you want to be just like him. Shame on you.

. A Turnip For The Books...

... is what Nif thought I said when I actually said "A turn up for the books" which is an olde English idiom used to describe an unusual event, generally regarding a change for the better, and which probably originated in the area of horse-racing where the "bookmakers" would have to re-write their "books" taking into account the surprising result of a horse race. Anyway, what a funny miscommunication. Turnip for the books. How we laughed. Later, Nif said "A radish for the books" which was less funny, although Nif claimed it was even more funny.