Riders (San Storms plus other cliches)

Things I have learnt from Jilly Cooper

• If you lose weight, your husband will come back to you (suiciding helps also but only if the attempt is unsuccessful, obviously, and causes one to lose weight through the long road to recovery)

• You level of attractiveness is directly linked to your loss of weight where “you” is understood to mean “female” and “attractiveness” is understood to mean “to the male of the species”

• If you are a woman, you really shouldn’t sleep with men who aren’t your husband – that’s a man’s job, obvs.

• People who don’t like horses are neurotic home wreckers who have no sense of timing because they do not understand the magic bond between Englishman and beast

• A side point/open letter to Jilly C - wtf with Billy and Janey? Moral of that story – earn money, keep money and make sure one’s house is in order? Or, perhaps, an affair can really bring the problems of a couple into focus? Was that whole plot written whilst JC was drunk on gin or what?

• Whiskey or brandy should be drunk whenever one is feeling emotional as this will both keep emotions at bay and, if they do fall out, allow one to take recourse in the line “I was drunk”

• Jilly Cooper doesn’t really like other women writers, even fictional ones that she has actually created herself, in her own stories

• If you are a groom you must be pretty, sexually available and utterly unambitious because you will never be promoted, ever (promotions are only for family)

• Nepotism is not a dirty word (it’s the English way)

• Even though half of them have never even finished school and cannot do maths, all English riders know poetry (English poetry only, of course) and can quote, passionately, whenever a moment seems too significant or possibly emotional (at the start/end of races, after meeting prospective partners etc)

U R Ghey

Writing, recently, has been something of a struggle. I have found myself walking around struggling to remember the name of the first nascent 'hipster' film that A* and I saw, back in the day, that was filmed in edgy black and white at the UCLA (Berkley? Who?) campus in America and involved 20somethings dealing with their lack of direction, etc, zzzz. It also contained the excellent scene where the 'writer' man leaned back in his chair, over powered by ennui and writers block and catalogued the things around him. "Ceiling. Shelves. Chair. Wall. Roof. Fuck."



Yep, pretty much.

If I were him I would be writing "fucktard morning crowds at spencer street, ugly people, how hot is it, fuck"

So nothing exciting then, obvs. Or even remotely worth reading.

Thank god I've finally re-remembered things that I enjoy.



To whit:

• Writing offensive emails to Tone Loc that are systematically rejected by his server. There's only so many shitty forwards a finger puppet can read before the need to inform someone that they suck dick comes into play
  
• Lying, pointlessly, at parties. Yes, yes I am allergic to lavender. Violet! You're turning violet, violet! Was totes a catch-cry from my childhood whenever I was thoughtlessly forced to handle the near-fatal substance known as lavender.

• Actually, now that I'm reminded of it, being told that I have 'Gene Wilder curls' which I gleefully translated as being told that I have curls which remind one of a (potential) kiddie fiddler
  
• Instructing my mother in the art of saying "no". Saying "Nein" "Nee" "Nyet" and "Non" are all things I enjoy doing immensely and with aplomb
  
• Having HumanRash (nee Spakattak) woefully confess that he is now a walking, itching, human rash at a party and then hearing JZ yell across said party a few hours later "hey! Rashman! Oy! Human Rash!" Ah. Good times.
  
• Assuming the moral highground with two of the more ideologically aware people I know.
  Herbert: No, of course coffees are out of the question!
  Hotness + B: Oh.. but.. isn't that food?
  Herbert: I can't believe you! I'm appalled! What is WRONG with you people? Don't you know that that's contrary to the whole spirit of the experiment???
  Hottness + B: [silence]
  Herbert: [self righteously shaking out the saturday paper whilst sitting in the wading pool, cleaned and filled with water during water restrictions] I just can't believe you people sometimes....
  

The rosy pink cheeks of sin

Yesterday I 'helped' my dear friend Park pack up her flat and sell her belongings in preparation for her impending move to bro-town. I am terribly sad that she is leaving and that I will never be able to pick my way past such an incredible selection of pot plants on my way to her flat ever again.

Rather than dwell on all that is sad and final about her leaving, however, lets make lemonaids, shall we and be more upbeat and pollyanna-ish, as is our want. (All you haters sitting out there thinking "herbert = happy go lucky pollyanna?!" yo' don't know me! So there!)

Things that have been pretty awesome about 'helping':

• riding shotgun in a fancy car (it is truly one of my favouritest things in the whole world to sit next to someone dear to me as they drive around. If there is a radio playing so-bad-its-good music for me to sing along to, so much the better)
  
• Wearing enormous, diamante-speckled "wedding" sunglasses inside
  
• Taking time out from packing to sit in cafes (various) to eat cake while each of us read separate, awful, trashy magazines (and exclaim loudly over the contents)
  
• Wearing diamante encrusted sunglasses, inside, while moving things in... not just mono, not just stereo but trio-a-phone. And then making up a speaker system that means three times the fury just for the hell of it
  
• Perfecting the art of 'helping' with Hottness. We realised, as each of us found our perfect slump on the futon couch from which to watch three other people struggle with moving a queen size bed out of the way and down four flights of stairs, that together we had combined our powers of helping to new heights.
  
• Finally hearing the real version of "the first cut is the deepest"
  
• Gin and tonics and 'Dude, where's my car?'
  
• Running shrieking into the sea
  
• Finally finding some joy in knowing all the words to Rick Astley's song in a fish and chip shop somewhere in Brighton