By Pylon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

By Shako Moonshine for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

Two men: one with no hands, and blind, the other with eyes but no legs. The blind one pushes his companion in a cart, using the stumps of his elbows, while the legless but fully-sighted man issues directions.  

A boy without the use of his legs dragging himself along the ground with his hands. Each hand holds a small wooden block; they make the sound of hooves.

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

Angel St. Babe
Hawaii Mike
Hank Silky
Flirto Girtho
Cuffy Collars
Phil Spangle
Ham Manwitch
Brick Pixel
Tyrannosaurus Parsley
Bret A. Manger
Peeroy Gonzales
Porkestra
Wesley Slits
Ricky Pervis
Funky Tony Doglegs
Spanky Eatwell
Razzle “The Muzzle” Pemberton
Bubby Giggles
Lusty Chuck Griddle-pan
Jimbo Slinkly
Prince Cupid
Tipton T. Lipton
Hot “Dean” Hotdog
Al Hairgloss
Wild Jerry Napkins
Aaron-ron-ron-ron
Hunky Spunk Hudson
Big Ron
Push-me Prambles
The Goblin King
White Willy Latté
Bursty McFly
Luther “The Lazer” Lazer
Fonzell Rock
Batch Cassidy
Barney

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

Flight

Convenient
Would enable me to attend events without having to socialise
Good exercise?
Cape
Avoid increasing train fares and credit crunch oil prices
Possible rivalry and aggression from birds

Invisibility

The naked people in the shower
Disclosing conspiracies and governmental secrets
Funny ghost pranks
Easy way out of awkward situations

Time travel

Find out if Jesus was real
Ride T-Rex

Super-speed movements

Shoplifting
Fights
Loveplay?

Spontaneous reproduction

Create own army
Create own friends
High household bills

By Bonnie Doon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 11 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

In a similar way, the man on the platform whose job it is to organise passengers into neat queues in preparation for the train’s arrival is not meant to actually ensure that everyone boards in an orderly way - as soon as the doors open, chaos ensues - but to be the man who makes people form queues.  And so the tourists take photographs of monuments they don’t want or need. These are the traditions of the caste.

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

By Bonnie Doon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

By salman hushdie for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

By Morton for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

Over the course of a month last year an alittlepoison post descended into a game of poetry. As The sociable truth explained it back then: “Let’s have a poem festival! This is how it works: I’ll give a title, under which someone must write a poem. At the bottom of the poem you give a title for someone else to write a poem.”

The resulting efforts were rather enjoyable. Does anyone fancy another go at it?

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 27 comments

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By Pylon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

The ear-cleaning men pursue me through the park. I am being pursued by ear-cleaning men. They have showed me faded photographs of young Westerners like me having their ears cleaned; the expressions on these young Westerners’ faces are quite extraordinary. They have showed me a book of written testimonials in which people from all around the world describe how much they have enjoyed having their ears cleaned. They have taken hold of my ears and peered inside, telling me how dirty they are, and given a preparatory poke with one of the long cotton-swabbed silver instruments they carry tucked between their foreheads and their red bandanas. The older man has assured me that he’s been cleaning ears for forty-five years. I attempt to make my escape across the park. One of the written testimonials claims that the process “removes the evil from your ears.” But I don’t want the evil removed from my ears! I want the evil to remain in my ears, so I have something to block out the calls of the ear-cleaning men as they rapidly close in from behind.

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 5 comments

Fuel Poverty is defined as follows:

“a fuel poor household is one which needs to spend more than 10% of household income to achieve a satisfactory heating regime (21 degrees centigrade in the living room and 18 degrees centigrade in other occupied rooms)” (Fuel Poverty Strategy 2001).

So why are gas prices going up?

Well the UK did have access to the North Sea Gas Fields and exported gas to other places, but the UK allowed the private sector to develop its gas reserves and some economists would argue that they used it up too quickly. We enjoyed low prices for a while but now those fields are maturing and the UK has turned to importing gas from abroad. Much of it comes from Norway where they have stricter policies which have reserved their field. This is already more expensive and then add to that that we have no way of storing gas. With no means of storage we have to buy the gas as and when it’s needed and at whatever price it may be. Countries such as France do have storage facilities and so buy the gas when it’s cheapest and store it until it’s needed. With all these costs you would expect gas prices to go up, however the companies supplying us with gas are still making massive profits. It seems that the gas suppliers in the UK have not been forward thinking, they could have foreseen that the reserves would eventually be depleted and that action would be needed. They could have invested their profits in storage facilities and improving the transmission and distribution networks to improve efficiency, but instead the public will pay the bill for this and they will keep their profits.

When the gas supply was privatised it was supposed to mean that we had choice in suppliers that would cause competition and therefore better deals for consumers, perhaps this went too far and caused the cheap gas to be used up at an alarming rate. Now, in the current situation there are very little (insignificant) savings to be made by changing suppliers so we are stuck with our lot. Perhaps there should have been restrictive policies like those in Norway to prevent the gas being used so quickly.

Anyway, the gas has been used and now we have to face the potential consequences… this winter could be a catastrophe. Each year there are a number of excess winter deaths (calculated by comparing the total number of deaths during the winter period with the average number of deaths in the preceding and following four month periods). In the UK last year the excess winter mortality was at a rate of 26610 (figure from National Energy Action), that’s a lot of people dying due to the cold and is the third highest rate in Europe (highest rates are in Spain and Portugal). With all the gas (and food) price increases this year the fear is that this number will increase dramatically because the fuel poor will not be able to heat AND eat.

By Rowetta Onions for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 3 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 4 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

Suck on that Jesus!

By salman hushdie for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 7 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

A new television series has begun on the BBC called House of Saddam. It is partly funded by the BBC and partly funded by HBO in America. HBO have made some great modern television programmes, and have a knack of taking risks (like Mad Men and The Sopranos). So as you can imagine, there is good funding, good creative minds, good talent, a match made in heaven.

Then the BBC and HBO decided to fund a fictional programme about Saddam Hussein’s rise and fall as leader of Iraq. They saw how Shakespearean it was, how dramatic and violent a story it was. How it would make great telly. I even thought, with the use of the Godfather music in the adverts, it might be good.

Using the Godfather music was the most audacious and fucking stupid thing the BBC have ever done. Automatically it gives the programme a platform. A classic piece of music, well known by most followers of film and television. You believe it to have gravitas. This is a mistake, the BBC yet again confusing and alienating their audience with crap, out of context and unintelligent dramas. Who are these people that sit down and consider big budget cross continent dramas?

House of Saddam is a weak Soprano wanna be. It’s like watching Muse, but really wanting to watch Radiohead. Its like eating a Quorn Steak Sandwich, but wanting an Organic Free range Hugh Fearnley fuck face sandwich.

What depresses me the most about it is its popularity, this programme for a start is badly made, scripted and boring. The worst thing about it is the way it has dramatised a true and ongoing story, that still has no ending. Saddam may have been a dangerous and violent dictator and now dead, but his bloodshed is nothing on the ongoing civil war caused by the illegal occupation by the US and UK governments. 

Making it into a prime-time drama and selling it eventually as a DVD like any other TV programme seems to me sick, twisted and shows our society to be obsessed with fictionalising real things, but never coping or trying to solve the real issues, which are going on around us.

A dangerous programme, and completely unnecessary. Well worth avoiding, and well worth letting viewers know how unnecessary and wrong something like this is.

If you want to make a programme about Saddam, make a fucking documentary!

Links

Wikipedia entry
House of Saddam @ telegraph.co.uk
First Night: House of Saddam @ The Guardian blogs
House of Saddam @ independent.co.uk

By salman hushdie for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

Last year, a friend of mine had an amazing dream: he was a terrorist, playing golf with other terrorists. In his golf bag, slung over his shoulder, he carried an array of clubs (putters, irons, and the like) along with a number of machine guns. He knocked a golf ball high into the air, withdrew a machine gun from his bag, and shot it to bits…

The dream got me thinking: surely, the incidence of terrorism dreams has soared in the last six years. The constant barrage of terrorism-related news, the stupid yapping mouth of G.W. Bush, the See Something Say Something signs on the subways, the haranguing voice on the airport intercom that talks about the never-ending Orange Alert — it all must seep into our subconscious minds and then get hilariously scrambled at night.

So I’ve been trying to find people who’ve had these dreams, record them, and turn them into tiny radio stories. my original idea — that people are having unprecedented numbers of terrorism-related dreams — doesn’t seem to be true because I haven’t found very many. But here are three of them, anyway… they’re a peculiar mix of hilarity, absurdity, and sometimes revealing xenophobia… Have YOU, good listeners, had any terrorism dreams?

Tony (2:14)

Download Tony mp3

Exactly the Same Height (3:31)

featuring the voice of No Neck

Download Exactly the Same Height mp3

High School Wrestler (3:43)

Download High School Wrestler mp3

By Deetle for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 10 comments

Did you ever keep a record of your friends’ fingerprints? Detective’s Handbook was a great book for an eight year old to have. I found a copy recently and am surprised at how memorable it is.

“Detective work is very difficult - but very exciting. A good detective must be patient, watchful and well-trained. He must know how to build the whole story of a crime from tiny clues. Yet he must be ready to spring into action at any time - to outrun and outwit even the craftiest criminal.”

As you can see from the cover, this handbook isn’t messing around. The book holds up well, in many thanks to the charming illustrations by Colin King. Get ready for real detective shit: investigation, interrogation, action, espionage, and good old trusty canine companions.

Is the skeleton is an indication of more grim crimes otherwise unmentioned in the handbook? Probably. In spite of the cartoon-like and childish quality of its content, it deals with some serious politics and high risk activities.

What are those bulges? The handbook doesn’t doubt its readers’ ability to apprehend the crooks, even though some may not have the age, brawn or jurisdiction to do so. This is a minor complaint, but one that could lead to disastrous (e.g. fatal) consequences. Know your limits, and stick to them.

Search everywhere. It looks like this low-life has stashed his precious gear inside the kitchen tap. Bad luck, junkie!

A private detective should always keep at least one eye open when sleeping. Even better is setting up bedroom alarms. No need for high cost surveillance gear when sprinkling rice crispies all over your mother’s carpet will achieve the same results.

A private dick can also keep a picture of himself on the wall above his bed. Good to know.

Interesting, interesting. Forging may have changed over over the last 30 years, but criminals haven’t. Essential knowledge for the 21st century dick.

This handbook shares its themes with the film and literature of its time: Coppola’s The Conversation, Le Carré’s Smiley’s People, TV’s homicide detective Columbo. This is late seventies, cold war paranoia for children.

To the best of my knowledge the handbook is out of print, but it’s certainly worth tracking down whether you’re an imaginative youngster, a professional detective, a proper spy, or, indeed, a crook. Know your enemy!

Detective’s Handbook
Published 1979 Usbourne Publishing
Anne Civardi, Judy Hindley and Angela Wilkes
Illustrated by Colin King

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 4 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

After calling pretty much everyone in my phone book and giving it up as hopeless i went to the park for some vitamin D. i walked the periphery scrutinizing, sizing, taking hold and letting go. The park looked like a mobile phone commercial.

An old man stood behind a collapsible table calling his sales pitch: “Gidchoreyenottyfishypezabba!”, with the lilting cadence of a street hawker and a thick west indian accent. Nobody was buying.

People swam amongst liqour bottle skerries punctuating the grassy sea.

Girls wore summer skirts and short shorts. Boys wore trousers, torsos and tattoos.

Folks sucked red balloons in and out like bullfrogs to make themselves high.

Young teenagers jigged in a circle of barbecue smoke.

i heard fragments

“…frisbee…real bashment hip hop…no bad words…just start with your right foot…ice cream…just ninety nine words for boobs…over here man…i don’t have to restart the beat…fiddypensareback…”

Beyond the colourful crowds in the sun i saw a friend, all milk and ink, sat in the shade of a tree.

“Hello. I’m really drunk.”

“Hello”, i said.

i took a seat close up by my monochrome friend on the bench. We didn’t talk much.

“I’m just peoplewatching.”

i started people watching too, and drifted into a sort of reverie.

Down past the muddled rings of sunshine sundayers a cloud of white smoke drifted from the barbecues at the bottom of the slope. i thought of old movies, of sweethearts farewelling in the sideswept streams of steam beside the train carriages. Girls with coloured wool tied into their dreadlocks whirled poi like engine flywheels. The salesman’s incomprehensible calls were announcements on the tannoy service. The whipped cream dispensers, as they filled colourful balloons with nitrous oxide gas, whistled the imminent departure of the train.

My black and white screen idol and i looked drunk and dumb upon the steam age.

By Two Shoes for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 4 comments

By Bonnie Doon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

By Bonnie Doon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

I find that when you are totally skint or miserable, reading a book that illustrates the life of somebody in a much worse predicament than yourself can bring enormous comfort. Actually the book appeared in my house without explanation –does it belong to any of you lot? Would anyone like to borrow it? I shall post it to the first person who says “Aye” to either of those questions.

By The sociable truth for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

By Pylon for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 1 comment

Frequently asked Questions About Number 13

Q: Who is Number 13?
A: Number 13 is a small robot who accompanies No-Neck.

Q: What is Number 13’s favorite food?
A: Oil.

Q: How old is Number 13?
A: Number 13 was built in the spring of 2003, on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Austin, Texas, USA, after his face was found abandoned in a parking lot.

Q: Does that mean Number 13 is made out of trash?
A: Number 13 is a small robot whose parts were found on the street. However, it would only be as accurate to say he is made of trash as it would be to say that you are made out of carbon and hydrogen, and that your mother is made out of rocks. The vital spirit of Number 13’s heart should not be underestimated.

Q: What does Number 13 do for fun?
A: He likes to open things with his little key-hands. Also, he likes to dangle.

Q: Why photograph a robot?
A: Anyone lucky enough to be accompanied by such a sensitive, intelligent, and good-looking robot as Number 13 would be loath to not photograph him.

Q: I’ve heard a lot of models are mistreated.
A: The happiness of Number 13 reaches extremes which you and I can hardly imagine.

Q: What about bulimia?
A: Number 13 loves to eat oil.

Q: Will Number 13 ever be dismantled?
A: Under no circumstances will Number 13 ever be dismantled, either for his parts or for any other purpose. (Sometimes he is partially dismantled for repairs, then put back together as quickly as possible and given a snack.) If the demand for Number 13’s parts ever grows to the point at which No-Neck or Scrutiny or any of Number 13’s many friends fear for the small robot’s safety, Number 13 will be smuggled out of the country in a bathosphere.

By No Neck for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 3 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 3 comments

By No Neck for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

When I flew to India nine years ago (with RobotDan in 1999), I sat next to an ancient Sikh man who refused to eat anything but fruit, babbled in prayer at takeoff and landing, and painstakingly collected every kinked white hair that disattached itself from his beard for storage in the breast pocket of his shirt, as if terrified of losing pieces of himself on the flight. Now I sit next to a well-spoken girl who works for an IT consultancy firm. Is this chance, or have things changed?

In attempting to cut a sort of rubbery vegetarian sausage with my plastic fork, my breakfast tray somehow leaps from my hands and sprays fragments of hash brown over a wide area, including the girl’s right shoulder and all of my chest and lap. I spend the next ten minutes carefully picking them out of folds in my clothes and wrapping them in a napkin. Perhaps things have not changed after all; it’s just that the girl has become who I was nine years ago, and I have become the lunatic old Sikh.

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 3 comments

By RobotDan for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 4 comments

During the time I’ve been living in Hackney, I’ve been shopping regularly in the friendly Turkish supermarket at the end of the road. It’s a typical shop for the area I live in: a traffic-fume-wilted selection of green vegetables, soft aubergines, yams, plantains, mint, basil and parsley stands outside, while the shelves inside the shop are stocked with a culture-clash of African and Caribbean goods, mysterious Turkish things in tins, beers with unpronouncable Polish names, as well as the comforting English staples of Weetabix, Marmite, HP Sauce etc. It’s open at all times of day or night, and the TV mounted above the door blares out lurid Turkish soap opera relentlessly.

Like most, if not all, of these Turkish supermarkets, this one is family-run. The dad is a happy-looking old guy with a grey moustache, assisted at all times in the shop by either a son or a daughter. During the time I’ve been shopping in here, I’ve got to know them all. The eldest son has a sensitive face, but is often a little moody. He wears a leather jacket and a silver necklace, and has his hair slicked back in the style of a Bollywood heartthrob. The youngest son also wears a leather jacket. He has round glasses and a rather fetching early Beatles-era pudding-bowl haircut. He is generally extremely jolly, and serves customers with a certain amount of flair.

And then there is the daughter. She’s probably in her early twenties, and in terms of personality has always seemed the exact halfway point between her two brothers. Sometimes she is really friendly, and sometimes she is really grumpy. The other interesting thing about her is that sometimes she is wearing an Islamic headscarf, and sometimes she is not.

This has puzzled me for a while now. At first I thought that perhaps she took her headscarf off when her dad wasn’t in the shop, but soon realised that this wasn’t the case because her dad is always in the shop - normally leaning against the shelf where they stock spicy plantain chips. Then I thought that perhaps the wearing of the headscarf related to significant religious days - but seeing that the split was 50/50, this also seemed unlikely. In the end I just decided that she wore the headscarf when she felt like it, which seemed like a pretty cool and relaxed way to be religious.

As the months went by, however, I came to notice something else. An identifiable pattern began to emerge in my observations. There appeared to be a direct correlation between the girl’s moods and the headscarf. When she had the headscarf on, she was friendly. When she didn’t have the headscarf on, she was grumpy. Fascinating! I thought to myself. The amateur cultural anthropologist in me immediately went to work, and I came up with the following possibilities:

1) When the girl has the headscarf on her head, she feels safe in the knowledge that men look at her less, and thus feels more comfortable, relaxed and confident.

2) When she wears the headscarf she knows she is being a better, more dutiful Muslim - keeping her father and brothers happy - and this leads to a feeling of contentment.

3) Conversely, when she doesn’t have the headscarf on, she feels guilty (or provocative) and this makes her sour and ill-tempered.

4) She has extremely greasy hair or nits, and when she’s forgotten to put the headscarf on she is worried that customers will spot this.

Whatever the complex socio-religious or anthropological reasons behind the phenomenon, there was no doubt about the central premise: the headscarf seemed to make her happy, while the lack of it made her grumpy. As I browsed the aisles of the supermarket for red kidney beans or Fufu flour, peeking at my sociological subject from around a sticky baklava display, I pondered this discovery at length. Fascinating… Yes, fascinating. A fitting subject, perhaps, for a PhD - or at least something in The Guardian. An in-depth study of the correlation between religion and happiness. Does religious belief cause peace of mind? Does it lead to a sense of fellowship with others? Or is it, perhaps, a purely cultural effect - a sense of belonging, of inclusiveness, acceptance by a wider community? Surely this goes right to the heart of the Islamic experience in Western Europe? This girl is poised between two paradigms - between two entirely separate states of being!

This morning, however, I went into the supermarket after an absence of a couple of weeks, and discovered something that scuppered all my fine theories. There, behind the counter, was the girl with the headscarf on, being her nice friendly self. And there, by the spicy plantain chip shelf, was the girl without the headscarf on, a characteristically grumpy expression on her face. “Good morning,” chirped the headscarf girl, “we haven’t seen you in a while!”

Twin sisters, goddamn it. One happens to be friendly, one happens to be grumpy; one happens to be religious and one happens not to be. Let that be a warning against indulging in slapdash socio-cultural bullshitting. There goes my PhD. Get a job, etc.

By under scrutiny for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 6 comments

I see her most days on a screen bordered across the top with bananas.

It’s like she’s on a TV someone’s left a yellow blanket hanging over.

The bananas come down over her forehead like a fringe.

i look through the window and across the street at the tiny girl on screen.

Banana bangs.

Sometimes i try to catch her eye.

An Easter bonnet of bananas.

Sometimes i just look and then turn away.

The girl yawning beneath the banana line beneath the awning beneath the shopfront sign.

i mostly don’t want to be watched by the girl on the TV.

Sometimes she steps out of the screen and i go bananas.

It’s pretty unsettling to have someone on the TV watch you right back.

Once a week, on Saturday afternoon, she comes across the street, into the café. The funny thing is, she’s so small she still looks almost the size she does on the TV screen. She smiles, still a hint of banana there across her face, like looking at something luminous so long it leaves an image on the retina. She presents me with a bill. i open the till and pay her with hundreds of pounds, one for every time I’ve watched the TV that week. Our banana books balanced we return to our TV show.

By Two Shoes for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 0 comments

I went with some colleagues to help out, we were all apprehensive about it, with the potential of loads of mumbo-jumbo hippies and the pouring rain it started to sound quite unappealing. But we went all the same. The directions were cryptic and kept mentioning rivers that we never found. We found the right place in the end and followed signs to the site, signs then instructed us to leave the car and enter on foot. We donned our waterproofs and made our way in, there were various tents, but no sign of any people, “hello” we called out and a “hello” came back to us from inside a dark yurt. Instructions were shouted to us, “take your shoes off and come in”. Wellies were wedged off and we entered through the small entrance. Inside the yurt the floor was covered in colourful carpets and in the middle stood a wood burning stove, it was toasty and warm, a chimney in the roof of the yurt took all the smoke away. Cushions seized from aged campervans circled the edge of the inside and sitting on them were an assortment of people. We were offered lunch and happily accepted, from the kitchen tent we filled our bowls with delicious onion soup and croutons. We ate back at the yurt where everyone else had finished eating. We ate gingerly as they watched and they enquired about the rest of our group who were yet to arrive, “they’ll be here soon” we said, and hoped. They decided to wait until the rest of the group arrived to introduce everyone so it was a bit quiet and uncomfortable, although one guy lay flat on his back in bright Bermuda shorts happily farting, so he was obviously very comfortable. With the arrival of the rest of our group things became easier and we were all introduced to the rest of the ‘tribe’. We were told of health and safety issues and told where things were and we all waited and hoped that the rain would ease.

For our first task we were shown a Pakistani desert tent that had been erected and told that we would need to put up three more of these without instructions. So we set to work in two teams, there is a very tall central pole that holds it all up and the walls have bamboo sown in to make them rigid, the whole thing is held together with Dutch stitching (loops through loops). In the process of putting up these tents the central poles fell many times but we did get them done and the rest of the tribe seemed impressed. The main marquee had already been erected but needed the inside decorated as this is the main conference centre, so we attached huge silk hangings to the roof and the sides. At some point we put up the tents that would be homes for the next few days and explored the site. There were a variety of toilets, some compost with loo seat and toilet paper, others urinals (bales of hay with canvas walls around them) and urinals were not just for the men, the female urinals were to be used for all ‘wet’ toilet needs as too much liquid makes the compost toilets really stinky, there was also the ’squatter’ which I did not visit and other variations of compost toilets without seats and without paper… going to the toilet was a complicated matter. The showers are outdoors, heated by a wood burner, it was quite fun to shower outdoors, especially when the sun was shining which it did occasionally.

In the wet evenings everyone retreated to the warm yurt and this is when I realised that I live very differently to my colleagues who all go to bed by 10pm and were already complaining of tiredness at 8pm. So wide awake but bored I went to bed at around ten each night… and didn’t sleep… it got cold… creatures snuffled outside… I lay wide awake for most of the night.

In the mornings there were slugs everywhere in the tent, they were falling off the roof and slapping onto the groundsheet, they were in people’s shoes, they were under my sleeping bag. The breakfast bell is rung at 8am and at 9am everyone gets together to decide what needs to be done and who should do it. As novices we were given fairly simple jobs, we ended up putting up a lot of tents, of all shapes and sizes, including the bar which is a huge structure and needs a minimum of nineteen people to put it up. We also raided the nearby nursery compost heap which was bulging with flowers, flowers deemed unfit for sale but perfectly good for making the site look pretty. So we planted them all over the place and hopefully they are still alive. I helped to erect a yurt which was interesting as yurts are very different to most tents. People took it in turns to cook and wash up (although I avoided both), everyone worked hard and it was a good experience. It’s worth volunteering, especially if you’re at loose end, (or you can convince your employer to pay you to go, as ‘team building’) you can borrow a tent if you need to, and get plenty of food and there’s cider if you’re into that kind of thing.

We were there as set-up volunteers, when we left there was still work to be done and now the conferences would have begun, there are three conferences this year. Green and Away is the name of the place and the idea is to offer an alternative venue and experience for conferences and conference goers. If you have ever been to a normal conference you will know that they are dull and usually in some kind of grey hotel. When Green and Away gets packed up in a few weeks time they leave the fields the same as when they arrived, the grass may be a little worn but that’s all… until next year when they come back and put it all up again.

By Rowetta Onions for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 3 comments

Birthday Wines, hooray. We had two wines on Friday 11th July.

The first was Bollinger NV - Non Vintage, meaning it is a blend from the best wines over many vintages, usually cheaper. But if its Bollinger, the quality is never lost!. The pop was decadent, and felt celebratory, champagne never loses that fact, you can not escape it, even when, like last week you sample a good bottle of sparkling from another country, if it’s a brand like Bollinger, it feels special.

But at the end of the day it is about flavour. This has bags of flavour. A champagne that does not disappoint in any way. The bubbles begin a little violently. I have started to realise you need immaculately clean flutes for any bubbly, because small amounts of grease/dirt do affect the way the bubble appear in the glass and cause a head that ends up everywhere. Top Tip!

Anyway, once it had settled down, the bubbles were light, fresh and in thin streams. The smell was brioche, biscuity, it smelt of fine delicate bready French things you have for breakfast. What you hope for in champagne! Well, good champagne, otherwise you get sicky flavours, like the Montana one last week.

It was one of those rare things in wine, this goes with any food.

Very special, only for celebrations and if you can go to a wholesaler like I did you can get it up to £15 cheaper than it is in the shops! Hoorah!

Hushdie’s Rating: 3 sexy alien snails, oozing cool
Onion’s Rating: 12 handsome piglets
Overall Rating: Your face

The second wine we had was Musella’s (a very well known Italian Wine Maker) Amarone. Now Amarone is a little special. They get the best Corvina grapes, and then partially dry them in wooden huts. Its all very complicated, but they basically press the almost raisiny grapes into wine, so as you can imagine it is incredibly rich and potent. The wine we had was 16% in alcohol, and that’s just fermentation, no base spirit added like in port.

When I opened it, it smelt of nothing. No smell at all, it was as I call it, tight as hell!

I decanted it - you have to do this with good red wine, it makes a massive difference. We then left it for 2 hours, every so often I came back and smelt it, and each time I smelt it, the smell got richer and richer.

I cooked Onions a chorizo, wild mushroom, smoked garlic, roasted tomato rustic soup. It was powerful, rich and delicious. I made it because wines like this need a big flavoursome meal to go with them. One thing that is very true with European wine is that they are generally made to go with food, where as New World (Australia, USA, Chile, South Africa) wine is made for the mass market and for glugging - I shall discuss this when we taste supermarket wines.

Anyway the wine was great, but so rich, we left it in the decanter until Sunday 13th July when we finished it. That is when it came into its own. I have never experienced wine like this. It was passionate, exciting and a true eye opener. Grape juice can be quite an experience.

When I first tasted it, it had good dark dried plum flavours, rich blackberry, that quickly disappeared and left a porty taste, and then after that it is hard to explain. There were tomato flavours, cake flavours and so many interesting savoury and sweetness flavours that I felt amazed and confused. By the time we had finished it, I was confused that it was wine.

An experience one day when you feel like you want to spend £25 on a bottle of wine, you will see.

Hushdie’s Verdict: Emotionally scarred
Onion’s Verdict: Discombobulated
Overall Verdict: Counselling required

By Rowetta Onions for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 8 comments

Skinny Cat
Top Rot
Lasagnaputtta
John’s Puddy
Humour Puss
Naughty Boy!
Da Claw Snore
Big Eats Ian
Boxxa
Guardwurld
Mr. Don’t Wake Me
Belly Puss
Blooper
Bored-y Cat
Big Drops
Heston
Orange Hobo
Tears Bear
Mancat Missy
Pussy Brute
The Southpaw Ribber
Florida Bonny
Fatpaw Fie
The Honalulu Pusso Burglar
The Constant Gardener
Hunky Johnson
The Orange Funpper
Pumpy Cat
Rumbleytump
Nodger
Pie Chasm
L’il Gavin
Purple Eye
Mr Bed Bump
Hookoo Tounge
Ippy Cat
Hungry Munger
Kissy Spoot
El Fluffster
Office Pet
Hommechat
Rungy Pillow
Lacipuss
SNOOZERVS
Windy Winder
Felix Dare
Gartflwelt
Gaston
Pump Room Mike
Rabbi Johnson
Pussy Darkside
Kool Kat
Mëoi Mëoi Meanie
Sleeping Flippers
Mogglesy Cunt

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From a 15th century cookbook.

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If you didn’t get the chance to watch any of the Federer / Nadal Final, you were lucky. You were lucky because watching something so closely fought, so closely matched is not good for your health.

It makes you sick, sick in a way that only good sporting occasions can.

My blood boiled, my heart missed a few beats, and my screams and shouts (which are prevalent in most sports) were lost, quiet, deathly silent.

I have to admit I am not a big tennis fan. I watched Wimbledon when I was young, and got a bit excited when Tim ‘the sad looking fist shaker’ Henman got so close, but not really close.

I used to play a bit when I was young, and part of me yearns to play more (to be honest I’ll play any sport if you pay me).

Yesterday was a bit special, I listened to the first couple of sets on the radio and then went out to the deer park. Obviously there was a rain delay, but it almost felt like it had to be like that, it had to have the weather play an extra part in the drama.

We got home and they were playing the fourth set.

It was like watching a chess game played by the best, at their peak.

Two men, so evenly matched, so incredibly desperate for victory, it was a feast for the eyes.

Each shot, so precise, there was a part of you that asked if the game would ever finish. Federer, the preppy boy, never seemed to sweat, and Nadal, who so blatantly has OCD, but in sport it is called ‘Focus’ is so entertaining to watch.

It was the longest Wimbledon final ever (over 5 hours) and had the biggest TV audience for the year.

People’s attention spans are supposedly smaller, but even this, a titanic sporting moment, destroyed that fact and people were glued, glued because sport does feed the imagination. If anything, sport , when it is at its very best, and most exciting, is magical, almost unworldly.

When Nadal had Match Point (for the 4^th time) time stopped and it was all about these next few seconds, could Federer stop him again, it had seemed impossible the first 3 times, but as he struck the ball and it slammed against the net, it was over.

Nadal collapsed to the floor, I began to weep. I wept because it was exhausting, because he deserved it, and because they were both such incredible artists.

Federer is only 25 and Nadal is only 22, they still have many years to play each other. I feel this is only the start of something very special.

It might just be another sport, but when there are two such incredible sportsmen involved, it is a piece of art.

By salman hushdie for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 2 comments

In the bleak winter of the dawn of 2008 this crucifix appeared on Under Scrutiny’s breast, seemingly burning itself into his jungle of chest hair. I was fortunate enough to capture on camera the effect this divine revelation had on a couple of proles that were loitering about the parish. Now summer is in full swing, I believe that some of the hair has grown back.

By The sociable truth for alittlepoison.com | Permalink | 4 comments