brains is bitter

A weekend in Aberystwyth. Dave drove, which was lucky as I can't. On the motorway, the signs were not good. Lorries bearing company names like Panic, Discordia, and (sic) Greif shuddered past. Who would call their firm Discordia? By the time we got to Oxford, it was already going wrong: massive hold-ups. Patrick Stewart's voice on the Tomtom sounded increasingly angry, adding stern vocals, like furious dance-move commands, to Dave's happy hardcore. 'Turn left!' 'Turn right!' We might as well have been waving our hands in the air like we just didn't care: whenever we left one traffic jam we managed to hunt out another.

We got there in nine hours all told, cruising into Aberystwyth down a road littered with animal corpses, as the sky grew dark. The hotel was Kafkaesque: we walked into the door of what we thought was our hotel, only for one of the East European girls who worked there to drag us through a couple of inner doors into another, almost identical one. It was as though a trick had been played on us; and yet the hotels are in some sense the same, in spite of having different names, neither of which was the name on the key fob. My reservation was in the name of (something like) 'Mart Timulphuldus.'

Mat and Amanda and Nicki and Shaun all had a sea view: we had a view of a dirty discarded sock lying on a roof beneath our window.

Despite the omens, it turned into a good time. I even danced - briefly, feebly, under duress, at what felt like someone's wedding, though it was just a normal night in the Pier Brasserie, apparently. I threw even more ridiculous shapes on the beach at Ynislas the next day. Rhys had assembled a beach volleyball court - a lengthy and elaborate process involving a mallet, so that we kept expecting to turn our heads to find that he'd built a miniature replica of the Stadium of Light, there on the sand behind us. Of course I was terrible at beach volleyball - except when I was a genius. It was all terribly random.

We had a meal in a posh restaurant. 'Everyone' had monkfish. Then, for dessert, 'everyone' had baked alaska. Mat was just about to voice the observation that baked alaska was therefore 'the monkfish of desserts' when I (apparently) stole his thunder by uttering those very words. This infuriated him so much that he has now dedicated himself to utilising this witty construction on every suitable occasion that arises. Hence, when we had a curry on the last night, the tandoori mixed grill turned out to be 'the baked alaska of curry house main courses'. I do hope this doesn't come to dominate his life. That would be tragic.

A lot of time was spent trying to decide how gay Mat and Rhys are. Was watching Hollyoaks in bed together 'gay'? Later, Rhys watched Top Gear, alone, in the nude - where on the scale that left him was very unclear, even to Shaun, our expert on these matters. As for JP, he gave us a compelling insight into the heterosexual bachelor lifestyle when he described how the other night he caught himself dipping hula hoops into Bovril while simultaneously taking bites out of a lump of cheese. He needs a woman in his life, was the conclusion he arrived at.

Someone had written as their comment in the visitor's book: 'The girls are nice!', a reference to the East European girls who work - I should say run - the joint. Dave added his own version, as merely 'Dave' from 'Essex': 'Great girls', he scrawled - all that was missing were the drool-stains. I couldn't think of anything to write. I can't now. On the way home I saw a pub advertising 'Good food', 'Good beer', and 'Brains.'

Brains! We fled with this echo of clamouring zombie voices (from Return Of The Living Dead, from The Simpsons) in our ears. But really we know that Brains is bitter.

bananas bottles balloons

On Eastenders Billy got landed with a truckload of dodgy bananas when he only asked Mo for a 'sample'. Obviously she was unrepentant. And what was her advice to Billy? 'Get selling!' For a moment, it was as though I was glimpsing the true hideous face of Waterstones, the phrase 'bulldog chewing a wasp' having been practically coined for Mo. I wonder if I should bring this up at the Forum.

I glanced through the 'toolkit' they sent through. There was some kind of personality test but when I did it it turned out that I was some great unifier of people, like Gandhi or something. I checked through the other 'answers' and nowhere did I see the phrase 'miserable sarcastic bastard'. Hmm, there's definitely something fishy about this.

I went to my cousin Linda's fortieth (she's not technically my cousin, but never mind). She was wearing a red dress and a blonde wig, an outfit also sported by her brother Dave in a homemade DVD they were showing - no wait, it isn't what you think. Dave was playing Linda, and engaged in pushing over a row of women dressed as giant bottles of wine while everybody sang a customised version of Ten Green Bottles. Oh, that is what you thought? Clever you.

While we sat there, Linda's young daughter busied herself hitting us over the head (only the men) with a balloon until, eventually, it burst. 'I've burst the first balloon!', she cried, as though it were a tradition, or a competition. Sadly, the only prize was another balloon, and the assault resumed in all its horrifying relentlessness. We carried on chatting as though it wasn't happening, obscurely humiliated.

The other day I passed a sign on a travel agent's window advising people to hurry, because 'last-minute deals are going fast'. Which hardly seemed worth pointing out.

There was a big hairy spider in those bananas, by the way. A new character, who will later turn out to be yet another long-lost member of the Slater family.

secret sharers

We found a place to live, just down the road. Unfortunately, other people were interested. A house-share of three 'professional' males, 'just like yourselves' as the estate agent put it. Just like ourselves, that is, except willing to pay more than the asking price. A bidding war loomed. Possibly with ourselves. What would the estate agent have said if we'd asked the names of these mysterious individuals? I imagine him stammering: 'Er... Mave, Doss, and Rartin'. But in fact, these mysterious others really are going to have the place, so presumably they do exist. Otherwise the scam has certainly gone too far.

As if this wasn't bad enough, I've had the landlady on the phone complaining about 'the pressure at her end'. Consult your GP, love, not me! I don't know or want to know what her pressing situation is, but I can't help but picture her in a small room with some very big men from the Russian mafia, tied to a chair. Maybe it just gives me satisfaction to do that. Serve her right for taking so long to fix the leak in our shower! Of course, she shouldn't be ringing me directly anyway, but I'm just too fucking polite not to speak to her. My mobile has the right idea - twice during her calls the battery has failed. Although in this case, a better word would be: 'succeeded'.

At work I find myself in the supremely ironic position of representing the store on the Forum, this thing set up to communicate the views of the workers to head office, a kind of trade union without the aggro (they hope). You're meant to be elected, but in the event I was simply the least unwilling. Well, I thought, at least it's a day out. With sandwiches. Imagine my consternation, then, when this document calling itself a 'toolkit' came through on an e-mail: pages and pages of skills you have to learn in order to be an effective representative. 'Active listening'. What's that? Wiggling your ears? I never could do that.

we scratch our arses

A trip to Colchester zoo for Heidi's first birthday gave her her first experience of putting her fingers in a goat's nose. Everyone brought children; even Mat and Amanda had borrowed a couple for the occasion. Even I travelled up in the back seat with Phil and Vicki's 'monkey', as Vicki's text, ominously, described him. In the event there was very little monkey business, and Christopher was either asleep, or looking at me warily. Real monkeys proved to be more alarming. One of Mat and Amanda's charges, Ellie, was terrified by an orang utan. She wasn't wrong. It was this huge great mass of matted fur which I wasn't even convinced was a living thing until it moved, and then it was like that moment in Audition where the sack shifts. It skulked off into the shadows, all hair, like a spectre from another Japanese horror film: most of them.

The chimps were more agreeable. An elderly one scratched its arse then sniffed its fingers, clearly playing the crowd, grossing them out. This is too easy, its expression seemed to say. Informative phrases adorned the windows of all the enclosures. They could have sold them in the shop as bumper stickers: an alternative to merely telling people that you've been to Colchester Zoo. We are spider monkeys; I come from Russia; We are similiar to dogs. Nearly everything worked.

My special bond with children continued to bear fruit. Ellie (two) happily pointed to her brother Bobby, and called his name, and did the same with Mat, but when people pointed at me and encouraged her to say my name, she merely said: 'Oh'. As though that would be socially awkward.

Our attempts to find ourselves a new enclosure have not been successful. We looked at a house on the notorious East Ham estate, home of machete attacks, dispersal orders... and Maud (hi, Maud!). It was the usual case of the third bedroom being too small, but on this occasion there was a converted loft. 'The only thing is', said the letting agent, 'it doesn't have a door.'

I just about restrained myself from asking: 'How do you get in?'

In the event it was suitable only for children and dwarves; even I would have suffered from chronic head injuries, living in it. The real surprise, though, was that the East Ham estate seemed really peaceful. You could have heard the thunk of a machete into flesh from miles away.

slower than sound

I am not ashamed of watching Big Brother, but I must admit that having written about it in that last entry, I did feel a bit... grubby. So it's fortunate that I was able to visit the other end of the cultural spectrum with Faster Than Sound at the weekend. FTS, as regular readers with extremely good memories may know, is a strange electronic offshoot of the Aldeburgh festival, taking place on a disused airbase in Suffolk. Last time we went it turned into a neo-rave; this time precautions had been taken. All the action was confined to one hangar and most of the artists were only on for ten minutes at a time, as though to stop anyone from getting too worked up. And the performances were low on beats and high on experimentation: so a lot of grinding but not much bumping.

Vladislav Delay, one of the closest things FTS had to a 'star', was only on for 15 minutes or so and way down the bill, doing his swirling, clonking ambient thing with 'live percussionists.' These were: a woman who spent most of the performance with sticks raised in the air, poised to strike; and a guy quietly, almost shamefacedly, playing what was probably a xylophone. Not quite the Drummers of Burundi then. Tim Exile possibly fared a little better with live vocalists who whooped and shrieked while he (musically) beat them up.

The atmosphere was friendly, like a party. And apocalyptic. Whenever I returned to the hangar it was to discover a grim rumbling; or a bloke shouting about death while people waved torches around; or a woman making a cello sound like Diamanda Galas being sawn in half. It all climaxed with Mira Calix's seething and chirupping accompaniment to film of insect activities, images which reminded me of the Martians in Quatermass And The Pit (1967) an appropriate response to a place frozen in time, yet still haunted by scary possibilities; cold wars.

I was engaged, not fully engaged, but more so, probably than Mat and Dave, who were busy counting the seconds until twelve, when Plaid (in a sense the only real 'act' of the night) came on. 'What time is midnight?', asked Dave at one point; then, a second later, 'How long is midnight?' Mat was busy making the case that, musically, we could do better ourselves. I returned from a visit to the hangar at one stage to find that they had invented 'dickcore'. Mat was planning our first video. What should be in it? 'Cunts. A lot of cunts. Cocks. Cocks in cunts... Arseholes.' Unsurprisingly he was pissed, his recurrent hiccups already improvising a bold first step in his experimental music career.

Plaid delivered, beavering away on laptops in a closed-off space in the middle of the floor. It was like they were at work, and we were peering at them over the top of their cubicle; effectively, I suppose, this was the case. But they didn't seem too pissed off about the situation. And there were other distractions: flashing lights illuminating a trackway at the end of which was a set of steps. These gave rise to expectations which you knew would not be fulfilled: Shirley Bassey swanning down them in some fabulous gown; or a giant space insect at the very least.

We had to wait for an hour for the cab. I passed the time twanging the tab on my coke can. In this context I was practically busking.

Next morning popular culture reasserted itself. I sat paralysed before the Hollyoaks omnibus. Someone called Max was run over and killed shortly after getting married. 'Don't be gay', his best man pleaded as he slipped away. Once, people used to moan about 'that word' being hijacked by, er, gays. Clearly, it has been hijacked again. And is still travelling, at high speed, and veering crazily all over the road. I wonder where it will end up this time.

At least the expiring groom got to say that it had been 'the best day of my life'. Wait! You got run over and died! I wouldn't like to see your worst day.