Cardigan Watch (incorporating The Cardigan Research Group)

It’s Cardigan Weather

My parents are both prodigious wearers of the devil's accoutrement, which is difficult enough, but now they’re everywhere.

Yes, as the temperature dips for Autumn, they're back.

Sagging woollen things, weighed down by their Buitoni, dangling in my soup (if I had any).

Particularly egregious examples recently - a very long purple one worn by the receptionist at the opticians, with some weird fussy vertical stitch on both sides. Ghastly

A sagging off-colour cream one, been through the wash way too many times, sagging-sagging-sagging almost to the knees of the wearer. 

I seriously almost puked.

This one in the window of some boutique or other owned by a human coat-hanger who thinks she has good taste.

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

They’re everywhere. 

Be on your guard.

Baker, Baker, bullshit maker

I was removing some fungus from one of my manly crevices, when I came across some idiotic word dribblings of a certain Gerard Baker in the Friday edition of The Times.

Yes I know - bloody Murdoch press. 

I get it.

But most of the writers have some journalistic integrity.

Ok, SOME.

But this guy is a whole new level of stupid. 

He's the one outed MAGA cheerleader in the paper. And my god it shows.

He joined the Trump filching society and berated Jimmy Kimmel for being offensive in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder.

Kimmel didn't say anything nasty about Kirk. Quite the opposite.

But he did make fun of Trump's reaction. 

If you don't know, Trump was asked how he was bearing up after his friend's assassination.

" Very well. And if you look over there the bulldozers and diggers are there to make this wonderful ballroom..."

Kimmel added -  superfluously in my opinion - that this was the reaction of a 4 year old mourning his goldfish.

That's what did it.

The Trump appointed leader of their TV watchdog then told ABC - the network responsible for the show - that if they want to do a forthcoming merger they drop Kimmel. 

The same thing happened a few weeks ago to Stephen Colbert of The Late Show.

So comedians and TV networks are already subject to cancellation by the POTUS, simply for making fun of the Trump.

And the C-suite have duly bent the knee to the Dear Leader.

Meanwhile on Fox and Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade suggested euthanising the homeless.

Nothing.

Despite the first amendment and that being made fun of comes with the territory, Trump is such a snowflake that he has to exact revenge on his detractors.

Just think about that. 

By complete contrast, the most erudite and brilliant writer at the moment is also a Times columnist.

You can read a brilliantly researched article by James Marriott (for it is he) right HERE

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. 

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Hippies

By fucking you over I’m merely exercising my personal freedom. 

It doesn’t matter! 

Get over it.

I shall go ballistic if you infringe on mine.

La la la. I am the Eloi incarnate. 

I shall make daisy chains and be free and live in peace and harmony in my flat in Westbourne Park Road.

I shall look down my nose at your attitudes and lecture you on righteousness.

For I drive an electric SUV and you a petrol car, puking its shit, poisoning my auras.

All my food is organic and vegan. 

I have a checklist with which to judge you.

Everyone should do what I do.

Give up your job and be free!

The universe will provide!

Now I shall reach over you and drape my rainbow cardigan in your face.

...and I shall shit.

Bapspeak

Kill all non-vegan animals!

Start with a headbutt; follow up with a chainsaw

May I stroke your human?

Videos what you can watch

Been looking at 80s videos recently, uploaded from old analogue VHSs and possibly Betamaxes.

This is a great site called Found Footage Fest. 

Not for everyone - it's more of a niche audience.

"Tiger Moves" is just one of many gems.

And here is an instructional video on bowels, and their correct usage.

Being the 80s, Rapping was a new technology, and it was used very effectively in training a variety of skills, including sandwich making. 

Or 'subs' as the Yanks call them.

I've no idea why they call them that.

And this is...well. What it is.

Enjoy, as the hospitality Nazis say.

I’m a thick bitch packing cake

Bloody Chickens

(WARNING TO ALISON: contains 1x F-bomb…)

I'm completely mad and should never be allowed near the general public. So say I.

Haunted by my past - scattergun memories make me wince with every one that lands. Like a flicked finger to the unmentionables.

Shouting out ‘Fuck off!’ which my parents are either too deaf to hear or miraculously - especially my mother who’s strictly adverse to swearing of any kind - ignoring.

I wasn’t even allowed to say bum as a kid, nor chuck stones into ponds where no one was lurking “just in case”.

Sounds mad now.

Because it is.

Increased Input

Re-subscribed to The Times (£1 a month for 3 months - they must be desperate, which in a way is good) but I've failed to read more than half of the editions.

I like the Saturday edition but The Sunday Times is a piece of shit. Completely different - like a bombastic, snobbish older uncle, there to embarrass you with its antediluvian outlook and Faragist waistcoat.

Ignorant, ludicrous, pompous.

So I can still read a newspaper. The downside is it's bloody depressing. News is almost always of the 'bad' variety. A new forest being planted doesn't quite have the gravity of bombs falling on families in Ukraine or the middle-east.

Already though, with the input of information - 'news' as it's often referred to - it's stimulating my brain enough to start writing.

What a fug I get myself into. Hitting the same thing on YouTube time and again. I need variety but it's difficult to know how to get it when there are only 3 choices available...

I just have the greatest taste in music…

Saying that I listen to a lot of great music (as do we all) although my taste is the best. No really, you must check out what I listen to. It really is better than yours.

Truthfully.

Lots of great jazz/fusion/Brazilian funk from the 70s - Banda Black Rio, Gilberto Gil, George Duke, and also rediscovering Gil Scott Heron and Roy Ayers, who I saw at Ronnie Scott’s many years ago.

Also a big fan of Lizzo, which inspired the title of this post. Big fan of Missy Elliott who I always found strangely beautiful and one of the best rappers of all time. She doesn’t get as much recognition IMO due to her sex.

And here are both of them in a conveniently packaged video promo!

Also like Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi, Domi and JD Beck, Esperanza Spalding and countless other geniuses.

I like music where musicians have conversations with other musicians - I guess that’s why I like jazz.

I want to hear bands - musicians. Original ideas.

I want there to be imperfect concerts in an age of computerised perfection.

Do you know they’re even auto-tuning Freddy Mercury’s voice on Queen re-releases??

It’s possible to like current music when you’re old but in the main you have to work harder for the good stuff as… Simon Cowell.

Yes, why have the chef’s special when you can have the Big Mac followed by the Mars Bar?

He probably doesn’t even listen to the stuff.

Saying that, Mars Bar were never good live.

Me and my non-sequiturs, Mrs!! 

What’s…out the window?

 That woman in her cardigans is walking past all the time. Bag over shoulder, hair tied up, wellingtons or boots. All weathers. Like a farmer, but not. She stares at the ground, always on a mission. She’s a strong walker - I’ll give her that. 

I spoke to her while walking Tomos. She could speak for England. 

She's pleasantly bonkers but I find it hard to get past the cardigans.

Ow! 

That lump under my right patella is rather too big now. It's been growing there for years. I occasionally acknowledge it. I don't want to bother anyone (doctors) with something as non-emergent as an uncomfortable growth, but that's what they said about Mount Vesuvius isn't it? All those Pompeiians.

Having a black desk shows up the dust somewhat. I need to dust it at least every hour.

It’s gotten really cold. Dark clouds. So windy too. My Mum swears it was never this windy in the past!

I call it Led Zepplin weather. Me with my Sanyo version of a Sony Walkman in the back of a Ford Cortina driving to Ystradgynlais in the early 80s - cold, grim, cloudy, and all the while listening to either Led Zep 4 or Houses of the Holy. 

Romantic, melancholic, hiraeth, Tolkein.

Love it.

Word of the Week!

‘Relatable’. As in “I can relate to that”. 

Like Rylan, bless him - all teeth and no brain. Hence him replacing the old fuddy-duddies who do.

How dare they know shit! 

Elite, arrogant, entitled!

But it’s also an annoying word as it doesn’t seem to have any synonyms. A bit like the word ‘impactful; which I first heard being used by a PR person.

Damn - it hasn’t replaced any word. It’s just new. And while I hate these words, I hate it more that I don’t know their equivalents, if they even exist at all!!!

Lord Alli and me

Before I aged horribly, in my 30s I was an attractive well-dressed office worker in central London.

I had hair and everything.

So much so that when I worked at a certain company people used to think I was gay. I mean, you have to be to dress like that!

Don't you?

Lord Alli was the chairman of that company. Always used to make a special effort to say hello. He used to say things like: “Are you taking the stairs or are you coming out with me?” In reference to the lift.

Er, the stairs.

He asked me once what I did in the company. I told him (it was relatively lowly) and he said “Well, I think we’ll have to do something about that Geraint.”

He’s now embroiled in the freebies scandal with the Prime Minister.

I remember he had his chauffeur running round London picking up and delivering presents to his 100 closest friends and the chauffeur who'd been employed by him for a number of years absolutely mortified that Alli had neglected to buy him one.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a man so hurt.

Alli was one of “Tony’s Cronies”. I always felt there was some kind of transactional nature to the guy.

Wow: if I could earn that kind of money!

He then elbowed out the CEO and went on a spending spree buying up millions of quidsworth of intellectual properties.

And then the crash of 2007 happened.

And that was the end of that company.

Just my thoughts.

One day I’ll tell you about Dom Joly.