It's a good job that Stoke Newington doesn't have much of a Haitian population

This blog was written a few weeks ago and lay dormant in 'Draft' format. By popular demand (Cosmo, this one's for you), here it is.

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Remember that crazy hat I had when admiring my runner beans? No? Look here.
The hat was purchased a couple of weeks ago, with a fancy dress party in mind. Here it is, along with the other items that made up my outfit. Can you guess what I went as.....






Any ideas?


So that's a top hat & feather.... bamboo flute.... raggedy pants.... threadbare shirt...voodoo doll... and black face paint (sounds like a nightmarish version of the Generation Game).


That's right: Baron Samedi, the voodoo high priest made famous by Geoffrey Holder in 'Live and Let Die'.



An obvious choice for any fancy dresser, right? I'd first considered dressing as this guy prior to the ill-fated Womble debacle a few years ago. Long story, but basically myself and two others dressed as Wombles for a fancy dress 70s party. At Leeds station, a group of drunken thugs took exception to this and, after trying to steal Mme Cholet's head, smacked us upside the head a bit. Instead of arresting some of the b*stards for assault, the police found this all rather amusing. Nice one.


You'd think I might have learned my lesson after that. If not, surely the message should have hit home a couple of years later, narrowly avoiding a beating dressed as Scooby Doo in Sheffield? Nope, last Saturday I was in Stoke Newington looking like this:



Making a shirt and pair of trousers go all raggedy was a lot of fun. Thowing a garden fork through the shirt resulted in an effect that you could easily pay big money for down the fashionable boutiques.

I was fairly paranoid from the start about causing offence in this costume. I'd been assured the day before that lots of people would be wearing odd stuff, including a Spiderman. This convinced me to go for it. Not so: approximately four people were dressed up. 'Spiderman' = a man in jeans and T-shirt with a Spiderman eye mask that he wore for the first 10 minutes. Great. To be honest, I did know that the party theme was 'Masquerade' so I really ought to have taken that on board. But once the prospect of wearing a top hat and raggedy pants got into my head, there was no stopping it!


Fortunately, all went well. Most people knew who I was supposed to be and sympathised with my retarded-childlike playing of my bamboo flute (some people who couldn't see me actually thought that there was a pre-schooler learning the flute in the house next door). I was in the toilet queue (you who do voodoo use loo too) when the wind left my sails. "Minstrels!" came the call a guy joining the line. "No! I'm the guy from the Bond film!" I anxiously responded, quickly turning my face left and right to display the painted/non-painted sides. The toilet became available, and that was the end of that. I didn't see the guy again. I don't know if he genuinely thought I was making some kind of racist statement or was just messing with me. Either way, I began to feel a bit awkward and got changed not long after (I'm not completely stupid - I'd never intended to get on the night bus to Brixton dressed like that).

Here's my voodoo doll, Clarkson:

Another kill and I get my '00'

It's been a traumatic day. Readers keen on animal rights might not want to read any more of this. Ditto anyone about to eat a meal. This blog can't be all sunflowers and knitting. I need to report the bad stuff too.


Regular readers may recall that we've had a long-running battle with mice in our house. Initially I ignored them, but then the battle became gradually more extreme, through humane traps, various baits, snap traps and then poison. Recently though, there's been no problem and they seemed to have got the message that they weren't really welcome. Until this morning. I came downstairs to find a mouse in the snap trap. Only it wasn't dead. Its back leg was caught in there and although it was alive, it certainly wasn't very well. While I agonised over what to do, it would occasionally make small pathetic movements with its other paws.


Two options then. Let it go somewhere, where it would most likely die a pretty slow death. Or complete a murine act of euthansia. I took it outside and to the end of the street where there was a big pile of rubbish. There, I released it from the trap. I was hoping that it might maybe give me a little wink, shake the cramp out of its leg, and skip merrily away. No. It dragged itself a couple of cm, and then gave up. Still breathing, but looking incapable of moving any distance. The old internal debate kicked in: I must do the decent thing, finish the poor animal off. But maybe it just needs a rest after its stressful experience? When it's recuperated it might be ok? Come on, look at its leg - it's practically detached. By now it was after 7am and a few people were walking past on their way to work. I had to make a decision.


In amongst this pile of junk were some paving slabs. I don't need to spell out what happened here. It wasn't pretty, and I felt pretty sickened afterwards. But at least it was swift.



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A while ago Ak was griping about how freak storms were smashing up his sunflowers. I scoffed. Yeah yeah, just because your sunflowers are puny weaklings. But now I have some sympathy. This evening our garden was pummelled by hailstones. Leaves were shredded, and flowers smashed.











The pics show a sunflower leaf, and a nasturtium, as any fule kno. Ripped to pip, I tell you!

A day in the hood

Domesticated blog time. Jonze will love this. Today I have:

1. Baked a cake. Blueberry and pear. It's very tasty. I just followed CP's instructions really, but I'm proud of it. Mmm!

2. Measured my sunflowers. Here is what is probably our first entrant in the competition. It is approx. 165cm tall and now that it has a flower I'm guessing that it won't grow much taller. We'll see.

3. Admired my fledgling runner beans. Anyone know any runner bean recipes? I'll hopefully be needing them in the next few weeks.

4. Submitted a paper to Work & Stress (rating: 2.156 Impact Factor fans!).

Readers, watch this space for more action-packed blogs!