GIRL IN A SUICIDAL LANDSCAPE

Our Bloody Rows

Our bloody rows, our confrontations,
these contretemps of contristation
a cry of endless separation.

My petulance, naive neglect,
a failed attempt to genuflect
an innate shying from romantics
a baffled refuge in semantics

So let us stop our co-distressing
and set upon a deliquescing
instead of fatally regressing

To looking in the Chamber pot
there's nothing there but blood and rot
a confluence of what we're not

We are the it, the who, the why
and I love you and you love I.

Petulant Riskingham

Miss Perilbottom: Do onions grow on trees?

Mr Riskingham: Just a moment, Miss Perilbottom, I must consult my Encyclopedia.

'I wish you'd pistol-whip me around the face.'

I'd never heard of Penny Anderson before this morning but having inadvertently stumbled upon her piece on Ian Brown in the Guardian I now want to sabotage her writing career, disarticulate her puppy dog and turn her face in to pulp not only because I like Ian Brown but also because she makes me contemplate a sex change. She and her like, cue cunter number one Ms Mangan, epitomise the sort of women I despise not only as women but also as writers. They scribble indiscriminately old and bromidic tales of domesticity, devise and solve homologous dilemmas, expectorate bombastically about equality, empowerment and independence while simultaneously puling on and on about The One like schizophrenic hobbits and then of course they dip their toes in to controversy by 'daringly' lambasting things they neither know nor care about. This Penny's piece on Brown is just such nonsense. She opens with the following:

'To celebrate its 20th anniversary, The Stone Roses is to be repackaged as a box set. This amazes me, but then the misty-eyed adoration enjoyed by Ian Brown and co has always been baffling. The band's eponymous 1989 debut always seems to make the top 10 best-ever lists. How the hell did that happen?'

Answers on a postcard or a petard right through her front door. I know which one I'd go with. She then goes on to say that maybe her myopic, insular perspective is tainted by the band's on-stage performances which she describes as 'rallies for scallies', a valid point perhaps among the middle-aged virago circles? But who knows and what is more who cares, her biggest criticism of the band is that their work 'smelled pungently of bloke'. The word that comes to mind is sexist but then again she may just be a vitriolic aging lesbo. And yet she sees herself as nothing short of a socialist rebel proudly declaring to be 'against the tide' and subsequently having to endure numerous hate mail suggesting Ian Brown 'a god' and her as 'deaf' and worse, to add to which she scoffs: 'the mail had often been misogynistic, poorly spelled and scribbled ham-fistedly in green crayon.' I personally wouldn't go as far as 'deaf' but 'daft' without a question, what's more I won't attempt to deify Brown or his band mates and I will certainly not be dispatching any hate mail at least not in my favourite green crayon as I reserve it for special people like Doris Lessing ....somewhat unfortunately though perhaps for Ms Anderson I also won't be reserving my judgement, not on this occassion. CUNT.

I’m not usually one to acknowledge let alone commemorate Valentine’s Day however this year I donned a dress, curled my eyelashes, painted my nails and went out to what promised to be a very romantic dinner indeed. The restaurant – much exalted among the epicurean community – was in the trendy, urbane area of Islington. I trotted along in my 6inch heels trying to avoid a crash-course in pavement snogging when my date spotted the restaurant of choice. We crossed the road and made our way inside which looked like an overcrowded wing of the local psych ward. The dim, ill adjusted lighting and thrifty furnishings didn’t help any. Nor did the wilted flora displays scattered haphazardly on chicle colored tablecloths and certainly NOT the disgruntled faces of the other patrons swiftly making their exodus. The maitre d’ – a bovine middle aged tart wrapped up in a mauve housedress with piss-hole eyes, a carmine pout and what looked like an aeruginous peruke – ushered us to an expansive bench table – the kind you’d expect to find in a provincial tavern in the fiduciary age of Asterix. I felt as if I’d suddenly developed akathisia and thus looked to the door. Alas not wanting to cause a scene I took my place adjacent my date and scanned the A4 menu studded with indecipherable new-age argot. I didn’t quite dare touch the complementary h'orderves which looked like ossified elephant droppings. The waiter, a gormless chap of indeterminate derivation with a malevolently bland face and rather too much pomade in his pate, had to be summoned on several occasions. Not enough sense or incentive to attend to his duties without a prompting. When I asked if the chef could hold the garnish on some of the dishes he grumbled like a troglodyte before intoning; ‘Impossible’. The wine or rather the overpriced fusty ferment was followed by an array of small and garish dishes: coagulated quinoa pulp, sweaty Portobello mushrooms resting on a flocculent mess, four scallops sluiced with creosote on a platter of nondescript provender, sliced beetroot straight out of a jar with a nip of parsley and something else, sea bass the tincture and texture of a biker’s road rash and a plate of oleaginous green beans undercooked and flavorless. I selected some of the above gingerly and found they made for an unrewarding plate of pelmanism. It was like chewing on bog paper or crinoline that’s been saturated with molten lard. The waiter was summoned again to go down to the rapidly-sinking ship’s caboose and procure me something edible. He floundered and yammered incognizant gibberish before disappearing to return with someone of higher rank. The debacle continued. My date looked on in profound embarrassment. The seneschal attempted to ingratiate herself by whispering ‘sweet’ platitudes in to my tympanum. I relayed my request again as I had done to the waiter while she informed me that all their dishes are pre-cooked some time before dining commences. I surmised that perhaps that was the reason why the food was tasteless, flaccid and unremarkable in every particular and subsequently sent her away to cook me some beans.
All in all the service was tawdry, the place sterile, the décor frightful, the staff obtuse and inflexible, the food inedible, the evening a parade of slapstick comedy paradoxes. But the biggest disappointment of all was my oversight of the occasion at hand and by extension my date. It seems that even I can be a grand cunt sometimes.

I’m sorry.

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young.

Bob Dylan and I wish you a very Happy Birthday.

Mr Riskingham serenades Miss Perilbottom after yet another spat.

'If you didn't have toes you'd fall over more.'