An exchange about facial hair...

Woman with massive moustache in my shop picking an outfit for her son's wedding: oh thanks for your help, I love the dress. One last thing, I have a moustache, do you think I should shave it off?

Me: (brushing it out of my eyes and not missing a beat) Yes.

(I have a real problem - I can't lie when it comes to facial hair, not even to preserve people's feelings, it just isn't possible. Everything else I can lie about, facial hair? Non.)

Woman with moustache: Oh...really? You think I should? It's just that I've had it all my life and I'm not actually bothered by it, it's just I thought for the wedding photos..

Me: You should remove it, yes. Get rid of it. Immediately.

Moustache: Well, I've never done anything about it before - where do I go? What do they use? Does it hurt?

Me: Go to the nearest garden centre/carpenters/vets/weaponary store - ask for their largest knife and slay the bastard before it gets any bigger and comes after me, I mean the world. Go! Run, woman RUN! Now - before it's too late!

Moustache: Perhaps you're right.. I don't want my son to be ashamed of me...after all, it's his big day and the pictures will be there forever..OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PUT THOSE SCISSORS DOWN - FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! ARE YOU MAD?! GET OFF! AGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SOMEBODY HELP! THIS GIRL IS TRYING TO CUT MY LIPS OFF!

Like I say, I can't lie. One day someone's going to be really offended...

Hey peeps, check out a really cool interview Phill did with Misty's Big Adventure at Truck this weekend. And whilst you're there, marvel at the great photos by yours truly (and Squib too!!)!

BBC Birmingham Misty's Big Adventure article

Hello kittens, sorry it's been a while since last I blogged - been rather busy. Spent all weekend at the Truck Festival photographing bands for Truck Records. Between me and Squib I think we must have taken about 900 pics in total and now we're spending every waking minute editing them down to the best. It's a freaking nightmare, Jim. As someone once didn't say. Anyway, I have to go now as I am shattered and ill and have started to get repetitive strain injury in my right wrist from repeatedly clicking on crop, auto levels, levels, grayscale, contrast&brightness, sharpen, flatten and save for each of 400 pictures in a row for two days. I may already be losing the plot. I will post some pics as soon as possible but before I do can I just direct everyone in the world to the coolest rapper to come out of America since the beginning of time, MC Lars. Met him on Sunday whilst he was being interviewed by Phill and apart from being hilarious, talented and highly intelligent and doing a rap version of Macbeth (Rapbeth), he just so happens to be one of the most gracious and friendly artists ever. Photos of the great man coming soon...

Other highlights of the weekend included Million Dead, and Misty's Big Adventure. Anyway, gotta go collapse, stay tuned for photos coming soon!....

Me and W just met up with A in 'Oxford's Number 1 Rock Pub' to discuss life since we last met up in O#1RP to discuss life. Topics tonight included: teenage fiction, at what point you are too old to wear cartoon characters on your clothes (A and I both have Emily Strange bags) Tori Amos sightings, life as a shop assistant cos we all happen to be one, A's rabbit being referred to as 'the elderly gentlemen' by it's vet, chinchilla masturbatory habbits, the naffness of Fuji cameras, the weirdness of not being able to talk to someone you were once close to, Tony Robinson being a patron of A's creative writing course, Eddie Izzard, Dylan Moran actually being exactly like Bernard Black in Black Books in real life and what is meant by the term 'fashion jewelry'. As usual, the night ended with me having a massive panic attack and making everyone go home before they wanted to. I say 'as usual', not because this is the only way I ever end nights out but because this seems to be the only way I end nights out with A. This time though I could blame the hideous femi-mullet taht was sat at the table next to us. Shudder. I would like to apologize to A and say that it really is nothing personal, it's merely a coincidence that when we meet up once or twice a year it happens to be when I'm feeling on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This time it was triggered by an argument about grammar between an American and an English person in felt tip on the door of the loo I was in. I spent such a long time reading it and contemplating who was right that suddenly the walls were closing in on me and I was drowning. I guess this is a hazard of living in Oxford - intellectual capital of the world - it would be too much to expect toilet graffiti that just said, 'Susie sucks big cocks' or 'this toilet is shitty'. Oh well. It's all over now, I'm home, I'm calm and no one died. Only, that's really not the point...

(ps: Hello tigra120. I'm not sure what your intentions are, thanks for the link. What is it that you thought I would like? Sending a link to a recovering agoraphobe about how sad it is to live in one place all your life is not really the best way to go about making friends but I really actually agree with you on some other points. I am well travelled if not actually physically. Emotionally. Perhaps if you were in one place long enough you'd find out how yourself catches up with you wherever you are. The biggest journey is discovering how to survive in your own mind, the biggest risk sometimes is staying put and sailing through. The poetry in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is that the hospital is society and rules and restrictions cause more anarchy than freedom alone. Is this what you meant? Good luck in your travels.)

Just finished watching Rock n Roll High School the fabulously low budget and innocent anti-authority 1979 cult classic starring The Ramones.

 

It's actually funny in places and there is loads of almost good acting from Joey Ramone who was officially the skinniest man of the 1970s. I found the fact that The Ramones had the ability to start playing and be amplified ANYWHERE throughout the film, despite not being plugged in and even at one point being in a turned on shower (how dangerous) really amusing. The sound is appalling, the teenage leader of the riot who was played by 29 year

P.J.Soles is the most cring-worthy, clean cut fan of punk I've ever seen. Despite this she has become a sex symbol and Rock n Roll High School is worth seeing if just for a bit at the end where the students have taken over the high school and are about to blow it up and The Ramones start up playing 'Rock n Roll High School', the head teacher covers her ears and screams, 'oh my god, it's so loud!' and a horrified policeman next to her says 'oh my god they're SO UGLY!' So true, so true. R.I.P Joey.

I love a guy who can express his emotions which is why Eric is my ideal man...Eric Conveys An Emotion...what a fabulous website, I LOVE IT!

Countryside graffetti - a rising trend.  

You don't say.... 

Dear Diary,

why does no one love me? Why do I live in a hole in the ground with only worms for company? Why don't the worms like me? Why is the future a big black abyss of failure, rejection and loss? Why does Avril Lavigne's latest cd cost so bloody much? Why does X want it for her birthday? What's happening to the world? I wouldn't normally mind spending that much on a cd for my friend but it's Avril bloody Lavigne for god's sake, it physically hurt me today to hand over the money in HMV. 3 hours wages gone on an AL cd. I am crying as I type this.

But I love my friend and she must have the cd that will make her the most happy and I must be the one to give it to her or else she will leave me too JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE and I will have NO ONE.

NO ONE.

I need to start buying my friends more presents as they are starting to desert me for pastures new, I know when I'm in the process of being dumped, I can tell when people have met other people and would rather be talking to them. I am not stupid.

No I'm not being paranoid. I am an expert on human relationships. I know the score. What's that you say? Yes it is the time of the month if you must know but people really are bored with me, I can tell and this has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Nothing. Zip. Nowt. Zilch. Nothing....well ok, it might have something to do with it.....a very little something, well ok a bit more than that......Ok, ok - you got me. I'll shut up until it's over. Stop shouting, I'll cry. Seesh....you hate me don't you? I knew it.

I have nothing to say about life at the moment because it is not pleasing me at all so I have decided to ignore it until it gets the message and starts treating me better. But I will just say that Rosie just came up with the best expression ever whilst we were in conversation about someone we know who in our opinion would look great without hair. Her exact words of advice were that I should 'fleece him like a sheep'. This is going to be my new phrase for sex because it sounds really dirty. I love it. The phrase I mean....It also draws me onto the bizarre wedding ceremony Squib and I had to photograph on Saturday where the vicar fancied himself to be a bit of a Paul Daniels and performed actual magic as part of the ceremony with a volunteer from the congregation and a pair of comedy magic jugs. This is a vicar who is clearly insane. He was wearing a long scarf with lambs on it that said 'feed my sheep' in capitals along the bottom. I found this very funny. Why do I always end up laughing in church? No respect, me. Then afterwards when the wedding guests etc had gone to the reception we were helping the vicar carry his 'equiptment' out to his car and I asked him if he got his jugs out often. He said he liked doing it but you can't do it to the same people more than once cos they only tend to like it the first time. He then said his jugs were very popular with children and I decided to leave the conversation there. Anyway, must get back to ignoring life until it realises what it's done and attempts to make up with me. I'm really not budging this time, if it wants me - it knows where to find me. I can't always be the one running after it all the time, there has to be some give and take in a relationship....I wonder if you can take life to Relate?

I was just recovering from the shock news below when lo and behold I am confronted with PJ Harvey's vagina live at Glastonbury. This is almost too much to take in one sitting, as my brother said 'you can practically see her ovaries!'

Sharon Stone eat your heart out. You go, girlfriend.

Breaking News: Phill and Deadly have quit The Rock Of Travolta

Today was official No Customer day in my shop...at 4 pm we realised we had forgotton to unflip the closed sign and unlock the door, oh well... 

Some wooden sheep today. £7.00 each. 

You've seen my pussy, now look at my back passage. Ok ok, I'll stop being gross - this is the back passage behind my shop. And oh look, a bicycle - we must be in Oxford.... 

Shop assistant in hell. 

Ah joy, yet another day in retail madness - only made recognisable from any other day by being a day of scary stalker man madness too when I single-handedly (yet again) took on the criminal underworld in defense of my shop and fellow shop assistants. Well actually all I did this time was tell some guy that has been stalking C to leave her alone or risk the wrath of Satan. The truth is, I have no sympathy when it comes to stalkers, I used to have one when I was 15, the experience scared the living bejeezus out of me, I was too vulnerable at the time to really give him what for, I'm not vulnerable anymore, as C's stalker found out - after the fifth phone call of him pretending he'd got the wrong number when I could see him through the window making the call, I'd really had enough. C and Z were really freaked out and everyone felt slightly sick and anxious. By the time he actually decided to attempt sane human interaction face to face and entered the shop, C's nerves were shot to a frazzle and she ran to go lock herself in the office, Z ran with her cos by this point everyone was scared. This was when I got a chance to enact some past demons and put it this way; he won't be doing any more 3 hour stints sitting over the road from the shop staring any more. No siree. After the blood had been cleared up I think he may even have taken onboard my advice about how to get a girlfriend in the future - ie) don't text girls you are interested in but don't know at all in the dead of the night to tell them that you are outside their house and were wondering what kind of pyjamas are they wearing...

Also my French traffic warden was in today but what with one thing and another I wasn't in the mood for a discussion about his latest favourite porn findings so I avoided eye contact and pretended to be doing something important...however I work in a shop so I'm sure he wasn't fooled, there's nothing important about commerse apart from the fact it holds the western world together of course.

Another person who was trying to catch my eye today in the shop was my ex head of sixth form, she is a completely mental woman with a sherry habbit and the hair of Elvis Presley. She also twitches like a chicken plugged into an electrical socket all the time. Despite this, she thought I was really weird at school and in a bid to get at me once gave me a detention for playing cards during a free period but completely ignored the hipflask I used to whip out and drink from during sixth form studies (only way to get through the thing). Needless to say I avoided eye contact with her too. Basically, if possible my advice to all future retail whores is it's best not to look up or make eye contact with anyone when working in a shop.