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| Watching phantoms |
When my laundry basket is downstairs, waiting for fresh, but eternally stiff clothes to come from the line, or out of the machine, or conceal a bottle of vodka en route to my little lady's palace on the first floor of the Grot Hole where I live, it resides on the floor of the airing cupboard. So when it is performing one of these essential tasks and there is nothing on the floor of my airing cupboard, I throw my pants there, willy nilly. So I was most surprised to find this week, that my pants on the floor were soaking wet. I suppose my first thought stretched as far as "Mank!" But not much further.
Yesterday I was sitting in the living room. A rare luxury while the Bear is on holiday. Enjoying the space, the peace, the quiet, when I noticed a disturbance to this peace. Something was creaking. It's not the cat. She's outside sitting on the step, watching imaginary spirirts at the bottom of the concrete box which excuses itself for a garden. CREAK. The bees which have infested the chimney for the past three years are going about their buzzing, as usual, but not creaking. I can't smell honey. I have taken advice from an expert. The short version of which, is if I smell honey in the living room, or honey is dripping out of the gas fire, then the chinmey pot is about to fall down and / or catch fire. CREAK. No honey smell. Slowly it dawns on me that it isn't a creak, it's more methodical, like a drip. DRIP. The weird wooden box which is part of the wall and hides what can only be described as an electrical vomit, is soaking. DRIP. Acrid rust-red water is dripping from the ceiling. Which has erupted a big skanky pock mark, open and weeping like some abused acne. DRIP. I put a bucket under it. Job done. DRIP. Only it's not a ceiling on the other side, is it? In my little lady's palace, of vodka and pants based delight. Up there it's performing the role of being the floor in my airing cupboard.
Some airing cupboard. Airing cupboards are supposed to produce clean fresh, warm washing or gently and thoroughly heat bottles of red wine in the winter, until they are just right for drinking. But not THIS! This has a hot water tank in it. A totally useless, ancient, crumbling waste of space. We don't have any hot water in the house. Clarity dawns. Why do we not have any hot water in the house? Because the power to this cumbersome tank has, in the past and to this day, been severed. How long has this subjugated and forgotten example of uselessness been menacing from it's encampment of cosy hosiery? I don't know, but there is another acrid rust-red stain on the ceiling downstairs in the pit, next the one with the hole in it, dripping onto the ugly box which is attached to the wall, where everything is wet. This protesting patch of mysteriousness is mouldy. It smells bad. The floor in the dank and frankly disturbing airing cupboard is uneven. That's right. It's uneven. It's gone rotten and it's giving way. The hole downstairs in the pit, which is exuding skanky wetness, is where the hulk of this tank is heaving a sigh of resignation and making it's way towards earth. Through my bedroom floor. Which is wet and rotten. Wonderful. Well it would have to be seriuos to call the Bear back off his holiday. This resonating peace is far too valuable to forsake. But my bedroom floor is giving way. But peace. Drip. PEACE. DRIP. Fuck. So I call the cavalry.
the Cavalry: "Alright?"
Princess Dontrockmypeace: "Um... yeeeeah?"
The scene is relayed, the body of evidence is ridiculed and we agree that if the tank falls through the floor in the night, it will be really funy. Thank goodness for that, for a minute I thought I was in danger of being involved in a serious conversation. So I turned off the water taps and tried my best to ignore the dripping. It's still achingly full of liquid mind you. I wouldn't call it water at this stage. I had a quick peer into the bucket this morning, downstairs, in the pit, under the ooze. It looks like someone has been bleeding into it. What a delight. I'm missing an artist friend's Private View for this. For the cavalry to come round and survey the damage. More likely point and laugh and then I'm definitely going for pizza. It's a Dr Pepper moment... What's the worst that can happen? What else is there to do about such a thing? Crap knows. I'm going for pizza.
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| Seeds of hope |
It's a grey morning, which could be disappointing after a short but glorious burst of springtime sunshine over the last week. But I have awoken with a bounce in my pounce. This is good news since for the last few months it has seemed that I had unwittingly been the victim of a back street, funny bone, organ theft incident. But even though my easy-to-grow (children's) sunflower seeds are languishing on a book shelf in the dark, while my long time hard-to-get compost loiters on the porch...
If I may explain.
During my recent dark ages, in one particular fit of despair, deep within the belly of a ubiquitous, value, megasaurus Supermarket (shudder), I happened upon some hopeful little packets of seeds whilst inspecting vegetables. I tossed up between the children's "Easy Grow" variety as opposed to what can only be assumed to be the adult's challenging, frustrating and ultimately disappointing version, for minutes on end, before deciding that I face enough challenges as it is without my first ever attempt at growing something cheerful being marred by some clever branding. Although, who knew how long it would take to drag some compost back to my shabby chic domicillary, without the aid of a size eleven carbon footprint? Anyhow there it is, now I finally have all the materials, about four weeks too late, for optimum easy growing and then it starts to rain.
Oh well. I shrug it off.
Perhaps my recently recovered good will is because I swam half a kilometre this week, inducing a warm fuzzy feeling, minutely post coital. (And who needs sex anyway when you can hold a Warrior One yoga stance for ten minutes? Hmm.) I know it's only half a kilometre but I managed one and a half last week fuelled on curry and pizza and this week I was fuelled on only porridge... and then a pair of fake tits attached to a sixteen year old plopped into the pool ahead me and I got intimidated. So super sweet of Daddy to oblige those, yah! I don't like tits. More over any that were moulded in China. There are some unique things about my habitat; picturesque hang out for the rich and listless. Not least that my compadres at the local leisure pool may frequently suffer the embarrassing faux par of all being named Moses. Go ahead, part the waves and stop splashing me in the face.
Nevermind.
This pictureque Southern fancy of a town, almost as far from the sea as you can get in the United Kingdom, so I am told, is still a bit melt-in-the-middle gorgeous in places. Now that we are entitled to more than 4 hours of daylight per diem, I have been riding my old school, Raleigh, lady's metallic, khaki bicycle to work, along the riverside, where the dog walkers and boat dwellers of 7am are at least a bit more down to Earth than Moseses and Peacheses. At this peaceful hour, cool waters steam in the early sunrise, ducks are awakening and cormorants dry their wings perched on rambling root-works in the centre of this juvenille stretch of our glorious river Thames. These tangle and join limbs to form an island, (also heavily reconstituted,) where welly-sporting folk live, die and in between times clip their hedges into a quirky pastiche or two. Well, there they are again, the strange and the fascinating, image-conscious. But c'est la vie, it's just as easy to borrow a spliff on the tow path. That's what I love about the English rivirea. We can share it, without prejudice. Except in July of course, when a certain Royally endorsed sporting event engulfs our lawns, terraces and every nook and cranny which can feasibly be charged rent upon, but that's another story.
My house mate the Bear warned me I would turn into Bridget Jones. Which I contested, vehmently. Yet here I am, thumb holes punctered in my sensibly over-sized pantaloons, and growing an appetite to match. All shopping lists and Radio 4. I downloaded a recipe for vegetable crumble yesterday. At least I downloaded it. It's not as glamorous as downloading pornography, if it is possible to deem that more glamorous than anything. I still shout at my radio, but now it is to contest parliament's decisions of the day, as opposed Nirvana's latest lyrics. I also talk to myself, probably a bit too much. I'm just keeping myself company, I tell myself. Just can't keep my opinions to myself, I answer back. Oh dear.
But perhaps my sunny disposition is down my musing, aloft ma bicyclette, that the last time I wore this particular top was the last time I had sex in the morning. Now really, oh dear.
Now the boss's wife is trying to set me up with a very young looking and impossibly ginger-bearded pig farmer. So now something really has got to change. Especially if my "contemporaries" are trying to matchmake the pig farmer's son, (he's got to be, no one grows that much ginger on their face unless they are trying to prove something; either puberty or a bet), with someone who can no longer bear proximity to bacon as a result of over exposure to the industry.
Help!
Riding my bicycle is fun. But Maybe it's time for a new ride. Please not the farmer's son!
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| Complimentary Health |
You may be wondering where in the world I have been these last two months. It's hard to say with any real certainty, but the last months of winter haven't been their kindest. It's just a fact of life that February in the temperate zones is hellish and after a few miniature disasters in the name of gainly employment, romance, moving on, facing up, falling out and trying in vain to appear in control of the process, respectively. You could well be glad I took those dark months off, to ride out a winter of discontent in the relative safety of solitude.
Although that's not what really happened, not entirely. In resolute point blank refusal to give in to seasonal depair, I have been partying all over the country, denying burnout, dressed scantily. Fastening young ladies into corsets, zipping naughty girls into all-in-one devil suits (honestly, not even a hole for a face!) Attaching lashes, buffing bustles, sliding down poles whilst encircled by bobbing bottoms, attending a grand Oxford University ball dressed in barely more than a Donna Karin shirt and to climax, falling out of a dead shark and performing a striptease.
Have I mentioned that I lead the steely double life of a burlesque performer? Well sometimes it transports me to a galaxy far far from reality. But then reality is subjective. And bearing that in mind, what seems plausible after pumpkin time, can require the most deft Fairy-Godmother to pull off. So following my gutsy shark debut, long after the clock had struck midnight, I shepherded the last-standing, negotiating Bristol, carrying shoes, deflecting the amorous attentions of Eastern European night shift workers, to what was thus far an undisclosed location and turned out to be the residence of one mysterious (or not) "Dr Love". Here I took full advantage of a hot bath, sometime after dawn and Dr Love climbing in to give me a foot rub.
Now that's what I call complimentary health.
I have since lost most of my eyelashes in a small gas explosion on a boat. So it's lucky my burlesque adventures have equipt me with the rock steady hand of an experienced lash applier who's not afraid to fake. Though having arrived back to my one woman boudoir, a little more Spam than Glam. I feel it might be time for a little change of pace and an adaptation of my own Great Expectations.
Watch this space the commercial break is about the end.
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| Pour moi? C'est la vie! |
I'm twenty eight! After I turned eighteen, I delighted at perching there upon the bar in my local dive, (then sympathetic to under eighteens) and spouting the very words "I'm eighteen". This was met by an equally delightful reaction, of drinks arriving before me, forthwith. I carried on with this little performance for two weeks, until I had squeezed every bit of usable life out of it. By which time the question "Is it your birthday?" Could be answered no other way than with "Not any more, but I'm still eighteen!"
This year I was treated to a Sunday birthday. My mother had all of her babies on Sundays, bar one of us, who kept her in labour for three hours longer into Monday morning, in order not to share birthdays with her. We also all met our golden date in the same year. This is when you turn your age on the date of your birthday. Which by default took our mother back to age of 21 in 1999. Wowee!
My weekend began during an extraneous downpour on Friday afternoon. I was wading through the North Sea, as it was falling from the sky above me. Though I was refusing point blank to let it put a dampener on my spirits. (Vodka, Rum and Tequila.) Which made my hands go numb from the weight of my shopping bags. The rain gave the outside of my wool coat the scent of one part Thierry Mugler's Angel and one part wet sheep and eau de sweaty MoFo on the inside. Luscious. I arrived home, stripped off my funky threads and got straight on the phon-e-mail to sell a creative concept, with which I have fallen deeply and romantically in love, to the powers that be of a well known boutique festival. Task complete, I ran aeroplane-style to my local organically-sound-supermarket for further replenishments. On arriving home once again, my biceps flexing under the weight of fresh limes and exotic cocktail bound juices I heaved into the arms to my still long suffering BFF, like a salt sprinkled dying slug. To my good fortune she came equipt with luxury massage, kit and kaboole and Rioja. Praise be!
I am certain that if it wasn't for my treat of a birthday massage, my head would have popped right off, like the corks in our Cava, through sheer frenetic, over-excitement. My laid back limber from loafing about the white sands of the Caribbean, has long since worn off, here home sweet home on the english riviera, sunken deep in the depths of bleak mid-winter. But on having my surging sinovial fluids probed, my shoulders eased away from their lofty perch; clamped to my ears and the rate of my heart and thankfully also my speech, significantly slowed. At least now my compatriots, due imminently at my palace gates, would find me almost coherent. It was at this point I was given the verbal small print. I would be drunken and probably disorderly, as quick as the speed of light, as a result of my stimulated blood flow. Kerching, cheap date!
Soon my girlfriends began to arrive one by one for an evening of guilty pleasures. We slipped, stretched and slopped into pyjamas and proceeded to party the night away. There were games, there was getting into fancy dress, there was sliding down the stairs in our sleeping bags, there was hula hooping on my bed, there was tightrope walking on my bannisters, there was a swear-a-thon. There was a Wonsey. A fabulously high-waisted, fairisle printed, pinky coloured, all-in-one outfit. So we all had a go. Who would have ever known so much joy could be squeezed out of (and into) such a fanciful thing. There was also a bag of flour. Originally for use as part of a traditional party game from my family history, involving picking up chocolate out of the flour with your mouth. But it is only right, that with such an amount of flour amoung such company, that the flour should learn to fly. It filled more than our faces. It filled our ears and our noses, it covered our clothes, it covered the carpet, it filled the air, it stiffened my hair! So I scrawled my name in it on the back of the sofa and jumped into it to flaunt my handywork with pride, dressed as a rabbit. Obviously.
But we are ever such good girls. Naughty but nice perhaps. We got straight to task with the vacuum cleaner, before the messy lounge fantasy could get any more out of control. It was at this very moment that the front door swung slowly open, to reveal to us the BiG Bear, my landlord. Revealing to him some sort of haunted housework nightmare! But my crack team of girls-in-pyjamas were too strong a force of charm. Sassy commanders of good will. So of course, if you can't beat 'em, you gotta join them. If you've got a problem maybe you can hire them... But then the face packs came out and another fight broke loose. The results were muddy faces all round.
We made much mayhem.
We also made treats to eat, cocktails and tall tales, mended outfits and darned. Vacuum cleaned and charmed. Fought, taught, shared and declared. We held court over boys and girls, births, marriages and deaths. Did things we'd never have guessed. This birthday was my best. Well done to all of us who made it so.
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| Thanks for coming |
I am so blessed by the generosity and thoughtfulness of the whimsical, twinkley, soft and scented, specially selected gifts bestowed upon me by such beautiful women. Even for the pure alcohol uber-hangover that shackeled me to my duvet when my zenana came to depart one by one. But now that I have burned my candle at both ends and lit a cigarette off it, I feel melted in the middle and if I don't give my body a health spree, it's going to kill me. Until next week of course. The Original Rock n Roll Princess rides again!
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| Shiney disco balls |
In the interest of greeting grand new experiences, dawning over unexpected horizons, I laugh in the face of concequence! Which just seems to respond to me with ROFL.
As a younger person, I was highly suspicious of the world. But over my lifetime so far, those deep set suspicions have given way to an unquestioning trust. Not unlike that of a wide-eyed, waggy-tailed dog. That's not to say I don't sometimes get hurt by trusting so unquestionably. But the results are never so damning as I might once have believed, and besides, wounds heal. Which is lucky because I started off my new year with a black eye!
How the noughties ended.
At the very last minute, after spending most of New Year's Eve in bed, stubbornly ignoring the worldwide compulsion to party like it's 1999, something inside implored me to do just that. I lurched blearily from my duck-downed throne, to break out the sequins, pour myself into skinny jeans and get happy with the slap. C'mon, it's our last night to be noughtie. If I am right in remembering how they began a decade ago, then kissing goodbye to them, simply must take place with equal panache.
Rewind...
On the evening that the Millenium Bug didn't make our aeroplanes fall out of the sky, I was 16 years old. It was the first time I had ever seen cocaine, let alone it disappearing up the noses of our host's parents! Magnums of champagne were poured down my neck, and everyewhere else, I tried out snogging two people at the same time; an Irish lesbian and a beardy, be-trench-coated goth. Both of whom later tried to molest me. I escaped to the relative safety of the basement to conceal myself with my then brand new, but still now, long sufferening best friend, via seeing an alien in the garden. Really, this decade desesrved to go out with a bang. As well it did.
Fast Forward...
Another house party, another city, another clique. I dialled Zurich to receive the address. This was at least to be a higher class of gatecrash. The Central London town house reposed over four floors of newly finished opulence. It was black, white and sharp all over, along with being totally dreamy.
In the basement we had a shiney, granite dancefloor complete with mesemerising lasers for the party effect and a kitchen made of all things bright and beautiful. The puffiest, most bottom-supping sofas were luring us onto the first floor. But we revellers found the walk-through, rain-style shower just all too fascinating on the top floor. Hanging out in the kitchen is so last decade, Ikea! We ended up partying our socks off in the master bedroom at the top of the millionaire's party pad. Lights off, gloves off, this is how to see in a new year in style. I don't know how many of us crammed into our host's private quarters, but there were at least eight, maybe even ten on the bed at any one time. What more can I say? Hats off to James the Australian guy for always being the friendly face beneath our arms, legs, knees, etc, etc. Unfortunately it was during this multi-national pile up that I sustained my black eye, from a stray elbow which approached from a specatcular height, at a fantastical speed. I was collateral damage, but at least my first ever shiner occured during my first ten in a bed session of the next ten years, and just as kiss-and-tells are becoming outlawed by the latest privacy legislation, so here's my revelation; the bed fell through. Ikea! Tutt tutt.
So there I was, bravely setting foot, leg and face amoungst all these new people. Falling through furniture with them and slipping through the fingers of the boys in attempts at ball room dancing, and I'm not speaking figuratively here. Evoking incredulity by patting a girl on the thigh in offering her a drink and shock at encouraging Kosovans to join in the bundle. I started to realise that some of these people were very different to me. In the Big Smoke, where image is everything.
I love new people. I love new people in new places. To me culture is all about people. We make it, we create it and to understand it you need to feel it. You need to get amoungst the people who live it. You just can't get cultured by buying the T-shirt. Experiencing culture feeds you and feeds from you. But anyhow, I didn't come here for culture. I came here on a whim, to party the year away. To finish up those last dregs of noughtiness and drag my sky high heels into the impending teens, over a stellar dancefloor. I could be any girl in any city. It didn't matter. To be free, be fresh, be young and be impressionable.
It shoud be liberating. That was the idea. To let go. To abandon antiquated and ritualistic principles, which bear no meaning to my current incarnation. However, I have discovered that purging too holistically can leave a void. This open mind suddenly feels very spacious, one could even say a little empty.
Anonymity is fun. It comes with it's own opportunities. To meet, to greet, to love and to leave. But it can also propogate a strange sort of attention. A fascination and a need to impart reems of advice. All with best interests at heart. But who's? And is anyone really sure at that kind of time in the morning? Bonds form because we like to look out for each other. But when you are on your own in a tribe of someone else's friends, who looks out for you? We are all a little tribalistic. We will put our own kind first. It is true that there arrives a point in any top rate party, when is is essential to seek comfort. What form it comes in, depends just how long you go on partying. It can be in the arms of a loved one, falling into bed. A pile of best buddies on the sofa, recounting the evenings madcap mishaps. A deep and meaningful with a new aquaintence punctured by the stressing of "Mee toooo!" Or even just a quiet moment listening to birdsong. Home is where the heart is and wherever I lay my bones I rest my heart. With this in mind I am never really lonely. Boldly going where you haven't gone before is a pleasure beyond compare. But so is the elixir of a familiar hug. My new friends were fascinating, strange, funny, cute and kind. But I did find myself feeling far away from my tried and tested Trusted. Although I think that always happens on NYE. Whether we mean to or not, it seems an appropriate time to reflect. Which in reality, it isn't. All those hightened emotions can get very muddled up over 24 hours of mood enhancing activities.
For me, the people who really count; my family and my friends, already love me far beyond what I could ask. With that I can boldly go wherever I may wish to go boldly. Which is what really matters when all is said and done. I am loved. I have cosiness on demand from these wonderful people, if only I ask for it. So for the time being I feel no urge to try to impress anybody else. All the new and fascinating people who are to come into my life now, can like me for just who I am, or not at all. And that's ok with me.
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| Ding dong all the way |
Every year, Christmas, the Festive Season, the Holidays and the Nightmare Before... trundles around to rear it's be-tinsled, gawping head once again. It is regular, it is clockwork it is family law and order. I am certainly not one to put down or berate Christmas. If you are a hopeless humbug, then that's your problem and so it should remain. Please don't infict your doom and dissatisfaction with the season-to-be-jolly on the rest of us. God knows the happiest time of the year gives us enough to deal with as it is! We know it's a capitalist conspiracy, we know it was an ancient tradition stolen by Christians from the pagan peoples of Britain and we know that the nativity is a loose fit on actual historical events, but otherwise what would fill the You've Been Framed Christmas Special? We want to see Joseph catch fire on stage infront of his or her parents, don't we? Be careful what you wish for. I saw this happen in real life. It was hilarious! Once we'd got over the shock of a ten year old going up in flames. (She was thankfully, completely unharmed I might add.)
So what's changed over all these years of Christmas tradition? Well precisely nothing, bar the subtle ways in which we like to keep up with the Joyeux Noels in our decorative tastes. A glittery reindeer here, another addition to the numerous sets of shit flashing lights from ubiquitous supermarket here, there and Jesus Christ they're everywhere!
For some years now I have wished for nothing more at this magical time of year, than for square eyes and a heart attack. At least for the instigators of those terrible afflictions. For me it really is about feast not fame. I want to eat my way through a months supply of biscuits and watch telly on a 24 rotational cycle. Perhaps just sleeping for the second half of every Bond film. I am told that it's selfish but I don't want to sit through the pomp and circumstance of dry turkey, mean piles of soggy vegetables, the traditional argument and in my household, the inevitable late night play back of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, in an attempt to smooth over the cracks. We tell the same jokes, at which we all laugh and recite the same old lines from the same old sketch shows, we tell the same old stories and throw the same shapes et cetera, ad nauseum, every year. Because we are polite, we love each other and it's the only way to get along at the homestead. I would imagine it's the same deal for many others, whatever your format is. We just do it.
I do wish that for once I would be let to nurse my Christmas Eve hangover in peace, harmony and good will to all men. I tried to do this for the first time two years ago. I failed. A member of my family arrived at my house and forcibly removed me.
I know it sounds mean but I would love to know how it feels to do Christmas my own way. I suppose we all would. That's something we all have in common. We all have a fantasy Christmas and we all struggle and probably fail to acheive it, once a year, every year.
I am not a humbug. I love Christmas. I love the time off, I love the cheap pre-prepped party treats, I love the surprise of a long lost friend returning home and the warmth of a Christmas card from a new acquaintance. But while I am single, let me to my vodka and chocolate.
I have other fantasy Christmasses of course. Another fantasy snapshot of Christmas is arriving into the warm arms of a huge, smiling familiy, with a loved one, with whom I have travelled many miles, to greet fantasy familiy. They feed us potent but delicious alcohol and roasted fowl until we burst and then we dance like lunatics to a lively string section in some huge rambley, croft ( I know thats' a contradiction in terms but we're talking fantasy here.) Yes and part of me puts them all in kilts. Mmmm. Yes! There's not a gift in sight more than feast, friendship and festivities. No clinically, crafted consloes, no shrinkwrap, no branding, other than my Armani blazer (fanstasy), no Made in China, no "smellies", no BOGOFs, no knock offs, no credit imbalance, no pressure... just leisure.
Other fantasy Christmasses which occasionally feature in my minds eye are the open fireplace, log cabin and skiing (or snowboarding) getaway, the beach cocktail party and the magical mystery tour.
That's why I would like to do Christmas on my own this year. I want to try something new. Christmas is samey. My best Christmasses so far are those where I have intruded (by invitation) on other peoples'. Other peoples' Christmasses are always jollier, because for the guest it is all new and all shiney. I love variety, I love change and I crave new. I've got a thing for shiney too. I think it is sad when Christmasses all roll into one. It shouldn't be forgettable and disposible like the ever increasing crap consumers' crimbo model we seem to be falling in line with. But fantasies are just that; just fantsaies. They are not collective. They are kindled within one individual and let's face, it other peoples wishes and feelings just don't come into it. Please don't tell me that you want the same things as me ;) Let's all be honest and do the best we can to accommodate each other. Maybe our Christmasses are my parents fantasy. I doubt it. But they seem to enjoy it anyway.
So until the umissable opportunity for a fantasy Christmas compromise arises and for some of these listed here it certainly will one day, but until then I will, as always, show my love for my family, but long for my own company.
Here follows a list of buzzy, blue chip words that are used in unpleasant ways to create spin and piss me off.
Underpin
Definition: Descriptive of something that is important, like really, really important, you need it, trust me you do. Buy my thing, I've put so much effort into making it sound important so that you will buy it, that I have now come to believe in the gumph I've just up-chucked at you and will be offended and will perceive it as a personal violation if you don't agree with me. Like me, like me!
Sounds like: Painfully underwired bra
Outcome
Definition: The outcome is the whole point. It's so important to outline the outcome because we have spent so much of our budget generating really big ideas, that our company has forgotten why it exists at all. We hope for the best possible outcomes. We don't know why they happen, but we'll take the credit if people like them anyway. We'll also pledge to evaluate them, until we come up with some new ones, before we've finished working out what the hell these ones are.
Sounds like: Bodily spew
Ping
Definition: Send. I'll bloody send you an email. It's just as quick and easy as it is to "ping!" Which is what my microwave says to me when it's dinnertime. I mean honestly, who can rightly feel like they are functioning on a professional adult level when half the office is prone to a spontaneous "ping!" half the time.
Sounds like: Microwaves and Ping Pong
It's got legs
Definition: Potential. A runaway idea.You will go far with this one young Luke. However if it's got more than two legs, it probably shouldn't be in the office.
Sounds like: Centipede
Customer focussed
Definition: Of course you are. If you do not have customers/consumers/clients/service-users then you are not a business. If you are not focussed on these elusive beings then you are a coconut and you deserve to go into receivership. So stop patronising me, stating the obvious and get on with doing a good job.
Opposite to: Call centres
