March 2009 Archives

Let's talk about Jordon, aka Katie Price. Nothing against her personally, good luck to her I say, but does she have to be in the news All The Berluddy Time? You can't walk passed a newsstand without seeing her face in this week's headlines. How much crisis can one person endure in their life?

"Katie Price has to be helped home at 5am after wild night out in supershort orange dress." "Katie and Peter to Split." "Katie and Peter Back Together Again." "Katie Pregnant." She's everywhere, doing everything, all the time.

In an effort to try and understand this phenomenon, I fed some misinformation to the Sunday Mercury news desk to see what would happen, and this is what they came up with:

Brummie Broad in Early Morning Scare. Brummie Broad was heard shouting by neighbours in the early hours of this morning. One neighbour, who wishes to remain anonymous, said she heard phrases like 'You want that work completed by what berluddy time?' and 'SWEETCORN TRANSCRIPTS! AGAIN!'

"It was like something from a horror movie," said the unnamed neighbour, "I thought someone was being murdered the way she was carrying on. It quite upset my Tiddles."

Brummie Broad wouldn't answer the door when we called round to confirm the disturbance, but shouted through the letterbox, "I'm busy! Bog off!"

Brummie Broad in Gas Explosion. "Well," said a close personal friend of Brummie Broad, "because she has no sense of smell, she turned on the gas grill but it didn't light, only she didn't know this. Unsure if the kitchen was full of gas, knowing only that she was hungry and wanted toast, she draped a damp bath towel over her head and stood as far back from the cooker as she could before pressing the ignition button. Fortunately there was no explosion, which makes a change, and she got her toast in the end." No one was hurt in the incident.

Brummie Broad Splits With Hubs. "Oh come on," sighed Brummie Broad, when we rang to confirm the story, "You'll be saying I'm dating Brad Pitt next. Tsk."

Brummie Broad dating Brad Pitt and David Duchovny. Brummie Broad today denied rumours that she's seeing both Brad Pitt and David Duchovny at the same time. "Really?" Brummie Broad drawled when we contacted her, "I'm a self-employed tax slave, tell me when, exactly, am I supposed to have the time?"

Later, when pressed, Brummie Broad was heard to ask, "Do you have Brad and David's telephone numbers then?"

Brummie Broad in Homicide Investigation. Police today were investigating an apparent murder at the home of Brummie Broad in Birmingham. They were called when neighbours spotted suspicious marks on the driveway.

After being interviewed by Scotland Yard detectives (men in uniform, weyhey!), Brummie Broad made a statement to waiting reporters: "There has been no murder and I am not involved in any homicide investigation. Police found nothing but the white outline of a human body painted on my driveway near the front door. The words NO SALESMEN were printed underneath. It is not a crime scene, it's a warning to canvassers."

P.S: Heat and Hello magazines, I'm available for photographs at any time (but let me know beforehand so I can vac up a bit).

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday, though sanity can't always be guaranteed.
Brummie Blogs: There rest of time, usually, if I'm not typing up berluddy sweetcorn transcripts.
Twitter: Angst sometimes coughed up there, occasionally.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to apologise for the chronic lack of anything in this week's Brummie Broad blog.

This is not due to lethargy or laziness (well, not much anyway), its just that... well, I've been a bit busy lately, what with life and work and everything.

I mean, typing is quite exhausting you know, moving all 10 fingers at the same time, and the commute from the bedroom to the study next door can be a bit stressful what with the dog's penchant (yeah, penchant) for lying in doorways.

Urgent work, deadlines, transcribing an endless series of Really Long Interviews about tinned vegetables (beyond boring), a weekend away in Wales where gasp shock horror it didn't rain, and decorating, its all taken its toll. Frankly, I'm knackered.

Plus I've given up smoking. Yes, I have given up smoking and not killed anybody... yet. I have given up smoking and Hubs, who has also given up smoking but doesn't appear to have any homicidal tendencies, has put the number of the local divorce lawyer on speed-dial, thus forcing me to behave like a (relatively) normal human bean.

So basically, like the White Rabbit in some book where nobody smoked, I haven't had time to do anything except curse cigarette companies and chew on pillows.

More wild rantings from the smoke-free zone to follow shortly.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday, depending how bad the nicotine shakes get.
Brummie Blogs: Not there either at the moment.
Twitter: There because 140 characters or less is just about doable in my current state.

I've been watching Come Dine With Me a lot lately. I don't know why, I don't even like cooking... or rather, cooking doesn't like me.

A couple of weeks ago, inspired by CDWM, I decided to 'cook something different'. I'd been threatening to do this for quite a while, but Hubs usually managed to talk me out of it (sometimes by simply bursting into tears). This time I was determined to create a culinary feast of epic proportions.

I'd found a couple of recipes on the internet and followed the instructions To The Letter. I spent two whole hours of my life chopping and measuring and weighing and stirring, and ended up with something that resembled shite on a plate.

When I mentioned this incident on my blog, a kind person sent me an mega-simple recipe that even I couldn't muck up. Ha, yeah, okay. I replied to kind person thus:

"I've decided to stick to what I know best, which is jars and frozen things, stuff I don't actually have to make myself. I'm well into Uncle Ben's sauces at the moment. Last night I tossed a jar into a casserole (not the actual jar, I'm not that daft), threw in some pasta, frozen peas and corn, and lobbed it into the oven. Then we went to the pub (yay!). When we got back an hour later, amazingly it wasn't burnt to a crisp like most of my cooking. Edible meal! Hubs could hardly believe it, I could tell he wanted to phone people about it and maybe put a declaration in the newspaper or something."

But even I, charcoal-expert extraordinaire, can ruin a simple pasta dish. The other night, in my haste to get in the bath with Frank Skinner - great sentence, if only it were true - my only thought was to make sure the oven was lit. It's a gas cooker, probably not a wise appliance for somebody who can't smell but I like to live life on the edge. It has an electric ignition, but I also use one of those long clicky things that sparks like a flame thrower, just to make sure the Gas Is Lit. I'm very big on making sure the Gas Is Lit.

So I made sure the oven was lit and threw in the casserole. Then, having endured many gas balls crackling across the kitchen, I opened the door, checked the gas was lit, then closed the door again. Repeat several times until absolutely sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Gas Is Most Definitely Lit.

Jumped in bath with Frank (wooohoooo). An hour later, hauled my crumpled carcass out and went to check on din-dins.

Gas still lit, that's good. Casserole still cold, that's bad.

One hour on gas mark ½ does not a meal make.

"Dinner done?" Hubs asked, with that smile he only uses when trying to look happy about me cooking.

"About an hour," I said.

"I thought it only took an hour," he said, forcing the smile to stay on his face despite all the questions racing through his mind (like 'Hope its vaguely edible this time' or 'Its gonna be coal casserole again, I just know it').

"Forgot to put the cooker on a gas mark," I shrugged casually.

It's not actually my fault I can't cook. It's not just because I have no sense of smell, it's my mother, she can't cook either (I hope she never reads this!). It's clearly a genetic thang.

I have memories/nightmares from my childhood of my mother's cooking. She once made toffee apples, got us all excited about them as we waited for them to 'set'. When my sister and I were finally allowed into the kitchen, we found 12 apples on a tray with sticks in them. No toffee. The toffee had slipped off and languished stickily in the tray. We were chipping away at it for weeks.

Dad, a keen gardener, had a glut of strawberries one year. Mom thought she'd make jam with them. A big cooking session went on in the kitchen. It was like a scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, all hissing steam and wooden spoons.

That strawberry jam lasted forever. Throughout my entire childhood there was this endless supply of dark red liquid that had the consistency and taste of slightly lumpy washing up liquid. We found it in our sandwiches, we found it in our bowls of ice cream, we found it on crackers and biscuits.

I still can't eat strawberry jam.

Mom once read a recipe on the side of a bran cereal box, and we endured malt loaf (made from bran cereal) for decades afterwards, and none of us even like it.

We didn't have bowls of rice pudding, we had slices on a tea plate (with a dollup of home-made jam on top).

During a bread strike mom decided to make her own loaves. They were like bricks, you could barely get a knife through them. We tried to soften it in soup, but it sank to the bottom of bowls like a rock.

I still shudder in horror whenever I think about mom's home-made bread, hacked from the loaf and spread with gloops of home-made strawberry jam. I reckon it put me off cooking for life.

That's my excuse anyway.

P.S. Love ya, Marmee. x

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday, culinary disasters allowing.
Brummie Blogs: Hanging out there avoiding the kitchen rest of time.
Twitter: Come join the madness!

I did some typing for my sister a couple of weeks ago. I obviously wouldn't accept payment for it, so she said she'd treat me to a massage.

Last week, a massage at some training college, her treat. I've never actually had a massage before and didn't really know what to expect.

I didn't like it. Nope, didn't like it at all, not one little bit.

Not only did I have to get undressed in front of some 12 year old student in what looked like a dark hospital A&E cubicle, I had to pretend I was enjoying it but not make any sounds that might be construed as 'sex noises'. It was very difficult, not least of all because I was rigid with discomfort at my semi-nakedness - it must have been like trying to massage a corpse.

The 12 year old (nice enough, but you know, she was 12!) started on my legs first, and as I gazed 'relaxed but not aroused' at the ceiling, a single clear thought entered my head; when was the last time I'd shaved my legs? While she struggled with the 'upwards' strokes, almost gasping at the effort, I figured it must have been at least a week, maybe two, and that she was probably having quite a 'rough' time down there.

Stomach area was next. Yeah, okay, you're 12, what do you know about barely-middle-age spread and home-working on a laptop and winter wobbly-bits, eh? Nothing (spit). In she went, kneading the stomach like dough, her little fingers almost disappearing up to the knuckles (I'm exaggerating of course, I'm as slim as a sylph in real life, whatever a sylph is, must look it up).

She then did something rather unexpected. She pushed a thumb into my bellybutton. Now whilst most people wouldn't find anything wrong in this, I have a Pathological Fear about bellybuttons, my bellybutton in particular - I don't want it touched, I certainly don't want it prodded by anything (argh!) and I'd much rather you just forget it even existed and stay well away.

So whilst I was squirming on the bed considering whether to (a) violently swipe her hand away as instinct dictated, or (b) jump up and run, she said, "No pulse."

"Pardon?" I squeaked (desperately trying not to scream Get your berluddy fingers out of my berluddy bellybutton, girl!)

"No pulse," she said again, "In your bellybutton. That's good."

I lifted my head to look at her, plunged up to her elbows into my navel, and said, "I'd consider not having a pulse to be a bad thing. Do you have a resuscitation team here?"

She continued to lightly pulverise the top 70 layers of flesh. "This is a really hard part," she said, "I don't like doing this movement."

The movement consisted of moving her hands up my stomach, sideways across my stomach, down the other side of my stomach, and across the bottom. A square-shape manoeuvre which did Absolutely Nothing for me. In fact, the only thing I'd felt so far was an overwhelming desire to leave.

She moved above my head, pulled down my bra straps and did some quite substantial kneading and pulling and prodding of my neck and shoulders. Several times I actually wondered if she'd rendered me paralysed. The pain was quite significant.

"Turn over," she said after a while.

I wasn't sure I could, but managed to haul my carcass like a pig on a spit, and she went to town on my back.

I'm not sure what it was she did exactly, but every now and again she'd prod the side of my spine with what felt like a knitting needle, and I involuntarily cried out 'UH!' Not 'UH!' as in 'that feels so good, do it to me some more, baby', more 'UH!' like I'd just been stabbed and didn't know how to react yet. Seriously, at least six sharp objects were plunged deep into my body, its was the weirdest feeling.

"Get dressed when you're ready," she suddenly said, stopping.

I dragged myself off that table like a woman just coming round from a major surgical operation, maybe spinal readjustment or a heart-bypass. My legs trembled as I lifted them into my jeans, and I did think about asking her to remove the knitting needles from my back before I left or if they were complementary.

"That was great," the mouth lied profusely, "I really enjoyed that, thanks."

She led me out into the reception area and said that because I'd had to wait a few minutes there would be no charge. Great, I thought.

Sis reappeared and said her massage was 'on the house' too, only she still wanted to pay. Oh, okay then.

We went up to the reception desk. "Did you have the aromatherapy massage?" another 12 year old asked me. I looked at her, shrugged, and said, "I don't know, it could have been."

"My sister has no sense of smell," said Sis, and suspicious glances abounded.

Sis, it turned out, only had huge-denomination notes in her purse, and the receptionist, of course, had no change. So I paid. For both. Including a tip comprised entirely of 20p pieces for each masseur.

My treat, apparently.

["Let me take you to the pub," Hubs said to me tonight, "My treat, bring money."]

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday, or as soon as the knitting needles are removed.
Brummie Blogs: Stiffly hanging out there rest of time.

I did something recently that will make Middle 'Computer Guru' Son terribly proud of me. I went to PC World and bought a wireless mouse and keyboard for the desktop computer.

I'm not sure of the exact moment when my children stopped viewing me as the font of all knowledge and wisdom and started treating me with 'infinite patience', but MS wasn't very impressed with my rollerball mouse last time he came to patch up my technical equipment; "An antique," he called it.

So, a wired mouse is now an antique is it? My, how things have changed. In my day (cue violins ... hey, violins, wake up and play some music ... I don't know, how about an adagio? You don't have the sheet music? No, William Tell won't do, I want something soft and soothing ... yes, that's it, the Hovis advert, perfect) ... where was I? Oh yes, back in Ye Olden Days we didn't have computers or digital music, we had state of the art Grundig tape players that we used to record the Top 40 chart off Radio One every Sunday night (and the DJ would always start talking before it finished).

We had a telephone number that you could ring from a public phone box (no such thing as mobile phones, or house phones come to that ... we were poor in those days ... play louder, violins) to listen to music. Dial a Disc it was called. Ah, memories. I'd huddle in a phonebox with a couple of giggling friends and we'd spend a whole 2d (that's old money) to listen to The Rubettes sing Sugar Baby Love. I was really young then of course, barely walking in fact.

I remember my mom setting jelly in a bath full of cold water because we didn't have a fridge. I remember lining up on the living room carpet with dad and sister, picking bits up off the carpet because we didn't have a vacuum cleaner. I remember dad's box of television valves for the black and white televisions set, and mom's mascara that she'd spit on and soften with a little brush.

I remember the absolute joy of being given a 'posh' box of writing stationery that I never used (probably still have it in the loft somewhere). I remember playing tennis outside with my mates until it got dark, pretending we were Billy Jean King or Chrissie Evert, being told off by the neighbours for bouncing our ball on the side of their house, and pleading with our mothers to stay out for just ten more minutes even though it was pitch black (and they let us!).

We had space hoppers!

I remember the horror I felt as a 'girl with a lot of horsey penfriends' when postage stamps went up to two and a half old pence. I remember my mom's uber-mini dresses and pointed stiletto shoes and backcombed hair (that took her ages). I remember dad letting me ride his Honda C90 on the roads when I was 14 years old.

No text messages to boyfriends in those days, we used our mates ("Go and ask him if he fancies me ... go on!"). Huge headphones complete with miles of wire attached to boxed stereo systems was cutting edge technology. We didn't have Playstations or Wiis, we had Etch a Sketch and painting-by-numbers, chalk to draw endless games on pavements and skipping ropes and clackers and string tricks and jackstones.

We ran around and got burning lungs but didn't stop, went for all-day adventures in the park on our bikes, formed the outlines of houses from newly cut grass, and hunted for furry caterpillars underneath window ledges (there were always loads). We knew how to have fun in those days, oh yeah.

So a wireless mouse is still a wondrous thing to someone who didn't grow up with CDs and DVDs and PCs.

[Okay, violins, you can stop playing now. I SAID YOU CAN STOP...oh good].

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday (unless I expire from Ye Olde Age)
Brummie Blogs: Hanging out there chewing gum rest of time.