April 2009 Archives

The sun came out on Sunday and most of the UK stood staring at the sky wondering what the bright spot was (some people started screaming about aliens and invasion and stuff, but their cries were drowned out by a crescendo of lawnmowers). Like three million other people, Hubs and I decided to do some gardening.

First, a trip to B&Q, where Hubs and I parted company, he to the manly power tools and me to the garden section. I was just lugging an eight foot bamboo plant into the trolley when Hubs reappeared and hissed, "Ye Gods, woman, put down that pot and step away from the plants!" He can be very firm and butch sometimes, which I admire, but in garden centres and bookshops its like water off a duck's back.

I didn't get the bamboo though, we wouldn't have got it in the car.

We were in the garden for eight hours straight, bending and shifting pots and weeding and painting everything in sight. I'm not a good painter. I'm messy. I don't mean to be, but I'm impatient to start the job and to finish it, so I'm never prepared. Consequently there was paint all over me, the garden table, every door handle in the house, all over the bathroom, and on floors inside and out.

By the time I'd painted the rocking chair and every item of wooden furniture we have - three garden benches seems a bit excessive and makes our patio look like a rest home for benches - I looked like a living work of art. I mean, the subtle clashing of colours, the bottle green and tar-black of the rocker mixed with the startling orange of 15 gallons of creosote was just inspiring. And the redness of my skin after I'd showered in turps was also impressive, perfectly depicting the Woman With Brush look I was after.

Sadly, the birds won't go on the feeder now because it's a different colour. You can actually hear them squawking 'Blimey, that's orange!' (cedar red actually, Hubs picked it, he's colour blind so probably traffic-light red doesn't blend terribly well with the environment).

Afterwards, when I crawled back into the house, the newly-acquired step machine and I glared at each other like baddies in a dusty western. One half of my brain cried, 'Gimme 100', whilst the other half screamed, 'You can bugger right off!'

There have been some complaints about a beer advertising campaign, which I actually thought was rather funny. Three people claimed it was sexist, apparently. Three people speaking on behalf of the rest of us (who got the joke) stopped the promotion!

Don't you sometimes wonder if the world has gone completely mad? I'm all for not offending people, but really, humour is taken much too seriously these days. The PC-ists have been given free rein, run and hide.

I mean, does my husband, who's colour blind, complain about Dulux paint adverts because he feels 'offended' that they're displaying colours he can't see.? He does not.

Do I, as an anosmiac (no sense of smell), feel utterly appalled at perfume adverts or food shows where they go 'oh that smells nice'? I do not.

I am, however, desperately offended by people who decide on my behalf what is or isn't considered suitable for public consumption.

Oooh I feel better now I've got that off my paint-splattered, sunburned chest.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday, regardless of bodily pain.
Brummie Blogs: Real life with a Brummie accent - be afraid, be very afraid.
Twitter: Life in 140 characters or less.

Hello, good evening, and welcome to this Sunday Mercury blog page. As Brummie Blog's spokesperson, I have been advised to tell you-

[Speak up, they can't hear you!]

Coughs I've been advised to tell you that Brummie Broad is unable to post her regular Tuesday blog due to... what did you say it was?

[Well I was leaning towards insanity, but you said that wouldn't wash, so just come up with something plausible.]

Brummie Broad is unable to post her regular Tuesday blog because she was abducted by aliens.

Awkward silence

Again.

[That's the best you could come up with? Seriously, that was the only plausible thing that popped into your head, alien abduction?]

Hey, I'm being put on the spot here, I didn't want to do this in the first place.

[Just carry on and stick to the script will you, tell them... They can't see me can they? Push that curtain back a bit, I don't want them to know I'm here.]

Look, people staring at this screen, she just hasn't done it, okay? She hasn't had time, she's been busy gallivanting around during the Easter weekend and gardening and all that kind of shit-

[Hold on, are you allowed to say 'shit' on the Sunday Mercury website? I'm not sure you can use that word, I'll have the editor sending me terse emails if you're not careful.]

Well what do you want me to say, eh?

[Don't speak to me directly, they'll notice. Turn around!]

I don't want to do this now.

[Too late, they're all looking at you. Go on!]

The berluddy moany cow-

[Excuse me?]

-says she can't come today cos she's been busy-

[Er, hang on a sec, 'moany cow'?]

-but she says she's got an excuse note from her mom and... Have you really got a note from your mom?

[No, of course not, all Marmee gave me was a plastic bag of Cheerios, not quite sure why. But forget that, what's with this 'moany cow' bit, we never discussed saying that.]

I'm improvising.

[Well don't, stick to the script.]

There's a script?

[Yes, there, in your pocket!]

Rustle of paper Okay, Brummie Broad wishes it to be known that she leads an extraordinarily busy life... busy life? You're a typist aren't you?

[Transcriber, thank you very much.]

So all you do is type all day, every day.

[What's your point?]

Well, typing isn't exactly 'busy' is it

[What would you know? Get on with it, and make it snappy, I'm supposed to be burning something for tea in a minute.]

Well she's been busy typing and having a nervous breakdown over some tax figure sh-

[No!]

-stuff, so she's not here, and I'm supposed to make some excuse about it.

[And not doing a very good job to be honest]

It's difficult with you barking into my ear!

[Hey, I could have got Kevin Spacey to do this you know.]

In your dreams.

[Call yourself a spokesperson? My dog could do a better job of it.]

Right, that's it, I'm off.

[No, wait a minute, you haven't said the bit about my lunch at the Ivy with er Hugh Jackman, or my date with-]

You're making this up aren't you.

[No.]

You didn't really have lunch at the Ivy with Hugh Jackman did you.

[I might have done.]

But you didn't.

[No.]

Okay, is that it?

[Just tell them I'll be back here soon.]

She'll be back soon.

[As soon as I can fit something into my hectic schedule.]

As soon as she can fit it into her hectic typing schedule.

[Thanks.]

Can I go now?

[Yeah].

Good.

Brummie Broad: Usually here on a Tuesday, unless she gets confused with long weekends and stuff.
Brummie Blogs: Real life with a Brummie accent - be afraid, be very afraid.
Twitter: There too, if only to maintain some contact with the outside world.

The news has been a bit interesting recently hasn't it. Its not all doom and gloom, there are bright spots.

Take Jacqui Smith for example. Tsk, naughty girl, having it away with the fairies instead of her accountant, or whoever fixes up her figures - and fixed they certainly are. Not only does she earn a six figure salary, she also receives £157,000 for expenses. Uh huh, £157,000 just for expenses. I don't think I earn that much in my entire lifetime [counts on fingers, gets confused, gives up], pretty sure I don't.

You gotta ask yourself, if your boss said, "Oi, you can claim £157,000 in expenses on top of yer salary," wouldn't you stick everything from bath plugs to second house allowance on it? Sure you would. But even we, the commoners, the real people who don't have our head in the clouds or up our own bums, would think twice about claiming for porn films - because we couldn't stand to think of some person in Finance giggling about it and telling the whole company.

Apparently it wasn't Jacqui's fault. Oh no, no, no, Hubby did it, and Hubby was forced to make a cringingly embarrassing apology to reporters. My hubby would have simply roared, "Hey, I f***ed up, I paid it back, now p*ss off." But then, he's not a politician's husband, he's a Yorkshireman and he's got quite a gob on him.

In other news, Obama arrived on our shores. Go, baby, go! Did you see the G20 photographs? No? Snigger. You have to remind yourself that these people run our world, and then you have to remind yourself again when you watch the Queen telling them off for being rowdy:

And while we're on the subject of royalty and the Rowdy Bunch, if there was one person guaranteed to lift their foot right off the floor and wedge it straight into their mouth without a moment's hesitation, it's our dear Prince Philip. He's a hoot isn't he. I bet old Queenie cringes in terrified anticipation every time she hears him draw breath.

Apparently, the only thing the G20 summit could agree on is that the teeny-tiny French president had a hot wife.

And finally, I caught a glimpse of Jade Goody's funeral procession, although I couldn't quite understand why the whole 'event' was televised. Whilst I applaud the fact that she brought smear tests to the fore, I thought her life was perfectly encapsulated by the flowers that spelled out GRAN DAUGHTER [sic].

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: Hanging out there rest of time.
Brumblog on Twitter: Spewing forth there too.