Ten things I love

I have been tagged by the lovely Betty to talk about ten things I love. I'm fairly sure I've done this before, but I quite fancied doing it again, and I thought I should try and mention some things I love that I don't discuss all the time. That excludes:

Owls

Goats

Small fat hairy ponies

David Sedaris

Gin

Sadaharu Aoki

London

Armani Cream Blush Duo

Marks & Spencer

Cadbury's Caramels

Whining

So, here is, let's be honest, the B list.

Avocados

I haunted the supermarket chains of Belgium when I arrived here, searching hopelessly for a half-decent avocado, before settling on Delhaize as the only place capable of supplying them. I feel genuinely unsettled if there isn't an avocado in the house. They are good for you! They are pure fat! I feel nothing but love for my friend the avocado. Pretty colour. Essential fatty acids. Nice with almost everything. Except maybe chocolate and gin. Avocados. They're good.

Rimmel Coral Romance nail polish

Big fat brush for easy application, lovely brash summery colour. Hard to fuck up. Does not make me feel like a transvestite.

That "look! It does not stop me HOLDING THE ACTUAL BOTTLE" pose always amuses me. If Facegoop were not languishing, we would definitely be experimenting with other things to hold whilst displaying your nails. Tin openers. Puppies. A large potato.

September

The favourite month of scholarly dweebs the world over, September brings the delicious prospect of new grey clothing, new stationery, and relief from the horrifying, anything-goes self-tan scented, brightly coloured anarchy of the summer. It is fresh and new, full of the possibility that perhaps this year you will not end up entirely ostracised, with a cruelly accurate nickname, spending breaktime skulking in an empty classroom with Middlemarch. September's margins are neatly ruled and it smells of shoe polish.

The whole cult of the rentrée has slightly tarnished my September love, what with the forced cahier covering sweatshop, the €200 of minutely, bureaucratically detailed fournitures scolaires and the ever-present, and entirely accurate, sentiment that you have forgotten something. Even so, I still get a little shiver of anticipation. It's September. Anything could happen. Anything dweeby, that is.

Commenters

This sounds like a nauseating outbreak of toadying up, but it is true. It has been on of the real delights of the three few years to find so many people who are sharp and funny and compassionate and who can make me laugh out loud. Especially the ones who teeter on the edge of unhinged. Those are my favourite. You probably don't know who you are, because the voices in your head are distracting you, but I know who you are. And I hope you never stop.

Magma

I would move into this stationery, design, gift and general wonderfulness emporium if I could. The child unfriendly alphabet tea-towel? The beard balaclava? My beautiful Rob Ryan washbag? All found in Magma. I have reined in almost all my spending excesses over the last few Grandgrind years. Clothes? Nope. Going out? Ha, do me a favour, I never went out even when I was solvent. Organic wanky foods? Haven't missed them for a second. But the thought of going past Magma and not being able to go and buy beautiful, papery fripperies BURNS.

Someone else making my dinner

It doesn't have to be flash, or luxurious. I just mean, dinner. Your ordinary, unthrilling, weekday dinner. It's the mere fact of it that is exciting. I find it very boring cooking every day, which is why I mainly eat Bonne Maman crème caramels and avocados. But I do like food, and I wish I could be arsed. I go and stare at Redfox's sidebar longingly sometimes, and wish she was cooking for me.

Coffee on the Vieux St Martin terrasse

Because of the procession of land-owning tweeds and groomed dogs. Because of the excellent seating and the giant, sand-weighted brass ashtrays. Because the coffee comes with a decent sized palmier biscuit and the service is suitably brusque. Because café terrasses are basically the reason why I live in Abroad.

Vuillard

If I could steal a painting - just a little one! - from a major collection, it would have to be a little Vuillard oil. He's the god of small things; I love clever, quiet exaltation of the domestic, his magpie's eye for a beautiful print or pattern or shape - wallpaper, rugs, a vase of flowers.

Just a little one. A tiny square of brilliance. I'd look after it.

Lilac

Because it's so ephemeral and it smells like my childhood, and there's occasionally a stall on the Sablon that will sell you giant mountains of it. Or someone lovely and kind, like Fatima, will give you a giant mountain of it.


(I got slightly drunk whilst writing this, so the last two may be succinct).

Don Marquis

For the Song of Mehitabel, which Uncle Tom (not a real relation, hippydom oblige) read at my mother's funeral and it was just right, perfect, one of her favourites and my sister thought of it and it hit all the perfect unapologetic notes among all those Quakers and weegies and grave social policy types and all the rest of us. I will give you the whole lot, even though I think I've already done that on these pages, just because. Because we all need a little wotthehell. Because I particularly need a little wotthehell at the moment. Damn, it's made me cry again, it always does this. But she was

this is the song of mehitabel


of mehitabel the alley cat


as i wrote you before boss


mehitabel is a believer


in the pythagorean


theory of the transmigration


of the soul and she claims


that formerly her spirit


was incarnated in the body
of cleopatra


that was a long time ago
and one must not be


surprised if mehitabel
has forgotten some of her


more regal manners

i have had my ups and downs


but wotthehell wotthehell


yesterday sceptres and crowns


fried oysters and velvet gowns


and today i herd with bums


but wotthehell wotthehell


i wake the world from sleep


as i caper and sing and leap


when i sing my wild free tune


wotthehell wotthehell


under the blear eyed moon


i am pelted with cast off shoon


but wotthehell wotthehell

do you think that i would change


my present freedom to range


for a castle or moated grange


wotthehell wotthehell


cage me and i d go frantic


my life is so romantic


capricious and corybantic


and i m toujours gai toujours gai

i know that i am bound


for a journey down the sound


in the midst of a refuse mound


but wotthehell wotthehell


oh i should worry and fret


death and i will coquette


there s a dance in the old dame yet


toujours gai toujours gai

i once was an innocent kit


wotthehell wotthehell


with a ribbon my neck to fit


and bells tied onto it


o wotthehell wotthehell


but a maltese cat came by


with a come hither look in his eye


and a song that soared to the sky


and wotthehell wotthehell


and i followed adown the street


the pad of his rhythmical feet


o permit me again to repeat


wotthehell wotthehell

my youth i shall never forget


but there s nothing i really regret


wotthehell wotthehell


there s a dance in the old dame yet


toujours gai toujours gai

the things that i had not ought to
i do because i ve gotto


wotthehell wotthehell


and i end with my favorite motto


toujours gai toujours gai

boss sometimes i think


that our friend mehitabel


is a trifle too gay

I am all in favour for tagging on this one, because I want to know, so I tag:

Irretrievably Broken

Indigo Alison

The Harridan Oh. She has already done it. It is funny, go and look.

Parma Violet Tea (who cannot say owls either)

Maybe the Brain Twin can do it at some point about Singapore. Can she find ten?

Or anyone else who would like to. I love reading these things. If you do it, please tell me.