Nixta Sinks

Yep. My first post at YesButNoButYes.com.

God, I'm awful at updating this. Soon, my pretties. Let it be known I haven't been paid yet and am going on strike again on Monday.

...If you want to be a blockage breaker.... YEAH!

Tribute to Tap-dancing Trumpeteering Roy Castle out of the way (though I've never seen the word "abscoe" before, except in 80s Great Britain track and field victory typos), and let's not forget more recently dearly departed Norris, I've been invited to contribute to Yes But No But Yes. I know two of the authors: my good friend Clickety Clack (homage paid to Dave Chappelle) and Scaramouch is a friend of his about whom I have been apprised (both are very talented and successful designers). I assume that the rest of the company is just as illustrious, so I must pick with great care what I post there. Fortunately, it's likely to extend my interest in the world rather than pilfer from the somewhat sparse Nixta Sinks material.

Speaking of, here's a little gem for you all. I've had much SPAM in my time (tinned, canned and electronic), but this is amusing for its sheer nonchalance. Note the effort they've gone to to make it look like it was personalised for me.

At least put a name in there!

Spurred on to write more about my life out here by what I think is the longest and most heartfelt e-mail I've ever received from my good chum, Thomas (I will reply very soon, dear boy), you are all to be informed that my negotiations with my bank, the company, and a leasing agency have culminated in my moving into a corporate apartment just a stone's throw from my hotel, on Fitzroy Street (which turns into restaurant-laden Charlotte Street).

The place will have broadband (thanks to some bartering on my part), so I'll be able to update from home, and has a full-on bedroom, kitchen and lounge with a bathroom with power-shower. It's like a proper New York one bedroom apartment, only the bath is tall enough to actually bathe in (I will refrain from starting on American bath tubs here and now).

It did smell a little of drains, but I'm sure an airing and running the taps for 10 minutes will solve that. They claim that it's just been vacated, but I doubt that place has been lived in for a few weeks.

I shall post some photies of my hotel tomb shortly, just for posterity's sake.

The company is paying for the whole gig. It's a corker. I'm certainly pleased, to say the least as it means I don't need to negotiate that living allowance that was looking to be rather a contentious issue.

Burglaries to date: Rufus & Family in South Africa, Giles in Notting Hill. Any more I should know about?

With luck I may be moving into a short-term lease apartment near Marylebone High Street. It's still far from a done deal, with temporary overdraft to arrange and more such nonsense, but it would improve things to no end.

In other news, with nothing better to do I have decided to attempt the Guardian crossword (a topic of recent interest to both How It Happeneders Dr. Rufus and Charlie "Kneez" Beez). Before you loud-mouthed belligerent infosnobs have a go at me, the Guardian is the only paper the hotel will deliver free. I believe they'll do the FT too, but they seemed to imply they'd charge me for that one, and I'm buggered if I'm paying the hotel any more. Most days I have been able to manage a few clues, with a very marked improvement day by day until yesterday. I managed one bleedin' clue. Just one. And I was lucky to get that. Just the previous day I had impproved to 13 of the blighters. 13 to 1 is quite a drop in anyone's books, and the shock and irritation at not making it to even 2 clues kept me up and fuming until 3am. It's pathetic. It could have been because Sly Stallone was strutting his stuff opposite Rutger Hauer in New York that I was distracted, but I know the truth is that I just wasn't up to the challenge. Back to the drawing board. Or today's Grauniad.

In yet other, sadder news, it appears that South Africa's crime problem is still as healthy as ever. A couple of days ago, Rufus was robbed of all his worldly possessions. He called me at 8am on the nose (quite reasonably so, yet quite unreasonably I was rather pissed off at the time) to ask me how to determine the serial number of one's stolen iPod. I have no idea if the robbers targetted Rufus' room only, but it seems likely that all Cartwrights would have found things missing to some degree. Really rather appalling behaviour, and I hope those responsible are brought to justice by means of clamps, hobnail boots and barbed wire, though I expect they will instead be taking a nice holiday.

I hope I get paid soon.

This time it's no secret. At least the last time, when I tried to keep it a secret, it backfired so resoundingly that I spent many a night on my own in my tiny hotel room at the Grafton crying my surprising eyes out.

53 days in a hotel. No fridge. No kitchen. No nothing. No laundry either. Beginning to regret the decision really and should have never listened to those of the "let's get you out here first" school of thought though of course, realistically, had I brought up such diva demands as a living allowance or the expense of laundry paid up beforehand, it might have tipped the very delicate scales of whether to bring me out at all against me.

In other news, I was "upgraded" from the diminutive Ian Schrager Suite to a "Deluxe Whizzobang eXtreme Double King Queen M'Lord" room (because I'm staying for so long), which is still small and with no more cupboard-space (i.e. barely any, and no drawers) than old room 275, but comes with added pigeons on the window-sill and bonus rattly windows. It seems that someone has fought a pitched battle in the room recently, with various minor fixtures and fittings baring ripped-from-the-wallsesque scars and the remote buttons distinctly suffering from continuous and prolonged rubbing. It also has a rugged hook in the floor for tying sheets to in the event that you want to dangle them out of the window (presumably to scare the pigeons, or put up a banner of protest for the children playing football in the playground below), or for hanging yourself. It's certainly not for rescuing yourself in the event of fire because there's nothing suitable to tie to it - nothing that's 4 storeys long and designed to carry the weight of a slimline engineer.

I shall re-arrange my room and submit it for the Turner Prize.

Put some meaning to this caption

As I'm walking around near Soho (perhaps it was Soho, perhaps not quite), I finally noticed Rice To Riches, the astoundingly bold (and empty) attempt to foist rice products on an easily misguided audience of hipsters and hippies.

In the window I saw the panel reproduced to the right. I was bored enough to read to the end of it, and what I saw amazed, shocked, surprised and thrilled me. Had I just come across a new word? Was there a whole underground vocabulary that I wasn't familiar with? I mean one other than the ones whose unfamiliarity to me I'm already fully familiar with.

I have no idea what the panel means by "ipping" (I'm pretty sure I'm not being outrageously dim-witted here, but anything's possible where outrageous dim-wittery is concerned), so I'm throwing it out to both my readers. Do you have any idea? Could you enlighten me? Do you have any friends who might know and who might be able to enlighten me? Gosh, I'd really like to know because there might be a whole load of things that I'm putting into other things that I'm not even aware of. I'm pretty sure that "ipping" is to Rice to Riches what "it" is to Nixta Sinks, but I need clarification.

Answers on a commentcard.

What a pile of shite.

My ass hurts just from watching it, in sympathy to all those who paid to sit through it in the cinema. The whole film could have been done in 30 minutes, and it still would have been a stupendous waste of time.

As Dani said, this is the cinematic version of a foxymoron.

And it's not even over yet. Christ, what a pile of shite.

Update:
I've now checked out some ratings for the film around the place and it seems to get universally high marks, so what did I find so abhorrent about it? Am I being an arse? Am I mistaken? Or is it just that time and time again throughout the whole film I kept thinking "You've just shown me this, for 15 minutes, in sloooow motion, and now you're doing it again!" and "Oh fucking christ, that's not a reason". Of course, I could have been suffering through some atrocious subtitles (it was a downloaded OGG file, with nothing in the intro to introduce the plot, which I suspect was what all the scribbles scrolling up at the start were about).

And now I've read some review snippets at Rotten Tomatoes, one thing is clear: The film has garnered rave reviews only from those prepared to completely ignore the plot and dialogue. Sadly it would appear that this comprises most published reviewers these days. Admittedly, it is visually stunning in composition and you could hang many stills of the film around the place if you were so inclined without having to wear the t-shirt, but I'd say the film was only mediocre in special effects and fight scenes by today's standards, and atrocious in terms of plot and dialogue. That's not enough for a good film by my standards. It should carry the equivalent of a Parental Advisory notice:

"This Film Suitable As Eye Candy Only"

Some pictures from New Year's Eve.

I'm still recovering, having Tartley, Susan, Simon Barber, and Tonks in town, insisting that we close down all sorts of bars we come across.

Musical Box collected and donated close to $1000 in the end, which is a superb effort. Tao (the bitch) is claiming it's not Dani's but his idea because he presented it to the bar. Laughable 15-year-old slapping antics to ensue... The important thing is that the money was raised, but he's still a bitch, that Greek princess-boy...