HELLO! IT'S ME!

Christ on a chuffing bike! I turn my back for 5 minutes and she's spraffing her bollocks all over our blog! Who gives a SHITE what albums she likes? To be honest, I've heard some of her 'music collection' and, at best, it's tiresome. Screkking whiny voiced bints delivering twee lines in the name of 'country'? Jesus. I hide my wee speaker when she comes a-visiting. In between criticising my dental hygiene and shoddy make up removal (I actually woke up once in the middle of the night to the sight of her bearing down on me with a make up wipe because she was concerned that I hadn't removed my make up thoroughly enough the night before) she likes to potter in the kitchen to the strains of Joan Baez or some such weirdarse songbird.

In summary, don't be fooled by her bravado about listing her top ten albums. They're all bound to be shite.

So we had a bit of a break from the blogging. You may have noticed this. Seeing as how I'm the talented one in this duo, I've been busy writing for actual money. I know! It's crazy! Haha! I managed to get away with it for about six months, until it all became a bit of a chore and I was 'rested' for a while to 'recharge my batteries'. Oh the humiliation! Oh the rejection! Oh the MONEY! I had included the money I received for my weekly musings from Lindseyland in my monthly household income. So now it's stopped and I'm left with the same overcommitted outgoings with reduced incomings. Bleh.

So how to make up this shortfall? Given that I'm basically too idle to do anything except drag my carcass in to work in the mornings, drink coffee, send a few ill considered emails and have long, shouty, heated debates with a colleague who says black when I say white, culminating in my flouncing off in a huff (albeit to Costa for a flat white) before dragging my carcass homewards again, it will be a bit of a stretch to make up this fiscal shortfall. See I'm using words like fiscal and I'm not even sure what they mean. I'm hopeless. I thought I might make ££££££££££s producing cupcakes for weddings and the like, but only got as far as buying business cards for Kitty's Cupcakes which everybody laughed at because it sounded like niche porn.

Please append your suggestions for increasing my monthly income below. We can then run them up the flagpole and see who salutes them.

Miss Kitty is waiting to cover y'all in buttercream...

Top Fifteen Albums Of All Time (or, Sarah Has The Attention Span Of A Budgie With ADHD)

I was recently tagged in one of those Facebook note things asking me to list my top fifteen albums of all time. This task seemed nigh on impossible, not least because I find it incredibly difficult to make lists of more than ten things because I run out of fingers and I forget where I started and repeat things. Still, not being one to shy from a challenge (much. Ok, a little. Alright then a lot. Shut up and let me continue with this fascinating tale, would you?) I decided to alter the requirements and regale you with it here. First off, let’s stick to ten albums shall we? That should be plenty. Secondly, I can’t put them in order of preference because I’m a Libra. So there. As you know my erstwhile co-blogger Lindsey is properly into astrology and all that so she’ll back me up on that one.

Before I go bulldozing into a collection of rubbish you have no interest whatsoever in, it’s been a while hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I hope you’ve been keeping well. Actually I don’t give a tinker’s fart how you’ve been keeping, given that I don’t even know who you are, oh mysterious reader. Maybe leave a comment and let me know, yeh? God. It’s all take, take, take with you people isn’t it?

1. Hang on. I was writing this while I was waiting for iTunes to update so I could refer to it to find these precious albums. Now it has updated and it’s all shiny and different and new and oooh look at the pretties. I’m off to investigate. And I start work in an hour. Sos like for the crap blog post. Laters.

Exciting news

Hello. It’s been a while. Get over it. I have some exciting news for you. This little blog of witterings has spawned great things. Lindsey’s been chosen as a finalist in a writing competition for STV (Scottish, erm... Television? Maybe? I don’t know). Anyway she’s famous now so don’t go expecting any kind of direct communication from her any more. You can read her articles by clicking the links below. The winner is judged on page hits and numbers of comments so if something tickles you (which it will), do the right thing and share and comment, ok?

1. The Scotch pie trumps the news every time.

Lindsey Mason virtually embraces the World Scotch Pie Champion, a butcher from Bathgate.

2. Gok Wan, my pants are killing me.

Even magic knickers cannot deny the laws of physics.

3. Patrick Moore takes me to the stars.

Galloway's new Dark Sky Park accolade has Lindsey Mason star-struck for Patrick Moore all over again.

4. Christmas shopping is just a nightmare.

Lindsey Mason is suffering from pre-Christmas recurring nightmares and has decided that enough is enough - but despite that, fears that she's still a marketeer's dream.

5. Do you suffer from Life Envy?

Lindsey Mason suffers from Life Envy. And Lazygititis. And other complaints. From watching food porn.

6. Dress-down Friday comes to the rescue.

After a 170 mile round trip for a hair-cut, Lindsey Mason is at the end of her tether.

7. Astrology is bunk. There, I've said it.

Lindsey Mason hates all that pseudoscience. Don’t argue, she's a sensitive Cancerian.

8. Office life just doesn’t feel write anymore.
Lindsey Mason recalls working life in the civil service back in the days where she could pinch boys’ bums - and before email thwarted the ability to be confronted by scary old harridans.

Sub-headings STV's own, obviously. What are you waiting for? GO!

These are a few of my favourite things lalalala

1. Taking my bra off at night. Aaaaaah....
2. When things fit into nice wee spaces e.g. a book on your bookshelf fits perfectly, or another Morrisons carrier bag fits just nicely into the rummage drawer in the kitchen.
3. Rummaging through the rummage drawer in the kitchen and finding a long forgotten much loved item e.g. a lighter with a nice scene from Las Vegas on it.
4. Lying under the blanket of doom watching the telly (Masons will get this)
5. When you time it just right so that you just park your car outside the house after the neighbours have only just gone into their house (to avoid talking to them obviously)
6. Picking the Kitty up and squeezing her tight and saying 'I fwucking wuv woo' through gritted teeth until she wriggles to get away.Purely because I love her so much I want to hurt her. (Again, Masons will get this). I might also have done this with my children Rachael and Hannah when they were babies, but I stopped it when they turned 18 so it's okay.
7. Answering a question correctly on University Challenge. Even better if I've said it loud to Jeremy Paxman instead of just thinked it in my head.
8. Sky Plus. If I could pick that up and do number 6 to it, I most certainly would.
9. Watching fave films over and over, e.g. Lost in Translation, the Grinch, Brief Encounter, Contact....
10. Sitting staring out of the window at clouds and seeing shapes in them. I was once staring out of a train and thought 'how come I've never seen a cloud shaped like a heart?'. Just then, I noticed a cloud shaped like a heart. I've stopped wishing stuff like that since then because am convinced am a witch and have special powers.
11. Getting email in my Yahoo account from an actual person I know and that isn't inviting me to make my penis larger, or to marry a Russian female tractor driver.Neither of which appeals, quite frankly, especially since I don't have a penis. (Or not last time I looked anyway)
12. Being in my bed. I love that.
13 Wearing new jammies. If I was rich I'd throw my jammies away every morning and wear a fresh pair every night. Actually I could afford to do that if I always got the fiver ones from Peacocks.
14. Buying stuff online. Any stuff. e.g. Elvis Presley cookbook (Like I need that?) and a canister of oxygen. (Don't ask)
15. When the postman comes with the stuff I've bought online.
16. Driving different cars, even old heaps. I like change.
17. Chatting to folk on trains (yes I AM your worst nightmare on a train journey)
18. Taking all the stuff out of my handbag and tidying it all away again.
19. Producing a perfect lasagne.
20. Mushrooms. I love them. Not the magic ones obviously, just your bog standard edible ones. 21. Baking. It's my therapy.
22. Laughing with Rach and Hann, or their pals, or my pals. I always need my inhaler after a good laughing sesh with certain pals.
23. Houstons Pies. As long as I've got the Rennies handy.
24. Spending time daydreaming about projects e.g writing a screenplay and ending up being hailed as a troubled genius at the Oscars, or producing a 'Pies I have Known and Loved' Calendar, with photos of people with strategically placed pies together with a wee story about their preferred pie. This applies only to Scotch Pies.
25. Waking up in a good mood in the morning and feeling like I could even do housework.

Bake-along-a-Baps

Here. While you're waiting for your next fix of proper blog, have a recipe for a 5 minute made in the microwave chocolate cake, made in any old mug. I've even pictorialised it for you. With pictures. Step by step.

1. Ingredients. Write them down on the back of an old envelope, as I have done, or for better results, on the back of an old 10 pack of Marlboro Lites, flattened out for maximum writing area. Smoke the fags first, readers. Unless you're under 16. In which case hand them over, spotty, or I'll tweak your greasy nose. So, to the ingredients. If you don't have vanilla extract, don't worry. Your cake will taste like an old tractor tyre. Ha! Am joking! Go and buy some vanilla extract. I'll wait. With regard to flour, Self Raising please. And 'tbsp' means TABLESPOON, retard. NOT TEASPOON.

So get a mug. Works best with mugs with cats on. But any (preferably stolen, promotional type, or liberated from conference or some such thing) mug will do.

Put the dry ingredients into mug. Give them a bit of a stir. Break the egg in to the mug. It will look like this:

Add the milk, and vegetable/sunflower/corn oil. NOT OLIVE! And the vanilla extract if you bothered to go and buy it. If you've any choc chips lying around (Pfft yeah right!) then shove them in too. Give it all another mix with a fork.

I forgot to take a picture at this bit. I got a bit excited about the prospect of cake that the kitchen started to look a bit swooshy like this:

NB We are re-imagining our kitchen cupboard doors, hence no fronts. Okay?

By this time, I remembered I should have been making lasagne, so I got stressed and my face looked like this:

What? Oh don't! That's harsh! Look man, I've had this flu thing, I'm clearly not over it yet. Look at those bags! Look at the piggy eyes! Look at the witchypoo nose! And the hair! OHMYGOD THE HAIR!

Pay no heed. Your face won't look like this. Nor, hopefully will your kitchen. But after 3 minutes in your filthy microwave on an ummmm high setting, your mug cake will look like this!

Poke a knife down the side of that bad boy and upend him on to a plate, thusly:

Add a 'daud' of ice cream, preferably Mackies of Scotland. Sorry? What's that? You can't get a hold of Mackies? What kind of heathen country do you live in exactly? Oh well, I suppose that filth Ben and Jerry's would do. Sigh. Whatever. Get out of my sight. Go and eat your fucking cake.

Eat the cake, dude.

PS - remember a while back I told you were refurbishing what I laughingly call my home office? Well, work continues. It's now morphed into a kind of beach hut vibe. You like? Still not done the floor, but we're thinking we may bring the outside in and continue the beach theme by strewing sand over the floor and tossing down the odd chip paper and dollop of seagull shit. We also still need to replace the light switches and shizzle. Apparently that takes lots and lots of slumping feverishly over the Screwfix Direct catalogue day after day, night after night, thumbing through pages and pages of DIY porn. It's all a mystery to me. They have perfectly acceptable ones in Homebase, but hah! What do I know? Me of the five minute chocolate cake? HA!

Finding My Something Special (Not Like That)

Having just been rudely jolted from wallowing in my postprandial dip and a morning chirpiness-induced comedown by a delivery guy, I have found myself with the startling ability to focus and not just gaze into the middle distance, moving not a jot except to click refresh on my Twitter screen every so often, it occurred to me I might do something useful with my second wind of energy. Actually it could just be regular wind, it’s hard to tell. Well I couldn’t be arsed to do something useful so I thought I’d write another blog instead. This wee Anglo-Scottish blog has been neglected for some time now and I feel I should at least have a proper go at posting regularly before consigning it to the dusty shoebox of projects that I have started with a bright-eyed fervour, fumbling at their metaphorical knicker elastic, only to abandon when it transpires that I have neither the will nor the ability to maintain them in any sort of acceptable fashion. In this dusty shoebox under the bed of my lackadaisical attitude are already the following: learning to play a variety of musical instruments, including but not limited to, the clarinet, the banjo, guitar, penny whistle, triangle and violin; writing down my dreams when I woke up every morning (stopped when I realised I dreamt far more than was probably healthy about Jennifer Saunders, dinosaurs and my father); drawing (I’m shite at it, no matter how hard I try. I can’t even colour inside the lines); making smoothies (the time spent buying fruit, washing / peeling / chopping the fruit, blending the fruit and then cleaning the fucking fruit out of the blender is not acceptably ratioed to the health benefits and smugness boost contained in one smoothie); growing my nails; learning to speak any language other than English (my French is so-so, but because of immersion not application); fostering an appreciation of classical music; going up the road for proper Sunday brunch with newspapers, eggs Benedict and lots of espresso every weekend.

So here I am, rambling on again in the hope of stumbling across something to say. Lindsey has previously mentioned on these pages that our little tête-à-tête next month has been extended to include appearances from pretty much the whole of Twitter. Can I just say at this point, I can’t really deal with calling her Lindsey. It doesn’t sit well with my brain. I am henceforth going to refer to her as Pants, and you can bloody well deal with it. Anyway, so, the whole of Twitter is coming, each apparently with some sort of skill or contribution that will turn Snarkfest ’09 (as it has been christened) into a dazzling evening of laughter and fun. We have Kate baking, at last count, banana loaf, cupcakes, shortbread and carrot cake, and Ailsa threatening to make special Snarkfest ’09 badges for us all to wear. I think that Bishtits (who is insisting on funding the evening) and I have managed to discourage the latter by basically telling her to fuck off. That seems to have done the trick. Pants (that’s Lindsey, remember? Do try to keep up) is also baking some stuff and making Pinnies Of Doom and, we hope, clutching us each to her ample bosom in turn. Other people have made promises of other things, I expect. I’m not really very good at remembering things.

I am now acutely aware that I have absolutely bugger-all to contribute to Snarkfest. Literally nothing. I was trying to think of something I could provide, like straw dollies (I live in London – no straw) or sloe gin (I’ll drink it all on the train on the way) or personalised mix tapes (Pants likes Stevie Wonder, FFS. That alone is enough to discourage me from bothering) or hand-embroidered lavender-scented pillows for underwear freshness maintenance (just fuck off), but alas, alack and oh dearie me, my complete lack of any practical skill lets me down yet again. It’s not that I can’t sew or bake or pay, it’s just that I can’t do any of them to a degree which would render them useful to anyone at all. So I shall have to rely more strongly on my ability to make conversation and jokes to get me through, all the time being aware that I cannot simply fall silent and point at my cakes / badges / credit card as testament to the point of my presence. This is a slightly risky strategy because the former, the conversation-making, becomes a little patchy when I’m nervous and the latter, making jokes, tends to go careering around blindly like a popped balloon and, to stretch the popped balloon metaphor still further, is very likely to make someone jump & shoot up their nose before collapsing deflated in the corner.

This leaves me with one option. The one thing I can do, and have done consistently and to a high standard extremely regularly since I turned eighteen (and not a day before) is get drunk. It is my special skill. I shall get drunk, make a tit of myself, and give everyone something to talk about and laugh at and mull over in the car on the way home. Sorted. Cheers!

Me, being drunk and making a tit of myself.

Actually before I go, here's a picture I made of Kate fighting a spider. That's another skill - bodge jobs in Microsoft Paint. Watch your back, Perez Hilton.

The end.

What does Sarah sound like?

Just a wee update to yesterday's hormonally challenged snarkfest...I have oftentimes wondered what Sarah sounds like. Although we're doing great things to break down Anglo/Scot cultural barriers (actually scratch that, we haven't broken them down, we've barged/crashed/practically lit the fuse wire and stood back waiting for the resulting crashbangwallop through several barriers in the short time we've known each other) we still haven't actually SPOKEN to each other in real life. In the early halcyon days of our little relationship we swapped worky mobile numbers (at the weekends, phones switched off, so it went to voicemail) so that we could titter at each others accents. I thought 'netts sounded like a cross between Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins (Orl rite Mary, yew're a propah laydee and nah mistoik)

and Waynetta Slob (I AM SMOKING AY FAG).

She thought I sounded like the lovechild of Jimmy Krankie (fandabbydozy!!!)

and Russ Abbot (see you Jimmy!).

Ewwww sorry that's so WRONG. I'm not saying that Russ Abbot would have a lovechild with Jimmy Krankie. I saw Jimmy Krankie in the street in Glasgow once, and it's actually a wee wummin fae Glesgae called Janette. She might consider doing the sex with Russ Abbot though, and if she had, then I dare say they may have produced a lovechild who sounded like me.

However, all our online joshing and jousting and mutual racist slurs has led to a messily arranged (it's only become messy due to my cavalier attitude to such things and having invited practically all of Twitter to Edinburgh in September. Sorry Edinburgh. And of course sorry to 'netts (a contraction of Sarah's Twitter name, henceforth verily she shall be referred to as 'netts). She was probably looking forward to some qualidee time with the tigerbaps one on one as it were, and here I've only bliddy gone and invited the world and his wife...pahahahaha. A full report on the Baps/netts summit will be forthcoming, complete with pics. Maybe. Depends. There may be a cast of thousands.

My sister...the bitch..

Sounds like a Pedro Almodovar film doesn't it? My sister...the bitch. I bet he'd cast that hoor (Scottish for whore) Penelope Cruz in some simpering role so she could go thethethethethe-thing her way through my script. She gets right on my tits. So does that other hoor Angelina 'here's my lips, my arse will be along in a week' Jolie.

Sorry, I've got PMT, and I've snarked all week. About everybody and everything. Snark snark snark...all the way to Glasgow in the car with the weans...snark snark snark...all the way back...snark snark snark in my new workplace (Don't even go there. That's a whole nother snarkfest waiting to be snarked about). They are making me work IN AN OFFICE. Yes, an OFFICE. I've worked from home for the last six years. For six years I've diligently slumped over my keyboard tippy tapping phrases like 'Please accept my apologies for not being in touch sooner, I've been [insert pathetic excuse for my procrastination e.g. bereavement in family. Yes, I know, I'll burn in hell for that]. It's all lies of course. Then I have this awful dilemma about what to put at the end of an email. I hate 'Kind Regards'. I would never say that. I would never shout across the road to someone 'Kind Regards!'. Ridiculous. 'Kind Regards Homey!' Preposterous. I also hate the plain old 'Thanks'. That doesn't cut the mustard either does it. Thanks for what? For believing my pathetic excuse as to why I haven't gotten back to you sooner? Or even worse 'Cheers'. 'Cheers, Lindsey'. That's shite. I'm going to end all future emails with:

'Up yer fanny!'

or, if the reader hath no fanny...

'Up yer bumhole!'.

I think the exclamation mark lends a certain cheery tone to the sentiment, no?

Anyway, my sister...the bitch. What was all that about again? Oh yes, she insists on phoning me when I text her. It's not that I'm scared of the phone. It's not that I think it'll steal my soul (if I even had one, huh) if I use it or anything. I just cannot be fucked chittychatting on the phone. I really can't. It's such a waste of my life. And it makes my ear hot. So if I want to know something I will TEXT my sister...the bitch. She takes this as an invitation to phone me. She does it every freakin' time. I constantly ignore her calls, so then she phones the HOUSE PHONE! The cheek and impudence of it! So I ignore that too. I always ignore the house phone. It's usually a sales call that isn't a sales call e.g. 'no no Ms Mason, I'm not trying to sell you anything...I just wanted to tell you about the lovely drive we paved in Dumfries last week, and wanted to share this great news with you'. If it's not that, it's the Mother in Law phoning to dump all her 'you're a shit Daughter in Law' guilt on me. She nurses her wrath for weeks over my constant apathy and refusal to phone her to enquire after her health or to invite her for tea, then it all comes pouring out in one snarkyguilty phone call. She never says no to my gritted teeth invitations to come for tea, and always overstays her welcome. Unlike my own mother, Granny Marlene, (or G-Unit, as the weans call her). G-Unit gets a lift to my house, eats her tea, then promptly asks for lift home. I like her style. My kinda visitor. A big old knuckle bumping RESPECT for the G-G-G-G Unit! I hold her up as a 'best practice' example of how to visit my house. Only problem with G-Unit is that she is a bit doolally these days and I've no patience for it. What happened to the hard hearted harridan who told me to 'stop wallowing in self pity' when my husband died aged 30 after a long illness leaving me with two very young weans? (Sorry readers, I turned a bit serious there. That story is again a whole nother blog. Bet you can't wait). Nowadays G-Unit greets like a baby (Scottish for 'cries') if you turn up at her door after a two week absence. She never used to greet. She was hard as nails. She could give Jean Claude van Damme a run for his money. Nowadays she's weird. She recently referred to me as her 'second born' as in 'awwwww here's ma second born...'. For fucks sake G-Unit get a grip of your thermal vest which you're wearing in summer, I was the THIRD one. AND, I was reliably informed when I went to work at the rent office when I was 30 by a hatchet faced old crone who knew my Ma and Da back in the day 'Ooooooh are you Marlene's lassie? You must be the wee mistake!'. I opened and shut my mouth like a goldfish for about three days after that. When I asked G-Unit about it, she mumbled 'och aye but your faither and I wanted ye just the same' (I'm making her sound like Janet from Dr Finlay's Casebook, remember that?).

My life was a joke from day one. I was a mistake. A mistake. Gutted doesn't even describe how I feel. Then, to add insult to accidental injury, on my birth certificate, as father's occupation, it states 'Fish and Chip Purveyor'. For fucks sake. Why wasn't he a brain surgeon? Or a jockey? Or even an 'External Awareness Panel Technician'? (Think about that one.....think hard....SEE?). But nooooooo he had to be a 'Fish and Chip Purveyor. And we stayed above the shop. I thought the world smelled of fish and chips till I was 18. I talked about this to Kate today in the car as we snarked our way up to worship at the shrine of the greasy meatball - IKEA. (Or as Sarah bizarrely referred to it - Okra. WTF?). Aye, so Kate and I were doing our usual singing along in the car (today's rendition was Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Painful. Seriously painful caterwauling and shrekking. Not shreeking. Shrekking. That describes it. Rach and Hann (the weans - keep up) had bleeding ears from the fine howdyoody which passed for singing in the front of the car. So aye, Kate and I were reminiscing and shit. And we then hilariously remembered the hairdryers we used to have. We both had what we thought was a Pifco hooded hairdryer. It was a monstrosity. Mine was a shitty brown colour with a dial which you twiddled to get the right heat setting (either furnace or no hotter than a silent fart). It had a tumble dryer hose thing which went from the actual unit itself (that's the kind of shite they spout on QVC) into the plastic hood which inflated and made you look like you had a mahooooosive beige plastic 'fro. But, dear readers, the real USP of this fine bit of hairdrying kit was that you could CARRY IT AROUND with the attached snizzy snazzy shoulder strap. Drying your hair while doing other stuff. Dry your hair while nipping downstairs to the chippy for a sausage in batter. Be the envy of all your friends while you zip around town with your Ronson Escort 2000 (I googled it, it wasn't a Pifco, boo. That name had great comedy value too) drying your hair. Wow. Those were the frickin' days. Kate spoiled my reverie by reminding me that you only got the nape of your neck scorched by the hose thing whilst the front of your hair remained soaking wet. Bah. But we also remembered that you only washed your hair once a week so yay! It was all a bit Heath Robinson, but kinda charming.

Oh god am so sorry, this has been an incoherent ramble, and am on the lappy (ewwwww that sounds like I'm on the blob, got the painters in, surfing the crimson wave etc etc). I mean I'm on my laptop, so I've no pics to attach to illustrate the various themes alluded to in this post. Get over it.
Up yer fanny! (Or emmmm bumhole. Or whatever arrangement you've got going on 'down there')
Lindsey.
PS - I meant to talk about Sarah in this post but forgot. hahahahahaha. ha. Maybe next time. Then again probably not. It's all about me. The mistake. The fucking MISTAKE. Gutted.
Peace out.
PPS - I'm not down with the whole 'paragraph' thing tonight. Sowwy.It's just a big hunka text.

How I've Never Met My Co-Blogger And Why I'm Worried About It

I’ve never actually met Lindsey / Tigerbaps. I thought it wise to get that fact out of the way fairly early on in this blog, so that if she goes mental or weird or develops a strange crush on me (these things happen more frequently than you’d expect, you know. Not more frequently that I’d expect, mind, but then I’m a ‘glass half empty and everyone’s a nutter’ kind of girl) then I can’t be held responsible. OK, obviously my devastating good looks and sparkling wit could be partially to blame for the crush, whenever it materialises, but anything else is beyond my control. At the moment she seems normal enough, in her own slightly odd Scottish fashion, but please understand I’m making no guarantees. If she suddenly starts making posts about things that should only be discussed with a doctor, or posting while channelling Heather Mills McCartney (she was a hoot, wasn’t she? What’s she up to these days? I do miss her) then I’ll be holding my hands up and shrugging in bafflement while making a quick call to Dumfries Social Services.

However, I’m going on a little expedition to Edinburgh in September with some real-life people and seeing as we’ll be in the same hemisphere or whatever as Tigerbaps / Lindsey, it seems churlish not to meet for a wee dram. Or a pint. I’ll probably have a pint actually. Or maybe a gin and tonic. Ooh or a Guinness. No that’s Ireland. Anyway. Me and Lindsey / Tigerbaps will be united for the first time evarrrrr and that presents me with a set of concerns that I feel I should share with you. Perhaps not should exactly, but will, whether you like it or not. So there.

1. I’m unsure what to call her. Presumably Lindsey would work quite well what with it being her real name and all, but then I’m quite used to calling her Tigerbaps. In fact I’m more used to calling her Pants, from when her Twitter name was Masonpants, but that seems obsolete now and not really something you call someone when you’re meeting them for the first time. But I still call her Pants, every single day. I’ll probably end up calling her PaaantTiiigerrrrrohfuckwhat’syournameLINDSEY! Smooth.
2. Lindsey has made it abundantly clear she does not relish, or even welcome, physical contact of any sort. While I’m most certainly not of the touchy-touchy huggy-feely persuasion myself, I am a Londoner and a former Media Wanker so I’m inclined to go for a kiss on the cheek when I meet someone, particularly if it’s a girl. Boys, meh. Handshake, kiss, quick hug, whatever. Let’s keep it brief, yet? But girls, kisses almost all the time. So what if I go for a kiss on the cheek and she punches me? She might go all Scottish and feral and give me one of those Glasgow Kisses I’ve heard about. I’m frightened. I might start by shouting aforementioned bumbled greeting from 10 metres away and gradually decrease the distance between us over the course of the evening so as not to startle her and have her turn violent. By the end of the night we should be sitting at the same table and no-one will have got hurt. That’s the plan, anyway.
3. What if she’s not a girl at all? What if this Lindsey character is all the product of some lonely pervert’s fantasy in which he aspires to be someone falling precisely between Delia Smith and Rab C Nesbitt? That’s a straight-up run for the hills type scenario, right?
4. 
   What if – sniff – she doesn’t like me? What if I’m a crashing disappointment? What if I’m not funny or interesting or engaging at all in person? I hope she’ll at least pretend for a few hours then never speak to me again once I’ve left the country. That’s the kind of criticism I can take; anything more and I get all pathetic and wounded and cross.
5. As an aside, is Scotland an actual country, or a state or something like Australia?
6. What if her iPhone addiction is so chronic that she still communicates with me via tweets even when I’m there in person? This, readers, is far and away the most likely-to-transpire of all my worries. Is there an app that can serve as some kind of warm-up for actual human interaction that Lindsey could download now and use as practise in the coming months? If so, leave details in the comments section. Ta.
7. What if we have a wee chat about this blog and Twitter and teh interwebs in general and then... nothing. Fuuuck. I’m crap at filling awkward silences. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a social cretin - as long as the other person is chatty I can sustain a conversation. But when it’s petered out into nothing I find it incredibly difficult to suddenly burst into “so, tell me about that holiday to Greece?” My mind goes blank and I get distracted and start thinking about what’s for tea or what’s on telly or whatever before suddenly realising it’s been five minutes and I’ve been staring at the wall for four of them. So like I said, I’m definitely not a social cretin. I also have no memory about anything, so I can’t just pluck random facts that have been imparted to me and use them as conversational building blocks. My friends will attest that I can spend an entire evening discussing worries or problems, mine or someone else’s, then never mention them again without prompting. I’m always telling my girlfriend really funny stories about when this happened or when so-and-so said such-and-such, only for her to frostily inform me that she knows, she was there. I’m not avoidant or uncaring, I’m just forgetful.
8. And THEN, God forbid, what if in order to fill the awkward silence she starts buggering on about astronomy? It’s her hobby you know, she likes spaceships and astronauts and stars and shit. I like drinking and telly and eating. I admire her ability to absorb so much on a subject and still find it interesting, but Outer Space (or even Inner Space, if it exists) is something that’s never fascinated me. It’s just there, and it’s far too complicated for me to understand, so I just won’t bother. Much like cricket and cross trainers.
9. What if Lindsey’s Scottish brogue is so thick I am unable to understand what she’s talking about? What if I just have to nod and smile vaguely and hope she doesn’t notice? I’m not sure where I stand with this one. I understood almost everything Mel Gibson said in Braveheart but have difficulty deciphering my cousin’s Stirling accent and everything Rab C Nesbitt ever said. I might come away from the meeting with the impression that she was drunk and talking about porridge, but it was a bit hard to tell. If that does seem to be the case perhaps I’ll suggest we communicate by text. She’ll like that anyway (see point 6).

So these are most of my worries. There are other less pressing ones, like what if she tries to snog me or what if she makes me listen to Stevie Wonder, but these are the concerns that weigh most heavily on my mind. Then again, there may be a chance I could be overanalysing our wee meeting and it will all be fine. Fingers crossed, huh?

Sarah

Hello From Me, Too

Fuck this shit, I’ve seen what Lindsey has written about herself and I’m buggered if she’s going to get another 10 points all about her. So, here’s 10 things about me. You can blame that Scottish bint for this.

1. I live in London with my girlfriend and our pets. Look! A hedgehog!

2. I could probably give Lindsey a run for her money as far as procrastinating goes. We should really find someone to shout at us and make us do posts and shit or it’ll just peter out into nothing and then where will we be? Back to trading snarky comments about Big Brother on Twitter, that’s where.

3. I moan a lot. I used to be a freelancer and I once had a job I was thrilled to have, so thrilled in fact that I swore I’d never complain while on the job and always maintain a positive outlook. A few weeks in, the rest of the team had a big laughing conversation about how I was so bloody miserable all the time. Apparently, I don’t need to speak in order to moan. My very presence is like a big fuckoff load of gloom, glooming over everything.

4. I live in a flat which bears no resemblance to any kind of confectionary. Except maybe like a box of Black Magic. If Black Magic were small and crammed with books and CDs and pets and clothes and shoes and shit.

5. Speaking of which, I have appalling taste in books. Example: one of my favourite books of all time is The Thorn Birds. Not in an ironic, knowing way, but because it's really fucking good and I like it and I’m in love with Father Ralph, just like Meggie. See also Tanamera by Noel Barber. I’m not going to link it for you, you bloody look it up yourself.

6. Ditto music. I love country music. I love female singer-songwriters who are miserable and play the piano or a guitar. Top artists: Dar Williams, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette. As an aside, Lindsey likes motown or Stevie Wonder or Northern Soul or some shit. Fuck knows why.

7. I don’t really like chocolate, I’m more of a savoury snacker.

8. Seeing as Lindsey brought it up (the woman is obsessed) I am also not unblessed in the boobs department. But I’ve not got any weans whose heads I shove in my brassiere and, here’s a bit of bonus information for you, one of my nipples is pierced. I’m not some kind of sex pervert though.

9. Technically speaking, Lindsey is old enough to be my Mother. But if my own Mother was gallivanting around the internet peddling the kind of filth she does, I’d have her put in a special home or something. Exhibit A:

10. OMG I love Sharpie pens too. It’s probably the only thing Lindsey and I have in common apart from our ample boobage. I’ve got a tiny little Sharpie pen on my keyring that I use in case I need a Sharpie when I’m out and about. Good for writing on toilet walls and that like (not that I do that. I’m not being all faux-innocent while implying that maybe I do, I just don’t. End of story.)

That’s it. This will get better, I promise. It’s just I made myself do this before went to the pub and it’s way past beer o’clock now. Laters.

Sarah