They say that, aside from the death or serious injury of a loved one, moving house is the most stressful thing you can do.
I’ve never been entirely sure who ‘they’ are supposed to be – government, the Mob, or that Illuminati that Tom Hanks chases after – but my guess would be if moving is so stressful for ‘them’ then they must lead pretty dull lives.
Try telling James Bond that packing your belongings into boxes and getting some hairy guys to move the telly was more jarring on your nerves than having a laser beam pointed at your balls, getting chomped by metal teeth, or whacking your willy in Grace Jones.
I’m sure he’d disagree.
My guess is that the more nice stuff you have, the more you worry.
We’ve all the seen the Stuttaford’s Van Lines ad, with the sad country song and everything falling out the truck, and one can only envision the twenty grand flatscreen smashing to bits along the highway.
But, as usual, there’s more to it. It’s not just the imminent destruction of all we possess that makes our hair go grey.
I know a lot of hoarders – people who can’t bring themselves to even throw away a cardboard bogroll holder, let alone that yellow, dog-eared copy of Green Lantern 50 – and the thought of having to dump a lot of that useless shit they’ve accumulated over the years leaves them petrified with grief.
Also, it doesn’t take a fancy couch and frilly pillows to make a comfort zone. Leaving behind space that has become so personal can well a nostalgic tear up in the old wailing ducts.
Settling in a new place takes time. You need to get used to traffic noise (or lack thereof), find out where the local KFC is situated, and draw a mental map of the place to avoid cracking your ankle on a chair or walking into a wall in the middle of the night.
Moving house is generally a pain in the arse, and my guess is that James Bond – cool in the face of Oddjob’s flying hats and bollock burning laser beams – would rather get Pickford’s in than hitch a trailer on the back of his Aston Martin.
Showing posts with label James Bond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Bond. Show all posts
Bond in the Bo-Kaap
As far as counter-revolutionaries go, James Bond must be right at the top of Julius Malema’s shitlist – Bond is the supreme mlungu.
The latest Bond novel, Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver, has the MI6 assassin travelling to Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap, “eat[ing] bobotie” and “drink[ing] Zulu beer” – possibly because the waiter thought caviar was a brand of running shoe, and there’s no way he’d find a decent martini in Long Street.
One can only imagine Bond emptying his Walther into an attacker in a curious neon-yellow bib, completely unaware that it was just the car guard about to demand a “Five Rand” for his efforts.
I wonder if Her Majesty’s most famous spy, his mind on more important matters such as saving the world, would bother to find a bin for all the nightclub pamphlets stuffed behind his windscreen wiper or if he’d just throw them in the gutter?
“The Mother City features in more than half of the book and next time you walk through the streets of Cape Town, you may just look at it through different eyes,” writes Claire of Jonathan Ball Publishers.
What? We might imagine the streets of Cape Town rife with gunfire and intimidation? Violence and murder?
Not a stretch, I’ll be honest.
What does require an elasticity of the imagination is Bond teaming up with “a feisty police inspector in the SAPS” – all the coppers I’ve come across are more rotund than ripped, and about as feisty as the wife before her morning tea.
Bond villains have always been eccentric, and the everyday Capey with no front teeth, cap balancing precariously on his head and pants around his knees must have made JB paranoid beyond belief.
Was it intentional to name the book after MNET’s most famous investigative journalism show from the telly? Maybe he gets to meet Derek Watts – who’d definitely remind him of Jaws – or, Heaven forbid, he shags presenter Ruda Landman!
Malema, of course, would assume the British beefcake’s inherent racism as the reason he only visited the Mother City, but really they have a lot in common.
Both like to wear fancy watches, imbibe only the most expensive alcohol, and James and Juju know the importance of smart suits and automatic weapons. They also have the same views when it comes to a “nice time” without any future responsibilities.
Maybe in the next novel they’ll team up to nationalise the mines.
The latest Bond novel, Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver, has the MI6 assassin travelling to Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap, “eat[ing] bobotie” and “drink[ing] Zulu beer” – possibly because the waiter thought caviar was a brand of running shoe, and there’s no way he’d find a decent martini in Long Street.
One can only imagine Bond emptying his Walther into an attacker in a curious neon-yellow bib, completely unaware that it was just the car guard about to demand a “Five Rand” for his efforts.
I wonder if Her Majesty’s most famous spy, his mind on more important matters such as saving the world, would bother to find a bin for all the nightclub pamphlets stuffed behind his windscreen wiper or if he’d just throw them in the gutter?
“The Mother City features in more than half of the book and next time you walk through the streets of Cape Town, you may just look at it through different eyes,” writes Claire of Jonathan Ball Publishers.
What? We might imagine the streets of Cape Town rife with gunfire and intimidation? Violence and murder?
Not a stretch, I’ll be honest.
What does require an elasticity of the imagination is Bond teaming up with “a feisty police inspector in the SAPS” – all the coppers I’ve come across are more rotund than ripped, and about as feisty as the wife before her morning tea.
Bond villains have always been eccentric, and the everyday Capey with no front teeth, cap balancing precariously on his head and pants around his knees must have made JB paranoid beyond belief.
Was it intentional to name the book after MNET’s most famous investigative journalism show from the telly? Maybe he gets to meet Derek Watts – who’d definitely remind him of Jaws – or, Heaven forbid, he shags presenter Ruda Landman!
Malema, of course, would assume the British beefcake’s inherent racism as the reason he only visited the Mother City, but really they have a lot in common.
Both like to wear fancy watches, imbibe only the most expensive alcohol, and James and Juju know the importance of smart suits and automatic weapons. They also have the same views when it comes to a “nice time” without any future responsibilities.
Maybe in the next novel they’ll team up to nationalise the mines.
Maybe An Exorcist Would Help!
I slept on the couch again last night.
Not because Lucy and I had a fight or anything, but because I was snoring.
It doesn’t happen that often, but every now and again my throat makes a noise like a slimy corpse being dragged along gravel; for Lucy it’s like trying to sleep in a jellyfish-pounding plant.
It’s so bad sometimes I startle myself awake! Jumping out of bed I grab a broomstick to defend us against a clumsy phlegm-monster climbing through the bedroom window until I realise it’s just me.
It’s then that I get the spare blanky out of the closet, take my pillow and settle down on the uncomfortable couch. The result is I wake up the next morning with a sore back and a grumpier-than-usual disposition.
Snoring can be caused by a number of things – nasal stuffiness or allergies, the position you sleep in, small or collapsing nostrils, smoking, alcohol, or even just being a fatty. And the first step is to find out which of these you are.
A quick check with the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association kindly told me I wasn’t overweight (apparently I’m normal), but I’m sure their opinion would alter if they could see my pregnant profile in the bathroom mirror.
If you’re what they call a ‘mouth breather’ and sleep with your mouth open, it’s apparently easy to cure. Just get yourself a mouth guard that forces you to breathe through your nose, or some ‘chin-up strips’ that’ll hold your gob closed.
I suggest you discuss this with your partner first, lest she finds it disturbing waking up next to Hannibal Lecter and you’ve wasted your money.
The other turn of events could be she finds it a kinky turn-on and you’ve got to wear it all the time.
Great success!
What excited me more (because I’m a bit odd) was a new laser treatment – I could just imagine Gert Frobe standing over Sean Connery:
“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No mister Bond, I expect to fix your deviated septum!”
When you sleep the muscles in your tongue, throat and the roof of your mouth relax; when you then breathe this tissue flaps around making a sound like a McDonald’s chef prepping the ‘special sauce’ for your quarter-pounder.
What the [insert finger exclamation here] laser does is warm the inner tissue of the palate to form rigid scar tissue that’ll, hopefully, not flobber about so much.
A Google search for the average cost revealed that most places that do this kind of treatment are in countries like Croatia, Czech republic and Germany – the kind of locales movies like Hostel are set in.
The average cost is between £300 - £400 in Germany and Czech Republic – reasonable – and a staggeringly low £92 in Croatia… probably some back-alley butcher with a blowtorch.
I couldn’t find any herbal remedies, so the hippy market is wide open, and I decided my best bet is to get down to my local otolaryngologist for help.
Either that or buy a comfier couch.
Not because Lucy and I had a fight or anything, but because I was snoring.
It doesn’t happen that often, but every now and again my throat makes a noise like a slimy corpse being dragged along gravel; for Lucy it’s like trying to sleep in a jellyfish-pounding plant.
It’s so bad sometimes I startle myself awake! Jumping out of bed I grab a broomstick to defend us against a clumsy phlegm-monster climbing through the bedroom window until I realise it’s just me.
It’s then that I get the spare blanky out of the closet, take my pillow and settle down on the uncomfortable couch. The result is I wake up the next morning with a sore back and a grumpier-than-usual disposition.
Snoring can be caused by a number of things – nasal stuffiness or allergies, the position you sleep in, small or collapsing nostrils, smoking, alcohol, or even just being a fatty. And the first step is to find out which of these you are.
A quick check with the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association kindly told me I wasn’t overweight (apparently I’m normal), but I’m sure their opinion would alter if they could see my pregnant profile in the bathroom mirror.
If you’re what they call a ‘mouth breather’ and sleep with your mouth open, it’s apparently easy to cure. Just get yourself a mouth guard that forces you to breathe through your nose, or some ‘chin-up strips’ that’ll hold your gob closed.
I suggest you discuss this with your partner first, lest she finds it disturbing waking up next to Hannibal Lecter and you’ve wasted your money.
The other turn of events could be she finds it a kinky turn-on and you’ve got to wear it all the time.
Great success!
What excited me more (because I’m a bit odd) was a new laser treatment – I could just imagine Gert Frobe standing over Sean Connery:
“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No mister Bond, I expect to fix your deviated septum!”
When you sleep the muscles in your tongue, throat and the roof of your mouth relax; when you then breathe this tissue flaps around making a sound like a McDonald’s chef prepping the ‘special sauce’ for your quarter-pounder.
What the [insert finger exclamation here] laser does is warm the inner tissue of the palate to form rigid scar tissue that’ll, hopefully, not flobber about so much.
A Google search for the average cost revealed that most places that do this kind of treatment are in countries like Croatia, Czech republic and Germany – the kind of locales movies like Hostel are set in.
The average cost is between £300 - £400 in Germany and Czech Republic – reasonable – and a staggeringly low £92 in Croatia… probably some back-alley butcher with a blowtorch.
I couldn’t find any herbal remedies, so the hippy market is wide open, and I decided my best bet is to get down to my local otolaryngologist for help.
Either that or buy a comfier couch.
Your Teeth Are Like Stars, They Come Out At Night
I reckon most people who say they’re afraid of clowns are just saying it coz they imagine it’ll make them seem quirky and cool. Pretending to be scared of something designed to make you laugh is the bluntest form of irony – a sign of a below-average sense of humour trying to be big and clever.
For those genuinely afraid of the kiddies’ icecream mascot at Spur – my deepest sympathies.
An old boss of mine was honestly terrified of clowns and rats, so I could only imagine if hordes of rats with painted faces and round, red noses busted in – but we never did get round to orchestrating that.
I know a girl who has a phobia of balloons. I’m sure there’s a proper name for it, but I couldn’t be bothered with Google today.
I don’t have any irrational fears, but I have to admit that the dentist makes me a bit uneasy. It’s not so much the pain or pulling of teeth, or even the judgement as he gazes down disgustedly at Beirut-in-my-mouth. It’s an uncomfortable feeling that’s hard to describe.
The problem starts with the attractive assistant. All men, whether in a relationship or single, want to impress the opposite sex no matter if they’re Jessica Simpson or Susan Boyle. It’s the basest, most shallow, absolute core of our fragile egos.
Having to open your mouth wide enough that a man’s hairy fingers can work around in there is like a cat exposing its weak belly. The reason women don’t find a man eating with his mouth open desirable is coz it’s quite gross inside – it’s like a big arsehole with fangs … not that I’ve peered into many arseholes, but… methinks I shouldn’t protest too much.
Anyway, your mouth’s open and she’s getting a good look at the biltong you munched over the rugby last Saturday, the saliva’s building up and you just know when you swallow your throat is convulsing disgustingly, and then once the dentist has done his thing she hands you a glass of that pink liquid and you’ve got to spit into the weird, metal, slurping funnel. Because your mouth is numb you can’t purse your lips in the right way and most of the slobber ends up dripping down your chin.
Not exactly James Bond.
Needles don’t frighten me, even if, as the pornstar said to the schoolgirl, it’s a gigantic prick, I just zone out and it’s over in a moment. But afterwards when it feels kind of like you’ve gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson, or taken part in an outrageous collagen experiment, I can’t help feeling ridiculous.
You can’t drink water without it pouring all over your shirt, and when you get home and check it out in the mirror it’s disturbing to smile and only have half your face react.
But of course, the most terrifying thing about the dentist is the bill. You can’t dispute it because you have no idea what went on in there – like sending your car into a mechanic’s and he tells you the doohizzle-nozzle needs to be removed so he can get to the carbo-percolator.
It’s then that you realise you’re the clown, but with your flobbery lips and spit-shined chin no one’s scared of you.
For those genuinely afraid of the kiddies’ icecream mascot at Spur – my deepest sympathies.
An old boss of mine was honestly terrified of clowns and rats, so I could only imagine if hordes of rats with painted faces and round, red noses busted in – but we never did get round to orchestrating that.
I know a girl who has a phobia of balloons. I’m sure there’s a proper name for it, but I couldn’t be bothered with Google today.
I don’t have any irrational fears, but I have to admit that the dentist makes me a bit uneasy. It’s not so much the pain or pulling of teeth, or even the judgement as he gazes down disgustedly at Beirut-in-my-mouth. It’s an uncomfortable feeling that’s hard to describe.
The problem starts with the attractive assistant. All men, whether in a relationship or single, want to impress the opposite sex no matter if they’re Jessica Simpson or Susan Boyle. It’s the basest, most shallow, absolute core of our fragile egos.
Having to open your mouth wide enough that a man’s hairy fingers can work around in there is like a cat exposing its weak belly. The reason women don’t find a man eating with his mouth open desirable is coz it’s quite gross inside – it’s like a big arsehole with fangs … not that I’ve peered into many arseholes, but… methinks I shouldn’t protest too much.
Anyway, your mouth’s open and she’s getting a good look at the biltong you munched over the rugby last Saturday, the saliva’s building up and you just know when you swallow your throat is convulsing disgustingly, and then once the dentist has done his thing she hands you a glass of that pink liquid and you’ve got to spit into the weird, metal, slurping funnel. Because your mouth is numb you can’t purse your lips in the right way and most of the slobber ends up dripping down your chin.
Not exactly James Bond.
Needles don’t frighten me, even if, as the pornstar said to the schoolgirl, it’s a gigantic prick, I just zone out and it’s over in a moment. But afterwards when it feels kind of like you’ve gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson, or taken part in an outrageous collagen experiment, I can’t help feeling ridiculous.
You can’t drink water without it pouring all over your shirt, and when you get home and check it out in the mirror it’s disturbing to smile and only have half your face react.
But of course, the most terrifying thing about the dentist is the bill. You can’t dispute it because you have no idea what went on in there – like sending your car into a mechanic’s and he tells you the doohizzle-nozzle needs to be removed so he can get to the carbo-percolator.
It’s then that you realise you’re the clown, but with your flobbery lips and spit-shined chin no one’s scared of you.
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