The Best Spring Bulbs You Should Plant Next Year.

 2020 was the first full year I have had a garden to hurl things at so I am now in a position to make some recommendations which will also handily remind me what I'm planting come Autumn 2021.

I might as well start off with the ever lovely but short lived spectacle of the tulips. By far my favourite tulip this year was Ballerina. It's a fine shade of orange with a wonderful scent and I am told often hangs around for a second year. We shall see if this years crop reappear in 2022 but if I'm spared I will be planting more. I teamed Ballerina with a tulip called Purple Dream which I'm afraid wasn't at all successful. Almost all the Purple Dream bulbs flopped over, having consulted the internet my best guess is that a late frost upset them at a crucial stage but I can't be certain. I will give them one last go this year and see if I'm any luckier. I also plan to add a tulip called Negrita into the mix and see if it fares any better.

Two other excellent tulips that I can also recommend are Purissima and Spring Green. Purissima is a large, creamy white tulip with a faint yellowish green stripe. Spring Green is similar but later, smaller with a very pronounced green stripe. I will be planting more of both of these this year. 

The last of my tulips worth mentioning is Angelique,these are very late to flower but worth the wait. They resemble pink peonies more than tulips and despite their vast heavy heads stand up straight. If they had scent they'd probably be my favourites. I teamed them with a few Black Parrot I had spare which worked well, I may repeat this in Autumn but I'm leaning towards the view they don't really need a supporting cast. 

Speaking of scent I planted three lovely S.Arnott snowdrops which I purchased in the green after going mad in an eBay auction. I'm very glad I did because the honey scent was remarkable, I hope they will reappear next spring not only for their scent but also for their appearance- much taller than a normal snowdrop but still delicate and elegant. I'm told snowdrops don't establish well when planted as bulbs and are best planted in the green but I think I'll try my luck a few bulbs on cost grounds and see how it goes. I will also probably get a few more in the green because I'm really very keen to get these growing en masse.

Two more beautifully scented stars of 2021 were Daffodil Actaea and Daffodil Pheasants Eye. They look very similar though Pheasants eye is a little smaller and later. Scent wise Pheasants Eye seemed a wee bit more powerful but I'll be planting both for a longer display. Both are extremely pretty white daffodils with a very small yellow-orange centre. They look like little stars in the night garden and are well worth giving a bit of garden space to.

Any one of the bulbs I have mentioned so far would make wonderful cut flowers, particularly any of the scented varieties. 

I've had some disappointing results with some other bulbs, very few of the Alliums I planted have put in an appearance- some of this can be attributed to squirrels but it may be they just don't like my garden. I'll have one last go this year and see what happens. The Snakeshead Fritillaries were somewhat disappointing in that so few came up but those that did were well worth the effort. It was a similar story with the Imperial Fritillaries, I'm going to try these in containers next time and see if they fare any better. 

I planted two varieties of crocus this year Snow Bunting and Blue Pearl, both performed well and I hope to see them again in 2022 but they're very small and I like a big vulgar crocus. I might plant a few next year in pots where they can be properly appreciated and fill the borders with Ruby Giant and Pickwick instead.

This year I plan to add some hyaciths for scent and some gladioli byzantinus to the above and will report back assuming the plague or some other catastrophe doesn't get me first. 

I'm not even a fucking feminist.

Observing the nasty but unsurprising scenes from Clapham Common I find myself reminded of the most life altering gig I never attended. 

Back in 2009 Take That played a gig in Hampden Park. I didn't go because I was never a fan, though I did quite like that one they did with Lulu. Anyway it was quite an event for ladies of a certain age and as far as I can tell a good time was had by all. 

2009 was a year when I had the remarkable job related perk of taking taxis on account. This meant taxis on an almost daily basis, it also meant being spoken at by taxi drivers which was quite the education. The week following the Take That gig was outstanding. Those poor drivers on duty had witnessed drunk women being quite rowdy, vomiting, singing badly and pissing all around poor sacred Hampden. It did all sound a bit rough and unpleasant.

However I couldn't help but think of the times I opened my close door or went out to the bins only to pissed at by a furious football fan. Or all the times I was woken up by their drunken roaring or those hilarious times they set fire to a bin whilst punching a bus stop. None of the Take That fans behaviour as described to me resembled that joyous and uplifting incident where I stepped on to a bus only to be dragged off by tardy football enthusiasts who felt more entitled to a place on the crowded bus than I was. I haven't even started on the fun of the "marching season" yet and I won't because it's just variations of the above.

Yet I have no recollection of taxi drivers or anyone beyond the old women at the bus stop expressing much outrage about any of that. I can't begin to imagine why that might be. Well I can but for a whole host of exciting reasons I am not a feminist. I do have a keen eye for obvious injustice though and it's increasingly hard to escape drawing the conclusion that women aren't valued all that much beyond their careers. 

 

Trivial Musings on the Plague

Even someone who writes about as frequently as a panda gets laid really ought to mark the plague. To mark this "difficult situation" I am doing a rare post on the 'daily blog' I was going to use to practise being a writer. It has become apparent to even a common yokel like what I am that the financial arse has rather fallen out of writing so I was in fact very clever indeed to skive from daily writing practice in favour of staring into space. My career change dreams may lie in tatters but thanks to Covid-19, the working from home dream has been achieved without me tapping as much as a single key. A rare reward for indolence.This is my plague experience so far...

I confess to being remarkably calm for someone who worries about what everyone really thought about them mangling a sentence in 1987. I am worried about aged relatives and the general death toll but otherwise taking it in my stride. There are a number of reasons for this, one is having acquired a garden. If I were still living in a flat I'd be lying in the middle of the road demanding strangers spit on me to end my battery hen hell- like a wild germs bukkake fetishist. The best advice I can offer anyone living in a flat just now is to make use of parks and other green spaces but try, no matter how much you're enjoying it, to look miserable. You must appear as if you've just learned that every leaf, every blade of grass is conspiring against you. If the authorities or any passing sneaks get the sense you're happy, you could end up before the beak. Clypes are everywhere.

What a shower of foul snakes we have in our midst. The one bright spot in all of this is that we now know who would grass us up were the country to end up a dictatorship. There aren't many surprises in my circle.  Be vigilant on Facebook, if you use the awful thing, I still do for practical reasons too dull to share here. Half my work colleagues are in something close to a frenzied masturbatory state at seeing another person in public. who maybe, might just be possibly breaking a rule. The other half are having meltdowns about 5G. I am reading it all, pulling grotesque faces and murmuring "I knew this, I always knew it".

It's a firm belief of mine that one ought to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. With that in mind I have written the names of all known clypes down under the heading "anti-government subversives" in my notepad. Like all notepads I'll carry it faithfully until I see a funny cat or a bumblebee and get distracted but when we're all quivering beneath the state jackboot in future dictatorland, we shall learn it's true value as a search of my home unearths it and takes out an entire spy network. I urge you all to do the same. We can't stop them being sneaks but there's a small chance we can murder them with notepads.

The other reason I'm handling plague lockdown quite well is that I have long viewed nature as a monster ready to take us all out on one of it's whims. I have been waiting for something like this since I first laid eyes on the Old Testament. In fact reading the entire OT substituting the word God for nature isn't a bad way to view who is in charge. Nature delights us all by throwing up fluffy animals but all those bites, stings and scratches one experiences rolling about in a field are a warning. We are ruled by a murderous lunatic with a 100% kill rate. A murderous lunatic one can't evade or thwart - look what happened to poor old Des Esseintes when he tried to cheat nature.

The final reason I'm handling it so well is the rather boring observation that I quite like being at home. Eighteen year old me would have wanted to bite old me for saying that but it's the truth. I like controlling the temperature, bossing the garden about, making tea, sprouting seeds and creating wee worlds like a slightly absent God. I like pretending to be in charge. Having a big game of control is a rather fun big lie and one that I plan to play along with as long as I'm allowed to.

I have the oddest feeling I should end on some advice, like Springers Final Thought but I don't have anything to offer and I lack the the level of interest in other people that seeking to boss them about usually entails. The best I can suggest as it that you laugh as much as possible, get out in the sun without landing yourself in hot water and fire a couple of tins at the foodbank collection point next time you're out on your permitted trip to the supermarket.

Hugh Hefner Obituary.

This morning the news reached me that Hugh Hefner had died. My immediate reaction was "oh I didn't know he was still on the go". Then I chuckled and said "well he's not now, I suppose". I felt a bit bad about that, you shouldn't laugh at folk dying really and I didn't mean to. I was just being a smart arse to myself. Sorry to all the bereaved Hefners.

I've often thought I would have had quite a lot in common with Hugh Hefner if I was a bit different in real life. When I used to smoke I thought it would be quite the thing to have a special separate jacket just for smoking fags, then I'd sort of forget about it and buy a different thing instead, such as a hat. Hugh didn't just forget about it and buy a hat. He had loads of special jackets for smoking fags in and became very well known for it.

Like Benny Hill, Hugh paid all these really good looking women to cut about with him and make out they fancied him but unlike Benny Hill they didn't do chases to funny music and if I'm honest it kind of looked a bit preposterous. More so as he got older. I've never paid women, good looking or homely, to pretend to fancy me and I think having all those folk hanging about my house would get annoying. I usually go to the pub when I have workmen in and I'd likely do the same with workwomen so we're a bit different that way too.

On reflection I am nothing like Hef. He was his own guy.

Suzanne Moore has written a piece here that paints a fairly depressing picture of life as bunny. Based on my own experience of work I'd rate it about call centre and can only imagine the distress of the bunnies when Viagra was invented. I suspect it would have been an altogether easier shift in the years leading up to that mixed blessing escaping the lab. I expect they felt much as I did when the order to mis-sell PPI or face a three-month "action contract" (snakespeak for the sack) descended from Mount Bastard to the shop floor. It was not long after that I left. Don't misunderstand me I sold the PPI, it's just the horror of doing so made me get off my arse and get another job.

In one key way Hugh was better than me in that he cleaned up after his dogs did their business on the carpet and didn't get a bunny to do it. I am terrible with shit, it's a phobia - like spiders. I would have got anyone else but me to do it up to and including a bunny. I am actually terrified of holding babies on account of their shitting. It's real, don't judge me. The worst thing that could happen to me is being chased by a giant spider made of shit. Piss, vomit and blood I'd prefer to avoid but can wield a wipe to deal with. Shit is the worst thing ever.

I am also aware that Hugh thew a bit of cash at the odd liberal social cause and that some people are using this as a means to say "hey you guys Hugh was actually a good guy". To which I say stop making excuses or seeking to justify your love of a splendid idiot. We like what we like. I myself, cannot come up with anything to justify my love of Barbara Cartland beyond, "fucking look at her". Heff was a delusional, selfish big arse with some nice impulses, much like the rest of us.

My last and most personal reflection here relates to a time that a man made me watch a Playboy video. It was rubbish. The main thing I can remember was a translucent curtain swaying on a breeze. For that to be the main thing one remembers from a porno is damning. There might have been a saxophone but I don't know if I've made that up to make it sound more interesting. It was the worst porno ever and once it had finished I left the man's flat never to return. To the best of my knowledge Hefner has never explained why he commissioned this film.

I'm sad another daft character has left the earth but hey ho good innings. My main wish at this time is that someone changes the inscription on Marilyn Monroe's grave to "Gie's peace, Hugh".

I do not understand what I have just seen.

Last night I was taken to the theatre by Maw, Paw and No1 Auntie to see a play. The whole evening had the air of a surreal anxiety induced dream. It wasn't unpleasant. It was just odd. It is very hard to explain so I think it best to simply describe what happened and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

We went to a boring Italian restaurant for a pre-theatre. The food was acceptable but tended towards the dull. I had a Penne Arrabbiata. Apparently Arrabbiata translates as angry or enraged, mine just seemed a bit grumpy. The pasta was nice and firm. There was a sinister waiter who called me darling and asked me why I didn't like Parmesan and at one point where I was going when I tried to escape. I really didn't see what business it was of his and found his tone altogether too rapey for my liking. I'm not suggesting he was entranced by my lumpy exterior (no one with better things to do has wanted a shot of me since 1990) but he struck me as a man who would fuck a hole in a barber's shop floor. I went all stiff and pretended to be a conifer until he went away.

Post-meal we toddled up Hope St for a pre-theatre drink in Cafe Hula which passed without incident. Then we rose from our slightly dirty table and strutted on to the theatre and that is where the evening took on a surreal air. As I was invited as an afterthought I was seated at the end of the row away from my family. We were in the very front row so had an abundance of leg room. This also gave my mother room to start darting about. I was dreamily staring into space when all of a sudden my mother appeared in front of me and roared "DO YOU WANT SOME WERTHERS ORGINAL?" before I had the chance to say "obviously not" a handful of Werthers were thrust into my lap. I thought the woman sitting next to was going to pass out laughing. I should stress this was before curtain up. No show was harmed during this startling episode. I gathered the Werthers and placed them in my handbag because I am not a litterbug and resumed staring into space. After about a minute my mother appeared in front of me with "A BOTTLE OF TAP WATER IN CASE YOU GET THIRSTY". I turned to the near hysterical woman next to me and said "I only just met her in the foyer".

It was at this point the woman sitting immediately behind me came to my attention. She was most aggrieved that the show was a whole three minutes late starting. I expect they were waiting for my mother to sit down and stop zipping about the stalls with boiled sweets. I shall refer to the woman immediately behind me as "Backbird" as she will feature a lot and typing WIBM in full is tiresome.

At last the curtain rose and things took place on the stage. I should probably mention at this point that the show starred TV's Shane Richie. This seemed to blow Backbird's mind. She stage whispered to the poor chap next to her who I suppose I should call Backchap "It's Alfie Moon". Backchap seized his chance to look like a boffin and replied "I think it's Shane Richie". This sailed over Backbird's head so she replied "I wonder if Kat is going to come on". On and on it went Backbird spent the whole of the first act tutting, puffing and muttering "that isn't my Roy Grace, I've read the books that's Alfie Moon -where's Kat, Alfie, where is Nana Moon?".

I thought Shane Richie did a competent job depicting a fairly standard issue, harassed, middle aged detective. This wouldn't be a problem for me until the end of the play. Backbird on the other hand was enraged. I too, find the world's habit of failing to measure up to the things I imagine somewhat tiresome and I expect it has caused me to act the goat at times but I've never disrupted a play with my witterings.* I am better than Backbird.

Any hope I had that Backbird might break with convention and remain silent during half time was misplaced. She spent the entire interval muttering "I've read all the books" before going on to insist that Backchap's friend had taken part in initiation rituals in order to join a motorcycle gang, specifically gang raping a woman with the rest of the gang. Backchap was unconvinced by her startling assertion and stuck to the line that his friend wasn't in a gang but just went out to "Loch Lomond and stuff" with "a couple of mates who are into bikes". Backbird was not to be deterred, it turns out she had "done a lot and I mean A LOT of reading about biker gangs". Well there's an open and shut case Backchap's Leader of the Pack is a rapist who ought be drowned.

I will pause for reflection here. I have often sneered at people who don't read and snarked that dumbos ought to read a book but should they? What if Lady Bracknell was right when she said "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone"? Maybe by shaming stupid folk, we're causing them to read and become overexcited. Perhaps we should celebrate thickos and allow them to live untroubled by knowledge. I don't claim to have all the answers but I am prepared to support anything that makes thickos quiet and isn't murderous. Let them live quietly and happily in their community.

Anyway the curtain shot back up and the play rattled along. I don't want to give anything away so I shall avoid details. For me trying to work out whodunnit was a bit like one of those annoying fox,chicken, bag of corn, farmer over the river problems in that I was certain I could work out the answer if I had to but I can't see the point in working it out because someone is going to tell me the answer. For anyone interested my answer to the fox,chicken, bag of corn, farmer over the river problem is as follows. The fox and chicken form a union, toss the farmer into the river, split the corn 50/50, take the boat and have adventures. The real answer is tedious and involves too much back and forth. I don't like things like that.

It was the last few scenes that startled me. Naturally we established whodunnit. Then it all got a bit camp and overacted to the point of being quite the hoot. Shane Richie appeared oblivious to wild acting going on around him and continued to play it straight. The thing is I honestly don't know who I should praise or snort at here. If it was meant to be a big, camp hoot then I shall snort at the Richie, if it was meant to be straight drama then I shall snort at everyone else. Either way it was an ephemeral goggler and I rather liked it in the same way I enjoy a good Jackie Collins.

I did mean to write a proper restaurant and theatre review but then I typed all these other words. Should we teach Secretarial Studies to compulsive ramblers? Join me here on PONTEFRACT next week for the answers.



* Well there was the 1979 nativity play in Penilee Nursery but it deserved it, I was hopelessly miscast, the costumes were a joke anyone in my position would have spent the entire morning sobbing and staring at their feet.

I do like a bit of perfume.

I have always loved perfume or rather I have always loved some perfume. Lets not fool ourselves a good deal of it is weak fruity water that someone bought in Asda because it was on special. I should ignore that thin gruel if I were you and concentrate on the good stuff.

Having inexplicably been born into the wrong social class for my needs, I have always regarded perfume as a distress call to my lost aristocratic parents. I like to imagine my aristo folks have been frantic with worry since the nanny mislaid me in a train station. They haven't, they don't exist, there was no nanny, there was no station, there were no aristocratic parents, I was a random burden placed on people who hoped for better, God is dead, no one is coming, I am alone.

Recently, living in a damp, collapsing flat, early middle age and the realisation that my entire career is one enormous, pointless dead end have taken their toll and I find myself disappointed I didn't die in my sleep each morning. I do not want to live this life but I'm too whatever it is I am to change it.

I really don't understand very much about my life. Everything I ever tried at or felt passionately about failed and as I'm by the halfway mark I don't see that changing. I made my bed but I didn't mean to make it this way and there doesn't seem to be any better way available to make it. I was trying, really trying. I'm stuck and marooned.

A sensual, transporting scent to mask the whiff of this rotten gutter is what is required. If I can't be somewhere else, somewhere better then I'd at least like to smell like I am. With that in mind these are my current favourite perfumes in no particular order.

Penhaligon's Halfeti- An unusual choice for me as it was only released in 2015 so is dead modern. It also appears to be unisex, which I tend to avoid as I feel disappointing enough without anyone getting the notion I have a cock. Nevertheless it's a rich, oudy, smoky, woody scent that smells how I'd like to feel in life.

Guerlain's: L'Heure Bleue- My all time favourite, it's powdery, odd, haunting, ideal for a cold day and feminine without being a lisping twit about it. If it were a woman it could go in go a bar and drink alone making it very much a bird I can do business with.

Guerlain's Shalimar- As above but with added sweet vanilla. It is Barbara Windsor's signature perfume.

Coty-  L'Aimant- Deeply underrated because it is as cheap as chips and very old. This is a powdery, comforting, sweet treat of a perfume. It doesn't last very long on the skin and needs topped up throughout the day but it's a beautiful scent.

Yves Saint Laurent- Rive Gauche- This manages to smell clean but probably up for a knee trembler at the same time. It's soapy and comforting and reminds me of a dirty Nivea. I am very fond and go through stupid amounts of it. A fine day perfume.

Estee Lauder- Youth Dew- Smells like the late 70s, perms, nights out being babysat, excitement.

Dior-Poison- The first time I caught a whiff of this I was being tortured in a bathroom. The slightly overweight tall girl was pressing my hand on to a hot radiator whilst the thin and slightly mannish one was trying to force me to say "I am an ugly spastic" and threatening to burn all my skin off. I can admit now that I was somewhat distressed by their behaviour towards me but was determined to stare into space and feign indifference. After a while they got bored and picked up a roundish, purple bottle and started trying to spray it into my eyes. It was Poison! I turned my head to the wall so most of it went on my hair and in my ear. I immediately concluded that I wanted to smell like this for the rest of my life but would prefer not to be tortured in a bathroom. I broke free, went home and wept partly from grief at the way I'd been treated and partly from joy at how fucking foxy I smelled. A little goes a long way but it's a no holds barred whopper of a perfume, a French Joan Crawford in a bottle.


Honourable mentions: Vivienne Westwood- Let it Rock & Boudoir, Chanel No 5, Revlon-Charlie Red, Kate Moss- Vintage Muse (smells like rotten fruit and fucking for about 3 minutes) L'Artisan Perfumer- Timbuktu & Rose Privee , Cacherel.- Lou Lou

Far From the Right Time.

Today, in the spirit of adventure I did something I have never done before. You'll think me mad but I went to the theatre in the afternoon. To be clear I have been in a theatre before and not just for pantos. I have have seen operas, ballets, comedians and the odd play. However I have always waited until the evening to indulge. I now realise that pure instinct kept me from experiencing the most frightful ordeal.

Oh it wasn't the show. The show was quite the hoot and along with the wine provided the only happiness I experienced during the hell of the matinee. It's hard to describe what I've been through but I shall do my best to set it out in my own words. It may well be needed in some ground breaking legal case in the very near future.

I have always loved the word matinee. It's redolent of lovely things, like Dirk Bogarde twinkling down from a cinema poster. The reality is far from lovely. We all know that strangers are just foul irritants we haven't met yet but when one is forced to encounter them, I now know it is less painful to do so at night. The evening theatre audience is rendered docile by a wee pre-theatre and a half bottle of wine. The matinee crowd want the back of their legs slapping.

I have spent four decades being herded around with you cattle but not once have I ever encountered such a relentlessly irritating bunch and believe me I've met some fiends on the way.

Naturally I took my seat early on. I was positioned on a fairly empty row Q only to find myself trapped between an awkward middle aged "date" and a family. I thought I might die. Row P was occupied by arthritic pensioners who shot up and massaged their lower backs and upper buttocks, quite without warning. Everyone in row P appeared to be called "Maggie". The one with the "tramp stamp" kept telling us to "keep smiling". I didn't. She was bossy and I was compelled to defy her.

I can only assume someone had starved this assortment of monsters before they entered the theatre. Other than the sort of eating disorder that ends in one being removed from ones digs in a crane, there is no explanation for the relentless rustling and chewing. On and on it went. Splatty chew, rustle, splatty chew, splatty chew, audible fart, rustle, chew. Right through both acts. That would never happen in the evening.

It was something of a relief when the curtain finally rose. Rather, it should have been a relief but the nasally child weasel next to me had memorised both script and songs. I thought about telling it I was best friends with Rose West or that I could get it sent to live with Karen Mathews but I kept quiet and tried to cause deafness in my right ear by sheer will power. After a time, I either deafened myself to the right or the creature ran out of puff and shut up.

Of course trouble flared up when the odd man to my left spotted the wine in my handbag and started loudly whispering to his partner that "other people" had "carry outs". He was a rotter and an ill informed rotter at that. I did not have a "carry out", I had a blue package ticket which comes with a small bottle. A small bottle that I required in order to deal with my surroundings.  I had cause to curse this gentleman again during the interval when he remarked to the red faced woman he was with that I was "having another one but not from a bottle".  I think he was jealous but it was medicinal and necessary. Like a wheelchair ramp.

Contributing to my sense of being hemmed in by cunts was Row R to my rear. This was all in the stalls. I dread to think what was taking place in the dress circle. Anyway Row R was occupied by hair tossing, up speaking, weak bladders. They barely got through ten minutes without clambering out their row, roaring sorry, like it's a question and vanishing. Only to return and do it all again. Repeatedly.

Show 3/5

Audience 0/5

I shall never enter a theatre in the daytime again.