Staying at Home is for Losers

Posted on June 22, 2009 by theharridan

So, um, I have just come from Facebook and Facebook seems to have become solely a place where some strikingly dumb surveys trick all my friends into giving up their secrets. Which is fine, but the typos made by the survey-makers are so shocking, so scarring, I just cannot bear it. Bad spelling hurts mine eyes anyway, but this is taking things too far. It was also rather alarming that one survey I did this week told me the exact degree I did at University, and could tell I was a stay-at-home mother. Oh, how that dinky little catch-all term diminishes me in one foul swoop. Those three words make me dumpy, lazy and boring. The next time anyone calls me that, I shall SET THEM STRAIGHT. Even if it is an Indian call center worker from HSBC. Beware, all you unintentionally-insulting euphemising technically incorrect survey-types! Enough.

Anyway, the stay-at-home bit doesn’t really fit. On Saturday, as I said in the last post, Mark and Noah went off to watch rugby and do a bit of work while Barnaby, Custard and I waited at home. I was lulled by the idea that they would come back earlyish and we could all go and do something weekendy, which would mean Saturday was salvagable. Well, my dear husband did not bring himself or Noah home until DINNERTIME and so we all waited and fidgeted and read about three back issues of Vogue and checked for split ends and made jelly and aimlessly looked at Mulberry bags online and sighed and scanned the front window and drank quite a bit of tea and did not exit at all, except to go and hang out in the garden and stare at Lulu Guiness who was in the garden having a tea party. And I cannot stay at home ever again all day because it made me HATE this job. I was totally bored and thought that looking after my children was truly the worst job in the world. Because, every day of my life, I go out. Whether I have one baby (oh! those carefree days!) or three and one in the, er, oven, I drag the double pushchair up the winding metal staircase and go. 

Where I Go:

To Hyde Park (in it, there is the pirate park, the lido, playgrounds, squirrels, ducks to feed, ice cream vans, boats, horses and sometimes people shagging under trees)

To Waitrose (where I may spot Margaret from The Apprentice, Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada, & my Big Issue seller) and where I am oft to be found sampling cheese

To nursery to drop Barnaby off

To the library

To High Street Kensington for marvellously overpriced food at Whole Foods and the Chanel counter at Boots

To Westbourne Grove to the second-hand clothes shops, SCP for some stylish trinket, or Carluccios for predictable Italian loveliness 

To the Spanish cafe for chocolate and churros

To the doctor in Paddington to tell him I am pregnant. Yes, that particular trip I make quite often.

The V & A, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum

 

Everything is walking distance and I do not need a car – and the buses and tubes are everywhere and mostly reliable so really, I am looked after well by my dear London. And this galivanting helps me to love my children. I think Culturally-Stimulating-Often -On-Excusion-Type-Mother-Who-Eschews-Daytime-Telly would be a much, much better moniker for The Harridan. Here is a pic of Custard eating raspberries at Portobello Road.

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P.S it is so very nice when your family read your blog and say nice things. Thanks fellas. In fact, anyone who bothers to leave a comment – I LOVE YOU.

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DOOM a guitar amp

Posted on June 20, 2009 by theharridan

Oh dear. This morning, a Saturday, which is Mark’s turn for a sleep-in, I noticed the light on in our room. The door was closed, and usually as Sleep-Ins are fairly well respected here, I would not have gone in until 9am, when I think it is more than fair to let the children in, regardless of how deep a sleep Mark may be in. But this morning was different. I heard a strumming sound. So I pushed opened the door, to see my husband sitting on the floor, in unfortunate shiny boxers, hitched only halfway up revealing his nicely cultivated Builder’s Crack, strumming his Totally Ignored And Never Ever Played guitar, plugged into a new, mysterious orange amp! There was such earnestness to the exercise that it was almost sweet. But really. An AMP. That means some evenings this week (not many, mind, as Mark cannot keep up hobbies more than about 3 days) I will have to witness some googling of terrible songs, then swearing and general blustering as the printer won’t work/his fingers will be too fat to play/the amp will not work properly/the guitar will not tune up well enough, etc. Then I will have the mac wretched from me as he trawls ebay looking for a better guitar and/or a better amp. And then all will be forgotten when he starts looking at 4-wheel drives again. 

But we will be left with this:

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Just as we have been left with 

 – the Outback Professional Range Pro BBQ – a behemoth that has never been used;

 – the Swiss ball and blue 5kg handweights that have followed us from flat to flat over the last seven years and have never been used;

 – the bits of MDF that he will make a ‘table’ from – these have never been used;

 – the film reel rescued from a demolished house that may be ‘worth some money’. These lie dusty under his side of the bed, never been valued or in fact looked at;

 – the skateboard rescued from a skip – never been used;

and the damning list goes on, and on, and on.

 

Alas. I am just bitter because the infernal rugby is on, and somewhere in deepest, darkest Shepherd’s Bush, Mark and Noah are in some antipodean’s living room at 9am, munching crisps and drinking toxic fizzy drinks, while cheering on the All Blacks. I would rather kill myself than join in, which makes me a bit of a Defective New Zealander. I do not care for the sports (must whisper that). I also do not care for boats and have a bit of a fish and seafood phobia. I am, in essence, made for a different place. Probably New York, except for the fact that am not groomed enough, a little bit frightened of high heels and not very thin.  London, then.

Anyway, I have only two children to drag around with me today owing to the infernal rugby, so really should go mad and Do Something. Portobello? Or a sink into the Vogue issue with Julianne Moore. Tough choice.

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Handbags and patents and suchlike

Posted on June 15, 2009 by theharridan

I have been inspired by Twittering to display my handbag and its contents. This could very well say something about me; it could also be an entirely pointless exercise where I get to show off Chloe bag AGAIN. Probably the latter.

Photo quality is very bad – that is courtesy of fun-but-useless iphone. All style, no substance.

Chloe Betty bag – I love you.

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Bag contents:

Baby wipes

Chili seeds from Wahaca

Smythson diary

Receipt from Trinity Hospice for some old manky McDonald toys (no expense spared for my kids)

Juicy Tube in Tomato

Chanel Rouge Allure in Brilliant

Luella wallet containing cards, cash, stamps, receipts

Blue boat, badge, K’Nex pieces, Carluccios colouring pencils

Raisins

Tissue

Recipe for banana cake

Sock

House keys

Isabel Marant necklace

Hairclip

Eyedrops

 

Sending self to sleep. That was boring. Sorry.

 

In other news, the Beautiful Brazilian came this morning to take the kids to the garden while I enthusiastically dressed up as Prairie Girl (accidentally – I was meant to be looking cool in vintage paisley cowgirl dress but with ill-chosen moccasins and flicky hair it failed dramatically) and made my way to the British Library to register a patent. Yes, in those halcyon days of, um, yesterday, I thought you could just go and patent an idea, pay £1000 and then go and make your fortune. It turns out I was wrong. 

We (Susan and I, future business partners, no less, thank you very much) sweatily bussed in to the British Library, got registered and issued with a Reading Card, which means that for a year we can waltz in and read/see/touch (carefully) many of the British Library’s resources. Oh, to have less children and more time! The point of all this was to have access to their patent information. So we sallied forth to lay claim to the Great Idea. But alas – three people had laid claim on the same Great Idea before us! Three different-but-similar patents have been lodged over the last 20 years. And they are quite complicated, detailed little buggers, too. So we had to waltz on out and have had to come up with Plan B. 

Plan B is much scarier, and involves us employing a product design team to create a prototype, which has to be innovative and clever and more advanced than the existing patented ideas. Which means getting a business grant, private investors or remortgaging our houses. The thought of it all makes me want to lie down for a long time. But the idea is a good one and so we march/stumble forward. Wish us luck.

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Cheering up a bit

Posted on June 10, 2009 by theharridan

MMMM dinner. I am basking in the afterglow of chicken cooked slowly with garlic, basil, tomatoes and butter beans. I have eaten portions for about three rugby forwards, which is not wise, but entirely out of my control. All babies down, house looks as though the Clutter Fairy has been particularly generous with her sprinkling, and there is an alarming shortage of toilet paper in each of the bathrooms. So I am sort-of happy, and sort-of not. Perhaps time for an audit, if you will.

Things that are cheery:

Chicken baked slowly with… (see above)

Newly delivered magazines, like TimeOut and Vogue (but not the infernal supplements)

Time to read them

That first four minutes after Beautiful Brazilian cleaner has finished and the house makes sense, and there are piles of folded things and the floor has no broken-up cornflakes over it

The children eating their dinner lustily and in silence

Finding something in the charity shop which fits and is beautiful and getting it before anyone else sees it and wrests it away

Going to ChaChaMoon with Mark and ordering the lamb lao mien and then seeing mutually beneficial movie

 

Things that are likely to make me a bit Cranky:

The missing “R” from the laptop after Mark cleaned it with industrial vacuum cleaner. Eejit

The screeching and wailing and fighting and biting that sometimes happens when all three kids are in Waitrose, usually near baguette aisle. The horrified looks from more sedate customers is not so good, either

Not fitting clothes very well, generally, but especially when I discover NEW parts of body that aren’t what they used to be (upper arms, I’m talking to You)

Days when the boringness of looking after children and house is terribly apparent – when the wiping up the bench has been repeated 17 times and there is more milk spilled on floor and the clothes have been in the washing machine for two days and smell like wet dog and someone is in a headlock and the baby is trapped under a chair and then the automated man rings to ask you something about your phone company. Maybe then, I weep a little bit

 

Before I get depressed, shall move hastily on.

I did have the task of going to see Barnaby’s teacher at nursery today, for a bit of ‘he is dreadfully normal’-type reassurance. In my none-too-generous ten minute slot, I learned precisely that. No extremes – no violence, no signs of geniusness, no freakishly impressive way with paint, average in everything. Good. (I think). Apparently we just need to work on his letters. I didn’t even know he could hold a pen. This task fills me with a bit of glumness, because asking Barnaby to write his name is like asking me to get ready for the accountant. I know it is important, and stuff, but it is so BORING and HARD. Tasks such as this tend to see me staring into vacant space for a long time, eyes unfocused, perhaps a bit of a dribble on. And so it shall be with my firstborn. Ah well, I guess I am the parent and must behave like one. 

And while at nursery, I toyed with the idea of letting them know about the New Baby Coming. But they all fuss and coo about my current three small children, and go on about the ‘tribe’ and ‘how do you do it?’ and be a bit pointy and starey and so dropping the news that once again I am Expecting An 11-Pound Whopper felt just a little too much. Might just wait until Barnaby announces that his daddy gave his mummy a seed into her Giant, or similar, or until my stomach is shouting out the truth. Incidentally, I have told two friends this week who said they knew. I asked “Is it the fatness?” to which they both replied “No, it is your GLOW!” Yeah, right. Reader, clearly I am a fatty. ALREADY. Sigh.    

 

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Rainy Saturday

Posted on June 6, 2009 by theharridan

It is a rainy, oily, greasy Saturday and no one is feeling like getting up from the couch. Duck Tales has been on for what seems like 8 hours, and the baby keeps trying to steal Noah’s blanket and whinging. Mark is at work. I am trying to put away clothes but it is like the little bodysuits and the mismatched socks are playing a game with me where they breed and then go and scrunch themselves up and hide. Everywhere I look there is stuff, mostly little-boy-related, and unfortunately mostly My Problem.

This morning, when we all still felt that there was some promise in the day and it could maybe not rain, we took the car to Portobello. Really just for this:

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That, dear Reader, is curry from Ghana. From the Spinach & Agushi stall, anyway. The curries are so good, I am nearly weeping with anticipation. Actually wobbling with anticipation, in fact. The best curry is the coconut chicken one, closely followed by the lamb and leek, beef and pepper, then the spinach and agushi. The rice is jollof, which is sticky and dense and tomato-y and slightly spicy. It is absolutely my favourite thing in the world to eat, especially when pregnant and attacked by unassailable bouts of piggy hunger. There is a very nice husband and wife team who run the company, and the stall fellows are chatty and always ask after the kids. Which is always a plus. 

The cake and bread stall is just a cake and bread stall, but looked kind of tasty and so worth a picture.

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Alternative Lives Space

Often, I find myself aponderin’ about what kind of life I would like to have, if I wasn’t living in the current one. Today, when I neglectfully gave Custard a portuguese tart and practically poisoned him with the eggs and butter (I should know not to do this by now!) and he came out in such terrible immediate hives that he scratched his skin off, I was hankering after another, alternative life. Mostly as a way to avoid my shame.  Anyway, this usually involves me thinking up implausible and terribly cliched scenarios whereby I find myself in a New York Loft, with a streamline body, fabulous job in TV and a nice set of Korean-lady-cultivated nails. I would definitely live next door to a jewish deli, where the big friendly  son of the owner would give me extra salt beef and the best gherkin. I would not fall in love with him though. He would be my wise friend (who maybe grossed me out a little bit – in my mind right now, his hands are quite dirty – so no love there). I think I would not have time to fall in love with anyone, in any case, because Job would be Totally Fulfilling. And I would eat takeout in little cardboard asian-y containers. Yes. That’s the best one.

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Hair

Posted on June 5, 2009 by theharridan

Ohh yesterday, when it was still warm and we were still wearing summer-esque clothes, before the chill of today came to break my very soul, we went to the communal garden for a nice little pre-dinner runaround. The boys went to play on the pebble mound, festooned with samurai swords and sticks, and were only whacking each other a tiny bit. Barely enough for me to notice, in fact (ahem).  There was a little bit of pebble-mound throwing, and general high-pitched squeals from Custard, and quite a lot of nose discharge from all three. A completely normal afternoon. Then I noticed, from far across the green grassy mounds and through the oak trees and around the rose bushes, a young, equine-nosed, slightly haughty, rather glamorous mother had poked her head up from Cath Kidston picnic rug (zzz) and was narrowing her eyes on my boys. The Italian Mama has a HENCHMAN!  

We unfortunately have met before, on a similarly warm and initially pleasant afternoon. My fellas had their usual accessories and were playing in and around her (giant, heavy-set, physically capable, thank you very much) 6 year old. They ran in and out of the bushes and were kind-of happy. I was sitting on a rug in the middle of the garden, kind-of paying attention. Then Henchman came over with very stern look on her Italian face, and she promptly told me off for not paying enough attention to my boys. Apparently they were annoying her son with their sticks. Her son = 6 and HUGE. My boys = 4, 2 and small. So whatever. She had clearly decided we were Nasty Types. COW. It turns out that she and Italian Mama are great mates and have been annoying many other (normal) residents of the square for quite some time.

(At this juncture, best to point out that I do not take criticism very well. Can be sensitive about my mothering style. OBVIOUSLY.)

On a less moany note, the boys went off to Costa’s Barbers for marvellously cheap but wonky 50’s haircuts his week. They went along happily because George and his Cypriot sons/nephews/sons-in-laws are famous for the refrigerated Twix bars given out in compensation to newly shorn kids. Noah was passively aggressive, showing his inner rage by opening his mouth and drooling on George/son/nephew/in-law’s hair-cape, and maintaining a surly look throughout the entire process. See below for proof:

Noah

Barnaby was uncharacteristically well-behaved, and completely unlike the feral cat I expected him to be. Growing up? or simply shameless when promised chocolate?

barnaby hair

It was all quite cute, until Custard began his customary screeching. Then we had to go.

While in France, I found a few Signs I Covet For My Wall. There seems to be quite a bit of hair-talk in me tonight, so here they are:

signs

signs

How stylish is THAT?

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Holiday loveliness

Posted on June 2, 2009 by theharridan

Rightio, we got back late last night after some horrible boring EasyJet shenanigans. It was painful and tortuous and I was completely mean to the children by the time the Gatwick Express decided to meander home. Mark and I found copies of the day’s papers in the first class carriage (a tip: go there with your kids and your bags and loll about all over the (not) vastly superior seats and they will check your tickets, see you are in the wrong carriage, but they will be TOO SCARED to move you. It totally works.) We needed to see who won Britain’s Got Talent – and were alarmed by the Boyle drama. Poor woman, clearly not all that well-equipped to deal with the fuss. Clearly a little bit bonkers. Bad English media.

Anyway, FRANCE! What a lovely and strange part of the world is the Cote D’Azur. What lovely supermarkets! What funny wolf-men who run campsites extremely badly! And what deep shades of brown the French ladies boobs come in! Alarmingly, from milky coffee to PURPLE. Ouch. In NZ you would be scared of dying to get that kind of hue, but apparently not on the French Riviera.

Time for a little song. It has no music to go with it, only the words as my skills as a song-writer do not extend to anything actually musical.

 

The French Riviera

Oh, the Cote D’Azur

You are so warm

And your ladies wear lots of white

No one on the beach is even a tiny bit fat

Which makes me wonder

Who eats all that BREAD?

 Oh, the Cote D-Azur,

Your crepes are great

And your glaces even better

We went to your markets and bought your soap

And some flea market stuff that looks wrong in my house

It is all about context

Aaaaah-pa-rent-lyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

We stayed in a campsite, which was cheap (350 euro for the week) in a wooden cabin just outside of a hilltop town called Tourettes-sur-Loup. For the record, it was not full of cursing French. Apparently it means something along the lines of Lookout Town With Wolves In The Valley. The town was beautiful, and notable for the violet ice cream.

france

The campsite was a bit wooded and leafy and overgrown, thanks to Tardy Wolf-Man. He was rarely in reception, and had marvellous excuses as to why the WiFi wasn’t set up, the pool not yet filled in, the toilet was blocking, the extra cabin for the Marseilles contingent was not available (that was because of the Mysterious Dutch Family who were always on the brink of turning up, but never quite did). He also made strange remark about eating the children, and took a golf buggy from pitch site to pitch site, where walking with giant Wolf-Man legs would have done rather better.

The food was baguettes and olives and saucisson and bbq dinners and tarte tartin. We ate out once (only ONCE! a little part of me died, at that, but there are budget constraints to consider, the euro being the tricky little thing that it is, recession, yadda, yadda YAWN) and it was in Biot. I did order a bit oddly, and ended up with a violet artichoke omelette with chips. It was greyish, but nice. And the waiter did write the dessert order down on the tablecloth in most elegant fashion – see below. 

restaurant

The children ate bread and chocolate ice cream and sorbet and strawberries. Nothing else.

casper sorbet

noah chocolate

barnaby hand

As for Antibes, and the beach, it was lovely and warm and clean and sunny but, as my song did attempt to address, the women were thin and bronzed and had their boobs out and were quite fabulous – which was a little bit intimidating. My solace was to be found in violet ice cream. Wise? No. But necessary. The white trousers and gold trinklety sandals and tiny bikinis were all a bit Vogue Supplement: What to pack for St Tropez – and the mothers were as sexy as their tiny denim-shorted teenage girls. It was as far from Woolleys Bay you can get. (http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1252042366041599308GqqKAX).

We got culture fix from the Foundation Maeght. Here is Noah appreciating Miro’s egg. 

miro

So that was France. Holiday loveliness indeed.

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To France we go

Posted on May 24, 2009 by theharridan

Off on holiday tomorrow. Which means we must be up early. In this house, that is unfortunately not a problem. We have had Noah, 2, devise a new plan the last two mornings. He gets out of bed, at 6, creeps up to Casper in his cot, pokes him a bit, then Casper starts his unearthly wailing. Which, apparently, makes it OK for Noah to come running into our room shrieking “Mummy! Casper sad! Wake up! Come into living room!” Or something like that – my ears usually stuffed with waxy earplugs to AVOID hearing this sort of thing. 

At which point, I roll out of bed, Casper gets picked up, told to stop his wailing, has some milk, Noah gets into bed, Casper continues yelling, my water bottle gets tipped onto carpet (this is a given – every bloody morning of my life – there are little wet patches on my side of the bed and mostly it is not wee). At 6:10, I give up the pretence and get up and blindly search for coffee. And on we go.

Anyway, tomorrow we fly off to Nice to wear sun frocks, sniff stinky cheese (the others will eat, I will sadly not), quaff wine (ditto), go to beach, eat out and NOT cook. The closest I shall come to mothering is tipping exotic French cereal in a bowl, patting sunblock on their noses and making sure they do not poke nicely mannered European children with their plastic samurai swords. I have assured them that we will all eat chocolate croissants EVERY DAY. What is not to love?

Signs I Covet For My Wall #2

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This one is above a tantalisingly disused, out-of-business newsagents. That sign is going to WASTE! It kills me.

A few streets away, the local hairdresser’s attempts to lure me in with these stylish shots. You can file this one under “Reasons Why I Insist On Going To Aveda Despite Husband’s Protests”.

hairdresser

I shall find more and worse. 

On Saturday we took the pesky chilluns to the Serpentine Lido, where my boys chased Kimberley Quinn’s mysterious sons with said samurai sword (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4051777.stm. Muck-raking. Please forgive me.) Most excellent time was had by all, in this little secret idyll atop the cafe. It costs about £4 to get in, so no one goes. It looks like a mini Teletubby Land, with rolling hills, paddling pool, playground, sandpit, and a cafe. Cafe staff turn a blind eye to picnicking adults intent on drinking wine, and they sell iceblocks, pizza and tea. Really really English and secret and superfine.

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noah lido

That is Noah. Looks just like mother-in-law.

Sooooo gotta go to bed now. Have plane to catch in the morning.

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The one in which I mention the new baby

Posted on May 22, 2009 by theharridan

Ahem. Right. Have been wondering how best to euphemise the undeniable fact that I am now about 5 weeks pregnant with my fourth child. Maybe best just to come right out and say it. So, it has come to my attention that we shall we having another baby at the end of January next year. Woo hoo! 

Good things about that:

I love having babies

I want 4, so bring it on

Pregnancy is relatively kind to me – gives me bouncy hair

I am young (this is a relative point – in my hometown I may well be about the age of some grandmothers – I kid you not – but here, pretty much Spring Lambish)

Husband delighted, kids seem nonchallant in a good way 

Can begin to think about what I want to do when I grow up, as the end of my childbearing years creep ever closer. Like, be a proper Lawyer! or retrain to be a Teacher! (Not a Journalist, apparently, as last job so painfully/ruthlessly/undeniably spelled out for me. Sigh.)

Bad things about that:

Everyone will assume we are from a religious sect

I will feel that everyone is secretly pitying me 

I will be a bit fat for a bit longer

Labour

The midwives at St Marys, Paddington, will go “Oh, you! Again!” ha ha ha zzzzz

I will have to make boring self-deprecating noises about how it is funny and a bit strange of us to want SUCH a LARGE family

The crazy old lady with the small annoying dog in Kensington Palace Gardens who muttered under her breath when she saw me with Barnaby and Noah and while pregnant with Casper:  “Breeding like bloody rabbits!” will feel morally outraged once more and come out with something equally mean. I will fix her with my Hormonally Imbalanced Pregnant Lady Stare.

No wine. And we are off to Nice on Monday. No cheese either. Bloody salmonella and fetal alcohol syndrome.

Stylish clothes. I will love you from afar.

Yup. So, Barnaby will be just-turned-5, Noah 3, Casper nearly 2. It is going to be wild. Not like cool wild, but fun wild. I promise.

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The Archangel

Posted on May 19, 2009 by theharridan

Today, Mark needed me to book an appointment to see the hygienist. There was only one place I thought of, with only a little bit of general wincing from bad-dentist-associations and lots of actual fondness. Up on Westbourne Grove, that half-gentrified, half-shabby stretch, lies a dental surgery called The Archangel. It is, to my knowledge, the only dental surgery in w2 (and probably the WHOLE WORLD) whose principal dentist is a gothic christian vampire who wears striding leather trousers and is an unselfish giver of leaflets about Jesus, posted hopefully in the magazine rack. He is also a perfectly competent dentist. Who knew?

Here is pic of the outside – the surgery is to the right of the fake-tudor, first floor up. Note unobtrusive newsagents at ground level.

archangel outside 

It is only upon finding the door between fake-tudor electrical shop and said newsagents that one comes face to face with THIS! Check out the sneaky little angel insignia. What casual observer would know what theological quandaries were posed inside?

archangel sign

And the door once opened reveals something akin to a golden Mayan temple! You are literally BLINDED by the brass!

archangel inside

And so the stairs, all twisted and worn, lead you to the reception. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the receptionist is a small gothic woman with witchy skirts and blackest hair and night-shade nails and pointy boots, with a very nice phone-manner indeed. On the walls, The Archangel is furnished with little paintings of astral beings flying around at nighttime. I think they are the receptionists’ own work, no less. The magazine rack nestles box-fresh Christian tracts and manky copies of Hello! 

Anyway, the surgery room is up another flight of stairs. All crisply white. The dentist (who is French) and his assistant never talk to you – you just eventually figure out to sit in the big chair in the middle of the room. The first time Dr Gothic Christian Vampire did my teeth, I noticed his really long black hair. Then he spoke to the assistant and whaddya know! He has vampire teeth! Actual filed-into-fangs teeth! Further visits revealed his biker chains and leather trousers. It was on my first visit though that he had put on the cd player a very loud American evangelical pastor giving a very loud sermon. Of course. No whale-music or Peruvian pipe-fluting here, more’s the pity.

Upon a little bit of lazy research, I found this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/21/fashion1 (sorry, shortening it seemed too hard). A little Guardian article on my gothic dentist, and others who Don The Black. At least you know I ain’t lying.

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