hogsflesh from A to Z (A)

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	A
Date:	25/04/03 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I got a pay rise yesterday

Disadvantages: It was absurdly small, though

Time to join in with the giant let's-clog-up-dooyoo-athon. I haven't written anything this single-mindedly useless for ages. Quite a liberating experience, like going to work with no underwear on.

A is for Alcohol. Sometimes I drink too much alcohol. Last night, for instance. I have a surprisingly intense hangover as I write this.

B is for Buses. I used to get the Tube every day. Now I get the bus. It's only about half as expensive, and I can always get a seat. It's a slower but more relaxing journey. I get to look at the London scenery. It's the same scenery every day, and not hugely exciting, but it's nicer than staring at Tube tunnels. And I get to look at people walking by on the street. They never notice me staring at them. Heh.

B is also for Brian Blessed. My favourite actor.

C is for Cinema. I like lots and lots of films. I'm a big fan of horror movies, especially those made in the 60s and 70s (anything made after 1980 interests me far less) and I find silent cinema fascinating (the earlier the better). One of my flatmates works for an off-beat DVD company, one of my other flatmates gets an awful lot of review copies of horror DVDs. Hopefully this means that I won't have to buy anything myself for at least a year.

D is for Dickens. Probably my favourite novelist. I never seem to find the time to re-read the books, though, as they're all rather long. I read a lot less fiction than I used to, being more interested in history right now. Most of the fiction I've read over the last few months has been in comic books (an unfairly neglected medium, as I may have mentioned a few times before).

E is for Elvis Presley. The king of rock and roll. Responsible for some of my favourite songs, including 'Wooden Heart', 'In The Ghetto' and 'Don't Cry Daddy'.

F is for foxes. Old Speckled Hen, a type of beer, used to run ads on the Tube every Chris
tmas that involved a gang of urbane foxes in Regency dress drinking beer and making utterly incomprehensible jokes. I loved those adverts. The fact that they've not been in evidence for several years only confirms my view that society's going to the dogs. (They run the fox ads in various broadsheet newspapers, but they're not the same somehow.) I did manage to steal four of the Tube ads over the years, and I prop them up around my house at Christmas to make me feel really festive. Except last year, when I forgot.

G is for George II. I recently tried to figure out which British monarch I knew least about (post 1066, not including Scotland and Wales pre-Union). I concluded that it is probably George II (although Henry III is a strong contender).

H is for Hanson, Alan, a dour Scottish football pundit. I recently had a dream where he danced naked for me. I've no idea where that came from. I never watch whatever programme he's on, and I'm not gay. My sub-conscious plays some pretty nasty tricks on me sometimes. It could have been worse: one of my friends had a dream in which he was sexually molested by the surviving Bee Gees. Nasty.

I is for Internet. I've worked for an Internet company for almost six years now. It's been a terrifying rollercoaster ride, with bankruptcy, downsizing galore and no pay rises for three years. I loved the Web when I first came into contact with it all those years ago, but have since realised that it's basically an enormous porno mag.

J is for Jack the Ripper. A famous Nineteenth Century serial killer. I know more about Jack the Ripper than I need to, really. And for those of you who didn't read my (frankly brilliant) review of it, Patricia Cornwell's recent book on the subject is inaccurate, poorly researched drivel that tells us nothing of interest about the case.

K is for King. I am generally anti-monarchist. However, if they offered to make me king I&#
39;d accept in a flash. I think I'd make a good king, as long as all I had to do was play computer games, go to banquets and exercise my droit de seigneur.

L is for London. That's where I live. It's really big, too expensive and full of aggressive weirdos. I love it.

M is for Macbeth, a play I've seen several times. I go to the theatre a lot. It's my hobby. I've seen some excellent productions over the last few years. The best was probably a Shakespeare marathon where I saw all three parts of Henry VI and Richard III in the same day. The most unforgettable play I ever saw was Accused, written by and starring Jeffrey Archer, shortly before he got sent down. I have never laughed so much in a theatre; I almost soiled myself. Certainly the worst thing I've ever seen, but absolutely magnificent in its sheer awfulness.

N is for North East. The bit of London I live in. It's OK, apart from the prostitutes, drug addicts and occasional gang warfare.

O is for optimism. Looking through some of these other A to Z things I notice that several people on dooyoo describe themselves as optimists. Personally, I do not. My cup is half empty.

P is for Pop ups. Horrible little Internet browser windows that 'pop up' when you least expect it, usually containing adverts. Dooyoo, as I'm sure we've all noticed, has loads of them. There is a possible light at the end of the tunnel, though. Blind or partly sighted people use screen readers to surf the Web. These handy little things basically read out the contents of the page. As I understand it, screen readers can't handle pop ups at all. This means that hopefully pop ups will soon become 'bad practice', and that no reputable company will use them. Hopefully.

Q is for Quality Assurance. That's what I do for a living. Testing web sites, mostly. It's boring and badly paid. I'm too lazy to find another job, though. In fact
, I'm probably the laziest, least motivated person I know.

R is for Richard. My name. My parents say they just kind of liked the name, which is why I've got it. Famous Richards include Richard Chamberlain, Richard Wagner and Richard Burton (star of my third favourite film, Where Eagles Dare). Three of the worst kings England ever had were called Richard.

S is for sleep. I suffer from insomnia. I have done ever since I was a child. It's never that serious - it just takes me several hours to get to sleep sometimes. I characterise my insomnia as a rowdy badger that comes into my bedroom and scurries around making lots of noise. That doesn't help me get to sleep, but it does make me giggle. Sleep's great. I'd love to get more of it.

T is for tATu. I don't know why, but Russian schoolgirls pretending to be lesbians exert a powerful fascination on heterosexual males. Must be a genetic thing.

U is for university. I went to the University of East Anglia for three years. I studied English and American Literature with some film studies thrown in. I did typical student things like not cutting my hair for years, smoking an awful lot of pot and buying a poster of Jim Morrison. I look back on that time with faint embarrassment, but I enjoyed it a lot, and most of my best friends are people I met then. I can't believe how little work I had to do.

V is for Viagra. I get an awful lot of spam email offering me Viagra. Does that happen to everyone, or am I being targeted?

W is for Whoopee, we're all going to die! Anyone else get the feeling that World War Three has started? That we're all going to die at some point in the next ten years, probably in a nuclear war between the United States and China? No? Maybe it's just me then. As I said, I'm not an optimist.

X is for... um... oh, what is the point of X? It's a completely useless letter, we should get rid of it. Phonetic
ally, using 'cks' would work just as well. We could meet up neckst week, go back to my place in a tacksi, and then have secks. See, it (ha ha) worx fine! Bloody X. I hate it.

Y is for youth. I'm almost 30. I feel like I can't really describe myself as 'young' anymore. This is a shame.

Z is for zoo. I've been to a few zoos in my time, and always enjoy them. I know that theoretically they're cruel and all that, but I still like to look at hippos, monkeys and snakes. Sorry.

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