It has come to my attention that the eighth post was a little on the 'grumpy' side. I re-read it, and I concur - it was a little irritable and ever so slightly self-loathing. Well, that was the mood I was in, dammit! I have now recovered from the spatula incident and my life is restored to normalised levels of introspection. Lessons learned and all that.

Although I do have to note that smaller and smaller things in life are really starting to bug me, to the point that I am worried that my distaste will reach such a microscopic level that I won't be able to step out of my front door without noticing some new fluctuation on my irritability-meter, like the fact the neighbour has a new Audio A1 in white - I mean - seriously? And the fact he spent half an hour reading the manual before taking it out for a drive. Jesus Christ buddy, its not a bloody washing machine, despite the ridiculous colour. Also, why is every man in Soho wearing those 'preppy' style, skinny, rolled up shorts? It's like Abercrombie and Fitch have dropped a fashion bomb on the entire place. Fat men - these DO NOT suit you people. Even thin men look like they're trying to be teenage boys and failing miserably, but at least they're skinny.  Whilst we're on the subject, I can't stand people who write what they are actually doing out of the office on their out of office automated responses. 'I am out of the office on a shoot'. Who cares? 'I am out of the office on holiday in the Pyrenees.' Who cares? 'I am out of the office returning on...' will suffice thank you narcissistic morons - who cares what you are doing on your out of the office day? Just give me someone else I can email with my complaint. 

All that aside - I am really enjoying 'Top of the Lake' on BBC2, wow that rocks. And lets be honest here - 'Furious 6' (to give it its correct title) was awesome, easily the best film of the year (in the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster category anyway, I'm not that shallow). Don't even argue that it was 'Man of Steel' which was bobbins, or Iron Man 3, which was perfectly fine but not as good, or Star Trek 2, which was despicable. At least now the good and generous people of the interweb have someone else to hate now other than George Lucas. Way to go JJ.

This is not a film blog. Repeat ad nauseam Nev:  'This is not a film blog.'  etc. 

So here's a scenario.  Someone brings in to your place of work a plate of homemade chocolate brownies.  Only they aren't chocolate brownies, they are those Turkish baclava things, but chocolate brownies is just easier to type. Anyway, someone brings in a plate of 'brownies' as a nice thank you for some undefined good deed.

Its a hot day, they are sticky and the brownie benefactor wants the plate back. Someone asks if you could fetch a knife to prise them off the plate and onto an office-based receptacle.  Upon reaching the kitchen area you spy a spatula, an implement much more suited to the removal of sticky brownies from one plate to another, so you gather it up and hustle it back to the brownies.

You are then brusquely told - 'No, I need a knife'. 

Do you a. Reply that a spatula is a much more suitable instrument, and demonstrate accordingly.  b. Meekly return to the kitchen and fetch an inferior piece of cutlery to do the job?  If you answer b. then you are a moron, a subservient pushover with self-esteem issues who deserves the absolutely nothing that life will inevitably dole out, forever destined to follow others and trail behind everything and everyone in your hopes and aspirations. 

 Actually, that didn't really make me feel any better.

Iggle Piggle slowly opened his two, huge eyes. He could see a day already in progress, a day of bright sunshine and clouds skipping across the sky in hopeful congress.  He shuddered inwardly.  Sometimes, he longed for rain clouds and thunder.

His whole body was stiff and sore from yet another night sleeping in the bottom of his tiny wooden boat.  He sat up slowly and stretched, his joints cracking and his muscles screaming as he ungathered himself from the cramped confines. He rubbed his eyes and picked up his red blanket from the bottom of the boat, where it had been discarded during his night of disturbed, nightmare filled sleep.

Stepping slowly from the boat onto the soft green grass he started to make his way into the garden, his home now for the last….how long had it been? He guessed about four years, but couldn’t be sure. He had once tried to mark the passage of time on a rock, but the tiny, funny beige one kept cleaning off his marks.

Simply thinking about him almost seemed to summon the small creature, and Iggle Piggle heard the strangled trumpet sound that heralded his imminent arrival.  Iggle Piggle was pleased, he liked the creature Makka-Pakka, and although he felt bad about it, he took advantage of Makka-Pakka’s obsessive compulsive cleaning routine to have his face washed every day, sometimes twice.  

Sure enough, Makka-Pakka appeared over the brow of a small hillock, pushing his little cart before him. Iggle Piggle could never remember the name of the cart, or the equipment it contained. Makka-Pakka only ever really seemed to speak his own name so it was tricky to elicit coherent responses to specific questions. The kindly little beige troll stopped the cart and removed his sponge and soap. Iggle Piggle lowered his face and allowed himself to be thoroughly washed, pulling away slightly when he had had enough. Makka-Pakka uttered his own name once more then went off in search of something else to clean, the squeaky cart trundling along in front of him.

Iggle Piggle’s sore muscles were slowly working their way out as he wandered deeper into the garden.  He took the long way around to avoid the large, oval topiary where the three Tombliboos resided. Iggle Piggle couldn’t really stand the Tombliboos, whom he found grating and lewd.  They were constantly kissing each other, and always found excuses to drop their trousers. Iggle Piggle was aware that, like himself, they were asexual, brightly coloured and on the surface at least, non-threatening - but he still found the constant trouser removal unnecessary. He clearly remembered one incident when the Pontipine children became trapped inside the discarded trousers and couldn’t get out.  The Tombliboos just laughed and became strangely agitated.  Iggle Piggle shuddered at the thought.

The long way round took him into Upsy-Daisy’s part of the garden.  Upsy Daisy was almost certainly Iggle Piggle’s best friend in this strange land in which he had become stranded.  She had been the one who showed him the ropes, and introduced him to the other strange denizens of the garden.  Iggle Piggle had worked hard to understand her strange language, and also to befriend her cheap-looking wooden bed which followed her around like a lovesick puppy, but sometimes he still found it difficult to decipher everything she said, especially when all she seemed to want to do was dance, sleep and kiss. 

Iggle Piggle did enjoy the kissing part though, even though he had no reproductive organs and thus nowhere that generated any testosterone. He did feel a little kick every time her felt lips touched his. He supposed that he was currently seeking her out, hoping for another glimpse under her inflatable skirt and an illicit snog under the beautiful green canopy of the vast, species undefined trees of the garden.

Suddenly, there was a massive roar and rattle and shake, and the ground under his feet shifted. He fell on his bottom as the Ninky Nonk sped past.  It was travelling far too fast, Iggle Piggle thought as he collected himself, someone is definitely going to get hurt one day.  The sentient machine, much like its flying companion the Pinky Ponk, had no self-control or ability to judge the safety of a given situation. The seatbelts were a joke and the intricately over-designed interior was headache inducing. Still, he couldn’t deny that it was a fast method to traverse from one side of the garden to the other, if you didn’t mind arriving there with a pounding headache and motion sickness.

Iggle Pggle had spied Upsy Daisy on the Ninky Nonk – sitting in her favorite single seat right at the back – so he knew he would be denied his furtive pleasures that day, at least until the sing-along under the gazebo.  He wondered where she was going, and felt a stab of jealousy.

Iggle Piggle decided to get to the gazebo early, as there didn’t seem to be much happening in the garden today. He turned around and spied the house of the Pontipines sitting in the crook between two roots of an old tree, probably oak.   Iggle Piggle had always questioned how wise it had been for the Pontipines and Wattingers, who had taken out a joint mortgage, to build their house directly under the branches where the Titifers sang their songs… no accidents yet but it was bound to happen.  

There were rumours that there was a new Wattinger baby on the way, which would not only disturb the weird numerical symmetry of their current living arrangements, but that it might come out purple.  It was not in his nature to gossip or judge people he hardly knew, but even Iggle Piggle knew that with so many people sharing a house that small, especially with teenagers involved, it was inevitable.  

He waved his blanket at the Pontipines in their front garden, spinning around and around in their perpetual dance to make sure they had accounted for all ten of their brood, and continued on his way - his two sturdy blue legs carrying him onwards while the red felt pads on the soles of his feet became grass stained and dirty.