Blogging…the new frontier

Hello World of Shed devotees

 

I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a terrible year. Shitty, awful, brutal, miserable.

I’ve not felt very funny or creative in a light hearted sense. I’ve felt dark and dingy and like a sweaty pocket in a pair of jeans that never gets washed.

This does not naturally lend itself to blogging, I realise that. So I haven’t blogged. I have received emails from African princes and even couldn’t be arsed replying to them, which is usually my default. That’s how bad it has been.

I’ve had some health problems which sent me into a really dark time, gone for jobs and not got them and lost to pure idiots, and other stuff which I can’t even tell you about.

I have started a blog about some of this shit I’ve been going through recently. I’m not going to lie, it’s not mirthful but it’s real and raw and shitty.

If you’d like to read the new blog, e-mail me and I will give you the new address. I say this because I don’t want anyone I know in real life to read it. Some things you’re just happier to share with strangers.

Take care Shedders. One day I may return. Until then, stay sexy.

A x

Different psychological therapies explained

People are often confused about the world of psychological therapies. Which one should you have? What is the difference between each one? What is the philosophical essence behind each one? How do I know I need it.

Believe me. You need it.

Here at World of Sheds, I consider it my civic duty to cut through all the jargon and explain it in clear, no nonsense talk so you can make an informed decision about which therapy will cure your pissing in public phobia.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Your thinking’s fucked
Psychodynamic Therapy: your parents’ fucked you over
Cognitive Analytic Therapy: you fuck relationships up, subconsciously, because your parents fucked you over.
Narrative Therapy: Society’s fucked
Systemic Therapy: your family’s fucked
Solution Focused Therapy: Nothing’s fucked, you just can’t see it yet. YOU’RE AWESOME!
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy: your shit’s fucked up all over the place. I’ll be cold to you until you do something adaptive, then I’ll be lovely to you.
Behaviour Therapy: the reward/ punishment systems of the people who take care of you are fucked.
Structural Therapy: your parents need to be more in charge or you’re FUCKED.
Strategic Therapy: your solutions to your problems are all fucked up and contributing to you being further fucked than you were already.

I trust that will suffice.

Further Forays into writing to Tetley

Dear Gaffer

I placed an order for nearly 30 quids worth of earl grey and vanilla. I have been without this precious beverage for far too long now since the ignorant swines at Morrisons stopped stocking it.

I placed my order on 19.8.14 and payment was taken on the same day by paypal. Paypal have send a receipt to confirm that payment has been taken. However, it has been ten days now and no sign of my precious cargo. I don’t think I can stress enough of how much I am addicted to this. I hope Sidney hasn’t been sneaking crystal meth into the blending room. Suffice to say, each day I am without my precious EG&V a part of my soul withers and dies. No pressure, Gaffer, but y’know, I’m in pain here.

Please can you advise.

World of Sheds

THE REPLY(devoid of Tetley’s usual sprinkling of humour)
Thanks for your email about the order you placed on our on-line shop for Tetley Earl Grey & Vanilla. I’m sorry you haven’t received your order yet but we’ve been temporarily out of stock. A delivery arrived on Friday 29th August so all outstanding orders have been sent out.

Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused 

REPLY FROM MY HUSBAND DUE TO MIRTH FREE RESPONSE AND ANY FREE GIFTS

We regret to inform you that ‘The Gaffer’ stopped by your house today for a personal delivery of your apparently essential E, G & V Tetley tea bags. Unfortunately you were not on the premises and he had the pleasure of encountering a white feline creature accompanied by a large fat bitch while attempting a safe drop off in propoprieated yodel van.

Your husband has recently assured us that ‘Jabba the hut’ has stayed true to her word on holding said cargo safely and has sent one of her minions round with it to avoid conflict.

All the best.

Tetley Tea Folk.

PS. This package is the size of a small shopping centre and we hope to not hear from you for at least 4 weeks.

WORLD OF SHEDS GAMBIT #2 E MAIL TO TETLEY HELPDESK

Dear Tetley Tea Folk

I was shopping on your on line shop today and saw that my precious earl grey and Vanilla is ‘limited stock’. Please please please tell me that production of this amazing beverage is not going to stop. I don’t think I will be able to cope safely through life without it.

Please advise further. I am already heartbroken I can’t buy this in Morrisons any more. I have to send regular tea parcels to my friend in Peebles with Earl Grey and Vanilla in it. Surely the nation cannot be deprived of this life-preserving bezoar?

While I’m writing, can I also mention that around 2004 you used to do a ‘calming’ blend of black tea with lemon balm and other ‘herbal’ tinctures (I’m not going to ask what made it calming, but suffice to say that Sidney always looks a bit tuned in). Any chance Gaffer will be bringing it back in the near future? It’s all green tea these days. Green tea is really horrible and everyone is doing it.

Thanks a lot

WORLD OF SHEDS

TETLEY REPLY

Thanks for your email, yes I am sorry but once the Earl Grey and Vanilla has gone it’s gone so yes limited distribution!! I am sorry but there simply isn’t a demand for this product any more. Tetley Calming was discontinued a few years ago and there are no further stocks. I’ll pop some samples in the post to you today of our current range, if you would like to send me your address.

Kind regards

xxxxx
Consumer Services Advisor

WORLD OF SHEDS REPLY

Dear xxxxx

this is grave news indeed. I fear for my safety and the safety of my loved ones at this turn of events. I’ve just tried to wrestle with my husband in abject grief. Thankfully he is 6 foot 8 so it was like a butterfly wrestling a elephant, but does Gaffer want this on his hands? Surely not?

Can you please advise me how much is left, because I think I might have to buy it all. I have no idea where I will store it because I live in a tiny semi detached house in Liverpool. Is there any chance you could do me a discount code for such a large bulk order? I’m thinking at least ten units. I might also start dealing it now it’s at such a premium.

Finally, I appreciate your kind offer to send me some samples, although I fear that this might be filed under the category of ‘buying a new puppy to get over the death of your beloved family pet’. I think the real solution here is to keep making it, even just for me. Failing that, my address is xxxxx.

I’ll be putting a large order in today, so if you can do me a discount for a bulk order, that would be great. I’m still totally gutted though.

yours, undendingly (unlike my tea supply)

WORLD OF SHEDS

*REPLY AWAITED*

The NEW Green Cross Code

Growing up in the 1980s, road safety was KING and the road, your most fatal enemy

I sure will appeal to the kids of the 1980s!

I remember several initiatives to encourage road safety as a little’un:

There was the Tufty club, where you had badges to motivate you to being a shrewd observer of the road. This campaign was spearheaded by a safety conscious, pant wearing, little-Lord-Fauntleroy of a Squirrel who looks based (ripped off?) the works of Beatrix Potter. The eponymous Tufty, who was clearly relate-able to the kids of the 80s.

The Green Cross Code

The slight illusion of muscles? Check! Tight pants? Check! Dad-like paunch?Check! Vague reference to superheroes? Check! What else could symbolise care on Britain’s roads?

I’ll do whatever you say, Dad-like superhero!

This was a brand created by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to raise awareness of Road Safety. A clear code of the roads, using an easy mnemonic for kids to remember. Stop, Look and Listen! Don’t cross near parked cars! Don’t do the caterpillar on lino on the motorway!

Don’t step out when you’re close to the edge!

Grandmaster Flash was a great champion of road safety and was only too happy to collaborate on this ‘wicked’ public awareness initiative. Described on YouTube as a ‘Anti getting run over video of the 1980s’, I’m guessing that this was an attempt to appeal to teens who are famed for being hypnotised by neon and rap music.

Parents and grandparents

More importantly than all of the above, my parents taught me to watch the road. To look both ways and ensure it was safe to cross. They held my hand by the roadside and made sure it was safe to cross and modelled caution and taking no risks when it came to vehicles.My parents and grandparents were/are safety conscious, road fearing people. As soon as we were approaching the road they’d grab for my hand and go through the whole ‘stop, look and listen’ deal or make me watch for the green man on the crossing as if he were a small LED fascist dictator. They would constantly chide me to stand back from the pavement and to find a safe space to cross. It worked. I fear the road.

However, is it just me or do children and parents these days seem to follow a new code of the road? A code unfamiliar to me and not part of the fabric of my upbringing. A code that I am unfamiliar with:

1. Walk out. Just walk out. Don’t even bother looking if you don’t feel like raising your heavy, meaty head and managing the onerous task of rotating that thick, shit filled skull of yours. The car isn’t gonna run you over is it? Stare at the driver as you walk out. Stare deep into their eyes as if staring into the soul of a serial killer as they step on the break to swerve you.

2. Leave less time to walk out in front of the car if you have a child with you. Drivers gotta slow down for the little kiddies eh? What kind of heartless Nazi loving road weasel wouldn’t slow down for THE KIDDIES?
3. Also the kiddies gotta learn that you’ve got to show the motorist who’s boss. This isn’t road-fear, these days, it’s road-dominance. The road is a complex power game and you can’t let those shitty car drivers think they’re boss. That’s right, Levi, stare deep into their eyes and imagine you’re Jeremy Kyle staring at a dad who hasn’t “stepped up to the plate”.
4. You’ve managed to stop your car. Excellent work. You’ve got somewhere else to be and there’s a line of oncoming traffic. No fucking problem. Fling your door open. Take your time! There’s no rush is there? Don’t waste your precious time looking, for fuck’s sake. Looking is for pissy arse cleavers.

Are there any rules I’ve missed out? What boils your piss on today’s roads?

Kingdom Brass Youth

A recent e-mail correspondence:

Abbey Tarte (termnate@kingdombrassyouth.org.uk)

Add to contacts

09:11

Hello,

We regret to inform you that your employment with Argon Electronics UK Ltd is being terminated. 
Your termination is the result of the following violations of company policy:
- H38 69 28.03.2012
- H38 20 28.03.2012
- H38 40 28.03.2012

You were issued written warnings on 13.08.2014. As stated in your final warning, you needed to take 
steps to correct your behavior by 15.09.2014. Your failure to do so has resulted in your termination. 
To appeal this termination, you must return written notification of your intention to appeal to
 Jay Feeley in Argon Electronics UK Ltd no later than 06:00PM on 26.09.2014.

Sincerely,
Abbey Tarte
+07644-613-754

________________________
Dear Abbey

I must say, your e mail came as a great surprise, being fired from a job that I didn’t know I had.

 I am sorry to hear that my behaviour has brought disgrace on the good name or Argon Electronics, the Beast and Monolith of the Electronics World. It is with a heavy heart I have knowledge of the shame I have caused the company that invented the Roto-turnip, the ice cream press and Robocop. I hope the company’s reputation and stock can recover. I think Argon Electronics holds a warm and fuzzy place in many of our hearts. Especially since most of us can remember getting our first Argon Jesuit Chaser.

It is with complete acceptance and humility that I accept my termination. I do not know what H38 69 28.03.2012 is but it must be pretty bad. Maybe part of the infringement was me not coming in to work, not being on the payroll and not making the daily commute from the North West of England to Bedfordshire. Unforgivable. I was once sacked from a restaurant because I coudn’t carry three plates at once. Perhaps my plate carrying shame has caught up with me?

Anyway, I really appreciate you mailing me and letting me know from your personal e mail account. How’s Kingdom Brass Youth working out for you? I always have dreams I’m playing brass instruments really well but in actual fact the nearest I’ve got to playing brass was stroking some horse brasses in a country pub. I’m not sure what this dream means, probably something about dicks. Hope Argon gives you some recompense for you not mailing from work. It must be difficult to hold down a high powered job in Argon and all the hooker and coke fuelled hedonism of Youth Brass bands.

good luck to you.

Dr. Angel

Why Nescafe Dolce Gusto advert is inherently racist

Occasionally I like to get on my high horse about something. This time, it’s a coffee advert that’s boiling my piss. Take a look.

Perfectly innocuous you might think?

Not really.

What I object to in this advert is the subtle undercurrent of racism that permeates throughout it. Let me explain.

OK, in this advert we have three main characters. The African mask, the european bust and the disembodied mouth. The African mask, signifying African culture, speaks first as he spies the coffee machine:

“Is that what they call pop art?

The European bust speaks next

“Oh for goodness sake, there goes the neighbourhood”

Whilst on the surface of this, this utterance can be seen as hostility towards any newcomer, but the origins of this phrase are from disapproval of minorities entering all-white neighbourhoods.

Whist aimed at the coffee machine, the origins of this phrase seem jarring as they are uttered in response to the African mask’s opening gambit.

Then we see the African Mask, unable to contain itself, jumping off the sideboard to get to the coffee first. Implicit here are discourses about people of African origin being unable to contain themselves, acting on impulse and without rational thought. Alongside this we see the ultra-white European bust, as the model of restraint “let’s not rush to conclusions” it chides the African mask, implicit here are discourses of white people being restrained, rational, scientist-like in their thoughts and behaviours. The poor African mask rushes to the coffee, calling the white characters “suckers”, also calling forth discourses of rudeness, being without social convention, and falls of the counter top to it’s peril.

The European bust ruefully sighs “completely off his head” at the African mask, bringing forth discourses of madness and instability of non white communities.

Now, I judge this to be a racist advert, but I also have to acknowledge that I am a white woman and do not wish to speak for any one of African heritage. I am, however, interested in wider societal discourses and how they become socially constructed within communities and how those discourses become accepted and strengthened. I would be interested in any reactions to it from people of any background. I am concerned as to how these subtle messages reinforce unhelpful discourses and affect people’s thinking and interactions.

If you think the Nescafe Dolce Gusto advert is inherently racist, please reblog and maybe people who create such ads can consider how supporting these narratives in society is toxic.

Selfie.com

Naturally, here at World of Sheds (are you imagining a bustling office? Good. It’s just me sitting on my couch though watching Celebrity Super-Spa) we (me) have our (my) finger on the pulse of new technological developments. We (I) brought you reviews of Horace Goes Skiing and are typing this on our BBC computer, so it was a logical progression to bring you (you) news of the latest social networking platform to hit our display windows.

Selfie.com

Read more about selfie.com by someone who might know things about computers here http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/18/what-we-know-about-selfie-com/, but why be arsed when I can tell you here?

The launch of Selfie.com is shrouded in mystique. How exciting. When you click on the home page, there’s no information other than a perfunctory invite to choose a user name and a request for a password. Some blurry images of attractive people taking what I assume is ‘selfies’ like it’s as fun as going to Alton Towers on a free ticket off a cereal box and walking straight onto the front seat of the Nemesis.

Mysterious!

Well, let’s face it, it’s going to be more vanity thrills for the insecure isn’t it? More bathroom backgrounds, more duckfaces, more tensed pecs, more bikini bottoms being suggestively pulled down with a thumb than you can shake your belly ring at.

The only reason a person takes a selfie is for self-publicity and spin. What sort of person do I want you to think I am?  it whispers, from a point, usually above their head.Here are the main categories that Selfies largely fall into.

• Love me, love my bathroom.

Some people’s bathrooms I know better than my own. I know Rachel Jenkin’s has a reed diffuser on her window sill and Jim Dickhead has a few toilet roll holders that he needs to dispose of in the appropriate receptacle. Why do I have a knowledge of their bathroom, like a virtual one-night stand? I know their bathroom so well because I am daily subjected to a picture of them taken in their bathroom mirror. Looking sexy, natch. For men, it’s usually a tensed, pec rippling, posed-nonchalance- “oh hey, I’m just chillaxing here in my bathroom. Thought you should know”. *good times*

• ‘Accidental’ Glamour

Oh my GOD! You must see this slightly interesting thing that just happened to me. What? Oh, yeah, I FORGOT I was in a bikini in my hallway with my kid on a Wednesday. *waits for “banging boddie hun” tweets to roll in*

• The High Rise

Hey I look great. But I look better from above. Here’s lots of pictures of me looking essentially the same from above. Aren’t I gorgeous from this angle? Not convinced. Here’s a few more pictures of me to seal the deal. If you take me out, you will have to date me aerially. Take up your seat on the ceiling by the picture rail. Enjoy the view, dickhead!

 

• Tit Beach

I’ve got a BANGING body and YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT IT. Usually disguised as a picture of a beach or the sea. So why not stand up and take a picture of the beach? Because the view is better down here! 

The National Office for Vain Selfies calculates that if all the Tit Beach selfies were sewn together with threads of self obsession, they could stretch to the crab nebula and back. Get onto that, NASA.

• The Marcus Collins

I’ve heard from reliable sources that Marcus Collins puts 60,000 selfies on facebook per minute. I’ve also heard that he is the pioneer of the ‘Selfie montage’.  He is currently working with Apple on IOS 8 to include a special selfie-function, although the project is rumoured to be on hold until 2016 due to current hardware limitations (4xCAMERA I PHONE). You heard it here first, Shedders.

 

My First Grey

Today I had to start admitting that I’m not 28 any more. I’d been largely successful in denying my advancing years by zapping my face with electric currents monthly and wearing cross-body satchels, but the discovery of my first grey today meant I had to finally admit to my bodily decline.

I am 36 by the way.

To be fair, there were other signs that I was no longer a vigorous and vital twenty something.

• If I’ve been doing an activity in the day, I need a can of red bull to go out in the night time. Red Bull-Fuel for the over thirties.
• When I hold parties, instead of the fag butts and vomit that was usually left behind in our twenties, now left behind is a navy fleece and a bag for life.
• I’ve begun wearing ballet pumps as high heels make my feet too sore. Once upon a time I wore sky scraper heels for work, shopping, even sightseeing around New York. There was no fucking way I was wearing flats, and now when I’m shopping for boots anything over 3 inches and I’m scowling like a trapped badger.
• Highly pigmented eyeshadow makes me look like a drag queen. It’s all ‘dove greys’ and ‘nudes’ now. How exciting!
• My friends no longer want to go to nightclubs or popular bars because they can’t settle unless they get a seat.
• I have gardening jeans and decorating jeans. I garden. Not willingly you, understand. I’m not a monster.
• My jeans are now ‘mid rise’. Want to know what ‘rise’ is? Rise of a jean is how much you can get away with before you show your landing strip. I can no longer take the choking sensation of a pair of low rise skinnies, nor can I be arsed with the worry that one false move and poor onlookers might be privy for more than they bargained for.
• I have bodyshaping garments in surgical nude colours.
• I go to Zumba.
• I enjoy TV programmes about houses, interior decorating and I ‘upcycle’
• When I tell my husband off, I sound like my Nan. Not even my mother, my NAN.
• I own a electric belt sander.
• I have dreams that I’m discovering extra storage in my kitchen and I’m delighted.

Good god, it’s worse than I thought!

Today, I embrace my advancing years. I will be switching my electric blanket on tonight, leaving future parties a 9pm to ‘get settled’ and prepare for everything to become ‘nude’ colour-my make up, my undergarments, my clothes, my flat lace ups. My only comfort, is you are all growing old with me!

My Fat Neighbour

As the weather becomes more clement and the bees buzz busily around the flowers in  my garden, my fat neighbour and her alcoholic husband take to the garden nightly and allow their children to stay up far too late so they can shout obscenities at them.

As you can imagine, this means if I want to enjoy a balmy evening sipping special brew and contemplating the formation of attachment patterns between parent and infant, I have to be subjected to her sloppy voice, her obtrusive presence through my fence (which I had built higher so I couldn’t see the top of her useless fat head) and her disregard of politeness and modern decency. I can’t help but tune in to her abrasive voice which shunts me out of self reflection and idle day dreaming. So I stay in and turn the TV up.

If I want to sit in my front room, I am subjected to her banging on her window at her children and shouting “fucking shut up I can’t hear the TV”. I also have to be subjected to her fucking fat arse glowering at me through my window as she walks her cat on a lead (yes, on a fucking lead!) and lets it shit in my garden even though she knows I am watching.

She calls her cat “pussy cat”. Pussy cat is her prisoner. Much like Jabba the Hutt in The Empire Strikes back has Princess Lea as his pet. When I leave for work, pussy cat looks mournfully on as I pull out from the crescent. His eyes plead with me for sweet release, whether that be through escape or death. I scowl back my reply “no, because you shit in my garden and I have to watch”. Pussy cat feels emasculated being on a lead. Pussy cat has made several bids for freedom and I hear Jabba screech at her children for allowing it to get out. I root for Pussy cat and hope this time he has made it. Maybe he is enjoying prowling around the neighbourhood feeling fresh air on his whiskers and socialising  and frolicking with other cats.

The next day, pussy cat mournfully greets me through the window. He has been extradited back to his fat prison and is Jabba’s pet once more. He sits, stock still, like an ornament and regards me. Maybe he feels that I’m his Han Solo. Stop shitting in my garden, I say to him.

Kowalksi’s Lament, part 2, a Hazard of Parsnips mini story

Goddamit. Damn it.

Kowlaksi had pinned all his hopes on Sherby57 and now he was wondering why he saw fit to do so.

Ever since Kowalski had become conscious of being drawn to DI Ian, he had been in a maelstrom of despair that only Amaranto clothing can abate. Yes. The only thing that Kowalski had found that regulates his emotions is Amaranto/Papaya Clothing, Matalan’s own brands. That and his Daewoo Matiz. Sure, the other police officers in New York and St. Helen’s found it a bit fruity and continental, but there was no telling what Kowalski might do in a fit of road rage. He played it safe and drove the soothing Matiz. Kowalski was certain that a strapping hunk like him could do some serious damage with a Kowalski tongue-lashing  and he wasn’t that much of a loose cannon that the authors previously suggested he was. Chief Inspector Acorah had repeatedly informed Kowalski that he wasn’t too big to be spanked across his knee. CI Acorah’s secretary and guiding light, Sam, would whisper inaudibly that it was no longer appropriate to say those sort of things and remember what happened to Inspector Saville.

Kowalski had ‘rocked’ up to Sherby 57’s late at night to seek his advice. Kowalski had heard that what Sherby57 didn’t know about love, Haddaway could only ask questions about. Sherby 57 had spent a large part of his young manhood under the tutelage of ‘Style’ and ‘Mystery’ the reknown pick up artists (PUA) and had cultivated a PUA character of his own (Casio’)who could pick up a girl before you could say ‘playboy bunny tattoo’.  Style and Mystery had heard that St. Helen’s and Widnes had the most rocking potatoes and hot bitches and had made a bee line for this chick-topia. There they had ‘hooked up’ (not had sex with) Sherby 57 and they had rewarded his knowledge of the area with dark arts in cat-string-theory.

Kowalski began hammering on Sherby57’s door. It had come off the hinges and was beginning to stick within the door frame. Sherby stood there benignly as this hulking Yank began fixing the frame and sanding the edge of the door.

During this spot of spontaneous DIY Kowalski’s story came tumbling out between sobs. Sheila, crude drawings, Der Naughty Kitty, Clarence and Ian. Sherby 57 knew all of this as he had partly written the story in the pub with World of Sheds but he kindly heard out the sobbing man until all that was left was a dried up husk. Sherby had left it there around breakfast time as he couldn’t stand shredded wheat and delighted that it might torment the post man as he was morbidly scared of Donald Trump. Kowalski was still standing next to it with his hammer and sandpaper in hand looking hopeful.

Sherby cocked his head and leg to one side as he listened intently.

“Listen Kowalski”

Kowalski drew near. So near that Sherby could smell Kowalski’s scent. It was ex-clam-ation! which was quite a feminine scent. Sherby liked it so he wasn’t going to judge, but he liked Angel by Thierry Mugler better.

“there’s only one way to turn you back on to women as you hope”

“yes” breathed Kowalski and closed his eyes ready to receive the learned information he craved.

Sherby57 took this to mean that Kowalski was trying to keep flatulence from escaping. So he lit at match and shooed his cats away from the door so Kowalski couldn’t blame them.

“Listen, Kowlaski, you’ve got to read fifty shades of grey. The whole friggin’ trilogy. It’s the most erotic thing ever written. That is your only hope. Either that or ‘Riders’ by Jilly Cooper. It’ll really have you fancying the birds if that’s what you want”.

“yes it is”

“It’s alright to fancy fellas Kowalski. I mean I don’t and wouldn’t, but it’s alright for you to”

Kowalksi glowered at Sherby and stormed off in the Matiz. He drove straight to the Matalan in Wigan and emerged only when the security guards roughly manhandled him out.

To be continued.