Oh, And Another Thing...
Just had two blokes come to insulate the attic. They looked barely old enough to scratch their own knackers. And they called me 'love'. I've never felt so bloody old in my life.

Winning wimmin?

And are you surprised?

I'm not banging on about anything new here, I know, but when The Kraken has sumfink on her chest she has to get rid of it.
Thankfuckfully for Sky+, adverts are rarely seen in my house. So when I do witness them I'm reminded that we still live in the Dark Ages. Take for example two that I have seen today: one for some packet veg or other and another for Microsoft Windows. 
The premise of the former is a woman being shown how to season her veg (that's not an euphemism) by some bloke, before presenting said grub to her family so that her husband can bestow shocked praise upon her.
In the latter a salesman shows a woman how to use some new fangled gadget and - fucka doodledo! - she immediately understands how to use it.
So, have you cottoned onto the source of my ire yet? Aye, that wimmin are still being used as fuckwit fodder, that if a woman can manage to cook rice or switch on a computer then any old bell-end can do it. So what are you waiting for? Go buy it! Look! She can do it, the dull ole bint. It'll be a piece of piss for those of you with brains!
Why haven't ads moved on from this patronising bollocks yet? And, tell me, do women actually get convinced by these thirty second twat-fests? Jesus, nothing makes me want to buy anything less than when the company in question insists on treating me like a retarded Barbie.
You know what my response would be to anyone criticising my spicy veg? "You can frigging well cook it yourself then, can't you?" And if you ever catch me scratching for praise for a domestic chore - from a bloke of all people - you have my permission to harpoon me in the flanks. 

(Not so) Hot for Teacher

Navy knickers anyone?

Whoa! I've just had the shit scared out of me. Today I started a tailoring and advanced dressmaking course and you should meet my teacher.Talk about being transported right back to my school days. She has to be forty years older than I am and insists on being called Mrs Williams. She also insists on calling us, er, pupils by our titles and surnames.
More than that we have to do things PROPERLY. I get the feeling that she'd take our hands off at the wrists with a wooden ruler if she caught us cutting corners.
Tales abound from those who have taken her class before; she'll unpick an entire dress that you've made if she thinks it could have been done better. I half expected her to rip what I was wearing from my body and declare it fit for puppy smothering. Christ, I even shared a cutting table with a girl who was made to re-lay and re-pin her pattern four times because Mrs W wasn't happy with it.
I swear, every time she came near me I started sweating spinal fluid. And even though it was a two hour class I got hardly anything done thanks to being struck senseless with fear. I've been known to run up an entire dress in two hours but today all I did was fumble over two metres of purple crepe and drop my pot of pins. 
Blimey, I may want to feel young again but being scared shitless in a dusty classroom wasn't necessarily part of the plan.

The baby blues

Me. By 10am

I'm going to tell you something that you won't find in Mothercare's Autumn/ Winter 2011 catalogue. Being a parent can be a right bastard. Look, you can put away your green ink pen and unlock that caps button over there on the left OK? Parenting can be like having an upright Dyson shoved up your arse because it sucks the fucking life out of you.
Now, my three year old is abso-bloody-lutely fabulous. I love her and she is a constant source of wonderment and love but tell me, am I the only Kraken who would occasionally like to leave my kid in a layby before driving away while she ain't looking? No. Although you'd never know it because nobody ever has the balls to say so. Instead they come over all glowy, like an advert for deluxe nipple shields, and bury the urge to get the stab themselves in the face because their kid won't stop shoving toast in the DVD player.
Want to know what's so fucking exhausting about the whole childrearing thing? Well, if you're dull enough to ask...


1. They don't ever stop moving
Never bleedin' ever. It's like living with the Duracell bunny except that you can't stamp the flop-eared little fucker to death after the seventh hour of twitching.


2. You're never alone on the toilet
I swear, having a child turns shitting into a spectator sport. I've weed and shat to the sound of crying, laughing and screaming and have prised toddler hands from my ankles as well as a toddler head out of my gusset. Po-based privacy, my arse.


3. They never shut up
Why do we spend hours encouraging them to talk? Because once they start they never fucking stop. It's like being tortured by the Libyans. Last winter I sat in the doorstep on the snow just to get some peace. Seriously.


4. They never respond
It's like raising Helen Keller. You say everything three times, show them everything fifteen times and then they do what they want anyway. 80 per cent of what I say I may as well keep to myself. I'd get better feedback from a conversation with next door's compost heap.


Thank fuck for 7pm bedtime.

Sticks up arses

Life's a bitch, ain't it?

In my local coffee shop today (Hoffi Coffi, Treforest, for connersewers) I witnessed the latest Eminem vid. And it got me to thinking about those celebs who need to lighten the fuck up. Here’s the tip of my iceberg:

Eminem
Marsh, Mate, is this angry young man shit going to go on for much longer? I mean, spittling on about how hard it is to drag your pasty carcass up from da streets is wearing a bit thin now that you’re wiping your arse on $50 notes.

Chris Martin

Look it’s bad enough that you churn out tinkly bollocks under the name of Cold Patrol/ Snow Play (interchangeable middle class angst if ever I heard it). Do you have to bang the fuck on about cocoa farmers in some distant corner of Costa Rica while you are at it? No. So don’t.

Bon(i)o

You short arsed, jaw-jutting, be-trilbied, shade-draped twat. You want to feed the fucking world? The stop telling me to cough up and flog your frigging soapbox collection instead.

Darcus Howe

Darcus, Darcus, Darcus...I’m sick to fuck of hearing you banging on so God knows how you must feel. If I had to listen to your self-satisfied ranting for as long as you’ve been doing it I’d pour Domestos into my ears. And no, that’s not cos you is black. It’s cos you’re a bell-end.

Peter Tatchell

OK, OK, you’ve done your bit for LGBT (ABCDEFG...) rights but what’s with the permanent frigging outrage? How the fuck haven’t you sicked up your own appendix with your fury yet?

Jeremy Vine

Oh, it’s not enough to hijack Radio 2 for two hours every lunchtime is it? No, it’s not. You have to come over all Daily Mail about it n’all. Mate, you’re this close from banning your own show for being full of shit. Wish you would.

Oi Vey!
Just witnessed the first episode of the new series of Curb. The image of Larry David demonstrating how to use a tampon to a girl who is having her first period will stay with me for the rest of my natural. That and Susie Green telling her husband that he ever mentions the word 'divorce' again she'll cut off his balls and thumb tack them to the wall.
Comedy genius from start to finish.

Amateur psychiatrics

If I wasn't nuts before, I am now

Have just read a column about when to terrify friends and family with the news that you are suffering from depression. I, The Kraken, came out as a depressive years ago but still go through the same ole routine every time I meet someone new.
And you know what? Telling people about your mental health status is a piece of piss. The hard part is the reaction of the recipients of said information. Seriously, you could announce yourself leprotic by waving a three-fingered hand in the air and get a better reaction.
Course, no one knows how to deal with it. They don't know whether to console, sympathise or just slowly back away from the lunatic. What I have learned though, is that there are some things you never, ever say to a depressive. Wanna hear them?


1. "Oh, stop being so negative."
That's right, because negativity is such a cool lifestyle choice! Hey, I was sick to fuck of being happy all of the time so I figured that instead of going on holiday this year I'd tinker with a noose.


2. "Just read a funny book or watch a funny film."
Excuse me? You genuinely think that spending an afternoon with Will Ferrell is all the treatment I need? I've sobbed away three months in bed, given up my job and can barely leave the house and you think the solution lies in Jim Fucking Carey?


3. "What have you got to be depressed about?"
Well, how about inane comments like that one? What, do you think I'm considering suicide because I've run out of frigging teabags? 


4. " Oh I was depressed too, when I couldn't get into my dress." 
So putting on a few pounds pitched you into the darkest and most isolating hopelessness, so deep that even psychiatric clinicians could barely reach you? And you begged for admission to a psychiatric ward? And you spent weeks stockpiling paracetamol? And...oh, no, I didn't think so.


At the risk of ranting (even more) I'll stop there. But, believe me, I'll come up with more of these gems as the blog wears on.

The Yips
Just told my beloved that I'll only spread the word about this blog when I'm more confident that it's any good. His response? "Good? You're literate and ranty and and not always in that order. What more do you want?" Ah, my boy.

A P-P-P-P-Portion of Veale

What's not to love?

Just thought. If you want to know more about what I, The Kraken, and her family does (but without the rage and profanities) have a sniff of martinveale.blogspot.com. 
He's the lucky bastard who married me, sired a child with me and wrestled me to the psych unit. He's also been blogging for waaaay longer than I have and bangs on for hours about rugby, cricket, American football, telly and the general injustices that befall those of us who occasionally come into contact with the more fat-handed members of the human race. 
Visit him. Now.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier...Shush!

Pass the popcorn, Darlin'

Well, there's a thing. Went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the pickchures last night (thanks to an Ava-free night, care of her grandparents). Course, the film was a cracker, as you'd have guessed from the five star reviews being bandied about. But you know what was even better? The audience.
Thankfully the film attracted a rather different viewer to that of, say, Fast and Furious 5 (mostly illiterate hormonal-swamped boys who think the over-revving of a Saxo's engine makes them appear erudite). In fact, the queue for the film was obvious by the apparent age of its members. My 40 years actually reduced the average. I almost looked young(er).
The upshot was that during the film there was...silence. I know! Silence! There were no mobile phones beeping, wrappers crackling or teens sniggering at the vaguest whiff of nudity. There was no arsing about in the back rows, a Showcase minion didn't have to kick anyone out and there was a pleasing absence of the stink of plastic cheesy nachos. I didn't even have to tell anyone to shut it (which is what happened the last time I went to the cinema). 
You know those showings that cinemas run, where mothers can go in with their babies? Well, why the frig don't cinemas have showings that ban anyone wearing Impulse/ Lynx/ Clearasil? I'd happily police said scheme, sending the noisy fuckers away with a curt word about their laughable state of puberty. Mate, Fast and Furious 5 is thataway...

You looking at me?

The Kraken's a'coming!

Well, of all the bell-ends...Driving to Ava's creche the other day I had to negotiate a road which is reduced to one lane thanks to the cars parked on one side of it. The cars coming at me had priority so, grudgingly, I tucked into a rare space to let 'em pass. And what the fuck do you think happened? The guy behind me overtook me straight into the path of an oncoming van in an effort get home one car-length earlier than usual. Of course, I, The Kraken, made judicious and lengthy use of my horn in order to point out the error of his ways. 
Guess what he did? Stopped his car bang in the middle of the road, got out and ran at my car shrieking. Natch, I did the safest thing I could think of and leapt out of my car hollering like a Kraken with a detached nad. It saw him off mind. And he looked even more fat-handed when he realised that he was stuck in the path of traffic and had to act like some mobile roundabout for the oncomers. 
So if it was you who was driving (although I use that term extremely loosely) a white estate car down Holly Street in Rhydfelin at 3.30 on Thursday 15 September, do us all a favour and shove your gear stick up your arse, will you?

Talking of telly...

Come to mama!

I am chuffed to shit that the next series of Curb Your Enthusiasm starts next Monday. So, in celebration (yes, I am that gimpy) here are the only reasons to put the telly on:
1. Larry David (Curb)
2. Susie Green (Curb) 
3. Malcolm Tucker (The Thick of It)
4. Stewie Griffin (Family Guy)
5. Wilfred (er, Wilfred)
6. Tony Soprano (The Sopranos)
7. Vic n Bob (Shooting Stars and stuff)


The common denominator? That they're all foul of tongue or a pickle short of a Ploughmans and in some cases both. In other words kindred spirits.

Nut Notes

Aye, it's been a tidy day

Gird yourselves, my blog-chomping munchkins. I have news, for today I was officially discharged from my local psych unit. Yush, after 18 months of depression and a year of clinging to counsellors while pawing at them for medication it has been decreed that I am fit n well enough to be released back into the wild. Feel free to arm yourselves with whatever comes to hand.
Mind you, while I have been reunited with my faculties there are situations when I retain the right to lose the slightest grip on my marbles once again. Here they are:


1. When within a two mile radius of any supermarket
2. When within a ten mile radius of Asda
3. When I see anyone driving while on a mobile phone
4. When I see anyone driving while on a mobile phone, and driving like a fat-handed twat
5. The rape of the English language via text speak or badly bandied-about apostrophies
6. Anything involving condiment-tossing TV chefs
7. Any show that appears on BBC1 or ITV1 at 9pm on a weekday. Whatever it is, it'll be some televisual social morphine that has all the challenge of a bucketful of Sudocrem.

By now you should have gathered that I, The Kraken, am prone to arsiness. In fact it is my default position. Which is why, even though I have had a perfectly perfunctory day for a woman on the edge, the following two incidents are even now, hours later, doing my frigging head in:


Queue goblins

Feel free to kick me

Are people terminally retarded? No really, are they?  Well they were in A Shit in the Dark this afternoon (it's actually a coffee shop called A Shot in the Dark, but c'mon). That's because after queuing for ten mins to be served, with said queue snaking alongside a giant, wall-painted menu, I witnessed queue goblins. First they got to the counter and acted astounded, as if they thought they were really queuing for cervical smears. Then they became feverishly overcome at being expected to order food and drink. Beads of sweat broke out on a forehead over some internal Coke/ Sprite debate one of them seemed to be grappling with. And to cap it all off the goblins were visibly dragged closer to the edge of their pitiful existences when they were presented with payment options. So what do you think they did next? Paid for two cans of pop and a slice of cake with a fucking credit card. Like I said. Goblins.


Oliver Twist
Well, a re-enactment of it at any rate, at my local library this afternoon. There I was with Ava, pawing through the books when some scruffbag/ urchin hybrid appeared with her little brother. Ava knew them from school (the eldest was four) but I swear to God they'd lurched straight from some Dickensian novel via a Dr Who-style time twist. Not only did they look as if their last bath coincided with the Royal Wedding but their mother was noticeable by her heartfelt commitment to the computer she was glued to in the IT room. Which meant she didn't see them when they ran into the staff rooms and started pulling books about. Neither did she see them when they scampered out of the library to play on the roadside. Jesus, talk about fodder for fiddlers. I watched this carnage for half and hour, during which time she neither looked at nor spoke to said offspring. Lucky then that, being a fretful Kracken, I took it upon myself to those jobs for her. Hope the Castle Bingo website was worth it.

And another thing...

Where I keep my chips

Christ, It's nice being able to blog/ write whatever the frig I like. As a journalist there was always the chance that an editor could see my blogging which meant:

a) they'd hate my writing and never commission me

or

b) every one of my posts would have to be pithy and arresting and insightful foreverenever.

Now I can write utter cobblers, though. In fact I have already started. Oooh, and I can swear too. 
Fucketyfuck!

Stuff, like

Me, sporting the natural look

Chances are that if you’re reading this pile of pish you want to know what I’m up to these days. Merrily, not much. I’m a regular Barbara Cartland of a Kraken these days, swathed in puce chiffon while barking utter shite from my chaise longue. Short story is that the black dog of depression bit me on the arse in April 2010. Problem was that the flea-bitten bastard gnawed on me until my plot was well n truly lost, I became a psychiatric patient and I rattled with joyous amounts of medication.   

That’s when I chucked in freelance journalism.  Not an easy decision because, frankly, I was good at it. But honestly, if I had to crawl up the arse of one more fucking editor, prattle with one more PR or chase yet another late payer (you stingy shits know who you are) I was going to be even less responsible for my actions than I already was.  And I speak as someone who already takes anti-psychotics.

Now? Well, I’m almost recovered although still nicely medicated. I have my hobbies – dressmaking,  learning to play the piano, reading (I’m like an extra from Pride n Frigging Prejudice) – and may have to add blogging to that list of keep-me-off-the-street activities too. Let’s see how that last one goes though, eh?

Wiping the drool from my chin

What Krakens want (when they wake)

It's like marmalade!

a) Ear-splitting silence
b) A steaming wee

c) A steaming cuppa

d) A freshly ironed newspaper

e) A nosebag of crumpets garnished with anti-depressants

And no, that's not multiple choice. It's de-frigging-rigeur.

Ok, now that we all know where we stand I can start blogging.