"He was irrelevant: a waste of tailoring and education."

I don't often link to Nick Lezard's frequently-excellent "Down and Out" column for the New Statesman, although I do read it, because pimping out the work of someone I consider a friend seems a bit gross somehow. Still, this week's installment is worth a link if only so you too can enjoy hearing someone described as "a meat-based conduit between the screen on his desk and the customer".

Completely insane things I said on the weekend

"I think I just need to calm down... I'm going to Ikea."

Something to remind myself that I'm a moron whenever I think I just don't really like Dylan

Real talk: he has never looked better to me.

carrionlaughing:

some days I remember that in the wonder woman film, chris pine is gonna look like a beautiful butch hipster lesbian cosplaying amelia earhart and everything is okay

Via hellotailor 

Believe!

Not proud to say it's now basically my life mission to recreate this Cadbury Creme Egg toastie.

It never works. Trust me.

This anonymous column over at The Guardian, Asymmetric Love, is kind of fascinating. It should probably be printed out to keep for emergencies if you're the kind of person who thinks you deserve closure, which is really just a way of saying you're still super into someone and you wish they were still super into you.

Lost Garmin: The Stages of Grief

1. Hmm I must have put it somewhere else. I'll have a look for it later.

2. Strange, it's not here either... or here. But it must be...

3. ... somewhere, right? RIGHT? I MEAN IT HAS TO BE SOMEWHERE.

4. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up.

5. I WILL NEVER RUN AGAIN.

Overheard in the office (on the phone)

"I'm not seeing any genitals."

"I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record."

Things I don't want to talk about

Why there's caramel sauce on the tracker of my laptop.

Related: The saucepan containing burnt toffee in the sink.

Scenes from a suburban life

Tradie Outside My House: “Hey Babe”.

 Me: *Death Stare*. 

Tradie’s Girlfriend I Hadn’t Noticed Standing Behind The Truck: “What do you need, Babe?” 

Me: *Commits seppuku*

Things I did not expect to happen to me this week that happened to me:

Aidan Turner in the latest adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None adding to the growing body of evidence (you see what I did there? I'm sorry, I'll... let myself out) that maybe I'm.. into muscles now? I don't know, it's all very confusing.

Questions that plague me at 3am

Am I being racist when I use "yo, yo Baby Creed" as a greeting?

The English Language Has Failed Me

BECAUSE WHAT IS THE NAME FOR THAT THING WHEN YOU HAVE SO MANY NEW BOOKS OUT FROM THE LIBRARY THAT YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY READ THEM ALL BEFORE THEY'RE DUE BACK AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH TO START FIRST SO YOU JUST STARE AT THEM ALL IN THAT TOWER BY YOUR BED AND TRY TO PRIORITISE BASED ON HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO READ THEM, WHEN THEY'RE DUE BACK, HOW LONG THEY WILL TAKE YOU ETC BUT IT'S ALL JUST TOO MUCH SO YOU START READING A NON-LIBRARY BOOK INSTEAD TO CALM DOWN AND THEN YOU STRESS OUT ABOUT THAT EVEN MORE BECAUSE NOW YOU'RE EVEN FURTHER BEHIND.

Yeah, I have that.

My favourite thing a reader emailed me (at my work address ) this week in response to something I wrote:

"I would not have been born if my mother's elder brother had not slowly poisoned his wife to death."

Word (also: Sherlock spoilers ahead)

• Things I Didn’t Anticipate Seeing on the First Day of 2016

  weeesi:

  1) Andrew Scott fellating a prop pistol as Benedict Cumberbatch watched
  2)

  (via violethuntress)

  Source: weeesi

  • 1 HOUR AGO
  • 152 NOTES
  • #SHERLOCK
  • #SHSPESH
  • #TAB SPOILERS
  • #SNERK
  • #P MUCH
  • #HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
  • 
    
  • 
    
  • Via Destination Toast

Favourite things of 2015 #5: Rainbow Rowell's novel Carry On

Rainbow Rowell's Carry On is not, in my opinion, her best book. I don't think it's as sweetly heartbreaking as Eleanor & Park, nor as straight-up mesmerising and romantic as Fangirl: a book I loved so much that when I finished it I literally started reading it again immediately - something I'm not sure I've ever done before or since. Arguably it lacks the dopey first-book charm of Attachments - a delightful romantic comedy of a book I have returned to several times.

But sometimes a book or a movie or a bit of music feels like it's been written just for you and only for you and, for me, Carry On was that book. Friends who have read it and know what a soppy romantic I secretly am will understand why it's perfectly in my wheelhouse. But it wasn't just the central love story that I loved, I loved it all: the jokes, the winking and I loved so much what Rowell did with Agatha in the end - like, yeah, WHY NOT JUST FUCK THIS SHIT - I can't even bear it.

"It is never twins, Watson" (Contains Sherlock spoilers)

"This episode will be derided as Steven Moffat trying too hard to outwit the viewer and twisting what should be a perfectly simple whodunit into a plot device of labyrinth complexity. But the secret is that it isn’t that clever and it doesn’t completely make sense, because it’s not supposed to. Moffat and Gatiss just filmed 90 minutes of the internal monologue of a tortured queer genius drug addict off his tits on coke, wrapped it up in a gothic mystery, and then gave it to us as a late Christmas present."

 (via heliumstars)

I am pretty much onboard with this as a response to the delightful, silly, maddening and somewhat ridiculous Sherlock Christmas special, which I heartily enjoyed.

I like this essay by Whitney Cummings' over at Lenny Letter quite a lot:

I had always had a hunch something was wrong because I could give but I couldn't receive. I could give someone nice jewelry, but when they tried to buy me a two-dollar coffee I would resist to the point of it getting awkward. And if someone gave me a gift, I viewed it like a grenade. I would have to wait until you left to open it because I was so worried I wouldn't receive it well enough. My dear friend Beth gave me necklaces with my dogs' initials on them, and I stressed out that she didn't know how much I love them. I'll Instagram them looking resplendent under the Nashville filter and tag her, send her photos of me wearing them so she didn't think I was lying, and yet I still felt a pang of guilt that I didn't deserve such kindness.

You can read the whole thing here.