In The Blogger's Chair: Mr London Street (Part 1)

This is your lucky day, my friends!

Today's post, rather like an M Night Shyamalan film, has a cunning twist ... (but no precocious kids who see dead people ... sorry)

The rather excellent Mr London Street and I have decided to do a blog exchange; we've probed and interviewed the bejeesus out of each other, amusing e-mails have been zipping back and forth and now YOU can view the first part of the glorious results of my interview with Reading's finest right here! (Part 2 to follow soon)

I don't think it's any great secret that I'm a huge fan of his blog, I've openly declared my adoration of him, and then told him I hate him (for making the blogging process look so ridiculously easy, when we all know it's not) because I'm a girl and I'm fickle like that.

In my opinion he is everything a blogger should be. Each post is a beautifully crafted masterpiece, and his humour and the way he expresses himself just makes it even more of a joy to read.

If you want to see which probing questions he asked me, then head over to his awesome blog and check out the post there ... and while you're there, check out some of his previous posts, I particularly recommend "The Spacker in the Lift" and "Mr David & the Minge Flavoured Crisps" ... those were the two that got me well and truly hooked on his blog.

Now brace yourselves ... because this, ladies and gentlemen, is Mr London Street:

Thanks to your incredibly witty (and lengthy) blog posts you are now the hero of dozens, who are your heroes or biggest influences and why?

First of all thanks for the glowing write-up! You’re far too kind. I think my literally dozens of readers would probably stop very far short of the word “hero”. And my blog posts are mere haiku compared to some of your epic essays.

This is a tricky question. I’ve always found the concept of heroes a bit of an odd one. I can see that for conventional kids who liked sports and had friends they definitely filled a role in childhood. Wanting to score the winning goal at Wembley or beat the shit out of Apollo Creed were probably goals for many of my friends. But not for me, and as a geek I didn’t really find any alternative role models. This is no bad thing, now I come to think of it. The fact that I didn’t find myself thinking “good grief, I wish I could play chess like him” or putting posters of Bobby Fischer on my wall is probably the only thing that saved me from being the saddest child alive.

Similarly, influences are a tricky one to capture. I’ve always thought this is something for other people to say rather than for you to say about yourself. It’s a road fraught with potential embarrassment, much like when your friend is in a band and says Yeah, our sound is a bit like a cross between X, Y and Z and you think No it’s not, they’re really good and you sound like a bunch of epileptics breakdancing on a drum kit while someone has an asthma attack into the microphone.

I suppose if I had to pick one person out, it would have to be Woody Allen. I loathed Woody Allen’s films as a teenager. He was completely self obsessed and neurotic, played himself all the time and was always appearing alongside improbably beautiful women as his love interest. Of course, now I look at the list I’ve just outlined and think What’s not to like? He really is good at everything – his comic prose is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if it’s even worth trying. Some of his films are masterpieces. But then, I even like the bad ones. I even like the really bad ones that are Woody Allen by numbers where he’s lazily recycling jokes from decades ago. I even don’t mind the ones with Mia Farrow in them. His stand up, rather unexpectedly, is hilarious. And then there are the one liners. If I ever come up with a single one liner in the whole of my blog that’s half as good as some of Woody Allen’s one liners that would be achievement enough.

It would be wrong to move on without giving some evidence. So first off, here’s my favourite piece of Woody Allen stand-up, “The Moose”:

Woody Allen – The Moose

Secondly, here’s one of my favourite scenes from my favourite Woody Allen film Annie Hall. This has happened to me so many times:

You really are quite good at this writing malarkey ... ever thought about writing a book? If you did, which genre etc would it be?

Again, you’re really too kind. The answer is yes – I’ve regularly thought about doing this and never gone any further than that. Kelly has often said that if I want to give up work to write my novel we could live off baked beans and find a way of surviving until I make tons of cash from my bestselling endeavours. Although to be fair that was a couple of years ago and sounds like the sort of thing you say when you know it’s not really going to happen.

The difficulty I’ve always had is that I’ve never been sure what I’d write a book about. I even bought a book about a year ago in Brighton which I thought would help me out in that regard. It was called “No Plot – No Problem”. I actually bought it thinking it was a guide to how to succeed in senior management so I was very pleasantly surprised when I discovered it was in fact a guide to how to write a novel in 100 days. But I haven’t started it yet – the book or the novel.

In terms of what sort of novel I’d write, I think the sorts of novels I feel like writing always end up getting written by some other sneaky bastard when my back is turned. When I was in my 20s I wanted to write something about drifting from shitty temp job to shitty temp job and having no real sense of direction. But so did everybody else, and all those Generation X type books kind of stole my thunder (or, closer to the truth, borrowed my mild drizzle with no intention of returning it). Plus the Americans do this sort of thing so much better than we do. Can you imagine if On The Road had been set in the UK? Nobody’s ever going to believe that kind of existential shit happened near Peterborough, are they.

Now I feel like there’s a novel in me about life in a big faceless company in an office somewhere going nowhere. The only problem being that people have again got there first. Joshua Ferris has written Then We Came To The End and Ed Park has written Personal Days and they’re both very good books in that field.

So I don’t know is the short answer. I need a new original idea or a time machine, preferably both.

Walkers have been running a competition "Do us a flavour" to select new flavour crisps, the public have narrowed it down to Fish & Chips, Onion Bhaji, Chocolate & Chilli, Crispy Duck & Hoi Sin and Builders Breakfast (not a minge in sight, thankfully) ... what are your thoughts? Any of those appeal to you? Any flavours you'd add?

I have watched this competition with a mixture of excitement and regret. Now don’t get me wrong, I love crisps. You name them, I love them. From Frazzles (like bacon without all the hassle of cooking) to salt and vinegar Discos in those giant packs they only sell at train stations that take the roof of your mouth off like junk food napalm, to roast beef flavoured Monster Munch, I adore them all. So this competition has captured my imagination. But sadly, I can no longer eat crisps because of my high blood cholesterol. Like pies, sausages, cheese and many other things best summed up in the single word “fun”. So my interest in this competition is academic rather than practical. Theoretical rather than real. Which is kind of heartbreaking (ironic, since my heart is the thing this shitty diet is meant to be protecting).

Having said that, I was a bit disappointed by the shortlist. I am old enough to remember a snack called “Fish and Chips” which was little fish and chip shaped biscuits liberally sprayed with salt and vinegar powder. They were nice back then, but that was the 80s and we were all more easily pleased in those days. Timmy Mallett was considered an acceptable way to entertain children. So, for that matter, was Gary Glitter. A lot has changed. You don’t see “Fish and Chips” any more like you don’t see white dog turds and that’s how it should stay. A lot of the others seem to be missing critical ingredients. Onion bhaji without the mango chutney? Builder’s breakfast without the black pudding? Sacrilege! And chocolate flavour crisps are the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate of this particular election. So for me the winner would have to be crispy duck and hoi sin. For a start, I have long suspected that Chinese restaurants sprinkle crispy duck with crack.

In terms of flavours I’d add, that’s an easy one. I have a general rule which works for me, namely that the cuter an animal is the better it tastes. That’s why venison is so much nicer than pork. That’s why rabbit is so very delicious. My dad used to live near Watership Down and I’m pretty sure a nearby butcher had a sign saying “Watership Down – you’ve read the book, you’ve seen the film – NOW EAT THE PIE”.

But there’s only one way to prove my theory and that’s to take it to its logical conclusion.

We need to see Walkers put out new “Chargrilled Meerkat” flavoured crisps and then everyone will know I’m right. The country demands nothing less.

Please look at the Rorschach inkblot attached ... what do you see? (rest assured, we have fully qualified psychiatrists waiting with a rather fetching white coat and a gurney, ready to take you to a padded cell if necessary)

It looks like my dad sexually assaulting my mum with a half-charged Remington Fuzz-Away. Just like when I was 12. I’m sure I’ve seen this one before. How did you know? Did the voices tell you to ask me this question?

MAKE IT STOP.

You are clearly a modern day Metrosexual, fully in touch with his feminine side. So which of the Sex & the City women do you most identify with and why? Slutty, powerhouse Samantha; uptight, workaholic Miranda; fluffy, idealistic Charlotte or scatty, romantic Carrie.

I love Sex and the City but really this question is like a form of astrology isn’t it? I mean, we can rule Charlotte out from the off because she’s pretty vile. But the other three all have qualities I can associate with. Samantha’s slutty side, for example. Or the genuine and endearing difficulty Miranda always seems to have with being happy and trendy. Or Carrie’s deep and abiding love for accessories, great bars and excellent restaurants. Hmm. I mentioned Carrie in my first ever blog post so I think I would have to go for her. Even if she does look like she should be being ridden by children on Blackpool beach. Maybe that’s a plotline they’ll explore if they do a sequel to the movie.

For a long time I thought the best form of astrology was to decipher somebody’s personality from the track that was number one in the singles chart on their date of birth. The only reason I thought this was that my brother had an unsuccessful relationship with a very nice lady called Rachel. The day she was born Hey Jude by the Beatles was Number 1. The day he was born Number 1 was Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West by Benny Hill. Clearly it could never have worked out.

My next approach was to work out people’s personalities from their favourite Beatles song. I had this discussion at work one day many years ago. I explained that my favourite Beatles song was Hey, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away which made sense because at the time I was seeing someone who kind of had a boyfriend.

“That’s funny,” said my colleague Kevin, “My favourite Beatles song is Help! which fits because I’m really stressed right now.”

“Me too.” said Louise, “I like Day Tripper and I love going away at the weekend and discovering new places.”

“What about you Dave?” I asked.

“I don’t really like the Beatles.” he replied.

Typical Scorpio.

Thank you, Mr London Street!

So there you have it ... that's why he's a blog legend.

Be sure to come back for the second half ... he's bound to have kept the really good stuff for last.