Regular readers of Tales From The Zoo will be familiar with POD. The Princess of Darkness. My soon-to-be-eighteen-if-she-lives-that-long daughter. For whom the traditional teenage pursuits of stroppiness and singular bloody-mindedness have long since been elevated to the level of a vocation. A holy calling, if you will. With effortless skill and minimum effort she raises [...]
Archive for the ‘Tales From The Zoo’ Category
Blinded By The Light
Posted: 31st January 2012 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Family, Life, POD, Princess of Darkness, Tales From The Zoo
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A Father’s Shame
Posted: 29th December 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Children, Family, Parenting, Tales From The Zoo
It’s heartbreaking being a parent and yesterday was one of the worst days in my life. You devote countless hours of love, devotion and guidance to your kids. You offer care, support and moral sustenance, all the time praying that you can keep them on the straight and narrow, all the time hoping, with everything [...]
A Yuletide Homily
Posted: 26th December 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Christmas, Lurch, POD, Satanicus Maximus, SheWhoIsNeverWrong, The Spawn, The Zoo
So how was it for you? Here, at The Zoo, it went bloody great. SheWhoIsNeverWrong, despite having a bad day with the old noggin, aching eyes and loaded up on drugs (of the prescription variety, you understand), soldiered on and turned out a bloody superb dinner. Turkey, beef and gammon accessorised with all the usual [...]
Kitchen Sink Drama
Posted: 18th November 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Black Veil Brides, Fields Of The Nephilim, Kitchen Sink Drama, Peter Keevil, The Corpse Bride
New kitchen. Aye, cool and that. Less cool, by a margin of some considerable width, was the inspired idea of the gang foreman to leave the kitchen door wide open while he and his heavy-handed brethren of toil commenced wrecking operations. After all, there can be few things calculated to lift the spirits of a [...]
Where The Heart Is
Posted: 12th November 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Family, Princess of Darkness, Satanicus Maximus, SheWhoIsNeverWrong, The Spawn, Unruly Child
Things that seemed like a good idea at the time: losing three weeks of normal living while the entire kitchen is ripped out, stripped back to the brick work and rebuilt in shiny new fashion. What’s not to like, right? Well, for starters there’s the small matter of removing everything that usually lives there and [...]
Dr. Feelgood
Posted: 2nd November 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Fear, Hospitals, Pink Floyd, The Spawn
Pinched white faces. Small, too. Reduced by the weight of that which crushes them. Me. Us. The Princess of Darkness, normally all pretty, perfumed and bubbly seventeen. Not now, though… Satanicus Maximus, pretending nonchalance. His cockiness as avoidance therapy. Thirteen years and knows everything. Except this. Lurch, blissfully ignorant. At work. Unaware. For now. The [...]
Fear and Loathing In Stapleford
Posted: 24th September 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Satanicus Maximus, SheWhoIsNeverWrong, Tales From The Zoo, The Spawn
SheWhoIsNeverWrong has been battling a series of brain-head-face-related mystery aliments over the last few months. Part-migraine-part-head-thing-part-who-knows-fecking-what-thing, she’s undergone all manner of tests, scans, hospital visits and whatnot, only to now be told that a further monthly series of trial-and-error meds is the only remaining option. The local quack, displaying the sort of compassion and humanity [...]
Retail Therapy
Posted: 8th September 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Asda, Retail Therapy, Shopping, Wal-Mart
For the Ploff Meister I like supermarkets. I like ‘Superstore’ supermarkets best of all. I like the anonymity their huge ebbing and flowing tides of humanity provide, their vastness and the space afforded by said vastness. You can lose yourself in them. Metaphorically speaking, of course, although small children, I’ve heard, often achieve a literal [...]
Facebook : The Rules
Posted: 16th July 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: Daily Mail, Facebook, Music, The Beatles
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Funny old game this Facebook malarkey, isn’t it? Social networking, and all the gubbins that goes with it, seems to have an unwritten but rigid set of rules and a peculiar etiquette. Foolishly, I suppose, I continue to make the mistake of interacting with people on Facebook as I would in real life. I speak [...]
Did the earth move for you, Honey?
Posted: 8th March 2011 by Harry in Blog, Tales From The ZooTags: She Who Is Never Wrong, Tales From The Zoo, The Spawn
Day from Hell yesterday. It actually looked, on paper, like it would be a cracker and I was quite looking forward to it. As a freelance writer, with a wildly varying income, a day job is necessary to support She Who Is Never Wrong and The Spawn and so it was that I found myself [...]