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Category Archives: otherly photos
the coconut thing
“Look, I found something to show you” he says, walking in the direction of the fruit aisle.
“What?” I say, catching up at the chicken.
“Look” he’s still walking away from me.
“What IS it?” I say, jogging past the leafy greens.
“There” he says “look in there”.
He’s pointing into a low-lit cardboard box. There are three coconuts in it and the way the light hits them, I think there’s mould growing on them and have to muster some effort to take a step towards them.
Mouldy coconuts? That’s what he wants to show me? I’ve been hating myself for 60 minutes on the crosstrainer and he wants to show me damp exotic fruit. It’s sweet, I suppose, given how I always ALWAYS point and say “aw, lookcoconuts, aw!” but I’ve been sweating from my elbows, godfuckit and I can scarcely stand upright.
I step forward (“Uuuuuuuuuurgh” goes my inner dialogue) and I see that no, it’s not mould. They’re just coconuts. One though, has a face. And I say “Aw, a sad coconut, aw”.
“Should we buy it?” Ideal Brown asks.
No. If I buy it, I’ll eat it and I already eat too much face – and this one looks intelligent to boot
I take a photo. He laughs.
“What?”
“No, it’s just that I took one too”
We go home. Shower. Feed. Sofa.
Before I head to bed I remember the coconut and post the photo on Twitter. “Emotional coconut in Tesco. Shaaaaaaaame.”
Today however, I awake to retweets. Lots of them. Over 100, which for me (in the realm of cat and painting photos) doesn’t happen. So I was shocked. More so because people were commenting. Getting upset. MrsWhyAye (Sunderland) said ‘That coconut’s made me feel dead sad 
‘
Someone else likened it to a seal pup.
Shit. And I left it there. In the box. All these people care about the coconut and I left him (note: “him” not “it”) behind because of my fear that if I didn’t, I’d go home, crack his little head open and transfer his glorious natural fats right onto my thighs – the ones that worked so hard the night before that sweat ran down my back and pooled on my arse, as if I literally shat exhaustion.
Tesco Customer Care tweeted at me: Poor emotional coconut! #savehim
“Fuck! The mothership is sending me orders!” I needed that fucking coconut. “Think, quick!” Unless winning them at a carnival on the town moor, do Geordies even like coconuts? Is there actually a chance that someone, between the hours of 19:00 and 9:00 would have thought to go and buy one? Other than for the obvious reason: that they saw the poor face and couldn’t walk away without it – because no decent human being could see a face like that and leave it to rot in the dank reserves of Tesco’s unsold coconuts, forever in the shadow of the mid-winter banana glow.
I ran back to the store. Ran.
And when I got there, I found that the staff has replaced 3 coconuts with roughly 40 coconuts.
There’s no amount of good-natured chuckling that covers “I know I look unhinged, but this is for a thing. You’d get it if you were on twitter this morning” as you unpack two boxes of coconuts in the middle of tesco, peeling their barcoded stickers off to reveal “the expression” on “their faces”.
That’s what I’ve always loved about coconuts; they all have both of those things. The Tripp family ritual was a brutal one; when my dad came home with a coconut, my brother and I would cheer and race to garage where my father would grip it in the vice so we could tear the hair out to reveal the face.
He’d say “See, Candy? It’s a face!” and I be thrilled and then we would watch as he drilled through both of its eyes.
My brother liked the coconut milk. I didn’t. My brother LOVED the flesh. I loved the idea of it but could never actually manage to eat much of it. I love the slaughter. The pulling apart of a hairy ball to reveal an ugly face that we could drill through. I also loved Kinder Eggs.
I started to panic that the first face I saw would look as much like the emotional coconut as the second, third, and fourth. I pulled out my phone and held the photo up to every brown ball. I felt like an agent in a b-grade TV crime drama, standing at the back of a white van with its doors thrown open to reveal 40 smuggled faces peering out at me in quiet, desperate horror.
“That’s the one” I thought, high with glee and then suddenly sick with guilt – because of all the others. I couldn’t save them all.
I saved one though, the important one. Its face was turned downward, toward the floor. I had to hunt it down.
I showed Ideal Brown. “It’s not the same one” he said.
I turned it around and he said “oh shit! It is!” and confirmed it by holding up his own photo on his own phone.
Thank fuck I got him, because by the time I arrived back at my studio (the space I now rent in town, from Ideal Brown’s office) Adrian Edmondson had somehow seen my tweet and retweeted it. He got behind the sad coconut cause and with his 55 000 followers, I knew that my tweet was going to be repeating on me for an unknowable number of hours.
“Thank FUCK” I thought. “Thank fuck I went back, because now I can show them this!
Posted in according to Candice, diary, otherly photos
Tagged emtional coconut, sad coconut, Tesco coconut, twitter coconut
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Happy Holidays!
Thank you all for another year of support. All of your retweets, #FFs, “likes” hearts, just taking the time to browse around here- I really appreciate it and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that we can carry on doing this because it makes me SO happy.
Posted in according to Candice, art updates, diary, otherly photos
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Fa-la-la-la-laaa, la la la lah.
On Sunday Ideal Brown and I went to go and get a Christmas tree. We’re not going to be around for Christmas- or New Year for that matter, but why not drag an arm of nature into the house and festoon it with bright shiny breakables for the days dotted around the two holidays?
Indeed, they’ll be the ones on which I can say what I think, control the TV remote and above all, not have to agree with things I don’t believe in for the sake of saving myself a petty discussion that will just shorten my life. That’s what Christmas is about, isn’t it? Being stuck somewhere.
I mean, I always love the people I’m stuck with (sort of) and for the most part I really enjoy it- but I am stuck and every year I do wish my company into oblivion. I’d wish myself into oblivion, but then who would feed the cats? Come on.
There’s a loft alcove that we call “The Hole” which is allocated “for shit”. Example “I just went into The Hole to get the Christmas garb. You can do it next time. I’ve had it. Jesus Christ, there’s so much shit in there.”
When we were at the tree shop (a rugby club that had sold space to a couple of guys selling felled Nordman firs) I hooted “Ooh, this will be Little’s First Christmas”.
I say these things because I’m
a) gently mocking new parents and
b) because I’ve realised that we have a bag of “unknown reactions” to discover when we introduce our kitten to a vast thing peppered with dangling bits. Above all there’s reason
c) and that is: I like to press the ceremonial underwhelming with a trite announcement that nobody gives a fuck about. Not me. Not Ideal Brown. Not the cats.
We didn’t actually call our cat Little. It’s just that we already have a cat and given that he’s older, he’s also bigger than her and on top of that she’s really small, so often I just find myself saying “where’s Little?” or “I’ve fed Little” or “have you seen Little? Big’s upstairs, but I can’t find Little.”
Big’s real name is Stanley, a name that has since been butchered thusly: Stanley> Stan> Tan> Tanny-Tan> Stink> Spotty Back and bird (for when he sits on the floor because he looks like you could put him on a pond surface on which he would float, duck-like)
Little is actually Brodie.
This is all to say that when the Christmas tree was torn asunder (not really – it was just knocked over) I figured we were partly deserving of it.
Ideal Brown flew into a rage “Fuckit, I know it was Little! Right. Right! Get her. Right LITTLE!” He says “right” a lot when he’s losing control, which is funny because I think it means he’s grappling for some and it’s not aaaaaaactually the thing you say when you’re slipping.
I wouldn’t actually tell him this, but I was so glad the tree fell over. I’ve been verging on losing my shit for the last few days. When the tiny things that I can’t control mount up, they all just chip away at the ol’ mental demeanor and I start to crack. A tree on its side isn’t cancer or divorce or a choked bank account.
Indeed, it was the best fuck up for me to take on given the simplicity of the situation: if something falls over, you can set it right again. And I did.
Did you burn a guy?
There are a lot of days that are really good for having a slightly irresponsible father, but none that touch Guy Fawkes.
My dad could make everything more fun with with some white spirit and an open flame. Our patio said “we barbecue!” which we did – but more than that, what we did there was “burn shit!”.
Even if all the shit you have is a flammable liquid base and a table spoon. My dad would light it, my brother and I would hoot and squeal and then when it was all done, none of us would really hurry inside, because we (at least I know I was) savouring the smell of After.
Needless to say, bonfire night with my dad was guaranteed to be good, mainly because he didn’t poo-poo the small stuff. Yes, he wanted big explosions, but I never got ninny down-talking for my sparklers and tom-thumbs. If it hissed, it was alright by Dad. The word of the night was “another”. I remember when a tom thumb went off in my face. I remember when the catherine wheels spun right off the garden fence and flew around our feet. I’m pretty sure we burnt some garden furniture by mistake.
I know I went to big displays at schools with fire marshals and teachers and rules, but I can’t remember any of the particulars. I do however remember all of my dad’s “shows”, because you could never be 100% sure of your own safety. And that made them more fun. Obviously.
Despite the safety, this year’s Bonfire night was good. Sally said “I can’t believe this shit” referring to a perimeter around the bonfire that had been made by the red jump-suited fire-guard daddies from a local school. “We used to go right up to it and stick out candy floss in there”
Not all was lost though, there were some duds that started to shoot out of the bonfire in the direction of the dispersing crowd. Sally enjoyed that, as well as laughing at the retreating mumsies. I can’t really blame them. I don’t have the balls to have a regular kid, let alone a kid blinded in one eye by a spitting rocket.
Posted in diary, otherly photos
Tagged bonfire, bonfire night, firework, fireworks, guy fawkes
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Fwight Night at The Baltic
It was dangling by a thread until the very last second, but in the end I had a Halloween night out.
I didn’t even take the photo of the blue person, I found it on my phone the following morning. I figure it must have been taken by Shaun of the Dead (dude called Russell?) who found my abandoned phone in the disabled loo where I had last been weeing (with Sally) and taking photos (of Erin lying on a fold-out table).
He rang “Liz” to ask what colour hair I have and to explain that he’d be easy to find since he was “the only Shaun” at the Baltic. When he discovered that my “friend from New Zealand” (mom from South Africa) was actually in London, he told her that he was very happy to be “uniting the people of the world”.
Russell, Shaun, whoever you are – thanks, man. He found me at the bar, offering the phone to Erin, with a photo of her lying in the disabled loo bed thing (that wig is a winner if you need to be found according to a phone photo)
Bangkok Ladyboys
A substandard day at work can be put on the back burner buy going to watch the Bangkok Ladyboys.
I know because I did it last week.
I think the thing I like most about them is the fact that they don’t even try to accurately lip sync. For all we know, they could be reciting a particularly droll presidential speech with raised eyebrows and a perfectly stretched and primed smile. You’re hearing Katie Perry, they’re singing their grandma’s favourite recipe. It doen’t matter though because we’re all there for the sequins and wigs.
At some point a gnome stripped to his teeny-tinys which, while a favourite of the greater majority of any crowd, didn’t really please me. “Oh my god, a dwarf!” Who cares when there are sexual oddities afoot in jewelled leotards cut to their navels? Not me. How could I be when a safety-goggled blonde boygirl atop the pink shell of a gutted car took an angle grinder to the metal disc she wore over her crotch? There were real sparks and everything. *applause*
The highlight of my night however, was afterwards when Laura expertly dealt with a sort of rambling neon-clad (homeless?) man who kept trying to offer us “pizza and chips for a pound”
My ineffective tactic has remained the same for years: smile (hold the friendliness) and say “no thank you” and look…over there.
Laura on the other hand, gives the man all of her attention. Not wanting to be rude or to sound insincere she says “Oh, thank you SO much, but I’ve just been for (some word here, eatsies?) and I’ve literally popped my belt. Like. Nine times. What’s that though? Pizza AND chips for a pound? My GOODness. Next time, definitely” and she means it…maybe.
She’s smiling and nodding with her eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline because she is honestly thankful that this man has offered her food for a decent price and appreciates what a truly horrendous job he has.
He leaves and we find a seat outside a bar. I get to thinking how Laura is just like a puppy: she’s all soft and will hug and cuddle you constantly, chatting all the while with the biggest eyes and an only-a-little-bit-dirty chuckle. Sometimes you may even walk away with a shiny spot on your cheek (from lip glossy kisses, not tongue licks) and at no point do you ever feel like you’ve had enough of her.
I take the wine out of my bag (because we were chivvied out of the venue with our undrunk drinks) and our boys, along with the very same menu-toting befuddled man come to join us.
“Oh, hun” Laura sings “You’ve already asked us, but remember? I’m SO full” She wasn’t joking about her belt, which had popped undone although I’d sooner blame the catch than the tiny tummy “Is that the menu? can I see one?” she points to his fistful of folded print outs. She’s not at all interested in eating, but she’s interested in his food related venture. It is the menu, he lets her have one “Fab” she says “Let’s have a look here, OH the Happy Chippy?” She giggles with mirth (this is THE BEST name for a food place) and he corrects her, “Sorry, the Happy Chip” her manicured fingers give a clipped sweep to emphasise the single syllable “chip” and to demonstrate that she understands. the importance of getting the name correct.
“OhmaGOD a kebab for 99p? Are you Jay-Oh-king me?!” He’s not. “But. Ah” she leans back, eyebrows lowering for a second “Is that good meat though? See, for 99p…” She trails off “Maybe it’s like, TOO good a deal? “her head is cocked and she’s nodding her point “I think I’d rather pay just a LITtle bit more for GOOD food, do you want a cigarette, hun?” he does and she clambers out of our bench-seat to stand up and have a smoke with him. He also gets a hug, a promise that she’ll remember the Happy Chip and a big thank you for the offer of such outstanding service.
