Where is Michael Fish?.......

I think it would be fair to say, that I do indeed spend a more than healthy amount of time in a state of irritability. I don’t really want to, I would genuinely much rather be ‘Happy go lucky’ but there is something deep down in my core, that just finds something irritating about most things.
What is worse, is that I seem to have been even more tetchy than normal just recently. I don’t have any concrete evidence as to why this is, but maybe it has something to do with the onset of winter, the cold, the grey skies as far as the eye can see, what seems to be constant drizzle, and probably worst of all, the darkness.

Anyway, putting all that to one side, I thought I would just do a quick review of what has been occurring recently in this mad mad mad mad world.

I read today that scientists now tell us that the hole in the ozone layer is protecting the Antarctic from global warming. For God’s sake make your minds up chaps will you. In fact a message to the whole scientific community, until you have something that is actually interesting, relevant, meaningful and useful to say, please shut the fuck up. It wouldn’t be so bad if they stuck to their guns, but eating toast last week prolonged your life by a decade, this week it gives you cancer!

Scientists do get on my nerves actually. They can be so bloody arrogant. "If I haven’t seen it through my electron microscope, or if it hasn’t happened under laboratory conditions, it doesn’t exist." Brilliant, that is about as blinkered and narrow minded as any religious zealot.

The bloody mindedness of science, can be just as silly as any religious fundamentalism. The big bang theory thing always gets me. If you ask them what was"there" before the big bang, their reply is……."Er, nothing." Brilliant, that’s it is it? Just nothing eh?, years at Harvard for that.

I am of course being a bit silly, science has given us some truly wondrous products and discoveries, I think my bitterness towards them stems from their reluctance to invent a useable personal jet pack…….I want one.......really really want one.

Liverpudlians. I can’t bare them. Yes every one of them, yes I know that is a ridiculous sweeping statement, but arse to it, let’s sweep away. My God they have a high opinion of themselves don’t they? "Salt of the earth this", "salt of the earth that," a sense of humour second to none. Really? let me just say Stan Boardman and Tom O’Conner, I don’t think so.
That bloody accent, in my opinion the worst accent of the British Isles. A whiney, lilting, phlegm inducing noise. Thank God the vast majority of them can’t string more than a few words together. "You know what I meeeeeeean likcccccccccckkkkkkkkke." Arghh, please make it stop.

Horrible human beings stomp around the planet, culling defenceless baby seals, killing elephants for their ivory, to make into obscene trinkets for other disgraceful human beings to buy. Pointlessly slaughter whales, and wipe out entire species. What the fuck are we doing? Let all of those beautiful creatures live, and turn your hateful vengeance on to Liverpudlians! YES, lets cull scousers. Your average baseball cap wearing, smelly tracksuit donning, stolen mobile phone using, dangerous dog wielding, benefit scrounging feckless scouser is a much more deserving target for your blood lust.

Leave the gorillas alone, Let that tiger be. Instead turn your attention to the council estates of Liverpool! Animal welfare people should be sent in to collect all of the "Dangerous dogs" (They can all come and live with Miss Marple and me, we will see how "dangerous" they are, once they have been festooned with love, care and proper attention) and then teams of ‘Purifiers’ should March through scumsville, flamethrowring any pointless chavs they find. Flush them out of their stinking pits. Let’s see how much ‘Darren’ liccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkes it with an arse full of machine gun fire! Hitler wasn’t all bad ya know, he just got carried away!

While we are on the subject of animals, a week or so ago, what can only be described as a "fucking stupid cunt" scaled the twenty foot high wall of a bear enclosure at some zoo or other. He wanted to get up close and personal with the bear, to get some better photographs! Because he was a complete dolt, he had failed to realize that this bear, although in captivity, was to all intents and purposes a wild animal. The bear proceeded to maul him, until the authorities shot it. Why didn’t they shoot the moronic cretin instead?

Our plasmas are plastered with reality TV at the moment, it is that time of year. I still cry with frustration and despair on a daily basis, due to the fact that vast swathes of the "Great" British public are still under the illusion that the ‘X FACTOR’ is a singing competition.

‘I’m a non entity, get me out of here’ rots the fabric of society this time of year as well. Thankfully I can resist being sucked into this one, but one can’t help catching the odd snippet from newspapers and TV. I will never cease to be amazed at how spoilt and precious your average fucking celebrity is. Some woman (I have no idea who she is) Left the "Jungle" after a couple of days, due to exhaustion, depression, and mal nutrition or something. FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!..................Can a human being possibly get anymore pathetic than that? If they had genuinely been dropped into a real jungle, two hundred miles from civilization, and if they really had to catch their own food, fend for themselves etc, you could possibly understand it. But we all know it’s about as much a "real" jungle as my fucking potting shed. Just out of camera shot there are doctors, councilors, manicurists, agents, lawyers, life coaches, assistants, dietitians etc etc etc. If you can’t hack sitting round in a glorified greenhouse surrounded by all that little lot for a couple of weeks, then quite frankly you deserve to be left in the fucking jungle…….for real!

I think the thing (And I mean "Thing") that sums it all up, is Jordan, or Katie Price or whatever she is fucking called this week. The producers of the show, realizing that nobody knew who any of the ‘celebrities’ were, decided to make "it" an offer that "it" couldn’t refuse, in order to try and boost the all important ratings. So for the obscene figure of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, "It" swanned into the jungle to "save" the show.

After seven days of being voted by the public to do the ‘Bush tucker trials’ "It" announced that "it" would be leaving. "It" apparently said "I can’t understand why the public keep picking on me!" ……. No amount of slack jaws, raised eyebrows, or exclamation marks would ever be enough to cope with that quote. But with extreme grace, "it" agreed to knock off one hundred thousand pounds of "it’s" fee for quitting early. Bless.

There is a black bloke who sometimes does the weather on the BBC in the mornings, who is getting on my nerves. I am not a morning person, sometimes I am barely a person at all, but in the mornings I am usually bleary eyed, sometimes a bit hung over, but always grumpy. That bloody Carol Kirkwood is bad enough with her overly cheery "Morning" but this guy is curdling the milk on my sugar puffs. He bounces around in front of the map, and he has started doing those hand gestures, you know the one’s that hip hoppers do. Throwing his hand out towards the camera as he tells me "it’s gonna rain in da east today." All the while bouncing. His other hand reaches up and moves down across his body as he says "You guys in da West r gonna ‘av it fine." Still bouncing. "Up in Scoterlannnnnnnd you mudders gonna get one bitch load a snow…….mmm mmm."

Look BBC, if I wanted ‘Huggy Bear’ forecasting the weather, I would go to channel five ok. Because the BBC pride themselves on being "Right on" and "Down wi da kids" and all that, they are letting this guy have a free reign. What is he going to do next? I am fully expecting to be wearily munching on my burnt toast one morning soon, and ‘anchor man’ bloke will say "And now the weather."

A kicking hip hop groove will strike up, and ‘MC Wedder boy’ will slide into shot doing a bit of ‘beat boxing’. At the same time a couple of bootilicious soul sisters will funk their way onto the set. Standing one either side of him, they will thrust their leopard skinned booties towards the camera, as ‘MC’ starts to rap the weather!.......

Yo yo all yo mudders out there, is it gonna rain, or will it be fair.

I’m MC Wedder boy at yo service, wit da aid of ma bitches and young
Curtis (Cut to shot of kid spinning on his head)

Rainin’ in da east, snowing in da west, I’m da wedder boy dat you love da best.

(Soul sisters) – Heeeeeeeeeee’s da man, mmm what a man – (bit of booty shaking)

Scoterland wales and norten Ireland, will start off dull, but then will brighten.

All my homies in da home counties, yo rely on me, I put ma money where ma mout is.

Sunshine beaming like ma wedder boy bling, come on sisters let me hear you sing…….boooyakasha!

(Soul sisters) – Heeeeeeeeee’s da man, oh wat a wedder man –(Booty shaking and pouting)

If the BBC has now entered a period of "Non Traditional Weather forecasting" lets have some more examples shall we? Let’s have Mustafa the Muslim Fundamentalist forecaster……

Many London residents will wake to find a plague of locusts descending upon the capital city today – HOME OF THE INFADELS! - God’s divine wind will sweep in from the east, and cleanse the land of the impurities of the west. Looking forward to the long term forecast, I predict rain for forty days and for forty nights, followed by an upsurge of hot air from the Middle East. Goodnight.

Perhaps a Rastafarian weather forecast.

Anchor man – So Winston, what does the weather have in store for us today?

Winston – long pause…….cool man.

Perhaps our weather forecasters aren’t gay enough. Perhaps we should have Justin doing the weather. I would like to see him mince on to the weather girls "It’s raining men."

"Ooh ‘ello. Ooh my lovelies it’s going to be wet today. Plenty of showers, but not golden one’s we ‘ope, eh? (cackles) ooh take no notice of me. If I am to believe what my fellow forecaster Julian tells me, I’ll need to prepare myself for a severe stiff one from the south tonight…….eh! Oh and don’t talk to me about the snow up north, I could be up to my eyeballs in soggy white stuff before I know it, nothing new there love, eh! Oooooh. Well that’s all from me, ill catch you later, I can feel a breeze around the Urals.

What was wrong with Michael Fish? He may not have got the weather forecast right, but there was a certain stiff upper lip about it all. Having said that, I notice that he has made a bit of a comeback on GMTV and even he is being a bit off hand, flippant, and down wid da kids! Where will it all end?.......

Mr Nobody.......

Do you know who I am Ladies and Gentlemen? I am the most unimportant man in the world, that’s who. Do you know why I am the least favoured man on the planet? …….well I will tell you.

I am Male, I am Caucasian, I have no children, I am not a homosexual, I have a full time job, I claim nothing from the state, I am not an ethnic minority, I am not disabled, I am not a criminal, I am not a drug addict,
(Sorry, I mean I am not addicted to any form of barbiturate, through no fault of my own. In fact it simply has to be someone else’s fault that I am hooked on a class A drug. Even though it was completely my decision to take the drug in the first place, I am blaming my parents for not cuddling me enough, my school for not recognising my ‘special needs’, the police for not being understanding enough, Jimmy Cartwright at school for calling me a name when I was five, that very much hurt my feelings, Grandad for taking me fishing, when I really didn’t want to go, and the whole world for generally being beastly. There, that’s much more politically correct isn’t it? We can’t go round upsetting the poor little drug addicts can we)
and last but no means least, I tend to play by the rules. That is why I am completely irrelevant.

I am often tempted to cut a leg off, Have a sex change, cover myself in gravy browning, adopt a child, join an Islamist sect, live in a caravan, quit my job and live on handouts, indulge in petty crime, and start lifting shirts, just to get some fucking attention!

You see, probably up until about fifty or so years ago, all of these people were persecuted, ridiculed and abused, and it was almost seen as the "norm" for it to be that way. Of course that is completely and utterly wrong, and thank goodness that, in general, this country has become a much more liberally minded and tolerant place. But you see where it all falls down (As usual) is that us bloody human beings just can’t leave things alone. We couldn’t just change things so that the persecution of these people became unlawful and morally irreprehensible, we had to keep going and keep going, until they were put on a pedestal. They were now the special ones, and everybody that tried their best to put them there, became lower class citizens! After all, "We are all equal, but some are more equal than others."

So the inevitable outcome of this, is that I am completely invisible! I am not "special" you see. I am not in a minority. I am Mr. Nobody.

There are millions of me about though, yes literally millions of me. Getting up at the crack of dawn, going to work, paying taxes, paying bills, going through the rigmarole and expense of acquiring all of the relevant legal documentation to enable me to drive a vehicle on the public highway. Claiming nothing, and not being eligible to claim anything from the state, being criminalized for petty trivial misdemeanors, (Feeding the ducks…….no really!) and generally slogging my guts out.
Oh what a fool am I. What I really should be doing, is…….

Changing my name to Mohamed/Polovski/O’reilly, becoming a woman and having three kids, not bothering with any of that silly vehicle documentation stuff, it doesn’t matter if I get caught, the fine for having no tax, insurance or MOT is less than it costs to obtain it all in the first place anyway, and I shouldn’t bother with a license either, if I haven’t got one, they can’t take it away can they, tee hee. I should be slipping over on a recently mopped floor. The benefits of this are amazing apparently, compo, and state benefits for the rest of my life, ‘cause I will have a pretend bad back. While I am at it, I should buy/steal some sort of mobile home, plonk it where I like, build what I like around it……. planning permission, rules, what’s that?....... Don’t you pick on me with your tyrannical rules and stuff, I will be an ethnic minority you know, that’s persecution that is. I should develop a drug habit, steal from Mr. Nobody to fund it, blame it on my childhood, my parents, my teachers……. the boogie! Whatever, get Mr. Nobody to pay for my "Rehabilitation" in the Maldives, Come back, develop a drug habit……. Meanwhile, allow my feral feckless brats to run amok terrorising the local community, blame it on the boogie! Get Mr. Nobody to pay for councilling and cuddling sessions for them, pick up a load of leaflets from Chief Constable Hopeless about parenting skills, (They are excellent for making roaches for spliffs) Get Mr. Nobody to buy me a nice new shiny 42" plasma (a bit like the one I stole off him a few weeks back) sit on my ever expanding arse, and play on-line fucking bingo all day!.......I can’t wait. (Deep breath)…….

The liberals have taken over, and completely fucked up the asylum Ladies and Gentlemen. We now live in a country where the Government, the police, teachers, and all the Mr. Nobody’s are scared shitless of upsetting anyone whose name isn’t Smith/Jones/Mule etc. We have made all of the above people so "Special" they have started to believe the hype. They must wake up in the morning, look in their state funded mirrors, and say to themselves, "Hello gorgeous, you really are special."

We don’t live in that equality driven society that we all dreamed of, we exist in a world where the "Special ones" are the ruling class. Why is there the NBPA? (National black police officers association). Why do we have the MOBO’s? (Music of black origin awards). I know I sound like the bastard love child of Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail, and BNP leader Nick Griffin, but there is a serious point here, if the equivalent "White" versions of these were set up, arrests would be being made as we speak.

It’s not just black and ethnic areas where blatant favoritism is shown, (I’m really going to get it in the neck now!) but women have much more "Equality" than me. Women’s rights this, and women’s rights that, Women against this, women against that. Feminism, womenism, vaginaism.

Lets just be done with shall we, and massacre all men. They can have a few kept in cages for reproductory requirements, although the levels of man hating and man bashing are so astronomical now, that all women will probably be lesbians in a couple of hundred years anyway, so the caged men will just be sperm donors. Will they kill all male infants at birth, just keeping the healthier specimens back as "Donors?" Dear God, sends a shiver down the spine. (Is it safe to stick my head above the parapet yet?.......)

Our new found "Equality" has even wriggled its way into sexuality. Now look, I absolutely, honestly, really couldn’t give a shit (Please forgive that very much unintended pun) where any man lodges his willy, but do gay men have to push it in my face (Pun very much intended, couldn’t resist it) Gay pride for example, it’s not that I have anything against Gay pride as an organization, but if I was to set up ‘Straight and proud’ and go on marches proclaiming "Its great to be straight!" I would be accused of being homophobic, and Chief Constable Hopeless would be round mine handing out leaflets on ‘Sexual diversity and you’ quicker than you could say "Are you free Mr. Humphries."

We have gone too far with it all, I don’t mind how far it goes really, but why can’t us Mr. Nobodys come along for the ride too? Why do we have to be left behind?

As I have been tapping this out, something has slowly been dawning on me. For centuries, "White" man has been stomping around the globe, pushing people about. Nicking land off them, tyrannizing, enslaving, and generally lording it up at other people’s expense. For as long as we can remember, men have looked down on "The little woman," seen anyone with a skin darker than their own as second class citizens. Persecuted Homosexuals, and turned disabled people into freak show exhibits.
Perhaps we are finally getting our come uppance. Perhaps we are finally getting what we deserve. Am I paying for the activities and attitudes of my fore fathers? Could be, Mother nature seems to have a way of redressing the balance one way or another.
But hey, Mother nature, can’t you slow down with the change a bit, maybe even swing it back in my favour a little…….no? Karma i suppose.

As an end to this rant…….er I mean lecture, I would just like to share with you an example of Karma that I witnessed the other day. It seems that it is not only Ethnic minorities, feckless chavs, women and homosexuals that see me as Mr. Nobody. Drivers of big cars seem to see me that way too. For years I have been slowly coming to the boil about drivers of such cars as BMW’s and such the like. Their arrogance, selfishness, their complete lack of willingness to concede that other road users have as much right to be on the roads as them. To the story…….

Part of my journey to work, involves traveling along a straight piece of road, that has another road joining it at a very acute angle. The road joining "mine", is a junction, and the users of it are expected to give way. Having used it myself, I will concede that it is bloody awkward to see if anything is coming. The wing mirror just doesn’t cut it, and a severe craning of the neck is required to spot somebody coming. Of course a good hefty glance over to the right when one is half way down the road can help immensely as one approaches the junction, but this is obviously far too taxing for most people.

One car out of a hundred can be forgiven for genuinely not seeing me coming, but the other ninety-nine are just arrogant bastards. These are people that also see me as Mr. Nobody. They are far more important than I am, Their time is far more precious. The place they have to be is far more crucial than mine, and their business far more pressing. I have honestly lost count of the number of times that I have had to slam the brakes on, as they gaily bowl out of the junction, with not a second thought for my existence.

Just the other morning I was traveling along said bit of road. Foot twitching, ready to jump to the brake pedal, I saw one of the most beautiful pieces of karma I will probably ever see. BMW boy was approaching the junction behind a council truck, and I have to give him is due, (to a small extent); I did see him glance over his shoulder. Never the less, even though he saw me coming (I know he did, we made eye contact) he decided to arrogantly press ahead anyway, after all bollocks to me, I am Mr. nobody. Unfortunately for him (Fortunately for the rest of mankind) the guys in the council truck weren’t arrogant bastards, and they had courteously and rightfully stopped. As I drove past and glanced left, I almost became erect as I witnessed a very crumpled bonnet, and a beautiful plume of steam rising gently to the heavens. The added bonus is, is that the hefty truck he ran into had not a scratch on it! I wish I had had the courage to stop, and dance around his steaming pile of dented arrogant metal, like a Morris man around a Maypole! It’s funny where little instances of Karma can arise…….isn’t it!

You know that there is an old Chinese proverb that says……."If a man sits on…….Sigh, hang on, sorry....... if a man/woman/hermaphrodite/individual caught in the thorny dilemma of undecided gender alignment, sits on a…….HANG ON HANG ON!!! Bollocks to it. Political correctness can really fuck up a proverb can’t it!

.......If a man sits on the river bank long enough, he will eventually see the bodies of his enemies float by.

Old father time.......

I’m sorry, I can’t seem to help myself, I’m not proud of it, and I probably should be ashamed, but there is no denying it…….Old people get on my fucking tits!
Sigh…….Don’t get me wrong, deep down I do have the utmost respect for them. The unbelievable hardships they endured during two world wars, are completely beyond my comprehension, and should never be forgotten. My life today compared to theirs, can only be described as a Utopian paradise, but, let’s be honest, they are bloody annoying aren’t they?

Why don’t they listen? And no it’s not just because they are possibly hard of hearing, it’s because they are so busy jabbering on, that they don’t bother to listen. You know how it is, we have all been there. You ask them a question, and before you have finished asking it, they are already saying "eh?" so you start asking it again, at which point they butt in and start answering you. Proving that they did hear you the first time, they have just got into the habit of thinking that they haven’t heard you.

At what point during our descent into old age, do we forget how to drive a car? If by some miracle, or a rapid advance in medical science I reach, let’s say eighty, will I have totally forgotten what the pedals and big wheelie thing In front of me are for? When we get older, does our perception of speed increase? It must do, I suppose this would explain why little old men in hats seem to be under the impression that going over thirty-five mph will cause them to black out or spontaneously combust.

The number of times I have been driving along, and to my astonishment, have seen what appears to be nothing more than a Trilby driving a 1979 Morris Mariner towards me! Is that really safe? Should that really be allowed? Surely if you are looking through the steering wheel and not over it, a disaster is only just around the corner. But they don’t crash do they, no everyone else is doing that around them. There they are dribbling along, while in their wake is an ever growing line of steaming, disfigured metal, as people have taken drastic action to avoid their decrepit incompetence.

What age will I be, when I decide that it’s ok to just stop without giving any kind of warning or notice? I was watching some old biddy the other day. Wandering along at seventeen mph, and without any concept at all that there might be other poor bastards on the public highway, just stopped! The poor sod behind her stood on the brake pedal with both feet, smoke billowing from his newly flat spotted tyres. Still she appeared to have no idea at all that she had nearly been rear ended.

After the bloke had sat there for a couple of minutes picking his teeth out of the leatherette finish of his dashboard, flashing his lights, bibbing the horn, waving, shouting, etc. he attempted to drive around her, at which point she decided, without making use of the mirrors, to slowly pull away. If I had had a fucking bazooka to hand, she would have been toast!

At what point do we decide that we are no longer going to try and use modern technology? My God I get fed up with old cronies whittling on about how they can’t use "Those new fangled" things like a computer or a mobile phone. At what point does our brain seem to stop being able to process the information needed to operate what is essentially simple pieces of equipment. To be honest, I have got to be careful here. I hope Miss Marple isn’t reading this, or she will be crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows. The number of times she has witnessed me dribbling and stumbling about whilst trying to use one of those "Do it yourself checkouts" at the Co-op.

I always feel sorry for the poor girl who has to come to the rescue of poor souls like me, when we have made the red light flash for the umpteenth time. It is quite embarrassing when I’m told that I have scanned the same tin of beans seventy-four times! Or I have collapsed in to a quivering wreck, because the machine has asked me to input the code for fresh produce or whatever.

Don’t remind me of that bloody thing in the bank either, you know, where you can deposit money into a machine instead of giving it to someone at the counter. That is like a white knuckle ride for me, who needs Alton towers!

You see, age is a very peculiar thing to me. I have great trouble getting my head around it. When I was a child of say eight, my grandfathers would have probably been in their fifties. Not old at all, especially by today’s standards, but at the age of eight, they were ancient. They looked old, they seemed old, to my little mind, they were old. Now, my Father is approaching sixty-five, and apart from being maybe a little rounder, and a little more grey, he doesn’t seem any older or different to me, than say twenty or thirty years ago. It seems that if you get older with someone, you don’t seem to notice their ageing, but if you have only known someone as being "old" you just seem to see them as……. well,"old." That probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I hope you catch my drift.

For example, I have only known Miss Marple’s Grandmothers as elderly ladies. I can in no way imagine them as young, virile, bouncy girls. With pert bosoms, lily white taught skin and a spring in their step. I know they were, but the brain seems to refuse to comprehend it.

It’s very much like I see myself I suppose. There is no way in the bloody world that I see myself as forty-two. It’s impossible, I can’t be. How did that happen? Ok, when I get out of bed these days the first few steps are like walking on a bed of nails because of the pins and needles, and my knee keeps giving way. There is the bad back, dodgy hearing, aching teeth, constantly painful elbow, balding head and creaking limbs, but mentally I don’t feel any different to when I was twenty-five. I think our brains stop getting older by the age of about twenty-five, but the bloody body keeps going. Having said that, there does seem to be some kind of cut off point. It’s like our brains stay twenty-five up until about the age of seventy-two, then the switch flicks over to "Old git mode." You suddenly can’t drive, use a mobile phone, hear people, stop talking about how things were better in "Your day" listen to what people are telling you, and on and on and on.

I’m not looking forward to the day that I think it is essential to wear a belt and braces. Do you get a letter from some governmental department, or the Queen, telling you that today is the day to start wearing your waistband under you armpits. Is smelling musty a gradual process or, does it happen over night? What age do you have to be, before you no longer worry about looking a complete twat on the dance floor?

Again I have to be careful here. Do you know, it’s been weeks since I wore a pair of jeans! Choosing instead to wear some nice comfy slacks! …….shit. (Think I will go out and buy myself a leather jacket and some ripped jeans…….maybe even a bandanna).

I have often seen an elderly couple, and wondered how they see each other. Do they both still see those young, frisky, energetic, slim, taught skinned kids that they used to be? Or do they see old people? I have been with the lovely Miss Marple for thirteen years now, but I don’t see her as being any older. I suppose I have the advantage that she was very young when we met (Wonder if I am off the register yet? Could do with my computer back as well) and so she hasn’t actually changed much at all. How will I see her when she is seventy? How she will see me doesn’t bare thinking about! She probably won’t be able to see much of me anyway, behind all those tubes and oxygen cylinders etc. Wonder if she will be able cope? Being married to Davros!

How does an old person see themselves? Does our elderly neighbour, who, without wishing to be unpleasant, has a face like a road map of inner London, see himself like he used to be, or as an old man?
I seem to have softened my stance somewhat. Perhaps it’s because I know that I am racing ever faster to the land of 'elderly'.

When I am prime minister, I will make it compulsory to have some kind of assessment at the age of seventy-two. On your seventy second birthday, a black van will arrive at your house in the early hours of the morning (Don’t worry, you will be up, old people always are!) and you will be whisked off to a secret government facility, where you will go through a vigorous assessment procedure. For a week you will be tested to see if you can drive, operate contemporary equipment, cope without multiple trouser fastenings, listen, Urinate and defecate un-aided. Not whitter on and on, eat quietly, drink without the aid of a straw and generally function without slowing people up, getting in the way, and being a bloody nuisance!
If they fail the test, It will be a bit like ‘Logan’s run’ They will be told they are off to some kind of sanctuary, in reality, through the door, twenty foot drop straight in to the furnace!

Footnote.

I feel a bit bad now. You see, i wrote this round about the time of Remembrance day. Seeing all those old soldiers etc has reminded me of the incredible sacrifices people of that generation made. Don't be too hard on me, it's all (mostly!) just a bit of fun.......They can be fucking irritating though can't they?

If i only had the nerve.......

Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you wish you had the courage to say a certain thing, or act in a certain way? I do, and I can’t be the only one.

I, like most people, have and still do suffer from bouts of cowardice. Cowardice can take many forms of course, right from refusing to go "Over the top" in the trenches in the first world war (Understandable) right down to deciding not to complain about the toe nail in your carbonara.

I suppose the odd craven moment is understandable really, it’s probably a deep seated psychological response to try and save oneself from a moment of peril, but seeing as most of us in the western world are no longer under threat from marauding sabre toothed tigers in our daily lives, our cowardly bones seem to find other outlets.

We have all been there, ruing the fact that we didn’t complain to that snooty waiter in the restaurant, or wishing we had stood up for ourselves to our boss’ Tyrannical demands. So I thought I would share with you some of the things that I dream of doing, if like the cowardly lion in ‘The Wizard of Oz’…….I only had the nerve.

As I have got older, I have found myself more often than not shying away from social situations. I really don’t like them to be honest, I know it’s a bit of a flaw in my character, but it’s just the way I am. Probably the worst kind of social situation that I would have to endure, would be the awful dinner party. A buffet is not so bad because you are mobile, and it is easier to avoid certain people, but at a dinner party you are metaphorically chained and padlocked to your chair. This means that you are also stuck with whoever you are sitting next to. On the few and distant occasions I have been at a dinner party, this usually meant being Siamese twinned with ‘Justin’ who works in HR, and boy does he wanna tell you about it. Or I’ll be manacled to ‘Wayne’ who has been everywhere, done everything, seen everything and shagged everyone.

In these situations, what do I do? I sit there and suck it all up of course. In my fantasy I would have tourettes syndrome. Wouldn’t that be great eh? Pretending to have tourettes at a social gathering. I’ve got a semi lob on just thinking about it! So instead of listening to Wayne tell me all about his fantastic life, it would be more like this…….Cue wibbly wobblyness…….

Wayne – Hi, I’m Wayne.

Me - Andy.

Wayne – So, who are you here with?

Me – My wife, she is sitting over there, the lady in the purple dress.

Wayne – Oh yeah, hey, I think my fiancée has got the same dress, but her’s is a size ten, your wife’s must be a…….fourteen, right?

Me – Wanker (Twitch)

Wayne – Sorry?

Me – Forgive me, I suffer from tourettes syndrome, I can’t help myself.

Wayne – Oh right, I have never met anyone with tourettes before, how long have you had it?

Me – Your Mother sucks cocks at the back of the bingo hall on Saturday nights (Flinch)…….about fifteen years.

Wayne – Right…….it must be difficult to deal with sometimes?

Me – Yeah it’s not easy, people don’t seem to understand, you know.

Wayne – Well I do mate, don’t worry about it. So what do you do for a living?

Me – Oh I have just got a menial job really, it’s nothing special.

Wayne – I am in banking, I’m a hedge fund banker actually.

Me – Mother fucking cunt…….really, that must be interesting.

Wayne – Yeah it’s cool man, picked up my new Porsche yesterday, you know it does 176 mph, flat out.

Me – Tosser bitch cock face shit head, wow that’s amazing (Twitch, flinch, wink)

Wayne – Got a six figure bonus as well, but don’t tell anybody eh? (Laughs)

Me – Your Father is an arse fucking homo…….nice holiday for you this year then?

Wayne – Yeah, me and Debbie, did I tell you she is a model? Thought we would spend a month in Mauritius.

Me – Ooh that will be lovely…….she’s a slut, she’s a slut…….(Nod wink twitch) we are having a week off to decorate my wife’s disabled Grandmother’s flat.

Wayne – Oh you should really try and get away man, even on a limited income. A break is good for you.

Me – (Big twitch, wink wink)……. I have fucked your sister, bitch (Twitch) Thanks for the advice, I will bear it in mind.

Wayne – Well I’d better go and touch base with the little lady, she misses me ya know.

Me – Of course…….(Twitch and head butt him, wink flinch)…….sorry about that.

Wayne – (Holding nose) er…….no prob mate.

Me – It was an accident…….Your cock is tiny, bollocks mother fucker, your sister liked it up the arse, and so did your dad. Shithead, shithead, wanker wanking gayboy…….Take care.

Oh I am salivating just thinking about it!

How many times have you been in a confrontational situation? Car related strife is a very common thing. We have all had the shouting at each other, whilst doing ninety on the M6 thing, but what about those stationary car related disputes. Say something like a crowded car park on Christmas Eve. There is one space left, and you and Wayne have both gone for it. There is normally a te ta te, a bit of name calling, maybe shouting etc, but in my dreams, it would be more like this.

I would love to have a pre-prepared cassette (Yes I know that is very 1983, but I still haven’t got a cd player in the car!) with a backing track of Harry Connick Junior’s version of ‘It had to be you’ on it. I would leave a blank silent bit at the beginning, about the right sort of amount for a small car park dispute. As I realised that a row was about to start, I would press play. We would both get out of our cars, and take part in the arguing etc etc.

I would know the exact length of the silent part of the track, and a few seconds before the song was about to start, I would suddenly say…….
"Hey, lets not quarrel, this is silly. There really is no need for any of this. May I just say, that you are very attractive."
Wayne would obviously be taken aback at this rapid change of tone.
"Yes, and when your angry, your dimples are really quite cute……."
At this precise pre-planned moment, the track would burst forth from no where, and I would shimmy up to him, take his hand, gaze into his eyes, and sing…….
"It had to be you, it had to be you. I wandered around, and finally found the somebody who……."
By which time, I would imagine the parking slot would be all mine!

I have often wished I had had the courage to make up a job, when somebody asked me the number one question on the list of social event tedious conversation topics list. "So, what do you do for a living?"

Oh God I wish I had got the courage to say "I am a spy."
How would they react? Most people would be too polite to say "Oh fuck off, come on pull the other one." I would carry on with…….
"Yes, only last night I was meeting a man on a bridge in St Petersburg. He had a package for me. I can’t say what was in it, operational reasons you understand, but lets just say the whole thing was a bit hairy old boy. I knew he would have snipers posted at strategic points, but luckily I had my invisibility cloak to hand. Once I had given them the slip, I had a meet in a bar with our Russian connection Miss Tossmeov. Yes yes, I can see by the glint in your eye that you can tell that I slept with her. It’s the best way to get the information you see. Shame I had to garrote her with my dental floss/ garrote wire afterwards, but you can safely say she died a happy woman, know what I mean old chap."

Just once, I would like to phone one of the ladies that reside on the planet ‘Sky 900 channels’ For those of you with lives, that aren’t familiar with this zone, it is the place where pretty ladies (Well mostly, I have witnessed the odd moose, but hey, everyone has got to make a living) sit on beds in drafty studios, and pretend to have sex with you.

Yes you can phone up for the princely sum of £1.50 a minute and wank yourself stupid, while the lady on the screen gyrates provocatively, and pretends that you are the best lover she has ever had. Or if you are shy, you can listen to other blokes wanking, while she tells them that they are the best lover she has ever had. I tend to find myself wandering to these channels during the advert breaks.

Yes while in the intermission of an episode of ‘Mock the week’ that I have seen eleven times already on ‘Dave’ I will find myself flicking (That is not a euphemism) through the ‘Naughty channels’. I find these channels fascinating. Not just because they are full of scantily clad, and on the whole, attractive young ladies gyrating provocatively, but because Human behaviour fascinates me (And infuriates in equal measures). I have often gazed into the eyes of these young ladies, and the look that confronts you is not dissimilar to the one on the face of a lion in a cage at a zoo.......sad.

It’s genius really if you think about it though (Well apart from the exploitation i suppose). Some bloke (and it will be a bloke) has thought to himself, there is a lot of lonely sexually frustrated blokes out there, I know, I will rent a studio, fill it with some girls, and all these blokes can phone up and have phone sex with them. The difference being, that unlike ordinary phone sex lines, they can actually see the lady they are pretending to copulate with. Unfortunately the experience is sullied somewhat, by the fact that what you hear down the phone, doesn’t match up with what you see her saying on the screen, because for technical reasons, there is a delay…….apparently, cough.

A few months later he is no doubt a bloody millionaire! Anyway, I would love to phone them, and try and engage her in a conversation about the Hadron collider. It would probably go something like this…….

Tiffany – Hello sexy.

Me – Good evening.

Tiffany – So, you feelin’ horny sugar?

Me – Er, well not overly at the moment thanks.

Tiffany – Well I am sure we can change that, do you like my tits? Look I’ll sgueeze them for you…….mmm look how hard my nipples are.

Me – Yes, very pert, tell me, have you any opinion on the outcome of the experiments using the hadron collider?

Tiffany – Eh?.......now listen, we don’t do any of that kinky shit here love, you want channel 969 for that.

Me – Scribbles 969 on the back of an empty crisp packet. - No, the hadron collider, it’s a particle accelerator. They have built it under Geneva.

Tiffany – I don’t know anyfing about that, do you like my shoes? Sexy aren’t they?

Me – There are some people that think that a black hole could be created, that will swallow our planet, and the whole universe that we exist in. Rendering us all just a thing of the past.

Tiffany – Are you gonna come or what? There is a queue you know.

Me – And if we are all gone, it could be argued that we never existed in the first place, as there would be nobody left to confirm our prior existence!

Tiffany – What if I bend over for you, is that getting your motor running?

Me – And if we never existed, how could we have built the Hadron collider, that created the black hole that swallowed the universe, that we existed in where we built the Hadron collider!.......it’s certainly a paradox.

Tiffany – Looking off camera - Dave, we have got a right one ‘ere.

Dave – Have you told him about channel 969…….

I suppose if there is one thing in life that should be learnt at an early age, it's have the courage to do the things that you you want to do, if you at all can. Ok from time to time you are going to make a tit of yourself, so what, don't be like me little one's, don't live in your head, live in the world, run, explore, experience. Don't spend your time trying to relive memories, make new memories.

shall i phone Tiffany tonight and try and engage her in a conversation about the Hadron Collider.......Nah, maybe tomorrow.......

Yaka te yak.......

In the near future, I have got to go to a wedding. This involves just about everything that I find disturbing in life. Getting dressed in clothes that are a tad too small for me, and make me feel as though I am in a straight jacket, prolonged periods of time just standing around while endless photographs are taken by an overly pedantic photographer, who spends ridiculous amounts of time trying to get the bride’s flowers in exactly the right position, some form of horrifically awkward dancing, and the worst of all…….having to talk to people! This brings me nicely onto the subject of today’s lecture, communication.

Human beings seem to be the only members of the animal kingdom that have a bizarre need to communicate on a twenty-four hour basis. I have no idea why this is. Perhaps it’s because we are the only ones that have developed intricate languages, and we are basically showing off! Although I doubt there are any cats anywhere going, "Ooh look at those wordy bastards, constantly showing off with their intricate languages and stuff." And of course they are not doing that, because they haven’t got the language to do so! I am tying myself up in knots a bit here, but I am sure you catch my drift.

I am by no means an expert on animals, but from the various documentaries etc I have watched, I have never seen a pride of lions just roaring at each other for no apparent reason. Animals seem to communicate when it is necessary, which makes sense to me. It seems that they just do the basics. Hello, fuck off, fancy a shag, and although we as humans lead more complex lives than your average lion, we could take a leaf out of their book, and cut down on the bloody jibber jabber!

I don’t know what people find to talk about 24/7? You see people wandering down the street with a mobile phone seemingly welded to their ear. Blah blah tittle tattle blah blah, what the bloody hell are they talking about? I predict that in time, we will naturally evolve to being born with a blue tooth ear piece already installed. I am going to stick my neck out here, and say that I reckon that the vast majority of words spoken every day are completely needless (Those in glass houses!). There must be billions if not trillions of words uttered everyday, and I think that a good ninety-five percent of them could be left unsaid.

But we can’t do it can we? We can’t bare silence. There must never be silence on the radio, or dead air as they call it, people are reprimanded for not filling every nano second with some sort of noise. If there is a guest on a chat show, who when asked a question actually takes a few seconds to consider and compose a coherent answer, doesn’t jump in immediately with a reply, the audience starts to squirm in their seats. The interviewer’s face drains of blood, and the director has a coronary. I remember seeing Terry Wogan interview Anne Bancroft. She basically gave one word answers to his questions, and it was absolutely excruciating. Technically she was answering the questions correctly, but we don’t want that do we, we want people to elongate an answer, embellish it, exaggerate it.

Don’t get me wrong, I think language and communication are marvelous things, and listening to somebody speak who can do it well is very entertaining. It’s just that the vast majority of us are not overly good at communicating, so our answers to people’s questions end up as loooooooooong boring drivel!

There seems to be little in our lives that is more excruciatingly embarrassing than an awkward silence. We would seemingly rather have the air filled with banal blah blah, than say nothing at all. This is partly why the wedding will be a slightly traumatic experience for me. Being in a room with lots of people you don’t know doesn’t fill me with joy.

I really don’t like the first time you meet someone. That awkward thing about not knowing what to say. You’re all guarded because you don’t know them, and you don’t know what you can say, and what you probably shouldn’t. How will they react if you say this, what if they take umbrage if you say that? It’s daft really; we should all just be ourselves and say, within reason, what we bloody well like, and be done with it. If somebody doesn’t like it, tough, you probably won’t have to see them again, but it doesn’t happen does it. No, we all stand around feeling awkward and blushing.

There are many pitfalls when it comes to communicating with our fellow humans. I once witnessed a friend of mine, who in the middle of an awkward silence, asked a rotund woman "When it was due?" only to be told that "She wasn’t pregnant!" that was pretty hellish I can tell you, and there really is no way back from that. The damage is well and truly done, with no hope of repair. All you can do is blush massively, and slide away from the danger zone as quickly as possible.

I hate that thing where you are talking to someone that you barely know, and someone he knows much better drifts up, and elbows his way in. From this moment on you are out in the cold. You are out on a limb; you are reduced to nodding here and there, in some pathetic attempt to still feel part of the conversation. Inevitably the time will come when all this nodding is futile, you have been sidelined. Now comes the next awkward bit, do I just slip away, and appear rude, or make some kind of embarrassing waving gesture to indicate my departure?

One of my pet hates on the communicating/social event front, is compulsory mingling. You know those people who are hosting a party, and simply can’t bare it if everybody hasn’t spoken to everybody. Miss Marple and I were at a function once, and the only people we new were the hosts.
We had secreted ourselves into a little corner, and were quite happy thank you very much. But the hostess of the party obviously wasn’t. One second I was merrily shooting the breeze with Miss Marple, and the next I was being dragged across the room by the elbow, by the hostess from hell. She plonked us in front of a rather bemused looking couple, and told me "To talk to them!" Thanks very much I thought. Hence another awkward situation arose. What do we do now? I am not overly fussed about chatting with these strangers, and by the looks on their faces, they weren’t that bothered either. The trouble is we can’t just be honest and say "Please don’t take this personally, you don’t smell or anything, but we were having quite a nice little conversation over there, and we would quite like to carry on with it. So we won’t hang around. Cheers." So we stayed and awkwardly stumbled through a conversation about wine tasting!

A very similar thing to this, is what I call ‘Wedding reception Nazi-ism’! In the past we have been to a few weddings with the old band lot. We all new each other really well, felt comfortable, new we could say or do anything, and generally had a bloody good laugh in each others company. So the wedding bit was done, we had all milled about for seven hours, while the rather pedantic photographer spent more time than was necessary getting the brides train to lay "Just so" and now it was time for the booze and nosh up. So in we trot to the reception, and we are confronted by what I can only describe as SS wedding herders! Those bastards that steer you to your allocated table.

"Can we just sit with those people please, we know them" I would ask. Only to be told, "You vil sit ver you are told, and you vil talk to zose people."
So the next God knows how many hours were spent talking awkwardly about the price of fish with the brides Aunt, and we would all occasionally glance over our shoulders, in the vain hope of catching the eye of one of our comrades.

Of course we don’t just communicate with words apparently. No, according to psychologists and body language experts, most of the communication between human beings is subliminal. A little gesture here, a ruffle of the hair there. Most of the subliminal communicating that goes on, is apparently during courtship rituals (Where else). Over the years, theses ‘experts’ have told us about the signs to look out for. You know the stuff, if the lady is leaning towards you, or playing with her hair. Dilated pupils, mimicking your actions etc etc. I wish I had known all this fucking stuff when I was a younger, timid, scared of my own shadow, little virgin! Would have come in very handy indeed. I never have been a ‘Lady killer’ so to speak, but knowing a few of the signs would have saved me a shit load on opticians bills, and dragged me from the pit of self loathing a lot sooner too!

Having said that, I was so shy and awkward, I think I would still have been in two minds, if the lady had been lying on the bed, legs akimbo, shouting "FUCK ME NOW!" I still would have been peering through the door saying to myself "Oooh, well I don’t know if she really likes me. Damn those women, and their infernal mixed signals!"
Are you beginning to understand why I don’t like social events etc!

I suppose if I am honest, it is easy to blame everybody else, or the event, but I suppose it is my own inadequacies that are to blame. Why do I find it so hard to relax and just jabber away like most people seem to be able to do? Though I suspect I am not alone here. The older you get, and ironically the more you talk to people! The more you come to realize that you are not the only sociaphobe on the planet. Thankfully the woman who’s wedding it is, is apparently of a similar opinion to me, so there will be a buffet, and not an SS wedding herder in sight!

Pencils and socks.......

Last night as I was swinging a 300bhp rally car round a hairpin. I was suddenly confronted by a blank screen, and flashing red lights and various beeping noises from my right hand side. After the shell shock had worn off, the realisation had dawned on me…….My beloved Playstation 3 was dead.

After doing the usual nonsense of unplugging and then re-plugging all the various wires in the back, I tried it again. This is very similar to when your car breaks down. What do we do? We lift the bonnet up, and start wiggling wires. There is a very small part of us, that actually believes that this random wire wiggling will solve the problem! We even have the blind faith to ask the passenger to "Try it now" but as with Playstation 3 wire wiggling, it is futile.

There then followed the usual shameful self pitying, being short tempered with Miss Marple for having the audacity to try and help, and general "Woe is me, God hates me, what do I expect, nothing ever goes right for me." Etc etc etc. Fast forward to this morning. Even though I am desperately trying to be a grown up these days, honest I am, I was still feeling a little sorry for myself.

I wandered through the woods with Ronnie and Reggie, wondering if it is possible to buy a bazooka off of ebay. I mused about how difficult it would be to track down the CEO of SONY, and make him pay for what he had done to me. We got home and I grumpily buttered my toast, which was neither the correct colour, temperature or texture.

As I was doing this, I looked up at the TV through my scowl, and I just caught the end of an item which showed some British troops in Afghanistan. They were at a school, and they were surrounded by little kids of primary school age. These kids had never been to school before this, they had never experienced the joy of reading a book, or writing a story, due to the evil bastards the Taliban. They had forbidden the education of these children, no doubt so that they could indoctrinate them with their twisted and perverse philosophies.

A soldier gave a little boy, who must have been about five, a pencil. The little boy took the pencil, he held it in his little fingers, and twirled it around. He looked at the pencil with wonderment, and then up to the soldier that had given it too him, as if he had just given him all the Playstation 3’s in the world. I felt about two inches tall…….

Miss Marple and I are huge fans of the comedy series ‘Frasier’. We are slowly buying every series on dvd, and spend many a happy hour laughing at the goings on. Many people have said to me that they don’t like Frasier, "’Cause it’s American and therefore rubbish." Frasier may be an American production, but it is far from your average slapstick American twaddle. (That’s not fair, there have been many brilliant American comedy shows…….it’s just that ‘Friends’ taints them all for me)

Frasier is actually very English really. Both the main protagonists, Niles and Frasier, are both extremely English. Pompous, stuffy, aloof, snobbish, condescending etc. and a lot of the situations they end up finding themselves in descend into farce. (The good kind!)

But as we are on the self reflection tack, there was one episode where the sentiment stuck in my mind. I can’t remember the exact details, but as usual something or other hadn’t gone Frasier’s way. he was pacing around in his palatial apartment pontificating about this that and the other, when his much more down to earth father piped up……."Why do you have to analyze everything to death? Why can’t you just be happy with what you’ve got? You see Eddy (His dog) you know what makes him happy?.......a sock."

Frasier dismisses his father’s advice, and at the end of the episode, is sitting in a chair complaining about everything, Eddy runs out and sits on the chair opposite…….with a sock in his mouth. Frasier looked about two inches tall too!

The point to all of this? I don’t know really. I don’t really believe in God, and I am not particularly a fatalist, but just lately every time I sink into one of my "Woe is me" episodes, something from nowhere seems to slap me in the face with a reality check. Every time I feel hard done by, almost without fail something will remind me of how metaphorically rich I am.

It’s been rather a strange few weeks lately actually. People from my past have been coming out of the woodwork in spades.

First a bloke from my first band twenty years ago hunted me down on Facebook, then the drummer from America. Another old band chum who I haven’t seen for about four years, after my maybe slightly acrimonious leaving the band episode suddenly turns up on the door step. I was flicking through the channels the other night, and did a double take. A woman I used to be in band with was on ‘Come dine with me’! Then on the same day, watching the local news, a singer I once knew is on the news!.......weird.

Or is it just one big fat coincidence, I don’t know, but it makes you think sometimes. Maybe that is the purpose. LOL, I don’t know. Oh, and to top of the weirdness, the other night while waiting outside for Ronnie and Reggie to do their late night wee’s, I looked up to see the stars, and there was a set of four lights moving in a peculiar pattern. Starting off as a ball, splitting into four separate lights, spinning through 180 degrees, reforming into a ball, and so on. I even dragged Miss Marple outside to confirm I wasn’t hallucinating.

The even weirder thing, is a few days later we were outside one evening, and I jokingly said "I wonder where my friends from the sky have gone?" and it started immediately!!! No really. Haven’t seen them since. Well on that weird note, I am going to end this rather weird blog! No doubt I’ll be back to my usual self soon. Calling peoples cunts and such the like, so If I haven’t been whisked off to the planet Zargon, I’ll be back soon.

It's all rock and roll to me.......

The other day whilst flicking around the channels on Sky plus, I came across the BBC 4 channel. It’s a bit of an arty farty channel I suppose, and at the time, they were showing some clips of the great Jimi Hendrix.

I think I have mentioned a few times before that I am a bit of a musician, and up to a few years ago, spent many many years from my late teens onwards playing in bands. Even though I very much fell out of love with the gigging thing, seeing that clip of Jimi working his magic, made me a little wistful and whimsical for a while, and got me thinking about the ‘old days’.

I on the whole enjoyed my time traveling around East Anglia, and sometimes further a field, but I would be lying if I said that towards the end of my ‘career’ I was still enjoying it. Friday and Saturday nights were becoming more and more of a grind. Getting home from work, lifting what seemed to be increasingly heavier pieces of equipment in to the back of the car, and driving to some pub. Trying to set all the gear up, untangling endless lengths of wire, that were rolled up neatly when they were put away after the last gig, and generally having to deal with ‘The public’

This is the part that probably put the final nail in the coffin for me…….’the public’. Trying to set the gear up in a space no bigger than a parking slot, while at the same time some complete twat insisted on playing darts over your head…….no really! You see, primarily, one needs to a ‘people person’ to play in bands, after all, you are aiming to entertain them. I was never really cut out for that if I am honest. I would have been far happier, if we had turned up, set up in peace, locked the doors, and just played for our own amusement, while sinking a few beers. Unfortunately that is not how the world of showbiz works, and so me and it fell out.

Having said all that, some very good times, and some very amusing times were had. I don’t know why it is, but musicians being their own kind of breed, seem to find humour in the unlikeliest of places, and it seems to find them too. So even though I never reached the dizzy heights of throwing TV’s out of hotel bedroom windows, or driving Rolls Royce’s into swimming pools, I thought I would like to share with you, a few of the, what I consider to be, funniest memories of those heady days.

I hope my memories translate ok onto paper (Or screen) and it doesn’t sink into the pit of "You had to be there" I will try my damnedest to recreate the atmospheres etc, and hope you enjoy them. Also, I didn’t know weather to start with the weakest story first and build to a crescendo, or start with a bang, before the rest fizzle out due to lack of interest! I decided upon the latter.
Perhaps a little back story, a brief description of the chaps in the band etc, just to help you along.

Jim – Lead guitar. Jim is about six foot five, bald, lanky, and of erratic Irish/Liverpudlian descent. Despite this, he sounded like he was from Eton…….weird. A pretty full on kind of character, enthusiastic, blinkered, driven etc. The strangest thing about Jim, was that he could play the guitar as good as, if not technically better than Jimi Henrix himself, seriously, I am bloody hard to please in any area of life, but there were times when he blew our minds. Amazing really, seeing as the man had absolutely no natural gift for music what so ever! Technically he didn’t know a minor seventh from a flattened ninth, but somehow, on a good day he was exhilarating. Playing it behind the head and everything! Despite his fiery rock guitar playing, he more often than not wore slacks and brogues to a gig! odd. He was nick named "The swinging accountant."

Dave – Drums and vocals. When I first joined the band in 1792, Dave was about fifty-two. Heavily built (A liking for vindaloos and red wine) bald, and very Northern. Not backwards in coming forwards. Popular, charismatic, centre of attention, but a very good bloke. Viscous sense of humour, took the piss out of Jim constantly. Not the greatest drummer or singer in the world, but a real enthusiast. Many a time we have been sitting in Jim’s front room watching a video of us at a gig, and Dave would say "Christ, do I really sound like that when I sing?" while I cried with laughter behind a cushion.

Me – Keyboards/Guitar (sometimes) Harmonica and vocals. (Big head!) I was a very shy innocent twenty-one year old when I joined the band. Being the way I am (A bit of a perfectionist) Nothing was ever good enough, nothing ever sounded right, "Why aren’t they listening?" etc etc. despite all of this griping, my heart was in the right place, I just wanted us to be great.

Now here we come to a bit of a problem. The bass player. The position of bass player in our band seemed to be a transient one. Very similar to the drummer in ‘Spinal Tap’ Theirs kept dying in bizarre gardening accidents etc, ours died or left……..Ah, Spinal Tap, the second funniest film in cinematic history. If you don’t know what the funniest is, I suggest you stop reading this, and go and watch bloody ‘Friends’ or something. ……Oh don’t get me started on ‘Friends’…….no seriously, don’t…….too late. It’s bollocks isn’t it? People I knew kept rattling on about it, so I forced myself to sit and watch an episode once. I managed five minutes. The studio audience were laughing, but I genuinely didn’t understand why, it simply wasn’t funny…….I mean, at all.

And no it’s not because it’s American, all of ‘Spinal Tap were Americans, playing English characters I grant you, but never the less, American. I love Frasier, that’s American, thinking about it though; the two main characters are quintessentially English. Pompous, stuffy, snobby, aloof, and the episodes quite often end in farce, a very English humour. Anyway, I have gone off track. Back to the bass players.

Steve was the first…….he died. Alcoholism didn’t help. I remember his funeral. We were standing at the grave side, and Dave uttered one of his immortal lines. Now, the name of the band was the ‘JSJ Blues band’ the JSJ being the letters of the first names of the original members of the band.

J (Jim)
S (Steve, the dead bass player)
J (Joe, went to America, bet he liked Friends!)

So there we are standing In the rain, grey skies, weeping family, and in a break in proceedings, Dave say’s in a quite audible northern voice……."I suppose we will have to call it the JJ blues band now will we?"

There was Eddie, Mick, Malcolm, and another Dave on bass over the years, and God knows how many stand ins. Anyway, so to the story…….It’s not going to be worth it now is it! Oh well, you can say, "I suppose you had to be there," at the end can’t you.

Don’t’ ask me how, it was a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, but we ended up playing at someone’s house party. The vast majority of the people there were young ladies, around about the age of late teens or early twenties. Bizarrely, seeing as they were relatively young, they seemed to like what we did, and their ‘leader’ tottered up to us, and asked us if we would play at her twenty first birthday party in a few weeks time. It was to be held at a rather well to do pub/restaurant in a local village. We readily agreed, and those few weeks later we turn up at the said venue.

We unloaded all the gear, and proceeded to set it up. It was quite a large room, we were setting up in front of the French windows, a health and safety no no these days I am sure! And the wood paneled walls were lined with paintings. Staff from the pub bustled around, laying the fine looking table. It looked as though it was going to be a very fine banquet indeed. The young lady who’s birthday it was, we will call her Julia, wandered up to us, and said that we didn’t need to start playing till after the meal, so would we like to have a drink at the bar, on the house. She was left coughing and spluttering in a cloud of dust, as we hot footed it to the bar. A pint in one hand, and a Lambert and Butler gold in the other, ah, that was heaven for me in those days. Now it’s a horlicks and an Ibuprofen.

The drink went down very nicely, and another round was bought. It just so happened, that this particular night I was staying at Jim’s house, so no driving for me! Jim, being a bit of a fidgeter, sidled up to Julia when she was at the bar, and asked if she was ready for us yet. She said "Oh no, we are only on the first course."

Another round, another fag, another round…….Then some friends of mine came in (I had friends in those days) And yet more drinking and frivolity ensued. The time by now must have been rolling around to about ten thirty. Jim once again sidled up to Julia, and asked if she was ready for us. "Oh no" said Julia, "We have got the speeches yet.

Once again the barman was busy. Anyway, about eleven thirtyish, Julia informed us that it was now time for the party to really start. I couldn’t tell you how many drinks I had had, but lets put it this way, we had been at the bar from seven-thirty till eleven thirty, and I hadn’t been swilling orange juice. We staggered into the room, I think I sort of bounced into the room, off of various items of furniture, and climbed behind our instruments. Now even though I was pretty smashed, I could still do it. It was like second nature somehow, sort of auto pilot.

Being a bit of a cynic, even in those days, I had been here enough times before, to know that rock bands don’t go down well at family parties. It happened time and time again, somebody would see you in a pub full of heaving sweaty bikers, all would be rockin’ and they would come up to you at the end of the gig, and say "You guysss are fucking Brillliant. Would you come and play at my wedding in a monthssss time?" I would be standing in the background shaking my head furiously, but Jim being Jim would agree anyway. It was always the same, playing ‘Roadhouse blues’ to aunt Maude was never going to work, and here we were again. Sigh.

We had done three or four songs, and each had been greeted with a less than polite smattering of applause. Some of the older folk even had tissue paper sticking out of there ears! I think even Julia was beginning to wonder if this had been one of her better ideas.

Even in my pickled and addled state, I could tell things weren’t going too well. "I know" I thought to myself, "Hit ‘em with sssssome jokessss. Yeah humour, that can’t go wrong can it?"
I was holding onto my keyboards for grim death, it stopped the swaying a little, a leaned forward. I said into the microphone "Wow, I couldn’t help but noticcce, that there are a lot of lovely looking young ladiessss here thissss evening."

Now just try and picture the scene, The whole room was in complete silence, every set of eyes were fixed upon the pissed idiot swaying around behind his keyboards. The oldies had even taken the serviettes out of their ears, to hear what piece of comedy gold was going to come out of this blokes mouth. Little children stopped skidding across the floor, aunt Maude stared in anticipation, grannies and granddads, friends and neighbours, Julia’s very well to do mummy and daddy, all the staff, and all the band behind me.

I could sense the anticipation, I could tell that this master of wit, this Goliath in the world of entertainment, had got them eating out of the palm of his hand. I thought I deserved to milk the situation somewhat, so I reiterated…….
"Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen, there are some absolutely gorgeousss young ladies here tonight……."
And then I hit them with it, my big punch line. I leaned a little closer to the mic, and said in my deepest voice…….
"I think I’ll have a wank later!"…….

I have never ever before been deafened by such silence. A few jaws slackened, a few eyebrows raised, I can’t be sure, but I think the father was being given the kiss of life at one point, but not one sound was made, that was until I heard Dave the drummer behind me just groan……."Oh God."

I have no memory of how the rest of the evening went. I think the brain has some clever way of wiping out horrific memories. I often wonder how Julia is now. I wonder if she left university with that degree in business studies, and went on to be something big in the city. Or did her parents disown her, and she was left to turn to crack, and a life of prostitution. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry Julia, really sorry!

Kuntz

The world is full of cunts.......a simple statement, a sweeping generalisation as usual, but on the whole, fairly true. I think i would like that on my grave stone actually. "Here lies Andy Mule. The world is full of cunts." I am one line in, and i have already stumbled awkwardly over my first hurdle. The word itself.......cunt.......apparently this is just about the worst swear word there is. No doubt some of you, who haven't already slammed their laptop lids shut, are wincing, and biting their bottom lips.

Personally, i think it is a great word. No, not just because i am a sour and ignorant oaf, but because there is no other swear word that you can so readily get your teeth into. (First of, i am sure many carry onesque puns to come). A good "Fuck" is worth it's weight in gold, as is a damn fine"Bastard," but there surely is nothing quite like a good "C...U...N...T" when some twit has done you wrong.

The word starts way back in the throat, that "Ch" sound, that builds to a venomous crescendo, as it hisses at supersonic speed through your clenched front teeth. I would go as far as to say, that it is in my top five words. My favourite being 'Flapdoodle' which means to talk complete bollocks, rather apt, as this is what the vast majority of my postings are!

Females in particular seem to have trouble accepting the word. I don't really understand why to be honest, if a woman came up to me and said "cock" i would find it quite invigorating, but no, most females having heard the word, will double up in pain, cross themselves, douse themselves in holy water etc.

I have to relent somewhat, and say that i have never quite understood why a word which depicts the female reproductive organs, is used to deride someone. After all, for most heterosexual men, a ladies front bottom is the 'Holy grail', the object of our desire, our ultimate goal, so why it has been chosen to basically say that someone is an idiot, is beyond me. While i am on the subject, there are a few other terms that i can't fathom. Wanker, why is that an insult? Whenever someone aims the insult "You wanker" at me, i never know quite how to react. I normally just shrug my shoulders and say "er.......yes" It's a ridiculous insult. Seeing that the vast majority of the men in the world, have, do, or will masturbate, it's a ludicrous thing to hurl at someone. It's a bit like someone cutting you up at a roundabout, and you shouting "You eater" at them, it's meaningless. Or "you walker" ???

I like the word not for what it depicts, but purely for it's sound, and the enthusiasm with which you can verbally fling it! But, for the more faint hearted among you, i will relent. From this point thus, i will spell it kuntz.

Phonetically it sounds the same, but as it doesn't actually say the "C" word, perhaps it will be slightly more palatable. Anyway, I have gone off subject somewhat. The idea of this blog was not to discuss swear words, but to give some examples of my 'Kuntz of the week'! so here goes.

First off, the moronic twat of a police officer, that left his or her German Sheppard's in the car on a blisteringly hot day. Subsequently, the poor things died. Miss Marple and myself are dog fanatics, and i think we could both quite happily, and gleefully strangle the twat involved. What's more, he/she was a DOG HANDLER, if anyone should know.......need i say more. So to you, whoever you are, i hope the public discover your address, and dish out the relevant punishment. It's a sure thing your colleagues or the courts wont, so lets hope people power can do the job. So to you, whoever you are.....YOU ARE A KUNT.

Jordan/Katie Price/Big tittied waste of oxygen, carries on indulging in copious amounts of kuntish behaviour with gay abandon. So to her.......YOU ARE A KUNT.

Sir Fred Goodwin. Here is another one that has, and will continue to evade justice. Is it illegal to buy sniper rifles off of ebay? I know this is an old story, but fuck does it still grate with me, so Freddie boy.......YOU ARE A KUNT.

T-Mobile. Thirty pounds a month each, Miss Marple and i pay. For this exorbitant amount of money, you are supposed to provide us with a mobile phone service. Quite simply, you don't! Yes we live in the country, but we are not talking some remote region of the outback here, we are within spitting distance of a city, and a large town, but can we get a signal where we are?.......no. I have had to erect, what can only be described as a crows nest in the back garden. Only when at the top of this, can we get the faintest of signals, which will invariably cut out mid sentence. So to you lot.......YOU ARE KUNTZ.

British Telecom. Very similar reasons really. Broadband, ha ha.......Do you know, there are parts of South Korea, where 100mbs is the standard phone line speed. We invented bloody telecommunications, and what have we got, a fucking Dickensian antiquated two cans and a bit of string phone system. I also find it wonderfully ironic, that the BT website is about the slowest i have ever been on. This from a company that deals primarily in the field of telecommunications!
So to you BT.......YOU ARE KUNTZ.

The presenters and members of the public that participate in those bloody programs like 'Location location location' or 'Escape to the country' or whatever. You know the ones', some snobby couple want to up sticks, and buy a residence in the Cotswold's or something. It's not the program, or the concept of the program, it's the bloody people themselves. For a start the presenters are usually annoying. "Ya" this, and "Ya" that. "Light and airy" here, and a "Great potential" there. But worse than them are the fucking punters. They are never fucking satisfied are they?

They have just been shown round a half million pound abode, with nothing but green fields and rolling hills to interrupt their serenity, but it's not good enough is it. The grass is the wrong colour, or one of the taps in the fifty thousand pound kitchen is a little hard to turn on. They are not sure that the seventy foot dining room is going to be big enough to house their seventy-two seater dining table. Because they have got so many friends, and do so much entertaining. Aaaarghhhhhh.......F U C K O F F!.......YOU ARE ALL KUNTZ.

Next up is the man in the blue Ford Focus, on the road between Wood Walton and Alconbury on the hill last Wednesday lunchtime. I was a little late setting off back to work last Wednesday. I was following this bloke along what is a moderately bendy bit of road, and he was doing, without exaggeration, twenty-five to thirty miles per hour. So, i waited for a suitable overtaking spot, and overtook him.

Can i just say at this point, i in no way indulged in any finger gestures, or shouting of any kind what so ever. I felt like it, but i didn't. So what does he do, proceeds to sit up my arse, flash lights, weave around behind me etc etc, you have all been there.

The next straight bit of road, he flies past, engine screaming, and shouts some inaudible nonsense through the window! WHY??????? He was the one dawdling along. I would imagine that he is phallically challenged or something. Perhaps he is in dire need of female company, or perhaps it was 'National don't over take a man that still lives with his domineering mother day' .......or something! So to you.......YOU ARE A KUNT.

This could of course go on all night, and i feel that there will no doubt be many sequels, but i am going to finish tonight with this one. Lastly, me. Yes, i am a kunt. There are probably many reasons why, but i will high light this one in particular. I killed Michael Jackson. Yes you read that right, it was all my fault.

I wasn't aware of this until i read an article by the Sun's columnist Jane Moore. Now Jayne Moore (Journalist/TV personality/Celebrity/grumpy old woman/MILF etc) is someone, who's column i like. I quite often have a chuckle at her humorous, and often poignant musings, but now she has accused me of having a hand in the death of 'The king of pop'! Her whole column last week, was dedicated to Michael Jackson. She was lamenting about how there were lots of people that helped, inadvertently or otherwise, to kill off, what was a talented, but greatly floored entertainer. It was every one's fault, from his managers, to his doctors. His aides, the hangers on, the wives, the blah blah blah.

Then it came to me. Yes apparently, i nailed one of the nails into his coffin, because i had an unquenchable thirst for juicy titbits about every facet of his life. This must have of course have been a contributing factor to his increased stress levels etc, that led him to swallow copious amounts of medication etc, which led to his early demise.

I wasn't aware that flicking through a newspaper, reading the first few lines of an article about some aspect of his life or other, equalled stalkerism, with selfish murderous intent! but apparently, according to Jane, it does. So if that is the case, i would like 378 other victims to be taken into consideration. I once read a bit about Elvis, oh my God, i killed Elvis. Kurt Cobain, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, dear God i killed them all! I read a little bit about Amy Winehouse the other day. Am i killing her as we speak? I seem to be turning into a celebrity serial killer!

Christ, i am off to hide in the cupboard under the stairs until the heat is off. You won't tell anyone where i am will you?.......

That was another week that was.......

I say I say I say. What do you call a bloke who doesn't know his arse from his elbow, has an over inflated ego, and has no need for the BT friends and family package?.......(Please fill in your own punch line/name/etc here. Thank you)

First rule of showbiz, open with a gag, close with a song. You have got the song to look forward to, ooh you lucky bastards.

So, what's been happening recently? What has caught my eye, tugged at my heart strings, or rattled my cage?

I very much liked the story about Irish people harassing Romanian immigrants in Belfast. An absolutely stunning example of double standards. Irish travellers (Or thieving, littering, anti social free loading scourge of the planet, as they are known everywhere else, except in the recycled, dolphin friendly, Ex Cambridge University, lentil eating pages of the Guardian) seem to have no problem at all landing themselves over here. Destroying everything in their wake, stealing from the local community, completely disregarding the law in every way possible, leaving our green and pleasant land looking like a shit hole, but when the shoe is on the other foot, they are up in arms arn't they!

My favourite bit of the whole sorry saga, was when Martin McGuiness, who is the minister for something or other, and who is an alleged ex member of the IRA (He was) and has been rumoured to have actually taken part in some of the murdering etc (He prob did) chirped up in defence of the Romanians. I was driving at the time and listening to Radio 4 (Fucking intellectual me guv) when i heard him say "These people are being terrorised."

I had to pull over as i was gasping for breath. A quite outstanding display of 'pot and kettle' The words "That's rich" couldn't find their way to my lips quick enough. A memorising display of irony.
I for one, will not stand for any disrespect aimed at James T Kirk's misunderstood nemesis.

Moving on.

The house of commons has got a new speaker.......whoopee do shit.

Jordan (or Katy Price as she now likes to be called, since she has stopped being a thick, self centered, balloon titted ego maniac) continues to be all of the above. It's just now she has gone solo, instead of being one half (wit) of a double act.

This hot weather is doing my head in. I have to admit to spending the entirety of the winter months moaning about the cold, the grey skies and the drizzle, and then once we hit June, i am a sweating, melting wreck. I just don't do heat.

I suppose being half a stone overweight doesn't help, but i find the most affected area is my gonads. As we all know from our science lessons, things in general swell when hot. This means that i have to adopt a mild bandiness in the severest of temperatures. I try my best to disguise my bandy gate, but i don't think i am fooling anyone.

I am thinking of investing in some kilts. I can't wait to feel the breeze caressing my testicles, oh to feel them swaying gently will be sheer bliss. It is also a great way of pursuing my new hobby of exposing myself to single mothers on public transport! "It's not my fault your honour, it was a gust of wind."

The subject of the wearing of jeans at work has reared up again. The wearing of jeans at work has been forbidden. Well about bloomin' time I say. I welcome this directive. I must admit in the past, i have had a certain amount of hostility to what i once thought was a draconian, and ill conceived notion, but thanks to Father time, and a management style that is second to none, i have seen the error of my ways.

How could i have been so short sighted? Quite frankly, i don't mind admitting that i feel deeply ashamed. Ashamed of my denim addiction, ashamed of my insolence, ashamed of my blatant and disgraceful disregard for those that know better than me.

I can see now, that i have spent years that cannot be regained, wearing the filth that is denim. I will go as far as to say, that this is tantamount to self abuse. Yes ladies and gentleman, i am going to get this off of my chest, no matter how ugly it may be, no matter how hard it is going to be for those close to me to accept. Here goes.......I have been abusing myself for years.

My God that feels better. That lung full of air that i just inhaled is the sweetest lung full of oxygen that i have experienced for years. I feel clean, sanitised, chaste, i am a new man. These rather fetching beige slacks that i am wearing as i type this, feel damn good next to my skin i can tell you.

So can i just say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you to all of you (and you know who you are, you unsung hero's) that have saved me from myself. These tears i shed, are tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of gratitude. God bless you.

I think my favourite amusing/irritating experience of the past week, has to be this.

I called into The Co-op on the way home from work the other evening after work. I had to pick up a few provisions, and so parked the car and entered the shop. Now partly because i was in a bit of a hurry, and partly because i am a middle aged, absent minded old twat, who will no doubt soon be being pushed in a wheelchair rapidly towards Switzerland, on a one way trip of a lifetime, I forgot to take my sunglasses off.

As i am sure i have mentioned before, i wear glasses, and so my sunglasses are prescription one's, and so necessary for seeing. I couldn't be arsed to turn tail and swap them, so i carried on wandering up and down the aisles.

Can i just state here and now for the record, i was in no way trying to be cool, pretentious, hip, rockstarish at all, it was purely forgetfulness, and idleness.

I did briefly consider pretending i was blind, so as not to court any unfavourable bitchy comments, or tutting, or "Who does he think he is, wearing sunglasses indoors - wanker." type comments, but i thought to hell with it.

I was meandering down the frozen veg aisle, when the inevitable happened. I wasn't paying any attention to the people walking towards, and then passed me, all i heard was something along the lines of "Tut, i can't stand pretentious twats that wear sunglasses indoors."

I spun round, preparing the tirade of abuse that i was going doll out, but i was stunned into silence. My jaw hung slack, as i gazed at my verbal assailant. The, what must have been sixteen or seventeen year old youth, that had aimed the word "pretentious" at me, was wearing a FEZ!.......Yes that's right, a Tommy Cooperesque, one hundred percent fucking FEZ!

Sigh.......

Bollocks, i am too exhausted for the song, sing it yerself.......