When I was in New York last year I wandered into a bar on Murray Street, purely because that’s when Sonic Youth have their studio, ordered a beer and lit a cigarette… “Hey! What you doing Buddy!?” yelled the barkeep, looking at me as if I was offering the tip of my quivering member up to the arsehole of The Littlest Hobo, I’d momentarily forgotten, smoking in NYC wasn’t allowed. ‘How fucking stupid’ I mentally scoffed before apologising, flicking the cigarette out the door and returning to my stool and beer. I drank fast, I wanted a cigarette.
Now, as I type this, I’ve 2 more fucking evenings in pubs/bars where I can legally smoke. It’s utterly fucking pathetic. No one goes to a bar for the purposes of health, plenty of bars offer no smoking sections, what the FUCK is the problem here? Really, it’s the direct equivalent of not letting fit people into gyms, think about it.
The first nationwide tobacco ban was imposed on its populace by the Nazi’s, then the USA (can anyone smell anything here?) worryingly Ireland and Scotland got recently involved and the final blow is struck to the English in about 48 hours. So, in order, the fucking Nazi’s then the USA, then the UK. It’s rather disturbing wouldn’t you agree. No one else of any note has a smoking ban, I mean can you imagine what would happen if they tried to impose this rubbish on the French?
So, what’s the agenda here? It’s got nothing to do with the health of those that work in environments where people smoke (the main reason given by the cunts who want smoking banned in all enclosed places). The late Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll, one of the first to link smoking with ill health made it clear that the link between passive smoking and ill health was essentially bollocks. So what’s going on?
Either way, I’m fucking sick to death of all this ‘it’s bad for your health’ wank. Everyone knows what is good/bad for health, as humans with freewill we can choose to indulge in one facet or the other, but the bottom line is that being alive is bad for your health, in fact, the single most risk to ones health is age. Quick, assemble a mob, let burn St.Agnes Care Home down to the ground, the fucking crinkly old cunts ARE FUCKING OUR PLANET AND NATIONAL HEALTH.
Last night I bumped into my Bro’s missus on the Charing Cross road, the subject of Glastonbury was broached. It would seem hindsight is casting a fonder light over last week’s proceedings, but I will not succumb, I wriggled my toes in my Converse relishing the feeling of hard clean concrete under my feet in order to avoid sliding into post-festival romanticism. With the ban looming like a giant all seeing CCTV camera, I went to the Groucho Club. Even private member clubs are up for the smoking-chop so we five, Den, Liam, Stephen and Benjy chain smoking like condemned men awaiting nannies gallows.
We had a lovely evening, laughing, chatting, smoking (of course) and drinking some French white stuff that was so moorish it was easy to not appreciate every fading puff and gasp on our fags. All of us aware that an era was coming to an end, smoking is so much more than lung cancer and emphysema, to me, it’s still the epitome of bohemianism, I still think it makes me look hard and fucking cool and, of course, a bar is the most appropriate environment in which to indulge. But shortly, this pleasure will be no more.
Tonight I’m meeting some friends in a pub in Hackney and tomorrow, some more friends in my local for one last night of indulgence. By the time you read this on Monday the ban will have already been implemented. It’s going to be a bloody nightmare.
If you don’t smoke, take it up, just to show the bastards.
There is something inherently wrong about a grown man walking into a plastic toilet, cracking open a pink pack of baby wipes, graphically illustrated with giggling infants pawing at their doting mothers, and wiping your helmet with one. Not satisfied with this, you know that minutes later you’ll be getting all shit on them from the horrific clean up operation following the uncomfortable passing of a bright orange beer and bean based stool…
I think I’m having some sort of shell shock resulting from my excursion to that place I went to, last night waiting for my Myfwt to come home I actually giggled in my armchair for no other reason than the fact I was actually in it. It’s been a week since I departed, two days since I returned and my entire experience has been replaced by the last four lines of The General by Siegfried Sassoon, allow me to indulge you, ‘“he’s a cheery old card” grunted Harry to Jack as they slogged up the Arras with rifle and pack, but he did for them both by his plan of attack.’ I think it sums it all up rather well, the crepuscular optimism, the effort of moving through ones muddy, hilly environment, resulting in death by the design of others, in this instance, Michael Eavis, the half bearded half wit.
When I arrived home on the Monday afternoon I was in the process of unpacking my stuff when Myfwt called just as I was lugging two rucksacks, a sausage bag full of shitty clothes and a the remnants of a wine box from the van towards my front door. Needless to say said items were spurned in favour of the call, I clicked in the hands free, reassembled the baggage and located my front door key in one complicated act of multitasking. Horror of fucking horrors, when I opened the door Cunt was stood in the communal hallway, inexplicability wearing dark glasses and baseball hat, clutching a can of lager and grinning obsequiously. ‘Woah, how was Glathsonburry?’ he fucking burped. Furious at this invasion of space I gave him a withering glance and curtly informed him I was on the phone. He retreated back into the dark of his grief hole, his revolting visage fading into the blackness that surrounded him.
For one split second I wished I was back there, far, far away from my fucking neighbour who stalks the exterior of my flat like retarded vermin, but not even he and the nearby semi-world he occupies could dampen my joy at being back home and to the comforts therein. Even more poignantly, this exultation at coming home has actually intensified, I’m now consciously taking nothing for granted, nothing, every time I micturate, excrete, masturbate, sit down, cook, clean, they are joyous, even tantalising experiences that I relish.
This must be seen as a positive thing, something that has been arrived at through adversity, but fundamentally resulting in something good. Or, has my experiences over the past week simply unbalanced my psyche, disturbed the very fabric of my being resulting in my laughing at endless streams of clean dry toilet roll following a freewill shit.
I could relate this tiny acknowledgement of my home comforts to those that suffer over the world at the hands of tin-pot dictators or the desire of Western politicians to interfere with foreign policy resulting in the displacement of peoples and their subsequent, nomadic, hand to mouth survival in conditions too disgusting to even contemplate for a mere second…
Some people never leave their homes, after my trip to fucking Glastonbury I now understand why.
When one becomes obsessed with the concept of tarmac and concrete, boring, daily things one takes wholly for granted, the ability to take a shit at will without it turning into a full-on military campaign, basic homely components, shelter, warmth, food, bathrooms, carpets, clean towels, chairs, Radio 4, a bed, privacy… you know you’re fucked.
On the Thursday morning, oh it seems a world away, I met my bro and his missus at some godforsaken hour in the morning at Sainsbury as we had a few more items to pick up in order to facilitate our stay in a environment that would upset the residents of Darfur. Off we all rolled, our hearts full of joy and anticipation, for the 2.5 hour journey to a large, huge, plot of land near Shepton Mallet in Somerset.
As soon as we were a couple of miles from London it began to rain. Hard. Windscreen wipers, service stations (one with a brand new broken fence thanks to my inability to see a fucking thing when pulling off a parking manoeuvre) brakes, gears, more rain, a sandwich, pee, cigarettes and directions all leading to our arrival in a big bloody swamp in a valley.
Despite the paranoia of my converted Transit not being ‘camper van’ enough to warrant a spot in the camper van field we got in relatively easily and our moods lightened. It was 3pm when we pitched the tent by the van, mercifully the rain had eased off and it has to be said that when we did eventually see the big yellow burning thing in the sky it was bloody lovely. By 5-ish we were ready to wander onto site, it was a good 20 minute walk downhill just to get to the perimeter of the festival proper, security was ludicrously tight but as we’d bought tickets we were quite happy to know those that wished to ‘enjoy’ the festival ‘delights’ for free wouldn’t be able to do so.
For those that haven’t been (it was only my second visit, it’d been 21 years since my last for very good reason, I discovered) Glastonbury is enormous, it covers about 1.5 square miles, consists of over 20 stages, the Pyramid stage and the creatively named Other Stage being the main focus of the site for most people, including me, 18 or so bars and numerous fields and designated areas for all manner of entertainment, including theatre, circus, comedy, cinema and of course music. In addition there are the more traditional ‘hippie’ areas, healing/green fields, craft areas, contemporary ‘dance’ zones all punctuated by crappy sculptures, stalls selling everything from stupid fucking hats to well, stupid fucking hats, and people, thousands and thousands of people.
On the Thursday the festival was just starting to find it’s feet, the main stages are closed but the stalls and bars are functioning sufficiently. Despite the heavy rain that has been pervading the region for, well, forever, the going wasn’t too bad, my Doctor Marten boots saw me good and because there were only 2/3rds of the 175,000 expected, getting around wasn’t too much of a trial. I’d arranged to meet a mate, Robert, in an area called Lost Vagueness (Christ, doesn’t the name alone annoy you?) an area right on the outskirts of the site. The thing about Glastonbury that I do enjoy is the way each area has it’s own particular atmosphere, one can literally turn a corner and there are people of an entirely different age group and reason for being there. LV was full of bohemian types, Robert was dressed in a tux and his mates, some of which I knew, complimented his attire with a similar dress code.
By now the tiredness was getting to me but I was determined to make day 1 eventful, my brother and his missus succumbed to sleep and left for the camper van but I remained with Robert and co in a tent predominantly chatting to (make that ‘at’) his charming missus. At about 10pm the crowds parted and a mime appeared with a full-sized mechanical horse, the bloody thing was quite fantastic; it breathed fire, whinnied and moved about on wheels with some dexterity (it was being remotely controlled by it’s inventor out of sight of the audience) and despite the act going on for way too long, it was awesome enough to partially hold our collective attentions as we sipped vodka tonics and continued to natter away.
The walk back the fucking camper van took nearly an hour, the ground was already beginning to show signs of serious deterioration due to a resurgence of rain and the feet from the movement of people from one place to t’other. Despite some bloody odd dreams in which Mywt was being pursued by a murderous detective, I slept like a top, for a bit.
I was woken by the thunderous sound of rain on the roof, sides, and from all I know, the underside of the van. Despite their tent bearing up well, my bro and his missus joined me in the relative security of the vehicle to cook breakfast and make tea. We’d bought some tinned ‘all-day breakfast’ jobs, they tasted like them too, ‘jobs’ I mean, as in plops. Fucking horrid but wholly necessary to provide some sort of energy for the walk ahead, as well as lining the stomach for the inevitable ales. The rain came down so hard we had to delay our trip into the site by an hour; partially due to the cruel realisation that I’d at last have to wear my fucking wellies and my objection to the fundamental fact that if I didn’t, I’d be soaked to the bone.
We ventured out to the site during a dip in the weather. By now the ground was getting difficult to navigate through and it seemed that the numbers for the previous evening had quadrupled, there were people absolutely bloody everywhere. By 1 pm we’d found a spot overlooking the Pyramid stage, my bro and his missus had arranged to meet some friends there. The first band we saw were The Earlies, I wished I’d been late, unfortunately I was late for the first 10 minutes of Modest Mouse as I’d wholly underestimated the time it would take me to walk 200 fucking metres through an Amazonian Swamp and nearly one 5th of a million people. Once there I caught one of four of the best acts of the weekend. I bumped into Robert by the bar and had a few pints. I stuck around for The Automatic who were accompanied by heavy rainfall, I and the audience held fast, it was worth it despite the little shrieking git who bounces over the stage like Daffy Duck having a fit.
I made it back to the Pyramid for Amy Wino. She’s not bad, certainly has a pair of pipes on her but worth all the hype? I don’t know. Naughty Amy was off her box so I decided to join her and I rolled a big fat joint and got so stoned I got the fear. Food saw it off, a big cardboard plate of peas, beans, carrots, gravy and a single steaming pie, it was rather delicious and I celebrated with a pint of the local, a Somerset ale called Wirrey or something. It was a fucking sensation, so much so that by the following day they ran out of it and I’d forgotten what’s its called. Whirrey? Whir.. who cares.
The day was starting to get complicated, as the crowds began to pour into the Pyramid stage for Bloc Party my brother and his missus were keener to get stuck in the front, being a card carrying claustrophobic I remained in a position behind the giant screen and auxiliary speakers, providing me with a certain degree of comfort whilst not compromising on sound or vision. It was an okay set, a little bit too arrogant for want of a better negative but I know what I mean at least. After it was the turn of the fucking Fratellis. Foolishly I accepted the invitation by text from my bro to place near the front that was apparently ‘spacious and arsehole free’. Why on earth I wanted to even acknowledge their existence let alone get nearer to the cunts is beyond me but the area I found myself in was neither spacious and most certainly not arsehole free. By now the mud had turned parts of the ground to deep puddles of shitty, muddy soup which resulted, predictably I suppose, into swimmingly pools for wankers intent on covering themselves and as many people in fucking mud. What with that and all the ‘do wop tee do’ from the band I was outta there like I was on fire after 15 minutes.
I had a plan though, fraught with risks as it was. The Cabaret stage was a long way from where I’d been with my bro, his missus and pals. I was also unsure quite how to get there and to make matters even worse, a hard session of rain had made parts of the festival site utterly non-negotiable, and those areas vaguely passable were gridlocked with human beings fighting to move one foot in front of the other, and that is no exaggeration, I can assure you.
Glastonbury mud is clay based, its deceptively soft but sticky, its cloying, clogging mud from hell. It can rip your wellies off in a second, it slipperier than a British Gas salesman in anal lube and it seems to have a limitless depth. In short it’s like trying to walk through quick drying cement. Throw in hundreds of thousands of people moving in every conceivable direction you may understand why my legs of have gone from those of a 90-year-old invalid to Thierry Henry in the space of a few days.
It took me nearly 2 hours to get to my destination. But it was worth every muscle tearing second. As soon as I arrived Barry Cryer, as well as being a seasoned pro he’s Radio 4 comfort food, appeared onstage with Ronnie Golden to perform songs that, despite not being a fan of comedy tunes, actually made me laugh. To make things better, the tent wasn’t at all packed and I could actually sit down, something I’d almost forgotten how to do, and the bar and loo were only a few stumbling meters away.
I was back in time to see Jeff Green. This was a, if not the, Glastonbury highlight for me. His act was so funny I spent a full hour honking like a goose, tears down my cheeks, breathing issues, the fucking lot. He’d managed to achieve that rarest of things that only a stand up at the top of his game can do, perpetual laughter from the room that occasionally peaked to hysteria. He was filthy, observant and delivered his jokes with the charm of a gentleman. Outstanding.
The next act was so dreadful he got booed off, it was toe curling to watch and fucked Phil Kay’s audience, an old favourite of mine, who had to hard work really bloody hard to win the crowd back. Phil just pulled it off, in places he more than made up for the awfulness that proceeded him, but he simply didn’t have the audience numbers to get into his stride, despite plonking himself in the actual audience, even allowing hecklers to take over the mic.
The drunk journey back to the van wasn’t as bad anticipated as the locale of the Cabaret stage was closer than I’d realised, also being pissed, I found it oddly easy to navigate the treacherous shit underfoot. My brother and his missus were 5 minutes behind and we had a quick chat and went to our respective beds.
Saturday was the best day of the lot. After breakfast in the van I met up with Robert by the Other stage bar and bumped into another old mate quite out of the blue. Soon we were joined by Simon until there was a few of us huddled round a joint and beers watching firstly a splendid set by Biffy Clyro and then CSS a likeable Brazilian punk/electro outfit that forced good weather on the crowd. When the sun did appear the whole of Glastonbury let off a single roar of appreciation that really did feel quite, well, special. So much so it reminded one why one was at the fucking place in the first place. These were salad days, Glastonbury at it’s best, drinking in the sunshine with friends that had arrived by design or spontaneously, to share in the music and the whole atmosphere of the place. Despite my overall negativity of the experience, that’s one thing that I did engage with, largely, the people there are very decent and at times one does genuinely feel part of a celebratory collective, even when alone.
I joined my bro and his missus for a superb set by Maximo Park, another of the best acts I saw that weekend, followed by a pretentious though enjoyable set by The Editors. My bro and I had arranged to meet Robert at The Glade for one of my favourite bands of all time, The Ozric Tentacles. Without wishing to go into a history lesson, I’ve seen this band dozens and dozens of times over the years, mainly when they were unsigned and you could by their tapes for £2 and a hash cake for the same amount. This was the best music act of the weekend. The venue was a funky covered stage set up in a copse, the green light radiated off the trees by the flashing lighting rigs and lasers looked magnificent.
I started chatting to a chap called Mark and we shared our joint and cider with him, he returned the favour and we four were now a unit. The band came on, lifted off the tops of our heads and poured some gorgeousness in, I danced, we danced, everyone fucking danced. Even when the set stopped dead so some crew could help out some poor tripper who’d freaked himself out, we danced. For a nearly an hour it was unsurpassed joy and energy, I was whacked out of my noggin and I didn’t care. At last I’d really found what I had come for.
The walk to meet up with Robert, his missus and friends was a little more traumatic, I really was caned and was having co-ordination problems, but there were smiling faces passing by and I began to feel at ease again. I was so far gone I cared not a jot about the fact my fucking waterproof jacket was no longer waterproof and the muddy soup had gone over the tops of my ridiculous wellies and I was now walking in my own cursed estate. I had some strawberry wine and said goodbye to Mark, shortly after that I was ready to go, realising I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast I forced down a ‘pork roll’ on my way back to base camp, it was nearly a foot long and had half a pig in it. Fucking lovely it was.
By contrast Sunday was the worst day. Due to the bastard pissing rain we didn’t actually get into the festival til 4pm, I managed to cover the end of The Young Knives set which was magnificent, if I’d been in a better spot and seen the whole gig it would’ve been way up there. My bro and his missus opted for Shirley Bassey for reasons better known to themselves so I arranged to meet them there for The Manic Street Preachers after. The struggle back to the Pyramid stage was almost impossible, by now parts of the site were totally inaccessible, and those that were heralded nasty surprises, I watch a girl fall up to her waist in a chasm of mud, to the left and right of me people were falling arse over tit and the general sense of humour that had pervaded the festival spirit were flagging, this wasn’t fun. The Manic’s superb set (one of the top 4) cheered me up somewhat and I began to feel a bit better. By now it was raining hard, indeed, it didn’t stop until we were approaching London the following day. The Kaiser Chiefs were on next, boring set by their standards, all that audience participation shit pisses me off. I pay them to perform; it’s fuck all to do with me so I point blank refused to join in. The twats.
After we went and ate, kebabs, bloody good they we too and I went off to see Ian Cognito in the cabaret tent, I didn’t fancy The Who because the Pyramid stage area was virtually impossible to navigate and The Chemical Brothers on the Other stage don’t push my buttons. I made the right decision by my standards, Ian’s act was blistering, cynical, offensive and hilarious. It seemed a very fitting way to close the festival, though he was a lot funnier than most of the past 3 days. As I slid back to the van I passed a stage were Bill Bailey was performing. I bumped into a couple of likely lads from Derby, nice chaps, we shared a spliff together and I headed off into the fucking rain for the last time. When I got back my bro and his missus were attempting to get out of their wet clothes. I sat in the front, they in the back and we chatted and ate all the snacks we’d bought from Sainsbury, well most of them, I chucked a bag of Cheese Balls all over myself as I attempted to converse with wine.
Monday morning began early; we thought getting out of Glastonbury would take an age. As it turned out getting out at all was impossible because I’d drained my battery operating the small fridge in the back. We hung around for a few hours waiting for a jump, just as well as I wasn’t in any condition to drive. Mercifully our neighbour helped us out, we packed up our stuff and attempted to leave. We followed our friendly neighbour who got stuck up to his axles in mud, my bro and his missus offered support while I remained in the van holding the engine revs high to get some more juice back into the battery. I gingerly drove about until making one final push for the exit, despite some sliding and plenty of wheel spinning we got out relatively easy. There we no major queues leaving the site, due, I should imagine, to the vast number of vehicles unable to move an inch.
At last we were headed back for London. I was shattered and the last thing I wanted to do was drive, but drive I must. I’d figured we had less than 3 hours to get back before I hit the 5pm rush hour, not only had I to get home, I also had to drop my bro and his missus off in another part of town. Time was of the essence. We hit a fucking huge queue near Andover that took well over and hour to conquer which put my schedule back somewhat. After dropping off my companions I suffered a creeping trip through South London, which was made considerably worse by the sudden and violent need to take a behemoth shit.
Finally I arrived home. My priorities were thus, poo, bath, pub to meet Frank. I was barely to keep my eyes open in the pub but injected enough beer energy to make a start on the mountain of washing.
So was it worth it? Spending 4 days in a raincloud and having to risk your life taking a piss in pissy mud, with other people watching you piss as their piss goes over your welly tops, having to pinch back unholy turds because you can’t face the stinking plastic chod bins again, having to spend so much energy getting a pint it was hardly worth the effort, well maybe that’s going a bit too far. Yes, the music and the company were good when I had it, the people were nice and when the sun was out and you were settled it was as good a place as any in the world to be. But it was all let down by the other factors.
One other thing, Glastonbury makes a big song and dance (literally as it happens) about the environment, all the carbon footprint ‘I count’ stuff is surely turned over and fucked in it’s freckle by the sheer fuel burning mechanical logistics of getting the site prepared, the bands that have to be flown in from around the world, the audience to congregate in one spot from all over the country and beyond. I reckon my carbon footprint is greater just by my having to do over 5 washes just to get the mud off my fucking clothes.
Still, I would consider going next year. Maybe. Maybe? Actually, fuck it. I’m watching it on TV. If at all.
I’m not sure if doing a blog every weekday is the best way forwards, on some days writing the blog is a fucking pain, especially when I’ve fuck all to write about because in reality I spent the night masturbating and rolling over the floor of my flat in the clutch of Slayer. On other times there are things that have simply occurred that I don’t want seen by ‘the public’, despite the anonymity of Piqued I reckon 50% of you reading this know me, or think you do. (I really didn’t mean to kill her, her head, it just came off.)
So, I’m seriously considering, on my return, to make Piqued three times weekly and a little more focussed. Whilst my readership is gradually increasing I’m getting concerned that I’m alienating some readers by the sheer quantity (over quality) of all this shit what comes out of my barnet. Or should I just fuck ‘em all and carry on? (really, look, she wouldn’t shut the FUCK up)
My bro and I had been trying to source some fucking quality rubber boots for Glastonbury. I shit you not, all of the major camping suppliers in London and the South East were out of stock, this was due the dreadful weather forecasts in the festival region and the reality that townies (the vast majority of the Glastonbury contingent) such as I don’t do fucking wellies, until now. Hence, no wellies.
After some head scratching a moronic colleague suggested some godforsaken shop in the Wimbledon area, an area I fucking hate I hasten to add, and after a phone call discovered that they had some in stock, indeed my size and my brothers. It took ages to get to this place but I got a result, well sort of. I’ve not worn fucking wellies since I was 6, I tried them on, I looked like a right cunt. To make matters worse they’re greenish, a twattish sort of a green. I plodded back up the road with my wankers footwear held fast in my arms feeling like a tool-o-la, it was hot and the sweat on my frowning must have exacerbated my ludicrous appearance. As I was carrying my brothers Sasquatch sized boots too, I’ll be forced to give him a dead arm next time I see him. It’s only fair.
My discomfort of having to traverse round southeast London resembling a rural rubber fetishist was offset at my joy at getting my new bins. Both are perfect but special mention must be made to my new shades, they make me look like a bent DC1, I fucking love them.
Last night Myfwt came over for some supper, we drunk Champagne (I’d won a load of it at work) and ate spaghetti bolognaise, I made the best fucking sauce to date and we ate it until our little faces were all covered in bits of food like a lovely couple of berks. We had a great night, bit of an iffy moment briefly following my telling of a very unpleasant joke, but she pulled through like a good ‘un and we merrily rolled off to bed before 12 where I was delighted to find out she was on the blob.
Here at the bloody office I’m right on deadline for this project, the boss is creeping about the office like Snake Plissken and I have to get some actual work done. Tonight I’m cycling back and meeting my bro in the usual boozer in Clapham to make final plans for tomorrow’s excursion and to give him that dead arm. (Hopefully the cops won’t find out about her til I’m long gone, it was an accident, surely they’ll know. Forensics?)
In the unlikely event I can get on to a PC between now and Wednesday I’ll post, if not, look forward to a big review next week. Or don’t.
Seeing these chaps on Saturday, or is it Sunday. Either way I’ll be fucked. BYE
Fuzzy logic has caused my having a hangover. I met Frank in the pub last night; I had two pints of Old Speckled Hen (lovely stuff) and went home in time for a hilarious documentary about some misguided prick who was attempting to reinstate, quite literally, an old school, school. Basing it on strict Catholicism, parents pay a small fortune to send their kids to France to be educated as kids were educated over 300 years ago, chapel, Latin, buggery etc., Part of this fucking farce included him showing pupils how to dispatch and prepare a rabbit for eating. Such cackhandedness should be reserved the Corporal Clegg’s of this world, not an some upper class porker with delusions of grandeur. The fat cunt attempted to break the nape of the creature’s neck with the blunt end of an axe in order to slit its throat and drain it of its fluids. This is correct, I knew this. What I didn’t know was that if you’re a big fat arsehole with the dexterity of a Stephen Hawking’s on the bathroom floor, you can make the fucking animal actually scream, really loud, to the point that the hairs (hares) on the back of my neck nearly flew out of my skin and impaled me to my sofa.
Anyway, Myfwt is coming over tonight so I’m making spag bol, naturally this requires a good shot of red wine, so to balance things up, I drank the rest last night leaving a slug to languish in the bottle until this evening. Hey presto, hangover.
Oddly mid way through the bottle I found myself not really enjoying being drunk, I felt annoyed at myself and even considered throwing the rest of the bottle away, save the shot for cooking… I didn’t of course, it was a gorgeous Beaujolais and I’m not in the business of chucking things away that are fucking beautiful. I gurgled in front of Big Brother before giving myself a quick blast on that new Machine Head album, highly recommended by the way, before crashing at midnight.
Yesterday at lunch I had to make a dash to the opticians to see if I could get another pair of prescription dark bins before setting off to Glastonbury on Thursday. Dark glasses are essential; my eyes don’t like bright light and have a habit of pissing everywhere (the rides to and from work this week have been a nightmare) and the whole ‘seeing in daylight’ thing is rather important, especially when squinting at bands 4 miles off. It transpired, on arrival to the opticians, that I was practically due for an eye test anyway, it’s been nearly 2 years and to my astonishment they saw me there and then. My optician by the way was utterly lovely, massive cock. I was informed that my eyesight, for the first time since I was 4, has stabilised. Apparently despite being short sighted my eyes are in excellent nick, needless to say this cheered me up somewhat, despite having to give the bloke in the opticians £250 for two pairs of Armani bins, one dark pair and one regular, after sussing out a deal. Actually I did really well, despite having to spend yet more money on shit I didn’t have to had I been more careful…
So, one more Piqued tomorrow and for the first time since January you’ll hear nothing from me for nearly a week. I did try and enrol to post on the BBC Glastonbury blog; they were offering this machine to festival going bloggers allowing them to post their daily thoughts on the BBC website, so I applied, I even sent them a link to Piqued, I should imagine they were put off by all the fucking swearing, despite my assuring them that I wouldn’t use bad language on their site, that I swear not because of a lack of fucking vocabulary but because I think it’s fucking funny and makes me look dead hard…
I’m at work. The bloke behind me and the girl opposite him are flirting heavily, it’s utterly nauseating, she’s twee and he’s socially inept, it’s turning my fucking stomach.
I need to focus on this. Calm, calm.
Yesterday afternoon I jumped on the black bitch and shot over to my folks. Father’s day and all that, grasping an offensive card (I like to deface cards designed for other purposes, it has the potential for both hilarity and offence, a winning combo) and one of those things that can inform you if the wall you’re about to drill into is criss-crossed with pipework and high voltage cables, I arrived mid way through the grand prix. I’d seen the start and managed to time my journey between pit stops, due to some creative biking.
My bro arrived along with my getting-heavily-pregnant sister with my brother in law and we all watched the end of the race together in between distasteful remarks about pedometers and the size of my sister’s remarkably massive tits. I may have mentioned before that I am lucky to have the family I do, nonetheless I still managed to make it home in time for most of Big Brothers On the Couch and BB itself, which I’ve politely reviewed in Watch With Mothers, link right. I ate, wrote (didn’t drink)
and went to bed, wishing that my dad hadn’t told me how he and my 100 year old grandfather drank more than 2 bottles (plus ‘a few’ G&T’s) every night when my parents went up to visit him last week. Mum had a couple of Sherries.
On Friday night I hopped on the tube and met James and Harry in a much-visited boozer in Coven Garden. The pub itself is very old but the décor is very unremarkable and doesn’t give any indication of its age, unless one is really looking. The most important thing is that the beer is well conditioned and absurdly cheap for London. You get change from a fiver with two pints. We three chatted about our recent comings and goings until joined by a mutual friend who’s just come back from Iraq following a tour of duty. Being a Captain his role was pretty much confined to a desk, but I learnt much more about the day to day realities of the region than I glean from the press. The Captain knows of my views on Iraq, indeed, most peoples views on the matter, but it didn’t (and shouldn’t) result in my condemnation of him a person. He’s a very brave chap; in fact he’s a bloody good bloke and takes time to explain things to me even when he can see my lefty liberal persona floundering in his face. He’s one more tour of duty and then he’s out for good. What he intends to do for his swansong (and I mean that in the proverbial sense, I really do) is remarkably dangerous, extremely courageous and not for here.
It was a splendid eye popping evening, James and I were suitably drunk when we got on the last tube and like twats we agreed to go back to mine for a smoke and a couple of cans. After much grindcore James left to the backing of the fucking birds at 5-ish or so.
At midday I was up, because I’d not been mixing my drinks I didn’t feel too bad, I’m sure this lack of the debilitating hangover has something to do with not boozing as much? Maybe? I don’t know. Either way I made it to the shops, I’d actually decided not to go but needed to pick up some more beer and breakfast things for the following day.
A few months ago my old mate from Leeds, Chaz had decided that we should see Motorhead at the Royal Festival Hall; he was going to come down and stay the weekend and I’d lay on the hospitality. Sadly this wasn’t meant to be a following a load of confusion on my part, stemming from a forgotten birthday on his, I ended up with 3 tickets, one for Myfwt, one for Jim, and one for me.
Myfwt arrived at 5, all teeth and tits looking stunning, we met Jim in the local boozer at 6-ish and began drinking. Myfwt reverted straight back to type, on the lager, matching me and Jim pint for pint and after a few we caught the tube and arrived at The Royal Festival in between the support act, Selfish Cunt, and The MH.
It was very odd crowd, largely the audience were 40 plus, some quite clearly well to do types with nervous looking spouses, even the usual MH fans were of an age and the subsequent atmosphere really was that of The Royal Festival Hall, coupled with a bit of grease. Badly Drawn Boy passed me in the lobby looking somewhat apprehensive. I was going to say something but decided against it after becoming distracted by his tea cosy headwear, it wouldn’t have been good for him. We managed to squeeze a couple more in before taking our seats (yes, seats) that were shown to us by an old fashioned usher with a torch and all that caper.
Motorhead seemed as weirded out by the situation as the majority of the crowd, they played a sterling set, despite a few tunes I’d not heard, but the whole scenario was so peculiar it was hard to get into the stride of the gig. I refused to sit down, as did some of the other patrons but even seeing seated a handful of the MH audience, nodding their bald heads against the green velvet upholstery, was alienating. Nonetheless, all was cured by a paint stripping rendition of Iron Fist which blew my teeth out. After the gig came to a close, finding its cowboy boot clad feet in the process, we popped to the upper balcony for some more beers. It was lovely up there, a perfect balmy evening over the Thames, people milled below, twinkling boats drifted past, the entire view loaded with landmarks and pretty lights… I went so far to verbally cherishing the moments, which was met with stifled drunken giggles from my two charming companions.
We got back in time to indulge in a couple more beers on the way to the Lebanese Café for some Shwarma. Myfwt tits to my utter amazement had a chicken one which to her genuine surprise she loved. On the way back to the flat someone bought a load of chocolate, no idea why, and we all arrived back pissed up and full of good cheer.
Sunday morning I made breakfast and Jim departed leaving Myfwt and I in the company of Badly Drawn Boy sardonically discussing Motorheads gig on some sofa based TV show and Hot Fuzz. The latter was fucking brilliant, as with Sean of the Dead I was genuinely jealous to have not been involved. The former was just embarrassing. Myfwt left after lunch and I joined Lara for some more gymnastics and puzzles.
Christ, the flirting couple at work are virtually engaging in oral, it’s stomach churning stuff and is preventing me from focussing on the task in hand, I need to have a cigarette immediately before I say something so inappropriate one of us will cry. I fucking hate Monday.
I’ve lost my dark glasses too.
This is the band we missed, shit, I fucked up here
In the pub last night Frank cracked the bubo question. ‘Blocked sweat glands’ he mused convincingly, it all made sense. It’s only recently been warm enough to sweat; in addition I’ve been making more of an effort to make the cycle in proper exercise rather than just laboured transport, I wear a bandana that covers the lower half of my ear and my hair is long. Problem solved, worry over etc.,
Frank and I stayed for 3 pints, the Bombardier was off so we had to settle for Tribute and Deuchars, both a little tart and orangey for my taste but they slipped down nonetheless. I wobbled off home and took a bath.
I’d had a long day, not entirely unproductive, I managed to get closer to seeing the fucking project off, pointless relying on others to help, and at lunch took a trip to fucking Hersham, home of Sham 69 to pick up my Transit, which following the failure of it’s MOT had remained in the garage until the necessary issues had been ironed out. The bill was fucking £235.
The journey there was utterly unremarkable save for one incident. On the train from Wimbledon to Hersham I sat in front of a tall skinhead sort of wearing a suit, I’d say he was 19 or so. As soon as the train pulled away I knew he was a clicker. He whistled, beeped, whooshed and mimicked most of the passing sounds as we rattled through the suburban woo. At some point he got a call from what I could ascertain was his girlfriend, they chatted away and at one point he said ‘shut-up’, I heard her question him, ‘nah, don’t worry’ he said ‘wasn’t me, you know how it is…’
We got off the train and he asked me for a light, ‘don’t worry about the noises’, he said ‘bit mental ain’t I’.
‘You have Tourette’s mate, not your problem…’ I said, the lad seemed genuinely pleased at my identification of what is now a well-documented disorder.
‘Driving me mental it is, just off to the docs now to get some more meds, these ain’t working…’
He gave me directions to the garage and I bid him farewell. Some time ago I wrote about Tourette’s in WWM (link right). After my encounter with the lad on the train I can’t say I feel too proud of how I conducted myself on the website, however funny the disorder may appear to be. The reality of day-to-day life was clearly getting to him, it was written in his eyes, his brow, his sheepish smile…he didn’t swear once by the way.
When I got home last night Hot Fuzz was waiting for me. I decided after the bath, some roast chicken (breast wrapped in bacon with steamed courgettes and peas, lots of seasoning and a handful of freshly grated mature cheddar, no effort to make and it tastes fucking ace) and Big Brother which is becoming more and more chaotic, I’d give the film a shot. The wine left over from Wednesday (just over half a bottle) was sat partially in my glass and partially in my veins. Incidentally, with regard to breaking any rules about drinking wine alone, I feel exonerated, if I hadn’t have drunk it last night it would be vinegar by now…
A month ago I could’ve drunk 4 pints in the pub, downed a bottle of Fitou and still been able to, just about, focus on a film. After 3 pints and a glass I was pissed to the point of not being able to focus on the film to such a degree I gave up. I was also exhausted; I’ve been going to bed before midnight lately, this would have been fucking unheard of a few weeks ago. It would seem that my body is adjusting to my new, (slightly) healthier lifestyle.
I woke up with a mild hangover this morning, the bubo had burst in the night and had dried spume all over it, it felt like someone had glued a Monster Munch behind my lobe. I was up in time to shave, do some laundry and enjoy a good 15-minute shit with Viz and Today on radio 4.
On my cycle in this morning I saw that fat bastard I’d called a ‘fat cunt’ a few days ago. He passed me on the towpath without a word; in fact, he made a conscious effort to not look at me at all… So I gave him a hearty ‘good morning’ for the hell of it. Then I saw massive fucking crow picking at the guts of a mutilated dead rat
It’s a portent of doom, kids.
Have nice weekends; be careful, for fucks sake…
I went to a house party with Jimmy Percy once… he’s a bit of a tit
I have a fucking massive boil behind my right ear, in exactly the same place on the other ear another is developing. I’ve no idea what the source of these 2 cunts is/are but I’m not happy. Swinging back to the first ear briefly, I’m fucking deaf in it, 100% silence. Bollocks.
The office is like a morgue, I’m finishing off a fucking project and my ‘team’ for want of a better word are rummaging around in their unwashed beds, flailing in the bathroom or pushing cardboard cereals down their guts. The fuckers should be here; one of them may get a smack. The bloke behind me has this habit at talking me when I’m working (writing this) usually to bitch about someone in the office. If he’s not bitching he’ll prequel an attack of conversation by laughing falsely in the futile hope that I’ll turn round all bright eyed and say, ‘hey, what’s so funny?! Instead I mash my fists into the desk and grinding my teeth into themselves, for his sake.
I had a lovely evening last night; I got home following an exhausting but rewarding cycle and had a shower. I’m then sorry to say I immediately played Tomb Raider as I was stuck, and I wanted to unstick myself before Myfwt arrived. She bounced in at 7 on the dot and I poured us a pair of G & T’s, darling. We sort of resumed the conversation that I’d ballsed up last time, either way it was a perfect combination of hilariousness twinged with life affirming seriousness and lasted for a good while before Big Brother took over, sort of, once she gets going that one there’s no stopping her. I rather like that though.
The side effect of all this yakking was that dinner consisted of smoked salmon on toast and a side of cucumber in mayo, Dijion and dill, delicious but not substantial really, plus I’d opened a bottle of wine (as per self-imposed rules) and it was slipping down a treat. Myfwt was also drinking well, in addition to 3 G & T’s she was also indulging in the wine, in fact, I worked out that over the course of the evening I’d had one G & T and ¾ of a bottle of wine (enough but by my standards fuck all, though these days I feel it more) and she’d stuck half a bottle on her aperitifs… Before she had a bath she was giggly and delightfully flirtatious… I began to count my chickens…
…after the bath all of her drinks and smoked salmon and toast and cucumber in mayo, Dijion and dill, were flying out of her face into the chod bin. The thing about Myfwt’s is that, being an ex-model, beautiful tall and lithe, is that she commands a perpetual state of grace that even when undertaking the passing of vast geysers of puke, she retains this perfect dignity which is at once both charming and amusing. I watched my chickens roll over and die. She came to bed feeling a little lighter, smiled at me and passed out. I fell asleep shortly after with a heavy dick.
My ‘team’ are slowly arriving at their desks muttering excuses, I’m not being particularly co-operative. Five minutes ago I picked up the phone and accidentally smashed it into my deaf ear, before realising that it doesn’t fucking work but in doing so burst the bubo. A river of pus and blood are trickling down my neck as I type this, a rough paper hand towel has stemmed the flow. I don’t think anyone has noticed…
This time next week I’ll be off to Glastonbury, I need to get this bloody project off before then. I’m under pressure; I don’t like pressure, especially when I’m deaf with blood/pus all over the bloody shop.
I saw this live once, my head nearly fell off. Take drugs before you indulge
Have days off the pop is getting easier, last night was the easiest yet. It’s a question of carefully combining the holy trinity of grot, goggle and game; that’s wanking, watching TV and playing Tomb Raider specifically.
There is a very simple psychological trick I discovered cycling home towards my inebriation free environment last night. The desire to burp the worm is a given, it’s as alluring as wanting a bottle of wine in many respects so you’ve already managed to offset the initial pangs of wanting a drink, simply by flipping on the PC and giving oneself a beef shake. To positively look forward to playing the game, even watching fucking Big Brother, are extremely effective in countering the whole no booze=boredom/misery factor. Put the three together and you’ve more of a fighting chance of making it through the night, clean.
But there are aspects of the evening that conspire against you.
Following the humiliating ritual of drowning of the skipper’s tablecloth, we encounter one of three danger zones. The post wank lull is the perfect time to pour oneself a G & T, sit back and enjoy the delicious warm twinge, you know, downstairs (shhhhh).
The next danger point occurs over a period of time after the bath/shower and the preparation of supper. Oddly I’ve noticed that the glass of wine with the meal thing isn’t as big a problem as I thought. Whilst its fucking bloody lovely to have a glass with ones meal the desire to drink whilst making the meal is far, far worse, you know, Radio 4 on, pottering in the kitchen, glass of wine… it’s life, surely?
I finished dinner and got stuck right in to Tomb Raider. It’s a fucking good one, not idiotically difficult but by the same token it requires a certain degree of dedication, at this stage my desire to drink was at it’s lowest. I played for an hour making steady progress before watching Big Brother. It’s bloody helpful it’s on at 10 because it’s here we hit danger zone 3, the last and possibly the trickiest of the lot.
The feeling of boozefree success can inspire a nightcap; this inspiration becomes a need in which the whole ‘well you’ve come this far’ can be easily compromised. I punched through the wall by employing a one skinned spliff and the last of the Pomegranate and Blueberry juice, which had accompanied me on my journey for the evening. It certainly helps, as does tea.
By 11 I was beginning to feel tired. Feeling tired is defiantly the final straw; it’s when you know you’ve reached your goal. It’s important to embrace relaxation by nurturing it; the solution is simple, go to bed with a book. This is a guaranteed way to ensure that your mind will be off the pop and that sleep will naturally take over your day.
It’s quite hard work to be proactively not drinking, this can be used to ones advantage. Despite booze being a wonderful way of encouraging sleep, the effort required in not doing so can also be used to ones advantage.
I drifted off just after midnight and slept the whole night without waking once, in addition, when I woke this morning I actually felt refreshed. This is definitely a first, even after 2 days off last week I still woke up feeling as if I’d downed a bottle of Scotch the previous evening.
My cycle into work today was great; it felt good working up a sweat in the warm sunshine, passing through the trees by the river as the little birds whistle out of green hedgerows and squirrels hop up trees. Fellow cyclists pass by with a cursory ‘good morning’, well most of them…
Approaching the turn off the towpath a behemoth in a cycle helmet and one of those fucking fluorescent ‘don’t knock me off’ poof-flags decides to cycle directly at me, it’s my right of way so I don’t yield resulting in Blobs having to undertake a swerve, at which point he shouts something incomprehensible at me…
“What?!” I yell, turning back to see him moving away but maintaining eye contact, he’s peddling quite quickly, despite being under 6 foot and slim, I’m aware I look scary with my shades, bandana over my nose and mouth, Dead Kenndy T-shirt with tattoos poking out… He ignores me.
“WHAT!?” I yell again, geed up by self-awareness and sobriety I add, “YOU FAT CUNT!” He disappears round a bend.
In addition to feeling that my last comment was unnecessary I have to cycle that way to work every day, and I’ve seen him before too. He’s a big lad, he might dwell on what I’ve said, he may want to exact revenge despite my looking like a psycling- psychopath.
Tomorrow I’m taking a knife, just in case…
(quite a number of bods have been asking me who does the music for the dreadful 7 ages of rock on the BBC, despite telling them, I keep getting asked, so, for the second time in as many weeks, these chaps feature. I still prefer neat neat neat…)
Well as predicted, as soon as I clapped eyes on the fucking germ and learnt of his circumstance, how does a person who never works, who does absolutely fuck all apart from living in fantasy la la world (whilst looking down on those that do have to work) is meant to handle the responsibilities of a relationship, let alone a family?
We left Cunt last time screaming ‘Don’t fuck with my life’at the severely anorexic mother of his children. The sort of thing you’d expect to come out of the mouth of a. a spoiled immature teen or b. said teen a decade on following more goodies from daddy, like a fucking house, guitars, mixing desks, keyboards, computers, fully furnished designer fucking everything for doing FUCK all…
Anyway, surprise surprise, she and the kid are gone. I’d already established that when the kid was about Cunt would have to be quiet, for the past few months it’s been relatively alright, even he understands that too much noise = screaming child, which directly effects him. And we can’t have Cunty getting fucking upset now can we, or daddy might have to come over and clap his hands over his sensitive ‘musicians’ ears until the nasty little baby stops making a horrid noise for FUCKS SAKE.
I helped; I didn’t slam doors (I’m not much of a slammer anyway, this is largely due, I think, despite my misanthropic default, to manners and respect, you know, indicators of being brought up well) and I made sure that I didn’t thump about, even when friends were over in the small hours following a skinfull. Besides, as already mentioned in previous posts, I have/had no beef with her or the kid. Why should they suffer more than they already do?
So, you’re asking, now his emotionless borg of an offspring and his ignored, disrespected and clearly ill partner have fucked off back to wherever, has my decency and goodwill been reciprocated?
Has it fuck.
Last night he had the fucking audacity to give me a full 6 hours of his repertoire, the only chink of light is that he’s clearly a bit sad that his family have fucked off, which, of course is entirely his fault. I mean the way he used to speak to her; really, you’ve not heard anything like it, it was infused with unadulterated hatred, made worse by its forced calmness. Nasty, nasty, nasty.
I’ve described his ‘music’ before right? He can’t play; timing, tone, tuning, rhythm are all off, he can’t sing; timing, tone, tune, key…never fucking had any of them, practise makes it worse, die death. But last night instead of confining himself to the (recently refurbished and fitted designer) kitchen (which is just slightly smaller than Kent) he was ‘musically’ doing territorial pissings (not the song, though he’s tried Christ help me, no, the act) by ‘performing’ in every room in the house, possibly in order to reclaim his pathetic existence as a 24/7 wanker. This meant that when I was cooking in the kitchen he was in the adjacent downstairs room, when I was in the living room, the same, and finally the bedroom, there he was.
I tried to remain calm, I thought, ‘he’ll stop in a sec’, I reasoned with myself, I have this facility. I’m an educated man, rational, decent even, it’s one in the morning and his directly beneath me clanging tonelessly…
*snap*
I leap out of bed and on to my feet and land with both heels onto the floor with a deafening thump, I stamp, and I mean STAMP, to the bathroom where there is a wooden floor, grabbed the door and after yelling at Ian Kilminster volume, ‘shut the fuck up YOU CUNT!’ slammed it so hard against the frame the screws shot out the top hinge.
This week the 7 ages of rock not only managed to make more of a pigs ear than that of the punk program, it also managed to get facts wrong, actually incorrect. I’m fucking livid…
Whilst Black Sabbath did invent heavy metal we didn’t need to know the rest of Ozzy’s career as it’s not pertinent to the genre. To even discuss Motley Crue is an insult, especially when ‘glam’ was invented by the Finnish ban Hanoi Rocks in the early 80’s, despite being told by Julian Rhind-Tutt (what sort of a fucking name is that) the Crue influenced Hanoi! Fucking unbelievable! I’ll tell you this, a little bit of info they didn’t mention, Vince Neil, the fat Crue frontman, killed Hanoi’s drummer Razzle in a drink driving incident… That’s the only way Crue influenced anyone.
The Judas Priest stuff was barely relevant outside of the duel lead guitar stuff and maybe the idiocies that surrounded the prosecution for subliminal lyrics that resulted in the death of what Bill Hicks called the last garage attendants in the world. Metallica were featured but they didn’t kick the genre off by any means, Venom, even Motorhead, were way before Metallica ever got a record deal. To not mention at least one is ignorant, to not mention fucking either has prompted me to write a letter to the BBC.
I’m not going to write a list of who should’ve been mentioned but it’s worth noting that no attention was paid at all to nu-metal. Kick started when rap and thrash collided it prompted a seismic shift in how ‘metal’ was perceived and encouraged an entirely fresh fan base. Nor did it mention any of the crucial sub-genres, death metal, grindcore, battlemetal… the programme was a fucking disgrace, an insult to fan and musician alike.
The Moto GP yesterday was the reverse, some of the best racing I’ve ever, ever seen. You didn’t see it, you missed out. Stunning.
The weekend was very busy, a few beers with a mate form work in a walled beer garden in Tooting on Friday followed by a few cans and food in front of the box, namely Big Brother, a review in Watch With Mothers (link right of the page awaits you). Saturday I food shopped and started playing Tomb Raider in the afternoon, and here marks the beginning of the end of my summer. It’s fantastic, addictive and will serve me well this week when I have an alcohol free. I decided to spend Saturday in with Lara, made a pile of food, spoke to Myfwt, smoked skunk, more beer cans (I’m still saying off the wine and generally drinking less) and watched a ridiculous film, The Butterfly Effect, which I enjoyed way more than I should.
Yesterday morning I got up, burped the worm, ate a kipper before getting into my van to drive in to Soho. It was a blisteringly hot day, humid to boot and the last place I wanted to be was in the cabin of a vehicle stick firstly in Tooting, then Vauxhall, then the West End prior to getting fucking pissed about by roadwork’s and one-way street signs as I attempted to crack Greek Street. I was driving around, or rather, being sucked through London in a giant grid-lock, every option in my repertoire of navigation was halted by circumstance until I took the decision to illegally drive up Oxford Street and dive down Dean to finally meet my brother. I’d been screaming at him down the phone as I’d become increasingly incensed by having to spend my Sunday driving around tiny streets in a fucking van (I wanted to be on Box Hill with my black bitch) nonetheless he was pleased I’d finally arrived.
Me, him and his missus loaded a bunch of furniture into the guts of my van and I drove them back to Clapham, we unloaded the bloody van and I fucked off to my folks. The MOT on the white sod is due Friday, my dad is going to sort it for me which is fucking ace of him. It’d better pass; I need the bloody thing for Glastonbury in 10 days.
I took the train and bus back to Clapham where I finally met my bro in our usual Sunday boozer. He was a little flat initially but perked up eventually, we had 3 pints and a chaser and went our merry way. It was a glorious evening, the proper summer stuff and I was feeling quite pissed. The cutting back on drinking is making getting pissed more overt. This can only be a good thing?
Myfwt came over last night. We had a fucking lovely evening, ate, drunk a bottle of red wine, chatted about life changing possibilities and hit the sack, happy. Then following a relevant conversation I called her by another girls name. Needless to say this didn’t go down well despite the error being without any possible connotation. It’s not like I was aiming to play a round of ‘fucking bronco’ the hilarious sport when you take your partner from behind, call her by the wrong name mid way through coitus and see how long you can stay in. I simply made a mistake.
I’ve never been terribly good with names, ironically Harri, the name I called Myfwt, had to put up with an entire evening of me referring to her as Myfwt, I’ve been known to call my brother, friends and random strangers Myfwt. It’s terribly unfortunate and unfair that this situation has occurred, I wouldn’t mind if there was any foundation or basis for this slip-up as it would at least afford me the chance to re-evaluate aspects of my life, but this isn’t the case, far from it. I could have just as easily mistakenly called her George Galloway as Big Brothers Big Mouth was on.
Speaking of Big Brother and words ‘slipping out’ (but for entirely different reasons…) Yesterday most of the office was alight with the news that Emily, the posh blonde contestant, had called Charley, the very un-posh black wannabe, a ‘nigger’. As the day went on transcripts of the incident appeared and, knowing the contestant in question, it looked as if she’d been trying to ‘bond’ with her housemate in a ‘wassup nigga’ type way. When I actually saw the show last night I saw a different angle on it.
Essentially, Emily and Charley have, despite being from different worlds, become friends. But it seems to me that as far as Emily is concerned the friendship serves her a purpose. Both Emily and Charley have had a bust up with Chanelle, who it turns out has a very nasty streak in her, and their subsequent bonding was inevitable. But it seems that Emily wants to be top dog and the use of the word ‘nigger’ whilst stupid and ignorant also had an element of control about it. She undermined her so-called friend, and clearly upset her. As I said to Myfwt, in the space of 5 seconds, Charley grew up a year as she was genuinely at a loss as to how to handle it, yet did so with surprising dignity. I felt sorry for her actually.
Rightly, Emily was given the boot; despite acknowledging the fuck up she seemed more concerned she’d be leaving the house without any underwear. Still, I can’t help thinking the abuse was as much class related as racially motivated mixed in with a large quantity of utter ignorance.
As part of my ongoing campaign to cut back on my intake of alcohol, I acted on a brainwave yesterday lunchtime, the idea derives from a time a couple of years back when my bro was living at my flat.
He and I used to play on the PS2, evenings and entire weekends would pass with both of us sat there mesmerised by whatever horrorshow game I’d picked up. Being brothers and similar in thought and deed the fact that I was never actually involved in the physical control of the game has baffled many. We had an agreement, he operated the controls, I offered ‘advice’. Essentially, he pointed the controls in the exact same direction I would have if they were in my hands, and when he didn’t, I’d let him know. This allowed me more time to roll joints and pour wines, and when he got too pissed to physically play, I have to say his stamina was remarkable, we’d watch a film.
The only game I used to play alone was Tomb Raider, which is precisely why I found myself in a shop yesterday buying the latest Lara Croft instalment. Despite being a grown man approaching his fucking 40’s, I’m aware that Miss Croft could really help me out here. Unlike my bro, I find it impossible to play games pissed, even a small amount of booze will ignite my temper like a match to a rizla, the non-standard PS2 controls I use are a testament to this.
I’ve made two major decisions. Apart from the odd Sunday afternoon session, should I feel inclined, I’m only allowed to play Tomb Raider on evenings when I’m not drinking. This gives me something to look forward to and something to absorb my mind in a world separated from wine. Which brings me to my second major decision. I’m aware that wine is the single biggest contributor to my condition, I fucking love the stuff over and above any other tipple by a bloody miles. So, unless I’m in appropriate company, the bottles will remain unopened.
Last night was a test. I met my bro in Clapham at the usual at 6. He was on an early shift so I got out the office at 5 on the dot, biked home, changed, tube, wham, wallop etc., we discussed the governments drive to curb drinking, I’m only pleased that I’d made the decision to cut back on my drinking before the cunts at Whitehall made their absurd claims about the UK’s drinking populace, Princess Diana’s mangled face, Glastonbury and Big Brother wankers, over a few jars if Grolsch and a parting whisky and ginger.
I got home feeling quite pissed, despite not drinking as much as usual, and made some supper. After a disappointing Apprentice and Big Brother I decided to have a session of music, I’d just bought the Biffy Clyro and new Marilyn Manson albums and wanted to give them a shot.
Without doubt this is when I’m at my most vulnerable, one of life’s greatest pleasures outside of fucking and killing is to listen to angry rock music at high volume pissed, particularly as a result of wine as it makes one more introspective and engages one emotionally with the music in a way nothing else can. The music went on and instinctively I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle off the shelf. I was just about to open it…
…I didn’t. Instead I had a small can of Carlsberg. It sufficed, I’m getting used to this, slowly. It’s fucking hard though.
Before I hit the hay I played this, you’ll thank me. Turn it up
I got roped into going to a charity pub quiz last night in aid of breast cancer.
It didn’t start until 8 but by 5.30 I was still at work talking to one of my favourite, and indeed, oldest clients. Her beloved daughter was a very well known and respected actress, she died a few years ago, her husband needs 24 hour care yet she still runs a successful business and even has time to natter to yours truly. She natters a lot actually. I don’t mind at all but at 5.30 and with a missed call from Myfwt I could feel my skin prickle with wanderlust.
By 6.00 I was on the phone to Myfwt walking with my bike down the hill towards the towpath that leads to home, she and I chatted for a while and after I mounted my steed and arrived back at the flat hot and sweaty enough to warrant a shower.
By 7.15 I was on the tube to town, I alighted at Leicester Square and walked past Chinatown to the foot of Wardour Street. The cloying smell of miso and MSG cut through the early evening traffic fumes, it was a lovely evening, people drifted past me, I must say that I did notice a few rather charming oriental types as I hurried up the street, past the remnants of The Intrepid Fox, the gay bars with Stretch Armstrong bouncers checking for bigots, past numerous eateries of all possible genre before opening the doors to the awful Slug and Lettuce that sits squat on the side of the street like an elephant turd.
‘It’s for a good cause’ I reminded myself as I pushed past the endless cunts with polo shirts, collars turned, and little blonde twatlets stinking of Dune and Darling. I went downstairs to the function room and got a beer, my colleagues from work arrived in a group Harri, Kit and Lee, and we settled down. After deciding what to call ourselves (‘Double Mastectomy’ and ‘S’only Rape’ didn’t go down well) we settled on ‘Cack Farmers’ and the show got underway. The quiz was presided over by 3 jolly hockey sticks types who’d taken it on themselves to boom out the questions without the aid of a microphone, not that they needed it. One of them was so fucking loud she made my teeth shake in my skull; it was like being yelled at in infant school when ones ears weren’t fully developed.
We weren’t doing badly; it may have been helpful if one of our team hadn’t ordered a sandwich the size of a brickies forearm which required virtually all of her attention for the first half round. I was answering the majority of questions but fell down on film quotes (all from things like ‘Pretty Women’ and the hilarious ‘Three men and a little winkie’ or something) world flags and the shittiest round of all where we had to guess what one of the yar-okay compares had done, i.e., ‘wheech whon of arse hes skydived frorm a pleen?’ Oddly I did quite well on sport, usually the weakest of my quiz categories.
Out of the 17 teams we came 14, not too bad, but not enough to win the fucking wine, which irked me somewhat, it was a fucking tenner to get in…AND more men die of bollock cancer than women of charley cancer.
Still it was for charity. And tits. I like tits.
This has nothing to do with tits, in the literal sense anyway. Take it away chaps…
The BBC news reported this morning that the government are tackling drinking again. They really can’t just leave us alone, not content with slapping health warnings all over fag packets (remember most doctors DO smoke, it’s just moaning GP’s that don’t, when they’re not losing their children) and then preventing us from fucking smoking them in public, they’re now having yet another pop at the poor innocent drinker, not just the ones that go into town centres at 2 am after a day on WKD and Magners to smash each others faces off and rape arses, the ones that drink quietly at home are also being targeted. I quote from the real Big Brother, “[the campaign] includes [targeting] slightly older, stay-at-home drinkers who may not know what damage they are doing to themselves.”
How patronising is that? I’m fully aware what I’m doing to myself necking a bottle of Medoc every night thank you very much, I’m making myself drunk. Yes, liver and kidney failure, heart attacks, ulcers, falling down the stairs, slipping over in the bathroom and cracking your head open on the corner of a radiator passing out then choking on your own vomit blah blah…are all peripheral concerns but come on, I’m only damaging me and anyway, being pissed is great!
I’m not an ‘older drinker’ yet. I’m 38, so I’m heading in that direction. I offset drinking ‘too much’ at home but not boozing during the day (unless at festivals or parties etc.,) never at lunchtimes during the working week (and seldom, if at all, at the weekends) maintaining a healthy diet, fresh vegetables organic foods, taking in plenty of fluids and indulging in moderate exercise, cycling, chin up’s, masturbation, that sort of thing.
So, how are the government going to inaugurate public awareness?
There going to do this by, guess what, slapping health warning all over the bloody shop and then restricting overt advertising and promotion of alcohol, just as they did with tabs a decade ago. In pubs posters will display alcohol levels on drinks (everyone fucking knows how much booze there is in beer, wine, whisky…etc., if you don’t you’re simply a very thick twat and shouldn’t be allowed to eat let alone drink). Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA’s head of science and ethics, said: “The trouble is that whenever you are in a pub you do not ask to look at the label on a bottle of wine”. That’s because most decent boozers will have shown you already, asking again is a bit, well, weird.
Presumably the gov are getting something out of this, happy to glean the vast revenue in taxes from both drinkers and smokers whilst maintaining a ‘come to mummy for a snuggle’ image. I should imagine it has something to do with the NHS and crime, they figure that by dissuading the hardcore boozers to have one less it will take some sort of pressure off the social services. Or maybe they are just looking forward to the huge revenue accrued by forcing the drinks industry spend millions on ‘drink aware’ campaigns in order to covertly promote said tipple…
Either way I did another booze free last night, I’m capable of realising that if I’m drinking too much it’s down to me to take appropriate action, or at least, offset my booze intake with a healthy existence in other respects.
I’m off down the pub tonight though, I was going to put in another booze free night but just to spite the powers that be, I’m going to go out, drink 18 pints of Stella, return home, 2 bottles of Claret, numerous nightcaps and see if I can die in my sleep, just to spite New Labour’s silliness. Then they’ll have to have organise a campaign of ‘don’t get out your face to spite New Labour’. My bloated red face on a pillow of puke will be all over posters as a warning of fighting the government through sheer bloody mindedness in the face of patronising booze campaigns that have a hidden agenda.
Ray left at some point yesterday morning to go to work, the poor sod, he and I got back home so late it was the next day, sun up birds fucking tweeting… Jesus. I think we tried to drink some more beer but I was now muttering utter drivel. I can recall Ray asking me if I was all right. I was, just wankered
The previous evening I’d met up with my bro in the usual boozer that we frequent on a Sunday, it was 6-ish and we had a pint before being joined by Ray. We had a hilarious chat about onanism made more poignant as the subject is somewhat taboo, off topic as it were, and realising that men operate in very similar ways, in ways most women wouldn’t quite understand, resulted in childish giggles from the back of the pub. The place was rammed as usual with a good ratio of fine women to twattish rugger types. Our conversation required gestures and we were ignored, not unsurprisingly.
At about 8 we three hopped on the tube, one stop south to attend an old mates birthday party. On arrival we were greeted by a pair of bemused European girls and led to the garden where a few guests we sat around a table and a mountain of food and drink. The evening began sedately, my bro and I chatted, we were introduced to the guests and gradually I hit form, largely due to this dreadful moonshine that tasted like poison and had an instant effect on my balance. I was also drinking wine and later beer, I think. I assume I behaved myself because the host of the party, Rick who is teetotal, emailed me to invite me on the motorcycle ride we’d discussed that evening. The spirit was willing but the flesh was still soaked, I was forced to decline on grounds of common sense. The evening passed swiftly, I had no desire to leave, besides I was nattring to a Polish girl with broken English and enchanting eyes. I think I invited her back to my flat being a bit pissed out of my head. Rick was very encouraging in suggesting that would be bad, ‘She’ll never leave!’ he kept saying, I took heed of his advice for a while, until she spat on the ground. For some reason a revolting part of psyche opened up, I found this single action very appealing. I need to try and work out the source of this… or perhaps see a doctor.
The weekend got off to a fine start. After work I hooked up with Frank and we had a few pints in the local. Mercifully the place wasn’t jammed full of no necked skins for the football as, apparently, it was a ‘friendly’ whatever the fuck that means. At around 8 he and I walked to a mates house. We didn’t stay long but got incredibly stoned on this hybrid weed. My mate was regaling us with tales of his youth, drinking heavily and having punch ups outside the local, Frank sarcastically referred to them as ‘salad days’ and I had to bite my lip as I don’t think the comment went down well and one of us chuckling was enough. I was so stoned that on leaving my mouth took on an inane grin, my vision tunnelled and I began to feel the dawning of a trip. Frank was in a similar state. I’ve no idea what the fuck he was saying, or I for that matter, but we were laughing so hard to neither of us could walk in a straight line and on occasion we were forced to physically stop.
I said goodbye to Frank at the junction and we wobbled off to our respective homes. The world smelt of baked beans and vinegar and my legs weighed 10 stone each, by the time I got to the top of my street I could barely walk. I was still grinning like a mental patient when out of the blue, quite literally, I was hit on the side of the face by some behemoth insect, I screamed and flayed my arms about before collecting myself, much to the amusement to a passing couple on the other side of the road. I say amusement, it may have been concern.
Saturday morning I was up early and remarkably clear headed. I made some tea and then Myfwt turned up. She was looking fabulous as usual and no sooner had she parked herself on the sofa, Swineshead turned up too. It was very peculiar, us 3 occupying a part of the day that is normally swallowed up by sleep sat around chatting about Reggae Sauce among other things. It’s been one of those weekends where everything seems to have been funny. Essentially for one hour we just laughed, nearly all the quips were off colour in some form or another but it made for a lively start to day. After Swineshead breezed off I walked Myfwt to her car, got a paper and returned home for a much needed poo. Even that was funny.
I got up on Sunday after 2; I was enormously hungover and missed the Moto GP much to my annoyance. I spent the day in a malaise of writing, lolling about, reading and burping the worm. I ate a kipper with some toast and it did something to take the edge of my illness, as did a bath later. I’d made the decision to not drink that evening so I wrote some more and watched Big Brother, which I’ve reviewed on WWM (link to the right kids, go there after this).
The highlight of the evening was to the 7 Ages of Rock as they were doing punk. What a disappointment, more than that, they ignored some fundamental acts. Firstly, Iggy and The Stooges got a mention whereas they should’ve been given a segment, same with CBGB, the birthplace of punk, we were treated to one shot of a closed venue. It was here that Malcolm Mclaren saw The Ramones and Television prior to returning to London and forming the Pistols. This wasn’t clear; punk was an American invention, however that sticks in my throat. Also some credit to should’ve made to Blondie who managed to take punk into the mainstream, Debbie Harry herself was a key player in the development of the movement, yet all this was ignored. Even the actual shows theme tune musicians The Damned were given the bird save one tiny fragment of footage.
Still it wasn’t all bad, The Ramones got a fair chunk but even this was cut dead by too much irrelevant Pistols footage, the Bill Grundy incident for example, if I remember it was Grundy that got the blame for what happened, it wasn’t a big deal, it was a cheap early evening programme on ITV that clashed with the news on BBC.
All in all the programme was a mess, worst so far. They’d better not balls up Heavy Metal or I’ll start writing offensive letters to the beeb.
I’m a work, I’ve no hangover but I’m tired… actually if the BBC can’t be pissed I’ll do it.
Nice boys too, Captain Sensible is running for parliament at the mo, I shit you not yeah
I have a hangover from a bottle of wine and one g & t. This indicates to me that the combination of abstinence and not glugging back a bottle after the pub has already reduced my tolerance, which is a good thing I guess.
Actually, I have a headache more than a hangover. And my thumb hurts. This has a lot to do with cutting off a segment of lime and the end of my fucking thumb simultaneously. I bled like I’d been flayed, there was claret all over the fucking place, I utilised 6 plasters, 6!The end of my thumb looks like Ron Jeremy’s helmet after a hard days work.
I did sod all last night, I was exhausted from a combination of a lack of sleep and cycling. I couldn’t even be arsed to cook so I slammed a pair of posh haddock fishcakes in the oven and knocked together some tomato and cucumber in mayo, Dijon and pepper.
I made some notes during House for some scribbling I’m planning, I kept my eye on proceedings though it wasn’t a particularly good one. I’m not sure why I am such a fan of it; it’s a very formulaic American drama, sentimental, pretty and at times beggar’s belief. But it has something, Hugh Laurie is superb and the best of the writing is saved for his character, which I also like. It offers a place for my head to escape. But not last night.
Big Brother 8. Fucking hell, the most annoying person in there so far is Tracy, the incarnation of a nightmare, I can actually imagine waking up and seeing it at the foot of my bed, it standing up slowly, bellowing ‘ows in going’ in that Baritone voice prior to raping me with a strap-on, if it needs one. She moans at the other girls for wearing make up but seems to think her fucking 80’s haircut, labret and tongue piercing are exempt from vanity. She’s got a hair trigger temper and I can see her kicking off at the drop of a roll-up.
There is another reason I think she’s a wanker. Much more personal. When I was in my early 20’s there was somewhat of a mini psychedelic revival, there was this great little club in Deptford called The Crypt which was frequented by me and my little pals. We’d all take lots of speed and ride up there, see some bands have a drink drop some acid take some more speed, and ride back. The Ozric Tentacles were like a house band and just before the place was shut down I was fortunate enough to see The Stone Roses prior to being signed.
The reason the place was shut down was because of cunts like Tracy. All of a sudden there were builders in there hugging you, wide-eyed pilled out turds with whistles and fluorescent clothing, the soaring crunching guitars and rock beats were exchanged by a single booming pulse, Neanderthal noise for Neanderthal’s. So unsubtle and moronic were these twats that they drew the attention of the police and government and all of a sudden bars were being raided, clubs and venues were being shut down, The Crypt being one of them, and the reinforced zero tolerance to drugs, gatherings and parties had a massive negative impact on all of us.
futile screamings from a git 