time took a cigarette

On Friday following a rather unproductive day in the office I took the tube to Angel and caught the 38 bus in order to meet some friends in a very residentially located boozer on the borders of Hackney and Dalton. A mutual friend of Swineshead and myself, Rochelle, had come all the way down from up t’North for work reasons and was now happy ensconced on the pub with another mate, Belinda and a further three other birds, Cath, Laura and Savannah. I felt a bit like Ziggy entering the Big Brother house, except I didn’t say ‘daddy’s home’ to the front door and proceeded to act like a testosterone filled bollock with hair thin lips and a penchant for conversing over the top of my ‘yeah, that’ll do’ little bummer boys tattoo.

So far so good, I caught up with Rochelle and Belinda’s comings and goings and chatted to Savannah, a former Melody Maker journo but now attempting to un-cuff herself from a dubious women’s magazine. The Flowers was slipping down nicely (that’s the beer, not actual fucking flowers, dear reader) when Swinsehead arrived with his missus, Theresa. Crowded round a tiny table in a rapidly filling pub I mentally acknowledged each cigarette I slid from my packet and the smoky atmosphere with a certain degree of pre-emptive nostalgia. A pleasant evening ensued, beers were appearing with splendid regularity and I did some laughs to boot. In time to catch the last tube Belinda and I caught a cab from the pub to Angel. The fucking cabbie wasn’t prepared to take her on to West London, as she’s a fucked knee I hung about to make sure she was able to find a ride back home before I hopped on the tube for a head-lolling trip back to my flat.

On Saturday, as is usual at the weekends, I woke up, annoyingly, at my usual weekday time and found getting back to sleep a non-starter. Why does this happen? Even if I go to bed early during the week I’ve no desire to get up, but when I am in a position to lie in, I can’t be fucked. Bloody human condition.

I did a shit load of washing; my priority was to bleach Myfwt’s blob spillage off the bedclothes and shove the lot into the machine. I would like to make it abundantly clear that such thing bothers me not a jot, had she (or indeed, I) grumbled an arc of beer slurry all over the Egyptian cotton I’d be a little more concerned. After a blast on Lara (got fucking stuck again) breakfast (smoked trout on toast) and the F1 qualifying, I made the usual Saturday trudge to fucking Sainsbury and spent my hard earned on essentials. My mind turned to the evening, the last time I’d be able to smoke a cigarette in a pub without getting fined £50, for fucks sake.

I’d arranged to meet Frank and Robert in my local, despite the beer not being up to much -lagers, no ales- the music has improved lately beyond belief and it has an edgier atmosphere that the usual Frank and I frequent. The pub wasn’t too full, surprising for a Saturday, made more so by my expectation to see lots of smokers mournfully gazing at their fingers. It was 7pm, I had 5 hours to wolf down as many cigarettes as my endangered heart desired before becoming an outlaw for crying out loud. This was ridiculous, obscene, even.

Frank and Robert appeared a bit after 7, we chatted away, those two had been at boarding school together, you know what they say about what happens at boarding school (if you don’t it’s a word that sounds like ‘thuggery’) but Frank and Robert no more doff the brown hat than I. Indeed, they seem to have had quite a good time of it. When I was little if I misbehaved I was threatened with boarding school, a nightmare proposition, but I couldn’t help feeling as if I missed something. Robert and I reviewed our Glastonbury experience; it transpired he’d had a better lot than I but I agreed it had sort of been worth it for the bands and company.

The beer and cigarettes were going down fast, as was the evening, we had a few frames of pool before finally settling down as the minutes ticked toward midnight. Frank bought a round of fucking tequila’s which we demolished in between objections, I fucking hate the stuff, and the evening was closed with some Jack Daniels and coke. At 11.45 Frank and I bought one last pack of cigarettes from the machine before it gets slung onto the scrap heap. Ritually we pressed the Malboro red button together and split the pack. I lit my last ever cigarette in an English pub at 11.56 and drew heavily on it. When finished I crushed the butt into the soon to be defunct ashtray and for some reason, known only to myself, stole a pair of shot glasses as a way of exacting some sort of revenge. I was pissed rotten.

We said our farewells and I quite literally staggered the short distance home. I was even too bollocksed to eat or roll a joint so I went straight to bed.

Predictably I woke up at the usual time for bloody work but managed to get back to sleep until midday. I watched a rather average Grand Pricks, save a few moments of raw excitment, ate some kippers with a couple of cups of tea, tried to get Lara back on course and after failing did some writing, the fruits of which you’re now reading. I have a dose of the screaming brown hot shits to boot, probably due to over indulgence and a lack of food.

This evening I’m going to cook some sausages and make a broccoli and cauliflower bake and avoid alcohol. I don’t want to, I just should. Stick with my self imposed programme and all that. Doubtless I’ll watch Big Brother and turn in early as tomorrow it’s bloody work. Again.

On Radio 4 yesterday afternoon someone said life is like a Hen Ladder, shit from top to bottom. I laughed. I don’t find it so funny now. I mean I can’t even fucking well smoke in a pub anymore. Wankers.

bins

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…

The fucking cunts never got back to me.

the head of motors

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

boils up

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

popless

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…)

fan shit

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.