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…)

program

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

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ku23nZkukE]

think drink

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.

Cunts