A fat person in a steam room

4.16am Sunday February 5th 2005. An old man gets onto a night bus after his arduously long wait is finally over. Although drunk as usual at this hour he somehow spots the plastic sign on the bus driver door as his gaze floats up from the floor. “One twenty” he thought “Those fucking bastards have done it again. I’m fucking lucky I found that twenty pee just now I suppose”. He handed over the money grudgingly as he snatched the shitty paper ticket. “Not much to look at for £1.20” he mumbled as he got his lighter out and made the heat sensitive paper draw itself a little happy face. The man next to him was trying not to look at him by staring as some discarded chicken bones as if he was starving before getting off at the next stop. Some more skull eyed passengers climbed on board looking for a place to rest. The last was an old mum without the baby and she glimpsed at him as she passed before sitting down nearby.

“I suppose you know who I am?” the man said, taking out a bottle of gourmet bourbon and offering it to the lady. After her smallest gestured indicated no chance of acceptance he swigged on the bottle viciously, then fell back with the bus as it turned, almost as if he was falling down in triumph. The man moved in front of his chosen companion and once more implied that she must recognise him due to his notoriety but the lady, now wishing she’d stayed at home with her baby just stared blankly out the window. The old man desisted for a minute and joined her gaze at the real life TV scenes flowing by.

“Just look at me” he thought “please just look at me. Just for a bit. Come on”. However no matter what the old man said his words could not attract her attention, full or otherwise, and she got off the bus with her eyes firmly avoiding his. The bottle of bourbon half empty now, the drinking became slower but the talking was faster. It was always going to be one of those nights. The remaining passengers looked like they might not want attention or at least like they might fight anyone who gave it to them, so the man just swung with the rhythm of the bus. After they got off the man, who for arguments sake we’ll call James O’Drunken-Nobucks or Hobo Jim for short thought he would have easy pickings for conversation. But none came.

“Just look at me” he thought so began loudly claiming to be every celebrity under the sun his drunken stupor would allow him to remember. The stupor also allowed him to remember briefly that by saying more than one name to the same people he was making his whole case less credible. “Both the fucking Attenborough’s” he said finally as he reached for at least a chuckle from these night monkeys who were all doing their own bus routines, which didn’t involve looking at him.

“So celebrity curiosity won’t get ya? Well then maybe more of a train crash approach might work” he thought. Or at least he thought emotions and mumbles which closely represented that sentence. So Hobo Jim in desperation decided to start with the racist jokes he heard from an unfortunate element he was forced to socialise with. He didn’t feel it, but holding a bottle of bourbon to your lips can make you say these things like someone who does feel it if they were in your state.

“Blacks…I hate em….i mean they’re just not white are they…they fucking black. And jews…stupid bastaaards…I knew a jew once….niss fellow but I fucking tol him, I said to him once…..thas no fucking yours! Asianns…who do they think they’re foolind….they want to kill us….kill you…..the poor babies. And those other asianssss…..they kill their own babies….why…fucking foreigners…..fucking glasses wearing freaks fucking ginger glass wearing looking down your nose at me pricks who come from other fucking cities. Not English cities. Not English. I’m English. ENGLISH. I wanna keep England clean. I mean pure…fucking pure…b…n…p. B fucking NP. BNP BNP BNP!”.

Still no reaction came from Hobo Jim’s chosen audience. “Got to make it worse. You bastards why are you making me do this” his thoughts indicated but his words were “Hitler, Hitler Hitler was fuckin…” he hesitated before he could actually say it “….right. He was a clever man. Not a little fucking arsehole no. He thought of some things which should have been thought of. Fucking lazy bastard killing himself. Fucking cunts. Fucking KKK. I love the klan. I would have my own outfit if I could keep it clean”. At this Hobo Jim fell down in apparent pain but was actually a fit of drunken laughter trying to fight through his cough reflex whilst not disturbing his agitated puke reflex. Sitting on the floor he stared up at his companions on the bus and cursed their names silently, as he didn’t know what they were.

He got slowly to his feet with the same repetitive beat in his head “Look at me. Look at me you pricks. You fucking pricks. If I was you and I was hearing all this shit I would look at me. I would beat the life out of me for being such an arsehole. So look at me. LOOK AT ME. FUCKING LOOK AT ME, THEN YOU’LL SEE….” But his thoughts were stopped as he saw the restrained look of terror on the faces of the white late nighters as a young black kid got on the bus, said a friendly “hi” to him. The other passengers were looking at him now, but in the reflection in the windows or out of the corners of their eyes, their unwillingness to be involved in an ugly scene stopping their direct attention being given. The kid put on his headphones and stood right next to Hobo Jim swaying side by side with him to the rhythms of the night bus. “You might look at me” he thought as the bus ambled along through seemingly ridiculous side streets “that was the nicest hi I have heard since I was last sober…and who knows when that was. But I can almost feel all of those people’s attention right on me. And then they’ll all see. I’m too far along to stop now. I’m really sorry…..”. Once more his actual thought was more like that of a terrifying wordless flashback in a rubbish movie, but the ideas were always there.

“Oompa loompas” Hobo Jim said to the headphone noise next to him “ummm…I mean umbongo loompas”. He tried once more to say something racist but without the dumb feelings behind it he was unsure how to show his apparent disgust. Dancing around him might help in a kind of tribal mocking way, but as luck would have it the kid got off the bus. Whether he knew what Hobo Jim was doing or not, the whole scene smelled more disgusting than Hobo Jim himself.

“I’m special” Jim thought as he got off the bus. He had already shouted abuse at the passengers for being too pathetic to intervene, but they just ignored his abuse just like the rest of his words. You see hobo Jim was special and he knew that he had something amazing within him that he could never just show people. After a long hobo type life he had drunk enough to flood an apartment complex so his memories were thin on the ground. He could clearly remember more than once in his life looking up at someone and them telling him he was special. They were just random glimpses of his life though, many of which were clearly when he was young as they would add the word “boy” to their declaration of his specialness.

It was definitely more than one person who had told him this. That’s why he wanted people to look at him. Maybe if they just looked at him as those in his past had, they would see his specialness too. Then they wouldn’t ignore him. Then they would at least look and give that little nod that they seem to afford each other but not him. Hobo Jim fell into the gutter and stared up at the stars and for the first time in years he remembered why he was special just like everyone else.

When he was 14, he was in the upper classes for Science and Maths so he was taught Upper Level Gravity Abuse at a young age. The teacher had the largest mouth that he had ever seen. He began the very first lesson by opening up his gigantic gob and pointing with a very satisfied look to a glob of spit of above average size and telling the students that it was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen. Ever since mouth gravity had been realised, everything had ultimately been about spit.

See a science guy whilst taking pills once realised that within his mouth he could control the position of everything in it without using seemingly sufficient muscle movement to cause it. It was on this day that the idea of mouth gravity was created. Further study into the mouth showed that in fact millions of particles were kept floating within peoples mouths due to subconscious control of what was named the super eating gland. Whilst eating you see, the subconscious uses your control of gravity within your mouth to stop you from choking. However as there are very few people in the world who could claim that their subconscious is not without its hiccups, the subconscious also seemingly accidentally collects and stores particles in a random order within your mouth. It was discovered, after the craziest set of experiments took place, that with a little bit of mental discipline the matter stored in ones mouth could be manipulated. These are tiny little bitch particles and the manipulation is barely noticeable even under intense magnification, but it was still crazy shit.

Hobo Jim knew all this at 14, and this class was to take him into a weird elite which had sprung up since these discoveries. “This spit is amazing” the giant jawed freak barked “not because I can move it, but because of what that movement means”. The dull expression on Hobo Jim’s face would have been comparable to any of those at church, and he sat there waiting for a penny anywhere to drop. “You see the particles in our mouths it seems according to eminent astrologers are generally arranged like a miniature universe. By moving different parts astrophysicists can study our own universe in amazing ways. By simply opening and closing our mouths we move the whole thing except for the centre, but it is the centre which is the most amazing. By making it spin, we can bring the whole universe in our mouths alive as the smallest amount of energy to us provides abundant heat and light on their microcosmic scale. My spit is alive. Isn’t that the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?” The teachers previously monsterific face somehow seemed softer and less repugnant after he made this last statement. It was that statement that made Hobo Jim special. Not because he spun the middle of his own universe, as he had given up long ago and there was life inside him no-more. It was because he had a whole universe inside him. And one day he would bring it to life again. But probably not today. “If only someone would look at me” he thought “then they’d see. Just look at me…”

Don't miss out

The beautiful thing about London is that there is always a million things to do. I know that this can be said of many capital cities, but London is my Capital, so I’m saying it.

Anytime of day or night, you can basically do whatever you want, if you just know how to find it. This is great for visitors, as they can come with their travel guides, find out where their preferential fun spots are and go. While they are here they can be entertained endlessly.

For people who come stay live here for a portion of a greater travelling experience however it seems to be a different matter. Even for people who just move here for a job, London becomes too much. It’s addictive, or so I hear. Every night that you stay at home for a quiet evening, it preys on your mind that you could (or even should) be doing a whole variety of unique events. Every night that you go out, you could be doing a whole load of other, possibly more exciting, things. And even if you do have a gap in your calendar and you stay in through choice, surely the number of friends you have made in London mean that you will be inundated with stress about who to see and who to ditch. I’ve been told that it’s just too much to take, but that’s it’s also too much too leave.

It’s different for Londoners though. I once went to a random house party whilst I was at university with my flatmates. All of my flatmates happened to be from London, but none of us knew each other before we went to Uni, so I found it very strange when a girl at this party asked us as soon as we sat down “Are you guys from London?” Now as I said, we all were, but all from different parts. When I asked her how she knew, she said “It’s just something in the way you move and present yourselves”. Now this was doubly strange, as apart from coming from different areas of London, my flatmates and I were all incredibly different types of people.

I think I understand now though. As much as all the events to attend in London freak out non locals, it builds a certain sense of fatalism into Londoners. We all know that there is a million things we could be doing each night, so we’re not worried about missing them. Because there will be a million more tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

A plea to a hero

There is a man. A man of danger and intrigue. A man of chalk. And he’s terrorising Richmond as we speak.

The man, who for arguments sake we’ll call Sir Chalkalot, has been waging a war of amusing chalky terror against the citizens of Richmond for about a week now, and I say God bless him. Although God himself probably won’t because one of Sir Chalkalot’s writing clearly designates a local church as a pub.

You see this man, well to be honest I assume it’s just a boy, has been labelling all sorts of minor landmarks throughout Richmond, as well as occasionally simply leaving his own point of view around. This point of view is generally about penguins or smurfs or somesuch frivolous matter, but I like it.

By a paper recycling bin it says “We like bikes. We cycle.” Genius.

He appears to have avoided any attention from local authorities, or anyone, so far as none of his scrawlings have been wiped off except by the scuffling of feet. Not even the one of his illustrated writings which proscribes the proprieter of a shop as a ‘nob’. He has not however avoided the evils of alcohol (or perhaps drugs) it seems as everyday his writings make less and less sense.

So my plea is this, Sir Chalkalot if you are reading this, please don’t give up. Sure some of the stuff you write is drivel, and sure a lot of it doesn’t make sense, but the people of Richmond need fucking with and I just can’t be bothered to go buy some chalk. Also, it seems fairly unlikely what you are doing is illegal due to the removable nature of chalk, so you may as well keep going until that packet of chalk I assume you found runs out.

Terrible Lizards

I had the most terrifying nightmare of my life last night. No giant or metal spiders this time though. No Freddy Krueger.

It was set in the future. We were doing some sort of experiment in my house, nothing major, just an experiment. When it suddenly blew up. Everyone else was wearing protective gear but me, so I had to run and wash off the stuff we were working on, but it was such dangerous stuff that I flushed the toilet and used that to wash my head instead of the sink.

Pretty scary huh. But wait, there’s more.

All the little bits of goop which had been flung around from the explosion were gone when I left the bathroom. No-one else had noticed but I started looking around for an explanation. After awhile I saw this little lizard. So I squished it. Then I saw some other little lizards. Except they weren’t so little. They grew pretty fucking quickly to small dog size. And they had razor fucking sharp teeth. And the clincher was that they could go through walls and whatnot (in a kinda osmosis kinda way), and they only ate human food. Also, when they got big enough they split into two tiny ones and then grew again.

I spent all night running around my house in hysterics trying to avoid these beasts. Also because they only ate human food, they were constantly after me, as for some reason I was serving up delicacies to everyone from our futuristic oven. No-one else was afraid of them. I think they only hated me because I squished one of them. It was fucking terrifying.

When I woke up this morning, it took me a good ten minutes to get out of bed. I was paralysed by fear, and only part of that fear was that I must have wet the bed after such a nightmare. Luckily I hadn’t, but I’m still feeling a bit on edge about those terrible lizards.

I hate bigots

What is the female version of misogynist? If you type misogynist into google the first answer is that exact question. And the answer is The equivalent is misandrist (a person who hates persons of the male sex), a rare word but seemingly much sought-after.

A rare word but much sought-after. That just demonstrates the whole point I’m about to make. Sexism is a two way street.

Now before I start complaining, don’t get me wrong, I know that men are sexist. In fact I think it would shock most women how sexist most men are, even the nice ones. But the thing is, the men who aren’t dickheads keep it to themselves. The thing about women is, they are proud. Hating men is like a higher calling for them. Feminism is like sainthood. I can’t be bothered to look up the male equivalent, but I’m sure it will be an equally rare word as misandrist.

And men, we’re afraid to stick up for ourselves. Women get badly treated in lots of places by lots of people, and that’s a bad thing. But I don’t do it personally, and neither does anyone (well pretty much anyone) who I choose to call my friend. So why then do we have to put up with women having a free reign in advertising and on television to slag us off as much as they want without anyone batting an eye-lid. In this day and age, if men on TV made such wide sweeping and frankly stupid comments about women, as women do about men in Sex and the City and other shit, then the shows would be banned. Women feel it is fine to call any man who stands up for themselves a misogynist whereas men don’t even know the retaliatory word.

Ann Summers is my case and point. I often say to my girlfriend that if I could be bothered I’d picket that place. Not because I think it’s wrong or dirty or whatnot, but just because it is porn. It sells dildos. A comparative shop for men would have to be behind closed doors and all hidden away, but Ann Summers just motherfucking flaunts it. And the desperate argument I have heard against this often is, “you love it really”. I fucking hate that. It’s the same as a women thinking that you will give her special treatment just because she’s pretty. I know that statistically men do do that, but still, pretty women should at least try to develop personalities. My girlfriend has.

Anyway to sum up, I want to say again that I realise that men are generally more sexist than women, and that men give women a lot more shit than women in a sexist way. I just am sick of the double standard which is in effect which makes nice guys have to apologise for dickheads, whereas bitches are publicly celebrated by women.

Pepe le peu

I would like to talk to you today about something which has annoyed me for a long time. Something which would have annoyed me for a much longer time, had I been older, as it happened long before I was born. Well I say happened, but it wasn’t an event really, just some stuff. I’m starting to annoy me with all this digression now.

I want to complain about Samuel Pepys. Now if you don’t know who I’m talking about then I’m not surprised, as I barely know. He was some guy who wrote a diary which survived the great fire of London. I think. I am no historian and know almost nothing about this man, except that in some circles his name has lasted through history. And it’s his name that annoys me.

Pepys. To start with it’s a plural, which is just stupid. But again I digress, as I really care not about that. Pepys. Should be pronounced pep – ees right? Would make sense. But no, it’s pronounced peeps. PEEPS! Who the fuck did this man think he was?

I can just imagine him now, swaggering through ye olde London with the plague, pulling a cart or persecuting someone for religious reasons when he see’s ye olde tavern and thinks “I’ll stop for ye olde ale”. He walks through the door and before you know it he’s like “PEEPS IS IN THE HOUSE” and everyone gives off a yanky “woo woo”. That damn bastard, who did he think he was? The father of hip hop? He had a pathetic girly name, and he tried to act all cool about it. And somehow it worked as his name lives on and on.

Some people have all the luck. History lesson over.

Should have been a yes man

I don’t say yes anymore, I just say maybe.

Like maybe I am crazy. Maybe I do hate you. Maybe those are my drugs, and maybe I did take some.

Or maybe I’ll come out tonight. Maybe I’ll see you later. Maybe I’ll give you a call sometime. Maybe I do like you.

It’s an impractical way to live. People say

“Do you want some of this?”

and I say “maybe”

and they say “well which is it? Yes or no”

so I say “well it’s not no”

so they say “so it’s yes then”

so I say “maybe”

Then usually the violence starts.

And then the police come. And the paramedics.

“Can you hear me?”

“Maybe”

“Do you know what year it is?”

“Maybe”

“Are these your drugs”

“Maybe”

“Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you?”

“Maybe”

Then contempt of court. Then jail.

Then maybe just maybe, when I get out, I can have some of whatever I was offered which caused all this trouble in the first place. Maybe.

A Fools Game

I played poker last night again and after 6 hours of intensity, I came second. Second! It’s a shame it wasn’t for money otherwise…. well I still would have gone home broke I suppose. But then at least when I told other people of my first loser status, I would have been able to embellish with the amount of money which I almost won. Maybe even I would have been able to talk about what I would have done with the money. Probably something concerned the eating of some sorta pie.

But pie’s aside, gambling really is fun. I mean in Australia they have a cuss word for a non-gambler as 70% of the population gamble regularly. That’s a fucking lot of aussies ready to kick the crap out of you for using their fruit machine when they’ve just gone to get some change.

So a life of chance it is for me then. I’m going to spend all my spare time gambling on the internet and seeing what comes of it. I made $3,600 into $3,600,000 on GTA on my x-box so clearly I have the gene. If I just give it 10 hours a day everyday then I’ll be rich within the month.

Although I suppose 10 hours a day is longer than a working day. It hardly seems worth it in terms of sleep…

I'm not growing up, I'm just burning out

So it’s the middle of Earth’s lifespan. That’s what I heard on TV today. 5 billion years gone, 5 billion to go. Somehow that makes a lot of sense to me.

We are all like Earth’s midlife crisis. Half way through sitting around, just being a big ball of mud, it thought

“Shit! I have to do something with my life. I've been wasting away just staring at the sun for too fucking long. I know, I’m gonna create life. Millions of types of life. And they're gonna be all interesting and pretty and clever and stuff. Yeah.”. And so here we are. Living away and fucking up this ball of mud. It doesn’t notice anyway. It’s too busy checkin out mars’ butt.

So what’s my point? I feel old I guess. I’ve said it many many times, but this last week I was working on a TV film set and I really noticed it more. All the people at an equivalent level of employment were years younger than me. All the actors were younger than me. Even the lady who owned the club we filmed in was younger than me. Doh. Maybe it’s time to grow up hey.

But probably not. What do you call an African American flying a plane?

A pilot you stupid racist.

I got that directly from the OC. Maybe I’m not as old as I look. Or maybe I’ve just got bad taste in TV. Hmm. Whatever. At least I’m not younger than I look. Being young sucked. I just remember all those sweeties to buy, and no money.

Crumbling into the ashtray

So there I was. Fucked off my nuts in a penthouse in Putney playing poker and winning. And spinning around on my chair as the room gets smokier and smokier. Pretty soon I start asking myself “How the fuck am I winning?”

I clearly have no idea, so I begin asking other people. Seems they don’t know either. But now they’ve all spotted that I’m wrecked, it becomes unlikely that I’ll be winning for long. Because then of course my next move did have to be the only thing that I never do, and that’s bluff. But when you’re in my state, you don’t exactly bluff, you kinda just give your money away. As I was thinking “Now these guys think I’m wrecked so I can do clever stuff and they’ll never guess it was intentional!” But of course I was discounting the fact I really was wrecked. So one ‘all in –> me out’ later, I started making like a ringmaster.

Now rolling takes me a really long time, so if I really was making like a ringmaster, the lions would have eaten me a long time ago for wasting their time. But anyway, while I was doing that, smoke was flying everywhere, so I continuously had to switch between multi-tasking rolling and dealing poker, and smoking and dealing poker. The thing is, I’ve never really had much of an attention span. Remembering what I’m doing one minute to the next seems like a novel waste of brain power to me, so of course eventually, I found myself crumbling straight into the ashtray. ‘Son of a bitch’ I thought, ‘Seems like such a waste’. Yet in the state I was in, the profound logic of what I was doing kept me doing it for a second longer.

The moral of the story is this: people aren’t gonna necessarily scream “stop you idiot” to stop you when you’re wasting an opportunity.

Ask me no questions….

Being unemployed sucks. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it has its high points such as the sleeping in and the playing of computer games when you want. Ok so I don’t play computer games during the day anyway, but I like the sleep.

Anyway, the worst bit about being unemployed is the looking for a job. The destruction of one’s own current state is always going to be arduous, but more so when you have to convince the destructor that you really want it to be done. I’m talking about job interviews.

Like the one I had yesterday. A group interview in which no questions were asked. We introduced ourselves, then they said any questions? And surprisingly for a dominantly British group, people were ready to just jump in. The problem was that they were intensely irrelevant questions which would obviously have really fucking long answers. So after about an hour of that, we were given a 5 minutes math test and then told we could leave.

I asked no questions as I wanted to get to the interview. So basically I wasn’t there as far as the interviewers would be concerned as they had to see dozens of people, and one guy sitting in the corner not saying anything isn’t really going to stick out. Doh. So I did something that I’ve never done before, and I’ll never do again. I complained to the interviewer by email about the interview.

Today I got a reply. You were the strongest candidate for one of the positions, we are sorry that you do not want to continue with the interview process. I protested my interest in the interview protest, but to no avail. Stupid interviews.

Stupid unemployment.

Stupid me.

Again!

I lost my ring last night. I was a little tipsy after watching "the big game" in the pub, so decided a bacon sandwich would be the best thing for my very slightly hungry stomach. My mum and step dad were up so after taking a bacon poll, I cooked some for them too. After I had made my mini feast I looked down at my hand and realised that my thumb was missing it's most important component - the ring! So I freaked out and looked through my pockets, through my jacket, through the fridge, through the bushes outside. And nothing. I decided that maybe I should wait til the cold light of day to look again. Depressed but full I went to bed.

The next day, well today I suppose, I rumbled out of bed and went straight to work. I searched and searched inside and out. No joy. And it was fucking cold outside in just my dressing gown and novelty shaped slippers. But damn it no ring. I’ve lost that little circular bastard too many times to just put it down to c'est la vie as it keeps coming back and then disappearing again to piss me off. It's like the one true ring in that gay midget film, except that it's got nowhere better to be, and nothing better to do than mess with me. Unless of course it considers me the giant eye, always looking for it, but in that case where are my armies, and why do I have eye-lids?

But anyway, today to cheer myself up I made another bacon sandwich. And guess what? When I unwrapped the cheese it was sitting there all cold and shit. That little bastard. I’m gonna throw it into a volcano one of these days.

The ugly potato

Once upon a time there was a little potato. He was so small in fact that the other potatoes used to bully him all the time and call him a potatini. He would jump up and down and say “I’m not a potatini, I’m a potato just like you” but the big potato’s would just laugh. “Potatoes are at least as big as us. You’re not a potato, you’re just a little potatini”. And the little potato would cry and scream and complain, but of course this only made the big potatoes laugh at him more and tease him harder. One day though, they pushed him too hard and he flew into a rage and attacked them all. He was so angry that he mashed them all into a fine paste, even though they were not boiled, as is traditional with such a venture. The next day was picking day and the farmer came along to inspect his crop. Although the little potato had felt bad about his actions almost as soon as he had committed them, he was happy now as he was the only potato left, so the farmer was sure to love him. But lo, when the farmer came over to him, he just picked him and kicked him into the distance, and then cried for his mashed potato crop. For you see, the little potato was not a potato at all, but a rock.

What does prego mean anyway?

I went to the Pope’s house this weekend. Ok, maybe not his actual house, but his office at least. In his very own city. It was beautiful.

But not as beautiful as my lovely lady. She took me to Rome for the weekend. Never has such a nice thing been done for me, it’s just a shame that we can never return. Not because of legal reasons or what not, but simply for fear of getting fat.

Unsurprisingly, almost everything we ate in Rome was the tastiest motherfucking shit ever. But vaguely surprisingly, the pistachio ice-cream had a strangely amazingly addictiveness about it, that meant we ate it twice daily. And an ice-cream based diet on top of the four or so courses that you are expected to eat for each meal does not equate to healthy bunnies. In fact, I have no-idea whatsoever how all Italians aren’t immobilised by their gigantic fat asses. If I lived there, I know I would be.

But anyway, it was amazing and pretty and warm (in February). And somewhat sad. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have never thought of the Colloseum as a depressing place before. I mean, I know that life was different then, so fighting to the death wouldn’t be so strange, but when we were there I couldn’t help imagining all of the people who had fought and died for no reason. Not even entertainment. Those who had cried, or run, or just wet their pants. Those poor bastards. A tour guide we were eaves dropping on said that they used to employ little kids to aggravate the animals with big sticks, as otherwise they wouldn’t put up a good fight. Just think how many of those kids would have died for just not running away quick enough.

Ok it wasn’t sad at all apart from that. I bought a snow globe from a nun on top of the Vatican. I ran around the chariot course pretending to ram into Kathy. And we got very, very drunk. Mamma mia.

Lobster rocks, oysters suck

I ate lobster and oysters for dinner the other night. Not bad for an un/self-employed bum like me. Just so you know, lobster rocks, and oysters suck.

I was having dinner with my estranged father in a fairly swanky restaurant in London, and call me petty if you will, but I thought the man owed me a lobster dinner. I was gonna get a steak too, but I was afraid that the old bastard might have been making my brother pay, so I held back. No champagne either. Doh. Shoulda gone with my first instincts.

The only question which I asked the old man of any personal nature was whether or not he supported George Bush Jnr. I assumed that no-one with any brains did, but my Dad is a Texan oil man so I thought I’d check. And he said he did. And then I asked him how he could considering how stupid George is, and listed dozens of stupid things he had said and done. And my dad said, “You have to consider that he makes at least three speeches a day, so of course sometimes he’s going to make mistakes”. Hmm. I would like to think that if I made 3 speeches a day, my stupid mistakes wouldn’t be as frequent and apparent as his.

Anyway, I was talking to my mum the other day, and she told me that her sister in Iran was being forced to demonstrate in favour of nuclear power. Now up to this point I had kinda believed that the images of Iranians on TV supporting their president had been true. It’s funny how badly I can misjudge the two nations that I am from. Or at least their support for their leaders.

I kinda wish that in this case I was right. Being forced to protest is terrible. Believing a moron is a good man is worse.

Easy thoughts

I always find it annoying when my best thoughts come to me in bed. Not when I’m in my own bed, as I have surrounded it with pens and paper for exactly such an occasion, but when I’m sleeping elsewhere. It really gets to me. Not the least because usually with one good thought, comes another, and the joy of the good thinking means that you don’t want to stop and save it for later. Because you know that it doesn’t work like that. If you stop thinking the good thought, and then miraculously somehow later remember what the hell you were thinking about, you are never able to regain the original good thought cycle. Like if you were thinking of new flavours for jelly beans, you may later be able to think of other good flavours, but the original possible good flavours you were inventing in your head are lost forever.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about morally good thoughts. I’m talking about brain waves. Eureka moments. The times when things become clear. Although I suppose the jelly beans example doesn’t exactly demonstrate that too well, as they are generally opaque.

But anyway, I suppose we can all take solace in the fact that with so many people on the planet, it is quite likely that someone else is having the same thoughts as you somewhere else, and for them it might be daytime. And they may have a pen.

So if you ever realise something vital and want to write it down but can’t for some reason, just say to yourself “Fuck it, someone else probably will”.

Vive la France

A great friend of mine once said “What you’re crying about this? There are people dying in Bosnia”. I was 17 years old and another friend of mine had allegedly just thrown me down some concrete stairs. Amidst all the blood and booze pouring out of my head, and the bloody hand prints that I spread liberally around, a girl was crying.

I was her first boyfriend. And she was watching me die. I don’t remember the incident. I don’t remember the paramedics. I don’t remember telling half the hospital ward and my mother what I wanted to do to my girlfriend. And I don’t remember how she was while this was all going on. But Anthony does, because he was looking after her. Or at least comparing my drunken fall to the deadly bullets fired in a far away land.

That’s what I love about that boy. He was always prepared to say the most offensive thing in a situation, just for a laugh. He didn’t mind how it reflected on him, as long as it was funny. He would make racist jokes all the time, because he knew that no-one else in England would, even though he hated La Penn and racists in general. That’s why I was so happy when I heard that he was moving here looking for a job. But today he told me that he’s going back to Paris for a fourth interview for a job which he never thought he’d get. It’s sad that he’s leaving, but good luck to the boy.

In honour of his brief life in England, here is a joke he once made up to offend me. “What do you do if you see 5 black guys in Harlem harassing a young girl?” “Throw them a basketball”.

Dog Days

So I woke up today and I was hungover. Again. Because I went to the Racing Page and then O’Neils. Again. And then I came home and ate haggis. Again. My life is getting strangely repetitive. Or at least strange and repetitive. Except that today was different than yesterday. Because it was a good hangover. Not the kind of hangover when you can barely move for fear of puke. Not the kind where you search the bed continuously for the cold spot to put your head on. Not the kind where you can’t face the prospect of eating, but you know that until you eat you are going to feel more and more fucked. Not the kind where the dread seeps through slowly from your subconscious and you know, you just know that you did something to regret the night before.

It was the kind where you wake up and everything feels beautiful. The kind where you want to get up because you’re happy to be alive and you want to see the world. I mean I still felt sick. And pretty stupid. In fact really fucking stupid. But when I opened my eyes this morning, I kept them open. And not to stop the world from spinning when I closed them. And it was nice. I even walked from my house to my girlfriends, which is something I have never even considered before. I even had a shower before anyone else in my house, which is something I have never bothered to attempt before.

I was confused why I felt this painful joy. But then I remembered (via someone on TV telling me). It’s Chinese New Year. It’s now the year of the Dog. My year. Our year. And it’s going to be fucking great. It’s just a shame I’m more of a cat person.

Sven

I’ve got this swan on my chest which will never go away. It’s made up of three numbers which have many meanings but which mean nothing. I can’t get rid of these things, and nor would I want to, but the way people talk to me about it I have to get rid of its meaning, because people don’t get why I did it.

It’s not for comedy. The reason I give for 256 being my lucky number is funny, but I didn’t get ink in my skin for a funny reason. It’s not because I think it’s a mystical symbol. True, when I thought of the number I was all fucked up and I was like “woah man, what does that mean?!”, but even when I’m fucked out of my skull I don’t really believe the shit that falls out of my mouth. I got it because I’m an idiot.

I don’t mean I’m stupid. Because maybe I am and maybe I’m not, but that’s what not what I mean. I mean that it reminds me that I’m an idiot. It reminds me of the things I’ve done. The really stupid, dangerous, unrepeatable, unforgettable yet forgotten things which make me who I am. And I’m not saying that I’m a stunt man or that my scarred skin is a sign of humility to remember that I’ve been a fool. It’s a mark of stupidity to remind me that I am a fool. That I don’t care about the worlds troubles and rules. That I’m not going to just give in and live an ordinary life. That I’ve chosen to be a fool, because it’s more fun. That I’m not going to go gentle into that good night. Because if I did, then I really would be an idiot, and the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt in my life would have been for nothing.

Teleholic

I wake up and something’s wrong. I feel funny. I open my eyes but my eyelids won’t go all the way up. I’m really fucking hot even though I’m fairly certain it’s really cold outside of my body. I hear the longest weirdest gurgling sound that has ever entered my ears and I look around for the freak that must have made it. The movement hurts my head. Shit I was drunk last night wasn’t I?

But I didn’t even drink that much. Maybe I’m just becoming a lightweight. Wait, think back, what’s the last thing you remember? Picking on some kids wearing stupid outfits because they claim that they’re classical music scholars. And then getting my ass kicked my Gene Simmons. Wait that can’t have really happened. Must have been a dream. Which must mean that I was asleep at some point. Well that explains why I’m in bed. Hangover. Hungover. Can’t think fully, so will have to make do with the brain of a monkey. Check my phone. Ok so I didn’t send any miscellaneous messages, that’s always nice to now. Here comes that gurgling again and this time I’m sure it’s from my belly. And it feels good. Oh yeah. Oh wait it feels like I’m gonna be sick. Ok, so that’s passed. Hmm. Gotta find some water. And a way out of this bed. Fuck it, I’m going back to sleep.

Headache. Can’t sleep. It’s too early to get up though. Maybe I’m still drunk. Maybe I’m still asleep. Maybe I should stop drinking. Nah. Just watch the TV. That can become my reality. Ahh that’s better.