They’re dropping like flies, yesterday Bergman, possibly one of the greatest film directors ever, save maybe Michael ‘Deathwish’ Winner and Lemmy, who isn’t a film director, but if he had been I reckon he’d have been right up there, instead he chose to chair the board of Motorhead, and now I hear Phil Drabble has hung up his crook.
Drabble burst onto our screens on one Sunday afternoon in 1973 with One Man and his Dog, already in his late 60’s Drabble cut an unlikely sex symbol but his knicker soaking sheep dog trails attracted audiences of over 8,000,000. This wasn’t just Sunday afternoon teatime viewing, this was fucking essential TV.
As kids the following day at school we’d attempt to reconstruct the sheep dogs/ sheep movement, we’d follow the staccato whistles of the celebrity shepherds with record quality accuracy, the complex pattern of both sheep and Shep as he creeps towards his charges, as they displace and form into a group and are headed to the gate. One of us, just one, would get the role of Drabble.
To be Drabble for the day was a personal highlight of my school career, it only happened once, but on that day the 6th of March 1980, I was the king of the world.
Yesterday at work was fucking awful. After writing the blog I had a panic attack, very strange timing, so I had to take a 30-minute shit in order to better myself. I was in a tentative state all bastard day, combine that with the pressure of the fucking office, it was a day I could’ve left. I met Frank in the boozer for a few pints in the evening, it was actually warm and sunny and the beer was back on after the flooding of the cellar, I started to feel better. It was short lived, on my return to the flat I ran into Cunt, he was waiting for me because he’s a fucking arsehole with no life.
There was no conversation, just a stream of utter drivel from him as he floundered in a pit of pseudo-fuck all. He knows nothing but thinks he in a position to postulate on everything. I said only this to him, ‘you’re a noisy little bastard’ and in return, hyperbole free, I got 15 fucking minutes of free form fuckity. I hate his stinking guts so much I was unable to physically move, I allowed my jaw to drop wide open, whilst keeping my dark glasses clamped to my head, and he slowly backed into his grief hole as he indulged me a diatribe of hybrid cack and closed the door.
The first part of my evening at home had been fucked up by my encounter, the only good to come out of it was the news that his hairy daughter and stick missus are coming to stay in a few weeks, which means he has to behave less like a fucking retarded chimp and more like a socially integrated one. The sensational supper and few TV derived chuckles sorted me out, as did a chat with Myfwt on the ‘phone and a stiff whisky.
I went to be in time to catch the late news on Radio 4. Unfortunately for some unknown reason I woke up at 5.14 am but at least I was having yet another fucking panic attack. So that was good, then.
I’ve just had a very harrowing cycle ride into work. A car jumped a red light on a pedestrian crossing and very nearly hit me and two fellow rat racers, if it wasn’t down to our collective awareness of ‘Mmm, he’s not slowing down is he’ and taking evasive action one or all of us wouldn’t be whacking off to porn when we got in this evening. It was left to me to remind the motorist that he was a fucking cunt. The cycle that followed was bloody hard going too; I had a very heavy weekend, far heavier than usual and taking into account the new cleaner Piqued, as of late, I paid for my sins with interest.
Friday afternoon was extraordinarily busy in the office; this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because the upshot of such activity equals cold hard cash. With this joie de vivre in place Frank and I caught the tube to Clapham in the evening to meet Harry in the boozer by Clapham Common. This pretty much set the tone for the weekend to come, conversation, giggling and, of course, drinking. We were lucky to grab a table on our arrival as the place was heaving by 9pm. The clientele are not really my type, they consist of largely well to do 20 to 30 wotnots, you get quite a few suits and lots of public schoolboy swaggering. The girls are pretty but conceited; most dress like utter prats but the place is well mannered enough for them sit about with being harangued against their will.
Frank and I took a late tube home, both of us plastered. I alighted at my stop. It was raining but the air was fresh, I felt good as I wandered up my street to my door. Big mistake feeling good when you know you don’t have to get up the following day and you decide to investigate the Subhumans album that arrived in the post that morning. Wine happened. When I went to bed it was daylight.
I was woken at 1pm by Myfwt coming in, she was in a similar condition to me. I got up showered, shat and shaved and ate some peanut butter on toast with tea. Myfwt lay down on the couch like the Lady of Shallot and we decided we were good only for TV, or a movie. I had Lucky Number Sleven in a pile of DVD’s, I’d not seen it because it looked shite, I don’t even know how I acquired it. Fuck my old boots it was actually really quite good. By 5.30 Myfwt had fawned off and I was feeling well enough to undertake the Sainsbury run. A mistake.
I’ve realised that my panic attacks are largely (not exclusively) derived from alcohol leaving my system. In essence at about the time I begin to feel better, I’m due a panic. I had one in Sainsbury, a really big nasty hairy freak out that I fought so very hard, on two occasions I had to seek refuge in the toilet, splashing my face and wrists with water hoping that my progressively filling trolley wouldn’t be commandeered by some officious git before it passed. When the third wave came in I had nearly finished purchasing but still, I so very nearly left.
I made it back to the van feeling better and drove back to the flat. After unpacking the shopping I walked up the road to meet Frank in the local as the last vestiges of fear exited my system. It would have been alright if just Frank and I been left to our own devices, but mid through the second pint Jamie called to announce he would be joining us to. This was of course great news, despite remotely watching my Sunday, after being produced with a flourish, to shatter into a tiny million billion fragments.
Jamie, like myself, is a very thirsty gentleman. This alone means that he and I have a very enthusiastic time of it in bars, add the fact that Jamie is soon to be a dad, that I was already 2 pints down before he arrived and his very persuasive, insistent generosity ensured that I don’t actually remember getting home, though I do remember calling a big skinhead a potty mouth and enthusiastically hugging Jamie in the street. Sensibly Frank had left us to it a long while before.
I was supposed to attend a barbeque yesterday, needless to day that didn’t happen. I got up at 4 in the afternoon feeling ravaged but having slept through most of the hangover I just had to deal with the fucking panic attack which began, uniquely, in the fucking bath and prepare dinner, which cured me of all my ills.
Myfwt came over at 6.30 and we ate roast chicken with all the required extras, it was lovely. She had a few G&T’s (actually, she did a commendable job) and I enjoyed a few glasses of wine, I was rather restrained, largely because I didn’t fancy a hung over panic attack at work.
Still, due to the weekend’s exuberance, the cycle here was a fucking slog. I nearly vetoed the bike in favour of the black bitch but it’s a beautiful day so I forced myself onto the former. Towards the end of the journey I was just getting into my stride, nature buzzed and scurried about me a black and white cat lying in the towpath catching the sun…with all of it’s internal organs fucking hanging out. Jesus.
RIP Ingmar Bergman, you were hardly a barrel of laughs but fuck me, if one gave you a bit of an effort, one was richly rewarded
Oh, RIP Mike Reid, the original cockney wanker
Anyone else? I don’t think these chaps are too far off…
I was going to cite the name of the author who appeared on Today this morning to plug his fucking book, but I don’t want him to have any more publicity.
With reference to the news this morning about Cannabis users being 40% more likely to develop psychotic illness a turd popped up on Today claiming that because of his cannabis use between 15 and 17 (that’s 2 years) he’d become schizophrenic until he was ‘cured’ at 28 and ‘now helps others’, which is why he wrote *insert name here*.
Firstly, I, and most of my friends, have sustained cannabis habits that have gone a tad over the 2 year mark, in my case it’s literally 10 times this amount and whilst I don’t claim to be the epitome of rationality and forethought, I certainly don’t class myself as psychotic, more importantly, neither does anyone else.
Secondly the word ‘cannabis’ is like the word ‘alcohol’, comparing the crappy resin I smoked as a teenager is someway off the strength of Californian Grapefruit I scored last week, it’s like comparing the eating of rum and raison toffees with drinking aftershave. To avoid public humiliation and instant derision, and if there is a message in these fucking claims, some governmental distinction must be made between strains of the weed or the whole argument becomes quite simply a big fact joke.
Using alcohol, which is legally available -indeed, a very prominent part of the structure of societies fabric, whether one drinks or not- as a yardstick, the fact that anyone is even concerned about Cannabis and ‘damage; is to me an anathema. I don’t recall the last time anyone overdosed on smoke, became violent, made a bad fuck decision, vandalised property, in fact, did anything vaguely anti social whatsoever. I’ll agree they can be accused of laughing at their hands, staring at undulating carpets, discovering the actual meaning of pizza and listening to Hawkwind, but I think that’s about it. And as far as social pariah’s go, that’s pretty far down in the pecking order, surely? Or am I being un-paranoid?
I’m not denying that if you were to sit from dawn to dusk lugging back bowl upon bowl of hybrid skunk you may find your grip on reality becomes a little fraught, but most cannabis users don’t do that, all of my friends that use, myself included, have regular jobs, it doesn’t effect their days to day lives at all, unless one runs out. That’s a real bummer because one has to make time to score, as opposed to popping to the off licence/pub on the way home.
Right plop prickers, when this starts don’t be judgemental, it’s ace. They look bloody idiotic but this lot used to tour with Hawkwind (believe it or not) though judging by the end of the first line were certainly not indulging in the contents of their rider, though were clearly pretending they were. Confused? Press play.
Have nice weekends all, have one on me (that’s not I have one on me, I don’t. Yet)
Did my weekly booze free last night. Lately it’s been getting easier but for some reason last night was a bumpy ride. I think it was brought on by stultifying boredom with the Damocles anticipation that Cunt would kick off downstairs, it didn’t make for a relaxed environment.
I had a go on Lara, made and ate a pasta bake which was the highlight of the evening to be honest, watched some TV and read in bed. I tried to do some writing but I couldn’t, not through lack of content, just desire. Last night was the equivalent of booting an empty coke can down an alley.
I had some extraordinary dreams though. In the past few months I’ve been starting to remember my dreams again, this probably has a lot top do with the general cutting back of the pop. Last night featured Jenny Agutter as she was in an American Werewolf in London playing the foreperson of the refurbishment of Wembley arena and Pete Doherty who was my best mate, we even kissed at one point (?) until he left me to start work as a recovery driver for the AA. The bastard, we could’ve made it Pete.
So here I am in the office, again. My cycle into work was fraught and awful, it’s July and it feels like fucking February, the wind made progress slow and boring and I’m on the brink of just using my black bitch again, fuck exercise.
The office is really getting on my tits, a couple of blondes have started here and the berk behind me has been flirting with them since their tiny thongs hit the chairs. It’s making my skin crawl, he has this fucking awful Star Trek fan laugh and delusions of luvviness which means formless ‘anecdotes’ and ‘knowing’ quips that are neither knowing or amusing in any way. These traits are sandwiched between is a deeply insecure and sad character who is perpetually being unkind to others behind their backs, at times he’s downright nasty, yet presents himself as this sweet old thing who would do anything for anyone. It makes me sick.
I think I need some time off, short Piqued today, I can’t be fucked.
The only good thing about yesterday at work was an almost fight in the car park. Without feeling it necessary to go into detail, we employ a lot of actors here, nearly all ‘resting’ of course but some have gone off to bigger and brighter things.
Obviously some haven’t. A frustrated actor is a deeply complex and emotional creature, when they’re on form they can be quite good company, but get them on a bad day and you’d have better company with Nietzsche and a vicar.
The fight was no big deal, lots of argy bargy following an expletive rich screaming episode for one to the other, it translated as ‘move your car as I need to pick up my kids’ but was packaged in the form of a frankly deranged middle aged man having a psychotic episode. For a split second I though he was acting, hyperbole aside, I really expected his heart to go ‘pop’. The recipient of this unprovoked tirade didn’t take to kindly to being spoken to like that and responded in a controlled yet aggressive manner and went over to the protagonist following his foolish invitation of ‘come on then’.
Shoulder barging ensued, the protagonist, whilst the more vocal and, by now, incandescent with rage, was also physically smaller. The recipients fist hovered in front of his screaming face, sheer goodwill prevented it from being planted somewhere in the back of the skull, that and the intervention of yours truly and a large scary looking type from the front office who simply stepped in between the pair and pushed the protagonist into his car as he was still screaming abuse.
After I’d cycled home I showered and prepared supper. Lasagne. I’d not made it in years; in fact, I’d never made it with meat. As students Myfwt and I were vegetarian and the beef part of the recipe could be exchanged by a product called Beanfeast, which was dried textured soya in a sort of ‘meaty’ power, when hot water was added the whole lot would swell up into something resembling ‘beefs’. It was actually quite good and came packaged with complimentary krakatoa-type farts. In my life I’ve never eaten a foodstuff with such a capacity for wind.
Cycled again into work today, I arrived in the office looking like a wet pebble as I’m still not back in the exercise habit following my malaise. I’m mildly hungover too, a bottle of Rioja went down as I prepared and ate the meal, and I’m not in the best of spirits on account of being here and having a fairly dry month. I can smell the rim of a mild recession; certainly, people aren’t spending much at the moment and that effects business generally and me specifically. Balls.
I thought, dear reader, you may be interested to see how random/casual readers of Piqued arrive here. Most of you are regulars, you choose to be here, but some arrive via Google after typing in keywords. Here are the keywords in the past week. I promise I’ve not made any of them up.
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Search Terms for 7 days ending 2007-07-25
Today
Search Views
big brother 8 Dick Suicidal Tendencies 1
Yesterday
Search Views
Bruce Oppenheim chiropractor 6
ducati female art 1
hersham 1
nora batty 1
high sugar content magners 1
youtube a few tunes between friends 1
meret bags 1
lady diana bukkake 1
rochelle s club 8, charley big brother 1
tomb raider tourett ps2 1
hairy aunt 1
“big brother 8″ +suicidal tendencies” 1
minutes silence for ollie bridewell 1
hairy aunts 1
viz wellies 1
tesco sir ian mclaren 1
boil behind ear 1
2007-07-23
Search Views
“julian rhind-tutt” girlfriend 1
2007 bombardier leftover 1
small dark cunt 1
lara croft fucked 1
middle aged woman boredom blogs 1
erection with veins popping out video 1
ziggy big brother small cock 1
malboro youtube 1
“simon pegg” “Blair witch” 1
2007-07-22
Search Views
shabnab 3
chicken brick 2
What is the concept or idea behind man r 1
daddy son fucking 1
bacon and beans hot fuzz 1
marriage bowels 1
bbc “moto gp” theme music 1
jimmy percy 1
bbc2 moto gp theme tune music 1
brolly dolly 1
davina mcall sex 1
18th birthday function rooms in leiceste 1
2007-07-21
Search Views
wordpress piqued 1
PIPZ 1
shabnab 1
2007 triumph speed triple crash cage 1
moto gp theme tune 1
fucking a woman from the past 1
morning staffers cale 1
dog sick tongue hangs out 1
lara croft getting fucked 1
kevin mccloud cigarettes 1
2007-07-20
Search Views
big brother suicidal tendencies 2
boner in front of dad 1
tube.it big brother 4 ziggy 1
moto gp theme tune 1
big brother, suicidal tendencies 1
suicidal tendencies, big brother 1
fields nephilim astoria march 24 1
suicidal tendencies big brother 1
WHAT GIGS HAS JULIAN RHIND-TUTT BEEN TO 1
“amanda redmond” naked 1
YouTube lolita 1
JULIAN RHIND TUTT IN MUSIC MAGAZINE 1
hairy auntie 1
valance of urea 1
hairy teacup art 1
2007-07-19
Search Views
piqued 1
dark cunt 1
medoc cycling 1
beer battered foods causing positive eth 1
hairy aunts 1
dark blood from bowels 1
“The Idler” + Cambridge + Music 1
nasty little cunts 1
sister say y were sleeping he in room fo 1
your tube stella artois 1
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Fucking hell. I’m glad the second to last one ran out of space…
You may need this to cheer you up/prevent psychosis.
On the way to seeing Frank at the pub last night I got to use my brolly. It really wasn’t all I’d cracked it up to be, in fact, I felt a bit of tit. Due to the flooding which has resulted in homeless rodents it’s also hit the cellars of Sarf London preventing any beer from being available on draught. I find this wholly unacceptable and something should be done, I know a few people have drowned, thousands are in temporary accommodation and thousands more without basic utilities, but no beer, fuck off.
I got home and made supper, a pasta bake I knocked up in 15 mins and shoved it in the oven while I had a bath. I’d been in the bath for a minute when down below, Cunt kicked off. I’m now sure that he’s deliberately making unacceptable noise, this was worse than usual, with amplified screaming at 11 accompanied by, and I don’t exaggerate here, a handful of wrong notes on a totally out of tune guitar. I got out of the bath, dressed and went downstairs.
After banging on his door and yelling, he opened looking gormless, but clearly gormless and on some sort of medication. He instantly began apologising, I informed him that it was pointless to apologise if you didn’t mean it, and seeing as he knows it’s fucking pissing me off, the best way to apologise would be to NOT FUCKING DO IT.
He went back into his flat and I mine. An hour later there was a knock on my door. He was apologising again, apparently (not that I gave a fucking shit) he’d been asleep all day (that annoyed me though) and he was really sorry. And could he borrow some tobacco (what a cunt). He stood in front of me wearing a woolly fucking hat and holding an empty chipped cup in his paw like the begging scrounging little ponce he is. I looked down on him and thought of Uriah Heep, and suddenly I remembered the rodent.
Before getting some tobacco for its cunting face (this wasn’t an act of diplomacy, this was about control) I asked him if he’d seen any mice in his grief hole. His response almost caused me to vomit all over his head. When he began the sentence with, ‘they don’t bother me’ I knew the news wasn’t going to be good. Turns out there had been an infestation, that his pencil thin g/f and hairy little baby were actually living downstairs during the invasion. A baby, mice. No.
Clamping shut my jaw to disguise my utter disbelief and to prevent the puke in my throat from cutting Cunt off, I was then told how he and his spare-prick-at-a-wedding dad located the source of the bastards and filled the hole with ‘wood and concrete’. The two last words revolved around my head. How big was this fucking hole?
Cunt still had mice though, just not as many. So Cunt is responsible for the source of the rodents, in addition to poisoning my peace and quiet he’s now gunning for my peace of mind. I think I should get a crime reference number from the police, just to cover myself in case I lose my temper when I see him again.
Things are returning to some sort of normality, I cycled into work today, the deadline situation has begun to resolve itself and I’m back on 3’s and 4’s.
My weekend, however, was traumatic. It’s not the requirement, is it, to spend the most part of a weekend in total fucking fear, the concept of a weekend lends itself to leisure, good eating and drinking, sleeping in, late movies, pubs, you get the picture.
It begun well enough, even the work drinks weren’t too much of a struggle. I made it back to a local boozer with Dan where we were joined by his missus and baby daughter. It was a balmy evening, the traffic buzzed past us as we chatted and drank and with plenty of fight still left in me I returned back to my flat to investigate the further opportunities afforded to me by the bottle opener. At some point after 10pm the music went on and I was fully ensconced in my element, wonderful.
I put in a few good hours until overcome by sheer fatigue and the awareness that stopping would be good to make way for some sort of Saturday. It was as I was entering the kitchen to wash up my glass that it happened. I saw a fucking rodent. Its small but fat enough little system scurried across the kitchen floor, and I wouldn’t say the little cunt was racing either, and disappeared under the fridge.
I am rodentophobic, I have been since I was a kid. It stems from a very specific and traumatic episode one Saturday afternoon at my parents. I was in my bedroom reading when dad appeared looking anxious, ‘we got a problem, son’ he said seriously. I was informed that there was a nest of mice in the garage, probably under the large metal filing cabinet by the door, and he and I were to investigate. At the time I should’ve perhaps taken more notice of dad’s quite obvious concern, despite his attempts to make light of the matter. ‘Roll you trousers in your socks, they can get up your leg,’ I was given a brief example via my granddad that involved Somme rats, ‘as if they hadn’t enough to contend with’, dad said.
From a vantage point that I’d describe as conservative, dad suggested I leant on the side of the metal filing cabinet so it’d lift up for him to peep underneath. And here is where a casual indifference towards rodents morphed into a fully realised fear. As the cabinet began to rise a fucking huge mouse shot out followed, in various directions, by dozens of much smaller babies. Dad yelled ‘Jesus!’ and I ran to the opposite side of the garage, but due to circumstance and the sheer volume of vermin, I ran over 6 or 7 tiny bodies, each one being dispatched by a crackling pop.
The sight of a mouse in the kitchen was anything but welcome. In fact I couldn’t believe I’d seen it, so I refused to believe I had. I went into the lounge and after 5 minutes convinced myself I was being paranoid and went to bed. It took a while to get to sleep, despite being drunk I was very aware of my surroundings, the last thing I remember is letting out a sizable scream when the wind rattled the pull on the blind.
I woke up on Saturday. My mind instantly defaulted to the rodent that I’d not seen. Even though I’d not seen a rodent I had to check behind the fridge, and that was something I was unable to do alone. Simple as that.
I walked into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and peeped down the side of the fridge. To my utter fucking horror looking up at me was a fucking mouse. I physically leapt off the floor, roared, and shot into the lounge. I sat physically shaking trying to unscramble my mind to form a positive solution to this situation. First thing, phone.
I called Frank first who didn’t answer, then Jamie who did but wasn’t in a suitable proximity to help, though I was offered plenty of sympathetic advice, and finally my bro who also didn’t answer. I called Myfwt too but only to offload my emotions.
Frank called back; mercifully he has no fear of these cunty little creatures but wasn’t available until later in the day. As I wasn’t able to use the kitchen, relax in the lounge, do anything actually, I had to get out of the house. I made my way to B & Q and decided to invest some money in anti-vermin stuff. I already own one of those sonic devices designed to chuck out a frequency not conducive to the tiny ears of a rat/mouse, indeed, I watched the mouse give it a cursory glance on Friday night as it casually made it’s way home.
I was in the process of browsing the devices when I heard a voice behind me, quavering slightly, asking an assistant for rodent traps. ‘They’re here’ I said. A man of my age looked at me, I could see it in his eye, he’d been spooked. ‘Got a mouse?’ he said attempting a smile. My agreeable reply came back with exasperated expletives. It would seem that all the water we’ve had recently has forced the little cunts out of their burrows, I took comfort that there was a reason for a mouse to be marching around my kitchen. It’s not as if there is anything for him to eat in there, the floor is always spotless, precisely for that reason.
After buying a new sonic and magnetic anti-anything with a small hairy face device and two traps, one humane and one that will crush its little fucking head like a Malteser, I made my way to Sainsbury. In addition to the weekly shop, I needed to buy a sandwich as I’d not yet eaten. I got back to the flat, reluctantly, and waited for Frank in the living room gingerly playing Tomb Raider.
Frank arrived and took matters in hand; he pulled back the fridge and located the most likely source of the little fuckers entrance. After it was deemed safe I plugged all possible holes with wire wool and bleached the entire zone before replacing the fridge and laying down a trap, just in case.
I tentatively allowed the pressure to lift from my mind and Frank and I went to the pub so I could ply him with gratitude booze. I fucking owe him one. By the time I got back home I was feeling more confident, I settled back into normality, made some pizza and got thoroughly pissed to celebrate.
Sunday was packed full of motorsport delights, Formula One to start which descended into farce followed by British Superbikes. I had to tape the latter as Myfwt was in Woking a needed a lift back to mine. She’d been out on the lash with her friend Pauline and was suffering. I rather enjoyed the drive there and back, I wanted to ride, of course, but Myfwt wasn’t in a suitable position to sit pillion on the back of my black bitch.
We got home at 6-ish, unfortunately for me in time for Titanic which I’d avoided previously. Utter bollocks, though disturbing enough in parts to hold my attention, sort of. We ate a roast dinner and I knocked back a few G & T’s. At 10pm it was the Moto GP, a disappointing race, but the taped British Superbikes was a fucking beauty. Sadly such daring do doesn’t come without cost. On Friday during practice at Mallory Park a young rider by the name of Ollie Bridewell made an error and bought the farm. He was given a minutes silence at the start of the race and his position on the grid, 17th, remained in his name as is the tradition when these things happen. His colleagues spoke of him with fondness and genuine kindness before putting on their helmets and gloves, getting on their machines and going hell for leather.
Well today is a barrel of laughs, the sky is battleship grey with water coming out of it, everyone is walking about with faces as long as horses in fact, London has become one huge misery cloud. It’s fucking July
Due to a work function this evening, essentially, colleagues shuffling to and fro trying to engage in banter over cheap sparkling Rose, I was required to arrive by bus. The moment I stepped out of my front door it began raining, I already been awoken by a downpour at 6am so I wasn’t in the least surprised.
It suddenly occurred to me, why don’t I own an umbrella? To this date in my life such a thought has never crossed my mind, I’ve always thought them ridiculous, things that weaklings use with eye-poking spokes, to me, right up until that point they were an anathema. Suddenly I was obsessed, mental images of 1940’s MovieTone footage of Londoners traipsing over Waterloo bridge under a black silk canopy, Caillebotte’s well heeled citizens strolling through the Parisian rain, the object I’d once regarded with contempt, a symbol of the business classes transformed in my minds eye as something decadent, surreal, romantic, an object of desire, I had to own one.
Where the fuck do I buy an umbrella? I sat upstairs on the bus in pole position trying to think if my route to work would offer an opportunity to resolve my obsession. I wanted it to rain hard, and I wanted to be under the canopy of a black brolly, I had the rain at least.
I alighted at my stop in bastard Wimbledon, I’m sure one of the department stores could assist me but I was late for work, tempted as I was I made my way to the station. Surely here, if you were going to buy a brolly then a communal church for the business types would be the place. But I was to be disappointed; I’d given up hope when the last shop prior to the tube presented an opportunity, a heel bar of all places.
Like a bunch of wonderful bananas they sat, hooked over a large stand in a variety of colours but to my delight, a choice of 3 different black ones. I made my selection and it become mine. I was fucking thrilled. I got off the tube and it had stopped raining. What a twat.
Last night Myfwt eventually arrived, 9-ish, she was on the phone to her brother so it wasn’t until half an hour later I managed to say hello properly. What is it with woman and phones? I’m a fan of each item as a separate entity but the morphed combination is creature that Sir David Attenborough would poke with a stick. After a couple of homemade burgers and some wine we settled back for the evening, TV, a few laughs, light row, some more wine then bed. A jolly evening indeed, though we could’ve left the light row out of the equation. It was probably my fault, I think a phone was responsible.
I have a nice weekend planned ahead, spending a good deal of time of it with Myfwt, the rest with friends and plenty of scope to get some more of the book nailed. Just got to get tonight under the belt first. So long as it rains on my journey home, I’ll be happy.
Do have good weekends won’t you.
This band used to be the subhumanz, possibly the most underated (and genuine) punk band of their generation. Turn it up
I must have made over 20 visits to the office bogs, each visit resulting in a orange-hot jet of steaming hell being jettisoned from my freckle with a mournful sigh. Progressively my poor tattered orifice became too painful to wipe and I was forced to dab it gently with bum fodder, fully aware that I was wincing well before the wire wool type Andrex made contact. By the end of the day my nipsy was more like a frayed bungee cord.
Why on earth manufactures don’t take into consideration a troubled constitution when designing toilets is beyond me. Having a regular plop is fine, gravity dictates plop goes down, it’s basic physics. But when you got 40psi of marmite soda passing through a progressively flexible ringpeice it’s fucking miraculous if the jellified piss hits the water in the pan at all. Subsequently every visit to the chod bin was accompanied by a degrading bout of crime scene reconciliation with the hairy stick.
I spent the phase between each burst of kidney-snot gasping at my desk, giving off deathmetal frowns to the slightest annoyance, speaking only to bark at staff and being harangued by my boss to do things that seemed so extraordinarily petty in my condition I nearly just fucked off home to bed, which is where I should’ve been in the first place.
The worst part of the malaise was the pain in my stomach, it was sensationally awful, causing me to double up without any warning, pinning me shut for a few seconds before dissipating like fag smoke and releasing my sweating face into the office population. For the entire day my guts chimed like a didgeridoo being played by an Aborigine with gallstones.
I smoked 2 fags the whole day and was unable to eat, so at least I was getting weaker and more frustrated as the day dragged on.
Even at home I subject to a further 2 hours of carpet jogging before my stomach agony was slowly replaced by a raging hunger. My choice of foodstuffs were limited, the last thing I wished to do was to entertain the bubbling horror nestling in my tripe, dairy and meat were out for a kick off, perish the thought of a fucking drink.
I settled on sardines and toast, a safe bet so long as the tinned sardines weren’t iffy. It has happened once, as a student they were a major staple of my diet so it was inevitable that one day I’d fall in with a bad tin. I ate them slowly at my PC as I tried to write, the sound of them being digested was actually quite chilling but after an hour I realised they’d done the trick.
I watched Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in bed to cheer me up and fell asleep before midnight.
Since then I’ve been all right, the pain has subsided and I’ve not needed to shit. I’m back at work feeling exhausted by fucking pleased that it no longer hurts.
Most people, whether they admit to it or not, enjoy the smell of their own farts. Some people enjoy the smell of other peoples farts, or at least find them amusing.
Usually, I get certain degree of satisfaction when I’ve dropped one; I enjoy the really big loud waiting-room clearers that smell more musty than deadly, in fact, thinking about them now this morning, I feel almost filled up with nostalgia, or noxiousalgia if you will.
Once again I was woken up in the middle of the bloody night by cramps, though this time I didn’t need to get up and empty my back, this cramp was cleared with a succession of controlled bursts of wind. I took my time as I didn’t want to follow through, lying on my side they hissed slowly out… steady, steady… another, yes…Oooh, that one had a bit of a tail, caught it in time, relax, not that much, concentrate…JESUS CHRIST!
The smell that hit me was enough to make me gag, and for someone who has spent a good few years as a nurse in a care home that’s really saying something. Enjoy the smell of ones farts? I’d rather be tied up by the cast of Last of The Summer Wine and be given bukkake with Nora Batty diddling herself off with my tool.
I was forced out of my bed, not just to open the window but to continue my work on the appropriate seat. I sounded like a squadron of Lancaster bombers and can confirm that that I woke Cunt up. So some good came out of it at least.
Last night I’d treated myself gently, I stayed off the pop, ate fresh vegetables and salmon and drank a whole litre of Innocent cherry and strawberry smoothie. By the time I went to bed to read my stomach was feeling all right, I was confident that I done enough to cure my ailing insides. But clearly I’d not.
After the 4am scramble I managed to get to sleep but as soon as I woke this morning, I was back on the 6’s and 7’s. By now there was no need for gasses to propel my effluvia, vast jets of liquid acid drained from my being like a fire hose as I sat dispassionately on the throne waiting for it to pass.
When I arrived into work even my boss noticed that my usual spring in my gait and pallor was one of that of a man who was suffering from an upset of the stomach. He took pity on my and gave me a supply of Gaviscon cool to assist my passage through the day, or should that be to assist my passage, period.
My stomach has swelled up a la African infant with malnutrition and the though of farting has become a distant dream, a fantasy of the well and healthy. I’d give my eye teeth to let rip without worry that it wouldn’t end in the sour apple quickstep to my black bitch and home to change my pants.
I urge you all to fart one out for me, and think how lucky you are.
I’m not making excuses for myself but despite the exultation on Friday when I though my cold was leaving my system, it certainly didn’t feel like that yesterday. Being the self-denying trooper I am I managed to suppress most of it putting my fatigue down to lack of sleep.
As the day went on I started getting really bad stomach cramps, I assume this is down to the vast quantity of snot I’ve consumed, even a couple of pints with Frank didn’t help and by the time I got home and had taken a bath I had no appetite whatsoever.
I had a totally non-eventful feeling unwell evening. My face was a snot waterfall and my guts felt as if they were primed with nails. I went to bed at 11 or so and listened to the radio, some ‘comedy’ on BBC Radio 4 which was occasionally funny but it was so obviously being performed by doctors and it became all knowing and ‘aren’t we bloody clever/funny us lot’, it was a bit annoying made even more so by the overly keen audience.
I woke up at 5am with my stomach on fire and a clod of fizzy salt beef sat rotting over my button. I just about made it to the chod bin in time before farting out a pissing stream of corrosive acid accompanied by the sound of deranged pigs eating one another. It was agony, I set my nipsy on fire to the point it needed to be doused clean with cold water. I took some antacid and went back to bed. Five minutes later the process was repeating, then again for another hour, I fell asleep 10 minutes before I was due to get up.
When I awoke I evacuated myself again and came into work. Unlike a cold having a dose of the cramping cacks does require one to stay at home. But I simply have to be here this week. I’ve already attended the bog 4 times since I arrived; my stomach feels like it’s been replaced with helium and I’m weaker than a burp in a hurricane.
Fascinating aside. When I got home last night I noticed some ripped open post was sat in the porch. Scrawled on the front was written ‘I opened this by acident (sp) I thought it was mine’. I can see why Cunt had made a mistake; it clearly has my name and address over it…
Cunt has been dead quiet since the altercation last week; I know he’s down there, I can hear him cunt about. This morning during one of my bubbling/bark sessions at about 5.45, I heard him go out. ‘Fucking hell’ I thought, ‘he’s got a job!’
Maybe its the time of year, or perhaps the close weather, either way, it seems that fate, not content with giving me one neighbour who is just above plankton on the food chain, has decided that the bloke opposite must behave in a manner more suited to that of a pile.
Getting off my black bitch on Friday afternoon he appeared. It’s the second time that, with less than a days notice, he’s asked that I drive my Transit to his ‘girlfriends’ house in South London to pick up some behemoth electrical goods, in this instance a fucking fridge. It’s not so much being asked to do such a thing, it’s the way it’s done, right in my face, this bloke has no concept of what constitutes personal space, in barely discernable Sarf Landon accent, complete with gold capped teeth, earrings and a ‘cheeky’ grin. And a fucking mullet.
When I made my excuses (this ‘picking up a fridge’ thing in a strangers house stinks, frankly. Besides my back is like an accordion) to avoid the slightest chance of my involvement he moaned as if I taken away his sweets. The bloke doesn’t know me from Adam, unless you consider talking endless bollocks to a person constitutes a knowledge of them. What I did glean apart from how he’d met Alice Cooper in the 70’s, that he’s an out of work brickie and his shorts are so close to his sack I was prepared to scream should his walnuts see daylight, is that he, his mates and his girlfriend are all severely alcoholic. This is why I was being asked to drive.
I’m not fucking up my weekend in order to bestow on charity on a person because he (and his mates) can’t put the bottle down for long enough to learn to drive, he’s almost 60 for fucks sake. After nearly 30 minutes of baffling anecdotes and useless information on how to build a conservatory he confessed, out of the blue, that he didn’t want to get too pissed tonight with his girlfriend. Boringly I said something about getting it up after a skinful, I thought I’d a least make an effort to be a bit of a jack the lad, but he looked at me with sad watery eyes, ‘not that’, he said ‘we row’.
Maybe he should do the next MFI advert… Confused? Go to Watch With Mothers, link right of this page.
I had a jolly nice Friday in a pub by Clapham Common, Harry was already there when I showed up, and we were joined by Frank and his missus. We gassed for a while before Frank and co went off to grab some food leaving Harry and I to carry on a deep and meaningful before being joined by my bro, hot from work. After some more chatting I got the last tube back and once ensconced, had a glass or two of wine listening to Space Ritual by Hawkwind. The best live album ever recorded.
The Saturday hangover was quite nasty, when I finally did get out of my pit it was lunchtime and I’d decided that it was best I left it later before making the predictable trudge to fucking Sainsbury, I had a bath, caused sperms and set off at 4-ish. I was back at 5, enough time to unpack and open the door to Myfwt suitably prepared. We ate smoked salmon on toast with smoked cheese, accompanied by a sparkling Rose that had been supplied by Mywt brother in law for helping out with her little nephews afternoon birthday party. The evening passed pleasantly, albeit too quickly but the thought of a proper lie-in made it all acceptable.
Sunday morning we watched Scrapheap Challenge in bed with tea, Myfwt nipped off for the afternoon and I watched a very disappointing Moto GP. Valentino Rossi, arguably the greatest GP road racer since the late, great Barry Sheene, fell off as he was making a comback to lead. I wasn’t really fussed after that so (nice 2nd for Capirossi though) so I made some more notes on the book and following a torrential but brief storm, got on my black bitch and shot over to my folks.
Sunday was their anniversary proper; I was joined by my very-soon-to-be-a-mum sister, brother in law, my bro and his missus for the usual round of tasteless jokes and guffawing. It was, of course, quite lovely, despite mums cake which I can still feel in my intestines.
I flew back on the bike, by now the roads were bone dry and the air temperature perfect, and returned home to prepare Sunday ‘lunch’ in time for Myfwt arrival at 7.
We had a few G & T’s and ate in front of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, we’ve seen it one time too many so we talked through most of it and shortly after hit the sack.
So, it’s Monday and here I am back in the bloody office, I’m feeling quite tired due the fucking muggy July climate which effected my sleep, it’s pretty grim in the office too and for the hundredth fucking time, I’m on deadline.
Praise the fucking baby Joesph, I’m feeling a bit better.
Yes, I still have a sore throat; yes my right nostril is rigid with a viscous colloid containing antiseptic enzymes (such as lysozyme) and immunoglobulins, yes my body is still over manufacturing mucus produced by submucosal cells as well as goblet cells in the respiratory system consisting of mucin, a highly glycosylated peptide, but over all I can safely claim that I’m on the mend.
It’s Friday the 13th today, not that that means anything at all to me, apart from the fact it’s Friday and the weekend beckons. For the first time in months, my weekend doesn’t involve some culmination of an organised/planned event, I’ve made a few casual appointments with friends and the rest of it is mine. Essentially I intend to continue with the plans for the book, but something else has happened that requires my energies.I’ve decided to move.
I’ve had enough of Cunt and have concluded that if I stay much longer it will lead to violence on my part. I’m not a violent chap by any means, largely because I avoid getting into situations in the first place, and even then one is very aware that violence hurts if it doesn’t go ones way. I feel as if I’m approaching a situation where by I’d cheerfully smash his fucking idiot face into a bag of mechanically recovered meat, for a culmination of reasons but none in particular, irrespective of the consequences, which would of course be rather significant.
Last night Myfwt came over, we had a lovely night, ate chicken and roast potatoes, drunk G &T’s, watched BB and a rather peculiar programme on Bernard Manning in which he conducted his own obituary. At 11.30 we hit the sack, at about the same time, Cunt, who doesn’t fucking well work because he’s a fucking, well, cunt, came back with one or two ‘mates’. This is quite honestly the 3rd time since I’ve been living at my flat in the past 4 years that he’s ever had any ‘mates’ over, simply because he’s so *insert every possible derogatory adjective here* and a cunt he hasn’t any.
After the incident last week where I had to bang on his fucking door at 2am on a schoolnight because of the racket generated by a man who should be in hospital (mental or general, I don’t care which) I wasn’t expecting to hear a peep out of him for at least a fortnight. I’ll admit he did have the volume lower than last week but he still conducted ‘conversations’ -grunts and barks- over music with the bass turned up higher than any normal person would with an ounce of basic human respect for ones neighbour or indeed, personal dignity. When his hairy baby daughter was downstairs I did my level best not to disturb it, and its mother, and this is how I get repaid. As I type this, you can keep The Office, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python et al, what would really tickle would be watching him eating through a fucking tube.
So, I’m making enquiries already, subsequently I’m getting called and e-mailed by a variety of scum bag estate agents, those that refer to me as ‘mate’ get hung up automatically, as do people that can’t be bothered to speak correctly and I will deal with upward convergence with sarcasm prior to slamming down the phone.
This is a small price top pay for my liberty and ultimately my peace of mind. I feel jolly proud at myself for trying to do the right thing in the face of adversity.
Anyway, I want a garden.
This song is fucking lovely, nice weekends muddy funkers
(now go to Watch With Mothers and read about The Queen)
At about 11.30 last night I was convinced my cold had gone, that my back had got better and I was on the brink of beginning a novel that would identify a generation.
I sat resplendent on my leather armchair, legs crossed, glass of wine in my hand pontificating to myself. I took some more notes and sighed with relief. Great.
This morning I have a wine-based hangover, one of the first I can remember in a while. It’s not too bad, just present but my fucking cold has most certainly not gone, if anything the bastard is worse than yesterday. Indeed my back is being a fucking idiot as well and as for the novel, well, maybe it won’t identify a generation but it’s got legs.
I wrote a book couple of years ago. It’s a funny process, or rather, it was as far as I was concerned. I’d been chewing on an idea for a few months and an opportunity arose which enabled me to sit down and make proper notes with a view to starting the bloody thing.
Here is where it gets weird, once a basic plot has evolved one becomes a permanently distracted twat, there is only one direction the mind wanders, the book becomes a permanent default setting in the brain, it creeps into conversations, meetings and encounters. Once the writing process has begun it’s like a succession of delight, pain, agony, delight over and over…. Now the distraction begins to morph into obsession, when the book isn’t being written it’s a single permanent thought, when it’s actually being done the desire to push on is almost too much to bear, the process seems endless, fruitless, even, until finally, at some point an ending is declared.
The aftermath is extraordinary, it’s a combination of exultation and despair, and that’s before one has had a chance to actually check ones final work which is suprisingly hard to do. In the end what I’d really acheived was a half chewed novel that I bunged out to a few agents, I got some standard ‘fucks off’, a few non standard, ‘nice one but no’s’ and one ‘really interested in your work but this isn’t it’. After that I couldn’t be pissed so the book sits crinkling in my drawer.
But this new book, well, it’s going to be fucking great.
The sooner this cold fucks off the better, my right nostril is now utterly rammed with cemented snot, my head is merely a fragile shell containing a pounding mass of slippery raw liver, the stuff I’m coughing up could be used to grout bathrooms and I’m shitting exhaust pipes.
Look, sorry to bang on about this but I really shouldn’t be here at work, the only advantage to being at work is that you get to read a new Piqued. That’s right, you. I get nothing.
I’m quite literally laying down my fucking life, for you. And what do I get? Mmm? Iller, that’s what.
Today’s offing is long, unpleasent and important. Bye
The fucking cold/infection thing -I refuse point blank to refer to it as ‘flu, one thing that fucking annoys me is ‘Oooh, I’ve got ‘flu…’ which is ridiculous if you know anything about ‘flu- has ascended into my head, which now fills like a bag of Jordan’s old tits. My nose has polarised between two states, one where I can’t actually breathe through it making me sound like Pootle from The Flumps and the other where it suddenly gives way releasing warm piss-like streams of effulgent over my upper lip. On account of this I have a glowing red streak that runs from the bottom of my septum to the tip of my nose, I look like Pete Doherty after he’s been having a growl on Kate Moss who hasn’t washed her front bottom since returning from Glastonbury.
Oh, forgot to mention, I feel thoroughly fucking ill, I feel otherworldliness, uncanny, sensitive, when people talk to me I jump, the epitome of vulnerability, I swing round like a terrified mammal and view them through misty focus free eyes as my mouth opens and shuts in wordless horror. I also made it in to work today for the same reasons as outlined in yesterdays blog, and to cap it all, I have a heap of thin, acid hot cack sat impatiently at the top of my colon.
Needless to say yesterday, or last night, or anything, wasn’t a barrel of giggles. After a ridiculous day in the office where I flounced about the place like Marat prior to jumping in the bath, ensuring everyone was made fully away of my condition, I sped home on my black bitch and arrived home feeling precisely as dreadful as I did when I was sat at my desk. To make matters considerably worse, I had already made it clear in my addled barnet that I was not to drink. Lately my alcohol intake has decreased, probably due to the amount of time I’ve been spending with Myfwt, so it’s not as if I HAD to have a booze free. Being ill too, a wine doesn’t half help with a malaise, I’d made a rod for my ailing back. My back, incidentally, is now sounding like the concertina on a bendy straw being stretched rigid from its compressed position everytime I fucking move.
I had a bath, made a boring but healthy meal of fish and vegetables, it was partially saved by a mustard and garlic sauce, and spent the vast majority of the evening gawping listlessly at the TV and blowing my nose, when it allowed the foul liquids to run free from my head. Once every 5 mins I had to battle with the thought of ‘just one glass, you deserve it i love you there there bless’ but despite my condition of being easily led by my self, I managed to resist.
Once I hit the sack at a ludicrously early 10.45 in order to read I knew I was safe. I don’t like smoking in bed so the bedroom becomes a haven of purity, in one respect of course, eh lads, whaaheyyy *cough cough*
…Christ. Anyway. I’ve fulfilled my duties once again by making into the office. I think after this though that’s it, if I start feeling a fucking ounce worse than this I’m off and not coming back until after the weekend where I will have hopefully made a full recovery.
I’ve also noticed that my prediction of staff members jumping on the ‘there is something going round’ bandwagon has begun. I predict more absences tomorrow.
I feel like I’ve been pulled out of a top hat, I’m as sharp as a deep fried pizza with pills in my guts and a head full of impact adhesive. I’m male, I am with cold.
It started yesterday afternoon quite suddenly, first the odd throat, sudden fatigue and the feeling that ones blood has been replaced by anti-freeze, until I had the same basic symptoms as Myfwt’s. I pretended I was just fine, it was okay, I’ll just shake it off cycling home, I thought, which I attempted with gusto. Though I didn’t shake anything off and was required to sit in my leather armchair on arrival feeling all pale and needy. Like a girl on the blob, but without the ferocious spontaneous temper and default moaning.
Myfwt was back by 6.30, her cold was on the way out but the sight of my creamy face inspired her to have a relapse after she’d taken a bath and eaten. Oddly, I was feeling a little bit better, possibly due to excellent Beaujolais and a splendid carpet picnic, allow me to indulge…Gather together various picnic components, ham, cheese, salad, pork pies, hummus, cold sausages, crisps, nuts, varieties of bread, coleslaw, cucumber, mayo, mustard et al and dump on the floor, in bowls/plates etc., then eat randomly at whatever pace you desire.
By the end of the evening I was feeling all right and she was feeling rank. I thought I’d beaten the shitting malaise but the huge cough up at 2 am proved otherwise. It was as if someone had implanted a leaking silicon breast in the back of my throat, and I was required to sit virtually upright to avoid drowning in my own phlegm.
I awoke this morning feeling like the underside of John McCririck penis, sweaty and angry-red but fully aware that I still had to go to fucking work. I’m on fucking deadline again so here I bloody well am. I really should be in bed, or at least crouched over myself in the darkest corner of my flat emptying my clockweights.
The policy in the office of being ill doesn’t suit me one bit, nor is it logical. The MD’s mantra of ‘well, if you’re going to be ill, you may as well be here’ doesn’t take into account the very real, in fact, the dead cert that my cold will either infect members of staff, or provide an excuse for other members to pull feign illness. Not that I’m singling out my MD here, being ill when one is in full time employment is still considered ‘un-British’ that unless you can prove you’re really on your last legs (think Cabin Fever blood vomiting) you’ll be either regarded as a weakling or more probably a liar.
At the beginning of this year the MD sent round an e-mail that informed all staff members that there would be a prize for the member of staff that took the least sick days. This is a very negative way of viewing your employees, it suggests that we’re all liars by default and I was, well, a little insulted. I don’t fake being ill, to me pretending you’re unwell is fucking shit, the subsequent culture of ‘sickies’ (fucking stupid word) means that when one is actually ill and required to spend time in bed, one feels guilty.
It’s almost got to the point where it’s better to go to work bleeding from the eyes and take the time off when you’ve a mild hangover. These days you’ll feel guilty at home whether you’re ill or not.
Yesterday lunchtime I had to go to bloody Sainsbury to get some stuff for the week. It was a military (and OCD) planned in and out. On leaving the main food hall I discovered that some bright spark, in order to solicit pity and spare change from the punters, had parked a large variety of wheelchair-ridden disableds at both the top and the bottom of the escalators. The ones that were conscious were grimly clutching on to charity boxes whilst others merely stared indifferently through the shoppers passing by. What the fuck was this? A watered down version of The Elephant Man? It’s not like any of them were going to be able to keep the money they’d been made to couch, with all due respect, half of them wouldn’t have known what money was if you paid them. No, some cunt had decided that the best way forwards for his little outfit was plop the supposed recipients of his business in humiliating view of the public as they ably went about their business. What next, grown men punching pigtailed 6 year old girls in the face for ‘Childline’?
All of the disableds, in addition to having to suffer the indignation of being parked in the most conspicuous public spot outside of Trafalgar Square for hours on end, they were wearing day-glo orange vests with ‘disabled… such and such’ all over it! Whose idea was this? It doesn’t do anyone any good this sort of thing, it’s neither fair on the public or the disableds, especially the latter, I’m sure the last thing they want to hear when they wake up on Sunday morning is.
‘I’m going to park you at Sainsbury all day’
‘Don’t like it’
‘Fuck you, Chorlton’
I got back in home in time for the Grand Prix which was fucking shit, wrote this crap and shortly I’m meeting Frank for a final pint. Myfwt’s is due over later but I’m sure you’re all as keen as I to hear about my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary…
Friday didn’t come to plan as expected; Myfwt’s and I were due to finish off all the table decoration buying for the 50 guests. Not the greatest way to spend a Friday night so when she pulled out due to this bastard bug that’s been claiming everyone (not me, yet) I wasn’t too disappointed. A night of overeating, wine’s, spliffs, BB and a balls out rock session ensued. I was conscious enough of the work required the following day to not push the boat out too far; I was in bed by 1am.
Myfwt’s, still feeling under the weather was due over at 9am but again circumstances seemed to work in my favour. She decided to finish off the shopping alone citing her not feeling well enough to put up with my cynical mutterings that I find part and parcel of the whole shopping experience. I remained in bed, burped the worm, took a 26 minute shit which was frankly a little slice of heaven and in she breezed with, 2 coffees and panini and the bags containing the last of the required items. Ace.
We made a few final preparations and at 3.30 my sister and bro in law picked us up to take us to the venue. For the first time in weeks it was a beautiful day, warm without being uncomfortable and the sky an Yves Klein blue standing behind childish white puffs of cloud. The pub, located in what passes for the Surrey countryside, has recently made a name for itself in good traditional food. It’s no gastro pub, an abortion of taste and civility; it’s simply a fairly upmarket pub with a banqueting area attached at the rear.
We arrived early, the guests from a lunchtime bash, all French, were still milling about the designated area, allowing us to grab a pint or too whilst the staff prepared themselves for our party of guests. After my brother and his missus joined us we got to work, Myfwt’s gently took charge and within an hour and half 10 tables were laid out, each containing enough seating for the 50 expected. Right lovely they looked too, red tablecloths, red balloons, silver sprinkle star things and, on a whim, Myfwt’s had grabbed some ivy off a tree and nested the tea lights. We had time for another pint before my parents arrived, early as expected. Mum was shitting herself that something would go wrong. I was in charge of initial planning so she had every right for concern.
Suddenly there was an explosion of faces from my distant past, old people telling me how I was ‘this high’when they last saw me, long ago friends of mum and dad enquiring why I wasn’t married and questioning tattoos. Most faces I remembered with fondness, some I didn’t know at all but mum and dad seemed happy. I chatted to one of the vicars that had known my parents a few years back. This chap is no ordinary reverend, he’s like a cross between Noel Coward and John Hurt, smokes and drinks heavily, rides large motorcycles (currently has a Honda TransAlp, for those that give a shit) despite being 60, hates children and is somehow married. I’m sure he’s as much belief in an afterlife as I, top bloke in spite of his job.
After all the niceties had settled down the party set down to eat. There was a bloody huge pig slowly turning outside, wholly intact save it’s legs, which was served with fresh vegetables and roast potatoes. It was fucking delicious. I was keeping my drinking in check as following the meal I was up to make a speech.
The speech had been in planning for quite a few days. My brother and sister we instantly worried when I got the gig. I’d done a dreadful and pretty pissed up number at my dad’s 60th and they weren’t going to forget it in a hurry. My first draft was rejected outright, I was told to remove my reference to dad following through at dinner one evening 25 years ago, the incident when I called mum and cunt and dad told me not to speak to his wife like that whilst holding me up off the floor by my throat and cut the anecdote that required me to favourably compare Satanists over Conservatives due to the vast numbers of so-called Christians present. In the end I was left with a mildly amusing but heartfelt dedication to my parents 40-year marriage, which really has been quite splendid.
Speech went down very well, and I could see the relief on my mum’s face when it was finished, the toast was accompanied by all the guests lighting indoor sparklers and a rousing ‘for they are jolly good fellows’ saw my job done. Dad’s speech was so funny my mate James utterly lost it to the point his wife started kicking him under the table. As if all this jollity and merriment wasn’t enough, the field directly opposite the venue put on a massive display of fireworks. This was totally coincidental but I convinced the folks I’d planned it before getting busted by my bro. Either way, my parents were as happy as larry with the whole evening, I have to say myself, it was a jolly good show.
Myfwt’s and I got a lift with James and his wife and we were back at midnight, happy, pissed and tired. I managed to chuck down a bit more wine and smoke one of the guest’s absurdly tasty home grown before retiring to bed.
But it’s not all chuckles and giggles at chez Piqued. Yesterday afternoon before my sister came to pick us up Cunt barged into our p and q fully fucking amped up (have I mentioned that, get this, he actually mics up his own voice and guitar when PRACTICING ‘songs’) He’s a fucking mental; it was so loud that dust was cascading down from behind my radiators. Remind yourselves that he’s ‘learning’ a ’song’, now imagine someone with the IQ of a held back child who has just come out of a fucking 5 year coma trying to learn ‘Playing with Fire’ by The Stones, with no hint or sense of what constitutes tune, tone and timing, going over the same fuck ups without any chance of improvement but getting the chorus enough to qualify his repeating it for 47 FUCKING MINUTES! all at teeth chattering volume. If this isn’t enough, and believe me it fucking well is, Cunt has a massive filterless ego deluding him out of all proportion to his ability insuring the matter is a million time worse than my feeble attempt to describe this situation will allow. But to say that he even says ‘thank you’ to his imaginary fans, through the mic, loudly, after he’s finished playing should be of some help…
Myfwt was putting make up on in the bathroom, after 2 minutes of this retard intrusion my face was purple with a red vein popping out the side of my neck. Myfwt’s saw me on the brink of an aneurysm and asked me what was wrong; I cracked a sarcastic smile and pointed to the source of this quite disgusting abomination of beauty.
Hurrah, to compensate for my cacky back (now clicking in a succession of three) my fucking right knee has gone up the spout. I’m currently traversing round the office in black and white, like I’m walking wounded, bravely staggering around the grounds of a military hospital in the late 40’s, puffing on a Capstan, where is the pretty nurse with starched apron smoothing my brill creamed hair? She be dead now of course.
Yesterday lunchtime I began the task of gathering together the various ingredients for the folks 40th Wedding Anniversary. It was awful; I had to go into Woolworths where I was subject to Holly Valence and Gerry Halliwell breathing surround sound poison into my face as I gloomily trudged through glittering isles selling shit made in China. A big fat women was going to task on the pick n’ mix, every time she bent down to shovel a pile of candy into her brightly coloured paper sack she’d go bright red and the sun would go out. I located some fucking balloons and 50 little rubber finger monsters, I’d been made deranged by Victoria Beckham’s single, so I purchased the rubber monsters with the help of an utterly vacant human being at the counter and left the bobbing porker to fill her 3rd bag.
I wandered about Wimbledon forlornly trying to find somewhere that sold little fucking silver stars and ribbon and tissue paper and other tiny bits of anniversary related ephemera. As the tennis was on the place was packed full of cunts looking all confused and weird with another heap of tools perpetually trying to press leaflets, phone cards and free newspapers into my hand. It was a nightmare of truly harrowing proportions; I was in full swearing mode and prepared to fling whatever piece of shit had been imposed on me back into the face of the vendor, it happened 4 times. By the time I returned to the office, late, the only item that had increased my lot was a small spool of silver ribbon, but my blood pressure was sky high and I was sweating like a navvy. The afternoon was written off.
After work I dropped off my black bitch, she was looking mighty fine, and went directly to the tube to arrive at Clapham in time to visit a posh gift shop before meeting my bro. The initial disappointment of the contents of the shop had its head kicked off when I found it sold fucking silver stars and a host of other twinkle-twee anniversary stuff. Ace. I met my bro in the usual and we discussed the forthcoming weekend –you’ll be privy to this on Monday if you tune in- and the recent mud fest in Shepton Mallet. We’d not spoken since and it seems that he was about impressed with the festival as I, it also seems that in terms of getting out of the fucking thing to go home we were extraordinary lucky, not that I give a tinker’s cuss from where I sit now in the warm and dry…Office. Oh.
This evening Myfwt is over to finish off the anniversary shopping for tomorrow evening, I just hope we have enough time for a few glasses of wine before being forced to undertake a relatively early night, this is due to the massive flurry of activity culminating in a 50 guest knees up in deepest darkest Surrey.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that my bro gave me some video footage shot 3 years ago of me throwing up into a sink as Jamie, who is on top form, is reminding me of my job as an auxillary Nurse. If I can edit it properly I’m considering posting it on YouTube for your entertainment. I saw it last night for the first time and it had me in stitches.
Have nice weekends; don’t forget how lucky you are to have quality spines…
I’ve not cycled in since Monday as I’ve been having to go to Wimbledon during lunch for various things, yesterday it was a phone, today it’s to buy a load of little decoration things for my parents wedding anniversary on Saturday. I’ll be jumping puddles next.
I’m sure the lack of exercise is contributing to the ongoing back issue, but I’m now 99% sure that all the sliding and auto-correction that took place in the swamp at that festival a few weeks ago is directly responsible for the new ‘click’ in the second lumber up from the coccyx. I’m now having to be warying of how I sit, stand, walk… if I’m not careful when buying all those flowery glittery bits and bobs at lunch I’m going to get a reputation. ‘There he is’, they’ll say, ‘they created the Blue Oyster Bar in his honour, he’s so gay that he can’t fart without using a bin liner’.
I managed to get a new phone yesterday without too much fuss and expense, mercifully the sim card didn’t have its information entirely cleansed, though I have lost all of my pictures which is a big pisser. Nevermind, least I kept all of my contacts details. After a harrowing afternoon at work, I got home in time to have a quick shower and began to prepare dinner. Myfwt was coming over, see?
She’s been a bit under the weather, nothing serious; throat infection but I’d not seen her since last week. I’d already decided we were gong to eat roast chicken so there wasn’t really too much to do, peel some spuds and carrots, shell some peas, shove the chicken in the Chicken Brick… Yes, you heard me. I’ve mentioned this thing before, its fucking amazing, buy one from Habitat, the sales on… Not only does the chicken skin go crispy in this thing the meat is so tender you can virtually shake it off the carcass, in addition, all the juices are retained, hey presto instant gravy.
We had champagne as a fucking aperitif, I had a bottle knocking about from a few weeks ago. Personally I prefer a Bordeaux but I wasn’t objecting of course. Myfwt got them out in order to have a bath whilst I finished off supper. It was a triumph, every single component was delicious and the gravy so good I can only describe it by the erection I have typing this.
I ate it all like a fucking pig, flailing limbs, grunting, morsels of food falling, flying… All of the decorum, balance and care in its making went right of the window in its consumption. A fucking triumph.
I must be honest, I’m now actually quite worried that my sodding back may require some attention. When it went all bent a couple of years back surgery was mentioned, after much expense and some diligence at the hands of my chiropractor such action was avoided, but it’s never been entirely ruled out. I mean I can continue having treatments when it gets bad but the fundamental problem with it is only going to be solved by a fucking operation.
Still, at least I’m at work; in this office listening to my colleagues slag each other off, so that’s good.
RIP George Melly, I only slagged you off last month too. You were a good sort though
(My back wouldn’t allow me to do what these chap do on stage. Blast)
‘Aaah, great’, I thought as I sat down in my leather armchair, feet up on the stool, remote in hand all set up to watch the ‘Grunge’ episode of ‘The Seven Ages of Rock’.
I was about 10pm and I’d just eaten some of Prince Charles disappointing though more-than-okay Cumberland sausages with some broccoli and peas, a glass of wine sat by my side, the last squeezed drops out of the bottomless wine box. I was genuinely thrilled to throw the fucking thing away.
Yesterday, for the first time in almost a month, I biked in to work on my black bitch, I had some shit to do in Wimbledon at lunchtime (whose wanker quota is worse than usual due to the fucking tennis) and I didn’t fancy public transport, due to the said tennis/wanker equation. On leaving work I noticed that half the sky had turned as black as sabbath and that I was in danger of getting a right proper fucking soaking unless I fucked off out of it, quick sharp. I mistimed my journey by 5 minutes and got soaked to the bone. The fact that my waterproof jacket which has survived all manner of wet conditions failed to keep me dry should act as some pathetic yardstick as to my drenching… If it doesn’t, to announce that the most concealed part of my undercarriage (by that I mean my scrotum) was wringing wet should clear the matter up.
Last night on my return from the pub with Frank I once again got caught in a shower of such intensity that the 5 minute walk resulted in head to toe wetness, during the walk I was pondering on some smut I’d caught earlier, I was literally soaked to the boner. Indeed, last night on the way to the pub, following a change out of the wet clothes from the earlier ride, I got yet another fucking drenching on the way to meeting Frank and his dad in the now smokefree boozer.
The pub has got worse, the number of female senior citizens sat round huge plates of food has doubled, really, sooner or later someone has to say something before they start buying and selling homemade plum jam and shortbread, the old bastards. Had a splendid evening, Franks dad was high up in the British Army and whilst he and I could be seen as chalk and cheese (ironically I was informed of the origins of that term by Franks dad only last night) we get on splendidly, we even undertook a discussion about religion which is a territory I tend to avoid with those of a religious persuasion as I’m liable to cause offence.
Anyway, I was still very damp when I got home after 9, and for the third time in 24 hours, I peeled off my soaking garments and hung them up/threw them in the washing machine. I faffed about with the food, got a few things together for the day ahead, and there I was, just about to settle in front of the fucking TV when this happened…
(Thinking) ‘Mmm, I think I’ll call Myfwt’s first’
‘Yes, do it, call her’
‘Great, I will…’
‘Yes, where’s my phone?’
‘Oh it’s right… hang on it’s…’
*goes hot*
‘No, I can’t have left in my trouser pocket?’
‘You fucking cunt’
‘No, I didn’t, I wouldn’t have…’
‘You stupid fucking cunt, it’s in the fucking washing machine’
The cycle had just come to an end, I opened the washing machine door, still in denial, until the phone fell out onto the kitchen floor like a dead fish.
I biked in to work again today because at lunch I have to go to fucking Wimbledon to buy a new fucking phone.
