Peanuts.

People disappear every day. I imagine it’s very easy to walk out of your life, seeking the reinvention of personality and removal from obligations that most of us crave at one time or another. As a simple solution to seemingly unbearable situations it does have an undeniable logic.

It’s not as though it’s difficult to disappear. The Unabomber managed it for years, and everyone is still chasing a lanky bearded arsehole safely ensconced in a cave in Afghanistan. Hellfire missiles, pilot less drones, entries in the Evening Post, pictures on the side of milk cartons: you name it, if people don’t want to be found they can be extraordinarily resourceful in concealing their existence

Awful things do happen to people, but mostly I expect it’s an option that presents itself during a period of despair, and assumes its own logic subsequently. It’s not as though they don’t mean to contact their loved ones; they mean to do so every day, maybe tomorrow, or perhaps the next day. Somehow they exist in that limbo and it becomes habitual.

I’ve never run away myself. I remember a Charlie Brown cartoon, in which Charlie sat under a tree, and considered moving somewhere different where no one knew him. Lucy informed him that there was no point as he was Charlie, and everyone would treat him exactly the same once they got to know him. I believe that Linus was sucking his comfort blanket at the time.

Please Release me.

As a nipper, I suffered from an inexplicable infatuation with popular cabaret crooner Englebert Humperdinck. I was six years old at the time, and I can only ascribe this strange affliction to a precocious love of ridiculously attired, big haired, velvet clad crooners. It was a phase of my life that was thankfully brief: my attentions in later years focusing on the lovely Linda Carter (cracking norks) as Wonder Woman, and the killer cheek boned Debbie Harry.

For some reason I had always assumed that Englebert was American. Britons are not normally prone to Liberace tendencies, and have a general distrust of pompaded twats in large bow ties warbling meaningless lyrics to an audience of polyester clad homebodies from Boise, Idaho.

Imagine my shock when I recently discovered that Englebert is actually from Leicester. The shock was almost as great as discovering that Gary Glitter was a paedo, although, in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have been that surprised.

Englebert’s chief claim to fame is that he managed to keep the Beatles ‘Strawberry Fields/ Penny Lane’ off the number one spot in 1967. I think ‘Please Release me, Let me Go’ was the musical masterpiece responsible.

My Englebert worshiping days are thankfully a thing of the distant past (honest). I stick to P J Harvey and the Black Crowes these days. Not that they’re exactly at the cusp of modernity: but they do have the edge on James Blunt and Snow Patrol.

Smokin'!

As a faintly disreputable individual, I have a few reprehensible habits; by far the worst of these being enjoying a chuff on a cigarette.

I gave up the ready rolled variety years ago, preferring to spill shreds of tobacco on the carpet and down the back of the sofa. The bits of soggy tobacco that leak from the end of the roll up into the inner recesses of my molars are a slight drawback, but the vigorous use of a sonic toothbrush usually deals with the problem.

I was interested to learn that Jeremy Irons, Martin Amis, Jonny Depp, and Kate Moss, share my predilection for an artfully crafted home rolled cheroot. As a stylish, witty, impossibly debonair individual, I find this confluence of good taste most gratifying (apart from the Jeremy Irons connection).

My best mate Keith was in New York last year, in pursuit of a Uruguayan diplomat’s daughter who had developed the hots for him over the interweb. Naturally, when she caught sight of his stunted form and greasy mop he was given short shrift. Sitting on a park bench, he got out his rolling gear, and proceeded to console himself with a smoke. He couldn’t understand why everyone walking past was giving him funny looks. They obviously assumed that he was smoking cannabis in public.

Apparently 25% of UK smokers now skin up. That figure’s a bit high for my liking. Never being one to follow the herd, I’ve decided to take up snuff. Tar stained nostrils may not exactly be an asset in the pulling stakes, but they will provide an interesting conversational gambit should my silver tongued charm fail to work its usual magic

The Boys Bump Starting the Hearse.

Living in the boondocks, it can be quite difficult getting hold of the services that people living in urban areas take for granted.

I have a difficulty with glass. I’m in the process of replacing some double glazing, but I don’t have a local glass supplier. I could pay vast sums to have glaziers come and do the job, but I dislike paying triple for something that I can do myself.

I was wracking my brains to think of a way to get hold of some glass when I had a eureka moment: why not try the local funeral director? As a bit of lateral thinking I think this takes some beating. The buggers even have a massive hearse to transport the glass in. When they’re out on a local ‘job’, they pop the glass under the coffin and nobody’s any the wiser. The corpse is interred, they get a small delivery fee, and I get my glass. Everybody goes home happy.

I’ve actually collected glass from the funeral parlour on a couple of occasions. I get ushered into the back ‘office’ so that I can measure the panes to make sure that the dimensions are correct. It is slightly unnerving to be surrounded by coffins in various states of completion, but thankfully none of them are occupied.

The brothers who run the place are extremely cheerful. They have every right to be. I can’t see them going out of business any time soon.

Flash those Gnashers

I fear that I am turning into an outraged coffin dodger from Leamington Spa. I haven’t started reading the Daily mail, or playing crown green bowling, but elements of my character are displaying signs of “say that again and I’ll boot you in the balls”.

I’m convinced that the BBC News is responsible. They used to have proper print trained journalists who had probably earned their dues bayoneting Greek Cypriots, smoking cheroots, and wiring dispatches while too hung over to piss straight.

These days they’re all recruited from provincial television. If they can read in a suitably patronising manner from the autocue, while flashing their immaculately groomed molars at the camera, then they are perfectly qualified for the job. They even have cute little notebook computers on their desks, presumably to convey an air of journalistic competence.

The economics presenter appears to have strayed in from a Janet and John book, interviewing mongs outside Littlewoods to convey the economic pulse of the nation. Christ, they even have a weather forecaster who looks like a puppet, his gestures depicting showery days like a marionette on amphetamine.

What we need is a Reginald Bosanquet (the pissed British version of Walter Cronkite), or, at the very least, Anna Ford with a few under chin tweaks.

I’m no stickler for tradition, but I don’t see why I should have to tolerate wanker vision. We have enough Fox News (gag) and CNN (rolling boredom) as it is. Public Service broadcasting should ignore the fuckwits, and bludgeon the ignorant with the facts in a dispassionate manner. I’m sure that Lord Reith would have agreed with me.

Laff a Minute

As miserable bastards go, Thomas Hardy takes some beating. His eeyorish tendencies manifested themselves in developing exquisitely drawn characters and then subjecting them to a damn good kicking as a result of:

1. Developing ideas above their station.


2. Falling in love with dashing Calvary officers.


3. Being good at business but a bit shite at maths.

My personal favourite is Jude the Obscure. Poor Jude Fawley falls in love with his first cousin Sue, aspires to an unobtainable University education, and dies friendless and alone on a sofa under the gaze of the heartless Arabella, his first wife. It really isn’t a chuckle a minute.

Thankfully the film adaptation of Jude the Obscure includes a cracking shot of Kate Winslet’s beaver. That is, I suppose, a meagre, and hirsute, compensation for nigh on two hours worth of god awful miserableness.

Depressing as it is, I think it’s preferable to listening to Morrissey warbling on about feeling happy and fulfilled. Fuck's sake, I’d be feeling happy and fulfilled if I was living the Dolce Vita in Rome and had a couple of squillions in the bank.

Why I didn't become Astronomer Royal.

I think it was my Maths teacher who was responsible. His nickname was ‘Bud’. This moniker did not result from the high regard with which he was regarded by his pupils; rather, it derived from his penchant for parading his diminutive legs around the classroom clad in excessively tight blue corduroys. He liked to flounce around the classroom like an ersatz Rudolf Nureyev, pausing to complete a quadratic equation on the blackboard with a flourish. This gave him the opportunity to cast scorn and contempt on those of us (most of us usually) that didn’t have a baldy clue what the prancing tit was banging on about. He was a complete and utter tosser.

The Science Department wasn’t much of an improvement. Our Chemistry teacher had been involved in a horrific car accident ten years earlier. The wonders of 1960’s facial reconstruction had left her with one glass eye permanently fixed on the bottle of concentrated sulphuric acid in the locked chemicals cabinet. The other eye, which twitched, gazed out of the window at the dinner hall, presumably attempting to divine what culinary delights the dinner ladies were concocting for us.

The Physics teacher was just eccentric. He liked to fiddle with springs; sported tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, and drove a maroon Triumph TR6 (impossibly naff then, unbelievably cool now).

My personal favourite was the Biology teacher. A three foot two inches cross between Marie Stopes and a bag lady, she liked to inform us (a class of fifteen year olds) that: “The desire to consume food is a far more urgent mammalian impulse than the desire for sexual congress". Aye, right.

The Arts teachers were generally ok. Our History teacher had a different suit (usually involving a waistcoat) for every day of the month, and was obsessed with the Franco/Prussian war. The English teacher, despite her bulging eyeballs and tendency to swoon over Shakespeare’s sonnets, was inspirational. She drove a Fiat X19 (impossibly cool then, unbelievably naff now)

My favourite was the French teacher, Miss Halliday. Fresh out of Teacher Training College, and drop dead gorgeous, she liked to correct our pronunciation. She had breasts and everything.

I have a teaching qualification, but I have never taught. I think it was a wise decision. If I had, just imagine the sort of things people would be saying about me today.

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

The Taliban

Hostility between Protestants and Catholics is thankfully a thing of the past. Northern Ireland may seem to be an exception, but even there the terms are just labels for populations with a different sense of nationality and identity. Similarly, the displays of naked bigotry at football matches between Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic don’t extend beyond the confines of the stadium, apart from violent drunken altercations between rival groups of moronic fans after the conclusion of matches.

The oddest manifestation of the Protestant Reformation is probably to be found in the Outer Hebrides, where the north of the island chain is staunchly Protestant, and the south devoutly Catholic. Of the northern islands, Harris and North Uist display the most extreme forms of Calvinism. I think even the Rev Ian Paisley would be shocked at the unbelievably strict form of Sabbatarianism that prevails. Children’s swings are tied up on a Sunday, and there are strict injunctions against drying laundry, watching television, or reading newspapers. Woe betides anyone who does not abide by these rules: they will immediately be castigated as spiritual lepers.

It’s a bizarre experience to travel between North and South Uist. The North is home to the free churches, while the south is home to chapels and statues of the Virgin Mary. There is no open hostility between the two, but it would be fair to say that there is little in the way of social interaction.

On a yacht trip I was once in a pub in the Lochmaddy hotel, North Uist. It was during a Scottish Cup final, and the locals were pissed out of their minds (obviously not church goers). One of them asked where I was off to next. When I said I was heading to South Uist he informed me that I should think twice about my choice of destination. “Don’t go there pal, they’re all Catholics and they don’t wash”

It’s nice to know that such enlightened views are to be found even in the wildest corners of the Kingdom.

Eilean Shona

Some places are out of, and beyond, time. Tourists don’t discover them, preferring the obvious landscapes that are ingrained in the popular memory, or those that are promoted as national icons.

I haven’t been to the central highlands of Vietnam, or slept on a Kashmir houseboat. I probably will get round to doing these things, when I can find the time, and when funds permit. In the interim I have to be content with the local and intimate. It’s a worthwhile exercise to contemplate what is on your doorstep.

Patrick Kavanagh bemoaned the fact that he had rejected the landscape of his birth: had ‘flung her from me and called her a ditch, although she was smiling at me with violets’. It’s easy to overlook what is outside your own front door, and aspire to things that are promoted as superior.

Eilean Shona, on the west coast of Scotland, doesn’t appear on many tourist maps. It should . J M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, spent time on the island, and it may be the inspiration for Neverland.

The island is owned by the Branson family. It lies across a short stretch of water from Castle Tioram, a twelfth century castle in a ruinous condition. While the tourist hoards descend on the obvious sites, it is possible to experience this sublime place, even at the height of the tourist season, in something approaching seclusion.

There Goes the Neighbourhood

I don’t normally suffer from inexplicable cravings (of a non carnal nature), but the other day I developed a sudden desire for a Pot Noodle.

I haven’t eaten one of the things for at least twenty years. The memory of reconstituted rubber bands, and the glutinous residue of eviscerated peas and monosodium glutamate, had obviously seared itself into my memory like a Guns and Roses tattoo.

Perhaps I am experiencing a hideous inverted childhood, when a purple Jelly Baby and a pot of Marmite (neat) shall hold equal allure. It must be that, or maybe I’m just sick to the back teeth of corn fed free range chicken (flu free), and 21 day hung rib of beef.

Whatever the reason, I purchased two pots. I have a tub of Chicken and Mushroom, and a tub of Bombay Bad Boy, safely stashed in my larder. I haven’t summoned up the courage to tackle the things yet, but I know that their day will come (probably tomorrow).

I know that no good can come of this aberration, but sometimes it’s better to be brave than sink nose down in a plate of Coq au vin.

I asked for water, she gave me gasoline.

There is a time, in every young mans life, when the dreaded year of 39 arrives. Waking in an arthritic fever of disconnected joints I shuddered, and checked that everything was functioning.

Remarkably enough everything was, so that’s alright then.

My mother has gone completely round the bend, my father is jumping up and down like a demented geriatric punk rocker with a wasp up his arse, and every morning I am confronted by a cat with a tumour the size of a golf ball on its neck. Life just doesn’t get much better.

Still, things could be worse, I actually managed to post something.

Why I never made it as a Goth.

I think all today’s newspapers carried the story about the post grad student at Sussex University who has been awarded a PhD for a thesis on the Goth sub-culture. It really is remarkable what constitutes an appropriate subject area for a PhD these days, but I won’t go into that as it is a suitable subject for a lengthy rant at some later date.

I would never have cut is a Goth as I have blonde hair and invisible eyebrows. I would have looked a right twat with black eyeliner and lipstick. It would have been a different matter if I was a proper albino with pink eyes: then I would have taken considerable pleasure in scaring the hell out of infants.

The student reached the unremarkable conclusion that Goths tend to be arty middle class types who don’t do drugs and aren’t keen to get into fights. Talk about stating the bleedin’ obvious. There was a Goth girl in my year at University who was more likely to be found at Glastonbury of a weekend hunting for ley lines than knocking back snakebites in the Students Union. She draped the ceiling of her bedroom with black bin liners, and had a penchant for crushed velvet, but apart from that she was as boringly normal as they come.

It’s the aging Goths that frighten me. Anyone who has witnessed the Cures Robert Smith’s physical deterioration of late will take a dim view of anyone wearing the Goth uniform in later life. He resembles a fat Elvis in a fright wig with pancake make up and drooping jowls.

In truth, I never wanted to be a Goth. I hated Bauhaus, and the Sisters of Mercy were purveyors of melodramatic bollocks. They exist in their own little cul de sac, and are welcome to it.

I’m off to listen to ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead'.

Farewell my furry friend.

TOPCAT

Those of you (fewer by the day, and who can blame them) who peruse this blog will be aware that my cat, Oscar, had a cancerous growth removed six months ago. It was malignant and aggressive, and at the time the vet didn’t hold out much hope, although he did remove the lymph nodes.

Unfortunately, the tumour has returned with a vengeance. I took Oscar to the vet, who advised that it would be futile to operate again as the cancer would only return. He has given Oscar a prognosis of two to three months. He isn’t displaying the slightest sign of discomfort at the moment, but when he does I shall bow to the inevitable and have him put to sleep.

Oscar came from a cat shelter, and has proved a most excellent moggie in every way. I have never before encountered a cat with such a playful and placid temperament. I cannot recall him baring his claws once.

The vet informed me that he is growing increasingly concerned about the number of cats that he has inoculated against leukaemia developing cancerous growths a few years later. Although there are no clinical studies suggesting that he do so, he has taken to advising people that this is a risk if they have their cats inoculated. It seems a bit of a sick joke that an injection intended to prevent one form of cancer may be responsible for another that is just as debilitating.

I salute you Oscar. Those whom the gods love die young.

Pukka mate

The liver lipped, big tongued tosser, Jamie Oliver has avoided ridicule recently due to his advocacy of decent, nutritious school dinners. He deserves some credit for this: feeding fat drenched chicken nuggets to twelve year olds on grounds of economy is obviously not conducive to reducing obesity.

Unfortunately for Jamie, it turns out that children are rejecting his tasty recipes and going down the chippy instead. They know what they like, and are prepared to pay for it.

Some people are just inherently irritating. Jamie seems a decent enough chap, it’s just that everything about his cheeky chappy, mockney persona gets right on my tits. Awight, pukka mate, dahn the Old Kent Road? Fuck off and speak properly you irritating little mong. It’s not as though he’s the son of an east end barrow boy, he’s the son of an Essex publican. Oliver passing himself off as cockney is like me claiming to hail from the Bronx.

Even his wife, Jules, is annoying. She’s like a little doll with the over rouged cheekbones of a whore.

Oliver claims never to have read a book in his life, which is tantamount to boasting about being a moron.

I don’t see why inverted snobs should be allowed to amass £7 million fortunes. There should be a law forcing all sub literate cretins to donate their wealth to deserving cases like me. I can whip up a soufflé as well as the next man; it’s about time I was released from the hell that is work.

My amplifier goes up to eleven.

In theory it shouldn’t be possible to be nostalgic for a period that you were too young to experience. Ok, I was alive in 1971/72, but being five years old I was more likely to be listening to Pinky and Perky singing White Christmas than getting off my face on ganga and grooving on down to the Faces singing ‘Three Button Hand me Down’.

I’m not going to get into rock criticism here, which is the last refuge of the aging hipster with bad teeth and a drink problem. It is a genre that produces the odd genius like Lester Bangs, but is more likely to allow pretentious tossers to indulge in some cod sociology. Paul Morley, whose criticism used to appear in the NME years ago, had the good sense to retire when he was 24, claiming that he was too old to continue.

The period 1971/72 produced some of the greatest rock music ever recorded. The Rolling Stones, the Faces, the Who, and Led Zeppelin were all at their creative peaks, and had not yet succumbed to the hubris of rock hedonism. Seeing any of these bands play live must have been awe inspiring, even if a perforated eardrum was the price you had to pay for the experience.

It just seems to have been a time when there was a generosity of spirit in the air that was on the verge of dissolving into rancour and disillusionment. The Faces in particular just sound like a bunch of pissed blokes producing a ramshackle but wonderful sound.

Within a few years it was all pomp rock, twiddling on synthesisers, and ugly blokes wearing platform boots coated in glitter.

I’m off to listen to the ‘Brown Bomber’ album and play some air guitar. Sod Coldplay and James Blunt. There was a time when hairy men in tight trousers ruled the world. We will never see their like again.

Feck, feckity, feck.

Bastard howling gales last night toppled ten of my trees. I have spent a very pleasant day wielding a chain saw in foul weather.

I thought this was supposed to be Spring.


This is rather chucklesome.

Ach well

G’ORN, HAVE A CHUFF ON THAT CIGGIE.

The ban on smoking in public places in Scotland begins in seventeen days time. Rough boozers across the nation are preparing to auction their heavy glass ashtrays for use by Glasgow gangs in territorial disputes. The sign makers are writhing in orgasmic frenzy at the prospect of the demand for NO SMOKING signs increasing tenfold.

For some bizarre reason, the ban extends to hotel rooms. Presumably this is to prevent forty a day cleaners instantly contracting lung cancer as a consequence of passive smoking in well ventilated, air conditioned, rooms. I wonder if hotels will have to install in room closed circuit TV to ensure that the appropriate authorities can be summoned if anyone attempts to light up a Rothmans and flick the ash in a tooth mug.

With signs of rising unemployment, I am reassured that local Councils will be able to employ a few extra million minions in ensuring that individuals partaking in a hitherto legal activity are handed out a severe bollocking, and a £1000 fine. They will, no doubt, like Edinburgh traffic wardens, be issued with performance targets to ensure that they are suitably assiduous.

Thankfully, the ban does not extend to holiday cottages. These are classed as an extension of the individual’s home, and they are allowed to puff away to their hearts content.

I’m rather pleased about this. I don’t ban anyone from staying in one of my cottages. To my mind that would be commercial stupidity. If 30% of the population smoke and are prevented from doing so in hotels they will look for alternatives: i.e. me. I also allow dogs, although I do draw a line where Doberman Pinchers with a crack habit are involved.

I’m off to eat my five fruit and veg a day, and check that the tread on my car tyres is an acceptable depth. I wouldn’t want to endanger my health, or that of innocent pedestrians. I’m just glad that politicians are around to keep me on the straight and narrow. If it wasn’t for them I would be a right cynical bastard.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

A few years ago I sold a house to a guy from Suffolk. He seemed ok at the time; a bit stuffy and reserved, but that isn’t unusual for professional types from the Home Counties.

Over the course of the past couple of years I have discovered, to my chagrin, that he is an arrogant, anal, wanker. He has an obsession with property boundaries, and takes extreme umbrage whenever anyone leaves a vehicle on what he deems his parking area. He doesn’t live here, and only visits three times a year, so why he should get his knickers in a twist over something so minor frankly mystifies me.

Last week I received a solicitor’s letter. I had left a small dinghy at the edge of, but outside his car park. I was informed that this presented an obstruction to vehicular access, and that I should remove it immediately as I was in contravention of the original deeds of sale.

It would be possible to drive a large commercial vehicle into his car park, and I am not obstructing his access in any way. This kind of small minded, ignorant behaviour gets right on my tits, and I have informed my solicitor to rebut his allegation.

I have also (see photo) put a timber kerb around his car park. The tosser hasn’t realised that he hasn’t got sufficient room to park his massive 4 by 4 facing outwards, and will have to park lengthways. If he has visitors, they will have to parallel park, and unless they are driving a small car, will have considerable difficulty. The stupid tit should have checked the dimensions of his grounds before sounding off.

I’m a fairly easy going individual, and I haven’t got a vindictive nature. On this occasion, however, I do have to admit to feeling a smug sense of satisfaction.

That’ll learn the fucktard.

Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Shoot the Aged.

MA MOTOR

This is my car, of which I am rather proud. It’s a Mazda 6 estate: quick, pretty, economical, and spacious. I bought it new six months ago and so far it hasn’t missed a beat.

I got a phone call from my father this afternoon asking if he could borrow it as his car is in for a service. Sure, said I, but it’s a bit short on fuel. You’ll need to get some diesel, and make sure that you don’t put in petrol or chances are you’ll bugger the engine. He scoffed at the very idea of someone of his age and motoring experience making such an elementary error.

Two hours later I get a phone call: “..er, sorry, but there’s a bit of a problem with the car; I put in petrol by mistake”. I did a little dance of rage, but didn’t come down too hard on him as I don’t want him writing me out of his will. The old fellah has loads of dosh stashed in banks on the Isle of Man.

The car has had to be taken back to the dealer in Perth (100 miles away). Apparently there’s some hope, but chances are the high pressure fuel pump will have to be replaced at a fat cost of £1,000. The insurance will cover it, but it’s still annoying.

I have no wheels and am exceedingly miffed. The aged should be confined to their mobility scooters: letting them loose in expensive motors just isn’t worth the risk.

Hatstand Doolally.

IVOR CUTLER

I was saddened to learn of the death of Ivor Cutler, legendary Glaswegian eccentric, poet, and entertainer.

I’ve always held the firm opinion that a sizeable proportion of the UK and Ireland, while not strictly sectionable, are certainly not entirely right in the head. I certainly know of several of my own acquaintances who would make interesting psychiatric case studies, and that’s when they’re sober.

I’m not entirely sure why loopiness is so general among our population. It may have something to do with the perpetual drizzle, the idiocy of our politicians, or the lingering depredations of an obsession with class that makes the Hindu caste system seem like a model of good sense and dignity.

I suppose we shouldn’t complain too much. The chances of being stabbed to death by a psycho are thankfully slim, and it is rather entertaining to listen to the queues of gibbering mutterers in the Post Office. In any case, the flipside of eccentric nuttiness is an intense creativity. Spike Milligan may have been a manic depressive who attempted to strangle Harry Secombe, but he was also surreally funny.

Funnily enough, Ivor Cutler and Spike Milligan were both members of the Noise Abatement Society. I’m sure that much of our endemic madness is caused by juvenile twats in Vauxhall Novas driving around with their windows open blaring out shite music on their zillion megawatt speakers. Perhaps if more of us had access to bazookas, and license to obliterate the knobheads, Britain would be a happier and saner place.

Ivor liked to hand out sticky labels to strangers containing the sage advice: ‘Add 15 inches to your stride and save 4.5% of the insects’. That’s sense that is, in a mad kind of way.

Thou shalt have a fishie, on a little dishie.

WHY AYE MAN!

The most sexually alluring sound known to mankind is a Geordie girl speaking. I can’t quite put my finger on it (although I’d like to); it’s just so damn melodious that it leaves me stammering like a fumbling adolescent. I’m not exactly a silver tongued charmer at the best of times, but when a Geordie lass speaks to me I am reduced to the bletherings of an inarticulate mong.

The problem with Geordie girls is that they just don’t travel. I have a theory that they are kept under lock and key by their men folk, lest they be whisked away to more salubrious and civilised climes. Geordie men are, on the whole, devoid of any charm whatsoever. Paul Gascoigne is a fine example of the male intellectual that Newcastle upon Tyne churns out by the thousand. They espouse the Northern creed that no garment is more suited to sub zero temperatures than a sleeveless t shirt. I can only assume that nights on the toon thus clad have addled their brain cells to the point were a bout of extreme hypothermia holds no fear.

Personally I think Jayne Middlemiss is missing a trick coming over all glam and sucking up to the soft southern trendies. What she needs to do is record some soothing mp3's that lovelorn males can listen to before drifting into the land of nod in their lonely beds. The lass would make millions. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be richer than Sting (the Geordie wanka).

Would you like a sweetie little boy?

Unlike most celeb food writers, poor old Nigel Slater has only been allowed to present one TV series. Unlike the lavishly breasted and bethighed Nigella Lawson, he lacks the physical attributes that lend themselves so readily to the small screen. Personally, I think Queen Nigella is vastly overrated. Top posh totty she may be, but most of the recipes she comes up with leave me cold. Ham baked in Coca Cola? No fucking ta.

One TV critic claimed that Nigel resembled a child molester. Now I don’t know exactly what a child molester is supposed to look like, but I do think that he may have had a point. There is something slightly odd about an individual who lives alone in a five bedroom house, but likes to invite waifs and strays to stay the night. Perhaps he just wants some company. I certainly hope that there are no undertones of Dennis Nilsen.

Strange as he may be, Nigel is one of our best cookery writers. He loves simple food, and is refreshingly unimpressed by the sort of chefy bollocks cluttering up our TV screens. Anyone who can sing a paean of praise to a humble bowl of mashed potato has to have their heart in the right place. He also has no truck with the low fat fanatics, and loves to drench everything in butter and cream.

Rock on Nigel I say, you may resemble a kiddie fiddler but your nosh is top notch.


N.B Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I have been suffering from bloggers block and the after effects of a three day bender.

Numpties

I really don’t know what the criminal underworld is coming to. It takes a fair degree of brains to steal £50 million from a security firm, but it displays a staggering lack of forethought not to know how to go about disposing of the stuff.

Some gormless Essex girl associate actually went into a Building Society and tried to deposit £10K in cash still wrapped in the official seal from the cash storage depot. How fucking stupid is that? Then another gang member abandons a white van containing £4 million close to the Eurostar terminal. He might as well have painted ‘cash here – come and get it’ on the side of the van. Useless tosser.

The robbers had six full hours before the police started looking for them. Instead of heading for the south coast they should have headed north. Once over the Scottish border the chances of anyone looking for them, let alone catching them, would have been zilch. I would happily have let them store fifty million in my holiday houses. With the curtains drawn no one would have suspected anything, and the cash would have been safe until Spring. It could then have been transferred to yachts and transported all over Europe.

I would only have required a small commission, say 10%, for my storage facility. I could also have proved useful should any gang member have threatened to go to the police. I know plenty of deserted lochs were a corpse could be disposed of with minimal chance of discovery. Properly wrapped and weighed down with stones, the body would be never be found as there are no fishermen or divers.

I think I may have missed my forte in life. I would make an excellent and discreet gangland fixer. All things considered, I’m sure I’d prefer it to working.

Oi am a Coider Drinker

WANKERS

In the early ‘90’s I lived in Bristol. Apart from being a happening musical place, with the likes of Portishead and Roni Size producing distinct musical idioms, it was also the sleepy capital of the West Country.

The south west of England has always been cider country, and Bristol had some pubs (usually in grotty areas) that sold nothing else but the stuff. It wasn’t the industrially produced Strongbow and the like, it was rough scrumpy with bits floating in it. Some people claimed that rats had been dropped into the cider vats to accentuate the flavour.

It really is the strangest drink that I have ever imbibed. A sickly sweet concoction, it was also a mind blowing 9% proof. Three pints of the stuff and your legs went numb. After five pints, the hallucinogenic effects took hold. Wandering out of a cider den into bright sunlight was disorientating in the extreme.

The stuff was also extremely cheap; a pint of beer at the time was £1.60, while a pint of scrumpy cider was 90p. Perhaps this price discrepancy explained the type of clientele that the cider pubs attracted. They were invariably ancient decrepit hippies, and whiffy vagrants. One thing that they had in common was one remaining yellowed tooth. The cider contained so much unfermented sugar that they were effectively spending all day bathing their teeth in the alcoholic equivalent of Coke.

There’s not much to be said for scrumpy really. It makes you go mad, and all your teeth fall out. No wonder the sheep in North Devon are the best serviced in Britain.

Pissed Chefs

Watching Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ last night, I was unsurprised to learn that the chef in the Irish restaurant he was assisting turned out to be a chronic alcoholic.

Having been around the hotel and restaurant trade for years, I have encountered many chefs. They tend to fall into two categories: the psychotic, and the permanently pissed. Anyone who has ever witnessed the immense pressure that these people work under will understand the temptation to use drink or drugs to blur the frenetic hothouse that is a commercial kitchen. The psychopaths are thankfully rarer than the alcoholics; although they are much more lethal, having access to razor sharp knives.

My best mate Keith was an alcoholic chef. He was a strange alcoholic in that he only drank beer, most hardcore boozers preferring regular slugs of Vodka. He drank steadily throughout the day, beginning with a pint of bitter while preparing breakfast at 7.00 am. He managed to hold down his job because he was always able to function, and the food he produced was invariably wonderful. He’s sober now and can’t believe how much money he has. Drinking sixteen pints a day was putting a serious dent in his bank balance.

I never complain vociferously in restaurants as I understand how easy it is to cock something up. I draw attention to any shortcomings in a polite and reasonable manner. The last thing I want is a pissed, or psychotic, chef emerging from the kitchen brandishing a large carving knife.

Benbecula or Bust

The yacht has been booked for my annual trip round the Hebrides with my mates. A 38 ft sailing ketch with a diesel engine, it should be able to cope with anything the Atlantic throws at it bar a force 9 gale.

Yachtsmen are a strange breed. On the whole they are annoying tossers that have more interest in the mechanics of sailing than of the seascapes that they pass through. There is no bar bore more likely to have you heading for the exit than a self proclaimed master mariner wittering on about navigation charts and types of knot.

My lot aren’t anything like that (of course). Most yachties are public school types from the south of England that arrive in these parts clad from head to toe in brand new sailing gear. They bray on the waves, and bore everyone senseless in every saloon bar from the Mull of Kintyre to Cape Wrath.

My crew are local highlanders (actually I’m part of the crew, not Captain Ahab). We can afford a yacht for a week as we all chip in to the charter cost. This amounts to about £350 a head, which should, on the face of it, make for a reasonably cheap trip. Unfortunately this figure does not include ship stores: a weeks worth of food, and twenty bottles of rum and whisky. Then there is the cost of nightly sojourns ashore for a spot of carousing.

It all gets rather expensive, and I’m sure that I could head off for a fortnight in the Med for less. I never regret it though. The seascapes around the islands and west coast of Scotland are some of the most hauntingly beautiful on earth.

Sitting on a yacht watching the porpoises crisscrossing the prow as the Atlantic swell rolls beneath you is an otherworldly experience. It kind of puts things in perspective.

You Make me Feel Like Puking

I am frankly bemused that Leo Sayer has made it to the top of the charts. I can vaguely remember him from the seventies; a bubble permed nerd in ridiculous braces who jigged about like an imbecile while performing his cheesecake pop.

The decade that taste forgot produced some risible acts that, bafflingly, managed to achieve huge success here and in the United States. After the decade that produced the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, we came up with the Bay City Rollers and Leo Sayer.
Talk about the sublime to the ridiculous.

If Leo is all the rage with todays teenyboppers I will feel justified in digging my spacehopper and tartan flares out of the attic. I can sit on a huge beanbag, smoke a giant spliff, and play ‘Shang a Lang’ on a pair of massive seventies headphones. I can, like, get with the kids, and scoot about on a Chopper bicycle.

Leo’s success will no doubt be of interest to Wyndham the Triffid, who recently informed us that when he grows his hair he is the spitting image of the grinning tosser. I say go for it Wyndham. Get a cheesecloth shirt and some braces and head down to your local pub for the Karaoke.

Your day has obviously come.

Dirty Bastards

I rent out holiday homes, and am constantly amazed how some people can turn a spotlessly clean house into a filthy midden in the space of seven days. It appears that some people have a vacuam cleaner phobia, and are quite content to use a grill pan containing an inch of congealed fat.

I’m no cleanliness fetishist personally, but I do adhere to some basic standards. It is a fact of nature that entropy is the inevitable outcome of a lack of human action. A failure to do a little housework on a daily basis results in an accumulation of tat and general filth.

I’ve noticed that the filthiest people tend to be from middle class backgrounds. Doctors, barristers, and architects tend to be the main offenders. I suppose this is because they are used to paying people to clean up after them. I wouldn’t mind this so much if the stingy bastards had the common decency to leave a sizeable tip for the cleaners. They never do.

Filthiness as an outcome of national character is also readily apparent. The French, naturally, are the dirtiest mingers of all, closely followed by the Dutch and English. The paragons of cleanliness are, unsurprisingly, the Germans and Austrians. They usually leave their houses in such an immaculate condition that they barely need cleaning.

Such Teutonic efficiency is rather frightening. It’s no wonder the squareheads almost won the war.

Midgies

On the whole, I prefer to avoid abroad whenever possible. It’s not that I don’t like to experience other cultures (even if they are a tad less civilised than us lot), it’s just that it’s too damn dangerous.

Take the USA for example; have a nice snooze and you’re liable to have your nadgers nipped by a scorpion; go for a stroll in the woods and chances are a wolf will bite your leg off below the knee. Then there’s Canada, a frozen wilderness filled with wolverines with razor sharp teeth and grizzly bears just itching to tear your head off. Australia is the worst of the lot, a continent filled with the most venomous snakes on earth, and a dirty big bastard spider that lurks in toilet bowls hoping to inject venom into your naked buttocks at the first opportunity.

It’s just not safe, I tell you. I’m with the poet Phillip Larkin, who opined that he wouldn’t mind visiting the Great Wall of China as long as he could be home in time for his tea.

Britain doesn’t have much in the way of dangerous critters. The best that we can come up with is the wankiest of venomous snakes: the adder. If you suffer a bite from one of these you might suffer a slight fever, and a bit of a headache, but that’s about it.

We do have one creature that, although unlikely to kill you, has the potential to ruin your day. The highland midge is a small biting fly with a voracious appetite. They attack in clouds, and are guaranteed to evacuate all campsites and barbeques in ten minutes flat.

The Scottish Tourist Board literature mentions the highland midge in small print at the back of their brochures. I can appreciate that it’s best not to over emphasise the potential down sides of a holiday in Scotland, but it would be fairer to warn summer visitors that a midge hood and an ample supply of insect repellent are essential purchases.

If these insects existed in the south of England I’m sure the scientists would have worked out a way to exterminate them fifty years ago. Unfortunately there are too many biodiversity experts up here. If I hear another eco fuckwit blethering on about the essential role of the midge in maintaining the diversity of birdlife, I’m going to strangle him with his cagoule.

As far as I’m concerned, the Lesser Spotted Mauve Lapwing can fuck off and die. I can live with a few less flappy things if it stops me being eaten to death every summer

You're Not Good Enough

STORMONT PARLIAMENT BUILDING, BELFAST

When I was a kid we lived in a house that adjoined the Stormont Parliament grounds in east Belfast. The building had been mothballed at that stage; the last devolved Unionist government having been dissolved by Edward Heath in 1973.

My mates and I used to climb over a fence at the bottom of the garden and play in the woodland in the grounds. I suppose we were trespassing, but no one ever said anything. It was excellent cowboys and Indians territory, and there was much whooping and hollering.

These days I have ambivalent feelings about the Stormont building. It has a magnificent neo classical frontage, and sits on a hill at the end of a mile long drive. It is imposing, but not in the right way. The building, with its statue of a belligerent Edward Carson outside, seems to be announcing to the populace of Northern Ireland that they aren’t good enough. Imposing architecture quite often has that effect, cowing the people whose sovereignty it represents.

John Hume was once asked what he thought should be the role of Stormont. He replied that it should be turned into a golf club. I’ve always regarded Hume as an irascible wee shite, but I’m inclined to agree with him.

Northern Ireland should have a new Parliament building like Scotland. Stormont is so heavily weighted with unpleasant history and negative imagery that it can never serve a society as divided as Ulster. It would make an excellent hotel and conference centre, and I’m sure there must be room for an eighteen hole golf course in the enormous grounds.

Images and symbols are potent. If Northern Ireland wants to start afresh a new building would be a good place to begin.

Cupid's Arrow

No valentines for me today. It’s ridiculous really, it’s not as though I have hair growing down the back of my neck, persistent body odour, or a severe case of halitosis. OK, I may look a bit hung over from time to time, and my acquaintance with a comb is only a casual thing, but apart from that I’m reasonably presentable (at a distance, in dim light).

Disconsolately, I ventured out to Morrison’s to wander around the food aisles looking hangdog and unwanted. Imagine my surprise when my eyes locked with a gorgeous female's across the frozen foods section. She didn’t wince, which is unusual, and I might have been in with a chance there. Unfortunately I couldn’t think of anything to say other than “do you fancy doing it doggy style over the petit pois?”

Oh well. Maybe next time.

The Boys Brigade

In the dim and distant past I had the dubious pleasure of being a member of the Boys Brigade.

It had two sections: the Junior Brigade up to the age of eleven, and the Senior Brigade for those aged eleven and over. The juniors was great; we spent most of our time mucking about and playing football. In hindsight I can see that, rather like the Jesuit Order, the juniors was a way of collaring us young so that we would stumble into the seniors with no idea what awaited us.

The Boys Brigade at that time had its roots in Britain’s period of imperial pre-eminence. The idea of the organization was to produce fine, outstanding examples of manhood, presumably so they could be sent out to govern the fuzzy wuzzies in Ongobongoland in a fair and equitable manner. This was a bit silly as the British Empire in the late 1970’s consisted of Hong Kong, Ascension Island, and the Falklands. The fuzzy wuzzies, having learnt all they needed to know about the phrase ‘fuck off’ and Association Football, had most ungratefully told us to piss off back to our wet little islands.

The Boys Brigade had many of the features of a quasi-paramilitary organisation. There were military caps, armbands denoting rank, and belt buckles that had to be polished until gleaming. We seemed to spend all our time marching about in formation and standing at attention while a martinet officer inspected our uniforms.
Most of us were a bit sick of it, but rather like the IRA, once you were in you were in you were in for good. There was no way out.

The one thing that made it tolerable was the annual camp at Douglas on the Isle of Man. We departed from Belfast on an ancient Isle of Man Steam Packet Co ferry that had seen action during the evacuation of Dunkirk, and smelt like it. A week under canvas wasn’t that enjoyable in itself; what was ace was the opportunity to escape to the bright lights of Douglas.

After last post had been blown, and the Officers retired to their tent, us senior boys would sneak out and head into town for a spot of debauchery. The younger scrotes, having been threatened with extreme violence, didn’t dare breathe a word.

We went to nightclubs, sank pints of lager, danced like spastics, and generally felt dead hard. We got away with this for two nights, until Rodney McCallister informed us that brandy and ginger was a vastly superior drink to lager, and proceeded to get pissed out of his tiny mind.

We discovered just how superior a drink it was later that night. Rodney projectile vomited over two of the junior boys, who promptly ran screaming to the officer’s tent. We was rumbled. That was the end of our nocturnal adventures. We spent the rest of the week confined to camp peeling spuds.

I suppose the Boys Brigade was a character forming experience. On balance I suppose it’s better for spotty youths than hanging around the kiddies playpark in hoodies swigging Buckfast.

That's Me at the Back.

I can identify the first sharp waning of my sympathies for placard waving protesters to one specific moment in time.

It was 1987, and I was standing on Westminster Bridge, London, surrounded by students protesting about the proposed introduction of student loans. The crowd was being prevented from crossing the bridge by the Metropolitan police. The police weren’t doing anything to provoke the crowd. They were straining against the mass of bodies pressing against them, and I heard one constable should out “fucking middle class wankers.” That was about as bad as it got. There were no batons raised.

I remember thinking at the time: he’s right; we are a bunch of fucking middle class wankers. What we were effectively doing was protesting in defence of privilege. The vast majority of us came from comfortable middle class backgrounds, and were enjoying a lifestyle and education subsidised by the taxpayer.

At that time a lot of people (apart from the miners, obviously) still had a bit of respect for the police, and certainly didn’t regard them as repressive state functionaries. Unfortunately there was an element in the crowd that didn’t think like that at all. The usual Anarchist and Marxist sects had turned up to pursue their own agenda. This amounted to puerile chants of ‘fascist pigs’, and chucking stuff at the police. To their credit, the police didn’t respond.

That was the end of my street fighting days. We live in a free society were the right to demonstrate is a fundamental freedom. There are many causes in which it is right to demonstrate. I only wish most demonstrations didn’t attract the kind of sanctimonious, self righteous, banner waving tossers that derive a smug satisfaction from adding their chants to that of an unthinking mass.

The Kids are Alright

Strathclyde police have announced one of their perennial crack downs on the gang culture prevalent in the south side of Glasgow. I forget what they call it: probably something along the lines of ‘Operation Kickarse: Reclaim the Streets’.

Maybe it’s just me, but I thought this sort of thing was what the police were supposed to be doing all the time. Gangs of spotty herberts hanging around street corners and hurling abuse at passers by shouldn’t be tolerated in the first place. The Yanks have a term for this: ‘Zero Tolerance’. The police allow the little mongs to get away with their anti social behaviour for years on end and then wonder why the problem proliferates. Useless tossers.

I know that the police have a tough time. All those endless hours sitting in patrol cars scoffing burgers are bound to take their toll. I fully appreciate that it is much more rewarding to harass harmless motorists and attend cultural diversity seminars, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that they should devote just a little of their time to actual criminal activity.

Personally I think they should allow people like me to form militias. The ‘Tunnocks Crew’, armed with tazers and CS spray, would of course employ minimal force in clearing the streets of Buckfast swilling scum. If the gangs failed to respond to an initial pelting with Teacakes we would, regrettably, have to employ more robust methods.

It’s best to be cruel to be kind. Any brain damage, or permanent disfigurement, inflicted on the little cretins would be an unfortunate, but necessary, price to pay.
You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few heads….sorry….eggs.

Of Asses and Arses.

Proper English (i.e. UK English) is full of daft spellings that make no sense phonetically. There are words that sound the same but are spelt differently and have completely different meanings. The language must be an absolute nightmare to learn.

This is a good thing, keeping UK language schools packed to the rafters with overseas students trying to master words like ‘picturesque’ and ‘disestablishmentarianism’. This is a welcome source of foreign currency, and presents teachers sick of Comprehensives with an alternative source of employment.

I am constantly annoyed that the interweb seems only to recognise US English. This is most inconsiderate as it was after all a Brit, Tim Berners Lee, who invented the damn thing. Then there are the drop down nation lists. The USA naturally comes top, while we have to scroll down the list alphabetically to just above Uzbekistan. Fucking annoying that.

What annoys me most of all is the North American use of ‘ass’ instead of ‘arse’. Everyone knows that asses are donkeys. Cleopatra was happy to bathe in asses’ milk, so I don’t see why the word should have its meaning debased to describe the human backside. ‘Arse’ is a much more satisfactory word. Arsehole is a much more satisfying term of insult than asshole; the r adding an emphasis that conveys the right note of disgusted contempt.

We invented proper swearing, and it irritates me to hear other people balls up the finer nuances of our profanities. We are the originators of such words of genius as ‘fucktard’, and ‘gobshite’. I think it’s about time these foreigners showed us a bit more respect, the arsing arsehole arses

Percy

I haven’t done much hob nobbing with celebrities in my time, but I have had a pint with hirsute cock rock god Robert Plant. He was looking a bit wrinkly and over permed at the time, but he still carried an aura of lemon squeezing hairy rock squealer about him, which isn’t bad considering his larynx has long ago given up the ghost where the falsetto notes are concerned (perhaps his balls have dropped).

He sometimes stays in the posho hotel across the road, but comes into the pub to mingle with the local oiks from time to time. He developed an attachment to the area when he and Jimmy Page bought a house hereabouts in the early seventies; presumably so they could mooch around in a bucolic fashion and converse with pixies.

Of course the younger generation are not familiar with elderly rock gods. The barmaid Maggie didn’t know him from Adam. She challenged him to a game of pool and casually asked, “what’s your name?” Percy said, “Robert Plant”; to which Maggie replied, “rubber plant, that’s a stupid name for a man!”

I almost felt sorry for him.

Invasion of the Librarians.

I have some librarians staying in one of my cottages at the moment. I suppose they could be described as ‘cottaging’, but I don’t think that particular euphemism applies to the female end of the gay spectrum.

I’ve had a lot of librarians stay over the years. I imagine self-catering is preferable to hotels as they have privacy, and don’t have to endure sniggering chambermaids and leering barmen.

For some reason they always seem to have a pair of Cairn or Highland terriers. I’m not sure if this is common to British librarians, or is unique to the Scottish branch of librarianship. Perhaps they are a ‘signifier’ to give the wink to those in the know. They could be paying tribute to ‘Greyfriars Bobby’, and displaying their loyalty until, and after, death.

Who knows? Does anyone actually give a toss?

Thought not.

Ridicule is Nothing to be Scared of.

I find the furore surrounding the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons lampooning Mohammed mystifying.

Freedom of expression and speech is one of the bedrocks of western societies; a bequest from the Judaic/Christian heritage that, not withstanding the decline in religious belief, still informs our culture. I don’t see that there is anything to apologise for. If we appease Muslim intolerance on as basic an issue as this we might as well shut up shop and hang the Crescent flag over Downing Street.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t see much that is admirable about Muslim cultures. They are dictatorial regimes that repress women, stifle free speech, and treat non Muslim populations as second class citizens. A culture that has experienced neither a Reformation nor a Renaissance is in no position to lecture western societies on civilized values.

The Danes are a peaceable lot, and I find the sight of Muslim fanatics burning down their embassies stomach churning. The nutters should have a hard look at the prosperous, harmonious society that the Danes have created. If they compare the wealth and success of this prosperous democracy with the likes of Syria they should be well aware of the utter failure of their culture.

I think it’s about time that we stopped apologising to fanatics in the name of tolerance. What we are actually doing is appeasing people with a medieval mind set. These peoples only goal is the destruction of our societies and way of life. If we don’t draw a line in the sand we’ll just end up driving people into the arms of the vile Nick Griffin and his racist cohorts in the British National Party.

The Twat in the Hat

Jay Kay

As irritating rock star twats go, the diminutive Jay Kay takes some beating. I assume that he wears large hats in order to obscure the fact that he is a shortarse. This attempt
is a miserable failure, and he just ends up appearing as a preening shortarse twat with the level of good taste only to be expected from an Essex boy pretending to be a white soul god.

How anyone can make £20 million by sounding like an ersatz Stevie Wonder is frankly beyond me. Musical originality may not be a prerequisite for success (cf Oasis), but in a just world some spark of creativity would be a requirement.

Jay is fond of hanging out with blonde bimbo models in posh West End nightclubs. His espoused hatred of the paparazzi is a bit rich given that he jumps at any opportunity for the limelight. It’s not really on to go about punching the very people that publicise your rock god aspirations. In Jay’s case it is particularly reckless given that most paparazzi are a burly 6’ 2” while he is a weedy 4’9”.

Jay owns a croft house near Mallaig in the west highlands. He spent most of his childhood holidays in the area. He spotted the croft while on holiday and approached the two old ladies who owned it with a view to purchasing it. The ladies informed him that the croft had been their ‘heilan hame’ since they were bairns, and that the property was not for sale. Jay informed them that he would have a bankers draft for £250K in their hands by the end of that evening. The ladies, as genuine canny highlanders, accepted on the spot. Not a bad decision given that the croft was only worth £60K on the open market.

He was stopped by the police on the Road to the Isles for driving his Lamborghini at 110 mph. This is proper rock star behaviour, and is one point on which I can congratulate them. According to the locals he is a personable, friendly individual, and always stands a round at the bar.

Perhaps he isn’t all bad. Escaping from the media circus can do some people the world of good.

Librarians

I’ve always regarded decent public libraries as one of the hallmarks of a civilised society. The promotion of literacy is a function of government the neglect of which will have negative consequences in the long term.

Judging by the dowdy standards of most of our public libraries, most councils place a very low priority on this essential service. It increasingly seems that councils much prefer to splurge council tax payer’s money on mobility scooters for bastards too lazy to walk, and five veg a day implementation officers.

I’ve always held the view that the purpose of libraries is to lend books. These days most of them seem to be a cross between internet cafes and video rental shops. I don’t see why my taxes should be used to provide internet access for gap year Aussies who want to email their Auntie Sheila in Brisbane.

Then there is the library staff; a shuffling mass of middle aged women who appear to be aspiring towards bag lady chic. I’m sure there must be a secret recruitment policy that strongly favours female applicants with faces like a bag of weasels and a wardrobe consisting of frumpy cardigans, ill fitting beige slacks, and flat shoes.

As far as I’m concerned, all public libraries should resemble a branch of Waterstones bookshops. Not only can you find any book you want at Waterstones; you are permitted to slump on a comfy sofa and read to your hearts content. As long as you don’t crack open a can of Special Brew the staff will pay no attention to you.

Maybe that’s the future for our public libraries. Make them into Waterstones franchises with an ancillary lending facility at a nominal fee. Everyone would be much happier with the service, and could visit safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t be glowered at by a miserable old bag with buck teeth.

Oirish Stew.

The Irish theme pub is a ubiquitous international presence these days. The fact that they are about as authentically Irish as a purple, gay, dope smoking, leprechaun seems to escape most people.

Somewhere, in a soulless industrial estate, is a massive factory churning out ‘distressed’ wood tables and chairs. A fake patina of age, paint chosen to resemble a nicotine stained lung, and mirrors advertising Bushmills whiskey and Guinness are apparently all it takes to give that full on Oirish experience.

The whole thing is getting beyond a joke: even Ireland has Irish theme pubs. The current craze in Belfast seems to be ‘spirit grocers’. These were originally boozers that kept a separate counter selling dry and tinned foodstuffs so the man of the house could down a few beers and get in the provisions at the same time, thus ensuring that be didn’t receive a belting when he got home to the missus. Why anyone in this day and age would want to buy a packet of shredded wheat along with their slippery nipple cocktail is beyond me.

All Irish theme bars have Irish stew on the menu. The crap that they usually produce bears no resemblance to real Irish stew. It is a boil in the bag abomination that consists of a tasteless mush containing a few gobbets of fatty meat.

Real Irish stew is so simple to prepare that even a donkey shagging Canuck could master it in ten minutes. All you do is cut some neck (or shoulder) of lamb into chunks and brown it in a casserole. You then cut up some carrots, spuds, and onions into large pieces and chuck them in the casserole. Cover the lot with stock, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for two hours. Before serving, sprinkle with chopped parsley. It is a total piece of piss.

Some people claim that the Lancashire hotpot is a superior one pot dish. I say balls to that. If these northern types tasted a proper Irish stew they would give the hotpot the boot for all eternity.

Addiction

The interesting thing about the above photo of Yankee mongs pigging out at Pizza Hut is that only one member of the party has opted for the (relatively) healthy salad bowl option.

No one can claim that Pizza Hut pizzas are a health food. The bases are pumped up with saturated fats in order to produce a pleasant mouth feel. Then there is the abomination that is the stuffed crust pizza; a method of further boosting the calorie count, while presumably making diners feel virtuous because they eat their crusts instead of leaving them on the side of their plate.

I have to admit to a shameful addiction to Pizza Hut buffet lunches. I walk along the street and gaze into bistro windows. I think to myself: “that toasted ciabatta with melted buffalo mozzarella, Parma ham, and baby plum tomatoes drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar looks damn tasty”. I then turn on my heels, walk into Pizza Hut and demand a buffet lunch with salad bowl and a glass of Pepsi. I just can’t help it.

I’ve been attempting to divine the true source of my addiction, and I think I’ve nailed it. It’s not the pizza, which tastes the way a supermarket pizza would if cooked in a proper pizza oven. If I want an authentic thin crust pizza I go to an Italian Restaurant or a Pizza Express.

It’s not the salad either; it’s three specific components of the salad. These are, in order of importance: fake bacon crunchy bits, Thousand Island dressing, and the little cubes of pickled beetroot. I just adore the crunchy texture and the explosion of tangy flavours on my taste buds. This may have something to do with the desensitisation of my taste buds caused by years of smoking.

I’ve decided to go cold turkey on Pizza Hut buffet lunches. My methadone shall be substitute fake crunchy bacon bits, Thousand Island dressing, and pickled beetroot purchased from the supermarket. Hopefully I can wean myself off the hard stuff in this manner.

Wish me luck.

The Lazy Arse Guide to Success and Prosperity.

I will be thirty nine years of age in three months time. This gradual encroachment of age and decrepitude has got me thinking.

I have worked for eighteen years of my adult life, and to be perfectly honest I think that is quite long enough. I have not had sufficient leisure time in which to exercise my chief talent in life: namely, mooching aboot in an aimless fashion. I have an aptitude for idleness secondary only to my aptitude for sleep. Something will have to be done if I am to display my true forte in life.

I like to think I am not a particularly materialistic individual. This is, of course, self deception of the highest order. I like my cars, holidays, good food, and creature comforts. These require money, and if I am to reorient my work/life balance firmly towards the latter and maintain my standard of living, I need to find a sure fire money making scheme that does not preclude a high degree of mooching aboot.

I have decided that in the next two years or so, I will buy seven one and two bedroom flats in central Glasgow and let them out on a nightly and weekly basis to tourists and business people. The average rental should work out at £1500 per month per unit with loan repayments of £500. This will leave a monthly profit per unit of £1000. After deductions for cleaning, power, insurance, council tax etc the net profit should not be less than £600 per unit. This equates to a total annual profit of £46000.

Hopefully, with capital appreciation, there should be enough equity to purchase additional units every couple of years. There won’t be much work to do on a day to day basis, and the mooching aboot possibilities look extremely favourable. Hopefully, in ten years or so, I can flog all the properties and retire on the proceeds.

Of course, knowing my luck, the whole scheme will go tits up and I’ll end up bankrupt. That doesn’t overly worry me though. I rest safe in the knowledge that should the worst transpire, my vast, impossibly good looking, immensely intelligent, and unfailingly generous domestic and international readership will have a monthly whip round to ensure that I am kept in the manner to which I am accustomed.

Rain Town.

George Square – Glasgow.

A prestigious travel magazine recently named Glasgow as one of the top ten tourist destinations in the world.

I can see why the city has garnered this accolade. It has magnificent Victorian and Edwardian architecture, arranged on the only city grid system in Britain. The place possesses a vigour and brio that can make it seem like a miniature Chicago. Of all the major British cities, I think it is the only one that feels in no way provincial to London.

In terms of its wealth of art galleries and museums (most free of charge), it stands comparison with any city in Europe. In terms of popular culture it has a thriving music scene, much of it emanating from the Glasgow School of Art, an institution of international significance.

As a caveat to all the praise that I am heaping on the place, I think it’s only fair to point out a couple of downsides. The travel journalist responsible for Glasgow’s high rating presumably visited on a sunny day, and is unaware that the city’s high rainfall has earned it the soubriquet ‘rain town’. They have also clearly not taken a stroll along Sauchiehall Street at 2 am, when the clubs disgorge neds in their thousands to engage in their hobbies of copious vomiting and head butting. It ain’t a pretty sight.

I’m off to spend a few days there tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll take one of those open top bus tours. I can sit and shiver on the top deck as the rain drips down my collar, and inhale the exhaust fumes polluting the urban air.

Then again, I could just sit in the pub and work up an appetite for one of the marvellous kebabs for which the town is famous.

I will be back next Friday to inform you all about my adventures.

Toodlepip.

License to Pimp.

As the oldest profession in the world, prostitution will always be with us. In response to public disquiet about prostitutes openly soliciting in residential areas, the Government has introduced legislation allowing two prostitutes to operate from one premises.

This is tantamount to allowing mini brothels. The logic behind this decision is that prostitutes will be able to operate out of public view, and they will also be safer. The inherent danger of violence, or even murder, faced by prostitutes walking the streets has been recognised for years.

The only problem with this legislation is that it assumes that prostitutes will operate independently. The more likely outcome is that pimps will seize the opportunity to establish chains of these mini brothels, hiding their criminality behind a façade of legality. How many east European prostitutes, I wonder, will end up in servitude and bondage as a result?

Edinburgh has effectively had full scale licensed brothels for years. They operate as saunas and are effectively invisible. They are regulated and inspected on a regular basis. I suppose it’s typical of Presbyterian Scotland to conceal what is distasteful from view. Even so, I think it’s a more sensible solution. Nobody has to tolerate prostitutes plying their trade on their doorstep, and the women are in a safe environment.

We can’t legislate away immorality; but at least we can ensure that it isn’t on flagrant display, and protect the women – often as a result of poverty and drug addiction – who are drawn into prostitution.

Tayto

The news that the British institution, Golden Wonder crisps, had been forced into administration produced many glum faces. The upstart Walkers crisps, part of the evil Nabisco food conglomerate, has used marketing muscle to do down the plucky British snack producer beloved of millions.

I was gratified to learn that a knight on shining armour is to ride to the rescue. Northern Irish crisp manufacturer, Tayto, is to take over the Golden Wonder factories and resume battle against the evil interloper.

Tayto have a secret weapon that has the potential to send Nabisco home with a bloody nose. That weapon is a secret recipe for cheese and onion crisp flavouring. I grew up eating Tayto cheese and onion crisps, and still suffer cravings every now and then. It’s not just the flavouring; the crisps have a unique texture and aroma.

Northern Ireland knows a few things about the humble spud and its uses. The standard spud used to produce Walkers crisps is a poor relation of the superior tuber used by Tayto.

Let battle commence. It’s about time a multi-national received a kick in the balls.

How I was cheated out of my inheritance.

My great uncle Cecil emigrated to Canada in the mid 1920’s. With the sublime sense of timing common in my family, he disembarked to hear the heartening news that Wall Street had crashed.

The land of opportunity that he had been expecting turned out to be a depression era disaster zone. He ended up penniless and homeless in Vancouver, picking up whatever scraps of work he could and living in a hostel for vagrants.

Luckily for him, a kind Canadian lady took pity on him and provided him with free board and lodging so he could get himself back on his feet. Eventually he found employment as a ship hand, and gradually worked his way up to the position of Captain on a cruise liner.

An astute individual, he invested in property in Vancouver. He ended up an extremely wealthy individual with a massive penthouse apartment overlooking Stanley Park.

He married a Canadian Indian, referred to as ‘the Squaw’ by my grandmother, who couldn’t abide the woman. They had no children, and when my great uncle died in 1990 she inherited his entire estate. She advised her relatives that when her time came we would all be left sums sufficient to set us up for life.

The Squaw died in 1995. When the estate was wound up, we found to our horror that the cow had sold the property portfolio and gambled the proceeds in casinos and on the gee gees. None of us got a cent.

Sometimes life just aint fair.

Great Chieftan 'o' the Puddin' Race!

As Burns Night approaches, the thoughts of Scottish expatriates everywhere will be turning to the national dish, haggis.

Haggis is a love it or loathe it food. Some people, quite understandably, find the idea of a sheep’s stomach stuffed with heart, lungs, and oatmeal positively revolting. I can see their point of view. I’m not overly fond of consuming the identifiable internal organs of animals. Flaccid pieces of liver swimming in blood make me want to heave, and kidneys have a slight tang of urine which I find rather off putting.

On the whole, my dinner plate is an offal free zone. I am prepared to make an exception only for steak and kidney pudding and haggis. Haggis is one of the great peasant dishes: a concoction of the cheapest possible ingredients that by some strange alchemy manages to be absolutely delicious.

Sourced from the best producers, haggis is a tasty delight that, when combined with neeps (mashed swede) and tatties (mashed potato), provides a nutritious meal. There is lot of crap mass produced haggis for sale that is pretty disgusting. What you want is the genuine article produced by MacSweens of Edinburgh, a spicy, aromatic haggis that has won many awards.

It is possible to buy vegetarian haggis. Some people think this is an abomination, but having tasted it, I think it’s very pleasant in its own way. I saw a tandoori haggis for sale once. Now that really is taking things too far. I’m all in favour of fusion cuisine, but that’s just sacrilege.

On Burns Night, a huge haggis will be carried to table, and sliced open as Burns poem ‘To a Haggis’ is recited. A steam of meaty vapours will be released into the room and a toast proposed to the immortal memory.

The Scots aren’t eccentric or anything; it’s just a good excuse for a piss up.

Food Pornography

Although fewer people than ever cook for themselves, preferring ready meals or takeaways, more and more television seems to be devoted to cookery. We even have a satellite TV channel, UK Food, devoted to the subject.

Maybe it’s a reaction to the mundane diet that Britons were forced to endure after the war, or perhaps it’s a reaction to the processed rubbish that was foisted on us by the food industry during the 1970’s and 1980’s. I’m sure anyone that can remember the Vesta curry, a vile concoction of dehydrated meat, vegetables, and sawdust spices, will shudder at the memory.

Most of us, in an attempt to emphasise our culinary credentials, will have cupboards crammed with esoteric cookery implements and electrical gadgets that have been used once, and will never see the light of day again. What the fuck is the point of an electric carving knife? Have we lost the ability to sharpen a proper carving knife?

Such is the demand for TV cookery programmes that we have begun importing them from abroad. The oddest that I have seen is a Canadian import called ‘Cook Like a Chef’. The cooking ‘action’ takes place in a high tech stainless steel kitchen in which chefs whisk, puree, and drool lasciviously over their creations. There is much cooing and lip smacking.

The chefs are surrounded by cameramen who swoop in for close ups of simmering pans. You actually get a full view of the cameramen poking their lenses as close to the action as they can manage. I find this rather disturbing. It looks uncannily like the culinary version of a porn movie.

Perhaps I should become an adviser to the porn industry. I think they are missing an important niche market here. I’m sure there are plenty of pervs that would get their rocks off watching sexual gymnasts whipping up a soufflé while simultaneously engaging in some hard core shagging.

Appearance and Reality.

I live in one of the richer and more developed nations in the world. Most people enjoy a level of affluence that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago.

I could invite visitors from America, Canada, and Japan and take them on a two week tour of ‘prime’ Scotland that would leave them with the impression that this country enjoyed a level of prosperity and quality of life comparable to Switzerland.

I wouldn’t be giving them a false impression, as most of Scotland stands comparison with most highly developed nations in terms of the indices of life expectancy, disposable income, and educational facilities.

That wouldn’t be telling the full story though. I could also take my visitors on a two week tour of benighted housing schemes, run down inner city districts, and despoiled landscapes. They would leave with the impression that Scotland was about as developed as Belarus or Romania.

Most of Scotland is wealthy. Salaries are at similar levels to the south east of England, but property (outside parts of Edinburgh) is a third of a price. Levels of disposable income are consequently high, a fact attested to by the slew of designer outlets in Glasgow and the Harvey Nichols store in Edinburgh. The streets are packed with BMW’s, Mercedes, and Jaguars. For most people life is, indeed, sweet.

Unfortunately, for all this prosperity, we have a stubborn 10% of the population completely dependent on welfare benefits for their subsistence. Glasgow has some of the starkest disparities of wealth of any city in Europe. Within ten minutes walk of the city centre it is possible to find yourself in the midst of run down districts where virtually nobody works. The pubs are no go areas for outsiders, and drugs and prostitution are rife.

The response of government to this malaise has been to throw money in the form of welfare at the problem. Housing isn’t bad, and the outward signs of what are in effect slums are not evident to the casual gaze.

The problem with welfare is that it just perpetuates the problem. Whole families lose the will to work, preferring to eke out an existence at the margins of society. In a way their behaviour is wholly rational. Why work for the minimum wage when you can get as much cash playing the welfare system?

This isn’t a problem that’s going to go away. Current policy is the equivalent of the Filipino government erecting fences to conceal the scavengers on the rubbish dumps from view whenever an important conference comes to town. Out of sight, out of mind seems to be the prevailing attitude. If we chuck enough cash at the underclass to keep them quiet and corralled in their ghettoes we can pretend that they don’t exist.

I don’t see why we should condemn another generation to a life of state subsidised squalor. These people need to be brought into the productive sector of the economy. This requires hard decisions to be made regarding the provision of welfare. It can’t be done overnight, but unless we do something the sore will continue to suppurate, albeit out of public view.

Slippery Devil.

Anyone who peruses this blog will be aware that I hold a fairly jaded view of politicians and their motives. It seems to me that most of them are self serving egoists who are more concerned with their own power and influence than the genuine wellbeing of the populace.

The current political glamour boy, David Cameron, strikes me as slightly creepy in a vaguely Blairish way. Perhaps he sees himself as a mini me to the great charlatan, and hopes to fill his boots by aping New Labour policies and political presentation.

Cameron has recently been pontificating on education. I find two of his statements frankly mystifying:

1) He believes that anyone who feels that they would benefit from higher education should have access to it. By this, I presume he means that innumerate dullards with the literacy skills of a twelve year old should be entitled to rack up £15K debts in pursuit of a useless qualification for which they are not intellectually equipped in the first place.

Maybe I’m missing something, but this strikes me as not only counterproductive, but also profoundly immoral.

2) He has ruled out any form of selection, and will not allow the establishment of any new Grammar schools. Fair enough, no one believes that a return to dividing children into academic successes and failures at the age of eleven is appropriate, but some form of selection (perhaps from the age of 14) is vital if the most able children are to be academically challenged.

If all a Tory leader is capable of doing is imitating New Labour policies in the hope of electoral success, then frankly he isn’t worth a vote. He either has no political principles, or has a hidden agenda that he is concealing from the electorate.

To crown it all, he looks like the kind of slippery devil that has his wife rub him down with baby oil before he gets into his jim jams.

Not my cup of tea at all.

Malchy the Alchy.

Malchy was a highly principled individual who regarded people that drank alone as saddos who deserved to be regarded with contempt. The problem was that hard earned welfare benefits, spent over the bar, tend not to stretch very far; thus resulting in a rapid depletion of funds before the weekend.

Any sensible individual on benefits would have bought 2 litre bottles of 8% Diamond White cider and got sozzled in the privacy of their own home during the week, thus ensuring that sufficient funds remained for a proper blow out at the weekend.

Malchy’s principles would not permit this, and one Friday night he found himself penniless at the bar, the usually indulgent landlord unwilling to extend his terms of credit until existing debts had been erased. Malchy was thus presented with the prospect of a boozeless Friday night.

This was obviously an unacceptable state of affairs, so Malchy resolved to break into the local Costcutter store and restore himself to solvency. He gained entry through the storeroom at the back. The average alchy, when presented with shelves groaning with wines and spirits would have yelled ‘whoopee’ and stocked up. Not Malchy, he ignored this cornucopia of free booze, and elected to steal the charity box on the counter instead.

He arrived at the bar some time later, his pockets straining under the weight of vast quantities of small change which he counted out on the bar to pay for his drinks for the rest of the night.

When the theft was discovered next day the sterling detective work of the local constabulary soon identified the culprit, who made a full confession. The shop owner was highly amused, and the police decided not to press charges.

Not exactly the Moriarty of crime, our Malchy.

I just wasn't made for these times.

Winston Churchill, during the darkest days of the Second World War, imbibed at least one bottle of champagne and half a bottle of brandy daily.

His iron constitution was legendary, but this intake seems inconceivable given the vital importance of decisions that he was required to make on a daily basis. I have a suspicion that the power naps with which he rejuvenated himself may have been supplemented with a little chemical assistance from the good doctors of Harley Street.

The media was less intrusive in those days, and had the general public been aware of the general sozzledness of their political masters I am sure that there would have been riots in protest.

John F Kennedy was kept functioning by an ungodly combination of steroids and amphetamines: his legendary sexual incontinence possibly augmented by these substances. It didn’t prevent him acting with cool resolve during the Cuban missile crisis, or responding to the clamour for civil rights in the American South.

Charles Kennedy is a figure of much less significance, but I very much doubt if alcoholic impairment is the main cause of his political demise. His excessive consumption of alcohol has been an open secret for years. In reality, the Liberal Democrats have ditched him because they are shit scared of losing their seats to a rejuvenated Tory Party.

Charles is my MP, and is a man whose fundamental decency is unquestioned. He has a high media profile, and will no doubt retain his position in the public eye. If I was Charles, I would reassure myself that my political comrades would probably have nailed me for smoking twenty a day if they had failed to decapitate me with a dram glass.