American Teeth

I don't know when British Television news ceased to be a fount of world class journalism and decided that flashing white gnashers was what the public really wanted.


Kate Silverton likes to flash her pearl likes at the camera as she announces the latest genocide in Darfur.


Natasha Kaplinsky enjoys airing her molars coquettishly as she lists the latest serial killer victims.


Christine Bleakley's* permagrin suggests that she suffers from Tourettes syndrome.

As far as I'm concerned the BBC might as well employ Ken Dodd to present the news. He's been about a bit, knows the ropes, and can emphasise points of interest with one of his tickling sticks.


It's about time some seriousness was reintroduced to this news presentation business.

*Christine isn't a newsreader, but I thought I'd include her as I fancy the pants off her.

Trumped

I am suffering from a serious inferiority complex.

Anyone who doesn't have an 'Organization', or a 'Signature' collection of designer clothing and accessories really has to count themselves among life's most pitiful inadequates.

I've tried grrrrring at myself in the mirror each morning, but no amount of self motivational "go get 'em son" imprecations have proved successful in garnering the billions that are rightfully mine. My clothes are made in Indonesia and my Daimler is an antique grandfather clock. This is a grossly unacceptable state of affairs.

What I need is my own golf course complete with condominium development and an international class hotel with monogrammed bath robes and individually wrapped wafer thin chocolates.

Trumpie wants to build his in Aberdeenshire but is having trouble persuading the inbred local yokels that this is a good idea. What he doesn't realise is that I have pipped him to the post with my own golfing proposal.



Look on my works ye mighty and despair. Megalomania beckons.

On the Cheap

I like going on cheap holidays, preferably at someone else's expense. Just the thought of spending my hard earned to peer out at the ubiquitous rural drizzle (which I can do perfectly well at home) is enough to put me off packing my smalls in anticipation of a jaunt to parts distant.

Thankfully the accommodation and most of the food in the Lake District was provided by gullible and much too well off for their own good relatives. I may even have smarmed enough to ensure a favourable outcome when it comes to the reading of the wills in a few years time.

I was, on the whole, quids in on the deal. Unfortunately I went and blew it by buying an old Daimler (that's a Jaguar with bells on for you ignorant Yankees) from a classic car dealers forecourt. It had been owned from new by an old geezer who did 4000 miles a year, washed and polished it every week, and religiously serviced it annually.

It goes like a cheetah with a wasp up its rectum and has enough leather to make an elephants scrotum tremble with envy. I'm not deluding myself that it will aid my prospects with the laydeez though. Everyone knows that they prefer scruffy blokes who tootle about in ancient Lanci Fulvias and old Morris Minors that smell of blue cheese.

Sometimes there's just no accounting for taste.

I'm Orf

I have gone here.

God knows why. It's sure to rain incessantly and I'll probably get food poisoning, again.

Hey ho. It's a tough life.

Toodlepip.

Twanging the Light Fantastic

All males have embarrassing habits, some of which are best not mentioned in polite company. I could go into detail about SIDs frankly distasteful penchant for prancing around in a nuns habit to Kylie Minogue's 'I'm Spinning Around' in front of his full length bedroom wardrobe mirror, but I won't.

The one embarrassing habit that most men will have to admit to is playing air guitar. This habit begins innocently enough with a strummed tennis racket at the age of thirteen, but rapidly escalates into full scale imaginary fret picking, wha wha pedal pressing, pyrotechnic airtasticness, and the full gamut of gurning and grimacing.

Each male has their own favourite axeman to whom they pay homage in their private moments. The calibre of the individual male may, in fact, be determined by their choice of air guitar demigod. Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and Angus Young suggest individuals who are properly plugged in to the essence of rawkness. Those who air twiddle to the likes of Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, and Stevie Ray Vaughan are best avoided.

Personally I think that all the inmates of Guantanamo Bay should be forced to play air guitar for at least one hour daily. They all have beards like Z Z Top, so it's about time they earned their spurs.

I'll have what she's having mate.

I imagine every culture must produce a food that just doesn't travel. It is unique to its home environment; usually because no one in the rest of the world would dream of putting it in their mouth.

The Chinese are definitely top banana when it comes to eating the inedible. Deep fried chicken feet sir? Perhaps a lightly boiled Yak penis (full of meaty goodness) served on a bed of stinky tofu? Lovely.

The British and Irish come a close second to their oriental chums. Admittedly such culinary delights as tripe 'n' onions are rarely on the menu these days, but the mushy pea still reigns supreme as the ultimate accompaniment to fish 'n' chips.

I just can't get enough of their putrid green radioactive goodness. Why we need to spend billions on a nuclear deterrent when we have these beauties available beats me. Strap me to a warhead and the Iranians will be begging for mercy.

From Alpha to Omega

I never did quite make it as a Alpha male. Lacking a jaw like Desperate Dan and the sociopath tendencies required to do the dirty in a ruthless and callous manner I always fell short in the being an utter bastard stakes.

I like to think that in my finer moments I may have managed a B minus, or possibly even a straight B for a fleeting instant. I fear, however, that my own estimations may have erred on the generous side. It is more than likely that the laydeez would have placed me somewhat lower down the alphabet; perhaps allowing me a C in their more generous and myopic moments.

Perhaps an alphabetic descent is inevitable as the decrepitude of ageing begins to exert its ineluctable grip. I'm not quite at the headlong plunge stage yet, but the signs are worrying.

I suppose I should try and look on the bright side. After all, Alpha males have nothing to aspire to. When I reach the nadir of my Omega the (as Yazz and the Plastic Population once almost sang) only way will be up.

I hope.

Why Halloween is a Bit Rubbish

In days of yore, when candles ruled and yer toothless aunt Aggie sat breaking wind before a turf fire, this Halloween business would have had a bit of bite to it. Annoying urchins would have been scared crapless and spent their evening cowering pathetically in a corner.

Unfortunately the advent of electric light put the mockers on the whole affair. Uncle Kenneth wearing a Jack Nicholson mask and wielding a rubber axe just doesn't cut the mustard.

For the full on hairy Celt experience one really has to look to the annual Beltane festival held on Edinburghs Calton hill for inspiration. There really is nothing like seeing painted naked mamas with big bazoombas shaking their stuff and waving flaming torches about.

It warms the cockles of me old heart and gives me the urge to strap on a pair of stag antlers.

Beltane could only be improved if a proper Wicker Man were to be constructed and a popular Scottish politician strapped within and burned alive. Just imagine the cheers and whoops of delight.

Collettes Golfing Shoes

I would like to make it clear that I am not of the golfist persuasion and have no truck with those who are. I would, in all seriousness, prefer to prance about on the roof of Buckingham Palace wearing a gimp suit than trundle about in a paraplegics milkfloat.

My good friend Collette is not a golfist either, but she does have a pair of golfing shoes. She keeps them next to her muck encrusted wellingtons in her front porch. The other day I summoned up the courage to ask her what possible use she could have for them. She honoured me with a look of pity and withering contempt and said "I use them to aerate the soil on my lawns". I was somewhat nonplussed by this reply and said "don't the worms do that already?"."Yes", she said, "my activities merely augment their efforts".

Jesus wept.

You must excuse me, I'm feeling slightly gnomic.

What's the frequency Kenneth?

Some names are just rubbish.

Kenneth for example. Anyone who allows themselves to be called Kenneth in public probably has buck teeth, big hairy ears, and the most execrable dress sense this side of Elton John. Even the diminutive 'Ken' sucks. It evokes images of youth club leaders who like to fiddle with their bits in public. As for 'Kenny', that's just pure Country 'n' Western retard material.


Then there's Richard. Not such a bad name in itself. It wouldn't be so bad if people called Richard called themselves Richard. Unfortunately they don't: it has to be 'Rick', 'Dickie', 'Rickie', or 'Richie'. I feel inclined to assault them with my surfboard.

I'm not telling you my name. It's not as bad as Ebeneezer or Nebuchadnezzar, or quite as embarassing as Rupert, but it's still mildy discomfiting.

If only I'd been called Harrison. Things could have turned out so differently.

Kinderkill

When in Manhattan it is a habit of mine to visit the Algonquin hotel in order to commune with the spirit of the late Dorothy Parker. I fully concur with her pithily expressed comment that "I love children but I couldn't eat a whole one".

THE QUESTIONS:

WHY are YOU expected to shell out YOUR hard earned dosh so that children are educated to not read, write, do hard sums, or provide a basic account of the reasons for, outcome of, and consequences of the Pellopenesian wars?

WHY is YOUR progress along supermarket aisles impeded my wailing infants in pushchairs?

WHY can't YOU have a bevvy in peace without having to tolerate infant hollering in so called 'family areas' in public houses?

WHY are YOU annoyed by scrounging little gits tryng to extract beer money from YOU at Halloween?

WHY are YOU expected to subsidise the likes of SID in their vain and futile proceastic attempts to produce their very own troupe of Minime all singin' all Dancin' Osmond Family.

THE MANIFESTO:

* All sprogless citizens shall pay a flat rate of income tax of 10%.
* All 'Early Learning Centres' will be closed with immediate effect and turned into betting shops.
* Munchkins will not be permitted in public houses.
* SID will be forced to accede to 'the snip'.


Think the Pass of Thermopalae. Think dugong.

Vote Garfer.

That is all.

I Can Smell Dead People

Many's the happy hour I've spent browsing in charity shops. There's nothing like some purple polyester flares and a pair of cracked broques with pointy uppy toes to set my heart a flutter.

The whiff of the dear departed in my nostrils reminds me of the late (not much lamented) SID, and gets me rummaging in the racks of Super 8 cassettes to find some artefacts of his Country Music genius.

I'm not sure if the staff in charity shops are alive. They certainly don't look it. They clearly derive their dress sense from the racks of luridly coloured garments displayed in their shops. If it wasn't for the delicate scent of dry cleaning fluid emanating from their oxters the whole shebang would be overpowered with the smell of formaldahyde.

You can't even get a manky Harold Robbins paperback for a decent price.

No, I definitely can't be doing with charity shops.

Sids lovely Horse

I can't claim to be a huge fan of Cunnry and Wessern music. I put the source of my antipathy down to a deeply traumatic experience in my youth. Anyone who has been trapped in the back seat of their Uncle Norman's Ford Cortina while the dulcet tones of Philomena Begley (a name to conjure with) belts out from a pair of tinny Pye speakers will understand exactly what I suffered.

I don't know what it is with the Irish and Country music. Why anyone peering out at the drizzle and the morose donkey tethered to a tin shed from their bungalow window should develop a sudden desire to listen to some lachrymose wailings about drinking moonshine in the Osark Mountains and shagging their 12 year old second cousin senseless beats me.

I do make an exception for the late great Gram Parsons, and the really rather lovely Emmelou Harris, but apart from that the yehaers can stick their stetsons and rhinestone cowboy outfits where the sun don't shine.

Although he trys to keep it under his hat, I know that SID (the Bard of Bollix) is a big fan of all things country. He actually moonlights as Declan the Singing Moron, and holds a Hooley on the Costa Del Sol every year. He is particularly renowned for his internationally acclaimed rendition of the seminal 'My Lovely Horse' by the late Father Ted.

He tried to explain away that drunken plavaver with the Spaniards the other night as a 'meet and greet' session in preparation for a conference on autism. This was just a smokescreen to cover up his final preparations for this years Hooley in Fuengirola.

I've decided to put my trip to the Pishnish on hold and visit this cultural event instead. I am reassured to learn that there will be a 'specially prepared menu to suit the Irish palate'. I'm assuming this means that mounds of boiled potatoes will be stirred into the paella and that the calamari will be fried in lard.

I can't wait.

Thespian Masterclass

I can't be doing with David Duchovny.

The geezer doesn't act: he just plays himself being David. "'Oh look at my lovely puppy fat!" I bet that's what he says to himself when he preens before his dressing room mirror. His technique is almost up there with Clint Eastwood in the 'he's either smiling or he isn't' stakes.

Not satisfied with the afterglow of the intense sexual chemistry (not) he displayed with Gillian Anderson in the X Files, he's now smiling and not smiling in a new series 'Californication' in which he says 'fuck' a lot.

I hope the Red Hot Chilli Peppers sue the arrogant Yankee arse for nicking one of their song titles.

Roasted Jamie

Big tongued liver lipped tosser Jamie Oliver has recently been wowing the British populace with al fresco cookery displays from the ridiculously huge garden of his preposterously large faux Rod Stewart Essex country pile.Here is my version of a Jamie recipe.

1. Build a huge fucking ginormous wood burning oven next to the patio of your bijou semi detached house.

2. Procure two snipe, two quail, three wood pigeons, and a big bastard cumberland sausage.

3. Chuck the dead fowl and sausage into a big ceramic roasting tray along with some thyme,
rosemary, garlic, and a ‘good old slug’ of extra virgin olive oil procured from a Tuscan
maiden’s navel.

4. Roast the 'old boys' for 40 minutes in your big bastard wood burning oven.

5. Chop up the resultant dogs dinner and lick your blubber lips.

6. Jump about in a stupid woolly hat looking a right twat.


I’d give that Nigella one.


N.B Note to self. Do not attempt to compose stuff
in Word and
attempt to import it into
Blogger.
It doesn't

work

Ahoy Pishnish!

I don't what it is about lost weekends that make them so enjoyable. It isn't as though you can recall much of what happened. This is probably a good thing, what with the benumbed and befuddled shenanigans which have an unerring ability to produce intense embarrassment when harsh daylight assaults ones sensitive corneas.

There was the time when I woke up in the Lochmaddy hotel, North Uist, with no idea where I was or how I came to be there. I blame it on the rough mash Talisker whisky foisted on me by a hairy Celt. Rough was the word. The stuff had been 'liberated' from the distillery and was no less lethal from being dispensed from a litre Blackthorn cider bottle.

It's the time change, the countless hours seeping through the pores that do the trick.

This is why I'm off to stay in the Mishnish Hotel on the Isle of Mull. It should be interesting.If I can recall anything about the experience I may even Blog about it.

The Thighs of Fatima Whitbread

Achieving a steady 10 miles an hour at the head of a mile long queue of irate motorists stuck behind a ladies cycling club thoughtfully riding in tandem, I couln't help but notice that the girth of the ladies thighs was greater than that prevalent in the general female population.

Don't get me wrong, I am as much an afficianado of the well honed and muscularly defined female thigh as the next man, it's just that I fear that female cyclists may have overdone things slightly. It's all a question of proportion you see. The thighs of Fatima Whitbread do not make a happy combination with the upper torso of a bulimic supermodel.

Perhaps female cyclists should revert to wearing big hooped skirts reaching to their ankles when indulging in cycling pursuits.

I've been having bad dreams involving Fatima pinning me to the bedhead. Believe me, I have no desire to be ravished by an Olympic javelin thrower whose nutcracker thighs would put the fear of God into Bill Clinton.

Lady cyclists, I beseech you. Please take up orienteering or Sudoko, don't subject our sensitive male gazes to such horrors.

Pimp my Quiff

Betty's Blogger voteathon on who was the most sexually alluring British trade unionist of the 1970's has had me on tenterhooks. I was gratified to see that Rodney 'The Outlaw' Bickerstaffe's magnificent rockabilly quiff and general bad boy demneanor has resulted in a strong showing for the bespectacled wunderkind. He's in with a strong chance, make no mistake.

Rodney's quiff has got me thinking about the lack of elderly Teddy Boys on the high street these days. They used to be commonplace. A middle aged bloke with a magnificent plumage, an Edwardian drape jacket, and a pair of crepe soled brothel creepers didn't raise so much as an eyebrow among the general populace.

The Teds achieved sartorial perfection in 1956 and weren't about to alter their appearance to satisfy the vagaries of fashion. They didn't take kindly to other yoof sub cultures attempting to usurp their position as the kings of cool. The Mods suffered much at their hands, and God help any poor solitary Punk (usually a sensitive only child type) caught in the open by a gang of Teds. They took no prisoners.

Should anybody be lucky enough to encounter an elderly Ted they should equate the experience with spotting a wooly mammoth lumbering through the undergrowth. Pat him on the back and tell him that "Jerry Lee Lewis is still the business me old mucker".

You'll have a friend for life.

Annoying Bastard

Some people have a talent but never make use of it. I imagine that those of us (unlikely in Bloggerdom) lucky enough to have the potential to be a gifted concert pianist or an internationally acclaimed artist would seize the opportunity. Those who do exploit their talent are to be applauded. Hats off to them I say.

Stephen Fry is multi talented. He dashes off a libretto before breakfast, completes a screenplay before lunch, writes a novel in the afternoon, and appears on stage in a critically lauded play during the evening. He has a brain the size of Venezuela. To crown it all he is also a profoundly decent and likeable human being.

What an annoying bastard.

Thankfully he has a wonky nose and suffers from manic depression. This is, I suppose, of some consolation to the rest of us pathetic inadequates.

Don't Knock My Mates

My favourite hotelier (sadly now retired) used to reply 'hot and wet' when asked what the soup de jour was. As pithy and accurate answers go this took some beating. He wasn't keen on complainers either. Whining ingrates were told that 'if you don't like it you can fuck off!'.

As an inwardly seething but outwardly calm and equable individual I lack the chutzpah to deal with arsehole guests in such a forthright manner. I'm not obsequious or fawning, but I do take the time to resolve any difficulties that my guests may have. I am, on the whole, a good count to tenner.

Last week I lost it. A bespectacled munchkin shoved a slightly chewed Greene and Black organic chocolate bar beneath my nose and cried 'how do you explain this?'. I replied, very reasonably, that something had obviously been repasting on her confection. 'Mice!', she yelled, 'this house is infested with vermin!'. I informed her that we don't have housemice in the countryside and that her choc had more than likely been nibbled by a pygmy vole. These have been known to sneak through open doors. 'Whether it was a mouse or a vole is frankly immaterial' she informed me.

Then the litany of complaints began. Apparently the shower pressure was intermittent, the DVD player didn't work, there wasn't enough storage space, and she couldn't get a decent mobile phone signal. I said 'do you want me to resolve these issues or do you want to leave, now?'.

Her husband piped up 'that really isn't the attitude!' I am ashamed to say that I told him to 'put some Baby Bio on your bonce you bald bastard', walked out and slammed the door.

Voles can be dealt with by setting a mouse trap; water pressure can vary; there was ample storage space; the DVD player was working; it is usually dificult to get a strong mobile phone signal when you are surrounded by mountains.

Twunts, the pair of them.

Junkie

If we hadn't imported American fast food we wouldn't all be lard arses. I imagine there would also be less in the way of unwanted teenage pregnancies and big 0 carat hoopy earrings if we could only wean ourselves off this foul habit.

I don't know what it is about fast food that makes it so addictive. I know that Kentucky Fried Chicken is 90% salt and grease, but there's something about the prospect of some fat dribbling down my chin that makes it addictive. How can something that manages to be be simultaneoulsy dry and oily be so tasty?

Maccy D's specialise in food that tastes of absolutely nothing. We all know that the only edible thing on their menu is a sausage and egg macmuffin, but we still queue round the block for a big mac and fries.

Unfortunately we don't have Taco Bell over here. This is an intolerable state of affairs when one develops a sudden urge to consume a beef and bean burrito at 11.00 pm. Something will have to be done. I've decided to become the first British Taco Bell franchisee.

I could be quids in.

Dead and Alive

My first inkling that I would not win a Nobel prize for my outstanding work as a particle physicist occurred as I gazed in stupefaction at my first quadratic equation.

Mathematics is just plain nasty: you either get it or you don't. It's like poetry in this respect, except more useful. Because of my lack of mathematical aptitude I have always (probably quite rightly) regarded myself as a bit of a bonehead. I can grasp the concepts ok, but the equations make my head swim.

I watched a documentary on the atom last night. Quantum mechanics, the problem of measurement, Schrodinger's cat: I thought my head was going to explode. It was all very, very confusing. Thankfully most of the scientists seemed equally confused, what with their multiverses and all.

Apparently I exist in an infinite number of universes, in one of which my nose is one millimetre longer than in this one. Apparently I am, and am not.

Hamlet, eat yer heart out mate.

French Exhange

Anyone who was remotely middle class used to get sent on a French exchange trip during the school summer holidays. The Frenchies used to arrive over here to indulge in a full fortnights sneering at the barbaric nature of our 'so called' civilization. You can't blame them really; at that point in time we were known, not unfairly, as the 'sick man of Europe'.

I arrived in St Malo one summer to be greeted by a French family. They were, naturally, effortlessly elegant, ate delicious food, and didn't drink to get drunk. By the end of the first day I had developed a full blown inferiority complex.

The next day Jacques was good enough to haughtily inform me that 'Smerk on the Waater by Deep Pourple' was his favourite rock track of all time. My gloom lifted.

Whatever merits they may possess, the French have never had a clue about rock music. Any nation that thinks Johnny Halliday can hold a candle to Keef Richards is, and always shall be, terminally uncool.

Pootering About

I'm not sure if the grass was green, the sky a deep azure blue, and the privet hedge neatly trimmed. What I am sure of is that it was a beachball. It bounced once, twice, thrice, and (rather pathetically) a fourth time.

Admittedly I was in a pre linguistic state at the time, but when it lay before my infant gaze I distinctly remember thinking 'hmmm, that is definitely stripey, but I'm not that impressed'.

Given that this is my first memory I should, by rights, be a Venice Beach hunk playing naked volleyball with a bevy of white teethed, huge breasted, Californian babes.

The thing is, I'm not. I'm not sure that this is an acceptable state of state of affairs.

.

Yes

I am on holiday.

The Past is Another Country

I was intrigued by First Nations fascination with the 1920's. I can imagine her in full flapper gear, swigging back the gin and lusting after the dude riding the Big Chief Indian motorcycle.

I feel a bit out of time myself. I would be much more at home in 1950's Soho. I can imagine myself sipping whisky from a chipped tooth mug in some dingy bedsit, waiting for the pubs to open at midday. An afternoons liquid refreshment in the company of the wastrel bohemians would be crowned by a tongue lashing dished up at the Colony Rooms by the formidable Muriel Belcher. My liver wouldn't last long, but it would be well worth it.

Other bloggers strike me as belonging in other eras than the bland one we inhabit today.

Arabella is definitely a 1930's kinda gal. In the British context I can see her in a cloche hat, decorously sipping tea from a china cup in a Lyons Corner House. In the American context, she would most probably be perched on a barstool in a Chicago speakeasy, smoking a cheroot in a long cigarette holder and diggin' dat jazz ting.

Sid would be most at home as a 6th century monk in an isolated Irish monastery. His days would be spent adding fine calligraphy to the Book of Kells, batting off oversexed nuns, and taking crafty swigs of poteen from the flask artfully concealed beneath his cassock.

April would be an 1830's backwoods Injun, scalping intrepid Scots explorers and boiling them up in a big pot.

MJ would be perfect as a huge shoulder padded uber bitch in the dog eat dog world of 1985 Wall Street.

For Jungle Jane and Betty it is forever 1973. I can see them wearing enormous spangly boots and queuing up to see David Bowie's last performance of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Bronwen would be 'Goody Bronwen' in Salem, Massachusetts during the witch hunts. Notable for her good sense and scepticism she would escape burning at the stake, just.

Tina, I imagine, would make a perfect suffragette. I don’t know how she’d cope with the corsets and crinoline, but I have no doubt that she would be more than happy to throw herself under a racehorse.

Lets face it folks, we just weren't made for these times.

Well, Everybody Else is Doing It.

This is silly, I'm off to read some Dostoyevsky.

Astral Weeks

Van Morrison is, famously, a bit of a miserable bastard. It's quite understandable really. Having a face like a squashed badger didn't give him much chance with the 1960's 'beautiful people'. The gutteral Belfast accent, once accurately described as 'like listening to a Glaswegian being strangled', can't have helped much either.

I suppose the final blow to his fragile self esteem must have been having a girlfriend called Janet Planet. I know the hippies were all tossers, but a name like that really takes some beating.

It's a shame he's so crabbit, but I suppose it's one of reasons why he's one of the few genuine white bluesmen.

I don't think I could live without Astral Weeks. Its not that I listen to it that often, it's just that I know that it will always be there when I am half cut and feeling maudlin.

There can't have been many people writing songs about transvestites in 1968. Even Leonard Cohen wasn't into gender benders, and I can't imagine Jim Morrison singing paeans to male blouse wearers (even if he wasn't averse to wearing one).

Anyone who can get their head round Van's voice (he sounds like he's sitting on the toilet squeezing out a hedgehog turd) on this album will be a convert for life. The songs are wonderful and their delivery inimitable. Best of all are the spare backing arrangements: a loping, ethereal, jazzy undertow that haunts.

Van Morrison was 23 when he recorded Astral weeks. He hasn't bettered it.

Positively Fourth Street

I don't know why she had to pick on me.

She could have chosen from any number of well heeled rugger buggers and trust fund Adonis aesthetes. I suppose it just proves that being a hangdog Ingmar Bergman loving cynic with a copy of T S Eliot's Four Quartets protruding from your jacket pocket does have its advantages.

Julie had a problem. She'd had surgery as one of her breasts was bigger than the other. The operation had gone wrong and she'd been left with extensive scarring. This wasn't a problem as far I was concerned, but it was definitely a problem for her.

We went places in her hand painted pink Mini. It was an interesting eight weeks, and then she buggered off to drama school. I haven't seen hide nor hair of her since.

She was a cracking bird and I wish her well, on the whole.

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

We males do have some good points, chief amongst which is our aerodynamic form. This obviously does not apply to beer swilling salad dodgers; but for those of us with torsos like Michaelangelo's David the effects of friction are minimal. Women have to many sticky outy and pointy bits to compete with us in the walking briskly towards the pub stakes.

As for interests, everyone knows that all women have an unhealthy obsession with handbags and shoes. The alligator population know this to their cost: it's no wonder the warty reptiles live in a state of permanent disgruntlement. We men have healthy interests, principally: Swiss watches, pornography, and sheds.

Of these, sheds is obviously the most important. There's actually a bit of a cross over between sheds and porn. Back in the days before the full cornucopia of grunting, heaving, and atrocious dialogue was available with just a few clicks, the shed performed a vital function as a repository for the secret stash of jazz mags. All small boys knew this, and would happily while away many an hour sitting on a tea chest leafing through forbidden delights while Uncle Dave was playing golf. Ah, the innocence.

Thankfully the love of the shed is alive and well. The work of some of the finest exponents of shedness may be viewed here. All power to the Shedii. The force is strong with them.

I'm off down to my shed at the bottom of the garden to smoke a pipeful of Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. I'm sure there's some 12 year old malt left in that weedkiller bottle concealed behind the jam jars full of washers and grommets.

Happy days.

The Uses of Literacy

I think I've finally cracked it: not the meaning of life as such, but definitely the simplest most surefire method of harvesting some squids with the minimum of effort.

I suppose I've contracted a dose of the Rowlings. Not that I'm a huge fan of her books, or children come to that. I concur with the late Dorothy Parker, who loved children but couldn't eat a whole one. All munchkins should be banned from supermarkets, and all excessive breeders forced to pay penal rates of income tax to compensate for the general misery that their fruitful loins cause to sprogless adults who do not regard the extrusion of mini mes as a crowning achievement in life.

They can't be ignored as a market demographic though; their deluded parents happy to indulge their every whim with pecuniary largesse. I wouldn't mind a bit of bourgeois lucre bulging in my pockets, so I've decided to become an author of childrens literature. I did briefly consider erotic literature, but decided that I'd just end up getting nominated for the Bad Sex Awards.

I've decided on the title of my first meisterwork and my pseudonym:


'TWATWEASEL AND THE MARZIPAN DILDO'

by

DWEEZIL FLANAGAN


All I have to do now is write the book and wait for the royalties to flood in.

Tax exile in the Bahamas beckons.

Couldntgiveafuckingmonkeystossness

I've always hated the phrase 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. No it doesn't; what it does is leave you half dead, with either hideous physical injuries or a permanently damaged psyche. If I was a paraplegic wheelchair chair user left without the use of my legs as a result of a horrific car crash, I would have no hesitation in using a caliper to eviscerate anybody who tried to fob be off with such a stupid platitude.

I don't much care for physical pain, and I'm not overly fond of mental trauma either. Having said that, I must have higher natural levels of serotonin than the average Joe because I react with a higher level of couldntgiveafuckingmonkeystossness to most of the vicissitudes and dog turds that life flings at me with alarming frequency.

I don't really do depression. The closest I've ever come to popping my clogs was in my second year at University. I arrived a week late to discover that everybody else had sorted out their accommodation. I ended up sleeping on a sofa for two weeks before having to settle for a grotty bedsit in Cockroach Towers. I saw a friend off at the railway station one Thursday evening and felt my heart sink into the tarmac at the prospect of another night listening to the dickhead heavy metal loving engineering student next door shagging his uberugly tattooed love interest with gusto.

I went to a nightclub and got hog whimperingly drunk to dull the pain. I woke at lunchtime the next day to the battering on my door from the little weasel landlord. The greasy tosser demanded that I pay my rent money in his vile west country thicko accent. When he'd gone I sat on the bed and seriously contemplated suicide.

Thankfully the despair soon dissipated. Sweet and sour chicken with fried rice, prawn crackers, and a bottle of Lucozade saw to that.

I'm in the Mood for Dancing

My hayfever kicked off rather badly this year so I asked my GP for some anti-histamines. They were very effective, especially when combined with vodka and coke. They also had the strange side effect of giving me vivid dreams.

Vivid dreams usually involve unlikely sexual gymnastics, or morbid premonitions of impending death. I suppose its got summat to do with the sex and death nexus. Mine were no exception, and I woke with a serious case of the night sweats on a number of occasions.

I had one recurring dream (nightmare) involving group sex with the Nolan sisters and a troupe of depraved performing dwarves. God knows what suppressed traumas lurk in my past to explain such bizarre dreams. It's not as though I've ever taken LSD, or fought off kiddie fiddlers during my tender years.

I think I'll consult my mate Caitlin. She has a degree in geography and psychology, so she's a past master at finding her way around her own head.

I just hope she can help with mine.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

All hangovers are vile, but those which also entail a nasty dose of the squits are particularly revolting.

After a heavy night on the tequila sunrises in Cyprus last year, I was unfortunate enough to experience the full blown pig behind the eyes/erupting intestines experience. This would have been bad enough in Blighty, but given the Greek Cypriot genius for drain construction it was hellish.

It mystifies me why these people experienced 80 odd years of good belt and braces British governance, and still can't sort out their sewerage arrangements. Their drains are so useless that they won't accept a single sheet of toilet paper without blocking and disgorging their contents all over your en suite bathroom. Consequently, you are expected to dispose of your wipings in a metal bin thoughtfully provided next to the big white telephone.

This is a distasteful practice at the best of times, but it is most emphatically not on when one is suffering a nasty attack of the squits.

This was my predicament. In my befuddled state I decided to go into a nearby hotel and avail myself of their facilities. Better some effluent on their floor than mine thought I. As I reversed my posterior onto the khazi, I happened to glance down only to see three cockroaches emerging from the toilet brim with their feelers a go- go.

These weren't any old cockroaches, these were Giant American Cockroaches and the bastards had WINGS. I was out of there quicker than an Olympic sprinter with a wasp up his arse.

They have Giant Hissing Cockroaches in Madagascar. Apparently there are sickos out there who like to keep them as pets. I think I'll give Madagascar a miss.

Of Pimps and Popes

I'm sure that everyone will be delighted to learn that the Right Hon Anthony 'pretty straight kinda guy' Blair will continue to bestride the globe like a toothy colossus when he ceases to be PM. Apparently he plans to sort out the Middle East, African poverty, female circumcision, and lots of other stuff. Phew. It'll be great when that lot's sorted.

TONY BLEUUURGH

Rumour has it that he is also to anounce his conversion to Catholicism. I'm sure that his holiness is rubbing his palms at the prospect. Good 'ole Tones well known commitment to civil partnerships, stem cell research, pre marital sex, and contraception make him the perfect advocate for the modern Church.

CHERIE BLEUUURGH

If I was his Popeness I would think twice before accepting Tony's genuflections. If he starts entertaining Catholic youth groups with his stratocaster and Jaggeresque hip gyrations in an attempt to, like, get with the kids, the consequences will be unthinkable. The prospect of a prancing tit like Blair singing 'Kumbaya My Lord' will lead to a mass exodus to join the Seventh day Adventists, or one of the rattlesnake worshipping cults that thrive in Boise, Idaho.



I'm convinced that the whole business is a set up job by the Rev Ian (sodomy emerges from the pit of hell) Paisley to discredit the one true Church.



Something will have to be done.

Must have GSOH

It is an undeniable fact that I am, sadly, less of a hit with the lovely laydeez than I used to be. This is a most unfortunate state of affairs. I don't understand it really: I dont have a beer gut, halitosis, a hare lip, or an embarassing bowel complaint. I actually look reasonably presentable; at a distance, in dim light.

Perhaps living in the boondocks means that I have just run through the available totty, or perhaps the available totty is just through with me. I wouldn't blame them.

I've been perusing the personal columns recently. The problem with these is that you have to work out the coded meanings. A mature bubbly brunette who likes long walks in the countryside translates as an elderly bloater who dresses in dungarees and wellingtons, and laughs at her own jokes. The male entries are easier to translate. A fifty something, solvent, businessman seeking uncomplicated fun with a potential soulmate is actually a married bloke looking for afternoon shags with no strings attached.

Then there are the acronyms: WLTM, GSOH, NS. In my case the definition of 'good' sense of humour would have to include the words warped and perverse. As for the no smoking, I am a committed roll up artiste and have no intention of changing my ways to satisfy the whim of a mere girly.

I think my only hope may lie in producing a pithy, to the point entry that the goddess of my dreams will find utterly irresistable.

I've decided to use the late great Jeffrey Bernard's 'blind, alcoholic amputee seeks sympathy fuck'.

Apparently it never fails.

BIFF BANG POW!

ANIMAL

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a rock star in possession of a £10 million fortune must be in want of an enema.

All rock stars are arseholes, it's just that some are more rectally challenged than others. It's probably unfair to pick on an individual, but Bono definitely deserves a mention. It's not so much that he's a sanctimonious self righteous git, it's more that he insists on wearing leather trousers. No male with stumpy legs should do this under any circumstances. The only men who wear leather trousers these days (apart from the unfunny tosser Russell Brand) are bikers, and they're all homosexualists who like to stand outside pubs drinking pints of orange juice.

Bono's diminutive pins encased in cowhide are the principal reason why I would rather place my head in the toilet and flush repeatedly than listen to U2.

When I say rock star, I'm really referring to vocalists and lead guitarists. Bass players are usually OK, they just stand there contentedly plucking their four strings. They aren't what you'd call heroic, but they aren't actively offensive either.

All drummers are acceptable. They're either borderline certifiable (Keith Moon, John Bonham), or all round top geezers (Ringo Star, Roger Taylor, Danny Goffey)

The best of the lot is Dave Grohl (OK, he's a multi-instrumentalist). Whenever he tours with the Foo Fighters he always takes his mother with him.

Now that's what I call rock 'n' roll.

The Unrelenting Cheerful

I'm sure that everyone has encountered the unrelenting cheerful, there's a lot of them about. Frankly they scare me to death. I'm concerned that one of these days they will suffer an existential crisis, realise the true hideousness and futility of existence, and run amok with a chainsaw.

You have to admit it's a worry.

This is why I don't go outside very often.

A Pain in the Arras

It's annoying when people try to make you like things. It usually has the effect of making you despise them even more.

My Uncle Raymond is convinced that BMW's are the acme of automotive cool. I have always regarded them as prickmobiles, and his ill advised advocacy has only served to confirm the rightness of my view.

I used to feel the same way about Shakespeare and Charles friggin' Dickens. Teachers trying to shove those two down my craw produced what I fully expected to be a life long antipathy.

"Falstaff is one of the finest comic creations in literature."

Discuss.

"Falstaff is a fat, unfunny, drunken bloater."

'Hamlet' was the worst. People hiding behind curtains so they could jump out and stab people didn't strike me as very frightening. The play within a play was shite. Ophelia was a whinging cow. Rozencrantz and Guildernstern had stupid names and, being dead, weren't even in the play.

I still remember the groans and muffled "oh for fuck's sake" elicited by the announcement that an amateur dramatic troupe would be visiting to treat us to a performance of 'the Tempest'.
It wasn't so bad actually, as the longueurs were mitigated by Miranda's tit popping out half way through the second act. Rather a fine tit it was to, as I recall.

I appreciate Shakespeare these days and, to be honest, I prefer Charles Dickens to a lot of the post modern garbage that masquerades as the modern literary novel.

Funny how things change.

Let's Invade Canada

Professor James Lovelock, author of the Gaia theory, has claimed that within fifty years global warming will have rendered most of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable. The only areas suitable for human habitation will be the British Isles, Canada, and Siberia.

We'll be all right. We can arm our hoards of disability benefit scroungers with catapults and deploy them at strategic points around the coast to beat off the beastly foreigners.

The Russians will cope as well. They have had plenty of experience labouring in Soviet penal camps in the frozen tundra.

It's the Canadians I feel sorry for. Everyone knows that the Yankees have been itching to invade for the last three hundred years. I don't know how the gorgeous April will cope when the 101st Airborne Division land on her front lawn and demand pancakes with maple syrup.

Name 'em and Shame 'em

Ginger (apparently)

Much to my chagrin I have yet again not been included in the Time magazine list of 'The 100 Most Influential People in The World'. This is annoying to say the least, and it's not the first time its happened. I write letters of remonstration to the editorial board every year and not once have they deigned to reply.

I wouldn't mind so much, but that little thicko from Croydon, Kate Moss, is included every year.

Tsk.

I couldn't help noticing that a good two thirds of the great and the good hale from the US. This is also annoying as all right thinking people know that we were much better at running the world than they are.

I've been ruminating on the reasons for American success. I suppose a vibrant immigrant culture, technological innovation, and a 'can do' attitude have all played their part. More than this, however, I suspect it may have something do with their propensity to call each other stupid names.

Newt Gingrich anyone? Gore Vidal? The latter conjures up a mental image of a hairdresser being charged by a randy bull.

Having sod all to do today, I've been trying to think up some suitable names for the Americans. So far I've come up with Henderson Baines III, Taylor D Franklin, and Demetrious K Breedlove Jr. Somewhere in that great nation I am sure there must be individuals who glory in such monikers.

We Britons have sensible names like John Smith, John Thomas (har har), and James Proudfoot. There may even be someone out there who glories in the appellation Ginger Minge.

I'm so excited by the prospect that I'm off to check the UK telephone directory.

Happy Days Toytown

My peripatetic urges having been somewhat assuaged, I decided to venture a bit closer to home last week.

Perth (Scotland, not Australia), is a strange sort of place. It's one of those odd prosperous British towns that has a population composed of 50% skinny latte ladies who lunch and 50% working class oiks clad in track suits.

Being away from home for a protracted length of time has the advantage of allowing you to appreciate the strangeness of your native environment with fresh eyes. I've reached the conclusion that I live in the oddest country on the face of the planet. Not only does everyone talk funny, they are also fundamentally mad.

Still, it's good to be back amongst me ain folk. The menfolk are still suited and booted, play instruments in Salvation Army brass bands, drink far more than is good for them, and beat up their womenfolk. The womenfolk are thankfully still displaying far too much naked flesh and wobbling around with mobile phones glued to their ears.

Where could possibly be nicer?

I remember her well in the Chelsea hotel

Jane.

It's a simple name, a monosyllable. Sometimes it's combined with the words calamity and plain.

The Jane that I knew and loved was a calamity but she was most emphatically not plain.

She was a Welsh girl from Newport, Gwent. A slim pert breasted brunette with a French bob whose fingers entwined, melded, and melted into mine the first time we held hands.

When she told me was leaving me she still stayed the night. She really, really shouldn't have done that. When she left the next morning I inhaled her scent from my towels and cried hard bitter tears.

I hated her for years.

I don't hate her now. Being older (although certainly none the wiser) I now recognise that she was a profoundly damaged personality before we met.

I think everyone finds a great love in their life. When you find that it's not the longevity of the relationship that's important, it's the intensity. That girl gave me more in the space of eighteen months than any daft male has a right to expect in a lifetime.

We shared baths full of bubbles and threw rubber ducks at each other. I shaved her legs once and nicked her shin with the razor. A small shimmering globule of blood appeared. She looked down and I looked down. We looked up into each others eyes and laughed.

If someone gives you the sensuality, tactileness, and profound love that girl bestowed on me you should be profoundly grateful.

My dear, dear lost girl. My true peer and contemporary whose dreams and memories I curate.

I try not to think of her that often.

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion

There's no getting away from the fact that I'm Scots-Irish. Despite this I've always been slightly discombobulated by my education amongst the sons and daughters of the impoverished Anglo-Irish aristocracy. This has left me with a West Briton cricket, rugby, and Trinity College Dublin aspect to my character that is about much practical use as a chocolate teapot.

The Scots-Irish really are the ultimate white tribe. They left Scotland because they were Presbyterian conventers who were prevented from excercising their rights of free assembly by the Anglican establishment. They moved to Ulster only to find that the damn Anglos were there as well. Naturally, they upped sticks and moved to Kentucky, Virginia, and the Ohio river valley. They made up a quarter of the population of the nascent United States in 1776. George Washington rightly commented that if it hadn't been for their proficiency with long rifles he would have been up shit creek without a paddle.

If anyone wants to understand the contemporary American mentality they can forget about the Pilgrim fathers, Boston Brahmins, and frat boys parking their cars in the Harvard Yard. They are the Scots-Irish. They like going to church, drinkin' 'n' fightin', and oiling their guns. Bill Clinton, Miss Dolly Parton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Graham. Take your pick, it's obvious where their mentalities originate.

You have to give them their dues. They are without doubt the most generous and hospitable people ever to have looked up at the moon and said 'eh?'. Having said that, I wouldn't cross them if I were you. They are potentially lethal.

A Martian Writes a Postcard Home

I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that I will never understand women. As age and decrepitude exerts it ineluctable grip I am increasingly of the opinion that it is better to sit in a corner humming to oneself than attempt to have a conversation with one of these strangely alluring creatures.

I've pondered the question of what motivates them for years. I think it's something in their gait. It's not so much that they wobble but that they walk with the unerring accuracy and intent of an exocet missile.

Here we males are quietly minding or going about our own business when we find ourselves zapped. Admittedly we end up in bed with them, which is a reasonably favourable outcome. Unfortunately, within a period of between twelve and eighteen months they walk off in the opposite direction even when we haven't said or done anything.

I spend my life in a haze of dust and small pebbles.

Eleanor Rigby

'Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been, lives in a dream'.

When I was twelve a student teacher handed out a page of text to my class and instructed us to open our ears. She then pressed play on a cassette recorder. The world changed.

We don't listen to the Beatles much these days. We dont need to. They're us.

Apologies for the blogging hiatus. Life happened when I was making other plans.

Carry on.