Take Yer Pick

Is this:



better than this?

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #29

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


It's hard to tell, and it really isn't that important.

Christ on a Bike

I'm marrying a mad Welsh bint who couldn't even be bothered to have breast enlargements.

What can you do? It's 20 years too late, but we've been making up for lost time. There is no pre nuptial agreement in place: instead we have agreed to add a codicil to our respective wills to ensure that if either of are run over by a bus this shall be played at our funeral:



It's a tough life, unless you weaken.

Peurility Unbound

I would be churlish of me not to note the 30th anniversary of the juvenile and excessively poo oriented VIZ.

Therefore this:



and this:



I don't know why I'm glory holing this pathetic Beano inspired twaddle as it's not as funny as it used to be and Pa Broon has nipped off a brown trout and landed us all in the urinal.

Hanoi Rocks

When madame is not present I find myself an irresistible target for lovely young scooter riding Vietnamese ladies offering "boom, boom". I decline, they smile politely and trundle off in pursuit of more lucrative prospects. Unfortunately none of them have, as yet , offered to "love you long time five dollar". I imagine the phrase would have been commonplace in Saigon in 1966, which is ample illustration of the effects of inflation and the inevitability of a debauched currency.

I'm liking this flaneur business. It beats working and I have developed an addiction to pho. You have to give it to the Frenchies, they may have been colonialist bastards enforcing their rule with the guillotine but they did bequeath a certain elegance in architecture and cuisine. Eating freshly baked baguettes in Indo China seems somewhat incongruous, but I'm not complaining.

Arrivals and Departures

Long distance relationships are simultaneously a good and bad idea. The good lies in the anticipation and the joy of meeting; that intensity of union that you just can't find after sitting on the sofa of an evening inhaling Pringles, vin rouge, and watching crap on TV.

The bad is the drift that comes from being apart, and it's dangers. I can't trust Jane and she can't trust me. We are equals in our wariness having been in this place before but are, for the time being at least, airline junkies meeting and parting everywhere from London to Toulouse to Saigon.

It makes a change from the railway terminals of yesteryear and the views are better. We are circling each other, sure and yet unsure that so much undone can be remade.

I think Plato had it right with his Theory of Forms. I'm not sure if I have, but it is possible to be bamboozled twice by a girl with a Philosophy Degree and a keen appreciation of the absurdity of the human condition.

Believe me, they don't come much more absurd than us. We're stepping in the same river twice, which is impossible. Except it's not the same river, and the water's lovely.

Cindy Incidentally

Off the peg or some decent tailoring?

It's a quandary when funds are adequate and unexpected possibilities disport themselves and demand to be satisfied. Being of an age were I've worn every God awful fashion from 1980 to 1999 I have no desire to be dragged screaming and kicking into the fag end of the Noughties. No, I'm not wearing that.

I'm a Tens man myself. Ten packs of Embassy Regal and not a hint of a six pack. Which makes me Seventies. Except I'm not.

I'm sick to death of decades, and the desire to define ourselves by them. I think we should be thinking more in terms of epochs and eras. Not that that will make much difference as we'll still divide them by ten.

I was at Woodstock by the way. Not only that, I saw the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club (or was it the Marquee?), witnessed the Smiths at Moles Club Bath before they were famous, and punched John Squire at the Stone Roses Spike Island shambles.

Then I retired Rip Van Winkle style to pursue my muse. Fat lot of good it did me; I'm still stuck in 1936 and 1968:



I am a singleton when it comes to decades. Give me years and I'm a serial monogamist.

Blogging Purdah

French Exchange

Tracey emigrates:



Carla immigrates:



This may be the perfect heterosexual male fantasy, the one where you wake up to Carla Bruni serenading you with the Gallic version of 'Sweet Home Alabama' played on your trombone.

Personally I'm not convinced. Maybe it's the face like a melted welly, the bosomy Turkish Cypriot chest, or the obsession with Margate (or seaside resorts generally) that appeals.

Tracey doesn't want to pay 50% tax on her earnings that exceed £150,000 per annum (since she got successful and stopped stealing toilet rolls). Nothing wrong with that, neither would I. It could be a rash decision though. As my mate Alex marooned in Toulouse says, and I quote: "French women all have fucking rods up their arses; to look at them you'd think that smiling was undignified".

She teaches English as a Foreign Language.

Someone has to.

Closing Down Sale

The era of the Teacake has ended, for the time being, and the spouting of bollocks must halt for an interregnum while pesky stuff is dealt with.

The following items are consequently for sale:

* Wee Jimmy Krankie's shorts - slightly soiled.
* A dog eared copy of Shoot Magazine circa 1978.
* An ancient Daimler which requires work on it's wheel arches.
* The first Undertones LP - severely scratched.
* A Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodle - sell by date 07/04/2004.
* P J Harvey's knickers - slightly soiled.
* A Nintendo N64 with the Legend of Zelda 'The Ocarina of Time'.
* A signed photo of Joanna Lumley - slightly soiled.
* A half eaten kebab with chilli sauce discovered down the back
of the sofa - age and provenance uncertain.
* An empty bottle of Old Bushmills Whiskey.
* Samuel Beckett's shower cap.
* The 'Canadian Guide to Being Interesting, Having a Crap
National Anthem, and Saying Eh? all the Time" 1987 (First Edition).
* The tumble dryer from Betty's Utility Room - slightly soiled.
* A years subscription to 'Guns and Ammo' magazine.
* Arabella's Celebratory Flying Winged Cockroach - plinth mounted.
* My relatives.
* The right to tramp all over the allotment where I grow my prize marrow.

I'm afraid that there is a reserve on all items. And no, I don't accept Paypal. It's cash in hand. Take yer pick and make me an offer.

I may be back tomorrow, in 6 months time, or never. It's hard to tell.

Soma

I'm a gadget, gadgety, gadgetman, and I've had enough of it.

I belong to that remarkably intelligent and preternaturally good looking late Sixties not quite 1970 generation that, despite the odd wonky tooth and a liking for nicotine based tubes of delight, has more or less scooped the Pools.

We had the early gadgets (I'm thinking Shenmue on the Dreamcast here, not the Apple Newton) and got first dibs on the new stuff before the KIDZ could afford it. Them were the days when education was free and complimentary booze and fag vouchers were afforded by local Government.

We arsed about the late 80's and 90's before waking up in the late Noughties despising ourselves and everything that we created. Except we didn't, because we've still got most of our teeth and we don't walk about txting like twathead Twitterers.

The legions of the damned are upon us; illiteracy stalks the corridors of the imagination as the demise of Christendom expresses itself in the furrowed brows of the outcast generation raised by Beelzebub that will rise up and smite its elders.

Not that I'm worrying. I'm looking forward to pornographic holographic Skype.

Either that or a good book.

Leather Trousers

I've never worn them, and never intend to. It's odd that leather jackets look good on everyone (apart from bondage sex dwarves) but leather trousers exclaim DICKHEAD in stentorian tones. The only people who wear them are beardy motorcycling homosexualists who like to congregate outside country pubs and drink pints of orange juice.

Only two people have, to my knowledge, worn leather keks successfully.

Here's one:



And here's the other:



I think I'll stick to my lederhosen shorts. They go down a treat with the ladies.



It's oom pah pah all round with Eva Braun every night I can tell you.

Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains

It's all about titles and first sentences you see, that's why A L Kennedy does it for me.

Intelligent Scots are a pain in the arse because they mine that deep seam of Calvinist Caledonian bottle related bleakness and combine it with stand up comedy.

I wouldn't take A L on in a fight. She's not good looking enough for a start, and strikes me as bit of a complainer:



Apparently she has a bad back. So what, Marty Feldman had sticky out eyes and it didn't stop him.

I don't do stand up because I keep falling down.

The Nights are Drawing In

Perpetual rural drizzle. Almost as bad as ubiquitous urban drizzle, but not quite.

A big fat high pressure system has stalled just above Cheltenham and is allowing a weak front to deposit dampness on my cranium. I would be less annoyed about this if I was bald, but being reasonably hirsute regard it as conclusive proof of the non existence of God. Having said that, the magic mushrooms are coming along splendidly so perhaps there's something to be said for the Great Spaghetti Monster in the Sky.

Norwegian shamans used to swear by these:


They didn't eat them raw though. Much nicer to drink the urine of a Reindeer that had partaken and then dance around the camp fire summoning the ancestors.

I wouldn't want to summon my ancestors, they'd just complain that it was too cold and damp and insist that I listen to Jim Reeves while they devoured my precious.

You can't choose your relatives, and there's always the chance that mad Anglo Irish Great Aunt Maggie might turn up and start entertaining us with her harpsichord.

Driving South

Off to Toulouse to sample some cassoulet with Alex. No doubt there will be recollections of the virtues of hallucinogenic rough scrumpy imbibed in a sticky carpeted Bristol pub full of old men with one remaining stump of a yellow tooth. Either that or I'll be on the receiving end of a monologue about how "French women walk about with rods up their arses and British expats are only interested in booze and wife swapping".

After that it's three weeks in Soho trying to persuade a stuffed suit banker to lend me some dosh at a marginally less usurious rate than 5% above base. I'm thinking of resorting to the Bank of Cyprus or such like as British bankers, who were chucking money about like confetti not so long ago, don't appear to want to lend on anything.

Anyhoo, here's something for Kaz. She knows about ye olden dayes:



Dig them funky white afros baby. Jimi was having a bad hair day.

Samuel Beckett Smokes

Nothing to be done.

Twice.

Paul Weller Swears

Me barnet is looking well tasty and some cunt calls me a musical reactionary! I've been paying attention to me threads and have sussed out a pair of strides with a tasty little flare when this cunt questions me East End credentials. I come from fucking Woking mate, which is the next best fucking thing.

See this fucking credit crunch, it's all fucking Thatcher's fault. Bitch should be shot for doing in the honest hard working British working class which I did me fucking best to represent at the grindstone that was the Style Council.

Anyway, I'm a Changing Man so I'm off to listen to some Ocean Colour Scene with Noel Gallagher. Top fookin' Northern bloke. Likes his fags and likes discussing the mod culture which is me:

Nigella Speaks

Deftly and slowly peeling a courgette recently I was reminded of the late Elizabeth David and her predilections. Elizabeth had a way with a courgette; a slow ceremonial unveiling of a ripe and unctuous inner flesh concealed beneath a a seemingly resilient but easily removed skin.

As a domestic goddess I simply must have a huge fridge where I can store the residual comestibles which I have failed to scoff. There is no greater delight of an evening than to wander into one's fridge and discover a chicken carcase. The carnalities involved in picking off the last shreds of flesh with one's painted fingernails is beyond my powers of description.

Oscar Wilde could have. Oscar was, I have been told my good friend Carla Bruni, a great fan of cold roast poulet. I'm not sure if I believe her though, as she had Eric Clapton before settling for that repulsive little French sex dwarf and consequently cannot be trusted on matters of substance.

Nicky is so stack heeled and petit bourgeois he makes me honk on my ortalan.

Seamus Heaney Speaks

Bogtrotting

Bog watered Myrtle seeps into
the limpid pool of conciousness
as Mammy sweeps the hearth and
griddles my memories,

On that old kerneled stone carved
from Cúchulainn's inner thigh and
ossified where rushes breed
and barley falls to wasted seed,

I see a crop of hatreds, bred
amongst adopted convivialities,
where weeds and rushes are whacked,
and I'm damned if I look back.

Seamus Famous



Will that do?

Ronnie Wood Speaks

Gor Blimey these Russian bints can be a bit of a 'andful. There was me being me usual amiable jackdaw self as I swigged back the port and brandy wiv me breakfast cornflakes when Ekaterina comes over all hysterical and that. It was almost as bad as that time Keef whacked Mick wiv his telecaster and the pouty lipped big girls blouse took umbrage and chucked Keef's stash of smack out of the hotel room window.

I'm gonna 'ave to 'ave a word with Rod, he knows how to deal with uppity bints. Probably recommend a good slapping followed by a full on shag I shouldn't wonder. These young Ruskie birds need taking in 'and, and I'm the geezer to do it. I was brung up by Gypo Thames bargemen and schooled wiv 'ard knocks so I'll sort that Ruskie bint good and proper.

Anyway, gotta get me old hair tint on and drink a bottle of rum before painting another masterpiece of Charlie on the smack.

It's only rock 'n' roll, but I like it:

A Chelsea Pensioner Speaks

Nothing beats drink, poetry, and younger women. Not necessarily in that order you understand, it's just a question of correctly mixing the cocktail.

My Dublin mate Finbar thought he had it sussed with Jimmy Bond fantasies, BMW's, and Paddy Power whisky. As a mere naif it was understandable that Special Branch should arrest him under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act (1974) and severely question him for 24 hours under a bare 150 watt bulb. I believe there was also a controlled explosion involving underpants, but it's best not to elaborate.

You've got to get the formula right. Poetry is good with younger women of a sensitive and dreamy disposition, and if that doesn't work you can always ply them with the drink. I draw the line at alchopops, but something sophisticated like Southern Comfort and Ketamine usually does the trick. Cars don't help, unless you can lay your hands on a Citreon Traction Avant or a Mini still fragrant from Cilla Black's knickers.

It takes an old campaigner to teach the young fellers the tricks. It's the subtle variations on the formula see, that's what gets you the gusset.

I can provide a number of tricks and permutations if a couple of packets of digestive biscuits and a half bottle of Bells are left off at the Barracks. It'll have to be incognito mind, otherwise that Ernie from the Crimea will snaffle the lot, the thieving bastard.

I'm off to polish my button.

Plonky Plonky Plonk Plonk

Talking with Alex, my dear friend exiled to Toulouse where her husband fiddles with Airbuses, I was delighted to discover a fellow refugee from the sheer hideousness of the modern world. Like me she is afflicted with pointless accoutrements: I pod, Blackberry, mobiles, laptops times 2, a stash of back issues of Country Life. Apart from the latter we are trapped in a nonsensical world of txting and twat head twittering.

It's not exactly Armageddon material I admit, but the production of a generation of illiterates does not bode well for the future of Western Civilization. Alex and I agree that it was much more invigorating standing in a Phone Box that smelt of vagrant wee while requesting a reverse the charges (collect in Americanese) call to ones loved one. At least it took some effort, and there was obviously commitment on someone's part (although not mine).

I'm seriously considering retiring to a cave with a years worth of tinned sardines and an annual subscription to Peoples Friend. I can grow a Charles Manson beard and chuck rocks at bicycling Guardian readers foolish enough to venture close to my inviolable domain.

If I can find a big enough cave I'll have a resident pub rock band who can play convincingly plonky plonky plonk plonk bass guitar while I rustle up some potato hooch and a brace of nymphomaniacs.