Friday 31 October 2008

Feedback Friday :: Turning Point


bulk :: 15st 9
gym visits :: 2
haircuts :: 1
accusations of misogyny :: 4
misogynistic episodes :: 0
misanthropic episodes :: 12
turning points :: 1


It strikes me as kind of funny how I’m always so keen to seize on certain moments in my life and declare them ‘turning points’ or ‘fresh starts’. It seems I’m desperate to imbue quotidian events and decisions with special significance, perhaps in order to convince myself that I’m actually making some definite progress in life. It strikes me as kind of sad too. But I guess it’s normal. Anyway, here we go again.

I’ve reached a turning point. With this blog. With this life.

A few things have happened recently which have probably affected me more than I was prepared to admit, or more than I even realised. One was the end of my relationship with Morag, and the way I dealt with that. (Badly.) One was the reunion with my newly meek, practically lobotomised father and the fairly fundamental news about my life he finally elected to share. (What is it with people and their inability to communicate?) And one was the arrival of ‘the stalker’. (Shudder.)

Speaking of whom, it was only last week that I realised the full extent of the stalker’s derangement. I reread the comments that they’ve been leaving, and continue to leave, and I realised that there were messages hidden in them. I started to get scared for the first time when I realised there were references to books I’ve read recently. It sent a shiver down my spine. They must have been following me – In Real Life – seen me out and about with my nose in a book. Then I remembered that I’d actually blogged about the books I’d been reading, so probably they’d just been reading the blog. Phew. But then I’ve also blogged about where I live, more or less, and I don’t want to start getting paranoid, but… well, I’ve started getting paranoid.

Added to which, a few people have accused me of changing recently, and not for the better. Thing is, on the whole, I tend to agree. I think I have changed a bit recently. And not for the better. Therefore, before they go too far, things have got to change.

First and foremost, this blog has got to change.

No more deeply personal stuff. From now on I’m going to concentrate solely on life’s trifles. Everyday fancies. Crab sticks and horsefeathers. This blog, I finally realise, is supposed to be where I play. Therefore, I need to start enjoying it properly again – I had stopped recently. Also, importantly, I need to draw a line between this blog and my real life. A thick line. In permanent marker pen.

There’s no harm in the occasional real life anecdote of course, but no more of this blow-by-blow analysis and recounting of personal conversations. No more shall the horrible little midgets of my mind be allowed to crawl out onto my keyboard. It’s not fair on anyone.

I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions over the last year, and I admit, sometimes I feel wholly out of my depth.

And recently particularly, I’ve felt like I’m starting to lose control of this blog. It’s like it’s become a microcosm of my life and losing control of it, even to the relatively small extent I have, is a reflection of a wider-ranging trend.

I need therefore, to wrest back control. Also – for God’s sake, listen to me – me, me, me – what I really need to do is step away from myself a little, create a little distance and engage with the rest of the world, because at the moment I am in grave danger of disappearing up my own arse. And nobody wants that.

So, there we are. I probably won’t be blogging as much as I have in the past, but I hope to be a lot more professional about it.

We’ll see.

Fine words butter no parsnips.

Oh, and with reference to Courgettegate, I didn’t really say, ‘I’ve got a woody’. I was just playing. Jesus. What do you think I am?

Don’t answer that. Answer this:

What are you doing this weekend? Anything nice?



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Tuneful Tuesday, On A Friday! :: Songs Which Have An Immediate Impact

You know that sensation when you hear a song for the first time and it gives you such a thrill that you can already envisage a time in the future when you're excited, maybe you're getting ready to go meet a special someone and you know for sure that this is it, this is the evening on which the rest of your life will hinge, this is the night you'll be enthusing about into your dotage, and this song is your soundtrack as you bounce around the house in your fluffiest towel, singing your heart out, dancing like a drugged raccoon and laughing like Lucifer, your boundless optimism pumped to bursting... and as the song comes to an end, your towel falls to the floor and you cheer, because you really have no idea that life will never be this good again. Yeah?

Well, I just found this song chez Boz. I like it. A lot. Video's not bad either...




Three Other Songs That Had Me At Hello

1. Solid Gold



2. That’s Not My Name




3. No Rain

As a brief aside, I can’t believe I’ve loved that song for so long but never seen the video till now. It made we weep.



I would like to have included Hey Ya too, but embedding of the YouTube video is disabled, so I didn’t, as a protest. (Interestingly, this version of the song has a single word removed for fear of causing offence or corrupting minors. It’s strange because it’s an ordinary word, and not remotely obscene. A word even Jesus used. Can you guess what it is?)

Thanks, Boz!

So.

Which songs had you at hello?

Aww, go on.



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Thursday 30 October 2008

An Apology :: Updated

I would like to offer a personal and unreserved apology to Courgette, and by extension, to all those offended by yesterday’s blogpost. It is clear from the views expressed by the public that this post caused severe offence and, on reflection, I can see why.

I am deeply sorry and greatly regret the upset and distress that my juvenile and thoughtless remarks and actions have caused. Patronising and sexually harassing Courgette was bad enough; attempting to make light of the act in a public retelling displayed an unforgivable amount of self-regard, not to mention perversity, misogyny and outright inhumanity. The whole thing was a stupid error of judgement on my part and I offer a full apology.

Although there were certain crucial embellishments and omissions in the retelling of the tale, I make no excuses. I chose my words and must stand – or fall – by them.

I am however at pains to point out that I bear no Courgette ill will, and whilst she may not have known the name of the current Prime Minister of England, or had any understanding of how immigration is used by both the media and politicians as a means of manipulating and coercing the general public, I have absolutely no doubt that she is a warm, kind, sweet, special and spiritually sound human being, morally beyond reproach and certainly a lot nicer than I ever could be.

I realise that my thoughts were an affront to public taste and should never have been published in the first place. I have sent a full and unequivocal apology to Courgette, along with a large bunch of flowers and a Cabbage Patch Doll. (She likes them! Honest.)


Today’s scheduled post has been suspended until further notice.

...

Update

This is just a little note for some readers of this blog – not stupid readers, no, that is definitely NOT what I’m saying, merely American – who clearly didn’t make the connection between this post and a little story that’s been clogging up the newspapers over here for the last week. I wouldn’t mention it normally, as I quite like the idea of people floundering around in the dark (because I’m sinister), but I’m being mistaken for being noble, and that will never do.

See? In the cold light of day, I’m not sorry at all.

Well, maybe a bit.



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Wednesday 29 October 2008

Haircut

Her name was Chlamydia.

No, not really. That would be stupid.

Her name was Courgette.

Courgette was physically very appealing. She was what someone of my father’s generation and intellect would have called ‘a dolly bird’. I heard my father using that expression. I was never sure if it was meant to be complimentary or not. I’m still not sure.

Mentally, Courgette was not exactly a vegetable, but to say she was all cleavage and no critical faculty would not be stretching the truth.

Still, A Levels or not, when she sat me in her chair, wrapped me in her silvery cape and stood behind me, her hands on my shoulders and her glorious breasts not quite nuzzling my neck, I found myself thinking thoughts of a sexual nature.

I am only human.

‘How do you want it then?’ she asked, her voice all provocative like the town strumpet in a northern soap opera.

I told her, and she said, ‘I’ll just give it a going over with the clippers first, then we’ll give it a quick wash.’

‘OK,’ I said. 'Lovely.'

Courgette was a talker. This pleased me immeasurably as I adore big-hearted simpletons. They are such a pleasure. Not for long obviously, but for twenty minutes or so. It’s wonderful to be reminded what a privilege it is to have been born with a brain in your head.

God, I'm a cock.

It's true though.

Courgette is 21. She has large green eyes and luscious meaty lips. She wears too much make-up and her earrings are over-large and over-dangly. She has a butterfly tattooed on her wrist, and a couple of rings of barbed wire tattooed around both ankles. She showed me.

She loves going clubbing. Her favourite place in Burnley is a place called Lava Ignite. Gaze upon the film on the front page of the website and despair.

‘Haven’t you got a funny-shaped head?’ she said.

'Yes,' I agreed. 'It is hilarious.'

Courgette was lovely. Thick as a barrel of pig's tendons but sweet as sixpence with a winning smile and a nervous giggle that wasn’t even slightly annoying.

Halfway through my haircut, Courgette led me over to the wash basin and leant me back. The feel of the hot water was nice, but the feel of Courgette’s hands on my head was really lovely.

I don’t think she could possibly have been aware of how much pleasure I was taking from her fingers as they massaged soap into my scalp and moved across my head, over my ears and down onto my neck. Thankfully, my groans were mostly drowned out by Chorley FM.

Back in the chair, when my sexual thoughts became quite feisty and my groin began to twitch and stir, I remembered something.

My parents used to read The Sun. Worse still, they actually had it delivered to their front door every day. (Once my mother took a biro to one of the topless women on page 3, angrily inking a zealous brassiere, so zealous in fact that the nib of her pen went all the way through to John Major’s lipless grin on page 7. I suspect my mother was certifiably insane.)

However, the story I remembered this afternoon was a story from The Sun itself which concerned a man who’d been killed in a freak hairdressing accident. I don’t think I ever believed the story, but what the hell. It went like this. A man was having his hair cut by a young lady. Toward the end of the operation, the man seemed to take a moment to adjust himself around the genital area. The young lady couldn’t actually see what he was doing of course, because his entire body was covered by the protective cape she had secured around his neck. Only his head peeked out of the top. As she began to dry his hair however, the action continued beneath the protective cape and his hands began to move in an irregular fashion just above his genital area, and although the young lady couldn’t actually see what he was doing, she could see quite clearly the look in his eyes. And it enraged her. So much so that she lost her temper and struck the man hard across the temple with her hair dryer.

Whereupon he died.

This is one of those stories that make you realise how tenuous our grip on life is; how from one moment to the next, we hang by a thread, and perilously. It reminds you how, at any moment, and for the slightest tiniest, most ridiculous cause, your life can come squealing to a premature end. You could be standing on a train platform and with a modicum of force, a passing loon could take a chemical turn and push you into the path on an oncoming train; you could be in your back garden, lying back in the sun with your dearest loved one rubbing lotion into your thighs… you open your legs a touch and feel the moment turn, when a wasp flies in through the open window of a large white van on a road near your house. The van is in motion, the driver freaks out, his hands fly up to his face, his foot shoots out and jams onto the accelerator. The first thing you know, a van screams through the hedge at the bottom of your garden, bounces once on your lawn and that’s it. It’s done. The moment is ruined. Both you and your dearest loved one are no more.

Or you could be about to serve the winner in a Wimbledon final when a passing eagle drops a rock on your head. Or a spear of frozen urine from an overhead toilet facility pins you to the turf. You writhe for a moment, then die.

Or of course, you could be clubbed to death by an uptight hairdresser.

You could argue of course that the chap in this last scenario had it coming, or that at the very least he played some small part in provoking the reaction that caused the event of his death. And it’s true. When the single blow from the hair dryer sent him falling, sprawling to the salon floor, and his protective cape fell away from his dead body, the extent of his crime became clear.

He hadn’t been pleasuring himself at all. He didn’t even have an erection. What he'd actually been doing was rolling a cigarette.

If, that is, there was a single word of truth in the story.

Back in a Burnley barber's shop however, I had an erection. And when I had to adjust myself because my foreskin had grabbed hold of a pubic hair and was pulling at it rather painfully, I apologised. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a woody.’

Courgette gasped and blushed and looked adorable.

When it was all done and I gave her a mammoth tip, she blushed again and said I should try Lava Ignite on Halloween.

I said I would but I fear I lied. I’ll be back in London by then. Keith’s dad is fine. Just a bit depressed. Sad, rather. Horribly sad. I think the family might need some time on their own. I might leave Keith here and come back down on the train tomorrow.

Or, I might go and get my hair cut again and ask Courgette out on a date.

Amazing lips.

I keep imagining her eating a watermelon.

God, I could love that woman.



CWOTD :: Is it possible to be happy with someone who loves Harry Potter and genuinely thinks that Mrs Blair's first name is Cherry, like the pie? Or in other words, is it necessarily a bad thing to shack up with a mental inferior?



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Monday 27 October 2008

Feedback Friday, On A Monday :: Has The World Gone Mad?


bulk :: 15st 10
cigarettes :: 0
mammoth sweats:: 3
fibre freakouts :: 4 (bowls of bran with banana, sultanas and piping hot milk and honey)
James Bond-related rages :: 3
government communiqués :: 1
Hob Nobs :: 0
Halloween-themed Jaffa Cakes :: 5


The good news is, I think I may have just landed a job which means I can stay at home again. The bad news is, if it comes off, it will be very, very tedious indeed. But you know... whatever. You can’t have everything. You’re not Rupert Murdoch.

So, back in January, I did some work for a certain government department that shall remain nameless. Suffice to say, it wasn’t one of the most exciting ones. In actual fact, it was one of the least. Basically I was asked to write their ‘yearbook’ and tidy up the copy on their hilariously tedious website. I did this on behalf of an advertising agency who’d hired me on the say so of someone else for whom I’d written some exceptionally bland garbage. At some stage I swapped a couple of emails with the agency’s contact at the government department in question. Let’s call her Miss Manypunny (weirdly, that is her actual name). Well, last week, Miss Manypunny got in contact with me. She wants me to do more of the same, but she wants to save money by cutting out the agency. Would I have a problem with that, she wanted to know. Um… no. No, I’m fine with that.

So, hopefully, as of next week, I’ll be working for the government. I’ll be a kind of copy writing James Bond.

Aaaah, James Bond. Did you know by the way, that there’s a new film out next week? Had you heard? Had you by any chance picked up on any of the tsunami of publicity that’s saturating every nook and cranny of the media at the moment?

I should come clean. I fucking hate James Bond. There, I’ve said it. I think he’s crap. All of the films are exactly the same and they all tease the muck from a dead man’s sack. The hype is driving me crazy. Everywhere, everywhere I turn these days I see that charisma-free dullard, Daniel Craig, selling me TVs, selling me scratchcards, selling me shit films, and I’m really, really pissed off with it.

Still. What about that Olga Kurylenko though, eh?



Eh?

Seriously though. Eh?

And not only that, but she’s also one of the most exciting bloggers on the whole world wide web. Poor love. Why don’t you leave her a comment?

Anyhow, much more importantly, if I land this contract, for a few weeks at least there’ll be no more goddamn commuting. And that fills me with something akin to joy.

Now I know that most people have to commute every day of their lives and have had to for years, but frankly speaking, that’s their problem. I can’t hack it. I know that if I have to carry on doing it, it’s only a matter of time before I flip out, tool up and join the massed ranks of London’s legions of proper loons.

Have you seen how many mad people are out there? How many are there in London I wonder. Every day recently, I’ve seen at least two, usually men, either ranting at invisible friends like displaced bloggers, lunging at invisible enemies like geriatric swordsmen, or buttonholing some overly timid stranger and terrorising them with loud stories from above and beyond the call of common sanity. The sheer amount of bona fide string-collecting crazies has been a revelation to me. On Thursday last I saw three. All men. All in various stages of bristliness. All with hideous verbal shenanigans going on. One of them seemingly under the impression that he was a poltergeist. Imagine that.

Where do they all come from? Glasgow, mostly. But the rest of them, I don’t know. I don’t understand how there can be so many people who clearly need help just roaming the streets and swarming over public transport, shouting and lashing out at the things in their heads. It’s horribly sad. Keith suggests I blame Thatcher and her economy-driven rebirthing of the Care in the Community programme. So I’m going to do that. Bloody Thatcher.

Anyway, that’s my news. And today I was supposed to be commuting, continuing with the work I’ve been doing for Jack Wax (I just made up that name for him, but it’s surprisingly appropriate). Things however, changed last night when Keith received a panicky phone call from his step-mother. His dad is apparently not doing well. So we’re dropping everything and driving back up to Burnley to see if we can help by standing around worrying and drinking tea.

Keith insisted that I didn’t have to come, but I felt a really strong desire to use the situation as an excuse to get out of fighting my way through hordes of insane people in order to sit in an enclosed space for eight or nine hours poring over inane crap for a farting old word-mangle and self-important turd.

So. Burnley here we come.

We’ll be back as soon as possible though, and if I get this job, which I should find out about in the next couple of days, then I’ll be back in the safety of my home, able to blog freely again, and getting the government to pay me for the privilege.

Eat that, Credit Crunch!

Oh, one more thing. The reason I bought those Halloween-themed Jaffa Cakes – or Spooky Cake Bars as they’ve been branded – was because I was really curious to know how much they’d done to make their standard fare slightly more sinister. ‘Trick and Treat’ the wrapping promised. I was intrigued. Were they poisoned?

No.

In fact, they were so disappointingly similar to non-Satanic Jaffa Cakes, and I was so furious at having been taken in, that I ate them all in one session with a nice cup of tea.

Eat that, 007!



Comment Whoring :: What do you think about James Bond? He’s shit, isn’t he?



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Tuesday 21 October 2008

Insane God Man Vs Barack Obama

This is pretty much the stupidest thing you will see all year.

Enjoy.






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Monday 20 October 2008

When Did I Become Such A Bitter Little Man? Oh, Yeah.

I apologise in advance for this. I’d love to post wonderful optimistic blackberry jam-making paeans like this little diamond (thanks to Our Glamorous Heroine for the link), but my newfound turbo-charged misanthropy simply won’t allow it.

Ah, well.

As I hinted at briefly, curtly, on Friday, it seems that everywhere I turn at the moment, idiots are being paid good money to write the most godawful ordure. Last Sunday for example, I was enjoying a battered Sunday roast in a Burnley pub called The Lynched Black or some such (the battered Yorkshire pudding was particularly good), when I found myself bellowing out blasphemies in response to an article I was reading in the Sunday Times Style supplement. Serves me right I suppose for putting my head in the toilet.

It was an interview with the physically overrated Kelly Brook, written by the intellectually under-endowed Giles Hattersley. I’d never heard of Hattersley before I read that article. Then I looked him up online and discovered that he was everything I despise and envy in equal measure.

Look at this opening to the Brook interview:


‘Obviously, I knew that Kelly Brook was going to be sex on legs. How could I not? She’s been the stunner’s stunner for a decade now. The girl who can make a grown man swallow his tongue. The kind of woman another woman might go gay for (it’s that thrilling combo of carnal sagacity and pathological cleanliness, isn’t it, girls?). And then you meet her and it’s even better.’


Ugh. Jesus. I practically puked up my nuts when I read that. The stunner’s stunner? Does he even know what he thinks he wants to say? Jesus. It still makes me fume. He really is the fuckwit’s fuckwit.

The article continues in the same vein, with Hattersley vacillating between tittering prepubescent public school boy…


‘There isn’t a hair on her head that’s out of place, and – I imagine – if I whipped off her dress, there wouldn’t be a hair out of place there either.’


…and outright idiot…


‘Before feminists write Brook off as a co-dependent sexaholic, it’s worth pointing out she is a shrewd businesswoman....’


I was actually so irritated by this man Hattersley that I ended up having to apologise to Sylvia for screaming out the c-word in her local pub. On a Sunday. Of all days.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, back in London on Wednesday afternoon I found myself on a train from London Bridge to Peckham sitting directly behind a young lady who’d just come from what must have been the first writers’ meeting for the new series of Scallywagga. I know this because she was braying – nay, bellowing – into her mobile phone, telling her absent friend and writing partner everything he or she had missed. So, thanks to this slip of a girl’s inane yelling, I discovered that, apparently…

* Scallywagga was ‘branded as being by 19-year-olds for 19-year-olds’, but in actual fact Stuart Kenworthy wrote 60% of it and he’s 42.

* Scallywagga has ‘got really good branding’.

* The main reason Scallywagga was commissioned for a second series was because it’s the only Northern sketch show on TV. Furthermore there hasn’t been a sketch show set in the north of England ‘since Les Dawson’. (Which is obviously nonsense. I can’t think of any at the moment but it’s patently nonsense. Oh yes, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. There you go.)

* The writers of the next series of Scallywagga are also welcome to have a crack at directing some sketches too, and even performing in it.

* References to popular culture are Scallywagga gold – they don’t have to be exclusively youth-centred references, but if you can squeeze Facebook or Wii into a sketch, all the better. Referencing de rigueur TV shows such as Big Brother and Dragon’s Den is also something very much to aim for.

* Currently averaging 35 sketches per show (a show presumably lasting around 23 minutes), the producers are thinking of throwing in a couple of longer sketches so that viewers can make it to the end of a programme without feeling the need to pour mercury into their eyes.

* The producers are also pleased that young women are going to be working on the show, because they believe that a getting a young, feminine perspective can only be a very good thing. Not that they have to write purely ‘female’ material, but you know, blahblahblah. Keep it northern.

So I listened to this conversation, biting my cheeks to stop myself from shouting out, scribbling down notes and shaking my head at this loud live stream confirmation that television comedy really is just a cynical, soulless mess of marketing and… actually, just marketing. It’s all just marketing.

I have nothing against the young woman on the train by the way. I admit I’m jealous of the opportunity she has to write comedy for such a well-branded BBC product, but I wish her nothing but the very best. I also genuinely wish her the very best of luck with Time Lords. It’s a great title.

When I got home, I checked out Scallywagga online, just to make sure that it definitely was the diabolical drivel I remembered from clips I'd seen. It was. Good production values, great branding, but sadly, and predictably, about as funny as rectal cancer. The least funny of all the cancers.

The next series should be great though.

So yeah, then, as if that wasn’t enough, I picked up a copy of thelondonpaper on Wednesday and discovered that the guest columnist from the day before was an ugly bloke who wrote about ‘Why I visited a prostitute’. Apparently his piece was ‘a very moving read’ and ‘a breath of fresh air’. It prompted one wildly idiotic reader to write: ‘I’ve seen a prostitute three times this year. Not because I craved sex, but because I craved a connection – the connection you get when you are with someone who finds you attractive, that validation that says: “I love you for who you are”.’ Um… do you want to tell him or shall I?

So I got online when I got home and I looked up John’s piece on the trials of being an ugly man in a shallow world and once again, I turned the air blue with violent language.

So I wrote a londonpaper column of my own, a response to John suggesting that if it was love he was looking for, then the blog might just be mightier than the whore.

They didn't get back to me.

I have been rejected by thelondonpaper.

My downward spiral is complete.

I have hit rock bottom.

I am not fit to touch the hem of Giles Hattersley’s hat.

...

A-chillymondo!



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Friday 17 October 2008

Feedback Friday :: Low

Dead blog, dead blog.

I’m not sure I can keep this up.

I’m having a bad time.

I’m pissed off.

Since I got back from Burnley on Wednesday, I’ve been in and out of London on public transport for reasons of work. And I know I’m not well mentally because I find myself despising people with a passion which is clearly disproportionate. I’m like Grenouille in Perfume. I even despise their smell. Everyone stinks. And they talk the most infuriating, banal, stupid nonsense. Everywhere I turn, smoke, farts, cloying scents, alcohol, Jesus Army, television, views. I posted Howard Beale last week. I’ve since become him. Minus the compassion.

And my online life has changed too. In spare moments, which are few and far between at the moment, I’ve been trying to write about my dad. My mum. My family. My childhood. And I can’t. I just can’t do it. What I’m writing is turgid, overblown, judgmental, dull. And I can’t do it. This is the first time this year that writing for this blog has not come easy, and it disturbs me.

Another thing that disturbs me is that every time I lift the lid of my laptop, there is a new comment from my resident loon. On average I’m getting two a day now. I didn’t want to mention it because I don’t want to encourage her. Or him. But it’s starting to do my head in. It’s starting to get really disturbing. In the middle of one I received yesterday or the day before was the line, ‘I’m scared of myself and who I am’. As well as the general overall freaky tone of the comments, what worries me is that I’m starting to understand what this person is going through.

I feel like I’m one step away from a serial killer movie.

Plus I’ve been trying to find somewhere to live on Gumtree and in the process I’ve been bombarded with Nigerian scammers trying to get me to transfer money to a friend or relative using Western Union, so that they can then steal it. This scam has even made it onto the news. As far as I can see however, it’s got to be a piece of cake to fake a transaction and catch these fuckers red-handed when they go their nearest money-wiring agent and attempt to pick up the cash. I’ve been trying to convince people at Gumtree or Western Union to help me, but all I’m getting is stock responses, unanswered telephone calls and morons who are basically doing a job they simply don’t give a damn about. And this fucks me off immeasurably. I’ve actually been trying to do something decent, trying to do a good thing, to help people, and I’m being stonewalled every step of the way. No one gives a fuck. Except the scammers. They work hard. But nobody else could actually care less. Fine. So be it.

And now I’ve got to commute into London. The writer I’ve been doing research for wants me to do more but suddenly he wants me to do it from his home, sitting in the same room as him. Why, I don’t know. Presumably so he can keep an eye on me, make sure I’m concentrating hard enough. He isn’t paying me enough, frankly, to enjoy this level of supervision. Plus he farts. It’s hideous. I’ve asked him not to but he finds my discomfort amusing. I despise him. I despise everyone. Even the research he has me doing has turned dull. I was better off writing financial copy. At least I could do that from the privacy of my own stench.

And on top of that, everywhere I turn there are fuckwits like Giles Hattersley, the writers of Scallywagga and the readers of thelondonpaper and frankly, I don’t know how long it’s going to be before I find myself a couple of semi-automatics and bring Hungerford to the city.

When did my life turn into this thing that I dislike so vehemently? How did that happen?

Wow.

It's amazing how quickly a little perspective can fade.

Anyway, how are you? No, not you, you psychopath. You. Doing anything nice this weekend?



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Tuesday 14 October 2008

The Ringo Starr Jumble Appeal

Ringo Starr, everyone’s favourite surviving Beatle after Paul McCartney, has filmed a short message for his fans. It’s here on the front page of his site.

Wow. What a grouch. Why couldn't he be nice about it? He seems to be under the impression that by adopting a kind of ‘peace and love’ Tourette’s, he can disguise what a thoroughly unpleasant old-man-in-a-mood he is.

This is why I am in complete agreement with Eggymark, a YouTube commenter who says:


After the 20th October - start sending what you can, he's obviously desperate for fan mail. I’ve never sent him anything, and was surprised to see he is still alive - but I’m organising a crate of jumble for the old boy to cheer him up.


Help Eggymark irritate this already dangerously crabby millionaire. Send what you can:

Ringo Starr
1541 Ocean Avenue
Suite 200
Santa Monica, CA
90401
USA



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Sunday 12 October 2008

Coping With the Credit Crunch :: Two Alternatives

1) Get mad...



2) Come to Burnley and eat your way out of it...



Please don't choose the latter.

No disrespect intended, but Burnley is weird. If you're not a supporter of either 'the Clarets' or the BNP, then frankly, you're not from round here. Ugh. The good news however, is that it looks like Keith's dad is going to be OK. He's just going to have to lay off the cigarettes and battered foodstuffs for a while. He's still in hospital for the moment and in between visits we're being looked after by Sylvia. We're going to stay here for a couple of days. Keith's phoning around people he's supposed to be working with this week in London and putting things off, and I've got my laptop.

Now, what to do in Burnley on a Sunday. Ah yes, close the curtains, lock the doors and stay indoors. They're mad as hell up here.



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Friday 10 October 2008

Feedback Friday :: Perspective


bulk :: 15st 12
cigarettes :: 0
gym visits :: loads
bananas :: boatloads
apples :: a veritable orchard’s worth
Hob Nobs :: 0
kilos of spinach :: 1.5
comment nutters tamed :: 0
humiliations :: 1
more important things :: 1


This morning Keith knocked on my bedroom door and woke me up with a cup of spiced chai. ‘Time to wake up,’ he said. ‘Wake up and smell the chai.’ I relinquished sleep with all the grace and dignity of a starving man relinquishing a golden doughnut, and slowly, almost painfully, I focused.

Keith was sitting in the leather armchair in the corner of my room, staring and smoking a joint. ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it?’

‘It is a bit, yes,’ he agreed. ‘But I’ve had some distressing news and I’m using it as an excuse to smoke skunk at 7.30 in the morning.’

I sat up and accepted the ash-tray. ‘What’s happened?’ I said, wary, on edge. The smoke waltzed through me like a muffling phantom, leaving me nauseous, woozy, instantly befuddled of both bowel and brain.

‘My dad’s had a heart attack,’ he said.

I stopped.

Like a machine that’s had its plug pulled, every part of me just stopped.

‘Is he OK?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Keith slowly. ‘He’s had a heart attack.’

‘How serious is it?’ I asked.

‘It’s quite serious,’ said Keith.

‘How serious?’ I persisted. ‘Is he going to die?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s stabilised since it happened last night. I’m going to go and see him.’

‘I’m coming too,' I said. 'Is that alright?’

Keith nodded.

...

So. In an hour or two, we’re driving to Burnley.

A heart attack is a serious thing, but as far as I can tell, if he’s survived it, then the chances are he’s out of the woods for now, or at least out of the dangerous epicentre of the woods, where the Evil Dead lurk. Now he’s kind of scrambling on the edge of the woods, dipping in and out of sunlight, tripping over roots and sweating, panicking slightly, desperate to get home. But I’m no doctor.

It’s scary. But it does put things into perspective. I really don’t have the gall to feel sorry for myself anymore. At least not for the moment.

This is Serious.

This is Life and Death.

Still, you’ve got to laugh.

Have a good weekend. You up to anything interesting or fun? Go on, let me know…



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Thursday 9 October 2008

I Have An Announcement To Make…

You ready?

Here it is:

I am going to be the next Dylan Thomas.

Make of that what you will.

What do you make of it?

Also, I have cooked the greatest spaghetti Bolognese you will never taste. I cooked it for Keith and I. Keith deserves it because even though he’s a selfish swine who drops his mates at the merest hint of a vagina, he’s a fucking talented artist. I mean, just look at this.

Oh, and he thinks my brand new muscles are sexy.

And he’s right.

They are.

In fact, now that I think about it, I might get a tattoo. On my burgeoning bicep. Or elsewhere. I’m not sure where actually.

But wait! What joy! I can whore it out. Oh, I really really love being drunken.

Splenetically Moderated Comment Whore :: What tattoo should I get? And where on my sexier-by-the-day, soon-to-be-drop-dead-gorgeous, oh-my-God-what-have-you-done-turning-down-this-divine-hunk-of-meat body?



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Tuesday 7 October 2008

Nine Months In :: Done With Love

New Life Resolutions, as made here in December 2007 and here in April 2008…


1. Lose 8 Stone in One Year
2. Stop Smoking Completely and Forever on January 1st
3. Do More Things and Meet More People
4. Write This Blog for At Least One Year – Ideally, At Least Once a Week, Chronicling Progress With Other Goals
5. Find Girlfriend
6. Get Paid for Writing Something Heartfelt


So here we are then.

Nine down, three to go. Months, that is. Not resolutions.

It’s been a good year on the whole, and in many ways, things have gone so much better than I ever really imagined they might.

With regard specifically to the resolutions, number one has gone passably well, with a few occasional, predominantly biscuit-based setbacks. I have lost around five stone, which is obviously well on the way to achieving my goal by the end of the year, although I’ll definitely have to step it up for the last quarter.

I can’t say I’ve really succeeded with number two however. I have smoked tobacco occasionally, albeit almost always in joints. But of course that still counts. I have a joint between my fingers right now in fact. Hold on… Mmmmmmm, terminal illness. Although, having said that, I don’t habitually smoke cigarettes anymore. So a partial success at least.

Number three I can tick without reservation. I have definitely done more things and I have definitely met more people. So that’s good.

Number four also. I have no doubts about that. The blog has been a resounding success. I’ve loved it. It’s been good to me. Everything I said in April stands and although I can imagine my life without it, I don’t particularly want to.

Which brings us to number five. And my biggest disappointment. As I said above, in many ways, things have gone great. Who would have thought back in December that by October I would have been the proud pleaser of three magnificent vaginas? Certainly not me. Unfortunately, a vagina does not a girlfriend make. And sex was never really the point.

I’ve been looking for love. But why? What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway? Seriously though, what’s love got to do with it? With anything? What’s the fucking big deal about love?

Maybe that’s where I was going wrong.

I think it probably was.

And so I’ve decided. Balls to love. To hell with the human heart.

From now on, vaginas are where it’s at.

You know where you stand with a vagina.

You know?

My heart – if that’s what it is – is like an overripe plum, all tender and vulnerable, weeping with aimless emotion. My cock meanwhile – as fit to burst as any runny heart – is like a bludgeon. It has no heart.

I know where I stand with my cock. I need to pay it more respect.

Respect the cock.

I’m rambling, aren’t I? Sod it. If I want to ramble, I will.

Nine months.

Three vaginas.

Patricia was damaged and needy, fingers of fire and teeth eager to cut and cry out. She was the best thing that had happened to me in years. Then there was Sally. Sometimes when Sally would stare into my eyes, stroke my face and slowly lick her silver lips, I would actually feel mentally ill with desire, my insides tumbling like asteroids. It was divine while it lasted.

And then there was Morag.

I had real hope for Morag. Right up till the end. Right up, in fact, till this weekend.

I read your comments to last week’s posts. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. Well, not all of you. Some of you pissed me off, frankly. But that’s the price I have to pay for putting stuff out there.

There’s no way I can respond to all of the comments. So it’s probably best I don’t respond to any. I certainly don’t feel like it. So I'm not gonna. Some of you took against Morag though, and I think you were wrong to. I think she was straight with me throughout, or at least as straight as she could be, and that was good enough for me. And I’m no paragon of straight-talking when I get all heart-heavy and insecure. But then it’s tough to talk straight when you’re terrified of losing what you have and jeopardizing what you want.

Anyhow – probably nothing to do with what any of you may have said, so don’t feel guilty, Misssy – I drove to Brighton on Saturday.

Eyes thick with pity and knuckles sore with impotent rage, I drove to Brighton to set things straight once and for all. Fantasising as I drove. I am rooted in the me… What took you so long? You had me at hello.

I’d smoked half a joint I found under my bed. I’d drunk at least two glasses of wine. I was definitely over the limit. But apparently I didn’t care. Cool, huh?

Don’t kid yourself that I’m not a thoroughly awful, self-centred man. Because I am. Or at least I can be.

When I was half an hour away, I texted her. ‘Are you at home?’

No reply.

When I was outside of her house, I phoned her.

No reply.

I started to get paranoid. Had she blocked me?

Oh, I felt bad.

It was Saturday night. 8 o’clock. Why wasn’t she at home watching The X Factor? Why wasn’t I?

Actually, maybe she was. I steeled myself and knocked on her front door.

No reply.

Then it suddenly hit me.

‘I’m out of my fucking mind,’ I whispered.

I backed away from Morag’s house like it was on fire and clambered back into my car.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

That was the question I put to the me that was rooted in this undignified adventure, the me that was cowering in the rear view mirror, eyes acidic, ablaze, astringent. His forehead shrugged. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. I pressed him: ‘Are you a proper looney now, is that it?’ A shiny little girl holding her mother’s hand walked past the car, caught sight of me frantically hissing at my own reflection, and looked away.

I started the car, pointed it at London and drove. Fifteen minutes later I changed my mind and turned around. I found a Chinese restaurant three streets away from Morag’s and ordered some food. I sent another text message.

‘I'm not a looney, you know. I just miss you. I want to see you. Just for coffee maybe. Just to talk. xxx’

Why is it only when you press send that you realise how terrible your message sounds? Why don’t you get at least thirty seconds after sending in order to reconsider and cancel if necessary? A silent scream froze itself to my face as I waited for my message to be delivered.

Then I got a reprieve. ‘Message not sent. Retry?’

Thank God for that.

I pressed ‘Retry’.

This time it went through immediately.

I am a looney.

Minutes passed.

No reply.

She was ignoring me.

‘Unbelievable,’ I spat. ‘Fucking cow.’

Someone at the next table looked over at me, then looked away. I was well aware that I was behaving strangely. I poured myself another cup of green tea.

Then my phone beeped and I almost pulled a muscle reaching for it.

It was Keith. The shit.

‘You about?’ it said. I started texting back then got frustrated and rang him.

I told him I was in a Chinese restaurant waiting for dim sum.

‘Are you with Morag?’ he wanted to know.

‘No, I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m alone.’ I was feeling very melodramatic, very self-pitiful.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m starving. I’ll join you if you don’t mind. Are you round the corner?’

‘I’m outside London actually,’ I said.

‘Oh, where are you?’

‘I’m in Brighton.’

I explained what I’d done.

‘Fucking hell,’ said Keith. ‘You’re not having a breakdown, are you?’

‘No, no, no,’ I said, because that’s what you say when someone asks you that. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Why don’t you come home and get wrecked?’ he said. ‘I’ll pop over to Quinn’s.’

I paused for a moment and suddenly felt like I was going to burst into tears. ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘God, that sounds like a good idea. Let’s get some crack.’



Another look from the table next door.

‘Crack it is.’ Keith replied. ‘Get your arse in gear then.’

Suddenly galvanized, I called to the waitress and asked her to put my food in some bags, then I paid for it, got in the car and drove directly back to Morag’s house. I parked outside, got out and knocked abruptly on her front door. No reply. Thank God.

But I’d tried. No one can say I hadn’t tried. I came, I tried, I failed.

Now it was time to go.

Then – naturally, because life is hilarious like that – as I turned to get back in the car, there she was. Off in the distance. Walking toward me. Drifting toward me through lovers’ lamplight, her and someone else. Someone who wasn’t me. Two of them, arms wrapped like scarves against the miserable drizzle, two happy people lazily clumping home for sex. They had just rounded the corner, ten or so houses away. I inched across the pavement and slowly opened the car door. But it was too late. I’d been spotted. Morag stopped walking, disentangled herself. In my mind, I heard her curse. Then she started up again, slowly walking toward me.

I closed the car door, waited, trying desperately to think of a reason to be there that might not sound completely unhinged.

‘Hi,’ I said, as she neared.

‘What are you doing here, Stan?’ She didn’t sound angry. She sounded concerned, which was so much worse.

‘No, nothing, no,’ I shouted, far too jovially. ‘No, I just popped by on the off-chance, to see what you were up to, you know. I’ll be off now… You must be Christ,’ I assumed.

‘Chris,’ said Christ. I leaned toward him with my outstretched hand. He leaned over Morag and shook it. He was tall. Handsome. Young.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said. Then to Morag. ‘I’m really sorry, OK? Have a good night.’

‘Stan,’ she said.

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ I insisted, nodding, smiling, moving quickly, gurning from the driver’s seat, taking control, driving away. Bish bash bosh, I was gone and on the London Road in what seemed like minutes. All the way home, Wish by the Nine Inch Nails on repeat, window-rattlingly loud.

I was home by 10.15. By 11 I’d drunk three bottles of San Miguel, smoked a couple of joints and convinced myself that it had all been a dream.

There was no crack by the way, just in case you were wondering. Keith had assumed I was joking.

At ten minutes past midnight I received a text from Morag. ‘Are you OK?’ it said.

And you know what I did? I ignored it.

Ha!

Triumphant! Victorious! Not at all immature!

So, there we are.

Nine months in and I’m done with love. Seriously. As far as I’m concerned, love can go fuck itself. Ziplessly.

I’m done with it.

We used to read Catullus to each other, you know, some nights. That’s how fucking stupid we were.

Ha!

I don’t regret posting the Gchats, because I knew that by the end of them, Morag would come out looking good, at least to me. And I had her express permission. But you should know that I know that the only reason I really did it was because it might enable to us to get back together.

I don’t know much about women.

But I know what I like.

On the other hand, I regret it entirely. What on earth kind of way is that to carry on? Posting private conversations in public is just weird and totally without class. I need to take a long hard look at myself and what I consider acceptable behaviour. At least where other people are involved.

Done with love though. That remains.

After all, there’s only so long you can chase a wild goose. I reckon 30 years is about the limit. If you don’t give up after 30 years, then it shows a distinct lack of respect for the goose. You know? That goose is not for catching. Let it go. Chase something else.

So I’m refocusing my attention. I’ve always been too cerebral anyway. I read the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray when I was a teenager and I convinced myself I admired it. I reread it just now and hated it. Barely comprehensible pretentious garbage written by a hypocritical phoney who lived his whole life as a lie.

Done with Wilde.

Done with Art.

Done with Beauty.

Done with Truth.

Done with That Sort of Thing.

Done with love.

No more pining and moping and yearning and sighing.

No more putting the spiritual ahead of the physical

No more putting the brain ahead of the body.

And what better time to make that shift than now that I’m under 16 stone for the first time in God knows how many years. Now I need to consolidate with bananas and weights.

Secondly, no more intimacy. Intimacy fucks things up.

No more talking before sex, or indeed afterwards.

No more getting to know potential sex partners.

No more meeting anyone who reads this blog and knows more about me than what they see when they meet me cold: my large elbow-heavy head, my dead-eyed gaze and my increasingly impressive musculature.

No more confusing emotional need with physical lust.

I'm not done with lust. I'm just getting going on that.

I'm just done with love. And so on.

Good.

I’m glad I’ve got that sorted.

So what else is new?

Ah, yes, number six :: Get Paid for Writing Something Heartfelt.

Please. Don’t get me started. I’m beginning to think that finding love – which doesn’t exist – might actually be easier than getting an editor to reply to an email. What fuckers they are. At least I got a sniff, a backstairs whisper of what love might be like, had it existed, and at least when the love thing fell apart, at least the women involved had the good grace and common decency to dump me to my face. More or less.

If you’re an editor of a magazine, answer me this :: where the fuck do you get off not even deigning to answer emails? Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are? How difficult is it to have a standard rejection on hand that you can just send out when you need to? Even a single fucking word would be better – more courteous – than nothing. I don’t care if you're busy with presidential elections and the collapse of Capitalism. It takes seconds to say no. You know? I’m a human being and I deserve some rudimentary respect. Don't ignore me. Otherwise you come across as self-centred, egotistical, heartless shits, the lot of you.

So. There we have it.

Nine down. Three to go.

Obviously, it's not over yet.

But it will be soon.

When I started this blog, my plan was always to stop after a year. I thought that if I hadn’t achieved my goals, then at least I’d have a catalogue of failure to weep over in my dotage. Actually I didn’t. I had no idea what would happen. I just thought, try for a year, then stop. Whether I was still fat or not, whether I was still smoking or not, whether I was still a lonely old freak pleasuring oven gloves behind closed curtains or not, I would stop.

Now I can’t imagine stopping. But the way I feel at the moment, I might stop anyway just to spite myself.

I’m lost.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

I’m thinking I might do a Henry Miller, run away to Paris and whore myself into an early grave. Or a late grave, as it was in his case.

Ironically it was Morag who said I should read some Henry Miller. I say ironically, because reading Tropic of Cancer this week is bringing all kinds of misogynistic urges to the fore, of which Morag, being quite the feminist, would most certainly not approve.

Oh well.

Never mind.

Actually, I’m not convinced these urges are misogynistic. They’re merely misanthropic. Soulless.

This passage for instance, is a good example of the kind of stuff that's really firing me up as I read:


‘…O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider. I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you’ll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris’ chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces…’


Sorry if the language offended you. But not really. I’m not sorry. I love it. Because there’s no love in it, just a cynical rampage through life. Cold, but celebratory. Celebratory, but cold. I approve.

Done with love.

Fuck it.

Do you know what I mean? I mean that my heart has turned to bone. Ossification of the love muscle has been transacted.

I do not believe in love.

Love does not exist.

The stuff my heart has tried and failed to feel with any conviction, the stuff that you people allow to rule and ruin your lives, that is not love - or it may be love but it does not conform to the naïve notion of Romantic Love I had in my ludicrous head. Rather, it’s just some hormonal tick to trick you into staying together and raising children. It’s a genetically modified chemical blindfold. You wear it gladly because you’re hardwired to do so. Good for you.

I really think I might fuck some whores.

This is absolutely fascinating. It’s the oldest profession, you know.

So what else is new?

Well, the ache in my drum has returned. So much so that I've decided I've probably got stomach cancer. I shouldn’t complain though. You’re only as healthy as you feel. You’re only… as healthy… as… you… feel. Anyone?

I’m supposed to be finding somewhere to live too. What happened to that?

And yes, I know this is the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written, and I know I’ve written an awful lot of self-indulgent things over the last nine months. So sue me.

And yes, I fully expect to find myself embarrassedly apologising next week for temporarily morphing into the loveless monster you read before you, this polar opposite to everything I’ve ever said, thought or felt. But fuck it, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll take a whore while I'm still in the mood and maybe I'll take to money-fucking like a zipless duck to water. Maybe this is the new me.

And yes, I know that time heals all wounds.

And yes, of course I know that Morag will read this post. Why do you think I'm posting it in the first place? What? You don't think it will work?

Only kidding.

Done with love.



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Monday 6 October 2008

Fucker

Came home tonight,
I felt like I’d die of loneliness.
Strange, you think… popularity.
Looking for a simple life.
Life ain’t simple.
I’m tired and sick but I… don’t wanna be alone

Could go to a party,
But I don’t really want to.
For now I’m sitting out here on my porch.
Writing in the dark air,
Listening to… my little black cat miaow.

Trying to vent some of the terrible passion
That’s coursing through me.
Something about you,
Something about spending the afternoon... asleep in your arms…

I hate you.

Fucker.



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Friday 3 October 2008

The Morag Situation #5 :: Have you ever been in love?

Seven weeks ago…

Morag: So have you ever been in love?

Scat: I’m not really sure.

Morag: If you’re not sure, then you probably haven’t.
I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but when it happens, you know.
You know?

Scat: Oh, I didn’t realize it was that simple. In that case, yes. Yes, I have.

Morag: Really?

Scat: Yes.

Morag: Who with?

Scat: Just some chick.

Morag: Stan.

Scat: Yes, babe?

Morag: Don’t be a jerk.

Scat: I’m not really, I just… OK, what do you want to know?

Morag: Well, what was her name?

Scat: Her name was Zuhal.

Morag: Zuhal?

Scat: Zuhal.

Morag: That’s an unusual name.

Scat: She was an unusual girl.

Morag: Where did you meet her?

Scat: I met her at the candy store.
No, just kidding.
I met her at Glastonbury a few summers ago. She was selling toffee apples to help disadvantaged kittens or somesuch.
I bought all of them.
50 toffee apples.
Then we went round the kiddies’ area together giving them away to little children.

Morag: Awww. That’s lovely, Stan.

Scat: Oh God, I’m sorry. Please say you didn’t believe me.

Morag: Oh you shit. Of course I believed you. Who would make up such a thing?

Scat: Oh come on, disadvantaged kittens?

Morag: I didn’t necessarily believe that bit, but the rest seemed plausible.

Scat: Sorry.
I actually met Zuhal on a film set. We were both extras on The Passion of the Christ.

Morag: Oh COCK OFF!!!
I’m never going to believe another word you say.

Scat: Our first date was entirely in Latin.

Morag: Does she even exist at all in fact?

Scat: No.
Sorry.
And I’ve never been to Glastonbury.

Morag: Unbelievable.

Scat: Sorry.

Morag: So you haven’t been in love then?

Scat: I think I have. I mean, I’ve suffered all the symptoms. I’ve vomited and wept and gone to sleep and woke up feeling completely obsessed with someone, but it’s never necessarily been reciprocated.
Basically if there’s more to love than vomiting and pain, then no, I probably haven’t.

Morag: Aww.

Scat: What about you?
Have you ever been in love?

Morag: Yeah, twice I think.

Scat: When you’ve been in love, you don’t think. You KNOW.

Morag: Oh yeah. Twice then.

Scat: Once with Ollie. And…?

Morag: A guy called Duke.

Scat: Duke? Like Mussolini? Il Duce?

Morag: I guess.

Scat: Was he like Mussolini in other ways?

Morag: I don’t know much about Mussolini to be honest.
Did Mussolini drive a Nissan Micra?

Scat: Yes.

Morag: Did he have Celtic tattoos all over his arms and neck?

Scat: I believe he did, yes.

Morag: Did Mussolini have flesh panels?

Scat: Panels of flesh?

Morag: Flesh panels are those discs that go in people’s ear lobes and stretch them out.
That's what he called them anyway. The internet doesn't seem to agree.

Scat: Oh God, so that there’s just a big hoop of skin dangling down when they take them out?

Morag: Typical.

Scat: Like a broken condom?

Morag: Yes, those.

Scat: Yeah, yeah, Mussolini had flesh panels.

Morag: Then yes. He was very like Mussolini.

Scat: What was it you loved about Mussolini then?

Morag: I think it was more what he represented. He was much older than me and – potentially at least – much wiser. I was only 17 when we started seeing each other and we were together for like, five years.

Scat: God, that’s a long time.

Morag: Then I found out he was seeing not one other person, but about half a dozen other people most of the time we were together. He didn’t treat me very well. But he was like an outlaw, you know?

Scat: In a Nissan Micra?

Morag: Yeah, he used to do graffiti. He wasn’t very good actually, but he was brave. You would see his name in some very hard to get to places.

Scat: Duke?

Morag: Yeah.

Scat: He sounds like a dick.

Morag: He was a dick. But for a while there, I loved him.
I was consumed by him.
Love is blind.

Scat: I’ve always taken solace from that.

Morag: I love your back.

Scat: I’m sorry?

Morag: Your back. I want to bite it.

Scat: Oh come on, my back is vile. It’s all flaccid skin and stretchmarks.

Morag: I like it.

Scat: You loved it a second ago. Had you forgotten about the stretchmarks?

Morag: No. I do love it. And I love your hands.

Scat: My hands are nice. I’ll give you that.

Morag: Thank you.

Scat: I’ve always thought that if Jesus was real, He’d have hands pretty much like mine.

Morag: Um…

Scat: Shall I tell you what I like about you?

Morag: OK then.

Scat: I like the way the skin on the inner walls of your thighs is like the smoothest, softest thing in the universe. Like warm mercury wrapped in the skin from angels’ wings.

Morag: Um…

Scat: Like the skin on the rice pudding of the gods.
No?
OK, I like the dark curls on the nape of your neck, I like how your skin tingles when I kiss you there.
I love the small of your back and the swell of your hips and the rise and fall of your belly when you sleep.
I love your breasts, and I love your hair, and I love your eyes and your lips and your sharp ways.

Morag: You’ve been watching me sleep?
What sharp ways?

Scat: A bit.
You know.

Morag: You mean my tongue?

Scat: Yes. I love the sharpness of your tongue.
Even if it hurts.
Maybe even because it hurts. I’m weird like that.

Morag: You’re using the L-word a lot.

Scat: No biggie. I love cats and baked potatoes and Chai Steamers too.

Morag: You didn’t know what a Chai Steamer was till last week.

Scat: I know! I’ve so much to thank you for.

Morag: You’re funny.
You make me laugh.

Scat: What am I, a clown? I’m here to amuse you?

Morag: No, you know, the way you tell the story and everything.

Scat: Awww.
Are you sure we should be chatting so much, what with us just being fuck buddies and all?

Morag: I don’t think there are any rules, are there?

Stan: I guess not.
Or at least if there are I don’t know them.

Morag: Me neither.
Are you coming down this weekend then?

Stan: Try and stop me.

Morag: I don’t want to stop you.
I want your hands in my muff.

Stan: …
There is no emoticon for what I’m feeling right now.
I can’t believe my luck.

Morag: Believe it.

Stan: OK.
~believes~



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Thursday 2 October 2008

The Morag Situation #4 :: So why did we stop?

Later last week...

Scat: So when can we have our first French lesson?
Allo?
Allo?

Morag: Stan, I think we should stop being in touch for now.

Scat: Mais non!

Morag: Oui. I’m sorry.

Scat: But why? I thought we were going to be just good friends.

Morag: I don’t think it’s a good idea.
At least not for now.

Scat: You don’t think I can handle it?

Morag: I don’t think it’s particularly healthy for you. Or me for that matter.
For either of us.

Scat: But it’s not like we were going out together in the first place.

Morag: Isn’t it? I think it’s exactly like that.

Scat: So why did we stop?
I really liked it, Morag.
I don’t understand how we got from there to here.
I don’t really know what happened.

Morag: I just don’t think we were singing from the same hymn sheet, Stan.

Scat: Ugh. God. Not the hymn sheet.
Anything but the hymn sheet.

Morag: Sorry.

Scat: I think we were though, that’s the thing.
You just ran off before we could start on a new hymn.

[Time passes.]

Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

Morag: God no.

Scat: I really miss you already.

Morag: This is why I think we should stop communicating for a while.

Scat: For a while? What does that even mean?

Morag: It means let’s see how it goes.

Scat: Let’s see how singing hymns with Christ goes, you mean?
I bet Christ's great at singing hymns.

Morag: You’re just going to have to give me some time to figure out what I want. And I want to give you time to figure out what you want.

Scat: I know what I want.

Morag: Do you? Are you sure?

Scat: Absolutely.

Morag: Well, I’m not. I’m sorry.

[Time passes.]

Scat: I feel sick.

Morag: I’m going to block you on chat for a while, OK?

Scat: Oh Jesus Christ, please don’t do that.

Morag: I have to, Stan, otherwise we’re just going to carry on getting embroiled in these conversations and it’s not going to help either of us.

[Time passes.]

Morag: Stan?

Scat: OK.
OK.
OK.
Fair enough.

[Time passes.]

I’ll miss you, Morag.

Morag: I’ll miss you too.

Scat: OK. I’m ready.
Block me.

Morag: Bye, Stan.

Scat: Do it.

Morag: xxx

[Time passes.]

Morag is offline. Messages you send will be delivered when Morag comes online.


...

Comment whoring :: I'll reply to all of the comments from the last few days at the weekend, I promise. There's a little too much to take on board at the moment. I need the space of a Saturday morning... In the meantime, let me ask you :: do you know of anyone who met their partner on the internet and it's actually worked out? I know of one. Hen's teeth, innit?



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Wednesday 1 October 2008

The Morag Situation #3 :: Did you fuck Christ?

Last week…

Scat: So did you have a nice weekend?

Morag: Hey.
Yeah, it was OK.

Scat: Where did you go?

Morag: Just stayed here in the end.

Scat: What, you didn’t go anywhere?

Morag: Nah.

Scat: So what did you do?

Morag: My friend came to see me here.

Scat: Ah. OK.
You’re not making this very easy.

Morag: ?

Scat: OK. So be it. So this friend, was it a lady friend or a gentleman caller?

Morag: His name is Christ. I used to work with him. I’ve known him for a while.

Scat: His name is Christ?

Morag: Oops. I mean Chris. Sorry. I always put an extra ‘t’ on the end of Christ when I’m typing it.
See?
It's like a finger-tick.

Scat: So did you fuck him?
Did you fuck Christ?

Morag: You sure you want to know?

Scat: I think I already do, don’t I?

Morag: Yeah, we had sex.

Scat: Cool. I’m happy for you.

Morag: Thanks.

Scat: Was it any good?

Morag: Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thanks.

Scat: Not at all. I’m pleased for you.
That’s excellent.

Morag: How was your weekend?

Scat: Shit, thanks.
Utter shit.

Morag: I’m sorry, Stan.
How did it go with your dad?

Scat: Hey, no worries. Is he good looking, this Christ fellow?

Morag: Yeah, he‘s quite good looking.

Scat: Brilliant. Very pleased. Smiling all over my face for you now.

Morag: Oh come on. You’re not even that ugly yourself.
All this ugly stuff is such an overblown pile of shite.

Scat: I’VE BEEN SPAT ON!

Morag: AND I’VE BEEN HEAD-BUTTED! AND IT DOESN’T MEAN A FUCKING THING!!!
All it means is there are some arseholes in this world.
Get over it.

Scat: You get over it.

Morag: Oh, don't be childish.

Scat: You don't be childish.

Morag: Right OK Stan. I think I better go.

Scat: Wait wait wait don’t go.

Morag: What?

Scat: Are you going to see me again?

Morag: I’m not sure that’s such a good idea at the moment.

Scat: OK.
Cool.

Morag: Let’s just see how things pan out.

Scat: What about Christ? Will you be seeing a bit more of Christ?

Morag: I don’t know, Stan.

Scat: Look, I don’t know how this is like suddenly a big deal. It’s really not, you know. We’re just fuck buddies. We WERE just fuck buddies, whatever, I’m over it. Just be straight with me, I can take it.

Morag: Yes then. I think we’re going to give it a go. He’s been interested in me for a while.

Scat: Cunt.
Sorry sorry sorry.
That just slipped out of my fingers.

Morag: Stan.

Scat: Fucking shit.

Morag: Look, I’d better go.

Scat: Let’s still chat a bit. I promise I’ll be OK. You can still teach me French. Hm?

Morag: OK, we’ll see. I got to go.

Scat: OK. Have fun.

Morag: Seeya.

Scat: Seeya.
Bye.
Don’t become a stranger.
x

Morag is offline. Messages you send will be delivered when Morag comes online.


...

Comment whoring :: How is it possible that I - a fairly intelligent human being - can be such an incredible arsehole?



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