Out With the Old

It’s a wonderful life, don’t get me wrong, but there can be no denying that it’s been a fusty old twat of a year. On the whole. If you don’t mind me saying. This is not a complaint, mind you. Heaven forfend. Just a mild and timely lament. End of the year. Looking back. Looking forward. All that.

I feel like it’s time for a change. You know? I’m bored with myself. I need a new direction and new things to occupy my time.

And what better time for embarking on a new direction than the beginning of a whole new decade? Sadly, however, it’s not as simple as that. Why are things never as simple as that?

The fact is, there are already some pretty exciting changes in the pipeline for the twenty-tens, but - alas - there are also already grumblings from concerned parties who don’t want me flapping my mandibles on the blog. Can you believe it? Can you believe I’m allowing other people to dictate what I choose to talk about? I find it difficult to believe. And monumentally frustrating. I just want to defy them. I want to follow my instincts, master my destiny, plough my own furrow and ride my own melt. But then I don’t want to fuck anything up. Or do I? Oh, it's so difficult to be sure.

One thing I do know for sure though, one way or the other there will be no more of this laborious doubletalk in 2010.

That's a promise.

Also, I’m pretty sure, 2010 is going to be smashing. Good years are like bald men – they skip a generation. 2008 was pretty great. 2009 was barely fine. 2010 will be great again. I feel it.

Last night I realised something quite shocking. I realised that I had drunk almost an entire litre of vodka in just two evenings. Alone. I consoled myself with the fact that I'd also gone through a bottle of Kahlua in the same time, but quickly and thankfully I realised that this was meagre consolation.



Things have definitely got to change.

2010.

My year.

You'll see.

Before we say goodbye for this year, however, I’d just like to share with you a couple of new year’s resolutions which I know I am destined to break almost before I have made them. But I want to make them anyway.

One, I resolve to stop reading film reviews on IMDb. This year I became a bit obsessed by them. Especially the bad ones. I would look up my favourite films and just read all the bad reviews. I'm not even sure why. Presumably I took some pleasure in the fury they gave rise to. On reflection, I don’t think that’s an enormously profitable way to spend one's time. Unless... unless I can make an unconscionably diverting quiz out of it all. Or even a marginally diverting quiz. Or even just a quiz, fuck it. Here it is.

THE 'GUESS THE FILM FROM THE IMDb REVIEW' CHRISTMAS QUIZ SPECTACULAR

Go!

1. 'I have no use for children porn and this is truly a disturbing film. The only remotely normal people are the Homosexuals who live next door. The three main family groups are all living on another planet. The acting is good but the story is a monument to the total meltdown of our culture.'

2. ‘I can't imagine how this could be more depressing. It has no forward momentum. It seems to lack the generous helping of wit that would push the material anywhere near the vicinity of "entertainment." Maybe you had to see it the moment it was released to have a fond recall of it. Maybe being a weed fiend would help. Maybe being British...’

3. ‘The performances here are lazy. The camera-work is not as good as Death Wish. Everything is sub par, including the awful soundtrack.’

4. ‘I mean the ending is so predictable and I guessed the ending of the movie since the beginning of the romance, breakup and welcome back and another (I will not mention the ending)... but you could have guessed.’

and

‘Now I am not one of those ignorami who hate movies made before 1970... While the work of [the leading actors] may have been good for it's time it is insufficient compared to todays advanced standards.’

5. ‘As a somewhat well read person, I thought this movie was a self indulgent poor imitation of a seinfeld episode.’

and

‘The movie crawls at a pace that would make operating heavy machinery while watching impossible’

6. ‘it is silly and immature and anyone who likes it must have the mind of a child. it is really stupid.please if your considering watching this please take caution.oh and if you were thinking of watching the other one please don't it is worse... the humor in it is just stupid i mean i see it on the screen and i just don't laugh it just not funny!!’

7. ‘None of the characters are likable or interesting and the whole experience is like someone being sick on your face.’

8. 'I watched this terribly long, boring, slow, bloody, gory, silly film several times. Why, or why was that so overestimated? What for? It has nothing, but too much blood, sex, more blood, more sex, child molesting, more blood, more child death, child sex, more blood, more slow talks, more long shots, more blood and more molesting. Raping, killing, talking, sex in a car, more fights, more sex... I am not a sick person. This film did make me feel sick. Why was it made?.'

9. 'I was expecting a COMEDY for crying out loud. And I'm just waiting for a funny moment to arrive. All those stupid gags and dumb jokes and situations are so bland and tedious to watch. It gets too repetitive and uninteresting. I don't know, maybe its a European or American thing but this is not my idea of a funny movie. And what more can I say...even the makers of the movie knew that the jokes were so not funny that all those cameos had to be used...and still, to no good result. My recommendation...If u want a comedy movie on rock n roll watch "School of Rock".

and

'This is really not a good movie. I looked on IMDB and saw this movie on the top 250 and thought for sure it was one of the signs of the apocolypse... Please, oh please don't tell me "you must not have a good sense of humor" either, cause I know at least 50 people that have only met me once or twice that could tell you otherwise.'

10. 'This movie made absolutely no sense to me (and I'm not a stupid person...IQ in the 140's) until just before it ended...meaning I just sat there for about 90 minutes wondering what I was watching. '

11. 'I came to this movie expecting smart satire and cinematic invention. The first 30 minutes of this film offended me on every level possible! It is grotesque and perverse and sophomoric. I can't remember hating a film more. I never had the stomach to finish this disaster of a film, which is ugly to the eyes and the soul.'

12. 'The boxing scenes are very amateur in execution, none of them have the shocking realism of Rocky IV... Rocky movies make you sit up and take notice. They move you. [This film] moved me, too. Right out of the cinema.
’

Answers here.

Now tell me that wasn't fun. (Don't actually tell me. Unless you're that particularly unpleasant and embittered troll who keeps bothering me. You can tell me. And I shall ignore you.)

Secondly. No more pornography. It’s really vile. What reminded me of its vileness was reading the unspeakably rank Rock Her World by Seymore Butts. Do you know that despite the vastness of that review, there were still heaps of other quotes which, for one reason or another, made me shake my head. I wanted to share them with you, but there was no space. So, as a special Christmas treat, a stocking-filler, I present them here, as The Seymore Butts Guide to Life & Love & Whatnot...

Butts on sincerity: ‘Let’s face it, in order to bed over six hundred women you’ve got to be willing to say or do anything it takes to achieve your goal – whether you really mean it or not.’

Butts on feminine hygiene: ‘If you or anyone else are dumping loads of sperm into your partner and she’s letting them ferment inside of her instead of rinsing out after each deposit, you can expect her pussy to smell like the inside of a peep show booth.’

Butts on cunnilingus: ‘Let’s be honest, some of you guys approach pussy like a starving Indian would a tandoori chicken.’

Butts on the apparent non-existence of women experienced in anal: ‘You will encounter two types of women: those who are open to the idea of anal sex but inexperienced, and women who seem to be closed to the idea.’

Butts on bars and clubs: ‘These are what I call “sexually charged social environments” – places that, when I’m in a relationship, I avoid like I would being raped by Shaquille O’Neal as he sang, “Tell me how my ass tastes!”’

Butts on rejection, horses: ‘Get back on your horse and start looking for another filly to saddle up.’

Butts on successfully bribing a bouncer and getting into a night club ahead of a queue with a woman: ‘The next sound you hear should be that distinctive squish coming from between your date’s legs as she becomes turned on by your ability to take charge and get things handled.’

Butts on the embarrassment of being a woman: ‘Most of the potentially embarrassing situations that can and do happen during sex happen to women.’

Butts on Holly: ‘We might not have made it to the restaurant but that didn’t stop her from ordering up some stuffed sphincter with a side of ass à la mode or either of us from eating plenty of brown-eye pie. For our final course, it was hot loads of sweet cream in Holly’s hot buns as she screamed with delight.’

Butts on butter: ‘We wrapped after both girls lovingly snowballed Steven’s nut butter.’

Butts on the dangers of spicing things up: ‘No joke, you can very easily kill your partner by choking her. Don’t try telling me you know what you’re doing either; that’s what hundreds of guys say every year before they accidentally kill the women they are having sex with.’

And finally, Butts on life: ‘The proof is in the pudding.’

No, Butts. No, it isn’t.

So yes. That's that. Done with porn. It’s dirty. From now on, I shall devote myself to the works of Ellen von Unwerth. Thanks to the delightful piece of adorable that is ScruffyPanther, I came across Von Unwerth's photos only last week. (No porn intended.) And they're wicked.





Woof.

Thirdly - actually no. That's it.

Now I am out of here till Twenty-Ten, which sounds so far in the future as to be just silly. Will there be hover boards? Yes. Yes, there will. In the meantime, and for most of the rest of the decade, I'm back up here in the frozen North, where even skate boards still bring forth oohs and aahs of confused awe. I should be back in time to finish my vodka on New Year's Eve.

2010.

My year.

What about you? Anything special planned for the next decade?

Deal Or No Deal?

No deal.

Seymore Butts :: Putting the Anal in Banal

About a month ago I received an interesting email, apropos of nothing, from a lady at Penguin – the publishers, not the wacky dildo people. She said she wanted to share a book with you, my discerning readers. She said she knew you’d love it. It was about sex. Everybody loves sex. So she sent it to me, hoping I’d devour it with alacrity and urge you all, with all of my heart, to rush out and buy it for Christmas. And I tried. Believe me, I spent hours trying to write a glowing review with a none-too subtle sardonic undertone, but it didn’t work. The fact is, this book is such a rancid, horrible mess that I couldn’t even pretend to like it. In actual fact, if I’m completely honest, I think Rock Her World by Seymore Butts is probably the worst book I’ve ever read - and remember, I’ve read both Jeffrey Archer and Dan Brown. So, with apologies to Jenny Chun of Penguin, who I’m sure was just doing her job and is actually unutterably lovely, I forbid you, my discerning readers, I forbid you to buy this odious mound of literary effluent. Really. The man makes Chris Moyles look like Vladimir Nabokov. (Don’t buy Chris Moyles either. VERBOTEN!) Now, it’s safe to say that certain groups of people have a poor reputation for intellectual prowess. Models, for example. Football players, for another. Toilet attendants, boxers, BNP voters, people who work in Argos. And, of course, porn stars. Now I don’t know if Seymore Butts is considered a cerebral giant in the world of porn, but let me tell you, when he isn’t ball-deep in stretched rectum, or else pointing a camera at someone who is, Seymore Butts is a moron. And I neither use this term lightly, nor mean it as an insult. What I mean is that, having studied Butts and the language he uses to convey his ideas, I have concluded that he has the mental age of someone aged between 8 and 12 years old, and therefore, according to the original medical classification, he is, unequivocally, a moron. And that is nothing to be ashamed of. At least he’s not an imbecile. But should Penguin really be paying him good money to write horrible, rancid books? I’m not so sure. ‘This isn’t your ordinary book,’ says Butts at the offset. Of course, he’s flattering himself. This is barely a book at all. It’s more like a soiled bib around the neck of a retarded sex pest.

For the rest of this remarkable review, Stan recommends you go here and purchase a copy of The Little Book of Shame. Not only does it contain the article you're currently reading, it also contains around 50 others, and all for the incredible price of whatever price it happens to be at the moment. You lucky thing you. 

Not Just For Christmas

I was out and about in central London yesterday and crikey. You forget. London at Christmas is insane. All that jostling and tension. All those angry shoppers and boozed-up Santas.



It reminded me of something I heard recently when I was listening – kind of by accident – to the audiobook of Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People. It apparently formed part of the Christmas advertising of a New York department store, back in the day. You may find it trite, tedious and a little bit sick-making. If so, you may bugger off. I find it rather special, and of course - really - it has nothing to do with Christmas.

The Value of A Smile At Christmas

It costs nothing but creates much.



It enriches those who receive without impoverishing those who give.

It happens in a flash, and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.



None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.

It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.

It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and nature's best antidote for trouble.



Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody until it is given away.

And if in the last minute rush of Christmas buying, some of our sales people should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours? For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give.

Eh? Eh? You see?

So - it's my birthday tomorrow. And the two-year anniversary of the blog on Tuesday. I was planning to do something pretty spectacular, but you know how it is, the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. Added to which, there is family stuff afoot. My grandmother is going into hospital on Wednesday to have her arthritic foot sliced and scraped. My mum was going to be there to look after her, but for reasons which shall remain her own, she cannot. So I'm going up there. Not sure how yet. Thinking of something quite radical at the moment. Probably won't come to fruition though. You know how it is. Aft agley.

Anyway, if I don't see you for a while, be good.

32! How novel.

Bad Friend

Out of sight, out of mind. That's what they say. And I hate to admit it, but except in the cases of romantic obsession, I fear they are right. In my case at least. But then maybe I'm just monumentally self-centred. What do you think? Oh, I don't care. Button it.

Anyway, the reason for this self-berating is that my very best friend since not long after I was born, also not known as Keith, posted something on his blog almost two weeks ago and I have only just now got round to looking at it. What a shit. To be honest, if this something hadn't been quite so spectacular, I might just have moved onto something else, forgotten all about my so-called best friend for another month and not even bothered berating myself. But it was. Spectacular, that is.

Look:



Isn't it? Wow. It really is a pleasure to have such talented friends. That I never see. Or let's face it, barely ever think about.

God, I'm cold.

Anyway, then he went on to do this:



Go to his site at once and reward him with your praise. Oh, and if you're in the market for an unusual and unique gift for the Christ day, then he's also selling his stuff. Think about it. I've got one of his pictures on my wall, next to a Kandinsky print, and I'm the coolest person in London.

A Perfectly Civilised Street Crime

Henry Chinaski - Charles Bukowski’s alter ego in Barfly - says, ‘I don’t hate the police… but I seem to feel better when they’re not around.’ That’s pretty much how I feel. Although sometimes, it has to be said, I hate them.

I don’t know whether it will surprise you or not to know this, but over the years, and without meaning to over-egg it, I’ve had my fair share of police encounters. A small handful, let’s say. A Beadle handful. As both crime victim and alleged perpetrator. And when they’ve been on my side, they’ve generally been mostly very sympathetic and humane. But when they’ve not been on my side, they’ve generally been disrespectful, abusive and just awful. Until that is, last Thursday evening. Let me tell you what happened.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I'd met someone who had some excellent green stuff. Well, I met him again early on Thursday evening and he supplied me with some of said self-same stuff. He probably deserves a name at this stage. I might call him Danny, as if he were my very own offspring. Errant Danny. My wayward son. It is written. So I left Errant Danny in west London and made my way to Oxford Circus where I met up with my old friend, Shambling Luther. Luther bought me a drink and we went outside to sample Errant Danny’s wares. We crossed the street with our plastic glasses and found a little window ledge in an adjoining back street.

I set about rolling a one-skinner. As I did so, I noticed a couple of chaps up the street, maybe ten feet away, loitering on the corner. I saw one of them looking straight at me and I assumed that a) he knew what I was doing, and b) he was probably a little envious. I know that whenever I see people smoking joints in the street, that’s how I feel. I even briefly imagined him coming over and asking if he could have a little, as occasionally happens. Anyhow, I carried on chatting to Shambling Luther. As it happens, we were chatting about the inherent risk involved in carrying smelly green stuff around London, what with all the sniffer dogs about the place, and police everywhere.

I finished making the joint and put it in my mouth. This would be the first tobacco I’d smoked in almost two weeks. I inhaled, but the light hadn’t taken. I was about to light it again when I saw that the two chaps on the corner were no longer on the corner, but were coming over. Naïve fool that I am, I still imagined they were going to ask if they could maybe purchase a little green stuff for themselves. In fact, I thought that right up until the moment one of them took out his badge and said something about the Metropolitan Police.

‘You have to be joking,’ I said, meaning it. Like there was no way this could really be happening. Like I was determined to cling to the paradise of the past, the good old days before everything had become tarnished, before the universe had become the heinous, unholy, nonsensical place it now was. They simply had to be joking.

They weren’t joking.

The first officer – let’s call him Bryan – reached out and took the tiny unsmoked joint from my hand. I think he said something about ‘a controlled substance’ as he placed the offending item in a jiffy bag and asked me if I had any more about my person.

‘You know I have,’ I said, sadly, the realisation of what was happening sinking onto me like a poison.

‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘I do.’

With a heart as heavy as a barrel of bricks, I reached into my pocket and handed over £50 worth of the finest green stuff I hadn’t smoked in a long time. It really hurt. It didn’t seem fair.

Meanwhile the other officer was performing a perfunctory search of Shambling Luther’s person. ‘He hasn’t got anything,’ I said. ‘It’s all here.’

I asked if I could see the first officer’s badge again, just on the off chance it was all an elaborate scam by London-Omar types, small-time rip-and-run merchants on the make. When he showed me the badge a second time, I asked if I could take a photo. I told him I wanted to write about it, fully expecting him to say no. Instead he placed his badge on the window-ledge, right there on Errant Danny’s wacky stash-purse.



I've blurred his number so that he doesn't get in trouble with his colleagues for showing humanity.

Then he wrote up the incident, which he also let me photograph - but not the face, which, for an undercover copper, is probably fair enough.



He began by explaining the recent changes in the law, including the latest reclassification and explained that I would be receiving a warning.

I probably asked Bryan three times during the interview if he might not bring himself to just, you know, give me the stuff back, or at least some of it, maybe just one of the two little bags. Or even just the mini-joint. It would be a gesture. ‘I wish I could,’ he said.

‘But you can,’ I coaxed. ‘Just say yes.’

‘No,’ he said.

He asked me how much I’d paid.

‘Fifty quid!’ I cried, scandalised.

He asked me my name.

I wanted to refuse. ‘I’m anonymous!’ I wanted to yell. 'I disclose my identity to no man!' I told him my name instead. He asked me where I’d purchased the drugs. I wanted to tell him. ‘I got it from Errant Danny, who resides at 420, London High Street.’ But instead I said, ‘You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?’

He said, ‘No. Shall I just put “street”?’

I said yes and thanked him for his sensitivity.

It really was remarkably civilised. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that, essentially, I was being robbed, I would have counted it as one of the most heart-warming first impressions I’ve enjoyed for some time.

At one point – in a moment of desperation – I tried something outlandish. I held the gaze of the second officer - let's call him Ross - and I told him, earnestly, ‘These are not the drugs you’re looking for.’

He rewarded me with a slightly indulgent laugh, for which I was grateful, but it was not my greatest Jedi mind moment, it has to be said. I was like a poor man’s Derren Brown tribute act. I was like Dan Brown. Dan Beige even.

‘What about a bribe?’ I ventured. ‘What if I was to offer you the single ten-pound note in my pocket?’

To which Ross replied, ‘A couple of pints of Kronenberg would probably do the job.’

My eyes lit up. ‘Really?’

He shook his head. ‘No. not really,’ he said.

At the beginning of the exchange, Bryan had asked me if I had any photo ID, but then amidst all the bonhomie, he seemed to have forgotten about it. I reminded him and asked if he still needed to see any. I could be anyone, after all. He said it wasn’t necessary, as I was clearly being cooperative and civil. He said if I had been uncooperative, he would have had me against the wall and searched me properly. I imagined plastic, powdery gloves and enemas. I was touched that it wasn't happening.

‘You two are going to get so wrecked later,’ I said. ‘That’s really good stuff.’

‘Nah,’ said Bryan. ‘I don’t smoke.’

‘You used to though,’ I said, ‘before you were a policeman. I bet. Eh?’

He looked at me, smiled and paused long enough to clearly indicate that the answer was a resounding 'hell, yeah!'

‘No,’ he said. How we laughed.

‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ I said, politely exasperated. ‘Isn’t it?’

He agreed. ‘It’s the system,’ he said.

‘The system’s an arse,’ I said.

‘Yep,’ he said.

I asked him how come they happened to have been hanging around. ‘We’re everywhere,’ he said. He said they were particularly concentrated around Oxford Street because it’s a bit of a crime black-spot. A veritable street theft jamboree. I pointed out the irony. ‘You’re here to stop street crime!’ I hooted. ‘And here you are mugging me!’

He laughed generously. I’ve been mugged a few times, but this was by far the most humane. And as police experiences go, nothing could be further than my last experience. They asked me what had happened. I told them, mentioning that the arresting officer in particular had been a bad egg of the highest order. ‘With all due respect,’ I said, ‘he was an enormous cunt.’ I wondered as I said it whether I might have crossed a line.

Ross replied without pause. ‘About 90% of them are,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘And we have to work with them.’

It was very refreshing, and almost worth a pair of lost ponies for the insight into a different side of policing.

But not quite.

‘You do know I’m just going to have to go straight back and get some more, don’t you?’ I said at some stage.

‘That’s what everyone says,’ replied Bryan. ‘“I’m not gonna stop doing it.”’

I shrugged.

We are a nation of children.

The next morning Errant Danny became Healing Danny and helped me out with some of his own supply, which was very kind and much appreciated. He understands, you see. Restless souls have needs.

I left Danny’s around 1pm on Friday and wrote the following in lovely big note book:

The sun is out. You can smell it. It is a striking day. I’m gliding along the broad bright platform of an unfamiliar train station luxuriating in a five-minute break, chewing over recent events as I wait for my connection. Loud dramatic pop is emoting for all it’s worth in my ears, transporting me to a slightly more cinematic universe. The train appears on cue and transforms itself gradually, gracefully, from a glinting pin-prick of light on the horizon to a perfectly ordinary full-sized train. That’s physics.

Through the glass of scratched train-windows, I smell the sun through my eyes. It reminds me of holidays, and I feel right with the world and right with myself for the rest of the afternoon. And I get a hell of a lot done.

It’s a highly beneficent treatment, this green stuff, and personally I consider it a symptom of a rather terrible administration, and a rather backward nation, that the use of it is a criminal offence. I’m insulted. And occasionally indignant.

Anyhow, now I’m off to the countryside to eat lots of hand-picked, purely organic, naturally occurring and wholly illegal mushrooms.

Good old nature. Silly old system.

All in all then, an expensive, but interesting and somehow slightly gratifying learning experience. Don't smoke dope in the streets, kids.

Let that be a warning to you...

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rodney

I wonder, how much of your identity is tied up in your name? What do you think? I would say, in my case at least, none. This is partly because I’ve never felt close to my real name and indeed I’ve taken steps throughout my life to distance myself from it. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, however, and I think I might be growing into it, or about to grow into it. In fact, 2010 will be the year I grow into my name. Fingers crossed.

I was thinking the other day about a little boy called Rory. Rory is a mate’s kid, and he has a fine name, I’m sure you’ll agree. But what if Rory turns out to have a speech impediment? What if he has to introduce himself for the whole of his life as Wowy? That would be awful. Potentially a genuine tragedy which could only be exacerbated if he plumped for a career at Defra and had to spend his working life talking about environmental and rural affairs.

I mentioned this to Ben. Ben said this is exactly why people should be allowed to choose their own names. I asked him what name he would have chosen for himself if he’d been allowed to do so as a child. He said, 'Princess Leia.' I find it increasingly difficult to believe that he was ever married.

He asked me what name I would have chosen. ‘Fonzie,’ I replied. Thinking about it more seriously, however, and for reasons into which I am unable to go, I would have chosen the name Danny.



I’d still quite like to be a Danny. I wonder though, would my life have been any different if I’d been a Danny?

Maybe this is one of the reasons people have children, so they can give them the names they wish they’d had themselves. But maybe not. I’d like to think that babies’ faces suggest names, like cats. Parents must think, ‘Oh, she looks just like an Emily’ or ‘He has the nose of a Cyril’. But then people make mistakes. What about you? Did your parents make a mistake? Did they name you correctly - or are you a big Jesse trapped in a Jake? Hmm?

Feedback Wednesday :: A Curse On My Unblasted Dams

bulk :: 13st 11
alcohol intake :: average
tobacco :: ah, well, yes, therein lies a tale
exercise :: none
sex :: none
violence :: none
drama :: lots

Things are extremely odd at the moment. This is why I’m posting pointless little nothings about Fonzie and violent dreams, the kind of things about which my dear old friends send me snippy hurtful emails late at night. Oh, Thom. How could you?

Frustratingly, this is also one of those periods about which I cannot speak, for fear of upsetting some of the people involved. This is vastly annoying for me because I’m a gusher by nature and my dams are fit to burst. My damns too.

Ah well.

Here are some things I can talk about:

…I’ve met a few people lately, new people, interesting people. One of these is a chap I met through the blog who has an opportunity to write something for a telly programme and wondered if I’d like to try and help. I did try and help but I wasn’t very good. Or at least I certainly wasn’t anywhere near as good as I wanted to be. But we scrambled something together and he sent it off. So I have my fingers crossed, but my hopes unraised.

…I also met another person through other work, a very interesting fellow who, compared at least to most people who are on the whole fairly anodyne, is clearly quite mad. Morag told me when I saw her recently, that I am quite ‘full on’. I know she didn’t mean it as a compliment exactly so much as a statement of fact. However, I took it as a compliment. So, this other fellow is quite full on too. And I mean that as a compliment also. Thankfully, and unusually, if not outright eccentrically, he doesn’t really ‘do’ the internet, so I might tell you more about him when I have a moment. Incidentally, it was with this scamp that I smoked some tobacco the other day. He had some excellent green stuff, you see, to accompany the tobacco, and I simply had to smoke it with him. And I don’t regret it. It really was good.

…Selling out is proving more difficult than I hoped it might. I got a call from the people who are supposed to be sending me my toastie machine this morning and there is a problem. The manufacturer has run out and doesn’t know when they’ll have any more. At the moment, they’re looking at 6-8 weeks. Wastrels. Meanwhile, someone else has sent me a book they want me to review, a book about sex. It’s pretty fucking grotty if you want to know the truth, and there’s no money in it so it’s not exactly selling out, but I’m going to continue with it because I can’t wait to finish the book and tear it a new anus, which is actually, as you shall see, a highly pertinent metaphor. Ouch.

…Yesterday I didn’t have enough money in my bank account to pay the rent. This is bad. I am owed money, and when it comes I’ll be OK again for a while, but it’s a bit embarrassing. At my age. Oh, God... don’t get me started. But do feel free to help out if you're loaded and stupidly generous.

...I think it was five weeks ago I tried to inflate the tyres of my bike. It didn't go well. My bike is still in pieces. I am useless. I need to be punished. Or just pull my fucking finger out. Or both!

…I’ve got a date tonight. I know, I know. But if it doesn’t work out, believe me, that’s it. I’m done with dating and saving up to go to Prague.

Thank you for listening. I leave you with this, taken by a friend in Spitalfields the other day.



No offence.

Morning Terrors

I’ve just woken up from some of the ugliest dreams I think I’ve ever had. I was married, and evidently rich. I know I was rich because when my wife took off in the middle of the night to make skanky, horrible, bukkake-esque love with numerous menfolk, she took my convertible Mercedes with her. I know of her betrayal because she told me. She told me because I confronted her, and she told me in that horrible, vindictive, ‘I want to make you suffer’ way that people sometimes adopt when they’re brimming over with hatred.

Then there was the violence, courtesy of someone I used to know at school. At school he had mental issues – I think he was schizophrenic; in his teens he became possessed by the devil and heard messages from the government in children’s TV. In my dream he approached me and was about to beat me up. He was very powerful and there was nothing I could do. To my right, there were eight or so people seated in a large four-wheel drive vehicle. As my tormentor approached me, slowly, I looked to the people in the SUV and begged for their help. I could see by the expressions on their faces that they knew it was wrong to just sit there and watch, but that’s what they did. One of them was my tormentor’s father. I don’t know who the others were. They watched as my tormentor began to beat me viciously and relentlessly. I saw his fists hurtling toward me, and felt their impact. It went on for ages. Then I woke up.

Unfortunately, I know exactly what it means.

Have a nice day!

x

I Have Forgiven Fonzie

Today has been very strange. For a while there, it looked like it was going to go be a really good day, but then it turned into a pear.

However, right at the last minute, a moment of slightly inebriated eBay weakness came good and I found that I was suddenly the proud owner of this...



The Fonz was something of a hero of mine when I was a little boy. I wanted to be him. But then he betrayed me horribly. I would like to tell you about this betrayal but I cannot. Not now. But hopefully soon.

In the meantime though - simply because there's no point holding a grudge forever - I think I have forgiven the Fonz.

Aww. It feels good. Welcome back, Fonzie.

'Eyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Night Terrors

Having cut out the wonder-weed along with the demon weed, I find that I am dreaming rather vividly at the moment. Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me. Well, desired me. But it was a friend of mine, so it was a bit odd. She came into my room and lay on top of me, on top of my duvet too, so that I couldn’t move. Then she kissed my face repeatedly and told me she’d had an erotic dream about me. I told her she’d better go because I was becoming aroused.

Then I dreamt that Tony Soprano was whipping me with a chain. I tried to crawl away but I realised that this might anger him further, so I crawled back into whipping range, and he continued to whip me, mercilessly.



Then I dreamt about kittens. Lots of dreams about kittens. One in particular about two kittens, one of which was grouchy and unplayful, the other of which was your classic frolicking kitten. I chastised the grouchy one, grabbing it roughly and shouting at it. ‘Why can’t you be like the other kitten?’ I yelled in its miserable face.

Then a fox hissed at me and another cat coolly caught a pigeon, wrapping its jaws quite savagely around its neck. The pigeon did not resist. It barely moved, just accepted its pain, blinking calmly.



What can it all mean?

In a couple of weeks, I’m going to get hold of an anti-smoking pill that apparently has vivid dreaming as a side-effect. I can’t wait. The scarier, the better.

Now I must attempt to write something amusing. In the last month, three new writing opportunities have arisen through this blog, a couple of them very interesting, one not so much. The one I’m about to embark on now is potentially extremely interesting. No money at the moment, but you never know where these things might lead. You know? You never know.

Pleasant Tuesday to you. Blessings be upon you.

The Opposite of Journalism

I went out crusting today so chanced upon the Metro and read this faecal guff. It's the penultimate sentence that really tweaked my spleen.



And don't tell me that he's just saying what other people have said, because that's not good enough. It'd be like saying that other people have pointed out that badgers are allergic to marzipan, without questioning it, or that Canada is the capital of Vombekistan, without questioning it, or that Thora Hird is the opposite of Boutros Boutros-Cackamuffin, without questioning it.

Lose lose lose lose lose, motherfucker.

Ooh, I could colonise a cheesecake.

Do excuse me. I've given up smoking. Coming up to the end of my third day. I've just been drinking in company too, which was the real test. And a friend is on his way over with sausages and cabbage now, so obviously there will be more wine, therefore more temptation.

Years ago I met an Australian who, when I mentioned that I was having difficulty giving up smoking, said: 'Just stop putting the things in your mouth.' He said it with a really oily smugness too, which made me absolutely livid. His name was Jojo. And that was his real name. The jerk.

Anyway, this post has no theme. I just want Tom Phillips to apologise and never write another word and I want Jojo to get hooked on the horse. AND I WANT A FUCKING CIGARETTE!

Aaah, I feel better having vented.

I thank you.

Emperor Ming and the Mystical Muff Hunt

So, Publisher Lady reckons that as a title, Bête de Jour might not be the best option going into paperback. As far as I can tell, she is of the opinion that the book-buying British public might not recognise the allusion. Or indeed the language. I know, I know, how dare she? How dare she imply that the same people who lap up Dan Brown and Katie Price and Jeffrey Archer and Martine McCutcheon in their hundreds of millions might be a bit thick? If it weren’t for the fact that I absolutely agree with her, I would be furious.

So she asked me to come up with a different title. Essentially something more commercial. And in this I wholeheartedly support her. l want some money. And I want an iPhone. And some new boots.

So I came up with a few alternatives, none of which really bit my balls off.

Therefore, I thought I’d ask you, my unremittingly wonderful and imaginative readers. They say everyone has a book in them. Unfortunately, Katie Price has repeatedly shown this to be nonsense. However, I’m pretty sure everyone has at least a title in them. Maybe a subtitle too.

So if you fancy having a crack, please leave your ideas in the comments. Remember: nothing too clever, nothing pretentious or foreign, preferably something slightly titillating, but obviously pertaining to the thrust of the content of the book, i.e. a beastly bloke trying to track down true love. Or whatever.

As well as having the life-long pleasure of having your very own title on the cover of the best-selling book of 2010, you will also receive a signed copy of the soon-to-be-eminently-collectible hardback, and Publisher Lady might throw in something from Harper Collin if I threaten to publicly shame her if she doesn’t.

So there you go.

I’m hoping that with your help, one day I can reach these kind of dizzy heights:



Now. Have an excellent weekend. I’m stopping smoking tomorrow. I met a wonderful woman today who works for the NHS. She was really lovely. I kind of loved her a bit. She prescribed some patches and pills. I start tomorrow. Which is to say, I stop tomorrow. And which, by extension, means that tonight I drink binge and smoke like a pregnant teen. What are you up to? Anything as nice as that?

Fresh Start #173 :: Overmatter

bulk :: 13st 9
exercise :: none
cigarettes :: lots
steps taken to stop :: I'm going to see the NHS people next Friday. They have patches and all kinds of wisdom, and they're cheaper than a hypnotist.
alcohol :: most days
steps taken to cut down :: bought some weed and now can't be bothered to go to the shops for more booze
fresh starts :: 1
marks out of ten for week :: 7.3

I had a good day yesterday. It involved work, and old friends, and tears, and drugs, and a giant silver locust named Gerard.

OK, OK. I’m joking about the tears. Big boys don’t cry.

First picture.



This... is my drug dealer’s toilet.

I hope I’m not overstepping the mark publishing a photo of a man’s toilet whilst simultaneously identifying him as a felon. I suppose if there were any sleuths out there amongst you - and I know there are - you might blow the photo up Blade Runner-style, and pick out a possum hair on the toilet seat, which might lead you, via a little unpleasantness with an East End marsupial importer, to Ineloquent Quinn's high rise block in Fithering, just behind the Bluntsteps tube station. If you do figure it out, don’t call the rozzers. Be a good egg and call those wretched supercilious old haddocks who clean up for people on telly. Get them round.



First things first though. I worked in the morning. I went out to Kensington to see a Chinaman about data analysis. Then I met an old friend for a pub lunch of delicious sausages and mashed stuff which I can still taste. Then I had time before another appointment with another old friend, so instead of slogging home and back into town, I walked around London with a little fold-out map to keep me on my toes, listening to Adam and Joe podcasts in my headphones and laughing quite openly in public places. I think people like to see a stranger laughing to himself in a public place. I know I do. Cheers me right up. So I did big Brian Blessed belly laughs and winked at anyone who looked alarmed.



Not really. I just giggled quietly into my chin.

The second old friend I met was Morag. I hadn’t seen her since shortly after we split up. We had a couple of wines and caught up. It was good. Kind of sad too but it was great to see her.

Morag has this little tease she likes to inflict upon me from time to time. She pretends that she thinks that some time in the future, I’m going to find God or become gay. Or both. Run off with a wayward Christian chap and set up home in the Cotswalds. I’d have my writing. He’d have his potter’s wheel. Every night by candlelight we’d re-enact the sexy scene from Ghost to the soundtrack of some freaky Gregorian chant-drum and bass mash-up. She didn’t actually go into such detail but I know what she was thinking.



Hilariously enough, after I said goodbye to Morag, I walked to Fithering, where, being over an hour early for my next appointment, I took refuge in a public house and was immediately befriended by a couple of gay men.

It happened because I was unpleasantly and unfairly overlooked after waiting for forty years at an almost empty bar, and I got a bit visibly uppity about it, as is my hateful wont. It was rather infantile really, my little tantrum. It was all failed clarity and hufty exasperation. In my defence, however, I was a bit emotional. If you want to know the truth, I’d had a bit of a weep whilst en route to Fithering. In the street as I walked. Like a big girl’s blouse.



NO! Not like a big girl’s blouse at all, but like the thinking woman’s man that I am, soft like a bruised egg but delightfully receptive to the cringe and swell of my emotions. Or else in bondage to it. One of the two. Either option dwarfs a mere blouse* though, I’m convinced of that. So by the time I got to the pub, I was sensitive. And I was tense. And that’s what this guy said. He said, ‘Are you a bit tense there? You are, aren’t you?’ I admitted I was, very tense. He said, ‘I can tell. I’m very spiritual.’ I explained that I’d just seen my ex-girlfriend for the first time in six months or so, so I was a feeling a bit, you know…

I’m sure Morag won’t mind me telling you this. No, I really am. Almost totally sure. It’s mostly about me anyway.

I’d had a couple of things that had been simmering away in my head for the past six months or so, like tiny phantom tumours. Basically, because of a couple of things that had been said in the embers end of our relationship, I’d got it into my head that what we had meant very little to Morag. And that it was only me who actually gave a damn. But Morag easily convinced me that that was not the case. And immediately I felt better. And lighter.



Morag is happy. She’s with someone else and she’s clearly really happy with him. She didn’t even have to say as much. It was clear. And I was happy for her. Very happy. What I wasn’t so happy about, however, was my own life. Which is why, walking down the Gallstone Road to Fithering, I began to feel overwhelmingly sad. I had God Only Knows on repeat on my iPod and I was weeping.

Then I stopped weeping, and went to the pub, where one of the gay men shook my hand and said, ‘Did you say "ex-boyfriend"?’ I said no. Then he asked me if it'd been good seeing my ex and if I'd left her feeling positive. I said yes on both counts. I told him I’d entered into it, hoping to hear exactly what I'd heard and that I was very happy for her and happier in general for having seen her. That was all good. It was the malaise of my own life that was making me tense. He continued down the positive thinking line for a while and then I thanked him for his kindness and for his spirituality and I went outside to smoke cigarettes and listen to pop songs and wait for my drug dealer to get home. He arrived about 9pm.



I told Quinn that I’d been to see my ex-girlfriend, because it was on my mind and I wanted to talk about it, but he glossed over it and continued talking about the women that come to his flat. He speaks very quickly. The word ‘yanahmin’ peppers his prose like a powerful tick, like mouse droppings under the clapped out toaster of his brain. His stories are all either about women who won’t sleep with him or women who, as soon as he sleeps with them, want to move in with him. He’s all crappy gossip and crass stereotyping. He's all joyless, demeaning, meaningless chatter. I wanted to tell him I’d been crying and feeling sorry for myself, but that I was happy because I felt I’d reached an important turning point in my life. But he was describing some woman’s arse to me in the most painfully impoetic detail, and I could tell he wasn’t interested. And when I did manage to get a word in, on any subject, he didn’t really listen, and he was off again, riding his own melt. I wanted to tell him that I felt as if something had been weighing me down and it had been removed, and that I felt a little reborn. But he was too busy describing some woman’s cleavage.



So I left.

Then, on the bus on the way home I decided that I’m going to become a pop star. No time like the present.

It’s a fresh start. A superfresh start.

So that’s what I’m doing this weekend. Working on my first album and drifting into the increasingly nebulous world of physical abuse and spiritual awakening we call rock and roll.

What about you? Anything nice?



* A silky garment worn by a flamboyant meerkat.

Tempted By the Breville

This is the email I fear:

Dear Stan

I first came across your blog when I saw a link to your bingo post, which I loved. What I particularly enjoyed was how you didn’t so much cock a snook at the ignominious stench that is online marketing as ram an indignant thumb into its odious plastic anus, even though you could have used the money. I remember saying to a friend at the time, ‘This chap Stan Cattermole is an inspiration to us all. One thing’s for sure, you’ll never see him selling out his principles for a fistful of shekels or a bag of pelf scratchings.’ Then, a mere matter of weeks later, it happens. You sold your soul. And for what? For a fucking toastie machine. Well, I don’t mean to be harsh, but you’ve let everyone down and frankly, I hope you choke to death on one of your toasties.

Goodbye.

No one wants to receive an email like that, so as I stand on the threshold of venality, I steel myself and I wonder, do I dare? Do I dare hawk a peach? Or indeed, anything at all which I have not created myself.

In the couple of weeks since all the fun of the bingo post, I’ve had a couple of other people approach me with offers of blog promotional activity. Whether they came on the back of the bingo post or not, I cannot say. However, as I tend to with all such offers, I replied asking for more details.

One lady, who seems quite nice and is therefore almost certainly in entirely the wrong line of work, so I won’t name her, offered me $60 dollars if I would include a link to one of her clients in an old post. Specifically, she wanted me to add a link to my old Everybody’s Free (To Wear A Paper Bag) post. More specifically, she wanted me to change this:

Wear good clothes. The expression ‘You can’t polish a turd’ is a vicious, pernicious lie. You most certainly can polish a turd. Indeed, it is your duty as a human turd to polish yourself daily, and a fine wardrobe is some of the best turd-polish money can buy.

…to this:

Wear good clothes – the wholesale clothing you own only looks good on the deliciously faux models on the site….

…with the words ‘wholesale clothing’ linked to some online clothes shop. The link would have to stay there for a year.

I didn’t fancy this. Mostly I didn’t fancy it because I’m quite proud of the Paper Bag post and the thought of butchering it for money seemed like the kind of thing that only a real soulless shitbag might do. Particularly for such a paltry sum.

The other one was more interesting. Basically I was offered the opportunity to receive a free gift from an online store and write an honest review of it. Now, although I disdain the kind of duplicitous garbage that bingo-boy was suggesting, I happen to love free gifts. Also, the opportunity to write an ‘honest review’ was appealing. If I didn’t like the product, I could say so, and with as much vitriol as I pleased. Also, the guy who approached me had actually seen my blog and could even string a half- decent sentence together himself. So I checked out the store.

I was allowed to choose something to the value of $70-80. Naturally, most of the stuff I really wanted cost considerably more – for example, there was a leather office chair which cost around $3,000. I really wanted that.

There was also a rug.

My room at the moment is spacious and fine. The only thing that displeases me about it – apart from the smell of stale tobacco smoke – is the carpet, which is cheap and bobbly and timeworn. So when I saw that I could pick up a delightful brightly coloured nine foot by five foot rug within the given price range, my heart soared. I wrote back to Jamie at the promotions company and said I’d love the rug. I told him it would really tie the room together. Which was true. Unfortunately Jamie had made a mistake and wasn’t able to ship my rug from the States to Englandshire. Instead he asked me to choose something from a few UK sites, which weren’t as good. Eventually, however, I found a toastie maker and I thought what the hell.

So here we are.

However, I still have my doubts. Part of me always agreed with Bill Hicks that anyone who advertises anything is bereft of all integrity, just another whore at the capitalist gang bang. But then there’s Stephen Fry – possibly the most universally respected celebrity in the history of celebrity – who apparently makes over a hundred grand a year doing ads and seemingly has no qualms whatsoever about adding his voice to even the most ghastly product. (I'm sure he gives it all to charity. He must. Mustn't he?)

Either way, it’s a weird thing. It’s a dilemma.

I, of course, am no one. I’m just a struggling blogger trying to keep my Johnson hard in a cruel and harsh world, and I happened to have been offered a toasted sandwich maker. All I have to do is link to the cookware site in question in this post and then post an honest review when my bribe gift arrives.

So I’m doing it. And as long as I don’t have to betray myself by being anything less than honest, I think I’ll manage to sleep at night. In fact, if anyone else wants to give me stuff for free and all they want me to do is link and opine, then I’ll do that too. If anyone wants to offer me a rug, for example. Or a $3,000 chair. Or anything really. I love freebies. Is that so wrong?

And remember, I’m not saying you should go and buy anything from anything from the cookware store in question. I really couldn’t give a monkey's. I'd be surprised if you did in fact, because it is frighteningly expensive. But the fact is, I love a nice toastie.



Anyway, that’s it. I know some of you will think nothing of it, but I’m sure some of you will shake your heads and think less of me. I guess the reason I’ve made such a meal of this post is that I kind of agree with both schools of thought. I'm between a rock and a hard place. Between the Breville and the deep blue sea.

So what do you reckon? Unscrupulous opportunistic cynical whore? Or thoroughly decent chap with a pile of debt and a yen for hot cheese and curried beans?

Please be nice.

Feedback Friday :: Nothing To See Here

Right then. Here we are.

This will be sloppy. Not half-hearted, but probably at most third-brained. I’ve been working. Two full days immersed in a world of SMEs and CEOs, audits, buy-outs and chubby men smiling money smiles in shiny ties and proper trousers. It’s really quite tiring. All I want to do is go and watch the telly.

I shall resist, however.

So, news. Time over event multiplied by inherent appeal. I have none. Indeed, apart from work, which saps the soul but enriches the other bits that quite like getting out of the house once in a while and earning a few bob, I am a hollow bone. It’s all rather unenlightening really. I don’t even want to talk about it.

I think the worst thing about work is the time it takes. It’s like – if you take it seriously – it takes up most of your life! There’s almost no time at all to do anything else. This week, for example, I was going to write a scintillating, coruscating piece about that bad egg, Barbara Ellen, escaping under the radar of Jan Moir’s odium and managing to get away not only with writing wholly misjudged tosh about internet paedophiles being lazy, but also this: ‘People should not feel obliged to switch off their mobile phones in theatres.' What a silly fucker. I was also going to get over the feelings of futility that have sprung up about something I was trying to write, pick up where I left off and bring it to swift, satisfactory and profitable conclusion. I was going to get hold of a rug that would really tie the room together. I was going to track down Danny Wallace and persuade him to let me write his column in Shortlist. Because it’s crap. And then I was going to brush his hair flat for him and insist that he stop raising his right eyebrow like a particularly charmless nonce. I was going to learn to play the piano. I was going to write a song about a paedophile called Never Too Old For A Cuddle. I was going to be something. I was going to be a contender. Instead of a blithering toad, which is what I am.

What about that Nick Griffin, eh? They should get him on Have I Got News For You and crucify him.

Balls, I’ve got to go to sleep. Got to be up early. ‘Work while you have the light,’ said the philosopher. ‘You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.’

Meh.

Have a nice weekend now. I will be drinking heavily and fixing my bike. And you? What will you be doing? Anything ring-looseningly cool?

Feedback Friday :: Up

bulk :: 13st 5
cigarettes :: meh, a few, but none on Sunday
booze :: lots; some every day
exercise :: nil
interviews :: 2
jobs :: 3

I’ve been very busy this week, fending off economic meltdown. I’m writing this from the boardroom of a giant Japanese financial institution in the heart of the belly of the groin of the beast. I’ve just finished having an initial meeting with a charming little Japanese fella who wants me to help him write reports and summaries and emails about base metal trading. I know, I know. Be still my panel-beating heart. When the meeting was over I asked him if I could hang around for half an hour and use the wifi. He said I could. So here I am.

I had something similar yesterday too. Different set-up, same nonsense.

Suddenly my life has changed, in oh so many ways. I’m not altogether sure I like it, but I’m not altogether sure I don’t. I think I might be a little ambivalent about it.

Speaking of ambivalence, yesterday I found myself wandering around the financial district and I felt myself simultaneously repulsed and elated. I made some notes as I thought I could write a heroic and visceral blog post about it. But I left them at home. All I remember now is two drunks fighting over a pink blanket, then fifteen minutes later four policemen, two of them donning purple rubber gloves and searching the drunks for knives and drugs, the blanket now nowhere in sight; I remember talking to an Evening Standard distributor who said that the new free status of the Standard had ruined him – they used to get 12p per copy, now they get 2p. He said he could have survived if they’d given 5p on the copy, but now he’d have to find different work. That was sad. And it made me glad that I was lucky enough not to have to hand out shoddy journalism to scowling suits; I remember being freshly amazed by the potpourri of London’s architecture and the thrill of sauntering through it all with time to spare and music in my ears. I love the way you can dip off one street dripping with gold, bronze and marble onto another street, seconds away, stinking of cabbages and dildos. I love that.

Actually, on reflection, I’ve decided I’m glad to be getting out of the house a little more.

Gosh. I’ve just eaten two plates of biscuits.

Oh, and another thing. I’ve got a date tonight. Wish me luck.

And have a smashing weekend yourself. What you up to? Anything overwhelmingly scintillating?

Maybe There Actually IS Such A Thing As Bad Publicity After All

This is most probably the last mention I will make of these bingo-touting swine, as Thomas Brown of Topspot Promotions is apparently not talking to me anymore. I sent this last email first thing on Monday morning...

Dear Mr Brown

I must say, I am very disappointed not to have received a reply to my last email. A less trusting soul might come to the conclusion that you’re welshing on our deal! I, however, am prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re probably just busy doing your important work.

The reason I’m writing again is actually not to remonstrate with you (fear not!) but rather to share with you some very good news. Despite the reservations your client had about my promotional piece, I published it on my blog anyway and I’m very happy to say it was featured in a terrifically popular weekly newsletter of interesting things on the internet. As a result of this, over TEN THOUSAND people have seen the piece over the last three days. That’s over TEN THOUSAND people who are now aware of 888Ladies online bingo!

Result!

So, under the circumstances, I was wondering if you might like to offer me substantially more than our previously agreed $80. I have a friend who works in online marketing – and I use the word ‘friend’ loosely, if not entirely incorrectly – and he says you should probably give me at least a couple of bags of sand for that kind of exposure. I am willing to negotiate, however. The fact is, my rent is due in just a few days, so I’d be prepared to settle for £500 (about $800) if you can make the payment before the 17th.

What do you say? Are you going to do the honourable thing?

If I haven’t heard from you by Wednesday, I shall most probably write to you again.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers!


Stan

...and nothing. It was fun while it lasted, but now it appears to be over. Unless you can think of any more ways to antagonise Mr Brown, I think we're done.

Now, what about that Barbara Ellen, eh? What a nincompoop.

Selling Out? One Can But Dream.

Something very special happened today. If you’ll allow me, I'd like to tell you about it.

Over the weekend, mostly because of the B3ta link, lots of people came here to read the bingo post. A few of them left comments, and one or two people threatened to pay me the $80 themselves – this being the sum of money Thomas Brown dangled in front of me like a bad carrot made of shame and dead hair and old ladies’ fillings – but then they didn’t. Naturally.

Then this afternoon, I received the following comment from a man called Rishil:

‘Where is your donate button? I want to put money in there for this awesomeness of a post.’

So, just on the off-chance that this man was serious (although I didn’t really think for a moment that he was – he had just used the word 'awesomeness' after all), I found myself 'a donate button' and I put it online. It’s off to the right near the top of the page. It looks like this…




(It only looks like that though. That isn’t it. That’s merely a photograph of it. So if you want to give me some money and you were clicking on that, you are a jackass and I’m not even sure I want your money. Oh, alright then, go on. I’ll take it. Now go and click on the proper button. It looks like this…)




Etc.

So, then, within twenty minutes of the button being up, I received an email entitled ‘Notification of donation received’. Rishil – a complete stranger who happened to enjoy something I’d written – had begifted me with £500.

Whoa.

Can you believe that?

You can? Well then, you’re just a tiny bit credulous. £500 for one measly blogpost? That would be insane. No. He did give me a tenner though. And when you haven’t got a pot to piss in, a tenner for a blog post is like a kiss on the winky from Scarlett Johansson.

I am inordinately pleased.

Imagine though, if every single one of you donated just £5 – or even a paltry £1.... No, fuck it – as long as we're making shit up, let’s stick to a £10 minimum. Imagine that. I’m imagining it now. If you all donated £10, I could phone up the Japanese banker and English accountants I’ve just accepted work from and tell them to go hang.

‘Balls to you!’ I would say. ‘My public have spoken. They want me to stay home and berate marketeers, detail my calamitous sexploits and fantasise about my magnificent winky disappearing, one dainty finger at a time, into the sweet and sultry, slightly sticky maw of Scarlett Johansson.’

No?

Oh, alright then. I know I’ve a long, long, long, long way to go before I can even see the dizzy heights of the phenomenal Dooce, but it’s a step in the right direction. A baby step, I know, but a step nonetheless. And ironically, I know I have Thomas Brown of Tosspot Promotions to thank.

So, Thomas Brown - thank you. Oh, and by the way, you owe me $80.




Now I'm off to the pub to spend that tenner.

Score!

Feedback Friday :: Wet

No time for a proper feedback post this week due to proper job search and angry neighbour downstairs covered in my flatmate’s dirty bathwater and – if Ben is as grubby as I – piss. What a day. I say, what a day.

It has ended on a good note though, as something I’ve written has finally got into the B3ta newsletter. I’ve been trying to get in B3ta for years, sending my own stuff in – sometimes as me, sometimes as some wanking sockpuppet or other – but with no luck. So I’m pleased. I think I’ll celebrate by getting really drunk and making inappropriate advances to the plumber when he (or she) gets here. Alright, alright, he.

Now my internet is about to go off for the weekend – hopefully for the last time – should have my own sorted out on Monday.

In the meantime, have a splendid weekend and if you’re new here, you might want to consider a) sleeping with me b) buying my book or c) a delightfully seedy combination of the two. Oh, and leave a comment! If you want.

Anyway, what are you up to this weekend? Anything seriously fucking brilliant?

Bingo! :: One Little Duck, Round Two

Just received a response from Mr Brown regarding my promotion of his clients, the 666Ladies Bingo Bastards Emporium. Here it is:

Hello Stan,

I showed this post to my clients but unfortunately they feel it is too edgy and they don’t want it to appear on the site. I hope you can understand. I’m sorry for the time you spent and hope we’ll be able to do business in the future.

Best regards,

Thomas Brown
Senior Advertising Consultant
Topspot Promotions

'Too edgy.' I like that. I might use it as a testimonial. 'Bête de Jour :: too edgy.' However, I do feel kind of bad. Mr Brown actually seems like a decent sort after all. Still, having said that, a deal is a deal and I can't stand welshers. So I replied with this:

Hi Thomas

I'm sorry to hear that, I really am. However, having toiled quite considerably on the article, I feel it is only fair that I receive financial recompense to the value of $80, as previously agreed.

How do you usually prefer to make payment? I can send you details of my Paypal or my bank account. Which would you prefer?

Looking forward to hearing from you.


Stan

So. Now we wait. I hope this doesn't end up in court, but if I don't get my $80, I swear, I'll take them for every penny they've got.

Bingo? Let's Play!

So, a few days ago I was contacted by one Thomas Brown asking me if I’d be interested in placing a little text ad on my blog in exchange for wonga. Brown works for Topspot Promotions, which essentially, is a kind of perversely legitimate virus which spreads virtual cancer throughout the internet. However, as I’m on the verge of declaring myself bankrupt, I thought I might as well take my principles and general anti-capitalist, anti-marketing standpoint and shove them up my adolescent broke ass. So I wrote to Thomas, asking him what he had in mind. ‘Let's talk numbers,’ I said. ‘How much can you give me up front?’ Thomas replied, saying, ‘We are willing to pay you a one-time fee of $80 for writing a regular post (in the spirit of the rest of your blog’s posts) which will include a paragraph that will describe my client’s website and its services.’ Now, in this day and age, what with the pound lying in the gutter with its entrails hanging out and me in a really quite terrifying amount of debt, I thought, well, $80 is not to be sneezed at, especially if I could write the promotional post in the spirit of the rest of my blog. Thomas had obviously seen my blog and realised that my tone was a good fit with his client’s product. So I asked for more details. Thomas wrote back, explaining that his client was an online bingo company called 888ladies.com. Hmmm, I thought. Sounds right up my alley. Thomas continued…

‘The post of course should be about online bingo and should include, as mentioned, information about my client’s website an services. You can write the post as you want as long as it will be positive. I don’t want to limit you but of course that the longer the post will be it will be better. Once the post will be ready you can send it to me and I’ll show you where I want to place the links (from which words). I look forward to hearing your thoughts.’

So, even though I had a million other things to do – get a job, write a bestseller, get Paul McKenna to hypnotise me to stop smoking, get my ears syringed, get my piles waxed, honestly, the list really is endless – I decided to spend some time on my positive promotional bingo post. It took me bloody ages too, but I think in the end I got the tone right. This is what I sent...

Hi Thomas I have decided to take you up on your generous offer and so include below my first post for your perusal. I hope it’s not too irreverent… … Bingo! If you’re anything like me, you’ll be wondering what went wrong with your life. Here you are, rapidly approaching middle-age and what have you got to show for it? Stretchmarks, fat ears, unwaxed piles and a wasted life spent predominantly alone wanking into an old sock and wondering why no-one’s buying your really quite remarkable book. But fear not, for help is at hand in the form of a really quite excellent online bingo site called 888ladies.com. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Hello. What’s all this? Has Stan lost his blinking benkers? What’s all this about online bingo? Everyone knows it’s a mug’s game – essentially Stupid Tax for people who find lottery tickets just a little bit too challenging. Surely Stan – good old sensible cynical savvy old Stan – isn’t seriously suggesting I go to this swindler’s website and get shafted by the dregs of humanity?’ Well, hold on a minute – let’s not go jumping to conclusions. Let’s give these people a fair crack of the whip. Just because they prey on feeble-minded imbeciles, lonely retards and desperate addicts doesn’t mean they’re bad people. 

For the rest of this article, Stan recommends you go here and purchase a copy of The Little Book of Shame. Not only does it contain the article you're currently reading, it also contains around 50 others, and all for the incredible price of whatever price it happens to be at the moment. You lucky thing you.