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 :: End Of An Era

bulk :: 16st 1 (pffffffft)
alcohol units imbibed :: 10ish
cigarettes smoked :: 0
joints smoked :: 6
runs run :: 0 (pffffffft)
bookcases emptied and ready to dismantle :: 6
boxes packed :: 15
hells entered :: 1 (Excel Hell)
physical ailments :: 1 (spinal mayhem)
tantrums thrown :: 2 (don’t want to talk about it)
money worries :: lots suddenly
weird girlfriends :: 1
despicable thoughts :: plenty
stress level :: high

So, my landlady, who’s kept herself pretty much to herself for the duration of my stay in her humble home, has now decided to transform herself into a rapacious hard-nosed harridan. She tells me she’s not going to give me my deposit back because Pablo has ‘destroyed’ her flat. She used the word ‘destroyed’ to describe one patch of carpet that’s been a little scratched up and the back of one armchair. And a table. And a cracked kitchen window. Pablo didn’t actually crack the kitchen window but I blamed him for that one anyway. Actually it was kind of his fault. He was in the back garden torturing a half-dead blackbird, so I rapped on the pane to distract him, but I didn’t know my own strength. Bad cat.

I said to her: ‘You’ve got over a grand of my money. You can’t possibly be suggesting that it’s going to cost over a grand to replace a couple of pieces of – let’s face it – fairly crappy furniture, and a roll of cheap, paper-thin carpet.’

She didn’t like that.

‘You’re being ridiculous,’ I added.

She liked that even less.

‘You’re just greedy.’

She glared at me. And she wouldn’t budge. So I guess there’s nothing I can do.

Cow.

Many years ago I knew someone who moved into a house which the previous tenants – having had some gripe with the estate agents – wrecked by turning on all the taps before they left. That’s a pretty horrible thing to do and I felt ashamed when it not only crossed my mind, but lingered there for a moment and tempted me.

I’m taking the light bulbs though. And the toilet roll.

Meanwhile, Sally wants to create a exhibition of photographs of my face. And I can think of nothing more hideous. And she thinks it would be good for me. And I think that really, she thinks it might be good for her. And she asks me what I’m afraid of. And I tell her I’m afraid of being made into a freak show. And she shakes her head and points her camera at me. ‘No,’ I say. She sulks.

And this afternoon, surrounded by half-packed boxes and more of a mess than I could really handle, I had a bit of a tantrum. I threw lots of things on the floor. Piles of papers. Books. A cup full of pens.

Pablo ran away from me. I shouted after him, blaming him for losing me a thousand pounds.

It was then, as I found myself calling my beloved cat a ‘dirty bastard’ that I stopped, shook my head, and took a long hard look at myself. I wondered if I was having a mini-breakdown. I decided I was just stressed with the idea of moving. And worried about money, and Sally and me, and everything else. I mean, what’s it all about? Stupid life.

Anyway, I picked up all the stuff. I found Pablo and apologised. He gave me a look like he might forgive me if I gave him some catnip. So I gave him some catnip. And I had a joint. And we were both happy.

I’m going to spend the weekend moving my stuff and myself into Keith’s house in Peckham.

It’s the end of an era. And I guess, the beginning of a new one.

Wish me luck.

And In One Fell Swoop Everything, But Everything Changed…

Um… I’m having a little difficulty believing this. My hands are shaking as I type, my head is buzzing and I’m bright red like I’m embarrassed or coming down with something. I’ve got grins all over my face – every orifice is grinning and I’m guessing this must be what being in love feels like. Maybe. Maybe not.

I guess I should spill the beans… You know I mentioned that I was going to start doing the lottery a couple of months ago? Well, I didn’t get round to it till last week. On Friday in fact, on the way to pick up Keith to drive to The North, I bought a lottery ticket. I’d never filled one in before so it took me a while and the old ladies behind me in the queue got really eggy.

Then I forgot all about it, until a couple of hours ago. Then I dug it out and checked the numbers online. Um… As far as I can tell, I’ve just won £2.6 million pounds.

Oh.

My.

Shitting.

Christ.

It’s taken me half an hour so far to write this. I keep breaking off to check again, expecting to see that I’ve made an idiotic mistake. But I haven’t. It appears I’ve really won.

I can’t believe it.

I really can’t believe it.

But it’s true. I haven’t made a mistake. Have I? I’m going to give Keith a ring.


UPDATE:

I’m over at Keith’s. We’re celebrating. He says I have to buy him a new body. I’ll do my best.

I’ve definitely won. I’m rich. I’m really truly madly deeply motherfucking brilliantly rich.

All those times I’ve drifted off and started imagining what I’d do if I ever came into a lot of money. Now I can actually think about it for real. Now it’s actually happened. This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to sleep now, till I can make the phone call tomorrow morning and arrange to collect the money. So… the list:

1) buy a house in North London
2) actually, that’s probably it. So I’ll buy a cheap house I think, maybe in South London, and fill it with tenants – get myself an income and become a proper capitalist
3) go to Thailand and do a Gogarty. Maybe turn this blog into a rambling rich boy’s journey of discovery where I find out how shallow I truly am
4) buy some love. Of course money can buy you love, of course it can
5) buy something nice for Ben and Dina
6) go to a health farm in the Seychelles and learn to SCUBA dive.
7) swim with dolphins
8) buy a gold vest
9) buy a convertible Porsche
10) set up a fast-food company selling spicy meat-based products made from orphaned children – call it Dr Barnando’s

Ho ho. As you can see, I haven’t got much idea what I’m going to do. You can help me if you want, although to be honest it may be some time before I'm looking at the internet again but go on, you might as well - tell me what you would do if you had just won 2.6 million gorgeous lovely pounds. No begging letters.

Shit.

This may be the best day of my entire life.

The Things You Find On the Internet When You Should Really Be Asleep #13 :: Cock Refused Entry

I know I’m bordering on the obsessive now, but I… I can’t help myself… I found out about Horsley’s latest bit of expert myth-making in the comments here and here, which have been attracting some search traffic over the past few days.

In a nutshell, Horsley has been turned back from the US border for being a fuckwit, and his PR machine has flown into rather flamboyant meltdown. Last night at the book’s launch party, Horsley’s publisher Carrie Kania wound up her speech by saying:

‘Tropic of Cancer, Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, American Psycho: all of these books have been deemed dangerous by the authorities and unfit for the general public to read. The Sex Pistols, banned in 1978. Sebastian banned, 30 years later.’

What gall. What audacity. What offensive codswallop. Comparing Horsley to Miller, Nabokov and Salinger reminds me of Richard Littlejohn declaring that he was more complex than Tolstoy.

There is no denying however, that Horsley and his people are very good indeed at PR, and sly Horsley himself is just offensive enough to get himself turned away and talked about, but not offensive enough to get himself holed up in Guantanamo Bay with a matching fatwa.

Funny that.

Now let us never speak of him again.