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?

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.

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.

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?

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?

Insane God Man Vs Barack Obama

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

Enjoy.

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!

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?

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

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.