Arsehole Jobs/Bullshitters

Some jobs warrant universal credit, Nurses for example (not the horrible ones that don’t really understand the whole treating old people with respect thing and beat the living fuck out of them) Firemen, nothing conjures up a more heroic image than that of a fireman emerging from a burning building with the family pet to cheers, even if they have left the majority of the humans inside burning up and whistling like a summer BBQ (I’ve even got a few bits of charcoal in my drawer at work, if there was ever a fire, I’m going to hold someone back (against their will), draw the charcoal smears over my face and emerge from the building topless, smeared in melting butter (to simulate sweat) looking every inch a hero, parading back and forth with the “damsel in distress” looking for TV cameras, I will put their struggling down to smoke inhalation or possibly a butter allergy? And School Teachers, the ones who don’t finger underage pupils (those are usually the history or chemistry teachers for reasons unbeknownst to me?).

Some jobs on the other hand, just inspire revulsion in people, utter hatred, to the point where a crowd would happily interrupt a perfectly good lunch break to watch them slowly stoned to death by a muscular mob, seeing them crack open like an organic kinder egg, not even stopping eating a sandwich while brain chunks were beaten out (unless it was a meatball sandwich from Subway, that looks well like brains and shit). Politicians, lying thieving self important soulless shit cunts, traffic wardens, nasty merciless little turdlings, picked for their extremely punchable faces and annoying pinched jobs-worth arsehole mouths. The wankers who teach professional courses, sake of it courses designed for employers with too much money, an example was £795 + vat to send an employee on a “time management course” to be told such gems from the frumpy failed something or other tutor as “well, if you get up at 8.30 and your job starts at 9.30, and it takes you more than an hour to get ready and get to work, maybe you should consider getting up earlier” – Yeah, cheers for that you dumpy little piss pump. “If you’ve got 10 things to do, you need to arrange them in an order so you can put the most important ones at the top” – I CANT DO THAT, IM A CUNT, THAT’S WHY IM ON THIS FUCKING COURSE!!! – As you can probably tell, I’ve been on one, I came away feeling nothing more than the fact that the day I’d spent out of the office had probably caused me a backlog at work?
Other courses are just as wasteful, if you need to send a manager on a leadership skills course, well, you’ve fucked up haven’t you, sack them, then yourself, cheers, laters. “Train the trainer”, “Communication skills” – If you need to consider sending your staff on these, consider new staff, which leads me nicely to one of the lowest of the low, the true scum of the employed world, yes you lot, you fucking arseholes, you are the parasites of parasites, the lowest of the low, rivalled only by Estate agents in your general shitness, yes I’m talking about you recruitment agents, I’d suffer the daily pain of huge tentacle like haemorrhoids than work in the recruitment industry, an entire job built on lies, deceit, deception and greed.
As you read this blog, recruitment agents sit down for meals and possibly a glass of wine, reflecting over the days blags, clients duped, wankers placed, fees paid before snuffling down for 8 hours sleep, while people starve to death on the other side of the world, a little life is being snubbed out right now while one of these fucks draws another breath, the very raising of their diaphragm concrete evidence at just how unfair the world is.
These cretins will barely meet with someone, if at all, before sending the poor hapless twat-tard down to an office to waste an hour of everyone’s time in a pointless interview. An example of this is describing someone as dynamic when the only criteria in a recruitment agents eyes to tick this box is the ability to breathe independent of machines, and even if the poor cunt is on an iron lung, they will describe that as “technologically clued up. “Sleeves rolled up approach” – a fucking giant, some frontal lobe tard who can not get normal earthling clothes to fit. “Can do attitude? Sounds like a kid’s toilet training aid?
The only group of people who can possibly rival the recruitment agent in terms of fantasy descriptions of things are estate agents. The jokes have all been done before, but every day I go past a large foxtons (or fuckstons as I call them, or Cuntstons, or fuckcuntstons), their fridge full of still or sparkling small glass bottles of mineral water and arrangements of different coloured citrus fruit slowly rotting in decorative impractical receptacles, and huge flatscreens with slide shows of the unaffordable flashing across to most people. Every day when I go past I get an urge to do a huge hateful turd right outside the door, the trouble is, it would be so hateful that this turd would probably come out with such force and quantity that they would sun dry it and turn it into an organic earthy annex to their office and have drum beating, team building events in there, eventually selling it to some overpaid Hoxton prick type for about £225, 000, for one of my turds.
When my bowel doesn’t flex when I walk past, the other fantasy that plays out in my head is throwing a couple of grenades in while they have their morning team meeting at the back, they are so snidy though, they probably have a system in place where the person with the lowest commission has to jump on it and the greater cockroaches not only survive, but probably end up liking the new half blown to fuck office, with its new “Beirut chic” make over, making them more happier and productive.

In short, I think I would rather deal with a nerve agent than one of the above agents.

The only other group of people who come close to above are people who work in advertising, not all advertising people (unlike the above two, there are exceptions in this group), but the ones whose job it is to sit and come up with annoying characters, jingles, songs, the sorts of things that when you are in the wrong mood can just tip you over, I don’t know if you are aware, but the Halifax ad was responsible for the Boxing day Tsunami, there was such a concentration of anger at the first airing of the “Isa Isa Baby” ad, that it resulted in a reverse of the magnetic thingy on the stuff and then the big wave thing happened. “We buy any car” was apparently the “buckaroo” moment for Raoul Moat. Al Qaeda allegedly only formed because of the “Go Compare” adverts.
Worse than all of these, my twitter account was recently closed in rage at seeing the Meerkat from the shitty adverts on there. What next for this torn to shreds campaign, a lady going for a check up “down there” and that furry cunt coming up with a swab saying something like “Compare the smear cat – No, compare the Meer-ket, no, I meant Market, simples (they will nick that now, you watch)”

You cant blame these wankers for having the ability to tune in to what makes us remember products and wind up the majority in the process, you cant blame them, but they are flammable, so you can set them on fire, and watch them burn, a good idea is to douse them in some water first so they burn a bit slower, you can also pour vinegar on them while they do as this will take away the rancid smell as they slowly roast in their own guilt and lies. You could be sure that I certainly wouldn’t piss on them***

You may go to hell for the act of burning someone alive, but even in the wildest estimations and Sunday School fear mongerings, the devil must have some sort of conscience and will probably pull you to one side and congratulate you with a hoofy slap on the back and probably give you a few hours off a day from the eternity of slow burning torture.

*Right, just to be clear, please don’t actually go out burning these people, that would be wrong, but if one/some just happened to be walking past your house and you threw a lit cigarette out of the window (shortly after a pint of petrol) and one or two did go up, don’t beat yourself up, its no loss, these people are not even welcome at their own parents houses for being utter failures and “walking abortions”.

**Right, just to be doubly clear, the hatred in this blog has obviously been exaggerated for literary reasons, and in no way do I hate any human soul to the level described above, but if I was driving along in a Combine Harvester and some of them were walking across the field I was harvesting, and they did get caught up in the blades and died screaming, I’d sleep, it might take a while but life would go on.

*** Just to clear something up, on the whole subject of pissing on someone if they were on fire, if I was standing over a burning advertising/recruitment/ estate agent and trying to piss and nothing was coming out, this would have nothing to do with me holding back and being all urine selfish, I would happily do a horse piss over one of them in any state of enflamement, they would just have to be unconscious because of the pain of fire, or at least look away, I have a problem going while people watch.

Fuck me, so much for the new happier approach to life..

Too legit to twit

I shut my twitter account down recently, I cant really think of a single reason why I did it, but the main one was the fact that it played up to the horrible mostly hateful cynical bastard, and the errant shit throwing monkey which both exist in my head, both things I could kind of do without at the moment. I've been literally haunted at work by ideas for hash tags and getting well into them when they took off, and stupid thoughts that I felt I should share immediately with anyone that would listen on there. I'd even tweeted from the toilet at work on several occasions for fuck sake, sometimes even describing the act itself, sometimes tweeting from my desk while busy doing work stuff, snorting as I typed, then cursing the absolute shackles of only having 140 characters, having to strip down and remove most of the semblance of why I thought it was funny in the first place, sometimes nearly resorting to text speak to fit things in...

I also didn't like the fact that it gave me an ideal forum to say usually horrible things about people and poke a stick through the cages of the afflicted. If I said to people directly the things I would have tweeted about them, I would be much more punched that I am now.

My twitter day would generally start at about 8.15 at the train station hating on Southern Trains, don't get me wrong, there is plenty to hate (they really are a chandelier of shit), but the whole sharing the woe thing was getting me down, I couldn't bring myself to say things like, “Oh, what a lovely sun rise over London”, and I do think that a lot, but to be honest, I'd rather share my breakfast with someone in the manner of a seagull regurgitating directly into their mouth than fart out sanctimonious pleasantries like some fair trade enthusing Earthy fucknut.

I'd also observe and share my thoughts on OCD man, a painful looking old fart who would amble to the same spot every morning and attempt to board the train at the same time every day and get the same seat. I would make it my mission to disrupt him, primarily just to share with twitter folk, several train tweets later, usually about other passengers, I would arrive at work, sometimes tweeting as I walked along the Thames, all this while I was going through John Woo type slow motion sequences in my mind of opening up with an assault rifle on all the elements of life that I hate.

The evenings would be the worse, subjecting my eyes and ears to the worst of the worst on the box, providing my own commentary on what is essentially our main broadcast medium seemingly suffering from a form of televisual bowel cancer, mocking its weak efforts tweet by tweet, the adulation and retweets egging me on like a bully in a fight. Then would come the moments when I would inadvertently cause offence with an errant side swipe at skin disorders or some fuck faced celeb or some way of thinking, or having a pop at some shit that means something to someone or other. Planning my evening on sitting in front of a TV and computer nay saying while gulping beer or wine just started to feel wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint myself out as a sensitive soul that strives to go through life on egg shells, far from it, but I just don't need the distraction and to give that side of myself the audience that it secretly craves, it just makes you focus on the negative things in life. I am a very negative person and I'm struggling at the moment, there is lots about life at the moment which I dont like and would ideally like to be by a log fire somewhere with my “Bonnie Heather” no internet, chopping logs for the fire and tilling the land or some shit, pretty much the entire scene from Highlander before that big bald bloke comes and shoves a sword through Sean Connery and rapes the shit out of the girl.

I probably could have struggled on with the above, sifting through the metro for mocking material and flicking through TV watching reality TV and shit like Take me out, but on the Thursday morning I saw something that effectively killed my account, that fucking meerkat from the advert was not only on twitter, but had 10's of thousands of people following its fucking faux furry Borat bullshit. I hit delete account immediately, I could not share a space with that cunt, even if it is a cyber one.

Yes, I know its not a real meerkat, but I just cant get the image out of my head of the circle jerk of marketing cunts that come up with that concept and it turning out to be a “winner” and now the obligatory ripping the arse out of it. They are all probably getting blow jobs right now while doing cocaine, living off that little furry fucker, there is probably about 8 of them, the beast itself is probably watching the whole spectacle from a mound of earth while the go compare man sits in the corner, beating his tiny semi flacid cock off, pulling vinegars on a high note of the word compere, the whole group of them falling into a sweaty self congratulatory post fuck cig fest at the end of it, all high fiving before going to sleep, proud of their efforts and sleeping soundly for 8 hours, waking up with new ideas of how to annoy the living shit out of people and prosper for it, not one of them dying in fire as they should, while men dressed in leather trench coats spray them with bulbs of jif lemon as they burn, laughing in monotone.. (PS, I would buy any product that was endorsed by burning marketing people, just putting that idea out there)

Since going “cold twurky” I have struggled at times, its only been a few days but the fact that I have been reaching for my phone several times a day only to remember my “twittercide”, slowly putting the phone back down and reflecting on what I would have tweeted, it has mostly been negative simply proving I was kind of addicted. I do miss some of the people on there too, I'd somehow managed to amass 3000 followers and felt quite attached to come of them, I might come back one day, but I'm not sure. I HATED twitter when it first came out, because of the whole 140 characters thing, if someone made a site called two-witter, or twowittwo or something else indicating that it was about 300 characters I'd like that more. You may well stumble across me on there one day with no following, no followers, just rambling/ranting to the world with nobody to listen, that would be a fairer reflection of my life, the crazy drunk in the park.

Anyway, I shall be using this blog as my means to vent my spleen at the world and hope to getting the time to focus on some deep and meaningful blogs such as some of the other stuff on here...

Laters

The piss artist formally known as @blogstrop

(Fade out to the music form the littlest hobo)

2011 the future is now, and it’s actually pretty shit.

Its 2011, I’m 36, and I’m still on earth. To add insult to injury, I still catch a train to work, I still eat normal food based food, I still (occasionally) have to go through the rigmarole of dating, just in the hope of getting sex, I’m still typing this bullshit with my fucking fingers and not my eyes as I'd expected. Frankly, I’m disappointed, on all fronts, 2011 is not the futuristic techno holographic virtual fuck fest I thought it would be, we have to go to a shop called Currys or PC World to get the latest in “high tech” shit, purchased to briefly elevate our hugely under evolved lives to a non suicidal like just slightly above tedious. We still scratch out balls for fuck sake (and whatever women do) and smell our own farts. This isn’t the technological age.

I used to sit as a child watching programmes like Space 1999, that had me believe that we would be living off earth, battlestar gallactica, we would be fighting robots of our own creation, Street Hawk, a fucking gormless prick on an embarrassment of a motor cycle racing through towns at over 100mph Ok, some of it has come true, the core structure in all of these shows is that we have fucked the earth up, so well done to humans for coming good on that. We haven’t even been to the moon yet (allegedly) and we are fighting machines of our own creation, just today I called my new Windows 7 machine at work a fucking useless gibbering overly helpful drooling fucktard of a computer, and if you live in Southend, you will no doubt be inundated with motorcycle mounted pricks.

I’m still sitting here on a 5 year old craptop, typing like some sort of trained ape, I thought by now I would have been wearing some sort of computer glove like in minority report, pulling screens, moving sideways like cyber mime artist, grabbing the news from the left, pulling share prices from the right, sliding the football results in from the top, Mars Ultras 2, Neptune phantoms 1. This glove I speak of, might become a bit awkward when the user invariably pulls in some “space porn” probably some omni vaginal she-T character and starts wanking, how will it work, the screen will be flying up and down with every stroke, do they take the glove off, will that turn the thing off? Fuck, ok, maybe we are not ready for that, but as it stands where are we, technologically? We are no closer to getting into space for sure. You might be fooled by Richard Branson’s commercial “space flight” if you consider flying a bit higher than a 747 as space, then, well, good luck with that, you fucking idiot, you wont see Klingons and shit.










I remember watching Buck Rodgers too, I was young, I had urges to do things to Erin Gray in her spray on trousers, I wasn’t sure what exactly, but I imagined that people would be wearing stuff like that today, the only ones who do, are joggers, people who still run home from work, like primitive people, and a time in the 80’s but it soon faded out, we are still in normal earthly clothes, ok, we have technologically advanced materials like Gore-Tex, but that’s just worn by walkers and sex offenders.








I think technologically, we think we are doing better than what we are, people whimsically sweeping over Ipads and Ipods happy as Larry, oh, get me, I can run 200 concurrent apps on my phone, take high def movies and geo map every place I have ever had a shit in London, as well as analyse that shit with my ipoop app, ooh, need more protein, ok, the battery only lasts 45 seconds, but fuck me, it’s a great almost minute.
All well and good, but because we haven’t actually evolved as a “society” in tune with Apple/Sony/Nokia, we have only really strived in making nice shiny things for people to steal, punch your face, and rush off to Cash Converters.
I have an Xbox 360 which can do something like 30 terra flops of doo dars a second, giving me photo realistic Grandmothers to run over in games like Grand Theft Auto, the sound of their hips breaking in THX Dolby duplo triplex stereo bass boost the bollocks 5:1, great, I still sit and urge for the fun of games like sensible soccer, IK+ kick off, player manager. It’s not all about the shiny graphics.

Technology will be the undoing of humans, not like in terminator, we wont all die from a nuclear holocaust caused by revolting self aware PS3’s strangling people with scart leads, or anything, I think we will more like just drop down and die of boredom while all the skilled tasks we used to do are taken over by machines. There is something lovely about going out, taking some photos, developing them, learning how it could be better; now, digital photography makes it possible for any fucker to take professional pictures, 12 mega prick-sell upskirt pictures of girls on the underground etc.
Any fucker can sing because of auto tune, any prick can spell because of spell check, everything is being done for us, and we are turning slowly into featureless effortless emotionless mouthless blobs, like the Roswell Aliens, or Gail from Coronation Street.

Even porn, no longer do young men have to run the shameful gauntlet of plucking up the heart pounding courage of walking into the local shop and trying to retain a look of normality of buying Club or Mayfair magazine, getting the single acknowledging eye brow raise of the shop owner (who has probably glued half the pages shut before hand, porn mag prima nocta), rushing home thinking about the things you are going to do to that big titted bird with the perm on page 27, and planning on reading the double page story about the surviving crew of the nuclear submarine (you don’t) (I did!) Now its all done for you, three clicks and you can have a stoutly built Swedish lass heaving a huge turd log into some poor geeky looking shit obsessed perverts mouth (if that sort of think tickles your proverbials).

Kids don’t play out anymore, probably because they can do all their socialising on pervebook, or paebo, or whatever the latest piece of shit is called, yeah, but this ones like totally cool because I can like send virtual gifts and stuff, “Hey”, “Hey, how’s it gong”, “Yeah, cool I guess” “So like, erm I like totally, like erm….And meaningless micro talk like that.
Probably also too scared to play in the street because of the huge swathes of paedo’s the internet has awoken and people looking to live out their Grand Theft Auto fantasies.

Dating/relationships haven’t come on at all, I thought by 2011 I would be able to plug my cock into a computer and fuck Sharon Stone (circa 1985, or now actually, cor) or whoever, even that Swedish gob shitting woman 2 paragraphs up (no thanks) but no, I still have to go out and drag myself through “dates” talking the same old shit to different people, I could probably just send a tape recording of the crap I was going to say, and they could hear it, decide if it was funny/intelligent enough to get in their knickers and then have sex with me or not, or whatever…**

**Prospective dates reading this, please note, I am just coming out of a cloud of abject cynicism and extinguishing the fires of bitterness that have raged over me for probably a bit too long now, and will be a nice, decent honest bloke again very soon, and promise I wont clock watch if we go out (as long as you are not a lying head fucker) (or have vagazzling) (or talk like in that awful text speak) (or are a materialistic gormless slack jawed dummy) (or dislike beards) (or cant handle the fact that I have a child) (or you have a beard).

Also, I’m still having to cook food, what the fuck, I thought I would be able to come in from work, I say come in; I mean re-materialise where I live, and consume strange plasticine like blobs containing all the goodness I need. No death involved and plenty for everyone, and no shitting, just download nutritional data into a robo toilet, like a scat R2D2.
I would be able to enjoy all the tastes of India without almost gassing myself in my sleep, farting as I roll over, so loudly sometimes that I wake up screaming thinking it’s a terror attack with my room smelling exactly like that Saag Chicken, and having the indignity of my paid for meal spraying out of my arsehole like an Egyptian riot hose.

Travel, I still have to run the gauntlet of twats in mornings just to get onto a really old fashioned train, which is about 40 degrees in the summer. I should, as I say, be able to get in a “transporter” and get a Scotsman to “Energize me” to my place of work. And it needn’t be on this planet. I could do some sort of lunar admin work, logging moon rocks into some sort of space spreadsheet or something as NIGGLINGLY INSIGNIFICANT AS I AM DOING ON EARTH IN 2011, FOR FUCK SAKE!

Another example of how we are not doing as well as we believe, look at animals, what man hasn’t stared at a dog for a long period of time while it noisily licks its own cock and balls, and even its arsehole sometimes, with green eyed envy, wishing they could retire to their rooms and roll into a pleasure ball and stay there for ages.
If dogs could talk, and you could ask the question, would you swap your self fellating ability for a tablet based device that can get your emails, read the news, play games, watch movies etc, the dog would tell you to fuck right off, and probably start growling and if forced, might rip yours or your child’s face into ribbons. They can also smell illness and see ghosts, that tail wagging tongue lolling shit is an act, they are just playing dumb, while you sleep your dog probably speaks to spirits and transcends the earth to places we could never go.

Sharks, a shark can smell a fart up to 30 miles away, ok, its hardly something we would want, but they have evolved with nature, grown into their environments, and are masters of the sea. We have allowed technology to impinge on our natural development.
Had we not invented the television, Xbox, internet, we would probably be psychic, twitter would be a huge network of conjoined minds sending telepathic messages, entire works of literature at the blink of an eye, art, states of mind, ideas, philosophies, not 140 characters of crap, like exactly what I will be doing in about 30 minutes. By the way, if you read this, I’ll probably be talking about the “beetroot poo” I’ll be having tomorrow and thinking I’ve got bowel cancer before remembering I ate about 13 beetroots earlier. Wow, the bleeding edge of technology, utilised by a state of the art human..Fuck me.

Well, without wishing to be too damning on things and the state of humanity, we’ve kind of lost our way, missed the boat. We’ve spent too much time doing silly things like making Hydrogen Bombs, allowing the worlds natural resources to be plundered by shit hole Politicians, sat back and looked the other way while entire species fade off the planet forever, in 20 years time, you will never see a live Kakapo parrot and countless other species, rain forests decimated, and worst of all, we’ve allowed reality television to creep into a prominent position, Cheryl Cole is really famous, but nobody actually knows why, it just seemed to happen, how the fuck did it happen? Kerry Katona gets more tabloid column inches than the entire plight of Africa and the despairing situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. Simon Cowell practically runs music, a little old Irish botox ravaged closet wobbling quasi queen Louis Walsh actually has a say in what band will be rammed down your throat like some sort of audio fois grais.

The world is hanging on like a turd while the collective hand of humanity cranks up and down as hard as possible on the flush, hypnotised by bad adverts, unattainable celebrity image and shitty technological nick naks designed to make you feel like everything is ok, the buzz of ring tones and receipt of text message, email or mention in a tweet drowning out the call of your own soul to just turn back and start returning to nature, where the real happiness is. It’s never too late, and you never know, we return to the old ways and elevate ourselves to previously unknown levels of spirituality, and things like yoga and we might, eventually, be able to lick our own balls? I’d trade my Xbox in for that tomorrow.

Ah fuck, the Xbox is kind of good though…





Its not all bad, to our credit, humans have done some wonderful things, the George Foreman health grill amazing, soda stream, wizardry, who would have through that in 2011, you could buy a laminator FOR THE HOME! And emboss paper with plastic sheets, technically waterproofing it? Flutes are pretty cool? All that noise from that little thing? A shiatsu massage cushion FOR THE HOME!?...

Modern life sucks balls/Vision for London – Part One.

Today I begin my vision for London and the build up to me running and winning a mayoral election, and sorting the fucking heaving mess out that is our crapital city (straight after I have finished approving my Canary Wharf sized statue of me that will look over every single Londoner 24 hours a day, a protecting effigy keeping an eye on everyone, on the streets, in the bedrooms, and the changing rooms.

London, its pretty fucked isn’t it. Every days tasks and challenges are met with abject tedium, the tedium of the pathetic obstacles, from the daily morning greasing up, just to be able to get on board a packed out of date stinking third world mode of public transport, being satisfied with a tiny corner having to adopt advanced Yoga positions just to have a semblance of space to yourself trying to read a tiny section of paper with one of your legs wrapped round the back of your head. The daily tolerance needed just to leave the neck unsnapped of the various annoying people that make up the locust swarm of the daily rush hour, where cunts will literally stab a nanna just to get a better position on the train or push past you like ice hockey to get into work a few seconds earlier to get their tongue jammed up their bosses arsehole like a lolly stick, the joke on which is you.

Then, on to lunch where horrible soulless little shops with smug names peddle £4 sandwiches, vine ripened tomatoes, ethically sourced cheese on artisan bread, to the ludicrous salad wrap, which is exactly what it says, salad leaves wrapped in a rizla of bread, oh, don’t forget your £3 coffee put together with abattoir care and attention by some chatty European gap year gap toothed gap wearing cunt (prêt).

You pay for this because it briefly elevates you above the feeling of utter futility of what probably amounts to shitting out pointless work for someone else’s benefit, your years of toil literally forgotten about just hours after you bugger off with a fake hand shake and retirement whip round of about £87 quid, rushing home to sit on your parker knoll chair and curl up into an arthritic cancerous pain ball. (Don’t worry, it gets cheerier!) Dying to the tuts of your rough handed NHS carer and inconvenienced family.

Right, now, you’ve finished the daily dry chipped nail fingering that is work, what now? Rush home to lethally inject your intellect by sifting through the SHIT that is telly, or to the gym to have some roids riddled prick “personally train” you, which amounts to him putting you in impossible positions, and trying to fuck, or humiliate you if you are not up to his standards, or to the pub to marinade yourself into a babbling fuckless bollock with limbs, eyeing up every girl, mentally going through what you would say if you could cough up the courage to actually talk to her, shuffling onto a late night shame train back home, open jawed red eyed and heavy breathing, bouncing into a cheap KFC rip off place for 3 bits of chicken and chips even though you ate in the pub earlier, the feel of hot chicken fat, soggy greasy coating and dry old meat giving you brief feeling of happiness before going home to jerk off over the thigh master infomercial? Or if you are really lucky, you have a hobby, but you don’t actually enjoy this though, do you, (It gets cheerier, honest!)

Then, after 5 days the above, you get to the weekend and either over plan it and sit head in hands while Saturday turns to Sunday and before you know it, you are back on the train like a fucking organic Tetris block, just trying to fit in…You poor cunt?

You still here? Take that knife away from your wrists, here comes the gift, my vision for London, something to make sure that none of the above happens to anyone of you, (like it did me).

Why do most Londoners walk around with that look of impending doom engraved into their face? Because they have no REAL challenges in their life, just the misery of above, which, apart from some jobs, amounts to no more mental challenge than potato prints. People are literally mentally falling apart because there is no challenge in their life (Oy, fuck you cunt, I forecast a 7.22 index on a foreign oil/gold/ fedex long point, blue chip, turnover, wotsit do dar?) No, not like that you unethical banker cunt, Humans were not meant to be sitting around coked out of their mind tits in front of multiple computer terminals. No, proper living, how it used to be, you don’t get whinging Inuit’s, or Amazon rain forest people do you, just crumbling fucks sitting each week for counselling, ohh didums….

What London needs is some proper excitement, and I have a plan, If I was Mayor, every day at 12.30pm a klaxon would sound and I would have 4 Chinook helicopters fly over and slowly lower Hippos and Brown Bears into Central London, 3 beasts on each flight, that’s 12 angry fuckers to turn lunch breaks from a pointless pricey bread fest into a primeval fight for life. (Oh, to make matters worse, the bears haven’t eaten or mated for 2 weeks, and the Hippos have large elastic bands around their testicles, and are fucking angry anyway).

Lunch breaks would become a two hour adrenaline rush, people would be on the phones, or chatting over a coffee, before hearing the klaxon, the sound of a winch and the nasal huffing and puffing of irritated bears and bollock bound river bastards looking around anxiously for the cunt who lashed their testes with elastic.

Conversations would end, fingers would point and a collective scream would sound out as people ran to find vantage points against the multi terrain traversing terrors.

You can’t climb a tree, because the bear can, you cant jump in the Thames, the bear and the hippo can swim, you can get on the tube because both animals have zone 1-6 oyster cards on their snouts or equivalent. If you are underestimating this because you have been fooled by a little duffle coat donning cunt called Paddington and have seen the Chambourcy Hippopotomas advert, let me give you a bit of background. A hippo doesn’t just kill you, it M and S kills you; it ties you to a chair playing “stuck in the middle” pours petrol over you and cuts your fucking ear off. A bear will call your parents or partner and make you cry down the phone to them. A hippo can drive a fucking motor bike with the bear in the side car for fuck sake, if you are unlucky enough to be picked, you will get got, they will dress as a fucking electricity meter man, trick their way into your home and then walk you into the carpet like a sausage roll at a shit party.

At 2.30 when the beasts have been recovered everyone will return to work, apart from those who have been escalloped or half eaten like a bad sandwich, everyone would feel energised, euphoric and relieved, they would go home and appreciate those around them, and eventually sleep, just happy to be alive. (I thought about killer bees on the tubes at home time, but thought it would be ripping the arse out of the idea..)

“What else, what else, and how do I vote for you now?”, I hear you yodel from your wide eyed excited new self. Ok, I’ll summarise some of my other polices.

Maternity: This would be for everyone, even the childless could apply. People could take a 6 month break from work to go off and bring themselves up properly, making up for the shambles job their parents did. You would have to qualify for this by being a bit stupid or immature. This would be called Me-ternity leave. You would be expected to come back to work a bit less of a fucking idiot though.

<<<>

Speed cameras: The focus of these would switch from the cars and onto the pavements, to pick up the most annoying of them all, the cream of the crap, the shufflers and dawdlers. Anyone walking under 2mph would set off the camera and a PCA (pavement continuity agent) would hit them with a stun gun to speed them up, anyone caught walking slowly while reading a book, or eating breakfast or god forbid both, would have their trousers and pants pulled down and be surrounded by no less than 6 PCA’s and have their cock mercilessly laughed at for no more than 45 minutes. If it’s a girl they would have their hair done by a top hairdresser and then have cold water poured straight on it while the PCA’s laugh in different octaves like an ensemble vocal harmony group .

<<

Wanky Shops/Bars: Trendy sandwich shops and wanky bars would be destroyed in a real life version of angry birds, frozen turkeys would be fired at the shops from medieval catapults until they are destroyed, while the greedy owners cower inside like the smug robbing pigs they are. These shit holes would be replaced by reasonably priced pie and mash shops, fish and chip places; you might even be able to get a kebab for lunch or shops selling cheese sandwiches on normal white or brown bread. If you want something healthy, like Israeli cous cous or quinoa, sure, bring it in, but eat it out of sight, you nauseating nibble needing nutsack

Pubs would return to take pride in the city, hearty frothy pints served by real women and the sound of real men sucking beer from moustaches and wiping obligatory beards. Anyone who comes into the bar and tries to order a coffee will be at the mercy of the PCA’s (pub continuity agents), yes there is cock mockery, but only for 15 minutes as coffee is ok, just not in a pub?

Crime: I am against all crime, anybody found committing a crime would be at the mercy of the PCA’s (prison continuity agents) there would be lots of penile pointing and mirth.

To be continued. (If I’m not sectioned beforehand)

Umbrellas, Darwin Awards, Near Death, Amsterdam, Pregnancies.

All the things in this title link, trust me, maybe not in the order, I could probably write a whole blog about umbrellas, because they are my kryptonite (them and slippers), I’ve come close to death because of one, and almost been blinded several times. (How do you die by brolly?) I’ll tell you. It’s fucking embarrassing, but I’m here to tell the tale.

It was 2002 ish and I’d not long met the woman I went on to ask to marry, and who gave birth to my son. We’d kind of become “official” but I’d already booked a long weekend to Amsterdam with a mate, a mate who hadn’t even smoked a cigarette in his life, or done any drugs, well he was fucked then.

We had a tradition in my group of mates (I say had, because most of them are just plain old cunts* now (*Curiously Unexplainably Not There Socially), or just normal regular basic bog standard cunts, anyway, this tradition was to drink like you was never going to see the person again if they were going on a plane, even if it was an hours flight.

Me and my mate got ready to go “out out” in Streatham. We went to leave and noticed it was absolutely pissing down so we nicked a couple of my mum’s antique umbrellas from her antique copper thing and hoofed it up to the pub. Cut to several hours later and we were both practically unable to speak and made our way back from the pub, brollies up I stupidly suggested in my heightened agitated whiskey sozzled state that we were not a pair of pricks, but in fact Knights of honour, and would fight our way through the housing estate to get home. We basically threw all thoughts of honour and chivalry out of the window and started trying to beat the fuck out of each other with the brollies.

As we got mid way through the estate we got to one of those jobs worth spoilt sport metal things to stop people on bikes from having fun. I decided with all the imagination I could conjure that it was some sort of dragon, and tried, (in my drunken honourable knight of the realm way) to ask it to move aside. It didn’t, it was cemented in for fuck sake. I asked again, more assertively this time. Again, being bedding into a tarmac path, it didn’t budge, nor would it have. I ordered a charge, to myself, being the only fuck wit who was living out the metal dragon fantasy, my other mate was just standing open jawed, drunken heavy breathes watching me, slightly more sprightly but still heavily dumb from beers and spirits. I ran as fast as I could and brought my “Broadsword” down on the “beast” several times.

I heard like a twanging sound, and thought nothing of it, and then realised that I was seemingly sweating profusely from my neck, which was odd. I dropped the brolly and reached up, realising that one of the spines from the brolly was sticking in my neck, I pulled it out and then realised that I was bleeding heavily from a puncture wound on my neck. Thankfully and due to my drunken state, I never panicked. I never did anything. I just stood feeling blood pumping out of my neck and my friend’s perplexed face, impotent to assist due to his drunkenness, and probably the sheer randomness of it. I took my shirt off and held it tight against my neck and made for home (which was a bout 800m away). Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t like a samurai movie where the blood is misting out like a garden sprinkler, or like a horror slash and gash movie, heaving out like someone has struck oil, but it was coming out at a fair rate.

I got home and into the kitchen and took the shirt away, the blood was still pumping out with every heart beat. It was at this point, that the stupidity of the whole thing, paved way for a whole new level of stupid, and I decided to call my girlfriend and tell her exactly what was happening.

The phone rang for some time (as it does when someone is fast asleep) she answered, confused, but asked me if I was ok. No thought for my own safety, I just told her as it was. “I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding from my neck, I love you, I just wanted you to know”- At the time, I think I must have thought that saying this would be quite romantic, and that if I died she would at least know that, what it had actually done, ringing someone who was 40 miles away, was highlight just what a complete unabridged tool she was now going out with. “What happened” She enquired. I was confused, if I told her the brolly story verbatim, I’m single, I can’t lie to her though, I settled for the bare physics of the event, the brolly exploded, which technically it did, she didn’t need to know that I was the “chemical agent” in this explosion.

I can’t remember what happened to the call at this point but it ended quite soon after this. I managed to stem the bleeding; it took a while of just sitting still, and calmly. My dopey mate had sat the whole time looking perplexed and open jawed. I hadn’t helped by giving him the frankly ludicrous instruction of only calling an ambulance if I passed out.

Once I had confirmed that bleeding had stopped by touching this flappy cap of skin I looked at him across the table with completely burgundy hands and a shirt looking like I had just got in from the tomato fight in Spain. I washed my hands and asked him if he wanted a bacon sandwich, he didn’t. I went to bed and slept in a drunken but relieved way. I woke up embarrassed and had to salvage the relationship and get myself together for Amsterdam.

Right, just to be clear, this event was a one off, I’ve not had a single other episode in my life where I have drunkenly professed to be a knight and nearly killed myself with a brolly sword, I hate knights, ok, I don’t even know why I did it that one time. Are we clear? I’m not a fuck wit ok, I’m actually quite sensible, I nearly died in a shower and by choking to death on a family sized swiss roll in a car park in Croydon while bunking college, but that’s it, I need to be clear that by publishing this, you discount me as a fuckwit, it was nearly 9 years ago and the swiss roll thing was almost 20 years, are we good? Cool. [What a fuckwit?]

(a fuckwit <<<)

Sadly, and unbeknownst to my now ex. I went to Amsterdam with the zeal and vigour of someone who had somehow “cheated death” (and not just stemmed the bleeding of a reasonably bloody neck wound), and a fucking Darwin award, and so, given this bonus of extra life, would go shit or bust in Amsterdam. If I was destined to be a Darwin award, I’d decided that it was going to be the first human to legitimately overdose from cannabis. Fuck it.

We arrived and checked in to the cheap hotel, the room predictably by the fucking 6am laundry shoot, and the outlet for the 6am chip fryer on the ground floor. We dumped our stuff and went straight out, and straight to my coffee shop of choice (after looking bemused at the small men looking at the 25 stone Nigerian hookers in windows). We arrived at Homegrown Fantasy, and went through the predictable warnings of how strong their stuff is, it really fucking is, its not just weed, it’s the whole science behind it (a flash back to the first time I went to Amsterdam and spent an evening clinging onto the side of a military camp bed in a £12 no star “hotel” believing I was going to float out of the tall Dutch window and to my death) I nodded, in an attempted learned fashion, and we brought two large slices of hash cake and some shit called desert eagle or something ridiculous and headed back to the hotel room.

Ignoring the warnings to have just half a slice each, we wolfed them down with tea and then had a few joints in the hotel room. Given my mates utter drug virginity, when the stuff kicked in he started to tremble and quaked a bit, slowly rocking back and forth as he went from a reasonably competent cognitive human being, to something with the intelligence of something from the salad cart in Harvester. My concern turned inwards when too, I started to shut down like an infected Windows XP on a slow laptop. As I felt the swirliness of the hash cake kicking in, I bid my poor mate farewell and went into emergency shut down, my final vision of him was convulsing on the bed, like John Hurt in Alien, and he was whiter than a KKK member’s uniform after a Persil boil wash.

Several crazy dreams later I awoke to find it was the early hours of the morning and I couldn’t move much, I turned to see my poor mate exactly as I left him, rocking slowly like a mad Nan, I asked him if he was alright, but he answered with about as much info as you would get off a caeser salad. I tried to get up to piss but it took me about 20 minutes to get off the bed and to the toilet (which was at the end of the bed pretty much), then it was like trying to pee out of a hypodermic needle. In the actual morning, I told him I was sorry, and asked him how he had felt, he said it was “different” and not entirely unpleasant. We went for a walk, and then back to the Homegrown fantasy for more of the same. It was that night I attempted the pointless overdose which of course failed, you can’t overdose on week, you can only get long term mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia etc (shit). Anyway, I’ve admitted a lot on here, sorry it wasn’t full of stories of prostitution, fruit insertion, vaginal table tennis etc. Not my thing I’m afraid.

This story started with an umbrella, so it may as well end with one. I’m not a fan of them, I have to run the gauntlet of the different sized people rushing through drizzly London with them arched forward like a medieval battle, and the blokes with the massive Corporate ones which are wider than the pavement whishing around like a cunty capitalist be-suited Mary Poppins and the worst of all, the fucking older pratt with the shit perm, which is guarding her hair with her life. She is practically deflecting the rain, and she doesn’t care about your eyes, she is protecting her “do” with her life, looking like a shit Willy Wonka with a thin layer of lipstick she actually looks like a poodles rear end, but it doesn’t matter, everyone has their OCD, and hers is getting water on her shit barnet. I’ve had my eyes raked by an errant brollying before, it was like a drive by. I went nuts.

This morning was like the Chariot racing scene in Ben Hur, it was coming down hard, I had a brolly for once and smashed someone else’s out of the way, who was about 5ft 5 and didn’t seem to care for anyone else, as long as he was OK, I managed to slip a “you fucking cunt” in. My inner dialogue is getting louder, and my mannerisms more obvious as I get older. For example, me, a 36 year old dad should never walk behind a fucking faux fat Eminem rude boy prick walking along the train platform with that ridiculous bowl, as if they have recently had a hip replacement, not only imitating it, but pulling a School Yard “spaz face”. I’ll get caught out one day and probably punched up a bit, but I’m getting older disgracefully and things get on my nerves and I CANT KEEP IT IN...

Getting older

I’ve finally acknowledged that I’m getting older, and I just wanted to leave this marker on the web in case I ever get the urge to do anything stupid.

I’ve never really given getting older a second thought, until recently, a pretty innocuous sledge crash left me feeling like I’d been in a cage fight with a randy beard loving hippo (I never injured my anus, but I was pretty mashed up).

I’ve always just been able to do what I do and not really had never had to make an allowance for my age, its just crept up on me, I just assumed by now I’d be walking around with my t shirt tucked into my jeans and wearing sensible deck shoes with a house and a wife, the easy street that leads straight to death. Well, I can say that I don’t tuck my t shirt into my jeans…

I have noticed lately though, I get much worse hangovers than years back when I would go clubbing all night, get back and go straight out to play 4 hours of shit football (which lead my dad to accuse me of being on Heroin, he obviously didn’t research his drugs before the big talk). I get back ache, aches in general. I feel the cold; I have to acknowledge it when I fall down some stairs, rather than just dive roll at the bottom and carry on what I was doing.

I don’t dance any more (unless I’m “forbidden zone” drunk in which case I’ll break out the fucking straight up 80’s robotics and or the George Michael turn and hand clap, I don’t give a fuck when I’m hammered (MC Hammered). But most of all and from now on, I don’t get into 20mph sled crashes. (Oh yeah, I also make a weird grunting noise whenever I sit down, or pick something up, get in a car, and I’ve almost pooed myself a couple of times, erm, I’m assuming that’s age?).

I’ve got a 6 year old son, typical, full of energy, I want to keep up with him until he is at the age where we probably won’t do much together, as I will be crushingly uncool to him and he will want to be with his mates, and he will shrug and huff tut and sigh even at the mere suggestion of us doing something together. I figure I have about 5 years left, 6 tops. In that time I want to be able to kick a ball with him without the fear of keeling over, going blueberry and dying on the lawn, and having someone explain to the poor fucker that Dad’s not coming back. (PS, I was never like this with my Dad, as he was like the incarnation of Zeus and seemed to have the strength of 10 bears (until he keeled over and went blueberry coloured and die in front of me) (Someone has issues?).

Anyway, this sledge crash, or Jabba the Hut on Ice, as I call it, happened in the recent snow, I was at my mates on a huge hill, I’d improvised a sledge out of an old shop sign that was made from bendy plastic and had hardly any friction, a bit like Kerry Katona’s vagina (probably) From the moment I pushed off at the top of the hill I realised that I was more than likely in trouble. I headed faster and faster towards the bottom of the hill, and the wall of brambles and shrubbery, I thought I would have ages before I would have to initiate an emergency bail out. Turns out this was hard to judge going backwards, I managed to turn the thing around just in time to realise I was going to hit the various fauna at about 20 mph and screamed “OH JESUS CHRIST” (To imagine the son of god, head in hands while looking at the shambling state of the planet, famine, war, greed etc, distracted momentarily by the loudest cry of his name since the film, the Wicker man, only to turn round and see a fucking chunky father smashing into an organic wall, tutting, and turning back to the real suffering). I lay there, motionless, wondering if I had been impaled on something, I wasn’t, the plants were damaged, I had impaled on them, probably praying to their plant god, this was their hairy 9/11.

I walked away from it, I even had another couple of goes on the sled, and chuckled, until the next day when I realised how banged up I was.

I also had a bike crash when I was in my twenties, I came off going down a hill going over a mound so technically I went upwards in the air as the gradient of the steep hill increased below me, meaning that, according to the rider behind me, and fucking Newtons theory, I went about 15 meters in the air (I’d thought about 10) as I sailed upwards and had time to contemplate a life of being fed through a tube and not being able to play xbox, lift a pint or jerk off, I landed and couldn’t feel a thing for a fraction of a second, but ultimately walked away from that. I’ve never broken a bone, I probably should have, but I hope I never do, I got so drunk in a pub in the west end one night that I couldn’t face the stairs after a horse piss that I rolled down them like the boulder from Indiana Jones, I was indestructable. If I had that crash today, you could be certain that I would be presented to my mum in a dust pan and brush.

Getting older is not all that bad though, there are some positives, I don’t have to worry what I wear (not that I ever have) I don’t need to wear the latest trainers, Nike fucking air wanks, made from space shuttle heat tiles with the soul (yes, I said soul, they are so expensive, they actually have a living spirit) made from liquid hydrogen and guaranteed to make you run faster, this is only really apparent when some little cunt is running away after mugging you for your mid life crisis ipod and you cant catch him in your sensible deck style shoes. And labels, I don’t have to ponce around Cuntston high street trying to look for latest Polio Ralph Lauren whatever top. I am excluded from the huge Nike air bubble that exists around youngsters, and thankfully I am not old enough to be a bothersome old cunt to them, I’m in age purgatory. I can just look at them at tut while they jostle for position in their social groups and stab the granny out of each other over ridiculous rules regarding turf/respect bullshit. I’m also on the fence when I see a girl out wearing post it notes in the middle of winter, one half says, oh, she’ll catch a death, the other wants to salute the glory that is young women on the razzle.

I also don’t feel that I should go to clubs, or would be welcome there if I did, I’ve got a few years to go before I look like I am there picking a child up (as a parent you sick fuck). I think I had my shot there, and now should leave it to people who are willing to dance without a micro brewery’s worth of beer in them. I shouldn’t go either because I don’t know any of the tunes they listen to nowadays, it all sounds like a fax machine to me (fuck, how old do I sound?), and will probably scream “TUNE” and run dancing when I hear Club Tropicana by Wham without realising the DJ has played it for a wind up and then get slow clapped out, with me misunderstanding it for a rousing crowd and doing my version of the Ricky Gervais dance.

Dating – I never planned on being single at 36 (yeah?!, then why was you a bothersome fucking twat and let relationships slip through your fingers and not fight for them when the going got tough(er)?) Fuck you self conscious, always popping up in my blogs, maybe I didn’t want to fight, maybe you shouldn’t NEED to fight, maybe it should just be fun and fuck all the stupid games? (Yeah, alright, you’ve got me there, I’ll go away now) Yeah, good, get off your high horse and go and sit on the naughty step (Maybe fighting for it is actually part of it, and just fun is for fingering round the back of the bike sheds in School and not adult stuff?) WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? (Its not important right now, just bear that in mind if and when you meet someone else) Jesus, a 3 way argument with myself, too much..

Anyway, where was I, yes, dating, I find it very hard to go on “dates” with energy and enthusiasm, not that I’ve been on lots of dates, but there was always the nagging thought, when is she going to be naked, when, when, make her laugh, naked, when? Which has been replaced with, oh, I’ve told this story several times, I’m bored of saying it (in Gary Barlow monotone), maybe I am meeting the wrong people but the thought of trying to get “dates” and “pursue” someone just seems too much for me, I guess it wont get any easier, but I do see them as like job interviews for your balls, and I suppose if I was in a nature programme now I’d probably be an old bison, having lost a battle for my patch (getting dumped for the first time recently) I’ve retreated off and now find my pleasure in pursuits of the mind, “Hey, look every one, I’ve just noticed that if you rub your hoof in the earth several times” “Fuck you old bison, I’m busy getting to the fucking”. I’m sure

I’ll be fine if I meet someone decent, life is forging me in the coals of harlots, drunkards and she-blaggards.

Right, its half nine, bit tired, might need to start thinking about bed..

Christmas Shopping/Purley Way/Croydon/Dog Poo

Right, I know there is a recurring theme of misery and spite across my blogs, fair enough; quite a lot winds me up, my goat is perhaps to easy to get. But generally, I’m a happy chap who can light up a room (like a chip pan fire) or literally suck the life out of it when moody (not like that).

I was a happy chap yesterday, and then it hit me, I have to buy presents; I have to traipse around shops spending money on crap. And then Purley Way happened, and I was sad, and angry. In fact, as a shopping experience, it was like having a large calloused finger stuck up my freezing cold winter bum hole, with no semblance of a lube. Please, read on..

I’d been out late Friday, and spent yesterday morning pratting about trying to do something, anything, to put off the first limp attempt at Christmas shopping. When it passed lunch time I realised I needed to get my skates on, my options were simple, Balham, no shops, Tooting, awful place, about 3 practical shops, Streatham, no, too many reasons to list, Westfield, too far, too busy, too shoppy, Croydon, no Lord, please no, please don’t put me in a position where I HAVE to go to Croydon, the shitty little groups of hip retarded rude boys with half their underpants showing, walking up and down the high street, doing arthritic hand gestures to their “Breadbin” Trashy rude boy worshipping girls slutting up and down, with their greasy hair scraped back so hard their eyes sit on the top of their heads like toads, draped in cheap H Samuel gold, and then the dirty looking pikey men in Lonsdale tracksuits with black under their finger nails and cigarette yellow fingers, walking around with that desperate, I might beg, I might steal look on their faces, and finally the chip pan fat shiny faced most likely single mums using their uterus as a grappling hook to get their fat arses on the property ladder, dragging their poor hapless kids around pound shops only paying them attention to shout expletives at them for doing anything but drag behind them like Indiana Jones behind that train. No, fuck that, thanks though.

I decided I would go to Purley Way, avoiding Croydon center, I knew there was a Toys R Us there, and I could get some of my boys stuff, and there was some other stuff there so maybe Daddy could find some gadget to briefly make himself feel better about the shambles that is his life.

I’d only ever been there once before on foot and it was a nightmare, it had been snowing which had turned to ice, and because Purley Way shopping was designed only for cars, it was a fucking nightmare, not expecting any people on foot nothing was gritted and it was like Mohammed Ali on Ice, and a few times I nearly fell into the stream of cars.

I would plan it better this time; I could go straight to Toys R Us and then straight back onto the tram and home. I departed with this in mind, I never tagged in my Oyster Card, fuck Southern Trains, fuck them hard, and don’t even give them a cuddle after, cunts, I was going out of my zone, but seriously, fuck them, they make my daily commute an abject misery, so no way am I paying for a journey on their shambles train service if I can help it.

I then changed onto the tram and never tagged in again. I like the tram, I genuinely forgot. I got to Ampere Way and saw ticket inspectors, fuck it I thought, and walked past them undetected, only because they were already writing out tickets for about 3 people. Then I went through elephantine Ikea and into the Valley Retail Park. Again, this was designed with purely cars in mind, a token goat track for people ran through the middle, and once you are in, you are in. Another reason why you need a car here is because the shops are about 3 miles apart, and Ikea is about 4 miles wide inside, and you don’t use a shopping trolley, you just drive round with your windows and boot open, it’s the only store with fucking speed cameras and traffic wardens. By the time I had got to the first shop I had nearly been run over several times. I felt rushed and harassed and couldn’t remember where Toys R Us was and walked around the entire retail park trying to find a way out without having to go back trough Ikea. Eventually two blokes who looked like WW2 French resistance fighters told me of a “hole in the wall”; I got through and on a road back up to Purley Way to the next “outbreak” of shops where I was almost run over by gypsies in their cut and shut transit van full of scrap metal (probably stolen) en route to the intentional dump in the area, the rest are purely just through people happy to live amongst their own shit.

I went into Comet, just to see if it was like the advert, all the staff cocking about with the products trying to turn 30 George Foreman fat frying grills into a massive hot keyboard that they play with their faces, all screaming in different octaves. It wasn’t like that (unfortunately), just the usual, dour faced Armand Van Helden bearded twats skulking around in shirts and ties, with the lesser subordinates in polo shirts. Then, there is Argos (named after the Greek god of Catalogues), the concentration processing centre of shops, you have to stand around waiting for something you have never actually seen, apart from in a thumbnail sized picture in a catalogue, its good that you haven’t actually seen it, because what you get is a shattered smashed up with bits missing version of what you was expecting, this is because the low paid staff spend most of their time in the back playing keepy uppies or basketball with all manner of stock, you cant buy presents from here, you cant risk it, to see your nippers face on Christmas day when he opens his toy and its in pieces like Lego, but isn’t Lego and was never supposed to be..

Then it was on to the giant Sainsbury’s, a shop trying to be master of all trades, like Tesco actually is, but failing, a woeful selection of toys at unremarkable prices, same with games and DVD’s and then, finally, on to Toys R Us, which was rammed and I realised I didn’t have a single idea what to buy my 6 year old. I thought for a while about just going out with him and letting him get what he wants (up to a point) as if he is anything like me, I personally don’t like suprises in gifts; I would rather have money, something I want, or even nothing. I’m not ungrateful, I just don’t see the point of a jumper you won’t ever wear (even if it did actually fit), or aftershave that makes your skin come up in blisters. [Yeah, but it’s the thought that counts you ungrateful cunt] Yeah, I thought I told you that Lynx gives me asthma?

I eventually left Purley Way with nothing apart from a bad taste in my mouth and a good idea of what hell was like. The idea of taking my boy out for a shopping trip seeming more appealing. On the way back I had to go through Mitcham, a place so awful that Iraqi immigrants have begged to go home and the cry of “bring out your dead can still be heard on Friday nights), I don’t know anyone from Mitcham who doesn’t hold some sort of Guinness book of records for being a victim of crime, most muggings, longest knife ever held to a throat, fastest pick pocketing. I’m not saying everyone there is bad, but let’s put it this way, if it was consumed by a huge earthquake or flood, I think I’d pull that face, you know the one that you pull when someone really old and doddery dies, and it’s not like you are sad that they are gone, it’s more like a relief?

At Mitcham Junction station and with about 20 minutes until a train dared to come through, I realised I was desperate for a piss. No toilet on the station, probably stolen, no cubby hole to piss in, I wandered out into the nothingness and noticed a path into part of Mitcham Common, famous for its high number of male on male rapes and ventured in. I went down a little slope into a good spot for a long horsey piss and slid down, caught my balance, and slid again, catching my balance once more and undoing most of the work that weeks of physio have done on my back, I did a long steamy winters piss and then realised I had slid on dog or human shit, a massive shrine of it at that. It had gone over the sole of the trainer and up the back and the back of my jeans. For a moment I hated all dogs, but realised that I need to sort my shit out (literally) and started doing the 45 degree scrapes on all manner of things and made my way back to the station. Getting on the train (with the faint aroma of recently trodden on shit in the air) I was glad to be heading back to Balham, to pick up beers and chocolate for a night in, the bleak Flanders Field landscape of Mitcham quickly disappears and I made plans to make sure that at no point I would ever go back.