I've Seen More Profundity In A Puddle Of Vomit On A Saturday Night.

Fuck!  Wish I'd known fifteen years ago that statements of the obvious and sixth form radicalism were the way to make a living in the art world...............

Christmas Casualties

The post Christmas lethargy still clings.  I've only just finished tidying away the festive decorations and ornaments and I'm still stumbling over boxes of shortbread and gift bags full of surprise booz, though sadly Peach Schnapps isn't my tincture of choice.  Not because I don't like it you understand.  Far from it.

It's just that the missus will boot me in the nuts if I so much as break the seal on it.

Mind, it would make a change for me to turn up in A&E with an actual injury for a change.  Boxing Day saw possibly the most farcical and embarrassing trip I'll ever make to a casualty ward, barring any future miss-haps involving the hoover and an open bathrobe.

Ok, so I woke at about 2.30 am with a swollen eye.  A film was forming over it with all red blotches and stuff.  At this point, we have no idea what it is, but it's uncomfortable and getting worse.  So, we jump in the car and head for the Royal as there was no surgery open until Wednesday.  Two hours later, I get the call from the nurse to go through from the waiting room, leaving behind the ever increasing number of Boxing Day wounded (most of whom seemed to know each other)  It was also around this time that the swelling started to go down and I realised what a silly sod I'd been.  If I'd just gone back to bed, my eye would have been fine in the mornig, if a little crusty.

So, there I am, stuck in a cubicle for another 40 minutes or so whilst people with real problems are attended to and I wish the ground would open up and swallow me.  Eventually, a slightly harassed looking doctor asks a few questions, does an eye exam on me and tells me I've merely popped a blood vessel in my eye whilst coughing or something.  I leave apologetically, meet the missus and head back to the car feeling quite sure I've made a fairly decent last gasp bid for the title of Twat of the Year 2011.

Wouldn't surprise me if they've logged it down as an example to be quoted next time they publish figures detailing how much it costs the NHS to deal with Britain's hypochondriac population.....

And so I returned to my slumber, hoping I could pass it off as a bad dream.

A dream.....A dream....A dream........ A dream............


Then I wake up six hours later with the remnants of visions so strange, they automatically consign the previous nights antics to the back of my mind.  How do you get jam from a cat?  Well, you could take the jam off the cat and put it out of reach I suppose.  Alternatively you can always cut the cat open and extract it.......

Dreams can tell you many things.  A dream I had last night for instance, told me in no uncertain terms that I had unresolved issues regarding someone in my past.  On the other hand, a dream about cutting open cats to harvest their 'jam' defies interpretation on every level.  I don't care if you're someone who sees dead people, if you're an expert in Freudian analysis, or you just think dreams are the result of excess gas..........

There really is nothing you can say to someone whose subconscious mind decides to kick that sort of shit out of leftfield.

In other news, I am involved in a full scale war with my telephone.  Since losing my job, I have become aware of just how many automated phone calls I receive in a day.  Is it someone touting a service promising to retrieve miss-sold PPI?  Is it a call centre in Delhi asking for Mr Nick Olsen?

The funniest one was my bank performing a customer service survey relating to the last time I visited the branch.  I just told them everything was tickety-boo and left it at that.  Seems wrong to kick a man while he's down.....

I leave it off the hook now, unless I'm expecting a call from an employment agency.  Even then, it's tempting to ignore the bastards.  These companies are an absolute fucking disaster area, but it's all there is for the average Pleb At Large........

Hell, maybe I can get myself a job with a PPI recovery company.  It's probably the biggest growth area in the British economy along with pawn shops, online money lenders and gold smelters.   Seriously, the recovery companies will take any old shite as evidence.

"Yes, I took out PPI on a credit card in 2003.  No, I don't have the paperwork or any details.  Really?  You can get me 3 Grand anyway?  Braw!"

The banks are in such a hurry to fire through these PPI claims that it's almost certain that some fraudulent claims will pay out.  The money's earmarked, they're not contesting the claims.......  The message seems to be "Fill yer boots, the damage is done!"


Not sure phoning up to ask if you had a nice time at the branch on your last visit is gonna make much difference.

Escape From Facebook Island

"After many months at seas, I was picked up by a passing Blogger account and hauled to safety.  And so it was that I made my way back into the world of structured, intelligent Internet activity.................."

Relatively speaking......

One thing I have concluded about Facebook is that the folk you spend social time with, be they friends, family or members of your local urban riot re-enactment society, are always best kept at arms length in the online realm.  It's only a matter of time before you start to regard them all as smug, banal, tedious cunts wishing they would shut the fuck up about their Christmas shopping and stop sending those desperate, hateful requests to copy some sentimental shite to your status (the implication being that if you don't, then you're not a "True Friend" ).

I will miss the Fraping though, but that's between me and my counsellor.......

Something else I may need professional help for is my bottomless contempt for Chuggers.  I think it would help if they all wore David Cameron masks.  It would make it so much easier to spit on them and call them loathsome shit licking cockroaches.  So much more satisfying than quickening your step, avoiding eye contact and politely, yet firmly saying "no thanks, not today".  Or not.  Your choice, your time, your money, your bank details......

Of course, one of my stops whilst in town was BHS, on the off chance they might have a cheap piece of gimmicky Christmas tat to buy for someone you're not entirely sure wants a present off you, but you feel obliged cos your missus has bought their missus something.  Five minutes of wandering around the reduced, yet still over priced alcoholic gift boxes ("For That Special Piss Head In Your Life This Christmas!!") was more than enough to make me realise that a bottle of Smirnoff would be cheaper and better appreciated.

It also struck me that if they can make lager that tastes of piss, how much harder would it be to market piss that tastes of lager?  A strapline for the product?  How about "Still tastes better than a warm can of Miller!"

OK, that's all from me, I'm fucking off now.  Just a wee word of congratulations to IJ Mellis Cheesemongers on Great Western Road.  Yesterday they achieved world record status for having the most middle class people in one confined space, a record previously held by an over-priced wine merchant in Hyndland on New Years Eve 1998.

Merry Christmas!

The Final Word

Good Night & God Bless. It's been a blast........

Thanks: Cocktails, Szelsofa, Clairwil, Kim, Larry, Rodent, Velo Gubbed Legs, Some Chilean Woman, Curlews In The Goyt, Billy, Last Years Girl, Binty, Edge Of Nowhere, Machine Gun Thompson, Oblong Scone, Bete de Jour, Alan @ This Moment (still much missed) and many more who popped in and out over the years. Dave Duff, I'm happy to report, is still a cunt.

John Grant

This is a song by the Czars, John Grant's first band. More to come later in the week. Hope you like.....

Five Years Feels Like A Lifetime

It is now, more than any other time in my life, that I feel like an old fart on the internet. Yes, Facebook went down for a couple of hours on Thursday and it's a fucking news story.........

Oh how I chuckled as the memories came flooding back. Trying to get logged into Blogger. Trying to post up pictures on Blogger. Trying to post anything on Blogger!!

There will come a time when every single fucking lifeform on the face of this God-forsaken ball of dirt will have a Facebook account, so I think it's only right that the current users get broken in with regard to regular 'outages'. They need to get used to the misery of not being able to log in and make inane comments about things other people have said, or inform the world at large that they "Can't wait for the weekend". They need to find the mental courage to be able to go a whole afternoon without displaying baby scans or spouting poorly thought out political opinions.

They need to understand that Farmville may well be unavailable for weeks on end on some occassions, and that all meaning will evacuate their lives in this interim period.

Those who can live with such a burden will grow strong and forge normal lives, doing something less boring instead.

The rest will open fucking Blogger accounts and make my ruddy life a misery again.

The cunts.

Listen To This No 18

One of the greatest songs ever written. Adore it you twats, and dare not mention that gaggle of soft metal twots from Sheffield!!

Entries of note in that chart. Hamilton Bohannon. Twice't. Next!