End Of Year Arse-Wipe

Like my natural propensity for forgiveness, blogging hasn’t come easy this year. I’ve struggled. Not so much with ideas or subject matter – there is always some kind of fat that my mind is chewing over – but with inclination; the desire to write and by writing, sharing. “I can’t be bothered,” are the 4 most common (non)spoken words that the little voice inside my soul has thrown out at me this year. Can’t be bothered. And if I did write something who would be bothered to read it? Is it worth my time and effort? Will anybody miss it if I don’t write about it. Will anyone miss me if I overdose on Yorkie bars right now and drive my metaphorical 18 wheeler off the petty minded cliff edge of social media?

This is a bit of a turn around. When I first started writing this blog back in the heady days of 2006 my answer to most of the above questions would have been, “of course no one will miss it if I don’t write about it; of course they won’t miss me, mad fools that they are; and no, no-one really will be bothered to read anything at all that I write BUT I don’t care, I want to write it so I shall – if nothing else it will entertain me.”

And therein lies the problem, I fear. I am no longer entertaining myself. But like a starving tramp scouring the floor for dropped popcorn I still feel a duty to turn up at the theatre just in case I find a hot dog.

To be honest the last half of 2014 has been so unremittingly crap I haven’t wanted to write. I haven’t wanted to engage with the stuff that has been happening. Couple that with an estranged relative who has quite viciously taken against me and this here blog and feels I have no right to write about things that directly affect me if they also happen to affect her and has basically condemned my outpourings here as a feeble minded attempt to garner sycophantic approval from a bunch of faceless, equally needy and nerdy peers and you have the recipe for a perfect storm. Or at least a very wet weekend which makes you not want to get out of bed or do anything very exciting at all.

If I was in any way consistent I would stop writing. I would stop this blog and disappear.

But I can’t. I can’t quite give in. Instead I fudge and mither. I seek a halfway house. I try and instigate a cotton-wool rebellion. Softly softly not quite catchy monkey. I throw a hand grenade but make sure nobody is around to get hurt before I pull out the pin. This is not the spirit in which this blog was bathed at its inauguration.

But there you go. Older and wiser and all that. Certainly a darn sight more tired.

And a darn sight more underhand. For a very brief rundown of current events do visit here (most of you who are regular readers will find you have the correct access rights)… the general hoi polloi, however, will be unable to follow.

Sorry for the cloak and dagger stuff but some of it is quite sensitive and I really don’t want to be dealing with the inevitable fall-out from Estranged Relative (who is like the Argentinian Government to my blog’s quite innocent car registration number*).

Not sure if that makes me Jeremy Clarkson or Richard Hammond. Probably more likely to be James May.

So, going into 2015 there is some major booty that needs kicking (or otherwise dealing with). In the midst of all that though there might be the off-chance of acquiring a flattering girdle which may offer an attractive backdrop to some of life’s more sombre moments. But, like helium, so much of it is up in the air at the moment that it’s just not worth buying the balloon until things become more definite.

I will, however, try and reinvest this blog with a little more spirit and vigour in 2015. I will try and reclaim it for myself and go hang the dissenters. Because, maybe, just maybe, life it too short not to.

*Or possibly even the Mel B to my chirpy Micky Flanagan...

I Was A Teenage Dirtbag (Baby)

I’ve rarely used this blog as a confessional. I’ve rarely dragged skeletons screaming from my closet and paraded them for all to see.

I always assumed, you see, that you, my dear discerning reader(s) wouldn’t want to read scurrilous declarations of wrong doing and sin making.

But I was wrong. I’ve been hit by a meme. Vegemitevix wants me to name and shame 10 secret things that you don’t know about me. She wants me to fess up, unburden my soul, pour out the unwholesome desires that have racked my body in my darkest years in the wilderness before I found the light.

Now that is going to be tough because this is the third time I’ve been hit by such a meme. I’ve fessed up on two previous occasions here and here.

But even by the second time I was duplicating stuff.

And you know why? Because I was trying to keep the real skeletons out of the limelight. I was going for the easy, palatable stuff. The stuff that wouldn’t drive my burgeoning readership away in droves. I was trying to avoid the real, true blue secrets. The truth and nothing but the truth about yours, er, truly.

So. This is the third time someone has demanded that I divulge and disclose. The third time.

So OK people. I get the picture. You’re not going to leave me alone until you’ve got some dirt, are you? Until you’ve got me naked and exposed, squirming beneath your unforgiving gaze.

Well, I’m not sure I can run to 10 because, if I’m honest, I haven’t led that exciting a life. But some of these revelations may shock and disappoint. They may change the way you think of me forever. If you want to keep me up on that pedestal in your mind (and I’m aware that some of you have placed me pretty high) now would be a good time to stop reading. This is your final warning.

Still here? Geez, you guys are salacious. OK. Here goes.

1) During my late teens and twenties – in fact pretty well right up to my thirties – I would honour my best friend in all the world (Dave, if you’re reading this, I hereby apologize) by personally customizing every birthday and Christmas card I bought him with cartoons of a horrifically sexual nature. What started off as little doodles soon became works of obsessive pornography that covered the entire envelope front and back (and even inside the flap) and also the entire card itself. Entire cartoon strips of sexual depravity would slather their way across the best that Hallmark had to offer. If I was feeling particularly mischievous I would post the card to him through the post. You have to understand that Dave is a postman and has a lot of mates in the post office. Those perversely tattooed missives would have gone round like wildfire. I’m pretty sure that after a while Dave began to live in fear of his birthdays and saw Christmas as a good time of year to leave the country. Weirdly, after I got my first girlfriend at the age of 30 my need to produce these Hieronymus Bosch-like paradigms of perversity died away. I simply no longer had the time, energy or inclination. Thankfully for posterity (and for those who wish to blackmail me) I scanned every card and envelope I ever defaced into my PC. This means I can reproduce one here. Or at least a little snippet of one. If you are easily offended do not click on the picture below as this will only cause it to enlarge and you will have to look at it in all its offensive glory. Believe it or not this is the cleanest example I could find. In case you’re wondering it is meant to be a parody of the Spice Girls. Enjoy.

2) God. This is the biggie. Being a somewhat sexually frustrated and yet over libidinous teen (never a great combination) and also having a secret desire to be some kind of comedian – bizarre when I was such a wallflower – I used to amuse myself by making my own homemade albums. These would consist of me “singing” over the top of some of my favourite music into a cheap microphone and recording the lot onto C90 tape. I would ad lib sexual paeans of depravity to whatever starlet happened to take my adolescent fancy at the time. I would then make my own tape covers which greatly resembled the cards I used to send to Dave above. In fact, thinking about it, there’s a bit of a theme here, isn’t there? I still have all the tapes. In fact Dave once got a mate of his to turn some of them into MP3’s and put them onto CD for me. I even made a CD cover for that particular album too. And no. I am not going to post any of them online. EVER. Dave had a theory at the time that these outpourings of teen lust were my equivalent of a “cold shower”. Not sure about that myself but I do think that these musical travesties are possibly the most complete embodiment of teenage hormonal crassness ever produced and I may well leave them to science upon my death.

3) Not content with ad libbing the kind of toilet humour that Rik Mayall himself would have balked at, I even scripted it. I would write little plays parodying various soap operas and, armed with a BBC sound effects tape, would embroil my sisters into acting them out on a Sunday afternoon in my Nan’s garage and recording them onto C90 tape. One memorable series was about the Blake & Blake Detective Agency and would usually be, yes, you’ve guessed it, a sorry tale of sexual misdemeanour and horrendous wrong doing. And yes, I still have the tapes. And yes I made covers for them. And no you’re not getting to hear any of them. EVER. See. There is a theme here.

4) Not on your nelly. You’ve got quite enough to be going on with. And if any of you wish to end our virtual association right now, I fully understand.

Ladies and gentlemen. The confessional is over. I’m not going to hand this meme on but I do dare any of you to respond in kind. Go on. It’s cathartic. It might halve your readership but it’s good for the soul. Apparently.