Sonic Doom

I don’t, as a rule, like other people’s music.
 
This is a conclusion I have reached through a lifetime of empiric research.
 
“Other people” – certainly in Leamington Spa – invariably have poor taste, play 'up' and 'slow' tempo songs at times that are not appropriate to my mood or are white and like to think that below the surface they are Dr Dre’s main man and spiritual bro.
 
The above facts, on the whole, do not impinge on my life too much or cause me to impinge on others.
 
Except when, as happened yesterday, I was walking down the street minding my own business when the keys in my trouser pocket began to oscillate to some kind of sonic disruption that was fast approaching me from the rear.
 
To my eternal regret it was neither Matt Smith with his Doctor Who screwdriver or Keeley Hawes with a vibrator. It was in fact some teenager’s third-rate pimp mobile from the bowels of which was emanating the kind of low level bass frequency normally associated with fracking operations in Canada.
 
I felt the car’s approach long before I heard the actual music and longer before I heard the tinplate rattle of the engine. I swear the air shimmered in a sort of heat haze halo around the extremities of the vehicle. Like some kind of vibrato field had been created that would pulp anything solid that dared to cross its boundaries. Anyone with gallstones in the immediate vicinity would have found themselves instantly cured.

I cannot for the life of me tell you what musical track the guy was playing. There was nothing but a solid, constant bass rumble. The sound a black hole makes when it incessantly sucks all matter and light around it into its greedy maw. And let me tell you that this guy’s music etiquette certainly sucked like a black hole. He didn’t give a damn about anyone else. He didn’t give a damn about the asphalt powdering beneath the shadow of his passing. He didn’t give a damn about the rivets and bolts that were undoubtedly being shaken loose from the engine of the very vehicle he was enveloped within. He didn’t give a damn that even when he had driven four hundred yards down the road from me, the recycling boxes that the good people of Leamington Spa had left out for the sake of eco-conservation were still audibly vibrating from the residual shockwaves he had left behind.
 
That last is a God's honest actual fact.
 
The whole episode just made me want to sneer out loud. In fact I probably did precisely that but nobody heard me, not with the blood still pouring out of their ears.
 
Why do people do this kind of thing? Why? It is invariably men that do it which leads me to think that testosterone is a contributing factor. Are these tectonic plate shifting mega-rumbles the human male’s equivalent to birdsong and stags flexing their bruising antlers? Are women attracted by the possibility of having their DNA granulated at the quantum level by the bass line of Showaddywaddy’s “Under The Moon Of Love” played at a decibel level that can actually be heard on the moon?
 
Is that what women go for these days? Having their atoms split open by a sonic scalpel?
 
Is this both safe sex and its soundtrack?
 
I don’t know.
 
Once my eardrums had returned to their normal concave state I really wasn’t sure if I was coming or going. I only knew that the earth had moved for me and I was still not at all satisfied.

You Have No Defence Output, Earthling!

Just in: shock news that will have America's mid-West sleeping even more frequently with loaded shotguns (and see David Bowie preparing for a good probing) - The Ministry of Defence has closed down its UFO desk because it feels its Pluto Population Investigation unit is serving no purpose at all and is diverting valuable resources from more important defence purposes.

In layman's terms that should mean less annoying PPI texts for us all and more coffee for other desks in the MoD. Ha ha ha!

Actually. I made that bit up about the Pluto Population Investigation unit for the sake of a lame PPI joke. And in truth, it sounds like there really wasn't any kind of a "unit" at all.

Just a desk. Probably at the back of a huge open-plan office. Right near the photocopier. Manned by some poor guy in a seventies bomber jacket who never ever got invited to join the office lottery syndicate.

And actually it's only the UK MoD. So probably the USA is totally unaffected by this decision and is still in a state of high paranoia. So no change on the sleeping-with-shotguns front then.

That aside, it is sobering news though. When you think about it.

The UFO desk offers "no valuable defence output". Their exact words.

Now that either means the person manning the desk is so inept at collating the tonnes of information he must undoubtedly receive every year that the entire system was just unworkable or - and this is entirely my interpretation - the MoD has admitted to itself that it just cannot defend us against alien invasion.

They are in fact, even as I type, diverting funds to make alien proof Anderson Shelters to save their own scrawny military arses whilst selling the rest of us down the river. "Look, Mr Alien, we freely give you 99% of the human race without any kind of resistance at all, just leave us poor whimpering guys in uniform alone and please don't probe us for unobtainium because we haven't got any."

I think this is a tacit confession from the MoD that as far as "life out there" is concerned we are probably outgunned, out-thought and totally outed in both a gay and non gay way and there is absolutely no point in throwing anymore money at Star Wars defence programmes or sending Chuck Berry records into outer space.

We are ripe for the taking. We may as well all offer our naked arses to the sky right now.

Go on. Just pull down your kecks, bend over and submit to the will of Emperor Ming. It may take some time but just remember there's a lot of us on this planet and it'll take a while for his probe to reach us all. Sure, the unbelievers are going to moan and may even call the authorities... but who's going to stop you?

The MoD?

No chance.

Those wussies have gone to ground. It's just you and me and we've got to accommodate ET's glowing finger as best we can.

Good luck, people. Live long and prosper.

Freedom Of Speech For All Or Freedom Of Speech For None

Deyka Ayan Hassan, the 21 year old student who stupidly tweeted that anyone wearing a Help For Heroes T-shirt deserved to be beheaded in the wake of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, has been sentenced to 250 hours community service. She’d gone to the police herself after receiving hundreds of abusive Tweets in response to her own threatening to kill her, rape her and burn down her home.

The facts of the matter are simple enough but my gut response to it isn’t.

The whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

Morally the standpoint of the authorities and those who participated in the original Twitter exchange is on ropey ground. It is either a criminal offense to post / write / utter an abusive Tweet / comment / joke or it isn’t. And if it is what the hell has happened to the idea of freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is something we very rarely think about these days. I possibly only think about it so much because I am a writer. For most of us it is like the air we breathe. We take it for granted because we mistakenly believe it has always been there and will always been there. It is part of this country’s genetic make-up.

It isn’t and never has been. It is a right that was hard won by our forebears and a right that is now slowly being wrested away from us under the guise of common decency; under the guise of protecting us and responding to our sense of outrage, disgust and, ironically, our sense of justice and morality.

Yes, Deyka Ayan Hassan’s Tweet was stupid and reprehensible. A joke that backfired and wasn’t really funny in the first place. The audience for gross shock-jokes is thin at best and very choosy even when it is at large – just ask Frankie Boyle. But are we really going to arrest people for making poor quality poor taste jokes? What common good would that serve? Protecting the rest of us from our own sense of anger and sense of disgust? Excuse me, but I don’t want Mr Cameron and the law courts inserting themselves so intimately into my sensibilities, thank you very much! I’m quite happy to process my own anger and deal with my own indignation. I just want to be protected from would-be murderers, thieves and rapists (and immoral politicians and non-tax paying corporations). I can deal with crap comedians myself.

Of course, in an ideal world everyone would always say nice things about each other. We wouldn’t have hate preachers, or racists or inflammatory orators. We’d all quote Wordsworth all day long and be utterly bored witless.

This isn’t an ideal world. But having the right to freedom of speech makes it not quite as un-ideal as it could be. We can mock our politicians. Satirize those in power over us. Challenge the law and the state when they behave ridiculously and fail to serve us, the people, as they’re supposed to. That is our TRUE protection. But freedom of speech also means that other people can disrespect us, our favourite band, our hobbies, our beliefs and our country itself. They also have the right to make disgusting jokes and be verbally offensive and utter absolutely any old crap that comes out of their mouths. There is no halfway house in this folks. We either can all say what we like or we can’t.

And it would be a much darker world if we couldn’t.

I’m thinking Hitler. I’m thinking Stasi. I’m thinking police state.

The most disturbing thing though about the Deyka Ayan Hassan case is the lack of consistency. Why were those threatening her with murder and rape - far more personally offensive attacks (with no chance of any of it being “a joke”) – not also condemned to community service? Why were they allowed to be abusive and Deyka Ayan Hassan not?

Because in this case the weight of public outrage was on their side?

Well, who decides how far and exactly when that particular pendulum has swung?

Because it certainly isn’t you and it certainly isn’t me.

Is freedom of speech now dependent on the opinions of the majority? Or just those that are in power over us? Do we now need someone else’s permission and approval to divine if what we want to say is in line with our peers and therefore acceptable to say?

When that happens freedom of speech isn’t worth the paper (or blog) that it’s written on.

And that is a true abuse.

Leamington Is Full Of The Strangest People, no. 4: Anti ID Theft Derek

Having enjoyed a hiatus from gazing at the inevitably hairy naval of my hometown of Leamington Spa, I thought it was about time I resurrected this short series of posts that throw a blogging super trouper onto the underbelly of Queen Victoria’s favourite Spa town…

Today is the turn of Anti ID Theft Derek.

I first encountered Derek in Tesco which in terms of meeting weird people has the highest weird-to-normal ratio of any other venue in the UK (not including Stringfellow’s or Spearmint Rhino or other establishments of that ilk).

Now, Derek is one of those people with a very definite sense of identity. If he was a mallard he wouldn’t be content with cobalt blue and electric green feathers, no, he would be blinging himself up with bird of paradise plumage and other peacockery. Derek, you see, likes a bit of bling. Gold chains (multiple) around his neck; gold chains (multiple) around his wrist and the lot topped off with a porkpie hat resplendent with a red feather erupting up from the headband like a miniature erection.

Identity is a big thing with Derek. You cannot miss Derek. And Derek, I am sure, never fails to miss himself – Alzheimer’s is never going to be in Derek’s genetic makeup though obsessive compulsive behaviour might be.

Now talking of bling has probably given you the impression that Derek is in his twenties. Some thrusting young buck with a uranium knuckleduster hampering his joystick skills. This is not the case. Derek is in his sixties or I am the unwanted love-child of John Lennon and Lisa Tarbuck.

An old(er) man with bling is never a good thing. For one thing it can really disrupt an MRI scan just when you really need it the most.

Anyway, what caught my eye about Derek (aside from the gold accoutrements and the red feather stiffy) was the way he paid for his goods (one bottle of vodka and a four pack of cheap beer). He paid by card – nothing strange in that – but when it came time to punch in the PIN he placed his wallet tight over the machine like a barrier and then sealed the top of it with his own face thus appearing as if he had on a welding mask and was about to administer some kind of industrial coup d’état to the checkout machine. In fact he reminded me a little of that episode of Doctor Who where people had gas masks erupting out of their faces. I half expecting him to start asking the entire shop in a high-pitched voice: “are you my mummy”. Which the cashier would have had to answer no to as he was, well, a he.

Talk about paranoia.

Did he really think I was going to look over his tweedy shoulder, memorize his PIN code and then put it in The Times via some improbable crossword cypher or just publish it on-line in some easy-to-download format for America’s Prism surveillance programme to pick up on?

Plainly Derek has some real identity issues.

He’s scared people are going to want to steal his identity above all others and become the oddball glory that is him.

And I have to say, thinking about it, who wouldn’t want to swan around in a hat that comes complete with its own wafty hard-on?

Exactly.

I rest my case.

Soft Boiled

I’ve never watched Britain’s Got Talent – partly because a show like that tends to prove that Britain absolutely doesn’t and mainly because it just seems to be another star vehicle / cash cow for Simon Cowell. So it was with interest that I read that one of the participants had thrown some eggs at the judges live on last Saturday’s show.

To be honest my first reaction at reading that a woman had thrown her eggs at Simon Cowell was to think “blimey, that’s someone really desperate to have a baby but the alimony would be worth the 3 minutes of discomfort” (that’s the conception not the giving birth). And then all glibness aside I actually felt a pang of regret that I’d missed the glorious spectacle of Simon wiping egg smegma from his forehead onto the waistband of his trousers. It seems the young lady in question (I can’t be arsed to publicise her name) wanted to protest at the “dreadful influence” Simon has had on the music industry.

And much as I’d enjoy jumping onto the “let’s give Cowell a drubbing” bandwagon I have to say “hold your horses” at this point. The influence he’s had on the music industry? I daresay he’s had some. Once. Occasionally. But let’s not build his part any bigger than it has to be. He’s not that powerful. He doesn’t hold the entire music industry in the flat of his hairy palm. Anyone who’s at all serious about music views Cowell and his annual Cowell Bots as a bit of an irritating joke, surely? They rarely have any credibility and rarely last longer than the chocolate your Auntie Doreen bought you for Christmas. His influence is truly negligible. It’s just that, such as it is, it is well publicised. That is the result of 2013 celebrity sick Britain not the result of Simon being a god-like impresario.

And to be honest, if Miss Egg wanted to strike back at those who have ruined the music industry she’d have to take out half the population of the UK, i.e. all those daft buggers that bought the ruddy music in the first place and made Cowell’s crapola so popular.

That’s going to take a lot of eggs, believe me.

On the bright side, someone throwing eggs at Cowell sure beats millions of tasteless teenagers throwing their money at him… And I’m sure somewhere there’s a joke to be made about battery farming and Simon’s cheap celebrity production line that churns out so many rotten eggs each year… I just can’t be bothered to make it.

I just ain’t got the talent, see?

LOL. ROFL. AFK. ETC.

Language is the preserve of everybody and yet I often find myself falling into the trap my elders made before me: denigrating and sneering at the language of teenagers.

Teen-speak is an oddly fluid, cyclical, ever-changing, totally unpredictable thing. Now I recognize that all language is that to a point but teen-speak seems to evolve in ways that are counterintuitive to the way most changes occur to a language.

Teen-speak does not evolve through any obvious source of necessity – unless you count the necessity to be as different and “individual” as possible. Different in this case invariably mean different from all the grown-ups that teenagers secretly wish they were and individual in the sense that you fit in with your peers who are all speaking exactly the same lingo as you so that you feel part of a group or a gang or, that most wonderful of entities, a movement.

When I was a kid we had our own set of cool words.  “Cool” was one of them having made a post-modern ironic resurgence from the 60’s. I also recall “gnarly” was doing the rounds thanks to Bill & Ted and “no way / way” was popular thanks to Wayne’s World. We also had words like “eppy” for someone who was flipping out in today’s vernacular; “pleb”, “dickwad” and my own personal favourite “buttock-brain”. Of course, most of our special words were insults and a host of them survive today and have merely been added to by later generations. All were inspired by movies and TV, without a doubt.

Now “cool” is one of those strange epithets that has accrued a meaning beyond that of the original one. I’m sure it was as annoying to the older generation as “sick” now is to me. Lord knows I had enough trouble reconciling myself with “wicked” without having to take on board that “sick” now means “cool” which ultimately means something good and desirable.

I’ve noticed, however, that the internet and computing is now having a direct influence on the language of our young people.

My eldest boy, whilst chatting (read that as SHOUTING) with his mates via head-mic on X-Box Live continually refers to annoying players as “hackers”. It annoys the hell out of me because the activity of these people invariably does not involve them penetrating the mainframe of Skynet and bringing about the end of humanity and the rise of the machines.

And don’t even get me started on “LOL”. My boy says it constantly. And not even in an ironic sense either. I could cope with it if he said “LOL” drily in a situation or at a joke that was meant to be funny but plainly wasn’t. A “humour fail” (see, I can still get teen-speak) situation would be appropriate for someone to deadpan and say “LOL” as if they were speaking to an idiot who’d recited the same joke 50 times in the hope of cracking your reserve and finally making you laugh. Instead, “LOL” genuinely seems to stand in for actually laughing at something that is genuinely amusing. Albeit the kind of something that the rest of us would just crack a wry smile at or nod at bemusedly. It is in fact the kind of situation that does not require one ever to laugh out loud but just to feel amusement in a small quiet way. “LOL” now acts as a stand-in for a normal low-level humour response. What actually happens is that the use of the word “LOL” (is it actually a word?) strips the humour away completely from the situation whilst at the same time acknowledging that the speaker did actually get the joke. What is that? Ironic irony?

I’m just waiting for the inevitable development when the audience at a comedy gig no longer laughs out loud but merely utters “ROLF” under their breath every time their favourite comedian delivers a killer punch-line.

That will be the moment that teen-speak finally kills irony and humour and all intelligence forever.

You probably think there is no way that this could ever happen.

Well, I’m here to tell you:

Way.

A Little Less Banky

According to their TV adverts Barclays are launching a great new gimmick.

Personalized credit cards.

That’s right. Anyone with a camera or a hooky copy of Adobe Photoshop can design their own picture or graphic to be printed onto their Barclays credit card which they can then use in any store, restaurant or Heritage site in the country if not the entire world. Apparently, Barclay’s idea is to be “a little less banky”.

A-effing-mazing.

Being of a puerile bent, my mind instantly leapt at the potential for comedic mayhem that I could unleash onto my favourite unsuspecting store cashiers. A credit card with my middle-finger, enlarged by enforced perspective, erupting in eye-watering 3D as my gurning face grins lasciviously behind it. Yeah, swipe that shop clerk! Or maybe something a bit more satirical… me dressed up as a stereotypical crook – black and white striped jersey and black eye-mask, hauling a bag of swag over my shoulder. How much for my weekly shop, Mr Tesco? Daylight robbery? You betcha! Or even better… the ultimate social commentary. We’ve all heard of Christmas party goers photocopying their bum-cracks during office revels. Well, that’s small fry and amateurish compared to your very own credit card proudly displaying your cranked open bum cheeks below the MasterCard icon. Yeah, I’ll take some cash back on that please, Mr Cashier. Worth every frigging penny!

I even went so far as to mock up some initial designs and break out my digital camera. I even thought about acquiring a “back, sack and crack” but figured you could take suffering for your art a little bit too far.

In the end my little comedy ship ran aground before it even left the port (kind of like the Mary Rose only without the overblown Tudor ego weighing it down). It appears Barclays, utter killjoys that they are, have stipulated a few “image guidelines”. Here they are in all their full unbroken-down glory (my additions are in italics):

 

 

1. You must own the image or have the permission of the image owner to use it. (yeah, der)

2. If your image includes another person, you must have their consent to use it. (ditto)

3. The image you choose for your card must not contain any of the following:

• Trademarks or company names – eg, images marked with ® or ™ signs (so Jedi but not Star Wars)
• Images or text protected by copyright – eg, images marked with © or other watermarks or notations (no quotes from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• Slogans, tag lines, branding, marketing or promotional products, services or images of companies (does that include “McBollocks”?)
•  Images of, or the name or nickname of, celebrities, musicians, sportspersons, entertainers, public figures, film stars, cartoon characters, members of the royal family or other famous people (bang goes my Paul Daniels’ “you’ll like this but not” a lot idea)
• Contact information – eg, telephone numbers, URLs, Facebook and Twitter usernames account numbers, addresses or email addresses (a major blow to call-girls everywhere and I can’t even poke the checkout girl)
• Political statements or images relating to ethnicity or religion (so much for my “Jesus, that’s expensive!” idea)
• Images of flags, except for the Union Jack/UK flag, St George’s Cross/English flag, St Andrew’s Cross/Scottish flag, The Red Dragon/Welsh flag and St Patrick’s Saltire/Northern Irish flag. If any of these are used, they can only be images of the original national flags and must not be edited, cropped or have any additional art work or writing on them (what about the Jolly Roger – is that not OK?)
• Images, signs, symbols or text relating to money, currency, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, gangs, hatred, graffiti, betting, gambling, or financial products and services (what? banking generally)
• Provocative, lewd or sexual images or content (that’s 95% of images on the internet ruled out)
• Nudity (does that include animals?)
• Offensive material – eg, images, signs, symbols or text relating to violence, death, injury, racism, cruelty, profanity, obscenity, weapons, firearms, ammunition or terrorism (that’s all references to the armed forces ruled out)
• Anti-social or obscene behaviour, or socially unacceptable groups (so sober pacifist tramps are OK?)
• Content where drinking, being drunk, smoking or gambling is the focus (the Great British social scene down the pan)
• Text, unless benign and in the English language (no interesting quotes from Chaucer)
• Any image that might reflect poorly or might engender hostility toward company brands, including MasterCard®, Visa® or Barclays (that’s my bumhole right out of the equation then)
• Any reference to the Olympic Games, World Cup or any other international branded event (no candid shots of the Ladies’ Bowls Tournament)
• Reference to any bank, building society or other monetary institution (so much for my “HSBC is great” idea and I guess the Mafia is out too?)
• Weapons, unless in a ceremonial context (what if I kill someone during a twenty-one gun salute?)

Right. Basically this rules out any idea that I have already had and / or any idea that I am ever going to have. I pretty much guarantee it. Apart from one. The word BORING in very large type spread across the face of the card.

*sigh*

Yet again, the bankers of this country have stifled creativity, public spending and the potential for economic growth.

Maybe the word “shameful” would be a more suitable design?

The Porcelain Preservation Society

Many of you (unless you live in a yurt) will have seen the new IKEA television adverts that extol us to do away with boring old traditional garden furniture and splash out on some Swedish decking and a hot tub. And by boring old traditional garden furniture they expressly mean garden gnomes (weirdly no mention is made of conspicuous clumps of pampas grass); those poor, rashly fired clay figurines that clearly classify their owner as being (a) stuck in 1970’s sitcom land and (b) pretending and failing to broadcast to the world that they are actually middle class.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has received a number of complaints about the myriad violent ways Mr and Mrs IKEA are shown dispatching the various garden gnomes that infest their gardens. In scenes that have probably made Oliver Stone puke his ring in sheer horror gnomes have been smashed against garden fences, eviscerated with high powered water hoses and skull-fucked with throbbing lengths of garden hoe.

Actually I made that last one up but it illustrates perfectly the 18+ tone of this gore-fest advertisement that glamorises war and extreme violence just to push a few deckchairs onto an unsuspecting public.
The ASA, however, have decided not to uphold the complaints as they feel that the “clearly fanciful and light-hearted” nature of the advert mediates the eye-wrenching, gut churning gratuitousness of the shlock violence.

And I have to agree. The only good garden gnome is a dead garden gnome and that’s all there is to it.

Of course, I am joking.

Garden gnomes cannot be killed. They cannot be killed because (and this may come as a bit of shock to the complainants) THEY ARE NOT ALIVE IN THE FIRST PLACE. They are inanimate objects. They are lumps of fired clay cunningly moulded to look vaguely like humanoid figures. They have about as much sentience as an IKEA barbecue fork. They do not have feelings, cannot feel pain and, I am pretty sure, do not have an aesthetic opinion one way or another as to the state of the garden they find themselves dumped in.

People have merely complained because of the anthropomorphic nature of garden gnomes.

Day in day out, all over Greece and in other parts of Europe, plates and cups are being wantonly smashed during the climax of Greek weddings. These poor plates have never even been eaten off; they have been denied the single, defining purpose for which all plates are made. Instead they have been made for one reason only: to be wedding fodder. They have been created to be destroyed, nothing more.

Where are these people when these innocent plates are being killed? Where is the “no plate born to die” campaign in the national press and on the internet? Wasn’t it Roger McGough who once poetically cried, “Monica, think of the saucers”?!

Why do these people not rush to defend these defenceless items of cheap porcelain?

I’ll tell you why. Because they are just plates. Because they are just manually manipulated bits of clay that have been unlucky enough not to be fashioned into little men with fishing rods and other spurious items of horticultural equipment.

Well, such hypocrisy and inconstancy really gets my goat. It’s time to restore the balance.

It’s time to stand up for teapots, claypipes and ceramic butter dishes everywhere. I am forming The Porcelain Preservation Society and I invite you all to join me in saying no to IKEA and yes to little clay men in galoshes. It’s time to love your mug, savour your gravy-boat and hug your jugs.

If nothing else we will do wonders for the Cornish pottery industry.

Now if you’ll excuse me, me and my Toby-jug have a titillating date with a hot tub…

Death By Beaver

When beavers were introduced to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll in May 2009 I cheered.

Being part Scottish I could only celebrate with my far-Northern cousins that finally, at last, their beaver needs were being met. It is a little known fact that there has long been a shortage of beaver in Scotland. Some blame the Highland Clearances, some the proliferation of Buckfast and deep fried Mars bars, most put it down to the hordes of midge flies that are attracted to anything warm and moist. After all an itchy beaver is an unhappy beaver.

However, as the classic beaver spurns any kind of fashionable depilation, it was agreed that a good full musky pelt would be ample protection against even the most determined of hormonally driven irritants and therefore the whine and nip of insistent little pests would be “nay bother” to the eager beavers waiting to set up home in the west coast of Scotland.

The beavers were duly released and allowed to run free and to this day thrive and prosper in Knapdale, Mid-Argyll.

It is a story worthy of the BBC’s Springwatch. A conservation success story to be shouted from the rooftops although we are yet to see Chris Packham get to grips with a beaver live on telly despite Michaela Strachan’s best attempts to the contrary.

All should be well. Beavers and beaver jokes have been resurrected in the British Isles to the glory of all.

And then comes the disturbing news today that a man in Belarus has been killed by beaver. The beaver population in Belarus is an eye-watering 80,000. I’m not sure what ratio that is to the male human population but surely there is enough beaver to go around.

Details are currently sketchy but it seems the man had attempted to capture the beaver in order to have his photograph taken with it.

Well truly, what man has not savoured the adolescent dream of being photographed running his fingers through the quivering fur of a beautiful, perfectly formed beaver?

It seems this particular beaver was having none of it though. It didn’t want to be tied down. It didn’t want to be posed. It didn’t want to be stroked. It wanted to be left alone and photo-shoots be damned. It was plainly the wrong time of the month. The beaver was not in season. The beaver bit and bit hard.

The poor man consequently died of his injuries.

Although “death by beaver” may sound to some a glamorous way to go I suspect my Scottish brethren are now twitching nervously beneath their sporrans and analysing growing beaver numbers in the Knapdale area with a sense of gnawing trepidation. Prime air-time on Springwatch is all very well but with a beaver population explosion on the cards it is only a matter of time before there is bloodshed in the Scottish bush.

After all, an angry beaver with teeth is not something you want erecting a dam at close quarters in your kilt.

Pitch Mandible Stone

If I have been absent from blogging of late it has been for the best of reasons. I have been busy compiling material for no less than 3 books ready for e-publishing on Kindle.

The first of these is now ready and available for purchase at the un-princely sum of £1.36. I apologize to those of you who are boycotting Amazon for their tax avoidance practises and hope that you won't hold their malpractise against me. I don't think my sales are going to line their pockets overmuch... but you never know.

Pitch Mandible Stone is my first proper collection of poetry. I've had the odd poem published elsewhere over the years - 30 or so in small magazines and various UK small presses - but this is my first anthology that solely comprises all my own work.

Pitch Mandible Stone is made up of 18 poems that are a fair representation of my poetic repertoire. I'm hoping that enough of you good kind people will buy a copy that I might be able to buy myself a pint with the royalties. Even if poetry isn't your bag or you don't have a Kindle to download it to I am hoping you will at least follow the link and hit the "like" button.

It's always difficult to describe a collection of poetry so instead, as a show of good faith, I'm going to offer you a freebie. A free poem taken from the collection. If you like it or find it sufficiently interesting to want to read more, well, you know what you have to do. Thank you in advance.


The First Casualty Of War

They come ferreting through the bindweed
Dropping bobble hats and gloves in the rush;
A line of duffle coated warriors
Slogging over terrain rough as new landfill.

The cemetery erupts with the bold
Lung explosion of shrill voiced mortars
And invisible grenades. Right arms carried
Like automatics judder with school yard kick-back.

What foes there are drop by the thousand
But there are some who do not die easy.

Ranks of guanoed seraphim stand
Against the advance goading the crosshairs
To collect and dog them like midge flies.
One squaddie more astute in his brutality than the rest

Pistol-whips the neck of a submissive angel
With a club of wood. He is saving bullets.
There is a god shattering crack – real not voiced -
And every tongue stops.

What crows there are fester upward
And offer amused catcalls to the air.


Some are too wise to the ways of death.

Dirty Poles

In an ideal world this post would be about my misadventures in a lap dancing club.

Instead it is about a misadventure with a broken washing machine. Misadventure. That makes it sound like the final verdict is a cop out from an inconclusive police investigation when in fact the verdict is far from inconclusive. It was, ladies and gentlemen, theft pure and simple.

Yes, the washing machine - condemned to death due to a clapped out motor - had been left in my front garden in full view of the street. Yes, my intention was to offload it onto the first rag and bone man that blew his trumpet my way. Yes, I had no intention of making any money from the transaction. I affirm all of the above.

But I put it to you that, lying in situ on my front lawn as it was, and all other intentions aside, that washing machine was still my property and legally mine. To remove it without my permission was theft plain and simple.

So. The local rag and bone man finally appears on his appointed day and I dash outside to hail him over. He grinds his flatbed truck to a halt, leaps out with the look of a martyr doing me a favour and finds me scratching my head at the huge washing machine shaped hole that has suddenly appeared in the reality that surrounds us.

It was literally there the last time I looked and now suddenly it wasn't.

Some bugger had half-inched it in the night. Probably while Karen and I had taken the car off the drive and gone into town to see Star Trek.

Unbelievable. Do these people offer a refuse collection service as well?

I had to apologize for wasting Mr Rag & Bone Man's time. He gave a pained shrug like he was used to this sort of thing and uttered the words, "probably them dirty Poles" before driving off in a squeal of copper piping and freshly fenced drain covers.

Great. Theft and casual, lazy racism all in one day.

To be honest, it's possible he wasn't slagging off all Poles in one foul breath but merely slighting the rival gang of Polish rag and bone men who also ply their trade along our street and, as he sees it, steal his business.

As it was I know for a fact that the washing machine was taken late in the evening when no rag and bone man would even think about stirring from the pub no matter how much free "any any old iron" was waiting to be had. Somebody else had nicked it, ethnic extraction as yet unknown.

And I am mightily pissed off about it but I find all avenues of recompense currently closed to me. The thing was broken and I wanted rid of it. So what does it matter?

It matters because whoever took it had made huge assumptions about the situation. That washing machine could have been specifically promised to someone. That machine could have been in full working order and only outside temporarily while we overhauled the kitchen. That washing machine could have been a novelty dog house.

They didn't ask to find out. They just took it. If they'd knocked on my door and asked me if they could take it I would probably have said yes and good riddance to it. But they didn't even pay me that smallest of respects.

It is the arrogant assumption that they had the right to take it without any kind of legal impediment that really grates with me.

An Englishman's castle is no longer sacred.

These days, unless you can nail it down, the natives are likely to steal the moat.

Jamie Oliver Child Abuse

In a move guaranteed to ensure his twatdom for evermore, “cheeky chappy” TV “chef” Jamie Oliver has claimed that an unhealthy packed lunch is on a par with child abuse and the providers of the packed lunch – the hapless parents – are the abusers.

I kid you not.

Being a regular internet surfer my sensibilities have long been bludgeoned to insensate dullness by the proclamations of idiots and emotional amoebas the world over but even I, desensitized oaf that I am, found myself reeling in shock at the sheer magnificent idiocy of Jamie’s latest outburst. It is idiocy on an Olympian scale. Stupidity big enough to gag a black hole.

Jamie needs to take the same care over what comes out of his mouth as to what he puts into it – and wants to put into ours.

A packed lunch, no matter how comprised of donuts, lard sandwiches, liquefied sugar and cholesterol shakes, cannot in any way compare with child abuse.

Does Jamie need to attend a corporate training course on what child abuse actually is? You’d think with Operation Yewtree currently decimating the BBC’s summer programming schedule, Jamie would be a bit more clued up. Maybe the BBC could spend some of our license money sending Jamie off to make a programme about child abuse and how learning about it affects him and, of course, he can throw in a few recipes for conciliatory vegetable and nettle smoothies while he’s at it to make the kids feel better about themselves? Except the last thing those kids need is king dickhead Jamie Oliver criticizing them over their choice of comfort food.

Most bad packed lunches are not formulated by parents setting out to wilfully harm their kids or even by parents who take evil, predatory pleasure from stuffing their kid’s Power Rangers lunch box with enough fat to make a McDonald’s burger feel positively anorexic. Most of the time a bad packed lunch occurs due to ignorance, poverty and, let’s not overlook the biggy, the fact that the child in question refuses to eat anything else to the point where the family’s own doctor advises them to just let him / her eat whatever the hell they like just as long as they are eating something and ingesting enough regular calories.

And what about those ordinary families who occasionally slip a treat into their kid’s lunch boxes? The occasional Mars bar or Twix? The infrequent chocolate mousse? Is that child abuse too? Or are we just the equivalent of chat room “lurkers” grooming our kids for worse things to come? Sucking them into an underground world where their dependency on chocolate and sugary drinks will make them easy prey for Machiavellian techniques to make them more biddable in years to come? “Do the hovering and there’s a Milky Way in it for you, son…” Christ. I’ll hand myself over to the Yewtree investigation squad right now, shall I?

Dear Jamie, do you know what one of the most soul destroying aspects of child abuse is?

Guilt. Being made to feel guilty about something that wasn’t your fault and something that you could in no way have any responsibility for. Abusers love guilt. It really does make those in their power more biddable.

Guilt is a nasty, insidious thing when it is not deserved (but nevertheless keenly felt).

Spreading it about and using it as a leverage tool to sell your own branded personal ethos to the country and bolster your flagging celebrity status is abusive in the extreme.

Isn’t it about time you turned yourself in to the cops, Jamie? (I hope one of them fucks you over with a Curly-wurly.)

The BARFTAs

You won’t have heard my name mentioned at last night’s BAFTA awards but you may have heard one of my jokes.

At least I think it was one of mine. It was a pretty damned weird coincidence if it wasn’t.

Some of you may have heard of this “Twitter” thing. A few of you may even use it on occasion. I know I tend to use it very occasionally. And like a lot of people on Twitter sometimes I get sucked into “Following” various celebs just to feel idiotically closer to them. The whole thing is very shallow and needy and more than a little shameful.

On occasion, when temptation gets the better of me, I may even try and send a Tweet to one of my favourite celebs, just in passing, nothing heavy meant by it and the whole exercise in no way affects my emotional or mental state to have you ignore me yet again, thank you very much, that is the last time I EVER EVER watch one of your shows, do you hear me you arrogant stuck up arsehole?

Because, of course, these people are bombarded with Tweets from needy idiots all the time wanting the instant gratification of a response from someone famous just to they can write a blog post about it. So many Tweets in fact that you have more chance of seeing Romola Garai’s stiches than having your Tweet actually seen by the intended recipient let alone having it replied to (and you will have to have watched last night’s BAFTAs to get the stitches reference).

I know this. So I have Tweeted a celeb on no more than 3 occasions in all my years using Twitter. Most of the time I am sane enough to keep away from such shenanigans. But sometimes, just sometimes, I get drawn in.

As I did yesterday morning. I just happened to see a Tweet from buoyant Northern comedy lass, Sarah Millican. She was on her way to the BAFTAs, was plainly nervous and so had done “a little sick in her mouth”.

To which yours truly, unsung comedy genius and master of quick wit and repartee that I am, replied, “Shouldn’t it be the BARFTAs then?”

The awkward Twitter silence that followed that gag made me feel pretty sick I can tell you. But I shrugged it off – *sigh* I never learn – and felt no negative feelings towards Sarah Millican; she's lovely. I rationalized it. It was my neediness that was at fault not the fact that she was too busy. C’est la vie.

And then at the BAFTA’s, lo and behold, whilst presenting an award Sarah makes a reference to the difference in Northern and Southern pronunciation and that now she was down South she ought to pronounce BAFTA “BARFTA”…

So a different spin put on it but the punch-line was essentially mine.

Right?

Or am I reading too much into it?

Was it just a coincidence?

To be honest, I don’t want any credit. Just the opposite. I want to assuage some guilt. The joke fell flat and I feel responsible.

Sarah, I’m sorry, pet. I feel like I really let you down.

Tweet me soon and we’ll talk about it. Kay?

Never Event

A Never Event, for those of you in the dark about such things, is a quasi-medical term to describe an unfortunate incident whereby a top surgeon accidentally leaves his Rolex inside a patient’s abdomen after performing some kind of life saving operation. It’s kind of similar to the aeronautical term, Near Miss. Except where Near Miss describes something that is actually a miss (as opposed to the more factually correct Near Hit), Never Event describes an unfortunate event that did actually occur. But never should have.

I’m not sure what the official statistics are but it’s something like for every 100,000 operations in the UK, 750 odd people will wake up after the anaesthetic has worn off to find they have been stolen by rogue gangs of Polish scrap metal dealers intent on liberating the MRI scanner that has accidentally been left inside their colon so they can get their hands on the copper wiring.

In percentage terms you have a 4/1000ths of a percent chance of somnambulistically shoplifting a pair of titanium forceps during a UK hospital operation and then paying for it with months of agonizing pain, another operation to remove it and another 4/1000ths of a percent chance that this time all they’ll leave in you is a cheese straw or a rolled up copy of Heat magazine.

Talk about an embarrassing hernia.

Apparently the bigwig experts are quick to point out that statistically this is bloody good and just shows what a bang-up operation (excuse the pun) the NHS really is. I don’t doubt it at all.

But for the unlucky 750 who inexplicably trigger off airport security scanners even when they’ve stripped down to their skimpies it is cause for little consolation.

And, at the end of the day, it is needless stupidity.

I’m sure that with the simple application of real-world logic Never Events can be eradicated completely from the NHS statistic sheets. And I have the answer.

It hit me the other day when I was in the bank and needed to fill out a deposit form. I didn’t have a pen on me but I knew the bank would have a couple lying around for me to use. Lying around but so cunningly contrived that they would be impossible for me to accidentally steal - either deliberately or in a fit of medical absentmindedness.

Because the bloody things are attached to the walls and surfaces with one of those metallic strings that appear to be made of hundreds of linked ball bearings.

This is what the NHS needs. Every piece of surgical equipment from endoscopes to the smallest laser scalpel needs to be attached to a bit of metallic ball bearing string which is in turn anchored to the hospital infrastructure. Hey presto, no hospital would ever misplace an item of beneficial butchery ever again.

And even if a speculum did end up accidentally deposited inside an OAP’s orifice, just attempting to wheel them out of the operating theatre and back to their ward would soon cause the problem to get flagged up pretty sharpish – especially if surgeons are suddenly garrotting themselves on the tautened string that is now stretched across the entire length of the theatre.

There. I declare operation Never Event a complete 100% success.

Sew him up, nurse, and let’s head down to the pub.

Oh bugger. Has anybody seen my watch?

Told You

A little while ago I was extolling the many potential virtues of 3D printing and opining that a few of the applications could be somewhat dubious.

Ne’er-do-wells printing themselves off a Bowie knife or a nuclear warhead for example. I was quite glib in my choice of examples.

Unsurprisingly – because, let’s face it, you don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict this kind of thing – somebody has now printed off a working handgun. And not just printed it off and fired it to prove that it can shoot bullets but has also uploaded the blueprints so that anybody – anybody at all – can print off their own gun. And fire it.

This somebody is from Texas. Which is so fitting it is beyond me to make a joke about it. Candy from babies and all that.

Various anti-gun groups are already up in arms about it (OK, that I will make a joke out of) and have expressed concern about such guns and blueprints falling into the hands of people too mentally imbalanced to safely be allowed to own a firearm (basically anybody who wants to own a firearm).

And I quite agree even as I sigh and shake my head at the ridiculousness of it all. Because although I warned off this type of thing happening I am very aware that a cheap version of one of these 3D printers costs over £5k to buy. I’m pretty sure you can buy a black market Colt .45 / Magnum / Star Trek phaser for less than a quarter of that these days – basically a metallic weapon that isn’t made of plastic and won’t melt in a house fire that you can buy quite cheaply off a bloke in the pub for less than a fortnight at Butlins.

So what’s the problem?

For me it is just the fundamental waste of designing a printable handgun. The world was hardly crying out for yet another handgun, now was it? Not being able to print one off was hardly an inconvenience of global proportions. We need less access to guns not more.

What we need more of are things that could improve health and life conditions for the majority of people on this planet. Printable medical equipment. Printable water purification devices. Printable artificial human limbs. Just three examples off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many, many more.

A plastic handgun that kills living things surely doesn’t appear on any sane person’s wish-list.

Nice try Mr Texas.

But next time try printing off the obituary pages of the local newspaper in Newtown, Connecticut and thinking a little harder.

The Leamington Spliff

I am aware of unnatural behaviour. Of trends being bucked. Of moulds being broken.

The natural order of things has changed. I first noticed it on a personal level. A sudden dropping off of ambition. I didn’t feel like writing so much anymore. All these amazing projects that normally fill my head suddenly felt tired and trad, man, and not at all in the spirit of filling up my senses like a night in the forest. They felt like too much work. Like I’d be directing my energies into channels that would just end up clogging my chakras, dude. I mean, why stress so much? Just kick back and relax. Let life wash over me. Surf it on the surfboard of my mind. Commune with my naval. Inhale deeply and imbibe. You know?

And then I kinda stopped caring so much. About stuff. Stuff that I can’t even get my head around to describe to you here. Big stuff. Complicated stuff. Stuff that doesn’t really matter because it is in no way cosmic or fundamental to my inner child.

And I thought hey this is weird. This is sooo not like me. I usually dig a bit of stress. I like a prick or two to kick against. But I was suddenly like all woo rather than all whoa. My yin was coping fine without my yang. What was happening?

And then I noticed changes on the outside of me too. Among my fellow town brethren. Everyone seemed more at ease. Like on a chilled level. Even the police crime statistics state that violent crime in the county has, like, totally dropped off. People are downing their knives and Kalashnikovs and just shooting the breeze with each other. They’re chilling with their bros and hos. Good times, you know?

So, like, what’s the causality behind this sudden mellowness?

For a long, long time I couldn’t even think about it ‘cos I was just so chillaxed. But then it kinda wafted against me on the breeze as I drifted home from work the other night. It kinda sidled up to me and then got right up inside me in a totally non-sexual way. It was in the air, man, and I breathed it in.

Marijuana.

It’s like scenting the air all over town. You can’t walk anywhere for long in this town of mine without some generous bro sending a special token of his love spiralling out into the atmosphere – it’s big toke love time, dudes.

Walking home for me is like walking through a huge hollowed out spliff. I travel through a drug tunnel every time I leave the house.

And suddenly my increased cravings for chocolate and snacks about mid-afternoon make perfect sense. Life is giving me the munchies.

And on one level I should be upset ‘cos it means I ain’t writing like I ought to. It means I’m not getting myself out of my career situation by the sweat of my brow or the toil of my mind. But on the other, sometimes it just nice to step outside and breathe in the free air.

You know what I’m saying?

Hmm?

Tawdry Telly

It struck me the other day how little television my boys watch. Their TV time seems to be confined to meal times; times when, by necessity, their hands are too full of cutlery to be able to manipulate a joypad or a game controller. And even then, half the time, they’re not soaking up some faceless TV scheduler’s entertainment menu but are watching a DVD or something we’ve pre-recorded and stored on the set-top box.

How different things were when I was a kid.

There was no choice other than ITV and BBC. By the time I was on the scene the Beeb was for old traditionalists (my grandparents were big BBC-ers) and ITV was for young thrusting hip-young things (which enticed my parents into its viewing fold).

Hence I never watched Doctor Who as a child because it was on the BBC and we rarely watched the BBC. The BBC seemed glamorous to me, simply because it was forbidden fruit. Or seemed that way. I seem to remember watching Bod and the Mr Men as a child and they were definitely BBC. I suspect my parent’s ITV leanings were abandoned temporarily when the BBC’s kid’s hour was on as a tactic to keep me and my sisters quiet and malleable for a little while longer.

My overriding memory of my pre-teen telly though is that on the whole it felt rather tawdry. But maybe that was just the seventies? Sure, I have fond memories of Daktari, Tarzan and Robinson Crusoe on a Saturday morning and, of course, the magnificent Tiswas… but overshadowing all these is the over-arching memory of how utterly awful weekend telly was for kids in the seventies.

My trouble was I never really “played out” as a kid. I wasn’t a street kid. I didn’t learn to ride a bike until my twenties. I was stuck indoors. My window on the world, on reality, was via the TV. Via ITV.

And on a weekend ITV delivered The Grumbleweeds. It coughed up Russ Abbott’s Madhouse. It vomited out 3-2-1. Recalling Bullseye and Family Fortunes – the latter even fronted by the great Bob Monkhouse – make me depressed in equal measure. I sometimes think that no telly at all would have been better.

For some reason, when I think of all these shows they appear in my mind as if nicotine stained. As if dyed brown with tobacco juice. I think tank-tops and brown plaid. And orange shirts. And carbuncly men with faces like blighted potatoes and working men’s club accents holding microphones topped with full-sized afros. I recall the subconscious despair that I lived with before the obvious question finally formed itself in my burgeoning little brain: is this it? Is this all that life has to offer?

The answer, of course, was no. There was the BBC. And the multi-coloured Swapshop revolution of the eighties. And then Channel 4. And satellite television. And cable. And eventually digital. And HD. And iPlayer. And choice.

Glorious, glorious choice.

How far we have come since Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin. For me, the mid-eighties is when television began to come good. When the new TV choices that became available began to heal some of the deep-seated wounds of the drab seventies.

I’m not sure what TV memories my boys will have when they are older. I don’t think it is possible for computer games to impinge on the memory in quite the same the way that a TV show does (yeah, I remember pressing LEFT RIGHT RIGHT and the X button on that particular day doesn’t cut the same mustard as remembering when Stu-pot and his mates finally faced down Gripper Stebson in Grange Hill) and I sometimes worry that they’re missing out on the shared peer experience of watching a truly great TV show at the exact same time that your mates are in their own houses.

But on the whole, if they’re being spared 3-2-1 and The Grumbleweeds, I am reconciled that the good effects of progress outweigh the bad. And it does seem to be that, these days, what you play is far more important than what you watch.

As for me though, I think I’ll pass up on Halo and get Daktari on DVD. I’m sure old wine in a new wine skin will taste just as good. But if my boys would rather play outside than watch it with me, I’ll be inclined to let them.

The Bookkeeper's Husband Writes...

Some of you will know of the illness that has plagued my wife off-and-on for the last few years. After Karen endured a second hospital stay earlier this year which resulted in her being signed off from work longterm we both realized we had to instigate a major rethink into how we go out to work, finance ourselves, keep the roof over our head, food on the table and the wolves from our door.

Plans are now afoot - for us both. Ideas are being swirled around in the wine glass of opportunity. Most of them are them are still at the very faint bouquet stage. Most of them might not mature into anything very palatable at all. But some just might; some may have legs enough to actually go somewhere pretty decent.

If I could be paid to mix-metaphors all day I'd make a small fortune but until then my wife has taken the brave decision to resign from the accountant's where she has worked for the last 7 years and start up a work-from-home bookkeeping business. Provided we get some regular work it will be an ideal solution for her: she's highly qualified, very knowledgeable but needs to work at her own pace in a relatively stress-free environment. Working for herself is definitely the way to go.

To that end we have spent the last few days placing advertising, printing business cards and designing a web site: http://www.brighter-bookkeeping.co.uk.

By our reckoning we've got 12 months to make this venture work - and then it's a return to the drawing board if it all goes pear-shaped. Hopefully, we're onto a winner, albeit a slow grower... but slow and steady wins the race.

So, cutting to the chase, I am temporarily hijacking this blog to sling a bit of free, totally partisan, completely biased advertising out into the electronic ether.

Please take a look at my wife's web site. Please bear us in mind should you be in a position to require a first class bookkeeper. Please pass our details on to your family and friends and work associates should they be in that same position. Web sites and business cards are all very nice but it is word of mouth that reaps the biggest rewards and we'd appreciate your help.

Here ends the Pearl & Dean advertising. Your feature film will follow shortly.

A Tale Of Two Toilets

Not sure why these two separate memories should have pushed themselves to the forefront of my thoughts today but rather than fight it I am going to do as all the best plumbers do and just go with the flow.

Back at the tail end of 1999 I realized an ambition I’d had since my teens and went to Egypt. Although the whole thing was an organized tour I went on my own which was a big thing for me at the time. The furthest place I’d been to on my own to before then was Weston-super-Mare and, believe me, despite the sand and the dodgy food, there is little comparison.

My one all-abiding memory of Egypt isn’t the pyramids, or Saqqara, or The Valley of the Kings, or even the limbless beggars that lined the streets of Aswan.

It is of the toilets in the Cairo Museum.

After a weeklong Nile cruise I had three days in Cairo. The Museum was a must and it didn’t disappoint though I will admit that by this point of the holiday I was mummied out. I had also succumbed to ‘gypy’ tummy. The first spell had hit me at the Son Et Lumiere show at the Philae Temple a few days before but a quick necking down of a couple of Imodium tablets had set the potential avalanche like concrete.

Unfortunately, all this did was ensure the infection stayed within my gut where it wore away at the halting effects of the Imodium until, days later, at the Cairo museum, that particular train of matter decided it was going to make a break for it no matter what chemical cocktail I attempted to throw at it.

Thankfully, the Cairo Museum toilets were near at hand. I recall at knee-clenched wait in the inevitable queue before the cubicle became free. I dived in, already sweating uncomfortably with the effort of holding back both time and tide and was immediately faced with the single desolating sight of my life.

No toilet paper. Nothing. Not even a newspaper.

I must have staggered out of the cubicle looking like a very unsuccessfully desiccated mummy. And instantly met my saviour: a young Egyptian toilet attendant who without a single word but an understanding nod handed me an entire roll of toilet paper all to myself.

When I was done I gave him the most money I’d given to any of the locals on the entire holiday. Money well spent. Wherever he is now I hope his gods are smiling on him.

My second toilet memory is the ridiculous to the above’s sublime.

‘Twas a day visit to Dover. Part of a weeklong family holiday to Canterbury and environs. I’m not sure why we elected to have a day in Dover as my memory of the town was that it was rather drab, rather dirty and rather smelly. I was possibly not seeing it in its best light.

Part of the trip saw us at some kind of terminal. I’m not sure now whether it was for ferries or boats or whether it was just some kind of all-purpose visitor centre. I do know it was as far South-East as you could go without dipping yourself into the sea and we had a decent view of the coast. As with all visits to places new – and the undeniable thread to this post – a trip to the lavatory was necessitated by a can of coke.

In the cubicle there, on the edge of England, the very cusp of Europe, I came to face to face with the most astounding example of human organic graffiti that I’ve ever seen.

Picture if you will an entire toilet roll wedged down the bottom of the toilet. Packed so tightly that the softening effects of total submersion in cold water had been unable to destroy the toilet roll’s shape. Now, picture if you will, the kind of poo that a horse would have been shaken to produce harpooning the cardboard centre of the loo roll down its entire length with a good four inches to spare emerging from the top and indeed from the very surface of the water. It looked like a postmodern representation of Thor’s hammer.

My overriding thought at the moment of confrontation was simply: how?

How had somebody physically achieved this singular feat of faecal protest? Did they poo first and then fit the loo roll snugly over the top like some kind of grommet? Or did they install the toilet roll first and then ease the poo out inch by agonizingly slow inch, micro-managing and fine adjusting the angle of approach, ensuring the nose cone was lined up perfectly before fully opening the bomb bay doors and letting her loose?

As with my adventure in Egypt, philosophizing ultimately had to be put aside: I had a burning desire to “go”. Thankfully this time it was merely a number one and, after a quick hosing, I left the sculpture all but intact. There was no point flushing, believe me. That monster was going absolutely nowhere.

I often wonder about it even now and for all I know it’s still there… pinning this country to the Eurasian plate like a tin tack through a giant post-it note.

It would be a fitting addition to the Natural History Museum’s permanent collection should they ever be scouting for one.

Toilets, eh? What amazing adventures one can have in them. It’s often the best penny you’ll ever spend...

Sympathy For The Devil's Relatives

I loathe all that Thatcher stood for. I loathe all that she did from fucking over the Unions to dismantling the NHS. I'm old enough to have lived through her entire time in office from barely being politically aware when she first gained power to finding myself steeped in the very British cynicism with which we tend to view those we elect to govern over us.

Because of Thatcher I have an innate, unthinking distrust of the Conservative Party. This is not a good thing. A political choice should be a cerebral, logical, thinking process not a knee-jerk reaction whose root is in negative gut instinct. But it's there. I cannot, will not ever vote Tory.

Because of Thatcher.

She left an indelible stain on British society. Her legacies are still insinuating themselves within the contemporary political process and the very fabric of our society. None of it, in my opinion, in a good way.

But I am genuinely offended by the furore surrounding the "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" track which is - quite naturally perhaps - storming up the music chart.

I am disappointed that the BBC hasn't made a definite clear decision regarding the idea of playing it on its own chart show.

Either play it or completely ban it. But don't go all wishy-washy and say you'll "only play 5 seconds within a journalistic context". That's a cop out. That's not even an attempt to please everybody. It's an attempt not to offend anyone too much.

Show some balls for god's sake.

Don't get me wrong. I get the humour behind the record (is it even a record?). I get the desire to cock-a-snoop at the ludicrously patriotic outpouring of verbal laurels that various public figures are heaping onto Thatcher's memory. I get - feel part of - the sense of satisfaction that someone who was so largely reviled is no longer among us.

But to me that reaction should be a relatively private thing. It is my own private response. Great if other people feel the same but should it really be ramped up into some kind of public movement?

Because the simple fact is - regardless of how we feel about them - someone has died. They're not here anymore. All these outpourings of admiration and revulsion are not going to make a blind bit of difference to them.

But it is something that is going to deeply affect the relatives who are left behind and those who had a personal relationship with Thatcher. Are they to be held accountable for her actions? Do they deserve to have to wade through and deal with this public outpouring of hate when they are mourning someone close to them? When they are about as vulnerable as it is possible for a human being to be?

It seems to me to be a very un-British thing to spite someone who is grieving. It is not decent. It is not admirable. It is, I am sure, not something we want attributed to the traditional idea of what it means to be British. It does not sit well: stiff upper lip, nice cup of tea, head down and soldier on, make the best of a bad thing, oh and sneer and heap misery on those that are grieving.

Thatcher, in her political lifetime, dismantled much of what was great about being British. Let us not sell our souls on top of this just to revel in a victory that, when you think about it, is not even really ours.

There is much still to be angry about. Thatcher's / The Tory Party's on-going socio-political legacy. The stupidly lavish funeral arrangements and the inevitable cost to the Great British tax payer at a time of stringent national austerity. But the death itself?

There is no place for anger or prideful victory in death.

Let us make our snide jokes quietly amongst ourselves. Let's play the stupid "Ding Dong" record in private.

But for God's sake let us let those who have a genuine right to grieve, grieve in peace.

Their shoulders should not have to carry the weight of a modern democracy that is kicking itself in anger for making a bad choice three decades ago.