United Nations Sex Education Filth, Treason and the Solution Article 61

A day in the life of a loser who sold his sole(excerpts)

I’m doing all the things that I’m not supposed to be doing as usual, I am supposed to be immersed in my studies at the moment, but instead I find it easier to listen to some old blues songs and while away my time (wastefully). This is all inconsequential though for I am happy with the fantasy that I am an unrealised genius and that one day my true potential will be discovered, all be it too late maybe, that is if I haven’t drunk myself to an early grave, but that, bye the bye though is off the point.

Today I feel some deep routed depression for I have just returned from Manchester where I prostituted myself in an audition to appear on a TV reality singing competition, (what a TWAT I have been), why did I endeavour to do such a thing. Well It wasn’t for the fame believe me, I have thought long and hard about fame and my prognosis is this; when you become famous you by default end up hanging around with other famous people, and I suppose that the crop of famous people is smaller than that of those in the normal world, thusly it can be compared to going to Wait Watchers or some other similar club and ending up with a bunch of people that you don’t like really you know. Yeah, you just have to get along with them because it’s the simplest thing to do given the situation that you find yourself in, agreeing with the shit that comes out of the mouth of the fat cunt next to you who lost two pounds in as many weeks (whether that is an achievement in the weight-loss world, I do not know); at any road you have to defer yourself from your own trueness and concur with the insignificances of others detritus filled conversation. It isn’t the fact that you are superior to these beings, it’s just that you think differently and that you cannot throw down the shackles of society that bind you together to just break free and talk about and do what you want and comport how you want; because if you did this you would be considered slightly nuts – and so you conform, as much as it bores you it’s what you do.

After five hours interrupted sleep in my damp dank car, that smells like a sock that was brought to the laundrette to get washed, but somehow missed the actual part of getting put in the machine with the other clothes and ended up being kicked into a corner, where it has been left to fester and no one daren’t touch it for fear of catching some new age fungicidal flesh eating disease. I awoke slightly hung over from the bottle of Strong bow cider that I had procured and consumed to set me off; proceeded to make my way to the audition. I asked the parking attendant how much it was to park the car in the park all day, £3.50 he replied and so I gave him £20. His set up was pretty good inside his cabin, TV, sofa, a kettle and much other stuff that would make a human feel comforted. “Pretty good set-up this one” I commented trying to come across as a city wise chappy (excuse the word chappy it makes me feel like Jamie Oliver when I say words like this). “Aye it’s all right” he retorted but added, “it gets boring though”, “I know, mate I’ve done it myself” I replied. “Paper” I said to which he replied “you what”? I tried again “paper” to which he replied again “you what”? So I ventured another go with the same line of approach, but this time I doubted whether he understood my accent and so I shouted it “paper” “you what”, evidently he did not understand  the intonation in my voice, thusly I phrased it so “ do you have a newspaper”? “No I’m going to get one later”, I quickly added “aye, when I used to do it I read the paper from front to back, even the adverts”. He agreed with me and gave me my change, I asked him directions to the hotel where we were doing the audition- he set me on my way.

Outside the audition there was a small queue, I joined the end of it, they were enthusiastic youths, the types that went to acting school and were flamboyant in the way they moved and talked (they can’t switch it off), it must be a terrible affliction to not be able to switch off your acting skills and constantly have to flaunt them, to innocent people who are forced to listen to you talking really loudly and enthusiastically about fuck all, it’s akin to some kind of tourettes syndrome or any of the syndromes where you can’t help them. I am not egocentric by far (as far as I’m aware), but these kinds of people make me feel edgy, aggressive and superior all at the same time. At any road this woman saddles in beside me, she had spotted that I was making role ups, and she wanted the “lone” of a cigarette paper, “how are you going to loan it” I replied, “yeah I know” she said. She was an older lady and she came from Devon, “where the custard is nice I said” but I don’t think she understood how shit my joke was, it was one of them that are so shit they are funny; she asked me what I was going to sing I said “nobody knows you when you’re down and out” “oh I love that one, if I was in the same group as you I’d sing the harmonies”, to her I was being nice but inside my head I don’t think I really liked her, she talked incessantly and was nervous, there was no grit in anything she said, it was just pure shit flowing at breakneck speed, apparently she had lived in Manchester for 10 years but drove home to Devon every couple of months – the drive took 5 hours; and she was going to sing a song that her mother always asked her to sing (what the fuck)? I really did not request this information from her at all and was wondering why I was on the receiving end, plus she had started rubbing off on me, I had started to waffle as well. I briefly had a fantasy of ending up back at her gaff for some sex, but the urge to consume some coffee became so strong in me that I had to respond to it. “I’m going to grab a coffee” I blurted out and then asked, “do you want anything” “no I’m O.K.”.  “O.K. then can you hold my place in the queue then”.

Off I went glad to see the back off whatsherface for a while; down the road to ask one of them men that sells newspapers in the street where to get some coffee, he pointed me in the direction of MC Donald’s and added that it might not be open due to the fact that it was 7:30 am; I told him that I would not hold him accountable if it was not. “What I do is bring a flask” he offered up these pearls of wisdom with the greatest of ease, and a slight air that wisdom fell on the side of the older folk who came from a generation that understood things like flasks, I assumed he thought I came from the Facebook I-pod generation that had lost those all so valuable skills. He came closer to me after saying this ( he must have been as lonely as I was), now I had to answer him telling him that I had slept in the car last night and therefore even if I had packed a flask it would have been cold by now. I bade him farewell feeling non the richer for our exchange and non the poorer. Mc Donald’s Mc donald’s Mc Donald’s, just as I was walking towards it I spotted a Costa coffee café on the  other side of the road, it was a big one but just as soulless and cold as all the others, but at least the coffee was going to be the only redeeming feature.  I enquired how many shots of coffee does the flat, tall, grande, doppio have in it. These places can’t just say big, small or medium coffee, no they have to give them names that people in this country can’t pronounce to make them sound better you know. So anyway the spotty lad at the counter gives me my coffee, I walk over to the couches by the window whilst vigilantly looking to locate the toilet at the same time only to find that all the sofas were occupied anyway. Down stairs! I noticed that there was a down stairs and ventured down there, there was sure to be a toilet there, and sure enough there was. After placing down my coffee I strode over to the toilet and could see on my way there that it had one of those locks that had numbers and letters on it. I tried the door but was denied, up the stairs I flew to have a word with spotty about it, “eh the toilets locked, what’s the code for it” I asked hurriedly. He was in the process of making a flat white mocca chocca with wings when I disturbed him, he gazed at me through the steam that the machine was making and searched his memory for the code, “it’s ehrm.. ehrm”, blinking heck I really had to go and he is fumbling around inside his head for the code, I would hold him entirely responsible if I was to soil myself there and then. “Ehrm its 72169Y” I repeated it back to him loudly and quickly, and proceeded to make that hurried run (the one that can’t be mimicked, and can only be utilised through the process of actually needing to go).  Finally I reached the door punching in 72169Y, well low and behold it didn’t work, I said to myself “maybe you aren’t pushing the buttons hard enough” and this time I proceeded to aggressively stab each digit with my fingers precisely, just whilst I was doing this though another thought process crossed my mind; what about old people, they too have to use these mechanisms so it can’t be a matter of forcing the buttons aggressively. Anyhow the aggressive tact did not work, and then another thought struck me, maybe in his Mancunian accent ‘spot face’ was trying to or did say 7169Y, and so I tried it all in a fluster the soft approach and the aggressive one, and low and behold it didn’t work. Up the stairs I go all contorted and spasmodic “hey mate it doesn’t work you know I tried it and it doesn’t work, what was it then 72169Y?” I asked belligerently, no he replied it was “7169Y”, “I tried that as well you know, ah I’ll try it again O.K”. Jerkily I made my way down stairs but in a rather foul mood at present, muttering to myself- “I just want to go for a shit, not feel like some secret agent in a spy movie, and if this precaution is to stop drug addicts shooting up then it’s not worth the bother of us normal folks who nearly have to shit their pants whilst simultaneously cracking the code on the toilet door”. Low and behold the code did not work it was definitely wrong, spot face was in for a rollicking this time. “It’s wrong you know” I think the veins in my neck were bulging at this point, at this conjuncture the foreign girl who worked there interjected and thrust her hand up pointing at the corner uttering “you can use this one round the corner, is always open”, “thanks”, ‘spot face’ you are a fucking dick.

After my expedition had come to an end I winded back up in the queue for the audition again, I felt sad, I felt like I had become one of those pricks on telly who just do anything for their moment of fame, selling a sole for a flutter of fame, glamour, singing the same old shit songs that only appear on TV talent shows like “You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings” or “You Raise Me Up”, or some other garbage that fits the bill. Later on appearing in Iceland advertisements or maybe O.K magazine, at least if I were a prostitute I would be getting some money, but this is more akin to selling the lining of the jacket of your sole; evidently ending up slightly colder after the process. I was doing it for the money that was the sole reason for me doing it, all the rest was a thing that must be endured for partaking in the process, kind of like chlorine in the swimming pool. At any road there I was with my guitar stuck in the queue shuffling along intermittently, making role up after role up, sipping my water and sucking on a voice lozenge (taking it all rather seriously). Well I just like singing, I always have I suppose, ever since I can remember, in fact I sing all the time in my own company-for my own company. Due to the fact that I am a social maverick and that I like to distribute my time between lots of people and not be bogged down by the comfort of having the same social beings to keep me company eternally, in other words I am a bit of a loner and so I sing.

33 years old, it’s a last chance saloon affair, at least that’s what I figured on, get rich or die trying, or just get rich and not die trying and buy a nice house and live out the rest of my days comfortably, working on side projects like ‘The Silent Hoover’ or ‘The Eternal Motion Engine’ you know shit like that to keep you busy, the kind of things that rich folks take up because they have nothing else to do. So here I am 33 doing something I vowed never to do in my life, becoming the person that I sneered at, I might as well bleat like a pathetic lamb, who is caught in the brambles whilst his mam looks on helplessly; “bleat” “bleat” “bleat”, “mam” “mam” “mam” please help me. “Money money money it’s so funny it’s a rich man’s world” I don’t like to quote Abba randomly at any given moment but I would like to rephrase these words and point out that just to be comparatively rich would do me, and that comparison is a juxtaposition of me at present (nearly always destitute) and me at some point in the future when I am not always nearly destitute.

Wishes do not have to be big, I have a friend named Pat Kyle and he is fifty years old and a recovering alcoholic, he’s clean. Pat writes his own songs and they are really good you know, he’s got one called Baby Go Home and it’s a hit in my opinion and I told him so, and that is on some authority because I listen to a lot of music. Pat made a recording at someone’s studio for free, the recording is awful, but anyway Pat sold 50 copies of his C.D and he is chuffed with it; over the moon he is. I just think it’s nice that he hasn’t set a bar so high that he can’t be satisfied. I on the other hand am eternally searching for something that I can’t and won’t get (never satisfied) stuck in some sort of purgatory in between pipe dreams and schemes. It’s all I’ve got though, some people are dreamers, they can’t help it, it’s like playing the lottery, it’s the thought of winning-that’s the only thing that keeps you going; Opium for the poor-or so they say.

Finally we get in, I find this sort of thing so excruciating, being nice being cordial-being a social butterfly, small talk shit talk small talk shit talk. I mean I don’t mind small talk-because you gotta make it, but small talk mixed with nothingness capped  with a helping of over niceness is like sprouts that have had the living day lights boiled out of them on a Christmas day; grey, colourless and tasteless. Wanker wanker wanker, “what’s that” “yes I came from Wales”, “how about yourself” “oh just around the corner, handy” wanker wanker wanker. I am tense morose almost, clammy sweaty hands, irritable on the inside but cohesive on the outside. I change my stance and the eternal internal argument turns on myself, I declare that I am no better than those around me and that in the stark cold and sobering light of day as I so convivially put it to myself that “I’m a wanker”, the rest of them are not redeemed though they still will take their wankerlyness to the grave with them.

Anyway the moment comes and they call us through in droves of ten at a time, our names are called and we have to stand in line accordingly. Off we pop into the room were the producer talent scout types inform us of the procedure, “the standards are high” they say and “if you fail this time, keep on trying”. I am in the centre of the line and the singing starts to my left. Out they walk one by one, full of uber confidence, they all sing modern generic shit pop songs, the ones where they try to emulate a sole voice (it is like being raped listening to this garbage) as Bob Dylan once said “it’s greasy kids’ stuff”. There was one guy who did have a good voice, he sang just before me. It was my turn and I was nervous and unsure what song to sing- I stepped up and I sang ‘No Body Knows You When You’re Down And Out’, I thought I sang it pretty well, at least it’s a song that means something and has some actual content; and besides since splitting up with my ex and having to leave our dwelling and our children it’s been my theme tune, I have sung it everywhere I go. After I went on a little dumpy girl stepped forward to sing, oh my God it was fucking weird man, she sang one of those show tunes I think it might be called “somewhere”, I know I am a bastard but I couldn’t stop the smirk appearing on my face, I tried contorting my cheeks upwards and stretching them out with tension, but the smirk kept coming; I stole a glance at the judges to see what they were doing and when I did, I noticed that they were in fact sombre and were looking directly at me. It kept on coming though, and it was a miracle that I did not erupt into a fit of laughter; from here on in I had to concentrate on stopping the smirk and the laughter appearing.

We had to wait outside whilst the judges deliberated, at this point everybody enthused about what the show would be like, I stood on the side lines. The door finally opened and they let us back in. After a short moment the judges announced that three were staying, the boy who sang well was one of them so that was O.K and the other two were just the show pony girls who were all substance and no matter. Well what a blow-rejected off the talent show and there was me thinking that I would walk it. At any road I congratulated the boy with the good voice and told him that I thought he had the best voice out of all of them, he coldly said thanks as if he didn’t need the affirmation as if God had appeared in an apparition the previous evening telling him that his singing would change the world (I thought he’d previously done that to Bonno from U2), but anyway I have made a mental note not to congratulate someone on their talent ever again!

Back down the road then bleary eyed and depressed I go, at least when Robert Johnson sold his sole at the cross roads he got some guitar skills in return, I have slagged it for nought! There is the title of my next song- Slagging it For nought.

Gwynedd County Counclil

I have been to the council and talked to the guy there for 2 hour's, basically he didn't care and told me that people from London can come here and park because it is a public highway, I'm not quite sure if the reverse applies to people from Wales going down to London. At any road it's obvious that it's a problem because even the receptionist in the council informed me that lots of people from Llanberis complain. Previously I have complained to the council who (conveniently get an office in Colwyn Bay to subcontract for them and do their dirty work) and they're reply was "yes we know that parking is a problem in LLanberis," yet they still went ahead and fined me for it (what the heck is the sense in that). Race day is coming up and the local parking officer's will be in a fit of frenzy issuing tickets out to every car that is illegally parked (because there is no space for them), I think this is a really good move to promote tourism in the area. North wales has the highest car usage in the U.K and add to the mix the fact that Snowden is the busiest mountain in the world then it only adds to the frustration of locals not being able to park in they're own vicinity. I went around with a petition the other day and one of the first doors I knocked on was far back from the main road up by Kevin the Cllr's house (she had just received her a dose of Chemotherapy), and she told me that it was a problem for her to have to park a massive distance away from her house and walk back. It's bedlam out there. We should not be penalised for something we're not culpable for. What do you think? Please comment and share if you agree/disagree. Thanks. Here's the link for the website go and like it if you like (this affects us all and is happening nationally)https://www.facebook.com/LLanberis-Residents-Against-Parking-Fines-for-Locals-437106226649653/
And here's a link to a song I made about it! https://soundcloud.com/serf-school/coucil-rage

Anarchism

How can I justify anything that I say without the mere justification of just wanting to say it? And by this very premise I cannot stand by my words as sentiments of wholeheartedness, more can I give in to their dispersion's as elements of discontent. To what effect do my words resound? Do they serve then just to act as the beat of my drum to which only I must march? Affected by all that has passed and filled with dread of what’s to come I cringe in my vanity of wanting to change a thing! The ‘hue and cry’ before they ‘sling me up’, “he did it” they shall cry, “he said it” they shall cry. What was the crime then? Was it one that had entered into this very world with my person, one that was so vaguely planted as a seed within my coloured dreams, a tantalizing glance of the “don’t be silly will you!” And a sickly shot of the ‘what the hell are you going on about?’ Far away from ‘the din of the machine that is perpetually thrusting’ just as it has always done, filled with a driving motion that cuts through the still of the night and clings on to the eddies of wind that blow the smoke from the end of my fag, away with any resolutions to change. Change is a word of the past when the ‘din of the machine that is perpetually thrusting’ takes over once again. A ‘how’s a bit of that then’ to off-balance the ‘din’ by way of means a recompense that was given to me by the attraction and wonderment that went with ‘that neon sign’ that pointed me over there. And so from that funfair, sharp stimulating noises, bellowed across the dewy trodden pathway, bellowed resoundingly, bellowed that laugh, that excitement, that ‘quick before its gone merriment’  belligerence, love, spite ‘in spite of it all’ the lardy ‘tucked in’ ‘war painted’ (she’s) that are clinging on to the ‘smoke filled’ ‘leather handed’ ‘make the world go round’ (he’s). ‘Twas not them though, no, for they were not the instillers of discontent, they were the darting brown in a stream, the ‘crayoned drawing of a child’ magnetised to the cold white metal of the master’s ‘food keep-freshener’. Twas the ‘lads on the gate’ them that brimmed with ‘the ways of the world’. “I’ll stop you here and just say to you, if it’s a good time you’re looking for then you've come to the right place” kind of attitude. ‘Quick but thick’ and with the gaudiness of ‘thick-sett moronic nothingness’ but all at once full of it, full of the world, and shouting to try and be overheard because of the ‘din of the machine that is perpetually thrusting just as it has always done.’ It is not too much for them though, it just unfortunately aids them in shouting over each other to try and be heard! “Take my money then lads” they quickly fold it into their dirty back pockets that are stained from the ‘machine’ wipe their hands on their comrades, and gesticulate to draw my eyes towards the ‘commemorate the jokes for the sake of jokes’ moment that just passed, “What do you want to abstract from me you pathetic miner?” was the thought but from my corner I did not ‘let out’ the ‘counter-joke featherweight with the glass jaw’, for it seemed like the vegan in the carnivore’s party, and it was because of this abstention  humility was lost, just ‘a child’s helium filled balloon’ skyward bound and heart sunken, a sad dot on the horizon. I’m just at the gates though and all the fun seems to be ‘booming past me’ if I opened my mouth wide enough I might be able to ingest it. The funfair has leveled all the personalities that used to give me a friendly hello and even those that I know, who know of my existence but refuse to acknowledge it with any familiarity are lost in the evocative sound. Everyone is competing to have fun, they try hard, and the sharp dressers can be seen over the noise, those ‘of the cloth that is not dapper’ have to shout enthusiastically and 'vein-poppingly' over the ‘din of the you know what’, because their clothes do not speak volumes. Some hold on to claims of knowing how the ‘machine works’ but mostly no one cares in their ‘gaze of wonderment’ that half looks like a startled wood-pigeons who possesses those ‘skittish eyes in front of a farmers smoking gun’, lest lust become an ugly matter then, that that is unsaid, just uttered what thoughts were thinking! The funfair has lost its fun-part by now; It’s more of an unfunfair now! One that can’t be comprehended, I look at the people and they’re  still incessantly laughing, disembodied sounds that sound like, well, well, well like ‘they never had an owner!’ Mimicry at the behest of some kind of wizardry! A throw back even, to a distant memory, but still they churn it out. I find no place in the lonely crowd, no! The crowd is not lonely though, for they find solace in the pretense of perpetual laughter, you know, to drown out the ‘the din of the machine that does the, you know what all the bleeding time!’ I could chip into the chirpiness and ‘chirp up!’ Resolutely there seems no viable attribution that I can cling on to; “How’s it going then, this is just what we need isn’t it? Isn’t it?  Isn’t it ‘ad nausea ’ I had repeated the phrasing until I got the pitch ‘just right’, in between I swayed as a blurred world added to my confusion. My mouth dry from chattering that clanged empty sound, aching with the laughter that ensued. For one brief moment though the machine struggled, it seemed like it was on the brink of  running out of fuel, the engine almost idling, but not quite, It was then and suddenly that I could hear my thoughts again! I just told them what I had realised all at once, and shoutedly blasted out “I just want what you all want” and with this dispersal of my thoughts came the onslaught! “What do you mean boy?” I tried to tell them, “I know a place where we could be happy, without us pretending to laugh all the time because of the noise of the machine, but it’s up to you!” They regarded me for a short while and then they all begged “please tell us where it is?” I was just about to tell them that they didn't have to go far to find it when……………………………………………………………………………………… ”The ‘lads on the gate’ had greased the machine to get her going again and the ‘din’ of the ‘you know what’ had drowned me out!          

Just a Rant, that's all!

Smokers Die Younger and so do Junkies, Piss-heads and Fatty’s

2013

I have smoked since I was thirteen years of age, which means I have been smoking for 21 years! It was cool to smoke when I was a young’un, and I used to practise my smoking technique trying to get it just so, you know. I would adjust the positioning of my fingers trying to clasp it in a manly style copying some of my rock n role idols or film stars; jeez I dread to think of some of the people I used to idolise when I was growing up. Picture this then a grown man in tight skimpy cycling shorts who’s sporting a leather jacket and wearing some Doctor Martin type boots, to boot he has a long flowing mane and to top it all off, he has a personality that would ward off all advances from any decent minded beings; the only saving grace of this being is a voice box that can produce sounds akin to a witch who is doing some overtime on an ill-fitting vibrator. That was a short description of one of my former idols Mr Axle Rose god I used to think the sun shone out of his arse-well you know what I mean, I used to really like him, I think I would have even tried the cycling shorts look if I knew that I wouldn’t get beat up for it, but alas Bethel village is not equipped for this kind of rock n role behaviour. At any road smoking was cool and it was a past time of mine when I grew up, you know the learning how to smoke and looking cool at the same time, avoiding such things as blowing smoke into the eye whilst trying to show off in front of a girl and subsequently ending up looking like a dickhead, this kind of uncool smoking had to be evaded at all cost.

“Giz a stump on that then,” everyday down to smokers corner at school and this is what you heard the folks saying down there, if it wasn’t the stump it was the ‘little stump’ that you begged for. If you were really desperate you would ask someone who had the little stump for a stump of the little stump which was aptly named ‘letters’. Well if you were taking the letters you knew what you were in for, yes indeed all you got were the letters at the end of the smoke Marlboro, Regal, Embassy, but usually they were the cheapest fags going like Berkeley or Lambert & Butler that we used to buy. The letters were to put it mildly ‘fucking disgusting,’ it was a s hot as a volcano but with all the healthiness of a tramps armpit, all sodden with everybody’s spittle, I mean the life had been smoked out of this thing before it even got to you, the filter had been squashed from the previous smokers efforts of dragging the essence out of the thing exorcizing all remnants of the evil nicotine spirit within. We still carried on though, why I hear you ask? Well because it was cool and it was something to do.

The first time I smoked it was with my best friend at the time Lee, me and Lee had found a box of twenty Black Cats (rank) cigarettes. After finding the fags we headed on home to steal a box of matches and then headed down to our den to smoke them. Settling in with eager anticipation of doing a deed that we weren’t supposed to be engaged in, well we proceeded in lighting the cigarettes. One cigarette after another “watch out Lee it’s me dad,” we hit the deck as my dad went passed with my little brothers. Panic over and so we lit up again one after the other, Lee had gained a green colour to his face and I’m not feeling too smart, a deathly silence falls over us as we realise that we’re ‘fucked up’ off of the fags. “ I think I’ll head home now you know Lee” says I “yeah me too” he replies, none of us wanting to tell the other that we were sick from the fags. Sick may be the word to describe the feeling when one is slightly under the weather, but this on the other hand was one of those messages from the brain saying, “what the fuck have you done to me, shoving evil toxins inside me, that’ll never do!” The brain was right and the body was weak and feeble-like and withering with every passing second. “Toilet, toilet oh where for art though my beautiful toilet,” it’s coming pretty sharpish now, restrained heave after restrained heave and all of a sudden whoosh out it pops, the contents of my gut that is, or in other words spew! Hurtling out of me at breakneck speed with no let up at all, ‘twas revenge of the putrid fowl smelling kind laced with jewel like carrot entities winking at me with mirth in their eyes.

Fag after fag after fag after fag after fag habitually nowadays, that’s the routine anyhow, nervous well it’s time for a fag then, on the toilet it’s time for a fag then, in the car it’s time for a fag then, after climbing a big hill it’s time for a fag then, cup of tea time for fag then, cough well it’s time for a fag then, eaten crisps it’s time for a fag then, bored –well you get the picture there’s so many different occasions to break em out and everyone a celebration of, um something? The long and short of it is that I know I’m driving another nail into my coffin every time I start a puffin and a coughing, but I know that don’t I? So how come I have got to stare at a man with rotten teeth on the packet? O yeah it’s because the government wants to warn me of the dangers of smoking by sticking a picture of some thick cunt that smoked but coincidentally didn’t brush his teeth either. So I have to bare these shitty warnings that I know already, and if the government really wanted to stop us smoking, then why are they still selling them? Any answers? Oh yeah that’s it isn’t it, they make money off of them, lots and lots of money and if they didn’t have cigarettes to raise taxes on then they would have to raise them elsewhere; causing Joe public to grunt as if passing stones. I have to stare at this health warning every time you know, even though I am aware of the dangers. I am also aware of the dangers of sitting down on the couch for too long and rotting my brain away-where’s the health warning on the sofa then? And where’s the health warning on the T.V or MacDonald’s for that matter. By the year 2020 half of the U.K is going to be obese and not only will they be clogging up their arteries but they also will be clogging up the NHS beds at this point in time I can only hope that I do not double default and become an obese smoker. Pardon my French but je m'appelle Matthew, no really, what the fuck is going on?

The other day I was stood outside the University entrance and a jobsworth janitor or some fucking thing shouts over to me telling me I’ve got to be five meters away from the building because it’s the law. I ask him to tell me precisely how far five meters is, to which he replies and tells me to take five steps, and so I deliberately took five smallish steps. Well the upshot of it all was that I landed on the bottom step of the stairs, and so I shouted across to him “is here alright mate?” He told me that I had to get off the bottom step and then I would be complying with the five meter rule. O.K so that is what I did but I turned my head around and blew the smoke back into the five meter zone, contaminating all the fresh air that presided within it, I shouted over to him “what are you gonna do about that then jobsworth?” Jobsworth pushed off without a reply one nil for the smokers, I would have laughed in his face, if it wasn’t for the fear of setting-off my ‘death rattle’ cough.

Back to the present dilemma that nearly drove me off the edge the other day, I poppes into the supermarket to buy some fags right, and guess what? They had all been locked up, the display cabinet had now morphed into a lock-up for the fags, I couldn’t see them, and I instantly felt the urge for a cigarette draining away from my body, because you know that is what makes me want to have a cigarette, not the fact that I am physically addicted to nicotine, no no no it’s seeing them that does it for me. Yes seeing them instantly sets me off; “go and lock up the fatty foods then dickheads and the booze while you’re at it.” That’s what you think isn’t it, well I do at any road, and so, I stole over to the woman and say, “what’s with the fags, why you got them locked up? To this the woman starts going on about the government and blah di blah. I say to her “you know sometimes I like to see which fags I’d like to choose,” wham, out comes a great big list of all the fags you can buy there she hands it to me inattentively and starts to regard me with discontent. And so I just stare at the list I don’t really give a fuck about the list of fags by now and I was only trying to illustrate a point, and so I throw down the list and queue up behind some fat bird who obviously works there because she’s clad in the Morrisons attire. The fat bird must have been finishing her shift because she was buying some fags, I don’t know what fags she bought but the woman behind the counter opened ub the sliding door of the ‘cabinet of disgrace’ and gave her a box of twenty. “I saw them” I said to the lady behind the counter, “I just saw the fags inside, and I can see the fags now, why don’t you put them in a bag?” I said victoriously. At this point in time fat bird turns around grasping her name badge and indicates for me to look at it, “look” she says “I work here so don’t start” I think to myself that she doesn’t have to indicate that she’s working here by pointing at the badge as if it gives her some kind of authority, and also I can see that she works there because she’s dressed up in the Morrison’s greengrocers attire, unless she’s mentally retarded and likes to pretend that she works there. “It’s just bloody stupid isn’t it?” I say in a slightly peevish manner, all I wanted was for someone to agree and say that it was stupid, that’s all. Fat bird chirps up again saying “what’s stupid is the Welsh assembly making us pay five pence for bags,” to which I reply “no that’s better than having the countryside littered!” It was at this point that I decided to give up on the fat bird because she obviously didn’t go for long walks in the countryside otherwise she wouldn’t be al ‘Jabba The Hut-like,’ and secondly she is probably the type that jettisons all her sweetie wrappers from out the window of the car, on second thoughts I take that back, she probably eats the sweetie’s wrapper and all.  I repeat myself this time to the woman behind the counter “It’s just bloody stupid isn’t it?” To which she replies “that’s just the way it is, there’s no point complaining you can’t do anything about it!” I just think to myself that all I wanted was confirmation at least that it is stupid and that it is not me just being a ‘pointless dickhead.’ Now I am the stupid one for even thinking to complain, in retrospect though, what I should have said to her was. “Picture this, it’s a dark Tuesday night and you have just finished your shift in your second job, and so you get home about 10 ‘o clock and have your supper and go to bed. Precisely 10 minutes after you have gone to sleep you feel a sharp pain right up your arse, as you awake you find it’s just ‘Dave the Fucker’ stabbing 7 kinds of shit out of you. Dave is a civil servant from the DFPA which is an acronym for ‘The Department for Fucking the Public up the Arse,’ so what do you do? Do you turn over and try to ignore it and get some shuteye? Or do you say this is wrong!”

By the way I have it on good authority (Arwel from the guitar shop), that there is an old guy in New York that is a 105 or so and has been smoking since he was 9 or so, and he still manages to walk around. They say that no news is good news, well good news is good news and you never get to hear it, so why don’t they put this New Yorkers face on the side of a cigarette packet with the strapline ‘smokers usually die younger, but not all the time!.’ I know it’s wrong and, all I am saying is that at least we should be accommodated the luxury of having a wind-proof shelter when we do have to brave the weather to get our fix. That is all.

Thanks!

  

Half way right but then wrong again.

Could I awake from a slumber and collude with some sort of distant relative? One that I once held like a brother; the same one that now seems so vague in my mind.  It unrests me to think of it,  because its only like the cigarette gunk buried in my clothes ready to unleash its fastidious smell and remind me of the last nights. Ones I tried to forget! Out there though is where the timid flower clings on, almost whimpering like a dog as it braces itself in the wind; still so beautiful if not only in its symbolism, yet it seems too weak to be picked, and far more poignant would be the gesture of letting it flap hither and tither in the wet wind. Tis but a ‘come on’ for me though, I cannot let it be there, rasping against the cold stones that serve only for the purpose of eroding it. As the corner of my eye fixes on it, life does all of a sudden, suddenly stir! I pick it, romantically beholding it. “Oh!” “Cradle thee I shall!” It is now, and as I fully suspected, not so symbolic. It is an ambassador of nothing, but reminiscent of everything all at once. I beheld that flower, nursing it quickly to its shrivelled death. A flash in the sky was the flower, a red crumpled up dart it served in as much purpose, and now soggily lies in the wet rainbow filled pool, it soaks, I gloat. Have I not served a purpose today? Was there a memory that I could not tame? Or was it just an unpicked flower?

A Bloody Good Poking!

I remember it as clear as day now. We were walking home from primary school; me and a certain Neil White and I don’t know how the conversation began but it fell into  a ‘my dad’s better than your dad thing’. I do remember this though it was him that started it. Me and Neil had a few running’s here and there and he knew not to piss me off or I would just get wild and jump on his back and smash his head on the floor. I was wild when I was younger and would often fly into fits of rage and couldn’t stop myself from going mental so to speak.

Anyway Neil told me that his dad would knock my dad out (I don’t know why) but there you go, that is what he told me. I said “no way, my dad would give your dad a hiding”. Neil came back with his snappy reply, “na my dad would give your dad a backbreaker!” For those of you who never watched WWF that’s the World Wrestling Foundation and not the World Wildlife Foundation which I find are easily confused. The backbreaker is a move from WWF and not WWF O.K.! So I say that he could try but my father’s stronger and that he would outmanoeuvre his dad and reverse the move on him. It was getting intense now and there was more and more malice lacing every word that was slung.

Neil had reached his limit or what seemed to be the limit of his imagination and to be honest with you I don’t know why he was defending his father because it wasn’t his real dad; no he was defending a man which we’d nicknamed Dafydd Cont which when translated would mean David the Cunt. He was mean to them and used to belt them; but I suppose he had to stick up for him, but then again, he did not have to initiate the mudslinging.

So apparently Dafydd Cont had a gun because he was a farmer and he was going to shoot my dad no problems. I told him that I’d phone the cops and that they would swarm his house. This it seems would not stop Dafydd Cont because he would boldly blast his way out of the situation smoking the policeman as he parted them out of his way, akin to Moses and his miracle at the red sea.

My father had a work shop in our house where he used to build the Irish pipes (Uilleann Pipes) in the evenings. In this workshop was a machine called a Lathe which is used to turn wood from blocks into conical form and also it is used to drill them out. So I tell Neil that my dad would grab his dad before he could get to his gun and commence in putting his body on the lathe; setting it spinning at a faster and faster speed, until eventually his head would come off and all his guts would come flying out of the stump of his neck where his head used to be. This did the trick and he was quiet the rest of the way home!

The ensuing day was just a day like any other I got dressed and shuffled my way to school as slow as I could, and when I got there Mrs Barlow the lollypop lady would give me her ritual boot up the arse saying to me “come on slow worm”. When I got to the classroom it was evident that the news had come from the top down through the chain of command that the headmaster wanted to see me.

I approached his door with the same air of deflation that always filled me when I had to go there. Knock knock! Come in said Mr Jones. Well how could I describe Mr Jones let me begin by saying he was small in stature and he wore pink pinstriped shirts. He wore gold rings and had tight grey trousers; the type that was specially made for teachers and could only be found in mail order catalogues with an inbuilt come in the back pocket of course! Mr Jones loved golf and he would drink from a mug that had a picture of a woman clad in a bikini, and on it there was some golf related gag about a birdie. Mr Jones was a ladies man and always reeked of some pungent aftershave. Mr Jones commanded respect and he gave me a row in front of the assembly one day because I had not saluted him as he made his way into the school, and the reasoning behind this was that I was busy playing and I did not see the twat coming and besides the wind was blowing the other way so I couldn’t smell him coming either. Mr Jones wore hushpuppies. Mr Jones had an affair with Mrs Pat. Mr Jones’s hair was always slicked back the same way.

I pushed the door open and walked in, “come here!” he bellowed and so I promptly walked over and in front of his desk. Well Mr Jones leapt out of his chair with much enthusiasm and vitality and came bounding towards me as quick as a flash. Mr Jones’s weapon of choice was his chubby little digit (index) extended firmly which he used to poke you in the chest as he gave you a ticking off. Well this time though he started off a little differently; improvising with a grab of the shirt pulling me to my tiptoes, and then letting me fall back down to my feet before he commenced his prodding. “Ginsberg” he bellowed, “now”(poke) “tell” (poke) “me” (poke) “the” (poke) “truth” (poke) “and” (poke) “don’t” (poke) “give” (poke) “me” (poke) “no” (poke) cock and bull story (poke) (poke) (poke) (poke)! By the time he had finished with me I was pinned against the wall, well I didn’t know why I was here like most of the times I was here; I just didn’t know. “I don’t know what you are talking about Sir,” I told him plain and simple because it was the truth. “Oh you know Ginsberg.” “No, no I don’t Sir”. “Your father killing Neil White’s father”, “oh that Sir I didn’t start it, it was him!” I wanted to go on but he told me to go and stand outside his office as usual.

I stood there for an age I watched my friends go out to play and I watched them come back in again; the dinner lady’s passed and smiled at me I grinned my toothless grin back at them. Mrs Roberts and Mrs Pat (Mrs Pat was the one having the affair with Mr Jones) stood there discussing me as if I wasn’t there at all saying this that and the other; I hadn’t an idea of what the hell they were going on about; except that I knew it was a ploy to make me feel worse. Eventually Mrs Roberts turned square at me and said one of those sayings that I never understood, you know one of those riddles that they always fire at you when you are a kid. “Look at him; it’s as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!” I thought for a slight moment to myself that butter does melt in my mouth, yes it does melt in my mouth so that makes me normal, there’s no problem then, its decided! I had decided to tell them the good news and so I chirped back at her defiantly “butter does melt in my mouth!” I gazed at her after saying this and could see that a wry smile was beginning to creep across her face and so instead of letting it show; she and Mrs Pat briskly turned and trotted themselves off. Hmm I had a sneaky suspicion that they liked bad little boys.

Eventually I was relieved of my exhibitory position from outside the head masters office and was allowed to go and have dinner. Ah the sweet taste of freedom Mr Jones’s is a twat and he doesn’t know that me and Richard Peter’s stole crisps, drink, and overcharged our classmates when we were running his shop (we pocketed about 40 pence), and we watched him count the takings in front of us and didn’t bat an eyelid.

Anyway so I get reprimanded all because Neil White does not have an imagination and has the cheek to go and tell on me to his mother who in turn tells the head master. Punished for having an imagination and I thought schooling was supposed to reward us for having talents like these.

So we were on our way out of the school one day me and my older brother Raphael and all of his friends. As we exited the building we started spying into the headmaster’s office through a little gap in the blinds; low and behold Mr Jones was snogging Mrs Pat. All the lads were drawing in their breaths and making exclamatory noises. “Www yyy” they went as they were greeted by the scene. “What’s the matter?” I said as I jostled inn all elbows because I was much smaller than them because they were older. It was true Mr Jones and Mrs Pat were going at it hammer and tongs, or more to the point they were hammering each other’s tongues! The lads told me that they were having an affair, “what’s that?” I asked them. I was informed that if you are married to someone then you can’t go snogging someone else. “Oh” was my reply not really understanding the principle of the whole discussion. When me and Raph got home we informed our mam of what we had witnessed at the headmasters office; well her eyes lit up as we filled her in and she asked us if we were sure. “Of course we are everyone saw it”. I could see by her reaction that this was a bad thing, and there was that sanctimonious shithawk ploughing into me, and all the while he had been having an AFFAIR! Wait until my fingers grow Mr Jones and you are dead meat!
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