Light At The End Of The Tunnel

All I do now is write; write when I get home from work, and write all weekend (once I've managed to snap out of the Youtube reverie of watching anything rather than eek out a painful story that'll never get published.) I'm now 35 chapters in, with about 5 more left to write, my original NaNoWriMo 50,000 word draft now upped to a current 95k. I hope to have this damn fucking albatross of a novel finished later this month, upon which I intend to go on an ether, opiates and crack binge for the next 25 years or until my heart packs in - whichever's sooner (my money's on the latter, after about an hour).

In other (non) news, it took me about two or three days to snap out of my Lovely American Ex-Girlfriend delusion. I've spent the better part of two years dropping hints (i.e. asking outright) to go back and see a frankly indifferent and slightly bitter ex who only seemed eager to 'forgive' me a couple of months ago, re-establishing contact as we bombarded each other with emails, photos (two) and phonecalls (one apiece), only for her to casually drop the new relationship bomb in passing as I tried to negotiate a trip to her home town.

If anyone can get hold of an original folio of 'The Mourning Bride' by William Congreve (1697), please do let me know, because next to the line; "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned", you should find an etching of her prodding me in the arse with a pike.

She's now been downgraded to ex-girlfriend (American).

As for my recent road accident, my bike vs. some cunt in a car, I've still yet to hear from the Metropolitan Police. It would appear that they don't help the public anymore, burdened as they are by said whinging bastards and their fucking paperwork. I've phoned them a couple of times only to be told it's 'in hand', and furthermore, the number plate the PCSO took down might be wrong.

Oh good.

Statement Of Events

At approximately 6:20pm on Wednesday June 24th, I, Mr Fweng Ebola, of a decrepit and overpriced flat, was cycling west along some road.

It was a clear and sunny day. Trees continued to absorb carbon dioxide and the crippling indifference of a cruel world gnawed at my soul like beavers felling a dam as I got fatter and repelled anyone with a womb. The lights were red as I overtook a line of stationary traffic. In front of me, a female cyclist whose route was blocked by a pedestrian island had stopped. As the lights changed to green, I slowed to allow the cyclist into the road, taking up more of the road and holding back as I did so.

On doing this, a car driven by a CUNT overtook us close and at speed, due to the driver being a selfish retarded fuckbollock who would place a stranger's death at his own hand as less important than being a few seconds late for something. I yelled out in shock as I continued pedalling. The driver was now looking at me in his rear-view mirror to gauge if I'd been the yeller.

Regrettably, I made the mistake of jabbing a finger directly at him, invoking a furious red mist that clouded the driver's rat-like and beady little eyes. As he crossed over the junction, he'd slowed down behind traffic as I approached along an empty bus lane, tutting like a pensioner reading the Daily Mail. Before I passed the driver, he accelerated into the bus lane and came to a halt. Now rather worried, I overtook his car, keeping an eye on his door which I wasn't surprised to see being flung open full length so a Caucasian, shaven-headed and lobotomised ape could lunge at me. I weaved out of his way – just – and continued unabated, now rather perturbed that a maniac with a micropenis was trying to kill me.

About 15 seconds later, I became aware of a speeding engine approaching. Determined to make me stop so he could, I have to assume, beat me into a bloody, weeping pulp who wished as he cried red tears from swollen purple eyes that he'd kept up the kickboxing lessons, the driver overtook me a second time, pulled in sharply, and came to a screeching halt. This time, he ensured I had no chance to escape as his car was now only a metre or two ahead. I gripped my brakes but with no room for manoeuvre, I collided into the back of him with such force that my rear fucking wheel bucked and landed on the pavement while a jagged pedal cut my bare leg to ribbons.

I yelled out in shock and, looking up, saw two community officers run across the road to assist an unfortunate woman who had collapsed outside a tube station. I managed to catch the attention of one of them as I was now yelling and waving my hands like Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic.

As the officer walked towards us, Cro-Magnon man must have realised that I was winning - for the first time in my lousy, motherfucking life, I. Was. Ahead, dammit!

So he drove off.

I gave the officer my details and reattached my chain, cycling home carefully as unidentified bits fell off. On arrival at my flat, I realised my back had twisted up a la John Merrick, the Elephant Man.

I would like to end by stating that the individual responsible has no business driving so much as a mobility scooter, as he clearly has no qualms about using one as a weapon. If it pleases the court, may I suggest he be hanged about the neck until dead, and his bloated cadaver repeatedly pummelled by me doing bunny hops on his twisted spine with a fucked-up bike.

Thank you.

Whoops

I've just made a colossal mistake.

To those of you who've been reading the previous posts, you'll know what's currently happening - i.e., not much.

Jesus, I'm scared to even allude to her...

Oh fuck it. I've been emailing my lovely American ex-girlfriend.

And I mentioned this blog.

I don't know why. I think because I'm such a miserable bastard in general, and I'm particularly miserable at the moment, and for some reason I was trying to prove to her what a miserable bastard I am because I dumped her years ago and made a massive mistake and now she's met someone else which, okay, is brilliant and I'm very happy for her (me, not so much).... that I mentioned my many years of whinging, in blog form.

My point was, 'tschh, I'm such a cynical miserable git that I've got a cynical, miserable blog' - why I thought she'd find that endearing, I don't know - but I didn't really think much about the end part, the BLOG part, when I pressed SEND. I did pause briefly, but I'm a) phenomenally tired right now, and b) overconfident that this anonymous diary of shit is buried so deep in the dullest recesses of the Internet that she'd never find it.

In reply, she asked if it was my blog she'd read years ago, the one I much later linked to Fwengebola.

I frantically attempted to unlink it, but I got scared that I'd fuck something up and delete my whole Fwengebola account. But in doing so, I realised I'm more scared of losing this blog than I am of losing someone who's already missing, presumed indifferent.

So feel free to question why I really chose to mention anything. Personally - and trust me on this - I know myself well enough to know that I'm just an idiot.

I'm incredibly angry with myself right now.

*** UPDATE ***

I'm going on a fucking diet.

Staying Alone And Unloved In The Gutter Of Life

Overnight, my lovely American ex-girlfriend changed her Facebook status from single to 'In a fucking Relationship', with some bloke.

He's in a moody black and white photo. Local to her. Looks pretty macho.

And she's 34.

Meanwhile, 4,000 miles away, I went out with the lads. I've been avoiding huge drinking sprees for several reasons. Top of the list is my desire to spend all my free time on my (Ha!) novel. Coming in a close second, I'm attempting to save money in a sincere attempt to avoid Debtor's Gaol. Not far behind is my general health. I'm not getting any younger, and I won't do my ageing body any favours throwing pure grain alcohol down my Pringle-hole and tarring up my lungs with nicotine.

Nonetheless, I couldn't face the abuse I was beginning to get when I hinted to said lads that I might not go. So I bypassed my bicycle and took the tube to work on Friday. I wore my suit jacket with smart shoes, a white double-cuff shirt and cufflinks, and a pair of dark, understated jeans. I felt pretty damn sexy, I have to tell you, yet felt somewhat disillusioned as I sat on the train opposite a frankly devastating blonde who point-blank refused to look anywhere near me, not even to sneer.

Work - with no lunchbreak as usual - was typically stressful. And when I left the office two pear ciders merrier, I ended up walking to Soho as rushhour trains and buses wouldn't get me there any quicker. I was dripping wet by the time I arrived, having nearly been run over by a taxi and called an idiot. My suit was stained with sweat, and my friends publicly mocked my 'Ginger Beadle' as I'd only shaved my neck again. (It itches otherwise, alright???)

I spent a chunk of my overdraft on booze, and received much abuse I've grown accustomed to; several 'Cunts', a couple of 'Morons', and an occasional 'fatso.'

And London's womenfolk couldn't have avoided me more if I'd been covered with weeping buboes and had one leg. I did pat one girl on the back as we stood outside the pub, after she had a coughing fit. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to mind, so I did it again ten minutes later when she hacked up again. She even smiled in return, although the men she was surrounded by shot me a several dark glares.

This made getting her number all the more difficult, but before I could even think about that, I had the far bigger hurdle of summoning up the courage in the first place. I've never had a problem talking to women when the mood takes me. My shitfest of thrills has always been entering that bewildering next stage; getting those digits, or simply doing something to indicate a desire to see a complete stranger again, in a stressful and rather less pleasant 'coffee' scenario. In many ways, I've learnt to prefer that giddying high of not repelling a new Ladyperson and leaving it at that. I'd only ruin things doing something disturbingly adult like go on a date. Jesus.

So, I woke up this morning in my stinking pit with a now uncommon sense that I'd burnt the candle and both ends as I'd rampaged through London, my wallet, and my liver. The rumours are true; Huge piss-ups with the Boys do get harder with age.

And while I'd done so, my lovely American ex-girlfriend across the pond had cemented her 'blossoming romance' and officially Facebooked her commitment to a certain Mr Finkelstein.

They'll be getting married soon. I'm pretty certain of that.

I'm not prone to quoting ageing Jewish comics with impenetrably stereotypical accents, but I once saw Jackie Mason in London, and recall this bit he did about romance. To paraphrase; "Why do people always get married at the same age? Shouldn't it be random? If it was love, why doesn't it happen at fifteen, or fifty, or seventy-two? Why is it always around your late Twenties or early Thirties when two people decide, 'You're the one!' and tie the knot?"

Ugh. Too little, too late, once again. To all the single people out there with a little daemon in their heads, Hello.

Dying Alone And Unloved In The Gutter Of Life

Okay, I know I've made the point that feeling sorry for yourself is no bad thing, provided it's brief and ends with a positive conclusion.

However, I am feeling phenomenally pathetic right now, and I've only got myself to blame.

The fact is, I suffer from Male Paralysis. It is a common and rather stupid complaint, viz: If I'm not in a relationship, I feel lonely and unloved (even though not being in a relationship is my default setting; one that I'm petrified I've become so accustomed to that I will never be able to handle being someone's boyfriend).
On the flip side, when I am in a relationship, it seems so strange to have lost my perceived independence that I feel suffocated and get scared off.

Last month was my birthday, which falls on the same day as my lovely American ex-girlfriend's. I ended that relationship because of the 8,000 mile round-trips just to hang our for a coffee that would last a week, encompassing lots of hand-holding in Central or Regent's Park, sex, and dinners in fancy restaurants with the rest of decent civilisation.

However, we weren't together long when she got extremely keen extremely quickly, which scared the bejesus out of me. Being a cynical, somewhat low confidence cove, I couldn't work out why she felt that way. Her keenness, coupled with my vast collection of insecurities, meant I ended us, although I told her repeatedly and sincerely that if she lived in Britain, I would snap out of my paralysis to dedicate all my time to her. And of course, she was perfect too; Funny, attractive, and intelligent, we even got each other, dammit.

And I'd dumped her.

She took it badly. We only patched up our differences properly last month, during my 35th birthday, and her 34th. We began to email each other 10 times a day. We exchanged current photos of each other. We even called.

But then she slipped back into indifference, which bugged the hell out of me. To give you some background, I have a sister, a sibling that I haven't seen since January despite her living only 8 miles away. We hadn't said a single word to each other in 5 months, apart from the day I received a Facebook message which read, 'Happy Birthday'.

And that was it.

So I called my sister up to ask her what her problem was, that zero contact in almost half a year broken by a feeble line of birthday text on a social networking website was pretty insulting. In my defence, I told her that I hadn't called myself because it was always me getting in touch every few months to check if she was still alive, and I wondered if the day would ever come when it occured to her to ring me for a change.

So, once the yelling and insults subsided, my sister and I agreed to make more of an effort to keep in touch. She suggested doing so every other day, which I did, going so far as to leave myself calendar reminders. I duly phoned her every other day, or every three days, and did so about six or seven times. And then I stopped. The days have since turned into weeks, and I haven't heard a word from her. This is a terribly similar scenario - some would say exactly the same as before - whereby I'm the one who always has to call, otherwise I'd never hear from my sister again.

So I think it's fair to say I'm fairly sensitive about female contact.

Meanwhile, over in the States, my lovely American ex-girlfriend and I re-established this beautiful connection. She said I was still cute. I said I still missed her. She bemoaned not having anyone to take her out to dinner. And I wished we were still together.

So I started looking at flights. I was going to give her that surprise I thought she'd been leaving hints for. I toyed with the idea of doing it in a week or two.
Trouble was, like my sister, contact had collapsed into nought but one-way traffic, everything at my instigation, and pretty brief in return.

So last night I emailed to see how lovely American ex was doing. 'Fine', she wrote. 'Busy,' she added. And then she went to bed - None of which particularly inspired me to rush out and spend half a thousand pounds on flights and a hotel room. This morning, I checked Facebook. Her status had been updated to, "I'm all for you, body and soul."
That was odd, and more than a little strong considering how we hadn't been connecting all that well in the previous few days.

So this afternoon, I emailed to see if perhaps I'd done something untoward. It was nothing heavy, just a brief line of enquiry.

"Totally not pissed off," she wrote. "Just working a lot and nurturing a blossoming romance."

I paused. Then I re-read that line. "Nurturing a blossoming romance."

Oh.

It was then that I began to feel more than a little nauseous. What had gone from little butterflies flitting in my stomach whenever I saw her name appear in emails had mutated into a violent sense of unease coupled with a feeling of ruthless stupidity. And that was when Evil Fweng, that spiteful, gloating, malevolent little daemon in my head, began to cackle.

'You knew this was going to happen,' he crowed. 'You can't expect to just re-date someone you dumped three fucking years ago.'

And then he started insulting me, and it was all rather hostile, I can tell you. And just when Evil Fweng had finished his tirade, he held up a picture of the only other tenuously-linked woman in my 'life', the stunning leggy blonde Polish lady, the friend-of-a-friend who recently seemed so inexplicably attracted to me.

'Remember that phonecall from your friend? The one who introduced you to that stunning leggy Polish blonde?'

'Unggh,' I groaned.

'Remember how she was umm-ing and ahh-ing over her boyfriend, debating whether or not your useless fat self would make an ideal replacement? Well she's about to get engaged now, isn't she?'

I took a deep breath. I caught sight of myself in the mirror as I stood there in a towel, my hairy man-tits and distended gut looking like the body that haunts a thousand female nightmares.

'Kill yourself, fatty,' Evil Fweng continued. 'There isn't a woman on earth who deserves a worthless twat like you so just shut the fuck up, lie down in the gutter, and kill yourself now, you pointless, indecisive, wobbling sack of shit.'

30 Seconds of Pure WTF????????

EMBARRASSING MEMORIES CLIP SHOW

You know that feeling of disappointment you get when you tune in to a TV show only to find the lazy bastards have cobbled together old clips to fill up their schedule?
Welcome to the blog version:


One day...

16 ~ ...I'd formed the unsettling thought that I'd exposed myself in public. I let this gnawing feeling fade into insignificance until a year or so later when, apropos of nothing, Hippy Dave casually informed me of the time he'd been sitting in the kitchen whereupon I'd run in, dropped my jeans and waved my genitalia about, yelling 'Waheey, it's my penis!'
I then went into my bedroom and passed out.
His girlfriend may or may not have been in the room at the time. I was too drunk to notice.

15 ~ ... I fell down the stairs, crashed through a pair of doors, and into a crowded nightclub.

14 ~ ...I needed to record some background ambiance for this radio play I had to do as a student. So I found this legal lecture and, not wanting to walk in and interrupt them, I opened the door slightly and stuck the microphone in. Sadly, the whole theatre could see me through the glass door and were kind enough to point me out to the lecturer. She flung the door open and yelled, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?', at which point I realised how suspicious I looked, so I ran off. The lecturer caught up with me and in the struggle, she snapped my necklace. I was told to write a letter of apology to her.

13 ~ ... at University, my family had come down to take me out to lunch. I obliged, even though I'd only just tasted independence and felt conspicuously awkward having to relinquish a bit of it. Back at my flat, and with four surly flatmates trying to watch TV, my Mum departed by yelling 'Goodbye my little Honey-Bunny!'
The mocking I got from one flatmate in particular became downright hostile.

12 ~ ... I took the afternoon off work.
Travelled to South London.
Went to an audition.
Removed most of my clothes.
Stood in the corner of a room and was filmed as I turned 360° on the spot, and said in a loud voice "I am Boris Becker."
Felt very dirty.
Went home.

I didn't get the lookalike's job.

11 ~ ... at a job interview many summers ago. I had gained a tremendous amount of weight and looked like a prize-winning pumpkin with tits. The company specialised in sports programmes, so I thought it would be fine if I turned up in a polo shirt, tracksuit bottoms and a pair of trainers. My twisted logic reasoned that if they saw I hadn't got dressed up for the interview, they'd think I was really good at my job.
I sealed my fate on two dumber counts. One was asking for a fan to be blasted at my fat head throughout the interview. The other was when I was asked, 'It gets very demanding here. How do you cope with difficult people?'
I began my response with, 'Ha! Well I've worked with some real wankers.'
I didn't get that job either.

10 ~ ... I urinated with colossal shame and self-loathing in one of the quieter walkways at Tottenham Court Road tube station. Looking up, I spotted a CCTV camera pointed right at me.

9 ~ ... I met up with an old schoolfriend I hadn't seen in 20 years, and got added to his round-robin emails. A few days later, I received an email from him which prompted a flurry of further emails as people I didn't know 'Replied to All'. For some reason, I wrote back 'If you don't take me off this list immediately, I will bombard you all with hardcore animal pornography.'
This was taken seriously by everyone, including my old friend's Auntie who emailed me privately to call me sick and depraved. Others wrote to tell me I would be reported to the police.
Needless to say, that was the last contact I ever had with that old schoolfriend.

8 ~ ...I woke up one Saturday, grunted 'Fuck' at nothing in particular, and jutted my backside over the edge of the bed to ferociously break wind. Then I coughed the phlegm loose from my throat and scratched my arse.
Closing my eyes to return to sleep, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't gone to bed alone the night before.
I peered over the edge of the midget-sized mattress. Trying to sleep on the floor below lay my then-girlfriend. I'd farted into her face.

7 ~ ... I drunkenly bought cocaine off a street dealer. When I got home, I opened the wrap to discover I'd spent £50 on half a polo mint.
It wasn't even a whole one.

6 ~ ... I was sat outside a pub one gorgeous summer's afternoon, when a passer-by stopped dead in her tracks.
'It's you, isn't it?'
'Erm, yes?'
'What are you doing here?'
'Look, I know who you think I am, but I'm not.'
'Yes you are.'
'No I'm not. Do I sound even remotely German?'
'Can I have your autograph?'
'No.'

5 ~ ... as a teenager, I spotted a fox in our garden. So naturally I called the police.
That copper's voice, a mixture of incredulity and disgust at wasting his time, still makes me cringe with shame even now.

4 ~ ... at a busy production office at the BBC, I was waiting to speak to a middle-aged researcher with her back to me, engrossed in a conversation with someone else. I remembered my Dad's old gag of gently kicking the back of my knee so my leg would give way, causing me to turn around and laugh heartily.
'You got me there, Dad!' I'd giggle in those glorious sunny days of my youth.
And in a moment of madness, I thought I'd do likewise to the lady I was waiting for, a bit of joviality to keep our spirits up during the working slog.
So I kicked her leg.
For no reason.
And quite hard, it transpired.
'WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?' she screamed after her leg had buckled so violently she almost collapsed.
'Erm...?'
'HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!' she spat, silencing three open plan offices.
'But...'
'HE KICKED ME!' she told a sea of aghast faces.
There are some things that cannot be lightheartedly explained away no matter how much you try. This was one of them.

3 ~ ... on a Friday night, I was racing to get the last tube home. Getting to platform level, I spotted a tube with its doors open, and ran for it. I hate to say 'the next thing I know', but the next thing I know, I'm lying on the floor, screaming. My left leg didn't 'mind the gap' and dangled under the train alongside all the rats and flesh-eating mechanics, while my left buttock sat on the platform.
Not only was it the wrong train, but I'd ripped my jeans in the process.

2 ~ ... I was sat in my room having a perfunctory wank to some pornography. As soon as the filthy act of self-abasement was over and I had deposited my issue into a paper receptacle, I switched off the television and sighed. It was then that the dark screen caught the reflection of the window cleaner doing his job directly behind me.

1 ~ ... I was on holiday in Prague. It was extremely pleasant, other than the fact that as a single man abroad, I failed to pull anyone. The nearest I got to female contact was in a bar near the Kafka museum. I sat there feeling slightly sheepish while a cute barmaid chainsmoked, looking all blonde and modelesque while she stole glances.

"Is she keen?" I dared to wonder as she asked faintly probing little questions about myself. Could I possibly, and for the first time in my life, be about to indulge in a brief if physically intense classic Holiday Romance™? I thought it best to smile and play it cool, pop into the bathroom to freshen myself a little more confident, and see where things lead.

It lead to the toilet, where I found myself producing a stool of such immense girth and length that several flushes couldn't budge it. Continued attempts would've flooded the room, so I'd ended up balancing a now shitty brush on the edge of the seat and walking out in shame.

More grotesque memories can be found here:

9 ~ Please Don't Make Me Get Toyah

8 ~ Glass-Hole

7 ~ Wanker's Revenge

6 ~ Unnecessary List of Exes and Fumbles

5 ~ NSFW vs. No Sex

4 ~ Physi-Oh

3 ~ Disgusting Individual

2 ~ How Not To Have Sex

1 ~ How To Remain Single

Embarrassing Memory #12: Embarrassing Memory Compendium III

Warning: Doesn't so much include embarrassing memories than dull things I've never mentioned before. I've admitted to just about everything I can think of already.
Apart from that murder. I'm never talking about that.

1 ~ I was once in a furiously hot bar where the bouncers would, with menaces, slam shut the windows we kept opening. The heat eventually got to me and I demanded to see the manager where I pretended to be from the Health and Safety Executive so I could hurl abuse at him. It took me about 30 seconds to be overwhelmed with guilt as he stuttered and sweated his apologies because he was also under orders from the council to keep the noise down.

Actually, that's a pretty lame story. Sorry.

2 ~ I wear a stud in my left ear. Have done for nearly, uh, 20 years.
Jesus.

3 ~ I once auditioned to be the Milky Bar Kid on my mother's insistence. I was 28 about seven.

4 ~ I am known to apply talcum powder to my crevices post-shower, to speed up the drying process and smell slightly clean and perfumey. There. I said it.

5 ~ I used to collect comics. My oldest one is from 1899 and phenomenally racist. They are now rotting away to a brown mulch somewhere near Watford.

6 ~ I was once many years ago sat in my room having a perfunctory wank to some pornography. As soon as the filthy act of self-abasement was over and I had deposited my issue into a paper receptacle, I switched off the television and sighed. It was then that the dark screen caught the reflection of the window cleaner doing his job directly behind me.

7 ~ My Mother recently wrote an angry letter to the Daily Mail. She wanted to vent her anger over what rotters Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross are.

I am related to this woman.

8 ~ I used to know Matt Lucas in the briefest and most tenuous of ways when I was younger. His Dad and my Dad were acquaintances. I would've talked to him more when we were shoved together, but he was bald and I was 12 and judgemental.

9 ~ I was, a few months back, on holiday in Prague. It was extremely pleasant, other than the fact that as a single man abroad, I failed to pull a lady. Having said that, the nearest I got to female contact was in a bar near the Kafka museum. I sat there feeling slightly sheepish while she chainsmoked, looking all blonde and modelesque and stealing glances.

"Is she keen?" I dared to wonder as she asked faintly probing little questions about myself. Could I possibly, and for the first time in my life, be about to indulge in a brief if physically intense classic Holiday Romance™? I thought it best to smile and play it cool, pop into the bathroom to freshen myself a little more confident, and see where things lead.

It lead to the toilet, where I found myself producing a stool of such immense girth and length that several flushes couldn't budge it. Continued attempts would've flooded the room, so I'd ended up balancing a now shitty brush on the edge of the seat and walking out in shame.

For some reason, I was no longer in the mood to chat.

I Love The Universe

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Deja Blue

Pfft. Bunch of arse.

Life's what you make it, warbled Talk Talk 23 years ago (has it really been that long??)

If that's true, mine's a gleaming castle of shit overlooking a vast land of promise and plenty; a territory of hope that's been pretty much ruined by that fecal fortress on the hill.

I have just had four days off work, my weekend extending into the Monday and Tuesday just gone. My boss initially gave me the Friday off for running his company for two weeks solo, but he changed his mind on Thursday night, raising my morale then shitting on it by telling me at the eleventh hour to come in that last morning.

So I went to work on Friday, reassuring myself that it'll be a fun half day until my boss comes back from his meeting and I get to go home early. But the morning descended into a chaos of ringing phones and aggressive cuntstomers who all gave me new shit to do which added to my pile of much older stuff I didn't get to clear. Then it turned midday, then 1, then finally 4:30pm when my boss eventually arrived and I ended up staying til gone 6pm on my 'day off' anyway.

But then I got my glorious break; four days all to myself to tidy up my shit, grab a coffee and wander around my local park, and write, write, write my novel complete. And what did I do instead?

I watched Annie Hall and Life of Brian and this cunt on Youtube instead, whilst playing Spider fucking Solitaire and chainsmoking. Sometimes, for a change of pace, I would masturbate to pornography at 2pm. And in those 96 hours at home, I managed to write not a single, solitary word.

When I did go out, it was to the supermarket where I avoided the gaze of other patrons lest they saw my basket of shame; one of enormous bags of crisps, yellow junk, and chocolate bourbons next to a supersized box of Kleenex and absolutely no fruit. Then I would return home to dislocate my jaw like a snake and slowly devour pizzas without chewing.

I never thought it would come to this; 35, and living the life of a sad old widower about forty years too soon.

On the plus side, I am back in regular email correspondence with my lovely ex-girlfriend from New York. On the downside, she's in New York, which was why we'd split up in the first place. My only female contact on Earth therefore contains pick-me-ups such as: "You do not have a pathetic existence. You live close to a fun little organic market, and you have light eyebrows."

As for my health, the ringing in my ears is beginning to deafen me. I've always had it, but it's getting ridiculous. Right now it sounds like my own personal fire alarm hissing in my head. I'm also noticing the cirrhosis rash I've had on my elbows and knees since, oh, forever, which has never bothered me or caused me any undue concern, is now getting bored and starting to move up and along my arms and legs.

So that's fun.

All I want is to fulfil the future I can see in my mind's eye. My novel is finished. I don't care if it's a success or even published. I just want it done. I'm also finishing the London Marathon for some reason and, of course, I no longer smoke. I'm fit, healthy, sexy, and I no longer eat food that's shrink-wrapped and takes twenty minutes to 'cook' at 200°C.

Oh, and I have a girlfriend and zero negative vibes running through my brain as if it's a Disneyland for demons.
Plus my own house.
And a well-paid job I enjoy.

And while I think about it, a donkey's schlong, but that's not really achievable.
Speaking of penis related matters, my friends were impressed with the new suit I'd bought for Jim and Lisa's wedding. It's apparently a great improvement on my old beige suit which, I was told, had become so tight around my nether regions, everyone could tell what my religion is.

So this is what it's like to be 35. Sucky. A few days after my birthday, I'd invited a whole bunch of friends to meet me in a pub for Friday birthday beers. I chose a different pub, somewhere vaguely equidistant we could all get to. And after an hour there, well into the merry zone, I was tapped on the shoulder by 'Jon'.

I hadn't seen Jon for 14 years. He had been on my course at University, and the pub I had picked happened to be his local. Jon hadn't changed, apart from some wrinkles around his eyes, but he was the same nerd I remembered from before. He works in movie post-production now, a line I'd still be in had I not kicked that soulless, ego driven industry to the kerb. I sold bags now, I told him - not Prada or Gucci ones mind you, but ones made of paper or plastic. (We do jute, too.) I told Jon this with pride. After all, I remember - indeed, I told him - how studious and bookish he had been way back when, and today, he was reaping the rewards. This admission may have been borne out of guilt too, as we weren't really friends at Uni, possibly because he was such a nerd. I wasn't exactly 'the jock' type, but I was certainly the course joker more interested in raving and misbehaving than revising.

To hell with pride, I thought, Jon deserves this. He still seemed rather shy and withdrawn, so I listened with interest as he told me about his current projects. He told me he was still single, so I boosted his ego by telling him I was too, and furthermore, he had a better job. Then he fidgeted and his phone rang, and he seemed eager to find his friends. So I wound up our meeting, and hugged him. I continued to congratulate him on his single-mindedness over the years, and the sweet fruit it was bearing now. Then his friends arrived, and we all shook hands as I bade Jon a hearty farewell, two strangers who had remembered one another's faces, about to go our separate ways again.

'Take care Jon, and congratulations on everything,' I said as I walked off, feeling a strange warmth for humanity for once.

'Yeah,' he yelled back. 'Keep on selling those bags!'

Party Political Broadcast

For anyone considering the upcoming European Parliamentary Elections on Thursday June 4th, (as I wasn't), please bear in mind the following...

I was handed a leaflet a few days ago, from a man yelling 'Stop the BNP'. I was intrigued, so I took one.

I would've preferred it if he smiled or said 'thanks', as opposed to staring blankly at me because I look like a stocky, short-haired thug, but then I'm a paranoid conclusion-jumper.

So I read the leaflet and became somewhat worried as I was only vaguely aware of this election and didn't prioritise it as much as I would the General Election. They, on the other hand, are sacrosanct. If you can't be bothered to vote in major parliamentary elections but you call the X-Factor hotline to nominate some middle-aged Scottish singer, then you deserve to die.

Anyhoo, what bothered me about this leaflet, and why I'm writing this, is that the British National Party, our very own fascist scum play-acting as politicians in suits, could win seats with as little as 8.5% of the vote in some regions.

Our apathy could get them in.

Having a BNP Member of the European Parliament won't just make Britain look like an intolerant rabble of racist gutfucks, it'll also give the BNP credibility, not to mention a quarter of a million pounds in public money for each elected official to spend as they see fit.

So do your best to get out and vote on June 4th (unless you intend to vote BNP, in which case, the election's on the 5th). More details can be found here. Hope Not Hate is here.
Ex-Pats (called Haggis); I'm sure you can vote from Brookline.

Apologies for this rare foray into politics. Coming soon: Being humiliated on my birthday, plus all the regular bitter introspection, and the weather.

Jim & Lisa Wed and I Turn 35

So that's Jim and Lisa's wedding in the bag. If I was nervous having to perform Best Man duties and make a speech, then it was just as nerve-wracking for Jimmy, although he had the added benefit of marrying his one true love and having the rest of his life sorted out.

I had a ringside seat during the ceremony, positioned as I was within punching distance of the groom's shoulder. It was a far cry from my last stint as Best Man, where the ring carrying duties were carried out by that groom's nephew. In frantically arranging people into their seats, I soon realised that one wasn't set aside for me so I'd spent it at the back of the hall where I couldn't hear so much as a single vow, and where my mobile phone went off.
Which strangely means it went on.

This time round, I was confronted with a scene that - dare I say it - made my eyes leak a strange, colourless liquid. I'm afraid my cynicism got lost in the shared joy of the Bride and Groom, two people who grinned continuously at each other like lottery winners getting a Happy Finish from a Thai masseuse.

I found myself muttering 'Erk!' as tears appeared in my eyes when Jimmy, a man not known for his Public Displays of Affection, planted a smacker on his new wife's lips. In public. Twice. (The photographer missed the first one.) Such is Jim's general reluctance with romance-based continental peacocking, I half expected him to have altered the wording to "...You may now shake hands with the Bride and pat her on the back."

The only downer came when the Registrar asked me at a pivotal point to run to the back of the room where hired musicians were playing Elgar's solemn Nimrod, so I could tell them to shut up.

I've never had to silence a string quartet before.

Once the meal was over, I found myself as impromptu toastmaster, hushing the room by thumping the table with a spoon and announcing the speakers. Hindsight's a bugger of course, and it is only now as I commit my memory to blog, that I wish I gave my friend the groom a better introduction than three loud smacks with a spoon, followed by pointing at him and saying, 'Jim', before sitting down hastily. An audience, I know now, need some kind of direction, and a glowing build-up that would have ended with rapturous applause would've eased his nerves, as opposed to the few claps that he did get, more out of shock at my lousy work than any general dislike he may provoke.

Jim got his own back with what felt like a twenty-minute introduction that ended with, '...and now for the greatest Best Man's speech ever given in public.'

What followed obviously wasn't. It doesn't help that my friend, the morally upright, clean-living, thoroughly decent bastard that he is, has virtually no classic Best Man speech material in him; no tales of debauchery, no hard boozing, zero loose women, barely any rock and roll. (It's more Indie, really). Ghandi has a more chequered past than he does.

I did have a nice story from the days when we all went clubbing, though. We were moshing about during Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' when Jamie decided to shoulder-barge into Jim. This action propelled him across the length of the dancefloor, past assorted clubbers and glass-collectors, and through the emergency exit, where he dropped like a stone into an oil patch in the street outside.

Several hours later, somehow incapable of being drunk, I found myself in the hotel bar with Large Northern Flatmate and Hippy Dave, being commanded to "buy a drink for the blonde with the massive bangers" in the corner. Sat not that far from us. Within earshot.

So I did.

She said 'No', and immediately went to bed.

Nonetheless, I am left with very happy memories of the wedding; Large Northern Flatmate blubbing as he told Natalie what a brilliant new mother she is, Haggis apologising for the twelfth time for emailing me a list of obvious speech Do's and Don'ts (Do make it funny; Don't call the bride a cunt, etc.), Jamie getting shat on by a bird with good judgement during our Sunday morning walk in the park.

Moreover, there was something Feelgood Movie about that whole wedding; something to do with old friends, a little wrinklier, a little balder, a lot fatter, our arms round each other as we yelled out songs about Chevys and levees and rye.

And now I'm Thirty-fucking-Five, and I have been for precisely two days. I spent my birthday with two work colleagues; one, a shaven-headed Norwegian with a penchant for minimalist techno, the other a new French Senegalese intern I'd met that morning. I found it rather nice that he wanted to stop drinking after just one ale. I therefore spent my birthday plying lager, stout and whiskey to a shy nineteen-year-old lad who didn't want to drink. Said drinks also caused me to stand up and yell at the disinterested pub, "I'M THIRTY-FIVE TODAY!!!"
No-one cared.
On the plus side, Edouard did say I looked 28, which greatly cheered me up.

I do wish he wouldn't start and end every day going up to every office member and shaking hands though. I don't have the heart to tell him that the British aren't that polite. We are however socially retarded, so I guess we'll all be shaking hands consistently for the next two months.

Women and Anger, Flu and Fish

W & A

I have anger management issues. I don't consider it that bad because I'm ruthlessly in control of them.
Mostly.
But I am angry.

Having said that, I'm also quite happy, a thin veneer of contentment that looks like a seething tide of resentment to everyone else.

I thought I should consider professional help last week, when I was queuing up at the bank. I was stood away from the vast main queue, in the Business Customers Only lane (just myself and the chap in front, as opposed to the main queue's twenty.) Both of us stared at an empty seat, preferring that to aggravatingly slow-moving main line to our left.

Five minutes of seat staring later, I began to get restless. This was exacerbated when a man walked in and decided to start his own queue, bypassing myself and the guy in front of me. I stared at the back of his fat, bald head as my nostrils flared.

'Keep calm, keep calm', I intoned. 'He might not get served before me.'

That said, he might, and that must not happen. The queue is sacrosanct, and I was damned to hell and beyond if I was going to wait in a building for, now, 7 minutes, only for some chancer to wander in and get served after 1.

And then he got served. I was still standing behind the guy staring at the chair when fat, bald chancer casually stepped up to the teller.

'Oi!' someone yelled.
Me.
'Don't even think about it!'
'What?' he asked.
I yanked my iPlugs out.
'What do you think we're doing here?' I said, pointing at myself and the man in front. 'Waiting for a bus?'
'I only have to hand this over,' he yelled indignantly. I became vaguely aware of the main queue staring back.
'I don't care,' I said. "We were here first. Now get to the back of the queue."

As I turned round, I saw three more people stood behind me, people who'd arrived after fat and bald.

To my surprise and complete relief, he did so, muttering dark curses in his wake. The gentleman in front of me was thus served, while I stood at the head of the queue.

I was less pleased to discover the stunning black goddess who works there take the empty seat, presumably on the orders of a more senior teller now that the customers were beginning to yell at one other. I was flustered and my chest was pounding - truth be told, I hate confrontations - but I began to get worked up again as I watched her not call me forward any time soon.

I fidgeted, and tried to keep calm. I looked down and saw my tight black coat pulsate with the rhythm of my racing heart. I flared my nostrils some more and stared at the now filled seat.

The Goddess had a slight grin on her face. Motherfucker. She was randomly pressing buttons on her keyboard for as long as it took.

The guy formerly stood in front of me finished up and walked off, and I approached that desk. Turning round as soon as I got there, I watched Goddess summon over the person who had been stood behind me.

I clearly am the Antichrist.

I had a less angry but equally unpleasant lady rebuff a few days later. It had gone 5pm at work, and my colleagues and I are known to shut up shop and bring pints in from the neighbouring pub to sup at our desks in the final hour. Said pub is staffed by a rather stunning barperson from LA, all frilly hair and tight jeans and a figure sculpted by the gods.

And she hates me.

We first saw her at Christmas. We had a work's meal nearby and retired back to the pub where the less enlightened and rather sexist males of our party dribbled at her all night while I kept quiet, silenced mainly by their braying catcalls.

Ray, our office youngster and cockney scamp, was basically blind drunk, yelling at her face that she was rather attractive, which I noted she took with good grace. She then proceeded to serve other customers while Ray yelled to us that he'd like to bend her over and hang out the back of her.
'Ray!' I admonished as I felt my personality desert me. 'She can hear you!'

I have since been greatly amused on the occasions that I've gone back to that pub and barlady serves me in a manner that can only be described as hostile, giving me what I like to call the Beamscowl.

The Beamscowl is a very quick manoeuvre starting, as one would presume, with a glowing, radiant beam. She had this on her mug as she was walking away from a chat with her previous customer. Then she turned to face me.

Hello, scowl.

It was like I'd dangled shit from a pole and shoved it into her face. I am that shit.

'Why?' I've oft pondered in those bleak, lonely moments at four in the morning, 'am I actually considered lower than the drunk bloke in the pub making sexist comments, even though I was the one who told him off???'

Perhaps it's for these reasons that I'm back in touch with my lovely New Yorker ex-girlfriend - that, and because I miss her.

I was treated to a bizarre lesson in time differences last Monday, when we emailed around midnight London time. I said I was off to bed. She said she was out to 'party'.

When I woke up, I switched on my computer and fired up my email. She'd just got home, drunk, and decided to call me for the first time in years.

That was a strange one, waking up on a weekday before showering for work, to take a call from someone who'd spent my whole sleep-time getting bladdered.

F & F
I am sick and tired of hearing about this global piggy pandemic. I've barely recovered from the financial fistfuck we're all in.

I was cynical about the mass-media news before. Now I'm out-and-out disgusted. Yes, it's serious. Yes, we should be alerted to it. But the media the way it is, it's fast becoming the End of Days, and it's bringing me down.

All I can think about in the years to come, if any of us are still solvent and alive, is that 2009 will be remembered as Armageddon. I'm still waiting for the newsflash that four cackling horsemen have been spotted in the sky, probably above Romford.

In an interesting aside, my Mum called me today. It appears that my stepbrother has been holidaying in the eye of the storm, in Cancun. And in keeping with the hurricane analogy, he's been so close to the action that he actually had NO IDEA ABOUT THE PANDEMIC.

And if anyone has any faith in our government and their bullshit promises that the UK is phenomenally well prepared, you may be interested to know that my stepbrother landed in London where all the passengers had to write their contact details down - on the back of their sick bags.

They were then told they would exit the plane into a holding bay where they would not come into contact with the any other people.

Cue their walking into the airport and smashing heads against every departing and arriving passenger on Earth.

But my favourite part is the fact that my surly and miserable stepbrother is currently locked in his house for a week. His mother had to deliver shopping to his front door, and call him to open up once she got back into the relative safety of her Honda.

And finally, fish. My beautiful, sexy new suit, all ready for Jimmy's wedding on Saturday at which I'm Best Man, has been hanging up in the neutral smell of my hallway, far away from the nicotine playground that is my bedroom.

Imagine my surprise this evening, as I walked up the stairs to my flat barely even near our front door, I smelled the telltale stench of fucking haddock. My Large Northern Flatmate chose to stink out our gaff through the medium of dead aquatic vertebrates, while my beautiful sexy new suit sucked it all up.

It's currently in Large Northern Flatmate's room, hanging up near the window. It now smells of cheap Adidas deodorant, and despair.

With a hint of pussy.

End Of Days

Is it me or are Fundamentalist Islamists pissing themselves laughing right now?

First the world economy collapses up its own arse, then that same world is under threat from a porcine flu pandemic.

My boss is buggering off to Japan again, tomorrow, in fact. This means a), I have to run his company into the ground by myself again and b), I have to take a break to rush down to Southampton and humiliate myself via the medium of the Best Man speech.

And to top it all off, I've got to manage a new French intern (male), who will arrive on my birthday, no less.

I have bought a nice suit though.

Oh my god, this blog is turning into one of those 'What I had for lunch' diaries.

Normal service will resume, one day.

Youtube Friday

Cute, and slightly funky...



Expensive, and slightly violent...
(click the red high quality HQ button, and expand full screen for maximum effect)

Stag VIII: Jimmy/ Canterbury

My Stag season's over and as far as I can tell, no-one'll be getting married any time soon. Handy really, as if anyone else wanted me to be Best Man, I would admit myself into the nearest hospital under the Mental Health Act 2007.

I've had 8 stags in the last year and a half, been best man thrice, spent a grand total of Aaargh, and had a harder time planning this than if I was personally responsible for organising the recapture of Dunkirk with a pencil, a wristwatch, and a turn of the century pocketmap of Wales.

It began somewhat regrettably. Jimmy, the stag, phoned the day before to ask if he needed to bring his passport.
'Erm, no', I told him. 'We're staying in the UK.'

We often surprise one another by lying, but in this instance, it had been the truth. If we went abroad by plane, his attendance wishlist would have been halved. If we went via the Chunnel, we'd have gained just the one person, a Large Northern aerophobe. Even if we stayed in Britain but went too far north, we'd only be able to add just a couple more cash-starved attendees.

The only destination that would draw everyone was southern England and, seeing as we're almost all from the south, it was hard to know where to choose. In fact, you could say organising it was a COMPLETELY THANKLESS TASK.

When we got to Victoria station on Friday morning and met up with Phil, Jamie and Jim, Phil informed me that he'd just seen a man in a gorilla suit walk past. Looking at Jim standing there in his jeans and a Jimmyshirt™ made me realise I should've made more of an effort to humiliate him so, using my amazing new iPhone, I tracked down a nearby party shop and got a cab for a frantic, last minute dash to buy a camp hat and Village People moustache.

Regrettably, I didn't think to call first, which would've helped as I would've realised before hailing an expensive London taxi that it was closed. So instead, as the cabbie drove me back to the station, I called Westy, a to-meet-us-there guest, and asked him to buy anything on his way up.

Despite our attempts to prevent Jim from finding out where we were headed, a ticket inspector announced it about 10 minutes in. Jim looked crestfallen. The day before he thought we were going to mainland Europe. Now he discovered it was a market town an hour and a half outside London that he'd been to before.

On the plus side, he had no fucking clue we'd be going to Canterbury - mainly because no-one thinks it a good stag destination apart from me.

On arrival, we checked in then headed to the city centre for a river tour which had been rained off, so we went to Nandos instead where I got the shits. We then wandered aimlessly while resentment simmered in the heads of the other four lads. Westy met us en route with a well concealed if inexplicably irrelevant pirate costume (an overpriced wig, a plastic eyepatch, and a moustache that didn't stick), then we made for an alehouse where I was yelled at for playing with my iPhone again. It was around this time that I realised it's far more enjoyable to experience a night out when I'm not 'in charge'; one where my associates don't hurl abuse in my direction because the pub isn't good enough, or lacking in pool tables or atmosphere.

When Paul, our second arrival, joined us, we hailed a cab to Whitstable and continued drinking, downing tequilas, jumping up and down on their pebbly beach, and eating curry late into the night in an empty restaurant while Jim's memory abandoned him and back in our hotel, Phil wrestled me to the floor and attempted to smash my iPhone. It occurred to me as I went to bed that the following day's early start in a brewery wasn't the best idea as people struggled to not throw up in the midst of a room stinking of boiled hops.

We missed the train to Faversham anyway. Phil had puked upon waking and took his time while Suki and Dave, the planet's most self-righteous human who chose to wait 6 weeks only pay me the day before after repeated nagging in a frustrating re-run of Barcelona, had joined us to walk slowly to the station.
I'm still not sure why we didn't take cabs.

When we got to the Shepherd Neame brewery (late), I was mortified to find a dozen or so strangers waiting for us so the tour could begin. It didn't help that we were ushered into a corner to watch a ponderously slow promotional film about the brewery, one even worse than this.

There was something painful about the whole experience, of us racing to miss trains for a destination I'd told very few about, as I sat next to Large Northern Flatmate - a man best described as a 6 foot tall toddler - who sat there deadpan and licking an icecream he'd managed to acquire from somewhere.

The monotone, uninspiring drone of their Chief Executive squeaked out of the speakers, the only sound in the otherwise oppressive silence of the room, while I doubled over, snorting and crying with laughter that got worse the more I attempted to stop, acutely aware of the strangers scowling at me and of the eight gentlemen with hangovers I'd forced out of bed so they could sit in a room to watch a corporate video.

On the upside, I tasted barley and found out what a mash tun was, plus no-one puked. We ended up in a pub after that, one with football that I would've incorporated into the schedule if I actually gave a fuck about it.

All bets were off by nightfall once we'd swapped a Westy for a Nick. I'd had my fill of being steadily abused about the lack of activities, criticised about the brewery, and generally considered inept (mainly by Dave if you're wondering, a man who shuns organising anything in his life but is extremely skilled in doling out extensive criticism. Hello, Dave.) Plus I was sick of beer. I was quite happy to let everyone just wing it, which we did. My Canterbury pub crawl was off; instead we grabbed a pizza and found a great bar /club that seemed populated by older, more forgiving women. Jimmy did press-ups, and was cajoled into wearing lipstick from the handbag of the nearest woman. Despite his initial protests, he kept his warpaint on all night.

As usual, it wasn't until the lights went up and everyone was forced out onto the street that it occurred to me to try and pull in earnest, but that boat had long since sailed. Instead we ended up screaming 80s hits in our hotel room til 4am whilst playing computer football and drinking Phil's vodka.

Jim called the following day to say he loved it. Frankly, that's all that mattered, even if we never went near a colossal cathedral that legend has it is bang in the centre of town.

1,000,000th Stag, Live

Follow my live Twitter updates on Twitter, obviously.

Should be interesting.

Actually, I doubt that.

(Sent via my iPhone. Get one. They make your life better.)

* * * * *

Burning off for my 600th stag weekend. Could go horribly wrong - i'm organising it.
11:01 AM Apr 17th from TwitterForiPhone

Took frantic taxi to party shop. Party shop closed. Now waiting on train bound for Canterbury. Even without silly hat, stag looks petrified.
12:01 PM Apr 17th from TwitterForiPhone

Straightest Stag ever. Being reprimanded for laughing and swearing too much on train by my oldest friends. Will prob all be asleep by 9.
1:12 PM Apr 17th from TwitterForiPhone

Stag's just announced he hates Real Ale. Might make tomorrow morning's surprise visit to a brewery rather awkward.
5:45 PM Apr 17th from TwitterForiPhone

Stag is fucked. We've reached the tired and emotional stage surprisingly quickly. Whitstable's more cockney than I'd like.
9:57 PM Apr 17th from TwitterForiPhone

Can someone please remove the 'party animal' from my room? He's asleep in here because the hardcore are caning it in his room.
1:50 AM Apr 18th from TwitterForiPhone

Marched 8 hungover blokes to the station where we watched our train leave. I got the times wrong.
11:08 AM Apr 18th from TwitterForiPhone

Most stag attendees want to kill me after having to endure what was essentially a two hour lecture in a brewery. No piss-up, as such.
4:19 PM Apr 18th from TwitterForiPhone

In a bar talking to a girl who's not recoiling. My largely coupled mates are hugely excited. A snog would be great.
about 23 hours ago from TwitterForiPhone

Party in our room. Expecting to get thrown out of hotel in about 10 minutes.
about 20 hours ago from TwitterForiPhone

The stag is over. Roomate/ Large Northern Flatmate snores while I smoke out of the window. Stag left laughing. Consider this a success.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterForiPhone

Slightly disapponted I didn't chat to girl with amazing bangers. Still good, despite the abuse.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterForiPhone

Just woke up, brain sore. Lying in bed talking to LNF; The last bar was full of women desperate to talk. Why didn't I realise?
about 13 hours ago from TwitterForiPhone

Mother of all hangovers on it's way. Could retarmac driveways with my lungs.
about 9 hours ago from TwitterForiPhone

I'm back, and rather ill. Head throbs, wallet on life support. Love the idea of never drinking, smoking or drugging ever again.
2 minutes ago from web

I Should Probably Go To Bed But My Bodyclock's Fucked

Oh yeah, I've got a blog.

Well I've just had five and a half thoroughly unproductive days off work and it's now 1am. I go back to work in a mere 6 hours, so let's write a new post.

I hope you've all had a pleasant Easter. Mine's been 90% spent watching documentaries about North Korea in my room whilst chainsmoking, and waiting for some kind of epiphany.

It came in the form of a vast, balding forty-something, also known as 'Large Northern Flatmate'. He knocked on my door some time around 2am this morning performing, I suppose, a kind of intervention.

For several months now, I have been locked in my bedroom where he presumes I've been writing my Magnus Opus. Instead of actually writing anything, I've obviously been doing the aforementioned docu-smoking. A lot. In fact, with so much time on my hands over Easter, it reached its nadir.

Things hadn't been pathetic enough so naturally, I turned to online gambling. That started a few weeks ago with a £15 bet on the Grand National which I lost; I put it on a 600/1 no-hoper that should've been shot before the race.

Anyhoo, I got the £15 back as it was part of a special offer to lure idiots into gambling (If your Grand National horse doesn't win, get your money back!!!)
Somehow, this made me descend into madness. I found myself placing bets on more horse races over the next few days, making a £30 profit and thinking I could double my income if I managed to always back the winner.

It's called gambling for a reason though. Within days I was doing things I'd never imagine I'd ever do; placing £20 bets from my overdraft on dogs I'd never heard of at a track that may or may not even exist (and losing).

I knew I'd fucked up, as shame had prevented me from even mentioning anything to my flatmate. Nonetheless, like some kind of mind-reading surrogate wife, he appeared and told me in very simple terms, as I sat in my room sheepishly trying to hide the Spider Solitaire/ North Korea video shame on my monitor, that matters were "Now or never."

I could go into detail, but I won't. It wasn't a telling-off, not that he was in any position to do so. He very simply stated the facts, that unless my hopes, dreams and sweetest ambitions were to watch everything about Stalinist Asian regimes on the Internet whilst reaching one million lost games of arachnid-based cards, I should probably grow up and change my ways.

So I wrote a chapter tonight. That felt good.

Other News:
One of our customer's accountants phoned up to yell at me a few weeks ago. To our collective amazement, he turned out to be a cousin I'd normally only see at weddings and barmitzvahs. He invited me down to see my family on Wednesday for passover, an annual Jewish festival I'd done my utmost to avoid now for about seven years. (That Jesus fellow's 'Last Supper' gig was one such passover do, which is why Easter and passover tend to arrive around the same timezzzzzzzzzz.)

So I take the day off work, travel down to the South Coast, panic that I'll do something socially awkward (I sweated a lot, and generally looked nervous and out of place), met all my fine, stout cousins who have grown into charming young adults, except they now look at me and think, 'Christ, I'll be married and finacially stable by the time I'm 34. Are you sure you're not employably deficient and gay?'

I then felt guilty as the following day I fended off repeated requests to stay the whole weekend. I may have offended them too when I said I'd love to return again, on the proviso that it's ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR ANYTHING RELIGIOUS AT ALL.

So that went well.

I wish the same could be said for the blind emailing I've been conducting with a ladyfriend of a friend of mine. Bless you Russ for setting me up, but the contact is petering out. I should've probably been more pro-active or some such shit, but I haven't. I've been a procrastinating cowardly tit and she's rightly given up.

But I do have a new iPhone. I thoroughly recommend them. They take the focus off the fact that your life is a dull sham, and things become temporarily exciting again. I was particularly pleased to receive the following text when the phone erupted into life on Thursday; 'Hi. Are you okay for golf tomorrow? Susan.'

Seeing as I don't play golf, let alone know anyone called Susan, I responded with 'Sure, a bit of golf tomorrow, perhaps some foreplay in the evening. Lovely.'

I love wrong texts.

Nothing To Declare

Do you remember when you'd pull faces when you were younger, and your mother would warn you that the wind would change and you'd be stuck like that forever?

Instead of pulling faces, I've been either sitting on my arse trying to watch everything on Youtube, or working said arse off in a small office in Central London. And the wind has changed.

I have nothing to declare. There are only so many times I can blog that I've gained weight and wanked myself into a coma until someone decides they have to kill me.

My boss has since returned from a two weeks sojourn that I'd spent running his company into the ground. The Sunday evening before his return, I was overjoyed with happiness. I'd worked a fortnight from hell, smoked my last cigarette ever, and was ready to dive back into writing my (Ha!) novel. Even that strange, swollen, stressed upper lip I'd gained in his absence had begun to simmer down.

Then I get to work on Monday morning and he hands me 200 Japanese cigarettes as a slow death thank you. For some reason, that gift gave me the green light to forget cycling to work, allowed me to avoid lettuce and fruit smoothies, and somehow sanctioned spending my evenings chainsmoking while I watched atheist geeks from Louisiana 'pwn' Young Earth Creationists, whilst simultaneously playing Spider Solitaire (wins to date: 1,748; losses, 7,082)

But mentally, I'm okay. I accept my uselessness. I am a failing human being, more than a bit crap and lonely. Noting my recent futile attempts at reconciliation, my American ex-girlfriend decided to email me for British chocolate, which I dutifully posted off to the East coast. She returned the favour with a picture of her looking lovely, leaving me feeling a little bit sick and remorseful.

In other news, I bought myself a smart new winter overcoat, several months too late. (Reduced from £130 to £47 though. I practically shat myself when I saw the discount.)

Yes, that's my news; I've bought myself a coat.

However, it's a magic coat, one that renders me 7% sexier. Last night, on the tube, I sat opposite a gorgeous Chinese girl who stared at me repeatedly without vomiting. It was the single most erotic moment of my life, barring those infrequent times I've had sex. I almost considered putting up one of those pathetic notices in the newspaper; 'To the gorgeous Chinese girl on the Central Line I sat opposite. You were glamorous and elfin, with shimmering, pink lips and glowing eyes. I was sweating profusely and grinning like I was trying to appease a mugger. Please contact this paper to improve Anglo-Sino relations. In bed.'

But the icing on the cake these last three weeks has to be my mate Russell coming through for me. He's set me up with one of his many lady friends. We are currently at the emailing stage. Blundering along with outrageous inevitability will be the number-swapping moment and its awkward conversations, followed by the eventual meet, which will either go a) surprisingly well or, b) badly.

I hope I have sex phenomenally soon - Sorry to be blunt, Russ. I have to have sex, and quickly. (Ironic choice of word, as that happy moment will probably last about five to six nanoseconds. I can see myself in a dimly lit bedroom, frantically removing my shirt or that of my lady companion's, then pausing to sigh as I turn and squelch off to the bathroom to remove my jeans and unleash a tidal wave of premature ejaculate onto the cold, tiled floor.

If it wasn't for my daily self-abasement, I'd basically be a lump of hardened semen on legs.

All of which makes me realise; I last enjoined in coital congress with a female human lifeform during my 32nd birthday weekend (ironic again), back in 2006.

I haven't had sex for three years. That's THREE FUCKING YEARS. (Kindly don't point out that it isn't.)

No wonder. No bloody wonder.

Comfortably Numb

I think that's a suitable title, and it has nothing to do with smoking yourself into a mindless stupor listening to pretentious 70s soft-rock icons.

Ever felt like you should be feeling something inside, but you don't? You're not happy, but you're not sad either. Nor are you pensive, thoughtful, introspective or confused.

You're just Comfortably Numb.

Comfortable:

1> I panicked a little on Sunday night. My boss was about to leave for a two-week sojourn to the other side of the earth, leaving me to run his company in his absence. In this fractured state, I found myself looking for Positivity podcasts on iTunes.

When I found them, I scoffed at the suggestion that I am a "miracle", or that dwelling on the past and worrying about the future is completely pointless. Nor was I bothered about the very obvious advice that I should act on things that are important to me.

Nonetheless, I went to bed actually excited about the fortnight ahead. It worked so well that I even considered, that Monday at work as the office caught fire and a portal to hell appeared in the toilet, that I was now too positive to ever write another bitter blogpost again.

It didn't last.

2> On Saturday, I began my brilliant scheme to Buy New Clothes by complete accident, totally forgetting that my mate, the future groom, wanted to traverse with his Best Man the finest emporiums in town for wedding suits.

In doing so, I discovered a world I'd long since ignored; that of the Gentleman's outfitter. I'd lost count of the number of whistles we'd tried on, of the shirts and ties I'd admired, of the sense that I could buy a fucking expensive Ted Baker and lord it around London like a gadabout fop pretending to be rich.

All I bought were moderately sexy new jeans. I threw out my old ones. It's a start.

Cold changing-room lighting however, the one that shines down on you and reveals gorges of flab you hadn't spotted before, was none too helpful on the old ego.

I also discovered that Selfridges, and John Lewis - all the stores, actually - don't take kindly to the phrase, "Can I have a discount?"

I'm skint. Haven't they heard of the fucking recession?

3> I'm off to my third Beer Festival in Brighton this weekend. I intend to see my friend Monkey Dave, and get drunk. It will be a little oasis of relative calm amid the turbulence of work hell.

Numb:

1> In the three days since my boss has been gone, I have traversed Positive and Up For The Challenge, to common-or-garden stressed. I have even made my upper lip swell up by absent-mindedly sucking on it harder than a newborn on a nipple.

It isn't easy getting on with the day-to-day when my colleagues, or the phone, or a motherfucking customer decides to interrupt me. I'm afraid I lost it so badly that I actually yelled at one of the staff for sitting behind me motionless and in silence, his eyes drilling into the back of my head like, erm, a drill.

And as karma would have it, I got yelled back in return by cuntstomers; One who is totally incapable of RELAYING TO US OUR FUCKING PRODUCT CODES WHEN ORDERING, and who then considers it our fault when she receives something sort of like what she wanted but not quite.

The second chewed my ear off because they haven't paid us since December, and this is somehow my fault that we've not delivered to them. I tried to explain to the loud, pompous fuck at the other end of the telephone that if someone bothered to reply to my emails and at least talk to me, they might stand a chance of a compromise being reached but Nooooooooo, he could not countenance being even slightly in the wrong, and he will merely take his (admittedly lucrative) business elsewhere.

But it ain't lucrative if we're working for free.

This may come as a shock to my three readers, but I'm too stubborn for business because I refuse to grab the Money Cock with both hands and suck, lick, rub, tweak, tug, slurp and cajole that motherfucker to spout wads of notes from its cold ATM bellend. If I've learnt anything from my accidental four years at work, it's that you have to bend over backwards, be nice when getting yelled at, and accept that you can spend days quoting for dozens of people only to be ignored no matter how many times you chase.

It's enough to make a man cry, if I actually had tear-ducts or was raised in California.

2> On top of that, I am hastily trying to arranging another Stag for next month. I am putting more effort into it than last year's Stag in Barcelona, when I ordered the pre-requisite branded Stag shirts, booked the flights and accommodation, and hoped that everyone would just get on with it over the weekend. Instead I got mostly yelled at by the attendees, lost my mobile phone, and had my balls felt by a transvestite who tried to steal my wallet. (I'll never get tired of that story.)

All I can say is it would be a damn sight easier if these attendees actually put in about a-hundredth of the effort I'm expending, and fucking paid me now that I'm close to finalising everything.

3> I'm not writing my book. I'm too tired and I don't have the time. I have to stay late at work til CHRIST!-o'clock.

4> I spotted Tubegirl eating lunch outside our work-neighbouring pub a few days ago. There's something about the sight of a woman you fancy forcing an elongated chip into her gob that takes the sheen off her somehow. That, and the fact that she didn't seem to care that I saw her do it.
Women are a cold breed.

5> I've been emailing my ex-girlfriend in America. She hates me now. Clearly one of her last comments to me in person: "Remember, I still love you," came with a Best Before date.

I should probably leave her alone.

6> I am cycling and swimming every day, if only to fit into a beautiful Ted Baker suit in two months time, and it's KILLING ME. I should probably stop smoking, but who do you think I am? Barack Obama?? I am on a diet too, but I'm bored with it all and my flat still stinks of fish two days after cooking the fucker.

In Summary: Yawn.