I got game

It's fuckitty hot. I tried to venture outside but was beaten back by the unseasonal summer blaze, and had to cool myself down by playing Skyrim in my underpants for an hour.Or three.   It's amazing how running around digital snowy peaks can (almost) make you believe you're a Scandinavian warrior from days of yore, and that it's a bit chilly, as opposed to being a semi-dressed lazy bastard living vicariously through pixellated fun, cowering from the sweltering midday sun.

I actually hate video games (or computer games. Is there a difference? Fucked if I know) because they are time vampires.  I grew up in a console free-house, and while I wouldn't make such outlandish claims to have been outdoorsy, I did spend most of my formative years outside.  Mostly throwing things at stuff. Crab apples at buses, pebbles at pigeons, flaming arrows at passers-by*.

In fact, I didn't buy a console until I was 22, and even then, it was only because I thought the initial outlay would save me money as it might stop me going to the pub. It did. In fact, it stopped me doing most things other than smoking fags, drinking coffee and trying to rescue Princess Daisy . I started to dream in Mario-vision.  I pictured any forthcoming real world tasks, such as the Do The Dishes, or Buy Some Food, as Mario-esque tasks.  Sometimes I would spend so much time awake I would start to hallucinate gold coins**. I was a fragile shell of a being, living on Pot Noodles and Power-Ups.

When, six months later, some scrotal-feeding inbred burgled my console from the Leeds house in which I was living, I was both broken and freed.  And I vowed never to get another console.  Life was mine. I took it by the horns and shoved a finger up its arse***.

Now, and for the last two years, I have been an accidental owner of an X-box, and like a crack pipe, it squats in my room reminding me that I'm weak, and it is the master.  Just One More Hit quite quickly becomes Where the Fuck Did the Last Four Hours Disappear? Those little grey bastards should have an inbuilt timer allowing a maximum of two hours a day. They are pernicious leech on the soul of humanity, and I can't take any more.

There's a dragon I've been in combat with all day. I'm going to hunt it down and kill it, then read a book or something.  I will be productive, but first? I've got to chase that dragon.


*Seriously, After watching a sword-and-sandals epic featuring 'Greek fire', we decided to make our own with paraffin and rags.  Then climb onto the roof of our flats, ignite and launch.  The council estate version of a historical re-enactment. 


**I think my cigarettes were spiked


***This isn't a sexual metaphor.  This is how South African I know trains his dogs.  At least, he says that what he's doing.

What do we get for our Troubles and Pains?

I was reluctant to leave home in my late teens.  Whereas many friends were desperate to throw off the restrictive shackles of parental control and take that breathtakingly exciting step into autonomous adulthood, I’d negotiated tacitly a set of rules with my mother which created a mutually pleasing symbiosis.  In exchange for cooking my meals, washing my clothes, letting me stay out for days on end, smoke in my room, drink in the morning and wear and do what I wanted, I wouldn’t get needlessly arrested or burn her house down. It worked for me.   There didn’t seem to be too much in the plus column of life to suggest that moving into a semi-furnished bedsit in a house full of semi-educated labourers* was a worthwhile option.

I assumed this arrangement was working for my mother too, but I suspect, with the gift of hindsight, that she was really just putting up with me until I left to go to University.  Unfortunately, there was another point of complacently.  I wasn’t in a rush to get to Uni.  If I’d been middle class, I’d probably have taken a gap year and gone to help the downtrodden and desperate in sub-Saharan Africa. After telling everyone I knew endlessly that I was planning to do so, and using it as a weapon to pull, because it’d show how I was, like, sooooo sensitive and caring.  

As it was I was trying to take a gap year in Manchester by studying part time, living off the dole and drinking White Lightning/Special Brew snakebites.  I think this was probably more educational for me than ten months in Burkina Faso ever could have been.  Did you know, for example, that no matter how much you may think you’re the re-incarnation of Jim Morrisson, you’re not. You’re just pissed and standing on a car shouting obscenities and minutes away from a criminal conviction.

Eventually this happy stasis came to an abrupt end when my mother informed me that I had to move out, as I was treating her house like a hotel. Which I thought was a bit rich, as I hadn’t defenestrated any TVs, nor sexually assaulted anyone with a baby shark**.

Fortunately I was able to procure a rented room in Whalley Range. A basement in fact.  Fully funded by the gift of housing benefit. And it was here that I actually began to grow up***. I learned to cook for myself (such classics of culinary class as Toastie de fromage et ragu, haricots et fromage, and petis pois avec de margarine).  I began to take responsibility for my life, apply to Uni, learn to operate a washing machine and, more importantly, appreciate my mother.  Because it is a massive learning curve and process of growth when you’re finally kicked out of the nest. Until you’ve left home, you’ve probably never really experienced penury. Without parental support you become more aware of the difficultly of living, more sympathetic to those who struggle. A rounded, feeling, human-being.

So when I hear that Dave 'Bury me in a Shallow Grave while still Semi-conscious’ Cameron is considering scrapping housing benefit for the under 25s, I can only think that either he wants an infantile population who won’t question him, or that he want people to hate their parents, crack up under the enforced proximity and kill them, thus saving a fortune in pensions and care for the elderly. Or that he’s utterly fucking insane.

He may claim it is a modest proposal, but for him, living at your parents’ means staying in the East Wing pissing in the eyes of peasants while the olds count their off-shore money in the West Wing, only meeting over the breakfast table to discuss how to re-introduce feudalism, and who was the better dictator, Adolf or Maggie.

However, with everything, you should always read the small print. The arse-faced hooray plans to do this if he wins the next election.  This is his version of If I Won a Million Pounds****. The only hope he has of winning the next election is if something is put into the water which makes everyone a simple-minded amnesiac. Surely even he wouldn’t do that?

Actually…

I’m off to stock up on Evian.

*For some reason, this is what I imagined my first foray into the outside would be like.  Though I preciously turned my nose up at it at the the time, I suspect it would probably have been good for me if it had turned out to be true.

** I’d never stayed in a hotel. Everything I knew about hotels I’d learned from books about Led Zeppelin.  I was extremely disappointed when I did finally stay in a hotel several years later and it was NOTHING like I expected.  

***Inasmuch as I ever have

****A game he can’t really play.  It’d be like my If I Won a Tenner…

England's Dreaming

It’s Jubilee weekend.   I appreciate that most of you will know this, but there may be one or two people who have been dwelling in a bunker deep underground, living off tins of Spam and drinking their own piss. For the last six months. 

The supermarket preparations for this jubilee have made the Easter, Christmas and Halloween Overkillfest look as understated as Hitler’s claim that he hadn’t always strived for the best interests of European Jewry.   When I noticed the creeping red, white and blue seeping into the our stores, I made the decision that, as a civilised protest, I wasn’t going to buy anything with a Union Jack on it, or the word ‘Jubilee’ in the title*. 

Initially this didn’t have many serious repercussions, as most products came in both packing options: Monarchy Sycophantic or Republican Standard. However, the seep became an epidemic, and ultimately an invasion.  Where the Nazis failed, Asda succeeded – an explosion of banners and bunting celebrating the unending reign of  a German leader. 

I’ve had to change my shopping habits as, one by one, my usual weekly consumables succumbed to the three-coloured peril. Thank fuck for the World Food aisle.  Any Union Jackerry there would look like blatant war-mongering imperialism, so has remained taint-free. Admittedly, my diet now mainly consists of salt fish and halva, but I at least can enjoy my stomach pains from a moral high ground.

I’ve been accused of being a killjoy, a contrarian and unpatriotic over this. I’m as patriotic towards England as the next man. Or woman.** I’ve also been accused of having no respect for history or tradition, which, quite frankly, is bollocks. And I’m determined to prove this. So, I shall spend my Jubilee weekend showing my love of history and tradition by learning to play God Save the Queen on guitar. The Sex Pistols’ version.  With my amp turned up to eleven. 

Happy Anniversary your majesty, you vinegary old leech.  

*Which was a fucker during my Derek Jarman filmathon

** This is true. I’m in a room with two Kiwis, one of each gender

Not Only Happy When it Rains

Picture this: it’s raining, the heavy nail-ended stuff that batters down with a stuttering rapid rattle, smacking you in the face like a barrage of punches from a mini-me Muhammed Ali. Or an angry Tinkerbell. You get the idea. Like small frequent punches. But wet. Okay -- I admit it – the analogy’s not great, but it’s all you’re getting, so live with it. FFS.

As I was saying, before I was so abruptly interrupted: it’s raining. And there’s lots of it.  The sky is that gun-metal Grey of Doom which features so prevalently in the rooftop scene of Ghostbusters, or a John Martin painting*. All the air a solemn blackness holds, there is a sudden crack of thunder, and a fast flash of lightning dances and claws its path across the overhanging firmament. 

There, along the Great North Road, two solitary figures scurry over pavements and puddles, coats pulled in tight, hunched, packed-close against the relentless deluge.  And one of those figures is me, with my friend Dave, explaining that:

a)      I didn’t believe in God AT ALL.  

And

 b) I really wanted to get to the pub before I became one with the elemental force of water.

Dave seems skeptical,  insists that I must have some slither of doubt, must entertain the possibility, however feint, that there is something beyond this mortal coil.

To illustrate my point, I slow down, and grab a metal pole (I have no idea where this came from. I suspect it was bit of broken fence lying on the floor. I may have been carrying it already, although this seems unlikely, because it would suggest I was some kind of pole-carrying nutter, which I’m not.  It’s not really important anyway, but in case you were wondering, it came from somewhere, but where that where was, I don’t recall.) So, I grab said Pole of Unending Mystery. Then, Thor-like, hold my prize aloft, pointing towards the heavens, and shout enthusiastically:

‘Come on God, you bastard. Cumanavago if you think yerard enough.’

It turns out he wasn’t hard enough, and I dropped the pole, wetly smug in my scientific demonstration of the absence of a divine being**.

The point of this is that I am not in any way a person prone to harbouring superstitious thoughts, or beliefs in any kind of Sky-magic.

But, last week, I wanted to write about the approach to the last game of the English football season, about Manchester City’s approach to their first Premiership title in my lifetime, about my approach to that weekend, festering with trepidation and excitement.  But I couldn’t  Although I was prepared to take on God, and risk my life, I wasn’t prepared to tempt the Lares of football, and watch the team I support possibly not win a game of football.

There are people who would point to these two details as evidence of all that is wrong with a modern attitude towards religion, or the over-importance we place on such trivia as professional football.

However, these people are either Theists of some kind, or they don’t support Manchester City, so they can fuck right off.  God didn’t kill me, City won the Premiership. All is well with the world.

Champions.

*This John Martin, not this John Martyn.

**I appreciate the scientific flaws of the demonstration, before any feels compelled to point them out

Mini-rant #1

I had to go to Harrod's today. The place drips money, like a treacly semen stain on golden undies. It also oozes class in much the same way as the bridal wear does in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

We parked around the corner, where there was a pretty little park.  We tried to cut through same park, only to find it was locked, as it was for residents only. For me, this symbolises everything that is wrong with Harrod's, wrong with the man driving the shiny black gigantathonic Maybach in front of me, and wrong with the uber-snotty desk-monkey manning the Watch Service Centre.

Key-holding residents of Hans Place, Knightsbrige: It's a pissy little patch of grass.  It's not picturesque enough to warrant anything other than a cursory glance. You've only locked it up to show how privileged you are.  I'm coming back with a spade.

Dear Mr Li:  Thank you for sharing your name with me via the means of your number plate.  You too ooze class.  Just for the record, my name is not M799 TCW.  And, even though I was in Micra, I managed to sneak it into a tiny parking space. I bet you're still driving around looking for bay capable of taking your massive, but frankly quite ridiculous, motor vehicle.

And finally, Watch Man: whose wrinkled lip and sneer of cold disdain demonstrated clearly enough that he didn't appreciate the fact that I had chosen not to spend £360 on a watch service because, quite frankly, that's the most fucking ridiculous thing I have EVER heard. Trust me, I've spoken to Spurs fans who thought they might win the title, so I know ridiculous.  I'm at home now, drinking coffee and playing with my toys. You're still at work.  In the basement of a department store.  Handing watches to people. I can only feel pity for you.  Pity, my friend. Unadulterated, pure-blooded pity.

The Best Laid Plans

Growing up, my experiences of narrative were formed by Enid Blyton, as I voraciously ate my way through the Famous Five series, then the Secret Seven, the Mystery books, and the lesser know Super Six and Fab Four* collections.

Consequently, when I first read The Catcher in the Rye at the age of fifteen, I thought I knew how books worked. So, when Holden Caulfiled mentions ‘this madman stuff that happened that last summer’ on page one, I was set up for adventure. The twisted exhilaration that followed was, however, thwarted by the failure of Holden to be kidnapped, assaulted, abused, shot at, hit, spat at or even spoken to gently and kindly, even in passing, by any kind of psychologically deranged male.  I had to re-read the opening to make sure I hadn’t imagined the madmanness, and then feel puzzled that it was written, but it had failed to materialise. 

Sometime later I realised that ‘madman’ was slang for ‘somewhat interesting’, and possibly also a subconscious manifestation of Holden’s own precarious mental state.  At the time, though, I thought J.D. Salinger's sloppy editor had just fucked up.

All of which leads, in a prestidigious segue of Merlinesque proportions,to Fiji, where I am now sitting by a pool under the pacific blue**.  I arrived a few days ago, but actually should have been here over a week ago. However,  due to a Fiji-centred cyclone, I ended up ‘stuck’ in Sydney for a week, in transit.  Obviously, when I learned of this forced delay,  the humanitarian plight of the locals preyed on my mind, but mostly I was pissed off that my planned holiday had been curtailed. Not least because I seem to have a travel curse, which often causes my plans to be thwarted.

Several years ago I was in Lyon for New Year’s Eve***, and while all that was lovely and wonderful and other uppy-adjectives, on preparing to come home I realised that I had booked my flight a day later than my girlfriend’s flight, and the planned day of rest before my imminent return to work was now to be a day of solitude in Lyon. Not the biggest grievance, but I was really looking forward to a long Sunday lie-in, a bath and some hot chocolate. It’s the little things which make the difference in life.

My girlfriend’s flight took off without hitch (probably because I wasn't on it), and I was resigned to making the most of my situation. The very, very heavy snowfall which started as I stared out of the bus window back the hostel was seemingly a bonus, as it meant I would experience the city afresh, with its new snowy coat, the following day.

Cut to the airport, twenty four hours later.  I’d made the proverbial lemonade from my lemons of time, and had wandered around the old city lost in a wistful romanticism as the snow fell heavily, covering the town in a sea of soft icy whiteness.  I’d taken the opportunity to visit the University at which Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, had overseen the deportation of French Jews to concentration camps, and experienced that guilty mix of horror, revulsion and touristic voyeurism that comes from going to such places.  But mostly, I’d done everything I wanted to do in Lyon, and now wanted to get back to London,  to that bath and, particularly, to that hot chocolate.

Fucking Easyjet. Four hours in departures before they confimed that the plane could not take off because of the constant snowfall. Another two hours before I was told it would be four days before there would be another flight. Another two seconds before a gush of sweary invective about the piss-poorness of the service and information. This annoyance continued throughout the bus journey to the hotel they provided, during the meal, and right up until the words ‘free bar’ were mentioned, at which point my mood and the evening took on a new complexion.

Which, once again, segues nicely into my aborted attempt to get to Fiji. Because, although I couldn’t get to Fiji, I did get stuck in Sydney, which is not the worst place in the world for an unexpected holiday****. Especially when it is technically a ‘Delayed Journey’, and the insurance company is paying for all your food and booze. This time, sipping beer under the Sydney sun, eating oysters and watching the life of the harbor pass me by, I quickly got over my sense of thwarted disappointment, and my sympathy for the flooded Fijians wasn’t perpetually overshadowed by a sense of petty unfulfillment. Sunshine and magnanimity make good bedfellows. Your journey, literally and metaphorically, might not take you where expect, but sometimes,the destination can wait*****. 

Because, since that initial Salinger-induced confusion, I’ve learned this: if you spend your life waiting to meet the madman, you lose the plot. In the immortal words of Noel Gallagher: Be here now******.  Let tomorrow be.

*I may be confusing this with watching the films Help and A Hard Days Night

** I know, sometimes it’s a hard, hard struggle.

*** I mean, it’s a sometime a really, really hard life

****Although it is riddled with Australians

***** Especially if it's flooded

******Yes, I know it's somebody else's phrase. I just can't be arsed looking it up. 

What Kind of Times are These?

Sometimes, when faced with the taunting white of a blank screen, I relish the challenge of inflaming the page with my sage ideas, and I plunge headlong into the world of words, chasing every passage of ideas, every alley of thought, as the shifting flashes of my mind become a moment of creation. 

Then I read what I have written, feel the grey dawn of despair and fall into a hollow reverie where I contemplate the futility of being. It is a powerful effect of my writing, but never the intended one. 

I write mostly to stop the noise, and stay this side of sane*.  If the words are out, they’re not dancing round my head like an army of drunken pixies.  But sometimes, I need to comment on something not utterly fatuous. 

Cameron and Osborne – what the fuck is all that about? I lived under Thatcher, and when that era of division was over I felt, like many others I know, that the world was a lighter place, a patchwork sky of  colour and light.  Ironically so, given that her passing was followed by the rise of The Grey Man, John Major.  I suppose that, in contrast to the previous death-black years of Central Hell, the washed-out grey seemed a sprightly shade of being.

However, with the advent of these two current clowns, I feel that we’re past the grey zone of the spectrum and into something much more of a spectral blackening.  It’s quite insidious, though.  Although they are quite clearly cut from a cloth of unpleasant, there is more than something of the imbecile about them. Thatcher was a diamond-cut madder.  With a majority I found unfathomable.  It was many years before I could be persuaded that anyone who voted for the Wicked Witch of Dulwich wasn’t fabricated from liquid evil. Many, many years.

I’ve not really taken Eton’s own Bert and Ernie too seriously.  Obviously I’ve held them in the contempt that this calibre of vacuous slugshit should be held, but I’ve not felt the imminent danger that was palpable in The Eighties.  I think partly because whenever they’ve posited one of their ludicrous ideas, I’ve hoped that the Lib Dems would never allow it to pass.

Clearly, I am much more optimistic than people assume. And probably much more stupid than I realise.  Because whatever mumbling comes from the MOR footsoldiers of the Yellowers,  they are clearly going to keep rubber-stamping whatever they’re presented with, secretly hoping that the Tories will one day reciprocate, and maybe give them a reach around while aggressively shedding their sticky political load.

Given this, I’d like to think that with the right words  - and not just mine but every dissenting voice – that we can erect barricades to the sustained assault on society which these two goonthugs are imposing.  That a thrusting phrase, a slash of words – aim for the eyes! – a stab of language will not just dissipate into the ether, but will have some real tangible effect.

Because these fuckers are clowns, but much more in the mould of Chucky than Krusty.  They are the shitstain on the white underpants of life, the haemorrhoid bursting the arseveins of society. And they must be stopped.

So, if you ever voted Lib Dem, drop the Judas Brigade a mail and show your displeasure.

And if you voted Tory? You stopped reading a long time ago, didn’t you? You scrotal-faced weaslebuckets.

And if your hands are clean of this mess and you voted for neither, keep up the pressure. Protest, bitch, moan and whinge. You’ve earned the right, my friend. Let your words ring out, and keep ringing. We told them so. We told them so.

*I think I know which side I’m on.  I won’t be so presumptuous as to make an absolute claim.