I Hate

FUCKING swaggering, cock-brained cuntlicker twenty-four year olds with their fucking stupid 'did-your-Mam-cut-it' hair that probably cost about forty quid to look as shit as it does, twatting on constantly about 'their' music.

Constantly polluting the office with their unreasonably loud phone calls to their 'mates' (ie: people who wish they'd never given them their number) YEAH YEAH MAN CAN I LEND YOUR CAMCORDER. YEAH. YEAH. WANT TO UPLOAD THE GIG ONTO MYSPACE. YEAH MAN. GET OUT THERE. SHOW EM OW ITS DONE. YEAH MAN. NAH MAN. X FACTOR. FUCK OFF. DO IT PROPER. DO IT THE HARD WAY YEAH. CREDIBILITY YEAH.

Please please please die very soon you dreadful dreadful FUCKTARD. This is an advertising sales office. Do you understand? It is not an indie record company. Your 'credibility' could not be lower whilst you work here. Stop playing mp3's of your shit band through your pc speakers - THAT YOU BRING IN SPECIALLY - without comment in the mistaken belief that someone will spontaneously say 'Blimey old chap, that sounds rather spiffing. Pray tell, what enormous talent has produced that?'.

Cunt.

And have a fucking shave. You're at work.

Tales From the Pub # I Lose Track Now.

I am In the Pub.

Sat at the bar on this occasion. Me at one end, Old Guy at the End Of the Bar at the other.

I am sipping my drink, staring into space, wishing everything was different but knowing it won't be.

A girl, eighteen if she's a day, comes up to order a drink.

Tall, dark, fuck-off look about her. I've seen her a few times. She has one of those fantastic faces. Could so easily be ugly, could so easily be beautiful. And just wavers in between. Brilliant. Massive knockers, tiny waist. I say this totally impartially of course, having been ruined for all other women. But I'm not blind. Anyway, she reminds me of someone.

Old Guy fancies himself this evening. He leans over.

Old Guy: Y'naw hen, ye've got a body off of BayWatch.

Girl: Mmmm.

She is clearly less-than-bowled-over by the amorous attentions of a man at least five times her age, who is visibly pissed, and appears to have the bulk of his Sunday lunch down his shirt front.

Old Guy is a bit narked about the fact that this young lady has not immediately swooned at his best line. I wait with baited breath. My God, I think, any second now he is going to call her a lesbian.

I am wrong.

Old Guy: Aye. And a face off of bliddy CrimeWatch.

Superb!

Girl: [without any obvious malice or anger] Oh fuck off will you.

I finish my drink and leave.

Tales From the Pub # 4

I am In The Pub.

It is very late, close to closing. They all come in.

It is a grim pub. But to these late-comers it is the fucking Groucho.

Fifties. Short. As wide as tall. Suit (probably the only one they own). White hair. Chests like barrels, bellys like water-bombs. Sometimes a tie. To be quickly loosened to reveal an awful lot of gold. Not Elizabeth Duke mind. Worse. Tacky before tacky was acceptable. Not that it is.

Appear to have a slightly more glamourous version of John Prescott’s wife on their arm. Proudly.

Orange. ‘Oh we’ve been abroad’. You haven’t. Dressed the way a fourty-year-old would if they were trying to be ‘with it’. But they’re not fourty. And even the fourty-year-olds get it wrong.

Whatever.

I think nothing of these people. They are horrible men, who have worked hard their whole lives to reach this nirvana. I know they are happy with it. Their horrible wives are also probably happy with their pretend glamour. A late Saturday night drink in a shit pub with dubious opening-hours to be ignored by their husbands after they have spent two hours getting-themselves-up like a nineteen-year-old-popstar that no-one will hear of two weeks from now. And looking FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

I ignore this.

I think about, you know, my life and that. I do not advise anyone to do this. The conclusions are never good. Especially in a place where access to booze is very easy.

But I think anyway. It becomes actually quite unpleasant so I stop. Just like that. I can do it. It is one of my few skills. I can turn the ‘normal’ (ie :you know, feelings and that) stuff off like a switch.

Bottles of what indeed? The security services have ground the country to a halt. On the basis of providing me with another excuse for a shitty story from God knows how long ago that isn’t even very good but that MAKES SENSE NOW.

I finish my drink and leave.

Tales From the Pub # 3

I Am In The Pub

It is at least eleven years ago.

On this occasion, I am actually behind the bar. I am talking to Garry The Mental.

Garry The Mental is very drunk. I am not worried.

[As any good barman will know, there are drunks to worry about, and drunks to not. Garry The Mental was not. The drunks to worry about are not such a big deal. If they get out of hand, you remove them, and they are so drunk by this stage that removing them is not difficult because they are so appallingly drunk that even if they did lash out they would miss. You grab them by their upper arm near the shoulder and dig your fingers in. It would hurt like fuck to a sober man. A proper drunkard merely gets the message. You then steer them out the door. If they kick-off before this, you slip your arms under their armpits and lace your fingers behind their neck. There is not a lot they can do at this point. I have had to do both on more than one occasion and it scared the shit out of me each time.]

GTM: Don’t tell anyone. [Looks around, as if he could see anything] I was in the SAS.

Me: Oh

GTM: I could jump out of your fridge at any time. Like Kato in the Pink Panther.

Me: I’ll look out for that. Would it be O.K. if I ask you to finish up now? Lot of clearing up to do and I’ve got to open up in the morning.

GTM: Yeah. You’re O.K. I’ll keep an eye out for you.

I had a look in my fridge that night just to be sure.

Several days later I am In The Pub with Sad Sack.

I do rather like Sad Sack. One of those men for whom life has just – well – he just hasn’t had one. And he doesn’t seem to mind too much.

And has the best record collection of anyone aside from John Peel.

I relate the Garry The Mental story. Sad Sack stiffens.

Sad Sack: I don’t like that.

Me: [jovial] I wasn’t too happy myself

Sad Sack: You know what I do for a living.

To explain. We lived in a fairly small city. It was unremarkable, but I liked it. It was a stones-throw away from the permanent base of the SAS. It wasn’t too far away from GCHQ. On the outskirts of the city, must of the work was from defence contractors, most of whom did work – indirectly – for the MOD.

Me: Erm. You work for a software design house?

SS: DO YOU THINK THAT? WHO KNOWS WHAT MY ALGORHYRIMS ARE BEEN USED FOR?? GARY THE MENTAL COULD BE A PLANT!! HE’S PROBABLY MI6!! HE'S USING YOU TO CHECK ME! I’VE SEEN CARS I DON’T RECOGNIZE OUTSIDE MY HOUSE! AND NOW YOU’VE SET GARRY THE MENTAL AND OBVIOUSLY MI5 ON ME!!! SHIT. SHIT!

Sad Sack called me the next morning and apologised. It was 1995.

I am fucking glad I do not frequent any pubs in that town now.

I finished my drink and left.

Tales From the Pub # 2

I am In The Pub.

For a change, it is not one of my frankly rather grim Local Pubs.

I am in the city. Down by the river. Late afternoon-ish. The courtyard of a slightly-swanky-but-not-unbearably-so bar.

I sip my drink. The sun hits my face and for a second –just a second mind you- I get one of those heart-surging ‘hey, everything might be O.K.’ type feelings.

They never last longer than a second.

The other side of the courtyard. A Guy and his Girl sit. They are rather well turned-out, as befits their surroundings.

The Guy takes a Device from his pocket and starts tinkering. Being a man myself, I am rather intrigued. It is, after all, a Device.

I peer at this thing. Is it a GameBoy of some sort? I keep peering. No. They don’t come in purple.

My goodness! It is one of those Blackberry-things! How exciting/annoying.

Let me make myself clear. I think that unless you are an on-call brain surgeon or something, there is no sensible reason why a person would NEED a MOBILE PHONE. They are, without doubt, RIDICULOUS devices.

If I feel the need to speak to somebody badly enough, I will make arrangements to be in the SAME ROOM as them. If it’s not that important, it can WAIT.

Imagine my feelings regarding mobile email-sendy-type things.

I stare at the Guy, fascinated to see what sort of individual would possess such a Device. He looks around, checks to see if anyone notices he is holding this mind-boggling piece of technology (I avert my eyes) and starts tapping away.

After a moment, the Girl whips her mobile phone from her purse and starts tapping in a similar manner.

The sound of fake nails on keypad is not pleasant.

I marvel at these two. They have made the decision to go to a place together. Have ‘got ready’. Have chosen a venue. Have come here. And now sit, hip-to-hip, not speaking to each other, sending presumably very stupid messages to people miles away.

I am aghast.

The Girl’s phone makes a beep-beep noise. She reads, giggles, nudges the Guy and then begins furious clacking of acrylic nails.

The Guy’s purple thing makes a noise, he reads, giggles, nudges, and starts clacking.

It dawns on me.

THEY ARE FUCKING EMAILING EACH OTHER!

My head promptly explodes and my soon-to-be dead body starts whirling around the place like the android on Alien, smashing glasses and kicking tables high into the air.

Or not.

I finish my drink and leave.

Tales From the Pub # 1

For reasons best known to myself, I have been spending more time than is probably healthy In The Pub.

I am sipping a drink. Staring out the window across the valley. Grateful of the opportunity to be Not Thinking for a while.

Across the bar from me are three men.

You know the type. They were probably born in The Pub. Fifties probably. As broad as they are tall. Too many shirt buttons undone. No neck (Darwinian – that beer has to reach the stomach VERY quickly). Bald. Red face.

Pub Man1: Had one of theym fuckin’ phone calls last neet. [Adopts Jim Davison-style Asian accent] ‘Hello my name is Nigel. Could I speak to the person who deals with your utilities?’

PM2: Awwww. Haway.

PM1: Ah naw. Telt him to fuck off.

PM3: They’re not really called Nigel ya naw. Bah. Get paid a few foosand a yar and they want to fuckin’ BE us.

PM2: Sleepin’ giant.

PM3: Eh?

PM1: [He is obviously the ringleader and voice of authority] Sleeping Dragon he means.

PM3: Oh.

PM2 remains silent, clearly embarrassed about his lack of knowledge regarding world affairs.

PM1: [Warming to his subject] Aye. China like. We’ve given them a taste. Mistake. They’ll want the lot soon. [Drags on cigarette] Aye. They’ll tek us ower. Ya naw [leans forward in a conspiratorial manner] if all the Pakis in China jumped up and doon at the same time………THE BERLIN WALL WOULD FALL DOON!

His companions nod sagely at this astonishing piece of information.

I struggle to pop my eyes back into their sockets. And prevent my brain from doing cart-wheels and escaping through my ears.

I stub out my half-smoked cigarette.

Pub Man begins explaining to his companions that ‘the blacks’ are destroying this town’s economy and that he suspects ‘the Italians’ are involved.

Or ‘the Poles’. I forget which. I was in a hurry to be somewhere else.

I finish my drink and leave.

Top Ten Appalling Blog Cliches

Don’t feel the need to thank me.

1. Sitemeter. Wow. I just checked my stats and some people have typed really weird things into Google and have come here. Really? Honestly? Goodness. Is the world a big place with some odd people in it? Amazing.

2. Public transport1. Those kids (I am in my twenties) with their mp3 players. Faintly annoying background noise. Really? Tell us more.

3. Public transport2. Never mind that. What about the kids (I am in my thrirties) who play their mp3s through the ‘speaker’ function of their mobile phones. Grr. That is astonishingly interesting.


4. Blog posts about the nature of blogging. Could your head be any further up your arse? Could it?

5. People at work. They’re a bit funny and that. Goodness. Have you just watched your DVD of The Office?


6. BBC Radio Nowhere has mentioned your blog. Here is 2000 words on the subject. Honestly. Could it be any further?

7. Links to funny things. Thanks for that. And glad to see that you are funny also.


8. Photos of skylines. Very interesting. Why not write a post titled ‘I Have a Digital Camera And Am About To Spunk-Up with Excitement’?

9. Taking a sabbatical for personal shit. What are you? Some sort of fucking baby? Oh boo-fucking-hoo. And post about it as well. Write your blog or don’t write it. Don’t wank on about whether-or-not you’re going to write it so you can then tug yourself off to all the ladies who offer emails of concern.


10. Top ten lists of Appalling Blog Cliches.


With apologies to the rather excellent DatingMonkey (or whatever she calls herself this week. Having two blogs is so 2005) who pointed-out to me some time ago when I discussed this post with her (YES! I actually correspond with people that are quite good at writing!) that publishing such a list would be an Appalling Cliché in itself.

Ahh. But do you see what I’ve done?

I’ve actually included it in the list itself. Hence, via the power of being-an-unbearable-smart-arse, have cancelled-out all the negative aspects of such an enterprise.

Haha. It’s ace being clever. I can explain Post-Structuralism to you if you like.

Oh. Hang on. It’s still a list isn’t it? Lists are shit. And rather clichéd. Shit. Shit.

I score a 7/10.