Something Odd Happens.

Are you a woman? Do you have breath-takingly low standards and want to know how to snare yourself a damaged ill-tempered skinny man who spends his down-time scowling at people on public transport? Then read on.

Tuesday evening. I’m on my way home from work but will be getting off the bus a few stops early to visit a hideous shopping centre to buy a cheap DVD player to replace the one that done broke and that. It’s a massive inconvenience and I’m tired.

I move toward the doors of the bus as it approaches the shopping-centre. Someone places their hand on my arm.

I don’t like people touching me at the best of times and this is the last place I expect such unwarranted intimacy. I flinch, jerk my arm away and stop just short of punching Captain Touchy square in the face.

Vaguely Familiar Woman: Hi!

Me: Err…

The bus has stopped and we go through the rigmarole of getting off, entering the hideous shopping emporium and side-stepping all the old people and ‘wheelchairs’ that always hold-up the normal pedestrian traffic in such places.

It’s all a bit disorientating and I’d already retreated into a private mental-place as I usually do when visiting this awful citadel-of-hatefulness so I now have to unexpectedly ‘snap out of it’.

VFW: [Beaming at me like I’ve known her for years despite my only slightly recognising her from somewhere or other] So! What you doing?

Me: Ah. DVD. Ehm. I mean. It broke. [Clears throat and pulls self together. Still a bit rattled about all the ‘touching’ business] I need to buy a new [actually, WHO THE FUCK IS THIS WOMAN?] DVD player, I had a box-set delivered and I’ve not been able to watch it – bit frustrating – so I’m ahhh…

VFW: [Astonishingly not losing interest] Ok. Well I just need to pick up some things from Boots The Chemists then I can give you a lift home.

Me: [Glancing behind me at the bus station] Urrr..

VFW: Oh I park the car here and get the bus to and from town.

Me: Ahhh…

VFW: Currys would be best. Or Argos. [Proceeds to give me in-depth directions ‘in case you get lost’ as I probably would]

VFW: I’ll just drop you a text when I’m done in Boots yeah?

Me: [Still massively befuddled. Who the fuck is this person? She does look familiar. And is quite pretty] Yeah.

I’ve said ‘yeah’ purely to end the conversation without really thinking about the consequences

VFW: What’s your number?

I see what she’s done now. And I’ve already said ‘yeah’. So I can’t not give her my number. And of course I now have to give her my name. Because it would now be ‘silly’ not to. She’s good.

Forty minutes later.

We’re now in her car approaching my street.

Me: Anywhere here is fine.

It’s far enough away from my house for her not to know exactly where I live. She stops the car, after a twenty minute journey during which she has acquired my life-story after a asking a few simple questions and making me feel so awkward that I cannot stop talking.

Me: Ah. So. Thanks for this. I must owe you a drink or something.

That’s something you just say isn’t it? No-one takes that as a commitment surely?

VFW: This Friday or Saturday. Either are good.

Me: [Oh, I’m wrong] Ahhh. Ehm. Ok then.

I get out of her car, dragging my new DVD player with me, and let myself into my empty house and look at my reflection in the mirror. I look haggard, confused and startled.

Me: [To my own reflection] What the fuck just happened?

Nothing Interesting Happens.

A bleary-eyed Saturday morning. I take the washing from the line, carefully fold it and toss it onto the patio table which promptly collapses sending rusty screws, splinters and planks of dry wood aloft which a sickening crash.

I stare at it for a bit, but it does not magically re-assemble itself.

If I were married or had a girlfriend someone would now be saying:

“Well don’t just stand there staring you idiot!”

But I don’t even have that as a distraction.

Taking my splinter-strewn washing indoors I then make myself some boiled eggs that are not boiled satisfactorily. I begrudgingly eat at my dining-table and not in the sun on the patio.

There is a ‘thud’ from the letter-box.

A new box-set. Things are looking up.

The DVD player no longer works.

Brilliant.

I go out to buy some compost. I have sunflowers to re-pot. There isn’t any compost to be found in a 5-mile radius. At all. Nor is there available any generic ‘No-More-Nails’ – style wood glue to allow me to clumsily transform what is now a small amount of kindling into a table-shaped object.

Attempting to purchase the Saturday edition of my favourite newspaper, I am thwarted by the fact that it is now actually Sunday because I’ve lost track of the whole thing what with all these bloody Bank Holidays.

I arrive home empty-handed.

Scratching at my partially-successful beard I reflect that the day is not going as I would wish.

NEXT: As an indirect result of nothing interesting happening, something odd – but not terribly interesting - happens!

I Send Some Text Messages.

Last Thursday. There are plans for ‘cold drinks’ involving myself, Grotbags (resplendent in spray-tan for the event), Blonde Colleague, Uncannily Similar, Gay Mark, Grant From Work and Thug Colleague. I am rather looking forward to it as I’ve known each of them for over five years and have now decided I quite like them.

And then realise that I have a previous work commitment and can only join them for about an hour. Deeply unhappy about this, I send a group text to those concerned after I get on my bus:

Tired Dad: Enjoy the rest of your evening fuckers. Think of me pulling pints for a bunch of 60-year old cunts with no crack.

I get a number of surprisingly sympathetic replies, except from Grotbags, who is pretending she has forgotten I even exist:

Grotbags: Who is this?

Funny lady. I reply:

TD: It’s Tired you knob.

G: Tired who?

She’s milking this.

TD: Oh fuck off will you. I’m in no mood. Dale Winton called – he wants his tan back.

G: What tan?

This isn’t right. She should have bitten. I think for a bit.

I’ve recently had a harrowing 14-hour train journey during which I now remember receiving a rather significant text message from an unfamiliar number:

Unknown Number: Grotbags – new number.

I start to feel quite uneasy and send the following text to what I now know to be Grotbags’ new number:

TD: I’ve just sent a lot of quite insulting messages to your old phone by accident. Please apologize to whoever has it now.

I receive the following, quite chilling, two-word reply:

Grotbags New: My daughter.

Her very beautiful daughter is 11 years old.

I madly send messages of apology to all concerned and explain to daughter that I work with her mother and am also a fool.

I am not looking forward to my return to the office tomorrow.

You Don't Really Want To Ask.

Classified advertisement spotted in my local 'sales and wants' paper:

KARCHER SC1020 STEAM CLEANER. Good steam cleaner. New costs £130. Valentine gift from my husband, used only once, not my forte. Durham.

I strongly suspect the back-story is not a happy one.

Small Coins.

Like the shiniest coins in your money box as a child they may have little real value or significance, but sometimes the small incidents, the small memories, are the best and you’re afraid to touch them or revisit them too much in case they become dull.

This evening. I’m walking through the grass-lined war memorial outside the bus station that will provide me with transport home. It’s late, I’ve been kept back at my office two hours longer than need be and I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep well the previous evening and am generally in a foul mood.

The memorial, at this time of night, is home to every cider-head, smack-rat, emo, goth, chav, homeless, skater-kid and radge-packet in the city. Basically they are representative of all the various tribes of humanity I despise and I just want to negotiate it in one piece without losing my temper and getting into a situation I will doubtless not come out the better of. I really don’t have the build for it.

I’m near the pillared-entrance to the small shopping centre at the back of the memorial that leads to my bus station when I notice an elderly man in ragged clothes and a bobble hat taking a circuitous route around the pillars, staring intently at the ground.

I come to the conclusion that he is either a) mental or b) homeless and is searching for money or viable cigarette-ends or c) most likely both. I alter my path to avoid contact with him. I can’t help him, it’s late and – do you know what – he’s not my problem.

Almost simultaneously a small group of radgies clock him as well. They’re the very worst sort. With an average age of fourteen years by the look of them, they are clad head-to-toe in either Bench or Kangol, dripping in Elizabeth Duke and have obviously been wagging-off school all day and stink of Lambert & Butlers.

And they’re girls. Which is so much worse. Empowered by the effect of their new-found hips, tits and arses they know they have a terrible influence over men that they do not yet fully understand, but still they know it’s there. And they also know that no man will strike either a child or a woman on the street. Being a strange mixture of both, they are fucking untouchable and they know it. They’re terrifying.

One of their number detaches herself from the radge-hive and starts heading toward the elderly mental homeless guy. Her shoulders are squared, her stride argumentative and she is reeking of fake tan, hormones, aggression and whatever they use to fix hair-extensions with.

Radge-Packet: [At Elderly Homeless Mental] You! Aye. You. What ye dein’ like?

I slow my pace and turn around. It’s none of my business. And I may not have been prepared to do anything for the man, but I’m not going to stand by and watch him be tormented by an ASBO kid. Christ. All I wanted was to get home.

R.P: [Shouting] Aye. Yeah. Ye, like. Ah’m talkin’ to yuh.

It never happens often, but in situations like this I never know WHAT I’m going to do. I just know I’ll do something.

R.P: [Now squaring-up to Elderly Homeless Mental in the most confrontational manner possible] Looking for pennies are yu? Eh? I said- are you looking for coins?

My jaw is clenched. I start to walk over.

Elderly Homeless Mental: [Confused, frightened] Oh, er, yes ….

R.P: Reet. Well have this. [Proffers a small coin] It’s only ten pence but it’s all I’ve got. [With undiminished aggression] One of my stupid mates hoyed five pence ower there [gestures] so yu can probly find that too an’ aaal. Reet?

E.H.M: Oh bless you. You’re an angel.

R.P: Aye well.

She heads back to her cohorts and I trail behind as she’s on the way to where I need to be.

One of her companions asks her what the guy said. She replies with the same borderline-furious tone I now realise she has used all her life, and that her mother and father have probably used all their lives before her.

R.P: Aye he said I was an angel, like.

Companion: Aw.

I look at my watch. I’ve still time for not only my bus, but also a brief re-evaluation of humanity. I shall try and remember this. But not too often.

Pressure.

“You might feel a bit of pressure.” Says the woman sticking a scalpel in my eye.

“Pressure?” I think to myself. “You know nothing about it, love. I’ve got a workload you wouldn’t believe and I’ve had to take an hour off to come here so a swarthy lass who could obviously beat the shit out of me if I looked at her funny with my good eye can stick needles in me and start fucking about with a sharp fucking knife. At my fucking eye. Fuck. It’s not like I can even look away. Shit”

“That’s a good result.” She says to no-one in particular as the vision in my left eye goes blood-red. With blood as it turns out.

Being an obviously considerate sort, she tapes an eye-patch big enough to take care of Geoff Capes onto me, despite the fact that my entire head is about the size of my eight-year old daughters. So I don’t look in the slightest bit foolish.

“Now, if you have to come back…..”

“Don’t worry. I AM NEVER FUCKING HAVING THAT DONE AGAIN.” I say.

She and her assistant laugh. This is a big load of TEH FUNNY for them. They cut cysts from the under-sides of eyelids all the time.

I return to the office, tripping down stairs and bumping into door frames.

It’s not the first time I’ve had to have things hacked from my body because they’re doing more harm than good, and I wonder how long it’ll be before I have a bathroom cabinet like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly packed with discarded pieces of me.

After much hilarity caused by my appearance, four of my colleagues are – without warning or explanation – escorted from the premises. Two of them I happen to have quite a lot of time for.

I’m told I shall be taking over the accounts of one of them. As I’m obviously at a loose-end these days. And don’t have enough to do.

Finally, I get a bus home. It’s the same service upon which I had an alarming seizure and convulsed on the floor of for a full five minutes some months ago. People look askance at my patched face and shuffle out of my way.

I take out my much-hated mobile phone and send a couple of texts of concern and support to Thug Colleague. I remember how much I used to dislike him, and how perplexed we both must be about the massively unlikely friendship we have grown in the last twelve months – sparked by a mutual admiration of the recording artist Kunt And The Gang - after four solid years of being deeply suspicious of one another.

It seems I have developed ‘empathy’ quite late on in life. As if I didn’t have enough to do, it seems I am now ‘caring about people’ all over the place. The selfish bastards. Christ.

Impromptu Telly Review.

I’m having an unbelievably stressful afternoon having taken on an unnecessarily ambitious project just to prove a point and also because neither backing-down or admitting defeat are one of my big things.

Thug Colleague: How. Tired. Y’want in on this?

Me: FUCK. What?

T.C: Top five most hated television programmes?

It’s better than his enquiry as to who my ‘arch-nemesis’ in the workplace is, but I have deadlines screaming at me like I owe them money, three different departments of my silly company doing the same, six clients who do not seem to know what the term ‘deadline’ actually means and ninety minutes to tie the whole thing up.

Me: Yeah, O.K. then.

Here are my answers, and reasons (if required):

Popworld, Channel 4.
Two charisma-free mannequins perform the most painfully over-rehearsed ‘spontaneous’ banter whilst pretending to laugh at their own obviously scripted and unfunny ‘jokes’ whilst asking uninteresting questions of uninteresting popstrels and banging on about ‘festivals’ and stuff. They wouldn’t be invited round my house in a million years. I don’t hate it because it was once quite good. I hate it because it is shit.

Anything Featuring the ‘Talents’ Of Alex Zane, Any Channel.
No explanation required.

That Dreadful Bob Grundy-Hosted History of the North of England Thing, BBC1
I can’t even be bothered to look-up it’s real name. It makes Countryfile seem avant-garde. Do you know that feeling of dread that used to creep into the pit of your stomach on a Sunday night before school when Bullseye came on the telly? It’s like someone distilled that, cooked it up and fucking mainlined it into you. In a massively unlikely footnote, Thug Colleague has had business dealings with the man in question (attempting to flog his DVDs to an uninterested public) and reports that he is ‘a cunt’.

Something for the Weekend, BBC2
I can only assume that the sorry enterprise was born of this scenario:

Exec 1: We need some sort of Sunday-morning ‘magazine show’ made-up of clips from the previous week’s telly that is totally unlike the omnibus This Morning on the other channel which features the deep likeability of Philip Schofield and the unique combination of sexiness and equal likeability that is Holly Willoughby. You know, the one people actually enjoy? But have it be almost identical to that. Whilst being different.

Exec 2: No problem. We’ll just assemble a bunch of feckless z-list celebrities and no-marks with all the charm of my foreskin and with no chemistry whatsoever to pretend they don’t secretly hate each other any more than the general public actually hates each and every one of them individually and then – twist coming – throw in a cocktail-maker who appears to be a hairs-breadth away from downing a mojito in a one-er and chinning the lot of them.

Exec 1: Perfect.

Any Cookery Show Featuring Rick Stein. Any Channel, But Usually BBC2.
A controversial choice as it turned out. But let me ask you this: could you spend more than an hour in his company without wanting to grind your teeth on his worthy skull? No, you couldn’t. And he always smells of fish, whilst constantly quacking-on about it. It’s fish, Rick. Get over it.

Several people list that “fuckin 10 O’Clock Show shite” in their top five, and I briefly argue. But even I have to concede that I WANT to like it more than I ACTUALLY do.

I look at my watch and realise I shall now be working late or face the wrath of a client named Wayne, who is built like a brick-layer and sports the name ‘Miss Kitty’ after dark. True.

I Reach A Pivotal Moment In My Life.

There are certain moments. When you know you will change as a person. And are about to do things you never have before, that will probably define the rest of your life as a man.

For the first time, I am about to purchase a vacuum cleaner.

Feeling very modern, I flash the text-message reservation confirmation at the woman in Argos. She seems unimpressed. Perhaps she has seen this done before.

I remember the first time I discovered that socks and pants did not magically just appear. I was in my third year of university.

That was a big one.

The thing about household tasks requiring ‘tools’ of some sort was also a shocker, as was the introduction to shops that smelt of metal, hard work and masculinity. Purchasing a cordless drill was mind-blowing.

But this.

More than socks, pants, hammers or drills, vacuum-cleaners have always just BEEN THERE. Wherever I’ve lived, there’s always been one about, or someone has had a spare one (why?) that I’ve taken.

So this is enormous. I had a perfectly good one that just came from nowhere, which my sister – in the brief period she rented my spare room, used once and tripped every switch in the house and caused a brief but alarming electrical burning smell – destroyed.

Getting home from work, I take the box from the carrier bag. This is guaranteed to be an excellent experience.

For one; it cost less than twenty quid. No matter how poor it is, it cannot disappoint at that price.

And. The box has been taped-up by an Argos employee meaning it is an un-advertised return. This means that the previous owner thought it was so good that it would have been unfair not to let other people have a go at it.

I am agog with anticipation.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish thingse”

Yeah. It’s time to put away childish things and do some overdue hoovering.

But it’s late. We’ll see.

Internet Dating.

It’s a rainy Wednesday afternoon, and Blonde Colleague is engaged in one of her favourite pastimes.

Me: Alright. Do you just want to delete it now?

Blonde Colleague: But you’re getting loads of matches! I mean, I’ve not put your picture on there which probably helps but ….

Me: I don’t even know why this amuses you.

B.C: Well, it’s just…oh. Look at her – she’s alright.

Me: No.

B.C: It’s just funny. You know. The thought of you actually ‘with’ someone. I can’t really see it. God knows how you managed to have two children.

Me: Great. Thanks. Will you delete it now?

It’s not the first time and I doubt the last that she has created an online dating profile for me because she’s bored.

I shan’t forget the harrowing afternoon when she found a site that effectively promised to match a very in-depth psychometric profile of your good self with anyone similar in the world. After forty minutes filling-in the alarmingly lengthy questions she refused to take any more of my honest answers on the grounds that they made me sound like a 'fucking psycho' and clicked ‘search’ with the result that I am apparently incompatible with anyone in the Western Hemisphere with internet access.

B.C: Ooh. Look at this one. ‘Mildly disabled’ it says. What do you reckon?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ‘hating on' internet dating. But I’ve been ‘actual’ dating and by God it’s horrific.

Effectively a job interview to be someone’s boyfriend, where you sit across a table with someone you hardly know in some bar or restaurant somewhere with a fake rictus grin plastered on your fizzog whilst you pretend to be interested in a virtual stranger and try to present yourself as a reasonable example of humanity and not as the vindictive, ill-tempered monomaniac you actually are.

That’s bad enough. But at least you’ll have had some sort of normal human contact to get you there in the first place.

I nearly tried the internet version once. I had a flatmate a couple of years ago who seemed to do quite well out of it. I actually set-up a profile on her preferred site and everything. To be honest, it was because she was (astonishingly) quite keen on me herself and I was trying to subtly let her know that it wasn’t happening. She liked my profile, but felt that the photo “didn’t do me any favours”. In that it contained my face, I can only assume.

It was deleted after a day. She’d got the message.

And I'd got a dispiritingly filthy message from an overweight woman who works in my local Co-Op. I do my shopping out-of-town now.

Anyway.

B.C: You should do this for real.

Me: No. If I write an attractive profile people will be only let-down by the abysmal reality and if I write an honest one people will run a mile.

B.C: What’s the honest one?

Me: I dunno. Something like “Emotionally distant borderline-sociopath WLTM fragile woman with crippling self-esteem issues to repeatedly batter with his Sarcasm Mallet until her sense of self-worth is so low she can’t leave the house. Reply to Box Number etc”

Blonde Colleague squints at me for a moment.

B.C: That would work.

Me: WHAT?

B.C: Women are mental. [She considers herself an honourary ‘woman’] They lap that shit up. They love a bloke who’s crackers. Either that or they think “hmm, I could sort him right out.” You know, fix you up and that? They love that.

Me: Let’s just not bother.

Besides. I like the way my house is at the minute. Y’know?

Train Of Thought.

New Year's Eve, and I'm on a train.

I'm in an astoundingly bad mood, and am also six hours away from my final destination. My head and heart are pounding from the conflicting feelings of being very sorry to leave where I am, and being bloody glad to get home.

I start to wonder where the 'twat on the train' is.

It's a rule of ‘Rail Travel’ in this country: you cannot travel a lengthy distance without encountering a stranger - usually sat next to you – that you would not murder with a smile on your face. He is the ‘twat on the train’.

Perplexingly, all is fine. It’s a bit crammed. But that’s all.

With great relief I open a can of strong drink. I’ve had a couple before I got on but it’s fine. I’m unhappy. I’m allowed to be unhappy and have a can of strong drink? Yes? Yes. There is no ‘twat on the train’ so I am ok.

A couple get on and sit at the aisle opposite me. I assume them to be married.

He’s a ‘snorter’.

“Oh God,” I think to myself. “Just don’t say anything. He’s got a sinus problem or something. Just keep quiet.”

*SNORT*

*GURGLE*

*THROAT CLEARING*

*SNORT*

His wife seems very serene and totally involved in her book. CAN SHE NOT HEAR?

She must be deaf. She’d have divorced him.

*SNORT*

Christ. I’d leave him. I’m not even married to him. Fuck.

I can LITERALLY hear the grotty sputum gurgling around every single cavity in the man’s head. EVERY ONE.

Looking at my watch, I realise I have at least four hours of Captain Disgusting to put up with.

*SNORT*

*GURGLE*

The easy option is to put in my headphones and ignore him. But it’s busy, the metal tube I’m in is crammed with people and I’m unwilling to give up any of my senses. Not when there’s this many randoms around.

*SNORT*

*GURGLE*

I shove my hands into my pockets in frustration and find a massive amount of napkins – the sort you pick up when you have children, thinking they might be handy later in the day.

Slamming them down in the tray in front of the Snorter across the aisle I say:

Me: HERE. Thought you might like these.

Odd silence.

Snorter: Oh. Erm. Did I drop them or something?

Me: No. It just sounds like you REALLY NEED TO BLOW YOUR FUCKING NOSE.

Odd silence.

An hour later Snorter and his wife depart. His wife pauses only to peer at me and say:

Snorting Wife: I just want to say – I think you are a very rude man.

I think nothing of this, until York, were - with a flourish - I get off the train, and realise a number of things:

1) I do not live in York, or indeed anywhere near it.

2) I’m really going to have trouble getting anywhere near my home at this hour.

3) I am astonishingly drunk.

4) I should probably make some resolutions. Along the lines of : ‘not being a total cunt. All of the time.’

5) I could very well be the ‘Twat On The Train’

Scratching at my unsuccessful Christmas beard, I resolve to not only get home but to stop being totally unpleasant, probably starting with people I’ve not spoken to in awhile.

After all – what could go wrong?

Good Intentions.

I’m on the phone, listening to the ‘ringing’ tone whilst I wait for the other person to answer. The person is a client; the director of a small advertising agency. I’ve not been able to get through on any of the landlines, so I’m trying her mobile.

She answers, and we exchange the usual pleasantries.

Me: Anyway, so it’s been nearly a year since I last spoke to you so just thought I’d check in.

I have what many may think an unappealing habit of completely dropping a person the moment they cease to be immediately useful to me and never making contact with them ever again. My past life is littered with abandoned friends and family members.

The friends – well, I’ve never had any problem making new ones, probably to the amazement of anyone who regularly reads this horrible blog, so big deal. And the family members – well, fuck'em, you know?

But I’m starting - with this phone call to a lady that I used to know quite well and speak to very regularly - to try and feel the spirit of the New Year and the good intentions that are supposed to come with it and that.

Old Client: Oh don’t you know? Of course you don’t. We had to liquidate the business six months ago!

Me: Oh.

O.C: Yeah yeah had to lay-off twenty-five people. Terrible. No fun, no fun at all.

I’ve been robbed of much of my motivation here, but persevere.

Me: What happened? I mean was it the usual thing with, you know ….

O.C: Oh nonono nothing like that. The accountant was stealing.

Me: Eh? Who? Lesley? [Her name wasn’t Lesley] She seemed really pleasant whenever I spoke to her. [To ask if she was ever going to pay me, as it happens]

O.C: I thought so too. She’s halfway-through a two-year prison sentence for fraud now.

Me: Right.

I’m really at a bit of a loss now. Old Client is making no effort to end this conversation, but I’ve nowhere to go. I could ask about her family but knowing her school-age son to have a crippling combination of autism and ADHD and also the trouble she’s had finding a suitable school for him – to the extent that she even tried to create a new one tailored for other children with her son’s special requirements – I don’t really want to go there. I’ve such a low level of natural empathy I could be fucking autistic myself.

Me: Right then. Well. Ok. [Old Client is silent. She’s not making this easy on me] You’re alright yourself though?

O.C: It’s been quite a year to be honest. My sister died ….

Me: ………

O.C: ….and my daughter’s been diagnosed with cancer.

Me: ………

O.C: It’s in her brain.

Me: ……..

O.C: So, anyway I’m really not doing much in the way of press advertising these days…

Me: Well, God, no, well, of course…

O.C: I’ve a couple of small clients that I do occasional stuff for so I’ll be in touch, but it’s more a hobby now. Lot’s to do, you know? Good to hear from you again though.

Me: Ah. You too. Er….

O.C: [With remarkable cheeriness] Alright then babes, later yeah? Be good!

I hang up. She always ended a conversation ‘Be good!’ It suggested a mutual naughtiness that rather amused me.

I take the imaginary ‘My Name Is Earl’ – style list of my new good intentions and tear it up. And stamp on it. Then set it alight. Before pissing on it, and then burying it in a field of bastards.

Pact - Redux.

I'm about to have a telephone conversation with Favourite Daughter.

Previously, my eight-year-old daughter had managed to get me to promise never to take a girlfriend – under tenuous conditions, but I was happy enough with the deal.

But she’s upping her game.

Their Mother: [Teasing my daughter] Come to the phone! Daddy wants to tell you about his new girlfriend!

Favourite Daughter: [Background, clearly apalled] Noooooooo!

Me: That's not funny. Just put her on.

FD: 'Lo?

Me: Hello sweetheart. Mummy's just being silly.

I decide to reassure her. I know what all this is about. She's worried that one day she won't be my favourite.

I'm brilliant at this, me.

Me: Mummy's joking. And I don't have a girlfriend right now. I'll only ever love you best in the world anyway. So don't worry.

Genius. I’m great at this, me.

FD: But what about Mummy?

A lesser man would feel the ground begin to open, but not me. I'm fully prepared for this.

Me: I don't think Mummy really WANTS a girlfriend. Not REALLY.

Brilliant. I'm a genius, me. Did you see what I did?

FD: [Laughing] Nooo! But do you love Mummy?

I had this covered about two years ago. I’ve been waiting for it. I know the answer to this one. God, I'm awesome.

Me: Of course. Mummy gave me you and Favourite Son. I'll always love her for that.

Brilliant answer. I rock.

FD: [Quitely satisfied and oddly triumphant] Good.

After some moments our telephone conversation is concluded. And I think for a bit.

Forget the 'ground opening'. This is like that awful disaster movie 'The Core' when the pigeons all go screwy, the Northern Lights go bonkers, Rome and San Francisco explode (oddly nowhere else), the earth's crust starts revolving the wrong way and all electrical things go 'bang' and ,like, earthquakes start happening and that.

Her concern isn’t about my ongoing love for her at all.

I begin mentally constructing a craft that can drill to the earth’s core with Hilary Swank and detonate nuclear devices to get everything moving in the right way again. Metaphorically.

It’s about me and her mother. And she’s just got me to say something I can never really back up.

She is, of course, a genius.

Unremarkable.

“This is going to be amazing” I think to myself as I head to the service station across the road.

It was sometime in my late twenties when I realised I was never going to be remarkable in any way. I found it quite dispiriting.

But how wrong I was.

I’m about to return a rental copy of a dvd. And it’s going to be AWESOME.

Being a Saturday night I also select a bottle of wine and head to the cashier. She bags it and takes my money.

Me: Also. I rented this [hand over dvd] about FOUR WEEKS AGO and forgot about it! The fines must be enormous!

Cashier : [deadpan]I’ll check.

Me: It’ll be a record, I guarantee it!

Pause.

Cashier: £97.50.

Me: Woah. That makes it the most expensive dvd in history, surely!

Cashier: Nope.

Me: What? Come on. That’s got to be a record! I should get a plaque on the wall or something!

Cashier: Nope. [Presses some buttons] £210.50. That’s the one to beat.

Me: [Geniunely deflated] Oh.

Cashier: You’ll not be able to rent another one. Pay it off when you can.

I go back home, resigned to being unremarkable.

Pact.

I am having a telephone conversation with the mother of my children, Favourite Daughter and Favourite Son.

Previously referred to as 'Tired Mam' (she never liked the name) Their Mother is prattling-on about something or other. I'm at work and my head has not room for whatever she is saying so I make appropriate noises.

Until.

Their Mother: …oh and Favourite Daughter says she doesn't want you ever to have a girlfriend.

I start paying attention.

Me: Oh?

TM: Yes. EVER. I think she's a bit jealous.

Pre-emptively. Of nothing.

Me: Ok. Well. Tell her. Fine, just so long as she never gets a boyfriend.

TM: [away from the phone’s mouthpiece] Daddy says that’s OK so long as you never have a boyfriend.

There is some talk in the background. A boy’s name is mentioned.

Me: HE TOLD HER TO HER FACE HE DIDN’T LOVE HER!

Favourite Daughter is eight years old.

Their Mother comes back on the phone.

TM: I think she’s still holding out some hope.

Me: Christ. Well is it a deal or what?

TM: Hang on.

There is some mumbling in the background. I hear Favourite Daughter saying ‘Kaaaay’ in a distracted manner.

TM: Sorted.

Me: We’ll see.

All in all, I am perfectly happy with this agreement. Based on recent experience I'm confident I shan't have any trouble holding-up my end of the bargain.

Although I'm not so confident about hers.

Massive Fail.

An early Friday evening, and I’m in a bar with Uncannily Similar. Our normal entourage have deserted us so it looks set to be a sedate evening for me, followed by an endlessly empty weekend pottering about wondering what my children are doing.

Uncannily Similar: Not many in here tonight.

Me: Mmmm.

U.S: Still. At least we get our usual table. Not like last week. Remember? They didn’t even put the ‘reserved’ signs out. ‘Don’t they know who we are?’ Oh, they’re starting to light the candles now.

Me: Mmmm.

I leave U.S. to his new unofficial role as narrator of the evenings’ minutiae and head to the bar, passing a young lady I vaguely recognize. We’ve become familiar to each other by sight during the past few Fridays. I smile at her in an equally vague way.

I return to the table with our drinks:

U.S: Pretty smooth.

Me: Mmmmm?

U.S: You. With that lass. Mr. Suave.

Me: Eh?

U.S: Yeah. You know.

I genuinely don’t.

The young lady in question slowly strolls past our table.

We look at each other for longer than is strictly necessary. She is actually very beautiful. Her quite lovely face breaks into a very wide smile as we gaze at each other.

I’m briefly amused by the ritual. And it might turn out to be an interesting evening after all.

U.S: Mate. Mate! Did you see that?

Me: Errrr…..

She has stopped to loiter by the pillar next to me. She’s in plain sight and earshot. For me. But out of Uncannily’s eye-line.

U.S: That look! Did you see the look she just gave you!

Me: Actually could you just-

U.S: If ‘looks could kill’ you’d be getting NOSHED OFF just then!

Me: Brilliant.

The very lovely woman with her almond eyes, dark hair and intriguing tattoo looks at me with a new-found ‘contempt by association’ and storms off. I never see her again.

U.S: Oh shit. Sorry. Shit. I didn’t see her.

Me: Actually that was probably helpful.

U.S: Christ, look….

Me: Excellent. No. Really. Great. It’s brilliant being friends with you. Do you know that?

Lunch Date.

I’m at the back of my office building, smoking a cigarette. It’s lunchtime.

Blonde Colleague and Grotbags approach, returning from their lunchtime adventures.

Grotbags: [By way of a ‘hello’] Fuckin HELL, man.

Me: Ok.

Blonde Colleague: Mental in Boots. The pharmacist. Radge-packets all over the place – coppers an’all.

I feel a bit short-changed. I’ve peacefully eaten my home-made ribollita in the canteen without incident.

Me: What?

B.C: About half a dozen, they had to get this massive copper in to supervise the whole thing while they picked-up their prescriptions.

Me: Not antihistamines I take it?

Grotbags: You’re a twat you sometimes.

B.C: And like he knew them ALL by name. And they all knew each other and they’re all like “how man, been in trouble?” and like “naw man have I fuck, just here for my stuff, will they hurry up I need to be in court in twenty minutes like” and asking the copper if he’ll watch for their prescriptions whilst they go to the toilet and that. There’s not even a toilet in Boots!

Grotbags: Aye. And the copper’s like “you’re not going to any toilet whilst I’m watching son”.

Have I mentioned how much I love this city? And simultaneously hate it?

B.C: Aye and it looked like an advert for J.D.Sports but with scag-heads. And frightened old women.

Grant From Work has joined us during this and observes the whole exchange with his usual impassive expression.

Grant From Work: So they give the scag-heads their methadone ‘scripts all at the same time? And they all rush to cash them in ‘en-masse’?

I want to give Grant From Work ‘props’ for using the phrase ‘scripts’ but am not sure what ‘props’ actually means.

Grotbags: ‘Spose. It was scaring the shit out of the old dears in there for their anti-inflammatories.

I check the date and time on my watch. Grant From Work notices this.

Grant From Work: [deadpan] Next week?

Me: See you there.

My Tuppence-Worth On The 'Twitter Joke Trail'

Normal people will be unaware that Twitter has been ablaze all day long with chat regarding the trial of some bloke who made a joke on the social network site or whatever we're calling it this week.

It does seem a bit harsh to put him on trial (I can't remember his name and can't be bothered to look it up - google it) but it really wasn't a very good joke.

The consensus seems to be that people shouldn't be arrested and charged for making jokes on the internet - even not very good ones.

His 'joke' was in fact a threat to blow-up a UK airport. A joke he made on the internet. On what is pretty much an open forum. Probably not a very bright move. He should be grateful he's not being waterboarded in some third-world hellhole as we speak.

The questions raised seem to be:

"Should a person stay away from the internet if they want to joke about stuff, no matter how dubious the subject?"

Answer - no, probably not.

and

"Should a person stay away from the internet if they are THICK AS SHIT"

Answer - yes. In fact they should stay away from most everything. In an ideal world.

Bumps In The Night.

The neighbours when I moved in were great. Because they didn’t exist. There was an abundance of peacefulness. The next lot filled me with dread when I saw them moving in. A Chinese family of at least three-thousand members. But they were silent, save for one of the daughters who used to practice her singing on a Saturday morning as I sat in the sun eating my eggs and reading the paper. She had quite a nice voice.

This lot though.

It is 4.00am on Saturday morning.

“Help! Help, someone! He’s fucking killing me!” Comes the less than soothing voice of the female half of my new neighbours from the street outside my bedroom window.

“He’s taking his time about it.” I think to myself. The racket has been ongoing since closing-time. “He’d better hurry up. I could do with the peace and quiet.”

A few minutes later there is a sturdy knock on the neighbours’ door, and another voice says “Police.” The voice doesn’t say “Police, it’s gone four in the morning and unless you want to know what a proper kicking feels like you’d better not fuck us around.” But you can tell from the general tone that that was the implication.

Everything goes silent. I go to sleep, pausing only to turn my mobile off so I’m not woken by anyone the next day. A mistake as it turns out.

And, after a solid month of banging, crashing and shouting, it’s been silent ever since. Maybe he did kill her. Maybe they’re both in the slammer. I genuinely don’t care. At least it’s quiet.

And perhaps I should feel bad about having imagined the following late night conversation as I knock on their door to complain about the noise:

Male Neighbour: What do you want?

Me: To sleep. There’s a lot of noise. What’s going on?

MN: I am beating the shit out of my girlfriend.

Me: It’s been going on some time. You’re obviously not doing a good job. Would you like some help? Then we can all get some kip.

That’s wrong isn’t it? It is.

A Couple of Weeks Ago.

“This is bloody ridiculous” I think to myself as I grab the edge of my dining-table.

To be honest it’s been a difficult time. Work has been insane. Video-links to Canary Wharf and ‘monetise’ this and ‘insentivise’ that. My Grandfather has lost his mind and my family and I have had to deal with the process of grieving for a man who is still alive. Despite the fact that ‘he’ is gone.

And I’ve been a bit poorly myself.

Anyway.

I’m gripping my dining-table.

My peripheral vision is long-gone and the blood is pounding in my ears.

Six hours previously a colleague has given me a nice fat rump steak, as she does each month for reasons that neither I nor anyone I know can understand. We can’t imagine how the conversation that would have started this first came up-

Colleague: Fancy a big fat steak once a month? For no reason?

Me: Ok then.

That seems to be the consensus, but I really don’t remember. I’m just grateful of the red meat. Times are hard.

As I say. My lungs feel like they are about to burst.

A few minutes previously I had sent a text. “I’m dipping my chips in blood”.

Haha. I like a rare steak.

As everything begins to cloud – a weird rush of endorphins that make me unconcerned about my impending demise – I wonder if I should get a girlfriend purely to avoid dying in such a foolish manner. I mean, if I didn’t live alone someone could do the Heimlich or something.

Finally I manage to cough a wad of under-cooked, under-chewed steak onto the table.

I grab some kitchen-roll and continue eating my dinner.

“You’re so money baby.”

As I work in a murky provincial corner of the ‘meedya’ I sometimes find myself on a ‘list’ of ‘important people’ who are then invited to a ‘thing’ that involves food, drink, untold glamour (basically fit women in skimpy outfits) and no financial outlay.

Which happened the other week and, as the above sounds utterly brilliant, I promptly RSVP’ed to the affirmative secure in the belief that the organisers should have first checked if I were actually important before offering me ‘free shit’.

I inform them that myself, Uncannily Similar and ‘others’ shall be attending.

Amazingly, no-one at the P.R. susses that I am, in fact, ‘No-one At All’ and accept.

Uncannily Similar: Right. Got a few more ‘on board’. Be about half a dozen now.

Me: Erm. Ok. Who?

He reels off a set of names and –

Me: ‘Janice and Paul’?

U.S: Aaah. Yeeah.

Me: No offence. Janice looks like a homeless. WHEN SHE MAKES AN EFFORT. And – not being funny – Paul is a fucking DWARF. An – no, hang on – an ACTUAL dwarf. His eyes don’t even point in the same direction – no, shut up, he’s got the little hands and everything – there is NO WAY anyone will think that we are ‘high-rollers’ worthy of ‘free shit’ when the CIRCUS IS IN TOWN. Never.

Three hours later.

We’re all wasted on free booze and acting like over-excited children. We’ve gone back for ‘seconds’ at the buffet (some of us ‘thirds’), loudly demanded why the champagne appears to have dried up and have also asked where the free cocktails have gone.

I decide to leave, aware of the fact that I’m not getting on to any more P.R. mailing lists in the near future.

And get home to find a troubling letter from a hospital on my doormat.

Chinatown.

“Here we go.” I think to myself.

There is an obvious Mental heading straight for me. I’m like a magnet for these people.

I’m outside the office building that I work in, smoking a cigarette with some colleagues. A very small, over-dressed, ridiculously be-spectacled nut-case heads in our direction. He looks like someone has 'wardrobed' him with the brief of ‘making me look as out of place as possible with a budget of only a million pounds’.

His wheeled-suitcase is probably worth more than the house I live in, and the back-street where we choose to smoke is somewhere that people are routinely murdered after dark. True. This is already very weird.

“Hi. Do you know somewhere I can get some Chinese food?”

It’s ten o’clock in the morning. And millionaire-boy wants some Chinese food. Of course. And he’s asking me. Obviously. Nut-case.

“What?”

“It’s just I have to be at the theatre in an hour and I’m starving.”

Fuck’s sake we’ve all got problems, it’s only gone ten and I’ve had a dreadful day already. I’m guessing you’ve come from the train station across the street and am – DO YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK OFF.

That’s what I think. What I actually do is brusquely give him directions to Chinatown, secure in the knowledge that there shan’t be a single place open before lunchtime.

Some time passes. I’m smoking a cigarette with a colleague who I threatened with physical violence over the phone one evening some weeks ago but we’re fine now. It’s a long story and I don’t come out of it terribly well.

Colleague: I know you’re a Gay Magnet but that was just stupid. And you didn’t have to be so rude.

Me: Do you want some more? Do you? Anyway. What?

Colleague: That was Wayne Sleep.

Me: Was it?

Colleague: Yes

Me: Oh.