Access All Areas

There I was, sipping on a glass of red, munching away on some little patry thing, when George Clinton wandered past, heading to join the rest of his Parliament Funkadelic. He glanced at me, I nodded, he didn't notice (that's what I choose to believe anyway, in my own little bubble world). So I shamble over to the bar for a top up and to rub shoulders with Earth, Wind & Fire just as Broken Social Scene appear from the stairs, fresh from the stage. At least they saw me and returned the friendly nod. Shy as I am I couldn't manage to strike up a conversation with any of them (all of whom are undoubtedly my musical superiors) and was contenting myself with chatting to Miles from Sinless City based act The Disclaimers when along come The Great Spy Experiment, another local act but one destined for international semi-stardom at the very least. Playing on the local scene myself I knew the guys (and gal) well enough to exchange greetings and complement them on their earlier set, in the process inviting them along to mine (this evening, incidentally. Not that any of you will be there). And then I helped myself to some more free wine and food and set about seeing who else I could spot. Unfortunately Jools Holland hadn't flown in yet... well, there's always the wrap party! It's a hard life sometimes...

Incidentally, do check out The Great Spy Experiment... they are fucking awesome!

Cheers m'dears!

D-day

Today it arrived, in a fairly ordinary white envelope appropriately postmarked with the equally ordinary "Swindon". But that indication of origin was enough to forewarn me of the emotional letter-bomb hidden inside. "Certificate of entitlement to a decree", it began, continuing with a little legalese essentially informing me that I had a small window to contest this decree. A window which, owing to the distance the certificate had travelled, had long expired.

I was not going to contest anything anyway. Oh, it still irks that in the eyes of the law it was my "unreasonable behaviour" that led to an "irretrievable breakdown" in our marriage. But that is because she was the petitioner and the only other causes she could give after such a short marriage would have been abandonment or infidelity. And least "unreasonable behaviour" could be justified (everyone is unreasonable in someone elses eyes, right?).

Of course I could have petitioned... Infidelity? Check. Abandonment? Check. Cheque? Ah... well... Okay then. Maybe I couldn't have petitioned, at least not in the finacial situation I was then. I know in my heart that this is just an excuse, though. I would never have filed for divorce.

Yesterday's post was almost as sad. A late Christmas card from her and her "bump". Yes, she's pregnant. Yes, by that guy. In fact she may have given birth already - it was due around now, a mere 18 months after she left me for the last time. Although it could have been 8 months after... now that would have been much worse!

I''d like to say I've thought of her a lot recently, but that's both true and untrue. I've thought about her a lot, yes, but no more recently than I have done every day for the last year and a half. In many ways I moved on, but in more than I ever before cared to admit I was solidly stuck in my memories and my unfulfilled wishes.

We have spoken and emailed - it's tough sometimes, but we always promised we would be a part of each others lives. And I hear resignation in her voice, read doubt in her words... or is that just me? I wonder, is she just settling for a man because he's fathering her child, or is this another chance at love? If this hadn't happened would there still have been hope for us in the long run... after all, we were talking reconcilliation before the pregnancy.

I don't know. All I know is that I failed at the one thing in life I wanted more than anything to be a success at.

Once upon a time...

An old song, but an apt one..

Over

Do you remember?
Just how sweetly these things fitted together...
Now they don't seem quite so clever
In the cold, harsh light of day.

As these colours run,
Start to merge into one,
Turning to ash in the sun...
And the dreams you thought that you had won
Have fallen, fallen away.

Oh, can't you see that it's over for you now
Before it's even begun?
Can't you tell that it's flown from you now?
It's over and done.

And time takes its toll on you,
But the toll takes its time.
Over there in the distance
At the back of your mind.
And this pantomime takes its one last curtain call...

And don't you feel jaded and foolish and hated?
Don't you feel so under-rated?
And so, so - so complicated with it all...?

Oh, can't you see that it's over for you now
Before it's even begun?
Can't you tell that it's flown from you now?
It's over and done.

Oh, can't you see - oh, can't you see...
That it's over before it's even begun?
Oh, yes it's over - over and done...

Can't you see that it's gone away?
Can't you tell it's the end of your day?
Why can't you - why can't you...
Why can't you just say what ou really want to say to me, honey?
Bring it on back now - take it on back now,
Tell me what you want to say,
Tell me what you want - why can't you see?
Why can't you see?
Why can't you?



Some endings are sweet... some are sad... some are a little bitter or angry.

Some are just impossible to describe, because you have nothing to liken them to.

....happily ever after

Cin-enema

Question: When a cultural form is imported (on both sides willingly) into another culture should the 'adopting' culture adapt itself to the etiquette of said form or should the form and its producers / promoters expect and accept behaviour which they might ordinarily find offensive or distracting?

Anyone who has read back far enough on this blog knows my feelings regarding cinema-heathens. Well, a heated discussion with Indian friends the other night led me to realise that there are cultural issues at play here... They understood the etiquette of not talking on the'phone and turning off the ringtone but the fact that I could get annoyed at people texting in a cinema caused them much mirth.

The way I look at it is simple - cinema is a visual medium. If someone flashed torches or turned on the lights it would be very distracting and piss most people off. When someone uses their 'phone to sms, or even just to look at the time, the light caused by their tiny screen is actually very noticeable in a darkened cinema. To me it would be like trying to listen to a string quartet with some arseholes watch alarm going of intermittently.

But then I forget that - aside from certain screenings of films like Rocky Horror or The Sound of Music - western audiences are very much brought up to silently immerse themselves in films whereas many other cultures, especially in the Bollywood sphere of influence, see films as a release, an arena to "let go" of themselves in. Whereas the social interaction of a film in the west tends to be in dissecting the film in the pub after the credits, in the east the social interaction seems to actually be the film itself.

And so I am brought back to my original question... as someone who can happily watch - nay, embrace - a piece of performance art (be it celluloid or whatever) in the environment and atmosphere it belongs, do I then have a right to expect to be able to watch films from my own cultural background in the manner that I would be able to were I back home? Likewise, should those enjoying their own eastern cultures in the west be made to conform to viewing them in a manner which follows western etiquette?


There is something akin to this in sport... very recently Sinless City hosted a Pro Golf tournament and today the papers were full of the western players who had complained that spectators were using flash-photography as they were taking their swings and that children too young to exercise noise discipline at crucial times had been allowed in. Was that a case of the stuffy colonial sportsmen being *ahem* bad sports? Or should the local populus, in their eagerness to embrace the international competition, have exercised more care in learning the etiquette of being a golf spectator? One local who attended commented that the players shouldn't have come if they didn't want to be photographed, but I think he misses the point here (there were countless photo opportunities that did not have the potential to upset the outcome of the game) and the attitude does smack of cutting off ones own nose to spite the face - what incentive is there for these sportsmen to come back and provide further entertainment or photo opportunities if that's how you feel?

But is this a cultural thing or is it just a selfishness? "I want it, so I will take it, etiquette be damned". That is an aspect of life in Sinless City I see every day, on public transport, in queues at foodstalls, on the street hailing cabs, on the escalators... there are a lot of people here who seem to exist in the 'bubble-of-one' (please note that I am not accusing my Indian friends of this - far from it!). The truth is that in this country there is an underlying sense of individual self-importance and self-righteousness and one way in which this could be seen to manifest itself is in the way people act in the cinema.

The worst examples of this behaviour, the most selfish that I have seen on a mass scale, were at the Night Safari. This is a one-of-a-kind zoo experience where you get to see nocturnal and semi-nocturnal animals in the near-wild, pretty much under natural moon-light with very little artificial lighting used. Everywhere you go there are signs pleading with people not to use flash photography as it can blind (or in extreme cases even kill) the animals concerned. Yet on my three visits to the Night Safari I saw flash after flash as the modern 'big-game hunters' regarded their trophy-photographs of higher value than animal welfare.

Okay, it seems like I am stretching my point a little - cinema irritation to maiming animals in two easy steps - and the Night Safari experience cannot really be equated with my original question. But, despite cultural differences undoubtedly playing a part in so many upsets and misunderstandings in this diverse country, I firmly believe that the root of all these problems is a lack of respect. Let me watch these films how I am meant to watch them. And I will happily watch films from other cultures the way that they are supposed to be watched as well. Let the sportsmen get on with what they are supposed to do without getting unnecessarily parochial about it (I am just imagining a Formula 1 car at next years Sinless City Grand Prix being confronted by a local cyclist going against the traffic flow...). And for fucks sake - let those animals keep their corneas.

Cheers m'dears!

On the Dole

In the current piece by Clairwil, about her hairdo, she makes some mention of the DSS (Department of Social Services) in the UK, which brought back a few memories that I have decided to share...

My first job on leaving school (I didn't go to Uni straight away) was actually working at the DSS (or rather the ESJ - Employment Service Jobcentre - as it was called at that point). I never graduated to be one of those desk jockeys who 'jobseekers' had to explain themselves to, I just did the signings for dole money and sometimes worked on the job search desk.

One thing that struck me was that everyone always banged on about the lazy youngsters who were happy on the dole or who were working and signing on, yet for the most part I saw young people genuinely desperate to get a job - to be able to move out of home, settle with a girlfriend, whatever. Those who came in dragging their feet actually tended to be those who had been made redundant from middle-management in their late-forties and who had adopted an "I'm better than this" attitude... those who were often the ones moaning about the young scroungers!Yet I felt sympathetic to them too - it's a bitch of an age to become unemployed, to be deemed 'obsolete'.

Since then I have been on the other side of that desk more times than I care to remember and, frankly, I find it humiliating. I hated having to queue up for cash that was barely able to sustain a bloody gerbil, especially when I was able and willing to work. It's depressing feeling your mind rotting as it goes unused... but, having worked at the ESJ and having a sense of ethics, I was always honest about my earnings. Until.......

Being the go-getter I was I signed on to a temp agency and secured a week long assignment pretty much straight away. Over the course of the week I would earn a half-decent wage and, although I would lose a weeks dole money and housing benefit, I would be a bit better off and feel able to hold my head high. Or so I thought, until I went in and declared my earnings...

My signing on day was a Wednesday. As such the week that I worked had stretched across TWO weeks of benefits. The amount earned was enough to cancel out my dole money for both those weeks. I looked at the figures and I was still slightly better off so, despite feeling this was a little unfair, I let it ride. Then my housing benefit envelope arrived...

...with no cheque, just a letter. As I had been signed off as working for two weeks I was no longer entitled to housing benefit for that month. I quickly did the maths and worked out that, with all my enthusiasm for work and my honesty and integrity, I was actually quite a bit worse off than I would have been had I just sat at home watching daytime TV.

So I will come clean. Since then, whenever I have been on the dole, I have not shied away from earning a few pounds here and there doing odd jobs for mates without declaring it. If I have had longer term or reasonably well paid contracts then, yes, I have told the relevant people - I am, at heart, an honest man - but I won't be shat on like that again for doing the right thing. Oh, and on one occasion I deliberately failed an interview that the ESJ had sent me to because I knew that it would lead to exactly the same situation.

So in their eagerness to clamp down on those abusing the system the bureaucrats have inadvertently created new abusers, ones who don't actually want to cheat or lie but who are getting the shitty end of the stick if they don't. Do they even realise that they are partly to blame...?

Cheers m'dears!

I hateses it, I do...

I hate people who get lazy and rehash old posts on their blogs to make it look like they have actually created some output. But, then again, I fucking hate Hallowe'en more... so here is what I said about it last year in my post entitled "Shallowe'en"...

"Call me a miserable old cunt, but I really hate Hallowe'en. Seeing all the twats dressed up wandering around pubs in devil horns and black capes thinking they look so cool and 'fun-loving'... bollocks, you look like wankers. Especially those men who use it as an excuse to dress as a schoolgirl. Look, I have no problem with cross-dressing or anything, but just admit who the fuck you are for the rest of the year too. Don't use this one solitary night as an excuse to let your repressed urges out. It's just sad.

And all that "trick or treat" bullshit... what does it actually teach our kids? That it's okay to go around essentially threatening old folks. "Give us some sweets or we'll do something bad to you" - that's what it translates as. And to do it all whilst hidden behind masks? It's Dick Turpin and his ilk all over again - "Stand and deliver, your money or your life"! Fucking bastards..."

(as posted at http://averagetosser.blogspot.com/2006/10/shalloween.html )

Over on her blog FatMammyCat expresses a love for the "Holiday" (although as All Hallows Day is actually today, November the 1st, perhaps it is then that is the "Holy-day"?). She says that it is nice because it is a short one... Bollocks. That's only because she doesn't live in Sinless City where it's been going all fucking week. Still at least we don't have to put up with a teddy-bear wearing a Jason Vorhees mask as a "Guy" on November 5th (Guy Fawkes night, to all you non-Brits). There's nothing like a good celebration of burning Catholics, is there...

Cheers m'dears!

Spam, spam, spam, scam...

I received this e-mail today:

"Attention,the irish gaming board has held an online draw.the online draw is normally held once a month (october) and your email address has been selected along side five other winners,
contact coordinator: DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk )
file in your claims below as you have won one million three hundred and fifty thousand euros

Name;
Telephone:
Address:
Country/position:"

Now (even ignoring the fact that the grammar is fucking appalling) we all know that crap like this is a scam... or at least you would think we do. Yet dozens of people fall for them - usually the elderly, who are often less in tune with technology and more accepting of what they are told via it. And it fair fucks me off! So I replied...

Oh, I know I am not supposed to, that it opens the door to more of the same (etc., etc.), but once in a while I feel the need to just get arsey. So I sent back my details, as follows....

"Name; Mr U. R. Acunt
Telephone: 0800 FUCK-YOU
Address: 69 Youmustthinkimstupid Street
Country/position: Uranus"

Not the wittiest reply, but I feel better. And if anyone else would like to join me in return spamming DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ) please feel free to cut and paste my reply, or make up your own. Even better... why not forward all the other spam you receive to DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ), give him a taste of his own. That's DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ), by the way. He's a cunt.

Cheers m'dears!

(DR Sean Lennon (seanlennon_claimsagent10@yahoo.co.uk ))

Hasta la vista, baby!

Microsoft are cunts. Utter, utter cunts. Money-grabbing, time-wasting, monopolistic cunts!

It started a couple of months back when i bought my first computer. Yes, you read that right - my first computer. Until now all my blogging and other computer-related activities have relied on computers at net-cafes and work, as well as the sloooow one my mate Horlicks has. But my new job needed me to have a laptop so I bought one. Granted, it was a cheap one, so I have no right to expect speed or a massive memory for storing porn, but I should be able to expect to do basic office-type work on it hassle free, shouldn't I? Not according to fucking Microshit...

You see, all new computers now come with Windows Vista as their operating system. No choice in the matter, that's just how it is now. Having encountered the frustration that is Vista once before I was not hugely enamoured with the idea but I thought "What the hell... about time this ol' carcass was dragged into the 21st Century. Can't be that bad, right?"... fucking Micuntsoft!

It was only at home that I discovered that Vista does not come with Office as standard. No spreadsheet, no word processor... nothing that 99.999% of computer owners use on a regular basis. All I needed the thing for, aside from net access, was those two applications, but all I got from the fuckers was a 60-day trial version of the "new-improved" Windows Office... *sigh*. "Okay, I can live with this... use the trial for 60 days, during which time I have to save up enough to rival the economic spending power of a small country in order to pay for the full version. That should suffice for now, right?"... fucking My-cock's-soft!

I soon discovered that this spanking new Office wouldn't let me do simple tasks I had taken for granted (adjusting spreadsheet margins on the 'Print View' screen; Ctrl + Y to repeat an action; etc....). What the fuck? Why not? Why make a new version less usable than the previous ones? Then a friend pointed out that as this is the trial version it probably deliberately does not allow you to do these things, as blackmail - sorry, 'encouragement' - to buy the full version straight away. Now this, to me, is stupid. Isn't that what the time limit is there for? Why give out an inadequate tool? Doesn't really make me want to get the whole package... I would say it's akin to getting a free trial sachet of washing powder that does pretty much everything except get your clothes clean. "Try our brand - it smells great and bubbles nicely, but if you actually want to remove general dirt from your garments you'll need to buy the full packet".

Now, add in to this the fact that when I tried to open Word and Excel files that other people sent me I discovered that they are not compatible with my software. Neither are my files compatible with older Windows systems. They even have different suffixes. All of which makes the wonderful new and improved Office facility completely fucking useless to me.

Oh, and speaking of incompatabilities, my printer/scanner is also now of less use than the Scotland rugby squad, despite being less than two years old. I was given it a year ago, still in its packaging, by neighbours who were leaving the country, although my lack of computing facilities meant that it stayed in the box until now. Where it will also be returning shortly.

All in all I have wasted about 60% of my work time and another 30% of my free time this last week trying to decipher instruction manuals, following software upload procedures that result in "Unable to complete" messages, e-mailing tech support and getting answers to completely different questions from those I had actually asked and generally hurling obscenities at the wankers who designed all this. Fucking Microbrains!

Which is why I am not typing this from my laptop but from Lovely's, which has an older, more sensible version of Windows. And also why I have had to lock all my windows, lest I hurl it out of one of them in a fit of Anti-Gatesism...

Cheers m'dears!

For Auld Lang Syne?

Friday evening and, as usual, I am wandering into a bar to check out some music and sink a few jars. This particular bar is a regular haunt, the guy strumming guitar and crooning away a friend of mine, the bar staff well versed in my preferences and idiosyncracies. It is one of those places that feels utterly relaxing in its familiarity... so I was at first a little surprised when one of the barmen called out "Hey, Binty - where did you go to uni?". Not a question I am used to hearing from these guys... usually I get the progression from "Pint, Binty?" to "Do you really want us to call the cops, Binty?" over the course of the evening. But, being as sober as I was at that point, I answered truthfully. He then pointed to the other end of the bar and my surprise level rocketed.

There, in all his slightly balder, slightly fatter glory was an old acquaintence from the old Alma Mater. I do not use the word 'friend' because I can't say that we ever particularly were, although we certainly had many mutual buddies. Yet here he was beaming at me like he was my long-lost brother... and so began the unplanned evening of reminiscences.

I would not wish to bore you with all the details (that's a lie - I have no problem boring you all shitless, I'd just rather not bore myself again writing down all the "I can't believe it's been X years"'s and the "Did you hear about whatsisname?"'s), suffice to say long-forgotten and often cringeworthy events were resurrected and old names from the past bandied about... all the while with me sitting there desperately trying to remember what the fuck THIS guys name was! At some point in the evening I managed to introduce him to a local friend and all of a sudden, as they exchanged pleasantries (and names!) I was enlightened... except that the name still meant absolutely bugger all to me.

How many times do you find yourself in this kind of situation? Okay, maybe not on a daily basis, but even if it's just bumping into a kid you once temped with for a week at some dodgy office who then talks as if you and he were founding partners of the company, or finding yourself in line at the supermarket next to the mother of the boy you sat next to in playgroup (kindergarten, for non-Brits) as she tells you every detail of his life ever since... we cannot help but get locked down from time to time by these perfectly nice, totally well-meaning, yet ultimately time-consuming (and often dull) individuals. And this is where sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have become both a blessing and a curse...

Yes, I have been sucked into the mire of the Book of Face, as have several other bloggers listed here - although under my real identity of course. And it has been serving me well, illuminating me on my true past friends whereabouts and allowing me to re-establish several good relationships that had fizzled out simply because of distance and time pressures. As for the people I half-knew, I have no problem with linking up with them and checking their page once in a blue moon as it is something I can do at my own leisure, editing out the inconsequential bits that they tend to leave in when involved in face-to-face trips down memory lane. Yet whilst Facebook has proven to be a great way of keeping up to date with my friends all over the world I find myself constantly baffled by some of the friend requests I get. I mean, who the fuck are all these people? Did I really know them? Oh, right... so you were my ex-girlfriends housemates cousins friends uncle who I met for 5 minutes at a houseparty in Wigan in 1996... well, what are we waiting for! Let's be buddies!

(Another aspect I am very careful about is making sure that none of my students - past or present - are buddied with me, something which offends a few of them but I am not prepared to change my mind about... for fuck's sake, if they read some of the comments my friends have left me I would likely find myself out of a job!)

But that's all by-the-by... my half-point is really that for many people we don't stay in touch with there are reasons, even if those reasons are not ones of dislike but simply not being arsed enough. And as nice as it is to catch up and remember the good ol' days with your friends - your REAL friends - do we really want what little time we have left for making new friends and new memories to be eroded away by people and stories we had happily forgotten? And surely none of us want to simply be a contribution to some kid's pathetically sad claim to have a gazillion friends on MySpace... do we?

Cheers m'dears!

Identity - the meme

Okay, I am a bit slow on the uptake here but it has come to my attention that the aviating vermin has tagged me with another mo'fo'ing meme... and you know I HATE those things! But in lieu of any other form of inspiration for my random drivel I am inclined to take him up on the task...

So this one is 8 true facts about me with one utter porky. See if you can guess which one is balderdash...

1) I once acted in a popular British soap opera. No, I won't say which one. I still feel unclean. Suffice to say no-one I know even recalls ever seeing me in that role.

2) An ex-girlfriend of mine once contracted chlamidya... in her eye. It took the doctors weeks to work out what the problem was. And I'm sure many of them have dined out on that story since.

3) My favourite playwright is the relatively obscure Olwen Wymark, who was married to actor Patrick Wymark, twice celluloid-portrayer of Winston Churchill as well as Oliver Cromwell in Witchfinder General.

4) Despite growing up right by the sea (and I mean about 10 meters away from it at high tide) the highest swimming certificate I ever achieved was the 50 meters. And that was doggy-style. Err... I mean, 'paddle'!

5) I once full-on snogged a moustachioed man. There were extenuating circumstances. And it wasn't nice. Especially for him as I had been eating tuna from the tin 15 minutes previously.

6) I once lived two doors along from the scriptwriter for Roland Rat and The Krankies (sorry, non-Brits... you'll have to look those references up!). The latter I met in person at his house. It was not one of those hero-worship moments.

7) My father once stood in for Ian Anderson when he was unable to sing with his band Jethro Tull during auditions for a new drummer. Although that was around the Catfish Rising years, hardly a legendary period.

8) A picture I painted when I was only 16 can be seen behind Bob Dylan's head on the cover of his album 'World Gone Wrong'. It was hanging in the Camden gallery where Bob's photo shoot took place. For some legal bollocks reason I am not entitled to any royalties. Which is a bitch.

9) Yesterday on the MRT (tube / subway / metro, depending where you're from) another passenger accidentally showed me a picture on his phone of himself sitting on the toilet with his cock blatantly in shot. Oh, how we laughed.

If you get it right you get a nice little e-mail from me... but don't let on to anyone else! Oh, and Doc M., Kim, Sarah, FMC, Footsie... tag, you're it!

Cheers m'dears!

NOT an apology post.

I've been really busy, I'm afraid. Not that you are actually interested in my day to day life, but I just thought I'd let you know that I haven't forgotten about you all. I mean, I hate it when bloggers tell you all about their ultimately tedious reasons for having not sat at a computer screen trying to be witty. It's as if they are apologising for having the nerve to not entertain the rest of us, which displays a level of irony as the aoplogy posts themselves tend to have very little entertainment value. And, for gods sake, it's not as if you all want to know that I had fish heads for breakfast this morning before going to get my man-gina waxed...

Is it...?

Cheers m'dears!

A Little Rumination...

Sometimes I think the reason I don't go for Soap Operas on television is that they just don't seem real to me. I mean, constant unfaithfulness? Life-threatening situations? Familial revelations? Strange coincidences? Will-they/won't-they relationships? Give me a break!

My life is far fucking weirder that that...

Cheers m'dears!

Lost in Translation #03

Acronym-onious

In Sinless City they just love acronyms. You leave your HDB, drive down the PIE (or take the MRT), get cash from the ATM at the DBS or the POSB, use your HP to send an SMS and tell your friends to meet you in the CBD for a G'n'T before heading off to MOS to pick up an SPG*. It's ridiculously baffling, but I think I'm getting to grips with it. At least, I did until today...

Having spoken to my HOD, who wanted to report to the VP about my progress on the MT side of the IP here at [acronym removed so I don't get fired] I went for a coffee at the SAC and ended up chatting with some RBC's**. Mid-tedium one of my colleagues suddenly jumped up and announced that she had to rush because the P was expecting her. "That's a rather unusual way of excusing yourself to go to the bathroom" I said, gathering the finest set of blank stares ever assembled as a result. It took amoment to register but it eventually dawned that she was referring to the Principal... I mean, if the Vice Principal is the VP it stands to reason, right?

But really... how fucking lazy do you want to get?

Incidentally, you may have noticed the location of my morning coffee, the Student Activity Centre (fancy name for the school canteen). They are having a major drive at the moment to get the kids to clear up after themselves, something I fully support but doubt will catch on as adults in this country are just as bad in food courts. What caught my attention, however, was the way in which they decided to get this across to the students... a nice big sign bearing the legend "KEEP YOUR SAC CLEAN".

...and no-one had a clue why I was stifling that snigger!

Cheers m'dears!

*That's: "Housing Development Board" (state built flats); "Pan-Island Expressway"; "Mass Rapid Transportation"; "Automated Teller Machine"; DBS I'm not sure of... but it's a bank!; "Post Office Services Bank"; "Hand Phone"; again, not sure of the actual words but it's a text message...; "Central Business District"; "Gin 'n' Tonic"; "Ministry of Sound"; "Sarong Party Girl" (essentially a loose young woman)

**This lot are: "Head of Department"; "Vice Principal"; "Music Technology"; "Integrated Programme"; "Student Activity Centre"; "Ridiculously Boring Colleagues"

A Cross Stick

Bathtime is always portrayed as a curse on the young, but when I was a child I looked forward to my Sunday evenings, splashing around with my 'toy' boats that I had made out of lollipop sticks in school. Entertainment was achieved much more simply back then, and without the need to fork out ludicrous amounts of cash. Richard Gere is being a twat again, as if anyone really gives a fuck, although the Indian magistrates who are ordering him to appear before them because of his actions are behaving equally twattishly. English is something I speak but will never be able to teach. Fucked if I know why. 'Touching cloth' is one of those expressions that inexplicably sends a shiver down my spine....

Out here, and despite the wide group of friends I have, I find it easy to feel isolated and lonely, yet I have no desire to return to the bosom of my family and find myself either unwilling or unable to maintain contact with friends I left behind. Fickle fucker that I am.

I went to a St. Andrew's Society ceilidh last night, which was interesting but tame compared with the ones I grew up attending. Never done a 'Strip The Willow' in the tropical heat before, a dance that could only have been invented in a country as cold as Scotland. Societies such as this always bring out a mixed feeling of intrigue and fear in me and whilst I cannot help observe like some stalker-ish peeping Tom I have never wanted to join one. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, yet no-one has ever bothered to explain why a person so named would wish ridicule upon himself by choosing such an alliterative occupation. It would be like me finding employment balancing books for butchery and baking businesses. Rebellion itself is strangely nothing more than an act of conformity, as every generation takes their turn to do it. 'Abba-riginal' is the punchline to a joke I was told last night, but it is far too crap for me to waste your time with. 'Trochaic' is a new word I learnt only recently, which may in part explain why I will never be able to teach English, at least from a literary perspective. In the end, does any of it really matter? Once we look below the shiny trappings we have surrounded ourselves with and see them for what they really are, will they still hold the same allure? No, of course they won't......

Cheers m'dears!

Ahem...

That ol' Red Carpet again...

I've been so up to my ears in work and moving house the last couple of weeks that I haven't really read any other blogs, let alone update on this one. So I was pleasantly surprised whilst trawling through the back pages of the Ill Man site to discover that I have been nominated for an award - for 'Young Blogger of the Year'. Cheers, IM, the sentiment is very much appreciated. I am not doing very well, however, currently joint last with 3 votes. Unsurprising perhaps as my recent output has been sporadic and varying in quality, but the fact that there are those of you out there that contiue to check out this site - and I note I received two new links from other sites in the last fortnight as well - makes it all worthwhile.

Ill Man - I still haven't linked to you yet because I am a bone idle bastard, but I promise... it's coming! Anyone who wants to vote for me, it's here.

Speaking of awards, another kind-of-nice surprise this week was receiving an award at the school I work at. Well, two in fact. This week we had "Teacher's Day", the one day of the year where even the shittiest kids are really nice and respectful to you, even to the point of buying you presents and stuff. The 'informal' award I received was a shock in itself... the kids voted me 'Trendiest Male Teacher'. Now, believe me when I say that one thing I am not is trendy. But I suppose that since I am the only teacher who on dress-down Friday's doesn't tuck his t-shirt into his high-waisted trousers I was possibly the only available option. On a more formal note, at the compulsory (*groan*) evening meal for staff I was presented with an award for outstanding achievement at my school, which was nice, but... well, call me a cynic but I think my carefully planted rumours about leaving for another establishment may have found their target. Screw the award, I was after some better equipment and maybe even a small pay rise!

In truth that's probably quite an unfair assesment of my bosses, but regardless of how or why I 'won' my award I find that I am uncomfortable with it as I feel that I was only doing my job. The reasons stipulated on the award are the artistic events I have co-ordinated over the last 8 months, but then again they were the very things that I was employed to do. Okay, so they naturally often involve long hours and unpaid overtime, but to balance that out I also have the luxury of very short days with little homework to mark at other times of the year. There are others in my school who teach hugely complicated academic subjects and still dedicate themselves to extra-curricular activities as well, some of whom helped me out a great deal (and I couldn't have put on these events without them). It is they who deserve such recognition.

But then again, this is always a problem... we celebrate those that do flashy things, not those who sacrifice their own lives for others. Was mine really an award for Outstanding Achievement, or just for managing to Achieve Standing Out? And what about on a global scale...? The Oscars and their ilk? Fuck 'em! Where are the awards for the nurses, lifeguards, firemen... They are the people who truly deserve the standing ovations. Because what is more of an outstanding achievement than putting your own life on hold, or even at risk, to save a complete stranger?

Cheers m'dears!

Talking absolute crap...

As befitting someone who has been largely avoiding solid foods (excepting a regular intake of peanuts and assorted crappy snack items) in favour of a mainly liquid diet (we're not talking soup or protein-shakes here) I have, perhaps unsurprisingly, developed a rather free-flow evacuation procedure when it comes to my, uh, "waste material". Now, this is something which I always used to dread - the kind of internal motion that would creep up on you unawares, masquerading as a smidgen of trapped wind, and then flood out to surprise you in the most inconvenient of places. But what is nice about this present "irregularity" is that it is, in fact, pretty regular - therefore no getting caught with your trousers down (bad analogy, when I think about it).

In fact, this new high-speed dumping process has also left me with much more time on my hands. We're not just talking the reduction of the effort usually expended in the pushing, the flexing of those anal muscles - no, what is particularly pleasing is the minimised wiping effort. No scrubbing with endless reams until it's just as red as a baboon's because God, in a fit of cruel humour, decided to give me a better beard on those cheeks than on the ones usually reserved for such an honour. Instead one delicate 'swish', like those seen in kitchen roll adverts, and the minor mopping-up is complete.

And the final triumph? The fact that I no longer have to do either the "repeat-flush technique" or the "bent-coat-hanger-down-the-U-bend maneuver", as was so frequently required during my previous level of consistency.

How long this faecal heaven can last, I am unsure, but for now I'm as happy as a pig in sh... oh, wait - another bad analogy...

Cheers m'dears!

Irony, Schmirony!

Sitting in the boozer and a female friend (let's call her Flo, just for the hell of it) ambles in, plonks herself down on the stool next to me and then sighs loudly... I know I'm just asking for it, but...

"What's up, hen?"

Now, I'm not going to give you the full drawn out ramblings of what, indeed, was up - I like most of the people who read this blog too much to inflict that - so here is the edit...

"I met the love of my life. Turns out he's married. It's just like in that Alanis song, innit? Y'know, 'Ironic'"

Okay... red rag to a bull time. Ironic? Is it fuck! That's life, for fuck's sake! Of course I don't put it quite like that... instead I try to find out more about the situation, maybe to put Flo at ease. And the first thing I ask is "What is this wife like, exactly?"

"Oh, y'know... typical tall, slim beautiful blonde."

Now, I'm not a cruel man but I feel obliged to point out that this 'love of her life' being already married to a virtual supermodel, whilst obviously upsetting, hardly counts as 'ironic'. If this wife had been roughly 5'6", a little more curvacious, with short dark hair and a slighly wonky nose... now that might have been bordering on ironic purely by virtue of the wife then being a clone of Flo herself.

This observation doesn't go down incredibly well, so when Flo tells me the story of how 'dream-hubby' and his wife met at some event in Monte Carlo I opt for another approach...

Let's imagine for a second, going back say 4 years... a friend invites Flo to a dinner party where everyone will be in couples, but knowing Flo to be single she invites another gentleman to act as her blind date. This is a good friend, who manages to choose the perfect match for Flo, but unfortunately Flo (in the midst of her depression about being single) decides to drop out at the last minute. In desperation her friend, the host, calls up another girl to take her place... another girl with looks and interests very similar to Flo. The two strangers hit it off straight away and are married within a couple of years. Then, further down the line, Flo meets the 'love of her life'... who just happens to be the man she stood up four years ago and who has, in the meantime, married her doppelganger....

Now THAT's fucking ironic!

Flo chewed on this for a while before turning to me, her eyes curiously blazing.

"Do me a favour, Binty. Never take a job in Counselling."

Cheers m'dears!

It's my support and I'll apportion it as I see fit!

Okay, lets get this one thing straight. I can't be arsed with all that "I support anyone who plays against England" crap. I don't see a great amount of point to it, other than to piss off a few wankers that I know. But for fucks sake, no-one has a right to expect me to support England either. I am perfectly happy to just not give a shit.

These are the arguments I am usually given for why I should support England:

1) We're all British.

2) We support Scotland when they play.

3) You live in England. (Okay, I obviously don't get that anymore but I used to.)

4) Scotland don't have a hope of ever winning.

5) If you don't it must mean you're racist.

And here are my replies:

1) Yes, we are. But by that token would you expect Everton fans to support Liverpool? Man City fans to support Man Utd? And as for the Old Firm.....

2) That's great, I am sure it is much appreciated. That is, assuming you really mean "support". I recall two England fans giving me that one during France '98, and to be fair they did cheer Scotland on during the games. But come the fateful last group game where we crashed and burned who were the first in the queue to take the piss and taunt me for my beloved Scotland failing to make it through (again)... I'll give you one guess. That, my friends, is not support. I, on the other hand, do not give a fuck so I neither cheer nor jeer.

3) So, you're telling me that if you were living in Argentina or Germany you would support them in front of England? Thought not.

4) So, what happened to it not being about winning but taking part? Anyway, I am not seriously waiting for a trophy to be lifted (not that I'd object), I am simply praying for the day we make it into round 2 of any competition! And incidentally, I am utterly unconvinced that England will win again, at least not in my lifetime. So many other countries have improved so dramatically that I don't think England stand a chance. The English press seem to have this habit of whipping the supporters into a frenzy of expectation rather than a bond of hope, something which I find rather sad (and I would suggest contributes to certain "incidents" after losing matches).

5) No, it doesn't. Being abusive to the England team or their supporters (either physically or verbally) just because they are English would be racist (or technically "nationist" as "English" isn't actually a race), but simply not supporting them is not. Otherwise we would all be racist for not supporting all 32 nations involved in the cup.

So, there you go. Support who you will, it doesn't bother me. But do not presume to tell me who I should or should not cheer for...

...and, yes. I KNOW about 1966. Were you there? Because it was a few years before I was fucking born, and unless you have some first hand experience of the event that I haven't already heard will you please just fuck off.

Cheers m'dears!

Hey, it says "random" in the title, doesn't it!?

There is a woman who I see often as I wait for my bus to work. She looks a bit odd, a bit like a Chinese version of Anne from Little Britain ("Eh, eh, eeehhh!!"). And she walks backwards. For weeks I thought about this and finally decided it must be some kind of weird bone disorder that makes her legs unable to function forwards, and I felt very sorry for her, only able to see where she'd been, never where she was headed. And it must be dangerous too. And then one day, as she was walking along, she suddenly turned around and started walking forwards... go figure.

I just had it pointed out to me that a certain bottled water manufacturer has a sense of humour. I always wondered, having lived in countries where the tap water is perfectly safe, just what the obsession was at paying what seems to me over the top prices for a bottle of H2O... but then if you spell Evian backwards...

I think I may have another bout of hem... haemorr... heamer... *sigh* piles coming on. Or should I say 'pile' since I only ever get one at a time. I got my first one at the tender age of 20, but have been grape-free for about 3 years now. I think they are the reason I will never understand Sarah's obsession with anal beads...

Yesterdays date was 6/6/6, which freaks the shit out of some folk but not over here. The Mandarin word for "six" sounds a lot like the word for "lucky" or "good" or something so yesterday was a bumper day for weddings. Although I worry a little about any births that may have occurred.........

Apparently Wayne Rooney has been spotted kicking a football. Apparently the whole of the English press are having multiple orgasms over the "event". Apparently I couldn't give a flying fuck what that arse-faced twat does.

I once dated a girl who thought I was romantic because I said her eyes looked like eclipses. I wasn't being romantic. She had blue irises (what the fuck is that plural? Irees? Iri?) and around the pupil there was a kind of thin but very uneven golden ring. I wasn't trying to get laid, I just said what I saw.

King Darius the Mede wasn't called Darius at all but Darayavahush. Typical Anglicization of a name. I wonder how many kids out there know that. I wonder how many kids out there know that there was a guy called Darius that wasn't simply famous for being a twat on Pop Idol, or whichever wank show it was that he appeared on.

Oh, and by the way... Feet really piss me off. Especially YOURS!

Cheers m'dears!