Blue Birds

A short interjection in amongst all my lovely fictional posts. Otherwise you'll forget who I am!

My long affair with the British public house is finally over. Saturday night was several beers and one violent stare too many. I had to concentrate on my friend's face in order to avoid eye contact with a drunk man with an evil look. And I swore I'd never drink in the same pub as my dad ever again!

As for the beer, I felt sick all Sunday and all I could manage that evening was a soothing gin and orange. Wine? Oh yes, wine too. But the rush I used to get from beer just isn't there any more. It's been replaced by nausea.

In other news, my mum's friend's over from Canada, mainly to see Vera Lynn in concert. At 92, I doubt Vera will be up to much singing. But I'm sure it will be an emotional afternoon and a jolly good sing-song, though the audience will mainly be the sons and daughters of Vera's Wartime fans.

Vera's chart comeback makes me wonder who was the Vera Lynn of our War, The Falklands.

Clare Grogan, perhaps?

The Nostradamus Eleven

Nostradamus (pictured above) is probably most famous for his amazing prophecy which predicted the Second World War, to be instigated by an evil, shady character called Hister (our "Hitler").

What is less known is his prediction that an England football team would win the World Cup. Incredibly, the old goat kept a notebook in which he wrote down the names of all the players in the 1966 England World Cup Final team, other characters involved in the competition and even drew remarkable sketches which, thanks to modern computer technology, have recently been transformed into monochrome and even colour photographs!

So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I am pleased to present to you...

ALF RIMSEY'S GOLDEN WONDERS


Head Coach: Alf Rimsey


Gordon Bonks


George Coben



Jackie Chilton


Bobby Mayre


Ray Wilkins


Alan Balls


Nobby Steel


Martin Peterson


Bobby Chilton


Roger Hunter


Geoff Hister

Nostradamus had such incredible powers he even foresaw that the cup itself would be stolen and then thankfully found by a remarkable animal...


Dog, Biggles, with owner and World Cup

And who could forget the mascot of that great tournament?


World Cup Wally

The Edible Shrinking Man

I walked through the open microwave oven door.

"Do me!" I said.

"I can't do it," she said.

"Shut the door and turn the dial!"

The oven ceiling was a good two inches above my head. I was ready for death, though I could have done with a plastic horse to sit on as the plate rotated.

"If you loved me you'd do it!"

Margaret rushed out of the kitchen in tears. Left me all alone.

What had made me think she could kill the man she loved? She'd stayed with me, hadn't she? Through months of watching me shrink from a six foot hunk to a five inch mouse. I jumped out of the oven and made my way to the intercom.

"Margaret, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

She came and got me and put me on my chair in front of the plasma tv. The big screen.

"So, what's it to be?" she said, sorting through the DVDs. "Gulliver's Travels?"

I shook my head forcefully. I'd had enough of that shit, night after night.

"Inch High, Private Eye?"

She gave me that smile she gave me when she told me she was pregnant, all those years ago. She couldn't have! How could she have got it? It wasn't out for another three months by which time I'd be the size of an ant!

I couldn't contain my glee.

"You've got it! You've got it!" I jumped up and down for sheer joy.

"That's why I couldn't cook you, my darling. Maybe after we've watched this a few times, eh? Maybe when Graham comes round on Sunday. We'll watch this for the last time, all together. Then I'll do a nice roast. With all the trimmings."

The Greens' Staycation

Mr & Mrs Green planned their staycation with military precision. Each day they were to rise early, take breakfast on the patio, pack their rucksacks with books, sun cream, hats, umbrellas and medication, and take a gentle stroll to the train station with plenty of time to buy tickets for their destination.

The Greens were not affected by the credit crunch. They just wanted a carbon-neutral year. They wanted the local economy to benefit so their budget was to be without limit. By not spending all that money on travel and accommodation, they could do whatever they wanted to, without reason.

Mrs Green fancied the London Eye. Mr Green didn't so much as he had a terrible fear of heights. He didn't mind flying but those pods looked so exposed up there!

On the other hand, Mr Green liked the idea of the London Aquarium. But guess what! Mrs Green had a fish phobia!

But, of course, the beauty of a staycation is that all that money saved on fares and hotels can be spent on things that don't damage the environment. And it so happened that Mr & Mrs Green knew exactly what to do to ensure they both enjoyed every second of their two weeks off.

They would spend the money on seeing a hypnotherapist to conquer their fears.

So for the equivalent of two weeks in the Bahamas they got to go on a big wheel and see some cunting fish. And it pissed down with rain most of the days.

The Busker

An old geezer once asked me to play some Dylan. Wrong generation, mate. Your classics are not necessarily mine.

The oldest song I play is Every Breath You Take. Most of my set is stuff from the 90s. Losing My Religion, High And Dry. I might even throw in the odd Wonderwall or Don't Look Back In Anger to please the masses.

I had this group of lads once, stopped and sang along. Wanted me to do an Oasis medley. I didn't mind doing it. It was a laugh. You don't get many laughs as a busker.

Sometimes you might see a married couple and you get eye contact with the woman. On her way to M&S or Sainsbury's, the old man in tow. At that moment you feel like you're singing just to her. That's a sweet feeling, that connection. A sweet feeling.

Nothing Idyllic (For Liz Jones)

Country life is not for the faint-hearted, It is red in both tooth and claw. Yet it happens time and time again that a city dweller has a totally unrealistic chocolate box idea of the country and without a great deal of research foolishly ups sticks and moves to what they think will be a rural idyll.

But there's nothing idyllic about mucking out your own husband's shit. Nothing idyllic about having a ewe vomit into your face as your husband pulls out a bloody, gunky newly-born lamb as his shit runs down his legs into his Wellington boots. Nothing idyllic about having to drive 30 miles to a chemist for Imodium as your husband sits in the back of the Land Rover, shitting into a bucket. Nothing idyllic about having your husband shit on you during intercourse as he cannot control his bowels as he ejaculates. Nothing idyllic about hosting a dinner party round the Aga and as you tuck into your organic lamb you hear your husband in the adjoining lavatory, evacuating for England. Nothing idyllic about having lunch in a quiet country pub and your husband coming out of the Gents letting loose a noxious smell which permeates the bar for the next 20 minutes.

No, country living is no bed of roses. But I would not want it any other way.

Billy Bus

Billy Bus was a big red beast, a gentle giant. He moved through town with extra special care, looking out for pedestrians and other vehicles, never jolted forward like some other buses, and treated all his passengers the same, from the most courteous to the very rudest. He bore vandalism, sex, violence, fast food and body odour like the trouper he was. He never complained but worked hard from morning till night.

About a year ago, some middle class fucking cunt wrote a children's book about him and made a fucking fortune. The stories are currently being made into a very profitable television series.

Did Billy get any of the proceeds? Did he fuck! He continues to work as hard as he ever did for absolutely no reward.

The Face Off

They were in the pub, the rugby crowd. Having a good time with their pints and their rugby songs. The landlord had never had any trouble with the rugby crowd. Boisterous, yes, but good humoured.

Then things turned nasty.

A gang of golfers walked in, fresh from the links. Every one was in a bad mood as they'd each shot a 10 on the 18th hole. They were spoiling for a fight.

The smallest golfer caught the hooker's eye. They were brothers and hated each other for their choices in life. The golfer had left school at 16 to become a plumber. The hooker was a chartered accountant. They both had large houses on the same estate, but never talked to each other, were never at the same family gatherings. The last time they'd spoken there'd been blood.

"Alright, lads," said the landlord. "What can I get you?"

"Little drinks for little balls," said the hooker, looking directly at his brother.

"Now come on, lads. We don't want any trouble, do we?" said the landlord.

"We all shot a 10 on the 18th," said the smallest golfer. "Our weekend can't get any worse. We've come here to drown our sorrows. We don't want any trouble, either. But if trouble comes looking for us..."

"Hear! Hear!" said the other golfers, as one.

The rugby crowd put their pints on the bar. Each of them stared daggers at a separate golfer. The hooker had fratricide in his eyes.

"Come on, lads," said the landlord. "Let's settle this like gentlemen, shall we? What about a nice game of darts? Winning team gets a free round."

Suddenly, in walked Mr Cockle, Purveyor Of Fine Seafoods.

"Seafood!" he growled, in such a smooth, sensual way.

The tension was broken, the brothers' stares melted, the rugby crowd picked up their pints, and they all mingled like long lost friends, feasting on whelks.

Antisocial Basterds

You've probably guessed by now that the scenes described in the last couple of posts on this blog didn't really happen. Real-life events are so unreal at the moment that the only way I can conceive of responding to them is to write fiction. So please bear with me as I go completely mad.

I've got a two week break coming up and will be taking another "staycation". I have the following activities penciled in. Will we enjoy ourselves or are there other things we could be doing or seeing within an hour or so's train ride of London?

1. Oxford
2. London Zoo
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Little Venice Circular Walk

These are all daytime activities, of course. Evenings are for sitting in front of the telly, drinking ourselves into oblivion. Antisocial basterds that we are.

Bob Boskins

An old actor friend of mine died a few weeks ago. At his funeral there were all these luvvie types saying how he would have wanted us to celebrate his life, not mourn his death. You know the scene from Four Weddings & A Funeral? Just like that, it was.

This twat in a beret got up and performed a poem. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." His was a very soft voice which did not rage well but there was not one dry eye in the house, save mine.

It was a Humanist funeral, full of smug cunts. A Dawkins-lite tosser in a cream suit took the service. Fuck knows how he managed to sneak Darwin into it, but I suppose the deceased was a bit ape-like.

The spit of Bob Hoskins, in fact. I used to call him the cockney Bob Hoskins. I did this short at film school, Bob Boskins, in which he played the leading role. You've seen Being John Malkovich? Based on Bob Boskins, that was. Did I get the credit? Did I, fuck.

So they played a Rufus Wainwright song as we all took a few minutes to remember our friend. Rufus Wainwright. I hate him. My dead friend hated him. He obviously wanted me to suffer because he knew all those luvvie types like all that fake emotion.

Bastard.

Four Hands

"Free Kleenex tissues!"

It happens about once a month. I exit the train station and they're there, blocking the pavement.

"Free tissues!"

Free tissues. A little pack of Kleenex tissues. The anti-viral sort that kill germs.

Not very useful for me. I use more toilet paper than I do tissues most days. And I don't think anti-viral tissues are suitable for wiping your arse.

"Free tissues!"

People are lapping them up. Look at him! That bloke over there! He can't get enough free tissues. He opens one of his packets. He takes out a tissue. He holds it to his hooter and blows. He feels good. He feels so good he might wipe his arse on one of the tissues later. I wouldn't if I were him. But I think he's going to. You don't get much for nothing nowadays and what you do get you've got to get maximum value out of it. Not only blow his nose and wipe his arse, he may well have a little wank into one when he gets home. Just a little one, half a teaspoon or so. They're not mansize you see, but they will kill 99% of the germs in his jizz. If only he could do all three at once. Blow his nose, wipe his arse and have a little wank. But he'd need four hands for that. Count them.

Flags And Blood

I am not "West 'am". No matter how much I love the team I have never and would never fight for its name. Whatever that means. My relationship is with the team and the team alone. I am not a supporter. I am a fan.

When I've been to matches I've felt conscious of people around me. But I get so lost in the game that what they're saying or doing doesn't interest me in the slightest. Chants are background noise. I'm there but it's as if I'm watching it on tv. I feel tuned in to what's going on on the pitch and I block out everything else. Even the annoying bloke with the loud voice in the row behind me.

I am a fan. A supporter is a different animal. He or she feels at one with their fellow supporters. At its extreme, this feeling translates into a violent pride in their own people and an antipathy towards others. All the more so if the others are as close as family. Family who choose to wrap themselves in a different flag.

All this bollocks about going back to the dark days of the 70s and 80s! Proud allegiance has always been and always will be dark.

Wave a flag and you've got blood on your hands.

Conkers and Clackers

Primary school was kind of OK. I wasn't bullied by any of the boys and even made friends with a few of them. The one Asian kid's school life was probably hell as I don't remember anybody making friends with him.

I was, however, once bullied by one of the girls. Lesley gave me a Chinese burn. So I told my mum and one afternoon by the school gates my mum got hold of her by the arms and shook her. She wouldn't touch me again.

Apart from that one incident I didn't have any dealings with the girls. I didn't play kiss chase.

In the year of the clackers we crowded into the shelter out of the rain at playtime and made a cacophonous noise. Knuckles were hurt and eyes were dislodged. I was very nervous of clackers but didn't want to show it. I closed my eyes and clacked for England.

More hand pain came with the conker season. Clackers were banned by the government but conkers remained as part of the playtime syllabus. I went to the park with the twins and we'd throw branches up at the massive horse chestnut trees, bringing fresh conkers down in their dozens. We got pretty accurate at throwing. Conkers were either put in the freezer section of the fridge along with the ice pops or pickled in large jars, along with the onions. You had to do something to your conker to prepare it for battle.

My literary life was gathering pace, too. I soon grew out of Peter and Jane and moved onto comics. None of those namby pamby children's books for me. I read Whizzer & Chips from cover to cover but never considered myself a Whizz-Kid or a Chip-ite. I was my own man.

I read other comics, too. But never the super-hero type or that prat Roy of the Rovers. Mine were more down-to-earth, prototype Viz comics. My favourite character was a boy who could only play football in his unwashed bare feet. You'd see him in the bath, his feet on the rim, nice and dirty.

Education, Education...Oh, please yerselves

Good luck to all the students who've just received their A-Level results (even the twats amongst them). I remember the complete and utter sense of joy when I opened my envelope. I leapt in the air with the other girls in my school as we all got straight As and all looked forward to a life of privilege.

I was thinking there must be some people who, even in their 20s, 30s, 40s and higher, are interested in how their old school does each year. They have a sense of pride or disappointment or pride mixed with disappointment or maybe anger that in their day their school's results weren't as good because teachers back then were so fucking hopeless they couldn't even sew their own leather patches on their jacket elbows let alone get the brightest young people of a generation into the best universities.

I was most impressed this year by the poor East London boy who got into Cambridge.

Surprise, surprise, throwing the equivalent of £24,000 a year's worth of education at a poor kid, you end up with a similar result as you do if mummy and daddy pay for their little cherub's future. It seems the experiment worked and we now know we're all the same under the skin.

Books For Blokes

What about those Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides. Useful, aren't they?

The one I find most useful is 100 Must-Read Books For Men.

Cos I'm a man, you see. You can tell just by looking at me.

The book's recommended authors include Lance Armstrong, Len Deighton, Tony Parsons, Jeremy Clarkson. Yes, it's really arty, as you'd expect a book with the name "Bloomsbury" on the cover.

And just imagine my testosterone going into overdrive as I ambled through the library at the weekend. After flicking through Wife In The North in the Quick Choice section, my eyes alighted on a sign.

"Books For Blokes".

I was like a pig in shit. James May, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, Peter Crouch, Lee Sharpe, Jonny Wilkinson, Chris Moyles, George Lamb, Graham Norton. The literary taste of every man in Britain was represented. I took an armful to the self-service machine and withdrew those books in such a manly way the young female library assistant literally fainted at my feet.

I think she'd been reading too many Mills & Boons.

Don't You Find The Weeks Are Getting Shorter?

Hi there. It's good to be back and it's good to have the football back. Good luck to all your teams and look out for Carlton Cole this season. The big man is either going to be immense or he's going to snap his cruciate ligament today against The Wolves and leave us with no centre forward.

This week I have been reading Rog's recommendation, Billy Liar. I like the book a lot but once again it's let down by the blurb on the cover. "Dictator, soldier, cripple, successful novelist, convict; this is Billy, a hero for our times." Um, no, not really. Just a selfish young man trapped in a shitty life.

Last week Tim tweeted about how good The Korgis were. So, with just their most famous song on Spotify, I took a chance and bought their Very Best. And very good it is, too.

Here's a truncated version of their first hit which you won't find on Spotify. Apparently it's "un tema que popularizo Rod Stewart". So it wasn't a hit in Spain, then?

Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home

We found our dream house, a three bedroom semi. Large garden for me to run around in. This was 1966, a year of affordable housing for an ordinary single income working family. You would need three incomes nowadays to get anything similar.

I was back on familiar ground. Back to the three of us. So much more civilised.

I started school again. Even though it was a small school, I hated being with all those children. And the teachers were so old, older than my parents.

The alphabet was drilled into us. The times table was, too. We started to read about those lovely children, Peter and Jane. Peter and Jane loved each other like most brothers and sisters in fiction. I wonder where they are now? Do they still keep in touch?

The Peter and Jane books were published by Ladybird. A different Ladybird made children's clothes. And then, of course, there were the real ladybirds in the garden in summer. Of the three, I preferred the insects. Ladybird books and Ladybird clothes weren't particularly exciting. They weren't alive.

I "played" with the girl next door. Meaning we were put together so one of the mothers could be free for a bit. I was still in my own little world and wanted nothing but my own company.

Eventually I made some friends. Or rather they made friends with me. The twins were nine months younger than me and in the class below. They were cousins of my second cousins so I guess that's how we ended up together. I was a spoilt only-child and had toys and they liked to play with my toys. One of them was more boisterous than the other and broke a lot of my toys.

I started supporting West Ham as West Ham had won the World Cup for England. Bobby Moore was my favourite player as he was the world's best player. My choice of football team wasn't based on geography or tradition. My dad had been a Charlton supporter because they were the nearest team to Bexley. I was a glory hunter, just like those Cockney Reds. All I could see in front of my eyes was a future of trophies and winning heroes, crying with joy. A lifetime of success.

The Grim Reaper

The phone rings. I pick it up.

"Hello, this is Terry from Uncut Magazine. You were previously a subscriber."

"Yes."

"We don't like to lose our readers. We're offering you the next three months of Uncut for only £5."

"No, thank you."

"Oh. Can you tell me why you stopped subscribing to Uncut?"

"I was just bored with it, basically."

"Oh. Thank you for your time."

I am amazed this magazine is still going. Those of its readers who aren't stopping their subscriptions must be dying off. Yes, Allan Jones has 8 million stories to tell, but they're all exactly the same. Allan gets pissed with Nick Lowe or Elvis Costello or Ian Gomm or Wreckless Eric or Billy Bremner or the bloke who played the drums for Ducks Deluxe. Big deal, Allan.

The magazine's obsession with so-called "Americana" was bordering on the insane. Bands who get audiences of three perennially single middle aged men wearing Bob Dylan 2005 Tour t-shirts and reeking of onions were getting double page spreads! The reviews always included "stunning" returns to form by artists who peaked in the 1960s and whose new albums were recorded on life support machines. The covers featured close ups of male artists so old that we were actually on a government register as corpse fetishists.

So, no, I didn't take up Terry's offer. For music was my first love. And it will be my last.

But it's gotta have some life in it for gawd's sake.

OU Pretty Things**

"In the darkly-comic Hangover Square, Patrick Hamilton brilliantly evoked a seedy, fog-bound world of saloon bars, lodging houses and boozing philosophers, immortalizing the slang and conversational tone of a whole generation and capturing the premonitions of doom that pervaded London life in the months before the War."

Christ, it's no wonder I only got an 'E' for my English Literature 'A' level.

1. I didn't get the humour.

2. I didn't recognise the seediness.

3. I don't remember any fog.

4. I think saloon bars are sophisticated, especially in comparison with public bars.

5. I don't remember the characters philosophising.

6. Was there any slang? I can't recall any.

7. How did these few selfish people represent a whole generation?

8. Were they that bothered about the forthcoming war?

Still, that is the blurb on the back of the book. I was inside the main character's head, saying "Kill them, kill them, kill them." and "Run away, run away, run away." I got completely immersed. I didn't see all the things you're supposed to see as a student of literature.

And that's where my problem lies, where I don't fit into the world of literary education. I am either swept along by a book or I couldn't give a shit. Usually it's the latter.

And speaking of education, did you see the documentary about the Open University? Lenny Henry said that without his extremely hard-earned OU degree he would never have played Othello. Why? Because doing a degree made him into a natural actor, I presume.

Not only is he a new Gielgud, but Lenny now understands every nuance of every Shakespeare play, as mere mortals who haven't done a degree could never do.

Myleene Klass is also doing an OU degree. I just don't know where she gets the time as she is such a busy lady. If I were even half as busy as Lenny Henry or Myleene Klass there is no way I'd find the time to study for a degree.

Kudos to the pair of them.



** Title copyright Betty

I'm An Edinburgh Man, Myself

What a load of bollocks in today's Guardian about increased ticket sales this year for the Edinburgh Fringe.

"This increase in popularity is also put down to greater numbers of "staycationers" - people having their annual holidays at home, as well as the need to find an escape from the recession through comedy, theatre and the arts."

I think what we have here with these fucking staycationers and the fashionably frugal Cath Kidston frock-botherers is the pampered rich middle class playing at being affected by the recession.

You're spending your "annual holiday" (as if you only have two weeks off a year) "escaping the recession" (as if you don't do that every day you're in paid employment) "through comedy, theatre and the arts" (as if anybody on jobseeker's allowance could afford any of these poncey evenings out).

Why not spend your time off turning off your computer and your Sky tv, shopping for tins at Lidl and getting a book out of the library? Pretend you really are unemployed.