Watch Out, There's a Humphrys About

Being a man of leisure, I am now able to further my career as a writer of letters, or "emails" as they are now known, to institutions. What follows is the email I have just sent to the BBC concerning their programme The Future State of Welfare with John Humphrys.

The Future State of Welfare with John Humphrys chose its interviewees, not as a representative sample of the UK's population, but in order to confirm commonly held prejudices about the kinds of people who are supposedly "being given something for nothing in this country", unrepresentative of the vast majority of claimants but always brought up in conversation by people who are well off themselves and not interested in finding out the whole story of who gets welfare and whether it is, in many cases, enough to live on.

There was the newly immigrant family who are receiving an incredibly high amount in housing benefit for a spacious, extremely habitable looking flat in Islington. This panders to the prejudice we hear time and time again of immigrants jumping to the front of the housing queue and living in expensive properties.

There was the single mother with seven children living on benefits which panders to the prejudice that thousands of young women keep giving birth just because they know they'll be looked after by the state no matter how many children they have.

There was the woman on incapacity benefit living with ME, or "yuppie flu"as the prejudiced might say when asked what sort of people are getting benefits when there is nothing seriously wrong with them.

The programme did not qualify as impartial, saying that there was a consensus amongst political parties in the UK about welfare, ignoring the millions of people who are not represented by the main political parties. The programme looked for welfare solutions from the USA, hardly a good example for the eradication of "squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease" which was the aim of the Beveridge Report.

Opinion was taken not from just America but also from young Poles working in this country who were of the opinion that welfare in the UK was too generous as compared to Poland where it is not possible to live on state benefits. Nothing was said about poverty in the UK and the difficulties millions of people have making ends meet not just on welfare but on the poor minimum wage and above. Although two of the interviewees said it was not worth their while working because they would end up with very little more in their pockets, the obvious solution of a higher minimum wage was not mentioned. It was all about making life more miserable for people, not about giving them a decent standard of living.

On Spitting

It looks like El Hadji Diouf could be on his way to West Ham. And West Ham fans are furious. Because years ago, when he was playing for Liverpool, he spat in the general direction of West Ham fans.

You see, spitting is the worst thing you can do to someone. It makes you less of a human being than, say, a hero like Paolo Di Canio who has described himself as a fascist.

A spit is beyond the pale. Much worse than a good old honest punch.

Well, I don't see people dying from being spat at. Unlike the local man who was punched outside a kebab house last week.

The most recent spitting I've seen is from footage of The World at War which we are currently watching. Russian women who had experienced the horrors of invasion were spitting at captured German soldiers.

Just maybe El Hadji Diouf had provocation. But spitting at someone, no matter what they've said to you, has no place in a civilised society. We are English. We only spit on the pavement or at the urinal. We punch people, we kick people, but we don't spit at them. We are civilised.

The Standard of Living - Part 2

Though a couple both on jobseeker's allowance just about make 40% of the average British household income, a single person doesn't. £67.50 per week is a mere 34% of a single person household's average income. Maybe the single unemployed ought to give up their computers, their link to the outside world, so they can have a healthier diet. Yes, that's what they should do.

But once again the poverty experts make a minimum standard of living sound so luxurious that policy makers are not going to take them seriously.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation commissioned a survey of the great British public to ask them what they think people need to reach a minimum standard of living.

You can do the questionnaire here and it basically says that after rent, mortgage interest, council tax, buildings insurance and water charges, a single person needs £163 per week or 82% of average income to maintain a minimum standard of living. A couple would need £259 or 76% of a couple's average income.

The public doing the survey were asked what the minimum should be that nobody should fall below. I don't know whether they were then asked what the level of jobseeker's allowance should be. I doubt it.

The Standard of Living - Part 1

As I was saying, it's not the unemployment that gets you down, it's the poverty. And we're now officially living on poverty income. Though it doesn't feel like it. Why not? Let's take a look at the figures, shall we?

Relative poverty, or low income, in the UK is 60% or less of the average (median) British household income in that year, measured after income tax, national insurance, council tax, rents, mortgage interest, buildings insurance and water charges have been deducted. It's therefore based on what a household has to spend on everything else it needs, from food, clothing, light and heating to travel and entertainment.

In 2008/09, 13.5 million people, 22% of the population in the UK were living in households below the 60% threshold. That is a fuck of a lot of people and these are official figures used by the government for poverty in the UK, don't forget. So why hasn't there been a revolution?

Let's see what under 60% of the average couple's income of £343 per week looks like for a couple like us who are non-smokers, home drinkers at weekends and home broadband users at a minimum (because the government want us all online, of course).

60% means we get to run a car, have Sky (as we love Mr Murdoch's service), save up for repairs and renewals and have a holiday abroad.

55% means we get to run a car, have Sky (as we love Mr Murdoch's service), save up for repairs and renewals and have one holiday in the UK.

50% means we get to run a car, have Sky (as we love Mr Murdoch's service), save up for repairs and renewals and have no holidays.

45% means we get to run a car, have Sky (as we love Mr Murdoch's service), not save up for repairs and renewals and have no holidays.

40% means we have no car, no Sky (even though we love Mr Murdoch's service), not save up for repairs and renewals and have no holidays.

At the moment, in our circumstances, I'm budgeting for 45-50%. We'll see how it goes.

40% is about the level of jobseekers' allowance for a couple, assuming housing costs are paid for by the state.

The number of people in the 50-60% range, the reasonably well-off low-income people, has remained stable in the range of 4 to 4.8 million between 1979 and 2009. The 40-50%, not particularly well-off low-income people, have had more of a rocky ride and are up from 2 million in 1979 to 3.5 million in 2009. But the poor sods on 40% or less have rocketed from 1.3 million to 5.9 million (up from 2.4% of the population to 9.8%).

I know the Tories like to create poor people, but surely New Labour did a Hell of a lot for the less-well-off, I hear you say.

Well, New Labour took two million people out of the 40-60% range but added nearly a million to the under 40%s.

So when a government says they want to get people out of poverty, they mean relative poverty and they mean getting those who are pretty well off in the scheme of things to above 60% of average income. If they were serious about giving the poorest people a bit of a life they'd increase benefits by at least 15-20%, double the pathetic minimum wage and make sure everybody is living in reasonable housing conditions.

Next I'll be looking at single people on the dole and the incredible Minimum Income Standard funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.


*all figures for the above from www.poverty.org.uk

Aimless (6)

Since we’d moved to Crayford, my dad had been working at silk-screen printers David Evans, just down the road. He left early in the morning and came back early in the evening, then de-camped to the garage or his allotment. It was about this time his world started falling apart.

His sister, a kindly generous woman, had died at the age of 42 in the early 70s. She had a brain tumour which was operated on. She died from the operation. My dad wouldn’t accept her death, blaming the surgeon. A man who had said his prayers religiously before going to bed now lost his faith and became vociferously atheist. He now asked if there is a God, why did he allow his sister to die at such a young age? She’d never done anything to deserve that.

My own road to atheism was not so fraught. I’d never believed, never been brainwashed by my family or school. In fact at primary school I couldn’t believe that any of us believed. We used to take the piss something rotten out of the school’s vicar. The Grumbleweeds were a crap childishly-humorous pop band at the time and one of the band was introduced with the call ‘Watchya, Baldy!’ Our vicar was almost bald so he got the same treatment from our class when he came to spout his Christian bollocks.

Not long after my dad's sister's death, his mum went, too. My grandad was in hospital with lung cancer and my dad went to check up on his mum as usual and found her slumped in her chair, dead from a heart attack. Or the heartbreak of losing a daughter.

My grandad came out of hospital and came to stay with us, in my little box bedroom. My sister moved into my parents’ bedroom as I had hers. I kept myself to myself, carried on with my studies and my tennis and my music and my reading.

After a while my grandad was taken to hospital to die and my dad was left with no mum and dad and no sister. He withdrew into himself and would spend more and more time by himself over the next few years, making things in the garage and growing things in the allotment. Brewing his own beer, drinking his home-brewed beer. Christmas was the time we noticed him getting drunk but in reality he was getting drunk all the time. He was becoming a secret alcoholic.

But those Christmases were the worst. My dad was bitter that he’d lost his family and my mum’s were all intact. Especially as his family were so much friendlier and down to earth, salt of the earth. He didn’t get on with his mother-in-law who he thought sucked the life out of life with her expectations of her daughters to come running at a moment’s notice and her philosophy of life as ‘hell on earth’.

So because Christmases were seen as big family occasions, my dad resented having to spend every Christmas from now on in the company of my mum’s family. The three sisters took it in turns to cook and we’d all get together, pussyfooting around my grandmother as she sat in the corner of the room, a few feet from the television set, the television turned up loud when anything came on which she wanted to watch. My grandmother had fucked her hearing earlier in her life by cleaning the wax out of her ears using knitting needles which presumably, like the opening medicine, would never do her any harm.

Of course the Queen’s Christmas Message was the highlight of the day for my grandmother who couldn’t get enough of what the Queen was wearing, how she was looking so good for her age, how she was speaking directly to each and every one of us although if you’d asked my nan after the event what the Queen had actually said I’m sure she wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Some bollocks about the Commonwealth I’m sure with pictures of black children far away, far away enough not to worry about being swamped in this country by non-whites. My dad, being a staunch anti-Royalist from birth, seethed as the Queen blared out at maximum volume. Meanwhile I was sitting there in my uncomfortable Christmas clothes of itchy polo-neck jumper, itchy tight-crotched trousers and too-tight oxblood shoes.

Fourteen Weeks and Counting

At 5 p.m. today I will have completed fourteen weeks of unemployment. Although I've had three interviews in that time I've got nowhere near getting a job, not being invited back for second interviews. I'm guessing I was too old and too experienced for the jobs, they wanted some keen young thing to concentrate on a few repetitive tasks all day long. I can do that. Gizza job!

I have plenty of experience but not qualifications. I was never interested in studying such a boring subject. They tried to get me motivated to study in my first job but I gave up after a week and handed my notice in. If only I had those qualifications I could be getting rejected for better paid jobs than I am presently.

People give you advice. "Go down the entrepreneurial route, set up your own business, get yourself some clients." As if there aren't hundreds or thousands of people trying to do that already. "Don't worry if you haven't got the qualifications, apply for everything!" Ok, so what do I write in my covering letter? I'm not qualified to do this job but I make a nice cup of tea?

Maybe I need to think about what I really want to do and go for it.

Well, there is nothing I really want to do that will earn me money, never has been, never will be. Everything I have ever done to make money has been done with absolutely no enthusiasm.

I don't feel bereft now I'm out of work. I'm not depressed. I don't desperately need the company of others. I haven't lost my confidence or my sense of self-worth. I still think I'm better than those bastards. You know who they are.

It's poverty that fucks people up, not unemployment. But there aren't enough jobs to go round and unemployment can cause poverty because benefits are so shit. Benefits are so shit because of the attitude of the majority of well-off people who actually believe there is a job out there for everyone. "All you have to do is get off your lazy arse. If I was unemployed I'd do anything, I'd even stack shelves."

So there are shelves out there waiting to be stacked, are there? Dickhead.

Aimless (5)

Maths was a subject I found easy in the early years of Big School. I suppose I had an aptitude for it. But I had my limits and Maths would cause me more tears than any other subject over the years. Maths teachers seemed to me to be the most blinkered. They just couldn't understand why a pupil could not understand. They were explaining it. They understood what they were explaining as clear as day. Surely you must understand this, boy. But I didn't really get this feeling until doing my A-level. My early Maths years were a piece of piss.

Even though I'd been a big football cheese at primary school, captain of the school team, when I got to Big School I had lost any confidence my old teacher had tried to instill in me and, not being the most forward of eleven year olds, didn't get a sniff at the big boys' school team. It was a case of the louder the mouth the further you got, a real lesson for life there. There I was expecting to be passed to every now and then because I was in a good position but because I wasn't demanding the ball I was never given it. Oh well, my loss was England's loss.

I took to cricket, however, like a duck to water. For some inexplicable reason I found I could bowl on target and at a similar length each time. I had no idea how to hold the ball, just cradled it in my small hand as if I were holding an apple, but my run-up and action were decent enough. Playing with and against eleven and twelve year olds on a full-size pitch, you could get away with bowling accurately and not have to worry about complicated things like swing or spin.

I enjoyed fielding, too. Because we had a few accurate bowlers, the fieldsmen crowded the batsman. I was silly mid-on, not so silly when the batsmen could only play weak defensive shots. I got a thrill from anticipating dives to clutch the results of pathetic shots close to the ground. The big, booming Geography teacher enjoyed this mini version of real cricket as we did. Nobody shined and boundaries were very rarely hit.

That was until we played a school which contained black boys! We didn’t have black boys at our school. Bexley was a London borough but by no means integrated. The nearest any of us got to black music was a love of Jimi Hendrix who was lumped in together with white rock, his blackness never mentioned, though of course all white rock was based on the blues. So to come up against a school with black boys, well, it was like playing against the best young cricketers the West Indies had to offer! They hit the ball so hard! One boy was smashing our bowlers all over the pitch, boundary after boundary. I was standing at square leg, not my usual silly mid-on. But square leg seemed a bit silly as the boy hooked a shot with tremendous power straight towards my gut. I caught the ball but, God, the pain! My team came over to congratulate me, my big, booming teacher patted me on the back. It was the greatest act of bravery the school had ever known. I watched the batsman stroll off and we exchanged smiles of mutual respect. Of course everybody that day thought I was a fucking idiot. They were thrashing us and I wouldn’t have lost much face by jumping out of the way.

At school the weedy kids played tennis. They were taught by the vicious one-armed Art teacher. This was in the days before two-fisted backhands, of course. The Art teacher would serve by resting the ball on his stump, jerking it upwards and hitting the ball at about head height. It was embarrassing watching the kids at school play tennis. They weren’t suited for sports at all and I couldn’t see what enjoyment they got out of it. It must have been hell for them.

I was qualified to look down upon the quality of school tennis as I had learnt the game outside and belonged to a tennis club.

My dad’s friend at work had taught me tennis, a few lessons at the local council courts. And luckily one of the twins had learnt himself and his dad belonged to a bowls and tennis club. He got us in and we practised whenever we could, baseline rallies that went on forever. I was the master of the topspin forehand though little else. My serve was perfectly performed yet slow and my volleys were powder-puff. So the baseline it was for us.

We visited my tennis coach a few times in Chatham. And my dad got so friendly with Tony that he even agreed to us going on holiday with Tony and his family.

For a few halcyon years we took our holidays in the south-east’s holiday camps. Butlin’s and Pontin’s were too common but Warners was more in line with our upper working-class credentials. I would spend hours looking through Warners brochures, comparing facilities. Sinah Warren had a glamorous name and offered everything a family needed. But it was out of our league, too expensive. I liked the name ‘Dovercourt’ and this became my second favourite, having most of the facilities Warners offered. I lf I liked a name back then that was the most important thing. Castleford became my favourite rugby league team because I liked the name. Not that I liked rugby league at all but it was always fucking on on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve heard too much of Eddie Waring’s voice in my life if you add up all those boring rugby league games, It’s A Knockout, Jeux Sans Frontieres.

So Dovercourt was my second choice and we got to go there with Tony and family. Except what was intentioned as a pleasant family holiday turned into a piss-up for Tony and my dad. One night they took it in turns in a wheelbarrow on the journey back to the chalets.

Warners had snooker, table tennis, as many servings of food as you could eat, rude lunchtime comedians in the bar which was open to all the family, and even a tennis competition which I won because the other players were as bad as the tennis players at school. A highlight for me was seeing the great snooker player and Pot Black star Graham Miles up close as he demonstrated his shots for the men and his firm buttocks in his tight trousers for the women. I got to drink cheeky shandies half-filled with beer unlike the half-inch measures I got at home.

School summer holidays were filled with tennis, cycling and reading. Like a posh girl with a healthy body and a healthy mind. My dad’s favourite books apart from The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist were the adventure novels of Wilbur Smith which I lapped up along with the Ian Fleming Bond books and Hawaii by James A Michener which, to my shame, I have still not attempted to read. My dad never wanted to go anywhere overseas except for Hawaii. He never did leave Britain.

The Hourglass Economy

IMAGE A

IMAGE B

It is now generally accepted that most western countries now have an "hourglass economy" with a thriving top and bottom and a greatly reduced middle.

The hourglass economy is illustrated in Image A above. As you can see, it has three sections:-

TITS
WAIST
HIPS

The TITS (Those In The Sun) are those at the top of society, the lucky bastards earning lots of money for being able to fit perfectly into a society which rewards privilege, nepotism, luck, and, sometimes, intelligence.

The WAIST (Why Am I So Thin?) are those in the middle of society, not to be confused with the "squeezed middle" which doesn't really exist except in politicians' speeches and if it did exist would need to be illustrated by a fat person wearing a corset. The WAIST includes middle managers, skilled manual and office workers, etc.

The HIPS (Humans In Poverty Situations) are those at the bottom of the working society, those in shitty jobs in which you have to smile and pretend you're enjoying yourself in return for shitty money.

As you can see, the WAIST is so much thinner than the TITS and the HIPS. It wasn't always this way.

From the 50s to the late 70s, the economy was shaped more like Image B, the bloated economy. As you can see there were still TITS around then but TITS growth has rocketed in the past 30 years. And just look at the bloated WAIST! (We're All In Society Together, in this case). There has been some movement from the WAIST to the TITS over the years, and plenty of movement from the WAIST to the HIPS. In addition, technology has acted as a form of liposuction on the economy and taken the excess waste, or fat, out of the WAIST and HIPS and into the corner of the room where it grows as a constant reminder of what could befall the bottom two-thirds of the economy.

Eleven Nine

I was in the office on 11th September 2001. There were a lot of serious faces about. The management had the radio on all afternoon. But we were safe in our building. We each had a job for life.

Now the management have gone, plenty of others, too, me included. Jobs for life don't exist in an increasingly technological world in which jobs are being replaced by computers every day. Where there were six people in my old department when I started in 1986, now there is one. I was in charge of coping with the reduction from six to two over the years, never thinking my reward would be the two becoming one.

And more people have joined the jobs market. Labour force growth, which had been moderate in that supposedly golden age from post-war to the mid-sixties, stagnated until the mid-seventies, then rocketed. The baby boomers wanted jobs, yes, even the women.

Then there weren't enough jobs to go around. There haven't been since. There won't be in the future. And since the number of people in the UK in work peaked in 2008 and has fallen sharply since, employers now have a flood of experienced, trained and suitable applicants for each job. Getting an interview is down to sheer luck. Getting the job is down to chemistry. Any one of hundreds of applicants could do the job well, but only one is apparently the right personality fit.

I wonder how many of the two hundred applicants for the poorly paid part-time job I applied for are unemployed? How many are desperate for a job? How many will never get another job, if they've ever had one in the first place? How many have the right personality if they ever get to the interview stage? How many don't need the job but need the social side of working? How many are in a job they hate and need a change? How many need two jobs to survive?

Where do I stand? I'm lucky, I don't need a job to survive. I was lucky enough to have been able to afford to save well over the past several years. If I want holidays, yes, I'd need to work. But what percentage of even the world's working population can afford to go on holiday?

It's Patrick Bloody Hamilton, Man!

I went for my third interview since my redundancy yesterday. It was all going well until I was asked the question, "And what about Geoffrey in his spare time? What does Geoffrey like to do?"

Of course I wanted to say, "I don't know, you'd better ask him." But I thought I'd better mention my more intellectual pursuits.

"I like to read, watch television and films, listen to music."

"What are you reading at the moment? Which author?" she asked.

For the life of me I couldn't remember. I knew what the book was about but I couldn't remember the name of the author or the book's title. I'm like this with books quite often nowadays.

"I'm afraid I can't remember. It's a trilogy. It's very good."

I didn't really want to describe the book and thankfully she didn't ask me to. If she had asked I would have had to describe it thus...

"I'm quite a way through the first part, the part seen through the eyes of Bob, the waiter at a London pub who falls in love with a 'beautiful' young prostitute, Jenny. He gives her money, not for sex, but because every time he meets her she seems to need money for rent or for a dress for a job interview, etc. He knows she's using him but he's so besotted with her that he cannot give her up even though the more he finds out about her the less he likes her. It is an autobiographical novel as the novelist, whose name currently escapes me, fell in love with a prostitue himself in his twenties and started to drink heavily. The second part of the trilogy is written from the point of view of Jenny and the third is about Ella, a 'plain' barmaid who works with Bob and seems to be in love with him. Even though the book is very much about sexual infatuation there is no actual sex in the book, purely chaste kisses between the protagonists, though of course what Jenny gets up to when apart from Bob, God only knows, and for the purposes of this job interview I think I should leave it at that."

Aimless (4)

In my last year at primary school I was a bit of a rebel. I just didn't treat art seriously, preferring to draw cartoons rather than the serious painting my classmates were doing. I was developing a political mind, my dad's bible was The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and his beliefs were rubbing off on me. He hated the Tories, so did I. Ted Heath was an idiot and I entitled one cartoon '3 Eyed Ted From Number 10'. Ted Heath with his big toothy laugh and three eyes, one in the middle of his forehead. I didn't know what political point I was making, maybe that the Tories were aliens and should head off back to their own planet. I have a suspicion that Steve Bell somehow saw my cartoon and somehow made a career out of portraying Tories as monsters. Tories are not of this world, though. There's something inhuman about them.

I gained another friend who played David Bowie and Alice Cooper to me and his mum gave me tea. Tea always included baked beans with something, fish fingers or sausages. Tea away from home in my primary school days was accompanied by Blue Peter which I hated and Wacky Races, which I loved.

The Alice Cooper boy also supported West Ham and one day he planned a trip for us. We were to get a Red Bus Rover and visit every London football ground in a day. We got as far as West Ham, Leyton Orient and Arsenal before having to turn back as it was getting late.

The way to West Ham was the 96 bus from Crayford to Woolwich, Woolwich Ferry to Canning Town and 101 bus from there to East Ham Town Hall. Big bovver boys got the 101 on a Saturday and walked through the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. The ferry was much more romantic, second only to the Mersey Ferry with its Gerry & The Pacemakers' romance. Maybe the Woolwich Ferry should make itself more of a tourist attraction by playing some Cockney Rejects or something.

Apart from cheesy Top of the Pops albums with their scantily clad girls next door on the covers and abysmal cover versions of the days hits and my groovy K-Tel albums with the wonders of glam rock and Python Lee Jackson, my first real musical purchase was Tony Orlando & Dawn's Tie a Yellow Ribbon in 1973. OK, it wasn't bought with my earned money and I think my mum had some say in the choice of record as I immediately asked her to take it back to the shop. I was embarrassed by its mawkishness. It is not even one of my guilty pleasures today.

Now and again I heard a tune called Sylvia by Dutch rock band Focus. I loved it and wanted it. I saw a Focus LP in the music shop in Crayford and my mum kindly went to buy it for me. Unfortunately what she bought was not the LP but some complicated Focus sheet music including yodels. Another embarrassing return to a shop ensued.

I didn't make the same mistake twice. I got the Focus compilation album from the same shop and played it to death. And so my prog journey began. Sorry, not very punk, is it?

I started Big School in 1973. Having passed the 11-Plus I had the choice of a grammar or a technical high. There were two other boys in my class who passed their 11-Plus and they were going to the technical high. Having somebody I knew going to the school, including a boy I had been to tea with several times, overrode the opinions of my parents that a grammar school would be better for me. Of course the grammar would have been more suitable but all I could see at the grammar was nobody I knew and lots of girls.

So, without an interest in science or technology or making things, without an interest in Doctor Who or science fiction or Tomorrow's World, I decided to go where the boys went. The boys who were shy of girls.

I turned up on the first day in full school uniform, one of only two boys wearing a cap. The other was called Cheeseman. I was assigned to the same class as Cheeseman and sat next to him as the seating plan was alphabetical. Two little boys with two little caps. It breaks my heart to think of the naivety of it and the potential for piss-taking. But this was a nice school. Bullies were few and far between and didn't pick on me for some time. I settled into certain classes with ease. English, maths and French. Everything else, I hated.

Physics. Nice teacher, yes, into his trad jazz, but what the fuck was Physics all about? And why those tall stools, why the long benches? So uncomfortable. I liked a desk with a chair, a stool and bench were so uncivilised.

Chemistry. Teacher a bit distant. And there we were in the lab again. I didn't belong in a lab with its tall stools and long benches and bunsen burners. I didn't want to be anywhere near fire! Physics, Chemistry, how things worked. I couldn't give a bollock how things worked. Never have done, never will. I want to take it all for granted. I want to turn on the telly and let magic happen. Magic is what it's all about.

Technical Drawing. Dull teacher. And even that fucking desk was too big and not flat! It was on a fucking incline! I didn't want to be on an incline, I wanted to be parallel with the ground. And the pencil was too hard. 2H! I was making indents into the paper. I am just not interested in how things are designed, whether by God or by man. God designed this little green apple. Let God draw the fucking thing. Nuts, bolts, screws, not interested. Give me a pencil and paper and I want to draw silly things. Paper's there to have fun with.

Art. Vicious one-armed teacher. Expert at throwing things at naughty boys. More inclined desks and high stools. And so serious! Yes, I wanted to draw and paint better but I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to enjoy myself. Who in our class was going to become a serious artist for Christ's sake? Come on, let's be honest. Just how many artists has this school produced in its history? I bet it's none. Then why in God's name were we doing this? We might as well have been having fun, taking the piss out of things. You never know, there might have been some budding cartoonists.

Geography. Big, booming friendly teacher, cricket fanatic. But really. I wasn't interested in the earth and what it's made of and why weather does what it does. Why couldn't it just be a mystery? Couldn't we just be surprised by things? '5, 10 and 21, Winter, Spring and Summer Sun.' That's all I remember from Geography. What about the world's resources and why they're owned by cunts and not by everyone? Why is there poverty, hunger, genocide?

Woodwork. Oh dear. Nice teacher, old school Jack Hargreaves type and if I had my grandad's carpentry genes, maybe. But I haven't got a clue and I couldn't care less. Someone's got to make chairs and tables and desks and fucking high stools and benches I suppose, but that's not me, buster! I wasn't put on this earth to make things. Hammers, planes, chisels. I am not an artisan.

Metalwork. Oh dear, this teacher's a bit, how do you say, let's just say he runs the Railway Club which over the course of my school days was a front for middle-aged men and young teenage boys to get away and experience a nature of sorts. Days out photographing impressionable boys. That didn't float my boat nor did drilling and cutting metal. Bollocks to rivets.

History. Incredibly dull young teacher. And we're starting from the very beginning of humanity. What do we actually know? That's not history, it's speculation. Who's to say the earth wasn't run by aliens who kept us for their entertainment as we hunted animals and cut them up with our primitive utensils? The aliens pissed themselves laughing for years until they got bored and pissed off to their own planet.

PE. Psychopathic teacher in white shorts. Ex-army. Made us shower before, after and during Games and PE. Took glee in our failure to climb ropes, jump horses, pull ourselves up on the rings. One day the cunt brought in some shitty 50 year old pairs of boxing gloves. What did he expect us to do with them? He thought he knew it all. The healthy life. It was his dream to go to America. When he retired he landed at the airport and dropped dead of a heart attack. We were in mourning. Mourning, I tell you.

So Big School was all work, no play, cramming in subjects till they came out of our ears. We were exam machines, there to get good results for the school's reputation.

My favourite subject was English Language. And I was Best in Class. I sat in the corner, furthest away from the teacher because I was the best. The worst at English sat next to the teacher and they would get hit regularly. Nice. The school had an annual anthology and a couple of us from our class got something in there. Shit poems, you know the sort. Teenage boys' poetry is the worst. Especially when you throw in some prog rock lyrics.

French was enjoyable, too. The teachers made it sound so easy. First we had a nice yet violent teacher who could turn on you if you were being disruptive in his eyes. Once I dropped a chair off the desk by accident and he brought his knuckles down on the top of my head with some force. The only time I was ever hit by a teacher and I still feel the sense of outrage. But other than that he was nice.

We soon got another French teacher, a young attractive woman who got us eager to get near the front of the class. Not only was she good-looking but French seemed to get easier. This beauty was magical. She just made it seem so easy. We were having tests and getting percentages in the late 90s. I got 99% in one test! You can't imagine the self-confidence eye contact with a beautiful woman, a smile, a 'congratulations' for being damn near perfect in her tests gave us. French was a wonderful language, the language of love and success. It wasn't until we got a proper French teacher that we found out how far behind in the syllabus we had got. She was teaching us baby stuff.

Ratco's Goes Punk

Phil Garvey's Aunty Maureen said there was a Saturday job if he wanted it. At Ratco's, where his cousin Lisa had been working since she'd left school at 16 a year before.

‘This Saturday?’ said Phil. ‘I’ll be there, Aunty.’

Ratco’s was where Phil’s mum went when she just wanted the odd thing she’d forgotten. A tin of pease pudding for Phil’s dad, something like that. His mum normally went to Nicebury’s, a further ten minutes’ walk away. It was better stocked than Ratco’s and the meat wasn’t as rank.

***

Phil turned up at Ratco’s at 8.25 on the dot. Lisa was outside already, smoking a cigarette.

‘Here he is, my little cousin,’ she said, through a cloud of smoke.

‘I can’t wait to get my hands on those tins of pilchards,’ said Phil.

‘Sarcy,’ said Lisa. 'Ratco’s stock only the best pilchards. Pusscatlyck. They’re bloody gorgeous, Phil.'

Lisa smacked her lips against her fingertips.

‘Well I can’t wait to get my hands on ‘em. Stack ‘em. Price ‘em up.’

Phil wasn’t looking forward to the day. He’d never worked before and he never wanted to work in his life. Yes, he wanted to meet girls but he’d seen Lisa’s friends from Ratco’s and they weren’t his type. They were boring and normal, not intelligent. Phil prided himself on his intelligence. He wanted a girl he could listen to his music with, a prog rocker, not a soppy girl who was into sentimental pop songs. Phil was serious about his music and if a girl couldn’t appreciate Steve Milton’s fretwork she wasn’t the girl for Phil.

‘Lisa!’

‘Who the fuck is that?’ thought Phil. The girl was a punk. She had pink, spiky hair.

‘Watch out, Phil!’

Lisa’s warning was too late. The girl had spat a greenie into his hair. His freshly washed long hair.

‘What the fuck?’ said Phil, pulling at the grollie. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’

The girl who had come out of nowhere gave Phil a withering look.

‘I’m a punk. And you’re a boring old fart,’ she said. ‘A dinosaur. Part of the bloated establishment.’

‘You spat in my hair!’ said Phil.

‘Clever clogs,’ said the girl-punk.

‘This is Belinda,’ said Lisa. ‘She’s new at Ratco’s. Started on Wednesday.’

‘But she’s a punk. Punks are outside of society. Punk bands can’t play their instruments,’ said Phil.

‘I’m still ‘ere, you know,’ said Belinda, lighting a cigarette. ‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’

Phil wiped the mucus onto his handkerchief. It made him retch.

‘Ratco’s wouldn’t let you serve the public. Would they?’ said Phil.

‘Ratco’s are very forward-thinking and with-it,’ said Lisa. ‘It’s their new employment policy.’

‘That’s bollocks,’ said Phil. ‘Lord Reece wouldn’t allow it. He’s an old Tory.’

Lord Reece was the chairman of Ratco's. The firm had been founded by his grandfather.

‘But Lord Reece’s son is in a punk band. You’ve heard of The Knob Cheesers?’ said Lisa.

‘The band that got banned on the radio?’ said Phil.

‘They said the ‘c’ word on the Bill Munday Show,’ said Lisa.

‘Drunk old pervert,’ said Belinda. ‘I bet he wanks off to pictures of punk girls on the King’s Road.’

Two weeks previously The KCs, or Knob Cheesers as they were known by the kids who read the music papers, appeared on the Bill Munday Show along with a few of their girl-punk fans. Munday was obviously drunk and up for an argument. The Knob Cheesers’ guitarist was one Mickey Mucky, a skinny working-class urchin with a penchant for speed and fast chord changes. Phil had seen them on a late-night programme called In The Ear presented by ex-hippy now punk fan, Nigel Goodman. Phil thought they were a noise who had first picked up their instruments only recently.

‘Lord Reece’s son can’t be in The Knob Cheesers,’ said Phil. ‘He’s an accomplished session guitarist. He played on Brian Winsome’s Last of the New Borders.’

‘All I know is what we’ve been told by management,’ said Lisa. ‘Ratco’s has gone punk, a new punk ethos, they said. And it’s all down to Mickey Mucky being Lord Reece’s favourite son.’

‘I can’t believe Simon Reece is Mickey Mucky,’ said Phil.

‘He saw the light,’ said Belinda.

***

The store manager arrived and opened up. He was a 52 year old balding depressed-looking man by the name of Peter Durnley.

‘Hello, girls,' he said, then opened the door and went straight to his office.

‘Am I invisible?’ said Phil to the two others.

‘He’s been very within himself recently,’ said Lisa. ‘He's losing interest. He’s pissed off about the direction Ratco’s is going in. This punk thing is too much for him. Come on. I’ll introduce you.’

Lisa knocked on Peter’s door.

‘Come in!’ said Peter.

Phil followed Lisa in. Peter held his head in his hands, looking down at a ledger half the size of his desk. Behind him was a certificate awarded to Peter as Ratco’s Store Manager of the Year, 1972.

‘This is my cousin, Phil,’ said Lisa.

Peter looked up, looking at Phil with defeated eyes.

‘You’ll have to get your hair cut,’ he said. ‘The new punk ethos ‘n’ all.’

‘Lisa hasn’t cut her hair,’ said Phil.

‘I wear one of these,’ said Lisa, and produced a multi-coloured mohican wig from her bag.

‘Oh, no,’ said Phil. ‘You’re not getting me wearing one of them.’

‘What if I were to say to you your manager wears one,’ said Peter. He produced a mohican wig of his own from his desk drawer.

Peter put the wig on his head. Lisa put hers on her head. Phil was the odd one out in a room of fake punks.

‘What Lord Reece says goes,’ said Peter. ‘You may not like it, I may not like it, but when he gets a bee in his bonnet, it don’t go away.’

‘And then there’s the uniform,’ said Lisa.

‘Not bondage gear?’ said Phil.

‘Lab coats,’ said Peter. He went to a cabinet and took out a coat for Phil. It was a long lab coat, dyed orange with a silver anarchy symbol in the middle of the back.

‘Lord Reece’s design,’ said Peter.

Ratco’s logo was silver on an orange background. It was designed by Lord Reece’s father when the company was re-invented in 1927. Bold colours for a bold, forward-thinking company. Ready for the space age. Phil thought it looked cheap and tacky and these anarchy coats looked like an experiment gone wrong. Why associate a successful retail business with a worldview that there should be no political structure in society? How could Ratco's exist in a world without rules? Lord Reece’s father was eccentric but lucky with his logo. He'd tripled turnover in the year after introducing it. But the current Lord Reece had lost all business sense, surely?

‘What do the customers think?’ said Phil. His mother hadn’t been to Ratco’s for a couple of weeks so wouldn’t have known about the changes.

‘What do you think?’ said Peter. ‘They hate it. They’re nervous of the outfits and the hair. You can see the fear in the eyes of some of these little old ladies. All they read about in the papers is how the youth of today have lost all respect for their elders. And they come in here and instead of getting service with a smile they’re getting bad attitude. Staff spitting in their blue rinses. It doesn’t make my job easy. I’m used to running a tight ship with staff who would bend over backwards for the customers. You know that saying ‘The customer is always right’? Lord Reece has us thinking the customer is a 'boring old fart'. A 'dinosaur'. There is 'no future'. What kind of a message are we sending out? How do we expect to hold onto our customers? We used to be a respected part of the community, somewhere where local people could buy cheap products and not feel guilty for their lack of status. Now we treat people like scum.’

‘Wow,’ thought Phil. This was the manager talking, the man who was supposed to instil a sense of discipline into his staff. What had he walked into? Surely Lisa would have told his Aunty Maureen what was going on. But she never mentioned the punk thing to his mother at all.

‘It’s time I opened up,’ said Peter. ‘Uniforms on, everyone.’

Peter walked out of his office and headed for the front door. Phil and Lisa put on their lab coats and mohicans.

‘I suppose we’re lucky really,’ said Lisa.

‘Lucky?’ said Phil.

‘Lord Reece is anti-drugs. Just imagine if we had to take something, too. Though it might make the day go quicker.’

‘Christ, what have I let myself in for?’ thought Phil.

The Crown Jools

"ATTENTION!"


Jools Holland is the new face of The Brennan JB7, the "revolutionary CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs" or "computer" as the technology-minded amongst us might say.

The advert in today's Guardian is as much a promotion for the talents of Mr Holland as it is for this revolutionary piece of kit.

"Jools Holland is a pianist, bandleader, composer, singer, television host, founder of Squeeze and the multi-million selling Rhythm and Blues Orchestra," we are informed.

As the advert is aimed at old people like me who don't understand that you can load your CDs onto your PC or Mac, I am grateful to now be aware of Mr Holland's talents so that I can now go out and buy all the CDs he has played on, sung on and composed for, load them onto my new Brennan JB7 and then throw them away.

Take All That (2)

SHARON: I don’t know what this world’s coming to. That furniture shop in Croydon. Those poor people. How are they going to rebuild their lives? That’s their livelihood gone up in flames. And the flames! The firemen didn’t have a chance of putting it out. Carly’s man’s a fireman. Gorgeous brown eyes. Lucky he don’t work in Croydon. Wouldn’t have wanted to be Carly watching that on telly, worried about her man.

DANNY: What Crouchy did was amazing. That’s how to act when you’re a star. I couldn’t believe it when he went for that haircut. Only a small shop ‘n’ all. Bet he had to crouch down to get in it, heh, heh. Then I bet the barber had to lower the chair, Crouchy being so tall. That’s what’s called giving something back to the community. I don’t know where he’s from, Crouchy, but he’s earned himself a place in the heart of every decent person in this country by his magnificent gesture. Imagine someone that big in the world going into a riot area and saying ‘I am one of you’! I’d like to think I’d do the same if ever I was to reach that height of fame. Give something back to the community. Say ‘I am still part of you, I will always be that little boy that grew up in a working class area amongst people that are the salt of the earth.’ They still are, most of ‘em. It’s only a minority who cause trouble. It’s the gangs ‘n’ that, gang culture. These young’uns aren’t like the gangs we used to have, your Krays and your Richardsons. Now they were real community-minded people, looked after their own, loved their mums. How can you love your mum if you go stealing from your own manor? Some of the mums were shopping their own kids, knowing they’d got to learn what’s right from what’s wrong. And then there’s that poor mum who’s getting kicked out of her home because of the actions of her stupid son. Where is the thought there? What was that idiot thinking? Didn’t he realise what he could be jeopardising? Bloody madness. It’s the lack of a father figure, that’s what it is. You ask any single mother what they really need and it’s a strong man in their life. Someone the boy knows to look up to. If I was a dad I’d be there for my family. Ok, I may actually be a dad, probable since I’ve knocked off more birds than Russell Brand. But if I decided to have kids, that’d be it for me. That would be a binding contract for life between me, the kids and the kids’ mother. I’m sorry but that’s the way I see it, black and white.

Dave's Wake-Up Call

Cameron this morning:-

"Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse(1) that has taken place in parts of our country(2) these past few generations(3)?

Irresponsibility, selfishness, behaving as if your choices have no consequences, children without fathers, schools without discipline, reward without effort, crime without punishment, rights without responsibilities, communities without control.(4)"

1. Sorry, Dave. Can't visualise a moral collapse. Unless it's like this.

2. Oh, the poorer areas. I see.

3. The Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron years?

4. These are just in "parts of our country"? Or everywhere? Are you saying we get away with too much? We have money and things we don't deserve? We couldn't give a shit about anybody else? We're looking after number one? We dismiss the idea of society? How on earth could this have happened, Dave? Please, can you explain how?

Take All That (1)

DANNY: I’m Robbie Williams. I’m not really Robbie Williams. I just sound like him. I know I don’t sound like him when I talk but when I sing you can’t tell the difference. I’m in a Take That tribute band. We’re called Take All That. Brian, he’s Gary Barlow. Darren, he’s Orange. Lee, he’s Little Mark. And Ian, he’s the other one. I’ve been a big Robbie Williams man on the circuit for a few years now. I’ve done loads of work in the area being Robbie Williams. I was very popular at karaokes. They came to see me, the four lads, one night down at the King’s Head. I was really getting into being Robbie, and it was Brian, come up to me, and said ‘Here, we’ve got a Take That tribute act, and now Robbie Williams has rejoined Take That, we think you’ll be ideal fronting us with all your songs.’ I was a bit suspicious at first. But the lads invited me along to a rehearsal a couple of days later at the local church hall. I must say I was very impressed by the set-up. They were very professional. Being no spring chickens themselves they weren’t throwing themselves around onstage like the early Take That but were more sophisticated and mature and I knew straight away I was going to fit in with them. It didn’t harm things that we’re all good-looking chaps, if I say so myself.

SHARON: I love Take That. I didn’t get to see them at Wembley but seeing Take All That was the next best thing. Lee is beautiful, same shape as Little Mark, but with lovely twinkling blue eyes. I wouldn’t say ‘no’ though I usually go for taller men. I haven’t had a boyfriend under 6 foot except when I was 15 and going out with Gary the footballer who had a trial for Charlton. But Lee, I’d make an exception for Lee. He looks at you as if you’re the only woman in the room, his eyes burn right through you. Look, he signed this picture of his eyes. Aren’t they gorgeous?

DEAN: I saw Take All That in some cunting corporate do organised by the pricks at work. It was horrendous. I mean, you couldn’t pay me to even go and see the original Take That as they are shit, obviously. Hormonal women’s music. But this, this was an abomination. A total and utter z-list load of bollocks. I spent the whole night at the bar, drink after drink, drowning my sorrows, watching all those women waving their fucking arms, singing along with those talentless bellends.

DANNY: We got on like a house on fire and I was soon gigging with them, driving the women wild. I tell you what, being on board with these lads has certainly perked up the old pecker. I used to get lucky about once a month as solo Robbie but it’s every night with these boys. It’s funny how Brian gets the best-looking birds as Gary’s the least sexually attractive member of Take That. But Brian’s got a lovely voice and he’s not as boss-eyed as Gary. But he can do the eyes if requested. It’s a gift he’s got.

SHARON: I had my feet done today at the precinct. We’ve thought about it for some time, Carly and me. We’d just had a coffee at Starbuck’s and thought sod it, why not? You only live once. So we got up there on those seats and plonked our feet into the tanks. God, those little fish were onto us quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. It’s, I dunno, it’s not ticklish like you’d think it would be. They don’t make you laugh. But it is pleasant being nibbled. One of the little buggers was going at it hammer and tongs as though he hadn’t eaten in a week. That was a bit disturbing as I’m sure I saw a glint in his eye. I could imagine him turning into a piranha and actually start eating the flesh. I must admit I did start to panic for a while but Carly saw the change in me and held my hand and calmed me down. Carly knows how to calm me down when I’m having one of my turns.

DEAN: Those little shits should be strung up. And their parents, some of those kids were almost children. It’s the something for nothing generation. Think they can have everything given to them on a plate. When we were young we made do. My parents and grandparents were poor but you never saw them rioting. If my dad, when he was young, had done anything against the law, my grandad would have come down on him like a ton of bricks. You just didn’t. You don’t piss on your own doorstep. You don’t piss on anybody’s doorstep but if you have to piss on a doorstep you don’t piss on your own doorstep. They’re different nowadays. Living on hand-outs, hard-working people paying so they can laze around all day then have the effrontery to nick tellies and trainers us hard-working people work bloody hard to buy. If you want nice things you should earn the money to pay for them and you can only earn the money to pay for them by getting a job. Why don’t they get off their lazy backsides and get a job? It makes me sick that our brave boys are out there in Afghanistan getting blown up while these scumbags take our taxes and slouch around all day then play the big hard man by burning down a pub or a furniture shop. If you think you’re so hard, why don’t you take your hard attitude to Afghanistan and fight the Taliban like real men do. That’s a real man. They should have set the water cannons on them. Set the water cannons on them then thrown the book at them then locked them up and thrown away the key.

Aimless (3)

We found our dream house. A three bedroom semi. Large garden for me to run around in. 1966, a year of affordable housing for an ordinary single-income working family.

I started school again. Even though it was a small school I was uncomfortable being with all those children. But the teachers were nice.

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 only brothers and sisters can. 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. That really fucked my mind, man.

I was co-erced into playing with the girl next door as my mum and hers watched on.

Eventually I made some real 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 modern toys which they liked to play with, boisterously.

I was already a West Ham fan as West Ham had won the World Cup for England. Bobby Moore was my favourite player as he was blond, handsome and 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, the nearest club to Bexley. I was a glory hunter, just like those Surrey 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.

In my second year of school, my mum fell pregnant. School had already obliterated our previous suffocatingly comfortable relationship and here was someone else to make us that little bit more independent of each other. My sister arrived in November 1968 and from reports of the time you'd think I was absolutely besotted with the girl. Of course I loved her straight away but I didn't have then nor have I since had a paternal bone in my body. She was my sister, not my daughter, right? It didn't mean I would love other babies or ache for Tiny Tears dolls to bounce on my knee. It just wasn't in me. Yes, I might have looked like a natural father at six years old but that was just me being a natural older brother.

Though I had the twins outside of school, breaking my toys, in school I made friends one at a time, just as my dad had. There was a boy with the surname King. My dad said I should never trust anyone with the surname King. Were these my dad's republican tendencies coming to the fore? He was right, though, the King boy was not to be trusted. But not because he was called King, Dad.

Thankfully I was never bullied by any of the boys. No, not me. I was bullied by one of the girls! She gave me a Chinese burn! I told my mum, showed her my wrist and one afternoon by the school gates my mum got hold of her and shook the living daylights out of her. She wouldn't touch me again.

Apart from that incident I didn't have any dealings with the girls. I didn't play kiss chase like some of those young studs.

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 as anybody in their right mind would be. But I didn't want to show it. I closed my eyes and clacked for England. Then England banned clackers and parents and kids like me breathed a sigh of relief.

More hand pain came with the conker season. Clackers were out but conkers remained as part of the playtime curriculum. I went to the park with the twins and we'd throw branches up at the massive horse chestnut trees, bringing down conkers in their thousands. Conkers were either put in the freezer section of the fridge along with the ice pops or pickled in large jars alongside the onions. You had to prepare your conker for battle or you'd be at a disadvantage.

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 played football in his unwashed bare feet. You'd see the skinny white urchin in the bath, his feet on the rim, nice and dirty.

We listened to Peter and the Wolf at school which was meant to scare us and Sparky's Magic Piano which actually did. We went on visits to the Commonwealth Institute to see how the rest of our monarch's people lived and we went to the swimming baths once a week. I was scared of the water but luckily I had verrucas which kept me out of it. I watched from the gallery. On every coach trip we took I seem to remember eating my mum's cheese and piccalilli sandwiches. The sickliness of coach travel and piccalilli complemented each other perfectly.

We rehearsed for the school concert. The word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was painted onto sheets of paper and hung up round the school hall. I didn't want to play the recorder. I fancied the Indian bells which I was given to tinkle every now and then. Why on earth would I not want to play the recorder? The recorder kick-started many a musical career. Satchmo himself started with this fine instrument before moving onto the trumpet.

In my last year of primary school I was given the responsibility of captaining the school football team, presumably to make me a bit more assertive, a leader of men. I never really enjoyed playing in organised matches the way I did in kickabouts. Kickabouts were more random, you got more involved, exciting things happened like running girls being felled by wayward shots. Silly girls shouldn't have been running, should have kept to their skipping.

In one match the cleverest boy in the school ran after a ball and ran straight into the air-raid shelter's iron bar. God knows why the air-raid shelter was still there, somthing to do with the cold war, maybe. So the boy's head was split open and there was blood everywhere. It didn't seem to do him any harm though, quite the opposite as he seemed to become super-intelligent after this incident.

I had no interest in playing games other than football. What's The Time, Mr Wolf? was fucking stupid. Kiss Chase was for the girls.

I remember just one fight from my primary school. And the fight was over music. Kid A thought Gary Glitter was the greatest artist who ever existed. Kid B thought that that accolade went to Marc Bolan. I was not fussed at the time and I'm not fussed now. There's room for all tastes in music listeners' worlds.

The build-up was more exciting than the fight itself. The argument and the anticipation had been ongoing for some time, at least a week, and a time and a place were agreed. The time: dinner time. The place: the playground. Children crowded around the two protagonists and a high-pitched chant chilled the air.

"Bundle! Bundle!"

The fighters went for each other.

Of course it was over in seconds as a playground attendant or "dinner lady" as we used to call any woman other than the teachers broke it up with little fuss. There was no blood, no black eyes. It was not conclusive who was the greater artist. Bolan went to his grave not knowing.

15 Movie Questions

Taking the baton from Tim, Annie and Rol, here are my choices. Feel free to do your own!

1. Movie you love with a passion.

Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.


2. Movie you vow to never watch.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or any of that new American indie bollocks.


3. Movie that literally left you speechless.

The Vanishing (1988). Speechless and breathless.


4. Movie you always recommend.

Atlantic City.


5. Actor/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie.

Bette Davis.


6. Actor/actress you don’t get the appeal for.

Audrey Hepburn.


7. Actor/actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet.

Groucho Marx, though I'd be shit scared.


8. Sexiest actor/actress you’ve seen. (Picture required!)

Irene Jacob.



9. Dream cast.

The Once Upon a Time in America cast.


10. Favorite actor pairing.

Was going to say Michael Redgrave and dummy in Dead of Night but one of them isn't made of flesh and blood. So, Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City.


11. Favorite movie setting.

12. Favorite decade for movies.

1940s.


13. Chick flick or action movie?

A specific action movie: Clouzot's The Wages of Fear.


14. Hero, villain or anti-hero?

Anti-hero.


15. Black and white or color?

Colour. Especially the brilliant colours of the Powell/Pressburger films in the 40s.

Non-Stop Noel

"What's this shit?" said Maud to Kate,
"Deal or No Deal. See that state?"
"Fucking hell, how old is she?"
"Younger than both you and me."
"Greed for money puts on years."
"Look at those two sad old dears."
"Can't they put on BBC?"
"They'd have to pay the license fee."
"So all we get is non-stop Noel?"
"It's not like being on the dole,
They can watch all kinds of shite,
They've all got fucking satellites."
"You're telling me that this is it,
Noel Edmonds, Smarmy Git?"
"He may look like a fucking gnome,
But he owns this fucking shitting home."

Life on the Dole - A Part-Fantasy

Well, Geoff. How are you getting on on the old king cole?

Well, it's been six weeks now. I am dutifully applying for at least six jobs a fortnight as the Job Centre Plus demands, whether I want them or not. I don't want any of them but I don't want some more than I don't want others.

No fucker gets back to you. I say no fucker but actually one fucker did get back to me and I went for an interview yesterday.

The life was sucked out of the room. I was told the shit parts of the job which were many, I was told they had between 600 and 1,000 clients and I was thinking there's a fucking big difference between 600 and 1,000. I would be spending a lot of my time chasing up these clients to get their paperwork in on time then I would spend a lot of my time contacting clients to try to get them to take their paperwork back.

So I decided against this job and trotted along to the Job Centre Plus in the afternoon for my third fortnightly appointment.

"Since you haven't got any accountancy qualifications, what about this job?" said the woman seeing to me.

I said, that's in Orpington, a town an hour away by bus, an hour away by train, it would take me an hour and a half to get to work.

She said I was obliged to travel up to an hour and a half to work. Orpington was OK.

I said it was a 40 hour week for £7 an hour.

She said I was obliged to work a maximum of 40 hours for a minimum of the minimum wage, £5.93 per hour. She said the object was to get the jobseeker off jobseeker's allowance and into a job. She said if I'm low-paid I may be able to get other benefits.

I said you're only giving me £68 per week for 26 weeks. I've paid tax and national insurance for the past 29 years. I said I'm doing this so I get my full pension.

She said have you checked how much pension you'll be getting? Go onto the internet, type in "Google" and type in "pension forecast".

I said can you write that down because I don't think I'll be able to remember that. Do I have to turn on the computer first?

She said yes, maybe you could go on an IT course. A lot of our older customers have trouble with computers, how to turn them on, how to turn them off, etc.

I said that would be good because though I've got a computer at home I haven't got any qualifications in using a computer and a course showing me how to use a computer would be very useful especially since I bought it seven years ago and still haven't worked out how to turn the fucking thing on. And I have spent the past 29 years in accountancy blagging my way as I don't know the first thing about it so maybe I can go on a course to, I don't know, I don't know what's done nowadays with all these new fangled machines, did you know when I was made redundant some cunt nicked my favourite abacus?

"So what about we go for this job in Orpington?" she said.