November- The Review......

My predictions for this being a pretty spectacular month kind of fizzled out in the end, a bit like fireworks night during a monsoon.

I’m still technically classed as unemployed. I do have some Christmas temp work set up that starts this week, so that should be fun. I got turned down for the dream BBC job, but got through to the formal interview stage with another job that I am not going to write about just yet, for fear of jinxing it. But I should find out in a week or so when that is, fingers, toes and nipples crossed.

So the job front is slowly moving, but I am rapidly running out of money fast. In order to keep this blog running, I am probably going to have to resort to having a little gerbil run round in a wheel to keep my internet powered up. That's OK though, I like gerbils. 

As we are heading into the Christmas period, this is normally the time I take stock of the year and think about past events in my life. Christmas is a bit of a strange time for me. I absolutely love it with all my heart, and yet I also find the holidays pretty hard to stomach as well, mainly for the fact that I don’t have a family to spend it with. I am lucky that Kates family accepted me right from the moment that we started going out, so I always get included in their celebrations. But I always find it difficult not to feel like an intruder, an interloper that is gatecrashing somebody else's party. Totally stupid I know, as I couldn’t be made to feel more welcome, but it is still something I find hard to shake off.

I do throw myself into the whole idea of Christmas with gusto though. I just love everything about it (which is a massive contradiction I know, as it is also the most painful time of year as well. What can I say? I’m weird?). All those people that moan that it is coming too early, hate the endless procession of Christmas music that seems to be playing everywhere, dislike the decorations going up early. You know what I say?

CHRISTMAS IS BRILLIANT!!!!

Deal with it.

This year I am finally going the whole hog. I used to spend Christmas Eve with Kates family, and then go home and spend Christmas Day by myself. It never used to really bother me to be honest; my Christmas was the time I spent with them on Christmas Eve. I love it. We do the whole dinner thing, and then open the presents before I went home the next day. But this year I feel as if it is time to start letting go of the past and actually start living in the now. So instead of going home to an empty apartment on Christmas Day, I will hopefully be spending it with Kates. The only problem with this is that she will be cooking the Christmas dinner, and it will take an almost herculean effort from my part to not be kitchen Nazi and go in there, trying to take everything over, otherwise I am more than likely going to get a jar of horseradish jammed up my arse. Which wouldn’t make for a very Merry Christmas. Especially if you want to use it afterwards.

Breakdown of the month.

Things I Have Enjoyed:
1)

This just made my day when I saw it. I especially like Pepe at 1.51. I almost fell off my chair laughing at him. Pepe does indeed rule. I see a little silhouette of a clam…….

2)

My favourite ever Christmas song. The moment I hear this, I know the holidays have begun. Words cannot express how much I love this track. Every year I stick the music channels on, hoping to catch it for the first time. And that moment happened last night. So Christmas has truly begun. Yay!

3)

Left 4 Dead 2. The zombie PC game. Kates bought me this as a thank you for looking after Peggy. She truly knows me well. This is what I have playing in my head all the time. It isn’t a PC game, this is more like a training exercise for me. And I am naturally bloody good at it. Seriously, the moment the dead start rising, come find me. I will get you out of it. Preferably with a shotgun and a frying pan.

Things I Haven't Enjoyed.

1) Job rejection emails.

Dear Dan,

You are shit.

Much love,

UK Employers. X

Bastards.

2) Rain. We have had it nonstop for about two weeks now. Rain. Rain. Rain. When is the snow coming? Snow rocks. It looks pretty. Makes Christmas look like Christmas. And you can make rude snowmen. You can’t do that with rain. All that does is make you wet and your hair look stupid. Rain sucks.

3) West Ham. My football team. The bringers of doom and gloom. They are not totally shit all of the time. Just shit enough to really piss you off for most of the season, and then they produce little moments of joy to make you think that it’s probably not worth killing yourself just yet, and then the moment your hopes are raised a little, and you think that things are finally getting better, they then go back to being shit again .Double bastards, with a side order of chips and a smokey BBQ dip.

TV Shows I have Enjoyed This Month.

1) The Thick Of It.

WARNING CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE!

I know I included this on last month’s review, but this is simply the best thing created in any format, ever. If I could dress this show up in woman's clothing, I would happily marry it and spend the rest of my life listening to its sharp writing and biting wit with a happy smile on my face. If anyone can hunt this down on the net, or catch it on BBC America, I urge you to do so. Sublime genius.

2) Have I Got News For You. The best comedy panel show out there, and probably the granddaddy of them all in this country. The format hasn’t changed in its 20 odd year history. Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, with a guest presenter and two guest panellists, spend half an hour looking at the weeks news. And it’s always funny. Always. 

Some Books I Have Enjoyed This Month.

1) Under The Dome- Stephen King. 22 years in the making, King finally got round to writing this long gestating novel, and it is an excellent return to form from the writer whose fans have longed for him to make a return to the kind of fiction he does best. An odd sounding premise, a giant dome suddenly cuts off a small town in Maine from the rest of the world, sees him revel in the largest book he has written since The Stand. I really, really enjoyed it.

2) Last Light- Alex Scarrow. An apocalyptic (what else were you expecting?) novel set in the UK, where terrorists have bombed all of the oil refineries around the world, stopping the world’s oil supply. With no transport able to provide food, the nation quickly descends into anarchy. Very scary, yet plausible, set up.

3)  Dickens- Peter Ackroyd. Probably our best known London historian, Ackroyd also wrote the amazing London- An Autobiography. In this book however, he charts the life of Charles Dickens in his always informative, but yet accessible, style of writing. Plus it also goes into quite great depth about Victorian London, which is my favourite era of history. Well worth picking up if you can.

So that was November. More of the same as October with a few little surprises thrown in, along with some possible job prospects. Is December going to be the month that some good stuff happens? Or is it going to be the chance to usher out a fairly shit year and welcome in a new one with renewed hope and optimism? Either way, I plan on getting fat, eating lots of turkey, and worry about all those credit card bills at a later date.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

And to play us out, the very best version of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture I have ever heard. Imagine having this as your wake up alarm?

Take it easy chickens.

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitters Dead……

I babysat for the first time ever yesterday. It was hard work, I can tell you. All that running around, making sure nothing of mine was getting chewed up, the horrendous slobber everywhere, and the least said about standing outside in the rain waiting for the baby to take a crap on the wet grass, the better.

Ahhhh, I had you! Go on, admit it. You thought it was a human baby, didn’t you? I’m such a kidder.

No, I babysat this.

Yep, Kates staff. Peggy. 

As Kates was working till late, and the dog would be left on its own for quite some time, being the unemployed bum that I am, I said I would take her for the day.

Now I love this little shit with all my heart, but she can be hard work. One person who doesn’t love her with all her heart is my cat, Dotty (see here).

This was Dotty before Peggy came round.

This was her after she left.

Notice the thousand yard stare? It’s like she had just returned back from Nam.

You weren’t there man. You don’t know what I’ve seen.

So anyway, Kates brought Peggy round about nine in the morning. I had been rushing round, making everything puppy proof, when they both came in.

Immediately I had the dog jumping up at me, trying to lick me. I love that moment. Dogs just love to see you. Dotty had become quite attuned to when Peggy was coming over, and could normally smell her when she was coming up the stairs of my apartment block, so she had taken her normal position of huddling in fear on top of my refrigerator.

“Now are you sure you are going to be OK with this?” Kates asked me.

“I’ll be fine, honestly. I’ve had my own dog before, remember?” I replied. And I had. My lovely Labrador Jack, who was now living with my Uncle.

Here is Peggy and Jack over the park.

“Take her out at least three times a day. Give her lots of attention. She normally has a food pouch about now; give her the other about five.”

“Do you want me to burp her afterwards?” I said.

I got the “Shut up” look.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea. Are you sure you will be OK with her?”

Kates is very protective of Peggy. She is probably one of the best dog owners I have ever seen. And she was entrusting her little princess with me.

“It will be fine, seriously. We are going have so much fun. Just go to work.” I said, shooing her out of my apartment.

After a kiss goodbye, and one final “Are you sure about this?”, me and the dog (and the cat) were left alone.

I stared at the dog.

The dog stared back at me.

I smiled.

The dog’s tail wagged.

And the ice was broken.

“Come on then, let’s get you some food.” I said to Peggy. Peggy woofed a reply that I hope was “Thank you.”

The first hour was the hardest. As Peggy had never been left alone with me for any length of time, she started to try and assert her dominance over me. This mainly involved picking up one of my nice trainers and running round the flat with it. Every time I tried to get it off her, she would scoot out of range of my grasping hands and continue the game.

I tried to remember my training from having Jack. Always show the dog whose boss. Never give into their demands. Always stare at them till the dog looks away, that signifies you are alpha male (for any men reading, that last bits also works with the ladies as well)

It didn’t work. She then dropped my trainer and picked up her food bowl from the floor. As the bowl was bigger than her head, she couldn’t see anything, and started to bounce off things as she ran, like a furry ball in a pinball machine.

I looked at Dotty sitting on the refrigerator and sighed. It was going to be a long day. The cat gave me a look back as if to say: You are an idiot.

“I know lets watch some films.” I said aloud. I have no idea why I do that? I am always talking to Dotty when I am alone in the flat. My one fear is that she will start talking back to me.

Me: How was your day then Dotty?

Dotty: It was fine, thank you. I had some breakfast. Slept in your sock drawer for an hour. Then took a massive shit in my litter tray.

Me: Arrrrrrgh!

I picked two films at random from my collection and dumped the dog on the sofa.

“Right, sit with me and watch……..” I said, having a look at the two films in my hand “….The Incredibles and The Patriot?.......... Eh?”

Hmmmmn, odd choices?

As soon as I stuck The Incredibles on, the combination of comfortable sofa, and me stroking her head, settled her down nicely.

About halfway through the film, I got a text from Kates.

Kates: What are you doing? Is the dog OK? She is still OK, isn’t she?

Me: She is fine. We are watching The Incredibles.

Kates: That's random.

Now, I have to admit, when I saw that film in the cinema with Kates, I had to confess to her that I found Mrs Incredible, rather….er….how shall I say, hot? I think it was the combination of skin tight lycra, knee high boots, and the fact she could bend into a thousand different positions. It didn’t really matter to me that she was made out of pixels.

I then got another text.

Kates: Stop perving Mrs Incredible.

Me: Mmmmmmmn. Bendy.

Kates: Bendy whore.

So we finished the film, and I then stuck on The Patriot (Mel Gibson. American revolutionary war. Bit dull) and Peggy managed to review that movie quite admirably, as she alternated between sleeping, and licking her own anus, all the way through it. They should have stuck that on the back of the DVD cover.

So good it will make you want to lick your own anus!

I ended up getting sleepy myself, and just started to doze off, when I noticed the dog wasn’t beside me.

Uh oh.

And I had a terrible feeling in the bottom of my stomach that I knew where she was.

About three weeks ago, Kates and Peggy were over, and I had just finished putting on some fresh new linen on my bed, when Peggy jumped up on it, spin round three times, and then pissed all over my bed, while I stood there, open mouthed in shock.

Getting up from the sofa, I ran into my bedroom to see her on my bed, just completing the last of three spins.

I stared at her.

She stared at me.

It was like the Mexican standoff from Reservoir Dogs, but instead of guns, it was a full bladder of warm piss.

A trickle of sweat ran down my face.

I could hear the theme tune to The Good The Bad And The Ugly playing in my head.

The dog’s eyebrows raised.

The piss started……..

“Nooooooooooooooo!” I yelled, diving at the bed in slow motion in the same manner that the hero does when diving in front of a bullet in the movies.

This scared the dog and made her leap off the bed, still spraying hot piss everywhere, like a surreal urine fountain. Pissy paw prints ran all over my lovely wooden flooring as she scampered around the room.

“Stop pissing!” I yelled, causing the puppy to stop, release one more little spurt, and then sit there, staring at me with a look that held a faint hint of a smile. It was at that point that Dotty chose to make an appearance from under my bed, where she had been hiding. She smelt one of the puddles of urine, looked at me, and then slunk off into the living room. No more needed to have been said really. Her whole cat body signalled a massive: I told you so.

Now you have to bear in mind, as part of my OCD package, I am a complete clean freak. Everything must be shiny, fresh, and gleaming. Piss is definitely not a part of that list.

I could only stand there and survey the damage of my once clean and lovely bedroom.

“Bad dog!” I scolded her. She knew she had done wrong. How could I tell?

This was her for the rest of the day.

So eventually Kates came home about nine in the evening to find my flat looking like a bomb had hit it, me frantically scrubbing piss off the floor, and the puppy flat out on its back on the sofa with all four paws in the air.

“So how was it?” She asked, nervously.  

“Fine” Scrub. Scrub. “She was as good as gold.” Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.

Kates had to get up about five this morning to leave. I was awoken by something vigorously licking my ear.

Either Kates was really upset about leaving me, or it was Peggy.

I turned over onto my back, and was greeted by the happy face of the puppy.

“Morning you.” I croaked.

The puppy gave me a big wet lick on the nose and lay down on my chest with a big sigh of contentment.

Come on, you have got to love her, ain’t you?

The trainer chewing, piss spreading, cat bothering, little bastard.

Spam.....

I stupidly made the mistake of looking in the spam inbox of my email yesterday. It was like opening the door to Pandora’s Box, but if Pandora’s Box contained a load of mental people with an almost pathological obsession with the length, shape, and general girth of my penis.

Now I can assure you, at no point have I ever wished for it to be enlarged, lengthened, or generally mucked around with. I will admit to wishing that I had a tiny pair of comedy glasses and fake moustache that I could pop on the end of it, just to really freak out the guy standing in the urinal next to me, but as far as penis alteration goes, that's as far as I am generally willing to take it.

And yet there seems to be people out there who are generally unhappy with the state of my friendly chap at the moment, and are literally begging me to do something about it.

Here are some examples:

These emails are as sent. None have been altered. Remember, never click on any link that is sent to you in crap like this.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MORE LENGTH, HARDNESS AND STRENGTH.
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: FIRE ANDCE
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
*Now as happy as anyone would like to be with more length, hardness and strength, if it makes me lose my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch, then to be honest, having a super penis will mean nothing to me, as I won’t be able to use it. Or perhaps the person at the receiving end of this giant monstrosity was so shocked, they were rendered with all of the above?  Either way, I am sensing a fatal flaw in their advertising here.*

__________________________________________________________________________

Strains in relationship? Make your queen wet Your rocket needs fuel?
Most effective desire boosters
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*"Huston, we may have a problem here." I am definitely getting an Apollo 13 vibe from this one. Desire boosters? Rocket fuel? Does that mean I have to strap two little tanks of monomethyl hydrazine to my undercarriage? If so, then I’m out, I’m afraid. And imagine if there was an accident? The Kings of Leon would then be confirmed correct: This sex definitely is on fire. Along with the bed, and most of my apartment*

_______________________________________________________________________________

Satisfy Me, 1ncrease your LittlePenis 2-4 Inches now!
90 Days Guaranteeed. Medically Approved 100% by FDA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*I’m quite hurt by this one. This complete stranger has seen fit to mock my love package. That only normally happens with people that have actually met me, not total strangers on the internet. They have totally ruined any chance of me satisfying them now with this slanderous insult. Rude bastard. I'm taking me and my penis away. NO SATISFACTION FOR YOU SUNNY JIM!*

________________________________________________________________________________

Become her brutal banger  Feel the deep pleasure Impulse for long love

Your woman wishes to be boned

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*Brutal banger? I’m British. We just normally just cry halfway through and then take a shower afterwards as all that intimacy makes us feel dirty. And I have just sent a text to Kates asking her if she wanted to be “boned”. Her reply? “Not right now, I have a headache darling” . SCREW YOU MYSTERY PENIS ENHANCER PERSON! YOU WERE WRONG!!!!!*

_______________________________________________________________________________

It is your time to make love with hellish heat and heaven delight!

Heal your manhood with our cures, so it could please ladies as before!
Want to be a man with lots of stamina for nights? Take this solution!
She will moan as loud in alarm beneath you! Try male goods for affordable prices!
No needed arousal power? Return it today with our goods!
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*A few things wrong with this one. Hellish heat and heaven delight I suppose I can handle. If it were comfortable heat and angel delight, then that would be better (I am particularly fond of the toffee flavour). The main thing that concerns me is my lady moaning in alarm beneath me. Now that doesn’t sound sexy, that sounds like assault. Either that or you have gone in the wrong entrance by mistake.*

___________________________________________________________________________

1) Are you really HAPPY with yourPenis Size?
 2) PermanentPenis En1argement - En1arge up to 3-4 inches in length in just weeks!
 3) Thicken yourPenis - 1ncrease the girth (width) of yourPenis
 4) Create a BiggerPenisHead - Create a more muscular mushroomed looking PenisHead!
 5) Get More PowerfulErections - Develop 'RockHard' Elrection, each and every time no matter your age!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*Let me address all the issues here one by one

1) Yes I am happy with my penis size, thank you for asking.

2) And how are you going to do this? By using a system of weights and pulleys to stretch it across the room? I don’t think so sunshine.

3) See 2.

4) At no point have I ever wanted my penis head to look like a mushroom. That would just look stupid. Do you have any other vegetable shapes? How about a turnip? Can you do that? If you can get it to look like a turnip, we might have a deal.

5) How powerful are we talking here? If I take my trousers off, will I be catapulted out the window? That doesn’t sound like fun. And a rock hard erection? True, it would make a handy thing to hang my keys on at night. But what about the worry that it could take someone's eye out with it? Or knock over lamps and stuff when I walk around my bedroom.  I’m pretty sure you haven’t thought this through?*

All joking aside, I have ordered all of them.

What? You never know?

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It....

Through my many years of life, I feel I have amassed enough information through devouring apocalyptic entertainment in film and book form to make me an expert on surviving any end of the world scenario.

As I care about you all deeply, I am now going to pass this information on to your good selves.

You may wish to print this out and pin it to the front of your refrigerator as a handy “How to guide” in case any of the things I am about to talk about actually happen to you.

*Zombies I have already covered here*

Alien Invasion.

As we all know, any form of alien invasion is solely down to the fact that they wish to anally probe us. This is one topic that sits rather uncomfortably with me as I suffer terribly from irritable bowel syndrome, so believe me when I say; there is no chance that any probe is going up my buttski. I still have nightmares about the last rectal examination I received from my doctor. He had the audacity to chat away with me like it was a normal situation, asking me what I was planning to do that weekend, all the while with his finger up my rear end, probing away for god knows what. I half expected him to pull out the Holy Grail from my back passage and cry out loudly, “After all these years, I have finally found it!”, put on a fedora hat and then exit the surgery hurriedly as a giant boulder crashed through the wall and chased after him.

Now the main form of defence for being abducted by aliens with an unhealthy interest in your poop chute is to get a decent form of education and not live alone in some backwaters shack where your only companion is an overweight cow called Betty, who on the weekends you like to put makeup on and a nice frock and then practice your killer moves on (You’ve shore got a purdy mouth for a cow).

Nearly everybody who has been interviewed after claiming to be abducted by aliens has turned out to be a hick from some town you have never heard of, who looks like the poster boy for why cousins shouldn’t be allowed to marry. And these are the best specimens to study? Or maybe they are the only ones stupid enough to get caught?

If the invasion is purely for world domination, and they start laying waste to all the major cities with a green death ray, the best course of action is to follow a cute dog wherever it goes. The dog never dies in the movies. Never. They could be in the midst of a killer explosion, buildings and freeways collapsing all around them, and the dog will always get out without a singed hair on its body. Follow the dog, you make it out alive. The simplest of rules.

Or failing that:

Best Course Of Action: Run away.

Terrorist Invasion.

If terrorists take over the building you are currently in, one of the first things you will suddenly start having the urge to do is to remove your shirt and start crawling round in the air ducts whilst wearing a vest.

Two problems with this. 1) I don’t wear a vest. 2) I’m claustrophobic.

Now the benefit of never wearing a vest is that if I take my shirt off, the moment any light hits my pasty English body, any terrorists in the vicinity will suddenly be blinded by the pure white energy beams that bounce off my skin and therefore be unable to shoot me, thus aiding my escape (and it’s a proven fact that the world leaders are looking at harnessing the power of the pale skin of the British as a form of alternative energy to aid climate change. Did you know that 50 British people sunbathing on a Spanish beach could power New York for eight months?)

The claustrophobia side of things I can’t control though. There is no way I am getting in an air duct. So I will probably have to resort to running up and down the fire escape stairs in a massive panic until caught.

Now before we started “The war on terror”, terrorists were normally European, had some dastardly plan that normally involved stealing vast amounts of cash, and the lead baddie was nearly always played by a British guy, because apparently the British accent is both creepy, and intelligent (and I get called both on a regular basis, so there must be some truth in that).

So if you do get caught, the best way to escape is to ask the leader to sit down and have a cup of tea with you, crack out the garibaldi biscuits, and then ask them how the weather has been lately. And the moment they go all misty eyed over talking about the British favourite subject, and start saying, “Well, it was very close last night. Very muggy, no air. Was a nightmare trying to get some sleep”, slip out the back door quietly saying that you are going out to get more biscuits.

Best Course Of Action: Run away.

Giant Insects Through Nuclear Testing/Toxic Waste.

Now this all depends on what kind of insect gets enlarged. If it is a slug then that's not too bad really. You could probably just go over to it and poke it with a stick. But say if it’s an ant, or god forbid, a really big bastard spider, then you have problems.

Normal response for me with spiders is to get a glass and a bit of paper and use them to remove it. I am fine with the little ones; it’s when you start getting to the larger house spiders that I start freaking out. I suppose I am arachnophobia, but only with the scary ones with the large legs, the little ones I can handle. So to be faced with one the size of a 4-door family saloon could be a daunting experience. And finding a glass that size could prove a problem.

Your best bet is to find a tank. Or a really, really big can of Raid. 

Best Course Of Action: Run away.

Plague/virus.

A timely one this. The moment that any worldwide plague or virus is made public knowledge, you need to make yourself a germ warfare suit out of black bin bag liners, taping them all together and using two plastic cups as eye goggles. Once your suit is made, you can go out into the wasteland and start collecting supplies.

A good weapon is handy in situations like this. I prefer a shotgun. It’s big, loud, and always looks cool in the movies.

Now the thing about infection is that it’s every man for himself. You suspect anyone of having the disease; you have to end them fast. Any sign of sneezing, wheezy chests or watery eyes, then kill that person before they pass it on to you.

And you’re basically screwed if you suffer from hayfever. Stock up on antihistamines, otherwise your brains will be splattered over the floor quicker than you can say “It’s a pollen based allergy! I’m fine!”

Now if you are one of the lucky ones who have a natural immunity, then it falls down to you to find out others with this same immunity and to start to repopulate the world. Yes, it is a dirty job, but you have to put personal feelings aside and go collect a harem of the opposite sex, stick name badges with each day of the week on them so you don’t get confused, and just go for it. It will be a long, hard, filthy job, but remember, you are doing this for the future of mankind. And if you insist that all of your harem call you Grand Master Flash, then that is entirely up to you.

Best Course Of Action: Run away (in germ warfare suit)

Weather Goes Mental.

Climate change is all around us. Newspapers and TV shows are screaming at us that the end is coming sooner than we think. So what can we do?

Well, firstly, rising sea levels are a given fact. So it might be prudent to walk round with one of those rubber rings round your waist. If you can find a novelty one that maybe has a duck on it then that will raise a smile in times of worry.

Earthquakes, harsh winters, boiling hot summers, tsunamis, tornados, solar flares, all of the above will start to happen with alarming regularity.

So how the hell do you survive it?

Well, your best bet is to try and hook up with a very photogenic family, preferably with some sort of relationship issues. The father could not get along with his son, or the husband could be estranged from his wife and kids. These are the people that will survive this form of apocalypse (apart from the stepdad, he never does. So stay the hell away from him). You maybe could just tag along with them at a distance? Keep out of all the rows and emotional bonding that will be going on as that will normally make you want to vomit every five minutes (though if there is a rescue mission to save one of the family, do go on that, they always work out fine. Well, unless it’s to save the stepdad. Repeat, stay away from the stepdad).  

And just before you feel as if your head is going to explode from all the “I am so sorry I was never there for you.” and the “We stick together as a family.” bullshit that they will be spouting at any given opportunity, just try and keep calm. There will normally be some destination of safety that they are heading towards due to the fact the male of the group is always an expert in whatever catastrophe has occurred. So once you reach this destination, be it an ark, or some army base, while they are all jumping up and down on the side of a mountain with joy, you can push them all off and watch them fall screaming into oblivion, and then walk down to the safe place happy in the knowledge that as a family they will stick together (mainly in messy lumps on the floor).

Then you can laugh.

Best Course Of Action: Run away with a family.

I do hope that some of this has been helpful for you? One of the above will happen at some point, so it’s always best to have these little scenarios playing in the back of your mind. Keep going over them until you feel as if you can do them all in your sleep. That is if you can get any sleep from worrying about any of the above actually happening.

Stay safe people.

Comma Again?……..(Do you see what I did there? I'm so cool)

Every hero needs a nemesis (and no matter what anybody says, I am a hero).

Superman has kryptonite. Jerry has Tom. Batman has the Joker.

Mine?

Well, mine is the humble comma.

This small, harmless looking piece of punctuation has caused me no end of anguish and worry.

Now I don’t mean I walked home one night to find it lurking menacingly round the corner, along with a drugged up hyphen and a drunken semicolon, all of them brandishing switchblades and threatening me unless I handed over my wallet. But what I do mean is that every time I complete a piece of writing, I then have to play: Lets guess where the comma should go, and try and figure out all the punctuation mistakes I have made.

Now bearing in mind that I am borderline OCD, and also an unbearable control freak as well, I have to have perfection in all that I do. If I don’t, then there is a fairly strong chance that the world will end. That's right, you heard me, the world will end!

So this natural urge for perfection means that in every written piece I finish, I will then read it again for errors. Then again. Then again. And then I will pause, and then read it again. Then read it again…..Then….re…ad…it……agai.....n…………

Net result from the hours spent obsessing on this is that all the words form one giant splodge on the screen, and all the punctuation marks I have made leap out from my PC monitor, form up into a giant punctuation stick figure man on my desk in front of me, and then throws a flaming exclamation mark into my screaming face (that actually does happen).

You see, I did study at school. I studied hard. But I think I must have been off sick that day in infant school when we briefly went over correct punctuation and grammar. I have always struggled with it. I have mastered enough to make sure anything that I write doesn’t look like the collective works of a hundred monkeys locked in the room with just one typewriter, and that people still seem to be reading this is testament to the fact that it must be, in some form, legible, but the perfectionist in me hates it when I spot a poorly placed comma on past works. I actually go to my punishment room in my flat and whip myself relentlessly with a bamboo stick, shouting, “DO NOT FEAR THE COMMA! THE COMMA IS OUR FRIEND!”  Over and over again until my neighbours below start banging on their ceiling for me to shut up.

I think I have grasped the usage of most punctuation, but the simple placing of a single comma is one that causes me the most anguish. When I am writing, I can feel my tiny comma friend bouncing up and down with excitement beside me like an overexcited puppy.

I’m pretty sure I should go in there, it would tell me after I had completed a sentence.

“No, not yet, my small and eager chum.” I would reply (Yes, aloud. I live alone, I can do these things).

Ohhhhhh, put me in there. Right after that word, zombie, it would command me, positively squealing with pleasure, sure in the knowledge it would be used soon.

And then I would study the line I had just written, decide that my little comma friend was right, and then place it in. Then I would see that it was in fact wrong and my little comma friend was just lying to me, all it wanted to do was be placed on that clean, white page, and sit there gloating at my naivety. So I would then remove the comma, tell it that its mother was a alcoholic whore of an apostrophe, and banish it to the corner of my study, where it would sit there sulkily, throwing me dirty looks.

I have tried to brush up on my punctuation skills by reading various help yourself books. But as I am at the age of 31, my brain refuses to do any learning from books on the basis that school finished about 14 years ago, and there is no way we are going back to textbooks. As soon as I open to the first page, my brain sends me the message Hey buddy, let’s not read that boring old textbook. Let’s do something fun, huh? We could go over all your most embarrassing moments in life? Or how about we come up with a plan of how to survive a terrorist invasion in your apartment block like in Die Hard? Or we could simply analyse every aspect of your personality until you want to weep? Shall we do that? You wanna analyse every aspect of your personality? Right down to every obsessive detail? And I would nod my head dumbly in agreement and go find a quiet spot to do so.

So my way of getting round it is books. I love to read, so as well as getting a good story from the novel I am reading, I also study the use of punctuation as well. I look and see how the author has used his friendly little comma, how they have placed all the right bits, in all the right places. And I feel I am slowly getting there. I am much better than I was, say, this time last year?

Even so, the above has probably been proof read a thousand times, run through Word check double that, and will still probably contain a fair few mistakes. And the perfectionist in my will wince at every discovered error and still be editing it a week after it has been put up, just because simply it’s what I do.

But I will beat you comma.

Your day will come……….

Oi! Mind Yer Language!

This blog contains foul swear words. Anyone of a nervous disposition should turn off their PC’s now. If you have small children in the room, please return them to their cages immediately. The blog owner takes no responsibly if exposure to these horrendous words turns you into a knife carrying psycho, who likes nothing better than to stalk the streets at night, terrorizing little old ladies.

You have been warned………….   

Anyone that knows me well can confirm that my language is always on the fruity side. I do swear an awful lot. I have refrained from doing it on here, mainly because, like anal bleaching, I know it’s not to everyone's taste. So on my blog I am quite chaste and lovely, in real life, my language is more like an old dock worker who has just stubbed his toe on a rather large anchor. Fairly colourful for most of the duration. But on this blog, I will always remain a fairly profanity free person (the odd one might slip out though). 

I don’t have a problem with people that swear, but also have no issue with people that take offence to it as well. Horses for courses, each to their own, and any other well worn simile you can think of. It is a topic that divides an awful lot of people, but wherever you stand on it, that's fine with me.

The use of swearing does fascinate me though. The origins, the correct usage, the fact that most of them seem to emanate from the genital region, and nearly always involves some form of sexual act or bodily function. I have often wondered where these words come from and what donates their offensiveness? Who chooses that certain words are wrong? Why can I not say c*ck at a wedding? Stuff like that?

To give a brief rundown of my own background: My Dad’s family were all from Ireland, they moved over to the UK where he met my Mum, his family then moved over to the USA, while he stayed with my Mum and (thankfully for me) married her. So growing up, my family consisted of my parents, my Nan and Granddad, and my Uncle (all from my Mum’s side).

Now my little family basically all originated from the East End of London (apart from my Dad, who was Irish- I do hope your keeping up?), and what that means is that colourful language was in the background all throughout my childhood. Now I do hope that doesn’t raise any eyebrows, because that doesn’t mean I wasn’t brought up correctly, and that certainly doesn’t mean that my parents were in anyway undereducated folk. My Mum was fiercely intelligent, spoke fluent German, and installed in me a love of books that I am grateful for to this very day. My Dad, whilst freely admitting that he wasn’t a literary giant, had a knack with anything technical that could sometimes take your breath away. They were good people who raised me well. I knew good from bad. I knew how to be a decent person. And I knew that certain words were off limits from a very young age. That part I can’t underline enough.

Even so, due to the family background and the area that I lived in, swearing was a part of everyday life. I remember family get togethers, parties, neighbours popping over, Christmases and birthdays, all filled with fun, laughter, and good natured leg pulling, all done with a liberal sprinkling of swearing (and I'm pretty sure that for most of us, the first time we ever hear any swearing is when our fathers attempt any form of DIY and it goes horribly wrong).

And I loved it. It was never malicious, it was always followed by a great big burst of laughter, and it actually provoked a sense of community in some strange way, bizarre as that might sound. It was just part of the norm for me. I knew these words were off bounds, but I also knew that in the context my family and their friends used them, they were always harmless.

Now, when I started to grow up and began to understand these words I was hearing had a touch of taboo about them, the next natural progression was to start using them amongst my friends. And they were all doing it as well, it wasn't just me. We were only children, bear that in mind. There could be an argument that if I hadn’t been exposed to them as I was growing up, then maybe I wouldn’t use them now? But if it wasn’t at home that I might have heard these words, then it certainly would have been somewhere else. It was unavoidable. Swearing is all around us, and there is no possible way to avoid it.

So we would end up dropping in a sh*t and a f*ck into our conversations, and then snigger like the little school boys we were. But we would only do it amongst each other, for we knew that to use them with an adult would certainly mean instant death.

It wasn’t like I was walking into my home, saying “Hello Mum, where's my b*stard tea?”

No, I was sensible. I knew these words should only be used in certain social situations. And this is a mindset that has stayed with me well into adult life. 

I know when it is socially acceptable to swear (Hello Dave, you massive t*sspot), and when it’s not socially acceptable to swear (More f*cking tea, Vicar?). It is a useful system that works rather well, and has saved me from embarrassing the right people at the wrong time.

Now onto the words themselves. And this is where it may get a little sweary…er?

So if bad language is not your bag, once again, I totally understand, and think nothing less of you if you have no desire to read on, just as long as you think nothing less of me for writing about them? I hope that's a fair compromise? Let’s shake on it just to be sure?

LIST OF SWEAR WORDS RANGING IN SEVERITY:
1)C*nt
2)F*ck.
3)Sh*t.
4)Pr*ck.
5)P*ss.
6)B*llocks.
7)Ar*ehole.
8)Big fat twatty bottom.

Now obviously these are not all the swear words in the world, but merely the building blocks for other swear words to rest upon. So you can have additions to any of the above: motherf*cker, thunderc*nt, massively big fat twatty bottom, and make any combination up as you see fit. The more inventive the swear word, the more impact it has.

Now to me, there are two kinds of swear word. Passive and non-passive. You can say any of the above in many different ways, to many different people.

You can use them in an aggressive way if your aim is to attack somebody, say them with real venom and meaning, but you can also use them in a comfortable way, if used towards a friend who is used to such language and returns fire in a similar manner. 

Different countries use different swear words as well. Motherf*cker is predominately a US word, where B*llocks is solely a UK one. I would imagine Motherless son of a six nippled dog can be used in many Middle Eastern countries, where in Ireland, if you get called a Tuilli, you obviously have upset someone.

My own personal usage? I drop the F-bomb in most of my sentences, but only as long as I am in the right surroundings. Sh*t gets used quite a lot as well. And then we have the taboo one. The biggy, if you will?

C*nt.

If swearing has somewhat lost its ability to shock over time, this one word still divides opinion on a massive scale. To some, it’s the worst word you can ever use, to others; it’s just a word, nothing more, nothing less.

To see it used in films and TV shows can still make you pause for a second, and think: Hang on, did I just hear that? I always remember the first time I ever heard it in a film. It was in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and I must have been about ten, watching it in my bedroom late one night where it was playing on BBC1. I had never heard that word before and stupidly asked my Dad what it was the next day. My Nan and Granddad were round to visit my Mum as well, and you could hear all four jaws hit the ground as they looked at me in shock. I then got chased round the room with a rolled up newspaper. Needless to say, there was plenty of discussion about how maybe I shouldn’t have a TV in my room……  

So, it’s a shocking word to quite a few people.

Do I use it?

Well, yes, I have to admit, I do. But I think this is also a UK thing as well. Over the last 10-15 years, I think to most UK residents, the overuse of this word, like any word does, has made us a little desensitised to the shock value. I use it with my friends; we are often calling each other by certain swearwords, this being one of them. Now it has no meaning. We could just be calling each other Hosepipes and it would still probably have the same effect.

Does it make me uneducated? I don’t think so. Does it make me unimaginative? Well, if I was just swearing to look big, or to look clever, maybe? But if I put it into a context of an amusing insult, a game of brinkmanship where the recipient also has an expletive laden comeback as well, then maybe not? It’s just something I do. I don’t tend to judge others, and I’d hope the same would be given in return. I’m a good person, who can sometimes use the word C*nt in a sentence. But only around others that are used to it. I would never use any of these words around children, but I also know that they would probably have heard most of them anyway. As with most things, there is a time and a place.

It is still however, a fairly strong word to use. I remember reading a film magazine article that Brad Pitt gave in about 2000. He was over here in the UK, filming for a movie called Snatch. In it, he remarked how the cast and crew would go around, calling each other C*nt all the time.  At first he was shocked, it not being a word commonly used in the US, but after time, he felt comfortable enough to use it as well. And I suppose that's the defining matter with all of the above, and maybe the vague point that I may have been fumbling to grasp with this post.

It’s all to do with surroundings and context. I would never be offended by swearing, but I also would totally get it if somebody hated the use of bad language as well. It’s all to do with who you are, what your background is, and where your social barometer lays.

I hope this post hasn’t caused any offence, as that certainly wasn’t my intention. And I also hope that any opinion of me hasn’t suddenly decreased now that you all know I’m a foul mouthed misanthrope. You see, I swear, therefore, I am.

And if it’s good enough for Brad Pitt, then it’s good enough for me.

The massive C*nt……..

Daddy Cool…..

It was about two weeks into our relationship when I asked my girlfriend the ego boosting question that most men ask just after just meeting their partner.

“So, what was it that attracted you to me?”

We were walking along London's South Bank, it was a beautiful late summers evening, everyone was out in short sleeves, all tanned and happy. It was a lovely night.

She paused for a moment, and then said “Well, you weren’t bad looking……….”

I mentally high fived myself for being such a good looking devil.

“….you made me laugh…….”

I mentally high fived myself again for being such an amusing bastard.

“….and I have always liked geeky men.”

I mentally high fived myself for- Hang on, what did she just say?

“I’m….what?” I spluttered in a mixture of indignation and hurt.

“Geeky men. I’ve always liked geeky men.” she replied, obviously not seeing my distress.

The huge KLANG I heard was the sound of my smile falling from my face and hitting the ground in a pair of two downturned lips.

“Kates, I am not geeky. I’m cool, I’m Daddy Cool.”

“Daddy Cool is a long stretch. Don’t worry, geeky is fine. I like geek. Geek chic and all that?”

I swiftly moved the conversation on to safer territory, but her statement played out over and over in my head.

Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky. Geeky.

As I lay awake that night, I began to analyse myself once more (long term readers will know that I do this quite a lot. In fact, if you were to give me a skip filled with entrails, major organs, limbs, and a fairly stupid looking head, I could probably knock up a decent replica of myself in about 20 minutes).

OK, so I may not wear woolly hats in summer, sit in funky coffee shops, tapping away on my laptop writing the last great American novel, or go to nightclubs that were so exclusive, you actually have to contact the dead via an Ouija board to locate the address, but surely I wasn’t geeky?

Over the course of our relationship, I have tried to justify the geeky tag.

“Is it because I’m always reading?” I asked her one time.

“God no! I love it that you read. That's one of the things we have in common.” she replied.

A year later.

“Is it because i have an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of useless information?” I asked.

*This bit is sadly true. I do. It never helped me in school though. I couldn’t tell you who our fifth monarch was, but I could tell you who played Neil in The Office (Patrick Baladi). This also makes me a one stop mine of information for my friends to settle an argument.

Phone rings

“Hello?”

“Dan, who directed Ghostbusters?”

“Ivan Reitman”

“Thanks mate. Bye”

It also makes me good at pub quizzes*

“No, the useless information thing is handy.” Kates replied.

Another year later.

“Is it because I play computer games?” By now the desperation was evident in my voice.

“You have to admit, the incident with the “cans” was pretty geeky?” she said, laughing.

And she was right, of course. One time, Kates was asleep on my sofa, so I decided to pop on my PC and play some Call of Duty. Not wanting to wake her, I put on my huge funky headphones that I normally use for some late night gaming, funky headphones she would never see because they make me look a total dick whilst wearing them. When I powered up and checked online, I could see that my nemesis, nOObkiller1995, was on as well. 

“Payback bitch.” I muttered, hunched over my keyboard, ready for the fight.

Sadly for me, nOObkiller1995 was a German kid who absolutely slaughtered me every time our paths crossed. So this time I was out for revenge. And revenge would be mine. Oh yes, it would be mine.

So of course, as soon as I joined the game, the little bastard shot me in the head.

LOLZ. YOU DEAD scrawled across my screen. 

I finally managed to have him cornered though, trapped in a burnt out building with no escape. I stalked him through the rooms, and was just getting ready to finally finish him and send him abusive messages like, SUCK MY BALZ, BIATCH! , when a hand fell on my shoulder.

“NABAJA! What the f**k?” I screamed out in terror, turning round to see if the zombie apocalypse had actually happened and they had finally got me.

“What are you doing?” Kates asked, standing sleepily beside me. “And what the hell are you wearing on your head?”

I suddenly realized that I was sitting in the dark, playing a computer game and muttering obscenities at a 12 year old German kid, whilst wearing the world’s largest headphones on my head. I heard the word geek whisper in my head.

“These are my cans” I muttered in embarrassment, whilst on the screen, nOObkiller1995 stabbed me in the heart with his knife, and then emptied the whole clip of his AK-47 in my prone body whilst jumping up and down with joy, just to rub it in.

HAHA YOU LOOZ! mocked me from the screen, while my girlfriend mocked me from behind.

Sometimes life can be very cruel.

So finally, after much soul searching, I came to accept that I am actually a bit geeky.

“Your right, I am a geek. I’m king of the geeks. Other geeks worship at my geeky throne. I accept who I am now.” I finally told Kates, after many years of self analysis.

“And I wouldn’t want you any other way.” she replied, kissing me on the cheek.

And that somehow makes it all worthwhile.

Plus, at least I’m not a nerd. Now that would be embarrassing.

Stop The Press!.......

Last night, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice happened in the history of British…..er….history?


It was huge. So huge in fact, you might have felt the rumblings of discontent wobble their way over the pond to the USA, and start tickling your toes under the table as you sat down and started to eat your Sunday dinner. It was that big, I kid you not.

So what happened?

Lucie Jones got voted off the X Factor.

Not quite up there with the Guildford Four for miscarriages of justice, I grant you. But nevertheless, you would have thought by all the teeth grinding and fevered hand wringing that overcome almost half the population of the UK, something inhumanly serious had happened.

It hadn’t.

As I know many of you reading this are not from our green and pleasant land, I will point you in the direction of my previous posting about this show (Look! It's here! Right here! Go on, look! Do it! With your Eyes!) just to get you up to speed, but in layman's terms, its American Idol, but on ketamine. Lots and lots of lovely ketamine.

My friends (who I mentioned in the previous post) obsession with one of the judges, Cheryl Cole, has now almost reached dangerous levels. He actually physically yearns for her with every molecule of his being. I went round to his last night and we watched the results show together. We were chatting away normally, as you do, but the moment she came on, he reverted to caveman speak.

“So, who do you think will go?” I asked him.

“Ug. No talk.” he said, beating his chest and then pointing at the screen, ”Cole on.”

“I think it might be Jamie this week.” I replied, edging away from his fevered body as it angled towards the TV.  

As Cheryl swept across the screen, my statement was ignored as he made almost painful noises of pent up sexual frustration towards her smiling face as it beamed out across the nation in all its glory. It can get a bit awkward round there sometimes.

“Yeah, I think Jamie will go…..Definitely Jam-Jesus! Dude! Put your pants back on! I’m in the room! I’M IN THE ROOM!”

Anyway, back on track……

Every year, this bloated, carnival freak show, rolls onto our TV screens and ruins our Christmas No 1 single with almost depressing regularity. But this year, something different has happened.

I want you to look at something now.

It looks a bit odd.

It might freak you out.

But just, look………..

Man, weird looking, ain’t they?

Meet the Twins.

These two creatures have seemingly divided a nation. Divided them into wondering which twin to experiment on first with chapter one of Idi Amin’s, How to Make Friends and Torture People, (Chapter four is quite good. It’s amazing what you can do with a radish, 20 minutes, and a whole lot of perseverance).

These twins, John and Edward, or Jedward, as they have been collectively labelled, are two tone deaf Irish lads who have won over, or appalled, the viewing nation in equal measures. Cloned from the leftover DNA of two members of the Hitler Youth, each new performance is awaited by all with, well, not really baited breath, but certainly a massive sense of trepidation. A bit like waiting for a bowel movement after a long period of strong constipation. You don’t know what's coming, but you know it’s not going to be good…….

Make no mistake, these two are bad. Not just bad, but actually offensively terrible

Well look, don’t just take my word for it, have a gander for yourselves.



Pretty grim, huh?

We have had this for about four weeks now. Each new show spews forth sights that probably wouldn’t be out of place in a sadists cheese fuelled nightmare. When I first watched the above, I was actually mouthing the words: Dear God, No! Over and over again, like a Thuggee cult member from Temple Of Doom. But when they stopped singing (!) and started talking to each other, I had to bite down on a cushion in embarrassment, as Kates turned to me with tears running down her face, crying “Make them stop, please, make them stop!”  I honestly thought she was going to throw a shoe at my rather expensive TV, cracking the screen and causing boiling hot plasma juice to come pouring out and burn through my floor, melting my neighbours below. Luckily, she just hid behind my back. I hadn’t seen her that traumatised since the one and only attempt at poetry I inflicted on her when we first started going out.

And it was all because of these bloody twins.

Now though, the devils minions have fallen into the trap of having to top each performance as the weeks go by. So every weekend, the production values go up, the pyrotechnics explode even louder (dangerous with that hair), and the spectacle increases until it resembles something out of The 120 Days of Sodom. I fully expect that if they make it through to the final week, in order to stay in it, they will have to resort to bumming each other live on stage whilst being whipped by three foot high midgets dressed up as Valkyries, who are all riding on the backs of fire breathing Shetland ponies.

Ever since these abominations have been included in the show, the Dark Prince Cowell has been moaning to anyone that will listen about how this is a singing contest, how they are making a mockery of this high class piece of art, blah blah blah blah, whilst secretly inside, he must be delighted in all the attention this must be getting.

So anyway, this outrage that has taken place?

Tis simple.

Basically, the twins and Lucie Jones, (bland, average singer, much better than them though), were in the bottom two for receiving the least votes. It came down to Cowell’s deciding vote who to send out. After all this time moaning about them, now was his chance to do the decent thing and get rid of these awful little shits.

The whole nation was perched on the edge of their seats. Hearts were in mouths. Hands were being held. Nipples were being stroked (Look, I do that in times of stress, OK?)

He paused, we waited, and then he said the dreaded words.

“I can’t decide. I’m going to leave it to the public vote.”

WHAT IS THERE TO DECIDE?!!!!! END THEM! END THEM NOW, DARK ONE!

The public voted that Lucie was going.

We stood up. We yelled. We ran out into the street with our underpants on our heads, screaming “Justice! Justice for Lucie!” (I also black out in times of anger, OK? Not my fault. Apparently, I was found about 12 miles away trying to break into an electrical store that was showing the X Factor news in the window. I was also wearing a suit of armour made out of a dustbin. Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.)

The internet practically melted with the outraged weight of a million bile filled messages of condemnation that spewed out in a tidal wave of sheer disbelief. World leaders had aides rushing into their offices, waving bits of white paper around, frantically trying to get their bosses attention to the news that had just broken. Israel and Palestine stopped eyeing each other up like two drunk brothers from opposing families at a wedding, to say, incredulously, “Simon, have you gone wrong or something?” before someone threw an egg mayonnaise vol-au-vent and it all kicked off again. Hollywood film producer’s phones went nuclear as pitches for movies about this blatant perversion of justice came flooding in. At this moment, it looks like Daniel Day Lewis will play both the twins using the latest CGI technology, Kate Winslet is going to be Lucie, and the Jim Henson workshop are labouring flat out to get a fully functioning animatronics model of Simon Cowell ready in time for filming.

The whole of the UK went mad for about 24 hours, and then realised that it was being silly and sheepishly slunk back to its living rooms under a cloud of shame.

And that deep, almost maniacal, laughter, you can hear winging its way over our darkened land tonight? 

That will be the Dark Prince.

For the Dark Prince is very, very happy……….

Working Nine To Five..........

I got an email from the BBC yesterday, sadly they have declined my application for the trainee journalist role. I did indulge myself in a little lip wobble on the train home when I read this on my iPhone, but to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting to get the role, so it wasn’t really any surprise. Shame really, I would have been bloody good at it.

Nevertheless, that bad news didn’t take the shine off my puppy party yesterday. It rocked to almost monumental levels. A few new faces turned up to join in the canine fun. I am no good with dog breeds (I get them all mixed up), so I will go with descriptions.

Old hand Alfie was there (small, furry, rag doll body). He spent a good portion of the hour sitting in my lap, licking my chin. I like Alfie. Daisy (small, curly, possible Labradoodle) was new, so she was a little bit nervous at first, but soon got into the swing of things. Josh (small, furry, stringy looking, big ears) started off playing well enough, but then progressed to mounting Peggy by the shoulders, and then valiantly attempted to have vigorous sex with her head. Kates and I didn’t know whether to laugh, or be slightly offended that our little princess was being violated in that way. We just both nervously tittered in the end. Josh just carried on thrusting away. He had stamina, I'll give him that.

It looks like I have some work over Christmas. I am going to be working in one of London's premier department stores to help with the Christmas rush. Not what I had in mind, and a few months ago, I would have probably got all precious about it and said no, but after many months of living the hermit life indoors, and quietly going insane, well, beggars can’t be choosers. Plus it means after dramatically declaring, Alan Rickman style, that, “Christmas is cancelled!” to Kates, I can now go and buy some presents.

The issue that I really have with it is that yet again, I seem to have found myself in a role that involves dealing with the general public on a daily basis. As I discussed a few posts ago, I am not really a “people” person. My ideal job would be me, sitting alone in a room, maybe surrounded by some monkeys. And yet all throughout my working life, I seem to have found myself in public facing positions. I have been shop assistants, branch managers, financial advisors, its like God is punishing me for something, and I am at a loss as to what it is? You start out in one role, and seem to follow suit with a similar one all your life. Every effort to try and do something different has met with a rejection. Net result for me when having to work with the public is probably similar to asking an acrophobic to go and count all the grains of sand in the Sahara desert. It leaves you with a throbbing headache, the urge to kill someone, and the wish to go hide in the cupboard.

“Why on earth do you want to join the Police when you hate people?” Kates asked me about a year ago when I first started my application, long before the rejection letter due to sub-standard hearing came winging its merry way to me.

The simple truth is, I wanted to do something worthwhile, something that actually meant something, and didn’t involve working my backside off to make somebody else a lot of money.

Plus, if any of the public annoyed me, I could hit them with my truncheon.

“Yeah, whatever mate. So what if I mugged that old granny. I’m only 15. You can’t touch me, innit?”

*Pulls out truncheon*

TWONK!

“Ow!”

“Yeah, I’ve had 98 pints of lager in the pub. I’m a 48 year old man who should know better. I’m now going to tell you what I think of the Police before driving home. You’re all scum! Scum, the lot of you!”

TWONK! TWONK!

“Excuse me Mr Policeman. Can you help me get my kitten out of the tree?”

TWONK! TWONK! TWONK!

(I am, of course, joking. I love cats).

When I worked in banking, my survival strategy for dealing with the public was to retreat to my own private Narnia within my head. So when they were sat across my desk, more than likely moaning about something that was entirely their own fault, I would have a beautiful smile played out over my face as I frolicked with Mr Tumnus in the snow, giggling to myself as he threw snowballs at my head.

That might be the reason why I am not in banking anymore?

Saying that though, I am grateful to be having some kind of work. In the current market, any job is a blessing. It will also give me something to write about on here. It has been hard thinking of stuff to post about, seeing as I’m not really doing anything at the moment.

Monday- Had cheese sandwich.

Tuesday- Went from living room, to kitchen.

Wednesday- Longed for the excitement of Monday.

Plus, perhaps you could all run a sweepstake on how long it will take before my eye starts twitching, and I mentally scamper back to the safety of my mind Narnia due to someone asking me where the shoe department was, whilst they stand there, surrounded by shoes, because they indeed were standing in the shoe department.  

I’d say about 27 minutes.

Who Are Ya?…….

Quite a simple game…..

Whoever is reading this, I would like you to describe yourself in one sentence.

So for me, it would be:

Slightly shambolic man, endlessly looking for the right direction.

Use the comments section and fill your boots.