So, That Was Christmas Then?…………….

I always get a little down just after Christmas. Nothing to serious mind, its not like I’m going to suddenly hang myself with sparkly tinsel or anything. I think its more a combination of having a solid two months of literally everything screaming at you “Its Christmas!” and then the day being over quicker than the space between two heartbeats. Its bound to leave you a bit blue, and all those decorations and lights always serve to remind you that its all over and there are no more presents to unwrap. Which sucks.

Have to say though, I have just had the best Christmas I have had in many a year, and I have also got some great gifts as well.

Here is my list:

A range of Dermalogica products (which also includes hand cream)

A funky new scarf

A funky new man bag

Pants

The Thick of It book

Inception Blu Ray

Expensive hot chocolate and a mug

Scented candles for my flat (this list is not showing me in the best of lights)

Aftershave- Hugo Boss Energise

Chocolates

Shower gel

Socks (Partially eaten)

£20 HMV voucher

Now from that list you can probably get a fairly good assumption of who I am. By the looks of it I am a metrosexual male who loves scented candles, man bags, Leonardo Dicaprio, jaunty scarves, hot chocolate and who really, really smells. Oh, and I need lots of pants as well. And socks.

Yeah, I can live with all that. In my defence though, a lot of that stuff I really need, especially the hand cream as I have been getting really dry hands and have had to suffer the indignity of borrowing hand cream off the girls at work. But with this new stuff my hands are now silky smooth and feel divine! They are all going to love me when I return and start letting them use it occasionally. I will finally be one of them. 

My Christmas started on Christmas Eve where I do my normal tradition of going round to Kates mums for dinner. This year was to be different though as normally I would go home alone for Christmas Day, but this year Kates, and her dad and brother, were going to come back with me to spend the day round mine, me being the genial host and everything. Check me out, I’m well adult now.

When I arrived at Kates I was greeted by the sight of her dog Peggy, a lovely staff, running round dressed in a Santa outfit. I couldn’t tell if she was pleased about this. She looked happy, but to be honest, she always looks happy, but she was dressed in a Santa outfit and did look pretty stupid. She also looked a little shifty as well and I soon found out why.

“There's been a bit of an accident with your stocking,” Kates mum told me as I took my coat off.

“Accident?” I replied.

“Yeah, Peggy had been down it and eaten all your chocolates and some of your socks.”

I looked down at Peggy who was by my feet, tail wagging and a lopsided grin plastered all over her face.

“You’ve eaten my Christmas socks?”

Now anyone who knows me knows how I always need new socks. Christmas was my one time of year that I get to restock. And now this little garbage can on legs had just eaten them.

“Its only one pair,” Kates mum said after seeing the crestfallen expression on my face.

“Its okay, honestly. These things happen,” I said with a fixed grin plastered all over my facehole, mentally plotting on how I was going to get my revenge on the little furry shitbag.

When everyone was out of earshot, I leant down to Peggy and whispered in her ear, “You look absolutely ridiculous in that outfit,” and then got a big wet lick up the side of my cheek for my troubles. It was hard to stay mad at her.

Once we were settled then the feasting began. Kates mum is a fantastic cook and this year decided that we weren't going to have a sit down meal, but lots and lots of nibbles. And believe me, there were a lot. Plate after plate came out, a never ending parade of delights that all looked delicious. The next few hours were lost in a sea of Brie and Cranberry parcels, honey and mustard glazed sausages, tiny Indian and Chinese bites, and many, many more. By the end of it I was half slumped  on the sofa, tears of defeat running freely down my cheeks and the meat shakes hitting my body from overindulgence.

“Who wants homemade Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cheesecake?” Kates mum said breezily, not noticing that I had slipped into a food coma. “Dan, I know you’ll have a big slice,wont you?”

I could only smile weakly and make a buh noise that was supposed to resemble, “Yes please, I’d love a huge slice, and also a stomach pump as well if you have one handy?”

Still ate it though. I’m hardcore me.

Eventually it was time for bed and to wait for Santa. The feast did leave me with terrible wind though, I’d like to say it was very Christmassy and sounded like Jingle Bells when it came out, but it didn’t. It sounded evil, and that's because it was. But as I was sharing a bed with Kates AND Peggy (who always sleeps under the blanket with us), I got my revenge on the sock eating little shit by farting on her head all night.

After present opening in the morning, me, Kates and Peggy went to pick up her dad and brother so we could head on back to mine. I was a little nervous as I would be hosting and cooking all at the same time. I had never done this before and was conscious that I could screw up everyone's Christmas if it went wrong. When we got to mine, I opened the door and was greeting by my cat Dotty running up to greet us as she always did. When she saw that her favourite dog had come round to visit once more, she quickly did a mid-air somersault and ran off to spend all of Christmas asleep on top of my fridge.

I got everyone settled, poured out the drinks and passed the nibbles, and then went into the kitchen to start the cooking. I looked at the huge turkey sitting there and it looked back at me. I will tame you bitch I thought to myself, and then began to cook. We had enough to feed a small army and I only had a small oven, so it became a hot game of Jenga trying to figure out ways to fit all of the trays and whatnot into it. I had a momentary panic when I thought that my stuffing balls weren’t cooking, but that passed in time. I’m pretty sure it was me whispering, “ Cook you tiny bastards” at them. I felt like a safecracker as I was hunched over the temperature dial, just teasing another little extra bit of heat and watching for things that might be burning.

“Is everything going okay?” Kates asked me as she popped her head into my kitchen.

“YES! EVERYTHING IS FINE! GO HAVE FUN IN THE LIVING ROOM! FUN! GO NOW!”

“Whoa, okay kitchen Nazi,” she said, backing out slowly with her hands raised.

Eventually everything looked as if it was cooked. To be honest I was so stressed out by then that I couldn’t care less if I poisoned everyone and I was mentally planning on where I could bury the bodies in my communal gardens if it all went wrong. I dished up, served up, and sat down to eat, nervously watching as people took their first bites.

“This is delicious.” Kates.

“This turkey is really good.” Kates dad.

“Pass the cranberry sauce.” Kates brother.

And I looked round in amazement. It was a Christmas dinner. A proper Christmas dinner that I had prepared and that everyone was enjoying.

I felt like a God.

And on the 12th day Dan said, “Let there be food!” And the food was good.

After we ate and nobody died (which is the hallmarks of a successful meal), we sat in the living room to play Goldeneye on the Wii. After a stressful 25 minutes trying to figure out how to set the bloody thing up, we were all ready to play the multiplayer, which basically involved running round shooting each other, something every family wants to secretly do at Christmas. Me being the ubergeek that I am, I immediately got the hang of it and was stalking the others through the level. Others weren't so quick to adapt.

“Which one am I and why can’t I move?” asked Kates dad. I quickly spotted him as the one facing the wall, trying to run through it, and put a bullet in his head.

Oh, someone's dead,” Kates dad said.

“That's you Gary,” I replied.

“Oh.”

Kates was also struggling to work out the controls and I found her in a corner, jumping up and down relentlessly, so I thought it best to put her out of her misery.

“I don’t like this game,“ she cried.

“You just can’t handle my mad skills,” I said.

“I can’t handle you being a massive geek who knows how to play these games, loser.”

To be fair, she was right.

After another ten minutes playing this we all realised that it was actually a bit poo and called it a day. By now everyone was feeling the effects of all the drink and food and was getting sleepy. I stuck on the film Avatar for everyone to watch and we slowly slipped into that post dinner semi slumber.

About halfway through the film, Kates dad woke up sleepily from his doze, looked at the screen and said, “Blue people on the telly,” and then slipped back into sleep again. A pretty fair summing up of the film I think you’ll agree?

Once it was over it was finally time for everyone to go home. After saying goodbye, I found myself alone in my flat to take stock of the day. Now normally, for reasons I won’t go into, Christmas is a hard time of year for me and something that I don’t really get into that much. But this year was different, this year I had the best Christmas that I’ve had in a long time. And I think it was because I was with people that I cared for, and that cared for me back. Which if you think about, beneath all the presents and the sense of occasion, is all what Christmas really boils down to.

Plus I didn’t kill anyone, which is always a massive bonus.

So now the final part of the holiday to get through is New Year. I am lucky in the sense that Kates hates New Year just as much as I do. All the pressure to go out and have fun, screw that. I’m not paying the best part of £40 to go somewhere that would normally cost me nothing on any other day. We always have an anti New Years Eve by having a nice meal in a restaurant in the early evening, take a stroll around London, and then go home to glare at people out of our window.

I know whose the winner in that scenario.

Happy New Year to you all!

Merry Christmas To You All………

I know. I know.

He stays away for a month, doesn’t bother posting anything and then saunters back in whistling and smiling, pretending like nothings happened. I am an awful human being, I really am. I’m not even worth these words that I’m writing for you now. I’m scum. Sub human scum, and I deserve the scorn and indifference that is coming my way. But in fairness, its not like I haven’t thought about you in this last month. I have. You’ve constantly been on my mind. Its been your face, floating in front of my mindscape, looking at me, pleading, that I’ve seen everywhere I’ve looked. Its been there when I’ve slept, eaten, walked down the street, and even when I’ve been bathing. I liked that, it made me feel dirty. Naughty you!

I did try and post. I sat down, fingers on my keyboard, just waiting for the words to come…….and they didn’t. I was dry, the muse was gone and all that remained was the theme tune to The Banana Splits going round on a continuous loop. That wouldn’t make a good blog post, that would be ridiculous. So I just sat there with a thin line of drool running from my bottom lip and felt like a failure. Not only did I let you down, in some small way, I let myself down. And I’m sorry.

But now I’m back, freshly energised and raring to go. I even have a blog post in the chamber that is so deep, powerful and profound, there is the strong possibility that it could actually change you world views and rock your very being to its core. But now is not the time to unleash this beast, no, not now, just before Christmas. Once the New Year starts though, that bad boy is being let out of the blocks and will be coming at you like a rabid chipmunk (plus by then, that should have given me enough time to actually think about what the hell its going to be).

No, now is all about this time of year and what it means. For many it means family, and I hope that you all have yours with you and the day is everything it could be. For others it means loneliness, and if your in that situation, I hope that your 2011 is a better one for you. For many it is the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if your that way inclined, I hope you and the big JC celebrate it in style. And for most of us, its just a chance to gather our loved ones round us, take stock of the year and just be in the company of those that care about us the most, and that's pretty tip top in my view.

So I would like to wish everyone who reads, follows, comments, passed through, looked on in horror and then felt the urge to bath in scented rose water, and those who have simply enjoyed this blog, a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Its been perfect having you here and our paths will cross again soon. I have made one of my New Years resolutions to be fully committed to my writing, both in blog and my personal stuff, so lets see how long I stick at it.

I’m loving you all right now. Each and every one of you (even you doing that weird thing with your nostrils, don’t think that I can’t see you).

And to round this short post off, this is my new favourite rendition of my most loved Christmas song. I hope you enjoy it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Things I Wish Would Happen……

There are many things that I would like to happen to me in my life that sadly probably will not ever take place due to many different reasons. Here is my definitive list of them.

1) Karaoke God.

I would love to go out one night to a bar or club and there be, to our surprise, a karaoke night going on at whatever place we decide to visit. So after listening to an assortment of people get up on stage, microphone in hand, and butcher some well known classic song, it would then finally get to be my turn.

Everyone will nudge each other and smirk as I take the stage, looking forward to the car crash that is about to take place in front of them, when I raise the microphone to my mouth and out of it comes forth the sweetest sound anyone has ever heard. The crowd stops what they are doing and stares with stunned expressions on their faces.

Women turn to their boyfriends in the knowledge that these aren’t really men they are with, the bloke up on stage, he is a man. All the men in the place will wrap their arms round each other and weep as my sweet singing voice takes them back to their childhoods and the innocence that they feel they have lost forever. After I have sung the last final note, a note that sounds as if it has come from the very choirs of heaven itself, the place erupts with clapping and cheering as I slowly walk off the stage, possibly with flowers being thrown at my feet.

Now the choice of song for the will be essential. Patrick Cassidy’s Vide Cor Meum would be perfect. Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back, not so.

Either way, not gonna happen. I have a singing voice that resembles two sperm whales mating (Snigger. Sperm)

2) Monkey Hugger.

I love animals me. And I have always wanted to get nose to nose with some of the more exotic animals that can be found in far flung countries. I have longed to scratch behind the ears of a lion, to swim in the deep blue oceans with whales, and above all else, to hug a monkey.

I love monkeys. They make me laugh. And I have always wanted to get up close with one and give it a hug. The nearest I have been to any primate was one time when I went to London Zoo with Kates. It wasn’t a monkey I encountered, but a gorilla in the gorilla enclosure. We rounded the corner to find a huge glass window, with the great beast just sitting behind it with an air of almost unimaginable sadness. I looked into its ancient and wise face, a face that had seen its gorilla family grow up around it, deep in some jungle, facing everything that mother earth could throw at it, and to then be captured and put on display for us humans to look at. And as I stared, I became transfixed by the wisdom and kindness that I could see in its beautiful expression. And as my green eyes locked with its warm brown ones, I liked to believe we had a connection as we stared at each other through the window, and perhaps we both wondered who the animal really was out of the two of us.

Admittedly this wonderful scene was somewhat spoiled when the gorilla began to smear its own poo all over the glass, but it stayed with me nevertheless.

But yeah, I would like to hug a monkey.

3) Stand Up To A Bully.

I have never been bullied, nor been a bully, but I have always wanted to stand up to one, preferably in front of a crowd of people, maybe in front of the heroine I was trying to woo in my own private high school comedy that would be playing out in my mind.

It would be set in a diner where everyone is hanging out on a weekend, burgers and laughter everywhere and a jukebox playing in the background, and I would just be minding my own business, maybe drinking a milkshake, when all of a sudden the bully and his gang of retards would come up to me and start giving me grief.

I would stand up slowly, safe in the knowledge that I was better than the person in front of me, and just stare back at him with no fear, which would make the bully uncertain as he was used to people cowering in front of him. He would say something about me in front of his friends, just to show he was still in control of the situation. I would counter this with some smart comment that would make everyone else laugh and hopefully make Mary Beth (the heroine) take notice of me for the first time. The bully would then not like his authority being challenged in this way and would then threaten me with violence. I will not rise to this for I am above violence unless it is really necessary, and I want Mary Beth to see this. I can feel her eyes on me, judging my every move.

The bully isn’t having this and is itching for a fight, so with a sigh, I knock him out with one punch and the diner erupts with cheers. Mary Beth sidles up to me and takes my arm and asks me if I want to go for a walk.

As we step outside, she asks me, “How comes I have never noticed you before?”

I smile back at her and say, “Because you never looked hard enough.”

And then we walk off arm in arm into the sunny afternoon as the credits roll.

Pretty good, huh?

Now this is what really will happen.

The bully comes up to me and says something rude about my face. I come back with an insult that possibly involves his mother (that part I am good at). He then hits me hard, knocking me off my stool and leaving me crumpled on the floor in a puddle of my own blood and shit, while Mary Beth goes off with the bully to sex him up a little.

I hate high school comedies.

4) The Returning Hero.

I have always wanted to have someone run to me at the arrivals gate of an airport after I had been away for a long while and wrap their arms around me, crying with happiness that I am back, while everyone around looks on and goes “Ahhhhhh”

Perhaps there will even be cheering? I like cheering. I wish it was mandatory that people would cheer every time I entered a room rather than the slow air of disappointment that normally happens.

I don’t like that.

5) Stand Up Comic.

I have always been impressed with Stand up comedians. To actually have the nerve to stand up in front of a crowd of strangers and then have them eating out of the palm of their hands with funny material that they have written. That sounds like such a blast to me.

There is a slight drawback in me doing it though for two reasons. 1) I am not brave enough. 2) I am in no way funny enough.

My stand up comedy would probably consist of me standing up on stage going, “Cor, cats eh? What are they all about?” and then just stand there sweating while everyone starts getting uncomfortable.

To be honest though, I have to run workshops for our clients in the place where I am currently working, so I know what it’s like to stand up in front of a group of strangers and have them instantly hate you.

6) Action Hero.

I would love to be the hero in my own action film. The plot? It would probably be something like suave European terrorists taking over some office block that I am in. As we realise what is happening, panic spreads as no one knows what we are going to do. One person suggests that we give ourselves up to them to try and negotiate our safety.

The camera then pans over to the man standing silently by the window, gazing out with an air of nobility, heroism, and a little bit of sauciness (Hint: This man is me).

“No,” the man says, turning round and taking off his shirt to reveal a pristine white vest underneath. “We never give up. We fight.”

The crowd of office workers look on in awe at this suddenly imposing figure who they had never noticed before. Men want to be him. Women want him. This is the hero.

And then I would basically kick the ass of all the terrorists. Snapping necks, using machine guns (possibly with one in each hand whilst diving through the air in slo mo), and fashioning weapons out of office equipment (staple guns, paperclip garrotte wires, forts made out of office desks).

Now if this actually did happen in real life, I would probably hide in a room and pull my jumper over my head and keep muttering the mantra, “if I can’t see them, they don’t exist. If I can’t see them, they don’t exist” until found by Alan Rickman, like the big coward that I am.

7) Dancing King.

I can’t dance. I can do the one dance that every bloke can do, which involves shuffling from side to side whilst clenching your fists and biting your bottom lip. I can do that pretty well, to be honest. But actual rhythm, forget about it.

But there are two dancing scenarios I would love to happen to me at one point in my life.

Firstly I would like to be a club with a huge dance floor. I strut out onto the middle of it and start laying down some moves. We are talking about pure poetry here. Me at one with the music. The Lord of the Dance. A huge crowd forms round me, clapping and cheering me on, shouting, “go white boy, go white boy, go” while I do the worm across the floor. And yes, you guessed it; women want to sex me up.

The second scenario is that me and Kates are at a swing night in the 1950’s. I’m in a zoot suit, she looks stunning in that classic vintage style, and we are jiving our little hearts out. And as the brass kicks in, I am literally flinging her around the dance floor in time to the music, not missing a beat. That sounds like absolute heaven to me.

I really want to take dancing lesson.

So these were a few of the things that I wish would happen to liven up my little life. I basically wish I could live my life in pop culture heaven.

But in all seriousness, aren’t we all just living our own little movies?

How To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse…..

I am a 32 year old man.

And because of my gender and age range, I have amassed much knowledge over the 32 years that I have lived so far.

I have learnt how to put up shelving. I have learnt how to change the fuse on a plug. I have learnt never to trust a woman with a tattoo of a dolphin on her shoulder, but probably most importantly, I have learnt how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

It’s all to do with the plan, you see.

From a very early age, probably around about the late teens, every man at some point will have formulated a strategy on how to survive a zombie uprising. And this plan will have many revisions and changes over the years, which are all dependent on the lifestyle of the person creating it.

When you are a young buck, with no responsibilities to speak of whatsoever, your plan is to try and survive at all costs, no matter what. It’s just you, and you alone you look out for. When you get a girlfriend, your plan then changes to include you travelling across the rioting and corpse strewn cities to try and get to her, all the while looking all butch and manly, just in case she may want to sex you up a little when you get there. And finally when you get married and have children, the man will then update in his head the zombie survival plan that will account for his family’s safety and nothing else. He is expendable. Only they matter. For he is man.

Now you may think this is silly and just something I have written to amuse myself, but I can guarantee that every single man at one point in his life has thought over in his head what he will do the moment the dead start dragging themselves out of their graves.

Don’t believe me? Ladies, ask your man the next time you see him. Sit him down and ask him the question, “Have you ever planned what you would do in a zombie outbreak?” and watch his face carefully. Now some of your men may just lie outright and say, “No, don’t be stupid. Why are you asking me such a ridiculous thing?” But watch his eyes. He’s lying ladies. He has a plan. He most defiantly has.

Other men will just come straight out with it. “Yes I have. I have written it all down on a bit of paper in my man den. I’m actually going to pin it up on the fridge,” and will then go through in intricate detail all the aspects of this manly and wise plan and how you fit in to it.

I am quite lucky in many respects with Kates. She puts up with all of my stupid childish things on many occasions, but what she doesn’t screw around with is my zombie survival plan. She knows exactly what to do the moment the dead come to life. I have drilled it in to her.

We first started speaking about this many years ago when we first got together. We were watching the remake of Dawn of the Dead, when at the end she asked me the magical question that every male wants to hear.

“So what would you do in a zombie outbreak?”

After a two hour presentation that involved flip charts, marker pens, diagrams, and an almost unhealthy obsession with pie charts, she had a fairly good idea of what I would do. She also had a pretty good idea that it was probably best not to ask me that question again.

So what would I do?

Well, the first thing I would do, depending on location, would be to try and make my way to wherever Kates is.

This is for two reasons.

1) I love her and need to make sure that she is safe. Only my superior zombie survival skills will ensure this. I am her hero.

2) I can’t drive and she can.

Now, laws of average will dictate that the outbreak will occur while I am at work, which is going to pose a rather difficult situation as I work in London, and that will mean hordes of the undead chowing down on the hordes of the living and me smack bang right in the middle of them. Things could get a little messy.

Another problem is that the moment the slow dawning realisation the this is actual, no shitting around, zombies we are dealing with, takes place, all the men in London will suddenly snap into survival mode, mentally checking off their tick lists of things that they have to do, looking around for the nearest weapons and then making their way to their safe houses. As the ladies of London are in no way sensible enough to think of their own zombie survival plan, they will immediately latch on to the man with his tie wrapped round his head, the blade from the paper cutter gripped tightly in his hand and an almost calm, “I have always expected this to happen,” expression on his face.

This man will be me.

Now the first rule of thumb in a zombie outbreak is to go it alone. You hook up with anyone they will only slow you down or get eaten. Another major issue with this is trying to explain to Kates, when I eventually manage to meet up with her, what the hell I am doing with around 15 hot London ladies, all with tastefully ripped clothing (like it always does in the movies), and all of them looking at me adoringly because I had managed to save them.

Believe me, I would rather face up to an army of the undead, all with an uncontrollable urge to use my testicles as hors d'oeuvre’s, than try and get that one past her. I know which one is scarier.

Sorry ladies of London. You’re on your own.

I have informed Kates that whenever the outbreak happens she is to stay exactly where she is and I will come get her. She knows all about destroying the brain, safe houses, blah blah blah. All she has to do is wait for me to turn up. “No matter what occurs, I will find you.” That kind of stuff.

When I eventually battle my way over vast cities, slaying everything in my path, maybe just wearing a vest that is artfully dirty, I will stand outside whatever building she is holed up in and shout out her name, so when she looks out the window, I can pull my hero pose, tired, embattled, but yet with a hint of raw animal sexuality. Maybe I will fall into her arms, her sobbing with joy that I have made it, me all half dead but showing how butch I am in actually making it to her. Who knows? I will play this one by ear. Nevertheless, it will look bitchin when I do it. She will definitely want to sex me up a little when I get there.

After about 20 minutes of, “I bloody told you this would happen one day,” we will then find a car and go collect her family. We will definitely pick up her mum and dad, I’m massively in two minds about collecting her younger brother, but I suppose I can always use him as bait if things get hairy.

Once all the family are together, we will drive to Southend to find a boat. Zombies are notoriously bad swimmers, so my aim is to sail to Lundy Island, which is just by the Bristol Channel. It is very tiny; you can walk around it in a day, but close enough to main land for raiding parties.

One slight drawback with the sailing is that I am afraid of the water due to the fact that I can’t swim. So that me out of sailing the boat. I will probably be below deck weeping. Kates may not want to sex me up anymore. Plus another drawback is that neither I, Kates, nor her family, know how to sail. But that’s not a problem; I have bought Kates dad sailing lessons for Christmas. He has never given any indication he wants to learn how to sail, but he bloody will. It’s not like you can turn down a Christmas present, is it?

I’m always thinking, me.

Once we hit the island, and I have recovered from my girlie, scared of the water, hissy fit, I will then get the chance to earn some proper man points by making sure the island is clear of zombies before everyone else comes on shore. Once this is all done, we will then set up a commune, of which I am the head of, and everyone calls me, “Grand Master Flash.”

And that is my zombie survival plan in its most basic form. Obviously there are many sub-versions, slight tinkering depending on different scenarios. Kates has been informed that is she gets turned, I will take her down in a heartbeat; there will be no weeping and wailing, just BANG! I have asked her to do the same courtesy for me. She has told me she might even do it even if I’m not bitten. I think she was joking.
If any of you are reading this and you haven’t got your own survival plan, please feel free to steal mine.

Though please don’t go to the same island as me, because I don’t think there will be enough room for us all and it will just end up in all out tribal warfare.

And I haven’t got a plan for that.

Here Comes The Fear Part 735

In honour of Halloween rolling at us like a pissed up witch on rollerblades, I thought I would update my list on things that scare me.

This list is in no way a reflection on my masculinity, and I remain the testosterone filled slab of man meat that all you all know and quietly admire.

1) Scorpions
Scorpions, like their cousins, the spider, are absolute bastards. Quite a bold statement, I must admit, but look at them. Armour plated, huge pincers waving around at the front of them, bastards, and behind them, a massive arse stinger filled with death, just to complete the whole “Spindly death machine” package.

My fear of scorpions started, as most fears do, from a very early age. I was about seven and watching one of David Attenborough’s amazing wildlife documentaries. If memory serves me correct, it was about when animals invade your home. So you had cameras following spiders, ants, and other assorted nasties mooching around a re-enactment of somebody’s house.

And then they focused on the scorpion.

I have to admit, it wasn’t as scary looking as the ones that I had seen before. It was a tiny little one, all orange coloured but still with a whopping great stinger at the back. The camera followed it as it trundled along someone’s bedroom floor (the whole show had actors moving around the beasties, putting mugs on top of them, and reaching in cupboards with fingertips brushing over cockroaches as they reached for the jam) and then the little shit decided to crawl into a ladies slipper.

This didn’t look good.

And then the lady, who was lying on her bed, then decided to put her slipper on.

You saw her wince in pain, pull her foot out, and then collapse on her bed convulsing.

This was on at seven in the evening while I was eating my dinner. I sat there opened mouthed with a fork full of macaroni cheese wobbling in front of it.

My tiny little mind was now warped beyond repair.

From that moment on, shoes were turned from safe, comfortable things that you wear on the end of your feet, to dark caves of death that were filled with evil bastard creatures, whom that the moment my vulnerable toes went anywhere near, they would sting like mo fo's, causing my head to swell up and I’d actually start shitting out of my ears.

I haven’t worn shoes ever since. I have tried to put it down to my free love, 60’s hippy sensibility. But in reality it’s because I know that there are scorpions living in them.

2) Nightmares
I have suffered from bad dreams since I was about 16. Now these nightmares aren’t your everyday (or night) terrors, but full blown epic horror spectaculars, complete with state of the art special effects and a plot straight out of a David Lynch film.

Now my mind is not a safe place to be during the day when I am in charge of it, when left alone at night, and with me not being in full control, it then decides to start really messing with me. I have been known to have surreal images of pure terror that wouldn’t be out of place out of one of Dante’s paintings.

And yet if told back in the warm light of day, they don’t sound that scary.

Take this one.

Now this is the scariest dream I have ever had. I was living back at my old house, which had a staircase that curved all the way down to my hallway. In my dream I was slowly creeping down it in the pitch blackness, the only light provided was some strobe lighting that was coming from something in my living room. As I crept down the stairs, I could see that my front door was open. I couldn’t see outside, as the door opened inwards, so all I could see was the back of it. As I got near the door, I knew that I didn’t want to look in the doorway.

Whatever was there was quite possibly the scariest thing I could ever imagine. It was just a presence, something evil. As I got nearer and nearer I just didn’t want to look round the door and see what was causing this feeling of terror, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing so. When I got to the door, I put my head round it to look outside, and was immediately blasted with a gale force wind and something screaming.

I don’t know what this dream means, but I’m pretty sure that it’s something to do with the fact that I might have a few issues.

These night terrors have been so bad that I have been known to wake up screaming sometimes, which always makes it a bit awkward if I ever had anyone round.

“I’m just off to bed now. There’s a chance I might wake up screaming at four in the morning. Night!”

This is probably the reason why I was probably never allowed sleepovers when I was a kid.

3) Nutter (A cat)
When I lived at my old house, for about three months I was attacked by a killer cat. Now I love all animals, but I could have quite happily toe punted this little fucker in front of an articulated lorry.

It started one winters evening, I was walking home one night after a long day at work, when I saw a raggedy looking cat sitting on a wall. Being the soft, animal loving bastard that I am, I did what I normally do whenever I see a cat; I leant over to stroke it. The cat ignored my outstretched hand and immediately leapt for my face, trying to claw out my eyes.

“OW! What the hell!” I cried, batting the cat away.

It landed on the floor, turned, and then hissed at me, and then swaggered off like an original gangsta, while I could only watch it saunter off with thin trickles of blood running down my face.

Every night for three months, this little tosser waited for me. He would hide in bushes, behind walls, under cars, and the moment he saw me, he would attack me. Now I know you think that a cat isn’t really a match for a grown man, but this wasn’t a normal cat. He had developed the taste for human blood. He was a killer. When he attacked, he would leap out, climb up my legs, and then try and claw at my vulnerable bits, which included eyes, cheeks, hands and genitals. There was never any provocation from my side, I never touched him, talked to him, and I eventually would end up avoiding eye contact with him when I saw his luminous eyes glaring at me from whatever attack point he had positioned himself on.

I used to take a different route, change over what side of the road I walked home on, but he soon wised up. I think he could smell fear. He always knew where I was.

My lowest point was actually running down the street with him chasing after me. Yes, that’s right. A man in his late 20’s was being chased down the road by a cat.

Form a queue ladies. Form a queue.

I don’t know what happened to Nutter (for this is what I christened him in the end). I sometimes think that he has followed me to my new home and is out there somewhere. Watching. Waiting.

4) Superman 3

This one scene from Superman 3 messed with my head for years afterwards. If I ever saw it on TV and knew it was coming to this bit, I would always make an excuse and go to the kitchen to make a drink.

You have to admit, for a kid’s film, it is pretty fucked up.

And that another small collection of things that I am a big girlie man about. Be curious to hear some of your fears. Drop ‘em in my comment box and let’s have a look. I bet they are not as screwed up as mine.
 
Happy Halloween my chumlets!
 

Routine Life………..

We human beanz are ridiculous creations. All we are is just a collection of neurosis and strange habits, all piled up on each other and topped by hair. All of us have these weird things that we do every day, tiny little routines and motions that define us and prove just how crazy we all are.

Here is my list of crazy.

The “Shower Hand” Crazy

When I wake up every morning and stumble to my bathroom half asleep, I have a little test that is the barometer to how my day is going to turn out. As I stand in my freezing cold bathroom, all crazy hair and grumpiness due to another day in my own skin, I reach into my shower area and turn it on. Now my shower comes on like a fire hose, so I have to be quick to get my hand out of the way, otherwise it gets a blast of icy cold water, which first thing in the morning actually makes you want to stab someone.

So the test?

Hand gets wet= I’m going to have a bad day.

Hand doesn’t get wet= My day is going to rock.

Yeah, I’m weird.

The “Toilet Roll Is Comforting” Crazy

There is one thing in my life that pleases me and makes me feel safe no matter what, and that’s having plenty of toilet roll stocked in my apartment. You can forget food, heat, and all the other comforts that life holds, seeing those stacks of white poo roll nestled snugly beside my toilet makes me feel like everything is going to be alright.

Basically Armageddon could occur, but as long as I have something to wipe my arse with then I can face anything.

The “Pepsi Max” Crazy

Pepsi Max is my crack. I’m addicted to it. Every shopping trip I take I have to pick some up. My fridge is constantly packed with as many cans as I can fit in it (cans, never bottles, they lose their fizz once opened). My bins rattle with my empties. If I have run out I start jonesing big time and start mugging old ladies to get the cash to feed my habit.

Pepsi Max- Don’t do it kids.

The “Shopping Nazi” Crazy

Don’t go shopping with me. I’m a horrible human being when I’m food shopping. We are not here to have fun, talk, or muck around. We are here to shop, and if we miss anything, well, then the world will end. That’s right; we will all fall screaming into the abyss because you thought it would be funny to start juggling aubergines in the fruit section.

Kill the laughter. Stop the joy. There will be none of that shit on my watch.

The “I Have All Day To Do Stuff, But Then Decide To Do It All Just Before Bed” Crazy

When I get in from work I have around four and a half hours to do everything that I need to do before its beddy byes time. So why do I find myself running around doing it all just before its time to hit the sack? What do I do for the other four hours? Does time vanish? Do I fall into a black hole? The twenty minutes that I plan on surfing the internet stretches out into an hour and a half. That quick bath I want to take is now an hour (Lavender oils and vanilla candles just relax me, okay?). A reading session that I have on my sofa takes me through most of the night. So right before bed time, I am buzzing around like a fly with the shits trying to get everything done.

The “I can’t Handle Mess” Crazy

Everything has to be neat around me. I can’t just veg out if my flat is a mess. I could be sitting comfortably on my sofa, watching something on the TV, and from the kitchen I will hear my dishes speaking, “Daaaaaan, we are just stacked here, all dirty like. Look at us Dan, we’re disgusting. Clean us,” and will have to get up and load the dishwasher. I will then notice that the floor needs a hoover. And the skirting boards are looking a bit dusty as well, now you mention it. Actually, so does the TV. And before you know it, it is midnight and I’m standing there, all dirty and dusty but with an incredibly clean flat. And then I realise that I am dirty as well, so I need to have a shower. Then I see that have just made the bathroom unclean, so I have to clean that as well. Then I have a nervous breakdown and get collected by the social services, and when they come to take me away, I am trying to wash their dirty faces with a sponge, muttering to myself, “Filthy creatures.”

The “I Have To Pet Every Dog I See” Crazy

It’s been established that I like animals, especially dogs. So every time that I see one, I have to make friends with it, no matter what the breed, size, or temperament of the animal. So you will see me going up to Dobermans and Rottweiler’s with my arms wide open and a big dopey grin plastered on my stupid face, just wanting to be best buddies with the growling monster in front of me.

“Oh look, he’s so cute.”

Chomp

“Oh look, he’s bitten my limbs off and is drinking my blood. How adorable!”

Chomp

“Can somebody please get my leg off him?”

The “I’m Not Expecting You So I’m Not Answering The Door” Crazy

I know what I’m doing every minute of every day. I plan things to the letter. So if I hear my intercom buzz to say that there is someone at my door and I’m not expecting you, well, that door is not going to be opened. Don’t surprise visit me, you ain’t getting in without a prior arrangement. And if I’m not expecting you, chances are it won’t be anything good anyway and I probably owe you money, so you definitely ain’t getting in bud.

The “I Get Tourettes And Swear At You If You Get In My Way” Crazy

People annoy me on a level that is sometimes quite dangerous. And one of the ways in which they annoy me is those folk who walk around this earth with seemingly no idea of where they are going. Those brain dead zombies that just stumble around with blank expressions on their faces like they have never been outside before and just dawdle along, gazing with dumb wonderment at all the pretty lights and fast moving cars.

I always know where I am going. That’s because I am an anal OCD mentalist and have everything planned (see above). I never just walk along and “see what happens,” so those idiots that do and get in my way, well, be prepared to be sworn at under my breath. But the problem is that I am a bit deaf and have no idea of the volume of my voice, so that muttered insult actually might as well have been me coming up to you, grabbing you by the shoulders and saying directly into your startled face “Move out of my way, numbnuts before I chuck you under this ice cream van.”

For this I am sorry (I’m not. I hate you)

This is only a small collection of my oddness; I could give you much more. But to be honest, reading all of this back, it seems to me that maybe everyone else is fine and it is me that is slowly losing my grip on reality. But that’s fine, I can handle it.

I’m now off to polish something.

The Romford Redemption………

Every year I get sucked into a netherworld, a vacuous void where all life is distilled into various levels of human liquid shit, each one more noxious and vile than the other. This normally happens around the June/July mark and finishes just before Christmas.

I am of course talking about the return of the TV show, The X Factor.

It’s like some form of unholy prison sentence that I have to serve at the end of each year. In retrospect, I would actually probably prefer to do physical time, being vigorously bummed up the arse by a tattooed skinhead (as long as he held me afterwards) than sit through this festering pile of bat droppings that sums up everything that is wrong about human civilisation in these worrying times.

As I have many non Uk readers, I will sum up what the show is about, so we are all up to speed. Simon Cowell picks 16 mentally unstable people with delusions of fame, gets them to perform in front of a baying crowd like those performing bears in Russia, and then periodicity dispatches them one by one whilst rubbing great fistfuls of cash all over his leathery genitals.

This year I have avoided all the build up, the selection process, and most importantly, the horrendous faux tear inducing back stories that make me want to flay off my own face so I can actually feel something that resembles a form of human emotion, all in the aim of hoping to avoid all aspects of this blight on the form of human culture.

Sadly Kates wasn’t having any of it.

“I’m so excited the X Factor starts tonight,” she told me when she came round yesterday. “Do you mind if we watch it?”

Of course, me naturally being the kind and sacrificing kind of boyfriend that I am, I immediately relented.

“Of course we can my darling; you know I would do anything for you. More canopies?”

“You know I don’t like Wotsits. A whole two and a half hours of The X Factor, how exciting!”

Hang on........

“Two and a half fucking hours? Are you kidding me?? That’s almost as long as Titanic but without the funny bits with the people falling off and hitting the propellers at the end.”

She gave me a look that made me knew I wasn’t going to win.

“Brilliant,” I replied, putting on a fake smile. “I honestly, literally, can’t wait. This is going to be so good. I’m excited to be a part of it.”

The minutes to when it started counted down like the timer on a nuclear device, and in many ways, the complete and utter oblivion that a 16 megaton nuclear blast would have provided was in some ways more preferable to the hell that was coming.

Aural Armageddon.

I didn’t even know the line-up of the constants this year, but as the show started in a blaze of pyrotechnics and flashing lights that subliminally spelt out: give us all your money, they flashed across my screen in a parade of head turns and hair spray. And like Pavlov’s Dogs, I was conditioned to bark out every time one appeared.

Girl group.

“Slags”

Skinny hip hop girl.

“Chav”

Perma tanned duo.

“Gay”

Androgynous weird bloke.

“Cunt”

Scary hairy bloke with chains and porno tash.

“Top lad”

This year they the show was going for the subtle, less is more approach. So with “O Fortuna” screaming out with almost ear splitting volume, and the stage suddenly exploding like the birth of a new solar system through 4 bazillion lights, all over the nation, hundreds of kids suddenly pitched to the floor in epileptic shock, legs twitching and faces dribbling like they had just stared into the face of God.

Less is more, remember?

And then the entertainment started.

To be honest, I think I blacked out after the 25 minute mark. If I try and think back to last night, it just remains a swirl of colours, screeching and bongos. Yes, bongos. That does stick in my head for some reason.

I know there was a boy band that looked terminally ill. I know there was a skinny hip hop girl who apparently has a habit of making her own rap sections in the middle of songs (I also know I released a stream of expletives at this point that flew across the room and hit my TV like warm dog shit). I know that the aforementioned camp duo was racing around inside my TV in a blur of day-glo colours that actually seared my retinas. I know there was an awful girl dressed up like a space whore whilst wearing 12 multicoloured sun visors on her head.

But getting back to the bongos.

The one overriding image that I still can’t shake is of the hairy bloke with the prono tash standing on a podium, banging away on a set of bongos screaming “SHE BANGS! SHE BANGS!” while explosions roared beside him and half naked dancers groped and rubbed their breasts. I think if you were going to run a holiday advert for one of Dante’s seventh levels of hell, then this is surely the image that you want running on a continuous loop. I was expecting a pair of horns to burst out of hairy porno tash guys head, and for him to lean back and cackle manically whilst stamping cloven hoofs.

Eventually the two and a half hours was over and I emerged from it shaking and teary eyed. Even Kates looked a bit stunned, like she had just witnessed a bad traffic accident. We both looked like we had just come back from a tour of ‘Nam.

“Same time next week?” I asked meekly.

“I need an aspirin,” she replied, holding her forehead. “Or vodka. Do you have any vodka?”

I keep thinking to how long it is until Christmas and my sentence will be up.

Man’s got a choice.

Either get busy living, or get busy dying.

Get Down With The Sickness……………

I’m not very well at the moment (sad face).

It’s common knowledge that men, on a whole, don’t handle illness very well. It’s some kind of genetic makeup that we have which prevents us from just sucking it up and carrying on with our day like you ladies do. Instead we men flop around like fish that have just been yanked out of a lake, loudly proclaiming to anyone in earshot about how shit we feel and how this is no normal illness, but a serious one.

Big girlie men.

Of which I now find myself joining the club.

I started feeling rough at work on Thursday.

“I think I’m coming down with something,” I told my friend Elise, who I share my desk pod with.

“Oh, that’s not good,” she replied absentmindedly from the mound of paperwork that always seems to surround her like an administration Himalayas.

“Do you have any vitamins or aspirin?”

“No, sorry,” she replied as my weak, pathetic ill voice distracted her once more from her work.

“That’s ok, “I told her, vowing to just suffer in silence. But of course, it didn’t last.

“I don’t feel very well,” I would continuously tell anyone who wandered past my desk.

The lack of sympathy I got was heart warming.

When I got home, I was soaking wet from the rain, shivering, and starting to get a sore throat. This didn’t bode well at all.

I gave myself an early night in the hope that when I woke up, I would feel a whole lot better. But when my alarm went off in the morning, I awoke to find my throat on fire, my lungs clogged with nasty shit, and my body alternating between hot and cold.

I could see me not making it in today.

So I now had to do the thing that I hate most in the world, phoning in sick. I always get incredibly paranoid about doing this because I always imagine the manager at the end of the phone just shaking their heads and not believing the fact that I wasn’t very well, when in truth, there was a strong possibility that I was going to die. That’s right, die. Because this naturally wasn’t just any kind of illness I was feeling, but a life threatening serious one.

I always try and prepare myself when I have to phone in sick. No matter how shit I feel, I don’t want to sound too ill, because then I always worry that it sounds too false, like the fake ill voice that you used to put on to get out of school. But if you go too far the other way, you might not sound ill enough, and just sound like you couldn’t be arsed to go in to work. So with this dilemma weighing heavily on you, it causes your flu ravaged body to start feeling even more shit, until that worrying thought that you actually might die suddenly starts looking like it might be a grim reality and you have nobody to moan to about it.

When I rang my manager yesterday though, I got her voicemail. I didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing. I left my message saying that I wouldn’t be in, hopefully sounding as genuinely ill as I felt, and resisting the urge to ask her pass on my goodbyes to my work colleagues as it didn’t look like I was going to make it through this one and could she share out my stationary with them all.

With work informed, I now lay in my bed, making sight moaning noises and proclaiming to the empty flat, “Urrrrgh, I feel ill.” Somehow this felt as if I was justifying everything to myself.

I now had to tell Kates, so I sent her a text.

ME: Feel rough. Not gone in today.

KATES: Go out, stock up on soup, medicine, and sausage rolls.

I have no idea why she wanted me to stock up on sausage rolls. Perhaps it was an age old tradition of her family? As soon as someone gets ill, you crack out the flu capsules and pastry covered sausage meat.

Kates has been with me long enough to know that when I get ill, the best thing to do is leave me alone. When we first got together, if I ever got sick, her first natural reaction was to look after me, mainly because she loves me and because I also live on my own as well. She now knows that if I get sick to just to let me get on with it. This is for two reasons. The first is because I loath to take help from anyone, even my girlfriend. If it sounds ridiculous, well, that’s probably because it is. It’s not even stupid male pride; I just never accept help from anyone unless it’s a dire emergency. I don’t know why I’m like it; I just can’t bring myself to do it. I think maybe it’s an offshoot of having to fend for myself from such a young age. I did all that by myself and now I will never take help from no one. It drives her batshit and I totally understand why. Maybe I will change, or maybe I will always be this annoying?

The second reason is a little bit more understandable, I turn into a grumpy sod when ill. Now normally I am not the sunniest of individuals, but man, when I’m ill, I hate everything. So it’s probably a good thing that I’m probably left alone, otherwise I could end up getting a force fed an overdose of lemsip.

I dozed off in my bed for a bit before being rudely awoken by the sudden sneezing fit that overtook me. I don’t know if any of you have sneezed in your sleep, but it’s disgusting, it goes everywhere. My bed sheets, clothes, and one rather startled cat, were covered in it. I had turned into a 360 degree mucus machine.

“Oh, God, “I moaned, strings of it covering me so I resembled something from the set of Alien. “What’s happening to me?”

After removing myself from my cocoon, I gathered up my bed stuff and stuck it in the washing machine. My cat was winding her way round my legs, the fur on the top of her head stuck up in a crazy Mohican style from the huge wad of mucus I had fired at her.

“Sorry Dotty,” I told her, wiping it off with a wet tissue. She just glared back at me.

So I now had the whole day ahead of me, but to be honest, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball somewhere and make an occasional “Meh” noise.

So I did.

And that’s what I’ve been doing since. I still feel like shit. This could possibly be my last blog post, because I’m pretty sure that what I am suffering from is actually fatal, not just your everyday common cold, but a life sucking vital bitch that no man will ever escape from.

Overdramatic? Maybe. But if you’re a man, well, you guys know where I’m coming from, right?

Sniffle.

Home……….

Hello you. Let me take you by the hand for the moment, for you see I am about to guide you through my world. You may want to put on this waterproof rain mac and slip on these boots; it can get a little bit sticky at some points. And whatever you do, please don’t look down to see what you’re stepping in, not unless you want to eat in the next few days.

There, now don’t you look spiffy? Now, are you ready? Let’s go........

When I think about home there are a whole swirl of emotions and images that flow through my mind that are linked to that particular connotation. Home to me represents warmth, lamp light, the smell of cooking, chaos, the sound of life when you open the front door, black night pressing against cold windows while you curl up in front of the TV, and most of all, the feeling of security, of actually belonging somewhere.

And yet, in reality, you only get this feeling at two stages in your life, firstly when you’re a child, and secondly when you have you own family. For nearly everyone, there is this huge section of your life where technically you don’t actually have a home; you just have a base of operations. Normally this section of your life is based around the periods of when you leave home for the first time, right up until the point where you meet someone and decide to set up your own home together. Then your base of operations gets upgraded from base camp to starter home. When you get married it then upgrades further to a home in progress. Finally, when you have your own children, it morphs into an actual home and you then suddenly realise that you have taken the place of your own parents. Then your own mortality hits you round the face, screaming “My god, we’re old!”, and you then start growing your hair into ridiculous styles and start thinking about wearing leather trousers, all in the hope of regaining the youth that has snuck out the back door without you even realising it.

But anyway, I digress.

I like home. I like the whole idea around home. It pleases me. Even writing about it pleases me. I’m smiling now in fact. But that whole chunk of your life where you are just at base camp level. Don’t really like that much. That sucks.

So what makes the transition from a building just being a collection of rooms for you to just store your belongings in, to a place that is filled with memories and laughter and makes you feel like you are actually a part of something. Is it the amount of people living there? Would two people make a place feel more like a home rather than one? Does the relationship between these people make a difference? If you lived with a friend rather that someone you were in a relationship with, would that lessen the feeling of home? In all honestly, it’s all very confusing and is making me want to lie down and have a seriously long and hard think about it all.

I myself have been at base camp level for as long as I would like to remember. I guess you could call me an institutionalised man now. You stick me in an actual home and I start freaking and start wondering who all these people are and how the hell did they get in my living room? And yet I like the trappings that a home provides. I like the warmth. I like the sensation of being a part of something and try to replicate it at my own place. Kates totally understands me and my need for things to be “cosy.” I like the winter and the heating being on, I like there being lots of things going on around me, I like cooking meals in my kitchen. I think I like all of these things because maybe, and I could be totally wrong here, I’m trying to replicate my own home life from when I was a child.

And yet, me being the total contradiction of a human being that I am, I also like living on my own as well. But that is growing less and less now as I am getting older, and I think that pretty soon the urge for me to start me own home will become unavoidable, which in turn makes me wonder if it’s the same for most people. Is there a point in your life when you stop living in a base camp and actually have the need to build something of your own?

Now this is where this blog gets interesting (no, seriously, it does!) I’m going to take you on a journey around me own base camp (or man cave as Kates called it-which I love). This section may contain flashing lights and scenes that may disturb some readers.

I live in a place called Romford. I’ve lived in Essex all my life, just on the outskirts of Romford to be precise, but sold my house last year and bought a little flat near Romford town centre.

Now how to describe Romford? To be honest, words can’t really do it justice. Romford isn’t really a place; it’s more like a state of mind. If that mind in question was suffering from some quite server mental deficiencies. It’s filled with strange looking people that scurry around like parasites, cramming junk food into their gaping red mouths whilst trying to have sex with each other. This is exactly what its like. Totally. All the time.

Okay, I may be exaggerating slightly here. It’s not that bad, that’s just the roaring snob in me speaking. As much as I hate to admit it, and try to hide it, I come from these parts. These are all my people 

*Spreads arms, Christ like*

My childhood was spent around these parts. I grew up in its parks and schools, took my first drink in its pubs, kissed my first girl on its streets, its part of me, and no amount of pretence is going to hide it, no matter how hard I try. But it still doesn’t stop me from sometimes pulling a face like a man who has just licked his own shit when I see a huge fat hefferlumper waddle past, gigantic arse spilling out of a pair of low slung tracksuit bottoms, so her tramp stamp tattoo that she has had etched above this monument for obesity bursts forth from her waistband like the flapping wings of an eagle, desperate to break free, but locked for all eternity to her quivering back fat.

Yeah, that’s a bit grim.

Anyway, my man cave is based here, a nice little block of flats.



I moved here about a year ago and it’s only now that it is starting to feel like something to me. I wouldn’t say home, but whatever it is, it feels like mine.

Wanna have a look inside?

Course you do, nosey.

This is my living room


 
 
This room is good for many things. Watching films. Chilling. Monging.Notice the film geek posters? Yeah, I rock.
 
Here is the kitchen.

 
 
Now most days you will either find me trying to do one of two things in here.
1) Cooking a fancy meal from one of my many cook books
2) Making beans on toast
 
Now ladies, please try to contain yourselves. This......is where the magic happens.


Yes, this is the room I like to practice card tricks in. I was going for a slightly gothic ambience, as quite frankly, I could think of nothing better to wake up to at half six on a Monday morning than all that blackness.

It’s the only way I can feel.

I was going to stick up my study (ohhhhh, get me!) and bathroom, but then thought, do you really want to see that?So I didn't. Its a bathroom. Use your imagination.

So that’s my man cave. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a home as such, for me it’s just purely my base of operations. I feel no warmth there (mainly because the heating is fucking terrible) and certainly no real connection to the place. It’s just a few rooms for me to sleep and store my things.Thats all it is to me.

And if I’m entirely honest with you.

I really miss having a home.

Babe Of The Day…..

There are many reasons why I have a great girlfriend. This is just one of them.

About three weeks ago I was lying in bed with Kates, indulging in some pillow talk. Well, me being an insomniac, I was indulging in pillow talk, she was just grunting into her pillow.

After uttering some inane question that was playing on my mind at the time, probably something along the lines of: When spiders die, can they come back as ghosts, she realised that I wasn’t going to allow her to drift off to sleep and begrudgingly joined in with my chattering.

The conversation freewheeled its way round various topics, as a conversation often does, when somehow we ended up on a topic that I hadn’t planned, or wished, to stumble into.

The topic being what type of woman I go for?

Being a man, I immediately knew that I was on dangerous territory. I suddenly had my head talking to my heart like a gruff army sergeant talking a wet behind the ears soldier through a minefield: Careful son, one false step and this could blow up in your face, sending your ass to Kansas.

“I bet I know your ideal type of woman,“ she told me.

“Oh, is that the time? It’s late, we really should be getting some sleep,” I replied, rolling over and snoring loudly.

“I bet I do,” she carried on, shaking me roughly by the shoulder. “I bet I can picture your exact perfect woman.”

I wasn’t going to win this one.

“If you want to picture my perfect woman, then all you have to do is take a look in the mirror baby,” I said, taking my hand and stroking it down her cheek.

“You’re such a twat,” she replied, swatting my hand away like an annoying fly.

I sighed. “OK, well, whatever you are going to say, you’re wrong. And whatever happens, it’s not my fault. Remember that. Its. Not. My. Fault.”

“I’m going to prove it to you. Check your work email tomorrow. I’m going to send you a picture of what I think is your type of woman.”

“OK. Now can we just snuggle?”

We snuggled.

Just as I felt her drifting off to sleep, I whispered in her ear, “Can you make sure she has really big boobies?”

Kate has very sharp elbows.

I totally forgot about our conversation the next day, but when I went to log on to my work email, I saw her name nestled amongst the rest.

“Bugger,” I muttered to myself. This was only going to end in one way. Me in the wrong. I didn’t know how, or why, but I knew it was going to be.

I opened up the email and was confronted by the picture of what Kate thought was my perfect woman. Brunette. Dark skin. Tall and leggy. Basically the complete opposite of Kates.

“Shit,” I mumbled into my hand. “This could be bad.”

Later on that night I got my phone call from her. The one I was expecting.

“So was I right? Brunette? Leggy? Dark skin? Totally not like me at all?”

“I....er..I....I love you? Is that the right answer? That’s normally the right answer, right? I love you?”

“Bye!” she replied, and the receiver went clunk as she hung up.

And she was basically right. My “type”, if you want to give it a label, is nothing like what she looks like.

Now let me get one thing straight, my girlfriend is gorgeous. Not in a kind of “well, she’s my girlfriend so I have to say it” kinda way, but actually gorgeous. Whenever anyone sees me with her, or sees a photo, I normally get the same reactions.

Wow, how did you get her?
What’s she doing with you?
Where do you get your rohypnol from?

And I like that. It makes me feel special. But if I’m honest, Kates is nothing like what I am normally attracted to. I do like brunettes, and she is blonde. I do like dark skin, and she is very fair. But I do fancy the pants off her. I can’t help it, I just do. Imagine a blonde with the prettiest face going and the body of Joan out of Mad Men. Without sounding like a sexist pig, what man wouldn’t like that, regardless of whatever constraints you place upon yourself on what “type” of person you allegedly find attractive?

And it’s not just looks either, it’s the whole package. She makes me laugh, like, really laugh. And that’s a very hard thing to do. She puts up with me as well, which is also a very hard thing to do. Basically she ticks all the boxes that I need, and all without dark skin and brunette hair.

But, naturally, it’s very hard to convince someone that you like them if they are the complete opposite of what you apparently like. So she is always thinking about this mysterious brunette who is just lurking in the wings, just waiting to pounce. I have tried to use the terminology of the fact that I like pepperoni pizza, but if I was told I could only have cheese and tomato for the rest of my life, I would love that, because I like cheese and tomato as well.

It was only as she sat there opened mouthed did I realise that I had just compared her to doughy, cheesy pizza, and was now officially the worst boyfriend in the world.

I am amazing with words, but only if I keep them in my head. If I let them loose on the world then they mutate into evil little shit bastards whose sole purpose is to get me into bother.

I was having a conversation with a work colleague about this exact same topic, and she was in the same position as me. Her boyfriend is totally the opposite of what she goes for, but she loves him more than anything. And that’s where I find myself today. In love with someone who transcends looks and ideals and goes into something that is a lot deeper.

Plus with really big boobies.

It’s a challenge convincing my other half that she is the one for me.

I like challenges.

But if there is one good thing to have come out of this situation, it’s that I now get, freshly delivered to my work inbox every morning, my own babe of the day.

Every day I get a fresh picture, with an accompanying funny message, which always makes me smile. I have had a whole range of smoking hot babes delivered to me and it’s the perfect way to start your morning.

So now I throw requests in. The night before I will ask for a girl next door type, or a sexy sports person, and I will get one delivered to me. At this moment we are now going around the world, Thursday will be a sexy oriental, Friday a hot Indian. But I’m quite excited for tomorrow. As it’s my birthday, I am getting a birthday surprise. I don’t know what it will be. I have a feeling it will be Gemma Arterton, as she is my type, and I have asked for her.

I’m hoping I will get a surprise and it will be one of Kates.

A Genius Plan…….

(Megan Fox Soapy Tit Wank) As I am a friend to all my fellow blog writers, I am now going to pass on an amazing tip which will enable you lovely people to get many more visitors to your blogs.

I know it has been a feature for awhile, but I have only just had (Anne Hathaway looking all sexy like) a little look at the stats section of the Blogger dashboard, which is a veritable mine of information as to when, where, and what, the readers of this blog have been looking at. One of the best sections is the one that informs you of (Jessica Biel in a leather catsuit) what posts  have been getting the most views during the last week. It threw up a rather interesting surprise for me. Interesting, and a little disturbing.

Now on average my blog posts have been getting about 50 views a week. Not astronomical, I know, but it’s enough for me. But there was one post that I wrote that got an eyebrow (BOOBIES!) raising 392 views last week. And it was this one here

Now naturally the egotistic side of me automatically thought (Scarlet Johansson is a dirty bitch!) that this was due to the powerful, and quite frankly, life changing brilliance of the words that I wrote on that very page.
Sadly I was wrong. When I clicked on the traffic source section, which would tell me what link my readers clicked on that led them to my blog; at the top of the list was the link that led to this little lady’s photo (eyes left).
Hmmmmmmn.

And right underneath, in the keyword search, i.e. what people typed into their browsers that led to the link that led to my blog, were the search terms: Gemma Arterton, Gemma Arterton’s cleavage, and Gemma Artertons Big Tits.

So the popularity of this blog post was nothing to do with the writing, but more to do with ( Mila Kunis and her filthy sex tape!) the photo displayed on it, and people clicking on the link to get their perv on.

Now this could mean either two things.

1) There were an awful lot of teenage boys who really, really liked Gemma Arterton.
2) There was actually only one person who had a serious fixation on Gemma Arterton, and has just spent the last week tugging himself around his bedroom with my blog displayed proudly on his PC monitor. 392 times!

At first I was pretty horrified. I felt defiled and used for someone else’s sexual gratification. Now some men would pay good money for this feeling, but they would normally be (dirty bitches play fighting for you!) chained to the wall in some suburban fuck den while a rather bored and listless woman who is dressed as a Nazi kicks them repeatedly in the balls and tells them that they won’t amount to anything. It won’t be from an amazing piece of writing that they have quite literally poured their heart and souls into, and was now being used as a gateway for masturbatory fantasies.

But after my initial disgust had faded, I came up with a rather spiffing idea (why not watch Kate Beckinsale and Salma Hayek wrestle!). Why not use the power of the internet perverts to gain some more readers?

Picture the scene. Little Johnny is sitting at his computer, box of Kleenex at one side, Johnsons baby oil at the other, and is getting into his groove. All of a sudden his eyes twitch from the photo displayed on the screen to the words surrounding them. His is distracted from (Elisha Cuthbert playing volleyball) the beautiful, porcelain features of Gemma Arterton by the amazing sentences that I have created.

I’m torn, thinks Little Johnny. I literally have balls the size of cantaloupes right now, but I can’t concentrate on anything else but finding out how this blog post actually ends.

Visibly shrinking, Little Johnny pulls up his trousers, his heart ruling over his neither regions, and finishes reading my post. Like a crack addict jonesing for their next fix, he has to read more. So he does. Before you know it, he has joined up, thrown aside his favourite past time of (Ashley Dupre-Spandex-Need I Say More?) seeing how many times he could jerk off in one hour, and has now immersed himself fully in my writing. Who knows, perhaps I could even inspire him to start up his own blog?

He could discover a fire in his belly that never knew existed and eventually becomes a bestselling novelist. And it would all be because of me. All of it, all down to me, because I am great.

Now naturally I would never dream of taking sole responsibility for his sudden change in life, nor the success that would befall him. Maybe a dedication in his first book perhaps: Dan, you were a hero and an inspiration to me. I would never have done it without you. You are more God than man.

Something simple like that.

Now in order to harness the untapped potential of the pervert market, I am now going to pepper my posts with pictures of hot women, and subliminally insert the types of search terms (Alison Stokke and her lovely watermelons!) that these sexually frustrated individuals would use to get their rocks off, hence making them flock like moths to a light bulb to my blog.

Genius, no?

Now you may say this is cheapening my blog, but in all honestly, guys, you have been reading the shit that I put out, right? Seriously, it can’t really get any lower than this. Just think of it as natural progression. And my soul was screwed years ago, believe me.  

So please feel free to use this plan for your own blogs. I expect to see each new post literally plastered with smoking hot babes, and hopefully contain sentences that would make a sailor, who is just on shore leave, and hasn’t even seen a womanly shape for about nine months, but is now faced with a hot lady who is making sexy eyes at him, and is making “come here tiger” motions with her hands and jiggling all her lady bits in his directions, blush.

There is only one major drawback to this plan though. Anyone who now joins up to my blog after this post is now going to be singled out as an internet masturbator and will have everyone pointing at them and whispering “We know what you do”

But hey, no one said that you don’t have to make some sacrifices in life, right?

(A pair of gigantic enormobooobs literally bursting out of the screen at you and waving about in your face. You want that, don’t you?)
 

This Is Me.......

Something amazing will happen tomorrow. Something so profound and earth shattering that it could actually tip the axis of the Earth by 10%, so we all fall screaming off the world and into the cold, empty blackness of space, never to be heard from again. And when mystical and benign archaeological aliens visit our silent and lonely planet hundreds of years later, all that they will find to document our entire existence will be a Miley Cyrus CD playing on continuous loop as someone didn’t get a chance to turn it off before they fell off the world. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? And then the aliens will then nuke the planet from orbit, as it’s the only way to be sure.

Er, where was I?

Oh yeah, this amazing thing.

My blog turns one year old tomorrow.

A magnificent achievement, do you not think?

Well I do.

Now some of you will have been with me from the start as I took my first few faltering steps into the world of blogging, very much like a new born lamb learning to take its first few steps, not having a clue what it was doing and quite possibly defecating on itself every 20 minutes. Some of you stayed, many of you buggered off when you realised that it actually doesn’t get any better than this, but I know who the hardcore faithful are, and as always, I am blessed by you all.

But I have also picked up many new readers as well, and for many of you, all you know of me is from whatever blog entry you started from, so you may have missed anything relating to my background and who I am.

So, to get all you lovely new people up to speed, I thought I would write up a personal CV for you all, just so you get an idea of the man behind the words (for those of you who can’t be arsed to read all the way through this, I can give you the abridged version. Dan=TWAT)

Dan

Some shithole called Romford

Tel: 017- Yeah, right!

Email: IknowthatifIgiveyouthislotsofladieswillstartstalkingme@gmail.com

Personal Profile
I am a narcissistic cynical bastard who literally hates around about 99.9% of the human race. Chances are that if you are standing there talking to me, my face will probably look like it’s interested in what you are saying. I will be making all the right notions, nodding, smiling, making the “Hmmmmmn, good point” noise when its needed, all that kind of jazz, but in reality, in the centre of my mind, I am probably thinking of the best way to kill you. That is not a joke, I am fantasying about murdering you. But please, tell me how your day was.

I don’t know why most people annoy me. It could be the fact that I am getting older, or it could be the fact that most of the world is populated by idiots whose sole purpose it seems it to get in my face, make a really high pitched annoying sound, and then astound me with their own stupidity. It has resulted in a form of Tourettes where I have no qualms about swearing at complete strangers when they do this, and will more than likely get me beaten up very severely one day by a big man with a tattoo which reads: Mother. In many respects, I will probably deserve it when it happens.

But I can be quite nice as well. I have a slight sentimental streak that can sometimes be evident in my writing, so in between the bitterness and bile, these small nuggets of sweetness make me feel like less of a grumpy dickhead.

As you may have gathered from my last blog entry, I am a bit directionless and don’t really know what I am doing with my life, but to be honest, that is probably the same as you right now who is reading these words with your own very two eyeballs. So we are the same, you and I. You poor, poor bastard.

Key Skills and Achievements
· I am an amazing writer who can create sentences so brilliant that they could probably make you black out from their power.
· I am an expert liar.
· I once ate a whole packet of milk chocolate digestive biscuits on my own and felt strangely proud afterwards.
· I have a sense of humour that is often called “Dry” and can normally result in people never knowing if I am being serious or not. I like this.
· I can geek out quite often. I am comfortable with this.
· I can decide within 30 seconds of meeting you if I am going to like you or not.

Life and Employment History

Boyfriend to Kates, All over the place 2004- Present Day
· Kates is an OCD mentalist who has no control over her emotions and can explode with the ferocity of a volcano in a bad mood. I am a repressed, emotionless male who can only express himself through anger and quiet rage and finds it almost impossible to connect with most people. In many ways we are the ideal couple. We balance out each other’s crazy until we actually resemble “normal” people. I am lucky to have her. I can’t quite say that I could reverse that statement.
· My duties include offering sage and excellent advice that will always be ignored, providing genuine and heartfelt comments to combat insecurities that will also be ignored, arranging curries to be brought to wherever we are, being an emotional support, making Kates laugh after a shit day (either with or without clothes on, normally laughter increases without clothing), hugs, perplexing her with my many flaws and strange behaviours, owning a beard because Kates told me she likes it, being a mystery to her even after six years of being together, trying to be a better man.
· This is a full time position, it can be very hard work, but the rewards are limitless.

Cat owner to Dotty, Romford 2006- Present Day
· Dotty is my cat who I live with (man that makes me sound gay) and who is probably about as hard work as my girlfriend, if not more.
· My duties include feeding, cleaning out the litter tray, feeding, being a Dan shaped cushion for her to lie on at night, feeding, object of fun, feeding, thing to stare at, normally at around four in the morning, which will then result in feeding.
· It is very hard having two demanding women in your life.

Employment Advisor, London 2010- Present Day
· My current job and the only thing that I have done work wise that I actually enjoy and think I am any good at. That’s all I have to say on the matter.

Bank Bloke, London 2006- 2009
· My worst ever job, working for one of the UK’s largest banks. No word of a lie, this job very nearly resulted in my losing my mind and health. It’s very hard to get fired up about something you have zero interest in. I quit one day, just took off my tie and walked out with Simple Mind’s Don’t you forget about me playing in my head. It was the coolest thing I had ever done. I was then out of work for seven months, which resulted in it being the stupidest thing I have ever done.
· My duties included staring at clients as they babbled compete bullshit to me over the reason why they were overdrawn, and then wondering how many years I would get inside if I just leant over and smashed them over the head with my PC monitor, feigning fake enthusiasm when the newest interest rates were released and how I was going to apply them to whatever product I was selling, thinking of ways in which I could end my own life.
· I didn’t like that job very much

Hobbies and interests

I love to write. It is the only thing I feel that I’m any good at. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m not brilliant, but I know out of all the things I can do, writing is what I am best at (to be honest though, seeing as how some of the others things I can do consists of reciting all the lyrics to Rupert and the frog chorus, insulting people, and telling you who directed what film and the year it was released, the writing thing probably isn’t the boldest claim in the world).

I love football and support West Ham, the team the fits my psychological profile perfectly, and I actually met Kates through them, so that’s even more a reason to like them.

So that was a brief little potted history of me. Please feel free to ask any questions that you want and I will try and answer them.

And on a final note, after one year of doing this, I would like to say a massive thank you to anyone who has signed up (and even left), given advice, left nice comments (of which I am shit at replying to lately, please don’t think they are being ignored), and just generally made this whole experience the fun that it has been. It would be very lonely and pointless writing a blog if there weren’t people like you out there reading. So thank you.