FreeCell is the staff of life
Solitaire the breath.
My RSI is testament
To boredom’s spiteful wrath.

The VDU screen flicker rate
Doth seek to splay the eyes
A throbbing skull is tribute just
To evil ennui.

White noise pounds to numb my ears
A soul-destroying hum.
A jawbone dropp’d is fair return
For endless tedium.

The words I write to kill more time
Are meaningless therefore:
A thought dismissed as vacuous -
Thus banished evermore.

Bulbous mounds of warm invitation
Ready for hands or head to rest upon them
Eyes are drawn to their chemical come-on
A glance at a bare one does all my blood summon
Soft to the touch but firming with passion
Two of my own would be nice – or just one?
See how shit it can be without WOMAN…..

Off to Leeds again tomorrow in an attempt to relive the high level of amusement, drunkeness and mortal terror experienced on the last trip. Nothing quite like shooting up the motorways on a hot Saturday afternoon armed with the latest tunes and a pack of silver rizla. Then decend on Steedo for a prolonged burst of sarcasm and the danger of being coated to within an inch of your life.

Sunday off to the Across the Tracks music festival which promises to update my knowledge of up and coming bands now that I spend too much time in an office and not enough time loafing in bars chatting to musos. It’s been a rough couple of months and maybe a holiday is just what’s needed to put things right again. If not, at least we can just animalise our selves and do our best to properly represent the cru in intent, action and inebriation.

Being cool is easy. Just blaze a fair bit and don’t get much sleep and it comes naturally.

(this is not quite right, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about on and off and I wanted to get it down in some form)

My Grandad once advocated to me the idea of walking around with your eyes on the floor. He explained that that way you would never tread in anything nasty, you would rarely, if ever, fall over and you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself as you crossed a crowded room. He explained that he had been doing it for years.

Listening to my elders I practised this technique myself with some diligence during the middle years of my childhood. True enough, I never trod in anything nasty, while my contemporaries’ feet constantly found their way to any excrement in the vicinity. I rarely fell over, and I was great at that game where you don’t tred in the cracks.

Much later on, I became aware that this trick has some limitations. Aged fifteen it suddenly seemed like there was some value in being aware of all the interesting things around you and in meeting some of the strange, wonderful and often fearful stuff that came over the horizon, head on, rather than head bowed. I spent some time trying to lift my gaze.

My Grandad spent his late teens and early twenties scaring the shit out of himself, flying high above Germany at night, trying to plot a course that would guide his plane to the right place to drop bombs on factories, fortifications and civillians. Then he had to guide his crew back again without getting mincemeated by any of an array of hazards armed only with some maps, a ruler, a compass and a steady stream of woodbines (which funnily enough were probably the thing that killed him in the end). I guess after that he was happy to spend his time being thankful to be on the ground, looking down at it in silent reverence. All his medals meant something, but just having your feet on something firm that didn’t shoot at you, meant more.

My late teens were spent learning that there were lots of opportunities to link, stare at and sometimes gain limited contact with the soft curves of ladies and that this activity was best served with head held high. I learnt to challenge the urge to shoe-gaze except when safely home with good pals and weakened blood-sugar levels. I didn’t do anything heroic, but sometimes I wanted to.

But it’s weird. These days, I find myself on a new trip – increasingly thinking about ‘could-bes’ – ideas half-glimpsed taking shape out of the sky and the forlorn hope of putting down something I can be proud of. Sometimes I’m still meeting gazes, brow furrowed in determination, fists clenched and the threat of old violence just under the surface, but it’s not always like that. Not as much. Increasingly the face I display to the world is accompanied by big grin, glint in eyes and the ever-present possibility of a manic laugh bubbling over to upset all the conventional, frustrated and angry people that I meet. The rest of the time I like to look up. I look at the tops of buildings, at the bursts of blue sky, at the possibilities stretching out ahead. The air is much cleaner up here (but you tred in more stuff).

It’s been pretty hot of late and while this means barbecues, flip-flops and ice-cold lagers at the weekend, it means suffering for those of us making the daily commute.

Running near enough air-tight carriages deep underground, with hundreds of people on board, with extremely limited ventilation to the street means that tube carriages heat up hotter than a Breville Pie Maker. I can deal with that fact. It’s not pleasant, but I can handle it. Keep chilled beverage in left hand, soothing music in ears and think of it like a decent sauna, cleaning up the pores and pushing out the toxins. Yeah, it’s rank, but you can get through.

What I can’t deal with is people that on these same hot days, pollute up the already borderline intolerable situation by stinking it out with their own unique brand of body odour. I’m not talking about a bit of sweat, the kind that can be honestly acquired by a clean and decent person in the pursuit of a living-wage on a hot day. I’m talking about the foul stench of armpits that haven’t seen tap water in weeks, and potentially have never known soap. I’m talking about characters that seem to be on a bid to produce new life from the crevices on their body. A new fungus to get your name in the record books. I could rant about this for ages, but I have decided instead that my best recourse at the current time is to publish a series of guidelines to help these people clean up their act. It occurs to me that maybe their mothers/fathers never told them how, so it’s up to me to spell it out. So here it is – Groover’s guide to the washing of an armpit:

1) Apply water to the afflicted area. Hot or cold water will suffice although the former is slightly more effective. Similiarly you can bath, shower, jump in a stream, pour buckets on yourself or get hosed down by riot police. The important thing is to get wet. Do not worry if at this point your armpits begin to steam – this is a natural side effect if you have not washed for more than a month.
2) Apply soap. Could be the old kind, the shower gel variety, the healthstore home made type or even a mixtue of lye, body fat and lemons. The important thing is to make sure you use lots.
3) Lather. This is not hard to do, but should not be neglected. You may need to scrub for victory, hell you may even need some sandpaper if we’re dealing with years of entrenched abuse here.
4) Use more water to wash off. Don’t leave any soap or it will dry your skin and potentially you may still reek.
5) Dry. This can be achieved with towel, by standing in the sun or by leaping quickly backwards and forwards through tall flames.
6) Apply deodorant. I know that there is considerable debate about this issue and that indeed some of our continental chums may dispute it, but I believe there is a place for deodorant in the modern world. That place is under your arms. Spray, roll or pritt-stick yourself to non-perspiration. You could use one of those body spray majobbies, but although the adverts tell you that they will make you irresistable to women, be warned actually on a hot day you may smell of BO tinged with perfume. Instead, use an anti-perspirant, this will work, you may not get women, but you will certainly not repulse them.
7) If you use the tube, you should repeat this process a minimum of once a day unless caught in an extreme predicament such as going back to someone’s house, then realising you need to escape early in the morning.

Go forth and prosper my new clean friends. I am off to lie down for a bit.

What would it be like to be a street-bound head case ? To bark at passing cars and rummage in bins for red plastic objects to put in your trolley? To half mumble, half shout spangled expletives and gems of weather wisdom at every fifth passer by?

You could live on BO and 8.6% Bavarian Super Beer. You could be the wittiest man on the corner, all day every day. You could sub let your bench to passing blind geezers, then bark madly in their ears when they relax. You could bend down to pet dogs, then turn away at the last moment and thrust your filth encrusted pelvis at their owners with a mad smile on your face.

Well, I hope never to find out, but sometimes, it looks strangely liberating…

Maybe they know something we don’t. Or maybe they just understand better than us the ridiculous predicament of human existence and all this growling, old shoe collecting and ill co-ordinated body popping is their way of dealing with it.

Hot on the trail of ice cream
Caramel sauce
And a naked lady.
Chasing down lemonade
Picnic bites
And the curve of where belly meets hip.
Looking for liaisons in inappropriate places
Meeting rooms and the queue for sandwiches.
Trying to keep it real
In a land of summer dresses.
Bottomless cleavage
Nervous smiles
Half meant touches of the hands.
Smooth paper
Warm to the touch
And oh so soft.

Or words to that effect. Basically, just to say that Bolo broke yesterday, and I felt that wave of fear that only comes with unknown technological faults which you don’t know how to fix. Fortunately, a quick email to my amazing hosting provider Spoono, prompted a rapid response and all seems to be well again. As they told me “Lime was experiencing some issues with the /tmp partition filling up”. – Well of course, that old chestnut.

Anyway, on other news, apologies to those people who I said I’d sign up to Bolo, but haven’t. I am slack. Might do it today you never know your luck.

On other matters anyone know what to buy for my dad for his birthday? It’s on Thursday and I’m confused.

And finally, I just want to make a few observations: 1) it is dangerous to stay up late, get lean, play grand theft auto and go out driving. Fun though. 2) if you go to a petrol station on the same trip you will tend to over estimate your need for chocolate, crisps and expensive fruitdrinks. 3) The petrol station will be full of rude boys. 4) If you follow this pattern of behaviour for a week, you may collapse from exhaustion at the end of it, but you are more likely to just do no work.

Work has been particularly tough lately. It’s not stress, time management or unrealistic demands – the enemy’s weapon of choice is simple boredom. When the mind is offered no decent fodder, or even the odd snack to be going on with, the background chat of an office can become very fucking irritating. Today’s topic was the current escalation in Israel. Now, I don’t profess by any means to be an expert on this subject, and as such I am not keen to discuss it by way of loose lipped clichés, half truths and confident, self-orientated monologues. Unfortunately I was alone in my abstention today. To further confound matters, the verbal attack was launched during the vulnerable 9-10 am period. A time when you can normally hope to have a couple of cups of tea, check your emails, doff your electronic cap and send a few hellos to those further afield. BUT NO MOTHERFUCKER, NOT TODAY. Today, you listen, bite your tongue and wonder if what you’re struggling not to say has any value anyway.

Damn you conscience, I’m sure these bastards should get both barrels all the time regardless. Then again, does anyone have decent conversation at work ? I think I’m just bored, to be honest. Maybe I should have my pet pig snout around the employment field for me and get the fuck out of this ultra dull dodge.

Sorry about the language – my mate was playing an old NWA album in his car the other day and I think the mutha fucka dun crept into my fockin dome piece, bitch.

Anyway, peace out fellow boloists – may you prosper at the expense of the plumbait powered proletariat masses. I’m off to Paris tomorrow for a long weekend – I’m sure the change of scene will be of benefit….

… who is soon to join the ranks of bolo:

“But batton down the hatches: For the Church of Prophesy waits now in the wings, ready to rain our fire of brimstone on your heathen heads.”

Spotted similar kind of thing in the Yorkshire Dales one day. As you can see, my associates felt very passionate about the whole thing.

Sorry Dave…

I spotted this sign the other day while on my travels and am considering becoming a member of the congregation. I think by covering the solid bases of ‘god’, ‘church’ and ‘prophecy’, they are on to a winner and it’s conveniently close to the takeaways when all this worship/future prediction gets you a bit peckish.

Apt, that – the title of the song that is – but probably still verging on understatement. I am talking about the particular strain that eminated from the particularly just-out-of-oxbridge-and-I-can-do-anything-pseudo-hippy-drippy twat that bounded onto my train at Earls Court and announced himself to the carriage completely untruthfully as ‘a travelling minstrel, trying to bring happiness to the world through music’, then proceeded to bawl his Pop Idol mawl of Ashcroft’s finest accompanied by his faithful five-stringed sack-of-shit. Or maybe luck wasn’t so much of a factor after all: he probably scanned his way through all the carriages to find the one that looked most likely to have a good smattering of the half-dead and the gullible Surrey folk that he obviously felt so right at home with, and not enough of them to pose a threat to the health of him or his Dad’s geetar. Either way, that two-bit child-abused Mock-Californian cunt-for-brains proceeded to wreck that unique atmosphere on the tube that I believe people crave after a day dealing with pondlife and forcing polite conversation, one in which you can quietly introspect, sleep or read without any obligation to talk to (or look at) anyone at all. It got to the point where I was contemplating whether a suicide bomber would have been a more welcome passenger – at least I could have persuaded him that West Kensington was the den of Satan and it all would have ended one stop sooner. As it happened, I jumped ship at Barons Court, bemoaning my decision to leave my not-an-iPod at home and literally shaking with rage that he’d instigated that thought.

Wow, the time of your life eh? You like me, do not have to put up with having no time and no future.

(I wrote this while drunk and it’s rubbish, but reading it again made me laugh so:)

1980s throwback
Keep your ipods at bay
Walkman’ll play that
Keep your chips at bay.
Jump up and down in your polyester
Fuck this velour shit
Don’t point me towards your email
I want to facsimile
Ah you only accept telex
Silly me.
Nah, I don’t want to see your disco tat
Keep your Magnum PI to yourself
Just drop me some Airwolf
StreetHawk and the A-team
Otherwise I’m deleting your phone number
From my filofax

I recently went back to my particular corner of England for a much needed break from all things French. Catching up with friends and family was the main aim, and it wasn’t until I arrived that I realised that to do this unhindered by the proles that be I would have to drill twenty JJB England flags into my back and become fiercely patriotic. Enjoyed the football fever for my brief visit anyway.
Things started off pretty well. We were in an old local of ours, enjoying the sun and a few London priced pints in the beer garden, just chatting shit and perhaps talking too loudly for the innocents in our presence. Especially when donkey punching came up and had to be explained, with gestures, to one of our party. Things were good and we all had our lager heads on so we stayed on for a few more.
A few hours later we realised it was time to eat, lest we Stellarise ourselves into an unrecognisable, malfunctioning state of total fuckery. Not fancying the £20 steaks on the menu, we went back to my old place and ordered a take away. Inevitably, before that, the weed was produced. An ounce of normal grass and half an ounce of vicious skunk weed needed to be weighed up and distributed amongst our number. Got that sorted first, after a discreet run for cling film that reminded me of the hundreds of similar runs for film, foil and food made in times past, then the reefers were rolled. Off to the front patio to smoke them up. Faces crinkle and brains begin to flap in the wind. Especially those now unaccustomed to the chronic life…..
Jeers and baiting ensue as we lurch back upstairs, ready to take our places in the ceremonial Tekken battle and rekindle ancient rivalries.
After a few rounds we notice two or three police cars directly outside the house, lights flashing. Fuck. Bollocks. Cunt. What is it ? Get up to have a look and, with temporary relief, realise it’s absolutely nothing to do with a few mates catching up and getting lean, and entirely about the two mashed up cars outside. The relief ends when I see it’s my mate’s car that’s been hit. A large saloon car facing the opposite direction than it was parked, sporting some serious war wounds. We’re caned and the timing couldn’t be worse, but we’ve got to go out and deal with this one. Apparently the driver at fault was completely pissed, or severly retarded. He was also losing blood from a nasty gash in his forehead and muttering in a thick mockney accent, voice fluctuating from high to low like a punchy barrow boy, “look at my fuckin car, I can’t believ it. oh mate”. He had apparently tried to overtake two cars at once, lost control, crossed a lane of oncoming traffic and smacked into the rear of my mate’s car. Anyone in the car would have been pretty shaken to say the least. An unlucky pedestrian would have been killed. I think the guy must have known he was in trouble as his first reaction was to call his solicitor.
We had a lot to deal with, but the pizzas had arrived, and those cunts upstairs were getting the munchies.
The police were there until 1 in the morning. After much goading I was convinced that it was still alright to go and smoke three large biftas on the porch, just a few metres from the good officers, who seemed to be playing top trumps and taking holiday photos. They were right. My house paranoia needed taming. We continued to drink, to ourselves and the honourable death of an M reg Mondeo. The land of total fuckery would have us after all.

Madrid is not the hottest place on earth, but when in a hostal room the width of a decent sized ashtray, with the walls seemingly padded with asbestos, it certainly seems it. But I have now escaped the accursed window-less box and have moved up a couple of notches on the socioeconomic scale, to a student flat. The only thing imprisoning me now is my own lingusitic talents, or current lack of them. Work hard and you will prosper. I will.

When you get a horoscope like this, you’ve got to be hopeful for a good day.

Mourn with me brothers and sisters of Bolo – my bike died.

I don’t really own a lot of stuff, and there’s still fewer things that I own that I’m really attached to. But I really loved that bike.

After eight years and 15,000 miles the aluminium tubes of my Klein Pulse Comp have finally parted company and it’s gone to the big velodrome in the sky.

It makes me feel a bit grim…