Yes Yes bolo, is there anyone there? It’s been a long time, but I do come an re-read posts on here randomly from time to time and I have to say some of the stuff is bloody funny. There is also the odd comment from non-spam randoms, which is cool.

Anyway, the other day, I was on the motorway, overtaking a lorry at the national speed limit of 130kmh. I’m about half way past the big diesel chugging, Paella slurping, shit-stained y-front-toting, crumpled porn mag grasping driver when I notice the prince of all cunt cars zooming up behind me – an Audi TT. If you’ve ever driven here you may notice a mildly irritating habit the people have of leaving their indicators on “left” when overtaking, even if they are in the fast lane and there is no “left” other than the barrier. This guy was doing this, thus letting me know that he intended basically to overtake everything in his path, and that i should hurry up and get the fuck out of his way. Not content with the indicator alone, he also decided to start flashing his headlights and gesticulating wildly with his hands in a wannabe proper mediterranean diego fashion. The thing is, as a new driver I’m only supposed to do 110kmh, which is not realistic, but it’s not worth the risk going over 130 as I would be on shit street proper if I got flashed. So I maintained my speed. In fact I may even have slowed down a bit, as the rage and indignation leapt through my synapses. Another example of mindless aggression from the security of an expensively engineered locked steel box.

For some reason, when I do get past the lorry, the guy insists on pulling up alongside me and waving his hands at me wildly. I’m sure there was actually spit hitting the inside of his passenger side window. Now, I’m normally a fairly careful driver, preferring to keep both hands on the wheel at all times, but I broke a rule and gave this guy a nice frank middle finger and blew him a kiss. Not sure what inspired the kiss, but it really seemed to enrage him. The nutter overtook me, then stayed at my speed, pointing at the next “aire de répos”, which was just 500m away, and implying that we should meet there to discuss our differences.

I really do not go in for this sort of thing, I mean you never know who is in the car do you? But on this occasion the rage caused by him cutting me up as he overtook carried enough momentum to guide my car onto the slip road and into the small car park where I pulled up along side him and got out of the car. I was surprised when he didn’t do the same.

After a time, a custom built sliding door began to open slowly on the Audi, to the background of quiet siren and a flashing light. As the interior of the car was revealed, a wheelchair bound figure came into view. In time a ramp slid out and a smiling head and torso in a wheelchair rolled down on to the tarmac. The motorised chair moved to face me almost silently and its owner made a classic “what are you gonna do” shrug with his two good arms outstretched, ripe to embrace the prize of my impotent outrage. I jabbed him once hard in the face and drove off wondering whether I had done the right thing or not. Probably.

Easy Now, bolo public and you mindless Nigerian spam hawkers. I hoep all is well in your worlds.

Having relatively recently acquired both car and license, I have been driving to work lately in an effort to fully get to grips with the machine. Needless to say, 1st year insurance premiums are high for a reason and I have made a few cock-ups in my fledgling driving days. Nothing serious as yet (touch wood, swear at the moon, lick the back of a toad, spit milkshake on a tramp). This morning on my way in I mistakenly positioned myself to overtake a bus which was stopped at its stop, but had to abandon the effort as there were cars coming the other way, so i was up against the side of the bus. A stupid mistake, but given that there was a vacant bus lane on the other side of the road, there was no danger and the cars could move over safely.

Embarrassed, and realising I had made a pretty stupid mistake, I put my hand up by way of an apology to the approaching cars. The passengers in car 1 were revelling at my mistake, clapping, laughing and pointing. Nice. Car 2 was a police car, so I did not look to see what kind of finger waving antics the fat croissant munching twunts were pulling in there. A bit of ridicule, a stupid mistake, a lesson learned, fair enough. There was no excuse for the agressive sarcastic gesticulating of the woman in the car to my right though, as she had seen that I was embarrassed, that I had apologised and that I generally knew I had fucked up before she proceeded with her little show, another brave display from within the safe confines of a locked steel box. She just wanted to get her self-righteous little say in. And for that, I hope she comes a karmic croper. Nothing serious, not like a full on anal prolapse or anything, perhaps she’ll believe she’s wiped properly but in fact miss an obvious clag on, adhering to her undoubtedly hairy and horrificly unsightly crack, before being squished into her pants and ensuring that she is known for the rest of the day as “that bird who has probably shit herself”. Or perhaps she’ll be talking one of her colleagues down and she’ll start choking on a banana, relying on the person she’s slagging off to come and save her, knowing that she is totally powerless for those few seconds. Or maybe she’ll scrape her car against a wall trying to overtake a bus. Who knows?

For my part, I am going to go back to being as cautious as possible without driving like I’m 110 and try and not be so judgemental when people screw up on the road. Maybe they are not doing it to specifically persecute me afterall……

Yes, yes, collective audience of unmade acquaintences and Nigerian Spammers, rejoice, for Bolo is back. Although I did go through a really long spell of total blogapathy, I never stopped having a cheeky click on to bolo to see if any dubious gems of wisdom, outlandish rants or keen observations about the potential benefits of using Boris Johnson’s face as a urinal had been proffered up. This is just one of those corners of the web I would always come to. Therefore its absence due to legitimate bandwidth concerns and automated web plumbait fuc$ery left a bit of a gap. But let us rejoice this day, for the wait is over! And no doubt as a result of bolo our collective talents will soon be “discovered” by those in the know and we will all be fast-tracked to positions of extreme fulfillment within society as a whole.

I was on the bus with a colleague this morning. She’s just got back from a holiday in Krakow, Poland. The usual what did you get up to conversation ensued. Nothing to wake me from my bus dozy bus reverie, one ear on the tunes, oneear sacrificed to reality, until the conversation took an unexpected turn. It turns out her Dad spent quite a lot of time in markets, buying, from what I understand, a large collection of “cool” nazi paraphanelia, like letter openers and medals. This woke me up a bit and I couldn’t mask my shocked disdain for this weirdness. For the first time I was really in the conversation, rather than playing the part of good listener. “Why?” I asked, when I was told that the Welsh father had seriously considered paying 300 notes for a bar of Jewbone soap, or some equally repulsive item that any proud father of twin girls simply “must have”. The answer cleared everything up nicely; “Because it’s history, it’s GOOOOOD!”. I think I just nodded.

When your wo/man says to you “don’t you remember what we talked about?”, the chances are you won’t and that the argument is already lost…

My office is turning into a Menopausal war zone. I am the only bloke. Today, the 4/5ths of female contingent of the office were enjoying their only shared past time – BITCHING about someone who is not there.
Office bint 1 : “Did you see the flocking dress that Karine on reception was wearing today?! She looks like a chess board!”
This got the chortling juices flowing nicely, and you could almost feel the discomfort fading from the office as common ground was briefly underfoot. I can’t keep my mouth shut at the moment though, and any opportunity for controversy seems to make me chirp up.
“Yeah but chess is a complex game, and I reckon Karine’s only capable of 3, 4 moves at a push….”
This met with uncomfortable laughter, which bizarrely gladdened me. I think, in terms of the group psychology of this beast, I am actually trying to become their scapegoat. It would be a charitable act for many innocent bystanders and perhaps goad me into the conflict I occasionally wish for….or maybe it’s a holiday I need? You know that. It’s coming, well a long weekend anyway. A mate arrives on Saturday for a long weekend of city skulking, pool playing and random excursions. Anyway, apologies for this dear diary style ranting. I’m offski.

It’s been a dark time in this corner of Boloville. I took my dark mood monkey shopping with me tonight – thought he could use a change of scene (secretly I was hoping he’d jump onto someone else’s shoulder, but don’t tell him that). Anyway, it was the usual shit, pushing the trolley, avoiding as best I could the slow walking plum baits, the elderly and the deranged Amsterdam Maximator drinkers (13%, tastes like bananas, melts your brain fibres). My head was moaning like an impatient child, chiding me for the mundane landscape I was forcing upon it, when this guy asks for my help. He had a one item list, it read “com potte cannette”. Literally this means “like a friend, can”, as the list was obviously written by someone with mental issues or a meths drinker, but clearly it should have read “compotte cannette” (apple puree in a can) because the dude was brandishing a massive pot of apple puree and asking me to confirm that he had made a successful find.

Suddenly I feel like a total arse for ever having sheltered this foul smelling monkey at all. I mean, even if the worst comes to the worst, I should currently be glad of my ability to read and write, which does have the added benefit of avoiding my shopping trips becoming like a trip to an ancient Egyptian town where everything is labeled in hieroglyphics.

Here’s to a minor victory in the daily battle to maintain perspective. I’m off to do something worthwhile, like teaching dogs to read or re-educating house-trained midgets.

I had a mate staying this weekend and hungover on Sunday we had an odd urge to go and check out some art. This worked out well, as I was sure that galeries and the likes were free on the first sunday of every month. Something they call “les dimanches de patrimoine”. Anyway, my mate had heard tell of some Matisse, Rembrandt and possibly Jean Michel Jarre on offer so we sauntered down to the local mairie which has a couple of galleries. The conversation waiting for me inside proved to be a very sobering affair. It went something like this (bearing in mind that French is normally a lot more formal and polite between strangers than English):

Me : “Hello, good day Madam.”
Museum “receptionist” : “Hello, is it to see the exhibition?”
“Yes, please. Am I right in thinking galeries are still free on the first Sunday of every month?”
“NO!!!!!! THAT’S FINISHED!!”
“I’m sorry, I thought that-”
“NO! FINISHED!”
“Yes, I understand. How long has-”
“FINISHED, that, FINISHED!”
“Since when?”
“IT’s FINISHED! NO MORE JOURNEES DU PATRIMOINE”
“I understand you perfectly well. How long has it been?”
“FINISHED. IT’S BEEN 3 YEARS!!!!!!”
It was all I could do to break eye contact and keep my feet on the floor. I’m a fairly reasonable person, but on occasion it seems that world is conspiring to make me do a Michael Douglas.

I went in with a relaxed, very manageable, slight hangover, but by the time this little rottweiler of a skank whore had finished her lyrical bludgeoning, I was primed for the kill. We did do one of the galeries, but I found myself half looking at depressing dutch landscapes and mainly the urge to go back and ask her why, if she hated mankind so very much, she insisted on inflicting her vile self on the world instead of just OD’ing on her own sense of superiority. It’s alright though. I have my revenge sussed.

1 phone call, every Sunday, at the same time every week, for the rest of her working life:

“Hello, I need some information please. I was just wondering, I’ve heard about these “journées du patrimoine”…..”

Big up your respected chests boloists. Just trying to get something down too – I know what you mean Coybag. Today has been the sort of day that makes you extremely envious of anyone lucky enough to have a dog to spike with Coca-Cola. It began extremely early – up at 6, awake at 5, ringpiece contracting in anticipation of driving test number 2. Get there 25 minutes early, having managed to munch down just half a bit of toast with my useless, saliva free mouth. Forced to chat football with the cunt that runs the driving school – his other conversational mode revolves around teenage birds, so I suppose that was a blessing in disguise really.

Get to the test centre, legs shaking nervously like a kid with ADD and a belly full of mentos and coke. I’m ready to pop. You just know it’s going to go tits up, but why is it so important and nerve-racking? I think it may be raw harshness of being in a position where some hard-faced bint with confused genitalia has the RIGHT, nay the absolute NEED to JUDGE you. I mean, obviously it couldn’t be any other way, given that they are effectively putting youths in front of highly powered combustion engine driven machines, but some part of me just HATES THAT SHIT. Not that I didn’t deserve to fail – I drove like RAb C Nesbit on a Smack come down. Very very jerky and Oh so off the right trajectory. Gear changes that would knock the spliff out of your hands every time. 40 km/h in a 30 zone, in second – the engine whining like a weasel being ripped to shreds by two wild boars – have it.

Still, decided to try and vent some of the negative energy on the way home from work by calling on an old trusted friend – the pool hall, and his cousin, strong belgian lager. Things are slightly more rosy now, but the need to burst this stress crammed whitehead of a mood lingers on, so I’m giving bolo a semi-eloquent, smut filled bashing.

Had an interesting chat with the owner of the pool hall though. I’d picked him as some kind failed cue sports pro, but it turns out he is an ex-managing director of Ford France. Never judge a book by its cover, this geezer sits there pretending to read the racing form, but he’s actually learning Russian, the mentalist. He also confirmed a commonly held view about the local Bordeaux folk (the “Bordelais”)….but that’s another story.

Calling all boloists, for an as yet unclear reason….

Well it’s been a long time since I picked up my heavy hands and let them dance their booze infested dance on the keyboard, so now seems as good as time as any. I’ve formulated many plans to write short stories, amusing episodes and generally awe-inspiring, wit-infused prose on this site in the past, but fear, laziness and booze always seem to stand in my midst. Not tonight though, nooooooo, tonight I am Enid Blyton on crack. Tonight Mathew, I dance the fandango with an eyelid full of cocaine.

So, Bolo is 2 years of age, eh? An achievement in itself I’d say, if you consider how many of us have heard tell of this or that website, designed to hone the genius which we all would like to believe resides within the realms of our own social spheres. Perhaps it might be an idea to celebrate this fact in person? Given that the many of the contributors have never met, it could be a worthwhile bash. Strangers I’ve met before, but not those who have revealed parts of their worlds in blog form…

As for me, nothing much to report really. Just the usual French action over here. Much outrage, little action and plenty of fromage, strikes and the heady mix of celebrity and politiks (Sarkozy vs. Carla Bruni’s hind crease, part 12, the greasy discriminator).

Well, I’d like to write more, but it’s not fun to spend as much time correcting the work of drunken fingers as it is trying to hit the goddam plumbait keys in the first place. Bed beckons, followed by work in a den of menopausal hell, topped off by a driving lesson with a man creepy enough to be tagged as a paedo, yet entrusted with the job of teaching hapless fiends how to control a ton of solid steel (and tacky Renault plastic).

I’ll leave you with a film tip – A Danish trilogy called The Pusher. The first one is a must see if you get the option. If bolo would accept it, perhaps we could set up a pier to pier file share facility?

Thanks for reading, big up to the 2 year old bolo!

Never underestimate the power of a beautiful woman to impair your judgement.

Striking, as you well know, is a recognised institution in France. So much so that students do it, as with the “CPE” business last year, where French students pretty much closed down the university system for four months protesting about changes in the terms of the employment contract they could expect to receive for their first job (can you imagine British students having this foresight? I think the only thing that could have roused me into action during my student years would have been something horrific like an alcohol ban or a 9 to 5 week). In any case, they succeeded and the government backed down, only to slip the legislation through on the quiet a few months later, during the obscuring smugness of victory. But that’s another tale.

They are at it again now, against a reform of the university system on the whole. Ironically, although this one affects them in the here and now, there is much less united support for this ‘blocage’ movement (literally, this is where students move into the university buildings and refuse to leave/let anyone in). Although the current reform does not claim to do this, what they are ultimately afraid of is the introduction of selection at university level (that’s right, as it stands anyone can go to Uni here with the basic minimum “pass” from high school (the bac)). For the idealist, the lack of selection means that those of us who failed to get their proverbial sh1t together at school are given a clean sheet at Uni. For the realist, this means a potentially infinite number of free, retaken first year’s, a total disregard for study really, and, for the lucky ones who can afford it, plenty of booze, drugs and fromage…

Anyway, the students at Celine’s Uni in favour of the ‘blocage’ were aggrieved at the lack of media coverage their numerous demonstrations and the likes had gained, so they took further action. What did they do? You’d never, ever guess. They dressed themselves up as ghosts to represent their invisibility to the media and posed in front of the mairie. The doss c.unts. Then, get this, they dug a grave and ceremoniously buried the university constitution…Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhh! Monkey face!!!!!!!

I tried to keep it in, but I can feel it bursting bile-like out of the pores of my very skin. A clammy urgency. It’s got to be purged, lest I rush in there tomorrow morning and start cussing like a black pimp from Jerry Springer and handing out vicious, back-handed slaps. (“Get my paper, skank-ho, get my money”)
Those bastards. Or, to be precise, those bitches.
I am the only bloke in a team of 6 and as a consequence I have largely and luckily avoided the terrible back-stabbing that goes on in teams of women. This may be construed as a misogynistic comment, but, if the mighty bolo is indeed surveyed by any lady lurkers, I ask you to think hard about the truth of this statement in terms of your own experience before judging me as such. Not that men are above bitching, god knows I’ve definitely caught myself doing it often enough, especially in the current office climate which has established itself, cancer-like, in the heart of our team ethos. Our company values proclaim that “Only when we work together as a team can 2 + 2 = 5″, but it would be more accurate to say “Only when we work together as a team can we find a scapegoat among our number worthy of a proper coating”. It might go down better than the mathematically dubious real value, given that I work for an IFA….
Anyway, due to a lot of drama that belongs nowhere here, work has been very far down my list of priorities of late. My immediate boss is a good friend of mine, and she was the only one to consider that maybe I had things on mind which had nothing to do with the office (god forbid). But the rest of the bitches, I have just learnt, have begun to use my admittedly slightly slack time keeping as their group gripe. I am the latest scapegoat that binds their idiot minds together. They are a beast, and they believe me to be their next easy meal. That I may be sacrificed, silently put to the sword by the coffee machine so that they may better overcome their differences and bond in a common purpose. Think again, you wily old skeets. The tables are about to turn, and I will expose your individual psychoses before you even come close to mine….Ha Ha, skeezers, get ready for Daddy.
Ah, but wouldn’t I just be falling into their trap to react like that? Shouldn’t I just be cool, keep my head down and wait until their evil eye moves on to another target? No, what I really, really should do, is create a “back-stabbing box” and leave it somewhere in plain sight. Every time they start slagging off somebody who isn’t there, I should pick up the box, saunter over to their desk and demand payment (“Cough up sugar, Daddy needs his paper”).
Work is a chore for me. I do not particularly enjoy it. I dream of making a brave, lone break to a land where I control my own destiny, but for the moment I have not cracked my escape plan. But, in the meantime, I will damn well defend my right to not work in a team of two-faced, insecure, menstrually-synchronized, rabid bitches. There are none for that.
Suggestions on a postcard to the usual address, but nothing from “Nippy” Dave please. I’d get more sense from Ronald MacDonald or Pete Doherty.

Big up, fellow boloists and any regular, non-spam gunning lurkers. Just a few words to blow the dust off the keyboard before another week in paradise begins. Been a bit absent of late, but have been reading and appreciating the bolo wisdom on a regular. Just one of those times where you keep checking the site, selfishly devouring any new content, then not bothering to do the right thing and chip in a paragraph or two to the bolo cause. Imagine if all humanity were destroyed, apart from this website. What kind of an impression would the aliens have of us? Which is why it is important that I step to the table with my level-headed, xenophobic, rational, reactionary and often misguided rants. Yes, yes, motherf0ckers. That’s why I took the liberty of informing myself with a healthy dose of Sky News before coming out to play on the finer parts of the web tonight; I was thinking of the possibility of alien life and the bigger picture…

There were 3 main stories on this particular vein of knowledge impoverished sludge tonight :

1. “No New Finds Yet in Murder Suspect Home Search”
Brooksideesque body discovery in the chalk infested lands of my youth. Police to spend eons digging through concrete floors in the hopes of solving every missing person case since 1986. I saw the suspect and I’m fairly sure he didn’t have access to heavy mining equipment. Then again, you never really know with these sick, soulless wretches so I suppose that’s fair enough. What is not fair enough is Sky’s pedestrian “find some old dears who say they don’t expect this to happen on their doorstep” journalism. I mean, if you’re going to spend 10 minutes on a story, it should have at least some CONTENT, not give you the impression that you’ve walked past an incredibly long newsstand with 2500 copies of the same issue of the Daily Mail on display.

2. “Cyclone Sidr: Hundreds still Missing”
This headline is succinct at best – the hurricane has killed an estimated 15 000 people. But, don’t worry, never fear – us Brits have stepped up to the plate and delivered the good news on the aid front; £2.5million! That’s the equivalent of say, one of Simon Cowell’s London properties. My heart is swelling with national pride right now. Still, I suppose it’s only fair that we look after those less fortunate than us, especially when we are probably helping to nail their economy and national debt to the floor by setting up umpteen sweatshops to keep our fat, misguided idiot nation in size 38″ waist Carharrt combat trousers. I am being slightly unfair as this aid offer was made when the death toll was only estimated at 2 500, but you get the point.

3. “Madeleine’s alive and we’re closing in on Her”
I was intending to add this one in jest (given the recent, fairly heated toings and froings on this site a few months ago), but having checked their website it seems my dubious sense of humour pre-empted the fact. Now, I’m not going to launch into the whole thing again, but I would just like to say that I am convinced that half of the time and resources spent on finding one little English girl would belittle our meager aid efforts to Bangladesh, to name just one possible cause. I understand that people need to relate to events to become involved in them, but we are badly in need of the iron fist of perspective up our proverbial pipes if you ask me.

There was also the small matter of the Japanese restarting commercial whaling under the guise of “scientific research vital to the future of Japan”. It just so happens that this research must ultimately result in the killing and eating of 50 hump backed whales. Quelle coincidence, you knicker-sniffing psychopaths.

Looking forward to a novel start to the day tomorrow – a driving test to kick the week off. Been trying to keep busy today, which did result in all too infrequent trip to the cinema to see American Gangster (well worth a watch for those not afraid of very convincing acts of violence and Russel Crowe’s “balls in a separate bag” Americano accent), but it hasn’t kept the demons away entirely. What’s bothering me is more the fact that the guy who owns the driving school will be in the car during the exam. He is not my regular instructor, and although I have only had 1 lesson with him I can tell you he is simply one of the worst people I have ever met. A squat, arrogant little shit who believes he is France’s answer to Tom Cruise, with a way of talking about teenage girls (including this rank horse like “clop-clop” noise he makes) that makes me feel guilty for having a penis and not being gay. The bloke is a total James Blunt with the ability to sap all positivity out of you with his mere existence.

Anyway, if I remember my left from my right through the judgmental mists of acrid, pedarastic fug I may just crack it, so wish me luck.

I don’t follow rugby. I don’t like rugby. But today I was glad we beat Australia because there have been a lot of smug, arrogant funkwits clutching inflatable kangaroos mincing around Bordeaux lately, and it will be good to think they that on this occasion their sporting arrogance has not paid dividends. Haha, fuckers, we propelled the backsides of our burly lard sacks with more power than you did yours – may your flights be non-refundable and the weather shit for the rest of your stay. (sorry about that, but it seems that every conversation I’ve had with an Aussie lately has taken a turn for the sport against my will, with the same cocky, head-tilting air of condescension pushing my normally dormant national pride button every time).
I was hoping the French would get theirs tonight too, but unfortunately they won. Which, among other things, means that at the moment half of them are driving around honking their horns like a bunch of toddlers with real cars. It is quite alarming. They do this at weddings too, but we warned them off at ours (“no, no, you must understand that this is England, and if you beep your horn repetitively for a few minutes people will either assume that you are in a) dire need of assistance or b) dire need of a kicking” they understood).
This French victory also means I’ll have to put with a week of Brit baiting at work, which I’ll have to painfully react to until after the England V France match. please let us win that one, which would at least cut down the madness by a week and also take that annoying spring out of old Frenchy’s step (he is not the most graceful winner, our Mr Frenchy).
Anyway, enough nagging from me. I’m off to dream a dark sleep and plan the undoing of a certain bike mechanic with expensive taste in brake discs. This list just keeps getting longer – perhaps I need a holiday….but there is travel on the horizon – The Wirral and the dirty great Mancunian mass await. Come on smokeless pubs that smell of piss (this is a new one on me), fat girls with their bacon belts hanging out, vodka redbulls served in fish bowls. These things I understand. Partly.

Sorry about the deliberate swearage there Groover, but I spent half the day listening to a consultant talking about data cleansing. What she was essentially teaching us was the correct way to enter various data to clean up our data base before we attack the mother of all mailshots. Instead of just sending us the instructions, though, it was decided that our grand a day consultant and perhaps the most pedantic woman I have ever met should come over to Bordeaux for the day and bore the absolute biscuits out of all of us by reading out the instructions to us, explaining the thinking behind the creation of certain fields and generally making me want to close my eyes and rock in the corner by being so genuinely interested in DATA and all its corresponding merriment. Fuck off. Please, just fuck off.

She did, however, come up with perhaps the best blue sky thinking management speak combo I have ever heard. I even wrote it down (my only notes from the day as it happens, given that they turned up with instructions…) :

“I mean, what we’re saying here is that there really is no silver bullet, we really just have to clean up the shop going forward.”

Poetry in motion mate. A Geordie with a bag of coal. A cockney with a bucket of cockles. A Mancunian with yesterday’s pie. A prisoner with dyslexic twatoo. A Dovorian with a girlfriend of immediate blood relation.

And that’s goodnight from him.

Well, well, it’s been a long time boloites. What better way to return to this fair site than with a story about skanky french toilet habits? No better way if you ask me, no better way.

Here’s the scoop : We work in a managed office complex and the reception area and facilities, most notably the toilets, are therefore shared by the eployees of several companies. One of the toilets on the ground floor has been closed to all business for over a month now, with a sign on the door professing ‘vandalism’ to be the reason, presumably chod-orientated I hear you say. Finger paintings etched in shit, clinging loosely to the red plastic coated walls…

Only today did I discover the full story and the reasoning behind closing one of our loos (causing my almost all female colleagues to beel and whinge about the toilet seat not being down, etc etc). Apparently, some bright spark has been systematically blocking up all the toilets in the building. He or she does this by creating a very substantial nest of paper in the bog before defecating on top of it. Perhaps he is convinced his turds are alive and does not want to drown them? In any case, this is particularly anti-social stuff as it means the cleaning lady actually has to get her hand in there to remove some of the business end of the mound before the blockage can be cleared. Flushing is not sufficient.

But why close one toilet on the ground floor? What will that prove? According to the girls on reception, it will make it easier to catch the phantom shitter (murderer…can you here the song yet?) as they will better be able to track the comings and goings of the toilet users. They think that now they have reduced the number of available toilets, shitting will become “accountable” as the chances of someone coming in directly after an airborne steamer has been deployed are now increased….WTF? The accountablilty of shitting. Only in France? Perhaps. Toilets are noticeably more rank over here, it must be said. The flat we bought last year did not have a toilet with water in it – but the old sort where it’s just a pipe and you send the water down after your business and hope for the best. Smelling goooooooood….

In any case, they’re going to catch the fiend at some point and monkey face him in public. Check out www.youknowwhenyouvebeenmonkeyfaced.net for the full low down.

I hope to be back with non-chod related etchings in the near future.

May this be an Indian summer for all boloites.

I had been trying to pick a parcel from the post office for two weeks. Every time I went in with the slip confirming which post office the package had been sent to they took a photcopy, noted my phone number and promised to call me the next day. Every dutiful post office worker was duly appalled that their colleauges had not got back to me and vowed to ring me the very next day with news on this ether drowned parcel of mine. My patience was wearing thin, but I knew that getting openly pissed off with these people very rarely pays dividends. So I opted for polite persistence. I went in to see those fuckers every day and let them photocopy their bit of paper and tut at the failure of their colleauges. I remained civil and pushed my enquiries as politely and firmly as possible, but they all seemed incapable of reacting in a different way to their seemingly infinite number of co-workers (I had yet to see the same incomptent twice). I began to suspect that these were no ordinary public sector, work dodging, slow moving, gaggle of wretches.

There was no time for a gradual effort to test my theory. It was now day 15 – the last day they would keep hold of my mystery parcel, if the idiots ever indeed had it, and I knew that after that I would be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and a “you should have come earlier, Monsieur”. I was afraid how I might react to this shrug, so I vowed not to pursue the matter beyond the already taxing 15 day period.

I was fortunate to find only a small queue of people ahead of me – 5 or 6. I could expect to be at the counter within 20 minutes, with a bit of luck. It turned out to be 10 and I took this to be a good omen. The woman whose counter was free gave me the standard look of disinterested disdain as I approached. She had a head like a wine soaked king edward, a small piggy nose and tiny, deep set brown eyes. I made no effort to smile, but mouthed a ‘bonjour’ and nodded as I reached her platform of adminsitrative mishaps and staple gun fuckery. Then I reached out, grabbed hold of her ear and yanked it viciously downwards. There came a sound like a cat being disemboweled. FRAAAAAACHHHH!

The ear came off in my hand and it didn’t feel right. Too heavy to be flesh and absolutely no blood. I looked up and saw that another ear was shooting out of the woman’s head to replace the one in my hand. I wasn’t surprised. I reached out and ripped that one off too. FRAAAAAACHHHH! And again and again. I got tired and stopped. No one had seemed to notice my outburst. The king edward was just staring at me, wincing slightly as her latest replacement ear emerged.

I left, reassured that I was not going mad by the pocket full of ears in my coat. I had always suspected that french postal clerks were sub-human incompetents, but to find out it was true was alarming. Who put them there? Why? Why had no one else noticed? Was I living in a town populated by androids or aliens? My ear-ripping quest had only just begun.

I had a bit of a weird one yesterday. I found a mobile phone on a step next to my bus stop. A nice little Sony Ericsson number. I looked around to see if there were any obvious candidates for a recent phone loss, but ended up pocketing it when my bus rolled up. I expected it to ring while I was on my way to work, what with phones being used as watches, mp3 players, deep fat fryers, calendars and all the rest of it these days. Not the case though and I had to turn it off as I headed through the office doors as I knew it was going to be back to back meetings all day. Driving the business forward, cascading information and general blue sky thinking bollocks do not allow for taking phone calls on a random mobile.

As the promises to adopt new ergonomic business practices were made, and a lot of bullshit wizened faces winced internally, I began to daydream about the possible owner of the sleek mobile phone in my pocket and our meeting later in the day. The best case scenario would be a strikingly beautiful, incredibly grateful lady, of course. She thought she would never find a man she could trust, but then I come along – having met her to return her missing phone in a chic café in the old town. We would gaze earnestly at each other as I eased my wedding ring off my finger under the table – making myself the man she’d been so desperate to meet. We’d go back to her place and I’d bury my head in the musty elegance of her, and gently bend her over her sofa and slip it in. (What a hero, come off it you twat)

Ok, so maybe it won’t be a fantastically fit female, maybe it will be a big hard bastard, who would be forever in my debt for my honesty. Without those numbers he couldn’t shrink his knob with steroids, talk to his bouncer mates about how tough he was and bell up his skanky dealer for more ego powder. He would be forever in my debt, and doubtless if I ever needed someone to knock about with who would make me look under muscled, he would be there for me. A gigantic, blue veined hand to hold me up and tout my inferiority to his dangerously inflated brethren.

Alright, so let’s think outside the ego here. Maybe it would be an Arab lad. We’d meet, get on well over the coffee he’d bought to thank me and eventually introduce ourselves. But you’re Jewish he’d say. ‘Half’, I’d reply.
‘But, I’m an Arab, why didn’t you go when you saw that the phone belonged to me?’
‘I was afraid you’d already seen me’ I’d say, with a wink and a broad grin.
He would smile, we’d shake hands, knowing that our prejudice was buried once and for all. Eventually, our positive vibes would break down social barriers between our friends and kick off an international trend which would result in the end to the Middle East Conflict.

I was walking home along the quays in the late afternoon sun switching these various possibilities around in my mind as the phone finally did ring.

‘Hello?’ I answered, a wee bit casually it seemed to me, but then she would understand.
‘Hello, you’ve got my phone!!!!!’ Screamed an adolescent male voice in comedic high to low breaking style.
‘That’s very possible, I-‘
‘Give it back you cunt, or your dead! I know people see, and I know where you are right now. My brother’s mate’s got this device, yeah, and it can track you, yeah, anywhere you go with that phone, you know. I know people. I need that phone back, yeah, it’s like, got my numbers in and that, and it’s mine. S’new as well, so don’t even think about keeping it, yeah, I need that fucker, and if you don’t give it back, like RIGHT NOW, you’s a fucking dead man, yeah, do you get me? I’m talking real style, yeah’
I found myself smiling, listening to this shit from this little turd-mouthed shyster and looking out across the water as the sun began to set. It was a moment of clarity, of sorts. A lesson. It made me feel quite surreal.
‘OK’, I said. ‘I’ve just finished using your phone to tell my mates in Australia about the eternal joy I felt as I viciously monkey-faced your Mum, so I do have a window of time free now. Where would you like to meet?’
‘Fuck off you CUNT! What’s monkey face, what you dun to er? I love my Mum, if anfing’s ‘appened to er I’ll fucking git you. Please don’t hurt er, I luv’s er.’ He actually sounded quite tearful, but my sorrow was buried a little too deep.
‘Look it up on the internet, my man, and, perhaps you might consider revising your first impression mode while you’re at it. I believe I’m going to monkey face your phone.’

With that, I heaved the prized piece of gleaming technology into the river and went to have a drink and think it all through. I mean, really…..

Just a quickie.

Does anyone know why it tends to be people who stink of piss, eggs and Castrol Super who insist on closing ALL the windows on the bus when they get on, claiming it’s ‘cold’? (Bordeaux in May is very rarely cold, by any means, although some of the locals do nonetheless take the opportunity to stick on a nicely patterned husband jumper and a kerchief when it dips below 18°c)

Yes, yes, the French have gone election mad. At least the media insist that’s the case anyway, with their more or less constant bleeting by every available medium. It’s possible that most people are as sick of the constant poles and bullshit as I am. The French system is quite egalitarian in a sense, as all the Presidential candidates who have succeeded in obtaining the necessary 500 signatures of local Mayors (oh yes, those wise folk, the town Mayors – organisers of raffles and choosers of political destiny) are in theory obliged to have the same amount of TV and radio coverage. This means that as well as the watching the standard Right, Left and Middle drivel, we are also furnished with such delights as the Hunting and Fishing candidate. As you would expect, this fuckwit’s campaign is fairly hunting and fishing orientated, but he does throw in the odd well considered political strategy, like coming out of Europe and going back to the French Franc. Oh, the glory days before Europe and the French Franc. What’s he on? The French don’t pay any attention to European law anyway.

Then there is the alarming popularity of the National Front candidate, Jean-Marie “I admire Hitler” Le Pen. You may recall he reached the second round in 2002. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this means he was the second most popular candidate in the first round (oddly only two go through). You don’t need to be a political animal to realise that the popularity of the far right is bad news in any country, and it seems possible that it could happen again this year. Opinion polls give him about 12% at the moment, but there are a lot of people who are (quite rightly) ashamed of their intention to vote for a Nazi in disguise and so the data can be trusted even less than normal. Add to this the fact that many French who vote Le Pen justify it by calling it a ‘protest vote’ and it is possible the little sack of fascist cathetar juice may get though again. I mean, come on, a protest vote is a vote for the Monster Raving Loonies or taking the trouble to vote then voiding your ballot paper by drawing a big cock on it or something, isn’t it? And if you think that the system is so far wrong that you need to make a ‘protest vote’, why the extreme right? Surely that just makes you an obvious closet bigot doesn’t it?

The last of my semi-interesting political newsflash for you – Le Pen has secured 8% of the Muslim vote, it is estimated, because of his commitment to ‘traditional values’. The interview I read referred to a family who were ‘disturbed to turn on the TV in the evening and find two men kissing’. The solution? Stop watching gay porn you twats, and don’t vote Le Pen as he may well banish you from the land. Still, he’s an anti-semite, so I suppose that may appeal to certain Muslim folk. Loosely veiled prejudices account for more than you would like to think in this campaign it seems. Still, as long as our right to hunt and fish is protected, everything will be ok. Of that, I am sure.

Well, I’m assuming someone under the broad guise of ‘consultant’ must be responsible for this ridiculous slice of shit.

My uncle is a care worker and he is currently in charge of a facility which looks after mentally disabled adults, mainly down syndrome. It’s a kind of half-way house – the people that live there can look after themselves to an extent, but they’re not quite equipped to deal with the full whack. They tend to work part time jobs, production lines and box stuffing, that sort of thing. They aren’t paid a full wage as they don’t work as fast as non-handicapped people. This works out quite well apparently as many of them need to rest regularly and it also allows time for activities that don’t centre around putting five screws in every box. They have their own football team, for example.

However, their routine is set to be upset after a report found that the residents weren’t working to full capacity. My uncle has been tasked with finding them all full time, minimum wage jobs…For fuck’s sake! You can just imagine the report. “Whilst we respect the good work you do with the downies and other miscellaneous window lickers (and lickerettes), we believe that your profit per downie ratio is well below what it could be. If you were to set them all to work in, say, a steel works or an illegal cock-fighting ring, you could increase the profitability of the centre by 68% over a five year period. Then you might have enough money to pay my fee, you chuppa chup sucking chumps.”

Groover – you’ve recently given up a life in consultancy – so any input as to the viability of this one would be appreciated. There’s a home for the blind next door to me, and I’m thinking about putting them forward for an advanced mine-sweeping mission in the middle east. The bleeting blind bastards. Boom!

Apparently, Erykah Badu “picks her friends like she picks her fruit”. Does this mean she turns them upside down and sniffs their rear ends? Or does she just prod them a bit, then tut and put them in a massive woven basket anyway?

Yes yes, far flung fellow boloites. A small but significant leap of progress has been made in this particular fellow’s year – I’m going to New York! Bring on the beat-boxing winos, expensive Empire State figurines, agressive senile fur-clad Jewesses clutching Wren and Stimpy style dogs, foot long hot-dogs, psycho taxi drivers and any number of the million other things part of my adled grey matter associates with the Big Apple. It might end up being a glorified shopping trip, but it’s the first time I’ve been excited about going abraod for a long time. The last trip of this magnitude was out East, and I was more scared than excited in the end I think, with good reason it turns out, but that’s another story that starts with a relationship with one now referred to by those in the know as ‘The Evil One’. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say that 3 and a half years of going out with The Evil One, whilst hardly getting any (certainly towards the bitter end) then fucking off to Hong Kong, Thailand and the Phillipines with an enormous amount of pent up energy, was not ever ging to be the relaxing jaunt it could have been.

Anyway, fuck that, bring on NYC. If anyone knows any New York heads that would/should/may appreciate being looked up by Mr and Mrs Bennie, please let me know. Although I realise that those of you who don’t know me won’t be doing this, since it seems that only when I’m charged up, be it on rage or rant energy do I approach the designated Bolo keyboard. So I may well come off as a kook of some sort, which is alright really I suppose. I must go and finish another Heineken, then perhaps I might indulge in a few further tours of the lounge, whilst shaking my fist and saying “New York, motherfucker”.

Two colleagues were sat on the bus on their way home after a long week of absorbing corporate clichés, insincere pledges and generally soul-draining enterprise. Their hopes of a smooth commute were foiled by the boarding of some youths swathed in sweat-crunchy polyester clothes clutching begging letters and pushing boisterously.
“I wonder where they live” asked Daisy.
“Probably in a huge oil drum of their own filth, by the smell of the fuckers. I imagine they start each day with a shit fight and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if their entire society revolved around how much they stink. I have a vision of an Elvin and the Chipmunks style cartoon world, but with these gypsies bobbing in and out of tubs excrement like agile rodents, clutching laminated notes proclaiming their terrible luck and asking for any spare change so they can get just one more can of budget dog food to rub into their sodden pores”.
Daisy wasn’t ready for that, but I just had to let loose and we pissed ourselves, causing a few paranoid glances and I suppose some emergency skank venting amongst our motley fellow passengers. One of the benefits of living in a foregin country is the ability to be able to do this though and there is no regret on my part.
Viva la weekend, congratulations to everyone reading this for knowing what soap is and death to political correctness concerning the smelliest pikey change scroungers I’ve ever met. Their odour had transcended what you or I would call BO, and has reached what my all too sensitive nose belevied to be a mixture of engine oil, human chod and fish guts.
Is it a full moon? I sense the bolo rising.