I found this note folded up on a seat in the bus today. It may or may not be true:

Me name is Ronnie. Ronnie di fockin rasta innit.

I’m a big fucker – six foot six in bare feet, plus a big wad of dreads that make me look nearly seven feet tall. I’m a musician but I’m not working much at the moment. Truth is I’m on the dole, I sell a bit of weed to gullible white student boys and I play bongos with a band on the weekends. I’m not actually very good, but there’s always a lot of free booze and young pussy gyrating their way towards my 36 year old body. Not that they know how old I am, or thankfully, who I am. Even with all the rum and skunk I chug through daily I still only just about look thirty. Ja be the way, bruv. I wish I really believed that indestructible optimistic shit, but I’m fairly sure that I’m on my way out.

It all started a few years ago back in London. I was an up and coming MC in the Brixton dance hall scene. Sorry if that sounds poncy, but that’s how the fuckin A n R men called it, and that’s how it was. Thing is I started on a little thing called Crack cocaine. Got really into it. Not quite enough into it to go out robbing old grannies and that, but my hunger for the filthy rock did eventually drive me to take a very dark road. A mate in the industry proppa offered me some TV work. It was good money; I burned it all up that very week in a bottle bong in Queen’s Park. When I came round it gradually sunk in that I was to be known for the end of my days as A Cheap Rasta Cunt. I had sunk to the ultimate MC’ing low – a voice over for cheesestrings.

I though my mates would leave it alone after a couple of months, but wherever I was, whoever I was with, some fucker would always pipe up with the “Cheap Rasta Cunt” jibe, to the cheesstrings music. And everyone in the room would crack up. Even those on their way down would let loose a howl of jaundiced laughter. They were on a come down, but me, I was the lowest fucker ever born. Big up your cheesestrings, you cheap rasta cunt, they sang.

I was so embarrassed I got off the crack. I’ve moved town 6 times in 3 years. Doesn’t matter though – the disses seem to track me down in the end. Maybe there’s a website or somefing ‘where’s Ronnie’. That’s why I just always seem to need one more swig of Planters’, one more bifta, and I know it’s picklin’ my innards. And that’s why I’ve recently decided to adopt a zero tolerance policy on all cheesestring jibes. So – if you’re out a party and you hear a geezer mimicking that bloody tune – watch out ‘cos if I’m there I’m going to fuckin stab some fuckers. Peace.

was “he looks like a fat, camp, Mexican James Brown”. And he did indeed.

I knew it was time to turn the Tv off when I caught myself watching a second rate crack whore’s digest entitled “Diet Trials”, presented by the oh-so-personable but probably a horse cock jockey Eamon Holmes. Oh yeah, he’s probably a terrorist too. I gather most people are these days (in my day all this were fields and the only time you’d ever ‘ave any bother was when you’d been apple scrumping with Farmer Giles’s three-legged wife).
Anyway, the moment of clarity ocurred when one of the failed ‘contestants’ was featured carting the burnt remains of her beloved Alsatian, Buster, up the M6 to see her parents in Liverpool. YOUR PARENTS DON’T REALLY WANT TO SEE THE DEAD DOG’S ASHES YOU DIMWIT. She was just in the middle of blabbing out through her tears something along the lines of; “he was my all, my everything, my world” when I leapt to my feet and disconnected myself from the flickering fuckwit. I mean, I do end up watching some shit, because I live in France and in terms of British TV we’ve got BBC Prime and that’s pretty much it, but there is simply no excuse for watching that inane tramp’s spunk is there? I mean, a man must have his limits. Masterchef Goes Large and The Good Life you can just about get away with, but fucking Diet Trials with Eamon fucking Holmes is beyond the realms of acceptable viewing. How many hours do we all waste watching inane tripe on telly? A belated New Year’s resolution for me is knocking that one on the head.
So, the first pay cheque/dole cheque/ration of salted beaver is upon is already. It’ll be the Summer before you know it – perhaps next week if we can pump enough filth into the atmosphere to speed up global warming just a little bit more. The Chinese are doing their bit by building a new coal-burning power station every week, so the least we can all do is try and arrange a few extra bonfires, or perhaps invest in 3 litre Land Rovers with child-killing bars on the front.
Excuse the negativity people but I can’t shake this feeling I’ve had recently that some things about our entire way of living need to change drastically. Exactly what, how and what I personally can do, I’ve no idea, but we’re all in the same boat there I think, and if we all just carry on waiting for something, or someone to come along and tell us what to do, it’ll be too late. I’ve been on about this before, shit, I suppose we all have. In our heads, with people at work, after a few pints….and I’ve heard some fairly lucid suggestions. Like the idea of a certain detoxee with a penchant for chatting on his mobile in the quiet coach; local responsibility and local action. And it is true that if everyone looked after their patch the world would be a patchwork of order and perfection – like a particularly well-kept picket-fence strewn and lawn endowed American street, but perhaps without the aircon units, 4 litre cars and total disregard for energy use. As an aside, I was once at an American mate’s place and whilst looking for the loo I discovered the spare room which had been converted into a drying room. There were two tower fans creating a gale to dry the clothes. Apparently this reduced the drying time by an entire half day. When I asked if they weren’t concerned about the electricity they were using, I was greeted by a conspiratorial smile – they didn’t pay the bill, the company did. Oh well, shit, why not turn the microwave on then. Empty. Just for the fuck of it.
Sorry about that, a little sidetracked. The point I was leading to is that even if every individual with half a brain and a lack of malice started behaving with a little more conscience, it would not be enough. There would be just as many, if not more people carrying on as normal, or not being allowed to do otherwise, perhaps even in China alone. How the hell are we going to say “Look, I know we’re all a bit fossil fuel mental at the moment, and that our industrial revolution was also based on burning dirty fuels, but we’ve all got to lay off it now or we’ll all be underwater, so if you wouldn’t mind just winding it up and doing some nice calligraphy…”
Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems likely that the Chinese and everyone else will just keep going until something breaks. More cars, more power stations, more plastic statuettes of Mao…and who can blame them? We have, after all, created what is essentially a culture of mindless material worship over the last century or too, haven’t we? We’ve made Jade Goody famous, for god’s sake.
Well, this has become a real rant hasn’t it? I suppose I should wrap it up by asking if any boloists have any thoughts on either shite TV, naming dogs after Phil Collins films or the seemingly chronic mess we’re making of our chance on this earth….
I miss the days when I was 15, powered by cider and able to confidently reason away concerns over global warming with the steadfast logic that “eventually it will get so hot that solar power will be enough to sustain us, then we’ll stop burning fossil fuels and the earth will heal itself. Now let’s go and look for girls and kick a few bins over.”

I think I was suffering some kind of precocious mid life crisis. I’d been accepted to Uni and opted to have a year out instead. Partly through fear and partly to give myself the chance to master a deadly martial art so I’d be able to kill monkeys simply by slapping them lightly on the back. Whodahhhhhh!

Sadly it wasn’t to be and after a very cushy few months spent on an EU grant supported language ‘exchange’ programme (there was no exchange, they just paid for eight of us to go and piss around in France and get wasted really), I found myself with THC weeping from Playstation weary eyes round at my mates house. It was good and bad. Non productive on the life advancement front but I’m pretty damn capable at Tekken 2 now. Eventually my ears started to ache from the battering waves of my mother’s insistent nagging and I had to find a job. As luck would have it, the end of my mother’s patience coincided with a phone call from an employment agency I vaguely remembered registering with. Would I like to work at the Western Docks, alongside the ailing and technologically confusing hovercrafts? They kindly agreed to take 50p an from my £6 an hour wage if I would – who could resist? I began the next day, my trusted half-ton Townsend mountain bike dragging me down the hill to be clad out in some itchy polyester trousers, a clip-on tie and a ludicrously fashioned waist coat. Dressed like a fallen gent in brightly coloured man-made fibres, I was to patrol the lines of waiting cars and try and tempt their passengers in to sample the wears of the run down Duty Free shop with my secret weapon : shite scratch cards.

The gig itself was alright, except that they made us wear luminous yellow jackets over our already adequate trainee tramp clobber. We began at 5am and the early mornings were fine, but when the summer sun came up it was oppressively hot down by the sea. Still, we only worked 8 hour shifts, so there was a golden slice of non-work life to be had in the afternoons and early evenings. I took the opportunity to rekindle my still fledgling social skills in the local pub where my mate was working. We played pool and tried to pretend everyone didn’t know we were permanently caned. Until a particularly pink-eyed evening when one cocky cock-muncher was loudly telling his mongrel pet to “GET THE SKUNK, MURPHY! FIND THE SKUNK!”. The fucking pleb. But I digress.

Perhaps because I was turning up looking a bit dead-beat and booze damaged, some of the Scouse, Geordie and Glaswegien degenerates, who made a living doing ‘non-landers’ to bootleg fags and booze, began to see me as a potential friend. Somehow, I ended up making some extra money selling some of the scratch card prizes, although why anyone would want to pay for the crap we were offering I’m not sure. Perhaps it was the extra act of crime involved – the fiver expertly concealed under a losing ticket and reciprocated with the stone faced handing over of shades or keyring. We weren’t supposed to like the fag runners, so it was frowned upon whenever they won at the scratch cards. Whenever one of the decent prizes had to be handed out, like the 90 stone Raleigh Mountain Bike, a nice white family was carefully chosen and asked to play the scratch card game by the Day Supervisor.

Once I was drinking in the local pub after work with a friend of a friend I’d bumped into. A lively guitarist fucker with mad eyes named Craig. After the icebreaking 5th pint, the inevitable explanation for the mad eyes came to the lager drenched fore – Cocaine. Would I like some? Yeah, why not. Did I like it? Oh yes, with a fist clenched tightly and pointed straight to the motherfucking sky I liked it. I liked it a lot. But did it like me? “Who gives a fuck mate, I’m invincible. Have I told you about myself lately? Oh, I have, well you’ll just have to hear it again then won’t you, because I am fucking awesome”. Such was my winning mentality during that brief period. Only chance and a residue of intuition saved me from becoming one of those geezers without teeth who sit outside your local shop examining the bunions on their blackened feet and asking unconvincingly for 26p to go and visit a sick relative in the neighbouring town.

After another summer afternoon spent bouncing self important, drug-fuelled twaddle at each other’s impenetrable ear drums, I was invited back to Craig’s for a taste of the latest gak. On the way we ran into a few familiar faces from the docks – haggard and hard looking fag runners from the wrong part of Liverpool. It turned out they knew Craig too. It may have been the realisation of this fact that began the subtle ringing of alarm bells in my head. For the time being though, it was all jovial and off we went together to get coked up.

These people were devious but they were no actors. Even through the chemical haze of my own brilliance, I knew something bad was cooking. And then there it was – the hoover bag was removed to reveal a large zip-lock pouch stuffed full of crack. And, would you believe it? I was the lucky lad chosen to take it for a walk through customs through to a drop off point when I started back at work the next week. My prize would be £500 in cash and a couple of grams of C for each delivery. It was presented to me like an opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands, knowing that there wouldn’t be any choice with the fuckers when it came down to it. So, they were happy and I retained my dignity. For the few brief sweaty hours it took me to get my stuff together and catch a northern bound train. I left for Uni 2 weeks early and spent a shaky week in Blackpool reassessing my ability to judge characters and calling home frequently to appease my paranoia about any potential reprisals. All was well and when the time came I embraced the safe, home made soup environment of student life. All was rosy and the memory of those Orcs in track suits kept me stress free for an entire term. But it never takes long to find other ways to complicate life does it?

Just got back from a healing and air fare free trip to the homestead – a place with white cliffs strafed with tunnels, a largely intact castle and the home of chalk fed locals with pulped BNP leaflets for brains. It’s actually alright, considering.

To score my free flight home I had to endure some work perils, in the interest of “going forward”, “driving the business forward”, “growing the business”, “thinking outside the box” and generally overcoming all the growing pains you could expect having grown a business from a magic bean.

The day began with a 2 hour hold up before we’d left France. There were high winds and I wasn’t particularly overjoyed at the thought of taking to the skies in a 20 year old 737, held together with a slap of indifference and some cheap CK1. Thus it was with a mixture of relief and disdain that I reacted to the reason behind our delay – a wet carpet. At first I thought ‘tapis mouillé’ was a term used to describe the rain soaked runway, but they actually did mean to say that we were 2 hours late because of a wet carpet in the fucking plane. The soaked carpet of the front galley, caused by massive tea-urn haemorrhaging I assume, was proclaimed as a serious health and safety issue, which could not be ignored. Of course the real danger in the pilot’s mind was the possibility of some old gimmer going arse over tit and suing BA, or perhaps I’m not giving him enough credit. Then again, considering the tofu and jissum tracker bar the bastards proffered up in the guise of our in flight snack, I’m not so sure.

We arrived at Gatwick after a very rough ride in the skies over southern England – the tracker bar was begging to give the world just one more shot. After the two and a half mile walk to reclaim our baggage, and having grabbed some take away lunch at Nero with the rest of my life savings, we were met by a taxi and informed that the M25 was in fact shit, so we would be going to Southampton via the windiest, most country lane-filled route possible. I felt that this would make my cold, dehydrated egg and bacon panini go down particularly well. When I took my seat behind old shit pants Greg though, I began to wonder if I shouldn’t just chew up my sandwich and spit chunks of it in the faces of my fellow passengers, as that seemed to be a shortcut to the inevitable. Somehow, I managed to hold it down and endure some 80mph corners on single track roads at the hands of my new nemesis, the faeces fetishist fuckwit driving the Espace. Blarghhhh.

So, we arrived at the office where we knew a meeting was being held up for us before the office do in the evening. I hadn’t done my research properly and I assumed the meeting would be more of the “hello Jeff, had a nice year mate?” variety. Not so, and my nausea came rushing back up my battered pipes and valves when reality hit; we were to watch a motivational DVD about a firm of Seattle fish mongers who ‘give it their all’, have ‘fun’, ‘be there’ for their clients and generally prance about like a load of wankers stuffed to the eyeballs with acid and Spar vodka. I have a particular loathing for this sort of shit. However, there was nowhere to hide from the front row seat which had kindly been saved for me as a late arrival and I had to smile my way through it as best I could. This sapped my energy for the cherry on the motivational cake – we were to divide up into pre-chosen teams and come up with our own cool company catchphrases, just like those neat guys in the video. I felt like pointing out that this would be a lot easier if we were all ex-convicts with free access to drink, drugs and fish, but it didn’t seem to be in keeping with the optimism they told us we had. The ‘slogans’ or key words were supposed to encapsulate an important aspect of a successful team structure or customer service. The acid test was cited as being that we should be able to say the slogan to any colleague, bringing positive input at the vital time. Each group were to choose four or five and then present them in front of everyone else. We would all vote on the best ones and they would become our company slogans…..

My team mates kindly proceeded to faff their way to our best and most original slogan – ‘Talk-Talk’. Oh yes, you can just imagine it can’t you? One of your colleagues comes in and looks subdued and mooches over to their desk, but you take action, you intercede, you go right up to them, cock your head like a spaniel, and you say ‘talk-talk?’. Genius. But that’s not the end of it though, because ‘talk talk’ is also an expression of the need for good communication within the workplace. Talk-talk is my new mantra. Talk-talk is the way forwards.

Suffice to say that things got a lot better at the office party later on, after a surreal start when an old friend of mine, a particular savage who some say looks like a portly uncle fester, joined me at the hotel for a couple of early pints, along with my boss. Strange how things change. The rest of the evening took a familiar but highly amusing course, terminating in Too Much To Drink, via stations such as Old Trouts With Too Much Cleavage, Strained Conversation With War Games Fanatic, Dodgy Tinned Turkey, Fit Jailbait Waitresses, The Company Welching on the Free Drink Promise, Tequila, Bouncers in Charge of the Decks and Tequila.

I remember a bleak trip up to Lancaster with my Mum and her oversized boyfriend, constantly chugging roll-ups from his engrained perch in the front. We stopped over night in Blackpool and I remember hoping that the clapped out ‘illuminations’, which were nothing more glorious than shoddy old Pepsi ads really, were not an omen for the next three years. I had never been to Lancaster, or visited any universities at all for that matter. A crazed mix of youthful arrogance and too many drug related experiences in my formative years had led me to defer Uni for a year, mainly in the hopes that I would have a better idea of what I wanted to do by the time it came around to go, or, better yet, that I would be ‘discovered’ before I had to. Discovered doing what, I hear you ask. Surely there were other lanky, cynical pot heads with pretentious tendencies around to be head hunted by MI6 and senior government positions? Sadly, no. Perhaps I thought someone was going to drag me out of my weed chugging social calendar because of an inherent brilliance that would summon those who mattered. What a little tosser I was to have even half-seriously entertained such a notion. Still, a little pretension is character building I reckon, as long as you do eventually turn your back on it and don’t become a neckerchief wearing, open mic poetry reader with a leather waistcoat and a penchant for livers warmed in a cock sized glass….But I digress, and I think I always will, so fuck it.

Anyway, anyway, anyway where was I? Oh yes, arriving at Uni and wondering who else’s pots and pans would be shoved into the meagre cupboards in the 25-man kitchen I was bound to share. I would learn later, at the end of term, that some people literally did fall at this first hurdle and simply could not hack the thought of such an enforced communal living. By the look of the cargo unloaded at the end of week 10, it seems they simply radioed back to base for heavy artillery. Then Mummy and Daddy turned up with a fridge, gas stove and microwave oven to save any blushes about shared pans, mess, stolen food, or, most understandably, every shy boy’s worst nightmare, the cackling big-breasted gang of bints that came free with every living space. Fortunately I had neither the means nor the inclination to avoid these things, and I ended up welcoming it all with open arms, for a while. Of course, there were a couple of edgy days. I had no suit for the ‘Fresher’s Ball’, and it sounded like a poor copy of an American thing anyway, so I decided to skip it. Spent the evening in toiling on the half ounce of hash I’d brought with me instead, wondering what the fuck I was doing with myself generally and earning a very short-lived, misguided reputation as a loner.

I soon found my groove though and I think it fair to say that I did feel streets ahead of most people purely because of having had a year out. I excelled in the drinking game and used my small town pub culture roots to good effect in the college pool team. The world was opening to the socially mobile masses and even those less so (it was a good crowd and ‘jock mentality’ was very marginalised). Parties were being thrown left right and centre – it was all laid out for us, like somebody understood that the social side of things needed to be kick-started before we all scuttled off to our private toasters and choked on a diet of pop tarts and throaty sobs. Soon, relations were expanded beyond the immediate kitchen nest and I met an interesting character with bright eyes and a mental grin. We started speaking to put each other at ease, it was one of those times when you know you’ve got to make that step, before it becomes impossible or goes the other way – claimed dislike through ignorance or fear. You know the times – we were primitive social animals back then really. We hit it off and soon formed a strong alliance against the raucous fat birds and the unholy Junior Common Room collective. We fought to keep the Stone Roses on the juke box and to keep the fucking Abba off. We lost. We deconstructed days over spliffs that burnt down evenly and we shared honest thoughts, mutual likes and dislikes and professed love for various college beauties. We kept the arrogance out of one another with well placed verbal slaps and rye smiles – we kept our feet on the ground. We expanded our social circles and got to know each other’s friends – the world was constantly growing.

Even when it wrong for me, as of course it did, and I got involved with a girl I shouldn’t have, long term, our chats and the healthy social scene kept me sane. Our expanded social circles created a constant flux of nights out, places to chill and canal-side escapes on hastily purchased mountain bikes. And we all just kept meeting people and the world was a mass of people to get to know. For the first time, it seemed like even the best looking girls were potentially just a smile and a ‘hello’ away. Of course, we were far too dysfunctional to ever really make that a reality, but the fantasy was there and that’s half the battle isn’t it? You have to believe it possible to do it, and you don’t have to do it to enjoy its possibility.

A wicked time, an eye-opening time, the most socially expanding time, the most freedom. The fact is we abused that freedom sometimes – we got too far into things we shouldn’t have, we dwelled on too many negatives that could have been shrugged off and, sometimes, we sank low. Here’s the deal though – if we wanted to swim back up to the top, it was all there for the taking. With free will comes responsibility, but please don’t criticise the whole game because you stayed down in the bottom of the barrel.

Well I apologize in advance for this wantant piece of rantery which may be all too familiar to many of you travelling boloists out there, but I just have to expel this linguistic filth before it gives me cancer of the innards, or even ze piles.

How many medicines do you think it would take to cure a kid of what appeared to be a common cold and an ear infection? Three, four max? You’d be wrong. Try fifteen of the fuckers! Yes, fifteen little boxes, vials of piss-coloured fluid and tubes of all-healing ointment were handed out to the young mum in front of me at the chemists, SLOWLY. I have come to accept the French attitude towards prescription drugs, which seems to be an unannounced race to the death to obtain as many creams, rubs, pills, powders, magic salts, charmed bolsa woods and prescription fromages as possible (“Docteur, I am not feeling too good, I bring my wheelbarrow, yes, for all ze shiny pills you give me yes, and don’t forget the 150 gallon barrel of prediluted vick’s Vapour rub, I think little Frank sniffed last week”). Accepting the fact that the more people are waiting, the slower the person serving becomes at doing their job is what I cannot do.

Ever worked in the service industry? In a bar or a shop perhaps? If you have and you were not on a barbiturate drip, you will doubtlessly remember that feeling you get when you know that people are waiting, for you. Only you doing your job can allow all the people to get what they came for and move on with their day, back to the office, pub, mate’s house or just plain old Home. Being aware of this fact makes you toil a bit faster, try and keep the queue down to a minimum. Granted, sometimes it doesn’t work that way and you get panicked, and maybe it even takes longer than if there were fewer people. The point is though that everyone knows that it’s your intention to work faster and get people served that has caused you to panic, and they appreciate that, allow for it. Even the laziest incompetent fuckwit knows to at least TRY and look a bit busier. Not on the Brie side of the channel though, oh no. The more people are waiting, the longer it takes. The more tuts of disapproval and reproachful glances, the slower the work gets done. The more aggressive posturing and throat clearing that goes on, the longer you fucking wait. It is truly maddening to the non-French psyche.

I went out to get some non-prescription pain killers earlier tonight, and when I saw that there were only two people waiting in the usually busy late night chemist, my heart leapt with cautious joy. A queue of four or five can take 30 minutes to get through, but with just two people before me, I felt sure to be out of there in 15 minutes tops. Unfortunately, the midget pigeon-molesting chemist had picked up on my optimism and unpacked all his special moves to put me right. “ZIS WILL TEK FUCCKIN AGGGGGES, ROSBIF”, his eyes whispered to me, as I closed the door and began killing time watching the Tenna Lady Pants advert, dubbed over from what can only have been American judging from the size of the bastards.

Having taken a prescription, he’d amble back into his store room with it and return with perhaps 3 or 4 items on the list and punch a lot of keys on his PC, then do a complex calculation on a smaller, probably pretend machine that looked like an old-fashioned calculator with built-in print roll. Next the customer, who would surely have been waiting for ages before I even arrived and hence be all too familiar with the dilemma of those behind him, would insist on asking very exact questions on how the drops/ointment/pills/horse spunk should be applied, just to make sure the doctor wasn’t joking. Long answers would be provided, followed by a description of what percentage of the cost of each medication was going to be reimbursed by the state and what, if any, would need to be picked up by the private health cover most people have here. Even though if you’ve got health cover, as he obviously did have, it wouldn’t matter because effectively you’re never actually out of pocket. Repeat the process a few times, and you think, right, excellent, it must be time for him to the pay the bill and just fuck OFF now, but no, he’s been holding back. Another prescription comes out, this time for his son, little Jean-Phillipe. And yes, of course he’s a good father and he loves his son, so he needs to know EXACTLY how many drops of monkey blood to rub on the wee blighter’s forehead each evening. Who could blame him? By this point I’d have to say me. Get the fuck on with it you cheese addicted, work shy midget pigeon toucher, or I’ll start foaming at the mouth and cussing you all out in a multitude of languages and regional lilts.

Ahhhhhh, that’s better. The badness is out of me. Obviously re-reading this it’s clear that I’m an uptight ‘Britisher’ who does not know the joys of the pseudo-Mediterranean attitude to life, and maybe that’s a valid criticism, but damn it if I know someone’s waiting for me to serve them something, I respect them, their need and myself enough to want to be able to provide it ASAP. What can be right about imprisoning people in your little corner of life with your own arrogant sluggishness? Zat, my frenz, is ze way of ze plumbait.

Hell yes, step up motherfuckers, step up. Step up to where, to what, you say? No idea. No one has a clue what to fight for it seems to me, other than their immediate circle of interest (family, friends, Scunthorpe FC). Now, I’m not counting the people who spend all their evenings watching ITV, worrying about Super Volcanoes, getting raped by hood wearing paedophiles and wanking off over the creases in Carol Vordreman’s latest PVC cat suit whilst she convinces them they need to consolidate their debt. No, those people are too far gone. I would include myself in the focus free first category though, and just about all my friends.

I’ve been noticing it more and more lately and The Unholy Nag’s wicked post touches on a key explanation of our lack of direction. There’s a lot of energy around, a lot of people wanting to do something positive, to change things, to do whatever’s ‘right’, as they used to say. But what things are we to change? And what is ‘right’ when detached from the non-productive 60’s sentiment of whatever ‘feels good’? If we all carry on doing what feels good we are going to fuck the planet up once and for all quite soon, be it via global warming, a premature ice age, a nuclear war or some unforeseeable act of destruction from the other side of the red curtain. If you want to take into account what damage Daily Mail readers and celebrity culture are doing to the fabric of our society as well things definitely do look grim. Who gives a fuck that Jordan has three tits? Why doesn’t she just tuck the other one away somewhere, or donate it to a chicken nugget factory?. That’s my point though – there’s just too much information out there. Too much to consider. Has this paranoia been deliberately engineered to ensure apathy and/or confusion, to pacify people? Perhaps. I know that my response to the latest horror show in the news is often ‘oh well, fuck it, I can’t do anything about it anyway, there’s just too much going on’. Or is this flood of bad news simply a natural bi-product of having a genuinely free media? It would be a sad epitaph of men would it not, to have had the possibility of doing so much, but having drowned prematurely in the news of our own failures before we could get off the small rock we took our chances on.

Well that was a all a bit grim wasn’t it? I wrote it last night, apparently on a very rough Heroin comedown. Things should be better tonight though – Strictly Come Fisting is on the telly, and Scunthorpe play Cheltenham tomorrow. Viva las Bolo!

If you ever move to France and learn the lingo and, after a few years of staunch resistance, find yourself saying “Ciao”, don’t worry about it. I’ve tried to fight it, but it just seems inevitable. I just hope I can keep it out of my English vocabulary or I’ll probably end up nailed to a pub wall somewhere in Stoke.

#9 Never Congratulate Yourself. When you’re riding a bike in the rain in rush hour traffic and you do something stupid, like jump off a high pavement and land between two lanes of cars, never congratualte yourself. If you do, you’ll invariably end up making a complete tit of yourself or coming a croper from some old cake buying geezer opening the door to his merde infested Uno just in front of you. In fact, just to be on the safe side and because it makes sense, I reckon that Never Congratulate Yourself could be extended to cover life in general. Can you ever remember feeling pleased with yourself and then not being slapped back down very quickly ?

As the healing coffee flows into my energy starved body this morning, I can’t help but feel a little optimism brewing, for the first time in a while. These swine have me in their sweaty grasp for the rest of today and the following three days, but after that, for two consecutive weeks, I am on holiday. That’s right, get back you fuckers, get back. I’m free to do what I want, any old time. Free to do what I want to do, free to ride my machine, to get my booze and to quote appropriate song lyrics at will, and free to mix them up and all. Free to make big plans, then achieve half of them and spend the rest of the time chilling and milling about town amongst the just-got-back-to-work-after-a-month-off-suits, checking out the quality of the latest influx of student fitness. Oh yes, keep your dull tasks, whining clients, stupid questions, colleagues with whiffy pits and your inbox of bollocks, because for half an entire month, I don’t give a fuck. Make that an entire month, counting the time it will take to convince my unwilling self that it’s actually time to begin toiling again.

Sorry about that, boloists. I thought I’d post something positive for once, but I seem to have gone off on one…..oh well, at least I’m free to be who I choose, to get my booze, any old time.

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.

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….

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.

Morning time. Pangs of guilt and a waft of sick. I’m on my sofa. It’s 9.30am on a work day morning. My brain painfully begins to whirr at the immediate repurcussions of this information. I’ve got a phone call to make. Before that though, lets get to grips with the guilt and the sick. The latter appears to be all around the base of the sofa and also peppers the white throw that was inspirationally placed just a few weeks ago. Every cloud. Right, the sick is checked and the cleaning solution straightforward on the wooden floor.

Now – the guilt. It’s not work. It will have something to do with a woman, but that’s not the main event. A friend is over from blighty and, him having arrived yesterday, we completed the obligatory heavy night out at the earliest possible window of opportunity. Lager, wine and whiskey all played an essential role in our total and utter ascent into oblivion. Until 1am memory implies that we had a pretty splendid night out, with just the suggestion of a few trampled toes along the way. Past that point though, it’s a mystery. What was the last place ? did we pay our bill ? did I see my mate home, or even try and point him in the right direction ? Ah – there’s the source of the guilt. I can’t remember doing so and my instinct tells me that means no.

An hour passes. The sick is mopped. The woman’s scorn is manifesting nicely. The phone call has been carried out with aplomb. Time to find out about my foreign-street-wandering visitor…..One phone call later and the worst is realised – he got mugged on the way back to his hotel last night. Fuck. Kept hold of his wallet though and elbowed some thoroughly deserving bastard in the face to boot. The jacket, sunglasses and hotel key will be refunded by a wise man’s travel insurance. The guilt didn’t cost a penny, but I wish it would leave me alone and stop making me swear out loud on my own. Oh well, as any woman would only be too quick to tell me – I’ve only got myslef to blame. Will that ensure my good behaviour from now until the end though ? The odds are not good.

A few years ago, sometime in the six form I think, a few of us had spent our Wednesday ‘activity’ afternoon in the pub.  We were hungry on the way home, so we ducked into a kebab shop for the necessary food fix. For some inexplicable reason, and despite the fact it was about 6pm, one of my mate’s younger brothers was coming up on a very harsh acid tab at the time.  He’d been holding it together pretty well in the pub – at 16 this geezer had already done 20+ trips, so either his sanity was already dispensed with or he could really handle it.

After a few moments of telling foot-shuffling and smirk-surpression, Dave lost it. We were all in the queue, about 5 of us in total, and there was already a family of chunks in front of us, ordering their delights from the miscellaneous menk stick.  The laughter erupted with a noisy ‘phhhhhhhhsssssssssst’, and bubbles of saliva were born and exploded over several of our backs.  It was the really crippling laughter that only narcotics can bring.  We took him outside and sat down with him.  Once the laughter had subsided to a level that would allow him to speak, Dave said, “That meat, that thing on a stick…..it could be…..fucking…..ANYTHING!” Then he lost it again and began convulsing on the floor with laughter, which brought us more attention than we wanted.  Once he’d calmed down a bit again, he coninued his explanation..”and you……you……pay money for it……and, him, the kebab dude, he’s…..fucking evil!” It was too much to take for poor Dave, and yet again he cracked up.

All was ok from then on until we got to the Esso garage a the top of my road. Dave needed Rizlas. Full credit to him, he didn’t ask anyone to go in for him, or perhaps he did and we refused, I can’t remember.  What I do remember is Dave staggering out, laughing his tits off and trying to explain that ‘that cunt’s beard kept flashing ON and OFF!’.

Spent a portion of my weekend wondering how to convey to my upstairs neighbour that he and his mates were really taking the p1ss noise wise. Not just the music, guffawing and juvenile antics, but also the TALKING IN THE FUCKING CORRIDOR. By the time I was bothered enough to go and say anything, i knew that they would be totally hammered and I was afraid that the long-matured rage might burst through the surface, egged on by my complete inability to speak French when I’m angry. “Excusez, errr, huffffff, sbbbbbbbeeeer, huffffffff’. They might have snickered at this, once their initial reaction of “Oh, it’s alright, it’s us, we’re making the noise and you can see from our heightened state of ego and pleasure that it’s very much worth it” had been conveyed. Then, just possibly, I might have stopped my linguistic back-firing and done something physical to express my dismay. Like grabbing one of their heads and licking it, then barking like a vicious dog. Comedy value that image I know, but think about it – your neighbour is willing to traverse physical and animal boundaries if you wind him up too much. Do you start remembering your manners ? I think I’d make the effort. Especially if I thought that my neighbour’s next move might be curling one out under my doormat, then marking his territory with a ring of p1ss and perhaps a speckling of j1zz……..
As a footnote, you may have noticed that French people don’t generally drink to get drunk, in the sense that we and other nationalities do. There is a very good reason for this – the arrogance grows to a RIDICULOUS degree. Well, in the fair town of Bordeaux anyway.

I got on the bus today and instantly recognised a feeling of nagging irritation in the unrested Bennie mindset. Looking around and searching my thoughts for the source of the irritation, it didn’t take me long to locate the source of my problem – some over confident little hood rat oik wielding his weapon of choice – the mobile phone with music playing facility. French hip hop was his ammunition – a totally charmless bastardisation of a perfectly valid genre with broad predictable beats and whiny ghetto pretensions.
Feeling not at all rested and unable even to listen to my own music or concentrate on my book, i knew action had to be taken. It started with a lingering look over my shoulder to ascertain the exact source of the social blasphemer and check how many were in the group. Hurrah! A lone soldier. Feeling slightly appeased by the fact that I needn’t be intimidated by a lone adolescent gimp, I tried to go back to my book. No joy though, and the rage was creeping back. I looked around for support, to try and make eye contact with some fellow passengers and see who might support any verbal request for common sense on my part. Nothing doing. Well, I had to do something, so I stood up and changed seats, much to the confusion of the down’s syndrome girl on the opposite seat, who started looking around anxiously as if she might have missed her stop….
Having acquired a seat of relative tranquillity and having read a page of my book without having to re-read every other sentence, I was surprised and increasingly glad to note that some of my fellow passengers from the back of the bus had followed my lead. A minute later, the back section of the bus was more or less empty and knowing looks and nods of understanding were being exchanged freely between the self-evicted commuters. This level of communication was unheard of! Soon, there was a consented drift towards the lone wanker and his ridiculously ill-conceived device. Without conflict, a spokesperson stepped forward and asked the questions that needed to be asked and made the demands that had been scrolling across the platforms of our minds since we’d left the depot; “Why do you think we would possible ALL want to listen to your particular brand of appalling music?” “Please could you turn it off?”.
This kid was so sure of himself, and so concerned with his own space, that he apparently hadn’t noticed any of this building. Either that, or he wanted us to think that he hadn’t noticed. I’m not sure which is worse.
In any case, he said no, go fuck yourselves, and in another instant we had him. A bloke on each arm, forcing his head downwards so his arse stuck up in the air like a poodle. A sinister acceptance passed over me as I foresaw my inevitable role in the scene. A lady had picked up the offending phone and yanked our hood rat’s trousers and briefs (yes, briefs) clean off. Soon the phone was in position and so was I, having already tied a plastic bag over my shoe in readiness. With an almighty wind up, I booted the phone deep up inside the poor bastard’s intestines and then, as if preordained, the bus doors opened and we chucked him and his muffled beats out onto the street.
We returned to our seats with the collective understanding that nothing need ever be the same again, especially for the down’s syndrome girl whose understanding of acceptable norms on public transport had been irrevocably shattered…

One of my colleagues constant whittering is making me want to cut my ears off.  It’s not just the frequency of the babbling, but, as is often the case with your common garden shit talker, it’s also the content. Eg, now she’s pretending to have a deep knowledge of hand writing analysis. Yesterday, she was talking expertly about her boyfriend’s army carreer (one year as a cheese eating surrender monkey – not really a career in my books). She went on to say this “But, you know, the French army’s the biggest in the world,
ay?” Totally serious. When someone said, “ok, what about China?” she held firm. I couldn’t resist poking my head around the corner at this point and saying “The Chinese army could potentially be bigger than the entire population of France – are you sure you’ve got your facts straight?”. She still wouldn’t admit any mistake, but went on about the fact that she used to work in a French military hospital, and heard this from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I asked her if it was a mental hospital, she admitted that yes it was, but my wide grin didn’t seem to invoke any kind of realisation…..I’m starting to think she’s a robot, planted her to test us. I expect her and a team of her ilk will soon be uniting, Power Ranger style, into a huge shit talking doll, trotting from town to town exploding heads with very loud, inaccurate sermons on the speed of light being attainable by
French GIs.

You know – the kind that allow miniature rude boys to play the latest offering of one of a million possible talentless granny-touchers to everyone on the bus. Who invented them? The cunts who came up with this concept obviously don’t take public transport.

Even good tunes sound awful when piped through those little half watt speakers. And why the hell do the phone toters assume that everyone within a 10m radius wants to hear the latest MC Utah Plumbait track?

I reckon they just might drain the insular out of some commuter geezers. SMASH. STOMP. HA HA!

This is the sort of email an extemely bored mind produces, and I thought I’d throw it on the table for general inspection….names may have been changed for privacy or (Greek) comedy reasons.

Yes yes people !

Midweek uptown and we’re all screwed to our desks like so many pieces of
immovable McDonald’s furniture. Damn those Indians and their freakish
smoke signals, mine’s a Chicken Bhuna and a tin of elephant nad chutney
please govenor. Oh, and yes I want another pint every ten minutes and extra
rice to boot, even when I obviously still have plenty of both. We are good
lads mate.

I hate to harp on with an old tune, but I am, I’m afraid to say, bored out
of my increasingly mediocre tin pot of a mind. Still, comedy relief, in the
form of a certain Boy Mogley is arriving shortly, and we can both look
forward to a weekend of hard labour as, unbeknownst to him, we’re going to
be doing DIY 24/7. I’ve bought some cheap tools, a floodlight and enough
cheap whizz to animate a full home of geriatrics. It’s my plan to turn the Moguester
into a DIY crazed garage MC by next tuesday. Slice Busy and Blight, that’s
the sound of the Mogue on the mic, Hype!

Oh yes, shadow boxing with my own chod. Big up all the clagons in the house
! Shout outs going to the brown trout massive !

By the way Mogue, we have an unexpected +1 for Friday night. Pippa intended
to call a senior colleague by the name of Mike, but instead called a much
younger ex-colleague named Mike. She didn’t know what to say to him, so she
ended up inviting him round for beers on Friday, along with two other people
who I’d actually invited. Why run your own life when you can let your wife
do it for you ? Because then you’d choose what the feck happens, I suppose.
Stevo – it’s a special occasion, so if you could Fedex over a few of those
swan napkins you’re so fond of that would be appreciated.

From the dolldrums of a mind left fallow.

#36 Always wash your hands after using another man’s mouse.

Now, I’m not into internet snooping or checking out where people have been on the web, perhaps because I’m afraid of finding something particularly repugnant. Fortunately though, an ex-colleague of mine does not share the same scruples. Whilst using another colleague’s pc, a brief click of the ‘historique’ icon revealed a hudred weight of smut (nieve pc-wise). Nothing sinister, quite innocent searches really “sex”, “girls”, “hot-plating skeets” etc. As this guy is very much an upstanding gent, and quite high up, we did find it funny. Handshakes also became an issue.

Anyway, I was using said PC today and had a problem with the mouse. When I lifted it up to see what was wrong, I noticed the brand of the mouse – it’s a Disney “THRASHER” ! Could it have taken control of him, forced him into his thrashtastic ways? Like a Herbie for wankers ?

The news may have just about filtered into the uk by now, although I’m not sure. The British associate the French with striking in the same way they assocoate us with bad food and glassings. You don’t need to report on national character traits…

Apparently, students used to be able to have a 10 minute break to eat cheese and moan for every hour of teaching. Plans to cut this essential break to 5 minutes have met with staunch resistance. 1.5 million French took to the streets on Saturday, with nearly 200 arrests and cheese sauce sprayed on the streets and the hoods of Renault Clios throughout the country. Sunday was a day to take stock, to mourn the loss of cheese past.

Actually, they are protesting against a new employment contract for the under 26s, which lacks the “job for life, can’t be sacked even if caught cracking one off under the desk” security of the current contracts. They do have a point, in so far as the French are massively conservative and cautious in virtually every aspect of life, but I can’t help but feel embarassed when I see the “manifestations”. All the shouting and stopming and singing and self-congratulatory noise making and cheese eating bravado makes my skin crawl. Part of the English condition I suppose. Power to the people? “I’m too embarassed mate, let’s just go and have a cup of tea” (or 10 pints and a messy kebab house mauling?). Contradictory as a whole ? Perhaps.

That’s what a friend of mine, let’s call him Dan, thinks should happen to the caring citizens of Bordeaux who line the pavements with chod baguettes.  His idea is in the realms of public humiliation. Whenever a log is dropped pavement side and the act is spied by a member of the numerous law ‘enforcers’, the offending owner would be summoned before whatever crowd could be gathered for a people’s punishment. They would be made to remove their shoes and socks, then walk through the doggo, hot coal style. The stinky-footed offender would then have to put their socks and shoes back on without having cleaned their feet, to the chorus of the jeering mob. And yes, this would also apply to the ‘sweet old dears’ with poodles who always look at potential complainees with a ‘awwww, but he’s such a cute little dog, it’s almost an honour he’s left his mess there’ look. In fact, maybe they’d have to eat the stuff instead. The police could carry a special cutlery set just for the purpose.

Anyway, if you’ve stood in dog shit recently, you may well agree with Dan. Otherwise, it may seem a little extreme…