If you think about it, do we have a choice in religion, or is it just a core part of human nature which we will always be fooling ourselves into thinking we can be conditioned out of by scientific enlightenment? Relinquishing your religion is not something that the brain takes easily – you are substituting the rock of absolute truth, around which you can build a coherent system of interpreting the world, for the learning by rote of scientific theories, hypotheses and notions, which by their nature are always seeking to be disproved or superceded: thus every ‘truth’ becomes lemming like, and our psyche begins to exist in a state which can be analogised to riding one of the little buggers to the edge of a cliff before jumping onto one further back and starting the journey again . It may do for those like us who have finally seen past religion’s manipulative and hypocritical facade to embrace science as the saviour of sanity, in fact once we have had this experience there is can be no way back that doesn’t involve brain damage, but the headfuck of endless existential questions engendered by this can be too much for some – who turn pretty quickly to bullshit spiritualism, lining the pockets of another set of charlatans – the lucky charlatan being the one that the hapless ‘nouveau agnostic’ finally rests on as the dominant absolute truth substitute.

Going back to the first sentence, could it be that it is equally core to human nature that we should inevitably seek to reject religion? Is it all a result of Homo Sapiens being an evolutionary fuck up who learnt how to learn before he could make sense of what he had learnt? Other animals just know what they have to know and get on with fighting and breeding: we have had the whiff of wordly knowledge, which has given us the narcotic ambition of total control over every aspect of our lives, even the very nature of our existence, and hence an addiction to achieving this as strong as that of a hamster seeking to run to the other side of its wheel to sniff its own arse (and the likelihood of success just as low). Maybe the truly wise are content to know what they don’t know (thanks, Rumsfeld), rather than spending the precious time before they die trying to work it out. But maybe, they are truly boring people. All I know is that, despite the headfuck, I love being an atheist – hangover in church anyone?

I wonder: is one reason that these semi-professional/talented attention/talent seekers were sold the idea of I’m a Nonentity…Get Me A New Agent that they would have a short time in which they are able to say “I’m a celebrity” and not feel ashamed? Of course if they use that phrase as a description of themselves, then they will be lying, and with that may come the shame. But the programme cunningly incorporates countless opportunities to say it out of context (for instance just mentioning the name of the show), and sadly for these lovelorn once-a-talking-head-on-the top-10-decades-of-the-20th-Century pillow biters, that may well be enough.

A welcome sight this morning in my junk mail folder on hotmail, among the various kind offers to enlarge my penis (who told them?!!) and show me free beastiality (generosity thy name is porn baron), is a certain newsletter from a certain red-top tabloid’s website devoted to the first inside facing page and consequently named after the number of that page. The power of a pair of pixellated mammaries to cheer me up probably should be worrying. It is not worrying a certain Australian news tycoon however, who is laughing into his koala kippers on toast at poor social inadequates who can’t get a girlfriend that isn’t more than 34kb, and me….

tHat will be all. kEEP doing that thing where the caps lock is out of sync with my sentence and it’s doind my head in

Appearing crazed but through such
Rantings the bar has been raised
And though each word ever worthy of praise
A brutal intra-cranial malaise is suggested.
We’ve cogitated, contemplated and digested.
Pressure tolerance of skull lining well tested in concluding therefore:
Mad as a box of frogs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Gulp….er…sorry, mate?” That punch-in-the-solar plexus effect that happens when the stranger with whom you thought you were having a friendly chat feels he has your trust, then without warning decides to let you into his strange world of ‘between you and me’ opinion – in this case I was hit with: “course y’know, they’re all farkin over ‘ere innay!”  - …er, sorry, mate?  - Dem lot. More over ‘ere than in farkin’ Affrika or India or w’revver it is they farkin come from. – (Jokingly [as you do]) Don’t think there’s a billion Indians over here mate. – (Deadly serious, and getting a little red-faced) Farkin ‘is! Comin’ over ‘ere, farkin millyuns an’ billyuns ov the bastards. No bluddy white faces anymore. We just letum in. Farkin red carpitt. Tell ya mate, more over ‘ere than over there, no jokin’ mate. Farkin disgrace. Farkin Blair. - (Playing dummy) So what you’re saying is that you disagree with the immigration policy in this country. You think there should be more stringent controls on economic migrants and an overhaul of the asylum application process? – Dass right mate. Send ‘em ‘ome mate. Farkin’ ell, no bluddy Crissmass anymore, s’all Divarrrley this and farkin Muslim that. Farkin no Inglish anymore, jus’ jibber-jabber. Send ‘em farkin ‘ome, I say. Farkin scroungers, takin’ our jobs an’ benefits. Farkin disgrace that Blair.  - Listen mate, I….  - Fark me, issat the time. Got a leg of pork in the oven. Nice meetin’ ya…(Hands empty Cobra pint glass to barman.) Cheers, Raj, take it easy mate. (To me) Good bloke that, always look after yer in ‘ere. After my stunned confusion had subsided, my ‘smug, self-righteous lefty liberal elitist’ shame at not having shot him down in so much inglorious flame, as a stinger would a Zeppelin, burnt like a dodgyy vindaloo. Next time I promise to be drunk…

My face
Is all over the place
Angles galore
Nose to the floor
One eye’s in heaven
The other’s next door.
Singular eyebrow
The crooked half-grin
Just asking for someone
To smash it in…

Maybe one of the reasons why sporting success has been so hard to come by in this country is that the sportsmen and women kind of suspected that all the efforts involved would be worth nothing more than a quick buck to the powers that be at all levels: sporting bodies, governments and big business. On the back of our Ashes success last Summer, this has been proven. The sport itself was never allowed to celebrate its transformation from one with less support than a Primark girdle to one that people (briefly) cared more than fuckwit-ball about, rather the celebration was done on its behalf by the ECB and the MCC who respectively sold a sport at its national viewing peak to Sky for several hundred million (unthinkable in the days of Atherton when it could have been swapped for a toffee apple or a blow job off of Geoffrey Boycott), and raised the ticket prices at Lord’s several times above inflation. As a result of their fiendish avarice I now have to sit in my garden in the sunshine today instead of sitting indoors watching the Lord’s sunshine, and tomorrow I have to pay through the nose to go and sit in the Lord’s sunshine when I could be sitting in my garden.

#273 The abbreviation BFB must always be taken to mean Better From Behind. Never should it be taken to mean Big Friendly Behind, Big Fat Buttocks, Built For Bumming or Backside-Fixated Barsteward…etc

#272 When your first glance of a seemingly attractive woman is from her posterior aspect, presume the BFB principle. When she turns around, this will certainly avoid crushing disappointment, or may even bring a day-making bonus if you find out the principle does not in fact apply.

My shoe comes apart -
The sole becomes detached
From the upper.
I walk with a slap
“Like a penguin on crack”.
Why that simile seemed appropriate
Is now beyond me, baby.
All I know is that water from the puddle I so childishly just walked through is seeping slowly into my sock.
Reminding me that no matter where I live, how much money I earn or whatever sex I end up as, I will never be able to tolerate wet underwear or write poems that adequately express the misery it brings.

Halfway through I started to feel air on my scalp once more and with the renewed acquaintance of head and atmosphere, a new connection with the wisdom of the cosmos – what the fuck did I look like? An involuntary grin spread across my chops as I felt the total relief from the escape from looking-like-a-twat-and trying-to-justify-it-dom spread throughout my ravaged soul. However,as with any decision I make, my tiny mind made a token effort at turmoil. Part of me felt like the whole of the last follicularly-indulgant fifteen months was a complete pretence: an experiment with denial and manipulation of my self-image; but the rest was swinging between feeling smugly self congratulatory over the brave journey into the unknown I took despite the sniggers of little girls, and regretful that I hadn’t the balls to carry on. Still, whatever else I or others think, I can now say “shut it you slag” with conviction, and my eyes will be bloodshot from drink and lack of sleep rather than a Dougal fringe blowing in them thirty times a minute. I must leave you now, however, as I’ve just seen some dodgy lookin’ geezer  marfin’ off in my manor. Oi! Shut it!

Oh yes. Thursday finally came after nearly a week of waiting, and with it the start of a run of seven straight days off work. I always say that the value of vegetative time is overlooked: a decent time to get in order the thoughts that keep you awake that extra hour; a chance to catch up with Fern Britton’s battle against health, Kate Humble/Ben Fogle’s battle against intelligence and Lorraine Kelly’s brave fight against feminine itching and the dogs of menopause; and the opportunity to shout “Nnnng…Bagra..Chumley…Fucking…PloppyJelly” within office hours. The added bonus is that at the end of it all I’m so bored that there is almost a positive side to getting back to mingling with the office benthos once again. Lunch is in 26.2 minutes: I fancy cheese on toast…….

“Eee luv, so they ‘ad to doo a bit’er explorat’ry rand ‘is gall bladder, an’ that’s none too pleasant, boot at least it wern’t the ‘Big C’, know wot I mean?” I felt for the bloke at first, but imagine the collective exhalation of relief and mopping of fast-dampening brows on the learning of my fellow commuters and I of the poor unfortunate’s avoidance of the ‘Big C’. How grateful were we that an attack of self-consciousness had not prevented the surprisingly young and pretty looking northern scullery lass-cum-office worker from bawling the final words of her phone conversation to every cubic nanometre of a packed carriage on entering. I felt such gratitude that I almost offered to pay for the repair of the botched procedure that had left a five-inch gangrenous gash, spurting foul emissions, across her face.

In the gracious morning air so politely teasing your shiver
Bobby-Jo wakes up and tucks into liver.
As the Sun King radiates and warms with his love,
Into the Aga Bobby’s darling is shoved.
Now clouds gather for a refreshing spring dousing
And Bobby-Jo’s touring the council housing.
As welcome drops fall on the surface so dry,
Young Bobby-Jo gives the old folk the eye
As drops turn to drizzle, and drizzle to rain
Bobby-Jo’s tunic gets covered in brain.
Clouds draw apart: again Louis shines -
Bobby-Jo tires of the unemployeds’ minds.
The hunger not ended, with skies turning blue,
Bobby-Jo considers pastures anew.
Now Ra rises higher and hotter for all
And into the suburbs, the hungry one crawls.
And with blooming of flowers and frolicking wildlife
Bobby-Jo carefully carves up a housewife.
The mid-day heat turns to mirage and haze
And Jo with her gut full finally pays.
For in the great hurry to de-wife the house,
Bob had neglected the psychotic spouse.
So whip, chain, axe later, as breezes get up,
Our girl’s tainted blood is filling his cup.
So for all you man-eaters, a lesson to learn:
The middle-class couture can leave you with heartburn.

#133 Do not mime the words to James Brown songs when listening to them through headphones, e.g. “Uh!…..Funky!….Yeah!…..I’m Super Baaaddd”

#97 Never believe your brain when it tells you your arse itches. This is an evolutionary practical joke which only humans fall victim to. Our ape ancestors could scratch at will but one suspects they knew that when we got civilised we couldn’t, and so would live in torture.

That corpulent, slobbering, perma-perspiring, imminently-dead-on-his-arse-from heart disease wreck of an MM02 fat cat and the new mega-money head of HM Revenue & Custard David ‘Reg’ Varney has in what appears to be a masterstroke of motivational therapy transformed the attitude of the entire working population of this country. If you didn’t know it already you are now ‘customers’ of the Revenue – implying of course that you are now willing participants in the trade between yourselves and us scumbags in bowler hats (you bring your custom in the form of a percentage of your hard-earned cash and in return we happily give you crap public services and botched trials of badly-made weapons in deserts). In your previous incarnation as ‘taxpayers’, apparently, all you did was pay tax. Expect all your lives to be that bit brighter, however, as one edict from the twenty-cake-a-day hole tells his employees (to be renamed meet-and-greet shop assistants) to aim to ‘delight the customer’. Hands up who is delighted to pay tax…….

(I can only rhyme the next line with checklist)
Begin with butter on toast for my breakfast
On top of the butter, I thickly spread Marmite
And elevate toast slice up mouthwards to bite.
Then some minutes later I run for a bus
I miss it by seconds and begin to cuss
I walk thus/ergo to the station quite quickly
But something intestinal makes me feel sickly.
So some moments later I seek out a toilet,
The toast seeks to commence my day and then spoil it
Alas! Fuck-Cazart! Cunt-Yegads! Train is leaving!
I take leave of basin with contents still steaming.
Now running of sorts for the third time already
Trousers round ankles make my progress unsteady.
I leap for the train as the doors they are shutting
I slam into closed doors while window head-butting
Through concussive haze I notice the train move
And as if the thirteenth had its manhood to prove
I find myself moving along with said train
And notice an unbelievable pain!
A look to the south would confirm the cause
A limb, not my leg, is trapped in the doors.
I plead with the standees – please release me at once!
But they all stare ahead, the blind insular cunts.
So it went then, my day, oh that fateful last train ride
When sod’s law and Transport for London did collide.
I think it was Finchley when consciousness left me
Then Death’s blunt-edged scythe was applied oh-so deftly.
Forgive me, dear reader, if you are quite app-alled
By my story ’bout how from life’s lodge I was blackballed.
My lesson is simple: eat hearty, enjoy life
Just remember, for Pete’s sake your small, sharpened steak knife.

#33 Never, NEVER eat Krispy Kreme (r) doughnuts. Each one must take an hour off your life and that’s too much.

The question what is God’s finest work is usually thought to be unanswerable: The Earth? The Universe? Man? Woman? Obviously without being Him we cannot know (and no, Dubya, they told you wrong), but I have a strong suspicion that what He is most satisfied with is getting that impressionable berk to put the line “God moves in mysterious ways” into the Bible. Cue licence to behave as erratically as you like (or more likely not to do anything at all) and have an instant answer to all questions engendered thereof. And the warm glow that comes from giving solace to every glazed-eyed born-again who has just seen their beloved mother brutally hacked to death with a sharpened chair leg, thus transferring the burden of thinking about such trauma and evil onto them scummy atheists and Non-Americans. Selah.

#1. Never have faith that ‘nobody could be stupid enough to do that‘

#2. Never, NEVER eat Krispy Kreme (r) doughnuts. I have sunk oceans-worth of alcoholic beverages in my time, and eaten more abbatoirs’ worth of questionable animal-derived by-products than days I have lived, but I have never felt my liver fur up, my teeth scream and my bowels lurch and writhe quite like when I first sampled their morbid sweetness. Each one must take half an hour off of your life. That’s like, two pints. And that’s too much.

Why do I not get my hair cut? It is a question often asked of myself, by myself and others, and as it is an issue whose already-limited thinking time allocation is constantly interrupted by matters of love, life, death and Manchester United, it surely must be put into 12pt Arial (or the present font, whatever that is) to be even touched upon. Is it a statement? Could it be apathy turned opportunistically into a statement on the homogenisation of society, or, subconsciously, apathy acting as a protest in itself: against the instigation (by Government or otherwise) of a culture that encourages the vastly disproportionate efforts and expenditure lavished by ordinary folk on creation of a ‘hairstyle’, undoubtedly to divert attention from all manner of corruption and inequality that we should be worrying about. Is it me trying to show a dismissive and shallow world that I have hidden depths by rejecting follicular ostentation, and if so am I missing the point because the people I am aiming to impress this upon have turned into vain, insular dolts by virtue of their high-maintenance hairdo? Or am I simply trying to provide shelter for the fast-declining House Sparrow? I often joke that I “should make the best of it while it’s still there”, a reference in part to a double crown which has made me look balding since infant times, but what if my reluctance to part with my parting is aprt of a deeper-seated fear of ageing, possibly linked to moments when I find myself at Twenty-Six in a dead-end school-leaver’s job job writing verbose prose about inane shit when I should be photocopying…..