A Place For Shit That Doesn't Belong Anywhere Else

Written on the Last Train Home: 8/10/10

2010-10-10T04:35:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more dangerous, or as threatening, as the barrel of a pointed finger, and the firing squad that greeted the Prime Minister on the cold December morning had him right between the eyes.

His had been the fifth voice of the day to declare itself "the first to admit that mistakes had been made, both costly and dangerous" but, as he had gone on to explain "the courage shown by ministers in their conviction was representative of the measures this government were prepared to take to get the job done." The soft soap had washed poorly with the public, some of whom demanded action, threatening "French-like revolts". Publicly, the PM cheerfully offered the dissenters a copy of the French partisans' track record, jovially asking which of the failed revolutions attempts the activists were hoping to replicate, but behind the closed doors of No. 10 he was as together as a Picasso. Trouble was coming, reigned in on the winds of vengeance, and tilled by the crew of the bloodthirsty and the furious. At best, he was looking at a forced general election, at worst: resignation. Despite the fact that everyone knew it wasn't his fault, no-one had felt the desire to acknowledge his innocence. His cabinet wouldn't help him, the egotistical swines, and the media were just as dependable for silence. Owing to either personal aspirations, lacking moral fibre, or protracted and bitter feuds (which the PM rueful conceded could stretch back as far a Balliol), none would come to his aid, and if the mutineers thought their captain was desperate enough to legitimately absolve himself, they were sorely mistaken.

War In The Cabinet

2010-10-03T05:45:00.001-07:00

The unexpected surprise attack had flooded the country with a wave of fear. Demands were threatened, threats demanded, and a Minister of War appointed, whose first policy decision was to declare a state of open warfare with the offending nation. This was, the papers stated, exactly the kind of response the public had been crying out for, though the fact that the offending nation(s) had yet to be identified was something that needed immediate attention. Riding a wave of new found popularity, the PM appointed yet another cabinet minister, whose task it was to head the Office of Surprise Attack Detection; and deployed spies the world over to try and get to the bottom of who had been responsible for the explosion that had decimated a two-up-two-down in suburban Hull. Naturally, it was the French who were the first to suffer the scrutinising examination of Her Majesty's Secret Service, and when 5 spies vanished without a trace whilst tailing the French president through downtown Paris, fingers were pointed and missile hatches oiled. Denying responsibility was all well and good, the PM observed, but the fact remained that British spies had gone missing on French soil and if the slithy toads didn't produce double "Os" one through four ("nine" was seen as an acceptable loss) within the next 48 hours, swift and terrible vengeance would surely follow. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Surprise Attack Detection was doing a stand-up job. No attack had been made without them getting wind of it first, and civil servants began discovering the joys of a "sure thing" as they bet their mortgages on a car-bomb on the fifth at Doncaster.

When a British holiday maker was found dead in the water off the coast of Nice, the situation took a decidedly ugly turn. Desperate to avoid conflict, the French police insisted it had been natural causes, but the PM, to cheers and applause, insisted that two bullets in the back of the head was not, never was and never will be considered "natural". The discovery that the body had once been the property of a notorious drug smuggler sent a ripple of PR-panic through Whitehall, which transformed into a tsunami of pure terror when OO's 2 and 3 were found face down in a gutter in Amsterdam, a strain of an extremely toxic poison in their bloodstream. Carefully spinning it as dime-a-dozen drug-overdose, a vote-winning drive to raise narcotic awareness took the heat off No. 10 while the government continued to vilify the French, secretly adjusting their sights towards Holland. "Conclusive" evidence was discovered when photos of the two spies surfaced showing them being tortured and drugged for information. Proudly, the Cabinet released them, praising their heroes for their resilience in the face of suffering, and pledging to launch a relentless bombing campaign on the Dutch. Fortunately, the revelation that the images weren't depicting a torture session, but a Nazi fetish party came just in time to prevent the spies' posthumous knighthoods, but in terms of international relations the damage was permanent and the government bungle over the photographs developed into a very nasty headache as the papers and the people began to loose faith in their leaders abilities to deal with the anonymous - but no less real - threat.

Desperate to recapture some of the popularity that he had generated towards the start of the ordeal, the PM instructed the Minister of War to launch several small wars in impoverished, extremist countries. Promising the voters that this would root out the evil that had left citizens scared to leave their homes, the Minister of War, chest swelling with dignity, deployed troops into countries that had been chosen through the time-honored means of launching a dart at a globe. Even the initial praise that the Ministry of Surprise Attack Detection had enjoyed was starting to waver. With the bookies wise to the ruse, all bets involving terrorist activities were prohibited and the people, unable to profit from the department began seeing it for the first time through the cold, steely eyes of the taxpayer; and noticed flaws. While it was certainly true that the Ministry had succeeded insomuch as there had been no surprise attacks since it was formed, the general public couldn't help but question why this hadn't then led to all attacks being prevented. The observation was ruinous. In a hastily drafted speech, a nervous Minister for Surprise Attack Detection vehemently defended the work of his office, claiming that they had been instructed simply to detect surprise attacks (a task that had been routinely performed with success), but not to stop them. In a clever twist of logic, he also pointed out that once the attack had been foreseen, it ceased to be a "surprise" attack and as such extended beyond the responsibilities of his Ministerial duties. Seething, the public demanded action, if the MoSAD was not responsible for preventing un-surprise attacks, who the Hell was? The Cabinet the next morning was a sea of pointed fingers as the Minister of SAD sat calmly in his chair and lit his pipe, beaming. The Minister of Defence, whilst the obvious choice, removed himself from the proceedings, stating that he was already swamped enough with the attacks they already had to deal with, and that any more would bring them to their knees. The Foreign Secretary declared that it was the Home Office's job to take care of all events within the United Kingdom, while the Home Secretary furiously insisted that, as the attacks were coming from overseas, it was first and foremost the Foreign Office's responsibility. The Foreign Secretary retaliated, stating that no-one had a clue where the attacks were coming from, and the possibility that it was the work of terrorist forces within British Isles had yet to be disproved. For all anyone knew they could have been living here for years, they could even, he realised in a flash of inspiration, have been taught at our schools. Upon hearing this the Minister of Education, fearing the worst, struck out pre-emptively, insisting that no school under his charge was capable of teaching its pupils how to construct an explosive device of any kind, and that if the Foreign Secretary thought he could offload the burden with a cheap trick like that, he had another thing coming. A brief attempt to place it upon the shoulders of the Minister of Global Warming - on the basis that the attacks were destroying trees and therefore damaging the environment - was thwarted when it was pointed out that the welfare of vegetation was, strictly speaking, the business of Agriculture. Sensing an opportunity; the Cabinet rounded. Did the Minister of Agriculture not have a duty to British soil? Were the attacks not directly threatening that soil? Most importantly, could he find a loophole to wriggle out of? To these questions the Minister could only provide a weak, sickly smile; and the speech that he offered the expectant media outside Downing St. caused such confusion amongst journalists that no paper could bring itself to make it front-page news. Instead, they opted for the discovery of the missing spies, whose cover had been so deep that the MoD had lost track of them. However, the arrival of tractors into London along with a small army of farmers from East Anglia the next day did manage to crack the headlines. Not since the Home Guard had British Military looked so shambolic.

To the relief of the Minister of Agriculture, it took mere hours before the Prime Minister realised that a mistake had been made and it was not long before the Ministry of the Prevention of Discovered Surprise Attacks was created. In other circles, The Minister of War faced increasing criticism for his actions. To his name he had but a few small victories, each of them coloured by vast, devastating losses.

Afterlife

2010-10-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

Two men are sitting in a room, one is asleep, the other (Michael) is rifling through a book stopping occasionally to check on the other. Presently the first man (David) stirs and Michael puts down the book to focus his attention on him

David

Where am I?

Michael

Do you want the good news or the bad news

David

The good news

Michael

You're dead

What?!

You dead, kapoot, gone, passed on, no more, kicked the bucket, get me?

Oh my God

YOUR God?

Who else's God would I be talking to.

If I were you, I wouldn't be too certain that you're even talking to yours.

I don't care whose God I'm talking to……..I"M DEAD?!

Yes

And that's the GOOD news?!

Okay, "good news" may have been a bit of a stretch, but it sure ain't bad news - just "news", I guess. Sorry about the labeling error

So if thats the good news...

No, not "good news", just "news". I thought it was good news, but I've changed my mind.

So if thats the..."news"

Very good

What's the bad news?

Ah, well...not that it will bring much comfort to you, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is definitely bad news. You definitely won't like it.

Well how much worse can it be than being dead?

Infinitely; there's been a mix up.

What kind of mix up?

An identity mix up, you see, someone with the same name as you died at almost exactly the same time as you did - he was a bit of a bad egg and was due to be sent..."down there"

Down where?

"There"

You mean hell?

Well that's what you call it, we just call it "down there". Anyway, he was MEANT to go down there, but as you both died at near exactly the same time and you both had the same names, there's been a slight administrative error and you're due to go "down there" instead

What?! But I've done nothing wrong!

Well, we both know that that certainly isn't true...

How do you know that, wait a minute, who are you?

I, Michael, am your guardian angel - one of the best in the business. I tell you, I really had my work cut out looking after you.

What do you mean, nothing bad happened to me my entire life.

And you think that happened by accident, do you?

Maybe you're just trying to take credit for something you had nothing to do with

Perhaps.

So this is the afterlife?

No, this is the waiting room - the afterlife is still to come, not that it's too different, everything is pretty much the same here.

So if there's an afterlife, does that mean there's a God?

Why does everyone....you and your Gods. You're a funny lot, you humans. Well, if you must know, yes there is - not that you'll meet him, he's far too busy. He does have a universe to run, you know.

What's he like

What does it matter? He exists, that's all you need know.

So...this administrative error.

Yes

What happens now.

Well, realising there was a mistake, I've filed a complaint, and we are now waiting for someone to come and fix the problem. I didn't have to do that you know, bring it to attention - I could have left you to rot "down there"

Why didn't you?

I was feeling charitable

So what is it like in Hell?

DOWN THERE, it's pretty much the same as up here, just with much less pleasant people.

Is it all fire and brimstone?

It used to be, but the guys down there got a bit irritated by the heat, so they filed a petition to cool the place; some of the names they had on that list...I'm amazed they convinced them to get involved - they even organised a bake sale to help raise awareness and get some funding.

A bake sale?

Sure, the air temperature was at the perfect level for baking

Really?

As God is my witness.

How does He feel about it?

About what?

About cooling down Hell?

Chances are He doesn't know, he delegates a lot - trusted advisors and all that, tends to leave most of the day-to-day admin to others, not that we have "days" here, strictly speaking.

Wait, let me think about those for a minute. So, I'm dead?

Yes

And in the afterlife

Yes

So, why don't I feel any different

Any different to what?

Any different to how I felt when I was alive, isn't there meant to be a big change or something?

Or something.

No seriously, aren't I meant to have some big realisation about the meaning of life, reach perfection, total consciousness and all that?

When you say "meant to", who is that according to?

It's what everyone else says

And what do they know? Have they died? Do they have first hand experience of the afterlife?

Then what authority do they have to go deciding what does and doesn't happen after you die?

I just thought...

Well don't , it's very bad for you - some of your thoughts have made my job much harder than it could have been.

Well how was I to know that?

You weren't. But now that you do, I'd ask you to try to restrain yourself

Now that I'm dead, what does that mean for you?

Well, when this little discrepancy is ironed over I'll be assigned another charge.

You get assigned charges?

How else would we get them?

Maybe you choose them

That wouldn't work, you'd get all the guardian angels fighting over the best ones.

So who regulates it, God?

No, he delegates, he's too busy to deal with that sort of unimportant paperwork.

He doesn't seem to do much

Since when were you an expert?

Another man enters (Peter)

Peter.

Hello, Hello. Good. You're here, now, am I to understand there's been some kind of mix up?

Yes, apparently I'm getting sent to Hell and I should be going to Heaven.

No your not, you're getting sent "down there" and you should being going "up there". Although that's debatable, your life was hardly perfect.

I see, well, whats your name?

David

David, David, ah, here we are: David

Isn't there an easier way to carry that information around than in that?

Like how?

Like, I don't know, a computer?

We don't have computers up here, they haven't been invented yet.

They what?!

They haven't been invented yet, you see, stuff here is invented by the same people who invented it there, and as none of the people who built the computer have died yet, they aren't here to invent it. See?

So there are no computers?

Not until the people who built them have died.

Why can't God build them

Delegation

Now then, I've found your file, and there does seem to have been a mix up.

Sorry to interrupt Peter, but have you met God?

What?!

Have you met God.

There is no God

What?!

There is no God

So how is there an afterlife?

I have no idea, people die and then they arrive here, but there's no God, just us.

So people just arrive here after they die?

Yep.

So who's in charge?

We are, we run the place, sort out the paperwork, of which there is a considerable amount, and take care of any problems that arise, such as the one that has happened here.

But who tells you what to do?

We tell each other.

Who decides who goes where?

You mean Heaven and Hell?

Half of the problems here arise from the fact that no-one can call anything by it's right name

Well, we sort of all decided, we meet together and vote on who we think should be allocated where.

So you cherry pick your favorites to live with you, and then send the rest away?

God no, we choose those of the most worth, they may be hated by everyone else, but if they can be shown to bring desired attributes to Heaven, then we let them in.

Bureaucratic toads

You said God does exist

He does, but he delegates all his responsibilities so that people don't know any better, you should consider yourself lucky I've told you.

Maybe you're just lying to me about the whole "God"thing

Perhaps.

Does it not bother you?

Does what not bother me?

You die, reach the afterlife, and instead of getting the big explosion of knowledge and understanding you were expecting, nothing happens.

Not really

How

You just realise that it doesn't matter. There's an afterlife, that is all one need know. True, it's origins are unknown but people don't seem to care about that sort of stuff so much up here.

I don't believe you, if that's true then why do I care so much about God?

Because you're not in the afterlife yet, you're still in the waiting room.

It's possible you just haven't got used to afterlife up here. I promise that by the time you get settled in, everything will make more sense.

What happens if I don't

Then you're boned

If I were you, I would ignore that pessimistic voice circling round your head - it will vanish once go get used to it here. Anyway...the mix-up

Yes?

It seems that there someone with the same name as you died at the same time as you did and the was an confusion of identity.

I know

How?

I was told.

Hmmm, anyway. It shouldn't be took tricky to fix, just need to get you to sign a few documents, so you won't sue us.

You can sue up here?

Sure, Laywers die too, don't they?

Out of interest, this other bloke who died at the same time as me…

Yes?

Who was he?

M. and P.

David.

Oh. Is he alright now?

He's dead, and he's about to get sent "down there", what do you think?

I don't think, it's dangerous.

Very good.

Here are your documents.

What do I get if I win a lawsuit?

What do you mean?

If I sue you and win. What do I win?

You won't be suing us, not if you sign these papers

What if I refuse to sign.

Then you won't leave this room.

Then I'l sue you for holding me against false charges.

If that's what you want then call a lawyer.

Right, I will...where's the phone?

Outside.

Are you starting to see how things work here?

Clever.

Thank you. Sign here. Good, you're free to go.

Which way

Whichever way feels right.

Right it is.

Exit Michael and David, only for them to enter immediately afterwards.

Matthew's Mistake

2010-10-02T14:14:00.001-07:00

"I don't know why I bother, I slave away all day only for you to come home and throw it all back in my face!" she waved a finger threateningly at him. "Next time you can have beans on bloody toast!"

"Can you not bleed on the toast please" Deep within himself, Matthew had known that silence was the best (and probably only) safe course of action, but the opportunity had been too good to let pass by. She raised her head slowly and stared back with quiet, deadly calm.

"Pardon?" He weighed his options. To back down now would be to admit defeat; he had taken the first step, he told himself. He was committed.

"You said "Beans on bloody toast" and I said "could you not bleed on my toast, please", you see, I don't want my toast bloody," The hand that was holding her knife shook gently; he gathered himself and attempted to sip nonchalantly from his glass of wine.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Matthew. If you don't want you toast bloody, how do you want it?" She gazed innocently at him, though something told him it would be unwise to trust those eyes. He reviewed the situation; the question was loaded with hazard. He had, he realised, got in further than he had intended. He was deep in enemy territory and the Vietcong were closing in fast. The smallest bead of sweat announced itself on his brow and he wiped it off nervously, sensing a trap. He would have to be very careful, tripwires and proximity mines surrounded his position. She probed him further.

"Matthew? You didn't answer my question? How do you want you toast if not bloody?"...He tried. He failed. He broke...

"I want it well done,"

Game Over. She inhaled deeply and as she did Matthew realised that, despite his initial hopes, this would never become one of those incidents which they'd "laugh about in years to come". He felt almost sad, it had been a good joke and now it would go to waste.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were so particular about such things. In future I'll make more of an effort to administer to your needs. There was me thinking you'd be in the mood for a nice bowl of pasta, and all you really wanted was some beans on top of a lump of charred bread,"

"Well there's no need for chagrin, don't worry about it," He chanced a glance at her over the salad bowl; the pun had landed. There comes a point in any conflict when one side realises that they have lost, and the projected casualties are so extreme that all reserve goes out the window. Matthew was confident this point had been achieved. Indeed, until his mother-in-law was mentioned he was sure that the amount of damage he could cause had reached it's terminus.

"Chargrin?"

"It mean's..."

"I. Know. What. It. Means. Matthew." Their marriage, still a young one, had yet to witness its first argument - Matthew silently lamented that this would probably be their last "first". The point of no return far behind them, he decided to sit back, relax and enjoy this, their final milestone.

"I will give you one chance to apologise Matthew, and if you don't take it I don't quite know how I'll react," She looked at him measuredly.

"Well I'm just as excited to find out as you are, my sweet,"

It was a subdued and sleep-deprived Matthew that rolled into work the next morning. His eyes bore the tell-tale rings of a restless night, and he was irritable and short tempered. His colleagues couldn't help but notice the bruise that circled his left eye but they refused to comment on it, even though, if one looked extremely closely, the words " ...hn Lewis" could be seen beaten into it.

Confusing Commitments

2010-10-02T14:08:00.001-07:00

"From now on, I'm committing to a total lack of commitment. And I intend to approach it with the same zeal with which I have approached every other commitment in my life."

His failure to commit to committing to nothing shortly led him to commit to everything, and soon he was chairing meetings, buying houses, getting engaged and taking up hobbies. He was depressed by his failure and resolved to try harder, but he couldn't and quickly began throwing himself with gusto into wedding plans and discussions about potential baby names. His bride was delighted, and basked in her fiancee's pitiful shortcomings, rubbing unneeded salt into his wounds by showing him off to all her friends and talking at length about all the somethings he had committed to, and never touching on all the things he had succeeded in failing to commit to; he had not had an affair; he had not left the seat up; he had not mastered card counting. Finally, he could stand the charade no longer. Without telling anyone of his plans, he secretly decided he would commit to everything. This daring game of reverse psychology was met with resounding success. The hobbies were gone, wedding plans scrapped, mortgages cancelled. His bride was shocked by this sudden, terrifying transformation - as were psychologists who, unaware of his secret plan to commit to everything, genuinely believed he had succeeded in committing to nothing. Papers were published, biographies discussed, world tours planned - but he failed to make a decision and refused to commit. This just drove the media even crazier, was there nothing this man could fail in not committing to? He became a hero overnight.

Violence at the Bar

2010-08-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

Charles had many stories explaining how he got his scar, and he took great pleasure in recounting and creating all of them. The scar consisted of three lines that ran parallel across his right eye, and despite looking like it was sustained during a surprise panther attack, the list of those credited for it had included a sparrow, a gecko, and in one of his more creative tales, a blue whale. The perennial favorite, however, was that it was the work of a small and highly determined squirrel with "the fists of Tyson" and a short and unpredictable temper that Charles had flared while attempting to steal the tenacious critter's nuts; despite the "mighty firm grip" the little fecker had on them. Although he caught the bastard in the air as it flung itself towards him, the furry little swine, squealing and clawing maniacally, drove like greased lightning up his arm and would have taken the eye clean out of its socket had Charles not stuck the menace with his Leather-man. As it stood, he was just half-blind - a price he had willingly paid in return for a gold-standard conversation starter that he had learnt how to fully capitalise on over time. The one slight negative was that it attracted the attention of lunatics in bars, nutters who fancied themselves with a crowbar and would spend their entire evenings scouring clubs for acceptable "sparring partners". Due to his massive facial scar, Charles gave the appearance of a man who'd seen his way round a barfight or two, and while he thought that yelling "gimmie a shot o' whiskey" in a harsh, raspy voice at the barmaid made him seem enigmatic, powerful and attractive, all it did was draw hoards of knuckle-cracking behemoths, who would tap him gently on the shoulder to get his attention before ripping seven shades of shit out of him. It was after one such evening that Charles found himself in hospital with a bruise across his forehead that closely resembled Madagascar. He had been polishing off his fifth shot of whiskey with a pained expression on his face, eyes screwed closed and tongue out, when he had felt the tell-tale tap on the back of his shoulder that had the Pavlovian effect of causing his testicles to contract up to his liver in safety. But this time, he told himself, things would be different. Without uttering a word, he clenched his right fist, twisted round, and without even looking at the man who had approached him, swung hard with the kind of lightning-quick, Howitzer-sledgehammer display of force that a man doesn't get up from for a good 40 minutes. Owing to a combination of his compromised depth perception and drunkenness, Charles missed his target by a generous foot and a half and careered off, following for a brief moment the trajectory of his fist, spinning wildly out of control before slipping up on a puddle of beer on the floor and knocking himself out on the edge of the bar. He was taken, still unconscious, to the nearest A&E, where he woke up surrounded by guffawing doctors and giggling nurses; and with a concussion that was aided in no small way by a screaming hangover and an ankle he had twisted when he slipped up on the half-a-pint of Kronenbourg that some kindly stranger had thoughtfully deposited on the floor.

George's Bad Day

2010-07-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

The differences between shouting in order to make yourself heard, and turning round and bellowing at a total stranger were explained to George far more calmly than they were received. Lost in a strange city far from home and trying desperately to get back to his hotel room, his irritated and fractious mannerisms had caught the eye of a kind and helpful stranger who had walked up and offered his aid. In his defence (which he clung to vociferously) George had gone several hours without food, and a low blood sugar level has never complemented his mood. However, the unavoidably fact remained that George had rounded on the poor man and screamed his destination with such unexpected venom and fury that the stranger had, wide-eyed with fear, pointed desperately at the first thing that had caught his adrenaline dilated eyes. Following the man's instructions, George had walked for twenty minutes before realising he had been traveling in the wrong direction and now he sat dejectedly spreading whipped butter onto his toast, and sipping with almost tangible loathing the cup of tea that room service had prepared for him.

"The yankee bastards didn't even take the bag out," He declared viciously "They have no idea, do they? The locals can't even navigate their own goddamned cities...Twenty minutes!" He tapped fixedly on his watch-face for emphasis "Twenty minutes I marched in the baking heat off the back of that swine's directions, Christ! I was halfway to Harlem before I even realised. I should have known we were staying South of the Guggenheim. In the end I got a taxi back, and the driver wasn't much better than the fool who'd sent me up there in the first place. His turban was wrapped so thick around his ears he couldn't hear a word I was saying, and even when he'd finally managed to he couldn't understand - English must have been his fifth language. I tried writing down the address and showing him the piece of paper, for all the good it did. He reads English about as well as I speak Afrikaans, and after this he has the cheek to ask if I know where it is on the map. Must have been the only complete phrase of the Queen's English the twit can summon up. I told him if I knew that I'd have been there a good couple of hours ago with a pot of strong tea and hot buttered toast," he stared menacingly at the shambles that lay on the table before him, "I see now that perhaps that may have been a stretch too far," he paused, taking a bite into the cold, soft toast and a sip from his tea cup, finishing with a look suggesting that what he'd just consumed had been befouled by the bell-boy that had brought it up. Following the treatment George had given him when he tried to order it, it would not have been altogether surprising if the poor, abused lad had taken the daring initiative to do so. "In the end," George continued "I got out of the taxi, throwing every insult at the driver I could conceive - a gesture that was repaid in kind, I might add - and got in another one. He wasn't much better either, but at least he didn't have a turban. He understood me after some struggle, but there was no way in hell he took me there on the fastest route. Little bastard must have driven me halfway round the city before we finally got here, the filching little toad, trying to double my fare," He took a small bite out of the toast before flinging it hatefully across the room, where it stuck butter side down to the wall and slid slowly to the floor. "And the berk didn't even take me round the scenic route, oh no. I MEAN REALLY!" He slammed his fist on the table, waved his arms in the air, and performed several other little maneuvers with his hands. " To fleece a man is bad enough, but why can't he make my time a little bit more enjoyable while he does it? The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Times Square - was I treated to but one of these historic landmarks? Of course not. I was allowed to gaze out onto the darkest and most disgusting backwaters this city has to offer," enraged now to an extraordinary degree, he had left his chair and began throwing himself around the room, his hand gestures continued and had become ever cruder and more impassionately executed. He raised his voice yet higher "There are parts of Chinatown that should be closed down, cordoned off, evacuated and leveled! The FILTH I saw!! You have no idea what passes for hygiene down there! I saw one man throw an open, seeping bag of God alone knows what onto the street and leave it there! And I checked," he waved a finger authoritatively in the air "the bins don't get collected in that part of town for four more days,"

A Shout Out

2010-07-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank my large asian fanbase for their unfailing commitment to my little blog, as well as their insightful critiques to my work. Their comments have not gone unnoticed and I look forward in earnest to the next japanese school-girl web-link.

Which Makes The Best Opening...Vote Now!!!

2009-10-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Option 1:

The town sat on and around the bay, which curled about a quarter-mile along the northern coast of the island, cutting a deep, crescent curve into the headland. People moved along, slowly meandering through their day and the cars that crawled thought the streets gave way to them every time on the small, congested roads. Hatchbacks and buggies, drivers with arms hanging out of open windows, the dull throb of their tiny engines just audible over the sounds of the crowd. Every now and again a car would drive past playing jam-rock out of the hi-fi, slow and easy. Other than that the only music came from a steel drum band who had set up in the middle of the square, a cap lay out infront of them and was slowly filling with coins. The bright sound floated over everything else, setting the vibe for the calm, relaxed people that strolled through the markets, browsing, talking and laughing. The biggest road in the town stretched along the sea front, hugging the bay - just wide enough to let two cars through and traffic moved along it slowly - not because it was busy, but because there was no need to rush.

The bay was magic - a streak of white sand ran across the western end. There were a few towels laid out, with honeyed, sun-kissed girls lying on top of them, reading magazines and rubbing sun cream into their torsos and legs, occasionally dipping into the azure sea to cool off before returning to their spot under the sun which scanned the sky, alone except for a few wispy strands of cirrus. At the western-most point of the beach a group of men stood around a barbecue; an oil drum that had been cut in half lengthways, propped up precariously with metal poles and filled with charcoal - the smell of smoke and cooked meat wafting along the beach on the gentle westerly breeze. Occasionally one of them would catch a look at the girls that lay stretched out on the beach, and every now and then the soft twanging note of an acoustic guitar could be heard from one of them. As the sand drifted east across the bay it slowly morphed into a small, ancient harbour full boats and activity as local fisherman returned from a morning at sea, talking and comparing successes.

A bar sat in the middle of the bay, between the beach and the harbour and next to the road. A small place with a few wicker tables laid out, shaded by a roof made of woven palm leaves and bamboo. A couple of locals sat at a few of the tables, drinking and smoking, playing cards, enjoying the day. The place was humming with atmosphere and the longer Ed sat there, the more he realised just how much he loved Cuba.

Option 2:

He sat at the bar with his mojito and watched two lesbians scamper topless into the sea. He hadn't got laid since Uruguay and while he could recognise a lost cause when it ran with its ample breasted life partner into the ocean - the seed of hope that had planted itself in his mind still managed to germinate as he fantasised of a cool, air conditioned bedroom containing nothing more than a large bed, himself and the two girls who were now toweling each other down and rubbing sun cream into each other's bodies.

My New Job

2009-06-25T04:42:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The following is based on a true story. Only the names, locations and events have been changed. This decision has been made following a story I heard about a friend of mine who named, heavily criticised and revealed delicate information of a sexual nature about his boring, gay, transvestite, S&M indulging colleagues at a Hotel he worked in for a few months. His report went on the intimate to his readers that the standards of cleaning, food preparation and general hygine ethos among the habitually corner-cutting staff left much to be desired. Following a serendipitous Google-ing session by one of the Hotel's patrons, the blog was discovered and brought to the attention of the boring, gay, transvestite, S&M indulging couple who run the Hotel. Joe was fired on the spot and docked a weeks pay - all that remains of his blog is an apology that one man has described as "a shining example of how internet naivety can lead to getting shafted by a pair of queens in a strange hotel, miles from home"

While we're on the subject, for anyone considering a holiday in the New Forest this summer, may I recommend Sway Manor Hotel. With its spy dome, redbrick chimneys, large conservatory and picture windows, Sway Manor Hotel’s design is a blend of edwardian chic, old and new, romantic and eccentric - and with the natural beauty of the New Forest National Park on your doorstep, you'll never want to leave. For more information call the hotel booking line on 01590 682754 or visit the website at www.swaymanor.com.

I have recently acquired a job working for a Japanese Restaurant in Guildford, they do very good food and I highly recommend visiting (not all of it is just raw fish). For reasons that should by now be apparent - this is as far as I will take this blog entry.

A Boozers Guide To Navigating Bars

2009-03-29T06:27:00.000-07:00

Golden Rule: If you're sitting in a bar and someone starts trying to to talk to you, taking an unhealthy interest in your personal life, your secrets and your truths, and they are neither your Idol nor your sexual fantasy, make up something and get the fuck out of there before your evening is ruined.

I was sitting in a pub the other night with a friend of mine - to drop a few clues as to who it was; he's been recently kicked out of Uni, he's terrible with women and he's called Joe Boyle. The pub's one of the last good ones in Guildford, the barman's the kind of bloke that the world needs more of; an old Manchurian who doesn't care how old you are as long as you sit in the corner and don't draw attention to yourself. The barmaids are gorgeous, the beer's delicious, the jukebox peerless and the graveyard it backs out onto captures your imagination, twists it round the gnarled tree that grows out of the middle, and leaves it hanging there to create it's own fate amongst the high, grand, gothic tombstones as you walk through it on your way home, belly swilling with beer and mind buzzing with hallucinogenics.

We'd been sitting in the place for a couple of hours when my friend decided he wanted a cigarette. He had none and he had no money for buying them, so like any self-respecting man without an ounce of pride he went outside and tried to scrounge one off the first smoker he saw. Like a fool I followed him.

The only people outside were two late-middle aged women, one in a thick fur coat who smoked menthol cigarettes, drawled "darling" at you every couple of tokes, worked with disabled children, had been mugged twice in the past 12 months and had had extensive counseling to try and overcome the traumas of her life. The other had a purple bandana tied around her head that held back her tightly curled hair, wore a leather jacket, smoked silk cut and "meditated to send out abuse from her life". The only thing they had in common was that they both thought they knew the answers to all of life's problems - which is probably why they were such good friends.

My friend went up to them and awkwardly asked them if he could "borrow" a cigarette: "Of course, darling". They were sitting at a bench facing it other on either side, as did we. I was next to the purple bandana and my friend was next to the psych-case.

"Do you want one?" the psych case asked me.

"No thanks, I don't smoke,"

"Is that water and lemon you're drinking? It's very good you, darling"

After countless evenings destroyed by getting tied to boring, drunk and self-obsessed time sinks, I judge people very quickly and on that predication decide whether or not to spend anymore time with them. Everything from the bourgeois laziness with which the psych-case drew on her menthol cigarettes to the little purple sequined zip-up pouch that the purple bandana had full of pennies for the bar, laid out neatly next to her pack of Silk Cut and her lighter told me that I should attempt to say little as possible. My friend was not so enlightened.

"He's drinking that because he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and can't drink booze"

"oooo, like M.E." the psych-case cooed. Oh Christ, I thought. They know about it.

"Yeah, just like M.E.," I said

"I heard there's a cure for that" the purple bandana interjected.

"Oh really,"

"Yes, it's all about sunlight, sunlight and crystals,"

"Sunlight and crystals?" Self-absorbtion renders peoples deaf to skepticism.

"Yes, all you need is sunlight, it regenerates dead cells and encourages new life - just lie in the sun and you'll be cured, crystals are important too, they help balance you with the forces of he earth. Have you ever tried crystals?"

"I've tried Crystal Meth," The purple bandana ignored me and continued.

"Listen, I work with crystals..."

"Oh DO you?"

"I'll give you my number, call me and I'll fix you," The subtlety of her efforts to try and reel me in as a customer were not lost on me. I made no effort to get her number.

"You're young," the psych-case spoke lazily, "You'll get over it, darling," I held my tongue. The purple bandana kept pressing me,

"What brings you to peace?"

"What?"

"Where is your solitude?"

"Music. He plays guitar,". I won't blame my friend for trying to help, it's the way he was raised. That didn't stop me from wanting to staple his tongue to the table and pour acid on it.

"Music? Do you listen to music as well"

"Yes"

"What kind of music?"

"Heavy Duty Rock n' Roll" Neither of them were paying any attention to anything we were saying, they were just waiting for an opening so that the could say something and let us know that they knew exactly what they were talking about, and that they had been through worse.

"It all goes back to childhood," the psych-ward stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. "You see, I saw a therapist a few years ago and she took me all the way back to when I was twelve - and some of the things that happened back then had a profound effect of me. They stick with you, those things. They don't go away, darling" She looked at me with a hateful blend of sincerity and feigned wisdom.

"You saw a shrink?" My friend asked.

"Yes. But not for very long, darling. She fell asleep during one of my sessions and said I was boring," The corners of my lips curled upwards, "And I said too her, darling. I said - I'm not paying you to fall asleep and tell me I'm boring - I'm here for you to analyse me. And then I left. But, darling, some things never go away. They stay there," The purple bandana opened her mouth again.

"Yes. Well, Cassandra" gesturing at the psych-case "is a wonderful woman, she's had a hard life, she works with disabled children, she's kind and caring - and she's been mugged twice in the past year"

"Oh yes," Cassandra took the stage, eyes wide with the thrill of the long story she had carved out the next fifteen minutes with. My friend stubbed out his cigarette and I saw my exit out of here "Have another one, darling" Cassandra waved the box of cigarettes infront of my friend.

"Really? Are you sure? Thank you," as he light up the cigarette and toked through the tobacco, I watched my evening go the same way.

The next fifteen minutes of my life were wasted as we listened to how Cassandra was mugged at knife point, that they stole her purse, phone, money and car keys. Two months later a bloke pointed a gun at her while she was sitting in her car and told her to get the fuck out of it and let him have the keys. The car had her mail in it and she then spent terrified, sleepless nights waiting for the thief to track down her address and ransack the place - it was at this point in her life that she chose to seek the aid of a psychiatrist.

I have always maintained that there is nothing finer in life than a master storyteller, someone who can hold your attention in whatever their medium of expression. Book, Film, Song, Spoken World - Hemingway, Scorsese, Dylan, some bloke you met in the pub last night who had the whole joint hanging on his every word. Good stories outlast everything, they get handed down thorough generations, people and time. Thousands of years ago, an old blind bloke sat in a room and told a story about how a hot chick got stolen and how her husband and his army sailed to take her back, built a big wooden horse and killed everyone they found. The ancient civilisation the blind man belonged to is long dead, but his story still draws breath. While there is nothing better than a good storyteller, there is nothing worse than a bad one who thinks they stand equal with the Kings of Yarn when they are nothing more than jesters at the court. As Cassandra attempted to portray with feigned gravitas the horrors of her everyday existence. I saw before me a joker, dressed like a harlequin in colours of brown and grey, strumming a broken lute and prancing out of time. Her story ended and she took a long slow draw on her fag and proclaimed with lackadaisical apathy that, "It's just life, darling"

The purple bandanna still had me lined up as a potential client and thought that her chances would increase if she told me something about myself that would impress me.

"See, now I can see you're having a physical reaction to something, you're clearly a very sensitive, shy and delicate person," When sitting outside at ten o'clock at night in the middle of March wearing nothing more than a T-shirt, shivering is a very common physical reaction to blistering cold. The wind was whipping up, eddying around the bench and my breath was condensing so thick as I exhaled you'd need to check my hands to know I wasn't smoking. Telling me that is was a Sensitive and Delicate person was one of the most ridiculous judges of character ever thrown my way. "But there's a way out of it, have you every tried meditation?"

"No,"

"I meditate, I meditate at least once a day and I send out all the abuse out of my life, just send it out and it's gone. I just say "I'm not... I'm not going to let abuse enter my life," and I'm free of abuse," I wanted to say that someone can meditate as much as they like, but if dinner isn't on the table when their drunk and violent husband gets home, no amount of positive visualisation is going to stop him from taking off his belt. I just couldn't be bothered with the discussion that would follow, a line had been reached and I'd had enough.

"I'm going inside,"

Golden Rule: If you're sitting in a bar and someone starts trying to to talk to you, taking an unhealthy interest in your personal life, your secrets and your truths and they are neither your Idol nor your sexual fantasy, make up something and get the fuck out of there before your evening is ruined.

The Wasted Chronicle Pt. 2 - The Morning After

2009-02-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

I wake up. I have a hang-over. My head would feel better if it had and axe sticking in it and if I could choose what to have in my mouth at this exact moment in time I would select a live hand-grenade over my own tongue. My bare, curtain-less window spews light into a room that is white all over; the walls, the ceiling, the furniture - everything is brilliant white and I every time I open my eyes I want to have the removed. The bathroom has blinds, a warm bath and a CD player and I stagger into it and bask in the darkness. I put "Let It Bleed" in the CD player, crank it up and sink into the bath delicately. I think hangovers effect different people in different ways, for some, loud noises are the bane of their existence until they can locate a box of painkillers and a bottle of gin. With me it's the light. Even with the blinds closed on a west facing window at eight in the morning I still screw my eyes tight as "Gimmie Shelter" shakes my brain loose. I lie there for about an hour while my body slowly forgives my mind for last night's mistakes. When they've kissed and made up I extricate myself from the tub, get dressed and slink downstairs. The house is empty, save the dogs and Radio 4 which is never, ever turned off. My brother and sister are at school, my father is at work, my mother is having tea with a friend and I am abusing study leave like the rest of the nation's A-level students. I don't bother with breakfast, I'm never hungry in the morning and I remember that there is an bottle of Bell's in the liquor cabinet that I have to replace before it is discovered empty and I end up in the shit. I put on the biggest, thickest, darkest pair of sunglasses I can find and move slowly down the hill towards the off-licence.

It's a bright, sunny, beautiful spring morning, the clouds are like cotton balls, the sky is as blue as the Caribbean Seas and the Sun hangs loosely in space, enjoying its surroundings. I squint my way down to the the off-licence, ask the bloke for a bottle of Bells, pay the man and leave. My dad's birthday is in a few days and as he's into jazz I decide I'll get him a vinyl recording of "Kind Of Blue". I walk down to Ben's Collector Records and have a look around. It's a small, hot, dark and claustrophobic place full of vinyl, CDs, tapes and audiophiles thumbing through endless crates, searching for a gem. By the time I've got down there I'm out of breath and puffing and the heat is starting to make me sweat. I stumble to the "jazz' section and start looking for Miles Davis' masterwork. The heat of the room is really starting to get to me, I feel nauseous and frail and weak and I'm now sweating heavily through my T-shirt. I hold myself up against the table as the room spins and shrinks very quickly. My chest feels like a lion is standing on it, my eyes are being squeezed out of their sockets and my mouth is full of cotton. I've got to get out of here. I reel out of the shop and begin to make my way home, head down, shoulders bent and clinging to the bottle of Bells, my house is about a ten minute walk up hill and ten minutes later I'm not even half way. Panting like I've just finished the marathon I clamber up the hill, clutching to the wall. The bottle is awkward and heavy and I alternate between hands and holding positions as I try to find a comfortable way of getting it home with me. I want to collapse and fall down and never get up again because I don't think I'll be able to if I hit the floor. Finally I reach home, the keyhole moves around as I try to get the key in it and when I'm in I crawl upstairs, throw the bottle to the bedroom floor and fall onto the mattress - breathing hard, sweating harder and waiting for the room to stop spinning.

THE Wasted Chronicle

2009-02-04T02:33:00.000-08:00

Because I'm self centered, selfish, introverted and because I've got nothing else to do I've decided to try a write a book based on the last 9 months of my life. I've started with the last night out I had before I got ill and probably get bored and never pick it up ever again. But here is the opening. Thoughts would be appreciated (if you can conjure any):

I'm sitting outside, it's the middle of April and I've paid five pounds to get into this place. The band hasn't hit the stage yet, so I'm waiting with everyone else in the beer garden for a cigarette, a drink and some conversation. I'm surrounded by people I know but none of them are friends, they should be, I've known most of them for over a year and a half but they're nothing more than faces I'd recognise in the street. I'm already sitting on five bottles of beer and I'm well through my fourth double rum and coke. The beautiful haze that falls over you when you reach that perfect, drunken zenith clouds my eyes like the mists over the peat bogs and I never want to know anything else ever again. For me, this is the Kerouacean Dream, this is "it". I'm drunk and blurry, surrounded by people I could go my whole life never seeing again in a bar I hate and I'm as happy as I'm ever going to get. People talk around me and it washes through me like the wind, I don't care what they talk about, right now my life couldn't be any more simple or pure and as I toke easily on a Camel Light I wish I could stay here forever. But I can't. The bar beckons.

The place isn't packed yet and the bar is quiet as I go back inside, slump through the dimly lit room to the far end and ask the 20-something barman for another double rum and coke. The owner of the joint is wildly setting up the band and nicking people who have brought in their own booze, I know this because three of the Kronenberg's in his fridge are mine. I start and finish my drink at the bar and watch the room before ordering another one. It's a fairly small place, long and thin, the stage and the exit are at the one end and the bar is at the other. Near me on the right is the door to the toilet and on the right, on the other side of the room is the beer garden. The whole room is painted black and its dark and poorly lit. It's starting to fill up with people now, it won't be long before the band takes the stage.

Back outside I nestle my way numbly onto a bench crowded by laughter, noise and people and focus all my attention on my drink. People talk but I take no notice of the questions, the small talk or the flirting, it's not going to get me anywhere worthwhile tonight. I'm totally isolated in a world that feels like it was made at my inconvenience. I'm not a martyr nor a hermit, I'm just alone and cold and dead inside. In a minute I'll be back at the bar, falling rapidly away from my perfect state of mind and stumbling blindly into the blackout that greets the end of every evening. It's already starting to slide over me. My mind flashes erratically: I'm watching the band, I'm leaving the bar, I'm walking down an empty road, then a riverside, then a car park, I'm in a car, I'm inside another bar, I'm drinking beer and rum and whiskey, then walking up a hill, then vaguely home. Deaf to my footsteps and blind to my surroundings, I walk a path I have never remembered taking many times.

Witch Doctors, Telltale Pulses and The Magical Properties of Jade

2009-02-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

For those of you that can be bothered to scroll down a couple of entries, you will learn that I saw a shrink for a few fruitless sessions before I decided to stop the therapy. In order tie up all loose ends, the practice asks that you return for one final session to evaluate your progress and see what else might be done to ensure good mental health. Last Wednesday I spent a few hours with my ex-shrink's superior, a man who I met a couple of times a few months ago to allow him to pick my brains and see if they needed help. He's middle aged, laid back, wants to make a film of Kahlil Gilbran's "The Prophet" and thinks Paul McCartney is a dick. Nice bloke. He gave me a clean bill of health but requested that is see a friend of his in Hindhead who was described to me as an acupuncturist, a woodcarver and "an experience". He gave me his details and I called him up and saw him on Friday....

I pull up to the joint and walk to the door - he works out of his home in what I presume (looking at the building) is a long, renovated garage. I knock on the door and a 5'6", slightly round and beaming Indian man throws open the door and yells "hello" at me. He asks me to wait while he finishes up his current patient and I take a seat. The chairs are wooden framed wicker with deep, plush cushions that sink much further than your eyes tell you they will, they're close to the ground and extremely comfortable. The floor is carpeted and over it lies a thick, soft persian rug. There is a rough, handmade wooden coffee-table with a glass top on which is scattered magazines and books, everything from "National Geographic" to "The Great Conspiracies of the Modern World Unraveled and Explained". On the walls hang framed Chinese art and on the ledge of the window overlooking the modest driveway is a large woodcarving of two sumo wrestlers facing each other, preparing for battle. The rest of the room is littered with wood carvings - elephants, lions, scenes of the Savannah. Everything is white or cream or pale green and the room looks and feels (excluding some of the oriental artwork) like a set from the film "Born Free". The room is split by a couple of room dividers, his office is on the other side. There is no door, nor any attempt at sound proofing and I listen to his current patient, a tall, slender, middle aged, blonde woman complain about pains and an inability to sleep on her back. I hear joints crack and a slow, drawn out groan. A few minutes later, Quincy Rabot (silent "t"), Healer Extraordinaire re-appears with his patient who is buttoning up her jeans and sliding a belt round her waist. He shows her to the door, gives some more advice then invites me past the wall dividers.

He tells me he has to make a phone call and asks me to wait. The office in which he works is smaller than the waiting room and has a long but shallow desk which is a mess of paper, pens, books and trinkets. The only other furniture in the room is a massage table and two chairs - one a cheap, plastic, black office chair that is behind the desk and a large, minimalist, pine framed, tan leather cushioned armchair that has had two large, curved blocks of wood that are screwed to the base of it and definitely did not come with the chair - I sit in it and it rocks uneasily. I look out through large, double doors that face onto a garden that was designed with the East in mind. A thin path, neatly defined by limestone chips meanders through a multitude of small, well-pruned shrubs to a shed at the far end. A stream flows through the bottom and the path becomes a small, arched bridge that looks like it was lifted from the Forbidden City. There's a few bookshelves than line the walls of the office, creaking under the weight of books.

Quincy re-appears and lounges in the black office chair, his arms resting on the chair's, fingers locked and legs stretched out as asks me about myself. He stays relatively still, but when he moves it is with a burst of speed and activity. A martial arts master, he is always in control of what he's doing and frequently bursts out into laughter at the end of most of his sentences. Like everything he does, it comes from nowhere and is big, energetic and short lived. I tell him that I have CFS and was sent here by a psychiatrist who recommended him. He nods and smiles wryly. "Stick out your hands, let me take your pulse" I oblige and wait for a few minutes while he lays his hands on my wrist. "OK, there's a lot of emotional shit going on in your life, started about 18 months ago" It isn't a question and he's dead on. "It's fine, I don't need to know what." he laughs "You also have a blood sugar problem. Look, put you arm up..." I put my left arm out, raised up high. He puts a hand on mine a pushes down "Resist. Try to keep your arm where it is" I succeed. Placing a lump of white sugar on my knee, he tries again, applying exactly the same amount of force. My arm goes straight down, I lose all strength. "I suspect you also have..." he rustles through his desk, finding and then giving me a piece of aluminum pipe to hold, "raise your hand". The same experiment proves that I have a weakness to aluminium (and by holding a phone, electricity). Anytime I'm near sugar, aluminium or a phone receiver my strength evaporates. "What I want you to do is buy a piece of Jade, put it round a necklace and you will wear that for the rest of your days. Jade prevents the effects of aluminium". He asks me to raise my hand and pushes down on it - I resist. He gives me the aluminium - my hand goes straight to the floor. He gives me the aluminium and a chunk of Jade - I resist. "I suspect you also have a left/right imbalance. Cross your legs. Now raise you arm" again my strength deserts me. By this stage I'm a little spaced out by this, remember all the man has done is touch my wrist for a couple of minutes.

Now that he's solved the aluminium weakness with the jade (the electricity is supposedly a byproduct of the aluminium), he's now going to fix my blood sugar. Sliding across the room on the wheels on his chair, he grabs a ruler a few metres away then comes hurtling back towards me. He measures my middle finger and then the width of my palm - my palm is wider than my finger is long. This makes me a protein person, apparently. "Protein type people need lots of meat and very little carbohydrates. Carbohydrate type people (whose fingers are longer than their palms are wide) need lots of starchy food and very little protein. Protein people tend to be shorter and bulkier and carbohydrate people tend to be taller and slender - so being a protein person, if you go and eat a load of potatoes, you'll be cooked" he laughs. The fact that I'm 6"3' and thin leads him to suspect that I my be a middle-of-the-road kinda guy. "You need to eat lots of protein rich food, so anything with a face is good. Very few vegetables and NO fruit". When he tells me that the best way for me to start the day would be with as many rashers of bacon, fried eggs and fried sausages as I can handle, I decide all doctors everywhere should pay very close attention to what this man has to say. Bouncing round the room, he searches for something in the desk "I also want you to post a cutting of your hair and a letter saying what's wrong with you to this address. He's a friend of mine that deals in a specific brach of homeopathy and he'll give you something to help - you won't be out of the woods. But it'll help". Next up is my left/right imbalance. This is a little more hands on. "Alright, what I want you to do now is lie on the massage table and I'll beat you up a bit". He's true to his word. He takes my neck and tells me to relax. My next words will be, "Fuck me, that hurts!". Working down my body (cracking everything he can find on the way), he finishes by grabbing my feet and crunches every joint south of my heel, he laughs and tells me "that was just for fun". Time's up and I go - he wants to see me again in 10 days time.

So, with my full fat diet, realigned bones and wielding a gemstone - I march like some Totem to Alternativity, the flagship of the dope-smoking, dreadlock donning, "far out" Children of Nature - may they rain-dance round my mighty form and signal via smoke to their tribesmen that I am come.

Alternative Therapies for Alternative Wierdos

2009-01-27T09:41:00.000-08:00

In the hope that it will improve my condition and cure me of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I see a osteopath every Tuesday who gives me a massage, vitamin pills and sends me on my way. Wait, cut that, it sounds a little callous, let me elaborate:

My osteopath works in a holistic centre - a place where the obscure and oft ridiculed "alternative" therapies band together, braid each other's hair, sing Kumbaya and pour Guinness on the ground to appease the Earth Mother. The Journey starts in the waiting room, where a rock collection, a water feature, Indian music, pale green wallpaper and a photograph of the sea make you say a quiet prayer that your parents didn't raise you into the kind of person that likes to wear clothes made of hemp. My osteopath enters and invites me into her room. I sit down and she gives me what looks like a large computer mouse, asking me to press my hand to it and "get in touch with myself". It's a scanning device and when its done it tells me that my liver is a mess and that I'm unsympathetic, selfish and courageous: my scepticism evaporates.

She can do nothing for my emotional state (as if it needed fixing) but for my liver she gives me a small phial full of a clear liquid, three drops in a glass of water every day and she says my liver will be right as rain. She does warn me that it works by "detoxifying my liver" (good luck mate) and that I may experience some symptoms of detoxification. I ask her if that means I'll start watching Dale Winton-hosted quiz shows and see babies crawling along the ceiling. Nothing. Now for the osteopathy proper. I take off my shirt, lie down on a bed-like contraption and wait while she rubs me with oil, a sweet, lavender oil that permeates my every pore and every piece of clothing I've ever owned - my entire life now smells of lavender. She pokes me hard in the ribs repeatedly and asks if it hurts. When I'm done wincing she puts her hands under my head and sits there for twenty minutes while she attempts to "channel my energy" (today she told me it was narrow and irritated). Forty-five minutes after I enter, I leave and go home.

Jokes aside (yes, there were some in there) I've got to thank her, if it wasn't for her I'd probably still be lying in bed all day, eating chocolate and watching the Godfather - thank you for taking me away from that nightmare. There was however one thing I saw on the window facing out to the street that I refuse to let be. To you, loyal reader of 3 previous articles (and I do not use the singular to indiviualise my large audience, but to observe it's circulation of 1. Yes, I mean you) I present the dumbest fucking window poster I have ever seen. Ever:

"Stop Smoking

Lose Weight

Cure Phobias

Reduce Stress

Improve Sports Performance

No Frills, Just

Hypnotherapy"

Death By Mouse Shock

2009-01-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

The touch sensitive mouse-pad on my laptop gives me a small, steady and irritating electrical shock whenever I touch it (I suspect this may have something to do with the industrial strength magnet I kept sticking to it the other day while watching "Benny and Joon"). After experimentation, I have discovered that this can be temporarily stopped by wiping it with a very wet cloth. Because of my reservations about the long term effects of such a policy, I was wondering whether anyone had any better ideas?

Occam's Razor

2009-01-19T05:37:00.001-08:00

So I've stopped seeing my psychiatrist.......wait, that was at terrible start, no explanation, no introduction, awful - let's go back a bit.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have CFS, an uncommon (most of the people with it are middle aged women - check out my luck) and heavily debilitating illness about which little is known. The generally accepted opinion is that it is a physical manifestation of several severe and long lasting psychological problems (depression, insomnia, repression, take your pick). Warming to this theory, my parents sent me to a psychiatrist, who I have recently stopped seeing after only 5 sessions. The reason I hope will become evident as I describe her and her process:

Session 1: I walk into her office, a small, cold and bare room with a hard wooden floor and white walls. There are three clocks scattered around the room (none of them work), a chalk board with pictures on it that look like a 5 year-old drew them and three minimalist, red cushioned, wooden chairs from Ikea. There is a small table that has finger paints, crayons, chalk, a CD player and paper on it and on one of the walls is a batik. There is a lone plant. She asks me to choose a seat and I select the only one facing the door. She (a poorly aged 50-something woman) tells me she is a "child psychologist" (I feel patronised) and that she likes to employ art therapy in her work with her "clients". The reason for the chalk board, the table and everything on it is now abundantly clear and my skepticism grows. I am also told that the reason why the room is so bare is because she likes to ensure that her "clients" have a blank mind when they come to draw something so that it is as genuine as possible. I point out the very large, very colourful, very ethnic batik that is dominating the room, she laughs nervously. We talk - she is chatty, kind and very sympathetic to my situation - I immediately take a strong dislike to her.

Session 2: She is wearing a 3-4 length skirt and I notice her legs are hairier than mine - this dominates my mind and I remember nothing else.

Session 3: She calls a few hours before the appointment to say she is ill and she won't be able to see me until after Christmas on the ninth of January, it's the 19th of December. (This was my favorite session.)

Session 4: The ninth of January comes far too quickly and I say a little prayer (she's wearing trousers). We discuss what I did over Christmas (nothing, I've only just started coming downstairs) her sympathy grows - mine does not. Eager to understand more about my situation she draws a graph where the y axis is how I'm feeling and the x axis is time passed and asks me to roughly sketch the progress on my health since April. I start at 5% and draw with slow deliberation a long, shallow curve up to the 25% mark. She then asks where I'd like to be on the graph, I spend little time entertaining this ridiculous question. I take great care to say as little as possible throughout my 50 minutes with her as everything I say is analysed to pieces and questioned further, the answers I give to these questions go through the same rigmarole. A throwaway comment can become the crux of the session, with a myriad of different interpretations waiting, like inmates on death row, to be dealt with. I mention that I used to dig holes at the beach when I went to see my grandparents in my summer holidays and she asks me whether they joined in. Being over 70, arthritic and spade-less they didn't but instead of saying this I choose "They're not diggers". We enter a 10 minute discussion about what it means to be a "digger". I leave.

Session 5: I decide this time to approach with a different mindset - I will do my utmost to understand and get on board with her and her ideals. I will display enthusiasm even if I don't feel it and I will smile and talk and try to be friends. She starts by telling me that the Superman T-shirt I'm wearing was chosen by my subconscious as a way of demonstrating to the world a sense of inner strength, positivity and optimism - she is testing my resolve. I smile weakly and sit down in silence. Talking about my week I mention that I went to Brighton, had a walk along the front and a steak. She clutches her breast, dramatically exclaiming that inside she is "bubbling". She wonders if I'd mind doing a finger-painting that represents how I feel about it - I agree. I paint a yellow circle, with a blue overlapping square around it and a white overlapping pentagon around that. Over the entire thing I smear a few bright red lines. I make it up as I go along and she mistakes my speed as "intense energy". Looking at it, she identifies a large globule of white paint as a seagull, the blue and white mixing as the sea and the spray, the yellow is bright and strong and full of hope. The red is passion and energy. She asks me what I think about this analogy....I lie. The time winds down slowly and I leave, taking the painting with me, vowing never to return.

And that's it, my brief flirtation with psychiatry (though I have no doubt another one will be found for me). My main irritation was (but by no means restricted too) her desperate need to find hidden, complex meanings in things that were simple and basic. Like a confused and radioactive pig in Hiroshima foraging for truffles, she tireless sought hidden depths in the puddles of my subconcious - but as any fule kno, there are no truffles in Hiroshima.

The Beginning

2009-01-17T08:38:00.000-08:00

So it begins....

I doubt if anyone who doesn't know me will read this - Hell, I doubt that anyone who DOES know me will read this - so I won't begin this exercise in self-infatuation by delving deep into my personal life, backstory or what makes me tick as an introduction to "me" (I don't think that even I care about those things) but I will lay down some basic, simple truths about who I am, primarily because its an easy way of moving into other territories...

I'm 18, I'm into reading, music, films, video games and since April 2008 I've been laid out with chronic fatigue syndrome which I won't go into detail about but it's involved an 8 month lie-in, an extended period of time with my family and an endless string of well-wishers (none of these things should be over-glamourised). I listen to a lot of music, a lot of different kinds - everything from the Delta Blues to Prog. Metal. And to my readership of 1 (you know who you are) the latter should not be sniffed at, the genius of Mastodon is undeniable, so don't try to deny it...you can't.

And that's all that I am. Christ, that was short.

I haven't created this blog to let others know how I'm doing, or to involve people into my life. It's just a place for me to vent, store and publish my thoughts, events in my life and bits and pieces of stuff that occur to me, some of it funny (or painful), some boring, some insightful - all of it useless. It's not going to rock anyone's world, but that's what the Stones are for (I told you it would be painful)

And that's it...are you as excited about this as I am?