Messing about on the river...

So that was a funny old week – full of water (and also biscuits). Monday I was supposed to work but couldn't hack it so gave myself the day off and ended up desperately escaping the city driving NorthWest, anywhere NorthWest, thinking Otley, Ilkley, somewhere pretty and quiet and away from it all, maybe with rocks and rivers and who-knows-what. In the event, I wound up in a place called Blubberhouses by a reservoir, and found some beautiful mystic woodland and thought about going on a three-day walkabout sometime soon if it ever stops raining. Also went down by Bolton Abbey and sought out the The Strid, which my mum had just warned me about the day before; it's some killer stream that eats up the people who are foolish enough to try and jump it and spits them out several days later all bloated up and drowned. It's famous, apparently. I wanted to jump it but couldn't see a spot. It looked pretty insane, actually. There's some stunning country up that part of the world.

Three fascinating facts about me:

1. I haven't worn underwear since February 1997; not once. I was commando before commando was even invented
2. I've walked across the Mississippi by railroad bridge. You can see that bridge in the shocker-of-a-film 'Elizabethtown' when Orlando Bloom passes through Memphis
3. When I was 10, I shook Prince Charles's hand.
I failed miserably in my New Week's Resolutions, seemingly spurred by those declarations to devote even more useless time to doing useless things on the computer. Alas, I've replaced Risk with myspace and facebook! But I suppose we can soon fix that: I put my laptop up for sale on eBay and hopefully it will be gone this week. No doubt I'll buy another one in due course, but that should be enough to knock it on the head for now. No, a Sunday write and occasional email check at the local library'll do me.

Four things I want to do:

1. Write a book
2. (Re)discover God – and make more of it the second time around
3. Go on Big Brother
4. Stop feeling like I always want to get away.
Something else was going on this week. A boredom; a sense of uninterest; the word 'dissatisfaction' never far from my mind. It reached its pinnacle on Thursday: a struggle to get through the day at work; another rainy drive home – this November rain in June – and the traffic backed up just outside Wakefield. A sign pointed to the left, towards Stanley Ferry, and I thought, "I could go down there, wait out this traffic" – and then I thought, "what's the point in that, I'll just sit/walk in the rain and then get back on the road and then home and it's all the same, I'll feel the same, might as well get it over with now." I resumed my original course – and then I turned anyway, as though something made me.

Five thoughts I've had this week:

1. I should sell everything I own, save for my guitar, my sleeping bag, and maybe my car
2. Apart from God, I don't think anything will ever satisfy me. I mean, temporarily it will – but nothing much lasts
3. I gotta get away from here! Leeds, London, Bristol, New Zealand, Norfolk – anywhere!
4. I wonder, did I trade my future happiness for a magnificent pair of breasts?
5. I should get back with my X – but have it better, and have loads of things totally different.

I walked down the drizzle, marvelling at the houseboats and thinking how rubbish they looked, like floating caravans, except parked in water, next to paths, next to gawkers, and with the noise of chug-chugging engines all the time; I'd thought a while ago it might be nice to live in one, and this showed me it probably wouldn't. That was worth going out of my way for – I love discovering that something's not really for me; shining a light on my thoughts and desires and seeing the emptiness in them, even if it costs me time and money (studying to become a teacher, anyone?) So, houseboats? No. But beyond that realisation, it didn't appear there was anything else there for me – until, that is, I went a bit further than planned, away from the houseboats and onto some pedestrian bridge and stumbled upon the most wondrous sight I ever did see! Suddenly, there, in the river, something that gave me excitement and thrills and creative sparks and imagination! Beauty and madness and illumination! It was garbage – floating garbage: thousands of footballs and branches and bottles and gas canisters and tyres and barrels and an upturned boat and a million other things besides, all turning circles in the water trapped with the current and forming crazy patterns all coloured and swirling and insane in the magnitude of floating plastic heaven. I just knew I had to be a part of it.

Six strange things I've done:

1. Walked naked around the Norfolk countryside once for about four hours, having left my clothes on a river bank because it was nice and sunny
2. Woke up in a hospital wearing only my boxer shorts, six miles from home and thinking I was dead; I'd dropped a load of acid and jumped out of my friend's flat window
3. Slept in a broken greenhouse in South Kirby after missing my last train home (also spent the night 'sleeping' in a rainy and cold children's playground, several different cemeteries, inside two churches, on a bed of jagged rocks, a thousand feet up a cliff face after a poorly thought-out spontaneous climb, a university machinery room, four different jails, and under a table in a Paris convention hall, as well as a Paris shop doorway in chilly November)
4. Drove a car through a charity shop window – and then took nine years to pay for the damage
5. Rollerbladed on the Interstate near San Diego
6. Reduced my entire worldly possessions to a sleeping bag, a guitar, a toothbrush, a passport and two changes of clothes (as well as three pounds sterling in money).

I can't tell you the joy I felt when I saw that floating menagerie, that circus of trash. I've been thinking for a long time that I just wanted to drift down some river on some homemade craft, but I'd kind of scotched the idea because everybody told me the rivers around here are too dangerous and dirty. But seeing this something clicked and – beyond the sheer mad beauty of it all – there was also something in me that said, "this is where it is going to happen." And so, today, I armed myself with two bicycle inner-tubes and a camera and set off walking through the rain to seek my Huck Finn/Lewis and Clark style fame and fortune on the murky, uncharted waters of the Calder. It was a mad adventure – it was just what I needed. It was getting soaked and not caring a damn (not even feeling it); it was getting nettled beyond nettled, and just loving the tinglingness of it all, and taking pictures of my legs; it was balancing on planks and branches and dragging tyres through the water and attaching them to abandoned wooden palettes while all around me the army of bottles and snails swarmed and stank and footballs bobbed, one half white, one half brown, whispering to me, "you can fall in, that's okay – but don't drink the water." It was struggling for hours with that makeshift raft, smiling up at the walkers on the bridge above me, the rain never stopping, the challenge and the silliness of it keeping me hooked, not bored, and happy. It was stepping onto that raft finally and finding that, yes, it did float – unsteadily, sure, but it stayed up there – and then paddling in vain through the sea of bottles, pulled always back into them by the current, levering off propane bottles and logs and not really getting anywhere, until by some heroic effort I managed to reach the bridge and pull myself across the river by holding onto the ironwork – and then that magic moment when, halfway across, having reached the faster moving part of the river, it took a hold of me and sought to pull me and my raft back into the brew while arms strained against the flow and struggled to maintain that perpendicular trajectory. It was man against river, tiring muscle against ceaseless current. The glory of nature against the dreams of a child. And nature won – but not without a struggle, and not without bestowing the gift of that joyous satisfaction in having tried and fought, and finally been defeated by an unbeatable foe. Oh, the happiness in watching my grip slip from that bridge, and knowing inside that it was inevitable, and still holding on until the last second – not in despair, for I knew that I was beaten – but just for the thrill of it; the challenge; the madness; the game. I was a child again today, exactly as I was 20 years ago, nettled up, playing in dirty water, pursuing fruitless and pointless tasks with unbounded enthusiasm and involvement, in the rain, in my shorts, soaking wet and loving it. I recommend these days to anyone.

Actually, I feel quite normal

So Sunday's here and it's time for me to say, "so it's been a funny old week." Seems like a long one. Seems like I had a lot of ups and downs and now we're at the end of it I can't quite figure it out. Seems like a long time since Monday when I went with my friend to eat ice cream and stroke goats and play crazy golf in the blazing sunshine somewhere looking over patchwork-quilt hills not far from Dewsbury. Since then, of course, there was Countdown, and madness, and the deluge of forty days and forty nights, and work, and an inordinate amount of crazy writing – and now, today, a subdued and normal street fair in Horbury, and an actually very pleasant visit with my mum, and a realisation that just maybe I've been writing a little too much, and the writing I needed to de-crazify me ended up going the other way and taking me into crazy zones of craziness much too crazy for how crazy I need to be right now. It's good to get out the things that are in there – but do you maybe think I was just getting out things that weren't? And, typing that, I see that that doesn't make any sense, and that must mean it's time to move on – and, no, not with some imaginary dialogue that will lead me all loop-de-loo, but with a list of my new week's resolutions:

1. When I wake up, rather than turning on the computer, I will get up and find something productive to do – eg, going out into the real world
2. To tidy the disaster that is my desk at work
3. To do that "Rory writes" thing
4. To do my yuvutu video, now I've got a converter
5. To get some bloody exercise – I'm getting fat, man!

And five's enough, I think. In the meantime…leave some bloody comments, ya idle bunch! I has done given you much chewables this week – time's come for you to tell me what it tasted like! Also, have a video of me juggling devil sticks. Cheers!

Last post (the post that hurts the most)

So it's been raining for about the last two days – a month's worth in the first 24 hours – and the world has come to a stop. There's paddle steamers down the bottom of Westgate; dolphins and turtles in the local graveyard; three feet of water in the living room; Noah loading up on supplies in Morrison's; and I'm here typing with pike swimming 'round my feet and some damned duck going, quack quack right in me bloody ear'ole. It's an upside-down, end-of-the-world type thing. Personally, I be lovin' it. Personally, I wish it would go on forever.
     I felt a little better today, a little less insistence from that Countdown bug that's been stuck in my ear since Tuesday. It's not as loud in telling me I've ruined my life – and, come to think of it, it's not as loud as the bug that made me relive some dodgy cricket shot a few years ago, just as I was getting' me eye in, just as I was thinking about 50's and 100's, a fine swing off the middle of the bat, just caught high on the boundary ropes and what could have been 15 not out and match winning innings here we come was 9 and gone, and trudges back to the pavilion and several weeks of replaying and self-recriminations. Madness, isn't it? And so, so silly. But it is my head and I got to acknowledge – failing a way to shut the damn thing off…
     The thing is – this is what I've been pondering – I guess I just don't like hiccups; I guess my life has just been running too damn smooth the last few years, and now any little thing just kinda sets me off balance. I got used to everyday being wonderful and perfect. I got used to everything sort of slotting into place, having all I wanted – having all I needed - and not having to worry about a thing. It's still pretty much like that – but one little headache and then I go off on one – ie, I can't let it go, I have to dwell, replay, analyse, castigate. I've been doing that a lot lately. It must be a sign of something.
     I had a bit of a bad run of it on eBay the last few months – getting sold dodgy things, getting in with shady characters – and I think that started it; it got me plotting revenges, thinking of how I could get even; thinking of any way I could make it right. But, again, that's just silliness: revenges wouldn't make anything right. And I never did them anyway. But, like I said, it must be a sign of something.
     I had this idea a while back that if I ever came into anything, money-wise, or ever owned anything kinda nice, materially-wise, it would be taken away from me, to pay for all the bad karma I done back in the day. That's kinda happened too, and I wonder if that's what it is – because, for sure, I ripped some people off when I was young, and that wasn't a very nice thing for me to do, and I guess I have to pay. I guess I thought maybe because I'd changed my ways, or perhaps suffered in other ways, that that would be enough. But then I think...well maybe not. I suppose I still have to ask myself, "what am I doing to bring these things into my life?" I ripped people off – I cost them money – and, even though I don't do that now, I still have to pay, to suffer the consequences, to reap what I sowed. That's life. And I guess I should just take it, and suffer with it, and forget all my revenges and plots and ting. Yeah, I guess that's what I should do – but it ain't necessarily so easy...
     (Now don't get me wrong! I ain't been plotting anything evil – and plotting's just plotting – I'm just having to acknowledge the truth of my head and let it be, if you know what I mean…)
     In other news…I don't know what comes next. Something about…Countdown; about this idea I had: dissolution of the ego by public humiliation – because that's something I struggle with – again, too used to having it all run smooth, too used to keeping myself to myself and not showing enough of anything to let anybody think anything much at all – and…well, could that be true? Yes, it sure as hell could be! Like…I could never appear on Big Brother because I just couldn't live with myself if people – thinking here, my mum – were to see my like that, in all my glory, in my weaknesses and sillinesses and swearings and anger – and maybe that's saying something deep there, in my clumsy sort of way. I guess I'm grasping. But is something rising to the surface here – or am I just ever-so-slightly losing my mind, and sailing into unsafe waters? The waters of internet-spouting-gibberish, where it's not really real, where it's safe to be nonsense-head mad, because it gives you a thrill? Is that a release of something, an avenue into a different aspect of mind, of being, of communication and expression? Or is it Barney Bonackles, silly silly, feeding into only myself in ever-decreasing circles like some warped acid-head clown? Ha! I can type anything here and it's all okay. Ha! I can wurp-yop-snip-burp-thumb, and nobody's gonna tell me otherwise. But what does it all mean? Who cares. Next paragraph.
     Carol Vorderman: I can't tell whether she's nice or not. She looks like she's got a cracking body – but wears enough make-up for at least a dozen ladies. Very professional – and super-nice to the old age pensioners that obviously adore her. And, goes without saying, smart as a whole bunch of pins – but something not quite right. My ladies at work think she's mutton dressed as lamb, got too big for her boots, and I'm liable to agree: surely her whole charm was that she was surprisingly attractive, that she crept up on you when you looked at her from a certain angle and played that whole PlainJaneSuperBrain card, the dowdy secretary who takes off her glasses and shakes her hair and, wow Momma, you really got me goin' baby! But now that she knows it, it just ain't the same. And something devious goin' on in that head of hers…unlike the lovely Susie Susie Susie Dent - who Mikey asked to marry. (Another perfect Countdown moment: when somebody made some joke about "Bristols" (being cockney rhyming slang for "breasts") and me at the moment absent-mindedly staring at the monitor and Carol's boobs being right there in my face looking mighty fine, and everyone chortling about the unintended gag except Des who didn't quite get it, but maybe somebody explained it to him later.)
     Another thing: what? I don't know! Why didn't you tell me? Because you never asked. And because I didn't think you'd like it. And because I thought you'd want to stop. But is that what you really think? Yes, it is – I do. And, come on, it's as plain as the milk on a blackman's ear, that's all this is. Look at us; look at what we do – I mean, if we're not doing that, we're not talking, we're not digging each other like a couple in love do, we're watching a movie or eating, or, really, just waiting until that moment comes – and haven't you ever noticed that we just descend into argument if we delay/avoid/don't recognise that moment. We get at each other when we're not getting at each other, don't you see that? It's obvious to me – but I didn't want to say in case you wanted it to stop. Do you want it to stop?
     "Yes," she said, "you're the only man I've ever cared about. I thought there was more to it than this; I thought we got on. I thought we were going somewhere."
     "The thing is, though," I said, "people don't really talk how you just talked – in books, I mean; in literature. That's ridiculous. Where's all the pauses? Where's all the stumbling and stuttering, and striving for the right thing to say? Where's all the talking over and interrupting, and misunderstanding? That's how it is in the real world – and that's why I hate dialogue in writing. It's all a lie because it couldn't be anything else. It's all a lie before you even start – I mean, who could ever even remember anything anyone said, nevermind recreate it? It should be more like this: 'I was like, yeah, and then she was going on about something or other but I wasn't really listening, I was thinking about twelve other things at the same time and all I really wanted was for her to make the tea and stop banging on about her day so I could play my game and pretend the world didn't exist, and maybe be adored a bit later' or something. Actually, that wasn't really very good; actually, I'm not really sure what to think." I tied myself in a knot so that my feet were wedged behind my ears and my nose nestled nicely in the crack of my arse-brush. I tried to make a funny face through the gap in my knees but she wasn't having any of it.
     "You've done it again," she said, "changed the subject. You're such a jerk."
     And then I decided to have her walk out the room and disappear from existence, so I could get on with my typing.
     "Am I writing more and more nonsensical everyday?" I whispered. "There's something going on here – something a little bizarre. I'm not entirely sure it's healthy."
     "Put the pen down then," she said (the new one, the one who had snuck in unawares), "and I'll teach you something. I'll climb in your bed when you're in that in-between stage; I'll flip you on your front and stick it in the back of your neck, and when you scream and cry out, begging to know whether this is for good or for evil, I'll just hold you there, paralysed under my invisible weight until you give in muttering the prayers that you hope will save you, still never knowing, hoping only, and then you'll fall asleep with me still there and I'll have you as my thing." She stopped and waited, letting it sink in. "The question is: do you trust? How far are you willing to go? Do you believe that you are what you say you are, or is there something else going on here? Because everything that hides in the dark must be brought out into the light – and everything down there in the deeps must be brought up to the surface. You've got bottom-feeders, my boy – you've got monsters swimming down there. You haven't seen them yet, but that's because you were only skimming the surface, the superficial, your awareness wasn't quite there – now I'll show you there's much more to you than you ever imagined, but it ain't gonna be pretty. It'll be like squeezing a spot. It'll be a bloody mess. Maybe you should turn back now – or maybe you should hang on for the ride. Or maybe – just maybe – this is all nonsense, and you can forget about those night-time visits and say it was just your imagination, watch some TV, live out your life, raise some kids and die looking back and wondering what might have been." I was fidgeting now. "So," she said, "whatcha wanna do?"
     My lips and jaw held tight. "You already know," I said, "what I want to do. I want to put the TV on and watch Big Brother." The words came out slowly. I was afraid. I didn't know what came next.
     "You can do that," she said, her voice softening, her head tilting to one side and a warm smile beginning to shine forth from her eyes, "and that will be okay. I think you've had enough for tonight; I think I know what you really want."
     "Yes," I said, "I want it, but I'm afraid. I want it – but I can only take so much at a time. Two steps forward, one step back." I sighed and slumped down in my chair a little. Something let go in my shoulders and my chest. I was off the hook, for now. "Be gentle with me, please," I said. I meant it – and I knew she would be.
     "You're my son," she said, smiling deep into the infinite reflected mirrors we held between us, "how could I be anything else?"
     "You stretch me," I said.
     "But not beyond your limit."
     "You scare me," I said.
     "But not beyond your wit's end," she said. "You feel fear – and then your fear goes. It's part of the process. It's the step into the unknown. Your fear doesn't stay – it's not real."
     "False evidence appearing real," I said.
     "Right," she said.
     "There's just one more thing," I said, "if I do watch Big Brother will you still be here?"
     "Put the pen down," she said, "and relax. I'll be coming for you soon. I'll be coming inside you, and then you'll see. But not just yet. Not just now. But soon."
     The top of my head is tingling now. My mind is strangely silent and peaceful, intrigued, amused, hopeful and excited. Fingers are moving easily and automatically, keys pressed in a clean and steady flow. I think I'd better stop now. I think I'd better let go.

...

But before I do that...let's see how I'm doing with that "to do list" of mine. (By the way, a few days after I posted that I was reading Cosmo and it said there in an article on de-stressing "don't make "to do" lists, they'll only make you feel like a failure - but if you must, limit it to five things a day." Ha! Who the hell can think of five things a day!)

1. 75% done, 55% undone (but mostly just clean clothes lying around, as opposed to dirty ones, so that doesn't really count as mess; some sex-toys, DVDs and humous tubs that I really ought to clear up though...)
2. Did good till the rains came - and until I discovered facebook, youtube and got sucked more into this myspace malarkey - but I will get it back!
3. Done
4. Tried, but they don't accept the format my camera shoots in...
5. Investigated, back-burnered, satisfied
6. On it like a dog on bitch
7. A little patience there, I think. It just ain't time
8. Done
9. Hm...forgot all about that
10. Nope
11. Yes! Only three games in three weeks - and no real urge at all
12. Nope
13. Gettin' closer...
14. Ha!
15. Nope. (Why not? No bloody idea! And I love squash!)
16. Sort of - but not really...
17. Oh yes, I think we can say I succeeded there
18. LOL! Never did, really - and it showed!
19. Better

So I think we can call that a resounding success! In addition...

20. Look into getting my brother sectioned
21. Write a list of my regrets (1. Not seeing the signs that said "go to Bretton Hall College" in 2001; 2. Not kissing a certain girl when I was 14, and then 16; 3. Can't think of anymore, apart from doing all the bad things I did, obviously, except I learned lots from that and probably couldn't have avoided it anyway, having been born the way I was...)
22. Find some flooded street and go floating down it, like I've long wanted to do
23. Put up a video of me playing devil sticks wickedly

And I'm sure there was more - but honestly, who can bothered with all that crap! Goodnight!

Email to Rani

Hi Rani, glad to hear you're doing well and still following your
truth. I can't remember where I was at the last time we talked - but
probably not since I graduated uni last June (in English and Creative
Writing). I got a job as an English teacher after that, but didn't
last, and I'm now managing a charity shop back in my homeland of
Yorkshire, which is pretty cool and suits me better. My girlfriend
Sara and I broke up a few months back, after four years together, but
it's for the best, and we both got a lot of good things out of our
relationship. She's still living in England and concentrating on
career things...

Spiritually...well, I guess I don't feel very spiritual any more! I
guess I got to a point a few years back where I realised I was way too
high and quite out of balance with my human side, kinda neglecting a
lot of the things in there and being very ungrounded - so instead of
meditating one day I decided to go and play football (soccer)
and...well, that must have been some kind of turning point, because
I've hardly meditated at all the last four years - and I've played a
hell of a lot of soccer! But it's got me back on the ground again,
back to using my legs and feeling them, and that's been good for me.
Of course, I do miss the highs and that, but I'm sure they'll come
around again sometime - only I'll probably understand more about them
and be able to integrate it all much better.

In the meantime, I'm sort of slowly working on a book all about my
hitch-hiking and mystical adventures, and probably nothing can really
happen for me until I get that out of the way. I do still do the odd
occasional spiritual healing though. Also, I got really into playing
my guitar and singing my songs, and I want to do more of that, and
some recording too. Mostly, though, I'm just a normal bloke! :-)

So here's some fairly recent pictures of me...send me something of
your sweet self too!

Glad to keep the contact going.

Much love, and big massive hugs,
Rory

Bringing the game into disrepute

So I went on Countdown yesterday - got the call about 8.30 in the morning - and that was a mad old affair. I'm not sure what happened, really, but I lost all semblance of anyone who realised they were on a TV show; who was trying to win something; who cared about their own image; who had any respect for this fine British institution. Basically what happened was this...

I got there; that was all good. I'd practiced a bit beforehand - and that was totally pants, but I was the same before Brainteaser and I walked away from there with three grand, and pretty much rocked out, save the occasional lapse. I met the other contestant, and he was this young dude with a totally fine arrangement of hair on his face, a neckerchief and braces, and a gaggle of excited young lady supporters in tow. We hit it off - the lovely Susie Dent asked if we were brothers - and fooled around a little bit. We took our seats and joked as the opening sequence rolled in that we'd just get 3-letter words the whole way through the show (but then realised we didn't really trust one another enough to go with that). He sat next to Des, and I sat next to Barry Norman in dictionary corner, and the game began; first round, I totally blanked, and all I could come up with was the rather pathetic "dork" (he had "adroit"; "radio" stared me right in the face) which perhaps set the scene quite nicely, like the first line in a novel, like a little taste of foreshadowing (well, that and Des's pun about me "not making an ass of myself", in reference to my winning a donkey in a bet) and then it was on from there.

A few normal rounds seemed to follow, and then the numbers came up - which I used to be extraordinarily good at - and my mind just refused to work. I didn't really get anywhere near and I suppose I just kind of thought, this isn't going to work, to hell with it, I couldn't give a monkey's. There was nothing in me that wanted to try, nothing in me that wanted to win - and that's really kinda strange for me. Maybe because there was no prize (besides the teapot, which Mikey really wanted), or maybe something else (I actually wanted Mikey to win; he was a jolly nice and funny chap and made great TV, and I wasn't at all bothered about trying to stay on), I'm not really sure. What I do know is that I never felt like I was really there, like I was taking part in a show that is going to be watched by about two million people; I just couldn't be bothered. I didn't concentrate when I had to pick letters or numbers; I asked for the rules to be explained to me half-way through rounds - I was picking letters once and when Carol had got about three out I said, "oh, I guess I should be writing these down." And even worse/better than that...

The pinnacle, I suppose, was when Mikey declared a 9-letter word and I only had a six and I thought, oh, to hell with this, I'll just tell them that I've got a three. And then when they asked for my three I made out as though I'd realised it wasn't actually a real word, just to be ultra-silly. But, alas, Mikey's word wasn't allowed and I'd just thrown away six stupid points! Oh well. Add that to the numbers' round where I got to within 1, with a 1 remaining, but didn't bother adding it, and the round where I had a six, then just as Des asked me what I'd got I thought I spied an extra letter to tag on and kind of sneakily added it (while hiding my sheet from Barry Norman) though it wasn't actually there and I chucked away a total of 22 points in silliness. I guess right from the beginning I'd been resigned to not winning - yet, with those points factored in, it would have actually gone right down to the wire - yes! a Crucial Countdown Conundrum! So blessed relief when Mikey buzzed in and got it and I was nowhere in sight. At least I didn't have the guilt of oh-I-could've-actually-won-that-if-I-hadn't-been-a-tit to contend with.

What else? How about the round where I was trying to pick letters and got the giggles real bad and could barely get the consonants and vowels out without totally breaking down? (And how about the beauty of it that I just managed to hold it together enough that it didn't require a re-take and will have to be aired like that!) How about the one where I thought I'd got all my letters but still needed another one, and then Carol said, "no, you need a vowel" and I said, "oh, ok, consonant please"? (I think by this time she'd well and truly lost patience.) Or Barry Norman being really quite bitchy and making comments about Mikey and I being "the death of the show" (among other things) and me doing a Vic Reeves handbag "woooh" at him? What about when seven or eight letters came out and I saw the word "stoned" and I thought, I don't care what all else is there - seven, eight, nine - I'm having that, and then Des asking for my word and me looking him in the eye and saying, "I got stoned"? (Me! Anti-drug me! Me who hasn't been stoned in 8 years!) Mikey, meanwhile, was busy doing his bit, making blunders and telling Des, "I got cooties" (in an American accent, where the "t" is a "d") and going on about his dressing-up box and chatting up Susie and Carol. Oh, writing it here it all seems so marvelous and mad and wonderful, and I can't wait for it to go out - and I really hope they don't edit it too much - because I'm not sure there's ever been an episode like that and, who knows, we could have really started something here. Imagine, legions of hip young thangs entering and hijacking quiz shows and making a mockery of them, sailing through the auditions with their wit and knowledge and looks and then turning up there on the day bedraggled with heads like conkers and answers straight out of Spike Milligan. I mean, it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I mean, what are we waiting for?

At the same time, though, ever since it finished, I've been racked with this kind of embarrassed guilt, like I don't want people to see it, like I wish I could do it over again. Like I wish I'd tried, or prepared, or hadn't been quite so silly - and even typing that, it seems a bit ridiculous to think that way - but I guess I must have an image thing going on, that I don't want to be thought of as too stupid (when, probably, I am!) or...or, whatever, I don't really know. Like I blew my big chance? Get real! There was no money involved and, like I say, I never really wanted to win from the beginning. Maybe I need some kind of carrot to kick it into gear - and I just didn't have one here. Being on was enough - and, if there's nothing to aim for, and no desire to win, what else are you going to do with your time? You might as well have a laugh, right? I mean, Countdown's been on TV literally thousands of times, with thousands of pretty much nameless, faceless - let's face it, bland - contestants, and what's the point in being another one of them? (Not that I planned any of this beforehand.) I mean, you've got that one chance and what you gonna do with it? Give it your best, tow the line, regret not doing what you felt like doing, and forget and be forgotten pretty much the instant that it's over? Or are you gonna do what's there in you to do, and try to create something different, and, above all - above every other mothe*fu*king thing - are you gonna have a laugh, enjoy yourself, mess about, and get some giggles? I mean, I guess I've pretty much answered my own question there - and, whaddya know, looks like I've thrown myself some rather amusing and ironic metaphors for life too, all sneakily inadvertent and creeping up on me there. Ha! I guess there's something in pretty much everything, eh?

So there you go. I didn't know it was gonna come out like that - but the telling of it makes me feel better, and makes it feel right. I can't say I don't have any cringing left in me but...what the hell, I'll feel it and let it be and there can be no doubt that this is one of those things that is only to be looked back and laughed at in years to come - so why not start now? I just hope my workforce of elderly lady pensioners aren't too dismayed by what they see come July 25th!

…

So the show finished and I was just about to sneak away in my usual sneaking-away-manner, all chagrined and wondering what the hell I'd done, when one of Mikey's friends grabbed me – the one whose name begins with the same letter as the city she inhabits; the one who wasn't present when I first met the "gaggle of excited lady supporters" – and started telling me that "that was the best show ever." At first I thought she was one of the production team, rushing down from the control room fresh with the excitement of finally seeing something extraordinarily silly on Countdown, a little ray of madness in the sea of crutches and Vordermans – but she wasn't. In any case, I was smitten, and as we sat and watched Mikey come from behind to lick his next opponent in quite breathtaking fashion I floated 'round the studio with my new found queen, arm in arm, her beauties spilling over me like beans from a can, her milky white ears smooth as melted butter down a baby's waxed chin. Me, my queen and I, we were in heaven's gasping toes, all of a kimble, supper put to one side and liquid diets restrained. It was like all my Christmases had come at once – and then gone home and brought back with them their friends and family and decided to stay an extra day out of their love for me and the joy which I done provide them. It was pure magic.

Mikey won again and after pictures with Carol we all went and sat in a bar and had much giggles and Connect 4, and were also strangely accosted by Rory Breaker out of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Then it was tearful goodbyes to the London posse, and the four that were left went in their various carriages to LS6 and ate (what masqueraded as) sweets from a tub and stuffed themselves with Chinese buffet till eleven. Rory lost heavily at that too – and if you add that to the Connect 4 he got killed at (not literally) he was a three-time loser this day. He wasn't used to that. Maybe he's getting old – or maybe he shouldn't tangle with hip bright young thangs that actually inhabit the same cool-niverse he watches on DVD. He's out of his depth, perhaps. He's got toes that no longer jump up and shoot in your boot. He's past his bedtime. Goodnight!

The smell of fear

    "In any case," she said, "I haven't got anything to say tonight."
    "My fingers smell of KY Jelly," I muttered, "here, have a sniff." I stuck out my hand in invitation. She turned away.
    "I can smell it from here," she said, "and your penis. Don't you ever wash?"
    I laughed. I laughed real hard. I got laughs like children's laughs, like the giggles; laughs that wrap around and feed into themselves and grow like an endless barnyard echo. And then I laughed some more.
    "We had fun, eh?" I said. "Remember that time you said, 'Don't you ever wash?' and I just started laughing, and I couldn't stop?"
    She leaned over and flicked the switch on the kettle.
    "Make some tea," she said, "I'm going for a piss."
    I looked down her top for a bit and then reached into the cupboard for some cups. "You really do have fantastic breasts," I said. "Magnificent."
    "Thanks," she said. And then bum and legs kitchen left, feet sounded on stairs, tinkle tinkled in toilet bowl, kettle popped, water splashed, teabag sighed.
    The end.

I'm not sure why I felt compelled to tell her always about her boobs. They had me under their spell; they nestled like eggs in their basket and my eyes floated down and fell in there with them, like babies on feathers. I slept there – I felt safe there – and I loved that so much I just had to tell her. Maybe women don't really like that sort of thing, and maybe I wasn't supposed to, but I did. That's all she was to me, really – well, those two gems of pearls of dove's white pillows and the hot and soggy snugness of being and banging inside her. You know what I mean; sometimes you just have to admit those things. I'd sang to myself a dozen times, "is this a love thang or a sex thang?" and the answer sat plain as milk on a black man's ear. I never told her though – probably she wouldn't want to hear that – and, luckily, she never asked.
    "Are you writing again?" she said. I handed her a white cup with a picture of a monkey on it and lost myself in the steam for a second. I thought I saw an owl in there. A bear. A wasp with a horse's neck. I tilted my head and squinted and then it became clear: a travelling salesman called Keith who peddles office furniture by day and then whips his diapered lover's shit-stained arse at night; they call each other 'kitten' and smear nutella on their balls.
    "I am," I said, "but it's kinda strange. I keep thinking I'm gonna write something about my day, or about some topic that interests me, but in the end I churn out nonsense, or things that look like fiction in layout but don't make much sense in content – except there's little nuggets of truth in there: maybe things from my life, ideas and thoughts and experiences, mixed in with gibberish and waywardnesses (like that word) – and not that I'm really trying, it's just what comes, but…"
    She shook her leg and peered at me over the cup. The steam played with her nose and then I saw beneath all the diapers and balls Keith was really quite sad inside – but then, aren't we all?
    "But…I don't know what." I paused, waiting for fingers to type, 'I paused, waiting for fingers to type.' "But I kind of like it, even if it is rubbish, even if it is nonsense – even if it means nothing to anyone that reads it, I still kind of like it. It's what comes," I said, "I guess I'll keep on doing it."
    "You should," she said, "maybe it'll lead to something."
    "Maybe," I said, half-believing it. "Do you want a biscuit? I've got chocolate." I smirked and presented the packet in her vague direction.
    "I bet you do," she said, "you dirty boy."

A bit later I was down the park with these three old guys I know from when I was in the war. We all got shot together somewhere near a Belgian cake shop and I was the only one that died. Funny thing is, now that they're all ancient and smelly (and not that I'm not smelly, but you know what I mean) I can't help but feel that I got the chicken breast and they got its arse.
    Anyway, me and Steve Coogan were chucking bits of duck at the birds and kicking off our shoes all Western abalone style, and Arthur Pantpress was sat there in the long grass kissing daisies, his strange moustache playing tricks in the light. I wanted to go up there and swing on it; tickle him and say, "oi! Arthur, get me a comb and we'll have a right good time here, me and you in the long grass, swinging on your moustache, combing your nasal hair into various symphonies and concertos, and maybe rustling up a sonata out of some old crisp packets," but I couldn't really be arsed. Mainly I was just listening to Jeff wax lyrical at some custard – with neither a wax nor lyric in sight. But that was just one of his many talents.
    "The greatest mystery of love" he said, after a bush had crossed his path, "is this: how can a man who has once wanted a woman so badly he would cut off his own left nipple to prove his love for her – cross thirsty deserts blindfolded to see her – give up everything he ever worked for to please her – leave his home, his friends, his country, his belongings – even his bees – how can this man who has done and said and felt all this, in every tiny little pore of his sweaty sock drawer (and beyond) – how can this man then one day turn around and say, in all decency and truth, 'I hate you, you bore me, I liked you once but now I want someone with bigger tits'? And then, perhaps, after some time, not even remember her name? How can this man do all this, and still have it be true?" He squatted down upon his haunches and pressed his hand against a rough, barky oak. "Tell me, tree," he said, "is that not the greatest mystery of love?"
    The tree sighed. Over in the long grass, Arthur looked up from his daisies. He grimaced towards the tree. Steve and I quit with our shoes and waited to see if the hoary old oak would speak.
    The tree sighed again.
    "That's just you though, innit?" said the tree. "Not everybody's like that."
    The world resumed spinning; clocks turned once more. Jeff's eyes flummoxed towards the floor. He was a coma of dejection.
    "I guess so," he replied, "I never thought of that. Still, it is quite interesting, don'tcha think?" He took his hand from the tree and lay on the grass against its stump, his head in its lap, his knees tucked against his chest. He hugged himself and whimpered, a tear journeying from one eye to the other, his stare off into the distance, unfocused, looking at the past.
    And then the tree explained it all – something to do with a mirror and a crack – and I went back to tossing the last of my duck at a couple of babies who were shaking their feebles in the early evening sun.
    "It's a beautiful day," I said to Steve, popping a bit of duck in my mouth. "One for me, two for you, my little friends," I said.
    "It's the kind of day that makes you glad to be alive. It's good to get out," he said, "and get some sunshine on your bones." He rolled up his sleeve and showed me his wrinkled brown forearm and gave it a slap. "Vitamin D," he said, "cacahuertes."
    He was always going on about peanuts: sometimes he just said it for no reason, like then, because he liked the taste of it; other times he told me it was good for your immune system, to say 'peanuts' in whatever language, but he'd always deny it later. I didn't know what to think, really.
    "S'good for your immune system," he said, and smiled. I rolled my eyes and tucked my thumbs under my arms. I didn't know what to think.

The Night of The Living Dead (Part II)

Saturday night and the world's going out on the town, two hours in make-up, sirens and screams and, lo! a shaved-headed youth smashes a bottle and stumbles obscenities like they're the only words he knows. Apocalypse now? Could be - now, and next week, and every week thereafter. I can't for the life of me see the appeal in this; there's not a stitch in my trousers thinks to do all the dolling up and drinking the booze and hitting the scene. What a peculiar scene! What an unorthodox zombie parade! What a strange, strange world!

Bags of sugar plums can't bring the Lord to bear witless

So I just had this game of football with a right bunch o' nobcheeses - kids, really, got the skills, but not much tactical nous, concept of passing, etc - and that put me in kind of a foul mood. Made me hate Wakefield again. Made me want to get out of here. Made me want to move to Leeds, where I had a good game with good people the other week, and where the girls (and the boys) are prettier and seem to have a bit more going for them. Man, how many attractive women there are in the world! But not in these parts here. My brother's about the most attractive woman in this town...

Which reminds me: I went to Rocky Horror last night, in Sheffield, and that was good in parts. Dressed in see-through knickers and stockings (or tights; I can never remember the difference...) and those big red high heels, and got gawked at by ladies and had my picture taken (because you could probably see my nob 'n' balls) and felt alternately good and then like the old proverbial piece of meat, and when it was over I just thought, I wanna go home. Except I was in the middle of town there in my outfit and with some friends who wanted to do the pub thing before heading back to theirs to sleep on some floor and up 7.30 for the trip back north and work and not a dime or cent or even a penny in my pocket and no means of getting any, cursing the decision not to drive myself and there I was relying on others but I wanted to go home. So I said to my friend, "I'm going" - and then I walked out that bar in my high heels and knickers and through the town stockings/tights glued to my thighs and suddenly feeling just ever so slightly strange now there's noone else around dressed like me and the real world has come back into view again and I just think, I'm getting on a train, I don't really care what happens, fine me, kick me off, I just don't care. I felt liberated. I felt like the old me - and I guess that's the point of this pointless old, rambling old, terribly poor grammatically paragraph - like I did when hitching to Wales to pick up the car before this one, hours walking and fighting through the strange lands of the Manchester Ring Road, in woods and streams and canals and then when the battery died (or, rather, lack of battery, because I decided to try and make it back without one) I ate lovely mussels in the restaurant there and then slept (kind of) in the front seat chortling merrily and thinking what a wonderful day that was, like in days of old, like in days on the road when sleeping bag zipped up and thoughts of the day washing over you and thinking all the places you'd been, all the people, the different things, the weathers, the scenes...like something was happening. Why do I need that to feel alive? Why do I want madness - this very particular type of madness - in my life? How can I bring that wonderful, glorious madness into my life in this day-to-day world of work and house and normality? And how can I hope for anybody to understand that need when I can't even express it in something approaching English!? :-) Hoo-ha! Who cares? You could be my regular Saturday night thang - I'm gonna enjoy killing you - I got me a blueskin full of effin' sheep's beards and there's no way I'm gonna let you get away with it, you hear, you old snake of a dog you, you old Carmen Silvera horse whip monkey bush teeth hound soldier! A-ha! Take that! And Boyzone too! I gotta whispa somethin' to you, if only you'll hear my heart slugs cry...

Did that make sense to you? If only it would! And, if only it did, call a doctor (slash the cops) because you've got internal breeding arrangements and there ain't a pill on Earth gonna swap your Mother Goose for a large and friendly soft ha'penny drink, ya hear?

I's gots cheese - want some?

...

In other news, I was thinking of writing something nonsensical soon - if I can find the time. Cheers!

Hair Express

So it had to happen - and I'm not talking about my watching of Big Brother - I'm talking about the trimming of the old facial hair (the old can't-be-bothered-to-sort-it-out, aka, my beard). Yes, despite advice from others to keep it - which has prolonged its stay the last week or two - it's time for it to go; number one, because it really had got too straggly and wild (see fig.1), and, number two, because I'm off to Rocky Horror tomorrow and I'm not really sure the face fuzz would match my red size 12 high heels and whatever borrowed-from-the-shelves-of-Oxfam transvestite outfit I squeeze myself into. Or maybe it would...

In the meantime, though, this gives me a chance to do something I've wanted to for a while - and to share something with you that no-one in the world has ever seen. So, for a shocking, scary, horrible and compelling treat...scroll on down!!!

But don't fret...I won't be keeping it! :-)

...

Ten fifty eight pee-em...somebody boring is sitting in the diary room...somebody that looks like somebody else is ranting about this 'n' that...somebody mental/maniacal is eating a peach-dunky...the rest of the housemates are sleeping...goodnight housemates, I love your buttons as if they were pigs and caramacs...goodnight...

...

See how much fun you can have with these things! (No offence to Jews or Muckrats intended). Byeeee!

The Story of my Life

"Good weekend?"

"It was," she says, "spent most of it shagging." A delicious cheeky smile across her thin red lips. "Proper jackhammer, hair dripping sweat, headboard banging against the wall, living room wrecking sex. Haven't had it that good for years. I'm aching like a bastard now." She grabs her breasts and squeezes them together and sighs. "What about you?"

"I went to the park and kicked a ball - oh, and I also had a poo that was shaped exactly like a banana. Took three flushes to get it down. I felt kind of sad in a way, when it was gone. It was like art. I shoulda taken a picture."

She took her friend in her arm. She cradled her like a baby. The two of them faded through like ghosts on a wet biscuit. Their jugs were like melons. I could've cried.

Forty skewed squares

So I guess the question on everybody's lips is: what with all that rain the other day when you were driving down to Wales, did you overdo it a bit going around a certain corner and spin your car off the road? And the answer? A resounding: Yes! So I guess I'm not quite the all-improved driver I sometimes like to think I am. But then...

You know what? Somebody up there likes me, because, as I was spinning through a hundred and eighty degrees and thinking, whoops there goes another thirteen hundred quid and in about half a millisecond my poor lovely Mazda will be seven kinds of bent out of shape and wrapped around a tree or crashing through a fence, some unseen hand guided that graceless curve and deposited me not in the nasty looking trees, nor into the stone wall, gate and front yard of a house, but into an area of soft muddy grass between the two - the only such area on that entire stretch of road - and brought me to a halt against a kindly tree stump that almost succeeded in preventing any sort of damage whatsoever; a little scratch on the bumper, a crack across a brake light, and a small dent on the rear end was all that I had to show for my 60 mph slide. Simply put: incredible. That could have been a thousand times worse. That should have been a total disaster. Like I say, somebody up there likes me. I must be the luckiest man alive...