Slow Burn

Went for my first run in ages this week. It went OK, but alas my knee still doesn't feel 100%. Time, as they say, heals all wounds...but it's taking longer than I'd like to sort this particular ailment. More physio tomorrow, though, so hopefully progress will rear it's bulbous and frightful head. Hmmm...what else?! Well, I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein over the course of two nights, which is the quickest it's ever taken me to read a full-length novel. OK, it's not exactly War & Peace (actually - has anyone actually ever read that book...and if they have, is it really so long as to warrant an entire cliche be named after it?!) as it only weighs in at 214 pages...but still, the fact that I sat there and read for hours on end is surely an attestation to it's quality. Bit melancholy in places like, and that didn't really help my current frame of mind...but yeah, it's a great read. Wouldn't mind seeking out the recent (well 1990s) film adaptation now and seeing how faithful it is to the novel.

Also this week, I've sat through the mindless bilge that is Gamer. It's got Gerrard Butler in it, and it's about humans who get controlled by other humans in a Gears of War-style deathmatch in order to win their freedom. Yawn. Haven't we seen similar themes umpteen times before? Recent takes on the idea such as Surrogates and Avatar instantly spring to mind and indeed, even one of my short film ideas (that remained on the drawing board due to it's been there, done that nature) while at University was a project titled 'Game Over,' which, funnily enough told the familiar tale of gamers who played a video deathmatch and who were killed in reality if their avatar in the game came a cropper. Like I said, "yawn."

And apart from the usual crap like going to the gym, eating noodles infused with hotdog sausages, and sleeping...I have done very little else of interest. That's the problem with working these night shifts - I'm either sat in work for 12 hours through the night, in bed, in the gym...or back at work again! Not an ideal situation, really, and ultimately excruciatingly monotonous. But what can you do? I don't expect I'll be doing anything more interesting over the coming week either, seeing as I have just enough money to sustain life through frugal food shoppage, but all things come to pass. That's the PMA (positive mental attitude) kicking in. If I actually spoke the truth about how fucking pissed off I am, and how I'd like nothing more than to run naked through a shopping centre with a pump action shotgun...well, I'd probably find myself locked up under some kind of obscure terror/mental health act. And that just simply would not do. So I have four nights left of incredible boredom and eye-burning tiredness to look forward to. In the immortal words of Tony the Tiger: Grrrrreat.

Flat Caps & Whippets

Well hello. And how are we all? Good I hope. Excellent. Right, enough of the niceties - lets get down to the real reason you came here: ME! The past week or so has been quite eventful, if I'm honest. The early segment (i.e. Monday through Thursday) saw me take a train journey from the deep, dark South all the way up to the enlightened and glorious North. That is, my better half paid for me to take a train journey from Weymouth to Manchester. Not only that, but we stayed in one of Manchester's finest hotels, the 4-star Palace on Oxford Road. It's funny, because I used to pass the Palace pretty much every day when I lived and worked in Manchester. Every time I cycled my fucked-up old Saracen up Oxford Road's deadly bus lane/cycle-path, I'd pass the Palace Hotel and never once did it cross my mind that I'd one day actually be a guest there. Truly bizarre how things work out, ain't it. Of course, I owe the entire experience of staying in such a fine establishment to the lady in my life, but that's besides the point - I stayed at the mother-fucking PALACE! Booyah!

When you go into the main foyer there's this massive stain-glass dome forming the ceiling, which is pretty spectacular. The sliding doors that comprise the entrance portal to this wondrous void are less awe-inspiring - they seemed to open and close at random, leading to some interesting situations involving, well, being squashed between two sliding plates of glass. Elsewhere, the dining area and bar didn't fail to impress me: soft classical music, the aroma of quality coffee, the helpful and polite staff. Tis superb and is as opulent and luxurious as you'd expect a 4-Star hotel to be. Special mention must also go to the lift, which makes a bizarre beeping noise every time it arrives. Why? Is it announcing it's arrival to those people too ignorant to notice the doors opening? Who knows. But it beeps. Oddly.

Apart from being over-awed by the hotel, the rest of my/our time up there in the great industrial North was spent taking in the sights, sounds and (usually quite pungent) smells of the city. We went to Salford Quays (via the newly refurbished Metrolink - which is like the London Underground, but less crowded, over-ground, and without the constant feeling of impending apocalypse) to experience the blistering cold razor-wind and the Imperial War Museum North; we ventured into the Gothic splendour of the John Rylands Library; we were seated in a Slug & Lettuce gastro-pub but then left before ordering any scran because they wanted £15 for a fucking salad; and we even went to the Royal Exchange Theatre to watch a production of Shakespeare's A Comedy Of Errors.

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to Shakespeare (although I have read Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet and...er...The Shakespeare Secret), but I really enjoyed the play, and totally understood it too - which was a bonus, considering how dense my swede is. We sampled other delights of the city (Joseph Holt Mild, a meat pie that required it's own foundations, the Arndale Centre, the Wheel of Manchester, the Printworks, all-you-can-eat Chinese, the Frog & Bucket Comedy Club and the Curry Mile included) during the visit, and I must admit that I was quite sad when Thursday rolled around and checkout time loomed...but all in all it was a bloody marvellous excursion and I enjoyed pretty much every second of it. Apart from the feral kids running around the Museum of Science & Industry and the fucking blistering cold, wind and rain that persisted throughout the duration of the stay. But cest la vie, eh? Many thanks, once again if you're reading this drivel, by the way. No, not you.

So yeah, got back to my oft-mentioned house share on Thursday evening and desperately tried to enjoy handing over my rent money, before going to bed. And then on Friday I jumped in the car and drove back up North to Gloucester to spend the Easter weekend with my uncle, various cousins and several gallons of alcoholic liquid. Which was nice. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and now I'm back at work writing this shit whilst a cretin polishes a weapon behind me. And that, my friends, is not a euphemism. Gotta take the rough with the smooth I guess. Now excuse me whilst I embark on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein...it's gonna be a long week.

Mind Slurry

Urgh. Checked my bank balance last night. More overdrawn than I thought. Fuck sake. How the FUCK do I manage to spend so much money and have so little to show for it? It's not like I live in an episode of MTV Cribs or owt. So yeah, I'm horrendously overdrawn and my next wage will be swallowed up by the Black Hole of Barclays. Next month's gonna have to be excruciatingly lean if I'm to claw my way out of this bog. And by 'lean,' I mean 'fucking boring.' Because that's what it all boils down to really ain't it? We all (well, some of us) work, in an effort to earn money in order to live...but when it all boils down, modern life in a 'developed' country is all about the pursuit of entertainment...stimulation of the mind. And that's it.

It makes sense when you think about it - if you flout the rules of society and commit a crime, your punishment is the removal of all forms of stimuli, ie prison. Well, that's the theory, anyway - but most of the tabloids would have us all believe that 'lags' all live in fur-lined cells with four poster beds, solid gold Xboxes and enough cake and sweets to enable them to become disturbingly plump. No, what I'm getting at is that without money, it is hard to entertain oneself and ultimately the main goal in most people's lives is to find entertainment. So by overspending last month, next month will essentially be a form of prison for me...a massive, Butcher Bay-esque prison of long, quiet days and drawn out, mind-numbing evenings. Urgh, urgh, and thrice urgh. Spot the oxford comma, win cock all.

Apart from being eternally broke, there is another thing that really, really annoys me and I feel I must write about it here. It's blokes...talking about football. Now, I love football. Can't get enough of it. I love playing it, love watching it, love playing it on the computer...but talk about it?! I can't think of anything worse. As I write this, I can hear people talking about football. And it's sapping my will to breathe. It's just cliche after fucking cliche. A pale imitation of the kind of horse manure that tumbles from the lips of Garth Crookes or Alan Hansen during any edition of Match of the Day, only without the action replays. It really fucking winds me up, even more so when I'm roped into the conversation. I don't give a fuck about West Ham's game with Wolves. I don't give a fuck about Tevez. I don't give a fuck about fucking Liver-fucking-pool! AAAARGH! I'll happily sit there and watch a match...but please, don't try to talk to me about inane footy-related subjects...because I'm likely to slap you. Or fall asleep.

Got hold of the third book in the Takeshi Kovacs series a few weeks ago. It's called Woken Furies, but I've not started reading it yet because I can't be arsed. I think I only bought it because I've read the first two and the completest in me forced me to purchase it in order to silence some little part of my soul that would boil and burn in anguish forever if I didn't. Like one of those weird kids at school who had to have all of the Teeny Terrapins out of Kinder Eggs. Fucking Kinder Eggs. What a load of arse those things are. The suspense...the awe...the horrible 'foreign' chocolate followed by the life-altering depression that came crashing against your sense of self like a tsunami when you opened up the little plastic capsule to discover...a plastic molded hippo wearing a tutu and holding a harp (especially when all you wanted was one of those little cars with a flywheel inside). That, my friends, is the stuff of nightmares. Forget Tim Burton and his (well intentioned, but often poorly executed) bullshit - the Kinder Egg is pure, unrefined horror...that can be matched only by having to listen to blokes talk about football.

Noodle Snack My Bitch Up

What up, ma be-hatches? Cough. Seemed to have slipped out of my usual Queen's English for a moment there. Anywho, I thought it was about time I updated you, erm, be-hatches on what's been going on in the wonderful world of me. First up - I'm not moving. Which is a major relief, because according to some bullshit article/urban myth we've all undoubtedly heard of, moving is apparently the second most stressful 'thing' that can happen to you, after a family bereavement. I personally believe this to be a massive, steaming pile of sweetcorn riddled shit. To whit: when you move house or whatever, all you're doing is throwing your meagre possessions into a few boxes, transporting them to a new gaff, and then getting them out again. What's so fucking harrowing about that? Fair enough, it's a pain in the fucking arse - but second to a family bereavement? Have a word, sunshine. Here's a (non-exhaustive) list of things that are worse than moving house:

• Having Cilla Black sit on your face


• Knowing that you had a fiver in your pocket, reaching for it when you've got a load of ASDA Smart Price Noodle Snacks on the checkout, and then realising that you've lost said fiver.


• Waking up with a hangover and spew all over your duvet


• Having a shit job that you hate


• Living in a the squalor of a shanty town

Not that I've ever experienced the last point on the list, but I can guess that the notion of moving for someone who does (live in a shanty town), is far from the 2nd most grief-filled experience of their life. Especially if they're moving out of said shanty town. Into a big pink mansion. But I digress. I'm not moving. This is because after weighing it up, moving all the way back to my previous abode, what with it's freezing temperatures, basic kitchen facilities and complete lack of mobile phone signal, would be an adventure too hideous to bear. Furthermore, my landlord offered me the opportunity to keep my room, but pay vastly reduced weekly rent when I'm working (for a week at at a time) on the base. Can't say fairer than that, really. Furthermore, the nights at the house that were intended to be my last were actually a really good laugh with my housemates, so I rescind any previous comments I may have written here without justification. Consider me devouring an entire, family sized ASDA Smart Price humble pie.

On the subject of Smart Price, who the fuck decided this shit is 'smart'? Fair enough - the price is low enough, but 'smart'? I think not. Y'see, this month I overspent massively. And I mean massively. So with just over a week to go till payday, I found myself a fair way into my overdraft, and keen to avoid any further sinkage into the mire of debt, I cleverly decided to try and get to payday spending as little money as possible - something I'm sure we all do from time to time.

Cue a trip to ASDA, and a trolley full of green and white-labelled foodstuffs. At this point, I'd just like to point out that on a QWERTY keyboard, the letters A,S,D are all next to each other. Conspiracy? You decide. But going back to the point, I bought a butt-load of Smart Price stuff. And it's all fucking disgusting. Case in point: the 'Noodle Snack.' Now, I know it's only 20p a pot and I know that it's hardly going to be a luxury dish by it's very nature (it's dried noodles in a pot, for Christ's sake), but fuck me...the shit is barely edible once you've added the boiled water. The noodles themselves simply will not soften - no matter how long you leave the thing to stew...and the lack of any discernible flavour is...well...not really that surprising, to be honest. In retrospect, I suppose having to endure the tasteless sensation of an ASDA Smart Price Noodle Snack is my punishment for being too frivolous with my money. A rather fitting main meal to go with my dessert of humble pie. Hmmm.

Ass Clowns

Hello. Thought it was about time I updated this bastard again. It's been a few weeks. Not that much of note has appertained in said time-gulf. You know how I was bitchin' and whining about finding somewhere to live? And that I found somewhere? Well, today I gave my landlord notice that I'm moving back to the military establishment from whence I came. Sounds a bit retro-active, I know, but the reasons for this are two-, possibly three-fold.

Firstly, I'm hardly ever at the house. The weeks when I'm at work I stay at the base; the weeks I'm off I'm rarely at the house...and also I don't actually know anybody in the town where the house is situated so when I am there I'm bored off my fucking nut. Now, you may be thinking "you soft cunt...go out and meet people..." Have you ever tried to meet random people?! In a town where you know no-one? To say it's difficult is an understatement...especially when there is no common ground to fall on, as that twat who sang Breakfast at Tiffany's may once (or maybe twice) have said (sang). The other biggie for me kinda ties in to the other reasons for my desertion - the rent. I'm effectively renting a room out that I only stay in occasionally. When I think about this, it just seems fucking stupid. And finally...my house mates. There is nothing particularly menacing about any of them - in fact they're all perfectly decent people...it's just that they're a totally random bunch who never socialise together. Not really the kind of environment I was looking for when I set out to find a suitable abode. Ah well, we live and we learn. So yeah, I'm moving out. On the plus side, I'll have lots of money again, and I think one of the first things I'm gonna do is get one of those European train tickets and go for a little jaunt around our fair continent. See a bit of the place. I've not been to many places - namely Turkey, Holland and Sweden outside of the UK, but I really want to experience France, Germany, Italy etc.

Everyone needs a change of scenery every now and then, and I've been moping around sleepy rural England for far too long. It's fucking boring, is what I'm getting at. So, certainly within the next few months I expect to be updating this motherfucker from Paris or Rome. Well, that's the plan anyway.

In other news, I was involved in a bit of a fracas last week. It's all been dealt with though, so I have no worries about recounting the experience here. Here goes:

I went out for a few beers with some mates last week to 'celebrate' a birth. We went to a well-known chain pub and had several beverages. Afterwards, as is usually the case, a few of us decided that some food was in order, so we ventured out in serach of a chippy/olde worlde kebab shoppe. We found a suitable outlet and went inside to order our chosen grease and trans-fat laden delicacy, which arrived promptly and was, in hindsight, thoroughly delicious.

As we were all shoving horrendously tasty fast food into our gobs, the door swung open and in marched a 'jolly' fellow dressed up like a 50 Cent's younger, poorer cousin who then proceeded to aggressively enquire as to which one of us (we were the only 6 people in the shop) had spilt a drink on his shirt. Bemused, we all politely told him that he was mistaken and that he should take his line of enquiry elsewhere - especially as none of us had a fucking clue who the ass-clown was. 30 Cent (geddit?!) then approached one individual in the group and 'squared up' to him, repeatedly accusing him of spilling a drink on his shirt; before ripping said shirt off his back pushing his forehead into the face of his quarry. At this point I decided to step in and try to diffuse the situation, so I took 30 by the shoulder and escorted him to one side explaining that there was a mix-up, none of us had spilt our drinks on him and that he should probably just go home. He then shoved his forehead into my face, while simultaneously asking what I was going to do about it. Without going into too much detail, I then demonstrated what I was going to do about it and the following actions left him in the corner with a busted lip and nose.

At this point, two Policemen came barging through the door and gripped a hold of both of us...although when I explained what had happened, they let me go and took 30 Cent away for some 'questioning.' I've since spoken to a Policeman friend of mine, and he says that the other guy was in the wrong for head-butting me and that I was technically acting in self defence. Whoever was in the right or wrong is irrelevant...the fact is that that guy came into that chip shop with every intention of starting a fight - and he got his just desserts.

Moving on, by FAR the most annoying thing that's happened since my last blog here is the malfunction of my Nintendo DS. Well, it's less of a malfunction, more of a fault that developed literally overnight - I turned it on the other morning to play a bit of FIFA 10, only to discover that the top screen had spunked several blue vertical lines all over the middle of itself. I can still play it perfectly well, but said lines are a little distracting...and they simply were not there the last time I put the thing down. I've looked into replacing the screen myself with a DIY screen replacement kit you can get off ebay, but I've decided that it'd probably be wiser (if not a little more costly) to get Nintendo to do it for me. I'm good with a screwdriver, but I'm convinced I'll just end up breaking it - so I've filled out a fault report on their website and they've sent me a little freepost sticker thing to send the console to them for repair. Which is nice. Still probably gonna cost the best part of £50 to mend it though. Fuck it...travel comes first.

A Pinch of Salt

Well, it's my birthday. Yep - 28 years ago today (at 5.30 PM, to be precise), I was dragged from the warmth and comfort of my mum's womb into this disgusting reality. I can vividly remember lying in my bed while I was still at school (after the school day had finished, obviously) and wondering what I'd be doing in 10 or 20 years. If I'd known then what lay in store for me (various massive family bust-ups, nights sleeping rough, a bullshit University course that has given me nothing but hideous debt, and the eventual downward slide through the gutter of office temping and into a pointless role in Her Majesty's Royal Navy), I'd have probably have just drank a bottle of weed killer and be done with it. Or ran away to join the Texas Rangers like Lard Ass did in the alternative, Teddy Duchamp ending to Geordie Lachance's campfire tale in Stand By Me.

It's not all bad though - I've finally found out just what the hell is going on with my knee. I went to see a physio on Tuesday, and I have to admit that the cynic in me had actually already completely devoured the rest of my personality before I'd even entered the surgery. I was determined that I'd just be made to do a few star jumps and told to fuck off. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the actual session that ensued. The physio asked me to detail how the injury had come about, how long ago, what it felt like etc and then did a proper examination of my legs, range of movement and strength...before coming to the conclusion that I have fucked up my knee by having weak ass muscles. Which is nice. So now I've got a programme of leg exercises to do, and with any luck I should be out running again in the next few months. Happy days.

I've also found a rather nice little trinket in the local Pound Shop. It's a little opaque-white ball that you can put on a shelf (or anywhere else you may want) that lights up when you turn it on via the little switch underneath. Only it doesn't just light up...it cycles through all the wondrous colours of the rainbow! It's a pointless little contraption, but for a single pound - a QUID - I thought it was rather marvellous. I use it as a little night light thing next to my bed, and with the big light off it casts lovely pastel hues across the walls. A bit gay, yes, but soothing...and it COST A FUCKING QUID! What else can you buy for a quid nowadays. Not a fucking lot, I'll tell you. In some newsagents, a can of Pepsi Max costs a quid these days. I remember when a can of pop was 30p - I shit you not, there was a can machine in our school that dispensed ice-cold cans of Sunkist and The Official Alton Towers Nemesis Drink (that tasted of Sambuca mixed with 18 bags of sugar and turned your tongue black) for thirty New Pence. Ah, halcyon days of yore.

This post isn't really going anywhere to be honest, I'm just rambling for my own enjoyment. And there's not a fucking thing you can do about it! Well, there is - you could just go back to reading Wikipedia or adding random fit birds to your 'friends' on Facebook - but where's the fun in that?! Remember my Palm Pre? It's going from strength to strength you know. It updated itself to WebOS 1.4 the other day, and this new software edition has added a few cool new things to the phone. Cool things that you'd already get on other phones, granted (video recording, more stable OS etc), but cool nonetheless. I even got Need For Speed Undercover to download onto it for free the other day. You should see the graphics - it sounds like I'm taking the piss, but they're better than owt I've ever seen on the PSP. Madness ain't it!

Regardless of the above though, it's still my birthday and I still can't go and get bollocksed because I'm at work. Never mind, I'll make up for it next week by necking a bottle of vodka and walking in front of a bus.

Friday Fun

Well, here we are then. I'm back at work. I call it work, but in reality it's nothing more physically taxing than sitting at a desk for 12 hours a night. Sitting on your ass for 12 hours straight can get a little tiresome after the 3rd shift of the week, but I shouldn't really complain. I could be sat at a desk in some sandy warzone somewhere, but I'm not (yet) so it's cool. One thing that ain't so cool is the fact that I have managed to fuck my other, 'good' leg up. I have already documented the trouble I have been having with my right knee (I have officially been diagnosed as having iliotibial band syndrome now, rather than just speculating), but now I've managed to injure my left leg too though idiocy. It's only a matter of time before I'm in a wheelchair - mark my words. How did I do it? Here:

On Thursday I felt like it was about time I tried going for an actual run as my leg didn't feel too bad. I smothered my knee in Ibuprofen cream and set off. About three miles in, I passed a leisure centre that I previously didn't know existed (I've moved to an area I'm not overly familiar with). After my run (and with my knee not feeling too bad), I called the leisure centre and booked an induction for the following day. For some fucking retarded reason, the only induction time they had was at 6.30pm. Why? Why couldn't they have just organised one for the morning or something? There was no point in arguing, so I just accepted it.

6.00 on Friday finally rolled around, so I cycled down to the leisure centre for the induction. It was as I entered the car park that I realised I'd forgotten my fucking wallet - the wallet that contained the £10 with which I was going to pay for the induction. I was particularly annoyed because for some fucking stupid reason, I'd still remembered to pick up my driving licence and bank card...but not the wallet. When I went up to the receptionist in the gym and told her what I'd done, she went off to ask if I could pay by card. This fucking knob of a gym instructor appeared from nowhere and marched over to the reception desk with a face like thunder. "Is there a problem?" he barked at me. I told him what I'd done and he just stood there with a vein popping out of his forehead. "You can't pay by card" came his reply, and just walked back off into the office. Fucking ignorant cunt.

At that point, I was happy to just sack the induction off and go home - since when do you talk to paying customers like that? I'm not some mincing soft-arse, you understand, but you expect some kind of politeness when you are trying to spend money somewhere - be it a pub, shop or a gym. As you can imagine, I wasn't overly impressed with this cock's customer service skills. I went back outside and got on my bike, ready to cycle back to my gaff, but then I remembered that I'd passed a Tesco on the way down and that it had had a cashpoint. So off I set, to get a tenner out from Tesco and then come back for my induction with the roid-rage ignorant wank-stain gym instructor. Why? Because I'm a fucking prick, that's why.

Anyway, I was riding along the pavement, doing a fair old speed on my trusty Carrera Subway when I decided to turn onto the road. I turned, fairly sharply, not noticing that the path was covered in mud in the fading light, and the front wheel just went from under me. The bike slid one way, I went the other and I came to rest on my back several feet away from the bike with my legs on the road and my head cracked against the pavement. My hand was cut open and my knee, thigh and ankle had the skin scraped off. Then a car went past and had the fucking cheek to beep at me as I lay there like a tosspost half on the road. What a wanker. I got up and went to Tesco, got the money and still went back for my induction (that was actually conducted by a different instructor), but my leg was killing me, and I was covered in blood so I just did a quick weights work out and fucked off home. Also, I didn't actually join the leisure centre because the gym itself was pathetically small and all the equipment looked like it'd come out of the dark ages. In a word, it was shit. So basically I threw away a tenner, got spoken to like a cunt and fell off my bike. All on a Friday night. Woop.