...and then two come at once! Not quite a poem, not quite a story.

The Word and He Who Spoke It.

There was once a man, cunning as he was evil

Blessed by the darkness and singed by the light

He united the men and enslaved the women

The virtues of the land were accredited to his love

The pain and toil, his disfavour,

The blame all yours.

He sat atop the tower of clouds

With a foundation of bones

Upon the mountain of madness.

They followed his will,

Lived by his morals, for fear of damnation

Crushed under foot

His standard looming over every town

His image in every room

Servitude measured in fear

To love another was to hate him

He gave your face its smile

Your cheeks were blessed with his tears

The fathers would beat their daughters

To the rhythm of his heartbeat

And the mothers scald their sons with his tongue

His footsteps echoed doom,

While his name rhymed with thirst

The fingers of his empire raped the land

And flexed their grasp

Day by day, year by year.

Driven by his armies of ‘Maybes’ and ‘One days’.

All marching to The Word.

The Word uttered with a sneer and wink

From the crack lips of our tyrant king

And The Word,

was ‘love’.

Mattalogue; Promises, Goals and Curiously Strong Mints

Well, well, well dear reader. I am infact alive. I know I’ve not made an entry on this infernal thing for a good while, but I’ve been busy.

Was that an effective lie? I’ve been trying them out lately. Y’know the kind of situation, where you’re all civil and nice to someone, but inside you’re secretly screaming obscenities at them and their mother. That kind of lie.

Anyway, lifes been rather strange lately, don’t get me wrong. It’s been good, but just, very very strange. But to say any more on the matter in such a public place would be ‘controversial’.

Christmas was rather impressive for me this time around, not only did I receive a box of Marks and Spencers ‘Curiously strong mints’ (the ‘curiously’ in the title makes me think they’re alluding to some mysterious ingredient, more than likely poor people), the new COD game (the unwrapping of which heralded me waving goodbye to sunlight and social interaction) and perhaps most importantly. A Kindle. Within hours I’d bonded with him and his pretty E-ink face and I named him Kevin Sorbo…after the well known Hercules/reading/technology connection.

Anyway, New Year, New Matt. So the annual tradition of setting aside goals and breaking them all by the 2^nd of January begins. Seeing as such goals will no doubt be broken I might as well post them here.

1. Lose the weight. - Cause seriously, no man needs this many spare tires

2. Get one of these ‘job’ things. - Despite my vast disinterest in the thing, apparently money is necessary to live.

3. Get a haircut.- Save money on shampoo

4. Keep that special person happy. - I hope to keep this goal going at least.

5. Write down stuff! – Maybe even have Land of the Poisoned Skies half done by this time next year. Maybe fully done, uni permitting.

6. Pass Uni again- So far there have been no great victories, only small defeats.

7. Be a nicer person – Something everyone could work towards. Well, except you of course.

8. Make use of Kevin Sorbo and read more- No point trying to be a writer if you only read books with pop-up flaps.

Anyway, before I sign off, I wrote a full three chapters of my ‘project’ yesterday. I was quite impressed, till I realised they were from Book 2 (Filling The Void), not Book 1. But hey, whoever did things chronologically?

I’m off to shoot Asian people in the face now. Toodles!

Mattalogue; Living the Xbox Live 'Life'.

A couple of weeks ago I waved goodbye to the greatest thing that happened to me since left handed can openers. No it wasn’t my collection of classic sitcoms, rather a certain someone sodded off the Italy for a month to teach kids how to swear in English. Half way there and I’m still experiencing withdrawal symptoms, it’s quite jarring talking to someone nearly every day for 8 months then suddenly stopping. Like suddenly becoming deaf the day before a new Maiden albums out.

So what did I do the day after she departed for the great boot shaped former empire? Blub uncontrollably? Sit in the dark covered in Vaseline while looking at pictures of her? Write a whingey blog/poem/story?

Nope!

In fact I did something rather more telling and nerdilicious. I got Xbox Live.

Yes that’s right, I finally bowed to the ‘man’ and paid money to unlock something already installed. Although that’s par for the course with an Xbox. If you so much as want to change your name it’ll cost you, then as soon as you press the ‘confirm’ button, hey presto! There it is! Normally I don’t like laying into Bill Gates, it’s the equivalent of shooting the morbidly obese kid at paintball. Anyone can do it and joining in leaves me devoid of ammo for the less obvious targets. Like a passing Ant McPartlin –if you’re too young…look it up- or that guy who’s allergic to paint. Not that I'm bashing the Xbox itself. It has games! It's just been her first anniversary as my official play thing, maybe we can squeeze another 12 months in before she gets a red ring.

But anyway! On with the story, my first xbox live experience took place on none other than Red Dead Redemption. If you’re one of the 2 people who doesn’t have it (the other being the blind kid…he tripped up and fell down a mineshaft) then I highly recommend it for the single player alone. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll rage at the half thought out Scrappy character you play in the end.

So there I was, in the vast expanse of the American west with nothing on my side but a donkey and a pistol you couldn’t kill a rabbit with. For the first few times I played, I totally avoided other people. It appears that even on Xbox Live I’m an anti-social smegger. Whenever someone came towards me or invited me to join their ‘posse’ I would scarper away, my donkey placed firmly between my legs. Of course, anti-social tendencies didn’t prevent me from making a couple of enemies.

I was casually minding my own business, taking pot shots at two gangs beefing it out over a ‘Zebra-Donkey’. Don’t bore me with the biological impossibilities. All you need to know is it’s awesome. So naturally, while the two sides were duking it out, I snuck up and stole the donkey. Big mistake.

One person seemed to take offense to this, and spent the rest of the session chasing me down with their ridiculously over powered arsenal. Taking back the ‘Zebra Donkey’ didn’t seem to be enough for them. Like Richard Kimble I was hunted down across the United States, and this person was Tommy Leet J0nez. Eventually the chase ended the only way it could. By me pressing ‘quit’ and making myself a cup of tea.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. If someone has marked themselves as an ‘Underground’ gamer…get the hell out of there because they WILL be a douche. I really want to try out COD fer 2 on Live too, however I'm slightly intimidated by the fact that people use mics in the game. I find there to be something quite creepy about shooting virtual people in the face, then hearing the voice of a nine year old telling me to "get out of [his] town" or just opting for a frustrated banshee screech.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to returning to Uni. I’m pretty sure I’ve done more work this summer than I ever did last year. But hey, next years gonna be different. The grades actually matter. Which means I’m much more likely to fail. Oh and the small matter of that special person returning. I should probably bathe.

Mattalogue; Summer, Elephants and Green Buttocks.

Summer! The season of music festivals, BBQ’s, 90 minute movies with 88 minutes of explosions and 2 of gratuitous cleavage shots and of course shirtless men. It’s an oft’ referenced cliché of us Brits, if the sun makes an appearance for more than a minute you’ll find us all outside. Leaving nothing to the imagination, pale spare tyres squeezing themselves out of tight tracksuit bottoms. Desperate for their fix of UV.

I’ve never found tans that appealing myself, which is irritating because I always wind up with one, even when I didn’t want to. No, especially when I didn’t want to. I’ll never forget when I came back from my Christmas Holiday in South Africa, people at school were amazed (and perhaps just a little bit jealous) that I had a wonderful golden tan in January. I say ‘wonderful’ it stopped quite abruptly just above my elbows and just below the knees. But I’m pretty sure they have to as part of a British law.

Currently I’m in the town that time forget once more, doing errands for relatives. My Grandmother likes to think she’s the matriarch of the family, the alpha female elephant. Strong, intimidating and with unquestionable leading skills. However in this plane of existence we call ‘reality’ she is in fact more like the Tick attached to the aforementioned elephants nipple. Perhaps the best description of her is “Hyacinth Bucket with cataracts”.

I’d say the customary “but I digress” around about now, except I don’t really have anything to digress from. Life at the moment is great, I have a loving family, a great girlfriend, equally fantastic friends (never let it be said I’ll not include them now I’m ‘in a relationship, I’m not that pathetic) food in the cupboard and most importantly…24 hour internet access.

I’m only one step away from perfection in my life right now; air conditioning in every room of this damn sweat box of a house. If I didn’t know any better I’d say Satan himself was taking a summer break in the foundations of the house. Oh wait, make that a possible two steps away from perfection – it’s not natural for your buttocks to glow green under low lighting is it? Not that mine do…just a friend of a friend was asking y’see.

Mattalogue; All Change, Except For The Underwear Department

So as a handful of people have pointed out to me over the past couple of weeks, it’s been awhile since I updated this thing. And believe me, it’s not from lack of trying. There have been at least 5 attempts at applying the shocky-paddles of life to the heart of this blog. Each with varying levels of failure.

But since the last post things have changed, alot.

Firstly the major change is I’m no longer a ‘singleton’ as I have been irritatingly referred to in the recent past. Yes that’s right, I’ve found someone crazy enough to want to call me their boyfriend. But all self deprecation aside, things are going well and I feel like the luckiest man on earth.

Another thing that's changed is that I'm now typing this on a shiny working laptop. That's right...Reggie is -much like the career of Jim Davidson- dead in a tatty bag. It was a fitting end for a piece of technology who bought nothing but frustration and third degree burns. So yes you guessed it, his death involved...much frustration and third degree burns. He also took my pictures/songs with him. May he rot in Silicon Hell. The bastard.

The final piece of change in my eventful life is that I've finally left our temporary residence for a year. Floffle Quash. Rather tellingly a house named after a random assortment of letters seen on the back of a Chav-mobile wasn't the easiest to live in. Sure downstairs prison toilet (so named because it had a lock on the OUTSIDE) exploded and flooded a good portion of the house. And okay, maybe most of the rooms had a unique 'mouldy' décor to them. But it was still my home for many months and I feel rather empty knowing I can't go back without getting a court order.

It was hard leaving that place behind, so many memories formed over the course of a year. And the male bonding, oh, the male bonding. 40 minutes spent batting a balloon around one of the bedrooms in a little triangle. These truly were the hardcore-raving-Vikingesque nights I'd heard tale of before coming to University.

Another odd thing about our house was the 'spot of doom' situated just behind the T.V.. A black mark on the wall which grew as time went on. Unlike its suspiciously similar brother on one of the latest episodes of Doctor Who it hasn't nearly killed James Corden. But I'm still willing to give a try. Go on James, touch it. It'll be funny...'cause you're fat.

That's all for now I believe, I'm sure you were waiting with bated breath for quite awhile for such a riveting update on my life. Now that I've moved out I officially consider this time 'the summer holidays' what thrills and spills will I encounter during this long period of rest? Sunburn? Anger at the o.t.t. displays of jingoism while the World Cup goes along? Getting a job? Stay tuned for more exciting adventures!

Mattalogue; Delving into the Land of the Poisoned Skies

So after a real world shake up, I've decided to dedicate my free time to writing the first in my End of the Road 'series'; Land of the Poisoned Skies.

It's gonna be tough, mostly because I'm easily distracted at the moment (oh the problems of writing on an internet enabled laptop) and I'm starting to wonder if I've made the plot too dense. Especially considering it's my first venture into the world of non-short story writing. Though it could be worse, the fifth in the 'series' -Revelations- deals with the end of the world from the perspective of the two men that cause it (not to mention other side characters). One of them the Machiavellian head of state in an foreign country and the other a self destructive assassin. Which in turn is actually a flash back by the assassin as he lies recovering in a bed in Botswana and begins to realise he's not safe even in the middle of nowhere. I don't think I'll be seen for several months.

Of course, thanks to my usual brand of pessimism (which has been reinforced, hard) I don't think this is going well. After all, I started work on the first chapter -entitled The Great, Unwanted Gift for the moment- and immediately decided that such a manoeuvre was worthy of my first non-emo blog post in awhile.

Anyway, on a heavier note 2010 seems to be a cursed year for the Metal genre. If we consider the final days of 2009 as a part of this year we've had; The Rev (who unfortunately is from a band which is a fave source of hatedom of so called 'metal-heads', despite the fact that most of the metalbands they worship adore them), Peter Steele, Ronnie James Dio and now Paul Gray pass on. All of which were very talented individuals who brought alot -and in some cases everything- to their respective bands. Especially Mr Dio.

I'm sure most guitar players are shitting themselves right now.

And if you don't agree with me, you sir, are a Fallout Boy fan!

Mattalogue: The Trio of (impending) Fail

So over the past few weeks and blog posts I’ve grown more and more confident with letting people see my ‘stuff’. After all, it’s not used to seeing the light of day or the eyes of people I’ve not paid off to compliment it. At first I thought they’d laugh and judge me, maybe even call me names behind my back.

But innuendos aside, I’m not entirely sure why I’m feeling more confident, if anything the quality of my writing has gone down during these past few months. Perhaps it’s the anonymity of being able to fling my ‘work’ up here and then duck and cover. Maybe it’s the fact that only a handful of people actually read what I put up. Who knows?

Tonight is my last night in Leigh for the foreseeable future. Which is probably why I’m feeling generous and willing to divulge some ‘character info’ from my ‘project’. The previous sentence is perhaps further proof how un-confident I actually am, whenever referring to my ‘work’ I always find myself using ‘’. See? There I went again! Perhaps it’s an attempt to distance myself from what I’m writing just in case people suspect I’m crazy/shit.

But what is this thing your working on? I hear one person ask.

Well, in as broad a sense as possible, it is about the end of our world as we know it (and I feel fine…sorry) from 3 very different perspectives. That of a normal person in highly unordinary circumstances, a sociopathic nihilistic clone and a human hating Dinosaur who’s only in it for revenge.

Wow…I managed to sum up something I’ve been working on for almost a decade in just one paragraph. I’m more surprised than that time I found myself doing a stupid cutaway gag ala anything ever done by Seth MacFarlane.

But onwards! So that’s a brief summary of the lead characters Nathan (everyman/boy) Dephchare (clone/subject of Vicarious Student post awhile back) and Stryka (racist Dinosaur). Of course, there are a few more characters than that. For example, there is the policeman Samuel Carmilie who fills the spot of the only sane man, until of course, he actually goes insane. There’s also the shallow designated love interest who makes Edward Cullen seem like a well rounded likeable character. But don’t worry, it’s intentional.

I’m going to have to admit here and now, I’m quite proud of Dephchare and Stryka. They are two of my most prized creations. Dephchare represents that dark side of humanity, the ruthless ‘kill or be killed’ spirit held within every real life psychopath or businessman, taken to its extreme and drenched in grotesque charm. Stryka on the other hand is much harder for me to explain in just one blog post. Not that I’m giving the characters or myself more credit than they’re due, but it’s quite hard to explain the history of a 700 year old non-human in just a few sentences.

Oh and there is also an unspeakable abomination inspired by experimentation with sleep deprivation, strong cheese and my own mental instability, which takes the form of The Harbinger.

And all this is just in the first instalment! You lucky, lucky folks! So basically this entire post has been an attention whoring attempt to garner your interest when I eventually decide to make some headway on the first of my End of the Road project. Tentatively entitled Land of the Poisoned Skies.

Till next time! Adios!

Extract; No Place Like Home

“Look at the hill on the horizon” Nathan said, tired of giving exposition “I’d point, but…y’know” he raised his hands to point out to Vaughan that he was still handcuffed, in the vain hope that he’d be freed. “Okay, I’m looking” Vaughan growled, his eyes barely focused on the mound that lay a mile ahead of them. Its surface was of a bare black soil and a few trees dotted the perfectly flat peak. He saw nothing else, save the grey sky which stretched far beyond the hill. “You’d better not be fucking with us” he snapped, while in his pocket he reached for the small device designed to activate the shock collar. He also gave a subtle raise of the eyebrow to Carmilie, telling him to be prepared.

“No sir” Nathan replied, trying his best not to stutter and betray his nervousness. He coughed and tried to regain his composure, “now, look back at me” he continued. Irritated, Vaughan turned his gaze back to his prisoner, he fantasized about clubbing him to death right now, no one had to know. The shame and terror of a nation could die right now, in the middle of nowhere. In a pool of his own blood, unable to defend himself. Karma. But instead protocol beckoned.

“I’m going to tell you something, and you need to listen very carefully” Nathan’s voice was barely a whisper above the rustling of the long grass which waved at them from their left, while the stagnant pond to their right did nothing but offend their nostrils with its various smells. “On top of that hill is a large Naval Camp from the forties”

Vaughan smacked Nathan across the face with his shock remote, “don’t waste my fucking time boy!” he spat as his victim fell to the floor. Dust flew up around them as Nathan hit the ground. “Sir! Sir!” he heard Mr Carmilie’s voice ring out above the throbbing in his head and the pain in his chest as Vaughan kicked him in the ribs. His aggressors body eclipsed the sun as he stood over him. Suddenly the kicking stopped as Vaughan was pulled away from Nathan. “Look sir!” he could hear Mr Carmilie shouting, but his head was ringing too much for him to care. He just wanted to lie in the dust and await his execution.

Vaughan was about to reprimand his underling the second he’d placed his hands on Vaughan’s usually immaculate suit and forcibly turned him to face the hill. It was then that he saw it. Sticking high above the tree-line on the aforementioned hill. It was a series of large buildings including what looked like a red brick tower. Even from that distance he could make out the corrugated iron roof, it was semi-circular like a small-scale aircraft hangar.

“There’s no way that was there before” Vaughan spluttered to Carmilie. Nathan pulled himself into an upright position and smirked at the two men’s faces, both wide-eyed and the perfect picture of Hippos at feeding time. He saw the familiar shape of HMS Gosling through the trees and a shiver rocketed up his spine. He knew what lay in the decrepit building, the horror he was about to unleash on Mr Vaughan and Mr Carmilie, deep down he felt it would be retribution.

Mattalogue; Back to the Dark Ages

So a few weeks back our Washing Machine did the dishonourable thing and killed itself right in the middle of washing my favourite shirts. Luckily no one was harmed. Sadly enough, rather than going out like a warrior, in a hail of explosions, blood and bullets, it did the deed a different way. Like a middle class Emo kid whose mother had just refused to buy him a box of his favourite brand of cereal. It simply locked itself and drowned in its own lumpy grey bile.

It was because of this and one other unspoken reason that I decided “fuck it…time to go home”, so I hopped in my time machine, set the dial to 1392 and went to Leigh.

Now, some people don't believe me and my fellow escapees what this genetic cul-de-sac really is like. I've always maintained that if the world were to ever need an enema, Wigan would be the place to insert it. With that in mind, Leigh is the piles of the arse hole of the British Isles. It's so insignificant that it's not even the main subject of a metaphor describing it.

Of course, I don't blame the town, its done well with what it's had (i.e. nothing), constantly robbed of resources and credit by its neighbouring overlords, the pie eaters. We do try though...every so often we're able to gather enough dry wood (mostly stolen from Astley) and construct a giant Wickerman with which to burn a virgin (mostly stolen from Astley) to appease the Gods of the borough council.

Occasionally they give us shiny new benches for our 'parks'. I say 'parks', they're really just Dogging facilities.

It's quite an interesting town, considering there is less facial variation than a PSone game. Which is why I've set 2/6 of my 'project' in this lovely little hovel. After all, where better place for a sociopathic clone and racist Dinosaur to have their first contact with modern day society than this place? Of course, by the time the narrative leaves the town it is some how even worse but that's for another blog post.

I'm spending the next few days in my Grandparents old house, a rather spacious terrace which commands lovely views of the Marsh Playing Field (or as the Wigan town council wanted it to be known, the Marsh Playing Car Park) and the Pataks Curry factory.

Although I complain, I quite enjoy my days in this house, its been in the family for nigh on a hundred years so I always manage to find new and interesting items which have been stowed away in a dusty drawer or plonked precariously on a bookshelf. Before I started Uni I actually found "Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley". Of course, I realise that reference is probably lost on most people my age, but still. I had a massive fan/nerdgasm.

I'm currently looking out the window and amazed at how nice a day it is, the sun glinting off the corrugated roof of Pataks and ASDA is almost blinding at certain times of day.

As I mentioned earlier, 2 parts of my 'project' (namely, Land/World of the Poisoned Skies and Filling the Void) are set here, which is why I'm planning on spending at least one day wandering the town looking for decent events/places to note down and use. That's the upside of being in this town, never a dull moment.

I should probably leave it at this for now, I can see they've almost finished the legs of the Wickerman. Soon I'll be called up for a raiding party into Astley, better don my horned helmet and box of eggs.

A Disturbingly 'Emo' Post

What is worse than a nightmare?

I can think of only two things;

A good memory forever tainted by the bad times that followed it and the knowledge that you can never have it back.

And the other, is not a memory at all. It is the rampant paths your mind can go down when your all alone. The way you can sit in the dark and torture yourself with all the "what if"'s and "what could have been". The way you can break your own heart just thinking of a rival for that special someones affections. Or the person thats already won them, imagine what that special person thinks of you...and then your 'rival'. Go on, be stupid.

No one can inflict pain on you like yourself. They say the old mantra; "sticks and stones break my bones, but words will never hurt me" to little children when they are victims of bullying. Of course as you get older you realise the truth. Breaking bones hurts, but only for a short amount of time, then where the bone reheals and it is stronger than ever. On the other hand, words infect and fester. They linger like a dormant disease in the system, quietly taking you down from within.

I'm trying to get away from this sort of thinking, I'm trying to instigate change within myself. Become something better and more positive, perhaps even likeable. How is it going so far? I don't hear you asking. I'm exactly the same, but with shorter hair.

A Late Night Sleep Deprived Rambling

Everytime I step back and take a look at my life I feel like I’m standing on a precipice. Something important is always ‘destined’ to happen after I’ve taken those 5 minutes out to criticise myself. I’ll get a haircut, go on a diet, job seek, knuckle down, work on End of the Road or maybe even get a shower.

But I never change.

I’ve looked back at my life in the past decade, I’ve barely changed. Same puppy fat, same dimples, same chins, same untameable hair. Even the same irritating voice, I thought puberty was gonna take care of that! Then I look forward and see…tumbleweed, obscured by a veil of uncertainty, being played out on a stage made out of soggy tissue paper.

I’ve been in love twice, once with an Angel, and once with a Devil. At one point the two even coincided. The smart me would’ve ignored the Devil completely. But if I was smart I wouldn’t be human. Love is certainly powerful emotion, and I don’t mean that in the Disney sense of the term. It can bring great happiness, yet also tear you apart. You can believe the songs, and swallow the ending of Spiderman 3, which tell you love is at it’s most powerful when shared between two people. They’re wrong. Love is at its most powerful when it’s ignored. Unrequited. Spurned.

That’s when love starts getting ugly.

I’ve survived a lot. A lot has moulded me into the misshapen beast currently mashing this into the keyboard today. People aren’t born with damaged personalities. They are earned. Like gold stars in Infant School. And by Jeebus have I earned mine.

And so it is with a heavy sense of irony I’ve come to realised that the final nail in the coffin is not the pursing of lips or the swaying of hips. Not even broken promises or the twisting of knives. It’s something much more insidious…

I’ve been in a weird frame of mind recently. I’ve felt like a detective piecing together the evidence for his greatest case, which has led me to over analyse anything to cross my path. Why? I’m not too sure. This too is a part of the mystery.

An example would be a house on the way to my life. Every time I pass it I see the same window. It’s small. Way too small to serve any real purpose and it looks as though it’s not been cleaned in the past millennium. And yet no matter what time of day, be it dinner time or half two in the morning, the curtain is always open. It has intrigued me for the past month. What is the sweet old lady who lives there keep in that room? Why doesn’t she clean the window or draw the curtains?

But I digress.

I’ve been skating around this encroaching issue like a large piece of lint circling the drain. It’s a habit I’ve got, which I’m slowly turning into an artform. Maybe I should become a politician.

All material contained within this clog is produced from the mind of a sleep deprived fool who has no idea what he's talking about. If you find any offence/disturbance/unease in this piece...write an angry letter and send it to whoever our latest Overlord is to be.

Election Special; cut off in its stride

So todays election day, not that I needed to tell you that. You'd have to be living with Bin Laden to NOT know that. And even he's quite up to date, unfortunately I guess his only source of information is discarded issues of The Daily Mail, which is probably why he's not attacked us in awhile. He thinks we're over run by 'johnny foreigner' and we're all gonna get cancer in a years time anyway for having pentops/metal pipes/owning something made in China. But I digress.

So yeah, up till this year I've made a point of not talking about politics, it's always guranteed to spark ugly arguements, because you see, this comes as a surprise to some people but...we don't all have the same opinion. This is why three things should never be discussed in polite company; politics, religion and Stephen Hawking vs Christopher Reeve.

By the time you're reading this we'll have probably ushered in our new overlord anyway. Hopefully. Although there's been alot of talk of hanging parliament if they don't get enough votes, or something like that.

I -like most people that don't have peerage- am praying to Buddah, Allah and Eamon Holmes that the Tories don't get in. Unlike most people I don't have a grudge against David Cameron, he's good at what he does. Mostly.

Anyway, I'm being forced to go now, so I must cut this thing in half, my dear Wife is telling me it's time to watch House. Hopefully tomorrow we wont all be sent to the Gulag. And if you disagree with me you're probably a southern facist who uses Kittens as slippers.

The Vicarious Student (character monologue; intertwined with pathetic 'teasers')

I’ve seen you all, marching from A to B. Automation turns you into human beings. I hope I never gain that honour. I’ve watched for a long time now, well, it feels like a long time. Just 16 years. All my life. Watching.

I see through the eyes of a boy I’ve never met. Yet manage to see the same world in ways he’s never dreamt of. He’s too busy ‘living his life’ to see what I see. He sees his world. I see the world. All the corruption, disease, you’re like adults confined to nappies. Wallowing in your own shit, waiting for someone or something to come along and change you. There’s no point, you’ll only fill up the next one. And continue Filling the Void of your lives with whatever shit you can grab and taint.

I’m a stranger in my own skin, I don’t know myself, yet know this boy. My host. The one whose privacy I invade all day everyday doesn’t even know I exist. Fuck, even I didn’t know I existed till I was 5. Imagine my face when I woke up and found out all my life was a dream, someone else’s dream at that. I’d imagine it too, if I even knew what it looked like. They don’t have any mirrors up here. ‘They’…I’m not in the mood to address them by their real title. My creators, my captors. The only beings I’ve met face to face, the ones that convinced me there’s Something to Fight For. They want to send me to this nightmare world, your Land of Poisoned Skies.

Imagine the Revelations that the woman you knew as “mummy” and the shadow you knew as “daddy” were not even aware of your existence. Every memory is a lie, my first birthday, that was someone else’s candle I blew out…with someone else’s breath.

By thinking these thoughts have I started Crossing the Rubicon of my own destruction? Or the ascension above and beyond what they know?

Lies built on lies, enriched by my contempt for all of you. Will I have my revenge? Or will I just play your one sided games? I honestly don’t know. Too many treat me like a pawn, they don’t realise that in their desire to prove their power, they made me their equal.

Destroy me. I dare you. Label me a mistake, a skippable footnote. And with that move you’ll brand yourselves failures. And me a Martyr.

The Coach Trip into Hell (Extract)

For several days the Southern Uplands of Scotland had been mostly silent. Only the sound of the wind battering the heather, and the rain assaulting everything on the ground had disturbed the post pillaging serenity. Amongst the foliage the only native vertebrate for 10 miles scurried around, desperate for food. A lone brown mouse, twitching and snuffling her way down a hillside. It was amazing she had survived for as long as she had. Her acute smell picked up a scent, across the road was a packet of crisps. Her brain told her legs to make the dash for it. She could make it, sustenance, the first whiff of which she’d had in days.

Swiftly she darted down the remainder of the hillside and across the tarmac. She was halfway there when the bus crunched her into oblivion. The driver didn’t even feel a bump. Though in all fairness to the ex-mouses’ existence –and somewhat pitiful end- he wasn’t feeling much at that moment in time. He had spent the past 12 hours driving a group of heckling teenagers from Disney Land Steinkjer. The closest thing he’d had to a rest on the trip was the 4 hour ferry crossing from Norway to the Scottish coast. And then he’d been cleaning sick from the coach. All while holding back his own tidal wave of vomit.

The only mercies that had been granted to him during this trip had arrived during their return journey through Scotland. When they’d arrived at the tiny ferry port there had been no bureaucratic officers demanding he show them papers proving his and the accordion buses existence. In fact there had been no one there at all. Something which he’d been thankful for. The 15 cans of Norwegian Lager weren’t well hidden in the luggage hold. Yup, George Wilkins certainly had gone up in the world now he wasn’t working for ‘Tim Sloanes Buses’. In a bid to escape congesting traffic he had taken the bus through the hills. It gave him something pretty to look at (that wasn’t on the page of a glossy magazine). He was certain that during their two hour journey through the Scottish countryside they hadn’t seen a soul. Not even a solitary tractor hogging the road and spraying his windscreen with cow excrement. If he had been fully awake, this information could have saved his life.

Over the Counter Optimism

Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment, or maybe there’s some sort of order to it all. Like I’m some sort of magnet for bad vibes. Either way it’s getting mildly annoying. I appear to be the sort of guy who would attempt the world record for building a house of cards, only for someone to steal one of the bottom cards as I’m working on the top row. Presumably they just want to play a game of hypothetical Snap, and don’t even realise I’m trying to build something of importance. Of course, the house of cards is only important to me. No one else bats an eye lid, they’d probably be more interested in Jordon’s exploding tits. Although I believe the PC term for her nowadays is ‘Katie Price’, cos, y’know, people who made their name shagging around and flashing their under carriage to anyone who’d so much as offer her a hamburger deserve a ‘professional’ name.

But I digress.

This year I’ve been put on this new prescription, it’s called Optimism. I take two tablets a day and feel cheery for up to twenty minutes. The side effects are usually mild; casual vomiting and odd feelings of immaturity occur, at the worst. Unfortunately I think my Doctors started to water down the medicine so that there’s more to go around (damn you socialised healthcare!). Either that or I’m building up a tolerance to it, thus requiring a larger dose. But apparently that’s dangerous, I don’t want to become an Optimism junkie or something.

So I’ve tried Optimism substitutes, listening to happy music was a start. Unfortunately for me, finding happy music on my laptops (his names Reginald Starscream by the way, to the uninitiated) like finding a Tory politician in a public hospital. The happiest songs I can find on my playlists are the ‘action theme’ from Doctor Who series 5, and a Jethro Tull song called ‘Bungle in the Jungle’. Which is either a concise commentary on the similarities between the savagery of the jungle and the city and its denizens animalistic tendencies. Or about shagging.

So that musical experiment failing me I tried a different approach, thinking happy thoughts. I shan’t bore you with the details but it didn’t go too well. Therapy starts next Tuesday.

Maybe I really should ‘up’ my dosage, or get a new Doctor who doesn’t fiddle my metaphorical meds. And on a side note, I’ve just noticed I wrote “Doctor who”. The mind boggles. Anyway…where was I? Karen Gillans legs!

No, that wasn’t it. Oh yeah…this is the part where I make some sort of sweeping statement that ties everything that I’ve just ejaculated onto the page seem like a coherent piece, when in actual fact I've simply lost my train of thought/need to sleep. Optimism, it’s a bit like Marmite, or Micheal McIntyre. You can try it and either love it and let it improve your life, or be reduced to a gibbering wreck. And if you disagree with me, you sir are worse than Herpes.

For Want of a Cuddle

Seeing as I've got to the low point of procrastinating on the sorting out of my own life, here's a little thing I thought I'd share with my reader. It's an extract from a (much too big) story I'm working on. It's unlikely to make its way into the final draft (if such a thing will ever fart itself into existence) so consider it a 'deleted scene' as it were. It highlights the awkward and rather abusive relationship between two characters, Alan is an assassin who accidentally began WW3 and Susanne is an office worker who cares about nothing but her career. In the full version the idea of power in a relationship is subverted and plays on attempting to win the affections of someone seemingly incapable of feeling anything.

The tone in her voice made him snap his neck up instantly like a dog to a whistle, he gazed at her dumbly across the table. “Don’t be so pathetic” she said in a cutting manner. Instantaneously he sat up, a puppet to her strings. She gave him a cold stare, which chilled and frightened him slightly. It wasn’t a hateful look, or one of disappointment. It was much worse. Indifference, the lovesick puppies worst nightmare. It put him in his place; it made him inconsequential to her. A painful thought. Her eyes dived back in her Sylvia Plath poetry book. His rough finger trailed delicately round a hard stain on the table, possibly beans he wasn’t sure. It ran round the congealed tomato sauce like a hyperactive child round a table, every fibre in that digit aching for her attention, trying to tear her eyes and mind away from the symbolic poetry and onto him.

He contemplated the pros and cons of initiating footsie, after much deliberation he gave it a pass. To him the canteen was silent and empty, only her and him sat in a painful silence. In actual fact it was abuzz with the 2pm snackers escaping their work for 15 minutes of glutteral bliss. Impending war made it hard on them, maybe somewhere there was a patriotic flourish, a sense of duty and honour, to help defend their country from the attackers. However nothing got in the way of coffee and Maltesers time.

Finally “I hate this” Alan announced, not sure why or where it had come from. Susanne glared, sucked on her bottom lip then said “you’re the one who chose to start a war with twosuperpowers for a stupid lizard. So I have no sympathy”. He glanced down at the stain on the table. Defeated. How was a well paid killer with zero social skills supposed to win true affection from a woman? Kill her ex? No. Buy her something? Maybe, but she was both awkward and fiercely independent. Apparently even offering her money for a vending machine was an offence. A meal! It was perfect! No one would turn free food down! And to show her how much he loved her it’d be expensive and classy. A donut from Harrods! Nooo, he’d take her to a restaurant. The best in town. It was perfect on every level. What little guilt and self pity he’d felt due to his accidental triggering of the apocalypse flew out the window singing and dancing. War or no war he was going to have a productive relationship! And she might even cuddle him after sex.

“Want to go for a meal?” He asked like a condemned man just noticing the axe about to cut off his head is made out of rubber. “No” she said into her book without a seconds thought.

Attrition (extract)

The rain drummed hard on the granite and trees above his head. Each drop eroded at his nerves, a howling wind would occasionally tear into his sanctuary, making him shiver in genuine agony. The fire had gone out four times already that night and his hands were too numb to relight it a fifth time. Barely audible above natures roar, his stomach knotted itself and screamed for food. But there was none.

The boy who now had no name muttered to the hallucinations of his loved ones as they surrounded the meagre fire. Even in his hungry, sleep deprived and love starved state, they ignored him and preferred to talk amongst themselves about the weather and what Mavis from 97 had done with her cat. His love sat furthest away from him, her eyes filled with tears, he reached out to her, desperate for some contact. But she turned away and hid behind her immaculate hair. He wept. Over the storm he reigned insults down on anyone and everyone that had wronged him in his life, whether they were truly guilty or not was irrelevant. He could feel it creeping up on him, like a Tiger in the jungle. The insanity. The madness. He wanted to be home, he longed for the acrid air of his hometown, he craved the stupendous insults that he had received while living there. He wanted out.

One by one the visions of his family, friend and former lover fizzled out of existence. Leaving him with nothing but the choking smoke of the fire, and the laughing rain. In the forest below birds caww-ed their goodnights to one another. Next to him sat his battered mobile phone, the battery had run out many months ago, but he still kept it with him at all times. The final keepsake of a society he’d burnt too many bridges for.

He’d only been in this particular cave for 3 days, yet it already felt like a fourth home. From the roof above a tiny drop of water aimed itself at the back of his neck, and with sadistic glee it threw itself down onto him. The shock woke him from his semi-trance and he squirmed in terror at the unknown coldness that had come over him. During the movements his latest pair of pants tore themselves on the bedrock of his home. It was only when he felt the cold snap of the air tear into his skin and drop the temperature of his buttocks to below comfortable, did he realise what had happened. This made him weep more.

In the forest below several birds took flight, squawking in outrage. He looked up from his self indulgent sorrow and eyed the mouth of the cave with suspicion. Then he heard the cracks of twigs, and the rumble of rocks being sent tumbling down the side of the valley. Something was coming towards him. Even with the storm practicing the drums above him, he could hear the distinctive noise of something approaching him.

But there was something else in the mix. Along with the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the rocky slope he was sure he heard the sound of something being dragged. Something heavy. Weakly he reached for the nearest heavy rock, he was barely able to lift it. But feeling the cold roughness of the stone in his trembling hands comforted him, even as the sound grew dangerously near, and a shadow began to creep its way along the cave wall towards him.

A night of bare buttocks, 'foot-the-ball' and old age

So last night was a first for me, without much fanfare or prior planning, I found myself in the Student Union Bar (or whatever the cool kids call it) in the middle of one of these ‘football’ matches that apparently I’m a retarded homosexual for not liking. Or something like that.

Apparently the match was between Totten’um Hotspurs and Arsenal United and was one of those matches that people ‘cared’ about. So every time someone touched the ball there was a collective groan of either anticipation or horror. It was like being in a public toilet after an outbreak of food poisoning.

Speaking of public toilets, one curious thing that me and my pard’ners in crime noticed during our hour or so -rather hypocritically- defending our table from drunken people was this…we were the only people there wearing pants. It was an odd revelation, sort of equivalent to waking up in the morning and discovering that you were in a different house to the one you went to sleep in. The closest thing to ‘pants’ in the entire room were short-shorts, worn mostly by boys with several socks stuffed down their pants. But seriously, who likes short-shorts?

I can’t believe I just wrote that, anyway, call me old fashioned (you wouldn’t be the first, or the last) but if I were out on ‘the pull’ –which is about as likely as a Big Brother contestant doing something or worth- I’d be more attracted to the girl that wore clothes. But apparently bearing your sphincter to everyone in the room is totally in this summer, next year it’s keeping your spleen on a beer mat. No doubt you’re half expecting me to start wearing tartan slippers, put Radio 4 on at a moderate volume. Maybe after that I’d maybe tell you about the good old days when I had to walk 5 miles to get a lump of coal for breakfast…in the snow…wearing nothing but rope and a gasmask.

Anyway, on with this train-wreck of consciousness! For the first time in University I found myself going beyond nicely drunk and winding up just plain ol’ wasted. As you kids would say. I reached the point where I obsessed about the highlighting on a poster in the mens bogs (seriously though, what does Cog Des Soc mean?). At one point I’m sure I could smell colours, and my partners in pant-wearing-crime giggled into their squishy plastic cups of vodka.

Eventually I my alcohol influenced brain began to write the same old story; stumbling, getting laughed at by the more sober members of the party, narrowly avoiding saying something stupid, saying something stupid, bitching at someone about one of their friends. By now you’re probably thinking ‘what the hell is he getting at?’ And to be totally honest, I have no idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time, sort of like getting drunk I guess.

On Posses of Mentally Imbalanced Clowns. Or, 'FUCKIN' MAGNETS'

So during my early morning web browsing today I came across the latest video by that bastion of intellectual rap. Insane Clown Posse. For the uninitiated, they are classed as a ‘horror-rap’ group, of course, don’t let that label fool you. They aren’t exactly modern day equivalents of Alice Cooper mixed with Eminem. In fact they’re more like Uncle Kracker (of Kid Rock and ‘Follow Me’ fame…) after having his younger sister experiment on him with their mums make up. So there I was, sat in bed watching two moderately obese white men wearing make up rapping on the ‘magic of life’. The sound was turned down to a barely audible level in case my housemates caught me listening to this and spurned me. My window was closed in case the sound wafted outside and irritated my psychotic-bipolar-patio-building neighbour (but more on him when my wells run dry).

With the opening line this song had already hooked me in “y’see Mike, we got a theory, about magic”. I don’t know who Mike is, maybe one of the members of this ‘horror-rap’ outfit, maybe he’s a friend of theirs whose intellectual approval they constantly desire, or maybe they’re just really fond of their microphone. But anyway, for the next 4 minutes and 22 seconds I was consciously surpressing my desire to burst out laughing, for you see dear reader these two men (whose names I honestly can’t be bothered to Google, it’s probably better that way) began to rap –badly- to me about ‘magic’ and how they are thankful for it. And we should feel the same, or no doubt their entourage of make-up bearing ALL CAPSSSS! typing 14 year old fans would try to assault us or something. And while as an agnostic I do believe that there are many things around us in the world that cannot be explained, like the complexity of the brain, people who have been in situations/had conditions where death was almost certain and yet they pulled through. Ghosts. And the popularity of broccoli.

However what evidence do ICP give for the world around them being run on ‘magic’? : coughs : “long necked giraffes and pet cats and dogs”, “Niagara falls and the pyramids”. Okay, so far out of 4 examples they’ve given 2 of them are ‘man made’, cats and dogs came along through selective breeding - anyone with a GCSE in science knows that…oh, wait, nevermind. The Pyramids were either built by advanced aliens (if you like your head wrapped in tinfoil of course) or Egyptian slaves/peasants being given the ultimate work incentive, a jolly good whipping! Take your pick. The long neck of the Giraffe is explained with the same old reason that explains the beautiful plumage of birds, and how morons like ICP came to be. Sex. See apparently male Giraffes attack each other with their necks for breeding rights, the longer the neck the easier it is for them to win.

Okay, next examples! “I fed a fish to a pelican at Frisco bay, it tried to eat my cellphone” so apparently stupid Pelican’s are now the product of a wizard ey? Then comes the warning from the skinnier member of the duo “this shit’ll blow your motherfucking mind” indeed it has. Indeed it has. And soon up comes my second favourite line in the whole piece, “…and fuckin’ magnets! How do they work?” the line made all the better by a close up of skinny guys make-up covered confused face like he’s trying to ponder the scale of the cosmos, or a Japanese GPS manual. Magnets, again are explained to any kid who did high school level…oh forget it! “And I don’t want to talk to a scientist, y’all motherfuckers lying, getting me pissed” ahhhhh. That explains SO much really.

Now here it comes, my favourite lyric of the day : blows fanfare : “And Shaggy’s little boys look just like Shaggy : close up of two 5 year olds trying to look tough, with their arms folded and their faces covered in make up…must be fans : and my little boy looks just like Daddy”. It sorta makes you speculate about the state of their marriages when they think it is a miracle that their kids look like them.

Anyway, enough text-walls, in conclusion I can sort of see what the guys were aiming for, however in an attempt to perpetuate the tough-guy image held by them and their fans (also known as ‘Juggalo’s’, really nice people, unless your dress sense or personality differs from theirs) they seem to have succumbed to classic surreal idiocy. For a more witty, intelligent and colourful deconstruction of this eye-sodomising music video (oh yeah, I forget to mention the visuals, I’ll let you investigate for yourself) see here; http://www.cracked.com/blog/learn-your-motherfuckin-science-with-the-icp

And now to prove I’m not a totally Grinch like hater of people everywhere, here’s some happy news; http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36218043/ns/today-today_people/

Oh, and if you disagreed with any of the above, you sir, are worse than Hitler. Good day!

It begins...

So, after much arm twisting and massaging of the ego I decided to get one of these blog things. I’m not too sure what I’ll wind up sharing with you dear reader (note use of the singular, I’m under no delusions of grandeur). Experiences? Almost certainly, for someone so boring I’ve led quite an interesting life. Insights? Maybe, not that I have a particularly witty, intelligent or original view on the world. They’re mostly just recycled junk I’ve acquired via cultural osmosis. But then again, isn’t every ones view on the world?

Hints to future projects? Probably, I've been working on the thing for damn near 10 years, I should probably start showing bits and pieces to people who aren’t contractually obliged to give praise. However as many other aspiring writers understand, showing people that special little thing you’ve put your heart and soul into for the past few years can be daunting. And I’m not talking about World of Warcraft characters, or badly photoshopped images of you smoothing a celebrity you happen to have ‘the hots for’. Or is that just me? Well what can I say, I was bored, Microsoft paint didn’t do it for me anymore and I’d found a really good picture of Anne Widdecombe.

Before I begin, I guess you should ask yourself, are you prepared to walk on the mild side? Are you prepared to listen to the Lucozade fuelled ramblings of a gimp whose only distinguishing feature is a stripy hat he stole from a Wiganner (unless she's reading this, in which case I have no idea to what I was just referring to! Go back to your pie!)? Now, I assume after asking yourself those questions you’ve either clicked the little red cross of relief up there : points : orrrr decided to stick around.

So join me on this whirlwind adventure! Thrill as I describe to you the mundanity (it’s a word!) of my day! Scroll in intrigue as I pepper my sentences with unneeded brackets! Shake hands with mildly veiled pity as I unwittingly reveal insights into my cracked psyche!

And on that note, I must away to the Capital Wasteland!