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!