Doing the do

I found this on a wrestling website.

(Lads, I just stole it. I'll give it back if you want me to. Don't wrestle me or anything).

This makes me immensely happy. 

It says:

"Fuck you! I am the NCWC Thunder. Oh? You wanna mess with me? Well, fuck you. You can't. I will blow you up like a lightening bolt and make your big toes fall off".

That is exactly what this says.

NCWC Thunder.

A real treat

Tapioca Pudding!

It's my newest favourite food.

I tried it first on Friday.

It's a flavorsome wee pud.

It sounds a bit old fashioned.

Like your granny would've ate.

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

I think it's fucking great.

It comes from the cassava.

A kind of foreign tree.

They grow it in Brazil, I think.

Pele has it for his tea.

I eat it after dinner.

It's a versatile dessert.

I love its subltle sweetness!

It renders me inert.

So fuck your fancy ice-cream!

Ben and Jerrys' is for cunts.

For Tapioca Pudding's all,

A real man really wants.

Magnificent Obsession

I bought a new pair of shoes today. My old ones are fucked.

I need them for a wedding this weekend. They are nice shoes. Decent price, grown-up looking ones. Proper laces and no wee lights at the bottom or wheels on the soles.

I needed new shoes for at least 4 months. I didn't want to buy them, though. But now I did. I am not going to wear them 'til the wedding. I would ruin them.

I hate shopping for clothes.

How can one be a shopaholic? Alcoholic is better. Shopping does not give me a buzz. It's shite. Food shopping is good. I used to go with my ma when I was a wee child on a Thursday night, and I'd buy a comic and help my ma with the groceries. I'd get stuff I liked. 

Once I managed to get my ma to buy me a cheese in the shape of a sausage. It was a smoked cheese. I thought I was fuckin' class. I had to get her to buy me it, as I was 7, and had no way of paying for the cheese. I could have saved my communion money, I suppose.

But I was never a saver.

It was a nice cheese. I thought I was Keith Floyd or something. I knew fuck all about anything. I knew slightly more than I know today.

I look back, and I haven't really changed, in this respect. I still enjoy food shopping and buying comics. I even go shopping with my ma when I'm at home. I like it.

My poor old shoes, but, discarded now like wee dogs in an RSPCA advert. They were fucked, though. Nothing lasts anymore. There are no more cobblers (this isn't true). Everybody throws everything out.

Horrifyingly, my old shoes started skittering about the house when they saw the new pair. Tina ran screaming into the bathroom and locked the door, screaming "Kill them!".

Kill them.

They were scraping at the door to try and get out and run away. One had shat all over the floor. I wasn't having this. 

I'm not a violent man, but shiting all over the new mat was a sickener.

I got a spade from the shed and battered the shoes to death. Just fucking walloped them with the spade, the broad end of it.

I put the remains in a plastic shopping bag and left the bag in a neighbour's wheelie bin.

When I came back into the house Tina was still in the bathroom. I said come out, now, it's over. They're gone. They're away, the new shoes are here. The good new shoes for the wedding.

Sarah put her fist in her mouth and gurgled.

Tina and I looked at each other for a long, long time, without saying anything.

"No more new shoes, love. I can't do this again".

She agreed.

Tina put Sarah to bed, then, because it was the time for that.

She's too young to know about shoes, or any of that business. She likes her bare feet, in fact. She's always kicking off her socks. Why does she do such a thing?

I thought about this, then, and quietly read my comic, eating my small cylinder of smoked cheese.

Club d'échec

I fell asleep on the bus today on the way home.

I was sitting away at the back, between a big fat hoor and a wee nice man. The nice wee man had kind eyes and a thoughtful expression on his face. I didn't see the woman's face. She spoke English on her mobile the whole way. She was telling her mate about how good her presentation was. I hated her.

I fell asleep about two minutes after sitting down. I felt like I was asleep for hours. It was only for a few minutes. I was in that mad, waking dream state, where my thoughts ran incoherently into one another. You know the one. You can't hold onto a thought, and it slips away into another mad thought, then another, and another.

I fell asleep on a a Ryanair flight once from Frankfurt to Dublin. I think I screamed aloud several times in a high pitched yelp, 'cos I awoke with a start and everyone was looking at me.  I was hoping I didn't do the same on the bus. I have to take it every day. I couldn't be done with shaming myself in that manner.

I walk to work twice a week. I'm an awful awkward cunt. One day last week I tried to overtake a wee girl ahead of me, but when I got abreast of her, she kept walking at the same pace as me. I couldn't handle it, so I walked even faster. I didn't want to walk beside her.

A man told me to get off his seat once. I was sitting in the place reserved for pregnant women, old folks and the physically disabled. I was pretty tired. He was blind and had a dog. His dog looked blind too. It had blue eyes. He asked me to let him sit there. It was fair enough.

Some lads got on one day that looked like they were in a band. They all had effeminate voices. They came from out-of-town. They got off at my stop and went up to an apartment. I know where they live, or where their friends  live. They seemed a friendly bunch. They had star quality. This is true.

Last week I was walking in the cold without a hat, or gloves. The wind was so cold. It was mad, my forehead froze, and my hair and ears. When my ears thawed out, they hurt like fuck. I gnashed my teeth, such was the pain.

-Fuckin' cuntin' bastard fuck... fuckin' ow... ow... cunt

Tears of anger and discomfort came to my eyes. But I wasn't sad. I was suffering.

Don't play the fool. Wrap up warm in the winter if you are out walking in the cold. Don't make the same mistakes I did. Or do. I don't give a shite.

I'd do the same again I think. It was a good walk. It was right for me.

All of this is, and everything else I've ever written (except the owl story and a few other things), are true.

Men's downhill

It was mad being in that owl's nest. A huge owl, the biggest I'd ever seen (and I've seen a few owls in my time).

A massive owl. 

After a while of eating mice, chatting with the wee owls and spitting on people down below, I decided I'd had enough.

"I've had enough of this silly nonsense" I announced prissily. "I'm off! Thanks for the mice."

And I jumped down from the nest, using a binbag I'd found trapped in a branch as a parachute.

The owls didn't give a fuck.

And here I am today. 

I'm going for a run tomorrow morning. It's great, running is. I feel so good after it, indestructible and violently happy and confident for about three hours. Then I have food at lunchtime and get tired, reducing into myself like a wee fatigued armadillo. I like it though.

You can't be violently happy all the time. There is a time and a place for everything. 

Here you truly feel all the seasons in the year. Summer is hot and green, Autumn is pretty and melancholy, Winter is death and Spring is life again. All are good in their own way, and all are necessary.

Winter is good if you want to slow down for a bit and read a lot. It's good for watching TV series and going for walks wrapped up. You can eat big massive meals in winter and light a fire. Only do that if you've a fireplace though.

I don't like skiing. 

I want to cycle to New York City sometime. I know it's possible, 'cos we went to a cycle cafe near our house, and they had a map showing a cycle-path all the way from the US border to New York. I'm gonna fucking do it. Me and Sarah. Tina can't, because I ride her bike. I can maybe give her a backie. I'm putting Sarah in a wee trailer with an orange flag on top, full of books and soft toys to keep her amused. And a radio.

It's not a girl's bike, it's a normal one with a normal bar across. And that is all wrong anyway, the way that girl's bikes have a wee slanty bar. It should be the other way about, as I was forever bashing my balls on thon bar as a youngster.

Food for thought, eh, Mr. Raleigh? Ya cunt.

Probably not this year, but. Probably not the next one neither. But I will. 

First I'm gonna buy a fucking owl gun though. The bastards are all over the place.

Any Owl Shite

I'm sorry about all my disparaging of the Olympics. It isn't shite.

Well, it isn't that shite. It's a bit shite. I'm rootin' for Canadia. A wee fella from up the road won a Gold medal on Sunday night, the first time ever a gold medal was won by a Canadian in a Canadian Olympics. I wept with joy as I set fire to cars outside my house, draped in Old Glory. God Bless Quebec.

The hockey is on now. Canada just fucking duffed Norway, killed them.

I ran onto the ice as the final goal was scored, to hug all the Canadians. 

A giant white barn owl swooped down before I could reach them, and carried me to its lofty perch. I'm there now, with its youngsters, eating mice that their ma brought up. Not bad, at all, at all.

I just spat on the Norway manager's head, too. 

God Bless us all!

Comets

Very recently, I was walking about the house with Sarah in a sort of papoose thing called a Baby Bjorn. What a shite name. My tired brain can only associate it with ABBA, and that awkward looking ginger cunt with a wee beard who played the piano or something.

So I was walking about, and kissing her wee head, talking shite to her like I normally do. She was falling asleep, so to keep myself entertained I got a book off the shelf, a guide to Ireland that Tina got a few years ago. And I began reading.

I went to the section on Northern Ireland, my homeland, and started reading at random. I was so emotionally affected by reading about Lough Neagh and The Marble Arch caves that I started to gasp in that pre-crying way that sensitive five year-old girls do when the teacher shouts at them. What a truly beautiful and unique country. I truly love Ulster, Belfast, Irlande du Nord.

People are kind, funny, smart and generous. I can't wait to bring Sarah there in May. It'll be fucking class. I romantise the place wildly with everyone I meet, and tell them lies about how good it is. But those lies I believe with all my heart.

In my mind, the air seems clearer and colder. It's definitely windier than here. My dad once claimed that it was colder in Belfast than in Montreal at wintertime, and wouldn't hear otherwise.

-Da, it's fuckin' minus 30 sometimes, come on

-No

But he was right. It is colder.

I am going to climb the Mournes, go to pubs, pet animals at my granny's farm, go to Bangor with Christopher and swim in the sea, all with my wee baba. Tina won't let her swim in the sea though, it's too cold.

But I will. And I'll emerge from the waves and impress the shite out of my infant daughter.

I am a hero.

A good weekend

This weekend was a good weekend. It lasted about 3 years, much longer than the usual 2 days. It was quietly great. I didn't even realise it at the time, while it was happening, but as I sit here now, and think about it, it was dead nice.

In a wholesome way. I have been off booze since the start of the year. I did the same last year. It's good, you feel better. There is absolutely no reason for doing it, other than it can be done. Anyway, I said I'd do it, so I did and am. I will drink again on 24th February (you have been warned, Montreal!). Only joking. I'm not a violent alcoholic.

I resisted a lot of temptation to booze last night- at our friend Mario's on Saturday, he had tonnes of lovely drink on offer. His da makes his own wine, it's fucking lovely. I didn't have any. He had about 300 bottles of whiskey too, and I didn't touch a drop. I am a virtuous cunt. It will make it all the more delicious when I return to them.

He made lovely dinner, many delicious things. He is a great cook. He is a cunt. Not really. He is a great human being, and I love him. His parents are Italian.

On Friday, I went out for a friend's birthday, to a pub downtown. I again wasn't drinking, but it was still good. Everyone else was blocked. I can walk to town, it's class. So close, so very near. I love where I live, there is a big park nearby that offers all sorts of shite to do. You can eat picnics there in the summer, and drink to your heart's content, as long as you have food with you. If you don't, the police will knock your fuck in, shoot you and steal your drink. So be careful, al fresco drinkers.

I went for a run there today, three times round the park. Fucking killed me. I didn't eat anything all day before. I am a cretin, sometimes.

Tina's ma and da came to look after wee Sarah, and we went out for a meal, to a lovely French bistro. I had steak tartare, my favourite dish. I demolished the fucking thing. Again, with a look of saintly piety, I turned my head from the wine menu like a statue of St Martin de Porres, and fixed my gaze on the slowly falling snow outside. I had a diet pepsi. Would have loved a fucking glass of wine though. But such is life and such are the irrational, yet ultimately rewarding decisions I sometimes make.

We ate and enjoyed ourselves, and the snow outside was so pretty in the night. I feel myself a truly lucky young bucko. Head of the world-famous NCWC, in a fine city in a good country, with a wonderful family and friends around me, both here and at home. I met head-on the temptation to break my solemn pledge, and told him to fuck off. I ran round the park three times in the bitter cold. I had lovely food. I read a good book. I carried my daughter around the house looking at interesting objects together.

I had a good weekend. If you don't believe me, just look at the picture at the top.

Craven Cottage

I went to this lovely sandwich shop today at lunchtime near my work.

It's cheap as fuck, and always packed full of people. The ones who own it are from Laos, they are dead on. There's fuck all seats though, and only room for about ten people.

In the queue, this wee fat cunt takes his coat off and sticks it on the back of a chair. Then he puts his briefcase on another chair saving it for his wee girlfriend.

Well I never! 

He looked and acted like a twat prior to this, so my worst fears were realised by this craven and selfish act.

What's more, he was patronising to the staff and had a very eager attitude. When it was my turn at the counter, he did a really clumsy, meant-to-be funny gesture to the wee sandwich woman to show her that it was me who was next.

You're an abrasive wee wanker, I bellowed, as I booted him up the hole with my winter boots.

I battered the shite out of him and ate his sandwich.

His ladyfriend looked at me beseechingly, then passionately, then with open and terrible lust in her eyes as I roughly pulled his curly hair and twisted his ear.

"Fuck away off" I said. "You're as fucking bad for encouraging him".

She nodded as if in agreement, and walked out of the shop. Your man followed her about a minute later.

Nobody smiled, or applauded, or even took much notice of what had happened. No-one except the wee sandwich woman.

As she handed me my change at the till, she paused longer than was necessary between drops as she let the coins fall into my upturned, open palm.

"Ca fait longtemps qu'il le mérite, monsieur. Mais c'est mon fils".

I ate my sandwich outside the shop, in the bitter cold, with no gloves on my hands, weeping and sneezing.

It's a terrible world in which we live.

Fuckleberry Hinn

Hey there!

It's you. How are you? I'm fine, thanks. And you? Oh! I already asked you that. How are you? Ha-ha!

How are you?

Oh... Oh! How are you? How are you! Ha-ha! 

Fuck-

That's how you do it, folks. That's having a big boys and girls' conversation. It's fucking shite. It shouldn't go like this, though. That is a bad example. The thing is, though, it often does. It often does.

The world is a wild place for the wee. It's full of pitfalls like the above aborted conversation. The pure of heart are no match for the brutality of such a world. It's a wonder that I get through at all, at all.

When I was wee, I had some stunning misconceptions about things. Do you know the game Altered Beast? I had only read it, the title, I had never heard it said, and thought it was called Alerted Beast. A subtle, yet important difference. Alerted Beast is better, no? More active, somehow.

I thought that people had to have sex in the hospital, on the operating table, to make a baby be born.

All the wee don't have a clue about things. 

When I was wee, I didn't like chips, or any food, I think. I must have ate dust or something. I ran everywhere.

I wore a red vest.

I was the lead character in many books aimed at children (in my enfeebled child brain).

I can't fucking wait 'til Summer. Summer here is class, so green and hot. It's the best time, and I think about it every day. Winter is a cunt (but not that, bad, not so bad).

I plan to lead an idyllic Huckleberry Finn-like existence with Wee Sarah on the banks of the St-Lawrence. We'll grow our own food, hunt, swim about all day and ambush wayfarers for money and all.

I can't wait!

Such, such were the joys

The first time you go somewhere, the journey seems to take much longer than it actually does. Every subsequent time you make the same trip, it seems much, much shorter.

I remember once going for a run that took several years to complete. I left at about 11 in the morning in 1978, and by the time I came back, it was 1986 and strangers were living in my house. The US government did all sorts of experiments on me, and Sarah Jessica Parker helped me escape from their clutches. It was class, but emotionally demanding. I wouldn't do it again.

Sounds a bit too fucking like Flight of the Navigator, you say? Not a bit. 

It's true though. All except the Flight of the Navigator bit. And before anyone comes up with the idea, I have a plan for a sequel, called "Shite of the Navigator". Very simply told, the young fella in question, now a man, goes for a shite one day and reappears 24 years in the past. All sorts of capers ensue, with him talking about the internet and all, and nobody having a fucking clue what he's on about. You heard it here first.

But I digress... The first time you go somewhere, the trip seems much longer than it actually takes. I've always found this to be true. This, and the fact that if you hear a new word, you'll hear the same new word about a million fucking times in the next few days.

This is true for anything, not just new words. 

The Queen, there's one. Tina mentioned to me something about the Queen the other day, now she's all over the fucking place. She's just an old woman. Her job must be shite. I wouldn't want to do it. Her children are twats.

But the Queen, though... Fuck me. On the BBC news, it says she went to a church somewhere, to give school dinners to wee imbeciles who did a play for her at a Sunday School. One fucking tube said "The Queen and the Duke spent a lot of time talking to the children and their parents. About 20 of them performed a version of Daniel and the Lion's Den for her. They practised so hard."

There is something unbearably poignant about the last sentence, is there not? Did her Majesty think it was shite?

-This is fucking dull, Philip

-Aye, a waste of fucking time

But ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; they practiced so hard. So much practice. Such disappointment.

Read this news story for a good laugh: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8503040.stm.

Read it and weep?

I am those children who practised so hard to entertain an unimpressed monarch. That is the NCWC. 

We do it for the free bangers and mash.

Down all the days

In work today I goes to the nice lady who sits beside me, "Do you have any paperclips?".

The french word for paperclip is "un trombone".

She goes "Aye, there you go" and gave me one. 

I said no, do you have a trombone, the instrument, like. 

She laughed and laughed and mimed playing a trombone, then I laughed (it was quite funny, I didn't expect her to do that). I said something about starting a band.

She laughed again, and turned away. She's nice, and comes from Haiti. Her ma and da do, she was born here.

I did need a paperclip, though.

I turned too, chuckling quietly in a touchingly pathetic moment of indulgent reverie. If I'm not careful I'll turn out like that Colin Hunt fucker from The Fast Show. I fear, alas, it may already be so.

But would that be so bad?

On the way home, I saw someone had put all snow on top of a bus shelter to look like a bobble hat. It was fucking brilliant, really impressive. It looked exactly like a giant bobble hat. In the same view, a policeman was directing traffic with a gracefulness I'd rarely seen, almost as if to music. I was impressed again.

I am easily amused, like wee Sarah. She likes to touch different fabrics, and pull necklaces and other things that dangle and hang. We have all necklaces hanging from hooks, and I take her over to pull the fuck out of them. She always throws them on the ground and drops them all over the place. Tina picks them up, then. 

Her face goes all concentrated as she does this. Her innocent curiosity is a joy to behold and is a wonder to me unlike any other I've ever experienced. 

And all the while I'm chuckling quietly, in a touchingly pathetic moment of indulgent reverie.

La Vie rêvée des singes

Last night I had a great dream. I dreamt I was able to fly. Someone was flying about and I asked them how to do it. The person goes "All you have to is believe!". So I ran and jumped into the air and did believe and was flying. It was class. I flew about in a daring manner like one of those wee World War I planes at an air-show, doing loop-the-loops and all that shite. I felt exhilarated when I woke up.

I looked for deeper meaning all throughout the day, but I know that it's a simple enough message. I hope I wasn't inspired by the insipid fucking slogan for the Winter Olympics that you always hear on the TV. Believe. That's what the slogan is, they invest it with such earnest weight when the voiceover says it. Believe. Believe fucking nothing, yis cunts. Fuck your making everything venerable. 

That's what modern life is, alas. People ruin everything for the wee. 

The two most inspiring books I've ever read are:

-Conrad Hilton's autobiography

-Paolo diCanio's autobiography

My dream was brilliant. 

The picture at the top was sent to me earlier as part of a forwarded story email, and is so hauntingly strange that I thought I would include it.

It's actually me and Wee Chub-Chub going for a walk in the future dressed as cowboys.