Late June

Do you remember the wee fella from Home Improvement who wasn't the boy with the mullet or the wee soft one? The middle boy. I never liked that cunt. Didn't like any of those boys. Didn't like the ma. Didn't like the da, struck me as a total twat. Didn't like the neighbour, boring cunt. Didn't like Al.

I never really enjoyed that show, but I watched it all the time. Roseanne too. It was good. I never understood it. I didn't like her. I liked Jackie. She was a policewoman.

I was fond of Blossom.

I used to routinely buy comics on Thursday, Buster and Whizzer & Chips. And sometimes Big Comic Fortnightly. I read them all the way through, but I never laughed once. They weren't funny at all. I really enjoyed them though.

We weren't a musical family. How do you become one? I'd feel bad about trying to be a musical family now. Best leave it to the professionals. My uncle was good at music.

Summer time was brilliant. Staying at our grandparents, blazing sunshine filled the big back room at 4 am. We ate cornflakes with warm milk and sugar. We drank shandy bass. We ate chips and burgers from the chip van. We went to our cousins'. Corinne had a keyboard. We went to the beach. We never watched TV but didn't want to either. There was caterpillars on the back wall. I broke a window. We swam in a river. We watched horror videos.

We watched the Rose of Tralee. My grandparents had RTE before we did. It was nice (the Rose of Tralee).

We climbed mountains very often. We got stuck in a band parade and the marchers were going round the cars collecting money. My dad said he had no money on him. He said he wouldn't give those cunts anything. We got stopped by the army. They shone a torch on us. Dad said they know who they're looking for.

My uncle got a beef curry from the chinese and I had some. We only ever had chicken curry. Beef was better. We never had beef curry until I bought one myself. It was lovely.

It was always sunny in the summer.

From the depths of my heart, I tell you- these were great days.

Prince Crisps

Did I ever tell you about the sad book?

I had this book when I was a child about a brother and sister who meet a fairy.

The sister was nice and the brother was a right wee cunt.

To cut a long story short, the brother did something bad and the fairy turned his head into a donkey's head.

One of the drawings from the book showed the brother with his donkey head in his hands, weeping in shame and grief at his transformation.

His sister told the fairy (I think) to change him back. The fairy did, but not after he promised to be good.

The illustration of the boy in his condition, weeping, filled me with sorrow and a sympathy that I have held to this very day.