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.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Sunday, August 10, 2014
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.
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.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Peter
When I was in Primary School, there was a caretaker called Jimmy.
Jimmy whistled and wore one of those jumpers that every man wore in those days.
He had black hair and was small. He wore steel toed work boots that had a sort of dimpled, leathery surface. He was nice.
He appeared to be assisted in his work by a man called Peter. Peter looked facially like Ronnie Barker and always wore black. He wore a black flat cap, a black jumper, black trousers, black boots and a long black coat.
I never heard him speak English. That's not to say he was a foreigner, because he wasn't. I just never heard him speak English.
He spoke gibberish, I remember. A mellifluous babbling of repeated noises and nonsense words. He rode a black bike too.
One day on TV there was a thing on the news about old people in an old people's day centre. I saw him there on the TV and said to my mum 'That's Peter from school'.
I never imagined him having a life away from school.
I can't even remember what he did in the school. Maybe he was a nuisance to Jimmy, and just fucked about. I vaguely remember my mum saying the school paid him by giving him a dinner at lunchtime. Fuck me, I thought at the time, that's scant reward. That's because in my early primary school years, I hated school dinners. I couldn't see them as being worthy recompense for picking up crisp bags and Umbongo cartons.
I remember that Peter was from Fermanagh- my dad told me. He was very religious and went to mass every day.
He was supposed to be from a very wealthy family, or something. He never married.
He moved among us like a visitor from another planet. I never spoke to him.
Imagine Ronnie Barker, all in black, riding an old black bike.
That was him.
Jimmy whistled and wore one of those jumpers that every man wore in those days.
He had black hair and was small. He wore steel toed work boots that had a sort of dimpled, leathery surface. He was nice.
He appeared to be assisted in his work by a man called Peter. Peter looked facially like Ronnie Barker and always wore black. He wore a black flat cap, a black jumper, black trousers, black boots and a long black coat.
I never heard him speak English. That's not to say he was a foreigner, because he wasn't. I just never heard him speak English.
He spoke gibberish, I remember. A mellifluous babbling of repeated noises and nonsense words. He rode a black bike too.
One day on TV there was a thing on the news about old people in an old people's day centre. I saw him there on the TV and said to my mum 'That's Peter from school'.
I never imagined him having a life away from school.
I can't even remember what he did in the school. Maybe he was a nuisance to Jimmy, and just fucked about. I vaguely remember my mum saying the school paid him by giving him a dinner at lunchtime. Fuck me, I thought at the time, that's scant reward. That's because in my early primary school years, I hated school dinners. I couldn't see them as being worthy recompense for picking up crisp bags and Umbongo cartons.
I remember that Peter was from Fermanagh- my dad told me. He was very religious and went to mass every day.
He was supposed to be from a very wealthy family, or something. He never married.
He moved among us like a visitor from another planet. I never spoke to him.
Imagine Ronnie Barker, all in black, riding an old black bike.
That was him.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
I went to Edinburgh
I went to Edinburgh.
It's the capital city of Scotland. It's not the biggest city in Scotland. It's like Canberra in Australia, it's not the biggest city there neither.
Nor is Ottawa here. It's the capital city and not the biggest one.
That was disappointing when I was younger, but I didn't mind now.
Edinburgh is dead nice and very old. Lots of nice buildings. It is grey in colour but not depressing. I only saw two chip shops. There were no council estates in the city centre. The buses were very punctual.
The best city I ever went to was Paris, it was class. Edinburgh wasn't a patch on it, but it didn't matter.
I like Belfast better. I'm not sure, but I don't think they serve curry chips in Edinburgh. I didn't ask, but I'm sure they don't. I ate haggis twice. It was lovely.
Edinburgh is great though. I would go back.
The people were nice. We went to a cafe for breakfast and had nice food. The man there who owned it was musclebound.
He was dead on.
We were talking and he told a joke about two cows in a field. He said how do you know which one was on holiday. It was the one with the "wee calf" ( week off).
I told a joke about why were 50p pieces shaped like they were. So you could use a spanner to get them off a Scotsman.
Everybody laughed.
It was a bit insulting though.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Summer Holiday
Would you like to hear my favourite story?
It's really good.
My friend told me this a few years ago, but there's not a day that goes by where I don't think about it.
My friend's cousin told him the story, and in many ways he is the protagonist of the piece, this cousin.
The cousin was in Spain on his summer holidays, with his girlfriend and her family. They were staying at a hotel somewhere near Barcelona, though I might be wrong about the location. I think it was a place near Barcelona. I was there, once, in Spain. A nice place, I remember.
That used to be an awful habit of mine as a child, where, if told a story, I'd need to know a pile of mundane details to provide the picture with colour. Where did it happen? What was the weather like? Who was there? Was it day or night? What kind of mood were the people in? What time was it? And so on, and so on.
Often I'd be happiest if the story took place in the summer- and even better if it was in an exotic locale. Best of all was if it was a place where I had been, that I could associate with. I never went on a foreign holiday until I was 16, when I went to Spain, of all places. It was the best time ever, for me.
Anyways, the cousin was on his holidays, and having a great time. I remember (or maybe I've made this up) that my friend said that the food was nice. That was another important incidental to my solemn and lunatic desire for background colour, the quality of the food. It is in Spain, though, the food is always lovely. I like paella.
The cousin was out for dinner one night, with the girlfriend and her family. Then the parents and younger brothers and sisters went home, and it was just the cousin and the girlfriend and her brother and his girlfriend. She was on holiday with them too, the girlfriend of the brother of the girlfriend of my friend's cousin.
After the dinner they went out for drinks to a few bars, around the square. I remember that in Spain, all the bars around the square. Where I was, when I was 16, there were lots of English bars. I played table football. It was nice.
After the bars they were coming home, back to their accomodation. I think it was about 2 in the morning, my friend said.
On the way back they met all these Spanish people, mostly guys, sitting in the middle of a bridge, drinking against the wall. They started chatting to them, the cousin and his girlfriend and her brother and his girlfriend. Apparently they had good craic, and were smoking fags and drinking with them.
The cousin had to take a pish at one point, so he went to the edge of the bridge and pished off it, onto the dark ground a few feet below.
My friend describes how the cousin became aware of a sudden and awful silence as he pished. His pish hitting the land below the bridge would have made a splashing, noisy splattering as it fell to the earth below, and all of a sudden it didn't make any sound anymore.
The cousin looked to the ground below him, pishing all the while and saw "a wee Spanish man looking up at him, smiling, as his stream of pish landed about his face". The wee Spanish man even appeared to be washing his face in the pish, splashing it up about his cheeks as one would do with aftershave. The cousin turned wildly and pished the remainder of his pish onto the bridge.
The cousin ran to his girlfriend and her brother and his girlfriend, and wrenched them from their new Iberian amigos, whispering harshly under his breath that something terrible had happened, and that they had to at that very moment rush back to their lodgings.
As they walked back, he tearfully told them about the man under the bridge, and the awful smile on his face as he lavishly bathed in pish. Nobody could think of another word to say after that, and the four of them walked, at a quicker pace than would seem reasonable for two young couples on a sultry Spanish night, backed to the saftey and comfort of the hotel, and the cousin's girlfriend's ma and da.
Though awful shook up about this, the cousin was able to later relate it with some levity, after a suitable amount of time had passed.
I'm sorry I was never able to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak. The cousin took off one day, not long after, and has never been seen again. Some say he ran off to join the navy. Others say he moved to Letterkenny to become a chartered accountant. Who can really say? I like to think it was this event that made him go, but I can't be sure. But, still...
All I know is that, to this day, my favourite story is the second-hand tale of my friend's cousin's encounter with a depraved man, under a bridge, in Spain. Pretty sad, huh?
And I often wonder why it's so. Maybe it's the memories it brings back for me, this story; of dark nights in Spain where lizards seem to creep on every wall, where the ground is dusty and bare and where men sit on bridges late, late at night, drinking and smoking fags.
For a long time after, this tale held a strong and powerful grip on me. My friend's description of the wee Spanish man's face, disgusting in its joy and satisfaction, grinning up at a confused and horrified young holidaymaker, remains to this day etched into my consciousness.
Over time, my own memories of my time in Spain have wedded strangely with the pish-face-man tale (known only to me through retelling) to form one personal, psychic portrait of the Spanish night.
So it truly is my favourite story, this one. And my lingering affection for Spain remains.
And every time I eat paella, I think of table football, and the square, and all of a sudden, there I am: standing under a bridge, smiling, looking up into another set of appalled and unbelieving eyes.
It's really good.
My friend told me this a few years ago, but there's not a day that goes by where I don't think about it.
My friend's cousin told him the story, and in many ways he is the protagonist of the piece, this cousin.
The cousin was in Spain on his summer holidays, with his girlfriend and her family. They were staying at a hotel somewhere near Barcelona, though I might be wrong about the location. I think it was a place near Barcelona. I was there, once, in Spain. A nice place, I remember.
That used to be an awful habit of mine as a child, where, if told a story, I'd need to know a pile of mundane details to provide the picture with colour. Where did it happen? What was the weather like? Who was there? Was it day or night? What kind of mood were the people in? What time was it? And so on, and so on.
Often I'd be happiest if the story took place in the summer- and even better if it was in an exotic locale. Best of all was if it was a place where I had been, that I could associate with. I never went on a foreign holiday until I was 16, when I went to Spain, of all places. It was the best time ever, for me.
Anyways, the cousin was on his holidays, and having a great time. I remember (or maybe I've made this up) that my friend said that the food was nice. That was another important incidental to my solemn and lunatic desire for background colour, the quality of the food. It is in Spain, though, the food is always lovely. I like paella.
The cousin was out for dinner one night, with the girlfriend and her family. Then the parents and younger brothers and sisters went home, and it was just the cousin and the girlfriend and her brother and his girlfriend. She was on holiday with them too, the girlfriend of the brother of the girlfriend of my friend's cousin.
After the dinner they went out for drinks to a few bars, around the square. I remember that in Spain, all the bars around the square. Where I was, when I was 16, there were lots of English bars. I played table football. It was nice.
After the bars they were coming home, back to their accomodation. I think it was about 2 in the morning, my friend said.
On the way back they met all these Spanish people, mostly guys, sitting in the middle of a bridge, drinking against the wall. They started chatting to them, the cousin and his girlfriend and her brother and his girlfriend. Apparently they had good craic, and were smoking fags and drinking with them.
The cousin had to take a pish at one point, so he went to the edge of the bridge and pished off it, onto the dark ground a few feet below.
My friend describes how the cousin became aware of a sudden and awful silence as he pished. His pish hitting the land below the bridge would have made a splashing, noisy splattering as it fell to the earth below, and all of a sudden it didn't make any sound anymore.
The cousin looked to the ground below him, pishing all the while and saw "a wee Spanish man looking up at him, smiling, as his stream of pish landed about his face". The wee Spanish man even appeared to be washing his face in the pish, splashing it up about his cheeks as one would do with aftershave. The cousin turned wildly and pished the remainder of his pish onto the bridge.
The cousin ran to his girlfriend and her brother and his girlfriend, and wrenched them from their new Iberian amigos, whispering harshly under his breath that something terrible had happened, and that they had to at that very moment rush back to their lodgings.
As they walked back, he tearfully told them about the man under the bridge, and the awful smile on his face as he lavishly bathed in pish. Nobody could think of another word to say after that, and the four of them walked, at a quicker pace than would seem reasonable for two young couples on a sultry Spanish night, backed to the saftey and comfort of the hotel, and the cousin's girlfriend's ma and da.
Though awful shook up about this, the cousin was able to later relate it with some levity, after a suitable amount of time had passed.
I'm sorry I was never able to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak. The cousin took off one day, not long after, and has never been seen again. Some say he ran off to join the navy. Others say he moved to Letterkenny to become a chartered accountant. Who can really say? I like to think it was this event that made him go, but I can't be sure. But, still...
All I know is that, to this day, my favourite story is the second-hand tale of my friend's cousin's encounter with a depraved man, under a bridge, in Spain. Pretty sad, huh?
And I often wonder why it's so. Maybe it's the memories it brings back for me, this story; of dark nights in Spain where lizards seem to creep on every wall, where the ground is dusty and bare and where men sit on bridges late, late at night, drinking and smoking fags.
For a long time after, this tale held a strong and powerful grip on me. My friend's description of the wee Spanish man's face, disgusting in its joy and satisfaction, grinning up at a confused and horrified young holidaymaker, remains to this day etched into my consciousness.
Over time, my own memories of my time in Spain have wedded strangely with the pish-face-man tale (known only to me through retelling) to form one personal, psychic portrait of the Spanish night.
So it truly is my favourite story, this one. And my lingering affection for Spain remains.
And every time I eat paella, I think of table football, and the square, and all of a sudden, there I am: standing under a bridge, smiling, looking up into another set of appalled and unbelieving eyes.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Terrible bad
But I do Karate!
It all faded into shite when I had to prove that I did karate.
I didn't do karate.
I thought it might be enough of a deterrent to claim that I did do it, bit it wasn't.
This big fat Mexican guy beat the shite clean out of me.
But it was OK! It was really OK. He beat my shite in in a methodical, detached manner, where I knew he wasn't beating my shite in, but rather the shite in of an abstract notion of me that he thought he might have known.
I said "But it's me! It's me! I like the news, and TV, I like "You've been framed" and "Heartbeat", I am a nice boy..."
And yet he beat me still.
But that's OK. I was about to enunciate my final wee bit where I compared myself to the British War Poet Wilfrid Owen, as he clumsily poked his fingers in my chest, but I didn't have to. I think he took heed of my words as he walked away. I don't know what I did to make him walk away. Probably fuck all, he probably decided himself. I think he did.
Yet still, I whispered "Fuck off, ya big cunt" and did the fingers, lazily, as he walked away. I regretted it almost instantly, as I never liked Oasis, and they popularized that gesture, in so much as it would be understood by my assailant.
I pondered these notions for a while, and then died, of brains trauma and blood loss, and here I am now.
Karate is compulsory in heaven, as these cunts want you to better yourself. Fuck that shite.
What are you gonna do?
Fuck me.
It all faded into shite when I had to prove that I did karate.
I didn't do karate.
I thought it might be enough of a deterrent to claim that I did do it, bit it wasn't.
This big fat Mexican guy beat the shite clean out of me.
But it was OK! It was really OK. He beat my shite in in a methodical, detached manner, where I knew he wasn't beating my shite in, but rather the shite in of an abstract notion of me that he thought he might have known.
I said "But it's me! It's me! I like the news, and TV, I like "You've been framed" and "Heartbeat", I am a nice boy..."
And yet he beat me still.
But that's OK. I was about to enunciate my final wee bit where I compared myself to the British War Poet Wilfrid Owen, as he clumsily poked his fingers in my chest, but I didn't have to. I think he took heed of my words as he walked away. I don't know what I did to make him walk away. Probably fuck all, he probably decided himself. I think he did.
Yet still, I whispered "Fuck off, ya big cunt" and did the fingers, lazily, as he walked away. I regretted it almost instantly, as I never liked Oasis, and they popularized that gesture, in so much as it would be understood by my assailant.
I pondered these notions for a while, and then died, of brains trauma and blood loss, and here I am now.
Karate is compulsory in heaven, as these cunts want you to better yourself. Fuck that shite.
What are you gonna do?
Fuck me.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Power and the Glory
Er, hi...
It's me. You remember me? It's the NCWC. Remember? I dressed up as AIDS that time for Halloween. Yes... Quite.
So, I'm sorry. I've been a little... neglectful. I've let things go. I've been a lazy cunt. I've been on hiatus. I've been on holiday. I've been in jail.
That's not true. I wasn't in jail. Or on holiday. But I've been busy! Oh, dear me, I've been busy.
But that's neither interesting nor very important.
What is important is that I have decided what I want for Christmas. And also what I want between now and Christmas. This is the most important thing, I think, that has ever been stated. Much more important than some shitey election in America, or some cunt putting a bomb on a plane, or Wayne Rooney.
I would like, both for Christmas and before Christmas, in no order of importance:
- A book token
- Indian food
- To go to a nice restaurant
- A DVD
- Wine
- New trainers
- Crisps
- Diet coke
- A pipe
- A hat
- A jacket
- Some books
- An air-rifle
- To go to the cinema
- A Christmas Party
This is the most important thing in the world. We can then sit at the right-hand side of the Lord and be dead good and the best.
It's not a lot to ask?
And so it goes.
It's me. You remember me? It's the NCWC. Remember? I dressed up as AIDS that time for Halloween. Yes... Quite.
So, I'm sorry. I've been a little... neglectful. I've let things go. I've been a lazy cunt. I've been on hiatus. I've been on holiday. I've been in jail.
That's not true. I wasn't in jail. Or on holiday. But I've been busy! Oh, dear me, I've been busy.
But that's neither interesting nor very important.
What is important is that I have decided what I want for Christmas. And also what I want between now and Christmas. This is the most important thing, I think, that has ever been stated. Much more important than some shitey election in America, or some cunt putting a bomb on a plane, or Wayne Rooney.
I would like, both for Christmas and before Christmas, in no order of importance:
- A book token
- Indian food
- To go to a nice restaurant
- A DVD
- Wine
- New trainers
- Crisps
- Diet coke
- A pipe
- A hat
- A jacket
- Some books
- An air-rifle
- To go to the cinema
- A Christmas Party
This is the most important thing in the world. We can then sit at the right-hand side of the Lord and be dead good and the best.
It's not a lot to ask?
And so it goes.
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