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.

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.

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.

Nice cereal

Make a meal out of crisps.

I shouted that at a group of wee kids during break-time the other day.

I wanted to give them some wrong information.

I wanted them to have the wrong idea about nutrition, for badness, like.

It didn't work. I should have said it in French.

Plus, they mightn't have understood crisps, as the North American equivalent English word is chips.

I wouldn't have felt right saying "Make a meal out of chips", because it's a sentiment I agree with.

I did amuse myself though, and reeled away laughing and smiling contentedly.

I held on to the chainlink fence and shouted it in a really high-pitched voice, when I did it.

That was pretty good!

In other news, Mystery-Fans, I ran another half-marathon.

It was pretty tough. I didn't train enough.

I'm a fucking amazing athlete though, 'cos it still went pretty well.

I enjoy doing them.

I got a medal. It wasn't as nice as the one I got in April, so I'm mildly upset, still.

I won't let it ruin my feeling of smug priggishness, though.

I start the day with Kellogg's "Just Right".

I hate that name, it makes me feel like a cunt (which I am, let's not forget!).

"-Aye, your cornflakes look nice, but I fucking eat "Just Right", so fuck you"

It was created in the 1980s for health-conscious, athletic Australians, who are the world's third-biggest cereal eaters, apparently.

Doing a shite

Hi Mystery-Fans,

I've been kind of busy the last wee while. I was writing a play about doing a shite, but it went all wrong.

There just isn't the market these days for plays about doing a shite.

Apparently in the seventies it was all go. Shite plays left, right and centre.

Nobody wants to know these days.

It's all Unicef, Lady Gaga and organic food.

Fuck off.

My play was brilliant.

It was a play about doing a shite.

I'll not give the story away, because some cunt will nab it, and I'll be left playless.

It was turned down by everyone.

There was a bit of comedy, pathos, drama and lots of excitement.

Some people said it was the least-explicitly-about-doing-a-shite-play about doing a shite that they'd ever seen.

I said, is that a bit like Inception? Could we do something there?

They said no.

I fled to Belgium in tears like Stephen Fry did in 1995.

I was OK when I got to the airport, I wasn't even upset any more.

But I went to Belgium anyway.

It's a nice country.

It's underrated.

The Remove Passage at Greyfriars

I am fucking wrecked.

Being a da is hard work- don't let any cunt tell you otherwise.

It leads to lapses in concentration.

I was eating the other day, with a friend, and he had made some lentils with sausages. His ma made the sausages, so I was pretty eager to try them. There were two big bits of sausage in the lentils. He's a good cook, this chap. Mario is his name.

Because I'm a self-absorbed, childish cunt, I thought both were for me, so I ate the first one really quick, and it was lovely.

A wee bit later, I ate the second bit.

My mates goes, here, did you eat my bit of sausage?

I apparently did. But here's the thing- I couldn't remember doing it.

I could remember the first bit, it was so memorable. Unlike normal sausages, it was dryer and nicer.

But I can't remember the second.

I think it's due to sleep deprivation.

Still, I'm glad I got to eat both bits, if only to have deprived him from the enjoyment it would have brought him.

You see, these last few tired days, I only enjoy the satisfaction that retribution, violence or pain brings.

It's pretty good, actually.

Like a deranged batman, I've started to target the people who read the Montreal Mirror, and in particular, those whose lifestyle says to me "I am a cunt that reads the Montreal Mirror and finds it of interest".

It's fucking open season down my street.

Here's a wee example:

There was one fella today coming down the road wheeling a bike along the footpath.

Before he even opened his mouth I had the cunt pegged.

Fucking twat in a pair of braces, mad hair, brogues and t-shirt with "ALF" on it. I knew his type.

When he began to speak to his chum who was dootering along beside him on the road, his horrible English Canadian ironic monotone sealed his fate.

I fucked a chamber pit full of dog shite and sand at his head and knocked him out cold.

I got Sarah to punch him a few times while he was lying on the ground too (just wee digs, she's only wee).

We made a bit of a game out of it.

You have to keep it interesting for the wee ones.

Video Nasty

Here's an interesting story;

When I was very, very young, I worked in a bar. It was part of a hotel. I mostly enjoyed it.

I worked there on and off for about 7 years.

One day, I was working at the bar and I saw an obese gentleman with long hair and glasses.

I can't remember what we were talking about, but we got on to talking about videos. He was from Sussex.

It turned out he liked videos, and took a video player with him everywhere he went.

I think he turned the conversation towards videos, looking back.

He must have been some kind of traveling businessman.

He was drinking pints of cider and smoking cigarettes, one after the other.

He asked me did I know what a "video nasty" was.

I said that I did, that it was a sort of banned video that had a certain cult following.

He said he fucking loved video nasties, he had loads of them.

I said tell me a name of one, to see if I'd seen any.

He said "SS Love Camp", with a big grin on his face.

Fuck me.

"Is it any good?" I asked, and he went on to describe in gruesome detail all the tortures, murders and rapes that took place in the show.

"Sounds like a two thumbs up!" I said, trying for levity.

"It's pretty good" he said.

What kind of a cunt tells a total stranger such things?

People should keep that shite to themselves.

Maybe he thought I'd admire him for it. Or ask for a lend.

Later that evening, I had to bring drinks to his room, on a few occasions.

He answered the door in his underpants every time, and the room was full of smoke every time. I bet he was watching video nasties, but he must have paused them when I knocked.

He gave me a quid every time I brought him a pint of cider.

I would have given anything to watch "I spit on your grave".