SWIMMING

I don't like swimming. Never have. I suppose it stems from school, really. Being forced to disrobe in front of the whole class, then thrash around in a mixture of chlorine and piss, all the while being goaded by a frustrated sex-pest that looked like Peter Sutcliffe shitting in a nettle patch.
Hardly inspiring, really.

So why I found myself at the Twentyford Lido last week, in the freezing cold, watching a number of my co-workers splashing about for trinkets is beyond me. Possibly the threat of dismissal may have had something to do with it.

I came that close to being strong-armed into actually taking part. Luckily the hefty piece of masonry drill sticking out of my bonce precluded me, on grounds of being 'differently abled', and thus both an embarrassment and a fire-risk. Claire sat out as well. She'd recently given birth after that whole Jude Law thing at Xmas. Poor thing didn't qualify for proper maternity leave, apparently, but she was excluded for fear that Portuguese Men-of-War may pick up on her current hormonal flux and attack us. (Apparently such had already happened in Belize a few years ago – I had neither time nor inclination to verify this, so if any readers could fill me in I'd be grateful...)



The whole thing was cooked up by Michael Onions, the man who holds the purse strings which hold my purse strings. He likes swimming. Thus must we all swim. In the dead of winter. Word on the grapevine is that he has some weird arrangement with a local swimwear manufacturer. Hence the peculiar, and mandatory, bathing costumes. I'll try and describe them, but please bear with me if I omit anything important. The very thought of it still summons up tsunamis of migraine.

For a start, female participants are obliged to swim topless, apart from two 'nipple hats', held in place by double-sided tape, and embroidered with the winking face of Mr Onions. Male employees wear what could best be described as the bottom half of a wetsuit. At crotch level is fastened a grotesque distended human arm, the hand of which holds a small handbag, also of red wetsuit material, and also embroidered with Onions' gin-blossomed face, with the legend 'I Know My Onions'. Participants of both genders are obliged to wear straw hats, at a precise angle.

Several events came and went. I'm afraid I don't recall precisely what their names were. Frankly, they struck me as identical in every respect. Competitors start at one end of the pool. They swim to the other. One of them wins a stick. All the stick winners are bid stand on a plinth, and all receive a frighteningly long kiss from Onions, who is, I should add, naked with a troubling look in his eye. The overall winner gets a cheque for £3.25 and is given the rest of the day off (this all wraps up at 5:30), and everyone else runs screaming while Onions 'gets his groove on'...
Pointless... Still. It's a day out of the office, I suppose...

CRESS

Sorry for staying away for so long. Would have blogged and that but I've been in the hospital.

I was at a wedding in Twentyford the other week – someone at work. To be honest I forget their name. In fact I don't think they have a name. I know they have a cardigan, a blue one, but name? Not sure. In fact I recall that made the whole ceremony kind of difficult to negotiate, having no name...

“Do you, erm, Big Face, take Candace Matilda to be your lawful wedded wife?”

Can't believe that the vicar actually called him Big Face, His face is quite big. Well actually it's bloody gargantuan, truth be told. I believe it's regularly picked up on Google Earth, mistaken for a weirdly grinning island. But still you'd have thought they'd dodge that, given the day and all.

Anyway. I digress.



I went along with my friend Claire, who I usually pass the time with at work swordfighting or playing 'Guess the Sneeze'. She's a laugh...

And we're at the buffet later on, trying to cram as much free grub in as we can, when I scoop up most of a tray of sandwiches (Cheese and Pickle, some kind of flayed pig, that sort of thing) and I get a bit of decorative cress caught in one. So when I take a bite, I start to swell up. Which is quite embarrassing because I was wearing my non stretchy suit. After 15 minutes I'm 3 times my size and seeping all this hot milky fluid out of my pores. Like wallpaper paste with a parmesan twist. Turns out I'm allergic to cress.

Owing to my enormous size, the paramedics had to get one of those things they cart stranded whales about in to get me to St Swayze's A&E.

Something of a social misfire all-round...

Anyway. That's where I've been. Being drained. Grill phoned me every 10 mins to ask where I'd hidden his Argos catalogues because he was, and I quote, 'gasping for a strum'. Much like being home, then.

But it's not all doom and gloom, though. I kept all the seepage and it transpires I produce quite a tasty soup. Bit salty, but good enough for Campbells to take it off my hands. If I eat two cress leaves a week, and milk myself properly, I can pay the next year's rent off in one go...

SUBSCRIPTIONS

If you're reading this, Mr John Milk, formerly of 25 Cromwell Place, Skrutston, Twknmnshire (i.e., my home), would do do me and my housemate Grill one, simple kindness. For the love of Hot Fat, would you please REDIRECT YOUR BLOODY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS?!!!

I didn't mind at first. I used to just pop things back in the post. But this is every day now! Thousands of the sods! Here's some of the notable ones:

FAT PANELS
THROAT CROWS WEEKLY
NEW BILTONG EXPRESS
INSIDE CROSSROADS (WITH FREE POSTER OF CHEF SHOOEY MCPHEE)
FELT MAGIC
JAMIE OLIVER'S POTATO WARFARE
CHAIRS
Q
HEARING AID REVIEW
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOPSCOTCH AND RELATED SKIPPING GAMES
READERS WIVES - ROADKILL SPECIAL
THE MARSUPIAL
CHUTNEY AND PICKLE MAKER
BREADCRUMBS!
TOWELLING ROBE WEARER
CIGAR BANDIT
HORSEPLAY



I could go on. And indeed I have. But you get the picture. But I've no idea if or when the fuzz are going to come and lock us up, you twisted little ape. So please, in the name of all that is holy, STOP!!!

In other news, I found an blood stained Argos pen in a bag of frozen peas. Getting a £5 voucher off of Tesco for it. CASHBACK!!!

HISTORY

So the rent's gone up. Again. Our landlord, Mr. Hopscotch, sent me a letter the other day, telling me so. Apparently, it's because his credit has “gone all crunchy”. That and to repair that wall Grill destroyed the other month, trying to find hidden treasure. Turned out the “treasure” was in fact a Gladstone bag, filled with old dental equipment. Covered in blood.

But I couldn't help but wonder how it all got there, and why. So I went to the library in Twentyford and searched through the parish records. Then kind of wished I hadn't...

Apparently, our house was once the surgery of a Mr Reuben Denby-Ashe, and between 1899 and 1909 he practised dentistry. The first few years passed without incident. But in 1907, Denby-Ashe seemed to have suffered some sort of episode.

The Skrutston Probe for May 9th in that year reports that he'd been involved in an altercation with a manual labourer by the name of Gilkes, accusing Gilkes of deliberately pickling his own molars to harden them, thus endangering his equipment. Gilkes was found 2 days later, in a hedge outside a local brothel, his face perforated with drill marks, and the words 'tooth pickler' crudely etched with a scalpel across his forehead. Denby-Ashe was taken into custody, and sent to the nearby sanatorium with “nervous exhaustion”, avoiding both a prison sentence, and the then customary 'bear ride', during which convicted criminals were strapped, in women's' garb, to a clockwork bear and rode through the streets. Denby-Ashe, however, avoided being struck off, owing to a legal loophole allowing the nephews of mariners to “pretty much do whatever as long as it doesn't involve dogs”. So within 9 months, he was reinstalled at his surgery. His reputation, though, had suffered greatly, and only farmers and members of the local underworld would use him.

Bare-Knuckle Biting was a popular, but illegal, sport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two naked combatants, or 'Chewymen' as they were called, would have their arms bound behind them and would bite each other until one of them bled to death, or was sick, or lost their keys. Needless to say these, desperate, sweaty men required frequent dental attention, and would go to Denby-Ashe to avoid arousing the suspicions of the authorities.

One infamous Chewyman, Jim 'Horsemeat' MacWhinney, approached Denby-Ashe with a proposition. For a cut of his winnings, MacWhinney contracted Denby-Ashe to fit each of his teeth with an intricate set of mechanised, retractable blades, one hidden behind each tooth, allowing him to gouge great chunks of flesh from his opponents. The effect would not be unlike being assaulted by Adrian Chiles with a pair of pinking shears.

Denby-Ashe was by now painfully addicted to his own anaesthetics, and would often forego food to afford the peculiar mixture of laudanum and tallow he'd become hooked on. With a growing habit to feed, he accepted MacWhinney's proposal. In a single drug-fuelled evening, he designed and built the gruesome device out of brass, small enough to fit inside MacWhinney's mouth.

However, all did not fare well. While fitting the contraption to MacWhinney, Denby-Ashe was distracted by a child at his window, dressed as his dead wife, and wound the device's springs too tightly. When finally opened, the force was great enough to tear MacWhinney's jaw from its sockets, leaving his lower mandible swaying in the cruel October wind. Enraged, MacWhinney beat Denby-Ashe to death with his own Gladstone bag, which he then crudely walled up to hide the evidence. Distraught that his days as Twknmnshire's most infamous Chewyman were now at an end, MacWhinney suffocated himself with a prize-winning marrow, and was found, next to Denby-Ashe, dead.

So, there you go. I'd imagine there's a moral there, somewhere. Don't let Grill look for treasure, probably...

FILMS

Film Reviews!!!

Long story short, I found one of those unlimited cinema pass thingies in a dead fella's hand, so I've been going to the flicks a lot, the last couple of weeks. Gets me away from Grill. He's taken to shooting my things again. Time of the month...

So I thought I'd share my thoughts on them with you all:

THE MURDER BASTARD

Hard-nosed high-octane detective thriller adapted from the bestseller by Robert Crepes. Stars the ghost of Michael Bentine and Jeremy out of The Levellers. This one started off OK, but pissed away the middle act on some subplot involving a hen trying to buy fags when it was clearly underage.

SHOEBISCUIT

Julianne Moore and that baby in a suit off those bog-roll ads star in this stirring family drama about a disabled racehorse. I slept through the last 15 mins, but apparently it wasn't all that because I awoke covered in someone's sick. Judging by the bright colours, they'd been eating Skittles...

YOOT

Urban drama starring the white rapper Turbo T as some bloke on a council estate battling rival drug dealers. He's not very good. Spent the whole film posturing and conversing in what he thinks is a West Indian accent. Sounds more like a Welsh Jim Davidson being strangled. Could have used less cumshots, but the soundtrack's not bad...

HARRY POTTER AND THE REALLY SMALL HAMMER

God... They're all about 30 now. Least convincing performances since Grill put a green tarpaulin on his head and told me that he was the Pennines. That man made out of Biltong, however, was fantastic.

LAMBMAN

Based on the Marvel Comics character. Russell Brand stalks the mean streets of New York, smeared in lanolin, fighting crime in a special coat made of cotton wool and. Something in his eye suggests he did sex with most of the objects on screen, including a Breville Pie Magic, which must have smarted, to say the least. Overall, fair-to-middling...

PICNIC

I decided I'd have a picnic the other day. Not sure why. Maybe I'd read about someone's famous one and fancied a piece of the picnic action. Anyway, I made some sandwiches (crab paste they were), grabbed a flask of tea, and I set off. Ended up on the Green.

They call it the Green, but it's not really very green at all. More the colour of something passed by a very poorly dog. And there's a big crater with a burnt-out van in it. I think the van was full of snakes, originally. Probably taking them to Snake Borstal. It had a picture of Vernon Kay on the side too... Definitely Snake Borstal, then...

Anyway, I spread my Thundercats duvet over the scrubby ground and sat down, taking a bite of sandwich. Tasted alright, as these things go, but the texture was funny. Leathery, like eating Robert Kilroy Silk's armpit.

But that's not the worst of it. I managed, by some kind of reverse Heimlich manoeuvre, to get the thing down me, washed down with a good slug of tea. As soon as it hit my tum, I began to experience a peculiar sensation, rising out from my gut through my arms, like my blood was fizzing. In seconds, all was black.

I opened my eyes to total darkness, deathly, deathly black. It was difficult to tell if I had actually opened my eyes at all, until they adjusted to the dark, and I could make out the vaguest phantoms of my hands. Both of them had puppets placed on them. As my eyesight grew accustomed, their forms became clearer. On my left hand was the punk svengali Malcolm McLaren, on my right a crude representation of the Devil, only with cow's udders.

'You're on!' hissed a faceless voice, like piss on a hot iron, seemingly behind me and to my right.

'Sorry?...' I replied, perhaps understandably confused by the whole affair.

'They're waiting for The Show to start!' it hissed again, closer to my ear, in a way I recall someone telling me their uncle once did.

All of a sudden, the darkness parted like stage curtains, and light flooded in. I felt a shove in my back and I was forced awkwardly forward. When my eyes readjusted to the glare, I saw that I was indeed on a stage in an amphitheatre. In the auditorium, seated row upon row upon row, were thousands of twisted old men, all staring open mouthed at me, drooling and expectant. All the men, every last one of them, it transpired, was as naked as could possibly be, wore puppets on their hands. In fact, on as close inspection as I could muster given the glare, the puppets were sealed onto their hands.

'Do The Show!' drawled one of their number.

And, after a second's hesitation, I began The Show, lucidly and without a single slip.

From what little I can now recall, it involved the Devil tempting Malcolm McLaren into his oversized larder with the promise of a go on his Wii, and McLaren crying during Resident Evil 5, and the Devil basically just spending the final act berating McLaren for being a big wet Jenny of a wimp, through a complicated sequence of tightly choreographed teat-gestures and chants...

I'd never seen a script, nor had I been taught those words, but they tumbled from my mouth like angel puke, ending in rapturous cries from the wizened throng. I saw tears of joy mark their scrote-like cheeks. 'Author!' they bellowed, 'Author! Author!...'

Then all was black for a second.

I came to back on the Green on my back, staring up at a clear night sky. I'd been away some time, it seemed.

When I got home, I looked at the empty jar of crab paste - 'Contains the souls of a thousand naked puppeteers', it read, next to the nut allergy warning.

On reflection, perhaps buying the Tesco Value paste was a false economy...

NOT

I AM NOT DRIL BOY - I HAVE JUSST PINCHED HIS INTERNET TO GET AT SOMEMORE MUCKY COMPUTER STUFF. I DRANK A LOT OF WISKY AND AM GVERY DRUNK.

SO YEAH. DRIL BOY IS ALWAYS TIPING STUF OUT TO YOU LOT, BUT I KNO HES JUST TYPING TO HIMSELD. HA!1 YOU LOT DONT EXST! I KNO THIS, BECUZ I KNO A LOAD OF STUFF AND I KNO YOU LOT DONNT REALY EXIST. LIKE THE POLISE OR A WOLF. OR MICHAEL MAK ENTIRE.

I OFTN WONDER WHAT ITD BE LIK TO HAVE A PROEPR SHIT LIK A DOG OR A DONKEY. SO I GET SOME SOSAGES AND PUT A LITLE BIT OF SELOTAPE ON THEM AND I PUT THEM ON WHERE MY BUM WOOD BE, AND I WAIT FOR THEM TO FALL ON THE FLOOR. SOMETIMES I VIDIO IT AND LOOK AT IT LATER. DONT U TELL ANYONE ABOT THAT THO

BABIES ARE STUPID. THEY CANNT EVEN DO REEDING OR ANYTHING! I GAVE A BOOK TO A BABY AND IT DIDNT EVEN SAY 'THANKS GRIL' OR 'HAVE FIV POUNDS'. IT JUST SAT THER AND AFTER A BUIT IT CRYED REALLY LOUDLY!!1! STUPID.

I'M BORD NOW, AND I WANT MOR E WISKY...

I WANT A FITE NOW... NEFIUNFDSALK' 'F[NJEPOQP HWER SUKD ......................................................................................................... ......................................................... ......................................................................................................... .... ......... .............................................................. .......................................................................................... ........................................................................ ................... .......

OH FUK.THINK i feeel asleep on the kebord.

Shal I delete that? No! Ha HA... And everyonde wil think it's Drill Boy!

Oh shit! I said Im not him already WHY AM I TYPING THS INSTED OF JUST THINKING IT?!

BALLS! fuking HANGOVERS!!