I explained in the previous chapter how I arrived, through the medium of horticultural injury, at my unusual title for this collection of comments and ramblings.
My demise at the hands, or should I say the shoots of Bamboo Gascoigne caused great hilarity amongst friends, family and other assorted wastrels. However it also provided an apt title for this compilation, for indeed I do seem to have a view of life through a septic eye.
A twisted, bloodshot view of the foibles and peculiarity of the British nation and its ways, a view through a puffy eye streaming with tears, either of anger or, more often, just laughter.
I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I have enjoyed writing them and if you believe that, even for a moment, then I think I have finally cracked this whole sincerity thing.
* * *
The rain was coming down almost sideways and it was as cold outside as Amundsen’s tits. His tits were famously cold although I may have just made that bit up. The central heating was on full blast but I was frozen, my body in an almost cryogenic state. I thought to myself, well at least we still have global warming.
Being at a loose end I decided to have a bit of a clear out at home. There has been much criticism of late about the dominance of old, white patriarchal icons and the contrasting absence of multicultural symbols of the new Britain.
Looking around me that was certainly the case. I don’t think my books, music and artwork really reflected our current progressive and diverse culture any longer and I would hate to offend ethnic visitors, if indeed I’m fortunate enough to have any.
Consequently all of my works of Shakespeare, all my Dickens, TS Elliot, Keats, James Joyce and all the other irrelevant volumes are waiting to go to my local hospice.
Photographs and drawings of Churchill, Brunel, Isaac Newton, Arkwright, Stephenson, Fleming have all been taken down and bagged. Such dusty old men, there is no place for them in our vibrant, modern Britain, no place for these dinosaurs.
My recordings of Elgar, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Purcell, Walton, Tavener and others are by the bin, hopefully they will be collected next Tuesday when the refuse truck calls.
It all looks a little empty I must admit but I’ve found a poster of Dizzee Rascal which will cover some of the space and I’m fortunate to have one of his CDs where he ‘smack up his bitch if she be like a ho.’ Energizing stuff for the new times.
I also found an old autograph from Trevor Macdonald which I’ve framed and hung over the fireplace and a friend has promised to lend me a DVD of the man who does the Premier Inn advert, I’m told it is rib tickling stuff.
Well I hope our ethnic friends come up with some more cultural stuff soon, it’s all looking a little bit sparse at the moment.
* * *
I was at a funeral last week down in Sunbury on Thames, it was a lovely summer’s day by the waterside for his wake.
It was for a WW2 vet who was a DEMS gunner, these guys were RN attached to protect merchant navy ships and convoys.
The mortality rate was massive due to Kraut U boats and pocket battleships so he had already shattered the laws of probability by surviving the war and actually living to be 92 years old.
I wondered how many younger folk at the funeral, soft kids who cry when they lose their Ipad, even had a clue of the bravery of these people and how many today would have the backbone to do that job.
I gave up in the end and I just sat on the terrace with his son-in-law, a former Blues and Royals man.
We basked in the warmth of the Sunbury sunshine and toasted the old boy with a beer. RIP Reg.
* * *
I’m off on holiday for a few days but I’ve been reading about all these gas explosions and unsafe household appliances. To be safe I’ve put my gas cooker and fridge out on the front lawn.
I must say that overall it looks rather nice and it also matches pleasingly with the council estate gardens up the road.
I am now wishing that I had done this sooner.
* * *
Is there some secret underground depot that is providing cloned chubby, young, single mothers to randomly wander around my town?
I see more of them each time I venture outside, disconcertingly they are all alike, their plump little legs stuffed into inappropriate stretch leggings so that their thighs look like giant ham hocks, whilst their vacant eyes scan their mobile phones as if the secret of life was contained in there somewhere.
Their chubby little brats, Kai-John and Shoona-Louise run around the pavements, unfettered in their designer tat, whilst the mothers congregate in little groups, blocking the pavement with buggies and fat arses whilst they suck their Coke can size vape machines and stare blankly into Phoneworld.
Is this now the worst of times or is there more?
* * *
There were 2 children from hell in the local supermarket the other day. The mother abandons them whilst she does her shop and the two spawns of Satan run amok, totally unsupervised. It really is beyond belief but there was an upside.
The little girl, plump and bespectacled, already disadvantaged by life, is about 8 years old. She was punching packets of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, very hard. Bad behaviour but excellent outcome.
I indicated a shelf of Walker’s crisps to her and said, “Those need doing as well when you have time.” She duly obliged, it’s nice to show kids the way sometimes.
* * *
Everything I valued or respected in my lifetime has been either dumbed down, perverted or simply just turned upside down, everything.
Politics, the rule of law, education, the media, humour, popular music, cinema and theatre, public perception of events, the list is endless, everything.
All that is left is ‘to thine own self be true’ and that has survived from the days of the bard, clever fucker was Will.
* * *
Remember the good old days when we only had 3000 would be terrorists on 24 hour surveillance? I get nostalgic just thinking about it now. I recall the figure increased to 20,000 or was it 25,000? It now appears to be 30,000 or is that out of date too? 35,000 I was just told, any advance on 35,000? Here’s the thing though, they still say there is no work for our youngsters!
Surely apprenticeships in terrorist watching would get about half a million of our lads and lasses into a worthwhile job, come on Theresa, give our youth some self esteem and put young British kids back to work. We get to fix two problems in one, we can supervise those pesky terrorists whilst, at the same time, empowering our next generation with a wage packet.
* * *
I have to do an article on dating for seniors, I swear I will Bob, probably needs two articles actually.
In truth, it is such a rich source of anecdote and humour but also delight at times. For all the single, separated, divorced and widowed out there, at my age and younger too, it is a minefield, a theatre, not of dreams but of nightmares for many. Yet it is almost the greatest fun you can have too and so much depends on your approach to it.
If you view it as an obligation, some sort of duty to nagging friends and family, you will probably fail.
If you view it as a mystery tour with no expectations, provided you research your potential dates it can be better than an exotic holiday and you will meet some fabulous people, maybe lifetime friends, maybe even lovers.
I’ll leave you with this snapshot, not a great endorsement for dating joy, just funny.
First date, Costa coffee or similar, start cheap guys, you are probably paying.
She; “ I thought from the phone chat we had, you would be taller.”
Me; “Yeah, I have a taller kind of voice, it’s deceptive. I didn’t know about your moustache, I should have listened a bit harder too.”
Funny, true and glorious, it ended well, surprisingly.
Anyway, that’s a promise, a dating article, I would never lie to you, as long as there is but one star in the sky, I would never lie to you.
* * *
Wetherspoons or Spoonies, as the aficionados refer to it, is a great British institution. Ours is located in the market square, you can pass by at 9am and their rugged clientele are all already out there, ready to face the world. Not for them the all day breakfast, breakfast is for wimps and losers, these yeomen have nothing but the all day Carling.
I’ve passed by in zero temperatures, there are always a couple of guys sat out on cold metal chairs in the shadow of the world’s largest ashtray. They sip the biere de jour and suck slender Golden Virginia rollies, handmades so slim they receive fan mail from vermicelli. My eyes moisten at their hardiness, it makes me proud to be British.
There is a distant murmur as they speak, “Fuffin fuffin barsad, yeh ya fuffin barsad.” Like the call of the early morning pigeon one can only surmise at what that call means to others of the species.
A couple of pointers on Spoonies, it is not a great place for pulling ladies, and ladies, neither is it a great place for meeting men. It is also not an ideal venue for that delightful first date, something you can both look back on in the future, as you joyfully finish each others sentences.
Now, a fact, something rarely spoken about. That hardy crew, those dozen or so men you always see outside Spoonies are in fact always the same dozen or so men. Spoonie’s CEO Tim Martin ferries these same people from one bar to another in a luxurious people carrier. Wherever you are in the British Isles, Tim and his crew will arrive there just a few minutes before you.
They will say, “Fuffin fuffin barsad, yeh ya fuffin barsad.” in whatever regional dialect applies to the area and you will never be able to tell the difference.
I don’t know how he does it, if I did I would be a squillionaire like Tim, all I know is he is a staunch Brexiteer and thus one of our own. I hope I have not spoken out of turn and that his secret is safe with us.
* * *
I have returned this afternoon from a genteel weekend in the Shires.
From a delightful outdoor wedding of a relative, hosted in charming, sunlit gardens amidst wisteria and honeysuckle, under gazebos and a marquee, fed on smoked salmon and vol au vents, watered with iced Champagne, serenaded by an engaging musical quartet and surrounded by fine friends, relatives and many folk I had never met before.
This was not some elite gathering of the Illuminati, this was not even Middle England, just regular people from all walks of life coming together to celebrate something special in the lives of two lovely people.
It was hard to be my usual cynical self, to be doubting Thomas amongst so much joy and goodwill, it was endearing and infectious to be in the centre of so much genuine warmth. I’m still wondering how the fuck they even let me in there.
There were no Marxists there, no SJWs, no howling women with blue hair, no anarchists, no subversives, no terrorists, no LGBT protest groups, no politicians and no Islamists. There were no men dressed as females or vice versa, nobody pissed in the hydrangeas, no one was threatened or glassed, no one was genitally mutilated and the only benefits in sight were just the simple euphoria and wellbeing of the moment, it was quintessentially British.
This was the massive silent majority of this sceptred isle and unless we are watchful and active we will throw all of this away, we will be mugged, beaten and robbed, silenced and chained.
That must never happen, so much is at stake.
© Viciousbutfair 2018