Post 473 - Sex, Drugs & Leprechauns; The Great Irish Adventure begins.

From my fly-infested flat at Aberdeen harbour; to the squallor of the farm cottage in Bridge Of Don; to the building site in Kittybrewster (via a short stay in Orchard Street); to the flat near Asda Garthdee; To Geneva, Switzerland; To Fraserburgh; to co-habiting with a Nigerian prostitute in the Bridge Of Don again; to the veritable old folk's home of a tower block in Raeden; to seagull central in Ferryhill; to the luxury pad in Kincorth; I've certainly moved house a lot since I started writing this blog in 2002. And would you believe it, as someone who updates their Facebook location as often as most people update their status, since the last flurry of activity on this blog in June, I've gone and upped sticks again. This time I've done a bit more than flit a few short miles across Aberdeen though, in fact I packed up as many of my belongings that would fit into my tiny Ford Ka (selling, donating or binning the rest), and relocated to Dublin, Ireland. I've been here two weeks and currently reside in a neighbourhood called Cabra, which may or may not be rough as fuck, I haven't quite figured it out yet. It does appear to be home to quite a number of tracksuit-wearing, bicycle-riding neds (or "knackers" as they're known here), but I've wandered around it quite a lot so far and haven't been stabbed or anything yet, so so far so good. In fact I quite like the place, it has everything I need (pub, bookies, off-licence, Domino's pizza) so I'd say I'm fairly well set. And the city? I fell in love with it straight away. Dublin is a fantastic city and I implore you to visit if you haven't.

As the old Irish song goes "In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first laid my eyes on sweet Molly Malone". Being that I left the hallowed shores of my native Scotland due to falling in love with one such Dublin girl, I can't possibly comment on the rest of Dublin's female population (though I have seen the statue of Molly Malone near Grafton Street and that bitch is SMOKIN'!). I am however giddily happy with the one I'm with. Corny as it sounds, I really truly believe that after years of Miss Wrongs I may have actually found Miss Right. Yes, OK, stop making puke noises at the back. Just humour me OK, I'm in love.

So. City? Great. Relationship? Great. Job? Well.... not quite so great. Jacking in a well paying job in the veritable cash-dispenser that is Aberdeen's Oil and Gas industry to come and live in a country which is in a huge recession and suffering badly in the midst of this Euro crisis that I don't even pretend to understand is the kind of reckless thing I like to do that keeps my parents awake at night. Let's not mince our words here; in Dublin there is no money and there are no jobs. Legend has it that openings for burger-flippers in McDonalds recently attracted applications from qualified architects. I myself applied for a job under the golden arches just last week... and was rejected. "At McDonalds we have a very stringent recruitment process" said the rejection email I received. Stringent recruitment process? Do me a favour. I've seen the sorts of troglodytes who drool into McDonalds food, in between scratching their arseholes and looking surly and disinterested. I saw a girl recently utterly defeated by the McFlurry machine, the operation of which requires pressing a button to dispense the chocolate pieces into the tub of ice-cream and then pressing the "mix" button. Astrophysics this is not, however after going through their "stringent recruitment process" in the form of the retard-proof online application questionnaire, McDonalds have deemed me unfit to take an order for a Big Mac meal and press the button on the till marked "Big Mac meal", and so my search goes on.

And so, dear reader, welcome to the Sex, Drugs & Leprechauns; The Great Irish Adventure. I shall be regaling you with stories from the Emerald Isle, including hilarious tales of my poverty and rejection from fast food jobs, brushes with the local "knackers" (two of whom I watched get arrested today for throwing a bottle of Coke, and another almost get run over while drunkenly carrying home the drainpipes he'd quite obviously just stolen for scrap metal) and tales from inside some of Dublin's less-salubrious drinking establishments (of which there are many). Molly Malone may have cried cockles and mussels - me, I'm just hoping I don't flounder in the big city.

Song currently stuck in my head - "What A Waster" by The Libertines
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 472 - Changing Rooms

I don't know if it's that A) I get myself into ridiculous / uncomfortable situations more often than most people; B) My propensity to share every single funny thing that happens to me on Blogger, Facebook and Twitter makes it appear that I get myself into ridiculous / uncomfortable situations more often than most people; or C) My ability to embellish mundane everyday events in a fashion which makes them sound more interesting than they really were makes it appear that I get myself into ridiculous / uncomfortable situations more often than most people; but upon sharing this little tale on Facebook yesterday, my own sister commented "Hahaha, why do these things only happen to you?". To me anyway, the crap that I choose to share with a largely uninterested world from my largely uninteresting life is probably mundane; routine; humdrum; but I think I have something of a knack for making my "boring life in a boring town" (that tagline came from a Less Than Jake song by the way) seem more interesting than it actually is. I've been detailing it for 8 years, and people are still reading this blog pretty regularly, so I must be doing something right.

Anyway, since we last spoke I've done something I've never done before - joined a gym. I caught sight of my moobs / love handles combo in a photograph a couple of weeks ago and seeing myself from this different angle was an eye-opener. I thought I carried my extra pounds quite well, but staring back at me from the photo was an out-of-shape, slovenly sack of crap and the realisation that this is how other people see me shook me into a reaction. I had also recently come across an old blog entry from November 2005 which read "I got a shock this week when I caught sight of myself getting changed in the mirror and realised I could actually count every one of my ribs (ever seen The Machinist with Christian Bale? That's me), and standing on the bathroom scales, discovered I have dropped below 9stone for the first time since I was at school." Admittedly, I was unhealthily thin back then, but since I'm now tipping the scales at over 11 stone, I've let it get too far in the other direction and I decided action was required.

So for the past two weeks I've spent my evenings cycling, running, rowing and lifting in an attempt to fight the flab and get that super-cool "malnourished" look I had in 2005. (Incidentally, the exercise bike is a great way of taking out sexual frustration - just don't expect it to cuddle you afterwards) So far, the effects have been minimal (except for giving me an ass like fucking granite!) but if I can stick this out for a while instead of quickly losing interest, like I do with every other thing I ever pick up, ever, then hopefully sexy old Uncle Elwood will be making a return just in time to start piling it all back on again over the winter.

So anyway, it's taken me a long time to get to the point of this entry. Last night, after a very strenuous cardio workout, I retired back to the gym changing room to grab my bag and head home (I don't shower at the gym - my house is only 5 minutes away so I do it there). Gym changing rooms are a place I'm never entirely comfortable in, and I'm not sure why. I'm by no means prudish, I have no qualms at all about anyone seeing me naked - after all, it's only a body and we all have the same parts - and using the same reckoning, I'm equally unoffended by the sight of another man's penis. I've seen penises before and nothing bad ever happened from it, so I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that I'm OK with penises. Not OK to the point that I'd like to jump on one and suck it, but comfortable enough that I can get changed in the vicinity of one without having a nervous breakdown. So I'm not sure what my issue is with changing rooms, but I think it may be with the showers. The shower block in most men's changing rooms it simply a square room with a number of  showerheads sticking out of the wall - no partitions or anything. A shower, to me, is quite an intimate, private moment, and I don't really want to be washing my balls in the company of 8 completely naked total strangers. Anyway, I've got sidetracked again. When I entered the changing room yesterday I found it totally deserted, which was pleasing. After retrieving my bag from my locker I walked down to the end of the changing rooms to go for a piss (there is a toilet there, I wasn't just pissing in the corner) and sort of dilly-dallied a bit while I was in there, gave my face a quick splash, washed out my drinks bottle etc. and upon exiting the toilet, found that the all-male kickboxing class which had been going on in the large hall had now descended upon the changing rooms and were eagerly stripping off to hit the showers. Now, I was at one end of a very narrow changing room, the exit door was at the other end, and both sides of the changing room were flanked by about 16 sweaty naked men. Which is how I found myself squeezing, excuse-meing and picking my way through a throng of guys who were either entirely disrobed, or in the process of disrobing. Everywhere I looked - cocks. Big cocks, little cocks, white cocks, brown cocks. And Jesus guys, would it kill you to do a bit of manscaping? Its 2011, it's not the done thing any more to have your junk look like three tiny pink eggs poking out of a blackbird's nest. I said before I'm not uncomfortable with the sight of another man's cock, but that was just too fucking many cocks. You ever see that gameshow "Hole In The Wall" with Dale Winton, where the competitors are standing at the edge of a pool and there's a wall coming towards them with a funny shape cut in it? They have to contort themselves into that funny shape to fit through the hole in the wall, or they'll be knocked backwards into the pool. Well that was kinda the situation I was in, expect instead of a wall it was A BUNCH OF HAIRY COCKS, and instead of a pool, it was A BUNCH OF HAIRY COCKS. You'd never see that on primetime BBC1 (well, maybe on the Graham Norton show).

And so we get back to the beginning of this entry. To most people, this would be a two sentence story. "I went for a piss in the bogs at the back of the changing rooms, when I came out there was naked guys everywhere. Nae fine!". In my hands however it becomes a thousand word opus about the day I "ran a gauntlet of cocks". I think the answer is "C" Chris. I don't need a 50/50, and no need to ask the audience. They've probably all fallen asleep with the time it's taken me to tell this story.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 471 - Some Stuff What I've Done Recently And Stuff About Stuff And Other Stuff

The minutiae of everyday 9-5 office life, can, and does, get extremely wearisome from time-to-time. I've worked in the same office with the same people now for over four years, and while I do get on with most of them, four years of hearing the same stories over and over again, and having the same shit jokes repeated daily are like Chinese water-torture when I'm having "one of those days", something which is happening with increased frequency lately. A few that make me have to close my eyes and count to ten include:

"Would you like a tea or coffee?"

"Can you do anything stronger? A gin and tonic would be nice!"

Badum-tsh!

"That's me off out to lunch."

Step outside door, realise I've forgotten phone / keys / lighter etc. Go back in.

"Wow, that was a quick lunch!"

Badum-tsh!

On arriving at the office uncharacteristically early (ie, not my usual ten minutes late).

"Oooh, you're early! Have you been here all night?!"

Badum-tsh!

All of these I could gladly never hear again, along with countless other phrases, gags and figures of speech that I've heard every day for the past four years - in fact this is the reason why I spend 8 hours a day at my desk with my headphones wedged as deep into my ears as they'll go, often-times not even listening to music, just using them as earplugs - however there is one gag that I myself bestow upon the office daily which I do not consider trite or annoying, for it is quite simply genius.

Me - "Can I get you a tea or coffee?"

Colleague - "Can I have hot chocolate?"

Me - "Sure. *I believe in miracles! Where you from? You sexy thing!* Is that enough Hot Chocolate for you?"

Quite simply put, it's red-hot gags like that which the world is missing out on by me working in the Aberdeen oil industry and not penning scripts for sitcoms.

I rag on my job quite a lot, and some days I flat-out lose my rag at my job. On Tuesday last week my Twitter feed at 9am read:

"When you're standing with your key in the front door of the office physically dreading going in and starting work, that's a bad sign.

I lost my motivation for this job a long time ago, now I can barely even motivate myself to get out of bed in the morning and come in.

I read a quote recently - "Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life" - Confucious. Hmmm.... I need to think about that.

Fuck it. Headphones on and turned up loud. Hopefully Faith No More can get me out of this slump."

I followed this up with a massive sweary rant to my assembled colleagues about how much I hated the wretched fucking place and was looking to jump ship at the earliest opportunity, which included the line "If I don't leave here soon I'm either going to kill myself or one of you". I think I meant it as well. I also started writing a blog entry which I only got a few sentences into:

"I seriously don't know how much more of my life I'm willing to waste in the miserable city doing this mundane job that I fucking hate. There must be more to life than this. Must be!"

In truth, I don't hate my job. I'd had a shitty night's sleep the night before, I'd had a shitty morning, I was in a shitty mood and I needed to vent. That's not to say it doesn't frustrate the fuck out of me, because it does, and some days I feel like my head is going to explode if I can't escape it. Some people can do the same thing their whole life, for other people four years of doing the same thing day in, day out with the same faces around you is just too much - and I include myself in that number. But between you, me, and anyone else who may be eavesdropping, I have some exciting plans for the next few months that will involve something of a fresh start. However, I don't want to jinx anything by talking about it when there's nothing concrete yet, plus I'm sure no-one really gives a fuck but me, so I'll blog about that as and when it happens.

So here's some things I've done since we last spoke:

Visited Dublin for a few days, informed my friend and tour guide that I wanted to avoid doing all the touristy crap and see Dublin "like the locals do". So we got drunk for three days and ate loads of bacon. Dublin is good craic. I might even write a blog dedicated entirely to four days in Dublin, if I get round to it. It mostly involves gin, Guinness, the inside of a German beer hall, a tour of brightly coloured doors, a new way of wearing jackets, and a quest to find a dodo.

Played what may be my final gig with Aberdeen's hard rock stalwarts Deadloss MF Superstar at the Moorings on Saturday night. Typically this involved gin, violence, Jagerbombs, noise, bruises, more gin and more Jagerbombs. Normally I won't touch a drop before going onstage, but I was in high spirits and feeling a bit silly so I indulged in a few "rock gins" (TM) before going on, "for the nerves". During the intro to our fourth song , I completely forgot how to play the guitar part - since I was the only instrument playing at the time it was kind of obvious what had happened, and I had to stop playing and 'fess up that I'd simply forgotten it - leading the singer to quip to the crowd "Proof, ladies and gentlemen, that gin is not always your friend". This may also get it's own blog entry at some point, because not only was the gig awesome fun, the boozing session that followed it was one of the best nights out I've had in months.

Got a REALLY BAD HAIRCUT from "Gent's Cut & Go" on George Street from a crazy old Polish lady who ruined my beautiful hair.

"Would you like the back tapered or straight?"

"Straight please".

"I no like straight. I do tapered"

BZZZZT! Suddenly the back of my head is tapered.

"What the.... that looks dreadful. Make it straight. I've had it straight for like 25 years."

"OK, OK, I make straight".

BZZZZT!

Now my hairline starts halfway up the back of my head and I look like the fucking Fresh Prince.

Later:

"What would you like done with the sideburns?"

"Nothing. Just leave them as they are."

"OK".

BZZZZZT! There go the sideburns.

I was also particularly amused with her insistence that she shave the back and sides of my head and leave the hair on top the length it was. Why the fuck would I go for a haircut if I didn't want my hair shorter you lunatic? After I insisted she cut it, she then proceeded to cut it all at different lengths, the back is short, the middle is shorter and the front is longer than the back! INSANE HAIRCUT. Thankfully I had a hat in my pocket and managed to make it look at least part-way normal when I got home and styled it myself, though I do look very peculiar.

Er... that's about it really. Got a new tattoo (script, forearm); had to get the tattoo redone because I forgot to use the cream and it didn't heal right; played some badminton; half-stole a jacket from TK Maxx; read "The Catcher In The Rye" and started "Wuthering Heights"; listened to a lot of Faith No More, Elliott Smith, She & Him, Blondie and Vampire Weekend; other dull things that no-one cares about.

But enough about me. How have you been?

Song currently stuck in my head - "Oh! What A Night" by.. I want to say K.C And The Sunshine Band?

ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 470 - Bonus Features

So, it's about 1.30 am at the moment I think (I can't find my phone, my alarm clock reckons it's after 3am and my computer readout says 13.39). I can't sleep, and instead I've been trawling through the archives of Elwood's Odyssey. Some of the archives are available on here, but they have been heavily edited to remove pretty much all sexual content and drugs references, which, if anyone who actually read it back then will know, leaves very little. Reading through the old Odyssey posts is fairly cringeworthy and I'm not proud of a lot of it, but there are a few gems in there hidden amongst the cock jokes and weird sexual fantasies. As a special "bonus feature" since I can't be arsed writing anything new, I thought I'd share with you a few of my unpublished favourites that I've found tonight:

(From Post 247 - "Reduced To Clear" - 27-September-2005)

People who tell you economy stuff is as good as brand name stuff are just wrong. I remember once buying an ex-girlfriend batteries for her Rampant Rabbit from the 99p store. That night, the bunny performed like it had just been given the lethal injection - slow, slower, and then just fucking dead. This of course led to further dis-satisfaction as I was then forced to give her an injection of my own, of the hot beef variety. And like a store brand pot noodle of the same flavour, my love-making skills are about as economy as it comes - it's sloppy, it tastes bad, and it's always over before you're full up. If you're not entirely satisfied, please contact me at this address, where you will find me either fast asleep, or playing X-Box. I can offer you a replacement but I can't promise it won't be just as bad as the last one. Your statutory rights will be unaffected, but you may end up with a load of spunk across your face.

(From Post 248 - "Getting Kicks From Girly Flicks" - 28-September-2005)

Tonight my good mood at work was ruined by the actions of one poncey fat bastard with a superiority complex. It guess it was only a matter of time before it happened, but during a dispute over prices with said juggernaut, he pulled the old "Well I'm a student and you're just a barman so you must be a moron" routine out of the bag. I actually have an IQ of 135, I'm well read, articulate and intelligent, however he wanted a moron so I gave him a moron, and instead of getting locked into a battle of wits, I called him a "fucking wanker" and told him to "fuck off". And whats more I got the last laugh: as I watched the bouncer drag him out of the pub by his neck (at my instruction), I gleefully poured the drinks he had just paid for down the sink. Who's the moron now, flabby-tits?

(From Post 249 - "4th Time Lucky" - 29-September-2005)

Last night I watched the movie Jersey Girl. This was due mainly to extreme boredom, but also due in part to the trouser-tent inducing qualities of leading ladyLiv Tyler... wait a minute, I've done this already. I think it's time I came up with some new material - I've been living off the same 3 lame dick jokes for the past 3 years, and at the rate I'm going, by September 2006 I may even have a new lame dick joke to include in my nightly ramble.

So far this is the fourth time I've written the rest of this entry, and it's covered topics such as, public nudity, MILF vagina, and sucking off Lennox Lewis (seriously), however like a man with no tongue performing cunnilingus, I can't quite seem to hit the sweet spot tonight. It's 5am, I think my writing skills went to bed about 3 hours ago, and after finding myself writing a sentence about sucking off Lennox Lewis, I think it's high time the rest of my body followed suit. Speaking of Lennox, have you actually seen the size of that guy? He must have a dick like a stallion's - I'd give anything to get battered around the ring by him for a few rounds.

Hey was that a new dick joke? Welcome to Elwood's Odyssey, year 4!

Song currently stuck in my head - "Sweet Dreams" by Marilyn Manson

ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 469 - Bum Notes

Remember that time I woke up after a night out on the sofa with a cheeseburger under my ass? No of course you don't, because I wrote about that in 2005 and nobody who read my blog back then reads it now (in fact, I don't think anyone reads it now). But it happened. See? Well I had something of a revival of this incident about a month ago. It was a chilly night in early Spring, my flatmate had had buggered off to Azerbaijan for two weeks, leaving me in the house on my own. My girlfriend (at the time, now ex) had come over to stay for a few nights, and on the Saturday she had invited a friend over for a few drinks. Between the hours of about 8 and 1, the two of them sat on the two seater sofa chatting about shoes, haircuts, make-up and other girly stuff that I have little to no interest in. Since they also had the remote control for the telly, I did all I could think of to do to keep myself entertained: I sat in the corner with a case of Heineken playing Words With Friends and quietly got absolutely fucking steaming. Eventually, once I was drunk enough, I actually did join in the conversation (which thankfully had moved on from shoes, haircuts and make-up) and partook in several rounds of extremely large shots, an activity which undoubtedly led to me doing my usual party trick and passing out on the sofa. I must have slumbered for a good hour or so before waking up and immediately recognising that something was very wrong. My crotch and my buttcheeks were cold and wet. Very very wet. Oh dear. The first thing that sprang into my mind was the obvious - that I'd been so drunk I'd fallen asleep and pissed myself. I'd never done it before, but there's a first time for everything, right? Slyly opening one eye to make sure no-one was watching (they weren't) I stuck my hand in the puddle that was formed around my crotch and ass and gave it a good hard sniff. Didn't smell like piss..... didn't taste like piss...... (joke)...... sitting up and opening my eyes I realised my error. I'd fallen asleep lying flat out on the sofa holding a full bottle of Heineken, which I'd then dropped and spilled all over my crotch, and it had pooled under my now sopping wet arse. Unfortunate and uncomfortable, and I had to go upstairs and strip the whole lot off and clamber into bed starkers. Still, Heineken is better than piss I suppose (unless you're a real ale drinker).

This was not the first time my rear end had made an appearance this evening, and the first occurrence was on a rather more spectacular stage. During the evening we'd been flicking through the music channels and somehow ended up at Starz TV, one of those poxy MTV style channels that plays tracks you've never heard of while assorted loser's illegible texts are shown at the bottom of the screen in a sort of "chat room" idea. ("OMG u r so fit howz u darlin, a/s/l" etc.) This particular channel has a facility where you can text in a photo of your face and get it on the telly - 30 seconds of "fame" for only one shiny pound. Having had previous in this sort of thing (although I can't find the "Elwood - Chav Hard Man Seeks Loving" video online - ask Bob) it wasn't long before I sent in a couple of wacky snaps of myself to see if I could get my gorgeous face on the telly. I managed as well. Look. There's an epically drunk me on TV with Jessie J. (click for full size)


Of course that wasn't enough for me though. A few girls had text in "racy" snaps of themselves in suggestive poses wearing not many clothes, and on one or two there was even a teeny peek of nipple. Nothing too gratuitous, just a little blink-and-you'll-miss-it nip-slip. Which got me to wondering, do they actually vet these photos before allowing them to be broadcast? Only one way to find out: send in something totally inappropriate and see if it gets past the censors. So I did. And It did.
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Song currently stuck in my head - "No Name No. 5" by Elliott Smith.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 468 - Teething Problems - A Picture Diary!

Finally, after a year and a half on the NHS waiting list I got my wisdom teeth yanked a few weeks ago. I was not looking forward to this shit, firstly because I fully, full-on, fucking hate the dentist, and also because I have a real phobia of being put to sleep. However there is no fucking way I was going to let them poke about in the back of my gob with their scalpels and stuff while I was awake, so the sleepy option won out. So Monday morning at 8am I pitched up at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, sleepy (having not been able to sleep the night before), hungry (having not been allowed to eat or drink for 12 hours) and grumpy (having not been allowed to smoke for 24 hours) and checked myself in. My ward consisted of myself and four other guys, three having repairs done to broken noses, and one other having his wisdom teeth taken out. I'd been told on the phone that I'd be in and out by lunchtime, so I hadn't taken any form of entertainment, however the hospital seemed to have other ideas. I wasn't even going into surgery until 1pm, so I suddenly found myself with 5 hours to kill, confined to a hospital bed, not allowed to eat or drink and with nothing to entertain me. Booooooooooring. With my ADHD-like attention span, I require entertainment at all times, preferably by something flashy and noisy with bright primary colours. There was an individual TV over my bed, which could have fit the bill nicely (I can sit and watch TV for 12-13 hours, quite easily), however I resented having to pay a fiver for the privelege, but after 5 minutes of fidgeting I relented and fed it my credit card details. A good plan in theory, but have you ever tried watching TV at 9 in the morning? Ho-lee shit is it bad. It's like the TV equivalent of The Sunday Post at that time of the day. Which is how I found myself watching five episodes of Top Gear on the bounce. I normally like Top Gear, but after 5 episodes I was closing to putting my fist through the screen if I saw Richard Hammond's smug face one more time, and thankfully the nurses came to wheel me away for some painful and fear-inducing oral surgery before I could start a sixth.

The porter who wheeled me through the corridors wouldn't stop talking about fucking giraffes and monekys. And I don't mean that as an adjective, as in "I hate those fucking giraffes", I mean it as a verb; he talked incessantly about him fucking giraffes. And this was BEFORE I got given any drugs. The nurse who spoke to me outside surgery was calming and reassuring. The anaesthetist was not. He let some fucknut student put the needle into the back of my hand, and the dumb-fuck couldn't seem to locate a vein. It took him four or five attempts, which was painful, and left my hand looking like this for two weeks.


Then the moment I really was dreading. "OK, just count backwards from ten, and soon you'll feel yourself falling into a deep sleep". This is the part that traumatised the fuck out of me as a kid the last time I got put to sleep, only that was with gas, it took fucking ages to work and I was basically lying hallucinating for a good 30 seconds, swinging punches at the guy holding the mask over my face. My last memory before going out this time was saying to the anaesthatist, dreamily "Whoah.... this feels like magic mushrooms or some shit...." Cue laughter from the anastaetist and surgeons. "Not that I would know, I've never done magic mu............." SLEEP. Just like that, mid sentence. Two or three seconds of extreme dizziness and that was it. That's what I was worried about?

I woke up an hour and a half later in recovery. My first words, upon feeling someone's fingers poking around in my mouth taking swabs out were "I'm glad you woke me up. I was dreaming about Nickelback". Even in surgery, I'm fucking funny. The next 20 minutes or so were drug induced comedy. When I came to I was shivering like hell, uncontrollably, and the nurse had to give me extra blankets. She asked if I was in pain. I said yes. She injected a wee thing into my drip. 5 minutes passed. She asked if I was still in pain. I said yes. I got another wee injection thing. I think this happened around 6 times before she finally said "Well I can't give you any more morphine! You've had your whole allowance!" By this point I'd mysteriously perked up somewhat. For some reason I was determined to sit up in the bed, despite the nurses instructing me to lie down, wear the oxygen mask and recover. I kept asking every nurse who passed if the operation had gone OK and they kept telling me yes. It wasn't until a while later I realised it was the same nurse that I'd asked over and over again. She kept telling me to put on the oxygen mask and relax. My response? "NO! IT TASTES LIKE FUCKING PINEAPPLES!"

So to the ward, where half an hour after having my mouth butchered, they made me eat a tuna sandwich. My mouth was still full of blood, my lips were covered in blood, and everything tasted like a blood. Tuna and blood sandwich. Fantastic. 4 hours to kill until I could go home. More Top Gear. Amazingly I wasn't in any pain whatsoever. A friend who works in the hospital popped in to say hello and I was all smiles and pretty much climbing the walls. I ordered vegetable quiche and potatoes for dinner. It came under one of those serving things that the butler pulls off and says "voila!" to present a stunning lobster bisque. Well my veggie quiche and mash didn't quite live up to expectations when I whipped the dish thing off the top:


Mmmmm. But at least I managed to eat it. By the time my flatmate came to pick me up at 7 I was dressed and walking round the hospital out of sheer boredom. No pain at all I told him. There's no swelling, it doesn't hurt, I should have got this done years ago. Swagger swagger bravado bravado etc. But it was true, it didn't hurt at all. Until the next day when the morphine wore off. Motherfuckshitass did that shit hurt the next day. And the day after. And the day after. And the day after. My jaw looked like a chipmunk with two golf balls stuffed in his cheeks, and both sides of my face were bright yellow. I'd planned for two days off work, I ended up not going back at all that week and missing a whole week. Not only because the pain was so bad that all I could eat was this crap:


but also because I was taking so many painkillers / anti-biotics / anti-inflammatories etc. that my head felt like it was full of fluff, I couldn't concentrate on anything, and I kept falling asleep. I had to take all this, four times a day:

That's a lot of drugs. The worst was the codeine. It's a little publicised fact, but codeine can cause constipation, and I was taking a lot of codiene. By the time I realised that I hadn't taken a dump in 4 days I was getting bad stomach cramps. That night I took some Dulcolax. It didn't work. The next day my stomach was swelled up like a balloon, and I was doubled over in pain. I took some more Dulcolax that night. That did the trick. When I woke up in the morning and went for a shower I weighed myself, like I do most mornings. 11st 3lb. More than usual. 6 days since I last took a dump. When the Dulcolax worked (which it did in explosive fashion), I weighted myself again out of curiosity. 10st 12.5lb. I'd taken a 4.5lb shit. That's more than half the weight of a new born baby I'd been carrying around in my bowel. No wonder I felt bloated.

So now a month on, the pain is gone, the wisdom teeth don't hurt any more and my bowels work again. The only real annoyance with them now is that I keep getting small bits of food stuck in the holes in my gums where the teeth used to be. After every meal I have to flush out my gums as things like lettuce, coleslaw, rice etc get wedged in the wee holes and won't come out. That's unpleasant, and so was carrying a 4.5lb shit around, but it's a great feeling not having crappy sideways teeth and toothache all the time. My smile may still be more Shane MacGowan than Simon Cowell, but at least the cunts are out now and I won't have to go through all that pish again. Now, about those dodgy knees....

Song currently stuck in my head - "Good Times, Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 467 - I Scream Van

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK.

That's my least favourite sound in the world at the moment. Remember this time last year when I was extolling the virtues of my plush new pad in "Aberdeen South", and in particular praising the peace and quiet that comes with not living in the same street as hundreds of nesting seagulls?

Post 462 - Living Conditions

Well sadly my new-found peace has been shattered with the emergence of a new foe. Not of the feathered variety this time, but the good old, two-arm, two-leg, meat-and-two-veg male member of the homo sapien race. (That's a bloke for those of you who don't speak asshole. I'm fluent).

Do me a favour, would you? Think back to your childhood. In fact, we'll all do it together. Ready.... 1,2,3.... right. It's 1986. We're standing in the front garden of a large house in a tiny village, on a lovely hot summer's day. There's not a cloud in the sky, there's no traffic on the nearby road, somewhere in the distance, a brook is babbling. We're throwing a frisbee around, kicking a football, whatever, just doing what kids do (well, kids from the 80s, not kids from nowadays who'd probably be jacking up while happy-slapping some old ladies and recording in on their stolen phones). Did I mention that it's a hot day? Well it's a hot day anyway. Suddenly you hear a sound that catches our attention. Drifting gently through the warm summer air, you hear the plinky plonky sound of chimes, which can only mean one thing - ice cream van. We rush out into the street and run down the pavement, across the road (taking care to look both ways first, naturally) and the friendly old chap in the ice-cream van furnishes us with as much 99s, wafers, sliders, Lemonade Sparkles and Funny Feet as we can eat, all the while the van chimes out a delightful rendition of "Pop Goes The Weasel". The ice-cream van is a happy sound. It brings memories rushing back; of hot summers that seemed to go on forever; of riding bikes out into the countryside to go fishing for tadpoles; of daisy chains, dandelion clocks, dock leaves and all that other pish you expect to see when you grew up in a tiny village like I did.

At least that's what you would think unless you lived where I live now, where the ice cream man has done away with the traditional chimes and replaced them with A FUCKING AIR HORN. Probably the most obnoxious, annoying sound in the world. Not only does the break in tradition annoy me, something from my childhood that's seemingly been swept aside, what gets me most is that the cunt parks outside my fucking house EVERY. BASTARD. HOUR. and blows the air horn for a good 30 seconds.

This is acceptable if:
A) I'm not at home.
B) That's it. There's no other time when it's acceptable.

It is not acceptable if:
A) I'm trying to watch TV and can't hear it for his fucking air horn.
B) I'm asleep in my bedroom upstairs, right above where he parks, and I get woken up by his fucking air horn.
C) I'm trying to relax outside, and the peace is shattered by his fucking air horn.
D) etc etc etc...

The noisy bastard that he is. It's not just occasionally during the summer either. It's every hour, every day, every week, every month of the year, snow, wind, sleet, hail, rain of frogs, whatever. Credit where it's due, the man makes a fucking good ice-cream, but seriously dude, the horn? Unnecessary.

I got "99" problems....

Song currently stuck in my head - "Where It's At" by Beck.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 467 - 31 is the new 21

So I turned 31 a couple of weeks ago. Remember when you were 21, and 31 sounded ancient? I expected to have the wife, kids, family car, 9-5 job, mortgage I can't pay and the dog by this age, but it hasn't really worked out for me that way. Yeah I have the 9-5 job in the office, and I'm in a happy, stable long-term relationship, but the rest is still something for the future, and in truth, apart from being a bit more sensible, having mellowed out a fair bit and having a few extra inches on my waistline, I really don't feel that much different now to how I did at 21. I still enjoy a Friday night in the pub with mates (though I'm a more inclined towards quiet pubs with plenty of seats nowadays than doing tequila shots through my eyeball in Moshulu with my trousers round my ankles). I still pretend to be a rock star at the weekends. I still dress like I went on a blindfolded trolley-dash in a Salvation Army store. And I still permanently like as though I just woke up. It's funny how no-one ever tells you that although you may look older, you don't feel older.

The only thing that really has changed over the past few years is how I drink. As mentioned above, I can't be bothered with noisy bars and clubs these days, I much prefer a nice quiet pub where I can get a decent pint in a proper glass, or a tasty, well mixed gin & tonic, and enjoy it sitting round a table with friends. Not standing at the bar for 25 minutes waiting to get served and having the idiot barman bringing me wrong drinks because he couldn't hear what I was asking for, and then having to stand around bellowing into my mates ears to try and have a conversation. Uh uh. That's not how this boy rolls any more. As for nightclubs? Nae bastard chance. Gone also are the days of "the pubs shut at 3am, lets get as fucking steaming as possible before they close" pouring garishly-coloured shots down my neck, stumbling out at 3am, devouring some unidentifable sloppy nonsense from a kebab shop, getting home and passing out on the sofa fully clothed and waking up with a microwave cheeseburger under my ass. (Yes that actually happened). Most nights out now end with me grabbing a sandwich and a bag of crisps from the 24 shop on Crown Street and getting home for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. There are still occasions (such as my 31st birthday for example!) where I drink a bitty too much and go into that "special place" where I turn into a lush, determined to sit at the bar and pour gin down my throat, but even then I'm still compus mentus enough to make my own way home, get in, brush my teeth, undress and go to bed. I'm past the age of being found passed out in a pishy doorway, getting carried home and waking up in the morning in the hallway using an ironing board as a duvet - which, lets face it, is probably for the best.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Jammin'" by Bob Marley.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 466 - 8 Years.

Blogs. A good blog is like a good friendship. Sometimes with even your closest friends you just lose touch, and you can go weeks, months, years without seeing each other. But when you do, you fall back into conversation as naturally as though you saw each other yesterday (even if it is still just finding new ways of calling each other gay). This blog is a similar thing for me. 8 years now I’ve been scribbling down my thoughts on this blog (or others very like it), and it can be a long long time between posts. But even now when admitting to having a personal blog carries a stigma similar to that of beating down a primary school door dressed as Gary Glitter, I like to fire this bad boy up from time to time and inflict my thoughts on a largely uninterested world. Sometimes I feel guilty when I don’t write in my blog for a while. Like it’s just sitting their patiently in its little corner of cyberspace, sad because I haven’t bothered to write in it for 6 months, feeling hurt, tearful and wondering what it did to deserve being abandoned. Though I usually remember that it’s just a website and it doesn’t have feelings, and that usually gets rid of the guilt. But still, when I log onto blogger and see its gaudy blue and orange homepage, it’s like it welcomes me back with open arms. “Come in, sit down, where have you been, great to have you back!” I find writing therapeutic, it gives me the chance to use what I consider to be one of my few skills, and I get lost in it when I get started. I’m under no delusions that I’m the next Ernest Hemingway or Oscar Wilde, some master of the noble art whose every word will be celebrated for hundreds of years after his death. I will never be a professional writer of any capacity – unless someone heavily under the influence of some psychotropic drugs likes and signs up my tawdry sit-com idea which I’ve never actually committed to paper yet (it’s set in a record shop and features a lot of toilet humour and some lesbian sex). In fact, with work, family, girlfriend, bands, hobbies, socialising and an Xbox 360 all taking up the vast majority of my time, writing has been shuffled down to something I do only on a very rare occasion – sort of like cleaning the bath, or cutting my toenails – although I do get a bit more enjoyment out of the writing.

My other problem with keeping a blog afloat, or even having a crack at any other form of creative writing, has always been finding something to write about. It’s easy to start scribbling furiously when you’ve got a topic – it’s coming up with the topic that always leaves me staring at a blank page. Whether it be my lack of imagination (which my dad, the writer, pointed out to me when I told him I’d enrolled in a writing course at Aberdeen College at age 18, not realising how much he hurt my feelings in the process), or just lack of anything remotely interesting happening on a day to day basis to provide inspiration, I’ve just never been very good at it. But I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Even if it’s only once every 6 months, and even if it’s only me that ever reads it. I like going back through my old posts and re-reading them. It brings back some great memories and it’s fun to remember to get a reminder of what I used to do, say and think in 2003 in my very own words (though I could probably pick any date at random in 2003 and it would say “missed uni. Masturbated. Worried about money. Played pool in the evening”. Or at least it does in the old version of Elwood’s Odyssey I still have. You people get the neutered PG version that just says “missed uni. Worried about money. Played pool in the evening”).

So with all that said, I’m not going to make the same old promise that I’ve made so many times before – “Elwood’s back baby!” – we all know how that turns out. 5 half-hearted blogs and then back to silence. No. I’ll just say it’s been fun writing this, and I hope it’s just as fun when I’m reading it in 2017 - provided the internet still exists then and hasn’t collapsed under the weight of all the porn and self-obsessed blogs.

Until next time

Lucky / Elwood

Song currently stuck in my head – “Christmas Don’t Be Late” by Alvin & The Chipmunks
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 465 - Moshulu

Aberdeen bar boss tells of fears as Warehouse shuts down

You know what? I'm going to miss that place. It's a sad and undignified end to what was a hugely important part of my life for many years - if my life were like Friends, Moshulu would have been my Central Perk. When the Palace closed down in 2002 I felt like I would never find anywhere to replace it, however it was only a short time before the Mudd Club was up and running in Moshulu and although it would never be the same as The Palace, I loved the place from day 1. In fact, the very first entry I ever wrote in the blog, way back in August 2002 was about my first visit to the new look Moshulu since it changed from neddy dance club to rock club. Don't believe me?

Post 1

(Don't read it though, it's awful. Believe me).

From 2002 - 2005 I attended Moshulu religiously every Friday night, like a moth to a flame. The customers were so loyal to the place I could walk in on a Friday night and it would take me half an hour to get to the back as I would know everybody I was walking past, and would have to stop and chat. Some, if not most, of the best memories I have from nights out involve Moshulu in one way or another. I met some amazing people in there, and I had some great times - moshing in the Thursday night mosh cage; jumping around to the rock anthems on a Friday night; inventing a drinking game involving ordering two unrelated drinks (a gin and tonic and a vodka coke for instance) sitting them side by side on the bar, sticking a straw in each and seeing how quickly you could drink both simultaneously; mastering downing a bottle of blue WKD in 4 seconds; ogling unattainable and uninterested goth girls; losing all my money in the bandits with Terry and Kai from Sirius; perving on Kai's girlfriend; the ALWAYS awesome Hallowe'en parties; puking up sambuca on the carpet, getting chucked out the side door and running round to the front door and paying in again; turning up with 5inch medusa spikes, chains, painted fingernails, sunglasses, covered in badges and wearing 4 watches; staggering out to the kebab shops at 3am; pulling an enormously fat chick while dressed as a nun; pole dancing; shining a broken spotlight in people's faces; having a face slapping competition with my much larger, stronger friend and losing badly. Some fantastic memories that I'll always cherish.

In 2005 I started to grow a bit tired of the place. The playlist on a Friday night seemingly hadn't changed in 3 years, the friendly atmosphere and camaraderie of the place had gone, and more and more I found myself walking around a room full of total strangers, as many of the old crew had stopped going. Around this time I had cut off all my hair, thrown out my wacky wardrobe and generally grown up a bit, and I just didn't quite feel like I belonged there any more. I had also just broken up with a girl who frequented the place, so I used that as my excuse to stop going on a Friday night, choosing instead to visit Exodus, and also to explore the dance music culture which had grabbed my attention. However the place had recently doubled up as a gig venue for touring bands, and despite avoiding the place as a club, I still went along there to gigs (in fact see here for a eulogy on the place as a venue which I wrote yesterday). As a venue it was awesome, the sound was great, the atmosphere was great, and the floor so sticky that during a gig there by the Dropkick Murphys, my shoe stuck to the floor and came right off my foot. Before too long I was missing the place, and began sporadically visiting again on a Friday night.

The place had a bit of a refurb in 2008, but it was little more than a lick of paint and a new carpet - it badly needed it, but it didn't make that much of a difference, it was still dingy, dark and depressing, and it still played rock. And I still continued going. The death knell for the place though came in 2009, when it closed down and re-opened as "Warehouse" - all sparkly decor, pink flashy lights, and, shock horror, commercial chart music. It tore the heart and soul out of the place. The building itself actually seemed sad, like it had somehow lost it's dignity, like some 3-dollar whore. That rock kids fled en masse to the nearby Korova (which I fucking hate) and Warehouse was but a distant memory, a cheap imitation of Moshulu. Except for me. I still kept going. In fact I would say I went even more often when it reopened as Warehouse than I had done in the past few years, as it was much quieter, and easier to get a seat and get served. I stuck with the old girl to the bitter end, and now, 8 years since I wrote my first blog about my first ever night in Moshulu, I am now writing a lament to the place.

Adios Moshulu. It's been an honour and a privilege.