Champagne In Coffee Mugs

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

2011-11-16T02:03:00.002Z

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

2011-07-14T23:41:00.143+01:00

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

2011-07-05T23:59:00.000+01:00

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

2011-05-23T02:58:00.005+01:00

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

2011-05-18T20:08:00.003+01:00

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!

2011-04-01T21:40:00.001+01:00

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

2011-03-31T19:29:00.000+01:00

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 i s 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

2011-01-28T18:10:00.008Z

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.

2010-12-15T18:09:00.003Z

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

2010-07-30T16:55:00.002+01:00

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.

Post 464 - Collections

2010-06-24T00:06:00.009+01:00

All my life I've been into collecting things. It started when I was a little kid and I used to obsessively collect stickers (not Panini ones, more like the ones you get from charity collectors, or the dentist - I had notepads packed full of them), badges and beermats - things you could usually appropriate for free. As I got older it became things like magazines, model cars, foreign coins and guitars. These days, more often than not it's centered around music, TV and film. The urge to starting collecting something just hits me out of the blue, and it hits hard - one minute I couldn't give a shiny shit about something, and the next minute all of a sudden I simply can't live if I don't own every film Bruce Lee was ever in, or every album by The Ramones, or every episode of The X-Files. If I buy one of something, ie one box set of The Simpsons, or one Kevin Smith movie, I get totally OCD over it, and I can't stop thinking about it until I buy all the rest of them to complete the collection and I can take the whole lot out of the cupboard and put it on display somewhere. On occasion I'll spend all my money buying a complete set of something at once because I just can't live with myself if I don't have a complete set. A few years ago it was vinyl records; last year I spent the best part of a week's holiday from work traipsing round charity shops trying to find every Stephen King novel. A few years before that I wandered around a car boot sale every Sunday trying to build up a collection of old WWE wrestling videos. In fact just two months ago I bought 8 years worth of Summer Slam DVDs because I couldn't bear the thought of just having one. Horror films, that was another one. Antiques reared it's ugly head a few years back. Most of these obsessions last about a month on average before I lose interest in them and move on to something else. My girlfriend knows only well when I've got a new obsession; the giveaway is that out of the blue I'll start talking endlessly and excitedly about something I may have never mentioned before, and talking as though it's something that I've had a lifelong interest in: be it Tarantino films, Dukes Of Hazzard memorabilia, stand-up comedy DVDs, Converse All-Stars, and she knows by now just to roll with it and let me get it out of my system. My current thing? Vintage games consoles. In the past 6 months alone I've shelled out for; 2 Sega Megadrives; a Sega Master System; a Nintendo NES; a Super Nintendo (with a Super Scope!); an Atari 2600 (which just arrived this morning); an original Gameboy; a Gameboy Colour; a Gameboy Advance; a Nintendo DS; and I already have a Nintendo 64 and a Playstation 2. I'm currently housing well over 400 games on all these platforms, about 90% of which I've purchased in the last 6 months, and about 5% I've actually played. For me it's not actually about playing the games, or watching the DVDs, or listening to the vinyl records - it's just about having them. It's as though I somehow think that being able to say "Yeah I have every episode of Red Dwarf / Futurama / Dawson's Creek / Frasier / The X-Files / Peep Show / The Office / Extras / The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air / Twin Peaks / Doctor Who / Friends / all the Nightmare On Elm Street films / all the Hellraiser films / all the Robocop films / all the National Lampoon's films / all the I Know What You Did Last Summer films / all the Back To The Future films" is somehow going to make me seem unbelievably cool and attractive. (I do actually have all of those by the way, and I'm currently working on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Friday The 13th films, and Alfred Hitchcock films).

I don't think I'm doing anything bad, my weird little obsession isn't harming anyone. Some people rape, kill, sell smack, mug old ladies - I collect Dawson's Creek DVDs.

Actually that might be worse.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Come Back Brighter" by Reef.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 463 - Welcome To The House Of Fun

2010-06-22T17:43:00.004+01:00

Somewhere in the world there exists a videotape of me auditioning for Big Brother 2. I live in hope that it's been destroyed, or at the very least, taped over, but something tells me it may still be in the grubby hands of my ex-girlfriend's brother, who stumbled upon it when I ill-advisedly left the tape in his camcorder when we shared a flat, and then routinely humiliated me by playing it every time we had people round. I didn't do anything really bad in it. I didn't strip naked and run down Union Street or anything like that. It's basically just 10 minutes of me sitting on my sofa wearing a Rangers shirt and talking in a a dull monotone voice about my dull monotone life, while an Offspring album plays in the background. I can't imagine why the producers weren't tripping over each other in the clamour to get to the phone and offer me a place in the house alongside Bubble, Helen, Brian et al. It was probably the Rangers shirt.

The venom some people feel towards Big Brother is just a bit odd to me. In my (square) eyes, it is what it is - a program about a bunch of nobodies living in a house, fucking around all day, and arguing (all things I do well, incidentally). If you're really that offended by it, then just change the fucking channel. There's about 600 other channels of shit for you to watch. By ranting and raving about it, you're pretty much doing exactly what the producers are hoping for. I kind of feel sorry for Big Brother. It was, and is, a national institution in the UK, a large part of the summer, and the pounding it gets from the critics and the public are ruthless. they way they go on, it's as though Big Brother is to blame for the economy, paedophiles, the Yorkshire Ripper, the dogshit that you stood in on the way home, and the fact that you can't find anyone who'll sleep with you. It's like a pack of wild dogs circling a defenceless bunny, just savouring the moment they can get in there and rip its legs off.

Look, we all know that BB is a load of old shit: it's just fame-hungry wannabes so desperate for 15 seconds (it's not even minutes any more) of fame that they will line up and volunteer to be utterly humiliated; to be forced to do things things most sane people wouldn't even consider; to let 8 million people watch them taking a shit, in the vain hope of catching just the tiniest crumb off the celebrity status cake. It's using people's dreams and their fears to let them make massive fools of themselves for our entertainment; it's basically a 21st century version of the Victorian freak show; it's tawdry, dumbed down TV for the chav generation. But by fucking Christ is it not entertaining at times? In the first week of this series there was a guy who was forced to dress in a mole costume 24 hours a day, sleep in an underground mole hole, and taking orders from a talking chest of drawers that only he could hear, which was ordering him to sabotage his new friends drink, food and fags, lest he be cast back into his everyday boring life and be forgotten about a few weeks earlier than he would have done if he'd stayed. And he did it as well, the sneaky little cunt! As one poster on the Aberdeen Music forums succinctly puts it "I love watching freaks in a box performing tricks for the futile "plaudits" they get". And so do I. It's cruel, it's voyeuristic and it's humiliating for all involved, but above all else, it's entertaining - and since it's in the entertainment industry, I'd say it fulfils it's remit quite nicely, wouldn't you? Big Brother has never claimed to be anything other than a light entertainment TV show which doesn't take itself too seriously. The only people who do take it too seriously are the people who get so amazingly wound up every time someone so much as mentions it. Well you know what? You can take your snobby elitist bullshit and fuck off. You have 30 seconds to collect your belongings and say your goodbyes.

Song currently stuck in my head - "That's What You Get" by Paramore.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 462 - Living Conditions

2010-06-08T17:49:00.003+01:00

Silence. To most it’s golden, but to someone who this time last year lived slap-bang in the middle of the seagull equivalent of Grand Central Station, it’s also platinum-coated, diamond-encrusted, and presented in a box lined with angel’s pubic hair. My new pad in deepest darkest Kincorth has many advantages over my previous abode on Aberdeen’s undesirable Bank Street, but freedom from the squawking menace that blighted my beloved beauty sleep is the cherry on top of this crib-related cake. A brief visit to my old stomping ground on Friday night hammered this message home, as 30 seconds of enduring that contemptible cacophony while I stood on the doorstep awaiting entry was enough to have me reaching for the Kingsmill laced with arsenic – and that was just for myself – you should see what I had in store for the seagulls.

And so after two years of living in a cramped, overpriced shoebox, where I was frequently kept awake by seagulls, drunks from the pub down the street, taxi drivers, van drivers, boy racers, trains, and worst of all, the fucking students who lived downstairs, finally I’ve upped sticks and moved into a spacious semi-detached in Aberdeen’s south side. Kincorth, by reputation, may not be the nicest area of Aberdeen, and I would think twice about walking around it by myself at night (or even setting foot into the local pub) but most importantly for me, it’s far enough away from the city centre and the fish factories at the harbour to ensure that I get an uninterrupted 8 hours a night. Give me neds on tiny motorbikes, gobby single mums and hardened criminals over students and seagulls any day of the week.

While noise reduction may have been my number one reason for moving, space was a close second. Beautiful, empty space. You don’t realise how much you love vast expanses of nothingness until you don’t have them. In my last flat, all my worldly possessions were crammed into sheds, attics, under tables, behind sofas, on top of kitchen cupboards, piled up on stairwells, basically anywhere I could find to store stuff, as my bedroom was so small there was only room for a bed and a chest of drawers in it, and the tiny top-floor flat had no built in cupboards. At the all-new chez-Lucky, there’s a decent-sized living room and kitchen downstairs, and more importantly I have a nice big airy bedroom upstairs, in which there’s easily room for my bed; two double wardrobes for all my beautiful clothes; my bookcase; my electric keyboard and stand which I can now set up permanently and actually learn to play; a double chest of drawers (sitting on top of which is my flat-screen TV, big black and shiny like Darth Vader’s helmet, my DVD player and my assortment of vintage games consoles); and there’s a big built in cupboard where I can store all my guitars, DVDs etc. And there’s still more than enough room for me to stretch out and do some sit-ups or squats first thing in the morning. Not that I would ever do that, but it’s nice to know I have the option. It’s a good, if peculiar feeling being able to walk across my bedroom, rather that being able to reach all four walls from my bed.

The convenience factor may be gone - it takes me a little longer to drive to and from work every day; I can’t walk home from the pub at kicking out time; I don’t live above a well-stocked newsagent anymore; but on the plus side I also don’t live above two noisy stupid 18 year old whores who have fucking parties that go on until 6am on a Wednesday, with their retarded friends mashing their fat kebab-stained fingers on the door buzzers at 2 in the morning and waking everyone up. I’ve never came so close to shitting through someone’s letter box before – though I did take some slightly less scatological revenge: every time they woke me up with one of their late night / early morning parties, when I got up at 8am to go to work (having got about 2 hours sleep) I took a roll of electrical tape downstairs with me, and taped down the button on their buzzer system on my way out of the door, knowing that the only way they would be able to stop it is to drag their hungover arse out of bed, get dressed and go out the front door and remove the tape. Was it petty? Definitely. Did it feel good? It felt fucking great, seeing those bleary-eyed troglodytes standing on the doorstep in their dressing gown trying to figure out what was wrong with their buzzer. If only I could have found some way to take similar revenge on the fucking seagulls…

Song currently listening to – “All For The Sake Of Love” by Die Toten Hosen.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 461 - We'll Be Back After These Messages

2009-12-07T15:49:00.005Z

It's nice to know that even though my blog is effectively PG-rated now (well OK, maybe 15-rated), the stuff people search for when they find it is as twisted as ever. Here's a list of thing people have been searching for on Google this week when they've clicked into my blog (no doubt to pretty quickly click out again).

"hire kerry katona" for party
"naked schoolgirls" jerking sucking pictures free
anorrexic women sucking cocks
briatian felching girls
wkd coughy
women wanking with truncheons

This makes me think my readership is either perverted, illiterate, or both.

Anyway, I'm too busy with work and other things (including this) to blog right now. Lucky will return in a few weeks.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Always The Last to Know" by ???
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 460 - Mangled

2009-11-19T18:10:00.002Z

(disclaimer – the events detailed in this entry took place while I was extremely drunk, and my memories of that night are a little hazy, so it may not ring 100% true. But still, it’s a fairly accurate account of what happened)

This man is my arch-nemesis:

If you don’t recognise his gurning physiognomy, he is actor and comedian Mark Little, best known for playing loveable Aussie everyman Joe Mangel on Neighbours. I wasted a good ten years of lunchtimes during the 90s religiously watching Neighbours, I saw Joe arrive on Ramsey Street as the loutish, blue-collar nephew of Mrs. Mangel, I saw him marry Kerry Mangel in a butterfly sanctuary, I saw him grieve when his new wife was shot and killed by duck-hunters, I saw him adopt and care for Kerry’s daughter Sky, and I saw him get remarried to Melanie. None of that has anything to do with the story I’m about to tell, but boy – how much of a loser was I back in the 90s?

This story took place in around 2001. One chilly winter’s evening I accepted an invitation from my mate Wayne to shoot a few frames of pool down at Riley’s pool hall on Chapel Street. Upon arriving I discovered that I had actually been invited to an impromptu “work’s night out” from Wayne’s place of employment (Simpson’s Hotel, if you’re wondering), and there were about 10 or 20 guys in our party, some I knew, some I didn’t. These guys were on a mission, absolutely throwing drinks down their neck before the ice in the glass had time to melt, and I, still being of that age where the purpose of a night out is to get utterly slaughtered, freely joined in. As the drinks were flowing, one of the guys who could still see straight spotted a familiar face playing pool at the table adjacent to ours, and after much craning of necks, it was decided that none other than Neighbours legend Joe Mangel was enjoying a few frames around 30 feet away from where we sat. Still, we needed proof, and that wasn’t too long in coming.

“HERE MATE!” one of our group bellowed across the hall. “ARE YOU JOE MANGEL?”.

“Nah mate” came the reply, with a distinctly Australian twang. “I’m the guy who created him”.

“I FUCKING TELT YOU IT WAS JOE MANGEL!”

A chant begins. “MAN-GEL! MAN-GEL! MAN-GEL!”. Mark Little looks bemused, but puts up with it. The chant is soon interspersed with yells of “Hey Joe, where’s your Ute?!” “Hey Joe, where’s Bouncer?!” “Hey Joe Mangel, how far is it to Ramsey Street?!”

“I told you guys I’m not Joe Mangel. He was a character I played, that’s not my name”

“MAN-GEL! MAN-GEL! MAN-GEL!”

This went on in a similar vein for a good few minutes. Eventually Mark Little, realising that his artistic integrity was not going to be respected, got fed up of being heckled, and went back to his game of pool. However it did not end there. For probably the next hour or two, the poor guy, who lest we forget was simply trying to enjoy a quiet game of pool with his mates, was subjected to a slew of bad Neighbours jokes being yelled across the pool hall, not to mention questions about his character’s history, questions about other Neighbours characters (eg “are Scott and Charlene still together?”), and despite his constant protestations, he was continually referred to as Joe Mangel. We thought that the running joke that we firmly believed he was the real-life Joe Mangel character, and not just an actor who played him was side-splittingly funny, however he evidently did not, and in retrospect, we may have taken it a little too far.

After an hour or two, the cat-calling finally died down, and our numbers began to dwindle as people stumbled off either home to bed or onto a nightclub, and eventually there was only me and Wayne left. We had long since finished playing pool and were now focussed firmly on drinking.

“You know what would be funny?” I slurred. “I’m going to go and ask Joe Mangel for his autograph.” And so, pen in hand, I approached a seething Mark Little and said “Here Joe, how about giving me an autograph for my girlfriend?”

“For the millionth time, my name is Mark. And I’m playing pool just now. How about you come back and ask me after I’ve finished my game.”

“Yeah OK” I shrugged, figuring I could probably wait a while.

So I returned to my table, meanwhile keeping a watchful eye on the pool match unfolding, and as Mark sunk the black ball for a victory I approached him again.

“Can I have that autograph now Joe?”

“Nah sorry, I’m too busy”

“You said you would give me it once you’d finished your game”.

“Did I?” he replied, lining up his first shot of a new game. “I don’t remember saying that”.

“Well you definitely did”.

“Well you aren’t getting one, so why don’t you fuck off?”

This was like a red rag to a bull. I think I had forgotten that I didn’t actually want an autograph and I was just taking the piss, because I took spectacular offence to his refusal to sign anything for me.

“YOU FUCKING CUNT! YOU FUCKING PROMISED!”

“Oh did I? Well how about this? You and your fucking mates have been taking the fucking piss out of me for the last 2 hours. So you can fuck off and ram your autograph up your arse.”

In a flash, the pen hit the floor, my chest was stuck out and I was up in his face.

“Right! You fucking cunt! Come on! Let’s fucking have you!”

(It’s worth pointing out that I was a bit of a little ned at that age)

“Look, just fuck off will you little cunt!”

At this point, the barman who had been watching the whole thing unfold for the whole night, came bounding over from the bar and stepped in between us – which was probably good news for me - I’m 5’7” and was totally hammered, and Mark Little is well over 6’.

“You Australian bastard! You fucking kangaroo-shagging Aussie cunt!”

“Fuck off you little cunt! Go on, get fucked!”

As the insults flew back and forth, it occured to me that Joe Mangel was getting smaller and I soon realised that I was being dragged towards the doors. But still the yelling continued. Wayne, who had been in the toilet and missed the whole thing, came out of the gents to see possibly the most bizarre scene he could have ever imagined before we had set off out that night - me and Joe Mangel from Neighbours yelling insults at each other, before a barman physically ejected me from the premises and locked the door behind me.

At the time it was just a very amusing story, however with my older and wiser head in place, I realise now that I was acting like a total knob and he would have been quite within his rights to lamp me. However, we have unfinished business Joe Mangel. Our paths will cross again. Just you wait….

Song currently stuck in my head – “Hypnotize” by Notorious BIG.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 459 - Filet-O-Pish

2009-11-09T20:08:00.004Z

On Saturday I did something that I’m fairly certain no man (or woman) has ever done before in the history of the world - I went into McDonalds and ordered the Filet-O-Fish. This evergreen bastard has been on the menu in McDonalds since time began, but I’ve never actually seen one, or even seen anyone order it – and why would you? McDonalds makes burgers – it would be like going in to HMV and asking for a tin of paint, or going to Blockbuster and asking to rent out "Freddy Got Fingered" when there’s a whole shop full of actual films you could choose from.

So seldom seen is the Filet-O-Fish that I began to question whether or not it actually exists, or is simply a myth. The only reason I ordered it was to get proof of it’s existence, and when I placed my order the girl took ages to come back with it, probably a good 5 minutes. I began to suspect this may be part of an elaborate ploy to make me THINK they were fetching me a Filet-O-Fish, however they would come back and say “Sorry, there’s a problem, we’ve run out of the Filet-O-Fish” or some other excuse to disguise the fact that they don’t now and never have existed - however what seems like a more likely explanation is that they never have any pre-cooked and sitting on the rack ready to go out because they don’t sell enough of them, and so they cook it to order. Because suddenly there it was on my tray, looking resplendent in a bright blue box with the words “Dive in to your Filet-O-Fish!” written on it. (For the record, is it pronounced fill-ay?)

After tearing it open excitedly, like a kid on Christmas morning, I made the startling discovery, in much the same way as that kid, that the Filet-O-Fish, like most of his presents, is actually a bit shit once you get the wrapping off. It’s basically just a big flat Fish Finger on a very soft and pasty dry white bun, with a slice of cheese on top. How underwhelming. As my girlfriend tucked into her mouth-watering Big Tasty with Bacon, I was more than a little jealous, I don’t mind admitting, however at least I now have concrete evidence now that the Filet-O-Fish is genuine. I’m like the Fox Mulder of fast food, only with better dress-sense and a great ass.

In the young punk days of my early 20s, I was hugely anti-McDonalds. I never pretended to care about their ethics, or their treatment of their staff, or the animals, or how unhealthy it was – I just simply hated the food. The chips were always cold, the burgers paper-thin, burnt to a crisp and usually crowned with brown lettuce. Over the years though I’ve mellowed a lot (not to mention living right across the road from a McDonalds for 2 years), and McDonalds food has improved greatly in quality. I don’t think even the fattest of fat bastards would try to convince themselves that the food is anything other than fried garbage, high in carbs and low in nutritional value, but it has certainly improved in quality, the selection more varied and the taste more, well, tasty. At least the chips are hot now anyway. For on occasional hungover treat it certainly goes down well, but you couldn’t eat it every day or you’d end up looking Ronaldo (the fat Brazilian one, not the goofy Portuguese one), or a pre-cancer Jade Goody, and that’s not something you want.

But still I have a major hang-up about eating at McDonalds. This is the 21st Century, we’re a refined, civilised race – do we really have to regress to the stone age and eat with our fucking hands? Chimps eat with their hands – humans use forks. And if it’s not bad enough that you have to touch your food with your sweaty, shitty, snotty hands (well maybe that’s just mine), your fingers end up smelling like fucking chips all day, which unless you’re trying to pull a fat bird from Torry, is not a good thing to have going for you. And besides, they have the cheek these days to call themselves McDonalds “restaurants” – what kind of a restaurant doesn’t give you cutlery and makes you eat out of a cardboard box, like a homeless person? I’m not looking for solid silver antique cutlery, but would a spork be too much to ask for? Next they’ll have you drinking your Coke out of a bowl on the restaurant floor. We’re not animals. We have thumbs. Let’s use them.

Song currently stuck in m head – “(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 458 - Viva España

2009-11-05T22:50:00.003Z

They’ve broken Spain.

I love Spain. It’s my favourite holiday destination, my recent sojourn to the Costa Del Chav being the 7th time I’ve holidayed on Spain’s golden shores. And it’s not just the sun, sea, sand, señoritas, and anything else beginning with S that keeps me coming back. (Er….. San Miguel? Salad Cream? Solanaceous vegetables?). The essence of Spain was, until recently anyway, that you could basically do whatever the fuck you like and nobody batted an eyelid. It was almost comedic at times how much you get away with there. When I used to go there as a teenager, it was always a bonus to find fag machines in supermarkets, shopping centres, cafes, and sometimes just sitting on street corners, ideal for a 15 year old kid looking to get his nicotine fix. Not that it made that much of a difference, as virtually every shop in Spain used to sell smokes, often just in a basket outside the front door, and I’m fairly certain that an 8-year-old could have strolled up to the counter with 20 Marlboro Lights and not been asked for ID. When I went on holiday with my parents aged 15 or 16, those machines were a godsend. I could go out for “a walk”, run down to the nearest café, buy 20 fags, smoke a couple, and then, because 20 smokes in them days cost about 80p, just turf the packet in the bin on the way back to the hotel and not have to worry about hiding them in the room.

Even better than the fag machines, were the Coca-Cola machines, again in shopping centres, cafes, arcades, and just at roadsides, which looked just like the Coca-Cola machines the rest of the world has, except that in Spanish ones there were always two slots at the bottom where you could buy an ice cold can of Heineken. Just right there, on the side of the road, anybody who was tall enough to reach the slot to put their pesetas in could quite happily sit there all day drinking beers. Can you imagine that happening in the UK, where you get asked for ID in supermarkets if you look under 25? This was a country where until recently you could walk into a shop and buy beers, wine, and spirits and 3,4,5 o’clock in the morning if you wanted. A country where not only did you not need to wear a helmet to ride a motorbike, you didn’t even need to wear shoes. Where hardcore pornography was shown every night on free television. Where speeding and driving home pissed were not only accepted, but expected.

Things seem to have changed dramatically recently though, as killjoy EU legislations threaten to destroy everything that was fun about Spain. These days España has to be in line with the rest of the Union, so fag machines on street corners and baskets of tabs sitting outside shops are a thing of the past. Instead they are now stored behind the counter like they are in boring British shops. Coca-Cola machines now simply sell Coca-Cola, and you’ve got no chance of buying a 6-pack of beer or a bottle of vino after 10pm. Motorcyclists are no longer zipping around wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a pair of sunglasses. Speed cameras line the motorways and police crews line the city streets, stopping and breathalysing motorists. Sex shops are hidden behind thick curtains.

Fucking Brussels ruins everything man. What's next? Banning weed and hookers in Amsterdam?

One thing the EU can’t ruin though is the deliciously unflappable Spanish attitude, where most problems are met with a simple shrug of the shoulders and a non-descript “meh” sound, which seems to mean “someone else’s problem” or “it’ll be fine”.

“Excuse me señor, that ladder you’re about to climb up doesn’t look very safe”
“Meh”

“I don’t think car isn’t going to fit in this space. You’re going to hit that car behind you.”
“Meh”
*crash*

“Officer! That man hit me over the head and took my wallet!”
“Meh”

“Excuse me. There seems to be a mangy stray dog eating the carcass of a dead seagull off the steps at the front of the hotel”
“Meh.”

“Excuse me. My incontinent wife has accidently shit in the pool and now the water looks like gravy”.
“Meh”

Let’s get one thing clear. Spain may have changed, but the Spanish have not. Waitresses still look at you as though you’ve just taken your morning dump into their favourite cereal bowl. Taxi drivers still quite blatantly call you a cunt to their mates in Spanish, and take the long way back to your hotel so you have to pay them more. Reception staff still make it quite clear that they couldn’t give a flying fuck if you’re enjoying your stay or not, and supermarket staff just, put simply, fucking hate you with the fiery passion of hell. And as long as they keep on being surly, unhelpful, holier-than-thou assholes, I’ll keep on going back :-)

Song currently stuck in my head – “Best Imitation Of Myself” by Ben Folds Five.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 457 - All A-Bored.

2009-10-31T14:30:00.004Z

1430 hours. I’m on a plane somewhere over France, confined to my tiny Flyglobespan seat as the captain has deemed the turbulence bad enough to require the “Fasten Safety Belt” light to be switched on. I’m bored. The battery on my Nintendo DS has long since been button-bashed into submission, and the unit has been placed back into my hand luggage in disgrace, well aware that I’m unhappy at it letting me down in my hour of need. My back-up, in the form of an unreadable Stephen King novel rests in my bag next to the defeated DS. I read the first 50 pages or so in Spain, and no level of boredom would be enough for me to considering reading any more of the piece of shit (not just my opinion it would seem). My girlfriend, having negated to take any form of entertainment on board for our three-and-a-half hour flight, relieved me of my iPod by the time we left the tarmac in Malaga, and promptly fell asleep wearing it, making it impossible for me to retrieve it without waking her up. Instead I’m forced to listen to inane snatches of conversation from the Aberdonian accents that sound slightly strange to my ears even though I’ve only been away from them for a week. Most of the plane seems to consist of elderly couples bickering and doing crossword puzzles. Still, this beats the flight out, where, already in a bad mood due to having to get up at 4am to go to the airport, I was stuck behind a crying baby for the whole flight.

This flight left at 12noon, and I caught it by the skin of my teeth. After sleeping in (due to being in a Spanish bar till 4.30am), then missing the exits on the motorway for the airport three times (it wasn’t signposted) then not being able to find a parking space, then getting held up at the check-in desk, we finally checked in with 30 minutes to spare before our flight left. Normally this would be tight, but possible, however given the hilariously disorganised nature of Spanish airports (or in fact, most of Spain in general), we found it quite a challenge. After check-in came another nervy 15 minute queue to get our hand luggage checked and to walk through the metal detectors. Having finally cleared that obstacle we sprinted round a corner to find a queue of at least 400 people waiting for passport control. As the people around me tutted and tapped their feet, I simply sprinted to the front of the queue and pushed my way through, dragging my girlfriend behind me. On the passport control desk were two bored-looking Spanish officials waving people through without even so much as glancing at the passports. And probably smoking fags, or having a wee nap, or something equally stereotypical. How the queue was so long I have no idea, but we got through it with five minutes to spare before they closed the gate, and made it onto the last bus to be loaded like cattle onto the plane.

On this plane, there are no mod-cons. My svelte 10-stone frame struggles to fit into the tiny seats, there’s no legroom, sacrificed in order to squeeze in more seats and generate more revenue, there’s no in flight entertainment (though the headphones in the armrest remain, a remnant of when the plane actually belonged to a respectable airline, before being retired and punted onto the highest bidder). Everything about it screams budget. Cups of tea, drinks, sandwiches etc. aren’t provided free of charge, and must be paid for, with cash, or you go thirsty. Even the cabin crew have a distinctly budget feel about them. Flyglobespan is based in Glasgow, and all the cabin crew are Glaswegian. As I boarded, I grimaced as they greeted me with false sincerity in their grating accent. I hope the pilots aren’t Glaswegian as well – I hardly trust a weegie to drive a taxi, never mind a plane.

On board, the air on the plane smells like a Spanish street market as all around me the elderly passengers are sporting new leather shoes and leather belts, and carrying new leather purses in their new leather handbags, most of which are carrying well known brand names like Gicci, Arhmani and Pradia. I am sporting a counterfeit KISS T-shirt, bought from one such street market, and a pair of “genuine” Armani sunglasses, bought off a black guy carrying a toolbox stuffed full of them on the street for £7. Fake they may be but they look ace, and with my track record for either losing or standing on sunglasses, it’s not worth shelling out for the real ones.

And so I've set the scene for you. An hour of this tedious flight remains. Ho-hum.

What do you do when you’re extremely bored on a plane, your girlfriend’s asleep, your Nintendo has run out of battery, your iPod has been liberated and your book sucks? Me? I write 800 word blogs in my head and try to memorise them….

Song currently stuck in my head – “No-One” by Alicia Keys.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 456 - A Winter's Tale

2009-10-22T21:59:00.000+01:00

What a miserable bastard of a day yesterday was. After looking out the window at grey skies and pouring rain all day long, and then getting soaked on the way home from work, I made a vow when I got home that I was not leaving the house again that evening. And so I didn’t. I ordered in a pizza, slotted in my newly purchased X-Files Series 3 disc, and whiled the night away nice and cosy on the sofa, eating my pizza and watching my sci-fi, listening to the wind howling and the rain battering into the window. Winter in Scotland is not a fun time. That Christmas card image of rosy-cheeked kids in woolly mittens building a snowman and warming their hands in front of a coal fire is of course nice and nostalgic, and makes us all go misty-eyed and think about better times, but in reality winter in Scotland is just a massive fucking drag. For 5 months of every year we wake up every morning to driving rain, strong winds, temperatures around freezing point, sleet, ice, slush and dead pensioners. Simply stepping out the front door your face is quickly battered with ice-cold rain, your collar turned up against a wind that chills you to the bone, and any attempts to protect yourself from the elements are quickly thwarted by the wind – hoods blowing down and hats blowing off, umbrellas blowing outside in. (And on that note, with the technology available to us today, how can no-one have come up with a better stay-dry design than the fucking umbrella? If the umbrella was an insect it would be the daddy-long legs – just all floppy limbs and extremities that falls to pieces at the first sign of a struggle.)

And then we get few weeks a year of snow that everyone seems to love so much. Snowmen, coal fires, Christmas carollers – what’s not to love, right? However what this also brings is a public transport system that grinds to a pathetic halt, hazardous driving conditions, and snow on the pavements which soon turns to slush, which gets compressed from people walking on it, which freezes over again and turns to solid ice, making the pavements on my street, which is on a hill, a complete nightmare to walk on.

And the worst part of the season? Darkness. From October to around March, the sun stays in its bed until about 8am, and toddles off home again at about 3pm. 7 sodding hours of daylight? I work more hours a day than the fucking sun manages, which means it’s dark when I get up for work, and it’s dark when I get home again. The only sunlight I get during the day is when I nip out for a fag on my lunch break, and even then it’s pouring fucking rain.

Anyway, to get back to the point of this story. For the next week while you’re all enduring the abject misery of dreich, grey Scotland, I’m going to be off sunning myself in Spain, where it’s currently 27 degrees. Wheeeee! See ya in a week!

Song currently stuck in my head – “In For The Kill” by La Roux
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 455 - Blue (WKD) Is The Colour

2009-10-20T19:21:00.001+01:00

So I spent the last three days writing a monumental piece of work which I planned to upload to my blog yesterday. After reading it, re-reading it, and re-reading it again, I copied it from Word into my blogger window, sorted out the formatting, and hovered my pointer over the “publish” button…. and then chickened out. After a prolonged internal struggle I deleted the text, closed the window and shut my computer down. I do not wish to tease you, but after giving it some thought, yesterdays planned blog contains some information that I’m just not ready for the world to know about yet. I would describe it, if I ever talked about it, as My Deepest Darkest Secret ™. I can hear you screaming with frustration, “Come on you ass, it can’t be that bad!” but on this occasion dear reader, my lips will remain sealed tighter than the tape that holds down Lady Gaga’s balls. All I can reveal about yesterday’s entry is that it began with the words “Of all the bad things I’ve ever done in my life, the thing I’m least proud of is…”, it ended with the words “Remember what I said about a runaway ego? Hmmm….” and that a certain newsworthy occurence from this week brought it all flooding back. And that’s it. That’s all your getting.

I’ve admitted to some terrible things on this site – from humping and dumping ugly chicks and fatties, to getting it on with over-60s, to putting a guy’s roast beef sandwich down my pants and doing a little dance before serving it to him, to workplace incompetence and sleeping on the job, and of course the infamous story about the blind chick in the Student Union (all these can be accessed in the archives though are quite heavily edited). But all of those things just play up to my image of Elwood, the lovable rogue, the rascal, the rapscallion, playfully mischievous in a harmless way, like an excited puppy with oversized paws. However nothing, but nothing could repair the damage to my reputation if My Deepest Darkest Secret were to be revealed, and even now, 11 years after I made that phone call as a wide-eyed 18 year old, I’m still not ready to let that particular cat out of that particular bag yet. Ask me again in another 11 years when I’m 40 and I might tell you then.

So last night I went with my girlfriend to see the new Pixar movie “Up”. An enjoyable little tale it was, but my enjoyment of it was soured by a group of annoying young students in the bar prior to the film, and one of the most irritating of all student habits making an unwelcome appearance. The film was due to start in 15 minutes but I was determined to squeeze in one of the cinema's delicious lattés in beforehand, and when I hurried upstairs to the bar I was relieved to find it almost deserted. Standing at the bar was a group of fresh-faced young girls, instantly recognisable as students due to their deplorable penchant for wearing garishly-coloured hoodies with the names of the various University clubs they belong to emblazoned across the left bosom. Rowing Club, Archery Club, Hockey Club – you get the idea. Each of them appeared to the untrained eye to be about 17 years old, and had it not been for the fact that the bar was being manned by a student guy clearly sniffing around at the opportunity to get a bit of skirt, I’m certain they would have all been asked for ID.

“A blue WKD please” pipes up the first one.
The barman goes and fetches the drink.
“£2.30” he says.
She hands over the cash. He rings it through the till. He hands her her change and she walks away from the bar, leaving 3 more.

“A blue WKD please” pipes up the second one.
“Fuck’s sake” I mumble aloud to no-one in particular.
The barman goes and fetches the drink.
“£2.30” he says.
She hands over the cash. He rings it through the till. He hands her her change and she walks away from the bar, leaving 2 more.

The third one approaches the bar.
“A Blue WKD please”.
“Oh come on to fuck” I say, mostly to my girlfriend, but loud enough so they can hear my displeasure. I tap my foot in exasperation and look at my watch. 10 minutes till film time and I still haven’t bought my tickets yet.
The barman goes and fetches her drink.
“£2.30” he says.
She hands over the cash. He rings it through the till. My eyes are drilling boreholes of hate in the side of her head, He hands her her change and she walks away from the bar, leaving 1 more.

“A Blue WKD please”.

To make a long story even longer, by the time I actually got my latté it was time for the film to start and I burnt my fucking mouth trying to drink it. Had I had more time I would have pulled up a chair at the young ladies’ table and given them a little talk from an experienced drinker about the merits of buying rounds (the main one being that you can hold off buying your own round till last, by which time most of your pissed mates will have wandered off somewhere thus making your round half the price) but alas, animated mirth was calling me, and so I can only hope that they happen across this blog and read the lesson for themselves. As a more senior member of society these days I feel it’s important to impart my wisdom.

And here’s one nugget especially for the barman – don’t serve underage girls you foolish foolish man, no matter how much she flutters her eyelids and flirts with you. There’s no doubt at all that after a few more of those blue WKDs her panties are going to end up in a ball on someone’s bedroom floor, but with your unfortunate coupon, it’s definitely not going to be yours!

Song currently stuck in my head – “Midnight Train” by Journey
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 454 - Things I Learned This Weekend

2009-10-12T18:58:00.000+01:00

Today my first visit to the dentist in 9 years ended as I suspected it would – with a sore mouth and a lighter wallet. £20 for a scrape and polish which hurt like fuck and left me spitting out blood and bits of gum (and still with yellow teeth), and the news that I need to have my wisdom teeth extracted. This I’m not looking forward to. I don’t care about losing them, they grew in sideways 10 years ago and they’ve been a pain in the plums ever since, it’s the method of extraction I’m not too excited about. I have an irrational fear of being put to sleep, worrying that something will fuck up and I won’t wake up again, but at the same time I’ve had a tooth extracted while awake before and it was fucking traumatic and not something I wish to repeat. Even as the wretched things finally exit my mouth they’re still causing me fucking trouble, the irritating bastards. I wrote a haiku for them.

A Haiku for my Wisdom Teeth:

When I’m chewing food
You sometimes chew on my cheek.
It’s annoying and sore.

Please exit my mouth
The root of all my problems
Fuck you wisdom teeth.

So….. molar-related ditties aside, on with Things I Learned This Weekend:

Dizzy’s bar and diner on Carden Place, Aberdeen - Shit food, even shitter service. I slopped my way through what was supposed to be Spaghetti Bolognese – it turned out to penne, overcooked to within an inch of it’s life, watery Bolognese sauce completely devoid of any flavour whatsoever, mouldy parmesan cheese that I didn’t ask for, and about an inch of watery fat in the bottom of the bowl. I ate most of it because I was fucking starving and when the waiter came over at the end to ask if everything was OK I told him “Mine wasn’t good. I didn’t like it”, expecting to be able to tell him then what was wrong with it. Imagine my surprise when he simply shrugged “Oh well” and took the plates away. Never again shall you get my custom Dizzy’s.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch – Shit name, good band.

Steven Gately – Dead.

Asda – doesn’t sell garlic sausage any more! What the fuck has happened to the world?

Zombieland – good if you like zombies. Which I do.

Jim Beam – heady. Especially if you’re pouring your own nips.

San Miguel – Just isn’t as good here as it is in Spain.

Sky TV – shit. Unless you want to spend 24 hours a day watching Top Gear, Everybody Loves Raymond, Futurama or South Park there’s literally nothing on there worth watching.

Scotland friendlies – not even worth the effort of watching.

Recently dumped mates – do not take kindly to accusations of being a paedophile.

Trumpet – hard to play when drunk.

So anyway. Stephen Gately died. What a bummer. I promise I won't stoop so low as to make jokes about it. No matter what. I hope none of his fans take offense to this. It's only words...

And after all I really do feel sorry for his fans. It can't be easy having such shit taste in music.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Tell Her Tonight” by Franz Ferdinand. Who I saw live in concert last night.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 453 - Pet Hates Part 2

2009-10-09T07:00:00.001+01:00

As a continuation from last Friday's entry, here's a few more of the things that get on my nerves.

***
NOSTALGIA

If I hear one more person bleating on about bringing back Creamola Foam I'm going to beat the shit out of them. For a start NO parent would give their child that shit to drink in this health-conscious day and age - it was akin to just pouring a bag of sugar straight into their mouth! Plus, nostalgia aside, it tasted wank.

***
CHAVS

Whenever I hear someone talking about having life experience, it's usually some fat tart who grew up in a council flat with 12 brothers and sisters and got knocked up before she left primary school. They've usually got a voice that could strip paint and a cloud of Lambert & Butler smoke following them around.

***
TECHNOLOGY

I had a bluetooth headset which had voice recognition, you press the button on it and say the name of the person you want to phone and it finds them in your phone book and rings them. Only problem is it only understands you if you say it in an American accent. I used to find myself hurtling down the dual carriageway at 80mph yelling, "Mom!" or "Mardin!" trying to get the bastard thing to work. I had more near misses trying to work that thing that I did just using the fucking phone.

***
SOFT FOOTBALLERS

Lee Miller cried when he got pulled over by the cops doing 120mph in his car. What he should have done is gone "Yeah? So fucking what? See this car? Think you'll ever be able to afford a car like this? No. Now fuck off and write some parking tickets, you fucking cunt".

***
TECHNOLOGY

When I first got my laptop I used to set it off downloading music or films or whatever before I went to work, and I'd get back in at 6 looking forward to having all this new stuff to watch / listen to. Unfortunately more often than not I'd get in and the bastard would be sitting whirring away happily with no download software open. Cos Vista had cunting well downloaded Windows updates and fucking re-started itself. Fucking Vista.

It was also good if you were watching a film on it, and the pop up appeared saying "Windows will restart in 5 minutes" and you didn't see it because it was BEHIND the film window. So you're happily watching a film and it just fucking switches off.

***
SUPERMARKETS NOT GIVING OUT FREE CARRIER BAGS ANY MORE

You can still buy the big strong re-usable ones for about 9p each, then just chuck them in the the bin when you get home to prove your point. That's what I do.

***
SOCKS

Fuck that balling shit. I just shove the whole lot in a drawer and in the morning I pick up two that look vaguely the same colour. Nobody looks at my fucking socks anyway, unless I'm wearing shorts, which is never.

***
PETERHEAD

Still, Kemnay may be a shithole, and full of chavs, cunts, single mothers, murderers, rapists, paedophiles, muslim extremists, Rangers fans, cannibals, Big Brother contestants, scientologists, werewolves, vampires, rabid dogs etc. But it's STILL a million times better than Peterhead.

***
INTERNET USERS

Are you fucking serious? The chat on here in the last few days has been absolutely abysmal. I feel like my IQ has dropped several points simply from reading it.

***
TECHNOLOGY

I'll tell you my pet hate. Those self-service tills at Asda and Tesco. What a fucking awful invention.

You scan one item and and you get about a second before that irritating woman starts saying "please place the item in the bagging area" and the screen helpfully cuts away to an animation of someone putting something in a bag, in case you're too fucking stupid to figure out what you're supposed to do. But even when you have put the item in the bag, the animation has to play all the way to the end before the screen will return to normal. And you have to wait for that before you can scan the next thing, because it won't read the next item until the screen has returned to normal. Then when you finally get it to accept the second item, you get another second before it goes back to cut screen animation thing. Repeat for your entire shopping basket. Add to this:

A - if you try to move anything in the bag around to make space, it fucks up and falls on it's arse. "Please wait for assistance".
B - if you have too much stuff to fit in one bag, and one bag is full, if you move it aside to start filling a new bag, it fucks up and fall on it's arse. "Item removed from bagging area. Please wait for assistance".
C - If you have an item that's light, like a packet of chewing gum or a birthday card, it doesn't pick up the weight, and after about 20 seconds of the annoying animation telling you to put it in the bag, it fucks up and falls on it's arse. "Checking item weight. Please wait for assistance".
D - Every fourth or fifth product seems to break it anyway, things that have variable weights such as bags of fruit and veg. "Checking item weight. Please wait for assistance".

Inevitably I get pissed off at having to wait for assistance all the time and start swearing at the bastard, then the member of staff comes over to help me and looks at me like I'm retarded. IT'S NOT ME THAT'S RETARDED IT'S YOUR FUCKING TILLS.

I find that the amount of time you spend waiting for the machine to catch up, or waiting for someone to come over and log in and reset the bastard, you're usually quicker just queueing for a checkout with an operator, who can scan your shopping at the rate of about one a second, rather than one item every 10-20 seconds. I have since boycotted these mechanical Hitlers, but I often shop late at night at Tesco and Asda and it's the only checkouts they have on. Death to them all. If we ever go to war with the machines like in the Terminator I'll be right on the front line, with a good old fashioned burning stick.

***

More next Friday

Song currently stuck in my head - "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 452 - Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves.

2009-10-06T18:56:00.000+01:00

Walking from my flat in Ferryhill to my work in the morning is like running a junkie gauntlet. On Millburn Street, which I have to walk down every morning, there is a little chemist which is well-known as a “methadone specialist”, and hands out around 200 doses of methadone every day. When I walk past around 9am there is already a queue of junkies waiting outside for it to open, and every I time I turn a corner from then onwards there seems to be either a group of emaciated zombies shambling along the pavement towards Millburn Street, or one singular guy hidden under a baseball cap, walking with purpose and with his eyes fixed firmly on the prize. There is rarely a morning when I don’t get stopped and asked for spare change at least once, and due to my displeasure at A) having to speak to junkies and B) being parted from my beloved wonga, I try to take different routes to avoid them every morning. I call this whole encounter “The Crystal-Meth Maze”.

I rarely give money to beggars, as a general rule. I don’t go in for this “they’re just going to waste it on booze and fags” mentality. I just don’t like giving away cash that I myself intend to waste on booze and fags. Sitting on the pavement on Union Street under a dirty blanket repeating “Any spare change for the homeless?” all day long does not persuade me to part with my hard-earned money. In fact the question in itself is ridiculous – who has ‘spare change?’ Who looks at money and thinks “I don’t need that”? It takes either a very good sob story, or a threatening demeanour to squeeze some money out of me. Catch me walking down a quiet street on my own and stand a little bit too close to me and chances are I’ll chuck you a shiny quid just to stop you from mugging me. Actually burst into tears while telling me your story and I might spare you a pound just for making an effort (though to date this has only happened once). Or maybe just spin me a line I haven’t heard before.

So far this year I have been successfully begged from a grand total of three times. The first was on North Silver Street one evening, where some unwashed lunatic in a dirty camo jacket approached to ask me for a spare cigarette. I politely refused him. He asked again. I told him to go and get his own fags. So he got right up into my face and yelled “I WIZ IN THE ARMY! I COULD FUCKIN’ KILL YOU!” I didn’t believe him, but it was quite apparent that he was, for want of a better word, fucking nuts, and I didn’t really care for him spraying his junkie saliva all over me, so I handed him the very fag that I was actually smoking and beat a hasty retreat.

The second was just off Justice Mill Lane, in a quiet alley down the side of the old Odeon Cinema. It was around 6pm and I was taking a short-cut home, when from behind me I recognised the throaty whine of “Excuse me mate!” as being that of a junkie. I knew immediately what was coming next. “You couldna spare a little bit o change could ye? Ah’m homeless, ken?” Normally I would have simply acknowledged him and given him the smallest of gestures to suggest I don’t have any money. Shaking my head and slightly upturning my palms is usually enough to get the message across. However the lane was deserted and the sneaky fucker had come and stood right in front of me, effectively blocking my exit route. He then leaned over me in a manner I could only describe as “menacingly” and waited as I scrabbled in my pockets. Deftly lifting three coins from the twenty or so in my pocket (which is a good tip for not being fleeced out of change) I uttered “I only have 13p mate”.
“13p?”
“Yeah”
“I suppose at’ll hiv ti fuckin’ dee” he harrumphed. A better man would have told him to get fucked if he didn’t like it, but I am not a better man, and I am quite fond of the way my beautiful face looks, devoid as it is of any fist shaped marks. As I handed him the 13p I grudged every fucking penny of it, and silently willed him to get hit by a falling anvil.

The third time came just last week as I was walking past Starbucks near the Holburn junction. Carrying my freshly ground coffee and listening to my iPod, this tall scruffy-looking scarecrow who was walking towards me starting waving his hands around trying to get my attention. “Excuse me” he moaned with fake anguish. “Do you know anywhere where a homeless person could get a free meal?” Ho ho, I thought. This one’s new.

I shrugged apologetically. “Sorry old bean.” I proffered. “Can’t help you out of that little pickle I’m afraid” (I probably didn’t use those exact words, but these are my memories and I can tell them any way I like, OK?).
“I know this is really cheeky, but you wouldn’t have a spare pound so I could get a hot roll or something would you?”

And just like that, his wish was granted. He received a shiny pound coin, simply for going to the trouble of spinning me a yarn I hadn’t already heard. Of course, the next time I encountered him (see yesterday’s post) his story wasn’t quite so new and he was routinely told to sling his hook.

What happened to the days when beggars would make their money by actually doing something to earn it? Juggling, washing windscreens, shining shoes – all much more noble arts than intimidation and blatant lying. I’d happily pay a junkie a quid to shine my shoes for me. While he was bending over polishing my brogues, I’d smash the cunt over the head with something and take my pound back.

Song currently stuck in my head – “I Can’t Look At Your Skin” by Graham Coxon,
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 451 - Things I Learned This Weekend

2009-10-05T18:43:00.002+01:00

I decided this weekend to start my Christmas shopping. Not that I’m one of these people that needs to have everything meticulously planned and organised months in advance - I just can’t be bothered trailing around crowded, roasting hot shops in December hearing the same fucking five Christmas songs over and over again.

So on Saturday, armed with my iPod, I walked into the city centre to have a leisurely stroll around the shops and get the first few presents out of the way. My first port of call was on my way from my flat to the centre - Top Note Music on Crown Street, where I made my first purchase of the day - a book of sheet music (for myself). On reaching the centre, I decided to check out the International Street Market on Union Terrace, which was so unbelievable busy that it took me about 20 minutes to walk the 200 metres from one end of the street to the next, and another 20 to get back again. The whole street was literally at a standstill as Union Terrace struggled to contain the sheer volume of people wanting to peruse the tat on display, and I silently fumed as I shuffled my way back towards Union Street. The people around me kept stopping and gawping at the garishly decorated stalls, and there wasn’t enough room for me to go around them, I was completely hemmed in. Frustrated looking mothers tried to manoeuvre double-buggies through a forest of legs to no avail, and really were just making the crush worse, not to mention clipping my fucking heels. My mood was not helped by the strong winds whipping leaves and twigs into my face the entire time, although I was listening to Sigur Ros, which helped restrain the urge to start kicking people out of my way.

Finally free of the market mayhem, I headed to One-Up on Belmont Street, whereupon I purchased no less than 5 CDs (for myself). From there I moved up to Jack Wills on the corner of Belmont Street and Schoolhill, which was infuriatingly busy, then The Disney Store in the Bon Accord centre, which was infuriatingly busy, Top Man in the Bon Accord Centre, which was infuriatingly busy, then Next in the Bon Accord centre, which was infuriatingly busy. Close to losing my temper I left the Bon Accord centre altogether, having made a grand total of zero purchaes, and popped into WH Smith for 20 fags and this month’s Q magazine, and then into a very busy bookshop where I picked up the Motley Crue book “The Dirt” (for myself). The combination of crowds and autumn leaves continually hitting me in the face was beginning to drive me crazy, so, sweaty and flustered, I headed for the oasis of Caffe Nero, hoping that a nice quiet latté in a relaxing coffee shop might be just the tonic for shopper’s rage. Not quite. I had to queue for 20 minutes for my coffee, during which time people kept coming in and putting their bags and jackets down at various tables before ordering their coffee, so by the time I actually got served there were no tables left. I had to stand around the side like a spare part, still wearing my jacket and scarf, with shopping bags in one hand and a coffee in the other hand, waiting for someone to move. Finally someone did, and after clearing the table and wiping it clean myself I sat down to enjoy my coffee. Approximately one second later, an old man approached and, pointing at the empty chair, asked “Is anyone sitting here?” Thinking he was going to take the chair away to another table I told him he could take it. Instead he just sat down right opposite me, and proceeded to loudly talk to himself. Cursing, I stuffed my headphones back in, tuned into Tom Petty and read my Q, trying my best not to make eye contact with my new friend, who thankfully left again quite quickly. By the time I had finished my second coffee, I couldn’t face going back into the shops so I gave up, meaning to return the next day, and actually buy something for someone else this time.

So on Sunday, after a nice leisurely breakfast I headed into town again with my girlfriend. This time I was definitely going to do some Christmas shopping. Upon arriving in town I found that, in complete contrast to the previous day, it was almost eerily deserted. The shops were virtually empty, which suited me right down to the ground, and I did manage to get some shopping done. It was only when I got home and realised that all I’d bought was a pair of trainers for myself, a pair of leather shoes for myself and a t-shirt for myself, did it occur to me that I had done it wrong.

Anyway, to make a long story even longer, the return of an Elwood's Odyssey favourite – things I learned this weekend.

Newsagent sandwiches, which boast on the label “slices of honey roast ham, with mature cheddar cheese on white bread” really means “one slice of wafer thin ham and a Kraft cheese slice, on dry white bread which is also stale”.

Motley Crue – those cats knew how to party.

The junkie that stopped me on the way to work on Thursday morning and asked if I knew anywhere that a homeless person could get a free meal (having tried all the churches) before tanning me for a quid for a “hot roll” is still, as of Saturday, looking for somewhere a homeless person can get a free meal (having tried all the churches), and still attempting to tap a quid for a “hot roll”. Only this time he got told to fuck off.

Starbucks Caramel Macchiatto (or as I took to calling it, Caramel McNuggets), is really, truly disgusting. It’s like drinking hot ice cream with shit drizzled on it.

Buying shitloads of CDs, book, shoes and clothes for yourself is altogether more satisfying than buying stuff for other people.

And one especially for the junkie mentioned above:

Aberdeen International Market is a great source of free food at 5.55 as it’s about to close. As I approached the paella stall, the girl manning it was preparing to throw the remaining paella in the bin, I asked for a small paella and she said she would give me a large for the price of a small, as it was just going to waste. As she was serving it up, I spotted a huge pile of fried chicken, I enquired if that too was going in the bin. Before too long I had an enormous tray of paella and enough free fried chicken to kill a man. And, just for the hell of it, I haggled the price of the paella and got her to knock another quid off it.

Perhaps I could wrap up the fried chicken and give it to my family for Christmas.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Miserlou” by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 450 - Pet Hates.

2009-10-02T20:45:00.000+01:00

I post on a music forum. On this music forum there is a thread called “Pet Hates”. On this thread, it’s customary to have a little grumble about anything in the world that is pissing you off.
Despite my sunny exterior, on the inside I am a cantankerous bastard. I am grumpier than pretty much anyone I’ve ever met (except maybe Grumpy Bambi, lol), and as a result I have posted a lot in this thread over time.

Warning - When I get angry, I swear. A lot. Over the next few weeks I’ll post some of these grumbles in bite size chunks, because trust me, there are fucking loads of them and if I post them at all at once your eyes would melt.

Here’s your first batch, straight from the oven…

***
NEWSPAPERS

The fucking Aberdeen Citizen or whatever it's called, that shit free newspaper that's basically just 30 pages of adverts alongside a few pages of week-old news. Nobody reads the fucker and every week I come downstairs to find the paperboy has posted about 8 of the bastards through the front door of my flat, which just lie at the back of the door until someone gets pissed off looking at them and throws them out. What's the point in the fucking piss-rag? They print thousands of the cunts every week, that just go straight in the bin. Total waste of paper. They should fuck off.

***
TV SHOWS

I hate when a succesful TV program suddenly has to receive a "celebrity" makeover, thus ruining it forever. See:

Celebrity Wife Swap
Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
Celebrity Family Fortunes
Celebrity Come Dine With Me
Celebrity Weakest Link
Celebrity Masterchef

Repeat ad naseum.

I like these kind of programs a lot better when it's just normal people off the street. I watched Celebrity Come Dine With Me on Saturday and saw such luminaries as Dani Behr, Big Mo off Eastenders, Dane Bowers and Bobby Davro. What the fuck makes Channel 4 think I want to see any of those people on my TV?

Millionaire is ruined in the celebrity versions cos it destroys all the tension. They aren't playing for money for themselves so they are a lot more blasé about gambling it. When you see a normal person really really start to shit it cos they are going to win the kind of money that can change their life, that makes for great telly. Watching Philip & Fearne playing as a team for Guide Dogs For The Blind does not.

***
MORRISONS SUPERMARKET

I had rant about that cafe a while back, when some gormless fucker stood at the till watching me and my girlfriend looking at the menus and deliberate over what we wanted for a good 5 minutes, and waited until we had decided what we wanted and walked the 6 feet or so over to the till to place our order before telling us it was closed. What a cunt.

There used to be a black girl who worked in the dry cleaners that was an utter hellbitch as well. I've never encountered such a growly, bad tempered, unhelpful fucking trollop in my whole life. I hope she's dead.

***
RECEIPTS

I just hate receipts in general. I don't really use my wallet much, I put £20s in my wallet when I get them from the cashpoint, but as soon as I break them, all the coins, fivers, tenners and receipts just get stuffed into my pockets. Pretty much every time I go into a shop to buy a can of juice or a newspaper I pull out all the bumff that's filled my pocket and I have to pick my way through about 5 receipts just to find a pound coin. I mean OK if I'm buying clothes, or CDs which I might need to return then the receipt will come in handy, but do I really need a fucking receipt for a loaf of bread and a packet of fags?

***
HEN NIGHTS

Hen nights. I just don't get them. What's so hilarious about balloons shaped like cocks?

***
INSECTS

Bumble bees can get to fuck. Big flying furry bastards. At least you can just hit a wasp with a newspaper and it dies, end of story, those bees are made of wood or metal or some shit, they're indestructible. And they buzz too loud. Fuck bees.

***
DOGS

Stupid made-up dog breeds. In today's Evening Express there are adverts for Cockerpoo puppies (cocker spaniel / poodle), Rebass puppies (retriever / basset), Shihpoo puppies (shihtzu / poodle), and Spanollie puppies (spaniel / collie). And they cost 300 quid each! When I was a kid they were called mongrels and they gave them away for free or drowned them in a sack with some bricks.

***
BAD ENGLISH

People mispronouncing the word sandwich. I really hate it and EVERYBODY does it.

It's easy, it's just said as it's written - Sand-Witch. But everybody pronounces it Sam-Widge. There's no M and there's no G, so can people please start pronouncing it properly. Thanks.

***
MUSIC

Re-released old albums, with "Bonus Tracks" at the end. I don't want bonus tracks when I'm buying old albums. I want to hear the album as it was originally intended, and end when it was designed to end, not have a couple of dodgy demos and a live track at the end. Wank. I always delete them before I put them on my iPod.

Also, when a brand new album is released and it has two brand new bonus tracks at the end. Surely these are just album tracks? How are they a bonus?

***
TELESALES

I love it when you get Telesales people calling you up who are clearly reading off a script and if you say something that isn't in the handbook they just get confused. A simple one is:

"Would you like to save money on your electric and gas bills?"
"No. I like paying too much".

Well that’s your lot for this week. I hope you enjoyed my first batch of grumbles. More next week…

Song currently stuck in my head –“Holiday” by Weezer.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 448 - Shit Happens

2009-09-25T18:12:00.000+01:00

I like to walk into work in the autumn mornings. I pop on my trainers, pop in my headphones and pop out the door, spending the next 30 minutes getting my stroll on and listening to some quality walking tunes, and of course making sure to stop for a freshly ground Starbucks on the way. I work in the west end of Aberdeen, which, despite being literally a minutes walk from the dirty, noisy, concrete nightmare that is Aberdeen city centre, may as well be on the other side of the world. It's a long, leafy, green streak of trees, parks, private schools and Range Rovers, and it makes for a beautiful scene on any morning, regardless of the season. Walking through on a nice day really helps me, a country boy, appreciate how beautiful the city can be.

Driving through the city streets you miss so much - everything flashes by in an instant, and you're usually so busy getting pissed off at the idiots in your rear view mirror that you don't notice the world around you. By simply putting one foot in front of the other you start to come across all these little lanes, buildings, businesses and architecture that you've passed 100 times before and never taken any notice of. Walking through a city really makes you feel a part of something and a feeling of togetherness with the people you share it with.

Yesterday's walk however, did not get me in the genial mood that my morning walk usually does. Yesterday did not make me feel any connection with my fellow city dwellers, in fact yesterday's walk made me wish I lived somewhere else, somewhere far, far away.

For those of you not in the know, Aberdeen is home to two universities. This equals, approximately, a fucking lot of students. At the moment, both Universities are having their "Fresher's Week", a week in which all first-year students report to Uni for the first time to be shown around and find their feet, without actually having to attend any lectures. These Freshers will usually be away from home for the first time, with a couple of grand's worth of mummy and daddy's money in their back pocket, and will usually spend the whole of the first week getting absolutely hammered, acting like total immature dick-ends, and copping off with each other. The pubs welcome this of course, flinging their doors opening and trying to attract as many new customers as possible, with themed nights, cheap drinks, foam parties, fancy dress etc all as part of their arsenal. For the whole of this week the city centre is carnage and should be avoided at all costs, as a bunch of posh pissed up 18 year olds take over the streets with their 'crazy' student antics (cue the disappearance of many traffic cones).

Generally as I walk through the centre of a morning, the street sweepers haven't been round to clear up last night's mess, and I tut my way through discarded chip wrappers, McDonalds bags, beer bottles, puddles of vomit etc. In the ten Freshers weeks that have occurred since I moved to Aberdeen I thought I'd seen everything. But nothing prepared me for the sight that greeted me yesterday morning as I was walking up Bon-Accord Street. I was heading uphill towards Union Street, and as I stepped around a discarded donner kebab, I happened to glance into the garden of one of the houses on my left, which was, to be honest, little more than 10 square feet of cement with high walls on either side and a couple of planters in the middle. Lying to the right of the planter was an enormous turd. And I mean gigantic. Roughly the size and shape of a jumbo sausage I would say, both in length and circumference. I actually stopped and stared at the thing in awe. It was just simply enormous and I was racking my brains trying to figure out what kind of animal could be responsible for laying such a monstrous cable. What I saw lying next to the turd answered my question, as lying next to it was two napkins, the little white ones you get from a fast food shop. Each had been scrunched up and had an asshole-shaped brown smear on it. Lying next to that was a used tampon.

So not only was it a human being that was responsible for this gross act of defecation, it was a human female, which somehow makes it even more disgusting. What kind of girl (or guy for that matter) takes a shit in someone’s front garden? I mean we’ve all been caught short and had to nip up a lane to take a leak, male and female, but I can honestly say I’ve never, ever shit in someone’s garden.

I don’t think you need a degree in criminology to piece this one together. A girl is walking home from a nightclub with her donner kebab. She’s dying for a shit and a long way from home. Things are getting uncomfortable. As she passes this garden on Bon Accord Street, she realizes the street is empty, and there are high walls on either side of it, and maybe, just maybe, she can get away with it…. So she hops over the 3 foot wall, hitches her skirt up, takes her pants down, leans back against the planters, and crimps off a length that Andre The Giant would be proud of. Scrabbling through her handbag she finds the napkins she just got from the fast food shop, makes a half-assed attempt to clean herself up, and discards the soiled napkins on the concrete, and then just to top things off, pulls out her tampon and throws that on the pile as well. And then just toddles off, still with a dirty arse, and probably still eating the kebab.

How truly disgusting human beings can be at times. I mean seriously, would you go near a bird that eats donner kebabs?

Song currently stuck in my head – “Somewhere That’s Green” from the Little Shop Of Horrors soundtrack.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 447 - Socks Crime

2009-09-12T12:25:00.006+01:00

Do you know how to rob a restaurant using only a pair of socks? I do.

Allow me to regale you today with a story from The Great Swiss Misadventure of 2007. For those of you unfamiliar with the various stages of my life, TGSM was a 3 month period in early 2007 when my work had sent me on an quite astonishingly poorly organised business trip to Geneva. The date we were supposed to be leaving kept being put back, often at as little as 1 day's notice, leaving me in limbo in Aberdeen guest houses as I’d already moved out of my flat. When we arrived in Geneva we still didn’t know where we would be staying. Still, while the organisation may have been somewhat cack-handed, I had a great time out there. You can read all about it in the archives, from January 2007 onwards.

The area where I lived, Champel, is a rich, leafy suburb of Geneva, achingly beautiful, and I fell in love with it instantly (even Wikipedia calls it “posh”!). Although the look of the place is quite traditional and old fashioned, it has all mod cons, and you could happily survive there without ever having to venture in to the city centre. I lived in a block of flats which looked peculiarly run-down from the outside, but inside was a stunning swirl of marble and glass, and my apartment, although small, was a picture of comfort, and fully equipped. The only things that let it down were Swiss TV, which is awful, and having to listen to the occasional S&M orgies which took place in one of the apartments down the hall. (At least that’s what it sounded like, I never investigated).

About 100 yards from my apartment was a Chinese restaurant, which I can’t remember the name of, but it was very nice, the food was excellent and the décor very elegant. My fellow Aberdonian colleague and I ate there around four times a week as it was so close, and as we were on full expenses neither of us lifted a pan in anger for the whole three months. On weeknights we would generally eat out at around 7pm, unwind with a couple of beers afterwards, then retire to our respective apartments where he would play online poker, and I would relax with a gin and tonic and watch illegally downloaded films using an illegally piggy-backed internet connection.

One night in particular, we had made reservations at 6pm, much earlier than usual, as there was a Champions League game on which we wanted to watch and we wanted to get dinner out of the way. However I had been held up at the office, and I was running very late. I arrived back at my apartment at around 5.55, and still had to get changed and get ready for the evening, so post haste, I grabbed the nearest clothes I could find, a pair of jeans off the floor, a t-shirt out of the drawer and a grey zip-up Kickers jumper thing (what do you call those?), which was on a chair next to my bed. I rushed down to the restaurant where my impatient colleague was waiting, greeted the waitress (who I was on first name terms with from visiting so often, and, truth be told, I was a little smitten with), and ordered my meal.

Fast forward 15 minutes or so, we had just enjoyed our starters, and as we were waiting for the waitress to come and clear the plates away, I accidentally dropped my fork. As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed something that shouldn’t be there – there was a pair of dirty white socks lying under the table next to my feet. Immediately I called over the waitress, and pointed her attention towards the offending garments.

“That’s a bit disgusting” I proffered, “We come in here a lot and I know the restaurant’s clean, but it’s a bit off finding a pair of dirty socks under your table.”
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t know how they could have got there” she protested. “I vacuumed the whole restaurant after the lunch shift, and you are the first people who have sat at this table this evening”.
“It's OK” I said, “just take them away and we’ll forget all about it”, congratulating myself on how understanding I am, secretly thinking ‘aye, my arse you hoovered the place. How do you miss a pair of fucking socks?’

The waitress called over the manager (whom we were also on first name terms with) and the two of them stood, frowning intently at the socks, and began having a little board meeting about it. This went on for a minute. Then another minute. Then another minute. As they were speaking Chinese I didn't understand a word of it, but I would imagine the lazy waitress was getting torn a new asshole for her lax hoovering, while she was protesting her innocence. Finally the waitress disappeared into the kitchen, and came back brandishing a dustbin, a broom-handle, and a thick, industrial pair of rubber gloves. As we stood up and allowed her access to the white invaders, she attempted first to pick them up using the broom handle, and then screwed her face up in exaggerated disgust as she gave up and used the gloves, only a couple of centimetres of rubber separating her nimble fingers from a day’s worth of someone’s disgusting foot sweat.

That’s when I recognised them. As she was bringing the offending footwear out into the light, like rabbits being hounded out of the safety of the burrow, one glance at the blue swoosh on the side and I knew there were my socks. However, I kept quiet and accepted the apologies of the waitress and the manager while I tried to work out how the fuck my dirty socks could have ended up on the floor of a Chinese restaurant. Hmmmm…

Then I had a flashback. After pulling on that pair of jeans from the bedroom floor, I had pegged it out of the flat and down the stairs because I was running so late, and as I was hurrying along, something felt “different” about my jeans. Not uncomfortable as such, just different. However as I was in such a rush, I ignored it and kept running, meaning to investigate later. What I know now that I didn’t know then, was that the night previous I had pulled off my jeans and my socks in one fell swoop, and discarded the whole lot into an unruly pile on the bedroom floor. And when I hastily pulled them back on the next day, the socks were still lodged in the legs of the jeans. Running down to the restaurant had dislodged them, and as I sat at the table, they had both fallen out of the bottom and onto the floor.

By the time I had pieced all this together, the waitress had brought our main course, along with another generous serving of apologies, and as we were preparing to tuck in, I ‘fessed up to my colleague. He literally couldn’t eat, he was laughing so hard.

“Just tell them the truth” he said, between guffaws, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“I can’t tell them they were my socks!” I exclaimed in hushed tones. “They’ll think I’m a total clown, complaining about socks and then saying 'Oh never mind, they were my fucking socks.' What am I meant to do, ask them to take them back out of the bin for me? Anyway it’s gone too far now. If I confess now they’ll wonder why I didn’t confess as soon as I recognised them. We’re just going to have to run with it.”

And run with it we did. Right up until the point where we asked for our bill, and the manager informed us that on account of trauma we suffered at a pair of dirty socks being under our table, our three course dinner plus drinks, was on the house. Did I own up then? Nope. Did I fuck. Shuffling uncomfortably and looking at my feet, I accepted their gracious offer, secretly hoping the floor would open up and swallow me up before I got rumbled, in much the same manner that I had swallowed up my free dinner.

2 three course dinners, and beers. Cost to me? A pair of holey old socks. And that is how you rob a restaurant using only a pair of socks. I bet you won't see that one on The Real Hustle anytime soon.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Tomorrow” by Elliott Smith, which I am currently listening to.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 446 - The Suck My Balls Club (part 2)

2009-09-07T19:24:00.004+01:00

This blog relates to something that pissed me off back in October of 2008. However I wasn’t keeping a blog then so I never got to rant about it at the time. So here goes.

Carole Malone. “Who?” you may be asking. Well, to answer your question, Carole Malone is a beaky hack who writes an editorial every week in everyone’s favourite fish-and-chip wrapper, the News Of The World (see post 440 for my feelings on that particular waste of rainforest).

Carole Malone - black cat and broomstick slightly out of shot

Her column generally consists of her inane, worthless opinions on the latest happenings in the vacuous world of celebrity, has a readership of approximately zero, and is little more than a page filler (and yes, I do realise the irony of me using my own page-filler of a blog with a readership of zero to give my own inane and worthless opinions on the vacuous world of Carole Malone). What Ms. Malone has done to incur my ire is respond to a story which broke at the time in which Ringo Starr appealed to fans to stop bothering him for autographs. Perhaps not the best bit of PR from Mr. Starr, but to be fair to him he has probably been bothered for autographs every time he’s left the house for the best of the last 50 years and it’s bound to get a little tiresome.

Cut to the following Sunday and Carole Malone decides to vomit her cretinous thoughts on the matter all over her trashy little column. “What right does Ringo Starr have to refuse any one an autograph?” she verbally shat. (Or words to that effect, I’m working from memory here). “Ringo Starr is completely talentless, did absolutely nothing for the Beatles, and is extremely fortunate that Lennon and McCartney allowed him to hang on to their coat-tails for as long as they did. This grumpy old man should count himself very lucky that he has any fans at all” (Again, I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea).

Wait a second Carole – what exactly gives you the right to say anything at all about Ringo Starr? What have you ever done that suddenly makes your opinion worthwhile? Lets compare your achievements.

You were on Celebrity Fit Club where you panted, sweated and chafed in unflattering lycra, and you finished 10th in Celebrity Big Brother, behind such luminaries as Jade Goody and H from Steps.

Ringo Starr – well you know, just that one little achievement - HE WAS IN THE BEATLES! His drumming and singing can be heard on some of the most well known and celebrated songs in the history of recorded music. He, along with his bandmates, has sold more records than anyone else who has ever lived, in the whole world, ever. He’s one of the most instantly recognisable people in the whole world. You, on the other hand, are less popular than H from Steps and a post-racism, pre-cancer Jade Goody.

Carole Malone, like Peter Andre and Sam Wostear before you (right here!), you can suck my balls.

Welcome to the club.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Undercover Angel" by JJ72.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 445 - Night Of The Living Ned

2009-09-03T19:23:00.000+01:00

At the bottom of my street there is a pub, and despite looking like a fairly quiet, unassuming little boozer from the outside, inside it’s more notorious than Biggie Smalls. Despite having lived here for over a year I’ve only ever set foot in the place once and I’m not in any hurry to make a repeat visit. The main thing that puts me off is that any time I walk past it, day or night, there’s an array of neds, casuals and mental-looking old drunks standing outside smoking, gobbing and usually giving me the evil eye, which does not give off a very welcoming air (plus, there’s a much nicer pub round the corner where I much prefer to go for a quiet drink of an evening, even if their pints are flatter than the singing on an X-factor audition).

Every night, one of the last things I like to do before bed is go down the stairs and out the front door, and enjoy a nice quiet cigarette. This is an activity which I actually look forward to every evening, not just because I can suck up the last hit of nicotine, which has to last me 8 hours until the morning, but because the world is just so peaceful at that time of night. My normally busy street sits in absolute silence, all the cars sitting quietly at the side of the road, and the gallery of windows all with their curtains drawn, as though the houses themselves have closed their eyes and gone to sleep. When you live in the centre of a city you really start to appreciate peace and quiet – it’s a welcome contrast to the constant hustle and bustle of the daytime. And so there I stand, every night, enjoying my cigarette, soaking up the peaceful atmosphere and looking up at the stars, afraid to make a sound in case I ruin the ambience.

Unfortunately for me, my late night smoking / stargazing appointment falls roughly between midnight and 1am, which just so happens to be kicking out time at the charming little pub I told you about in the first paragraph. The pub is far away enough that I don’t hear the music and the fighting spilling out through the windows and doors, but many nights as I’m enjoying my much coveted quiet time, I hear the shuffle of approaching footsteps, and a glance down the street at this irritating invasion of privacy yields the same result – the sight of some drunk idiot staggering up the street holding onto the wall to keep themselves upright. And of course, when they finally reach me, they talk. They always talk. (Wouldn’t you?). The conversation always starts the same way – “Here mate. You got a spare fag?”. As I grudgingly part with a Marlboro Light, drunken tales start to tumble from their mouth toward my uninterested ears, but it’s too late to tell them to fuck off now, and the conversation starts proper. “My boyfriend / girlfriend is such a prick” is a favourite among the drunken hoards. “Ye ken fit, I fucking hate the posh cunts that bide roond here” is another. One chap recently greeted me with “Here mate – do you like niggers?”. Is there a correct answer to this question? “Fuck off you racist idiot” would have been my normal response, racism and ignorance piss me off, and I am usually the first to pull someone up for using such an idiotic slur. However this guy looked fucking mental, and angry, and there’s no way I was going to antagonise him more. But at the same time I didn’t want to reply in the affirmative and come across like some racist tool, so after mulling over the possible answers (in about 1.5 seconds – I mull faster than most people) I decided my best response would be to stay non-committal and try to deflect the attention back to him. “Dunno. Why what’s happened?” was my response. Genius. It worked, in that he didn’t beat me up, but I did have to listen to 10 minutes of his racist diatribe before I finally managed to get away and go back upstairs to my bed.

This Saturday night / Sunday morning at around 4am I stepped out to my usual spot to enjoy a pre-bedtime smoke (I’m a night owl), and didn’t expect to have any interruptions at that time of the morning. However no sooner had I lit up I heard footsteps approaching. I saw a young lad walking towards me, and I put my head down, closed my eyes and thought as hard as I could “please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me” however, seemingly my powers of suggestion weren’t working to their usual standards, as he was still about 20 yards away when he acknowledged me and engaged me in a bit of banter. He was about 19 years old, a bit of a chav, a cheeky and cheerful wee chap, and despite my preconceptions, I couldn’t help but instantly liking him. Judging by the speed he was rabbiting on at, his openness, and his insistence that I keep touching him (read on), I would suggest that he was quite possibly “on the march with Charlie’s army”. His conversation began with “Mate – do you know where I am?”. It turned out he was en-route to Northfield, which is, oddly enough, north of the city centre, but at this point he was quite well south of the city centre, and heading even souther. As I gave him directions, his story began to spill out – he’d been in a fight and he was trying to get home, however he wanted to stay off the main routes in case he was spotted by his assailants. To prove that he really had been in a fight he showed me a tiny speck of blood on his shirt - “At’s nae mine” he informed me proudly – and invited me to feel his various bumps and bruises – none of which really seemed to be all that apparent. In the time it took him to smoke a cigarette (one of mine, naturally) his story fluctuated wildly. To begin with, he claimed that he had been in the Priory nightclub, and while sitting by himself, a Polish girl approached him, started chatting him up, and then gave him a lap-dance. She said, he claimed, that her boyfriend is in prison, and that she was looking for someone to “keep her company” in his absence. Unfortunately for our hero, her boyfriend might have been in prison, but his mates weren’t, they were in fact in the Priory and not taking to kindly to what they were seeing. Cue an almighty kicking from “twenty huge Polish bastards” for my oddly scar-free new best mate. By the time he crushed out his cigarette under his trainer, the story had changed dramatically. In this version of events, he had been standing outside the Priory minding his own business, when a group of twenty (at least the number was the same) guys who were walking past started making fun of him simply because he was wearing spectacles (which he wasn’t during our conversation). Our hero then squared up to their “top boy” and laid him out with a well-aimed headbutt, before going steaming in to the other nineteen of them, and coming off worst.

What actually happened to him I don’t know, and I doubt if this spaced out young man actually knew himself. For someone who claimed to have been battered he didn’t have a mark on him, apart from a tiny speck of blood on his shirt, which could well have been kebab sauce. Though despite all this, he was an affable and friendly young fellow and I was actually enjoying talking to him, however he was clearly angling to be invited up for a beer, which was never going to happen, not least because all I have in is half a bottle of Gordon’s gin with no mixers, and a bottle of weird banana liqueur that appeared mysteriously after a party. But I did learn one lesson from it all. If you’re ever in the Priory and you see a group of twenty guys – run.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Overture To The Marriage Of Figaro” by Mozart (it’s been there all fucking day)
luckyrathen@yahoo.com

Post 444 - Fashion Faux-pas

2009-09-01T19:00:00.007+01:00

A few years ago I was working in a bar, and one of my colleagues was this girl who would frequently totter into work wearing a top with the words "Gold Digger" emblazoned across the chest. 99% of the time I couldn't stand the fucking bitch, but on one of the rare occasions that we weren't, literally, screaming at each other, I broached the subject of her attire.

"Why would you want to boast about being a gold digger?" I enquired. "They're horrible people, it's not something to be proud of".

Of course, she then looked at me like I was approximately 187 years old, and explained in her usual spikey manner to out-of-touch me that Gold Digger is in fact the name of a popular clothing brand, and not a statement of her intention to fuck guys to get at their money.

Which (almost) leads into a similar situation which arose on a rainy Friday afternoon recently, as I was stuck in traffic at the less affluent end of Union Street (that's the Castlegate end for the uninitiated). As I sat in a queue of overheating cars, through the hues of exhaust fumes I was taking stock of the people I share this city with. From the scruffy, unshaven junkie sitting on a dirty blanket outside Greig’s, begging for change with his equally emaciated dog, to the hopelessly posh student in the purple shirt and red beret (seriously) clutching that most essential of student accessories, a takeaway Starbucks latte, I was simply reflecting on the lives of the people I pass every day and never give a second thought. Who are they, what do they do, how did they get here? Sometimes I have trouble remembering that I'm not the only person in the world.

That's when I saw her. Stomping down the street towards me, this short, fat, battle-scarred potato of a woman of about 40, with a face even a mother would struggle to love. As she elbowed her way through the crowds of afternoon shoppers, she wheezed Lambert & Butler smoke like an old factory chimney under a straw nest of dirty blonde hair. Her face looked like she exfoliates using gravel and sandpaper. She was the kind of woman you would expect to see singing "Hi-Ho Silver Lining" at the Crown & Anchor karaoke night near Aberdeen harbour, drinking pints of lager, with the ever-present roll-up poking out of the corner of her mouth, showing off her home made tattoos and chatting up unsuspecting men with all the grace and charm of a newly microwaved sausage roll. On this particular day she was wearing a dark blue hoodie, adorned with the words "Dirty Cow" in large white letters. This one definitely isn’t a clothing brand – I’ve checked – which means that this woman, who the very thought of sleeping with would be enough to put most men off sex for the rest of their life, really wants people to look at her and think “Aye, she’s a dirty cow that one”. Instead the only thought I had was "Jesus, like I didn’t have a low enough opinion of you already". What would possess anyone to wear such a wretched garment? Where would you even get such a thing? I can’t believe anyone would see that in a shop and decide to buy it for themselves, let alone for anyone else, and even if it was a gift (some gift!) it’s the kind of thing that would be graciously accepted at the time and then stuffed in a carrier bag and hidden at the back of the wardrobe as soon as the benefactor has gone. I've had more than my fair share of fashion faux-pas in the past, but I don't think I've ever worn something that would actually make people cross the road to get away from me.

Though in saying that I'd still rather spend time with her than with "Gold Digger"....

Song currently stuck in my head – “Pardon Me” by Weezer.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 443 - Living In A Material World

2009-08-28T11:00:00.002+01:00

I'm not a materialistic kind of guy. Sure I have some bits and pieces, but if you inspect it closely, you'll find little to take pride in. Most of my electrical equipment (which most males take particular pride in) began it's life on the shelves of Asda or Tesco, and invariably at the far left, where only the bravest or most foolhardy would dare buy such obviously shit stuff. My thoughts have always been "Why spend £200 on a DVD player when you can get one for £20? It's still plays DVDs. Are you going to enjoy your DVDs ten times more than I am? Probably not". Sure this gear isn't built to last, and it does die quite quickly, but when you buy a DVD player for £20, you feel no sense of anger at horsing into the bin when it breaks after 6 months and spending another £20 to replace it. Certainly a lot less angry than you feel when throwing a top of the range Sony DVD player in the bin when it inevitably croaks it. (In saying that, my DVD player has been broken for the past 6 months and is well overdue for a replacement - however see yesterday's post for the reasons why I haven't quite gotten round to doing it yet). I have two TVs, one in the bedroom, which was a hand-me-down from my parents who were upgrading - a massive silver number with a built in VCR, roughly the same size and weight as a Sherman tank - and one in the living room, which was advertised in the Evening Express as "free to uplift". Free it may have been, but it took two people to uplift the fucker. It's a big ugly piece of shit, but it does it's job, and when it dies (which it probably never will - stuff was built to last back then!) there will be plenty of other free to uplift tellies waiting to take it's place. My "sound system" consists of an iPod plugged in to a set of old computer speakers, liberated from a mate who was throwing them out. It may look poor, but it plays my music fine and sounds great, thank you very much. My band equipment is a 15 year old Peavey amp that I bought for £50, a battered old Telecaster than I bought for £90, and a variety of cheap second hand effects pedals, all tacked onto the bottom of an old wooden shelf that my bandmate had lying around his garage. It's survived many a gig, and I defy you to come round, play my gear and not concede that it sounds brilliant.

Most of my stuff is begged, borrowed or stolen. Only last week I liberated 3 Guitar Hero games and guitars that Lucius Shitface was about to take to the charity shop that would have set me back the best part of £100 new. Cost to me? £0. I'm not like a modern day rag and bone man or anything like that, I just believe in being happy with what you've got and not needing to piss cash away on all the latest in pointless stuff. You can make do just fine with a cheaper alternative. I personally think this is quite commendable, I'm proud that I'm not materialistic. My girlfriend on the other hand, see things a little differently. She uses a noun to describe me, which, oddly enough, also describes something that's lacking from the ancient second hand golf clubs that are cluttering up my shed, and the rusty old bike with the bald tyres that is sitting next to them - grip.

Song currently stuck in my head - "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" by Weezer.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 442 - Demotivational Speaking

2009-08-27T15:16:00.002+01:00

I'm on holiday from work this week, and to say I'm loving it would be an understatement. There's a simple pleasure connected to being able to sleep until lunchtime, then spend the day sitting around the living room in your underwear watching DVDs of The x-Files and eating peanut butter out of the jar. Unfortunately having a full time job strips a man of this simple pleasure, dictating that he can only spend 5 weeks of every year enjoying what I like to call "undies time". Well, I suppose you could try and do it the other 47 weeks, but chances are your work, if it's anything like mine, won't take too kindly to you sleeping all morning and sitting at your desk in your underwear eating peanut butter in the afternoon. In fact this behaviour is probably a pretty fast ticket to all-round 52 week freedom from the shackles of alarm clocks and clothes.

My undie time would be a lot more enjoyable if I actually had got off my lazy ass at some point over the past year and added some of the mod cons that most people take for granted these days. TV for example. When you have all day to waste, and it's raining outside, there's no companion better than 400 channels of shit on the telly. When we first moved into my shoe-box like dwelling, we found that the TV didn't work, due to a dodgy roof aerial, and even after I spent a couple of hours hacking apart the cable and pretending I knew something about fixing TVs, the best I could muster was 4 channels, each so fuzzy that watching them for more than 5 minutes feels as though you are having an stroke. This could easily be remedied by simply calling round an aerial repairman, who could have the aerial fixed up in five minutes, allowing me to plug in my Freeview box and get about 30 channels in crystal clear digital. Or even to call Sky and ask them to install a dish, which costs next to nothing these days and would provide me with hundreds of channels. When we first moved in this was a minor inconvenience that I swore I would remedy at the first available opportunity. That was 12 months ago... and we still only have 4 aneurysm-inducing channels.

The internet. Who in this day and age doesn't have an internet connection? Well me, for a start. When we moved in here a year ago, the first thing, and I mean the very first thing we asked the landlord was if it was OK to have broadband installed. Not only did he agree that it was OK, he even offered to pay to have it installed, leaving us with only the £15 a month line rental, or whatever it's called these days. There's a phone line here already, it just needs reconnected, so how much effort does it take to call BT and have it reconnected? Well pretty fucking little to be honest, but it's been 12 months and I still haven't gotten round to it yet. I could even just walk the half a mile into town, go into Phones 4 U and get a mobile internet package, then walk home, plug it in and have broadband that same day. This would certainly be a lot less effort than dragging my heavy laptop up to Kilau for coffee and a blueberry muffin every time I want to use the internet, but which option do you think I take

If I could be arsed doing anything I could be dangerous. It's probably fair to say I was at the back of the queue when they were handing out motivation. In fact, I was probably lying on my couch squinting at my fuzzy TV...

Song currently stuck in my head - "Arpeggi" by Radiohead.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 429 - Communication Breakdown

2009-08-26T14:14:00.003+01:00

Two weeks down in Geneva, and I’m now fluent in what I like to call “Franglais”. What that means basically is that when talking with a Swiss person, I say the words I know in French, and the rest in English, which is usually enough for me to get my point across.

For example today I went to a dry cleaners where the elderly Swiss gentleman didn’t understand any English, yet somehow we still managed a transaction.
“Bonjour monsieur. J’ai mon.... clochettes.... pour…. dry cleaning”
“Oui”
“OK, j’ai seis chemises”
“Oui”
“Et deux pantalon”
“Oui”
“Et un… suit.”
“Un complet”
“OK, a complet. Aussi, mon jeans”
“Pantalon.”
“Oh jeans are pantalon too? Well that makes it nice and easy”

119 francs later, and my clothes will be back on Wednesday. Though I later found out that "clochettes" doesn't mean clothes, as I thought it did as it said so on the sign outside - it's the name of the street the shop is on.

And so across to the chemist where I want something for heartburn I’ve been suffering since I had grilled kangaroo for lunch yesterday (true). A girl of about nineteen is manning the counter.
“Bonjour monsieur.”
“Bonjour madam. J’ai bruleé d’estomac. Vous avez… something… for bruleé d’estomac?”
She looks confused. “BRULERE d’estomac?”
“Oui”, I say, aware suddenly that bruleé is a dessert. She reaches to a shelf behind the counter and picks up a huge box with “GEL” written on the side of it, and goes to ring it through the till.
“Wait a minute, what the fuck is that?” I ask. She stops, but has no idea what I said. “Not gel” I say. “What am I going to do with gel, fix my hair?”
She looks blank.
“I want tablets” I say. “You know, tablets? Les tablets?” With a last throw of the dice I try “Gaviscon? Rennie?”
“Ah, Rennie!” she says, and hands me a box of peppermint Rennie. Yet another problem overcome using Franglais. To the untrained eye, I’m almost a native.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Holes” by Mercury Rev.

Post 441 - Go On My Sun

2009-08-26T13:47:00.005+01:00

Ah, The Sun. Where exactly does one start when talking about The Sun? Well, page 41 of today's issue might be a good place to start, where the headline screams "WHY VILE FILMS LIKE THIS SEND A SIGN THAT RAPE IS OK". Ah, sensationalism. How I've missed thee. Now read the first few lines of the story and see if you can spot the exact point where The Sun starts to bend the truth a little bit.

"Scenes from a film starring Katie Price's lover Alex Reid have been slammed for glamourising sexual violence.

Pics from gangster flick Killer Bitch emerged this week showing cage fighter Reid throttling his co-star during a sex scene where her protests turn to gasps of pleasure. With conviction rates for rape in the UK at a shocking 6.5 per cent, some believe this unrealistic depiction is a step backwards.

Katie Price, 31, also known as Jordan, could face a custody battle after estranged husband Peter Andre, 36, flew into a rage when he heard of Reid's porn role.

Sam Wostear talks to a rape victim, a psychologist, and a crime expert about the dangers of rape porn".

So firstly, in the space of three paragraphs, this has gone from "sex scenes" in a "gangster flick", to "a porn role", to "rape porn". Right. So which is it? By simply googling the words "Killer Bitch" I found a link to the film's official website, which doesn't mention the words "rape", or "porn" at any point. Admittedly it does appear to be quite graphic, but there's a big, fucking, fuck-off line between a film with a rape scene in it, and rape porn. The filmmakers are certainly playing up to the controversy they are creating, but it doesn't claim to be anything other than a gangster movie, with some quotes from outraged tabloids tacked on to generate some publicity. My favourite being "Vile and degrading... sickening footage... scenes too vile to describe... unsavoury, shocking and unsuitable movie." (News of the World)". Yes, that wholesome family newspaper the News Of The World, which has sex scandals and long lens shots of celebrities sunbathing topless on every page, is outraged. What a surprise.

The Sun and the NOTW really ought to try and copyright the word "vile", they amount of times they use it in every issue.

Secondly, how can you tell from "pics" that her protests turned to "gasps of pleasure"? They must be some pretty damn good pics.

Thirdly, I watch violent films all the time, Reservoir Dogs for example, is one of my favourite films. Mr Blonde, wearing a black suit, black tie and shades, ties a cop to a chair, tortures him and slices his ear off, all the while dancing to some 70's rock and looking cooler than Kanye West's fridge. Does this make me want to go out and torture people? No it doesn't, because it's a fucking film, and call me old fashioned but I still generally believe that torture is bad, no matter how much it is "glamourised".

Fourthly, does anyone really give a fuck what Peter Andre thinks? About anything? Really? I'm not even convinced that that part of the story is actually true, and not just a feeble attempt to add some credibility to a story about a guy that no-one has ever heard of by throwing a celebrity name at it. Either way, Peter Andre can suck my balls, and then go and write another wishy washy song about it so every knows what a drip he is. And while we're at it, Sam Wostear can suck them as well.

The saddest part of this whole thing, is that up and down the country there will be people on housing estates reading the Sun and saying "Eeh, it's a fahkin' disgrace innit! That Jordan should be thinking about 'er fahkin' kids!". Well maybe if you were paying a bit more attention to your own fahkin' kids instead of reading the tabloids to find something to be outraged about, there'd be a few less chavs and petty criminals in the world. Now please, put down the paper and go and have an original thought. It will change your life.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 440 - Sunday Shitrag

2009-08-23T13:38:00.004+01:00

The News Of The World runs the headline today "Kerry - I'll Die Young", next to a picture of an (even more than usual) bedraggled looking Kerry Katona.

"Disgraced telly star Kerry Katona has broken down and confessed illegal cocaine binges are KILLING her, admitting "My mum will outlive me. I'll die young."

Her deadly prediction climaxes a week of drama sparked by the News Of The World's sensational video PROOF of her snorting the drug at home.

Today in 28-year-old Kerry's own words, we expose the extent of her addiction and tell how she revealed "I've got a hole in the nose 'cos of coke." Later she sobbed "I've lost everything. I'm going to lose the kids - the lot!"

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't give a flying fuck about Kerry Katona. In fact I hope she does die young. If she croaks before December 31st, added to Jade Goody's "tragic passing", 2009 might just be my favourite year ever. What irritates me is that they try to pass this whole sorry affair off as news. The News Of The World doesn't report news. It's entire modus operandi is exposing celebrity behaviour, with a bit of news squeezed in between all the rubbish scandal. The reason Katona's oddly squashed looking face is all over the tabloids this week is purely because last week in the News Of The World, they managed to get their grubby hands on a video of her doing cocaine and splashed it all over the front pages. (It's also on their website - it's worth watching the video just for the dramatic music they've added. Priceless. Click here)

So here we have, and prepare yourself for the shock of it all, some fat bird taking drugs in her kitchen. In the privacy of her own home, and the News of The World thinks that the public has a right to know about it. Why does the public have a right to know? Is she a danger to the public? Is she the monster that the tabloids would have you believe is hiding behind every bush waiting to jump out and have sex with your children? No, she's just a woman getting up to a bit of mischief behind closed doors. If my neighbour was a 28 year old woman doing lines of cocaine off the kitchen table, would the News Of The World report on that? No, because that wouldn't sell newspapers. (And anyway, I don't know if my neighbour does cocaine, but I do hear the fat bint having sex through the wall quite a lot). Let's not pretend that this has anything to do with their responsibility to keep the public informed. The News Of The World seems to have the line blurred between reporting the news and creating the news. And no doubt they'll have the fucking gall to start acting all sympathetic and holier-than-thou next week, with tales of "poor Kerry, who's devestated because she might lose her children". She might lose her children because of YOU, you fucking shit rag.

Similarly Roman Bednar, the west Brom striker, was suspended by his club for three months this year after a News Of The World reporter went undercover as a drug dealer, pulled up outside his house and secretly filmed as he bought cocaine. This ended up splashed all over the paper. Why is this any of their business? What exactly is the News Of the World trying to achieve? Admittedly, it was pretty stupid of him to go out and buy drugs off complete strangers, like they were a fucking ice cream van, but again, they are not reporting the news, they are creating the news.

How long until something like this happens?

"The News Of The World can today reveal that the fire safety conditions at Leicester's Sick Kid's hospital fall well short of the required standards. After starting a small blaze in the basement, we secretly filmed as children as young as THREE, perished in the blaze when sprinkler systems FAILED to activate. Hospital staff, who are trained to deal with such, situations failed to enforce evacuation procedures, instead running around screaming while their uniforms were on FIRE".

Another amusing headline jumps out of page 27 of today's issue.

"Jacko Created "Ideal" Kids Like Frankenstein"

Michael Jackson acted like Dr. Frankenstein to create a perfect family of test tube children, The News Of The World can reveal today".

Wicked! So what, he dug up dead people, cut off their limbs and sewed them together to make monster-children? That is fucking ace. I knew I liked that guy.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 439 - The Birds...

2009-08-10T20:00:00.001+01:00

If anyone is any doubt that birds evolved from dinosaurs I challenge them to come to Aberdeen and have a look at the seagulls here. These things are so immensely huge I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are really just pterodactyls with feathers. If you took a Border collie and taped an ironing board to it's back you'd get an idea of the size of these gargantuan fuckers. They look as though they'd be quite capable (and willing) of swooping down and carrying away a small dog or a child. Not only are they enormous they are completely fearless, boisterous and obnoxious in equal measures. In Aberdeen they have been known on many an occasion to swoop down and steal food right out of people's hands! If birds were people, seagulls would be neds. I came across one in my street last week which was sitting on top of a wheelie bin tearing open a rubbish bag and spilling rubbish all over the street. I decided to chase it away so I ran towards it, shouting and stamping my feet. It stopped tearing the bag and just sat and stared at me quizzically, completely unperturbed. The look on it's face said it all – if it were capable of speech it would undoubtedly have been saying "Mon en ya dick! You wantin' a square go like?". It may as well have been wearing a baseball cap and a gold chain, and brandishing a Stanley. Rather ashamedly I sloped off and let it get back to it's dinner.

These flying shit-hawks are the bane of my existence at the moment, for a plethora of reasons. Let me set the scene for you. I live in an undesirable part of Aberdeen, near the harbour. My street is a row of run-down, grey, Victorian tenements, each more tired looking than the one before it. Occasionally someone will try to brighten it up with a window box or a new coat of paint for their front door, but none of this manages to mask the simple fact that none of us really want to live there. At the bottom of my street is a railway bridge, where the metallic rumble of trains bustling past can be heard 24 hours a day, and beyond the railway bridge is a crumbling industrial estate. The few buildings which are still standing and suitable for business use are used as fishyards (and bizarrely a Nepalese restaurant), and come summer or winter, rain or shine, they fucking stink. Beyond this is Market Street a noisy, dusty, busy thoroughfare where lorries roar past day and night, a street which offers little but a couple of greasy spoons where men in dirty boiler suits sit eating egg rolls and drinking sweet tea. Across Market Street you’re in the North Sea, where the huge tankers and supply ships in the docks dominate the skyline. Here's a picture if you're interested.

Unfortunately the combination of sea + all-you-can-eat fish guts + high tenement roofs makes the roofs in my street, quite literally, a breeding ground for seagulls. The reasons why this is a bad thing are threefold:

1 - They fucking squawk. All. Fucking. Night. At my count there about thirty pairs of proud parents which currently call the chimneys in my street home, and during the night they seem to enjoy nothing better then yelling their children's latest achievements across the street to each other, as new parents so often do.
"Hey, my Claire has just said her first word!"
"My Nathan just took his first shit on someone's car!".
They are a cup of tea and a scone away from a mothers and toddlers meeting. Gull call, if you’ve never heard it, is relaxing and soothing like the blackbird or the song thrush. It's a loud, honking, squawking racket that travels for miles, and when one of them starts, they all start. 3am squawking time is probably a fun old time if you're a seagull, not so much fun if you're a human who lives on the top floor, trying to sleep in one of the flats with the bedroom window open because of the summer heat.

2 - They shit all over everything. Especially my car. No matter how often I wash it, I still drive around every day with shit all over my car. One morning I went out and one of the huge fuckers was standing on top of my car where he'd obviously been standing all night, just shitting at will. It was as though I'd done something to offend him, and during the night he'd invited all his mates over to shit all over my car, and then sat there waiting for me to come out so he could see the look on my face in the morning when I came out to see my pride and joy looking like a plasterer's radio. It had even managed to shit INSIDE the doors. How is that even possible?

3 - When the baby gulls are a bit bigger, the parents throw them down into the street to fend for themselves, and position themselves on an overlooking roof or a lamppost. And all you have to do is get within about 20 feet of the young one and the adult comes swooping down on your fucking head, it’s massive wingspan blocking out the sun, a mass of feathers, and those scary beady eyes drilling holes into you. They come swooping down over your head and if you don't back off they will happily fly into the side of your head beak-first, and flap their wings in your face. This can be avoided by simply giving the young seagulls a wide berth, but when the fucking thing is sitting on your door step and you have to get past it to get into your house suddenly you're running a gull gauntlet just to get in the door. At one of my old jobs once, a colleague went out to the car park to get in his car, unbeknownst to him there was a baby seagull behind his car. As he tried to open the car door, this flying behemoth swooped down and hovered about 6 inches above him, squawking like crazy and flapping it's giant wings, and as he was simply trying to get into his car it shat, right on his face. If that had been me that bastard would have had it's wings torn off, regardless of how big it is. As it happens I was watching from my office window and very nearly passed out from laughing so hard.

If animals could get ASBOs, seagull's would have to be first on the list. Making a noise all night, making a mess of the local area with blatant disregard for local inhabitants and blatantly going about starting fights - this is the kind of behaviour I expect of a bunch of young neds from Garthdee. If something isn't done soon it's only a matter of time before the gulls are sitting at the back of the bus playing Basshunter songs on their mobile phones.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Les Fleurs" by 4Hero.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 438 - Things I almost said this week

2009-07-25T00:01:00.003+01:00

You know when you something pops into your head that you're dying to say, but you aren't quite brave enough to say it? Well I get that a lot, and instead of just being a pansy I'm going to prove how brave I am by publishing all the things I almost said, hours, or even days after they actually happened.

"Excuse me. Do you have a boyfriend?
No...
That's cos you have a really fat neck".

I really had to bite my tongue to stop that one from slipping out. I was walking up Crown Street last night, and I walked past a girl of around 22-23 wearing a floral dress. She had a normal looking face and a normal shaped body, and she wasn't fat in the slightest, but bizarrely just has this mass of fat around her neck. She looked like she'd swallowed a football, or like she was wearing one of those neck brace collar things, but under her skin.... Imagine a human female body in a dress, then a frogs neck, then a normal girl's head and you're halfway there.

Reason I didn't say this - Didn't want to hurt her feelings / I may have got punched for it.

"Look, just shut up and make my fucking coffee will you"

There's a girl that works in one of the coffee shops in town which I frequent (it shouldn't be hard to figure out which one, just read back a few posts) that absolutely insists on sharing her inane banter with me every time I go in. I know it's not reserved especially for me, I'm sure everyone gets it all day long, and I'm equally sure that everyone, customers and staff alike, find it just as boring as I do. It's talk about the weather, or her boyfriend, or how boring her weekend was, or something that's in the news - she just talks for the sake of talking. I want to just tell her, look, it's 9.00 in the morning, it's raining and I'm on the way to work. I'm not interested in hearing which film you and your pissing boyfriend watched last night. Please. Shut. Up.

Reason I didn't say this - she may have spat in my coffee or burst into tears.

"Don't you have anything fucking better to do?"

I was walking up Crown Street the other day behind two of Grampian Police Force's finest. As approaching the Union Street end, there was a car parked outside the post office on double yellow lines with two guys sitting in it. The police gave the guy a fucking parking ticket! He was sitting in his car at the time, no "can you shift this car please, you're illegally parked" they actually stopped, gave the guy a bollocking and handed out a parking fine. There are people being mugged and stabbed virtually every night in Aberdeen at the moment, there are countless unsolved robberies, assaults, etc. A few years ago I was assaulted and beaten, right in the city centre where there were CCTV cameras everywhere. But when I reported it they told me they didn't have time to investigate it or even watch the CCTV footage. Presumably because all the police officers are too busy fucking about giving out parking tickets. Isn't that what traffic wardens are there for?

Reason I didn't say this - would probably have been arrested.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Everything Reminds Me Of Her" by Elliot Smith
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 437 - Lucky's Random Friday Brainfarts

2009-07-24T01:20:00.003+01:00

Brainfart: (noun) A spontaneous, stupid thought.

Doesn't Lindsey Lohan look she would smell? Like old fish and chip wrappers, mixed with 2 day old sweat and whisky. With breath that could cut glass. I think she would have the distinctive odour of a grizzled old man, the kind that chops down trees all day and sits in a bar drinking Bud and smoking cigars all night. That's not a good thing to happen to a young lady. She looked so clean cut and sweet in Mean Girls as well, now she just looks like a skanky, drunk, crack-whore. Like a cross between the girls in Jumpin' Jaks and the girls who work down Aberdeen harbour. What a difference 5 years make.

Ashlee Simpson - she has some good pop songs, guilty pleasures undoubtedly, but still, I like them. But she's fucking weird looking, and I don't like the way she moves. It's just not right, it's like there's some kind of alien creature living inside her who doesn't know how to work the limbs properly, like Johnny Knoxville's character in Men In Black 2. And this alien is wearing an Ashlee Simpson suit, that doesn't fit properly, which makes more all weird and creepy like. Also she always looks like as though she's just shit her pants. Not by her movements, but her face. Her face screams "I've just shit my pants".

When I hear her sing you the line "You make wanna 'lala' in the kitchen on the floor, I'll be your French maid, when I meet you at the door", it makes me throw up into my mouth a little bit. First of all, fuck off, you're weird looking and the way you move creeps me the fuck out, and secondly, people have to eat in that kitchen. Plus, the floor probably isn't very hygienic. though at least I can stand to look at and listen to Ashlee. Nothing she does could ever cause me to have more contempt for her than I do for her ridiculous looking twat of a sister, with her orange skin and ridiculously white teeth and dead-looking hair.

Sorry, I appear to have turned into Perez Hilton for a minute there (apart from the rampaging gayness).

If I could go back in time and stop any event in the history of the world from happening, I'd stop the Pet Shop Boys from ever getting together in the first place. Seriously, I have never met a single person in my entire life who likes the Pet Shop Boys - and I was alive in the 80s when they were at their "peak". Why don't they piss off and leave the world alone?

Mitchell and Webb - give up. You were funny on Peep Show because other people were writing the material for you. Just cos you had a hit sitcom doesn't mean you are comedy geniuses. In fact, I've got an ideas for a new TV show. why don't you take those two cunts from Gavin & Stacey as well, and go onto the New York subway wearing big false beards and robes, and strap of load of fake explosives to your chest? It's guaranteed hidden-camera hilarity. Be sure to run past as many armed police officers as possible. Thanks. Now run along.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Lala" by Ashlee Simpson
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 436 - Debts

2009-07-23T18:16:00.002+01:00

*(Warning - this entry is very long and contains no comedy)*

In the past, I've had debts. A lot of debts. Fucking LOADS of debts. If you read through most of my posts from around 2003 (which I will re-post soon), you will read a lot about debts. I wasn't up to the level of some of the half-wits you read about in the paper who have basically bought and furnished a house and bought a brand new car on borrowed money then found they were so far in over their heads they had to resort to Ocean Finance. But it was enough to give a single guy earning minimum wage a pretty hard time of it. In 2002 I had no debts whatsoever, and by 2005 I was in debt to the tune of around £11,000. I've learned the hard way how easy it is to get into debt, and how hard it is to get back out of it again. I'm not out of the woods yet, but I'm in a much, much better position than I was in a few years ago.

It all started at the end of 2002, when I went a little bit crazy with other people's money and pissed away £6k in less than four months. At the beginning of October my bank balance read £0.00, and by January I had 2 bank accounts which both read £-1800. Here's the story. Get strapped in, it might take a while to read...

September 2002 - Debt: £0

Picture the scene. It's the last week in September, I'm a 22-year-old, good-looking, punk upstart, and I've been working in the offices of a recruitment agency for three years. I'm bored out of my mind, and in an act or rebellion against pretty much whatever I could find to rebel against, I decided to quit my dull job and have a crack at University. I had no intention of actually gaining a qualification - I simply wanted to get drunk a lot and have lots of sex (I certainly achieved one of those goals).

Unfortunately before quitting my job I negated to actually save up any money for Uni, figuring, as I did a lot back then, that I could blag my way through it. And so it began. I left the job on the Friday with one last paycheque burning a hole in my back pocket, and started Uni on the Monday. I went to the Fresher's Fair, where a nice man from the Royal Bank Of Scotland accosted me and invited me to take out one of their Student Accounts - which offered an instant overdraft of £1250. I already had an account with RBS, but he didn't ask me that and I didn't tell him that - one quick signature and a photocopy of my driving licence later, I suddenly had £1250.

October 2002 - Debt: £1250

Around this time I also received a cheque for £1100 from the Student Loans Company. Add that to the £1250 overdraft, and suddenly I had more money than I had ever had. So what else could I do? I went fucking crazy, and spent the whole lot. And the funny thing is, I didn't really buy anything. With the exception of maybe a pair of trainers and a couple of pairs of cheap jeans, I didn't buy any electronics, instruments, or DVDs, CDs, Playstation games, clothes any of that shit. What I did do was go out drinking. A lot. For the first time in my life I had the freedom and the cash to be as hedonistic as I liked, and I went out drinking pretty much 6 nights a week (just not Saturdays because it was “too clichéd – student prick!). I went to pubs; nightclubs; strip joints; gigs; and I drank; pumped money into bandits; paid strippers; took my skint student mates on nights out out of my own pocket; and generally had a fucking great time. However come the end of the month - and how the fuck I did this I still to this day can't explain - I'd spunked away £2350, and I was skint again. Whoops.

November 2002 - Debt: £2350

At this point I was desperate for cash again and I had a brainwave - as well as having my, now empty, student account with the RBS, I still had my old current account open, which was with a different branch. I wonder.... One quick phone call later, and without asking to see any ID or anything (and crucially using a different address and going by my middle name) I had persuaded the woman in the bank to convert my other account to a student account with the same overdraft. Bingo. Another £1250. And what did I do with it?

A) Realised it had to go a long way, and rationed it to my self slowly and sensibly.
B) Pissed it up the wall.

If you guessed A) you were wrong. I did exactly the same as I did in October. Wall to wall nights out, and by the end of November I was skint again. Again, I didn't buy anything of value, I had nothing to show for it, except that I was having a lot of fun.

December 2002 - Debt: £3600

So skint I was, I was forced to take up a part-time job in Virgin Megastore, which meant unfortunately that I missed a lot of lectures (which really didn't make much of a difference as I didn't go to most of them anyway, due to being hungover). In the middle of December another chunk of Student Loan came in, another £1100, and I did exactly the same as before. Myself and my acquaintance Marcus managed to put together a quite staggering 16 nights out in a row, and it became well known in Virgin that I would be hung over every single morning without fail. Around this time, one of my friends seriously sat me down and told me he thought I had a drinking problem. The last of the cash went on Xmas presents for my family and at the end of the month I was broke again.

January 2003 - Debt: £4700

I was skint skint skint skint skint. Not a penny to rub together. I had no food in the flat, I hadn't paid my rent because I'd wasted all my money in places likes Dr Drakes and Moshulu, and I wasn't getting paid much from Virgin. I needed a new plan. And then I had the worst idea I've ever had in my life.

I found that for some reason, no matter how little money I had in my bank account, the POS terminals at Virgin ALWAYS authorised my Switch card. Fuck knows why, cos they didn't work anywhere else due to both being at their £-1250 limit, but in Virgin they both went through. So I started asking my mates, colleagues etc. if they needed to buy anything from Virgin, and when they did I would get them to give me the cash, and I would put it on my Switch card. And so it went - me just getting more and more and more overdrawn, while always having money in my pocket. It got to the point where my wages going in didn't even bring me back up to the £-1250, and I was just totally fucked. Both accounts now read £-1800. I called the bank one day, and accidentally let slip about the whole 2 student accounts thing, which they didn't like, and they said I had broken the law, the terms and conditions of the bank, and had technically committed fraud (?!) and they wanted the whole lot paid back there and then. So I changed my phone number. They found it out. I changed it again. They found it out again. Things were just getting a little bit too fucked up, so I went in and saw them to sort it out.

February 2003 - Debt: £5800

It took me 4 years worth of a bank loan (and a grand of interest) to pay off the money I owed the bank, and after three years I had to take another loan out because most of my wages were going towards paying off other debts and I was skint. 6 years later I've just paid the last instalment of the loan, and let me assure you, it felt fucking great. I'm still paying off the student loan (but it's manageable), but apart from a wee bit on a credit card I'm pretty much in the clear.

I've waffled on long enough - but to summarise:

Debts = bad.

3 months of solid drinking and partying was good at the time, but when you're still paying for it 6 years on it stops being so much fun. Debts. They're like drugs. Only worse. Just say no kids.

Song currently stuck in my head - "This Ain't Havana" by The Ramones.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 435 - Toilet Thievery

2009-07-21T18:16:00.002+01:00

You know who gets on my nerves? Bog trolls. If you aren't familiar with the term, bog trolls are those fuckers that sit in the toilets of nightclubs and adminster soap, towels, aftershave and contempt for a shiny pound coin. If you pay close attention you can actually see the self-loathing in their eyes, that they've sunk so low they been reduced to spending 8 hours a night sitting in a toilet offering to wash people's pissy hands for them. I think this may be the only job in the world which is lower on the social ladder than working in McDonalds, and what's more the pay is worse and the level of abuse is higher. What would drive anyone to apply for this job? Nightclub toilets are horrible places, somewhere I like to get in and get out of as quickly as possible before either A) my jeans start absorbing the inch of piss that's covering the floor, or B) someone tries to headbutt me. It would take a hell of a lot more than minimum wage to convince me to sit in a toilet for 8 hours, especially if it involved acting like a manservant to a bunch of arrogant pissed-up drunks.

So, lets get away from the reasons why they hate themselves, and get on to the reasons why I hate them. When in a nightclub, after relieving my ballooning bladder, I have two option:

1 - Wash my hands and just take the hit as the bog troll squirts soap into my hands and gives me a fresh clean towel. Not that I have an issue with cleanliness, quite the opposite in fact - what bothers me is the fact that as soon as I've used the towel I get his tip jar thrust under my nose, and I'm expected to pay the guy a £1. On times when I've refused to play ball, I have been called among other things a "tight cunt", despite the fact that the service he offers is technically free and what he is fishing for is a tip which I'm not obliged to give him.

2 - I can deftly sidestep the bogtroll and just head out of the toilet without washing my hands. This is not an option I like, because I find nothing more disgusting that people not washing their hands after using the toilet. Then all the germs get all over everything I touch, and I put my fingers to my face, and on my glass, and just no. Bad option.

Technically there is a third option, though it's very risky. You can look to see where the bog troll is, then quickly run to the sink farthest away from him, wash your hands and simply run away with wet hands before he has time to come at you with the soap and towel. This is very satisfying when it works, but you have to be quick off the mark cos if he starts spraying that soap, you're a quid down. A quid may not sound like much, but if I spend 3 hours in a nightclub, and I've been drinking liquids for most of the night, the chances are I'm going to make quite a few toilet stops. Probably around 6 I would say, on average. That means I spend £6 a night purely on taking a piss. That can buy you two drinks (unless you're in Soul), a pack of smokes, or a cheeseburger and chips on the way home.

I have a much better idea. If you wish to avoid / protest against bog trolls all you have to do is simply finish your pint, find a secluded corner of the bar and piss in the empty glass. Then put the "dirty pint" on the bar for the bar staff to dispose of. Now you've managed to avoid the bog troll without making a mess, you've saved a few steps by not having to walk ALL THE WAY to the toilets, and best of all: the bar will stink of piss and the bog troll won't have made any money. Pretty soon the managers are bound to take the hint that we want rid of them. Come on people of Aberdeen - together we can overthrow scourge of toilet highwaymen.

(Note - this will not work in Revolution, because it already reeks of piss).

luckyrathen@yahoo.com
Song currently stuck in my head - "Stand And Deliver" by Adam & The Ants

Post 434 - A crapuccino and a twatté

2009-07-17T22:32:00.002+01:00

I always like to think that I've got enough intellectual acumen to not be susceptible to advertising, promotion and branding etc. As far as I'm concerned, I can see through the bullshit, recognise a marketing ploy and know not to be suckered in by the image a company or product tries to portray for itself. When I go shopping, I shop for what I want, not what the company is trying ram down my throat and tell me I can't live without, and I can happily save money on store brand items knowing well that they are just as good as their more expensive and heavily advertised counterparts, be it food, clothing, medicine or whatever. Nope. You ain't gonna catch out old Lucky with your flashy slogans and your catchy jingles.

Why is why I can't quite figure out my Starbucks problem. I don't know what is about Starbucks specifically that suckers me in, but I just can't walk past one of the fuckers without going in for a caffiene fix. It doesn't happen with any of the other coffee shops, only Starbucks, as soon as I see that green logo with that mental fish-bitch in the middle, I go weak at the knees, knowing that I will not be able to resist. I actually have an empty cup on my desk just now, and that seductive fish-woman is staring at me, taunting me, "I know you can't resist me. You know you want me..." like some doe-eyed freshly-ground lolita. And the thing is, I do want one, I am about to set off on a walk down Union Street where I'll pass no less than three Starbucks, and I can absolutely say without doubt I'll have an Americano in hand by the time I pass the first one. And the funniest part of all is, I don't even like their coffee that much! Sure it's OK, but it's not the best coffee in the world, not by a long shot. I just dig that shit. I even have a Starbucks card. Now let me assure you, nothing, but nothing in the world makes you look like more of a dick than a queue of people seeing you ordering a £2 cup of coffee and pulling out a fucking gold Starbucks card to pay for it with.

There are worse addictions - alcohol, cigarettes, crack, heroin - but until the day I start mugging old ladies or tossing off middle-aged businessmen in public toilets to pay for my habit, then as far as I'm concerned, I don't have a problem yet. I'm just a social coffee drinker...

Song currently stuck in my head - "Astro Zombies" by The Misfits.
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 433 - What I Am Is What I Am

2009-07-15T23:53:00.001+01:00

Why is the world so obsessed with what you do for a living? Why is it that when you meet someone for the first time, or bump into an old friend, one of the first questions they ask is "So what are you working as these days"? Why does it matter what I'm working as these days, or any other days? My job doesn't define me as a person, it's just something I do to make ends meet.

For 8 hours of every day I sit at a desk doing dull, repetitive tasks, which is probably more boring for me than it will be for you if I explain it. However for the other 16 hours I enjoying playing a few different musical instruments; I write songs for my band; I watch more horror movies than I probably should; I read novels; I like riding my bike through the park; I like walking down by the river and watching all the birds; I try to read a little bit about a lot of things so I have a rudimentary understanding of the world we live in - geology, astronomy, biology etc; I love the smell of fresh coffee, of clean laundry and of newly-washed hair; I like to try new kinds of food; I like doing puzzles, like crosswords, codebreakers etc. to keep my brain working; I love listening to music, the two genres I enjoy most are depressing acoustic guitar stuff, and thuggish gangsta rap, which is in complete contrast to my personality; every time I listen to Biggie Smalls or Elliot Smith I feel a pang of sadness that they are no longer with us; I'm also a fan of the peculiar sub-genre of "psychobilly", which is a mash-up of rock & roll / rockabilly, and zombies - imagine zombies playing double basses and singing about driving hot-rods and you're halfway there; I appreciate colourful tattoos, though I only have two small ones myself and they are both black and white; my only regret in life is never getting a degree, though I'm very glad I dropped out of my university course cos if I had become a journalist I'd have to kill myself on general principle; I think religion in it's current form is an outdated concept, and basically a practical joke that got out of hand; I find the depiction of men in women's magazines, as sex-obsessed lunkheads with a DIY fixation to be borderline offensive; I hate how I can't have a cold without someone (female) saying "oh it must be man-flu"; I despair that the world is such a cold, mistrusting place that you are afraid to talk to a child you don't know in case you're branded a paedophile; I'd love to visit Japan and China, and if I could live anywhere in the world it would be Switzerland (again); every time I swim in the sea I worry I'm going to get stung by jellyfish.

Aren't these the kind of things that are going to give you an idea of what I'm actually like as a person? No? You actually want to know what I do for a living? Well...

Song currently stuck in my head - "Go Square Go" by Glasvegas
ireallyhatelucky@googlemail.com

Post 432 - Still Here.

2008-05-22T18:00:00.000+01:00

So what's happened to you Elwood? Did you die in a Swiss plane crash? Did you smoke loads of hash in 'Dam and become a beatnik on the streets of Den Haag? Did the people in the Swiss restuarants cook you and eat you? Well no. None of those things happened. I'm still alive, and walking the mean streets of Aberdeen. Maybe one day I'll get round to telling you all about it. For now, fuck off.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 431 - Stuck In The 'Dam

2007-03-22T16:54:00.000Z

After the first three weeks in Geneva, I was granted a weekend at home this weekend. After spending the day having my balls bored off in a sales meeting at work on Friday, I left at 3pm and jumped on a flight home to Aberdeen. It was good to be back. As well as splashing out on a spanking new all-singing all-dancing laptop so I can finally get the fucking internet in Geneva and stop bothering Kai to upload all my blogs, I also spunked away a fair wedge on a new Sony 10mega pixel digital camera so I can document my time abroad, I also got a few new books, and borrowed a stack of DVDs off Lucius Shitface to stave off the boredom of life in my Swiss flat. The weekend sadly had to end though and this afternoon I reported to Aberdeen airport to return to Switzerland. Of course plans went a little tits up, and my flight from Aberdeen to Amsterdam was delayed by almost 2 hours. By the time we landed in Amsterdam the last flight to Geneva had already left, leaving us pretty much stranded in Holland. Well, there are worse places to be stranded I suppose. After visiting various KLM service windows in Schipol airport, and a few cries of “where the hell are we supposed to stay now?”, KLM agreed to put us on an early morning flight and spring for a hotel for us in Amsterdam, a free bus, as well as a bag of overnight essentials, since to rub salt into the wound, they couldn’t find my luggage (though I’m assured it will be waiting for me in Geneva tomorrow morning). And so we travelled on to the Ibis hotel in Amsterdam from where I currently write. My room consists of a single bed, a TV (which is showing the Chelsea Spurs match, so not all bad), a shower, and a radiator which is stuck at the highest temperature. Our free dinner which we were promised was a choice of weird chewy meat in a grey sauce with tinned potatoes and bread roll, or nothing. I took the chewy meat and a pint of cool refreshing Heineken. My free goody bag of overnight essentials contains: One XXL shapeless plain white t-shirt; a hairbrush; shaving cream and a disposable razor; some deodorant; toothpaste and a toothbrush; a huge pair of itchy navy blue socks; some make-up remover; some laundry detergent (?); and some moisturiser. All in all a decent little package, though missing a few Amsterdam overnight essentials, such as condoms and a joint. Oh, and some shampoo would have come in handy. Also, the underwear I am in was going to have to last me all night tonight and all day tomorrow since I am going to have to go straight from the planr to work, so I made a little trip to the hotel’s gift shop to see if they could solve my pants problem. Being that it was full of absolute tat, I didn’t hold out much hope, but they surprised me: they did in fact stock boxers, albeit only two types: XL knee length boxer shorts covered in hash leaves, or XL knee length boxers covered in windmills. I chose the windmills. I didn’t have any Euros since I wasn’t expecting to be staying in Amsterdam, and the woman behind the counter wouldn’t accept Visa transactions under 20 Euros, so I had to fill my arms with loads of other crap to take the price up, and then asked for a packet of smokes as well. All very well, except the woman behind the counter told me it was illegal to pay for cigarettes in Amsterdam with a credit card. No amount of arguing that that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard would change her mind, so I told her to hold onto it while I queued at reception for 15 minutes to exchange some sterling into Euros. Oh well, at least I didn’t have to buy the sunglasses and other crap I didn’t want to make it up to 20 Euros. Except that when I went back in, she had already rung it all through and I couldn’t be bothered arguing any more, so I walked out with my XL windmill pants, a pair of gigantic sunglasses, a few other pieces of tat, and thankfully a pack of Marlboro light. This takes the time to 23.30 and my bus to the airport is at 05.00 so I’m thinking it’s time to turn in. I realise this blog has consisted of one incredibly long winded and incredibly boring paragraph, but well, it’s my weblog and that’s how I do things.

Song currently stuck in my head – “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 430 - Women Drivers

2007-03-11T16:52:00.000Z

Today I went to the 27th Annual Geneva Motor Show – the biggest car exhibition in the world. At only £5 for a ticket and £1.20 for the 20 minute bus ride to get there, it seemed a fun and cost effective way to spend the day. 3 hours I spent in the Palexpro – Geneva’s answer to the AECC. Though if you take the AECC, make it about 8 times bigger, and fill it with cars, you get an idea of what the Geneva Motor Show is like. An enormous, sprawling building that seems to go on forever. All day my senses were attacked with beautiful, shiny Jaguars, BMWs, Ferraris, Porchses, Maserratis, Chryslers, Corvettes, Mazdas, Dodges, Chevrolets, Cadillacs and much, much more (including Ladas, oddly). Each company’s stand was more eye-catching than the next, with gadgets, flashy lights, free goody bags, big TV screens and the likes designed to drag you in to look at their latest cars, and each car was accompanied by a stunning girl, elegantly dressed in evening wear or something elegant, smiling and greeting everyone who came near their car, though I would wager not a lot of them knew a hell of a lot about cars. Highlight for me included seeing Michael Schumacher’s 2006 Ferrari F1 and Jenson Button’s 2007 Honda, and the spectacular Fiat stall with it’s weird and wonderful design, oddities and curiosities inside, and the array of beautiful girls all dressed identically head to toe in white – a spectacle it may have been, but it didn’t change the fact that the cars were still Fiats.

As the day drew to a close, I hopped on the number 5 bus back to the main city hospital, which is just a ten minute walk to my flat, and it was while on that ten minute walk that mayday took a turn for the bizarre. I was rounding the corner and about to head up a steep hill, when a large, fat, black woman in a head scarf approached me.

“Excusez-moi monsieur!” she exclaimed, quite agitated. “Aidez-moi! Aidez moi”
(Excuse me sir, help me, help me, for those who didn’t manage to pick that out)
“OK, what’s wrong?” I ask in English.
“Blah blah blah blah mon voiture!” is all I hear next.
(Blah blah blah blah my car!)
“Oh you want the car park? It’s over there I think” I say, pointing at what may or may not be the car park.
“blah blah blah blah some French stuff blah blah blah blah”
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French. Je parle Anglais.” I say.
She then starts waving her arms at me. “Ici! Ici!”
(Come here! Come here!)
I follow her up the hill to where it becomes obvious why she is having a problem with her car. In front of me, parked at the side of the road and pointing up the hill is a spanking new Renault Megane Scenic. Embedded about a foot into the front of the Renault is a beat up old Toyota Corolla with more dings and dimples than a golf ball, the rear end of which is still halfway out into the middle of the road. The Toyota’s driver door is open and a similarly dressed black woman is standing next to it, looking like she’s about to cry. About 6 inches behind the Toyota is a brand spanking new Chrysler Voyager. It takes me about a second to work out what has happened. The two women were driving down the hill looking for a parking space. Probably due to someone being behind her and the extreme impatience of the drivers in Switzerland, she has swung into a space far too quickly, realised too late that there isn’t enough room to fit a Toyota Corolla into it, and belted it, at speed, into the front of the Renault. Realising then that she is almost wedged in, and it’s going to be quite a tricky manoeuvre to get it out again without taking the front off the Chrylser as well, she has decided then to grab the first passing man and get him to fix it instead. I step up.

“You! Fixy! Sorty! Sorty!” she says.
“You want me to help push it out?” I ask, wondering if my puny frame can push a Toyota Corolla backwards up a hill.
“No” she says, “you drive.”

I don’t particularly want to get behind the wheel of the Toyota for a few reasons, such as
A) the wheel, handbrake, mirrors, gearstick et all are on the wrong side and I’ve never driven a left hand drive before.
B) I have no insurance.
C) It seems inevitable that the owner of the Renault is going to come out and see me driving a car which is buried into the front of his car, then start yelling at me in French.
D) I’m not sure if, even with my 10 years behind the wheel without an accident, I can get it out of there without pranging the Chrysler as well. She has done a great job of wedging it in.
E) It’s a saloon and I drive a hatchback, which is miles easier to judge when reversing.

However being a sucker for a damsel in distress, I suck it up, take the keys and get behind the wheel. It’s going to take some delicate clutch action to get it out without hitting the Chrysler, and there are still cars careering down the hill behind me at speed. Everything is the wrong way round, which throws me to begin with. I wind down the window and wave all the cars approaching past me until the road is clear. Then I start the engine, put it in reverse, raise the clutch till it bites, accelerate like hell to make sure I can get up the hill backwards, drop the handbrake and start to pull backwards. The sound of crunching plastic and twisting metal overpower the sound of my revving, and keeping an eye on my mirrors I manage to manoeuvre out into the street, missing the Chrysler by about 3 inches. Triumphantly, I smile and turn off the engine.

“Now in here!” the woman says, pointing at the spot she has so spectacularly managed to fuck up parking in.
“There’s not enough room” I tell her. “Too small. Tres petit”. But this doesn’t put her off, she is determined I am going to park her car for her. In truth, I can’t park for hit and may do an even worse job of it than her. But, staring at the mangled front of the Megane, I slowly try to park the Toyota, but the space is simply too small, and the ass end is still in the street. Not wanting to be outdone, I go forward and start to reverse into the tiny space, when the woman has a change of heart and tells me to stop. So, half parked, I get out, and her and her friend, after briefly thanking me for my endeavours, climb into the Toyota (which barely has a scratch on it, well, not a fresh one anyway) and get the hell out of Dodge post-haste, leaving me standing alone in front of a quite obviously newly bashed up Renault Megane. I wonder for a second if perhaps I am on some Swiss hidden camera show, then after looking around to see if anyone has witnessed this, I follow suit and continue my trek home. Is leaving the scene of an accident without reporting it illegal even if you weren’t directly involved in the accident? Up until now I haven’t gotten a knock on my door from the Megane driver, the police, or the Swiss equivalent of Jeremy Beadle, so I figure I’m in the clear.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Rock n Roll High School” by The Ramones.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 429 - Swiss Cuisine

2007-03-10T17:50:00.000Z

They eat some fucked up stuff in Switzerland. Thursday’s lunch menu at work had the option of grilled kangaroo or stewed rabbit. I had the kangaroo. It was delicious, but quite chewy. And who can forget the shark soup and pig brains from last week?

Last night, we went out for dinner, and after doing a runner from what promised to be a Mexican restaurant while waiting for a table (it had Mexican menus in the window, but when we went in there were no menus, only a buffet full of sushi and vegetables, and people were actually cooking their own food at their tables. It seemed to confusing so we legged it), we ended up at a nice looking and very upmarket Swiss/French restaurant in Quartier de Champel (the suburb where I live). The menus were all in French, but all extremely pretentious French so it was virtually impossible to pick any words out, and despite the best efforts of our extremely pleasant and professional waitress, we were just too ignorant. For the starter I managed to pick out the word “canard” which I recognised as duck, so I ordered that. My mate had spotted “thon” which he recognised as tuna, so he ordered that. For my main course I had ordered shoulder of lamb, and when I asked the waitress for a bottle of white wine to go along with it, she looked as though I had just asked to shit in her mouth. Still, she managed to say “good choice sir” through gritted teeth. Well fuck it, I don’t like red wine.

When our starter came, I began to wish I had stayed in the weird Mexican / cook your own sushi place. What I got was a plate of thinly sliced raw duck, with a bunch of rocket on top. And I don’t mean very rare duck, I mean raw. My mate gloated for a minute until his arrived, and he had a mush of diced raw tuna steak mixed with red peppers, drizzled with orange sauce, and brilliantly, with a dollop of ice-cream and a wafer on top. I almost pissed myself. My raw duck was pretty grim, and though I grimaced with the first few mouthfuls, I soon discovered that if I drowned it with balsamic vinegar and ate it with plenty of rocket, you couldn’t really taste the raw duck. Somehow I managed to finish it all. My mate had less luck with his weird raw fish and ice-cream combo, instead choosing to flatten it all and hid it under the rocket, so as “not to appear rude”. I didn’t really get that either. When the waitress returned and asked if there was something wrong with it, he informed her he didn’t eat it because he doesn’t like red peppers. I don’t know how he kept a straight face. The main courses made up for it, but the weird starters were still a hot topic of conversation the next day when we went into the city centre to get some lunch. In the centre of Geneva you expect to pay about 3 times more than you would in the suburbs for food, but we had expenses left to use, so we went to the restaurant attached to the Four Seasons hotel. After having our jackets taken and being seated we began to browse the menu, then wished we still had our jackets so we could do a runner again. There was a choice of 7 things on the menu, and they were quite ridiculously expensive. I opted for a club sandwich, which was the cheapest thing on the menu at £18, thinking I would get loads of other stuff on the side, along with a cup of coffee. My mate ordered veal at around £30, expecting some big veal steaks or chops, and had a couple of bottles of Swiss-German beer. When the food came, my club sandwich turned out to be simply a standard club sandwich, served with a few little bits of lettuce which I later discovered were covered in salt crystals and ended up being spat back into my napkin (it tasted like licking the sea). The £30 veal arrived for my ravenous mate, and ended up being………… thinly sliced raw veal served with rocket. I swear, I laughed so hard I almost shit my pants. After he picked away at a few forkfuls of veal, and I ate my sandwich and spat the salty salad into my napkin we called for our bill, and found that the Swiss-German beer that slimy head waiter had so kindly recommended to us cost £6 a bottle. And so, £60 lighter and still hungry, we left and vowed never to return. On the way home I stopped at the supermarket, bought a packet of frozen quarter pounders and some buns, got home and fried the fuckers good and proper, served with cheese slices and dripping with ketchup and oil. Pretentious French food can be interesting once in a while, but you can’t beat some good unhealthy British style cookery.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Untutored Youth” by The Hives.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 429 - Communication Breakdown

2007-03-09T14:14:00.001Z

Two weeks down in Geneva, and I’m now fluent in what I like to call “Franglais”. What that means basically is that when talking with a Swiss person, I say the words I know in French, and the rest in English, which is usually enough for me to get my point across.

For example today I went to a dry cleaners where the elderly Swiss gentleman didn’t understand any English, yet somehow we still managed a transaction.
“Bonjour monsieur. J’ai mon clochettes pour…. dry cleaning”
“Oui”
“OK, j’ai seis chemises”
“Oui”
“Et deux pantalon”
“Oui”
“Et un… suit.”
“Un complet”
“OK, a complet. Aussi, mon jeans”
“Pantalon.”
“Oh jeans are pantalon too? Well that makes it nice and easy”

119 francs later, and my clothes will be back on Wednesday. though I later found out that "clochettes" doesn't mean clothes, as I thought it did as it said so on the sign outside - it's the name of the street the shop is on.

And so across to the chemist where I want something for heartburn I’ve been suffering since I had grilled kangaroo for lunch yesterday (true). A girl of about nineteen is manning the counter.
“Bonjour monsieur.”
“Bonjour madam. J’ai bruleé d’estomac. Vous avez… something… for bruleé d’estomac?”
She looks confused. “Brulere d’estomac?”
“Oui”, I say, aware suddenly that bruleé is a dessert. She reaches to a shelf behind the counter and picks up a huge box with “GEL” written on the side of it, and goes to ring it through the till.
“Wait a minute, what the fuck is that?” I ask. She stops, but has no idea what I said. “Not gel” I say. “What am I going to do with gel, fix my hair?”
She looks blank.
“I want tablets” I say. “You know, tablets? Les tablets?” With a last throw of the dice I try “Gaviscon? Rennie?”
“Ah, Rennie!” she says, and hands me a box of peppermint Rennie. Yet another problem overcome using Franglais. To the untrained eye, I’m almost a native.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Holes” by Mercury Rev.

Post 428 - Damn The Man!

2007-03-08T17:49:00.001Z

Jokes have been rife this week about the uselessness of the Swiss army. On the way to my work I pass some kind of army training centre, and regardless of what time of the day or night I pass, there are about 40 soldiers just standing outside on the pavement nonchalantly kicking their heels and smoking. I figure it can’t take too much training to learn how to open a bottle with one of those little red knives, or how to make sure you put the tweezers and the toothpick back in the right place, so they probably have plenty time to spare. It’s like looking at waxwork dummies sometimes, there’s so little life to them. Perhaps that’s why Switzerland prefers to stay neutral – because their army is totally shit. Generally, whenever I walk past I comment on how they’re just standing around doing fuck all and occasionally profess that I’m going to go up and headbutt one of them to see I can coax some kind of movement out of the others. Today though as I walked past they were all standing around smoking as usual, however they were each holding a semi-automatic assault rifle in their spare hand, with a holstered pistol on their hip. Oddly enough I kept my head down and kept quiet.

Last night I refamiliarised myself with one of my all time favourite movies, Empire Records. When I was a teenager I loved that movie and I can still probably quote most of the film to this day. It was even the inspiration behind me taking a job in Virgin in the Bon Accord centre, hoping that it might turn out to be just like the movie – dancing, singing, forging lifelong friendships with colleagues, a caring boss, and dealing with complex teenage issues. It didn’t turn out that way however – they forced us to listen to shit music, and the most complex teenage issues that arose was selling Westlife CDs to fat ugly 14 year old girls. The day that I was listening to Dark Side Of The Moon on the store CD player and the boss changed it to the best of the Lighthouse Family, that was the day I quit.

Anway, I digress. Empire Records, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is basically summed up as follows: upon finding out the cool indie record store that he works in is about to be sold to a chain, one of the employees, Lucas, takes the weekends takings to Atlantic City to gamble it and make enough money to save the day. Of course, that doesn’t work and he loses it, and has only a day to make $9000, gaining a lot of wisdom along the way. AJ, the handsome cool art student with the floppy hair, is in love with Corey (a pre-fame Liv Tyler), who has brains and beauty and is going to Harvard after the summer. Corey however, is in love with Rex Manning, a washed up musician and TV star, desperately clinging onto the last crumb of fame, and disgusted that he is lowered to spending a day signing records at Empire. Her best friend is Gina, (a pre-fame Renee Zelweger) a white trash slut who can’t bear to end up like her trailer-trash mother, but is heading that way. Debs is the other half of Berko, the lead singer in a punk band, and arrives for work that day with bandages on her wrist from a failed suicide attempt. Marc is the resident stoner with ambitions to start a band but with no idea how to go about it. Eddie looks after the vinyl department and delivers pizza on the side. Joe is the manager of this motley crew, and loves the store, and was hoping to put in an offer to buy it before it is sold to the chain, but has to use his money to replace the takings Lucas lost. Warren is a bolshy arrogant teenage brat who is caught shoplifting, but becomes quite endearing in an unquantifiable sort of way. During the course of the day, as well as doing a lot of dancing, they each face their own personal problems and help each other through them, becoming better people and better friends by the end, with lots of added cheese. (Except Rex, he gets punched, though in the deleted scenes he becomes a good guy too).

Anyway, I bought the special Fan Edition DVD last year, with 20 minutes of lost footage put back in, plus extra deleted scenes and a host of music videos. Whenever I put it on I drift away for a couple of hours into the wonderful world of the Empire Records store. Last night however, when the end credits rolled, I came back to earth with a bang. It hit me – there’s no more Empire Records. I’ve seen all the lost footage, deleted scenes, extras, got the extended special edition soundtrack, and there isn’t anything else. I have seen everything that’s ever been made about Empire Records, and that’s the end. Upon realising this I immediately attempted suicide with a pink Lady Bic with flowers on the handle and a moisturising strip, but it took me forever just to break the skin so I gave up. Besides just watching the DVD another hundred times, I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Would a sequel be too much to ask?

Incidentally I was nosing through the IMDB entry for Empire Records today, and I was highly amused by the ‘plot tags’ they have set up for people who are searching for movies by content. I really don’t think they give a fair representation of my favourite movie:

“Drug Addict / Head Shaving / Obscene Finger Gesture / Suicide / Virgin”

Why would anyone be searching for a movie about “obscene finger gesture”? And why would Empire Records be included in the results, when it is completely sans-finger gesture? It’s all too much for me. I need to go and do what everybody does in times of stress – put on AC/DC and play along on that drumkit that’s just lying about in my office.

By the way, if you haven’t seen Empire Records, go do it! Go!

Song currently stuck in my head – “Til I Hear It From You (Theme from Empire Records) by The Gin Blossoms.

Post 427 - Lazy Swiss Bastards

2007-03-07T17:48:00.000Z

The laid back Swiss lifestyle that I openly gush about to anyone who’ll listen, can, at times, be a pain in the ass. Last Friday I took some clothes to the dry cleaners at the end of my road – nothing extravagant, just 5 shirts and 2 pairs of trousers. After I had paid her my 52 francs, she explained to me that they have a half day on Saturdays and are closed on Sundays so my clothes would be ready on Monday (or at least I think that’s what she said, I still haven’t really grasped French). OK I thought. Generally my dry cleaning back home takes 24 hours but I can wait a little longer. So on Monday I dutifully trooped back there after work to pick up my laundry. However, it wasn’t ready. “Mardi! Mardi!” exclaimed the woman, which I later discovered means Tuesday and it’s not some Swiss festival. So on Tuesday, back I went. She handed me my shirts, then pointed at my penis and shouted “Mercredi! Mercredi!”. I deciphered that Mercredi means Wednesday, and she wasn’t talking about a German car. After a bit more penis pointing and gesticulating, I realised she meant my trousers would be ready on Wednesday. So I trooped back on Wednesday, and the fucking place was closed for a half day. Motherfucker! By this point, I had been wearing the same pair of trousers for three days, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t clean when I put them on initially. Finally today I went in and got my trousers back – 6 days after putting them in. How these lazy Swiss bastards ever get anything done is beyond me, with their half days and their two hour lunch breaks. Plus, they must all be wearing dirty trousers. Well, at least I’m fitting in.

Song currently stuck in my head – “White America” by Eminem. elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 426 - Expenses

2007-03-06T17:47:00.000Z

Do you know how fucking hard it is to eat £35 worth of food every day? I receive £245 every week for ‘reasonable living costs’, ie the company I work for will pay for food, soft drinks, bus and taxi fares (though most of Geneva, at least all the places I want to visit are within easy walking distance of my flat) and anything else that leaves me out of pocket because I am living in Switzerland and not in Scotland. Tonight for example, I went to a steak house and had a starter, a 6oz T-Bone steak, 3 beers, and a big fancy ice cream, chocolate and pear dessert, and it came to less that £25. Geneva is a weird place of contrasts – the centre of town is one of the most expensive places to eat and drink in Europe – the suburbs just a few blocks away must be one of the cheapest. In general I spend about £5 on a 3 course lunch and about £15 on a 3 course dinner. That leaves £15 a day unaccounted for, which if I don’t use, gets deducted from my next wage. That comes out at about £105 a week I have to pay back. My company charges the company I am contracted to £245 a week to pay my expenses, and what I don’t use they take back from me – but they don’t return it to the company I am contracted to, the fuckers just keep it. I’m not having those fucks making more money out of me than they already do, so I’m trying like fuck to spend all the cash, even if I’m just wasting it. Thing is, I’m struggling to break my old habits from back home – when I shop in supermarkets in Aberdeen I’m so used to buying the cheapest bread, the cheapest juice, the cheapest meat, that I can’t stop doing it here, and even though it leaves me with spare cash to use, I still come back with supermarket brand products. I guess I’m just not used to having cash to throw around. To remedy this, I’m playing a fun little game of trying to see how much weird stuff I can get signed off as ‘reasonable living costs’. Last week for example, I succeeded in having a £20 toaster signed of as a ‘reasonable living cost’. This week I’ve bought some socks, some mugs, an ashtray and a party pack of balloons. The expenses go in on Monday. If they refuse to pay off these little extravagances this week, then for the duration of my trip, come Sunday nights I am going to go to the supermarket and spend my remaining weekly allowance on loaves of bread. If I have £40, I’ll buy 40 loaves. Food, they said, is an expense they will sign off without dispute, be it sirloin steak, lobster thermador or imported monkfish. If anyone queries my receipt for 105 loaves, I’ll simply reply “I was hungry”.

In saying that though I am enjoying having the cash to be able to pay other people to do the stuff I can’t be arsed doing. Like for example, spending £50 a week having the dry cleaners on the corner do all my laundry, despite having a washing machine, a drier and an iron in my flat. And getting a taxi half a mile home because I’ve eaten three courses in the steak house and I’m too full to walk. All of which gets signed of as expenses. If this is how the other half live, I’m quite prepared to try it on for size for a few months.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Take On Me” by A-Ha.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 425 - Stuff That's Weird About Living In Switzerland

2007-03-04T17:45:00.000Z

All the sandwich ham in the supermarkets is asparagus flavoured. Why why why?

The milk all tastes like cheese.

Barmen give out free beer,

The toilet roll provided at work is soft and comfortable.

Your cleaner promises she’s been round to clean your flat but it looks exactly the same when you come home as it did when you left.

Zebra crossings appear to sometimes give right of way to the pedestrian and sometimes to the car, with no indication of which is which, hence why I cross with extreme caution these days.

The buses are electric, and run on overhead electrical cables like dodgem cars. So what happens if someone double parks and the bus has to swerve around them, that’s what I want to know.

The Chinese sells fucking pig-brain.

When you order a steak, it comes with a side serving of Greek yoghurt. Eh?

If you go to the crapper in a pub or restaurant, you get disinfectant wipes to clean the seat with before you use it. Which is nice actually. They should do that in Britain.

There are entire aisles in supermarkets dedicated to ice-tea. You can even get Volvic and Evian ice tea,

They’re polite, patient and helpful toward foreigners who are struggling with the language. Think that would happen in your local supermarket?

Virtually every menu in every restaurant is built around meat. Not a place for vegetarians. In fact I’ve yet to even see a vegetarian option on a menu.

The first night I got to Geneva, the first bar we went to was the tiny little hotel bar with the football and free beer, and literally the first person I saw when I walked through the door was a guy I used to work with in Aberdeen.

The black bin bags are the same size as carrier bags.

There are fucking pharmacies on every single street corner. And a few in between the corners as well. There are pharmacies across the road from other pharmacies. There are pharmacies next door to other pharmacies. The Swiss must be either the sickest, or the healthies race on the planet. I can’t decide which.

I haven’t done a single smelly fart since I got here. Perhaps the clean mountain air overpowers it, compared to the smog of Aberdeen.

Song currently stuck in my head – “No Cigar” by Millencollin. elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 424 - Liquid Lunch

2007-03-02T17:44:00.000Z

We’ve got a sweet little number going on in Switzerland. There’s this little hotel bar round the corner from our flats that is always empty. I mean literally empty. This place has Italian Sky, which shows all of Serie A, all the Sky Sports live Premiership matches, all the Prem Plus matches, the live SPL matches, all the La Liga matches, most of the Bundislega and most of the French First Division, plus all the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. Basically if there’s a live match on anywhere in the world it’s on Italian Sky. If there’s not a live match on, all 30 of their sports channels are showing re-runs of matches from the weekend. As soon as we walk in, the barman who we have befriended pours us two pints, fills a dish with peanuts and hands us the Sky remotes. When our glasses are empty he brings us fresh pints to our table. We get drunk. When we leave and go to pay out bill (you generally work on tabs in Switzerland), he charges us for 50% of the beer we drank (the other day we had 7 pints and got charged for 3), then he prints us a receipt for food or dry cleaning so we can claim it back on expenses. And what does he ask in return? Well so far, nothing. We throw him a few tips and offer him a couple of pints but he always refuses. This kind of flagrant fiddling of expenses can, and probably eventually will, lead to me being fired, but fuck it, you don’t turn down a free lunch. Or 20 free pints of Swiss beer in our case.

Somehow in spite of this arrangement we’ve managed to avoid going in to work in a state like we did on our first day. The extreme displeasure that came our way that day was enough to put me off drinking on a school night for the rest of time. It seems that in Swiss culture it is not acceptable to turn up for your first day of work reeking of beer, unable to keep your eyes open and disappearing for a half hour to have a snooze in the shitter with your head resting on the toilet roll, every part of your wretched body sweating alcohol, your stomach churning with knots which almost cause you to double over in pain. It’s taken a lot of hard work to win back some of the brownie points we lost that day, and I doubt we ever will fully gain the respect of our colleagues and superiors after that ill-fated day. One thing is for sure, there will certainly be no repeat performance. Or at least until next week when we go down to our new local to watch the Champion’s League.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Nineteen” by Paul Hardcastle.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 423 - Lost In Translation

2007-02-28T17:44:00.000Z

Today I’ve been mostly pointing at things in menus. This afternoon we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch, where the menu was in Italian with a French translation underneath, neither of which I speak. After picking out a few words I recognised I was still really none the wiser, so I just pointed at the most expensive thing on the menu, read it out in a bad French accent as though I actually knew what I was saying, and added “avec frites”. As it turned out my £19 brought a large veal steak in breadcrumbs with fried courgette on the side. Nice. This evening didn’t bring so much luck – we went to a Chinese restaurant which had a menu in Chinese with English descriptions, though the daily specials were exclusively in French. I started with the rather odd sounding Shark Fin and Crab soup, which was weird fishy meat served in a soup that tasted like curried parsnip. For my main meal I thought it would be funny to order something that would be a total surprise, so I plumped for “Tete a lion” – what that translates as I have no idea, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be lion. When it came the waiter brought it over in a serving dish with a lid, sat it on my table, et voila! He pulled the lid off to reveal what appeared to be a big mound of dumpling not dissimilar to sticky toffee pudding, covered in a stinky brown sauce. “Tete a lion?” I query. “Oui” was the response, so I tentatively spooned a mouthful off the side of the dumpling. To say the taste was odd would be an understatement. The dumpling had the texture and flavour of supermarket own-brand meatballs, kind of like meatloaf, and the stinky brown sauce tasted like chocolate syrup mixed with gravy. The first few forkfuls were a struggle and I visibly grimaced every time I swallowed. I wondered aloud what type of meat it was. “Pedigree Chum” my mate offered.
When the Chinese/Swiss waiter came over to clear our plates away I asked him politely what I had just eaten. “Pork” he said.
“Pork? What do you put in it to give it that interesting dumpling shape?”
“Um…” he thought for a minute. “Pork.”

I’m told that “tete” means head. I think it was pig brain. Maybe it’s time to learn some French. Or perhaps Chinese.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Hands Down” by Dashboard Confessional.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 422 - First Impressions Last

2007-02-27T17:42:00.000Z

Today did NOT go well. My first day at the new job, a chance to impress some very important people and pave my way for either a permanent job offer, or a glowing reference to my current employers back home, ensuring me pay-rises and more projects abroad when I return to Aberdeen.

At 8.30 I was due to start work. I stumbled in at 9.15, a shambling, hungover mess. Instead of getting a good night’s sleep after the 2 hours I got the night before, I decided to go out for dinner and a few drinks, and ended up sitting in a bar till 3am throwing back glasses of the delicious local beer, Cardinal, which it turns out is quite heady. I woke at 8.37 this morning, by a phone call from my equally hungover colleague, also on his first day, asking where the fuck I was. I jumped out of bed, threw on some crumpled clothes, wrapped a tie round my neck negating to actually tie it, slapped some gel on my hair negating to actually style it, and headed for work, which I couldn’t find and got lost. When I finally got there my irate new boss was sitting on my desk ready to read the riot act. I was just a mess. I am reliably informed that I absolutely reeked of booze, and for the first two hours I literally could not keep my eyes open, While my boss was talking to me I would feel my eyes rolling back in my head and my eyelids begin to close, and although a voice in my head was yelling “What the fuck are you doing?!” I just couldn’t fight it. I made an excuse and went to the bathroom, sat down on one of the crappers, rested my head on the toilet roll and fell asleep for 30 minutes. I really was just absolutely entirely wrecked. If first impressions are really as important as they say, I can name two Aberdonians who have properly fucked up big-time.

Shopping in Swiss supermarkets is a bewildering experience. The supermarket next to my flat, Migros, sells only Swiss and French products, and although I am not of the breed that go abroad and search everywhere for Jaffa Cakes, Tetley tea, and British theme bars, I would have liked to at least been able to understand what the labels said (I probably should have learned some French before I got here). After quite a lot of head scratching at the various packets and products on the shelves, I instead decided to plump for the products with the most amusing names. Which is how among other things I ended up with Duo Keks biscuits (delicious!), Nobless coffee, (well actually Noblesse but what’s an E amongst friends?) Douche Fit Man! shower gel, Sanissa butter (I thought it sounded like a feminine hygiene product), Erdissbutter peanut butter (I thought it sounded like anal lubricant), and Belherbal shampoo, which doesn’t sound that funny, but when you take into account that it has pictures of peanuts all over the bottle you see why I had to buy it. The milk I bought tastes like cheese, the cheese I bought tastes like Satan’s bell-end, and the Nobless coffee, as well as smelling exactly like gravy granules, is quite possibly the single worst thing I have ever tasted in my entire life – and I’ve eaten bubble bath.

The food in the restaurants though is sublime. In the last two days I’ve had some of the best food I’ve ever had. Swiss chefs seem to have 3 simple rules: make it taste strong, make it taste rich, and make the servings fucking huge. And although the prices of virtually everything in Geneva is enough to make Bill Gates dread picking up the bill in a restaurant, the quality of the food and the service make it not seem painful to hand over £30 for a one course meal and a bottle of Diet Coke. Though the fact that my company are paying all my expenses makes it that little bit easier to order a 12oz sirloin and leave a £10 tip.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Lilac Wine” by Jeff Buckley. elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 421 - Bonjour de Genevé!

2007-02-26T17:40:00.000Z

Contrary to what I said in my previous post, hell is not George Michael records. Hell is being in a hotel room with 40 channels of Swiss TV.

As you can probably guess, I have finally made it to Geneva. It’s been a long, long, day, beginning at 3.30 this morning, when I got up to go to Aberdeen Airport, a full two hours after I went to bed. I hate flying at the best of times: at that time in the morning I hate it just that little bit more. My first flight this morning was the 6.15 Aberdeen to Amsterdam. Take off is the bit I hate most. As soon as I feel the plane leave the ground I always feel compelled to cross myself – however since I’m not Catholic I think there’s more chance of god smiting me down if I do, so I usually resist. 20 minutes into the flight comes my first calamity of the day, as I spill a cup of boiling hot coffee on my groin. Painful, and uncomfortable. On my second flight of the day, 10.55 Amsterdam to Geneva I spill a carton of fresh orange juice on my shirt, and then dribble water all over myself. Something makes me retarded on planes. Upon reaching Geneva we went straight to work, luggage and all, and so I reported for duty in my orange juice splattered shirt and my coffee-soaked trousers, utterly exhausted from lack of sleep and from travelling. Thankfully my employers recognise that in my current state I’m not much good to anyone, and after a few hours induction, allow me to clock out at 3pm and go to my accommodation for some much needed rest.

I find to my surprise that they have cancelled my hotel reservation and instead have put me in a fully furnished flat in a leafy and beautiful area of Geneva (though to be honest, there aren’t many parts of Geneva that could be described as anything except beautiful), Even the most crooked of estate agents would struggle to describe my apartment as luxurious, but it’s certainly a lot better than the flea-pit I was expecting. I have a large lounge/bedroom with huge windows which let in the sun, a double bed, a glass dining table and chairs, wooden floors and all tastefully decorated in cream and deep red. My lounge boasts a TV, DVD player and stereo, a built in wardrobe, and enough space to play 5 a side football. My kitchen is tiny but well equipped, including a dinner set, a kettle, a hob, a microwave and a fridge freezer. The bathroom contains everything you’d expect from a bathroom – toilet, sink, bath, shower – all in all, a lot better than spending 2 months in a pokey hotel room,

Since leaving work I’ve hooked up my laptop, Playstation, iPod and speaker dock and unpacked while listening to The Fratellis album at full volume (definitely going to be the soundtrack to my trip). It feels homely already.

All in all, the signs point to this being a great 2 months. Now if only I could do something about the fucking weather…

Song currently stuck in my head – “Vince The Lovable Stoner” by The Fratellis. elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 420 - Lake Of Fire

2007-02-20T17:38:00.000Z

I have a little notepad feature in my phone which I use to scribble down things such as records I plan to buy, things I mean to do, and occasionally, topics for blogs which come to me during the day. Sometimes after a night on the sauce that little folder becomes filled up with the most miraculous nonsense, which is promptly deleted the next day, though this week after a particularly heavy night out, I looked in my little blog topic folder to find 5 simple words, all in block capital: "HELL IS GEORGE MICHAEL RECORDS". I don't know what Mr Michael had done to upset me during the course of the evening, but it seems I wasn't in the mood to listen to "Fast Love" that night. While it might be a little dramatic, I don't think it is really tha far off the button - OK so George Michael records may not actualy be hell, but I'm sure they play an integral part in eternal damnation. I think my own personal hell would be to be bent over a couch and dry-bummed by all the members of Westlife while "Careless Whisper" plays loudly on a eternal loop in the background, and I have my eyes held open a lá A Clockwork Orange and I'm forced to watch a video entitled Glasgow Rangers Greatest Ever Victories. (They do say one man's meat is another man's poison. - that would probably be heaven for Alex Dick). Imagine having to do that for a million years. It's enough to make me start saying my prayers and pop down to the Church of Scotland this Sunday to pray for my soul.

After the fun, fun escapades of the filthy guest house last week, and the Bates Motel the week before, this week I was faced with the prospect of, for the third week running, having to stump up £160 from my own pocket to live in cold, shit accomodation so I could get to work. I decided against taking this path, and instead took a week's holiday from work and, tail between my legs, at the age of 27 came back to live at my parents house in Fraserburgh (though only for a week). It's oddly reminiscent of when I used to come home as a 19 year old student, the only difference being that before I would take home a big bag of laundry for my mum to do, these days I take it back and do it myself. Geneva is all systems go for this coming Monday, so barring some major catastrophe, or more likely me sleeping in and missing my 5am check in, by this time next week I should be in my office in Switzerland surrounded by a bunch of people chatting away in a language I don't speak. 2 months away from my girlfriend, my mates, my family, the Dons, and perhaps the most painful thing, most of my clothes. How will I cope? Find out next week when The Great Swiss Adventure begins...

Song currently stuck in my head - "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 419 - A Life Of Grime

2007-02-18T17:36:00.000Z

Last week I was staying in a Guest House, which was, I discovered, just a fancy name for a Bed & Breakfast – this week I am staying in a Private Hotel, which I have discovered is just an even fancier name for a Bed & Breakfast. The guest house I stayed in last week was pokey and I hardly had enough height to stand up in my room, I had to get fully dressed and go down 2 sets of stairs just to take a piss and the noise of the hailstones on the roof of my attic room woke me every night, but at least the bed was comfortable, the room was warm, and it was meticulously clean, I had hot water in my room, a big TV with Freeview, and a fridge to keep milk and juice. The smell of Chinese food cooking would creep up the stairs every evening and find it’s way to my hungry nostrils while I was having my dinner of custard creams and Pringles in my room. Compare that to the more expensive, pretentious-sounding ‘private hotel’ which I am staying in this week.

What a shit-hole.

On first glance it seemed OK – the room is huge, and has a little shower room and toilet built into the corner. But after spending a night there, it’s shortfalls have become more apparent than Paul O’Grady’s sexual persuasion. The sheets and covers on my bed look abut 20 years old; there are stains all over the armchair which make me not want to sit on it, ever; the bathroom is filthy, every corner of every wall and roof is covered in black mould, and every surface covered in unspeakable dirt; the shower head is broken so the water dribbles out of it pathetically like a garden tap; the shower only has two temperatures – freezing or scalding; the taps in the bathroom don’t have hot water (shaving with cold water – painful); the ‘clean’ towels supplied smell like cheese; the room is like a fucking ice-box because the heater doesn’t work; I don’t have a fridge for fresh milk; I don’t get breakfast (so it’s not so much a bed and breakfast as just a bed); the TV is a tiny portable affair with only 4 channels, all obviously being fed off one aerial and the signal split to every room, as the picture is so fuzzy it’s unwatchable; my room is right next to the front door so I hear the door slamming as people come and go all night; and brilliantly, the loud extractor fan in the bathroom, which stays on for 20 annoying minutes after you switch the light off, doesn’t even have a pipe on the back to guide the smell outside – it’s on the roof of the shower room, and after clambering on a dresser to see what was on top of the roof, I found that I could look down the back of the fan into the bathroom – it simply extracts out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, so that instead of your bathroom smelling of shit, your whole room does. To call this place a crap-hole would be an insult to the good name of crap-holes. It should be condemned. In fact it should be demolished. As I lie, shivering between my threadbare sheets, watching my fuzzy TV and inhaling the fumes of my own turds, how I long for a return to my tiny attic room with the scary taped up doors and the serial killer Chinese woman. Better to die quickly at the hands of a machete-wielding Oriental psychopath than slowly from the combination of germs and cold in this ball-sack of a hotel.

Song currently stuck in my head – “The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore” by James Morrison.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 418 - Things I've Learned This Weekend

2007-02-11T17:36:00.000Z

Lipton Peach flavoured Ice Tea – Nasty (though you can probably guess that from the name)

Rage Against The Machine’s first album – still sounds good, and even though I haven’t listened to it in about 10 years I still know most of the words.

Nintendo Wii – fun, but dangerous after a few drinks

All the girls on nights out in Fraserburgh dress like sluts.

Scotch eggs rule!

The fucking Ford Ranger advert on Northsound 1 (“He says – I hear”) is the most annoying fucking advert ever.

Alan Curbishley – Possibly even more shit than Alan Pardew.

Dancing On Ice – Simply awful TV. There’s never been a more fitting use for the term “chewing gum for the eyes”.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Grace Kelly” by Mika (is that song ever off the fucking radio?)
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 417 - Chinese Whispers

2007-02-09T17:35:00.000Z

Tonight is my last night in the guest house. As homes from home go, this one isn’t that bad. Despite being locked away in a corner of the attic like a dirty family secret, and evidence of murder most horrid, I’m actually growing quite attached to it. My only major grumble with the place is that I have to share a toilet. Not because I’m too much of a snob to inhale the scent of other people’s bodily functions, or that I have to queue for the shower – but simply because if I need a piss during the night, I have to get out of bed, get fully dressed and walk down two flights of stairs, since walking around the public areas naked or even half naked is pretty much frowned upon. Every time I need a piss during the evening the sink in my room looks more appealing – if it wasn’t for the fact that I also use that sink to wash, shave and brush my teeth I would definitely be peeing down the plughole.

I’ve came to a new conclusion about the grizzly murders that I suspect have been carried out around me while I’ve been asleep – the bloodstain in the bathroom definitely points to some heinous crimes being committed by the clearly deranged owner of the guest house, and the little doors in the attic which have been heavily taped shut and furniture pushed up against them is hugely suspicious. Plus she has a little room in the downstairs of the house with a lock and a “Private – Keep Out!” sign on the door. I’ve been curious to find out what’s in there, so I’ve knocked on the door a few times to ask some stupid question I already know the answer to just to get a peep at what’s in there– each time she’s opened the door just a crack and just stuck her head out, and I can see that’s she’s wearing an apron and rubber gloves – standard clothing for disembowelling – and she always seems really anxious to get rid of me, to the point of almost closing the door in my face, which makes me wonder what she’s getting up to behind that big heavy door.

After having eaten at the nearby Chinese take-away, I can safely say that the meat in my chow-mein DEFINITELY wasn’t chicken. I’m sure that I chowed down on a hot, spicy portion of guest-house dweller. There’s no way she can be making enough money to survive on the low prices she charges for her rooms – she’s got to subsidise her income somehow – by slicing and dicing her paying customers, selling the meat to the Chinese take-away, and hiding the skin, bones and their personal possessions behind the little doors in my bedroom.

And I deduced all of this from just one bloodstain. I should be a detective.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Be My Baby” by Vanessa Paradis.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 416 - Shalabridees

2007-02-07T17:33:00.000Z

Day 3 in the attic room in the guesthouse. I have discovered more evidence that something sinister is afoot at the innocent looking bed & breakfast I am currently lodging in. While taking a piss yesterday in one of the two communal bathrooms, I noticed a big streak, about 2 inches long by 1 inch wide, of what can only be blood splattered down the side of one of the panels. It is pretty well hidden from the casual glance, and would have been quite easy to miss if someone was be cleaning a murder scene in a hurry. It isn't beyond the realms of feasibility that my mild-mannered landlady, in between burning toast and cleaning rooms, could be hacking up patrons of the guest house and stuffing the body parts into the loft via the weird taped up doors in my room. Tonight the remote control for my tv disappeared for 20 minutes, and then reappeared in a place I had already checked twice, and halfway through Match of the Day on BBC 1 the TV turned itself on to BBC3 without warning - both classic signs of a haunting where someone may have died an unnatural death. Or maybe the boredom associated with spending 16 hours a day alone in a single room has allowed my imagination to over-compensate.

I got to thinking today about celebrities. It was mainly due to an observation today that for the first time since January 2nd, the Daily Star had something on it's front cover that wasn't Big Brother related (though there was a smaller story about Big Brother on there as well). It prompted a discussion at work about celebrities, which ones we hate, which ones we like, which ones we'd like to meet, and which ones we have met. I've met a few celebrities who are firmly planted on the C-list with little chance of their stock ever rising, and while I've yet to meet a Tom Cruise, Bono or David Beckham, I'm still pretty happy with my list. The following people are lucky enough to have met Elwood – I just love doing my bit to make people happy:

Rich Hall (Comedian, Otis Lee Crenshaw)
Bill Bailey (Comedian, Never Mind The Buzzcocks)
Katie Melua (singer)
Steve Davis (snooker player)
Terrorvision (rock band)
Joe Mangel off of Neighbours (I'll tell more of that story another day)
Paul McClain off of Neighbours
The entire cast of Balamory (weird Scottish kids TV show)
Alex Salmond (MSP and First Minister wannabe)
Tommy Sheridan (MSP)
The bassist from Status Quo
Phil 'the Power' Taylor (darts player)
Raymond Von Barneveld (darts player)
Skin and Cass from Skunk Anansie (rock band)
Geoff Capes (former World's Strongest Man)
Jocky Wilson - (Former darts player)
Less Than Jake (punk ska band)
Mercury Rev (weird band I didn't even recognise)
Zander Diamond (Don's giraffe-like centre half)

And I've walked past but not spoken to:
Marilyn Manson
Dita Von Teese
Cane and Marlon off of Emmerdale
Darren Fletcher (Man Utd and Scotland player)

Rubbing shoulders with stars - that's the Elwood way.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Ooh La" by The Kooks
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 415 - Best Laid Plans

2007-02-05T17:32:00.000Z

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Today, 5th February 2007 is a date that has been circled on my calendar for 2 months. It was the date that I was supposed to fly out to Geneva. Not only that, but it is also my travel companion's birthday. We had the day planned to a T. Finish work at 5, out for dinner (we had even picked the restaurant), then out to sample some of Geneva's nightspots, before retiring back to our executive apartments to sleep off the effects of our first night in Switzerland. Sadly things haven't gone quite to plan, and currently at 10pm, instead of being full of fine food and wine, I find myself shivering in a pokey, draughty, attic bedroom in a guest house in Aberdeen's Great Western Road, which I will be calling home for the next three weeks. My evening meal tonight consisted of a prawn salad from Asda which I ate from the packet with a plastic fork, some salt & vinegar Pringles and a bottle of Diet Coke. For entertainment I played Football Manager and watched Ghostbusters.

My hostess is an elderly Chinese lady who asks questions in broken English, clearly doesn't understand your reply, then carries on the conversation using what she just thought you might say as your reply. Like tonight, she asked me If I had stayed here before. I replied that I hadn't and she, a little too quickly, exclaimed, good! You'll know where everything is then! A similar situation occured when we talked about what I do for a living, which he had already mind her mind up was the oil industry, and despite me telling her otherwise, she still thinks that.

My surroundings, by all accounts, are similar to Kai's in Craiginches. Upon opening my door there is a single bed pushed up against the wall which takes up most of the room, a little worktop with a chair and a TV on it which takes up the rest of the room, and a washbasin in the corner with a toothbrush holder. At 5'8" there is just room for me to stand up without bashing my head on the sloped walls. There is one skylight which is open just a crack, and despite my best endevaours, refuses to close or open any further, stoically remaining steadfast, and open just enough to let all the heat out and all the noise in. The walls have no less than three different patterns of wallpaper. And perhaps most worringly there are two cupboard doors built into the walls which are crudely sealed shut with masking tape. My supicious mind cannot help but wonder if that is to keep people from getting in to the loft, or from getting out...

Executive apartment this ain't, but with my Playstation set up, the sink full of stubble and shaving foam, and my dirty discarded clothes strewn across the floor, this is starting to feel like home already. All I need now is a drunken flatmate to stumble in drunk, piss all over the floor and call me a cocknose and it'll be like I never moved out.

Song currently stuck in my head - "My girl want's to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time...."
elwoodsodyseey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 414 - Homeless

2007-02-01T17:29:00.000Z

Annoyingly, the Great Swiss Adventure, which was scheduled to begin on the 15th January, then delayed to 5th February, then delayed until 12th February, has now been delayed again until the 26th February. Due to the inability of the guy who looks after the contracts and gets paid £40k a year for his trouble to look at the contract, point his big yellow crayon at the bit that says "Signature" and scrawl a crude 'X', we're now running 6 weeks behind on the job - which normally wouldn't bother me, I'll still be there for 2 months, just starting later and leaving later. Unfortunately as I was promised I was flying out on the 5th I arranged to move out of my flat this weekend - I've moved all my stuff out and all that remains is for me to return my keys. Only after all that did my work decide to inform me that someone has fucked up and I'm not going yet. So as of Saturday I don't have anywhere to live. If you see me on Union Street over the next few weeks, under a rug with a begging bowl, chuck me a couple of quid will you?

I do apologise for my lack of updates of late, I've been busy with the work, the moving and the preparing for Switzerland. Plus, as per my last post I share an office with my boss now so she can see everything I'm doing. Unfortunately this doesn't look like changing anytime soon. If I ever get to fucking Switzerland I'll post every day, I promise... I'm bursting with ideas. I just don't have a chance to get them down on paper before I forget them.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Grace Kelly" by Mika.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 413 - The Untimely Demise Of Elwood

2007-01-31T17:27:00.000Z

I am the world's biggest hypochondriac. If I get a runny nose it's bird flu. If I get a headache, it's an aneurysm. If I have diarrohea, it's bowel cancer. Chest pain? Heart disease. At the moment I am convinced I have bowel cancer, testicular cancer and lung cancer, and I live in constant fear that I'm going to keel over at any moment from a blod clot. When I was a kid of about 15, I had a premonition of my demise - at 27 I would die. I'm not sure exactly how I am going to shuffle off the mortal coil, but I convinced myself that my 27th birthday would be the last I see. I think that perhaps at the time I had that premonition I had just read about the infamous "27 club", a list of famous rock stars who died at age 27, many of whom were my heroes; Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Robert Johnson. Maybe I just thought it would be cool to die at 27. Well, I turned 27 last month, and forgot all about this little thing until today, when I recieved some bad news which reminded of my own mortality. I'm pretty sure that despite the various diseases I have imagined rotting their way through my body, I'm not ready to go yet. It might be cool to get a jam going with Kurt, Jimi, Janis et all, but I definitely prefer sitting on my bed plucking my acoustic guitar than sitting on a cloud plucking on a harp. I have another 11 months to go before I can safely put my 'premonition' down to simple teenage angst. In the next two months however I have to take no less than 12 flights between Aberdeen, Amsterdam and Geneva. Did I ever tell you about my fear of flying?

Song currently stuck in my head - "Mojo Pin" by Jeff Buckley.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 412 - Things I've Learned This Weekend

2007-01-15T17:25:00.000Z

Bassment cocktails – tasty and potent.

Karting – Pricey but brilliant fun. Brings out a competitive streak in me I didn’t know I had, leading me to drive my friends into walls at 40mph.

Karting – leads to painful buttcheek muscles the next day.

Strippers and gambling – great way to spend a Saturday night, especially when teamed up with 8 year old MacAllan on the rocks.

Stone Lad – Actual tadge. Also “Well hot, but he knows it” apparently.

Fruity curry – not good.

Ford Fiestas – rubbish for moving house with.

Sylvester Stallone – an Everton fan. Who knew?

Playing parlour games that you don’t really understand the rules of, while stinking drunk in a casino - a surprisingly easy way to make money.

Curry sauce in the nostrils – painful.

It might be a few weeks before I am able to post again, so if it takes a while for the next update don’t panic, I haven’t forgotten about you. I’m moving to a new office at work where everybody I work with can see my computer screen, so it will probably signal an end to the days where I can sit at my desk typing blog entries pretending to be working. If this is the case, just be patient, I’ll be posting every day once I get to Switzerland in February and I am spending every night in an empty hotel room by myself with nothing but my blog for company, so look forward to my lonely, depressing, suicide diaries from Geneva.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Raul” by The Automatic. elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 411 - Weekend Activities

2007-01-14T17:23:00.001Z

This weekend has been a pretty heavy one with two big drinking sessions, Friday night being my birthday party, and Saturday being Tom’s stag party. Friday night started out as a cocktail party at the Bassment where I drank my body weight in Long Island Ice Tea, before progressing to upstairs in O’Neills, an absolutely packed pokey smelly little nightclub, which although we spent the first twenty minutes getting crushed to death next to the bar, picked up when we found a table right on the edge of the dancefloor. The drunken party progressed to my flat for an after-party at around 3, though what happened there I can only speculate to, as I lasted about 5 minutes of it before discretely sloping off to bed to rest my weary head. It was one of those strange nights where everybody had a great night despite nothing of note actually happening.

Saturday night was a stag party for a mate called Tom which began with Karting at the Bridge of Don – 10 of us in karts that go 40mph tearing around a track like idiots trying breakneck overtaking manoeuvres, and in my case anyway, driving any fucker that got in my way into the barriers. Despite being explicitly warned that it was a non-contact race and could lead to disqualification, if you make it look like you didn’t mean it you can get away with it. Later it moved on to a meal at an Indian restaurant, then a pool hall for a few frames, a strip club, and finally a casino. Highlights of Saturday include:

- Stone Lad’s comically bad driving skills. Of the 10 of us who took part in the 50 lap race, the top 8 all finished on the same lap all within about a 20 second window. In 9th place was Stone, an incredible 7 laps behind everybody else. The only person who he’d managed to beat was Tom’s grandfather who is 81 years old, and even then he only beat him by a few yards.

- Telling a table of people including two Rangers fans that “I’d rather be a paedophile than a Rangers fan”. Controversial, but a great way of letting them know what total cunts they are.

- Calling Stone Lad “An actual tadge” just as he was swallowing a mouthful of mega-hot curry. He choked on it, and as he floundered around half-laughing half-choking, the curry sauce came pouring out of his nose burning the shit out of it, and in his kerfuffle he also managed to get it in his eyes. He couldn’t breathe or see, his nose was burning, he was choking, yet still laughing at the “actual tadge” comment, and everybody at the table instead of rushing too his aid was just sort of thinking “What the fuck is that guy doing?”, except me - I was almost pissing myself with laughter. When he eventually managed to sort himself out he had to go to the toilet to douche his nose out with cold water, such was the “worst pain he had ever felt in his life”.

- Playing £10 per hand blackjack at the casino, losing £50 in around 2 minutes, then getting a quite incredible run of lucky cards and winning 6 hands in a row, winning all my money back and then some.

- Scoring a free pizza from a guy in a takeaway shop at 4am who had ordered and paid for it in error then offered it to the other people in the queue. I nabbed it first and then a few of his friends said they would have liked it. He asked me to give him back half of it to share with his friends, but being the little bastard that I am, I refused to give him back any of his pizza, that he had paid for and given me for free, and me and my flatmate sat at a table and ate it all, much to his chagrin.

All in all, a bloody good weekend.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Love Ya” by Uncle Jam.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 410 - Rants x 3

2007-01-12T17:21:00.000Z

If there’s one phrase in the English language at the moment that pisses me off, it’s “He/she/I turned round and said”. What’s that about? Turned round? Actually, literally turned round? Generally when I’m having a conversation with someone I find that they tend to hold my gaze, look at my face, or at the very least keep facing me – it’s very unusual for anyone to turn round and say anything during a conversation – though perhaps I just have more interesting chat then most people, and thus hold people’s attention. There’s a guy at my work who is particularly guilty of overusing this annoying turn of phrase. If he is to be believed, every conversation he is a part of is held as both parties spin round like pirouetting ballet dancers, as every quote and paraphrase is preceded by “He/she/I turned round and said” – how they don’t get dizzy I just don’t understand. Though to be honest, that guy is so boring that whenever he is talking to me, I feel like turning around too - then sticking my fingers in my ears and loudly yelling “LA LA LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!” Perhaps that is actually what has been happening to him all this time.

Lets’ talk now about two twats off ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother: last years also-ran, Preston, and this years oh-so rock ‘n’ roll Donny Tourette. Preston made the papers this week after flouncing off the set of Never Mind The Buzzcocks in a girly strop after host Simon Amstell, possibly the funniest man on TV at the moment, made fun of Preston’s wife Chantelle. What the hell did he think was going to happen? Has he never seen the show before? Everybody that goes on that show gets the piss taken out of them. If he couldn’t handle having fun poked at him he could have tried not going on Big Brother, not having an ‘OK!’ celebrity wedding, not dropping his last name and not writing bland MOR pop ever since he was suddenly propelled kicking and screaming against his will into the public eye. Preston told the press today “If I had to look at his snotty little public schoolboy failed-career face I would have hit him. He’s got no charm”. Well if any of the national press are reading I would like release the following quote for consideration for tomorrow’s newspapers – Preston, you’re a cock-sucking snivelling, little gaywand media whore who rimjobbed your way to the top, you’ve gone from being a credible musician to a complete joke in the space of a year, and your wife is a vacuous airhead slut with the charisma of a dead wasp, and she’s seen more cock than a 40-year employee of a clap clinic, a building which I’m sure she’s no stranger. What ya gonna do Preston? You gonna cry?

Actually, I’ve tired myself out with that rant. Donny Tourette can wait for another day. But rest assured, when I do write that entry, I’m going to point out that he’s a complete twat, who despite having delusions of being Keith Moon or Ozzy Osbourne, is actually about as rock n roll as Chris Martin. The difference of course being that at least Chris Martin got a decent bird in Gwyneth Paltrow, whereas Donny is currently courting Peaches Geldof, a podgy, piggy-looking teenager who’s almost as talentless, publicity-desperate and generally irritating as he is.

Phew! That feels better!

Song currently stuck in my head – “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 409 - Birthday

2007-01-10T17:19:00.000Z

27 years ago today I arrived kicking and screaming into the world. Or so I’m told, personally I can’t remember it. In the 27 years between 1980 and today my birthday parties have evolved from me lying in a blanket pissing and shitting myself and not really knowing what’s going on; to pass the parcel and musical chairs with jelly and ice-cream in paper plates; to days out at cinemas, funfairs and bowling alleys; to monster drinking sessions; to sharp suits, cocktails, champagne and strippers. There’s been some brilliant birthday bashes in various locations, one of the highlights being my 22nd birthday, in which I devised a challenge of visiting all 18 of Fraserburgh’s pubs and having one drink in each. Being as how it was my birthday I didn’t pay for a single drink, and the oddities I was bought included champagne, Jagermeister and Tequila. Miraculously then it was time that thwarted the challenge and not drunkenness, as we were only managed 16 of the 18 before closing time got the better of us.

The absolute best of the bunch so far though was my 21st. That one occurred exactly at the midway point of a lads holiday in Tenerife, and as such we spent the whole week on a sun-soaked bender celebrating my coming of age. On the actual night of my birthday we found ourselves on Veronica’s Strip in Playa De Las Americas, basically a street of bars and nightclubs. We were in one specific bar which I can’t remember the name of, when the DJ caught wind of the fact that it was my 21st. He made me a ‘dirty pint’ – basically a pint glass full of various types of alcohol with blackcurrant cordial to soften the flavour a little, which looked like Ribena– then made me stand on a chair and down it in one while the whole bar counted out the ten seconds I had been allocated. When I failed to finish the whole thing in ten seconds, he made me another one and made me try again. Suffice to say after downing two pints of spirits I was pretty sozzled, and when a bottle of champagne was produced it just pushed me over the edge. One glass of the fizzy stuff and I was feeling queasy – a watery burp later I was making a bee-line for the toilets at great haste. The bar we were in was quite strange in that it didn’t have toilets in it – you had to go out a side door and walk down an alley to the back of the building where there was a little room which housed one cubicle, one urinal and a sink. I legged it down the alleyway as fast as my little legs would go, dashed into the little room, burst through the cubicle door and in my hurry, and with my brain being full of alcohol the wires carrying the messages from my head to my feet got criss-crossed, and I tripped over my own feet and went sprawling as I aimed to get to the bowl, still gagging and battling to hold the vomit down. Sadly I had hit the door with such desperate speed I didn’t realize it was locked. Imagine the trauma of the poor girl who was sitting on the toilet with her skirt and panties down leisurely taking a piss, when a drunken Scotsman booted the door down and dashed in to the cubicle, tripped over and landed face first on her naked lap. Thankfully I managed to find my feet and make an apology before the vomit came or that one really would have ended up being messy. As I retreated to vomit fizzy purple Ribena into the sink I heard the poor girl scream, probably at a combination of the fright, the invasion of privacy, and the fact that I hadn’t closed the door again and she couldn’t reach it, leaving her fully on display to me and anyone else who walked into the toilets. When I was finished vomiting and went back to the bar she was still in the stall, and minutes later I saw her return to the bar looking red-faced and absolutely mortified, grab her handbag and storm out the front door with her head down, not even taking the time to explain to her confused friends where or why she was going. Of course by that time I had told all my friends and we were all laughing at her, which probably didn’t help. I think perhaps I enjoyed the night of January 10th 2001 more than her.

This year things will be more subdued. At the weekend I will be having some sophisticated grown-up cocktails with friends, however it should be a good bash, despite the lack of vomiting and peeing girls.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Wind it Up” by Gwen Stefani.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 408 - Credit Cards

2007-01-09T17:18:00.000Z

I was on the phone again today to my old adversaries Egg Finance – they must be sick of me calling them every month when I get my statement and accusing them of trying to con me out of money, which, incidentally I am sure they are doing every month.

Egg - “Hi you’re through to Egg how can I help you?”
Me – “I notice on my statements that I’m paying £16 every month for something called Payment Protector. I want to cancel that.”
Egg – “OK, why do you want to cancel it?”
Me – “Well I don’t think it serves any purpose”
Egg – “Did you read your terms and conditions when you signed up for your Egg card? The purpose of the Payment Protector was all explained in those”
Me – “Umm… remind me”
Egg – “You didn’t read them did you”
Me – “No I didn’t”
Egg – “Well what it means is that if you have an accident and can’t work, or if you lose your job you may not be able to pay the monthly payments on your Egg card, so you can pay the £16 payment protector instead and we won’t chase you for the rest of the money.”
Me – “Ok”
Egg – “So do you still think it doesn’t serve any purpose?”
Me – “Hold on – so if I lose my job I can pay you guys £16 a month and I don’t have to pay any more of my bill.”
Egg – “Yes. So you really don’t want to cancel that do you?”
Me – “Well, my minimum monthly payment is only £12 a month. So I can pay you £12 a month and make inroads into my balance, or I can pay you £16 a month, and you won’t even take it off the money I owe you. Plus I’ve been paying it for almost two years as well as the monthly payment and it hasn’t served any purpose.”
Egg – “Um…”
Me – “Yeah, so how about you just cancel that for me then?”

Consumers 1 – Parasites 0.

Not one to learn from previous mistakes, I took out a two grand bank loan a couple of weeks ago to pay off the fuckers at Egg once and for all, and quickly spunked most of it away on jackets, K-Swiss trainers, games consoles, nights out, takeaways, and luxuries like food, petrol and bills. Still, at least it means I can continue to have these fun conversations with Egg every month for the foreseeable future.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Creeping Up The Backstairs” by The Fratellis.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 407 - Insomnia

2007-01-08T17:17:00.000Z

00.00 - alarm set, teeth brushed, bedtime attire adorned, lights out. 30 minutes pass. Not asleep yet. The VCR's lost it's time setting and the clock is flashing 00.00. In the darkness, the 00.00 flashing is illuminating the whole room and really starting to get to me. Get up, unplug VCR. Go back to bed. More time passes. Still can't sleep. Blinking blue light on my mobile is now illuminating the whole room every ten seconds and bothering me. Pick up mobile. Try to figure out how to switch off the blinking light. Can't find that option. Ten minutes pass. Give up and stuff it under the pillow. Darkness. More time passes. It's 1am. Lie on left side. Nothing. Lie on back. Nothing. Lie on right side. Nothing. It's 1.30. Switch on light and pick up a book. Read. Half an hour passes. Eyes begin to tire and feel heavy. Put down book. It's 2.00. Light off. Darkness. Thirsty. Light back on. Drink glass of lemonade next to bed. Light back off. Half an hour passes. Some lorries drive down the street. Noisy. Get up. Close window. Back to bed. Toss and turn. Still can't sleep. 3am comes. Darkness. Silence. Window closed. Too hot. Take off t-shirt. Thirsty again. Drink more lemonade. Back to darkness. Snuggled up. Nice and cosy. Thirst nicely quenched. Need to pee. Get up. Pee. Eyes used to bright light. Back to bed. 3.30. Darkness. Silence. Nice temperature. Don't need to pee. Not thirsty. Still can't sleep. 4.00. Can hear hamster chewing the bars of his cage in the living room. Get up. Contemplate deep-frying hamster. Move it to the kitchen instead and unhook it's noisy wheel. Back to bed. Darkness. 30 minutes pass. 4.30. Still can't sleep. Get up. Write blog.

Post 406 - Things I've Learned This Weekend

2007-01-07T17:15:00.000Z

Dominos Pizza - good.

'To Go' Pizza on Windmill Brae - rubbish.

Watching a slutty, mouthy, drunk, jealous girlfriend punch a naked stripper who's giving her boyfriend a lapdance is incredibly funny. Seriously, the girlfriend made the lapdancer look classy.

Rangers - still shit even though Paul le Guen has left.

MacAllan single malt age 8 years is nice on the rocks and makes you look cool as fuck when you're drinking it, however it does tend to get you steaming.

"Things I've Learned This Weekend", a regular feature on my old Weblog Which Shall Not Be Named, was a good feature worthy of resurrection.

Next - great sale. Went in to look at jackets. Came out with two jackets and two jumpers.

"Geek Chic" - a great look, as I am currently dressed in a tight grey v-neck jumper over a cream shirt with the cuffs and tails showing, and looking cool as fuck.

Girlfriends - can't always be trusted to switch off interior lights in cars.

Dominos Pizza drivers - it says on the side of all the pizza boxes (of which I have 4 sitting in my kitchen from this weekend) that "Our drivers are never penalised for late deliveries". In which case, I have absolutely no guilt about not tipping them for early delivery. If they're not going to be penalised for being shit, why should they be rewarded for not being shit?

Barstaff at The Filling Station on Union Street aren't very good. They happilly hand over warm bottles of beer and completely forget to make you the gin and tonic you asked for in your massive round of three drinks. Then when you ask them for the gin and tonic they look at you as though you're the one that's a dick.

According to www.myheritage.com, the celebrities I most resemble are Matthew McConaughey, Benicio Del Toro, Jet Li, Jake Gyllehaal, and Al Pacino. Surprisingly Ed Norton's name didn't appear because I get told I look like him, and also bizarrely Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills 90210 I've been told a bunch of times.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Hi Ho Silver Lining" by Jeff Beck.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 405 - McMinger With Cheese

2007-01-04T17:13:00.000Z

Have you ever noticed how ugly fast food staff are? And I don’t mean some of them, or even the majority of them, I mean literally all of them. Have you ever come out of McDonalds or Burger King and thought “The guy/girl who served me was really fit”? Because if you have you’ve either been dining in vastly different fast food restaurants to me or you have incredibly low standards. The ones who serve me are usually almost ugly to the point of putting me off my food. The counter of your average fast food eaterie is usually manned by a crew of teenagers who fit loosely into 4 categories: fat sweaty guys who look like they eat more of the burgers than they sell, with greasy skin and often wire-rimmed glasses devoid of style; gawky Asian girls who don’t understand a word you’re saying and smile a lot while there’s obviously nothing going on behind their eyes; bored looking skinny girls with pale skin dark hair who look like they might be goths when they’re not in uniform and who talk in a barely audible mumble; and short, thin teenage boys who look like the skinny gay-looking kids who got bullied at your high school.

Regardless of which of the four categories they fall into a few things unite them all – stained uniforms, baseball caps, vacant stares, blue plasters, greasy skin, greasy hair and spots, spots, spots. But what I want to know is, were they always that ugly, or did the fast food job make them that way? Is it the possible that at the start of term times when all the local business are saturated with job applications, all the bar, waiting, and shop jobs go to the more attractive interviewees, and all the ugly ones took the scraps that were left over, in the shape of the fast food jobs that no-one else wanted. I know if I ran a shop or a bar I would rather have attractive staff pleasing the eyes of my customers than some grotesque runt. Think for a second – have you ever had your pint poured in a city centre bar by a minger? Or had some swamp-donkey ring your jeans through the tills in Next or Burtons? Ever had your meal in a nice restaurant brought to your table by a gurning ming-bag? Didn’t think so. Now think about the oinker that served you that chicken burger in the cardboard box the other day.

But is it possible that the staff of the burger bars were at one time attractive and became ugly as a result of their job? The greasy skin, hair and spots can be explained by the environment they work in as anyone who’s ever worked in a kitchen and seen how greasy every thing gets around the fryers will know. The pale skin may be a trick of the fluorescent lights that illuminate fast food restaurants showing up everybody’s imperfections – you probably look like shit when you’re in there too. And at least bar and restaurant staff get decent clothes to wear to work - it’s really difficult to look good in a ill-fitting polo shirt and baseball cap. And the girls probably aren’t allowed to wear make up on the counter. And blue plasters I can understand – en masse they aren’t quite smart enough to work out not to put their fingers in the fryers. And the monotony of the job, the public constantly looking down their nose at you and probably the barrage of abuse you have to put up with is enough to suck the charisma and happiness out of anyone. In fact I think I’ve just proved my own point – you could probably take Keira Knightley and Christina Ricci and give them a job behind the counter in McDonalds, two weeks later you’d have Jo Brand and Sonja from Eastenders. Thus I conclude: working in a fast food restaurant makes you a minger. No matter how hard things get kids – don’t do it.

Incidentally, this post was inspired by the staff of the Burger King restaurant in Altens (the one opposite Makro). I was in there today at lunchtime and as I was in the queue waiting to be served I was astounded by the sheer piggery of the staff – there were 4 girls and 1 guy and all of them were just the ugliest people I have ever seen. Though the miserable bottom-feeder who served me was really the sour cream of the crop. The bell-end of the ball if you will. First of all as I approached her station I realised that the two sides of her forehead protruded almost farther than her nose. The centre of her forehead didn’t protrude at all, which meant her forehead looked like exactly like an ass. Seriously, it was like one of the underground mutants from Futurama. It looked like someone had bashed her repeatedly on the left and right hand sides of her forehead with a snooker cue until it swelled up, but hadn’t hit the centre. And because of her unfortunately shaped head, her eyes were positioned almost on the sides of her face, like an eagle or a tortoise. And the icing on the Whopper was her voice. When she spoke, her voice sounded like a sparrowhawk choking to death on a rabid mouse, or a seagull regurgitating fish-guts into a sea-lion’s anus. A truly afwul noise. And she didn’t seem to have any control over the volume of her screeches, as they got louder and quieter at inappropriate moments, like “CAN I take YOUR order?” and “Would YOU like any SAUCE!” I was utterly bewildered by the whole experience. Still, I’m sure she had a lovely personality.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Thanks To The Girl” by The Ordinary Boys.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 404 - Festive Season

2007-01-03T17:11:00.000Z

Well the festive season is by for another year. Stockings around the world filled, shop tills bursting with banknotes, and mine and millions of other's bank accounts are emptier than the trophy cabinet in Ibrox. My Christmas and New Year went a little like this: eat, drink, eat, drink, eat, drink, eat, drink, eat, drink - repeat until obese. I think I've gained around 6lb and lost around £500. Still, I had a good time. It's easy to bash Christmas - we often hear about how it has become so commercialised that it has almost become about how much money you spend on people; or how garish and annoying it is seeing flashy lights everywhere and having to listen to "Merry Xmas Everyone" every time you go into a shop; or because of all the awful Christmas adverts that start in October; but for all it's flaws, it still allows me two weeks off work every year to sleep in till lunchtime, go out drinking every night and laze around the house all day. You take the rough with the smooth, and if I have to suffer a few crappy Argos adverts in order to spend my Wednesdays on the sofa in my underwear eating peanut butter out of the jar and watching Jurassic Park 3 then so be it.

Now it's the 3rd of January, and festivites over, I'm back to sitting in my desolate, grey, draughty warehouse punching numbers into a computer for the purpose of - well actually I'm still not sure what the purpose of that is - all I know is that they sit me down at a desk for 8 hours a day next to a stack of A3 paper and say "Put those numbers into the computer". How they reach my desk I'm not sure, where they go after they leave my desk I have no idea, what purpose they serve on the computer I don't have a clue. I sometimes think if I could just not bother doing it for a few days and just shred all the bits of paper, and chances are nobody would notice, but as long as the paycheques keep coming I'll keep bashing in those numbers like John Locke in Lost. Though in the next month or so instead of sitting in a soulless concrete warehouse in Aberdeen bashing seemingly random numbers into a computer for a pittance, I'll be sitting in Switzerland bashing seemingly random numbers into a computer for an obscene amount of money, so I guess there are some perks. I've used Switzerland as an excuse to further abuse my Switch card, citing two months away from home as an excuse to spend money on "things I'll need in Geneva", a haul which currently includes a new jacket, a pair of K-Swiss trainers, a Playstation 2 with a few games and an iPod speaker dock. Though annoyingly I was informed today that the Switzerland project has been postponed for 3 weeks and I won't be going until February, by which time I'll have completed all my Playstation 2 games, so now I'm going to have to go out and buy some more. Plus, now that I won't be getting the pre-paid expenses this month that I had budgeted for, I'll be living on beans on toast for the second half of January, though at least I'll have flashy new trainers when I'm lying at the side of the road, homeless, freezing, and starving to death.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Valerie" by The Zutons
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 403 - The Elwood Awards 2006

2006-12-22T17:08:00.000Z

So Christmas is upon us once again (my 26th in total, I'm almost an expert at it by now), and it's the time when people like to reflect on what they've done that year. Considering I started 2006 working in a bar for minumum wage and I'm ending it working in a professional position in the oil industry, and en-route to Geneva for silly amounts of money, I'd say 2006 has gone pretty well. And not just for me, it's been a good year for loads of people. Kai for example, saw in 2006 locked in a cell in Craigie, and he's seeing out 2006 in a plush, leafy suburb with his girlfriend and daughter and a TV that's bigger than my flat. Britney Spears started 2006 married to a parasitic, talentless, waste of skin, and she's ended it single, going out on the lash with Paris Hilton (another parasitic, talentless waste of skin) and flashing her flaps at the paparazzi. It's definitely been a good year for Daniel Craig. Who the hell knew who he was 12 months ago? Now he's the heart-throb of choice for 15 year old girls all over Britain. Lucky bastard. Though 2006 hasn't been great for everybody - spare a thought for poor Pluto, which started 2006 as a planet and has this year been reclassifed as a lowly 'dwarf-planet'.

Well I've decided that in the same vein as the Oscars, the Brits, and all that other glamourous, schmaltzy celebrity crap, I'm going to host the first annual Elwood awards for all the best stuff that's happened in 2006. Sadly I can't afford Jonathan Ross to present it, so you'll just have to make do with my my lame jokes. Care to take a walk down the red-carpet with me? OK, then let's get started with the first award of the evening:

Cunt of the Year: There have been some monumental cunts in the news this year - The Ipswich Ripper for example; Saddam Hussein; General Pinochet; but none of them deserve this award as much as Girls Aloud. When are people going to realise they are everything that is wrong with the world? They're just 5 softcore porn actresses with reasonable lip-syncing and gyrating skills. They're making a career out of doing shite covers of good songs and flouncing around half naked. The cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" is the icing on the cake. They were fun for a while, now they must be destroyed for the good of mankind. Or at least sterilised.

Put Down of the Year: From Family Guy - (Christina Agulera is in a studio singing scales and making random hand movements: Peter Griffin walks in)
Peter Griffin: Okay, let me just go ahead and stop you right there. You sound terrible, alright? You're doing this thing, [refers to the hand movements she was making] which is just, you know...what the hell is that? I mean, and you look like if I touched you, you'd be sticky, and frankly, you smell bad. You're pretty much offensive to all five senses.
Christina Aguilera: That's only four.
Peter Griffin: Well, actually, you know when you smell something and it gets stuck in there, and you can sort of taste it? Yeah. Well, I'm tasting you right now, and it tastes awful. Truly disgusting, like salty garbage.

Best Flash of the Year: Despite some valiant competition from professional vapid, vaccuous, miserable slime ball pigs like Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton and Tara Reid, this one just has to go Britney Spears, simply because of the amount of time people have been waiting to see it. The other three were flaunting their flanges like the slutbags they are as soon as they got a sniff of fame - Britney kept it in her pants for like 6 whole years before proving that's she is also a slutbag.

Tear-jerking moment of the year: How about the whale that swam up the Thames and died in front of the world's media? Or the Austrian girl who was kidnapped and held as a sex-slave 8 years ago escaping her captors and being reunited with her parents? Or Steve Irwin's daughter Bindi speaking about how much she'll miss her wonderful daddy at his memorial service? All good shouts, but nothing did it for me this year as much as seeing Superman come back to Earth after 5 years away, rescuing a plummeting 747 and getting a standing ovation from a baseball stadium for his troubles. Truly heart-warming.

Sporting Moment of the Year: Fat uber-titted mingpot Jade Goody collapsing during the London Marathon and rolling around on the floor like a stupid fat fish that's fallen out of it's tank onto the carpet, and then screaming "I'm gonner die, I'm gonner die!". Sadly we weren't lucky enough to have her actually die, but it was a nice taster for the future when she finally does. Honourable mention goes to Zinedine Zidane for headbutting the charming Marco Materazzi during the World Cup Final after Marco told ZZ he was the "the son of a terrorist whore" before adding "I wish an ugly death to you and all your family, so go and fuck yourself" and finally expressing his desire to shag ZZ's sister - good effort guys, but not quite enough.

Death of the Year: This one was between Russian spy Alexander Litvenenko and Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. To be honest, I was quite disappointed with Mr Letvenenko. I grew up on cartoons like The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four and Spiderman. I always believed that a good old dose of radiation will give you some kick-ass super-powers, like invisibility, or super-strength. All Alexander Litvenenko did was go bald and slowly die in a hospital bed. What's cool about that? This award his to go to The Croc Hunter. Mad as a badger right till the end.

Thing I'm most dreading for 2007: X-Factor winner Jar-Jar Binks, sorry I mean Leona, releasing dreary power ballad after dreary power ballad after dreary power ballad. Does the world really need another Shitney Houston?

Song currently stuck in my head - "Hole For A Soul" by Terrorvision
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 402 - Switzerland

2006-12-20T17:04:00.000Z

So I’m going to Switzerland for 2 months. Bizarre as it may sound, come January 15th, Elwood will be jetting off to the land of Toblerones and cuckoo clocks and will call it home until 16th March. I’m staying at the luxurious Hotel Adriatica in downtown Geneva, at the very foot of the Swiss alps, with mountains in every direction. My work are paying for all my flights, my hotel, all my expenses, and in addition I’m getting paid more that double what I get paid at the moment. I only have to work Monday to Friday and I have all weekend to go exploring Switzerland, with France only a half hour train ride in one direction and Turin and Milan only a two hour train ride in the other direction. It all sounds fantastic; the only obvious drawback being that I’ll be spending every night alone in a hotel room in Switzerland with just a copy of Football Manager 2007 and an acoustic guitar for company. Also the fact that I have a little over 3 weeks to learn to speak French might be a stumbling block.

So what do we know about Switzerland? Well here is my full knowledge of the country in list format – clocks; watches; chocolate; neutrality. I’m ashamed to say that Geography really is not my forte, and in fact I thought I was going to have to learn to speak Swiss. I know nothing about Switzerland. I guess it’s time to load up Wikipedia and get learning. My journey into the unknown begins in just 26 short days…

Song currently stuck in my head – “Horrorshow” by The Libertines
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 401 - Phones

2006-12-14T17:02:00.000Z

Back in 2003 I used to have a Samsung mobile phone. Awful thing it was. I don't remember the model, but it was an absolute pile of dung. It was, I think, the first Samsung phone to have a colour screen, polyphonic ringtones and that kind of thing, but it was the most awful, awkward, unfriendly little Nazi bastard of a phone I've ever had. There was no GUI with this thing, you couldn't set it up how you wanted it - you took the phone as it was and if you didn't like it you could get to fuck. I know the Japanese like things to be a little quirky and off-the-wall, but seriously, whoever designed this phone ought to be hung, drawn and quartered for inflicting this abomination on the world. Dragged from their plush office to the gallows, their final words ringing out through the cold Tokyo night air - "But it was a good phone! The menus were so easy to use!"

My first grumble with this technological terror was with the text message alerts. Generally I'm accustomed to having to endure an annoying tune every time I or someone in my company gets a text. It goes with having a mobile phone, and friends. That particular handset had a choice of 8 text tones, all of which were annoying. But get this; the worst part of it was that when you got a new message, it would beep every minute until you read the message. Every. Single. Minute. Until you either read the message, or killed yourself just to make the beeping stop. And there was no way to switch off that option and only have it beep once! Now imagine you're watching TV and your phone goes off on the other side of the room - you can't just think "I'll read that next time I get up" - cos it's gonna annoy the crap out of you until you get up. What I used to love was when I was asleep with my phone somewhere in my bedroom. If I got a text message during the night, chances are that one littl e beep wasn't going to wake me up. However that fucker made absolutely certain it did, cheerily singing away at 0201, 0202, 0203, 0204, 0205, 0206 and carrying on until I'd get up stumble around in the dark trying to find it and then throw it out the window.

After the first couple of nights of being woken up it occurred to me to just put it on silent before I went to bed, thus providing an uninterrupted night's rest. So that's what I did and that's what I got - an uninterrupted night's rest. You see I also used my phone as my morning alarm clock. And when I had the phone set on silent mode, brilliantly, the alarm went off IN ABSOLUTE SILENCE. All that would happen is that the screen would light up to tell you its 8am. Great if you happen to be looking directly at it - not so great if you're fast asleep and hoping to be woken up for work. Generally a phone screen flashing on and off in my room already light room isn't enough to wake the slumbering me. It got to the point where I was either sleeping in because I'd left my phone on silent and the alarm hadn't gone off, or I was sleeping in because the fucker had been beeping all night, and I actually legitimately got fired from my job because of persistent lateness. You hear that Samsung? Your phone got me fired! Then in the following weeks, with my phone permanently on silent mode because I was so sick of hearing the text noises, I missed all the calls from potential employers inviting me for interviews. It had to go. I bought a new, better phone, and gave my old one to my sister, who hated it and gave it to her daughter, who hated it and gave it to her brother, who hated it and I believe threw it in the bin like the piece of garbage it truly is.

If you want to really get the best from your Samsung phone, carry two of them around to tape to the bottom of your feet when you can't reach the biscuits on the top shelf at the supermarket. Trust me - it's all they're good for.

Song currently stuck in my head - "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" by The Kinks.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 400 - Bouncers

2006-12-13T17:00:00.000Z

It's Friday night. Elwood and his mate Stone, two respectable young professionals in their mid-20s, and each with an IQ in the 130s, are standing at the bar in Exodus nightclub, enjoying a quiet beer and discussing complex issues such as the peace process in the middle east, the inaccurracies and flaws in all the major religions and why people are prepared to turn a blind eye to them, and the theory that the universe is infinite and that we, while being convinced of our own superiority, may be but a tiny insignificant speck. As the hedonistic party raged on around them, Elwood and Stone were immersed in their own little bubble of intellect, trying, as two such wise men do, to make the world a better place. So engrossed were they in their conversation that they did not see the three fat yellow-clad bouncers approach them.

"Here you two, fuckin get oot" the lead caveman growled in barely intelligible English.
"Excuse me?" replied Stone and Elwood.
The caveman got in a bit closer and, after thinking for a while and scratching his flea-bites, managed to say "We've hud complaints aboot you two, so get oot" in broken monotone. His breath smelt like day old dog food.
"Who's complained about us? We haven't done anything wrong" countered Elwood and Stone.

The bouncer, obviously then flummoxed by such a highbrow back and forth nodded to his equally inept colleagues, who grabbed Stone and Elwood and began to drag them toward the exits. Now, if the bouncers had simply intended to escort Stone and Elwood from the premises, one may then ponder why they then decided to stop at the top of the stairs where no-one was looking and where there are no CCTV cameras. One also might wonder why, when the two patrons were not even struggling, they felt the need to throw Elwood into a windowsill and hold him against a wall while yet another bouncer appeared and tackled Stone. You may also wonder why Stone, who had done nothing wrong, was then dragged backwards down two flights of stairs by his neck, or why Elwood, who had also done nothing, and just one short minute before had been quietly standing at the bar having a drink and not looking at anybody, had his left arm twisted right up his back and then was pushed down the stairs by two bouncers, before being forcibly shoved out the door. You may wonder what Elwood and Stone had done to deserve treatment which left Stone with a bruised swollen neck that he couldn't move the next day, and Elwood unable to lift his left arm the next day, and with a twisted ankle. Well as it happens, Elwood and Stone are also wondering the same thing. But one thing they do know for sure is that they won't be returning to that shit-infested rotten fucking cess-pool, dogs-arse, nappy-full-of-baby-shit-vomit-and-bile, urine-streaked, stench-of-faecal-matter-and-decomposed-remains, sweaty, fertiliser-and-human-waste-smeared, filthy, fetid, rancid, disgusting, pile of putrid snail-flaps that calls itself a nightclub anytime soon.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Nameless Faceless" by Fozzy
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 399 - Whores

2006-12-06T14:28:00.001Z

Why do Iceland think that putting Kerry fucking Katona in their adverts is going to make me want to shop at Iceland? Watching some gobby chav slut prancing around a supermarket does not in any way persuade me to go and buy my Christmas dinner, or indeed any other dinner, from that shit-pit. Iceland is like the Poundstretcher of the food world. Only students and the habitually unemployed would buy anything from Iceland. It attracts the very dregs of society - you'd almost expect to walk in and see the aisles full of Muslim terrorists and peadophiles. "Mums shop at Iceland" they tell us. No they don't. My mum doesn't shop at Iceland. None of the other mums I know shop at Iceland. Mums from council estates shop at Iceland. Single mums shop at Iceland. I know it, the council estate mums know it, and the advertising executives at Iceland certainly know it. So what do they do to combat the grimy, working class image they've gained? They hire Kerry Katona. A cock-hungry, chavvy, si ngle mum from a working-class background in Warrington. If there's ever been a more shining example of 'skanky by assosciation' then I've yet to see it.

Talking of skanks, my world came crashing down around my ears last week when finally, after 6 long years of anticipation, a photo of Britney Spears' vagina was presented to the world. In case any of you missed the story, (and it shows how much Britney's star is fading that it only made it into one newspaper on page 30) since her divorce from K-Fed was announced, Britney has taken to hanging out with professional ligger Paris Hilton and getting photographed entering and leaving nightclubs looking trashy. Last week, with new gal-pal Paris in tow, Britney was 'accidentally' snapped getting out of a car wearing a short skirt with no panties on, leaving nothing to the imagination. Because of course, it's perfectly believable for a world-famous megastar to wear a mini-skirt and forget to put panties on. And when she is getting out of a car facing of a throng of photographers, it's also perfectly understandable that she forgets she's wearing a mini-skirt and no panties, and swings o ne leg out of the car, holds the pose for a few seconds while she talks to her friends, and then moves the other leg. What I mean is, there is no way it was set up for publicity, absolutely no way. But this is the action shot that every red-blooded male in the world has been waiting for since Britney popped up and took over the world as a pure, virginal 17-year-old all those years ago. Britney's clam has become something to be worshipped, something mysterious and sacred, like the Holy Grail. People have dedicated their whole lives to getting just a tiny glimpse of it. And now it's been revealed! All hail the photo of Britney's flange! And man! What a disappointment! It's just a regular flange! It doesn't even light up or anything!

Song currently stuck in my head - "Toxic" by Britney Spears

Post 398 - Pooping

2006-12-05T16:53:00.001Z

I work in the offices of one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations. I won't mention the name of the corporation, but it's a big one, you'll have heard of it. The job? Turning up at 9 o'clock every morning in a suit and swanning around pretending I'm important, just like all the other phonies. The difference between me and my colleagues however is that I don't even know what it is that I'm supposed to do, and I just blag my way through most days. In fact, for all I know everybody else does exactly the same thing - it's not like I would know.
The building I work in is a great place to work - as well as comfortably housing several hundred staff, it boasts a fully functioning restuarant; a coffee lounge; a dry-cleaners; a photo-lab; a gym; squash courts, and is fully environmentall controlled, so your office stays at the same temperature and humidity all by itself regardless of the weather. It reminds me of the building in Gremlins 2. Also we each have a security swipecard to get into each corridor, and if you try to get through a door you're not supposed to, it flashes red and beeps angrily like in a James Bond movie. Employees of course enjoy all the perks of the job, including a free 3 course meal every day, with delights such as roast beef, steak, salmon, and a glass of wine; free coffee machines on every floor; creche facilities; sports and social clubs; private healthcare; and free classes so you can learn a foreign language on your lunch break.
All in all, it's a great place to work, with just 2 major drawbacks:

1 - The baked potatoes at lunch are never cooked all the way through.
2 - It's impossible to have a poop in peace.

Let's ignore the baked potato issue for the moment and go straight on to number 2, so to speak. Each block in my building has 5 floors, and a men's room on each floor. In my block, all the gents toilets are directly above each other, and regardless of which floor you're on, they are laid out exactly the same way. When you open the door, there are two cubicles directly on your right, followed by two urinals, and then a window. On the opposite wall, oddly enough on your left when you come in the door, are a row of wash-basins. This for me presents a problem. Generally when I take a dump I find it difficult to relax when there's just a flimsy sheet of MDF which doesn't reach the floor or the roof stopping everyone else in the room from hearing, and smelling, everything I'm doing. Many's the time I've heard conversations between colleagues take place mere feet away from where I'm sitting, which could be rudely interrupted by a noisy splashback were I not being forced to take careful precautions. Who wants to have to take careful precautions in order to drop the kids off in peace?

Far and away a worse situation however, is when somebody takes up position in the neighbouring cubicle. In my mind, surely one of the most disgusting and inappropriate moments in anyone's life is when you're taking a shit, and there's just a flimsy sheet of MDF that doesn't reach the roof or the floor between you and someone else who's taking a shit. Invariably, this event follows an established pattern. Generally, when I hear the door to the toilets open, in my head I repeat "don't go in the cubicle, don't go in the cubicle", but alas, often they do. I hear the door to the neighbouring dumpstation close and lock, I hear trousers being unzipped, and I hear clothes loosening. A few moments pass, and I hear a couple of quacky fart noises resonating around the porcelain as the chocolate hostage prepares itself for liberation. At this point I feel it is necessary to make it quite plain to the dumper next door that I am there and do not wish to hear his movements, so I make some rather loud throat clearing and foot tapping noises so he realises he is not alone. For the next few minutes as I am finishing up I hear grunts of pain and discomfort escaping over and under the wall as he, embarrased at realising that someone heard his farts, tries to stop the thing he started. And to be honest, it amuses me, so sometimes I hang around for just a few minutes longer than necessary, thinking of the anguish the poor guy must be in desperate to take a shit and being that close.

I would exchange all the free steak, salmon, wine, and French lessons for a stand-alone crapper. Or at least a stall with walls and a door that reach that ceiling and the floor. Is that too much to ask? Pooping on company time is supposed to be a joyous experience and they've taken that luxury away. Perhaps it's time to look for another job.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Party Up In Here" by DMX
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 397 - Thinking.

2006-11-30T16:49:00.000Z

When I'm bored, I think. Unfortunately for me, I work in one of the most boring jobs a person could ever have, and as such, I spend a lot of my day simply in a daydream, thinking. And trust me, when my train of thought gets rolling down those tracks, that's one journey you really don't want to be on, as my inner Thomas the Tank Engine takes a happy little trip through sunshine, clouds and fields full of dancing bunnies on his way to Nonsenseland, with brief stops in Gibberishville, Rubbishtown and Crapburgh so that the people on board can get off for a smoke if they want. This morning for example I've spent two hours mulling over the dimensions of the tiny children in Honey I Shrunk The Kids. That kid was small enough to hitch a lift on the back of an ant, but later in the movie his armspan was big enough to use a Cheerio as a lifebuoy! He was clearly smaller than the ant he was using as a horse, there's no way he would have been able to reach both sides of the Cheerio. A fully grown ant wouldn't even fill the hole in a Cheerio! It was ludicrous!

In another runaway train moment, I've been pondering why Holland is called Holland and also The Netherlands? How come it has two names? And which is the correct one? And if a person from England is called English, a person from Germany is called German, a person from Spain is called Spanish, what is a person from Holland called? Hollish? Nethish? Nope - Dutch. Dutch? Where the hell does that come from? Those Heidi-lovin' clog-dancers sure like to perplex little old me. I wonder if these are the kinds of thoughts that the likes of Copernicus, Kierkegaard and Kafka had in-between their world-altering brainwaves, or if my stuttering brain-farts are more comparible to Dylan the Stoned Bunny off the Magic Roundabout. Though while those three egg-heads may be able to out-perform me in a quiz about science, philosophy and literature respectively, if they gave away Nobel prizes for outstanding knowledge of The A-Team or male hair care products, I'd wipe the floor with all three of them.

Song currently in my head - "Green Onions" by Booker-T and The MGs (it's my ringtone)

elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 396 - Trumpet

2006-11-27T16:47:00.000Z

I want to buy a trumpet next week. Of all the instruments in all the world, quite why I want a trumpet so badly is anyone's guess. I feel like JD in Scrubs at the moment - whenever I think about how great it would be to own a trumpet a bunch of little fanstasy snapshots pop into my head; me hopping up and down on stage in a smoky basement bar with a jazz band consisting of a bunch of virtually inanimate old black guys for example; or me turning up at someone's front door with a band of traditionally-dressed Mexicans with stick on moustaches delivering a suprise Mariachi-ogram. Then of course the camera cuts back to me sitting at my desk staring into space and dreamily fingering the valves on an imaginary trumpet and making soft parping noises as the people I share an office with look on, slightly puzzled. This isn't the first time this has happened however - 2 years ago I got an impulsive urge to buy a banjo, simply because I thought it would be cool to own a banjo, and I had the little dream sequences about sitting on a front porch in Kentucky playing Duelling Banjos with my inbred brother-cousin; being in the studio with Waylon Jennings recording the music for the car chase scenes in the Dukes of Hazzard; or simply introducing some of Aberdeen's open-mic nights to the finer qualities of Bluegrass. On a cold December morning in 2004 I went into a music shop, handed over £200 for a banjo, and for the past two years it's sat in the corner of my room getting dusty, and been played about 6 times. In my two years of teaching myself banjo I have learned the chord of C and the chord of G7, and I still have to look at the book to get C right. Come Christmas 2008 I should have just about learned a third chord and mastered "When The Saints Go Marching In" - and if I keep going at my current pace, I may even be able to accompany myself on the trumpet.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Counting On Your Suicide" by Zombina & The Skeletones.

elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 395 - Elwood's Odyssey - The Next Generation.

2006-09-29T22:56:00.001+01:00

*Yawwwwwwwwwwwwn**Streeeeeeeeeeeeetch*So what time is it? What? September? September. How the fuck did that happen?

I kid of course. In short, I killed the Odyssey off back in June because it got shit. It was boring to read, it was boring to write, and I was just fucking sick of it. But now, oddly, I find myself missing blogging. I guess I just like writing. So here we find ourselves again, welcoming in a new era of The Odyssey. How many times has this happened now? I lst count at about 30. This time though, things are gonna be done a little different round here. Previously when I worked at the Holiday Inn, I didn't give a shit about what information was available about me online. I didn't care if they found out that I lazed around doing nothing all night, that I liberated several items of hotel property, that I bashed one out in the disabled toilets most nights, and that I had some rather illegal weekend habits. Now I find myself in a different situation, in a 'proper' job that actually has, shock horror, career prospects, and as such my shameful past must remain hidden. In addition I now find myself in a new relationship which is going well, that I don't particularly want to jeopardise. Plus, I guess I've just grown up. When I started writing Elwood's Odyssey back in August of 2002 I was just a snotty little punk kid with ideas above his station, a me versus the world attitude, and a desire to shock, by overusing swear words and telling unsavoury tales. I'm 26 years old now, and in truth I've actually been ashamed of how childish and immature most of my writing before the last rebirth in 2005 was for quite a long time. We've all grown up. Look at the Trash Whore Diaries? Kai started them as a "21-year-old insomniac punk kid". Kai's now a 26 year old man, a father, and he's spent the last year in prison. You think he's still writing about lesbians, bestiality and MILFs? What's that you say? He is? And Alex is still writing about shagging kids? Well, I guess somethings never change. But times change and so must blogs. Without trying to get all Spinal Tap on you, this is a new beginning for my Odyssey. Yeah it'll still be cuddly old Uncle Elwood, tapping out nonsense from his luxury penthouse overlooking Asda car park, but I'm gonna have to clean it up a bit. Sorry to all you anti-censorship types amongst you. But I don't particularly want to lose my job and my girlfriend on account of this silly little hobby. But despite that, The Odyssey returns. I give it 3 posts before I get bored again.

Post 394 - A Hard Day's Night.

2006-07-06T11:12:00.000+01:00

Well I don't really have much to report today, but I promised myself I was going to start writing this blog again, so I am going to try and come up with something at least mildly entertaining. Since I signed off yesterday's blog, all I have done is go to sleep, get up, go to work, drive home, and get back on the computer. Last night at work marked a red letter day for me. Or red letter night I suppose - the longest I've ever gone without doing any work. I've been training my replacement this week, which basically means I've just told him what to do while I sat and did nothing. On Monday night I did some of the jobs with him instead of just simply bossing him around. On Tuesday night I left him too it, but at least made a half-hearted attempt to clean the kitchen, and also dealt with a few customers. Last night upon entering the building at 11pm I went into the kitchen, took out my iPod and a book and sat down. My replacement ran round in circles around me, sweating like a cornered virgin as he rushed around preparing food, cleaning floors, answering phones, serving drinks, and doing all the other things I should have been doing. I remained stoic, static in my position, never looking up from my book or taking out my earphones. I moved twice, both times to go for a piss, a cigarette and a cup of coffee (killing 6 birds with 2 stones). My boss came through on a number of occasions to enquire what exactly I was doing, and each time the same thing happened - I replied "I'm reading a book", before averting my eyes back to the book and remaining silent. He stood in front of me for about a minute each time to see if I was going to say or do anything else, before shrugging his shoulders and going away again. At 4.30 he came through to me and told me that the breakfast chef hadn't turned up for work, and 15 people were about to come down for breakfast, and at that point I lit the grills and started cooking - a full five and a half hours into my shift before I lifted a finger. I was quite pissed off - I was aiming to go the whole eight.

I got a call at 10 this morning from my boss telling me that my replacement had requested a meeting with him after I left. He quit. Three shifts he lasted in his new position before deciding he didn't want the job anymore. I can't say I'm too concerned at the loss of my newest colleague. The department would never run properly with a lazy cunt like that on the team.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Horror Show" by The Libertines.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 393 - More Sights Of Aberdeen.

2006-07-05T12:43:00.000+01:00

This morning while driving home from work I saw a bag lady standing in the doorway of The Monkey House. She was wearing a Nevica jacket (old skool), a tartan skirt, cycling shorts and bright pink trainers. She wasn't really doing anything - just standing in the doorway watching pigeons. I watched the pigeons for a while as well, to see if I could see whatever it was that was engrossing her so, but after about 20 seconds I got bored and the light turned green and I never did find out why she was so interested in the pigeons. As I advanced down Union Street I glanced in my mirror a few times, and there she stood, just staring at the pigeons until she was just a little dot in my rear-view mirror. That was 4 hours ago, for all I know she's still standing there staring at them. Aberdeen's got some great resident nutters. From 'Chicken Man' aka 'Crazy Running Guy', who'll rake through the wheelie bins on Chapel Street and then actually stand in front of the bins trying to sell the stuff he found; to 'JoJo', the 6 foot, burly, bearded transvestite who walks around King Street wearing woman's clothing and heels but not bother shaving his legs, chest or face, and legend has it will boot the fuck out of anyone who stares at him; to 'Wullie The Tramp', who has been singing the same song for around three years - he got mugged the night before and he's 90p short of his bus fare back to Glasgow, though if the colour of the permanent vomit-stains on the front of his jumper (same jumper for three years) are anything to go by, it all goes on Special Brew; to the woman who hangs around King Street beside Pittodrie, shouting "AYE AYE" at passers-by, and then telling anyone who is foolish enough to respond how she used to get just enough money from the social every day to buy a packet of fags and a bottle of Irn Bru, which has now been stopped and as such you should now give her exactly the price of 20 fags and a bottle of Irn Bru; to the 'Lucky White Heather' woman who hangs around the Castlegate pinning bits of heather on people's jackets then administering gypsy curses when they refuse to give her £2; and who can forget this guy? He used to have long hair, but he's the guy that used to stand on Union Terrace every day in army gear with a sandwich board trying to drum up support for Scottish Indepedence. Form an orderly queue ladies. I wonder what tranforms these people from regular members of society into the kind of people who exist only to have schoolchildren throw half-eaten McDonalds burgers at them? Were they always nuts? Or did something happen to make them decide that one day they should start talking to teddy bears and go out wearing three jackets and a dressing gown?

Though I do enjoy running into the odd nutter in my daily travels around Aberdeen, the funniest thing I saw today happened just thirty short minutes ago when I nipped out to the Esso garage on Holburn Street to get some smokes. A woman pulling out of the garage forecourt in her Ford Escort stopped to give way to traffic. When the road was clear she indicated left and attempted to perform a simple 90 degree turn out of the forecourt and onto Holburn Street, yet somehow she completely fucked up the angle, oversteered it and drove straight into a wall, completely annihilating her front wing. Unsure what to do next, she simply attempted to drive forwards, and thus destroyed her passenger door as well. She got out of the car and inspected the damage she'd done to her car for a few minutes with a quizzical look on her face. Then she left the car where it was (still connected to the wall) went into the garage, bought a chocolate bar, got back in her car and drove off. I'm not one to make stale, clichéd woman driver jokes, but next time I see that annoying Sheila's Wheels advert, with the line "Women make the safest drivers, we can save a bunch of fivers", I'll be thinking about this incident, let me tell you.

Song currently stuck in my head - Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 392 - A Tale of Three Signs.

2006-07-04T09:42:00.000+01:00

Have you been in a bus shelter since the smoking ban came in? They all have these stickers on them now saying "This is a no-smoking zone. If you see someone smoking in this area you can make a complaint by calling Adshel on 0870whatever" Have you ever witnessed a more ridiculous sign? What the hell are Adshel going to do? Picture the scene. Some huge, mental looking weegie sparks up a Lammy Bammy in the bus shelter. A wee specky student twat standing next him takes offence.

Specky - "Excuse me, could you put your cigarette out please?"
Weegie - "Fuck off ya wee radge"
Specky - "That sign clearly states that this bus shelter, and the many others like it in the city are no-smoking zones. I must request you put out your cigarette now, or I shall be forced to call the complaint hotline on the sign"
Weegie " 'Way tae fuck"
Specky - *dialling* "Hello Adshel? There's a very rude and unpleasant man smoking in onoe of your bus shelters on Holburn Street. In Aberdeen. That's in Scotland. Please make him put it out. Yes I have asked him to extinguish it and I just got a string of profanities. He's clearly uneducated. OK yes I'll just pass him on"
*passes phone*
Weegie - "Hullo? Away tae fuck I'm no putting ma fag oot for nae cunt. 'Sfuckin rainin oot there. Pure pishin' it doon. What ye gonnae dae? Oh the police? Well how long's it gonnae take for them tae get here? By the time they get their arse oot o the donut shop I'll be on my bus and halfway hame. Smoking ban? Smoking ban ma arse. Oh haud on a minute darlin, ma bus is here. Gottae go. See ye later hen."
*hands phone back. finishes fag*

What a pointless excersise. That's just one of the things I've noticed from walking around Aberdeen in the last few days. Others being:

The "New Thai Palace" on Union Street is simply the Thai Palace with the word "New" added to the sign. Besides that it's exactly the same as before, inside and out.

The bendy buses all have signs saying "Please Alight Using The Rear Exit Door". But if you're stupid enough to stand at the rear exit door to try and get off, the driver simply drives off again without opening them and you end up going three stops further than you wanted to. And if you dare to question the driver about the rear door policy, he simply informs you that you should have stood at the front door.

Ho-hum.

Song currently stuck in my head - "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynrd Skynrd.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 391 - Why Do Only Fools and Horses Work?

2006-07-03T08:56:00.000+01:00

I do like writing my blog. I do. It's just that I seem to be doing loads of other things at the moment that leave me with little free time, so just get off my fucking back for a while OK!

I had the joy last night of training my replacement at work. Which of course means that I got him to do all the work while I sat on my ass drinking tea and smoking fags, occasionally offering advice or words of support, but more often reading the paper and doing the crossword. I love quitting jobs, because the closer it gets towards your leaving date, the farther you can push the boundaries of what you can get away with. An example of this from last night:

My manager - "Look, you have to come in an hour early on Saturday night" (this argument has been going on for a while)
Me - "I don't have to fucking do anything. I'll come in bang on my starting time and leave bang on my leaving time and not a minute more and you can't do anything about it"
My Manager - "You're bluffing. You'll be hear an hour early"
Me - "Well you say that, but come Saturday I think you might get a surprise"
My Manager - "You can go and read your contract, the bit where it says you are expected to work outwith your contracted hours if management deem it to be a reasonable request, which this is"
Me - "Yeah. but you can go and read in my contract the bit where it says that I'm leaving next week and I don't give a shit"
My Manager - "If you're not gonna come in early I'm gonna go and change the rotas for next week so you wont get the Monday night off that you asked for, and you'll leave on Wednesday instead of Friday and you'll lose two days pay"
Me - "Well if you want to do it like that, go change the rotas for next week, and I'll go and get my coat now and I'll just call this my last night shall I? That way you have to cover my shifts all weekend and you don't get to go to T in the Park"

I also timed myself to see how long I could go for without actually doing any work, at all, and I clocked up a quite amazing 2 hours 45 minutes of consecutive downtime. Add to that the various other spells of nothingness I did during my 8 hour shift and I reckon I did about 3 hours work last night. Quite a feat. And here's a little secret for you Mr Manager, should you happen to be reading, you bell-end. Mr "Management think you're too irresponsible / they're not bothered that you're leaving / you're too unreliable and you make too many mistakes / management have no faith in your abilities" - this may come as a shock. When you handed in your notice last month as a little one-man protest, and the bosses didn't bother trying to talk you out of quitting, or even ask why, they offered me your job for a significantly higher salary than you get for doing it. And I told them to fuck off! So stick that up your ass!

Song currently stuck in my head - "Andy, You're a Star" by The Killers.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 390 - Porn.

2006-06-21T08:31:00.002+01:00

Did anyone ever watch a cartoon back in the 80s named Roger Ramjet? I'd forgotten all about it until Chris Moyles mentioned it this morning and it all came flooding back. Immediately upon hearing the name again, I decided that if I were ever to become a porn star, that would be my name - Roger Ramjet. It works on no less than three levels (count 'em). Sadly, the only pornos I've ever starred in have been grainy, low-budget home-made affairs, but I've got an idea for a blockbuster that I could definitely sell to the porn industry bigwigs. Take my scrawny body, unexceptional penis size, questionable technique and lack of staying power, and you've got the most unlikely of porn stars. Now picture the trailers. White Men Can't Hump starring Roger Ramjet. Yeah baby. Is it too soon to whisper Oscar?

Post 389 - Holidays

2006-06-19T08:53:00.003+01:00

There's been a big messy dog turd on the kerb beside my house for about three weeks now, and every morning I manage to accidentally park right next to it, meaning I have to nimbly hop from my car to the pavement to avoid treading in it and trailing shit thoughout all the carpets in my house. I remember one time a good few years ago, walking down a street in Fraserburgh with some friends and coming across one of the biggest dog eggs I've ever seen in my life - seriously, I wouldn't like to cross whatever hell-beast shat out that colossus of crap, cos that must have been the kind of mutt big enough to consume a small child whole. My mate was wearing a spanking new pair of Doc Marten boots and he decided it would be a really good idea to jump as high in the air as he could and come crashing down with both feet right in the centre of the gigantic jobbie. What convinced him that would be a good idea is anyone's guess, but there may have been illicit substances involved. But he did it, much to the disgust/humour in equal parts to the people who were with us. Both feet landed squarely in about an inch deep of the dog shit. And it was funny - until he realised hw had to A) walk all the way home with his new boots quite literally caked in dog shit, and B) clean them. I really hate shit. I can clean up piss, puke, blood et al without batting an eyelid, but I really hate shit. You'd think a guy with such a penchant for poop-chute passion would have built up a resistance to it, but alas, although I'll happilly stab it, I still really hate shit.

Anyway, I don't know what the fuck that story had to do with anything - I'm realy tired and I'm a really weird mood. Though a happy one - I've spent the whole night at work singing Elton John at the top of my lungs and being extra-nice to everyone, even the fat, ugly, smelly tattooed Geordie bastards that I usually have such disdane for. Perhaps it's the knowledge that I'm quitting the job, or it could be something else, but I'm in high spirits today. The only thing bringing me down is that I realised with horror this weekend that the timing of my new job just couldn't possibly be worse. I start at the end of July, and I was planning to book the holiday to Ibiza for the beginning of August. I just simply cannot ask for a week off from work in the first month of starting a new job, and Ibiza winds down at the end of August and goes into the close season, at which point it's not worth visiting because everything's closed. This was going to be my one last hurrah before I get stuck into the 9-5 proper, working for the man and brown-nosing my way up the ladder. One last week of sun, sex, and spazzing out on the dancefloor, waving my arms and legs around like an excited Down's syndrome kid. A week of worshipping the gods: Judge Jules, Erick Morillo, and Dave Pearce - visiting the holy chapels: Manumission, Pacha and Eden: and drinking the holy water, which I've paid 8 euros for a bottle of in the bar. Now sadly that looks to have gone tits up, and that's traumatised me more than the time I accidentally came in my own mouth. All work and no play makes Elwood a dull boy. What's a starry-eyed goon to do?

Song currently stuck in my head - "Us" by Regina Spektor.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk

Post 388 - Job.

2006-06-17T15:23:00.002+01:00

Did anybody see the Argentina game yesterday? Fuck me, what a performance. I watched the game with one of my best mates, a guy from Argentina who’s teeming with typical South American passion, and he celebrated each of their 6 goals as though they had just won the World Cup. I really hope I’m not around him if they get knocked out. Especially if they get knocked out by Brazil. You think Scotland and England hate each other? You just try asking an Argentinean how they feel about Brazilians.

I’m feeling a bit ropey this morning. After the game yesterday I went to the pub with Lucius Shitface and got pretty smashed on beer and cider. I woke up in my usual position – fully dressed on the sofa, though thankfully without a cheeseburger attached to my ass this time. I had reason to celebrate last night. I got a call yesterday morning, offering me the position that I was interviewed for last week. Yes, the one I almost fell asleep in. I’m not sure how I pulled that off, but 4 weeks from now I’ll be joining up with the 9-5 world, getting paid a massive 1p an hour more than in my current job, and best of all, I don’t have to deal with the fucking public any more. No more arrogant oil executive wankers asking me “Do you know how much money I’ve spent in here tonight?”, No more uptight businesswomen telling me that “This service just isn’t good enough”. Well guess what, I’m not your servant, bitch. And no more fat, ugly, tattooed, drunken Geordie scaffolders stinking up the place and moaning about some boring old shite. No more making lasagne at 3 o’clock in the morning. No more refusing people alcohol and getting abuse for it. No more incompetent managers fucking things up and leaving me to deal with it. It’s fair to say that the only thing I’m going to miss about that job is wanking in the disabled toilet every night. However, provided my new job has a disabled toilet, then I think I’ve made the right move.

Song currently stuck in my head – The brilliant “Who Knew” by Pink, one of the best pop records I’ve heard in a long time.
elwoodsodyssey@hotmail.co.uk