Put down the receiver and move away from the phone....

Some people just don’t get it do they? You know, that mental line drawn in the sand where sanity ends and a Hitchcock thriller begins.

Some years ago after an argument with an old girlfriend, I left and went to stay at a mates gaff. I can’t really remember what I'd done to upset her, maybe I'd been whistling on a Tuesday or something but whatever it was, it was heinous enough for her to call me on my mobile phone.

After the seventh non answered call I put the phone on silent, placed it on top of the TV (I wasn’t going to miss throwing scatter cusions at Jamie Oliver for no one) and laid bets with a mate when she would get the hint and stop calling……

Needless to say, we both lost the bet as my mobile’s battery went flat on her 35^th attempt…

THIRTY FIVE…. That’s three tens and five units in pre-school money. I’m no psychologist, and I don’t have any formal mental health qualifications that would sooth the dangerously bewildered…… but I do know a loony when it drains my mobile’s battery.

The reason I’m recounting this incident is that the woman concerned has repeated the same act of madness…. Not on me of course, but on another more recent boyfriend… admittedly the bloke in question has no sense of humour, stature, or indeed the ability to shave his own gibbon like body to hide his geographically challenged upbringing.

The result is that this woman was arrested last Tuesday for harassment.

I HAVEN'T STOPPED LAUGHING SINCE

Poles apart...

Two pictures of the same electric pole seperated by 21 years.

I think there's only 2 people who know where it is.

Zimbardo has his knickers in a twist….

Some of you know that I was a participant in a televised experiment back in 2002. For those who don’t here's a quick explanation….

Back in the 1970’s a top psychology bloke devised an experiment which involved a mock up of a prison (within a university) some students as prison guards and some as prisoners. He was interested in the inequality of groups and how it all worked… … to cut a long story short, after 6 days it all had to be stopped as the guards were giving the prisoners a hard time. It’s better known as the Stanford Prison Experiment and the psychology bloke is Philip G. Zimbardo….

As you can tell, I know nothing about psychology….. being able to spell it is good enough for me.

Anyhow, because of the extreme nature of his experiment Zimbardo decided that the experiment should never be repeated again and his findings will therefore have to be gospel forever more….. which comes in really handy if you want to sell countless books on group psychology for the rest of your working life.

Whiz forward about 30 years and you get two Psychology professors who are up for a repeat of the Stanford Prison Experiment except this time they would put some safeguards in so no one got too upset or there arses sued.

This is the bit where I come in……

While surfing the BBC website looking for interesting things to watch that evening I came across a web advert for a TV program. It basically wanted people to apply to the BBC for a “Reality” type program. I applied thinking nothing of it….. Few weeks later I get a phone call asking me to pop down to the BBC and have a chat with some nice people. After many hours of filling in psycho forms & stuff I was eventually told I’d been selected as one of the 15 participants in “The Experiment”. I ended up being a prisoner….. and no, I didn’t end up in the showers with Mr Big.

It’s been four years since the TV program (BBC’s “The Experiment”, 4 one hour episodes) and not really heard a lot from anyone… until this week. I had an email from Professor Alex Haslam asking how I was. He and his colleagues have put together a few papers on the experiment and had some interesting comments from Zimbardo who seems to have got his knickers in a right twist about the whole thing. It makes for some very interesting reading, although most of the “science” is well beyond me.

Vague....

Well, I didn’t have my laptop with me did I.... and I really cant be arsed to sit on the rickety chair in front of my main PC and be creative.... So I just left it.

A lot had apparently happed in the last week, although I'm in no mood to discuss much of it right now... Lethargy… L E T H A R G Y… but I will, I guess.

So Thursday evening the bike club put on a “First On Scene” course…. I really cant be arsed to go into details… It’s not that its dull or not important, its just……. I cant be arsed, It’s a Monday you see, and I’m on call, and my heart is still missing beats every now & again…again*

I had a few tickets to go see some TV sitcom being recorded somewhere…..I’m really not with it today…. Anyhow, this TV sitcom….. written by that bloke who wrote Father Ted… I had no idea who the actors were, I cant be arsed to read the flyer, type them out and possibly put links in to other stuff they may have done…. I remember laughing at some bits……but the ache in my arse became so bad…..we were there too long…. My heart was missing the odd beat here and there…..again.

I guess I need to apologise to Pete, Kath and Pat. I just could not be arsed with it all. I’d forgotten to get cash for the pub and…. talking to people becomes the first casualty of my decent into “cant be arsed” –ness. Even though an explanation seems the thing to give, I just cant be arsed….. It’s not because I don’t care, I just cant be arsed right now

It really is as simple as that.

* apparently the quack thinks my irregular heatbeat is nothing to worry about........ it could be down to stress, too much coffee, heroine addiction or perhaps I've got NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN RUN TO THE FECKING DOCTORS WITH SOME IMAGINARY COMPLAINT...... At least, thats how he makes me feel whenever I go in there.... I could complain, but I cant be arsed.

In this place.....

You never really leave home. Physically you may get in the car, on a bus or train with ya bags packed, but mentally, you never leave.

Sometimes, when I feel the need, I mentally walk into 3 George Avenue. I time travel back to those days when I really thought my life would never change. I guess I never wanted it to change….

I can walk upto that huge green wooden gate, left hand over the press down latch, right hand on the corner of the gate ready to lift it slightly as my thumb brings the latch up. So, many, details.

Visually check how deep the puddle is next to the kitchen extension, I go down one step, around the corner to my left towards the front door.

A quick glance to the left through the window, see if I can see me mar in the kitchen…, glance to the right where the dog kennel is, if the dogs are in there, then there’s no-one at home…. then onto the front door.

Sometimes, I just stand there… mentally… knowing that this whole scene exists nowhere else except inside me, no one else can see me, no one else knows about this.

I visualise a “Matrix” style 360 degree third person spin…. The kitchen extension, the front door, bathroom window, the dog kennel, coal house. I can see it in all weathers, dry, wet, covered in 4 feet of snow…. My brothers Honda 125, on its stand flickers in and out the picture like a scene from the original “Time Machine” film

This time I won’t go inside. I’ll leave it for now. There’s a myriad of memories behind that door, every one of them a scene that has me captivated as I try to analyse and make sense of it all

The song in my head right now is Big Country’s “In This Place”….

Angelina escapes for the last time.....

Last Sunday morning, in the early hours the hamster escaped for the last time. Why the last time you ask? well, she's packed her bags and vanished. Nothing has been heard from her, search parties have been despatched, helicopters scrambled and blood hounds released.

All to no avail.... vanished.

Logically, there are only a few possibilities as to where she has gone.... She's has either found a way out of the flat (possibly through the floor to the flat downstairs or an open door) or she is slowly decomposing behind some inaccessible kitchen unit.

My money is on the later, although there's no tell-tail smell as yet.... maybe she's being mummified, who knows.

Anyhow, as a loving, caring father of a wonderful five your old I did the decent thing and lied through my teeth and said Angelina preferred the outdoors and is now living in a council approved commune somewhere in Hartlepool where sawdust is free and safe bedding rains down every evening.

So, we now have another Hamster. This one is white, called "Snowy" and is fitted with a ball & chain.

Get off my telly....

This post is influenced by a comment I received by Pete Moore about abuse from minor celebrities…

Pete said...

Lynam called you a wanker? For doing a three-point turn? Well! My estimation of the man has certainly taken a turn downhill.

I've never been sworn at by a minor celebrity.

But I do shout "fuck off you annoying twat" at the TV whenever Howard the Halifax Building Society Man appears.

So, here is a list of the personalities that over time have annoyed me for various reasons and result in things being lobbed at the telly.

Jamie Oliver: No one has ever incited me to mindless violence more than this abomination to the human race. From his first TV appearance as the Naked Chef the fat tongued burger flipper has annoyed me. His piss-pot helmet and cheap twist-and-go (to hospital) moped and banister sliding antics just distract the audience from his poor hygiene and shoddy cooking abilities. To bolster his flagging career he’s sickenly chosen Children’s schools meals to champion. He made such a song and dance about it he’s managed to take an admittedly poor service and bankrupt it as most schools have had to cancel lengthy catering contracts with huge penalty costs. “Pucker mate, lovely jubbly”

Ted Rodgers: This fat jowled presenter of the atrocious game show 321 would have me foaming at the mouth during the mid 80’s. How many times did I want to break his stumpy little fingers as he mocked the nation by showing off his ability to do the 321 finger salute….. anyhow, he’s dead now.







Denise Van Outen: Denise suffers from an acute misguided belief in her own self importance and good looks.










Ainsley Harriott: Another burger flipper…. I don’t really dislike Ainsley at all, although he is nothing more than a cook and does big-up his part but I guess that comes with the territory of someone with very little talent. What really gets on my tits is his unfeasibly large grin…. With a bit of luck, one of these days the top of his head will come off while exhibiting his basking-shark like gape.




So, who gets on your tits?

Desmond Lynam called me a......

.....WANKER

Yes, it's true... Des Lynam called me a wanker.

I was doing a three point turn in Putney, holding up the traffic (well, there was just one car waiting). When I finished the driver of the car that was waiting wound his window down and shouted "wanker" at me..... thats was Des that was.

Has any irate minor celebrities shouted obscenities at you?

The Trouble With Tribbles.....

Scatter Cushions

I personally don’t understand them. I don’t think any man understands them. What are they for?

Certainly not to aid comfort, I always end up having to lob them off the expensive sofa I’m still paying for from a previous relationship.

Scatter cushions only hinder a mans life, they eat remote controls, they adore soup and animal hairs and seem to come in colours men cant see (don’t believe me? Then try an explain Mauve to any male with a modicum of testosterone).

They multiply quicker than Carol Vorderman (remember The Trouble With Tribbles?) and even invade the bedroom where they try to become one with the pillows. Why do we put up with them? We spend hours and hours being dragged from one tedious Sofa World warehouse to the next…. Sitting on thousands of cushion-less sofas until she decides what your opinion will be and how many years debt you should go for. You wait for 3 months while your extortionately priced sofa is stapled together outta two wooden pallets and upholstered with the skin of dead dogs only to have it obscured by lumpy glow-in-the-dark soup sponges.

I have no idea where I’m going with this…… I’ll get me coat.

Latest Score: Sofa's 3 Delmonti 0

After 24 years of being abused by women I decided to opt out of the “must have a wife, child, white picket fence” idea and file it away under “Marketting Bullshit”.

It’s just that for me, it’s unobtainable… or should I say, the end game is unobtainable, you know, the “…and everyone lived happily ever after” bit.
I seem to have no problem with the getting married, joint mortgage, huge amounts of debt for soft furnishings and electrical goods part of it… That comes rather easily. The trouble usually starts with the women in my life deciding that living in a safe, secure and relatively happy lifestyle is just not enough. That’s ok, these things happen. You brush yaself off, and start again….. or do you?
How often is this supposed to happen? How many houses do you purchase? how many TV’s DVD players and sofa’s are needed before you eventually find someone who can be satisfied with their lot?

Of course, it’s not the material possessions that matter, given an infinite amount of living on the breadline most crippling debts can be paid off. What takes its toll is the emotional side of things. Eventually, you become disillusioned. Thinking that you may be trying too hard, or perhaps there’s other more intricate problems which you’re missing?….. It can seriously feck your head up.

I must of spent over 13 years trying to evaluate where I’ve gone wrong…. I mean, it must be me who’s wrong….right?

Well, the answer is….. No…. I’m not the one at fault here. I don’t shag around. I don’t smack people around, I don’t piss all my money up the wall or gamble my house away and I’ve never lost a job to the evils of drugs……

So, in the interests of sanity and the fact I can no longer sustain woman-kinds need for white goods, half the house and part ownership in the dog I’ve decided to hang my happy-sacks out to dry.

“People……. It’s been emotional”