It’s the End… But the Moment Has Been Prepared For…

Right, I’m off then.

Hello? ANYONE STILL HERE? Well, if you give a toss, I am now here : http://neuroticworld.blogspot.com/

Bye.

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Out With the Old

No, I’m not advocating euthanasia for the over 70s, just giving the heads-up that this blog will shortly be closing down…

But fear not loyal reader (I’m pretty sure you’ve all buggered off long ago, but one never knows), a new blog will spring phoenix-like from the ashes of this pile of arse and a link will be provided…

“But why?” you whisper through your tears… Well, if I told you that I’d be explaining myself, wouldn’t I? Where’s the fun in that?

Adios amigos.

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Happy New Year

I had an interesting Christmas and New Year – haven’t been so pissed since much younger years, it definitely helped the fortnight to pass with ease.

On New Year’s Eve I somehow managed to drench the dog in sherry and then set fire to him… I’ve seen him more impressed… Still, Happy New Year eh?

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Brave New World

And so December arrives and most of the UK freezes under snow and ice… except here. In this little corner of the island we have seen nary a flake. I’m not loving the Siberian winds though.

Life is changing for me, strange and unexpected things have happened this year which have pushed me off course and into unplanned-for territory. Still, it all keeps me on my toes, eh? No details required here, suffice to say, ummm, I don’t really know what’s going to happen next! Finally, I am dragged kicking and screaming into something approaching the ‘real world’, perhaps it will be my friend…

Went out accidentally last Saturday night. I’m not really much of a social animal, but on the few ocassions when I do actually brave the outside world it is planned and usually goes without a hitch in a very civilised and enjoyable manner. So when my manager invited me to his ‘birthday party’ at 5pm in the afternoon when I was due to work till 8 then go home and shake off the day I was very surprised to find myself saying “Yeah, ok”. Of course I changed my mind about 17 times over the next hour but was persuaded by my work colleague it might be fun so we knocked off early and at 8.30 I was breezing through the door of a local hostelry, anticipating a couple of hours of inane chatter and a gentle stroll home. By 11pm I was asking myself why I just hadn’t said ‘no’ in the first place.

A few background facts which are important to the telling of this story :  The person whose ‘birthday party’ I was attending is an alcoholic. It was a birthday party in the loosest possible sense – some of the girls at work invited the manager (who we will call Tom from here onwards) to meet them in the pub at 9pm for a ‘birthday surprise’. The people who organised the ‘party’ are all Polish.

So, there was chatter, merriment and consumption of beers and spirits. Tom was already very, very drunk and enjoyed wearing his birthday present – a red bobble hat with a sherrifs badge on the front – a little too much. His other present was two small bottles – one containing black liquid, one white. It was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. The Poles informed me that both liquids were highly illegal Polish alcohol, one of them being 95% proof. So we stood them both in the middle of the table and talked about them loudly. At this point, one of the girls produced a large bottle of Polish vodka from her bag and we all toasted Tom with delicious vodka and apple juice. Tom refused the apple juice, apparently only ‘pansies’ water down any kind of alcohol. This was all fairly amusing until Tom reached across to the vodka bottle and finished the remaining two thirds in one gulp. I could see the evening was about to veer swiftly towards disaster with very few opportunities to get out and run home crying along the way…

Sure enough, half an hour later Tom was on the floor of a different pub with me and a strapping Polish lad called Marcin trying to lift his dead weight into a chair. That took several minutes. It took about another half hour to get the pissed fucker out of the chair and into a taxi. The taxi driver took one look at the sack of human we were dragging from the bar and said “No way mate!” . Luckily the rest of us were fairly sober and I managed to convince the cabbie we would look after him.

It had taken us a very long time to find out Tom’s address, he sounded like he had a mouth full of lego and seemed to have forgotten what words are for. Eventually we got there. With two girls supporting him I found myself on his front path, on the edge of a busy main road, running my fingers through his trouser pockets to find his keys. With my eyes tight shut and my teeth clenched. When I did find them and got the door open I fumbled around the wall inside for a light switch. No switch. I used the light from my mobile to scan the wall for switches – none. Casting the light about it looked like I was standing in a landfill site and I fell and stumbled over strange shapes strewn across the floor until I got to the light switch which was, bizarrely, across the other side of the room.

The light illuminated a sorry scene, Tom’s house is a disaster. We were gobsmacked. Every available surface was piled high with junk, bags, papers and crap, the floor was covered, the same in every room – the kitchen looked like nothing had been washed up for years and the crusted plates and crockery piled on every surface and some on the floor. I actually found myself hiding his birthday presents in case he came round and gulped at one of the small bottles of Polish poison. We poured him into his sofa and I put the TV on for him to watch. The whole time he was completely vacant, vaguely opposing us whenever we tried to move him and muttering completely unintelligible sounds and babbling like a tiny child might. I got him water and we had to try and convince him it was vodka before he would drink it. I don’t think he actually drinks any liquid other than alcohol.

More things happened, things unsavoury and connected with the politics at work, things I have no wish to transcribe as they would be meaningless unless you work in the same place as me. I ended up, hours later, walking one of my colleagues home in the bitter cold having left Tom unconscious on his sofa pointed at the telly. We had debated whether or not someone should stay with him but no-one could bear to stay in the house any longer so we left him to it.

Next day he didn’t show up. ‘Great’, I thought, ‘we’ve killed the boss.’ Needless to say, Tom’s system is one gigantic alcohol sponge and after he had been texted and called a few times he decided to respond at 5pm to say he was in the middle of a pub pool tournament and not to be disturbed. You couldn’t make it up. And I haven’t.

The aftermath of the politics side of things is currently unfolding at work, I’m keeping my distance – it’s all very boring but people will be people.

It has been many years since I was in a position like Tom during a night out, and he is older than me so I feel a mixture of sorrow and contempt for him. He is the way he is, and alcoholism is a terrible all-consuming thing – but until he either decides to try and sort it out or it kills him he will continually be a burden to others who have to clean up after him and baby him. 2 hours of Saturday night were about having a good time, the other 4 were spent trying to simply take a grown man in his late 40s half a mile home to bed. And he hasn’t even apologised.

Ah well. Nearly Christmas…

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Happy Anniversary! Phweeeep!

Blimey, I started this crap two years ago today, where does the time go?

Befitting the 1st of June in the UK it rained continually from dawn to about 2pm and has been dark and cold all day.  My childhood was in the 70s when we had several long, hot summers in a row, thus my default expectation for summer is long, hot days for weeks on end. I’ve been living in a state of continual disappointment since 1979.

Still, that’s the British way I’m told. General disappointment. Expect the worst and anything else is a bonus! What a misrable bunch of cynicists.

Here’s to a good summer!

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The Landscape Is Changing

Deep breath. Ok, I’ll try again…

Not quite sure why I haven’t posted on here in a year… no-one seems to have noticed though. Which is nice.

So, what’s been happening? Not a lot, another year older, another year stupider. I did change jobs though, I finally got it right and left a really crappy job for a really good one. Not financially speaking, the salary’s the same as my last job, but the job itself is interesting, the people are great, the company which runs the place is employee-friendly and my working hours are bloody superb. If I tell you any more I’ll have to kill you. Suffice to say I’m in a happier headspace than I have been for years. Whatever that means.

The header picture for my blog is not a nuclear explosion. It’s a summer sunrise over the landscape I walk the dog in every morning. It’s a bit flat and tree-light for my own tastes but I never take it for granted, I could never live in a city – I know, I’ve tried. Without nearby green and peace and fresh air and wildlife I would go insane. So I’m not entirely over the moon about the currently approved plans to turn the above picture into a bypass and housing estates… Luckily the current recession has put the project on hold but it will one day resurface and then my beloved fields of green will be gone forever. When the time comes perhaps I’ll do an Arthur Dent and lie down in front of the bulldozers…

Take a long look Mr J, soon all this will be gone...

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Invasion Cancelled Due To Lack Of Insects

I just wrote a massive post to celebrate my return after a full year of non-blogging but it remains forever in my head now ‘cos the computer ate it and I’m not writing all that out again. So there.

See you May 25th 2011…

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Invertebrate Invasion

We have been told by ‘experts’ that there is a high probability that we’ll have a blistering summer this year. I remain unconvinced. If it does get into ‘Phew-What a Scorcher’ territory though I reckon we’ll all be seeing a full scale insect assault this year.

On what do I base this theory, you ask, agog… well, we’ve had one hot summer day so far and on that day I was systematically invaded by small, frightening things.

Let’s get one thing straight – I am generally not worried by creeping crawling things. I’m the one at work usually called on to eject unwanted bees/wasps/spiders/beetles as I am happy to scoop offending critters up and chuck them out of windows – hey, they have a right to live too, yeah? (Tokes on huge joint, hugs nearest tree) BUT, I do have to draw the line somewhere. So when I was sitting, relaxing in a chair in my garden yesterday and I heard what sounded like the approach of a small helicopter I was somewhat unsettled.

This… THING… flew into view round the shed. It was a sparrow-sized wasp and it was heading straight for me. Before I knew what I was doing I was inside slamming every window and wondering if I was ever going to get the stains out of my underwear. It was a queen hornet and it was scoping out the shed for a good nest site. Not good. Y’see, hornets are not only bloody huge but they defend their nests with extreme agression. I’ve never even seen one before, but this one’s quite determined and it’s bloody put the shits up me, as Churchill once said. It’s been back a couple of times since. I managed to nervously spray fly killer through a crack in the shed door, it came straight out and went at me again causing me to flail, yell and dance like a twat. Bastard. I’ll scare it off yet, er, somehow. Anyone got a flamethrower I could borrow?

Also had a bloody huge spider run across the floor of the lounge. Again, they don’t usually bother me but this was like an eight-legged mouse and it ran like a muther straight towards me. I’m ashamed to say I squeaked and threw my legs into the air like a girly. What is it – do I smell nice to these things? Or are they launching some kind of vengeance attack for all the woodlice I ate as a child? The dog rescued me from the spider, then backed off as it had second thoughts and I deftly got a glass over it and hoiked it out the back door. (Actually I took it to the very end of the garden and threw it over the neighbour’s fence, just in case)

Mark my words. The advance party is here and the main invasion force is coming… Get your cupboards full of spray and big flyswats – you’ll be thanking me by September, but keep your guard up – what do you think the crane-flies have been doing for the past few years? Amassing, that’s what. The skies will be black, you’ll have them in your ears, up your nose, twitching their evil little legs at you as they bumble into your face…

THE INSECTS ARE COMING!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post sponsered by Raid(TM)

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TITS!!!

April was certainly a month of TITS for me.

I saw great TITS, blue TITS, coal TITS, long-tailed TITS and even some ladies TITS. On the telly. Once.

 

Sorry, I just wanted to shout TITS a bit. Springtime can do odd things to a man, you know?

 

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BUBO!

For several years now I have had a small sebaceous cyst on my chest. he’s been a jolly little feller, just sitting there like a big old lumpy spot thing, itching from time to time, never any real bother… Until the weekend.

I had a bloody fun weekend actually. Straight from work to a mate in Southampton on Friday evening, much imbibing of naughty things and much talking of bollocks, as a Friday evening should be. Up on Saturday at 7.30 to take a couple of lurchers and a mad sheepdog for a long walk through huge woods blanketed with bluebells in the dappled light of a rising sun.. mmm…

We had a mighty breakfast of farm-fresh bacon, eggs, toast and beans (ok, they might not have been particularly farm-fresh, but if you KNOW of any fucking baked beans farms please feel free to correct me). Anyway, it was bloody ace. More imbibing, more talking-of-bollockness and then return to home, big bath and… FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?

As I removed my shirt a mighty red swollen ball emerged, blinking, into the light. Instant panic, my benign little cyst has become INFECTED! Yesterday it was a friendly little conjoined twin, suddenly it’s a GARGANTUAN, SUPPURATING BUBO!!!

Naturally I decided not to go to the doctor. I have, somehow, managed to live for 44 years without anyone ever taking a knife to me and for some strange reason I’m quite keen to keep going for as long as I can without someone CUTTING me. Yes. Don’t want to be cut.

(Of course, I’ve probably just set myself up for some kind of awful yet hilariously ironic death now)

So. I applied germoline, dressed it and tried to deny its existence. The feeling of adhesive tape continually tugging at my chest hair was a bit of a reminder (yes, ladies, I am most hirsute about the chest and body. Sadly due to some genetic cock-up my body hair ALL looks like pubes. I don’t know who’s responsible for this, but if I ever get my hands on them…)

Today I removed the dressing. Now, there may be some readers of a nervous disposition so I will spare the the details. Suffice to say, it looks a lot better. Of course, for a large, swollen, skin-straining ball of pus to ‘look a lot better’ there’s really only one course of action for it to take. It’s got to lose the pus. Usually this happens by the skin-stretching ball of pus becoming a skin-splitting ball of pus. I’ll let your imaginations fill in the details. One point of interest though – it looked like melted toffee.

So, now it sits upon my chest, itching like a mofo and seeping gently. My little friend. I’ve called him Malcolm. We’re going to have such fun together… 

Hey, itching’s a good sign, right..?

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