And now for your regular scheduled program.

Hello!

Hoo boy, it's been a while. There has been a huge amount of what people from the ninety's (nineties?) would call 'funk' (the bad kind) in my life this past while and it's put a cramp in my proverbial and non-existent style. One event shall not be mentioned here, but others will include:

• I moved house
• I changed job
• I was reading through another blog and website, and drunkenly got inspiration to restart my stupid, non consequential blog.

Anyway. What's been going on... Oh yeah! These past few months, namely eight of those said months, have been spent writing a book. I've sent it to someone who will hopefully be very kind and will not savage it as a household cat would maul an innocent shrew (you need a cat or a pair of cats in a rural setting to 'get' this metaphor) who will forward it to other kind people who will print it in paper form called a 'book'. Then he will give me a cheque for fifteen million pounds and I will buy the solid gold Rolls-Royce I've always dreamt of.

If you're wondering, I have had more than one pint of alcohol to drink tonight. hello

It's been a strange few months; from going to the regimented environment of my mother's flat in sunny-middle England to a top-floor hovel in a what is essentially a fairly pleasant hole in the ground filled with drunken polish men has been a huge adjustment. I can now, for example, walk around in nothing but an off-white pair of tighty-wighties without having to answer to 'the Man', but having to cook and God help me, clean for myself has been a terrible burden. How do people do it? Lucky for me I'm a hard working diligent human being* that can meet these hurdles with ease, employing my incredible physique** and towering intellect*** to overcome these tasks.

As for leisure activities, I went mountain biking in Wales with a good mate of mine recently, and I did a skid. I may have done a jump, but this needs to be corroborated with a third party to confirm. It was awesome, and I got absolutely, completely, soaked. It was gross.

But then I did another skid.

I'm sure that I will speak in more detail in future, but I am, in the term of a Californian writer, 'lit up' and in no position to talk. Good night, and hello

*Not true
**So damn not true; I resemble a hessian sack filled with cake mixture, which has been beat with an oak branch to resemble a vague mockery of a human being
***so unbelievably true, I am currently being thrashed with police baton for this lie, which carries a sentence of twenty years of thrashing.

Envelopes.

Envelopes.

My life is envelopes. Are you an envelope? I can't see through my folded paper eyes any more. But I can smell them now. I can taste them.

I'm on to you.
Envelope.

Today I packed and sealed one thousand, four hundred and fifty eight envelopes. In a row. I tried to eat my lunch, and between each granary roll lay an envelope covered in a thin layer of mayonnaise. It was rough, and it dried my mouth to eat them, but I did, choked down each cheerily designed slice of tender paper. Opening my fizzy drink, the fsssssst of the surging bubbles took me by surprise and droplets of water spat from the lid and fluttered and floated down toward the ground, landing as little rectangles of paper. Bending down to inspect them closer, I saw.

Envelopes.

After work, I handed my temporary worker's envelope to the kind woman behind the reception counter. She fluttered at me, her wide and gaping mouth spewing forth an invoice for £3.63. I exited the building and walked across the car park, stifling hot in my too-small shirt. I unbutton it- agh, paper cut. Getting into the car, the music that issued from my speakers was a, a rustling, and brown windowed squares flew from the air vents.

I drive, harrowed, my mind filled with a papery voice, offering a 31 day payment plan. Final notice, it said. The sun, a huge white rectangle looming on the horizon, was setting onto the brown fields. I pulled up to my envelope, and opened the flap.

I fell inside. I sit here now, on the TOTAL TO PAY line, gazing up at NEVER-END PENCILS x 15 £51.99, and I type, my fingers rutted and bleeding from each razor-sharp key press.

Tonight I will wrap myself up, and fold over the covers, my face pressed against the thin clear window. Did someone lick the adhesive glue? I see the flap close, slowly, slowly. I panic, mind filled with strange noises and the skchcreeeee of jamming franking machines.

My fear peaks; I am unable to move.

I am an invoice for eight thousand CARD- PINK units priced at £4.37 each.

The envelope closes.

Rizla's and Supermarket Brand Lager

I've come to understand that my life is actually quite boring.

I know, I know, you must have spat your brandy all over the monitor at this ridiculous statement, but it's true. Since moving back to Bath and not being at work all day has meant that I have been spending a lot of time just sat about, and no amount of cycling through some very pleasant countryside each day will stop me resembling a steak that's been boiled for four hours and is now just a grey, sweating lump of gristle.

"Wonderful" I figured to myself at first, smiling coyly; this will give me plenty more time to write and generally be a better human being, get all my paperwork in order and after several weeks, will emerge with eighteen best-selling novels, each one a scathing indictment of the various nuances of the Latvian eel trade. As I step into the street, my chiselled abs and 'glutes' (?) will glisten in the spring sun and a helicopter will arrive, and who should step from it? Mr. President! Why yes, it would be wonderful, but I can't become president now, there are too many lives to save. I would jump onto my chrome-plated Honda Goldwing, whack a bit of Journey on and speed away. I will then proceed to do not one, but two back flips.

Instead, a small trench has formed in the carpet, with coincides precisely the track to the fridge I take to cram something else down my face. I will open up some Documents, and look at them. Maybe for about twenty minutes or so. I will then open Firefox. I will then admonish myself for doing so, and close it again. Repeat until 5pm.

Unemployment, I have decided, is not for me. There is only so many times I can look at the front page of DeviantArt and be mildly disgusted with what I find there (Having just done so, I have seen three pictures, each one the rendition of a cartoon pony getting railed by something else. Hmm.).

This, now, has got me thinking about the art world. If I were in a position of responsibility, certain pictures you see on that website will cause me to frown, and find this persons address. Maybe check the shed, maybe the basement.

For torsos.

Time for some world class art and scathing political commentary go:

Note to any prospective news publications: I have a million of these, just email me. I've got it covered.

Let us never be that way again.

I am writing this at 07:30 hours on a Thursday morning from work. It is grey outside.

Trying to get to sleep last night resulted in my mapping in great detail what my ceiling looks like. Like a certain other act that will not be mentioned here I spent an hour preparing, getting keyed up for getting into bed and after all that, all that work, nothing happened. I spent six hours being increasingly frustrated with myself, angrily checking my clock, daring it to be later than I wanted it to be, and I managed to get to sleep about three hours ago.

I do not enjoy the company of my brain anymore. We have stopped talking and are avoiding one another in the house, it childishly huffing its way out of the kitchen when I walk in there etc. Grow up. It knows it’s in the wrong here but just won’t admit it, and it’s pathetic to watch. I’m going to suggest we start seeing other people.

A little while I got it into my head to watch all those films that people keep talking about, so I resolved to spend an evening drinking and have my world rocked and I finally got around to watching Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, which is the best film I have seen in a very long time; I gasped, I laughed and I had something in my eye in the- yes, that bit. After this, having fortified myself with classy cider that comes in glass bottles I watched the Expendables.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or imagined someone on the motorway in the fast lane, sailing happily by you with a smug grin on his face, watching him shift down, only for him to accidentally shift into second instead of fourth and watching the vehicle spin away from the road with an expensive tinkling sound, his limp body flying into the grass verge, head striking rocks and twigs, surely dead?

My brain. That was my brain.

The change in tempo was polar; things exploded. A gun fired bullets that exploded, that hit something else, which then exploded, and then got punched in the face. And then someone had a knife thrown at them, and then he fell back onto something and then exploded.

There was a word I saw, I think it was Kris Straub who said it: it was an extravaganzmurder.

I’m looking forward to seeing the sequel.

Anyway, my shift starts in ten minutes and I need eighteen hundred cups of coffee to quell the shakes, and to prevent me from sitting on the nose of a plane, covering the dock in petrol after strafing it with cannon fire, firing a pistol back at the petrol covered pier and blowing it to smithereens. That was the best bit.

Don't Tread On Me

I had only been awake for forty five minutes before it happened. Allow me to explain.

My early shifts start at 08:00 most days, and so when I wake up, I need to get to my place of work and use the showers there to make myself not smell like a long-dead yak. I have usually been pretty good at the whole waking up thing, getting into the changing rooms and having a long luxuriant shower for about forty five minutes, until I resemble a pink strip of wet jerky. Yes, it is more horrible than you can imagine.

I was running late today, and so got into work about half an hour later than usual.
And then it happened.

Imagine the scene: silence, apart from the sound of running water and a poor, reedy English version of 'Diamonds and Guns' coming from the cubicle. No change there, and though I was wary due to the time, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as the last of the suds spiralled away. Shutting off the water and stepping out of the stall, I reached to shut the cubicle door behind me-
The click of the door handle leading to the changing rooms. The opener must have felt the same way as me; the creeeeeeeak of the door slow was and hesitant; the same way a young deer approaches a quiet clearing with an inexplicable pile of nourishing leaves in the middle.

Though I am not ashamed of my grotesque, corpulent body; having long stopped caring about my 'lats' and my 'delts', I am just not that interested in putting it on show for a total stranger. Well, if it was five years ago, sure: I was young and I needed the money, but now? Not on my watch, bub.
This left myself and my mystery opponent at a stalemate, the door was half open and my shame on display, an agonising and compromising reach away from the towel rack.

I was not brought up through school to be comfortable stripping naked in front of my friends; so this scenario was unfamiliar. I had to pull it together: the guy on the other side of the door was rapidly approaching the limit in which you can hesitate in situations like this and within seconds his hand would be forced. The door opened outward.

Time slowed to a crawl; it was so bright, everything in stark detail. The tiny mountain ranges that spread out icy and mysterious across the polystyrene ceiling tiles, and the slick grey metal of the lockers, reflections of my face distorted on its surface, wavering as if through a sheen of tears.

I dug deep. Why should I feel put out? He's the invader here, how dare he! No more: a stand has to be taken, not just for me, but for naked men everywhere, in every public shower block in the universe. They cry out for a saviour, a martyr to this age-old conflict.

They were not found wanting this day.

I stood my ground, shaking with furious defiance. He entered, a curt nod at a point about a foot to the left of my head as he scuttled, head down to the coat hooks. Through one gesture the see-saw of shame fell his way, and he was caught unawares suffering a double dose of mute embarrassment. Inside I let forth a bestial roar that shook the very heavens and outside my actions pumped with victory as I pulled on my boxers, eyes shining with a primal glow.

For this day, I had won.

Blog posts are hard!

I have just typed out and then deleted four different sentences, and as a result have put four times more effort into doing nothing than if I had just kept them.

Damn it, I did it again. I am tired, and have a scratchy throat that isn't enough to even mildly inconvenience an average human being, but I am not an average human being. The constant low flame sat behind my tonsils is all I can think about at the moment and I am waiting for it to pass, which with any luck should be within the next four hundred and twenty eight years; and whilst that's on everything in my field of vision is just a garish and over-bright monster stabbing my bloodshot eyes.
But I have gotten better and sorting myself out when I'm ill. I am not a hero who declines pain relief, as my belief is that anything that stops you from feeling bloody awful is better than the slightly confused looks you receive when you say "No thanks, I don't believe in making it easy for myself."
That's what the future and, you know, medicine is for.

If I lived in the dark ages, maybe I would decline pain relief, but only because pain relief was achieved by simply cutting you open and burning you as a witch; but nowadays? I can walk into a shop and buy pain relief for 45 pence (that's around eighteen American dollars) and the biggest thing I have to worry about is if I accidentally take a million of 'em one go and become so pain free I burst out of the other end of the pain spectrum and my body crumples in on itself like a can in vacuum.

That being said, the average throat lozenge is a tricky bugger, as I have found out today. Having bought myself eight hundred Strepsils (because all sore throats last a minimum of two years so they don't sell smaller boxes) I started popping those things 'as needed' as they used to be. Only taking a cursory glance at the box as the seventh-lozenge-in-fifteen-minutes slid down did I see the warning that I should only take one every three hours.
What the eff, Strepsils? You used to be cool. And now the walls are melting because of you, and I am probably going to die in a few minutes.

Thanks a lot.

I'm callin' it early

Look at this stupid thing I wrote that will be understood, if not liked very much, by Warcraft players:


http://fidgetstherapy.blogspot.com/

Oof, back in a sec.

Been drinking lots of water recently. Good for the skin I'm told. Not much to say at the moment really, been working some, writing some, eating some and drinking lots, and in my mind if I just keep thrashing pathetically at the keyboard something will come out of it and someone will then hand me a cheque for ten million pounds. By next year I will be riding a jetski over a sea of money, with my private island in the distance, its volcano crator firing cantaloupe sized nuggets of gold and diamonds hundreds of feet into the air. Yes.

In a desperate bid to be remotely amusing, I shall flip through my mental cue cards of lame primetime comedy topics. And go:
I have a slight complaint with regards to people who drive near me in their cars, I have found. I have never been a happy driver at the best of times, though loving my little car dearly and talking to it like it's 'people', anyone not playing by the invisible set of road rules in my head will be the subject of my futile, spittle-flecked wrath. Going too fast past me on the motorway? So what that it's a seventy limit and I'm doing fifty-eight to save fuel, and by extension, the planet* (Yes I am one of those). Didn't signal quickly enough or, God forbid, at all? Oh no, no you di'ent. You'll be punished by me making a snarky comment to myself in the safety of my car, and nearly crashing as a result of me being too busy trying to hate you to death.
I have come to the conclusion that I would like to do kung fu at you, in the right circumstances. Sure you're a little bigger than I am and you've probably at least done some exercise, but if you direct a very slow and deliberate punch at my midsection I shall deliver a series of squeals as your calloused fist bruises my ribs. I mean I will retaliate.

By calling the police on you.

*my money

The calls are coming from INSIDE the house.

I've had the laziest day of all time today, and tucking into a couple of crispy Magners I felt a blog coming on.

I had an excellent curry at the Hook Tandoori last night with a few good mates, where we ate and talked about past exploits and it was all rater splendid. My colleague's husband is a paramedic practitioner and had some amazing stories, especially as your knife parts pieces of tender spiced lamb. If there's an upshot to working in one of the services is that you get some hilarious things happen to you; remember that time when that man's limbs flew off? Outrageous. I thought I'd die.

As I have only six weeks left in the south east I shall have to go there again, and invite some people, I guess. There's something about the place that tickles our respective giblets, and it would be a shame to pass out of its life without waving to it from the train window, watching as it runs along the platform then coming up short at the end of the station, a spotted hanky waving in the heavy summer air as steam obscures it in the distance. I bite the knuckle of my index finger; was it a mistake to leave? I adjust the tie that completes my zoot-suit. No, it was not the good thing or the bad thing I did, I will think with a tender tear in my eye:

It was the right thing.

Fade to black, roll credits.

As I've slumped in my World of Warcrafting and and Star Warsing I had a swift browse of Steam to see what's what. Dead Space 1 and 2 was on there for a few quid, so I gave it a shot.

Modern horror means that things with spikes instead of hands will leap out of windows at you. When I'm watching horror movies, anyone who has watched one with me will attest to the fact that I am masterful at recognising a potentially scary moment and will perform either of the following:

• Offer anyone a cup of tea and go to the kitchen. "No, don't pause it, it's okay, I don't want you to be interrupted on my part."
• Scratch the back of my head, feigning being tired and slightly bored by what's happening, and rub my eyes theatrically for as long as needed for the scare to pass.

What amazes me most is that I am convinced that no one picks up on the fact that I am a simpering little wuss when it comes to watching anything scary. I'm not sure what the appeal is. Oh, back in a second, a cold bottle of cider in the fridge is reaching critical internal pressure; I'll have to vent it.

Phew, that was close. Obviously, now the cider is exposed to the air it's only a matter of time before it reaches critical mass, so it must be doused in stomach acid to avoid catastrophic combustion. Don't think of me as a hero. Just a man, trying to make a difference.

Anyway.

On lazy Sunday afternoons when I were a lad, my folks would put on the Sunday Film From Blockbuster and being a trendy pre-teen spending time with my parents was just wrong, so they would pick the film and I would look at rental SNES games and wonder why they tried to port DOOM the SNES (I did this every week, because I was (am) quite a sad person). After this we would come home, a Sunday roast would be eaten and the meantime between bread and cheese and the Antiques Roadshow would be Film Time. I would pass through the living room and whilst deliberately not looking at my parents I would assess the situation and wonder whether or not a film would be worth watching. Explosions = definite watch, Courtroom = Potential watch, could be a precursor to someone getting shot, Anything with a gun/sword/angry man getting shot = definite watch. A woman in a huge Victorian dress looking pensive = Defin- would not watch.

If I believed what was on to be worthy of my adolescent attention I would slouch and talk like a moron throughout the rest of it, annoying the hell out of my parents. I bet they were glad. I believe it was during these times my fear of horror movies manifested, as coming in on a film where a women is walking very carefully through a silent, dark house only meant one thing for me. Getting a drink from the kitchen for fifteen minutes, peeping around the door frame.

But playing horror games, well, eh. You have control over what is happening and as with Dead Space, though being very good, just isn't frightening. Ooh, something fell out of a vent at me. Something fell out of a window at me. Something that was lying very still isn't ACTUALLY DEAD AND IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR ME. Again.
 
If you find me and your question is 'Hey jackass, want to watch the latest <insert horror genre film here> with me?' The answer will most likely be yes, but make sure you like drinking tea beforehand.

English is awful.

Just awful. But I'll get to that in a bit.

I am more or less recovered from my rapid change to healthy things, and I've been feeling great; I have as wet-a-nose as ever and my coat is ever so glossy. I've been makin' plans; big, exciting plans and I am looking forward to this year immensly; gush gush gush.

As for work, I have seven weeks left in the leafy green walkways of Surrey, and I'll be starting in Wiltshire in around thirteen weeks. I am looking upon this with a mixture of horrified facination and horrified expectance; I'll be new again, and I'll get to sit in a big class room and learn about things. I could swagger in there, cock-o-the-walk, swank about and pretend I know everything; after all, I've been in the service for three years now, I must have a pretty good idea about how to do it, right? It's just a switch of location, not job, right?

Wrong. I know nothing about the job I'm in. I'm only there because I can talk utter trash to people and look busy. Every day is a dreadful wait for the firm hand on my shoulder directing me to the cell I will be spending the next twenty years in.

Oh yeah, English.

Like trying to play a double necked guitar with trombones attached to the ends, logic doesn't play any meaningful part in spelling words in English. One note strummed may produce a clear parp of the trombone, but strum the same string in another place and the only note issued is that of terrified screaming.

Words, being English, are spelt in English. I was having a conversation on Facebook with my school-age nephew, who, like every other schoolboy his age has not been taught how to nail down complex spelling and context. Typing to me across the interwaves, each word was spelt how logic would spell it: guess became ges, some became sum and so on. It was all easily understood, but my nephew, using the tools that we had given him, turns out somehow incorrect. It was all very crooked. Crook-edd.

Writing now, which is something I love doing and spending a huge amount of time doing day-to-day, I still get write and right mixed up, hear, here, to, too, two, they're, their, there, Geniuses? Or Genii? No wait, cactuses. No, damn - cacti.

And that's all I have. I've run out of fuel on the motorway, folks, and am going to look at some plants grow in superfast motion and have my mind blown.

Detox by Attrition.

Oh God. My guts are on fire. I'll get to that in a second.


It's a new year! Hurrah! As such I am filled with a sense of ambition and optimism that will carry me through the next couple of weeks, oh damn, wait a sec.

There.

Sorry about that; I am trying to eat a banana, and the skin is so thick it's like trying to peel a tank. Having ripped chunks from the outer husk whilst braying like a speared gazelle, I have only succeeded in making it resemble something that is only for adults to talk about. I now no longer wish to eat this banana. Anyway.

As most people do, I have drawn up a list of new year's resolutions that I will stick to rigidly for around 6 weeks, and as such I have taken to casting off my otherwise terrible diet habits and gone for things much more natural and wholesome: Bananas and Celery for snacking, and for meals, well, I haven't really got that far in my planning yet, but something damn healthy, that's for sure. This fab new diet has not gone so well, as having brought home said items, smiling faintly the same way a farmer gazes upon a fair harvest, I was approached by my landlady, who hit me with a spot-quiz.
"Hey Phil, just wondering if you liked Camembert?" The keys are barely out of the lock at this point.
"Well, I uh, sure-"
"Great! I've had one in the fridge for Christmas, but now I'm on a diet and I really can't; it's terrible for you!"
At this point, 1200 calories of fat and salt- I mean cheese was pressed into my terrified hands and, like a ninja, she was gone.
I, being a person who is only one half-rung above rummaging around in trash for free food, decided to take the bull by the horns and set to work removing it from its new home in my fridge as quickly as possible, so I can get healthy as soon as possible. So, two days in, a diet change from roast dinners, tagines, chocolate and deep fried things to objects which would be perfectly at home thrusting out of 6 inches of soft peat have done, as they say, a number on me.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I am currently peering through a grotesque green miasma that is making my room resemble some kind of dank hell-forest. If the constant squealing of my guts (imagine the sound of a car door dragging along a central reservation very slowly) doesn't kill me off, the fact that the oxygen levels in my room resemble that of deep space surely will.

My other resolutions are boring and uninteresting, and to read them would make you throw whatever you had in your hands at the screen in frustration, wrenching your computer from the wall, and throwing it from the nearest window. You would follow it out onto the street and set about the wreckage with a golf club, screaming and screaming. Not words, but a visceral shrieking that has not been heard since we hunted giant cats in loincloths. After several minutes of this, your modern-age body could no longer cope, and blood would spray from your ears and tear-ducts, and people would have you sent to be killed. So in a way, I'm doing you a favour by not listing them, with a good luck me!!!!!!!!!!!!! after each one.

• Stop Drinking on Work Nights, afternoons and pouring Bayley's on my corn flakes.
• Do some damn writing! God damnit.
• Get fitter and go to- oh no what have I done.

*UPDATE* - I did eat the banana in the end. Conducting corrective surgery on it with a pair of scissors I found down the side of my fridge made it more fruit-like. I still feel slightly miffed that these things don't peel like proper bananas. If there is one thing in the world that should not have a chance of failure is peeling a sodding banana; something our ancient ancestors have done for millions of years, you'd think the bananas in question would have evolved beyond being ripped to pieces.

A convenient zip, perhaps.

Another interruption, however this one is much more welcome: The youngest son of the family who's house I've invaded brought me the gift of a Toffee Crisp wrapped in gold wrapping paper. Now that is class. Managing to avoid chocolate for several days now, I gazed upon it like water in the desert. It was the perfect remedy to my two-day vegetables-dipped-in-luxury-cheese binge. God bless that apple-cheeked young scallywag.

*UPDATE* - The Toffee Crisp was marvelous. I highly recommend them. In gift form.