The Freak Box

In 1999 I travelled to the beautiful hamlet of Luton in the Hobbiton-like county of Bedfordshire to spend Christmas with Jen’s family.  As it was near enough the first time in a scenario where Christmas and Fine wines were to be consumed in front of people I was unfamiliar with,  I was nervous and so on my best behaviour not to smash anyone or drop the C-bomb in general conversation with ‘Hastings Grandma’ who I was aware would be in attendance.  As expected all went very well and no one was offended by me to my knowledge.

Following a lovely dinner we all retired to the ‘Parlour’ (this was ‘posh’ Luton….hard to believe I know) where we relaxed in the classic Christmas afterglow of too much food.  While I was dozing I noticed that Jen decided to put of a CD I had bought her by gravelly voiced two-bob flash in the pan Macy Gray.  You know the song, as it was the only one that made a dent in the conciousness of the nation, it was called ‘I try’ which was a sort of tedoius nothing song that you would find on a ‘Hits’ album by the chewing gum at the check out in Tesco or, more likely, Asda where some onesie clad Lambert & Butler Lottery loving lunatic would loudly declare her love for this ‘choon’ as she heard it in some Spanish meat rack when on holiday prior to a frantic one in a gutter with ‘the love of me fuckin’ life’.

The Luton tribe politely listened to this pile of arse as Jen liked it but as it droned on I noticed the faces turning as if Scrooge himself had walked in to deliver the bad news that Boxing Day was not a day off.  I scanned the room and noted various stages of sheer disgust at the noise eminating from the Tandy Stereo system but my eyes stopped on Grandma.  She had the face of a person whose finger had just popped through the toilet paper.  She looked personally offended by the ‘racket’ as if this was some form of declaration of war against the old.  A scowl appeared and then a slight twitch where the sheer hate was trying to escape.   Hastings Grandma was a lovely old lady with not a bad bone in her body but she had clearly had enough of this musical mess.  After politley enquiring as to the name of the artiste knocking out this plate of turds she uttered the now well used (in this family) phrase:

“Does it Stop?”

Does. It. Stop. The simplicity was staggering.

It did stop and we all got on with Christmas and never mentioned it again.  You know what,  I’m not sure that CD was ever played again and I’m pretty certain that somewhere in the afterlife (load of cobblers) Hastings Grandma is happy with that.

Sooooo,  2020….. Does. It. Stop.

On 9th March 2020 I stood watching ‘Supergrass’ a band of my semi youth at Ally Pally in the company of the boy, my mate and his daughter. It was a great night and fantastic parent/child moment for all of us.  Little did I know that a week later I would have been effectively under house arrest bar one day a week in the office for the next 10 months.  Now I’m not going to bang on again about the pandemic as I’ve bored you all with that and we are all in the same position of being hostages to circumstances led by Donkeys.  I will mention it in passing as part of my ongoing hate obsession against Johnson and his ‘Elk’ (moose related gags are the future) but we’ve pretty much talked that out with the exception of the new ‘variant’ which requires as much analysis as does the release of a ‘New’ Action figure with a slightly different colour hat…Same thing but a bit different.

So what else has happened?

America.  The Land of the Free finally stood up and said ‘enough’…. Well, we think they did…. no matter as much as I believe this was all above board even if it wasn’t I couldn’t give a monkey’s chuff.  The key here was to remove the lump Trump before he made a mockery of the globe and not just his own country.  You could argue that a man with no credentials, experience or any other skill to do such a job getting to that position is the greatest example of democracy ever seen….except it isn’t. 

Trump was and will never be your average ‘Joe’…he came next. Trump is just another man of privilege flexing some financial muscle in this case at the expense of the common cuntery of the country.  To be fair to Trump or more specifically the Trump Machine it gained power 4 years ago by exploiting a previously untapped source of voter, namely the dim rightwinger with no real interest in a global view and the general distrust and hatred of kitten eating Hilary who a lot of people just couldn’t stomach being in charge of the country.   It worked and as much as Trump would have loved to have won the popular voted he didn’t need it and so he targeted what he required.  A brilliantly executed plan (the only credit he should get here)  by a man who only really got involved in the first place after Obama embarrassed him at a charity dinner.   So the whole process started on a petty level and remained that way throughout.

Trump, and his robotic wife whose face said’ Have I really slept with this savage for years to be thrust into the limelight when all I want to do is nothing and spend the filthy cash’, took charge with a scowl and a grimmace and pretty much remained that way for the entire 4 years.  A joyless individual who only lived for money and power now had the ultimate power and not an actual clue about what to do with it so he just plumped up his chest, reminded people of his job title and threw his considerable weight about. 

Once again we’ve all met this type in our own jobs and so inevitably we all knew it would end in tears.  These type of bullies always lose the crowd in the end as the novelty wears off and the realisatioin that they are pretty much out of their depth and useless kicks in.  I love work bullies.  I relish the collapse and the potential for confrontation with them as the old saying is true:  Stand up to a bully and watch them disappear.  I love that bit.

Useless is one thing but Trump was dangerous, self motivated and hateful.  It was all initially funny as the promises of walls being paid for by other countries and things like ‘Space Force’ were announced but it quickly became evident that this was very, very wrong.  The problem with appointing the wrong idiot into power is that you are stuck with them until they decide they’ve had enough or they are voted out.  Anybody in the cock measuring business isn’t binning the idea of supreme power and a mandate to do almost anything they want for four years and so Trump stayed the distance albeit the minimum distance for a President not having a bullet inserted in them. Eventually the people mobilised and removed the psyhco but only because more people than ever voted and not because he lost support. 

The new El Presidente is a beige man of low charisma but politics isn’t showbiz and so with America’s reputation hanging in rags Sleepy Joe, a public servant for 47 years is the right man for now to calm shit down.  Even the little things set him apart from Trump.  He seems to be able to connect,  he looks like a man who has cried, he has been seen to laugh and smile…. he seems human.  Trump has none of that, he was just a ball of hate bulldozing himself into power through lies, mouth and money towards dictatorship.  My old man would have loved him, two peas in a hatepod.

I could take the piss out of Trump more and highlight all the funny stuff but the reality is that it isn’t really that funny in fact it’s tragic.  His appointment triggered a resurgence in hate, racism, homophobia and everything else that we spent decades trying to eradicate.  America wasted four years on a twisted, bitter meglomaniac and that is an appalling position to have put the planet in.  Everyone associated with Trump and that administration sacked, imprisioned or not should be ashamed of themselves.  With a bit of luck Law Enforcement will catch up with him as he’s not the brightest bulb and money can’t always save you as his mate Epstein found out.

The rise of the Superstar World Leader led to this country losing it’s fucking mind and allowing a proven liar (a known fact not even disputed by the man himself) through the doors of Number 10 albeit initially through the back door of internal fighting because a dour proper politician was in charge who now had a grasp on things.  Yes indeed, Mother Theresa the epitome of dull at least actually saw the stark reality before us.  The Tories knew that she would probably sell it will an element of truth and so they replaced her with a snake oil salesman who would suck in the stupid to do endorse the cunts banquest they had created….. and they signed up in large numbers.

To be fair to Johnson he wasn’t up against much in the form of Comrade Corbyn who turned out to be Labour’s greatest own goal.  We all know the story now so I won’t labour it (arf) but Corbyn got smashed as large sections of the country couldn’t stomach him and so the lying Oaf took control with a decade defining majority.

As I write this I’m listening to Johnson on the radio addressing Parliament in order to get his Brexit ‘Deal’ approved.  Clearly this will happen as Labour must back it or we have the fabled ‘No deal’ which your Hastings Fisherman (29 boats) demands as the only satisfactory outcome for them regardless or the national pain. So what do I think? I think Fuck Fish…. Literally if it’s you bag although for me it’s metaphorically.  Bollocks to the fishing industry, no country should be ruined on the back of an industry contributing so little to the overall economy.  It is simple mathmatics.  If Debenhams can be allowed to collapse with 13,000 employees then so should the fishing industry with 12,000. Never fall into the trap of believing that these muppets give single solitary fuck about a toothless, leather palmed Hastings fisherman.  The fishermen are merely a flip chart idea on the ‘car park’ sheet for ‘ if we are in the shit’…. They have simply actioned that last resort idea from Duncan in procurement.

As I was saying Johnson is currently in my earholes blustering along with his speech littered with analogies and whimsical visions of Britain in the future so vehemently that at any second I expect the few tories in the chamber to start a chorus of ‘Jerusalem’ before they all bash one out into their white handkerchiefs before waving them above their heads splattering the chamber with spongle in honour of this old Etonian ponce at the dispatch box.  Messy, Messy business the modern politics…. littered with the grubby sock destroying ‘two wears of the pants’ merchants.

Johnson is our Trump, a bluffer, a liar, a man with the promises and no ability to deliver them….all smoke and mirrors.  He then had the assembled ‘whoop’ of Tories (to be fair the only other collective noun for them I could think of was ‘bunch’ but as we all know that was taken for ‘cunts’….hmm might work) gaffawing as he took the piss out of the SNP.  This even had me, a proud believer in the Union, thinking I’d like to see an independent Scotland, Ireland and Wales.  No other country should really be saddled with the actions of this Ponce and his bevvy of Poncettes.

Like Trump he’s no longer funny but unlike Trump he thinks he is and revels in the smirk and the one liner.  At least Trump had the good grace not to lace his faux hardnut bollocks with jovial shite and went full lunatic reminding people he was ‘The President’ which is the political version of ‘Do you know who I am?’.  Say that to a bouncer and you get a swift slap as you become a story at the bar of the Bouncer Convention prior to the inevitable battering in the carpark … I was always surprised that members of the US press never pulled Trump on that,  how great would it have been to have said; “I know exactly who you are,  It’s why we are here you stroker”…. Legends as oppossed to sycophants would have been born.

Johnson’s tactic appeals to both the press and a certain type of jub in this country who see him as a ‘bloody good bloke’ in charge during a ‘tough time’ doing the best he can ‘in these unprecedented circumstances’.  Surely most people realise that any role where you claim to be the leader of a country will possibly lead to ‘unprecedented circumstances’ at some point whether that be a pandemic or potentially a war with a foreign power.  Nothing should be a shock and all eventualities inparticular biblical plagues which a lot of Tories believe in should have been ruled out.  If you need a dose of Tory fake Christianity check out Rees-Jub’s twitter which annouces the birth or Christ at Christmas 0001 hours on Christmas Day (historically incorrect) as if he had just witnessed it but I’d imagine the last time he was probably in a barn was on some Famous Five adventure holiday where ‘larks’ were high and ‘lashings of ginger beer’ wasn’t in a dominatrix dungeon just off Belgravia.

The truth is that this government is an old boys club who have no experience in running fuck all.  What they do have is a vested interest in each other and a perverse sense of loyalty to each other. It’s effectively a lower tier  Masonic Lodge run out of a Scout hut where they convince themselves that it’s all for the greater good even though the greater good is a tight knit group of individuals wearing a fancy apron with a penchant for a good paddling.

I’ll save you the misery or a rerun of COVID as we don’t need it.  We are all still living it and nothing I can say (although true to form I will say something as this lovely 2014 Rioja kicks in) will change your opinion or experience of it.  My only words will be ones of hate for the idiots calling the shots. 

It does exist and it does cause illness, trauma and death but the way it’s been dealt with is a disgrace.  The U-turns the flip flops the filling the pockets of their mates, the killing of the country through blatent mismanagement, lies and bullshit is ripe for arrest in my view. I will not forget the lost year my kids suffered due to the ineptitude of the fuckers who wanted the responsibility.  I will not forget the ‘that only applies to you’ rules nor the ‘this is your fault’ tabloids blaming us, the scum, for apparently not obeying the rules which changed hourly.  All that stuff was overblown to hide the fact that they just didn’t know what to do,  if in doubt blame the public. 

Of course the public broke the rules but not to the magnitude being published.  Do you know anyone breaking the rules to the degree in the papers?  I don’t….. but I do know that if you crush people and don’t let them use the COVID compliant places they will find alternatives to enjoy themselves while rightly reminding each other that we can fight over the pork chops in Sainsburys, cough on each other on a tube train and send our kids into the loving sticky embrace of their mates and 300 other associated families on a daily basis…. it’s not rocket science.

If the public are responsible for this it’s due to mismanagement by the government and policies which fuel confusion.  Confuse the public, lose the public but keep it simple as in ‘Hands: Face: Space’ (the only constant) and you have a chance of winning and them understanding what you are trying to acheive.  But using a stop/start strategy and lauding ‘victory’ when it hasn’t been acheived will spark off people, particularly the large swathes of thick, to start thinking that it is over.  It isn’t.  The general public need direction and instruction almost on a plate in a simple, easy to understand form. 

My job teaches you to trust no one as the public are flighty, random and prone to ignoring the fuck out of you.  Why would anyone think this is different?  The well trodden answer to this is a ‘total lockdown’ which is actually impossible.  Nurses, Teachers, Teaching assistants, Caretakers, cleaners, Train drivers, lorry drivers, Warehouse staff, Security staff, Social Workers, check out assistants, shelf stackers, Rozzers (and associated staff), Soldiers, Care Workers, Hospital ancillary staff, Bus drivers, Firefighters, Doctors, Dentists, farmers, petrol station attendants, Food processors, the bloke with the lump hammer in an abatoir, News readers, jounalists, postman (never had a postman come to my door in a mask….ever), delivery drivers, Butchers, Bakers and candlestick makers all these people will be required to leave their home to ensure we don’t all die and there is nothing more you can do. 

You could close the schools (easy for me with a 17 and 14 year old) but that means some working parents wont be able to work and will starve as the process for fast cash is hampered by Tory red tape.  Leave schools open and the kids mix and all bombburst home potentially infecting anyone who was isolating themselves dilligently for extended periods of time. The rise in infections is mainly down to the moments Johnson et al told us to carry on, go to work, go to school, eat out to help out and get the country back on track. A confusing message leading to Charlie Farley deciding it wasn’t worth trying to understand it any more. 

They called it and like the Brexiteers celebrating a ground breaking deal with the EU which is effectively akin to being given a basic Wimpy Burger after handling the Double Big Mac with extra cheese, Bacon and complimentary Gob Job behind the bins of the Maccy D’s they now must fucking own it…over to you fuckers… suck it up… this is your moment….

….sorry about that,  I got ‘The Rage’…

Anyway in this hovel 2020 was the Year of the Dog. 

Jen suggest that this blog should be called ‘Doggo Bloggo’ but as she never reads them I ignored her,  I’m my own man…..just don’t tell her for fuck sake..

In May during the early stages of this shitshow a family discussion concluded that some sort of Dog was required.  This wasn’t on a whim,  I’d wanted a dog for years and my daughter was obsessed with the idea but I would never have had a pet of that magnitude if I wasn’t able to commit to it fully.  When it was clear that COVID had changed both mine and Jen’s working lives for the foreseeable and it was apparent that we would most likely have an extended period working from tables at home it seemed a feasible prospect as my main motivation was that I didn’t get a job to leave in a cage for 8 hours a day. Any dog needed to be part of the tibe and not a 45 minute toy after work.

The search begun.  The search was mostly fruitless however my older Bruv is a bit of a dogman and knew a couple of people and soon enough Jen was in touch with a Cockapoo (it was only ever going to be a Cockapoo) breeder up country who, after some odd questions which we successfully answered we were accepted into the ‘Fur Family’…..

That’s right…. This was my world now, the world of the ‘Furball’, a future where the dog has a bandana or a bow tie and I’m in photos with it smiling like a fucking lunatic. Clearly this will never happen.  A dog is a dog and not a person, an accessory or a talking point you get bored with after the inital cuddly puppy phase,  it is forever or for how ever long it lives.  So, we’re in.  Dog World.  But the beast isn’t born yet and we have to wait, and plan.  Eventually we get the news that an litter of nine bitches is born and one will be ours.  The name chosen after much debate was ‘Roo’ as in Kanga’s kid from Winnie the Pooh.  The inital name was ‘Scout’ but the kids wouldn’t have it and I weren’t allowing ‘Poppy’ or ‘Lottie’ or some other Chelsea Tractor owning MILF name which required me to shout across a park.

It was at the point of confirmation that the madness started.  The pup was hours old and we were all thrust into a whatsapp group with all the rest of the ‘fur family’.   It. Is. Jawdropping.  Fruitloops.  Large discussions started about beds, toys, clothes (no shit) and it got worse after the pups were dished out with one particular fuckwit using this forum to ask all sorts of stuff the intergoogles could easily answer.  One particualr member of the ‘Fur Family’ (please smack me in the mouth) would post stuff like ‘She’s looking at me funny’ or the classic ‘it hasn’t eaten it’s breakfast….what’s wrong’.  A dog will eat a stick, a pine cone or it’s own shit if it’s hungry enough, not eating for 8 hours means nish. When it’s hungry it will eat the laces out of yiur boots.

A dog is not a baby.  A dog is an animal which could decide at any point to strike and rip out your windpipe.  If you treat it like a baby in two years you are either sitting on the floor as it has your chair or you are fighting it off with a broom handle as you hide behind a sofa.  The majority of this whatsapp group the dog was a baby and would be pampered accordingly.  Fuck. That.  I will never be dictated to by an animal…

….And then I saw her…

It was pretty much love at first sight if I’m being honest and I’m not soppy.  Tiny….Soooo tiny…like a large rat scuttling…snuffling….jumping….like a cartoon character.  Outstanding work.  I’m in for life. 

We pick Roo up from the breeder who has a large plot near Sheffield and after sorting the paperwork we head home.  She sleeps all the way back and as soon as we get in the house she shat on the hallway rug.  Here we go.  Over the next 12 weeks she only drops anchor in the house on 3 other occasions and now she rings a bell to go out to the garden to use the facilities.

She is a fantastic dog.  Calm, controlled (unless she’s stolen a Haribo Tangtastic then she goes nuts) and quiet.  I had all kinds of advice prior to this about the mistake I had made, how I’d be ‘up to your arse in turds’ and  how it would be ‘your dog in a week’ blah blah but in reality the only mistake made was not to have done it sooner as I feel now that I may have missed out on something.  Roo is not a child, she’s not a baby although she can be needy like one and she knows her place in the pack but she is very much one of us now and so I would fight a roaming band of itinerents should they try to steal her.  I ready and I’m handy Dermot McGillicuddy… be warned. 

Getting Roo has easily been the highlight of this shit show year along with the return of Our Man in Hong Kong but all fun was sucked out of that due to the COVID….We’ll ride again Bun and we’ll rope in a few willing souls along the way and inparticular that Crystal Palace smooth faced coiffered biker who we have both missed.  Onwards Brothers..

Four of my Rock heroes died this year.  Pete Way and Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman from UFO finally succumb after years of legendary excess.  You get called ‘Tonka’ when the perception is that you are indestructible…  I loved the pair of them.  Neil Peart of Rush possibly the worlds most technically gifted rock drummer shockingly died with no warning.  Obviously he and a small group of people knew but to the fan base it was a massive shock as ‘The Professor’ was gone.  And of course Eddie Van Halen died…. Proper choker for me and I’m still finding it hard to believe even though he was riddled with cancer which we all knew and eventually died of a stroke.  Could still cry over Eddie and probably will tonight.

Diminutive genius Maradona died and I was stunned at the outpouring of love from this country given he had cheated us.  I worked in a pub in 1986 and I still remember thinking the TV was going out the window following the ‘Hand of God’ goal.  I was 17 years old and this was a fucking abomination….blatant cheating suddenly forgotten as 34 years had elapsed.  I forget nothing…. It’s a gift….or a curse…..Not sure yet.

Bit over it all was Covid and the isolation for all of us.  When you take a species who is free and socialises in large groups and lock them up you start to realise what it must be like to be a Chimpanzee in a pen in a Zoo….basically Grim.   Life as you knew it is over for now.  Personally I have struggled. I’m not used to a world without friends and laughing.  I’m not used to working at home for 10 months with no end in sight.  Of course it’s fantastic not spending London prices on travel or for a substandard Bacon and Egg Roll but people need people in the flesh and not in a box on a computer screen.  My Christmas holiday doesn’t end with a laugh in the office and a New Year handshake, it ends with me walking down my stairs and opening a laptop in an empty kitchen and that will be the same for a lot or people lucky enough to have the ability to work from home or indeed a job to return to.

The only problem is that the shit ain’t stopping with the Bong of a Bell and a ‘Starburst’ 150 shot barrage in the back garden,  I expect this to continue throughout next year as any promise made by the Oaf and his minions can pretty much be dismissed outright the second it leaves their lips….Spring eh?  Blimey Charlie their history of prediction screams Summer 2022 minimum.

So a year of nothing but death and misery draws to a close. The year when those with big chins and bad teeth but good eyes could flirt on the tube. Heroes and villians dead, relatives gone, friends lost (partly suprisingly but possibly inevitably) socialising a distant memory from another time…. brilliant…. we’ll never get this time back…

Hugs as ever and a better 2021 for us all, Stay safe, obey as much as possible, take personal resposibility but live as much as you can and remember if it can kill Bobby Ball and Eddie Large in the same year it can take us all..

2020…. Does it Stop?…. not quite…

Onwards,

Prison Number VH5150, C Block, HMP London