The Freak Box

… You may recall that I was standing before a mountain looking down at my mate Bunny untangle his feet from his fancy pedals. He looks sheepish and smirky.  The Spaniard and I look like two punters who have sussed out a magician.  There’s no turning back so we decide to start the ascent again.

Bunny heads off and this time he’s beaten the initial slope and is into his snake hip stride.  The Spaniard and I are falling back at this early stage which is distressing.  I notice that Bunny’s feet are pedalling quicker than mine and suddenly realised that I have gears.  The right gear seems like a good idea and so I click the toggle and it gets easier.  Easier… it’s all relative right?

My heart is close to explosion and we’ve only gone 500 yards.   Just so you know I am better on a bike than this but this 500 yards has been directly up and on loose earth. I look ahead and see no top to this incline and start dreaming of a hospital bed in my exhausted delirium but I battle on. I briefly look behind me to see The Spaniard in full ‘rat face’ mode.  He’s breathing heavy and snorting through the nose but he’s in control and in better shape than me.

Bunny is gone… flash bastard… he’s over the horizon with the laminated map.  He’s probably resting at the top or perhaps engaging in push ups for pleasure.  The Spaniard passes me before the plateau at which point I regret drinking ever and promise to never do it again.

At the top I find Bunny sitting down waiting.  He has the waiting face on.  The Spaniard is bent double breathing heavy and I arrive in what can only be described as a crash.  I throw the bike to the floor and dry heave. Bun looks disgusted and rightly so.  I was a mere 29 at this point and should have been in my prime.  I was in fact a drunken shell of a man.

It takes a good 15 minutes of recovery time before we move on.  We still aren’t on the down slope but it’s less ‘up’ which I see as key to survival at this point.

We cycle on and my body starts to adjust.  I no longer feel as though I will fill my Lycra with the equivalent of 2lbs of mashed Dundee cake through a loss of control.  I start to feel a slight moment of freewheeling indicating a change in gradient which raises my spirit.

“Here we Go!” shouts Bunny over his shoulder “This is what it’s all about”…  We start the first descent.

It’s not a huge drop but it means speed is upon us.  Ahead of me Bunny adopts the position of a speed racer and zooms off. He knows his stuff… he once purchase ‘Professional Mountain Bike Wanker Monthly’.

We hit speed and quickly reach the bottom of the drop which goes straight into another incline so I decide to change gear and pedal in order to lighten the oncoming burden and maintain the upward momentum.

Ahead I’ve spotted a deep pothole at the base of the drop but Bunny hasn’t…. this could be bad.  He hits the pothole at full tilt and is thrown from the bike. His super cool shoe pedals detach and he disappears into a bush.  The Spaniard and I race past the fully kitted out heap with camel pack suction tube flapping in the wind…. We cheer, laugh and scream ‘fuck you Bunyan, Fuck you!!’ in the most brazen act of Schadenfruder every seen on this hillock.  He could be dead… we don’t care… he is The Devil…The Spaniard and I are ahead for the first time without the fabled laminated map which we are too stupid to control.

The Spaniard and I sit at the next natural stop.  We gorge on energy bars like two 15 year old girls locked in a bedroom cupboard with a box of chocolates and a bucket.  Bun won’t like this gorging as he’s marked power bar stops on the timetable in his head and this is unscheduled and unwarranted.

He arrives dishevelled… Not fully so as I’ve never seen him that way but partially rumpled.  The Spaniard and I adopt our waiting faces….The worms have turned, we have the upper hand temporarily, we’ll milk this puppy till he next destroys us.  We move on and it’s clear that the initial climb was worth it as we now only wind up slowly which is something even I can cope with.

We start racking up the miles with no major disasters until we come to what looks like a tarmac road descending almost out of sight through a wood.  Bunny informs us that this is the big one.  The full speed drop.  I look at the Spaniard and he looks worried.  It’s been evident throughout that he’s been at the back on the few downhill races so far.  No matter we are on the edge of the reason we are here.  I’m up for it and so is Bun.

I dispense with the helmet and put on a rather fetching baseball cap as I’ve decided that if I crash and fly through the air I will adopt a comedy star shape and cooler hat rather than look all flappy limbed with a dome head as I embed myself in a tree… No one wants to see that…. I’m considering the public here…

Bun sets off.  My God he looks good from behind…he’s all sleek.  Me and the Spaniard look like we are wearing bin linings by comparison, no wonder we are slow… Well that and the tonnage…

It’s a sweeping tarmac route through the wood but it’s quite steep so you pick up some serious pace. I’m in the slipstream of Bunny but it’s too dangerous to check behind me to see how the Spaniard is getting on.  I assume that if he had crashed I’d have heard it.

It’s an exhilarating blast and I reach the bottom at roughly the same time as Bunny.  There’s no sign of the Spaniard…. It could be over for him.  We wait what seems like an age and I half expect a single flaming wheel to roll down the hill towards us as a sign of an explosive end but nothing comes.

And then a noise….tyres on tarmac in the distance followed by the vision of the Spaniard juddering towards us sedately in an on/off brake pumping manner.  His helmet is positioned on the back of his head like the hat on that talentless ponce from Curiosity Killed the Cat.  The chin strap appears to be strangling the Spaniard and his eyes are streaming and bulging.

After we stop laughing he explains that half way down the force of the air in his face pushed the helmet backwards like a head parachute as he hadn’t tightened the strap before take-off.  As he was going fast (an unverified boast) he couldn’t stop and just went with it, accepting his strangulation while hoping that he would reach the end before losing consciousness.  For the record I saw no signs of arousal and there was no whiff of tangerines.

Every downhill means an uphill and the next one was massive and took some time.  By the time we reached the top we were all shattered but I was in a mess.  We met some more professional cyclists at the top and I was overly friendly with them in a ‘pissed bloke on a night bus’ way due to a lack of oxygen in my body.  We have a friendly chat and I tell one of them that I love his ‘see-through’ bike.  He looks confused and humours me before riding off.

“Lovely Perspex bike eh Bunny?” I say to the Devil.

“What you talking about?” he says.

I get irate and explain that the bike we just saw the pro’s on was made of a see-through material.  Bunny sits me down and explains that the bike we saw was chrome and the leg I could see through it was merely a reflexion of the nearest leg to me…

….I have been taken by the Delirium….We stop for a while and consume water.

We finally move off and discover a bespoke technical section which Bun explains is a bit like 80’s TV classic ‘Kick Start’.  As it takes us downwards we decide to give it a go.  The key apparently is to lock your back wheel and almost skid the whole way.  Failing to do this results in gaining speed and the gradient is too great for idiots like us. The back wheel lock is essential and Bun can’t stress that enough.

As usual Bunny leads the way and soon disappears leaving the Spaniard and I trying to work it out.

“Watch me Bob” I say… “It’s easy”…

I start the descent, pull the wrong brake leaver and go over the handlebars sideways down a brambled slope.  The Spaniard knows that if he laughs I’m likely to smash him to pieces so he tentatively asks if I’m ok… I piss myself laughing… It’s ok… he can now laugh.

He then gives it a go and we get the same result but crucially he loses his specs in the fall.  Without glasses the Spaniard may as well be underwater with his eyes open… They must be found.  Luckily he was in the ‘Biggins’ phase and we find them after 10 minutes of laughing and searching.

We finally reach the bottom where Bunny is waiting dismissively shaking his head.  He thinks we are fools but we are way ahead of him… we’re idiots…

All that is left now is a final tarmac road push back to the car and the escape from Mount Doom.

We get back to Looney HQ starving and battered.  All the other cyclists look clean and fit. We look like death is upon us.

We head to the room to shower and clean up before dinner.  It’s at this point that I notice that my gusset area is extremely tender.  I examine myself in the shower and note that my arse is bruised black from the pounding of the saddle.  I feel dirty.  I leave the shower and see my associates examining each other in a similar fashion… we are all pounded… It’s like a Centurion bathhouse…

Starving and ready for beer we head downstairs to the dining room and bar.  Mountain men are everywhere and we notice a small area set up for live entertainment where a lone Bontempi keyboard and a microphone sit.  We ignore this for now as we need food and this madhouse seems to specialise in curry.

There are only three curries available on the menu and no other food.  Korma, Madras and Vindaloo.  If you finish the Vindaloo you get a plastic medal of achievement.  Bunny and I decide that our arses have had enough damage for one day and go for the Korma.  The Spaniard is no such shirker… he’s in for the Vindaloo… He is one of this country’s finest citizens… he stands alone for London and England.

We sit and eat and the Spaniard sweats and breathes heavy.  He looks like he’s had a hefty smash to the mouth but he won’t be beaten, he’s a spice God who wants a plastic medal.  Inevitably he succeeds and finishes looking like a ‘Top Gear’, mouth breathing audience member at which point we retire to the ‘bar’.

The bar is small and has those fucking annoying 70’s bar tables that are at shin height.  Dark wood, Double Diamond ashtrays and damp beer mats are everywhere.  Due to limited choice we have to drink Stella.  None of us drink this normally but we bank on it killing the arse pain.  Everyone in this bar looks like they’ve had a harsh winter except us. We look like three dazzling young urbanites who thought they could do extreme sports and failed.  We are not the fresh meat they are after..

In the corner of the bar next to the makeshift stage on a high stool sits a hippy chick.  She’s respectable but could probably do with a long shower.  She has no business in this Welsh ‘Prancing Pony’ filled with Rangers and Hobbits.

We are then introduced to the evening’s entertainment.  In walks a rather scruffy tramp in a black velvet jacket.  He reeks of Silk Cut.  He’s a big lump with very dry ratty hair reminiscent of a dismantled Afro.  Droopy eyes adorn the ruddy face and below the corned beef ball nose he has the classic Tom Selleck ‘tache.  He has a great stage name like ‘Johnny Tweedy’ or ‘ Duncan Bourneville’  but I can’t recall it exactly.

He starts the show with ‘Saturday Nights alright for fighting’…. Just a tramp, a microphone and a low level Argos keyboard.  He’s belting it out and becomes truly magnificent with every pint we sink.  ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘White Wedding’, ‘Wonderwall’.. you name it he can nail it.  The bar is rocking and even the mountain men are sombrely bobbing.

He completes the set and after a break where he sinks large Bushmills like R Whites he starts again.

“Any requests?”  He says in a Brummie accent.

I’m in. “Do you know Van Halen?”  I barely finish the sentence and he’s all over the keyboard intro…

“NEXT!!” he screams….

“The Who”… BOOM!! He knocks out the intro to “Won’t get Fooled again”…

“NEXT!!” he spits…. It’s hopeless, He’s a genius…

The hippy chick turns out to be his wife. I’m convinced there is some kind of Stockholm syndrome scenario happening here because they can’t really be together.  She’s brought to the microphone and knocks out “Running up that Hill” by Kate Bush with the voice of an Angel.  It’s a marriage made in Heaven and Hell.

The last bell rings and we head to bed happy.  We crawl up the stairs and even sleep through the Spaniard’s nasal assault.

We wake early and all appear to have become disabled in our sleep…we back up, thank our hosts and head back to sanity…

“Never Again Bun” I squeak from the back seat…

“How do you fancy the Peak District?…. could be a laugh..” says the Devil Bunyan…

I see The Spaniard’s wide eyes and smiling rat face in the mirror…

“We’re in..”

Now there’s a story…..

A week off in the name of God.

A magnificent spring day of blue skies, bright sunshine and a cool comfortable breeze.  Time to get the bike out.  I’m not a prolific cyclist even though I like to claim to be. The main reason is I’m not too keen on finding myself wrapped around the wheels of a skip lorry cutting a corner so won’t ride the mean streets of London.  I love a bit of ‘off road’…. Easy now.. I’m talking about cycling.

It was different as a kid.  London was less scary in the late 70’s and early 80’s and as street kids the bike was your car.  You went everywhere on it without the fear of death or worse, theft of the precious machine.  Your biggest worry was a puncture.

I had all the classics.  ‘Chippy’, ‘Tomahawk’, ‘Grifter’… outstanding stuff.  My brother, who I believe smiled once in about 1977 during a BBQ for the Jubilee, had the fabled ‘Chopper’.  He was never worthy of that beast…

The Grifter was the one.  The bike of my prime, made from cast iron with a hard foam seat and the legendary throttle gears making the wheelie a dangerous, involuntary gear change, mid-air testicle crusher if you were capable of lifting the bike.  I received a Grifter for my 10^th birthday and rode around like Peter Fonda, all swagger and cobblers as If I ran the streets.  I never saw anyone else on one.  I was a God. I was “The Grifter God”.

One summer day I’m cruising about and I stumble onto an estate I’m unfamiliar with where I’m confronted with a flash bastard also on a Grifter.  Fucker.  I’m 10, he’s taking the piss and needs to be crushed.  I’m The Grifter God and he is nothing. He’s clearly unaware of who I am…he needs to get learned..

In the finest traditions of this kingdom I challenge him to a duel… a duel by speed.  We shall race.  No words are spoken but we see a lamp post up the road and we both know the score… calf power will win the day and the loser must melt their beast down for tank parts.

Off we go… he’s doing alright but I have Irish legs which are unbreakable and contribute about 65% of my body weight… this should cause no significant problems.

At half way I start the push.  I still recall thinking that we were very close to each other handlebar wise and inevitably we clash bars.  This results in the pair of us becoming airborne while the bikes fuse together as one giant Grifter with the weight of a car below us.

I hit the concrete face first with my hands by my sides like a drunk that has passed out and fallen over…The definitive ‘reverse arm death’. I then proceed to slide face first on the concrete for what seemed like a mile.  When I finally grind to a halt I have a friction burn along my nose and cheek, the knuckles of my hands are bleeding and my knee is a gaping bloodied hole.

He is in no better shape.  For some strange reason we embrace, all snot, blood and tears, as if to appreciate each other’s efforts.  We untangle the twisted wreckage and make our way to our separate homes bleeding…. It was a defining moment… I was a man… I had face death etc. The Grifter and I were one.. We had bled together and conquered the fear of the crash, nothing could stop us…. Except Adam and the Ants… That killed it…

Years later I acquired a BMX, purchased for a sweaty wad of cash from a future Commonwealth athlete at the back of the Rainbow in Finsbury Park.  My mother assured me it was a legitimate transaction and re spraying it immediately was what everyone did when purchasing a bike under these circumstances.  I didn’t care… red, blue, it didn’t matter I just needed a machine I could bunny hop on and wear a motorbike helmet like a pre Bulldog Bash Eddie Kidd.

In your late teens the bike goes out the window and you look for a more comfortable ride with less potential mess… and I’m not talking about a car…

After all the trauma of women in the late 80’s and mid 90’s I found myself sitting with a hangover in the company of The Spaniard and Bunny. This was not an unusual scenario at the time and usually happened on the floor of the Spaniard’s flat following Rioja and Cheese for 12 hours.  They are talking mountain bikes and we get around to planning a trip away.  I have no bike at this point but I don’t tell them that…. I can sense adventure.

As expected Bunny has all the kit.  He’s got the great bike, the clothes, shoes that connect to the invisible pedals, the shades, he has the laminated map and crucially he’s got the body… he’s sleek like a panther, lithe and bender…

The Spaniard and I could be in trouble here.  We are built for comfort not speed, we are about power not endurance, we love rouge and offal not Fizz and fruit…. It will be challenging.  On the upside The Spaniard has run a marathon and I have the Irish legs…. Unfortunately he also likes a Marathon and I also have the Irish body.  In years to come The Spaniard and I would drunkenly use the services of a rickshaw in Edinburgh to go to a curry house 500 yards away.  The driver, a skinny cyclist, asked us to get out of the thing so he could get it off the pavement prior to departure.  When we arrived the driver, who we subjected to screams of “Faster, Faster Fucker” throughout the journey, couldn’t speak through exhaustion…. £2 was the fare but as we were cocky cockney’s we gave him a twenty…. Pathetic… him not us…

We convince each other that mountain biking must surely involve alcohol at some point and so we sign up… Snowdonia is the destination and Bunny assures us that the track is relatively flat so we should be alright.  ‘Trust me’ he says….

After spending £120 of equipment I don’t need, including waterproof socks and borrowing a bike from my not smiled since the 70’s brother which I never return to him we load up the car and head off to Welsh Wales.  It’s a Friday night and we know we’ll be late arriving as everyone in London is trying to escape.

It’s a long drive and we only stop once in Gloucester for a bag of chips.  We park the car and head to the town centre which appears to be deserted other than for a toothless oaf with a laminated ‘Big Issue’.  There’s literally no one else about on an early evening Friday night in the town except fast food sellers.  We get a bag of chips and sit in the car eating in silence.

The Spaniard breaks the silence. “Gloucester”… he says…

Bunny and I wait for a pearl of wisdom for he’s a very intelligent, well-read man….will it be about the rich culture and history of this Cathedral City?  Will it be architectural? Or will it simply be Doctor Foster related?..

“Shithole…. Well Done”…. He starts the car and we speed out in silence, history is behind us  and now we have some welsh business. It’ll be my first visit to the land of the Dragon since the Lampeter weekender where Bun put me in a room with a public schoolboy in transition and the Toilet of Doom.

We arrive in Llantrydd Wells late. It smacks of The League of Gentleman.  It’s dark and we only have time to unload the bikes and grab a couple of swift beers in the bar which contains Welsh mountain men with few teeth and a healthy hate for the English.  We laugh loudly and nervously and as we don’t die we reckon we’ll be alright.

We sleep in a three bed room on the second floor and it’s the first time I experience the Spaniard’s snoring which is truly impressive.  It’s almost impossible to believe that he could sleep through it such is the volume.  Years later on a stag night in Galway, we shared a room in the plush Railway Hotel on Eyre Square.  On that occasion the snoring was so bad that I hovered over him with a pillow and contemplated a mercy smothering…but that’s another story…

As is the Englishman’s right we ignore all the ‘early start’ shit and wake up late for a fry up.  A day on the bike is ahead and so like pro’s we see fuelling up as the best option.  The hotel is empty and devoid of other mountain bikers who have done the right thing and left early.

I’m hanging around the lobby in all my lycra.  I look magnificent and wish that I had been the lead singer of an 80’s metal band as I’m finding the fabric ludicrously comfortable and the padded gusset is like a dream come true.  Bunny and the Spaniard appear.  The three of us look like Van Halen in 1982, all skin tight and lumpy crotches with a whiff of alcohol.

Bunny then takes me into an area off the dining room to show me something.  It appears that he has booked us in to the headquarters of the Monster Raving Loony Party the week after Lord Sutch has died. Pictures of Loonies adorn the walls.  It’s an Omen… horror on the mountain awaits…. I’m hearing duelling banjoes and squealing pigs.  I look at The Spaniard for support but he’s smiling manically and has dried the inside of his upper lip to expose Rabbit teeth… he loves a challenge… he’s mental..

We load up and drive to our destiny.

We arrive at the start of the track and the place is banged out with what look like professionals.  We look wrong, well The Spaniard and I look wrong.  Bunny is oozing ‘locked back wheel technical descent’ while the pair of us look like two kidnapped drunks being forced to cycle for the sake of their health.

It was at this point that Bunny pulls out the laminated map.  He informs us that he’s decided that we aren’t doing the fabled ‘Red Bull Run’ which I was told is a 12 mile fast pace speed ride.  ‘Thank fuck for that’ says I.  I temporarily relax.  He continues… we are attempting the 26 mile long ride up the mountain with limited descents …

The Spaniard and I look at each other… I become Fletcher Christian, The Spaniard is a disgruntled Smee but Bunny is Captain Bligh of the Bounty… a filthy bastard of a man. Mutiny is imminent.

‘Don’t panic’ He says in a way only he can ‘I’ll lead’…. No shit… the two man 28 stone combo behind him is unlikely to be overtaking him anytime soon.

We position our machines… Bunny is on point, I am second and The Spaniard has our back.  I look ahead and all I see is mountain…

‘Ready?’ Says Bunny… we utter no words and simply nod and weep.  We are Sam and Frodo at the Black Gate and all hope is lost.

Bun pedals off professionally, all hips out of the saddle but after 15 feet he loses momentum on the slope and falls off as he’s forgotten his pedals are connected to his shoes…we look down at him in heap…

….We. Are. Fucked….

Bunny… my best mate, my Captain, my Hero, my Grim reaper….The Devil Rides out…

…To be continued…..

Justice.  A tiny word but a powerful one.  It resonates globally.  We all want justice….we want what is right.  It’s a basic right of the people…

I’ve just witnessed justice get a good shoeing.  Months in a room of highly paid public, jowly schoolboys wearing wigs only to find that the 12 random, normal people are thicker than suspected and acquit the bad guys. Even the jokers awaiting their fate look shocked and the Big Wig just slumps in his chair..

Hmmm… an analogy of the magnitude of the error might be required.

This isn’t the actual scenario or indeed anything remotely close to it as any specifics discussed on here would be highly unprofessional but it will give you a flavour of the stupidity of the situation…

• Man walks into a bank with a shotgun.  He walks up to the cashier and blows her head off.  He then empties the till and leaves after writing his name and address on a piece of paper which he leaves on the matter splattered counter top.  He looks up at the CCTV points at his face and says “It’s me… I’ve left a note”.  Polis read note and cruise round to the address.  The door is open and they find the man counting the bloodied money.  Polis get the man to court where the chosen 12 insist he didn’t do it and say he can keep the money. Man leaves with his liberty intact to commit more crimes and spend filthy lucre.

Thirteen years I’ve been doing this stuff and this is the worst professional defeat. I can take defeat, I’ve lost lots of stuff in real life and generally you move on but this is different. The dim appear to be in charge.

Anyway…there’s always another bad guy and another jury….so, from 12 idiots to one special Oaf in three Oafs I encountered in a crowd of 60,000…

For my sins I attend a soulless concrete football stadium on a regular basis to witness millionaires ponce about in order to fall over a lot.  I love it.  It’s a hilarious all day event and on some occasions the actual football is peripheral to the laugh to be had.  Don’t get me wrong, I love football… I always have and I always will but it’s never going to ruin my day…. Unless we lose to the runt club of London wearing Blue…

Match day starts in a fantastic Irish public house en route to the ground. Best Guinness in London without doubt.  This is where I meet the mature art student I attend with.   We play a game where we try to beat each other to the pub.  I’ve never been one for drinking alone but I quite like the quiet half pint before we meet up… it’s calming.

This precious moment is shattered by some random Irishman who decides that he wants a chat with me about some woman he knows.  He decides to tell me that he has a date later and would I like to see a photo. I decide to humour him even though I was brought up to tell strangers to ‘fuck off’ and let him show me the photo reel on his phone which contains a rather graphic photo of his brother having sex with a Brazilian woman he met on holiday….hmmm… I know…. It could be anyone and he sounds like a nut nut but I’m killing time and he clearly assumes he’s in a Galway bar where you speak to strangers in that twinkly eyed Irish way.

I let him ramble on about a brothel he uses locally until he crosses the English line by attempting to pay for the Guinness I’ve ordered for myself.  I stop him there and inform him that we aint in Dublin and he aint my mate. He moves away…. Harsh maybe but this is London… we are animals.

My associate arrives and we remain at the bar to sink another couple of pints in the shadow of the Irishman who’s itching for interaction… we speak no more.

We head to the ground 25 minutes before the off.  The walk takes us past a travellers wedding dress shop directly opposite a pub of such poncitude that I refuse to be seen in it.  It serves East European beer in tall glasses and you need a beard or a record bag to enter.  If a building needed a good shoeing this would be it.

We get to the ground and head straight to our seats.  I’ve had the same seat for nine years and so know everyone around us.  They are all good people and we are lucky that they have a good knowledge of the game as being surrounded by idiots would test me.

Behind me are the two Johns.  They know their stuff,  particularly John #1.  Next to them is a guy who sings with the gusto of a man used to knocking out hymns prior to delivering some new age sermon.  To look at him you’d never think a song was in him.  He’s neat and tidy in a “local church helper slays nine” kind of way but I imagine some kind of pampas grass effort is going on in his front garden where new neighbours are encouraged to enjoy his wife.  He’s perfectly polite so what he does in his own house is his business.

Directly next to me is a bank of five seats which are filled with the same blokes 80% of the time.  The other 20% of the time I get to share the game with some two-bob randomites.  It’s two minutes before kick-off and the seats next to me are empty.  This is the ultimate sign that a bunch of strokers will be sitting next to me at any moment.

Randomites tend to drink until the last minute…They also leave at half time to drink again and stay after the whistle to applaud, chant and sometimes boo.  To a randomite it’s a singular day out and they will relish it the max.  They take lots of selfies which prove they are in the ground and look around in shock when the regulars don’t involve themselves enough for their liking.

…Here they come…. Three of them… 19 years old and covered in colours…  Oafs… Not THE Oaf…he’s in the North Bank being Oafy….just random, everyday Oaffage…

Oaf #1 strides down the row.  Cocky, puny, wispy ‘not old enough yet’ beard, skinny jeans tucked into BK Knights high tops… He also has that massive hole earring in both ears.  The type you could get your finger in to gain his attention… this crosses my mind but I’m distracted by his mate…

Oaf #2 appears… he’s the least problematic at present.  Retro shirt from an era he wouldn’t remember, longish hair and once again the obligatory beard only this time it’s mostly neck orientated.  He’s wearing ‘no arse’ jeans and skater shoes…. He speaks in a ludicrously high pitched voice for a bearded individual… I’m thinking Barry Gibb so he will cause no significant issues.

…and then I see it… moving to the seat directly to next to mine… I sense John #1 behind me smile as he knows this will be a challenging 90 minutes for me…

Oaf #3 lumbers his way towards me.   He’s a good 17 stone and is wearing the latest shirt with ‘Alexis’ on the back.  He’s a big old unit but the sight of a thick bright orange mop of hair calms me as I never find that intimidating.  He’s a pale boy…almost translucent and sickly but freckly with ginger eyelashes and yellow teeth… He plonks himself down next to me but immediately stands up to applaud his heroes as they enter the arena.  I reckon there’ll be a lot of up/down action which generally gets up my snotbox.

I look at John #1… he’s smirking and then laughing… He’ll love this, he’s a dirty rotter.  I turn to the mature Art student.  He’s known me a good 28 years and he knows that this is my Hell… He loves my pain… Schadenfreude-tastic…..

We all settle in and the ref starts the match which seems to be the cue for this triumvirate of stupidity to stand and start a chant.  They are up at an alarming speed, arms extended in a V skyward. They sing something offensive about a team from Middlesex who don’t even count let alone deserve my ‘hate’.  They finish this standing rant and immediately sit as one…. It’s got practice written all over it.

I’m close to Oaf #3 so I sit back and study the subject.

He’s a big old lump for a boy.  Wide yet squidgy… I’d imagine after three pints of piss poor cider he’d be a handful. This kids head is big… a big ginger head.  He appears to be constantly smirking, slightly drooling and partially giggling under his breath.  I always find the hands say a lot.  He seems to be short a knuckle on his thumb… hmmm… this is a new one and is bound to cause a serious issue when engaged in using rudimentary tools.  He ain’t no brain surgeon so he could be in trouble.

I look down the wrist and see the sign of ultimate filth…The rotting festival bracelet.  This plum has six or seven of these festering on his tree trunk wrist.  I notice that they are frayed a bleached and state ‘Void if Removed’ an instruction that he has taken literally as if removal will mean death or even worse, dull normality.  At least he’s young.  These things on anyone over 17 should mean instant incarceration or a swift open hand slap to the cheek.

On the inside of his other arm he has a poor tattoo which says ‘Alexis’ surrounded by wonky stars.  It’s a weak tattoo with blurred edges rather than clean lines… There’s nothing wrong with tattoos but there is something pretty thick about having the name of a player forever cut into your arm when he’s unlikely to be around in 3 years and has only played 25 matches.  His only out of this faux pas is to track down a willing or sedated women with this name to spend the rest of his life with but judging by the drooling grin this seems a long shot.

We score.  Cue Oaf-Explosion… Oaf-Carnage…

Chaos engulfs me but I remain seated.  I haven’t forgotten the previous debacle and so will not join in with the celebrations at this point… The Oafs are overjoyed… They go crazy.  I check my phone to see if this game is in fact the World Cup final and not just another league game against substandard opposition.  It’s not the World Cup final… it’s nothing….

The game is over as a contest.  The opposition are broken and as expected crumble over the next 45 minutes.  The Oafs don’t crumble, they revel, go mental, and lose their tiny, tiny minds.

Number 3 screams at a player from our position in an upper tier a good 50 yards away.  It’s full of swearing and the crowd below look at me as if I’m with the prick.  He follows up the rant with another about bad throw in’s… he’s a lost cause… I switch off…. It’s over… This country is producing thicker Oafs on a yearly basis and they are seeking me out.

The game is over and we head back to the pub to watch a more cerebral, brutal sport…. Rugby… Ireland are on and the pub is crammed with red faces and thick necks…

I’m wedged at the bar next to a bloke in a heavy rain coat and a large trilby cocked at a jaunty angle… I can see the game on the TV through the necks and bald heads ahead of me. Hat man turns to me.  He’s surprisingly younger than the hat/coat combo would suggest but he has the look of a thousand Bushmills chasers…

“What’s that blue stuff?”… he points at a large rugby player on the screen in a white shirt with a blue smear on his arm….”Is that Woad?” he shouts in a thick Dublin accent…

“Woad?” says I, “Woad as in ‘Braveheart’?”… He sees that my face thinks he’s an idiot but he continues…

“Aye… Woad… have they put Woad on….for the battle?”

I explain to him that the blue is the dye from the RBS logo on the pitch, this isn’t a Tavern in the 11^th Century and the shiny box with the little men running around isn’t some form of Alchemy….

“Jaysus” he says… “sorry about that….of course it is…I’m going feckin’ mad…”

I’ve always attracted the nut jobs, as my relationship in the mid to late 90’s proved… but that’s another story…

Day Two: Alum Bay

My family historically have a derogatory word for the patrons of this tourist “attraction”…. That word is “Lumpents”… It’s onomatopoeic. Lumbering, lumpy, tooth free, tattooed forearms, smokers….and then there’s the men… older, coach drivers in shirts who shout at their offspring in public.

The word itself is a derivative of the Marxist term “Lumpenproletariat” so we’re only as cruel as revolutionary socialist with a plot in Highgate Cemetery…. keep calm everyone… I’m not Lenin…. It’s banged out with Lumpents… all fighting over coloured sand… The kids, of course, love it… they are filling up the jars with layers and me and Jen are assisting… The rest of the assembled mob are involved…kids, Dad’s, Mum’s, Grandparents… why an adult would want a glass jar filled with sand is beyond me but hey, without them I’d have nothing to rip the piss out of right?

When you’ve filled the jar you take it to a counter where a spotty student will top it off for you… I say “student” but its more like a Dungeons and Dragons convention with tattoos and piercings. It’s our turn to meet the student.. We get Grendel… heavy eyebrows, whispy hair, crooked jaw with an underbite, snorting, nervous laugh…If I were Beowulf It would be my destiny to slay the beast while naked.. I’m toying with stripping down to nothing but remember I’m not Beowulf… I’m not even a cartoon Ray “CAAAANT””Winstone.

We do the chair lift (to the beach…not the gift shop) and mince about on the pebbles for a bit…. I feel slightly let down in reality…Is this really a tourist attraction? This country needs to take a look at itself when it comes to tourism… They are closing the place when we are in it… pulling down the shutters when you are still using the stuff… It’s truly pathetic..

Later we have an average one course meal in a pub for £70….”surf and turf” with such flavour I enjoyed the finger bowl more than the meal…cracking…it had lemon in it and everything… Luckily the kids are currently happy.

Day three: Shanklin….

A big town…. a hub of entertainment…. a cliff side lift..

We arrive, it could be any seaside town in England…lights, shit parking, passing trade, chips…chips everywhere… I’m sick of chips….”no chips kids” I say…surprisingly they wholeheartedly agree. Right… what to do here?…arcades, a beach and some kind of “fun” park containing crazy golf… Always a winner. We have a fun 40 minutes… I lose…. .. now the food issue.

I walk past a place near the fun park. It’s rammed with massive balloon people, gorging on fried potatoes and “pop” in a blur of tattooed ham hock forearms… I say “pop” as that’s what the general Northerner in attendance calls it… Londoners don’t do this.

We walk down the “promenade” or “pavement” as I like to call it. I see an old bloke walk towards me… super tanned, wrap arounds, magnificent bowl on him, shirt off…. oh dear… he’s in possession of a large growth to his upper chest… like a angry cricket ball sized blister… horrible…people duck for cover as it’s angry enough to “go up” at any moment….has it come to this?.. We move on and head to a hotel which appears to have sandwiches with salad on the menu….. naturally it’s empty. I fancy a Prawn Baguette as I’m international…I can fit in everywhere… I’m an very interesting man… Jen heads off to the bar to order and me and the kids sit under a parasol freezing our cobblers off but refusing to be beaten by the drizzle and chill.. Jen returns… something ain’t right…. she looks serious… I ask her what’s wrong and she tells me that she’s had a row with the bloke taking the order. Now, If you know Jen you would realise that this is almost impossible… she don’t do this…. I do this for us… It’s my job… it’s what I do… I’m a the trappy fucker, she is the calm, logical one, the Brains of the operation… I’m only wheeled out for the problems… the destruction.

She tells me that during the mundane task of ordering three sandwiches and a Cream Tea she was informed that it was not possible to deliver the items together just like the massive ponceitude of Wagamama but without the banged out restaurant. The jub taking the order says that en masse delivery “wasn’t possible”. She asks why and is told “That’s how we do it”… She suggests that maybe they don’t have to do it like that and that it is possible and is told “That’s how we do it”….she makes it clear that she ain’t happy to a deadpan acne face taking food orders in an empty hotel lobby…. nothing…. no response.. just the sound of hormones gushing out of the oily pores on his face.

I suggest some old school Dad intervention where I deliver the “Bad News” to Biactol Boy but she wants me to leave it… The brain has spoken… I fully expect my classy prawn baguette to include a flob or some other stringy emission related with the creamy fishy delight within.

I look at my pint…. “Shanklin Bitter”… not so much a drink as a state of mind. ..The sandwiches arrive and less than a minute later a tea pot and a scone as big as a babies head is brought in making the whole scenario of pissing off the punters irrelevant and merely a power trip on behalf of the fucker taking the order. We eat up and leave… I toy with telling the bloke that it’s not possible to leave a tip as “that’s not how I do it” but don’t bother… The kids head to the beach for a run around and Jen and I sit on the sea front and watch them… righty they don’t give a toss…they are the innocent..

“…abroad next year Darling?” says I…. she raises an eyebrow…no words are required…. Shanklin…a big town….a hub of entertainment….a cliff side lift…. a shithole.

Day Four: Freshwater Bay Beach

Sand…I hate sand…bad to sit on… bad for the camera…bad mixed with suncream, crisps, drinks, ipods and it makes sandwiches crunchy… This is a particularly bad moment for me but the kids want to go so I bite my lip.

It’s a nice beach and the sun is hot when it appears however most of the time I’m wearing a fleece which can’t be right…generally if you are clothed on a beach you are storming a machine gun turret. I sit there for three hours listening to a book about Columbian drug trafficking but intersperse this with “rock pooling” where the kids capture a terrified shrimp and some shells.

Freshwater and Yarmouth must be where the upper end of the island live… lots of healthy looking kids called “Ambrose”, “Amelia” and “Josh” all in little kid wetsuits and those waterproof shoes. They all have energetic dogs that endlessly run into the sea retrieving drift wood. All the Dads have jaunty Jack Johnson wicker hats that look too small and the Mums wear Fat Face beach fleeces… It’s idyllic bollocks. 

I’m sitting minding my own business with a pair of over the ear headphones on (I hate them…but left mine in the house) listening to a story about a drug Cartel enforcer literally forcing a .38 snub nose down the throat of a competitor when I feel something at my feet. I look down and find two kids building a sandcastle. There’s about eight people on this beach and they decide to do it on me. I look at the owner of these brats… she smiles and waves. Standby Love… I’m from London… this ain’t normal… remove your 1000 yard stare kids. I engage my “fuck off” face and they are extracted to the feet of some other mug in a kind of “don’t look back at the scary man darlings” way.  

We go back to the house where I down a large bottle of Hoegaarden and Jen does two large rouge before we head off to an independent bistro/cafe for dinner. Its “highly rated”… hmmm. I walk in resplendent in liberating burgundy trousers. I’m oozing trouser power. To my left are two pissed middle aged Yarmouthites… clearly been drinking all day and are preparing for a lazy, out of time early evening shag imminently… don’t ask… I can tell… I’ve been there.

We get a table…it’s wobbly…. it’s sticky… this is rectified by a teenager of such magnitude that I thought he was holding a giant ball of sausage meat and some chipolatas. It turns out this was his hand. He loosely “cleans” the table.  I remain calm.. My daughter looks at me…she puts her hand on my shoulder and in her American accent she says “..I’m with you man!!”… she gets it…she can spot it.

I’m facing into the restaurant directly looking at a man who puts the salt into “salty seadog”. He looks uncannily like Marvel comics creator Stan Lee and is writing into a note book. His dinner arrives…Sea Bream and sautéed potatoes… it looks great… classy… proper… he devours it in about 80 seconds with a spoon. He shovels it in after covering it in tartar sauce…peasant… eating fish with a spoon…says it all. A bloke then walks in on a mobile to his left ear… too specific? He has no right ear, just a hole and a flap of skin…bad hair and a limp… “Highly rated”….roger rog…it was “alright”…I mean can you really fuck up a scampi?

We leave and find a shop to buy some milk. Outside there are teenage Amelia’s, Josh’s and Ambrose’s. One of them drops his iPhone and smashes it… “Fucking Hell…fuckididumdum…” I inform his that if he swears in front of my kids again it will be a bad move resulting in extreme violence... “but I’ve broke my phone” he says…”good”, I reply…Jen whisks me away.

Tomorrows plan is to drive around the island at full speed… when we reach the necessary velocity I will direct Jen to a jetty and hope that we have gathered enough momentum to Evel Knievel our way across the Solent to safety…. That’s my plan…the kids want to go to Robin Hill adventure park… I’m sure that will be our destination..

Day Five: Robin Hill Adventure Park

The Village of the Damned. We have a late start to the day as part of the Robin Hill experience is at night. I assume this is due to the trolls that will inevitably make up the patrons wishing to avoid sunlight.

Prior to departure we go to a Yarmouth hot spot on the pier. It appears that standard yet acceptably tasty stuff is available at ludicrous prices. Jen’s seafood “chowder” or “thick soup” for the intelligentsia was a £9.00 with a partial baguette.

Piss takers…. but we have to eat.

The two waitresses are sisters, 25 ish with spots and badly dyed hair and thick black gloopy eyeliner. They look “scrutty” and I’m betting a thumb will be in the soup upon delivery. The blond one of the sisters has a lisp. Tragically I always find a lisp amusing. When you enter you order and take a number and wait for your number to be shouted out by the waitress. I’m disappointed to receive ’58’ on my ticket as I was hoping for ’76’.. but fear not we’ve ordered the soup, sandwiches, drinks with straws, extra sugar for the tea and salt.

The place is filled with old people gnawing and sucking on crusty breaded items… its a horrible sight…reminiscent of a babies and rusks. We take out a bridging loan, pay the bill and leave… The Robin Hill ‘Adventure’ awaits…

We arrive at out destination venue….. It’s eerily quiet. It’s £70 for a family of four…comedy gold. It’s Legoland lite. They’ve copied the idea and tweaked it to farming setting which is some feat. I look around and realise that I could live and work on the Isle of Wight as all I need is a Scholl sandal and walking stick or crutch factory… not crutches.. crutch, singular. There is a future here Jen…. I can sense it. Everywhere I look I see the Challenged Limping about. They are cottage loaf people with lank hair mostly walking using the single crutch for stability as the other hand is holding a Rothmans.. It reminds me of the work canteen. The Horse and I once counted the crutches in there… we saw five shared out amongst four overly nourished staff who can move pretty sharpish when the jam sponge and custard appears. Crutches used to mean ‘broken leg’ not ‘density’.

We look around and try to marry up the fun map with the delights on offer… no fuckin chance. There’s a Maze made out of garden fences, a swinging Galleon (second hand from elsewhere), ‘Carp Quay’ which is a fish pond although it does lead to ‘Troll Island’ which is a jetty. There’s a ‘Gypsy Camp’ which I think is a thing as I can find no oil barrels and broken cars.. The kids spot ‘Hillbilly Slide’ and go for a ride… it’s a big slide next to the main event… ‘Toboggan Mountain’… I monitor this ride as I know I’ll have to go on it with my daughter.  It appears to involve sitting on a plastic tray and being dragged up an incline before being released down a metal track reminiscent of a tobogganing…. As expected Hillbilly Slide fails to hold the interest and I find myself queuing for the Toboggan effort. In front of me is a woman….I think its a woman. It’s small and in a dress so I’ll go with woman. She looks up at me over her glasses and eyebrows, I see a tooth look out like a prisoner poking out a cell window during a riot…. she’s about to speak… I don’t want this… I’m queuing… just because we are thrown together doesn’t mean we must interact… her hair is a fairly decently cut bob but it’s not washed well. She has that thing I hate on a woman with a bob… a poking out ear breaking the symmetry of the cut…. It’s the female equivalent of men who pull down a cap too far to bend an ear… I want to poke it in and, let me tell you, this isn’t a sentence I ever thought I would think about when confronted with this woman.

It speaks;  “..see that bangle?..” she says pointing at her kids. The daughter wears the bangle, the boy talks in whirs and clicks like Clunk from ‘Stop the Pigeon’ … I nod…”great value”… she speaks quick… “really?” I say but I’m thinking “fuck off and try not to drool so much”. She informs me that it’s a tenner a bangle and you get unlimited rides. Her daughter has done the ride 24 times which explains the twitch and the random pawing of the ear. “Great news”  I say, “perhaps if there was something else to do here she wouldn’t need to have been on it so often”….. there’s an uncomfortably long silence before she bursts out laughing……teeth like a burnt down fence as expected… Friends for life…

The ride is shocking… a 35 second descent at luke warm speed…. thrilling…

We take a ride on “Big Green”… basically a tractor pulling a carriage which takes four minutes and goes in a circle…. no words are exchanged with the driver who looks like Kenny Noye. I make a note in case he’s escaped and is lying low.

We kill time by walking round the gardens which are lit with coloured lights They are genuinely beautiful and remind me of my first visit to this island as a 5 year old. Fantastic stuff and it makes me realise why I like it.. it’s tranquil and unfettered by modern life.  However this brings me on to the African themed playground. It has a BBQ in the middle run by the only non white employee I’ve seen since I got here….It’s like a wind up….a sad, 1970’s “Love they Neighbour” wind up….the assembled punters don’t give a fuck and to be fair the bloke behind the ramp seems to be enjoying himself but I feel it’s wrong… 1950’s England is seen in my 2014 London eyes.

The main attraction looms….. “Owls by Twilight”… Because of kids you tend to see a lot of Falconry. Every castle you go to has it like its still used. It’s essentially dull but this is supposed to be “stunning”. I’ll say that again……”Stunning”. The Arena is packed. Crutches litter the stairways, excitement builds as there’s a rumour that this display, at night and with lights may also contain music….sweetfuckinjeebus!! I’m out of my excitement zone here… The music starts….

Panpipes… panpipes….noseflutes… owls by noseflute… don’t get me wrong I like Owls…I know a few cracking Owl sanctuaries but this isn’t difficult… Owls fly at night… they hunt at night… Rush’s 1975 album “Fly by Night” has an Owl on the cover. What more proof do you need?.

The owls fly about and the Jock in charge tells us that it’s hoped in 4-5 years they may have four owls flying at the same time…The lumpents clap at this revelation…. I don’t….I weep internally… my life is ebbing away…ebbing away at a falconry display. The only upside was the bird landing on a punters head and getting caught in her hair….flapping around, causing mayhem and not even an apology from the geezer with the glove… We head to the car…. “Nothing to do there Dad” says the boy and do you know… he was right.

Back at the house I stair at the Chianti bottle…. Have I also lost the will to drink? No… No I haven’t…

Day Six: The Last Supper

The major plan for this trip was to take the bikes away for a family cycle. This plan was scuppered early on by my daughter’s refusal to move on anything other than a smooth surface…Great…. she broke the holiday….she’s 8… it’s not her fault.

The final day was for chillin’… The plan was to have a drive to see the things we hadn’t so far and get some gifts to bring back… It’s a well known fact that if you return from holiday in to my office without some kind of tribute to the God of Tea then your career is pretty much over…. Fear not… I have the necessary heart stopping, clotted cream shortbread.

The Isle of Wight is a lovely place…. quiet…. calm….I’ve had a great time regardless of my ranting and I was with my tribe for a week which is the point. Jen is close to tears as she wants to live here however I’ve explained that as there seems to be no crime which limits my employment potential.  We take a walk along the coast from Yarmouth… this should be easy, it’s a straight line and I can see our destination.

We wander along and it’s windy…bone chillingly windy. It’s also a bit of a shithole…burnt out BBQ’s, in some cases complete with uneaten kebabs are spotted as are the evidence of low end high alcohol boozing… standard seaside fare… I spot a couple of locals sitting by the sea.  He looks like the brother Boris Johnson had locked in the loft who was fed with fish heads from a bucket. The woman is similar so I’m guessing it’s a brother/sister love in and they are drinking ‘K’ cider which explains everything.

Just before we reach the end of the walk I look up at a balcony of a big house overlooking the sea and see a huge stone cock….. This ain’t no Rooster man!… this is anatomical…sculptural… I draw Jen’s attention to it and she gathers up the kids to view a boat far away on the horizon… Perhaps this is the real Isle of Wight…..

We amble back into town to book a table for dinner only to find that everywhere is booked up. Fuck this…. I end up phoning the main Hotel which seems to have space. I put on the burgundies and we head for the Last Supper…

The Hotel is a  big gaff near the Yachting Club which is a club of such poncitude that it should have a sign which says “fuck off if you don’t own a boat” on the entrance.

“Hello Sir” says the receptionist with the cheap powdery make-up. I explain I’ve booked a table and she asks if I want the Conservatory restaurant or the a’la Carte?.. I say nothing but look at the kids and then look back at her in a kind of ‘are you mental?’ way…. she directs me to the Conservatory…. We sit down….hmmm… this ain’t going to be cheap  Three staff swoop in…all teeth and tits. The servitude is overpowering.  I’ve never liked that, wine glasses filled up after ever sip…gets up my nose. I take control and the waiter withdraws in what can only be described as a bow.

As usual I’ve seamlessly fitted in, I’m a a very eclectic human….I’ve done this before… The boy peruses the menu and decides on chicken main course with a crudité and lemon mayonnaise starter…. what a ponce. My daughter has the Chicken and gets some “Crayons” to colour in the menu. They are called “Crayons” as they assume I’m North London scum They are in fact Caran D’ache watercolour pencils such is the ponceitude. I feel like asking for some oils and a easel…

The meal is acceptable in a “it’s just a steak” way… too small and precious.. Jen had he smallest Lobster in the Ocean… almost a large prawn but it was tasty enough. I look around and see the brains of the island…. the glitterati…Old, yet they think they are trendy in that aging rich hippy way. Glittery eyeliner on old eyes, earrings on men in lounge jackets, paisley cravats and comedy sailor socks….In the words of Mr Franklin it’s a “Cunts banquet”…It’s all a bluff….London would devour these idiots and spit them out.  I look at the kids and it hardens my resolve that they live in London till they wish to leave it. London makes a person, nothing phases you after London…Greatest City in the world…

We pay up… £120…Jen don’t look happy. We return home to continue the UNO world championships and finish the remaining booze…. No Londoner would leave a drink for the next family and I keep up the tradition…. Give them nothing, take everything… I can smell the ferry…. I can sniff the Capital…. Onwards…..

Something different from my usual rants. I currently have little ammunition due to not being on the train for a week, so I thought I’d try something less ranty and more specific to the me….

A few years back the Horse and I had to take a road trip to Manchester in the name of Justice. We are great mates and rarely struggle to fill time like this but on this occasion he had the great idea of each of us creating a CD of our indispensable songs. I didn’t find this too difficult as over the years I have honed down a vast collection of music into tracks that actually mean something to me…tracks that mean a moment or a time or are just truly magnificent.

This blog will explain “The Tracks of my Years”

They are in no particular order and no one track is rated better than the rest… well… maybe one of them is the greatest track in the history of music but you’ll spot that anyway…. Enjoy this insight into my musical brain…. You won’t all like them, The Horse didn’t…I care not a jot….OK…let’s start…

“Mean Street” by Van Halen – “Fair Warning”, 1981

In reality I shouldn’t like Van Halen as I’m an Englishman. They are an American , spandex wearing, ‘Cock Rock’ Hair metal band. Jen reckons they are rubbish and cannot believe that I could possibly like anything about them….she’s wrong. Van Halen contains one of the finest exponents of rock guitar ever to walk the earth. Eddie Van Halen is a true legend who reinvented the rock guitar in the late 70’s with no formal training. He is the King of “tapping” regardless of who invented it…Eddie brought this aspect to the forefront and a million fuzzball pretenders followed.

To me Van Halen was and is all about one man and so it was with great geeky joy that I discovered on ‘You Tube’ isolated guitar tracks for most Van Halen songs which means I don’t have to listen to the screaming Dave Lee Roth or the mostly flat, badly produced drums of Alex Van Halen.

This track epitomises Van Halen at their 80’s best. It’s from a time when the band hated each other and the Roth wheels were starting to work themselves loose. However this track has the lot. A blistering opening salvo followed by a deep, heavy driving riff, outstanding rhythm guitar and a flawless solo. You’ll also find a goose bump inducing pick slide at 3:49 seconds in. If I was forced to pick one Van Halen track to play for eternity this would be it.  I had the misfortune of seeing Van Halen in the 90’s when they were fronted by a squealing puffball Californian called Sammy… I didn’t wholly care as my gaze never left Eddie.

This is top drawer, thrusting groin level rock which set my standard and put me on the road to decades of Heavy Metal Heaven….

“Dog Eat Dog” by Adam and the Ants – “Kings of the Wild Frontier”, 1980

In the early 80’s it would be fair to say that I loved Adam Ant. I was a child but I was obsessed with him like a schoolgirl obsessed with a girl band. In hindsight there was something slightly creepy about Adam and the Ants. The demographic was 12 year olds but the songs were post punk sex tracks that few people cottoned on to. Fear not dear reader this phase lasted about 18 months and basically ended at the Dominion theatre where I witnessed “The Prince Charming Revue”, live before my naked steaming eyes.

I went to the gig in full make up. My Mum had created the Ant look from whatever she had in the house. I was wearing cut down wellies with added tassels, a pair of tights and a black silk shirt. I looked magnificent. We acquired the tickets from a friend of my parents who worked for CBS records….the tickets were an apology for providing me with a clearly fake ‘signed’ Adam Ant photo.. yep she was basically a typist scumbag who wanted to impress my Mum…she failed as my mum is a sharp cookie..

That gig was the greatest moment of my life at that point. I still remember walking into the lobby of the Dominion, looking about and feeling that I was underdressed. Freaks everywhere. The gig itself was excellent and the Ant band could really play. At the end of the gig my Mum blagged her way in and got us backstage but there was no sign of the main Ant and all I got was a handshake with the mostly ignored and overly nourished Marco Pirroni as he left the venue sweating like some kind of animal.

Within a year I was pretending to be a “Mod”, the Ants had split and Stuart was singing about Pussy Cats with Phil Collins on drums. The mad world of 80’s pop…. This was the best of Adam Ant… and it still stands up as a time capsule of classic pop.

‘The Butterfly Collector’ by The Jam, 1979

Everyone in North London in the late 70’s and early 80’s loved The Jam. They were the ultimate band who remained cool while delivering top drawer singles and albums. Of course all the glory was sucked up by charisma vacuum Paul Weller but the driving force was the rhythm section of Foxton and Buckler. Nothing in the name of Weller since has hit the heights of The Jam and no amount of Primrose Hillbilly Bullshit will convince me otherwise.

The Jam were almost untouchable at times. They could play anything from the explosive in your face punk/rock to the delicate acoustic ballad. I could have picked any number of songs in reality as there was barely a duff track but this song stands out for me. It’s a haunting ballad with just about the right amount of anger within it to maintain the Jam energy.

I never saw The Jam live… I was too young. I don’t want to see a reunion as it would be sad. The Jam were about energy and anger not brass sections with old men going through the motions for the big payday. The Police tried this a few years ago and it was mostly a disaster.

I have seen Weller over the years. I saw him right up to his tragic death following the completion of the ‘Wild Wood’ Tour. After that tour someone purporting to be the man who successfully resurrected a career after a mental breakdown in the form of ‘The Style Council’ started releasing substandard Starbucks muzak under the name of Paul Weller. It was all very, very sad. Luckily I still have the memory of The Jam and my years of wandering around the park in an over large fishtail parka and painful shoes from Shelleys. I have never been cool.

‘Pretty Vacant’ by the Sex Pistols – “Never mind the Bollocks”, 1977

This is not a Punk album….. it’s a Rock album and one of the greatest Rock albums of all time.

I could easily have picked ‘Submission’ as the best track but the riff to ‘Pretty Vacant’ is so superb that it needs multiple plays on a loop. You can’t really mess this track up as it’s so well constructed.
I remember when the Pistols unashamedly reformed for the money in the mid 90’s. They played Finsbury Park and released the gig as an album. I always thought they couldn’t really play but hearing reviews at the time and then the CD itself its clear that they could…. Not Vicious obviously… he was useless musically. The opening riff to ‘Pretty Vacant’ on the live album is majestic. The riff oozes power and epitomises the Pistols as a rock band and not a punk band.  Prior to the first line of this song on the live version Lydon shouts “LET’S GO TO WAR!!”… you could go to war to this riff….

I went through a phase of listening to the Pistols a lot. At one point I found myself in the kitchen of my parents house playing ‘ Friggin’ in the Riggin’’ to my Nan to much hilarity. That song isn’t really a Pistols track it’s a comedy album filler but I wasn’t keen to play my Nan ‘Bodies’ in order to make her laugh. The only real Pistols album is ‘Bollocks’.

There will never be another Sex Pistols in the history of music. A manufactured band before Simon Cowell that could produce a classic album filled with hate and bile which stands the test of time…. Truly brilliant…

‘Rock Bottom’ by UFO – ‘Phenomenom’, 1974

When the lead singer is from Wood Green, the drinking machine bass player is from Enfield and the Thunderbastard drummer is from Cheshunt you really have to take notice.

UFO are one of this country’s lost bands. A bit like Thin Lizzy in the underated stakes although I think they probably have a better back catalogue. Lizzy were like Queen, a brilliant live experience, outstanding greatest hits but a lot of unnecessary filler on the albums. UFO had all those attributes but the albums had great songs throughout.

UFO were a party band…an honest band. They were destined to never really make it stella as they enjoyed being Rock Stars too much. Lots of drink and drugs, lots of lost opportunities, lots of band changes… it was never destined to work out that well. .

The one constant in UFO is the singer Phil Mogg. I’m not too interested who is on guitar which seems to rile a lot of UFO fans. Mogg is UFO and always will be… without him it’s nothing.

My brother, The Eternal Champion, took me to my first UFO gig. It was in the mid 80’s at the greatest of all London venues, The Hammersmith Odeon. He had done his ground work by providing me with a copy of UFO’s greatest hits album ‘Headstone’ which had a live set on the fourth side. This is still one of my favourite live records.

The line up at that time consisted of only two real members of UFO, Mogg and Paul Raymond and the album they were touring with was possibly their weakest. None of this mattered as I was hooked. I remember the power of the band and the presence of Mogg the front man. I also remember the topless cowgirl dancing at the back of the stage and the biker punch up in the bar.

I left that gig hooked on UFO and Mogg in particular. I ended up at some biker/hippy party that night with my Bruv… I was all shiny and new amongst the grit… Glory days..

Years later I would see UFO a number of times and Mogg was still the great front man but an older version with a less powerful voice. At one gig at the Kentish Town Forum during a break between songs Mogg pointed at a bloke in the crowd and said:

‘ If you do not desist in requesting that song I will be forced to come into the crowd to deal with you’ …

This is what we need from our rock stars… total domination of the fandom.

‘Gimme Shelter’ by The Rolling Stones – ‘Let it Bleed’ , 1969

I have never been the world’s greatest Rolling Stones fan. They mostly leave me cold. I can’t quite pin it down but it might be the media assertion that they are the world’s greatest Rock ‘n ‘ Roll band….. They aren’t… There are many bands better than them… Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles to name a few.

I also don’t think much of Keith Richards as a guitarist. I rate Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor could clearly play but Richards seems to be mostly a mess wrapped up in a bandana.

All this being said it should be noted that ‘Gimme Shelter’ is a stroke of genius.

If you wanted to encapsulate the laziness of the Stones into one song this would be it. It sounds like an improvisation rather than a structured song. I always get the impression that they just stumbled across it and recorded it straight off the bat. Clearly that isn’t what happened but they captured the essence of the moment in the recording and I’m happy to believe my idea over a torturous, drug fuelled, laborious writing process in a hired out French Chateaux.

I saw the “Budweiser” Stones at Wembley Stadium in the 90’s. Corporate whoredom at its greatest but they knock out a decent greatest hits package and the crowd were happy enough albeit a lot skinter than when they arrived

I watched their Glastonbury set a few years ago and thought they were terrible. Jagger looked ludicrously spindly and the twin guitar assault of Wood and Richards was weak and tuneless. I’d actually put money on the fact that Richards guitar wasn’t plugged in and Charlie Watts is an animatronic.

The Stones are no longer a Rock Band… they are a logo that makes money through various means including the odd new song crow barred into a revisited greatest hits album… How much money do you want Mick?… all of it or just most of it?

‘White lines (Don’t do it) by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel, 1983

When this track came on in the car during our trip to Manchester The Horse nearly crashed the motor. He has only ever known me as a ‘rocker’ and he claimed to have never even heard this track. For a grown man in his 40’s not to have heard this song is, quite frankly, ludicrous.

This song will forever remind me of roaming the streets of Hornsey with my cousin in the mid 80’s. We used to leave the house in the early evening and just loiter about carrying an overlarge cassette recorder playing the Electro albums which were popular at the time… I felt ‘street’…Clearly I wasn’t… I have never been cool.

This track was a mob favourite…. This and ‘Rockit’ by Herbie Hancock. We used to roam about playing these songs while we terrorised the locals. When I say ‘terrorised’ I hope you realise that I mean it in the 80’s way and not the current ASBO way. No alley was safe from a criss cross of cotton placed there by the mob…. A simple trick with an hilarious outcome always made funnier if the trapped punter was riding a bike through the alley rather than walking at a slow pace.

Another memory from this time was the firework battles. Rockets propelled at each other from discarded sections of plumbing acting as homemade bazooka’s. No one cared if you were injured… your parents simply dusted you down and sent you out there again…. That was the score.

‘White Lines’ the song is a timeless classic. A tremendous bass line and outstanding lyrics… with a 7 minute running time it lasts long enough to be epic… twas the Soundtrack of my Youth through the mid 80’s summers…

‘Magic Bus’ by The Who – ‘Live at Leeds’, 1970

In the years between 1970 and 1974 The Who were the greatest rock band on the planet. This album is possibly the greatest live album ever recorded. A band at the start of their peak and in tune with each other.

My Dad bought me this album on a double play cassette with ‘Who are You’… I played it to death. I’m not sure why he bought it for me but I’m eternally grateful that he did… it could be the best thing he ever bought me. Let’s face it if your old man is going to unknowingly introduce you to The Who what better album to do it with…

No band at the time could match the power of The Who…perhaps Zeppelin but certainly not The languid Stones. There are parts of this album that border of hard rock and almost heavy metal, it’s a master class in live rock music. The version of ‘Magic Bus’ is the definitive version and the only one that should be heard.

Like all bands, The Who produced a lot of sub standard rubbish due to Townsends own peculiar vision of what the fans need. Even revered albums like “Who’s Next” have duff tracks most notably ‘Going Mobile’ which needs smashing.

This album has no bad tracks. Even the extended version of this album has no bad tracks. The performances by the four members of the band are flawless. Moon is a powerhouse, Entwhistle proves that the bass need not be boring, Rog was at his vocal peak and Pete proved that you don’t need a widdly widdly guitar solo to be a one of the best.

If you have never heard ‘Live at Leeds’ then you need to…. peerless….

‘Night Prowler’ by AC/DC – ‘Highway to Hell’, 1979

Believe it or not but there was a time when AC/DC were unfashionable.

In the mid 80’s when I first saw them you could almost walk up to the box office at Wembley Arena and get a ticket as no one really cared. The Eternal Champion took me to my first AC/DC gig, January 1987. It was the first time I’d seen a global rock band and I still remember every moment of it from the opening power chord, through the Angus on stage strip right through to the booming cannons (I’ll revisit these in a moment) at the end. It was a spiritual experience and made me feel that I was part of the entire genre no matter how derided it was.

A few years later I went to see them with my mates, again at Wembley Arena. In our company was the stunningly cool Googan…Collegiate cool but still at school, all pink socks, college scarves and babyfaced girl bait. He remains one of my best mates so I feel able to describe him in these terms. For the life of me I cannot recall why he came to the gig… He was into the Smiths and all that other insipid stuff. Anyway he was in the room and so I thought I’d share my extensive metal experience with him.

Throughout the gig I had informed him that he wouldn’t believe the sound of the cannons that get set off during ‘For those about to Rock (we salute you)’ which was the final song. “prepare yourself mate…you may wish to cover your ears and remove your glasses..”. We were moments away from a 21 gun salute and as I’d seen it I thought I’d watch Googans reaction to the cacophony..

Here they come…’pop’….a low level, lowercase ‘pop’ at that… I looked at Googan, he turned to me and pissed himself laughing. Who could blame him, my humiliation was total. I’d been let down by low level special effects and a bad memory. The next gig we attended together was Madonna where I was merely in the stadium to pull someone.. It was July and he brought an umbrella.

AC/DC did exist before ‘Back in Black’. They existed before the gigs were filled with Dad’s in tweed jackets who watch ‘Top Gear’ and like bitter and England. They existed before their logo was available on baby clothes in Top Shop. They existed in a better formation with a better singer and greater songs which weren’t all about rock and cock.

This is classic Bon Scott AC/DC and the final track on his final album. It epitomises that great AC/DC. It has great lyrics and a clean guitar sound. It also features great backing vocals where you can actually hear the other members of the band… there’s nothing worse than an overdubbed lead singer backing vocal which is like cheating to me. AC/DC were always better with Scott singing and playing at this pace as they are essentially a blues rock band and not a fist pumping stadium metal band… Similar to early ZZ Top.

Scott died after this album…choked on his own drink filled vomit. A terrible end to a legendary rocker and the middle death of three legends in 2 years. Moon, Scott and Bonham all died in a two year period… it’s at this point that I need to point out that Keith Richards still lives and makes money. Suck that up next time you see the tongue logo on a bag of crisps or a soft drink..

Scott’s last words on this song were “shazbot…nanu nanu..”… The genius of AC/DC in one track.

…and finally…

‘I heard it through the Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye, 1968

Quite simply the greatest song in the history of modern music.

Motown is my secret pleasure. It’s almost a flawless genre. Simple yet complex songs across the board with this at the top of the tree. Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding were the kings of Motown.

Lyrically I cannot find a song better than this. It’s almost a poem. The simplicity of the song arrangement is also brilliant. Strings, organ and some drums…however instruments are almost irrelevant as the lyrics and the voice drive it forward.

There’s not much more that can be said other than if I went deaf I would weep at not being able to hear this song again.

..And so there you have it… a long blog about the greatest songs of my life.

Of course there are other great songs. ‘Hooker with a Penis’ by Tool is a drumming masterpiece as is ‘Trampled under foot’ by Zeppelin but I needn’t hear them…they are not indispensable.

Lots of other music stirs my emotions. INXS will forever remind me of my first real girlfriend who now resides on the other side of the globe (insert joke here), Van Morrison reminds me of another woman… a mad one currently living on the other side of the country…’The whole of the Moon’ reminds me of another… Yes, I do know where they all live as generally they are still mates of mine and as you can’t really wipe memories good or bad you need to come to terms with the past.

It’s hard to see anything breaking into my top 10 as the most recent track is a hip hop song from 1983… They just don’t make them like they used to…

I am not cool and I am getting old…. but to paraphrase Lydon ‘I don’t care..’…

Miserable weather. Magnificently matching my mood…cold and grey.

The gloom of January. The general post festive scenario following the joyous month of Christmas where thirsts were slaked in the name of capitalism. I felt I was ready for the onslaught where I manage to drink with everyone I love. It is my failing and my strength. Without my liver idiocy friendships would wane.  Jen reckons I’m a mug,  perhaps I am but I tell her;

 “It’s not about me…. it’s about ‘them’….’the others’…”.

I’m all about the charity… and the laugh.  So remember mates, If you didn’t see me during Christmas it’s because you couldn’t make it.. I’m was blameless. I was out there in the Guinness and Rouge. The magnitude of this selfless act resulted in three days of paranoia where I found myself believing I was being followed.  I’m too old for it…It needs to be controlled…

…0757 hours…. The Freak Box…

The tube is unforgiving in cold weather. Brutal heat meets heavy coats creating a damp, pungency. We trundle along and I’m wearing a fleece and a gilet (body warmer to anyone brought up in the ’70’s)… I’m sweating like a pregnant nun but I’m maintaining a steady calm as ever…

Up trots a massive bloke to head towards a seat next to me. He’s a right old lump. A good two metres tall and in a polyester puffer jacket.  He sits quicker than I anticipate and so my arm is crushed by his truly epic arse. We exchange a manly nod as neither of us want the other to think that this interaction may have been deliberate.  He’s a big bloke and I feel myself crunching inwards like a page three girl showing off the goods…

A small girl with a nice smell to my left (almonds if you were wondering) who has sat next to me since the off alights. At the doors bustling on I see the troll from the toilets in Hogwarts.  It’s heading my way.  I have no wand.

He’s wearing the classic Clarkson costume of tweed jacket, open neck shirt, jeans and loafers. He’s not worried about the cold as he’s UKIP rich, proudly ‘British’ and into ‘Torque’, ‘fuel capacity’ and bitter in a jug… he’s a top level chinless, mouth breather and is probably only on public transport due to a night on the Bolly at a fundraiser for the ‘little people’…

He hits the seat in a “Boom!!” kind of way at which point I realise I’m trapped between a puffer jacket and heavy, itchy tweed when I’m kitted out for a nuclear winter. This could be bad…his arm is touching mine, it’s hotter than the sun and I have 25 minutes of this to endure. It must look hilarious from the opposite seats. I must look like the ‘fresh meat’ in the Wormwood Scrubs Shower block, all small and scared being escorted by monsters to a crippling fate before being hurled in the corner like a discarded pair of pants. I accept my fate…death by hot arm and leg.

I reach my stop and I’m able to squeeze out from between these two behemoths like an over large baby bursting out of a damp tweed and polyester womb… I feel dirty. I wind my way up to the street where en route I see two women have a verbal fight on an escalator. A good Samaritan intervenes and becomes the focus of both women’s hate. Mug. Let them fight, we all want to see it…blood, snot, teeth, hair, bloodied lips… he deserves the hate.

I reach the lobby of the station and walk past the in-house dry cleaners with the sign that says ‘Shirt service’ where some wag has removed the ‘r’ in ‘shirt’… always makes me smile.

Outside is the soft shoed God Squaddette. She’s from the same tribe troupe as the one at my home station and is holding a paper with the headline ‘Is Satan Real?’…Hmmm…. it’s a tough one.  I take the paper and head to the office where I’ll add it to the pile of similar periodicals rotting under my desk.

I take the lift up the tower block to my floor. At the entrance to the office I pause… I always pause as I can’t believe I have to walk in again.  As life requires money I open the door and head to my desk.

I work in a specialist environment. I’m not going to be specific as that would be unprofessional.  I was called unprofessional once by the worlds most stupid employee. I was so angry at the accusation that I just went home on the spot. If I didn’t leave at that moment I may have been sacked as I was a second away from dropping the C Bomb. I’ve been angry a lot in my life but that was the apex of rage.. …Anyway I digress.

The staff where I work as almost exclusively split down the middle in ability and likability.

On one side you have the workers.  Solid, dependable, funny and a joy to work with. On the other you have the management who appear to be there as part of some kind of ‘woke up in an office’ experiment.  They tend to be the old guard and the type of people who get to this level through time rather than capability. They talk with a certainty of stupidity.

We’ve all had bosses like them. The bosses that listen to your ideas, think about what you’ve said and then come up with your idea as if it’s their own. They are the type of people that, when corrected on an issue say ‘That’s what I meant’ or even better ‘That’s what I said’ which are the ultimate, cornered, out of your depth bluffs.  Of course it never used to be like this.

When I started here there were proper leaders, people you would aspire to be and follow to the end. Now I look at the management with a level of contempt which screams P45. They don’t lead and they don’t manage. They merely exist in a world of paralysing, decision making fear.

There are only two ways to do things, The right way and the wrong way. If you make the wrong decision you simply change that decision to make it right… it’s easy. Modern management won’t make the decision in the first place. They hesitate and delay in the hope that the problem will go away rather than address it head on. My work heroes have always acted swiftly and correctly. They also knew more than I did. You can’t lead, in my view, if you are lacking wisdom. Too many bosses in my place ‘wing it’ which is always a recipe for disaster in the long term.

Modern management is hopeless, a lost cause, broken and the main reason why I need to go as I feel that I’d like to be inspired by someone rather being left constantly disappointed.

The other factor that I have noticed in very poor management is Coffee. For some reason the general, useless manager seems to feel the need to leave the building on a regular basis to ingest large amounts of overpriced coffee in a cup with their name on, in order to not make a decision. It is the fuel of the bullshitter.

I do my bit, I humour the useless, do the requisite hourage and leave. I head to the station and the joy of the journey back to my lovely tribe.

The journey home is always a pleasure. The train is generally quiet and I usually choose to stand as I’ve been sitting all day at a desk. I’m standing in the middle section by the doors when a man in his fifties gets on. He looks tired. He’s wearing clothes which are too young for him… clearly he’s a morning Vampire with no mirrors in his house.  Tatty edged hems, skater shoes, some form of military jacket, a Watford scarf and the crowning turd in the waterpipe, a Marvel superheroes messenger bag which is very low slung… Is he cool? is he?….IS HE?? No…. no he’s not…

I close my eyes and hang on to the upright rail. After about 5 minutes I notice my gripping hand and more specifically my knuckles appear to be in contact with some flesh. No one likes to touch a stranger on a train for fear of a Frottage arrest so I slightly panic. I open my eyes and a young girl (19 or 20) is standing quite close to me,  leaning up against the hand rail I’m gripping. Her bare midriff is pushed against my gripping fist…This is awkward.

I close my eyes in ostrich fashion while I come up with a plan. What do you do? open your hand and poke her in the stomach? move your hand up or down? not advisable. I figure that the stomach is the lesser of three evils so I leave it there momentarily while I deal with the image in my head of the interview with British Transport Police and the subsequent disciplinary proceedings.

I need to do something sharpish before my hand is there too long for it to be an accident.   I know, I’ll roll my knuckles as if I’m steadying my grip. She jumps back like a startled squirrel. I open my eyes in fake shock and she looks at me apologetically. We are both relieved…

A close shave which means tomorrow I will once more stand at the door to the office taking a deep breath having avoided getting, ‘Arrestified’, ‘Handcuffdicated’ and chucked in the dingly for the mattress treatment.

…Maybe I need a Coffee….hmmm…. I can’t decide….

It’s been a funny week.  A sad week. A defining week…

The end of an era… and maybe the start of something new. More of the new another time hopefully but not on this occasion. This week I gave up something I’ve been doing for about 28 years….. no, not that…That can never be given up, it’s essential.

This week I resigned from the committee of an Amateur football club. The reasons are mostly irrelevant on here so I won’t bore you as I’ve bored the long suffering Jen. All I’ll say is it’s a generational issue and I’m too long in the tooth to be told that rules don’t matter. I’m a purist.. old school.. do the right thing or get the fuck out. I’m sad about it but I have principles, maybe too many principles.  Anyway, during my sulking this week I started to think about the good times playing football before all the strokers appeared.  Glory days indeed… proper matches with proper battles and proper personalities, less piss takers and dimwits.

1985 – 1995: Self inflicted football violence…

I played my first game for the club in 1985. I was 16 and a bit scared to be honest…Inevitably I scored and was a hero.  It from a cross delivered from the boot of a man whose daughter would later marry one of my best mates. I remember every moment of that goal to this day, the cross, the scrape off my laces, the flop into the bottom corner and the utter joy…I was hooked at that moment.

Over the next few years I became a captain of a team. I managed to assemble a team of like minded animals who were committed to the cause. Very few oppositions could deal with the onslaught of verbal and physical aggression and we were quite successful as a result. It was the glory time, lifelong friendships were cemented and I can’t recall laughing so much on a football pitch since.

It was the time of the ‘Kharzi assassin’ when retribution for a flailing elbow was sought in the showers. I recall the scene… reminiscent of a Oliver Read wrestling Alan Bates by the fire in ‘Women in Love’. Not really something you wish to witness when you are washing your hair under a dribbling, cold shower in Gunnersbury Park…. how do you stop it? everyone is shiny and wet… what do you grab?.. who are you grabbing?… what are you grabbing?

It was a time of impact injury. No one strained a muscle so the only way you really got hurt was by hitting something similarly human shaped.

My partner in crime up front was a tough North London nut with a pretty boy face. He was, and remains, obsessed with his own beauty and regularly used ‘strawberry pip’ shower gel to exfoliate after matches. One cold January afternoon he decided to jump for a header a fraction too late which resulted in the forehead of the opposition player connected with the bridge of his nose. He hit the deck holding his face but when he removed his hands the lack of blood was noticeable…. I saw this as worrying and a bit like a razor cut that doesn’t initially bleed. We were an advanced team and owned a bucket of water and a sponge.  We took the sponge and placed it hard on the nose of our mate. No one knew why but we thought it would be a good idea. upon removing the sponge, a edge of it snagged the U-shaped red line on the bridge of his nose made by the impact and pulled the skin like when you peel a banana. This flap of skin was now incapable of going back in place no matter how many times we pushed the sponge back on it. “is it bad?” says pretty boy…”Hmm”.. says I, noticing the exposed cartilage of his nose, “I won’t lie to you Franco…. it’s fuckin’ rotten. “. We send Francis to Hospital, finish the match and adjourn to the pub.

Some hours later he arrives at the pub battered and stitched up across the bridge of the nose… it looks angry and I notice that he is slightly cross eyed. We quickly establish through the swearing that he is staring at two pieces of surgical cord that the nurse has failed to trim. In essence he has two small antenna on the top of his nose that he can’t ignore. His best mate, lets call him ‘Gary’, volunteers himself to trim the offending antenna there and then in the pub in order to avoid a second trip to the Hospital, so he borrows some blunt scissors from the barmaid. After much panic and twitching Gary manages to do the job and so we can happily continue our celebratory night out.

A couple of years later I decided to get involved in some of my own head trauma. It’s a cup game at home against a bank and for some reason I decide to attack a ball from a corner on the off chance that it will hit me in the face and fly in the net. I had this all planned in my head but forgot that my sight without glasses is like being underwater.

The corner comes in and I jump to head the ball.  The defender, who it turns out is equally as myopic as me does likewise and we are simaltneously airborne as the ball passes between us. Unfortunately there is no stopping us and we head each others faces at full tilt.

I land on my feet and wobble but, like a weeble, don’t fall down. I look at the floor and see what I feel is the contents of my head pour out at my feet. It’s clearly bad and needs more than a sponge and a plaster. I look up and see a lot of distressed faces. It’s suggested that I go to the hospital and so I set off on foot. This isn’t as fantastical as it seems as it was about 100 yards away.

I walk into casualty and there is only three people present. It’s amazing how packed A&E can become in 20 years but on this particular Saturday back then it was empty. I’m greeted by a nurse who ushers me into a side room and has me lie on bed. I’m Lying there for what seems like an age and as the bleeding has stopped so I sit up and notice that in the corner a Doctor is preparing a needle. He walks over and informs me that I’m going to need 8 stitches just above my eyebrow. I’ll also need some x-rays on Monday (turned out I’d broken my nose and fractured my eye socket and cheek in the impact). The Doctor tells me to relax and starts to insert the needle. It was at that point that the nurse arrived with the anaesthetic which was yet to be administered.  The needle is in my eyebrow from the bottom up and I can see it at close quarters while the Doctor and the nurse have a frantic, whispered conversational argument. The doctor turns to me, apologises, whips out the needle, leaves the room and lets the nurse inject my face before she stitches me up…. she was a good seamstress.

The first 10 years of my football ‘career’ were brilliant… violent, hilarious and successful. Trophies were won, teams were battered, people were battered. It moulded and bonded me to the place and I felt it was important to get involved with the hierarchy and maybe even take control of it. And so that is what Bunny and I planned to do…

As I’m coming to the end of my self imposed blog limit and I want to leave on some drama I’ll continue this cobblers in a later blog just to see if you are really following me or just placating my ego..

…1642 hours….. The Freak Box….

I leave work and head in the rain to the station. This is a deep central London station with lifts that are insufficient so everyday I use the stairs instead.  If you time it right you can really pick up some pace on these stairs as the wind downwards.

I have that headphones on and am listening to something suitable heavy but the stairs are packed with meandering tourists who tentatively walk down. Annoying but lets keep it realistic.. it’s not a big deal.

As we get near the bottom I sense a problem. The tourists speed up slightly… I turn the final bend and see the issue.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs is a young Muslim man. He has a long beard, traditional Afghan male garb, the classic Osama Bin Laden hat and a large rucksack on his back…He is also talking while seemingly pointing to the heavens with an outstretched finger…I can’t hear him due to the UFO Live album I’m soaking up on the ‘phones..

This is it….

‘This is the end…my only friend…The End..’

UFO are replaced by the words of a fat, drunk, dead bloke … What do I do?.. I’m eight steps up on him and so if I leap, the force of me (sponsored by Guinness) will really do him some damage…

This is the VC moment…I nearly shout ‘Tell Gwenyth I Love her’ as it could be my final words and I want that as a subheading on the front of The Times when it reports “Bomber dispatched by the greatest hero in the history of humanity”.  I picture Paltrow weeping at my grave while dropping a single black rose into the hole and whispering “You beautiful, sweet, funny man…Why?’…

I hestitate… I change tact. I slowly walk up to him…I’ve dealt with people… I can do this… I notice he’s stopped talking… I take a breath and remove my headphones and stare into the face of my destiny…he starts to speak…

“…’ere mate… how many fucking steps are there going up?…I can’t get any of those tourists to tell me….”

Looks can be deceiving….

Firstly, I didn’t get the job…. This isn’t a surprise but the reason was. Apparently I had all the skills and experience but didn’t show the necessary enthusiasm to work for the firm in question….. nice…. No matter…. we move on….other opportunities will arise and so I need to regain the lost enthusiasm and focus on my current employer for a bit.

Back to work….

I head to the station and realise that I haven’t seen The God Squadder for weeks. The area by the back entrance has been vacant, religion free. There has been no manhandling of the weak, no thrusting of pamphlets, no damp smell of urine and digestives. 

I turn the corner and see that he has returned however he’s different.  He has a new hat (flat) and appears to be sporting the moustache of an Austrian house painter.  It’s the clincher.. this should have the crowds rolling in… I give him my most contemptible glance and head to the Jesus free platform.

…0815 hours…. The Freak Box…..

Its the wrong time to get this train so I position myself by the door I will eventually alight from perching on that useless half seat.  I figure it’s going to get banged out and so it’s best to make the exit easier by being in position early doors.  This strategy is 99% effective but can backfire. 

A few months back I was minding my own business in this spot when I realised we had been in the station for a long time.  I also noticed a commotion to my left. I care little for the Freaks of the Box but I was intrigued and so disconnected from the joys of early Van Halen to see what was happening

It appeared that some real negative vibe merchant had decided to pass out half on and half off the carriage.  This wasn’t good.  I was supposed to be getting a bacon roll at this point but I’m stuck looking at the helpful…the interfering and helpful, the worst of all combo’s.  There appears to be a lot of fussing with no decision making.  I’m about to suggest a vote amongst the conscious within the carriage along the lines of ‘drag her on or roll her off’ when I’m poked by an older women who wants me to pull the chord and speak to bloke in charge of propelling this tube.  I can’t call them ‘drivers’ as that indicates a level of skill above the dead mans handle this plum controls.  I’ve never pulled the chord and so willingly oblige.

“. Can someone tell me what is happening to block the doorway in your carriage?..” says a voice free from politeness…

“..hello Freak… the door is being blocked by someone’s hips…They are prone…” says I.

“..Eh?..” he grunts… Clearly he’s incapable of moving from his pod at the front to see what’s happening due to the inevitable health and safety issues so I just part the crowd, step over the body and walk from the station I’m at… I didn’t look back, bacon has triumphed over Schadenfreude….

As I said earlier my door strategy is 99% effective and a quick scan of the carriage reveals no potential fainters so I relax.

This train is surprisingly empty but when we reach the next stop there’s a rush for seats from a packed station. Bursting through the doors I see it. It’s a treat that I’ve heard of but never witnessed…

The Clown….

It’s big, overly nourished with ham hock arms and tiny, tiny feet that defy physics…This ain’t no Charlie Cairoli turnout but the make up is similar. She gets the last seat as no one is big enough or brave enough to stop her and sits down with such force that the two punters either side involuntarily rise up. From my position I can see the caked on make up. It’s cheap…and like the shoddy work of a cockney plasterer it needs several coats to be sufficient. I’m hoping she smiles as the cracking will be magnificent and flaky like a puff pastry mince pie.

She goes for her bag.. I’m expecting toffees or a pie but she brings out an immense make up bag in order to apply more gunk and gloop to the eyes. She’s at that point that only Da Vinci could understand after trying to perfect the Mona Lisa smirk… The more she slaps on the more she takes off. Less should be more but I imagine that’s an alien concept in this case. I study her face from my vantage point. There is so much make up that it’s impossible to age her unless you look at the hands. She is the spitting image of the daughter of that funny Jewish family on “Gogglebox”… as I think they are hilarious I move my attention to another carriage dweller to her right….

A young Asian guy is squeezed in next to her. He’s wearing an oversized beaney hat which I have always seen as a sign of mental illness. The collar of his jacket is up and his hair pokes out from under the hat… He looks like “ensemble cast” from Les Miserable. He’s motionless. He hasn’t moved since he was propelled in the air by The Clown. Standby…. we have movement.

He reaches into his coat pocket and produces a small silver tray reminiscent of the kind of thing you get your bill on in an expensive restaurant from an aloof waiter. He looks at the tray. I’m waiting for him to deposit some form of chocolate stack on the tray before offering it up to truffle monster beside him when I realise it’s an iPhone 6…the big one. It’s a ludicrous size. He’s clearly making some kind of statement with a phone that big….I reckon that statement is “Please mug me..I have a £700 device”…

I work with a bloke who has a large phone… He’s a small bloke and so the phone looks like an iPad in the hands of a 10 year old. When he receives a call you can’t see his head side on. When you’re buying a new coat in order to store your phone then you have the wrong phone… it’s basic…

We trundle along and I go to work with the usual enthusiasm…. It’s over for me… but Half term is imminent and I’m off for a week so I fight on..

As a man I find half term, looking after kids utter drudgery. I know I’m supposed to cherish these moments with the kids but as usual I’m tasked with washing, cleaning, cooking and dealing with tradesmen…. It’s a shit business..

This half term is different. We head to the North to visit the in-laws, and one in particular, Jen’s grandmother who is a fantastic women clocking in at 102 years old, sharp as a tack and worthy of another 100 years. Strangely, and for all my piss taking about Northern Monkeys, I like the North… It’s simple…like the people..(did you see what I did there?). I jest. It’s friendly with less stress than London with more character.

Jen is the Queen of research and so she finds us a magnificent independent hotel to stay for a couple of nights.

We arrive and check in and my first impressions are great. It has a buzzing, welcoming bar and I can spot the Guinness tap. I’m sorted and care little for anyone else, I mean let’s face it… You can’t fuck up a coke can you?

We head off to visit grandma for a couple of hours and upon our return I’m keen to visit the bar and feed the kids who love being out at night… it’s an adventure for them.

After a brief freshen up we head down the sweeping staircase to the bar where I see some cones marked “caution! wet floor”. I look and then look again. Cordoned off with the cones is a trail of vomit about 20 feet long with a larger deposit every 2-3 feet. It’s a magnificent effort… real piss head quality with fantastic distance, lots of bile and pink to boot. I’m thinking ‘stomach lining’ after an afternoon of Cider…

“Excuse me Northern Monkey” I say to our host, “Is that vomit?”

“Aye”…he grunts deciding not to offer any other information. I stare at him and he informs me that a child has spewed and his staff are dealing with it.. This is excellent news and I expect no less from an establishment of this quality.

Years ago I was in a curry house in North London where an refreshed young man chundered on the table and merely covered it with a napkin before continuing to scoop in large mouthfuls of Aloo Gobi… Nobody in there cared to position a cone as a warning… Halcyon days…

We have some bar food in the presence of the sick and the kids find it hilarious… Then we retire to the room for a restless night on a wooden bed so hard that I wake as those my internal organs are being pushed out of my mouth…

The next morning, after reassembling my body, we head for breakfast where against all the Gods of Ecky Thump I’m presented with a continental breakfast…

… Fuck that….

I expect meat so I decide to move outside the parameters of ‘included in the price’ and go for a marvellously described meat fest…

… The plate arrives and it looks suitably Northern so I tuck in. I stare at the hash brown and re read the menu in an attempt to link it to the items on the listed. I hate to bring this to the attention of the residents of Yorkshire but an Iceland Frozen Hash Brown isn’t the ‘crispy bubble and squeak cake’ described in italic font on the menu…. I am undeterred and anyway the sausages made up for it.

We swan off and enjoy the countryside and the open spaces of Yorkshire. It truly is a fantastic place and deserves more recognition from my Soft Southern heart….

Things seem easier here… I’m a bit sick of London and the grief but what could I do here? Farm? Run a pub? Maybe…. How about Armed Robbery?

This moment will pass, when upon our return I see a sign that says ‘London 101’… That’s all it took… I’m an expert in London…

Greatest City in the world….if you ain’t in it you should be…

1312 hours….. The Freak Box….

As you’d expect the train is empty…. It’s the middle of the day….

I’ve been up since 0642 hours. I’ve been pacing around like an expectant father desperately trying to recall what you have to do in an interview…That’s right…. an interview. Not the normal interviews I’m used to where big lumpy Oaf’s refuse to say anything but an interview where I am under the microscope… a job is at stake…a good job..and I want it…

I’m rarely glad to be on a train but today is different as I’ve been in a right mess all morning…I’ve felt sick with worry. For a man with a massive mouth I lack a certain focused confidence and today is my nightmare.. I have to sell myself.

I look in the mirror and remember the words of a trusted associate who suggested the Gareth Cheeseman approach where, when under pressure, he shouts ‘YOU’RE A TIGER!!’ into the mirror at himself before knocking one out for a treat….

…I’m not going to do that….I’m too nervous… instead I sit down and watch ‘Boardwalk Empire’ in my pants as I’m home alone. I’m a professional…I’ve locked the door…I’ve closed the blinds… I cannot be caught….

The joy of Al Capone killing someone with a statue of the Empire State Building quickly subsides and I’m back in full panic mode where my only friend is the toilet…. It’s pathetic… I’m in my mid 40’s and I’ve turned into a frightened child. I revise what I think I should know but at the back of my head are the words of my father who recently told me..

‘I didn’t bother about your education as it was clear early on that you weren’t up to much’…

..inspiring stuff eh? Think about that for a minute. Who wants to hear that? Who deserves that?…maybe someone, somewhere, some scumbag perhaps but not me.

I realise I cant rely on my education to dig me out and so I focus on my bolshiness which may win the day. I manage to regain some semblance of control, I get ready, calm down and leave during a thunderstorm which seems like a sign not to go… alas Canary Wharf awaits..

The journey is under an hour. Revision at this stage is futile so I resign myself to the fact that the CV, the experience and my mouth are the only options…. I start to sweat. My mouth can be the problem. My mouth has always been the problem…my mouth will be the problem…

I get to the Wharf via the DLR. It’s magnificent, the future of train travel. It’s completely empty, with no driver which coincidently is weirdly reminiscent of the inside of my head at this moment in time.

I’m a bit early so I calm myself by walking around the shops in the vicinity. This proves to be another bad idea. There is no place for people like me in any of these shops. I don’t have the body or the feet for such sharp apparel. I’m built for comfort not speed. If I were a vegetable I’d be a turnip…dense, misshapen and earthy… these garments are made for the Asparagus people… sharp, thin, long and tasty. I’m built for harsh winters not Zinfandel summers and so I apologetically slope out….

My best option is to stand still and observes the punters milling about. I need to relax and perhaps rip the piss out of the mob. If that was the job I’d be a shoe-in. I’ve got 27 minutes to kill before I am killed in front two people I don’t know after being slowly dissected. I’m not used to this concept but I’ll go with it as it would be unprofessional to walk away at this point.

I decide to position myself by a set of down escalators and watch….

An initial assessment reveals fitted shirts and pointy shoes to be the order of the day. This was expected but I’m shocked at the number of people in this get up given the fact that it’s absolutely pissing down and windy. I’m suited and booted with additional rain coat…. Obviously I’m sweating like a pregnant nun but I’m expected to look the part for the impending arsehole-ripping I’m about to get… its all about the confidence right?

I look around and see fantastically expensive sandwich shops with queues out the doors. Everyone is involved in the Avocado and crispy bacon on Rye bread with mayo and Swiss cheese mega wrap game and they are happy to let you know it by carrying it about in a bespoke bag made by a cottage industry free trade peasant from a third world country. I’m starving but just know that if I buy something it will explode all over me and destroy my pristineness and that’s all I’ve got at the minute.

I toy with going to a bar to have a stiff drink…’Dutch Courage’ as it were. The problem with that is that the only odourless drink I can think of is Vodka and my luck would dictate that at the point of ordering I’d be spotted by any imminent interviewer and would be perceived as a pisshead. It’s too risky so I give it a miss and anyway that’s a slippery slope even this plastic paddy refuses to head down

I continue to stand and watch…. The clock ticks slowly…. 10 minutes before I need to arrive at an early enough time to seem professional and up for it…. I feel sick…. It’s been 12 years since my last interview to this level with a future employer and it’s clear to me that experience in my job means fuck all…

I scan the crowd and note the preening and the posturing….Is this really me? The Wharf?

It couldn’t be further removed from my life of employment and in particular my current job. We have Windows XP, a canteen that sells ‘Buck Rabbit’ and a sign on the gents toilet that says ‘The Shitter’s full’… It’s gritty, harsh and hilarious for a reason whereas this is sparkly, sterile and sleek for show…

The clock ticks on and I decide the time has come…. There is no turning back… I get into character and head to the place of sacrifice where I announce myself to the concierge, or ‘bloke at the counter’ as I would normal refer to him as. Unbelievably he’s never heard of me and so I’m given a visitors pass and am directed to ‘waiting area A’ where I sit and wait to be ‘collected’.

…2 minutes click by….. there’s marble everywhere…. marble and glass and a sweeping staircase. I’ve been here before in my current job and so at least I’m familiar with my surroundings.

Two men approach me.. one older than the other. The younger one walks off on his own to prepare the altar and the older one introduces himself to me by calling me by my full Christian name… only my mother does this. He’s not my mother.

We head up the stairs and bizarrely I spot someone I know who works there in a boardroom we pass….I didn’t wave or bang on the window but feel the need to mention it as I’m getting the hint from his lack of warmth that I’m struggling to impress him in the four sentences we’ve shared….I need a chink of light in the gloom..

We get to the chamber and I’m introduced to torturer number two…. it’s a flaccid, damp, no eye contact handshake…. the worst kind possible but he seems like a nice enough human. I’m looking for positives and I see it in the form of a bottle of sparkling water…. the bottle has a lovely stopper at the top. As you can tell I have a problem with focus…

I take a deep breath…. sit down….pour a glass of water… and face up to the onslaught… I am Leonidas before the Persians refusing to kneel….

“..Tell me about a specific time when…….”

…and there it is…. the worst possible question to ask me at any time let alone crammed into a room with two blokes who need entertainment….I could be finished before I’ve uttered a syllable….I’m on the rack…

I’m in there an hour and I’ve answered most questions with what I believe to be feeble responses to multi layered, complex, competency based questions.

At one point they asked me to give a second example to a question I had just answered and due to me realising that the game was up I simple said ‘no’ after a lengthy pause. It’s a small act of rebellion in the face of an overwhelming pummelling but it raised my spirits. They looked bewildered but I had kind of decided quite early on that they were a couple of pricks and so a career with these two wasn’t really a possibility.

By the end I’m feeling fairly dejected and almost apologise for the performance which as Jen tells me later would have been a mistake as I don’t know how bad the other candidates may have been. She’s the master of turning a negative into a positive…

I leave the chamber and receive the same limp handshakes… there’s no joy here…. I head for the DLR and I don’t look back I’m not keen on the idea of seeing two strangers watch me cross the road with shaking heads and pity.

I scurry away from The Wharf’s slickness to the grit and grime I’m used to….I’m happier in the dirt for now because as you now know I’m not really up to much…..

…we’ll see Pater…..we’ll see….

Autumnal…. a slight chill in the air and the sun streams down, creating a morning haze.

Perfect. It’s my favourite time of year as it reminds me of roaring fires, bad weather crashing on the window and wearing a fleece…I’m only really happy when I’m in a fleece as I’m a winter person.

I’m striding along listening to some tunes when I see him.  The human embodiment of Canary Wharf, all rosy cheeked with too much product in his hair as it’s essential you look the part on the trading floor when you’re on the phone…

He’s solid…. Lunchtime gym solid….Boxercise solid…. Clearly he’s a man fully capable of the ‘Maximuscle shake’… He’s moving quickly which is quite a feat in brown brogue winkle pickers and a skinny sliver grey suit.  He looks sharp… no tie but he’s travelling so I’ll let it go. I’m thankful that the tie isn’t loosely hanging round the neck in the ‘just left the casino’ way.  At least he hasn’t gone the v-necked jumper, shirt and scarf route which is classic city boy and wholly impractical…

This whole images decays before my very eyes when I spot the big headphones…. why do they exist?  They rarely look good and require a separate bag for transportation purposes.

I work with a bloke who can pull the big headphone look off…I work with others who can’t.  When you wear them with a bald head you look like the bloke in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ who controls Cloud City for Lando Calrissian. When you wear them with hair you just look like you can’t afford decent smaller headphones. I’m sure they sound great but why do they have to be so big?  They draw the eye like a low cut top on an old lady.

As if to take the dairy of the ludicrous ‘phones I then notice his man-bag.  Naturally it’s brown antique leather and he has it strapped across the body like Indiana Jones….I wonder what antiquities lie within? The Golden idol of the Hovito?  The headpiece to the Staff of Ra?  No. Most likely an Iphone 6 and a copy of Men’s Health… any month will do as It’s the same magazine every month.  He’s off at speed, round a corner and gone… we’ll never meet again… it’s a tragedy..

I get to the station and see the all the normal freaks in position.

At the side entrance is the simpering God Squadder.  He’s grasping the hand of an unwilling victim and he seems reluctant to release his grip. He sickens me.  He inflicts himself on people which is unnecessary. If you want religion you will find it without his or anyone’s assistance…it’s a personal choice.  I take the thrusting of God on people quite badly.  I like early Van Halen but if you don’t that’s you’re problem not mine… you’re missing out …It’s a matter for you…

This is a weird station. It seems to be controlled by a whoop (to be fair I’m guessing at the collective noun) of 1970’s rock fans who hang around the ticket office in underground uniform.  Like most worshippers of The late Crow they serve little purpose but ooze self importance, roll ups and Carling Black Label.  They sport mullets and lank pony tails and large dark framed glasses.  It’s how I imagine Uriah Heap looking after the glory days had ended and they needed work, or that ‘League of Gentleman’ character who was in the rock band ‘Crème Brulee’.  A motley band of saddo’s longingly waiting for a return to the good old days….It’s a shit business guys….

I get on the train which is deader than a dead thing…

0738 Hours….. The Freak Box…..

A few waifs appear in the carriage and we prepare for take off…

Two stops in and I find my self sitting opposite a student type girl wearing a pair of leggings and a silver biker jacket. In its self this is not wholly unusual, she’s a student intent on making her mark on this train and I’m always pleased to see the unusual….It’s a happy arrangement…everyone smiles internally…

The jacket appears to be spray painted silver. This reminds me of a story my Bruv told me once of his fashion faux pas in the 70’s when he purchased some Doc Martens to spray silver a’la ‘Space Rock Rebel’.  He buys the boots, gets home, unpacks the boots…removes the laces and sprays them silver.  He re-laces them and puts them on….. Ahhhh…. Two left feet…. Flat spin panic takes over… What would you do?  He knows what to do…He was trained by the best.  He drops them in some white spirit to remove the paint and then sheepishly tries to return them.  At the shop he gets all ‘I’d like a refund…I’ve changed my mind’ and nearly gets away with it until the assistant notices the famous Doc Marten stitching is silver…. Rumbled..

There are no such issues with the jacket before me… it’s a professional job. The leggings she’s wearing are freaking me out though as they are designed to look like leg bones with attached pelvis. It’s disturbing and really taking my attention away from her magnificent ‘Flock of Seagulls’ haircut.  She looks different which is what it’s all about when you are young.

Before her sits me…. Mr North Face…bland and uninteresting but warm and ready for any weather that may come my way on a tube train.  In the event of a new ice age starting at street level I’ll be ready… Who’ll be laughing then?

Mrs Mothballs gets on and sits next to me….The classic smell of your Nan’s house. Surely she can smell herself? It’s a bit like Damp Clothes guy, Garlic man and Musty Crotch Tramp… Deep down they all know and should apologise to their fellow travellers in writing….it’s unnecessary.

The train is nicely busy now and as we pull into a station I notice a man wearing two pairs of glasses reading a book. Not a pair on his head and another on his eyes, he’s wearing two pairs while reading a book.  This is a first for me. His eyes are so bad Specsavers were unable to fashion the necessary and so special measures were initiated.  I’m side on to him and so can see pair number one are close to the eye sockets, while pair number two are on the furthest possible part of the bridge of the nose… I’d love to see him head-on all wide eyed and mental…

I alight at my station and take a pamphlet and a nicely bound religious tome from the sensible shoed woman at the exit of my station. They must think that I’m well into their beliefs as I try to get one at lease twice a week… Little do they know that my actual plan is to put them out of business by hoarding the books under my desk at work… It could take a while but I’m in for the long haul, I’m a professional dismantler….

I do some stuff at work which breaks the monotony of drinking tea and moaning about the lack of biscuits and decide that after the requisite minimum hourage I can leave. No one stops me.  No one ever stops me. It’s too easy and I need a change of employer as this isn’t good for me or them.  Plans are afoot…

I sit on an empty train home. There are four people in my segment and we are all split by a spare seat signifying we want nothing to do with each other.  It’s the tube equivalent of Gentleman’s urinal etiquette.

A young woman gets on. She’s carrying a rucksack and starts to walk through the carriage.  As she gets closer I notice that she’s carrying something. It doesn’t appear to be a big red button marked ‘detonate’ so I relax, uncurl myself from the ball I have put myself in and carry on reading the paper.

She gets to our segment and deposits what she is holding on every empty seat available.  After this drop-off she stands at the end of the carriage and waits.  I look down to see what is on the seat next to me and see that it’s a packet of tissues covered with a typed note pleading for monetary assistance as she’s young mother in need of cash… there’s a mention of God in the narrative so I engage my disgusted face.

The note says she has a one year old child and would be grateful for a few pennies for the tissues to assist in her quest to become a tissue saleswoman… I don’t need tissues… I don’t need God.

It’s a sad scenario and indicative of the state of the nation but essentially it’s a load of cobblers… I mean, where is the kid? how much is she paying the babysitter? How did she buy the tissues? How much credit is on her Oyster card? How did she print out the note?  What computer did you use to type it on? How much was that North Face ‘Jester’ 20 litre rucksack?… It doesn’t wash with me… I toy with asking these questions but she realises that this carriage doesn’t need tissues and so she snaffles the parcels up and moves on,  she may have none of my loose change but she has nice tissues and a quality rucksack….

Yeah, I know…. I’m a cold hearted animal… unfortunately I was made that way by life and my employers.  Be thankful… I say this stuff so you don’t have to.  It’s my job.  It’s what I do.  I’m a idiot.

If it’s any consolation I now have a throat infection and a cold and so could really do with those tissues…maybe there is a God…

Carry on Citizens….

Before I start,  I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m not special and I know some of you will be the same as me and have had worse than this. This isn’t a cry for help or some deep insight into the inside of my head,  It’s just another low level rant about something I’m a bit sick of.   I’m just letting it out…. I’m sharing… I’m a sharer….

I’ve seen a lot of death in my time.  Not the ‘old relative dies’ type death, I’m talking the ‘gone too soon’ type death.  The worse kind of death.  When an elderly relative dies we deal with it in a reflective way.  Of course it’s sad but it’s also joyous in an particularly Irish ‘celebratory’ way, as you look back at what was achieved and not what wasn’t.

You know this…. and I know that….

For my sins, and they have been frequent, very bad (in some cases ‘Cardinal’) and many, I have been involved in the running of a football club for about 28 years.  I’ve been a player, a captain, a secretary, a chairman, a barman and a target for fists and hate throughout that time.  It’s my choice, I can take it and I can give it.

During that time I’ve made some of my greatest mates and had some of the best laughs imaginable…. Can anyone forget Amsterdam?… the prostitute with the Adams’ apple, the violence free nightclub exit,  the pissed 180,  The Cryuff turn against the Dutch,  the vibrating bag at the airport, the friendship pennant made from a McDonald’s place mat which was  handed to a bemused Dutch centre half at the kick off…. Comedy Gold…

One of the downsides of being involved more than the average a player is that you become emotionally involved with the membership. You get to know all the members and not just the ones you share the Ralgex with and stand naked in the shower next to.

Soon after putting myself forward as a Captain for the club I was in a meeting of the overall Old Boys Committee and they announced that a member of the club had committed suicide.  It was my first memory of dealing with non family death.  I was 20.  The guy in question was older but no older than 50.  It was quite shocking at the time as you can’t fathom the mind-set to do that when you are young.  It affected me. I only met him once but I still remember his face and his name and I imagine I’ll never forget it.

A few years later when I was Secretary I had to announce to the football committee that one of our old teachers had died.  He wasn’t young.  He had retired.  I never liked him.  He was brutal to boys in the lower school, a real nasty bully however when you went to middle school he called you ‘friend’,  presumably as he thought he might get smacked in the mouth in retribution for  past crimes.

I announced his death to the assembled captains and there was a ripple of applause tinged with relief and joy .  We all had a drink to toast his death.  Not my finest hour but we all agreed it was necessary.  I had a Heineken.  It was great,  he was not.

Over the following years I attended several funerals of players of the club.

John was the first one.  He was one of my first skippers.  He was 10 years older than me and in reality a bit of a pompous prick who manage to stay in the side because the youth, which included me, won the games for him.  We never saw eye to eye as he was more stroppy than me at the time and he made bad footballing decisions.  He was a tactical wasteland who thought he was a genius.

Anyway, tragically he developed a rare form of terminal bone cancer which took him fairly quickly.

He was a biggish man who liked his food but when he arrived at the club annual dinner, gaunt and with tubes attached I saw him in a different light.  He was brave…braver than me… he wanted one last club dinner and he wouldn’t miss it for anything.  I was talking to my best mate Bunny at the bar and I could see this guy over Bun’s shoulder as he struggled to walk in the club.  I told Bun the bloke was coming and that we should act normal.  Sounds harsh but he’d gone from 15 stone to about 8 stone in a few months so the natural reaction would have been to be shocked.  Bun turned round and greeted John as if nothing was wrong… a true professional then and now.

When John finally left for the night due to exhaustion Bun and I toasted him and drank till dawn…. We normally did that anyway but he was in our thoughts that night and we regularly raised a glass in his honour.

Three months later John was gone… I went to his funeral where his 12 year old sang a Gaelic Ballad next to his coffin.  It was chilling and cannot be forgotten.

In more recent years I’ve attended three funerals that I never thought I’d see.  Walshie, Sean and one of my oldest friends Rob.

Walshie was a giant of a man both physically and by personality.  He’s the only man who could make me run as you didn’t want to let him down.  He was a warrior.   Again cancer was the cause.

Walshie’s coffin arrived at the cemetery during a thunderstorm but during the prays by the graveside the sun came out and the grass steamed and the atmosphere became hazy.   At that point a fiddle was produced and everyone sang ‘The Fields of Athenry’. It was pure theatre.  During the singing I looked about and saw his 90 year old father, his ex wife and new girlfriend consoling each other by the grave as he was lowered in while his kids dropped gifts into the hole.  A Celtic shirt, a toy car some letters and pictures… gut wrenching stuff.  I’ve never cried so much at a funeral.

At the wake grown men openly wept when we were shown a video of Walshie which consisted of pictures of him over the years to songs his kids had personally picked.  I walked home smashed off me head crying… I was a mess…

The guy who arranged Walshie’s funeral and gave a speech of such emotion previously unheard of from his mouth was one of his oldest mates.  Tragically he died a few years later.

Sean was another football club legend.  Originally a trappy scaffolder he carved out a career as a trappy financial advisor.  I loved him, lots didn’t. He had a roguish charm and was a great player who I spent many an hour laughing with and at over the years.

Illness didn’t get Sean, medical malpractice did so I’ll say no more.  There were less tears at Sean’s funeral but a lot of shock.  A  needless loss of life rather than a drawn out affair to that a bastard of a disease.  Three months before Sean’s death we were on the lash in Brighton oblivious to what was about to happen…. it still seems slightly unreal..

The third great man I have lost in the past three years was one of my oldest friends.

Rob was a fireman who was killed in a motorbike crash on his way to work.  Another tragic waste of a great man, gone too soon leaving a child fatherless and a family empty.  I had some great times with Rob.  We worked together in pubs, drove around at night looking for kebab shops, we waited for him outside his girlfriends house when we were kids, we went to Ibiza in 1988, I even drank a pint of my own urine in a pub because he proved to me that he had…. turned out he hadn’t…. he did a pint of orange cordial and warm tap water but no matter they were glory days.  Those glory days are merely words now, confined to memory only…. no more talks… just thoughts.

Today I went to another funeral of a young man…39 years old with three lovely kids.

I’d only known him a couple of years due to our boys playing football on the same side but it turned out we had mutual friends so we shared a few laughs at their expense while standing in the cold and wet watching kids run about.  I have only good things to say about this man and that is almost impossible for a nasty fucker like me.  He was always smiling and so that’s the only image I have of him.  A good guy gone.  I stood by his coffin today and suddenly felt my own mortality…I watched his 3 year old wave at me through a car window oblivious of what was going on knowing that her grief will hit her in the years to come.  It’s simply wrong on all levels.

What has happened?  Years ago the old died and the young lived.  I don’t recall my parents attending many funerals of their immediate associates when they were my age and I’m old enough to remember.  When did it change?  What made it change?  One thing I do know is that I’m pretty sick of it,  I’ve had my fill but I will remember the Men and not their ends…..

Death Sickens me….. I blame Cameron and our Purring Monarch…..

0801 hours…. The Freak Box….

I’m in place.  Settled.

Punters rush on and the carriage fills up fairly quickly.  I have a seat so I’m happy enough and care little for the standing.  Harsh?  no… we all think the same… We all rush for seats, we all want the space, we all pretend to be asleep….It’s the tube way, it’s accepted.  If you are wearing a “baby on board” badge you can have my seat however if you aren’t and look like you could be then I ain’t risking the offer and the verbal.  Old ladies, if you can stand and feel you can deal with rush hour then you can suffer like the young…not my problem.

I appear to be the only man in this entire section of the carriage.  Should there be some kind of apocalyptic event at street level during the journey, humanity will survive in the tunnels due to me…. They all look healthy and of child bearing age and I’ll be happy to deliver the goods for Queen and Country…  I’m a Patriot…I fancy a Knighthood but I’ll settle for a medal of some type though.  A ‘VC’ perhaps with a the legend ‘The Father of the Nation’…..

Anyway, to my left and opposite I see my pet hate on public transport.  It happens a lot on the tube and the bus…. Women doing their make up. The blonde next to me is on eyes and lashes and the brunette opposite is doing blusher and lips… I could be walking through the ground floor of Selfridges on Oxford Street but I’m not.  I’m on a bumpy, sweaty train banged out with people.

Why do women do this?  When did it become acceptable? Would it be acceptable for me to whip out a toothbrush or a nose clipper…. I think not. What would be the male equivalent?  I can only assume it would be shaving.

A couple of months ago I witnessed a bloke in his 50’s wearing a suit, riding up from the the escalator from the depths at Chancery Lane using an electric razor. He was oblivious to the fact they he was covering his fellow travellers in his shearing’s that were being wafted about…. filth bag…. That was as disgusting as the time I saw a builder sit on an early morning bus eating a cold roast dinner out of a Tupperware container on his lap.  It was a horrendous. He used only a spoon and drank the solidified gravy by tipping the container at a corner into his mouth.  One Christmas on the Northern Line I witnessed two polish builders drink half a bottle of whiskey in shots over a 25 minute period.  They had their own shot glasses and never said a single word….0630 hours…when they departed they merely winked at each other and bumped knuckles… Magnificent effort.  I see this kind of behaviour as disgusting and unnecessary but also as eccentric and funny.  The make up thing is noting more than lazy.

I also note a comedy T-shirt on an overly nourished young woman to my right.  She has a lovely face and doesn’t need a slogan on her chest saying “Keep Calm and Party”.  It’s a shame…My hope for her is totally lost when she gets her phone out of her pocket and it’s in a pink rubber case with two little comedy hands coming out the sides attempting to hug the owner….It makes me question Darwin.  Her chances of being involved in the country’s repopulation with my assistance are now slim.

It’s getting hot on here now as more and more people pile on… my eyes are at crotch level.  Is this what it’s like to be a porn star?.. on a level with belts and flies and only looking up when commanded and even then only in in a sheepish manner?  Through the bulges I see a pair of long, slender legs and a short, short skirt.  When I say ‘short’ I mean too short… dangerously short for the wearer.  I can’t quite see a face yet but I assume its a young girl who is confident, bold, aloof to convention and happy to wear a skirt in public that when the legs are crossed flagrantly reveals a partial buttock…The arrogance of youth…oh the majesty of it all..

But It’s not a young woman…. it’s not a middle aged woman… it’s an aging divorcee who’s ‘giving it another go’.  I know I’m the least fashionable man on the planet…I’m jeans and a fleece bloke not Gok Wan but I know that isn’t the garment for her.  I scan her face. She seems uncomfortable and perhaps slightly panicked.  She knows it’s a mistake but she’s committed to it….. Fuck it.. who am I to Judge?  Is she happy?…good luck to her, I wish I had her guts.  Godspeed tube princess!!

I get to work to find I have to go back on the tube to assist a colleague in speaking to a liar about another, bigger liar… I know the route and it’s not great.  It means the Central line.

The Central line is boiling hot.  We get on the train and although fairly roomy the heat is unbearable.  It’s like getting off the plane in Malaga in reverse.  That moment brings joy where as this brings misery.

We stand by the door next to a big, big lad in a shirt and ‘moo moo’ sized knitted tank top.  He is sweating like a pregnant nun….a terrible sight, a mess.  I notice something in his hand , light Blue and with an absorbent quality…. he’s  carrying a flannel.  It’s a sweat flannel.  He’s taken steps to combat the leakage by mopping himself down as we trundle along with a towelling flannel.  Has it come to this?  We used to rule the world…..

Flannels are horrendous items at the best of times. As a kid I remember then rotting in bathrooms and never fully drying out. Worse than that was using a warm one that had been used in the last 10 minutes…. It could have been anywhere. They are an icon from the 70’s like Imperial Leather in bar form.  They ooze BHS Christmas presents for your Dad….stuffed into a comedy mug in a gift pack.  All wrong…so wrong..

I used to play football with a bloke who brought a flannel and soap in a dish into the shower at the end of the match.  He was in his mid twenties and had a special bag to transport them in. When he used it to wash himself it flapped about like he was fighting a bat.. He was an accountant. The classic weekend warrior I felt compelled to apologise to the opposition for.  He was the flannel demographic… the flannel advertisers dream….

‘Flannels’ for the accountants who bathes.  That is the advert!!

There is no place for a flannel on a tube train or a bus and I don’t care if you are hot and sweaty…deal with it in some other way. Sweat out like the rest of us.  If you think carrying a flannel around as a sweat mop is acceptable then there is no hope for this country…we might as well hand over the keys to the flannel users and roll over…The flannels must not and cannot win…

This country sickens me….

Saturday.  A glorious day, not the best day, that’s Friday, but a good one none the less.

Generally on a Saturday I visit a spaceship masquerading as a football stadium to watch some millionaires roll about the floor. This week its an early kick off so I have to enter the place with only tea in my body…this usually spells disaster as the pre match Guinness is a tradition but I’m not an animal so I deal with it….I can fit in anywhere… I’m a foul mouthed social chameleon..

Outside I meet my associate… a 60 year old Art student wearing red Adidas Stan Smith trainers… I ignore the trainers as he’s a top bloke and we enter the stadium.  We have good seats surrounded by good people… I’m lucky… it could be very bad.  A few years ago I had a person sit next to me who would shout “shoot” anytime the home team got into the opposition half… after a while I was forced to ask her to be quiet until she was able to fully comprehend what was going on.  She wasn’t happy…I didn’t care..

It’s a good game and the boys played well. We leave the stadium and head to the greatest pub in the history of mankind to discuss nothing in particular in great depth over some Guinness and peanuts.  It’s high end stuff….

My drinking buddy is a man who requires a plan. It’s almost a contract.  Every time we enter this pub he asks me how many are we going to have.  This drives me mental as I’m a ‘go with the flow’ type… if it starts badly go home, if it starts well go home Tuesday is my mantra.  We start the negotiations and settle on 4 pints… it’s about right for a Saturday afternoon.  By the way, we always have four pints so the negotiations are ultimately pointless but it makes him happy.

We put the world straight and hit the bus for home to prepare to take the ladies out for dinner in a Highgate pub of incredible ponceitude with good food.

The Gastropub in question is banged out and looks like there’s been a burglary…..kids running around, scrabble being paid, crayons on the floor, used glasses everywhere, prams in the pub, very few chins are evident and the ultimate turd in waterpipe….. Micro beers.

Micro Brewing is the apex in ‘Yummy Mummy’ new money socialising.  Beers no one really likes, that mostly taste of ear wax with an aftertaste that stays with you for days. It comes in bottles with comedy names or outlandish three foot long glasses but by God they look cool.  Luckily I’m not, never have been and will never be ‘Cool’…. I go Rioja…you can’t mess up Rioja…. it’s classical…

We have a great night chatting and quaffing and all have a good laugh at the size of my £7.50 starter of Scallops, Black pudding and bacon which arrives in a shell… The scallops are the size of a penny piece and I have to hunt for the other component parts which are so minute they contain no flavour.  I’m reminded of the Spaniard at a particularly low level event we attended where we were presented with a starter of “Plateau de fruits de mer” where the only fishy thing present in the bowl was brilliantly described by him as a “shard of prawn”.  Like the £7.50 starter it was so funny it was pointless complaining….

Next morning we wake to a silent house. Initially I assume I have gone deaf but then realise that the kids are at a sleep over. We have  a lazy morning before we go to pick them up.

En route to collect them Jen stops at a shop to get some flowers for our mates who had the kids.  We pull into the car park of a Tesco and I’m playing with my phone so I stay in the car.  She gets out and goes to the back seat to get her bag she shuts the door and I hear her lock the car.  For about ten seconds it doesn’t register in my thumping head but then I realise that I’m locked in an alarmed car in a busy Tesco car park..

I can’t move..

I’m all over the shop.  Incapacitated. Paralysed. Catatonic.  I’m Robert De Niro in ‘Awakenings’ without the chequered floor and the drugs….What do I? What CAN I do?… The most probable answer appears to be ‘Fuck all’ so I remain fixed in position only moving my eyes to scan the interior.

The doors are locked I can see that, my hand is to my face holding the phone that I was reading when I was incarcerated. I look like a frozen blind bloke reading a text message.  I wish I could see myself because I’m convinced it would be funny. A grown man whose only movement is his eyes… I look like the human version of one of those paintings in a horror film that scans a room before the eyes become part of the painting again.

Inadvertently I move my leg and nothing untoward happens.  I’ve cracked it… I am stealth personified…I’ve got away with it… Great I can get back to messing about on my Pho… nice…there it goes!!

Alarms sound,   lights flash,  people rally.  I lunge for the door to escape.  No fuckin’ chance!! You can’t escape a car you are locked in.  I look out the window to see people peering in, I see kids pointing and being dragged away by concerned parents as clearly I could  be a nutjob trapped in a car waiting to catch someone’s eye in order to burst out of a window to strike…

I’ve been embarrassed before but this is bad….I am a focal point of stupidity….

I have a moment of inspiration amidst the noise and lights.  I’ll ring Jen… she’ll return to save me.  What’s the chances of that happening?  No chance… she doesn’t pick her phone up ever, let alone in a moment of need.  I sit and wait… and wait.. and wait… she don’t care, I’m nothing to her compared to Tesco’s.   I look like the worlds worse car thief.  A man who can’t drive but decided to break into a car to sit in the passenger seat waiting to be arrested…. it’s a cry for help, a tragic cry for help.

Ten minutes in and I’m used to the lights and noise.  I feel like a great Ape in a cage.  Shall I chuck faeces at the punters?… Shall I break out, go berserk and rip off the windscreen wipers?  No… I have to take it…..Looks of pity and piss taking are everywhere.. the pointers are many.. the helpers are few.

Then I see her in the wing mirror.  The woman with the key.  She’s staring at her phone in a confused manner and intermittently looking at the flashing lights… suddenly it all clicks… she gets it… she knows what she’s done… she is the architect of my humiliation in a Tesco car park.  There is no remorse, there is no release for the innocent…There is only uncontrollable laughter.  The type of silent laughter that stops you from breathing.  It’s the most evil thing I’ve ever seen. She’s revelling in the power…She’s the prison officer poking the pizza under the door before dragging it away…. Filthy screws!! Filthy screws!!

Finally the noise and lights cease.  I await her entrance into the car but she’s all over the place.  Eventually she makes it in and we have to sit there while she regains some kind of class and we can all move on from this unsavoury incident.  She’s weeping with laughter…. we could be here a while…The whole day is ruined…

Sunday…. The worst of all days….

Monday… the worst of all the days.  A bastard of a day.  Only surpassed by Sunday evening when you were a at school which delivered the depressing countdown combo of ‘The Muppets’, ‘When the Boat comes in’, ‘Agony’ or ‘Two’s Company’ and then the tolling bell that was ‘The South Bank Show’.  Once the opening bars of the theme to ‘The South Bank Show’ kicked in, it was over….. school was imminent….No way out… no escape…. only becoming ill in your sleep could potentially save the situation…

It’s much the same now.  There is little good about a Sunday.   Sunday is like January 2nd on a weekly basis…the furthest point possible from the good times… work beckons and there’s nothing that we can do about it…

As usual I walk to the station.  I like the walk… it’s 15 minutes and as interesting as it gets. Millionaires row followed instantly by crammed hovel…classic London.

As I reach the station I see the familiar sight of the God Squadder.  He’s there most days handing out pamphlets to the weak minded.  He’s a sort of Mr Magoo type in the kind of clothes that only nothing-to-do old people seem able to find… flat cap, bumper car shoes, heavy fabric the ‘car crash through the window of a MIND shop’ effort. Wholly unappealing, musty with a hint of urine.

He’s never approached me. I have an unapproachable face so I’m hardly surprised but I do find that I save a special look for him.  In reality he’ll always leave me alone as I have testicles and he only really entertains women.  He’s a hand grabber…a look deeply in the eyes merchant.  You can almost see the religion being forced into the victims. Occasional he delivers the double peck to the cheek….sickening… this is the real reason he stands there.  He’s the religious equivalent of the laminated “Big Issue” that you can’t buy… show me the money or show me the money-shot…

I head to the platform and get on the emptier train heading in to London.  I have to do this trip every day so I’m not bothered if I let a packed train go in order to get a seat or a less pack carriage.  I’ve never understood the people that want to stand, crammed in someone’s breath zone in order to get to work two minutes earlier….I don’t want to get to work at all.

0743 Hours….. The Freak Box….

I’m planted in the middle of the carriage, my favourite seat… near enough the door but far enough away so I’m not hassled into giving up the seat to someone carrying a baby or wearing incontinence pants…

It’s fairly empty, in fact I’m the only person in this segment.  I whack up the ‘phones.  Naturally it’s ‘Royal Blood’ as I’m obsessed with it’s magnificence.  In the window opposite I see the reflection of another London bound train pull in and the faint sound of the platform Tannoy announcing that my train is first out. Cue panic in train two as the punters, who moments ago were smug in their seats, must now rush across to my train like zombies chasing a fat kid, to fight for a new seat.

Then I hear thudding steps coming my way.

In bursts a young Greek God,  all muscles and beard in loose open shirt with muscle vest beneath….City Boy is my guess .  I spot the obligatory “Maximuscle” water bottle poking from his bag.   He couldn’t give a fuck who else wants the seat opposite me,  they will be dispatched if they attempt to get it before him.  He sits down and seems to calm down slightly…

But wait a moment… he’s not happy.. he starts doing a seated version of the iPhone dance… he’s frantic, the hands are everywhere but the phone is clearly missing.  He’s in the bag, out the bag, in the pockets, out the pockets…a faint sheen of panicked sweat appears on his face and then he stiffens and looks across the platform at the other train.

He knows it, we know it…but can he make it? His hesitation is fatal… the door alarm bleeps.  He lunges  but is weighed down by Green Lanes muscle… he looks good but speed ain’t his thing….The doors crash shut and his lip trembles…  it’s over.. a 100 pictures of himself in a pair of speedo’s are left abandoned in a photo gallery on an iphone on a seat in a dead tube train.. “Achilles” paws at the door as we pull away.. he doesn’t look back at us but waits, ready to exit at the next stop in the hope he can make it back before a devotee of the deceased Crow can snaffle up the lost phone.

I smile….what an unprecedented start to a Monday…Bolshie bloke crumbles under his own whey protein fuelled arrogance… marvellous…

My gloom lifts and a sense of joyous euphoria hits me as I notice a young bloke get on at the next stop to fill the now vacant seat opposite me.  He’s carrying his own rubber ring to sit on…. he looks pale, it’s a clear case of the knobby’s and he must suffer our scrutiny…. personally I’d go to work later to minimise the attention but it’s a matter for him…..

I kill time at work… I don’t mind as I’ve got nothing better to do and I quite like the laugh.  After some sleep and a few phone calls The Horse and I retire to the pub for pre gig drinks.  Robert Plant beckons at The Roundhouse.  Horse is excited… I’ve never seen him so childlike… It’s brilliant.  However I do sense a certain disbelief on his part… I got these ticket free from a Greengrocer and until we actually get in I’m not sure even I can believe it.

We sink half a gallon and head to the queue…. It’s long and filled with Top Gear audience types and students who want the free stuff without appreciating the fact that they are about to see a Rock God belt it out.. These people are the ultimate freeloaders.

I’ve seen Plant before and have bought the albums, even the bad ones.. I know he’s called ‘Robert’ and not ‘Roger’.  These gigs are created for people like me and the Horse and not the assembled mob in the queue. If this was a paying gig this lot would be ‘Stub Hubbers’ paying top dollar for something they neither understand nor fully want to be at.  Attending concerts is no longer about being a fan it’s about saying you went… is that really what the musicians want?

We finally enter the building and Horse’s joy is evident.  We head to the bar and get suckered in to the mentality of the mob by drinking red wine from plastic tumblers…. rouge at a Rock gig…. My big Bruv would punch me in the face for that….

Plant starts his stuff…. It’s top drawer as expected.  The new stuff sounds great and he knocks out some classic Zeppelin including ‘No Quarter’ which has always been my favourite so I’m happy…

I scan the crowd… There’s a Rupert over there…. He has a younger girl on his shoulders… he’s wobbling,  she’s grinding herself into the back of his neck…he’s not used to this kind of attention outside of a debutants prom… he seems distracted … either that or her jean’s zip is cutting a groove into his neck..

“MATILDA??…. MATILDA??” he screams a little too high pitched…. “Can you see up there?…. can you see?”  She can see… she loves Roger Plant and “The Led Zep” and his new African direction is “tantalizing”…. It’s enough to make me weep….

The gig ends and we are chucked out into the night … I walk to Camden with the Horse for a rare trip on The Bus of Dreams where I manage to sit on a damp seat..

Red wine on a Monday might be a mistake..