I am currently moving house, from a very shabby student house to a slightly less shabby one. Just down the road. On a slightly smaller hill. Which I haven’t actually seen yet (more about this later).
Suffice to say that Esther has made me give away tho thirds of my belongings and I am in mourning. Except all my black clothes are in the Age UK collection van on the way to the HQ, so I am wearing normal clothes and looking miserable.
Here is the solemn body count:
15 black bags of clothes
4 boxes of records (farewell Duran, Spandau, Wham, early Beatles and late Bowie).
My priceless collection of The Face and ID magazine from the 90s (which Esther isn’t even impressed that I threw away “They’re just rubbish. You shouldn’t keep rubbish”)
Countless accessories and shoes and things that are neither one thing nor another but are just nice to have around.
Sob.
Next week I shall be back with more exciting tales of boredom and ugliness.
"Toodlepip my faithful friends, I'll never forget you."
“Because you’re gorgeous…” Esther sings as we climb into bed.
I smile at the compliment.
“Not you” she snaps, “I was talking to Goldie”
She gets in beside me and hacks at a spot on her thigh until the artificial sun SAD light dims too much to see.
Happy Valentines.
I get more love off Goldie and Linda. Sometimes I pretend I’m having an orgy by stroking them both at the same time and snogging their faces. Now that’s some heavy petting.
Has the world gone mad? At the Metro Elle Style Awards this week, Cheryl Cole was given the Best Music Award, and Emma ‘Hermione’ Watson was presented the Style Icon prize…by Vivienne Westwood! What on God’s black earth is going on? The high Queen of punk endorsing the low princess of LARP fantasy? Elle, you sick fucks.
Emma: "Grandma" Viv: "Foetus"
Have women won the war, or have men just let them? I am sat on the 88 next to a young man in white trainers and a quilted jacket with the collar turned up, listening to N-Dubz (probably). A stylish blonde woman (one half of ASBO A GO GO in fact) gets on and stands near us. After a short while of internal cog whirring, the boy jumps up and says to the girl “Can’t have you standing up, can we?” Rhetorically, I presume.
(“No we can’t, can we” is not what he wants to hear, because it takes the power away from the him martyring themselves. Some blushing and eyelash fluttering is what’s asked for. She half complies)
She comes and sits down next to me, and he stands where she was, looking around to see if anyone noticed. What do you want, fucking applause?
Is this a rare act of chivalry by the ASBO generation or is it plain trad chauvinism? Was it a masonic ASBO clan thing?
Esther always says that if a man opens a door for her, she refuses to go in because he’s only doing it coz she’s ‘a woman’. Although she has been called sir a few times.
I hate when you’re walking behind someone and they feel obliged to open every door for you. I try to make each ‘Thankyou’ sound different, so it’s not too dull for them. There are many variations: Cheers, Thanks, Thankyou, Ta, grunt, silent nod.
"Doctor Doctor, I can't stop wearing shorts and flip flops"
There is a custom in Sheffield for thanking the grumpy-ass bus driver when you get off the bus. As I file off, I always want to say it differently to the people in front. Most of them are chavvy students, and they come out with a right load of macho/condescending bullshit like ‘thanks boss’, ‘cheers mate’, ‘nice one geezer’ like a bunch of cockney rejects. The driver usually feels obliged to return the favour and acknowledge each praise.
Sometimes I take this as a test of masculinity- if he says ‘thanks’ to the blokey ‘how’s your father’ students, and not to me, that is because he is disgusted by my flagrant effeminacy and shudders as I pass. This is what I tell myself.
There are a few seats left on this bus, but the students that get on next decide instead to stand at the front of the bus, blocking the aisle for other people getting on. Idiots. When I was a student, I used to feel mortally offended when locals muttered ‘bloody students’ as we passed. They’re just jealous, I’d reason.
Now I am completely on their side: I’m righteously jealous and tetchy as hell.
Bloody students, prancing about, having fun, walking around in flip flops in winter, high on life, or to put it another way:
YOUNG, DUMB AND FULL OF CUM
"You're just jealous of my joie de vivre, you small-cocked stuck up blogger"
Finally, Lady Gaga has released a new single. I play ‘Born this Way’ and am chronically underwhelmed. I can feel the wool being lifted, the spell being broken- from this moment I have ceased to be a Lady Gaga fan. I no longer know what I ever saw in her.
Her lustre has fallen away like clothes off dyspraxic stripper.
My dream started this defection- I picked a side and joined the Madonna Army. It’s like the Jesus Army, but with a better God. Born This Way is a Tesco Value Express Yourself.
"Oh fuck, the gods are gonna kick off!"
This weekend, I had a reunion with the only 2 friends I had at school: Harvey (because he looks like JFK’s assassin) and Dave (because he’s an everyman, a cipher).
As we sat round a pub table in Heaton Moor, a suburb’s suburb, I got to thinking: we each represent a different lifestyle, and each of us is a sloppy mixture of failure and achievement. I am drifting through life, chasing pleasure and numbing myself to pain. Harvey took the genius-savant route, wearing wolf masks to Cambridge and flying high in Hong Kong. Dave took perhaps the most stable route, finding a career and starting a family. Next to Dave, we both look like fuckups. He has brothers and sisters- we are only children. Fantasy is always preferable to reality for us.
"sweet and sour?"
Harvey went to Cambridge and had Stephen Hawking as his personal tutor. His method of teaching often involved ordering in Chinese Takeaway for the class. Then he got addicted to online gambling and rogue physics and was kicked out. He went to work for a major banking firm on the nth floor of a Honk Kong Skyscraper. He is a FILTH (Failed in London Try Honk Kong), a dirty capitalist, a purveyer of CEO’s wet dreams and sticky pauper’s nightmares. He always carries around a book on theoretical physics. This time he also has with him ‘Traders Guns & Money‘, about
“the mega-trillion-dollar derivatives market, the one economists say might be next to collapse on our heads”
Harvey may be sticking his celery in the next double dip. He tells us how he has had to run for his life from a ‘beast’ in the outskirts of Hong Kong. “I was out walking at dusk and I heard something in the bushes. It sounded like a growling monster, and was shit scared so I ran and ran and tripped over and ran. I called a cab and as I waited on the road, I could hear more of them out there in the bushes. Logic would say it was a wild boar, but I think it was a man-eating beast.”
"Please get bigger, I promise I wont look"
We rounded the night off with a little boundary bashing. Dave had gone to bed and I was sat drunkenly with Harvey. I decided I wanted to show him my penis. I warned him beforehand, and tried to get a sychronised pants-down on the count of 3. However, on the first attempt, I was alone in my nakedness. My penis had been replaced by a cocktail sausage lying in a bed of straw.
“I can do better than that”, Harvey said with relish. He unearthed a beached brown whale, languishing on tanned thighs.
“I’m a 7.5 incher” he said matter of factly. My cocktail sausage shrivelled in agreement.
We watched some porn on his Ipad, marvelling at the high definition and sleek finish. An asian girl was being impaled. As my sausage stirred, I said “Quick, look, this is more like it”
As both our pairs of eyes fell on my crotch, the growth reversed and it hid amongst the straw like a spooked mini guinea pig. Speaking of which, Dave had a guinea called Alfie. He thought he was a dog. What’s it all about, Alfie?
Well there was no getting away from it. Harvey had a big cock.
“May I?” I said politely, reaching across, and lifting it. It was a thing of, if not beauty, then wonder. It felt heavy and warm, substantial and soft. I laid it back down.
It was a bit of a non-sequitur so we went to pass out in the guest bedroom.
Another box ticked? One can go through life without ever touching a same-sex sexypart. We see them, thanks to Channel 4 and YouPorn, but they are mythical, massive, virtual. It was a moment that made sense, holding Harvey’s helmet.
We went to sleep in a bunk bed. The next day it drizzled and my head hurt. Dave was monosyllabic; I was morose, and Harvey marvelled at the weather.
“This is amazing!” He said, eyeing the sky. “You just don’t get this kind of weather anywhere else. Let’s go for a hike!”
This chipper celebration of our mundane Northernness was irritating. “No thanks” we replied. Holidaying in misery is the only way to enjoy it.
Instead, I turn my attention to Alfie.
“Make him make that noise that guineapigs make” I say.
Dave goes over to a draw and pulls out a carrot. Alfie sniffs the air. Dave starts to peel the carrot, and Alfie starts
"Look mummy, she's having tarantula cunnilingus! Doesn't she know that spiders don't have tongues?"
I was just in Spar. A family came in, and huddled round the newspaper stand.
“She’s been in Playboy” says the precocious 14 year old daughter.
Ok, I’m dealing with Liberal parents. I leaf through Heat and try to ignore them.
The girl takes her tweeny sister over to the lad’s mags.
“Oh my god look at Nuts!” she lisps, “I can’t believe she’s on the cover!”
I start to feel a bit sick in my feminist/prudish parts, and I have to walk down to the freezer section to cool off.
"Oh God! I haven't tried this flavour. Who am I??"
While I zone out with the Viennettas, I think ‘Should they know this stuff?‘ They know more than an (admittedly late flowering) 30 year old man about the Glamour Industry. Maybe their parents are porn stars, or refuse to have a lock on their bedroom door.
I often dismiss things as ‘just wrong’ because I wouldn’t want to do it. But who the fuck am I? Some kind of taste-maker?
"Another box ticked"
Is it right to cut yourself off from certain experiences?
Is it right to say ‘I will never try this’ and have done with it?
Fair enough, you may say, if we’re talking something BIG like heroin, or murder?
But where do you draw the line? If it’s legal? If it’s moral? If it’s mentioned in the Guardian?
“OMG, if you haven’t eaten Basking Shark buttocks, you’ve never tasted food”
Part of the middle class world-view is that everything is there for the taking: foreign countries provide interesting food promotions in Waitrose, and other cultures provide amusing anecdotes at dinner parties (“We were captured and raped by the janjaweed. It’s simply divine!”). Keeping up with the Smyth-Headingley’s requires single minded dedication to seeking out new experiences. A pathological need for MORE.
“1001 movies you must see before you die” “The Bucket List” “Must Haves”:
We’re constantly being told that we’re missing out.
Fuck off and leave me alone. If I go to my deathbed without having watched Citizen Kane, have I wasted my life? If I die before I try the Backwards Cowboy position, am I losing out?
Am I fuck. I refuse to believe your hype. I refuse to bully myself into trying stuff for the sake of ticking a box. If I’m not careful, I could lose faith in my own judgement- “I like this because NME gave it 10/10”.
I would quite like to be happy more than 50% of the time, and find a way to go bald gracefully, but that’s where my ambition for the future ends.
Getting older is a shift of perspective- you go from instant gratification (now!), to a 5/10/50 Year Plan (then!) where life becomes about Big Stuff: how to get to where you’re going, and whether it’ll be worth it when you get there.
"I'm a clean living motherfucker"
Also as you get old, your face becomes weathered. Your life is written in crow’s feet and saggy jowls. Your face betrays you, the fucker.
Apparently, Esther can instantly tell when I try to suppress my emotions. Apparently I have whenever I am mad, I get an “anger chin” and whenever I’ve done something naughty I get “guilty lips”. I wonder if each of my features is associated with a feeling: a horny nose? a peevish eyebrow? a cringing cheek?
Damnit, this means that she can read me like a (picture) book.
George Michael had the same problem. Poor bloke, his transparency made him the object of ridicule at discotheques.
Lisa bought matching rain coats for Devo and Goldie. One is red, the other yellow. Both have detachable hoods. Today they swapped the hoods over, and took them proudly on their walk.
Halfway down the road, they kept getting very odd looks, especially by men. They looked at each other and then down at the colour coded dogs. Suddenly they realised what they must look like to other people: two 30 something women who have dressed up their dogs to look like children. Two crazy spinsters living a fucked up fantasy world of anthropomorphic perversity.
Quickly before more people noticed, they took the coats off and hurried on their way.
The dogs got soaking wet, but at least their owners reclaimed their dignity.
"Nudes are so this season"
Money Making Scheme no. 14: I want to open a trendy clothes shop called ‘The Emperor’s New Boutique’, and all the mocha sipping, Clogg wearing, utility chic-ing, Honda driving, wallet overflowing neo-yuppies that these ridiculous hair salons and ugly clothes shops full of ugly clothes keep popping up to cater for will pile in and throw their AMEX plastic at my laughing greedy face. And I will sell them NOTHING! Hahahahahahahaha!
I am getting very pissed off with birds. Every time I walk past a tree or bush, I can hear hundreds of them whistling, tweeting and blogging all over the shop. But can I see a single feathery fucker? Can I Bo Diddley! I demand to see your cute fluffy faces now!
The worse thing is that some fuckers know when you’re looking for them- woodpeckers and treecreepers walk around the other side of the trunk when you try to catch them. How infuriating!
Everything else has been tamed and commercialised, why can’t they do that with wild birds? I want instant gratification with tits, thrushes and blackbirds. (All of which sound like euphemisms and innuendos.)
There should be a law against things looking cute if you can’t touch them. Only ugly, featherless and slimy things should be allowed to be wild.
In the last 2 days I have witnessed male anger from unexpected sources, manifested on or at the number 88 bus.
"You eat the last Werther's and I'll fuck you up, kidda"
Yesterday, I was waiting at the busstop outside Republic (with window displays to slit your wrists to). An 82 came along. Then an 88. I didn’t want to rub shins with ruffians (the curse of long legs on buses built by midgets), so I opted for the 82.
A sweet old grandad type was at the front of the queue for the 88. The bus driver seemed to not want to open the door.
“OPEN THE FUCKING DOORS YOU PRICK!” he yelled, his surprisingly loud voice echoing down the street.
Thank God I chose this bus, I thought. Even the innocent are corrupted on Stagecoach.
Today, I had to brave an 82 packed with schoolkids on their way to freedom. I had to stand next to a jolly rasta who kept me entertained by singing a medley of reggae hits with little or no tune to get in the way of my enjoyment. After some of the kids had got off, he took his massive beanied head and went and found a seat near the back. Bear in mind that they are sat at opposite ends of the bus.
“Bus stops at Arundel Gate” called the driver in his calm FYI voice.
“YA FUCKIN WHAT MAN??!!!” tuneless rasta bellows
“The bus stops on Arundel Gate”
“WATDAFUCK MAN? IT SAID ECCLESFIELD ON DA FRONT MAN! YOU GOIN ECCLESFIELD MON!”
“No, just to Arundel Gate. It says that on the front”
“WATDAFUCKMON?? IT SAID ECCLESFIELD ALRIGHT?! YOU JUST HAVE CHANGED IT MAN COZ I GOT IN IT AND IT SAID ECCLESFIELD AND I IS GOING TO ECCLESFIELD MAN”
“No, we stop at Arundel Gate”
“SHUT YA FUCKIN FACE MAN! SHUT YA BUM (!!)”
“you should look at what it says before you get on”
“DON’T YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO, JUST FUCKIN DRIVE MAN, YOU’RE A BAD DRIVER AND I DONT GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU SAY!”
“I’m just telling you that this bus is not going to Ecclesfield…” etc etc ad nauseum
An old lady pushed her way to the front. ‘Shouting like that, it’s disgusting!” she mumbled
“Shut ya face woman get back to——(couldn’t hear this bit despite straining but it was rather discouraging)”
So let’s hear it for Sheffield Buses- the last rampart of neanderthal man…here’s an informative slideshow of Sheffield buses with a tasteful soundtrack of Ellie ‘flash in the pan’ Goulding:
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! I made it to Esther’s fifth base last night (how many bases are there?)- the final one anyway. I was a free-baser. I covered all the bases. I was totally addicted to base.
"Stop: Are you over 18?"
After a quiet weekend, the girls were craving some socialising, and around 7, Esther got a conspiratorial text from Lisa, and she went down to hers for a wine-fuelled girly chat. I started to get very bored, and before I knew it, I had accidentally Google the word ‘showering’ and selected the video format. Oh no, I thought, as I watched, I can’t get these images out my head now, I am like a biased jury, so I’d better use it to spice up my own well overdue shower scene. I did this instead of ringing my granddad, which I had been ordered to do by my mother. I tried hard not to think of either family member as I touched my member.
A little later, I decided to watch Less Than Zero, the film of Bret “American Psycho” Easton Ellis’s first novel. Robert Downey Jr. spends the whole film fucked off his face, sleeping on beaches and puking down toilets and getting darker and darker eye bags. It’s all about the vacuous, nihilistic, decadent club scene in Cali in the 80s. It’s about much the same mental turmoil as is laid out in this blog- being young(ish) and bored and filling the time with self-made misery and danger in an attempt to provoke some emotion in our dulled creature-comforted brains.
"I'm wet and wild"
Anyway, it was just getting to the bleakest bit with dying and crying, and I get a text from Esther:
“I’m coming home. Meet me at the door with a blindfold. Don’t say anything”.
Christ, I was scared! As I have told you before, I make a clumsy and ineffectual lover, and the thought of being blind and dumb while trying to maintain Esther’s sexual interest made a chill run down my spine.
Time for a wee I though, and as I was finishing, I heard her come in the door. Shit, I wasn’t ready with the blindfold. I’ve failed again.
Quickly, I put a scarf round my head and felt my way gingerly out of the bathroom. I could hear Esther walking slowly up the stairs.
After what felt like ages, I felt the end of the wall and pulled my self onto the landing, thinking that I look more like a mime artist than a lothario.
(Listen to the voiceover in this video. And they say teenagers don’t believe in magic any more…)
Esther’s footsteps stopped abruptly. She giggled. My penis shrunk a little more. Or my little penis shrunk more.
“The blindfold was for me, stupid!” she tittered.
Oh God. Oh Jesus why am I such a fool. everything below the waist started curling up. I uncovered my pink cheeks and put the scarf on her, and we made our way to the bedroom struggling to get past a confused dog blocking the doorway.
‘What the hell are they up to now?’ Goldie was thinking. ‘Some more monkey business no doubt’.
What happened next is rated 18+, and you will have to make the dog point to the relevant bits on a doll to find out the details. Suffice to say, that I made 2 deposits into the bank of wild oats that day, and today I am chafing.
Last Monday was apparently the “happiest day of the year”. It was Happy Monday, that celebrated day of old when Shaun Ryder woke up in his own vomit and decided to form a band. What a crock.
IMAO ‘the happiest day of the year’ only happens once a decade, when the Summer forgets to be so darn British and goes all out.
However illogically, most years just don’t have a best day, only lots of worst days.
Esther: "I'm out of here"
Me and Esther are moving house soon. This means downsizing, which means that Esther is going to get mean on my ass.
We start at the top of the house.
“We don’t need any stupid books!” she yells as I try to slip some into the ‘Keep’ box. “You can get books online now”
“But you can’t write on them or change them at all” I say falteringly. Why the hell do I want books?
“You can print them off” she retorts
“You might as well buy them if you’re going to do that!” Ha! I try to fault her logic
“Print it off then throw it away when you’ve read it. It’s so old fashioned to have books” She says scornfully.
I must work out more surreptitious ways to save my precious paper antiques.
“Old fashioned” really cuts me to the quick. My hip self image, with it’s jacket over the shoulder and ‘jazzy’ socks, starts to cry. Damn it.
I feel like Marty McFly being given a dressing down for his fashion sense:
Anyway why should I be taking advice from someone who only reads picture books?
I’ve got the girl of my dreams- and just like a dream, she’s pure illusion.
Our rules of interaction are:
No caresses
No kisses that last more than 1 second, with absolutely no trace of saliva.
No groping or foreplay
No sleeping naked
No sex or it’s euphemisms: hanky panky, slap and tickle, how’s your father, rumpy pumpy etc
Plato would be proud of us. And Jesus. Shame they’re dead and I hate them.
We have a tea break from packing. In bed. Quietly, Esther gets under the duvet. I turn round, and before I can criticize she shouts
“No! No! No! No! Nothing is happening!” and buries her head under 3 pillows.
"Let's not bother moving house, let's just snooze"
Instead I watch the news. “Closing libraries will kill communities!” is the Liberal crusade of the week. Bullshit. Libraries are just full of mentally ill people who have nowhere else to go. Sheffield City Library has its own regulars: a man who sets up shop next to the Frank Zappa books and conducts a tea party with his multiple personalities, several people who pretend to read comics while they blatantly stare at normals over their glasses, people who try and have a shower in the toilet wash basin (one limb at a time). Oh and people who like to complain about the absence of porn in the video collection.
And then there’s the zero emission neo-hippies who come in with their fold up bikes and faint whiff of hemp, who hover like angry flies around the ‘Environment’ section and sneer at the materialists ogling the chick lit.
Where would these lost souls go instead? The public toilets? Charity shops probably, to get naked in the changing room or to repeatedly ask if any of the clothes are made with organic cotton.
Whenever I start to rant, I want a write a Manifesto. So far, all I can think of is:
Bring back beatings for freaks. My dad used to be chased down the road for being a longhair. Now, anything goes and no-one gives a shit what you wear. I just wished people cared enough to want to hit me.
Bring back Trevor and Simon: the gay Vic and Bob?
The thing that always pissed me off about accounts of the free-lovin’ 60s is that it was always so hetero. Gayness isn’t even considered; radical politics went with ultra-conservative sexuality. Boring. If you are really interested in deconstructing the personality and experiementing with non-normative ways of living, surely trying out same sex relationships is a no brainer? But no, it remained a taboo, and this is what makes me mad! Get over yourselves, you’re just a horny square trying to get unlimited booty calls!
Thinking like this made me wonder if I would enjoy gay sex.
I was discussing foursomes with my good friends Demi and George, and I realised that I am willing to have a penis up my bum, if at the same time I have my penis in a vagina.
And vice versa. Or some spit roasting; I do like KFC.
“Yes” George said, reminiscing, “I do quite like it with a finger up me”.
Whatever feels nice goes, I say.
Mutual masturbation might also be of interest (“Like this? Have you tried our other sexual favours?”). Apparently when Kenneth Williams first went to a gay bar, he was so excited that he ran down the street shouting “mutual masturbation” until the police were called.
Comeback no. 64: “Do you sit on someone’s face with that bum?” I’m not sure yet what context this will suit, but I’m convinced there is one.
Gary Glitter has found God, and is releasing a cover of Joan Osborne’s ‘classic’ What if God was one of Us? Here’s a taster of his revised lyrics:
What if God was one of us?
Just a paedo on the bus?
Trying to make it with your only son?
Catchy. And thought provoking. What if God was one of us? We are after all fallen, sinful and downright nasty compared to Mr squeaky clean upstairs. Original sin is a pretty shitty inheritance:
“Gee thanks mom and pop, I can’t have a car, but I’ve got a plot waiting in hell for me”
And if God was one of us, he’d be heading the same way.
IF GOD WAS ONE OF US, HE’D BE A REET CUNT.
I have just watched the Bible-bashing episode of GLEE (Grilled Cheesus), and it sickened me. Even the militant atheists (Sue and Kurt) felt the power of faith by the end. America can’t help but bring God into it, and then make him rape your face.
And who’s God huh? I’m sure there’s a few Muslims and Sikhs and Hindus etc at Glee school too, what about their gods? They may as well be damned atheists as far as the Christian Right is concerned.
Egg1 "I've found God!" Egg2 "No that's just my ass"
People only find God when they’re in a pickle. When your life turns to shit, you get so desperate that you will cling to anything. Even a God shaped floating shit.
But I don’t want to sound like Richard Dawkins (what a religious nut!). During my grumpy phase (still ongoing), my dad wisely said “you need some spirituality in your life” in a gently ‘you’ll see’ voice. Being a teenager, I blew a raspberry and stomped back upstairs to listen to Megadeth.
"Excuse me, where can I get those clothes pegs?"
However, the seriousness of adulthood has given me cause to think back about this possibility. But I can’t do it. Maybe nothing bad enough has happened to me to make me desperate to believe (but saying this makes me touch the God of wood)- or maybe it has and I just can’t? How bad does it have to get?
Maybe on my deathbed I’ll repent: Catholicism offers the best last resort. Do what you want, as long as you say sorry afterwards. Madonna and her clones make me want to get faithed up- the videos for Like a Prayer and Alejandro are hot. I haven’t seen a titillating Muslim yet, but I’m sure it’ll happen. If I were a Muslim, I’d think all women were prick teases, walking around and talking and asking for it. Yeah right.
If I were Christian, I’d think that sex was so important it has to be saved up. Talk about pressure. How disappointing when your adult body can only fumble like a naïve teenager. How shit if you can’t come- but God wants you to do it in the name of procreation. You’re a vessel of God; not so different from a Communist selflessly working for the greater good is it? How shit to defer your own pleasure for the chance of an afterlife that may never happen.
"Peace be with you?"
It’s not that I refuse to believe, it’s that I don’t know how. I went to a church one Sunday because I felt hungover and guilty about having spent money and had a good time. I accidentally dressed all in black that day, and together with my red eyes and boozey stench I got some funny looks. The vicar kept banging on about the anti-Christ and I’m sure he was looking at me. The discomfort continued when everyone suddenly started shaking each other’s hands. Oh god I though as it got to my turn: some prim bourgeoisie invaded my personal space to look into my eyes and say “peace be with you”. My fake smile trembled under their prolonged gaze. Get me the fuck out of here I prayed to the anti-Christ.
I’m not anti-faith. I just hate the way religious people can’t just think
‘I am happy and secure in my belief, and everyone else is welcome to their (non) belief’.
But no, they think ‘Heathens are abominations and must be forcibly converted even if we all die in the process’.
"Hell = A world full of Michael Keatons"
What they don’t realise is that if we were all perfect and faithful, the world domination that bible bashers bash their bibles for, religion would be obsolete.
Without the drive to convert, chastise, commiserate and coddle non-believers, what is there left for the god-botherer to do?
And without a punishment (hell), heaven isn’t a reward. It’s just the place that everyone goes. What’s the point of being good if you’re going to end up there anyway?
If everyone could shop at Waitrose, or if everyone was paid the same, what would be the point of any other shops or having a career, or being ambitious? Having competition relies on ambition, greed, and the drive to have something so someone else can’t have it.
"I'm going to scream and scream until I'm sick"
All these nasty, selfish traits that ruin the world are nicely encapsulated in the brain of an only child. I should know, I am one.
The only child never has to learn to share- and remains forever resentful that the world refuses to provide them with the attention they deserve, the sticky-fingered attention their parents gave them.
They may never come to terms with the fact that other people get stuff that they can’t have.
Esther often forces me to share with Lisa and Dom.
“But having this thing that you’re making me share is the only thing that makes me better than them!” I whine.
And if I am not better than them, I am worse. One or the other. The wheel of fortune: to be at the top, there must be poor suckers at the bottom. Pray it isn’t your turn next. All or nothing.
What’s the point of having stuff if everyone’s got it? You have objects so other people can’t- that’s my game. I would hate communism, unless I could work the system and become a dictator.
Last night, Madonna gave me a lift from banner Cross Post Office to Psalter Lane art college. She had a sexy red chevrolet, and beeped me as she pulled up.
She knew the depths of my feelings for her, and could see I was no threat, so she invited me to hop in.
"This is Gaga, bitch!"
We make a sharp left off Ecclesall Road South, and head up Psalter lane. At the peak of the hill, the road is taken over by 5 women with Madonna’s True Blue-era hair, tight blonde corkscrew’s bouncing as they pounded the road.
But these clones all had a vermilion cape flowing behind them, with the pink emblem of a lobster’s claw on the back, raised like a Black Power salute. I instantly knew this was Lady Gaga’s gang symbol; and she was ruling this town with a fake lobster fist.
Embarrassing! I turned to Madge with red cheeks. Gaga was a style gyppo: nicking Madonna’s style then flaunting it as her own.
As we overtook the Gagas, I wanted to show my loyalty to Madge, and pictured flipping them the bird- too vulgar, I thought. The moment was gone. Arse.
We parked in front of the campus, and ducked down away from a nosy security guard. Madonna leaned in so close, I could smell the fruity tones of her posh hairspray. She passed over the most self-indulgent scrapbook I’ve ever seen: an orgasm of Pop Queen Propaganda. My hand shook as I turned the pages.
"Fruits of the Forest"
Then it was morning and it was all a fucking dream!!!!!!!!! I was so angry that I beat the pillow with my obsessive-fan hands. Until Esther told me to stop it.
I got up and made breakfast in bed and got on with my so-called life.
vienna famous 