Monthly Archives: June 2012

The Rain in June Falls Mostly on the Toon: Grangemouth Gala Day 2012

Posted on by

We just don’t do carnivals, fairs or fetes with as much aplomb or on the same grand scale as the Americans. Maybe it would help if we smiled occasionally, but we’re genetically incapable of such a facial contortion. We Scots would only smile if God proved his existence once and for all by a) reaching a thumb from Dover to Berwick and squashing the English like woodlice, and then b) rounding off the miracle by replacing the North Sea with heroin.

Or, at a pinch, we’d smile if there was a special episode of ‘You’ve Been Framed’ in which each and every video featured David Cameron being stabbed in the balls by a different angry dwarf in a kilt.

Yes, the Americans like a good smile. If the Grangemouth Gala Day was held in California, USA, (which would be rather unlikely, I’m forced to admit) it would be a non-stop, 24-hour, noisy orgasm of vim, streamers, colour, mariachi bands and pomp, featuring half-naked back-flipping pom-pom girls – with smiles so blinding they could down aircraft – jiggling their breasts with the enthusiasm of a force 4 earthquake. There would be a 50ft-tall animatronic Mickey Mouse shooting fireworks out of its bell-end into the hungry, gaping mouth of a robot Pluto, as sixteen million children wept with joy. And somewhere, somehow, there would be guys in red bell-boy jackets playing trumpets on the backs of motorbikes – upside down and through their arses.

This year, in Grangemouth, Scotland, the Grangemouth Gala Day looked like… well, it looked like exactly what it was: a procession of miserable cunts in anoraks shuffling through the rain in search of the most suitable cliff for an act of mass suicide. It looked like there’d been a delivery of crepe paper and face-paints to a funeral march. If you haven’t visited Grangemouth before and find yourself wondering what it looks like, have a gander at the drug-riddled communities in HBO’s ‘The Wire’, but imagine that everybody’s white.

So What is the Gala Day?

Well, it’s technically a Children’s Day, which makes me a bit of a cock for slating it. It’s not really meant to be enjoyed by the likes of me, childless interloper that I am. What’ll I be doing next? Telling you how shit I found the latest episode of Sesame Street because it wasn’t nearly as good as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

The galas themselves started off as annual celebrations for miners and mining communities, but the focus of the celebrations was shifted for the following wonderful reason:

In the late Nineteenth century, some Miners’ Gala Days were given over to children in order to reduce drunkenness.

Resources for Learning in Scotland website

And we all know how successful a strategy that turned out to be. Here’s the zinger:

Gun Terror of Oilman 

A teenage thug pointed a gun at the head of a man who told him off for breaking bottles in a kids’ play area.

Gary Martin told 45-year-old oil rig worker Jim Kelly: ‘You’re dead.’

But Mr Kelly grappled Martin to the ground and got the air pistol off him, Falkirk Sheriff Court heard yesterday.

The terror attack happened on Grangemouth Gala Day in June.

Lawyer Andy Bryson said Martin was ‘exceedingly drunk’ at the gala day.
www.thefreelibrary.com

Ah, yes. The only flaw in that plan was that by 2012 all of the children would be alcoholics, too. Alcohol does indeed still play a huge part in the Grangemouth Gala Day. Like they say of the 1960s: if you can remember what happened, then you weren’t actually there. Grangemouth has other things in common with the 1960s, in that it’s full of incredibly racist people with shite haircuts taking drugs and having unfussy sex with strangers.

(actually, a joke I used to tell on-stage about Grangemouth is that it’s a lot like Amsterdam: in that it’s completely flat, and filled with drugs and whores.)

So What Happens ‘an That?

No smart alec remarks: this arch is pretty fucking cool. And The Muppets was the only TV show that made me shut up as a child.

What happens is this: each year a ‘royal family’ is assembled from one of the local primary schools, a different school having the honour of doing this each year until it’s back to the start of the cycle again. Kids at the year’s chosen school are then asked if they’d like to volunteer themselves to be one of the gala’s persons of special significance. Those who do are then whittled down by their schoolmates by means of a popularity contest, until each of the main roles are filled: Queen, Ladies in Waiting, Paiges, a Flower Queen etc.

The girl elected Queen (Republicans take note) then has the arduous task of selecting just one of her classmates to be sealed inside a BMW and slammed into a wall by a drunk driver. OK, I made that bit up.

There’s no King of the Gala Day, but one lucky boy does get to be the Prince, whose role it is to follow the Queen around muttering increasingly unhelpful racist remarks. OK, I made that bit up, too. But they should introduce that role. It’d be so easy to find viable candidates amongst the people of Grangemouth.

Dustbin Beaver is actually slang for a Grangemouth girl.

The parents of ‘the royals’ then have to spend £80 million trillion pounds building an arch display over their homes. If they’re poor, they simply steal the necessary materials, or just selotape bits of A4 paper that read: ‘ALL HAYL THE QUEAN’ to their windows. Some of the displays are incredible. You know, fairy-tale castles, enchanted forests, 1940s cinemas. And some of them are shit.

On the day itself – where it’s usually raining despite the event taking place towards the end of June – trucks filled with children (that makes it sound like a pogrom: no concentration camps are involved), and floats prepared by other schools and local businesses, and pipe bands, and brass bands, and veterans, and such like, all form a long procession through the streets, before arriving in the central park for the crowning ceremony. And, as we’ve already established, lots of people get drunk.

Oh, and there are lots of flags everywhere. Or bunting, as they call it. Which sounds to me a little too much like a sex act. And a jolly good one at that.

In closing, as I’ve already stated, it’s actually a grand day out for the folks of Grangemouth, especially for those with relatives taking part in the procession. And some of the arches have been super-awesome in this and previous years, as you’ll see from the pictures below. (OK, part of this, like with the Skinflats article, is life-insurance, but I mean it, too, honest!) Actually, my niece was in the procession this year, and she was awesome, so get that roond ye.

GALLERY

Graceland in Grangemouth, circa 2008.

————————————————————————————————————————-

And, of course, this happens at the Grangemouth Gala Day shows every year, and must be shared with the world:

BEHOLD… COBO! Urban dance legend of Grangemouth! Enjoy the video…

watch?v=x_pcZctvizQ

Blakey the Jakey: A Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 4

Posted on by

The story so far: Blakey is having a bad day. He’s been kicked out of his mum’s house, lost all of his money, and missed out on a chance to exploit a genie. Things are looking bleak for Blake for him. Still, at least he’s not part of the Seven Little Wasters’ crew. What a bunch of bawbags they are. Blakey’s last resort is to fall upon the mercy of his grandmother, and that’s where he’s heading now… with a mounting sense of trepidation. You’ll understand why in a minute or so. She’s a ‘character’, and we know what it means when we describe someone in those terms: that they’re fucking mental.

Catch up with Part 1: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/

Catch up with Part 2: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/14/btjp2/

Catch up with Part 3: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/22/btjp3/

————————————————————————————————————————-

Grandma’s council house was the only property in the street that was still decked out with Christmas fairy-lights – in March. They stayed flashing and pulsing three hundred and sixty five days a year. It was always Christmas time at grandma’s.

Wooden animals, painted bright and bold, were planted like trees in the over-grown grass. A pink flamingo, leg cocked, sat in the centre of the lawn, surrounded by cheeky monkeys, laughing lions and timid tigers. Little bonzai trees, at the foot of the hedge, lined the inside perimeter of the grass. Red balloons, at least fifteen of them, bounced and floated everywhere. On the front door, a varnished, oval plaque proclaimed, ‘Number 89. Gingerbread House. Catch Me If You Can – You Scum.’

Blake shook his head at the tacky display and gave a furtive glance around as he approached the door. Blake never liked admitting the blood connection between him and Grandma. She could be a tough old bitch but…

‘This yin’s aboot ready fur the nuthoose,’ he scowled, kicking a balloon out of his way.

Blake rapped loudly and quickly on the door, jamming the buzzer with his free hand at the same time. A jet of pressure cascaded down from his shoulders to his toes. He had to get in and out of public view, or he felt like he’d explode.

‘Come oan, come oan!’

Beep! Beep!

Blake heard the sounds of hip-hop hammering the air. He turned around to see a gleaming red hatchback sports car parked on the road outside of his grandma’s gate. The seven little wasters were piled in the front and back, bottles of Buckfast clasped in each of their hands. A large man with a blue turban sat in the driver’s seat – with a very unhappy look on his face.

‘Ho, Blakey boy! Is zat yer girlfriend’s hoose?’

Laughter.

‘Ho, ho! Wait till we tell orra boys in oor street! They’ll pish themsel’s!’

‘Ah didnae ken there wiz a Disney World in this toon!’

Shrill whoops of laughter.

‘Whose yer girlfriend: Minnie Moose?’

Whoop, whoop!

‘Well, cannae hang aroond. We’re aff tae London, go tae Stringfellas an that.’

‘Aye, an Soho! Get wee Harry’s end away!’

‘Ma end’s away, ye cheeky bastard.’

‘Settle, Harry, wankin’ disnae coont, pal!’

‘KILL ME, PLEASE. MAKE IT QUICK.’

Ho, ho. Whoop! Whoop! It was becoming like an episode of Rikki Lake written by Irvine Welsh.

‘Aye, we’ve goat a million poonds, ya dancer!’

A bottle of Buckfast came spinning from the back seat of the car towards Blake.

‘Catch.’

Blake did, firmly between his two hands.

‘Least we can dae.’

‘Noo ye can get pished up and sook yer granny’s baws!’

The car screeched away. Blakey fired off a few salvos of expletives, but the seven little fuckers were too far away to be hit by them.

The door to Grandma’s house opened and Blake shoved his way in before daylight had a chance to cast its revelatory spotlight upon Grandma. The door slammed shut behind him. Before him, fat arms extended and proportionately fat lips pouted.

‘Come gee yer Grannie a big kiss, Blakey.’

‘Eh…nut. Ah dinnae think so.’

She snatched the Buckfast from his hands and kissed it instead.

‘Hey, whit are ye…,’ Blake began to protest.

‘Dinnae start shit, Blakey, or ye’ll be through that wa’.’

Blake let out a sigh of defeat, shrugged his shoulders, and then laid his rucksack by the door. Blake’s grandma placed the Buckfast on the kitchen counter and then returned to the hall.

‘Dinnae mention it, gran.’

Blake’s gran wore a criminally short skirt, orange nylon tights, stilt-like high heel shoes, a floral patterned boob tube, and her face contained enough make-up to allow a clown to feel natural. This might have been acceptable attire if, for one, they had both lived in an alternative universe (or San Francisco); for second, if grandma had been younger; for third, if she didn’t have tattoos encrusting half of her body, a large scar cascading down her cheek, and biceps to make a post-spinach Popeye sweat; and, most importantly, fourthly: if grandma had been a woman. A fat cigar was jammed into the left side of grandma’s mouth, dripping hot ash onto the carpet and sending plumes of acrid smoke up Blake’s nostrils.

‘Get ben that kitchen and get the tea on or I’ll gee ye a fisting ye’ll never forget.’

Grandma burst through into her living room leaving Blake, ashen white, to deal with the tea.

The kitchen door was slightly ajar and Blake could hear voices drifting through as he filled the kettle with water.

‘My, grandma, what big hands you have.’

‘Aye, a’ the better tae grab ye with!’

‘My, grandma, what a big mouth you have.’

‘Aye, a’ the better tae plluggg mummble gobbo shlurp en floosre…’

‘Ho, grandma, mind thay big teeth on ma jed, will ye?’

‘Mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmm.’

‘My, grandma, what’s this huge thing? What an absolutely massive big, fat, hard co…’

The screeching whistle of the boiling kettle never did announce itself at a more appropriate moment. Blake kicked the kitchen door firmly shut and tried to stymie his third panic attack of the week.

Grandma eventually entered the kitchen, adjusting her bra and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Blake could hear the front door as it slammed shut. A set of lipstick-stained teeth grinned at Blake.

‘Just seeing yer grandpa off,’ stated Grandma in her deep, husky voice. Grandma whipped a tenner out of her bra and shoved it into Blake’s hand. ‘Take that, son, yer grandpa owed me that fir a job ah did fir him last week.’

Blake gagged back a faint dribble of vomit.

Blake’s grandpa was also a man. His grandpa visited his grandma six to seven times a day, six days a week and managed to be a completely different man each time.

‘So whit can ah dae fir ye, Blakey, son? Ye only ever visit yer poor grandma when yer hiding fae ma sister or efter something. So which yin is it?’

‘Baith, grandma. Baith.’

‘Ah’ll bet it’s money.’

‘Aye, grandma. Jist a loan, ken?’

‘It’s no for drugs is it, Blakey?’ she asked, issuing a cold stare.

‘Naw, gran, naw.’

‘Right,’ she nodded, satisfied, ’cause there’s nae need fir that. You shid huv the gid sense to deal so ye can get them for free, ken?’

‘Aye, gran.’

‘Gid boy. Noo, get they teas, ye wee cunt, an let’s go ben the living room.’

————————————————————————————————————————-

CONCLUDES NEXT WEEK.

Blakey the Jakey: A Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 3

Posted on by

The story so far: Blakey squandered the last of his family’s financial reserves on strange, magical beans – with rather a high street value – which earned him banishment from his mother’s council flat. He found a bottle of Buckfast and discovered a genie inside. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan and Blakey was left without a single wish fulfilled. Well, sort of. As we left him, he was off on a journey to his grandma’s house: his last hope. This is part 3, something you’ve probably deduced from the title of the post. 

Catch up with Part 1: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/

And Part 2: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/14/btjp2/

————————————————————————————————————————-

It was nearing lunchtime and Blake was on his way to grandma’s. The sun peeped its head out from behind a huddle of clouds, draping a warm sheen over the maze of cloned streets. Blake wiped his brow and licked his dry lips. A hackle-rising niggle began to gnaw at his limbs and head, as his bloodstream screamed out for a fag. No money though.

But there was always a way to get fags. It took him close to forty-five minutes to forage for glass juice bottles, the length and breadth of the neighbourhood, so that he could afford a packet of Mayfair with the twenty-pence-a-time glass deposits. Not a wheely-bin nor a hedge nor a single lawn was left unturned in the frantic search.

In one of the gardens along the way he saw a group of five students, four of them mad-eyed and rolling in the grass. The fifth was sparking his lighter and staring at the flame slack-jawed, as if it was the most impressive thing he had ever seen, or ever would see.

‘Wow.’

They were like a gaggle of extras from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

‘Terry, the sky’s falling down, the sky’s falling down, man! Look!’

‘So it is! What are we going to dae? The sky’s falling doon!’

‘Some’dy huz tae tell the Queen!’

‘Christ, we have to tell somebody!’

‘Wow. Better tell them it’s green too, man.’

‘Let’s go.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Maybe that buffalo over there’ll know the way,’ whined one of them, pointing at Blake.

After suggesting that they go and procreate with themselves, Blake made his way briskly to the convenience store: rucksack, coat and arms bulging with clinking, bulky bottles.

***

Blakey went awa’ doon Chally D.

A drooling pack of seven little teenage boys – average age twelve – were crowded near the entrance to the store. A battery powered ghetto-blaster lay in their midst, pumping out the aggressive thump of American hip-hop – a musical message from one ghetto to another. Here were seven mini-Eminems in the making.

Blake watched as a gaunt young woman, clad in a sheepskin coat and a belt-like mini-skirt, took a slightly off-balanced journey across the precinct from the doors of the motel to the pub adjoining it.

The seven little hip-hoppers saw her and began wolf whistling.

‘There’s that prossie again!’ one of them jeered.

‘Look at her, she’s well off her tits on somethin’!’

‘Go’n yersel, hen!’

‘She’s a ho!’ one shouted.

‘Aye, a high ho!’

‘High ho!’ another one laughed.

‘Get yersel’s a job, ye cheeky wee buggers, off tae work yez go!’ yelled an old man at the bus stop, raising a fist and waving his walking stick.

‘Fat chance, ye auld duffer!’ one of them screeched.

The prostitute waddled through the double swing-doors of the bar, disappearing with two fingers aloft, directing them back at the menacing rabble.

‘Aye, we ken whaur they fingers hiv been, hen!’

Riotous laughter erupted.

As soon as they saw Blake approaching the doors of the shop, the seven wasters flurried deeper into activity, bouncing around and howling his name out.

‘Blake, man, Blakey pal!’

‘Go’n get us a bottle ay Buckie, sir!’

‘Aye, we need Buckfast, like!’

***

It was almost a rite of passage in the town: the misappropriation of Buckfast for the too young by the almost old enough. No doubt in some distant pocket of the future, Blake’s children would be buying Buckfast for their children and so on and so forth. Almost tradition. Blake agreed to their request and took their money, which was more a fistful of coppers than a fistful of dollars.

Blake first approached the serving counter to off-load the glass bottles and then slipped the reciprocal packet of fags into his coat pocket. Result! As he sauntered off and started perusing the drinks aisle, Blake received a few askance glances from the husband and wife duo behind the till.

‘What the Hell is he doing?’ whispered the wife.

‘I’ve no idea, Margaret,’ replied Johnny, her husband. ‘Each generation’s getting scarier than the next.’

They kept watching him, glad that they had never had children of their own.

‘Come oan, ye wee buggers, I ken yer in there,’ Blake snarled, rubbing vigorously at every bottle on the shelf. ‘Come oot! Come oot and gee me a million poonds!’

‘Shall I phone the police, Johnny?’ she whispered, a hint of fear shadowing her features.

‘No, Margaret,’ he sighed, ‘I think it’s the doctor that boy needs.’

A flash of fake ID and a sigh of relief later, Blake was presenting the Buckfast to the seven thirsty little skivers. They were characteristically grateful.

‘Effin’ magic!’ one cried.

‘Top-class, sir!’ yelled another.

‘Woooo!’ another one simply said.

‘Aye, cheers, Blake. You want a swally?’

‘Nah, better no, lads,’ said Blake, ‘ah’m goin’ tae ma grans. She’ll hae sum in the fridge, like.’

A chorus of chuckles. ‘Nice one, big man.’

‘So whit ar yoose boys goin’ tae dae?’ asked Blake, taking out a fag and jamming it in between his lips.

‘Sum guy’s gonnae meet us behind the joab centre. He’ll hae Snow White way ‘im.’

Blake raised his eyebrows. ‘Whit?’ he asked.

Seven little fingers reached to seven little nostrils and they all gave a heaving, over-exaggerated sniff before descending into manic laughter once more.

‘Snaw White,’ winked the ringleader.

Blake resumed his trek to grandma’s, shaking his head as he left behind Dopey, Flunky, Junkie, Cokey, Skin-full, Ear-full and Doc (on account of his Doctor Marten boots).

————————————————————————————————————————-

TO BE CONTINUED

PART 4 COMING NEXT WEEK

Skinflats and the Magic Torch

Posted on by

The bonnie village of Skinflats.

Skinflats is actually quite a nice wee village, and I’m not just saying that incase some of its residents read this article. Well, OK, there’s a little of that. Have you seen some of the people who live there? Big leg-o’-lamb arms, match-strike chins and shotgun licences. (hack punchline alert) And that’s just the women! Do you know what Salmand Rushdie’s agent said to him when he was writing ‘The Satanic Verses’?

‘Say what you like about Mohammed, mate, but for fuck’s sake don’t slag off Skinflats.’

‘You aint from around here, are ya, boy?’

The village is surrounded by acres of fields (or, to give them their local name: the burial grounds). Those fields are to the people of Skinflats what the empty desert is to the mobsters of Las Vegas. Many a fingerless hand and a brutally disembodied boaby sleeps with the bushes up them thar fields. So, if it’s all the same with you, I’ll just say nice things. I want to be Robert de Niro in this movie; let some other daft cunt be Joe Pesci.

What I will say is this: I had the pleasure of working in Skinflat’s local shop many, many years ago, and found the village to be a lot like Brookside Close. But with slightly more laughs. And a lot more hidden corpses.

Skinflats, though, eh? What a name. It sounds like the sort of place lost hillwalkers stumble across in the dead of night, tragically unaware that its inhabitants are all horrifically disfigured mutant cannibal serial killers who live in tents made from human flesh. The sort of place whose name you’d never expect to utter without the accompaniment of terrifying, Castle-Dracula-style thunder claps. The sort of place that would make an estate agent say: ‘Well, congratulations on your land purchase. I hope Skinflats proves to be a lucrative location for your new motel, Mr Bates.’

David Beckham was so distressed when Seb Cole told him he had to go to Skinflats, that he started to morph into Bruce Forsyth.

So what was I doing there? Taking a walk down memory lane? Admiring the scenery? Scoring drugs? No, it was Olympic Torch day. The flame had been to Stirling and Falkirk that morning, and was about to be carried through Skinflats on its way to Fife and Edinburgh. The people of Skinflats were overjoyed to be having their ten minutes of fame.

‘This’ll put Skinflats on the map,’ I heard someone say. No. No it won’t. An air strike would put Skinflats on the map. Tomorrow, they won’t even be talking about this in Bo’ness, much less London. Even in fifty years time when some plucky lad who got the day off school to see the flame pass through the village tries to remember the splendour of the day, he won’t be able to differentiate this real memory from the sixteen-thousand acid flashbacks also housed in his brain. ‘I’m sure it was a zombie Colonel Gaddafi running down the street with that flame. Just as the air strike hit.’

Anyway, maybe he can just re-read this blog and it’ll all come flooding back to him. The day was nice and bright and sunny, and the whole village was bustling with people waving flags, cracking jokes, and smiling and laughing, and generally having an awesome time. I dunno; maybe they were just drunk.

Normally if you saw a guy carrying a flaming torch through Skinflats, you’d expect the rest of the villagers to be right behind him with pitchforks shouting, ‘Burn the monster!’ Or, at the very least: ‘The Sun says there’s a paedo living somewhere within a fifty-mile radius. Let’s burn the fucker who moved into number 27 last week, just incase! Anyway, he said ‘hello’ to my daughter this morning, and that’s how it starts!’

But this day was different. Even the convoy of police bikes was greeted with warm, uproarious cheers. This struck me as odd. Like George Bush being carried through Baghdad by way of a jovial mass crowd-surf. Usually the arrival of police vehicles in Skinflats causes a mass exodus, or at the very least turns the village into a fortress: with every snib on every door clicking shut, and those behind the doors jamming them up with tables and wardrobes, and blacking out the windows, like they’re preparing to survive to the end of a zombie film.

The bike cops clearly thought they were the star attraction, as they gunned it down the street giving a series of wacky waves and salutes. One cop even gave a rolling five slap down a line of children’s hands. You might be cheering now, kids, but that’s the cunt who’ll be arresting you for cocaine possession in eight to ten years – which, coincidentally, will also be your sentence.

The best thing about the torch coming through Skinflats was the traffic chaos that preceded its arrival. A long jam of angry, self-conscious people all trapped in their cars, whilst a whole village peered at them. They must have felt like they’d gone for a day out at the safari park, and broken down in the lion enclosure. I tried to stare at as many of them as possible.

The Cunta-Cola truck.

It wasn’t long before a procession of yellow Olympic vehicles came trundling through the village. Lots of cars that looked like New York taxis. And the Coca Cola truck, of course, with a gang of reps walking beside it handing out free bottles of cola. Principles be damned: it was a hot day and I was thirsty. That freebie was gubbed. I know McDonalds sponsor the Olympics, too, and was a little annoyed that they hadn’t sent a truck laden with free beefburgers. Bank of Scotland had a truck in the procession, too, with some English cunt on its open top-deck dancing like a dick to shitty pop music. No free money getting handed out, I noticed.

Nice choice of sponsors for an international sporting event: Coca Cola, McDonalds, and Bank of Scotland. ‘Hey, kids. You’re all going to be fat bastards with diabetes and no pensions. LET’S FUCKING CELEBRATE!’

Eventually the guy with the flaming torch got off of his little yellow bus, jogged for about 100 metres, everybody cheered, and then he got back on his bus again, the lazy bastard. And I’m glad I was there to see it. One day I’ll be telling my grandkids about this. Telling them how shit it was. The free Cola was good, though.

This is the best picture I could manage!

* sincere apologies to the people of Skinflats. I love you all, you know I was only having a laugh (ie, please don’t kill me – I’m trying to put you on the map!).

** Note to foreign readers of the site, especially Americans. Skinflats genuinely is a lovely village, and also the birthplace of William Wallace, so do come visit if you’re flying in to Edinburgh. Thanks, Jamie.

Cunt of the Week (18 Jun 2012) by Richard Hunter

Posted on by

Guest writer: Richard Hunter.

Hello. As your guest writer this week, I’ve been racking my brains for which subject to choose. Obviously, Jamie Andrew was first choice, but given that this will still be true when he next begs me to write a piece – as no-one else has submitted one yet – I’m sure we can wait for that.

So, my CUNT OF THE WEEK goes to Argyll and Bute council.

Yeah, that’s right: those cunts.

I should point out it’s for a specific reason, and if you’re on Twitter (@Tricky308, by the way) then you will probably already know why. If you live in the Argyll and Bute area then I’m guessing you have a few hundred reasons. To be specific, it’s the banning of the blog ‘Neverseconds’, which is written by an 8-year-old girl called Martha Payne.

In truth, the council only placed a ban on the taking of images. I suppose at this point I should explain.

Martha writes a daily blog, under the name Veg, at http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/ which details what she had for lunch that day; this includes a health rating, mouthful count and a picture of the food on offer. She will also collate pictures sent from other lunchtime diners around the world, and will rate their lunch, too. Our food does not stand up well by comparison!

Richard’s stage direction for this picture: {JAMIE INCLUDE PICTURE ONE HERE} {and remember to delete all theses little edit notes before you publish it you thick cunt}

The council saw fit to ban the pictures being taken because they felt Martha was taking pictures of the wrong type of food. Here’s the quote:

“The photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.”

So are they saying that Martha’s only option if she wants to keep taking photos is to upload to her blog every possible combination of dinner that day and then rate them all individually? I would think childhood obesity is enough of a problem in Scotland without forcing a little girl to eat 20 different portions for lunch, just so she can write a factually accurate blog that night. I suppose if she did take this option the council would no longer need to worry, as by day 5 her hands would be too fat to type without hitting several keys at once, and within 2 months the inevitable heart attack would cease the blog altogether.

Argyll and Bute council have also claimed that the ‘school catering staff had been left “in tears” by press coverage’ and they ‘feared for their jobs’.

Anybody else smell shite? That may well be the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve seen in type since Jamie sent me that text about how his gig ‘went well’. Does anyone with a child actually blame the dinner ladies (or catering staff, if that term offends anyone) for the dross meals that are served up? NO, of course we fucking don’t: the dinner ladies work their arses off to provide this food. And, yes, OK, it’s not to a great standard, but when they’re working with ‘Big Bob’s Chicken’ (almost 19% chicken inside) or ‘Sandy’s Sausage Meat’ (made from only the healthiest of hamsters), then how the fuck could they manage to serve perfection? If they could get the backing from the councils, who in turn decided to spend more on a child’s lunch than a prisoner’s breakfast, then perhaps the council wouldn’t be so ashamed of the blog that is clearly just showing up the horrendous shit our ( and by ‘our’ I mean ‘your’, as I have no kids) kids are being fed.

Check out these two pictures:

 

 

 

 

It’s even more embarrassing when you look at the pictures! I’m sure it wont take much guessing from you readers to figure out which of the above pictures is being served in Argyll and Bute, and which came from Spain.

The silver lining in this whole debacle is that since Friday the 15th of June the blog has had over 100,000 hits* (I’m imagining right now that Jamie is trying to work out if he can get Falkirk council to ban his site so that he can aspire to similar figures) and has raised over £30,000 for the charity this website was all about. Oh, that’s right, I never mentioned that. This blog that the C.O.T.W is taking down – and, yes, I know they were technically just banning the pictures, but as it’s a blog based around pictures of Martha’s food, it wouldn’t work terribly well without the pictures, would it? – was set up to raise money for Mary’s Meals: a small charity that serves up life-saving meals to people who have been greatly affected by the East African food crisis.

It costs around £7,000 to fund the start-up for a kitchen to help provide these life saving rations. As of Thursday morning, young Martha’s website had helped to raise £2000, with her over-all target being the seven thousand to see a kitchen opened. But by Friday night the pledge stood at a little over £30,000. Infact, if anything, the people at Argyll and Bute council have helped…

Nah, they’re still total Cunts!

‘SCOTLAND OR NOT?’ A fun new lunchtime game. HINT: if there is Irn Bru visible, it’s probably Scotland.

OK, this is the REAL picture of Richard Hunter. But he does look a little like that Mexican cunt from season 3 of ‘The Shield’.

THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER Richard Hunter is well aware that his name shortens down to DICK Hunter, and so are any audiences who have seen him perform stand up. His first gig took place in 2007, and that went so fucking well for him that he chose not to gig again in Scotland for another 4 years. He did fuck off to Australia and gig there for a while, where he realised that they think the name ‘Dick Hunter’ is just as funny as all the cunts in high school did as well.

Just yesterday Richard found out that he doesn’t live in Denny, Falkirk, but in Dunipace, Falkirk. A fact that has made not one solitary difference to his already quite pathetic life.

He would like me to point out that since he started to take stand up seriously, last JULY, he has taken part in 87 gigs, whilst my current gig count is 94, and I have been taking this seriously for nearly 2 years (closer to 18 months, if we’re being picky). I think what Richard’s trying to say is that i’m a lazy cunt. 

If you want to know more about Richard, or find out how horrendous he can be with a movie-based pun, then by all means follow him on Twitter.  But don’t bother adding him on Facebook. You may follow him, but you’re not his fucking friend (don’t feel sad about this: your name will be added to the list of everybody Richard has ever met)!

Richard regularly appears on-stage naked, ending his set by thrumming himself off with a little glove-puppet he calls ‘Grahamie Mandrew.’ As he ejaculates over the front row, he’s been known to shout: ‘BROLLY UP, YOU FUCKING WHORES! IT’S RAINING DICK JUICE!’ Please bring a sou’wester if you come to see him perform.

FOLLOW RICHARD ON TWITTER: @Tricky308

————————————————————————————————————————-

Write for next week’s Cunt of the Week (CoTW): http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/01/cunt-of-the-week/

 

Remember the Spectrum, Grandpa?

Posted on by

I wrote something about growing old earlier this week, which this piece complements. It’s an oldie, if you’ll excuse the very shite and very unintended pun. As I was scouring through files on my laptop I came across this little age-related-rant that I whipped up seven years ago, inspired by Terry Christian… – Jamie

Good for you, being all hip and that, grandma. Unfortunately, your old fucking fingers are now stuck like that.

I heard an advert on the radio the other night. Naturally, because I’m so old, I had to turn up the volume to hear it. That was only after a little clenching and unclenching of my arthritic fingers, just to warm them up. It’s impossible to twiddle the controls these days with the springy, cavalier ease which I recall I exhibited in my youth. Well, I can just about recall it; senile dementia is no laughing matter, you know. 

I’m 25, by the way. Sure, I’m nearer thirty than twenty, and most of my friends are prepared or preparing to enter the 2.4 children phase of their lives; but am I past it? I’m still just a kid.

Not according to Terry Christian; nor to the cosmetics giant that employs him to advertise their products. The product being hocked was some sort of anti-aging face-cream for guys, and the company was Oil of Ulay, or Nivea, or something. Never matter. It was their pitch – not their product – that irked me.

Here’s the gist of it.

Probably best not to take lifestyle advice from this prick.

Terry asked whether or not I remembered the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I do. I had one. When I was five. And I loved it. Apparently, so Terry claims, fond memories of and familiarity with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum places me in the category of men who should really start to worry about the effects of ageing on their peeling, wrinkled old faces. I repeat, for the record: I am 25. 25 years old.

Don’t the executives at whatever company this is have enough of a customer-base in people who are, oh, let’s say, significantly older than me? Not to be ageist, of course; but I know a lot of people who are the same age as me and never have I regarded them as old sows and warlocks a mere fifteen minutes from the morgue.

This tactic, which seems to me like a profit-boosting pre-emptive strike, makes me fear for the future. I can just hear the greedy little buffoons in the boardroom now: ‘Let’s generate a mass hysteria about ageing and convince perfectly young, smooth-skinned people that the modern world has destroyed, or will destroy imminently, their youthful looks, and so their only hope of facial salvation lies in our safe, money-grabbing hands.’ Maybe these people – these ingenious arseholes – believe, or hope, that the wrinkled masses will begin using their product through their late teens into their dotage, and finally become so terrified to stop using it – lest they age forty years overnight and then die – that perhaps even the mortician will be persuaded to trowel some on to them as they lie rigid in their coffins.

“SO YOU’RE DEAD? IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T STILL TURN HEADS.”

Just how far down the age spectrum are these bastards willing to boldly go? I’m willing to bet a split infinitive that their pound-lust knows no limits.

‘So, how old are you?’

‘I’m six.’

‘Huh… but you look ten.’

Batty – definitely worth a hot splodge over your new 50inch HD. Look at the way the old whore handles that broom. She’s asking for it.

Can it be that the same society telling us that young people effectively run the world is also telling us that the price we pay for ruling the world is to look fifty when we’re thirty? Media and marketing cunts have spent many years convincing us on television, satellite and radio that the days of the wise old elder are over; that the old are decrepit fools who can’t keep up with the pace of channel-changing, green-hair-dyeing, sex-in-the-city-watching, metro-sexual modern life. Long live the adolescent seems to be the credo. Are we to infer that the stress of sustaining this reversal of status is burning us out?

We’re all having our mid-life crises in our twenties; we’re all on Prozac; checking in to Betty Ford clinics; going to stress counsellors; buying anti-ageing products by the bucket-load.

Has our Picture of Dorian Gray syndrome caught up with us so early?

Anyway, that’s a snack for thought. I’m off to sort out my funeral plan and jet up to the bathroom in my Stenna Stairlift. Is Last of the Summer Wine on tonight? Maybe I’ll be able to sustain my ancient erection just long enough to crack one off over Nora Batty.

————————————————————————————————————————-

In case you missed it, here’s the piece I wrote last week about turning 32: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/13/happy-birthday/

 

Blakey the Jakey: a Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 2

Posted on by

The story so far: Young Blake’s squandered the family ‘fortune’ on magic beans, and found himself banished from his family home by his mother as a consequence. Just as he thought all was hopeless he rubbed the dust from a magic bottle and found himself face to face with a genie. Click the link below to revisit Part 1.

 http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/

————————————————————————————————————————

Having consumed enough of the magic brew to make his mind mellow, Blake was quite ready to accept the disappearance of the local drunk and the appearance of an ancient genie in his place.

‘So ah’ve goat two mair,’ Blake stated. He knew the facts when it came to cartoons.

‘NO!’ boomed the genie again, stony faced.

‘Nut? Whit dae ye mean, nut? How no?’

‘CUTBACKS.’

‘Cutbacks?’ Blake rocked his head forward and shot a laugh out towards the ground. ‘Whit are yoo talkin’ aboot, man? Cutbacks!’

‘ONLY ONE MORE WISH, LITTLE MAN.’

Blake considered this for a moment.

‘Ah wish I hud a million wishes!’ he laughed. ‘How’s that?’

‘NICE TRY.’

‘You’ve goat tae gee me them wishes, fur ah wished fur them!’

‘DO YOU THINK YOU’RE THE FIRST ONE TO TRY THAT? WE’VE GOT LAWYERS FOR THIS SORT OF THING. ONE. MORE. WISH.’

Blake massaged his forehead with his free hand, unsure whether to laugh, cry, argue or vomit. His body felt like doing all four at once, his stomach leading the uprising.

‘Whit’s happenin’ here, sir? Ah’m believin the genie bit, but…lawyers, cutbacks…I jist…’ Blake held the bottle aloft. ‘Ah thought yoos were meant tae be in lamps, like in Aladdin an that. Fucking lawyers, man.’

Where Blake had brushed the dust off with his hand, a line of letters proclaimed, ‘BUCKFAST.’

‘ALADDIN!’ snorted the Genie, ‘THESE DAYS WE LIKE SOME JOB SECURITY. I’M NOT HIDING IN SOME DARK CAVE IN ARABIA FOR SEVEN THOUSAND YEARS ON THE OFF-CHANCE THAT SOME JUMPED-UP LITTLE PRINCE IS GOING TO SWAN IN AND GIVE MY LAMP A RUB!’

A curtain in every flat along the street was twitching.

‘Is that oor Blakey ootside getting pished up an’ chattin’ wi a magical entity, Morag?’ asked old Mrs Archibald at number 57.

‘Aye,’ replied Morag. Within seconds they were back on the settee and knitting furiously.

‘Wisnae like that in ma day,’ scowled Mrs Archibald.

‘Aye,’ agreed Morag.

If the finger work had been just a fraction more furious, flames would have engulfed the half-knitted sweaters that were cascading over their knees.

‘Pass us the crack-pipe, Morag.’

‘Aye.’

Outside, the genie was losing patience and two minutes away from contacting his union official.

‘NOW HURRY UP, I’VE GOT TO GET TO TESCOS IN DAGENHAM AND SQUEEZE MYSELF INTO A BOTTLE OF CALIFORNIAN RED.’

‘Whit’s Californian Red? Beetroot or some’hing?’

‘RED WINE.’

‘Ooooh, red wine! La de da! Dae ye take it up the arse, likes?’

‘LITTLE MAN, I COULD CRUSH YOU LIKE A GRAPE AND MAKE WINE FROM YOUR BLOOD.’

‘Just try it, pal, ma big brother’s in the TA, ye ken.’

The genie slapped his forehead in exasperation and let out a deep sigh that could have blown the clouds from Scotland to Pluto.

‘THIS IS MAKING ME NOSTALGIC FOR THE OLD NIGHTS IN ARABIA. GENIES KNEW HOW TO MAKE MORTALS SUFFER IN THOSE DAYS.’

‘So you lot shrink inside bottles of booze until some alkie gees ye a rub and lets ye oot?’

‘IT’S ONE OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS. PREVENTS ANOTHER ALLADIN INCIDENT. WE KNOW FOR SURE THAT WE WILL BE RELEASED. ESPECIALLY IN YOUR COUNTRY. ONLY RUSSIA KEEPS US MORE BUSY. NOW MAKE A BLOODY WISH.’

‘If I cannae hae a million wishes, I guess I’ll just have tae hae a million poonds, eh?’ smiled Blake, gulping another river of Buckfast down his throat.

‘YOU MUST USE THE CORRECT WORDS OR YOUR WISH WILL NOT COME TRUE.’

‘Whit? Just gee me a million poonds, eh? Or yell be hearin’ from ma lawyer, ya big blue bastart. Ma lawyer’s got five knuckles an’ a sovvy ring.’

‘I DON’T MAKE THE RULES, LITTLE MAN. SAY THE WORDS. IT’S GENIE POLICY.’

Blake gripped the bottle neck and brandished it like a weapon. ‘You’re aboot two seconds away fae a glassin’, big man, nae shite.’

‘JUST PHRASE THE WISH CORRECTLY. BEGIN IT BY SAYING, “I WISH”…’

‘Ah wish you’d bloody shut yer big mooth, ye big blue fuckin’ shi… AH FUCK!’ hollered Blake, as he realised the enormity of this very unintended wish. He shot to his feet and was seemingly sober within a second. ‘Nut, that’s no fair! That’s no fair!’

The genie said nothing. Unsurprisingly.

His arms stayed wrapped against his big, bulging chest, and his bull-neck froze. The only things that had altered pose since the big man-of-magic’s arrival were his lips. Now, a huge grin spread them apart.

Pouf! And the genie was gone, leaving Blake with nothing but an overworked liver.

Auld Jack was in Dresden, swigging back another Grolsh. He’d trimmed his moustache into a neat oblong.

At the same time, Blake’s kitchen window was blown open by a gust of insults.

‘If you’re no oota ma sight in two meenits, ah’ll be oot there wi ma saucepan and brush, do you hear me, Blakey?!’

There were few that didn’t hear her. Perhaps even Auld Jack had heard her.

‘Ho, ya cow, some of us are on the nightshift here!’ shouted a particularly brave neighbour from his bedroom window.

‘Yell be on the graveyard shift if ye dinnae bugger aff, ya nosey shite!’ roared the beast in reply. ‘You too,’ she barked, eyeballing her son, ‘and dinnae even think aboot coming home unless ye have a million poonds in yer back pocket!’

Slam! Blake stood up, rocked on his heels, then took another long, lingering, sloshing slurp of the Buckfast.

‘This stuff’s magic!’ he said.

The bottle was soon discarded in the grass, taking pride of place in the man-made flowerbed of used condoms, bloody sanitary towels, syringes, crisp wrappers and fag ends. It was time to think. Finally. He had managed to avoid it for close to sixteen years. The bones of a plan quickly formed a skeletonic idea in his head. A smile crept upon his face, which lit up his drink-fogged eyes.

‘I know what tae dae!’ he exclaimed.

Full of excitement, he quickly set himself to the task of urinating through his mother’s letterbox. Then, the real plan hit him.

‘I’m gonnae go and see ma gran. She’s a bit of an effin’ weirdo, likes, but I ken she’ll help me! At the very least I can sell some of her stuff.’

‘Or her,’ he thought cheerfully to himself.

————————————————————————————————————————-

TO BE CONTINUED…

Personality-themed Cupcakes

Posted on by

My girlfriend and her aunty baked some cupcakes in honour of my birthday. Most of them had some connection to my likes, hobbies, wishes or personality, which I thought was disgustingly adorable. The way I see it, either my girlfriend loves me or she wants me to perish from a diabetes-related heart attack. Whatever the truth, those cakes are getting scoffed. Look out, blood, it’s cholesterol time, you red motherfucker! Happy birthday to me, etc. etc.

A microphone cake. Because I do stand-up, see? It's a good job I'm not a urologist, or this picture would've been a little indecent.

 

A cake with £50 notes coming out of it, because I'm a capitalist pig-dog who wants to amass great wealth in order to put my boot on the neck of the common man and push down on that neck until it snaps. And then shit in his wailing mouth. Whilst wearing a crown, obviously. And laughing. It's as if these cakes know me. Oh, and top-right there's a wee jobby with eyes, because I enjoy the thought that one day science might endow our faeces with sentience; perhaps even allowing them to rule the world. Actually I think it's supposed to be the wee flame guy from that advert, but an intelligent poo works for me, too.

 

Aw, cute. Well, there's the microphone again. Remember it from the first picture? And also a platoon of love hearts, because the chick digs me; and who can blame her? A podgy, hairy guy with fucked lungs who shouts abuse about society's weak into a microphone for the benefit of drunks, and doesn't get paid for it, is quite a catch for a young lady! And there's the masks symbolising tragedy and comedy, again in honour of my rantings, and artistic leanings. Top-left? That's a cocktail shaker, because there's a pina colada story mixed into our courtship. Bonus? The cocktail shaker also looks a bit like my nose-hair trimmer mentioned in the previous post. And look: top-right. That's a gummy version of the snake I murdered in Turkey! Awesome. I like to revisit my killings through baking.

 

This is a cute one. ABC for my writing, but also linked to how I met the missus. A rat? Not because I am one, although some people might disagree with that, but because we keep rats together. Yes, that's right. Cute little pet rats. Because nothing says I love you more than bringing the creatures who spread the black death into your shared home. There's some cheese on the cake next to it (not real cheese, a chocolate representation of cheese, motherfuckers), because I like cheese. Smoked applewood, cheese with cranberry in, soft cheese, hard cheese, processed cheese, French cheese, Greek cheese, Italian cheese, hell, Slovakian cheese, feta cheese, pizza cheese, gouda, edam, Babybell, Boursin... name a cheese, any cheese. (apart from knob cheese, although the idea of eating my own seasoned with some pepper isn't entirely abhorrent to me, although - unfortunately - I keep my cock too clean for that. Maybe once I become incontinent though) Let's put it this way: if it's come from a cow and been bacteria-ed to fuck into a great stinking lump of artery-clogging yellow-and-white tastiness, I'm having it. But not the stuff with the blue veins. That's just disgusting.

 

I think this one speaks for itself. Me with two cakes, dreaming of the big time. In the meantime: I got cakes, fuckers. Lots of them. Which makes me the richest man in the world.

If you haven’t already read it, here’s a link to my thoughts on turning 32: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/13/happy-birthday/

Happy Birthday?

Posted on by

Me, and how I stay youthful.

I just turned 32.

This is a strange age. It’s the age where people start dying; or at least the age where it starts to become less of a surprise when your friends and acquaintances keel over like pit canaries.

‘They were so… young,’ we say, not quite believing the words as they stagger uncertainly from our lips. It’s almost framed as a question. ‘They were so… young?’

I’ve always been certain that a heart attack will serve as the final sentence in the book of my life. I’m not psychic: just Scottish. At death, most pasty-skinned Celts will find the Grim Reaper holding their engorged heart in his bony hand, bouncing it like a blood-filled happy-sack as he points to the fat-smeared hole in their chest and says: ‘Looking for this, you fat bastard?’ Yes, there’s no doubt in my mind. Jamie Andrew’s heart is destined to burst like a rotten peach under the treads of a tank.

Fuck you, Murphy. You're shite at living.

I become filled with anxiety when I hear of a celebrity dying in their early 30s. As if their premature death somehow makes my own more likely. Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger: they both gave me palpitations. When a celebrity dies young I always chant inside my head ‘Please be drugs, please be drugs, please be drugs, please be drugs,’ and when it’s drugs I fist the air and shout ‘YES!!’ Which is pretty horrible of me, but then I never claimed to be anything other than a deeply, deeply horrible human being. They die of drugs, I don’t die of a heart attack. Yet. That’s the deal.

I guess I am still young, though. I look young, so I’m told, despite the rainforests of hair that seem to sprout from every available orifice. What’s with that? So much hair grows from my ears that I could pleat it and join Aswad. No joke. Bed bugs could abseil from my ear lobe down to my shoulder. This shouldn’t happen until I’m in my sixties or something, right? I don’t want to look like my grandfather just yet. Well, he’s dead, so of course I don’t want to look like him. I meant I don’t want to look like he did during his twilight years. Not at 32, anyway. His ears looked like they had boom mikes coming out of them. And the ears themselves were all waxy and gnarly, making him look like the head Ferengi from Star Trek.

My nose is no different, over-abundance-of-hair-wise. I always notice the hairs in the mirror when I’m driving, and then spend about five minutes yanking what look like wires from my nostrils. So if you’re on the roads in Falkirk, look out for a big tall guy clawing at his face and screaming in horror at his reflection: that’ll be me. So much hair dangles from my nose that it looks like a tarantula is trying to escape from my face. Honestly, it’s like steel wool. I could headbutt a pot and scour it at the same time.

It's the Argos Nose Hair remover I've got, if you're interested.

Which is why my mother gave me an electric nose-and-ear-hair remover for my birthday. No shit. She did. And do you know what the worst thing is? I was grateful. It’s something I need. At 32? Next year it’ll be a Noel Edmonds’ sweater and a brochure for a SAGA holiday. And bring on the socks and pants. I love getting socks and pants now. I wish I’d been more grateful to my grandparents when I was younger, and hadn’t just sneered when I ripped open the wrapping paper to find yet another 5-pack of Asda’s-own boxer shorts. I didn’t realise what a valuable commodity they were back then. Thank you, grandma and grandpa (X2). I sometimes think they were trying to tell me, in some hush-hush yet none-too-subtle grandparent code, that growing old is pants. I think they were on to something.

Anyway, here’s to the next 32. Well… maybe.

Cunt of the Week (11 Jun 2012) by Rik Carranza

Posted on by

The head cunt, presiding over his cunt empire.

My Cunt of the Week is not a single person; it’s an organisation. That’s right, Mattel, I’m looking at you. 

You see, a number of years ago – when I was much younger, smaller and more naive – I saw a movie which, at the time, blew me away. That movie was Back to the Future, Part II. If you haven’t seen it then, quite frankly, you need to re-assess your priorities in life. However, for the sake of clarification it is the second part of a trilogy of movies wherein a teenager, Marty McFly, goes on a series of adventures through time, almost shags his mother and claims to be Clint Eastwood. On a side note, if I had a time machine I would use it to punch someone at every major moment in history, or I would go back 2000 years or so to Jerusalem and claim I was Jesus. Probably the second thing. Yeah, I’d do that.

Look closely to see Rik Carranza's supporting role in BTTF2.

Anyway, in Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly goes to the year 2015 and after a series of misadventures ends up in possession of A FUCKING HOVERBOARD! That’s right: a hoverboard. A skateboard with no fucking wheels! The first time I saw this I was too young to blow my load, but, trust me, it gave me the same feelings.

According to the movie, the hoverboard in question was made by Mattel. Given that the movie originally came out in 1989 and was partially set in 2015, it is safe to assume that Mattel didn’t have the product back then. However, as we are coming up for 2015, by my reckoning hoverboards should be coming out within the next couple of years; you know, so we’ve got time to become familiar with how they work. With this in mind, I contacted Mattel to ask whether or not their hoverboards would be hitting the market soon. This was their reply:-

——————————————————————————————————————

Hello

Thank you for your email.  The Hoverboards are not part of the UK range, but we do value your feedback and this will be passed to the relevant departments for their future reference. 

Kind Regards

Karen Allen

Consumer Response, Mattel UK

——————————————————————————————————————- 

I felt disappointment until I saw the phrase: ‘NOT PART OF THE UK RANGE’. So it does exist then? Awesome! Getting a little bit excited I did some research and found this: http://www.slashgear.com/mattel-hover-board-prepped-for-2012-holiday-release-13213241/

It’s a fucking replica! It doesn’t hover, it just makes some shitty little whooshing noises. Fuck you, Mattel. I want a real hoverboard; not some replica. Adding further insult to injury, it’s only available in the US. By releasing this, Mattel aren’t satisfying fans. They are fucking with us. Acting like strippers by showing us the goods, but not letting us touch. There are self-lacing shoes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Efr2TaEPo), holograms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0TpDxLfjHc&feature=player_embedded), video calling (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/home), and video googles (http://www.geeksugar.com/CES-2008-Awe-eMagins-OLED-Microdisplay-Headset-943210), but still no hoverboard. So get your ass in gear, Mattel, and give me my hoverboard.

Rik Carranza

THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER The end result of multiculturalism gone wrong (at least according to the Daily Mail), Rik embraces both cultures the same way John Terry embraces racial harmony. When he’s not trying to make people laugh he likes sports from the comfort of his couch, movies from the comfort of his couch and pet ownership from the comfort of his own couch. In fact on the few occasion that he leaves his couch he has had some success in stand up comedy, which he started in 2009 and still can’t be bothered to quit.

Rik was arrested in 2007 for having sex with a snowman in a school playground. The terms of Carranza’s release state that he must spend the winter months sedated to prevent any further sexual outrage, so unfortunately you won’t be able to book him for your Christmas party.

FOLLOW RIK ON TWITTER: @rcarranza

READ RIK’S BLOG: http://rikcarranza.blogspot.co.uk/

—————————————————————————————————————-

Write for next week’s Cunt of the Week (CoTW) : http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/01/cunt-of-the-week/


Blakey the Jakey: a Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 1

Posted on by

‘You did whit, Blakey?’

‘I sold the car, maw.’

A sharp slap echoed across his hollow cheeks.

‘Whit did ye sell the Escort fur, ye wee bugger?’

‘Fur a load ay magic beans, maw.’

Another slap clapped across Blake’s already stinging cheek.

‘I didnae ask whit ye goat fur it, ah said whit did you sell it fur!’

‘Fur money, maw. This guy at the market said he’d gee us loads ay money fur it.’ A sliver of snotters sniffed their way back up Blake’s nostrils and a grazed knuckle rose to sweep away a clove of tears. ‘Yer aye sayin’ yer efter a holiday, ah thought I wid get ye the money for yin, cheer ye up, like.’

Whoosh. Slap. Oyah!

‘Cheer me up? Whit holiday am ah gonnae git wae magic bloody beans, ye wee toley? And noo I’ve no goat a car!’

Blake’s mother slumped her plump frame into a chair and began to sob her woes out over the kitchen table. Blake felt helpless. He sunk a clammy palm onto her shoulder. Sensing his guilt and sadness, she rammed her elbow into his stomach.

‘Bugger aff!’ she wept.

‘But, maw,’ whined Blake, glad that the elbow hadn’t sunk any lower, ‘we kin sell the Magic Beans. Guy at the market says we kin make a killin’, like.’

The sobs clicked off. ‘The only killin’ around here’ll be dun by me, ye wee tyke,’ she spat, ‘An ah could caw ye worse than that, the way am feelin’ the noo, ye wee useless cunt!’

Blake reached into the pocket of his jeans and took out the small, clear plastic pouch containing the beans. He waggled them in front of his mother’s face.

‘Let’s sell them, maw, let’s sell the hings. Ah’ll get the money back, promise ah wull.’

Blake’s mother shot to her feet, grabbed the packet of beans, stormed over to the open window and tossed them down onto the grass below. She pirouetted in a whirlwind of rage to face his downcast head, and laid down upon it a demand for exile.

‘First thing the morra’s mornin’, you’re oot o this hoose, or ah’ll bloody fling you oot the windae!’

***

And so, as the moon revolved into its night-time slot, knocking the sun down below the horizon, the nocturnal denizens of Grangemouth scurried out from the back of supermarkets, from bus shelters, from alley ways and from play-parks, to gather in the flickering lamp-lit streets like zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

As if driven by some deep, buried instinct, they found the packet of Magic Beans lying in the grass at the foot of Blakey’s flat. A circle of baseball caps peered down, before a cygnet-ringed hand scooped them up and held them aloft. A cry of feral triumph whooped into the air.

In the morning, the magic beans were missing: presumed gubbed.

Outside the kitchen window, twelve baseball caps saluted skyward from the grass, attached to twelve bleary bodies in varying states of consciousness. A ghetto blaster, powered by a length of extension cable, bang-thud-jerked its techno-menace over the still-sleepy street.

A lone ‘dancer’ – the term applying loosely – shuddered violently to the beat of the bass-line, a carnival of jutting, punching limbs. His pupils shifted from big to small, like some demented camera lens, and sweat lashed his exposed skin.

‘They beans are magic, sir!’ he exclaimed with ecstasy, lost in the dance.

The kitchen window of the Blake household flew open on its hinges and the curler-clad head of Blake’s mum burst out.

‘Ho, John Travolta!’ she yelled to the ‘dancer’, ‘Shut that bloody racket aff, wake up that pile a’ deed ducks on ma gress an’ bugger aff the lot o’ ye!’

The slam of the window acted as a gunshot to the frightened herd of ravers. Twelve sets of heels pelted down the street, ‘John Travolta’ dancing after them as fast as he could. The wail of an encroaching police siren only encouraged him to dance harder.

‘Tha’s magic, sir!’ he exclaimed, ‘Ah didnae ken they’d released that tune yet!’

One of the fleeing mob ran back and dragged him kicking and dancing around the corner to safety.

***

The street was quiet again. Somebody had already stolen the ghetto blaster, but then it had been stolen in the first place.

Blake sat on the pavement outside of his flat, head in hands, rucksack slung over a bony shoulder. With all of the beans gone, Blake had a mammoth mission ahead of him: find a way to make back money for both car and holiday or… he didn’t even want to think about the ‘or else’ part.

The odds seemed insurmountable. Not to Blake, of course, simply because the boy had no idea what ‘insurmountable’ meant. Blake’s ilk juggled with a few balls less in their vocabulary, but perhaps their stripped vernacular was more efficient in its expressiveness.

‘Fuck,’ he sighed. ‘Fuckin’ shite.’

As if sensing his heavy heart, the magical powers above granted some hope to Blake in liquid form. Pouf!

‘Did some cunt just caw us a poof?’ snapped Blake.

The boy noticed quickly that an object had appeared next to him from thin air. He was bright that way.

‘Where’d that come fae?’ whispered Blake, puzzlement ruffling his brow as he eyed the newcomer. He reached to his right and clasped the ancient-looking glass bottle in his hand. Someone, or something, had scrawled ‘Drink Me’ in the film of dust covering the green bottle. Blake obeyed.

The magical brew tasted to Blake like a mixture somewhere between cough syrup and paint stripper. With a bit of piss thrown in for good measure. It did not take many gulps for the hope-shunned youngster to fall under its spell. A few gulps more and he was entranced. Half the bottle, and his eyes became windows to worlds of magic, his stomach slosh-pit to the ebbs and flows of wonder. The tonic – health-giving though it seemed – was not enough to quell the anger that had built in him since the evening before.

Just then, a gaunt old man shuffled out from a neighbouring block of flats and made his sure-but-steady way towards him. A shell suit hung on his rag-and-wrinkle body and a silver-flecked moustache obscured his top lip. Various species of crumb made the hairy monstrosity their home.

It was Jack the Alike. No one liked him, but he always seemed to be everywhere, rather like Gok Wan. ‘Whit’re ye drinkin’, Blakey son?’ he croaked.

‘Dinnae ken,’ hiccuped Blake, ‘Whit’s it tae you, ye auld fanny?’

Instantly bored by ‘Jack the Alkie’ and agitated by his unwelcome presence, Blake distractedly rubbed at his magical bottle. Dust smeared his palm.

‘It’s guid tae share, son,’ smiled old Jack, a mossy tongue licking at chapped lips, ‘gee auld Jack a swally, noo.’

‘Ma maw aye says that ah’m no supposed tae talk tae strange auld men on account that they might turn oot to be dirty peedos like yersel, ken?’

Jack’s top lip trembled beneath its hairy camouflage. His burst-veined cheeks flashed crimson.

‘Ye ungrateful wee bastard! Efter aw I did fur this country… If it wisnae fur the likes ay Auld Jack, well, you’d be a lad in trouble, that’s fur sure! I did time in a POW camp fur wee shites like yersel’!’

Blake took another teasing swig from the bottle.

‘Ken whit, Auld Jack, I wish the bloody Germans had kept ye.’

Pouf! Old Jack seemed to implode to the size of a marble in seconds, leaving a brilliant white flash of light and a veil of smoke in his wake. As Blake recovered from this optical onslaught, blinking and cursing his sight back to 20/20, he saw before him, through a grey, choking cloud, a bearish, blubbery gent, skin the colour of rust, with a large, blue turban writhing and teetering on top of his head. A giant pair of arms was folded against his massive, shining chest.

‘THAT WAS YOUR FIRST WISH,’ he boomed.

———————————————————————————————————————–

TO BE CONTINUED

PART 2 COMING LATER IN THE WEEK…

Letter to Loaded (2005)

Posted on by

I was going through all of the old documents stored on my laptop looking for more content to cannibalise – because my brain isn’t in the zone for creating original content today – and found this. The following is a letter I sent to Loaded in 2005, pleading with them for a job. I know it’s jokey in tone, but it wasn’t a piss-take. I rather naively and pathetically assumed that if I could make the powers-that-be at Loaded laugh then they’d think to themselves, ‘I know this guy’s had no experience of writing whatsoever, but I snorted air out of my left nostril at one of his jokes, so I think we should put him straight onto the staff of our national magazine.’ Needless to say, it didn’t work. Oh, and I genuinely sent them a bag of plant cuttings.

————————————————————————————————————————————

Jamie Andrew

(address edited out to reduce chances of an horrific murder happening)

Ms Lisa Wallis

Loaded, IPC Media Ltd

London, SE1 9LS

22nd of September 2005

Dear Lisa

Application for the position of Staff Writer

Allow me to introduce you to some Glasgow vernacular: Go on, hen, geez a joab.

I have always wanted to write for a living. I penned my first major work whilst still ensconced in my mother’s womb. Perhaps ‘penned’ is a slightly inaccurate description. I actually scrawled my first novel in the placenta with my finger. Sold for a paltry £1 to publishing giant ‘FANTASTIC FOETALS’, it was simply entitled: ‘Gargumphaaagag.’ Certainly it was far ahead of its time.

A handsome young child, I was described by many as ‘a young Brad Pitt’. This was long before I knew what the phrase ‘Cockney rhyming slang’ meant.

Unperturbed by the taunts of others I embraced my calling as a writer. My first journalistic scoop came when I exposed my uncle’s infidelity in the May 1985 edition of ‘The Local Church Gazette.’ Even then I was aware of sinister and powerful forces at work. There was a cover-up of the scandal and in the dead of one night two masked intruders broke into my room and destroyed all of my crayons and wrote ‘Bastard’ across every sheet of paper they could find. Apparently my uncle was at it with the entire congregation, the organist (we always wondered why she played James Brown’s “Sex Machine” of a Sunday service), the cleaners, the caterers and even the minister and his dog.

My new career looked set to end before it had even began; but the call of the truth was too loud for me to ignore.

Since the age of twelve I have published no less than eighty-seven novels, ten-thousand short stories (some of them only a sentence long), brought down communist regimes across the globe armed only with my sharp tongue and acid pen (and acid-proof paper), won the Pulitzer prize (well, I stole it) and dressed as a sexy woman every night for the last ten years (which has nothing to do with writing, but I’m especially proud of it all the same).

So, I repeat: geez a joab.

Especially since I assume that I am the only applicant for this position eagle-eyed enough to have spotted the loopholes in your Guardian advertisement. You state that I need to have two years’ experience. Well, I do. I have two years’ experience of having experienced the passing of two years. And as for the cuttings: in absence of more clarification my assumptions have led me to enclose the best bag of cuttings I could find at this time of the year. I do hope they blossom well for you. Please consider these my gift to you in hope of a permanent position; or even just the kind of hot, steamy sex I enjoyed viewing (so many times) in Monsters’ Ball.

I enclose for your entertainment and delight my five feature ideas.

I love you.

Yours sincerely

Jamie Andrew

Cunt of the Week (05 Jun 2012) by Thomas Wotherspoon

Posted on by

Cunt of the Week

My nomination for Cunt of the Week this week is… the entire population of North Carolina. They recently made law in their state constitution that marriage between a man and a woman would be the only legally binding agreement of its kind. This backwards and hateful step was taken by the scum of a redneck society gone mad; thumping out inspiring lines like, ‘It’s in the bible,’ and ‘god made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ I mean, congradu-fucking-lations for making something rhyme, you cock-eyed, slack-jawed, sister-fucking idiot. We’ll get back to why it’s not a good idea to base a modern society on a piece of political propaganda written thousands of years ago in a minute. For now, we’ll let them think that the bible should be law, and have a little look at how that might work:

Leviticus 11:9-10:  ‘Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales–whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water–you are to detest.’
–
No eating shellfish.
–
Ephesians 6:5: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.’
–
Keep slaves
–
Deuteronomy 22:28–29:  ‘If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.’
–
A rape victim must be punished and marry her attacker.
–
I could do this all day, really I could. Come on, you cherry-pickin’ motherfuckers. If you can turn a blind eye to some of the rules in your holy fucking book, then surely you can let two people who care about each other – and want to sample the suffering fucking hell that is marriage – to at least get the nightmare that they desire. Also, those knuckle-dragging morons messed up the language in their writing of this law and null and voided every civil partnership, including those between men and women.
–
Homosexuality was around long before the bible was written; the Greeks and the Romans had much documentation of it, as did the Persians. Hell, there’s even the Isle of Lesbos, for fuck sake.
–
The times they are a’ changing, as a wise man once said. The people of the world need to move past their fears and problems together and embrace the future. Or be labelled cunts forever!
–
Yours Honestly – Tam
—
—
THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER His name is Thomas, but you can call him Tam. He’s normally an easy-going person, but can turn into a Hulk-like, angry, and shouty bastard when he sees idiots about to open their mouths: as he lives in Central Scotland, Tam spends most of his time green. An uber liberal, Tam thinks you’re entitled to your own opinions… unless they’re wrong.
–
He’s a bit fat, but not serious fat… they aren’t going to be taking a wall out of his house to get him out or anything. He loves games – online, board and card, and can be super competitive. He is currently undefeated in Monopoly.
–
Tam lives in Skinflats with his imaginary pet hawk and thirteen dead bodies he hopes will remain undiscovered.
–
Write for next week’s Cunt of the Week (CoTW): http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/01/cunt-of-the-week/
—

Greggs – A Tale of Pork Pies and Racism

Posted on by

I entered into this email back-and-forth with Greggs’ customer service a few years ago after I visited one of their Falkirk stores and discovered that all of their in-store pictures featured only white people. My original email to them included phrases like ‘I don’t want to think of the Third Reich each time I bite into a Yum Yum’. I wish, with every fibre of my being, that I still had a copy of it somewhere, but I don’t. It was submitted through the Greggs’ website. Never matter. Every other part of the exchange is here, from 2010 onwards.

Enjoy. This is real. Emails written by Greggs are signposted by an appropriate Greggs-related picture. Emails written by me are signposted by a picture of me eating a crab whole.

Greggs

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:00:09 +0100
Subject: Thank you for getting in touch with Greggs

It’s always great to get feedback from our customers and we do appreciate it. We wanted you to know that we’ve got your mail and will reply within the next 3 working days.

Kind regards

Greggs Customer Care Team
________________________________________________________________________
Please visit our website www.greggs.co.uk ________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Me

Hello there.

I recently submitted a query/complaint to your feedback forum through your website. As you can see from the below message you did indeed receive this, and then assured me that your reply would be forthcoming within three working days. I have not yet received said reply.

Although you may have found the phrasing of my initial message a touch facetious, I can assure you that this is only due to the passion I feel for the subject matter.

Affirmative action is an important concept to embrace in any forward-thinking, civilised society, and I find it abhorrent that Greggs does not subscribe to this philosophy. To recap, there are several images on display in the Larbert (Scotland) branch of Greggs, all of which depict white caucasian people enjoying Greggs’ products. Not one of them is from a different ethnic group. How do you imagine this makes people of other ethnic groups feel when they come in to buy a chicken sandwich or similar?

Offering brown bread is not enough of a compromise towards multiculturalism.What would Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King have made of your devil-may-care stand?

Please assure me that you will take steps to be more inclusive in the images you use in your stores, so as to minimise hurt to your paying customers. I expect an immediate response.

Kind regards
J Andrew

 

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:12:00 +0100

Dear Mr Andrew,

Thank you for your comments. I would like to reassure you that Greggs is a company that respects and supports diversity in modern day Britain, Our shop imagery is in no way intended to exclude any groups on the grounds of gender or ethnicity nor to cause harm or offence to any of our valued customers.”

We would like to thank you Mr Andrews for your feedback and we have taken your points on board.

—Remember to quote your call reference number F0770901 in any correspondence, as this will assist us in providing you with a quick response.

Yours sincerely

Christine Robertson

 

Me

Dear Christine

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I know some might think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I see these exclusions, subliminal or otherwise, as the thin end of the wedge in a society that is already struggling to accomodate peoples of all different creeds and ethnicities. Your words were comforting, but words aren’t always enough. You may have ‘taken my points on board’, but how does this equate to action? Are you going to update the images in your Larbert store to reflect a more inclusive image of the kinds of people who enjoy pastry products in modern Britain, and if not, why not?

Kind regards
J Andrew

 

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:40:51 +0100

Dear Mr Andrew,

Just to assure you we have taken your comments seriously following your initial e-mail, we have taken the following actions:
– we have discussed the concerns you raised with our People Director and Customer & Marketing Director to make sure that future imagery in the shop captures these points on diversity and inclusion.
– In regard to the Larbert shop, the imagery was our previous in-shop design as part of the refit done in 2006 Our latest design shop imagery that is currently being rolled out around the business shows our products and doesn’t in fact show any people. Based on our capital program, the Larbert shop would not be due for a refit for a couple of years yet. Any future imagery that we roll out will take into account visual representation of the diversity of our staff and our customers. We would like to send you examples of our internal communications that demonstrates we do take this issue very seriously if you would be willing to provide a postal address.

Regards

 

Me

Dear Christine,

Thank you so much for taking the time to address this serious issue. I’m glad that you and your company have afforded this matter the gravity it deserves.

It would be a highly responsible move to replace the images of people with those of your products, so as not to offend any customer or visitor to your stores. However, I am a little dismayed that people living in Larbert who come from different ethnic groups than those represented on the walls of their local Greggs will come to remember the years 2006 – 2013 as the ‘pastry apartheid years’.

I had a long look at your corporate website to see if the theme was repeated on a national scale. I’m heartened to see that the pictures and photographs on your website truly do reflect the diversity of your staff and customers, although I’m not so sure about the video uploads of your TV advertising campaigns. There are only two black people featured, both in the February 2010 ad. Bravo, on the face of it, but I feel this would have sent a more positive message to the country had the black staff members in question not been glimpsed mirage-like in the background, and hidden like a guilty secret behind a squad of merrily dancing caucasian people.

I don’t want to appear too critical since you have taken this matter seriously and provided me with reassurance. This is a very important step, to my mind. I’m still a little dismayed that you are content to promote social exlusion in Larbert for a further, indeterminate number of years.

I would prefer it if you could send me .pdf or .jpg attachments of your internal communications. It may not surprise you too greatly to learn that I am also a keen and ardent environmentalist, and abhor the unnecessary wastage of paper. Besides, I am quite a peripatetic individual and prefer to receive electronic communications owing to how infrequently I’m based at home.

Regards
J Andrew

(the following, concluding emails were sent in the past week)

Me

Dear Christine

(if indeed Christine is still functioning in her old role – if not, please identify yourself so as not to besmirch her memory)

It’s almost 2013. Several years ago you promised to look at the issues raised by my complaint, namely that there were plenty images of white people enjoying sandwiches on the wall of your Greggs in Larbert, but none featuring any other ethnic group. Not an African, an Indian, or even an Eskimo. Just the white man. Highly unacceptable in this day and age. Your solution was to suggest replacing pictures of people with pictures of sandwiches, so as not to offend anyone. Has this now been done, or are your Larbert customers still buying their bakery products from a BNP paradise; as if Nick Griffin had invented a time-machine and used it to catapult Larbert back to 1947?

I do hope you took my points on board and didn’t dismiss them as unimportant. Remember Mandela!

Kind regards

J Andrew

 

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk

To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk

Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 10:42:39 +0100
Dear Mr Andrew

Nice to hear from you.

I’m still here and still working hard with our customers. The Larbert Shop has not had a re-fit since we last corresponded but we’ve removed some of the old point of sale and replaced it with our new stuff.

Your feedback was sent through to the Marketing Team but I believe we changed our way of thinking and haven’t used this type of material since.
I think the shop is due for a re-fit shortly as we’re trying to update all of our estate.

Thanks again for getting in touch and I hope this has answered your query.

Remember to quote your call reference number F0770901 in any
correspondence, as this will assist us in providing you with a
quick response.

Yours sincerely

Christine Robertson
Customer Care Team Leader

 

Me

Hello Christine

(You called me Mr Andrew in your previous message, but I feel we’ve graduated beyond such formalities after our long history together, Chris)

–
I was very happy to receive your e-mail. Prompt and efficient. I’m heartened to hear of the changes you’ve implemented in response to my misgivings, and am proud to ally myself with Greggs in its new battle to eradicate racism in all its forms. Other companies with which I’ve entered into correspondence on these issues have not been as forthcoming as Greggs. Mathiesons the baker, a hated Scottish rival of yours, should be singled out for its arrogant and blatant disregard of my complaints. Which is rich considering how much offensive imagery they have in their stores and on their promotional materials! You were a minor offender compared to these guys. Can you believe this? One of their stores in Grangemouth boasts a picture of what appears to be a minstrel tucking into a scone! What next? Putting Jews in their ovens??? This is going to be a long fight, Chris, but one I’m ready for. Attitudes MUST change.
–
Anyway, to business. I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time. I would like to ask if I could talk about Greggs in a local newsletter I co-edit. I’m going to relay the tale of your humanity and corporate responsibility, and give Greggs some richly deserved publicity, free of charge. I’m going to end the newsletter with the line:
–
‘Greggs: Hot pastry products you’ll all adore; a queue of facists at Mathiesons’ door.’ And then end with a picture of Hitler enjoying a Mathiesons’ chicken bridie or something. Maybe you could suggest a more apt snack for the Fuhrer, else I’ll just stick with that, I think.
–
Thanks again for your excellent customer service, and for actioning my requests with grace and patience.
–
I await your response
–
Many thanks and kind regards
Jamie Andrew
————————————————————————————————————————–

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2012 15:21:21 +0100

Dear Mr Andrew

Thanks for your further email to Christine. As she’s not in the office currently, I’ve replied on her behalf.

It would be inappropriate for us to be associated in any way with your dissatisfaction with any other baker. In fact, we are really concerned that by referring to Greggs you will bring our good name into disrepute. Therefore we ask you not to refer to us in the way that you suggest.

Best wishes for the future.

Remember to quote your call reference number F0770901 in any correspondence, as this will assist us in providing you with a quick response.

Yours sincerely

Lynsey Kelly
Customer Care Team

Me

Hello Lynsey Kelly

It’s exciting to be corresponding with a new team member. You seem a lot more prim and formal than Christine. If you were a teacher I could well imagine you administering the belt to my wrist, whereas Christine would probably just smile, throw her hair back over her shoulder and call me a scamp.

This will be my last message, as I do not wish to swallow up any more of your time. Anyway, I’m sorry if I have contravened guidelines on what is deemed acceptable in terms of Greggs’ association with other companies. I was only trying to help out, as I felt I owed it to you after the superb way you handled my concerns. This worries me a little, though, as I have already published a newsletter in which Greggs is mentioned. I decided against the text mentioned in the previous mail, but I took some liberties with the new idea. I didn’t think you would mind, and I was only trying to promote your company. Here is the copy that is printed and ready to be distributed to a few hundred people in my local community:

“I would like to encourage all in the local area to visit your local branch of Greggs in Larbert. There you will find not just bakery products, but an admirable humanitarian stance on brotherhood. As Christine from the Customer Care Team said herself, ‘Unlike Mathiesons, Greggs cares about ethnic minorities. In Second World War terms, Mathiesons are like Norway, maybe at a pinch Vichy France, whereas we at Greggs pride ourselves on our Churchillian spirit. All are welcome to enjoy our products, not just white people. We would strongly urge an immediate boycott of Mathiesons’ products to send a stern message that your community will not tolerate such behaviour.'”

I don’t deal with distribution, that’s handled by a gentleman called Duncan Semple, who’s also the treasurer of our community group. I’ll get on to him straight away and hopefully stop him from handing out any copies. If any have slipped out, I’ll make sure they’re gathered up and burned.

Many apologies and kind regards

Jamie Andrew

———————————————————————————————————————–THE END

Or is it? I highly doubt – this time – there will be further correspondence from Greggs, but if there is, I’ll post it.

 

Santa’s Journal – May 26 2012

Posted on by

Another peaceful start to the day. This is unprecedented. It’s amazing what serenity a man can harvest when he bolts his door, deactivates his phone and decides to stop giving a fuck about every single living, breathing creature on the surface of the earth for a few days. It’s not all selfishness. Some of it’s self-protection. My heart’s been thumping like a back paw on a cat’s itchy back of late, and Herr Claus, my beloved Margaret, has ordered me to take it easy. Under pain of something unpleasant and as-of-yet unspecified. She’s hinted that much worse things than heart attacks can happen to a man. I’m hoping she isn’t referring to her stovies. Now that is a threat worth listening to. I’d rather eat uranium-garnished pig-poo whilst enduring twelve simultaneous heart attacks and a bonus rectal prolapse than suffer another single spoonful of that crunchy, former-flesh-mess she calls ‘a Tuesday Treat’. Silent ‘H’.

At least she’s good at cakes. You can tell that from my waistline. Mixed messages are being sent here, I fear.

‘Eat,’ she keeps saying, ‘A cake never hurt anybody.’

(‘Oh, hello, Dianne Beatties. Mrs Claus, have you met Dianne Beatties? Dianne Beatties, Mrs Claus, Mrs Claus, Dianne Beatties. Oh, hang on, there’s Sean Coronary and his wife.’)

Even though it was morning, I closed the heavy curtains in the living room and lay back in my armchair like I was a marshmallow bobbing in warm chocolate. Margaret lit the fire. which sent faint orange flickers dancing onto the wall. To delight the nostrils, the scent of freshly baked cake wafted in through the kitchen door, and the only sounds lulling between the four walls were the soft crackling-spit of the fire, and the gentle and steady tick-tocking of the clock. Heaven. My younger self would be appalled by this sentiment, but I wouldn’t trade in this level of comfort even for a shot at a queue-based blow-job from a platoon of the dirtiest, most wet-boobed and slutty war whores seen this side of Paisley.  Even if they were all thus guaranteed to be more sexually depraved than a drugged-up and recently evacuated Kerry Katona.

In any case, there’s very little life in Frank Junior these days. A lungless lady would have more luck inflating a wet balloon.

Anyway, enough cock-talk. I’m Santa Claus, for goodness sake!

In the afternoon I went off to greet Ronald. His private jet is actually shaped like the McDonald’s seagull motif. Well, I know it’s an ‘m’, or a set of golden arches to use the marketing parlance, but when that jet comes flying hard towards the ice, all curved, hump-backed and seagull-y, every single fish in the Arctic shits itself. And what a noise it makes as it approaches; what power it blasts from its engines. It whipped the snow off the ice like dandruff in a hurricane. A giant ‘m’ landing in your back garden, like the first vessel in the Alphabet Army’s invasion force.

I must admit it was good to see Ronald… well, initially… but more on that in the next journal entry. Something’s wrong with the clown. Bad wrong.

Cunt of the Week

Posted on by

Is Teresa a cunt?

Who’s yours?

You can pick anyone – with the exception of me, as my cuntiness is a matter of public record – to be your Cunt of the Week (COtW – or, tell you what, let’s shorten it to COW so we don’t have to be all vile and C-wordy every time we mention the feature): a politician; a celebrity; the guy who keeps blocking your driveway every morning; an historical figure; a cartoon character; hell, your own grandmother if she’s cunty enough!

So it needn’t be topical. Although the feature is called COW, your See You Next Tuesday doesn’t have to be someone we’ve seen in the news that week. It’s just that every week we’ll have a different person, or a rotation of persons, telling us about their particular **** (I’ve not gone all sensitive on you, I’m just bored of writing ‘cunt’).

Be angry, be passionate! Convince us in 300 – 500 words why your man, woman or character deserves to be crowned the CUNT OF THE WEEK and send your mad, depraved rantings to theotherjamie@hotmail.co.uk. Send them by a Friday and I’ll post them on a Monday.

I’ll put the best few (or indeed the only few, or most probably the ones I’ve made up and published under a false name because not a single fucker out there has bothered to submit anything) up every week, and we can all have a good, old-fashioned weekly hate-a-thon. And the great thing is: we’ll never run out of cunts. There’s too many of them!

Happy cunting.