Monthly Archives: October 2012

Space: The Final Cashier (or ‘An Old Man Sells Star Wars’)

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Harold Shipman’s at it again!

News of Lucasfilm’s purchase by Disney, and the prospect of a new trilogy of Disney-produced Star Wars’ sequels, was met with the anger and reprobation of a bunch of people who really shouldn’t give this much of a shit about the creative direction of a space-based fairy-tale movie franchise for small children. An enormous 48-year-old fat geek, who only got his hole once in his life and only then completely by accident, told us: ‘I feel like Lucas has sold my soul for corporate gang-rape. All six Star Wars movies were pure art, like Wim Wenders’ films set in space, and this cheapens it. I’m so angry I could trash everything in my house, and I probably would, if I didn’t live here with my mum and dad.’

The Death Star – A deadly giant bollock hovering in space.

The twitto-verse, the realm of Twittingdom, the Twitanium steel wordosphere, Dick Twittington and his knapsack filled with fucking tweets – or whatever bullshit marketing-speak is currently being used to describe the short sentences that people type into a wee box on a social networking site – is aflame with the erm… burning… fire of… passion of people getting all… hot and ignited… and… ach, blast this ineffective flame-based metaphor all the way to roaring fucking Hell: a lot of people are talking about the future of Star Wars, okay? That’s what I wanted to say. In a non-flaming nutshell, that’s about the crux of it. Right? Just leave it. OK?? Anyway, there are millions of people who seem to care more about Disney’s Death Star taking aim at Planet Geek than they do about the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, global disease and poverty combined. A starving Ethiopian was asked for his reaction to the Star Wars news, but he was too busy dying of thirst to comment.

So what do we know about Disney’s plans for Star Wars?

‘Motherchucker, get this spaceship in the air or I’ll horn your young ass.’

Well, we know for sure that there will be some major character changes in the new trilogy. R2-D2 will be replaced by a wise-cracking, talking goat with attitude, voiced by Chris Rock. This ‘new’ character, Gh-oato Superstar, will forever be admonishing C-3PO with lines like, ‘No way I’m getting’ on no space ship wich yoo, you uptight, John Inman motherfucker. This goat ‘aint gonna be the butt of some three-eyed, six-titted motherfucker’s jokes. Find me a field an’ leave me there, honky.’ Changes to C-3PO won’t be quite so all-encompassing, but they will be radical. Although his personality will remain the same his appearance will change some 2000 times over the course of the three sequels.

‘C-3PO always struck me as a little, well, dull and samey,’ said some guy at Disney whose name we forgot to write down, ‘So that’s why, in the new films, he’s going to have the ability to change his colour and armour at will, instantly, and as often as he likes.’

How could you not warm to the adventures of a sexually confused, metal English butler and his wee pal, the Tesco Value pedal bin on wheels.

When we insinuated that this new change might have more to do with the ability to issue a wider and more profitable selection of C-3PO action figures, and less to do with what’s best for the plot, the Disney man stabbed an Ewok in the throat, and then ran down the street laughing like a crazy bastard. Filled with panic and horror we rushed to help the adorably cute and choking creature, but once we remembered that Ewoks aren’t real and that it was probably just a dwarf in a costume, we went for a coffee instead. Don’t worry, though, dwarves are immortal. Aren’t they? Or they’ve got special powers or some shit.

Changes abound for Han Solo’s hairy side-kick, due to the long-standing fear of Disney executives that Chewbacca’s name could be viewed as subliminal advertising for chewing tobacco. ‘We don’t want America’s children hawking into spittoons like it’s the Wild West, getting mouth cancer and then keeling over like victims of Vader’s telekinetic throat-choke,’ said Disney CEO, Dave Jewstein. ‘Or even getting Chew-baculosis! HAHAHAHA! Oh, I crack myself up, I really do. Anyway, that’s why, in the new films, we’re renaming him: Chewba-cocacola.’

Jar Jar Binks: in a world gone bat-shit crazy, this animated fictional character is despised more than Hitler.

Building on the universal popularity of Jar Jar Binks, Disney have outlined a new character called ‘Ting-Ting Kablammo’, whose slitty eyes and hilarious catchprase – ‘Me no rikey these raser guns’ – will go down a storm with the ‘0-3yrs’, ‘heavily brain damaged’ and ‘people from Greenock’ demographics.

Harrison Ford will return, this time playing Indiana Jones, and Mark Hamill will be back, as an extra in one of the bar scenes.

Sneak Peak

Star Wars VII will be set on the planet of Toy, with the action focussing on Luke’s children, who are eking out a meagre, miserable existence under the tyrannical rule of Toy’s evil dictator, the Grand Merchandiser. With his army of dreaded Action Figures, and uncompromising brutality, the Grand Merchandiser looks set to make Vader and the Emperor look like a pair of bum-fingering space pussies. Audiences will be treated to some stunning set-pieces as rebel forces, led by Luke’s youngest sons, Pluto and Goofy Skywalker, battle the Action Figure army through the giant roller-coaster theme park that borders The Grand Merchandiser’s impregnable Disneyland Fortress.

Rivals

Fuggedaboutit, Vader.

HBO also fought for control of Lucasfilm, and only just missed out on the bid. Executives at the cable network had already outlined their vision for the franchise, which would have kicked off with Star Wars 7: Motherf***ing C**ts in Space, starring James Gandolfini and the late David Carradine.

STAY TUNED: We’ve been privileged to see a promo poster for Star Wars VII, which features a fat, middle-aged man in a Yoda T-shirt feeding £600 and his dignity  into a shredding machine.

(And, yes, geeks, I know the title of this ‘report’ references Star Trek before it’s pointed out to me with geek-like glee. Or gleek. And how do I know this? BECAUSE I’M ONE OF YOU!!! I just don’t like Star Wars that much.) 

Bore Drummond Safari Park – Part 2: Lion Bastards

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After savaging David Dickinson, this lioness used his balls as toys.

And so to the lion enclosure. Lions are great, aren’t they? Surely they must be the bee’s knees, the cat’s bollocks, the mane men, the pride of the park? Well… not really; the first few minutes I spent in their enclosure, slowly looping around the track, was about as exciting as watching my own domestic cats rolling around and licking their balls, albeit on a slightly larger scale. OK, I did see a couple of lions having sex, but that didn’t last long. Certainly not long enough for me to take advantage of my nascent hard-on (To wank along to the scene outside, of course. Not to run out there and join in a giant lion gang-bang. I’m not a pervert, for Christ’s sake!).

He’s going for the sexy shoulder bite, but she still couldn’t give a fuck.

I could relate to the lion, though. Mid-way through the sex the female got bored, ejected his catty cock from her liony labia, and staggered off. She slumped down on a patch of grass fifteen feet away from him, and started to have a kip. I don’t know if lions are capable of feeling dejected, but this guy looked pretty fucked off and miserable. No wonder the males go out on the savanna and kill things. It’s not to eat: lions are actually vegetarians. They just disembowel springboks to make themselves feel manly again after their wives have booed off their shagging skills.

In fact, hang on. That’s not even true, is it? The males do a tiny bit of the hunting, but it’s the lionesses that do the bulk of the running, ripping and killing. So the lions are crap in bed, don’t provide food for the dinner table, and just sit around all day growling at other guys and preening their big hair and doing their nails. I think the pandas might have some competition in the 2013 ‘Who’s Up For A Bit of An Extinction?’ contest.

‘I said Hakuna Matata. HAKUNA MATATA WAKE UP YOU BASTARD!!!’

I drew my car up alongside a group of lions that were sleeping on the grass and tried to coax them into action by burring the window down and blasting up the volume on the radio. It sort of worked. One of them waggled its ears a wee bit. Hardly the stuff of Attenborough. I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest. A full-on lion rave?

Luckily, there was excitement – and danger – on the horizon. Two lions, who had been relaxing next to a cluster of tree stumps further up the enclosure, started stalking towards my car. Their stares were cold and unblinking, and I’m sure I detected a twitch of primal hunger on their lips. Then, just as my heart started thumping in my chest, they meandered lazily past me and flopped down next to the other lions who were sleeping at the other side of my car, and joined them in a kip. You lied to me, Disney. You said these cunts were fun, and could talk, and form religions and shit. But they’re crap.

If only I’d had the presence of mind to smuggle in a couple of sheep from the field outside I could really have livened things up – given a few children one or two interesting things to say to their psychiatrists in later life.

‘Now, Jeannie, can you trace all of the recent bad events in your life back to one discernible root cause, perhaps in your childhood?’

Jeannie rocks in her seat, grasping her knees with white knuckles, saliva foaming at the edges of her mouth. ‘Yesssss,’ she stammered. ‘The day …the…lovely… sheep died.’

This… never happened at the safari park.

So, disappointingly, the lions did fuck all. You can hardly blame them, I suppose. If a bus-load of lions had visited my flat on a typical Sunday afternoon I doubt they would have witnessed anything more exciting than the odd bit of dish-washing, ball-scratching or half-hearted masturbation. Actually, that’s not true. I probably wouldn’t have been doing the dishes.

Still, why would a bus-load of lions come to my flat? And what maniac would transport them there? Somebody needs to answer these questions.

Have you ever heard a lion’s roar? I mean, not on TV: in a safari park, or in the wild? When your bowels can pick up the sound first-hand? Later on that day, when I was pottering about elsewhere in the park, I heard it. Rumbling, growling, roaring. Like it was coming from everywhere in the park at once in one rectum-rocking symphony of primal terror. I was glad to be hearing that sound in the safety of an open-prison for beasts, rather than out on the savanna with a packed lunch and a spear.

The next enclosure contained many bison. But who, apart from other bison, gives much of a fuck about bison? Moving on…

‘Get busy swimming… or get busy dying.’

Ah, the sea lion show. Now you’re talking. I never fully realised the unbridled happiness and joy an animal could bring to my heart until I saw those slippery guys cynically exploited by the promise of food into performing hilarious tricks. The trainer claimed that the sea lions always enjoy themselves while putting on the show, and I guess the club-shy bastards’d better show it if they ever want to eat again this millennium. To be honest, though, the faux-cynicism I’m affecting here could find no purchase-hold in my head or heart during the ten or so minutes I was privileged to watch those two adorable creatures at work.

That tasche will be coming off for Movember.

While they were sitting still and awaiting instruction, their heads bobbed and rocked about in a figure of eight motion, which brought to mind a sub-aquatic Stevie Wonder. When active, they darted and dived into and out of the water, balanced balls on their snouts, imitated seals, called on command, climbed stairs and jumped off of high boards. I loved them!

But possibly the greatest thing one of the creatures did, something that made me laugh uncontrollably each time it happened – that I think is one of the simplest yet best things I have ever seen an animal be trained to do – was clap! It clapped! It sat on its podium, threw back its head and slapped its flippers together like a mad-thing. And my face lit-up like a Syrian government building each time. Usually the sea lions did it in tandem with the audience, which somehow made it even funnier. Perhaps I’ve found my happy place – what’s the sound of one sea-lion clapping? I don’t care. It’s brilliant! Still, there’s room for improvement: if they can somehow teach them to smoke it’ll be fucking awesome.

‘Here I am, MIMED-SEAL DELIVERED, I’M YOURS!’

I’ve heard it said that it’s good for the mental faculties to absorb at least one new fact a day, so yours is coming up a few sentences from now. If you discover that you already know the fact I’m about to share with you, then go and open the dictionary and find a word you’ve never heard of and learn it, so you don’t feel left out.

Ahem, here goes: the way to tell the difference between a seal and a sea lion is by looking at the ears. Apparently the seal has internal ears, and the sea lion has protruding ears. This is fantastic, for a number of reasons, but most crucially: we now know that a sea lion can do an even better Stevie Wonder impression than we first imagined.

OUR JOURNEY AROUND THE SAFARI PARK CONCLUDES THIS WEEKEND.

Bore Drummond Safari Park – Part 1

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Baaaaa-oorrrrinnnngg.

I hadn’t been to the safari park since I was a kid. As I drove up the winding, field-flanked road, all I could see were lazy battalions of sheep. Surely things hadn’t changed this much? Sheep the main attraction of the safari park? If I was going to part with a tenner then I wanted to see animals that I had never eaten before. Or, at the very least, animals that were capable of eating me back.

OK, of course there were wild animals. Maybe there wasn’t as varied a selection as you would find in a zoo, but at least the whole experience felt marginally more humane: no big, sad gorillas with their haunted, ‘pass me a blade’ eyes; or hyper-tense tigers who looked close to dashing their grrrreeeeaaaat big brains out against the reinforced plexi-glass windows; or even waddling brown bears trapped in two-by four-feet enclosures, dreaming happily of their days having cigarettes ground out in their eyes back at the Russian Circus.

Nothing even a millionth as exciting as this happened on my trip.

Well, it looked a little more humane; but I’m not one hundred percent sure that it was. Yes, animals are afforded greater freedom in a safari park as opposed to a zoo, that’s true. However, part of me thinks that subjecting animals’ lungs to a daily pollution-output that’s equivalent to that generated by an eight-hour-long traffic jam is less than kind, and should the animals ever learn to talk I find it unlikely that their first words will be a chorus of ‘Thanks’. And if that turns out to be the case, it’ll be a very sarcastic thanks, drowned out by wheezing and coughing.

I drove through the three animal enclosures. To my great disappointment, the first enclosure contained creatures that were only marginally more impressive and entertaining than the sheep I’d encountered at the gates; there being a heavy emphasis on deer, and bulls with great big bloody horns, which didn’t exactly fill me with wonderment and awe. 

Yaawwwwnnnn. Get fucked, Bambi.

I got the feeling that just before the park opened back in the sixties those in charge had looked around, scratched their heads, and thought, ‘Hmmm, it’s good, but it’s a bit empty, isn’t it?’, and one of their number had scurried into the nearby woods and returned with an armful of hedgehogs and squirrels, and somebody else had given a shake of the head and said, ‘Nah, but you’re thinking along the right lines; get back in there and think bigger!’

OK, there was something to be said for the bulls with the gigantic horns – those things were so big and so wide that they could have pierced either side of a bus – but I didn’t want to see shit, every-day animals with extra bits added on to them. I wanted to see strange, alien animals from the darkest – and lightest – most far-flung reaches of the globe. Not deer, ducks, cows and motherfucking seagulls. When I think safari, I think Kenya. And when I think Kenya, I don’t think seagulls.

‘Hey! Yo! Over here! Fuck the giraffe, mate, check out our quality flying!’

To be fair, the presence of the seagulls probably wasn’t part of the plan; it’s just that the little cawing bastards get everywhere. Wherever there is garbage, or the promise of garbage, there they’ll be. They’re especially attracted to buildings containing clusters of humans who don’t want to be woken up at 5am by the sounds of seagulls fighting over a Pringle and shagging, the noisy feathered cunts.

I don’t know. Perhaps the gulls were just jealous of the safari animals’ exotic celebrity status, and wanted a slice of fame for themselves. In support of this theory, just try taking a picture of an animal in the park next time you’re there – any animal at all – and take a good, long look at the photograph. I guarantee that in each one you’ll find a stupidly grinning seagull – possibly beaming out from behind a bison – that’s just jumped into shot, giving you its best thumbs-up. Well, sort of a feathers-up, but you get the idea.

I read somewhere that urban seagulls that live within a 30-mile radius of the park hang around the bins behind B&Q so they can dip themselves in half-empty tins of fluorescent orange paint, and then fly back to the park and dive bomb into the lion enclosure. ‘Who, me? Yeah, I’m exotic. I’m from Africa, actually, yes. I’m a Senegal Seagull, doncha know? Make sure you get my good side.’

{joke deleted as it involved the camel ‘having the hump’}

Thankfully, somewhere amongst the shit animals and seagulls, there were a few camels strutting about to liven things up. Well, I say liven things up – they’re hardly party animals. But they do move a little like those fluffy, head-bobbing puppets that you operate with the cross-handle and the strings, and that can only be a plus-point. Besides, a camel isn’t something you see every day in Scotland (unless you work in the safari park, I suppose – it’s all relative), and they did meet my criteria of being an animal that I haven’t yet eaten. Note the ‘yet’ in that sentence, camels: I’m coming for you, you tasty sons of bitches. Actually, I might let you live, given that you can both read and access the internet, and are therefore a super-intelligent creature with much to teach our species. Well played, camel. Well played.

If you haven’t seen The Mist, do so NOW. If only for the last few minutes, which will have you laughing like a monster.

I’d only ever seen camels on television, and I hadn’t realised how massive they were. As one of them lumbered towards my car it reminded me of that scene near the end of The Mist, where they’re driving through the fog and encounter that big fucking gigantic spindly thing that makes a noise like a haunted foghorn. So, yeah, camels are big. And ugly. And smelly. And humpy. What’s that? You want me to take over from Attenborough after he dies? No problem. My knowledge of the animal kingdom and its nomenclature is extensive. You want to know about sharks? Personally, I find them pretty swimmy and taily. And bitey. Bow down, Davey. Your documentary days are over. {Since writing this I’ve actually ridden a camel, but I can’t say too much about that until after the court case}

OUR JOURNEY AROUND THE SAFARI PARK CONTINUES TOMORROW…

The Tell-Tale Fridge

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 By Jamie M Andrew

I’m trying to watch the television and I can’t concentrate because of the racket coming from the kitchen; the guy just won’t shut up. It’s too cold, it’s too dark, it’s this, it’s that, blah blah blah. And it’s really annoying me, because it’s a good programme. It’s really interesting, but I’m not taking it in because this inconsiderate bastard is giving it all that. I put up with it for so long – because patience is a virtue as my dad used to say – but you have to draw the line somewhere, don’t you? It’s all good and well being patient with people, but if they lack the common courtesy to respect your right for a little bit of peace and quiet now and again then what use does your patience serve? That’s why you don’t let people take a loan of you, as my dad also used to say. He’s right – on both counts. Right now, this chattering swine in the kitchen is taking a loan of me, and I don’t like it.

I get up from my comfortable armchair and storm through to the kitchen. He’s still at it. I open the fridge door and give him my most reproachful look, and he seems to shut up for a moment, because he can see that I mean business.

‘It’s cold,’ he says, looking rather sorrowful.

‘I’m trying to concentrate,’ I tell him. We’ve been here before, as well he knows.

‘But it’s cold. And dark. And I can’t feel my legs.’

‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ I ask him, pulling my mouth into a snarl.

‘Can’t I come out? Just for a little while?’

‘I’m watching television.’

‘I could watch it, too. Honest, I’ll be quiet.’

There’s no reasoning with him when he’s like this, so I slam the fridge door shut and march back to my armchair. Not three seconds pass before he’s at it again.

‘Wanker!’ he shouts. ‘Fucking wanker!’

And that’s it. I can’t take him anymore. A man has the right to expect respect in his own house, doesn’t he? Well, I give him what for this time. I don’t miss him and hit the wall, as my dad used to say. I hit him against the wall; I open the fridge, grab a clump of his freezing brown hair in my hand, yank him out and throw him with all of my might. He acts as if it’s my fault.

‘What did you do that for?’ he whines, and I can tell he’s choking back tears.

‘You know fine well,’ I tell him. I’ve no sympathy. He brings it all on himself.

‘How many times have I had to tell you and still you act up?’

He doesn’t know what to say to that one, because he knows I’m right.

‘Can I stay out here now?’ he pleads.

Maybe he forgets his little outburst, but I certainly haven’t. I take some masking tape out of the drawer under the sink and stretch a tough length of it across his blue lips. He doesn’t like that one bit. I carry him back over to the open fridge like a hairy lettuce and slide him back in next to the margarine. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson, but, no, he’s still at it. I can’t understand what he’s mumbling about, but his muffled rantings are irritating nonetheless.

Still, there’s no harm in giving somebody a second chance, as my dad said the once. But that’s it. I know if I hear him one more time I’m going to kick him out of the window like a football. I tell him that’s what I’ll do, and he seems to believe that I’m serious, because he shuts up for a few minutes.

I’m just watching this bit where a lion’s sinking its teeth into the rump of an antelope when, surprise, surprise, what do I hear? Somehow he’s managed to chew through the tape, and his mouth is motoring away again, spouting out the filthiest language yet, well… I did warn him, didn’t I? I did tell him that I was going to punt him out the window, and you can’t make promises you don’t follow through on, as my dear old dad would often say. How will people learn that you’re serious if you go back on your word all the time? No, you’ve got to be consistent. Firm, fair and consistent. And definitely firm. That’s the most important.

So, that’s it. The gloves are off, but you know… I don’t feel like a baddie, far from it, no, because I’ve given him every chance to repent – more chances than he deserves – and it’s still vulgarity and ingratitude I’m getting.

“Come on, can’t we talk about this?” he snivels as I’m walking over to the window with him clasped in my hand. I’m deaf to him, you see, because it’s too late for words. The time for talk has passed, so now its action that’s got to speak. He’s really crying now, but who’s he got to blame? I unlatch the window, push it open wide, position myself, toss him into the air, and take a strong, steady aim at his skull with my swinging foot. He makes a kind of a cracking thlump sound as he begins his trajectory upwards then earthwards. It’s three storeys down.

‘FUUUUCCKKK YOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo,’ he says.

All I want is to watch the rest of my programme, is that too much to ask? I think it must be, because I hear a quick chorus of cracks, a little yelp, a thud, and then that little bastard is shouting – shouting! – from outside, causing a scene and embarrassing me in-front of the neighbours. I really think that I’m going to trap him in a vice and squeeze him until his glassy little eyes pop out from their sockets, because I saw it in a movie once and it looked like it really hurt, and I think that’s kind of what he kind of deserves now that he’s making me the laughing stock of the whole street.

‘I head-butted somebody!’ he’s shouting. ‘They’re unconscious on the grass! Look what you made me do! Look what you did! Look what you did! You’ve killed her! YOU’VE KILLED HER!’

This really is the last straw. The very last straw, the last straw in the box, you know, the one that broke the camel’s back, as my dad used to say? How dare he shout things like that in broad daylight, outside, with so many people around? Who does he think he is?

I go over to the window and look out, and he’s right, because there’s a woman lying next to him on the grass, out cold, the contents of her shopping bags spilled out like guts. I can’t believe he’s done this to me. Can’t believe he would aim himself directly at that woman and knock her out like that. It’s so typical of him to get me into trouble like this and, as usual, it’s me that’s going to have to sort this mess out. Well, it’s like dad used to say, isn’t it: that you can’t count on anybody but yourself in this world.

He used to say that movies and TV made us think that the world’s a good place, but in real life the Lone Ranger would have shot Tonto just for being a dirty Indian, or Tonto would have scalped him and cut him into bits and ate him just for the sake of it. That’s why Dad kicked the TV now and again, or threw it out of the window.

Still, maybe some company won’t be too bad – just for a little while. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a whole friend to talk to, to share things with, to watch my television with. Just for a little while. We could have cups of tea together, and a cake, and maybe talk about the weather, and football, and what our favourite programmes on the television are. It’d be nice to have a friend for a while.

I grab a black bin-liner for him, and my rag and chloroform for my new friend. I know you’re thinking that I sound bad for doing that, but I’m not bad, because I’m only trying to make sure that she feels better, see? She might be scared when I get to her, so I’ve got to make sure she sees I’m trying to help, you see? I don’t want her crying out and making a scene, because that’s not what friends do, is it? Get friends into trouble – especially when they’re only trying to help. Ungrateful bitch.

So I run down the stairs and I scoop him up first, dropping him into the black bag like a shit down the toilet, making sure I hold it at ground level so he hurts himself as he hits the bottom.

‘Ow,’ he says, amongst other things, but I’m really not listening to him anymore; he may as well be speaking Dutch or German for all I know or care, because his existence is no longer of any concern to me – as if it ever was.

No, so I lift the woman up and take her weight across my shoulders and I sort of drag her into the block and clump her up the stairs, and she only scrapes her legs a few times in the process. Never matter, she’ll be fine. I put her straight into my special chair for visitors and sit her up straight, but her head keeps sagging down towards her chest, and her arms keep flopping. I don’t want her falling on the floor while my programme’s still on, and disturbing my peace, so I fetch the masking tape from the kitchen and stick her arms to the rests, actually lifting up the chair to roll the tape underneath it, so it sticks all the way over her arms, and all the way under the chair in a tight, secure loop. I do the same across her clavicle and run the tape around the back of the chair, nice and tight and safe. I see a bit of blood matting the left side of her head, so I draw a bit of tape over that too so she doesn’t stain my furniture and I have to scrub it.

Now I can sit down and really enjoy my programme, see? I mean, I’ve only been looking forward to it all day, because it’s circled in the TV guide with a black marker and everything, just so I wouldn’t miss it, and I must only have seen about five minutes of it between him giving it chat, chat, chat and now this stupid bitch spoiling my plans by getting herself hurt like this, I mean, is it too much to expect, has the world gone mad? You know, I don’t ask much, not much at all, and a man’s home is his castle as dad used to say, and he’s right again, because if I ever made a sound while he was watching his news programmes then it’d be fifty lashes of the belt and a night in the cellar, so I don’t know what that bastard was complaining about earlier, because it’s not as if I did that to him, and it’s not as if I didn’t want to at the end of the day. It’s just that I cut him a break, see, and tried to be nice to him?

So I’m just getting comfortable again when I hear the bitch on the chair mumbling, and then I feel bad for thinking she’s a bitch when I haven’t really given her a chance so I try to think nice thoughts about being in fast cars or eating ice cream or feeding the ducks. I look round at her and catch her opening her eyes, and then I realise that I’ve forgotten to put the tape around them; but then it’s not really very nice to have a friend round to your house to watch telly with you if they can’t actually see the telly, is it? Ha ha! I’m giving her a little smile, but nothing too over the top, because I don’t want to excite her and miss even more of the documentary, do I? I want her to know that I’m happy having her here, so long as she respects the rules of the house and doesn’t take liberties with our friendship. I’ve already had enough of that today, by the barrel load, and I don’t think I could take anymore.

She’s pissing the chair, isn’t she? I can smell it, and not only that but she’s wriggling and rocking from side to side and making the chair clang off the floor, scuffing up the wood flooring and making a right old racket, what with my neighbours downstairs and everything. You’d think she’d respect that if nothing else, but no, clearly she doesn’t. What a noise she’s making! She’s screaming now, too.

‘Don’t you want to see this?’ I ask over her shrieks, pointing at the television, trying to keep calm, but she’s really irritating me the more of a scene she makes, and I know I’m not going to be able to hold onto my temper for much longer.

The first time it happens, it’s their fault; the second time it happens, it’s your fault. That’s what my Dad always told me about people and how they take advantage of you, and something just seems to click in me because I can see this whole situation turning out just like it did with that snivelling, ungrateful ratbag in the fridge. Now, I’m clever, see, so I’ve got to put a stop to this now before I end up looking like a fool. It’s not like she’s going to calm down, and if she manages to tear up any of that masking tape she’ll rip the fabric off of my good chair and I’ll have to upholster it – that’s if she doesn’t get me an ASBO with all the disturbance that’s going on under my roof. My neighbours aren’t the most understanding and I wish they would get gassed to death in their sleep sometimes because I can’t see what good they do to anyone but themselves.

I walk past the bitch into the kitchen and on the way give her a slap across the back of the head to teach her a lesson, but the chair’s rattling like a penny that’s stopped spinning and is about to fall flat onto the floor, and she’s still screaming herself hoarse. Maybe I should have taped her mouth, too, but stupid me I thought I’d give her a chance? Forget that, in future.

I pick up my favourite knife from next to the microwave, clean some steak juice from it with the dishcloth, and then just as I’m walking back into the living room to quieten her down so I can watch the…

‘TELEVISION MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU THAN KEEPING OUT OF JAIL, YOU SICK, DUMB FUCK, IS IT? YOU ALWAYS WERE A FUCKING DISGRACE SINCE THE DAY YOU WERE BORN!’

I’ve left him down there, haven’t I? I’ve left him there because this stupid, ungrateful bitch in the chair distracted me and all I was trying to do was help her, and, yet again, all I’ve got is disrespect and ingratitude and…well, let me tell you, dad wouldn’t have stood for something like that, no way, because he would have thrown her down the stairs like mum and really taught her a lesson she’d never…

‘FORGET ABOUT ME, WOULD YOU, YOU CUNT? I’M DOWN HERE ON MY OWN AND YOU FORGOT TO PICK ME BACK UP, YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOT, CAN’T YOU DO ANYTHING RIGHT?!’

I can’t believe he’s saying this to me after everything I’ve done for him, so I run over to the window and prepare myself to give him what for, but he just won’t be quiet, he just won’t shut his mouth for one second and I can’t believe that I’ve been so…

‘STUPID! YOU DRAG YOUR KNUCKLES DOWN HERE AND GET ME, OR SO HELP ME GOD YOU’LL FEEL THE BACK OF MY HEAD, I’M FUCKING WARNING YOU, YOU USELESS LITTLE PRICK!’

I’m crying now, because everything’s just been building and building and building up, and I can’t believe that all I was going to do was watch some telly and maybe read my comic book later on, and everybody’s being nasty to me and calling me names and shouting at me and telling me that I can’t do anything right, and making me look like an idiot in my own street, in my own house, in my own living room, and I just can’t take it any more, can I?

And then there’s a groan and a scream from behind me, and a noise like a Velcro strap ripping up off a shoe, and I turn to see the woman with her hair all wet with sweat, and her eyes all wide and angry, and she’s running at me with bits of tape flowing from her body like black snakes, running towards me like she’s going to hurt me. I just manage to swing my knife round to defend myself, because Dad always said strike first and ask questions later if somebody’s trying to hurt you, and that’s all I’m doing, because this woman, this BITCH, is trying to hurt me, and I don’t know why, because I invited her into my house and everything and maybe I didn’t make her a cup of tea, but there’s no need to go all crazy and run at me, so I take the knife and stab it into her side and its slides into her like she’s a sack of ripe melons and she screams again and there’s dark red blood and a kind of thick, warm smell in the air, and she’s hitting my face with the palm of her hand and slapping some masking tape into my eye, and I get to the point where I think…

‘THAT’S IT,’ he’s shouting, and my head is spinning so much I don’t know what to think about anything, because all I can hear are her shrieks and moans and his shouting from outside, and my own breaths and yelps as she struggles and fights me till I’m almost deaf and blind from rage, but not quite because I can see the knife in my hand and her blood, and I can feel the knife slurping out of her plump flesh and the muscles like putty under her warm skin as I drive it back in, and she strikes and strikes and strikes and strikes at me, and I’m dizzy and ill and angry and hot and hurt and hurting and ready to kill, and…

‘GETTING BEATEN UP BY A WOMAN, YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT, THAT’S IT, STAB HER, HA HA! YOU’VE GOT A KNIFE AND SHE’S STILL KICKING THE LIVING FUCKING SHIT OUT OF YOU, BOY!’

There’s a metal taste in my mouth and my head feels like it’s got a bowling ball inside of it spinning and banging and crashing and cracking and she just won’t give up, or stop it, and I’m crying cause she’s hurting me, really hurting me, and the more she hits the more I stab and I’d stop if she’d stop but she won’t stop, because they never stop once they start hurting you Dad said, so that’s why I keep thrusting and stabbing and crying and screaming and trying to make her stop, but she won’t, she just won’t, she just keeps coming at me with bloody hands and those scary eyes and now she’s grabbing me and pushing me and I feel my legs starting to buckle and my shoulders touching the edge of the balcony and I can’t get a good enough swing to get her again and I’m scared and angry and blood is running from my nose, MY NOSE, and falling on my shirt, and she’s trying to stick her fingers into my eyes, and the railing’s cold and she’s pushing and all I can see as she pushes into me with her body and my legs swing out from under me is the satellite dish on the roof and the moss growing on the tiles and then an upside-down view of the cars in the street as my stomach does a jump and I’m…

‘FALLING? THEY ALWAYS SAID YOU WERE UNBALANCED, AND HERE’S THE FUCKING PROOF!’

I feel like I’m in a tumble dryer but there’s no sound, like somebody’s pressed mute on the television, and the seconds are stretching like minutes so it feels like I’m spinning in space like an astronaut, tumbling over and over again, so smooth like a ballet move; but not, because I know I’m going to hit the ground. I see blood, and then the woman screaming silently, then green, then blood, then green, then blood, then green, then blood, then…

Nothing. I feel nothing as I hit the ground. Nothing. I know that it’s happened because I’m not spinning anymore, but I can’t feel anything. Nothing, like it’s not really happening, but I know it is because I can’t move very much and I can’t breathe.

My circle of sight is shrinking like the fading standby light on my television when I go to bed, but I can see him there, right next to me, lying on the grass not far from where I left him, slipped out of the bag, and he’s staring, looking, laughing, the lines around his mouth alive in a final, wicked smile, because he wanted this, he wanted me dead, he wanted this all along and all I ever wanted was for him to love me like they do on television, like they do on those happy, funny shows from the fifties when a mummy and a daddy all sit together on the sofa and eat their dinner and don’t push each other down stairs or beat each other with lengths of belt, and he’s happy that I’m fading, that I’m groaning, and dying, because it’s all there in his evil, laughing, fucking eyes. So I look down and see the knife sticking into my heart and the blood seeping through my shirt and down onto the grass, and I grab the hilt but I haven’t the strength to yank it out – not that it matters now – but I’d like to kill him a hundred times more before I go.

‘A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING,’ my Dad says to me, ‘AND EVERYTHING IN ITS FUCKING PLACE.’ 

THE END

Red Dwarf X-pectations

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Red Dwarf X premieres on Dave tonight at 9pm. In a few short hours we will know if that ‘X’ signifies buried comedy treasure, or if it will make us all think of a solitary dead eye on the corpse of a cartoon character that’s been drawn by a three-year-old.

And, yes, I know it’s Roman numerals for ten, before some clever cunt who genuinely thinks I’m some sort of drooling malcontent tries to point it out.

Lister and the Cat.

Red Dwarf was my favourite comedy as a youngster, and memories of the show are inextricably linked to memories of my childhood, and of growing up. I shared favourite quotes and crap cast impressions with schoolmates (I did an impressively shite Kryten). It’s fair to say that each new episode was ‘event TV’, and fellow geeks and I would spend the day after transmission reliving the entire episode to the point of suicidal tedium.

When the first series was released on VHS in two-parts I scrimped and saved summer holiday money to get my hands on it. £13.99 for three episodes at a time in good old combustible, snappable video format – and no Monster Munch for a month – but it was worth the sacrifice.

From the series 4 glory days.

And what a show: Smeg, Talkie Toaster, two Rimmers, the first Kryten (‘They’re dead.’ ‘But I was only away for a minute.’), Lister having twins, the Better Than Life video game, the fried egg, chilli, cheese and chutney sandwich, the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society (or CLITORIS for short), Lister eating dogfood and burning books, inflatable Rachel, a self-destruct system that dispenses chocolate bars, Gandhi with a machine-gun, Kryten dating a blob, Lister fighting a curry monster, Kryten having a penis, Rimmer going nuts in a Gingham dress, Mr Flibble, group hallucinations thanks to aggressive marine life, Lister marrying a mutant, Rimmer being able to touch again, the Polymorph, Ace Rimmer, Dwayne Dibbley!

So many classic moments and characters have been etched into my brain. I was so obsessed with the show that I was moved to write this in my diary when I was 16:

“I brought down Red Dwarf with me that I’d videotaped the night before, because Papa likes it. I don’t mind watching it for the second time, as instead of concentrating on the programme, I like to concentrate on the reaction of the person watching it. Let me explain why: if you enjoy a certain thing on the television, it must contain elements you can relate to, therefore each one you enjoy reflects a facet of your personality. Every time my grandfather would laugh at one of the jokes, I would take that as a personal victory. It’s not as simple as merely saying, ‘Oh, he enjoys the show,’ because on some level his laughter is telling me, ‘Oh, he likes me.'”

I think it’s clear from reading that diary excerpt that I was a bit of a wanker. And incredibly creepy. After all the bizarre staring I subjected him to, my grandpa must have thought I was some sort of cross between Droopy and the little dead girls from The Shining. It also appears that my self-esteem was almost entirely based upon other people’s enjoyment of a 1980’s sci-fi comedy show. I must remember to write that one down for my psychiatrist.

Kochanski: Red Dwarf’s very own Yoko Ono.

Still, as much as I loved – and still love – the show, something went wrong: Rob Grant, one of Red Dwarf’s creators and one half of its writing team, quit the show after series six. It became clear that Rob was the writer responsible for the ‘com’ part of the ‘sit-com’ equation, and a noticeable dip in quality was evident following his departure. Series 7 still had some excellent moments – most notably the JFK-themed curry hunt – but the dissolution of Red Dwarf’s writing partnership, along with the decision to forgo a studio audience and film the show more like a comedy-drama, changed the atmosphere and ‘feel’ of Red Dwarf for the worse. Kochanski didn’t help either. She was shit (the character, rather than the actress) (yeah, add that rider to spare her feelings, Jamie, because she’s definitely going to be one of the three people who actually read this shite, you fucking egotist).

Danny John Jules as The Cat.

The Cat in particular became a one-dimensional retard, who seemed to spend his time pulling stroke faces and uttering the odd hackneyed and unfunny line about corduroy trousers. It was the cat’s almost sociopathic selfishness, vanity and callousness that made him funny in the earlier series, not his stupidity, which was never so much emphasised. Things picked up a bit with series 8, although I do agree with one Amazon reviewer who said that the show became like ‘Chuckle Brothers in Space.’ Also, in general, I feel it would have been better if the series had stayed with the six-separate-stories format and left the two-and-three-parters alone. I really liked the episode ‘Cassandra’, though, with the super-computer that could predict the future. It felt like classic ‘Dwarf’ again.

The pant-shittingly bad ‘Back to Earth’.

Then came the three-part special ‘Back to Earth’, broadcast on Dave in 2009, that was so hellishly bad it felt like Doug Naylor had travelled back through time to 1989 to personally spunk in my face. The entire first part – especially the tomato banter between Rimmer and Lister, and the distressingly cringe-worthy scene in which Rimmer conducted away to himself oblivious to the plight of his ship-mates as they battled a giant squid on the monitors behind him – almost made Citizen Khan look like the single greatest comedy ever produced. Fair enough, some of the ideas in ‘Back to Earth’ were inventive, if not a little derivative, but so what? It’s a comedy. It’s supposed to make me laugh, first and foremost.

Anyway, ‘Back to Earth’ was discussed on a comedy forum a few years back, and I found an interesting bit of chat about it from Scottish comedian Stu Who?.

Ok … so here’s a hypotheses … eh?

When we are younger and haven’t watched a vast amount of comedy, sit-coms, etc, we adopt some programmes which grow, with the passing of time, to be our nostalgic, firm favourites.

In their time, they were quite good, but weren’t really the classics of comedy that we think they were.

If the show is revived, we tend to compare it with the rose-tinted view of the previous series, rather than reality.

Or … in other words:

Red Dwarf was a pile of juvenile shite back then … and still is.

Discuss

I hope he’s wrong, and this isn’t just a case of me donning rose-tinted spectacles and staring at my childhood like… well, staring at it like a creepy grandchild who won’t leave his grandpa alone.

Red Dwarf was funny. Red Dwarf IS funny.

I know it’s just a TV show, and if I’d started watching it when I was 40 I probably wouldn’t give this much of a shit. I know I’m displaying a fanaticism and a personal stake in this akin to a religious fundamentalist defending his holy book. But please, please, please let tonight’s episode exceed my expectations, and blot out the years of disappointment I’ve suffered since Rob Grant left. Let the little embers and flickers of past genius that still glowed in the show, in some form or another, in the later series rage into a comedy bush fire. Let me love Red Dwarf again. Let me laugh.

Give me back my fucking childhood, Doug Naylor! And wipe that cum off my forehead.

Being an Open Spot – The Falkirk Herald

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It must have been a slow news week at The Falkirk Herald back in June. Here’s a wee piece they did about me being an open spot, complete with entirely unnecessary moody picture. And, hey: I AM the news, motherfuckers.

Violence – It’s All in the Game

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I’ve been thinking about that age-old question: do violent video games make us violent, or do we make these violent video games because we’re a violent species? Well, I say it’s an age-old question. It’s a pretty new question, really. My history’s not perfect, but I don’t think they debated it during the Hundred Years War.

‘What chance ‘av we got strategising against ze English when zey play so much facking Spess Invaders?’

To be honest, I think even Pong’s arrival was too soon to be debating the issue:

‘I want this horrid, bad influence of a game banned immediately. My son’s been playing it all week and he’s just nailed himself to a plank of wood with roller skates on it and now he’s sliding up the wall flinging cricket balls at people!’

This is where I’m from. And this is where I’ll always be. I’m trapped in you, 1980s.

I’ve been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Vice City on the PS2 recently. I know, I know. Viva das zeitgeist. Finger on the pulse and all that. Maybe I’ll watch some Quatermass on Betamax as I’m playing it, while phoning you on a shoe-box-sized mobile phone to tell you all about it.

GTA doesn’t half make me aggressive – which is strange. Third world debt doesn’t make me angry. Starving kids don’t make me angry. Job losses in my home town don’t make me angry. But running out of time on a virtual mission to kill as many prostitutes as possible using only a flame-thrower? FUCK YOU, WORLD. FUCK YOU ALL THE WAY UP YOUR HOT MOLTEN CORE!! Only the accidental snapping off of the pissy little key on a tin of corned beef can even bring me close to such heights of rage.

It’s surely not normal that a game can make me think to myself, calmly and rationally: ‘I’m pretty bloody annoyed I failed that tricky mission. I think I’ll just go butcher some police officers until I calm down a bit.’

Because in the real world my arse jitters like a hedgehog in a cement-mixer when I drive past a cop car, even when I’m obeying the law and have nothing to hide. Cultural conditioning, I suppose. And human decency. And perhaps even a certain pussy-assedness. But in the virtual world, I’m chasing them down the street with machetes and rocket launchers, shouting quotes from Scarface.

This is surely unprecedented in humanity. Never before have tiny little pretend people – non-living avatars composed of motes of electrical magic in a make-believe world – been subjected to such florid and disgusting abuse: ‘GET OUT OF MY WAY OR I’LL KILL YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY YOU FUCKING COMPUTERISED CUNT!’ Shakespeare should watch me play and take notes for his next sonnet.

I’m a reasonably placid person in ‘real life’, so I’ve been wondering why GTA has had this effect on me. I’ve concluded that:

  • I don’t like losing at silly little games because I’m a big fucking baby.
  • I’ve no sense of perspective.
  • Aggressive competition and disgraceful violence is wired into my pathetic, throwback monkey brain.

More musings on this topic in the next few days.