Monthly Archives: December 2017

Suck my resolutions, 2018!

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It’s almost time to make your annual declaration of intent to modify your behaviour. Just after midnight on the 1st of January. How very arbitrary. Why not six minutes past three on the afternoon of June the 16th? Or every second Saturday on which at least eighty-five hedgehogs succumb to heart disease? The timing of our celebrations is based upon a calendar that isn’t even universally embraced by all creeds and faiths; a calendar that over the past few thousand years has been tweaked, overhauled, altered and re-branded more times than a dodgy double-glazing company trying to avoid paying its creditors.

Still, it’s rather too easy – and ultimately pointless – to get bogged down nit-picking the existential minutiae of our lives; to go down the route of ‘but grass isn’t green, because ‘green’ is just a word we invented that can never speak to the real truth of greenness, whatever that is, and, anyway, what IS truth?’. That way madness (not to mention never being invited to parties) lies.

Arbitrary or not, the intersection of the 31st of December and the 1st of January has been selected as our period of rebirth and reinvention. And we always, without exception, half-arse the shit out of it. Some of us no-arse it. Still, rebirth is a lofty ambition; no wonder the fail rate is so high. We’re so bad at it that it actually has a severely negative impact on our health. We decide in September that we’re going to give up smoking fags and eating takeaway in the New Year. So what do we do? We spend four months smoking like beagles in an illegal research lab, and treating every meal like it’s been ordered by a death-row inmate on the eve of their execution. We eat, we smoke, we eat, we smoke. Sometimes we eat and smoke at the same time, or smoke bacon and eat cigarettes. Who cares, right? We’re quitting on the 1st of January. Right?

Wrong. All you’ve succeeded in doing is shave another six months off of your already short lifespan.  And converted six healthy months into six months of black-legged, chest-scrunching agony.

In spite of that, here are my resolutions for 2018:

  • Become a tiger. This is not a metaphor. I’m going to become an actual tiger. I just need to find the money for the surgery. Then I need to learn how to play golf. Which will be difficult with four paws, but that’s part of the challenge.
  • Pose nude for page 3. Any amateur can do that in the Daily Sport. I’m going to do it in Angler’s Monthly. Catch THAT, JR Hartley.
  • Become nationally famous for the catchprase: ‘WOAH! WHO ORDERED THE SPANISH FRITTATA OVER HERE, AM I RIGHT?’
  • Reduce The Krankies by three-quarters.
  • Get Pixar to commission my sequel to ‘Up’. In ‘Under’, a grief-stricken Russel will take to the clouds for one final adventure atop Mr Frederickson’s balloon-powered coffin, with only the stuffed corpse of his talking dog and 600 paracetemol for company.
  • Steal money and then invest it ironically. I’m especially looking forward to funding a golden archway for Peta’s headquarters using McDonalds’ billions, and launching the Vatican’s new condom: ‘Pope one on, Pope it up.’
  • Become a Scientologist. And then escape from them, and get my own TV show about it. Which will be co-hosted by a quarter of a Krankie.
  • Become a celebrity medium, and then wait long years for Les Dennis and Beyonce to die so I can use my fucking brilliant jokes (‘If he’s up there, I’ll give you the money me’self’ and ‘Are y’all here for the Seyonce?’) and then retire.
  • Try to get chocolate coins accepted as Scotland’s new currency unit, to see if we Scots are the unhealthy wrecks the world thinks we are; for instance, would I use twenty coins to buy twenty pounds worth of chocolate in a shop, or would I tear the foil off those twenty coins in my pocket and eat the equivalent of £1.50 worth of chocolate because I’m a greedy, impatient fat bastard?
  • Run for parliament. And then at the last minute veer off so I don’t break my nose or get shot by armed police.
  • Not die. I’ve been pretty good at this one so far.

Happy New Year, you filthy animals.

PS: My real resolution is to surround myself with moments like the one my family and I witnessed and was lucky enough to capture (below) in a playpark in Culross earlier this year, when an elderly husband and wife took to the swings and enjoyed a few moments of fun, light and laughter. I asked their permission to take the picture. I should’ve asked their permission to hug the shit out of them, too. Not like me to end on a smile, is it? Maybe I’m about to turn over a new leaf.

They’re probably both dead now, right?

(maybe we can forget the new leaf)

Jamie’s Digest (3): Cool Bits From Books – FESTIVE EDITION

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Whenever I’m reading I always like to highlight phrases and passages that strike a chord with me, either because they’re emotionally or intellectually resonant, or because they’re exceptionally relevant to something that’s happening in the world today. I’d like to continue to share some of the these excerpts with you.

Santa Claus: A Biography

What a well-researched, interesting, funny and insightful book, charting Santa’s evolution from the swamps of myth into the ubiquitous character we know and love today. He’s terrified little children the world over, helped to advertise everything from soap to guns, and if he hadn’t ‘existed’ we would never have been able to read absolutely tremendous news stories like this. I had a great time reading this book, and I’d like to share a few bits and pieces from it.

“The ideal Santa for department-store grottoes or work-shops is described as middle-aged, plump, red-faced, and possessing his own beard with an ability to charm children and pass a police background check. Such candidates are scarce and becoming more so, according to those responsible for recruiting them. Modern healthy lifestyles have apparently reduced the number of suitably obese men, and head-hunting firms are paid handsomely, and advertise far afield, to produce the proper candidates.”

Isn’t that great? A dearth of Santas owing to an overall reduction in obesity levels and generally improved health: have you any idea how hard I, as a Scotsman, laughed at that paragraph. Honestly, we should just change the name of our country to The North Pole and be done with it. It’s the jolly part we’d struggle with.

I like that, though. Scotland becoming a Jurassic Park for Santas. Anyway, elsewhere in that same chapter we learn a little more about why there appear to be so few new Santas:

“Why should there be a shortage of imitation Santas for malls and department stores? Many veteran Santas complain of a new miasma of suspicion surrounding anyone dealing professionally with small children. Shopping centres fearful of litigation have imposed new rules or, in some cases, even forbidden Santas to hold children on their laps, preferring that they merely extend a handshake to the children who are brought to stand by them. Other stores have discouraged a jolly attitude, lest it be interpreted in an inappropriate fashion, and have insisted their Saint Nicks be more business-like in their approach to kids. Santas are told to keep both hands visible at all times, wear white gloves to heighten that visibility , and have to undergo criminal background checks, and in some cases even drug testing. In the United States, they have become targets of bomb threats and irate parents and have asked for police protection; in tropical countries they have had to go on strike to protest the suits they are forced to wear.”

A few things spring to mind after reading this paragraph:

  1. Yes, it’s a shame that we live in a world where we have to doubt the intentions of those who wish to spend time with our children, but, equally, these past fifty years have taught us that an overwhelmingly large number of clowns, teachers, Santas and kids TV presenters have tried to fuck our kids.
  2. I now know why this year’s Santa at our grotto was quite thin, and came across more like a headteacher desperately trying to tamp down his stress as he stares into the precipice of another violent emotional breakdown than an avuncular chuckle-head with a sackful of hohoho. Or maybe the Santa that was originally hired went down with a heart attack, and this miserable son of a bitch had to fill in last minute.
  3. White gloves for visibility? Man, Michael Jackson’s stylist was definitely trying to signal us from the inside, like Dwight shooting arrows for Daryl. I’m also going to be keeping a very close eye on snooker referees from now on.

Amazon link: Santa Claus – A Biography by Gerry Bowler

Insidious as Fuck

I was reading a chapter of The Christmasaurus to my 3-year-old son, when my eyes skimmed a sentence or so ahead and sent back a message to my mouth to shut down mid-sentence. I’d seen some dangerous, insidious shit; a passage that seemed to come straight from a book of religious short stories. Through these same pernicious paragraphs the book also – perhaps paradoxically – threw a wink to those who would support our burgeoning mono-culture, and tipped its hat to the ‘But it’s NICE’ crowd. Sorry to go full Dawkins on y’all, but I’d rather my son was encouraged to follow the dictates of reason than bid to glug from the shit-filled chalice of superstition.

The titular magic dinosaur was fine, of course, as was Santa himself. I don’t have a problem with them. It’s a work of fantasy, after all. Also, I admire the way the author treats the main character’s disability, and was happy to have my son absorb the sentiments… but… the section below where William’s Dad tries to reignite his son’s belief in Santa  (even though, in the context of this book, Santa is supposed to be real, anyway)? Fuck, no.

“‘I believe this story is true. Therefore it is true,’ he [William’s Dad] said.

‘But… how does that work?’ questioned William, desperate to know more. ‘If I’ve never seen something, how do I know it’s real?’

‘Ah, William! You’ve got it the wrong way round!’ said Mr Trundle, smiling. ‘Believing has to come first. People who don’t believe in things will never see those things. Believing is seeing.’

But William still looked uncertain.

‘But, Dad, some kids at school don’t believe in Santa. What if I believe he’s real and someone else doesn’t? If we both believe different things, then we can’t both be right, can we?’ asked William.”

[Mr Trundle then introduces William to the ‘Glass half-full/glass half-empty’ dichotomy, and uses this as a hammer to bash the sense of reason out of him.]

“William looked at the half-empty mug of milk in front of him for a moment before realising that his dad might actually be right too. Even though he and his dad believed different things, they were both right.

‘You see, William, we both believe completely opposite things, but it doesn’t mean that either of us is wrong. This mug is both half empty AND half full at the same time,’ said Mr Trundle, as William sat there with the expression of a young boy whose mind is in the process of being completely blown. ‘People believe all sorts of wild, wacky, weird and wonderful things, but it doesn’t mean that anyone is wrong or that anyone is right. What is important isn’t what is wrong, right, real, fake, true or false. What matters is that whatever you believe makes you a happier, better person.'”

I’m beginning to think that Trundle’s a Scientologist, the disingenuous c***.

Amazon link: The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher

WHATEVER YOU DO: READ. AND READ LOTS. IT’S GOOD FOR YOU.

Kids’ Birthday Parties: This is Your Life Now

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What can I say about birthday parties for the under-5s?

Well, it’s nice for them to get a chance to let their hair down and hang out with their friends. After all, they spend the majority of their time within the bosoms of their families, and what time they don’t is spent trapped within institutions; institutions that will carry them to their graves.

I’m talking about the parents, of course. Poor bastards: walking about with baby puke patches on their best jumpers, sporting big black panda eyes and stress lines like seismographs on their foreheads, and grinning at each other like frightened chimps as they desperately fight to stave off the twin horrors of sleep and full mental breakdown, all while trying to pretend that somehow it was all worth it.I guess the old saying’s true: a moment on the hips, a lifetime of IKEA trips.

Remember when your social calendar was measured in weekly increments rather than bi-annually? Remember when you used to gaze across the horizon of your life and see nothing but unfettered fun and wine-tinged sunsets? Remember when you used to hit the town in a loudly-laughing posse of posers, and then stay out drinking and dancing till dawn, leaping the next day’s hangovers like they were half-foot-high hurdles? Well, forget it, because that part of your life is gone.

The multi-coloured nightmare of kids’ birthday parties is your only social life now: coffee and cake at the soft play surrounded by a thousand screaming kids. You’ve all got so much to talk about and catch up on, you and your friends, but good luck talking about anything other than your kids. Your brain may cycle through a database of potential topics – politics, entertainment, nutrition, religion – but whatever it is you think you’re going to talk about, you can’t open your mouth without saying something like: ‘Apparently Skye’s in the ninetieth centile for weight’ or ‘What Jason lacks in language skills he certainly makes up for in spatial awareness.’

If you do manage to kick-start a non-parenting related conversation it will inevitably be cut short by one of your children running up to you either screaming as their face drips with blood (‘Daddy, I tried to put my head through the wall like a ghost but it hurt me!’) or loudly agitating for a shit.

Mind you, I find that kids are handy to have around in these sorts of situations, especially since I discovered just how bad I am at mingling. There’s nothing quite like quitting drinking to reveal how socially awkward you are at root. I’m really ferociously bad at shooting the breeze or shooting the shit, or whatever shooting-based analogy you care to use. I’m bloody awful at it. After a few minutes of dribbling out the kind of small talk an old tramp at a bus-stop would be ashamed to show off, it’s nice to be able to go:

‘WHAT’S THAT, JACK? YOU WANT ME TO GO DOWN THE CHUTE WITH YOU?’

‘Jamie, I don’t think he said anyth…’

‘I’LL BE RIGHT THERE, SON! Hold my miniature box of Smarties, will you.’

I usually swagger into these parties desperately sucking in my stomach muscles (what exists of them) in a vain attempt to fool old acquaintances into thinking that I play squash every now and again, or occasionally eat lettuce. It’s a fragile illusion, almost impossible to maintain. I can’t emphasise how hard it is to bend a fat torso into the shape of a capital ‘C’ for more than twenty minutes without getting severe stomach cramps.

Towards the end of these soft-play parties the kids are typically ushered into a side-compartment to have a spot of grub. Invariably, their eating-space is fenced in and cordoned off like the canteen in a maximum-security prison, an association only lent more substance by the fact that they can get tattoos done after their snacks. Seeing my eldest son standing in his vest later that night looking like a grizzled lifer always makes me regret not having asked the resident face-painter to daub a little blue tear-drop beneath one of his eyes. In preparation for the next party I’m teaching him to say: ‘Hey esse! Do we got a fuckin’ problem here?’

Whether the party is held at a soft-play or in a house it always ends with gifts being handed out to the attendees; wee bags of ‘fuck off’ as I like to call them. What an ingeniously polite way to get rid of people. If you give people a treat as you start to shoo them off, suddenly it doesn’t seem so harsh. ‘It’s been a fun two hours, but please take your toy helicopters and little whistles, and get the fuck out of my house.’ Adult parties often drag on without any clear or definite end, so I think we would benefit enormously from introducing some sort of gift bag system:

‘So my Sally’s language skills may not be the best, but, I’ll tell you, her spatial awaren… oh, what’s this?’

‘It’s a bag of marshmallows and vodka miniatures. Now fuck off.’

Party on, dudes. Party on.

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READ MORE ABOUT THE NIGHTMARE OF SOFT-PLAYS BY CLICKING HERE