Scotland Decides… What to Watch on TV

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Jamie Andrew

Let’s take a look at what’s happened to TV in Scotland – and Britain beyond – in the wake of the referendum result. Welcome to a Scotland where every TV programme has something to do with independence, a lack thereof, or the wankiness of government.

To contribute to a future edition of this TV Guide, please email your submissions to theotherjamie@hotmail.co.uk, including your name and location, and if enough people get involved I’ll do another one.

Fawlty Powers

Cameron Fawlty is desperately trying to keep the guests in his run-down hotel happy so that his business doesn’t collapse around him. He does appear to be trying rather harder to please the rich guests, especially the ones with Home Counties’ accents, but let’s not get cynical, that’s probably just coincidence. Cameron is helped along by his luckless servant Man-No-Very-Well, of whom Cameron remarks to other guests: “I’m terribly sorry, he’s from Caledonia.” Get ready to shriek with laughter as Man-No-Very-Well is repeatedly struck over the head and threatened with a loss of earnings and a reduction of his liberty.

Tonight’s episode is everyone’s favourite, ‘The Scottish’, where we get to hear the immortal line: “Don’t mention the Barnett Formula! I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it alright. So, that’s two Scotch eggs, a dismantled NHS, a billion barrels of oil, a West Lothian question, and four deep fried Mars Bars.”

Not to mention: “Well you started it.” “No, we didn’t.” “Yes you did, you elected Salmond.”

Miliband of Brothers

Ep 6. A Scottish battalion – low on weapons and ammo – is coming under heavy fire from Westminster forces at the Battle of Referendum. General Miliband sends them a telegraph from HQ 800 miles away ordering them to stand down and allow their bollocks to be shot off by the enemy, who aren’t really their enemy, even though it might seem that way because they’re in the process of being attacked by them. Miliband vows that after the battle he’ll definitely send more weapons and ammo. Definitely. One hundred per cent. Possibly. Well, maybe. Put it this way, he’ll seriously think about thinking about talking about thinking about it. “Thufferin’ thuccotash, chaps,” signs off Miliband. “We’re all in this together! Thee you on the other thide!”

Lamonty Python’s Lying Circus

Johann Lamont and the Scottish Labour Party are back, and just as side-splittingly hilarious as you remember them. Includes the all-time classic ‘Dead Party’ sketch:

Johann Cleese: “Look, matey, I know a dead party when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.”

Michael Failin: “No, no, it’s not dead, it’s, it’s restin’! Remarkable party, the Glaswegian Red, int’it, ay? Beautiful plumage.”

Johann Cleese: “The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead. This party has ceased to be. This is an ex-party!”

Get ready to guffaw your head off at more of your old favourites, like the Argument Clinic sketch (“Hello. I hear Scottish Labour is going to be a strong, credible force in the next election.” “No it isn’t.” “But Labour stands for the working man against people like the Tories.” “No it doesn’t.”), The Four Scotsmen sketch (“I used to get out of my bed and go down the mines to work for twelve hours a day, and when I got home, I’d always go to the polling booth to vote for Labour. But you try and tell the young people today that… they won’t believe you.”) and, of course, the funniest sketch of all, The Ministry of Silly Cunts.

The Far Right Stuff

Join your host Nigel Farage for his mirth-filled mid-morning magazine show. Joining him today are Nick Griffin and Paul Golding. Why not call in and share your views on immigration with the guys? (Unless you’re an immigrant, in which case don’t waste our fucking taxes on a phone call.). The Far Right Stuff hopes to relocate its studios to Westminster in 2015, and go on to ensure even better coverage for viewers in Scotland.

BBC News

A new series of the hilarious comedy.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

The exciting tale of an ordinary faction of loyalist Rangers Supporters who use their super-powers to stamp out the twin evils of Republicanism and Nationalism. In today’s episode, the gang is threatened by a wee 9-year-old girl waving a saltire in George Square. Donning their trademark Union Jack body-suits and balaclavas, and with a cry of ‘WE ARE THE PEOPLE’, they bond together and crack out their mightiest super-powers of all: the powers of “kicking fuck oot ay cunts an’ that” and “settin’ fire tay some cunt’s bin coz he’s prolly a bleck or a Tim.”

Mighty Corstorphine Flower Arrangers

In this spin-off show, a group of rich old Tory women from Edinburgh form a guild, which they use as a cover to fight the forces of fairness, justice and progressiveness. Watch out for their special power of saying ‘NO THANKS’ really loudly, and their devastating super-attack of ‘not wanting to risk the value of their husband Gerald’s stock portfolio’.

Lamont and Eck’s Friday Morning Take-away

Johann Lamont and Alex Salmond are back for a special post-referendum edition of the popular studio-based game-show in which Alex Salmond desperately tries to give autonomy, prestige and democracy to the Scottish people, and Johann Lamont tries to take it all away again.

Look out for the hilarious round where Lamont has only five minutes to terrify as many old people as possible by phoning them up and telling them that they’re going to lose their savings. Tonight’s first special guest is the woman from that advert who thinks the best time of the day is when they’re all out and it’s nice and quiet. Tonight’s other special guest is Tommy Sheridan, who’ll probably try to fuck her.

Cameron-nation Street

Just to recap the story so far: The Cabin was forced to close due to the opening of the town’s ninth Tesco Megastore just two streets away. Ken Barlow hung himself once he realised that his state pension was only six pence a month. Twelve residents have died since it now costs £6000 for a tub of paracetamol. All of the street’s houses have been repossessed. Actually, nobody lives on Cameron-nation Street anymore. Tonight’s episode is just a 30-minute static shot of the street, accompanied by the sound of an unseen man screaming himself to death. Last in the series.

Or if you’re in the mood for a movie instead, how about Danny Alexander Champion of Fuck All or No Country Because of Old Men.

Circus Vegas: Europe Meets the USA

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Jamie Andrew

My home-town of Falkirk often feels like an urban version of The League of Gentlemen, only without the laughs. And thrice the horror.

But Falkirk tries, dammit. After all, it brings us Circus Vegas every year, treating us to the kind of dazzling display of Yankee razzmatazz that only a group of touring Albanians can provide. Actually, I don’t know if the Circus Vegas team are Albanians, but I went last year and heard the ringmaster talk, and it’s fair to say that his accent was ever so slightly to the east of Las Vegas. By about 6000 miles.

Location, location, location is the old maxim and, boy, what a location Circus Vegas had in store for us in 2013. I know what you’re thinking. Did they hold the circus in the grounds of Callendar Park estate? Inside the football stadium? Em… close.

It was in the bingo hall car park.

Didn’t you see the glitzy flyers? Well, cash in my chips, and whisk me off to the Grand Canyon in a red, white and blue jet, Uncle Sam. Yee haw! Call me old fashioned, but the only thing that should be taking place in a bingo hall car park in Falkirk is a fight. Between two old guys called Tam.

Circus Vegas’s ringmaster had the vigorous demeanour of a heavily depressed geography teacher who’d just been through a rough divorce. You could hear the suicidal ideation in every quiver of his dulcet Albanian tones: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, now that my wife has taken everything, I will… NEVER be able to stop doing this shit! OK, for your amazement, the wonderful human cannonball. Will he survive, ladies and gentlemen? I genuinely…. DON’T care anymore!”

The first act was a guy who stacked a bunch of chairs into a tower, pulled his top off and attempted to climb it. A half-naked man desperately trying to balance on a chair? Show us something we don’t already see in Falkirk on a Saturday night, Circus Vegas. What’s the second act? A guy trying to act sober enough to flag down a taxi?

Not long into proceedings there was an X-Factor-style skit involving Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Donald Duck, wherein the charismatic ringmaster bade the unlicensed characters dance, and then pronounced upon their shittiness. The kids laughed; I doubt Circus Vegas’s Armenian lawyers did. I’m tempted to send a letter to Simon Cowell and Disney’s legal team just for a laugh, so Circus Vegas has to change the name of its skit to something like ‘The Sing Quotient, with Muckey Rat and Ronald Goose’.

Still, they’re smart, those circusoids. The kids in the audience would probably have cheered and laughed if every act was a man maniacally waving a jobby on a stick, but the real trick is to keep the dads, brothers, grandpas and uncles engaged. That’s where the scantily-clad 20-something dancing girls came in. At every point at which I was ready to gouge out my own eyes and plug the gaps in my blood-soaked sockets with popcorn in the hope of an agonising yet comparatively interesting death, out they came: juddering, jiggering and gyrating, kicking their long bare legs in the air, and a-jiggling and a-wiggling their snake-hipped asses off. Across the auditorium, you could actually hear the sound of 300 awkward dad hard-ons tightening into life.

I must say that something peculiar happened to my girlfriend each time the dancers appeared. She did this thing where she flailed her arms about and hit me in the ribs with her elbow. I think it must’ve been an Albanian folk dance or something.

During the interval, parents could pay a few pounds to allow their children to go on a supervised donkey trek around the ring. What a magical sight that would’ve been had the guys in charge not looked like henchmen from the Bulgarian Mafia. Fat, old, scowling: all of the qualities you’d expect to see in top-class children’s entertainers, really. It was a donkey trek with all the frivolity of a funeral procession on a merry-go-round.

Some good snaps for the album, though, eh? “Ah, little Johnny, remember that time at the circus when we entrusted you into the care of a deeply uninterested Bulgarian murderer?”

A large positive though: their clown was awesome. Yes, they had a clown. OK, there’s a chance he might have just been a schizophrenic guy in a wig, but that’s pretty much what a clown is anyway, right? I especially loved the bit where he killed time between acts by throwing popcorn into the air and catching it in his mouth. For ten minutes. I shit you not. Never mind your WWE wrestling, kids, THIS is live entertainment of the highest caliber: an ill man chucking food about as a couple of fat men drag a trampoline into the periphery. Sounds like a Falkirk kid’s birthday party, right?

I miss the days when they used to whip the elephants and kick the lions in the cock to make them angry.

No means No? Yes… For now.

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Jamie Andrew

We live in a peaceful democracy, which is why the will of the majority will be accepted – however reluctantly – without calls for people’s heads on sticks, fights or riots. Emotionally, we on the YES side will take stock and move on; we will continue to battle for a better future for our children, and to participate fully in whatever comes next.

But the suggestion from some quarters that YES voters should ‘get over it’, ‘stop spitting out the dummy’ or ‘get back in their box’ is as insulting as it is disgusting. I voted YES because I believe in the tenets of free healthcare, free education and free childcare – among many other things – which was and is within the power of an independent Scotland to be delivered, protected and guaranteed. I voted against nuclear missiles, the callous indifference of Westminster, policies that widen the wage gap and create and prolong poverty, the resurgence of the Tories and their ideological opposition to the things I believe are crucial to a fair and decent society, and the rise of UKIP and the far right in the south. I believe Scotland possesses the will and the resources for full autonomy over its own affairs, for a better and richer society – both materially and spiritually – for its people.

Today, what has not been taken from me, is under threat of being taken. I cannot help but feel disappointed and angry.

Remember how often those heading the Better Together campaign told us that Independence was a one-way street; that there would be no going back from it? Well, I hope a lot of people wake up today and realise that the same might prove equally true of deciding to remain in the union. Let’s see what happens next.

For all of our sakes, let’s hope that the faith of the NO voters is rewarded, and something good comes out of this result; that the extra powers promised don’t turn out to be as substantial as mist and ghosts. Let’s hope that we don’t find ourselves forgotten or sidelined in the call for more powers for other parts of the UK; that we don’t find ourselves bent over the oil barrel and fucked into submission.

The coarse, gleeful laughter from the NO campaign headquarters last night is still ringing in my ears. I can’t shake the feeling that many in this country cast their vote in a spirit of ‘I’m alright, Jack.’

Well, my infant son’s called Jack. He’s going to remember you said that.

This isn’t over.

Space lizards and dead goats: A Q&A with the No Campaign

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Jamie Andrew

I spent a little time in Westminster and asked a representative of the government what he thought about independence, the Better Together campaign, Scotland’s chances of going it alone, and why he thought Scotland would be better off voting ‘No’ this Thursday…

Which celebrities or influential people have joined the No campaign?

There are literally some people who have thrown their weight behind the No campaign. There’s George from Rainbow; the smaller of the two Chuckle Brothers; a walk-on extra who appeared in Take the High Road in 1987; David Beckham’s left testicle; Where’s Wally AND Where’s Waldo (a real transatlantic alliance there); Screech from Saved by the Bell, and the late Fred Gwynne. Fred Gwynne once warned us in his hit movie Pet Sematary that “there’s a lot of animals died on that road”, and I know you’ll join me in reaching the foregone conclusion that he was talking about the hard consequences we would face in the aftermath of an independent Scotland.

Tell me about the UK’s, and by extension a future independent Scotland’s, relationship with the EU…

If you don’t want to be pushed around by the EU, vote No. It’s as simple as that. The UK government will not stand idly by and let a small state become subservient to the whims of a larger one. Except in the case of Scotland, of course, because you band of breakfast-time booze-hounds need our help to stop you from drinking yourselves to death. It’s a known fact that if you were to be left alone for two minutes you’d be smashing up your granny’s house, injecting heroin into your eyeballs and shoving things up your bums.

Anyway, even if you go independent and leave our union, and decide that you want to cosy up to the EU, I’ll tell you now: they won’t have you. They think you smell. Belgium doesn’t like your haircut. And France says your mum buys all your clothes.

But what about Norway, you might ask? Yes, they’ve certainly made some sickening overtures to woo you into their evil orbit should you vote for independence. Are you crazy? Is that what you want? To team up with the baddies from World War II? Well, if you love snow and elk-fucking all that much, then please be our guest. (Apologies for the harsh tone. Of course we don’t want you to be our guest. You live here with us. We want to keep you just as you are: a permanent resident that’s chained up in the basement for your own good).

I’m not saying that forming an alliance with Norway would make every single pet in Scotland spontaneously combust, but if I were you tomorrow I’d start digging thousands of tiny graves.

What do you think about Alex Salmond?

I’m not saying that Alex Salmond is a depraved serial sex killer, but it’s hard not to imagine him donning a black balaclava and latex gloves and speeding up and down the A90 trawling for victims whilst vigorously masturbating himself beneath the steering wheel. Once found, his victims doubtless would be treated to the sort of terrifying and excruciating death we think only happens to characters in horror movies. Now I’m not saying that he would ‘do it’ with their corpses afterwards, but I think it’s pretty clear that he’d ‘do it’ with their corpses afterwards. And this is the man you want running your country? This monster must be stopped before he kills again – and let’s be under no illusions whatsoever: Salmond WILL kill again.

But the vote’s to decide whether people want Scotland to remain in the Union or become independent. It’s not a vote for or against Salmond, is it? …

That’s a common misconception. Of course it is. What most people don’t realise is that Salmond is an all-powerful shape-shifting reptilian power beast from the Yarglanokan nebula on the far side of the galaxy. Once installed in his role as Supreme and Terrible Leader of Scotland, Salmond swiftly will reveal his true reptilian form, and unleash his fearsome gaping jaws which are capable of crushing and devouring an entire disabled person, wheelchair and everything, with room left over for a small malnourished Glasweigen child.

Salmond plans to rule for at least twelve-thousand years, after which he’ll nuke not just Scotland, but the entire solar system. After all, he’s done it before. (Source: Armit, M., (2012) The One Show, BBC) Once he’s finished his reign of terror he’ll travel to other galaxies, visiting his sadistic serial sex murders on an unsuspecting alien populace, turning the universe into his very own intergalactic A90. I wonder when the people of Scotland will wake up and smell the space-lizard excrement.

What about the NHS? Are the Scots right to fear privatisation or dismantlement of their beloved institution?

Hark back to a time when you’ve been to see shows at the Edinburgh Festival (which incidentally is nothing more than a month-long lesbian communist plot). What did you think of those free shows? They were terrible, weren’t they? And why? Because you didn’t have to pay for them. How good can something be if it’s free? Now, look at how our friends in America do things with their health-care system. If you want a new lung you jolly well have to cough up for it, and just think how much more American citizens appreciate their smashing new lungs as a consequence. And look at child-birth. If you’re going to fork out £6000 to give birth to a child, you’d better bloody well mean it. If birth was as expensive a business in this country there’d be less poor people on our streets, and those poor people who did manage to ‘make it through to the next round’, as it were, would be in an awful fucking state. A wonderfully, gloriously awful fucking state. Dried blood instead of shoes, coats made from used nappies, and thirty-eight deadly diseases in their genitalia alone. And with poor people like that, maybe we in Britain could finally start producing world-class TV dramas like ‘The Wire’. What I’m saying is, if you want more dreary piss like ‘New Tricks’ on your telly, then by all means vote ‘Yes’.

What about the currency debate? What monetary unit would the people of Scotland use in the event of independence?

I don’t want to cause a panic, but in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote, all currency will be abolished in Scotland until the end of time. The Scots simply won’t be allowed to have money of any kind. Now, I’m not saying that the English will invade Scotland, but when English shock troops have reduced Scotland to a smouldering husk, and the people are trying to barter dead goats for sexual favours, or in most cases just deciding to fuck the dead goats instead, just remember that Alistair Darling’s eyebrows once gazed at you benevolently from beneath a beautiful sliver of silver hair, and you decided to shave them off to spite your face.

And let’s not forget that the Bank of England has threatened to relocate its HQ to England in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote.

But what about the oil?

There is no oil. Tommy Sheridan made it up.

But what about the oil platforms in the North Sea?

Those have nothing to do with drilling. Well, in a way they do. Sheridan had them built so that he could host swingers’ parties in the ocean.

Does The Bible tell us anything about independence?

I’m glad you asked. If you take the Bible and cut out every individual letter from every page of Genesis, and then re-arrange a pile of those letters to form the phrase ‘Scotland is Better Together’, then you’ll discover an amazing thing: you’ll be able to decipher the phrase ‘Scotland is Better Together’. Spooky. Also, few people realise this but the Book of Revelations is actually a treatise against Alex Salmond’s fiscal policies.

Any closing words for those still on the fence for the referendum?

Yes. ‘Better Together’ sounds a bit like ‘Butter Toga Thor’, and those are three things that you’d be hard pressed to feel sad about. After all, who among us hasn’t fantasised about dressing up like a Roman senator and smothering our huge hammers in dairy products? The word ‘Yes’, however, sounds like ‘abscess’. And I hope the Scottish people think about that on Thursday.

Independence: are we sick of it already?

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Jamie Andrew

A common complaint I heard from undecided voters in the early days of the independence debate was that nobody from either side was engaging with them. “Well,” they’d say haughtily, “Nobody’s sat down and told me why I should vote for them.”

What did they expect? Alex Salmond coming round their house with a change of clothes and a bottle of whisky? “I’m supposed to be at a rally tonight, missus, but screw that, me and you all the way. Right, I’ll do the first bit, and then Sean Connery’s coming round about half-ten to finish off. (clears throat) Now, we begin in 1270, on the day Mel Gibson was born…”

That’s if Salmond doesn’t get thrown off his stride by Clegg and Cameron rolling up outside the house in a tank, trailed by hordes of Labour voters, UKIPers and holidaying Ulster Unionists, while Alistair Darling hollers into a megaphone: “Step away from the voter, Salmond, you podgy porridge-eating separatist, she belongs to us now!”

Heaven forfend we should actually have to seek out, read, research, listen, watch, discuss, think or evaluate. In no other sphere of our lives do we expect answers to fall into our laps, or be spoon-fed the motivation to participate in a process. When you’re booking a holiday you readily accept that you’ll have to work and research to get the best deal. You don’t expect a phone call like this:

“Hello, Mrs McGlinchy, this is Turkey. I just wondered if we could count on your support this holiday season? I’ve also got some statistics here which prove unequivocally that Sunny Beach is a fucking shithole.”

“Huh. I’m surprised you’ve got the cheek to phone. Last time I holidayed with you I couldn’t concentrate on my Jackie Collins for all that prayer racket five times a day. Do you think you could ask them to give it a rest – at least for the first two weeks in July? Oh, hang on, got to go… that’s Spain on Call Waiting…”

I know, I know, political campaigners regularly carry out door-to-door and telephone canvassing so that analogy isn’t perfect, but you take my point, right? You wouldn’t rely solely on canvassing to help make up your mind on an issue, would you? You wouldn’t refuse to find the facts for yourself and instead sit in a vegetative stupor on the off-chance that somebody was going to hand you a piece of paper with THE ANSWERS on it. (“I’m no’ deciding anything till there’s a chap on that door. And if it’s a Halloween guiser, then I guess I’ll be votin’ Dracula this year, eh?”) I certainly hope not. In any case, I’ve always believed that canvassing’s more about having a greater number of troops on the ground to gain a psychological advantage over the enemy, rather than a genuine attempt to sway the undecided or win converts through talk.

A genius comedy character invented by the Better Together campaign.

The debate is now thundering towards its climax, and you can’t lift a newspaper, switch on the TV, or round a corner without encountering a YES or a NO. Whatever the result on Thursday, what’s happening now is a bona fide democratic miracle. Scottish people are talking and organising and debating and enthusing in a way I haven’t witnessed in my lifetime. And what do we hear from the people who before had complained of a lack of engagement? That they’re bored of it all. Now that they possess all of the information they could possibly need or want… they don’t want it. Let’s start the chant:

“What do we want?”

“INFORMATION!”

“When do we want it?”

“ACTUALLY WE’VE CHANGED OUR MINDS.”

In our modern age of 24-hour rolling news and social-media saturation we’ve become too used to news stories having a three-day care-by-date. I dare say that even if a nuke were to wipe out 9/10 of civilisation on a Monday, everyone would be sick of hearing about it by the Wednesday. I find it desperately sad that although Thursday’s referendum is the most important political event in our country’s modern history, already a large number of people are wishing they could just be left in peace to watch Big Brother. (While Big Brother watches us.)

It’s a good job we didn’t have such short attention spans, or indeed Facebook, in days gone by, else we might have seen a few social-media status updates like these ones:

“OMG Patty Hurst or sumthin has thrown herself under a horse. Am I da only one that’s soooo over it? Neeiiiiiggghhhh thanks, lov e!!! Lol!”

“So yoove got to give up yer seat on the bus? BFD. Getting bored of this now… shurrupaboutit! Yoove got speshal buses for YOORSELVES anyway, so get on dem!! Or walk, it’s betta 4 u anyway, lazy!!”

“So da Nazis have aressted yoor family and karted them off in da train?… YAWN CITY! Cheeseus, does evryfing have to be about politicks these days?”

Please don’t weary of one of the most important discussions, debates and decisions in modern Scottish history. This is a great thing. It’s not a fad: it’s a movement, and one that will have an influence upon every single facet of your life wherever it takes us. There’s no such thing as talking about it too much.

If it helps, just think of the independence movement as a giant picture of your own dinner.

Jesus Loves You – That’s the Problem

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Jamie Andrew

Letter from a friend? Letter from a terrifying stalker, more like. Is this letter supposed to bring me comfort? Really? It’s the sort of thing you’d expect to find under your pillow alongside a dead rat. A dead rat with blood-red lipstick smeared over its hellishly contorted face, and a message carved into its side with a stanley knife: “This how yoo mayk MEE pheel!”

And what in God’s name is Jesus – a God, the God – doing wasting his time on the indifference of one obliviously happy mammal while the whole world around Him echoes with the yelps and cries of the suffering of millions? Wait… shhhhhh. Shhhh. Do you hear that noise? That, my friends, is the sound of a malnourished East African child’s recently-deceased cheek thudding into the hot desert dust; Jesus could’ve saved him, but presumably he was too busy skulking around Scottish forests, jumping out at people from behind trees, and going, ‘WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO MAKE YOU LOVE ME, OPEN ANOTHER FUCKING VEIN??!’

It’s nice that Jesus/God takes a non-interventionist stance on things like genocide and torture (“Well, you know me, Archangel Gabriel, I really don’t like to interfere.”), but doesn’t appear to mind sticking his beak in when he’s feeling a bit mopey and sorry for himself. No lightning bolts to fry those who rape and beat children, but rainbows all round for all the underwhelmed, non-plussed cunts of the world who’re just trying to get to work on time – and couldn’t give a jumping jackhammer for Jesus. That makes Jesus angry… and you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

No, this note does not indicate the behaviour of a benevolent and omnipotent deity; this note indicates the behaviour of a psychopathically jealous ex-partner who’s wearing a moustache made from bits of your hair he’s snipped from your head while you were sleeping. Having read this puke-inducing letter, you’ve got to believe that Jesus getting himself put on that cross two-thousand years ago was nothing more than a cry for attention from the universe’s biggest sulk.

I can see the FBI shaping a serial-killer’s profile from this note:

This is a man with grandiose ideas far out of touch with reality. He exhibits extreme narcissism, illustrated by the way in which he capitalises the word ‘Me’. Through his use of language, Jesus reveals a deeply entrenched God-complex.

We can speculate that in his childhood he was prone to violent bouts of rage, and may have committed anti-social acts such as flooding the entire earth’s surface and murdering millions of people. He may also have experimented with turning people into pillars of salt. Almost certainly he pissed the bed until he was 13.

Remember the Old Testament? Same dude, different beard. God was a total shit in the Old Testament, and I think that only makes his persona in the New Testament seem more sinister (remember ‘New’ Labour?). Jesus makes me nervous, like he’s an old gangster that says he’s gone straight, but you’re never quite sure: “I used to slice a mug’s fingers off just for lookin’ at me funny; now I bladdy love puppies, my san.” You know, a crazy glint in his eye that suggests he could go off on one at any minute. Perhaps, then, he’s more like a violent husband that’s trying to schmooze back into his ex’s good books: “Look, I know I got angry and wiped out a whole country with an earthquake when you forgot to close the fridge door that day, but that was the old me. I’ve changed, I really have… I promise…” Yeah, right, Jesus, pull the other one, mate! Jesus is Trevor, and we’re a planetful of Little Mo’s. And if it’s niceness you’re claiming, let’s not forget that Ted Bundy worked on the Samaritans’ switchboard.

Creepier still, Jesus ends his ‘From a Friend’ letter by saying that he wants you to meet his Dad. But HE’S his own Dad. What next, Jesus? Discount coupons for a two-night stay at the Bates’ Motel?

Anyway, Jesus really freaked the fuck out of me with this one, so I’m busy drafting the text for a restraining order:

Jesus Horace Christ, you are prohibited from being within 30m of Mr Andrew, at all times and for any reason. This is in response to recent events, including:

Following Mr Andrew and his friends around the local park. You shadowed them on a parallel path behind the trees, intermittently breaking cover to blow in Mr Andrew’s face, and blind him and his friends with direct sunlight.

Breaking into Mr Andrew’s house in the dead of night. Mr Andrew said he opened one eye to find you sitting in a chair next to his bed. Your arm was outstretched and your fingers were approximately five inches from his face. You were crying, and mumbling to yourself: ‘I just want to touch you.’ You then opened the curtains and flooded the room with moonlight, muttering to yourself about DVDs of yours that were still in Mr Andrew’s possession. Mr Andrew was awake but was so terrified that he pretended to be asleep, hoping that you would leave the house of your own volition.

Folks, be afraid… be very afraid: Jesus loves you.

In Heaven, no one can hear you scream.

Pet Cemetery

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

If you’ve ever had a pet, then you’re intimately acquainted with death – especially if you grew up with one. This piece you’re reading now (as opposed to a completely different piece you may once have read six years ago) is about having pets, loving pets and losing pets, with a few detours along the way to incorporate things like the Rat Jesus, inter-species murder and mafia slayings. I lost four of my pets this year. Three rats and a dog. This is their tribute, delivered the only way I know how: not very well.

Paddy’s Troubles

One of our first family pets was a budgie called Paddy; he lived during the height of The Troubles, and he was blue. I’d like to think that the act of naming him was some sort of artistic comment on the futility of Scottish sectarianism, but it’s possible that my mum was just racist, and had to fall back on her second choice of offensive racial nickname after Sambo was vetoed.

This isn’t Paddy. But who gives a shit? They all look the same.

Anyway, Paddy didn’t live long enough to have much of an impact on global race relations, as he was tragically murdered. Who’s your number one suspect? A cat, right? Tsk tsk. You bigoted cattist. And don’t even think about telling me that all of your best friends are cats. No, you feline fascist, the perp wasn’t a cat; although in your defence history does tell us that cats and small birds have been mortal enemies since time immemorial (Bros, Warner., 1963, Sylvester & Tweetie Pie). As far as rivalries go it’s a bit of a one-sided enmity (kind of like the rivalry between the sun and asteroids), and, yes, I’m willing to concede that the cat’s usually the aggressor. What I’m saying is, I can understand the root assumption from which your flagrant cattism sprouts. But you’re wrong, friend. Paddy didn’t meet his maker at the jaws and claws of a cunning cat: he died a statistical anomaly, having been snuffed out by an over-excited dog. What a twist.

The dog came bounding into our house with its visiting owner at the same time as Paddy was enjoying one of his brief periods of liberation, free from his cage and happily toddling and hopping about the living room floor. The spaz-tongued, slobbering beast pulled free from its owner’s grip, hurtled in to the living room, and gave our feathery little fella the gift of a massive and fatal heart-attack – as I suppose creatures fifty times the size of you are want to do. A little while later, after the requisite period of budgie mourning (two hours and eleven minutes) we got Paddy II. A little truer to expectations, Paddy II was skillfully – and lovingly – eviscerated by our first cat.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the family declined the option of a Paddy III. As my mother put it: “I’m not having a bloody horse coming in and trampling this one to death.” Also, my mother well knew that the final installment of any trilogy is usually the shittest. She’s right… isn’t she… Spider Man 3? Stop your smirking, Godfather 3, you’re next!

We’re so weird as a species that we even keep pets inside giant pets.

I think it’s weird that we keep pets (especially fish. They’re excruciatingly boring. You might as well keep a brick as a pet). Sometimes I look down at my pet cat as it brushes against my leg and think, ‘How did this happen? This is surreal. Why is this four-legged creature living in my house?’ You could argue that keeping a pet is a ridiculous, pointless and incredibly wasteful act. Look after your own genes, or the genes of another of your species: don’t invest your time in the well-being of a creature that shits in a box and licks its own arsehole. Sure, you could argue that case. I’d counter that our ability to indulge in these seemingly pointless acts of nurturing might just be one of the more important stitches in the patchwork-quilt of our humanity.

Having a pet can teach you about compassion and selflessness. It can also, as I’ve glibly demonstrated, teach you about death. Perhaps, in a strange way, we’re nothing but masochists. Owning a pet is like saying: ‘I don’t believe that I’ve been subjected to quite enough in the way of human loss and agony. I’d quite like to experience grief and heartache through a variety of different species, please.’

In a world crammed with suffering, the greater share of which happens unseen or unimagined by mankind – i.e. the never-ending reclamation of flesh as carbon through tooth and claw – why do we desire to bring a proportion of that invisible suffering into sharp focus by ensnaring an animal, developing feelings for it and then observing it as it gradually dies before our very eyes? What a curious species we are. In this year alone, during which I’ve wept not a centiliter of ocular fluid for a single fallen human at home or abroad, I’ve cried genuine tears of grief over the bodies of three rats and a dog.

This piece you’re reading serves as both obituary and commemoration for four special creatures that were plucked from their ancestral destinies within the animal kingdom’s brutal pyramid, and placed – plump and cosseted – upon a man-made pedestal. And loved with a deepness not often seen between two different species outside of underground German movies from the early 1980s.

So RIP, you wonderful, fun-filled, furry little fuckers. I’ll always remember you. You may have spent most of your time eating, shitting, pissing and sleeping, but, collectively and individually, you still lived more worthwhile lives than the cast of Geordie Shore.

CLICK BELOW TO READ THE NEXT PAGE OF THE ARTICLE

1 2 3 4 5 6

Biggest TV Disappointments of 2013: The Following

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Kevin Bacon should be commended for his savvy in snapping up the lead role in this bold, brutal, and exhilarating piece. Yes, the production values are high, the dialogue is crisp and knowing, and visually it’s slick and vibrant, but make no mistake: Bacon’s the real star here. Everything is lifted to another level by the power of his performance; every second he’s on screen reminds us why this talented actor deserves his place at the top of the A-list. In a word: unmissable.

You’re confused, aren’t you? Here you are expecting me to be giving The Following a ruddy good thrashing – pants down, six of the best – and yet here I am lavishing praise on the bugger. Well, not exactly. In actual fact, the paragraph above has nothing whatsoever to do with The Following. I was applauding those EE ads Kevin Bacon stars in, which begin to look like a series of mini-Citizen Kanes when set against The Following.

Remember Kevin Bacon in Sleepers? Remember when he led those boys down to the basement? Well, watching The Following is like being one of those boys. You’ll say to yourself: ‘I don’t know where he’s taking me, or why, but I just know this is going to be an awesome experience! How could it not be? I mean, it’s Kevin Bacon! This is going to be brilliant, just brillia… uh… em… Kevin, what are you doing? WHAT… WHAT are you DOING… Kevin! Kevin?? … KEVI…OW!!… inOWWWWwwwwuuuu…uhm… erm… I think… I think KEVIN BACON just FUCKED me!’

The Following is a piece of dog-shit. It really is: a hot, slimy, sticky, dog-shit sandwich, where even the bread is made out of dog-shit. It’s not a BLT: it’s a BDS. Take a big bite and watch that dog-shit slush down your shirt-front. Rub it in. Take some and smear it in your eyes. Saw open your skull and lather it onto your lobes like it’s some sort of shitty sun-tan lotion. Get someone to flamethrow your head – really flambé that dog-shit. Melt it straight into your skull, scalp and throbbing mind-bollock. Is it excrutiating? Good. That just means it’s working. You’re not done yet, though. Next, let a dog – any dog – lick the disgusting, syrupy, melted, congealed faecal mush from your exposed and infected brain, and then wait for the greedy beast to vomit it all back into your mouth. Ah, drink it in. Gargle with it. Swish that sick-shit around in your gob like it’s Colgate mouth-wash. Mmmmm, feel the chunks in your cheeks. Let them marinate. Then French kiss the dog. Go on, kiss it. Do it! Let its big, slobbery, dog-dick-scented canine tongue investigate your inner-jaw. And why stop there? Fly the dog to Vegas and marry it. Cheat on it with a hooker who’s also a tiger, and then have sex with that slutty tiger – and the dog – live on webcam, and email the footage to your parents. And then – and ONLY then – shoot yourself through the throat. You’ll have a more entertaining evening, I guarantee you.

The Following: not even WHITE dogshit.

Still determined to enjoy The Following? Be warned: you’ll have to lower your expectations in order to extract even minimal enjoyment from this rancid semen-stain of a show. Did you deduce that? Have I been too subtle thus far? And, people, you won’t have to lower your expectations just a little. You’ll need to lower them so much that eventually your expectations will drop down through the earth’s molten core, pierce through the fabric of time, space and reality, and knock Dante clean into a coma.

In fairness… the first and last episodes aren’t entirely awful. It’s just the bit in the middle that’s agonisingly bad. And that’s over eight hours worth of dog-shit. This really should have been a movie, or at-least a three-part mini-series. Maybe they could have salvaged something. But it isn’t. And they didn’t. All that’s left is a squandered premise and wasted potential, and an idea stretched beyond breaking point. And that makes me mad. And when I get mad… I do dog-shit analogies in which people fuck tigers. Ggggrrrrrreeeeeaaaaatttttt (‘Kellogg’s on line 1…’)!

What it’s about: The Back-story

Kevin Bacon as Ryan Hardy.

Kevin Bacon plays former FBI agent Ryan Hardy, a retired, alcoholic cliché who has to hunt down escaped convict Joe Carroll, an allegedly charismatic serial killer – and former professor of literature – played by James Purefoy.

Hardy catches Carroll after the depraved don’s first round of brutal serial slayings, but takes a near-fatal knifing to the chest as he arrests him. Hardy’s injuries force him out of the FBI, and he hits the bottle big-time. I know what you’re thinking: a maverick lawman who turns to booze to fight the pain, and doesn’t know if he’s ‘still got it’? Yes. It’s a startlingly original conceit (actually, a lot of novel work can be done with stock characters and familiar scenarios, but in this case…). In a nutshell, life’s a bit shitty and bleak for Ryan, but he does get to pump Carroll’s hot but irritating ex-wife Claire, played by Natalie Zea, so there’s some degree of silver lining to be enjoyed. Unfortunately, he also falls in love with her, the silly boy, which complicates things somewhat.

James Purefoy as Joe Carroll.

Meanwhile, Joe Carroll, in prison for being a serial killer and all-round bad egg, is busy secretly assembling a cabal of murderous psychopaths, who’ll be on hand to help him escape, and carry out his evil masterplan. The plan, such as it is, involves Carroll winning back his wife and young son (Well, it’s more ‘kidnapping’ than ‘winning back’) and tormenting the living hell out of Ryan Hardy using the aforementioned newly acquired legion of head-cases. Oh, and murdering lots of innocent people as well, obviously. Be rude not to.

Fantastically – and I don’t use that word as a synonym for ‘brilliantly’ – Carroll manages to recruit the bulk of his mental, stabby cultists through the internet… which he has completely unfettered access to… while in prison. Yep. You read that right. He recruits hundreds of killers to his cause, on his computer, in prison, while in prison for murdering lots of women.

GUARD 1: ‘Hey, shall we check this brutal serial killer’s internet history, see who he’s been talking to?’

GUARD 2: ‘Why don’t we just monitor his every move, read all of his mail, lock his door at night, stop him from having blades, and pay close attention to the hundreds of psychotic strangers who visit him every week as well, you fucking Nazi?! Geez, let the guy relax and play some Candy Crush, Hitler!’

OK, he’s got one of the guards on side, but even still…

In addition, both Hardy and Carroll have written and published books: the former, a blow-by-blow account of his investigation into Carroll and the events leading up to his stabbing at the madman’s hands; the latter, a pretentious piece of shit novel that has savagely dark undertones. Ryan Hardy is in fact the subject of Joe Carroll’s difficult second novel, which we discover Joe is writing as a companion to and an account of the horrible shit he does to his nemesis over the course of the show’s first season.

Anyway, The Following begins nine years after Carroll’s incarceration, at the very moment he escapes from prison.

Why it sucks so hard

1.) Joe Carroll is a Poe-ring Bastard

“Hmmm, I wonder what method I’ll use to kill my agent.”

Joe Carroll has a thing for Edgar Allen Poe. He’s obsessed by the man and his works, and aspires to write fiction of a similar quality; unfortunately, he’s a two-bit, psycho hack, who couldn’t write for RiverCity. He is quite good at killing, though, and with this in mind he resolves to build his cult and its murders around the theme of Edgar Allen Poe. Some of his bampots even wear rubber Poe masks when they’re out on a kill. Now that’s devotion fur ye.

The whole Poe thing’s a nice conceit, but one that gets old far too quickly, and becomes dull even more quickly than that. Luckily, the writers seem to agree, and the idea sort of fizzles out for a while after the first few episodes. You’ll be glad. There’s only so much tenuous, Poe-related cod philosophy you can listen to before you begin to wonder if Drop Dead Diva might’ve been a better choice of box-set.

Couples’ counselling.

We’re supposed to believe that Joe Carroll is the most charismatic man on earth. But he isn’t. He’s smug. And arrogant. And a little bit creepy. His only discernible talent seems to be that he’s a half-decent English teacher. Nothing in the acting or dialogue convinced me that this man could’ve enticed or bewitched a rag-tag assortment of insanely-loyal psychopaths to do his evil bidding. Get them a passing grade on an Edgar Allen Poe test paper? Maybe. But this? Midway through the series, one of his insanely devoted cultists offers himself to Carroll as a human sacrifice, ultimately because he thinks Carroll will have a right laugh stabbing him to death. He’s right! I did, too. I think I was supposed to be shocked, though.

So how does Joe Carroll’s ‘charisma’ work? How does he recruit his army and manage to provoke such slavish, unquestioning devotion in his would-be recruits? Beats me. On the surface of it, he just sort of stares at them intensely and then talks to them in a honeyed, husky whisper for a couple of minutes:

‘So you’re a fan of murdering, and you butchered your own mum? Ach, don’t worry about it, murdering’s cool. Extra points for a family member! Anyway, you’re awesome, and I’m definitely awesome, so how about joining my cult? We’ve got prose and everything, and sometimes we get to talk like we’re in a high-school production of Shakespeare.’

2.) Soap Cra-pera

Awful. I don’t even care what their names are.

Too much of the action focuses on a trio – two guys, one girl – of young, trendy, be-quiffed and coiffured cockbags. After many years spent as dormant ‘sleeper-cultists’ living undercover as Claire Carroll’s neighbours and babysitter, their mission is activated: kidnap Carroll’s kid, and get him to Serial Killer HQ in time for big Joe’s arrival. These three characters are essentially 2-dimensional, knife-wielding haircuts, who seem to exist only to look pretty and spout pseudo-philosophical bullshit about how awesome it is to butcher people. And to shag each other, obviously.

The three losers eventually form a steamy, bisexual love triangle, which proves to be about as entertaining as having experimental groin surgery performed upon you by an angry monkey in the grip of meth withdrawal, and less convincing than Katie Hopkins’ impersonation of a human being. Whenever these three are on screen together The Following becomes like an episode of Hollyoaks Later with slightly shitter dialogue.

3.) Police

“God DAMN it! I can’t get past level 358!”

OK, I know the stakes are supposed to be high in a policey/slashy/killy show. High stakes that gradually become higher still serve to ramp up the tension; create conflict and suspense; and drive the narrative in an exciting direction that makes the audience want to keep watching. I get that. And if the police were absolutely brilliant at their jobs, then the show would be over in less than an episode:

‘Ha ha ha ha, you’ll never foil my fiendish plans, never, never, NEVERMORE I say, NEVE… {click} Shit.’

Granted, the baddies’ plan is suitably fiendish. There’s an army of sleeper serial-killer cultists out there, drawn from all walks of life, and across the divides of age, race and gender. At the beginning, the good guys have no idea that the cult even exists, and even when they realise what they’re dealing with, they still have no idea how many members it has, or who they might be. They could be anyone: a cop, a prison guard, an FBI agent!

I get all that. But if the police are consistently shown to be about as effective as the Chuckle Brothers armed only with a bag of dead chickens, as they are in The Following, then it quickly destroys your willingness to suspend disbelief. Honestly, the cops don’t win at anything. Not once. Every strategy they adopt fails, everything they say is bull-shit, and everything they do is ball-achingly stupid: ridiculously, incompetently, fatally stupid.

In real life, I’ve seen more and better trained police officers sent to deal with a noise disturbance in my street than The Following’s fictional FBI ever deigned to send in pursuit of a serial killing cult. No-one ever takes back-up with them, and when they do call for back-up, it’s always at-least forty miles away. Jack Bauer would never have found himself in such a sorry situation: no matter where he or his agents were in the world, it only ever took them ten minutes tops to get where they needed to be. Actually, bad comparison, because Jack Bauer never needed back-up at all; a fucking sharp pencil would be good enough back-up for him (I suppose 24 suffered from the opposite problem to The Following: Jack Bauer was too good at his job).

Really, though, it’s as if the police and the FBI have recruited all of their officers from the same pool of people who always die horribly within the first six minutes of a horror film. Considering there’s a cult out there whose members could be anywhere and anyone – essentially making every stranger a suspect – the police seem keen to adopt the curious tactic of suspecting no-one at all. Douchebags.

4.) Ryan Hard-ly

Kevin Bacon is a really great actor: Ryan Hardy is a really shit character. He just mopes, broods, and frets his way through the dark, grey, oppressive atmosphere of The Following’s suicidally un-cheerful fictional world. It’s not Bacon’s fault, I suppose. All he did was sign the contract. I hope the cash was worth it, because Ryan Hardy’s merely a poor man’s Jack Bauer. Imagine Jack Bauer with a pacemaker and a drinking problem, and then stop to realise that even with a pacemaker and a drinking problem Jack Bauer would be a hundred times more fun, likeable and interesting than Ryan Hardy – and Bauer kills and tortures people in almost every episode! Come to think of it, although the premises and subject matters are radically different, it feels to me like The Following wants to be a slasher-psych-thriller version of 24 (but without the real-time element, obviously), and fails miserably on all counts. Can you still taste that dog-shit?

And this is before we even delve into Hardy’s reputed ‘death curse’. God, the dialogue is execrable on this show. There’s a scene that shows Hardy in bed delivering a woeful chunk of expository dialogue, in which he reveals that almost every single person in his life has died or been horrifically murdered, a preposterous roll-call of hilarious deaths. It’s supposed to make us sympathise and connect with the character, I suppose, but it only served to make me roll my eyes and snort out a derisory laugh.

‘…and then all I had left was my turtle, Mr Jenkins, but somebody put a pipe-bomb inside him and threw him in my girlfriend’s face…’

The Best Worst Moment

One of Carroll’s acolytes is captured by the FBI. He’s injured, so they sling him in a hospital room, and place him under armed guard. As he lies there awaiting interrogation, the loyal idiot realises that he would rather die than betray his master. He proceeds to kill himself by eating his own bandages, suffocating himself to death with them. I’m guessing the intention was to chill and shock the audience by showing them just how deep and twisted a loyalty Carroll inspires in his sick-ass tribe of psychopaths, but it didn’t have that effect on me. I thought it was funny as fuck.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of this scene from The Simpsons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJEtonrIKP8

The Verdict

Do I really need to sum up this article for you? I don’t think there are any lines to read between here. The Following is shit. But it’s good shit, if you get enjoyment from deliberately watching shit things and then tearing them apart, like I know I do.

So, remarkably, I guess it’s good.

Now THAT’S a twist.

And, in closing…

26 Fun Facts About Me

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Fact number 1: Sixteen years ago I was thin, and slept with blow-up dolls.

Game of Thrones is loosely based on my life.

A lot of people think that my stamp collection is boring. Until they discover that it’s a collection of dismembered hands with night-club stamps on them.

I was once gang-raped by a flock of seagulls. Coincidentally, later that same day I quit my hobby of walking around town with chips selotaped to my naked body.

My great-grandfather was the first man to discover blinking. Before he came along, people just eye-balled each other all day long. That’s how World War I really started.

When I was a little boy, my mum quickly came to regret beseeching me to ‘shoot for the stars’, when she caught me on the garage roof with a sniper rifle trained on Mr Motivator.

I don’t know what a ‘bus’ is.

I wrote a sequel to the dictionary. It was epiflevently gartanstible for its time.

My grandfather fought in the All Mute Regiment during World War II, but I never found out until after he died. He didn’t like to talk about it.

Dick van Dyke was called Gavin Brown until he lost a bet with me.

I was the first one to discover that you can get better than a Kwik Fit Fitter, and, indeed, they’re not to be trusted.

I once worked as a funeral planner. At an open casket funeral in 2002, I put a fat corpse inside a specially-modified fridge instead of a coffin. Even though it was a masterpiece, and clearly apt as fuck, they fired me. Whatever. I went to work at Curry’s and at least they appreciated my coffin-shaped fridges.

WWJD actually stands for ‘What Would Jamie Do?’ The answer is simple: he’d blaspheme.

I was once briefly employed as a Somalian pirate.

I murdered my first hitch-hiker at the age of eight. My mum was furious when she found out. ‘What the fuck were you doing driving my car?’ she said. That was the end of that hobby. THANKS FOR NOTHING, MUM, YOU SELFISH BASTARD!! I tried my best to keep up the killing, but it was a lot trickier to dispatch victims when I was giving them a backie on my BMX.

It was my idea to break up the former Yugoslavia when I was 11. I just didn’t like it.

My ejaculate tastes like mince and potatoes that have been made by a bear.

I scrawled my first novel into my mother’s placenta. It was called ‘askjhewbxdamadaasada.’

I once appeared in a vision to Derek Acorah, and told him what an arsehole he was.

When I was at primary school, I got six teachers pregnant. And two of them were male. I used to write ‘See ME after class’ on my jotters before handing them over. Because of that I ended up in The Guinness Book of Records as the world’s first adultophile.

Daniel O’Donnell once touched me here, here and here.

When I was young, my mum would black me up and make me go on stage to sing Al Jolson songs. It could’ve been a great career, but, sadly, illness got in the way. Every time she got the boot polish out I’d start crying, shouting, and shaking. The doctor diagnosed a serious case of pre-minstrel tension.

I had a recurring role in Eastenders, from 1993 to 2010, as the bust of Queen Victoria that sits in the pub.

I was once clinically dead for seven years.

I lost my virginity to the Queen Mother. She went to her grave not knowing this.

There used to be three Krankies, but I killed one of them.

My favourite hobby is whittling the faces of future victims onto chair legs. Wanking’s a close second, though.

Michael Caine is named after me. Nobody at all knows that.

I can’t count to 26.

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2013 – Director’s Cut

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Here’s a link to John Lewis’s 2013 Christmas advert, if you haven’t seen it.

John Lewis Christmas advert

Pretty good effort, John Lewis, but I can make the ending better. You want drama? Heart-ache? You’ve fucking got it.

OK, this is what happens. The bear waddles out from hibernation. He makes his way down the snowy hill to be with his best pal, the hare and – oh my God… Christmas… and all my friends… and… and a big tree… and OH MY GOD, I’M SO OVERWHELMED WITH AWE AND EXCITEMENT, this is literally AMAZING – just then, a hunter steps out from the forest, takes aim with his rifle and shoots the bear through the back of the skull. BANG! A FOUNTAIN OF BLOOD! The bear’s dead body thumps down onto the snow, and an oil-slick of red quickly spreads over the white landscape. The owl is so freaked out by the gun-shot that primal instinct takes over. The owl swoops into flight, and heads straight for the hare, digging his sharp talons into the hare’s back, and snatching him up into the air. The hare’s too heavy, though, and the owl can’t cope with the burden, so he releases him earthward. The owl, snapping out of his fugue, and finding himself racked with grief and shame, heads straight for a tree trunk, and slams his revolving head into it at full speed. SNAP! He’s DEAD. At the same time, the hare tumbles and hurtles towards the ground like a cannon-ball, and lands – with a sickening crack – right on top of the hunter’s head, killing the human instantly. The hare is alive – but only just. The hare rolls and rolls and rolls, his legs broken, his neck twisted, rolling and rolling down the snow, until he comes to a stop not too far from his dead pal’s giant slack-jawed body. The bear’s big dry tongue rests lifelessly on the cold, cold snow. The hare struggles to breathe. As the life drains from him, he looks into the bear’s wide, dead eyes, and starts to cry. The guilt is killing him as surely as his injuries. His best friend, the big gentle bear – thought the hare – would’ve been safe in his cave until spring, if only he’d kept his fucking mouth shut about poxy bloody Christmas.

‘It… was… my fault,’ he says. ‘I’m…sorry… old friend. The worst… thing is… Christmas… is shite anyway…’ Then he dies. And a caption flashes up on the screen:

WOULDN’T’VE HAPPENED IF THEY’D BEEN JEWISH.’

Then there’s an enormous nuclear explosion, killing everyone – man and animal – within a 60-mile radius.

Get filming it, John Lewis. And I want my cut.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Terrorist Suspects Evade Authorities

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Two TPIM suspects (pictured) have evaded government anti-terrorism officers by dressing as women. Spooks spotted the pair entering a haunted fairground, and set up surveillance. A few minutes later, the pair re-emerged dressed as a pair of sexy women, and managed to give the team the slip. It is believed that one of the suspects, Mr Somali Doo (right), distracted officers by blowing kisses and batting his eyelids, whilst the other, Mr Shaggy Khan, presented the team with flowers and a box of chocolates shaped like a love-heart. Police have issued a warning to the public that both suspects are masters of disguise, and could now be posing as anything from barbers to French chefs.

Yer ‘avin a giraffe!

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

There’s a tribal leader living with his people in some forgotten corner of a rain forest somewhere, and even he’s just changed his profile picture to a fucking giraffe. For those of you blissfully unaware of the ‘phenomenon’, here is the message to which Facebookers the world over have been responding:

A few things…

1) If my parents decided to pop along for breakfast at 3am, I’d only be opening one thing: ‘FIRE.’ Or Google, so I could find the telephone number for the nearest 24-hour mental home. Seriously, whose parents turn up at their house with a fucking picnic at three in the morning? Hearing from your parents that early in the morning usually means that somebody close to you has died, and in those circumstances jam is rarely necessary.

Imagine if you heard this being hollered up at you from the street below: ‘JAMIE! IT’S YOUR MUM! YOUR AUNTIE MARGARET HAS DIED! DO YOU FANCY A CROISSANT?’

2) The riddle is so easy to solve that having to post a picture of a giraffe as your avatar is far too lenient a punishment. As penance for being a drooling idiot you should have to post a profile picture of yourself naked with dead flies selotaped all over your body, and a wet dollop of your own fetid excrement smeared o’er your smiling face. That’ll teach you for being so stupid, you giraffe arsehole.

3) This whole thing – the popularity and simplicity of this giraffe-based chain-riddle – makes me highly suspicious. I’ll bet some cunning criminal mastermind has uploaded tonnes of virus-infected giraffe JPGs to the internet, and he’s currently using them to steal every password, pin-number and piece of personal information from Portsmouth to Pyongyang. Have a good long look into the eyes of your innocent Facebook giraffe, my friend, because the long-necked cunt is in the process of selling your bank account details to the Chinese mafia. It’s got to be a scam. It HAS to be, or else there’s no point at all in this orgasm of inanity that’s shuddering its way through the internet. I’ll say this, though: if this is a grand criminal scam then its architect has created nothing less than a giraffesterpiece. And I’ve invented one fucker of a new word.

4) This has been reported in the news. The NEWS? Are you kidding me? Do you know how many rapes, robberies, coups, killings and scientific breakthroughs have gone unreported today? Trevor MacDonald will be spinning in his grave (some feat, considering he’s still alive). If the words ‘giraffe’ and ‘Facebook’ popped up on his auto-cue he’d rip off his shirt and start howling like a wolf. The ‘And finally…’ segment of the ITN News would be Sir Trev being subdued by security as he tried to smash apart the auto-cue machine with his head.

5) Why can’t I just lighten up and let people enjoy some innocent giraffe fun? Because I CAN’T. OK? There is a small silver lining, I suppose. At least people aren’t changing their profile pictures to an incredibly tired Bill Cosby kicking an unemployed Asian man to death.

6) If you really must be a class-A douchebag and change your profile picture to a giraffe, use one of these:

Government Health Warning: Smoking is Awesome

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Waiter, Waiter, There’s a Lie in My Soup

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

My girlfriend and I went for a meal at Frankie and Benny’s in Stirling. Our waiter was tall and rubber-faced, and behaved like a robot programmed to be the world’s best butler. His manner ill befitted a thematic gastro-chain: he was far too polite and professional. In eateries such as Frankie and Benny’s I’m happy if my waiter looks like the sort of guy who won’t rip off a bead of shit caught in his arse hair and then touch our cutlery. Instead we got the Termiwaiter, a silver service cyborg sent through time from the 17th century to pander to the culinary whims of a bunch of undeserving round-faced cretins. All around him fat families decked out in obscenely colourful T-shirts demeaned humanity by gorging themselves like dead-eyed, drooling beasts, while their children shrieked and frolicked between tables like E-spiked lambs, but still the Termiwaiter’s waxy face stayed frozen in that same servile sneer, programmed to exhibit just the right balance of obsequiousness and charming mischief. He was awesome.

I called a manager over, and as he leaned forward I said, ‘I’d like to make a complaint about our waiter.’

The manager looked both shocked and frightened, and sat down next to me in a manner which suggested that a) I was about to diagnose him with cancer, and b) he needed a stiff drink to calm his nerves.

I continued, with these exact words: ‘He’s far too polite, professional and likable. Now we’ll have to give the prick a tip Tell him to be a little more obnoxious, I’m too tight for this.’

The shock evaporated from the manager’s eyes, to be replaced by a twinkle. The cause of his shock? Apparently our waiter had been the subject of a genuine complaint earlier that week, when Termiwaiter misjudged how far he could banter with a table of diners. When asked if the calzone was any good, he’d replied that it was ‘the mutt’s nuts.’ They – clearly being unworthy of the gift of continued existence – had grassed him in to the management.

My girlfriend still chuckles when she remember’s the manager’s initial reaction as I introduced my ‘complaint’. We thought it was only possible to get shell-shock from mustard gas attacks in WWI, not by proxy of a cheeky waiter.

I don’t know if the manager informed the Termiwaiter of my compliment, or if Termiwaiter saw me conferring with his manager and assumed the worst, because when he returned to our table he ramped up the charisma and banter. All that was missing was a series of backflips, and a set of stilts and juggling clubs. It’s clear that the fleeting, table-based fame had gone to his head, but the Termiwaiter was on fire, and clearly out to maximise his tippage. I remember saying to my girlfriend, ‘This cunt realises he’s only getting three quid, right?’

Can you see where this story’s going? I couldn’t resist it. Termiwaiter returned to our table to clear away the plates from the main course, and asked us if we’d enjoyed it.

‘It was great,’ I told him. ‘Really delicious…

…the mutt’s nuts.’

His smile seemed simultaneously to be saying ‘Bravo’ and ‘you dick’. Don’t feel too bad for him, though. We gave the cunt a fiver.

EPILOGUE: 1) OK, it was £4.50, but a fiver sounds better, and 2) he really was an excellent waiter. Dude’s name is Andy. But call him the Termiwaiter. He’ll like it.

Young Jamie: Kindergarten Cock (Part 6)

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Coasters was a roller-skating rink. It was essentially a giant, health and safety nightmare: you could hire rickety, worn-away boots with wobbly wheels; feel safe under the protective gaze of psychopathically disinterested marshals; navigate a wooden rink that still had nails sticking through it; and embrace a million opportunities to trip over the stalls of the grandstand or tumble down concrete stairs to your doom. Coasters operated at a time when nobody cared if their kid came home with a broken hip, or dead. Anyway, skating wasn’t the point. Coasters wasn’t really for skating. It was a place where teenage girls went to get fingered. But on wheels! (Richard Desmond, if you’re reading this page, now is the best time to commission ‘Strictly Come Fingered on Skates’ for Channel 5) I remember shitting myself at Coasters – literally shitting myself. Sexy, eh? Right into a pair of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle orange Y-fronts. Probably mushed the turtle’s head right into Splinter’s face. I’m pretty sure, given when the Hero Turtles were on TV, that when this shitting occurred I would have been a) way too old to have been wearing Hero Turtle Y-fronts and b) too old to be accidentally shitting myself in public. I whipped them off in the cubicles, smuggled them outside and stashed them under a big pile of litter. Sorry council workers. I know a child’s poo pants aren’t exactly considered the jewel in the crown of a working day. Anyway, my sister will love this drawing. I’ve given her the waist, hips and torso of the big black woman from the Tom and Jerry cartoons, plus the haircut of a 53-year-old woman. Not to mention a London police uniform from 1952. And I’ve made her boyfriend look like Freddy Krueger with bad acne. I wonder where Angelo is now? Probably running a chip shop somewhere. Or a skating rink.

Young Jamie: Kindergarten Cock (Part 5)

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

This entry documents what was likely my very first encounter with a real, live English person. Not that I was in the habit of socialising with English corpses, you understand (although that would explain a lot). At least this proves I wasn’t exposed to strong anti-Sassenach sentiments in the home. It would have been distressing for me to have come across a childhood diary entry that went like this: ‘Met Bryan from England. Stabbed him for Culloden. Did homework.’ Thankfully, I only assassinated Bryan’s character, not his nationality. Boring. Is there any worse label? Well, OK, ‘murderer’ is slightly worse, and I dare say most light entertainers from the 1970s would kill to be remembered as ‘boring’ right now. It’s not a good thing to be called, though, is it?: ‘Aw, you’re really gonna love Bryan; he’s so boring!!!’ Bryan’s a name that drips with boring anyway. If his parents knew they were going to pass on the STD of dullness to their son they should have taken preventative measures and called him Papa-Zulu, or The Hawk. Or Dancing Peter or something. Did you see what happened in the text though? I didn’t just call Bryan ‘boring.’ I said he was boring ‘aswell.’ As well as me? What a high opinion I had of myself. We probably just sat there in that shed sipping green tea, as I flipped through my stamp collection, and he made a series of withering remarks about how impossibly high the mortgage rate was for first time buyers. Thank god my un-boring cousin turned up to add an exciting dash of bullying into the mix!

Santa’s Journal (Entry 9) – May 25 2013

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

No stress today. No phone calls, no bullshit. That was my vow. Well, Margaret commanded it because of my heart, actually. Ordered me to take it easy, and have a day of peace.

And I was largely successful. The most excitement came this morning as I was dozing in my armchair, when I thought I heard something coming from the snow dunes. What can I say: it’s a thrilling existence. Hell of a racket, though. It sounded like something was shaking the ground like it was a shag-pile rug, and scattering the snow like debris. Did I hear it? I think we’ve established that I’m getting old, and every sensory organ is packing up one at a time for the old folks’ home, so maybe I didn’t. Besides, when I heard this noise – that may or may not have been of phantom origin – I was still straddling the gulf between Sandman and Snowman, Barbados and Lapland, asleep and awake, so I wasn’t even in possession of the sound, deductive powers of Eamonn Holmes, never mind Sherlock Holmes. I thought maybe Margaret had dropped another tray of mince pies in the kitchen. She hadn’t. She suggested that my own nightmarishly loud snoring had woken me up. It’s possible. My snores sound like a plane-load of panicked, parachuting pigs making an emergency landing onto a passing convoy of motorbikes, just as God squats over their faces and roars out a planet-chewing fart.

Conditions were pleasant in the living room this morning, though, I can tell you. The fire was roaring and spitting by my side. Lovely, warm and stress-free. Screw excitement: there’s nothing quite like dozing off in your favourite chair in-front of your favourite hot fire, the newspaper crumpled on your lap and your slippers clinging to your feet like two tufts of toasty cloud.

Well, unless it’s that fantasy of mine where a naked, voluptuous model on a reclining chair awaits my descent down the chimney, legs akimbo, a cigarette dangling seductively from her ruby-red lips, greeting me in husky tones with the words: ‘So, Santa, let’s see if I can help you empty that bulging sack of yours.’

The fantasy always hovers in the air above my fire-toasted armchair, waiting for me to sit down and slip it on like a virtual reality sex helmet. Hey, I may play the part of Santa, but I’m still a man, right? I’m Frank McGarry: as red-blooded as I am red-jacketed.

It’s just a shame that Margaret’s idea of sex these days is extra clotted cream on our scones. There’s a euphemism in there somewhere, I’m sure.

‘Aw, look at you,’ Margaret’ll say as she catches me daydreaming (she thinks I’m daydreaming!), and spots the beaming grin plastered across my features. ‘What’s making you so happy, my love?’

‘I’m just thinking…’ I’d purr, ‘…of the happiness I bring… to the children of the world.’

As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, my vow to remain cocooned in peace was only largely successful. I can always count on my bosses at Coca Cola to get my heart beating like the samba. I waited until Margaret was at the shop, and then tried phoning the bastards multiple times to discuss this Dwerg Neuken situation and how they’re treating the elves, and to vent a little of my anger (nobody calls me Mickey Mouse and gets away with it!), but if the phone wasn’t just ringing out, I was being assured by some automated arsehole that ‘my call was very important.’ So important that they completely ignored it about eighty-five times. A day of reckoning is upon them, let me assure you of that…

Santa’s Journal (Entry 8) – May 24 2013

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I spent the morning trying to get through to Coca Cola. Kept getting their switchboard.

‘This is Frank McGarry calling,’ I said in my sternest, boomiest voice. ‘I need to speak with management.’

I always use my real name when I’m angry with them. They know I mean business when I cast off my Santa branding and let my Glasgow show. It didn’t work though. The receptionist told me that the big boss was in meetings all day. I asked for the man under him. Surprise: he’s in meetings too. And the man under him. I think I went through the entire list of staff, top to bottom, trying to find someone to take my call. It turns out that even the guy in the fucking mail room is in meetings today.

Next I called the management at Dwerg Neuken. They’d speak to me, alright, but I’d’ve been better talking to a brick wall. Christ, I’d’ve been better talking to Margaret. I got through to their CEO, some whiny-voiced arsehole by the name of Jorg Griswald, and told him in no uncertain terms that what he was doing to the elves was immoral and deplorable. That the elves were a loyal, decent and hardworking lot who didn’t deserve to have their meagre pay slashed even more. And, besides, if anybody is going to make their lives an unending misery, it should be me!

‘I am full of large apologies today, Mr madam,’ he said, his reedy Norwegian accent going up and down like an asthmatic mouse on a pogo-stick, ‘but what does our business with the little people of the snow have to do to you?’

‘What does it have to do with me?? I’m Santa Claus, motherfucker!!!’

From what I was able to piece together from his terrible command of English, Jorg will answer only to his masters at Coca Cola. I was a mere puppet, a mascot, a breathing piece of branding, scarcely a human being. His exact words were: ‘Sooner I would be taking orders from Mickey Mouse, yes?’

Which is why I’m posting him a big bag of reindeer shite. First class.

Santa’s Journal (Entry 7) – May 22 2013

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Gundal came to see me at the house today. Margaret let him in, and made him some scones. She keeps calling him Stephen. ‘But he reminds me of Stephen,’ she keeps telling me. But I’ve no idea who Stephen is, and the disturbing thing is: neither does she. We don’t know anyone called Stephen. Plus, Stephen is a human name. Gundal is an elf name. Gundal has an elf name, largely due to the fact that Gundal is an elf. If we did know somebody called Stephen who reminded us of Gundal, then this Stephen would be three-feet tall, with ears that looked like they’d been caught in a thresher. I worry about the old bird sometimes. Her memory’s not what it once was. It’s playing tricks on her. World-class magician tricks. With added conjuring. Because she’s even started to forget things that she hasn’t even done, and then remembering them again.

Margaret’s memory’s a relay baton being passed between illusion and reality, making a lot of our conversations feel like code-breaking sessions at Bletchley Park. She’s lucid most of the time, so I guess it’s simply yet another wonderful side-effect of ageing, like my eight-day hangovers and fierce urges to urinate that come upon me on-the-hour-every-hour, like Piss FM traffic updates. But I would seem to be her rock, in the sense that her memory and focus never seem to fail her when it comes to my transgressions. Oh, they shine like beacons in the mist of her mind, keeping her anchored to reality. That’s my justification for continuing to leave the toilet seat up and nibbling my knuckle warts, in any case. I’m being noble, and trying to keep her memory ticking over. In many ways I’m a hero, I suppose…

Anyway, I gave Gundal a leg up to one of the armchairs in our living room. Typically, elves are predisposed to jolliness – they’re not grumpy wee bastards like dwarfs. But little Gundal looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His smile was a hyphen, and his eyebrows were like two thin daggers each ready to strike diagonally at their opposing nostrils.

He shared what was troubling him, and as I listened I could feel the anger bubbling in me from boots to beard. The elves have received a memo from Coca Cola telling them that they will no longer be employed directly by Coca Cola. The elves’ work has been subcontracted to a third party, some company called Dwerg Neuken, and its management has sent a communication informing the elves that there will be changes to their working hours, conditions and rates of pay; a new, harsher contract, in essence. He wants me to fight their corner, which of course I’ll do – as I always do. I just don’t know if I’ll have a leg to stand on with Coca Cola given recent events. But what the Hell. Who needs legs when you’ve got fists?

Santa’s Journal – (Entry 6) May 19 2013

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

It looks like I’m getting a visit from those suit-wearing, soul-sucking sons of bitches at Coca Cola. They claim to have photographic evidence of corporate vandalism, and want to ‘have a little chat’ about my ‘plans for the future’, and discuss the ‘ins and outs of my contract.’ I know euphemisms when I hear them. That’s like when a mafia boss kisses you on both cheeks and tells you he’s always loved you. The piano wire and cement shoes can’t be too far away. So I could be getting the retirement of my dreams after all. And all it took was an unwholesome quantity of alcohol, and a heap of reckless abandon.

I wondered, though, exactly what evidence they might have, so I assembled the elves for a meeting. Gundal, my head elf, told me that on the night of his birthday I ordered thirty of the elves to trample ‘FUCK COCA COLA’ into one of the snow dunes, a message that has now frozen in fifty-foot-high letters. Not only that, but I made them pour thousands of vats of Coke into the trenches, which also froze, leaving a big brown message which apparently is visible from space.

Also, one of the elves got the pictures he took that night developed, and from the evidence it looks like I traveled way further than Glasgow on my drunken tour. This picture was taken in Bulgaria, and they say I was responsible for most of the painting. I believe them. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this:

Want to share this with your wee friends? Get clicking.

Like this: