Trick Or Treat

Probably because of my personality type, I go through serious food fads. This past week it has been Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. I just can’t stop myself. A while back it was Refresher Chews, before that Curley Wurley’s and every so often I have a serious Maltesers habit.
ATM is convinced that the body only craves something it needs and during pregnancy, what the baby needs.
During her first pregnancy, my sister craved 18 bag family packs of Quavers. I used to look at my her and think, ‘What the fuck does that child need with something that is, basically, Styrofoam packaging?’
ATM used to cheerfully tell me that she craved cough mixture throughout her pregnancy with me. It helped that she had a job in the dispensary at Boots.
‘Really Mum? That sugary shit that is full of Codeine?’
‘Yes!’
‘You took it the whole pregnancy?’
‘Yes!, by the mugful! Hehehehehe’.
‘So, you drugged me for 9 months, being born sent me cold turkey and you THEN expected me to sleep?’
It wasn’t such a laugh then, but did explain a lot!

I bought some bags of sweeties for the Trick or Treaters but I have a confession to make. I opened the bags and took out all the sweets I like! Fuck ‘em, I thought. They’re getting a freebee as it is.
So far I’ve had 3 pint sized Grim Reaper’s who went away with Parma Violets and a lolly. 2 pirates and a witch, who just stood there, until the girl said, ‘say trick or treat you dins!’. Ah, Pompey kids, got to love them.
I can remember asking my Grandfather if we could do a pumpkin one year. He came home with two Swedes (root vegetables, not Scandinavian types!) You have no idea how difficult they are to hollow out. I think he just wanted to see my Nan’s face when she came home and found us stabbing at them with her sharpest knives.

Today Mrs Next Door’s weirdness hit a new high. They have had a new back door fitted and for the first time their cat has to use it’s own door. We were pissing ourselves in the kitchen listening to her get more and more frustrated with the cat.

“Sammy, concentrate!” (fucking concentrate?!!)
Then as she got shrill,
“Samuel, you have got to learn this or you won’t be able to get in!”
She then picked it up and said in it’s face,
“You have GOT to learn how to use the catflap, now stop messing about.”

As anyone knows, there is NO training a cat. In fact you can’t OWN a cat. It decides whether it is going to stay with you or not and always has a ‘back up’ home in case you piss it off. Like, take it to the vet or shout at it for puking on the bed!

Got to say a HUGE congratulations to one of the Housemates. Mikey has got in to Leeds to do an MSC in Geology! Nice one mate. You deserve it.

Icon

There is a programme on BBC2 called, ‘The Culture Show’ and they are having a vote for Britain’s greatest living icon.
It’s quite a good show, arts, music, theatre, style etc, not too high brow but not for planks either. Or so I thought. Until I visited the website. Just browsing through the message boards to see what names were being suggested, I found Madonna and Rolf Harris. Rolf fucking Harris!
Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick, but I thought Britain’s Cultural Icon would actually BE British. Rolf’s family MAY have been British at some point, until a light fingered ancestor got the family transported, but Madonna? Fuck off! The Septic’s can keep her and her ‘rainbow’ family. I’ll even throw Guy Richie in for free.
Also, why every time some self absorbed yank wants to legitimise what they are doing, do they go on Oprah? What’s that all about?
I think Stephen Fry is going to get my vote, just because I believe he is a god. He is one of those people, who if I made them laugh, I could die immediately after. There also seem to be very few females to vote for. So, Schnee, Sassy… Get yourselves on the case girls!

How fucking annoying is a radiator that needs bleeding? The one in the living room is driving me mental. Especially late at night. It sounds like there is someone else in the room, breathing. Freaked myself right out with it this afternoon! The heating timer is still on BST and for the life of me I couldn’t work out what the noise was or where it was coming from. What made it worse was the cat sitting bolt upright and doing the, ‘What the fuck was that? There is someone in the house.” look. That, I can just about cope with. The staring, mesmerised in to space really shits me up. I think he knows that. Bastard.


To calm myself I watched Boston Legal. I didn’t want to like it but ended up loving it!
I do admit to watching it with the vague hope that William Shatner WILL explode on screen. The geezer must be on some serious ‘roids to look like that. That aside, he is brilliant as Denny Crane. James Spader is surprisingly good too!

Now one for the Housemates.
I know the kettle holds 3 pints but if you are making a drink for you and you only, 3 pints of water aren’t fucking necessary. The kettle will still work if you put a cupful in! The water can’t be re-boiled it gets all chalky and nasty. The tea made with it has a film on top that looks like Tectonic Plates, for fuck’s sake!
Not only that, it’s a waste of energy and water. Stern Report anyone? Anyone?

As I typed this, Mrs Next Door went off the deep end!
She could be heard over the BBC News! She ‘Could not believe it’ at least 14 times’, ‘Get to your room’ x2 and ‘Get away from me’ x6. The Naughty Step mustn’t be working out for her! I’m now awaiting the arrival of her long suffering husband so I can hear it all over again and perhaps, find out what she couldn’t believe! I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl had brought home some colourful language from a ‘Scholarship’ child. Or had smuggled in a bag of Wotsits.

Today my niece, Brooke, is 13. I haven’t seen her for three years but I just want to say, ‘Happy Birthday Brooke!’ Love you mate.

Vile

Yesterday Crisp-e told me possibly one of the vilest, in the long list of his vile stories, ever.
He watches this ‘Home CSI’ programme. They come in and totally swab and spray everything in your house. One bloke was found out to be a ‘piss in the sink’ kind of guy. His Mother must be so proud. That is not the worst bit.
I did not know this, but apparently every time you flush your toilet, with the lid up, Faecal Coliform Bacteria is launched all over the bathroom. I will now quote Crisp-e’s email:

“Aerobic bacteria found in the colon or faeces, often used as indicators of faecal contamination of water supplies.

Flushing the toilet with the lid up causes a ‘spray’ that can travel the length of the bathroom. The spray carries with it (amongst other nastiness) Faecal Coliform Bacteria. The so called ‘aerosol’ can persist for several hours before it settles.”

On the programme they showed them this using a spray to show the bacteria up. It had settled all over their toothbrushes! This explained why one of the women, who lived in the house, always had an upset stomach. Turned mine.
Now that is some serious fucking nastiness!. Housemates have been informed and the lids have been down every time I went to use the toilet today. That one got through!

I have neglected my music recently. So, while I was staining the stairs, a cheeky Light Oak, I listen to Kasabian’s album Empire. I am totally taken with ‘Shoot The Runner’. I love how Glam rock it sounds. I also listened to You Are The Quarry by Morrisey. Sarah Down The Road said I would enjoy it. She was right! I think the lyrics to ’America Is Not The World’ are classic. Nice one Sarah!

I also have some serious reading to catch up on too.
Has anyone (other than my mate Rob) read William Horwood’s, The Stonor Eagle? It’s taken me 6 months to get to page 134 and I’m sure every time I open the thing it halves my Chi. It is one of Rob’s absolute favourites and I promised him I would read it. (We swap favourites with each other every so often) This one, is killing me.
Shall I continue reading it? Does it get any less depressing?
The only other book I have felt this much antipathy towards is Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. My Grandfather gave it to me to read. (He started out as a member of the communist party and fought in Spain during the Civil War. When he died, he was a member of the Conservative Club!) He would also insist on discussing it with me, so there was no faking it. I was 14 at the time and seriously considered blinding myself. I loved reading (still do!) but that book nearly put me off for life.

BST

Not being one to complain, I am taking issue with the ‘Easy’ bit of, ’Easy Online Shopping’. It’s anything but.

I have shopped with Waitrose online. Excellent service and an extremely nice delivery lady. Type in ‘Garlic’ and the first thing that pops up on the search is, a bulb of garlic. With Asda all the ‘ready meals’ that have anything vaguely garlic in, pop up. Garlic is hidden away in the exotic herbs, with ginger and chillies. Bread? Fucking forget it! About 150 choices appear!
This, and the vegetables being sold by the kg, made me realise that I am a ‘visual’ shopper. I know the size of the bag the frozen peas come in, ‘kilogram’s’ mean nothing. As evidenced by the 2 portion only bag I managed to have delivered. A litre of yogurt doesn’t look that much online but in person, there’s shit loads!
Then there is the ‘lucky dip’ bag. None of the shit in this bag was ordered by me. As the name suggests, sometimes you get lucky or sometimes you get the bag I got.
Six packets of super noodles, a ‘brown’ stir in sauce and some Pringles. I managed to return it to the driver before he left.
The lucky dip from Waitrose contained Camembert, Brie, Pastrami and Parma ham. They must have got the bag of water biscuits and the olives!

While I’m on food.

Home cooked chips taste shit. There is just no getting away from it. Even if you have your own deep fat fryer they taste cack.
Oven chips are the worst. Do those fuckers EVER go brown? If I have got to have them I prefer Crinkle Cut, they seem to take on some colour. The ‘Chippy’ is the only place for chips. If you are in Pompey, Osprey’s on the corner of Brompton Road is best!

The clocks are going back sometime in the next hour. Lighter mornings, darker evenings and an extra hour of insomnia for me tonight! Apparently it’s all to do with daylight hours and farmers. For me, it is the reason that clocks are not set on anything ‘electrical’ in the house.
I can never remember how to do it. It always needs the remote that has been missing since the last party and the manual is somewhere ‘safe’.

Goodbye British Summer Time, it’s been a nice one. Bring on the cold, the dark and the open fires! Whoo hoo!

I Hear You Knocking

My insomnia has been bad the last couple of nights which, as usual, caused me to watch TV all night long. The TV, most times will lull me off to sleep, but not the last few nights.
Do you have any idea what the ‘signer’ in the corner of the screen does to a stoned insomniac?. I sit there trying to match the hand movements to words. When that doesn’t work it becomes really annoying. I’m not saying that deaf people shouldn’t enjoy the programmes but why would they all be up at three in the morning?

The fireworks have started with a vengeance which means the fucking ‘Trick or Treaters’ will be out soon. Another blight from America.
As kids, we weren’t allowed to go Trick or Treating or do Penny For The Guy. ATM described it as begging and my Nan said it was common. “Oh, No Darling! That is for poor and common children”
Every now and then I remember to get some sweeties in; but most of the time I turn all the lights out, move to the back of the house and ignore the doorbell.
The little kids all dressed up and their Mum or Dad stood at the gate, I don’t mind. It’s the 14 and 15 year olds in ‘Chav-Wear’ I object to. The ones who tell you, “A pound’ll do”. I’m sure it will but you’ll have a fucking custard cream between you and like it. I will then stand there and using my eyes only say, “Go on you little tosser, trick me. I fucking dare you, in fact, I double dare you!” I haven’t had a trick yet.
Same with the Carol Singers. I want two verses, not two fucking lines before my hand goes anywhere near my pocket, you common, beggars!

Anyone knocking on my door selling religion, only ever does it once. (They must have a list!) I’ve had Jehovah’s Witnesses begging to leave but did find out Mormons don’t drink tea, coffee or coke. Just one day I’d love to open the door and find two Amish on the step trying to interest me in a barn raising and not using electricity. Or a Zoroastrian who wants to interest me in equality for all (Regardless of gender) and environmentalism. Now that, I would probably go for!
It’s a religion I think I should learn more about.

Champion and Wizard

“An Eavesdropper never hears good of themselves”.

A line used by ATM after my sister overheard Mother bitching about her. Fortunately, I never uttered a word during the diatribe. Although, I inwardly agreed with every word. So ATM was the focus of my sister’s ire, not me. It didn’t last long, her mortgage was due.
I have a similar thing going on at the moment and it’s really beginning to annoy me.
When I started this blog I told very few people about it. Someone I am close to, but didn’t tell, has obviously discovered it for themselves and has got bitter and twisted. The people I told were the individuals I wouldn’t mind seeing me fall on my arse. I wouldn’t be totally humiliated by them knowing it didn’t work out.
So, when I speak to this person on MSN they will makes little references to things I have written, without actually saying. “I read your Blog”.. Last night the conversation went on and on about her Wellies. How she was going to have to shake them out before wearing, how friends of hers had discovered mice in them etc..
This has got me to the point that I would rather remove my spleen with a tin opener, than say, ‘I’ve got a blog going’..

Now for a Housemate rant…

I’m quite laissez faire about toothpaste ‘squeezage’. It doesn’t send me particularly rabid if you squeeze in the middle.
Do the same thing with the tomato puree and I’ll stab you in the fucking eyes! The packaging is totally different. If you bend the top ‘Spout’ bit over, squeezing it causes leaking fissures along the main body of the tube. Nothing comes out of it, except at unfeasable angles. It’s bad enough that you let this happen, but to then put the haemorrhaging mass back in the fridge is a real piss off!
I have also decided that as I’m the only one who vacuums the stairs, I’m the only one allowed to use them. Kenny and Murphy have special dispensation to use them, but the rest of you fuckers can fly, use ropes, install a Stannah chair lift. I don’t care. Keep your leaf bearing, mud carrying feet off my stairs.

Mad Matt paid us a visit tonight! Jeez, is that guy good for the soul! I have laughed and laughed this evening. I am so glad Sarah Down The Road joined us in time for his absolute cracker of the night, which I feel compelled to share with the rest of the world.
He described a slapper’s panty parts as a,
“Fanny like a wizard’s sleeve”!!!
Belter!
We had tears and difficulty breathing. Mad Matt you are a legend!.

Although, I think you may have ruined the Harry Potter films for me, but invented a new drinking game. Champion!

For The Want Of Wellies

Today, the persistent rain has leached ATM issues to the surface.

As a kid I always wanted to go out and play in the rain. It just seemed like a really fun thing to do. Stamping in puddles, playing in mud the whole schmeer. Especially if it was the weekend.
We were never allowed to. We would get ‘wet and dirty‘. ATM is clinically clean, her home is a ‘show house’ and mess is SO not allowed. So the idea of dirty children had the same affect a soaking wet, rabid, St Bernard loose in the house would.
Then why did the torturous bitch buy me Wellies and a raincoat? So I could paddle in the pool during summer? The words, “You can wear them when it’s wet”, WERE uttered during their purchase. Rain is fucking wet you mental woman!

I don’t know why this sticks in my head but it does. So, this afternoon I went and stood in the rain in the garden. I walked around in the long grass and even got muddy!… When I came in, cold, wet and filthy my problems began.

I turned in to HER… Attila The Mum!

I didn’t want the floor to get dirty (I was barefoot, doncha know!) and I certainly didn’t want the floors wet, given my shoeless status.
Hard bristle doormats get very uncomfortable, very quickly. It is at this point I start cursing her in my head… “Look what the fucking mental bitch has turned me in to!”, “It’s your fucking house, mess it up to your heart‘s content!”.
I decided to strip in the utility room.
Great plan! Straight in the wash, Sleepy you are a genius!
It was after I had put the wash on, I remembered we have no nets out there.. The bedraggled plants on the windowsill shield very little and the gaping, glazed expanse of the backdoor, even less. It also looks straight in to my neighbour’s, similarly un-netted kitchen.
I drop to my hands and knees. I am now bare arsed, muddy, wet and cold as I begin my crawl across the kitchen floor. All the while thinking,
‘She should have let me wear the fucking Wellies, IN the fucking RAIN’

Also, the Housemates were due back and I looked like I had a starring role in ‘The Ring’.
Half way down the hallway my Paper ‘fugee decided to deliver the local paper. I used to have a Paper-boy, he morphed in to a Paper-Geriatric, now I have a Paper-Refugee. Yesterday he rang the doorbell and handed me the paper. I pointed out the letterbox, which he viewed with suspicious awe, and posted my paper to myself.
The scales fell from his eyes!. It was an emotional moment.
So, today, with me naked in the hallway he attempts the letterbox for the first time. I’m telling you, time stood still. It’s not that fucking hard! Thank G-d he didn’t bend down and look in.

The new ‘smoke’ is particularly spacey! I couldn’t remember if I had sprayed deodorant WHILE I was still holding the can! I’ve usually got a teeshirt on before that happens, so that’s excellent news! It does it’s job!

Bite Me

Today, drug companies and ‘Health Experts’ are getting on my tits.

The BBC news told me that taking too much Ibruprofen will probably give me a heart attack. Oh Good! I thought. The fucking Alzheimer’s people are telling me it stops ’plaques’ being laid down on my synapses and lessens the chances of that horrific demise. We are told to watch our fat intake, eating bread now causes cancer and Camembert will do hideous things to our cholesterol. SO WHAT? We are not immortal! We are supposed to die. It’s up to your genetics when it happens and what causes it. Generations of your ancestors have already, unknowingly, decided what is going to do for you!
In my heritage, cancer genes have married cancer genes and heart disease has done the same with heart disease. (With a few fat fucker genes thrown in, just for fun.) It’s not going to be any great shock if I’m diagnosed with either. The shock would be NOT having one or the other, making true those childhood dreams that I was adopted! (My REAL family can make themselves known at any time.)
Ok, I agree, you can make changes in your lifestyle to prolong your time. Like, not smoking and doing a bit of exercise. You’ll probably hit 73 rather than the 63 of your predecessors. But something is going to get you so is it worth it?
Stop fucking worrying about it. Just ACCEPT that you are going to die and you might end up living a bit!!

Eeeesh, I’m glad that is out.

My heart went out to Crisp-e today, his first visit to the dentist in many years. When I spoke to him yesterday I could hear the pain in his voice. For me, toothache and earache are probably the two worst pains in the world.
He and ‘Chelle came round this afternoon. He walked in and I gave him a hug, he immediately hooked a finger in the corner of his mouth, yanked it outwards and said,
“Yook!, Ish eye isdom hoof”
I peered in and Ohh-ed and Ahh-ed sympathetically.
Later on I discovered he had bought his OWN dentistry equipment and he disappeared to finish the job he claimed the dentist hadn’t.
‘Chelle’s greeting didn’t involve me looking at her teeth.

While they were here the Discovery Channel had something on about Cannibalism in Extreme Survival cases… Would you eat human flesh if you were starving? Crisp-e would. Even with his painful teeth. He would try it out of curiosity! No starving, extreme conditions involved, just to see what it tasted like. I’d LIKE to say that I wouldn’t, unlike others I’m not a sicko! Not sure of the Kashrut status of ‘Human’ either. I have no objection to being eaten (Who does?!!) by others.
Just to be sure, I’m not going anywhere remotely countryside with Crisp-e ever again. I get the distinct feeling it wouldn’t take much before he was wanting to sample ‘Long Pig’. One wrong turn at Queen Elizabeth Country Park and that fucker would be collecting wood, eyeing people suspiciously and telling us he always carried dried chillis, “Because you never know, man!”.
Not a chance I’m willing to take.

Schnee.. If he visits, DO NOT take him to The Nature Park.

Gate Number 1

Does anybody know of ANYONE, who has ever flown out of “Gate 1” at an airport? Or landed at one?
I mean big airports, not a tin shed in a field (Bournemouth), a major one.
I really don’t know why this is in my head. I haven’t flown anywhere recently and I certainly haven’t flown from gate fucking 1. I always have to walk for miles or take a bus. A bus! I’m 5’ 4 stood on a rizla. I love being wedged into the armpit of some sweaty git in an England football shirt. Not even at Knock ‘International’ Airport in the West of Ireland, which I count as a shed. It’s always full of Nuns and Priests and I consider it unwise to be around these people for too long. It makes me naughty. I mention Church scandals loudly and am a general embarrassment, add alcohol and the effect is quadrupled.

See the kind of bollocks that floats round my head when I have no drugs?.. The real pisser is that this, according to The Dealer, is a nationwide problem. My baby brother (who has moved to Southampton, kudos on getting away from ATM, but fucking Scum? Are you sure?!) confirms this is the case where he is, but the Cocaine is superb apparently.
Other people I know are now cultivating for themselves. Thrusting themselves up the criminal ladder from simple ‘users’, to producers and dealers. Others I know have resorted to buying all sorts of hecticness from the various ‘Head Shops’ in the city. I saw one today advertising Cactus! Fucking Cactus? I just want regular service to resume.
I searched for ‘shrooms daily during my week in Wiltshire. (There was a body in the canal but I didn’t find it! Some poor sod got pissed and fell off his narrow boat.) Didn’t find a one. Well, not the Psilocybe I was after. Loads of others and they tasted really good!

Frightening bit of data for the day, is that there are 219 sex offenders in the Portsmouth area. I checked out wikipedia for our population. Within Portsmouth’s boundaries (Waterlooville, Leigh Park etc) there are 442,252 people. That seems to be a lot of Nonces in one area, or is that just me?

Canadian Karen berated me in my last blog for not posting for a while. In true Pompey fashion, I reply, “Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
So Karen, “Happy now?”

Eeeeeeesh, Women..

Lozenge

Today, it’s a TV advert that has me teetering on the edge of a meltdown.

Nick (the tosser) is quitting with Niquitin.. Yep, see what they’ve done there - Nick…. Quitting. Real fucking rib tickler that one!
It’s set up to look like he’s done all this as a home movie (strokes chin sagely and utters, “ReckON”) Yeah Yeah, you want to give up. Well Done. Just don’t inflict your fake cheeriness on me. Have a look at his face people, he’s not happy. He has this manic grin on his face that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes.
I’d also like to suggest that with the money he saves on smokes, he should invest in some serious dentistry.
Oddly, this is not what pisses me off, in fact it makes me light up a cigarette.
He goes on and on about how easy it is just to pop the lozenge in your mouth. EXCEPT he calls it a lozengER. It’s a fucking lozenge, the end rhymes with hinge. You wankER.

I find people pronouncing ‘something’ as ‘somethink’ deeply irritating too. Even educated people are guilty of that one (You know who you are!) I’m led to believe that this is a ‘Midlands’ thing but I think it’s laziness.
How on earth do you make a G sound like a K? Either and Neither you can pronounce however you like, doesn’t bother me. Somethink leaves me fit to be tied.

Last night I thought Mrs Next Door had finally done what, Crisp-e and I have predicted for a while, and gone psycho.
Some of the screams from the children had me contemplating phoning Esther. I ended up thinking, Fuck It, I’ll videophone her being dragged out and stick it on the internet.
I met her outside today and she asked if I had heard any of the screaming. I did the, “Oh no, not a peep” thing. It turns out that she had set about her kids with a nit comb (Huge step back) and they hadn’t particularly taken to the experience.
Pompey nits, like their some of their hosts, are really difficult to get rid of. They are immune to all known cures, even tea tree oil.
I can remember how mortified my Nan had been, when my sister and I had been sent home from school with nits. She may as well have been told we had Syphilis. Nits and TB were conditions she associated with being poor, common and not looked after.

My scalp still carries the memory of that comb and the subsequent trip to the hairdressers to have our hair cut short. Although, I must admit having my hair cut short was bliss to a 7 year old tomboy! I never had to have my hair long again, claiming fear of nits. It was the venom with which my Nan wielded the comb I feared the most.

Ride, Ride, Ride

I got ‘Janis’ out today. Dusted her down, greased her up and rode her like the clappers!
For those of you who don’t know, ‘Janis’ is my bicycle. Named in honour of a great friend and cycling guru!

Portsmouth is ideal for cycling as it is relatively flat, apart from Fratton Bridge, which is easily avoidable. The only real pain is that for some reason you are always cycling AGAINST the wind. Even if you follow exactly the same route back from where you have gone - you are against the wind!
It’s madness. I’ve also seen it rain in the back garden and be dry in the front. Like some kind of chav ‘Eureka’.

I was on the bike delivering a ‘well done on the sprog’ card to some friends. The new Mum is Welsh and I was chuffed to bits to find a card IN Welsh, in Carmarthen!. An extremely hirsute old lady translated a bunch of them for me. She could have told me anything really, as I was fixated on her luxuriant handlebar at the time.
With most European languages you can kind of work out what is going on, or maybe that’s because I had to do Latin.
Welsh doesn’t look like anything! Not even Irish Gaelic. Which I think is groovy and no wonder they get all militant about keeping their language. I’ve learned Creoso is ‘Welcome’, Araf is ‘Slow’, Dim is ‘No’. I learned Dim from the signs on the campsite toilets. As in ‘No Smoking’, which begs the question, what could you set light to in the toilet that wouldn’t be easy to put out? You have access to quite a bit of water in there. One of the sites had a sign in the shower reading, ‘No Wetsuits’, well, duh!

Sarah Down The Road popped in for tea this afternoon. I think she is one of the coolest women I know. She is ‘straight’ and knows about football!. More than that she actually meets and works with Premiership managers, how cool is THAT?!
She is great for listening to my peculiar rants against the world and can usually put them into some psychological context! More often than not, we agree. Which helps!
Today, it was the matter of navy blue trousers and brown shoes. How wrong is that? Listen people, they do not go!
It’s the same thing as women who wear black bras under white blouses. Why would you do that?
Another one that really REALLY annoys me is men in nice suits with one side of their trousers tucked in their sock. It’s sloppy. Even worse, if their shoes are all scuffed up and un-polished. Total slovenliness.
People who leave the prices on the bottom of their shoes also get on my tits!

Housemates. Yet AGAIN there are 5 packs of lard in the fridge, in various states of disrepair, but no cheese or eggs. Whoever has the lard habit, get it under control for fuck’s sake!

Welsh Wales

The misadventures with the van continued. About 24 seconds from Fareham one of the driver’s side mirrors fell off. Nothing hit it, we hit nothing, it just popped off and became part of the M27 detritus.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We got to Hay on Wye and our traditional ‘shrooming patch, only to discover a thousand sheep had beaten us to it. Not a one was to be found. It was here, in the pissing rain, I discovered I hadn’t packed my coat so we aimed for Brecon and Millets.
While I’m on the subject of sheep. Most animals get their colouring from some sort of need to be camouflaged. What are sheep camouflaged against? Perhaps snow but that is not year round and if you’re the black sheep, you’re fucked. The same with cows, especially those black and white ones. I would also like to know who the first person was to look at cows udders and think, “I’m gonna give them a tug and see what happens”.

Our first stop was at a place called Rhandir-Mwyn, a few miles from Llandovery. A really nice campsite with about 10 other ‘people’ and no kids!
It was here that Rob voiced concerns about air flow and quality during the night. I suggested that with the van being German in construction and given their expertise with gassing, we should be quite safe as it seemed unlikely they would kill themselves. The same with the onboard gas oven.

We stayed for a couple of nights then headed for St David’s. St David’s has the distinction of being the smallest city in the UK. Population 1,797. We stayed on a site a stones throw from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. I did the walk and found St Non’s Well and the place where St David was born. St Non was his Mum and apparently gave birth to him during a storm on the top of the cliffs.
Really bleak and open place. As we all know, to become a Saint some sort of miracle has to be performed. St David’s happened at Llandewi Brefi! Yep, the very same one of Little Britain fame!. According to legend, a few of the crowd couldn't hear or see him, so the rock he was standing on just grew up out of the ground.

Apart from the TOTAL lack of ‘shrooms it was a good trip! Other mood altering drugs were along with us! Thank Christ. I also found out that the Welsh word for Bowls is 'Bowlio'! I'm going to be using that from now on, it's lovely.

Psychonauts

How boring is shaving your legs?
I hate it and I’m crap at it. They look like a butcher's window when I have finished and I resent the fact I have to do it.
I never used to bother until the day my Dad was doing some building work in my house. I came down the stairs in shorts and Tee shirt to find my father in full ‘Builder Mode’… ie … sat with mug of tea, a ciggie, reading The Sun and basically doing fuck all!
He looked up smiled, looked at my legs and said,
“ Fuck me love!, are you on steroids?”
That did it for me… I never let the leg topiary get out of hand again.

The reason for the shaving is that I’m going away in the camper van again. It’s to celebrate my friend Rob’s birthday which fortunately coincides with the start of the Mushroom season!! So we are on a mission and I don’t want him being horrified by my legs.
The Drugs Bill 2005 turned us into criminals. As ’shrooms are under the same classification as Heroin, Crack and Cocaine.
That means the possibility of 7 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine for possession. Life in prison if we supply them.
These are for personal use.
Mushroom use can be traced back to 7000BCE through statues and cave paintings in the Sahara. Most of the central American tribes used them in their rituals, some calling it Teonanactl, “Flesh Of The Gods”. They were used for divination and for intercession with the spirits. That is what I like about their effects (on me), the feeling that you are part of something so much bigger. I love the giggling, the visuals and the total loss of time. You got to ’pack for the trip’ though. I mean, you've got to be in a good mood, listen to great music or read books that will make you think. If you are feeling down and have just watched a load of horror movies, don’t expect a good time!
I once tripped with a couple who spent the whole time running around the Welsh hills naked and giggling. Another who saw angels and spent 3 hours singing with the ‘heavenly host’. Was most surprised when they knew Kokoma and A Fool Such As I. But then again, why wouldn’t they?
I had a line from a poem just going round and round in my head, ‘… and through it all a sense of G-d, which lifts my soul above the sod….’ It’s different for everyone but still a community activity.

Just hoping that Global warming hasn’t claimed The Liberty Cap and our searches are fruitful.

Crisp-e, when you move out, you are supposed to take ALL your stuff!! Eeeesh.

I’ll catch you all in about 5 days or when I return to this plane.