Author Archives: Jamie Andrew
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‘You’ll find that one in the ‘Vaginal Fantasy’ section, Sir.’
What’s happened to book genres recently? We knew where we were with Western, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Adventure, and the like, but now the branches of the Genre Tree bear the fruit of some strange and confounding sub-genres. One that caught my eye recently was Vaginal Fantasy.
What’s that then? Any book written by Derek Acorah? It got me wondering, and I imagined a few possible explanations for the phrase. At first I thought Vaginal Fantasy might be a whole sub-genre written for women who spend their lives dreaming of possessing increasingly absurd and far-fetched vaginas.
‘And so, as the sun set behind the hills of Dakota, I squatted in the half-dark, wishing with all of my heart that my fanny could be a leopard. In the morning, my wish had come true, and Tiddles, my pet cat, had paid the ultimate price.’
Perhaps it is the vaginas themselves that are fantasising:
‘Oh what a tortured cunt am I! How I dream of art, of culture, of music! What music I could play as a pianist, were I not condemned to be rammed by one… if only the world could hear me perform I know it would show its appreciation. Oh, how I long for that clap!’
(This next bit hinges on you pronouncing the word ‘vaginal’ in your head so that it rhymes with ‘Lionel’. Potato, pota-toe.) Or is Vaginal Fantasy the latest instalment of the weird Japanese video game series, but with a mingey twist? If so, it’s begging for a Pokemon cross-over.
But, no, unsurprisingly, it’s none of these things. A book qualifies as Vaginal Fantasy if its intended readership comprises the sort of women who want a dash of porn with their schmaltzy romance. I suppose it’s just a snazzier way of saying ‘erotic fiction’. Thrills and Boom, if you like. Or Thrills and Broom, if you’re feeling really, really adventurous: JK Rowling take note.
‘I just made up the Titticus Outticus spell for a laugh. Who knew it would actually work, Hermione?’
Incidentally, JK, if you’re reading this, sweetheart, I’ve come up with a few ideas you can use if you want to do a Vaginal Fantasy version of Harry Potter – squeeze a few millions more out of the franchise before everyone gets swept away by the next big thing in young adult publishing, which will probably be a fantasy romance about a time-travelling, sex-mad college kid who just happens to be a flesh-eating zombie. Anyway, here are my suggestions for new, sexy Harry Potter titles:
Mary Squirter and the Thrill Officer’s Bone
Hairy Botter and the Chained Bear Secretes
Old Harry Scatter and the Pensioners of Ass-Kablam!
Hell, JK, why be so subtle? Why not just go the full hog and call it:
Harry Potter Goes Absolutely Fucking Bongo Mental and Pumps Everything That Moves, Even Dumbledore, And I’m Talking About the One That Died AFTER He Died
If more Scottish writers get in on the act then we could have our own sub-sub genre, simply called ‘Fanny-tasy.’ Anyway, 50 Shades of Grey is a good example of Vaginal Fantasy, although, having endured some of its chapters, I’ve decided that if a woman wants the book to have a sexy effect on her vagina then she should probably just roll it up and fud herself daft with it.
~~~~~
I stumbled across another sub-genre a few years ago as I was wandering zombie-like around 24-hour Asda. When passing through the book aisle my eyes chanced upon a ticket on a shelf that read: ‘Misery 3-Pack.’ Misery 3-Pack? Who the Hell thinks to themselves, ‘Ooh, I’ve got a wee night to myself here. Get the fire on, put my feet up, get a book out, all cosy. And do you know what I’m hankering after? A nice bit misery, that’s the ticket.’
And not just one chunk of misery: but a three pack! Human history is a long, bitter struggle for survival, throughout which we’ve made it our mission to remove as much misery as possible from our existence, largely through advances in sanitation, medicine and technology. And now, as most of us in the West are privileged to live in an era of comparative safety and luxury, we’re turning to misery as entertainment? What a peculiar little species we are.
Books in this genre are usually autobiographical, and always harrowing; tales of abuse endured and survived; stories that would make even Hitler reach for a box of hankies (although he probably did reach for a box of hankies when his lieutenants reported mass Jew deaths to him; using them to mop up something other than tears, I’d imagine). Typically, Misery Lit books contain sentences like this:
‘It was then I realised, as granny tethered me to a rat in the dungeon and prepared the greased javelin for my helpless starfish, that we probably weren’t going to Disneyland after all.’
As with sex, there’s big money in misery. I wish I could write some Misery Lit. The trouble is, before you can do that you need to have suffered quite a horrific childhood, so that you can draw from those experiences. And my childhood was quite decent. Not perfect – whose is? – but broadly speaking I had quite a comfortable, lower-middle-class upbringing, during which I never feared for my life, or wondered where the next meal was coming from. And the point is this: if my mum had taken the time to beat and shag me, I could’ve been a fucking millionaire by now. Selfish bitch.
50 Shades of Jew – Part 1
My tribute to the work of EL James, written in the same style… but set in 1940s Germany. General Grey had asked to see me at Nazi HQ and I was so nervous. That morning I’d made myself some toast, spread the butter and then put it in my mouth. I then chewed the toast until it became wet and spongy between my lips and then what else could I do but swallow that toast? I get so nervous when I’m eating toast because I’m so awkward. The toast usually makes me so nervous when I’m eating it that I become like a young deer and drop it, awkwardly. Why is everybody else better at eating toast than me? No, no. I mustn’t think like that. My friend Gertie was with me. ‘Do you want some toast, Gertie?’ I asked her. She is beautiful and sleepy and tall and likes to wear green trousers and a nice white blouse with cuffs that look that way that cuffs do when people wear them. ‘Yes,’ said Gertie. ‘I would like some toast.’ So I made her some toast.
The General’s office was in a big glass, steel and sandstone building, with lots of steel, glass and sandstone. I was intimidated and nervous and was also feeling a little awkward and intimidated. Why are you so stupid, Anastasia Frank? There’s no need to feel so awkward, nervous and intimidated, the voice in my head told me. But it was too late. I was already feeling very, very nervous, intimidated and awkward.
I walked into the building and found that it was full of beautiful, blonde women with blue eyes, and also lots of beautiful, blonde men with blue eyes. Was there some kind of rule at Nazi HQ that they could only employ beautiful, blonde people with blue eyes, I wondered? They made me feel awkward, nervous and intimidated and my heart was beating so fast that it was like a bat out of hell reaching terminal velocity on its way up towards the stars on the back of a rollercoaster. God, why did I have to look so frumpy and Jewish?
‘Sit down,’ said one of the blonde women.
‘So you want me to sit down here?’ I asked nervously, playing with my long, brown hair.
‘Yes. That would be prudent at this time.’
‘And where would you like me to sit?’ I asked humbly.
‘In the chair,’ she replied, making it clear that she thought she was above me.
‘You would like me to sit in this chair?’ I asked awkwardly.
‘Yes.’
‘This one?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘You’d like me just to sit here on this chair?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘OK. I will,’ I said, playing with a piece of my long, brown hair. Nervously.
‘Are you enjoying our long, protracted conversation, Ana Frank?’
‘Yes, I guess. What I like most about it is that not a single part of it seems superfluous in any way.’
‘I am glad that we are in agreement on this.’
‘I would be glad, too, if it wasn’t for how nervous I’m feeling right now.’
‘Would you like some toast?’ she asked.
‘Do you have any soup?’ I replied, regretting the words that had sprinted from my mouth the second they had started running through the air like some runner running a race, and wishing that the ground would open up and swallow me whole like a great big throat.
‘We don’t have any soup,’ she replied, raising a suspicious eyebrow.
~~~
God, what will General Grey look like, I thought to myself, as I nervously fiddled with my hair. To be at such a high rank in the German army he must be quite old. Possibly about 60, but still sexy enough, I was sure, to make it feel hot in my down below bits, out of which I pee but from which I sometimes get a hot, sudden gush of lady feelings. Holy crap, I was nervous. Why are you so nervous, Ana? You’re wearing your best maroon skirt and peach cardigan that suits you so well, after all.
‘General Grey will see you now,’ said a beautiful, blonde woman. I just about crapped myself. Holy gosh!
I was just about to rise from my seat like Icarus when an attractive young black man stepped from General Grey’s office, being manhandled by three sexy German officers. They had him in a vice-like grip, and were shouting something about ‘triggers’ to him. I didn’t quite catch it, but it sounded sexy. I wondered if I’d ever see that handsome African man again. I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure why. Something was happening beneath the satin of my undergarments, like a fish struggling to breathe in a small puddle of water. Holy crap, I was nervous.
‘Send the fucking Jew in!’ shouted the General, so coldly and sexily. I had not laid eyes on him yet, but I was sure that I could detect the ghost of a smile on his lips. Those beautiful, sculpted lips, I could see them now in the cinema of my mind, and they were having an effect on me that I couldn’t describe… or something.
I was so nervous that I did a forward roll into General Grey’s office, barrelling through a Nazi flag that was draped from the ceiling. Gee whiz, I was nervous. He stormed over sexily and ripped it from my body, casting it aside like a Honeymoon bedsheet. I felt so naked, even though I still had all of my clothes on. I looked up at him and into those eyes – god, those beautiful, attractive, cold, horrible, sexy, disgusting, vile, wonderful, multi-coloured, award-winning, tortoise-shaped, amazing, lickable, deserted, massive, steely, hungry, gorgeous, yukky, arrogant, indescribable, grey eyes – and found myself blushing, turning the same colour as a paperback copy of Animal Farm.
His office had a big wooden desk in the middle of it, and a window, and some walls, and on those walls were some pictures and that. And the floor was made of floor tiles, and they were black, and he also had a chair that I guessed was handy for him when he wanted to sit down at his desk. I found myself burningly curious to see him sit down, and I didn’t know why. You know why, Ana, said the voice in my head. No I don’t, I replied, blushing and angry at my own thoughts. I don’t know what you’re talking about! You want to see those calves, and to become his leg farmer, Ana… or something. I was angry that the voice might be right.
‘Are you gay?’ I asked him.
‘Are you a Jew?’ he replied angrily, the ghost of a smile dancing on his lips.
He was beautiful. Imagine the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen, and that was him. For some inexplicable reason I just knew that one day I’d like him to go at my womb with a Black and Decker drill and a set of Allen keys.
‘Take this, you vile, mongrel bitch,’ he said romantically, pinning a beautiful yellow star to my cardigan. ‘I’ll be coming for you in the next few days.’
So he wanted to see me again. I had never felt so happy. But did he really mean it? Oh, my world was upside down.
‘I really mean it,’ he said, the ghost of a smile on his lips, as he sexily punched out my front teeth.
50 Shades of Shite
It’s like something out of Doctor Who. All of our women have gone into a hypnotic half-coma, precipitated by the arrival of a strange and mysterious alien artefact. It came as if from nowhere, but within days had enslaved the fairer sex the world over, giving their eyes a zombified glaze and turning their brains to mulch. The artefact is a tome containing ancient and magical words which, when read, transport their readers’ minds to the 19th century, back to a time where being smacked around and hate-fucked by a rich psychopath was considered romantic.
I’m talking, of course, about 50 Shades of Grey, the first instalment in a trilogy of erotic fiction by English author EL James. The word ubiquitous was invented with this book’s arrival in mind. It’s become a full-blown fad, just like Nazism in the 30s.
Women are convincing themselves it’s the most romantic piece of pussy-twitching genius they’ve ever read. It was bad enough when all of the adult women I knew were creaming themselves over children’s author JK Rowling, but this time it’s gone too far. At least Harry Potter never tied Hermione to a piano and shoved a wand up her twat.
My girlfriend’s been ensnared. I’ve never seen a book devoured so quickly. Three books, actually, because she’s on the last one now. She’s reading EL James in bed, on the couch, on the toilet, in the car. She even read it during an argument, I shit you not. Up came the book, covering her face like a printed-and-bound middle finger. The worst thing is, she freely admits that she thinks the book is poorly written and shit (a bit like this website), but claims to be hopelessly addicted to it nonetheless. She might as well sook EL James’s words up with a syringe and then inject them into her arm.
‘Oh, but I need to know what happens next,’ she says. This isn’t a book: it’s the printed equivalent of a salacious conversation taking place between two nosy gossips over a tenement garden’s fence.
‘Ooooh, did you hear about our Anastasia?’
‘Ooooh, I know, shacking up with that rich guy.’
‘He ties her up, you know.’
‘Oooooh, that’s the least of it, I heard. Hits her with a paddle and shoves things up her muff, our Jeannie said.’
‘Oooooh, I’m lucky if my Frank even takes his socks off in bed, never mind shoving things up my muff!’
Apparently, this book is sexy, despite the opinion of one Amazon.co.uk reviewer, who wrote: ‘The fact that the book is pornographic wouldn’t bother me, if it weren’t for the fact that is sounds like sexual encounters as described by an 11-year old.’
All of the women I’ve spoken to who are reading this book claim that it gives them hot flushes of arousal, sometimes striking them in the most public of places. So, guys, if you see a red-faced woman squirming in her seat as she reads this book on the bus, get in there and try your luck. But don’t bother with any cheesy chat-up lines. Just look deep into her eyes, and then punch her hard in the tits. Honestly, this book makes me think that if they rewrite the Koran to feature spanking paddles and dildos, we’ll all be muslim this time next week. Where’s Germaine Greer when you need her?
Ladies, ladies, ladies. Have you seen a picture of the book’s author? Here it is, here. Take a good, long look at her. She’s the one who’s been giving you vaginal palpitations. Her. The sort of sexually malfunctioning wet-fannied fatty you’d find manning the jizz-fest on 0898 sex-chat lines. Do you really want to be rubbing yourself raw at night because of the fantasy world this menopausal momma has created? You might as well get your grannie to read you ‘The Tropic of Cancer’ as you do squat-thrusts on a love-egg.
But how can I say so much about the book when I haven’t even read it? True, I’m an ignorant bastard. But not for long. 50 Shades of Grey is sitting next to me on the couch, begging me to read it like the dirty slut it is. And I’m going to. Either I’ll have my hypothesis confirmed, or be completely shocked at how wrong I was, and possibly send EL James a bunch of flowers and a golden dildo. Whatever happens, I can use the book itself to spank my girlfriend raw.
Stay tuned for my fair, balanced and reasonable reaction to this fucking heap of illiterate shite.
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In the meantime, click on the link below to read ’50 Shades of Jew’, written in tribute to EL James and in an exaggerated version of her style.
Cunt of the Week (09 Jul 2012) by Jordan RA Mills
Jump on board Jordan’s Fun Bus. Final, and only, destination: Hell.
I’ve wanted to write a Cunt Of The Week piece since Jamie introduced this section of his blog, but didn’t quite get round to it. Partly this was because it would require deciding on the precise cunt I wished to afford the title, and that meant narrowing down a myriad of options. There are many cunts I have encountered, some anatomical, some abusive terms of hate, and some abstract applications of the word.
I have a couple of past bosses who are cunts, but I don’t like to write about them because it would take too long to illustrate their inherent cuntishness with innumerable examples; Edinburgh is a cunt, but I risk alienating much of the readership (and my potential comedy audience) if I pursue that. I think smokers, and the smoking ban, and cyclists, are all cunts. These are predictable, run-of-the-mill targets for the label, though. As is That Cunt Cameron, the man busily fucking up life for everybody in the UK, and I feel I would have to do some proper research to condemn him eloquently. Instead, I wrote FUCK THE TORIES across the back of a shirt, and wear it everywhere. It’s heartfelt, and something we can all agree on. Fuck them.
One American solution to the Megabus problem.
Having told you some of my considerations for the title, all of them dismissed, it is left to announce my present Cunt Of The Week. And what an utter fucking cunt I have lined up for the (dis)honour. Despite not having a TV, or even the internet (beyond the capabilities of my phone), it didn’t escape my attention that there was an incident on a Megabus the other day.
I’ve made many trips around the country in the past twelve years – up and down to London, Dundee, Edinburgh, Manchester, Nottingham, Buxton, Birmingham, for work, holidays, or for gigs. Some of these were spent in the company of friends, many more were conducted solo. Bus and coach travel on this island is a fucking nightmare at the best of times, regardless of the operator. My first ever trip down to London took eleven hours instead of (an equally unpalatable) nine; another trip down was marred by the driver blasting music all through the night, preventing us from sleeping; this was the same trip where they started to leave the service station before the scheduled time, leaving people behind.
An overnight bus trip from London to Glasgow took an hour to board, and then the double-decker broke down as we passed the Thames. And so we sat there, the engine turning over and over, before the driver eventually announced that a second bus would be joining us and we would have to transfer over to it. Twenty minutes’ later, he finally managed to get the engine going again.
On the way up the road, with no further problems, the secondary driver came up the stairs to admonish somebody for some minor misdemeanour – drinking, I think. Despite the wayward passenger apologising, the primary driver pulled onto the hard shoulder shortly afterwards, marched up the stairs to reiterate his mate’s threats (adding one about abandoning the guy at the next services), and then returned downstairs, whereupon he singularly failed to restart the bus. So it was, therefore, that a cramped and packed double-decker sat on the side of the motorway for two hours at 3a.m., again adding hours to an already unpleasant experience.
There are further personal examples too, but my complaints have always fallen on deaf ears and I long ago decided that it was always – ALWAYS – worth the extra cash to take the train or to fly instead. I cannot remember ever taking a coach trip to any part of the UK and disembarking thinking, ‘What a wonderful journey, I enjoyed that.’ Naw. It just doesn’t happen.
The new Hamlet ad, perhaps?
This week’s cunt, then, is whoever took it upon themselves to prolong the misery of an entire coachload of passengers by seeing something ‘suspicious’ (in the form of an electronic cigarette: witchcraft, I suspect, to some of the cretins who populate this sorry excuse for a nation). Instead of challenging the person, or quietly alerting the driver, they managed to get the bus pulled over, caused the motorway to be closed in both directions, and get responded to by – at the BBC’s estimate – 24 armed response officers, 18 fire appliances, 25 police vehicles, 4 ambulances, 2 bomb disposal units, and 2 sniffer dogs. That’s cuntery that you can quantify right there.
Is THIS how it happened? Full, second-by-second reconstruction to follow.
Whoever you are, well done for being such a spineless cunt that you couldn’t simply ask, ‘Excuse me, what are you doing?’ and instead grassed an innocent person up to a fucking bomb squad. Everyone on the coach was made to leave it with guns trained on them, and as someone who grudges the slightest delay caused by a fuck-witted backward passenger, I can only begin to imagine the sheer hatred I would have for you had I been on that bus.
I hope you are suitably embarrassed, you time-wasting cunt.
SOURCES:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18738402
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-18728246
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-18728303
Jordan RA Mills
THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER Jordan R.A. Mills writes lots, some would say too much, but he is mostly a good cunt and so people tolerate his wordy indulgence. He keeps a blog about his stand-up comedy adventures – http://jramills.wordpress.com/author/jramills/ – and recently wrote an acclaimed short satire of the medium, which was filmed and can be watched here: http://vimeo.com/41548848
Jordan is perhaps best known for devising and producing the Children’s ITV series ‘Gangsta Troll’, which featured the aforementioned troll and his two best mates: an owl who wore gold medallions, and chain-smoked with the help of a terrified sparrow; and a labrador called ‘Big Dave’, who could scratch hip hop records. Everyone’s favourite episode was the one where Gangsta Troll had a rap battle in the street against a wise-cracking pigeon. The series was cancelled when Jordan produced the episode ‘ABC, Open Wide For Me’, in which Gangsta Troll took lots of magical meth that caused him to shit letters of the alphabet into a policeman’s mouth.
Jordan died in 1987.
FOLLOW JORDAN ON TWITTER: @JRA_Mills
Blakey the Jakey: A Modern Scottish Fairytale – The Conclusion
The story so far: as we prepare for the concluding chapter of the Blakey saga, we find our hero in his grandma’s house. He’s lost his money, his family, his self-respect (what little he possessed) and now grandma is the only one who can help him turn things around. In a nutshell: he’s fucked. Or is he? (yes, yes he is)
Catch up with Part 1 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/
Catch up with Part 2 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/14/btjp2/
Catch up with Part 3 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/22/btjp3/
Catch up with Part 4 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/28/btjp4/
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As Grandma listened, with a mounting sense of boredom, to Blake’s tale of business acumen gone wrong, she occupied herself by burning a chunk off of the armchair and crumbling it into a large cigarette paper.
This was because all of Grandma’s furniture, from the armchair to the sideboard to the footrest to the mantle-piece, was made out of massive, sculpted blocks of cannabis resin. Her footrest alone had a street value of thousands.
‘So, ye sold yer maw’s car tae some jakey at the market, eh? Ye daft wee bastard,’ laughed Grandma, rolling the rest of her fancy cigarette into a perfect cone shape.
‘Aye,’ sighed Blake. ‘and ah cannae go hame till I’ve goat the cash back. She’ll kill me, gran.’
‘Take yin ae ma shelves,’ she said, pointing behind her, ‘Ye’ll make gid profit.’
‘Thanks, gran, that’s magic,’ smiled Blake, clapping his hands with delight.
Grandma indulged herself in a moment of thoughtful inhalation. ‘Aye, son,’ she began, exhaling a jet of sweet-scented smoke in his face, ‘But if ye dinnae pay me back in a week yell get yer knees broken.’
Blake nodded.
‘Ah mean it. Business, family or no. Ye’ll be on crutches.’
Blake actually rose and kissed his grandma. On the forehead, though. And quickly.
The blaring wail of police sirens assaulted his ears before the sound slowed and died, like the batteries had failed. A high-pitched squeal then made way for an echoed-clicking as a policeman’s voice bellowed through a loudspeaker.
‘We know you’re in there, Grandma, the game’s up.’
‘Fuck,’ she lamented.
‘Ho, you, ah didnae lament,’ said an irritated grandma to Jamie Andrew as he wrote her words on this screen, ‘and ah’m no irritated, ah’m fuckin’ furious. Efter ah escape from the police ah’m gonnae come efter you and knock fuck out of you.’
Jamie was certain that Grandma wouldn’t survive her encounter with the police.
‘Third wall?’ laughed Grandma, ‘Jamie Andrew, ah’ll pit you through the fourth, fifth, sixth and fuckin’ seventh wall, ya cunt!’
Anyway, Grandma leapt from her seat and wrenched a shelf from the sideboard, handing it to Blake. Blake accepted it and tucked it firmly into his jacket. The boy looked like he was half a turtle’s head away from destroying his boxer shorts.
‘Get oot the back door and run, Blakey,’ she implored, ‘and take this tae.’
She handed him the cone from her mouth, slapped him on the back and swiftly ushered him towards the kitchen.
As Blake threw open the back door and began his rush into Grandma’s garden, and the hedgerow and park beyond, he could hear her loading her pump-action shotgun and striking up a dialogue with the officers out front.
‘Right, little pigs, come get it!’
‘Grandma, if you don’t let us in we’ll be rough, we’ll be tough and we’ll blow your door down.’
‘No by the hairs oan ma sticky big baws!’
***
And so Blake merrily zig-zagged his way through the streets, selling chunks of his shelf along the way until a long line of pink-eyed, crisp-munching pot-heads were shadowing him like a dragon’s tail. The only sounds that could be heard were a hundred or more people crunching Monster Munches, snapping off segments of Dairy Milk bars and frantically trying to re-arrange their JSA appointments on their mobile phones.
‘Follow that wee laddie,’ they shouted.
Blake happily puffed and sucked on his cone: the more it burned, the slower he and his vast procession of stoners became. With stacks of tens, twenties and fifties poking out of his jacket pockets, the happiness overwhelmed him and he began humming, shouting and singing pro-IRA songs, all the while mimicking the playing of a flute.
Children saw the procession and hollered with glee: ‘It’s the pie-eyed Piper of Hampden!’ And they followed.
‘Wait a minute,’ said a confused bystander. ‘Isn’t it more the other side that’s traditionally associated with flute-playing? This muddled sectarian reference doesn’t make any sense!’
‘It’s called creative license, you picky prick,’ said another bystander.
‘It’s called thon Jamie Andrew bein’ a daft cunt,’ giggled grandma as she thundered down the road with her shotgun. ‘And ah’m no gigglin’, ya fuckin’ smart arse!’
***
Blake arrived back at his family home with more than enough money for a new car and a nice holiday. He was eager to make his mother proud and happy. And having a roof over his head and not getting his throat slit was a bonus, too.
‘Hello,’ he shouted, fingers prising open the letterbox. ‘Maw?’ he shouted through it again. ‘Aw, YUK!’ Blake wiped away his piss from earlier with disgust.
Eventually, just as Blake had started kicking the door with all of his might, it opened to reveal his mother, half-naked and with a large half-naked bear of a man by her side.
‘Aw, it’s you,’ she snarled. ‘Thought I told ye no tae come back.’
‘But maw,’ beamed Blake, holding up the money, ‘I goat aw the cash back. Double. Triple even! In fact, ah widnae be surprised if it wiz qua… kawrd… kwardroo… fuckin’ four times as much!’
His mother snatched the money from his hands and stuffed it in her blouse. ‘Gid,’ she smiled, ‘But ye can still piss oaf, because ah met a new man, we’re gettin’ mayried and we’re movin’ tae a different toon.’
‘Bit…’ Blake was aghast. He stared up at the big fellow bear-hugging his mother. ‘You’re the…you’re that bouncer fae the nightclub,’ said Blake.
‘Aye,’ the big man replied, ‘Yer maw was oot dancin’ last week an she loast yin aye er orthy-pedic shoes, fir er corns and that. I kinna thought it wiz hers so ah brought it roond the day, she tried it oan, it fitted and then…well…’
He winked.
‘Then he telt me he had a few boab and pumped us on your bed, ye wee dick,’ beamed his mother, before slamming the door in Blake’s face.
***
Blake found himself sitting back on the grass where all of this had started. He passed the time throwing stones at the neighbours’ cars and listening to his mother’s shrieks of delight from the house.
Before long he felt a large hand on his shoulder.
‘BAD DAY, LITTLE MAN?’ asked the genie.
‘Aye, somethin’ like that.’
‘TELL ME ABOUT IT. I HAD TO QUIT MY JOB TODAY. STRESS. I’M OFF ON ILL HEALTH, CONSIDERING EARLY RETIREMENT.’
‘Aye?’ replied Blake, not really interested; too busy staring at some teenage temptress teetering across the road, all tits and legs. ‘How wiz London, ye ken, wi they seven wee guys in the car?’
‘IT STARTED OFF QUITE BADLY, A BIT MUCH TO TAKE. I FELT BETTER ABOUT IT ALL ONCE I’D DISEMBOWELED THEM AND FED THEIR INNARDS TO THE DOGS, THOUGH. GUESS I’M NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS SORT OF WORK ANYMORE.’
‘Dunno whit ah’m gonnae do either, like. Nae hoose, nae family, nae money.’
‘TELL YOU WHAT,’ smiled the genie, ‘HOW ABOUT I GRANT YOU ONE MORE WISH, ON THE HOUSE. ANYTHING. ANYTHING YOU WANT. I’LL GRANT YOU MY LAST WISH. GO ON, KNOCK YOURSELF OUT.’
Blake stared on as the girl’s tight buttocks swayed out of view. He looked up at the genie with a relieved smile and then back down at the ground. He was thinking hard.
‘COME ON, ANYTHING. MONEY, FAME, WOMEN, POWER, AN ISLAND, A COUNTRY, A HIT RECORD, THE PLAYBOY MANSION, AN ARMY, A PLANET, THE UNIVERSE? ANYTHING! USE YOUR IMAGINATION! HONESTLY, ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING! I WANT TO HELP YOU.’
Blake stood up, full of hope and excitement, finding it hard to restrain the impulse to grab and kiss the genie.
‘It’s goat to be money,’ laughed Blake, jumping with delight, ‘I wish I wiz the richest person in the whole world.’
Blake stopped and stood deathly still, screwed his eyes up expectantly and tensed his shoulders. He expected to open his eyes to see a fortress of gold surrounding him, a throne at his rear and all the women of the world lying like a naked, writhing carpet at his feet. He opened them and all he saw was a giant middle finger pressed into his face.
‘SWIVVEL, YOU LITTLE BITCH. WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, A FUCKING FAIRY TALE?’
Pouf. And he was gone.
Blake went off in search of some more Buckfast. Not to rub this time. Just to drink.
THE END
Cunt of the Week (02 July 2012) by Euan Meikle
Greetings fellow citizens. When Jamie asked me to nominate a Cunt Of The Week, I had to think long and hard (two words not normally found in the same sentence as Jamie Andrew). This world has a plethora of ‘see you hen teas’ to choose from, names such as Jeremy Clarkson, George Osbourne and Pastor Fred Phelps all came to mind as being worthy of weekly cunthood. However, I decided not to waste time venting bile on such small fry and so have opted to line up her Majesty the Queen in my crosshairs (metaphorically speaking, of course, as no doubt MI5 are taking notes).
Firstly, I want to state that I don’t believe Elizabeth Windsor, an 84 year old granny, who no doubt loves her friends, family and corgis, is a particularly bad person. She’s certainly not up there with Hitler, Freddy Krueger or whoever came up with the Go Compare adverts. My beef is with this imaginary entity that centuries of tradition and ritual, pomp and circumstance have created: The Queen.
It gets my goat that in the 21st century a perfectly ordinary woman, with the standard number of heads, legs and genitals, is somehow perceived as superior to the rest of us purely because some of her very distant ancestors won a few battles. Since Tharg hit Zog over the head with a club in order to steal his woolly mammoth burger, humans have always tended towards hierarchies of some sort. However, in this day and age, surely our leaders ought to have to earn the power, respect and fancy hats that come with the position.
The weirdness of the whole concept is best summed up by taking a look at ‘God Save the Queen’ (the original, not the Sex Pistols’ song). I’m not even going to go into the offensive verses about ‘rebellious Scots to crush’, and ‘beating up Welshmen who look at you a bit funny.’
This song is essentially a request that God, who made the whole universe and all of time and space and reality, take time out from his busy schedule to take a personal interest in the health and well-being of this one, wee old lady. Later verses get even more surreal, imploring the almighty to rescue her from any potential assassins, and even interfere in the politics of rival nations. One can imagine God sitting on a cloud somewhere, thinking: ‘Well, I really ought to do something about cancer, and the whole Syria situation is getting a bit sketchy, but my top priority has to be showering my choicest gifts on Lizzy and confounding the knavish tricks of the French.’
Unfortunately it seems we’re going to be stuck with the royals for some time yet, barring them being outed as giant lizards from another planet. Just remember, as Johnny Rotten once sang: ‘those tourists are money.’
THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER: Euan Meikle was the first man in western Europe to successfully have full sexual intercourse with a musk ox. Ironically, given his hatred for the title, The Queen wanted to recognise this feat and give Euan a Knighthood for ‘Services to Extraordinary Acts of Beastiality.’ Euan now lives in Stirling, Scotland, with the musk ox, and their three children. He spends his time making the kind of music they play in Guantanamo Bay to get the terrorists to confess, and you can listen to it in all of its electronic glory, here: http://soundcloud.com/yuan-mekong.
FOLLOW EUAN ON TWITTER: You can’t: he isn’t on Twitter, the technophobic slag.
Cunts of the Month – CoTW Retrospective
Welcome to our first monthly Cunt of the Week retrospective. Below the ugly mugs of last month’s guest writers are their names and their nominated Cunt. Click on the picture you want, and prepare to be transported to their rants.
Tam Wotherspoon – NORTH CAROLINA
Rik Carranza – MATTEL
Fraser Edwards – REAL ALE DRINKERS
Richard Hunter – ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL
The Rain in June Falls Mostly on the Toon: Grangemouth Gala Day 2012
We just don’t do carnivals, fairs or fetes with as much aplomb or on the same grand scale as the Americans. Maybe it would help if we smiled occasionally, but we’re genetically incapable of such a facial contortion. We Scots would only smile if God proved his existence once and for all by a) reaching a thumb from Dover to Berwick and squashing the English like woodlice, and then b) rounding off the miracle by replacing the North Sea with heroin.
Or, at a pinch, we’d smile if there was a special episode of ‘You’ve Been Framed’ in which each and every video featured David Cameron being stabbed in the balls by a different angry dwarf in a kilt.
Yes, the Americans like a good smile. If the Grangemouth Gala Day was held in California, USA, (which would be rather unlikely, I’m forced to admit) it would be a non-stop, 24-hour, noisy orgasm of vim, streamers, colour, mariachi bands and pomp, featuring half-naked back-flipping pom-pom girls – with smiles so blinding they could down aircraft – jiggling their breasts with the enthusiasm of a force 4 earthquake. There would be a 50ft-tall animatronic Mickey Mouse shooting fireworks out of its bell-end into the hungry, gaping mouth of a robot Pluto, as sixteen million children wept with joy. And somewhere, somehow, there would be guys in red bell-boy jackets playing trumpets on the backs of motorbikes – upside down and through their arses.
This year, in Grangemouth, Scotland, the Grangemouth Gala Day looked like… well, it looked like exactly what it was: a procession of miserable cunts in anoraks shuffling through the rain in search of the most suitable cliff for an act of mass suicide. It looked like there’d been a delivery of crepe paper and face-paints to a funeral march. If you haven’t visited Grangemouth before and find yourself wondering what it looks like, have a gander at the drug-riddled communities in HBO’s ‘The Wire’, but imagine that everybody’s white.
So What is the Gala Day?
Well, it’s technically a Children’s Day, which makes me a bit of a cock for slating it. It’s not really meant to be enjoyed by the likes of me, childless interloper that I am. What’ll I be doing next? Telling you how shit I found the latest episode of Sesame Street because it wasn’t nearly as good as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?
The galas themselves started off as annual celebrations for miners and mining communities, but the focus of the celebrations was shifted for the following wonderful reason:
In the late Nineteenth century, some Miners’ Gala Days were given over to children in order to reduce drunkenness.
Resources for Learning in Scotland website
And we all know how successful a strategy that turned out to be. Here’s the zinger:
Gun Terror of Oilman
A teenage thug pointed a gun at the head of a man who told him off for breaking bottles in a kids’ play area.
Gary Martin told 45-year-old oil rig worker Jim Kelly: ‘You’re dead.’
But Mr Kelly grappled Martin to the ground and got the air pistol off him, Falkirk Sheriff Court heard yesterday.
The terror attack happened on Grangemouth Gala Day in June.
Lawyer Andy Bryson said Martin was ‘exceedingly drunk’ at the gala day.
www.thefreelibrary.com
Ah, yes. The only flaw in that plan was that by 2012 all of the children would be alcoholics, too. Alcohol does indeed still play a huge part in the Grangemouth Gala Day. Like they say of the 1960s: if you can remember what happened, then you weren’t actually there. Grangemouth has other things in common with the 1960s, in that it’s full of incredibly racist people with shite haircuts taking drugs and having unfussy sex with strangers.
(actually, a joke I used to tell on-stage about Grangemouth is that it’s a lot like Amsterdam: in that it’s completely flat, and filled with drugs and whores.)
So What Happens ‘an That?
No smart alec remarks: this arch is pretty fucking cool. And The Muppets was the only TV show that made me shut up as a child.
What happens is this: each year a ‘royal family’ is assembled from one of the local primary schools, a different school having the honour of doing this each year until it’s back to the start of the cycle again. Kids at the year’s chosen school are then asked if they’d like to volunteer themselves to be one of the gala’s persons of special significance. Those who do are then whittled down by their schoolmates by means of a popularity contest, until each of the main roles are filled: Queen, Ladies in Waiting, Paiges, a Flower Queen etc.
The girl elected Queen (Republicans take note) then has the arduous task of selecting just one of her classmates to be sealed inside a BMW and slammed into a wall by a drunk driver. OK, I made that bit up.
There’s no King of the Gala Day, but one lucky boy does get to be the Prince, whose role it is to follow the Queen around muttering increasingly unhelpful racist remarks. OK, I made that bit up, too. But they should introduce that role. It’d be so easy to find viable candidates amongst the people of Grangemouth.
Dustbin Beaver is actually slang for a Grangemouth girl.
The parents of ‘the royals’ then have to spend £80 million trillion pounds building an arch display over their homes. If they’re poor, they simply steal the necessary materials, or just selotape bits of A4 paper that read: ‘ALL HAYL THE QUEAN’ to their windows. Some of the displays are incredible. You know, fairy-tale castles, enchanted forests, 1940s cinemas. And some of them are shit.
On the day itself – where it’s usually raining despite the event taking place towards the end of June – trucks filled with children (that makes it sound like a pogrom: no concentration camps are involved), and floats prepared by other schools and local businesses, and pipe bands, and brass bands, and veterans, and such like, all form a long procession through the streets, before arriving in the central park for the crowning ceremony. And, as we’ve already established, lots of people get drunk.
Oh, and there are lots of flags everywhere. Or bunting, as they call it. Which sounds to me a little too much like a sex act. And a jolly good one at that.
In closing, as I’ve already stated, it’s actually a grand day out for the folks of Grangemouth, especially for those with relatives taking part in the procession. And some of the arches have been super-awesome in this and previous years, as you’ll see from the pictures below. (OK, part of this, like with the Skinflats article, is life-insurance, but I mean it, too, honest!) Actually, my niece was in the procession this year, and she was awesome, so get that roond ye.
GALLERY
Graceland in Grangemouth, circa 2008.
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And, of course, this happens at the Grangemouth Gala Day shows every year, and must be shared with the world:
BEHOLD… COBO! Urban dance legend of Grangemouth! Enjoy the video…
Blakey the Jakey: A Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 4
The story so far: Blakey is having a bad day. He’s been kicked out of his mum’s house, lost all of his money, and missed out on a chance to exploit a genie. Things are looking bleak for Blake for him. Still, at least he’s not part of the Seven Little Wasters’ crew. What a bunch of bawbags they are. Blakey’s last resort is to fall upon the mercy of his grandmother, and that’s where he’s heading now… with a mounting sense of trepidation. You’ll understand why in a minute or so. She’s a ‘character’, and we know what it means when we describe someone in those terms: that they’re fucking mental.
Catch up with Part 1: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/
Catch up with Part 2: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/14/btjp2/
Catch up with Part 3: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/22/btjp3/
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Grandma’s council house was the only property in the street that was still decked out with Christmas fairy-lights – in March. They stayed flashing and pulsing three hundred and sixty five days a year. It was always Christmas time at grandma’s.
Wooden animals, painted bright and bold, were planted like trees in the over-grown grass. A pink flamingo, leg cocked, sat in the centre of the lawn, surrounded by cheeky monkeys, laughing lions and timid tigers. Little bonzai trees, at the foot of the hedge, lined the inside perimeter of the grass. Red balloons, at least fifteen of them, bounced and floated everywhere. On the front door, a varnished, oval plaque proclaimed, ‘Number 89. Gingerbread House. Catch Me If You Can – You Scum.’
Blake shook his head at the tacky display and gave a furtive glance around as he approached the door. Blake never liked admitting the blood connection between him and Grandma. She could be a tough old bitch but…
‘This yin’s aboot ready fur the nuthoose,’ he scowled, kicking a balloon out of his way.
Blake rapped loudly and quickly on the door, jamming the buzzer with his free hand at the same time. A jet of pressure cascaded down from his shoulders to his toes. He had to get in and out of public view, or he felt like he’d explode.
‘Come oan, come oan!’
Beep! Beep!
Blake heard the sounds of hip-hop hammering the air. He turned around to see a gleaming red hatchback sports car parked on the road outside of his grandma’s gate. The seven little wasters were piled in the front and back, bottles of Buckfast clasped in each of their hands. A large man with a blue turban sat in the driver’s seat – with a very unhappy look on his face.
‘Ho, Blakey boy! Is zat yer girlfriend’s hoose?’
Laughter.
‘Ho, ho! Wait till we tell orra boys in oor street! They’ll pish themsel’s!’
‘Ah didnae ken there wiz a Disney World in this toon!’
Shrill whoops of laughter.
‘Whose yer girlfriend: Minnie Moose?’
Whoop, whoop!
‘Well, cannae hang aroond. We’re aff tae London, go tae Stringfellas an that.’
‘Aye, an Soho! Get wee Harry’s end away!’
‘Ma end’s away, ye cheeky bastard.’
‘Settle, Harry, wankin’ disnae coont, pal!’
‘KILL ME, PLEASE. MAKE IT QUICK.’
Ho, ho. Whoop! Whoop! It was becoming like an episode of Rikki Lake written by Irvine Welsh.
‘Aye, we’ve goat a million poonds, ya dancer!’
A bottle of Buckfast came spinning from the back seat of the car towards Blake.
‘Catch.’
Blake did, firmly between his two hands.
‘Least we can dae.’
‘Noo ye can get pished up and sook yer granny’s baws!’
The car screeched away. Blakey fired off a few salvos of expletives, but the seven little fuckers were too far away to be hit by them.
The door to Grandma’s house opened and Blake shoved his way in before daylight had a chance to cast its revelatory spotlight upon Grandma. The door slammed shut behind him. Before him, fat arms extended and proportionately fat lips pouted.
‘Come gee yer Grannie a big kiss, Blakey.’
‘Eh…nut. Ah dinnae think so.’
She snatched the Buckfast from his hands and kissed it instead.
‘Hey, whit are ye…,’ Blake began to protest.
‘Dinnae start shit, Blakey, or ye’ll be through that wa’.’
Blake let out a sigh of defeat, shrugged his shoulders, and then laid his rucksack by the door. Blake’s grandma placed the Buckfast on the kitchen counter and then returned to the hall.
‘Dinnae mention it, gran.’
Blake’s gran wore a criminally short skirt, orange nylon tights, stilt-like high heel shoes, a floral patterned boob tube, and her face contained enough make-up to allow a clown to feel natural. This might have been acceptable attire if, for one, they had both lived in an alternative universe (or San Francisco); for second, if grandma had been younger; for third, if she didn’t have tattoos encrusting half of her body, a large scar cascading down her cheek, and biceps to make a post-spinach Popeye sweat; and, most importantly, fourthly: if grandma had been a woman. A fat cigar was jammed into the left side of grandma’s mouth, dripping hot ash onto the carpet and sending plumes of acrid smoke up Blake’s nostrils.
‘Get ben that kitchen and get the tea on or I’ll gee ye a fisting ye’ll never forget.’
Grandma burst through into her living room leaving Blake, ashen white, to deal with the tea.
The kitchen door was slightly ajar and Blake could hear voices drifting through as he filled the kettle with water.
‘My, grandma, what big hands you have.’
‘Aye, a’ the better tae grab ye with!’
‘My, grandma, what a big mouth you have.’
‘Aye, a’ the better tae plluggg mummble gobbo shlurp en floosre…’
‘Ho, grandma, mind thay big teeth on ma jed, will ye?’
‘Mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmm.’
‘My, grandma, what’s this huge thing? What an absolutely massive big, fat, hard co…’
The screeching whistle of the boiling kettle never did announce itself at a more appropriate moment. Blake kicked the kitchen door firmly shut and tried to stymie his third panic attack of the week.
Grandma eventually entered the kitchen, adjusting her bra and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Blake could hear the front door as it slammed shut. A set of lipstick-stained teeth grinned at Blake.
‘Just seeing yer grandpa off,’ stated Grandma in her deep, husky voice. Grandma whipped a tenner out of her bra and shoved it into Blake’s hand. ‘Take that, son, yer grandpa owed me that fir a job ah did fir him last week.’
Blake gagged back a faint dribble of vomit.
Blake’s grandpa was also a man. His grandpa visited his grandma six to seven times a day, six days a week and managed to be a completely different man each time.
‘So whit can ah dae fir ye, Blakey, son? Ye only ever visit yer poor grandma when yer hiding fae ma sister or efter something. So which yin is it?’
‘Baith, grandma. Baith.’
‘Ah’ll bet it’s money.’
‘Aye, grandma. Jist a loan, ken?’
‘It’s no for drugs is it, Blakey?’ she asked, issuing a cold stare.
‘Naw, gran, naw.’
‘Right,’ she nodded, satisfied, ’cause there’s nae need fir that. You shid huv the gid sense to deal so ye can get them for free, ken?’
‘Aye, gran.’
‘Gid boy. Noo, get they teas, ye wee cunt, an let’s go ben the living room.’
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CONCLUDES NEXT WEEK.
Blakey the Jakey: A Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 3
The story so far: Blakey squandered the last of his family’s financial reserves on strange, magical beans – with rather a high street value – which earned him banishment from his mother’s council flat. He found a bottle of Buckfast and discovered a genie inside. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan and Blakey was left without a single wish fulfilled. Well, sort of. As we left him, he was off on a journey to his grandma’s house: his last hope. This is part 3, something you’ve probably deduced from the title of the post.
Catch up with Part 1: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/
And Part 2: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/14/btjp2/
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It was nearing lunchtime and Blake was on his way to grandma’s. The sun peeped its head out from behind a huddle of clouds, draping a warm sheen over the maze of cloned streets. Blake wiped his brow and licked his dry lips. A hackle-rising niggle began to gnaw at his limbs and head, as his bloodstream screamed out for a fag. No money though.
But there was always a way to get fags. It took him close to forty-five minutes to forage for glass juice bottles, the length and breadth of the neighbourhood, so that he could afford a packet of Mayfair with the twenty-pence-a-time glass deposits. Not a wheely-bin nor a hedge nor a single lawn was left unturned in the frantic search.
In one of the gardens along the way he saw a group of five students, four of them mad-eyed and rolling in the grass. The fifth was sparking his lighter and staring at the flame slack-jawed, as if it was the most impressive thing he had ever seen, or ever would see.
‘Wow.’
They were like a gaggle of extras from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.
‘Terry, the sky’s falling down, the sky’s falling down, man! Look!’
‘So it is! What are we going to dae? The sky’s falling doon!’
‘Some’dy huz tae tell the Queen!’
‘Christ, we have to tell somebody!’
‘Wow. Better tell them it’s green too, man.’
‘Let’s go.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Maybe that buffalo over there’ll know the way,’ whined one of them, pointing at Blake.
After suggesting that they go and procreate with themselves, Blake made his way briskly to the convenience store: rucksack, coat and arms bulging with clinking, bulky bottles.
***
Blakey went awa’ doon Chally D.
A drooling pack of seven little teenage boys – average age twelve – were crowded near the entrance to the store. A battery powered ghetto-blaster lay in their midst, pumping out the aggressive thump of American hip-hop – a musical message from one ghetto to another. Here were seven mini-Eminems in the making.
Blake watched as a gaunt young woman, clad in a sheepskin coat and a belt-like mini-skirt, took a slightly off-balanced journey across the precinct from the doors of the motel to the pub adjoining it.
The seven little hip-hoppers saw her and began wolf whistling.
‘There’s that prossie again!’ one of them jeered.
‘Look at her, she’s well off her tits on somethin’!’
‘Go’n yersel, hen!’
‘She’s a ho!’ one shouted.
‘Aye, a high ho!’
‘High ho!’ another one laughed.
‘Get yersel’s a job, ye cheeky wee buggers, off tae work yez go!’ yelled an old man at the bus stop, raising a fist and waving his walking stick.
‘Fat chance, ye auld duffer!’ one of them screeched.
The prostitute waddled through the double swing-doors of the bar, disappearing with two fingers aloft, directing them back at the menacing rabble.
‘Aye, we ken whaur they fingers hiv been, hen!’
Riotous laughter erupted.
As soon as they saw Blake approaching the doors of the shop, the seven wasters flurried deeper into activity, bouncing around and howling his name out.
‘Blake, man, Blakey pal!’
‘Go’n get us a bottle ay Buckie, sir!’
‘Aye, we need Buckfast, like!’
***
It was almost a rite of passage in the town: the misappropriation of Buckfast for the too young by the almost old enough. No doubt in some distant pocket of the future, Blake’s children would be buying Buckfast for their children and so on and so forth. Almost tradition. Blake agreed to their request and took their money, which was more a fistful of coppers than a fistful of dollars.
Blake first approached the serving counter to off-load the glass bottles and then slipped the reciprocal packet of fags into his coat pocket. Result! As he sauntered off and started perusing the drinks aisle, Blake received a few askance glances from the husband and wife duo behind the till.
‘What the Hell is he doing?’ whispered the wife.
‘I’ve no idea, Margaret,’ replied Johnny, her husband. ‘Each generation’s getting scarier than the next.’
They kept watching him, glad that they had never had children of their own.
‘Come oan, ye wee buggers, I ken yer in there,’ Blake snarled, rubbing vigorously at every bottle on the shelf. ‘Come oot! Come oot and gee me a million poonds!’
‘Shall I phone the police, Johnny?’ she whispered, a hint of fear shadowing her features.
‘No, Margaret,’ he sighed, ‘I think it’s the doctor that boy needs.’
A flash of fake ID and a sigh of relief later, Blake was presenting the Buckfast to the seven thirsty little skivers. They were characteristically grateful.
‘Effin’ magic!’ one cried.
‘Top-class, sir!’ yelled another.
‘Woooo!’ another one simply said.
‘Aye, cheers, Blake. You want a swally?’
‘Nah, better no, lads,’ said Blake, ‘ah’m goin’ tae ma grans. She’ll hae sum in the fridge, like.’
A chorus of chuckles. ‘Nice one, big man.’
‘So whit ar yoose boys goin’ tae dae?’ asked Blake, taking out a fag and jamming it in between his lips.
‘Sum guy’s gonnae meet us behind the joab centre. He’ll hae Snow White way ‘im.’
Blake raised his eyebrows. ‘Whit?’ he asked.
Seven little fingers reached to seven little nostrils and they all gave a heaving, over-exaggerated sniff before descending into manic laughter once more.
‘Snaw White,’ winked the ringleader.
Blake resumed his trek to grandma’s, shaking his head as he left behind Dopey, Flunky, Junkie, Cokey, Skin-full, Ear-full and Doc (on account of his Doctor Marten boots).
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TO BE CONTINUED
PART 4 COMING NEXT WEEK
Skinflats and the Magic Torch
The bonnie village of Skinflats.
Skinflats is actually quite a nice wee village, and I’m not just saying that incase some of its residents read this article. Well, OK, there’s a little of that. Have you seen some of the people who live there? Big leg-o’-lamb arms, match-strike chins and shotgun licences. (hack punchline alert) And that’s just the women! Do you know what Salmand Rushdie’s agent said to him when he was writing ‘The Satanic Verses’?
‘Say what you like about Mohammed, mate, but for fuck’s sake don’t slag off Skinflats.’
‘You aint from around here, are ya, boy?’
The village is surrounded by acres of fields (or, to give them their local name: the burial grounds). Those fields are to the people of Skinflats what the empty desert is to the mobsters of Las Vegas. Many a fingerless hand and a brutally disembodied boaby sleeps with the bushes up them thar fields. So, if it’s all the same with you, I’ll just say nice things. I want to be Robert de Niro in this movie; let some other daft cunt be Joe Pesci.
What I will say is this: I had the pleasure of working in Skinflat’s local shop many, many years ago, and found the village to be a lot like Brookside Close. But with slightly more laughs. And a lot more hidden corpses.
Skinflats, though, eh? What a name. It sounds like the sort of place lost hillwalkers stumble across in the dead of night, tragically unaware that its inhabitants are all horrifically disfigured mutant cannibal serial killers who live in tents made from human flesh. The sort of place whose name you’d never expect to utter without the accompaniment of terrifying, Castle-Dracula-style thunder claps. The sort of place that would make an estate agent say: ‘Well, congratulations on your land purchase. I hope Skinflats proves to be a lucrative location for your new motel, Mr Bates.’
David Beckham was so distressed when Seb Cole told him he had to go to Skinflats, that he started to morph into Bruce Forsyth.
So what was I doing there? Taking a walk down memory lane? Admiring the scenery? Scoring drugs? No, it was Olympic Torch day. The flame had been to Stirling and Falkirk that morning, and was about to be carried through Skinflats on its way to Fife and Edinburgh. The people of Skinflats were overjoyed to be having their ten minutes of fame.
‘This’ll put Skinflats on the map,’ I heard someone say. No. No it won’t. An air strike would put Skinflats on the map. Tomorrow, they won’t even be talking about this in Bo’ness, much less London. Even in fifty years time when some plucky lad who got the day off school to see the flame pass through the village tries to remember the splendour of the day, he won’t be able to differentiate this real memory from the sixteen-thousand acid flashbacks also housed in his brain. ‘I’m sure it was a zombie Colonel Gaddafi running down the street with that flame. Just as the air strike hit.’
Anyway, maybe he can just re-read this blog and it’ll all come flooding back to him. The day was nice and bright and sunny, and the whole village was bustling with people waving flags, cracking jokes, and smiling and laughing, and generally having an awesome time. I dunno; maybe they were just drunk.
Normally if you saw a guy carrying a flaming torch through Skinflats, you’d expect the rest of the villagers to be right behind him with pitchforks shouting, ‘Burn the monster!’ Or, at the very least: ‘The Sun says there’s a paedo living somewhere within a fifty-mile radius. Let’s burn the fucker who moved into number 27 last week, just incase! Anyway, he said ‘hello’ to my daughter this morning, and that’s how it starts!’
But this day was different. Even the convoy of police bikes was greeted with warm, uproarious cheers. This struck me as odd. Like George Bush being carried through Baghdad by way of a jovial mass crowd-surf. Usually the arrival of police vehicles in Skinflats causes a mass exodus, or at the very least turns the village into a fortress: with every snib on every door clicking shut, and those behind the doors jamming them up with tables and wardrobes, and blacking out the windows, like they’re preparing to survive to the end of a zombie film.
The bike cops clearly thought they were the star attraction, as they gunned it down the street giving a series of wacky waves and salutes. One cop even gave a rolling five slap down a line of children’s hands. You might be cheering now, kids, but that’s the cunt who’ll be arresting you for cocaine possession in eight to ten years – which, coincidentally, will also be your sentence.
The best thing about the torch coming through Skinflats was the traffic chaos that preceded its arrival. A long jam of angry, self-conscious people all trapped in their cars, whilst a whole village peered at them. They must have felt like they’d gone for a day out at the safari park, and broken down in the lion enclosure. I tried to stare at as many of them as possible.
The Cunta-Cola truck.
It wasn’t long before a procession of yellow Olympic vehicles came trundling through the village. Lots of cars that looked like New York taxis. And the Coca Cola truck, of course, with a gang of reps walking beside it handing out free bottles of cola. Principles be damned: it was a hot day and I was thirsty. That freebie was gubbed. I know McDonalds sponsor the Olympics, too, and was a little annoyed that they hadn’t sent a truck laden with free beefburgers. Bank of Scotland had a truck in the procession, too, with some English cunt on its open top-deck dancing like a dick to shitty pop music. No free money getting handed out, I noticed.
Nice choice of sponsors for an international sporting event: Coca Cola, McDonalds, and Bank of Scotland. ‘Hey, kids. You’re all going to be fat bastards with diabetes and no pensions. LET’S FUCKING CELEBRATE!’
Eventually the guy with the flaming torch got off of his little yellow bus, jogged for about 100 metres, everybody cheered, and then he got back on his bus again, the lazy bastard. And I’m glad I was there to see it. One day I’ll be telling my grandkids about this. Telling them how shit it was. The free Cola was good, though.
This is the best picture I could manage!
* sincere apologies to the people of Skinflats. I love you all, you know I was only having a laugh (ie, please don’t kill me – I’m trying to put you on the map!).
** Note to foreign readers of the site, especially Americans. Skinflats genuinely is a lovely village, and also the birthplace of William Wallace, so do come visit if you’re flying in to Edinburgh. Thanks, Jamie.
Cunt of the Week (18 Jun 2012) by Richard Hunter
Guest writer: Richard Hunter.
Hello. As your guest writer this week, I’ve been racking my brains for which subject to choose. Obviously, Jamie Andrew was first choice, but given that this will still be true when he next begs me to write a piece – as no-one else has submitted one yet – I’m sure we can wait for that.
So, my CUNT OF THE WEEK goes to Argyll and Bute council.
Yeah, that’s right: those cunts.
I should point out it’s for a specific reason, and if you’re on Twitter (@Tricky308, by the way) then you will probably already know why. If you live in the Argyll and Bute area then I’m guessing you have a few hundred reasons. To be specific, it’s the banning of the blog ‘Neverseconds’, which is written by an 8-year-old girl called Martha Payne.
In truth, the council only placed a ban on the taking of images. I suppose at this point I should explain.
Martha writes a daily blog, under the name Veg, at http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/ which details what she had for lunch that day; this includes a health rating, mouthful count and a picture of the food on offer. She will also collate pictures sent from other lunchtime diners around the world, and will rate their lunch, too. Our food does not stand up well by comparison!
Richard’s stage direction for this picture: {JAMIE INCLUDE PICTURE ONE HERE} {and remember to delete all theses little edit notes before you publish it you thick cunt}
The council saw fit to ban the pictures being taken because they felt Martha was taking pictures of the wrong type of food. Here’s the quote:
“The photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.”
So are they saying that Martha’s only option if she wants to keep taking photos is to upload to her blog every possible combination of dinner that day and then rate them all individually? I would think childhood obesity is enough of a problem in Scotland without forcing a little girl to eat 20 different portions for lunch, just so she can write a factually accurate blog that night. I suppose if she did take this option the council would no longer need to worry, as by day 5 her hands would be too fat to type without hitting several keys at once, and within 2 months the inevitable heart attack would cease the blog altogether.
Argyll and Bute council have also claimed that the ‘school catering staff had been left “in tears” by press coverage’ and they ‘feared for their jobs’.
Anybody else smell shite? That may well be the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve seen in type since Jamie sent me that text about how his gig ‘went well’. Does anyone with a child actually blame the dinner ladies (or catering staff, if that term offends anyone) for the dross meals that are served up? NO, of course we fucking don’t: the dinner ladies work their arses off to provide this food. And, yes, OK, it’s not to a great standard, but when they’re working with ‘Big Bob’s Chicken’ (almost 19% chicken inside) or ‘Sandy’s Sausage Meat’ (made from only the healthiest of hamsters), then how the fuck could they manage to serve perfection? If they could get the backing from the councils, who in turn decided to spend more on a child’s lunch than a prisoner’s breakfast, then perhaps the council wouldn’t be so ashamed of the blog that is clearly just showing up the horrendous shit our ( and by ‘our’ I mean ‘your’, as I have no kids) kids are being fed.
Check out these two pictures:
It’s even more embarrassing when you look at the pictures! I’m sure it wont take much guessing from you readers to figure out which of the above pictures is being served in Argyll and Bute, and which came from Spain.
The silver lining in this whole debacle is that since Friday the 15th of June the blog has had over 100,000 hits* (I’m imagining right now that Jamie is trying to work out if he can get Falkirk council to ban his site so that he can aspire to similar figures) and has raised over £30,000 for the charity this website was all about. Oh, that’s right, I never mentioned that. This blog that the C.O.T.W is taking down – and, yes, I know they were technically just banning the pictures, but as it’s a blog based around pictures of Martha’s food, it wouldn’t work terribly well without the pictures, would it? – was set up to raise money for Mary’s Meals: a small charity that serves up life-saving meals to people who have been greatly affected by the East African food crisis.
It costs around £7,000 to fund the start-up for a kitchen to help provide these life saving rations. As of Thursday morning, young Martha’s website had helped to raise £2000, with her over-all target being the seven thousand to see a kitchen opened. But by Friday night the pledge stood at a little over £30,000. Infact, if anything, the people at Argyll and Bute council have helped…
Nah, they’re still total Cunts!
‘SCOTLAND OR NOT?’ A fun new lunchtime game. HINT: if there is Irn Bru visible, it’s probably Scotland.
OK, this is the REAL picture of Richard Hunter. But he does look a little like that Mexican cunt from season 3 of ‘The Shield’.
THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER Richard Hunter is well aware that his name shortens down to DICK Hunter, and so are any audiences who have seen him perform stand up. His first gig took place in 2007, and that went so fucking well for him that he chose not to gig again in Scotland for another 4 years. He did fuck off to Australia and gig there for a while, where he realised that they think the name ‘Dick Hunter’ is just as funny as all the cunts in high school did as well.
Just yesterday Richard found out that he doesn’t live in Denny, Falkirk, but in Dunipace, Falkirk. A fact that has made not one solitary difference to his already quite pathetic life.
He would like me to point out that since he started to take stand up seriously, last JULY, he has taken part in 87 gigs, whilst my current gig count is 94, and I have been taking this seriously for nearly 2 years (closer to 18 months, if we’re being picky). I think what Richard’s trying to say is that i’m a lazy cunt.
If you want to know more about Richard, or find out how horrendous he can be with a movie-based pun, then by all means follow him on Twitter. But don’t bother adding him on Facebook. You may follow him, but you’re not his fucking friend (don’t feel sad about this: your name will be added to the list of everybody Richard has ever met)!
Richard regularly appears on-stage naked, ending his set by thrumming himself off with a little glove-puppet he calls ‘Grahamie Mandrew.’ As he ejaculates over the front row, he’s been known to shout: ‘BROLLY UP, YOU FUCKING WHORES! IT’S RAINING DICK JUICE!’ Please bring a sou’wester if you come to see him perform.
FOLLOW RICHARD ON TWITTER: @Tricky308
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Write for next week’s Cunt of the Week (CoTW): http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/01/cunt-of-the-week/
Remember the Spectrum, Grandpa?
I wrote something about growing old earlier this week, which this piece complements. It’s an oldie, if you’ll excuse the very shite and very unintended pun. As I was scouring through files on my laptop I came across this little age-related-rant that I whipped up seven years ago, inspired by Terry Christian… – Jamie
Good for you, being all hip and that, grandma. Unfortunately, your old fucking fingers are now stuck like that.
I heard an advert on the radio the other night. Naturally, because I’m so old, I had to turn up the volume to hear it. That was only after a little clenching and unclenching of my arthritic fingers, just to warm them up. It’s impossible to twiddle the controls these days with the springy, cavalier ease which I recall I exhibited in my youth. Well, I can just about recall it; senile dementia is no laughing matter, you know.
I’m 25, by the way. Sure, I’m nearer thirty than twenty, and most of my friends are prepared or preparing to enter the 2.4 children phase of their lives; but am I past it? I’m still just a kid.
Not according to Terry Christian; nor to the cosmetics giant that employs him to advertise their products. The product being hocked was some sort of anti-aging face-cream for guys, and the company was Oil of Ulay, or Nivea, or something. Never matter. It was their pitch – not their product – that irked me.
Here’s the gist of it.
Probably best not to take lifestyle advice from this prick.
Terry asked whether or not I remembered the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I do. I had one. When I was five. And I loved it. Apparently, so Terry claims, fond memories of and familiarity with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum places me in the category of men who should really start to worry about the effects of ageing on their peeling, wrinkled old faces. I repeat, for the record: I am 25. 25 years old.
Don’t the executives at whatever company this is have enough of a customer-base in people who are, oh, let’s say, significantly older than me? Not to be ageist, of course; but I know a lot of people who are the same age as me and never have I regarded them as old sows and warlocks a mere fifteen minutes from the morgue.
This tactic, which seems to me like a profit-boosting pre-emptive strike, makes me fear for the future. I can just hear the greedy little buffoons in the boardroom now: ‘Let’s generate a mass hysteria about ageing and convince perfectly young, smooth-skinned people that the modern world has destroyed, or will destroy imminently, their youthful looks, and so their only hope of facial salvation lies in our safe, money-grabbing hands.’ Maybe these people – these ingenious arseholes – believe, or hope, that the wrinkled masses will begin using their product through their late teens into their dotage, and finally become so terrified to stop using it – lest they age forty years overnight and then die – that perhaps even the mortician will be persuaded to trowel some on to them as they lie rigid in their coffins.
“SO YOU’RE DEAD? IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T STILL TURN HEADS.”
Just how far down the age spectrum are these bastards willing to boldly go? I’m willing to bet a split infinitive that their pound-lust knows no limits.
‘So, how old are you?’
‘I’m six.’
‘Huh… but you look ten.’
Batty – definitely worth a hot splodge over your new 50inch HD. Look at the way the old whore handles that broom. She’s asking for it.
Can it be that the same society telling us that young people effectively run the world is also telling us that the price we pay for ruling the world is to look fifty when we’re thirty? Media and marketing cunts have spent many years convincing us on television, satellite and radio that the days of the wise old elder are over; that the old are decrepit fools who can’t keep up with the pace of channel-changing, green-hair-dyeing, sex-in-the-city-watching, metro-sexual modern life. Long live the adolescent seems to be the credo. Are we to infer that the stress of sustaining this reversal of status is burning us out?
We’re all having our mid-life crises in our twenties; we’re all on Prozac; checking in to Betty Ford clinics; going to stress counsellors; buying anti-ageing products by the bucket-load.
Has our Picture of Dorian Gray syndrome caught up with us so early?
Anyway, that’s a snack for thought. I’m off to sort out my funeral plan and jet up to the bathroom in my Stenna Stairlift. Is Last of the Summer Wine on tonight? Maybe I’ll be able to sustain my ancient erection just long enough to crack one off over Nora Batty.
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In case you missed it, here’s the piece I wrote last week about turning 32: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/13/happy-birthday/
Blakey the Jakey: a Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 2
The story so far: Young Blake’s squandered the family ‘fortune’ on magic beans, and found himself banished from his family home by his mother as a consequence. Just as he thought all was hopeless he rubbed the dust from a magic bottle and found himself face to face with a genie. Click the link below to revisit Part 1.
http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/
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Having consumed enough of the magic brew to make his mind mellow, Blake was quite ready to accept the disappearance of the local drunk and the appearance of an ancient genie in his place.
‘So ah’ve goat two mair,’ Blake stated. He knew the facts when it came to cartoons.
‘NO!’ boomed the genie again, stony faced.
‘Nut? Whit dae ye mean, nut? How no?’
‘CUTBACKS.’
‘Cutbacks?’ Blake rocked his head forward and shot a laugh out towards the ground. ‘Whit are yoo talkin’ aboot, man? Cutbacks!’
‘ONLY ONE MORE WISH, LITTLE MAN.’
Blake considered this for a moment.
‘Ah wish I hud a million wishes!’ he laughed. ‘How’s that?’
‘NICE TRY.’
‘You’ve goat tae gee me them wishes, fur ah wished fur them!’
‘DO YOU THINK YOU’RE THE FIRST ONE TO TRY THAT? WE’VE GOT LAWYERS FOR THIS SORT OF THING. ONE. MORE. WISH.’
Blake massaged his forehead with his free hand, unsure whether to laugh, cry, argue or vomit. His body felt like doing all four at once, his stomach leading the uprising.
‘Whit’s happenin’ here, sir? Ah’m believin the genie bit, but…lawyers, cutbacks…I jist…’ Blake held the bottle aloft. ‘Ah thought yoos were meant tae be in lamps, like in Aladdin an that. Fucking lawyers, man.’
Where Blake had brushed the dust off with his hand, a line of letters proclaimed, ‘BUCKFAST.’
‘ALADDIN!’ snorted the Genie, ‘THESE DAYS WE LIKE SOME JOB SECURITY. I’M NOT HIDING IN SOME DARK CAVE IN ARABIA FOR SEVEN THOUSAND YEARS ON THE OFF-CHANCE THAT SOME JUMPED-UP LITTLE PRINCE IS GOING TO SWAN IN AND GIVE MY LAMP A RUB!’
A curtain in every flat along the street was twitching.
‘Is that oor Blakey ootside getting pished up an’ chattin’ wi a magical entity, Morag?’ asked old Mrs Archibald at number 57.
‘Aye,’ replied Morag. Within seconds they were back on the settee and knitting furiously.
‘Wisnae like that in ma day,’ scowled Mrs Archibald.
‘Aye,’ agreed Morag.
If the finger work had been just a fraction more furious, flames would have engulfed the half-knitted sweaters that were cascading over their knees.
‘Pass us the crack-pipe, Morag.’
‘Aye.’
Outside, the genie was losing patience and two minutes away from contacting his union official.
‘NOW HURRY UP, I’VE GOT TO GET TO TESCOS IN DAGENHAM AND SQUEEZE MYSELF INTO A BOTTLE OF CALIFORNIAN RED.’
‘Whit’s Californian Red? Beetroot or some’hing?’
‘RED WINE.’
‘Ooooh, red wine! La de da! Dae ye take it up the arse, likes?’
‘LITTLE MAN, I COULD CRUSH YOU LIKE A GRAPE AND MAKE WINE FROM YOUR BLOOD.’
‘Just try it, pal, ma big brother’s in the TA, ye ken.’
The genie slapped his forehead in exasperation and let out a deep sigh that could have blown the clouds from Scotland to Pluto.
‘THIS IS MAKING ME NOSTALGIC FOR THE OLD NIGHTS IN ARABIA. GENIES KNEW HOW TO MAKE MORTALS SUFFER IN THOSE DAYS.’
‘So you lot shrink inside bottles of booze until some alkie gees ye a rub and lets ye oot?’
‘IT’S ONE OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS. PREVENTS ANOTHER ALLADIN INCIDENT. WE KNOW FOR SURE THAT WE WILL BE RELEASED. ESPECIALLY IN YOUR COUNTRY. ONLY RUSSIA KEEPS US MORE BUSY. NOW MAKE A BLOODY WISH.’
‘If I cannae hae a million wishes, I guess I’ll just have tae hae a million poonds, eh?’ smiled Blake, gulping another river of Buckfast down his throat.
‘YOU MUST USE THE CORRECT WORDS OR YOUR WISH WILL NOT COME TRUE.’
‘Whit? Just gee me a million poonds, eh? Or yell be hearin’ from ma lawyer, ya big blue bastart. Ma lawyer’s got five knuckles an’ a sovvy ring.’
‘I DON’T MAKE THE RULES, LITTLE MAN. SAY THE WORDS. IT’S GENIE POLICY.’
Blake gripped the bottle neck and brandished it like a weapon. ‘You’re aboot two seconds away fae a glassin’, big man, nae shite.’
‘JUST PHRASE THE WISH CORRECTLY. BEGIN IT BY SAYING, “I WISH”…’
‘Ah wish you’d bloody shut yer big mooth, ye big blue fuckin’ shi… AH FUCK!’ hollered Blake, as he realised the enormity of this very unintended wish. He shot to his feet and was seemingly sober within a second. ‘Nut, that’s no fair! That’s no fair!’
The genie said nothing. Unsurprisingly.
His arms stayed wrapped against his big, bulging chest, and his bull-neck froze. The only things that had altered pose since the big man-of-magic’s arrival were his lips. Now, a huge grin spread them apart.
Pouf! And the genie was gone, leaving Blake with nothing but an overworked liver.
Auld Jack was in Dresden, swigging back another Grolsh. He’d trimmed his moustache into a neat oblong.
At the same time, Blake’s kitchen window was blown open by a gust of insults.
‘If you’re no oota ma sight in two meenits, ah’ll be oot there wi ma saucepan and brush, do you hear me, Blakey?!’
There were few that didn’t hear her. Perhaps even Auld Jack had heard her.
‘Ho, ya cow, some of us are on the nightshift here!’ shouted a particularly brave neighbour from his bedroom window.
‘Yell be on the graveyard shift if ye dinnae bugger aff, ya nosey shite!’ roared the beast in reply. ‘You too,’ she barked, eyeballing her son, ‘and dinnae even think aboot coming home unless ye have a million poonds in yer back pocket!’
Slam! Blake stood up, rocked on his heels, then took another long, lingering, sloshing slurp of the Buckfast.
‘This stuff’s magic!’ he said.
The bottle was soon discarded in the grass, taking pride of place in the man-made flowerbed of used condoms, bloody sanitary towels, syringes, crisp wrappers and fag ends. It was time to think. Finally. He had managed to avoid it for close to sixteen years. The bones of a plan quickly formed a skeletonic idea in his head. A smile crept upon his face, which lit up his drink-fogged eyes.
‘I know what tae dae!’ he exclaimed.
Full of excitement, he quickly set himself to the task of urinating through his mother’s letterbox. Then, the real plan hit him.
‘I’m gonnae go and see ma gran. She’s a bit of an effin’ weirdo, likes, but I ken she’ll help me! At the very least I can sell some of her stuff.’
‘Or her,’ he thought cheerfully to himself.
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TO BE CONTINUED…
Personality-themed Cupcakes
My girlfriend and her aunty baked some cupcakes in honour of my birthday. Most of them had some connection to my likes, hobbies, wishes or personality, which I thought was disgustingly adorable. The way I see it, either my girlfriend loves me or she wants me to perish from a diabetes-related heart attack. Whatever the truth, those cakes are getting scoffed. Look out, blood, it’s cholesterol time, you red motherfucker! Happy birthday to me, etc. etc.
A microphone cake. Because I do stand-up, see? It's a good job I'm not a urologist, or this picture would've been a little indecent.
A cake with £50 notes coming out of it, because I'm a capitalist pig-dog who wants to amass great wealth in order to put my boot on the neck of the common man and push down on that neck until it snaps. And then shit in his wailing mouth. Whilst wearing a crown, obviously. And laughing. It's as if these cakes know me. Oh, and top-right there's a wee jobby with eyes, because I enjoy the thought that one day science might endow our faeces with sentience; perhaps even allowing them to rule the world. Actually I think it's supposed to be the wee flame guy from that advert, but an intelligent poo works for me, too.
Aw, cute. Well, there's the microphone again. Remember it from the first picture? And also a platoon of love hearts, because the chick digs me; and who can blame her? A podgy, hairy guy with fucked lungs who shouts abuse about society's weak into a microphone for the benefit of drunks, and doesn't get paid for it, is quite a catch for a young lady! And there's the masks symbolising tragedy and comedy, again in honour of my rantings, and artistic leanings. Top-left? That's a cocktail shaker, because there's a pina colada story mixed into our courtship. Bonus? The cocktail shaker also looks a bit like my nose-hair trimmer mentioned in the previous post. And look: top-right. That's a gummy version of the snake I murdered in Turkey! Awesome. I like to revisit my killings through baking.
This is a cute one. ABC for my writing, but also linked to how I met the missus. A rat? Not because I am one, although some people might disagree with that, but because we keep rats together. Yes, that's right. Cute little pet rats. Because nothing says I love you more than bringing the creatures who spread the black death into your shared home. There's some cheese on the cake next to it (not real cheese, a chocolate representation of cheese, motherfuckers), because I like cheese. Smoked applewood, cheese with cranberry in, soft cheese, hard cheese, processed cheese, French cheese, Greek cheese, Italian cheese, hell, Slovakian cheese, feta cheese, pizza cheese, gouda, edam, Babybell, Boursin... name a cheese, any cheese. (apart from knob cheese, although the idea of eating my own seasoned with some pepper isn't entirely abhorrent to me, although - unfortunately - I keep my cock too clean for that. Maybe once I become incontinent though) Let's put it this way: if it's come from a cow and been bacteria-ed to fuck into a great stinking lump of artery-clogging yellow-and-white tastiness, I'm having it. But not the stuff with the blue veins. That's just disgusting.
I think this one speaks for itself. Me with two cakes, dreaming of the big time. In the meantime: I got cakes, fuckers. Lots of them. Which makes me the richest man in the world.
If you haven’t already read it, here’s a link to my thoughts on turning 32: http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/13/happy-birthday/
Happy Birthday?
Me, and how I stay youthful.
I just turned 32.
This is a strange age. It’s the age where people start dying; or at least the age where it starts to become less of a surprise when your friends and acquaintances keel over like pit canaries.
‘They were so… young,’ we say, not quite believing the words as they stagger uncertainly from our lips. It’s almost framed as a question. ‘They were so… young?’
I’ve always been certain that a heart attack will serve as the final sentence in the book of my life. I’m not psychic: just Scottish. At death, most pasty-skinned Celts will find the Grim Reaper holding their engorged heart in his bony hand, bouncing it like a blood-filled happy-sack as he points to the fat-smeared hole in their chest and says: ‘Looking for this, you fat bastard?’ Yes, there’s no doubt in my mind. Jamie Andrew’s heart is destined to burst like a rotten peach under the treads of a tank.
Fuck you, Murphy. You're shite at living.
I become filled with anxiety when I hear of a celebrity dying in their early 30s. As if their premature death somehow makes my own more likely. Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger: they both gave me palpitations. When a celebrity dies young I always chant inside my head ‘Please be drugs, please be drugs, please be drugs, please be drugs,’ and when it’s drugs I fist the air and shout ‘YES!!’ Which is pretty horrible of me, but then I never claimed to be anything other than a deeply, deeply horrible human being. They die of drugs, I don’t die of a heart attack. Yet. That’s the deal.
I guess I am still young, though. I look young, so I’m told, despite the rainforests of hair that seem to sprout from every available orifice. What’s with that? So much hair grows from my ears that I could pleat it and join Aswad. No joke. Bed bugs could abseil from my ear lobe down to my shoulder. This shouldn’t happen until I’m in my sixties or something, right? I don’t want to look like my grandfather just yet. Well, he’s dead, so of course I don’t want to look like him. I meant I don’t want to look like he did during his twilight years. Not at 32, anyway. His ears looked like they had boom mikes coming out of them. And the ears themselves were all waxy and gnarly, making him look like the head Ferengi from Star Trek.
My nose is no different, over-abundance-of-hair-wise. I always notice the hairs in the mirror when I’m driving, and then spend about five minutes yanking what look like wires from my nostrils. So if you’re on the roads in Falkirk, look out for a big tall guy clawing at his face and screaming in horror at his reflection: that’ll be me. So much hair dangles from my nose that it looks like a tarantula is trying to escape from my face. Honestly, it’s like steel wool. I could headbutt a pot and scour it at the same time.
It's the Argos Nose Hair remover I've got, if you're interested.
Which is why my mother gave me an electric nose-and-ear-hair remover for my birthday. No shit. She did. And do you know what the worst thing is? I was grateful. It’s something I need. At 32? Next year it’ll be a Noel Edmonds’ sweater and a brochure for a SAGA holiday. And bring on the socks and pants. I love getting socks and pants now. I wish I’d been more grateful to my grandparents when I was younger, and hadn’t just sneered when I ripped open the wrapping paper to find yet another 5-pack of Asda’s-own boxer shorts. I didn’t realise what a valuable commodity they were back then. Thank you, grandma and grandpa (X2). I sometimes think they were trying to tell me, in some hush-hush yet none-too-subtle grandparent code, that growing old is pants. I think they were on to something.
Anyway, here’s to the next 32. Well… maybe.
Cunt of the Week (11 Jun 2012) by Rik Carranza
The head cunt, presiding over his cunt empire.
My Cunt of the Week is not a single person; it’s an organisation. That’s right, Mattel, I’m looking at you.
You see, a number of years ago – when I was much younger, smaller and more naive – I saw a movie which, at the time, blew me away. That movie was Back to the Future, Part II. If you haven’t seen it then, quite frankly, you need to re-assess your priorities in life. However, for the sake of clarification it is the second part of a trilogy of movies wherein a teenager, Marty McFly, goes on a series of adventures through time, almost shags his mother and claims to be Clint Eastwood. On a side note, if I had a time machine I would use it to punch someone at every major moment in history, or I would go back 2000 years or so to Jerusalem and claim I was Jesus. Probably the second thing. Yeah, I’d do that.
Look closely to see Rik Carranza's supporting role in BTTF2.
Anyway, in Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly goes to the year 2015 and after a series of misadventures ends up in possession of A FUCKING HOVERBOARD! That’s right: a hoverboard. A skateboard with no fucking wheels! The first time I saw this I was too young to blow my load, but, trust me, it gave me the same feelings.
According to the movie, the hoverboard in question was made by Mattel. Given that the movie originally came out in 1989 and was partially set in 2015, it is safe to assume that Mattel didn’t have the product back then. However, as we are coming up for 2015, by my reckoning hoverboards should be coming out within the next couple of years; you know, so we’ve got time to become familiar with how they work. With this in mind, I contacted Mattel to ask whether or not their hoverboards would be hitting the market soon. This was their reply:-
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Hello
Thank you for your email. The Hoverboards are not part of the UK range, but we do value your feedback and this will be passed to the relevant departments for their future reference.
Kind Regards
Karen Allen
Consumer Response, Mattel UK
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I felt disappointment until I saw the phrase: ‘NOT PART OF THE UK RANGE’. So it does exist then? Awesome! Getting a little bit excited I did some research and found this: http://www.slashgear.com/mattel-hover-board-prepped-for-2012-holiday-release-13213241/
It’s a fucking replica! It doesn’t hover, it just makes some shitty little whooshing noises. Fuck you, Mattel. I want a real hoverboard; not some replica. Adding further insult to injury, it’s only available in the US. By releasing this, Mattel aren’t satisfying fans. They are fucking with us. Acting like strippers by showing us the goods, but not letting us touch. There are self-lacing shoes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Efr2TaEPo), holograms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0TpDxLfjHc&feature=player_embedded), video calling (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/home), and video googles (http://www.geeksugar.com/CES-2008-Awe-eMagins-OLED-Microdisplay-Headset-943210), but still no hoverboard. So get your ass in gear, Mattel, and give me my hoverboard.
Rik Carranza
THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER The end result of multiculturalism gone wrong (at least according to the Daily Mail), Rik embraces both cultures the same way John Terry embraces racial harmony. When he’s not trying to make people laugh he likes sports from the comfort of his couch, movies from the comfort of his couch and pet ownership from the comfort of his own couch. In fact on the few occasion that he leaves his couch he has had some success in stand up comedy, which he started in 2009 and still can’t be bothered to quit.
Rik was arrested in 2007 for having sex with a snowman in a school playground. The terms of Carranza’s release state that he must spend the winter months sedated to prevent any further sexual outrage, so unfortunately you won’t be able to book him for your Christmas party.
FOLLOW RIK ON TWITTER: @rcarranza
READ RIK’S BLOG: http://rikcarranza.blogspot.co.uk/
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Write for next week’s Cunt of the Week (CoTW) : http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/01/cunt-of-the-week/
Blakey the Jakey: a Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 1
‘You did whit, Blakey?’
‘I sold the car, maw.’
A sharp slap echoed across his hollow cheeks.
‘Whit did ye sell the Escort fur, ye wee bugger?’
‘Fur a load ay magic beans, maw.’
Another slap clapped across Blake’s already stinging cheek.
‘I didnae ask whit ye goat fur it, ah said whit did you sell it fur!’
‘Fur money, maw. This guy at the market said he’d gee us loads ay money fur it.’ A sliver of snotters sniffed their way back up Blake’s nostrils and a grazed knuckle rose to sweep away a clove of tears. ‘Yer aye sayin’ yer efter a holiday, ah thought I wid get ye the money for yin, cheer ye up, like.’
Whoosh. Slap. Oyah!
‘Cheer me up? Whit holiday am ah gonnae git wae magic bloody beans, ye wee toley? And noo I’ve no goat a car!’
Blake’s mother slumped her plump frame into a chair and began to sob her woes out over the kitchen table. Blake felt helpless. He sunk a clammy palm onto her shoulder. Sensing his guilt and sadness, she rammed her elbow into his stomach.
‘Bugger aff!’ she wept.
‘But, maw,’ whined Blake, glad that the elbow hadn’t sunk any lower, ‘we kin sell the Magic Beans. Guy at the market says we kin make a killin’, like.’
The sobs clicked off. ‘The only killin’ around here’ll be dun by me, ye wee tyke,’ she spat, ‘An ah could caw ye worse than that, the way am feelin’ the noo, ye wee useless cunt!’
Blake reached into the pocket of his jeans and took out the small, clear plastic pouch containing the beans. He waggled them in front of his mother’s face.
‘Let’s sell them, maw, let’s sell the hings. Ah’ll get the money back, promise ah wull.’
Blake’s mother shot to her feet, grabbed the packet of beans, stormed over to the open window and tossed them down onto the grass below. She pirouetted in a whirlwind of rage to face his downcast head, and laid down upon it a demand for exile.
‘First thing the morra’s mornin’, you’re oot o this hoose, or ah’ll bloody fling you oot the windae!’
***
And so, as the moon revolved into its night-time slot, knocking the sun down below the horizon, the nocturnal denizens of Grangemouth scurried out from the back of supermarkets, from bus shelters, from alley ways and from play-parks, to gather in the flickering lamp-lit streets like zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.
As if driven by some deep, buried instinct, they found the packet of Magic Beans lying in the grass at the foot of Blakey’s flat. A circle of baseball caps peered down, before a cygnet-ringed hand scooped them up and held them aloft. A cry of feral triumph whooped into the air.
In the morning, the magic beans were missing: presumed gubbed.
Outside the kitchen window, twelve baseball caps saluted skyward from the grass, attached to twelve bleary bodies in varying states of consciousness. A ghetto blaster, powered by a length of extension cable, bang-thud-jerked its techno-menace over the still-sleepy street.
A lone ‘dancer’ – the term applying loosely – shuddered violently to the beat of the bass-line, a carnival of jutting, punching limbs. His pupils shifted from big to small, like some demented camera lens, and sweat lashed his exposed skin.
‘They beans are magic, sir!’ he exclaimed with ecstasy, lost in the dance.
The kitchen window of the Blake household flew open on its hinges and the curler-clad head of Blake’s mum burst out.
‘Ho, John Travolta!’ she yelled to the ‘dancer’, ‘Shut that bloody racket aff, wake up that pile a’ deed ducks on ma gress an’ bugger aff the lot o’ ye!’
The slam of the window acted as a gunshot to the frightened herd of ravers. Twelve sets of heels pelted down the street, ‘John Travolta’ dancing after them as fast as he could. The wail of an encroaching police siren only encouraged him to dance harder.
‘Tha’s magic, sir!’ he exclaimed, ‘Ah didnae ken they’d released that tune yet!’
One of the fleeing mob ran back and dragged him kicking and dancing around the corner to safety.
***
The street was quiet again. Somebody had already stolen the ghetto blaster, but then it had been stolen in the first place.
Blake sat on the pavement outside of his flat, head in hands, rucksack slung over a bony shoulder. With all of the beans gone, Blake had a mammoth mission ahead of him: find a way to make back money for both car and holiday or… he didn’t even want to think about the ‘or else’ part.
The odds seemed insurmountable. Not to Blake, of course, simply because the boy had no idea what ‘insurmountable’ meant. Blake’s ilk juggled with a few balls less in their vocabulary, but perhaps their stripped vernacular was more efficient in its expressiveness.
‘Fuck,’ he sighed. ‘Fuckin’ shite.’
As if sensing his heavy heart, the magical powers above granted some hope to Blake in liquid form. Pouf!
‘Did some cunt just caw us a poof?’ snapped Blake.
The boy noticed quickly that an object had appeared next to him from thin air. He was bright that way.
‘Where’d that come fae?’ whispered Blake, puzzlement ruffling his brow as he eyed the newcomer. He reached to his right and clasped the ancient-looking glass bottle in his hand. Someone, or something, had scrawled ‘Drink Me’ in the film of dust covering the green bottle. Blake obeyed.
The magical brew tasted to Blake like a mixture somewhere between cough syrup and paint stripper. With a bit of piss thrown in for good measure. It did not take many gulps for the hope-shunned youngster to fall under its spell. A few gulps more and he was entranced. Half the bottle, and his eyes became windows to worlds of magic, his stomach slosh-pit to the ebbs and flows of wonder. The tonic – health-giving though it seemed – was not enough to quell the anger that had built in him since the evening before.
Just then, a gaunt old man shuffled out from a neighbouring block of flats and made his sure-but-steady way towards him. A shell suit hung on his rag-and-wrinkle body and a silver-flecked moustache obscured his top lip. Various species of crumb made the hairy monstrosity their home.
It was Jack the Alike. No one liked him, but he always seemed to be everywhere, rather like Gok Wan. ‘Whit’re ye drinkin’, Blakey son?’ he croaked.
‘Dinnae ken,’ hiccuped Blake, ‘Whit’s it tae you, ye auld fanny?’
Instantly bored by ‘Jack the Alkie’ and agitated by his unwelcome presence, Blake distractedly rubbed at his magical bottle. Dust smeared his palm.
‘It’s guid tae share, son,’ smiled old Jack, a mossy tongue licking at chapped lips, ‘gee auld Jack a swally, noo.’
‘Ma maw aye says that ah’m no supposed tae talk tae strange auld men on account that they might turn oot to be dirty peedos like yersel, ken?’
Jack’s top lip trembled beneath its hairy camouflage. His burst-veined cheeks flashed crimson.
‘Ye ungrateful wee bastard! Efter aw I did fur this country… If it wisnae fur the likes ay Auld Jack, well, you’d be a lad in trouble, that’s fur sure! I did time in a POW camp fur wee shites like yersel’!’
Blake took another teasing swig from the bottle.
‘Ken whit, Auld Jack, I wish the bloody Germans had kept ye.’
Pouf! Old Jack seemed to implode to the size of a marble in seconds, leaving a brilliant white flash of light and a veil of smoke in his wake. As Blake recovered from this optical onslaught, blinking and cursing his sight back to 20/20, he saw before him, through a grey, choking cloud, a bearish, blubbery gent, skin the colour of rust, with a large, blue turban writhing and teetering on top of his head. A giant pair of arms was folded against his massive, shining chest.
‘THAT WAS YOUR FIRST WISH,’ he boomed.
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TO BE CONTINUED
PART 2 COMING LATER IN THE WEEK…