Letter to Loaded (2005)

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

I was going through all of the old documents stored on my laptop looking for more content to cannibalise – because my brain isn’t in the zone for creating original content today – and found this. The following is a letter I sent to Loaded in 2005, pleading with them for a job. I know it’s jokey in tone, but it wasn’t a piss-take. I rather naively and pathetically assumed that if I could make the powers-that-be at Loaded laugh then they’d think to themselves, ‘I know this guy’s had no experience of writing whatsoever, but I snorted air out of my left nostril at one of his jokes, so I think we should put him straight onto the staff of our national magazine.’ Needless to say, it didn’t work. Oh, and I genuinely sent them a bag of plant cuttings.

————————————————————————————————————————————

Jamie Andrew

(address edited out to reduce chances of an horrific murder happening)

Ms Lisa Wallis

Loaded, IPC Media Ltd

London, SE1 9LS

22^nd of September 2005

Dear Lisa

Application for the position of Staff Writer

Allow me to introduce you to some Glasgow vernacular: Go on, hen, geez a joab.

I have always wanted to write for a living. I penned my first major work whilst still ensconced in my mother’s womb. Perhaps ‘penned’ is a slightly inaccurate description. I actually scrawled my first novel in the placenta with my finger. Sold for a paltry £1 to publishing giant ‘FANTASTIC FOETALS’, it was simply entitled: ‘Gargumphaaagag.’ Certainly it was far ahead of its time.

A handsome young child, I was described by many as ‘a young Brad Pitt’. This was long before I knew what the phrase ‘Cockney rhyming slang’ meant.

Unperturbed by the taunts of others I embraced my calling as a writer. My first journalistic scoop came when I exposed my uncle’s infidelity in the May 1985 edition of ‘The Local Church Gazette.’ Even then I was aware of sinister and powerful forces at work. There was a cover-up of the scandal and in the dead of one night two masked intruders broke into my room and destroyed all of my crayons and wrote ‘Bastard’ across every sheet of paper they could find. Apparently my uncle was at it with the entire congregation, the organist (we always wondered why she played James Brown’s “Sex Machine” of a Sunday service), the cleaners, the caterers and even the minister and his dog.

My new career looked set to end before it had even began; but the call of the truth was too loud for me to ignore.

Since the age of twelve I have published no less than eighty-seven novels, ten-thousand short stories (some of them only a sentence long), brought down communist regimes across the globe armed only with my sharp tongue and acid pen (and acid-proof paper), won the Pulitzer prize (well, I stole it) and dressed as a sexy woman every night for the last ten years (which has nothing to do with writing, but I’m especially proud of it all the same).

So, I repeat: geez a joab.

Especially since I assume that I am the only applicant for this position eagle-eyed enough to have spotted the loopholes in your Guardian advertisement. You state that I need to have two years’ experience. Well, I do. I have two years’ experience of having experienced the passing of two years. And as for the cuttings: in absence of more clarification my assumptions have led me to enclose the best bag of cuttings I could find at this time of the year. I do hope they blossom well for you. Please consider these my gift to you in hope of a permanent position; or even just the kind of hot, steamy sex I enjoyed viewing (so many times) in Monsters’ Ball.

I enclose for your entertainment and delight my five feature ideas.

I love you.

Yours sincerely

Jamie Andrew

Cunt of the Week (05 Jun 2012) by Thomas Wotherspoon

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Cunt of the Week

My nomination for Cunt of the Week this week is… the entire population of North Carolina. They recently made law in their state constitution that marriage between a man and a woman would be the only legally binding agreement of its kind. This backwards and hateful step was taken by the scum of a redneck society gone mad; thumping out inspiring lines like, ‘It’s in the bible,’ and ‘god made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ I mean, congradu-fucking-lations for making something rhyme, you cock-eyed, slack-jawed, sister-fucking idiot. We’ll get back to why it’s not a good idea to base a modern society on a piece of political propaganda written thousands of years ago in a minute. For now, we’ll let them think that the bible should be law, and have a little look at how that might work:

Leviticus 11:9-10: ‘Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales–whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water–you are to detest.’

–

No eating shellfish.

–

Ephesians 6:5: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.’

–

Keep slaves

–

Deuteronomy 22:28–29: ‘If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.’

–

A rape victim must be punished and marry her attacker.

–

I could do this all day, really I could. Come on, you cherry-pickin’ motherfuckers. If you can turn a blind eye to some of the rules in your holy fucking book, then surely you can let two people who care about each other – and want to sample the suffering fucking hell that is marriage – to at least get the nightmare that they desire. Also, those knuckle-dragging morons messed up the language in their writing of this law and null and voided every civil partnership, including those between men and women.

–

Homosexuality was around long before the bible was written; the Greeks and the Romans had much documentation of it, as did the Persians. Hell, there’s even the Isle of Lesbos, for fuck sake.

–

The times they are a’ changing, as a wise man once said. The people of the world need to move past their fears and problems together and embrace the future. Or be labelled cunts forever!

–

Yours Honestly – Tam

—

THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER His name is Thomas, but you can call him Tam. He’s normally an easy-going person, but can turn into a Hulk-like, angry, and shouty bastard when he sees idiots about to open their mouths: as he lives in Central Scotland, Tam spends most of his time green. An uber liberal, Tam thinks you’re entitled to your own opinions… unless they’re wrong.

–

He’s a bit fat, but not serious fat… they aren’t going to be taking a wall out of his house to get him out or anything. He loves games – online, board and card, and can be super competitive. He is currently undefeated in Monopoly.

–

Tam lives in Skinflats with his imaginary pet hawk and thirteen dead bodies he hopes will remain undiscovered.

–

Write for next week’s Cunt of the Week (CoTW): http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/01/cunt-of-the-week/

—

Greggs – A Tale of Pork Pies and Racism

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

I entered into this email back-and-forth with Greggs’ customer service a few years ago after I visited one of their Falkirk stores and discovered that all of their in-store pictures featured only white people. My original email to them included phrases like ‘I don’t want to think of the Third Reich each time I bite into a Yum Yum’. I wish, with every fibre of my being, that I still had a copy of it somewhere, but I don’t. It was submitted through the Greggs’ website. Never matter. Every other part of the exchange is here, from 2010 onwards.

Enjoy. This is real. Emails written by Greggs are signposted by an appropriate Greggs-related picture. Emails written by me are signposted by a picture of me eating a crab whole.

Greggs

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:00:09 +0100
Subject: Thank you for getting in touch with Greggs

It’s always great to get feedback from our customers and we do appreciate it. We wanted you to know that we’ve got your mail and will reply within the next 3 working days.

Kind regards

Greggs Customer Care Team
________________________________________________________________________
Please visit our website www.greggs.co.uk ________________________________________________________________________

Hello there.

I recently submitted a query/complaint to your feedback forum through your website. As you can see from the below message you did indeed receive this, and then assured me that your reply would be forthcoming within three working days. I have not yet received said reply.

Although you may have found the phrasing of my initial message a touch facetious, I can assure you that this is only due to the passion I feel for the subject matter.

Affirmative action is an important concept to embrace in any forward-thinking, civilised society, and I find it abhorrent that Greggs does not subscribe to this philosophy. To recap, there are several images on display in the Larbert (Scotland) branch of Greggs, all of which depict white caucasian people enjoying Greggs’ products. Not one of them is from a different ethnic group. How do you imagine this makes people of other ethnic groups feel when they come in to buy a chicken sandwich or similar?

Offering brown bread is not enough of a compromise towards multiculturalism.What would Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King have made of your devil-may-care stand?

Please assure me that you will take steps to be more inclusive in the images you use in your stores, so as to minimise hurt to your paying customers. I expect an immediate response.

Kind regards
J Andrew

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:12:00 +0100

Dear Mr Andrew,

Thank you for your comments. I would like to reassure you that Greggs is a company that respects and supports diversity in modern day Britain, Our shop imagery is in no way intended to exclude any groups on the grounds of gender or ethnicity nor to cause harm or offence to any of our valued customers.”

We would like to thank you Mr Andrews for your feedback and we have taken your points on board.

—Remember to quote your call reference number F0770901 in any correspondence, as this will assist us in providing you with a quick response.

Yours sincerely

Christine Robertson

Dear Christine

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I know some might think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I see these exclusions, subliminal or otherwise, as the thin end of the wedge in a society that is already struggling to accomodate peoples of all different creeds and ethnicities. Your words were comforting, but words aren’t always enough. You may have ‘taken my points on board’, but how does this equate to action? Are you going to update the images in your Larbert store to reflect a more inclusive image of the kinds of people who enjoy pastry products in modern Britain, and if not, why not?

Kind regards
J Andrew

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:40:51 +0100

Dear Mr Andrew,

Just to assure you we have taken your comments seriously following your initial e-mail, we have taken the following actions:
– we have discussed the concerns you raised with our People Director and Customer & Marketing Director to make sure that future imagery in the shop captures these points on diversity and inclusion.
– In regard to the Larbert shop, the imagery was our previous in-shop design as part of the refit done in 2006 Our latest design shop imagery that is currently being rolled out around the business shows our products and doesn’t in fact show any people. Based on our capital program, the Larbert shop would not be due for a refit for a couple of years yet. Any future imagery that we roll out will take into account visual representation of the diversity of our staff and our customers. We would like to send you examples of our internal communications that demonstrates we do take this issue very seriously if you would be willing to provide a postal address.

Regards

Dear Christine,

Thank you so much for taking the time to address this serious issue. I’m glad that you and your company have afforded this matter the gravity it deserves.

It would be a highly responsible move to replace the images of people with those of your products, so as not to offend any customer or visitor to your stores. However, I am a little dismayed that people living in Larbert who come from different ethnic groups than those represented on the walls of their local Greggs will come to remember the years 2006 – 2013 as the ‘pastry apartheid years’.

I had a long look at your corporate website to see if the theme was repeated on a national scale. I’m heartened to see that the pictures and photographs on your website truly do reflect the diversity of your staff and customers, although I’m not so sure about the video uploads of your TV advertising campaigns. There are only two black people featured, both in the February 2010 ad. Bravo, on the face of it, but I feel this would have sent a more positive message to the country had the black staff members in question not been glimpsed mirage-like in the background, and hidden like a guilty secret behind a squad of merrily dancing caucasian people.

I don’t want to appear too critical since you have taken this matter seriously and provided me with reassurance. This is a very important step, to my mind. I’m still a little dismayed that you are content to promote social exlusion in Larbert for a further, indeterminate number of years.

I would prefer it if you could send me .pdf or .jpg attachments of your internal communications. It may not surprise you too greatly to learn that I am also a keen and ardent environmentalist, and abhor the unnecessary wastage of paper. Besides, I am quite a peripatetic individual and prefer to receive electronic communications owing to how infrequently I’m based at home.

Regards
J Andrew

(the following, concluding emails were sent in the past week)

Dear Christine

(if indeed Christine is still functioning in her old role – if not, please identify yourself so as not to besmirch her memory)

It’s almost 2013. Several years ago you promised to look at the issues raised by my complaint, namely that there were plenty images of white people enjoying sandwiches on the wall of your Greggs in Larbert, but none featuring any other ethnic group. Not an African, an Indian, or even an Eskimo. Just the white man. Highly unacceptable in this day and age. Your solution was to suggest replacing pictures of people with pictures of sandwiches, so as not to offend anyone. Has this now been done, or are your Larbert customers still buying their bakery products from a BNP paradise; as if Nick Griffin had invented a time-machine and used it to catapult Larbert back to 1947?

I do hope you took my points on board and didn’t dismiss them as unimportant. Remember Mandela!

Kind regards

J Andrew

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk

To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk

Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 10:42:39 +0100
Dear Mr Andrew

Nice to hear from you.

I’m still here and still working hard with our customers. The Larbert Shop has not had a re-fit since we last corresponded but we’ve removed some of the old point of sale and replaced it with our new stuff.

Your feedback was sent through to the Marketing Team but I believe we changed our way of thinking and haven’t used this type of material since.
I think the shop is due for a re-fit shortly as we’re trying to update all of our estate.

Thanks again for getting in touch and I hope this has answered your query.

Remember to quote your call reference number F0770901 in any
correspondence, as this will assist us in providing you with a
quick response.

Yours sincerely

Christine Robertson
Customer Care Team Leader

Hello Christine

(You called me Mr Andrew in your previous message, but I feel we’ve graduated beyond such formalities after our long history together, Chris)

–

I was very happy to receive your e-mail. Prompt and efficient. I’m heartened to hear of the changes you’ve implemented in response to my misgivings, and am proud to ally myself with Greggs in its new battle to eradicate racism in all its forms. Other companies with which I’ve entered into correspondence on these issues have not been as forthcoming as Greggs. Mathiesons the baker, a hated Scottish rival of yours, should be singled out for its arrogant and blatant disregard of my complaints. Which is rich considering how much offensive imagery they have in their stores and on their promotional materials! You were a minor offender compared to these guys. Can you believe this? One of their stores in Grangemouth boasts a picture of what appears to be a minstrel tucking into a scone! What next? Putting Jews in their ovens??? This is going to be a long fight, Chris, but one I’m ready for. Attitudes MUST change.

–

Anyway, to business. I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time. I would like to ask if I could talk about Greggs in a local newsletter I co-edit. I’m going to relay the tale of your humanity and corporate responsibility, and give Greggs some richly deserved publicity, free of charge. I’m going to end the newsletter with the line:

–

‘Greggs: Hot pastry products you’ll all adore; a queue of facists at Mathiesons’ door.’ And then end with a picture of Hitler enjoying a Mathiesons’ chicken bridie or something. Maybe you could suggest a more apt snack for the Fuhrer, else I’ll just stick with that, I think.

–

Thanks again for your excellent customer service, and for actioning my requests with grace and patience.

–

I await your response

–

Many thanks and kind regards

Jamie Andrew

————————————————————————————————————————–

Greggs

Subject: Greggs – Call Reference F0770901

From: GreggsplcCustomerServices@greggs.co.uk
To: jmascot@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2012 15:21:21 +0100

Dear Mr Andrew

Thanks for your further email to Christine. As she’s not in the office currently, I’ve replied on her behalf.

It would be inappropriate for us to be associated in any way with your dissatisfaction with any other baker. In fact, we are really concerned that by referring to Greggs you will bring our good name into disrepute. Therefore we ask you not to refer to us in the way that you suggest.

Best wishes for the future.

Remember to quote your call reference number F0770901 in any correspondence, as this will assist us in providing you with a quick response.

Yours sincerely

Lynsey Kelly
Customer Care Team

Hello Lynsey Kelly

It’s exciting to be corresponding with a new team member. You seem a lot more prim and formal than Christine. If you were a teacher I could well imagine you administering the belt to my wrist, whereas Christine would probably just smile, throw her hair back over her shoulder and call me a scamp.

This will be my last message, as I do not wish to swallow up any more of your time. Anyway, I’m sorry if I have contravened guidelines on what is deemed acceptable in terms of Greggs’ association with other companies. I was only trying to help out, as I felt I owed it to you after the superb way you handled my concerns. This worries me a little, though, as I have already published a newsletter in which Greggs is mentioned. I decided against the text mentioned in the previous mail, but I took some liberties with the new idea. I didn’t think you would mind, and I was only trying to promote your company. Here is the copy that is printed and ready to be distributed to a few hundred people in my local community:

“I would like to encourage all in the local area to visit your local branch of Greggs in Larbert. There you will find not just bakery products, but an admirable humanitarian stance on brotherhood. As Christine from the Customer Care Team said herself, ‘Unlike Mathiesons, Greggs cares about ethnic minorities. In Second World War terms, Mathiesons are like Norway, maybe at a pinch Vichy France, whereas we at Greggs pride ourselves on our Churchillian spirit. All are welcome to enjoy our products, not just white people. We would strongly urge an immediate boycott of Mathiesons’ products to send a stern message that your community will not tolerate such behaviour.'”

I don’t deal with distribution, that’s handled by a gentleman called Duncan Semple, who’s also the treasurer of our community group. I’ll get on to him straight away and hopefully stop him from handing out any copies. If any have slipped out, I’ll make sure they’re gathered up and burned.

Many apologies and kind regards

Jamie Andrew

———————————————————————————————————————–THE END

Or is it? I highly doubt – this time – there will be further correspondence from Greggs, but if there is, I’ll post it.

Santa’s Journal – May 26 2012

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Another peaceful start to the day. This is unprecedented. It’s amazing what serenity a man can harvest when he bolts his door, deactivates his phone and decides to stop giving a fuck about every single living, breathing creature on the surface of the earth for a few days. It’s not all selfishness. Some of it’s self-protection. My heart’s been thumping like a back paw on a cat’s itchy back of late, and Herr Claus, my beloved Margaret, has ordered me to take it easy. Under pain of something unpleasant and as-of-yet unspecified. She’s hinted that much worse things than heart attacks can happen to a man. I’m hoping she isn’t referring to her stovies. Now that is a threat worth listening to. I’d rather eat uranium-garnished pig-poo whilst enduring twelve simultaneous heart attacks and a bonus rectal prolapse than suffer another single spoonful of that crunchy, former-flesh-mess she calls ‘a Tuesday Treat’. Silent ‘H’.

At least she’s good at cakes. You can tell that from my waistline. Mixed messages are being sent here, I fear.

‘Eat,’ she keeps saying, ‘A cake never hurt anybody.’

(‘Oh, hello, Dianne Beatties. Mrs Claus, have you met Dianne Beatties? Dianne Beatties, Mrs Claus, Mrs Claus, Dianne Beatties. Oh, hang on, there’s Sean Coronary and his wife.’)

Even though it was morning, I closed the heavy curtains in the living room and lay back in my armchair like I was a marshmallow bobbing in warm chocolate. Margaret lit the fire. which sent faint orange flickers dancing onto the wall. To delight the nostrils, the scent of freshly baked cake wafted in through the kitchen door, and the only sounds lulling between the four walls were the soft crackling-spit of the fire, and the gentle and steady tick-tocking of the clock. Heaven. My younger self would be appalled by this sentiment, but I wouldn’t trade in this level of comfort even for a shot at a queue-based blow-job from a platoon of the dirtiest, most wet-boobed and slutty war whores seen this side of Paisley. Even if they were all thus guaranteed to be more sexually depraved than a drugged-up and recently evacuated Kerry Katona.

In any case, there’s very little life in Frank Junior these days. A lungless lady would have more luck inflating a wet balloon.

Anyway, enough cock-talk. I’m Santa Claus, for goodness sake!

In the afternoon I went off to greet Ronald. His private jet is actually shaped like the McDonald’s seagull motif. Well, I know it’s an ‘m’, or a set of golden arches to use the marketing parlance, but when that jet comes flying hard towards the ice, all curved, hump-backed and seagull-y, every single fish in the Arctic shits itself. And what a noise it makes as it approaches; what power it blasts from its engines. It whipped the snow off the ice like dandruff in a hurricane. A giant ‘m’ landing in your back garden, like the first vessel in the Alphabet Army’s invasion force.

I must admit it was good to see Ronald… well, initially… but more on that in the next journal entry. Something’s wrong with the clown. Bad wrong.

Cunt of the Week

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Is Teresa a cunt?

Who’s yours?

You can pick anyone – with the exception of me, as my cuntiness is a matter of public record – to be your Cunt of the Week (COtW – or, tell you what, let’s shorten it to COW so we don’t have to be all vile and C-wordy every time we mention the feature): a politician; a celebrity; the guy who keeps blocking your driveway every morning; an historical figure; a cartoon character; hell, your own grandmother if she’s cunty enough!

So it needn’t be topical. Although the feature is called COW, your See You Next Tuesday doesn’t have to be someone we’ve seen in the news that week. It’s just that every week we’ll have a different person, or a rotation of persons, telling us about their particular **** (I’ve not gone all sensitive on you, I’m just bored of writing ‘cunt’).

Be angry, be passionate! Convince us in 300 – 500 words why your man, woman or character deserves to be crowned the CUNT OF THE WEEK and send your mad, depraved rantings to theotherjamie@hotmail.co.uk. Send them by a Friday and I’ll post them on a Monday.

I’ll put the best few (or indeed the only few, or most probably the ones I’ve made up and published under a false name because not a single fucker out there has bothered to submit anything) up every week, and we can all have a good, old-fashioned weekly hate-a-thon. And the great thing is: we’ll never run out of cunts. There’s too many of them!

Happy cunting.

Culture Jamming Gallery – Pt 2

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Part 2 of the gallery. Here’s part 1 if you missed it, complete with introductory rant.

http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/05/23/cj1/

Jesus Christ!

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

I never doctored these, or came up with the idea, but I just had to share them. Very funny. The theme is ‘Jesus is a Jerk’, and I suspect the images are from Christian materials that have been subverted/raped by cheeky wee scamps the world over.

Oh, For Fucked Snake…

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

A true account of snakes and death.

The road where it all happened...

George Orwell once wrote a short, heart-wrenching essay about the death of an elephant. This won’t be like that. And it won’t be as exciting as ‘Snakes on a Plane’. This is ‘One Snake on a Road’, and I don’t think Samuel L Jackson would’ve starred in that movie:

‘Get this motherfucking snake off this motherfucking road.’

‘OK, Samuel, that’s me shifted it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Anything else I can help you with?’

‘No, that’s fine. It was just the snake I was concerned about.’

‘Cool. You going to be OK now?’

‘Yeah. So long as there aren’t any motherfucking toads in that motherfucking grass.’

I was walking down the side of a rural road in Turkey with my girlfriend when two guys zoomed past us on reasonably shit-looking mopeds. I say zoomed. Imagine the noise of a coin-operated hair-dryer from a cheap motel passing you at the speed of evolution. One of the guys, who was rather fat – a reasonably irrelevant observation, but I just wanted you to be able to picture him; he had a moustache too, if that helps – made a sort of ‘Ahhhh-ooooop’ noise as he realised he’d ran over something. It was the noise of guilt, but a half-assed guilt. After all, he quickly discovered, he’d merely run over a snake. It’s not like it was a mouse or a puppy. ‘Fuck snakes,’ his ooooop seemed to say, ‘I actually found its maiming quite funny.’ If any crippling was to have its own pompy, trumpet-based theme-tune, then this would be the one.

The snake after its moped incident. Not a happy snake.

We walked to the middle of the road to check how much damage had been done to the poor fella. He was a thick, long and black snake, his head, tail and body immobile. I got down on my haunches to look deep into his tiny snake eyes. They were red-rimmed and staring. His little forked tongue, still and silent, was poking out from his open jaws. Blotches of blood and bits of brain stained the concrete. I prodded his body with a stick I found near-by and watched as his length pathetically swished, curled and twitched from side to side; not knowing whether his movements were caused by some posthumous reflex, or indicative of a last-ditch fight for life. Whichever way I looked at it: that snake was fucked.

The ideal method of reptile euthanasia.

I used the stick to push it to the grass at the side of the road. So what to do next? I’d never put a creature out of its misery before. I understood the noble inevitability behind the act of animal euthanasia in cases of extreme injury and illness, but always hoped I’d never have to administer it. Especially since this was no cosy vets’ surgery with a sterile needle and a panpipes’ tape. I was at the side of a Turkish road with a snake and a bunch of rocks.

So I picked one up. It was slightly bigger than the palm of my hand, and felt hot from the sun. It wasn’t terribly heavy, but heavy enough to turn a snake’s head into bloody mashed potato. Was I really going to do this?

‘Maybe it’ll get better and be able to slither away itself,’ worried my girlfriend. ‘Or grow a new head or something.’

Deep down, we both knew that this snake wasn’t going to dust itself off and belly into a hedge to gub a shrew. It had chomped its last rodent, terrified its last sandal-wearer. Still, the thought of pulverising this wounded creature made me feel uneasy, despite the mercy aspect.

‘You’re going to kill a snake?’ my girlfriend asked.

‘I think I’m going to kill a snake,’ I replied.

An old Turkish peasant woman. Not the one I met, in fact this looks nothing like her. She was fatter and less buckled looking.

At that moment an old Muslim woman – head covered, and dressed in peasant apparel – approached us on her way up the road. She didn’t speak any English, but I decided to cross the language barrier by way of mime. I pointed to the snake’s unmoving body, making sure she noted its injury. Then I pointed to the spot on the road from whence I’d flicked it, making sure she saw the blood. I then mimed a man on a motorbike running over a snake. This was the strangest game of charades I’d ever played (sounds like ‘ooooooooop’). I showed her the rock in my hand, and then mimed me bashing in the snake’s head, but made sure to keep a sad expression on my face to let her know that I wasn’t relishing the prospect. After every mini-mime along the way of the long dramatisation of my intended snake-kill she shrugged her shoulders and nodded, a look of nonchalance on her leathery old face. She finally walked off, still nodding and shrugging, leaving me feeling vindicated. After all, this woman was as close to a resident expert on snakes I was likely to find. And, being Muslim, of course she was going to be supportive of a good stoning. The decision was made. I was going to kill that motherfucking snake.

The snake's stomping (or slithering) ground.

Fine in theory, but I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t even like squashing spiders, hideous nether-beasts though they are. I clenched the rock in my hand, felt its hardness dig into the base of my fingers. I imagined what it would feel like to drive this object through living flesh, but couldn’t, having no frame of reference with which to compare. Maybe it was just resting. Maybe it was in shock, collecting its thoughts, watching its little snake life flashing before its blood-darkened eyes, waiting, just waiting, for some spark, some scintilla of strength to carry it swishing and bobbing back to the safety of its home in the long, lulling lengths of grass and swaying reeds; back to the snakestead; back to its little snake babies, and its anxious snake wife, who’d been so worried about her husband’s absence that she hadn’t even prepared his daily dinner of half-regurgitated rat, and was instead hissing a soft, sussurating lullaby to all the little baby snakes as they cried and cried and cried and cried for their SPLATT! THUD!! BIFF!! KERSPLURGE!!

Like 60’s Batman, but with more snake-blood.

I couldn't find a picture of a smashed snake, so I chose this one of a bludgeoned woman instead.

By the time I knew what was happening I’d hammered its head about six times with the rock. Then I placed the rock on top of what was left of its skull and stomped down about another six times. Goo was on the roadside, and blood speckled my fingers. My girlfriend said I looked like a maniac. I just wanted it to be dead – medically and incontrovertibly dead – to deliver it from any further agony. The aim was to euthanise the snake, not subject it to a Guantanamo Bay-style shit-kicking.

Mission accomplished: it was dead. It now looked less like a formerly-living creature, and more like the end of a flex of cord that someone had dipped in tomato sauce. And the act of killing it had felt no more unpleasant than slamming a paperweight into a block of warm butter. Those are the kinds of sentences that serial killers smuggle out of prison when they’re writing their memoirs. ‘It all started with the snake. From there, hitch-hikers were easy…’

A German couple walking down the road saw me do it. I approached them, bloodied-rock in hand, shouting: ‘I’m not a snake murderer!’ and then attempted to explain my actions to them. They didn’t speak very good English, so I’m not sure what impression of British people I left them with.

A little farther along the road my girlfriend and I encountered a stray dog, hobbling and panting in the heat.

‘Poor beast,’ I said. ‘Looks on its last legs.’

She looked at me and smiled, ‘You’re not going to bash its head in with a rock, too, are you?’

‘No,’ I laughed. ‘No, of course not, no. Certainly not…’

‘no…’

‘…at least…’

It was a very poorly dog.

‘…I don’t think so…’

Culture Jamming Gallery – Pt1

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Culture Jamming emerged as a response to the dominance of brand advertising on our streets and in our culture. It’s basically a form of politically-motivated vandalism, through which the often false sentiments and claims promoted by ads and logos can be manipulated to reveal the horrible truths that lurk beneath.

The most popular targets of this sweeping movement are those large, ruthless, multi-million-and-billion pound corporations that permit sweatshops to operate in their name; that put children to work making gaudy trainers and stitching logos on T-shirts for 20 hours a day for a pound a week; that ignore human misery, hardship and death so long as their cash registers sing and their shareholders can buy second homes; that despoil and pollute the environment; that support fatally-corrupt regimes and brutal dictators; that silence, threaten and sue those who attempt to expose their callousness; that lie, cheat, swindle and pillage their way to the top of the FTSE in the name of liberal capitalism and expect us to be grateful for their efforts: and that will attempt to obscure their evils with an innocent shrug, a reassuring smile, a slick slogan or two and a dazzlingly colourful ad campaign.

And sometimes, just sometimes, it’s simply funny vandalism. Here’s a selection of some of my favourites:

A Plea to Fate

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

I’m going on holiday next week, acutely aware that the odds of dying increase exponentially the farther you venture from your own fart-stained sofa (despite what all of those ads from the 80s told you, which featured old grannies being immolated by their plug sockets and big, fat guys with beards being cooked alive in chip-pan fires).

So this is my plea to fate, in which I don’t believe. Really, this is just a pointless ritual to make me feel better.

1) Air Disasters

None of that, please. I’ve been keeping an eye on recent news reports featuring crashes – thanks to @bigmarkdavies for his research assistance – and found evidence of at least 5 major incidents in the last fortnight. That should be plenty. You’ve had your fill, Fate. OK, the victims mostly have been Asian, but you don’t have diversity targets to hit. It’s all about the numbers, baby. Leave me out of it. By my reckoning, travelling after 5 crashes I should be virtually indestructible. Hence I’m going to remove my seat-belt mid-flight, send people texts from 20,000ft and run from side to side in an attempt to tip the plane.

2) Terrorism

I checked out the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, and read up on Turkey. The PKK, a Kurdish separatist group, announced in March that they plan to unleash a wave of terrorist atrocities on various parts of Turkey, including resorts popular with foreign tourists. Not a bad plan, chaps, and I’m not questioning the effectiveness of your terrifying campaign, but at least wait until the English school holidays. You’ll only get one shot at this, and you’ll want to ensure a large, broad selection of targets. And nobody would really give a shit if I died, so I’m a poor choice of victim. Plus, do you really want to take the chance that John Smeaton’s on vacation in Turkey? He’d fuck your entire organisation into the ground with one swift banjo. That man makes Bruce Willis look like Willis from Diff’rent Strokes. Thank you.

3) Highly contagious disease

Hello, pathogen. Skip me, please. I don’t really go out that much, so your chances of bringing down the species by infecting me with a highly contagious, incurable disease are slim. Plus, Swine Flu already came to Falkirk, and we kicked its porcine ass. Did you kill a single person, Swine Flu? No. All you did was give publicist Max Clifford work, and allowed a young Falkirk couple to cash in on their ‘We were infected on our Mexican honeymoon’ fame so they could get a new conservatory. You failed. Spanish Flu pissed itself laughing when it heard. And Bird Flu thought to itself, ‘At least I fucked over a few swans, and made some farmers shoot themselves.’ Here’s an idea, Fate: send giraffe flu to Swansea instead.

Jamie’s Guide to Politics Pt2: The Labour Party

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

It took a while for Al Jolson to get it right.

Broadly and historically speaking, the Labour party is the party of the working class. Unfortunately, there’s no longer a working class. All of the coal-miners and their descendants are now working for Scottish Power, working eighteen hours a day in cramped conditions down t’call centre, just waiting for George Orwell to write a book about them.

That’s if they work at all. Now that the steel, maritime, coal and gas industries have gone the way of the Dodo, Labour’s traditional supporters – people with tattoos who enjoy cheese sandwiches, swearing in polite company and beating their wives – are now mostly to be found signing on the dole, or having their bollocks shot off in Afghanistan.

'The next woman who takes me out is gonna light up like a pinball machine, and pay out in silver dollars.'

That’s why Labour was forced to advance and embrace the ideology of New Labour, which merged Thatcherism with a commitment to giving free money to work-shy scumbags who wanted operations for nothing, White Lightning, drugs and fags. Tony Blair was the first face of this brave new way of thinking. He was posh enough to appeal to Tories, but he called people ‘mate’ and had an ugly wife.

If John Smith was still alive, he’d definitely be bitter. Ed Milliband is the next generation of Labour leader. He was created in a laboratory by splicing the DNA of a 12 year old boy with one of those psychic aliens from Star Trek with the gigantic throbbing skulls. His vocal and oratorical capabilities were modelled on Sylvester the Cat after a horrific brain injury.

The Future

There’s been a radical re-think in recent years. Most labour supporters want to go ‘more literal.’ That’s why the existing politicians and councillors will be replaced by women who are actually in the process of child labour. Work has already been commissioned to fit hundreds of stirrups into the parliament building in Westminster.

‘Yes, the entire Labour Party will consist of women, and specifically women who are just about to give birth,’ said some guy who I think said his name was Andy, ‘This will ensure that we remain a fresh political force with a constant stream of new ideas and policies, because once one of our MPs actually gives birth, it’s out the back door and another one gets wheeled in. By a smiling Eric Joyce.’

Cherie Blair lending her support to the new initiative.

The new leader of the opposition, who will be a different person every 3 – 36 hours, will spend her time in parliament screaming abuse at the Prime Minister, and demanding morphine. ‘Do you think David Cameron will be so keen to come out with his usual smart-alec remarks when the grip of just one of these deeply hormonal, pain-ravaged women would be enough to crush the neck bones of a rhinoceros?’

Prime Minister’s Questions will now involve the speaker sitting ashen-white with terror as the hundreds of women surrounding him wail like dying animals; ‘THIS IS YOUR FUCKING FAULT YOU BASTARD DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME – ESPECIALLY YOU, ED BALLS!’, the only phrase decipherable through the tumultuous din.

Sieg Kyle – Daytime TV’s Case for Sterilisation

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

I wrote the piece below about four or five years ago. These days, Jeremy Kyle styles himself on a waxwork of a waiter from the Titanic, and has taken his hectoring talk-show to the States, its spiritual home – Jamie

Jeremy Kyle has become what many of his studio guests need: an institution. He is a mainstay of modern British media culture, along with Richard and Judy, Rolf Harris and Howard from the Halifax ads.

His long-running show serves us up a daily dose of poor, stupid and ugly people with which to satisfy our voyeurism, and generally make us feel better about our own pathetic little lives. Jeremy and his production team like to pretend that each edition is a sort-of pseudo trial, designed to expose dishonest behaviour before a furious Jury of the People, an act that will surely take away the need for any real social work, and possibly save the world. It’s all about reclaiming lost dignity, punishing the sinful, mending fences and repairing lives. Is it? Is it really? Then why does it seem that all Jeremy – and, by extension, we the viewers – are interested in is humiliation on a grand scale, with the added bonus of the threat of violence?

The typical guest is from the north of England, or Scotland, possesses little in the way of teeth or intellect, and has usually been – despite resembling a walking tumour – shagging their entire home town. Paternity and lie detector tests are the order of the day. The results of the latter wouldn’t be admissible in a court of law, but anything goes in Jeremy’s daytime Kangaroo Court. That’s why there are so many big, bald men with tattoos on stand-by as security; just in case any of the big, bald men with tattoos featured as guests decide to pop Jeremy’s head off and use it as a football.

The episode I watched featured the usual slideshow of human sputum, tears and tantrums. One of the segments told the beautiful story of an adolescent male who had met and ‘romanced’ a young lady, only to find out after their brief relationship ended that his ex-beau believed herself to be pregnant with his child. He disputed the accuracy of this claim, and thus demanded that she submit to a DNA test. Once his neckless, feckless, and dietarily reckless ex-partner thundered out on to the stage, I too was pretty eager for a DNA test: to prove she was human.

The ex instantly endeared herself to the audience by free-style swearing, and nervously yet aggressively hitting her shoe. I know it’s become something of cliché to describe an inarticulate, chavish girl as being like Vicky Pollard, but this lady really is the closest match I’ve seen; in looks, speech and mental processing abilities. She couldn’t see any connection between her outright refusal to submit to a simple test that would prove she was telling the truth about her pregnancy, and Jeremy Kyle’s mounting disbelief at her story. As guests often do on the Jeremy Kyle Show, she stormed off backstage. He followed her, changing his tone from hectoring, Hellfire Baptist minister to wise, understanding uncle. ‘Never mind them out there, it’s just you and me, now,’ he said to her, or words to that effect, refusing to let the fact that millions of eyes were on them both destroy the sense of intimacy he was cultivating.

‘Why don’t you want to take the test?’ he asked her softly. Her response almost had me rolling on the floor. ‘I’m not going to go down to his level,’ she said, rolling her eyes and continuing to batter her shoe.

Some might say that once you’re sitting on Jeremy’s backstage sofa it’s a little too late to worry about dropping a level or two. This is it, Neckless. This is rock bottom.

Let’s put aside our role as collaborating spectators for a moment (yes, I’m talking to you) and ask ourselves why anyone in their right mind (I think I’ve just answered my own question) would want to appear on Jeremy’s show. I see it as a venal circus, from which few emerge with even a shred of dignity; and that’s true even of the protagonists who initially approach the producers to get their pound of flesh from someone who’s done them wrong. Why don’t the guests see it that way? I can perhaps see why a cuckolded husband would want to see an angry audience screaming at his scrawny, cheating wife; but why would the wife want to subject herself to this treatment, and vice versa where the sexes are reversed?

Who gets a phone call from the Jeremy Kyle Show and thinks, yes, yes, I do want to have a middle-aged man shouting at me in-front of two hundred people, who will also be shouting at me, while the people watching at home hiss ‘scum’ at me.

Well, perhaps you would consider going on the show if you were dirt-poor, trapped in a life you couldn’t escape, ill-educated, desperate and sincerely believed that the Kyle show was an institution primarily concerned with helping people and not with exploiting and humiliating them for advertising revenue. Or if you were getting an all-expenses-paid trip to London, and the chance for your fifteen minutes of fame, however grisly.

Certainly one thing you won’t see on the Jeremy Kyle show is a top-hat-wearing male doctor arguing with his Gucci-clad lawyer of an ex-wife about who’s going to get custody of their Shih Tzu, Phillip. Funny that.

How do the producers sleep at night? I’m sure the Nazi doctors salved their consciences by assuring themselves that their work was for the good of mankind. Maybe that’s what they do.

Our society, and care industry, must be in one Hell of a shape.

Memories of Marmaris – Pt 2

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Ah, Marmaris is beautiful. Nearby Turunc is beautiful. Everywhere I went was beautiful. On a jeep safari I saw sweeping, dusty fields, lit by the sun like the Benicio del Toro bits in Traffic; lush green forests winding over rugged rock; the snaking mountain roads skirting panoramic views you would be happy to fall towards to your death, spending your last moments snapping like some demented Japanese tourist. Out on the boats there were beautiful bays (to call them sun-kissed would be a cruel underestimation – the bays were sun-fucked); gently swaying palm trees planted in hot, jagged sand; giant, hazy-green hills standing guard over the coast-line in the distance; and water at the beach so pure, clean and clear you’d have thought it was invisible.

Tequila Islam-er

Turkey has a secular government, but culturally it’s predominantly Muslim: although you won’t find much evidence of this in Marmaris. Unless the Qu’ran’s been rewritten to include passages like this: ‘Blessed are they who cut about with their lips hanging out of their bikinis and drinking alcohol until they projectile vomit in each other’s mouths’.

You’ve got to love the woman on TripAdvisor who raged about her experience in Turkey, drawing particular attention to ‘the bloody singing from that mosque at half four EVERY morning!’ Love, I’d be annoyed if I had to put up with that racket outside of my window in Grangemouth, Scotland. Multiculturalism or no multiculturalism, I like my sleep, and if it was disturbed by a recording of some bearded Brian-Blessed-alike booming out holy shite even before the seagulls had started their daily wailing, then those speakers would be getting chucked into the River Forth. (so too, probably, would my dismembered, headless corpse, but at least I’d meet my death after a half-decent night’s sleep) But you’re on holiday in an Islamic country. Thomas Cook can’t make the Muslims renounce their religion and stop praying for a week just so you can have a nice, quiet holiday getting drunk and reading Jackie Collins’ novels by the poolside with your tits out.

Och Noo the Aye

On my first night in Marmaris, a Turkish tout asked me where I came from. ‘Scotland,’ I replied. He then made a particularly eerie noise. ‘I’m sorry?’ I asked. The penny soon dropped: he was trying to say: ‘Gonnae no dae that.’ Excellent. He then implored me to ask him, ‘How no?’, whereupon he ejaculated: ‘Just gonnae no!’ (allow me to make it clear that I’m using ‘ejaculated’ in the sense of ‘issued forth’, rather than suggesting that the poor little man was so excited by the prospect of imitating Ford Kiernan that he shot his bolt).

Another chap could tell me all about Falkirk, as ‘one of his ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex girlfriends (his words)’ was from there. As usual, the Marmaris definition of relationship is stretched to its very limits.

In the idyllic, sun-soaked bay of Turunc I encountered a man who could do a more impressively accurate Glasweigen accent than anyone of non-Scottish extraction in the history of the world. I wanted to take him home and place him in a circus somewhere. These people had done their homework. But you know why they’d done their homework, right? Correct. Every one of those cunts was trying to get money out of me. Which leads me to this next section…

The Real Hustle

Yes, Marmaris – and I’m sure all of Turkey itself – is beautiful. And, despite it being a relatively poor and horrendously corrupt country (if this piece was on Wikipedia, this is the point at which it would say: citation needed), the people are generally nice. But they do want your money: all of it. And the ingenuity they display in trying to part you from it is breath-taking.

It begins at the airport where you have to hand over an English tenner to a highly-uninterested and award-winningly grouchy customs officer. This is a down payment on all the rest of the money you’re going to have to spunk away over the course of your holiday.

My coach driver stopped off at a small café bar about an hour out of Dalaman, where I experienced my first taste of Turkish creative accountancy. Gambling correctly on me being a clueless first-timer with no idea of New Turkish Lira’s value, the little boy behind the till (well, nobody seems to use tills – they rack up your bill on a calculator) lovingly sold me two cans of juice, a large packet of crisps, one packet of chewing gum and a bottle of water for the equivalent of 7.50GBP. So much for Turkey proving dirt cheap, as I’d been promised by all who’d been before.

Then there’s the constant touting, more bloodthirsty than anything you’ve ever experienced before. One typically sunny day, my then-girlfriend and I decided to eat at a restaurant by the marina. By the time we’d downed our hideously expensive Cokes, we were being frogmarched to a jewellery store by a wee guy who spoke no English. This was after listening to a long, eloquent speech by the proprietor about how in this small world, this global community, we must all be brothers and help each other out – ostensibly by buying hideously expensive Cokes from him, and then diamond rings and leather from some dodgy cunt mate of his in town. We managed to get free glasses of water from the jewellery store owner before he sussed out we were paupers and swiftly sent us packing. I think the look in my eyes that said ‘How fucking much?’ tipped him off.

Speaking of tips, there are tip boxes everywhere. On the sides of buildings, in the backs of taxis. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them in the backs of Turkish ambulances. ‘That’s 7.50GBP for a fractured wrist, and an agreement to buy a diamond bracelet from my dodgy mate for a broken leg.’ It’s like Turkey’s handed over the responsibility for its economy to Ryanair.

If things get out of hand, Scottish people, you can always phone 'The Polis.'

Although most of the bar workers are genuinely friendly people, you won’t remember – or care about – this after day three. Certainly my tolerance to touting underwent a radical transformation. I went from cheerfully engaging in banter with every touter who chanced his luck, to imagining their sweet, sweet collective deaths at the bottom of the ocean.

People, Turkish jaikeys presumably, even crashed roll-ups from me as I walked down the street. Not that such occurrences are unheard of down Falkirk high street, but still. Which reminds me: if you can find it over there, which I managed to do, don’t buy any tobacco. The packet may say Golden Virginia on it, but you can bet your bottom dollar (it’s all you’ll have left after a week) that the contents have been swept up from a barber’s-shop floor and cut with desiccated camel shite.

Memories of Marmaris – Pt 1

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

The cannibalisation of old material continues. Here’s a few thoughts I jotted down after a trip to Turkey a few years ago. I’m going to Turkey with my girlfriend later this year, a different part, but I enjoyed looking over old notes and reminiscing about all the beauty and sleaze the Turks have to offer holidaymakers in Marmaris – Jamie

Memories of Marmaris

Marmaris is a holiday resort in the south west of Turkey. It’s geared towards tourism, but the public transport is accessible enough to allow you to venture forth and enjoy towns, trails and villages off the beaten track. Also, the many excursions on offer by boat, jeep and camel are extremely good value for money, and well worth your time. That being said, it’s time for a bit of horrid honesty, and we’ll leave the wanky travelogue stuff to the late Jill Dando.

Driving Miss Daisy – Off a Cliff

The Turks have some simple, nifty ways to revolutionise the ordinary things we Scots take for granted. For example, Turkish traffic lights don’t bother with all that abstract ‘red, amber, green’ shit. The lights display a timed countdown from red to green. This innovation would be an extremely helpful stress reducer for British drivers, but the Turks seem to use it to measure how many seconds-worth of law they’ve just broken, so they can high-five their mates with the appropriate level of gusto. To say that Turkish drivers are a bunch of maniacs who care nothing for the rules of the road, health and safety, or human life, would be entirely accurate.

Turkish drivers like a bit of anger on the roads. Turkish cars must have four pedals as standard: gas, brake, accelerator and horn. And I’m sure it won’t be long before they fit Bond-style mini-missiles to their front bumpers. It’s little surprise that in 2006, according to data on the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, there were over fife-hundred-and-eight-five thousand car accidents in Turkey. This must be a conservative estimate. Perhaps three million of the people sent to survey dangerous driving were killed by dangerous drivers before they had a chance to submit their findings.

Turk in, my son

The sexiest cunt in all of Turkdom

Turkish men walk a fine line between charm and sleaze. The bar folk are undeniably friendly, but in a tourist resort like Marmaris, this could have something to do with their commission-based pay.

Do be prepared to have your girlfriend fawned over in a way that would have you reaching for your knuckle-duster back home. And, yes, it’s true that you’ll see an enormous amount of young Turkish guys ‘courting’ gorgeous young blonde girls (for ‘courting’ read ‘trying every trick in the book in order to make them part of a living, breathing Turkish kebab before the holiday-clock ticks away, so the girl can jet off home thinking they’ve found their prince when in reality he’s already got his todger stuck in another willing waif even before the pilot guns the engine for the flight home’). This is undeniably impressive when you consider that over the summer season most of these Supermen work seven days a week, often twenty hours a day, and still find time to shag a higher quota of girls than most of us will see in a lifetime. I’m impressed, in a kind of amoral way: their wives probably wouldn’t be.

Over summer, a lot of the waiters and bar guys come to Marmaris from the far corners of Turkey to make a bit of money for their families, before totting off home with their genitalia tucked between their legs. Winters are spent as mild-mannered Clark Kents; the kind of guys who love their wives and kids and definitely do NOT shag an army of drunk slags from Essex.

Take THAT, AIDS!!!

A word of caution for the ladies out there: there is a widespread belief among a large section of the male Turkish population that the best way to counteract nasty old AIDS, chlamydia and general knob rot is not to rubber up, but to thoroughly wash your bits afterwards. Yes. We all remember that from Dove’s last advertising campaign: Tom Hanks scrubbing his balls with a bar of soap, and smiling to himself about his new promotion at work. You’re not singing any more, Bruce Springsteen.

But what kind of guys can the ladies expect to meet? I’ve calculated that Turkish workers, especially in the bars, fall in to one of three physical categories: Gay Boyband Turk; Evil Hollywood Movie Turk; and Looks Like a Turkish Version of a Well-Known Celebrity Turk. For example, my very attentive hotel clerk looked like a Turkish David Arquette, and one of the wee waiters at a local restaurant looked like he was plotting to kill Arnold Swarzenegger.

Here, pussy, pussy, pussy

Pussy on a bike

It’s strange to come from a country where cats are pampered and beloved (some rich old British ladies have even been known to leave their vast million pound fortunes to spoiled Persian cats called Tiddles) to one where cats run wild and are even considered by some to be vermin. How cute they are, though. Well, the ones that aren’t horribly diseased and bedraggled, that is. Most of the street cats are considerably smaller than your average domesticated kitty, with tiny little faces and humongous, pointy ears. I always wanted to pat them. I wandered the Turkish streets dispensing a stroke here and a clap there, willing to touch the sick and the hungry, like some kind of Christ of the Cat People. Like a Steve Irwin who deals only with animals tame enough not to skewer him through the heart with a barbed part of their anatomy.

‘Any spare change, pal?’

It is a shame, though. Turkish people don’t appear to be as enlightened as we are when it comes to animals. No real equivalent of our RSPCA seems to exist in Turkey, although animal welfare matters are slowly gaining relevance and importance thanks to the actions of various volunteer and charity organisations. Earlier this year in Marmaris there was outrage over a mass poisoning of street cats by assailants unknown (although the farming community is suspected). Unfortunately, the attempted cull was indiscriminate, and many domestic dogs, cats and other trusty pets bought the farm along with them.

Remember the Turkish men who thought that washing their bits was the best and only defence against AIDS? Well, another widespread belief held by some morons is that ingestion of pet hair can be fatal. This means, ladies, that stroking a cat is the best form of contraception.

Jamie’s Guide to Politics: The BNP

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

In his high-school yearbook, Nick Griffin was voted ‘Most Likely to Make a Career Out of Racism’

At root, all the BNP wants to do is make sure that people ‘get back to their home’, which is why the organisation is so popular with taxi drivers.

Nick Griffin is the party’s current leader. When he’s not indulging in his favourite hobby of racism, Nick likes to enter look-a-like contests, and has recently come first-place in a variety of different competitions: most like Morn from Deep Space 9; most like Greenback from Inspector Gadget after a stroke; and most like David Cameron after an over-eating disorder and a motor-bike accident.

Aryan Family Guy

The BNP attracted a lot of media interest last year when it took over production of the American animated series ‘Family Guy’, and substituted Nick Griffin for Peter Griffin.

‘This is how we’ll reach the kids with our message,’ said Griffin. ‘Speak to them through popular culture; let them see me as the Fuhrer…em, the father. Like the time Hitler put himself into Mickey Mouse cartoons.’ {roll sketch}

A memo Nick Griffin sent to the production team, intercepted by news teams, spelled out the new direction he felt the show should take:

‘I’m not having a Jewish wife. Get rid of her. The baby, too. Nick Griffin doesn’t father fags. And I’m not happy about the daughter, Meg. She’s obviously a lesbian communist. Have my character send them off to camp, if you know what I mean. On the plus side, my son is a big, dumb blonde and the dog is white. I’m digging that. A final word on the neighbourhood. That neighbour of mine, the one in the wheelchair? Make it clear he was wounded in combat, or in the line of duty. If he was born that way it wouldn’t be realistic to have him survive to adulthood. As for my black neighbour and supposed best friend, Cleveland? Either kill the family off, or give them their own spin-off show to get rid of them.’

Controversy

‘Das balustrades are a fucking disgrace.’

The future of the BNP now looks uncertain. A German historian, Herr Grosse Busen, has discovered that Hitler, the party’s hero, wasn’t a racist, genocidal maniac after all.

‘The Fuhrer was actually a decorator hired by the Reichstag to brighten the place up,’ explains Busen. ‘and he was a lovely wee bloke. We know what caused the confusion. Hitler was in the main chambers, surrounded by politicians, and shouted out: “I’m going to fill all the interior spaces with colour, and widen out the mews.” But everyone thought he said: “I’m going to kill all the inferior races and coloureds, and wipe out the Jews,” and they were well up for it. Hitler only started WWII because he was too embarrassed to point out their mistake.’

Breakdown

Floella Benjamin

Nick Griffin’s nervous breakdown may serve as the final nail in the party’s coffin. He appeared on ITV’s Loose Women, and sobbed into the breasts of Floella Benjamin. As Floella stroked Griffin’s head, gently rocking him back and forth and saying, ‘Shhhhh, baby, it’s okay, it’s okay’, Griffin apologised for being a meanie and admitted that ‘he actually quite liked black people and muslims.’

Griffin is set to relaunch the BNP as the ‘Be Nice to Pakistanis’ party.

Movie Reboots – THE OMEN PIGEON

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

'I'm busy, right? Got my manicure today.'

Satan’s rather busy in this modern update of The Omen. So busy, in fact, that he can’t manage his Evil Empire™ alone. Just like McDonalds, he’s franchised out his brand, allowing a series of hard-on-their-luck imps to commit atrocities in his name. Satan realises a little too late, however, that the job of asserting his bloodline in the world of man shouldn’t have been farmed out to a complete knob.

Wee-Ballsy-Bud, played with relish by TV’s Ken Barlow, is entrusted with the task of installing Satan’s son on Earth. Unfortunately, his lack of experience and ability leads him to incubate his master’s seed in Yorkshire instead of New York, and even in the wrong host species. Behold: the Omen Pigeon.

Still, it’s not all bad news. The bird quickly proves to be a chip off the old block, thereby saving Wee-Ballsy-Bud from eternal damnation (another fifteen years in Coronation Street). Securing work as a carrier pigeon, Satan’s feathery son spends his days ferrying evil messages to the unsuspecting people of Barnsley. Messages like: ‘I pecked yer dirty maw’s minge like a piece of breed’; ‘Your aunty’s actually yer maw and yer brother’s yer son’; and ‘You’re ugly, hen, I’ve done sexier shites on car windscreens.‘ Every message is written in a Scottish dialect – the international language of evil.

The only people who can stop the Omen Pigeon are hardened Vatican priests David Dastardly and Michael Muttley. They charter a bi-plane from the pope, and fly to Yorkshire hell-bent on destroying the devil’s verminous son.

The trailer for the film, which I’ve been privileged to see, shows a gripping high-speed chase at 15,000 feet. Just as the two holy warriors are closing in on their Satanic prey, the pigeon pulls a one-eighty spin, flies above them upside down, and poos straight into pious pilot David Dastardly’s eyes. As the bi-plane begins its terrifying earthwards descent, we hear the blood-curdling cry: ‘Muttley…. Doooo something!’

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE: The Calamityville Horror. The Chuckle Brothers buy a dilapidated old house which carries legends of blood and horror, and proceed to accidentally demolish it through a series of hilarious mishaps. Also look out for: MC Hammer’s House of Horror, and The X-Factor-Cist. Simon Cowell has to find the best demon before the world ends. ‘I was expecting Linda Blair; you gave me Cherie Blair. This could be the best possession we’ve seen this series.’

Toast tae the Lassies

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

This is the full text of a ‘To the Lassies’ speech I wrote and read out for a Burns’ Night my friend held at his house two years ago. Most of the assembled laughed, and understood it was all in the name of tomfoolery; one middle-aged woman sat and stared at me in the hope that she could make me die with the power of her mind.

Toast Tae the Lassies

Women. Pffttt…

That’s all I’ve got.

‘Does my thought-pattern look fat in this?’

That certainly won’t shock you, because traditionally men are more taciturn than women. That’s a polite way of saying that they never fucking shut up. A woman can talk for three days without getting a dry throat, without threat of an empty mouth, and on subjects as diverse as ‘blah blah blah’ and ‘shoes’.

Women don’t transmit on our frequency. That’s when they bother to speak in our language in the first place. Science has proved this. A study was done comparing communication and language between the sexes, looking at what we say, how we say it and how we are received and perceived, and it found that what a woman says, the content of their speech, isn’t NEARLY as important… as the size of her tits.

‘Do you know how hard it is to get four comfortable pairs of Jimmy Choos?’

Women project their voices like missiles. Let’s put it this way: if the female black widow could talk, it wouldn’t need to murder its mate after sex. In fact the human female’s recourse to conversation appears, to the black widow, an unspeakably savage act. A woman won’t so much argue that black is white, but that both of these are wrong, and who do they think they’re talking to?

It wasn’t always like this. We never used to have to listen to women speak. It used to be legal to hit them with a frying pan, or water-board them in a vat of warm piss. We miss those days.

For some enlightenment on the subject we have to journey back to pre-Enlightenment times, and to a man named Institoris who wrote a medieval guide to identifying and prosecuting witches. I’ll quote the preface in the Malleus Maleficarum, which reads:

Wooooooooooooooo Bo-dy Fo-horm, Body Form for yoooooooooooooo!

“Why is the treachery which leads to the practice of harmful magic and all that entails found more frequently in women than in men? Institoris lists women’s usual weaknesses – they are backbiting, vengeful, lascivious, impressionable and intellectually inferior (those are the GOOD ones) – before saying that wicked women (the qualification is important) are particularly ruled by three moral failings (just three?): infidelitas (defined as a lack of adherence to the probable truth of the reality of things invisible – you know, like men’s faults) ostentation and lust.”

I don’t think there are many here tonight who would disagree with those sentiments. Most of this can probably be attributed to hormones, with the emphasis on moans. Yes, hormones, and the dreaded ‘P’ word, that only five men in the history of the planet have been brave enough to utter.

Periods are like the Kaiser Soze of biological processes. The greatest trick that women ever pulled was in trying to convince the male world that periods didn’t exist. So when a woman, light and electric from blood loss and mood imbalance has stabbed you through the heart, ripped it out and fed it to you – recognise this, men: it’s your fault.

‘Flesh, chocolate. It’s all the same to me! Nomnomnomnom!’

Anyone who’s ever worked with a group of women knows that, as a group, they’re a deadly force to be reckoned with. Throw a puppy into their midst, and get ready to make dog soup with the bones. Women working in packs are like piranhas, but with better shoes.

And then there’s the connected danger and mystical horror that is cycle synchronisation. Like when the planets align and some evil wizard uses the formation to open a Gateway to Hell. Cycle synchronisation is like a Mexican wave of hatred.

‘All this fuss over a few fucking shepherds?’

Western culture has fooled us about women. We’re raised with the image of the nurturing, peaceful mother. The kind with big loving bingo wings that would make a flying squirrel grey with envy, and a pendulous, blobby bosom that could double as a wrecking ball. A lot of people, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, believe that if women were to rule the world it would be a happy, fluffy, lovey-dovey place with no war, struggle or strife. Then along came Margaret Thatcher. Lacking a heart, Thatcher was all cunt, and the monthly blood flow was suitably redirected. The Belgrano was torpedoed, in a metaphorical sense of course, by Thatcher’s tampon.

Women cry. This has also fooled men, who equate crying with caring, and also see crying as a last resort, like suicide, or films starring Renee Zellwegger. But crying does not equal caring, because women, rather alarmingly, cry when they’re confused, startled, hopeful, ambivalent, guilty, ticked off, jealous, happy, furious, clumsy, dopey, sneezy and horny. Maybe that last one’s just me. They never actually cry when they’re sad. No, that’s what shouting’s for.

So how did women become so powerful? What went wrong? Women’s faces not being as soft as the hands that do their dishes? Women NOT doing the Shake and Vac to put the freshness back?

John McCririck’s favourite wanking picture.

We can trace alot of it back to the suffragette movement. Back at the turn of the twentieth century, one woman’s desire to be heard was so strong that she hurled herself under a horse. If only more women would follow this example.

They burned their bras. Why? Didn’t they realise that their resulting bad back would have to be treated by a male chiropractor?

They started to play sports! The cheek. A little tip: stick to gymnastics, or naked jelly wrestling, or we’re not fucking interested.

And now there are women in the military. Great. Whose smart idea was it to teach them how to kill? And will somebody please ask Gordon Brown much it costs to produce Kevlar vests that can accommodate pairs of breasts? Not to mention the expense of military-issue tampons. No wonder they can’t afford any fucking helicopters over there.

‘Want to see my big vessel, Punk Space Whore?’

They’ve been in space, too. How long before we see a fatal accident due to a woman shuttle-pilot trying to reverse park behind the Mir space station? Women have no business being in space, unless it’s to get shagged by Captain Kirk.

A lot of people say that women are just good for cooking, cleaning, shagging and gestating young. This isn’t true. They’re quite good with curtains, too. But it is true that the new power that women hold, especially in employment, is dangerous.

Allow me to expand.

A chick Doctor in Harrogate lost a false fingernail in a man’s lower intestine, causing his bowel to fall out.
A female bus driver in Darlington caused a twelve-car pile-up reading Woman’s Own while negotiating a roundabout. The drivers of the twelve cars hadn’t the time to react, as they were all doing their make-up at the time.
A female pilot lost control of a Boeing 747 because she was crying about a hungry cat she’d seen in her garden that morning.
A female soldier shot half of her own battalion as she stumbled across hostile terrain wearing stilettos.
In France, a bint can kill you if she can prove to the court she was on her dabs.

Sobering stuff.

I hope you don’t think I’ve been chauvinist or misogynistic tonight. This is not misogyny. It’s self-defence. Because although we love women – those deliciously mad, sexually-sociopathic Hell-dogs with tits – we must handle them carefully – like bombs, or rabid ferrets. We must love them like blow-up dolls filled with sixty per cent cotton wool to forty per cent sharp but rusty potato peelers.

Let’s raise a glass to the fairer sex.

Here’s tae ye!

Movie Reboots – 28 JAMES MAYS LATER

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

The BBC Top Gear boys get to grapple with rabid monsters in this novel re-imagining of Danny Boyle’s gory zombie thriller.

It begins innocently enough. James May is depressed because he is unable to keep up with Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson: the duo are currently appearing in every single television show broadcast in Britain. So, with the help of an unhinged BBC executive, James May decides to clone himself. Unfortunately, things, as they always do in these sorts of movies, go horrifically wrong.

The cloning machine turns out to be faulty. ‘Because it was manufactured in Germany…’ Clarkson later tells us, ‘by French engineers… you think they would have learned… about teaming up… after they collaborated on the Vichy government.’

The clones are all evil, and quickly dismiss the reason for which they were created. They certainly prove to enjoy the taste of brains more than the taste of fame, ably demonstrated when they crack open the head of the original James May like it was an egg, and eat the goo within. And, because they’re James Mays, they even use the correct cutlery.

It’s not long before the James Mays are chomping their way across the country. Each bite turns its victim into a drooling, savage, and psychopathically famished James May, adding to their terrifying numbers. The only words they can speak are ‘Would you mind awfully if I just killed you?’ Within hours, Britain is literally swarming with James Mays, and there are only two men who can stop them: Hammond and Clarkson.

‘Well, if there’s one thing of which we can be sure,’ drawls Clarkson, ‘…it’s that May’s about as quick… as a Fiat Panda… that’s been engineered in Poland… by a one-armed Serbian goat herder… with AIDS…’

Their sluggishness makes them easy to deflect and herd into a giant vineyard, a feat the twosome accomplish through a combination of Hammond’s dazzlingly white teeth, and Clarkson’s increasingly loud and unhelpful comments about foreigners.

‘I’ve not been involved in many post-apocalyptic scenarios… except if you count my recent trip to Belgium…’ Clarkson says, ‘but I’ve got to say… that this must be… one of the greatest threats that mankind has ever faced… in the world.’

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE: It’ll Be Alright on the Night of the Living Dead. Dennis Norden (who has been dead for thirty years) takes us through the most side-splitting (literally, in some cases) zombie mishaps and outtakes. See also: I am Legless. Will Smith fights his way through New York, beating people up, talking to dummies, shooting zoo animals, playing golf off the top of skyscrapers, and sleeping in his bath, until somebody points out that he’s just had a bit too much to drink. Out later this year, the terrifying House of Ruby Wax.

Do it the George Gallo-Way

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

What’s the difference between Tony Soprano and George Galloway?

One’s a tough-talking, narcissistic, sociopathic, cigar-smoking adulterer, and the other one’s from New Jersey.

There’s a scene in ‘The Weight’, a season 4 episode of HBO’s The Sopranos, in which mob boss Tony Soprano covertly directs one half of a telephone conversation between Ralph Ciffaretto, one of his underlings, and Johnny Sack, a New York mob family underboss. Tony wants to make sure Ralph says the right things – and avoids saying the wrong things – to prevent further escalation of hostilities. Tensions are high between Ralph and Johnny: Ralph made a crack about the size of Johnny’s wife’s ass; somebody told Johnny; and now Johnny’s looking for blood.

Ralph: sorry seems to be the easiest word

Tony counsels Ralph to deny the allegations vehemently, and warns him that under no circumstances should he apologise. Ralph ignores Tony’s advice and, while still protesting his innocence, decides to apologise to Johnny in the interests of harmony and goodwill. That decision sets Ralph and Johnny on a course that puts both of them in mortal danger, and risks losing Tony a lot of money.

The moral is clear: never apologise. It’s weak, and makes you look guilty: especially if you are. This simple strategy worked for Tony Soprano, and it’s certainly doing the trick for ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway. One stray ‘I’m sorry’ from the lips of the Teflon Don-donian at any point throughout the last few decades could have sunk his entire career.

'SPUNK LOVING SLUTS!'

Galloway knows that the world loves a larger-than-life character; a fighter; a righteous rebel. Where Winston Churchill – another famous cigar smoker with attitude – held two palm-facing fingers aloft to symbolise peace, Galloway prefers them flipped around to spell out ‘Fuck you’ with his fingernails. A large part of his appeal – and strength – is in his utter refusal to back down from any opponent, to answer for his actions or to show any contrition whatsoever for his apparent misdeeds.

And, let’s not forget, Galloway is the only politician ever to have uttered the words ‘spunk-loving sluts’ in parliament, and for that alone I will love him forever. Go on, Google it. Youtube it.

They say that great men become great by standing on the shoulders of giants. Galloway’s managed to keep himself astride the world of politics by standing on the shoulders of the underdogs. First, he spoke for the working class masses of Glasgow, then he gave a voice to those affected, both ethically and actually, by the occupation of Iraq, and now he’s championing the UK’s arab and muslim minorities. Galloway denies that he’s a demagogue, but it’s hard not to view him as Dundee’s answer to Gaius Baltar, a man ready to shed or cultivate any allegiance that will secure him power and a public platform with which to showcase his tub-thumping.

That being said, I’ve got something of a soft-spot for the little firebrand, and I even find myself agreeing with him from time to time…

And I’m not going to apologise for that. But, then, neither am I going to apologise for this:

GALLOWAY FUN FACTS

1) Galloway smokes a cigar. This makes him cool by default, because Winston Churchill, Tony Soprano and Che Guevara all smoked cigars, too, right? Wrong. Jimmy Saville also smoked cigars.

2) Galloway’s support for the Palestinian cause was lent extra credibility through his ability to look the arab world in the face and proclaim: ‘Of course I’m pro-Palestinian. I’m fucking one, aren’t I?’

3) Eric Joyce looks at George Galloway with envy. ‘Galloway’s shagged his way through just about every nationality on earth, cheated on his pregnant wife and enjoyed cavorting with younger women. If only I hadn’t apologised for MY behaviour I could have bounced back like him.’ When Eric Joyce thinks this way about Galloway, he gets much the same feeling as Gary Glitter gets when he thinks about Michael Jackson. In a nutshell, Glitter thinks he’d be on T4 if he’d fucked boys and danced better.

4) Born in Dundee, George Galloway is a big fan of The Broons.

5) George Galloway went on Celebrity Big Brother to teach Britain’s youth about politics, which he successfully achieved by pretending to be a robot and licking invisible cream from Rula Lenska’s fist.

6) On the same programme, George Galloway championed the great British underdog Michael Barrymore by harnessing all his powers of rhetoric and being right mean an’ that about the entertainer’s alcoholism and mental illness. Barrymore’s not bitter, though. He’s still invited Galloway to his ‘CBB 2012 Reunion Pool Party’.

7) Galloway’s represented the Hillhead constituency in Glasgow, campaigned and conquered in Bradford, and toured the war-torn, bomb-savaged Middle East, and he still hasn’t found anywhere as shit as Dundee.

8 ) Galloway has his own show on TalkSport, where he can reach that all-important demographic of medicated housewives, racist taxi-drivers and truck-driving serial killers.

9) Galloway said the address he made saluting Saddam Hussein’s ‘indefatigability’ was taken out of context. ‘It’s like when two lorry drivers from the same haulage firm pass each other and toot on the motorway. It’s respect. I wasn’t saluting HIS indefatigability, but the indefatigability of his smashing moustache.’ Galloway claims that only one other moustache on earth has moved him in this way: that belonging to Denny-born comedian Bob Graham.

10) George Galloway has eleven testicles.

11) Galloway vowed he would ‘never become a Conservative’ because ‘their birds are well ugly.’

12) The only nationality of woman that Galloway has never slept with is an Eskimo. And he’s working on that.

13) Galloway was born and raised a Roman Catholic, but his last few wives – and weddings – have been Muslim. So which is he? On the one hand, he’s a sex-obsessed hyopcrite. On the other hand, he’s a complete bastard to women. I guess he’s both.

14) George Galloway thinks the relationship between Tony Soprano and this article was incredibly tenuous. I’m sorry about that.

Movie Reboots – WHITE VAN MAN HELSING

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Jamie Andrew

Dracula: nonce.

‘Bloody place is crawlin’ with fakkin’ vampires,’ says White Van Man Helsing in the film’s first scene. ‘Why can’t they all just fakk off back to Romania?’

Helsing, played by Ray Winstone, snarls these words as he pulls up outside Castle Dracula in his dodgy white van. The action takes place not in Transylvania, but Hackney, where Dracula has built his castle using taxpayers’ money and PFI subsidies. Armed only with a lifetime’s worth of knowledge amassed from The Sun, and fingers of steel thanks to thirty-five years of arse scratching, Van Man Helsing has his work cut out for him. Especially since he refuses to use traditional methods to take down his nemesis. ‘Garlic? Bloody Frog cunts would love it if I used garlic, wouldn’t they? Not until those European nonces let us have our fakkin’ bendy bananas back!’

'Ooooy! You causin' bubble, you pointy-toothed slag?'

‘The Wolfman is alright,’ Helsing tells his apprentice, Danny Dyer, played by TV’s Danny Dyer, ‘at least ee can look after ’imself in a scrap. But that muppet up there, readin’ his bloody books, ’avin bloody orgies and suckin’ ar bloody British blood without liftin‘ a finger to pay tax? Makes my bloody British blood boil, so it does!’

Helsing manages to take out Dracula by force-feeding him a bag of Greggs’ pies until the count succumbs to a massive coronary. ‘Steak-and-kidney pie froo the ‘art,’ he quips, ‘Bloody mug.’

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE: DSS Interview With the Vampire. Tom Cruise has a tough time convincing the council that his disability benefits are kosher. Especially since they’ve got a video of him draining a virgin while he’s been claiming for a bad back.

Application for the position of Staff Writer

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Memories of Marmaris

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GALLOWAY FUN FACTS

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