Rats! An Audiobook

“What time do you call this then?”

“You didn't write, you didn't call we were so worried.”
“Well, well, well. He's here Harry, standing in the kitchen bold as brass.”

“I'm just so relieved you're back.”

Just some of things I imagine you saying as you read this, my first Blog entry in over three months. Look here's the thing, I enjoyed writing the Blog but there is a finite number of brilliant ideas and the fact is I'd done all of them. As a creative force I was spent and didn't want to sully the quality of the Tedious Clown Blog by filling it with substandard noises and shapes.

Yet here I am.

I've spent the week at my parents house in Solihull and while I was here I came across (nosed through their possessions) some of my childhood stories.

Turns out I don't need to come up with any amazing new ideas, I'd already thought of loads aged 5-12! The quality of these stories is high. From holidays with mummy and daddy to the adventures of a particularly precocious dog it's a tour de force, a high mark of the late 90's literary canon. Due to bad luck, circumstance and a corrupt agent these works were never published at the time and have been languishing in a filing cabinet draw marked “crap that can't be binned due to emotional attachment”.

These works have been liberated and I am going to do a reading of at least one to be released in audiobook form, completely free of charge. If anything I feel I should pay you to listen to them.

I am also very aware that reading out childhood stories is quite an unoriginal idea, done most notably by Richard Herring on the Collings and Herrin/AIOTM Podcasts. What separates mine is that Richard Herring didn't get steadily pissed on European Lager as he read his out.

I don't know if this experiment has worked at all. If I get any positive (or really negative) feedback I may do the second half so let me know what you think!

Link: https://soundcloud.com/tedious-clown

Train in Vain

I love taking the train. People sometimes ask why I don't learn to drive, as that way I wouldn't have to rely on public transport. But I like relying on public transport. When you arrive at the train station for a long journey you know you're going to experience the whole kaleidoscope of human emotion:
Frustration at a delayed train, joy at having a seat to yourself, anger, happiness, whimsy, jobsworths, vomit, screaming children, all day breakfast bar.

Plus there's always a real possibility that due to a crowded carriage from Clapham Junction to Reading a fit girl will have to sit next to you. That doesn't happen when you're driving a car unless you already know a fit girl. And if you're reading or writing this Blog then you probably don't know a fit girl.


On a train journey you can plan out your entire life, read a great piece of literature or simply get leathered on small bottles of wine while the beautiful British countryside and naff provincial towns whizz past at no physical exhaustion on your part. On a train journey you can witness arguments and flirtation. Business deals are made and relationships broken. It's like EastEnders but with a fucking buffet car.

On my last train journey I was sitting at a four seater table. I don't usually favour the four seater as it trebles your chance of human interaction but I had a laptop and wanted to take advantage of the space. Opposite me were a couple in their thirties. Judging from their body language and the way they looked at each they were unmarried but had been together for a long time. If their relationship wasn't at a crossroads now then a crossroads was certainly an instruction away on the Sat Nav.

Both seemed faintly nervous but he in particular seemed uneasy in his own skin. She would occasionally reach into her bag for her phone and stroke away at it's face in a smooth motion, where he would struggle for it in his back pocket, stare at it as though he was from the past, and then return it to his back pocket only for it to vibrate again a few minutes later.

When the inspector reached their seat the girl handed the tickets over and I could tell she always took care of this sort of thing. It just saved time if she handled all the practical stuff like train tickets, then there wouldn't be any confusion over who had them, would there? The inspector moved on and they smiled at each other. A smile that said “I am so fucking bored of you and your hair and your hobbies and your friends.”

The journey passed without event for about ten minutes until the inspector returned and asked to see their ticket again. This wasn't planned. In the flat lining heart monitor of their lives this was a blip. An actual blip. The woman look confused and the ticket inspector looked confused as recognition returned to him. The man had a look of hunger. A crease had appeared under his eye lids that obviously hadn't wrinkled for many years.

“This prick's thought of a joke,” I thought, switching off my film and removing my headphones, “the ticket inspector is going to realise his mistake and this bloke is going to have a joke ready.”

This was a big moment in the life of Simon and Katrina (as I named them). In years to come, together or apart, they would look back at this moment as a pivotal one. The moment their relationship was made or broken. As they sit together in their retirement villa in the south of France, sipping wine in the evening sunshine as their grandchildren frolic in the pool and their children fuss over them, they will look back to this train journey as the moment that carved S + K onto the tree of love forever.

 On their wedding day the vows they had written themselves would make reference to Simon's witticism on that fateful train journey that had rekindled their passion for each other's company. As he carried her over the threshold of their marital home he would allow himself a wry chuckle at the joke that had brought them back from the brink. On Simon's deathbed, as he prepared to check out for the last time after a long and happy life of wine and roses and more love than he thought his heart could take, Katrina would hold onto his frail hand with her own and ask him, one last time, to repeat that oh so simple, oh so run of the mill, but oh so special little observation. Just one last time. A final moment of levity in tribute to the love they had shared, and the life they had built together from such humble beginnings into this. This Arcadia of love, this great city of trust and happiness.

“Sorry, I've checked you already haven't I?” The inspector said, embarrassed.

“That's alright mate, the ticket collector always rings twice!”


There was an awkward silence as the words sank in.

“Oh no, it's the postman isn't it. The postman always rings twice. Shit?”


Another silence fell, the ticket inspector forced a weak smile and Katrina looked on with a bitter cocktail of pity and boredom. The pause stretched on for what felt like forever, until it was broken by a machine gun fire of laughter from me.

The tension was immediately broken, the ticket collector smiled and Katrina gave Simon a playful nudge and leaned against his shoulder. The train pulled into Birmingham New Street and I left the train, confident that Simon and Katrina would remain together, for the rest of their lives.







 So that's why I fucking like trains. Because of the greatest love story ever told. So you can take your Jeremy Clarkson column, your boring conversations about Formula One and your £20 per driving lesson and drive off.

The Dating Game

Hello. The last time I did a blog it was about running. This time I'm going to write about a date I went on recently. This is because I now work in marketing and it's become abundantly clear that Tedious Clown is in dire need of a re-brand. All Market Research suggests making up a load of shit about alien list shows and being from the 90s is right out. Writing lifestyle blogs about being physically fit and kissing girls is very much in.

“The New Black” is how one prominent marketer (Piers Wad o' Cash) phrased it, over and over again until his boss had to tell him to stop because it was starting to sound racist.

So say goodbye to satirical whimsy and welcome to the relaunch of Tedious Clown as a cool fashionable lifestyle magazine about real things like dating and keeping fit and recipes.

 

*

I arranged to go out with someone on a dating website for cool and sexy people because I'd finished the Deadwood box set and what else is there to do? 

It became apparent as I rocked up at the Bar & Grill where we'd agreed to meet however that she was dramatically out of my league. To continue the sports analogy it was like she was Spurs and I was a team of overweight asthmatic children with severe confidence issues and only a basic understanding of the rules of football.

 

This was a problem. In real football the FA simply would not sanction a match like that, even if it was just a pre season friendly.

The logistics of arranging such an event alone would be a nightmare. For example the team of fat, wheezing children would have to get permission slips signed by their parents to travel to North London. Alternatively the Tottenham Hotspur squad would have to be signed in one by one at reception by Mrs Jarman and I just can't see Emmanuel Adebayor being arsed with all that.

The Football Association would probably also question the validity of Burton Junior School's credentials as a team. Clubs will often be fined for fielding an illegible player so an entire first 11 and substitutes bench consisting of young children not old enough to pay full bus fare, let alone sign professional contracts would be problematic.

I think the validity of the contest would also be called into question. If Spurs decided to go easy on the team of children they would be susceptible to accusations of match fixing, so would have to really go for it, and even given the free flowing nature of Andre Villas Boas managerial style, the physical contest would be one sided at best.



Jermain Defoe not relishing the task at hand

Although quite popular and often on billboards advertising sportswear, I think public opinion may turn against Gareth Bale when footage came out of him brutally but fairly charging down young Ian Stevens from class 5b, who has confidence issues as it is, whose home life isn't ideal and who doesn't need a 23 year old Welshman shoulder barging him into the corner flag.

I dare say Sky Sports would have their say too, having already signed the contracts giving them exclusive rights to Tottenham Hotspur's pre season friendlies, they'd have no choice but to broadcast the farcical spectacle of high earning professionals battering the fuck out of schoolchildren in an event that would probably be described by one pundit as “less of a football match, more of a deleted scene from Saving Private Ryan.”

James Dale, holding midfielder. Inferior to highly paid professionals

There’s a chance that the Spurs players, overcome with guilt and a feeling of self consciousness, would decline to participate, therefore refusing to play a game and bringing the entire sport into disrepute, as if it wasn't already in danger of that due to the farcical exhibition match taking place.

The spectator facilities at Burton Junior School fall well short of Premier League standards and the 2,000 travelling away supporters would also have to be signed in one by one and that frankly just isn't fair on Mrs Jarman. The game couldn't be played at the Spurs ground as Burton Junior's goalie wouldn't even be able to reach the cross bar of a full sized goal.

Plus the refereeing standards of Ms Owen the games teacher are negligible and 5 year olds start crying when a fully grown professional referee books them for time wasting

Plus Timmy Francis is off games because of an infected verruca and without him the whole diamond formation in the midfield set up falls apart.

Plus Defoe is still nursing an ankle injury and probably doesn't want to exacerbate it by playing in a poorly organised, ill thought out match of inter generational soccer, on a school field that is well maintained by the standards of comprehensive schools but a sham by the standards of White Hart Lane and thinks the whole thing is an appalling joke and should never have been arranged as an analogy for the mismatch in appearance of two 20 somethings on a date organised on a single's website that doesn't even charge subscription.

Anyway the date went badly.

Recipes next week.

David Gilbert, 2007-2013.

Face kicked off by Aaron Lennon.*



 

*Since this match took place in my imagination I feel I should point out this real child is probably alive and well and there is no evidence that the model professional Aaron Lennon would ever kick a child's face off, even if his team were losing 2-1.

 
 

Running Towards Your Problems

I recently took up running after googling how many chins the average adult male is supposed to have and realising that, even including neck amputees, I was well over my quota. So I decided to take up running as it is free. All you need is some floor and there’s loads of that. Just look at America. Can't move for floor.

I decided I wasn't a serious enough athlete to justify buying all the official running paraphernalia like latex shoes, breathable leg sheaths, jock strap, running scarf and those special trainers with flashing lights on the side so everyone knows you are a serious runner. I just decided to go with a pair of swimming shorts with the netting cut out, some running trainers I'd found in a ditch on a boy and an XXL football t shirt that was in a sale at 75% off because the team in question had just been relegated and they couldn't give them away. Well they could give them away they just couldn't sell them at full price. Hence why they were in a sale, but I don't need to explain retail to you do I dear reader.

So I've taken to running around the place all sweaty and heart palpatitiony and it mostly goes okay. People move out of the way and cars sometimes don't speed up when I cross at pedestrian crossings.

But, like every time I try and do something to improve my health and fitness, I end up seeming like a sex offender.

It isn't anyone's fault.

It definitely isn't my fault.

What keeps happening is, as I get about a third of the way around my sixty four mile route (or about three tracks into my running play list, you do the maths) a quite pretty girl emerges from another street a few feet ahead of me. My heart sinks like a pounding, cholesterol coated stone as I realise she is running at almost exactly the same pace. I am no longer Corporal Joggy McSexington of the Fitness Regiment. No I am now a disgusting Benny Hill throw back in a too big football top.

Just spending a lovely summer evening chasing women about the town.

Just having a little chase, what's wrong with that eh?

They can't do you for that mate!

The can't touch you for chasing 'em eh! Lads? Eh!

What?! Come off it love it's my street too! If I want to follow this bird about calling her a frigid lesbian if she doesn't slow down then I will and there's nothing you or Emmeline Pankhurst are going to do about it!

But it's not like that! I'm just a nice boy having a lovely jog!

And sometimes the pretty girl looks round and catches my eye and I just feel terrible that, even inadvertently, I may have made another human being uncomfortable. Whenever this happens I am presented with a choice:

OPTION 1)
Stick to my guns and carry on at my normal pace on my normal route and risk, at best social awkwardness and at worst a lengthy prison sentence.

OPTION 2)
Slow down, and remain overweight forever.

OPTION 3)
Speed up and overtake, which comes with it's own set of problems. Most notably when the pretty girl turns round and sees I have apparently found the reserves of energy necessary to launch into my wooing/attack.

OPTION 4)
Do what I usually do when I find myself in an awkward situation with a pretty girl. Turn and run in the opposite direction.


It's dilemmas like this that have caused an obesity epidemic in this country. SORT IT OUT BLAIR.

National Rhino Association “Frankly Sick” of Comparisons

Ryan Peters is not what I am expecting. I arrange to meet the beleaguered president of the NRA in his Los Angeles home. As I walk into the lounge I notice he is not dressed in the generic hillbilly garb we have come to expect from Rhinoceros owners. The 38 year old is wearing a crisp, light grey suit and looks a bit like Tommy Carcetti from The Wire. He is however sitting in a throne built from empty beers cans and the skulls of his enemies and various stray cats and dogs from the neighbourhood. He is also drinking coffee from a mug engraved with his family's insignia- an eagle and a rattlesnake having full sex. He is sitting under a framed photograph of a naked Ayn Rand mud wrestling Margaret Thatcher in a pit made of gold as City Traders from Wall Street masturbate over the spectacle.

I assume it has been Photoshopped.

 Despite my efforts not to stare I find my eyes drawn to the huge Rhinoceros tethered to a stick outside the back window.

“Don't worry,” He says in an easy Southern accent before throwing his head back and laughing, “she won't hurt you...unless I tell her to!”

It's this kind of brilliant wit and charisma that has made Peters such a darling of the Tea Party, along with his belief in a small state and a massive fucking Rhinoceros.

“It's patronising really, when you hear the liberal left go on about Rhino control. So they don't think honest American people can be 'trusted'? It's insulting to say that we as citizens shouldn't have unregulated access to any dangerous wild animal we damn well please. Is it really any of the government's damned business if we choose to keep odd-toed ungulate in our homes and our cars to protect ourselves and our families?”

I ask Ryan if he really keeps a Rhinoceros in his car.

“Sure! A baby one,” he concedes “I mean the effect isn't quite the same as an adult, but if a gang banger tries to jack me when I'm driving around in, let's say Harlem, and he knows I've got a fucking Rhino in the trunk, well he's going to think twice.”

Peter's wife, a meek and moronic woman in her early thirties enters the room at this point to bring Ryan and I a beer. I ask Ryan how his wife feels about Rhino ownership.

“Oh she's on board 100%,” he assures me, “she comes from a humble, stupid family down in the South. Rural people understand more than anyone the importance of self defence in these times. And what better defence can there be against the underclass and the Washington Fat Cats than a massive fucking Rhino?”

I ask Ryan how his wife feels about the recent string of controversial promotional marketing techniques by the NRA, including a calender featuring a series of scantily clad young women draping themselves over confused looking Rhinos. As well as the now infamous discarded slogan, “A Rhino's horn is actually formed of matted hair. Who's scared of some matted hair? Only a homosexual gay. Don't be a gay: Support the NRA”

“Look that was unfortunate,” Peters says, for the first time during our conversation seeming a little flustered, “but listen, at the end of the day, a Rhino's horn is made of matted hair. Nothing in that campaign was untrue. The fact is we're a civil rights organisation. Like Martin Luther King or that other black guy on the bus.”

Ryan seems annoyed by the question, so I change tact, asking him how he feels about minors and Rhino ownership.

“I think it's great! You see all the kids these days, fans of the hip hop and gangster rap and they're all singing, if you can call it singing, about bling, Rhinos and bitches. I think it's kinda cool, kid's wearing very, very, very baggy pants so they can try and conceal their Rhino down there. I mean they inevitably fail but I appreciate the effort. These kids are just exercising their liberties.”

How does Peters feel about the latest in a string of tragic school goring’s that occurred after a pupil took his Uncle's Rhino into school?

“Now you listen to me you filthy Brit socialist, that kid was a psychopath, the fact remains he would have still caused that tragedy whether he had access to a Rhino or not. You can cause just as much bloodshed with a knife or a bit of stick that you find on the ground as you can with a wild rhinoceros that you've starved for several days, given a taste for human blood and then released into a busy playground.”

I sense that the interview is in danger of getting out of hand, I notice Ryan's eyes glancing with increasing regularity to the large Rhinoceros in his garden. I also spot he is rubbing his hands together restlessly and muttering something about Obamacare.

I feel as though our conversation has run it's course. I thank Ryan Peters for his time and at the door offer a handshake that he grudgingly accepts.

“Listen, I know I haven’t convinced you, but what you have to understand is that in the USA we have this little thing called the constitution. In the UK you have the queen and she's sort of like your collective mum and tells you what's cool. I get that. But here we have that beautiful little document and in it there's the second amendment. Which, as I understand it, includes the right to do whatever the fuck you like as long as Jesus is in your heart and there's a massive fucking rhino to back shit up.”

I thank Peters once more and go to my car, giving the chained up Rhino, the ultimate symbol of American freedom, a wide berth as I depart.

Season 2 Coming Soon...

(Thanks to Michael Siddall for the depiction of my face.)

( I mean Tedious Clown's face. Did I ever establish whether I was pretending this Blog wasn't me?)

(Either way cheers Sid. Season 2 of Tedious Clown coming soon. Probably "This Spring.")

(If this Spring ever bloody turns up eh!) 

(Season 2 will feature better quips than that.)

(Remember the Ladbible one, that was good wasn't it?) 

(Bye)

You know you're a 90's kid when...

Are you sick of all these Justin Bieber listening, Rastamouse watching douche bags?

"Those aren't my cultural reference points!" I hear you whine like a prick.

They missed out on the golden age of growing up didn't they? The 90's! That's where it's located! Oh snap, Take a Chill Pill, All That AND Chips, Don't Go There Girlfriend because You Are Da Bomb.

But how do you know if you're a 90's kid? You can't just take the year you were born and figure out if your childhood and the 90's coincided as “science” would have you believe. 

No, you have to LIKE and SHARE this list with all your 90's friends otherwise you WEREN'T a 90's kid! 

Come on, you may only be in your 20's now, but lets try and manufacture some artificial nostalgia for a decade that only ended 13 years ago and LIKE and SHARE this list or your nan will die and WON'T bring Gavin and Stacey back! She'll be dead, how would she? She simply wouldn't be able to.

25 Signs you're a 90's Kid!

1) You can't resist finishing this- “Iiin West Philadelphia born and raised!” It's actually a really serious illness. If you don't sing the next line your immune system begins to shut down, if treatment (singing the next line) is not forthcoming symptoms develop into something similar to African Trypanosomiasis or "Sleeping Sickness."

2) You had a massive crush on Robson or Jerome and would argue with your friends about which one was the dreamiest.

3) Before you watched a video you remember the short recording of King VHS wishing you well in his kingdom of film and hoping you enjoy the feature.

4) When I was your age I wasn't pushing a pram I was eating a MAOAM!

5) You remember the day it turned out Tamagotchis were actually a sentient organism.

6) You remember the day it turned out a Tamagotchi was actually a type of very small horse.

7) You remember the day it turned out Tamagotchis were self aware and capable of human emotions.

8) You remember the day Tamagotchis enslaved all of mankind and forced us to feed them nondescript cubes of food and clean up giant mountains of their shit and then play with them/train them depending on the model.

9) You remember the day we all remembered that if we stopped feeding and petting the Tamagotchis they just died within a few days.

10) You remember 8 million attending the “never again” Tamogotchi peace march. You remember the relief, the joy, the pain, the songs, the floral tributes and the burying of the dead.

11) You remember that time period after Mike Tyson was convicted of rape but before we all decided that that's fine now and cast him in a hilarious and charming buddy movie.

12) You remember the great trading card crash when the value of Pokeman cards plummeted and people were pushing around wheelbarrows full of football stickers just to buy a pint of milk.

13) You remember watching Jumanji and asking your dad to buy you the board game but he told you it didn't exist and all the grown ups around the table laughed ha fucking ha.

14) Slap Bracelets were all the rage. Slap Scarves, Hats and Shorts didn't catch on. Slap Hijabs were a public relations disaster

15) The only books you liked were Goosebumps. Now as an adult you have a deep seated hatred of reading and like Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Frank Turner instead.

16) You remember Round The Twist, a searing and unsettling portrait of mental illness set in a lighthouse for some kooky reason

17) You remember when it was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday because you were a child and life seemed full of excitement and possibility, not a dirge of tedium and pain.

18) Because technology wasn't as good then no-one was even slightly materialistic and everyone was happy with all their toys. If you look at kids today they're always looting ipads in Tottenham, in OUR day we were happy with whatever we had!

19) If you didn't have a Nokia 32.10 you were NO-ONE and you could fuck off mate.

20) George Martin IS the sixth Backstreet Boy.

21) You remember a time before Blogs! The equivalent of a Blog was a Dairylea Lunchable! Podcasts were two cups on a string.

22) Your favourite Disney Princess was Princess Diana.

23) Freddos cost less than they do now! Everything cost less. It was the past.

24) You know the Spice Girls were a girl group. If you said "Spice Girls" to kids today they'd probably think of a Hareem of ethnic porn stars or some kind of set of cumin figurines probably!

25) You read through endless lists about the 90's and say "oh yeah I do remember that."

The Greatest Social Injustice of the 20th Century Part 2

Part 2. The Shard of Broken Glass

I grew up in rural North Yorkshire. It was a lovely way to spend a childhood and a beautiful place to live, if very rural. The nearest town was 12 miles away and transport links were scant and mistrusted. There was no live music or live comedy. There was livestock but that is not as good. All our school field trips were trips to actual fields, to help out with the Spring harvest because farmer Mansfield had got drunk off moonshine scrumpy and accidentally ripped off both legs off in a threshing machine again.

Ol' Clumsy Mansfield was just one of the many, what were kindly referred to as “characters”.

I also remember a time when a young teacher, who had grown up in a town, came to teach IT and all the parents were so suspicious of his computer that they put him in a giant wicker man shaped like a Commodore 64 and only let him out again when he gave some trinkets he'd bought from a nearby Morrison’s to the village elders in a bizarre three hour ceremony involving candles, twelve virgin goats and an effigy of popular entertainer Robson Green.

One of my school friends was at such a loss for something to do one summer that he spent the whole holiday digging a big hole in his garden and then when it was finished he just went and sat in it and drank Babycham he'd stolen from his parents drinks cabinet. 

(I'm not even joking about that last one, my mum came to pick me up one day and found us both in this massive, unstable crater in the ground and told me I couldn't go round there any more and that one day I'd understand why, that day has arrived.)

But I digress in a way that sets the scene...

The greatest social injustice of the 20^th century (yes including that one) happened when I was in year 7. I was happily walking from Remedial Calf Birthing on my way to Applied Being Suspicious of Outsiders when I noticed a small piece of glass on the floor, possibly from a bottle, possibly not. Being a conscientious little boy, I picked up the piece of glass and took it over to the bin to safely dispose of it. Pausing only to jokingly threaten one of my best friends in a way that was clearly a joke and only a stupid, and probably now ex maths teacher, would ever misconstrue as anything else.

So half an hour later I was sitting alone in the headmistresses office, teary eyed and scared. I had a form in front of me and had been instructed to write my own account of why I had been pulled out of lessons for threatening to murder a fellow student in cold blood with a broken shard of glass that, as far as Mrs Harborne could tell, I had smashed myself. I was only 11 but even I knew things had looked better. 

I was scared, confused and annoyed and in no state to come up with a witty, sardonic response like that one about making an ass out of you and me. So I wrote a pathetic whimpering apology to all concerned and explained that I was a nice boy really.

But I've had 14 solid years of stewing the bitter curds of resentment and fermenting the curdled grapes of injustice. I've been supping shame from the broken cup of heartache and chewing on the couscous of misery. For pudding I've been dining alone on a flambéed banana of psychological scarring and vomiting back up cheese course after cheese course of mistrust of authority figures. 

It is an unsatisfying meal filled only with the empty calories of hurt and of no nutritional value.

To exorcise my demons I have written a letter to my old school. I am hopeful this will put right the greatest injustice of the 20^th century (still yes).

Dear Mrs Harborne and Mr Byrne,

Hello. Gareth here. You probably don't remember me because I came to what you call a secondary school in 2001 and then left again in 2003 to move to Birmingham. The reason I am writing to you in newspaper cuttings and blood is to rectify the greatest injustice of the 20^th century (yes including that one) where you gave me detention and sent me home early for allegedly threatening a child with glass.

I have several problems with your accusation. First right, why would I even want to stab my friend Harry? As far as I can recall we were like best mates and got on like a house on fire. And even if I did want to do him harm why would I wait upon a chance encounter with a tiny piece of glass by the netball courts? I find it insulting that you think I would take such a slapdash approach to a brutal playground shanking. I find it insulting that you considered me not only a potential psychotic killer but the sort of incompetent, ad-hoc psychotic killer that stumbles upon their opportunity without thinking it through.

I don't know if you've read We Need to Talk about Kevin but in it Kevin doesn't just stumble across his weapon on the way to his lessons, and think “fuck it, when in Rome.” He premeditates the whole thing. He really puts some thought into it and does it based on a symbolic moment from his childhood in a satisfying literary device. That's what I would do if I was going to do a high school massacre. But I wasn't going to do one anyway.

 

Also while we're on the subject maybe if the Dinner Ladies that you employed had been doing their bloody job rather than smoking rollies round the back of cricket pavilion and bitching about their ex husbands this whole sorry situation would never have happened. Maybe it was ill advised to pick up the glass myself but come on, I was 11 years old and they were in their forties probably.

The problem, Mrs. Harborne, is that you saw me with a shard of glass and assumed the worst. And what happens when you assume? That's right, you make an ass out of you and me. You also generalised the children in your care as thugs. And what happens when you generalise? That's right, they're general lies.

Fortunately I'm not the litigious, violent or arsonist type otherwise you'd currently be finding yourself in a whole world of pain, lawsuits and fire. What you may not know is that I write an incredibly successful and popular blog, and I doubt my legions of fans are going to be happy when they hear what happened to me. I don't wish to alarm or threaten you so all I'll say is "Rodney King". I think you know what I mean.

All I require is a full apology in writing and I will call them off.

Thank you for your attention, or whatever the Yorkshire equivalent of attention is. Being arrogant yet surly probably.

Yours

Tedious Clown (Gareth Edwards from class 1b)  

The Greatest Social Injustice of the 20th Century

Part 1- The Party

It's a well documented fact that you're always clever after the event. Whenever you're in a conversational sparring match, a round of witticism fencing at a swanky drinks reception (which is the sort of place I hang out now, I'm not showing off) you'll always think of that killer comeback line too late. Usually on the bus home or as you're falling asleep or punching the shower curtain with fury that what you came up with at the time was so cack-handed and clumsy in comparison to the solid gold put down you've only now thought up.

The other week I was at a party held by a friend and the conversation turned to my blog as it inevitably does at parties. This is because I try and fit the words “tedious” and “clown” into any conversation as much as possible until someone has to acknowledge it. I also shout “BLOG” whenever I cough and put the page up on people's iPhones when they go to the toilet. Sometimes I'll arrange the Twiglets and Cheese Straws into quotes of things I've written and then gesture people to the snacks table and ask them to pass me a Twiglet or Cheese Straw.

So we were all having a lovely chat about my blog and laughing and slapping me on the back as usual when this girl that I'd never really met before chimed in,

“Oh you write a blog do you?” she said, stupidly, “I find all that stuff a bit passé these days. What's yours about, not another navel gazing series of self deprecating posts that resemble short stories but aren't quite good enough?”

Now I freely admit my response to this wasn't as shimmering with linguistic panache as perhaps it could have been. I also accept that, despite my remonstrations at the time, my wrist probably didn't undergo a freak muscle spasm and the way my gin and tonic was flung into her stupid trendy face was not without malice. I can also only apologise for the way I knocked the cucumber sandwich our of her hand and I agree you're not really supposed to use the words “Backwards Philistine Fuck wit” at a party with friends. 

However, I said it at the time and I'll say it again as I feel the sentiment still rings true,

“Come on, it's not like I've punched anyone so everyone just get off my case and where are those vol-au-vents that were on that table earlier because they were nice.”

So I apologise again to Lila. I'm also sorry about what happened to your car but that wasn't me; where would I even get a spray can at that time of night in that part of London?

But this whole frustrating incident that ultimately was no-one's fault got me thinking, it can't just be me who always thinks of the perfect thing to say after the event? As I was outside the party having a cigarette and a “long hard look at myself” whatever that means, and also not writing “stupid judgemental hipster twat” on anyone's car I thought of what I should have said.

When she uttered those cruel, vindictive and incorrect words I should have smiled, had a small sip from my drink and then stared into the distance for a moment as though remembering a childhood sweetheart fondly and then finally looked back at her and said,
 

“Well actually madam, I think you'll find you are making a big assumption there, and what happens when you assume? That's right, you make an ass out of you and me. You are also making a generalisation and what happens when you generalise? That's right they are General Lies. And quite frankly m'Lady you are clearly so prone to generalisation and assumption that if it were a wing of the military you probably would be made general and then given the Victoria Cross for services to pre-judging and then be made Field Marshall for bravery in the face of having an open mind about people's blogs. I thank you.”

And then I'd have downed my drink and moonwalked out of the room whilst everyone at the party gave me a heartfelt standing ovation and she felt stupid without having to be covered in gin.

It wasn't until I was drifting off into an angry sleep that night that I remembered another incident in my life where I wish I'd thought of something witty to say. The incident also happens to be the greatest social injustice of the 20^th century.

Yes, including that one.

And I will not rest until it has been rectified. I think there's definitely a sub par Danny Wallace style book in it.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Calm Down Dear, It's Just a Blog...

“Who is it?” Jen asks sleepily as the frantic knocking on the bedroom door wakes her from her rest. Her flatmate Debbie runs into the room and sits down excitedly at the foot of her bed.

“Have you heard the news?” she asks,

“No.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Do you remember that advert with the white haired, slightly lascivious bloke selling insurance, where he asks her to calm down dear because it's a commercial?”

“Vaguely.”

“WELL! Maybe she should tell him to calm down dear because he's dead now!” 

Debbie claps her hands triumphantly and waits expectantly for her flatmate to respond. Jen rolls over and tries to get back to sleep.

“Oh come on Jen! What did you think of my brilliant topical joke?”

“It wasn't very fluid."

“Well what do you know,” Debbie says, getting up from the bed crossly, “I've already had 32 re-tweets and 18 likes.”

“I'm very happy for you.”

“You do know your wasting your life Jen, not getting involved when the nation gets together to laugh at the death of a celebrity.”

“It just seems in slightly poor taste.”

“Not if their entire life can be boiled down to a catchphrase or meme it isn't!” Debbie shouts furiously and slams the door behind her as she leaves.

Meanwhile...

“...and so he goes 'why don't you calm down dear, it's a funeral!” Bill from Marketing says over the top of his desk divider, as the rest of the office fall about with painful, guttural laughter.

“Here's one, here's one!” Ian from Customer Services manages to shout out between wretches of mirth, “Michael Winner gets to heaven looking a bit shocked so God says 'calm down dear, you're in heaven!'”

Sally from Firewall Management almost chokes on her morning coffee as Trevor from Vending Machine Optimisation scrolls frantically through Twitter.

“Have you guy's heard this one?” he asks, the sweat of good humour pouring from his forehead onto his keyboard, “Michael Winner is dead. Calm down everyone!”

There is silence in the office.

Then everyone falls about in uncontrollable hysterics once again as the phone lines in the office ring and ring to the indignity of no-one paying any attention.

Meanwhile...

“Erm, we are sorry for the delay ladies and gentlemen,” the muffled sound of the tannoy dribbles out into the overcrowded morning train to groans and tuts from the commuters. Twenty minutes late already and now more bad news about to befall this accursed London-Midland journey.

“We're having some slight problems getting you to your destination today, but don't worry, calm down dears it's only your daily commute!”

The explosion of laughter seems almost like a physical presence in the carriage as everyone falls about, hugging one another and punching the air with delight. Some openly weep with joy and others text their friends to tell them what has just happened. 

The conductor himself finally stops laughing at his own joke and continues, “But seriously folks a young couple have committed suicide by jumping in front of this train so we'll just be a few minutes more while their mangled bodies are peeled off the front bumper.”

Meanwhile...

In a hospital bed, after several hours under the influence of heavy medication, the actor Michael Winner wakes from his operation.

* *

“Nurse!” Michael says irritably, having already been ignored three times, “nurse, was the operation a success, I feel fine?”

But the nurse just walks past the bed and into the next ward.

“Bloody ridiculous.” Winner says grumpily to himself, stepping out of bed and into the hospital slippers. He feels slightly woozy from the medication but otherwise in tip top condition. He sees two doctors chatting in lowered voices around a water cooler and approaches them to register his complaint about the rude nurse.

“Did you hear about Michael Winner?” asks one of the doctors to the other.

“Yeah, I guess he should have 'calmed down, dear!'” both men let out guffaws but quickly stifle them, concerned of waking up the sleeping patients in the ward.

“Now look here!” Winner begins but they ignore him and continue their conversation.

“Still we shouldn't laugh though, died on the operating table poor chap. Where did you hear the news?”

“BBC news website, you?”

“A funny picture on 4chan.”

“It is strange though, because I was in the operating theatre at the time and I remember the operation being a complete success.”

“I heard that too, but then, why would 4chan make something like that up?”

“I suppose so.”

“And why would everyone on Twitter be making all these brilliant jokes?”

“Well...”

“Look, let's just check Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is wrong about something then I don't want to be right!”

The two doctors get their iphones from their doctor bags and browse in silence for a few seconds.

“Okay, well I guess you're right, I don't know what I was thinking. Go on, tell us another one!”

“Okay, okay. What did Michael Winner say when he met St. Paul at the Pearly Gates.”

“Dunno...”

“Calm down dear, I had a Death Wish so let me in Heaven already will you!” The doctors burst into laughter at the two brilliant individual references and once again hush each other up.

Exasperated, Michael Winner stomps into reception and, ignored by the receptionist, doctors and other patients, out the front door and onto the London street.

“Taxi!” Michael Winner raises a hand but the cab driver just continues on past. He curses to himself as a young lady bumps into him. She looks confused for a moment and then carries on walking.

“CAN ANYONE SEE ME?! I'M MICHAEL WINNER!” Michael shouts to the crowded street but no-one glances his way. Michael Winner looks down at his hand, it gradually fades away into nothingness, as the words "calm down dear" in slightly different but ultimately identical guises fill social media live feeds.

FIN

This Blog is dedicated to my good friend Shaun Kellett, and anyone else who made a Michael Winner joke over a social networking site and showed no contrition afterwards.