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.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (extra final chapter)

Chapter 18

The evening rain seems to hang in the air, darkening the sky and soaking the sheep in the fields. In a lonely expanse of sodden countryside the beautiful mansion sits, besieged by the elements and the creeping of time. It is 1941 and the house is in darkness. In the servants quarters Mrs Macready pauses in her nightly reading of the bible and looks darkly at the ceiling. Although two floors below the children's room she can hear the creak of the floorboards as Lucy stomps around, swigging from a bottle of gin and raging impotently at her situation. 

“Lucy we have to get on with our lives, we have to move on.” Susan implores.

“But I was a princess!”

“I know Lucy, we both were. But we have to get on with our...”

“But I was a fucking princess in a kingdom of magic and wonder!” Lucy shouts, throwing her sister's hand aside, “I had a lovely boyfriend, some servants and a group of friends! Now I'm 8 years fucking old, it's pissing down with rain, it's the fucking blitz and I'm never going to see my boyfriend ever again.”

“We have the opportunity to start our lives again, make them whatever we want.”

“Terrific! I have to live the next ten years as a child and then get a job. I can't even remember what jobs there are in this world, can you?”

Susan tries to think, to remember the world before. It seems hazy and distant like a half remembered film.

“Clerical work.” she settles on eventually.

“Right,” Lucy says, “I don't know what that is. But it doesn't sound as good as being an actual fucking princess. Is clerical work in any way comparable to being a magic princess with a healing potion and a dagger?”

“The Professor says we can go back! One day we'll return to Narnia and have more adventures!”

“Oh don't talk to me about that old prick!” Lucy shouts, uncorking the bottle and having another swig, “he's clearly supposed to represent the author of the book, he can take us back whenever he likes! And besides Susan,” Lucy spits her sister's name with scorn, “in case you've forgotten, what seems like a second in this world is fifteen fucking years back home. Our friends are probably all old or dead now. We've missed the best years of our lives just because we were chasing that stupid stag.”

Susan makes for the door, looking concerned and older than ever which is ironic if you think about it.

“Stay strong, Princess Lucy the Valiant, one day we'll return to Narnia, one day. Remember; once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.”

“Oh piss off!” Lucy cries and lies down on the bed.

“How art she?” Peter asks as his sister gently closes the door. Peter hasn't adjusted well to not speaking in a fantasy style.

“Not good.”

“By the Lion's Mane I trust rude health shall return to our sister soon enough. Tis a queer situation we find ourselves in, returned to childlike form having gone through puberty, grown accustomed to sex, alcohol and sword fights and stuff.”

“I know,” Edmund says, “I tried to have a lovely wank earlier. Nothing doing I'm afraid.”

“Why has this happened to us?” Susan asks, burying her head in her hands.

“I know not” Peter sighs, staring out of the window at the ordinary British countryside as the ordinary British drizzle fills the air, “but we have to get on with our lives. We have to live...”

*

Susan, Peter and Edmund are in the drawing room. They have been back in the real world a week but still sit awkwardly in their unfamiliar children's bodies. Edmund is stuffing his face with rationed sweets because he can't find any Turkish delight and Susan is knitting a hat with a lion on it. Peter is standing at the window, running a razor over his bald, child's face and staring blankly at the rolling fields of rural England. There is a sudden banging from the room above and all three children look up and then at each other.

“Is she still up there?” Edmund asks nervously through a mouthful of liquorish,

“Yes,” Susan says sadly, “three hours she's been in that wardrobe, just sitting amongst the coats.”

“But we can't get back to Narnia that way, the Professor told us.”

“She doesn't trust him. She thinks he's a literary device, and a weak one at that.”

*

Inside the musky old wardrobe Lucy sits crossed legged with a box of matches in her hand. One by one she lights them and watches as the roomy interior illuminates and then slowly recedes back into darkness. She has explored the wardrobe more times than she can remember but it refuses to lead her back to the kingdom of Narnia. She has concentrated, prayed and even pummelled the back panel but to no avail. Sighing deeply she lights the last match in the pack and the brightness flickers steadily before being vanishing into smoke.

Lucy sits in silence for a moment, willing Narnia to appear before her. She almost thinks she can feel a breeze on her neck.

This time, she thinks to herself and crawls to the back of the wardrobe. But her hand touches only thick winter coats and oak panel.

The End

C.S Lewis, 1950

The Entirely Non-Ironic Death of a Lad

The following is the entirely true story of one of the greatest website founders this country has ever produced, and his tragic demise. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but all the events are true (Disclaimer: in the same way that Fargo was true). It is written in present tense because this is more exciting.

  

The 2.00 pm L.A sunshine pours into the bedroom through the rips and crumples in Darren Webster’s Venetian blinds. The floor is littered with computer servers, laptops, empty champagne bottles, take away boxes, cigarette ends and vomit. In one corner stands a plasma screen still showing the main menu for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. In a huge heart shaped bed Darren is sleeping his hangover off loudly and deeply, his legs intertwined with those of two of the most expensive and inhibition-free call girls available on the West coast.

On the bedside table Darren’s mobile phone begins to vibrate angrily and blares out a club remix of Gangnam style. Somewhere beneath the hazy film of champagne, coke and belligerence Darren’s eyelids flicker but he doesn't reach over and the phone goes to voice mail.

“Darren baby it’s Eddie! Just a quick message to let you know I've secured the McDonalds deal, you’re welcome! They've agreed to all our demands and they’re giving you a cool million to advertise on the page! As you suggested the M is going to be held up by two topless birds with massive tits and Ronald Mcdonald will be having a big wank over them! We've come a long way baby, hit me back when you get this message.”

Darren gets up and walks over to the dresser. He looks briefly into a mirror covered in photographs of himself with various supermodels and Premier league footballers. He takes in his disheveled appearance before racking up a huge line of cocaine and arranging it into the shape of a pair of breasts. He snorts the lot but feels nothing but a faint ringing in his ears, so immune is he to feelings and Class-A narcotics. Darren scratches himself and glances over to the wall, covered from ceiling to floor with various posters and promotional leaflets for his website, his baby, his life’s work.

It is over five years since Darren co-founded the LADbible with his friend and business partner Steve.  Eddie has never said a truer word, Darren has come a long way baby.  A long way indeed.

One of the prostitutes begin to stir from the bed, slurring her words badly and asking for money or water or something, breaking Darren from his reverie.

“What is it?” he asks irritably, walking over to the Xbox and picking up his favourite controller,

“David baby, can we have some more coke?”

“What do you think I am, made of cocaine?!” Darren shouts, briefly considering the logistics of such a project and then rejecting it, “besides what are you even doing in here? This is a bedroom not a kitchen which is where you and all women belong ha ha ha #lol!”

“But, Danny baby...”

“No! Get out of the emporium of Lad and get me a bacon sandwich ha ha #sandwichwench!”

The two women stand up and start to argue but Darren puts his fingers in his ears and shouts “la la la I can’t hear you la” until they leave and he returns to his game. He has completed this particular chapter of the Call of Duty oeuvre many times but it doesn't matter. He coolly dispatches another rag-head terrorist but again derives no feeling of achievement. Darren puts the controller down and a single tear forms in the bloodshot and sleep encrusted corner of his eye, as another passenger jet roars overhead.

 How did it come to this?

Darren walks over to his laptop and logs into the LADbible. The changes that the website has undergone over the years have been extraordinary. From humble begins as an internet meme, to an ironic series of laws thought up by knowing students being faux misogynist, to its current incarnation, a literal bible. An online bible worshipped by millions of 16-25 year old men. Many of whom have dropped out of society altogether to live in Lad communes where they spend their days playing Xbox, watching football, masturbating each other to hardcore pornography and tweeting about feminist dykes and how best to spike women’s drinks. Every Sunday there is a piñata in the shape of a woman that everyone hits with sticks until it rains down pornographic magazines, cans of Carling and statistics on the disparity in wages between men and women in similar job positions.

Darren watches as thousands of posts per second fill the screen and selects one at random; it is a joke about a celebrity rape victim, written in a speech bubble coming out of the mouth of a kitten with a Hitler moustache. Darren clicks on the user’s profile. The boy is five years old. His display picture is him dressed as fireman Sam sitting on his Grandmother’s knee. Below is a comment from one of his preschool friends, “Don’t think much of that pussy mate! #lol #old” Darren sighs deeply and clicks another link, it is a photograph of an unconscious woman on the floor of a nightclub, Darren scrolls down to the comments.

Fannydragon96: Hey, the only thing worse than women is disabled women, am I right guys?! #mongs

Rickygervaisisgod: I agree!

Spunkmaster7: Yes you are correct

Thepussylord: Man I hate them women!

Dicksplash123: I wonder what Mario Balotelli would make of all this?

How did it come to this?

The door to the room opens and the LADbible cofounder Steve, resplendent in a Union Flag suit crosses the threshold. His eyes rove around the room and finally rest on Darren, his friend, his business partner, his ally of five years, weeping gently at his laptop.

“Darren, I...” he begins but Darren raises a shaking hand to stop him,

“Steve, it’s awful...it’s...”

“It isn’t our fault Darren! It was funny! We both agree it was funny! Students mimicking 1970s attitudes on the internet! We weren’t to know people wouldn’t understand the admittedly wafer thin veil of irony! We weren’t to know!”

“We should have known!  As if anyone prepared to identify themselves as a lad would have any concept of irony or self awareness! We’ve created a monster.”

“It was funny Darren, it was funny. We wanted to be politically incorrect and annoy the stupid squares and the man hating PC feminists!”

“But we didn’t want this!” Darren screams, pointing to a blog by an 18 month old baby detailing, in his opinion, which race of women are the sluttiest.

Steve can’t think of anything to say. Darren nods slowly and stands. In one motion he has pulled his laptop from the table and thrown it out of the window and into the swimming pool shaped like a penis below. Steve watches transfixed as Darren puts on a pair of aviator shades, ejects his Xbox game and inserts on a Roy Chubby Brown DVD. He walks over to the stereo and turns on Chris Moyles’ latest collection of humorous novelty songs and climbs up onto his desk.

“Steve, I want you to remember me this way.”

Darren reaches to the ceiling, pulls down a noose, and wraps it around his neck. He takes a pair of women’s underwear from his back pocket and looks deeply into his best friend’s eyes.

“Hey Steve, how many lads does it take to change a light bulb?”

“I don’t know,” Steve whispers, almost inaudibly,

“None. Let the bitch cook in the dark.”

And with these words Darren drops his trousers, stuffs the underwear into his mouth and steps off the desk, masturbating furiously as he writhes on the end of the rope like a fish on a line. But a fish with women’s pants in its mouth and one that is also capable of masturbation.

Steve hesitates for a moment as his friend twitches violently from side to side, making hideous guttural choking noises and still wanking away. Steve pulls a gun from his jacket, takes aim, and shoots his business partner squarely between the eyes, pausing only to take a picture with his camera phone.  He lets out a sigh that seems to have been brewing in his tattered soul for years and watches as the blood soaks into Darren’s Keith Lemon T shirt and drips slowly onto the carpet. He turns away and points the gun at his own head.

Outside the gates of Darren’s Los Angeles mansion the feminist group protesting Darren stop singing their lovely songs as they hear a gunshot. Followed by another.  They cannot know what has just happened beyond the large front door but seem to sense the enormity of the sound.

“What was that?” asks one.

“Forget it, ladies. It’s LADbible town.” A policeman says, in a funny cinematic reference.