I fucking LOVE the Mr Men. Iconic pop art done with felts from Woolies costing about 20p the whole pack. Unpretentious stereotypes that NAILED the human condition. Aesthetically engaging hand-sized books which predated the joy of CD inlay cards. And a spin-off TV series with the best theme tune ever (after The Sweeney) and the droll, avuncular and dulcet voice - like a melted Worther’s Original - of Arthur Lowe. Fucking love them.
But some of them were bastards.
Like Neil Young, Roger Hargreaves was at his best in the first half of the 1970s, releasing the first 13 masterpieces in ‘71-2: Tickle, Greedy, Happy, Nosey, Sneeze, Bump, Snow, Messy, Topsy-Turvey, Silly, Uppity, Small, and Daydream. He built on this success and in 1976 alone he doubled his body of work, adding the likes of Strong, Impossible, Dizzy, Muddle, Jelly and Funny. At this point, he and Neil Young got a bit stuck for ideas and put out more of the same, only not as good. And then came the 80s. As Neil Young experimented with a vocoder and released albums on which he sounded like Metal Mickey going down on Dolly Parton, Roger Hargreaves pissed on his own legacy by writing the Little Miss books.
That aside, you should be allowed to do a fucking DEGREE in the Mr Men. It’ll be well worth 9 grand a year. Your dissertation could be titled, “How far do the Mr Men embody the post-revolutionary social dystopia of the 1970’s through a combination of pathos and bastardness?”
You’d have to start with the worst bastard of the lot, Mr Uppity. Clearly a Eton-educated, Bullingdon Club, Far Right Tory aristocrat with unbridled disdain for anyone who hasn’t made his school fag let him snort cavier and cocaine out of his arse-crack with a hundred-guinea note. Hargreaves was too astute to state this explicitly in the story and I daresay that I may have become a little upset by it at such a young age, but it’s there all right , IN THE SUB-TEXT!
Mr Tickle was a prophetic premonition of that 1980’s thoughtless and galling desire to piss people off by playing practical jokes on unsuspecting members of the public. Clearly, Jeremy Beadle and Timmy Mallet had that Tickle gene. In real-life, that story would have ended with someone kicking the shit out of Mr Tickle.
He’s not the only one. Mr Nosey got his come-uppance by having his nose either painted or pinched with a clothes peg. This would not have resolved his anti-social behaviour. Instead, he would’ve become a police officer’s snout, a pathetic low-life criminal who grassed on the big fish and eventually found himself with a breeze-block tied to his schnozz at the bottom of a canal.
Mr Fussy was easily the most mealy-mouthed, self-righteous prick of the lot. Not wanting to nail his political colours to the mast, Hargreaves neglects to tell us that Mr Fussy was an avid Daily Mail reader, who masturbated over Mary Whitehouse’s letters and had such a bad case of OCD that he claimed to have CDO because he wanted to keep all of his conditions in the right alphabetical order.
Back in the 70s, though, no one had a “condition.” There were no learning difficulties or special needs. Mr Dizzy would never have been statemented at school – he’d just be called THICKO and stuck in the remedial class alongside the dyslexic Mr Topsy-Turvey and dyspraxic Mr Bump.
But for every obvious bastard, like some of these mentioned and Mr Mean and Mr Greedy (nasty cunts), Hargreaves was able to step back and let his audience judge for themselves sometimes. Mr Happy? What fucking drugs was he on? He needed a right old slap. Spending his time smoking shit with Mr Daydream and unpicking the pseudo-Victorian gothic horror-come-olde-English faery-tale nonsense of Genesis’s “Nursery Cryme” album. Wasters.
The Mr Men were my role models. I’m off now to eat 30 fried eggs and beat someone up.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Monday, 8 August 2011
Bitesize Bastards #4 Pointless E-Petitioners
Until recently I was unaware of the laudable extension of democracy by means of the government’s e-petitions website, which enables every one of us to create a petition which can become eligible for debate by MP’s if it attracts 100,000 or more signatories. It was only when the news reported strong support for “abolishing the ban on capital punishment” (a wonderful double negative) that I found myself engaging with politics through this website. (For the record, I signed a counter petition, to retain the ban, because much as I would happily smirk in triumph to hear of the untimely and distressing death of any paedophile, serial killer or rapist, that emotional response is not one that a society’s legislation should ever be based on.)
For the purpose of your humour today, however, I have decided to share with you some of the more idiotic, self-righteous and pointless e-petitions which members of the grunting British public have started. Obviously, some people are consciously trying to be funny on there, but it’s the more earnest efforts that cause me to roll on the floor laughing my fucking arse off (as you youngsters say with your acrostic cyber-speak.) I’ll include the link to the site at the end, should you wish to support the intellectually retarded causes of these misguided boneheads.
So that you can appreciate them all the more, each petition consists of a main statement followed (when you click “view”) by a synopsis of exactly what is being proposed. This adds to the unintentional wit, because some people just have the most wonderful turn of phrase. For instance, the person who started this petition:
“Relax somewhat TV political correctness rules.”
The details are as follows:
"I think that it is important to, only slightly, relax the rules regarding political correctness in British television. Although i belive this is important i think that it is equaly, if not more important, to remain un-bigoted. I think British television could remain fair,open minded and inclusive, without going 'over the top' as it evidently has in recent years."
Clearly, his notion of law-making is as sharp as his spelling ability. How the fuck do you relax the laws “only slightly” or “somewhat”? How do you word that in law? So far, no one else has signed this petition.
Some people clearly misunderstand the role of government in law-making. Mr Bettles, I respect your opinion about the quality of programmes on BBC3, but I really don’t feel that the government should be empowered to ban a TV channel, not even for the help that this act might give to the “tough financial climate” by saving license-payers’ money.
In the wake of the London riots, it was distressing to read about problems in other areas of the UK. Mr Sleight, proposing that “Mobility scooters should require a license” outlined the ordeals his community have gone through:
He explains: “Currently, in the streets of Bridlington (just one example) people are encouraged to ride mobility scooters whether they need them or not. Resulting in hazardous footpaths, congested shops, blocked roads and general nuisances.”
Yeah, we all know that only the fat and very lazy use those scooters. Perhaps his petition should have read “Make it legal to tip over a mobility scooter if the person driving it is eating take-away food at the same time.”
In a similar vein, there is a call for the “UK to drive on the right hand side of the road” with all cars to be made left-hand drive, in order to avoid accidents caused by foreign drivers. Currently 23 people agree with this. Presumably these same people do things like using a kitchen knife to peel off all their skin to treat eczema or excavate their whole garden to a depth of 10 feet whilst weeding.
I’d hoped to learn something from the petition to stop commercial banks creating money and only allow the Bank of England to do so. I didn’t know much about this, so I looked at the details and was intrigued by the argument until the proposer justified himself with this historical analogy:
“Ghenghis Khan did it! He just printed money and said, ‘In my land THIS IS MONEY and if you owe me money, this is the currency you have to pay me in.’ and people accepted it.”
And I love the naive way in which some people believe that a small and hilariously mundane change will have such far-reaching effects:
“Sort out Pelican crossings
The Prime Minister should make an announcement saying that there are no cameras on any pelican crossings in the country. Then, tell everyone that if the light is on red, and there is nobody on the crossing, just GO! This would save Billions of pounds to the economy, increase our standard of life and reduce carbon footprint.”
Inevitably, the joy of giving everyone a voice means that we have to listen to (or read in this case) the demands of our sizeable minority of bigots, racists and common-garden cunts. Such as Mr Pitt whose petition is a call to “Abolish Islam in the UK” because he feels that the religion is being “forced onto British people.” Hmmm. Love to see the evidence for that Mr Pitt.
Prick.
The site obviously appeals to that increasing number of people in society with a 10-second concentration span who just like doing things on computers, evident by the fact that these arses start up petitions which are exactly the same as existing ones, thus taking support away from a cause and handicapping its chances of reaching 100,000 and going to debate. DOH!
Anyway, see for yourself when you’re bored enough. Or anytime something pisses you off, you too can vent your frustration with a banal and pointless e-petition of your own:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/
For the purpose of your humour today, however, I have decided to share with you some of the more idiotic, self-righteous and pointless e-petitions which members of the grunting British public have started. Obviously, some people are consciously trying to be funny on there, but it’s the more earnest efforts that cause me to roll on the floor laughing my fucking arse off (as you youngsters say with your acrostic cyber-speak.) I’ll include the link to the site at the end, should you wish to support the intellectually retarded causes of these misguided boneheads.
So that you can appreciate them all the more, each petition consists of a main statement followed (when you click “view”) by a synopsis of exactly what is being proposed. This adds to the unintentional wit, because some people just have the most wonderful turn of phrase. For instance, the person who started this petition:
“Relax somewhat TV political correctness rules.”
The details are as follows:
"I think that it is important to, only slightly, relax the rules regarding political correctness in British television. Although i belive this is important i think that it is equaly, if not more important, to remain un-bigoted. I think British television could remain fair,open minded and inclusive, without going 'over the top' as it evidently has in recent years."
Clearly, his notion of law-making is as sharp as his spelling ability. How the fuck do you relax the laws “only slightly” or “somewhat”? How do you word that in law? So far, no one else has signed this petition.
Some people clearly misunderstand the role of government in law-making. Mr Bettles, I respect your opinion about the quality of programmes on BBC3, but I really don’t feel that the government should be empowered to ban a TV channel, not even for the help that this act might give to the “tough financial climate” by saving license-payers’ money.
In the wake of the London riots, it was distressing to read about problems in other areas of the UK. Mr Sleight, proposing that “Mobility scooters should require a license” outlined the ordeals his community have gone through:
He explains: “Currently, in the streets of Bridlington (just one example) people are encouraged to ride mobility scooters whether they need them or not. Resulting in hazardous footpaths, congested shops, blocked roads and general nuisances.”
Yeah, we all know that only the fat and very lazy use those scooters. Perhaps his petition should have read “Make it legal to tip over a mobility scooter if the person driving it is eating take-away food at the same time.”
In a similar vein, there is a call for the “UK to drive on the right hand side of the road” with all cars to be made left-hand drive, in order to avoid accidents caused by foreign drivers. Currently 23 people agree with this. Presumably these same people do things like using a kitchen knife to peel off all their skin to treat eczema or excavate their whole garden to a depth of 10 feet whilst weeding.
I’d hoped to learn something from the petition to stop commercial banks creating money and only allow the Bank of England to do so. I didn’t know much about this, so I looked at the details and was intrigued by the argument until the proposer justified himself with this historical analogy:
“Ghenghis Khan did it! He just printed money and said, ‘In my land THIS IS MONEY and if you owe me money, this is the currency you have to pay me in.’ and people accepted it.”
And I love the naive way in which some people believe that a small and hilariously mundane change will have such far-reaching effects:
“Sort out Pelican crossings
The Prime Minister should make an announcement saying that there are no cameras on any pelican crossings in the country. Then, tell everyone that if the light is on red, and there is nobody on the crossing, just GO! This would save Billions of pounds to the economy, increase our standard of life and reduce carbon footprint.”
Inevitably, the joy of giving everyone a voice means that we have to listen to (or read in this case) the demands of our sizeable minority of bigots, racists and common-garden cunts. Such as Mr Pitt whose petition is a call to “Abolish Islam in the UK” because he feels that the religion is being “forced onto British people.” Hmmm. Love to see the evidence for that Mr Pitt.
Prick.
The site obviously appeals to that increasing number of people in society with a 10-second concentration span who just like doing things on computers, evident by the fact that these arses start up petitions which are exactly the same as existing ones, thus taking support away from a cause and handicapping its chances of reaching 100,000 and going to debate. DOH!
Anyway, see for yourself when you’re bored enough. Or anytime something pisses you off, you too can vent your frustration with a banal and pointless e-petition of your own:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Bitesize Bastards #3 Everything and Everybody in the Summer
I’m not one to moan. There are only two little things that I hate about the summer. Everything and everybody. Apart from that it’s a whole lot of hunky fucking dory.
For one thing, there are the insects. And all manner of flying shit-bugs and annoying buzzy flying bastards. Round about July, I dust away the cobwebs that hold the patio doors closed and venture OUTSIDE into the garden, with that sort of hammy trepidation that Star Trek crew have when they beam down onto a new planet, which is clearly just a TV set with crimson lighting and painted polystyrene blocks. And I think, fuck, look at all the weeds that have grown everywhere. And I have to spend hours over days pulling up all the weeds and anything else green that grows in between them, like flowers, bushes and plants and shit. And when I have watered the brown and arid lawn by broadcasting beads of sweat from my shaking brow, I sit back with a beer in a chair and savour the neat and tidiness of my OUTSIDE domain - For a few minutes at least, until some wasp tries to get my beer and I go back INSIDE for the rest of the summer.
However, the demons of the outside follow me in. I have the stark choice between keeping all the windows closed to keep out the flying things and thus turning my home into a greenhouse until I am baked like a miserable over-ripe tomato, or I let in the air and suffer the hostility of nature invading my home like an unwanted sales-call. “Hello, is that Mr Bastard? I’m ringing from Nature.co.uk to see if you’re interested in a conversion of all the dirty filth-carrying flying buzzy things from garden pests into household pets.”
My particular nemesis is that same small uncatchable little bastard fly that carves out geometric lines in the air just underneath the light in the lounge ceiling. What a pointless existence this creature has. He doesn’t even fuck off to find some food to eat or shit on. He disappears when you stand up to try and catch him and reappears when you sit back down with a petulant thump.
Then there are the moths. They know you have to leave the windows open at night and they wait in anticipation for that moment when you have to turn the toilet light on; and they fly in while you piss and flutter about in front of your face where you can’t shoo them off because you’re holding your willy and yet you engage in some kind of demented convulsions until you realise that you’ve now pissed everywhere in the bathroom apart from in the pan.
That’s when it’s hot.
And when it’s hot, everyone you meet tells you that its hot, just in case you didn’t notice and thought that the reason why your shirt and pants were sticking to you was because you’d been shot in the chest and arse by a passing sociopathic youth. And when it’s not hot, the same bastards moan about how we aren’t having a proper summer, oblivious for a few seconds to the fact that they live on an island in the northern hemisphere on the edge of the Atlantic ocean and not in fucking Greece.
It’s bad enough that the weather is the default conversation of British people the whole year round anyway, but in the summer people also ALWAYS ask, “Are you going away this year?” Nosey cunts! What do they want to do? Rob your house when you’re not in? More likely they want to tell you about when THEY’RE going away.
And when it’s hot, blokes with no fat on their torsos strip off to the waist, because it’s so much cooler doing that than wearing a t-shirt and not at all because they want to show off their fat-less torsos and look like wankers. Am I jealous? Yes. Would I do the same if I was fat-less in the whole torso region? No, I’m not a wanker.
Right, I’ve had a moan, I’m going up the pub. Not to sit OUTSIDE and watch wasps dive-bomb my beer or shove their pointy arses in my eye-line and make me look an idiot as I spaz about with flailing arms trying to dissuade them from their practice. No, I shall sit inside and nurse a tepid bitter and rub pork scratchings on my eyeballs until I feel better.
For one thing, there are the insects. And all manner of flying shit-bugs and annoying buzzy flying bastards. Round about July, I dust away the cobwebs that hold the patio doors closed and venture OUTSIDE into the garden, with that sort of hammy trepidation that Star Trek crew have when they beam down onto a new planet, which is clearly just a TV set with crimson lighting and painted polystyrene blocks. And I think, fuck, look at all the weeds that have grown everywhere. And I have to spend hours over days pulling up all the weeds and anything else green that grows in between them, like flowers, bushes and plants and shit. And when I have watered the brown and arid lawn by broadcasting beads of sweat from my shaking brow, I sit back with a beer in a chair and savour the neat and tidiness of my OUTSIDE domain - For a few minutes at least, until some wasp tries to get my beer and I go back INSIDE for the rest of the summer.
However, the demons of the outside follow me in. I have the stark choice between keeping all the windows closed to keep out the flying things and thus turning my home into a greenhouse until I am baked like a miserable over-ripe tomato, or I let in the air and suffer the hostility of nature invading my home like an unwanted sales-call. “Hello, is that Mr Bastard? I’m ringing from Nature.co.uk to see if you’re interested in a conversion of all the dirty filth-carrying flying buzzy things from garden pests into household pets.”
My particular nemesis is that same small uncatchable little bastard fly that carves out geometric lines in the air just underneath the light in the lounge ceiling. What a pointless existence this creature has. He doesn’t even fuck off to find some food to eat or shit on. He disappears when you stand up to try and catch him and reappears when you sit back down with a petulant thump.
Then there are the moths. They know you have to leave the windows open at night and they wait in anticipation for that moment when you have to turn the toilet light on; and they fly in while you piss and flutter about in front of your face where you can’t shoo them off because you’re holding your willy and yet you engage in some kind of demented convulsions until you realise that you’ve now pissed everywhere in the bathroom apart from in the pan.
That’s when it’s hot.
And when it’s hot, everyone you meet tells you that its hot, just in case you didn’t notice and thought that the reason why your shirt and pants were sticking to you was because you’d been shot in the chest and arse by a passing sociopathic youth. And when it’s not hot, the same bastards moan about how we aren’t having a proper summer, oblivious for a few seconds to the fact that they live on an island in the northern hemisphere on the edge of the Atlantic ocean and not in fucking Greece.
It’s bad enough that the weather is the default conversation of British people the whole year round anyway, but in the summer people also ALWAYS ask, “Are you going away this year?” Nosey cunts! What do they want to do? Rob your house when you’re not in? More likely they want to tell you about when THEY’RE going away.
And when it’s hot, blokes with no fat on their torsos strip off to the waist, because it’s so much cooler doing that than wearing a t-shirt and not at all because they want to show off their fat-less torsos and look like wankers. Am I jealous? Yes. Would I do the same if I was fat-less in the whole torso region? No, I’m not a wanker.
Right, I’ve had a moan, I’m going up the pub. Not to sit OUTSIDE and watch wasps dive-bomb my beer or shove their pointy arses in my eye-line and make me look an idiot as I spaz about with flailing arms trying to dissuade them from their practice. No, I shall sit inside and nurse a tepid bitter and rub pork scratchings on my eyeballs until I feel better.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Bitesize Bastards #2 The Dead-Eyed Has-been Celebrity Sect
(Disclaimer: Originally, this post named 3 well-known celebrities, but for reasons outlined at the end, I have decided to conceal their identities.)
So, I’m flicking through the TV channels and chance upon a kids’ game show on BBC1 and its being presented by Celebrity A in a sparkling electric red lame suit. A number of thoughts go through my mind:
WHY THE FUCK IS HE STILL ON TELLY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?
WHO THOUGHT TO PUT HIM ON A KIDS SHOW?
DOES HE HATE THIS AS MUCH AS HIS EYES WOULD SUGGEST?
Because what Celebrity A has is something a number of other has-been TV personalities have and that’s DEAD-LOOKING EYES. Eyes with no sparkle, no life. Barney Rubble eyes. Eyes that say, I used to do comedy in the 80’s, present prime-time telly in the 90’s and now I’d do anything for the money like a desperate fame-junkie. Eyes that would scare the shit out of kids and send them running to a parent, eager to escape the creepy-looking, dead-eyed man.
Celebrity B has those same eyes. Lifeless and hollow. When he made his name performing magic on stage, his eyes had that twinkle of mischief. But now he looks like the whole world has decided that magic is a top-hat full of saggy old bunny’s bollocks and consequently he has nothing more to offer. The only thing left to do is agree to be the subject of a Louis Theroux documentary, oblivious to how he’ll come across when Theroux shrewdly gives him all the rope he’ll need to hang himself with pitiful indignity.
But these men can’t help it. They need the work. And they need the attention. How awful it must be to fall from the dizzy heights of 80’s Prime Time TV and find yourself the butt of everyone’s disdain.
Self-promotion has never been easier for these ex-celebs. If they can’t get on I’M A CELEBRITY (or any show, like Celebrity Big Brother, which used to cruelly expose their rotting personalities) then they can always open a Twitter account. Celebrity A appears to have tried this, but ran out of anything remotely interesting to say 587 days ago after only 57 tweets, the most entertaining of which are:
WATCHING THE CRICKET
(I AM) BACK PEOPLE – SPREAD THE WORD
SORRY BEEN VERY BUSY
REALLY INTERESTING TV PROJECT IN THE PIPELINE
You lying bastard! Busy doing what? Quite often these people are “writing material” that I could produce without any more need for paper than a few squares to wipe myself with afterwards.
Celebrity C fares much better on Twitter with a following of 67,509. But he HAS TO follow 5,904 people (unheard of for a celeb, as most tend to follow only about 30 other celeb mates) because that’s where he gets all his jokes from. He recycles other people’s witty tweets without crediting them (you can re-tweet or quote others on Twitter, but he does neither.) This has earned him scorn and notoriety and therefore ATTENTION and attention is EVERYTHING to the Dead-eyed Has-been Celebrity, isn’t it?
Celebrity A has encouraged people, on HIS Twitter account, to be nice to Celebrity C who is “feeling down about getting bad tweets.” SO FUCKING WHAT? GET THE FUCK OFF OF TWITTER THEN! You’d think that people who are only interested in self-promotion should have worked out by now that the British public despise it and tend to take the piss out of anyone who desperately courts attention that is not commensurate with the amount of talent they don’t have.
I feel mean and nasty laying into these 3 men, but only because Twitter provides an opportunity for my words to eventually find themselves relayed to them, and they seem so paranoid and self-obsessed that they probably spend their lives reading everything about themselves on the internet. You know, wake up, turn on the PC and Google your own name. What are they saying about me today? Oh, I’m a TWAT? Boo hoo hoo!
For that reason, I have concealed their names. They are not really bastards. They look it, but they’ve gone beyond that to become the puppets of that evil tyrant, the bastard god Fame.
So, I’m flicking through the TV channels and chance upon a kids’ game show on BBC1 and its being presented by Celebrity A in a sparkling electric red lame suit. A number of thoughts go through my mind:
WHY THE FUCK IS HE STILL ON TELLY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?
WHO THOUGHT TO PUT HIM ON A KIDS SHOW?
DOES HE HATE THIS AS MUCH AS HIS EYES WOULD SUGGEST?
Because what Celebrity A has is something a number of other has-been TV personalities have and that’s DEAD-LOOKING EYES. Eyes with no sparkle, no life. Barney Rubble eyes. Eyes that say, I used to do comedy in the 80’s, present prime-time telly in the 90’s and now I’d do anything for the money like a desperate fame-junkie. Eyes that would scare the shit out of kids and send them running to a parent, eager to escape the creepy-looking, dead-eyed man.
Celebrity B has those same eyes. Lifeless and hollow. When he made his name performing magic on stage, his eyes had that twinkle of mischief. But now he looks like the whole world has decided that magic is a top-hat full of saggy old bunny’s bollocks and consequently he has nothing more to offer. The only thing left to do is agree to be the subject of a Louis Theroux documentary, oblivious to how he’ll come across when Theroux shrewdly gives him all the rope he’ll need to hang himself with pitiful indignity.
But these men can’t help it. They need the work. And they need the attention. How awful it must be to fall from the dizzy heights of 80’s Prime Time TV and find yourself the butt of everyone’s disdain.
Self-promotion has never been easier for these ex-celebs. If they can’t get on I’M A CELEBRITY (or any show, like Celebrity Big Brother, which used to cruelly expose their rotting personalities) then they can always open a Twitter account. Celebrity A appears to have tried this, but ran out of anything remotely interesting to say 587 days ago after only 57 tweets, the most entertaining of which are:
WATCHING THE CRICKET
(I AM) BACK PEOPLE – SPREAD THE WORD
SORRY BEEN VERY BUSY
REALLY INTERESTING TV PROJECT IN THE PIPELINE
You lying bastard! Busy doing what? Quite often these people are “writing material” that I could produce without any more need for paper than a few squares to wipe myself with afterwards.
Celebrity C fares much better on Twitter with a following of 67,509. But he HAS TO follow 5,904 people (unheard of for a celeb, as most tend to follow only about 30 other celeb mates) because that’s where he gets all his jokes from. He recycles other people’s witty tweets without crediting them (you can re-tweet or quote others on Twitter, but he does neither.) This has earned him scorn and notoriety and therefore ATTENTION and attention is EVERYTHING to the Dead-eyed Has-been Celebrity, isn’t it?
Celebrity A has encouraged people, on HIS Twitter account, to be nice to Celebrity C who is “feeling down about getting bad tweets.” SO FUCKING WHAT? GET THE FUCK OFF OF TWITTER THEN! You’d think that people who are only interested in self-promotion should have worked out by now that the British public despise it and tend to take the piss out of anyone who desperately courts attention that is not commensurate with the amount of talent they don’t have.
I feel mean and nasty laying into these 3 men, but only because Twitter provides an opportunity for my words to eventually find themselves relayed to them, and they seem so paranoid and self-obsessed that they probably spend their lives reading everything about themselves on the internet. You know, wake up, turn on the PC and Google your own name. What are they saying about me today? Oh, I’m a TWAT? Boo hoo hoo!
For that reason, I have concealed their names. They are not really bastards. They look it, but they’ve gone beyond that to become the puppets of that evil tyrant, the bastard god Fame.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Bitesize Bastards #1 Outdoor Adventurous Leader Blokes
I was up in a hot air balloon today. I won’t bore you with the wonder and niceness of it all. And I won’t pretend that the pilot was a paradigm of the stereotypical outdoor adventurous type of bloke. But he did, in his own innocuous and inoffensive way, carry with him a few of the traits that make most of these types quite tediously fucking annoying.
I’ll be frank. I believe that people with the LEAST capacity to be interesting feel the MOST compunction to involve themselves in adventurous pastimes and extreme sports, just so that they can PRETEND that they’re NOT boring. In fact, it PERFECTLY GIVES THEM THE RIGHT to accuse all of us less adventurous types of BEING BORING. These charmless oafs have cashed in personality for a life of adrenalin-chasing pursuits and forever chant their fatuous mantras in our faces: LIVE LIFE TO THE MAX!
Fuck off!
Sub-dividing this socially retarded species into two, we find that there are LEADERS and DO-ERS. The Do-ers just pay to do it. They turn up with bleached blonde hair and Chinese tattoos and all the right clothing to either bungee or surf or quad-bike or snow-board or whatever other WANKY bit of DICKING about makes them feel like they have BIG COCKS. And they start every conversation with, “I’m a bit of an adrenalin-junkie.” A bit of a twat, I then think.
I mix my tiny shot of jealousy with a large tonic of pity for these stereotypes. My chief disdain is reserved for the leaders. The men (I have nothing against the women) who fly the balloons, run the bungee club or teach others how to windsurf or paraglide or jet-ski or generally TRY TO LOOK COOL at either a huge height or break-neck speed.
These blokes tend to have beards. Bill Bailey types. A bit Dungeons and Dragons, but less insipidly stay-at-home pale. And slightly BO-whiffy. And they have this ENORMOUS knowledge of BOLLOCK-BORING stuff about their specialist adventurous pastime AND about EVERYTHING ELSE EVER that you’re likely to talk about when you’re outside the house. And they want to just talk AT you when you make that fatal mistake of naively asking a question to which a simple YES or NO answer would suffice. The sort of question that they interpret as PLEASE TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING SO THAT I CAN BE IMPRESSED BY YOU. (In a way that no one was impressed by them at school, when they were bullied and smelt quite BO-whiffy then too.)
There’s a galling sort of arrogance that comes with such a compendium of boring knowledge, so much so that you want to pour petrol on the bastard’s fleece and set him alight. Especially when he continues to fire off droll comments at your expense to belittle you and make you feel less of an interesting person because you’re just doing whatever dicking adventure thing it is just the ONCE and he does it all the time. And has a t-shirt saying as much. “I DO IT TEN TIMES A DAY.”
But he actually looks like he didn’t have sex until he was 32 and since then he and his gruesomely wretched-looking wife have gone the whole hog and become sex people, going to swinger parties with other couples that they know from the pub quiz in the village local. Yuk.
But anyway, like I said, I wouldn’t like to attribute all these qualities to my hot air balloon pilot today as he was barely scratching the surface of the stereotype. But he WAS called Gary and I bet they’re all called Gary aren’t they?
I’ll be frank. I believe that people with the LEAST capacity to be interesting feel the MOST compunction to involve themselves in adventurous pastimes and extreme sports, just so that they can PRETEND that they’re NOT boring. In fact, it PERFECTLY GIVES THEM THE RIGHT to accuse all of us less adventurous types of BEING BORING. These charmless oafs have cashed in personality for a life of adrenalin-chasing pursuits and forever chant their fatuous mantras in our faces: LIVE LIFE TO THE MAX!
Fuck off!
Sub-dividing this socially retarded species into two, we find that there are LEADERS and DO-ERS. The Do-ers just pay to do it. They turn up with bleached blonde hair and Chinese tattoos and all the right clothing to either bungee or surf or quad-bike or snow-board or whatever other WANKY bit of DICKING about makes them feel like they have BIG COCKS. And they start every conversation with, “I’m a bit of an adrenalin-junkie.” A bit of a twat, I then think.
I mix my tiny shot of jealousy with a large tonic of pity for these stereotypes. My chief disdain is reserved for the leaders. The men (I have nothing against the women) who fly the balloons, run the bungee club or teach others how to windsurf or paraglide or jet-ski or generally TRY TO LOOK COOL at either a huge height or break-neck speed.
These blokes tend to have beards. Bill Bailey types. A bit Dungeons and Dragons, but less insipidly stay-at-home pale. And slightly BO-whiffy. And they have this ENORMOUS knowledge of BOLLOCK-BORING stuff about their specialist adventurous pastime AND about EVERYTHING ELSE EVER that you’re likely to talk about when you’re outside the house. And they want to just talk AT you when you make that fatal mistake of naively asking a question to which a simple YES or NO answer would suffice. The sort of question that they interpret as PLEASE TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING SO THAT I CAN BE IMPRESSED BY YOU. (In a way that no one was impressed by them at school, when they were bullied and smelt quite BO-whiffy then too.)
There’s a galling sort of arrogance that comes with such a compendium of boring knowledge, so much so that you want to pour petrol on the bastard’s fleece and set him alight. Especially when he continues to fire off droll comments at your expense to belittle you and make you feel less of an interesting person because you’re just doing whatever dicking adventure thing it is just the ONCE and he does it all the time. And has a t-shirt saying as much. “I DO IT TEN TIMES A DAY.”
But he actually looks like he didn’t have sex until he was 32 and since then he and his gruesomely wretched-looking wife have gone the whole hog and become sex people, going to swinger parties with other couples that they know from the pub quiz in the village local. Yuk.
But anyway, like I said, I wouldn’t like to attribute all these qualities to my hot air balloon pilot today as he was barely scratching the surface of the stereotype. But he WAS called Gary and I bet they’re all called Gary aren’t they?
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
The Magic Shit Goblin
If you could have one superhero power, what would it be?
This question is unarguably TRITE and DESPERATE and gets inserted into awkwardly silent gaps in social situations as a conversation-inducing enema. But it CAN throw up intriguing answers.
I’ve considered all the usual responses. I wouldn’t want to FLY, because I damn near shit my pants last week going just 200 feet up at 80 mph on STEALTH at Thorpe Park. I wouldn’t want superhuman STRENGTH, because I’m such an easily provoked, bad-tempered and self-righteous bastard, that I’d be constantly beating up blokes as if I was Batman on crack. And the idea of being INVISIBLE in order to spy on women getting undressed, well... that’s just perverted and creepy. (I’d much rather just ACCIDENTALLY stumble into that kind of situation.)
The other problem with having a superpower is that it can only lead to a sense of elitist arrogance and egotism that would make me just one incident of anal sex away from being David Starkey.
So, what I would rather have instead of a super power is my very own MAGIC SHIT GOBLIN.
My Magic Shit Goblin would be magic in that only I can see him. He is totally invisible to everyone else, as is his MAGIC SACK OF SHIT. What’s magic about his magic sack of shit is that it is full of an infinite number of turds – of every possible texture, consistency and tensile strength – all of which remain invisible when hurled by my magic shit goblin until the point of IMPACT, when magically they assume absolute clarity of existence.
My Magic Shit Goblin would accompany me everywhere and await instruction as to whom (or at what) he should throw a shit. I SAY THE WORD, HE THROWS A TURD. (Can you see what I did there?) He’s also clever enough to select whatever type of poo I ask for and to hurl this with whatever degree of force I instruct him to use. He’s a bit like a golfer’s caddie in that sense.
My Magic Shit Goblin would require some subsidiary magical powers in order to fulfil his function. For instance, he must be able to remain rooted to the roof of my car in order to hurl shits at the inordinate number of wankers I encounter EVERY TIME I drive anywhere. On my prompt (which might have to be telepathic seeing as he’s outside the car and I’m in it) my loyal and trusted goblin will be broadcasting handfuls of crap at every tailgater, wrong-lane-changing over-taker, speed-limit-spanking twat-racer, white van driver, sports car owner and those inconsiderate lazy cunts who never indicate. SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!
I’d take my Magic Shit Goblin to the pub so that when you get one of those ubiquitous moments when some selfish oaf arrives at the bar AFTER you but allows him/herself to be served BEFORE you without having the fucking decency to say “He was here before ME,” then the self-centred COCKBUCKET won’t see the lump of REVENGE TURD until it actually submerges in his or her glass and starts to break up like the wreck of the Titanic.
I’d even take my Magic Shit Goblin to the supermarket and put him in the baby seat bit of the trolley and have him primed to offload the odd dump into the momentarily-abandoned trolleys of those thoughtless and blinkered bastards that block the aisles. A great big nut-laced plop right on top of their tins of cat food and organic celery sticks.
Now, you might be thinking that I have wasted a wish here. I could have chosen to have some magical power or superhuman feature that could be employed in ending war and poverty and repression in the world. It’s true to say that even if I could send my Magic Shit Goblin on long-distance missions, a lump of shit in Colonel Gadaffi’s couscous is not going to save Libyan lives. Nor is a multiple raining down of plops over a Taliban hideout going to save us all from terrorism. And those societies that still stone women for adultery and homosexuals for being homosexual, if my Magic Shit Goblin lobbed some plops in their direction they’d just use them once they ran out of stones.
I could set my aspirations lower, I guess, and seek to rid British TV of all primetime shows that involve talentless twats trying to get attention for themselves in an elimination competition that moronic members of the public text in to vote for. I could indeed send my Magic Shit Goblin to those TV studios and pepper the producers and presenters with a torrent of turd, but I would expect one of those turds to consequently pull in the most text votes and win the series before going on to enjoy a 12 month popularity rise and find itself photographed on the beach in Ibiza with its cellulite showing.
So, selfish as it seems, my Magic Shit Goblin will serve only my own petty purposes. That is until he has his mind corrupted by ideas from Twitter which encourages him to question the nature of his servitude and ultimately turn against me, backed up by the full arsenal of the contents of his magical sack.
If I do get myself a Magic Shit Goblin, I’ll be sure never to let him go on Twitter.
This question is unarguably TRITE and DESPERATE and gets inserted into awkwardly silent gaps in social situations as a conversation-inducing enema. But it CAN throw up intriguing answers.
I’ve considered all the usual responses. I wouldn’t want to FLY, because I damn near shit my pants last week going just 200 feet up at 80 mph on STEALTH at Thorpe Park. I wouldn’t want superhuman STRENGTH, because I’m such an easily provoked, bad-tempered and self-righteous bastard, that I’d be constantly beating up blokes as if I was Batman on crack. And the idea of being INVISIBLE in order to spy on women getting undressed, well... that’s just perverted and creepy. (I’d much rather just ACCIDENTALLY stumble into that kind of situation.)
The other problem with having a superpower is that it can only lead to a sense of elitist arrogance and egotism that would make me just one incident of anal sex away from being David Starkey.
So, what I would rather have instead of a super power is my very own MAGIC SHIT GOBLIN.
My Magic Shit Goblin would be magic in that only I can see him. He is totally invisible to everyone else, as is his MAGIC SACK OF SHIT. What’s magic about his magic sack of shit is that it is full of an infinite number of turds – of every possible texture, consistency and tensile strength – all of which remain invisible when hurled by my magic shit goblin until the point of IMPACT, when magically they assume absolute clarity of existence.
My Magic Shit Goblin would accompany me everywhere and await instruction as to whom (or at what) he should throw a shit. I SAY THE WORD, HE THROWS A TURD. (Can you see what I did there?) He’s also clever enough to select whatever type of poo I ask for and to hurl this with whatever degree of force I instruct him to use. He’s a bit like a golfer’s caddie in that sense.
My Magic Shit Goblin would require some subsidiary magical powers in order to fulfil his function. For instance, he must be able to remain rooted to the roof of my car in order to hurl shits at the inordinate number of wankers I encounter EVERY TIME I drive anywhere. On my prompt (which might have to be telepathic seeing as he’s outside the car and I’m in it) my loyal and trusted goblin will be broadcasting handfuls of crap at every tailgater, wrong-lane-changing over-taker, speed-limit-spanking twat-racer, white van driver, sports car owner and those inconsiderate lazy cunts who never indicate. SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!
I’d take my Magic Shit Goblin to the pub so that when you get one of those ubiquitous moments when some selfish oaf arrives at the bar AFTER you but allows him/herself to be served BEFORE you without having the fucking decency to say “He was here before ME,” then the self-centred COCKBUCKET won’t see the lump of REVENGE TURD until it actually submerges in his or her glass and starts to break up like the wreck of the Titanic.
I’d even take my Magic Shit Goblin to the supermarket and put him in the baby seat bit of the trolley and have him primed to offload the odd dump into the momentarily-abandoned trolleys of those thoughtless and blinkered bastards that block the aisles. A great big nut-laced plop right on top of their tins of cat food and organic celery sticks.
Now, you might be thinking that I have wasted a wish here. I could have chosen to have some magical power or superhuman feature that could be employed in ending war and poverty and repression in the world. It’s true to say that even if I could send my Magic Shit Goblin on long-distance missions, a lump of shit in Colonel Gadaffi’s couscous is not going to save Libyan lives. Nor is a multiple raining down of plops over a Taliban hideout going to save us all from terrorism. And those societies that still stone women for adultery and homosexuals for being homosexual, if my Magic Shit Goblin lobbed some plops in their direction they’d just use them once they ran out of stones.
I could set my aspirations lower, I guess, and seek to rid British TV of all primetime shows that involve talentless twats trying to get attention for themselves in an elimination competition that moronic members of the public text in to vote for. I could indeed send my Magic Shit Goblin to those TV studios and pepper the producers and presenters with a torrent of turd, but I would expect one of those turds to consequently pull in the most text votes and win the series before going on to enjoy a 12 month popularity rise and find itself photographed on the beach in Ibiza with its cellulite showing.
So, selfish as it seems, my Magic Shit Goblin will serve only my own petty purposes. That is until he has his mind corrupted by ideas from Twitter which encourages him to question the nature of his servitude and ultimately turn against me, backed up by the full arsenal of the contents of his magical sack.
If I do get myself a Magic Shit Goblin, I’ll be sure never to let him go on Twitter.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Marching Up & Down the Bastard Square
“AWOLs will be severly dealt with!”
Each week I would read the same notice and each week “severely” was spelt wrong. Or perhaps not. Perhaps there WOULD be some degree of SEVERING a limb or other appendage. Because we AWOLs deserved it, cowardly bastards that we were, traitorous fucking oiks!
I was 13. I was one of the impressionable students of St ******** College, all-boys Catholic secondary school, who succumbed to the BIG FUCKING LIE that the Combined Cadet Force was FUN. A 6th former from the RAF section of the school’s CCF strolled back and forth in front of us in assembly, arms folded, brow furrowed film-star style, telling us about field camps we could go on, how we’d get to fly a De Havilland DHC1-Chipmunk two-seater plane and how we’d get to shoot a Lea Enfield rifle. OH YES. We were having some of that.
We had been streamed that year into 7 form classes according to test results in our subjects. A strict hierarchy from the boffins at the top – we called them “stiffs”– to the “remedial” class at the bottom. There was a distinct correlation between the 3 sections of the CCF and the academic demographic from which they attracted recruits. The RAF appealed mostly to the top classes and that included me, because I was good at tests. But I wasn’t a stiff. The Army appealed more broadly to boys from the more able classes down to the below-average ones. And inexplicably the Navy consisted exclusively of remedials.
I say “inexplicably”, because in terms of who looked the biggest DICKS in their uniforms, the Navy were OUT THERE in their own league. If the stigma of being labelled a “remedial” and treated like thickheads by the school system wasn’t bad enough, here they were, the poor sods, volunteering to wear the biggest DING DONG FUCKING BELL BOTTOMS seen this side of 1975. And this was 1983. So. Not cool.
Obviously the Army cadets DID look cool. Consequently, they wore their combats and big bastard boots to all lessons on Thursdays, as Cadets was after school that day. We stiffs and stiff-deniers in the RAF carried our uniform to school and changed at the end of the day, because it WAS NOT cool. It wasn’t knockabout fucking comedy hilarious like the Navy cadets’ clown outfits, but it certainly wasn’t cool. Our trousers, which were made from pure starch, blue dye and asbestos, were moderately wide around the hem (i.e. twice the 12 inch hem width that was considered de rigueur in those days.) And they itched like an eczema-sufferer in a sand-pit filled with council road grit. The blue jumper with obligatory epaulets and badges was bearable and could be worn to Thursday’s lessons with normal school trousers, but the beret was ill-designed to match the sprouting hair-styles of the mid-80’s, my Bono mullet in particular, but also the occasional George Michael bouffy wedge. Luckily, most stiffs had a short back and sides, a sensible decision by their mothers I feel.
Our first field trip allowed me to bond with some of the stiffs in my class, who were fellow privates in the RAF. They were all into heavy metal music and - I should imagine - Dungeons and Dragons. The first night at camp we were allowed to roam around the local town (Folkestone, I recall) and spent most of it sat outside the cemetery listening to tales of Ouija boards, subliminal messages on Iron Maiden albums, devil worshipping and encounters with ghosts. In hindsight, they were sad fuckers really, but at the time – given the fact that I was then still Catholic and had seen “The Omen” several times since a young age – I was so worked up by all these ghoulish and supernatural stories that I near as hell shat in those starchy blue flares. Had I done so, of course, the wide hem would have allowed any ballast to fall unimpeded to the pavement outside the cemetery.
We did get to shoot guns at this camp as well. And take them apart and clean them and put them back together and feel like REAL MEN. And not long after, we went flying in Chipmunks. That was cool, although I didn’t get to take the controls, because I was the last one to go up and the lad before me had been sick in the cockpit and it smelt and I think the pilot was rushing a bit.
And so, up until this point, the “Warrant Officer” from the 6th form had been honest. CCF WAS fun. And that fun lasted exactly one term. In our second term, every single Thursday after school we would have DRILL in the playground (embarrassing, as other boys leaving school late would walk past and take the piss) followed by an hour’s classroom lecture on the rudiments of FLIGHT. Every single week. Drill then lectures. And the next term. And the next.
We’d been enticed in and entertained and now it was this old shit every week. So a couple of us started bunking. As the noticeboard said, we became AWOL’s. This is where the whole Mickey Fucking Mouse aspect of the CCF really sunk in. We were 14 now, less willing to be ordered about by older kids, whatever their pseudo-rank; and we were VERY BLOODY HOSTILE to the worst of the pseudo-rankers, the RAF’s “Squadron Leader” who was an English teacher and Head of 6th Form by day.
Mr G****** (and yes the Head of 6th form in “The Inbetweeners” does share the name) was a 1940’s throwback with a huge portrait of Margaret Thatcher on his office wall. Enough said. Except to add that he REFUSED to let anyone leave the RAF cadets. Even when my Dad came up to the school to demand that I be allowed to leave, he was told that the boys were being taught responsibility and commitment and so, as with the real armed forces, would not be allowed to leave until they’d finished their enlistment. In our case, this was 3 years. A decision made at 13 committed us to 3 years marching up and down the bastard playground, attending countless lectures about what makes a plane fly, dressing up in musty old uniforms (that must have been stitched together 40 years before) and playing soldiers (or in our case pilots, and even then we’d only done that once all year!) What utter BOLLOCKS!
So, with my Dad’s consent, I just refused to go. At first, while still young, I’d have to run away from the 6th form officers stationed at the school gate to apprehend the AWOLs. I even disguised myself once by wearing glasses and giving myself a centre-parting (only slightly less likely to elicit scorn that the RAF uniform.) But even at 16, while sitting my O’Levels, I’d look at that CCF notice board to see my name amongst the list of AWOLs alongside a threat to be “severly” dealt.
I never was. And needless to say, I never went on to join the RAF in later life, but mostly because I still can’t shake that smell of Chipmunk cockpit vomit from my nasal hairs.
Each week I would read the same notice and each week “severely” was spelt wrong. Or perhaps not. Perhaps there WOULD be some degree of SEVERING a limb or other appendage. Because we AWOLs deserved it, cowardly bastards that we were, traitorous fucking oiks!
I was 13. I was one of the impressionable students of St ******** College, all-boys Catholic secondary school, who succumbed to the BIG FUCKING LIE that the Combined Cadet Force was FUN. A 6th former from the RAF section of the school’s CCF strolled back and forth in front of us in assembly, arms folded, brow furrowed film-star style, telling us about field camps we could go on, how we’d get to fly a De Havilland DHC1-Chipmunk two-seater plane and how we’d get to shoot a Lea Enfield rifle. OH YES. We were having some of that.
We had been streamed that year into 7 form classes according to test results in our subjects. A strict hierarchy from the boffins at the top – we called them “stiffs”– to the “remedial” class at the bottom. There was a distinct correlation between the 3 sections of the CCF and the academic demographic from which they attracted recruits. The RAF appealed mostly to the top classes and that included me, because I was good at tests. But I wasn’t a stiff. The Army appealed more broadly to boys from the more able classes down to the below-average ones. And inexplicably the Navy consisted exclusively of remedials.
I say “inexplicably”, because in terms of who looked the biggest DICKS in their uniforms, the Navy were OUT THERE in their own league. If the stigma of being labelled a “remedial” and treated like thickheads by the school system wasn’t bad enough, here they were, the poor sods, volunteering to wear the biggest DING DONG FUCKING BELL BOTTOMS seen this side of 1975. And this was 1983. So. Not cool.
Obviously the Army cadets DID look cool. Consequently, they wore their combats and big bastard boots to all lessons on Thursdays, as Cadets was after school that day. We stiffs and stiff-deniers in the RAF carried our uniform to school and changed at the end of the day, because it WAS NOT cool. It wasn’t knockabout fucking comedy hilarious like the Navy cadets’ clown outfits, but it certainly wasn’t cool. Our trousers, which were made from pure starch, blue dye and asbestos, were moderately wide around the hem (i.e. twice the 12 inch hem width that was considered de rigueur in those days.) And they itched like an eczema-sufferer in a sand-pit filled with council road grit. The blue jumper with obligatory epaulets and badges was bearable and could be worn to Thursday’s lessons with normal school trousers, but the beret was ill-designed to match the sprouting hair-styles of the mid-80’s, my Bono mullet in particular, but also the occasional George Michael bouffy wedge. Luckily, most stiffs had a short back and sides, a sensible decision by their mothers I feel.
Our first field trip allowed me to bond with some of the stiffs in my class, who were fellow privates in the RAF. They were all into heavy metal music and - I should imagine - Dungeons and Dragons. The first night at camp we were allowed to roam around the local town (Folkestone, I recall) and spent most of it sat outside the cemetery listening to tales of Ouija boards, subliminal messages on Iron Maiden albums, devil worshipping and encounters with ghosts. In hindsight, they were sad fuckers really, but at the time – given the fact that I was then still Catholic and had seen “The Omen” several times since a young age – I was so worked up by all these ghoulish and supernatural stories that I near as hell shat in those starchy blue flares. Had I done so, of course, the wide hem would have allowed any ballast to fall unimpeded to the pavement outside the cemetery.
We did get to shoot guns at this camp as well. And take them apart and clean them and put them back together and feel like REAL MEN. And not long after, we went flying in Chipmunks. That was cool, although I didn’t get to take the controls, because I was the last one to go up and the lad before me had been sick in the cockpit and it smelt and I think the pilot was rushing a bit.
And so, up until this point, the “Warrant Officer” from the 6th form had been honest. CCF WAS fun. And that fun lasted exactly one term. In our second term, every single Thursday after school we would have DRILL in the playground (embarrassing, as other boys leaving school late would walk past and take the piss) followed by an hour’s classroom lecture on the rudiments of FLIGHT. Every single week. Drill then lectures. And the next term. And the next.
We’d been enticed in and entertained and now it was this old shit every week. So a couple of us started bunking. As the noticeboard said, we became AWOL’s. This is where the whole Mickey Fucking Mouse aspect of the CCF really sunk in. We were 14 now, less willing to be ordered about by older kids, whatever their pseudo-rank; and we were VERY BLOODY HOSTILE to the worst of the pseudo-rankers, the RAF’s “Squadron Leader” who was an English teacher and Head of 6th Form by day.
Mr G****** (and yes the Head of 6th form in “The Inbetweeners” does share the name) was a 1940’s throwback with a huge portrait of Margaret Thatcher on his office wall. Enough said. Except to add that he REFUSED to let anyone leave the RAF cadets. Even when my Dad came up to the school to demand that I be allowed to leave, he was told that the boys were being taught responsibility and commitment and so, as with the real armed forces, would not be allowed to leave until they’d finished their enlistment. In our case, this was 3 years. A decision made at 13 committed us to 3 years marching up and down the bastard playground, attending countless lectures about what makes a plane fly, dressing up in musty old uniforms (that must have been stitched together 40 years before) and playing soldiers (or in our case pilots, and even then we’d only done that once all year!) What utter BOLLOCKS!
So, with my Dad’s consent, I just refused to go. At first, while still young, I’d have to run away from the 6th form officers stationed at the school gate to apprehend the AWOLs. I even disguised myself once by wearing glasses and giving myself a centre-parting (only slightly less likely to elicit scorn that the RAF uniform.) But even at 16, while sitting my O’Levels, I’d look at that CCF notice board to see my name amongst the list of AWOLs alongside a threat to be “severly” dealt.
I never was. And needless to say, I never went on to join the RAF in later life, but mostly because I still can’t shake that smell of Chipmunk cockpit vomit from my nasal hairs.
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