Swedophilia

Dodgy police § Corporate justice § Cup of tea, Sir?

2006-10-29T20:32:00.000Z

Please devour my mammoth dream if you have the guts

I desperately need to gain employment in my current Swedish climate. If I don’t within 1-2 weeks then I will run out of cash supplies and be forced to go back to England. I have found my way into an English speaking office where they require a person to complete some vague, data input work. I am chatting/flirting with the manageress and another office girl for many minutes. A lot of laughter and eye-lash fluttering eye contact is involved. It transpires that another man has been given the position. Rueful looks indicate that they really wish they had given it to me. Further sour facial expressions reveal that they also are not too keen on this time-travelling usurper and inform me that he is employed on a trial basis only. If he fails this testing period then the job is mine. Definitely mine.

"I'm gagging for a cup of tea" I say "do you mind if I make one for all of us?"

Showing my “new-male” house-trained side makes them even hotter towards me. I make sure to offer the same kindness to my work-based enemy, in fact, going one step further and asking if he has a special little mug he likes to drink his tea out of. He looks like an archetypal stoner: Long greasy hair, scruffy ripped jeans, hole ridden t-shirts brandishing ancient metal bands nobody listens to anymore. I give these people some credit though. It’s no mean feat to be so cluelessly out of touch as a 40 year old whilst technically aging half that number. I feel deflated that the destroyer of my Swedish dreams is so completely devoid of wit, charm and is unable to fully open his red, sleepy eyes. A general air of self-served, unsubstantiated doom surrounds him.

Next I find myself in the kitchen with a mug in my hand that somehow I know for certain is his -Even though he never specified which mug is his and even though all the mugs are the same.
The tea is already in his cup. Out of my pocket I pull out a box of high strength sleeping capsules. After splitting each one, depositing the white powder into the drink and giving it a quick stir I was all ready to present to him with a lovely cup of tea. I give my mobile number to the office ladies, leave the building and simply wait.

Whilst pacing the streets I receive the anticipated phone call.

"There has been a problem with one of our employees that has lead to his dismissal. Would you mind coming in now to start work immediately. I'm really sorry, I know it's short notice. Do you mind?" says the womanly voice

'No, No.’ I soothe.

‘I'm up and raring to go. I'll be there shortly'

On my journey to the office I see a Swedish, Telia phone box. This brings to the surface previous anger against these people. During my time in Sweden I have made phone calls that equate to £1 for less than 12 seconds of talk time. I enter the phone box with the intention of twatting the phone receiver against the metal box a few times to gain some futile satisfaction. On the wall I see a new notice, in English, which I have never seen before. It states that charges begin, credit starts to deplete from the moment it starts to ring. If you ring for 20 rings and no one answers you will still lose all your calling credit. I am incensed. I try to tell the Swedish people walking past me what this company is doing but they don't care.

"We use our cell phones"

Cell phones? Typical Swedish-American wannabes. I storm off towards my new work place, releasing my anger with every step until when I arrive I am completely calm.

The office is now a large, corporate tower block with an elaborate stair case donned in red carpet. I see a short, podgy man in a suit climbing the stairs. He wears round glasses and looks like a mole. After a couple of seconds I recognise him as the head of the entire Swedish public telephone system.

"You!" I shout whilst pointing at him.

My hand is trembling with pent up emotional anger. He instantly looks sheepish and afraid.

"I know what you're up to. Causing the price of the telephone box to become so expensive that it forces people to use their mobiles. Once people view the phone boxes as obsolete they will remove them and then you, with your position as head of various mobile phone companies, will sky rocket the price of mobile calls because no one will have any alternative. There will be no competition"

He starts to run away. I begin to chase whilst shouting…

"You idiot. In a few years time everyone will be making phone calls over the internet anyway. Think you're clever?"

The CEO of Telia runs into an office, managing to hurdle over the solid front desk. I follow his manoeuvre with grace, then pounce, grabbing his tie in the process. I head butt him with the intention of breaking the lenses inside his framed glasses, forcing shards of glass into his spongy, rat eye-balls. I start to lift him off the ground with his tie and repeatedly pound his shiny head into the ground. I then embark on a frenetic, bezerker style fit which involves smashing the table and office furniture around me whilst making rabid growling, panting animal noises.
My power is immense.

I'd spent about £10 in real life on these phone boxes. Once it took 3, £1 phone calls just to arrange a time and place to meet. I am pissed off

After a brief period of fruitful smashing a horrible realisation fills my body causing me to stop dead in my tracks.

It is such a shock that my mouth is

ing

open

( )

and

I am

staring

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

off

into

space

¤-¤-¤(-0-) ¤¤¤¤¤ *

* *

with a

catatonic

expression `^´ `^´

on my

face as

dogs often do.

This office is my new office.

On most peoples' first day at work they make some nervous small talk and worry about whether they can actually execute the job description which they confidentally claim they can whilst lying their way through the interview. I'd just chased a very important looking man who actually WAS a very important and powerful man into my work place, given him a Scottish style beating and then broken a lot of expensive looking furniture. The look of sheer, aghast, horror on my ex-work mates’ faces sends a stark shudder down my spine. I am racking my brain to think of a witty one-liner that may in some way rescue the situation when I see a team of security guards coming towards me.

The Swedish security guards are slightly different to the over-weight, stupid, under-trained, slow, apathetic security guards that laze about English shops and offices. The Swedish security guards act with military style training. They carry telescopic batons, handcuffs and walkie-talkies. They don't bother trying to talk down a situation with sweet words. For the most seemingly innocent of offences -not paying for a ticket on the underground metro system - they will happily slam you into the ground face first, handcuff you then drag you away to a secret place where even more guards await you. There you may receive a vicious beating, but this all depends on your nationality. I am pretty startled by the site of these people, as afraid as if it was the actual police themselves.

I pelt it away from the office and execute a magical, Disney-like slide down the banister of the staircase with the plush red carpets. I continue running. The gravity of the carnage, the harshness of the Swedish legal system coupled with its possible punishment is growing inside me. I now know that I need to acquire a get away vehicle.

As soon as I have entertained this thought there appears a strange man who looks something between a circus performer and a Marilyn Manson fan. He has long black hair, a top hat and boots covered in tin foil. He juggles bowling skittles as he moves. This man isn't walking though, he was moves utilising a very odd contraption. It’s a cross between moon boots with springy, bouncy heels and a unicycle. I calmly tell him to get off and he silently submits. I place my feet on the metal foot holders and try to get to grips with the control. It’s a combination between walking normally wearing a rucksack full of bricks and cycling except that it takes much more effort and energy than either of them. The top speed is a snail’s pace but I decide to venture on to escape the security men. I turn round to see how close behind me they are but they have disappeared.

No feeling of relief comes over me after this miraculous escape. The piece of shit the freak gave me I dump by the side of the road then set off walking. Moments later I notice a policeman on my right side, talking to me about where we should patrol. I look down at myself, spy a police uniform and realise that I too am now a policeman. Nothing seems peculiar to me about this situation.

I decide it’s best to go back to England for a while until I can make sense of everything. To do this I need money. A shady looking character is skulking around on the other side of the street.

"Let's illegally search him" I say to my partner.
'Ok' comes the reply

we shake him down finding a large quantity of cocaine and a large wad of English cash on his person. My partner starts to handcuff my potential cash cow and reaches for his radio.

"No" I Say.
"He's learnt his lesson. Haven't you?" I say turning to the man with the drugs. The man who hasn’t uttered a single world

'Er..yes' he says in a confused and hopeful manner

"Ok. We'll let you off this time. We're going to give this money to orphans and tip this coke down the drain. Don’t tell anyone about what happened here today though"

The lucky criminal wanders away.

'Wow. It's like Robin Hood' exclaims my partner

"Yes, isn't it just?

I better go and take care of all this now. Carry on as you were"

As I depart from him it doesn't occur to me at this time how utterly naïve my partner is and how utterly terrible my lies that he has swallowed are.

Openly,

in broad daylight,

whilst wearing a Policeman's uniform

I start snorting coke in the middle of the street. The next moment I am in England -Minus the money and the cocaine. I head back to my old house in Withington to see Olga. Now that I am in England this is my main and most important mission. In real life I know she has been suffering from flu. Inside her bedroom I find her curled up in bed, asleep, with her head at the opposite end of the bed to where she usually rests.

I wake her up by calling her name.

Her sleepy eyes are very pleased to see me but because of illness and sleep she is still groggy, probably thinking that she is in a dream herself. I start tenderly kissing her neck on the areas that all girls seem to really enjoy. Even in the dream I’m aware that Olga is a close friend and that we have never kissed each other before, but it seems like the appropriate thing to do and so I follow my heart. The noises she makes as I kiss her are ones of longing satisfaction.

She realises that I am real and lifts up the duvet as an invitation to climb inside the bed. The bed is comfortable, warm and we start to hug. The hug is strong, feels emotional and perfectly right like we are missing pieces of a jig-saw fitting together at last. I feel safe and at peace.

Known and unknown Swedish girls in my dream.+ something about my tongue

2006-10-29T20:10:00.000Z

Of all the dreams I must have dreamt last night here are 2 of the 3 that I remember. The third one is obese and commands it's own post proceeding this one. Back story regarding the characters in this dream follows within this post. I know nobody reads this anymore because it died but maybe some ghosts can work out my dreams?

I was sat on the floor of an unknown bedroom in Sweden. To my right was a wardrobe containing a mirror attached to the middle panel. In the room with me are 2 of Leylla’s friends, Emilia and Maria. They are both highly amused at something and Maria passes to Emilia some fake, black eyebrows that are in the shape of a wide, inverted V.She attaches them to her face whilst shielding the results. When she takes her hands away, her face is contorted in such a hilarious, villainous way -complimented by the eyebrows- that we all fall about pissing ourselves. It’s sort of like count von count from sesame street, done in a hammer-horror style but better. I start to reach for my camera to take a photo of Emilia’s comedy face but before I can she passes the eyebrows to Maria. She now makes a face too, it’s pretty funny and we laugh quite hard. Maria realises that Emilia’s face is class and so passes the eyebrows back without a trace of bitterness.

Now however we are sat in a different room of the house and Leylla is sat in between both of them. Her hair is now an afro with way too much hair on top to make it seem like a cone, this causes her face to look chubby and accentuates the worst feature of her face, her nose. The clothes are completely different from the type she would normally wear. A plain, dark green t shirt is all I remember; it had stains on it and is something you’d expect a really poor American child to wear. The look in her eyes was as if she had been half-lobotomised.

Emilia is making the funny face again and I really want to take a photo of it but feel that I can’t because Leylla would have a go at me and later at Emilia –In real life she controls some of her friends through fear and her outrageous, unnecessary emotional tantrums. I feel disheartened because I can’t do what I want to do. I look at Leylla and then realise I don’t want to look at her anymore. I choose to look at Maria because she has such a pleasant face. The dream ended.

*It is weird that I should dream about Maria because I only ever met her briefly twice in my life and didn’t even have a proper one on one conversation, maybe a few words in a group conversation. I have no idea what kind of person she is. Obviously she is some kind of representation of Sweden/me in Sweden that I cannot figure out.

This is the second time or so she has been in my dreams since I have been here though. In another her and her sister, Anja had come to visit me in England. I would ask them a simple question in English and then they would talk together for about a minute in Swedish, start laughing a lot and then Maria would turn and very sharply give blunt one word answers. It felt very odd.

I used to dream about Anja quite a lot when I was going out with Leylla but we would normally just be sat, calmly talking about things. I don’t remember anything specific.

I dreamt about Leylla one other time in the 2 and bit weeks I have been here. I was walking near the train station in central Stockholm when I saw her. I called out her name and she saw me, started to cry and then ran away. I started to chase her but after a minute I completely stopped. What would I do if I caught up with her? All I wanted to do was talk and if she didn’t want to how could I make her. I just lie on the pavement and put my hands around my head.

This is the first time I dreamt about Emilia since I have been here. When Leylla and I lived together she visited us in Manchester for a week. She kept telling me how ugly Emilia was before she came and that if I made a move on her then she would go through with it because she didn’t care about Leylla. I wasn’t sure if this was some kind of test. After I first saw Emilia Leylla told me that she thought I was attractive which perplexed me even more. If she thought this way about Emilia then why invite her to stay? Because Leylla had lowered my expectations of how Emilia would look and act I was surprised when I met her. She looked like the kind of girl I would normally fancy and somehow she made a nose piercing look well.

Buck 65 was playing a gig at the Night & day on the second day of her visit. Leylla had bought 2 tickets and promised that I could have the other one; she kept telling me how good a time I would have. When Emilia was here Leylla decided that she wanted to go to the gig by herself because someone needed to stay and look after Emilia. The logical thing would be for Leylla to either not go to the gig or just maybe give Emilia the other ticket. No, in Leylla’s world it was now MY duty to stay with her friend from Sweden, the one who I had met the day before for the first time. It would have been easy to stick on a DVD or something but then I would feel uncomfortable because I feel better once I have had a proper conversation with someone, otherwise my mind starts to play paranoid tricks. Instead I spent the time hanging out, talking to Emilia and had a really good time. It felt comfortable and I suppose in the end it was the best thing because 3 people is a crowd sometimes and it might have been awkward between us if we had to be around each other for a week.

Upon Leylla’s return she was angry that we had connected with each other. She wanted me to, and I quote, “get on with her friends, but not too well.” Hmm. Such clear and specific guidelines, totally arbitrary in their complete unjustness.

Despite Leylla’s concerns we were all sleeping in the same bed. She demanded that we should leave the dirty sheets on because that’s what Emilia would do. I declined and put fresh sheets on. As the week went on I started to like Leylla less and less because of the way she was treating both me and Emilia. We went out to a shit forest rave and dropped pills. Leylla was in the bathroom and overheard me and Emilia plotting against her and saying how much we loved each other. She then realised we had been talking in Swedish and that was impossible for me so therefore was hallucinating

Leylla kept asking me if I fancied Emilia. She kept going on and on about it so much that I started to wonder myself. She kept saying that Emilia was the worst person out of all of her friends who I could like, that she was the most forbidden chocolate in the sweet shop. On and on and on she would rant. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy being told what to do and want things that I’m not supposed to, allowed to have. By saying these things Leylla was only creating a situation she feared so much. I hadn’t even thought these things about Emilia, why would I? She was my girlfriend’s friend. All I wanted to do was be a good host and be nice to her. It was a bonus that I genuinely started to like her quite a lot, but only on a friendship level. I hadn’t considered the physical side of Emilia apart from the first meeting when I was like “oh, she’s not ugly.” Leylla kept putting all these ideas in my head. I didn’t know if I liked Emilia in that way but I do know that I liked her more than I liked Leylla during that week long visit.

Emilia had to sleep upstairs after a while. One night I had a dream about me and her having really passionate, bed breaking sex. I woke up worried and sweating to be greeted by Leylla.

“I just had a really horrible nightmare that you and Emilia got together. Did you dream about it too?”

I didn’t wanna lie to my girlfriend particularly but the consequences of admitting this would be devastating for both me and Emilia so I was forced to lie for the greater good. It freaked me out a lot that we had had the same dream and woken up at the same time

Leylla broke up with me during that visit, went mental, and kept calling one of my other housemates who had gone to her new flat to see if she could stay. Leylla was going seriously mental and saying “oh, now you can sleep together and fuck each other like you wanted to all along.” Other nasty things were said. Emilia and I were just sat in the front room talking about what happened and why Leylla had gone that way. I hated Leylla so much at that point that I wanted her to leave so I wouldn’t have to hear her spiteful words. Someone like her drains the life out of you. She still kept going on about me and Emilia. It was starting to seem like a pretty good idea actually. I liked Emilia a lot more emotionally and physically at that point and I wondered if she would be able to swap her ticket with Leylla so that she would be the one to disappear and then Emilia could stay behind. I concluded that my thoughts maybe weren’t my own and I had just been drawn into Leylla’s poisonous world.

Leylla refused to take Emilia to the airport. I had to go to a new job I had started and actually liked so I couldn’t take her any further than town. I stole a book for Emilia and some food I think and said goodbye even though I was 25 minutes late for work. I felt sorry that she had to be so scared of Leylla and what she would do. Could she not see how insecure and weak she was? Probably that’s what made her seem so dangerous.

Leylla’s version of sanity returned after Emilia left and she actually apologised….probably never did to her friend. We fell deeply back in love and things went up and down the way they usually went. I thought about Emilia every now and then but only in a friendly way, never in a sexual way. However, for 2 solid months after that she would be in my dreams in one way or another. Usually heavily sexual. I started to become disturbed by it all and had to admit it to one of my close friends to gain advice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My other dream

I spent a lot of time practising rolling my R’s. Eventually succeeding. I still cannot do this in real life, finding it embarrassing and irritating when contemplating my deficiency. However, when I mastered this skill -which I desire so badly- in my dream, I felt empty inside, possibly a little contemptuous.

God told Jesus to empty the rubbish.The lazy Jew poured bin juice on the UK from whence Preston grew

2006-06-13T03:50:00.000+01:00

I started wondering whether my opinion of the UK and its general population: their ignorance, their primitive roots & urges, had been inflated & exaggerated to unrealistic heights in my head. To have full confidence & validity in my disdain I decided to take a little field trip.......

Preston (Lancashire,Uk) on a Saturday night:

Imagine the "club scene" in a small, isolated and backward place like Rawtenstall or Bury. Picture all those genetic anomolies sweating the grease off their foreheads.

Imagine a zoo where the animals hadn't been castrated or sedated. Instead of dozing they strut round wanting to either fuck or kill anything that their eyes chance upon.

Imagine if the mentality of these animals: their intelligence, their morals, their desires, their lack of self-awareness and personal hygience was living inside the minds of men.

Imagine if these animal men were integrated into Bury or Rossendale. Fucking skeg-eyed women, leaving an army of kids behind they feel no love for. Killing off all the weaker males leaving only a small number of violent elite.

Imagine if a few generations of similar behaviour down the linethese people & their families were cloned into hundreds of thousands,shipped out & let loose in a city that they were free to piss all over and mark their own.

Now you have Preston.

Entire main streets filled with gigantic Yates's, Tokyo Jo, the 80s club. R&b, generic pop music drowning the city.

This special new breed of men have a slightly more stringent criteria for judging a potential mate than their animal forefathers.
Attractiveness is defined by:

A distinct lack of clothing
The blonder & more chemically damaged hair the better
A natural, bright orange shade of skin.This year the Oompa Loompa look is definitely sending those men wild

Unfortunately for these men society dictates that they can't just wander up to a female of the same species, start sniffing their crotch & then mount. Our advanced species requires that we must wrestle down their minds with out superior intellect.

"What's your name luv?"

'Donna'

"NO way! That's my favourite name in the world"

man turns to grab his mate & says

"This girl is called Donna, isn't it my favourite name in the world?"

Mate says "yeah, oh yeah...definitely"

First man turns and smiles at the girl.

"ah, I love that name.How weird is that?"

The girl titters and smiles flirtatiously. Powerless to withstand such cunning mind spells she takes the clever bait & is snared. (I'd like to make something better up but as a fly-on-the-wall I must document fact & truth only)

My lack of interest or technique towards any of the truly pitiful Horror-bags around me yielded some interesting results. Middle aged women stroking/questioning my hair, but mainly pulling my cheeks and going "awwwwwwwww! You look cute" whilst making that slightly deranged sound that people make when they start yanking helpless childrens' faces with chubby cheeks. I've noticed a disturbing trend in the UK that the only women who are attracted to me are 30 . The hunger in their eyes is more of wanting to hug me tight all night, chitter-chatter until 9 in the morning, then make sure I left on a full stomach and that my scarf was tightly fastened rather than fucking me unconscious until my cock is broken and dry. Gutted.

The men are an interesting bunch. They all have the same hair cut. If your hair is longer than an inch then you're a "poof." If you don't wear a dark,bland shirt, jeans, or a t-shirt with a number on it then you "think you're special" & are a "Poof." Those who are unfortunate enough to not buy their clothes from top shop and/or whose reasoning behind a hair cut goes beyond "I get out of bed ,ready for the day" are immediately identified as outsiders.

If an outsider shys away from eye contact or conversation then he will be set upon; the pack can smell fear. If an outsider tries to interfere with the "High-grade" "women" then he will draw nasty attention to himself and make innumerable enemies. The best approach is a stern face (don't smile) & a confident stroll with an untouchable aire that suggests you are allied with bouncers or gangsters. This will work fine unless a drought of women occurs. They will then turn their indiscriminate sexual feelings (aggression) into a completely different emotion of mindless, indiscriminate violence. Outsiders beware.

Being an animal means that there is no filter between thought & action: You do whatever comes into your mind & unquestioningly follow instinct, regardless of how it makes you look or how anyone else will feel. They constantly scan the room for any girls right next to them, any girls quite close and time permitting girls far away. Any girls who walks past gets an immediate & thorough full scan. They grin and leer at other pack members when they see something they like. If they are really pleased with what they see then their heads tilt to one side, neck strains forward whilst simultaneously doing a "Home alone" after shave expression with their face, allowing their mouths to hang open and their tongues hang out. Their body leans forward trying to keep their head level with the ever distancing bum. They only snap out of their "arse wiggling" induced trance when they nearly lose balance,falling flat on their flat, featureless faces.

In summary:

Interesting conversation - Zero

Number of women with tribal/chinese tattoos on their lower back - Can't count that high

Attractive women - 1 asian girl

Men who didn't look like they belonged on an England football terrace making monkey noises - 3 who were handing out flyers. They were wankers too though. The annoying stereotypical gays who learnt their trade watching caricature queers like Graham Norton & Julian Clarey. Thought they had style but didn't. Only asian & black men can pull off wearing sparkly studded earings in their lobes, you utter fools.

Cleansing plague

2006-04-03T15:32:00.000+01:00

Scraping finger nails
Corner of the plague digs in
Excavates dole dirt

A Haiku is supposed to capture a moment. This moment was me sat at the signing on desk inside Preston job centre when I caught myself picking the dirt out of my fingernails with the corner of a book called "The Plague" by Albert Camus. I felt like a scruffy bastard, deciding that creating something out of my own squallid filth might elevate me slightly above the level of a 'Trendy Tramp', the look I have been accidentally cultivating on and off for the last 3 years.

I live life like the Captain of a sinking ship

2006-04-02T13:06:00.001+01:00

All around me is grey.
Steel grey and bolts.
A constant low hum fills the air, the frequency of which reacts with my brain leaving me nauseous and disorientated.
I'm wearing a light blue jump suit, as are the other 3 men who surround me. We're alone in the lower recesses of the ship, the bottom deck, where the sides of the ship meet at a point. An eerie silence prevails.

The feeling I have inside me is that bored numbness that occurs when you're at a tedious job you really hate in full knowledge that the only interesting thing that will come out of anyone elses's mouth is cigarette smoke. It's interesting because out of all the aspects of their character:

A) Last night's/Tomorrows game.
B) Lewd comments regarding women they would have no idea how to strike up a conversation with, never mind pleasure.
C) Grossly misinformed and inaccurate political opinions they lapped up from whichever scare-mongering news rag it happens to be that shows the most tit.
D) Gossip: Celebrity/Personal/Extended network.
E) Alcohol anecdotes: I had *insert anecdote* pints/bottles and I was so *insert anecdote*

their slow, toxic death is the only thing you really care about.

I've completely forgotten why I have been sent here.

"What's going on?" I enquire
'The ship is heading for an ice berg. We've got to strenghten it so the hull won't be breeched'

My maintenance colleague says this so nonchalantly that it infects me and I remain very calm and unphased. I assume that it must be a very small ice berg and that some precise calculations have been made to assure our safety. The modifications that are about to be made will revert imminent disaster. Even though I am still quite calm, I feel a strange, new urge bubble inside me. An urge to work really hard.

I look around for our life saving equipment. It hasn't arrived yet, only the cleaning crews mops and brushes are in sight.

"Do we not need wood and nails or some welding gear?"
'No, just follow our lead' the same man replies.

A brief amount of time passes until he says,
"Get ready to brace, ok...now"

The 3 men pick up some long brushes, the type used by caretakers. The points of the handles are imbedded into their chests, the brush ends pushed up against the front of the ship, some horizontal, some vertical. The men are pushing with all their might, the strain visible on their faces.

'What the hell are you doing!? Help us!' screams the man with the mouth.

I grab a brush and rest it against the ship.

'Come on, push!' shouts the man

"This is stupid. If the ice berg can break through the ship then how can 4 men with brushes contain it!?" says I

'These are our orders'

"What's the name of this ship?"

'The Titanic'

"We're all gonna die!" I wail

'Only if we fail' comes his stern reply

My feet are cold. I look down and I'm ankle deep in water.

"We've already been breeched. Let's run away to the top deck, it's our only chance"

'No! We're preventing the ship from sinking. Many lives depend on us'

I start to push really hard. Maybe this guy is right? He seems to know more about it than me.
The water is rising.
I look at the other mens' brushes. No one has even formed an X. There's no formation here. 4 men randomly positioning brushes against a hull. This isn't precise, it's precisely what I thought it was, madness.

"I'm off boys. Good luck with all this business though..."

I throw my brush to the side and start splashing my way away from the lunatics. After a few seconds I hear a gigantic roar from behind and I am swept away by a torrent of water and killed.

Grapple a Falafel

2006-03-21T06:07:00.000Z

I wandered into a pizzeria in need of falafel and in need of shelter.
“Do you want to eat inside?” asked the Italian looking Italian man. He looked exactly like you want a man serving you in an Italian authentic style pizzeria to look like: Short, curly, moustachey. If Luigi from Mario was an actual real, every day person but with much tamer hair and moustache, minus his very gay, green dungarees/jump suit he would probably look a litte bit like one of this guy’s removed cousins. You could tell he would spend many hours simply spinning dough around his hands like a spinning plate, laughing as he spun, laughing harder and more outlandishly as he watched the dough get bigger and bigger, thinner and thinner teetering between his near perfect, graceful control and flying off its axis at some absurd, floppy angle. Flour always fell endlessley from the sky when he span and the room slowed down, turning to sepia. The flour bounced off the dough covering his face, then got wafted away .......I trusted this guy and accepted his comforting gesture of restbite* from the bitter snow with a humble, warm, smile.

“It now costs 40k to buy food and eat in?” (nearly £4!) A swift sum of 40 minus 29 equalled this was a take out order. He didn’t know that I had no qualms about going over to the indoor shopping centre and procuring myself a table at a rival food establishment. He didn’t know that I would sit there unashamedly, smiling without even considering a minute, guilty purchase. He didn’t know that if I was challenged by a member of staff I would respond in a made up language, flummoxing and embarrassing them until they left me alone. No, he didn't know a lot of things. Actually, I Was starting to wonder whether perversely spinning dough was the only thing he did know. Maybe he was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, being one of the lucky few able to grind a living out of this severe affliction. Sadly, due to the nefarious machinations of capitalism, there is no place in the working world for the man who has to constantly check and measure the angles of the ornaments on his mantlepiece and tie his shoelaces 16 times so that his family won't die in the most horrific manner.

Inside the shopping centre happily seated at the table I open the wrapping. I have told myself not to get excited, this isn’t Rusholme Falafel. I had already been pre-warned that for some utterly bizarre, unknown, disgusting, inexcusable and unforgiveable reason, no falafel place in Uppsala serves houmous or makes any attempt at some kind of refreshing yoghurt dip that is destined to be served with any meaningful falafel. Even if you bought a frozen falafel from a supermarket in England you would get a yoghurt dip. In Uppsala, they treat a falafel how a filthy English Take-away would treat one of their disgusting burgers or one of their inexplicable kebabs. The kebabs which they get from shaving what can only be described as “something” off of a huge slab of “unknown.” This unidentifiable object turns up at the takeaway each week a variety of colours raging from dark red to white, waiting to be devoured by some drunken island monkey dweller who knows every single night out is going to be topped off in the same way. Leaning on a counter, slaughtered, minger-in-tow, pale faced, greasy forehead, open gormless mouth which grunts "Donner."
Yes, they treat it how they treat their other culinary delights: brown, stringy, dry lettuce and a bit of onion. They have so little ingredients because they're desperate to get to their favourite part of the proceedings. The part where they ask you if you want sauce & when you say "Yeah, but only a tiny, tiny smidgeon please" they then nod in full acknowledgement, a slight second before drowning your food in a queer sea beyond the point of salvage. They live for that moment.

Actually, why *is* my falafel swimming in some horrible white sauce...looks kinda thick. No need to panic, don’t worry, surely it’s Italian Momma’s home made special sauce. Not gonna risk it. Not with that poison lying readily available in seemingly every kitchen in the world. I dip a finger..........
taste.......
so it’s you again....
Mayonnaise; we lock horns again, but as always it's you on the offensive in an unprovoked and senseless pre-emptive strike.
Mayonnaise: the ruiner of perfectly good sandwiches across the land.
Mayonnaise: the litmus test that divides the sane from the lame.

I march back towards the shop. Even though I smoked a spliff just before ordering I still have no worries about pointing out to Luigi that he is a mayonnaise harbouring bastard. The previously empty pizzeria was now filled with 4 new bodies. When I say empty, it wasn’t. There was a very sophisticated looking, older, italian gentleman with silver hair of the refined variety. He was sat in a very sharp suit being very suave, healthy and olive skinned. He genuinely appeared like you would expect an Italian Godfather to look. Expect if you expected one to look like someone out of Goodfellas or some other Hollywood supposedly “Gritty” gangster flick. The very fact that he could have starred in such a movie made it very clearly that wasn’t a part of any pizzeria toting crime family. This was just a gentile old man with a sense of style, to whom life had dealt a favourable hand.

This was a simple, straightforward shop situation. I calmly, politely and in a friendly manner explained the situation. I decided not to listen to what would be undoubtedly generic words of apology and promise of a fresh, clean, untainted falafel. I put on my “Don’t worry, everything’s fine, no problem here” face and entertained myself with my own thoughts. His fervent headshakes and universal “No deal” signals –Arms out in front, crossed in an ‘X’ and then uncrossed out to the sides back and forth repeatedly- enticed me back into the conversation. I was propelled from being a mere silent, disinterested extra in this Restaurant industry, scripted, farce of no refunds or returns policy, to being the writer, director and leading role. In England, the take away would have instantly granted my very reasonable request. Nobody wants to make a customer unhappy because:
1) They will never again bring their custom.
2) A customer who has a bad experience will badmouth said place to their friends and others. Possibly starting a stereotypical urban myth including the words "Health inspection," "spunk" and "animal."

It’s common business sense.

This is just a misunderstanding. I explain that I was never given the choice of mayonnaise. Existentialists may argue against this, wrongly.
There was no choice.

Still he protests..........
I start to pity the guy at this point. What he has failed to realise is that in his position the only trick up his sleeves is to say “No” and to hope that the person walks away, tail between legs. If the person refuses he can add nothing extra to his argument, having to merely keep responding “No” and hope that the customer eventually gives up the fight. With every second that passed my position became stronger, his weaker. Luigi had already used his special move, had already fired his one and only big gun. I was still throwing stones. I don’t up the ante at this point, still believeing reason and common sense will prevail.

“You didn’t ask me if I wanted mayonnaise though..”
‘It was obvious it was going to be there’
“There’s no sign saying that mayonnaise comes as standard..”
‘You don’t need no sign. Does the sign list everything you get in it? No’
“The falafel sign does actually list everythng and it doesn’t say mayonnaise.I just want to know how when you didn’t explain in person or on a sign why you assume that I should know this?”

This is beginning to get tedious. The only thing he is doing is wasting both our time, disturbing everyone elses peace and delaying pending food orders. The outcome of this is certain, it always has been since the moment I decided to come back. I open my hand palm up and rotate my hand in a sweep that includes the other worker standing behind him and the suave Italian gentleman. By doing so I draw them into the conversation, make them feel part of it whilst putting increasing public pressure on Luigi. I reiterate my comments at how ridiculous the pizzeria is being, throw in a trickle of disbelieving laughter and make a sort of raised eyebrow appeal at the other two. Nothing will damage him more than his own Sicilian flesh and blood siding with this cadaverous, English upstart.

“If nobody told me, how was I supposed to know?” is what I am now saying to the 2 other people. The guy has now retracted a little back into the kitchen and with a slightly hushed voice, absolutely overflowing with accusation he looks at me, points and spits
‘You know.... you must know.....everybody know.’

As i'm reeling from this unexpected dose of malice the suave gentleman interjects. His hands are in a prayer position and he nods them towards Luigi and tilts his head. It is a seemingly very stereotypical maffia gesture, that is pulled off with nobility and style. It is done with such authority that I assume he owns the pizzeria and has:

A) Decided to overrule Luigi and is granting me my rightful Falafel.

Or

B) Has ordered Luigi’s immediate execution for such insolence to a customer and for constructing an argument on such shaky and questionable foundations.

It’s all over now, I can taste the victory all I need to do now is look up & savour Luigi’s face sinking or his imminent demise. ..
but no! ...
still nothing.....
Not even a nod from the don himself can deter this man from his futile, predetermined path. This man *actually* believes that his next port of call isn’t going to be fixing me up some pure, free falafel. Here he is, tyring to convince me that I have forgotten about some universal law which states that mayonnaise automatically goes on food, when in fact, it was I who was going to teach him a very basic universal law. People, whether they be children, girlfriends, pets or customers, who cause a scene,tend to always get what they want. In the case of a customer who causes a scene, they always get what they want.

Everybody secretly knows this power exist. Many of us would carry some pathetic sense of pride, pretend it wasn’t worth the challenge, crumble then walk off and proceed bitch about for the remainder of the day. Unfortunately for him, that’s not me. My prize is my pride. This man has no idea to the lengths I’d be prepared to go to to get my clean falafel. Fortunately for him, I know that he will crack before I have to pull any extreme manouevres. It’s time to finish him, with ease and with speed.
I Start to erratically point in the general area of the menu board whilst pacing back and forth from the shop door to the counter, raising my voice slightly and putting on an angry tone - it doens’t matter what you say at this point, you can just repeat the general concern, if they don’t listen you start to shout- whilst all the other customer's eyes are glued to me. To his discredit, he cracked instantly and sooner than I had predicted. I thought I would have to at least start banging my chest, ape style, shouting, mixing it in with some direct pointing in his face before he came to his senses.

He motioned for me to sit down and await my bounty.
At this point I was disappointed. Yes, technically I had won, but it was an assured, incredibly minor victory. When calmly explaining at the beginning, I didn’t allow any emotion to penetrate me and I was genuinely calm. After he had been putting up resistance, even not submitting to the Don, I allowed myself to taste the sweet surge of adrenalin and prepared myself for the possibility of having to appear to completely flip out, have some insane fit complete with flying arms, hissing, screaming and scare them into thinking I was dangerous. He had toyed with me, pretending to be a worthy adversary , he built me up and then dropped me down. I knew that he had lost face and it was hard for him to back down.

I felt empty inside and strangely I didn’t want to gloat or adopt a cocky attitude. Even though this man had jeopardised my booked internet time at the library and even though he had allowed my arch nemesis to shoot off a sneak attack in my mouth, for some reason, I decided to make things easier for him. I opened the first post-war negotiations, explaining to him that in England they normally ask if you want sauce and I threw him some small talk and pleasantries. He responded in kind and I could see that part of the humiliation had been lifted.

The falafel was mediocre. My consumption undisturbed.

Karma drama library palaver

2006-03-17T08:56:00.000Z

I’m sat on one of the internet computers in Uppsala library with my 30 minute timer quickly winding down. Every day I’m here and every time the same girl is always here at the same time wanting to use the computers. In the beginning it was just me, then one day she shows up out of the blue and I end up asking her for some Swedish translation. She’s got black curly hair, really looks like my friend Emily and I find this very disturbing. Her dress is none descript: Jeans, a hoody and I was able to discern nothing from her appearance. After this she is constantly around wearing skirts, ties, make up and looking very alternative. We seem to make eye contact all the time and she hovers around me sometimes pretending to look at the books behind me, waiting for me to initiate conversation. I have no fear or problem talking to anyone but for some reason I don’t speak to her again and this causes a really strange and awkward chemistry to exist between us where we purposefully avoid each other because it feels so weird to be near each other and not to speak.

I’m already quite edgy because I’m doing a runner from paying the rent and today of all days the only free computer is next to me and she’s had to sit there. I catch her sneaking looks at my screen and I do the same to her. Why is she here? Should I propose a fight club style system? Splitting the days of the week at the library up between us so we never have to meet and can both enjoy our internet release in peace? Have things really gotten this far?

I turn in the direction of the ticket machine, give it a preliminary scan and then back to my screen.
Half a second.
Pause.
Did I just see what I think I just saw?
Na, my evil brain would like me to think that.
I’d better check anyway though, paranoia can spread like *.
Turn to the machine
And very, very quickly back to my screen.
Freeze
Heart increases 5 fold.
There at the ticket machine for 15 minute internet access is my landlord, the one I planned never to have to see again for blatant reasons. He looks like he’s muttering to himself, keeps his head down and assumes a chair while waiting for his turn.
Am I in an episode of a soap opera here or a bad film with a sickeningly moral and just ending?

My brain defrosts slightly and starts to formulate plans.
‘Maybe he won’t see you?’ my brain says
“My hair amounts to a mass of big, curly red hair. I’m one of the least discreet people in this entire city, you fucking idiot” I silently reply. He should really pull his head out of his arse and pay attention when we’re staring in the mirror
‘You’re wearing a hoody’ comes the second attempt
“Better”

I pull the hood over myself.
Damn, the sheer bulk of it still can’t be contained and some of it is hanging out of the front.
“What now!?”
‘The string! The string!’ he shouts
Yes, the string! I tug the string tight around me, obscuring part of my face in the process. Bonus.

‘You know…there are 4 computers for the drop in, 2 of which are on the other side of the bench. There’s a fifty/fifty chance that he may be sat completely out of view and then we can make our escape.’
“Nice work brain. Let’s sit it out, ride the odds and hope our ticket doesn’t get marked”

I began to feel like the United States of Am*rica and the girl sat next to me was Pakistan. Earlier my propaganda ministry had vilified this individual as a grave threat to my security and well being. Even after all my cold-shouldered sanctions she had still managed to secretly develop internet capabilities in an attempt to undermine our cold, hard monopoly of it. It was fine for me alone to have this power, but for it to fall into anyone else’s hands it would surely lead to misuse. However, now that my landlord, Iraq, had showed up, proving to be an even greater threat, I really needed her on side and for us to instantly pretend that things were fine between us…that they had always been fine. It didn’t matter anymore that she had been training up young beggar children in the ways of logging on. My intelligence sources had uncovered one of her sinister plots: A terrorist cell was to flood the library, infiltrating all the remaining internet computers then open up page after page of Al-Jazeera streaming video in an attempt to crash the entire network and prevent my access.

I wanted to turn to her for assistance, I wanted to tell her that we were now on the same team and we just had to pool our resources and get away from this money hungry despot, but it was pointless. All I could hope for was that she wouldn’t leave my side.
Movement 2 computers to my right. One person’s time had expired, another’s about to begin. But who could it be? Make or break.
The USA, Pakistan and Iraq now side by side by side.

‘Are you getting a slight sense of de ja vu?’ questions my brain
“no, don’t be ridicul….oh…oh…actually shrrit!”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manchester – Rusholme -, the spring of 2005. I’ve met a girl who I’m having a really intense relationship with.
“I can’t pay my rent” she says one day
‘Run away and move in with me!’ comes my gleeful suggestion.
In the dead of night we sneak away across the park. She really hates her housemates. Wouldn’t it be funny if we left them a little note we decide?
A piece of paper folded in half. The outside reads, “Rent money” and the inside reads “Screw you guys, I’m going home!”
My computer speakers are broken because I spilt water on them, let’s borrow the Cod player and bring it back later.
We think this is hilarious and go on to live a life of poverty heavily tinged with crime, excitement and adventure. (The girl is still my girlfriend now and who I went to Sweden to be with)

Manchester – Rusholme – December 2005.
Together we are sat in an internet café with me currently at the controls.
“Let’s go, I really wanna go” Leylla says
‘Paid £1 you know, need my money’s worth’
“I really, really want to go. Let’s leave” whilst tugging at my shirt.
I turn round to see Leylla’s scared face and there’s some grinning guy asking me if she is my girlfriend. This is the guy who lived in the house in Rusholme. This is the guy whose cd player we borrowed but never actually bothered to return because we still needed it. Oh dear

“Thank you brain. Why couldn’t you have ceased up and then us had this revelation afterwards, when we were safe”
My brain has freaked me out immensely now. Is there some protective Karma force going round dishing out just desserts and placing landlords and runaways together?

‘Didn’t we bump into Leylla’s landlord 2 days before she left the country as well?’
Oh shit…even the timings to the day seem to be fitting together here.

I don’t believe in God, I’m not a lost idiot, but I do believe there is a guiding force out there that creates a balance to level everything off. There has to be so that not one thing can over run the planet. You have Fire, then you have water. You have politicians, you have sniper rifles. I was pretty sure I’d paid my debt by not stealing the camera. I didn’t deserve to be caught, did I?

In my peripheral vision a figure is looming over my right shoulder. It looms and then it hangs
‘It’s fine’ my brain soothes.
‘Worst case scenario we can knock him down and then flee. We’re the ones with the adrenaline.’
Even though this was perfectly true I still wanted to avoid any confrontation.
There’s a tap on my shoulder….
I look round.
Who the fuck is this guy ?
He says something in Swedish. I know I can respond by saying I can’t speak Swedish in Swedish but what if he starts talking English? The landlord will hear me.
Just then Pakistan intervenes beautifully and exchanges places.

Lucky escape.
“Maybe we are gonna get away with this matter Mr. Matter”
Some time passes.
‘Wait, isn’t Leylla supposed to be arriving any minute to meet us?’
NO! Any second Leylla is due and if she doesn’t clock Iraq and comes straight to me it’s all over. This is even worse than before. I don’t wanna have to face an awkward confrontation with my own girlfriend watching. The tension builds and builds, I am just staring at the screen now, trying to make my brain stop thinking until it’s all over.

I hear the scrape of a chair, he’s gone! Operation camouflage? Success!

Goodbye

2006-02-28T15:43:00.000Z

Dear Landlord/Room mate,

I'm Really sorry, my money didn't come through and I've had to go back to England to sort it out. I'll be in touch about the rent soon. You're a really nice guy and this wasn't my intention, sorry.

Tenant

Is how my concise and uneloquent final correspondence to my landlord and flatmate read.

I'd been thinking about running away without paying any of the promised rent for about a week, ever since I discovered that money owed to me from England was not going to happen.

In the final few days I had been avoiding my landlord. We shared a 1 bedroom flat in Sweden: me in the bedroom and him in the living room. This meant that I had no shared access to any facilities, my bedroom consisting of basically a matress on the floor causing it to look like a smack den.

In the beginning I made a firm resolve that I wouldn't go into the living room and make use of any TV/Dvd/Combination as this would be unfair behaviour towards someone who had been good to me.

I think I cracked within 2 days, starting to regularly watch videos and Dvds when he was at work. I decided that this was actually right for me to do this, not wrong, and now it would only be wrong if I started drinking his chai tea and using his record player.

But, I really like chai tea and I really wanted to listen to music.

The longer I settled in there the more boundaries I continually set for myself and then subsequently broke.

<>Don't delve into his sealed Lord of the Rings Christmas chocolate pack that he obviously sees as a collectors item.

<>Don't go into his laptop to watch naruto.
<>Don't play with the scanner.

<>Don't route through his drawers and start playing with his camera.

<>Don't toot on his trombone.

One day he announced that he was going to a role playing game in Stocholm and wouldn't be back until the next day. I made myself at home: eating in the living room, records, dvds and videos everywhere. Actually, I'm bored so I think I'll drop some acid and listen to music.

30 minutes later the door opens and he's there with his girlfriend.
Shit.
I hadn't planned ever to be in this situation and so I had to think on my feet aiming to Guide myself out of it without having to directly aplogise or face any immediate consequences.

"Er, I had the Tv on there."
Shit! Terrible opener, need to direct attention away from the crime scene to an equally heinous act.

"The cat did a poo on the floor..."
Better, yes, don't forget about the evil cats now.

"even though the litter tray was clean..."
Aha! See? Their act was senseless, at least mine had some justification.

"I mopped it up though."
Perfect twist to put myself in a positive light.

'My plans were changed, I hope we didn't disturb you'
My flatmate says this in the manner of those kind teachers at school. The ones who don't shout at you for being naughty, but make you feel really guilty inside by treating you nice and softly. They don't get angry so you have something to hate them back at for, they wanna see you squirm with embarrassment and admit your wrongs. In this instance "I hope we didn't disturb you" really meant. Haha! Look what you do when you think you have free reign over my flat. What the fuck are you doing? We've caught you in the act, red handed and there's no escape.

I decide to go into dumb mode and take these words for their literal meaning

"No...no...it's fine..don't worry about it, no need to apologise"
Haha, what a genius way to avoid all confrontation.

I went into my room and crawled into bed with the lights off. I feared greatly for what was going to happen to me being trapped in a dark room with a head full of acid.

No comment.

I avoided him for the remaining few days. I knew that if I saw him then I would feel guilty and I didn't wanna feel that way.

It became apparent that I was gonna have to do a runner and this felt fucking awful that I would leave Leylla, but it felt good that I was gonna skip the rent. Even though I liked my flat mate and he had been good to me, I couldn't muster up any feelings of conscience about running away. 2 weeks before he had announced that he had just found a bank account that he had "forgotten" about with £4000 in it and so I guess I had little sympathy at that point.

When I had been on his laptop I had seen the photos he had taken with his camera. Really bad shots of the cats and some zoomed in shots of The Simpsons opening credits. This really annoyed me as my camera is broken; I use cameras well and enjoy getting creative with them. The same thing happens when I see some little rich punk with an i-pod listening to happy hardcore or pop music. I deserve that i-pod! And you know what the most fucked up thing is? I'd technically be in the wrong if I beat up those little shits and stole their i-pods.
Madness.
Just because someone has money does that mean they have more of a claim over something than someone who deserves it and would put it to good use, not seeing it as a fashion accessory?

I genuinely, genuinely compare my struggle to that of Israel and Palestine. The palestinians -Me- deserve the land -Cameras, ipod, whatever- but because Israel -Rich,undeserving people- is rich with America backing it up they can assume control.

So, yeah, in the end it felt like I was doing him a favour by running away without paying the rent because I didn't take the camera with me, even though I would put it to better use.

I packed my stuff, left the note and my last thought of my ex-flatmate was
"you lucky, lucky bastard"

Featured Twat

2006-02-28T01:19:00.000Z

Thank you to http://thenextbigwebthing.com for this review

http://Googletwatted.blogspot.com

Please note, I have quite a few stories left from sweden that, need to be posted before I write about what is going on now. Will Definitely have one more up by tomorrow.

Google twatting hasn't emerged because I'm out of ideas or stories, it isn't a pathetic extension strategy.

White Kit Kats? FUCK OFF you idealess, desperate pocket fillers.

I need to E-mail my Lla now, that takes priority.

Google Twatting

2006-02-21T17:30:00.000Z

In the same vein as Google whacking - A game that has been around for a few years. The aim is to enter 2 words into google, without " ", and for it to return only 1 result. This is a googlewhack. The rules are they have to be words in dictionary.com and the site cannot be a word list - I now present Google twatting.

Sick and tired of Google's constant bragging?
That is the most all knowing, all powerful oracle ever to have parked itself on mankinds' doorstep offering billions of possibiities at our finger tips.
That it can offer you satellite images from many areas of the planet making military organisations cower.
That it can even now google and index your entire computer.

Clever google.

Or has Google got too big for its boots?

Deflate Google's ego and twat it!
Make him feel stupid for a change like he has done to all of us who have found ourselves sat in front of his search bar, struggling for something to search for and then, as time passes, feeling more and more hopelessly inadequate and stupid at all the information he can theoretically offer us except that we can't even think of one measly thing.

The rules are the same as Google Whack except the aim is to get a result with 0 items found.
Aha!

Inspired, possiby invented, by my firm, yet supple-bellied comrade, 13twelve . He wanted to go one step furhter and be the actual creator of a googlewhack i.e finding 2 words with 0 hits, then listing it on his site to become a googlewhack. cunning indeed. He enlisted my help and after 15 minutes or so I finally stumbled upon one which I happily donate to him and which I included above.

I intend to create another blog where people can send in images of their Twats.

Aerosol Abuse

2006-02-17T15:27:00.000Z

This is me last year, whacked out in an anti-perspirant fuelled daze.

Cheap kicks.

No, I tell a lie.

You know how people who snore and are informed about it always outrageously deny it even though they are the person in the worst position for verifying it?

People had been telling me that I sleep with my eyes open, that I look like a dead zombie and it's really eerie for them. This angered me and I accused the accusors of conspiring against me to disrupt my sleep.

Here was their proof.

Sexy, aren't I?

Quality Quotes: I

2006-02-16T17:06:00.000Z

This section is designed to repeat words that were once uttered and deemed worthy enough of recording down so that their wisdom and insight might spread, influencing and altering the minds that they meet.
Ideas can spread like fire.
Let us make some fire.

Today I start with perhaps not a monumental quote or life changing words, nonetheless, one that deserves to make it into this section.

To be in fashion
is out when
the new fashion

is in

Yes, this states something that we already know to be true, but it also in a simple, possibly amusing way, perhaps draws our attention to the ridiculousness of this trend. Some people will look at a person's hair cut and go "Oh that was so last year" and the same goes for fashion of clothes and even colour. If that person's hair cut was put 15 years back or 15 years forward it then maybe it would be trendy. How silly it all seems.

I cannot deny that we all judge people from their appearance, some more than others though, anyone who denies this is an all out liar. We judge people on age, on sex, on race and on fashion conciously and sub-conciously. It's what people choose to do with this that matters, to judge or to not, to see through the meaningles outer facade with as little preconception of a person as possible or to think that you can instantly look at a person and decipher:

What music they listen to

What clubs they go to

What films they watch

What shops they go to

What their political persuasion is

You can tell a man by his shoes?

I think not.

Top hat & chain-saw sir?

2006-02-15T17:44:00.000Z

Oh did I forget to mention the gas mask?

This is psycho Lla who wants to get concentration camp shower time all over you and then give you a quick rub down with her chain-saw. She has dressed up in a stylish top hat to add extra shock value. How can someone from the upper classes ever commit such grave atrocities?

The person who took this photograph deserves a special mention.
What the fuck were you thinking!?
I can understand sometimes how it can be a tough choice...length ways or breadth ways but this shot is a foolish and unforgivable error.
Well done for ruining a potentially great photo.
Don't worry, the chain saw wasn't important...

Happy Valentines' day?

2006-02-14T18:06:00.000Z

What a wonderful day.

A day that hundreds of years back probably held some genuine, vaguely significant meaning before it was seized upon by the unrelenting and ruthless greeting card & present industry who twisted and distorted it in their own image, weaving a day that is the same as every other day into an economy boosting justification of their own existence for them and a wallet emptying pit of panic, fear and despair for the rest of the poor sods they hoodwink. At some point in the past these dispicable creatures managed to buy themselves another "special" day in the calendar, giving themselves another opporutnity to lay guilt on the masses, extorting both cash and intense emotions from them.

A day that yes, can leave some couples feeling closer than ever, but can leave other relationships teetering over the edge if one of the parties doesn't present a good enough show to the other, i.e go to enough back breaking and bank emptying endeavours to show the person that they surely must already love by the fact they are in a relationship with them that they do in fact really, really, really love that person.
Genuine Couples who love each other do romantic and meaningful things together as often as they can, not needing someone out there to tell them on exactly what day to appreciate and enjoy each other. The couples out there who need to read a note in a box on their calendars to remind them to be nice to each other for one day out of the year should disband immediately. You are probably together through habit and/or fear of not finding anyone else and they are both disgusting and low reasons.

This is another classic case of us being emotionally forced into complying with a celebration that we are tricked into thinking is somehow entwined with our history and plays a big part in our cultural make-up. The modern notion of Christmas, Mothers' day, Fathers' day, Easter and others that I have failed to mention.

Christmas: let's pretend we care about everyone else for one day and then go back to treating each other like shit.

Oh look, another "special" day, we must buy cards and gifts for our loved ones or that means we don't really care about them and neglect them .

So, if you have a girlfriend you have:
Their Birthday
Christmas
Valentines' day
Relationship anniversary.

That divides into an avergae of every 3 months, a quarter of a year. Aren't company's economic statistics released quarterly?

Those clever foxes.

I'm being kicked out of the library soon, may come back to this.

I wanted to say what about all the people who actually put worth in this day and then receive nothing? How many people does this day leave feeling isolated, alone and unloved? How many suicides go unreported on this day? I can't say for sure it is the most out of the year, but it's probably a contender with ..I wonder..oh yeah, Christmas.

I feel sorry for all the poor guys out there who don't know what's going on and have stupid little girlfriends who cry if they don't get what they want. Stupid girlfriends who want to impress their other silly friends about how they were treated and who will cause untold trauma and headaches for their poor boyfriend if he doesn't deliver the goods. Then there are those girls who say they don't want to celebrate and then have a paddy when they actually receive nothing, like they asked for

I have been fortunate over the years with my choice of girlfriends...sensible people who see these sorts of days as the shams they are. I salute them

Hara-Kiri Haiku

2006-02-11T14:19:00.000Z

Not really, just haikus that I wrote a while back when I was frustrated at Uppsala. These aren't an indication of my constant moods or feelings for this place as I am quite happy here. I find it harder to write positive haikus, if it happens I will let you know.

Drinking Beamish Black

From Newcastle brown ale glass

Thought this was Sweden?

--------------------------------------------

A testament to my growing frustration at Sweden's seemingly lack of culture. Sometimes you don't even feel like you are in a foreign place, just a bastard child of Britain and America. I was pleased to discover beamish black, not the Newcastle glass though. The price was £5!

Tacky lights drape trees

Tiny snow swirls in the sky

Uppsala´s highlights!

---------------------------------------

Sat in a bar called Terrassen which is situated on an upstairs terrace of a building. It looks out over the river, there are various bridges and for some reason a few of the trees are covered in fairy lights. I was disillusioned at this point by the lack of night life in Uppsala and the lack of activities and fun in general.

Empty silent streets

Closed buildings, faceless faces

Friday night, Uppsala

-------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------

Similar to the previous one. The first Friday night I went out here I went to an English pub called Williams. It was kind of annoying to come to Sweden and then discover the best place in the city you live in is an English pub. To be fair, they did the best snake bite & black I have ever sampled, due to he fact they had some classy blackcurrent in a glass bottle me thinks. I went out at 22:30 to have a little spliff and was struck by how dead everywhere was, I didn't walk past one single person. Compare the same time in a palce like Manchester and it was just eerie and I was overcome by melancholy that the majority of Swedes don't know how to have a good night out.

Pop imported shite

Euro disco reigns supreme

Club life, Uppsala

--------------------------------------

one night I had 30 minutes to wait for my bus and decided to check out the local club scene. It felt like I had been transported to Rossendale or some tiny, tiny little town that only has 2 clubs and all the hicks who live there go there every Friday and Saturday to get really pissed and pull other hicks. The bouncers outside one club gladly told me about the R+B in the first room and Euro disco in the second.

I left in disgust.

The next club I found only had R+B and was filled with young kids. I think these are the 2 main clubs here and I haven't found or been shown any redeeming ones.

The poorest of schemes

2006-02-11T13:31:00.000Z

The Swedes seem to have a more hi-tech day to day existence than the island dwelling monkeys of Britain. In the library you are given your own plastic swipe card which you can use at various machines, along with your pin number, to access various services. This includes scanning out your own books in a checkout style way, returning books, as well as being able to book time on the internet and computers.

All buses have not one door but three. Only people coming onto the bus use the door next to the driver, which means no one is pushing past each other to get on or off. The exiting people make use the back two doors. I have had no money for as long as I can remember now and have been walking to town most days. On the way home I wait for people to get off the bus and then run in through one of the back exits and ride home for free.

However, my toes have blisters now from walking and I needed a method to get to town for free in case I am ever in a rush or my toes are too sore to walk. When I come home from town there are always people getting on or off as it is the main stop, when I want to travel to town the back doors are practically always closed and so my previously explained method is ineffective.

On the buses you have a card that you top up at the local depot and this enables you to take 10 trips on the bus. You use this card on a machine at the front of the bus, it reads your card, displays how many trips you have left, and then beeps when you press the card to the machine. When I saw this for the first time I said to Lla:
"I don't understand"
she started to explain the logics of it and I stopped her saying:
"No, I mean I don't understand why people don't just record the beeping of the machine and get on for free."
I received a look that indicated that most people wouldn't think in that way and that it was probably a futile endeavour.

A few weeks later I stumbled across an old style tape recording device (see picture in "my possessions") and instantly fell in love with it. It is quite bulky yet one of the features it boasts about is being slim line. I'm not sure exactly how old it is but it brags a bit further down the body that it has a "FULL AUTO STOP" meaning that when it gets to the end of the tape... it stops. This futuristic recording darling also has a little handle that extends out so you can carry it along like a little briefcase. Perfect.
I made a couple of recordings of the beep, listening to each when I got home. There is so much background noise of me walking, the radio of the bus driver and basically just a lot of static. It sounds fucking ridiculous and is kind of embarrassing. Nevertheless, this stupid scheme has worked for the past 2 days in a row without fail: me holding the tape player, hitting the machine with my card and pressing pause, releasing the din. Every time it happens it gets more and more cringeworthy.

The poorest of schemes.

The end of the swedophile?

2006-02-10T16:13:00.000Z

My mum has been a complete brain-dead, dick and fucked up my money situation. I had cheques from the Government for £600, all she needed to do was pay it into my account like i asked. Walk into a bank,fill in one little slip and that was all. She'd already wasted time by posting it to me here so i could sign the back. I mean really, why the fuck didn't she just sign it and take it in?

The idiot has been trying to cash it for herself and after repeated e mails telling her not to.
"Oh, they won't let me cash it"
Of course not! I asked you 2 weeks ago to cash it into my account, how the FUCK is it of any use to me if you have the money in your hand?

The time for cashing the cheques has expired and I can't get the money now. £600 disappeared

I'm absolutely fucked now and can't pay my rent , will have to run away from my flat now and have nowhere to go, except back to that fucking shite island where I have no home and have no money thanks to her stupidity.

Hella Hellish

2006-02-07T18:33:00.000Z

Wicked Words: I

2006-02-07T16:47:00.000Z

Welcome to a regular feature of the show where I, Caterwaul Klink Klonk, present to you a little known, seldom used word that I believe should be resurrected into the realm of everybodys’ everyday tedium.

They are words that will make you wonder how you ever managed to scrape through life without them; words that will confound your friends, dispose of your enemies and show up your alleged superiors for the vacuous, mashed potato brained, sycophantic sacks of sticky, stale wank they truly, truly are.

Wicked word: I

Dipsomaniac

Definition:

A person who has strong urges for alcoholic drink that they cannot control.

Usage:

Becoming disgruntled at those innebriated wretches down at your local drinking pit who boastfully deem it necessary to slip it into the conversation every 5 minutes the amount of alcohol they have thus far consumed?

Why not deal with them in the following manner,

A typical drunken wretch:

“Yeah, he took it round 5 of them and then he....he... God, I’m well pissed me.
Seen that girl’s arse? , I’d like to stick my general in her back bunker and then go to war*. Know whatz I mean?
Yeah, this is my 6th pint no...(pause while he concentrates deeply, counting with the aide of his fingers) 7th now and me and this guy, this fuckin’ guy (the wretch proceeds to put his arm round the man next to him,squeezing him tight, leaning on him for support) drank a bottle of fuckin’ wine on the walk down. Same again tomorrow”

You:

‘Squire, I fear, by your own admission, that you may be a dipsomaniac.’

Wretch:

“You calling me a fuckin’ mental? The last guy who called me mental now drives a wheelchair to work, except work is a centre for mentally brain damaged people and except he can’t drive because he’s so fuckd up.”

You:

‘Sir, I was merely stating that you have a worrying predilection for the joys of fermented vegetable juice’

Wretch:

‘You fuckin’ what?’

You:

‘You like getting slaughtered off your tits’

Wretch:

“oh, yeah, too right, fuck yeah”

You:

‘So you are a dipsomaniac?’

Watch in delight as the conundrum you have now faced him with knocks all the merry, irritating cheer out of this all too common specimen of Englishness. He knows that he does like to drink and that he likes people to know about it, but isn’t being a maniac make him retarded in some way? Doesn’t dipso sound a little bit like dick, especially if you are drunk? He can’t work out whether you have offended him or congratulated him. He now sits slumped in a drunken depressed state of despair for the rest of the evening, devoid of his cocky shenanigans and incapable of discussing his alcohol consumption for fear of being a spacker.

Today you have learnt a new word, you have also won a future battle.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“I deliver wicked words for yall to consider, these wise words to prize with pride”

Caterwaul Klink Klonk with his “shit” Hip-Hop cap on. Shit as in pure, unadulterated commercial, biggin’ myself up, gangzta, ghetto Hip-Hop shite, not as in “da shit”
--------------------------------------------------------------------

*
This was an inaccurate phrase to use as it is beyond the means of the specimens we are talking about.
“I’d fuck it much” would have been more accurate.
For the sake of spice and because I invented this phrase on the spot and am proud of it, it has been included.

Guestbook Scrawl being sent to God

2006-02-06T18:02:00.000Z

Religion is sin

I pray for organised religion to be abolished

The catholic church is ineherently evil; it has stifled humanitys' progress for 2000 years & hampered acceptance and truth

If God exists, it is crying

is what I wrote in large writing on the pages of a guestbook designed to house people's prayers to God on a visit to Uppsala's Cathedral earlier today..

Islands of Stocholm being debased by S.l.u.g

2006-02-06T17:08:00.000Z

I finally threw off the strangling shackles of the tiny town of Uppsala yesterday and took a train to Stockholm. A place which is an actual city, not a lying tiny town hiding behind its Cathedral and University for undeserved status.

Men

Leylla was being an excellent guide today as well as providing some tasty eye candy for me later in the evening. However, I was unable to sample My rightful treat later on as silly little men kept buzzing around her like flies round an open, meditarranean bin containing fizzy drink, banana peel and rotting road kill.

Their level of techniques of attracting a woman were about on par with that of a fly. Any man who actually has some sort of a technique to get women is an instant failure and a joke anyway. They have a set chat up line or phrases and then simply act like a sales man, playing the numbers game. However many doors you knock on, someone's bound to let you in.

They don't see women as real people, someone who you can actualy make a connection with on any personal level. They just see meat that they can stick their meat into.

Culture

We went to the culture centre and this I enjoyed. The photo exhibition of American life, culture from the 60s onwards was inciteful and at times interesting. I remember a very young negro child from Mississippi looking very dapper and stylish in his little suit jacket. aww.

The photos of july 4th were especially humourous. Idotic, ignorant patriotic Americans with their flags, stars and stripes shirts and brandishing their weak, disgusting American lager.
Oh my!
Yes, any display of patriotism worldwide is both disgusting and amusing at the same time. The Americans have developed a special, sickening mastery of this truly bizarre mentality though and when the whole pack of these beasts have an actual holiday to indulge in their irrational fantasies it is really a sight to behold.

The other exhibition focussed on handbags and various displays of sculpted examples. There were some very nice handbags, I cannot deny that. I remember a green, waxy one with a grenade in it as well as a big red telephone bag that could actually be plugged in. They managed to contain their pretentious, arty bull shit justification for their handbags and their innate necessity to a woman's being to just one board of text and I commend them for this also.

I must also commend the catering staff at the centre as well. They left a trolley in the hall with a half bottle of red wine situated on the bottom shelf of which I helped myself to 2 full glasses. The wine was of a medium standard which impressed me. Red wine is one of the higher forms of a very low pleasure, alcohol, and it was a shame I had to down it quickly like it was a bottle of low-grade vodka that had to be guzzled down on a visit to the Vodka wall.

Old town

The old town of Stockholm is fucking mint! Walking around the little alleys and past the beautiful buildings is really a boost for the spirit. Some building are grand, but not to the point of disgusting opulence. I wish I had a cmera so that I could have taken photos for.

soon.....soon

Some stupid fucking FITTA (cunt) decided to build a new town in the place of the old one? In the square by the culture centre the buildings are grey and depressing. What the fuck is that huge bank building? The Mercedes building?
Pretty.... dicks.

Whilst there we wandered into a mental gallery. The artists were all handicapped. Some of it was child like and innocent, there were some paitings worthy of buying. This is a worthy cause I feel. We also went to the modern museum and it was shit. Some rubbish exhibition by some stupid artist called Dick Bengston. "He wowwed the critics by putting unusual objects in his paintings, such as swastikas" This guy was so controversial and would paint a swastika in the corner of some of his pointless painting.
You little shocker you.
This is the kind of tripe that makes me dislike art, bringing out all the "art people" who use fancy art terminology which makes them knowledgable, apparently.

Atmosphere - Debaser

Debaser is a very nice little club actually. It is sort of half dingey and half nice and manages to pull this off well. They had arty, gig posters from bands like "And you will know us by the trail of dead" and "Queens of the stone age" which was pleasing.

The actual canvas art on the wall was kind of tacky, but it wasn't horribly bad and I will fogive them because it did brighten the place up and they had to go for some kind of middle of the road, easy to produce, most people think looks ok kind of deal.

The dj was fucking shite. He was playing the kind of tunes you'd hear in Rock world in Manchester at about 3 in the morning on a friday all nighter when only the pill people are left and want to dance, except rock world play better songs and rock world is kind of shite. Brother Ali came on and started praising this prick. Brother Ali is a waste of time, boring and is only famous because he is an albino.

Considering the cailbre of atmosphere this was a good gig for him. On the whole the gig was ok. He cleverly employed the use of a live band to perform his rhymes over the top and this added a new element, not heard on record and was therefore interesting. Had he performed alone with a dj or just a cd player this gig would have been a disaster, Slug isn't strong enough to perform on his own. I recognised many tunes and I began to get excited by about 3 of them. I was never bored at any point during the gig and give him credit for this. I am glad I Saw him though because like so many performers out there he is an artist that has peaked and is now simply sinking lower and lower with every new release into a world of shit. The fact that he is releasing demos and rarities backs up this fact.

Out of the 4 hip hop gigs I have now seen - Alternative/post, not the gangsta shit you hear all the time- this ranks at number 4, but it still was quite good. Atmosphere is just white trash, though one with a sensitive side and who sometimes is capable of occasionaly phrases of wisdom and insight. He is a 15 year old spotty adolsecent compared to Sage Francis, sole and to a lesser extent Buck 65 who are pioneering, Herculean giants of the genre and piss all over him from cirrus clouds.

I know that the crowd at this gig was better than the one that will be at the roadhouse in Manchester. There was an even mix of sexes here, no cocky dicks but no out and out geeks either.

I have to go now....

My Swedish dream

2006-01-31T17:37:00.000Z

I had my first dream in Swedish last night.

I was a worker on a Swedish outdoor market stall along with 2 middle aged female workers. The stall contained cheese, eggs, fish, meat and falafel. It must have been around lunch time because they were talking about food, then they looked at me and kept pointing to the meat section.

I said, "Jag kann inte pratar kött" -I can not speak meat
They started laughing, I realised my mistake instantly, started flustering and then said,

"Nej, Jag kann inte gillar kött" -No, I can not like meat
They just kept on laughing.
They were the idiots who hired me.

I believe this dream was a manifestation at my disgust at myself for not having progressed very far with the Swedish language and falling into the trap of pretty much speaking in English. Everyone speaks it to a relatively high level and enjoys to do so.

I must learn! Tonight-Ongoing!

The uncertainty of my stay here has added to this....if I could secure employment or study, have some kind of definite period then I would have more impetus.

Captain-Queernabs

2006-01-31T17:19:00.000Z

I maybe a Dandyprat,

I maybe Caudge-paw'd,

I maybe Captain-Queernabs...

But at least I'm not a Chittifaced Clapperdogeon

DANDYPRAT: A little puny Fellow

CLAPPERDOGEON: A Beggar born and bred

CAUDGE-PAW'D: Left-handed

CHITTIFACE: A little puny ChildCAPTAIN-QUEERNABS, a Fellow in poor Cloaths, or Shabby

I lurk in the library

2006-01-31T16:38:00.000Z

Even though there are only 4 shelves of English material at the library, the person who chose the material was very shrewd.

They have all the graphic novels of Akira, 6 or 8 I think. They also have will self, books, requiem for a dream and some classic classics.

I've been feeling sad the last few days, I'm probably going to start stealing soon. A bicycle me thinks.

I'm halfway through "house of the dead" by Dostoevsky. He spent 4 years in a hard labour,Siberian military compound for political activities. This is told through the story of a narrator and is based on those years. It shows how men change under the prison conditions and what effects the punishmetns have on the men. It also deals with coping mechanisms etc. I like it, although i'm conscious that it's Dostoevsky and is probably going to wear me into the ground in the second half.

It made me dream that the police had new powers to search anyone and I had a bottle of acid on me. I had to run down a long, windy road and try to find a chink in a wall to hide it. scary stuff.

For some reason I came across a book by Selby -Requiem writer- called the room. It's also about a man in a prison cell and what happens to his sanity.

Then the library told me that a Kafka book, the trial was in and now I have that. You can guess what it's about. I'm contemplating reading all 3 on the trot....it may have an undesirable, negative effect on me.

My possessions

2006-01-28T00:49:00.000Z

(Concept: Klink Klonk
Photography: Lla)

Drowning in blood; afraid.

2006-01-28T00:44:00.000Z

Lla looking very scared and distraught...

I look like I'm suffering from a medieval plague.

(Concept/Photography: Lla)

Parasol Poppins

2006-01-28T00:33:00.001Z

Lla, pretending to be Mary Poppins with her miniature brolly.

(Concept: Lla

Photography: Klink Klonk)

Chulalongkorn - King of Siam, menace to flat

2006-01-28T00:11:00.000Z

His chaos is ineffable

(Concept: Klink Klonk

Photography: Lla)

Cat Capers: I

2006-01-28T00:05:00.000Z

I moved into my new flat in Norby with Magnus -a friendly blonde swede, who likes sci-fi and history- plus his 2 cats. Upon arrival there is no Magnus but plenty of cat. Tjosan is a siamese cat who if described in an elegant way looks like he belonged to an ancient Egyptian pharao. He would be just at home disrupting construction of pyramids, causing mischief inside all the tunnels and possessing more status and power than the average Egyptian peasant. If described in a not so elegant way he looks like a deranged, shaved squirrel. His full name is Chulalongkorn and he is all over the new people, Leylla and Farhang.

Fresh meat.

My mattress is bent double and he makes himself a den out of it.
A scratchy den.
His excited purrs sound like the stuttering engine sounds from a small motor boat battling the sea.

Morris is some kind of Norwegian forrest cat. I exagerrate not when I say he is the softest, most fluffiest and pleasant animal in Scandinavia. You can imagine her sitting on some cunning and evil criminal geniuses lap.
Not claw from Inspector gadget, better.
Not some Bond villain with a dodgy Russian accent, better.

When Leylla and her father leave, the three of us hang out in my room. They´re not used to coming in here even when it´s a bare room, now that is has new stuff for them to scratch and sniff they both seem happy. I see Tsu Tsan hide behind a suitcase and stretch his neck out stealthily to see Maurice. He then takes on a predatory position and in one leap flies 2 feet in the air and drops right on top of Maurice. The fluffy cat doesn´t have her super villain boss to protect him just yet and consequently is constantly attacked every time she enters the room.

Is this going to turn into some territorial battlefield, each of them wanting to earn the title of Top Cat?
Are these the types of cats that spray and mark everything?
Will these cats act like the ones in my recurrent dreams: hissing and caterwauling at me, trying to erase my face by scratching it to a raw mess, scraping to attack the thing I am coveting in my hands that I am so desperate to protect?

Yes, I´m wondering about these cats intentions towards my room and at the same time they´re probably wondering what the fuck I´m doing stinking up their new pad with my human odour.

I wonder if I should officially claim my territory by twatting the pair of them. Just a gentle, controlled kicking leaving them only slightly senseless, so that they would respect me as their leader, therefore not wanting to fuck with me or anything that smells of me. This started to make sense. Cats are notoriously arrogant and take advantage of their soft, animal loving owners. Maybe I would discover a new way to train them to some degree, not in a foolish dog and ball way, just to teach them a few boundaries? A few lessons.

Hmmm, those dreams were pretty fierce so i´m gonna leave them alone.
Random violence against animals that I like also seemed extreme, especially when I wasn´t their lawful owner.

I like the cats verve and attitude, so I try tactics of winning them over as allies. I can become their spiritual leader and friend instead, one who they admire and want to impress. Through patient play and care they will kow-tow to my control over the disputed lands through respect, not fear.

I dance a merry jig for them, this intrigues them and they sit watching me for many minutes. Soon after, I start working the crowd, pointing at each of them individually,crying out like a cat and giving them their own personal, private dance. I start throwing in clicking and general wailing noises and they´re lapping it up like it´s milk leaking from a fat, pregnant unicorn. I shower them with gifts of newspaper that they like to pretend is real so they can hunt it. I move the paper so they can chase it. How can he possibly top this I see in everyone´s eyes? The question is soon answered when I disappear to the kitchen, retuning with a cheese slicer and spoon. I rub them together making a divine, metallic noise, probably used by the CIA in the 60s to mimic an alien craft.

I´m entertaining the cats for a long time, after which I felt used and even a little violated. These cats didn´t want to be my friend. These cats didn´t want to love me. They just wanted the new live-in jester who has obviously been employed to entertain them when Magnus was at work. All I was was cheap entertainment. These cats didn´t wanna take me out on a pleasant, scenic stroll on a warm summer´s evening to clear my head and meet other, fellow cat owners. These cats didn´want to protect me from burgalars and other, bigger cats. No, they´d sell me out in a second, they´d probably show the burglars where I kept all my best stuff in exchange for some low-grade fish out of a tin. Fucking hedonists, if Jim Carrey came around with all his faces. His never ending, stupid, rubber faces then they probably wouldn´t acknowledge me ever again.

Let my eyes burn away your soul and memories

2006-01-27T17:44:00.000Z

I am Morris.
I burn your retinas.
I steal your memories.
I piss all over any of your pathetic notions of hope.

(Concept: Klink Klonk
Photography: Lla)

Cat Capers: II

2006-01-27T17:42:00.000Z

A little later both Tjosan and Morris are back in the disputed lands. Officially, they both deny my control over it, my heritage dating back thousands of years and also my right to exist.

Tjosan knocks over some of my books.
Now he´s sniffing the lamp.
I go to the wardrobe, when I want to close the door he is in between my legs, jumping in the wardrobe.
He starts to fight with Morris, I leave to get my food.
I hear disturbing noises, but am past caring as long as they are taking it out on each other.
I look down and see Morris in the kitchen, the noises still continue.
I put down my plate and go to my room.
Tjosan has gone under my mattress and is now eating half a Marlboro light he has found.
Back in the kitchen, Morris is helping himself to my dinner.

I bring in an orange, throwing one segment on the floor, assuming that it will entertain them for a few minutes while I eat. Tjosan sniffs close and then instantly retracts his head far away. Pungent. He does this over and over. Pausing before going in for the next sniff, then recoiling in some kind of startled horror. He reaches out with his paw, nearly touching it, but for some reason he can´t, pulling his leg back in. Repeatedly he tries to claw out, ever so close to the orange, but he can never quite bring himself to touch it. Like a dog owner trying to muster up enough courage to pick up their dog´s shit on the pavement, getting squeamish at the last minute and backing out. Moments later Morris arrives on the scene. His investigative sniffing ends with the same result, recoiling back. Now he wants to touch the orange, but he can´t bare to do it either.

I now hope to utilise the orange as a weapon against all cat kind. First I will sell it to stupid British people who love their gardens. They will use my scent to keep cats off their lawn. When I raise enough money I will then train an army of dogs, buy them passports and send them to England and America to dispose of my enemies. This will leave me unaccountable by law for my actions. I´ll keep a few in Sweden too, as a deterrent.

I start to sit on the floor, turn my head and see Tjosan on the window sill. By the time I´m fully sat he´s between my knees. I lie down to relax and he´s motor boating all around my face. Now he´s trying to break into my right pocket, then brings a paw down to prevent me getting in my own pocket. Now he´s back on the window sill. Now he´s pounced, dropping on top of Morris and landing with his teeth wrapped around her throat.

I fear for what they would do to me if I was the same size as them. I guess that they´d relentlessly hound and torture me until I was either dead or had managed to secrete an orangey body odour to repel them. I wondered if they knew that humans needed the lights on at night to see and if they would attack me in pitch black, dead of night?

Because of my cat nightmares I´m too scared to pick either of them up and so I don´t know how to get them out of my room. Reasoning in English to a Swedish animal proved futile, as did shining the lamp right in their eyes. I Decide to dabble in some temperature torture. Opening the window, letting the cold snow air unsettle them, forcing them to Magnus´s warm bed. Instead of fleeing they come to the wondow, both on hind legs, sniffing the air for a long time. Indoor cats aren´t used to the outside air, lots of smells. Guess who jumps up on the window sill, forcing me to close it in case he goes lemming on me?

To their discredit , they fell for a very base and low plan, worthy of a dog. I coaxed them out with an apple, they both fell for it and left.

At night they sit outside the door, crying, letting you know that you have trapped them out and they can´t get in. They cleverly put you off guard, lulling you into a false sense of security, because in the morning they are always in the room, prowling in circles, looking for a hunt.

Panda Lloyd left his boyz back at Leylla´s. He feared a tiger invasion and came for a quiet life. He can´t sleep in the bed with me now. At night he has nightmares and flings himself out of the bed, across the room. He fears being eaten by the cats in the morning and because he left his most fearsome bodyguard, Pariah, back at Leyllas.

Foto Phun

2006-01-25T12:51:00.000Z

This is what you´d receive from me a Christmas card if I was so stupid as to send them and if you were good enough to receive one.

All photos are opposite the road from where Leylla, her parents and myself resided.

This is the daddy of them all. The sky changed over the period of about 30 minutes. It seems daunting, prophetic, yet warm at the same time

I´m going to update every Thursday at least now. So once a week it can be checked here.

(Concept\Photographed: Klink Klonk)

Preceding Sweden

2006-01-19T17:40:00.000Z

The following chapters make up my adventures and travels on the days before I moved to Sweden. The first story follows on directly from this.

Stick with it, you shall be rewarded.

More posts shall speedily follow, plus pictures too.

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Caterwaul Klink Klonk
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Arctic Asda

2006-01-19T17:39:00.001Z

29/12/05 22:00

The prospect of Sweden started to seep in for the second time when I found myself in Asda for the second time in 24 hours. My intent was to equip myself with some warm gear from George's heavily advertised ‘Sub-Arctic range.’ My first time had been less panicky as it was just over 12 hours before I had to catch the painfully early bus to London. The second time, the following day, was a mere 8 hours away from departure time and was slightly more panicky. It was also slightly more annoying because this second time around I was in full knowledge that I had missed my first intended flight the day before , also, because I knew that I quite clearly should have learnt an important, nay, brutal lesson in proper planning and time management.

I was comforted by the fact that I knew exactly which items I desired and my required size. I selected an acceptable, quite warm looking, navy blue, zip up top from the 12-13 year old teens section and tried it on for the second time. I wanted to make sure it hadn't been a rash, impulsive desire from the day before brought on by a state of increasing rashness and madness which was brought on by the information that a snow storm was encircling my landing airport. As I expected, it hadn't been, i'm a fussy shopper. I allowed myself a little internal laugh as I imagined the embarrassment that many British men would encounter in this situation. They would feel uncomfortable and inferior unless their clothes were clearly labelled "man" and their minds would probably be more at ease if it said "Normal Average Man" to appease their fears of inferiority. I imagined that their thoughts would go to what "other people would think" and "if it was weird." I started to imagine how Mark (peep show) would react in this situation but quickly abandoned as I knew it would take me at least 10 minutes to think of something worthy and my time was pressed. Instead I took another little laugh at how mundane and unadventurous people's lives can be that they could get so worked up over such trivial things and feel such embarrassment in case there are any "stigmas" attached to their actions.

As interesting as all these thoughts were, I now fully understand that due to such thought diversions in my usual life I often forget the task at hand and can appear clumsy and forgetful.....
the task at hand.....
Sweden...
Oh yes.....prospect of dying in sub-Arctic conditions due to a snow storm at a miniscule airport and possibly no transportation because only 2 airlines actually fly to such a small airport. Ah yes, that trivial matter. Gloves....gloves....the day before I had been very displeased at the fact that the only gloves available were attached to hats. The gloves were very thin and I didn't want a hat. True, I knew that I had no intention of paying for my items anyway therefore the cost factor didn't apply, but I would surely end up stealing the hat as well, thus, adding another pointless hat to my hat collection that only consists of pointless, unwearable hats. My least favourite being the one my mum gave me after her trip to France. A beanie with the Eiffel tower on it, embroidered with "Paris" in multi-coloured, fun lettering.You went to Paris, not me! I have never been to Paris. I believe that Nation States are made up notions, illusions and that cities are imaginary, arbitrary lines drawn onto maps. Two solid, concrete reasons why you're never gonna catch me wearing that hat. I also have a light, sick yellow one that has Rupert the bear on it. I think he has funky pants. It's too small for me though, therefore pointless.
I was about to walk off when I spotted a lone pair of solo gloves lying on the floor that were different from the ones on display. This was a clear sign and I collected my new gloves and took them for a quick spin round asda. I quickly ascertained that these were most probably the dropped gloves of a small, now cold, probably tearful child. Two things lead me to this conclusion:
1) The gloves only just fit over my smallish hands.
2) The right glove has a label that reads "Power Rangers Dino Thunder"

All that child could offer the gloves was food stains and saliva all over every finger hole from nervous,wet sucking and chewing. I offered Sweden. It was obvious why they chose me.

Panic Packing

2006-01-19T17:39:00.000Z

30\12\05 05:15

Frenetically running around a scene of utter disorder and chaos, of my own creation, that is now spanning 3 rooms and engulfing them all. My suitcase is still empty and it feels like I’ve just turned 3 big piles of mess into many different smaller piles of mess.

'Er.....Are you sure you're going to be packed in time? We have to go in 5 minutes' Nicola said.

"Er.....I'm going to have a suitcase packed of sorts."

Somehow I'd spent all night packing and still needed to pack when it was time to go, even though I’d had another 24 hours. Matters were hindered by the fact that I kept suffering from severe polar opposites when making assessments of how well the packing was going.

30\12\05 00:30

"This is easy, I’m gonna be done in an hour and then can sleep for 2 hours" I told myself at the beginning.
Believing I had so much time left, even though technically I hadn’t done shit, I would reward myself by spending 20 or so minutes prancing around feeling really pleased and celebrating how easy packing was going to be. I dreamed about a life in Sweden and how happy and right it would be to hold Lla after the horrible two weeks apart. I laughed at her repeated warnings not to leave it until the last minute because it was going to be a nightmare. I laughed hard at her and her scare-mongering..

As suddenly as I had been hit by the assured, complacent wave I was gripped by a crippling, shattering fear. It gripped me so tight and constricted my chest. I realised that I was fucked, utterly, utterly, hopelessly, irreparably fucked. There was no possible hope of packing in time. Why had I done this?
People who were going on holiday for a weekend would have planned this better and I’m going there to live?
I started feeling rapid, strong heart palpitations and if I was 25 years older would have feared it was the beginnings of a heart attack. I imagined how meeting Lla and her parents at the airport after two missed planes was not going to be the welcoming, happy wonderland of smiles, hugs and kisses I had wasted so much precious packing time dreaming about. The pain was so much I had to sit down, slightly curled over. Being concious of precious time ticking away only served to increase the pressure inside of me. I realised that I had to snap out of panic mode, I didn’t want to experience my first panic attack. I vowed to press on, packing swiftly until it was over, and then spend time celebrating and day dreaming.
The problem was I kept suffering from these severe moodswings and the timings between them became less and less to the point where every 5 minutes I was changing from a blissful state of serenity to sheer, heart pumping panic. I didn’t know which side to believe. As time passed it became clear who had been trying to aide and motivate me and who had been trying to fuck and stifle me.

I averted a panic attack because I always get myself in situations where everything seems doomed and I always come up smiling. Why doubt my undoubted flow of life?
A typical example was 2 days before.

Problem Passport

2006-01-19T17:37:00.000Z

27/12/05 17:00

I leave in 12 hours... no passport. Those smiling scousers promised a ‘Guaranteed week delivery’, that was shattered 4 days ago. I hadn’t bothered to chase them up because it was obvious it would turn up at the last minute, a mere day before I left. That was obvious because it was me and everything falls into place during the dying, flickering embers of hope. There was no need to worry, until now that is, five o'clock, the close of the business day. When all the delivery drivers were racing home in their minds, stuck stationary in rush-hour traffic.
Phone calls to the agency revealed that I would now receive my passport for free because of their promise breaking ways! I just needed to hang on whilst they put me through to the courier to get the low down.
Phone call to the courier reveals they are claiming they delivered it on the 20th of December. The courier has even written a description of the house, which surely proves beyond all reasonable doubt that it was delivered.

“Who signed for it?” I ask
‘You don’t need to sign for it. You only need to sign in high risk, hot areas’
“That seems a bit stupid doesn’t it? All this security and then your man can just dump it through a letter box, or a hedge, and drive away claiming delivery?”
‘You only need to sign for it in hot areas.’

Because criminals only operate in Liverpool, Manchester and 3.75 miles outside city limits.

“Well, I don’t have it. Who is liable for this?”
‘You are. It’s your fault, you received the passport and then misplaced it.’
“So, I have to pay for another passport, even though I didn’t receive the original”
‘Yes´

So, this alleged booklet of the upmost importance and subject to the most stringent security checks in case forgeries are made or copies get into the wrong hands. This document where a professional has to verify knowing you for at least 2 years, sign the back of your photos as well as giving their passport number. This document where everything has to be so picture perfect that I had to retake my first set of photos because I was smiling -that has recently been banned- and my second set of photos because my face wasn't fully in the oval and I was "slightly looking down." This document that you paid £90 to have made in an emergency and rushed to you. This document that you’d probably get tried for treason and shot if you were the one who lost it, isn’t deemed worthy enough to need signing for if you live in the apparent crime free, rural countryside.

I end the phone call amidst vague promises that someone might be in tomorrow who might might do me another passport if I can pay and if I can have the correct form faxed over in time. I quickly realise these 'mights' hinge heavily upon me reversing my flabbergasted fury and verbally licking their arse for a few minutes, getting in their good books so as to guarantee success and them granting me the favour.
I decline the invitation.

Nicola doesn’t know where my passport is and nobody at the works at the top where the post usually gets delivered claims to know where the passport is. I smell a rat because I know Dickchard works there. Dickchard is Nicola’s brother and they have recently fallen out over private family matters. He usually lets himself into the house during the day with the key that Nicola gave him in order to tend to the dogs,drop off shopping/post and so on.
Nicola has changed the locks, only me and her have the new key. I have been warned that Dickchard may be upto no good and instructed to disallow his entry into the property.
I awake one day to the sounds of the 3 dogs downstairs barking. I ignore it and attempt sleep. Ten minutes pass and they won’t settle. I figure they want to go outside, even though they never usually bark and would sooner piss all over my stuff than go to the effort of actually alerting someone to their needs . I open the door and Dickchard is there. He is confused about the key and even though he has spent 10 minutes trying it on the outside lock without success, he now begins poking and scraping it in the inside lock.

'The key doesn’t work' he eventually concludes.

He looks at me like we’re on the same team. He looks at me like if I don’t know the answer then we are going to have sit down together like a pair of downright men, change into dirty overalls with our vests showing, listen to our builders' radio covered in paint, and solve this DIY conundrum together.

"No. The locks have been changed" I say it in a neutral way, but maintaining direct eye contact.
'Wha..t?'
"The locks have been changed. I’ve been told not to let you inside"

A look of indignant outrage and defiance occupies his face and he tries to step past me. I take a small side step, blocking his path and resulting in him taking a small step back. This small backward step is a gigantic indicator and it’s at this point that I know I have won. Dickchard isn’t going to try and force his way into the house and there will be no need for the violence I was half anticipating. He instantly revealed that he is a man of words, not action, and even at the peak of his anger at this frustrating situation, he cannot even barge past someone half his size. Someone who to him, is an illegal alien occupying his old family home and is now blocking his way, happily telling him to his face that he can’t enter. That he can’t enter the house that he will probably inherit half of when the owner passes away.

A person is most angry and dangerous at the very beginning of a situation. Like when someone cuts you up badly whilst driving. Initially you are incensed and chase after them, beeping and finger sign giving, a red mist now covering your eyes, clouding and distorting your previous pacifistic ways. This time, this time, you're finally gonna snap and this guy's gonna get a lesson teaching seven shades of shit kicked out of him. All that built up aggression from every beating you should have ever given to every bully, every guy who leered at your girlfriend, every cocky fuck who stood in your way is now going to be painfully pounded into this guy's sorry skull. This is the last time anyone's gonna take the piss out of you.
By the time they've pulled up at the side of the road, giving you the 'come on, 'ave a go if you're think you're hard enough' sign and swinging their hammer at you, the anger has subsided and you sheepishly drive away. Next time, next time, you say.

No, Dickchard isn´t going to do anything more except exchange a few words, possibly threats, and then walk away a beaten man. I turn most of mind to my bed and the sleep I am being deprived of. Stopping him from entering the house isn't the priority anymore, that has been solved, letting him get his rant out of the way ASAP so I can sleep is now top priority. I decide saying the fewest words as possible so as not to provoke him into further speech is the best idea.

'This is my house' he states
Silence
'How long are you staying for?' he asks
"A week" I say
“You’re not” he utters in quite a hushed, threatening way to his credit.
‘Ok’ I gleefully reply
“If you don’t let me in then I’ll kick the door down or come in through the window”
‘Ok’ I gleefully reply

The door is an extremely thick cottage door made out of some expensive wood which I admit I cannot name. However, I can quite confidently state that no man on earth could kick it down. I find such stereotypical threats very hard to believe, normally being made by people who have never had to make a threat before and have no capacity to carry out their threats. I liken it a lot to when 2 of my neighbours threatened to “Break my legs” last year. I mean, come on, have you ever heard anyone outside of 'Home Alone' or 'Muder she wrote' use such a threat? Ever heard anyone slightly scary or threatening say that in real life or on screen? Exactly no. In Manchester they would say:
“You're gonna get FUCKED up, proper like...yeah? You get me? Yeah?You’re gonna get fucking GATTED mate.You get me, yeah, yeah?”
Ok, not the most intelligent threat, but does its job.

Dickchard pauses like he is expecting me to give a stereotypical reply
"Just you try"
"Not on your Nelly, buster"

He walks away, I lock the door, I go to sleep.

Could Dickchard be behind the missing passport? My paranoid side says yes. Logically though, a man who couldn't barge past an illegal alien in his own home probably doesn't want to fuck with a document that has a royal symbol on that he probably holds in high regard.

Nicola returns home from work and checks her Nanna’s house -She lives in the other half of the cottage- because Stephen -Nicola’s brother-in-law- says it might have fallen behind some furniture. It hasn’t. A bout of rigorous questioning reveals that Nanna knows nothing of the passport. A dangling life-line is revealed as Nicola admits that in the past, Nanna, in her elderly forgetful ways, has opened Nicola’s post, sometimes even throwing it away. Afterwards, Nanna would deny everything.

18:00
Nicola locates the passport. It had been opened and left lying around in the house. My flight takes off in 12 hours and 45minutes.

The Inspector

2006-01-19T17:35:00.000Z

30/12/05 11:15

Arrive in London from Preston. Presumably I slept the entire journey as it lasted 3 minutes and my mouth tasted like envelopes upon arrival.

11:20

I know that my easy bus to Luton airport is at 14:15 giving me plenty of time. I give strong consideration to 'dicking around' for an indefinite amount of time, then, remembering how badly I had messed things up the days before, and how deluded I had become during the packing debacle, I decide to head straight for the bus stop, see what time it is and then dick around within a closely controlled proximity of no more than 15 minutes.

I wander into a travel office situated inside the greenline bus terminus where I find two staff are sat at a single shared desk. The English male on the left is engaging face to face with a customer, the female right converses in a foreign language to a phone enquiry. I prepare to wait patiently when an anonymous, slightly smug looking individual approaches me.

'Are you alright there?' the anonymous man asks
"I'm fine thanks" comes my succint response
'Can I help you with anything?'
"I'm waiting to speak to one of these two people here"
'Ah well..... I'm the inspector. What is it you wanted to ask them?'
"I wanted to ask them where Gloucester place is; my bus leaves from there"
'Ah well.....they don't know the answer to that.'

"Ok...well....I think I'll wait a minute and take my chances anyway"
'No point...they don't know the answer'

Is this some droll, unimiginative, self-styled villain calling himself 'The Inspector'? Parading up and down London public transport depots deriving some sick, maniacal pleasure from putting on an authorative front, then intercepting lost members of the public and advising them that the answers to the questions that their entire journey, nay, their entire FUTURE, hinges upon are in fact unanswerable. Unanswerable in fact by the very people who are trained, then paid, then placed in front of you to provide such answers. With his simple, yet devastating words he hopes to cause a self-inflicted, short circuit inside his victims' brains. By denying the existence of answers he hopes that a series of immense, stark realisations will occur in such a short space of time that the human being's defence mechanisms and coping strategies will be flooded and fried.

A susceptible victim first realises that the safe, reliable, cogs of a seemingly all knowing, all powerful society, previously thought of as carefully crafted, have in fact been made out of ice rather than metal and are now melting all around them. He realises that all science, religion, history and government have been distorted, fabricated to create a pretty picture facade.
Ordinarily, the human brain can cope with such matters as many of us at certain points in our lives decide not to dip in the sea of lies that surround us or eat our establishments diet of disinformation. The Inspector's cunning lies in his placement and also his timing. He knows that shortly the victim will realise that they have no chance of getting to where they have planned to go...even worse...if they have friends or relatives who have gone ahead to meet them...well....where the fuck are they right now? If they have to change their currency back to English pounds then won't they lose most of it to those "No charge, no commission" people who have to be making something somewhere. You get the idea..some victims can withstand this barage longer than other, but, if 'The Inspector' has managed to snare you then it's over. You forget all notions of the past and future as they are too intense to handle. You walk around London shouting at random people, pointing at horses and saying, "Is that my bus-ee bus bus holiday bus?" and slavering all over yourself, occasionally stopping for food. This repeats until you die. It is a proven fact that before 'The Inspector' began his operations there were no homeless people in London. All the stories of physical abuse,drug abuse, and broken homes that lead to homelessness are just a fallacy. A concoction created by our politicians and insane media to explain this previous inexplicable phenomenon.

Possibly, but not probably.

I think again to try and glean some possible meaning from this individual and his bizarre words.

I take a second to perform a quick memory scan, trying to summon as much memory as possible. I conclude that yes, I have heard of companies performing aptitude and performance tests on employees to give an indicator of their general levels of knowledge and intelligence. I also conclude that no, I have never heard of a company somehow extracting all employees memories and thoughts, then downloading them into their superiors brains, thus allowing them to know everything that their employed underlings know.
Yes, this technology may exist in some secret, black budgeted laboratory, but it is doubtful that the testing stages would be caried out in a grotty, London bus depot. It is even more doubtful that such technology would be implemented inside this fucking pion.

No, the answer was so clear and so simple all along.
This man was a stereotypical, London FUCK.

You know the type, rushing and pushing you out of the way as if their time is as limited and as precious as a dischevelled, sunken, aids ravaged child. One who needs to claw their way past you in the queues at D*sneyland for ‘Space mountain’ so they can experience the thrills of a ‘Normal, happy child’ once more before they stop and drop. If you try and ask these Londoners a question in the street they will simply keep walking, totally blanking you, like your voice has as much weight and meaning as a speech from the Prince of Monaco. If you have been stabbed in the street, they will not only refuse to directly help you, but will actually hamper the attempts of fellow random passers by who are actually trying to help you. True story. A guy was stabbed on a bus in London, managing to make it downstairs. Onlookers refused to help and eventually it was left to one woman to shake herself out of shock and assist the man. She asked for a jacket from another passenger to stem the flow of blood. Everyone refused. Everyone. Londoners don’t want to have a dying person's blood all over their jacket. When would they have the time to go to the dry cleaners, what will all their important business and busy lifestyles?
The pathetic British media tried to praise the 'Resolve' and 'Stoic resistance' of Londoners after the bombings. Nah, they just didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone involved. They don’t care about London, or anyone else in it outside their own circle. For them it was a holiday and a nice story. “Oh, I was in London that day, oh dearie me.” I’ve never visited anywhere else that was so devoid of humanity and passion.

Yeah, 'The Inspector' was a London prick. His crowning achievement, lifetime highlight would be to tell his Grandchildren that he was within the miniscule 60 mile radius of London when the bombs struck.

I adopt a slightly mocking tone, gauged such that it would knock him down from the summit of smug mountain, yet not too much mocking that he would hamper my enquiries even further.

“Hmm..yeah....so what you’re saying is that you know everything that these two people know?”

The smugness on his face doesn’t flinch and he’s beginning to grow a very large grin now. Jesus, this guy’s a prick. My incredibly restrained subtlety has been lost and he now believes that I am massaging his ego.

‘Yes’ He states ever so smugly.

The desire to point out the gaping holes in his logic is still held back by the fact that I still believe he has my answers.If this was Manchester I could have sacked this off long ago and just asked a random person. They would, in a friendly and non-ambiguous way, tell me the answer, or apologise for not knowing. They’d probably walk me there themselves. I’m not there though, I’m in London. Anyone I ask here is likely to either not speak English, be a tourist themselves or a complete prick, like this guy.

“That’s impossible” I say, finally delivering the words to burst his bubble.

Aha! I have defeated ‘The Inspector’ with pure, unadulterated logic. Where as he plans to destroy lost members of the public’s worlds in 7 words. -They don't know the answer to that- I have destoryed his in 2.
I could have done it in 1:
“Impossible!”
but decided that only Brian Blessed could accomplish such an exclaimed exclamation.

‘The Inspector’ exits smug mode, but chooses not to retaliate to my killer blow.

‘It is illegal for them to give you that information’

No! Incredible! It appears that he doesn’t want to crawl off, lick his wounds and rethink his long-term plans of villainy. He’s actually shifted up a gear, now trying to lure me into another mine(d) field of his outrageous claims. Knitting an even bigger web of unbelievable,unpalatable lies.

“Ok. Well, can You give me the information?” I ask, starting to tire of this whole affair.
‘No. It’s illegal for me to give you that information’
“How!? Who says?” I've started to snap a little.
‘The company, it’s illegal to give out competitors' information’

What an utter fuck wit. Instead of implying that he is an all knowing, omniscient, being and that him and his associates have been gagged by legal sanctions placed on them by the highest judges in the land he could have straight away just said.

‘I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to tell you that. Company policy I’m afraid. Why don’t you try ’

Unconfident of success, I try to make 'The Inspector' break his precious laws. I'm going to remain calm, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing me wound up.

“Well, I’ve already booked the ticket now so it doesn’t affect your company if you tell me. If you leave me with some information from your company, I’d be glad to consider it on my next visit.”

The smugness started to seep back on his face.
'I can’t do that' he says, with undertones of gloating.

"So what you’re saying is you’re going to jeopardise a young man’s trip to go and live abroad to be with his girlfriend because of some petty rule made by your company? A rule that even if you broke wouldn't divert any business or profit from your company, it just helps a lost person to get where they need to be?"

He unflinchingly and without pausing or altering his facial expression says,
'Yes'

He doesn’t even realise what I made him admit. What I said basically translated to:

“So what you’re saying is that you’re an A grade cunt? A bitter, twisted, pen pushing fuck?”

‘Yes’ he unwittingly admitted.

The end of London

2006-01-19T17:34:00.000Z

The London transport office were extremely helpful, even providing me with a map. I looked at the map and saw that I was very close to my destination. All I needed was 3 tube stops and a short walk. The walking distance looked like the equivalent of walking from St. Peter’s square to Market street (about 5 minutes.) I changed some pounds to kronor and set off. I like the idea of the tube, but not the tube itself. I like the speediness of it and the convenience and I also like that it is free -A person in front puts in their ticket and some barriers open, you go in straight after them, you don’t even need to run-.The bad parts are it reeks,is filthy and is occupied by catatonic London zombies who stare at the ground,silently. If you talk on the tube, even with people you know, you are a freak, an outsider because you aren't dead inside like everyone around you. Dead or scared shitless of everyone around you because of media, Government and police induced fear.

I once read that they cracked open a tube seat and found rat shit, human shit, spunk and a new type of fungi.

12:20
I exited the tube and began walking. I was a bit knackered now. It seemed that all the stations I had visited contained only still, concrete stair cases and not the giant escalators all the other stations I had ever visited had. This had forced me to lug my heavy suitcases up countless stairs. Overground, I was distressed to find that I could only walk for about 5 minutes now before I had to pause for a 20 second rest. It was like lifting deadweights and I felt like one of those world’s strongest men, in mind, not in body. I decided I deserved a rest and a tasty spliff. Besides, it had been a hectic night of panic and London in its unique, inimitable style had only added further stress. True, I had no idea how long the bus to Luton airport would take, but I knew that the spliff would make everything in front of me pass silky smoothly.

Outside of some KFC wannabe I see a man sat on a comfortable cushiony type pallette. Due to his appearance, he has been given a lot of personal space around him, more than enoughto share with me. I ask if I can sit down near him and he waves and mutters some kind of acceptance. I notice that he has only one leg and is wearing a black stetson that is covered with a ring of shiny rhinestones. It looks very gay and he appears quite strange although with a dignity about him. We get talking and he seems to know a little bit about Sweden and he also knows about how controlling this country is. From him speaking to me it became clear that he understood Government tricks and lies and about the unwitting level of control we are all under.

We shared a smoke and he talked of how you should always resist and have beliefs, but warned how "they" try to fuck you up if you do resist and go against them. He alluded that this was why he had ended up the way he was. This is not the first person I have met wandering the streets who has independently spoken of such a thing, of how they spoke out and ended up this way, on the streets. He also spoke that he was supposed to visit the hospital to have an operation on his leg,but refused to go because they would try and kill him. I knew that he meant with medicine and because they viewed him as a drain and invaluable member of our glorious society. This talk shocked me a little more as I once spoke with another man who had talked of a similar thing happening to him in the hospital. He had been waiting and saw lots of old people, perfectly lucid, going in for x rays and coming out comatosed. He claimed that when he went in they told him to close his eyes and he wouldn't, because he was afraid of what would happen and someone tried to stab him with a needle. A fracas ensued, he ended up running away. I always assumed this first man, even though he had talked a lot of sense for most of our talk, was talking a bit crazy. I found these coincidences strange, especially as I considered this second man a lot more stable because he wasn't hell bent on religion.

Here was an intelligent man, with a keen eye, probably more about him than half the suited Londoners who think they have some kind of status. Here he was, to the untrained eye, a homeless, crippled, beggar but was in fact an open minded individual who it was a pleasure to talk to. He had life in his eyes, devoid from so many of us. He smiled as he told me that days earlier on Christmas day it had been the most enjoyable of his life which he spent with bikers at a social club somehwere in London. He began to tell me about an ancient code of music with many gates that I should remember...it is now 13:20 and I get a feeling that I need to leave. I find it hard to leave this man as I want to talk more, part of me says I have lots of time because my bus stop is so close, but I have to yield and make sure I make it.

As I left, I couldn't hear clearly. It sounded as if he advised me to travel the world and that I experience the pleasures of picking fresh bonsai during the summer.

14:10
Why the fuck am I still walking....Where is the bus stop.... How long is this road? The tiny road on the map that should have taken less than 5 minutes is now still going on, 50 minutes later, no end in site. I’m picking up the cases now and doing short sprints until my arms burn so much I have to stop. I feel sick from hunger and wish I had eaten something since 20:00 the night before.

14:12
I make it to my bus stop with 3 minutes to spare.

Airport Antics

2006-01-19T17:28:00.000Z

15:00
I think it was between 15:00 and 15:30...I was asleep the entire trip. Luton airport is small and boring, check in starts in about an hour. I shave the best shave of my life and find the line where my check in should be. I find a small queue. I decide that it is best not to join the queue at his point. Nobody wants to go to where I’m going, Västerås, an airport which Ryan Air was touting around as Stockholm. There was also another airport in Stockholm, Skavsta, which I could choose from. Skavsta is a 2.5 hour bus ride to Stockholm, Västerås, a mere 1.5 hour ride. I dunno who was responsible for this outrageous labelling, probably the same guy who labelled Luton airport as in London. Only 2 airlines goto Västerås and this airport is so small that it actually closes at about 23:00. I was pleased to find online that the last bus out of the airport left before our plane had landed meaning that if you had no lift in a car you were stranded.Stranded in a snow storm. I was sort of sure I had a lift in Lla's dad's car.....I felt more sure that no one else in this airport would have made such a series of idiotic boobs.

More and more people kept arriving, annoying me. Now there were two queues, both really backed up.

17:00
Balls.
More people and you have to check in by 18:00 at the latest.
Actually, this is gonna be a really tight call.
I’ve done it again. My entire time in the line is going to be spent knowing that I’m probably only just going to make it. Even though I arrived an hour before check in commenced.
I join the queue and initiate phase one of my cunning plan. I open my first suitcase in the line. It consists of:

*20 or so vinyls, all but 2 are 12” and packed in bubble wrap, wrapped in a towel
*Panda Lloyd
*An oxford advance learners dictionary.
*Teach yourself swedish book.
*‘Dharma bums’ by Jack Kerouac
*A very heavy “You can remember” pack by Bruno Furst. A heavy folder containing 12 booklets about how to improve your memory through image association.
*A blank purple book
*3 notebooks

People behind me are a little peturbed as I take everything out and start to repack. I place all the vinyls into plastic bags whilst intermittently kicking the rest of my luggage to catch up with the moving queue. This is going to be my hand luggage. This takes me a while as I have to be very careful with my precious vinyl.

I close this suitcase and initiate stage 2.
I open the second suitcase, take off my jacket and lay it on the floor so I am wearing only a t-shirt. I then take out my small, black sleeveless shirt and put it on. I then take out the next biggest t-shirt I own and put that over the top. Slowly but surely I am wearing one shirt,5 t-shirts and my surgeon's top.
I then take out my four long-sleeved shirts and start to put them on, one after the other, unbuttoned. Everyone around me is suffering from amusement and bemusement, engaged in whispers with each other. Everyone is looking but trying not to look. If I make eye contact we both smile. I decide to avoid all eye contact and focus on the task at hand. Queueing to check in is boring and frustrating. Here I am trying to implement a deadly serious, pre-planned operation, but have become a figure of amusement for my fellow passengers.
Now for the jackets.
The orange Adidas jacket, the two jackets from Asda, the Boc Baker jacket and finally the inside fleece from a German army jacket.
5 jackets.
I’m really, really, really, incredibly pleased with myself at this point. I had dreamed up this scheme maybe one week before I arrived and had told a couple of people about my intentions. I don’t know whether they thought it wouldn’t work or if I wouldn’t do it... I received no positive encouragement anyway. I didn’t care. All I knew was that if there was any item of clothing that I wanted to take with me then I was going to take it with me. If I wanted to take 20 heavy vinyls with me then I was going to. I knew I would be over the 15 kg limit and there was no way on God’s green earth that I was gonna pay extra for it. Especially not after the Västerås scandal that kept growing ever more scandalous the more you researched it. I would have gaffa taped vinyls, properly protected, to my chest if necessary. My scheme was glaringly obvious and of course, other people surely must have done this in the past and I can't claim to have invented it. However, I will point out that the idea came from my own brain, independently and uninfluenced(!)

I was really pleased because I didn’t know for sure that everything would fit without stretching or complication and it did. Because of my skinny size I didn’t even look wrong.
I needed the toilet and couldn't understand why I had been contemplating not shitting before I got on the plane, risking a complex, messy and stenchy deposit on a confined, crowded plane. I decided to kill two birds with one stone, putting my pants on in the toilet, asking the couple behind me to guard my now clotheless suitcases. I decided to sack putting on underwear and socks. I didn't want to risk every pair of my kecks smelling of sweaty cock and I also didn't want to put unecessary pressure on the lads and their cannon. This can lead to cancer. People who wear briefs, trapping and pushing in their precious jewels are fools.

My black trousers, my skate pants, my scally pants, my tighter jeans, my loose jeans
Again, perfect. The company can’t have a “weight limit” for passengers for fear of causing embarrassment to those heiffer type specimen of human that you see working in a Texas McDonald’s. Ha, all I had to do was wear everything until the plane, then stash it in the overhead compartment. If I thought that what I had done was outrageous or clever in anyway I'd go back and count all the items of clothing I had on and then boast. It was neither of these things.

If I was Tony Hawkes or Dave Gorman, I would have put on as many pairs of socks and underwear until I couldn't even bend my feet without breaking a toe and my schlong had gone numb from the intense pressure. I would have spent time at home practising clothes runs, cramming on as much as possible so that I could cite a hilariously, outrageous number in one of my hilarious books. This stunt would be one of the highlights in another of my daft and whacky capers. The only way I could hold my nerve to do such a naughty, daring and dastardly deed was the promise of a book release, filled with cash, that I needed to fill with "madcap", "hare-brained" schemes so that everyone would go:
"Core, blimey! Get a load of this guy, he's crackers!"
Another story that I can regale their middle-class friends with at dinner parties.

(Tony Hawkes writes books where people conveniently make bets with him so he can write a book about it. His first one was "Round Ireland with a fridge" where someone bet him he couldn't hitchhike round Ireland with a fridge. It's one of those books where the idea behind the book is the most entertaining thing about the entire book. Nothing funny happens. Apart from him reminding you of how he'd gone on a wild bet. He then pushes his luck and releases books about trying to beat the entire Moldovan football team at tennis.

Dave Gorman did a better book trying to meet 50 odd people who shared his strange name and he wrote it with another guy. It turns into a kind of cult and the book has its moments. The reason I attack Gorman is he got cocky and thought he was an actual writer. He tried to write a serious book, failed completely, and so released a complete cop out, pathetic second release called "Google whack." This time he finds a person who google whacked him, then hilariously challenges them to googlewhack people so he can.......yes....go and meet those people. Aha! Genius.
It doesn't even sound funny.
I saw Gorman do book reading from one of 'Google Whacks' trite chapters. Dave had met a sinister Texan. A gun wielding maverick cowboy who had kidnapped Dave and was forcing him to go on a drugs mission with him to Mexico to do a cocaine run. Dave is naturally terrified.
He ends the bookreading leaving the listener on hooks wondering what the fuck went down there and if the rest of the book was on the run from the police or on the run from this crazy cowboy. And of course, he also reminds the listeners that they can buy his book right now!

Upon reading this pathetic travesty, I discover that the cowboy was one of the friendliest men Dave had ever met. After repeated pesterings, he had graciously allowed Dave into his car for athe road trip of a lifetime. He carried a gun because....all Texans do....Dave was scared because the cowboy asked if he wanted to touch the gun, after Dave drew attention to it. The drugs run to Mexico was in fact a leisurely drive to collect Coca Cola. The Mexicans make it better, apparenty.
Well done, Dave.
Your cliff hanger serves as to provide the dictionary definition of "Anti-Climax" there. It really made me warm to you, the clever way you'd played on the word coke, tricking all your fans -I was no fan. Everyone else had free tickets to a ticket only event. I happened to be in the book shop at the time, sneaking in with my friend, Jenny- into thinking something momentously entertaining was going to happen, when in fact nothing did.
What a clever, crowd working boy you are.

These guys make a lot of money out of peddling such shite.)

I think I'd like Gorman though if I met him in the street. I think he probably is funny in a cute and pleasant little way. He's probably quite an amiable chap.
Unlike Tony Hawkes.
I imagine him to be a snivelling little brown nose. Pathetically trying to get the attention of his school mates by eating glue and dancing around pulling faces to get them to like him.
I hate Tony Hawkes the most. He would probably say something like this about his clothes scheme:

"I was trembling with fear at my new plan!
Could I possibly dare?!
Surely these were the desperate actions of a complete, crazy and mad person. Had I let this challenge get to me too much? Was I now pushing the borders of sanity..........had I, in accepting this bet, already done so and was now hopelessly lost in the land of the insane?
I wish I'd bought the rough guide now.
I was teeming with glee and wanted to tell my friends. Fearing they might call the men in white coats I decided against. What would all the other people in the airport think, I imagined? What could they think? Here was this man, clearly not bound by any of the usual social norms and able to operate completely outside all normality. What a total prankster. I felt sorry for the person who had to sit next to me on the plane. Someone would probably call security and everyone would be lying on the floor around me whilst the police pointed machine guns at me, and me with a red face having to explain it was just a hilarious joke.

I rang the Guinness book of records hoping that I might now hold the record for wearing the most clothes that anyone had ever bothered to ring up record breakers to report.
They said I hadn't broken anything.
I said I was writing a book.
Well, they said, I was the person who'd rung up the most times with the most failed attempts to break a record. That was a record in itself and surely that meant something, somewhere, to someone.
Success!
My friend, who happened to be present, said he bet I couldn't ride a penny farthing, dressed in Victorian period clothing, whilst wearing a flower pot on my head,all the way to the studio within the time frame of the rest of my life. Cheryl Baker was to be present, passing over the certificate to me via Roy Castle´s boney, dead, arm.
I accepted. Hmmm, I could sniff another book out of this!!!"

Wanna know something Hawkes? I stole all of your books, you greedy, comedyless little gobshite. So what if you had a bit part in Red Dwarf. I resent you for repeatedly calling yourself a comedian. I resent your existence and I don't speak such words lightly.

When I returned from the toilets, the young couple behind me in the queue started asking me about Panda Lloyd and so I told them. Panda Lloyd is a Welsh, mongoloid panda with no nose or tail.His name is Welsh, not that people from Wales are mongoloid.
They were Tomas and Joan, a French and Chinese (Hong Kong I think) married couple from London. I explained about my luggage and they were relieved because, as is the modern way, they thought everyone was being secretly filmed and I was one of Beadle's minions. My new friends made an excellent suggestion. Seeing as they were carrying so little, they were going for one weekend away, surely I could transfer over my excess luggage to them? It sounded very reasonable and perfectly logical. Alas, I was once again bitten by bureaucratic bullshit. That wasn’t allowed, company policy. I put my cases on the scale. One suitcase alone weighted 16kg, 1 kg over and in total I was about 5 kg over. I can’t remember whether it was £4 per kg or £24 per kg, but it wasn’t happening eitherway. I moved to the side for a rethink. Damn Bruno Furst and his concrete guide to memory! Joan and Tomas checked in and told me to wait at the side whilst they wandered off.

My saviours! They came back with a Tie rack bag with a zip that I could put my hand luggage inside instead of plastic bags. They also said I could take the majority of my clothes off and they would carry it through as hand luggage. The cases were now under weight.
I sat on the ground “Get your pants off!” Joan was shouting and then started ripping my layers of pants off. Tomas was good natured about this and was the first to make a joke about his wife’s comments and how they could have been construed. It was nearly 18:00, we had to hurry in case it was too late to go through passport control etc.

It wasn't.The plane was delayed by 2 hours. We remained together, talking and the time passed quickly.

As plane as anything

2006-01-19T17:25:00.000Z

21:00

Our plane takes off and I’m pleased because I’m sitting next to Tomas and Joan. We’ve been having a good time together, each side appreciative of the light relief of each other’s company under the frustrating circumstance, whilst finding they get along comfortably and like each other. The other passengers are smiling and nodding at me. I don't recognise any of them.

The flight was 2 hours and so the plane was cramped and unpleasant. The table in front of me had the cartoon safety diagrams on them, permanently looking at me. Everyone has to pay attention to the stewardesses give a safety lecture because if we don’t and the plane sets on fire, hurtling towards the ground at incredible speed, we might now know what to do and consequently might die. We might die in an unsafe, incorrect manner compared to everyone else dying in the procedure following, correct manner.

If we’re over water at the time when the engines stop, the plane will float languidly and graciously from the sky, like a feather, into the calm, blue seas. The plane will sit and float on top of the water, bobbing gently up and down, soothing and relieving us of any shock, whilst we all calmly queue up and in single file slide down those incredibly fun looking inflatable slides. The water won’t be freezing and our limbs won’t instantly cramp up, leaving us immobile. We will blow the magic whistles on our life jackets, summoining the nearby dolphins who will shortly come to drag us to safety, tittering. When our voices become hoarse from singing Kumbaya we will tap each other on the shoulder, “Want some of my hermetically sealed, water-proofed Mars bar?” we will say, then when they look round we will shine our torches directly into their eyes, blinding them for kicks.

I turn to my new friends and quite happily tell them that the safety position of head between knees, hand over heads, was just so that when the impact happened, your spinal column severed cleanly, killing you instantly, preventing prolongued suffering. I decide that maybe other people don’t wanna hear such things, especially during a flight. I remember Fight club, the film, where the oxygen maskes so as to put you in a state of euphoria before the inevitable death.

To keep myself occupied I played a counting game. I would count down from 10 believing that when I hit 0 oxygen maskes were going to fall down from above and everyone was going to start screaming, crying and panicking in an instant. I kept viewing the placid scene around me, people sleeping, reading, a couple lucky bastards watching dvds on laptops, and then imagining how in the click of a finger the scene would turn to pure pandemonium. I tried to predict how different people would react. Who would be frozen, silent with fear? Who would scream and cry? I imagined friends and relatives clutching onto each other tightly, the stronger of the two stroking the others heads, gibbering words of futile comfort. Would random single serving friends start hugging each other and holding hands fearing death, not wanting to die alone?
Eyes open or eyes closed?
Would some people start praying and going on about god?
Would some crazy man start an apocolyptic rant about how doomed we were?
Would couples start kissing and end their lives with beautifully worded sentiments of love to the other?
It must be a lot easier to die with the one you love next to you. If you’re up there and they’re safe on land, you would feel bad at the traumatic emotion they would have to go through at the news of your death while they’re waiting for you at the airport. Then you’d start realising that they’d eventually get over you, albeit being incredibly emotionally vulenrable, and some evil, sneaky, slick fuck would take over her, secretly trying to destroy every memory they have of you. All that love that was meant for you, stolen, by some greasy haired fuck.

If there was some sick virgin on board, would he start trying to cop a feel of some paralysed woman next to him, eventually raping her, time permitting? Realising he wouldn’t be held accountable for his actions.
Would people start puking and pissing themselves. Would everywhere stink?
Would people be fighting and trampling on people to get to the exits?
I’d despise the people who were praying the most and all the people who would put their seatbelts on.

Me, what would I do? During my counting game I wondered also. I would get out of my seat, if there was a religious, praying person in my vacinity I would try and smash them in the weakest part of their jaw to break it. I’d fight my way to the exit and try to open the door. Getting sucked out at high speed must be fucking mint! Maybe I’d get sucked into the engines and scrambled, maybe I’d die instantly from pressure or maybe I’d survive, and freefall to the ground without a parachute. That’s my dream way to die, pure adrenaline rush. Opening the door, I’d take all the other passengers with me. I’d be a mass murderer and in the end it wasn’t the plane crash that would kill everyone, it was my hand. I don’t want to die like some pathetic, snivelling human trapped like sardines in a crushed tin box. I wanna be out in nature, plummeting to my death. Or getting mangled in the engines, pureified into tiny, tiny pieces.
I would like to take some hits of oxygen, but couldn't guarantee that I’d be able to pull myself away.

My counting game got freaky and I realised I was agitated and on edge now. I took a cue from Tomas, lowered the table in front of me, rested my head and slept on and off.

A pilot on an aeroplane doesn’t do very much, he basically does fuck all, nothing except making a couple of announcements over the tannoy. It’s all computer controlled. Out of 20 flights, the computer lands the plane 19 times, he does excatly the same as you, sits there, hoping, wondering. To keep the pilots fresh, they have to manually land 1 out of every 20 flights, just in case the computer crashes. That’s why when you land sometimes it’s turbulent, unpleasant, bouncy and starts to shit you up. I explained this to Tomas and Joan in an attempt to make a comforting remark, counter to my scare remarks about snapping spines and euphoric oxygen.

23:00 (GMT)
We land, thankfully the counting game was just that, a game and not a prophecy.
Västerås, “Stockholm”, Sweden!