» Best Films Ever

Dave & I
It was just a simple drinking game to go with watching an old favourite: Withnail & I. Keep up with Withnail, in essence, the bare essentials being: Your wine of choice for the wine, your lager of choice for cider and other beer-ish stuff, your whiskey for whiskey and sherry, and actual lighter fluid for the lighter fluid scene. A certain friend of mine, who we shall call Dave, is the only person I've ever known to have kept up with all of the drinking without filling a pint glass with regurgitated alcohol. Dave was an old mate, hung around with me during the drug days, we'd spent a month in a Class D prison together after being arrested buying coke (Class D is essentially a youth prison, it's open ground. Imagine Butlins, but even less fun). He's never denied me a penny when I was short rent or was a couple days short of my wages and was invited on a big night out. Golden hearted bloke, if a little, well, dim. This is his story.

It began. Knock on the door in the middle of the night - Dave grinning outside.
"Come in, good sir."
"Stick on Withnail & I."
"Certainly."
My flat was cold, and the first couple of minutes are spent with us sat on my shanty couch shivering and waiting for the booze to kick in. As the alcohol begins to influence our systems, we find ourselves teetering between the edge of anarchic mirth and a pit of empathy - caught between laughing at the indignance of our struggling compatriots and going beyond an appreciation of their pain, but sharing in it, believing in it, knowing even, that this film was the story of our pale and wet existence. Somehow we were topless, wearing only underwear and our shoes. Really shivering, I thought the alcohol would have been exacerbating my sensitivity to the cold, and so I missed a couple of drinks. We put the film on pause and set a small fire in the ashtray to warm our numbing hands. Rizlas and toilet paper do not make for good burning material, and the decision to share a joint was a bad one as all that light-paper ash glittered in the air like some postapocalyptic wasteland's rain, dry grit falling from the heavens, seeping into my flat under the evil wills of a God that no longer cared for a species that failed to cheer His work. We turned it on again.

A note, on lighter fluid. I knew from my youthful indulgences that Butane was pretty dangerous, and held no alcoholic content. I also knew that it could kill you if you didn't let it warm up a bit, so we poured half a shotglass of it each and decided to warm it up by settling it in the still smouldering ashes of our small fire. It didn't catch alight, though, which looking back on was probably less of a miracle than it might seem to you, dear reader, at the moment. The scene came and we both took a tentative drop of that disgusting substance into our mouths, barely an eigth of the half shots we had poured.

Imagine Satan, all nuclear and evil, ejaculating his chemical spawn onto your tongue. It the foulest taste of death you can imagine, not an old woman slipping away in the night, but some six year old child getting swept away in the radioactive winds of Hiroshima, uranium blisters burning his skin, condemning him to two weeks of torment before an agonising hour in which he'd beg to be put out of his misery if only he had a throat to it with. That's the fucking aftertaste.

We drank whiskey in moutfuls so vile was this stuff, we sucked icecubes and still this taste had just become an undercurrent, nothing but a provocation to keep drinking and smoking. So we did. And we did. And we did.

No plot points here, but the last scene involves a certain character drinking from a bottle of wine and shuffling into the distance. Thus did Dave, and I curled up under my coat on the sofa to sleep, telling him to get home safely, that there was nought but wolves out there. Packs upon packs, baying to taste his flesh. He left me his cigarettes and went out to meet the world. I fell asleep pretty much instantly.


Woke up Memento like. What happened? Where am I? This is my flat? Where are my clothes? Is this... ash? I tidied up as memories came back with no respect for the chronology of modern man's reminscing method, as they do, and then the phone rang.

"Hello?"
"Not Quite... oh God."
"Trish?"
"It's Dave..."
She was fond of her trailing silences. A dramatic woman to say the least.
"Did he get home alright?" I asked.
"No. He's been arrested."
"Drunk and disorderly? Do you need me to pick him up?"
"Turn on the news."

And so I did.

"No fucking way."

I can only thank the BBC for cluing me in on the second half of this story, so I'll let them do the same for you - well worth the click:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/7404582.stm

I haven't been to see him inside. Not too fond of prisons, which he understands. His girlfriend still doesn't know - she isn't the b3ta type, I don't reckon - that I got him drunk. She gave birth a week or two ago. Haven't been to see the baby. He should be out this time next year, thanks to overcrowding.

Length? 108 minutes. Download a torrent. Save your money for the booze.
(Sun 20th Jul 2008, 10:32, More)

» What's the hardest you've tried to get dumped?

She made me a cake.


Mind you, it tasted like shit.
(Thu 5th Jun 2008, 23:02, More)

» Siblings

My Sister. Not Blood.
I'm not ashamed to tell this story, if anyone has any problems with it, they're their own. My mother married my step father when I was seven. He already had a daughter who was also seven. We were poor, South London and all, and they made us take baths together until they stopped.

My step dad was a really smart bloke though prone to drinking. He'd spent a good part of his youth working in Egypt, on stuff from the pyramids - not exploring them, like, but the artifacts and stuff, examining photographs. He worked for the British Museum and had articles published and was hugely enthusiastic about his job, even after being relegated to teaching in a shitty university for no money, to the point of naming his first son (with his first wife, died of reasons my mother never told me) Osiris, or Oz for short. His daughter's name was a little held back, Yah, or Iah, though spelled phonetically: Yah, which was their ancient word for moon. He homeschooled us both, and we didn't go out a lot until we both went to do our A-Levels in a boarding school. This is about her though, not him.

So yeah, we took baths together up until we were sixteen, actually - it was a sort of quiet life we lived, I'm sure that kind of thing maybe creeps other people out - and we were always acutely aware we weren't blood relatives. I've always been quite practically unashamed and aware of the female body because of this. Both of the parents worked and so all of the time we were left alone in the house together. We were good at cooking and keeping things clean and we fought at much any children could fight, and we were very close.

We were in the bath on one of those ugly and bright afternoons, where everything is quite quiet and depressing, and she leaned over and touched my penis.
"Do you wank?"
I shrugged. I didn't know how to answer it really, but wanted to seem cool. I guess maybe the lack of external influence on my sex knowledge up until I did leave home has left me with a different viewpoint on the whole thing than most people. I knew about stuff, like, we had TV and weren't completely in seclusion, we had friends etc. It's just a lot of the knowledge about these things comes from socialising in school and that's one experience I never went through.

So I said, "Yeah, lots."

"Can you show me?"

I nodded and held my cock and started stroking it. I hadn't masturbated before - probably the only sixteen year old to ever feel that - and so this was odd for me, but soon enough my little man was hard and proud and I was polishing it with my palm as much as I could. Then my arm started to get tired. I told her this and she took over. It wasn't as good when she did it, and I told her to go faster and hold tighter. While she was working on it, switching hands like a maniac, I asked if she'd suck it. She obliged and put her lips around the head. I began to felt queasy and then it happened, and my little pearly drops of sperm spurted out and onto her supple breasts.

My soul was filled with God's love, it was truly a profoundly religious experience. I'd never liked going to church, and we only went on Christmas and Easter, but I felt like Jesus himself was in the sun and those beautiful warm rays and the cooling bath water were enthused with the holy spirit itself. I was panting and sweating and knew the world as it truly was, the slow vibrational hum of God's pure love. I screamed out in ecstacy. That was the first time I'd cum by Yah.

Length? 5 years, paedophiles. Your IP addresses have been acquired.
P.S. Sometimes writing this stuff makes me uncomfortable.
(Fri 26th Dec 2008, 12:28, More)

» Tightwads

How to Live for Free (ft. Fred Flinstone)
Society tells us we have to pay for everything. This is bollocks, and I'd encourage you to pay for nothing. Not theivery, now, but plain and simple freedom. I can't be arsed posting a longer message than this is already going to be, so in essence, here's a list teaching you how to live for free.

Shelter:
Squat. Squats are not derelict buildings, they are simply buildings housed by persons who do not own or hold a formal lease for the building. Britain has the greatest squatting laws in the world - use them before our political party (singular, because New Labour are just Tories wearing make-up) snatches them away.
Not all squatters are punks or crackheads, some of them are just extremely savvy economical entrepreneurs. The best of them live right next door to you; they have a car and all the keys to their house, and without owning it or paying rent, they can legally occupy it. Here's the wikipedia article on squatting. Have you any excuse to still be paying your rent or mortgage, really?

Of course, there are other things to worry about when living in a squat. You'd need to consider that the house is just a shell: yhere's no water or electricity. That you're officially classed as homeless if you wanted to get a job. That you can't receive post. You can't have a phone line. You can't plant flowers in the garden. You can't inform the police if someone is messing around on your property. Oh, wait, what's that Fred Flinstone?



These are all urban myths, and aren't remotely true?! Hey, thanks! Yabba-dabba-doooo!

Water & Plumbing:
Get a squat. Failing that, use any number of public bathrooms in Tesco or any place like that for giving yourself a quick scrub - if you're sly and manage to keep your clothes clean - which is a whole other problem - nobody's going to throw you out. If you put enough forethought into it, you can get away with anything. Public drinking fountains are great to drink from and store bottles of water from. Alternatively, unless a public toilet specifically states to not drink the water there, drink away.

Clothes:
I'm assuming you're not naked. Getting clothes isn't what's important here, what is important is cleaning the ones you have. You know that water you got from the taps? You know the soap they have there? Stick some of that in a bottle. A tiny bit will go a long way if you really put your back into scrubbing it. Of course, keeping things looking sparkly new isn't important, what is important is keeing them looking clean. Ironing is unneeded for most modern clothes but you'll always find something that does need it. Now, you can always sneak into a hotel and use the trouser press in an open room - I promise, the first time you get away with it, you'll feel like James Bond. After that you tend to become disillusioned with the whole Hotel security thing. We're still assuming you're not in a squat though. Being in one and having an iron tends to sort out most of your problems.

Food:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism

Cigarettes:
Public ashtrays, whether they're on the top of a bin or mounted on a wall. Learn to love them. Sure, you'll get ash on your hands, but pick up those butts and drop as many of them them in a plastic bag as you can. You can roll up the tobacco left in them with blank newspaper, which isn't as pleasant as cigarette paper but it burns near as well, and you can reuse the butts if you really want, though I'd recommend shelling out a handful of pennies on filters.

Alcohol:
We've all seen The Real Hustle, and we all know what proposition bets are. I'm sure we've all tried them at one time or another, and general wasted an hour or two with them. Again, with a bit of forethought though, you can get pissed every night you want if you just put some time in to think up some generally clever propositions. The greatest thing about these are that they're such a pop-culture phenomenon that most people will instictively accept the bet. With an arsenal of these up your sleeves, and a familiarity with other propositions to defend yourself against, as well as what will be called an arsehole attitude to taking and not giving, then you'll be drinking for free for a long time to come. This part is mostly directed at men. Women have a much easier time getting free drinks - and if you're one of the women who doesn't get free drinks and takes offence at this comment, then you're a fool.

Money:
Work, you can work for the big issue, you can get a proper job, you can sign up at a temp agency and get day work. You can beg too, if you really want. Getting money for doing nothing isn't easy, though you need look no further than Heat magazine to find out the secret of this trade.

Books:
Library. Often, too, second hand book shops will give books away that just aren't selling. Don't be afraid to ask, Bernard Black isn't real (note: Bernard Black may be real), and most of them are happy to give away a tattered old copy of some Jim Thompson or Camus or Greene book, just make sure you know your authors and the kind of book you like to read. You won't find any Dan Brown there, and for a good reason too.

Nights out:
All hail the BBC, and the live recordings are far better than the shit that ends up being broadcast.

Internet:
Libraries, again. Alternatively, if you have a laptop, you'll be able to get into somebody's wireless. You're probably stealing internet already.

I'd write more but I've got bored. If you've anything to add, feel free to do it in the comments, I'll update as I can. Also, do read the comments for more debate.


Edit1: Some people have made objections to the above, and I wouldn't want to preach, so please don't take my word as the be-all-and-end-all, I'm sure you wouldn't anyway, but here we go:

Leeching off society.

If everyone lived like that, there would be no society for you to ponce off. No houses to squat in, no hotels to sneak into, no public bathrooms or water fountains, no libraries or BBC recordings or pubs where you can scrounge a free drink. All of these things exist because they're funded by taxes and consumerism - which you claim to eschew.

I'm all for recycling and using things that would otherwise go to waste, even freeganism for those with such low standards they're happy to eat gone-off food out of a bin. Good for them. But what you're describing is leeching off society.


Of course, no society could sustain a population living off of each other's castaways. However, you, complainer, have decided not to do this. There will always be a majority in your favour, a majority that thinks paying for things affords security. Leeching implies sucking the life from society, as if freegans and squatters had their hands in your pockets, when in actuality, we're stealing out of rubbish bins, and, again, living in unused houses. If we work, taxes are being paid, if we don't work then we're a whole lot less of a drain on society than underclass (not working class, I do specify) scum. Burberry'd up and claiming as much benefit as they can - and yet squatters get the bad reputation. This whole attitude, though, "leeching" on society... we ARE society, as are the under class, the working class, the middle class, the upper class. This is what society is made of. If you're upset at being taxed blame the taxman living in his mansion, not the kid with a broken leg getting free care from the NHS.

Now, I'm not squatting personally, to explain my views on this, which aren't universal. I don't want to preach, because there's nothing more annoying than a loud hippy. But I do believe it boils down to a choice: either you accept your own disenfranchisement (i.e. lack of impact on the larger society, nullified right to vote because, let's face it, any fucking tool can vote, etc.) and decide that your guilt over the shortcomings of other people in our society is no excuse to not profit from the aforementioned shortcomings, knowing, as you do, that you are solely responsible for yourself, OR, you decide that your mortgage/job isn't that bad, you can get by on your wages, and your standard of living would be much increased than it would if you were living in a squat and eating free. The standard of living thing is debateable: a lot of squats are furnished, and everyone knows that milk has a Display date and a Best By date. Nothing is stopping you keeping your job.

Of course everyone can't do it, everyone can't be the Prime Minister, everyone can't be a doctor. But if you appreciate how small and irrelative John Bull living in Hackney is, then I'm sure you'll understand, objectively, how small and irrelative you are to society at large. Your decisions will not bring about the apocalypse, they affect YOU, not society. You have no responsbility for the wellfare of others beyond what the tax-takers demand. Mind you, I have a world of bones to pick with people who are proud of being taxpayers, but another time maybe. I'll try and keep to the topic as much as possible, eh? Also this is getting interactive, like a blog post. Nice discussion all the same, and my apologies too for any ineloquence on my part and clumsy repetition of a statement in order to convery some sort of grand point.

All of this sounds like far more effort than just having a job and buying stuff. Not that I'm knocking it, mind you; I'm just very lazy.

It's about saving money, and that does require some effort. However, if I was making enough money from my job to buy stuff without going through all of this, I wouldn't bother. But one does tend to get caught up in this delightful romantic view of themselves as a poor rascal, naked but for his quick wits and lack of high courtesy, as opposed to common courtesy, and scruples.

I have never heard such a load of tripe...
Apologies in advance for length, but this has really annoyed me.

You are advocating the blatant abuse of the system, not to mention the fact you are also advicating running what is, in effect, a Short Con racket in order to gain free drinks.

Yes, there are such things as squatters rights, but they were designed mainly to protect tenant workers' whose landlords could turf them our without notice merely by changing the terms of their lease, etc. They weren't designed to let a bunch of theiving dog-on-a-string dole scroungers take up residence in someone's property just because it is vacant whilst they are away on a long holiday (this has been documented more than once). Houses may stand empty, but there could be a reason for that - the owner might be trying to save up the money to renovate it, or get planning permission to do work on the property. But that's ok, because your "squatter" can just kick the door in and make themselves at home at the expense of the owner and/or the taxpayer. All the time, causing untold damage to a property, bringing an area down and attracting the usual detritus of smackheads and crack-whores that go along with the average "squat". Yes, there may be pleasant hard-working squatters, but there might also be likeable fascists - both are rare as hens' teeth and the odds are you're going to encounter one of the other sort.

It's this attitude of freeloading that gave us the New Age Traveller - or tree-hugging veggie-pikeys, if you read the Daily Mail - who are happy to sign on, or use NHS doctors, but don't want to pay tax, rent, or National Insurance. Or work. They know their "rights" to the letter and milk the state for all they can, before they move on to the next pitch and let the local residents pay to clean up the damage, rubbish and effluent they have left behind. But that's ok, because they are likely to be middle-class homeowners in a nice area, so fuck 'em, right?

In this country, under the laws of the Magna Carta, you are entitled to renounce your citizenship and become a Free Man of Great Britain - you aren't liable for tax, no law other than Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Kill apply and you are allowed to claim, I believe, 2 acres of land for you to live and graze animals on. Of course, you'll need a passport to go to work and you won't be able to use the NHS, call the police if you are robbed, or send your kids to state school, but if you don't want to be part of society, then I suggest that this is the only morally correct route to take. And yes, you can legally grow Marijuana on your land at that point.

The fact is that stealing supplies form public washrooms increases the expenditure on such facilities and, in effect, means they are more likely to be closed down if budgets need to be trimmed. If you squat and steal utilities, all that happens is that other law-abiding citizens are forced to pay increased bills to subsidies your existence. You become, effectively, no more than a parasite, bleeding resources out of a society, whilst mocking those who are providing the things you are stealing for their stupidity. I honestly don't know whether to pity you for your naivety, or loathe you for your arrogance on the subject.

Yes, a free night at the BBC is fine and enjoyable, as is asking if the tatty old books that are about to be binned could come your way instead - that's fine as it doesn't hurt anyone, neither does eating leftovers out of a bin if that's what you so desire - if you want to catch typhoid, salmonella, hepatitis, or god knows what from second-hand food, you go right ahead.

There is no "romance" to such an existence - if you're able to support yourself via work, then you're a prick if you freeload in such a way, if you are truly destitute then Social Services and the rest of the State you seem to dislike so much will provide housing, an income and a route to gainful employment. If you really want to live outside of society, then become a tramp. Don't leech and expect those of us who end up paying the cost, either directly or indirectly, to applaud you for it.

Oh, and before you respond, think on this - my Uncle served 25 years in the military - Marines, Special Boat Service and other branches. He fought in Aden, spent years in the jungle of Belize, saw action all over the world and gave everything for his country. It broke his mind and once he de-mobbed he lived as a wild man on the Surrey Downs, because he couldn't be around people - he'd seen and done things that no-one should be forced to. He never signed on, never squatted, did odd jobs for cash and once every three months walked to Portsmouth to get medical treatment and pick up his military pension from the naval base. He truly lived by his wits (building shelter in the woods, trapping rabbits for food, etc) and, aside from turning up noisily drunk after his mothers' funeral, never harmed anyone. When he died, even the Police turned out in dress uniform to honour a man who gave everything he could for his country. He had nothing, yet he had his pride and the respect of the entire town. Compare that story with that of your drink-scamming, house-stealing, work-dodging schemes and then ask yourself why anyone would condone your suggestions.

Chad.
(Wed 29th Oct 2008, 14:18, More)

» Addicted

Kryptonite.
God knows why I'm telling you this. I feel though that there's an unfair fixation on male masturbation concerning young teenagers. So, yeah, around the age of 12, I noticed that occaisonally I'd get an urge to touch that place. Girls, of course, don't leave so much of a mess when we're finished. No crusty pillow cases for mum to kindly never mention to us. No, slapping the hole of cod is a much more discrete activity, and one that has pretty much stuck with me for years.

The thing is, with it not being so talked about, there are several aspects of autoeroticism that are almost shameful to engage in, and not given as much media-attention, maybe, as their male counterparts. I mean, who's ever heard of softly microwaving a whole banana and not just the skin? Cue several years accruing thick-tongued partners, dildos, vibrators, Ben Wa bells, magic eggs and really stiff pillows.

But the most glorious discovery I ever made was at a Christmas Party in '94. The scene: London, Holden & Smith's (accounting firm) HQ. I'd been drinking wine with my boss, M, and talking about the cute intern who she was planning to seduce. Me being a committed type and having a boyfriend, who turned out to have as little heart as he did cock. Anyway, it wasn't snowing, but in the name of reminiscing, it was snowing...

~~~~~~~~~~~

M says she wishes the party would get started. Sure, it was an accounting firm, but accountants can rave too, y'know? Alright. They can't. But we can clumsily jive to the kind of music that you only really hear on Mark Lamarr's radio shows. We were keen on it though, and the wine was going to our heads and our cheeks, and so we started talking to the DJ and he agreed to play some stuff for us, just while things were being set up.

Both M and myself were in heels and couldn't dance until they'd got the floor covered, for fear of standing on some of the razor tinsel, so we plunked ourselves down on the speakers, and I think I may have used the phrase, "Hit it DJ!"

And then it hit me. Oh shit. The reverb, it just went into my soul, right through me, via the holiest of holies. It was amazing. I turned to M and she turned to me. I remember thinking that she'd know just by looking at my face. I'd found my one true weakness. And from that day to this, I remain, totally addicted to bass.

Woa-wo-wow!
(Sat 20th Dec 2008, 4:47, More)