Top Suits and Monkey Hats

Despite the advance warning, no Ukrainian butchers have yet moved in. Lauren and I come home from work each day with the dread of finding the kitchen awash with the blood of sheep and pigs, entrails scattered around the living room and four Vodka drunk foreigners forcing themselves on Lauren. But so far we have been saved and we are still the only ones living here. We have no idea if they have been denied visas or they are late coming because of the volcanic ash from Iceland. Maybe they aren't even coming at all. The possibilities hang over us like the sword of Damocles and we sleep uneasily in our beds. We could ring the landlord and ask what is going on, but that would spoil the fun...

Will they be waiting for us? Only time will tell...

Last night, Lauren and I donned our best bibs and tuckers as we had been cordially invited to dine with Logan Josh and his lovely wife. We were picked up at 1920hrs on the dot by what can only be described as a strategically shaved monkey, who, upon closer inspection, was discovered to be none other than Logan Josh himself. He whisked us at breakneck speed to their pile located within the rabbit warren that is Huntington. The warren like appearance of the estate is a piece of border-line genius tactical planning to keep the riff-raff out. It provides avenues of movement that funnel poor people into killing zones swept by machine gun fire. We, however, were safe as we were in the chariot of Logan Josh. Number plate recognition cameras allowed us safe passage. Throughout the journey Lauren and I were blindfolded so as not to be able to disclose our eventual location to ne'er-do-wells. But Logan Josh eased our discomfort throughout the journey by telling us tales of Sir Stanners and his deeds of daring do at Nostell.

'You can go back to your village now, I have cleared your lands of the beast. I just demand twenty of your maidens in payment...'

Arrival was greeted by glasses of alcohol thrust upon us, the first of many. And on a school night as well! And then Dinner was served. I had previously been asked by Logan Josh if there were any foods to which I was not partial to. Lauren and I both have a fear of mushrooms, sweetcorn and peas and we both told him. He then told me that he would be serving a raw mushroom, sweetcorn and pea pasta dish. A quick aside is in order. I know mushrooms are supposed to be the food of the Gods, but I have had a pathological fear of them from an early age. It has now grown out of all proportion that they could taste like the fucking nectar that drips out of Natalie Portman's tit, but they ain't going anywhere near my fucking mouth. Peas and sweetcorn are a texture thing, I can eat them when they are in something else, but I don't enjoy it. Sweetcorn I never understood anyway. This shit doesn't break down in your gut. Like rats and cockroaches it would survive a nuclear holocaust. What the Hell is that about? In a thousand years, when archaeologists of the future, with laser trowels and hover shovels, come to dig up our remains they will find skeletons with undigested sweetcorn in the stomach areas. It will be surmised that everyone's last ritual meal was sweetcorn. A sweetcorn cult. Children of the corn. I digress. The meal that Logan Josh dished up had not one mushroom, not one pea or not one sweetcorn in it. It was a lovely curry.

Om nom nom...

As the evening passed the booze flowed, Logan Josh became more boorish and out came the hats. Logan Josh is known in hat collecting circles as somewhat of a fanatic when it comes to hattage. We were forced to don various hats by a drunken Josh, much like the costume shop owner in Mr Ben, but with more threats of violence. I'll leave you with a series of photographs showing a minscule portion of his collection of head coverings and Toys R Us uniforms.











And here's a goodnight kiss from Logan Josh himself...

Oh My Goth!

It was a lovely sunny day on Saturday and as I was in York, I thought better of merging with the madding crowds in the city centre and decided to go over to Whitby instead. I had heard rumours that it was Goth weekend. The fangs were out in force. It was like Twiglet set on the North Yorkshire Coast. The bats had flown in for the weekend. Scores of vampires had descended to bite the exposed neck of the West Cliff. Ever since Bram Stoker set a large portion of Dracula in Whitby, vampire wannabes have made the pilgrimage to the fishing town. This has grown out of all sense of proportion to become the now-famous Goth festival. It allows people with unfulfilled lives and synapses that are not properly connected to parade the streets dressed as Victorian ladies and gentlemen of the night, in a alternative universe where latex and New Rocks had been invented a century previously. It's like the ultimate in Retro. Most of these people believe themselves to be vampires and probably sleep in coffins lined with sand from Whitby beach.

I just can't get comfortable in this Scarborough sand...

But why Victoriana? What is the appeal of the most repressive period of British history? If you're going to resurrect a period of history why not the 18th Century? All those powdered wigs, pantaloons and syphilis would be perfect for 'dressing up time'. Not to mention all the shagging, Marquis De Sade style. Anyway, all these folks seem to be stuck in the alternative timeline of pretend 19th Century Vampire bullshit. They all lead an alternative lifestyle by looking exactly the same as each other. A trusted uniform that allows you to express your individuality as part of the crowd. I remember the Goths of old, the ones in the frilly shirts and lacy gloves dancing like cunts to Sisters Of Mercy in Heavy Metal nightclubs, it was always early in the evening before the other punters came in and kicked the shit out of them. But things have moved on from then and have changed so much. To be fair, I wouldn't have such a problem with Goths, if they didn't take themselves SO FUCKING SERIOUSLY! The po-faced set of twats.

'I'm so romantic and wistful, I'm a poet of the undead, a dreamer of unknown places...'

'No you're not, you're a cunt.'

Anyway, I drove over to Whitby with Anna in tow as my official photographer (she was paid in chips) and by Christ, we were not disappointed! We immediately spotted a Goth family upon arrival (actually we spotted one on the outskirts of York as well but I think they were lost...) and the rest of the streets were awash with black. It was a boiling hot day and these pricks were parading around in full dress suits and massive black capes...

Wrap up warm, it's gonna be cold today...

The Goths had come from far and wide and in a variety of vehicles (not being real vampires, none of them had the ability to turn into bats and fly to the event). But, like the Model T Ford cars they only in came in one colour: Black:

I wondered how high this guy's garage was to be able to fit those plumes in...

Goths die in hot cars...

When the horn was pressed it played the theme to 'The Munsters'...

This big black truck shipped in the poorer Goths who couldn't afford a car...

OK, let's have a look at some of the more shameful aspects of humanity that we saw. Now, we couldn't work out what the Hell this first couple were supposed to be. She was dressed in period costume alright but he was in a quasi-18th Century Grenadier outfit. You're a century too early, mate...


Pop Quiz time, is this a really ugly woman, or an averagely ugly man in a dress? Answers on a postcard, please:

'Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...'

Just like Excalibur coming out of a lake, King Arthur got out of a taxi...

The once and future King, needed a bit of help getting around these days...

The graveyard was the obvious place to find some of the best dressed Goths in town, so we climbed the 199 steps to the Church, bumping into other freaks on the way:

This is a Goth Weekend, not the AGM of the Pirates of the Caribbean Appreciation Society

Ahhh, so you just like DRESSING UP as an evil Nazi, but you're not ACTUALLY an evil Nazi? Right...


'Why so sad?'
'The chippy has run out of cod...'



Steampunks? Steamtwats, more like...

What is missing in your lives?

It looks to me like the best part of you ran down the crack of your mamas ass and ended up as a brown stain on the mattress.

Oh, just Fuck Off!

Scattered amongst the gravestones we found plenty of wistful looking waifs waiting for night to fall. I shit you not, when I took this photo of this girl I said to her 'Don't smile!'

Cheer up Love, it might never happen...

Vain doesn't even begin to describe it...

To add insult to injury, even Dr David Kenyon was in town. I'd heard he was in Whitby for the weekend, dressed up in military re-enactment clobber. I texted him to meet up and he said he was 'wandering around town dressed like a twat' I answered 'It's Goth weekend so you're not alone...' I assumed he was there for some museum show. Nope, he was there for the fucking Goth weekend, the stupid shit:

I used to have respect for you Kenyon...

He and his Goth mates dragged us round the Goth shops in the Spa which were selling cauldron's, bat's wings, paintings of cats sitting under crescent moons, neon dreadlock extensions and goggles for all your Traditional Goth/Cyber Goth/Steam Punk needs. Speaking of Steam Punks, amongst the best we saw were these two. Definitely the fittest specimens of Goths we saw all day:

The fantasies just don't stop...

They were with some ugly bloke in a trenchcoat but I pushed him out of the way to get this photo. But, by a country mile the best costumes we saw all day were these two:

Literally: OH MY GOTH!!

There is not enough words in the English language to even begin describing this outfit. Where do you begin? What is it? Why the fuck does he have a cod-piece made out of an elephant's head? Why has he got a golden breastplate covered in pictures of Napoleon? Why has he got mirrors on his hat? What is the deal with the blunderbuss? Is he a hunter? What does he hunt? What basis in any kind of reality does this even have? Looking at this makes me feel like I've been taking crazy pills. Anna came up with the perfect name to describe it, she called him Hannibal. She wasn't sure what it meant but it seems to work...

The wind round here gets wicked cold

So what am I actually doing in York? I hear you cry. Allow me to fill you in. I'm here to work on a job at a Tarmac quarry outside of Thirsk. The reason we are excavating it is because the quarry is being enlarged and it is close to the Thornborough Henges. As you undoubtedly know these are important features of a prehistoric landscape and probably have various related features of a similar date in the surrounding area. Obviously it is important to record any archaeology that comes up and this is where I come in. The machines are stripping the ground and we are digging and recording any features we find in preparation for the quarrying operations.

Is there anybody out there?

I first heard of this job through Gigi, our 'team leader'. Gigi is short for Luigi, yes he's Italian, but this didn't stop me thinking he would be like his name sake, GG Allin and would be running around the site in the nude, doing a shit, then eating some of it and assaulting the rest of the staff. It turns out I was wrong. He's nothing like GG Allin. He has never been to prison, eaten human faeces or even played in a band. I'm not going to say I'm not disappointed, but I'm also glad I wasn't raped.

This has yet to happen...

The first morning consisted of watching two Safety Videos provided by Tarmac. The first one, Ten Golden Rules, taught me the right and wrong way of repairing a hydraulic pressure hose, piped to a breaker. It also taught me the right and wrong way of fixing a 40,000 volt industrial generator. So if you have any problem with either of those, let me know. The second video, 'Once Too Often Dave', was a cautionary tale with all the gravitas of an auteur movement film. It even had a twist at the end that would make M. Night Shyamalan reassess his career. I suggest you hire both of them from your local video store.

Don't do a Goddamned thing until you've learned this book by heart...

Out on site, there appeared to be something funny going on that I can't quite fathom out. On the Western edge of the site is a large artificial lake. It appears that the spoil that is being stripped from where we are working is being bulldozed into the lake on its western edge. The dumpers go back and forth carrying the spoil and a bulldozer spends all day pushing the stuff into the lake. Now, on the other side of the lake, the eastern shore, a massive 360 machine with an extra long arm is busy digging out the shoreline and dumping the spoil on the dry land. On one shoreline is a machine busily filling in the lake, whilst on the opposite shore line a machine busily enlarges the edge. It would appear that between them they are gradually moving the lake east, UP the field. I'm not sure if it is one big practical joke on Tarmac instigated by the machine drivers.

'Is it me, or has that lake moved?'

Speaking of machine drivers, one of them (we call him Wavey Davey) appears to have a slate loose. He drives one of the massive dumper trucks up and down all day and the repetitive nature of his work seems to have affected his head. Every time he goes past he gives me the 'thumbs up' sign or waves. Not wishing to seem a cunt I return the gesture. He goes past me about twenty times a day. That's about forty 'thumbs up', as he does it on the return journey as well. Now this is getting out of hand already, as it interrupts what I'm doing I am losing working hours giving him the 'thumbs up'. I need to break the cycle but have no idea how to. Basically I'm trapped in 'thumbs up' Hell. I don't want him to go past me giving me the 'thumbs up' and not get one in return and then think I'm a cunt. He's a big man (I think they built the dumper cabin around him...) and I don't want our already tenuous relationship to turn sour. How do I get out of this? He seems like a decent chap with what I know of him, that is, he waves at me. Surely people who wave are nice people? Like this guy:

'Hello everyone! Hiya!!'

He must be nice, look all these people are waving back at him:


I don't even know how myself and the driver have got into such a situation. Maybe it's because he heard we have women on site. Maybe he thinks he'll impress them by waving at them. Maybe he's mistook me for a women since we all are wearing bulky high visibility clothing that makes it impossible to determine gender from a distance. Maybe he thinks he's got a chance with me because I keep waving back. Maybe I'll have a hot date this weekend. A girl can only hope...

My God Sir, I've Lost My Leg...

A reasonably quick update for all you out there slavering for details of my private life. Last Thursday I went to see the greatest Grindcore band of them all: Napalm Death. It got rather sweaty and violent at the front and I still have the bruises to prove it. Anyway the best stuff they played was:

Suffer the Children

Siege of Power

From Enslavement to Obliteration

Scum

The Kill

You Suffer

Nazi Punks Fuck Off

And although I shouted for them to come back on a play one more song they didn’t.

Napalm, but not Napalm Death...

Saturday found me in the company of several hundred fat, balding, middle aged men who all had a thing for even smaller men in uniform. I feasted my eyes on such treats as a re-fight of the Battle of Borodino and laughing at knob heads who play games based on ‘what if’ scenarios, like what if the Second World War had continued and the Nazis had invented giant robots to carry on the fight? I mean really, World War Two? Giant robots? Go out and meet some girls, for Christ’s Sake! By far the highlight of the day was seeing this twerp:

He fights sitting on his arse. We'll have to move him off it...

Not only that but I saw his fabled mirror twin as well:

Waterloo, finally facing my Waterloo...

Both dressed like the Little Corporal’s that they are. I once worked with one of those gentlemen (not the chap in the Pink Floyd T-Shirt, he bravely stood in the line of fire to get these photographs…), I couldn’t tell you which one though.

On Sunday I slowly recovered from my uncle’s 65th Birthday celebrations and moved up to York along with Lauren. We are both working outside of York and decided it would be easier for both of us if we moved in together. Having now spent a day in the same house I feel I am in a position to give an accurate description of how it is to live with Lauren:

Int: a front room in a house in York, a Television is playing in the corner, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ is showing on the screen. Two people sit on the sofa, one male; ALEX and one female; LAUREN.

LAUREN: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

ALEX: Yep

LAUREN: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

ALEX: Yep

LAUREN: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

Ad Nauseum until a Dancing Dog comes on the Television and distracts LAUREN for two minutes…

The house we are in is a six bedroom affair, Lauren and I assumed we’d be the only ones living there until the Estate Agent told us from next week four Ukrainian butchers would be moving in. So that means we’ll either have a fridge full of good meat or Lauren will get gang raped.

A Pyrrhic Victory?

A week or so ago I wrote a letter of complaint about the on going bad treatment I had received at the hands of the Job Centre. I reproduce the letter and their reply below:

Able was I ere I saw Elba

I don't play many computer games, I generally get bored of them pretty quickly. One of the few exceptions to this was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I had it for the Playstaion 2 I had when I lived in Dublin. I would spend entire weekends with the curtains drawn playing for hour upon hour. Car jacking, mugging, ram raiding, robbing, executioning, mass murder in a tank, these were my weekends back then. I realised I was playing too much when I wouldn't see another human being for the entire weekend except for the corner shop owner. Also the walk to said corner shop was troubled with thoughts such as 'I wonder what would really happen if I just dragged that guy out of his car, beat him to death in the gutter and steal the vehicle?' I thought I had to stop playing or at least cut down.

'What you in for?'
'Too much GTA...'

Today I think my life may have changed. I was out shopping at Parkgate Retail World in Rotherham. This is a massive faceless mall style shopping 'outlet' that now doubles for Rotherham's town centre. Vast faceless warehouses crammed with pacifiers for Oniomaniacs, this place is the pits. All the frontages are grey except for the store name above the door. A feeling of automaton oppressiveness pervades the place as you are funnelled into you respective shopping experience. My experience today consisted of WH Smiths to see if there were any new magazines I was interested in and Homebase to pick up a carrier for a Great War British Army. Between these two places I was drawn into Game. I have no idea why, I usually have no interest in standing in a computer games shop whilst an assistant drones on at me about how much Ram a particular game needs, or what fucking video card I will have to buy just to be able to play Jet Set Willy. I don;t need to know about paying half my yearly income to purchase a store card that allows me 0.00000783% discount but only if I buy the game from their sister store in Namibia. No sir, I don't need that.

'Have you got the latest Intwat 234/89.r6 Processor? No? Then fuck off, you're barred!'

Anyway, for some compelling reason I found myself in Game standing in front of the single shelf they devote to PC games. Yes I know there are even less games for the Mac, but if there's a Mac owner reading this, don't come complaining and saying PC owners should feel lucky. You should stop being a cunt and join in the human race like the rest of us. Stick you Ipod where the fucking sun don't shine. And by that I mean: up your arse. I digress. Amongst the pitiful games section something caught my eye... Could it be, yes, it was Napoleon Total War. Wow, I knew the Total War series was very good, it all started with Shogun Total War back last century before we had flying cars and hoverboards and nuclear winters (don't write in saying that STW came out in 2000 and was therefore this century, the 21st Century didn't start until 2001, go ask a mathematician, sunshine. And stick your head where the sun don't shine. And by that I mean: up your arse, sunshine). The series went on to take in Roman campaigns and Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century warfare. But seriously, who wants to play that shit? Romans? I shit 'em! Boring square building bunch of wankers they were. The only reason the Roman Empire was so good was cos it was the Ancient equivalent of the British Army in the late 19th Century fighting dusky maidens armed only with jewelry and fruit.

'I say Broomhead, shoot that little one, looks like she's armed to the teeth with a pomegranate!'

I digress. People want to play games about Napoleon, the Little Corporal, the world's most famous Corsican. Well at least I do and this blog's about me, so suck it up, shit head. So I couldn't resist it, I handed over my money, withstood the barrage from the geek behind the desk asking me if I wanted a store card (no, I don't buy enough games), if the specs were all right for my computer (dunno, haven't the foggiest and I haven't checked. I'll bring it back if they aren't) and if I wanted to buy a gaming mouse (I didn't know they bred gaming mice. Are they like little familiars that sit on your shoulder telling you how to play?). Then I was away with my prize clutched to my chest like a Beauty Pageant winner holding her trophy.

This prize is mine, shitbags!

How does it play? Amazing, brilliant, it's like being old Boney himself. If I play it enough I think I will probably end up ruling a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, with only a Governor-General to annoy. Lead poisoning from the wallpaper will be my ultimate downfall.

A nation mourns a great warrior...

I was going to write about meeting Danny, Jaime, Archer, Bennett, Wilson, Barnsey, Sally and Brooke at the weekend but I was so incensed with rage at the corruption that struck at the heart of the Pylon Cafe competition judged by Salter. He told me with his own filthy sewer mouth that he only deemed Archer and Bennett's entries as winners so he wouldn't have to spend anything on postage as he could hand the books over to them at the pub. Filthy scum, everyone of them. I hope they all choke on their books.

Speaking of which, this is the only thing worth reading on that lame excuse for a webzone. An interview with me. There isn't even a News update page...