Quitting Smoking Is Difficult

Very difficult. It’s not one of those addictions that can lie dormant for a few hours before grabbing you by the testicles and shoving itself down your throat, like gambling or sex, it’s an addiction that is never satiated. It never sleeps. Even as you sleep, you’re brain chews at the inside of your skull, begging for more, more, MORE. That’s why a lot of smokers have a cigarette as soon as they wake up – during the night you’re brain’s drank all the Nicotine and thumps on the bar like an angry drunk demanding another Babycham.

If, like me, you are what you’d call a ‘heavy smoker’ (which I’m told has absolutely nothing to do with your weight, in fact smoking is sometimes thought suppress your appetite), you’ll know the feeling of going somewhere or doing something which dictates that smoking is impossible, like skydiving or lion-taming. Or, for a real-world example, a meal at a restaurant.

Smokers often say that smoking is best just after a meal. Indeed, whilst at school there were few joys greater than my morning bacon sandwich and cigarette, hiding behind the metro station to avoid the watchful eye of teachers. So nowadays, the only way to indulge in this little pleasure would be to politely excuse yourself from company and go outside, to huddle in the snow fumbling with a lighter whilst clean-lunged people sit in the warmth enjoying their lattes. It is, in a nutshell, antisocial.

Forget ’social smokers’, as they can only exist by virtue of other smokers. If you’re the only one amongst your friends who smokes, you’re not a social smoker. You’re just a smoker.

So this brings me onto the topic of quitting. For the next three days (which, for the sake of brevity, I won’t explain here) I will be completely unable to smoke. For 72 hours I won’t be able to consume any cigarettes whatsoever. That scares me. I could compare it to leaving your mobile phone or handbag at home for the day – it feels like you’re missing an integral part of your daily life. Try it if you’re a non-smoker, turn off your phone for 72 hours. I bet after an hour you feel like you’re missing something.

So, in preparation for this, I decided to cut down my smoking. Whereas I would normally smoke 20 or 25 a day, I tried to cut down to ten. Still not exactly Captain Health, but it’s a start. For the most part, this worked quite well. When I’d have reached for a pack of smokes, I reached for a cup of Tea.

Soon though, I realised that ten cigarettes a day was still no good – it’s like an alcoholic having ten pints of lager a day in preparation for a visit to rehab. The jump from ten to zero would still be far too hard, and I’d need to go even further. So, after a bit of half-hearted research (which felt as if I was researching ways to amputate my own tongue) I plopped off to Boots Chemist, in search of chemical aid.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer bare-facedness of anti-smoking aids. The adverts, showing impossibly pretty people smiling and laughing, seemed to be looking directly at me, judging me. “Oh he’s a smoker, you can so tell. Look at his hair. Jesus, look at his skin! Urgh, we’ve really got our work cut out here guys.” Seven patches, apparently a week’s worth of sweet, delicious Nicotine, carry a price tag which would best be described as ‘a bloody liberty’ should Alan Sugar ever be consulted. Twelve English Sterling Pounds, to be precise. Still, compared to what I’d normally spend on cigarettes, it’s a steal. Then my eye fell upon what looked to be a hollow tampon which you load up with tiny Nicotine caplets, a ‘Nicotine Inhalator’ apparently. So I bought them both, trudged back home, excited to be pink-lunged and running marathons within the week.

Except nothing is ever quite that simple.

Goodbye my lover. I love you, you'll be okay. Yeah sure, I'll be fine. Just go. Go. *Weep*

At the first chance I got, I slapped a Nicotine patch on my arm, and to be quite honest I did notice a difference. A difference in my arm – before an hour, it had gone redder than Alex Ferguson’s nose and odd pimples had appeared all around the patch. So, feeling like I may be having a stroke, I sat slowly becoming more and more irritated, to the point where I tore the little square from my arm and reached for my Marlboro’s.

Reading the booklet, it seems there are some quite unpleasant side-effects in certain cases – redness and itching being one of them. At no point do they mention these patches might force you to smoke, simply to relieve the stress caused by their own product.

I then decided to give the Nicotine Tampon a go. Popping the little cartridge in my mouth and inhaling as deeply as I could, I immediately felt a difference. Again, not the desired difference I’d have wished for – my mouth filled with a taste which genuinely staggered me. Imagine finding a dead fish, swollen and discoloured by an oil slick that had killed everything in the sea. Take the fish home, and cover it in baking powder. Set it alight. Just before it’s charred beyond all recognition, quickly bundle it into the dirtiest sock your local football team has. Pop the package into your washing machine, and rather than fabric softener, fill the tray with undiluted vinegar and aerosol. Allow the spin cycle to complete, then restart it. Do this every day for approximately four years. Then remove the fish, and push it – whole – down your throat whilst squeezing lemons into your eyes and punching your own genitals. This is how it felt.

So I don’t plan on using it anymore. Not that I’d actually have the courage to use it regularly – disregarding the fact I’d look like a pervert sucking on a woman’s hygiene product, there is another list in the booklet of how to use it, when to use it, when not to use it, and what to do if you use it with other quitting-smoking aids. In short, I can’t use the patches and the Tampon at the same time.

Studies have shown that people are a million times more likely to smoke during times of increased stress. It’s why a lot of  high-flying executives smoke, and subsequently die earlier than the rest of us (completely ignoring the fact stress is also connected strongly to factors such as high-blood pressure or heart disease. Do they have the heart problems because of smoking, do they smoke because of the stress, does the stress give them heart problems? It’s not even a ‘Chicken or the Egg’ situation anymore, it’s involving all the chicken’s relatives, friends, and everyone that’s ever eaten at Nando’s.)

In short, this little debacle of red, itchy skin coupled with a taste in my mouth that not even petrol would remove caused me to smoke. Two days of slipping up now, not exactly a good start to a life of running and laughing, which is what all non-smokers do all the time.

And here I am, 46 minutes into the first day of smoking abstinence. To put my mind at ease (and the fact the patches only last 16 hours), I’m going to pretend today, right now, is actually yesterday. The day will start when I wake up, whereupon I’ll stick a patch on my arm and do my damnedest to avoid clawing at myself like a leper. The Tampon can stay at home.

I’ve also began telling people I’m quitting. It’s a little psychological trick I’m trying out. If I tell everyone I’ve quit and they subsequently find out I’ve been smoking all along, they’ll feel let down and hate me forever. It’s a sad commentary on my life to quit for other people (truth be told I’m completely ambivalent to the effects of smoking, and would never quit for myself). But ultimately I know it’s a foul and unnecessary habit which I’d do well to give up. Even this little blog post serves as a psychological reminder – if I ever feel like lighting up, I’ll think back to all you lovely people reading this and trusting me, and the thought of your little sad faces makes me sad inside.

So, here goes nothing. When I wake up I’ll no longer be a smoker. Please wish me luck.

Incoherence

Disclaimer: This post was written whilst in the middle of a particularly flu-ridden, sleep-deprived night. It’s incoherent, rambling, unstructured, and most likely not funny. But it’s a cathartic experience to push this bile from the tips of my fingers right into your eyes and heads. Please be kind.

It could be the recurrence of man-flu that I’ve been ineffectively fighting off by smoking and drinking myself to oblivion, or it could be the awful weather, which has confined me to padding around the house in my dressing gown, shaking my head and tutting at everything, but recently I’ve been feeling more grouchy than usual.

Things that would normally invoke no more than a raised eyebrow have had me curled up in the foetal position, wildly thrashing at the floor with my fists, screaming ‘Why is everyone so idiotic!? WHY!?’

My number one bugbear at the moment is Facebook status updates. Unlike the majority of a Facebook profile (which waits, almost hidden, until it’s actively sought out) status updates shove themselves right on to the front page of all your friends. As such, it’s not too much to ask that a status should be something of worth, something your friends will be glad they read.

Now I’m not saying every update should be an obscure fact about an Aboriginal tribe, nor should it be step-by-step instructions on how to make a fortune by collecting your tears, but at the very least it should be coherent. Spelling mistakes get it in the neck – there’s no excuse for misspelling words, considering you’re connected to the internet, the portal of knowledge. The phrase ‘God Loves a Trier’ is a lie, aimed exclusively at no-hoper’s who, were they not occupied with ‘trying’, would most likely be wandering nude into oncoming traffic, yelling about hammers. If you don’t know how to spell a word, don’t just guess.

I’m not talking about when people accidentally type ‘teh’ instead of ‘the’, because that’s just a genuine typing mistake. If you were to ask them how to spell the word, chances are they’d get it. But when people write ‘insain’, ‘parasight’ or ‘lentals’… Jesus, this is the basics.

While I’m on the subject of Facebook, let me get something else off my chest. ‘Inviting all friends’ to groups is a stupid idea. In your friends list you have many people, and not every single one of them will want to be invited to a stupid group, or invited to a stupid event. I have been (repeatedly, relentlessly, for the past year) invited to ‘become a fan’ of a band. This stemmed from an ill-advised trip to Magaluf for a week with a group of people I barely knew. One happened to be in a band, and he genuinely believed they were the greatest thing to happen to music since the invention of the gramophone. Fine, I could just accept being a fan (even though I’m not), and remain hassle-free for the rest of my days. But, the straw that broke the camel’s back, was that he (repeatedly, relentlessly, for the past year) invited me to attend shows his band were putting on. Now, aside from having demonstrated to him that I’m not a fan and wouldn’t want to go to a show, another complication arose – he’s from Wales, over 340 miles from where I live. All the shows they play are in Wales. He is, effectively, saying ‘you’ll be interested to know we’re playing a show hundreds of miles away. You should definitely come’. Now, not only do I not want to be a fan of your band, I do not want to be your friend. I do not even want to be ‘Facebook friends’ (a strange phenomena which prompts complete strangers and sworn enemies onto a stupid online friendship.)

Another Facebook trait which is slowly driving me insane, is the abuse of the ‘name’ field. You sign up using your name, then some way down the line you decide your name isn’t quite jazzy enough to grab everyone’s attention, so decide to shove some quotation marks in the middle with some stupid nonsensical bullshit like ‘Mark “Tiny Cock” Thompson’, or ‘Laeticia “FuckMyBrainsOut-Jedward” Benson’. It’s a trait commonly associated with people that work in the nightclub profession. Not the barstaff – no, they’ve more sense – usually the people that dance in cages and list their profession as ‘Upcoming Glamour Model’.

Incidentally, it’s really very simple to appear like you’re a genuine glamour model. Here’s how:

Firstly, put on all the make-up you own. All of it. Layers are the key here, don’t be afraid to hit double figures when applying different foundations.

Find a digital camera. Anything greater than 3 Mega-Pixels will reveal far too much of your actual appearance, so camera phones are perfect.

Thirdly, you’ve got a bit of artistic licence on this one. The classic poses are ‘arms-length-myspace-whore’ or the ‘bathroom mirror’ style. If you opt for taking the photograph at arms length, make sure your arm is raised far above eye-level, as nobody wants to see that double chin. Also, with your other hand, perhaps try making a gang sign. Nothing says ‘I’m in control’ like vague affiliations with the Crips. If you’ve got a pink mobile phone, take the photograph in the bathroom mirror. The colour of your phone says “That’s right boys, I’m girly and flexible and horny.” Men love that.

Next, get the photograph onto the computer. Now’s the time to go nuts! First thing to do is blur it slightly, like it’s been taken in a sauna and the lens is steamed up. Men love steamy photographs. Next, you can convert it to black and white. Everything in black and white is art. Everything.

Coupled with a name like ‘Candice “Sexy Thighs” Ferguson’ (or if you’re really serious about it, just go for ‘Candy Sexy Thighs’) this is sure to get the meatheads adding you like there’s no tomorrow. Perhaps book a ‘photo-day’ at a studio, where they basically give you a Topshop voucher and airbrush your face off.

Now, I’m going to crawl beneath my bed, in the hope that when I re-emerge, the world has gone back to the way it was, before idiotic bullshit became par for the course. Think ‘21 Days Later’, except with nobody else on the planet but yourself. Let’s make that dream a reality.

ASBO Kids and the Snow-Throwing Debacle

I cannot stand kids. They’re repulsive little mouth-breathers who haven’t done anything of worth since the day they plopped into this world, yet behave like they’re invincible little stuntmen, totally unaware as to the horror this world contains.

Just today, I was sitting doing something (I can’t remember what it was exactly, as the following events completely wiped my mind with rage), when I heard ‘Thunk! Thunk!‘ at my window. Pausing my music, I cocked my head slightly, like a Poodle who’s just heard he’s going to the vet. I waited a few minutes, barely breathing, when I heard the noise again ‘Thunk! Psssh! Thunk!‘. It was a noise I vaguely recognised, and with the current Arctic weather conditions sweeping the country, it didn’t take Steven Hawking to realise someone, or something, was lobbing snowballs. Snowballs aimed at my window.

Wheyy! Look at me! Quick, someone take a picture for my Bebo Page!

Having read my fair share of Andy McNab books, I immediately leapt from my chair and flicked the light off. Espionage is useless if they can see in but you can’t see out. So, balancing on one knee by the window, I peeped my head around the blind to survey the murky blackness outside.

There they were. Illuminated from behind by a street light, two figures – definitely child-shaped – standing (quite literally) a stones throw from my house, hastily packing snow into their gloved fists and hurling it towards me. What kind of preposterous world do we live in, where, as a form of entertainment, these gurgling little runts will snow-vandalise a house?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mildly concerned by the damage a snowball can do to a house. But I am concerned that this is indicative of a wider problem. Bad parenting.

When I was young, if I so much as talked about throwing a snowball at a house/car/person, I’d be locked in the cupboard under the stairs, with only a few mildewed copies of Viz for company. When I emerged, having thought about my actions, I realised that I was indeed an idiot for suggesting it, and would voluntarily spank myself into unconsciousness. Kids today aren’t like that, but I suspect it isn’t their fault.

Not to get too psychological, but if we are to delve into the Nature vs. Nurture debate (which asks if our behaviour is a result of our genes, or if it learned from others) then kids should be born a blank slate, free for parents to mould into whatever they want. So, if you have a child and you surround it with atlases and dictionaries, chances are it’ll grow up to be on Time Team or Countdown. But, as I suspect may be the case with these ASBO-wielding terror-tits, if you surround them with knives and pornography, your child will turn into an arsehole.

If a child comes home one night, slick with sweat having been out burgling and running from the police, any sane parent would thrash it to within an inch of it’s life, as a lesson to equate crime with excruciating pain. But these parents, let’s hypothetically call them Candice and Wayne, merely slouch further into their flea-bitten sofas, crack open another Stella and sigh ‘Ah well, kids will be kids’. Before pushing another squirming abomination out their genitals and repeating the cycle all over again.

That’s exactly the problem. Kids will be kids, but kids aren’t all the same. Some kids play classical music, some get a paper-route to fund their model aeroplane hobby, and some kids drink cider in the park and swap STIs.

I Am Not A Pretentious Twat, But You Might Be.

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to get something off my chest: I hate pretentious people.

Not the sort of hatred reserved for people who chew with their mouth open, speak unnecessarily loudly on mobile phones, use inane and dated slang (“Whazzup?!”, “What can I do you for?” etc.), people who walk around swinging keys from a keyring as proof they are the only ones entrusted with the security of the areas said keys protect, people who still say “smoking is bad for you”, people who use Little Britain catchphrases (from the outset of a sketch you know what’s going to happen, be it Vicky Pollard rambling incoherently or that god-awful “I’m a lady” bollocks), taxi drivers who begin sentences with “I’m not racist, but…”, call centre people, men who wear overly-tight t-shirts to emphasize how much time they spend ogling themselves in full-length mirrors, “I’m a PC, and Windows Was My Idea” adverts, people who add unnecessary detail to answers (e.g. “what colour is your car?”, “Oh, it’s Sunburst Orange”), people who spend their day telling you how hungover they are (fucking shut the fuck up about it)…I could go on, but you get the point. These people are veritable saints in comparison to the needle-nosed, lofty, high and mighty fucktards that ooze pretension from every pore of their foul-smelling bodies.

There are varying degrees of pretension. I’ve taken the liberty of outlining them below.

Pretentious Fuck Number 1: My Ears Are Temples, and Your ‘Modern Pop’ Disgusts Me
Quite a low-level pretentious fuck, but they should not be underestimated. Everyone knows someone like this, and I believe everyone is familiar with the following conversation:

“So, what bands do you like?”
“Oh, erm, The Smiths, R.E.M., John Mayer, that sort of thing.”
“Ugh.”
“What?”
“They are so mainstream. I only listen to the sound made when a Seychelles Shealth-tailed Bat, exhausted after a hard days work in an Adidas sweat-shop, collapses into a rack of very rare novels, written by blind, handless monks. In Autumn.”

An extreme example perhaps, but thankfully these people stick primarily to music snobbery. Unlike the next group…

Pretentious Fuck Number 2: The Obscure Referrer

Hello, I'm Tracey Emin. Not only am I a young, angry artist, I'm also a feminist. I don't even travel to places with 'man' in their name. Manchester? Never heard of it.

Picture the scene: You and a group of friends are sitting around watching television, when someone (completely incongruously) blurts out “So I was reading Sartre last night…” Following this statement, the perpetrator expects a hushed silence, while common laymen gather around to bathe in the insightful wisdom, dripping like hot honey from his

parched, thin lips. But it never happens, because this statement doesn’t lead on to anything resembling a conversation, and was aired merely to say “I’ve read Sartre, I am knowledgeable.” Oh, you’ve read Sartre, have you? Ah, and what does that have to do with this particular episode of Kenan and Kel? Hmm? Ah, you’re clearly referring to Sartre’s belief that existence precedes essence, and that Kel isn’t a mischievous buffoon, he merely defines himself by repeatedly engaging in buffoon-esque behaviour.

The people that read what could be considered ‘pretentious’ books read them for the sheer joy of it. They read it because they actually enjoy reading it, not because they want to be able to tell people they’ve read it every time they open their mouths.

This actually reminds me of when I was at school; a teacher told us that they weren’t allowed to say “You’re a naughty boy”, rather they had to use the phrase “You’ve done a naughty thing”, so our young fragile psyches wouldn’t soak up the condemnation and make us think “Fuck it, I’m a naughty person. May as well go and masturbate on the bus then.”

Pretentious Fuck Number 3: I’m An Artist, You Wouldn’t Understand

Alright? Yeah, I'm Damien Hirst. My next project? I'm going to shit in a post box. Yeah, it's going to be fucking priceless.

Contrary to popular belief (or what you may have read on this blog) I do actually enjoy certain things, art being one of them. I own a wealth of books, I’ve bought prints, and I’ve voluntarily visited galleries (not just on a school trip when kids only really went for the shop, where they could buy a paintbrush with the phrase ‘You don’t have to be mad to be an artist, but it helps!’ on it). But one thing I can’t stand about art, is the snot-nosed snobbery that plagues it.

They sometimes (and I personally can recount one example) use phrases like “Yes, but is it really art?”, or – heaven forbid – “You wouldn’t understand”. What exactly wouldn’t I understand? The fact your head is so far up your arse you’ve been breathing undiluted methane for the entirety of our conversation?

If you’re unsure of the pretension of which I speak, just Google Damien Hirst. Not only is the man barely literate, but everything he touches seems to cause simultaneous erections throughout the entire art community. “Ohhh God I’m so horny! He pickled a shark! He fucking pickled a shark!” Another illiterate, goblin-faced wench goes by the name of Tracey Emin, famous for her piece “My Bed”. Not only does she offend my eyes with her face, but she offends my sense of sanity when I hear her justifying the…erm…piece? Anyway, Saatchi bought “My Bed” for £150,000, making him only slightly less stupid than a smashed poppadom.

I could talk forever about this stuff, but it’s getting late, so I’ll leave you with the final, most deadly category.

Pretentious Fuck Number 4: I Am a Serious Thinker, You Should Treat Me Accordingly.

They write poetry. They write stories. They most likely read Twilight books, and they are the fucking worst thing in the world. Hearing a ‘Number 4′ talk about his or her life, is very much like reading the world’s shittest diary, kept by a narcissistic drama student. Every detail of every day bears some overwhelming significance, to the point where they find it difficult to walk down the street without sobbing uncontrollably at every crack in the pavement. “The weeds…they’re pushing through the concrete…it’s like nature is…fighting back…”

Also prone to finding metaphors where they don’t exist, they can be heard uttering such nonsense as “That tree, it’s like, a metaphor for my life”. Oh, how so? “Well, like, it was young, y’know, and so was I. Then it got older, and now it’s quite big, like me. And…er…well it’s all emotional and stuff” Sorry, an emotional tree? Shut up. Fuck off, come back, then fuck off again. Sometimes they want to “Get away from it all”, oh do, do, get away from it all, and most importantly, get away from me.

So that concludes my brief round-up of pretension. I suppose writing a blog is a form of pretension, implying my opinions are worth your time. But at the end of the day I write this because if I didn’t, I’d explode in incandescent fury every time someone said “Oh, I liked them before they were famous”.

Festive Shopping Should Be Outlawed

Today I had the pleasure of going into town to get ‘bits and bobs’ and ‘this and that’ for Christmas. I was not filled with festive spirit however,  I was filled with what could best be described as ‘pent-up angst’, which resulted in the involuntary clenching of fists and gnashing of teeth, as Jack Frost did his best to disrobe me.

This year I did my Christmas shopping online, and it was fantastic. No queuing,  no Santa hats on disinterested staff, and best of all, nobody else to get in my bloody way. Unfortunately, several gifts were overlooked, which meant the only solution was to physically go to a physical shop and physically buy the things I needed.

I’m not going to waste your time by detailing how horrendously incapable people are of driving in the snow. The moment their backside touches the seat, their brain seems to disconnect itself from the rest of their body, to the point where driving ten metres without slamming on their brakes becomes impossible. If you are at all nervous or unsure of driving in watery slush, do everyone a favour and sell your car. In fact, don’t sell it, burn it. Get in, lock the doors, and set it on fire.

"We did our shopping ages ago, you fucking idiots!"

The shops were typically packed, but rather than being packed with customers, they seemed to be packed with the entire population of a mental institution, on some sort of daytrip to clog up the place. People who stop in the middle of busy aisles to look at a dancing Santa, tell their friends to look at the dancing Santa, then both point and laugh at the dancing Santa. Why is Santa dancing? I’ll tell you why, because he’s done all his Christmas shopping, and he’s gloating.

I finished getting the presents, and now came the time to go and get the special Christmas food. I know from experience that only the upper echelons of the criminally insane go to food shops this close to Chrismas, and had it been up to me I’d have just not bothered. Sadly it wasn’t up to me, so we went.

What a fucking disgrace. I spent the majority of my time being crushed against baubles and (you guessed it) dancing Santas, while some fat oaf barged past with a fistful of mince pies, hollering at their equally fat friend that it’s buy one get one free. I also became increasingly aware of the staff who were definitely employed solely to handle the Christmas rush. You’ve got the seasoned veterans, who can tell you with incredible precision where any item in the store is, they are human TomTom’s who have a direct satellite link to every fish finger on their patch. Then you have temporary Christmas staff who don’t seem sure if they work in a food shop or an airport.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where I could find the Goose Fat?”
“Erm, yeah hold on. John? John? There’s a lad here wants to know where the Goose Fat is. Yeah, alright. Okay. Yes sir, you’ll be given Goose Fat in the departure lounge, along with a selection of complimentary beverages. Enjoy your flight.”
*Sigh* “Okay, thank you.”

After managing to find everything myself, despite the assistance of the staff falling into the ‘fucking useless’ category, I waited in line at the till, where the man stood in front of me would not have looked out of place in an early Bon Jovi music video. Easily into his 60s, he sported the kind of hairdo that shouted ‘It was fashionable once, and it’ll be fashionable again!’, the lank, greying shit-heap flowing almost to his backside. Coupled with sandy Caterpillar boots and jeans which went out of fashion at the turn of the century (the 19th Century), he was quite the ladykiller. Imagine my horror when he turned to a man who was in a different queue, and said “Oh, is that all you’ve got?” pointing at the man’s item, “Oh well, just cut in front of me, it’s fine”. Listen to me, Bon Jovi, if someone is stupid enough to venture out into the Christmas crapfest just to buy some condensed milk (I fucking checked, that’s all he had), then they should be made to wait in queues as a punishment. I’d go so far as to say there should be a queue specially for single-itemers, however it would be below ground and have hot coals scattered across the floor. A perspex roof would allow regular shoppers to look down at them. Bon Jovi then turns to me and goes “Oh, you don’t mind do you?”, however it wasn’t phrased as a question, more an instruction. Oh really, I don’t mind? I’m not sure, would you mind if I kicked your nose down your own throat?

I felt sure that I’d accidentally gatecrashed some party for people celebrating their recent lobotomies, and this was confirmed after I tried to leave the shop and filed in behind the stream of people, only to have the person in front of me get to the door, stop, and ask her friend “Oh, are we leaving?” Excuse me? Why did you think everyone was walking in single file towards an exit? Perhaps you thought it was a special one-off Christmas Conga line?

So after the hell of today, I’ve come up with a checklist. Print it off, memorise it, and you’ll get through the holidays just fine.

1: If you insist on shopping so close to Christmas, prepare in advance the route you will take through the shop. Standing thumbing cashmere jumpers is not acceptable, unless you are going to buy said jumper. Better yet, buy things, then check to see if it’s suitable. If it isn’t, give it to someone you hate.

2: If your pace drops below 4mph, a pack of wolves will be released in the shop to hurry you up. If you continue to lag behind, you will be eaten.

3: Be mentally prepared for total strangers to wish you a Merry Christmas. I’d advise having a controversial or unusual response to ensure they never do it to anybody else. For example, after they say it, start sobbing. If you can swallow your own tongue, this would be a good time to do it. They won’t risk it with anybody else, and the whole process will be that little bit faster.

4: If you are a bad driver, stay at home. Even if you’re a good driver, stay at home.

5: Never ask where anything is. As I found out, the staff know just as much as you do. Even if a staff badge clearly states ‘Head of Bread’, do not expect them to know where the bread is kept, how much the bread costs, or even what bread is. If you can’t see it, too bad, you’ll have to go without.

Merry Christmas.

A List of Lesser-Known Factoids

Having neglected my blog recently, I felt it was about time to compile a list of things I personally know to be true. So, for things Google can’t (and in many cases won’t) tell you, please read on.

1: Despite building a successful career hosting talent shows, Simon Cowell actually made his fortune inventing new colours and selling them to wealthy African noblemen. Notable invented colours include Shareece, Chilly-Morgan and Cowellific.

2: Before the Black Widow was discovered, the title of ‘World’s Deadliest Spider’ was held by Celine Dion.

3: It is common knowledge that the Cheetah is the fastest land-animal, but not many people know that the slowest land animal is Les Dennis.

4: Before becoming a professional actor, Zac Efron spent three years orbiting the Earth in a 1994 Volkswagen Beetle.

5: Ricky Gervais is the only human who’s had a number one album in every decade since 1840.

6: Contrary to popular belief, Jamie Oliver was born without a tongue. He opted to have a bicep transplanted in it’s place, and as such he is completely unable to taste anything he cooks.

7: In the 1990s, the U.S. Government spent millions of dollars researching and developing a way for humans to travel safely through time, a plan that was subsequently rendered unnecessary by the invention of BBC iPlayer.

8: Usain Bolt is the offspring of a Pegasus and a Three-Toed Sloth.

9: Contrary to what her name may suggest, Cheryl Crow is unable to fly. This was discovered on the BBC show ‘Literal Names’. The popular radio DJ Dr. Fox was released into the wild, before being torn apart by posh people on horses with Beagles.

10: Chins were invented in China, where they were commonly used as a form of non-transferable currency.

I Hate Everything

Earlier today, while throwing around some ideas for a blog post about the X-Factor and their overuse of the term ‘likeability‘, I decided to try and make a list of things I like. Then, I’d take each item individually, and sum up exactly what it means to like it. Here’s an example: I like kebabs.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

What makes a Kebab likeable? I could quite honestly write an entire blog devoted to the mighty-meaty strippy-snacky delight that is Kebab, but that would be filling a niche in the blogosphere that’s best left empty. Instead I’ll be as succinct as possible.

Kebabs are meaty. Kebabs are hot. Kebabs can be eaten alone, with chips or with salad. Kebabs suit a variety of sauces, much like a supermodel suiting a vareity of dresses (I’d imagine…). For the James Bonds amongst you, there’s the cool tuxedo of garlic sauce, and for the fiery-tempered Alan Sugars of this world, you’ve got chili. They are the warm tangle that tingles the taste buds after the umpteenth pint of Chardonnay. They are renowned to cure the blind, and had absolutely nothing to do with the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, so you can enjoy them guilt-free.

Of course, as with everything, there is a downside. Kebabs sometimes kill you, or at least stop your organs working, which is definitely a ‘con’ on my list. However, for the first time in my life, I advocate every reader to listen to ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morrisette. A song dripping with situations (that are not ironic at all, rather more ‘unfortunate’. Needing a knife, but having 10,000 spoons is not irony, it’s poor planning) which, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase, urge you to do (and eat) whatever you please, as tomorrow might be rubbish and you might die a bit.

So, what could be next on my list of likes?

Well first of all, asked Google to help illustrate a few uses of the word ‘like’, to get more of a grasp on what it actually means. Here’s a selection of what I found:

“I like jogging”; “She likes to read Russian novels”; “we don’t want the likes of you around here”; “I like my nephews”.

Now, forgive me for jumping to conclusions, but these statements, should you be presented with one, would not fill you with excitement, or a deeper understanding of anything. You like jogging? That’s fascinating. If you’d said to me ‘I love jogging’, I’d be inclined to perhaps ask a question and show an interest. At the very least, it’d prevent me slipping into a fatal coma.

Each time you jog, God cripples a turtle.

‘I like my nephews’ sounds like it should be followed with ‘but…’. ‘Liking’ your nephews doesn’t fill me with a sense of you appreciating them, or thinking fondly of them, it makes me think they’ve done something terrible and you’re finding it hard to forgive them.

So finally, allow me to come onto the real meat of this article. I hate everything. You name it, I hate it. Even things people conventionally and unequivocally love, like children or new clothes. Children, and please allow me to point out I have no children so perhaps write from an outsiders viewpoint, are, on the whole, stupid. Sometimes, sure, it’s cute, like when they draw a mustache on themselves with permanent marker, but the cuteness is soon eclipsed with a barrage of senseless idiocy that would make even the dumbest of Labradors leap from a cliff. Before anybody points out that you never really know about children until you have them, I myself was once a child, and I loathed myself every day until my voice finally broke and I could stop acting like a dick.

Would you take fashion advice from a man with this hairstyle?

New clothes, marvelous. Let’s dig out that Heat or Closer or Douche magazine and see what some stick-thin megalomaniac suggests I wear this ’season’ (and for the record, buying clothes depending on the ’season’s colours’ is stupid. Nothing is the ‘new black’ because black’s still around, you oafs). New clothes never feel right, they don’t hang like your old clothes. Don’t get me started on new jeans – are they deliberately made to restrict the circulation to your legs? There’s nothing so arse-tighteningly awful as a grown man keeling over at a bus-stop just because he’s got some new Levi’s and is dead from the waist down).

So, I hope this has given you a valuable insight into a couple of the issues that plague me on a daily basis. If you feel the same, I suggest you go outside and be really mean to a stranger – it’ll make you feel great, and will act as an incentive for them to be less of an idiot.

Armchair Sporting Hell

Ronaldinho runs away from society, taking the world's only football with him.

Let me start by making one thing crystal clear: I am not a competitive person. I couldn’t care who gets a job over me,  whose work is chosen by a client over mine, whose shoes are cleaner or whose smile brighter. I find being completely ambivalent to everyday rivalries to be the safest way to live my life; if I never set myself a target, then I can never be disappointed.

This daydream was shattered in most spectacular fashion almost a year ago, when I decided to delve into the world of online gaming. Now, before you clasp your hands over your face and declare me to be a ‘geek’ or a ‘nerd’, I should stress that by ‘online gaming’ I refer solely to playing Fifa on the PS3 against other people via the internet. Somehow, playing a football game alleviates the stigma commonly associated with huffing, greasy teenagers hunched over their spaceships and dark elves. I’m no longer ‘Gwark from the 5th Dimension’, I am Jose Mourinho, casually stepping off a private jet in Milan. Unfortnately, that is as far as that metaphor can stretch.

You see, I don’t count myself to be a card-carrying (unintentional pun) football fanatic. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I treat the die-hard football fan with a fair degree of derision: it’s just a game, you’re a grown man, put your shirt back on and stop crying. Yet over the past year I’ve become something of a walking contradiction, if football is just a game, then a football game on a console is a game of a game. Stay with me here. Surely the dilution, from field to controller, should soften the blow when ‘Biggles007′ strikes home his third of the day and I’m left, alone and gobsmacked, in front of my television.

But it doesn’t. It matters more. It causes the most vile of expletives to spew out my mouth, it causes the most ham-fisted of tantrums ever exhibited by someone of my age.

I have an admission (and I understand this may only ring a bell with those amongst you who are familiar with the game): when I’m losing a match, I quit. I give up. I throw the controller, I hit reset.

I’m fully aware that people like me are the lowest of the low in the ‘Fifa community’ (I should know, I’ve actively sought out others with similar problems), and that quitting is only permissible in the event of a fire, or a masked gunman bursting into the room. For this, I am truly, truly sorry. Although it must be said I’ve received more than my fair share of abuse via e-mail, including half a dozen that required translating, so I feel I’ve paid a minutiae of penance.

I’ve racked my brains in search of an explanation, and I feel I’ve come up with a few valid ideas.

Firstly, you’re pitted against a faceless opponent. There is no way of knowing if the person casually sauntering around the pitch is Ruud Gullit or Mrs. Miggleswick. They could be the most hardened of gamer, or a squeaky-faced preteen avoiding doing homework because it’s ‘lame’ or ‘gay’. It is a fundamental part of human nature that we’re afraid of what we cannot see. Think about it, why do horror movies invariably take place in poorly lit warehouses, or darkened alleys? Perhaps the entity that best sums up this analogy is, simply, ‘The Mysterons’. If you have ever played a game of football in your life, think back. Would you still have played if the opposing team were invisible?

So there’s the anonymity, which often allows like-minded individuals to express themselves more freely than if they were stood right in front of you. I once had somebody pause the game repeatedly, just so they could yell at me over their microphone. Unfortunately they sounded Dutch, so I was unable to understand what they were saying, but the raw passion, the visceral hatred spewing down the telephone wires – that needed no dictionary.

The San Jose Ketchups skillfully defeat the Wisconsin Mustards in the final of the Condiment Cup.

Secondly, and I believe this to be the most valid of arguments about the passion involved in online football versus the real deal, in a real game, you have a whole team with which to commiserate your losses, an entire stadium of fans who are just as upset (if not more so, as they paid to see you lose) as you are. This sharing of grief, this support group, goes a long way to softening the blow. This is what is sorely lacking in online football – it’s you, alone, against another person. One on one, mano-a-mano. If you lose, you have nobody to hug, nobody to buy you a pint and tell you next week will be better, nobody cares.

Imagine, if you will, that playing online football attracted the same crowds that real football matches do, literally, into your living room. Every time you turned your console on, 50,000 people bursted in, cheering you on. To lose would be just as soul destroying, perhaps even more so, as you’ve not only let yourself down, but all these lovely people too. If you’re a footballer, you’re a cog in a machine. If you’re an online football player, you are the machine.

So, what do I plan to do about all this? Do I hang up my controller for good, give it up as a bad job, move on to less-competitive games involving cushions and dandelions?

Never. Because for every crushing defeat, there is a soaring victory, the kind of last-minute nail biter that moves you from the edge of your seat to beneath the carpet. The sort of victory that makes you feel as if you’ve achieved something, that after the dust has settled and the palms have dried, you are the best.

Foreign Monies Transfer Urgentio Monsieur!

Me either, mate

I, like many thousands of people, have been receiving emails from foreign dignitaries, political figures, representatives of deceased industrialists and Ugandan lawyers for many years now. The content is by and large very similar: there is a huge sum of money which must be transferred abroad (i.e. to me) very urgently, and all they require is my full co-operation, my trust, and invariably my bank details.

Now, I’ve always just deleted these emails immediately, as everybody should. Tonight though, I replied. To TWO. Please find them, in their unedited entirety, below. If I receive a reply, I’ll stick them straight up.

Original Email:

FROM: DR. CALEB MARTINS5 RIDER HAGGARD CLOSES, 2001 JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
TEL: 27-73-022-38-11
EMAIL:calebmartins_1@rediffmail.com
ATTN: MANAGING DIRECTOR/C.E.O.

My greetings,

TRANSFER OF (US$10.5 MILLION) TEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLARS

We want to transfer to overseas (US$10.5 Million) from the Amalgamated Bank of South Africa ABSA.  I want to ask you to quietly look for a reliable and honest person who will be capable and fit to provide either an existing bank account or to set up a new bank account immediately to receive this money, even an empty account can serve to receive this money, as long as you will remain honest to me till the end for this important business, trusting in you and believing in God that you will never let me down either now or in future.

I am Dr. Caleb Martins, the Auditor General of ABSA, during the course of our auditing, I discovered a floating fund in an account opened in the bank in 2005 and since 2009 nobody has operated on this account again.  After going through some old files in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without an heir; hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing.  The owner of this account is Mr. Allan P. Seaman, a foreigner and an industrialist, he died since 2004.  And no other person knows about this account or anything concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that Allan P. Seaman until his death was the manager of Diamond Safari (Pty.) South Africa .

We want to transfer this sum US$10.5 million (Ten Million five hundred thousand US Dollars) into a safe foreigners account abroad, but I don’t know any foreigner, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money can not be approved to a local person here, but can only be approved to any foreigner with valid international passport or drivers license.  The money is in US Dollars and the former owner of the account Mr. Allan P. Seaman is a foreigner too and the money can only be approved into a foreign account.  Considering the recommendation I received in your favor by the South Africa Chamber of Commerce as regards your suitability and reliability in carrying out this transaction, I hereby crave your indulgence to co-operate with me in this mutually beneficiary transaction.  I am revealing this to you, believing in God that you will never let me down in this business, you are the first and the only person that I am contacting for this business, so please reply urgently so that I will inform you the next step to take.  Please while replying include your private telephone and fax numbers including the full details of the account to be used for the deposit.  Also note that upon your reply, we may opt for telephone and fax communication, as this channel may not be safe for the transaction.  With my influence and the position of the bank official we can transfer this money to any foreigner’s reliable account that you can provide with assurance that this money will be intact pending our physical arrival in your country for sharing.   The bank official will destroy all documents of transaction immediately we receive this money leaving no trace to any place.

As you receive this fund in your account.  I will use my position and influence to obtain legal approvals for I will apply for annual leave to get visa immediately.  At the conclusion of this business, you will be given 30% of the total amount, 5% processing of the transfer, while the remaining 65% will be my. Please if you are interested in this transaction, contact me with these telephone and numbers above and I will give you the procedure of the business.

I look forward to your earliest reply.

Yours sincerely,

DR. CALEB MARTINS

My Reply:

My most sincere of greetings on this fortuitous occasion,

Dear Mr. Martins,

Please firstly allow me to offer a thousand apologies for not having replied to you sooner. I have recently been on holiday, (my fourth of the year!) and as such haven’t been checking my account as regularly as I’d have liked.

I am both upset and excited to hear of Mr. Seaman’s passing. While I never met or encountered Mr. Seaman, I assume, judging by the sum of monies in his account, he was a shrewd and successful businessman – something we share in common! However, I am very excited to have been selected to take receipt of his monies, and assure you with a million angels that the money will be donated to a very worthwhile charity in my local area (after I’ve bought me and the wife a few necessities of course!)

Obviously, this is a cause that demands instant action! We must not allow the grass to grow beneath our feet Mr. Martins, as the early bird catches the worm, and if the wind blows, he’ll stay like that. I trust you know what I mean.

I must tell you at this moment in time I am not terribly well versed in the way of transferring monies overseas, so if I may burden you with the duty of walking me through exactly what I must do, I assure you my full co-operation throughout this most blessed of occasions.

Please sir, if you’d be so kind, please tell me please exactly what I must do to ensure this transaction happens in a swift and smooth motion, as my wife requires a hip replacement (she had them done a few years ago, but a nasty slip at the ice rink caused one of the buggers to pop clean off!) and she had her heart set on a beautiful pair of carbon fibre shins also. As you’ll appreciate, these items are not cheap, and without them she is barely able to drag herself from the bed to the kitchen without omitting a very unsettling grunting noise that makes me wonder why I ever married in the first place.

I look forward to your reply,

Sincerely,

Barry Chuckle

Email Number 2

Original Email:

Dear Sir/Ma,

After due deliberation with my children, I decided to contact you for your assistance in standing as a beneficiary to the sum of US$3.5M ( Three Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) First, let me start by introducing myself, I am Susan van der Merwe, Ms. a mother of three children and husband of formal and late Deputy Minister in the South African Cabinet under the formal President of South Africa.

After the swearing in ceremony making me the Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation in 29th of April 2004, my husband died while he was on an official trip to Trinidad and Tobago in 2004. After his death, I discovered that he had some funds in a dollar account which mounted to the sum of US$3.5M with a Financial Institute abroad.

This fund emanated as a result of an over-invoiced contract which he executed with the Government of South Africa. Though I assisted him in getting this contract but I never knew that it was over-invoiced by him. I am afraid that the government of South Africa might start to investigate on contracts awarded from year 2000 to date. If they discover this money in his bank account, they will confiscate it and seize his assets here in South Africa and this will definitely affect my political career in government,I need your assistance in clearing this money from the Financial Institute.As soon as the fund is cleared, you are expected to move it immediately into another personal bank account in your country.I will see to it that the account is not traced from South Africa. As soon as you have confirmed the fund into your account, I will send my eldest son with my Attorney to come to your country to discuss on business investments.

For your assistance, I am offering you (Seven Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) However, you have to assure me and also be ready to go into agreement with me that you will not elope with my fund,If you agree to my terms, kindly as a matter of urgency send me an email.Due to my sensitive position in the South African Government, I would not WANT you to call me on phone or send a fax to me. All correspondence must be by email to my private email,If you want to speak with my Attorney, that is fine and okay by me. His chambers will be representing my interest with you. All correspondence must be made to my Attorney, I will also like you to send me the following information below: To enable my Attorney call or reach you from time to time,

1. Your full name
2. Your telephone and fax numbers
3. Your contact address & Your Occupation

Please I do not need to remind you of the need for absolute Confidentiality if this transaction must succeed. YOU MUST NOT CALL ME! If you do not feel comfortable with this transaction, do not hesitate to discontinue.Moreover If you are interested kindly reply through my private email: su_sha11@yahoo.com.hk

Thanks for your anticipated co-operation and my regards to your family.

Yours faithfully,
Ms. Susan van der Merwe,

My Reply:

Dear Ms. Susan van der Merwe,

Firstly allow me to offer you my most sincere of apologies for the time that has elapsed since you contacted me with regard to the business transaction you have proposed. I have been in the south of France for the past month, visiting my wife’s family, and they believe that the internet is ‘a gateway for evil’, and as such have only the most rudimentary of internet connections. Also, due to the steep hills surrounding the family home, I have been largely unable to receive any reception on my mobile phone, effectively limiting my recreation to conversing with those garlic-gobbling, baguette-baking turncoats in their shack. Don’t they know who I am?

I apologise for digressing. The intent of my reply is to politely inquire if the business proposition is still available. I fully understand if another lucky so-and-so has stuck their name in the frame, without taking the blame and avoiding the pain of being offered such a wondrous opportunity to become so wealthy, however I must stress that I am not only trustworthy, but also rather well off myself, so I am well-versed in the transfer of monies from account to account. The source of my wealth is of course a sensitive matter, but I think it’s fair to say that if money was apples, I’d be a goddamn orchard. Do you understand me? Of course you do, being in the political profession you must know what it’s like to have money coming out of every cupboard in the apartment you just want to run away from it all and hide beneath a log in a damp field.

So, if this opportunity is still available, please instruct me as to how I can get my fat hands on this money. As an added incentive, I am willing to share up to 14% of the total with you, or perhaps you would rather I donate it to a horse sanctuary. Honestly, when one of my daughters horses broke it’s leg (she has 8 of the damn things, you’d think if one had a broken leg it wouldn’t be an issue, but she wailed and cried like a goddamn foghorn!) those guys patched it right back up and within a few months it was good as new. Unfortunately, the horse in question had a rather insatiable appetite for mounting the sheep we have on our farm, damn thing snapped four sheep clean in half, so naturally it had to be destroyed.

Please reply as soon as you receive this, I am very keen to enact this transaction in a urgent and panic-stricken fashion,

Yours forever,

Dr. Pepe Roni BSc. Hons Esq.

I’m loathe to admit it, but replying to these emails has been the most interesting thing I’ve done all day.