Is it just me, or does anyone else immediately think of 'the Eastern Bloc' when they see a really badly painted Mickey Mouse on the side of an ice-cream van?
No? Not even a little bit? You're not even the tiniest bit thinking about Czechoslovakia or the Warsaw pact?
How about now? Nicolae Ceauşescu? The Brezhnev Doctrine? No? Nothing?
Now though, yeah? Now you're just sat there, imagining what the Czech Uprisings of 1968 might've looked like.
Yeah. I knew you'd come round.
Turns out it's really hard to look cool when you're bottle-feeding a baby lamb.
Look at him -- thoughtful, pensive, contemplative. What could he be reading?
Some Zola maybe? Or some Proust? Or maybe some Nick Horny? Or at the very least Angels and fucking Demons?
No. A joke book. A joke book about the internet. The arsehole.
When it comes to toilet cubicles, I prefer to keep the whole thing anonymous. I'm not in there to make friends. I don't want to see their face, I don't want to hear their voice, I don't even want to see their shoes poking under the wall. The point is -- I'm not interested in getting to know the person next door.
So you can imagine my disgust when I very recently had to go for a crap next to someone who quite obviously plays golf.
It actually made me wretch, thinking of his golfy little frame, squatting there next to me. I mean, in the name of toilet cubicle confidentiality, would it have killed him to have taken his clubs in with him?
Now, either: A) I've become so pathologically crabby that right now the only way I could conceivably make it through an entire day without wishing death on another human would involve me wearing two eyepatches, a pair of earplugs and a bodysuit made of solid lead. Or: B) This man really does have the most aggravating peanut-eating action in the history of humankind.
I'll let you decide...
(Wait for it... wait for it... wait for it... Boom! There it is.)
I'm serious -- if one more passport control official makes a comment along the lines of, "It's so nice to see young people who still get all dressed up for their passport photo," I'm going to punch them in the face.
Not literally, obviously.
It's like the whole 'you're just as likely to win the lottery with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6' thing -- no matter how many times you tell me that everything in the shop is a pound, I never quite believe it.
ME: "Excuse me. These batteries -- are they a pound?"
POUNDCITY EMPLOYEE: "Yes they are."
ME: "Great, thanks. (BEAT) How about the soap? Is that a pound?"
POUNDCITY EMPLOYEE: "Everything's a pound."
ME: "OK, brilliant. (BEAT) Including the shaving foam?"
POUNDCITY EMPLOYEE: "Yes! Including the shaving foam."
ME: "That's what I thought. (BEAT) Quick yes or no: blank DVDs..."
I wouldn't mind if that one person was me. In fact, I'd love it if it was me. But it never is. Ever.
No, I'm the person who didn't really want to go in the first place, but gets emotionally blackmailed into it, and is then promised that "everyone else is dressing up," and so reluctantly goes dressed as a giant baby, and then looks even more of a dick than he already did in contrast to the bloke he spends the whole night talking to who's just wearing a really nice pair of jeans and one of those cool tops with the little penguin logo on it.
The fucker.
Of all my friends I don't like, my commuter friends would have to be my least favourite. The entire basis of my relationship with these people basically boils down to this: we both use trains.
Recent topics of conversation have included:
- Trains: Expensive Or What?
- Trains: Unreliable Or What?
- Trains: Ah god, what was it... bloody... ah... yeah... trains though!
But I can still remember the day my friendship with Commuter Friend #01 reached its lowest ebb; that would be the day he talked me through his keys!
"Back door... front door... stationary cupboard... crook-lock... no, wait..."
I just sat there, staring straight ahead, praying for some kind of terrorist intervention.
... then getting to the front of the jam and seeing the mangled wreckage of two family cars, and some people on the hard-shoulder crying, and a child's shoe on the road, and some blood with sand on it, then feeling a bit guilty and having to do the whole 'well that really puts everything into perspective/at least I'm still alive' thing, followed by a long, contemplative pause.
(Even though all you're actually thinking about is how you're probably going to miss "Ross Kemp On Gangs".)
(It was the one on the Yardies.)
A car park. You think you've locked your car, but you're not quite sure, so you go back to check. Now, you don't want to break into a full-on jog and yet walking just seems too slow. So you do this...
"Wogging" -- half walking, half jogging.
You'll note the seemingly casual exterior is tinged with the merest whiff of urgency, as though you're being chased by a four-year-old child whose play-fighting you find just a little too rough.
You're in a Thai restaurant. You make your selection -- Kitsune Udon. It sounds nice. Some kind of noodle-based dish, apparently.
And then it arrives.
And -- somehow, someway -- it's a bowl of fucking soup.
See, nowhere on the menu did it mention the whole 'bowl of soup' thing. And I'll tell you why -- because if they told you it was a bowl of soup, no one would order it.
Hence 'the Trojan Soup' -- you only find out it's soup when it's too late. And obviously then you have to spend the rest of the evening pretending to whoever you're with that you knew it was soup all along.
"Mmm. Soup. Soup as a main course. Cannot be beaten."
Trojan Soup. What a bitch.
I fear I would've made a terrible samurai. And I'll tell you why -- to be a samurai warrior means to live by a simple code: death before dishonour.
And the thing is, I'm very much a 'dishonour before death' kind of person. I would honestly disgrace myself -- and my family -- in any number of ways before I'd allow myself to be physically harmed.
"You want me to sell out my own mother? OK, now that's not a problem or anything, but only if promise to stop shouting at me."
And that's why I would've made a terrible samurai.
On behalf of various corporations worldwide, Mr. T is currently pitying the fools who aren't:
* Playing World of Warcraft online.
* Regularly eating Snickers.
* Buying high-end Hitachi Data Systems service-oriented storage solutions.
* Wearing Hanes Double Tough socks.
* Downloading Blue Frog ringtones.
* Using Medeco keys. (I don't even think they sell these over here.)
It all just seems so arbitrary. There was a time when you really had to go out of your way to be pitied as a fool.
Nowadays you just roll out of bed, turn on your non-Hitachi Data Systems service-oriented storage solution, and you're already fucked.
Which just seems unfair.
Because here's what happens when one of your mates puts on some TV-based grot, just for a laugh -- no one actually laughs.
There's maybe a couple of nervous chuckles to begin with, possibly the odd, "Hello! Don't get many of them to the pound."
But then it all goes quiet.
And suddenly, you become aware that you're surrounded by your friends, and they've all got erections. And you then it hits you. This isn't ironic any more: you're just watching pornography with other men.
And that way, dear reader, lies the Circle Jerk.
Wow. That's pretty creepy. It's as though the dead person is somehow trapped inside the headstone. Like your sweet old grandma got exiled to the Phantom Zone from Superman I.
I wouldn't trust my family to choose the right photo either. This isn't your average, everyday passport photo bullshit. They only last ten years. Gravestone photos last until the end of the world.
And however you want to look at it, that's quite a long time to be lying underneath a photo of yourself taken at Christmas in 1990 during your 'Chubby Goth' years.
Which five historical figures -- living or dead -- would you invite to a fantasy dinner party?
Well, I'll tell you, since everyone's answer is the same anyway: Jesus, Elvis, Oscar Wilde, JFK, Einstein.
Brilliant. Five of the biggest show-offs in human history. I thought this was supposed to be my dinner party. I'm the one who's supposed to be showing off, not John F. fucking Kennedy. Oh, "Bay of Pigs" this, "Marilyn Monroe" that. Why don't you just sit down, shut the fuck up and listen to what happened to me when I was playing Call of Duty 4 online the other night?
And guess who's going to end up clearing the plates away? I'll give you a clue: it won't be Jesus.
Because let's face it, there's no way I'm going to do that. For one, I don't dare, and for two, it'd just be awkward.
Let's say I do happen to think you're a prick. Let's say your name's Tim, and you're loud, and obnoxious, and you're one of those people who's really into fancy dress parties, and you overuse the word 'random', and you do that thing where you 'drink' the last crumbs from a packet of crisps, and you're always the first one to start up a 'rubbish bag' during long-distance car journeys, and every time you make me a cup of tea you comment on how many sugars I have, and you're always going on about how you haven't got the internet at home like that somehow makes you better than me, and you talk about Dave Gorman all the fucking time, and you roll the sleeves up on all your shirts even though it makes your head look way too big for your body. Let's say all that. Well, I can't just tell you that to your face.
Which is why I'll either: A) slag you off behind your back, the good old-fashioned way, or B) change your name and write a blog entry about it.
You know, like a real man.
Sure, there are people in my life that I like and everything. Jesus, there's even a couple I'd probably miss quite a bit if they died. But that doesn't mean I'd want to spend the rest of my life looking at a badly-sketched portrait of their face on my thigh every time I took a shower.
And even if I did, I'd like to think I'd go for someone close to me. Wife, child, mother. And not, for example, the Beverly Hills fucking Ninja. Chris Farley for god's sake. I mean, even his own family weren't that bothered.
You haven't seen a shitty T-shirt until you've turned up at someone else's house and asked to borrow something to sleep in.
I stayed over at my girlfriend's mum's house at the weekend. Here was my choice: either A) the XL 'turquoise dolphin' number...
... or B) the XXXL 'turquoise Destination Florida' design (with the hyper-baggy sleeves).
Because it's always a fucking charity T-shirt.
