tHe SuRpRiSe

a ShOrT sToRy

1. sAtUrDaY eVeNiNg

First ay all, ma boss is nothing short of a dignitary. Nae doubt about that. Ah've butlered fae this particular chiel for a couple ay years now and he's probably the most honest person ah've ever known. Genuinely. This is a guy who I've never once seen compromise his integrity and never once witnessed go back on his word. A rare breed indeed.

It was ma mam who put me ontae him initially. 

He came endorsement-adorned via a couple ay contacts mam had made by way of sweeping the grime off ay rich cunts' Persian rugs and the suchlike and he turned out to be the genuine article. A real-life knab of the highest order.

If anything, the plaudits didn'ae quite do the chappie justice. There's nae airs or graces or any of that gash with him. He somehow casually contradicts expectations ay folks of his calibre or affluence with a clumsy and charming demeanour. He's eloquent, polite, as natural as snowflakes and sports wealth that's overtly obscene. The only (seemingly) self-conscious, awkwardness he ever displays is the occasional facial flush if he's forced to relay bullshit of an administrative disposition your way. 

There's a real altruistic compassion tae this Sassenach. If possible, he'll utilize the less-privileged characters amongst you that may happen tae stumble into his opulent sphere. He'll undoubtedly give ye a leg-up - well, a hooning great hoist if the truth be known. 

By a strange twist ay fortune, he happened to give a ne'er-do-well such as myself the opportunity to take some steps forward. So, with bitter determination and enterprising nous, ah smashed every challenge he thrust my way and before too long, ah wis striding towards being indispensable tae him, ken?

Very quickly, ma new residence unexpectedly became this colossal Georgian Manor House atop a provocatively homesick braeheid that rose quintessentially from deep within the Hertfordshire countryside. It was far flung from the reeking tenements that ah'd been accustomed tae north of the border and ah couldn't have possibly, in ma wildest dreams, envisaged inhabiting such a dwelling, let alone feeling like ah actually belonged there. 

The mansion was situated remotely, somewhere way out beyond the sticks, encircled by sprawling broadleaf woodland that leant pryingly inwards towards our nucleus of activity from every direction. It felt a trillion miles away from ma birthplace and aw the better for it.

The proprietor rapidly became a firm friend of mine and he goes by the name ay Douglas Tempest-Sixsmith ay aw ridiculously-grandiose handles. Tempest-fuckin'-Sixsmith! 

He's deep doon a family blood-line that've bequeathed their prosperity from generation tae generation before their story landed on his shooders fae further script-development. An' ah says good luck tae him. He's nothing like ah imagined this type of radge to be, despite a backgroond that dripped with wedge. 

Tell ye the truth, there isn'ae a great fuckin' deal that ah widn'ae do for the man. 

Tempest-Sixsmith's seen me safe, right from day uno - be it letting me claim hoosin' benayfit from his employees' digs when ah first began working on the estate (an' poortith was still ma main foe) to promoting me tae Head Valet or whatever-tha-fuck ma title currently is. 

This was aw within six months ay conscientious, yet perfectly reasonable toil. 

An' ye ken what? 

There hasn'ae been too many people ay his calibre in ma life thus far. The kind ay upbringing that ah've always been accustomed tae has been largely contaminated by bad eegs caught in the loop ay thievin', tae skag, tae jail, tae brutality, tae a lick ah the rock; from hoose-breakin', tae savagery, tae bullpen, tae settling finally for extinction. Ye get the picture. It goes oan and oan as ye well know. 

But that was never for me.


Tee-Ess, or Dougie as he prefers tae be called, is more than just a boss okay, he's a brethren. A cohort and a confident. He could so easily've told me tae sling ma fuckin' hook on countless an eve over the past months and ah widn'ae have questioned it but he never did.


He never would. Right from the off. Ah've always loved tae blether with him, a brandy or two to the good. Invariably, he's urged me tae digress aboot the sort ay exploits that've occurred in ma life up til now, before our paths crossed.


And cross they have and I suppose our hand was dealt long ago.


Jesus, ye know ah prayed ye wasn'ae real loads of times over the last decade-and-a-half. In protest mostly, admittedly. Now ah'm not so sure. But if you aren'ae the saviour we were promised, then undoubtedly we're fucked.

Beyond belief.

2. mOrNiNg

Shite began fuckin' up royally first thing this morning. Dougie had been planning and preparing tae host toneet's dinner party fae months now - it was always destined to be a significant one. We had an elite selection ay guests due to turn up fae some scran and let's just say, some ay them are more important than others, ken? 

There's this lovely wee missy called Geraldine on the guesty and the boss man's had his eye oan her fae as long as ah can remember. She's a pretty, petite sort and from an aristocratic lineage which suites Dougie's clan right doon tae the shiny marble flooring. But it isn'ae just about that fae him - he truly loves this lassie. And ah'm pretty sure it's reciprocated. Ah've seen the way she looks at him, aw sparkly-eyed and star-crossed. Or aw cross-eyed and stark - it's one ay the pair, anyhow.


Preparations began with the meat, neeps and tatties searing and steaming life into the kitchen. There was maself, head chef Stewie and a couple ay the cooks who've been workin' fae the boss frae time-immemorial manning the stations. Now, due tae the relaxed business practices around here, unsurprisingly, the veggies hadn'ae been stocked up sufficiently to cater fae all attendees, so ah scanned about fae the big man tae rectify the situation.

He was on the front lawn spraffing away to Jay, the lazy-arsed garden-slouchin' motherfucker as usual, so ah opened a window, menu in hand, and interrupted them:

'Someone needs tae scoot down to the market fae, er fennel, Jerusalem artichokey-type things, um, Kohlrabi (or whatever) and the suchlike..'

Dougie raises a hand and says nae bother, he'll shoot down there himself.

Before long, a V8 Vantage roar followed by a clood ay gravel announced his departure as Douglas Tempest-Sixsmith span doon the driveway towards Bovingdon Open Air Market and into a tornado of trouble. 

3. aFtErNoOn

So we're dancin' aroond the kitchen tae Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, an aam singin' obstreperously intae Heed Chef (and lifelong Reds fan) Stewie's simpering an' ruddily-peeved coupon. Aam changing the lyrics freestyle-like, tae aspertions about Liverpool Fitba Club as they've been laughably troonced by the fuckin' Cobblers frae Nurthampton Toon in the week. Oblivious tae this pish, the houghs ay lamb are roasting away happily in the ovens. 


'Useless bastards,' I willnae let up, aw sing-song like as Dougie comes unexpectedly crashing through the double doors and slumps ontae one of the chopping surfaces lookin' nae too braw and greener than the mortared mint leaves. 


He isn'ae fuckin' aboot.


'What the fuck?' yawps Stewie, dropping his tongs as he scampers over tae the main man. 'You okay boss? What's happened?'


Douglas disn'ae answer. He just stares beyond the kitchen walls, his eyes nae blinking and his hands shaking violently.


'Dougie, chap. Dougie, what the fuck's gone oan laddie?' ah plead. For some reason a sinking feeling starts tae consume me. It's that thoosain-yard stare plastered across his face, coupled with the unholy colour ay his cheeks that are starting tae unsettle me. He's in a bad way and I get the feeling it could mean trouble for us all.


'Dougie, it's me Leighton. Yer auld mucker. What the fuck chap? You're okay now... You're okay now.' I try tae sound assured, rubbing his back and shooders but I've never seen a bodie look this scared or defeated. Never once.

4. tEaTiMe

Eventually, away from the others, Douglas breaks his silence and confides in me the events that occurred while he was busy procuring brussel sproots:

'Leighton, I'm in big trouble.'

We're sat consuming an exquisite (and much needed) Cognac in the enduringly-dusty, antiquated study. He's pleading: 


'You have to listen to me very carefully and I swear that every single word I relay is the gospel truth. Please believe me.'


'Of course ah fuckin' will Doug, Jesus. You've been ay the bunemaist order tae me since I've known ye. Like a brair ma friend and ah'd never doubt yer word oan anything. What's occurred laddie? Aam behauden to ye - you know that. Aam always here for ye, ken?'


Douglas closes his eyes for a juncture that goes oan fae far too long and then he starts talking: 


'When I arrived at the market everything seemed as charmingly agreeable as usual. I strolled past the jewellery rotunda and exchanged the obligatory jolly prattle with Derrick - is it Derrick? Oh you know the chap I mean? Portly fellow who runs the Frogmore Farm Shop stall - him with the auburn sideburns and that radio-mic thingy?'


'Ah, ye mean Barry,' ah laugh. Huge ginger chops oan the side ay his heed!'


'Yes indeed, that's the chap. A good fellow - supplies us with prime cuts of venison when the occasion demands. Well anyway, we exchanged a few pleasantries and he teased me a little about this evening's events and whether Geraldine was attending and then on I pottered to the fruit and vegetable stall.

And that's when things took, well, something of a turn.'


'A turn?' ah offer, puzzled. 


Then he drops this oan me:


'As I turned the corner, between the mobile phone stall and that curious New Age trinket stand, a tall shadowy figure of a man clattered straight into me with the most forceful of intent. I almost crumpled to the cobblestones. I promise you, it was nothing like an accident. This peculiar individual unsettled me of the like I've never experienced before. There was just something wrong about him, very wrong. I couldn't really discern the features as his face was obscured, cloaked beneath this long inky-black capuche. A vague rasping sound oozed from his mouth in my direction and my eyes were momentarily dazzled by the glint of what I was certain was some kind of blade he was carrying that glistened in the sunlight. I was overcome with nausea and momentarily, I found my breathing had ceased. I was in shock Leighton. My whole field of vision became a swimming blur of colours. I guessed that he must be one of these 'hoodies' that one's been reading about, hell-bent on perpetrating their knife-crime, with no intent but to ruin.'


Ah interject, 'Look Dougie, this isn'ae a reason tae freak out. Chap, yee've been workin' far too har-'


'LISTEN TO ME LEIGHTON!' He's bellowing, shocking me intae silence fae the rest of his twisted tale:                        


'Listen to me carefully, please. You must take heed of what I tell you. I'm begging you.'

Ah just nod.

'Immediately I scurried away, veering and skewing before taking a couple of disconcerted wrong turns in an attempt to regain some vague level of composure before hurtling towards where the greens stall stood.


And there he was again.


This sinister, downright fucking malevolent looking hoodie was a mere foot away from where I'd stumbled to a halt. He was facing slightly away from me, in profile against the waxy moon. His stature was incredibly intimidating as he towered above the red and white striped canopy.


Then, very slowly, he rolled back the long hood from the concealed face and finally revealed his identity.


It was Death.


Death himself,' Dougie avows. 'As in the personification of death. It was the Grim Reaper, Leighton.'


Ma eyes widen. Has this cunt actually lost his fuckin' mind? Aul' Grim Reaps? I dinn'ae say shite though 'cos tears are rolling doon his cheeks and he's traversing precariously close tae the threshold of hyperventilation. This gadge clearly believes what he's saying:


'I stopped stone-cold in my tracks. I just couldn't move. Death was over seven feet tall and shrouded in a hooded cloak, scythe leaning against his shoulder, betwixt his upper left arm and ribcage. He was rummaging through a tray of what looked like spoiled peaches with his spindly skeletal fingers.

And then slowly, spine-freezingly, he turned towards me.' 


Dougie pauses briefly and fixes his eyes directly intae mine. Then he leans in at such close proximity that ah can blurrily smell the fear emanating from his very being:


'Death bestowed upon me the most threatening and peril-filled glare that I've ever been met with. I have no doubt that this icy stare will be the most poignant vision I'll ever have on this beautiful spinning sphere. And very very soon Leighton, and I'm certain of this, the last. This is the end. This is my demise and it's so terrifying. Oh God, that look was so devoid of mercy.

So grave. So full of menace.'


With this, ma dear friend begins tae weep ay the like that I've never heard from anyone before, be they man, woman or snared animal.


After a time, he coughs, then sobs: 

'I ran and ran and ran. I didn't think I was going to make it to the car...'


Finally, almost inaudibly, he croaks:


'Please tell Geraldine that I love her. I always have. I don't think I'm going to be afforded the opportunity.'

5. eArLy EvEnIng

Ah have tae concoct a plan. We cannae accept this kind ay fuckin' shite. Oaf ay any cunt. Jesus Fuckin' Chri -


And immediately a scheme is devising itself in ma heed.


Ah try tae shake Douglas intae some sort ay sense that all is far from lost:


'Now, listen tae me,' ah implore to him. 'Ye take ma Corsa and ye drive tae ma mam's hoose up in Edinburgh. An' ye fuckin' joyride it swift-style ye hear, like a methed-up ram raider. Ah ken it isn'ae an Aston Martin but it will fuckin' shift if ye hammer yer foot tae the floor. Ye wear ma clothes, ye drive ma car and ye get as far away from this latent ambush conspiracy as is humanly possible, okay? Ah'll call ahead and forewarn the aul' dear that you're on yer way and tae ready the spare room. Just get oot ay Hertfordshire, get oot ay England and get oot ay this fuckin' grisly, culling Mictlantecuhti anathema's path. If he's still doon at Bovingdon now, ah'll stall the cunt for as long as possible so's ye can skedaddle - 


QUICK TIME. MOVE YE DAFT CUNT!'


Following a brief embrace, the plan is in action.


Now it was just doon tae me to try and stonewall this hoodied Spectre ay Deeth type from sculling his way ower tae the fuckin' sticks oot here. And if possible, avoid getting intae a swedge wi' the bastard.

6. iNtO tHe AbYsS

As ah turn the key in the ignition of the V8, ah must admit, despite the bleakness ay the situation, ah have a wee moment of satisfaction at its moody purr before barrelling it doon the driveway and towards this bony atrophied Angel ay Abolishment amid the aubergines, asparagus and annihilation.

On arrival at the market, ah hotfoot it past Barry's amplified jocular abuse emanating from the butcher's stall with a holler ay 'Ginger cunt!' Then ah skid roond the New Age bullshite stand, tearin' dreamcatchers an' medicine wheels with me in ma wake as ah belt towards the fruit and ve-


CRUNCH!


He wasn'ae sifting through the onions any more. Or the okra. 


Ah smashed reet intae the Demon ay Doom's emaciated frame in front ay the mobile phone stall. In a bedeviled effort, he'd been prodding his oversized distal phalanges unavailingly at the unforgiving keypad of the latest BlackBerry before ah almost upended the bastard.


Beneath an ominously purple crepuscular sky, Deeth glowered at me, rouge-drenched and rusty scythe raised high above his cowled cranium. He hissed:


'Just what in the Hell happens to be your boggle little man?'


Suddenly ah got brave:


'Now you listen tae me Mr Reaper 'cos aam not gonnae take shite oaf ay any cunt, ye got that? And especially not oaf ay gadges that fuck with ma friends, be they human or sentient entities. The perpetrators ah mean, not ma mates, obviously.'


This wicked and Godless Santa Muerte hunched doon towards me, belched a blasé yawn intae ma face an' sneered:


'I'm afraid I don't really follow, Leighton. And frankly, as uninterested as I already am, I happen to be doing my shopping and would prefer not to be disturbed, so if you would just kindly shuffle off this er...' 


Danse Macabre's choreographer didn't bother to finish the sentence as he gestured vaguely towards the direction from which ah'd arrived. He surreptitiously slipped the phone he'd been casting an empty eye socket over into his Sainsbury's Bag for Life before beginning tae glide away.

'FUCK YER SHOPPING!' ah roared belligerently. Ma voice was splinterin'. 'Ma best friend was doon at this here market this afternoon daein' HIS shoppin' and ye took it upon yourself tae ruin his fuckin' life, what with shooting ill-boding and fuckin' menace-filled glares at him. He's terror-stricken now - convinced that his existence must be over.'


A look ay confusion briefly blackened Deeth's barren grimace and then he raised his left supraorbital foramen, stuttered and then scorned:


'Meh..? Menacing..?' He slowly shook his bony dome. 'Cretins. That was nothing like a menacing stare you pair of simple fleshwastes. 

What that was, was simply an expression of surprise.'


'Surprise?' Ah shuddered.


'Yes - shock, amazement, etc. Surprise,' he hollowly breathed back.


Ah was confused: 

'But..? Why..? Why were ye, surprised? I don't get it.' It was about aw ah had left.

Then the revelation:


'I was surprised Master Leighton, because the very last person I was expecting to stumble into whilst shopping in a Hertfordshire marketplace this afternoon was your snivelling friend Mr Tempest-Sixsmith as I have an imperative appointment booked with him for later tonight...

Three hundred miles away in an Edinburgh tenement.'

And with that he was gone.

In the Future when All’s Well

Or

An overly contrived, complex and confusing scrawling pertaining to the mysteries of the universe, time-travel, mathematics, folk legends and why my life is getting shiter by the day.

Nuclear physicists are trying to unlock the origins of the universe and the Big Bang Theory by smashing together proton beams in the monstrous structure known as the Large Hadron Collider in the world’s biggest ever science experiment. Not sure it really needs that pre-fix with its 17 mile tunnel buried 300 feet beneath the surface on the borders of Switzerland and France. The biggest mystery lies in the origin of mass in the universe. Our current best theory includes a mechanism for generating the masses for all the particles in the universe called the Higgs mechanism. The holy-grail of these experiments is the search for the predicted existence of the Higgs Boson particle.

This is where things get weird. Some scientists have gone on record as saying that this enigmatic particle will never be found because it will come back to sabotage the past to keep itself from being discovered – it will literally usher space gremlins into the LHC’s mechanisms for a spanner-throwing bonanza and bring this beast to a grinding, shuddering halt. The machine has already spluttered into inaction once taking 14 months to get it up and running again.

A similar thing has been occurring in my own life. I’m not sure the perfect future that I envisaged from an early age can ever be achieved either. A strange intangible force has been busy sabotaging my own destiny as the Higgs Boson particle could be sabotaging the past for reasons as yet beyond our understanding.

As a young kid (of 9 or 10 years old), when I wasn’t poring over copies of 2000 AD or playing Uridium on my ZX Spectrum I was prophesizing about the future. I could see it all mapped out before me in inexplicable but vivid visions that were accurate to the point of blinking at the flickering shadows of my future actress wife’s form playfully dancing across the plaster of our boudoir’s candle-lit walls…

…She is correcting the slant of an incredibly detailed landscape painting (probably one of mine, although she’s wonderfully talented too) before slipping off her lacey white neglige as she slides between the satin sheets of our four-poster bed. The Rocky XIII soundtrack plays in the background. Posters of Winona Ryder and Yoda are somehow acceptably pinned to the surrounding walls. This is the future, the year 2000 and we are adults. Why would she be anywhere other than here in this beautifully secluded detached house of a movie writer/director who had even put in a few critically acclaimed cameos in his own films that had left the Hollywood establishment puzzling as to why he didn’t play the lead roles too? She is beautiful, blonde…

…for a while. Then her hair became sleek, black and she stopped being an actress and became a singer/songwriter who played guitar.

Although this metamorphosing girl undoubtedly loved me unrequitedly for some reason she never really uttered ‘owt. This didn’t seem to be a problem. She was effortlessly graceful as she flounced about the place.

Bear with me a second, this is getting slightly confusing. I’m now talking in the past tense about a perceived future that was dreamt up long ago but is apparently now a history that never occurred. Sheesh.

Er, anyway, I guess then we made love (or I fumbled under the Star Wars duvet cover with a copy of the Freeman's catalogue and a torch or something).

Of course, the futuristic year 2000 came, went and is now so passé that we can guffaw at its ludicrous video games, plod–rock nonsense, stupid candles and sleek black-haired, guitar-strumming nimbies with the knowledge that this would have been an awful future for all concerned. Albeit, mainly because of the atrocious music.

And this is where my own physics and mathematical equations come into things:

The thing is, there’s a point I believe according to my extensive deductions, where ‘the amazing possibilities for the future become outweighed by the stupid see-saw of time-passed, plus self-preservation instincts, divided by crushingly random unfair disappointment, multiplied by thoughtful wishes about tomorrow, divided by being abjectly realistic finally, that equals the dreamt-of perfect destiny impossible’. 

Or, more clearly:

(S.S.S.O.T.P. + S-P.I /

[C.R.U.D. * T.W.A.T. / B.A.R.F.]

~(P.F.T.F)

= 0.0000%

How awful.

I wonder if this is true for everyone. There’s probably not even a particularly memorable incident that pushes you beyond the point of never achieving your dreams. It might just be as humdrum as an instance where both of the local shops within slipper-venturing distance have run out of Wispas. It doesn’t seem a big deal as you trudge back home (cursing the laughing kids in the playground near to your house) but you’ve just tipped the scales beyond recuperation. Because of this minor disappointment you can’t be bothered to stop and answer that random questionnaire thrust into your face that would have seen you invited onto Gok Wan’s How To Look Good Naked. Subsequently, you’ll never meet that camera operator from the show who thought your bravery was second only to the amount of weight you’d lost in four weeks and proposed marriage live-on-air.

And you’ll never skid on that discarded lottery-winning ticket, breaking your nose in the process - it can’t all be good, c’mon. You can afford to get that shit fixed.

Oh, and you’ll pile those pounds (that you never lost) back on.

I think I might have tipped the scales. I hope not. I just kicked the same drink over for the second time. The signs aren’t good. And I had a dream last night…

...The candles fizz out. The painting on the wall looks like Munch’s The Scream but I’m sure it’s me standing on the bridge. The windows are open and in the moonlight this actress/singer wife girl thingy appears to have started to turn gingery-grey and grow fangs. There are strange pointed knobbles protruding down her exposed spine as she clambers over the fag-burnt bed covers drooling. I’m sure I can see horns in the shadows, and a tail. I think she’s the hag from a myth that we were told as children that stalked Eastfield Park - the Grey Lady who could be summoned from the stone statue in the circle of trees. And she’s waited all these years just for me. Shit...

Higgs Boson? What a rubbish name for a potential god particle with time-travelling abilities and a mischievous sense of the saboteur.

What do you mean this is a ridiculously tenuous analogy?

Here’s to the future when all’s well.

Halloween and why God Ain't all That

“Are we right to encourage our children to gamble with evil?” 

shrieked the headline of a double page article in the Chronicle & Echo on October 31, “even in a light-hearted event?” 

Intriguing fodder for thought from the clergy you might muse? But frankly it isn't. It's just stupid.

Included within this spurious diatribe festered some of the most fascinating yet risible statements, I’ve had both the joy and misfortune of spluttering my way through for, ooh, at least two days, (the astonishing autocratic and misleading untruths peddled by Alan Johnson and Gordon Brown regarding the reasons for sacking Bristol University's head of Psychopharmacology, Professor David Nutt, exemplified a complete knee-jerk contempt for scientific reasoning and the notion of soberly weighing-up evidence). 

Try this for size.

The Chronicle confidently claims that this is the burning question of the week. Said metaphysical quandary has apparently been giving Moulton Parish Church’s Reverend Peter Breckwoldt sleepless nights clutching his crucifix white-knuckled or cuddling a furry hot water bottle glugging away inside with steaming hot holy water right up to its rubbery screw-top, poor fellow.

EVIL

Gamble... Hmm... With evi-

Sorry, did he just say gamble with evil? Regarding Halloween?

I’d never considered this before for some reason. It had never once occurred, even for a fleeting moment, the myriad of demons or wraiths that could be involuntarily summoned because of a humble game of apple bobbing. Can you dare to envisage the armies of warlocks or shape-shifters that might use the simple carving of a pumpkin as some kind of gateway into our world before unleashing their pernicious fury? How about those beasts and behemoths that could manifest their physical being into our reality just because some devil-may-care teenager decides to buy a Dracula cape from Toys ‘R’ Us?

This is terrifying stuff.

Although, having said that, with a nanosecond of consideration, I’m not sure I quite understand where either the gambling or the evil enter into the equation?
 
It appears our plucky Reverend is precisely the kind of jamfool who believes that the tumbler's erratic waddling movement across a Ouija board isn’t down to your hilarious prankster mate Jeremy.

Or me.

SHAMELESS TWADDLE

The church has apparently been busily distributing leaflets to parishioners asking them to consider their responsibilities as parents when it comes to Halloween. Or roughly translated, trying to emotionally play on the vulnerabilities of people who have already been so indoctrinated that they struggle to peer beyond this shameless twaddle. What a waste of precious pamphlet material - they could have been pizza menus.

According to the leaflet: “Concentrating on evil brings fear to the impressionable young minds. For some it is upsetting and causes nightmares. This is often underestimated.”

Er, (snort) kind of (cough), 'scuse me - PTOOEY! - a little like teaching children that if they don’t live a God-fearing, altruistic, guilt-free existence then unfortunately it’s an eternity stretched agonisingly across the lake of fire while a particular horned Prince of Darkness gores excruciatingly at their nether-regions until the end of time. Which incidentally, never, ever, ever, ever ends.

WoAhAhAhAhAhAaHaAhAaHaA - cue flash of lightning...

zIiGgZzZzlAaAsH!

I remember thinking that I was going to burn in infinite torment shortly after discovering the wicked art of whacking-off. And by God, if as an adolescent you started to harbour any uncouth feelings of attraction towards persons of the same sex as yourself then forget the good deeds my son, it’s eternal damnation no matter what. Even if you saved forty-nine piping priests from a burning bazaar and perished rescuing the fiftieth.

This painful drivel continues: “Christians believe that evil is a real but defeated power. Halloween, however, is about evil triumphant, where it is in the ascendant and is given too much importance. For Christians, Halloween is a distortion of reality. It may also give children a false sense of the power of evil.” 

Holy shit. 

BRASS BOLLOCKED BUFFOON

Forgive me for taking the liberty of informing this feckless outmoded dunderhead that evil is not a hairy, fanged, four-legged phantom; neither is it an unmentionable, stench-ridden monstrosity kept shackled in the attic; and it ain't a bloodcurdling, shadowy miscreation that descends upon unsuspecting wretches who indulge in the odd seasonal pumpkin soup-slurping session, engulfing them in a tornado of cannibalistic zombie dust.

And it most certainly is not defeated.

Here’s what evil is:

Evil is the Islamic extremist who screeches, ‘Allahu Akbar' seconds before detonating his/her bomb-vest, indiscriminately slaughtering whichever innocent victims happen to be standing nearby. Evil is the calculating fiend who swipes a young girl off the street at a bus stop and bundles her into the back of his transit van, only for her to surface again years later as a pile of bones next to a motorway. Evil is the priest who abuses the children left in his trust and destroys their innocence and subsequently their lives. Evil is a former Hitler Youth Pope who staunchly opposes poverty-stricken Africans or Brazilians or Filipinos from using condoms in the midst of an apocalyptic AIDS pandemic. 

Evil is a stealthy Shaolin wasp lurking in your trackie b’s.

Ultimately, evil is human. 

It is homo sapien – a man or a woman. It is a bipedal, walking, talking, thinking, conscious and sadistic being with no empathy, no sympathy and no remorse. Evil is a person, or persons.

Kids know full well that witches and vampires and ogres and werewolves don't exist because this is regularly pointed out to them. What confuses things is when a bunch of adults tell them with stony-faced sincerity that there is a place called Hell where the landlord is a cloven-hoofed, horned sadist who doesn’t scrimp on the heating.

If you really want to see what strange forms evil can take then you need look no further than the Reverend Peter Breckwoldt himself and his ridiculous superstitious, hypocritical, baseless, mystical, humourless bunkum. I’d cast a horrible spell on this boneheaded, blithering bumblespanner if only such a thing existed. And he’s got a stupid nefarious name with letters that shouldn’t go together. I say don your cape and witches hat and cast this aberration asunder.

Praise the fucking lord for Satan.

666

666.

A Tiny Shift of Perspective

Okay, so earlier while idly trying to think of a puntastical pearl of gibberishness to leave on a friend's Facebook wall, Sky News droned away in the background and I vaguely caught the tail-end of a bulletin reporting that the highest ranking member of the British millitary so far had been killed in the war in Afghanistan. For some reason this caught my attention.


I half-consciously waited for it to roll round again as I struggled with too many verbs playing online Scrabble.

Now I say for some reason this caught my attention, not because I don't care and certainly not because I'm yet another shallow, self-centered SpaceBooker tweeting in the breeze. I mean fuck, I've followed world news and (our) current affairs relatively closely since 9/11, (Beeb, Al-J, Sky, Indie, Sun, P.Eye, Viz etc).

And for two reasons. The first being that when I watched the footage unfolding of the people jumping from the burning towers it occurred to me that I had no idea what could possibly drive anyone to want to cause that much pain and suffering and I had to find out. The second being that I'd realised that the only thing I'd ever been any good at was writing (apart from wasting time) and with life going nowhere, maybe I should think about a career in journalism. And follow the news.

I don't have a career in journalism - so merely a thruppence-worth.

Oh, and partly because of my philanthropic love of all god's children, as long as they don't just stop suddenly, brandishing a shopping trolley in supermarket aisles (apparently death by frozen chicken-bludgeoning is still an illegal on-the-spot punishment).

I've just realised that my momentary genuine pangs of heartfelt sorrow are becoming increasingly more and more fleeting. They are diminishing in their momentariness.

Yes, I think I delved deeply into the motives behind the 9/11 atrocity and felt that although I was an ill-educated oik, I had a vaguely even-handed understanding of how the situation unfolded - the whys, whats, wheres and yawns etc. We're talking pissed-up politcal pub-chat authority here not a professor standard philosophical lecture. We're talking breeze.

Still, I felt that I should face the realities of what was actually going on.

From the comfort of my sitting room.

When Bush and Blair invaded Iraq I knew this was a bad idea as did hundreds of thousands of others for obvious reasons and the aftermath proved to be more horrific than we could have ever imagined. Worse than that bad microdot trip locked in a beehive -we've been through too much together.

But this soldier's death bothered me. I mean, I watched the Baghdad skyline being bombed into obliteration on BBC News (eating Brie probably). I watched Daniel Pearl with a gun held to his head (as I picked the pepperoni off someone else's cold pizza at 4am). I watched Saddam Hussein hang (with Daft Punk playing in one ear whilst texting some cretin). I saw the online beheading of Ken Bigley. It was one of the most terrible things I've ever seen, especially following such depraved and harrowing abuse.

The beheading of American businessman Nick Berg was somehow worse.

How can it be possible to try and quantify distinctions between such terrible acts? I found that I could. And so could most of my friends. We're not sickos or deviants or vouyeurs or stalkers - most of them are well-educated, successful, well-rounded human beings (myself excluded). So what has become of us?

These things affected me deeply I'd thought. I'd surely considered all the implications (imaginable) of what this meant to the families involved. I'd thought about the longevity of their lives and how they'd wake up every morning for eternity knowing that their true love was slowly slaughtered with the worst fear already in their heart. I'd thought how they could never be happy again. I'd felt the same watching documentaries about serial killers and their victims or the families and survivors of natural tragedies or homelessness or ill-treatment of the elderly or the disabled or prostitution or Brookside.

My god, to know your child was raped and killed by some deranged, toothless zero with one eye on dip, the other on dazzle. I'd commit suicide, wouldn't you? To watch your brother slowly eaten to death by Motor Neurone Disease? To find the cadavar of the daughter who frequently stole from you, slumped, with needle still in hand in her bedroom (and to realise the last thing she saw on Earth was Big Brother 2009 Live Streaming).

I've thought about the pain these people have suffered and got to the point where my sympathy has become, er, robotic? On September 11 I lay awake for most of the night turning events over in my mind. On 7/7 I already felt that this was coming our way and was ready to be appalled and furious. I was also phoning round friends in London to check they weren't in a zillion pieces. In no particular order, I took on board the London/Madrid bombings, the Beslan school-siege, the Mumbai attacks, the war in Lebanon, Cho Seung-Hui's shooting-up of a high school, the invasion of Gaza, the death of Michael Jackson, the genocide in Darfur, the Bus Stalker Killer, the grisly assassination of Neda.

And the sad news that Margaret Thatcher had broken her arm.

And each time I swear I've truly felt it. And each time the encapsulation of all of the implications into emotion has got smaller, the time dwelt on them shorter. It's all there. Just micro-registered these days. Again not because I don't care but because I think I know all there is to know about these things and my brain has found a more efficient way to deal with them.

So this soldier...

The highest ranking British soldier to be killed in action since 1982's Falklands War. I did the obligatory gulp and cursory heartfelt ache - still half thinking about some stupid pun to daub on my mate's virtual wall and then realised that for the Taliban this was a major coup. I've read of the killing of so many Taliban leaders and thought nothing of it other than that the army are partially succeeding in their mission. For the Taliban this a major scalp that will envigour their troops. This is the most complicated strategy game imaginable and with the most appalling of consequences. And it appears to still be in its spawning stages. The strategy is all we really hear about in the news but this overlooks the realities.

For the first time ever I saw things from their side (things they consider to be positive), not because I sympathised with them but because I was angry. Like watching the German fans celebrate when they've beaten England on penalties. You kind of want to get into their heads just for a nanosecond to try and understand their inexplicable joy. Like looking through the ski-mask eyeholes of a horror-movie serial killer armed with a nailgun, stalking through the incubater ward in a hospital. Or the alien race that invades our planet and wants to exterminate us all. Hmm, how would I do it? I thought I'd applied this empathetic logic to our real life war and understood its implications - I certainly had regarding the 9/11 jumpers. I've simply forgotten. With just a tiny shift of perspective I realise I don't know everything at all. In fact I don't really know anything. My emotions have logged-off. This is so complex and motley that there are angles I've never even considered.

I actually know nothing.

I am just another shallow SpaceBooker twatting utter breeze. The empathy that I thought was sincere is merely mechanical. Nearly everyone I know has watched at least one of the beheading videos or has an opinion on Gaza or Somalia or Hollyoaks. Far too many appear to have an encyclopeadic knowledge of serial killers. They all probably watched these atrocities for the same reasons as me. An interest in the unjustly morbid or a feeling of self-righteousness. And we've all become immune.

There, I've said it.

We've watched so many horrors unfolding live-on-air that we think we know all there is to know about human suffering and tragedy so we deal with it as we would a lack of any donut peaches in Morrisons' fruit aisle.

I can't remember the last time I actually read an article in a newspaper about a soldier being killed in Afghanistan. I've registered each and every headline but I haven't actually read them. What was I going to read? Soldier killed on foot patrol? Roadside bomb? Family informed? Cue momentary sorrow. I knew it all already.

My god. We are the automaton generation. We function with C3P0-like esoteric, robotic emotion. This is scary.

So anyway, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe was commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards. The 1,000 troops under his command are deployed in Lashkar Gah and the surrounding areas in Helmand province. He was 39 years old and married with two daughters. He was also a keen polo player. An improvised explosive device exploded under his BvS 10 Viking armoured vehicle. He was killed instantly and his murder will rank highly on the Taliban's hit-list. Killed alongside him was Trooper Joshua Hammond of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. Joshua was 18 years old and his death will be seen as a tactical success by the Taliban. So which one ranks more importantly? Well obviously neither, because both, when you actually look closely and don't flip the pages, are encircled by an incredibly complicated spiral of sorrow. The tactical strategies no longer come into the equation.

Just some young dad dude or a funny teenager that leave everything empty for those closest to them when they're not there any more. Hey, I forgot to care too.

Click. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

An Interview with Robert John Godfrey of The Enid

Having been assigned the job of interviewing Robert John Godfrey, I was filled with a sense of excitement and anticipation. I knew that The Lodge Recording Studio was his baby and I also knew that he was the founding member and keyboard maestro behind legendary eclectic prog-rockers The Enid, but not a great deal about the man himself. I had vague visions of a reclusive Syd Barrett type - mysterious, aloof, wizard-like. I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say about the town, tunes and trends. He did not disappoint.

On arrival, I was lead to a studio room upstairs above The Lodge where I found Robert playing a beautiful ebony grand piano that looked like it had been fashioned from Kubrick's monolith. It was the perfect start.

He indicated for me to sit down, and before I'd really finished asking my first question about his upbringing, he very succinctly summed up twenty years or so in about twenty seconds:

'I was born in a castle and brought up by Indian servants. I came from a rich, aristocratic background of the late 40s/early 50s. I er, went to boarding school. Fucked up there. Was put into care. Learnt to play the piano. Went to the Royal College Of Music to learn to be a concert pianist... I then discovered acid and The Beatles.' Phew.

By the age of fifteen he had already performed the Brahms concerto. At RCOM he went on to establish a close relationship with German composer Hans Werner Henze, Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten, whilst studying under concert pianist Malcolm Binns. Next, he worked with Barclay James Harvest after hearing them at the Roundhouse in London:

'I was with them for two years and that's where I learnt everything about recording (which is still relevant today) at Abbey Road Studios, where I did two albums with Pink Floyd producer Norman Smith - with whom I went on to have a long association with.'

The Enid was born in June 1973 and they released their debut album 'In The Region Of Summer Stars' on EMI in 1976. They've been described as the biggest cult band in Europe; banned by Glastonbury; investigated by MI5; and dubbed leftists and anarchists.

More recently, Time Out described them as 'The Orb meets Pink Floyd meets The Berlin Philarmonic.' The fatty-boombatty fraternity are twitching with exitement. These are the kind of comments that you yearn for as a group. A mythology that eventually writes itself. The band have notched up several albums and line-up changes since, but throughout their entire history Robert John Godfrey has remained the focal point:

'I formed The Enid in '73, which was the ragtag of the remnants of my care-home. When it closed I thought right, I'm a musician, let's have a band. So I formed the band with the lads there. We hadn't got homes to go to and had to do something with our lives. And I've been doing that one way or another ever since.' They intend to get back out onto the concert platform very soon.

The Enid currently features Robert, original drummer David Storey and a crop of younger musicians. They have a record deal with the Gerald Palmer Organisation (responsible for Spiritualized).

One of Robert's other passions is The Lodge Recording Studio on Abington Square in Northampton, which he runs with Chief Engineer Max Read. It offers excellent facilities, with the latest technology and digital recording techniques sat neatly beside classic equipment. The studio was moved to Northampton in 1993 after being relocated from the outskirts of the town. It was originally established in the Suffolk countryside in 1979 and seen artists ranging from Kim Wilde to New Model Army to Paradise Lost pass through its soundproof doors (plus local bands including The Departure, Orwell Music, Cave, et al).

Current residents in the living quarters of The Lodge are upcoming local band The Operatives, and they're causing more than a ripple of excitement in the local music scene at the moment. Robert's praise for the recent Seen Magazine feature band couldn't be higher:

'They came into our lives about five years ago, really as unmanageables. They were chaotic but brilliantly gifted. They have the spirit of Frank Zappa, but from a punky-indie background, with all the imaginative stuff. They need the freedom to develop. They've almost finished recording their first album... They will be massive.'

Robert inspires confidence. It was good to hear such a candid and articulate speaker on issues ranging from his own fascinating past to his in-depth knowledge of the town's history (just not enough room to print it all here), but he speaks most passionately about music and the scene in Northampton:

'I've got to the point now where I believe that this town is bloody brimming with talent but there's absolutely no interfacing whatsoever with the music industry. The town needs a place like The Square in Harlow, which is council-run. They've got a video suite, a recording studio and can stage high profile bands. We've got nothing like that in this town and it's a great pity. I want to do something about it... I would like to send a message to the musical community of Northampton to have more self-belief. There's a cracking potential in this town and it's really happening now.'


I insist you check out more @ http://www.theenid.com/ and http://www.lodgerecording.co.uk/

A Valentine's Day Tale

"Last night...


I swiftly had to apply my instinctive twinkle-toed tailstop braking system almost immediately after settling into the rhythmic hippety-hop style of walk that I'd naturally adopted following the first near-fatal slip on the treacherous, lumpy ice. I was almost certain that there used to be a semblance of pavement underfoot here somewhere. Seriously, where the fuckin' hell were the gritters during (yawn) yet another predicted 'coldest winter flap for several zillion aeons?' I mean, did Monsieur Nostradamus not foretell this shit centuries ago? 

Er, anyway, I was apprehensive and keyed up, and for good reason. I was on my way to meet my new flame Fiona you see, and pretty damn fine she was too, my friend - all ash-blonde ringlets and a feisty aura of mystery.

I contemplated getting a bus into town and then decided it would probably be quicker to watch a slow-motion replay of the sedated three-toed sloths' sports day sack race. Fuck it, it was only a couple of miles, and a damn site warmer on the move. It's. All. Good.

I mean, Jesus, why does the entire country have to grind to a halt because of a bit of stupid snow? Put on some decent footwear. Simple.

Actually, I was glad I'd rung work earlier to say that I couldn't make it into the office because the 'car's going nowhere.'  Fuck it man, loads of people did and I live four miles away at least.

I needed to stop at an Offie to grab a couple of bottles of wine on the way to her house. I hadn't been there before and we'd only been out two or three times so far - you know the kind of thing: got off with each other at Sombrero-Steve's house party on the stairs (lush); went for a Mexican (horrifically hot); quaffed a few ciders, Sambucas and wound up fucking awkwardly in my hallway. And the kitchen.

I think I passed out in the bedroom. I can't quite remember the last bit.

Anyhow, I s'pose potentially, you could have said that rather a lot was riding on last night, if you know what I mean?

For starters, it just happened to be Valentine's Day evening. Friendly Fires were frenetically cow-belling their way into my eardrums like a jittery jackhammer, courtesy of my fancy new Skullcandy G.I. headphones, and hey, were these not the moments to be cherished if you own anything resembling a fully-functioning soul?

So I bimbled and then I skidded my way down the Kettering Road towards a nervy but nevertheless intoxicating, frost-thawing feast. I couldn't quite remember her surname, to my shame, something like Atherton or Addlestone (or was that the sweet cider we were drinking last week?) Didn't matter, I was sure there'd be some old letters or a card lying around somewhere to scan so I could indelibly etch it on my brain forever. She seemed to be really fucking cool and beautiful, so fuck minor points. I'd seen her bounding energetically around the tired-old haunts for a while now, spraffing to loads of cool people I knew, so it was always only a matter of time before our paths properly crossed - she was obviously into the same things as me.

Shit, she's gorgeous, intelligent (I see her writing sometimes), into music (I think she sings or plays something), vegetarian, into holistic remedies (okay, slight alarm-bells ringing) but undoubtedly up for the right royal rumpus and maybe, most importantly of all, at that moment was cooking some kind of moussaka with ricotta topping(?) Just for us.

'Tings be lookin' sweet ma frien', y'understand me? 'Ear 'dis now. Spin out 'Trampton Town. B-B-buzzin'. C-comin' at'cha. Trillion mile a nanosecond, get me? All da way from da Birchfield Ruff-up, right up to er, whatever that road's called next to the Bradders. You know the one I mean?

Following a brief, but harrowing, labyrinthine platform game-style conga round Mickey's to the Blossom Hill section (situated somehow impenetrably close to the front door) I stepped back outside into the Siberian slush. And then -

A snowball shattered in my face, with a generous proportion of it ending up in my mouth. The momentary shock and flash of pain was enough to make me want to cry like a girl, without the added surprise of an assault on my sensitive-teeth's sensibilities, just for that ferociously unexpected aftershock. Cunt.

Was a fucking good shot too - I kinda saw him out my peripheries I think, but hey, I might be lying. Anyway he fuckin' ran away laughing. And somehow clung to the ice like a sticky-toed winter gecko.

Fuck him. I couldn't chase him. I was struggling to walk.

But walk on I did, using my scarf to wipe my frozen fizzog. And then just before I got to cleaning my steamed-up glasses, hoopla, I slipped - almost flipping upside-down temporarily - before landing with a splash on my coccyx. I managed to smash one of the bottles of red during this whole sorry episode and the carpet of slush was starting to look like a murder scene from Fargo. I was partially lying in some strewn bin-bags, thankfully head-end to the good, i.e., on them and a little bit in some weird shit that I wasn't sure I could ascertain the origin of.

I hadn't worn decent shoes.

Naturally, I scrambled to my feet with an expression of utter indifference to any agonising pain I may or may not have been enduring and scanned the horizon to see if anyone witnessed my fumblings. Lots did. But more importantly did anyone I actually know observe this shit? Don't think so. So, small mercies.

Then I briefly mused outrageously about compensation.

I was pretty much sopping all over my arse from Claret which was seeping into the snow and facing an unavoidable buttock-inspection from the girl I really felt for - when she'd said a full-bodied red, I ain't particularly sure that's what she'd meant. Oh, fuck it, I thought - focus on my batty and laugh. Might as well get it over and done with.

All was by no means totally lost. It's surely in my unpredictable and exciting rock n' roll nature to turn the fuck up, late, with a tale, even if I do look like a twat.

So I did.

After punching the head off a snowman in a stranger's front garden and hurting my wrist.

I was starting to like the way Fiona and I were getting along in those first, sweet, tentative steps of our (ok, my imagined) relationship, and when I arrived...

Obviously, I lied about everything that had happened on the way - some big geezers, dunno, kind of just walked into it, weren't bothered about me, was lucky really, etc, and the evening unraveled thus.

She was listening to Razorlight? Maybe she'd just put something kind of neutral on that she thought wouldn't offend my ears before fervently questioning me about what I was into - I mean, I don't want to admit this shit, but I do own the first two Coldplay albums. I know.

I'd also brought along the DVD of The Wrestler to watch. I hadn't recommended it, she had. Apparently she knows the names of lots of wrestling holds or something. Might be interesting I thought?

Anyway, the DVD wouldn't play for some reason (probably me fucking things up when I'd burnt it earlier) and so we settled for watching M. Night Shyamalan's Signs from her collection. She served munch about an hour or so into the film, and shortly after crunching my way through the sixth or seventh arduous forkfull of lord-fuckin'-knows-what (I'm certain it should have been tender and not like Joan of Arc's charred chinbone) it dawned on me that the film we were watching was complete toss. The main flaw in the technologically-advanced, galaxy-vaulting, world-conquering aliens' plans was to somehow overlook their significant achillies' heel - instantaneous death if exposed to water, so er, probably best to avoid this type of planet to attack? They're probably not even that common. Anyway, the aliens didn't, they chose Earth to invade.

At almost that exact second she turned to me, laughed, and said:

'This food's disgusting isn't it?'

She was not wrong.

'Hey, I'm a crap cook too,' I offered, pushing away the offensive plate.

And then it was funny.

She slapped her forehead and then properly laughed:

'This film's fucking shite as well isn't it?'

She zapped the TV. And then, despite my freezing, rouge-drenched jeans, grazed hands, nauseated palatte and assaulted artistic senses we had a moment of perfection.

Pure laughter.

She kissed me, then she hugged me and then she said:

'Shall we split-up before we even begin?'

'Yeah,' I replied.

And on my merry way I jolly well trotted."