The Goth-Businessman Hybrid

There is a man a few tables away that has caught my attention. He is a flagrant violation of fashion, a delicate fusion of goth and businessman. Did I say delicate? When I say goth I mean the type of goth that is borderline punk rocker., not that I'm any expert in goth classification. His hair is a bizarre blow dried mop, half bouffant, half lemming, half Boris Johnson. Maybe I should have used thirds.

He is clad in a smart black suit, black shirt and black tie, relaxing in the lethargy of a lunchtime pint, apparently oblivious to the seismic upheaval going on in my mind. Stoical, a vacant face, eyes masked by huge dark sunglasses (you're indoors you idiot), he carries a dignified air but also looks little uncomfortable, probably because his clothes are SO DAMN TIGHT!

A stick insect would have struggled to fit into those trousers, his shirt is so stretched he nearly poked a passing diner in the eye with a nipple, his tie is so thin that a spider would have used it in his web, the knot of his tie is the size of a stunted pea, his shoes are so pointed that a jester would have mocked them.

I'd better stop, he's looking this way suspiciously and appears to be muttering, probably along the lines of I wish that damn knigget with a laptop would stop scrutinising me. He's not one of you guys is he?

I didn't wet myself (honest)

The day started brightly, a gorgeous Spring morning and I was in high spirits, probably because it is Friday. I thoroughly enjoyed my walk to the station. The sun was shining, the tide was high, the fishing boats were on their way out and the light was reflecting of the water in spectacular fashion. It would have been a photo moment if the cheap batteries I had bought from a newsagent hadn't died after barely 5 photos.

Dressed in my favourite white shirt, which had been expertly ironed by my wife (bless her little cotton socks), I was feeling rather dapper, debonair even. I love going to work feeling smart and professional, as opposed to looking like the cat dragged me in after finding me floundering in a muddy ditch.

Rather ironically I was chuckling to myself about Mr London Street's hilarious milk on crotch incident, which reminded me of my own toothpaste on crotch incident which occurred fairly recently.

I picked up a coffee from Cafe Nero on the way in. Sitting in the office I was just finishing the coffee, neck craned right back, when the stupid plastic lid popped right off. Time slowed right down, I heard the pop, a gurgle, and the rushing sound of coffee, the sound of doom if you like. It spilt all down my crisp white shirt, and in a feat of deadly marksmanship completely drenched my crotch.

I've spent the rest of the morning looking like a cat found me floundering in a muddy ditch, dragged me in, and then watched me piss myself.

Riled : Sagacity My Love, My Fair One, Where Are You?

As a rule I don't write about the news. This is because the moment I think of the word news my brain is immediately crushed with images of a desultory group of corrupt politicians, drunk nano-celebrities, jobless bankers, bivouacked activists and benefit thieves prancing about to tinny mobile phone music in a terrifying nightmarish eternity. But today I'll break my rule.

As you all know I'm not easily riled, very rarely does anything bother me, unless you count the majority of things my fellow humans do each day, old men jumping the bar queue and claiming they were first, people that dither at ATMs, anyone that has a 24 ring tone, but sometimes things really rile me.

Sonia Crabb (33) and her boyfriend Tony Junge (31), conned farmer David Cooper (51) in despicable fashion. My first assumption is that in order to do this they strapped their moral compasses and consciences to one of North Korea's failed rockets. My second assumption is that they flushed their copy of "How not to ruin someone's God-given life" down the toilet.

Sonia took advantage of Cooper's vulnerability, leading him on romantically with intent to exploit, and soon afterwards Crabb and Junge moved into Cooper's farmhouse, forcing Cooper to live in squalid conditions in a 'disused tack room', whatever that is.

They extracted from him £116,000 pounds in cash, spent £170,000 of his assets, forced him to transfer his house and land into their name, and lived in disgusting luxury while pushing him into a degrading existence.

Cooper died from diabetes, but was so malnourished when he died that he had symptoms of scurvy.

Crabb and Junge have now been jailed. You would think, given the fact that they conned him, fleeced him, forced him to live in degrading conditions and brought about his untimely death, that they would be given strict sentences.

You would think, given the fact that they violated his 'right to life' (article 2 Human Rights Act), subjected him to 'inhuman treatment' (article 3) and essentially 'slavery' (article 4), took away his 'right to liberty' (article 5) and all sorts of 'freedoms', that they would, perhaps, get life sentences. Given the sheer quantity of money they extorted from him you would think that that alone would be enough for some serious jail time.

You would think that any self-respecting judge with even a sub-average IQ, and even on a bad day when there was not enough milk in the fridge for his Cheerios and he had accidentally washed his balding pate with Listerine instead of shampoo, would pass a sentence that put them in for some proper time in the cooler. Right? You would think.

So how much time will this miserable pair of dweebs serve?

Crabb and Junge were jailed for 27 and 24 months respectively. I'll do the maths. That's two years for conning, fleecing and exploiting someone, contributing significantly towards their death and living in unearned luxury while their victim languishes in squalor, eventually dying malnourished and alone.

Does this rile you? I'd probably be sentenced for a longer term if I was caught shoplifting tweezers from Boots.

Knowing our justice system they'll probably be released in under 3 minutes for good behaviour.

[sources The Times, Metro and Daily Mail]

The Lobster Incident

Today I have the pleasure of announcing the second round of our exciting triangular guestival. I'm posting over at Show My Face, Cate is posting at More Mindless Rambling, and Blognut is posting here. Our task was to tell our own version of "The Lobster Incident". When you're done here head over to More Mindless Rambling and Show My Face. And now, I bring you Blognut...

So here I am guest-posting at Mo’s, ‘cause… well… he’s letting me and it seemed like a good idea to defend myself. See… we’ve got this incident to explain and I know that Mo’s version will be all, “it’s not my fault,” and Cate’s version of the story will be all, “well, it’s not my fault, either,” and the truth is that it was both their faults and I’m completely innocent in this story. So here’s what REALLY happened:

The Lobster Incident

I’ll never learn, will I? All my life I’ve heard, “There are some people that you can dress up, but you shouldn’t take them out.” Admittedly, that comment was directed at me most of the time, but its meaning never really sunk in… until dinner with Mo and Cate.

I was psyched. I didn’t even care where we went for dinner; I was just excited to go. Mo wanted lobster, and by ‘wanted’ I mean ‘would accept nothing less.’ Cate just wanted gin, and well, you know she brought her own, right? She also pulled along one of those old-lady-wheeled-shopping-cart things, stacked with little plastic storage bins from Target. I don’t know what was in there, but it rattled like pills and she was keeping an eye on that cart as though it contained the NOC list from Mission Impossible.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Mo slipped the host $20 to get us in without a reservation. Now I’m pretty sure that the restaurant had severe reservations to seating the three of us anywhere, but the $20 did the trick. We got ourselves a table right near the kitchen and there was plenty of room for Cate’s cart so it all worked well.

After waiting an eternity, a waitress finally came over to take our order. Now I admit, I may have inadvertently upset her, but it wasn’t my fault. This poor thing looked like she had fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. My horrified gasp was out before I could do anything about it. I covered it up with a fake choking incident, and I think she may have bought it. Mo’s reaction was a bit more transparent. He threw holy water on her and said something in Latin. (I ask you, was that nice?) And Cate, well, you know Cate. She looked at the waitress, then looked at me, then looked at the waitress, then looked at me again. When she finally found her words, she said the unthinkable. “Am I so drunk that I don’t remember punching her in the face?” The mood was set.

We ordered drinks; I had water, Mo and Cate split a barrel of wine. What? I didn’t drink! (Shut up! It’s MY story.) We ordered food; I asked for a salad, Mo asked for a family of lobsters, and Cate pulled a frozen entrée out of one of her plastic bins and asked the waitress to microwave it for her. That last request got us our first visit from the restaurant’s manager. He insisted that if Cate wanted a microwave TV dinner, she could eat at home. I was so proud of Cate for not punching him in the face as she calmly slurred that she has severe allergies, is on conflicting medications, and could only eat certain foods or she gets ‘irregular.’ After some negotiating, a virtual trip through Cate’s large intestine, and another one of Mo’s $20 bills, it was agreed that she could eat her own food.

While we waited an eternity for the food to arrive, we sang pirate songs at full voice. At the next table were 6 fighter pilots (in flight suits!) who joined in our fun, and the liquor flowed. (I stuck to my water.) (Stop it! I will not tolerate your insolence while I’m telling my story.) Several times the manager came over and asked us to keep it down or we would have to leave, but Mo was never going to leave that restaurant without his lobster.

This brings me to the lobster incident itself…

When the meal was brought to the table, the waitress dropped one of the lobsters in Mo’s lap. Somehow the fates conspired for one of the lobster’s claws to clamp down on the poor fella’s junk. Mo jumped up from the table, knocking Cate’s microwave entrée to the floor, and sending my salad flying through the air. Mo was a sight to behold! Here he was standing there, slightly drunk, howling in pain, with a lobster clamped to his crotch.

The manager came running over to the table to find out about the commotion and all he saw was Cate holding onto that lobster attached to Mo in a kinky sort of way, and Mo yelling, “Get it off, get it off!” While I tried to calmly explain the situation to the manager, Mo decided there was no hope and took his trousers off in the middle of the restaurant. I’m guessing it was laundry day at Mo’s house, or the guy just likes free-ballin’, but you know he was missing his undergarments, right?

Horrified diners began to point, women cried, most of the men looked on with disgust, and the fighter pilots cheered. Apparently that was all the manager could take because he wrapped Mo in a tablecloth and pushed all three of us out the door, throwing Cate’s cart out behind us.

Needless to say, we won’t be going back there. Needless to say, we wouldn’t even be allowed to walk by the place. Needless to say, Mo went home in a tablecloth toga with no pants and isn’t allowed to have dinner with Cate or me ever again.

Needless to say, none of this was my fault.

I Was NOT Wiggling

It was 3AM. We were in the twin room. My wife was in dreamland a few feet away, I was propped up on about seventeen pillows, snuffling like a pig. Nine hours on the road had done nothing for my cold. Knowing how irritating it can be sharing a room with a snuffling pig, squirming constantly to get comfortable, I had spent the past five hours diligently keeping still.

A cockerel crowed. At 3AM for goodness' sake. I could have done with a gun. My eyes wandered lazily around the room, the only possible weapon was my electric toothbrush. I could teach that half-wit cockerel a valuable lesson with an electric toothbrush.

Vroom, vroom, vroom!

#Squawk!#Peck!#

Vroom, vroom, vroom! Wuhahahahaha...

Unfortunately the damn thing was probably half a mile away. Uncomfortable, I shifted my position slightly.

"Stop wiggling, wiggling," snapped my wife, who was asleep and swears she doesn't remember this.

"What did you say?" I asked, knowing full well what she said but playing along.

"Wiggling!" she replied vehemently.

For the record I wasn't wiggling, and I certainly wasn't wiggling, at the very most I had conducted a half-wriggle.

I ignored her and focused on the cockerel. Maybe I could conjure up some flying tarpaulin (see last post), or better still a pack of wolves. Or even better, a motley croud of cruel children, armed with electric toothbrushes and peashooters.

Vroom, vroom, vroom! Pop! Thwack!

#Squawk!#Peck!#Flap!#Squawk!#Peck!#Flap!#

Wuhahahaha. I would make a great wizard.

The Suicide Pact

I'm sitting in a service station somewhere in the Midlands, guzzling Dr Pepper and coffee in a what can only be a suicide pact. If you read about a man whose bladder burst while driving up the M1 you know where to send the flowers.

My emotions are mixed. On the one hand the traffic is horrendous, I'm fighting an awful cold, and my car overheated on the M25. On the other hand, my mind is filled with delight and sweet aromas. Once again natural justice is following me wherever I go.

I was in the fast lane, travelling fast. Not too fast, mind, I was just within the limit. The car behind me was really irritating me. I could not go any faster, the car in front of me would not permit it, yet this lunatic was right up my backside. It is entirely possible that the driver was literally brainless, that a zombie had sucked it out through a straw while she was asleep last night. Or maybe she slipped on the kitchen floor this morning, jamming a teaspoon through her skull and into her brain. I'm not being nasty, I think I did see the glint of a teaspoon handle in my rear view mirror. One thing is certain, to drive that recklessly something was clearly wrong with her brain.

Anyway, she was pushing right up behind me so I gave in and her past, deciding to focus my anger on the zombie, or the teaspoon.

Out of nowhere a huge piece of tarpaulin hit her car and wrapped itself round one of her wing mirrors. Fortunately she kept control of the car, but I watched her pull over onto the hard shoulder to remove the tarpaulin.

Ah, the sweet joy of natural justice.

The Dead Dog

So anyway, I'm just back from the pub. Not drunk, mind you, as you can tell by my customary eloquence, just, well, just marginally merry from a couple of beers and a few hours of meaningless conversation.

The reason I'm shovelling drivel down your throat at 23:53 GMT is that this story warrants it. It happened to my mate's wife's girlfriend. So it's not as if it happened to the cousin of the man who lives next to the girl who walks the dog of the brother of my sister's hairdresser's hamster is it?

So my mate's wife's girlfriend had a dog. It was a large dog. I don't remember the breed but it was well advanced in age and had been slowly dying for the last year. Anyway, the poor thing passed away and this girl arranged to take the dead dog to her vet for disposal. I don't know anything about dog disposal, so I'm just gonna take this at face value. The vet was going to dispose of it, doing whatever vets do with dead dogs.

It being a large corpse, this girl was umming and arring about how to transport it across London to the vet's place. She ruled out using a bin liner, the last thing she wanted was the bag to rip and the dead dog to sprawl out into a busy street. That would not help her aspiring modelling career would it? In the end she opted for a sturdy holdall.

She reached the bottom of a staircase in the underground. A smartly dressed handsome young hunk approached her. "Need a hand with that?" he asked. She willingly obliged. The dog, dead as a dodo, was exceptionally heavy.

Halfway up the stairs the dashing young man turned to her. "My gosh this is heavy," he exclaimed, "what the hell is this?"

She panicked. The truth felt ugly. A pretty young girl dragging the rotting corpse of an old dog through London. "It's my boyfriend's DJ equipment," she lied.

When they reached the top of the stairs the man sprinted away, dragging his "loot" away and (I imagine) calculating the tidy profit he would make from it.

I like to imagine the look on his face as inspected his "loot" in the safety of his apartment. The profound state of dejection of a man who thought he was about to make a swift buck, but instead found himself in possession of a dead dog.

The Mentor at the Bank

With the current financial crisis and the recent G20 summit, where world leaders met to *cough cough* waste money being photographed in a pitiful spin exercise agree how to save the world (don't they need to save the cheerleader first?), I'm reminded of a prank I pulled with a friend at university. The link is pretty tenuous - the prank was at a bank.

At the time my friend, Ray, who later became my best man and one of my daughter's godparents, tended to wear a long, black, Matrix (leather) coat. One day we were on campus and I needed to go to the bank to extend my overdraft. Ray had a great idea. We would go in together and he would pretend to be my 'guide' or 'mentor'. Whenever I was asked a question I was to look up at him, and he would nod to indicate that I should proceed. It seemed terribly funny at the time.

We were called forward to the desk of one of the 'personal bankers', an austere lady with a giant blond bouffant and pearl earrings. She reminded me of one of my primary school teachers. "Please take a seat," she said. I took a seat and Ray stood rigidly behind my left shoulder.

"How may I help you?" she asked.

I looked up at Ray, who nodded cautiously. "I'd like to extend my overdraft," I said. She asked for my debit card. Once again I looked up at Ray. He paused for a second, as if weighing up the situation, and then nodded again. I handed over my debit card.

The lady stiffened and peered at me over her spectacles. She glanced up at Ray, and then back at me. The bouffant grew visibly larger, the pearl earrings winked in unison, a terrifying stoniness came into her grey eyes. Had I listened hard I expect I would have heard a dog barking in the distance.

"Who," she said, "is THAT?"

I looked up at Ray. A sense of acute discomfort came over me, maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all. Ray had the appearance of a Neo who was wetting himself with fear. He nodded again, a little reluctantly.

"This is my mentor," I said, employing my very best poker face.

"Well," she said, as if scolding a pair of naughty kindergartners, " either your 'mentor' leaves RIGHT NOW, or I call the police."

I turned to Ray. Once standing proud and upright, he was now drooping like a wet sock. "You wait outside," I said. He regained his composure and strode out Neo-like while I sorted out my overdraft.

The Dirty Tissue That Broke My Spirit

I know you are fed up of the same old same old. One grumpy twenty-something-going-on-ninety-something tirelessly recounting commuting stories. One long drawn out moan. Well tough. The things I have to put up with.

When I got on my train home today there was only one seating area unoccupied. Following protocol (of course) I chose not to invade the space of others and commandeered the free area, despite the fact that the table was covered with trash. It was as if the entire Von Trapp family had been there, with an enormous entourage, and scoffed a feast of cheap travel food before leaving the remains in one collective act of (G20?) defiance.

I was knackered. A week of crazy long days at work. Getting home late then working in the evenings. Busted my back playing football. Creme egg prices going through the roof. And now the aftermath of a Von Trapp family scoff-up.

An old man burst onto the train. He was one of those people that, when they get on the train, you shudder inside and think no, not here, not opposite me, pleeeeeeeeeeeease. He was out of breath and crashing about with a huge rucksack, one of those spatially unaware people that simply should not be allowed to carry bags of any form.

He stumbled into the seat opposite me and knocked half the trash onto my lap.

"Thanks for that," I said politely. I wasn't in the mood for some random miscreant to knock half-eaten Von Trapp chicken legs onto my lap. Maybe that was overly harsh of me, I felt a little awkward when he apologised. I chose to ignore him, the trash and my now skanky trousers, and quietly read my paper.

A few minutes later the old man took off his coat. A grubby, well-used tissue dropped out of the sleeve and landed on my lap. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was the dirty tissue that broke my spirit. I got up and scurried away, thinking of the hot bath and beer that I would have when I got home.

Hot baths and beer, just a few of my favourite things.

The Hypothetical Hell Day

Today I have the pleasure of announcing an exciting triangular guestival. I'm posting over at More Mindless Rambling, blognut is posting at Show My Face, and Cate is posting here. Our task, which we chose to accept, was to post on our hypothetical hell day. When you're done here head over to More Mindless Rambling and Show My Face. And now, I bring you Cate...

It's me, Cate, taking over Mo's blog today. Our agreed-upon topic? Hypothetical Hell Day. For him, it could be that allowing me to run amok on his blog would be part of his day from hell but it's too late for that now! I mean, I kind of like it over here. I think I'll stay awhile!

For me, Hell Day would likely fall on a Wednesday. Most Wednesdays, I'm able to work from home. This means I am able to sleep in until about 7:59am. But on Hell Day, I would not be working from home for some reason, which already puts me in a foul mood. My husband, Joe, would not realize this, allowing me to snooze for far too long.

Nothing starts my day off on the wrong foot like rushing to make it to work on time. And I do mean "on time" - my boss is quite unforgiving with the 8 o'clock sharp thing.

On this particularly awful day, something would undoubtedly make me late despite driving 80+ mph (Google tells me this is 128.75+ kw/h for those of you on Mo's side of the universe). I'm guessing it would be a school bus in my path, stopping every 20 feet to pick up the little children who are so delicate that mommy had to drive them the half a block from their house to the corner because they can't wait in the cold. Which now means mommy has to help them from the car, hugs and kisses, do you have your lunch?, have a nice day before putting them on the bus. Ugh. When I was a pretty pretty princess, I had to walk to school, uphill both ways, in the snow!

Once at work, the boss would eat my face for arriving at 8:02 without calling. Yeah, I'll "work" an extra two minutes at lunch. Since there's rarely any work to be done, "work" is only differentiated from "lunch" by whether or not the door is pulled shut while I read blogs. Bossman would then proceed to visit my office every forty minutes or so to rant and rave about something I have no control over or interest in. My boss IS the drama llama.

By the time quitting time rolls around (at exactly 5:00 pm, of course), a stress migraine would be in full-blown marching band mode. Just for kicks, cue the heavy rain and idiot drivers for the commute home. The best part of hell day is realizing I'm in my garage, no idea how I got there, and crawling upstairs to bed for a nap until Joe shows up.

After slicing my finger or burning my hand, Joe will seize control of dinner, which is just as well because I'm not going to want to eat it anyway. And it's safer for everyone involved. Migraines + fire + sharp objects = trips to the emergency room. We learned that lesson the hard way.

The evening would end with me being too stubborn to go to bed early, instead watching television until President Bush (what, I know he's not President anymore but NOTHING is more hellish to me than that!) interrupts Lost to proclaim victory over his sweatpants. Mission accomplished for sure!

And that's about all I would be able to take. At that point, I'd finally succomb to the evil of Hell Day and retreat into bed. Rather than curling up next to me for a snuggle and purr, the cat would attack my feet, causing one final increase to my blood pressure and head throbbing before I give in to the medication and passing out.