Bingo!!

Growing up in a Bridlington (a seaside town that they forgot to close down) ensured that weekend and holiday jobs were abundantly available. Even to children who were barely old enough to tie their own shoelaces. My first gainful employment was at Joby’s Bingo where, for the princely sum of £1.50 per hour, I was subjected to abuse, saw old women piss themselves and developed an early aversion to Nescafe coffee.

Joby’s was located within a dingy seafront amusement arcade. It seated around forty customers who paid 10p per card and were awarded with prize vouchers worth approximately £1. In order to make break even we required ten cards to be lit up. Any more than that enabled the endeavour to run at a profit. Prizes were located in glass cabinets to which I held the keys. The more wins a customer racked up, the better the prize they could claim. It was my duty to administer winning tokens and swap them for the appropriate prizes whilst also keeping the ‘contestants’ topped up with extraordinarily cheap tea and tar-like coffee – each dispensed from large thermos devices.

As my innate charm became more apparent (largely through my flirtatious nature with players’ bored granddaughters) I was given increasingly important jobs to do. This rapid ascension through ranks soon saw me become Brid’s youngest ever bingo caller – a skill I learned at the knee of an elderly cock-er-nee name Richard.

Richard was a proper east London charmer. Bespectacled, balding and round-bellied, he nonetheless believed himself to be the most attractive man on the Esplanade. His confidence was legendary – he would chat-up absolutely anyone. Nobody was safe from his silver tongue – the old dears visibly wilted at his attention. On the rare occasions that he wasn’t bantering with the blue-rinsed brigade he was crooning into the microphone or belting out music-hall standards.

Despite all this, I was not overly fond of the man. He was slightly creepy and far too keen to pair me off with young girls whose mothers he fancied. And sharing a mic with him was not an enjoyable experience – his sour breath lingered on the sponge cover and was utterly inescapable. My only respite from Richard occurred when the Big Boss Barry was in town to give him an occasional day off.

I much preferred Barry. He referred to me as a ‘Mongolian cheese rat’ for reasons I have never fathomed, but was a lovely man. I think Joby had maybe been his father and he clearly loved the bingo and arcade he’d inherited. Sadly, as a trip to the seaside became a less popular day-trip for us Brits, Barry decided to cut his losses on the arcade and left. Under new management I felt uncomfortable and bowed out too.

I soon resurfaced in the arcade next door. There, my first job was to dive headlong underneath the ten pin bowling to rectify any problems. The bowling alley, you see, was an old fashioned one where the skittles were lowered into place by pieces of rope. These ropes stayed attached even once they skittles had been knocked down and this, very often, led to tangles and knots which I was charged with untangling and unknotting.

My skills were wasted in bowling, however, and my new employers soon realised that my confidence in front of an audience would serve them better as a Grand National commentator. I was promoted to the glorified donkey derby where my job was to generate and sustain interest in the dullest seaside pastime imaginable – rolling balls into holes in order to make mechanical horses jerk along an enamelled racetrack. The prizes (as at Joby’s) were the traditional tat associated with such games and in similar style to the bingo a minimum number of players were required to make the game viable.

My mentor here was Harry: slightly goofy man with walnut skin and hair too long for a man of his age. I would later realise that he was shagging the proprietor, that he came from a travelling background and had lost Bridlington’s prime real estate on the toss of a coin. But at the time I just thought he was a flash bastard who wore Hugo Boss jeans to work in an amusement arcade.

From Harry I learned the clichéd language of horse racing. I had a whole armoury of phrases, quips and put-downs with which I would embroider my commentary. I even made up some of my own. But ultimately it was a repetitive affair which offered little opportunity for self-expression – except when it was quiet...

During slack times it was my job to encourage people into my domain. This was both difficult and dull. But it did enable me to develop a few jokes, a deadpan persona and a line in self-deprecating humour which did not endear me to management. And I became even less popular when I took to stealing a basketball from one of the arcade games, taking it outside with me and juggling it like a football whilst half-heartedly trying to entice people inside on the radio-mic. I got sacked. But not before I’d stolen one of each Loony Toons soft-toys from the grabber machines for my siblings.

From there I made a move to Harrison Leisure - a fruitful partnership which would last over ten years. After an extremely informal interview with Moomin-like proprietor Michael, I was assigned to duties in Indiana Jones’ Trail and The Crystal Maze.

The Trail was an enormous adventure playground which I had frequented as a child. Filled with slides, rope bridges and bouncy castles, it was a youngster’s dream. It was a teenager’s nightmare. I dealt with snapped wrists, banged heads, pissed pants and crying kids. Parents loved leaving their offspring for as long as humanly possible – not least because there was no time-limit on how long you could play. As almost every mother, father, uncle, grandparent or family friend dropped off their progeny they would loudly proclaim, ‘see you next a week’. It’s a joke that wasn’t funny the first time I heard it - and never got any more amusing.

Respite from smelly feet and irritating infants came when I was occasionally posted on The Crystal Maze. This was (predictably) a hall of mirrors and glass maze. The work here was simple – collect people’s tickets and then wait for them to emerge from the other side. The only variation to this routine occurred when a small child smashed his face into a glass panel and required rescuing. I could negotiate that invisible maze at phenomenal speed, wiping smeared blood from the glass as I whizzed through.

I went on to work for Harrison Leisure for years, eventually managing the play area, operating fairground rides, supervising their swanky new bar, making ice-cream sundaes and DJing. I also spent my gap year labouring for them in the most badly paid job i’ve ever had. But that’s for another blog...

On The Buses

Her eyes bulge as she sucks nicotine deep into her peroxide skull. Around her, two children run amok, their voices cutting through the cold morning air like nails on a blackboard. Thankfully after pushing their way onto the bus they usually disappear into the anonymity of the top deck, neither seen nor heard again until they resurface in town.

The jockeying for the back seat has been less intense this week. The rear of the bus is the place to be on cold days as the heat from the engine leaks through the upholstery and into our buttocks. But lately a challenge has been issued to our back seat seniority. A mormon upstart arrives absurbdly early at the bus shelter and rushes straight to the back, occasionally joined by a bespectacled interloper. Although we have no divine right to our perch of choice we quietly fume whenever we are forced to sit elsewhere. Thankfully we have had a free run at the back row this week. Perhaps God has got the mormon doing later shifts.

As we wind through the residential Brackenwood streets we are joined by a familiar cast of characters. A young student gets on at the same point each day. Her hangdog expression never changes as she sadly climbs the stairs to the upper tier. I always hope that her day gets better.

The most metrosexual man in the world also boards the bus. Eyebrows plucked sharper than his razor cheekbones, he is immaculately groomed. He seems not to realise, however, that sucking his face into a permanent Blue Steel mask gives him the appearance of a homosexual waxwork. I suspect he's middle management, obsessed with making a visual impact as his career flounders beneath a glass ceiling.

Joining him shortly, the territorial Robert Smith. Her corkscrew hair and smear of red lipstick are uncannily like The Cure frontman's. Recently she's given up on her ubiquitous Harvey Nichols carrier-bag. For months she'd clutched it posessively to her chest. It was used so often that the writing had worn off and the plastic thinned. Today it was replaced by a sturdier, brighter bag: maybe Sainsbury's? She sits in the same place every day. It's hard to tell if she's as annoyed as Richard and i when someone else sits in 'her' seat - her face always looks like she's sucking a citrus fruit regardless of where she parks herself.

The other cast of characters are no less predictable, but slightly less interesting. Of course, the two most predictable characters of all are myself and Richard. We rarely speak at that time of day other than to pass barbed comments about the other commuters or whinge about the weather. But we're always there, judgmental bearded gargoyles, creatures of habit deriding others for being just like us.

My Great Great-Grandparents

The old adage says that you should ‘write what you know’. I’ve long struggled with formulating original ideas but, by the same token, there’s not a lot of interesting stuff in my own life that’s worth committing to paper. I’ve been mulling over a semi-autobiographical novel for a while, but having written the first chapter I’ve realised that it’s neither dramatic nor interesting to anyone other than a few of the people who were involved in that period of my life. So with that project permanently on the back-burner I’ve decided to raid my memory for material which is both true and interesting. It might be a struggle – and this might be the one and only instalment...

I was lucky enough to meet two of my great-grandparents. Not only to have met them, but to have known them. They were obviously old and I was clearly very young. But I have some amazingly vivid memories of them – memories which have probably been embellished and exaggerated by the passage of time – but which I’m going to write down anyway (and wait for my mum to correct the factual inconsistencies and outright lies).

They lived in an East Yorkshire village called Wold Newton, a tiny place with barely 300 residents. Their house was a lovely whitewashed building with a crooked porch and a low walled garden at the front (which nobody ever used) and a cracked driveway up the side of the house which led into the brilliant back garden via a tangled gooseberry bush.

A small courtyard and garage provided parking room for visitor’s cars and my great-granddad’s van. To the left was a huge coal-shed and a side entrance to their home, to the right a greenhouse, ferret hutches and every kind of fruit or vegetable imaginable growing in the garden. The whole lot was surrounded by a field of bullocks which extended around their property and in which we occasionally went foraging for mushrooms – or maybe we jus went looking for puffballs to kick?

I remember very little about the house itself – largely because I was a kid desperate to play out rather than lurk inside. What I can recall is a kitchen in which my great-grandma resided. I’m not sure I ever saw her anywhere else. She may well have slept in that kitchen. She sat at one end, flanked by her blue budgerigar (which may or may not have been capable of speech) and her pantry. I assume everyone else sat at the opposite end as I can’t remember any other perspective of the room other than me gazing down its length at this fiercely matriarchal but beautiful old lady.

Before you got to her kitchen you entered the house through a thin little passageway and a low door. Turn right and you entered my great-grandma’s domain. A left turn took you into my great-granddad’s territory. For a small boy, this was arguably the greatest place in the known universe. By the door there stood a barrel of guns. Real guns. Guns that fired actual bullets. Fire-sticks capable of decapitating, maiming and killing. In a bloody barrel. Next to the back door.

Next to the guns was a cabinet – maybe you’d call it a tall-boy? It was filled with boxes of bullets. In case you’re a little confused by what you’ve just read, I’ll reiterate it in simple terms. My great-granddad had a barrel of shotguns in his passageway and it was next to a cupboard full of bullets.

To the best of my knowledge, I never saw any of those guns fired. I don’t think either myself or my brother (for we were the only Ward offspring at the time) ever played with the guns – although I’m sure we had a little surreptitious touch of the cold gun-metal from time-to-time. We knew they were dangerous and we knew we shouldn’t mess around with them. I assume we were warned early on and allowed common-sense to keep our meddling digits away from triggers, barrels and ballistics. Of course, nowadays an interfering neighbour would report such carelessness to the appropriate authorities. Myself and my brother would immediately be whisked into foster care, my great-grandfather vilified and The Daily Mail outraged. But there really was nothing to worry about. We were responsible and mature – qualities which kids nowadays seem seldom to be credited with.

The politically correct brigade of interfering busybodies would have had even further cause for concern had they seen what lived at the end of the hallway. Or rather, what used to live there. For at the end of the passage was the aforementioned coal-shed. At the time it felt like an aircraft hanger. I’m sure it wasn’t nearly that big – but I was very small. At one end was a wall of coal akin to a blackened Mount Everest. It reached right to the high ceiling and we just knew not to go near it. The last thing we wanted was to be coated in coal dust or – worse still – to cause an avalanche. This was not because we feared for our safety but rather because we knew that being covered in black powder would provide incontrovertible proof of our guilt.

Along the wooden beams in the roof of the shed hung various dead bodies. These were usually hares or rabbits, but occasionally a clutch of pheasants swung limply above our heads. They were the fruits of my great-granddad’s labours – creatures he’d either culled himself or which he’d received in payment for his services as rat-catcher, mole-killer or pest-controller.

My great-granddad was a lovely, lovely man. Known as Sunny (presumably for his cheerful disposition) he was a flat-cap wearing, shotgun toting character with a cheeky twinkle in his eye which belied his status as a local murderer. The murders he committed, of course, were not those of people. Instead, he helped local landowners rid themselves of problem pests. My dad recently told me of accompanying Sunny on a rat-killing mission, but my memories are of his mole-murdering.

As well as coal and corpses, the shed also housed a large bucket of rat-poison. This was used for many genocidal purposes, but the one which is lodged in my mind is the ingenious way it was used for managing the local mole population. My great-granddad would collect a bunch of wriggling earthworms, chuck them into the bucket of rat-poison, allow them to coat themselves in the toxic dust and then transport them into the fields. There, he would dig up a mole-hill, drop the wrigglers into the tunnel, wait until the moles chomped down their free lunch and then send down the ferrets to drag out their little furry corpses.

The part with the ferrets might not be true. They might have served some other purpose. But I do know that they must’ve been kept for a reason. Because nobody in their right mind would keep such a stinky collection of animals unless they served a purpose. Although the exact make-up of the group might have changed over the years, my memories of the ferrets sees a mixed trio – one albino and two brown streaks of vicious fur in a large hutch halfway down the enormous back garden.

It was, in fact, more like a large allotment or a very small farm. I guess nowadays a generation of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall fans would refer to it as a smallholding. Although exact details of the layout remain elusive I remember it being partitioned by thin grassy walkways. These led through different patches, sheds and greenhouses and were great fun for two small children to race around. The real fun, however, lay in doing some work.

There were some crops which I distinctly remember harvesting. Potatoes were great fun – a combination of forking, pulling, shaking and collecting which left an amazingly earthy smell in the nostrils. It seems strange that I can remember the smell so vividly when it’s such a common one – even now when I’m doing my own gardening a nostril-full of that scent can take me back to Wold Newton.

Another vegetable which made for particularly enjoyable work was collecting, shelling and eating peas. I’ve never been great at growing them myself, but my great-grandparents’ garden produced bucketfuls – even after we’d stuffed our faces with them. It’s worth having a go at planting some yourself even if it’s just for that amazing feeling of popping the pods and stripping the fresh peas from their case. It’s such a satisfying feeling on your fingertips – and they taste bloody great too.

At the time, gooseberries were a fruit I didn’t understand. They grew in abundance but I’m not sure what happened to the ones we picked. They were hard, hairy and really bloody sour. I assume they were turned into jams, chutneys or fools which we children had little interest in. Similarly a greenhouse full of tomato plants was warm and fun but ultimately pointless – at that age there was no way I was ever going to put a tomato anywhere near my tastebuds.

The front garden was another world altogether. Although not quite abandoned it was certainly more ramshackle than the well-maintained vegetable plots out back. It was circled by a dry-stone wall and this, it transpired, was probably the reason for the lack of maintenance. My great-grandma, rather surprisingly, was petrified of frogs. I have no idea why. She certainly didn’t seem like a woman prone to fear about anything much. But for some reason, frogs frightened her. On many occasions my brother and I would be provided with a screw-top jam-jar each and sent on a dangerous frog-finding mission in the front garden. Should we find any lurking in the cracks of the wall we were to take them down to the village pond and let them loose there.

I don’t think we ever captured a single amphibian despite many hours of fruitless searching. What we did find, more often than not, was a large baker’s van. It would pull up outside the house, inviting residents inside to but bread, cakes and other more essential items. I can remember exactly how the yeasty, bready smell would signal the arrival of a treat for us – often a fat oozing vanilla slice or a heavily nutmegged egg custard.

On the rare occasions that we ventured further than the house or garden we would play by the village pond. There was a small stream which fed it and across it a large metal pipe which we would climb across. I’m sure some healthy and safety pedant has probably cordoned it off by now, but back then that pipe was the source of great amusement. We would occasionally cross paths with a couple of other kids, one of whom was a small blonde girl. We would play with each other, grateful for seeing non-adult faces in the tiny village. With the passing of time it has occurred to me that this girl was almost certainly Gemma Davison – a former resident of Wold Newton and the finest neurotic Grey’s Anatomy fan I have ever met.

Of course, my great-grandparents have passed away now. Someone else will be growing potatoes in their back garden and collecting coal from their shed. Chances are their guns will be under lock and key, too. And most of what I’ve written here is based on half-forgotten, romanticised memories and an element of wishful thinking. But the sentiment is true and I’ve been as honest as I can be. I doubt many children ever get to meet their parents’ grandparents. But I did and I’m extremely thankful for it.

Willy Wanker

Wicked William Wonka has today being exposed as a child-molesting monster. After years as Wonka’s loyal aide, Charlie Bucket has turned his employer’s world upside down with revelations including:

• PORN stars dressed as Oompah Loompahs during BIZARRE sex games.
• Acts of BESTIALITY as Veruca Salt was MOLESTED by depraved squirrels.
• Violet Beauregarde MURDERED after she spurned his AMOUROUS advances.

Wonka had previously been the darling of the chocolate world, singlehandedly destroying both Nestle and Mars with his ambitious and creative sweets and chocolates. Who could forget the excitement which greeted the launch of Everlasting Gobstoppers and Whipplescrumptious Fudge Delight? But after years of tantalising our tastebuds, Wonka has left a particularly bad taste in the mouth.

In a News of the World exclusive, Bucket describes how their relationship soured over his grandparents’ incontinence and a spoiled batch of Fizzy Lifting Drinks. The feud has now spilled over into the public arena as we bring you the lurid truth about Wonka’s foul fantasies, his predatory paedophilia and his predilection for pre-pubescent ‘poppets’.

The truth behind Bucket’s stratospheric rise to the top of the Wonka organisation is also revealed for the first time, as he describes how the perverse pleasure Wonka took in undressing him and forcing him to graze on peppermint grass led to increasingly risqué activities – culminating in Charlie being forced to consume candy from Wonka’s ‘bucket’ in return for a 49% stake in the company.

See pages 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 11 and the centre pages for more on the story which has rocked the UK – including: Augustus Gloop blaming his bulimia on Wonka, the Golden Ticket grooming scam, ice cream cone sex toys and details on how you can access some of Wonka’s secret home videos at NOTW.com.

Desert Island Lists?

I’m sure that Nick Hornby isn’t solely responsible for my obsession with writing lists and making ‘Top Tens’, but i’m sure that High Fidelity was the novel which gave validation to my constant scribbling on post -notes.

Like Hornby, many of my lists concern music (favourite cover versions, top ten songs with guest vocalists, etc) and football (all time Premier League XI, top ten Ryan Giggs goals, and so on). But often they are more prosaic – shopping lists, things i have to look forward to, meals i’ll eat during the week, ad infinitum. In order to make myself feel better about the lack of activity in my life i often write ‘to do’ lists with simple tasks such as ‘having a bath’ on them just so that i have something i can cross off – this pathetic endeavour instils in me an ill-deserved sense of achievement.

I also have what i’m sure is the extremely annoying habit of asking people what their ‘favourite’ is. Often these enquiries refer to food: I don’t feel i know someone properly until i know what their favourite crisps are.

With this in mind, i’ve taken to asking people what their Desert Island Discs would be. The show has been broadcast for years, and i rarely listen to it unless i have a specific interest in the subject of that particular episode but that hasn’t stopped it becoming my favourite way of judging people – you can tell a lot about a person by their selections.

For those unfamiliar with the format, a guest is asked along to the studio and interviewed by Kirsty Young who asks them to intersperse their interview with a selection of songs which they would take with them were they to be cast adrift on the eponymous desert island. These choices are single tracks rather than albums and the subject can pick eight songs. They are also given a copy of the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, a book choice of their own and one luxury item.
So here are my choices.

1. Newborn by Elbow
2. Lonely Soul by UNKLE
3. Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley
4. Many Rivers To Cross by Jimmy Cliff
5. La Ritournelle by Sebastian Tellier
6. Hurricane by Bob Dylan
7. The Private Psychedelic Reel by The Chemical Brothers
8. Tender by Blur

Of course, it’s impossible not to leave out dozens of brilliant songs. Amazingly, there is no Radiohead on my list but this is primarily because i see them as an ‘album’ band. Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds has missed out along with Interpol’s Slow Hands. But there cannot be room for everyone.

It’s no coincidence that a lot of the songs on my list are extremely long. The way i see it, if i only have eight tracks to last me until i’m rescued, i may as well string them out as long as possible. There’s nearly an hour of music here and that suits me just fine. Many of the songs are multi-layered with distinctly different parts – Lonely Soul, for example is almost like four songs in one and as such represents amazing value for a man with only seven other tunes in his life.

I’ve also seen all but one (Hurricane) performed live. Many of those performances stirred my feelings enormously – not least singing Tender back to Blur at Glastonbury 2009 and a tearful singalong to Jimmy Cliff. Those moments stay with you and add real emotional depth and context. Having just read the list back i’ve also realised that many of my choices are about break-ups or being alone. That certainly wasn’t a conscious decision – i’ll need to consult Freud to see what that says about me.

As for the books, Shakespeare is obviously welcome. The Bible would be of less use to me, but once i’d read the Old Testament i could use the rest of it as toilet paper. My own choice is a difficult one – there seems little point taking slim volumes like The Great Gatsby, so i’ll settle for something considerably thicker but no less entertaining – a collection of Bill Hicks’ articles, interviews and routines: Love All The People.

It’s very tempting to opt for a smart-arsed luxury item – a speedboat maybe? – but i’ll stick to a more sensible option and take my tent with me. I bloody love that tent, and as much fun as i’m sure it is trying to emulate Bear Grylles and Ray Mears i’d rather just chuck my pop-up house on the beach and shelter in there.

Please leave your own choices, criticise mine or leave your own Desert Island Discs below. I’m genuinely interested and it’ll save me chewing your ear off by asking when i see you...

George Carlin: Religion Is Bullshit

When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion.

No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you.

He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy shit!

But I want you to know something, this is sincere, I want you to know, when it comes to believing in God, I really tried. I really, really tried. I tried to believe that there is a God, who created each of us in His own image and likeness, loves us very much, and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize - something is fucked up!

Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a supreme being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man.

No woman could or would ever fuck things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.

So rather than be just another mindless religious robot, mindlessly and aimlessly and blindly believing that all of this is in the hands of some spooky incompetent father figure who doesn't give a shit, I decided to look around for something else to worship. Something I could really count on.

And immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that. Overnight I became a sun-worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can't see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshipper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I'm big on that. If I can see something, I don't know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we're not setting people on fire simply because they don't agree with us.

Sun worship is fairly simple. There's no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don't have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I'm unworthy. Doesn't tell me I'm a bad person who needs to be saved. Hasn't said an unkind word. Treats me fine. So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite.

I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favours. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday - His day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend.

But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you'd really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you'd have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?

Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?

And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy will be done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His will? It's all very confusing.

So to get around a lot of this, I decided to worship the sun. But, as I said, I don't pray to the sun. You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Two reasons: first of all, I think he's a good actor, okay? To me, that counts. Second, he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that God was having trouble with.

For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbour with the barking dog. Joe Pesci straightened that cocksucker out with one visit. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a simple baseball bat.

So I've been praying to Joe for about a year now. And I noticed something. I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't. Same as God, 50-50. Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe, the wishing well and the rabbit's foot, same as the mojo man, same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.

And for those of you who look to The Bible for moral lessons and literary qualities, I might suggest a couple of other stories for you. You might want to look at the Three Little Pigs, that's a good one. Has a nice happy ending, I'm sure you'll like that. Then there's Little Red Riding Hood, although it does have that x-rated part where the Big Bad Wolf actually eats the grandmother. Which I didn't care for, by the way. And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I like the best? "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no God. None, not one, no God, never was.

In fact, I'm gonna put it this way. If there is a God, may he strike this audience dead! See? Nothing happened. Nothing happened? Everybody's okay? All right, tell you what, I'll raise the stakes a little bit. If there is a God, may he strike me dead. See? Nothing happened, oh, wait, I've got a little cramp in my leg. And my balls hurt. Plus, I'm blind. I'm blind, oh, now I'm okay again, must have been Joe Pesci, huh? God Bless Joe Pesci. Thank you all very much. Joe Bless You!

The Harlot's Handbook

Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies was an 18th century guide to the harlots and prostitutes of plying their wares in and around the aforementioned area of London. It was an essential accessory for any gentleman who was serious about pleasure, and as such sold a staggering 250,000 copies before mass-consumption had even been invented!

It's possible to buy an edited version of the guide from Tempus Press and it is, indeed, a fine and mischievous read. But if you're really serious about the art of harlotry it seems only natural to produce your own pen-pics of those mistresses of the night who might have touched your life. You may recognise some of the characters mentioned below, but please don't judge - they're just trying to earn a living...

No. 47 Upper Newman Street
Slim made and slender, this smirking hussy has some odd tricks with her and is keen to please those of unusually depraved appetites. A queer cull is always welcome in her second-floor boudoir and will be naught but entertained – especially when this excitable bedfellow is more than half drunk.

Bedecked in stripes, she looks immaculate, is beautifully fragranced and looks not her true age – although her maturity in matters carnal is beyond question. She talks bawdily, her jaw is well muscled and her elaborate suction has been known to beguile many a fine chap.

She lives modestly and eats but a slim diet and thus can be had on moderate terms.


No. 25 Cavendish Square
A fine piece, about twenty-one, slim made and diminutive of stature. Coloured like caramel, her nose is too freckled but her eyes sparkle, her mouth is handsome and her chatter is vivacious. Her breast is uncommonly fine and her undergarments alluring.

In business she has few equals. A brace of shiners was ne’er spent better – a single coupling is not enough for this spirited young nymph for whom the more is done the more she craves. An excellent bedfellow and very agreeable companion, although occasionally profane and often drunk – vices which serve also as virtues.

Her admirers are many and often aggressive in their pursuits – her haughty nature makes her still more attractive to her suitors. She is a constant attendant at places of amusement where she is known to many a man of pleasure.


64 Goodge Street
A lady of genteel behaviour and modest, too. It would be unwise , however, to mistake her reticence for prudishness. Her apparent disinterest is merely a ruse – she is a most seductive bedfellow when circumstance dictates it.

Her parlour is decorated uniquely and not to all tastes, but her hospitality is generous and her chatter delightful: she is rarely known to swear and drinks not at all.

This virtuous girl is well made and desirable, but this rose never blown upon requires further renumeration than most. She will cost half a guinea to whatever you please, but for a night’s lodging prior arrangements will need to be made.

Colonic: A Load Of Old Shit?

Cranks, crooks and charlatans have never had it so easy when it comes to fleecing gullible souls who long for short-term fixes to their unhealthy lifestyles. A society which demands maximum benefit from minimum effort will always take a pill rather than participate in exercise. Detoxifying diets and supplements empower the lazy and encourage them to rely on potions, lotions and placebos rather than a sensible approach to looking after their own bodies.

A drunken conversation (what a delicious irony) recently turned to the subject of colonic irrigation. Amongst a group of friends were sceptics and believers. Unsuprisingly, i was in the former camp for a number of reasons: i don't ever want a four inch speculum up my arse, i'm firmly of the belief that the anus is an outlet rather than an inlet and i'm confident that my body is adept enough at expelling faeces so as not to need any additional help.

So i now have sufficient motivation to investigate the potential benefits of having your colon cleansed - i can save some of my naive friends the indignity of having their bottoms uncomfortably invaded by health 'gurus' to no discernible benefit and paying for the 'privilege'.

For those who have managed to exist in blissful ignorance about what this procedure involves, essentially a tube is whacked up your bum, tepid water (or sometimes coffee?!) is pumped inside and then flows out carrying with it pieces of poo. Delightful, eh?

Obviously, there is no better place to begin a research project than that popular bastion of reliable information: Wikipedia. Wiki asserts that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that colon-cleansing has any health benefits and goes on to espouse the values of the bowel's ability to clean itself 'naturally and without assistance'. But can we trust this website any more than we can trust those encouraging us to drop our drawers and have litres of water pumped into our anal cavity? Probably not. So i looked at some real scientific articles and discovered the following...

The liver, kidneys and gastro-intestinal tract are a finely tuned machine when it comes to expelling anything which is not supposed to be inside us. There are no pockets, nooks or crannies where food can hide. Your intestines work on the same principal as your oesophogus, squeezing food (or in this case waste food) down a pipe using muscular contractions - you never hear about anyone needing throat irrigation!

Dr Steven Jones from the eminent UCLA School of Medicine thoroughly disagrees with any assertion that the 'cleansing' of the colon can add any extra years to your life (apparently this is a popular misconception although i'd never heard of it). Another phallacy is that there are parasites in the colon which can be expelled through the procedure. Not so, according to the experts. Or not in the western world, anyway. We don't have these parasites due to our clean drinking water and clean food sources (thank heavens for Asda).

Cindy Iverson from the Colo-Rectal Cancer Initiative at the Cancer Reasearch & Prevention Foundation cites colon cancer as the second biggest cancer-killer in the USA (56,000 deaths a year). It's certainly in her interest to promote colonic irrigation if it has any health benefits but she says that in order to prevent such conditions we should have a healthy lifestyle by eating fruit and veg, drinking less alcohol and maintaining a healthy weight. Colonic irrigation, to paraphrase the Cancer Research people, is a load of crap.

The shit that you see coming out of the tube, is indeed, shit (i still don't know why they need to use a clear hose - surely most people would be perfectly happy if it was matt black). It is not, however, old shit which is lodged in your colon. There is nowhere for it to get lodged. Your intestinal tract is a smooth, muscular pipe which squeezes things out extremely effectively. What comes out of the hose is merely crap which hasn't made it out of your arse yet. If you hadn't shit it out during the colonic irrigation, you would have shit it out the next day anyway. You're just having your next dump a bit earlier than usual.

Colonic irrigation is utter bunkum. The human body is the most complex, efficient and highly evolved machine on the planet. The colon is a one way system and should remain that way. Paying to have your colon cleansed is tantamount to flushing your cash down the toilet.

Incidentally, if you have any further desire to read about poo/dietary myths head to the excellent Bad Science website where you can chuckle away to twenty-four articles about the execrable Gillian McKeith's unique brand of bullshit.