All posts by Chris

And so do dreams of greatness dwindle

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In the darker recesses of 2021, I once found myself on Twitter. I know. It’s been a hard year for us all.

I don’t know how I came to be looking at the feed of a man whose surname’s a mashup of two giant US companies I wouldn’t touch with a Zimbabwean dollar, but so it was I happened upon Dr Simon Ubsdell. I think it was around the time there was some slapstick fishing dispute in the Channel Islands. Thus:

‘Now Jersey. Eventually the Royal Navy will be tasked with defending a small boulder somewhere in the Thames Estuary. And so do dreams of greatness dwindle.’

Whether the country of my birth and current last known location deserves the word ‘Great’ is one of the principal dividing lines of our society. The perceived loss of greatness is an outrage to many, including Dr Ubsdell by the sounds of it.

Not to me. Who the hell needs greatness anyway?

Continue reading And so do dreams of greatness dwindle →

Business attire

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There’s one massive drawback from all this working from home: the death of a great gag.

Don’t deny you’ve cracked it yourself. “Can we have a meeting tomorrow to discuss it?” “I can’t, I’m working from home.” “Oh yeah, wink, working from home is it?”

“Wanking from home more like!”

Hahaha. Hahahahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that’s what you do is it?

But the thought that we’re all sitting around pounding at ourselves while the kids charge about in the background is one that leads to the dark web and a Thai jail, so these days there’s a chance people are actually working from home when they say they are, and maybe even enjoying it.

So no wonder there’s an army of arseholes marching to put a stop to it.

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The Kingdom of Finchley

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Amazing fact: there’s no such place as Finchley.

There’s an East Finchley, a West Finchley, a North Finchley and a bit in the middle called Finchley Church End. There was a South Finchley once, but we don’t talk about that (dirty ‘Hampstead Garden Suburb’ splitters). But there’s no ‘Finchley’.

With all this time on my hands I’ve decided to create a country. It’ll include all the named areas of this wonderful segment of north London suburbia plus the parts of Mill Hill nobody wants and I, of course, will be king. Clearly if you’re going to make a country in 2021 you don’t bugger about with democracy and presidents and elections and all that – you install a family who will rule for centuries through the trusted mechanisms of serfdom, patronage and inexplicable, unearned loyalty.

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Far, far away

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a bloke who’d never seen a Star Wars movie and was arguably better off for it on balance.

Until recently I would probably have said I love Star Wars. Yeah I’m one of those ancient bastards who just about remembers it coming out as a kid – the second one obviously, I’m not an OAP for Christ’s sake. As we know, the second one’s a lot better than the first and third. The fourth one’s childish drivel, five and six are forgettable. Seven is a remake of the first one for no discernible reason, eight was a glorified chase movie and nine brought little beyond blessed relief that we were finally done with it all.

So I’m really looking forward to 10, 11 and 12, as you can tell, because oh fucking sweet Christ they’ve only gone and announced another trilogy.

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Licking lamp posts

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When I started writing these moaning missives many years ago, I made the early error of over-personalising them. It swiftly became as tiresome to me writing about the woes of my own life as it did for any poor bastard whose eyes alighted on them.

What do we want? Shit films and litter! When do we want it? About once every three weeks on average! So instead I fed the public’s insatiable desire for nonsense about nothing much and what a roaring success I’ve made of it. But something’s come up that I have to address, something that involves me pretty directly. And it involves you, because you’re all bloody well at it.

Please, for the love of the sweet suffering saints, stop asking me if I’ve had any news about the vaccine.

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A beach at Dieppe

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I know I told you I had a yacht and a big cock, and it turns out it’s an inflatable canoe and three inches on a warm day, but picture the sunny uplands.

Think of the carbon emissions we’ll save circling around Teddington Lock not the Bay of Biscay. Given I also can’t get it up, there’s no threat of making babies that’ll blame solar panels for causing Covids 37 to 43 and feed Twirl wrappers to dolphins. The fact that you weren’t thinking of the climate crisis all along says more about your priorities than mine to be honest.

I can say absolutely anything I want, and when the truth doesn’t quite marry up don’t think for a moment I’ll act contrite. This is the Age of Fuckallaccountability.

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Squeezing out a cannonball

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I started writing nonsense on here to get things off my chest. 

I knew there were angry words inside that needed out, and getting drunk and yelling about the meaning of life outside schools just wasn’t cutting it any more. So I started venting on here, while trying to make my dear audience chuckle once or twice through insult, prospective injury and pathos.

What this house of cards relies on is a steady stream of things that wind me up. Previously I could expect one or two incidents a day to provoke simmering fury, from some brainless bastard dropping a crisp packet to the simple sight of a man wearing a hat indoors. I never thought they’d invent a way to stop me seeing other people and thus deprive me of the rage on which I’ve been powered since around 1997, but wait, here comes ‘Tier 2’.

Even in lockdown or whatever this is now, you might think that 2020 would be the ideal time to be a purveyor of grump – railing at Boris Mainwaring’s handling of the virus, the Farage Garage, the bewildering levels of increasingly bare-faced corruption. Our top-hatted masters are manufacturing so many ways to make us angry, writing a thousand words about it should be as straight-forward as a bowel movement at first light for anyone not a man over 40.

Truth is, there’s so much of it about I’ve forgotten how to give a fuck.

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Howling by seven

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You’re having a great night. I say night: you started at 3pm and you’re well on your way to chattering buffoonery by about half six. But it was always planned to be a get-together where everyone fell over at least once and only the lucky made it home, so things are well on track.

You look around at your friends and think: they’re a great bunch, I’ve done well here. You get a bit misty-eyed for a minute, wondering where your life would be without this rogues’ gallery of berks, widening and wizening with you for as long as your elbows can still be raised.

Then one of them says “I’m going to have to eat something at some point” and the rest nod in agreement.

Wankers, the lot of them.

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A few Poirots

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The wailing, oh Jesus the wailing. 

Something grim has happened to somebody in a nearby cell. She’s trying to broadcast its full misery, but the walls are too thick to render her harrowing “It’s spread to my aaaaarrrrrrse!” as anything clearer than the terminal howl of a bombed Palestinian.

Still it’s less annoying than the arsehole who seems to spend most of the day scraping chairs across the floor above, or whoever fills many hours with the sounds of glass being squeegeed, despite the fact the windows don’t open so I can’t push them out.

As you know I aim to provide a public service with the screeching bullshit I write. So here I’d like to tell you about my experience as an NHS inpatient, so you know what to expect when you eventually take your first tentative step on the road to the hospice. So far I’ve been incarcerated in HMP UCLH for 21 days with no imminent prospect of parole. You get less for, oh, something to do with Barnard Castle. What do you want from me, topical?

Continue reading A few Poirots →