BAGGY TROUSERS

Ah, school days. Many of my peers cite school days as the worst days of their lives. I loved them. Well... at first...

For some reason, and this is a perversity which has followed me through my entire life, as soon as I start to achieve anything and command respect and attention from those around me - particularly people who are trying to teach me something - I completely change tack and do my utmost to prove to them that any faith they have in me is completely misplaced.

For example - here is my first school report, from 1972 :

I quote; interested and lively, enjoys learning, sense of humour ... delighted us on many occasions.

Yep, I was coasting ahead, the grades got better, I became more and more popular. I recently bumped into someone I hadn't seen since those early years and she remembered me as 'the class joker, the one we all wanted to spend playtime with'.

Let's fast forward to 1984 shall we, and my last report before leaving full time education for the final time.

It took me bloody years to pefect the 'all pervading sense of apathy' believe me. Hah! That showed 'em. I was taking 2 A levels at this point, I dropped one and failed the other (well, passed with an E, which is failed let's face it). I then sat back and expected prospective employers to queue at my door offering me the perfect career. That's why I ended up working in supermarkets for 16 years.

So remember kids, being successful is dead easy, anyone can do it, but it takes a special kind of talent to be a miserable failure like me! AND YET... I am not miserable, neither do I consider myself a failure. I am currently very content and healthy and work in a low paid but totally fascinating job in the field of microbiology while my more successful friends with 2.4 children, huge mortgages and demanding management jobs are sodden, overweight, miserable gits.

There's a point to all this but it escapes me right now. That'll be because of my all-pervading sense of apathy I expect.


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AISLE OF PLENTY

Long, long ago, when the world was young and no-one had mobile phones, the internet or Justin flamin' Bieber I worked for a supermarket chain. It was my first job, I knew no better... it was called Fine Fare, now long gone so hopefully this post won't result in any kind of court action.

They made us wear badges like this

And we carried little booklets full of this nonsense :

But what they didn't know was that me and my mates would carefully prise open the margarine tubs in the provisions aisle and write "FUCK OFF" in the margarine with our fingers. Sometimes we even drew big willies as well. It passed the time, what can I say? To my knowledge no customers ever returned the products or complained, but judging by the kind of customers we saw on a day to day basis they probably couldn't read anyway and all that smiling nonsense was wasted on the simple bastards.

Ah happy days. Later I worked for a much larger supermarket chain, still operating today, which was more up my street as their philosophy seemed to be 'Bugger the Customers, Let's Fleece the Stupid Tossers Dry!', and now I am one of those customers it's quite clear that philosophy remains to this day.

I'm not mentioning any names here 'cos they'd have me in court sooner than I could say T....


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MONEY MONEY MONEY

Just watching the live budget transmission, what's going on behind Osborne is actually more interesting ; Clegg and Cameron look as if they're about to run screaming from the room while Danny Alexander is
clearly falling asleep... priceless. A bit like fags and booze from tomorrow I expect...


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LIVING IN THE PAST

Yeah, I used to live there. Strange but innocent times. Here is my blog entry from 26th June 1973 :

So, apparently, the Doctor allowed Timothy to come in my paddling pool. Obviously an event so traumatic that I've blotted it from my memory.

I was so excited by the Tomorrow People that I included an illustration of an action-packed alien attack from the episode I'd watched :

Why I am not now a celebrated artist is anyone's guess...


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IN SEARCH OF SPACE

Never mind all the crap that's going on down here, we've put a spaceship in orbit around Mercury...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12761025

'Science' seems to be a dirty word in this country but this really puts the hairs up on the back of my neck, we can only fully understand Earth by studying its near (and far) neighbours, those lifeless spheres which share its orbit around the sun. No, really, I do get quite excited about this stuff. It's all rather fascinating, as Prof Brian Spock might say.


In other topical news, it's Comic Relief Day... sod that, tried it once and it took ages to get the print marks off me knob.


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DOWN HOME TOWN

Crikey! Been checking out the news from around the world lately.. I reckon the best bet is to stay firmly where I am, locked safely away in my own little world. It's quiet, it's green and there are no earthquakes, radiation leaks, tsunamis or popular uprisings (apart from the dog trying to raid the larder damn him) and hardly any idiots, despots or loony celebs.

The workplace is 2 miles away and that's as far as I'm bloody going for a while. Now watch, on my way to work today I'll be irradiated and fall into a crack in the ground full of water while being assaulted by an idiot loony celeb fighting for the republican army...

Me and my big mouth, eh?


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LOST FOR WORDS

No flippancy today. Of course, what has happened in Japan has nothing to do with the closeness of the Moon, or the anger of a deity or any other obscure human imaginings, it was just the planet doing what it does - shifting and stirring as all living things do.

I have never visited Japan but I always found the Japanese spirit and work ethic enviable and the country seems to be a very beautiful place. What has happened over the past few days is tragic on a scale I don't think I've ever previously witnessed.

We are all so tiny.

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LIFE IN TOKYO

Ermmm... with reference to my last post... Ok, I'll shut up now....

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

So, apparently it's the end of the world next week. Again.

On March 19th we are due for an ocurrence known as a 'Super Moon' when our only natural satellite will be at its closest for 18 years. Such events are said to cause extreme weather conditions. Erm, maybe I've been imagining it but aren't extreme weather events practically a weekly ocurrence these days? Previous Lunar Perigees have ocurred in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005. We all remember the earthquakes of '55, the tsunamis of '74, the terrible London hurricane of '92 and the small shower over Droitwich of '05 of course.

Why are we so obsessed with disaster? 11 years ago we were all going to die as every computer system in the world imploded at midninght on December 31st 1999, and only last month a terrible massive solar flare was going to obliterate communications networks all across the globe.

NOTHING HAPPENED. And nothing is exactly what will happen again.

I'll give them a bloody super moon, and I won't wipe my arse first.

HOW IS YOUR LIFE TODAY?

So, I've received my Census form.

I've done a little bit of digging into my family background and seen some transcripts of the old 19th century census forms - they generally just want to know who lives at each address, what their relationships are to each other, what their jobs are and which diseases they have (cos let's face it everyone had at least several ailments in those days, ah, the days when bacteria and viruses could happily flit from body to body without fear of antibiotics or vaccinations, happy days - microbiologically speaking)

This bugger is 32 pages long. They want to know everything. Your favourite type of trousers, did you pick your nose yesterday, what size are your genitals etc etc.

The thing is, my form is already invalid - on page 4 it tells me that Robert Smith lives in my house. I'm bloody certain I would have noticed a pigeon-toed lipsticked sulky goth creeping about the place, singing songs about caterpillars... Maybe he lives in the airing cupboard? In the garage, hiding behind the lawnmower? I'll play some ELO, that'll flush the bastard out.

Anyway, I'm off to measure me dick...

BRAND NEW DAY

Good morning and welcome to this inane babble.

Who am I? Where am I? What the hell's going on? You may well ask... I hope that over the course of the next few solar rotations I may just begin to find a way to answer those questions and many more 'cos I'm buggered if I know...

What have I been up to? Well, let's see, on Saturday I ate some lipstick and met a sex-changing cat. On Sunday I found myself in 1983 (again) and yesterday I consumed magic pixie dust and waved my legs in the air.

With me so far? Believe me, that's only the beginning...