Thursday 18 September 2008

It's "Eighteen Nine" again

What a day, I've waited forty years for this. See if you can tell which bits are real.

Why is it that head voices only ever tell men to mutilate prostitutes, doesn't it stand to reason that if a group of people had head voices some of them might be nasty but others would be sickly sweet and most would be just dull? Imagine if you had a voice in your head saying things like "take your coat off or you won't feel the benefit when you go out". What do womens head voices talk about? (no comments please, I don't really want to know what goes on in there)

Oh, there is that woman's voice that keeps telling me "you can never have enough handbags". No wait, that's a real woman, they get mixed up sometimes. Women do.

I was in a meeting about cutting quality to increase dividends for shareholders when someone said "what are you smiling about?", I replied "I was imagining you in a purple velvet dress being shagged in the botty by a walrus". I had started the day by racing to work so that I could take a dump in company time and get paid for it, then I deleted everything in my inbox and spent a couple of hours sorting my holiday pictures again. Then it was lunch time and after that I had a meeting with someone I'd never met about how his business is going to make my business better. Halfway through the meeting I said "stop pissing around monkey chops, tell me what you've got, free tickets to the grand prix? Put your bollocks on the table sonny Jim, let's talk turkey, I'm in the mood for a rumble and I'm not talking about the day after a bad curry, spill it!" we laughed but the tears were real.

After that I had a one hour coffee break and spent the rest of the day on the golf course. I wasn't playing golf, I just ran around and jumped up and down cursing the ground and the sky alternately. That's how normal people play golf, only Tiger Woods can hit a golf ball the length of Britain, the rest of us take the train or send postcards. So, I took a twelve bore and stared the greenkeeper down the barrel, "haircut or shave?" I enquired, he replied "I'll be on my way sir, I don't want any trouble", I insisted "hare-cut or shave?" suddenly I was lying with my fat backside in a cow pat while the wretch sloped off with my gun. I took a mental note to avenge this day, and to avoid country people who know about animals and guns. Country people are scarey, if this had really happened I would've just thrown the gun at him and run like buggery.

It's monstrously insane to think that every world war begins with Germany invading Poland. Frankly I'd invite them to invade Belgium but isn't it much more of a world war if India has a face off with Pakistan? There are more people involved and the consequences will be much much worse. While you're at it, if a Hollywood film is a huge hit it still only gets as much viewers as a Bollywood Monday matinee. To say that the Oscars represent the pinnacle of movie success is heinous jibberish, their movies only reach a small portion of the global movie watching public.

Eventually I wandered home and there was a message on the door which read "Please call me when you get this message" so I knocked on the neighbours door and asked her "did he call you when he got in?" she said "he isn't in yet" so I said "firstly you have to put the fucking note on your door not mine and secondly why the fuck do you want him call you when he's here? You can talk to him when he's here. Look, this is a post it, you need to send him a text message, I'm not fucking telling you again". It's a bloody nightmare living next to a stoner, a couple of months ago I caught her with a paint brush, she'd written "Rage Against the Machine" on my car. I said "that's water based paint isn't it? I can piss on it or wait for rain, either way it doesn't last long in Brussels. Apart from that, I know where you live, tit-head" she ended up cooking me a bowl of cornflakes and apologising profusely for invading my space. In return I nicked her stash. Obviously, well you have to be pretty dumb to get off your tits and ask a stranger into your house, especially if it's that wierdo from next door. So I thought she deserved it.

I smoked the stash and set off downtown to "get some action", ever seen a thirty nine year old man get stoned and go looking for action? You don't want to see it, first I got thrown off the tram "you ain't goin' throw up on my tram, fuck off", I wasn't going make a pizza there and then but I was judged by my red eyes and friendly demeanour. I didn't know where I was, having been thrown off, but I thought I recognised the corner bar from that time my friend's sister kerbed her car and burst a tyre. Needless to say it wasn't that corner bar and I found myself in a Belgian Deliverance situation.

As I walked into the bar the guy in the deerstalker was rear-ending a walrus while his friend celebrated with home made whiskey so I just took a stool by the bar and ordered a lemonade. This was the kind of bar where they water down the lemonade with gin so I fell off the stool and stood up really fast pretending nothing had happened and sauntered over to the pool table. Deerstalker said "nearly done, put your fifty cents on the side of the table", I said "you're not supposed to do that on the pool table", "pool table? son of bitch he's right! are you from the city?". We hit it off really well after that, turned out that deerstalker was a compulsive porn downloader too, the thought of having actual sex with a real woman triggered seizures in him so I took great joy in banging the barmaid over the head with a sock full of mayonnaise. She was asking for it, why else was she dressed only in cling film? And she gave me a free shot afterwards.

It was lively for a monday, there were almost six people in, one was just lying in the entrance waving his left hand in a gesture of defeat. Maybe he wanted a stretcher it was hard to tell, I thought it best to pretend not to notice. There were five people on our side of the bar but there were eight on the other side, and that side of the bar had mirrors and poles and the women were more than friendly. I was just sitting and watching when a young lady approached and said "you are young red blood man, I take you in back room for fifty euro", I said "what's in the back? Poker? Have you got a proper pool table?" I told her about Deerstalker and the walrus but she wasn't listening she just wanted to make me happy and eventually (after about seven seconds) I gave in, I felt cheap afterwards. I felt cheap before too so in the end I didn't lose anything that a man would understand.

I went on to another bar just for a drink and fell off another stool. There was nobody in, which was a blessing in this neighborhood.

Eventually a local woman wondered in, I think it was a woman it was hard to tell even though the sun had just come up and the place was well it. Nevertheless, sensing trouble I ran out the back door and just made it into the office in time for our regular breakfast catch-up meeting. The boss said "you look a bit tired today" I said "I didn't sleep so well, I'm a bit worried about this project". He said "Looks like you've been overdoing lately, I'm going to get someone in to ease your workload, in the meantime take a couple of days off and relax. Play golf or go fishing or something".

When I got home there was a post-it on my door with this message "call me when you get this message"......

The clowns made me do it.

JJ

Monday 15 September 2008

Dreamtime 1, Cowboys xor Indians

This is from this morning, I woke up at 5.35 after dreaming about rowing a boat on a small reservoir but I quickly went back to sleep.

There was a rumour going around the village that bandits were going to attack the bank, and rob it. As it was late in the evening already the sheriff decided to post some men inside the bank overnight, to surprise the robbers. We volunteered immediately; gun toting was all we had in those days so we pretty much volunteered for everything that involved toting a gun. Everything involved toting a gun.

It was a big bank so everyone had to spread out, me and my two brothers were put in the big room in the middle of the bank next to the vault. We settled down to get some sleep. It was a quiet night, actually we didn't believe there would be any bandits. There were always rumours about someone attacking the village, we didn't even bring our guns. In fact we weren't even dressed like gun toting cowboys, we were wearing our school clothes from the seventies, beige flares and flowery shirts. Until secondary school we didn't wear uniforms.

I was the first awake, it was almost daylight so I woke the other two up, "it's a quarter to six, the bank staff will be here soon, we might as well pack up". We were almost ready to leave when the most fearful commotion brewed up outside, there was screaming and running around, we took a step back, the shooting started and somebody set a fire against the main door. Next thing we all expected an explosion, the middle of the room was empty so we ducked down behind some armchairs.

It wasn't an explosion at all, it was the alarm clock, ACDC – Let there be Rock, the timing was spot on because we were about to get slaughtered. Once awake I thought to myself, "why the hell didn't we have guns? There should have been a big oak table in the middle of the room to brace the door". I managed to find the snooze and soon I was back in the pre-vault room, huge oak table in the middle, result! Machine gun in hand, result! Only problem was, no brothers, instead of brothers I now had a large dog and a woman. The woman didn't look like she was sent to fight bandits. I'd spent the night with brothers and I was preparing to tote a gun with a woman, it was all wrong again! At least I was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt this time.

There was no moving the oak table now, but there was another smaller table to duck behind, she said "a wooden table won't stop bullets!" and I pointed out the titanium sheet attached under the table top. I was trying to impress her with my metallurgical knowledge. I couldn't get the dog to settle down before the explosion went off, poor mutt caught a huge piece of shrapnel in the neck, it was a mess but at least he didn't suffer. Bandits charged in and I let loose with the machine gun, bandits charged out again and crouched in the door way. Traditional gun fight ensued, traditional excepting that I was toting an M-16.

Don't know what happened next, I remember thinking "Shirley the sheriff and his boys'll be here soon, I'm not going to last long at this. Not now Shirley can't you see were under attack?" The next thing I heard was Thunderstruck (also ACDC for them 'as don't know). Normally I would have hit the snooze to see how it worked out with Shirley, but it's Monday morning and I have to wrestle some cowboys in Finance today. So I toddled off to work.

JJ