Zen and the Art of Being a Sphincter

[Warning: contains bad language, sexism and a degree of intolerance]

I got a tax rebate on Friday. Woo and indeed Hoo. It was only for £164, but Jesus Harry Christ did it arrive at a time when we really needed a bit of extra cash. The wife cajoled me all weekend to remember to put it in the bank on Monday, especially as I bought the shopping on Saturday and subsequently went pretty close to my overdraft limit. So, like the dutiful hubby I am, I trundled off to the local Co-op and it's boxy post office run by the amiable Justin.

Parking on Bushland Road is a bit like some Serengeti plain; sometimes it's empty and other times it's full to the brim; today was the latter, so I had to park about a ¼ of a mile from the shop. My back has been screaming at me all morning and literally by the time I walked the 400 metres or so, I was wincing with almost every step. I have to admit I was slightly preoccupied when I walked into the shop, therefore I amazingly missed the man I walked into. I say amazingly because he made Fat Bloke from the Harry Enfield Show look like Kate Moss. He was also quite old and had a ruddy face and receding hairline - this doesn't have much to do with the story, but it adds a bit of texture.

"Watch the fuck where you're going!" He bellowed at me as I bounced off his midriff.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you." I said quite honestly.

"How do you miss something this size?" He said without even a hint of humour in his voice.

"Okay, I should have said I wasn't paying attention," I said, putting my hands up in that universal admission of surrender.

"Just watch where you're fucking going!" He bellows at me; loudly enough for the half a dozen people in the queue for the tills to turn and yaup.

When I buggered my back up again, about a month ago, I felt it go. I had a twang in the small of my back and then, a bit like peeing yourself, there was a hot spread of fire across my spine. I had a similar thing happen while standing in front of Uberfat Man. Something just went twang in my head. So as he literally pushed past me, I failed to keep my mouth shut. "Look Fatty, I said I was sorry, there's no need to act like a complete cunt."

"What did you say?"

"You heard me or does being so fucking fat make you deaf as well?"

"How dare you?" He says, face turning a slightly more ruddy hue.

"How dare you not accept my apology. I said I was sorry or doesn't apologising mean fuck all now days?"

"Look I've had a bad day, you should have been more careful."

"So you having a bad day means you can act like a prick, does it?" I was fuming and Uberfat Man probably saw this. He mumbled something about something that might have been an admission of his irascibility or might have been some kind of curse on all my family, I couldn't tell, he'd turned away and was waddling towards the Suzuki WagonR that I somehow doubted would take his weight. I muttered something rhyming with 'Cat' under my breath and headed for the post office situated, fortunately, well away from the front of the store.

The queue for Justin was six deep and standing in front of me was a gaggle (or maybe the collective noun should have been 'clunge') of fat chavs. The one we shall call 15stone was directly in front of me; she was wearing a pair of baggy black shorts, pink tights and a bomber jacket. She had bright red hair, almost purple in the fluorescent lights of the shop. Next to her was 14stone, who was wearing some grey knitted combo that might have been fashionable in the 1970s. She had reddish auburn hair with brilliant white streaks in it, which were a good four inches from the roots; said roots were a different colour from the rest of her bonce and it gave the illusion of some bizarre set of alien traffic lights. The final one of the three or 16stone as we shall refer to her as, had naturally frizzy ginger hair, tied back into a Croydon Face Lift which did nothing but make her face look even more capable of curdling milk. I really can't remember what she was wearing, except that she was leaning against the counter on the left with her arms resting on her belly.

14 Stone: Russ is in Sri Lanka.

15 Stone: What's he doing there then?

14 Stone: He's on 'oliday. A couple of weeks after he gets back he's off to Morocco with his mates.

15 Stone: What's he doing there?

14 Stone: He's going on 'oliday again, innee.

16 Stone: Fucking queue. How long is that old bastard going to take. You'd think they would have a queue for pensioners only. Don't they realise people can't wait around all day. I got things to do.

14 Stone: What you got to do then?

15 Stone: Probably fucking.

16 Stone: Nah, Steve's at work and besides, I've had the shits really bad last couple of days. I wouldn't want to have an accident.

Massive cackles emanate from the trio.

15 Stone: 'ow come your fella's getting two 'olidays then?

14 Stone: He sold that Beemer he bought a few months ago. Some twat on Lumbertubs gave him the full asking price.

16 Stone: How come he didn't take you then?

14 Stone: I don't like 'ot weather, do I.

16 Stone: What the fuck is he doing in Sri Lanka, he can't stand Pakis.

15 Stone: He likes a good curry though.

14 Stone: Sri Lanka doesn't have any Pakis in it.

16 Stone: Well they all look the same don't they?

There were nods and general murmurs of agreement and the queue moved forward. I missed a chunk of conversation because my mind was wandering back to the rudeness of Uberfat Man.

16 Stone: Fucking 'ell. Steve reckons old people should have their own lane in the motorways.

14 Stone: They can't 'elp it. We'll all be old eventually.

16 Stone: I'd rather die than be like that.

Keep eating the chips and pies, darling and your wish will ultimately come true I thought and smiled to myself.

15 Stone: What are you laughing at?

She was addressing me. I looked slightly puzzled at her and shrugged.

15 Stone: Are you listening to our conversation?

Me: No.

15 Stone: What you fucking laughing at?

I frowned and wondered if I had an invisible neon sign above my head which invited people to take a pop.

Me: I was not laughing and I was not smiling at you.

16 Stone: Yeah, what are you laughing about?

Me: Something that isn't your business?

15 Stone: Fucking freak.

The queue moved forward a couple more feet and I opted to stand my ground, put a couple of feet between me and the three fat witches. Half a minute passed and the women were still mumbling to each other with the occasional glance thrown in my direction. I started to zone out again, figuring a bit of daydreaming would make all the idiots go away. Then there was a tap on my shoulder. I looked around and there was a little old lady standing behind me. I smiled at her.

Little Old Lady: the queues moved.

She says pointing at the three foot gap between me and the munters in front.

Me: I know.

Little Old Lady: well keep up with the queue or I'll have your place.

I looked at her and shook my head.

Me: we'll still get there in the same amount of time.

16 Stone: why don't you let her into your place. If you can't keep up with the queue you should lose your place.

I could feel the anger brewing, so I walked the three steps forward and stood about 8 inches away from the bunch of ugly in front of me.

14 Stone: Don't get too close.

They all cackled again and 16 Stone's turn for the cashier came up. She left the other two and we shuffled forward another couple of steps. The two other women went half way to the other woman, cutting the usual distance between the person being served and the waiting queue by about half. I opted not to follow them, figuring I'd stay by the Queue Here sign.

Little Old Lady: The queue?

She was pointing at the four foot gap between me and the other two girls. I pointed at the rather large sign that said 'Queue Here' and turned my back on her. I heard a harumph and she waltzes past me and stands in the gap between me and the munters.

Me: Excuse me. What do you think you're doing?

Little Old Lady: I told you if you didn't keep up with the queue I'd have your place.

Me: But it says queue here; the gap is for privacy.

She just ignored me and turned her back on me.

Me: Ignorant fucking old bag.

15 Stone: What did you call her.

Me: She just pushed in front of me.

14 Stone: I said he was a freak.

Little Old Lady: He wasn't keeping up with the queue.

Me: I was waiting at the sign.

Little Old Lady: Well, these girls are waiting here.

Me: They know the woman being served by Justin.

Little Old Lady: Well, you're not having your place back.

16 Stone: (in the middle of being served) Yeah, let the pensioner in; she shouldn't have to wait.

What?

15 stone: (speaking to the old woman) Some people are just so ignorant these days.

Little Old Lady: He's probably one of those Eastern Europeans; think they can come over here and run the country.

How does that work then? I maybe only uttered a couple of dozen words, but they were all in English and all with my pretty neutral English accent.

14 Stone: My Russ might have a job if it wasn't for all those Poles. Coming over here, getting our jobs and buying our houses. They ought to all be deported. My neighbour says they all belong to some Polish Mafia.

The next few minutes went by without incident. All three of the flabby triplets were served and the old lady, who had pushed past me, got served. She wanted her pension, TV license stamps, electricity card and various other things doing. I timed her; she was at the counter for 11 minutes. When she finished, she walked past me and gave me what can only be described as an evil and satisfied smile.

Me: (on arrival to Justin) Did you see that?

Justin: What?

Me: That old woman pushed in front of me.

He looked at me like I was a five year old moaning about how unfair it was to have to go to bed at 7pm. I paid my money in and left. Anyone seeing me must have thought I had ringing in my ears, because I was shaking my head in disbelief - all the way out of the doors and up to my car...

And it was only 9.35am.

***

Last Monday an old colleague contacted me and asked if I would help with her daughter's university project. Kim, the daughter of my old colleague, is doing some kind of journalism course and her current project is about unemployed people and how being made redundant can have adverse effects on people. She wanted to talk to me because I fitted the bill perfectly.

I spoke with her on Thursday afternoon and she arranged to come round this morning. She was due at 10am, but turned up a little after I got back from my post office adventures. She explained she gave herself plenty of time to find me and found me quicker than she thought. I invited her in, placated the dogs, which she was perfectly excellent with and wandered into the kitchen. "Would you like a cuppa?"

"I don't drink tea or coffee. Have you got any hot chocolate?"

"No. I don't."

"I'm okay then." We chatted for a few minutes, talked about her mum, what she was doing at uni and her iPhone, which she was fiddling with throughout the first five minutes she was in the house. "Are you sure you haven't got any hot chocolate?" She asked.

"I'm positive. We don't drink it and frankly we couldn't afford it."

"You must have one of those free sample sachets that come on the front of magazines." I wondered if I was dreaming.

"No I haven't. We don't buy magazines that have free samples on them."

"Well, I would have thought being unemployed you'd buy things like that for the free stuff?" I wondered if I should explain that the average magazine that gives cover-mounted stuff away usually weighs in at about £3 and the freebie could be bought for less than 20p - economical it's not.

"Oh. Okay. Have you got any Lemsips?" I frowned and shook my head.

"It's just I think I'm coming down with a cold."

"There's a shop at the end of the road." She looked at me like I'd just suggested going upstairs to have some naked fun.

"Have you got any juice?" We didn't. Then I realised she wasn't talking about fruit juice, she was talking about squash.

"I've got some orange and mango."

"I don't like mango." I felt like being really sarcastic, but bit my lip instead. "Could I have a really weak coffee?" Obviously she liked coffee more than she thought.

Anyhow... after this rather bizarre opening, we sat down in the lounge and she got out her ... notebook. I groaned as I sat down on the sofa. "Is your back bad?" I nodded. "My dad's an osteopath." I knew this as her mother was forever touting her husband's business whenever I saw her; she knew I had back troubles and apparently her husband could solve problems that the combined might of the NHS couldn't.

"I know."

"You should go and see him."

"Even if I thought it would do any good, I can't afford it."

"It's only £28 a session; if you're unemployed you get 10% discount."

"I don't have £25.20 to spend on osteopaths I'm afraid."

"No, I said it was £28."

"Yes, but I'm unemployed. I'd get the 10% discount?"

"Oh is that what it is with the discount?" She laughed and I started to wonder how she ever got into university.

"I'll bet you spend that much on painkillers and special mattresses?"

"Um... I get my prescriptions free."

"Do you? I nodded. "Oh..." I smiled. "Perhaps I could ask him to see you as a favour for you doing this?"

"I wouldn't bother; there's no point seeing an osteopath unless you can see him over a number of sessions and I really can't afford it."

"But if you started seeing him, you might get a job in between and be able to pay for your visits." I started to wonder if she was just there to sell her father's wares.

A few minutes passed and we got down to the nitty-gritty of her questions. "So, what's it like being unemployed?" I started to give her a nice full description of the last six months, but she stopped me. "Sorry, but I can't write all of this down. Can you give me, I dunno, six words to describe it?" I felt like cackling a bit, but pulled six words from out of my head that were apt. She nodded while scribbling them down. "What have you done about getting a job?"

"I've looked. Applied for and failed to get a couple of dozen."

"Okay. Why did you lose your job?"

"I got made redundant."

"What does that actually mean?" Can you imagine what was by this time going on in my head?

"It means the job I was doing had become obsolete."

"Yes, but what does that mean?"

"It means that the job I did stopped existing." She frowned, scribbled some notes down, went to ask me something, thought better of it and fell silent. I felt I needed to elucidate a little. "After the budget came in, the YOT, who I worked for, didn't have enough money in their budget to pay every one, so they kind of decided my grade wasn't needed any more."

"Didn't they offer you another job?" I nearly laughed.

"Um, they didn't have enough money to pay me and my colleagues, so they had to make us redundant." She nodded like she understood every word I said.

"That seems a bit unfair." I felt like suggesting 'unfair' was maybe a tad too lenient, but opted against it. "Would you consider doing something else?"

I was about to answer this with an explanation about how my back trouble was preventing me from doing certain types of job, but before I started I could see where the conversation would go and frankly I didn't want to see her bloody osteopath father; in fact, I wouldn't go and see her osteopath father even if I won millions of pounds on the lottery. I'd probably go to his fiercest rival and offer ringing endorsements rather than go to her father.

The next thing I knew, she was standing up. "That's about everything I need," she said making her way to the front door. I was a little bemused, but also quite pleased that this experience was over. Kim thanked me for my help - I wasn't totally sure if I'd given her anything other than a disinclination to see her osteopath father.

I saw her out and said my goodbyes and wondered just what the point of the exercise was.

Then I walked back in the house to be presented by a big pile of dog sick...

The Space and Time Travel Agency

Excuse me for a few moments of self-indulgence and another chance to tell you what an amazingly good ideas man I am...

My good and dear friend Roger commented on musician Boo Hewerdine's FB page today with something that reminded me of an idea I had back in the 1990s (before Dr Who got its revamp). An idea that I occasionally delve back into, but rarely do anything with. In 1997, when I had just started to get back into writing fiction and started to put my myriad of weird and wonderful ideas down on paper (or computer), I had this idea which I dubbed The Space and Time Travel Agency a kind of cross between Mr Ben, Doctor Who and Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey and his Warlock saga (the latter two being a very much acid influenced cosmic saga by one of comics' most respected drug fiends).

The nuts and bolts of the idea was that a man - not too dissimilar to the kids' programme Mr Ben - had run off with his race's only means of salvation. A machine that allowed them to go back in time and erase the mistakes that caused their ultimate downfall. The man, who still hasn't got a name (oddly enough), stole the machine because the changes his race intended to make would almost certainly destroy his family rendering him non-existent.

The man buys a shop in a back alley of a city on Earth and offers people the opportunity to travel to any when or where to observe monumental events; the only proviso being they cannot tamper with time or change the course of history or the future. Sounds all a bit DW, but remember that it was a dead concept in 1997, the film had essentially flopped and the BBC were not in any hurry to bring him back.

The man grabs the attention of a future earth that is run by the Multi-dimensional Church of Disorder - a quasi-religious movement that controls the planet and uses time travel to change events in Earth's past for their benefit. As soon as the man discovers their interest in him, he becomes aware that they have been manipulating the past; changing things, allowing others, so that they would ultimately be the most powerful organisation on the planet and this rogue man with his machine could feasibly change back all the changes the MDCD make or it could fall into the hands of rebels, causing a Time War (yep, something else I envisaged in 1997).

That was about it; I got about 10,000 words down and eventually moved onto other projects and ideas. The thing was, the concept of a man out of time (so to speak) stuck with me. I had an idea about a time traveller, created by a future world, who lived outside the constraints of time. He rebelled against the authority that created him to change events in the past and eventually had to fight different time travellers from different points in the future, while all the time killing ancestors so that whatever point in the future invents time travel, he could make sure it doesn't actually happen. However, despite putting down a few thousand words of this, the concept blew my brain apart and just thinking about it left me gibbering like a demented fool.

Eventually, I started on a massive idea called Cosmopolis - set 1million years in the future; which, while it didn't have any time travel in it, had a man who was half a million years old and another who was a couple of billion. It also started the seeds of another idea I had; something called Stasis - an invention that allowed you to place something out of time, so that it never aged or in the case of its fictional invention, allowed space travel, the transportation of perishable goods and was a future equivalent of cryogenics. Stasis froze things in time, so that anything going on outside of it would continue to age, but anything inside would emerge as if they had spent less than a second of their own lives. I'm sure I've discussed Cosmopolis here before - probably the time I gave a list of all my failed projects - but it was a really ambitious idea of mine. I envisaged an entire series of books all based in the Dyson Sphere that was Cosmopolis. I even stole the name of a comicbook villain as my hero for the series - Korvac.

I even attempted to write a kind of prequel to the story, about the invention of Stasis and the battle to control it. That, like all the others mentioned here, sits in stasis, waiting for the day I win the Lottery, when I can create my own publishing company and write or finish all the ideas I've ever had.

The thing is, all the above are science fiction, something I've never really been a big fan of. I think I've read about 5 SF novels in my entire life (not including the faux SF by Stephen King) and as I'm not particularly science minded, this makes a lot of sense. Yet, science fiction and fantasy are such good mediums for outlandish and impossible stories; it amazes me it isn't a popular as it could be.

But then again, when you have TV programmes like Terra Nova, which purports to be SF, but is actually The Waltons with dinosaurs; or the BBC's Outcasts, where nothing interesting happened until it was cancelled; you can understand why SF isn't treated the way fans believe it should be. I think it would be excellent, especially in light of HBO's Game of Thrones excursion into pure fantasy, if one of the larger Cable companies invested in a proper SF series; with a commitment to have at least three series. Several months ago, I wrote a long thesis, originally designed to go up here, but probably consigned to the bin, about Babylon 5. It was written as an exercise in seeing if B5 could be transposed into a 21st century TV show, especially as it offered as many truly SF moments as it did cheesy character building moments.

Probably the most obvious SF TV show at the moment is Fringe, but that is more bonkers than SF and obviously is constrained by the requirements of being obsequious to fuckwit Yanks. You can't really call any thing with the initials ST or SW as SF and showers of shit like V or Falling Skies are only SF in setting. Hell, I had a great idea for a TV series; it was called Second Contact about a race of aliens who come to Earth and are introduced as the first alien visitors, but are actually the second alien race to come here, the first being hidden away, because the second race is actually trying to exterminate them. It had all the usual intrigue; juxtaposition and plot twists that you'd expect and was going to be ambiguous enough to make the viewer wonder if the benign and wistful original alien race is really to be trusted or the monstrous, mega-aliens with big guns and a completely alien culture are really as bad as they seem. That, like the idea I had with my good and dear friend Martin Shipp is probably also confined to the text bin of history...

I can't remember if I've told you about Sea View. It was another time travel idea I had, which I roped Martin into a few years ago. We decided that two such inventive and excellent people as us should not be doing what we normally do, but should be courted by Hollywood (and the BBC) to create and produce stunningly brilliant TV series. Sea View was about a seaside village that just happened to have a time portal in it, which the locals used and abused, but everything gets thrown into disarray when their benefactor dies and his son becomes the new owner of the hotel - Sea View - which is the centre of all the shenanigans. It was Time Tunnel meets The Monarch of the Glen and was going to be Sunday night drama with a touch of the weird and unusual thrown in to tempt the fans of Lost and programmes of that ilk. However, after people read it they thought it was a pile of pooh, so Martin and I slumped back into reality and haven't attempted to work with each other since, despite talking about it a lot. We did have another idea, but it was a bit of a Dexter derivative, so nothing ever really came of it.

It isn't just me; I see lots of my mates ideas; either for their own comics or for short stories and ideas and wonder how the fuck you get the opportunity to usurp the lazy, useless wankers who continually churn out shit like Terra Nova or Haven. I mean, for Chris'sake, do TV executives really think that the vast majority of viewing public adults still need toilet training?

Disco Banjo

"I've run out of ink for my printer and I can't print anything out."

"How can we help with that."

"Can I get some CVs printed off. It's not like I ever use them now, but they're useful for agencies."

"Oh, we don't do that. But if you want to go to Job Club, you can use their facilities."

"Job Club?"

"Yes, it's every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the college."

"But I can't tell anyone about it?"

"..."

"The first rule of Job Club is you don't talk about Job Club."

"..."

"The film with Brad Pitt. Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club."

"I don't watch films..."

Oh, aren't civil servants just as fucking dull as we've always thought they were?

***

Driving back from Job Club (I shouldn't tell you about it, but I will), I thought about the conversation I had with one of the advisers. "Why don't you try to get back into comics?" She said, as if it was a little like popping into Tesco's and buying an aubergine.

"It's not really as simple as that," I said, hoping she wouldn't labour the point and end up with me boring the tits off of her - because I'm feeling isolated I'm gushing more than conversing at the moment, especially when I lure an unsuspecting listener in.

"But if you have all these years experience, surely one of the companies who do the Spider-Man films could use someone with your knowledge." Damn. This meant I had to bore the tits off of her.

"I'm not even going to try to explain why what you suggest isn't feasible, just trust me that I'd have more chance of sleeping with God."

"What about getting back into the media. If you were an editor and journalist for so long, surely that must count for something?" Stop now you stupid woman, you have no idea what you're letting yourself in for!

"I'm not that good."

"You can't be that bad, you worked in it for 15 years."

"Yes, but it doesn't mean I'm any good. Do you have colleagues that you feel don't know which way to sit on a toilet?"

"I couldn't say."

"Well, if you do, then I'd probably fall into that category; if I went to a proper magazine publisher they would probably still be laughing now. I'm also nearly a decade away from it; everything has moved on." Thankfully, she just nodded and continued to look through my CV. I didn't want to come across as someone who didn't want a job, so I did the really unwise thing and said, "Besides, if someone offered me a job in comics now, I'd want a contract that stated quite clearly that I wouldn't get royally butt-fucked by them and I'd get all the money I'm owed from said contract if it all went tits-up. If you'll excuse my bad language."

"Why?"

"You don't want to know."

"Well, it might help me find you a suitable job."

"I doubt very much if the incredibly small number of jobs in comics would ever find their way to Northampton Job Centre; besides I really need to live in New York to stand even a snowball's chance in hell."

"Oh, why's that?"

"Because that's where the work is. I'm not a comicbook writer and the only thing I draw are stick men. It's hardly the kind of trait you'd get headhunted to write Spider-Man for." She nodded, but looked confused as well.

"Have you thought about writing articles for papers and magazines? You could write about comics; I'm sure there are people who would be interested." I was beginning to wonder what qualifications you needed to be an unemployment adviser.

"Let's put it this way. I wrote a book about my life in comics. It's even been published on Kindle, as well as being serialised on my blog." She was nodding like this was something really positive. "To date, I get about 1000 hits a week on the blog and I've sold about 35 copies of the book. I was considering buying a yacht or a small Caribbean island, but my accountant reckons by the time I can afford it I'll be 809." She didn't get the joke.

"How much money have you made from it and when was it published?" Aha, I could see where this was going.

"I have made approximately £80 from it and I won't get anything from Amazon until I've sold 50 copies in whatever country it is sold in. So far it's 27 in the UK and 8 in the USA. If I ask for the money before I reach my targets, I pay an excess fee."

"Okay. How much is the book?"

"About £4. Why are you going to buy it?"

"I have a Kindle; I might just do that." I smiled thinking she had no idea what she was letting herself into; or wondering if she was just interested in getting my royalties up so they could deduct that money from my benefits. Even I don't think civil servants would go that far to save £100.

"I think exploring the comics world for future employment isn't such a good idea. I've had enough disappointments so far and it would end up being a futile search. There's no money to be made from it unless you draw like Michelangelo or write like Dickens and I'm afraid I'm neither."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Part of my job is to try and get you to feel more confident about going for jobs you might never have considered. At least you have experience."

"Yes, but you need for there to be jobs. There aren't any, anywhere in the UK."

Someone behind us, a man who looked like he'd just forgotten where his arse was, chirped in, "I read 2000 AD, it's really good." I looked at my adviser and shrugged.

"What's 2000AD?" She asked.

"An anachronism," I said with a hint of sarcasm and in-joke. She shook her head; she didn't see the joke and I suddenly remembered the other adviser, yesterday, who didn't know what Fight Club was.

"You seem slightly bitter about comics."

"Go and buy my book." She nodded and scribbled some notes in my new folder. This suddenly injected me with a pang of paranoia. "Look; in a nutshell, I worked in and around comics for 25 years and only really got any remuneration from it for about a third of my time in it. I have won awards; produced a magazine read by over 100,000 people across the world and have always been in the wrong place at the right time. Do you have a hobby?" She nodded. "Would you like to make a business out of it?" She pondered this and eventually shrugged an 'I don't know'. "I loved comics. I was a geek. Then I sold them, then I wrote about them and then I produced my own magazine about them and by the time I got to the last one I hated comics so much I'd have rather be anally probed by Judge Dredd than have anything to do with them. You live, breath and eat your hobby and soon it becomes just another job. Why do you think I left comics and started working with the homeless and disenfranchised? Last year, I was approached by the organisers of the Umbrella Fair and asked if I'd be the PR man for the festival. This involved producing the magazine, getting promotions, press coverage and liaising with all the contributors. When I suggested that if I did it I'd have to run it professionally; I was looked at in abject horror. It was, according to them, the most important job in the festival's organisation, but it also required my skills from working in social care, because some of the people contributing were 'precious' - my word, not theirs. They felt that I could marry the two skills and do a good job, but they didn't want me hassling anyone for copy, adverts or contributions - just in case I upset them and they pulled out. In other words they wanted me to do the job in about three days, not get paid for it and suffer idiots gladly.

"The two jobs don't work with each other and while I could do what they asked for with my eyes shut; it stressed me out just contemplating it. I could not put the two hats on at the same time, which is what they wanted, and I love working in social care and asking me to do this job could well kill off that interest. If you want to know what I want to do, it's to stay in the line of work I've been doing for the last ten years." She hadn't glazed over, she was searching through her computer terminal.

"There's a job at the college for a web technician in their social welfare department."

"I'm not a web technician."

"Yes, but it requires a knowledge of all the things you've been doing for the last ten years."

"Using that logic, perhaps I should apply to be a porn star, on the basis that I have a passion for sex."

"You're not being very helpful, Phillip." No, I wasn't and I really hate being called Phillip...

***

You can tell that I'm suffering from almost terminal boredom at the moment. I've started subscribing to web pages I would have once avoided like the plague. Den of Geek has become one of my favourite sites. It keeps me informed (in a similar way my old comics gossip column did) about what is happening in Geekdom and allows me to criticise the contributors, the programmes they review and the general idiots that frequent these places.

Then I saw the irony...

***

As I don't have a Blackberry (but I do have two bags of them in the freezer), I really don't understand this current joke going around about setting your iPhone to airplane mode.

Not only can't I tell jokes; I can't explain them either...

***

I was reading on the Football Gossip column on the BBC website today that former Arsenal, West Ham and Wales striker Jon Hartson, who recently battled and won a fight against testicular cancer, is having to make do with an allowance of £250 a week because of his gambling debts.

Poor sod. How on earth does he manage on just £250 a week...

Who says sarcasm doesn't work in print?

***

Of course, because I'm now struggling to be a contributing member of society and I face long days of doing fuck all, if anybody knocks on my front door, they immediately become fair game. Just after I wrote the word 'print' above, the dogs went wild and I realised it was someone at the door. I've had the blinds closed, so I haven't been distracted by the flotsam and jetsam that wanders passed my house on a daily basis, so I had no idea that God Botherers were at my door.

I usually have two stock answers for callers - anyone selling me something, I say we just rent the house and if it's anything to do with God I just normally slam the door in their face, mumbling about 'sad pathetic wankers'. This morning, however, as I'm absolutely pumped and in need to unload a lot of verbage, I stood and waited for the delivery.

"Good morning sir. I hope we haven't interrupted anything." I shook my head. "We're in the neighbourhood talking to people about expectations and faith; have you got a few minutes to talk to us?"

"Other than God, what are you selling?" I can recognise a JW from a mile off; I still have their DNA on my fist from the mid-1980s.

"We do have copies of this," he said, offering a handful of Watchtowers in my direction.

"I'm unemployed. I can't even afford to eat properly."

"Some of the stories in these will give you hope and restore your faith," said the bespectacled shorter one.

"Can I eat them?" He looked at me like I'd offered him a free blow job. "If I can't eat them, then they won't serve any purpose apart from as toilet paper. Although, paradoxically, if I can't eat, then I doubt I'd be able to shit much." I think they spotted my sarcasm and inclination to be slightly hostile.

"Thank you for your time, sir, we're sorry if we've bothered you." And they went to walk off.

"Hold on a minute. Aren't you going to try to convert me to Jehovah or give me some spiritual support in my time of need?"

"You obviously don't want to talk to us, sir," said the taller one without glasses and seriously bad acne on his forehead.

"Oh I do. I'd be happy to discuss religion with you. Why it's the root of all evil, causes wars, hate and prejudice. But you obviously don't like theological debates, you're only interested in selling the bloody Watchtower. I thought Christians were benevolent people, willing to donate their time to offer succour to those in a time of crisis."

"We're Christians," said the one with glasses and you could see the shoulders of his partner slump. "We do offer comfort and support to people who deserve it." His friend went to say something, probably along the lines of 'let's get out of here, NOW', but I beat him to it.

"So, on the strength of two minutes conversation, you've decided that I'm not worthy of comfort and support?"

"I didn't say that at all." Said the short one.

"You do have an... attitude, sir. You're obviously not receptive to ideas, at least not today." Said the tall one who now looked like he desperately needed the loo.

"Surely then, I'm the kind of person your theocracy would love to convert?" Eat that, JW!

"There has to be an element of willing with the people we talk to."

"So, you prey on the vulnerable then?"

"I didn't say that."

"I think you'll find you did."

"Someone who is willing doesn't necessarily mean someone who is vulnerable. We meet a lot of people who are fed up with their religion or have none at all, but would like some faith in the current climes."

"Fair enough. So why are you more interested in flogging the Watchtower than talking to people? You would have been happy to take my money, despite the fact I have no job and no money?"

"Some people can find a few pence for some enlightenment, even the poorest people in society."

"Have you ever considered they're just trying to get rid of you?" The short one smiled, but his presumably more senior partner did not.

"Belief in God isn't about money."

"So why are all the churches wallowing in cash and people like me are suffering?"

"Probably because you don't believe in God." The small one was getting slightly belligerent; this was good!

"Now, I never said I didn't believe in God. I don't, but I never said I didn't."

"I think we've taken up more than enough of your time, sir. Have a good day," and he literally grabbed the small man with glasses and walked off.

"Damn, and I was going to ask you if you wanted a cup of tea, or maybe a really filthy three-way!" sadly they didn't reply to this suggestion and kept looking forwards, like they feared the same fate as Lot's wife!

I'm still chuckling about it now, despite the fact that I'm likely to burn in hell for my sins...

***

We won the pub quiz for the third week on the trot on Tuesday. We tried desperately not, but we're just cleverer than everyone else.

The delicious irony of Tuesday night was that both Roger and I have come to dread quiz nights; not because we win a lot, but because the once great pub - The Vic - has rather fallen into a state of ambivalence. The toilets need cleaning; the pub needs sprucing up and the beer, once some of the best in the town, seems to be a bit flat, old and possibly even unclean.

I declared that I'd drive on Tuesday, so disillusioned with the beer, I decided that I didn't mind just having a pint. Roger emailed me to say that he was only having two at the most, because he had an important meeting at 8.45am the next morning. I informed the wife she could get drunk and everyone was happy, until we walked into the pub and saw there were two Oakham beers on tap - the mighty JHB and the wondrous White Dwarf. Oh, the irony.

Roger had three pints and I pushed the limit by having two - JHB is only 3.8% and a damned good session beer. Next week I'm not driving and Roger doesn't have an important meeting; you can bet your life that the beers on offer will resemble lifeless washing up water and we'll both have the shits and a bad head the next day...

It is also quite ironic because One El, our usual beer-loving quizmaster is on holiday in Mexico, a place where Oakham beer has yet to reach. The weather might be hot, but he's missed out on a rare thing, The Vic having good beer. I'm sure he'll be heartbroken.

Who says sarcasm doesn't work in print?

***

Haven has been recommissioned for a third series. Someone is felating the heads of the SyFy Channel, they must be!

Forgive me for a moment; but after reading the comments left on the Stephen King Facebook page - there really are some turkey loving fuckwits out there.

***

The wife was in a charity shop yesterday (yes, we've fallen that far) and couldn't help overhear part of a conversation between a slightly mad looking woman and the two assistants. You'll get the gist of it...

"So the rule of thumb is if you can peel the caps they're edible and if you can't then they're toadstools and will poison you."

This woman is going to die.

I'd say about half of all mushrooms can been peeled; these include Death Cap, Panther Cap and Destroying Angel - all part of the same family as Fly Agaric (the red mushroom with white spots you see on most book covers) - the amanita family; probably the most poisonous and deadly species growing in this country.

Mushrooms that can be 'skinned' also include agaricus xanthodermus or Yellow Stainer - part of the same family as your common shop bought mushroom, but responsible for 80% of all poisonings every single year!

Similarly, there are at least a dozen mushrooms I can think of that you can't peel - including shop bought oyster mushrooms (pleurotis) and shiitake mushrooms - much loved by people who like eating tough pencil rubbers.

In this case a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing...

***

I watched a bit of the U2 documentary on Sunday night. I'm amazed that the three other band members haven't beaten Bono(bo) to death with his own self-sanctimonious ego. Sometimes course swear words just aren't good enough and something almost inoffensive nowadays will do.

Bono is a tosser.

***

It might seem odd that a confirmed vegetarian such as I would get so much pleasure from watching a programme called Man vs Food. But, what can I say? I find it to be 13 minutes of wonderful car wreck TV.

I say 13 minutes; the show is actually 22 minutes long, but there's the intro, credits, constant recaps and montages of the previous few minutes to pad out what is essentially a large man eating his way across the Saturated Fats Capitals of the USA. It is a meat feast bar none. There is more meat in some of the abominations he puts in his mouth than I ever ate in the 30 years of scoffing dead animals.

The thing is Adam Richman, the Brooklyn born presenter, is an affable chap and tries very hard to come across as an everyman for the lard addicted Yanks. There's an element of geek about him, but also something of a bon viveur. If you'll pardon the pun, the show can be a bit cheesy at times and many of the 'members of the public' he meets are either specifically targeted (because they are sexy, young, female and showing vast expanses of cleavage) or single-brain-celled rednecks (who make you realise why you're glad you're not American).

There is very little for a vegetarian in this programme; although it has given me a recipe for the most awesome cinnamon buns I have ever had and several attempts at making Sicilian pizzas. I discovered that Montana's (famous for mining and dental floss - according to Zappa) state dish is the Cornish Pasty - because of all the tin miners who emigrated there in the 19th century. I also discovered that the other three main food types in this ugly state are ketchup, beer and salt!

The closer to the heart of America Richman goes, the more dislikeable, irritable and awful the population becomes. I can't help wonder if this 'food' programme is actually more of a post-modern look at fat Americans and how stupid they are the closer they get to the centre of Jesusland.

***

Food, Jesus, fuckwits and geeks - I have an array of subjects I can be derogatory about. Who said men can't multi-task?

Squashed

It's been a weird week; in that nothing much happened, but it was still far more stressful than I would have hoped for.

When I say nothing much happened, it did have a few things which have left me feeling like I have zero future. I know, that's a pretty doom-laden statement, but at the moment I don't see a great deal of optimism...

For starters, it appears that my awesomely bad back - which has been plaguing me now for almost a month - could have been another prolapsed disc; or to be more precise, the final collapse of the disc that slipped about a year ago. On or about the 7th October, 2010, I had a slipped or prolapsed disc in my spine - the one between L5 and L6, for those of you that understand the workings of the human spine better than others. It caused all manner of nerve damage and left me with a left leg that was a little like having a passenger that didn't belong to the rest of my body. Crucially, it meant that I ended up being off of work between October and the middle of January - the second long period of absence from work I'd had in two years. By the New Year, I was largely free of pain in my back, but the resulting sciatica made doing day-to-day things pretty much a chore. I had months where I struggled to put my own socks on; developed a way to put my boxers on that involved an old wire coat hanger and, it turns out a slightly irrational, fear of a repeat performance, which the specialist said was probably unlikely; 'You have as much chance of it happening again as any one else.'

By the time I got made redundant, I felt like I had my life back. I'd dispensed with the walking stick, which, heh heh, I might have used as a crutch and more importantly to me, not only did I regain control over my left leg, I actually felt healthier than I had for two years. It was a good time to be feeling fit and optimistic; I needed to find a new job.

Two weeks ago, I applied for a job in an organisation that knew me, was aware that I would have been an asset to them and I would have expected to have a better than a cat's chance in hell of getting it. However, I didn't even get an interview. I did get a letter from the CEO thanking me for the my (unsuccessful) application, which I thought was odd, places like this don't send out acknowledgements or unsuccessful letters unless you fail at the interview stage. Not even getting an interview for a job I was essentially doing for the last 18 months I was at YOT, and doing well, was a real kick in the teeth. It had more of a debilitating effect on me than all the physical woes I've suffered since 2009.

Then, while I was out, struggling to walk the dogs on Thursday, I got a message on my mobile answer phone. It was a former colleague from the days of my Intergenerational Project; she wanted to know if I fancied catching up for a coffee. Because I have no money and can't afford to use fuel needlessly or frivolously, travelling to the other side of the county for a chin wag was not going to happen. So when I got home I gave her a call. Nothing of note happened in the first few minutes of the call, until I mentioned that I'd possibly had another slipped disc and physically I was shot to fuck. Her response was muted; but then I mentioned the job I failed to get an interview for. She knew I had been for the job, because the girl who did the job I had applied for was known to both of us. In fact my friend had recently been to lunch with this girl - her opposite number - and my name had cropped up in the conversation.

After a wee bit of coercing, I heard something that bugged me even more than not getting an interview. Apparently, when I applied for the job, the CEO was quite excited about it. I wasn't a shoo-in for the job, but he had high hopes I might be. But, he had been talking to one of my former work colleagues - I don't know who - but is in a higher management position (which means it could be one of about 10 individuals) and the CEO discovered that I had accrued 187 days off sick since January 2009 and that seemed to sway his decision not to employ me...

Now, in all honesty, had I been selected for an interview at the moment, I would have hobbled into the meeting, because of my back and that would have probably tainted my chances even more; but it didn't get that far. Now, you could argue and suggest that this is disability discrimination and I should do something about it; but how can I prove it? And, more importantly, to be able to successfully sue for DD you need the support of your GP and I don't believe I have that.

Back in March, when I saw my GP for the last time, she was adamant that my 'problems' would subside; they were, after all, not arthritic in nature, but just general wear and tear. She did not feel that I was disabled in any way and wouldn't support any claims I considered making, for any benefits. I would not qualify for DLA, I was not incapacitated, I was not eligible for a parking pass from the council and there were a lot more people out there, worse off than me, who didn't have any support. In the best possible way, my doctor basically told me to just get on with my life, stop worrying about my aches and pains and, reading between the lines, stop bothering her. So I did and like I said, for a few months I got on with it. By the time I lost my job, you would have claimed that she was dead right. I had more mobility than I had for a couple of years and even if I was now unemployed, I had a lot of optimism about my job chances and my health. That obviously changed during September.

When my mate told me she had heard that the organisation weren't interested in me because I essentially posed to much of a risk; it brought back something my unemployment advisor commented on when she referred me to the DEA advisor when I last signed on. I'd had 187 days off sick in 26 months. Nearly 200 days out of nearly 500 working days; that's either pathetic or a cause for concern, depending on whether or not you accept I have a problem or just think I'm a malingerer. To be fair, I might have abused it a little towards the end of my job, but by that time my employer had virtually annexed me away from my colleagues and contracted job, so I could either be off sick and get paid for it, or go into work and be tucked away in my own little space, away from everyone else and forgotten about. The fact I spent the last five months at my job with absolutely nothing to do at all is a sorrowful indictment of my former employer's ability to do their jobs. But that is a story for another time. The point is, my advisor thought that my sickness record and my record of back, shoulder and joint problems indicated, to her, that I'm disabled, even if my own GP refused to acknowledge it.

I have an appointment to see my regular GP in about 10 days; the waiting list to see her is remarkable; I booked this appointment on the 29th September! I have to say that I don't expect my back to ease in the next ten days - I'm convinced that my disc has collapsed completely - when I rang the doctor's earlier in the week for a repeat prescription, the practice nurse said from the way I was describing it, I was probably right and if it got too bad I should see a locum. I don't see the point in seeing someone who isn't familiar with me; all he or she can do is give me more painkillers and I've been taking so many of these for the last three weeks, I think they're having a detrimental effect on my general health. So I will wait, in pain, until October 19 and then hope that I can garner some sympathy from my GP and possibly even the start of a solution to rid me of this now persistent problem once and for all. I also need to discuss the amount of time I'd had off of work before I was made redundant and the fact that had I not now been unemployed, I would have had at least the last three weeks off of work - five if you count the time between now and when I actually see her. This is not normal and I do not accept that it's just wear and tear! She can resist all she wants, but specifically my back, but also other joints in my body, is giving me horrendous gyp and I'm beginning to think that this is not something that most people have to suffer at my age. Yes, if I was in my 70s I could understand it, but I'm not even 50 yet.

It also doesn't hide the fact that I have an absolutely abysmal sickness record and that is probably the main reason why I feel I have zero future at the moment. Any prospective employer is going to find out about that and it surely can't be seen as anything other than negative. The irony is between October 1982 and December 2008, you could probably count the number of days off sick I had on two hands and one foot! It isn't like I've just suddenly developed a phobia about work; I used to really enjoy my job and have loved working in social care since I started doing it.

So we now have no money, the prospects are bleak and I'm scared that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

***

Just to add insult to injury, this morning I cut the top of my thumb off with a sentient potato peeler. I would have beaten it to death with a rock, but my thumb was bleeding everywhere...

***

The weekend proved to be another nadir for England teams. The football team would be world beaters if matches lasted 44 minutes and the rugby team were not spurred on by copious amounts of booze, misbehaving and dwarf chucking. It ended up with me feeling as though Internationals are dying. The Premiership - be it football or rugby - now has a more important place in my and many others hearts and internationals now seem to be a hindrance and a waste of time. We're not very good, so why screw up the fitness or the clubs the players come from just to have all of our expectations pissed on by foreign players who are more up for it than we are?

I bleated on about this on the Sports Discuss (http://sportdiscuss.wordpress.com/) blog I do with Roger (and now Mark) a while back and that was before I had to endure more childish Rooney antics, the failure to beat a side with less population than Iceland and saw the rugby team confirm my suspicions that the only winners in this World Cup are the Aviva Premiership teams without international players.

Former Man Utd and England arsehole Gary Neville says that England are not good enough to win Euro 2012 and that they lack mobility and invention. I'll go one step further and say they lack players of world class. Unlike the rugby team who should and undoubtedly will do better in the future, the football team has some stars, but they're either petulant wankers, injured or dead. The rest wouldn't even get into a Montenegrin team.

We might all be going to die, but it would be nice to head that way with the memory of England teams (other than cricket) that stand a hope in hell of making us all proud...

***

More TV bollocks...

Haven's season finale is during Christmas week, with a title called Silent Night, it obviously has some festive connection. What makes this worthy of my time to mention it is because the last episode undoubtedly took place in the middle of summer and it ended on a cliffhanger. The fact there's a 10 week gap between episodes 12 and 13 could mark the kiss of death for it for me. Part of me has this horrible feeling that episode 12 was the end of season cliffhanger and the one to be shown at Christmas will be like the lamentable Eureka and Warehouse 13 Christmas episodes, which were essentially nothing to do with the plot or the ongoing series and could quite easily be considered irrelevant.

The thing is, I don't really care. The fascination and disbelief has gone and all that's left is habit.

I've been immensely underwhelmed by the new season of TV shows, especially those from the USA. As I mentioned briefly last time, Ringer was shite; but some of the others have been equally disappointing. Secret Circle has been dumped by us; it's pretty bloody awful and hasn't got the bonkers charm of The Vampire Diaries, which seems to be morphing into a 21st century Buffy more and more every week - and that's no bad thing, really.

Terra Nova is expensive crap. Where the expense is, I'd like to know, because so far the dinosaurs have been pretty sub-Jurassic Park fare and the story has been a mawkish and Waltons' like as that other dreadful Spielberg produced pile of dog doo-doo Falling Stars. I described it recently as 'Eureka with dinosaurs', but that's a truly horrendous insult to Eureka.

We've just started watching American Horror Story, which, hopefully, won't fall prey to the same fate as the superb American Gothic, because it's made by a cable channel and there tends to be a longer commitment to shows that aren't governed by the Nielsen Ratings. However, is it any good? Well, on the evidence so far it's trying to be the new Twin Peaks and failing miserably. Yes, it's intriguing, but so much weirdness in the pilot episode seemed to do nothing for the characters' development and only the daughter - Taissa Farmiga - came out of it with any credibility. Dylan McDermott spends most of the show with his arse on show and his wife is about as attractive as a Black & Decker Workmate. I'll reserve judgement on it for the time being, but I think it might need a story to go with all the mystery.

Fringe needed a kick up the arse and it took most of three episodes to do it. The series so far has been substandard and has 'felt' wrong. The climax of the 3rd episode gives me hope that we might start getting back on track. The end of that episode offered the chance for a 'game changer back' scenario and a subsequent confrontation with the mysterious Watchers.

Dexter's back and it was business not quite as usual and utterly brilliant. I love this show. This time around, I think the show is going to look at religion as the root of all evil.

There are three other programmes due to premier in the coming weeks. Grimm and Once Upon a Time are both shows about fairy tales in reality and odds suggest that at least one of them should be worth watching. The other is Awake, the new Jason Isaacs show about a man living in three realities - one where his wife and son died in a car crash and the others where only one of them dies. The premise is great, whether it proves to be any good is another thing.

I watch too much TV...

However, I did watch Green Lantern last night and I thought it was better than critics suggested. The director did the comic justice; it wasn't changed drastically from the original concept and I can totally understand why it bombed at the box office - just don't ask me to tell you why.

***

My latest musical discovery is Zola Jesus. She is like a cross between Elizabeth Fraser (of the Cocteau Twins) and Siouxsie Sioux of the Banshees. She is also American, but don't let that deter you.

***

Was talking to a mate of mine last week who said that his wife had started buying on sustainable fish, which meant she was no longer buying cod or haddock from her local fish counter. I said this was admirable of both of them and he wrinkled his nose and said, "She's buying coley. It looks like cod and has absolutely no flavour at all. It's bloody awful stuff."

Hmm...

Bickle Bockle Backle

For all the reasons I hate Facebook, it does have the advantage of being the place where old friends are likely to get reacquainted; it it a great resource for that alone. Much to my surprise, I received a friend request from someone I hadn't seen for over 20 years - nowadays I get requests from either people I don't know or large breasted Russian girls who have looked at my profile (huh, it's hidden from all but friends) and think they'd like to a) get to know me, b) suck my cock, or c) marry me. If I was stupid, I could almost be flattered by it...

My mate, Paul, had been living away from Northampton since he was 19 and had only been back about four times in the last 30 years. He's been living somewhere on the south coast for the last 20 years (lucky bugger) and is one of the top bods in a local council planning department. He is responsible for such things as by-passes, roundabouts, level crossings and the like, as well as consulting on the deployment of speed cameras, sleeping policemen and parking zones. I said that his job sounded fascinating and deadly dull in turn and he pretty much agreed with me. However, he did have some interesting and funny stories about major cock-ups by local councils; things that you would hear about and just claim were either silly apocryphal stories or just bollocks made up by a piss-head in the local pub. Having witnessed a few bizarre 'traffic calming' strategies in this county, I'm inclined to believe that most of these planning catastrophes are actually true.

A primary school in the south-west requested a speed camera to be placed quite close to the school so that traffic would slow down considerably, thus cutting down the risk of injury or death to the parents or children (personally I can see all the reasons why not for this, but...) and applied to the speed camera people, who then referred the request to the council. On review of the application, the council decided that there should be a speed camera, but it should be ½ mile down the road, closer to a major junction, which might deter people from jumping the lights all the time. Seems like a sensible idea, apart from the fact that an independent study of speed cameras and their affects on drivers, suggested there was a 20% increase in drivers speeding once they passed the camera. It was estimated by the local paper that speeding drivers reached their optimum speed about ½ mile after the camera. When this was pointed out to the voluntary chair of the planning committee, who just happened to be an ex-Tory councillor, he claimed the camera would make more money at the junction and drivers should be aware of the school or they shouldn't be driving. In the sixteen years the school had been there, there had been one fatality from speeding traffic. in the three months after the speed camera was placed, there were three!

On a lighter note, he told me that 8% of all mini roundabouts in the country are put in the wrong place. I know this as a fact because when we lived in Wellingborough, there was a roundabout supposed to have been placed at the top of Croyland Road - a busy junction on the west of the town. It made perfect sense, because the amount of traffic seeking to get out of Croyland was actually greater than the amount of traffic coming out of the town, but less than the amount going into it. However, a local building contractor charged with putting the new roundabout in put the roundabout at the bottom of a street about 30 yards up from Croyland on the other side of the road. this wasn't even a road used as a short cut by anyone; it was the road the local auto spares shop was on and wouldn't have benefited from having a roundabout at the bottom of it because of where it was in relation to the regular traffic flow. Subsequently, traffic jams increased by about 30%; Wellingborough Council's claim that it was a more efficient traffic calming measure was pooh-pooh'd by locals, the press and the people on the council who had two brain cells to rub together. They claimed that if the roundabout had been placed in the right place, it would have eased the traffic flow in all directions, possibly by as much as 30%.

Paul told me that local councils have a real 'corruption' problem, especially when it comes to resurfacing roads. Have you ever wondered why some roads seem to crumble into dessicated dirt tracks, while other roads get resurfaced despite them looking like they have a good century's worth of life in them yet? Well, the reasoning behind it is down to traffic flow entirely. If you live in a road full of potholes but it is used largely by the people who live in it and is not commonly used as a thoroughfare, then it isn't scheduled for resurfacing. major thoroughfares tend to be resurfaced every ten years, regardless of their condition and regardless of the fact that major thoroughfares tend to use a superior form of tarmac. Also, the councils tend to offer these jobs to the same contractor on ten year contracts - the same company will resurface all the roads that are scheduled for ten years and they won't deviate from their schedules unless they are pressurised by the supplier of their contract. So that's why your road is shit and the one at the end of it isn't. Oh and invariably, the company that has the resurfacing contract isn't the same company that has the contract for patching up pot holes.

Another funny thing about councils and potholes; a council is more likely to sue you for filling in a pothole than for fly-tipping. When I asked Paul why, he said it was all down to insurance. If you go and fill in a pothole using inferior materials and someone has an accident as a result, then the council would liable. In other words, you can fuck up the environment and be unlucky if you get caught, or you can try to be helpful and get sued for it!

One of the best stories Paul told me was about the man who applied for a drop kerb because he was converting his front garden into a car port. He also applied to the council to have the bus stop post moved along by a few feet to allow him to drive onto his frontage without having to drive over the grass verge. The council agreed to this and a contractor of the owner came out a put in the drop kerb; the same day as the council contractors came out and replaced the bus stop - a metal pipe; with a large bus shelter; meaning the man could no longer use his new car port! The council admitted that there had been a miscommunication and said it would be fixed as soon as they could get their contractors on it. That was February 2009 and according to Paul the bus shelter is still in the same place.

Or how about the disabled driver whose lined disabled parking bay was split in half by a bus stop? That one made the national news. Or the set of traffic lights placed on a road with no side turnings? The lights are constantly on green and because it is not in an area with people or foot traffic, it isn't even a pedestrian crossing - just two sets of lights that are green all the time. Do you know, I think I've been through them...

I know the particular road the next bon mot is about. There's an A road in the south that had a by-pass of about ½ long - essentially a new bit of road over the existing on, but wider. Everything went according to plan; it was two lanes instead of one and it was built on schedule. The people putting the white lines down, for some inexplicable reason, thought it was three lanes and none of the lanes were even the width of a car. The really tragic thing about this was that the build had come in under budget, but because the paint for white lines is both hard wearing and has a bonding agent, it wasn't just a simple case of cleaning the marking off and replacing them. To do the job properly with adding to confusion, each white line segment had to be cut out of the new tarmac and replaced with new stuff before the lines could be put back down; making the new stretch of road as bumpy as a teenager's face!

We have some real fuckwits doing important jobs in this country.

***

I should really talk about this over on my comics history serialisation, but as that has only recently had an addendum stuck in about this subject, I don't feel it warrants interrupting the scheduled broadcast for such trivial pifflings.

Got an email from someone called Moth - just Moth, nothing else and his email account bounced straight back at me, so I'm not totally sure how it was sent. Moth wanted to tell me how much he/she enjoyed my fiction and had I ever considered writing proper fantasy. It was suggested that I enjoy the company of unclean homosexuals... I should maybe clarify that in case any of my gay friends think I'm being offensive. I was told that I like sleeping with gay tramps. And there was me thinking it was just tramps, I dunno, you learn something everyday. Moth also suggested that I could use my book in such a fashion that it becomes a kind of impromptu laxative and, most importantly, I go back to the thing I'm best at which has apparently something to do with children and various bodily functions; some of which made me wide eyed with admiration for Moth's ability to gross even me out. I started to think that perhaps Moth's proper name was missing the 'erfucker' part and that his email name somehow reflected his true nature. I've received some emails in my time, but that one was just plain worrying. Not because of his allegations/suggestions, but because someone actually sat down and had such ideas running through their heads.

Now, for starters I don't think it came from any of the self-styled usual suspects. I don't think any of them could even collectively create something like that and it's totally not their style. But it's obviously someone who feels that I've deeply offended them in some way. Now the email was sent to my google mail account; a place I only check about once a month and had been sent at the beginning of September; so it timed it nicely with this part of the story I'm telling, but that's a convenient coincidence. I actually have a sneaking suspicion I know who sent it; someone with enough knowledge of computers to know where to get an anonymous email address; someone who I have a history with and someone who has tried in the past to poison things. Why he should suddenly re-emerge after ten years I don't know; but I never expected to meet Paul from the planning department again, so who knows?

Anyhow, I'm going to do something useful before I start contemplating some of Moth's ideas...

Dog Cheese

Another irregular round up of the shit television I'm watching - there be spoilers in here me hearties!

I amazed myself by actually writing a legible blog entry about Doctor Who and then publishing it. I was amazed even more by the amount of Whovians I know that agreed with me. That said, with the exception of some nerdish unanswered questions, the finale of DW was far more straightforward than we all probably expected. I won't say it was the best episode of DW I've ever seen, but it made up for a largely uninspiring series. Nice tribute to the Brigadier, mentions for Rose and Jack and a really excellent opening featuring the Daleks, that would have been worth the admission price alone had it been a feature film.

For the comic book fans, this also offered up an X-Men ending. I won't go into details for all of you who will want to kill yourselves before the end of this sentence, but those of you who read the X-Men in the late 1980s will see what Steven Moffatt did.

***

Fringe is back and I should be jumping up and down and getting excited like a schoolboy having his first wet dream; but... It's wrong. The events of the last season finale have reset the two universes; so as a result things that happened haven't and other things that we didn't see happen have.

The season opener asked enough questions and set plenty of new ideas into motion to keep die hard fans interested, but by episode #2 it seemed like they were already shovelling filler into the holes, in an episode that actually seemed to flounder by the time it got to the midway point. It was formulaic and un-Fringe-like, despite its inherent weirdness.

Episode #1 kicked us off into the new Peter Bishop-less universes, where the two sides have an uneasy truce and have agreed to work with each other to save both worlds. No one remembers Peter, but everyone has a Peter-sized hole in their lives. This episode did nothing to assuage fans' fears that Joshua Jackson could be leaving or taking a huge back seat in this series. The introduction - proper - of Lincoln Lee into 'our' universe seemed to set the scene for Olivia to have a new sidekick; maybe even a new love interest; which of course would juxtapose the events of last season very well when Peter does return. As a series opener it hit lots of right buttons and while terribly underused, Walter again had all the best lines.

Episode #2 seemed to forget the main story and concentrate on the new 'working relationship' between the two worlds. It was the kind of thing you expected from an old episode of X Files and while it has been acknowledged that Fringe Division is a sort of ancestor to Mulley and Sculder; it doesn't have to continuously hit us over the head with it. This episode could be the introduction of a potential new villain; the kind to take our minds off of the fact that since Peter's disappearance the raison detre of the series seems to have been lost. Still bonkers TV at its best though.

***

Haven has had more happen in two episodes than it has in the previous 20. Sadly, the series has lost its 'so bad it's good' feel and is now just 'so bad'. The last two episodes suggest that SyFy wants something to happen in it or they won't be giving it a third series - that would save me 42 minutes of my life times 13.

The brilliance of Haven was that you spent more time finding fault in it than actually trying to enjoy the rather adolescent 'horror stories'. Now it seems to have some idea what it is doing, all the charm has drained out of it like a leaky tank. Next week's finale might be the last time I watch it.

***

I discovered that Eureka is to have one final season and that was a real blow. It has been, by far, the most enjoyable comedy/sci-fi series ever created; has had more twists and turns, (deliberate) shark jumping moments, and conspiracy theories than you'd expect from any TV series. The characters are all mainly likeable and it still has one of the greatest death scenes you will ever see in a TV show and it's only getting one more series (and that series will not have Jo in it, because she quit at the end of season 4).

As cliffhangers go, the season finale of Eureka was up there with the classics and I'm betting die hard fans of the series, the ones who thought they knew what was going to happen, were all (pleasantly) surprised and it sets the series up nicely for the final season, which has had an extra episode tagged onto it, presumably as an epilogue to the entire series.

Eureka was like the hand and Warehouse 13 was the glove that slipped over it. W13 is also a great comedy show, but the production values are piss poor compared the Eureka and I'm disappointed that one is being cancelled and the latter being renewed. W13 is good, but it isn't in the same league as Eureka. However, W13 has Allison Scagliotti and Eureka cannot match her in any department.

***

Terra Nova was largely a load of old horse shit. We sat through the double pilot episode last night and I just wanted something to happen that didn't seem like it was lifted straight out of Jurassic Park. Even the only real mystery of the opener was explained away at the end of the episode.

It's Jurassic Park meets Mad Max meets Avatar meets The Gates meets any family drama from a major American network and it will have to go some way to prove to me that it is worth watching, because on reflection, the opener was not as brilliant as all the newspapers and Internet nerds seemed to think it was. I didn't let on to the wife, but I thought it sucked - BIG TIME!

***

The Vampire Diaries really is the best thing with vampires in it out there. The new series continues in its post-modern Buffy/Angel vein and has gone off in a direction I didn't expect. It has some killer lines; great stories and it actually now feels like a top quality show in all aspects.

***

The problem we're having at the moment is that there is just too many things to watch and not enough time to watch them in. We have the following to watch - The Fades, Person of Interest, Ringer, episodes of Secret Circle, Harry's Law, umpteen new series beginning over the next few weeks; stuff we still have to watch from the last five years AND the new series of my all-time favourite show at the moment. Dexter was back last night and I shall find the time to wallow in its brilliance, either that or I will have to kill someone.

A Late Amendment:

Saw ten minutes of the pilot for Ringer. Not only did it seem very poorly acted, but Sarah Michelle Geller looked as rough as a badger's arse...

Smoke and Wankers

I half hobbled, half crawled out of bed this morning; my back screaming at me for the 17th day in succession; it appears there is no end to this bout of back trouble and I'm running out of painkillers. To add a sort of insult to the injury, I had to go into the garden before anything else. We're currently looking after One El's hound, Alfie, for a fortnight while he and his good lady wife swan off to Mexico for their hols. I struggled down the stairs to get the paper and Alfie was bouncing around me like a man desperate to urinate, so I took him down the garden.

It was 9.50am and already there was only one word to describe it - hot. unusually, unseasonably and undeniably HOT. Oh happy day! For it to be like this at the beginning of October is something that will stick in peoples minds the way October 1st, 1985 stuck in mine.

However, hot wasn't the only word to describe my standing in the garden wishing my back would just fuck off. Oddly enough it had nothing to do with my back and everything to do with the complete and utter wanker over the back having a massive fire on a Sunday morning; arguably the last best weekend we're going to have before March, at least. There was smoke billowing up and over towards my garden; it smelled like a paper and rubbish fire and anyone who had any washing out were going to have wash them again within minutes of them coming into contact with this blatant act of airborne vandalism.

Some people should be forced to live inside the arsehole of a diseased tramp sometimes...

That wasn't it though; yesterday we took the dogs up to Bradlaugh Fields, to the pond, which sadly is used by a lot of people, especially when the weather is fine. The wife took her bags of dog shit to the bin while I walked up to the pond and immediately saw something that got my hackles up. There were three kids standing in the water, up to their knees and they were bending a tree sapling over and slapping it into the water, causing spray to go everywhere and really doing some unnecessary damage to a young tree. Standing just behind them was their mother, whose only words were to tell the kids to stop it while I walked by them. I frowned and looked at the woman and her kids basically causing damage to the environment and the woman, with a face like a retarded shrew chewing a shit covered lemon, spat the words, "Whachoo looking at?" I shrugged and carried on walking; two minutes later the tree snapped...

Oh how they laughed...

I would have laughed as well if a big fucking meteor came down and obliterated them from existence; except people and their horrid kids like this should be made to suffer for fucking decades...

In moments like this I can understand why Theresa May wants to scrap the Human Rights Act.

However, I think it is just an indication of how fascistic the current Tory party are; removing the only real recourse the poor and disenfranchised have when the world has royally butt-fucked them. How much longer before they start to agree that slavery is a good alternative employment for the unemployed?

Did you know that the suicide rate in this country always increases whenever the Tories are in power? No shit. It goes up by about 0.5% per year for every year they're in power.

It's now 12.05; the mad fire bastard over the back seems to be throwing the contents of his bin on the fire; either that or he was planning on building the world's biggest BBQ and is now cooking something that they think is food but would probably double up as animal feed.

Fishwife, who is a fireman, tells me that there's nothing the Fire Brigade can do as the fire is being manned and it isn't out of control and as it's a Sunday, you can't phone Environmental Services and a call to them tomorrow would yield nothing because it's 24 hours after the event and no one can prove it. The police are not interested. I've considered going down the bottom of my garden and calling the man responsible an inconsiderate cuntbag; but he looks like the kind of man who would steal into my garden late at night and shit on the ducks...

Wouldn't it be good if as plague could be invented that only targets specific shitbags of society?