Bad date

Dammit, readers, I’ve had quite a day. It started with a huge surprise; a letter from Roger! I’ve typed it in below, see what you make of it:

Dear Barry,

Your behaviour recently has been quite… well, I suppose you’d call it ‘interesting’. I have to admit, though, that I’m a bit confused. From what your dear, dear mother has told me you have always been, what’s the phrase… ‘right on’. Something of a hippy, I suppose. But, after our last few meetings, I’m beginning to wonder if your political views don’t in fact lie a little to the right. A little to the right of Genghis Kahn! (Forgive my little joke.)

Do you know what I say, Barry? I say: each to his own. That’s my motto; each to his own in every way.

But it has become quite clear to me that your behaviour has been upsetting your darling mother, a woman for whom – it must be clear to you – I care a great deal. I simply will not have her upset in this way, Barry, do I make myself clear? She has cosseted you your whole life, Barry. She still feels that she is somehow to blame for your father’s departure, and that is why she continues to coddle you so, despite your age.

Now, I understand that you are coming to visit at Christmas. This is as it should be; after all, Christmas is a time for families. My own dear children, alas, will not be able to join us. But my mother will be, like you, a guest in the house. There we shall be; two fine lads and our dear mothers. I expect you to respect the occasion, Barry, and not to behave in such a way as to give your mother cause for sadness.

She finds your views disturbing, so I ask you to keep them from surfacing in her presence. And I feel duty bound to point out, if you haven’t already noticed, that your tattoo is somewhat inaccurate.

Yours

Roger

Well, there you go, readers. It’s pretty clear to me that what Roger is saying is that he sympathises with my (pretend) views (ie, he’s a Nazi) but that I should, like him, keep them from Mum. ‘Each to his own’? That can only be Roger coming out in favour of forced repatriation, can’t it? What a monster!

Anyway, I took this as evidence that I’m breaking him down. I’m getting through.

There was one problem, though: The tattoo. I’m not sure how this happened, well I’ve got a good idea, but – anyway – my new tattoo, the one I selflessly burned into my own skin for the sake of exposing a facist bully, like when Donal Macintyre went after the football hooligans, contains a glaring error.

As you’ll remember, the tattoo is a rendering of the three lions of England’s football shirt with a significant historical date underneath. 1514, the Battle of Agincourt. Except, as I just found out through Wikipedia, the Battle of Agincourt was in 1415, not 1514. What a nightmare!

Here’s how I think it happened:

To get my tattoo last week, I went to the local tattooists, which is called Inky Pete’s, and asked him for something a bit racist. We had the following conversation:

IP: What do you mean you want something a ‘bit racist’?
BN: I want something a bit racist, but not a lot racist. Can you do that?
IP: Are you a copper?
BN: No, but I am under cover.
IP: I want a lawyer.
BN: What for?
IP: I’m not saying anything without a lawyer.
BN: I just want a tattoo of something a bit racist.
IP: Listen, pal. You’re not much good at this, are you. You’ve just told me you’re under cover.
BN: Yeah, but not now. Now I’m just me.
IP: So you’re just you and you want a racist tattoo?
BN: Yeah, except I’m not racist, not at all. My mum’s going out with this bloke and he’s racist but he’s pretending that he’s not racist and I’m trying to gain his confidence so that he comes out and admits it and then my mum will dump him. That’s why I need the tattoo.
IP: So you’re a non-racist pretending to be a racist in an attempt to out a racist who’s pretending to be a non-racist, right?
BN: Right
IP: It’s like that bloody Scorsese film. And that’s why you want a tattoo?
BN: Exactly, that’s exactly right. So, what can you do?
IP: Have you escaped from somewhere, pal? ‘Cause you’re too fucking stupid to be a copper, and that’s saying something.
BN: Look, I’ve explained what I want, just give it to me, will you?

At this point Inky Pete looked at me for a long time, before asking me if I had any money on me. I showed him the wad of tenners in my pocket. He stood up, produced the biggest spliff I’ve ever seen and sparked it up.

IP: Right, I’ll get me special book.

Pete went out the back of the shop for five minutes before coming back with a book of tattoo designs. Remarkably, the whole spliff had nearly gone. He sat down on his stool, and opened it up.

IP: Right, before you look at these, I’m just a tattooist, right? That’s all I do. I’m not a political man, I’ll tattoo you whatever colour you are in whatever colour you want. They’re just pictures to me, ok? I take a professional pride in the detail, but I don’t want to know who you are, or what you do, I just want the cash and a quiet life. I don’t need no-one coming round here shoving their nose in, ok? Because I have another little concern, that’s not strictly above board. I’ll tell you because you look like you’re harmless enough: I do shift a few mind altering substances here and there, if you’re ever in the market. I’m not a pusher, though, I’m a dealer. It’s like the song says, mate.
BN: Right.
IP: Now, how about this for a start?
BN: How’s a swastika a ‘bit racist’? A swastika’s very racist.
IP: This?
BN: Is that a flaming cross? What’s this, Deep South London?!
IP: This one?
BN: Hmmm, I like the Union Flag. But I’m not sure about the words “I’m all white, Jack”.
IP: Well these are my racist tattoos, mate. I don’t have a lot of designs in this category, to be honest. I’ve got a few nationalist ones, if you’d prefer?
BN: Alright, let’s have a look at those.
IP: How about this one?
BN: Oh now, that’s perfect. The three lions – it’s like football. And what’s this number? 1415? What’s that all about?
IP: That, my friend, is the date of the Battle of Agincourt. We stuffed the French.
BN: Oh, I’ve got a French friend, though. Why were we fighting?
IP: I don’t fucking know, pal, it was nearly 600 years ago. Look, I think this is your best bet. It’s definitely nationalist, because it’s got the three lions, and it’s definitely a little bit racist, because it’s about a war with the French. But it’s not that bad because the war was 600 years ago, and because having a pop at the French is like the acceptable face of racism, isn’t it. It’s very much your entry-level racist tattoo. It’s perfect. And, I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you smoke some of this weed I’ve got to help with the pain. And how’s about a little bit of Mr Daniels’ finest to go along with it?”

The rest of the afternoon’s a complete haze. I remember Inky Pete had to stop quite often because he was laughing so much. I woke up the next day feeling like shite. We must have had an entire bottle of JD. And that weed was fucking nuclear. Clearly Pete lost the plot a bit and got the four and the five round the wrong way! A professional interest in the detail my arse! Never let a drunk man give you a tattoo, that’s my advice.

It gets worse, readers. After I read Roger’s letter I went onto Wikipedia to find out if anything interesting happened in 1514. Oh, the irony! In July 1514, according to the online information source: “Peace is declared between England and France”! I’m not kidding.

I’ve got a tattoo that celebrates the beginning of a phase of cordial relations between the English and the French. So Roger thinks I’m either stupid, or a Gallic sympathiser. I can’t have him thinking the latter so, as if it’s not hard enough pretending to be racist, I’ve now got to pretend to be stupid as well.

This is really going to test my acting skills.

Peace (and I mean it; I’ve got the fucking tattoo!)

BN

Sorry, must dash

It's the 30th of November today, not ordinarily a particularly auspicious date. But for me it marks the end of a journey.

In many ways it was not unlike taking the A46 from Lincoln to Cleethropes. It started out in very familiar territory, the early stages were not uncommon either, but quite soon the landscape changed, there were twists and turns, and unexpected (usually unpleasant) surprises along the way. Ultimately, it arrived at a destination that, while I knew roughly what I'd be getting at the outset, was nevertheless something of a disappointment.

I've been growing a moustache readers. Not because I've turned homosexual. No. I've been growing a moustache for Movember!

Movember is a charity event. I believe its roots are down under. I'm talking about Australia readers where men are men and the sheep are scared. The whole idea is that men grow a moustache during the month of November in order to raise money for and awareness of prostate cancer. That, in a nutshell, is bum cancer to you and me.

Bum cancer is the biggest unnecessary killer of men over 50. It's not that difficult to treat if caught early on, but it doesn't tend to get caught early on because men are almost always too embarrassed by the symptoms which generally seem to revolve around cock malfunctional issues and detection involves what in the trade is known as a digital rectal inspection - that's a finger up nature's pocket to you and me!

Apart from the 10 per cent of us who are gay, the other 90 per cent of us categorically do not like dabbling with the chocolate starfish. As such the vast majority to men who get prostate cancer are not practitioners of uphill gardening. So, it's highly appropriate that the emblem of this terrible affliction is the moustache.

I suppose it tells us all, not just the lucky 10 per centers, but the slightly perturbed and analophobic 90 per centers, that having a good old root around the sheriff's rusty badge is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it is actually something to be proud of.

That said, you might to make sure the bathroom door is locked if you're examining yourself and your gay flatmate walks in on you naked wanting to take a shower. It could lead to an uncomfortable silence over the cornflakes. And that, perhaps unbelievably, is not a euphemism.

I'm glad that I grew the moustache readers, even if it does make me look like a pervert. Not that there is anything perverse about buggery between two consenting adults. But there's something about a moustache these days that looks all wrong.

I don't know when the 'tache passed from being perfectly acceptable manly face furniture to being the preserve of the completely weird. I think it might have been the mid-80s. Probably around about the same time that the entire world woke up and realised that Freddie Mercury (your God RIP) was not just in Queen, but he was the Queen. I certainly remember the moustache being popular with Scousers for a lot longer than the rest of us, much in the same way that it is still very popular with Turks.

Glad I may be that I took part in this campaign, but I shall be gladder still tomorrow when the whiskers are removed. Mum wasn't particularly impressed with the moustache, I suggested to her that it made me look like Clark Gable, but she said it made me look like Dad. Although, Roger's got a little grey moustache too, and he doesn't look anything like Dad. Actually, on reflection, he does look a bit like Clark Gable.

I would have told you about the moustache earlier in the month, so that you could sponsor me. But as no one bothered sponsoring the 150 mile charity bike ride I did not to long ago, I didn't see the point, especially as growing a moustache is a lot easier than cycling 150 miles.

Right, well, I'm off to spend just one more night with a furry upper lip.

Yours, no longer in pursuit of the hirsute,

Barry 'I am the walrus' Newsdesk
x

Lest we forget

The next phase of Operation Sword of Truth (OST) kicked into gear last night when I met up with Mum and Roger, before they went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof featuring Darth Vader's James Earl Jones. Roger had got us a theatre meal deal at Cafe des Amis in Hanover Square.

I tell you what readers, they might not wash much and have a penchant for inter-marital liasons, but they can't half cook. My mouth was running faster than Usain Bolt on a promise. The smells and the sounds of Cuisine du Francais c'est magnifique.

Ha! I bet you didn't know I could speak French did you? I've got an O'level. Of course when I was at school we did O'levels, not like these GCSEs, where apparently you just need to turn up and tie your own shoe laces to get an A star. An A star, I mean, seriously whatever next? Kids today have got it so easy. There were no Pro Evo back in Lincoln when I was growing up. I used to have to use my imagination! I'd pretend that I was Luke Skywalker flying his X-Wing, running around Mum's garden re-enacting Star Wars, while Steve spoke into an empty pint glass imitating James Earl Jones! "I have you now!" he'd say, then he'd shoot at me with a spud gun. If I made it twice around the rotary clothes line without getting a piece of spud in my face or falling over I won and we'd swap over.

We didn't have A stars readers, we had Death Stars!

That's the power of imagination. I guess that's why I'm such an amazing writer. It's not as though I went to Citizen Journalism school. Back in my day there was no such thing, I went to the School of Hard Knocks and graduated from the University of Life. And Trent Poly. When it was a bloody Poly too and not some jumped up pretend University.

I took Gill to France back in the early days. I'm an old romantic like that. Curiously I also went through a period of being a New Romantic too. I had a proper Flock of Seagulls fringe and a big frilly fronted shirt. It was one of Mum's old blouses. I didn't really have the money to buy a proper one.

I remember the first time Gill let me take her up the Eiffal Tower. Happy days. She didn't know I had the French O'level either, until I showed her my French letters, I could tell she was impressed with my cunning linguistics, she let me lick her front bum. I'm many things readers, but I'm no braggart. I think language just comes naturally, much like Gill did, in the end.

Back in the Cafe des Amis, I ordered chicken and chips. I said chips too, not frites. "Don't slaver them in garlic either monsieur," I told the waiter nice and loud. I was trying like mad to maintain my right wing facade. When the food came, I looked on in envy as bloody Roger was tucking into his moules mariniers.

Apologies for this Mess, but I had to keep our relationship a secret. I really want Mum to be proud of me, if she knew that I wrote this blog and had made friends from all around the world, and Reading, I reckon she might lend me the money to get it published as a book for her at Christmas. But I have to keep it from her. It's for her own good.

We didn't really have much time to talk to be honest, they needed to get to the theatre, so we just mumbled through the usual pleasantries and platitudes. Did they have a nice trip down? Yes. Was I still enjoying my new job? Yes (I lied, it's fucking shit readers, and I can't tell Mum about the take-over - she'd only worry herself sick, chalk up another white lie to Barry!). Was I seeing anyone new? (Fucking Roger asked this the spiteful bastard.) I told him that I was playing the field, I'm a young buck who needs to sow his wild oats - the cheeky twat actually laughed "you're not so young any more my lad" he said "MY fucking LAD" - I told him that I wasn't "his lad" and that I was "Mum's lad and always would be," then Mum said she wished I'd been able to patch it up with Gill, then Roger said she was probably better of in Canada anyway!!!

A weaker man might have crumbled or lashed out, but I saw this as an opening, I said, "well Canada's all right, they've got Her Majesty's face on the money. If they kicked out the frogs, it'd been even better!" Roger then informed me and the surrounding tables that he had a great deal of sympathy for the Québécois. I said they were no better than the bloody IRA. Then I pulled up my jumper's sleeves and revealed my trump card.

Mum's face was aghast. "Barry, what have you done?" she implored. "I'm just patriotic Mum, there's nothing wrong with being patriotic if you're from Quebec or Ireland, and there's nothing wrong with being proud to be English! - isn't that right Roger?" I asked. I had him, he couldn't back out of that one. "Actually Barry, I was born in Edinburgh, my mother was from County Tyrone and my father was Bargoed in the Valleys of South Wales. He was minor and contracted bronchitis so had moved to Scotland for the cleaner air. Technically, I'm a Celt. You're right though, there's nothing wrong with patriotism, I'm just not so sure about the way you're choosing to demonstrate it."

"Celt?" I said "I think you're a couple of letters out." It was a moment of weakness readers, I couldn't help myself. Luckily for me, I don't think he heard it.

I looked down at my new tattoo, it's three lions in a crest, with the date October 25th 1514 inscribed below. "Lest we forget," I said patting my arm, "Agincourt." I had to fight back a tear, I think it looked like I was welling up with patriotic pride, actually it was the tattoo, which stung like absolute fuck.

Mum was shaking her head and Roger had started to smile. 'I've got him,' I thought 'hook, line and stinker.' Roger and I split the bill down the middle, which I thought was a bit bloody rich, but I figured the gold digging old Nazi was in the palm of my hand, I was about to quibble of a few quid.

Before we went our separate ways, Roger took me to one side, 'here we go, Baz you fucking genius,' I flicked on the recording switch of my trusty dictaphone, "I think you might need to do a bit more research," he said. And that was it. How cryptic?

It's a start though isn't it? I went home and got stuck into a few celebratory cans of Cobra. Which, granted, was a bit of a mistake, 'cos I overslept and missed the chance to meet up with Mum and Roger this afternoon. They're off to see Othello tonight. I thought I'd get some culture in myself, rather than veging in front of the X-Factor, I've downloaded a copy of Kenneth Branagh's Henry V - thought I'd get doing that research that Roger was on about!

It takes a thief to catch a thief! (Although, surely if that were the case, we should start hiring ex-cons into the Force?)

Use the force!!!!!!!!!!!

Barry Skywalker

Hang the DJ

When I was a nipper growing up in Lincoln, Mum took me to get Trevor Francis’s autograph. He was doing a Gillette Razor promo in ASDA. I thought I was king of the first years when I got into school.

It didn’t last, of course; Steve told everyone it was a fake that I’d done at home. He said the proof was the fact that the autograph was signed: “love, Trevor” and that Trevor would never have signed an autograph that way. But Trevor Francis was a nice guy and he just did what I asked, although he checked with Mum first.

I tried to explain to all the kids at school that it was real and that I’d asked him to write “love, Trevor” but that just made things worse. Everyone called me Trevorlover for the whole next term, even Fat Alice. I didn’t really mind though; getting the same signature that adorned the contract of football’s first million pound player was the nearest I got to living the high life and maybe it was that simple autograph which spurred me on to seek out the world of the glitterrati down here in London.

It seems like living the celebrity lifestyle is an almost daily occurrence for yours truly. I dunno, maybe it’s me or something. Maybe it’s simply the fact that I’m a Citizen Journalist, which means I’m more tuned into The News, but I’ve done more star spotting this year than Patrick Moore.

Like the time I bumped into Barry McGuigan acting suspiciously in the gents of The Imperial, or the time former Mr Jordan, Pete Andre, and myself chewed the fat about his latest fragrance while in Vegas.

This latest meeting was totally out of the blue and totally rock ‘n’ roll. The other night I’d agreed to meet up with Dan after another one of his mammoth gym sessions. He said he wanted to “talk strategy” following the merger announcement, and that “the cream always rises to the top.” He said he needed “someone close, someone he could trust”.

We’d planned to meet in the Yorkshire Grey, a pub quite near the BBC at Portland Place which is a famed hangout of some of the UK’s top-line celebrities. I think that’s why Dan likes it so much. He claims he once saw Anna Wing, Eastenders’ Lou Beale, in there. He thought it was a ghost and got a racing heart, apparently, but it turns out she was still up and about. Also, he says he saw none other than Les Dennis and Phil Jupitus arguing over a burger order during one lunch hour!

My money would be on Jupitus coming out on top, unless it was when Dennis was going through that rough patch. For a while there he was a man on the edge!

For me, Les Dennis never really recovered after the unfortunate passing of his comic soulmate Dustin Gee. That was when Russ Abott lost his mojo, as well. Everyone remembers “See you Jimmy”, but no one remembers anything after. It was, in many respects, both Dennis and Abott’s ‘Jumping the shark’ moment. Perhaps Gee was the glue that held it all together? I guess we’ll never know.

You know how they say that everyone who was old enough remembers where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had died? I don’t know if it’s true, but I know this: I remember where I was when I heard that Dustin Gee had died, no word of a lie. I was in a hardware store in Lincoln, buying some string for Mum. Clear as a bell, I can see it now. There I was in the store, and the radio was playing… “The actor and comedian Dustin Gee has died of a heart attack…”

…I’d already lost two grandparents by this stage, in 1986, but I think Gee’s passing was the first time I really contemplated the reality of mortality. When Gee went I knew that, one day, long into the future, I’d have to go too. It was quite a lot to take in.

Dustin Gee, I think anyone would agree, was the Barker to Dennis’s Corbett. He was the real comic talent; his Vera Duckworth was faultless, whereas Dennis’s Mavis Riley was just a catchphrase. Sure, that always got the biggest laugh, but that’s testament to Gee’s class as a performer, his generosity.

It’s sad, isn’t it, that we often lose first the more treasured one of any celebrity pair. There’s Gee and Dennis, Morecambe and Wise, Barker and Corbett, Lennon and McCartney, Charles and Diana, Rod Hull and Emu (actually, I’m not sure about that last one) – this list goes on and on.

Wikipedia offers scant insight into Gee’s personal life, although it makes no mention of him leaving behind a wife and kids. It does say that a lifelong heart condition was fatally aggravated by his use of poppers, though. Now, far be it from me to start drawing any conclusions from that but it does need to be borne in mind that poppers are used by the gay community to help in their lovemaking.

If you were the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir, you might want to draw some comparisons between Gee’s untimely departure as a result of his irregular habits and the passing of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately in a Bulgarian three-way. She’s a nasty piece of work, that woman.

Anyway, there I was sitting by the faux log fire in the Yorkshire Grey, supping my pint of Man-in-a-Box when there was a sudden commotion at the door. Looking up I saw a couple of chaps in pin-stripped suits and, wait for it, legendary former Radio One disc jockey Bruno Brookes!

He still had star quality, I could see that, even though he was carrying a fair bit of surplus timber. Bruno was always the cool kid on the BBC Radio One block. So much cooler than David ‘the kid’ Jensen, and on a different planet altogether from the furry cornflake. When I was a kid, I used to think Kid Jensen had never actually been a kid himself. I think he was born middle aged, wasn’t he? Maybe they called him ‘the kid’ as an ironic joke, like Curly Watts in Coronation Street or Little John in Sherwood Forest. Apparently he was Canadian, not American. Hoe aboat that?

I remember Dad taking us to the Radio 1 Road Show at Cleethorpes in the 80s to see Bruno Brookes. Little did I know then that they had a caravan there together. Not Bruno and Dad, JESUS! Although, maybe that would have been better, I probably would have got backstage passes and stuff. But then, in those days, Radio 1 DJs weren’t gay. And neither, I suppose, was Dad.

Back in the boozer, Bruno and his mates were talking in a manner that suggested they’d spent a good portion of the afternoon sampling a substantial wine menu. He was well and truly refreshed when he walked into the pub, readers; pissed up good and proper.

I always wondered what happened to Bruno Brookes, he’d been a hero when he played Killing in the Name of, even though some people said he’d never even heard of Rage Against The Machine and had no idea the song had those words in it. I preferred to think he knew just what he was doing, and that he was sticking it to the authorities. Here was s man, much like myself, who wouldn’t kowtow to the men in grey!!!

He was sacked, of course, and then pretty much disappeared into obscurity. But now here he was, in the Yorkshire Grey, fucked out of his mind. He came over and sat in the snug nearby, joined by one of his cronies, while the other stood at the bar. He started shouting “…and if I see Powell again, I’ll fucking kill him.” Bruno was in a rage. He wasn’t raging against the machine though, from what I could make out he was raging about fellow former BBC Radio 1 Jock Peter Powell and his ex, Anthea Turner.

“We had something, me and Anthea. Something special! Something most people can only ever dream about. She was my everything; my world boys, my fucking world. The mountains and the oceans. My whole fucking universe, infinite and expanding!!! Her earlobes were beautiful fucking galaxies. You looked in to her eyes and it was like gas giants going super-fucking-nova!! Supernova, I’m not kidding, boys. Her thighs went forever, like the milky fucking way!!! Her arse was like the twin moons of planet fucking ecstasy!! Her cunt… Her cunt was like dark fucking matter, shit… It just sucked you in!! It could absorb time, I’m telling you, boys. It could bend you out of shape and back again. It wasn’t a part of her body, it was a journey, a lifetime. Her tits!! She had these really, really nice tits. So squeezy. I just used to fucking squeeze them and squeeze them, you know? Squeezy, squeezy, squeezy, hour after hour. Squeezy, squeezy, squeezy. Jesus!! When we were at it, it was like I was in another dimension, everywhere and nowhere. When I spunked up in Anthea, it was like the dawn of fucking TIME!! I’ve seen God, let me tell you boys, I’ve seen God and it’s in Anthea’s fucking knickers!!”

I’d never had him down as a poet. It was very beautiful in its way. “Fucking Powell. I’ll fucking kill him,” he said.

At this point, the third member of their party staggered over spilling beer from the three pints he was holding together. “Mind out, mind how she goes,” shouted Brookes, “Here mate, sorry about all this,” he said again, addressing none other than yours truly. It took a while to sink in but Bruno Brookes was apologizing to me, for interrupting my early evening drink. “No worries,” I said, “not at all.” I was unfazed. Cool as a cucumber. Don’t forget, I’ve met Trevor Francis.

Then he came over (Bruno, not Trevor – Trevor wasn’t there) and sat down next to me, putting his arm around my shoulders, he stank like an Irish navvy. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked. I nodded solemnly, and then he stood bolt upright and whipped down his trousers, pointing to a chubby thigh.

It took me a moment to deal with it all but I soon made out the unmistakable shape of a pirate tattoo. “Matching tattoos,” he slurred, “only she’s got a lady pirate on the opposite leg, so when we were,” and here he put his hands on his hips and started thrusting his crotch in my face, “at it,” he said “they were at it too!”

Then all three of them started capering about doing pirate impressions shouting “shiver me timbers,” and “arrrrgh Jim lad”. I looked up just in time to see the back of Dan’s head leaving the pub. I stood up to follow him but Brookes planted his hand on my shoulder and said: “We got ‘em together while we were doing the Road Show down in Plymouth,” he said. “Me and Anth. Oh Anth, why did you do it to me? WHY. WHYYYYYYY?”

He sobbed for a moment or two, then stood motionless for a second. He didn’t say anything else, just kind of stood there staring at me, his eyes filling up with tears. He snorted loudly, wiping his sleeve across his face, bent down to pull up his trousers and fell into the table, wiping out the assembled drinks. “Oh, fuck mate, really fucking sorry about that,” he said. “Let me get you a replacement. One for the Pope and his assistant,” he shouted at the barmaid.

He sent his mate to the bar and sat me down. I introduced myself and then he started telling me about his latest business venture. It turns out that Bruno is getting back into radio readers! There you go, a scoop. You heard it hear first, on the pages of Newsdesk. Spread the word: It won’t be BBC, and it won’t be Capital, Virgin or even Magic. Because the rebel without a job has gone corporate!!!!!

Bruno’s latest venture is in-bank radio. I have to say it’s a bold move. I congratulated him on his nerve: “Most businesses are working hard to strategically improve their customer experience and determine a strong differentiator in the market place,” I said. “I think you might be onto something.”

“Cheers Barry old son,” he said “The thing is, the internet has fucked things up for everyone; the high street’s dying on its arse. As a consequence any business with a presence on the high street needs to pull its fucking finger out to win customers and drive sales away from the web.”

Bruno’s got a point readers; think about it: Banks aren’t exactly a destination of choice; people visit them out of pure necessity. Consumers are naturally feeling wary as a result of the economic turmoil, and therefore need guidance and reassurance about financial products and services currently on offer, and what’s best for them.

Unfortunately, my inquisitive nature got the better of me. “But Bruno,” I said, “Surely these days everyone does their banking on the internet too. Having in-bank radio won’t make people want to come into the banks. Except possibly the homeless.”

He didn’t like this line of questioning, he didn’t like it one bit. The first swing narrowly missed my chin, the second caught me square on the nose, sending me flying back into my chair. Thankfully, my judo training kicked in and I was able to fall like a cat, unharmed, except for the bloodied nose.

I tell you what, it’s a bloody good job Brookes’ mates scuttled him out of the boozer, quick sharp. I was ready to mete out some retribution Newsdesk stylee. Instead I ran to the door and shouted: “No wonder she fucking left you, Brookes, you fat prick.” I shouldn’t have done it, but my blood was up.

Woe betide Bruno Brookes if our paths ever cross again.

Anyway, the next day I had a go at Dan for leaving me there. I thought I’d gone a bit far, but I was angry and my nose hurt. To my surprise, instead of bollocking me, he welled up and briefly fought back some tears. He put his hand on my arm and said:

“I’m sorry Barry, I just couldn’t face talking to Bruno. It was such a shock to see him... It's been so long, I didn't think he went there any more. And, when he’s like that, he’s just… well, he scares me. He hurts the people that care the most.” And then he scarpered to the toilets.

Wtf?

Peace (except for Bruno Brookes)

Baz

Erotic Fiction

I’d like to make a welcome to my new friends.

But in particular, I’d like to say hello to Ellie.

Hello, Ellie.

I don’t know if the rest of you have been to Ellie’s blog, but it’s quite, um, candid. She appears to be a woman of considerable appetites and, while I’m not one to judge, I do feel a little sorry for her husband. Presumably he doesn’t know what she’s getting up to behind his back with a string of men, women and portable equipment.

I was uplifted by the frankness of her writing. Indeed, I hadn’t been reading Ellie’s blog for more than a couple of minutes before I felt a post coming on.

So here we go: I was reminded, as I so often am by these sorts of things, of the few years that Dave the Roofer spent supplementing his income by writing erotic fiction for a publishing house called Fantasy Towers. Sadly FT has gone bust now (they even sold their web domain to the Financial Times in a bid to stay afloat) and that was, in part, Dave’s fault.

To be fair to Dave, he’s always striven for new territory and, after a while, he began to find the constraints of the FT style guide a little tight. He wanted to really stretch the genre as wide as it would go and so he managed to persuade FT’s owner and chief editor to take a gamble on what turned out to be his final book, Nun Buggers.

Sadly it proved too extreme for FT’s readership and the firm effectively choked to death, not unlike Sister Gloria, the auto-erotic asphyxiation-inclined Mother Superior in the book, who was found hanging by her rosary from the door handle of her office in the Convent, with a tennis ball in her mouth and an extra large love egg up her whotsit.In a poignant twist, the love egg was still jiggling. It was, Dave wrote, the only life left in her.

But it was the chief editor’s call to publish the book, ultimately, so he’s to blame. Dave told me that when he first went to see the chief editor, he was staggered by the amount of books in the office, with many classic British novels among the bongo. He asked the editor if he’d read them all, and the editor said he had, indeed.

“Oh yes,” he said, “all of them, and more than once. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Sense and Sensibility, Brideshead Revisited, Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Pamela, they’re all terribly dog-eared, I’m afraid. But none is so well thumbed as Howard’s End.”

“That’s good, is it?” said Dave.

“It’s wonderful,” said the editor, smiling wistfully. “Time after time I lose myself in it for hours.”

It was three months before Dave realised that Howard was the office junior.

For a couple of years Dave was their biggest selling author. Of course he didn’t publish under his real name, Dave the Roofer. He had a nom de plume, which he actually took from a distant ancestor: The Contessa Alexia von Lichtenstein (the Roofer – lol!!).

Dave started out writing erotic twists on established stories or genres. The saucy horror short story The Camel’s Paw gave him his first big break, and he followed this up with Charles Dickings’ Great Expectorations, a skit in which pathological liar Pip feeds Estella an absolute whopper and she finds it hard to swallow. Then there was the Life and Times of Miss Hand-Shandy, a story about a girl who works in an eighteenth century massage parlour, which had a very happy ending. Of all of Dave’s books from this early period, I liked the semi-autobiographical Wankenstein the least; it was too self indulgent. Dave did admit to me once that, by this stage in his historic erotica writing, he had begun to run a little dry.

The fixation with illicit rumpo within the confines of religious buildings that was eventually to prove his downfall was evident in the only gay erotic novel he wrote, charting the nightly trysts between two extremely flexible and open minded residents of a Silent Trappist Monastery.

Called The Love That Dare Not Speak It’s Name, it’s pretty much like Brokeback Mountain, but with monks, and less dialogue (it’s all about body language, the book’s jacket says). Dave hasn’t spoken to Annie Proulx since her short story came out. He’s tetchy about the details, but he thinks she ripped him off. It’s a shame, they were really good friends, and he did her roof for mates’ rates.

Probably his most challenging period was when he got into hyper-realism. Fantasy Towers tried to dissuade him from following this route, knowing, I suppose, that what their readers really wanted was fantasy. But Dave is an obstinate man and, when the creative urge is upon him, cannot be knocked off his path. So I thought I might give you a sample of writing from this, his most difficult erotic book: The Married Sex Life of Robert and Claire.

To set the scene, Robert and Claire, have just got home after a meal out for their fifteenth wedding anniversary.

“Well the food was nice, at least,” said Claire with a sigh, stepping out of her high heels and massaging her feet. She made a mental note to buy a new pumice stone.

“One hundred and twenty fucking quid,” said Robert, hiccupping. “And that dessert was only a chocolate fucking pudding. It was a piece of piss; even you could have made it. Just because that twat’s on the telly. He wasn’t even doing the cooking, the fuckwit.”

Robert walked to the downstairs toilet, knocking their wedding photo askew as he bumped into the wall. With a sigh he began to empty his bladder.

“Christ, I’ve been dying for this since we got in that cab,” he shouted. “Hey, pretty lucky to find an unlicensed one, eh love? Saved us a tenner at least.”

“Do you think you could please shut the door when you’re using the toilet,” said Claire. “And don’t go all over the seat,” she shouted, adding “for fuck’s sake” under her breath.

“I never go over the seat,” Robert replied, wiping the seat with some toilet roll.

Robert flushed the cistern and swayed out of the toilet and back into the hallway. Claire sighed to herself. He was drunk again. The meal wouldn’t even have been so expensive if he hadn’t ordered that second bottle, not to mention the dessert wine. Still, at least the kids didn’t have to see him like this. She’d packed them off to her mum’s.

“Bloody hell, fifteen years,” said Robert putting his hands on Claire’s tits. “Where’s it all gone, eh?”

“I don’t know,” said Claire wondering whether Robert thought she was enjoying his attentions.

“Right, then,” he said, “I suppose we should, you know, nip upstairs, given the kids are away. Make like it’s fifteen years ago, eh love?”

Claire couldn’t remember if she’d even enjoyed it fifteen years ago. Nonetheless, she took the stairs ahead of him.

In the bedroom Robert struggled out of his trousers and stood before her, in his shirt, underpants and socks. She let her dress slide to the floor, took off her tights and bra, and slipped between the sheets. Robert pulled the bedclothes back, naked now, and clambered on to the bed as she parted her legs in tired resignation, shut her eyes and waited.

Nothing happened.

“Oh,” said Robert.

Claire opened her eyes. Robert was looking ruefully down at his cock, which was flaccid.

“I don’t know…” he started to make an excuse…

“Just forget it, don’t worry,” said Claire.

“I’m so tired and stuff, and work’s really stressful,” Robert said.

“You’re drunk,” said Claire, flatly.

“I could, er, I could use my mouth, I mean I could go…”

“Please, Robert, shut up,” said Claire, “you’re embarrassing me.”

“Or maybe you could, y’know, kiss it. That might wake it up a bit…”

“Get off!” said Claire.

Robert rolled to the side of Claire, and she turned her back to him.

“I don’t know why, for once, we couldn’t just have a romantic night together,” She began. “Dan takes Juliette away for a weekend once a month. I’m not asking for that, I’m just asking, for once, that we have dinner out and some kind of attempt at romance. But no, not even on our fucking anniversary. Don’t you care, Robert? Don’t you care? Robert…”

But Robert was asleep.

In the early hours of the morning he awoke with an erection so powerful it almost hurt. His head was full of hot, scattered images, fragments of dreams he’d been having. He was horny as hell, that was all he could think about. He rolled over and whispered to his wife:

“Claire, are you awake love?” he gave her shoulder a shake. “Claire, are you awake? I’m really bloody horny. Can we have sex now?”

Claire was awake, but she pretended to be asleep. There was no way, there was just no way. When another shake got no response, Robert sighed and turned over. Suddenly he remembered one of the dreams he’d been having, about the young girl who worked in his office. God she was so gorgeous. So young, so... so unspoiled. Without him willing it, his hand found its way down to his cock.

It didn’t take long. He let out an almost inaudible moan. Breathing in it felt as if he inhaled no oxygen; only despair.

Claire shuddered.

Well, there you go, readers, I told you it was challenging. I for one struggled to see the titillation in it. But Dave was convinced that he’d started a new movement in erotic fiction and was not to be dissuaded. Then, as soon as it had come, it was gone, and he was back to more familiar output, with some utter filth based on the Swiss Family Robinson.

The thing that always used to make me smile about Dave’s books, the ones that had the actual fantasy stuff in them, was that they were all read by people who thought they were written by an aristocratic woman. In fact, of course, they were written by a 16 stone roofer from West London. Dave told me that this was more or less the norm, and that most female writers of erotic fiction are, in fact, men.

Now I’m not suggesting Ellie is a sixteen stone man, I don’t doubt her femininity for a moment. No, no. But it does get you thinking, doesn’t it.

Anyways, once again, welcome to all my friends and Ellie: Keep it up!

Peace

ND

M&A Activity

Hello readers,

There’s been a few things happening at work which have stimulated my panic gland. It looks like my company is about to be aggressively acquired by another company that works in a similar sphere. You don’t work in the cut and thrust of media sales for as long as I have without sensing when there’s likely to be a lot more cut than thrust.

What happens when there’s a merger? I’ll tell you what: people lose their jobs. And which people tend to go first? I’ll tell you which: the last ones in. And that’s me. Nobody has joined the company since me, apart from a Kiwi classified sales guy called Larson who’s two favourite things in the world are downhill mountain biking and MDMA. And I don’t think he’s going to get made redundant, because I expect he’ll get the sack before any merger takes place. The other day he was found sleeping off a night on the pills under someone’s desk.

Anyway, as you know, I’ve been through the redundancy wringer and I don’t much fancy going through it again just yet. Not least because I haven’t worked here long enough to qualify for a payout. Anyway, we’ve got a meeting about it on Thursday, when we’re going to be given more details. Dan’s shitting himself because he reckons it’s always the middle management that gets it. He’s been doing double-length workouts at the gym and having extra body building shakes because he says appearance is important for first impressions.

He's been doing press ups like mad and the other day I came home and he was doing press ups with a pair of my boxer shorts under his face. I asked what the hell he was doing and he asked me if I'd seen Police Academy. Of course I've seen it, I said, it's one of the seminal films of my generation. Anyway, he said did I remember the bit where Mahoney was being made to do press ups and the two bad guys put their sweaty socks under his nose to help him do the press ups because he didn't want to have his face in their socks. I said I thought I did. He said that's what he was doing - that he couldn't think of anything more unpleasant than my pants and they were helping him do press ups. He's weird.

Anyway, while we’re on the topic of unwanted mergers, Mum and Roger are coming down to London at the end of next week, which means its time for me to kick Operation Sword of Truth up a gear. I’ve got a few ideas up my sleeve (literally!). But you’ll have to wait to hear about those.

Apparently they’re coming down to London to go to two theatre plays. I think Roger will be doing some research for his local branch of the BNP because he has chosen racially themed stuff. The first one is an all-black production of something called Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I think it’s a musical. Anyway, when I say all-black, I don’t of course mean that the cast is the New Zealand rugby team!! Lol!! No, what I mean is that all of the actors are black. Most exciting of all about this brilliantly diverse bit of arts is that it’s got Darth Vader in it!!

Now I’m not talking about the Green Cross Code man Dave Prowse, who was the man in the actual Darth Vader costume in the three Star Wars films (needless to say I do not even recognise the three prequels). After all, he was white. No, I mean James Earl Jones, the guy who provided the voice. It’s an interesting question about the nature of performance, I suppose. While Prowse did all the striding about, pointing and hurting people – which, I concede, contributed menace to the character – it was Jones who really made Vader so iconic, with that voice.

I for one think it’s sad that someone who created so memorable a character has fallen on such hard times that he’s got to do theatre; and a musical to boot! And he was in Coming to America. It’s a tragedy.

The other play is Shakespeare’s Othello, starring Mr Delbert Wilkins himself: Lenny Henry. Mum said that Roger told her Henry had recently won a theatre prize as best newcomer for his role in Othello, which strikes me as a bit rich given he’s 50-odd and he’s been famous for years, and married to Dawn French. I’ve got nothing against Dawn French but, shitting Christ, the Vicar of Dibley is a load of old monkey spunk, isn’t it?

Obviously I’m going to use this visit to London to try and get underneath Roger’s veneer of respectability. Which means I may have to say things that aren’t all that politically correct. But I just want to say here and now that I think it’s great that they’ve rewritten a Shakespeare play – one of the classics – to accommodate a black actor like Lenny. It’s about time!

I wonder if he goes off-piste and chucks a bit of Theophilus P Wildebeest into the mix – guaranteed crowd pleaser that one. Or perhaps that African chap he used to do. As I understand it, Othello isn’t one of the comedies, so it could probably use a bit of lightening up.

Katanga my friends!

ND Out.

Thierry-ble decision

Thierry Henry, once again getting confused about the rules.....

I love the way that Thierry Henry has graciously said that he was cheating and that the Ireland v France game should be replayed. A true gentleman, a football sophisticate, "I am not a cheat and never have been,” he lied, I mean, said, knowing full well the game would never be replayed.

The game won’t be replayed because it would set a president that football can’t afford, namely the replaying of a match in which a poor referee decision or cheating player has turned or decided a game. If the game were replayed we could take the president to its natural conclusion and demand the replaying of matches from the past in which poor decisions have been made and blatant cheating has taken place.

Although maybe replaying matches from the past is the only fair solution. Perhaps if Maradona’s own hand of god goal in ’86 could be overturned, England would win the World Cup in Mexico that year making it two little gold stars on the shirt instead of one. That said, if we went back through time replaying matches where bad decisions have altered the course of the game, maybe West Germany would win the ’66 World Cup.

I say, in the le spirit du football, it’s time to pop on your Thierry Henry replica shirt and nip down the road for a pint of the black stuff, isn’t it? It’s time to heal the wounds over a drink or two.

The Irish love a drink and they love a bit of injustice, don’t they. Would you believe they're still banging on about 800 years of oppression from the Brits... and that was 800 years ago.

I can’t believe the Irish justice minister’s getting stuck in. I think Dermot Ahern has slightly misread his 'minister of justice' job description confusing constitutional law with a football phone-in for idiots.

Still, I think it would be quite amusing to get a Terry Henry replica shirt and one of those oversized foam hand things so popular in ice hockey and go down to O’Neils this evening.

They’re a bit chippy the Irish, and they love a fight. Like the English really. They’re very like the English in fact. I should tell them that as they’re pasting seven bells out of me. Or I could suggest that, as part of the British Isles, they lend their support to England’s campaign next summer. It would make an excellent first step in an end to all of this silly independence nonsense.

Or better still suggest we join forces and invade France! There's nothing like uniting over the common foe. It will be just like Shakespeare, except with extra Irishness - O'Shakespeare if you like. I really hope there’s a massive backlash, and the Oirish rename everything with French in the title.

What we really need is an article speculating on how Stephen Gately would have reacted to this, with plenty of comment from Ronan Keating. And then one from Jan Moir sticking up for the Frenchies.

What do you think Mess?

Au revoir
Baz