Bangkok

I just wanted to say a quick “thanks blood” to my main hommie boy Mr London Street. Yo comments is well appreciated. Also, a passing thanks and hello to Shopgirl, Maccoall and The Jules. And a massive big up to Mr C – natch – for inspiring me to get the fuck back into blogland. BOOM! I think that I should warn you all though, that by the simple act of befriending me and adding your sublime commentary, you have put your lives into severe danger.

In a way, I do feel a bit guilty about coming back online and thus endangering all your lives. I knew that my reappearance would send shockwaves across certain elements of the Internet. I’m under very strict orders to keep my profile on the low-down, my location is a closely guarded secret. I can say no more at this stage. Other than, if you’re getting home late and it’s dark, be on your guard. I can’t be there to help sadly. If you can, I suggest joining a judo club. The streets aren’t safe man. It’s just you against the world.

I never, for once, thought things would wind up this way. It all seems a million lifetimes from marching into BA’s business lounge to the beat of Columbia’s finest with Gary, just a passport apiece, a credit card and return tickets to Bangkok. It felt like we were Noel and Liam. Definitely maybe. I think if we were, I would have been Noel. Sure, Gary had something, a certain charismatic elemental charm, but essentially I was the artistic powerhouse of the partnership.

I thought I was a man of the world. I was until I visited Bangkok. My eyes were opened. I don’t think I’ll be able to play table tennis again. Not to any level of proficiency at least. I have no idea how long we stayed up partying. Days merged into weeks. The faces blurred. The genders were immaterial. Nothing mattered. I woke up one day with a tattoo of a monkey on my back and wedding ring on the third finger of my left hand.

It was time to come home. But things would never be the same.

Stolen moments

You're probably wondering how the heck I can find time to blog in a place like this. We're certainly not supposed to be online, it's no holiday camp I can tell you. But I have am understanding with my unit supervisor. I scratch his back, he lends me his laptop and turns a blind eye for 15 minutes.

I know that he does the same thing for a few others. In fact, it was my mate here that put me on to it. Judging by the state of the place, I'd say most of the others nip in here and spend their quarter of an hour consuming as much porn as possible. I'll admit, blogging was the last thing on my mind for a while.

If you know the right people, this place isn't all bad. After the experiences I've had over the last seven months, I've learnt to keep my head down. Avoid eye-contact. Don't speak until you're spoken to, then give as little away as possible.

I'm innocent of course, but then they all say that.

Brothers in arms

I’ve got to be honest readers, I have no idea how I ended up in this predicament. I knew that Leache was trouble. I knew it. Like I had a sixth sense for trouble. A trouble radar. “BEEP, BEEP, WARNING!” It was going. I bloody knew it. She wouldn’t listen though. They never do.

Gary seemed different. Granted I had him marked down as bit a rough diamond. But I could tell he was generous hearted. We were living in that old Nazi Greta’s place and when Gary suggested we go down to his pal’s in London for a party to watch the World Cup final, it seemed like the ideal getaway.

A weird thing happened before we went down to London. I had a visit from my old friend Steve. He warned me about Gary. Said his dad had said a few choice things when Steve had mentioned that me and Gary had become housemates. Steve’s dad was always paranoid though, that’s coppers for you. He bloody hated me anyway. Ever since that time with the wing mirrors on the high street. Honestly, you’d think in Steve’s dad’s world that no one ever got drunk and had a bit of harmless fun.

Gary certainly had a lot of fun and a lot of friends. He seemed to know everyone in London! You can’t be all bad with that many friends. He knew a lot of girls and he was introducing me as his brother which was bloody brilliant. And considering Roger and Mum got hitched, I suppose in a way we were brothers.

Being an only child I had always wondered what it would be like to have a brother. It was a great feeling if I’m being honest. Just me and Garry. The Barry & Gary show. I couldn’t help thinking that Mum’s selfishness, depriving me of a brother, was probably behind my lack of success in life. Brothers compete and strive on, I mean, you’ve only got to look at the Nevilles.

The all seeing eye

Life may be pointless, but it's still good to be back blogging and nothing says "I'm back" like a dead octopus...

I have a feeling though that the nature of my future posts will be fairly short for a while. I need to grab these illicit moments when I can. I'm being watched you see. All the time. Well, not all the time. Not right now for instance. Not unless there is a CCTV camera here that I'm not aware of.

So much has happened to me over the past half year, that I don't quite know where to start. So, I'll start at the end. I'm a maverick like that. Most people start at the beginning, not me.

I find myself locked in a small windowless room. It's the only place I know that I'm safe. From the accusations, from the eyes, the haunting. The depravity. Time stands still in The Room. Again, this is more of a saying that an actual. It doesn't really stand still. If it did, I think we might be onto the beginnings of an episode of The Twighlight Zone or something.

I've often thought that I would be a great sci-fi writer. I can easily imagine a future filled with escalator walkways in the sky and silver jumpsuits. Most people can. But then I have an innate ability to add a special twist. Like a room in which time stands still.

Right, fuck, I can hear footsteps, I'd better be off.

The meaningless of life

I’ve been away for seven months readers and that is a long time in anyone’s book. A lifetime in many respects. Well, in the respects of certain octopuses it is at least. I feel sorry for Paul the octopus. Surely Planet Earth’s most famous octopus? Paul managed to successfully predict a string of World Cup match winners and is now dead. If he went to the trouble of having an accumulator bet at Ladbrokes on his predictions he would have been a very wealthy octopus indeed. Still, that wouldn’t have helped in end. Nothing helps us in the end.

Countryphile

Hi there readers

First up, I feel I need to proffer up my all too usual apologies for a severe lack of regular posting recently. You wouldn't believe the last two weeks I've had. Although, if you're a long termer you might. I just don't ever seem to get the rub of the green. So far 2010 has been one of the worst yet. Which, if anyone takes the trouble to read 2009's postings, is saying something!

My misadventures with Dippy in Australia were followed by returning home jobless to find the Tories in charge. I was then unceremoniously kicked out of my own home. And if that wasn't bad enough, just when I managed to get myself back up and online, I was burglarized!

I've feel violated :-(

I thought South London was bad enough with its dog and bike thievery, not to mention its legally and positively encouraged by the powers that be Day Light Bloody Fucking Robbery. But I'd not been out in the sticks five minutes before my own domicile had been breached and evacuated of its contents.

On the night of my last post, I signed off the pages of Newsdesk and proceeded in a southerly direction to the local pub. To be totally honest I fancied a crack at the barmaid. Sadly, I didn't really make much progress. I sparked up a conversation fair enough saying that I was new to the area and wouldn't mind finding someone with local knowledge to show me around. I name-checked a few famous people I'd met as a successful writer down in London, names like Pete Andre, Bruno Brooks and Barry McGuigan, but I could tell she didn't really 'get it'.

That's the thing with these country girls, they lack sophistication, imagination and ambition. They end up working behind the bar of their local village pub, getting up the duff with the centre forward of the pub football team and then settling down to a life of domestic abuse, misery and dreams of what might have been.

In many ways that barmaid reminded me of my own poor mother. I still can't believe she's been blinded by Roger Leache. You would have thought she would have learnt her lesson when dad ran off with the lollipop lady. Some people are just born victims.

I can't really remember leaving the pub that night or indeed the long and dark stagger home. I woke up with a splitting headache and dragged myself out of bed only to discover that the front door of Greta's place was wide open and some git had been in and made it away with half my stuff. My laptop (and dongle), mobile phone, wallet, my TV (still boxed from the move), microwave which was brand spanking new - and while not technically mine, per se, was still something I was looking forward to using - my passport and the box set of The Wire!! Still at least they hadn't discovered the six pack of Cobra in the fridge. I had to have one just to settle my nerves.

Once I'd had the police around and spent about two hours going over the previous night's events and the details of the stolen contents, I had to walk all the way to Lincoln because the tealeaf had also nicked the keys to Roger's Ford Focus that he let me borrow for the move. Honestly, judging my his reaction when I got there you'd think cared more about his missing motor than the fact that I could have been murdered in my sleep.

I had to sleep on the sofa that night. IN MY OWN HOME! The indignity of it all!!!!

I did a lot of thinking that night on the sofa. I was going to have to sort my life out. I was going to have to get home. But, well, I was also pretty bloody excited about the World Cup. The thieves had at least not stolen Greta's ancient, but fully functioning telly.

Mum came up to me the following morning when Roger wasn't around and gave me a few quid. Not 'gave', as such though, because I will pay her back, natch. She's a great old girl really my Mum. Although, I think she's lost touch with reality a bit, I doubt she even knows how much a Frey Bentos pie is these days. Fortunately, I know where she keeps her spare credit card. I thought, if England get past the group stages I could be holed up in that cottage until July.

When I got back to the cottage the next day I was in for yet another unpleasant surprise. Roger's son Gary was on the sofa watching TV in his boxer shorts. He barely even diverted his eyes from the set to acknowledge my entrance. "All right Barry mate," he said, "have you got any booze?"

'Cheeky twat,' I thought as walked into the kitchen, 'there's no way I'm letting him get his hands on my Cobra.' "...only I've finished off that flat shit in the fridge and I thought you might have something decent on you.." bellowed Leache.

Even above the din of my internal rage I think I heard him scratching his balls. I went straight to my room, and I'm not afraid to admit it readers, I had myself a little cry.

Later that night Gary shouted up asking me if I wanted to go to the pub, I didn't bother answering, I thought I'd just pretend to be asleep. I heard the door slam a little later and I went down and polished off the contents of Greta's liquor cabinet while watching a documentary about sex tourists in Vietnam. Makes you sick really, hopeless, socially inept, middle aged men picking up girls young enough to be their daughters.

I woke in the night to the sound of rhythmic banging. Leache had clearly been more successful than I had down at the village boozer. Stands to reason really, he's exactly the sort of uneducated Philistine that impresses teenage barmaids. When I got downstairs the following morning both Leache and his companion were nowhere to be seen.

Gary has kept himself to himself since that first night. He turned up the day after England v USA with an XBox and a copy of FIFA 10, and he even bought me a case of Heineken to replace my Cobras. We played a few games and thanks to my management training with Zach Abrahams I didn't disappoint on the virtual pitch.

It turns out that Gary keeps quite odd hours and is sometimes away for days on end, but he seems to be amazingly successful with the ladies. I had to buy some ear plugs from the chemist just to get a full night's sleep when he's around!

Anyway, he turned up last Friday night and we sat down together to watch England/Algeria. I hate to admit it, but we had quite an entertaining night, despite the fact that he kept calling the Algerians "rag 'eds". Still, he's not really a man of the world like me, I think he's pretty much never moved away from the East Midlands and he certainly didn't go to university.

This morning he turned up at the cottage driving a black Peugeot 206. He was giving me a lift over to Mum's place for Roger's Father's Day meal.

I took a calculated risk, remembering comments that Gary had made to be about his father when we first met, and revealed to him that I knew about Roger being a nazi. It was as risky gambit as I had suspected during the England game that Gary might also being a member of the BNP. But it turns out he hates Roger even more than me. He didn't really have a decent word to say for the man. Gary's racism, it turns out, is not politically motivated, he's just a bit provincial.

Anyway, they're all downstairs as I write this post - I'm using Roger's computer which is set up in Mum's room. That's one in the eye for fascism!

I can hear the laughter and clink of glasses. I know for a fact that Gary has only really turned up to brown nose Greta. He reckons she'll be dead by Christmas and he'll have a third share in the cottage.

I'd best get myself back down there before the pigs in blankets have all gone.

Yours in News

Barry

Bachelor pad

Wotcha gang. Soz for being away for a while. I've been pretty busy lately.

As readers of my last post will have gathered, I have been thrown out of my own home in favour for some crippled, nonogenarian, bathing-halfwit, nazi.

It really does beggar belief that mother has the wool pulled over her eyes so easily. I wonder sometimes whether I wasn't adopted. My mind is like a steel trap, silently poised, awaiting whatever news comes stumbling by. Mum's mind is like a pair of heavy duty incontinent knickers at an old people's home.

Still, blood is thicker than water, or so the saying goes. I have decided, for the time being at least, that I shall humour her folly. Roger's mother Greta is to stay tucked up underneath my John Robertson poster, while I'll be sleeping in what appears to be a lavender and pink frilled mausoleum.

Roger is selfishly unwilling to sell his mother's house to fund her retirement home needs, since she wants to leave it to her grandchildren. As a consequence I have taken the noble step of moving out of my family home and into Greta's room in her tiny two-bed cottage in the north Nottinghamshire countryside.

I went for a walk earlier, I felt a little bit like Robin Hood. In many ways I sometimes think of myself as a Robin Hood Citizen Journalist of the Blogosphere. Taking stories from the rich and giving them to the poor. Mind, I saw that one with Russel Crowe in the other day, I've got to say I prefer the Costner version. At least Costner had the good grace not to adopt some faux Irish accent. You knew where you were with Costner.

Needless to say, Greta's place is a little behind the times. She has a stair-lift all right and one of those baths with a side door, what she doesn't have is broadband. Welcome to the 21st Century Grandma!! WTF?

I've been trying to get hooked up to the Super Information Highway all week. There's no cable out here in the stick, so I've got one of those dongles.

lol :-))

Dongle? Ha! Genius.

Greta's place isn't so bad really. There's a nice local pub in the village and the offie even sells Cobra. The only down side to living here is the news that Roger's youngest son Gary is due to move in any time soon. The last time I met Gary, or indeed any of Roger's offspring, was almost a year ago now.

He didn't strike me as being particularly trustworthy. Still, hopefully I shouldn't be here too long. I'm looking to get myself a job back down in London at some point.

Anyhoo, apparently there's karaoke in the local and I spotted quite a fit barmaid down there the other night. People have told me I do a good croon. I might treat her to one of my Humperdincks.

l8ers

Baz of the woods