Loony

So loopy people that aren’t loopy enough to get sectioned but are definitely loopy enough to do silly stuff. It’s a problem isn’t it? You know, the friend ones. The ones who think they are on Eastenders and everything is so fucking dramatic and about them. The ones that just want the duff duff duffs.

You know them.

They have the amazing ability to bring a subject around to themselves. And you’re just that bit scared they may reach for the Gillette triple action blades if you point out the fact they are a self-centred cunt.

And they have the amazing ability to pack you bags for the biggest guilt trip of your life. It’s a round the world expedition and your arms are aching from the emotional baggae she’s throwing on you.

“You’re my best friend, but do you know what I am going through, do you? Yes I cheated on people and was manipulative and a complete bitch and compeltely self absorbed, but how is that MY FAULT? I know it’s your day and everything but did you stop to consider my feelings? Caus, you know, it’s quite a big day for me as well and I think youre being very selfish to want a say in your own wedding. And would you mind if I actually wore the white dress? Oh don’t be harsh, don’t be tight, you are such a shit friend! Let me wear the white dress, let me make the speeches! Oh, and always remember, I could DIE.”

Well, really? Only if you be a twat about it and do the deed yourself. Otherwise, you’re being a tad overdramatic there. And, well, the whole emotional blackmail, all-about-you thing, it’s not exactly being a friend and as it’s my day really and … oh god, shit… wait… for fuck’s sake she’s gone for the… oh no, it’s ok. Shit. She was bluffing. There’s not a lot she can do with a McFlurry and half a pound of lard.

I don’t know what you do with loopy people really. You want to help. And then they don’t want your help. And you kind of run out of ways to help. And you kind of run out of inclination to while they are abusing and manipulating you. You just think. Well. Fuck off then.

I think ignoring might be best. Hope it goes away. Like a fart.

Sledge

The timing is spectacularly brilliant.

We (not me, I’m fsr too miserable) crowd around windows cooing at snow as if it is raining tiny fat babies.

“Oh look! Look! Have you looked? Do look! LOOK! Woooooo! LOOK! Ahhhhhh! PRETTY! LOOK!”

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, the world’s leaders are arguing about Climate Change and are heading towards the inevitable cockless agreement. They will stand on some steps and wave their impotency in our dirty little faces.

You see?

We love climate change!

The leaders, pockets heavy with IOUs and credit cards, are about as likely to approve anything remotely meaningful as I am to not want to punch Piers Morgan in his fat greasey face. Pollution makes money. They love money. They love climate change.

And the public like snow and like sunshine. And climate change would make the summer sun hotter and the winter cold snowier. And we LOVE snow. And we LOVE sunshine. Fuck it, we LOVE climate change.

A shame, though, that it has to be so, well, unethical. I mean, we’ll be alright, but what about our children’s children?

Hmmmm.

We shouldn’t worry about maybes. My children might not have any working swimmers or swimming pools. You can’t worry about something that might not happen. More fool us.

Light up the coal, let’s burn some toxic compounds. I just bought a sledge and I want my money’s worth.

Village

Outside, it looked like any other pub. Inside, well, I was worried.

We walked in and everyone stared. At us, I mean. The cause was debatable. Were we just unwelcome outsiders? Had we missed something? Or was it just that none of them had ever seen a half Chinese girl before.

They were all white and had the distinct facial slope of inbreeding. Three men, one in a Manchester United shirt, danced holding hands in the space before the band, one rolling on the floor.

The band itself had a bongos player and a backing track. The singer had an ‘authentic’ microphone and wore a tuxedo and ignored the come on from one of the drunks. In his head, he was in Vegas. Yeah, Vegas baby. Take it to the chorus Frank, I’m gonna slink this one out.

A woman walked past with a half smoked fag which she stubbed out on a scaled arm and put in her bag for later.

Groups of men in leather jackets and Ben Sherman shirts stood in huddles and eyed overweight women drinking bottles of alcopop.

A couple hip swung around each other in a small ceremonial dance.

Everyone was very very drunk. Everyone was very very middle aged. Every one was very very white.

It was 9pm.

They had clearly never seen a half-chinese girl before.

Tickbox

In a country where the inclusion of a far right MP on a mainstream political panel show can prompt widespread blanket disapproval because of his inability to get beyond classifications of people on a racial basis, it is surprising that every day this country proves itself to be obsessed with racial classification. Even more surprising that those dignified types screaming and spitting through the gates of BBC centre are the same people calling for this racial classification.

Hypocritical? Well, these are those who can afford to be liberal, in the misused sense of the word – when it means irrationality and stupidity rather than a freedom and equality of thought. So hypocritical, yes, surprising, no.

But back to the matter.

I mean, what are you? Exactly?

Because they want to know. When you apply for a job, they want you to tell them what you are.

Jade applied for a job and it asked her what she was.

Mixed race.

I shuddered. Really? It’s nearly 2010 and we have to start talking about “mixed race”? Mixed. As opposed to pure. It embarrasses me that we feel the need to do that. To have to classify anyone other than ‘person’. It is a closet square moustache stuck indignantly to a top lip.

And me. What am I? British? White British? English? Am I mixed race as my great grandmother was Irish? Mixed race because at some point in my family’s long history the blood of the French, Scandinavian and probably Scottish was shoved in the bowl that is my genetic pool?

I’ll stick down mixed race then and watch the interviewer squirm.

Oh, we thought you’d be different… well, erm, now, well, we may as well do an interview… are you sure you’re not a little bit black?

It’s all so patronising. So you are going to employ on the basis of race? You don’t believe the ‘ethnic’ people can get a job in their own right, on the basis of what they have achieved, on their accomplishments and skills? That they need a helping hand?

Oh look, we got a Chinese one. Snap her up. CV? Don’t be silly. She has ticked the ethnic box!

Here’s a revelation. Ethnic people can get a job on their own. They don’t need you to help them.

It should be a blind process. No class or race involved. Judge it on the basis of what they have done. Then judge them at interview on the basis of who, not what, they are.

Next application form. What is your racial background?

Let’s scan down this list.

Ah yes, there it is.

FUCK OFF, IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

Tick.

Pardon

J’aller le bibilioteque.

That’s is the level of French the British education system produced in a, I like to think, gifted child (Me). A garbled sentence that probably makes no sense to anyone, let alone those sexy beasts across the channel.

I also know the word for dog. And chicken. And fuck.

So unless I stumble across an animal orgy in a library, my French knowledge is not likely to come in useful.

When as adults we go into the world and attempt to experience what it has to offer, this failure in education leads us to utterly ridiculous beliefs. The main one being that everyone should speak English.

Of course, our education of languages was not born out of arrogance and ineptitude of teachers to overcome mass apathy from students. Oh no. Everyone speaks English. This is a token lesson. Don’t worry yourselves about it.

I jest. Ho ho ho. Look at me laughing. And regretting both my apathy and my teacher’s inability to overcome it. For of course, most other countries CAN speak English, as they see the value in learning and such is the proliferation of American cultural colonialism, they don’t have that much choice. But that does not mean they have to choose to speak it.

Now most of us know this sort of thing. We go to foreign places and learn a token sentence, which we murder and dismember so horrifically that the locals take pity and/or laugh at our utter failure to engage in what is probably quite a simple endeavour. And then they humour us in English and we feel like utter shits.

But other people, well the notion that going to a country and them speaking in their own language is almost too much to cope with.

I went to France on business and, guess what, they were speaking French!

Well fuck me, I couldn’t understand a word of it.

You’d of thought it would be in English wouldn’t you?

Well, no.

Are you actually real? Really?

C’est honteux. Nous sommes une course ignorante, sont nous non ?

Thief

In a London workplace (not here, somewhere far more in Vogue), there is a thief working its way around the desks.

He or she moves through darkness, dodging delectable heels and moving through shawls of satin, avoiding the made-up stares of vacancy.

It is a trend, a theme that has emerged and one that this merry bunch are charting. They spotted it. And it has legitamised their suspicions. A thief is here. We told you it would be. The thief, it already existed, but, you know, we made it happen.

And the identity of the thief is the subject of much debate. Behind the gloss and the framed pictures of wafer-thin delusion there is, though, the truth. They all look to the cleaners.

Why it would be the cleaners, with their broken English and their poverty, who would risk their jobs for the sake of a hastily bought Christmas present, they do not discuss. Why, with the CCTV cameras they dust and the security systems they are most restricted by, the cleaners would endanger a job that keeps them with money, small though it may be, by stealing items from desks that will be missed and to do so at the most vulnerable time -  the empty office time where the CCTV can see you nakedly – they don’t discuss either.

How shocking it would be to them to discover it was one of their own.

It would be easier for them. A busy office, people moving, the CCTV camera impotent in the  whirl of activity.

And more likely? A crime of opportunism and stupidity. A room of coke heads and fail-to-keep-up bankruptcy.

I’d say as, or more.

Easier, though, to blame the cleaners. They don’t know enough English to defend themselves. Maybe one will get the sack. Token, like. Take the heat off.

How’s the conscience Christmas morning, guys?

Oh, look at that, your nose is bleeding and you don’t seem to be making a great deal of sense. And this receipt, it’s got someone else’s name on it…

Shower

It is 4pm and upstairs there is a man having a shower at work.

I went in for a piss and I heard the sound of whistling and falling water. And then the slop of shampoo.

It’s 4pm. Why is there a man having a shower at work at 4pm?

Is it a planned shower? Did he bring a towel, shampoo, a change of clothes, with the intention of excusing himself from his daily work at 4pm for a shower?

“Excuse me boss, off for a shower, see you in 20”

Surely not. This is Haymarket. We are conservative in ownership and liberal in body. We are middle class. We don’t do mid afternoon at work showering. The shower is for cyclists in the mornings. Why is HE in there, NOW?

But what if he didn’t plan it? Where did he get a towel from? Where did he get shampoo from? Is he putting the SAME clothes back on?

Why does he need a shower. Why is he whistling. What is he covering up… cleaning… removing…

I don’t like unknowns. My imagination is sordid and prone to irrationality.

Damn you 4pm shower man. Damn you.

I have been exposed, once more.

Child

The lights are out. The hall is hushed. And somewhere near the back there is the scratching of impatience.

A warm green glow lights up an auditorium with a collection of mats at its centre. And from somewhere deep and afar, the strains of a familiar tune.

It is the Teletubbies.

And on the mats, a parade of toddlers being pushed around a mini assault course wearing an array of ludicrous costumes.

They crawl and jump and waddle and climb. And the mothers and fathers, they push them around, showing them off.

It’s like Crufts.

Pushy owners of primped up pooches. It’s not about the dog, really. It’s about them. It’s about their ability to own the dog, manipulate it. In their best dress and half the Boots make-up counter. They are eyeing each other. And they are eyeing the dads. Half in jealousy of a man taking part, half in suspicion that this one might be the paedophile.

The man in front might be a paedophile. He’s stood up filming it all. I think about intervening. Do you know, mate, you have to have a check to do that these days?

But the Teletubbies music stops and his obese wife comes back with a small child dressed as a fairy. She’s out of breath and dressed like she’s going to dinner. Which she looks like she does a lot. Eat, I mean.

We move away from the paedo and the fatty.

But we are not done with them.

Oh no.

For throughout the rest of the displays and routines, the little fairy makes various bids for the centre of the mats, and each time the mother and father glow with pride. They watch and grin as their daughter ruins other people’s performances. It’s left to other parents to remove the child.

I ask Jade if I can report them to social services. She says probably not. I consider it some more. I am not afraid of my phone. That child is making a cry for help.

They’re both old. Both fat. The act of procreation, it probably didn’t come easy (if you excuse the pun).

And you know that this little miracle of theirs is going to be pandered to, allowed to reign, allowed to grow in confidence to a point where it will be completely unprepared for the cynicism of life. They will be at dinner parties explaining how little Mercedes or whatever she is called can do no wrong, can do everything amazingly, is the rebirth of Jesus Christ himself.

And meanwhile, buckling under the pressure of expectation and the reality of what she has been unprepared for, little Mercedes sits in a bedsit injecting heroin into tired arms.

Your child is not a dog. Your child is not for you.

The Fly

Before you feminists jump on this here bit of writing and scream “SEXIST GENERALISATIONS” please let me stress that I have had a long career of being a shoulder to cry on. My shoulder skin is pruned like fingers in the bath. It has bathed in tears. It is a shoulder of much experience. Women seek the shoulder out. And I am forced to listen. Not to ALL women. I am not claiming a generalisation. I am articulating an experience.

I have listened to many a tale of sadness. Of a lonely, insecure girl finding the man of her dreams. He’s just perfect. Honest. All I ever wanted.

Or worse.

A lonely insecure girl who finds a man to fill a gap. Not literally. Emotionally. Well both. But don’t be so unattached. You don’t understand beyond the physical. But it is physical. Why don’t you understand me? I just want attention. But not that. But that, with it. You see?

I, erm, don’t.

So you have two stories really. The easy-in-love cuddlers and the need-to-feel fuckers.

And in the sights of both not the man that turns them away (“no offence but you’re not in a great place at the moment and as I don’t see it going anywhere I don’t really want to mess you about”), nor the man who tells it straight (“Well this isn’t a relationship ok, and as soon as it feels like it it’s stopping”) and nor the hapless victim (“I love you! You are so special) who you will dump in the end anyway.

No.

In their sights is the manipulator, the breaker, the liar and the cheater.

I’ve met them. You can tell. Instantly. It’s the smugness. You know as soon as your alone they’ll tell you about what a great fuck she is and how what a sweet deal it is. “I just have to call her and she comes running. I get sex when I want. I can do what I want. She just let’s me fuck her any way I want”

And they expect you to congratulate them.

I fucking hate men like that.

And these women, they hate them too. They want a way out.

They say they want a way out.

It’s the fly trapped in the window. You watch it buzz into the plane of glass, banging its head repeatedly on the same spots. Frantically searching for a way out but never quite managing it. Always drawn back to the plane.

Yet above, the window is open. The air is still.

They see it, but they cannot comprehend it.

Perpetually stuck in a mad mix of fear and panic. And the only winner is the window. Is the shit of a man on the receiving end. Literally.

Sister

“STEPHANIE! THEY DON’T HAVE ANY MINSTRELS!!”

So it began. Long lines of posh teenagers on some sort of trip strutting in giggly huddles into the theatre. They were sat behind us and we heard their chat.

“Shall we like, totally break into a box?”

“Oh my God, Sarah you are SO daring.”

Box? Coffin. Tempting…

And in front long lines of coach parties.

“What seat does it start on? DOES IT START ON? START! WHAT SEAT?!”

“OH. 26?!”

“Right. Bloody hell. SIT THERE NORAH!”

All too preoccupied with rebellion and counting the seconds to the interval fag break to realise as she walked in. I nearly missed it myself.

“Who’s this lot then?” I asked as the huge man and the tiny tiny woman with massive breasts toddled in just before curtain up and took their seats in the stalls in front of us.

“That’s Danni Minogue,” said Jade.

Right. I subtly turned my phone on to text my address book. A-hem. Danni Minogue. Yeah. In front. Of me. Not bothered. Just, like, thought you should know. In case, you know, you cared.

I was sweating slightly

The curtain dropped and the blackness came before anyone else could notice.

But the interval. Well, they noticed then. She went out with the masses for a pee and a drink and the first hints of recognition tumbled into being. People wanted photos. Quite a few just stared.

But when she came back, well

The teenagers screamed. People on the level above hung over the edge and gasped. The row in front of her bobbed up and down like those wacking games at the fair, trying to grab a glimpse. Little old women appearing from random spots in the audience, just a head and straining neck. Trying to look not bothered. Then shrieking when they saw her.

And the woman in front of me stood up and gestured wildly in Danni’s direction. Waving her arms so the flab fanned the audience as she grinned inanely.

“DANNI BLOODY MINOGUE” she mouthed. The St John’s Ambulance started to move, fearing a fit of some sort, before they saw her too. And the grins spread to them.

Danni took it in her stride. A little wave and a smile. I thought I caught her eye. It’s a trick they do

And then curtains down. And we all waited once more.Til the end.

And at the end, well I feared for her. I could hear the tension. The crowd were shuffling. Lights up would spark them.

But lights up and she was already moving. The screaming started once more and the chants of “Danni Danni” emerged somewhere behind us.

The mammoth boyfriend looked bemused as they headed towards the fire exit. And a pause and a wave as the teenagers and the coach parties whipped themselves into multiple orgasms of delight.

Then gone. And the chatter began. Danni Minogue, can you believe it? Here. In the stalls. With US!

Fame is a very odd monster.

Sister Act, by the way, was awesome. But when Danni Minogue is sat in front of you, Sister Act gets lost slightly.