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ADMIN BLUES

“Is anyone watching that Celebrity Farm?”

No takers, but she’s undeterred. The girl is a conversational terrorist. No topic too banal. Read the rest of this article here.

Published: Mongrel Magazine, December 2004

ADMIN BLUES

“Is anyone watching that Celebrity Farm?”

No takers, but she’s undeterred. The girl is a conversational terrorist. No topic too banal. Read the rest of this entry »

I’M AN IDEAS MAN

Ideas are my currency. If I’m in a clothes shop and I find a pair of pants I like, I’ll walk up to the counter and suggest the names of some songs that might make good ringtones. For two weeks in the Canaries I’d probably stump up the basis for a workable post-war settlement in Iraq. If I’m owed change, I’ll ask the travel agent how he gets the pistachios out of the closed shells and be on my way. That’s how it works. Read the rest of this entry here.

JUST LIKE A BABY (1971)

SO… YOU WANNA COME BACK TO MY PLACE, MAYBE SWAP SOME STATE SECRETS?

This suspiciously hot girl seated behind Obama when he spoke in Shanghai last week is causing a bit of a sensation in China. By the time he appeared at the podium, she had removed the red jacket – hence the Chinese media dubbing her variously the ‘beauty in black beside Obama,’ ‘Obama girl in black’ or ‘woman in black behind Obama.’ (Clearly, the Ministry for Snappy Tabloid Nicknames having something of an off-day there.)

However, if she was the bait to lure the American president into an elaborate honey trap – which absolutely no one other than myself suspects – then, alas, her cover has been blown. Read the rest of this entry »

HELLO. MY NAME IS MIK PYRO. AND I AM A MASSIVE CRY BABY*

“The show will be going out live so we’ll have to ask you not to swear…” Mik Pyro and Benjamin Loose exchange bemused glances. The Republic of Loose vocalist and bass-player (respectively) have ducked out from a soundcheck in Brixton to appear on BBC Radio 6. But with Mik unused to curbing his tongue, and with most of their songs riddled with profanities, it’s going to be a tricky half hour.

Already I’ve noticed his partiality for the word ‘bullshit’. He delivers it as though tasting a fine wine, rolling the first syllable around his sandpaper gullet before spitting out the second: booull-shi’. Just imagine you’re talking to your mother, I suggest. The singer looks confused. “This is how I talk to me fuckin’ mother!” Read the rest of this article here.

Published: Mongrel Magazine, October 2004

ADMIN BLUES

I may appear polite, even deferential, to the spineless jobsworths who populate my workplace. But I despise them, and I despise their petty politics. Their meaningless office-speak is this company’s unofficial vernacular. Mastery of that, as well as an ability to smile like a simpleton in any situation, is what passes for professionalism around here. The head of my department is particularly fluent:

“With er… regard to the salary review you were promised, as such, we are presently not in a position to implement any… increases, as such, going forward… at this time.”

Days later I catch him pouring vodka into a vase in his office. I don’t tell anyone. But I make a conscious decision to do a lot more dossing, going forward.Read the rest of this article here.

I’M A PEDESTRIAN

You know the way some people are motorists, and some are cyclists, and others are, I dunno, innocent bystanders? Well I’m a pedestrian. I don’t walk for the exercise or the love of it or any of that crap. I walk because, for me, it’s the optimal method of getting from A to B. Not just that, there are all those extra little perks: no monthly payments, tax, or insurance. There are no timetables, parking spaces or unbecoming head gear of any type. It’s free like the Luas, except that this train leaves when I say it leaves. And – because there are no strikes, signal failures or traffic jams – it’s only late if I’m late.

There’s just one problem: there are no Rules of the Footpath. Honestly, it’s like the Wild West out there. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING #3

Christ, is there anything as soul destroying as a child’s incessant crying? I don’t know how many hours it lasted. Two and a half, maybe three. Later, I dug out this track released (as I recall) the week the September 11th attacks. But from the very first line, I knew it didn’t quite fit. Read the rest of this entry »

THIS IS FUNNY*

A door to door sales rep knocks on the door of an ordinary semidetached house. It’s answered by an eight year old boy, dressed in stockings and suspenders, with a fat cigar in one hand, and a large glass of red wine in the other. Read the rest of this entry »