I am livid

“Can I ask you a question Angry?” ventured my friend Karen.

“You just did! Ha ha! See how funny I am?” I retort, wittily. I am funny.

“Seriously, I need a mans advice, but none of my male friends were free so I thought I’d to ask you.” she replied, making a cheap, predictable and not even remotely amusing gag.

“You are not funny. I am both a man and excellent at dispensing advice, so fire away.”

“Well, it’s this guy I’ve been seeing, I need to know if he’s interested in me.”

“OK, tell me about it.”

“Right, well, he’s in a band, but we met in an evening class. We’ve been out a few times, and I’ve been to see his band a few times, but it feels like I am the one who does all the chasing. I don’t know if that a bad sign? I’d like us to be on equal footing, and right now it’s not like that, I guess what I really want….” she continued, ad nauseum.

About two hours later I got the chance to interrupt.

“Have you had sex with him?”

“I’m not answering that!”

“It is really important if I am to give an honest assessment of his overall interest.”

“Yes, we’ve done it.”

“On more than one occasion?”

“Yes.”

“Then he is interested, definitely. Next question.”

At this point she started asking things like, “Why?” and “What makes you so sure?”, but honestly, I was losing the will to live. That said, if anyone wants to give me an advice column in a National Newspaper my rates are very competitive.

As I mooched down the high street on a drizzly Saturday morning my self esteem was sub rock bottom, (technically my mental state was located somewhere beneath the continental crust).

I was dressed like the kind of person I have never wanted to be. I wasn’t even out of “fashion”, I had slipped into the utterly lazy and incredibly unimaginative, “comfy zone”.

My coat could be best described as a “sports anorak”. I had purchased it for outdoor pursuits such as fishing and other extreme sports which I now have absolutely no intention of ever trying. I have yet to succumb to membership of the ramblers association, but if I do, I shall beat myself to death with a walking boot, which of course I was also wearing that Saturday morning.

This kind of dress sense is for geeks, perverts and people with no style. (Maybe there is something in this self–analysis - Ed). So I gave my fashion sense a good kicking. There were no mountains nearby, no rough terrain, and no need for Gore-Tex, spandex or Ant’n'Decs. Or any other dex that my clothing might be made of.

Back in the day I was on the cutting edge of cool. Honestly. But something has changed, and it’s time for an image overhaul. Watch out Haute Couture, Fat Jim is coming to get ya, Trinny & Susanna, bring it on. Gok Kwan, well, you can stay away, because you are never going to make me look good naked.

Name calling is juvenile and immature. Unless it is not aimed at me and really funny, in which case it is both big, and clever.

What I do not understand is fat people calling other fat people ‘fatty’, or retards calling other stupid people ‘dumbass’, or even black people calling other black people ‘nigger’. I just do not get it?

Isn’t the point of name calling to make yourself appear better than the other person?

I could just about accept “You average-looking twat” from Brad Pitt, just. Or maybe a “Hey thicko!” from Professor Stephen Hawkins, though I am not sure he is able to actually shout with that pretentious fake American accent he uses. Other than that, I simply will not tolerate it.

Which is why I take umbrage when being told that I drink ‘like a girl’.

There is nothing wrong with taking your time to enjoy your pint of Guinness. It is not a race. Unless, you know, it actually is a race. In which case, isn’t it the taking part that is important? I do not want to be one of the nations binge-drinkers. During the week.

“Fucking hell Angry, it’s like being in a round with a woman!”

This is a ridiculous argument as everyone knows that women do not drink Guinness, and I was wearing boy clothes. So in fact, it was them that looked like the idiot.

So, I want to know how long you think it should take to complete a pint of Guinness, as there is nothing like using comprehensive statistical analysis when you are accused of drinking like a girl.

As I strutted through the doors of the Pub with a confidence and arrogance so heavy it builds muscle on my shoulders, I head towards the bar in my smartly heeled shoes that click across the wooden floor. Leaning over the bar, winking at the bar lady, I feel the other girls look over and give the once up and down, my cock twitches in my pants. All the guys want to engage me in conversation about my latest sexual exploits and tap my brain for witty repertoire to enrich their lives and make the world a better place. It is fucking great being ME.

As I (Fat Jim, for clarity - Ed) stop fantasizing about being Angry I quietly shuffle over to Angry and his group of friends, with my head held low, I stand behind this handsome popular group hoping that just a little piece of it will rub off on me via osmosis.

Angry whispers in my ear “You fucking stink, don’t come and talk to me when you fucking stink like that”.

After another few twitches of his nose he proclaimed… “You stink like a fucking curry”

“You think so?”

I was almost pleased. I love curry.

“One of those sweet Kormas with some mango chutney and mint sauce you mean?”

Angry’s furrowed brow deepened.

“No, more like a tramp rifling through a skip outside an Indian restaurant looking for his dinner. But if it was the hottest day of the year, and if there was bits of rancid bhaji hanging from his beard, that’s what you smell like.”

As I pondered if you could indeed survive on Indian food found in beards, I didn’t want to admit that Angry actually had a point. On Sunday I was lucky enough to eat some traditional Indian food. Not pseudo-indo-englo curry, but really innocent looking lentils that ended up setting fire to my bowels. That was Sunday, and now its Thursday and the smell of Lentil curry is still being passed through my armpits.

I value what friendship I have with Angry (it is limited at best - Ed) but feel this latest episode of armpit antics (added to the new jumper armpit cat piss incident) that it will tip me over the fine line of being a “slightly annoying friend” to the “smelly social misfit” category, where he will deny I exist, delete my number from his mobile and punch me in the face whenever I am nearby. I had to think of some way to thank him for pointing out this personal hygiene problem so I gave him a big hug and nestled his nose close in to my underarm.

There are some edible things in this world that I would never eat. A hundred year-old egg, chicken feet, or haggis. Then there are some things that, based on sound medical advice you really should never eat, like Monkey faeces, cutlery, and chewing gum.

Unfortunately, I have accidentally eaten one of these. And no, this tale does not involve the monkey enclosure at London Zoo. Or a drunken dinner party dare.

I have swallowed some chewing gum.

It happened accidentally whilst I was getting changed at the gym. I did not instantly choke to death, which was nice, but now the chewing gum in my stomach is constantly praying on my mind. I have not swallowed chewing gum since I was at primary school, and the day that the Hubba Bubba went down is still fresh in my memory. I still vividly remember the afternoon of panic as my fellow classmates told me exactly what the chewing gum was doing to my insides.

“It’s going to wrap around your heart and kill you to death!”

“You are such a fucking Spaz!”

OK, that last one might not have been associated with the chewing gum incident, but the memory is still vivid nonetheless.

What I really want to know is, should I be worried?

We are critically dissecting Saturdays World Cup final defeat in the pub.  It is just minutes since the final whistle.

“It’s a stupid game anyway.” I point out.

“It didn’t seem stupid all those years ago when William Webb Ellis picked the ball up at Rugby school and ran with it.”

“Well, clearly William Webb Ellis didn’t go to a Comprehensive.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you picked the ball up and ran with it at my school, it would almost certainly have resulted in a severe shoeing from about twenty other kids.”

“But he invented a new game when he did it.”

“No, he cheated. You can’t invent new rules halfway through a game. That’s not how it works.  I bet he was the fat kid who was rubbish at football, and he probably wanted to invent a game he might be good at. Pie-eating had probably already been invented, so picking up the ball and running into other people with it in hand was his next best option.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Yes it was. The story isn’t that William Webb Ellis called a school meeting and spent an hour at the overhead projector outlining his plans for a new game with an egg shaped ball. It was that he picked up the ball during an existing game of football. In fact he probably gave away a penalty, and I’ll bet his team mates fucking hated him. You do realise, if he hadn’t cheated, we wouldn’t be sat here being miserable right now.”

“True. The cheating little fucker.”

“Bunch of fackin’ faggots! Look at ‘em, fackin’ benders the fackin’ lot of ‘em!”

The league I play football in dictates that from time to time we spend our Saturday afternoons venturing into the less salubrious areas of London to play our away fixtures. This particular fixture had what would be described by a mockney gangster as ‘previous’.

The first thing I noticed as we made our way to the pitch were the three unmuzzled pit bull terriers. Each one was being kept on a rather feeble looking leash by three of the home teams supporters. The general demeanor of the dogs suggested that they had not been fed for a week and had been tormented by men in a Claret and Blue strip waving delicious steaks in their general direction.

As the warm-up continued, so to did the verbal abuse. I found it amusing that the main abuse was coming from a small white bloke with both hands down his pants.

He continued to vociferously question the sexual orientation of our entire team. I managed to resist the temptation to quote statistics at him and point out that in all likelihood at least one of his own team was gay, or that he did indeed appear to be protesting too much.

Instead, as our team approached his touchline, the abuse continued.

“You all look like a bunch fackin’ faggots, this is gonna be easy. Poofs!”

“Umm.” I began as we got within a few feet of him, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one watching twenty two men run around in shorts whilst simultaneously playing with your cock? Not the sort of behaviour you’d expect from a straight guy, is it?”

“Fack off!” he wittily retorted.

The dogs looked like they too had taken offense, and I draw the line at fighting chavs, not the blood thirsty killer dogs that belong to chavs. So, I decided to keep my opinions to myself from that point onwards.

We drew 3-3 and left very, very quickly after the final whistle.

I have decided that when I eventually settle down, I want to end up with a woman who has a mild case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I can not see a single down side to this scenario.

I speak as someone who can be quite untidy, so I quite like the idea of having someone walk round behind me picking stuff up, straightening towels and turning all the tins in the cupboard round to face the front. There is nothing worse than turning a tin around to notice it is not Baked Beans but in fact a two-year old tin of Big Soup. It is demoralising.

Imagine the financial benefits too. You would save about twenty pounds a week for a cleaner, which over the course of a lifetime, is quite literally, err, loads of money.

I have been threatening to alphabetise my CD collection ever since I moved house nearly three years ago, but I think I will wait. It would be just my luck to pull an OCD sufferer immediately after spending a day sorting out my CDs. This is how the world tends to conspire against me.

They say that opposites attract, so I am quite sure they would find my untidy nature quite endearing. Possibly even a turn on. Also, I would give them plenty of things to obsess about, so they would no longer need to worry about the little things like turning the lights on and off loads of times every time they entered or left a room. The dirty bathroom would see to that.

So, if any of you know any really fit OCD sufferers, with big boobs, please point them in my direction. Thanks.

Is today (well, according to me, anyway).

Consider it more of a suggestion than a direct instruction. I will certainly be trying it. After all, recent studies suggest that it can only be a good thing.

How many times have we all received those pseudo-chain letter emails which talk about office based language, and hilariously point out that when someone says, “I see what you are trying to say there, but I feel I have to disagree”, what they are really saying is, “You are an utter cunt, I have never heard such mindless drivel, and if you don’t shut up this instant I will be forced to smash your head repeatedly into the colour photocopier. And not that small one in reception. The big fucking metal one on the second floor.” Ha! That is funny. What a hilarious email, I will now instantly forward it to everyone I know so that I am not killed to death at midnight.

Well, for today only there is no need for such false pleasantries in the workplace.

Don’t feel like taking on that extra task for your boss? “Shove it your fucking hoop you arse sucking cock wipe.”

Think that the company is making a strategic error? “You fucking pant pissing window-lickers make me feel like I’m on the special bus at home time!”

Your assistant put too much sugar in your coffee, again? “Yummm. That is delicious!” Well, she is really fit. I am rebellious, not fucking stupid.

So, for today only, be completely honest in the workplace, and do not forget to let us know how you get on.

I do not normally post links and videos and stuff, because, well, it is a bit lazy, isn’t it?

However, on this occasion I feel I must share with all three of you what is, quite simply, the greatest love song ever written.

It is as close to musical genius as I believe modern artists can get, and I have already spent an hour learning it by heart on the guitar. I am almost envious of the young strumpet that will get to hear it at about 3am one night this weekend (The promise of a serenade is always a winner, and I will make the assumption that she will not be too drunk to hear, well, anything at all).

I give you the Flight of the Conchords. Enjoy.

In parts of the media there has been uproar about the possibility of raising the retirement age beyond 65. Yet now, when a 66 year-old man decides it is time to call it a day, it is also considered newsworthy. I wish they would make up their minds.

I am not particularly interested in Sir Menzies Campbell, but find amusing the amount of media attention his resignation has created.

As I watched the drama unfold on Sky news the other evening, I saw party chairman Simon Hughes being asked repeatedly, “Did you wield the knife? DID YOU WIELD THE KNIFE!”

There is nothing quite like sexing-up a boring old resignation, is there?

I would have loved Simon Hughes to have come back out to the baying hordes and said, “Actually no. There were no daggers involved. That would be barbaric. As a forward thinking party we advocate the use of technology, and I feel it is only right to say that once the electrodes were securely fastened to Ming’s testicles, he was more than compliant. In fact, we are hoping that testicle-electrodes will become a core element in our election manifesto. ASBO’s are dead. Long live the testicle-electrode!”

I would almost vote for them if he were to say that. Almost.

As it is, there are now some calls to bring back Charles Kennedy. Calls which I whole-heartedly agree with. Normally when an alcoholic is ‘outed’ by the media we get the chance to see photos of them stumbling out of a nightclub, or fighting with police, or vomiting outside a kebab shop. With Charles Kennedy, we saw none of this, he merely drifted from view. Which is why I feel cheated.

Give him the job again I say, and give us all the chance to see what entertainment a proper alcoholic can provide given an adequate platform.

“Go on, try it!”

“I am not sure I want to. Isn’t it addictive?”

“Not really, this is a much better way of doing it. I’ve been doing it for months and I’m fine aren’t I?”

The pressure was incessant. I did not think I would succumb to peer pressure at the age of twenty twelve, but I was weak with post-rugby semi-final euphoria and so considered taking what was on offer.

“Go on Angry, just give it a big sniff!”

“But I’ve never even been a smoker, I don’t think I am cut out for this sort of thing.”

“Just do it will you!”

With those words ringing in my ears I put the tube up my nose and sniffed for all I was worth.

“Akk! Eurghg! akkKK!”

One side of my face went numb, and one eye started watering like that time I tried a kamikaze tequila shooter. But I was definitely not crying. Definitely not. The faces around the pub table looked at me.

“So?”

“I feel like I’ve just snorted pepper and I want to cry.”

I do not think I am going to take up Nicotine nasal sprays any time soon.

“Please don’t touch that!” shouted the ambulance woman in my direction.

It was my first trip in the back of an ambulance on a legitimate ‘emergency’, and though my friend lay prostrate next to me, my curiosity continued to get the better of me.

“I like these beds, they’re a bit futuristic looking, don’t you think? Like space-beds or something. When I was younger my BMX had tyres like this one.” I continued to ramble.

I will admit to having a slightly nervous element to my speech, as I was trying to distract TJ’s attention from the fact that she was in a neck brace and strapped to a board. Initial signs were that she would be fine, but you can never be too sure with these type of injuries. And I needed a wee, so it was a stressful time for everyone.

Unfortunately, in stressful situations, I make rubbish jokes. This is what I do. Sometimes it helps to alleviate the tension, in others it makes me seem like a bit of a dick. I am still not sure which of these I was accomplishing. It began with me calling “Shotgun!” as they loaded her into the back of the ambulance.

“I didn’t push her by the way, and if she says different it’s because she is obviously delirious!” I commented.

The look I was given by the ambulance woman ensured it was followed very quickly by, “That was a joke by the way, I hardly ever push women down the stairs any more. That was a joke as well. I can not help myself.”

We arrived at the hospital and I was sent to the waiting area to read three-year-old magazines whilst she went off for scans and stuff.

I have been watching what all the cool people wear and have noticed that white trainers are ‘in’ at the moment. So, despite the obvious maintenance issues, I decided to buy a pair.

After browsing the local JD Sports leisure-wear emporium I found a pair I thought I would like to try on.

“I’d like to try these in a 9 please.”

“Sure”, said the youth with the utterly miserable face.

He went off to get them and returned a few minutes later with shoe box and a trainer on top.

“Is that the display trainer?” I asked, perfectly normally and in no way confrontationally.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I don’t want the display trainer.”

“Why not?”

This surprised me. His response clearly indicated that he thought wearing second hand shoes was the most normal thing in the world. I had not expected to have to give someone a lecture on foot hygiene and general cleanliness whilst shopping for trainers, but that is where the conversation was headed.

“Because people have been mauling it and putting their feet in it, and feet - especially other peoples feet - carry gazillions of bacteria, so they might as well have spat in it. Plus, it’s a little grubby, and I want a new pair.”

“It’s not grubby.”

“It’s not as clean as the one in the box. Can I have new pair please?”

“We haven’t got any more in that size.”

“Well I don’t want that one.”

“So you don’t want these trainers then?” he said with sigh that suggested I’d just told him to finish his homework.

“No. I don’t”

“Fair enough.”, he concluded, and with a shrug of his shoulders he wandered off glancing back disdainfully in my direction.

I went off to look at hooded tops instead.