liars and lunatics

Weekend UPDATE!

2009-11-14T15:52:00.003Z

Soon to be father-in-law would like a me to pop over and help set up the new office network tomorrow morning. Can't really say no, the man's letting me have his daughter, after all. Dammit. This is the problem with being good at everything - people keep asking me to do stuff.

But who's going to make me a cup of tea?

2009-11-14T09:34:00.003Z

The Fiancé has gone away on her hen weekend, leaving me alone with what has somehow become the most precious commodity in my life: time to myself. I plan to spend the weekend sitting around in my pants, watching films, playing video games and aimlessly surfing the internet for ever more depraved pornography.

If past experience is anything to go by, cabin fever will set in around Sunday lunch-time and I'll spend the afternoon sitting by the front door like a bored family dog, waiting for her to come home so I can get all over-excited and lick her face until she gives me a biscuit.

I may also spend some of the time meditating upon the life choices that have brought me to this point, and wondering what the future may hold - so expect some melodramatic soul-searchy type posts over the next 48 hours.

This year’s birthday haul

2009-11-11T19:00:00.004Z

About £300 worth of lap-dances with unbelievably hot strippers on Friday night. Such are the benefits of being in a lap-dancing bar with a large group of very drunk friends the night before your birthday. I should add “nipple-burn on forehead” to my list of injuries.

A ‘magic bullet’ full of this stuff. I had a little bit out of necessity to get me through the weekend, but out of respect for The Fiancé - who hates the idea of me doing drugs, legal or otherwise - I think the rest of it might have to be regifted.

A really nice hip flask full of not so nice sambuca.

A copy of Borderlands (I was very excited about this until The Fiancé spotted that it’s a two player game and insisted on joining in. Although, to be fair, she’s actually quite good at it and at least it means she’s happy to have the PlayStation on when we’re lounging in the evening, instead of watching Come Fucking Dine With Me).

One of these, which seems far too funky and urban for a wildly uncool middle aged slob like me, but it does look perfect for slouching in front of the PlayStation.

Last, but definitely not least, the new in-laws are sending me on a two day course to get my permit for taking a motorboat out on the open water. I am totally going to be the laziest pirate ever to sail the high seas. Yarrrrnn!

*EDIT - I forgot about the stuff they gave me at work before I left for the weekend*

A bottle of JD - it's now living in my top draw so I can take a nip when needed. My office is just like Mad Men.

A Grumpy Old Men book - I may have cultivated a reputation for being somewhat caustic and dismissive in the face of ideas which I feel do not meet the high standards of creativity and intelligence we expect at the agency.

One of those big hardback books about classic motorcycles that people buy you when they don't know much about you other than the fact that you are interested in motorcycles.

A packet of chocolate sweets in the shape of some boobs, a chocolate lollipop in the shape of some boobs, a washcloth in the shape of some boobs, a pair of toy space-hoppers - for some reason, the girls in the office think I am fascinated by boobs. Maybe it's because I stare at their boobs all day.

It still hurts

2009-11-10T13:59:00.001Z

The whole thing is a bit of a blur, and it’s probably not a good idea to try piecing it all together again so I’ll just run through the various injuries I’ve acquired.

There’s a scar on my stomach in the shape of a belt buckle, which was inflicted by a pair of strippers who had been paid to ritually humiliate me on the stage of a lap-dancing club – they didn’t leave any marks on my buttocks, but this is because they were kind enough to administer the contents of an ice-bucket to my pants after they had finished beating me.

There is a pair of red chafe-marks on my armpits from the somewhat tight-fitting evening gown I was forced to wear for all of Saturday.

Sore cheek (face) and bruised shoulder from shotgun shooting on Saturday.

Right wrist sore and swollen – unsure as to how I did this. It might have been in a bar on Saturday night where they had one of those ‘test your strength’ punchbag machines and (I’m told) I challenged the bouncer to a contest. Or it might have been when tripped on my dress and fell off the pole dancing podium in the night club later that evening.

Kidneys sore –Tequila, rum, absinthe, whisky, sambuka, Jaeger-bombs, B52s, aftershocks – not to mention all the beer. The fuckers tried to break me, but I was still standing at the end of the night, although I might have been swaying ever so slightly.

Brain slightly spaced out still – probably shouldn’t complain if it stays that way, it’ll help me coast through married life a little easier.

The Damage

2009-11-09T13:33:00.008Z

I'm still way too messed up to write a full account of the weekend, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking...

Not that kind of guy

2009-11-06T16:10:00.003Z

You know those guys who go on their stag weekends in their mid-thirties, and they say things like “We won’t really get up to anything too stupid, just a curry and a few beers, a trip to a pole dancing bar (don’t tell the wife!) then maybe a nightclub for a bit of a boogie – nothing too mental, I’m not really that kind of guy, and neither are my mates.”

Right now, as I sit here contemplating the carnage which awaits me in just a few short hours, I really wish I wasn’t that kind of guy either, and I especially wish my mates weren’t those kinds of guys. Perhaps if I wasn’t that kind of guy, they might let me off with wearing a silly hat and doing a few tequila slammers. Wahaay! Aren’t we all crazy!

Sadly, I am that kind of guy, and I’m off to spend the weekend with 14 of my bestest buddies, whose sole mission for the next 48 hours is to fuck me up in every conceivable way. A silly hat and a few tequila slammers just won't cut it for them.

See you on the other side.

Me-me

2009-11-05T17:47:00.004Z

The girl's best friend is planning a "How well do you know your future husband" quiz for the hen party - never one to miss an opportunity for a gratuitously self-indulgent blog post, I thought I'd share the answers I supplied for this:

1. What’s his favourite colour?

Don’t have one. Seriously. It's like asking which is my favourite finger - I kinda like all of them.

2. What would his death row meal be?

Mexican – so nachos followed by burrito/fajitas. Then GF’s sticky toffee pudding for desert (not a euphemism).

3. What’s his shoe size?

9

4. How old was he when he got his driver’s license?

Got my full motorcycle license when I was 20, car license when I was 35.

5. Where was he born?

Gillingham, Kent (although until recently I thought it was Maidstone, so I may have told her that)

6. What’s his favourite song?

She probably thinks it’s Guns & Roses: Paradise City, but it’s actually The Levellers: One Way.

7. What would he say was your worse habit?

Picking the skin around her thumb-nails.

9. What was his least favourite subject in school?

English.

10. Who was his childhood best friend?

Same as my current best friend.

11. Does he have a nickname?

No.

12. What’s his favourite sport?

Motorcycle racing (SBK, to be precise).

13. What is his favourite part of your body?

Norks, honkers, wabs, jubblies, fun bags. (But I quite like her cute little nose too).

14. What was his first job?

Production runner at a TV company, working on a game-show.

15. What would he grab if there was a fire?

My laptop.

This week...

2009-11-03T00:19:00.002Z

I turn 36 on Saturday

I go away on my stag weekend on Friday night

I get an appraisal at work on Friday morning

I have to give a solo presentation in front of about 60+ people on Tuesday

Fireworks party on Thursday

Cooking dinner for friends on Wednesday

Probably not going to have time to have a go at NaNoWriMo. Oh well, another year passes me by without the literary acclaim I (probably) so richly deserve.

Breaking up again

2009-10-31T12:46:00.006Z

I found an old postcard from a past lover, tucked away in a case full of junk. It's from Skegness, although oddly the postmark is from Sheffield. There's no name on it, but the handwriting is pink and girly - she misses me, she wishes I was there with her, she loves me, she signs off with a big line of kisses.

At first I can't figure out who sent it, but then I check the date on the postmark - 15/10/2006, and realise, with the benefit of hindsight, that by the time it was sent, she'd already been screwing around with at least one guy and was making her plans to ditch me for another. Despite what the card says, I'm certain that if I really was there it would have totally ruined the weekend for her and whoever else she was with.

I'm annoyed, if only because I thought I'd done a good job of destroying every last trace that she ever existed. I was very meticulous, it irritates me that I allowed something to survive, forcing me to remember something that doesn't deserve memory.

The card gets torn up and thrown in the rubbish bag, but it's in good company. Today she's out getting her hair and make-up done - a dry run for the big day - and I'm taking the opportunity to have a bit of a clear out. The teenage love letters from my first girlfriend, photos of the girl from my twenties, the old valentines and birthday cards from all the other lovers - time for them all to go.

The wedding is less than a month away now, and it doesn't seem right to have all these keepsakes any more, even the ones I'm happy to remember. Some of the letters and photos are hard to throw away, but soon everything that's mine will be hers, and I don't want to share these things with her, so they have to go.

The news

2009-10-29T14:01:00.005Z

Listeners deserting Radio 1’s breakfast show. Fuck me – somebody tell Poirot to stop boning Miss Marple and get to work on solving this epic mystery! The girl makes me listen to this shite every morning and it makes me want to hammer rusty nails into my own eardrums so that I never have to hear it again. It’s like listening to a room full of coked up gibbons screeching at each-other while, once every twenty minutes, a retarded nine year old girl picks out the most pant-shittingly awful pop song she can find.

Speeding biker jailed for 9 months. WTF? This guy gets caught speeding on a motorcycle, on a remote road, where the only person he was really putting at risk was himself, and he gets sent down for NINE FUCKING MONTHS! Drunk drivers get less than that. The guy who holds the British speeding record only got jailed for 3 weeks after being caught doing over 170mph in a Porsche. Why does this guy deserve 9 months in prison? Apparently this crime is equal to beating the living shit out of your girlfriend in the eyes of the law.

LSD and ecstasy less harmful than fags and booze. In other news, sky blue, ground hard. Almost anybody who’s done anything even remotely fun in their lives already knows this. I don’t do drugs any more, but I’m so fucking tired of the hypocrisy of the small minded Daily Mail reading moral majority who shriek like a bunch of whiney little bitches whenever an independent fucking expert reaches the conclusion that perhaps drugs aren’t quite as scary and evil as they think. Enough of this horseshit, prohibition doesn’t work, legalise everything. Everything.

Perks of the job

2009-10-27T22:45:00.003Z

Things I got from work this week:

A pair of these awesomely expensive headphones. They're weird, it's not like wearing headphones at all, it feels like you're sat in the middle of a powerful speaker system, but you can have it cranked all the way up without upsetting the neighbours.

Membership to a private members club in Covent Garden. Haven't been yet, but from now on I'm going to jump at every available opportunity to say things like "I'm just popping off to my club for the afternoon..."

£400 of Amazon vouchers. Haven't got a clue what to spend them on. I spent the last two batches on a new camera and a decent laptop, but this time I really, really am out of ideas. I feel like I should treat myself to something I wouldn't normally indulge in, but what?

Office chit chat

2009-10-26T22:25:00.000Z

Willowy little twenty-something colleague: “Did you get up to much at the weekend?”

LC: “Yeah, I went to see Green Day at the O2 on Friday night – absolutely awesome gig – and on Saturday me and the girl went up to Manchester for a friend’s circus-themed fancy dress party. It was amazing, the whole place was rammed full of completely wasted people dressed up as clowns, lions, ring-masters, acrobats and all the rest of it – very surreal experience. Spent all of Sunday stuck on the M6 with a hangover, but it was totally worth it.”

Bright Young Thing: “You know, it makes me feel good that people your age still do fun things. I thought all that sort of stuff stopped when you got into your thirties.”

LC: “Fuck. You. Bitch.”

Probably just as well I didn’t tell her about the freaky after-party hotel room clown sex – that would have blown her mind. Or made her barf.

It was better when they made songs about being bored of wanking

2009-10-23T13:25:00.004+01:00

Back in the early nineties, if you went into a certain club in Manchester on a Saturday night, you might well find a young LC, ripped to the tits on cheap amphetamines and bouncing around on the dancefloor to loud, crunchy electric guitar based music. Amongst the tunes that made him bounce the hardest would have been anything supplied by Green Day.

Point being, I've been lucky enough to see most of my favourite bands playing live over the years, but for some reason I never got round to seeing Green Day play. Tonight me and a friend, who was also known to frequent a certain club in Manchester around the early nineties, are heading to the O2 to put things right. Rah!

I just hope they don't play too much of the new shit. Good on them for making it big and all that, but it's pretty much been downhill since '94 as far as I'm concerned.

It's the only language they understand

2009-10-22T18:49:00.000+01:00

hi creepy uncle who i havent seen since i was 10 years old and has suddenly started stalking me on twitter and facebook lol sorry i can't give you the address or phone number of your sister/my mother but since i have no contact with her i just dont have that information lol and even if i did i probably wouldnt share it with you because frankly your a bit scary lol i am not surprised to learn that you are unemployed, illiterate and slightly mental lol i am happy your keeping up the family tradition of shunning the benefits of education, gainful employment and not being mental, sorry i have let the side down on that front but living on the fringes of society just doesnt do it for me lol however i am happy to maintain our family tradition of staying the fuck out of each others lives for ever lol i appreciate your interest in my forthcoming wedding but please be advised that the venue security team are under strict instructions not to allow entrance to anybody without an invite even if they claim to be relatives lol i have mirrored you're writing style in the hope that it will be easier for you to understand lol please stop emailing me i am not a part of you're world any more lol

God is punishing me for being an atheist

2009-10-21T13:59:00.001+01:00

Because we’re having a civil ceremony instead of a churchy wedding, the registrar is quite strict about not letting us have any religious readings or songs. This is fine as far as we’re concerned, because we’re both heathens and we’re not particularly interested in forcing our guests to sing about how much they love the baby Jesus. In fact, there will be no singing at all at the wedding at all. People who sing will be asked to leave.

We didn’t think it would be a problem until I suggested we have Amazing Grace as the music they play at the end of the ceremony while everybody is shuffling down the aisle towards the bar/toilet. It was my granddad’s favourite piece and I thought it would be a nice tribute to a man who spent his life punching nazis and communists in the balls.* But Amazing Grace is a hymn, I once was lost but now am found and all that, so the registrar says we’re not allowed to play it.

I’m not sure what happens if you play a hymn at the end of a civil ceremony, after you’ve taken the vows, signed the register, and playfully slapped the bride’s arse – do they annul** the marriage and make you do it all again from the beginning until you get it right? Not sure it’s worth risking the potential shit-storm from my intended if things don’t go smoothly on the big day.

Still, it’s all a bit wanky, no? You could read some sort of religious connotations into almost anything if you put your mind to it, so where’s the harm in playing a bit of music, with no words, just because it means something else to some people?

*Well, firing torpedoes at their balls to be more accurate.

**Hehe. Annul. Fnerk.

Tramampoline!

2009-10-20T14:03:00.000+01:00

It pains me to say it, but I really wish they’d end the Simpsons. I loved the show for years but now, just like a sunken-eyed coke-fiend who’s developed a tolerance for the drug and can’t get high any more, I find I can snort up episode after episode without deriving anything like the kind of pleasure I felt when I first started using. But, of course, stopping is out of the question.

I really can’t remember the last time it made me laugh. The old episodes have all been repeated a million times, the new ones are dull reflections of something wonderful that passed a long time ago. The characters are tired, the writing is stale. Twenty years was a good run, but now the Simpsons feels like what it is – a creative industry production line, churning out a passable product to keep the franchise going for as long as it’s profitable.

Futurama is still occasionally entertaining, Family Guy consistently sends me into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and South Park continues to give me a funny-boner on a regular basis. But even though Barney Gumble will always have a special place in my heart, I think it’s about time I weaned myself off this little habit.

Panorama

2009-10-19T21:01:00.003+01:00

Disgusting, hateful, sickening - no question about it. But the thing is, when you live on one of these big sprawling council estates, that kind of shit is a fact of life regardless of your colour or religion. The reporters got singled out for abuse because of their race, but in those places anybody who doesn't fit in or looks like a weak target will be subjected to the same kind of violence and harassment.

The Girl couldn't believe people would behave in that way, she's never lived in one of those places, but I didn't find it even slightly surprising. You could repeat the experiment in almost every town across the UK - find somebody who looks a bit different, somebody who looks vulnerable, or who just doesn't quite fit in with the locals, and leave them to fend for themselves in the local sink estate - you'll see exactly the same behaviour.

The show claimed to highlight the fact that racism is still a big problem in the UK, but I think it really just showed that council estates are shit places to live and the English underclass is alive and well.

How I proposed

2009-10-16T13:48:00.002+01:00

We’d spent all day walking along the rim of the Grand Canyon, having landed in Phoenix the night before and driving up to Tusayan first thing in the morning.

I’d had a stressy final few days at work, and she was finding pregnancy hard work, so it was nice to be walking around in the sunshine, taking in the amazing views and laughing at some of the natives.* Eventually we found a good lookout spot on the south rim and decided to stay there to watch the sunset, passing the time by chatting with the few other people who had the same idea.

As the sun started to go down, completely changing the light and the colours of the canyon, I decided that this would be a pretty impressive place to pop the question, so I took the fake engagement ring out of my pocket and started thinking about how exactly I was going to do it.

Down on one knee or eye to eye? In front of everybody, or take her quietly to one side? How to actually ask the question: Will you marry me? Will you be my wife? Wanna get hitched? I demand matrimony!

But the problem was getting her to shut up for a minute. First I couldn’t persuade her to stop talking long enough for me to make my move, but then it got worse when the sun fell below the horizon because it suddenly got very cold and she really, really wanted to head back to the hotel as quickly as possible. The ring went back in the pocket and I gave up.

That night we had dinner at a touristy wild west themed restaurant (where I discovered Armadillo Eggs for the first time) which was fun, but not really where I’d pictured myself proposing.

The next day we went on a helicopter tour of the canyon, sharing the chopper with four American tourists. As we were flying towards the canyon, the pilot got us all to introduce ourselves over the in-flight comms system. First the Americans told us a bit about themselves, and by the time it was my turn to speak I’d decided that this was the perfect opportunity:

“Hi, I’m LC from London, I’m here on holiday with my girlfriend, although by the time we’ve landed I hope she’ll be my fiancé…” – I held out my hand to her, offering the stunt ring. Gasps of amazement from the other passengers, and they all turned to look at us…

The problem was, she’s not great at talking in front of other people, so while I was doing my bit she was busy thinking of what she was going to say when it was her turn. She looked at my expectant face, looked at the ring in my outstretched palm, looked back at me with a slightly confused expression, and finally her brain caught up with what I’d said.

“Er… oh, yes? Yes!”

Whooping from the Americans, naturally. Congratulations from the pilot. An awkward high-five from the guy sat on my other side.

She put the ring on, and looked like she was about to cry, but just at that moment the chopper flew over the rim and into the canyon, which was such a spectacular sight that it made getting married seem like the least important thing in the world.

*In particular, the big fat Texan man who loudly insisted to his family that the geological history of the canyon displayed on the educational signs must be wrong, because they said that the process of erosion took millions of years, and the bible says that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

You know what's depressing?

2009-10-15T14:07:00.003+01:00

I saw an advert for a Lotus Elise today, and I thought: "I could buy that, no problem. I could be driving around in that Lotus by the weekend if I wanted. There's nothing to stop me. I know it's a bit of a hairdresser's car, but it would be fun all the same..."

But instead of driving around in a soft-top sports car, I'm tucking all of my money away into savings and investments so that when kids come along we can afford to send them to private school.

This is what long-term relationships do to a man...

Hamsters dear, it's hamsters...

2009-10-12T23:27:00.003+01:00

I don't know why she's started singing "Are we human, or are we Guinea Pigs" whenever that Killers song is on the radio, but it's definitely helping to convince me I'm marrying the right woman.

In other news, we're having a cheese tower instead of a wedding cake, so we spent tonight at the fancy cheese shop tasting samples. You really wouldn't want to be in our flat tonight - this stuff tastes amazing, but now it smells like something crawled up my arse and died...

An open letter

2009-10-10T11:14:00.004+01:00

Dear Cheryl Cole,

I was watching your new video on the music television this morning and it occured to me that what you probably want at this stage of your wildly successful career as a pop singer and TV personality is some unsolicited advice from an ugly middle aged failure.

With this in mind, I respectfully suggest that you try eating a couple of pies every now and then and maybe cheer up a bit. Also, lose those baggy leopard-print tracky-bottoms and get yourself a nice mini-skirt like you used to wear in those Girls Aloud videos - if you're going to keep churning out this mediocre crap, you'll need to show a little skin to keep us interested.

Cheers,
LC

The Bike

2009-10-07T14:33:00.002+01:00

Good news: The police say they found my motorbike.

Bad news: It's been crashed.

Good news: It's been collected and securely stored by a recovery company.

Bad news: They've charged me £200 for this service.

Good news: I get to spend the rest of this afternoon barrelling around London in a van, so I can collect it and drive it down to best mate's new garage. Also, spanner-happy best mate has already been scouring eBay for all the parts we need to get it whipped back in shape.

Rah!

Nervous?

2009-10-06T12:58:00.002+01:00

I went to a wedding at the weekend, where I managed to pull a bridesmaid for the first time ever – although to be fair, she was pretty drunk and we were sharing a room at the hotel, so it wasn’t too much of a challenge.

This was the last wedding before our own in a couple of month’s time, and people kept asking me if I’m getting nervous about it all yet, but I just don’t see what the big deal is. I roll up the aisle in my DJ, say I Do, and then we have a big party – the following morning I wake up with a ring and a hangover, and we all get on with our lives.

Maybe I’m being naive, but I can’t imagine life after the wedding being all that different to the way things are at the moment. So, married people, feel free to set me straight here – how much did your life change after the big day?

LC's traditional annual step-father whinge

2009-10-03T00:06:00.002+01:00

Step-dad’s learned he’s going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He’s only 64. He really isn’t taking it well at all.

I should be more sympathetic, but all I can think is; what the fuck did you expect to happen? You’ve been a chain smoker for your whole life, a borderline alcoholic for twenty years, and for the past ten years you’ve spent almost every day sitting in an armchair in front of the TV. You’ve wilfully ignored every single piece of advice the doctors have given you.

Probably sounds harsh, but I’ve long since lost the energy to care about somebody who doesn’t care about himself. If he'd shown the slightest inclination to at least try to make himself happy, I might be in a more supportive frame of mind.

My half-brother is laying the guilt on me, as if my calling a little more often would somehow make all the difference. Personally, I don’t see how ten minutes of awkward silence on the phone once a week would help the old man turn his life around at this stage in the game.

Fucking hell I’m so tired of it all. Send me the bill for the wheelchair and the ramps and whatever else he needs, but please don’t ask for me any emotional investment, as refusal often offends.

I've noticed something...

2009-09-30T10:38:00.003+01:00

I've got a nice black CK shirt which I don't wear very often, but when I do wear it I definitely get a little more lingering eye contact and double takes from girls on the Tube than I usually do*. The usual amount being zero because, truth be told, I'm a complete minger.

There is only one conclusion - chicks dig fascists.

*This sentence was a grammatical nightmare. Little help, anyone?