Hmmmmm pure masculinity.
Small things in life really say alot about you and your habits. The other week I was contacted by my letting agency to tell me they were going to inspect our property just to check we weren’t demolishing it from within with all night raves or sub-letting to an army of illegal immigrants. Which in Wood Green is a distinct possibility. Anyway I began what is basically a half-hearted bi-annual clean up on the eve of their visit. Not a full head to toe clean. Nosiree. Just a few cosmetic touch ups such as putting lumps of blue tac over the bits of missing paint and scrapping the food scraps off the wall behind the kitchen bin.
However a few things struck me as I hovered the stairs winding up to the loft where I live.
1) Since there is no natural light in the stairwell, and because I rarely pause to observe my surroundings (I do two steps at a time – wheeeeee) I discovered that there were an inordinate amount of ominous looking marks on the walls. It was almost like a budget Jackson Pollock. When I own a house I will refuse to paint the walls white. The walls will be black. Like my undies.
2) The layer of fluff on the carpet literally constituted a second layer of carpet in itself.
Anyway as I was there, diligently hovering each step, I began to notice splotches of gunk on the walls and, as one does – if you’re me, I began to lick my finger and remove the evidence manually.
It was here that I made my sad, tragic discovery whilst rubbing away a stubborn brown stain….. It tasted good. I recognised the taste pretty much instantly, mmmmm distinctively sugary, it was remnants of my favourite Nestle Instant Mochas. Honest to fucking God. The worst thing is is they stopped making them twelve months ago which meant that not only had I not cleaned the walls in the best part of a year but also that I was also tasting and enjoying coffee that I splashed up the wall in the mists of time.
It mad me feel warm and nostalgic.
That’s all for today.
At work we have revolving doors at the front of the building. They’re not automatic doors either. Nosiree. They’re big, plush, solid oak revolving doors that can only be pushed by leaning into them but, after nudging them forward a mere two inches, somehow gather up a surprisingly scary momentum.
Which makes them deadly. Deadly because you can never gauge how quickly they’re going and I often wander, as I spring between the gap, whether any poor unfortunate sap has ever had a limp slammed in the doors maw and have said appendage snapped like a twig. One day I’ll get in them after a body builder and get all my calculations wrong.
Could happen. Just like how that protruding paving stone could result in me tripping and shattering my knee cap. One must be vigilant.
Anyway there are many people in life who provoke my ire. Mainly imbeciles. Of which half the population is made up of in London. But I’m sure a special ring in hell is reserved for people who:-
a) Try to get on the tube before letting you off.
b) Try to get in lifts without letting people off. (They always get the most withering look from me – it’s not like they’re even scrambling for a free newspaper and comfy seat for their journey – they’re literally only going one floor)
So allow me to introduce a new character into my life: THE ANNOYING SPECCY TWAT WHO WORKS IN MY BUILDING.
Why do I hate him so? Well the impatient pleb only goes and tries to get into said revolving doors as YOU’RE ONLY TRYING TO GET OUT OF THEM. Jesus Sweet Mother of Christ. It’s like he’s trying to kill me. He’s done it twice now I’m sure. Once last week and once last year. If memory serves correctly…..
So if I’m found dead tomorrow – and it wasn’t related to my diet made up entirely of Starbucks coffee – and if my torso has been severed in a bizarre revolving door accident. Then the perpetrator is about 40-50, rakish, has glasses and has no regard for other people. Plus to make matters worse he stares AT YOU with disdain as he prevents you from safely leaving the whirly door of death.
Cheers
Max
So the film is complete! On Sunday me and a dozen or so mates got together to make a 60 second remake on seminal 70’s action movie Enter the Dragon for Empire magazines annual ‘Done in 60 Seconds‘ film competition.
The remit was this: Remake a famous film in 60 seconds with all new footage and music. So below is the final cut I submitted to the competition today. It’s not perfect – I could never iron out the bit where it flips from widescreen to normal screen (on 26 secs) but for a 3 hour piss about the end result isn’t too bad…..
The main thing is that everyone who participated in it enjoyed themselves! Braps!
Director: Me.
Bruce Lee: Hiroki (Rocky) Beck
Roper: Henry Cooke
Williams: Big Bad Patrick Takan
Han/Original beats: Erdal Kocha
O’Hara: Will Conway
Bruce Lee’s sister: Michelle Cheah
Posh English Dude: Tom Steadman
Comment of the week comes courtesy of my good friend and one man liability Hirocki Beck (a.k.a. Rocki) who I cast in my 60 second remake of Enter the Dragon for Empire Magazine’s Done in 60 Seconds film competition.
This is our phone call.
Me: Do you want to be Bruce Lee?
Rocki: Ahhh I’ve just had my haircut (this is a phone conversation – hence the way I haven’t already noticed.)
Me: Do you still look like Bruce Lee?
Rocki: If by that you mean “do I still have slanty eyes?” then the answer would be ‘yes.’
He’s a disgrace.
ANGERRRRR!!!!!
I have for a long time known how to really annoy people, how to really get their goat. Some people would even argue that I’m actually a connoisseur of the art. Thanks. By and large it’s unintentional – a side effect of being hyperactive and talking like a machine gun – however many moons ago I did cotton on to a sure-fire way to infuriate people in a single tactical strike. Something I save for special occassions.
The key to annoying someone is this:
Call someone what they think is your worst feature. Simple.
It aggravates people for the following reasons:-
a) People are flabagastered that you’re so oblivious to your own flaws. Insinuating that another is guilty of doing something you do is too rich for some people to tolerate. The hypocrisy gets right under their skin. It’s the verbal equivalent of poking them in the eye and saying “don’t poke people in the eye.”
b) If you get this in first it renders their criticism of you impotent. Particularly if you sense they’re about to point the finger you. If they just return fire and say you’re in fact the one guilty of doing this just act shocked and call them ‘petty’ or claim they’re not very self-aware. Bam! Double sucker punch! This should leave them incredulous and have their blood boiling and stem billowing out of their ears.
It’s like Hitler calling you a racist, or a Scottish person calling you rude, or a rapist calling you a pervert. It’s a veritable red rag to the bull.
I did this at uni once to a right old tit I hated. I called him a loud, annoying, attention seeking moron.
You should have seen his face. I thought he’d self combust in fury. He just kept gauping at me and pointing.
BAM! Home run.
Anyway the reason I’m writing about this is that during the last year people have been doing this to me, although I don’t credit them with enough grey matter to be doing it intentionally. But even still it’s annoying beyond belief. Basically this past year I’ve lived with a slob. A horrid, irritating, unemployed and inconsiderate little bastard who has now left the house I still live in. Which is good for them or they’d be buried underneath the patio.
(WARNING: Long winded rant imminent)
They were the sort of person who’d break a glass on the kitchen floor and, as opposed to cleaning it up like a normal person, would instead just leave it in shards on the counter for days, saying “I’ll do it later in the week” as they were busy.
Although by busy they meant lying on their fat arse on the sofa watching youtube.
So one day I confronted them about their habits, their list of sins, like constantly leaving the hot plates on for hours and forgetting about them, like going out in the middle of the day and leaving the windows open on the ground floor facing our thieving neighbours, like leaving soiled underwear on the floor of the living room after sleeping on the fold out sofa. Little things like that.
Call me picky.
So I came in and said we needed to talk. And they responded by saying they were fed up of living in a shit hole. Which was very candid of them. Maybe they were about to apologise? So I asked them to clean up the broken glass.
Their response – which certainly was creative – was to say “and you’re not going to clean up the hair in the bathroom plug hole?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Someone keeps shaving their legs in the bath and clogging up the plug hole – you’re only concerned about things that bother you – you’re the reason the house is a state.”
What followed was a very bizarre arguement – because every conversation with them descended into arguement – they simply couldn’t have a civil conversation. I asked if they’d ever mentioned this plug problem to me previously? No they hadn’t. Were they insinuating I shaved my legs? No they weren’t.
They then dropped the bombshell on me that if I didn’t care about someone shaving their legs in the bath they shouldn’t have to clean up broken glass. And that I was a hypocrit. He was vehement that it was others were filthy.
It was the most elaborate excuse I’ve ever heard not to clean up broken glass. I was kinda stunned.
We had these running battles every few weeks. All of the arguements as inane as the one above. All of them made no sense. And in all of them he accused me or another of being filthy. Even though when pressed they had chuff all evidence. Was I infact insane? Or were they so muind numbling dumb they just couldn’t understand what I was talking about? Why were they so fucking pig headed!??!?!? I began to hate them beyond all comparison, not just because I had to clean up after them on a daily basis but because they couldn’t comphrehend why people were irritated with them.
The piece de resistance was them having a cake party and then going on holiday for two weeks with cake left everywhere – in the radiators, on the floor, behind the sofa. Something they never apologised for.
Two weeks later I explained the situation two them. Because the tension between everyone in the house was poisioness.
“Yeah I’m not going to clean up if you glare at me,” he said.
“But I glared at you two weeks AFTER you hadn’t cleaned up? I had to clean up for you.”
“Well but yeah I didn’t clean up because you glared at me.”
“I glared at you when you returned. Because you left the house looking like it’d been attacked by pre-pubescents. It’s very simple. Do you understand how time works? Or did you see into the future.”
I wanted to turn their skin into a lampshade. I’m still pissed off four months after they left.
And rest.
1. I say inappropriate things. I have no internal monologue and it gets me in alot of trouble because I don’t register what I’m saying till I’m through. It’s almost a talent. For instance:
Me: What shall I call you now we have two Davids in the office?
Boss: You can call me sir.
Me: But that would infer I respect you.
2. I avoid doing things. I’ve pretty much hated my job for three solid years but have to date only filled out two application forms.
The reason I also have a beard is not due to aesthetics. It’s because I don’t get up early enough to shave.
Don’t judge me.
3. I have no will power. If I had a healthy diet and went to the gym on a semi regular basis my body would be cut out of granite, instead the Wii Fit informs me I’m overweight. I should have a head start on everyone as I don’t drink and smoke…
Thanks nintendo for that cold slice of reality.
4. I don’t confront people. I try to spin it and say it’s because I’m fairly laid back and chilled, which is partially true, but in reality it’s mainly because I’m a spineless pussy who prefers taking it on the chin than making a big deal of things. The upshot is that people mistake my good nature for being a soft touch and walk all over me.
Strangely the exception to this is I will stand up to anyone talking in the cinema. No matter how embarrassing it is. If I could confront everyone in darkness I’d be fine.
5. Due to the above I’ve got a pretty bad temper. Which is exacerbated by the fact I don’t vent enough. I just store up anger for a rainy day and unleash on some poor bastard who happens to triggers my bi-annual shit fit and has to witness me launching trowels at peoples heads and looking completely psychotic.
The only thing that makes me angry except for people is sports where you can’t blame other people or the weather. Like ten pin bowling. If you’re shit you’re shit – there is only so much mileage you can get from blaming bumpy balls.
6. I tell the same jokes again and again and again. You should feel blessed but typically look bored. I apologise.
7. I fart alot. It’s something I’ve inherited from my Mother so blame her. It’s got so bad that I’m now trying to perfect the ‘crop duster.’ Which is the act of farting whilst doing a fly by and leaving the scent by an innocent party.
Now everyone thinks Darren by the photocopier smells of baby sick.
It was me.
8. I don’t recycle enough. The dwindling supply of natural resources frightens me but I don’t think taking yesterdays cup back to Starbucks is a big enough gesture. Plus the staff in Starbucks now think I’m wierd because you have to explain to them that you want to re-use the same cup and their English isn’t great.
And people in the queue look at me funny. Like I may have a knife.
9. I can’t play a musical instrument or dance. Which is frustrating because in my mind I’m a cross between Crazy Legs and Jimi Hendrix. The fact I’m tone death is also a tragedy of Grecian proportions as I genuinely have a song in my heart. It’s like Di Vinci being born with no hands to paint with.
However none of this stops me from dancing like a paralytic Uncle or screeching like a hyena. I can’t fight the urges…
10. I quote films all the time – or more accurately I impersonate films alot. Particularly when I full know that the other person has no idea what I’m doing. I’m somehow drawn to the awkward silence it creates.
….you need more sleep when you rock up at work at 8am and go to the buildings cafe to be greeted with the following interchange.
Me: Hello, can I have a large MOCHA please?
Spanish lady who now works at the cafeteria who has replaced our trusty Eastern European staff and makes dubious coffee because SHE HAS NO PRIDE IN HER WORK: You look like you’ve slept with your eyes open.
Me: Sorry? Are you saying I look rough?
Spanish lady who failed charm school, adopting a slightly too serious voice: Oh yes.
She puts the change on the counter and walks off like I’ve shat on the floor.
The end.
Or so she thinks. I will kill her. Oh yes. Revenge will be mine you surly senorita. Your piss poor customer service skills will be your down fall.
What a stressful an frankly ridiculous couple of days! It started a week last Friday night when, being very bored, I decided to start my own satirical football site called Crab Football. Harmless enough you’d think. First I wrote an article about how Arsenal’s aloof manager, Arsene Wenger, had predicted 9-11 two years before it happened. I then followed this with another quick fire entry on West Ham’s lost striker Dean Ashton, who had fallen off the face of the planet and was being searched for by his manager.
I was very happy with the results.
So then a day later I wrote a spoof article about Nicolas Anelka’s forthcoming autobiography ‘It’s not me. It’s everyone else.’ If you don’t know much about Anelka all you will need to know is that he’s pretty unpopular and generally seen as a trouble making money grabber. So the excerpt from his autobiography I wrote was meant to be a perpostuous piece on people who had wronged him.
I decided to write in this historically inaccurate article that essentially he left a former club because their captain, Patrick Vieira, had slapped him around the face with his penis. Yes that’s right. You heard. I have the mind of a deficient child.
I wrote it very quickly, sniggered to myself and went to sleep.
Anyway over the coming days my site literally exploded. And when I mean exploded I mean in comparison to this blog, which usually attracts 10 or so lost souls a day. However this was just the tip of the ice berg because despite copyright and disclaimers the autobiography got pilfered left write and centre and many, many websites started posting it up without links to my site. This was:-
a) Annoying that people were claiming my work.
b) Grating because I wasn’t getting the hits I deserved! (I love watching the site visit chart grow!)
c) Scary because even though these sites printed the work verbatim, none of them caveatted it. None of them categorically stated it was fake.
At first I was just happy it was being read but my face literally drained of colour when my site started getting visitors from youtube.
“Strange!” I thought “Why would my article be linked on youtube?”
It was only then that the true horror of the situation hit home, on youtube was footage of that afternoons Charity Shield game and some innocuous footage of Anelka waiting for a corner.
All I could make out from the commentator was:-
“Blah blah blah blah blah Anelka blah blah Vieira blah blah blah Anelka blah blah Vieira.”
The penny dropped immediately.
One phone call later and my Finnish friend translated the content. The bare facts is that the commentator, Antti Mäkinen, was passing on these lurid allegations to the audience at home, apparently oblivious that it was a spoof. I don’t know if the Finnish do sarcasm but I could detect none on the commentators voice.
Shit shit shit.
Anyway it’s been two days now an there has been no fall out. I hope the footballing world (an Mr Anelka, Cole, Vieira and Dickov) have a sense of humour.
I rarely get the look of respect from other men. Unless of course I’m at the bar and I’m holding a mates pint in which case other men sometimes give me a look which I think roughly translates to “Ahhh yes another fellow man, you appear to be drinking beer.” And I in turn give them a nod which says “Yes I am, yum yum yum, lovely foamy beer, I’m so manly I could just eat a packet of pork scratchings, wear an England shit and punch a Frenchman.”
Then we both roar like an MGM lion.
The only time I’ve really, REALLY got the look of respect from another man was when I was in Thailand a few years back, it was Thai new year which, for convoluted reasons I can’t be bothered to go into, is basically the worlds biggest annual water fight. On Koh San road, where all the backpackers live, locals get up at the crack of dawn to line the streets with stalls of water pistols, buckets of water and wet chalk. (Basically part of the annual blessing ceremony is to be doused with water and have two lines of chalk drawn on your cheeks – although it basically has degenerated into hit and run happy slapping with fist fulls of chalk.)
So anyway I wanted to buy some water balloons but the Thai people aren’t really big fans. It’s not their thing is it? When they decorate something it’s lanterns and bulbs and fairy lights etc. So I was in a local Seven Eleven buying four boxes of extra large Trojan condoms and the guy behind the counter gave me a look of pure admiration, he was so taken by my manliness that for a moment I thought he was going to high five me and everything.
Of course he wasn’t to know I have a penis you can fit in a polo and was only going to use them to throw water grenades from my hotel balcony but still, I felt so positively bad ass I could have roared the place down.
“Ladies watch out!”
On Thursday last week I think I got the polar opposite of that look. I had somehow been coaxed into doing a week long trial at my local gym with the girls at work and had joined them for an ill advised Legs, Bums and Tums class for reasons that really escape me. Anyway five minutes into the proceedings I turn around to notice a bloke behind me looking in through the window.
And he gave me a look. And when I say look I mean a look of disgust.
The look said this. You bring shame on our kind.
It was either that or Why is that gay guy dressed so badly?
To be fair to him I was:-
a) The only guy in the class (eleven women)
b) Wearing my yellow Kill Bill track suit bottoms. I should really invest in some gym attire.
c) Had somehow found myself to be the polar magnetic opposite of the rest of the class. When they side stepped left I went right and vice versa. It took about 10 minutes for me to get my bearings. I just kept finding myself desperately out of sync and trying to keep up, flidding around in the background like an epileptic pillock. Even Michelle who had invited me in the first place had to stop looking at me because I was making her laugh so much.
I think the instructor thought I was purposely mocking her class. But that would be giving me too much credit.
So how bad was I? So bad that an African lady came up to me in the interval and put her hand on my shoulder before telling me ‘not to worry, you’ll get better.’ I felt like I was an aids victim. A social pariah to my gender and incompetent Legs, Bums and Tum-ist.
I was genuinely trying but the lady running the class, a vicious cross between a fitness instructor, Barbara Windsor and howling banshee didn’t give us an introduction or warm up, she just fired straight into it and stated barking motivational instructions like a member of the SS.
“And four steps! One, two, three KEEP IT GOING! BURN IT UP! YES YES YES PUMP IT!”
You know the cafe scene from When Harry Met Sally? It was like that but in a gym. She was cleary crackers.
She also slipped into one diatribe that she was carrying an injury. Which wasn’t reassuring.
“Pump it! Pump it! I-have-my-knee-sugery-next-week! FEEL THE BURN.”
My main problem with the class were two fold.
a) I was the only guy in the class and it was a mirrored room. All around me tightly clad ladies when prancing around and clenching their buttocks. I felt like a pervert. I didn’t know where to look. I wanted to imitate their moves but didn’t want to stare too intently. I was stuck behind a rock and a hard place. This really came home to me when I was lying on my back doing the pelvic trusts and I made eye contact with the girl next to me who was doing likewise and she gave me a look of death. A don’t even think about it buster kind of look. Which was kind of unfair as…..
b) There was a girl at the front of the class who was unbelievable. Jessica and Michelle referred to her as the ‘pouty bitch’ but I’m going to refer to her as ‘the amazing goddess wrapped in a liberal amount of spandex.’ She was amazing. I’m not typically a bum man but JEZ-US. Her spandex shorts were frankly struggling to hold her curvaceous booty in but despite this, and the fact the material was tight as a drum, it still managed to concave in the buttock cleft, almost like the arsehole was trying to eat the material. The end result was frankly amazing. Two majestically defined buttocks that danced for me and hypnotised me for most of the proceedings. When the instructor told us to clench in time to the music I nearly fell over myself.
I don’t think I’m allowed back.
Now if you queued for three days for tickets you must be pretty gutted at this point. Because you’ll never get those three days back AND you won’t see MJ play.
But then I remember the British student who queued for 3 days just so she could sell her tickets to Japanese business men for £10,000 a pop. That’s alot of freaking money, they must have been massive fans.
And of course they are the ones suffering the most because as macabre as it is all I can think about is them and their £10,000 slips of paper and how much shit they’re going to get at work tomorrow. I was haunted for weeks after my i-pod broke so Christ knows how they feel. I’d be freaking traumatised. They’re probably in the fetus position as we speak, listening to Bad and crying in their hands like a new born.
Duh! And someone paid $35k for a pair of $1k VIP tickets! Poor poor bastard. That’s the equivilent of coming home to find you’ve been robbed, your idol is dead and catching your wife in bed with your boss who has a penis like a giant pepper grinder. My heart goes out to them. I mean there isn’t much you can do about that is there?
“Hello is that ebay user mikeuk6? Yeah you sold me some Michael Jackson tickets and I was wondering if I could…..hello? …..HELLO?!?!…..”
Last time he uses a ticket tout.
