There’s always something missing init. From 2000-2008 England had an insane team (in my opinion) and a debilitating dearth of togetherness, affection, desire, organisation. Now, we have a spirit and organisation, but a distinctly mediocre team. If Hodgson had been the manager 6-8 years ago, we’d have had a chance. Personally, it pains me to watch an ageing and past-it Steven Gerrard rally his legs and drive one last time, after years in his prime of being played out of position, or wasted in deep midfield, handed the captaincy when it’s too late. By the time Parker was picked, he was too old. They clung on for penalties, bizarrely, and then lost, not so bizarrely. Rooney wasn’t fit. Why Pirlo wasn’t manmarked is a mystery. If the opposition has one standout player, it makes sense. It’s only futile if they have 3/4 geniuses, like Spain, as one pundit said the other night (can’t remember who).

I haven’t cared since we lost to Portugal in identical circumstances in 2006, midday-drunk in a bar in Newquay, despondent and angry. Consequently, I am not upset. What am I feeling? Mild annoyance, maybe. I dunno. Ashley Young is definitely in my XI comprised of overrated players, and I don’t know why he was on the pitch. All I do know is that Pirlo may have scored one of those audacious, cuntish penalties tonight, but he missed in Istanbul, and Ashley Cole may have missed tonight (still a legend), but he scored against Bayern last month. Both small occurrences within epic moments for English football. Would I swap Liverpool and Chelsea’s Champions League victories for England going through tonight, just to lose (probably) to the Germans? No fucking way. 

Sticking up for Portugal now, cuz Ronaldo’s a legend, the Germans are twats, and Spain’s inane metronomic back and forth is boring as fuck.

One of the main reasons I now want to have children is that my dad and I appear to be the only 2 non-fussy eaters left. Out every day from 9am-1pm selling sandwiches in the merciless rain, sickening sun and belligerent wind, I have learnt this irritating fact. It is a strange state of affairs that, these days, people are willing to spend twice as much money on a meal with half as many calories, such are the ways of this health-obsessed culture. The contradiction is that these people nullify their ‘good behaviour’ with a myriad of detrimental habits. Their very interaction with me, for instance. Rather than get off their blubbery arses and leave the workplace for lunch, walk the 5 minutes to a Tesco or Boots for a meal deal, they wait for me to come to them, that way they only have to traverse the 15ft across the office from their desk to where I set my stall out. And people’s obsession with Diet Coke, fuck me! I sell about 5x as much Diet Coke as regular Coke. Not only does Diet Coke pale in comparison taste-wise with regular Coke, but you feel just as sticky-mouthed and un-hydrated afterwards. If you want to be healthy, drink cunting water! They all smoke too, like fucking chimneys; ironically, it seems, the habit begun as an excuse to get some fresh air, in this post-smoking ban age in which we now exist.

As my day progresses, my stock of sandwiches, pastas and wraps obviously begins to dwindle. I have never once had £0 wastage, solely because of these fussy eaters who, at the end of my round, think that 5 sandwiches isn’t a big enough selection. ‘Oh I don’t like mayo; most of them have got mayo in.’ Yes, most pre-packed sandwiches contain mayo, deal with it. I can’t cater for everyone’s obscure dislikes. The day I order in anti-mayo sandwiches, you won’t fucking show up for work will you, you lazy shite. ‘Oh, these are all white bread sandwiches. You don’t have any wholemeal?’ Who decided one day that white bread was bad for you, and why did everyone believe them? I eat white bread love, fucking shedloads of the stuff, lets go outside and see who can run a faster 5k. Lets go to the hospital and see who’s got the lower blood pressure. One woman, after perusing the selection for several minutes, came out with the blindingly irksome ‘it’s all rather bready isn’t it? I don’t like bread.’ You don’t like bread? You don’t like bread? What? Even if I will bend to tolerate this baffling aversion, I will not bend to forgive you for this remark, after 2 minutes of staring at a tray of sandwiches, the breakfast, lunchtime AND dinnertime sustenance that elevated bread to its legendary status. Wasting my thyme. My beautiful, precious peals of thyme.

I am sounding like a broken record to my own ears with this next one, but I’m gonna throw it out there anyway. Vegetarians. Again, fine, whatever, be a vegetarian if you want, but don’t whinge to me that I don’t have any vegetarian sandwiches. What the flying fuck would you put in a vegetarian sandwich? Every sandwich has either meat or cheese as its primary filler. But no, you won’t eat cheese, will you? It’s too fattening, isn’t it? Or too filling, some claim. Too filling? What is food supposed to do, other than fill you up? If the food I ate didn’t fill me up, then I would die. I could understand if these sandwiches were a clotted conglomeration of butter and inch-thick cheddar slices, but the company is trying to mug you off, and there’s hardly enough cheese in there to decorate a Jacob’s cracker. Today, a woman claimed she was a vegetarian for health reasons, detoxing etc. Vegetarianism for moral reasons makes greater sense to me, even if I don’t agree with it, because morality is subjective, but where people got this idea that meat is bad for you. Yeah, if you eat steak for every fucking meal, you would get ill; if you ate oranges for every meal, you would get ill. In addition, most (I stress most) vegetarians I’ve met look wan and emaciated, and, in need of a fucking beef burger; I’ve never met a vegetarian who I thought ‘yeh, he could kick my head in.’ 

Fussiness with chocolate. Never reckoned I’d witness that. But low and behold: ‘oh, you don’t have any Kitkats.’ No I do not, I came here on a cunting bike, I don’t have ASDA warehouse in that trailer I drag around Lambeth, down potholed streets in all weathers, pick another chocolate bar. There is not a chocolate bar I wouldn’t eat. There are very few sandwiches I wouldn’t eat; I don’t think there are any that I couldn’t eat. I’ve said Diet Coke isn’t that great, but I’ve still drunk a million of them. I’ve said that wholemeal bread is grotesque (it is), but I’ve still eaten it on countless occasions. I could eat anything, except lychees. That’s it. People are so indolent, that they wait for me to come to them, then moan about the dearth of choice. Lazy people can’t be fussy. Fat people surely can’t be fussy. But they are. All of them.

Snakehips away! x

I have not kept a diary for over a year now. I probably still have the time, and I miss the writing practise, but I cannot be bothered to commit to any more daily routines than are absolutely mandatory. I also, quite understandably, associate the regimented exercise itself with the misery of the north and the practical purpose it served: sanity-shoring. However, I have decided to catalogue today’s shenanigans, ending the account at 17:00, because at that time I will park myself in front of the football until 10 o’clock, and then perhaps watch a David Lynch film, because I’ve never seen any of them, and I keep coming across articles that mention in passing his brilliance whilst engaging with my dissertation research.

Saturday June 9th, 2012

I woke up at 4.26am, because that’s when my gay housemate got in from being gay, bounding gracelessly up the stairs, jaffing gossipy shite down the phone to someone. It was quite bright outside, but I just couldn’t winch myself from the bed. I had a boner that wouldn’t go away but was too lazy to wank. I finally got up at around 8.30. Despite having eaten about 8 sandwiches (no seriously) yesterday, my abs were showing through nicely, and I was starving. Explain that, Science. All I had in the house was half a smoothie, so that was my breakfast. My hamstrings were taught from cycling, but I wanted to go for a run. I burped loudly on the landing and slammed my bedroom door to teach my gay housemate some fucking manners. 

I don’t understand it, but my tired legs needed the run. It’s like the repetitive motion of pedalling loads them with tension, and the bike and trailer’s unpleasant combined weight buckles them like an overloaded mule, and the free motion of running, with my relative weightlessness, liberates them. I can lengthen my stride, I can shorten it, depending on what’s hurting. I can slacken the pace if I’m fucked, and speed up if I’m buzzing. Running will always be king. I did 40 minutes, not too strenuous, not too relaxed.

Once I’d cooled down I went to the barber’s. When I walked in a man was getting his back shaved in the privacy of the cloakroom. Surreal. The man next in line read The Sun, not at all shocked. There was an article in The Sun (p. 34) about people’s diverging perceptions of thyme, i.e. boredom and waiting slows thyme down, whilst enjoyable activities, weekends etc fly by. I don’t think science needs to bother elucidating phenomena whose cause is obvious. It’s simply repeating what everybody knows as facts of human nature in esoteric language that no one understands. Anyway, I put the paper down and daydreamed and when I came to it was thyme to get my hair cut, so the article wasn’t even right. The short, potbellied Maltese barber asked how my father was. I told him that he must be confusing me with someone else. He won brownie points back by agreeing with me that Russia’s performance was overrated and that the Czech Republic’s pedestrian, uninventive display was the main ingredient in the 4-1 result. The Czechs weren’t so bad, back when they had Pavel Nedved. 

I went to Tesco for food, and ate half of it on the way back, even though the enjoyment was marred by having to juggle bag-holding and face-stuffing. I read articles for my dissertation until now (16:30). Thyme for fussball.

sharingpoetry:

The hurt you embrace becomes joy.
Call it to your arms where it can

change. A silkworm eating leaves
makes a cocoon. Each of us weaves
a chamber of leaves and sticks.
Silkworms begin to truly exist

as they disappear inside that room.
Without legs, we fly. When I stop

speaking, this poem will close,
and open its silent wings.

(submitted by jtlovelady) 

It’s been a strange few days. The sun, oh fuck me the sun, scorching. If it only lasts a week I’ll remember the summer as having been good, because my mind blocks out all the shit of life. Last week I had no job; two months ago I had one job, that I had to be up at 5am for but provided me with free food; now I have two jobs, each one providing me with free food (one of them better pay), and I only have to be up at 6.45am.

Cycling around selling sandwiches is, to me, just getting paid to exercise and work on my sexy tan. I know the wage is unstable, because it’s based on how much I sell, but after a week I’ll know the route by rote and be able to travel between buildings faster, and I’ll know what sells best. This is simply my illegal in-school mobile canteen with Andy Hardy from Year 9, but on a larger scale. There’s nothing like the buzz of selling stuff. For six hours a day I reckon I can be making £200 per week very soon. I have already started selling things for as much as I can - because customers can never remember the set prices - and pocketing the difference. Born hustla baby. All of the unsold sandwiches are fair game at shift’s end, cue frenzied grabbing. I really, really should have done my cycling proficiency in Year 6. London roads are a free-for-all. Oh well. 

Job number 2 is acting as a helper for a blind woman, the reasons for which I applied were twofold: the £8 p/h pay, and the experience. In the first interview she clarified that there’d be no arse wiping/ tampon duties(?) required, and I swept the back of my hand across my brow in relief (because she is blind and couldn’t see me). My 2nd interview this Thursday gone was not what I had expected. Another carer - some Philippino girl - was there, and there was no immediate interview. Instead, I had to go with them, on the bus, to a Tesco which was only 15 minutes walk away (she told me, unashamedly, that she was a ‘lazy person’, which annoyed me, because her legs work fine, and she’s got a guide, and she could do with shedding a few lbs TEE BEE HACHE), to redeem £300 worth of coupons so that she could purchase a microwave. The obsessiveness with which these coupons must have been accrued baffled me, because before we left I had to type up a crumpled pile of her receipts and email her the file as a record, and she clearly has a lot of money. £100+ expenditures at fancy restaurants galore, bizarre investments in ostentatious perfume, it was fucking surreal. I surmise that some sort of horrific accident must have befallen, for which she received massive compensation.

Before we got to Tesco she insisted we go get a Thornton’s ice cream, paying for the 3 of us. I didn’t protest, obviously. I gobbled mine down with gusto whilst she, much to my admiration, managed to devour hers unaided, by holding the cone in the bend of her elbow that lead to nowhere. The chink (chink is easier to write than Philippino) took even longer to eat hers. She had clearly been jaded by the job, and whilst guiding Antonia (the blind woman) and responding to her with monosyllabic agreements, was busy titting about on her I-phone. We were in Tesco for 2 hours. 2 fucking hours. I can’t even explain how. We were stood by the microwaves for a fair thyme, whilst the chink described them to Antonia. Some ripped man chink came over to give advice. He was sound. What ensued was an at least 1 hour linger by the customer service desk, whilst some chirpy coon called Everton (that’s right, Everton) processed all the coupons. I literally don’t know what was going on. Then, at the till, there was a problem because the coupons were of more value than the purchase and the till had a nervous breakdown. The sassy checkout girl (name something like ‘Shaniqua’) was no help.

I came out into the sun, the dissipating heat of early evening, and felt about 26. The chink went off and I got a taxi with Antonia back to hers. She apologised about the arduous afternoon, and we finally had my 2nd interview. She spoke for at least 30 minutes, but said nothing. It was like a conjuring trick. I somehow extracted the crucial information in the end (rate of pay/ typical hours/ typical duties). She then ordered a pizza, and insisted that I have half, because the voyage to Tesco had robbed me of dinner. She paid, and then let me take an apple with me. I forgot all about the frustrations of the day, and now only have an emotional attachment to the pizza and apple. I remember Tesco, but it doesn’t affect me. 

A few things surprise me. First of all, though least significantly, my mind’s ability to fool itself, and the fact that my own awareness of the deception doesn’t shatter the illusion. Secondly, Antonia’s joie de vivre. She’s blind, and has no arms, and she does whatever she wants, and is buzzing all the thyme. When I stop and think, it is a true inspiration, and if I were in that position I feel like I’d wish I was dead. This sounds corny, but why should sentiment be corny (see my yet-to-be-written dissertation for more on modern cynicism in literature)? Thirdly and finally, my catering delivery job has provided me with access to offices I didn’t even no existed, in unassuming buildings where people could live out 40 years of their life without anyone giving a shit. They desperately get themselves through work with cheap coffee, laughing at the office clown and his ‘witty’ announcements, and the highlight of their day is when I show up with chocolate bars, dressed in a baby puke-green Darwin’s Deli t-shirt that itches around the collar. I probably have a higher class degree than quite a few of them. Yep, this week has shown me that there are definitely things far worse than selling sandwiches. 

Snakehips away! x

I’m morose today, despite the fabulous weather (I don’t think this is a depressing post, fear not, and anyway Jade doesn’t have Tumblr anymore, so no one’s even gon’ read it). I was sat this evening eating a crudely compiled sausage and onion baguette. I ripped the baguette open with my hands because I couldn’t be bothered to wash up a knife. The sausages were just about cooked, the onions were a month past their best before; I slathered all of it in Encona sauce. The thing was devoured maniacally, with no contemplation, or savouring of taste. I don’t even recall eating it. I thought of myself 2 years ago, in a dirty, bare room in Liverpool, probably eating something similar (rudimentary and cheap), trying be frugal, and stay sane, awaiting the exams that would begin my rocky ascent to a 1st, that I worked ridiculously hard for. I began to wonder what’s changed since then. 2 years have gone by, and I am still eating like a dog, cheaply, cooking less than ever, desperately searching for work to cover my rent, whilst beginning research on a dissertation that I just can’t be bothered with. Novel still unpublished. 

I conclude this train of thought probably began because the weather was incredible today, and 2 years ago May and June were so hot it was ridiculous.

To drag myself out of this melancholia I decided to add up everything I have achieved since May 2010. I worked in a warehouse for 2 summers. I survived another northern winter. I travelled around India for a month by myself. I went to Tanzania and taught, something which I didn’t think I’d be able to do. I got a 1st in my BA. I put on half a stone, so I’m healthier but haven’t gotten fat again. I don’t really get panic attacks anymore. I took up boxing, and actually sparred, something which I never thought I’d have the bollocks to do. I started and finished my first novel, and have done 75,000 words of a second. I worked as a breakfast waiter for 6 months, absolutely ludicrous considering how intolerant I am. I’ve lived in London for 8 months…

So yeh, I feel like I’ve actually done a fucking load in 2 years. I got no money, oh well. Still eating like a dog, always have. Got no job, might get my old one back tomorrow, got a backup incase I don’t. Fuck knows, maybe in 4 months, once my dissertation’s done, I could get a proper job, utilising the qualifications I have, or get my novel published, and travel around the world on the profits. Fucking who knows init. 

Liberate te ex inferis. Sound x

Thursday, March 18^th(2010)

I woke up early, like really early man. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I just went downstairs and showered. My dreams bored me. By the time I’d eaten, made lunch and brushed my teeth etc it was still only 9am and I didn’t have to be in for 2 hours. I sat around watching T.V and looking out at the unpleasant pallid sky. By the time I left the house I was fed up of the day and felt tired. My legs ached like buggery after running 5 times in the past week. I got the biggest head rush going when I stood up off of the sofa. I felt like today was going to be long and wearisome. When I got to my tutorial half of the other students hadn’t showed up, presumably because they’d gone out and got alcohol poisoning last night even though I bet none of them are Irish. Sam gave the presentation on Poe and it was the best one yet, pretty much the only one that’s had any co-ordination and insightful, well thought out ideas. I said something mocking about Transcendentalism in relation to American Gothic and that gorgeous girl who can pull off short hair laughed. It literally made my day.

I read D.H Lawrence in the library for the next few hours. Some chink was listening to music too loudly, some kid with a massive nose kept coughing. I didn’t feel too good, sapped of energy and light headed. My state steadily improved as I drank an orange lucozade. Both of the afternoon lectures were quite interesting, but waiting to go into the first some fat, ginger Yorkshire man beast was talking on her phone at an obscene volume. In the second lecture that girl with the limp was wearing a velour shell suit in regal purple. It was offensive to the eyes, utter indecency. That slim Jo Brand who’s always late was sat in front of me and kept leaning back. I was dangerously close to stabbing her in the back with my pen. The girl next to me’s breath stank whenever she yawned. The lecturer went on a short digression about how shit Dyson vacs are, I laughed. Walking home, I sensed that it was minutes from a riotous downpour, the air was steamy, the clouds were heavy, the wind was unbecomingly warm. I got home before it rained so all’s well that ends well. I managed a 15-0 on Call of Duty and then made a pizza. The slag was in the kitchen concocting one of her abhorrent broths. She was grumpy; she looks even uglier when she’s grumpy. 

Bored, again, I’ve been trying to think of the 10 funniest moments of my life, in no particular order, although number 1 is the funniest.

1. When Andy Hardy knocked out Pete Cooper with a 2x4, trying to hit a street lamp, and I was on the floor laughing too much to check if he was alive.

2. When Travis Hastings mugged off Gav in Year 11 Chemistry (I think) for having the gay ear pierces, and Gav came back with a quite epic retort, of which only the climax endures in my memory: ‘I may have made some mistakes in my life, but you mate, you’re a mess.’ Genius in a sink-or-swim moment.

3. All of Year 9 Food Tech

4. When Chris and I both sat on the edge of my dad’s sofa bed, and it flew up in the air, and I almost dropped my chicken and bacon hangover cure sandwich on the floor. 

5. That time I drove everyone to town munted, screaming Hybrid Theory into my steering wheel. 

6. That time in Year 9 English, when Horrocks presented a lengthy, thoroughly researched and articulate argument for the banning of smoking in public places, and James Hook, in rebuttal, cleared his throat, and said ‘passive smoking does nothing.’ That was his whole case. 

7. The first time I saw The Simpsons where Homer says ‘hello, my name is Mr Burns, I believe you have a letter for me.’ 

8. That time Ash Pike swore in Miss Grace’s class and when she shouted ‘Ashley!’ he replied ‘so sorry!’ 

9. That time we were round Underhill’s dad’s, and I really needed to fart but girls were there, and then Curt kicked me really hard, not knowing I needed to fart, and it came out ridiculously loud. 

10. That time in reception when James Burnham said he didn’t feel very well, and when Miss Ford asked him what he’d eaten for breakfast, he replied ‘a cake’ hahahahahaha! That’s the first time I remember laughing at something, genuinely finding it funny.

Slang - translation - example 

Swell - great - ‘that is swell’

Unswell - bad/not great - ‘that is unswell’

Thyme - time - ‘what is the thyme please?’

Fudge - fuck - ‘fudge this’

Yarbles - bollocks - ‘fudge this yarbles’

Spaff - ejaculate/shoot (football) - ‘OMG I’m gonna spaff’ or ‘fudge this yarbles, I’m having a spaff’

Frank n’ beans - penis and testicles - ‘tuggin on my frank … my frank n’ beans!’

Stone me - an exclamation of surprise - ‘stone me to sterben, is that the thyme?!’

Wat u doin - what are you doing? - ‘wat u doin’ 

Question mark - ? - ‘what are you up to today question mark’

Stimmt - I don’t know what this means - ‘Ja, stimmt!’

Bantarr - the word no longer has a meaning, and I only use it ironically - ‘wayyy bantarr’

Big dick - put before any noun for no reason - ‘a big dick lunch for a big dick boi’

Had a right tag, ja? So just gonna say some stuff that’s not connected, though neither is it a stream of consciousness. I rang my manager up today to try and clear up my contract termination, but he just mugged me off, said that he wasn’t going to have this conversation over the phone, and told me to email the personnel woman who works there. I seem to be getting calm in my old age. I wrote her an email alright; the most articulate, even-tempered email I could compose, laying out the facts so that she can deduce what a sly, cowardly cunt my manager has been without be spelling it out. This is futile. I have applied for hundreds of other jobs today. I hope karma sorts him out. Why he turned on me was a mystery when, if he wanted to get rid of me legitimately, I gave him the opportunity by being honest from the start. When I’m lauded as the 21st Century’s James Joyce, he’ll kiss my ass to stay at the hotel. Wanker. 

Filling out job applications is boring; the rain dripping over the gutter like sick down a hill all fucking afternoon; pigeons titting about on the roof not knowing they’re alive. I was thinking a lot about a dream I had a few nights ago, in that eerie 5 minutes of extra sleep one steals post-alarm, where conscious and unconscious become enmeshed. I was dreaming I was in the bed, unable to stop grinding my teeth together violently, the teeth eroding themselves away, spitting out crumbs of enamel as I shouted at myself. Nothing I did would alleviate the affliction, and when I woke up I was grinding my teeth together and my jaw hurt for it. 

Four days ago I went running in shoes that were a tad too small because I left my running shoes in London. I haven’t been able to walk since. When I put weight on the outer arch of my left foot I buckle in pain. It feels like I’ve bruised the bone, but I’m not even sure if that’s a real thing. This was my lesson of the week.

Saturday evening the light over the estuary was the colour of Calpol, a surreal glow. I think Portishead was a cool place to grow up. I have been thinking clearly now for far longer than I was ever thinking cloudily.