I'm a child of the 1980s. Yes, I was born in the 1970s, when punk was at its highest of dizzying heights and Margaret Thatcher was about to be festooned upon us like a rusted T-1000 in a bouffant wig. But I'm a child OF the 1980s, because that's when I grew up. If your first childhood memory is not of He Man but of the Turtles, you're a child of the nineties. I care not one fuck if you were born in 1989, you were merely sent into this world in that year. You were not "Made in the 1980s" as your fucking Top Man t-shirt says. Your personality, likes and dislikes and sensibilities are shaped by your childhood and mine took place in the 1980s. The early part, admittedly. The bit where video games consoles were still made of wood and people queued round the streets of Leicester to see the stunning special effects of Ghostbusters.
Thing is, I'm the last of a dying breed. My generation (I reckon those born in 1982 and before) are the last bastions of hope for a rapidly vanishing tradition. A noble, thoroughly British area of etiquette that precious few youngsters subscribe to. An issue that is so simple in the very nature of its being and yet so far from being able to be saved that a billion Daily Mail readers cry into their Fruit 'N Fibre every morning to mourn its obvious passing, like the gradual decline of the Queen Mother - with her peanut teeth giving away the fact that the royal family were waiting uncomfortably long for her to croak, like a family eying up new dogs whilst their labrador limps past 87 in dog years.
I speak of course, of the tradition of talking without making everything sound like a question.
We've become so used to this that we never, ironically enough, question it. Well, normal people don't. I do. I sometimes imagine that I'm possessed by the irritable spirit of a Victorian diction coach, liable to crack people across the backs of their knees with the birch because they made the sentence "I ate a lovely orange yesterday" sound like a question by using the wrong intonation at the end of said sentence, the reckless mavericks.
If you just read the sentence about the orange and your voice went slightly up in tone at the end of it, you are going to hell. I can rest assured that you're younger than me and I can only sleep well in my bed at night knowing that my generation and those before me have wrecked the world beyond all belief for you to live in. The children may be our future, but they can't fucking speak properly.
Thing is, it is a basic fact of life that we imitate and mimic others. Mass media is such that we can watch whatever we want from across the globe at any time. Satellite television has a billion channels with nothing on, so they have to get the programming from somewhere. I could blame any country for this phenomenon if I chose.
It's not the UK, because we invented actual language, so my Dad says. Yeah.
It's not America, even though I'd love to blame them for something else. Their contributions to youth culture know no bounds. I would like to thank them in particular (via the means of me besting them in a Coal Miner's Glove wrestling match) for Dawsons Creek and the wonderful way that it has enabled the love lorn the world over to overanalyse relationships and talk in sentences that no-one would ever use in real life. An actual quote:
Dawson: God, I am so lonely. I'm 16 years old and I'm so hopelessly lonely.
Joey: Is that why you got drunk?
Dawson: Yeah...Jo, why did you break up with me and run straight to Jack?
Joey: Because he wasn't you. Look, it was never about looking for something better, Dawson. It was about looking for someone who wasn't so close to me. Where I could tell where I ended and he began. I mean, our lives have always been so intertwined that in many ways I feel like you partially invented me, Dawson. And that scares me so much. I need to find out if I can be a whole person without you. I need to find out if I can be a whole person....alone.
Dawson: Well, do it quickly, okay? Because....God, I love you.
Seriously, what the fuck?
Anyway, yes. I blame Australia, for so many reasons. The main one being that they can take it. If you know an Aussie, criticise him and her. Watch the look on their face. The wry smile. That's them thinking "Ha! Least I'm not British". While I'm awake at 6am writing this rant, every Australian I know is having a dream about how good he or she is at sport. Even if they're useless at it. They don't have egg and spoon races in sports days in Australia. No sack races. They do three-legged triathlons, and then the talented little fuckers run home afterwards so they can sprint to the beach and swim to Papua New Guinea.
Back to my point about the 1980s. In 1986, something terrible came to our shores from down under. No, not Yahoo Serious (Young Einstein came out in 1988).
Neighbours.
Until the people of Erinsborough appeared on our TV screens, I'm convinced that we spoke normally. You could point to the Americans and the way they talk (which has similar intonation) but I reckon they merely copied us. Because face it, we're cooler than Americans. But not as cool as the Japanese, because they have the whole Harajuku thing and Ninjas.
Over 5,500 episodes of Neighbours have been screened in the UK. My sister (three years younger than me) used to watch it every day. I remember the look of delight on her face when she'd had a day off sick and she rang her friends to tell them that she'd watched the afternoon version of Neighbours. The way she described the experience was akin to someone of my Gran's generation having a biblical vision of St Peter and the pearly gates. My entire school was addicted to Neighbours (and later on, to a lesser extent Home and Away). The only plotline I can ever remember getting interested in was when Todd (I think) got addicted to arcade games and they showed him playing Ghosts and Goblins in an arcade. You could tell he was a dangerous addict because he had on a long coat.
There is so much non question asking chicanery in one episode of Neighbours that I have to turn it off before my neighbours bang on the walls to ask me why I'm screaming utterly random-seeming sentences at my television, like a schizophrenic having a surrealist row with himself. There is no reason that we should pay any attention to Neighbours at all - it's not like the rules of Erinsborough have any bearing on real life.
RULE A: You'll probably work at Lassiters at some point.
RULE B: It's quite easy to become a journalist, so maybe try that.
RULE C: Or a teacher.
RULE D: No other forms of work are available.
RULE E: Unless you count being a sub par Matthau / Lemmon combo as a job (I'm looking at YOU, Harold and Lou)
MAJOR RULE: If you ever leave Erinsborough, you will AT THE VERY LEAST be terribly maimed. If you go into the forest around Erinsborough, you will definitely die.
The popularity of Neighbours was such that if you imported any Australian programme then people genuinely got excited. I remember the debut of Flying Doctors - my mum and sister had planned their evening for weeks. I went outside and there was no-one about. And that night, another 100,000 people made the sentence "I'm going to bed now" sound like a godforsaken question.
Australia - and indeed Neighbours itself - has given us so many great things. Kylie and her bottom. Dannii and her breasts. Stefan Dennis and "Dont It Make You Feel Good". The belief that any simpleton can have a number one record in this country. Angry Anderson. It's all good. Australia may have given us this habit, but we're the ones to blame for copying it so frequently and making it normal. Makes you wonder what's next though, what the next great cultural explosion is, the next best import to Aussie soaps.
I'd quite like the joy of Bollywood films to be a bigger part of British culture - they certainly deserve to be. If only because I'd love dull days to be brightened with dance routines and smiling.
I'm off now, hope you enjoyed this rant? Argh, now I'm doing it.
http://twitter.com/jimsmallman
Wednesday 29 April 2009
Monday 20 April 2009
12: Psychics
I'd always like to presume that everyone walking the face of the Earth is essentially quite clever. I sit back and assume that if I'm on a train I can have a 43 minute conversation with the person next to me about topics as diverse as the cause of the recession, the vanguards of American literature in the 20th century and hog breeding. As human beings we have the ability to be incisive, thought-provoking, resourceful and witty.
And yet for all the wonderful gifts that evolution has given us, for all the immense thinking power wrapped up in every single person's brain, for the billions of electrical impulses that one special muscle utilises to drive humanity forward... there are still people that think that psychics have some relevance in the world today.
Why would you want to see the future? I don't. Everyone knows roughly which way that they're headed. If you've worked hard to get where you are then your life isn't really going to take a vastly unexpected turn. Lets say that you spent the last five years working at building up a florist business. If you want to know where it's headed then maybe look back at your records, establish some trends, draw up a well considered business plan and make some projections based upon that. Throw in some intangibles.
Don't go and visit someone who will toss together some generalisations and give you a vague conclusion that you'll then sit on and hark back to everytime something remotely good or bad happens. I would be impressed if a psychic, just for once, didn't throw out a "tall, dark stranger" prediction and instead predicted that we'd all die in a shower of razor sharp broccoli florets.
The same goes for anything else loosely based within the psychic world. Derek Acorah and his like are charlatans, one and all. You know anyone who has ever seen a ghost? No, of course you don't. Because they don't exist. How convenient that something that is allegedly so real cannot be seen by just anyone, nor heard, nor photographed. I've spoken to three different people who have met a drunken Derek Acorah and he's told them that everything he does is made up. Every last thing. He's a trustworthy as a broker at Lehman Brothers. Yeah, that's some fucking satire right there.
Mediums tire me out, especially those that are as believable as the orange faced televangelists in the states. I find someone healing another person by smacking them in the face more realistic than a man in a patterned jumper claiming to know the history of complete simpletons by the means of guesswork and generalisation. It's wrong to pray on the hopes and fears of generally nice people by claiming to be able to speak to their long dead relatives.
The list of people that can talk to dead people is not a long one.
1: Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense"
That is all.
Incidentally, if you decided to read this rant because you misread the title and presume that this is about physics, I apologise for confusing you. But I hate that as well. So, have this bonus rant:
No one uses the words mass or velocity after their GCSEs, fuckers. Stop trying to make us learn them.
And yet for all the wonderful gifts that evolution has given us, for all the immense thinking power wrapped up in every single person's brain, for the billions of electrical impulses that one special muscle utilises to drive humanity forward... there are still people that think that psychics have some relevance in the world today.
Why would you want to see the future? I don't. Everyone knows roughly which way that they're headed. If you've worked hard to get where you are then your life isn't really going to take a vastly unexpected turn. Lets say that you spent the last five years working at building up a florist business. If you want to know where it's headed then maybe look back at your records, establish some trends, draw up a well considered business plan and make some projections based upon that. Throw in some intangibles.
Don't go and visit someone who will toss together some generalisations and give you a vague conclusion that you'll then sit on and hark back to everytime something remotely good or bad happens. I would be impressed if a psychic, just for once, didn't throw out a "tall, dark stranger" prediction and instead predicted that we'd all die in a shower of razor sharp broccoli florets.
The same goes for anything else loosely based within the psychic world. Derek Acorah and his like are charlatans, one and all. You know anyone who has ever seen a ghost? No, of course you don't. Because they don't exist. How convenient that something that is allegedly so real cannot be seen by just anyone, nor heard, nor photographed. I've spoken to three different people who have met a drunken Derek Acorah and he's told them that everything he does is made up. Every last thing. He's a trustworthy as a broker at Lehman Brothers. Yeah, that's some fucking satire right there.
Mediums tire me out, especially those that are as believable as the orange faced televangelists in the states. I find someone healing another person by smacking them in the face more realistic than a man in a patterned jumper claiming to know the history of complete simpletons by the means of guesswork and generalisation. It's wrong to pray on the hopes and fears of generally nice people by claiming to be able to speak to their long dead relatives.
The list of people that can talk to dead people is not a long one.
1: Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense"
That is all.
Incidentally, if you decided to read this rant because you misread the title and presume that this is about physics, I apologise for confusing you. But I hate that as well. So, have this bonus rant:
No one uses the words mass or velocity after their GCSEs, fuckers. Stop trying to make us learn them.
Monday 13 April 2009
11: Racism
I'm quite ridiculously proud of being from Leicester. I have an oft-rehearsed line that I say onstage at most gigs where I mention that I love the city because it is "a vibrant, diverse place". And it is. I have never caught a whiff of the slightest bit of racial tension in my home city, and that's something that I'm chuffed enough about to even gloat just a little bit. I'm delighted to say that I don't have a single racist friend or acquaintance - although with my own sensibilities I wouldn't entertain anyone racist anyway.
When I say "entertain anyone racist" I of course don't refer to audiences. Because I have no choice there, I can't vet them all. Much as I like to say that I am cool with anyone's beliefs or ideals, if someone says something racist to me onstage I have a burning desire to smash them over the head with a chair. Not in a weak Lance Storm vs RVD way, in an awesome Rock vs Mick Foley way.
Ask any comedian what the most annoying part of his job is and you'll get one of the following answers:
Travelling. I kind of like it, but apparently being squashed into a Corsa with 4 other acts and travelling 300 miles to entertain 21 people in the corner of a pub isn't everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I find it preferable to a daily commute to a regular job. I get nostalgic for it if I have a week or so of travelling alone. The smell of 4 Ginsters sandwiches being eaten at once whilst dissecting each others sets is a joy to behold and the total sensual experience.
Heckling. I kind of enjoy it, but you do get the odd plank who doesn't know when he's beat. You'll knock them down and they keep getting back up, like a retarded version of Rocky, hitting you with funny noise after terrible homophobic putdown like he's trying to have a gazillion sequels made about his career.
Comments. One of my favourites is an inebriated audience member coming up to me - I reckon this happens once in every 5 gigs I MC - and saying "You're really good, you should be one of the comedians". I am one of the comedians, you fucker. Believe me, that shit is quite, quite rehearsed. I wish I was as off the cuff and spontaneous as I may appear. I'm not even spontaneous enough to consider buying flowers from a petrol station when I'm in a relationship in order to guarantee semi-grateful sex.
Suggested Jokes. I reckon this is the main annoyance for most comedians. Some dick comes up to you and tells you - or even worse, shows you a "gag" on his mobile phone - a joke of questionable content or taste and follows it with the required suffix sentence of "you can have that". The most I've ever enjoyed such an experience was when someone tried to give me an off-colour joke that I'd heard a million times and when they said the magic words I simply walked off. No smile, no comment, just a straight face walking away as their bemused voices trailed off into the night.
It's concerning the subject matter of this rant that makes me so annoyed at the latter of the four items above. 9 times out of 10 the jokes that get suggested to me by audience members are inherently racist. I understand that the sensibilities of people in small towns (such as Hinckley or Nuneaton, where I run gigs) are different to those in big cities - but that isn't an excuse to act like a bigot, or believe that you speaking ill of anyone from another race, or of another colour or religion to you is freedom of speech. Racism makes me physically angry. It's just beyond me as to why anyone would believe that anyone is inferior to anyone else. Why can't we just all agree that we're all pretty ace and that life is nice? I don't view my friends in terms of what race they are, sex they are, sexuality that they have chosen - they're my friends because I love them. Simple as that. And everyone walking the Earth has the potential to be awesome, in the same way that they could turn out to be a bit of a dick. The only discrimination that we should all adopt is that of being dickist - not tolerating some of the many halfwits who share the world with is. Which means conversely, that it is more than ok to be anti-racist if you're planning on being dickist.
If that makes any sense.
The closest I got into getting into a fight at a gig is based around racist joke suggestion. It wasn't in front of a 200 strong throng of stag and hens, it was in a country pub in front of 30 people. I mentioned where I'm from, and how proud I am of being from Leicester and how it saddens me to live in a more small minded town like Hinckley. They laughed in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons, writing their own jokes based around stuff that I consider anti racism and anti racist. So I curtailed that part of the set and went back to knob gags, as was my forte at the time. Still is. If I have a forte. Trusthouse Forte.
At the end of an okish gig a man came up to me. Seemed like a regular enough chap, about my age and at the gig with his wife. He did the old "here's one for you..." bollocks and proceeded to tell me some of the most vile, bigoted and racist "jokes" that I've ever heard in my life. I was remotely new to such an experience at the time and shook my head at them.
ME: Well mate, I use my own material... and to be honest your jokes are a bit controversial...
HIM: I thought you'd like them, being from Leicester.
ME: How so?
HIM: Well, you must be tired of them all.
ME: Them?
HIM: You know, the immigrants. Leicester's full of them.
ME: Have you ever been there?
HIM: No, never. Wouldn't like it.
ME: Why not?
HIM: You know, it's not an English city anymore.
ME: Why, has it been moved somewhere else?
HIM: No...
ME: I mean, I drove here from there tonight, and the last time I checked I drove in from the East Midlands.
HIM: I didn't mean that...
ME: I even drove past a flagpole and it had the same flag as the rest of England flying from it. Who'd have thought it?
HIM: It's just that I'm...
ME: A cunt? Yes. Yes you are.
You'd think it would be him that took exception to this, but it wasn't. It was his gin-soaked orange faced Mrs who decided to grab a bottle and pointed it at me. Not smash it, but point it at me, neck up, like an expectant penis. This was the lamest standoff in the history of time.
I should have just walked away, but I had to run in the end. I scrambled for my car keys in my pocket, readying them and shouldering my bag as discussions seemed to calm down.
ME: Sorry mate, but I have to ask why you're so racist.
HIM: I'm not racist. I've got loads of black mates.
(This is, of course, the get out clause of many a racist. Homophobes replace this sentence with "I once watched Will and Grace")
ME: So what's the problem then? The colour of someone's skin?
HIM: No...
ME: Because your Mrs looks like a fucking space hopper.
I ran then. And what I said with regards to her mandarin hue wasn't racist, because some of my best friends are spacehoppers.
When I say "entertain anyone racist" I of course don't refer to audiences. Because I have no choice there, I can't vet them all. Much as I like to say that I am cool with anyone's beliefs or ideals, if someone says something racist to me onstage I have a burning desire to smash them over the head with a chair. Not in a weak Lance Storm vs RVD way, in an awesome Rock vs Mick Foley way.
Ask any comedian what the most annoying part of his job is and you'll get one of the following answers:
Travelling. I kind of like it, but apparently being squashed into a Corsa with 4 other acts and travelling 300 miles to entertain 21 people in the corner of a pub isn't everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I find it preferable to a daily commute to a regular job. I get nostalgic for it if I have a week or so of travelling alone. The smell of 4 Ginsters sandwiches being eaten at once whilst dissecting each others sets is a joy to behold and the total sensual experience.
Heckling. I kind of enjoy it, but you do get the odd plank who doesn't know when he's beat. You'll knock them down and they keep getting back up, like a retarded version of Rocky, hitting you with funny noise after terrible homophobic putdown like he's trying to have a gazillion sequels made about his career.
Comments. One of my favourites is an inebriated audience member coming up to me - I reckon this happens once in every 5 gigs I MC - and saying "You're really good, you should be one of the comedians". I am one of the comedians, you fucker. Believe me, that shit is quite, quite rehearsed. I wish I was as off the cuff and spontaneous as I may appear. I'm not even spontaneous enough to consider buying flowers from a petrol station when I'm in a relationship in order to guarantee semi-grateful sex.
Suggested Jokes. I reckon this is the main annoyance for most comedians. Some dick comes up to you and tells you - or even worse, shows you a "gag" on his mobile phone - a joke of questionable content or taste and follows it with the required suffix sentence of "you can have that". The most I've ever enjoyed such an experience was when someone tried to give me an off-colour joke that I'd heard a million times and when they said the magic words I simply walked off. No smile, no comment, just a straight face walking away as their bemused voices trailed off into the night.
It's concerning the subject matter of this rant that makes me so annoyed at the latter of the four items above. 9 times out of 10 the jokes that get suggested to me by audience members are inherently racist. I understand that the sensibilities of people in small towns (such as Hinckley or Nuneaton, where I run gigs) are different to those in big cities - but that isn't an excuse to act like a bigot, or believe that you speaking ill of anyone from another race, or of another colour or religion to you is freedom of speech. Racism makes me physically angry. It's just beyond me as to why anyone would believe that anyone is inferior to anyone else. Why can't we just all agree that we're all pretty ace and that life is nice? I don't view my friends in terms of what race they are, sex they are, sexuality that they have chosen - they're my friends because I love them. Simple as that. And everyone walking the Earth has the potential to be awesome, in the same way that they could turn out to be a bit of a dick. The only discrimination that we should all adopt is that of being dickist - not tolerating some of the many halfwits who share the world with is. Which means conversely, that it is more than ok to be anti-racist if you're planning on being dickist.
If that makes any sense.
The closest I got into getting into a fight at a gig is based around racist joke suggestion. It wasn't in front of a 200 strong throng of stag and hens, it was in a country pub in front of 30 people. I mentioned where I'm from, and how proud I am of being from Leicester and how it saddens me to live in a more small minded town like Hinckley. They laughed in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons, writing their own jokes based around stuff that I consider anti racism and anti racist. So I curtailed that part of the set and went back to knob gags, as was my forte at the time. Still is. If I have a forte. Trusthouse Forte.
At the end of an okish gig a man came up to me. Seemed like a regular enough chap, about my age and at the gig with his wife. He did the old "here's one for you..." bollocks and proceeded to tell me some of the most vile, bigoted and racist "jokes" that I've ever heard in my life. I was remotely new to such an experience at the time and shook my head at them.
ME: Well mate, I use my own material... and to be honest your jokes are a bit controversial...
HIM: I thought you'd like them, being from Leicester.
ME: How so?
HIM: Well, you must be tired of them all.
ME: Them?
HIM: You know, the immigrants. Leicester's full of them.
ME: Have you ever been there?
HIM: No, never. Wouldn't like it.
ME: Why not?
HIM: You know, it's not an English city anymore.
ME: Why, has it been moved somewhere else?
HIM: No...
ME: I mean, I drove here from there tonight, and the last time I checked I drove in from the East Midlands.
HIM: I didn't mean that...
ME: I even drove past a flagpole and it had the same flag as the rest of England flying from it. Who'd have thought it?
HIM: It's just that I'm...
ME: A cunt? Yes. Yes you are.
You'd think it would be him that took exception to this, but it wasn't. It was his gin-soaked orange faced Mrs who decided to grab a bottle and pointed it at me. Not smash it, but point it at me, neck up, like an expectant penis. This was the lamest standoff in the history of time.
I should have just walked away, but I had to run in the end. I scrambled for my car keys in my pocket, readying them and shouldering my bag as discussions seemed to calm down.
ME: Sorry mate, but I have to ask why you're so racist.
HIM: I'm not racist. I've got loads of black mates.
(This is, of course, the get out clause of many a racist. Homophobes replace this sentence with "I once watched Will and Grace")
ME: So what's the problem then? The colour of someone's skin?
HIM: No...
ME: Because your Mrs looks like a fucking space hopper.
I ran then. And what I said with regards to her mandarin hue wasn't racist, because some of my best friends are spacehoppers.
Saturday 4 April 2009
10: Fresh Mint (Especially On Potatoes)
My back garden is a living, breathing, growing testimony to many of my failures and regrets. I'm first to admit that I am not a gardener. Last time my lawn needed mowing it was so long that the thought of even stepping out there made me cry a little and retire to bed and hide underneath the duvet. I ended up paying my sister and brother in law a wheelbarrow full of used notes to do something with it. I think they set it ablaze.
In my back garden stand two sheds. I have no need for either. One is filled with the detritus from my pre-divorce life - old VHS tapes, video games consoles wrapped in plastic, sacks of clothes that I could probably still wear, books I bought and never read. The other shed contains a redundant lawnmower, someone's bicycle (certainly not mine), a hose when I don't even have an outside tap, and my daughter's electric Disney Princess car that I assure you I have never tried to ride down the road in the dead of night, honest.
My two favourite items are in the foreground of the garden, closest to my house and seperated from the needlessly prolific sheds by a patch of wild grass to insane for any lawnmower.
First is my Filbert Street map, purchased from an auction when we knocked down our beloved former home. I always enjoy showing this to people because they then presume that I have the cunning, guile and shame-faced cheek to be able to steal something so vast. I rarely admit that I bought it (and that my Dad owns the other one) because I think the image of me as a wee scamp taking a screwdriver to a game on my 23rd birthday and somehow evading the law makes me seem more dangerous and devil-may-care. I'm telling you now that image is a fallacy. This evening I did a show and then came home to luxuriate in having a cold and doing my finances. This life I lead is strangely non rock and roll.
Then there is my daughter's fun house. Pink and white and made of sturdy plastic, Amelia loves this little place. One of my most treasured photos of her shows her playing with her mini kitchen within the house, making me smile with her mini OCD behaviour when it comes to plastic cups and cutlery. Sadly, she has only played in the house a few times, testimony to my status as a divorced Dad. I love Amelia to bits and I try to be a great Dad - but the plastic house is just like so many of her other toys at mine - enjoyed but they haven't had the mileage from them that they should have.
Next to the plastic house is a mint plant. I've always hated mint. It has a function, it's not something to enjoy for fun. But in the last few years the very smell of mint is now associated in my mind with missed chances and regret. As well as a burning desire to destroy every trace of it from the planet. What use has mint other than to remind me of my failings?
TOOTHPASTE - When I was a child we had Punch and Judy strawberry flavour toothpaste. Why not make this for adults? Why make such a big deal about fresh orange juice in the morning, with adverts showing the beautiful people of New York enjoying a bagel and a fresh glass of OJ as the sunshine streaks in through their blinds in the half million dollar apartment... when the second you drink the damn stuff after your morning dental hygeine session you're forced to suck your own lips off to deal with sourness.
GUM - In essence having minty fresh breath after a refreshing bag of cheese and onion crisps sounds like a decent plan. Having cheese, onion and mint flavour breath is both nauseating and confusing.
MINT YOGHURT - Poppadoms are the crisps that Jesus would eat, if he was alive today. Mango Chutney and Lime Pickle are the salsa dip that Jehovah himself would have enjoyed. If there is a God (and I'm leaning towards there not being so - because he wouldn't have invented mint) I reckon he doesn't share a curry with all these other religious dudes and ask for extra mint yoghurt. Not only does it taste foul, it looks like you're annotating your starchy disc with mint choc chip ice cream.
CONSULATE CIGARETTES - Have you ever smoked these? The first fags I ever smoked, and they made me addicted to Nesquick mint choc milkshake. A rumour went round that they made lads sterile. In my school that was considered a method of contraception.
MINT SAUCE - My family eat this with everything, which makes them more insane than quirky. As you know, dear reader, I despise roast lamb. Mint and vinegar. British people are sick and wrong.
FRESH MINT APPLIED TO POTATOES - I love potatoes. Starchy little fuckers, they're brilliant. Mashed, boiled, chipped, pureed, ablaze, anything. I could eat a ton of them a day. And come the summer, we get the best ones: New potatoes. Bite sizes morsels of wonderment. Oooh! Cold ones in salads! They're amazing. I tend to keep a supply of tinned ones (in brine, of course) for the cold winter months. To eat on toast, on days where I choose to flick two fingers up to the Atkins Diet. I do not need these beautiful things being sullied by mint, horrible mint, trying to freshen my mouth before I've even finished eating.
I'm not one to throw diva strops, but the next time I'm served anything with mint on I will windmill everyone in sight, like a slightly camp whirling dervish. I'll be pushed further than Mariah Carey after she's been double booked at the Dorchester and instead of having a suite with fresh muslin on the walls, she's in a Travelodge with dirty sheets nailed to the wardrobe.
http://twitter.com/jimsmallman
In my back garden stand two sheds. I have no need for either. One is filled with the detritus from my pre-divorce life - old VHS tapes, video games consoles wrapped in plastic, sacks of clothes that I could probably still wear, books I bought and never read. The other shed contains a redundant lawnmower, someone's bicycle (certainly not mine), a hose when I don't even have an outside tap, and my daughter's electric Disney Princess car that I assure you I have never tried to ride down the road in the dead of night, honest.
My two favourite items are in the foreground of the garden, closest to my house and seperated from the needlessly prolific sheds by a patch of wild grass to insane for any lawnmower.
First is my Filbert Street map, purchased from an auction when we knocked down our beloved former home. I always enjoy showing this to people because they then presume that I have the cunning, guile and shame-faced cheek to be able to steal something so vast. I rarely admit that I bought it (and that my Dad owns the other one) because I think the image of me as a wee scamp taking a screwdriver to a game on my 23rd birthday and somehow evading the law makes me seem more dangerous and devil-may-care. I'm telling you now that image is a fallacy. This evening I did a show and then came home to luxuriate in having a cold and doing my finances. This life I lead is strangely non rock and roll.
Then there is my daughter's fun house. Pink and white and made of sturdy plastic, Amelia loves this little place. One of my most treasured photos of her shows her playing with her mini kitchen within the house, making me smile with her mini OCD behaviour when it comes to plastic cups and cutlery. Sadly, she has only played in the house a few times, testimony to my status as a divorced Dad. I love Amelia to bits and I try to be a great Dad - but the plastic house is just like so many of her other toys at mine - enjoyed but they haven't had the mileage from them that they should have.
Next to the plastic house is a mint plant. I've always hated mint. It has a function, it's not something to enjoy for fun. But in the last few years the very smell of mint is now associated in my mind with missed chances and regret. As well as a burning desire to destroy every trace of it from the planet. What use has mint other than to remind me of my failings?
TOOTHPASTE - When I was a child we had Punch and Judy strawberry flavour toothpaste. Why not make this for adults? Why make such a big deal about fresh orange juice in the morning, with adverts showing the beautiful people of New York enjoying a bagel and a fresh glass of OJ as the sunshine streaks in through their blinds in the half million dollar apartment... when the second you drink the damn stuff after your morning dental hygeine session you're forced to suck your own lips off to deal with sourness.
GUM - In essence having minty fresh breath after a refreshing bag of cheese and onion crisps sounds like a decent plan. Having cheese, onion and mint flavour breath is both nauseating and confusing.
MINT YOGHURT - Poppadoms are the crisps that Jesus would eat, if he was alive today. Mango Chutney and Lime Pickle are the salsa dip that Jehovah himself would have enjoyed. If there is a God (and I'm leaning towards there not being so - because he wouldn't have invented mint) I reckon he doesn't share a curry with all these other religious dudes and ask for extra mint yoghurt. Not only does it taste foul, it looks like you're annotating your starchy disc with mint choc chip ice cream.
CONSULATE CIGARETTES - Have you ever smoked these? The first fags I ever smoked, and they made me addicted to Nesquick mint choc milkshake. A rumour went round that they made lads sterile. In my school that was considered a method of contraception.
MINT SAUCE - My family eat this with everything, which makes them more insane than quirky. As you know, dear reader, I despise roast lamb. Mint and vinegar. British people are sick and wrong.
FRESH MINT APPLIED TO POTATOES - I love potatoes. Starchy little fuckers, they're brilliant. Mashed, boiled, chipped, pureed, ablaze, anything. I could eat a ton of them a day. And come the summer, we get the best ones: New potatoes. Bite sizes morsels of wonderment. Oooh! Cold ones in salads! They're amazing. I tend to keep a supply of tinned ones (in brine, of course) for the cold winter months. To eat on toast, on days where I choose to flick two fingers up to the Atkins Diet. I do not need these beautiful things being sullied by mint, horrible mint, trying to freshen my mouth before I've even finished eating.
I'm not one to throw diva strops, but the next time I'm served anything with mint on I will windmill everyone in sight, like a slightly camp whirling dervish. I'll be pushed further than Mariah Carey after she's been double booked at the Dorchester and instead of having a suite with fresh muslin on the walls, she's in a Travelodge with dirty sheets nailed to the wardrobe.
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