The Snow.

Hello dear readers, it’s been a while hasn’t it. Unfortunately I’ve had to take a little break from blogging because I am moving house but for one night only, I’m taking some ‘me’ time. I have a multi-pack of crisps, a 4 pack of beer, a little Beethoven playing in the background and I am feeling nice and relaxed. So, I thought I would try something a bit new. Here is some flash fiction for you, I hope you enjoy.

* I think this story works much better with this song playing in the background

The snow is coming down heavy now, like a blanket, it’s hard to see and I’ve lost all feeling in my body, I’m not sure if it’s the cold or the slug in my belly sending me into shock, not that I care. I peer over some crates that have been giving me some cover and I’m hit with the stink of rotten fish, and that was something, the whole damn dock stank of diesel, fishermen’s trawls, cordite, and blood. I can see Lucy on the jetty opposite me, a single lamppost illuminating the grim scene in the gloom; she looks like a little minnow, a minnow surrounded by hungry sharks, and she’s looking down five barrels, like little black eyes taunting her before they rip her apart. I can see her mouthing something, it looks like pleading, but I can’t hear anything over the wind except the faint laughter of the assholes pointing the guns and smiling with broken teeth.

They begin to circle, she hasn’t got long, and I need to do something, but what? I place my hands on the floor and try to stand, but they slip on the bloody ice and I fall to the floor like the slab of dead meat I am. The guns are pointing with purpose now, I’ve seen that look in men’s eyes before, and this won’t end pretty for Lucy unless I do something, but I’m useless. My arms are like jelly and my stomach feels like a thousand demons have set up camp in there, and each one is concocting a new torture for me. But what the hell am I going to do anyway? I barely survived the first trip into the harbour, it had to be ten below freezing in there, and even if I could get over to her, what was I going to do? Crawl up to them and ask politely to let her go? I’m useless, a dead duck, all I can do is lay here watching that asshole McCredie hold up his hands to stop his goons from taking the first shot.

I have never seen a guy take so much pleasure in raising his piece, the look in his eye, like a hunger, my heart stops.

The shot rang out across the docks and bounced around before getting taken on a joy-ride by the wind. That was it, it was over. I lay back down, the pain in my bellies gone now, all I feel is the cold, I let it inside, I shut my eyes and sink into the gloom.

The Problem Is UKIP

I got a disturbing leaflet through my door today, it made me think of putting your hand in something sticky, of the feeling of slugs under bare feet, of the goo left at the bottom of a bin after the bag has split and the Binmen haven’t been round for two weeks because of the bank holiday’s. It was a leaflet from all that is ugly in British society, it was a leaflet, from the BNP! For those who aren’t sure who the BNP are, they are a FAR-right “political” group who basically think that all of our countries woes can be solved by giving the boot to anyone who isn’t a pure bred through and through Anglo-Saxon. They are headed by this guy,

The personification of a moist fart!

his name is Nick Griffin, and he makes me want to puke!

So being a sane human, I held the leaflet aloft for the Mrs to see, proclaimed to her that “We have just received a leaflet from the BNP”, I took off my jumper, rolled up my sleeves, I held the leaflet with disdain pouring like sweat from both hands and beamed with pride as I tore it straight down the middle with all the ‘Man-Might’ I could muster. My Mrs didn’t notice, but I thought that if any one had been watching it would have made one hell of a statement, I was proud.

Luckily Nick Griffin is as erudite as badger with Alzheimer’s, so the BNP has little to no chance of ever being in power, if you don’t believe me, just watch this.

(If you have to base your argument with an ad hominem attack then it says it all!)

But the real problem is UKIP, now if you aren’t aware, they are a (not quite as) far-right party, who have pretty similar views as the BNP. They want an end to immigration, they want an end to our alignment with the European Union, and they want and end to our adherence to the Human Rights Act. They are the pretty face of nationalism.

Sort of.

 

 

I’m not going to go into the blatant hypocrisy of getting immigrants to hand out leaflets like these.

But what I will say is that I find UKIP and the BNP to be almost indistinguishable from each other, except that UKIP actually seem to be doing well in the polls. Before anyone jumps on the comments to proclaim that UKIP are not a racist party, let me just say one thing, at no point in my life, in any conversation, with anyone, have I ever had to say the phrase ‘I’m not racist.’ This is because I couldn’t care less about the colour of anyones skin, or where they are from, or what they believe, all I care about is whether or not a person is a c**t, and if you need to remind people that you are not racist every five minutes, then you sir, are a c**t.

Leaving the blatant racism aside, it’s not like their party even stands for anything that makes any sense, as far as I’m concerned, we should be full members of the EU. Then we can travel abroad in much the same way that Europeans can travel here, if I could just get a flight to the south of France to live out my years picking grapes in a vineyard I would jump at the chance. I would kiss goodbye to this gray, damp, cesspool and make a go for it over on the Mediterranean eating, mango’s or tomatoes, or whatever it is they eat over there?

Also, it’s not like you are ever going to lose a good job to an immigrant who came over here yesterday from f**k-knows-istan and only knows how to say Please and Thank-you in English is it? No, you are going to lose a minimum wage service or manual job to that immigrant. I’m not looking down on service or manual workers by the way, I am one, I move boxes from point A to point B for a living, before that I worked minimum wage in a bar. But guess what, I never lost my job to an immigrant, mostly because I work just as hard as Polish, or Bulgarians, or even English people. Employers hire people who it makes sense for them to hire, so if they can get a guy to work twice as hard as you for the same money, that’s who they will hire. So what have you got to do? Here’s a clue, it isn’t kick out the immigrants, the correct answer is, WORK HARDER than an immigrant, then you will keep your job! And if you do lose your job to an immigrant who can’t speak the language, and who just hopped the boat over here yesterday, then guess what, you are s**t at your job, and you have no one to blame but yourself for you poor life choices.

So finally we come to the problem with UKIP, the problem is that they are playing on your fear. They know that the people who are afraid of losing their jobs, are the people who need their jobs, the ‘zero hour contract-minimum wage’ working class. They prey on people’s fears by telling them that they are going to lose their jobs to Johnny Foreigner and that we should cut the cancer from our society before we sink, and they tell us that we can trust in them, they are like us, they understand the working Man/Woman. But underneath it all, all they want is the same thing that ALL politicians want, money & power, and they are exploiting the British people to get it!

Wow, that was quite a rant wasn’t it? I needed to release some pressure I think, so just to lighten the mood, here is a clip from Doug Stanhope, a dirty foreigner with a great view on nationalism.

 

 

 

 

 

How To: Survive The Zom-Pocalypse. Step One.

Unless you have been living as a hermit in sub-Saharan Africa I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed that Zombies are pretty big right now, they’ve infiltrated every form of media from games, to TV, to Film, there is even zombierotica if that’s your bag. With the inevitability of some clandestine government agency somewhere developing a zombie virus and accidentally releasing it (If Conspiracy Watch are to be believed) I think it’s pretty wise to start coming up with a plan to guide you through the zom-pocalypse.

If you aren’t me and you haven’t been planning for years what you you’ll be doing should the undead decide to start busting down your door looking for brains, feel free to use this plan as a basis for your own zom-pocalypse survival guide.
First things first, you need to assess your situation, this is mine:

• I live in a city.
• My house is a terraced house with easy access from the front and the back due to low walls.
• There are lots of danger hotspots close to me, those being, Schools, Supermarkets, Doctors Surgeries and Churches (I’ll explain these later)
• I don’t own or know how to drive a car.
• Being in the UK, weapons are VERY hard to come by.
• I have no stockpiles of food, only having what is in my fridge (mostly because I am not mental)
• Most of my friends and Family live at least a 2 hour drive away.
• I only have the most basic of medical supplies.

Next you need to decide who you would like to spend the apocalypse with, my list includes.

• My Kids.
• The Mrs.
• My friends from back home.

Now you must decide how close the danger is, just like a car doesn’t go from 0-100 in 0.1 seconds, a zom-pocalypse doesn’t go from ‘They’re coming to get you Barbara’ to Land of the Dead straight away, in my experience it takes about 28 Days. So unless the government is stifling the media, you can be pretty sure that you will begin to see headlines like, ‘Escaped Mental Patients Bite Public’, or ‘Random Acts of Cannibalism In Yorkshire’, or ’Angry Mobs Attack Homeless’.

When you start seeing these, don’t go into full-scale survival mode, nobody is suggesting you turn into Rambo here,

but it might be an idea to stock up on batteries, food, water, bottles, medical supplies, a sturdy weapon (do not walk around with the weapon, this will only get you arrested and you REALLY don’t want to be locked in a police cell at the beginning of a zombie outbreak, think about it, if a policeman catches a zombie trying to rip off a guy’s face, where’s the first place he will take it?), and petrol for your car.

If however you have got the legion of the damned shuffling through the streets where you live, then you must take this a step further and begin to pro-actively take the steps you need to take to avoid becoming part of the horde.

Step One. It’s All Me Me Me.

In order to help anyone out, you need to be in a position to help yourself first, if you have any injuries, you need to address them, if you haven’t got a weapon, you need to find one, if you have no access to shelter, food or water you need to find it.

As this is my plan, I am going to tell you how I imagine this happening to me, and what I plan to do about it. I will most likely be at home when the outbreak begins, if not, I will be at work or down the pub (in that order), either way I need to head home so I will start by assuming that I am at work.

• Get a weapon! Anything will do in the first 24 hours, just so long as it’s reasonably sturdy, it won’t take more than one hit to take out a zombies brain, and most importantly, you must have the skill to wield it. For me, firearms are a no-no, I would probably do more damage to myself than a zombie, I don’t know how to use one safely, reload, or maintain a gun of any type. So next on the list is hand-held weapons, I could use a sword if pushed, but most swords on the market are reproductions and wouldn’t last more than 10 minutes when tested, so personally, I would look for a bludgeon, a small knife, or a screwdriver. At this stage of the plan, you will be trying to avoid ALL confrontation so something small is ideal, not only is it easy to use but it doesn’t make you FEEL safe. This may seem counter-intuitive, but research has shown that the safer you feel, the more risks you take, and you do NOT want to be taking risks at this stage.

• Camouflage. Like I said regarding weapons, you are trying to avoid confrontation, and the easiest way to do that is to make use of camouflage. I’m not saying go out and cover yourself in sticks and leaves, but if you are wearing a bright pink cat suit you might want to think about acquiring some more earthy tones if possible. You may think that jet black would be a good clothing option, but black rarely occurs naturally, you are best off with dark browns, greens, and blues.

• Get home. Nobody knows your house like you do; you know the strongest parts, the weaknesses, and the area around it. It’s also the first place your family are likely to go, as you travel home you want to keep quiet and low, avoid using a car if you can help it (these are noisy, get stuck easily, and are a rolling advertisement to robbers and zombies alike). Avoid using busy roads; avoid hospitals, police stations, doctor’s surgeries, supermarkets, schools, or anywhere where you might find large groups of people. Once you are home, regardless of who else is there, collect all the food you can, bottle as much water as possible, and collect ALL of your medical supplies then take it all upstairs, once this is done, block/destroy your staircase DO NOT USE FIRE TO DO THIS!!! Once you have secured yourself upstairs, it is very important NOT to attract ANY attention to yourself, so if you see poor old Mrs Jones from two doors down getting mauled by the undead, DO NOT start shouting from your windows. It won’t help her and all the hard work you’ve put into providing a modicum of safety will be destroyed, you need to pick your battles, and you vs ‘a world turning to hell’ is not a battle you can win.

Once you have secured:
• A weapon.
• Shelter.
• Water.
• Food.
• Medical supplies.

Then you are in a position to help other people, hopefully your family will be with you in the first floor of your house, if not then you will need to go out and find (them depending on your situation). As my kids haven’t even started school yet, I will need to go get them, however if yours are in their teens, then they will more than likely return home by themselves.

You should now be prepared to face down the first 24hrs of the zom-pocalypse, keep your eyes peeled for Step 2.

 

Have you got you’re own plan for survival? I’d love to see it, leave a comment with a link and I’ll be sure to check it out.

And remember. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

5 Great Musicians I Am Ashamed To Admit, I Don’t Like. (Blogging 101)

So I am now a full day behind my Blogging 101 Challenge, the assignment for yesterday was to write a post about the ‘Daily Prompt’ from WordPress, that being ‘Ring Of Fire, do you like spicy food?’. And the easy answer to that is, yes, but not too spicy as I like to taste the food rather than have it burned from my mouth, I’d say a Jalfrezi is about as spicy a curry as I go. But being a person who has a mind that can get from talking about moving house to talking about farts in 4 logical steps, I took ‘Ring of Fire’ around my brain for 24 hours and farted out this post (Do you see what I did there?).

But not only do I like talking about farts, I also love me some music, trouble is, when you are a bit of a ‘Muso’ you end up realising that other ‘Musos’ tend to hold certain musicians in high esteem, and anyone who thinks they aren’t that great end up getting berated as a ‘poser’. So this, I suppose, is my confessional, and you lovely people are my Priests, and I offer you this post in the hope that you will forgive me for being a ‘poser’ for not liking such musical greats as…
5. Johnny Cash.

(I’ll give you 10 seconds to work out where I got the idea for this post!)

So everybody knows about Johnny Cash, he is a legend, and that is exactly what I say to anybody who speaks about him. But, I really can’t get into his music, and it’s not just a prejudice against country music, I like a bit of Willie now and again.

who doesn’t?

But if I have to hear ‘Ring of Fire’ one more time I might actually burn out my ear drums with a red-hot poker inserted into my anus, honestly people, get over it. But in fairness, he has made it onto the bottom of the list for one song, ‘Hurt’, that may be the only song of his that I find tolerable, and it’s pretty much only because I really like the Nine Inch Nails original and I have a thing for quirky cover songs.
4. Iron Maiden.

I’m going to start this with an admission; I have seen Iron Maiden live (Somewhere Back In Time Tour, Twickenham, 2008) and through the haze of Guinness I do vaguely remember having a reasonably good time. It was all very theatrical, they had Eddie walking around on stage and all that sort of stuff, and I sang along to ‘Run to the Hills’ like the good little metal-head I am.

I even have 4/5 Iron Maiden albums on my iTunes that I have listened to all of 3 times in the last 8 years. They do have some good songs and they have even better drinking songs, easy to learn choruses, and luckily Bruce Dickinson’s voice lends itself well to screaming at the top of your lungs after 8 or 9 Jagerbombs and a skin-full of Lager. But only in the same way that Bon Jovi lends itself to drunken singing, but if you aren’t trying to destroy your liver, it’s just dull, and it does absolutely nothing for me.
3. Jeff Buckley

If you have never heard of Jeff Buckley, then listen to this…

If you haven’t been touched by that song then you have somehow learned how to transfer your consciousness into a super-computer, trading your emotions for immortality.
He really is a great, and it is a shame that he died at such an early age, for a musician to have the presence of that guy, as well as the musical talent to back it up, well, that comes along once I a generation.
I just wish he would cheer the f**k up, lets quickly deconstruct ‘Grace’, it is a beautiful album, but there is no emotional state you can safely listen to it in, without it puking images of a languishing Sylvia Plath-esque suicide into your mind. If you are in a good mood, then all it does is bring you down, and if you are in a bad mood, then half way through ‘Last Goodbye’ and your beginning to think whether it’s possible to choke yourself to death on the flea ridden cat that lives in the ally way behind your house. (Or is that just me?)

2. Beastie Boys.

*I’m going to put a caveat on this entry and say that I do like ‘Sabotage’, but mostly for the video.

I really don’t understand why the Beastie Boys have gained the reputation they have, I know they are ‘kind of’ the people who invented ‘rap-rock’, but is that really something to be proud of?

But there are plenty of other people, who were doing it before them, take a listen to this and tell me it isn’t a primordial version of rap-rock.

Now to me, not only does that sound better than ‘Sabotage’ (and came out 32 years earlier by the way) but the lyrics are far more intelligent and actually mean something, and he doesn’t sound like he has had a goblin hiding up his ass for the better part of a decade.

1. Jimi Hendrix.

This is probably one of the most controversial people on the list, but I want to start with a joke I heard by a comedian who was commenting on Heston Blumenthal’s cooking, he said ‘JUST COOK A F**KING DINNER!’ well, I’m saying to Jimi, ‘JUST PLAY A F**KING SONG!’
I should explain that when I was about 15 and just finding my way through the musical quagmire of genre’s that Jimi Hendrix was a pretty consistent factor in all of them, most of the bands I liked said that he was a big influence on them, and most of the girls I liked said similar. So I walked into my local music shop and bought Jimi Hendrix live at Woodstock, took it home in hot anticipation, put it on and listened to what I can only express in writing as ‘ahlsdjfb;;bjbjnannbnbnnbadfjjuhuu z dgbljgva,ljfvb’.

Listen to that song at 1.01 onwards and tell me that isn’t murder to your ears!

Yes, he is great, his guitar skills WE’RE second to none, it was like he owned every inch of the Axe, but today he is pretty much irrelevant, Mozart, he aint. He probably could have been, but since he was the first to use a guitar in the way that he did, he ended up being the experimenter, and the problem with experiments, is that they go wrong sometimes.

So there you have it, my list of musicians I feel guilty for not liking, I know it shouldn’t matter what music I like, and when amongst friends like you wonderful people I’m sure it doesn’t matter too much. And in truth, although I don’t particularly like these musicians, that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect them, without them I wouldn’t have the music I do enjoy, and for that I am eternally grateful. But on some occasions it is better to just nod your head approvingly and pretend to be in awe, but, just to reverse what has become a slight rampage against music, here is one of my favourite songs at the moment, hope you enjoy, but if you don’t, screw you poser!