Random mutterings, sighing and gasping, finger jabbing, brow dabbing and general bleatings about everyday bollocks. Brought to you by Angie Annetts, author of the highly-acclaimed short story collection, 'Tales From Around The Bend'. http://www.talesfrom.co.uk/

Friday, 11 February 2011

Sobriety, Talking Bollocks and Kathy Burke

I once stayed sober for a whole five months. Oh yes I did. And it wasn’t too bad packing it in either. Granted, come day four or five, I got a bit snarly and had a tendency to bare my teeth at various humans. And my sleep went belly up too. But come day eight/ten (there or thereabouts) I woke up with a saintly glow around me, did a backward flip out of my pit, threw back the curtains and announced, “Hello new day! I’m ready for anything you throw at me!” And then I jogged downstairs to partake in a highly nutritious and flavoursome breakfast.
            It was really weird shit; my energy levels went through the roof, I developed a can-do approach, I began being nice to people (I distinctly recall smiling at a child-type thing on one occasion) and the whites of my eyes became white.
Fuck me! I'm sober!

            I even went to the pub and would smugly nurse a diet coke while everyone around me got their faces in the trough. Fools, I would think, as I eyed their drunken behaviour. How weak of them to need alcohol to have a good time. Look at me – look at the fun I’m having without alcohol.
            But therein lay the problem; I wasn’t. And that’s what did for me, in the end.
            Thing is, I like drinking: I like going to pubs (cos I can be a dead sociable fucker, me) and I like the act of having a drink and talking bollocks. I do bollocks very well. But not so well when I’m sober. And I do drinking very well. For starters, I don’t get morose and start snotting and wailing all over the gaff like some. No, give me a flagon of vodka and I’ll still be grinning like the village idiot at the end of the evening. Although (and it must be said) I can get a bit over excited sometimes and let myself down.
            So five months of sobriety came to a halt. My skin had never had it so good and pleaded with me to not go back to my old ways. No can do, I told it. I’ve been bored as arseholes.
Look at this dozy mare. She's been on the wagon for a fortnight and the
boredom's made her come over all queasy and howsyerfather.


            Sometimes I make a list up of famous people I’d like to get pissed with – a top ten, as it were. Graham Norton’s always up there, there or thereabouts. Him and Paul O’Grady. It’s hard to pick between the two (what with me being such an old fag hag and all), but what a scream a night out on the lash with either of those two would be. Then there’s that geezer who’s very wise about things, the dog whisperer – bet he’d be good value after a Bacardi Breezer. He fixes humans, wouldn’t you know?  And Derren Brown – now that would be different – he’s a real smart alec (although I’d have to keep an eye on my wristwatch/knickyknackynoos and vodka level to make sure he’s not surreptitiously tampering with them). Who else? Too many sportsmen to fit in a pub sadly, but Lawrence Dallaglio is a deffo and Jenny Pitman looks like she’d spin a good yarn after a yard of ale. Michael Caine and Robert De Niro are simply crying out to be my new bezzie drinking buddies, whilst the multi-talented Kathy Burke is obviously itching to have a snot and guffaw with me over a gutful.
            And you can’t do all that stuck indoors clutching your mineral water to yer knockers. No siree. You take my word for it, you're better off up the pub having a guzzle.

Whilst waiting for her real muckers to front up for a drinking session
of Biblical proportions, Kathy ruthlessly phones me to cancel our
pre-arranged quaff, citing a bout of the shits after a rogue curry...


Tuesday, 1 February 2011

Andy Murray, Gangsta Limps and Bollock Rubs

I like sport a lot. I watch shed loads of it, and although I’m a bit of an old hoofer these days, I do as much of it as I can. And I think athletes are great. They’ve got enough savvy to score the only drug around that is totally free and doesn’t involve having to break into a gangsta limp: endorphins. And on top of that, the good ones get paid to do something they love. Smiles all round, you’d think.
            And then you see Andy Murray. Jesus. Just what is it with this guy? And moreover, who enrolled him in the Myra Hindley School of Charisma? Dear, oh dear. Mind you, after Sunday’s lame effort in the Australian Open and the flush of realisation that he’s just not made of the ‘right stuff’ to become a champion, perhaps I should cut Bonny Prince Charlie a bit of slack. But then I see that dragged lip and think, nah, bollocks.

 There's always one. This discus thrower clearly doesn't know if he's coming or going.


It's wrong. And on every level...

            Friday sees the 6 Nations return to our screens. And I can’t wait. Rugby players have a whole range of facial expressions and normally get to show off a fair old few of them during the course of a match. Invariably, most of them have something to do with having their nuts crushed or eyes gouged. Proper stuff. Then it’s all smiles as they head off to the changing room for japes/bollock rubs and rubber ducks in the communal bathtub.

England rugby players show Andy Murray wots wot and oo's oo.
Just look at this fucker run and smile at the same time.

            The only thing that spoils it all is that munchkin of a Scottish bird* who hangs about pitchside to ask players and coaches inane questions. If England lose a game (heaven forbid…) watch Martin Johnson look like he wants to deck her when she chirpily asks if he feels ‘disappointed’. I’m telling you, if a female presenter isn’t called Gaby, fuck her off. 

*Mind you, she could be related to Andy Murray, and he gets her to wind up the English lot for a laugh…