No sex or violence. Or fun.
I have a friend who works in one of those multi-national corporations. You know the type, they make enough money every ten minutes to eradicate world hunger but spend it on branded paper clips. It's the kind of place where your emails are filtered for key words which might suggest creative thought, political feelings or any type of individualism.
So when I email him he often reminds me to be careful what I write, so as not to get him in trouble. Of course that's like asking Hitler to become a Rabbi; unlikely, for so many reasons.
In my desire not to lose him his job I manage to restrain but have often been given pause for thought as to what the least 'safe for work' email might contain. Presuming the exclusion of images and expletives, which would lead to the message being automatically filtered, I like to think it would be something like this:
Hi mate
How was your weekend? Did you manage to bury that little girl's body OK? I know the spot I recommended is pretty isolated but you do get the occasional dog walker, should be OK though.
I had a pretty chilled out one, spent Saturday fisting a dwarf with a severed pigs trotter in a synagogue. Then on Sunday we did some gardening and watched a video. That one you made with your brother, where you violate the unborn baby. It really got us both in the mood ; )
Quick question, when you hit your wife does it make her cook better? I always presume it does but I'd like to be sure.
Anyway have a good day
Lex
That's just off the top of my head, if you're reading this and you think you can improve on it send an email to lex@lexgenn.com and if any are particularly amazing I'll publish them here.
Cartoon Misrepresentation
I watched a lot of cartoons when I was growing up. It was only recently I realised that animals don’t wear pants under their fur. Or bounce.
Please don’t tell the R.S.P.C.A about me.
I also believed for a long time that if you ran off a cliff you had a good 2 or 3 seconds before you fell, in which if you changed you mind you could always try and run back.
Also it turns out that if you run into a wall you don’t get a ‘you-shaped’ whole in the wall.
You get a broken nose.
I wonder if I can sue Loony Tunes? No win no fee? Any lawyers interested?
In The Name of Science
When I was a little boy I used to enjoy taking apart old radios and stuff to see how they worked. Once I got hold of an old black and white TV, that was great. I must stress I wasn’t a vandal but I was inquisitive. Not in the sort of way serial killers are inquisitive about their victim’s insides. Or maybe in exactly the same way.
I wasn’t a freak. I must stress I wasn’t a freak. I really wasn't. I didn’t, for example, once use my Lego to build a little car with a little driver and a little passer by on the street, who was waving to them and I didn’t put firework bangers underneath them all and watch them blow up. Or film it.
OK, I did.
Don’t be frightened. It’s not like I ever did anything crazy, like burn a house down. Well, actually I did. No not really.
Well, yeah OK, really; just the top floor and roof. Imagine my dark eyes…see the fire…watch it burn. No seriously, I wasn’t some psychopath, it was an accident on the road of inquiry. Scientific inquiry. Or at least the eight year old equivalent.
The kind of desire for knowledge which makes you cut open a battery is, I’m sure, common with children; but it really is really something you need to grow out of. I speak from experience. There’s a name for it now I’m a grown up, it’s called ‘Invalidating the Warranty’.
No Manners Required
I enjoy eating meat. Especially ribs. There’s something primal about eating meat from the bone, something visceral, something real. It’s like camping only tastier.
The animal nature of how you eat them, with fingers and a face covered in sauce means ribs are a time and a place without manners. I might (might) use a napkin; I might (probably not) wash my face afterwards. But during, I am in a Zen-like state, at once totally focussed and de-focussed, filled with nameless joy. The single minded meat-frenzy is a thing of beauty and would scare most sharks. I am a sight to behold. It is not for the feint-hearted. I don’t want your pity or understanding, just look away, it will be over soon. Until next time.
Although even if you do look away, you may be able to hear me, as I’m told I make some kind of warthog-like grunting noise while I eat ribs. But like people who snore I am unaware, due to the above mentioned Zen-like state. And even if I was aware, I wouldn’t care.
If it was not for the threat of a heart attack before the age of 40 and cholesterol replacing my blood I would eat ribs every day, for every single meal including breakfast. And instead of birthday cake. And wedding cake.
What have you done to my little boy?
Last Saturday a woman knocked at my front door. “What have you done to my little boy?” She asked loudly, as the aforementioned child cowered behind her leg. That’s a serious question on Saturday morning in suburbia, especially to a fat, unshaven, balding man in a dirty, ill-fitting dressing gown.
So I looked down at the kid and I didn’t recognise him.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life” I said, like some kind of movie walk-on idiot.
“Oh really” She says, with an arched eyebrow and voice so loud curtains have begun to twitch. I’m starting to worry. It’s moments like this that transform you from That nice bloke who helped me get my new table upstairs to The dirty f*$&ing nonce at number 48.
I once again protested my innocence but it fell on deaf ears.
“Come off it” She mews “And then I get a clue "He saw you.”
He saw me? So I know this isn’t some kid into whom I have clattered while rushing down a busy street or who’s foot I’ve ‘accidentally’ run over with a shopping trolley while he bellowed his heart out in a supermarket. No, he’s seen something. My mind’s racing but I really don’t have a very sordid life, unless you consider it sordid to fist a rotten corpse I really don’t see…sorry, I’m joking, no I’m pretty dull really, I'm no more sordid than most, certainly no Formula One Boss. I don't get up to anything I'm not allowed to do within the confines of my own house. Of course if he was spying while hiding in one of the cupboards he might have seen something rude but then again what would he be doing in my cupboard? Unless I had paid him to be there. With a video camera. In which case he should have kept his mouth shut. Christ, he’s supposed to be a professional! Which of course he’s not and he wasn’t in my cupboard. Or at least if he was I didn’t pay him to be there.
And then another clue, she bleats,
“Last weekend, he saw you, in the kitchen.”
Now I know for a fact that was the weekend my girlfriend was away. And then it dawns on me, Saturday night…me…alone in the house…no girlfriend to make me eat healthily?
The ribs didn’t even make it out of the kitchen; I inhaled them straight from the pan in a tornado of hot red sauce and bits of shattered bone. He must have been walking past, he must have seen. The poor little tinker. He’ll never be the same again.
Olympic Pain
WOOOOO HOOOOO the Olympic flame has made it to China!
So what? Was there any kind of doubt it would make it? Surely if it had gone out they could have just lit it again? Or maybe not. Perhaps there is some kind of international flame embargo I don't know about. Perhaps established by over-zealous firemen. Are there firemen who like putting fires out so much that they start them sometimes, just to put them out? I wonder if you get lots of pyromaniacs in the fire service, who love the fires but are always secretly disappointed to see the flames die?
Anyway, there is clearly no international flame embargo so what were they worried about in ? Have they got some sort of national Chinese match shortage? If so that shows a staggering lack of foresight whether or not they have the Olympics coming up. I'm sure they could have got some by swapping some rice. Or tea. Or plastic crap no-one needs.
The real issue here, of course, is the Chinese human rights record and Tibet. There has been real pressure on the Chinese not to be heavy handed with Tibetan protesters. However in reality it's the Chinese police who need to watch out. They're skating on very thin ice. Sure, they may be heavily armed, they may be trained to the highest standard and enjoy a degree of viciousness (ironically) verging on religious zeal when dealing with those opposing the state but they shouldn't mess with those monks.
You may be thinking "They're monks! What are they going to do? Chant loudly?" That however, would be to significantly underestimate them. If you don't believe me, simply check out any Kung Fu film. It's always the monks you have to watch out for. Sure they're quiet, yeah, they keep themselves to themselves, but provoke them beyond a certain point and you'll be picking bits of your broken self up off the floor with a hand snapped in half, while a monk sits back down in the corner and chuckles.
I imagine the Dalai Lama* is at this very moment, standing in front of a courtyard full of monks, each going through their Kung Fu moves, in unison, while he looks on, pleased but biding his time.
*Not actually a lama
They'll Do Anything
This is my first blog entry. No one knows about it yet. It is a secret like the darkness that lurks within all of us. Well in some people it lurks, in others it is pretty open about running the show, child killers for example.
I was watching 'I'd do Anything' the other night, I'm not proud but I've got a girlfriend and she lets me watch 'Match of the Day' so fair's fair. The appropriately titled show is all about finding the next Nancy for an upcoming production of Oliver Twist. They're looking for an Oliver too. Although some rare epiphany of conscience has informed the TV execs that the shred by shred stripping of confidence and character assassination at the heart of these type shows might be frowned upon when applied to nine year old boys. Not be me but by most people.
We all know the soul destroying nature of these shows is why we like them but there is a more bleak darkness that lies within because it's overseen by Andrew Lloyd Webber. His face looks like someone was sick on it and it's slowly melting. But he can't help that. No, it's the eyes. Cold, dead eyes. It's like looking at a fish. Do you remember the noise Hannibal Lecter made, breathing air through his teeth? That's how I image Lloyd Webber breaths all the time. They call him The Lord, as if that invests him with some sort of respectability. Not in my book. Darth Vader was also a lord and he blew up whole planets.
Something is very wrong with Lloyd Webber, my girlfriend said 'there's something of the night about him' but I don't know, as I remember, when I last watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the child catcher came out during the day.
The show is called 'I'd Do Anything' and I suspect it's only a matter of (very little) time until that's the true nature of the programme. Prime-time Saturday night TV will see Andrew Lloyd Webber watching one of the girls Tango naked with a shaved wolf, while two others have a toddler corpse eating competition to avoid the sing-off and we'll watch the split screen spectacle with nothing more than a familiar sense of ennui.
And some popcorn.