We went on a coach trip in Tunisia - we went on two, in fact.
We thought we were going to go nuts hanging about the hotel full of fat British half-naked people, so we went on two coach trips, to see more of the country and shit.

We saw troglodyte type houses carved into mountains, waterfalls, ruins, rugs, camels, roman amphitheatres, and places where Star Wars was filmed.

The tour guide pointed all these things out to us.

The tour guide, in fact, pointed out everything.
Everything.

“The large area of sand to your right is called the Sahara Desert”

“There is an old building on your left. It is not important”

“On your right, there was the hotel where George Lucas stayed. It has been knocked down”

What he seemed most pleased with, though, were the things I was least sure should be pointed at;

“If you look out of the window to your left, you will see an old lady begging for money.
She is wearing the traditional dress of the region”

So, seated on the dusty ground, hands cupped in front of her, the woman was rewarded by half a coachload of fat Britons, pointing.

The best (?) occasion, was a long story, as we drove around a winding road overlooking a hilltop village;

“The village you can see….. Completely destroyed by rain in 1976… Villagers very poor….. unable to rebuild homes for their families, as you can see, they live under makeshift homes of cardboard, stones, and corrugated iron… many have never known a home, they build slowly, but are so poor they can barely afford to feed their families, let alone build.

You can also go to the toilet.”

Where?!
In their mouths?
Had we not taken enough dignity from them?
Was this *really* the tourist attraction I’d signed up for?

And other such wooly liberal complaints.

I have changeded my mind

Pimms is one of the nicestest things i know.
That and champagne and barbeques.
I know because I’ve had lots.

Rah

Am I the only person in the world that thinks Pimms tastes like chicken curry?

And being a vicar’s kid, I had to spend a fair amount of time in them, so I should know.
Think of it as a public service

1. Wear buttless chaps.
   The main reason for this is that many pews are old and poorly cared for, leading to many arsplinters.
   If, however, the pews are not a problem, since you will be standing most of the time, because you are getting married or are the vicar, buttless chaps are still inadvisable without careful waxing and skincare.
   Nobody wants to see your wobbly spotty botbot.

2. Sit on people’s knees
   Without asking them first. especially if they are old, in which case you might break their legs, which would be bad, and not conducive to quiet worshipful atmosphere.

3. Drink all the Communion Wine
   Even if it is really nice.
   And don’t burp afterward and go “Oooh, luvly“.
   People get really funny about that.

4. Grow a beard.
   This takes rather a long time, and churches can be cold at night. You may regret the experiment, when after four days of straining and grunty pushing, attempting to force little hairs out of your shiny chin, you end up with piles.
   Especially if you’re wearing those buttless chaps I told you not to wear.
   Please note, growing a beard if you’re a girl will take much longer.
   About 60-80 years.

5. Take small children on elephant rides.
   Many of the older worshippers find happy laughing children in church distracting. And children on elephants may be happy and/or excited.
   Also - I’m not sure you’ve thought through this plan carefully;
   Where were you planning on getting elephants from?
   They don’t have elephants in the Church of England.
   You ninny.

6. Talk loudly on your mobile phone.
   Unless you’re talking to God.
   Or, like, Jesus, or something.
   In which case you probably can.

7. Skip and sing songs from Disney.
   During the quiet serious bits.

8. Say stuff like you mean it.
   Although this is not unheard of in parts of the United States of the USA, the Church of England doesn’t like it when people do anything other than mumble and grudgingly murmur.

9. Poo. Anywhere other than the toilets, even if they are very cold and smell of mothballs, Murray mints and lavender. Definitely don’t poo on the altar. Or the vicar.
10. Perform any kind of open chest surgery
    It’s not sanitary, and God won’t like it, although the old ladies might.
    Or would they?
    No, they may not, actually, especially if there was blood everywhere.
    And pus.
    And screaming.
    As a general rule, don’t do open chest surgery in many public places, unless you’re a qualified surgeon and the person actually needs it.
    Little tip there.

11. Chew the icons.
    Although the statue of the nice lady and the hurty man may look like it’s made of chocolate, it isn’t.
    Stop it.

12. Fart and giggle
    Unless you can time it right so you actually get to ask the priest to pull your finger, which would be just fucking wicked.

13. Enjoy yourself, tell the truth, doubt, ask questions, be yourself honestly, laugh, be gay, be a full and complete human being, responsible for your own actions and considerate of all other human beings.
    Although those things are fine elsewhere.
    You can do them elsewhere.
    I’ll see you there.

Of course, you can do all these things if you’re a priest or a vicar or a minister, because God says you can.
Apart from the last one, of course, because the church says you can’t.

Aged and Ace - part Three

Auntie Jean was an extra relative, one of those friends of the family who becomes more part of the family than, erm, not.
A member of my Dad’s first congregation, she’d adopted my mum, and decided to look after her.

This carried on for years, though, through many moves, a divorce and ages and ages and ages of stuff.
She was a geordie living down south, and was loud and out-spoken and funny and lively. We visited her quite often, and I remember the apple tree in the garden and the way she filled every room she was in.

My mum was being sworn in as some big hoo-hah in the Methodist Church, and there was a big celebration high tea.
Auntie Jean was old, and frail by now.
She was being wheeled in in her chair, and had to go round the long way to get to the posh room where we sat.
For some reason this long route took forever, having to circle the building to find a lift, and then getting lost in endless corridors.

We’d all sat down at the enormous round table by the time she arrived, eleven of us, chattering away, and she arrived, this tiny white haired lady, and nestled into a space next my brother, exaggerating her tininess.
For some reason, her arrival hushed the table a little.

“Right”
she said
“Where’s the tea, where are the cakes?”

Tea was poured and the posh tray of cakes and pastries was passed around to her place.
She considered the selection, reached out and took the biggest, fattest chocolate eclair any of us had ever seen.
It was probably about the same size as her head.

“Right”
She said.
“Now you know who’s in charge. Talk amongst yourselves”

If I have to be an old lady, I want to be just like Auntie Jean.

There’s something about this young man’s sense of humour…
I’ve been meaning to write something about Big Blugger 4.
And now I’ll look like a copycatty thing.

boo.

That one post on this page wasn’t written by me.
It was written by someone pretending to be me.
Which is wierd.
But quite funny.

Not telling you who it *was* written by, mind, only that it wasn’t me.

Imagine, if you will, and I’m sure you will, because you’ve got an imagination haven’t you, imagine a 7 year old who has been drinking all manner of fruit juice, panda pops and other liquid refreshments befitting a small child. So the 7 year old is standing in a queue in the shop, and she’s been asking to go to the toilet for half an hour, but her appeals have fallen on deaf ears not because I’m deaf, but because we’re nearly out of the supermarket, darling, and then we can find somewhere to go. So she’s grumpy. Really fucking grumpy.

We’re in the queue at the supermarket, one of those queues where everybody stands in a line and when the cashier beckons you over when they’re free. A great British institution, queuing, and this is the pinnacle of the system. It’s a well-oiled machine.

Well it would be (a well-oiled machine, not a queue, because this is obviously a queue), if it wasn’t for one thing.

This particular queue is full of idiots. A whole fuckbunch of idiots; Glasgow’s finest collection of dolts, twats and morons. All in one shop. All in one queue.

And the grumpy bladder-full 7 year old and I are standing behind the World’s Fattest Man. I don’t mean that in any sort of derogatory way, you understand, but I’m convinced he’d just been visited by Norris McWhirter, who bestowed the title upon him in an official ceremony.

Cashier: (to World’s Fattest Man) Next please! Would you like to come over, Sir?

World’s Fattest Man: (stares vapidly into space)

Anna: (politely) Ahem. Ahem.

Cashier: (irritated) Would you like to COME OVER, sir?

World’s Fattest Man: (continues staring)

Anna: (still polite) Hrumph. Ahem. *Ahem*.

Child: (grumpily) Anna, is that fat man standing next to you *really* stupid?

Cue (queue?) Worlds Lardiest Gentleman, highly embarrassed, shuffling quickly to cashier avoid the next withering put-down delivered from mouth of Small Child.
I almost felt for him.
Almost.
But then, well…
Sometimes Children Just Rock.

Disclaimer: Obviously, you’ll have spotted that I started (and ended) this story by saying “Sometimes Children Just Rock”. The key word being “Sometimes”. This is because *sometimes* they suck arse. Not literally (I don’t want to get arrested or anything) but in the way that when you get *out* of the supermarket, they forget that they were particularly funny and start shouting, because you can’t find a toilet even though they’ve been asking for half an hour, and then you consider doing that car door/peeing by the side of the road thing, but you can’t because she’s throwing a tantrum and anyway, it’s very likely that the police will come along and catch you, because it’s illegal, isn’t it? and that’s the kind of thing that always happens to you when you REALLY don’t want it to.
And also you don’t have a car.

Ladies, Ladies, welcome, and gentlemen too!
Come on in, find a seat, and do try not to clash with whoever’s sitting next to you!

As always, Littleredboat is glad to welcome you to this, our first semi-annual style consultation, and gosh do we have news….

I can’t, I can’t hold it in, I simply can’t, ladies and gentlemen I was supposed to build up to it, but I simply can’t, it’s simply too exciting, it’s simply too wonderful it’s

pink.

That’s right.
Think Pink, think pink - it’s the latest thing, you know….

And don’t you shake your heads, I know pink’s been in before, but this time it’s different.
We’re not talking Hot pink, not Cerise, not Baby pink, no, this time, the shade we’re mad about is
‘barely-perceptible-except-on-the-seams-and-more-porous- pieces-of-clothing-complete-laundry-fuck-up-pink.’

Or Fuck-up Pink for short.

The new shade, is available on more items of clothing than you can possibly know,
and I’ll give you a quick flash to assure you of how dedicated to our style concept I am;
there you are.

From knickers to work shirts, socks, bras and vests to posh blouses and other people’s dog collars, fuck-up-pink is surely he only thing to be seen in this season.

This season, being, obviously, until we work out how to get the fucking colour out again.
Pink.
For Fuck’s sake.

Thank you for listening, ladies and gentlemen, and remember;
spread the word -
Pink is the new punk.

Aged and Ace - Part two

I was working in a theatre, last year of university, just showing people to their seats, selling coffee, and ice creams and such. It was mostly a complete no-brainer, smiling, nodding, being polite to people who considered you stupid and asked you stupid questions slowly because you were doing a low-paid job. Which people tend to do, and is one of the things that pisses me off most about how people treat customer service workers….

Whoo. Almost went off on a slight tangent there.

I mean, I like people, I really like people a lot.
Individually.
For some reason, en masse, they all start to look the same.
So people, individually, are lovely things.
PEOPLE however, are fuckers.

So they all start to look the same, and you serve each with a smile, which is seldom reciprocated, and you dazzle them with pleases and thank you’s which are barely acknowledged and rarely used in return.

I was standing, taking money on the coffee counter, a thin line of thirsty pensioners queuing at the Wednesday matinee, charging each a pound, smiling and serving and getting nothing human in return.

And one man came to the front of the queue, elderly, around seventy or so.
“Two coffees, please”
He said, I looked at the till, then looked up and smiled;
“That’s two pounds pleasesir”

He took a two pound coin out of his pocket, held it up, and instead of handing it to me,
he turned it in his fingers,
and made it disappear,
he showed me an upright empty palm, then reached out,
and took the shiny coin from my hair.

I stood, open mouthed and weak at the knees.
He winked, and handed over the coin.
“My grandfather taught me that”
He said.

In that moment he was Cary Grant and James Stewart and Dirk Bogart and Leslie Phillips.
I would have married him if he’d asked me.
Instead I gave him coffee.

He utterly deserves to be on the ‘aged and ace’ list.

At least I think I have, but there’s nothing cheers me up more than this article;

Coke introduces new 30-litre size.

I don’t know why it cheers me up so much, it just does.
It’s like a magic trick or something.
Sometimes that’s good.

Aged and Ace - Part one.

On my 24th birthday I had lunch with 8 British Old Age Pensioners that I didn’t know in a cheap hotel in Tunisia.

We’d decided that a day trip to Tunis and Carthage was exactly the rock and roll thing that should guide you into your mid-twenties.

We were, of course, wrong, and although it wasn’t rock and roll, in the slightest. It was a lot of really old jugs and walls that weren’t even whole walls anymore, they were like, broken and stuff, and what’s the point of that?
Rubble.
Whoop.

But it was fun, it was sunny and there were more mosaics that you ever thought existed.
And blue doors.

For lunch we were treated to the ritual humiliation of coach trip catering, being marched through a nice looking restaurant , where individual tourists and businessmen dined on exotic looking regional dishes, and herded into a sterile looking back room, where we were served standardised bland versions of local food, tempered to the wussy British tastebud. With chips.

Michelle and I sat on a table with eight heavily tanned wrinkly people, so tanned and so wrinkly that you wondered if whether, stretched out, they’d look like a collection of zebra or bunch of Bridget Riley paintings.

Seasoned British travellers abroad, each had developed their own area of expertise in complaining, for one it was tour guides;
“Well, I just can’t understand a word they’re saying”

For another, locals, particularly in markets;
“They just shout, and poke you. That doesn’t happen in St Albans.”

For another, it was the weather;
“It’s too sunny” (You’re in North Africa, love, try Inverness next year)

However, the conversation moved up to a new complainsational high when someone touched on “Hotel entertainment! They said there’d be entertainment! And what do we get? 101 ways of making people take off their clothes and jiggle. What’s entertaining about….”
“And the dancing? They said there’d be dancing, but I haven’t seen any, a lot of rubbing, yes, but no….”
“And the music?!”
“Music?! Ha! They call this music, there’s nothing musical about it….”
“Just a boom boom boom boom boom, and someone shouting over the top”
“What’s that called?”
“Rap? Is it rap? Oooh, it’s just….”

Michelle and I kept mouths tightly shut, partly because voicing an opinion seemed a dangerous idea - these people were angry - and partly because talking would involve opening our mouths, which held the sure possibility of spraying the table with giggles and food.

The oldest lady at the table however - quiet until this point - then chose to speak, though;

“You mean like that Em-In-Em. I think he’s terribly good. Very catchy.”

I don’t know if she then launched into ‘The Real Slim Shady’ - although in my head she did - because I had to excuse myself from the table before I exploded.

I like it when people destroy the stereotypes they seem to neatly fit in to.
Don’t get me wrong, I also love it when people neatly fit into ridiculous pre-set social stereotypes, that’s funny.

But when they break out of them - I love that.
So I’m declaring this Wicked Old People day, or maybe week, or perhaps two days, depending on how long it takes to publish these darn things.

So here we go - a bumper crop of ‘coffin-dodgers I have loved’ to make up for my poor volume of posting recently.
Hopefully.

Oh, I’m sure there are many wonderful things about this new version of blogger

The fact that it’s being used by a technical idiot who’s just managed to create and delete a long and beautiful post in one fail swoop, however, is not one of them.

Granted, that’s not their fault.
I’m blaming them anyway.

Everything’s going to be just fine.

Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.