Michael Douglas

"The words "Fuck off, knobhead!" couldn't have left our lips fast enough"

Yes, Comrades

So then I says to Mabel I says, "That's just it, it doesn't do ANYthing!" Oh ho ho! Anyway, moving on. Hello. We last spoke about my going to Manchester I believe. We didn't? Right you be. Three o clock, got the Fox's Glacier Fruits and toilet books packed and we're off on a drive, me and boss man. The course we're going to do is in Manchester and last I heard Manchester doesn't do visits, so we're off down the road, discussing people who put razor blades on flumes and sausage dogs covered in neon lights on King's Cross dancefloors. Bizarre, but true. I look at the hotel receipt and read in horror 'Double room'. It turned out not to be that. We arrive at said hotel. The steam from the shower revealed "HELP!" in the mirror, written backwards. Right, the haunted room of the Travelodge. Me arse. So we went out to Chiquitos. Was the business, even if it was Mexican food. Back to the Amityville Hotel. Lights out.

Up at the ungodly hour of 7. Had me first McDonalds breakfast for years...and for good reason. God almighty. On the way there, some feller on the radio was talking about single women mums. With my hand on my heart, I swear this is what he said. "Yes, I mean nowadays many men go on first dates with women, and all they think about now is this: 'Well, I could get a nice girlfriend out of this, but I could also get a very large tax bill" The words "Fuck off, knobhead!" couldn't have left our lips fast enough. Then he revealed who he was. Guess who he was. Go on, guess. You'll never guess. He was with the department of taxation. What did you expect me to say, Russell Brand? We passed the 'Manchester Working Class Library'. The mind was drawn to books about whistling at big titted birds properly; spitting in the Chinese you're about to deliver and being a right good chimney sweep.

We arrived at the hotel. Straight up to the 'Mezzanine Floor', feeling like James fucking Bond. So all of us are sat there, listening intently, but I can't help but keep staring at the tile on the wall that looks like Pac-Man. So the genius is rabbiting on about negotiations and higher reflective questioning and all I'm hearing is "Wacca wacca wacca". Eventually after a lunch break at Greggs, another session, I (that is, Gordon Gekko) dash to Victoria Station. The train is full, all the seats, aisles, the full shebang is packed out. We pass a Friday Street at Chorley Station, I alight at Preston and head for Glasgow. Glasgow to home. I overhear someone on the train talking to someone else on the train. I later see that it's the blonde that lives in my street, the quiet one. Always the quiet ones."What's her sister's name again?" "Donald" "Good to be home to moaning pissheads, Bunny Dread and that blimmin' hamster," I thought.

In a bit.

SD

The following is an excerpt from my Australia Journal 2008-09. This isn't the way to Amarillo, chaps

Tuesday 30th December 2008

The background music to this entry is Out of the Sinking. I love it. Mark is probably still pleasing whoever Abby is as I write this, quite right too. So of course there were no 'pebbles on a beach' today. I got up and we gave the house a clean sweep listening to the blistering sound of the Style Council. Then I came back 'home' and just sat around watching junk on TV, with one or two internet sessions here and there. Quadrophenia came on later on as well, mad fer it! Oh the booze shopping got postponed also, I still have no idea what to get. A keg of lager might do the job, but $200 later and I'd have no money left to spoil all the bastards back home.
 "Can you see the real me, can ya?"