Having argued the case against going out, it seems fitting that the case for (and against) staying in is examined.

The case for
Having just got back from the shops near where I work, I am quite wet, having been caught in a bit of a nasty downpour. All I wanted was a Poppy; in the end, I found that the hospital volunteers on the front desk had some. Tsk.

Therefore, the first piece of evidence to support staying in is: the weather. The weather is something that should just be something that goes unnoticed around you, but in the UK, it interferes too much with just about everything and can never be relied on for anything. Staying in protects us from the elements and this is a good thing.

Familiarity is a wonderful thing; being comfortable in your surroundings is essential for relaxing. If the telly is your bag, you can watch what you want, when you want to. You choose the music that you listen to, the food that you eat. You don’t sit in fear and discomfort as your guts play russian roulette with you when you trump: you need a poo, you go for a poo and hang the consequences, but there’s no danger or embarrassment from the smell or noise should your arse explode.

Coffee, homeground. You like your coffee the way you like it and you can have it exactly that way at home. You’re in charge of refreshments and snacks and you know that you won’t have to suffer crap pop and rubbish crisps that other cheapskates buy in and leave to go flat or stale. Such people only generally put beer and white wine in the fridge, pop is relegated to the back of a dusty cupboard.

Temperature tantrums. Some people don’t like having their central heating on and their houses are freezing. It’s not quite the done thing to take several layers of clothing with you when you go to visit somebody for an evening. Staying in, you can crank the heating up to above 8°C, or put on as many jumpers as you need to.

The case against
Shutting yourself away from the world and limiting all interaction with peers to workplace conversations can result in a person going mental. Isolation from society warps a person’s mind as the people “outside” become a single, faceless, parasitic entity: “That lot of lazy bastard dolescum”. Populations in entire towns and cities become dehumanised and people become a worthless enemy.

Or that’s what I’ve heard at least.

You stay in, but you withdraw from your family: you’re not interested in what they watch on the TV and everything else is a mither. Shut away in your study, you surf the internet and think of things to make your life better. You simply cannot survive without the very latest PDA or iRiver. You become an Amazon whore. So what if you spend hundreds of pounds each month, buying junk off the internet? Some people spend that much on a night out and at least you’re not rotting your liver!

How are you ever going to meet that special someone if you never leave the house? They’re not going to e-mail themselves to you! Staying in is fine if you’re happy staying single.

Finally, you have no chance avoiding the begging telephone calls from your old universities’ alumni fund volunteers. Staying in last night cost me £20 for the University of Warwick and no doubt I’ll be getting hassled from Leeds soon too. Grrrrr, I never got any scholarships.

Summing up
Despite certain negatives, the advantages of staying in far outweigh the disadvantages. Just think, if I was at home at this very moment, I’d be able to go to the toilet to relieve the terrible discomfort I’m currently experiencing as my colon conducts itself in a symphony of dirty protest. I fear I may be pissing through my arse come my next toilet visit.

Staying in comes out on top every time.

Coming up
Yes or no… Slanging match… The hunt for Red Panda… Cakesniffer in offline horror!

“Some call it theatre and education, I call it, AIDS in a van”

It’s weird being a social cripple. You spend your life convincing yourself that going out is a BAD thing; getting quite worked up about things as the event approaches, wondering whether a convenient bolt of lightning might strike you down to give you an excuse not to go.

The problem with going out is that you leave your familiar surroundings behind you. Apart from your own home, there are very few places where you’d feel able to have a poo – I only have two “safe houses” for this activity and this is quite a problem with my toilet obsession.

When out with people, you feel forced to converse with them. What about, for fuck’s sake? There are certain no-go subjects: religion; politics; other people’s kids; holidays; home improvements.

So the conversation drifts into the latest goings on on the TV:

Them “What programmes do you like watching, Tina?”

Me “I don’t really watch the telly, I don’t like it much.”

Them “So what do you do during the evening?”

Me “Piss about on the internet, go to the gym when I’m not too knackered…”

Them “Really, what do you do on the internet for an entire evening?”

Me “I have this weblog where I write about hating going out with colleagues because I don’t have anything much to say to them and I don’t want them to know anything about me….”

Them “Really???? Is that really true?”

Me “No, I’m kidding! I just download porn.”

Them “Hah-hah-hah – you had us going there for a minute! I thought you were one of those weirdos with an online journal. What sad fucks they all are, writing about work, their families and CATS! They always write about cats, the sad cunts.”

Me “Yeah, cats. As if!!”

Fuckers.

So I tend to direct any conversation towards the safe (food) or the surreal (my food preferences), or better still, just get on with my food and speak only when spoken to avoiding certain topics of conversation completely (relationships).

Going out and not drinking is not much fun, especially when the conversation turns to why I don’t drink. Are people thick? Here’s a tip: if somebody tells you they don’t drink, you don’t need to ask “What, ever?” and you should NEVER follow this up with “Why’s that then?”. The reasons for this are:

a) People sometimes don’t drink for religious reasons and first rule of going out is: Never talk about religion.

b) Other people who don’t drink may well be reformed alcoholics and it’s really not fair to pry into that sort of thing. It makes things very uncomfortable since the reformed alcoholic knows that they can’t fall back on “Because I’m a methodist” because that would be in breach of Rule 1. They then have to make up some shit story about, “Oh I just got out of the habit of it and now I don’t bother at all. No I CAN’T HAVE TIRAMISU FOR PUDDING!!!”.

Chain reaction
A-KICK-two, three, four-STEP-two, three, four

Ever seen how women at weddings (and similar dire, torturous functions) dance to Chain Reaction, Uptown Girl and Simply the Best? Don’t you ever wish you had an AK-47?

Of course, here in the UK, weddings are usually finished off with the bride and groom being surrounded by a crowd drunken, vol-au-vent-overdosed wedding guests who encircle them while singing along to the Tina Turner classic. With hands held and arms raised, the swaying crowd descends into the Hokey Cokey. The result is literally “Murder on the dancefloor, but you’d better not kill the groom“, the happy couple are left on the verge of death under a pile of middle-aged, sequin-clad women and drunken uncles with ties wrapped around their heads.

Thank you Coldearth for reminding how much I detest these happy occasions, although the sausages on sticks and chicken drumsticks are usually pretty good.

His stillness was total. The epitome of comfort, Max Mousesniffer slept as he had for the previous three hours; the twitching of an ear and the odd grunt, the only sign of life.

It was hard, being eleven and carrying the mantel of Best Cat in the ENTIRE World, but he fulfilled his duty with great aplomb, maintaining his energy levels by sleeping for all but two hours of the day.

His waking was signalled by the opening of an eye. He perused the annoyance that had arrived: “Oh, it’s that mong, Otto. One-eyed fucker. Wish he’d piss off and stop acting such a dick.” With a stretch, a yawn and a scratch, Max Mousesniffer adjusted his position and returned to sleep, a spot of dribble suspended from his mouth.

…And so it begins. I think I’m going to start a new blog in the style of the diary of supreme feline being, Max Mousesniffer (the name was Herge’s idea).

It’d be great to know what our pets think of us. They probably think we’re all stupid: “What is it with getting up at the crack of dawn, getting yourself soaking wet, blasting your head with hot and noisy air and leaving the house for TEN hours a day when you could just stay in bed and get up to mither a bit of food from the Can Openers? People are idiots.”

They’re such creatures of habit though. You get up at 5.30 or 6am during the week and they’re impossible to move. Otto insists on sleeping next to me; it’s lovely having him cuddled up, but because one side of my bed is against a wall, I have to get past him to get out of bed. He’s like a sulky teenager if you try to shift him before 6.20am during the week, but if you’re not out of bed and getting his breakfast by 6.30 at the weekend, he comes mithering me to get up. He starts by trying to be subtle, sitting on the windowledge and looking through the gaps in the blind, then trying to get his entire head through the gaps to see what’s going on outside. This results in the shuffle…. bang… bang… bang… shuffle of cat stuck in venetian blind and venetian blind against window. When he gets bored of his squirrel tormentors, he jumps on the bed and starts to tap my harm – nice and soft at first, then followed by the subtle hint of claw… tap, tap, scratch. So you get up to feed him, and he leaves it anyway, but comes back to bed with you once he’s satisfied that you care about him. Little bastard.

It’s such a lovely thought knowing that while I’m sat here, knackered and so very tempted to shut the office door and put my head down for an hour, they’re all at home, curled up on comfy chairs and beds.

Is everybody coping with autumn as badly as I am? So very tired and fed up.

Bloody blog’s disappeared again.

That’ll be Hallowe’en or “Trick or Treat Night” if you’re stupid.

I’m quite looking forward to having the kids coming round to disturb my tea with their pathetic renditions of “We’re witches, of Hallowe’en, oooowwooooh. The scariest you’ve ever seen…”. I’ve a mind to have two prize bags: one filled with delish sweets and chocs and the other into which I’ve emptied a couple of cans of cat food for them to dip their mucky little paws into.

Failing that, I might turn off all the lights in the house and stand right in front of the window, staring out into the black night. Or I may dress as a monk and hide next to the front porch and chase them up the garden path, making ghoulish noises. Or perhaps even goulash noises.

On the radio this morning, they were going on about “How will you all be celebrating Hallowe’en?” – do you celebrate Hallowe’en? Personally, I “celebrate” it by spending the evening opening the door to begging dwarves who steal all the chocolate that I bought. All the time trying to look amused and scared by their outfits. I’d be scared if one of them was dressed as my French teacher from secondary school – she was mighty frightening!

Bloody hell, Kate Bush has done a cover version of Sexual Healing on the B side of King of the Mountain. How bizarre.

So yes, Lancashire is quite famous for its witches, funnily enough. They burned a load in Pendle and Clitheroe.

It’d be quite good if there really were supernatural beings that emerged every Hallowe’en; I’d quite like to meet a ghost and have a conversation about way back.

Actually, I wouldn’t. I’m fucking TERRIFIED of the thought of seeing a ghost. No idea why, but I am. It goes against all my beliefs, and my logic tells me that there’s no such thing as them. I suppose that’s why I’m really scared of seeing one. (Cue April).

A matter of life and death
Just had a distribution list “Awwww”/”Read this, it’s really hilarious” e-mail. This one is entitled Animals are really people in disguise, sent with HIGH PRIORITY, READ ME IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE I’M REALLY IMPORTANT! status. Animals, people in disguise eh? I think that’s pretty insulting to animals.

I get a lot of e-mails at work and it’s my preferred method of communication because it means you a) don’t have to speak to people and b) have documentary evidence of information that you’ve given to folk. Some people INSIST on sending all their e-mails with those little red high priority exclamation marks on them. Fuck right off. Nothing’s that important and if it was, you’d be either phoning me up, or knocking on my door and hand delivering it. Nobheads.

The equivalent of this in the office is putting papers on people’s chairs so that the would-be occupant can’t take their seat before picking up the oh so very important bits of paper that have been put there. I’ve informed my colleagues that stuff gets put on my chair goes in the bin

I am truly a joy to work with.

Run like the wind!
Does anybody know what a runtime error is, why I’ve started getting them and how to make them FUCKING STOP???

…me and my hog

Mars is supposed to be quite close at the moment; the closest it’s been for years and will for 13 years. I don’t understand planets and space and crap like that, but I do like to have a look at these phenomena when they occur.

Of course, being in the UK my enjoyment of such events usually amounts to a big fat ZERO because of clouds and street lighting and stuff. Not knowing where to look (except “up”) doesn’t really help either.

Step back in time
Clocks go back tonight, thank fuck. If I was a proper single person, I’d be out clubbing till about 4am and the change back to GMT would give me another hour to enjoy myself. As it is, I’m just looking forward to an extra hour in bed.

Of course, I’ll need my rest because tomorrow is the big day for my: maiden bike ride. It’s going to be wet and windy (now, there’s a surprise), but it should be fun.

As far as two-wheeled torture goes, it seems that having a bike is quite the in thing at the moment. When April mentioned dusting off her bike and taking out so she could piss people off, I kind of pictured her on a sedate Miss Marple type of thing. How wrong I was, she’s got a fucking monster! Apparently, it’s also very “in” to refer to your bike as a “hog”. No idea on that one, pheraps somebody could explain.

Toxic soup
It’s soup season. Well, when all you have for your lunch at work every-fucking-day is a minestrone cup-a-soup (Bachelors, mind you), it’s always soup season, but it’s now proper soup season. Got back from my abortive and hungover trip to the shops to find that Mum (awww bless her and her axe-wielding ways) had made a pan of soup – an excellent cure for the ill effects codeine metabolites. It was delish and not at all toxic, but it provides a good link to Funny Thing’s blog, “Toxic Soup“.

If you can forgive her for being Welsh, you’ll find that this is actually quite a good, well-written and funny blog. I didn’t think the Welsh could read or write, but there you go. She gets extra Brownie points for hating pink and girls with dolls.

Voice of an angel
Not an earth angel, another WELSH angel, of all things. Is Charlotte Church Welsh?

Charlotte is a young woman who found fame as a little girl, singing things that you’d hear in churches and the like. It was all very sickening and she was far too sweet. Anyway (I’m hearing heavenly choirs again), she’s all growd up now and I quite like her: she smokes; goes to the shops in her slippers and I also think she has a fab voice for pop music. She’s a touch naff, but she sings effortlessly.

Not like the fucking terrible Joss Stone, who is quite frankly, talentless and very boring. She’s developed for herself one of those husky rock voices that she belts out. Joss dear? sometimes you can try a bit too hard, love. Give up.

New CD
And now for your amusement, the track listing of a new CD that I’ve just burnt for myself:

1. In between days – The Cure
2. Hung up – Madonna
3. So good – Rachel Stevens
4. Lola’s theme (extended vocal) – Shapeshifters
5. King of the mountain – Kate Bush
6. Too funky (that’s me!) – George Michael
7. AKA Only time – Lemon Jelly
8. Hallo spaceboy (Pet Shop Boys remix) – David Bowie
9. Once in a lifetime – Talking Heads
10. Crazy chick – Charlotte Church
11. Lola’s theme (radio edit) – Shapeshifters
12. Superfly guy – S’Express
13. True blue – Madonna (not sure how that got on there)
14. Pump up the jam – D.O.N.S. feat Technotronic
15. Freak like me – Sugababes
16. Love on your side – Thompson Twins

Freaky mixed up shit, but it’s OK for the car.

I’m off outside to look up.

Fear, anxiety, worry, fright, horror, trepidation, terror, dread, apprehension…

Of these synonyms, we’re lucky in that we rarely, if ever, experience horror, fright or terror. However, we all encounter fear, to some degree or another. I’ve been asked write something about my top ten fears, but I honestly don’t think I have that many. I’m scared of trivial things, but there are only a few things that I really worry about that I know I would never want to experience.

Losing my parents
Not in terms, of not being able to find them, but in terms of them dying. It’s one of those things that I’ve always dreaded since being very young and I really don’t want to contemplate a time when they’re not around, to the extent where I’d prefer to die before them. If only they weren’t so fucking annoying, then I’d be able to appreciate them a bit more while they’re still here.

Losing my independence
My family and friends are under strict instruction to switch off the life support if I ever end up in a situation where I’d be faced with losing my independence (for example, if I became quadraplegic following an accident). I also have a fear of developing some sort of degenerative conditon such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or MS, mainly because you’d know that you’d eventually come dependent on others, but there wouldn’t be much you could do about it.

Being alone in old age
I don’t really have anybody and although this is fine for now, I’m a bit scared of having nobody around for companionship, or even somebody to care about me, should I ever reach old age. I like my own space and my own company, but I find I tend to go a bit mental when I don’t speak to people. It’d be nice to find somebody to settle down with, but I really don’t think it’ll happen.

Dying scared
Death doesn’t worry me. I’d be OK dying tomorrow so long as it was quick: I’ve done all things I ever wanted to do and, quite frankly, I’ve had enough. However, I really don’t like the thought of dying in a situation where I was scared, for example being kidnapped, tortured and murdered, or dying trapped somewhere like a car that’s been submersed in water or is on fire.

Being homeless
I don’t really have a home of my own, I live with my folks. This can be a nightmare, but if you look on the bright side, it’s reasonably comfortable, my cats are here, my parents are generally OK. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being homeless, it must be bloody horrible.

Being in constant pain
I’m pathetic and I told cope with pain very well, I would hate to have a condition that meant I was in constant pain.

Going bald
Seriously! Some might think it would be a blessing with my hair, but I would really hate to lose my hair.

Other things that I’m scared of

1. Spiders and creepy crawlies
2. Noises at nightime
3. Unfamiliar situations
4. Heights
5. People invading my personal space

Gosh, that was a cheery old post!

PS Did you get the title? Cake Fear, as in Cape Fear? Fuck, I’m wasted.

Seriously, I’m completely wasted. I’ve got a terrible codeine hangover and I feel fucking dreadful. Went for a walk to the shops earlier, had some stuff to buy and was stood in the queue at the till when I realised that I’d not brought any cash or my bank card with me. Turd.

…400th post

Is this going to be something special? Nah, is it heck. It is going to be a short list of only a few items, detailing why I’m happy at this particular moment.

1. Dear Herge is back with something brilliant. I was so very pleased to see that he’d posted yesterday evening and it looks like a break from blogging has done nothing to stem the flow of his creative juices. Anyway, for those that haven’t experienced Angry Chimp, what the hell are you doing reading this crap? Get over there, find the archives and start right at the beginning, way back from February. You won’t regret it, I promise you.
2. I am happy because I’m having a codeine moment.
3. My finances seem to be getting settled at long last. Down to only £1000 on credit cards (only!) and my car loan.
4. Max is on the bed next to me, he’s gorgeous.
5. The clocks go back tomorrow night and we all get an extra hour in bed on Sunday morning.
6. I have managed to keep to my promise to get back to the gym – at last – I’ve been twice this week. Plus I’m going for my first bike ride on Sunday – really looking forward to this.
7. I’m going to see the League of Gentlemen stage show on Tuesday.

Such a lame post.

OK then, 6 things that I’m happy about, but there are hundreds of things that I hate about my life – really major, arse-ache things, but I can’t do much about them.

You know when you’ve had a cut and it heals and the scab gets itchy, but it’s still sore? I’ve got one on the back of my hand and it’s getting right on my tits.

And you know when you’re doing a bit of exercise and you can feel something giving and you should stop, but you don’t? Well I felt my knee tweak at the gym earlier and now it’s fucking killing me.

Grief junkies

I recall posting something about this sometime shortly after the 7th of July terrorist attacks in London, but there’s something going wrong whereby a large proportion of people can be classed as “grief junkies”. These are folk who jump on any bandwagon after a natural disaster, death or murder of a child, terrorist attack – for some reason, they need to demonstrate their grief for people they’ve never even heard of, let alone met. I’m at the other end of the scale and, rightly or wrongly, tend not to care.

Because of the tragic events involving fans of Liverpool Football Club, the people of the city are used to trauma and grief. And, not wanting to say anything out of turn against the victims and families of the Hillsborough disaster, there were a LOT of people who, with the loosest of connections, really jumped on the grief bandwagon and have stayed firmly on it ever since. This type of person revelled in the retained organs scandals at Alder Hey Children’s Hospitals and they loved every second of the kidnapping and murder of Ken Bigley (who I don’t think had lived in Liverpool for decades).

Rightly or wrongly, because of the grief junkies who have hijacked certain events, people from Liverpool have managed to get themselves a bit of a bad reputation for wallowing in the sorrow of others. And this is a very roundabout way of getting the main point of this rambling pile of crap:

Tributes left for a dead chicken
Flowers and tributes were left in an alleyway where the body of a mystery dead baby was found – before police realised it was only a chicken foetus.

A member of the public discovered the remains in a back alley in the Anfield area of Liverpool. Police cordoned off the scene but soon realised that it was not a human but a chicken foetus. Well-wishers had laid more than a dozen bunches of flowers at the scene, along with cards and teddy bears.

Local gossip
One of the cards read: “RIP Little Baby. Safe in the arms of Jesus. From someone who is a loving mother xxxx.”

Merseyside Police told the community on Monday to “stop grieving, it’s only a chicken”. A spokeswoman for Merseyside Police said: “It seems a member of the public saw the remains of a foetus, which possibly resembled a human foetus, and called us.

“We cordoned off the area to investigate, as we would with any possible suspicious death, but it became apparent it was not a human foetus.

“The flowers and cards are obviously the result of local gossip, but we can assure people that the remains were not human.”

Conservative MP and editor of The Spectator Boris Johnson was criticised last year after commenting in the magazine that Liverpudlians were “hooked on grief”.

The problem with tasks at work is getting started in the first place. Given a blank sheet of paper, it’s sometimes difficult to get those first words down. You have the overall idea of how something should look, but how to build sentences, paragraphs and all the rest?

Sometimes things are made complicated when you have a finished product that you need to modify, or customise for a particular setting. Faced with a huge document that needs adapting for this locality, my initial thoughts are “Fuck, where do you start?”. One factor that’s making the task more difficult is that I’ve got the PDF and not the original files; although I have Acrobat, it’s a complete fart to use it to edit large portions of a document – another thing to give me an excuse to wait until next week when I can retrieve the stuff from my other base.

So I’m left contemplating. No, it’s not as grand or constructive as contemplating, I’m left like this:

Of course, I could just get on with it and the day would fly by, but it’s much more fun setting the world straight with the wonderful Marie. Marie is a 50-odd year old, straight-talking Scouser, who I see as a sort of “auntie” figure. I just managed to share my feelings on my disinterest in society – a disinterest that some might call “hatred” – before she had to leave for an hour or so. In a short while, I shall leave for a trip to the local shopping centre where my “disinterest” in society will be fuelled by the skewed spectrum of the population that patronises the place. Time to see if Jamie’s School Dinners and associated bandwagon jumpers have had any impact on the consumption of pasties and other savouries; I think people are moving on to Subway because they think that “assmbled before your eyes” equates to “healthy”. Tsk. What difference does it make? It’s people’s choice what they eat, let them get on with it.

Tackling underage criminals
Good to see that the management of the afore mentioned shopping centre are tackling the problem of unruly children head-on. They’ve installed a cage in the centre of the shopping area with 10 foot high chicken wire fence that the screaming monsters are locked into. I think it may have an electrified floor too because there was a lot of jumping and sqealing going on. EVEN BETTER was the contraption down which children are hurled from an upper level. I’m not sure what they land on, but judging by the screams, I think it might be a spike pit or acid bath.

I was going to take a photo of these torture chambers, but I fear I may have been charged with infringement of these dwarfish criminals’ human rights.

Missing
Notice anything missing from this picture?