Take your place in #wankerdom

If you're going to work, you might as well work hard & make a load of dough.

A stupid person's the one that squanders an opportunity.

A stupid person also plays by the rules. Part of the game's to stay out'v the glare of the referee, whomever that might be.

Kentish folk

They're dull'n
unassuming looking
Product'v a real-good fuckin
Never beaten, for a moment,
But never really tried.

Skilled in something,
Nothing else, though,
Looking out, just,
For your health, yeah?
Ignorance, is fucking wealth, yeah?
Because I live in Kent.

Cannot interact, or nothing,
Product'v my decent schooling,
Spent my life just sitting, drooling...
I never had a thought.
My place, is nearly bought.

Empathy, sympathy,
How can these locals
Live like this?
What do they talk about?

The way I learned it
Is different from the way I think
they learned it.

They seem to get most'v the content of their speech from, where exactly? Sky sports? Each other?

That's before, we start to talk about, their readiness to jump to pick a fight somehow, but never really have one. Just keep staring at em. Think of them as frightened, mad creatures with no socialisation. Untested foes, generations of barely-unrelated chromosomal interrelations all living next to each other & marrying each other's children, and paying rent, or mortgages.

Then I think: "you're just, like me,
Trying hard, to get debt-free,
Trying hard, to watch TV,
A rednecked, shit-kicking, cunt like ME!"

Neighbourliness...

I'm pretty sure
a neighbour of mine
shouted out'v his car:
"You gotta licence to be out now, have you?" at me, as he drove past, just now...

It's been a weird week, for people living in the #Brexit suburbs, yet earning one's livelihood well inside #VoteRemain territory, in fortress #London...

It's brought out the worst in people, both sides of the coin, which about as much attention, it seems most people have really engaged with any real issues... BUT

People can't be blamed for being the way they are & it's all been rather frightening for everybody, particularly people who have made their home, here, from another place. They must honestly be having a time of it, now.

I see many customers & friends from other countries feeling a mix of fear & disappointment, as their home might justv well as told them they weren't wanted. I fear more, that this might be the truth somewhere to some, & thus we've finally become, what we're not.

Hard hitters & bullshitters

Everything seems smooth until we refuse to comply with either unjust laws or social contracts that we haven't yet approved of as one of the concerned parties. 

The prevailing culture of "do what we say or bear the consequences" is wearing, earing thin with all but the slowest, oldest or weakest among us. These laggards must also be  empowered to rise up and defend themselves from tyranny. 

The pervading notion of "Britishness" on the one hand, versus everything categorised as "unbritish" or something else doesn't have a middle ground that seems to be acceptable to anybody at all. 

My mum wants to watch this Carol service on BBC 2. This posh chap in a dress is currently reading from something by GKChesterton. She's going mental because she thinks he should be reading the bible to the TV viewers. 

I explained that of the 2% of the UK population that bothers its arse to go church, this Etonian mess being staged before us represents probably only the very "top" 2% of that 2%. 

'They can't read the bible,' I told her 'because the people don't want to hear it. They need to hit the market for this in the middle, to get the most viewers.' 

My mum asked whether they have ordinary kids in these choirs. I said that these over privileged choir singers were the kids of horrid daddies who all worked in canary wharf & put their vile offspring in private boarding schools so they didn't have to deal with them. 

It's bad enough that the Catholic Church decided to elect a small group of privileged people to sing for the rest of the congregation. 

This weird unbiblical state of affairs seems to mirror British society, which is being engineered & managed by a few wealthy middle class people while the rest of us do all the work, according to the whims of the affluent upper class, for whose benefit all economic activity is, and for whom all the wealth is being generated. 

She says I'm growing old and grumpy. I don't think I'm grumpy. Old? Yes,  but more angry than grumpy. Any thoughts in your mind? 

Foreign

I remember my first visit to a Malaysian village. Underdeveloped by the standards of the west at the time, it was the early nineties and the New Zealand shopping-mall designers had not yet arrived with their new retail experiences.

There were old markets, grimy and unsophisticated. Buckets of "animal products" - I saw what looked like a hollowed out and chopped-up snake - a big one - bits lying in a large bowl, for sale. To eat? Medicine? Not my thing, but as raw and savage as I'd ever gotten.

As I arrived, unused to the heat and climate, I wore a large bush-hat - like a brown cowboy hat but without the Crocodile Dundee corks.

The crowd were fascinated by me, my colour (white as a fish), my size (I was over 300lbs in those days) and my hat.  My presence was the talking point. Literally 60 villagers following my every move. Strange dialects "why's he here? What's he looking at now? He's moving! Quick!"

Everything was wrong. I sweated, dark patches under my arms - should wear a white shirt, it wouldn't show. Just about to keel over in the mud any moment. Like Jesus of Nazareth and his crowds of followers, about to have a heart attack.

I visited many times subsequently, up until the late noughties. Things changed shortly after my first visit. I learned the ropes. The people saw more "white monkeys" and commercialism took hold. More tourism from westernised stuff - more "italian-bean" coffee shops. More mormons on bicycles pedalling a new way of life. I even had chance to use my business skills to help design this new, retail "paradise."

The people still stared at you- they just weren't as curious, or as friendly.

I'd experienced something, perhaps for the first-time. Never again, that's for sure.

Did you ever wake up in a dream? Tell me about it...

North-South Divide

In the 90s a beer company started to advertise its warm, horrible tasting brew with anti-northern slogans. "We put cream on our strawberries, not in our beer" was the incredibly smart strapline that accompanied the sight of a pint of brown sludge. Of course, stupid as marketers are, these southern fairies forgot to consider that most of the population of West London was actually northern, Irish or Polish so it was all a bit self-defeating to be attacking anyone in advertising messages for a constricting market.

This North-South emnity goes wayback and is still alive today. I was talking recently with a crowd from the Manchester areawho reckon that 2012 London Olympics are just for London. Not like the 2002 Commonwealth Games which Londoners are still most grateful for and talk about almost daily.

It's the national news that gets to Northerners. They reckon there's a sort of "Londoncentricism" at work which means they don't get to hear about tax changes on the Wyrral, or the fact that Londoners like to leave the skin on their fish at the chippie, or that they don't all like to have gravy on their chips.

So for all you northen people that enjoy the Gonzo Lecture so much, I wanted to share with you a fine northern greeting I heard once:

"You spawny-eyed, parrot-faced, wassack!"

Feel better now?