The loneliness of the long distance surfer

So, it's now just after 4.30 am and I'm still bastard well awake.

Benny C, the crazy little Northerner, is asleep on the floor in my living room. He has to be at work in 2 hours. Hehehe.

I've spent the last few hours surfing the net, trying desperately to engage someone - ANYONE - in a meaningful conversation. It ain't happening.

But I'm amazed by the amount of people still awake in the UK and posting messages on various forums. Also, there are quite a lot of people in the UK chatrooms. Sadly, they are all buffoons of the highest order with absolutely nothing to say.

Which reminds me, I was recently 'kicked' out of a chatroom for offensive behaviour.

My crime? Trying to start a discussion. I explained to those present in the room that all I was trying to do was stimulate intellectual debate via an argument. Sadly, we're not allowed to argue anymore in this country. We must be nice and pleasant and caring.

Absolute arse. Since when did conversation become a crime?

I remember becoming quite angry, joining other chatrooms and complaining about this terrible injustice. I was, unfortunately, quite drunk so the point may have been lost in my incoherent ramblings. Regular readers of this blog will be used to these...

Recycling. Pissed. Photos. Update. (Edited due to sobriety.)

I've just put two empty Pepsi Max Cino (fuck you, I like it) bottles in the pink recycling sack. Although, truth be told, I have my doubts about exactly what's going to be recycled here. I suspect that some guy in a big warehouse somewhere, takes all the pink sacks, rips them open and tips them into a skip, where they are then added to the other landfill shit that is being buried in our green and pleasant land. It's all about ticking boxes. Trust me, I work for the Government and my entire fucking job is about ticking cunting boxes.

I work in security. I'm a qualified security auditor. I have certificates. But I've been told, don't actually go out and do security audits so that we can prevent terrorists, eco-warriors and the like from getting to our deep dark secrets, just tick a few boxes. Bunch of arse.
Anyway, I've been told to tick boxes. On paper, we're doing our job. We're making society safer, we're protecting assets, we're 'MAKING A DIFFERENCE'. Oh, if only. Bunch of cunt.

Just spent ten minutes looking through some old photos that I found whilst looking through my drawer for something. Photos of my Grandfather (the nice one) and my father (the white one). Came to belated realisation that both of these people that came before me had their own lives, dreams, hopes and regrets. Realise that the next time I see my Dad I need to ask him about his Dad. Reason? Because one day, my Dad will be gone and I'd love someone to ask me about him. He's my hero. Yes, he's an aggravating old bugger who likes to carp on about whatever topic of the week is currently annoying him, but he 's my Dad, so fuck it, he's allowed.

One day, I'll be him. Apart from the 'Dad' thing, cos I haven't got kids and I'm unlikely to have any. But apart from that, it is my duty to carry on the 'Leonard' line until my inevitable heart-attack-related death and be a right annoying bugger who'll piss on anyone's parade just to irritate them. So, just to sum up, I need to ask my Dad about his Dad because it's important.

Update.

The Gentlemen's Club is currently being taken to Cannes to see if the Director can get some financing to make the fucker. Poster and tagline available at www.zenfilms.com

The French and Pandas. And Cages.

A French playwright, Norbert Aboudarham, has spent a week inside a cage at the zoo to gain an insight into how pandas live for a theatre project he is developing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4926280.stm

He stated that it was "about the universe, you have to put yourself in a cage smaller than the universe." Well, that's hardly bastard well difficult is it?

A zoo employee stated that the experiment was a way of "questioning man about his belonging to nature". And all the time that Mr Aboudarham was communing with nature and learning to become one with the cosmos so that he could make a small bundle of money with which to pay the rent and stock up on unfiltered cigarettes, what was he actually doing? Using his laptop.

I shit you not. He broke up the boredom of contemplating the Universe by checking his e-mails, doing a bit of e-Baying and getting to the next level on Doom. Twat.

To most people, all of this will seem like a) a rather silly, yet lucrative, publicity stunt, b) a heartfelt attempt to discover the reality of the plight of caged pandas, c) pretentiousness of the highest calibre, d) a Frenchman taking the wrong things far too seriously, as usual, or e) a lot of old wank.

I'm withholding judgement until I see the actual theatre project itself. You can all sit and scoff, but I shall be able to self-righteously recline and nod intellectually as I watch a group of poorly paid actors cavort childishly around the stage earnestly attempting to communicate the spiritual decline of big, stupid Chinese bears that would rather eat sticks than fuck.

However, I think the cage thing is an excellent idea for two quite distinct reasons:

1) I am going to establish 'Le Zoo Humain'. Effectively, this will be an international chain of Human Zoo's in which people from across the world can see the French, safely behind bars, living in total seclusion from the rest of humanity.

"Look, Timmy! There's a Frenchman swilling back cheap red wine*, half naked, whilst disinterestedly mauling the disappointing breasts of his tawdry, lipstick-smeared girlfriend!"

"Oh, Daddy, can we come back and see the French people again next week? They make me giggle in my tummy!"

I have nothing against the French, but for some reason I just feel that they should be segregated from the rest of society. Like midgets. And Northerners.

2) Rule one in 'How to be an author' is - write what you know. Mr Aboudarham wants to write about Pandas, therefore he sits in a panda cage for a week. So simple, so obvious.

Taking that idea on board, and bearing in mind my current scriptwriting project which is about social isolation and the spreading phenomenon of Hikikomori, I have decided to radically alter my lifestyle and spend the next six months indoors, with no-one to talk to, listlessly trawling the internet in an unceasing quest to find some small flicker of human contact, recognition or love, whilst...

Shit.


*Those wine glasses that you can buy which hold an entire bottle; they were invented by the French. For children. To drink at breakfast time.

Time for resurrection?

There's an old adage which says, "Quit while you're ahead".

For instance, the current series of Hustle on BBC1 is really, really awful. They should have stopped after the second series. The new Derren Brown series on Channel 4 is also similarly terrible.

Sometimes, people need to learn that you really should stop while you're on top.

So, in that spirit, I've decided to restart The Blog of Eternal Disappointment.

After all, it was never particularly popular anyway, so it's not like I have anything to live up to.

Welcome back.