Half Floppy, Half Erect

Welcome back my loyal readers to another edition of my bloggyblogblog. I guess this post might as well be my Christmas special edition of 2013, although as these are as regular as a trophy in North London, I think I would describe this as more of an annual ‘Only Fools and Horses’ style pathetic attempt at clinging onto the dwindling audience that I enjoyed in my heyday!! Nevertheless I feel that with the festive season in full swing I should rise from the literature ashes and re-claim my throne as the captain of...well...this blog.  I think I should begin by wishing all of you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year wherever you are and whatever you will be doing over the holiday period. Enough of that tripe, on with what you all have interrupted your schedules to read...

Am I the only one that giggles under my breath when entering a lift and the recorded voice announces the words “going down” from the speaker system? Possibly YES. For one main reason; you all have better things to do than pay attention to the innuendo hidden in a simple statement of the motion of descent. I happen to be very tuned in to all kinds of subliminal messages disguised as normal sentences. Another example is when a sports team has overturned a deficit to now be in front during a game. The commentator cannot help but utter the words “they have come from behind.” With an imagination and level of maturity such as mine that is comedy gold and gets me every time. I may not be revealing the sheer delight to the outside world but trust me, deep down I am chuckling lightly to myself.

I do honestly think that a couple of screws are loose in my head when I notice things, share my perception to others and get confused, angry and sometimes disgusted looks in return. I can remember going on a road trip with a few mates a while back and without thinking I just saw something and bleated it out hoping for at least one of them to agree with me. The response was silence and a unanimous NO from my fellow travellers. The observation was concerning the road signs for junctions and slip roads off dual carriageways and motorways. I pointed to the long white line which represented the road that we were travelling along and the curved line showing the direction of the junction and merely stated that it resembled a half floppy, half erect penis pointing in the direction of Tring and Dunstable. If you have ever looked at one of those signs and know what I am talking about please feel free to comment below and agree with me. If there are no comments then my mental retardation is confirmed.

I also think it is normal to giggle at funny address names. If you have looked on a map, saw a street named Bell End and not even let out a puff of laughter you are clearly an emotionless robot incapable of developing even the most basic of senses of humour. I pity you and anyone that has ever had the misfortune to come into contact with you, you sicken me and I hope you never reproduce and continue your gene pool. I am tolerant of most things but individuals who won’t smirk uncontrollably at a street named Beaver Close or Cockup Bottom will receive no time from me. That last street name is real before you start lighting the torches and sharpening the pitchforks. Do you honestly think I haven’t extensively looked up these names just for my own amusement? It’s in Cumbria if you want to look it up!!

I am fully aware of how childish I sound and I am sure I will grow up one day. Just make sure that when I do someone will provide me with a shot of whiskey and a revolver loaded with one bullet. “If we refuse to accept maturity eventually all trace of it will be lost” – The Captain 2013.

Merry Christmas J

Referring To One Pair Of Boxers As A “Years Supply”

Welcome back readers to a special edition of my blog. I haven’t really given much thought to Captains Blog of late as spare time is becoming more and more mythical in my day to day routine, so I will try to fit this in between my hectic schedule of self abuse and TV. This post is quite an easy one for me to just copy and paste onto ye olde bloge as it is something I wrote two weeks previous in preparation for best man duties at my mate’s wedding. I can confirm that it was well received and I can also confirm that much of this wasn’t said exactly how it was written. I had to improvise when the announcer introduced me as “Gary” and there were a few times when I went off track when the situation allowed, but this is what I had prepared and now I am sharing it with my adoring public. I’m sure there are a few future best men out there who might take some pointers from this speech, or indeed will learn what not to say...

Hello everyone, I’m Gareth, this is Keith and we are Derek’s best men. As joint best men we were assigned to share the duties today. Keith had the unenviable, difficult, nerve racking job of holding the rings during the ceremony...while I get the easy, straightforward job of speaking to a room full of the most important people in the lives of the bride and groom. Thanks guys

Now, before I start, the hotel manager has asked me to request for health and safety reasons that none of you get up on top of the chairs and tables during my standing ovation.

  

I would like to start with a toast if I may to the bridesmaids, who look very lovely and performed their role fantastically well, despite the arguments just before the service...I wasn’t going to bring this up as it’s a bit embarrassing. The argument was actually about who was going to get the first dance with the best men. Understandable argument...until I got within earshot and heard them saying, 'No you dance with them', 'No, you!'

Keith and I were both very honoured when Del Boy asked us to be his best men, we realised that we faced stiff competition from a handful of people who all felt they were in with a shout including close friends, family members, the fruit machine attendant in Showboat and the Domino’s pizza delivery guy.

I have known Del Boy for a long time now. We were work colleagues turned best mates and we even lived together for a while....I’m sure we will both agree that we saw far too much of each other in that time...he didn’t warn me that he sleeps naked...and above his covers.

Those days are now firmly in the rear view mirror and I have definitely seen my little Derek evolve from the guy that washed his clothes in the bath tub with shower gel, brushed his teeth annually and changed his bed sheets as often as he changed his underwear (enjoy your main course)...to the man you see today.

I have to say, when I first discovered that Dezza had proposed to Kim I was shocked...not the fact that he asked her as clearly they are made for each other, but that he managed to pull himself away from his online call of duty game long enough to ask her. As I said Del Boy and Kim are made for each other, soul mates are a better term. I must say you look lovely today Kim and I want to thank you for leading my mate down the path of love and happiness – even if he still refers to one pair of boxers as a “years supply”

This is their special day. I know that both Kim and Derek are delighted every single one of you could make it here today. It is also our opportunity as friends and family to show you how much you mean to us and to express our good wishes for your future.

Time to wrap up what has been an awkward few minutes for me...nothing compared to the awkward few minutes Kim will be subjected to later in the honeymoon suite courtesy of Del Boy.

Can you all raise your glasses and join me in toasting Mr and Mrs Aughton.

Riveting stuff I’m sure you will all agree, thanks for reading...

Throwing My Own Urine From My Bedroom Window

Welcome back beautiful people to my sanctuary for the insane and also welcome back to the not so beautiful people too. Everyone is welcome here, from the stunning to the grotesque. There is no judging here although most of my posts are based on my own biased and judgmental views so be warned. Where have three months gone? There I was sat at my laptop typing the words for my last post, sipping on a chalice of baileys on the rocks planning to make my blog posts more regular. The next minute I am sat here watching the cricket with a bottle of half strength lager thinking “bloody hell I’ve forgotten to do my blog for a while.” This is simply not good enough and I am writing this post with red wrists considering myself well and truly told off. Right then, on with the garbage you all came to read. Let’s hope this is more comedy than my last few, but I can’t predict that as I don’t really know what words are coming next to be honest. Let’s discover what lies in store together...

I am a proud Englishman. I love being part of this beautiful green country and its rich heritage and history. As a sports fan I always feel great whenever our national teams and athletes do well. Last year was an amazing year for British sport with the Olympic Games in London and the gold rush that followed, Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour De France, Andy Murray taking the US Open title, the cricket team becoming the no.1 test side in the world and Chelsea fluking the Champions League in the football. These achievements fill me with pride as a citizen of this country, but are not the main reason why I love being English.

Another good reason is the way we are perceived by the rest of the world...The plucky Brits, the stiff upper lip, our famous sense of humour and our poor dental hygiene. Why are we seen as people with yellowish black crooked teeth? Whenever I watch an episode of Family Guy involving an English gentleman we are depicted as either posh upper class pretentious aristocrats that have some sort of political superiority complex or as scraggy haired common cockney crippled medieval dressed incompetent buffoons. I half expect the uneducated of the world to believe that we still go around by horse and cart lighting street lamps every night with this new invention called fire. I admit that I have been guilty of throwing my own urine from my bedroom window in the past due to high volumes of alcohol consumption and being egged on by my Neanderthal mates. This doesn’t mean that the London streets are lined with excrement anymore and that cholera is a common disease in our nation’s capital.

The perception from the rest of the world isn’t the main reason why I love my heritage though. Nor is the fact that there always seems to be a Brit cast in the baddy role in big Hollywood blockbusters. The accent is well received in certain quarters too, especially the common Home Counties accent that I have. Some believe Cockneys to be Australian for some weird reason and many regional accents are mistaken for other nationalities. I think that our accents should be admired for what they are – proper English...The Queen’s English. Reinvent our language all that you want but it will never be quite the same as proper English. We should be proud of that but it is not the main reason why I love being British.

Our armed forces are admired all over the world for the way that they conduct themselves in hostile terrains and difficult situations. The Army, the RAF, the Navy and our special forces members are the most respected and envied, these brave men and women of our shores are all the proof you need that it is not necessarily the quantity that prevails but the quality. We pride ourselves not on having the biggest in numbers but the best, having fully trained men and women who all are there to prevent rather than eradicate. Our armed forces are a reason for us all to be proud but not the main reason why I love being part of this country.

Another compelling reason is our climate; ever changing weather gives us the greenest of meadows and the lushest of home grown crops and livestock. Earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes are rarer than a Scottish appearance in the World Cup. We have it so good on our Island that we take it for granted how lucky we are to have such mild weather systems. Our beaches are clean and sandy, ok they aren’t tropical but with tropical come snakes and big bugs so swings and roundabouts. This is another great reason to love being British but not the main reason for me.

Ok so here it is - my main reason for my love for this country and my pride at being a part of it. I love this country because I can sit watching cricket in my pants on my day off writing a post for my blog drinking beer and no one has any right to judge me for it...

Thanks for reading J

Wearing Nothing But My Casio Calculator Watch

Welcome back to my naughty step on the staircase that is the World Wide Web. What a response I got upon my return for my last post. 74 hits in the first two hours of it being published and that number has been steadily growing since. I guess this blog’s popularity is coupled with the fact that some of you have gone cold turkey from here for some time as my previous post was August 2012. You thought you were off it for good but you couldn’t resist one last score of sweet unadulterated class A immaturity. Now you are hooked again and will be looking for your fix each week to take the edge off of the mundane and boring nine to five. Fortunately my opinion of myself isn’t that high, in fact self loathing and non-satisfaction comes as standard. Especially after I have polished off a full Dominos pizza to myself, along with garlic bread and chicken kickers. I know full well why you guys keep coming back for more...Lack of options and boredom. To that I say fair enough so enjoy another piece of absolute excrement disguised as literature...

I wish I could go back to being a kid again with all of the knowledge and life experience that I have now. I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to be an adult inside my body at an infant age. To start with, I would be the smartest in my class by a mile...well I would hope to at least be in the top five anyway. My social skills at around nine or ten years old were probably not great, so I would love to go back and strike up an intelligent conversation with one of my teachers or try and beat them in a debate. I would be the best football player at break times, tell the best jokes and ace every exam. The main thing I would be able to do right as a kid is to actually do things and actually enjoy them for what they were. There is no way I could fit into one of those little plastic pedal cars nowadays, nor would I be able to run around the garden on a hot summer afternoon jumping in and out of a paddling pool wearing nothing but my Casio calculator watch. I probably could still do the latter of the two but society and the law tends to frown upon this behaviour in a 28 year old man.

I suspect that I would find it easier to concentrate on things like homework and extracurricular activities too. The amount of times I would be kept back at break times due to me not doing my homework the night before was unprecedented, easily a school record for its time. I had a very short attention span back then and only really made an effort to complete something when there was an incentive at the end. I remember one year spending my whole summer holiday mornings in Germany with my grandparents doing maths workbooks due to the threat of me being held back a year. If I were to go back now I would have done things different dramatically. This is not to say that I am not proud of my upbringing and the choices I have made, I am merely suggesting that with the mind that I have developed and the life skills in place, given the chance to be a kid again and have all of that in my head I would be a fool to do things exactly how I did them when I didn’t know any better.

I am thankful for the hand that I have been dealt. My life is certainly something that I will never complain about when things are put into perspective. I am staring the big 30 in the face in a little over 17 months and with that is bound to come a few important questions that will need serious thought and answers. Where am I going? What am I doing with my life? Questions that I will have to keep pressuring myself into answering. I haven’t got a clue what I am going to tell myself and frankly I am offended that my brain would go there on my birthday of all days. I am as confident and insecure as the next guy that comes along so I will just have to make sure that when my time comes to shine I shine the brightest. Thanks for reading...

Creating Buttock Crevices In The Sofa

Welcome back to my long awaited return to the blogging world. I am pleased to be back as it seems as if the angry mob of obsessive fans has waned and gone about their business of late so I am under no pressure to publish something quickly in order to satisfy the masses. Something that is less than the “quality” expected of me is just a reflection of me selling out and putting any old rubbish on here that is going to generate hits and comments. I happen to have principles, not many but I stand by the few that I have. One of those is not to give in to popular demand and public opinion. What I am trying to get at is I am not going to write on here just for the sake of writing. That is not the reason I started this blog. I wanted to vent my opinions and frustrations in a more comedic and fun way instead of standing in an empty room for 30 minutes screaming at the top of my lungs.

As the manager of a local Sunday football team I am constantly trying to keep everyone happy so that they all stay and play for each other. This responsibility has helped me to realise that not every opinion I possess may be the right one, or anyone else’s for that matter. Some things that I say or do immediately sound ridiculous in my head and don’t necessarily reflect my feeling at the time. It is as if I have some sort of emotional Tourettes syndrome where my mouth betrays my mind by bleating out concoctions of words that I would never say had my vocal chords given my brain time to process the consequences. In my home life I am much more relaxed and comfortable with how I conduct myself, until I am forced to bite my tongue when I am in earshot of a minor. I am constantly battling with my vocabulary limitations whenever I am around my nephew, niece or any of their little friends. I usually fill in the blanks of sentences with expletives, for instance; “where’s my *@!%ing wallet?” or the classic; “it’s *@!%ing cold in here.” I will allow your filthy minds to imagine the types of swear word used for these quotes. Around kids though, I would replace these with “flipping,” “chuffing” or “fucking.”

It is hard to believe that I am 28 years old and still this immature. I work hard to maintain this level of childishness and I try to keep my mind young, even if my body is fast becoming a vessel of strained muscles and aching joints. This is mainly due to my weekend commitments to the sport that I love. On a Sunday night I have done so much mentally and physically over the course of the weekend that my whole persona takes on the role of a geriatric warn down pensioner who likes nothing more than creating buttock crevices in the sofa with a blanket wrapped round me vaguely throwing food in the direction of my mouth whilst watching whatever happens to be on the telly at the time due to me being too lazy to locate the remote control. I really am that bad by the time Sunday evening draws in. I even ignore my kitty as he hovers above me on the back of the sofa catching the heat generated by the radiator behind. No matter how battered and bruised I get from football and how old my body feels as a result of it, I will always be young at heart and immature at mind.

I can’t help but have these thoughts pop into my head. Half of the stuff clanging around in there is benign and helpful to no one. It’s almost as if you could physically remove half of my brain and I would miss nothing. I wish I had a way to organise my thoughts and memories a little better than my current system of one in one out. It’s like my frontal lobe is the bouncer and only lets new stuff in if something else drops out. Who knows what vital information I have destroyed from learning that buttermilk doesn’t contain any butter? Maybe my only saving grace is the fact that there are some monumentally thick people out there that make me look relatively smart.

The opinions expressed in this blog are solely the opinions of the individual and don’t necessarily reflect those of the publisher, but as the publisher is the individual and this blog is all about the individual opinions of the publisher I guess the opinions expressed do reflect those of the individual and publisher. Thanks for reading...