I woke up in the morning with a spring in my step. At least, I’m assuming that the spring in my step was there when I first woke up; I obviously didn’t discover it until I was out of bed and engaged in the act of stepping. But to be honest it doesn’t really matter when the exact moment was that the spring in my step was first present. All you really need to know is that, at the moment when it mattered, i.e. when I was stepping, the spring was very much there.
But why was it there? Don’t look so worried, I’m not expecting you to have an answer; it is a rhetorical question. It is yet another one of my many dramatic devices that I employ from time-toTime in order to create a certain amount of tension. But is it really necessary at this particularly early stage in the story to build tension? Come on, answer me! I said, is it really necessary? Can’t you tell the difference between a rhetorical question and a genuine one? Obviously not, shut up, that was a rhetorical question you fool, I don’t need you to answer! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lose my temper. Join me in the next paragraph where I promise to be the perfect gentleman.

I made the journey to work, past the infamous Pelican crossing; yes, the very same. It now has a commemorative plaque on it incidentally, that is inscribed with: “as made famous by David Eagle”, and then the URL of the blog post in gold lettering, http://www.davideagle.co.uk/from-chickens-to-pelicans.OK, I’m exaggerating, as you may have suspected; it wasn’t the full Url, it didn’t have the “HTTP://www.” prefix. You can’t expect the council to fritter away money willy-nilly, especially in this current climate.

I entered my office. The spring was still very much apparent in my step by the way, just in case you were wondering. I would have told you if it had gone. What kind of a writer do you take me for? That was a rhetorical question.

My spring-loaded step took me to my computer. I switched it on, opened the document, entered the print menu, selected my printer from the list of networked printers, hit the print button, sat back in my chair, and waited. And then, that message appeared on the screen. That same-old message making that all-too-familiar proclamation: “sorry, the printing device cannot be reached”. The printing device cannot be reached? But you are less than a metre away from the “printing device”, you stupid computer! You are practically touching each other. In fact i am pretty sure I can sense the sexual tension in the room between the two of you, you are that close.

But what had gone wrong? I thought today was meant to be a new beginning? Yesterday, for the first time since working in this place, the printer had worked. After 1 and a half years of this same message telling me that my “printing device can not be reached”, it had finally worked. When I first started working there I was a less cynical and more optimistic person. I suggested to the IT people that the problem might easily be fixed if we connected the printer to the computer via a cable, but my suggestion was immediately dismissed. The response from IT was that this would only add “unnecessary complications”. It seemed to appear that any intervention at all from the IT department would add “unnecessary complications”, since the IT department’s solution had been to simply ignore the problem and do absolutely nothing. But then yesterday, completely unexpectedly, an IT man had ventured into my office.

“ah, hello, I think you must be lost” I gently told the man. I adopted a calm and collected approach with him, after all it must have been terrifying for him to have found himself outside of the confines of the IT department. Goodness knows how he had got here. In all the time I’d been working here I’d hardly ever seen anyone from the IT department. But when on the rare occasion that they did respond to a call, they had always come in pairs. In all my time in this job, I had never seen a lone IT man. But now here he was, standing in my office. This needed to be handled with tact, I thought. Perhaps he had set off with his companion, but somehow they had got separated, and now he’s come wondering aimlessly into my office. I could mention my printer to him, but this was hardly the time or the place. It must be distressing enough for him – bracing this unfamiliar territory alone, unable to reach his IT friend – without adding further trauma by suggesting he tries to fix an IT problem. Hmm, perhaps they should have connected themselves together with some cabling.

The man’s response took me aback. He did not seem dazed, confused or afraid. He informed me in a very jolly manner that he was here to fix my printer. Well, now it was me who was feeling dazed and confused. I asked him to repeat what he’d just said, which he duly did, and yes, I had heard him correctly, he had said that he had come to fix my printer. I stood there shocked. And then I flung myself at him and embraced him, which was a bad move because I got tangled up in a load of cabling. Maybe he was connected to his friend after all. I extracated myself and apologised, explaining to him that his statement had come as a bit of a shock to me. He chuckled and made his way to my computer. Hang on a minute. He chuckled. An IT man with a sense of humour! In all my time of working here I had never seen anything quite like it. He then did something that completely knocked me for six. He reached behind the computer and connected a cable. So that’s what the cable was for. He then moved over to the printer and connected the other end of the cable to the back of the printer. He then went into the print menu, selected the printer and hit the print button. And the printer burst into life. It started to print!

“”There you go” he cheerfully declared, “just needed a cable connecting. This particular printer isn’t really compatible with the network, you see”. I stared at him in amazement, not only because he had just fixed my printer by attaching a cable (which I had posited as a solution to the problem over a year ago), but also because he had actually spoken to me in clear English, rather than just muttering incomprehensibly and then slumping out of the room.

“What a brilliant end to the working day” I thought. “This would be a new beginning!” But as we’ve already established, it wasn’t.

The printer was not working. But the IT man had fixed it. He had connected it with a cable. But then it came to me: perhaps he had done it surreptitiously. Perhaps he is a rebel IT man. After all, he was working alone. Perhaps he is an IT insurgent, on a mission to do good in the world, to go against the grain and … fix IT problems. I should have known that these orders couldn’t have possibly come from official channels. He was jolly, he was working alone, he fixed my problem in a matter of seconds without any fuss, using a simple logical solution. He had used a cable. He had spoken in plain English. Of course he was a rebel.

O no, he had probably been found out. He was probably being reprogrammed at this very moment, screaming in torment as management signed him up for yet another pointless NVQ with endless amounts of theory work; that would keep him away from interfering with any real IT problems for a good while. Yes, the IT department had obviously found him out, and then under the cover of darkness had come into my office and wrenched out the offending cable and burned it.

I checked the back of the computer. There was no cable. I checked the back of the printer, just in case it had somehow just become disconnected. But the cable was gone.

But how did they find him out? Had I said anything about it to anyone? Yes, I very much had. I had spent the remaining half an hour of the working day celebrating this extraordinary event by printing out letters to all of my colleagues, apologising for the times that I had hijacked their printers and thanking them for their patients and understanding over the last 1 and a half years. I then shared with them my excellent news that an IT man – of all people – had come into my office and fixed my printer. Therefore, I would no longer be annoying them on a daily basis; well, at least, I wouldn’t be annoying them about printing, I could now focus my efforts on devising more creative and entertaining ways of annoying them. I printed all these letters out and then hand delivered them to all of my colleagues.

So basically I had told everyone. Someone must have been a whistle-blower, and reported what had happened to IT. I should have known, there was bound to be someone who sympathised with the enemy. And now that poor IT man had been found out. And it was all my fault.

I picked up the phone and dialled a colleague. I was sure that this particular person would not have been the whistleblower; I was positive that I was safe confiding in him. I explained that my printer was once again none-functional. He seemed confused. “But it’s never worked” he replied. How could he have forgotten? “It was fixed yesterday, remember?” But he didn’t remember. “We chatted about it at length. I was over-the-moon. I gave you a hand delivered letter that I printed on my printer, telling you all about it”. “I didn’t receive a hand delivered letter, I certainly didn’t have a conversation anywhere near as dull as that, and anyway, yesterday was Sunday”.

Yesterday was Sunday? Of course it was. But I don’t work Sundays, and I was off the previous week, and it certainly hadn’t been more than a week ago when it had happened. It was yesterday. I was sure of it. That’s the reason why I had woken up with a spring in my step, because it was my first day at work with a functioning printer. This meant that I would no longer have to annoy my colleagues. I might finally be liked. I might even be popular. I had sown the seeds of peace the day before with my personally printed, hand delivered letters. Today was meant to be a new beginning.

I cast my mind back to last night. Now I came to think about it, I wasn’t particularly enthused about anything before I went to bed. It was when I woke up that I felt the excitement and had that spring in my step. O no, it must have been a dream. My colleague laughed at me. I hung up.

I must have dreamt the whole thing. Of course it wasn’t real. It was too unbelievable to be real: the jolly IT man who actually fixed computer problems, who spoke in plain English, had a sense of humour. Of course it wasn’t real. Of course it was a dream! It was obvious.
But then the worst part about the whole thing hit me. What kind of man in his twenties has a long and detailed dream about his printer at work? But not only that. What kind of man has a long and detailed dream about his printer at work and then wakes up that morning feeling elated because his printer is fixed, and then runs to work in excitement, impatient to print out some documents? Certainly not the kind of man that I wanted to associate myself with. Has my life really become this dull? Evidently yes.
I decided that this was my wake up call. I thought I was a man of excitement, adventure and ambition. But my dream and then my real-life response to it had shown me what kind of person I had become. What ever happened to all that ambition? All those ideas? What happened to those dreams? I was going to bring the adult chicken comedy movement into the 21st century for goodness sake. I used to think big. Well from now on things would be different! I would heed this wake up call. It would be a catalyst for change. From now on I would live a more exciting and adventurous life. I would once again be that man of ambition and energy that I used to be. I would recapture my youthfulness. It hadn’t disappeared entirely; it was just lying dormant, in need of being reawakened.
Well, from this moment onwards, things, would, be, different!

But first I had to get these documents printed. I walked down the corridor and asked one of my colleagues whether he would mind me using his printer for a bit. Well maybe I’d have to wait until the end of the working day before I could start thinking about reawakening my youthfulness. But I bloody well would do it. As soon as the working day was over. And I’d had tea. And done the ironing. And finished my tax return. And … O fuck!

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Dear Madam, I imagine that it is very unlikely that this blog post will actually reach your attention, but I will write this anyway in the hope that it might and so that I can offer you an explanation about the traumatic experience you faced in the Park last week. My intentions however are not entirely pure as I am also writing about this incident because I believe that the general readership will find it funny, although there is also a good chance that many will be horrified. And so with that hopefully tantalising introductory paragraph, let me attempt to explain myself.

The story starts fairly innocuously, certainly not as excitingly as my previous blog post which saw me standing at a Pelican crossing. My friend Phill and I decided to toast the gloriously sunny day with a visit to the park. Phill brought his guide dog but I didn’t see any point in taking a cane since the park is only a minute’s walk away. Had I taken a symbol of sight loss then the whole sorry affair would have been avoided.

As soon as the guide dog gets a whiff of the park he always speeds up. There was also a strong glare from the sun on this particular day and so I made sure that I was keeping up close to Phill and the dog so as not to lose them.

So the dog tares off as expected and I run after them, making sure that I am right behind. We turn a few lefts and rights and then the dog slows down to a much more leisurely pace. Thank goodness, this is a much more suitable speed for a hot day. I am aware though that the dog will probably speed up again at any moment and so I make sure that I am hot on their heals.

As we progress we start to make a few more turns. We gradually increase speed. We are suddenly making a lot of sporadic turns, left then right, left right, right, left (I’m sure you get the general idea; I probably don’t need to elaborate on the nature of turning, you’re presumably all reasonably familiar with the concept). Then the dog increases the speed even more. We are running again. The turns become more and more sporadic. I manage to keep up though.

Eventually after another minute of running and frantic turning we came to a stop.
(Apologies to any grammar pedants reading this by the way. I am aware that I was using the present tense to describe events that took place in the past. I was doing it to heighten the drama, and I’m sure the none grammar pedant readers were appreciating the thrilling narrative that I was creating and were on the edge of their seats, with me all the way, feeling my every turn and speed change. But I will revert back to the past tense for the time being so that the grammar pedants don’t take umbrage, stop reading and seek refuge in the solace of their Lynne Truss book.(Incidentally, A word of advice: you can buy a used copy of Lynne Truss’s exposition on English grammar and language “eats, shoots and leaves” from Amazon very cheep, but be warned, some pedants take a strangely perverse pleasure in grammar and there are a number of rather dirty pedants out there who may have been reading the book while engaging in certain activities. My advice is to play it safe and buy it new. There is a rare sexually transmitted disease going around among English grammar pedants that experts believe is being passed on through used copies of “eats, shoots and leaves”. The NHS tried warning these people by sending a leaflet about the disease to everyone on the governments database listed as an English grammar pedant, but unfortunately the message never reached them due to an ill-conceived comma in the first sentence which meant that the leaflets ended up in the bin, unread and unheeded. So yes, my advice is place it safe and buy it new, or make sure you sterilise it before reading. Or on the other hand, you could just stop being so pedantic about grammar and continue reading badly written drivel like this blog).

I was sweating and panting due to the last few minutes of exercise. In fact I was sweating and panting like a peverted pedant with a Lynne Trus book. As I got my breath back I turned towards Phill and the guide dog. I bent down to stroke the dog, and as I did so I gave a contented sigh. “aaaah, excellent” I sighed.

But my sigh, exclamation and broad smile quickly evaporated as soon as I realised in horror that I wasn’t stroking a dog. I was stroking a child who was sitting in a pram. The woman who was holding the pram gasped and pulled the pram away. The pram struck my leg as she reeled it round. As soon as I realised what I was doing I also pulled away, but the woman wasn’t going to be tempered by that, after all, let’s face it, it was the tinniest of consolatory gestures after what she’d just been through.

Presumably I must have lost Phill and the dog almost as soon as we entered the park gates. They must have ran off somewhere and I – my sight being even more impaired than usual due to the glare of the sun – mistook the woman pushing a baby in a pram to be Phill and the dog. So I made sure that I followed right behind them, a lot closer than any innocent man would ever dream of following a woman pushing a baby. I suppose this explains the increases in speed and the sporadic turns. I thought it was a bit of an odd course we were taking. She was obviously trying to shake me off and check whether I was definitely following her, hoping that I would relent and leave them alone. But I had no intention of relenting and leaving them alone. I was hot on their heals, and, as it transpires, hot on their wheels. Every turn, every increase and decrease in speed, I matched. Eventually she came to a stop, presumably in the desperate hope that I would overtake her. “Surely he won’t be so bold as to stop right by me and try something? Not in a public park in broad daylight?” she would have thought. But of course she was wrong. I stopped immediately after she did. I stood right next to the pram. I was panting and sweating; that probably didn’t help. Then the worst part: I bent down, reached into the pram and stroked the thigh of her child while sighing contentedly and intoning in a low slow voice, “excellent”.

I barely had time to register what had just happened. The woman rapidly turned the pram around and made to head in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let the poor woman think that I was a child molester who had been following her for over five minutes in order to stroke her child. I was desperate to justify my actions, to explain that all of this was a misunderstanding. Then we could both go on our way, both of us feeling better about the situation. The woman’s mind would be put at ease. Perhaps she would even laugh about it once she realised the ludicrous mistake. Perhaps she would be so relieved that she would embrace me. She would burst into tears and in her relieved and impassioned state she would tell me about how she has been so scared and worried of late since the child’s father had left her. How would she manage to bring the baby up all by herself? I would be so relieved that I’d survived the whole ordeal without being physicaly abused, and in the heat of such an unlikely and emotion-fuelled moment we would fall in love.
I would pull her close, kiss her softly, and tenderly tell her that I would stay by her side forever, that I would be there to comfort her and cherish her, that I would take it as a personal responsibility to rear her child. Perhaps “rear” would be the wrong word to use given the circumstances.

Anyway, none of that happened … surprisingly. I got a bit carried away. I suppose I’m just a bit lonely at the moment, and someone has stolen my copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” so I’ve had very little relief, if you know what I mean. Sorry, back to the story.

In my desperation to qualify my actions I intercepted the woman’s path, standing in front of the pram and halting it with my foot. Now was my chance. I would have to say something immediately otherwise she would think that I was stopping her from leaving and that I hadn’t finished with her and the child yet. This would obviously freak her out even more. O my god, I was now stopping her from leaving. This is exactly what she’d be thinking! She was definitely starting to panic now. She didn’t say anything; she just gasped and tried to pull her pram around me again. I really had to say something quickly, otherwise she would leave thinking that she had been followed by a child molester and would probably be afraid to venture out again. I moved around so that her path was once again blocked. I opened my mouth to speak, looked into her eyes and then … “come on David, speak! Say it is all a misunderstanding, tell her that I am blind. You can make everything OK just by those few words”. But where to start? It seems so simple now, with the benefit of hindsight, but in the pressure of that moment I became completely lost for words.

I thought about the ridiculousness of what was happening. I could sense the woman’s panic increasing. I had now blocked her path twice. The whole crazy, farcical situation suddenly hit me. How had I got myself into this incomprehensible fix?

So what did I do? What did I say? I did what I often do – like many people do, not that I want to excuse myself – in overwhelmingly embarrassing and awkward situations. I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. It just happened. Waves of uncontrollable laughter came over me. I tried to stop myself. I coughed, I spluttered as I tried to stop the laughter, I slapped myself in the face in the vain hope that I would come to my senses in time to redeem the situation. Obviously this display did nothing to quell the woman’s fear. She was being confronted by a man who had just followed her for 5 minutes, stroked her child and who was now spluttering, laughing, and slapping himself in the face. She turned the pram around again. I was too busy doubled over laughing, tears rolling down my face to stop her. She broke into a run. I desperately, and with a great effort, pulled myself straight, stopped my laughing and shouted “sorry” in her general direction as she tore across the park. So at least I got the sorry out in the end; I’m sure that made everything better and she’ll be fine.

It is difficult to know quite what to offer by way of a conclusion to this tale. The moral of the story is? Hmmmm. I’ve not heard any reports of a child molester on the loose, and believe me I would know, I like to keep my finger on the pulse about that sort of thing. O dear, I think I’ll go before I dig myself into an even deeper hole, although the hole might come in handy if I need to hide from her very angry husband who may be searching for me.

If it’s any consolation I did feel bad about it, but look on the bright side, I may have managed to reach the poor lady somehow through this blog post and offered her some blessed relief. At the very least I have probably given entertainment to a few of you with a warped sense of humour, and repelled and appalled a good many more of you. I bet you wish you’d gone for the Lynne Truss book after all?

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I have been patronised by a pelican twice in the space of a week. “Say no more David, we know exactly what you mean, we’ve all been there”; only I doubt you do know what I mean. You are probably thinking that I am referring to an animal. But no, this is not your everyday story about a condescending Pelican; these tales occurred at a pelican crossing and it was two humans that did the patronising. “Aaah, well that’s much more exciting and much less predictable and commonplace. Pray, do continue”. Thank you. I do miss our little chats by the way.

OK, so now we’ve established that my story is a great deal more exciting than you thought it was going to be, let’s begin. But where to start. “How about the Pelican crossing?” Ah yes.

Imagine if you will in your mind’s eye – I assume that you do have one, and that you’ve done the proper upgrade and everything, otherwise you might feel a little dizzy – that I am standing at a pelican crossing. This is nothing out of the ordinary; I have to cross this crossing everyday too and from work. I am currently standing at the Pelican crossing, waiting for the green man, having already pressed the button – I hope you’re following this OK. I have been waiting for about half a minute; sorry I can’t be more specific than that, I didn’t realise I’d be recounting this incident back to you in a blog so I wasn’t really taking much notice. I was just standing, waiting for the green man. I’d like to think that I looked nonchalant and at ease, like this whole standing-at-a-pelican-crossing-waiting-for-the-green-man thing was no big deal, that it wasn’t phasing me in the slightest. Because it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. But I obviously wasn’t convincing the woman fifty metres or so down the road, on the opposite side, who was now running towards the Pelican crossing shrieking, “Don’t move, don’t worry, it’s all right, I’m coming! It’s OK, I’ll help you, stay there son, I’ll get the button for you”.

“please,”, I thought, “come on, green man. This woman obviously thinks that I don’t know how to operate a Pelican crossing. Beep now and show that just because I’m blind, I am not completely deficient in the comprehension of the basic rudiments of Pelican crossing operation”. That is exactly what I thought, word for word; I was starting to take note now, as I realised that this situation wasn’t your average humdrum pelican crossing incident and that I’d probably write about this in a blog – I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to write something about Pelican crossings since I started this blog, so any excuse would be graciously seized.

But the green man did not answer my prayers; I was starting to doubt his existence – I know, I should have faith, happy are those who have not seen etc. The Pelican crossing did not beep and so I stood there as she ran and shouted at me to be still and be calm and that she would be with me in a few seconds. She then reached the Pelican crossing box at the other side of the road. She pressed the button and shouted across to me “I’ve pressed the button for you, it will beep now, and you can cross”. I prayed once more to the green man that the Pelican crossing wouldn’t beep at that exact moment. At least if she had to stand there and wait a few seconds before it beeped then she might entertain the notion that I might have actually pressed it myself.

Unfortunately, yet again the green man failed to heed my prayer. Well that’s it, I won’t be making any more child sacrifices to him; he’s had it. No sooner had she spoken these words, the beeping commenced and I crossed the road while the woman offered words of encouragement and reassurance. “That’s it son, take your time, you’re doing well, I’m here”.

I reached the other side of the road. I turned to the woman and paused. I wanted to remonstrate with her and explain that I was aware of the basic principle of pelican crossings, and that in fact I had pressed the button awhile ago and was merely waiting for the green man to do his thing. In fact, it is she who seems confused as to how the whole Pelican crossing thing works, as she intimated that the Pelican crossing would beep immediately after she pressed the button, and this is not the case, most times you have to wait a bit. Granted she was correct on this occasion and the green man did beep straight away, but that was just coincidence, unless she have some psychic connection – a special relationship – with the Green Man; I’ve read about the existence of such people, the chosen few, perhaps she’s made more child sacrifices than I have. I wanted to let her know how embarrassing it was for me and how she had obviously just assumed, because I was blind, that I would be unable to operate the pelican crossing by myself. I wanted to rant at her about stereotyping, labelling people with disabilities, making sweeping, ill-founded assumptions etc etc. But in the end I just said thank you and walked off.

The next day on my way home from work I was presented with the opportunity to gain my revenge on such patronising members of society.

I walked up to the Pelican crossing, pressed the button, and waited. You see, I wasn’t lying about knowing how to use a Pelican crossing. As I waited, I could hear the conversation between a man and his child who were at the other side of the road. The little boy was messing around trying to clamber up on to the pelican crossing pole. The father was doing his best to stop him but to no avail. But then the father must have noticed me, and an idea hit him. “Son, look” he said, “you see that man at the other side of the road?”. The boy stopped his clambering. “Yes daddy” he replied. “Well, that man is a blind man”. The father was obviously very pleased with himself, having found a good distraction from the pole. “That means he can’t see”. “wow!” gasped his son. Evidently this fact had impressed him. “Now, we people, you and I, know when to cross because of the green man, but a blind man cannot see the green man”. The little boy made a noise of understanding. “He will wait and listen for the beeping. The blind man will only cross when he hears the beep”.

The father was talking kind of in the style of
1. David Attenborough.
He was discussing me as if I was a fascinating creature, “the blind man” and talking about me crossing a road as if it was some interesting ritual.

“You see now,” he continued, “there are no cars in sight. We could cross the road now because we can see that it is safe. But the blind man will stay until he hears the beep”. “O no he bloody well won’t” I thought. The child made another impressed noise. He was obviously taken by his father’s knowledge. I stepped out into the road and strode purposefully to the other side. When I reached the pavement, I turned to the father and his son and gave a cheery wave, then walked off into the distance.

Behind me I heard the child shouting “Daddy! You were wrong. He crossed before the beep. Look, he’s there. Daddy! You were wrong”.

“Hah, yes little child, your daddy was wrong. He thought he understood the workings of “the blind man”. But he quite clearly didn’t. In fact, he was “the blind man” in this little tale. Let this be a lesson little child. Tell it to your friends at school. Let this parable spread throughout the playground like wildfire. Let it journey through cyberspace, through Facebook and Twitter. May it set the heart’s of a generation ablaze and give life to a more enlightened breed, one which refuses to countenance ignorance, stereotyping, labelling, assumptions, social ills that have held human evolution back by centuries. Let this action create piece, harmony, equality.”

To be honest, I wasn’t thinking any of that, I was still smarting after yesterday’s incident and I simply saw this as sweet revenge. But I am sure that all of the above- peace, harmony, equality, a more excepting society, a new enlightened generation, a glorious utopia – will all be a by-product of my actions. So well done me.

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Finally, in other news, I am trying to create a website for myself rather than just a blog, and shortly there will be dedicated pages for The Young’uns Podcast, David Eagle’s Pick and Mix and other projects.
Davideagle.co.uk
is the web address, so if you’re visiting the old blogger page, the one that’s listed at the top of Google searches for David Eagle, then you should stop doing that and go to davideagle.co.uk
instead, because the old page will be leaving us soon. There are lots of other exciting things happening that I’ll hopefully be able to tell you about really soon.

Thanks for reading.

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This weekend saw me sitting in a pub with some friends hypothesising the etymology of the “why did the chicken cross the road” joke. There was a group of us, all men, and we had, before this particular conversation, been discussing proper men’s topics like sport and women. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea and think I am in any way ponsey and not a propper man, o no, it was just that somehow the conversation had temporarily strayed from sports and women on to the etymology of the “why did the chicken cross the road joke”. We would of course get back on to sport and women in due course, but we decided it would be OK to discuss the etymology of the “Why did the chicken cross the road” joke, just for a little while, it wouldn’t compromise our statuses as red blooded males. />
An Internet search yielded the website
whydidthechickencrosstheroad.com which, although not offering any information regarding the joke’s provenance, did nevertheless prove to be an interesting find. The website boasts an impressive collection of chicken jokes; impressive in terms of volume that is, not necessarily quality. The jokes are sorted into various categories, the first of which being “adult chicken jokes”. How could we not click that link? What red blooded male when offered the opportunity to read an adult chicken joke wouldn’t say yes? Exactly. And red blooded males is most definitely what we are.

Upon clicking the link we were presented with a disclaimer which warned us that these adult chicken jokes were of an adult nature; presumably these adult chicken jokes were also of a chicken nature – just hazarding a guess. We were prompted to click a button to confirm that we were aged eighteen or over. We clicked to confirm that we were and waited in anticipation for the page to load. If ever there was a reason for the pub to have free wifi, this was surely it.

We sat further forward in our seats, leaning in conspiratorially, testosterone levels rising at the prospect of what we were about to read. We tentatively glanced around the pub to check that there were no minors who might unwittingly overhear what was about to be read. None of us wanted to be responsible for giving a child their first sex education lesson courtesy of an adult orientated chicken website. That’s the very kind of thing I’ve been determined to avoid all my life, and so far I’d managed to avoid it pretty successfully, and I was keen to keep it that way.

The page loaded. In contrast to all the other categories – the celebrity chicken jokes, historical chicken jokes, religious chicken jokes, political chicken jokes – which all have a surprisingly expansive selection, the adult section only contains two jokes. This seems to suggest that adult chicken jokes are a bit of a niche market, whereas there is a lot more of a demand for political or religious chicken jokes. But surely there must be a demand for adult chicken humour. There was a whole group of red blooded mails all sat in a pub, craning forward in anticipation for such a form of comedy. Maybe this genre is simply undiscovered, an as of yet untapped gold mine. Just remember that I was one of the first people to expose the genre. Just remember that when you’re sitting in front of the telly watching Michael Macintyre’s Adult Chicken Comedy Road Show.

I will now include these two jokes in this blog, saving you the need to visit the adult chicken website yourself and sparing you the possible embarrassment and incrimination that might be caused if your wife or girlfriend should find the site in your history. I know it’s only natural, you’re a red blooded male for goodness sake; but unfortunately your partner just won’t understand. Trust me.

Joke 1. The Chicken and the Egg.
—
A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face. The egg, looking a bit ticked off, grabs the sheet, rolls over and says … Well, I guess we finally answered “THAT question!”

—

Obviously we all erupted in to laughter at the hilarity of the joke. The barman looked at our table. He looked too young and innocent to be tainted by such an adult joke, so we pretended we were talking about sport until he looked away. Then we moved on to the second joke.

—
Joke 2. The Chicken and the Horse
Once upon a time there was a horse and a chicken who were good friends. They lived on a farmyard with lots of other animals and were very happy. One day, while they were playing near the farm’s pond, the horse stepped into a hole of quicksand. The horse rapidly sank and was yelling for his friend, the chicken, to save him. The chicken thought for a minute, then ran back to the farmhouse, and jumped into the farmer’s 735csi BMW. Luckily, the keys were in the ignition, and the chicken managed to start the car, and put it in gear. It raced over to the sinkhole, where the horse had almost disappeared by now. The smart chicken tied a rope around the back of the BMW and threw the other end around the front legs of the horse. The chicken hopped back in the driver’s seat and stepped on the gas. Ever so slowly, the horse eased out of the quicksand and jumped to safety. The horse, still on shaky legs, stuttered: “You just saved my life. Thank you!” The chicken just said, “Don’t mention it – That’s what friends are for!!” They returned the BMW and went out to dinner together in the barn yard.
A few days later, the horse got up from a good night’s rest, and heard some muffled cries for help coming from the backyard. The horse followed the sounds and came upon a terrible scene. There was his best friend, the chicken, stuck in a hole of quicksand! The sand was already up to its neck-feathers and the cries for help had almost stopped. The horse took a quick look around: No rope in sight And the farmer had gone to town with his BMW. What to do? The horse took a deep breath and spread his body and legs out over the hole. His member was dangling down right above the poor chicken. “Here, my friend, grab my thingie and I will pull you to safety!”. With its last bit of energy, the chicken grabbed a hold of the big horse-thingie and the horse straightened its body, pulling the chicken from its trap. With one big step, both were on solid ground and safe. The chicken slumped down on the ground, exhausted: “Now You saved my life, my friend!!” The horse just smiled. And what is the moral of this story? … If you’re hung like a horse, you don’t need a BMW to pick up chicks.
—

Obviously again we all burst into raucous laughter. My goodness, what fun. We were real men, telling adult jokes with rude words, like “Thingy”. I hope my family aren’t reading this; they probably don’t even think I know such naughty words as “thingy”.

The barman looked over at our group once again, inquisitive to know what we were laughing about. “I can’t believe that footballer missed that penalty, the bleeding … nincompoop!” I shouted. There, that would fool him, he would just think we were having a typical conversation that typical red blooded males would have about sport, laughing at a bleeding nincompoop of a footballer who’d missed a penalty. He really did look too innocent to hear an adult chicken joke, especially ones about horse’s thingies. It could scar him for life.

“Who’s that?” asked the barman, coming over to our table to collect our glasses.

“What?” I replied, trying to think of a footballer who might have missed a penalty who would deserve to be branded a bleeding nincompoop.

“Who you talking about”? enquired the innocent barman.

“o, er, o, you mean that footballer who we were just talking about?” I asked, deliberately stalling for time while I desperately tried to think of a name.

“Yes” he immediately replied, somewhat thwarting my stalling efforts, the little swine.

“You mean the footballer who missed the penalty? The one I called a bleeding nincompoop”? Damn! That was two questions in one. I could have stalled for longer by asking them separately. I am losing my composure and thus my ability to stall effectively. Perhaps I should develop a slight stutter the next time I respond; but he’d heard me talking fine before that, so that wouldn’t work. Why weren’t my friends helping me here? Surely one of them must know the name of a footballer who missed a penalty recently, someone who we could all laugh at and call a bleeding nincompoop and thus resolve this awkward situation? But no, I knew it wasn’t going to happen because none of my friends are actually true red blooded males, and they don’t really like sport. And I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but I’m not really a proper sports loving red blooded male either. I know, I lied to you because I was embarrassed that you might think I am a bit ponsey and not a real man for discussing the etymology of the “Why did the chicken cross the road” joke. I knew I’d get found out eventually. And I was being found out right now by a young barman intent on knowing which footballer I was referring to. There was nothing for it but to come clean.

“I don’t know. We weren’t really talking about football,” I admitted, “we were checking out an adult chicken website. Here, look”. I thrust the phone towards him. This would teach him for being to inquisitive. He was about to get an unexpected education, a rude awakening. He was about to read words like “horse’s thingy” for the very first time.

“Get the man a stiff drink” I whispered to my friend, “he’s going to need one. We might have to give him … the talk”.

But the barman didn’t read the adult chicken jokes. He looked very concerned and immediately withdrew.

I am obviously being sarcastic about the graphic nature of these two jokes. There is next to nothing adult about these adult chicken jokes, certainly nothing that warrants a disclaimer and a button you have to click to confirm you are eighteen or over. To be frank, I don’t really think the Adult Chicken genre has properly developed yet. For a start there only seems to be two jokes in existence, and those jokes are far too timid and safe to satiate people’s appetite for Adult Chicken humour; if indeed there is actually much of an appetite in need of satiating. Something needs to be done, someone needs to stand up and be responsible for taking the Adult Chicken comedy movement to the next stage. Well, I did the standing up part almost immediately after we informed the barman that we weren’t interested in sport but rather amused ourselves looking at adult chicken websites. A group of men had overheard our declaration and were looking at us a bit disconcertingly. They looked like proper red blooded males and didn’t seem to be too approving of our unusual pastime and so we promptly stood up and left.

So the standing up part had been accomplished, that was fairly easy; but what about the other bit: being the man responsible for the development of the adult chicken comedy movement? That might be a bit more tricky. I had stood up many times in my life before, but I don’t mind admitting to you that I had never once before been responsible for developing the adult chicken comedy movement and taking it into the 21st century. This was something new to me.

I have decided that the best way to advance the genre is to firstly add some more jokes. The genre isn’t really going to get much attention if it only boasts two jokes, especially jokes of such a mild nature.

At the bottom of the website there is an option that lets you submit your own chicken joke. It is time that someone answered to that noble calling and advanced the genre beyond the paltry (and yes that was a deliberate hilarious pun) couplet that so far exists. I am that man! I will compose another adult chicken joke, a proper adult chicken joke, with proper rude words and scenarios that will cause you to completely re-evaluate the way you have always thought of chickens. You will never be able to think of a chicken as a sweet innocent creature again. I will taint your outlook on chickens forever.

Someone last week asked me if there would be another David Eagle’s Pick and Mix. At the time I said yes, but perhaps now I will never get the time due to my commitments to furthering the Adult Chicken Comedy movement. I may even have to give up the Young’uns.

I’ll keep you posted.

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I’ve written before about the people who sit on the back of busses playing music loudly on their mobile phones. I wonder what thought process these people have which makes them think that it is acceptable and normal behaviour to play their music to everyone on the bus. Do they believe that they are doing us a favour: that their musical taste is
somehow superior to ours and that by playing their music they are educating and enlightening us? But since the music played by this type of person seems to generally be generic pop music, I don’t think that they consider any such noble cause. It is more likely that these people don’t even think about the rest of us and are doing it simply because they are ignorant. It is ignorance isn’t it? I’m not getting old surely? Perhaps I’m spending too much time hanging around old incontinent people with Senile dementia. But surely not. I mean, is it even possible to spend too much time with old incontinent people with senile dementia?
Surely that’s a paradox.

There is a line that people tend to wheel out whenever someone is doing something annoying and socially agitating like this. A passenger sitting a few seats away from me is talking to the person next to her about the ignorant man playing his music, and has just come out with this line. “what if we all did that?”

This is actually quite a fun theme to explore if you’ve nothing better to do, and since you’re reading this blog then chances are that you haven’t got anything better to do. So what are we waiting for? Let’s explore this theme!

The passenger who is complaining about the man with the phone has a bottle of nail varnish open which she is applying to her nails. Presumably she thinks her behaviour is harmless, but what if everyone on the bus did that? Well, we’d all be high I suppose and perhaps we’d have a big party and our friend at the back of the bus with the musical phone would no longer be an annoyance but instead would be the party’s DJ. So perhaps it would be a good thing if we all had a bottle of nail varnish open as we travel on the bus. Plus, we’d all have great nails. But on the other hand (a figurative hand, but one which also happens to sport great nails) perhaps it would not be such a good thing because we might all throw up as a result of the fumes of the nail varnish.

So next time something annoys you and you jump straight for that cliché line, “what if we all did “?that” perhaps consider the possible positive consequences that could occur if indeed we all did decide to do that thing, and maybe you’ll actually realise that it might not be such a bad thing after all. Or, consider what activity you might be engaged in, and what possible ramifications might exist if everyone else emulated your actions. (This really is classic Thought for the Day material. Come on radio 4, what are you playing at? Commission me!)

So, what if everyone on the bus decided to play their music to the rest of the bus? Maybe this could be a new social experiment for me to conduct. I could sit one row forward from the person with the music and whisper to the person next to me to start playing music loudly on their phone, but firstly to pass the message on to the row in front. This message could then be disseminated in whispers to everyone on the bus and in time the whole bus would be filled with conflicting loud music. How would the original person playing music on his phone react? Perhaps by doing this we will make the person at the back of the bus think about what he is doing and this defiant collective act from all the passengers might mean he never does it again. Or perhaps we will all enjoy the experience so much that we’ll all go on busses in the future, play our music really loudly and try and coerce other passengers to join in.

The other thing I could perhaps do is sit at the back of the bus, wait for the song on the person’s phone to finish playing and then turn to the person playing the music and say, “well thank you for showing me that song; it has really challenged all my preconceptions of generic pop music. How about I return the favour and play you a song now? This is a lovely up-tempo number, I really hope you like it. It’s the perfect track to play loudly on a mobile phone above the roar of a bus engine in front of loads of stressed commuters on their way home from work”, and then play the person a song. What if we all decided to do that: to diligently listen to each other’s musical offering and then offer a musical suggestion of our own? Well, we would be sharing and learning from each other. Surely this would be the truest form of community radio. Wouldn’t that be a lovely bonding moment? So perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Perhaps I will try these two social experiments and video them for this blog, but feel free to attempt it yourself first and let me know how you got on and if you’ve still got all your teeth.

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My friend works at an old people’s home. She is responsible for organising activities for the residents. I was chatting to her at the start of December and she was musing about what activities she could do over the Christmas period. Later in the conversation, she was telling me about some of her residents who had senile dementia. “;Some of them pretend to be different characters” she told me. “there’s one who thinks she’s a princess, and another one keeps going on about how he’s going to get out of this place one day and travel to London to make his fortune.”

“Sounds like you should do a pantomime with them” I responded. “You’ve got a princess and a Dick Whittington. You don’t happen to have anyone who believes they’re an Arabian prince, or a wicked witch, or a man who likes to dress up as a woman do you? Old people shrink, so you’d probably have enough people to play dwarves if you decide to do Snow White”. I laughed loud and hard at my hilarious quip. Sadly she didn’t join in with the laughing. I can’t think why because what I said was evidently hilarious and I’m sure you’re all choking with hysterical laughter right now.
take a few deep breaths and then join
me in the next paragraph.

Rather than laughing hysterically, like any normal person would, she replied by enthusiastically declaring, “what a great idea. I’ll do a pantomime with them! We’ll invite their children, their sons and daughters and family along to watch them!”.

“But some of them can’t even remember their own names” I reasoned. “Half of them need to be ferried to the toilet every ten minutes. You can’t have sleeping beauty getting out of bed every ten minutes to go to the toilet. It wouldn’t be very believable would it? unless you modified the script so that the wicked witch’s curse had an unusual caveat whereby sleeping Beauty would be allowed to periodically wake from her hundred year long deep sleep to go to the bathroom.”

“Good point” she said. “So it would have to be something other than sleeping beauty then”. I don’t think she quite got my point. Surely a Christmas pantomime starring a cast of incontinent people with Senile Dementia would be a total disaster. It wouldn’t work at all. It would be chaos. But it would be one of the funniest things I’ve ever observed. I know its cruel to laugh at incontinent people with Senile Dementia, but come on, it’s Christmas.

“Yes, it’s a great idea” I said.

“You think?” she asked.

“Yes, you should definitely get a load of incontinent old people with senile dementia to act in a pantomime. It would be such a laugh. For them, I mean. They’ll have such a laugh is what I meant”.

“Yes, they would” she responded cheerily.

“In fact, I could come along on the day to offer support if you like? I could be one of the audience members. Some of them won’t have sons or daughters to watch them. I could fill out the audience a bit, be a surrogate family member.”

“O, that’s really sweet of you” she replied. I can’t believe she fell for that one. But she did, and I had been granted permission to go to an old people’s home the week before Christmas to laugh at a load of old incontinent people with Senile Dementia acting in a pantomime. What a great way to start Christmas.

A week or so later I got a call from my friend. She was worrying that the pantomime idea might not have been as good as she first considered. The old people kept forgetting their lines, reading each other’s lines and falling asleep during important scenes. “Maybe I should forget the idea” she said.

What? This couldn’t happen. Of course it was a crazy idea, of course it wasn’t going to work. But that’s the point. It would be hilarious. She couldn’t quit now, I’d been looking forward to taking the piss out of the old incontinent people with Senile Dementia all week. She can’t go and ruin Christmas for me. I must reason with her.
“don’t be silly, it’ll be fine” I said. “you’ve still got another week to rehearse, plus, the audience aren’t coming to
see an award winning performance; its just something nice for their families”.

“Yes, you’re right” she replied. “Thank you, you’re so sweet” she added. Ha, fooled her again.

When I left University I was doing occasional Freelance radio work but it wasn’t really getting me much money, so I played music and sang in a few old people’s homes which paid me even less money. I know I have made light of Senile Dementia and age related illness in this blog post but I of course understand that this is a very serious, debilitating condition that is very sad to witness. I witnessed it in many people during my time performing in the homes; and that was just the staff (hahaha). Some people would act like different characters every single week and they would tell me completely made-up stories about their lives. They would tell me about things that they had done in the outside world earlier that day even though in reality they hadn’t left the home. I got very friendly with a lovely old lady (not like that you perverted animals she wasn’t the type of lovely old lady that I find sexually alluring. I prefer the other type of lovely old lady; you know the kind). She was a lovely old lady who used to chat to me every single week. I used to look forward to our conversations. In spite of her mental condition it was evident that she was a very wise woman, and very calm. But one week she took a complete dislikeing to me for seemingly no apparent reason. Perhaps she was upset that she wasn’t the kind of lovely old lady that I found sexually alluring. The fact was that I had done nothing to warrant her disliking me. The week before she’d told me I was a lovely young man (probably the exact type of lovely young man that she found sexually alluring. Awkward) and gave me a kiss on the cheek. The next week I went over to say hi and have a chat, and she told me to piss off and slapped me in the face. Actually I did find the slap rather arousing so perhaps she just knew what she needed to do to get me interested. I came back to the home the next week, hoping for another slap, but she was back to her usual sweet self again. She seemed to have remembered nothing of her violent and verbal outburst towards me the week before, and so I said nothing of it and we chatted about the war over a cup of tea.

It is of course very sad to think that these people were once children, teenagers and young adults, falling in and out of love, going to work, raising children and grand children and living independent lives, and now they are dependant on carers and often can’t remember their own identity and family.
But despite my sadness about all that, I had some really fun experiences and there were some really funny moments. One week I had been informed by a member of staff that there was to be a test of the
fire alarm system. This wouldn’t necessitate a need for any of the residents to leave the building and I was told to just keep playing. During a rendition of We’ll Meet Again the alarm went off. I continued playing and singing as instructed. One woman started to shout “its the Germans. The Germans are bombing!” and hid for cover under a table. A few of the other residents joined her. A man started to make the sound of an air raid siren, accompanying the sound of the fire alarm. A few more people shouted and scrambled for cover. I stopped playing, a bit concerned. “Keep playing” shouted one of the women, “keep singing, it takes our minds off the bombing”. There didn’t seem to be any staff around to offer assistance in this matter and I knew it was fruitless trying to explain that it wasn’t the war, so I started to play and sing again and everyone joined in from under the table. I tell you, that was true wartime spirit.
Eventually the alarm stopped, as did the man making the air raid siren noises, and everyone got up from under the table and sat back down, breathing sighs of relief.

“Can you play the Lambeth Walk” asked one of the women, and normality was resumed.

So, now that I’ve hopefully assured you that I’m not completely insensitive towards senile dementia with that little aside, perhaps I can get back to the task at hand, which is taking the piss out of old people. Excellent.

The pantomime was Cinderella. All the cast comprised the residents of the home apart from the prince who was played by the home’s cook. I am glad to report that the incontinent old people with senile dementia did not disappoint. It was brilliant. They forgot their lines, got into arguments with each other, got very confused, and the play was split into about 20 episodes due to bladder issues.

The pantomime was odd from the very start. It commenced with some opening music which was a version of Rihanna’s umbrella only replaced with the word “cinderella”. “I can be your cinderella, ella, ella, ay, ay, ay” sang Rihana and all the old folks joined in
too. Unfortunately the music faded before the chorus ended which is a shame because I’m sure one of the old men would have joined in with Jay-Z’s rap. I was looking forward to some
geriatric hip-hop (or geriatric hop as it is actually called because the hip has been replaced, hahaha). Anyway, the music faded and then there was quiet. Followed by some more quiet. Cinderella had obviously found the Rihanna song to be particularly soporific because she’d fallen asleep. There were a few murmurs from the staff and residents as they realised the situation, and then one of the ladies, playing an ugly sister, nudged Cinderella awake.

“Wake up you silly cow” cried the ugly sister, which apparently wasn’t part of the script. “Wake up and do the house work” she shouted. A pretty good adlib I thought. Cinderella woke from her slumber – perhaps sleeping beauty would have been a better choice afterall – and declared that she needed the toilet. The ugly sister remonstrated with Cinderella but Cinderella was insistent that she was escorted to the toilet, leaving the audience with an unexpected cliff-hanger only one minute into the proceedings.

There was some quiet, awkward murmurs of conversation from the audience and then after a few minutes Cinderella returned.

“where’ve you been” shrieked the ugly sister at Cinderella.
“I’ve been to the toilet” replied Cinderella.

“Well get on with the house work” demanded the ugly sister. The ugly sister was doing an excellent job of keeping the story going, but Cinderella was not playing ball (haha, I’m so funny, you see what I did?) and had seemed to have forgotten that she was in fact playing a role in a pantomime.

“I’m not the cleaner” she snapped back at the ugly sister, “that’s Jody’s job”. She pointed at Jody, the home’s cleaner, who was suddenly and unexpectedly brought into the performance.

The ugly sister gallantly continued while a member of staff helpfully handed Cinderella her script and pointed to her next line.

“No” retorted the ugly sister, “you are the cleaner, and you will have this house cleaned from top to bottom”, there was a pause, and then she added, “by the time I come back from the toilet”.

The second episode of the play came to an end and the audience resumed their conversation while the ugly sister was escorted by a member of staff to the bathroom.

The pantomime recommenced and for a time it went fairly smoothly. But then, in episode 13, things took an unexpected turn. Cinderella seemed to be having a wale of a time at the Ball. She was dancing with the Prince, holding him very close and wearing a very broad smile. She was really starting to get into the play; a little too much as it turned out. The prince declared his love for Cinderella and asked her to kiss him. Cinderella didn’t need asking twice. She flung her arms around the prince and began to give him a very passionate snog. At first the audience laughed, thinking that it might have been a part of the play, but the Prince’s horrified expression alerted them to the fact that it was very much an unscripted element.

“It was meant to just be a peck on the cheek” my friend told me later. but this was much more than just a peck on the cheek. The prince was certainly getting more than he bargained for. The other old women were starting to get more and more excited by the unfolding scene and they encouraged Cinderella ever onwards. Even the ugly sisters forgot their loathing of their stepsister and joined in the chants of support. The prince could do nothing. He could hardly use force against a frail old woman, and so he had no choice but to grin and bare it. She eventually broke off. The prince took a few hasty steps back just in case she had plans to resume the kiss.
But Cinderella had moved on from the kiss and had her mind set on other important matters. “I need the toilet” she declared and was once again escorted to the bathroom while the Prince raided the mulled wine.

My friend was a bit concerned that Cinderella may want to take it from where they left off once she returned from the toilet, and so she decided that Cinderella had made a dash to the toilet on the stroke of midnight and was unable to return to the ball as her magic would fail her. My friend instructed the actors to start the performance from the slipper scene.

The prince did his monologue about how much he loved the lady at the ball and how he wished he knew who she was so that he could kiss her lips again and be with her forever. There were a few titters from the old women
who were evidently up for some more action between Cinderella and the prince. The prince suddenly remembered the slipper which he produced from his pocket. Cinderella rose to her feet and indignantly declared
“That’s my slipper!” somewhat ruining the dramatic tension created by the prince’s monologue which intimated that if only he could discover the owner of the slipper then he would know the identity of his true love. The prince pretended not to hear Cinderella’s comment, but Cinderella would not be ignored. “That’s my slipper” she shouted. “I want it, my foot “is getting cold!” A member of staff went to Cinderella and tried to explain that she would have her slipper back shortly but that she would have to wait a bit until the moment of the pantomime came where she could try on the slipper, then the prince would fall in love with her and she could marry him. This seemed to placate Cinderella somewhat, although I think she was
tempered by the notion that she might get to snog the prince again.

Eventually, once the ugly sisters had tried to force their feet into the slipper to no avail, Cinderella was reunited with her item of footwear and the prince, very hesitantly and nervously announced that he and Cinderella were to be wed. The audience applauded and my friend decided that we’d all had enough fun and chose to skip the wedding scene entirely in fear of a repeat of earlier events. She decided that that was the end. Rihanna sang out the pantomime, the audience stood and applauded the actors and the cast sang the “ella ella ays” and all of them looked very pleased with themselves, apart from Cinderella who looked a bit crestfallen.

“That was a disaster” my friend said afterwards as she downed another glass of wine.

“O no it wasn’t” I said, and I laughed loud and hard because I’d just done a hilarious pantomime pun. I can’t think why no one else seems to have come up with that joke before; I suppose it’s because I’m a genius. “everyone loved it” I replied “and had a great time”, which was true. Everyone had loved it. The audience enjoyed the whole weird
episode and despite the fact that the surrealism was because of the effects of age related illness, no one in the audience seemed sad. The residents’ family members were able to laugh and enjoy the whole crazy experience.
Adversity brings with it comedy and great joy. Surely the ability to find joy and laughter in dark situations is one of the great things that makes us human. So I hope you enjoyed this blog post and found it uplifting rather than tragic. One day I’m sure I’ll be old with Senile dementia, and I’ll spend my days talking a load of drivel and doing stupid things. But obviously that’s a long way away. I’ve got many more years of erudite wisdom to give before all that happens.

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Before we go any further – which if you’re going to read this and I’m going to write this we must inevitably do – I want to stress that this story does not involve me. I am not the protagonist in this scenario which I am about to relate to you. I know most of my blog posts are autobiographical, but this is not one of them. I’ve spent the last two months waiting for something interesting to happen to me so that I can blog about it, but alas, nothing, which means I’m going to have to write about someone else I’m afraid. I hope that doesn’t put you off reading this. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that you understand that this story is definitely not about me, OK? I wouldn’t want to harm my reputation, especially since I’ve spent the last three years painstakingly building it up through this blog.

My friend has recently subscribed to a dating website. I won’t give the name of the website or the name of my friend since I know it would invariably lead to a throng of readers subscribing to the site, communicating with her and attempting to date her merely as a means to getting closer to me (o yes, I know your game).

Personally I’m a bit uncertain about the idea of dating websites; it all
seems a bit forced: people signing up to a website, creating a profile where they enter carefully considered details about themselves, uploading a specific photo of themselves which they believe best represents them (although of course this does not necessarily mean it accurately represents them). They then browse other people’s profiles and perhaps initiate communication with a person once they have seen how the person looks and once they’ve ascertained certain aspects of their personality. Based on their profile you can divine a person’s hobbies and interests, their favourite music, books, films. You can accumulate all this information before you even say hello to this person. There seems something a little too clinical about it all. When two people meet in actuality, they discover more about each other through conversation and perhaps there is a spark. You don’t decide to say hello to someone on the basis of preliminary research into the person: their
hobbies, likes and dislikes; you discover that as you talk to them. Plus, when you talk to someone on a dating website, surely there is already the implication about what you hope might develop between you and that person; there is already an agenda set. This is generally not the case when you spontaneously meet someone when you’re out. I enjoy being out with friends and then meeting someone completely unexpectedly. Perhaps something exciting will develop; perhaps it won’t, well obviously in my case it invariably won’t (of course I am just writing that to come across as endearingly self-deprecating; the reality is that I am constantly seducing women.) Surely you can’t get any of that surprise and spontaneity on a dating website.

Dating websites seem to me to be a bit like buying a product rather than forming a chance relationship. Are dating websites just another example of how much we have become a consumer society? Using the shop analogy: you browse around and have a look at the various items on offer in the hope that you’ll possibly find a bargain: someone who shares similar interests to you or looks attractive – or maybe a two for the price of one offer on cute twins.
When we’ve found a suitable girl we pick her up (off the shelf as the saying goes – you see what a clever metaphor I’ve got going on here?) you take her to the checkout and hope that she won’t complain about any unexpected items in her baggage area. Then you put her in a plastic bag and bundle her into the boot of your car and drive her home. (I think I might have lost the metaphor a bit towards the end.) Mark my words, in a few years time dating websites will be exactly like shopping on Amazon: “people who dated Helen also enjoyed Patricia and Charlotte”, “if you enjoyed Jenny, why not try Rebecca?” You’ll be able to read reviews before you date, and there’ll be a 30 day money back guarantee, providing your woman hasn’t been unwrapped.

When our story’s protagonist was browsing for women, he wasn’t exactly checking out hobbies and interests; he was looking for something a bit more specific. He thought he might have found it in my friend.

The conversation seemed to be following a perfectly normal course at first but then he made his move.

He started off by telling her that he had really enjoyed talking to her and he felt like she might be responsive to a rather strange request. He had a rather unusual sexual fetish and he wondered whether she would be up for entertaining it.

The discovery of this fetish happened while he was watching the TV. A Chinese woman was arguing with a man. She got so annoyed with him that she karate kicked him in the balls. Instead of reacting as you might expect, feeling the man on the television’s pain, he was surprised to find that the incident had aroused him. He rewound the film back to the ball kicking part and once again he found himself becoming sexually aroused by it.

Intrigued, and curious to explore this new sexual predilection further, he went on a dating website and searched for someone who might entertain his desire. I’m not sure of his exact thought process here but he decided to search for Chinese women. Perhaps he thought that it might have been the Chinese girl that formed an essential part of his arousal rather than simply the ball kicking on its own. He started chatting to a Chinese girl online who was a student at Newcastle University. He eventually broached the subject. She did not seem at all keen, but he was so determined to explore this peculiar fantasy that he offered to pay her for the service. As luck would have it she was pretty hard up and so she consented. The arrangement was that she would come round to his place twice a week and kick him in the balls for fifteen minutes.

Surprisingly he enjoyed the experience so much that this arrangement continued for a whole year. But this summer she graduated and went back to china; therefore he decided to search for another woman who could take on the mantle. Alas, he could not find a local Chinese girl who would agree to his request. Eventually he decided that he would have to branch out a bit and so he went looking for women who weren’t Chinese.

My friend is Asian; perhaps this is why he homed in on her. Sadly she did not consent to the man’s wishes in spite of me begging her to do it so that I could write more about it in the blog (I’m a great friend).

She was going to send me copies of their conversations so that I could include them in this blog post, but when she attempted to visit his profile a few weeks later, she found he had deleted it. Perhaps he had tried a few more women in the hope that someone would be persuaded but then eventually accepted defeat and deleted his profile. Or perhaps he was questioned by revenue and customs as presumably he wasn’t paying VAT for the service and it was just cash in hand. Or perhaps he has died or become severely ill due to testicular damage. There are so many possible reasons why he is no longer on the dating website, but as it’s Christmas I shall spare you the litany of further theories, just this once.

Before I go, I would like to remind you that this story was not about me. Any damage to my groin area is simply caused by overheating laptop computers
as stated in my previous blog post)
and not the result of any kinky sexual antics.

Well I’m sure this blog post has got you all in the Christmas spirit. Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year for a new series of
Young’uns podcasts.

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The first part of this blog post was written on the 5th October.

—

I reached the bus stop this morning just as the bus was pulling away from it. On this occasion however I did not get annoyed and scream curses at the bus driver as I did the time before
(as written about in this blog post from July).
I’d already done enough damage with my cursing, as I’d just discovered only five minutes ago. As far as I was concerned, I deserved to have missed that bus. It was the very least that I deserved as punishment for what I’d done, or might have done; whether I’d directly caused the event to happen or not is impossible to say. It probably wasn’t my fault, but the fact is that I said it, and then it came true the very next day.
Allow me to backtrack a bit; it would help this blog post make a bit more sense than it’s probably making to you at this moment in time.

I would have made the bus fine if I hadn’t stopped in my tracks and went back into the house. Obviously I didn’t do both of those things at the same time. I stopped in my tracks first, and then stopped stopping in my tracks so as to enable me to start going back into my house. I just thought I’d better make that clear, in case you were wondering how I’d possibly managed to do both at the same time. I’m not a miracle worker. At least I don’t think I am. At least, I didn’t used to think I was. Now I’m not so sure. (I’ll go back to the backtracking and explain what the hell I’m blabbering on about.)

This morning, radio 4 was on in the kitchen as I prepared myself to leave the house for work. At 7’30, I made to leave the house, but as I closed the kitchen door behind me I caught part of the news headline emanating from the radio. I stopped, in fact, I stopped in my tracks – you should know that by now. You should also be aware of the fact that once I’d stopped in my tracks, I then stopped stopping in my tracks so as to free myself up to start going back into my house. We’ve already established all this; I see little need to elaborate on it any further. Shall we move on then? You can always email me with questions if I’m going a bit too quick for you.

“No, I must have heard the headline wrong” I thought, “it’s too coincidental”. But I hadn’t. “Steve Jobs – The CEO and co-founder of Apple – has died”.

Steve Jobs is a man I have respect for, and it’s a shame he’s died, but ordinarily it probably wouldn’t have caused me to turn back into my house and risk missing the bus for work. But things were different now. This wasn’t ordinary; My actions two days previous made me react to the story in a very different way to how I might have ordinarily acted.

Two days ago, at about 11’30 in the evening, I was sitting at my Apple Mac computer. It was talking to me, and I was talking to it – well actually, to be more accurate, I was shouting at it.
The Mac’s part of the dialogue went something along the lines of, “busy, busy, busy, busy, Safari busy, busy, busy, busy”. My retort to this unhelpful monotony was to shout similar things to what you might expect me to be shouting at a bus driver who had just driven off when I was just about to step on the bus.

Being blind, I obviously can’t see the computer screen, so I use a screen reader which essentially tells me what’s going on–or in this particular case, what isn’t going on. Apple have revolutionised the information communication technology industry by integrating highly advanced screen reading and magnification software into their products. The iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, Apple Tv and the Apple Mac computer have all got speech and magnification built in to them at no extra charge. This is one reason why I have a lot of respect for Steve Jobs and Apple.

My respect for Apple however was being tested on this particular evening because I was having great trouble using Apple’s in-built Internet browser, Safari. People I know who have Macs testify that their computer never crashes, that it is ten times faster than windows computers, and so on. In my opinion, these people are bending the truth a bit. They like to be all elitist about the fact that they are using a computer which is more expensive than your standard computer, and they make exaggerated statements about the Mac’s superiority so as to make them seem superior as people. Yes, Apple Mac computers are much much less prone to crashes than your average windows computers. Yes, I have found my Apple Mac computer to be more reliable and much faster than most windows machines I’ve used. But they do crash. Not in the same clumsy way that a windows computer crashes, with a sudden halting of a process, followed by a series of incongruous error messages, beeping sounds, an over active fan that sounds like the computer is about to take off, and then “the dreaded blue screen of death”! Mac crashes are a bit more elegant than that. I’ve never had the blue screen of death, unfathomable error messages telling me that “this programme has performed an illegal operation and needs to close”. What the hell does that mean? I was using a perfectly legal version of Microsoft Word to type a blog post. What kind of illegal operation could that possibly have caused? (and keep your derogatory jokes to yourselves, they’re not funny.)

Or what about the classic: “This programme has stopped responding. If you end the programme now you will loose any unsaved information”, to which the only option is, “end
now”. This presents the computer user with a very perplexing dilemma: either sit and wait to see whether the computer might, just might, start responding again and thus reclaim the unsaved information that might otherwise be lost, or click “end now” and lose the information instantly. There is no indication of how long your wait might be or whether it will ever yield a response at all. How long would you wait? How important is the blog post? Thanks to windows crashing, you will never hear my joke about the ostrich and the cucumber. I waited three days to salvage that post, but the computer never righted itself and so now its lost forever.
Whether you choose to wait or not might depend on when you last did a save on your document, but my attempts to remember this information are inhibited by the fact that I’m unable to concentrate on anything other than the irritation of the loud, wearing fan noise of the laptop, plus the fact that the computer is getting hotter and hotter and starting to burn my lap and melt my groin. (note to my ex-girlfriends: this was actually the reason for your nocturnal disappointments. The laptop has melted away half of my manhood. O, if only I’d chosen an Apple Mac sooner, we might still be together, and I’d have better things to do with my time than spend it writing lengthy blog posts to a handful of readers.)

On this particular night, sitting with my Mac, I was very tired and
just needed to check and reply to an Email before I could go to bed. But Safari was stopping me from doing this, and had been stopping me for the last twenty minutes. I have mentioned in a
previous blog post
that when I get irritated at an errant computer I tend to shout and curse it. I think this is partly due to the fact that the computer talks to me and so it seems fairly logical and normal to talk back to it. I am also prone to cursing and damning various people who I believe are responsible for the problem. It is not uncommon for me to wish unpleasant things to happen to Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

I was so annoyed with the situation with my Mac that I began to curse Bill Gates, until I realised that on this occasion it wasn’t actually anything to do with him; this wasn’t his remit. I then changed my attack to focus on Steve Jobs. The Mac kept goading me with “busy, busy, busy” with even more intensity. This exacerbated my anger even more, and in the heat of the moment – albeit a far reduced heat than the moment would have had if I was using a burning PC – I blurted out the following statement: “O for fuck’s sake! Steve Jobs! Drop
Down Dead!!!”

Again, just like the incident with my outburst at the bus driver, I wasn’t proud of what I’d done. When I said it I realised my reaction was extreme. But I was annoyed. and it was only a stupid, rash statement made in anger. And it wasn’t like I meant it. And anyway, its not like I’m going to shout “Steve Jobs! Drop Down Dead!!!” and then a few hours later he’s going to die is it?

—

This blog post was written on the bus a few minutes after I heard the news. It has taken me three weeks to upload it because I lost my memory stick which housed the blog post. Perhaps it is better and more respectful to have waited a bit before posting anyway. I’m sure that I didn’t have any part to play in the death of Steve Jobs, although people do believe in the power of intention, thought and prayer. To those people who believe this, I can only offer the fact that there was no intention at all in my statement
as a means to vindicate myself.

I was telling this story to some friends a couple of days after the event. In that conversation I said that I would, as an experiment, curse another person so as to see whether my cursing holds any actual power. I said, in a jocular manner, “colonel Gaddafi! Drop Down Dead!” Two weeks later, he’s dead. OK, so there was a bit of a time lag with that one, but I wasn’t angry when I said it and so perhaps the power of the curse was a bit diminished, but the curse met its target eventually.

There are some people out there who may believe that I am some kind of dangerous, powerful god, able to bring death to anyone I curse (even if I make the curse with a smile on my face with know intention behind the words whatsoever).
There will be others out there who believe that all this is just a slight coincidence and that Steve Jobs’ and Colonel Gaddafi’s deaths were more to do with Pancreatic Cancer and being hunted down and killed by Libyan soldiers than a unintended curse made by one insignificant man in the North East of England. In case you don’t follow the news and the only external contact you have is this blog, it was Colonel Gaddafi who was hunted down and killed by Libyan soldiers, not Steve Jobs.

I suppose the moral of this story is: don’t wish people dead in case it comes true, unless of course its a dictator you’re wishing dead, but that’s down to your own conscience and set of morals. Look! there is no set moral to the story. You need to stop looking for fundamental answers hidden away in some poorly written blog and just start living like (what you consider to be) a good person; treat others how you’d like to be treated; always remember to save your work periodically; and if you’re a man, don’t let your computer melt your genitals down to a humiliating blob! Now, go forth in peace!

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