A Christmas Tale

Kids in snow, the rosie glow,
that spring could never bring.
A slice of ice that feels so nice,
cold wind it sings and stings.

Summers sun is long but gone,
the heat that warmed their feet.
So give me snow my love doth grow,
'neath sleet waits Santa's treat.

War heroes lament

Springtime and the living is easy.
Not for them, war veterans and the needy.
Fill my senses; sweet flowers and stale sick,
bile it slides, at your shoes it gently licks.

Summertime and the drink is a flowing.
All around is a violence that's growing.
This my Britain; no more I want to feel,
'fraid to walk, down the streets they long to steal.

Autumn time, in a life that you devoted.
Sacrifice you made, that goes un-noted.
And to think you gave your life for this,
handshake thanks, from an insincere wrist.

Wintertime, choking on your final breath.
Freeze your way, to an unbecoming death.
War hero, there’s no brandy and cigars,
they’re too drunk in the nearby parks and bars

First published in the Mudhutter 26, December 2009

A Moralistic Choice

It’s with a heavy heart and great disappointment that I write this, but something has to be said. I originally sent this letter to the local press but unsurprisingly it wasn’t published. Anyone daring to say anything negative about Dave Whelan in Wigan is refused a public forum to express their thoughts, even when their grievance has validity. I know it’s a little late to be sending this but I hope Mirror readers have some empathy with the story I’m about to tell.

I was fortunate enough to be in attendance at the Wigan Athletic v Manchester City game on Sunday 18th October, which was a fantastic spectacle. Well done to all those inside the DW stadium for making an electric atmosphere. The banter between both sets of fans was good humoured and far removed from the bad old days of 1980’s crowd violence.

However, one thing troubled me. Whilst making my way over the River Douglas and toward the stadium I stopped dead in my tracks. What I witnessed next shocked and dismayed me. At the end of bridge I could see two Cancer Research volunteers who were collecting for their charity. They were being asked to move on by two of the DW Stadium stewards. Apparently they were on private property and didn’t have a license to be there.

As I moved on I got talking to a couple of lads who were selling a Wigan Athletic fanzine. Apparently they had been told to move too. It comes to light that a new “Official Programme” kiosk had been implemented at the end of the bridge and “others” were getting in the way of selling the programme. It’s not like you can get it in the stadium is it??

Is this really what football has become? Is it nothing more than an excuse to suffocate charity workers and independent writers?

I’m a rare breed, a season ticket holder at both the towns clubs, and I love them equally. I’m a big fan of what Dave Whelan has done for this town and its sporting heritage, but come on Mr Whelan have a heart.

Can it really be the right thing to do when people are being harassed off a bridge that was there long before the JJB Stadium was built? Premiership football is awash with money and anyone who wants a programme will get one regardless of a moped size kiosk.

Leave the volunteers and writers alone eh Dave, what threat to the millions that is poured into football can a couple of people on a bridge be to you?


Dominic Oldman

Lucky Heather

Heather was so lucky,
a hit with all the boys.
“They all just want to fuck me
and I never make a noise”

Now she’s on her own,
don’t you think that it’s a shame?
But she won’t take the bullets,
too vain to take the blame.

Feeding off the scraps,
impervious to guilt.
Dead behind the eyes,
to fuck she’s custom built.

Heather was so lucky,
adored in her own mind.
Rather than feel love,
she's fucking herself blind.

Acumen

Walk like a champion,
don’t let them grind you down.
The World is full of fuckers,
who’ll beat you to the ground.

Move on, and rise above them,
leave them trailing in your wake.
The last laugh will be yours friend,
as you watch them crack and break.

So keep walking like a Champion,
for a Champion you are.
The World is full of love,
when you’ve worked out where you are.

The Coppers Revenge

Outline in chalk,
senescence overtaken;
white noise,
shallow breath.

Probing eyes peer
into the blood curdling scene.
Peaceful;
sacrosanct you.

Mimicking rest,
static eyes open and late.
Annulled;
forever gone.

Body bag set,
residue hidden within.
Tonight
you wont go cold;

but you’ll probably
go unsolved.

First published in the Mudhutter Football Express Issue 22, March 2009

Beatles Day - A Celebration

Article by special guest writer Roy "Carpenter" Smythe

Well it had to happen didn’t it? A day dedicated to the four young lads who shook the world. So on the morning of the inaugural day to celebrate the genius of The Beatles I awoke determined to embrace the concept of Scouseness and Beatleness in it’s entirety.

To start with I imagined how I would feel if I was suffering intolerable heroin withdrawal symptoms. What better way to understand a Scouser? I reasoned that I would be tremulous, experiencing terrible gastro intestinal disturbances, my nose would be running like a bastard tap, my levels of irritability would be intense and that my pupils would be pinned to fuck. Scouse as you like eh?

This didn’t really feel authentic enough though, so I got dressed and left the house and headed into Liverpool on the train. Fortunately I had forward planned the attire part of the day to perfection. So it was on with the Lacoste shell suit and sovereign rings and away I went. All was going well as I hid in the train bogs drinking my white lightening cider from a polystyrene cup and avoiding paying my fare. That was until I got to Lime Street that is, and then the stewards got me. Luckily I said that “I ownleee gorron a Edgggge Hkkkkill whaccckkkk” and so only had to pay a single. As I swaggered off the station pleased as punch with myself I headed to the Liverpool Echo head office in Old Hall Street to buy my “mop top wig” which was retailing for just £5. How could anyone doubt my belonging to the town now the mop top wig was in tow?

It was at this point that I realised that I needed to up the stakes if I was really going to get down with the Scousers and the Beatle fans, to celebrate. So I took the last swig of cider from my cup and then placed it on the ground. Within 30 minutes I’d collected over £6 and I’d made contact with a local unemployed smack head who assured me that he could cut me in on a £10 bag. So, full of smack I wandered the Liverpool streets looking for Beatles devotees whilst feeling like a proper Scouser.

So much so that I initiated the next ingredient of my assimilation plan, I mugged an old lady. That’s right, I slapped the old duffer across the face and snatched her purse, well when in Rome eh? Would you believe it, another £10 bag in the old dears purse and the works to complete the mission. No fucking money in it though, just a bus pass and a love letter from 1945 that I used to dab the blood up after I’d dug for a vein. I never knew being a Scouser could be such fun.

As I staggered further into the city, onto Williamson Square, I came across a mass of people. Surely these are the devotees that I travelled so far to be with. Alas no, and I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon sat with the members of the Williamson Square Jobcentre Plus crew in the Beluga Bar. Not exactly Beatles, but very Scouse, and seeing Ricky Tomlinson on the telly with the same wig at least validated my decision. There was no need for the tribute band on the ferry though, fucking gash.

Shortly after I blacked out and sometime later I woke up being dragged into the back of a Police van naked and with come running down the back of my legs. Internally I didn’t feel too uncomfortable and the flashbacks since would suggest I was complicit.

So there you go, being a Scouser and a Beatles fan is indeed “boss” and I look forward to celebrating the day again next year.

Words hand crafted by adopted Scouser,

Roy “Carpenter” Smythe

Damascus

This road to Damascus
paved with ambivalence and doubt.
Left me staring at the ceiling
and the walls that moves in time.

Throw a shekel in your dead sea,
do I float or I do I drown?
Sirens calling me to prayer,
but I'm waiting to be found.

The Wailing Wall heaved and sagged and groaned,
leaving me unmoved, moving on alone

and Damascus is a long way from home.

Friends (not so) Reunited

Yes. . . I know.

I’m aware I said in the first MFE of the 2008/09 season that I would be much more serene since my summer wedding. However, something happened the other week that ended all that. The wife has lost her wedding ring! Since the big day she’s been leaving it lying at her arse and I’ve been picking it up at the back of her and scolding her. “You’ll fucking lose this”, I kept telling her, and alas she did. Worst of all is that she hasn’t got a fucking clue how.

Of course I’ve had the piss ripped out of me, with friends and colleagues telling me she must have left it on someone’s bedside table. Or that it must have slipped off her finger and slid between the grills, as Bobby from Vision World scuttled her over the bonnet of his Cortina. By and large I’ve laughed these suggestions off. To be honest if you had seen the wife you’d laugh it off too. People that have witnessed her say she’s got a lovely personality, you know, proper bubbly.

Anyway, seeing as the fat jolly bastard had stuck a wedge the size of China between our new-found happy marriage I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time on-line. There’s a few things on the wonderful world of the web I’ve always wondered about, mainly because I can’t get my head around them. They’re the Friends Reunited, Facebook, etc shite. The whole idea behind them flummoxes me.

If these so called friends that you profess to want to be reunited with meant so much then why did you lose contact in the first place? I’ve never lost contact with anyone I didn’t want to, friend or no friend. Anyway, for the purpose of research I centred my efforts on Facebook and what an inspired choice that was.

What a set of fucking prize whoppers who post on this old pile of bollocks. First of all you get an “invite” to be a friend of whoever has wasted precious seconds of their life looking for you. This is in the form of a little message when you log on to Facebook or via your e-mail. Now there’s two ways they could have found you. Number 1 - Type the name of the person you’re looking for and plough through the hundreds of wankers who share the same name as you. Fine if your name is Cecil Pillsbury, but you’re up shit creak if it’s John Smith. Or, Number 2 - Tap in the name of your friend complete with e-mail address of said friend and invite them to join you.

What the fuck are you doing inviting someone to be your friend online if you have their e-mail address? Surely if you have this amount of information you could e-mail them and ask for their mobile number to invite them to meet you in the real world for a pint? Come to think about it, if you have their e-mail address you probably got it off them when you spoke to them on the phone or in person. In fact you’re probably already their friend. It makes no sense at all??

The fun doesn’t stop there though readers. There’s so much fun that can be had as a Facebooker! You can join loads of exciting groups like “Boycott X Factor until the judges get a grip” or “Viva Ash Vegas”, oh the fucking mirth. These groups don’t actually do anything other than give a platform for shit houses everywhere to say how great it is to get absolutely hammered in their local town. That leads me onto the photo section were our eccentric Kings and Queens of comedy post picture upon picture of themselves in various states of pose with hilarious captions like “u go girl” or “I didn’t realise I was so small”.

Invariably most of the photos are in the pub and are dreadfully unflattering. Even worse though are the photos that people put up of their holidays or their kids birthdays. If you’re reading this and have been guilty of the aforementioned crime then let me spell it out for you. NO-ONE GIVES A SHIT and because you’re not forcing it into their faces, like you would if you actually sat in the same room as them, then no-one is looking at them. Be honest, how fucking dull and inconvenient is it having to feign interest in some other bastards snaps? It’s beyond tedious and the thrill factor doesn’t increase because it’s on-line.

Then there’s the friends suggestion facility. I’m thirty bastard one, why the fuck would I need someone to suggest who I could be friends with? My personal favourite is the “Status Update” were our quirky cyber heroes can share spleen rupturing moments like “I’m growing a beard and thinking of God”. PLEASE FUCKING DIE or at least get disconnected.

A final mention to the Facebooker über alles. The sad wanker who you never liked, you were never friends with because they were in the lunchtime chess club and you wouldn’t even piss on if they were on fire. The ones whom only reason for being on Facebook, Friends Reunited etc is to tell you how well they are doing for themselves. The type of sad bastard who writes comments in their “Status Update” like “Mike is thinking 2 long haul trips in a week may be a bit excessive after all.”

Oh do fuck off , if life was so great you would have no need to post a message to Facebook via your mobile telling all of your 792 friends who don’t fucking care that you’ve been on a aeroplane.

Facebook and it‘s inhabitants. . . . . . . I’ve shit ‘em.


Dirrrrty “I’m just off to post pictures of myself and my family via my blackberry in a bar on Bondi beach whilst getting horribly pissed” Oldman

First published in the Mudhutter Football Express Issue 21. February 2009

High life.

Living the high life,
self-appointed King in a vertical concrete ghetto.
It’s there that all the decisions are made
undisturbed by the street level drifters.
Entry; strictly verboten to the outside world.

Peering through cigarette stained fingers
at the inhabitants below. Insignificant;
neither subjects nor enemies.
Creations of a repugnant existence,
urchins of the lowland terrain.

But you forget old friend,
I know you far too well, having stood
on the 22nd floor of your inner sanctum.
Paranoia breeds amongst the empty beer cans,
discarded spoons and magazine cuttings.

Leaving your shopping at the door
I catch a glimpse of you through the letterbox.
How did it come to this?
A shell of a man I once loved and knew,
sweet brother John, are you ever coming back?

Skinny girl

Ginger spice hair,
tight fitting Rupert pants .
Mesmerising hips,
held me lusting in a trance.

Trance laid asunder,
wait to make my move.
Saunter to your dance floor,
hit you with my groove.

Groove young skinny girl,
le début, la fin.
Everybody’s story
written on their skin.

Skin is beauty deep,
six feet down and terse.
Dance with me a rumba
before I book my hearse

Hello I love you wont you tell me your name (again)

I say again, but I never really forgot it in the first place, it’s just we lost each other along life’s busy highway. So it’s with great pleasure I have been able to announce to anyone bored enough to listen “this month (well since the 30th May) I have been mostly listening to The Doors.”

Our re-acquaintance has come at a particularly happy time in my life as I, Mr Dirrrrtyoldman have recently taken our lass the bird now known as Mrs Dirrrrtyoldwoman to be my lawful wedded wife. It was during the wedding night haze of an evening fueled by merriment and alcohol that I found my former musical love, The Doors.

The wife’s sister and husband, now my sister and brother in law had brought their iPod to the party to liven up an otherwise dull selection of my CD’s. Now our family do’s invariably wind up with the lot of us taking turns on the microphone and amplifier. These are always generously brought along by the wife’s aunty and uncle, now my aunt and uncle in law. Anyway I’m pestering the sister-in-law to find me something on the iPod that I can get up and give plenty, when low and behold a selection of The Doors tracks come up.

It was like getting married all over again only without me tripping over my words and getting something in my eye. So I gave it what for and belted out Light My Fire and Hello I Love You. This was all too quickly followed, in everyone else’s opinion, by L.A Woman and Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar). Well, fuck ’em, it’s my, sorry, our wedding.

An hour or so later, and with the bravery of far too many glasses of cheap Champagne I launched into Roadhouse Blues and Riders On The Storm. By the time I woefully belted out the oral sex metaphor, Love Me Times the gig had gone on far far too long. I didn’t even get the first bar out for Back Door Man before a bemused Mrs Dirrrrtyoldwoman reminded me there were children present and that singing “the men don’t know but the little girls understand” wasn’t exactly the behaviour of a newly married man.

In the aftermath of a disastrous night it was with a chuckle to myself that I remembered a couple of other Doors related stories. The first being at my mates, Dad’s funeral when I was about 19. The Church was a Catholic one in Burtonwood and the place was packed to the rafters. Now apart from serving on the alter as an alter boy, I’d never been to the funeral of anyone I knew. So all of us mates are sat at the back as nervous as could be when the organist starts up, Ray Manzarek style. Quick as a flash one of the lads whispers, “Jim Morrison’s gonna jump out that coffin and Eddies Dad’s going to walk in the back any minute now laughing his fucking nuts off.” Well we just creased up laughing, but thankfully no-one really noticed as they were all to consumed by their own personal grief. I’ve laughed at every funeral since.

Another one involved a mate of mine insisting he was the reincarnation of Jim Morrison as he was born on the day he died, 7/3/71. It transpired that Morrison died on 3/7/71 and the poor bastard got it ripped out of him for years.

So I’m sat here typing this and listening to The Doors in the background. A quick glance at the sleeve notes reminds me that this is a band that recorded six albums in just four years. It takes most bands that amount of time to record one album nowadays, and that’s with all the technology that is meant to make it easier and sound better.

As the final few bars of When The Music Is Over fade out I can’t help but think what a waste it was that Jim Morrison checked out at just 27yrs old. It’s a true tragedy that Morrison, a man who had the looks, charisma, voice and writing skills left this mortal coil so soon into his young life. Who knows what else this wordsmith could have produced?

My guess is that he would adhere to the old cliché about burning out, not fading away.

If you’re up their Jim it’s a pleasure to have made you acquaintance again. Now make sure you keep a Whiskey Bar open for my arrival.

First Published in The Mudhutter 16, June 2008

Lamp post tribute

Floral words at the foot
of a lamp-post memorial.
Paltry monument ruse
to the unknown drifter.

Disparaging all success,
amnesic convenience.
Rejoice the passing
with out-of-date flowers.

Celebrating death,
scorn anonymous life.
Presumptuous petals fall
from fickle fingers of fate.