An Open Letter to Ashley Cole

What the fuck is up with you son? You’re shacked up with one of the most beautiful women in the world and still you can’t get it right! It’s symptomatic of you and your ilk. Pampered footballers, who want it all and care not a jot who they shit on to get it.

How the fuck could you do this to sweet, sweet Cheryl? If I had a bird like Cheryl I’d do everything to keep her. If Cheryl said “cook me Lobster Risotto, I’d cook it”, if Cheryl said “I want romancing in a bath sprinkled with roses” I’d chew the fucking petals off to provide it. Are you getting the idea Ashley?

Surely it can’t be a lack of action in the bedroom Ashley? If Cheryl was mine I’d ride the hole clean off of her. I’d throw her petite and highly sexed body all over my mansion. I can see her now with a kitchen apron on and as she turns her back to me she has nothing on underneath except her stockings and suspenders. Her taught arse delicately covered with see through black panties. She’d bend over all seductively, placing her index finger naughtily by the corner of her bright red lip-sticked lips. Her eyes wide open and helpless like a fox cornered in a woodland glade, begging to be taken in manly fashion.

Do you like the thought of another individual being bent over Ashley? Do you like the smell of the sweat and testosterone in the shower after a particularly arduous training session son? Rumour has it that you and a certain ray of sunshine were very close during your time at Arsenal? The boy has done good since returning to the heart of the North London clubs defence eh? Not that is a defence for you fella.

Don’t even get me started on your “hurt” at only being offered a pittance of 55k a week contract at Arsenal you selfish little cunt. What motivates you Ashley? Is it an unquenchable need for acceptance? Or is it a tangerine in the mouth and wearing your Mam’s tan tights that keeps you cheating on sweet, sweet Cheryl?

Sometimes when a bird looks dirty you can bet your bottom Euro that they are anything but experimental. But Cheryl? Nah, I bet she’s a dirty wee fuck, the type of lass that spreads her arse cheeks and begs to be anally violated. A right filthy ride!

Of course it could be the fall out from an unwanted but necessary alliance. Let’s face it, you were being closely monitored for your post-match bath antics and allegedly Cheryl twatted a non-white skinned girl in the bogs, which I may add I don’t believe. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

My advice to you son is this. Let Cheryl go and let her find a REAL man, someone like me.

If Cheryl was mine. . . . . .. . . . . .you know the fucking rest.

Dirrrrty (give me 5mins alone with Mrs Cole) Oldman

First published in the Mudhutter Football Express Issue 28 April 2010

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

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

The Death of the Working Classes

It’s been a long time in the making but serial miserable bastard dirrrrtyoldman returns for part 6 in the elongated and largely unnecessary, “The Death of . . . . . . Series“. In this episode our anti-hero looks back in a melancholic fashion as to why he doesn’t still live in a bucket of shit back in his beloved Earlestown. Keep it under your hat, but we’ve sussed that the scruffy toe rag is a fraud.

We all know one don’t we? We probably know more than one, if we are able to face the shame of admitting it. The pseudo middle classes, champions of the working class, the bench mark of what we should all aspire to. The acceptance and the status that we crave. Not fucking I!

It’s not people doing well for themselves that I find offensive. After all who doesn’t want better for themselves or their nearest and dearest? And who could decry anyone for achieving it? No my friends it’s the “who the bally hell are you?” attitude and the convenient forgetting of where they came from and having some respect for it that gets on my tits. Some of these fuckers would sell their own kidneys to maintain their new found status. In fact scratch that, they’d sell their own children’s kidneys first. Too fucking selfish to sell their own. In fact ignore that too, they’d sell the kids.

It’s all well and good reminiscing about the good old days and how tough times were, and then in the next breath telling every fucker how they should be going organic when they should know fucking better.

The truth is your pseudo middle classes turn it on and off like a bastard tap depending on what company they’re in. They lord it over those of us who haven’t ticked the boxes of their [enunciate and punctuate with your fingers all you want dickhead] pseudo middle class blueprint. They can’t hide their glee can they, when it comes to indulging us in their favourite topic, themselves. There’s no holding ’em back from comparing themselves to the lad in the factory earning a fucking pittance. You see if you can stop them drawing the parallels of their successes against his. Not a chance, this is the pseudo’s chance to shine. And shine they will, basking in the warmth of the sun radiating from their own super shiny ring-pieces.

Of course it’s always been more difficult for them, they always had to work harder for their piece of the middle class pie. They did it against all odds and don’t we fucking know about it! It wasn’t like they has more opportunities than their 6-2, 2-10 counterparts was it? They just got on their bikes and made it happen.

So here they are, successful legends in their own lunchtimes and attempting to make you feel inadequate because you didn’t aspire to be a prick.

How very different the pseudo is when you stick him in the company of his adopted class. Suddenly the pseudo’s Mum wasn’t the pot cleaner at the local school who plated up left overs to bring home for the kids teas.

“How dare you, Mummy was helping out as a volunteer at the school in between charity events at the Woman’s Guild and took the food with the blessing of the school governors to give to the unfortunate kids on the council estate that their street wasn’t really a part of. A street that was at the bottom end of the estate and therefore wasn’t classed as council property”

Aye, that’d be right, draw for breath you selective memories prick.

What really happens is that they’re never really accepted by the genuine middle classes and then they end up forming a splinter group. A kind of hybrid of middle class meets working class, a cross breed or mongrel if you wish. A deformed Dolly the Sheep breed that has lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. Rejected from all sides and left to form a new identity that is adaptable to it’s surroundings. A social chameleon that shifts uncomfortably in it’s seat that it shouldn’t be really fucking sat in.

And that my dear friends is what is wrong with the our merry little country today. Nobody gives a fuck about anyone else and they are more than prepared to metamorphisize into whatever it takes to make them acceptable to their higher Gods.

The death of the working classes, orchestrated by that old fucker Thatcher. She employed the oldest trick in the book, conquer and divide, and we the clued up nation of idiots that we are fell for it. In a blinded haze we stood open mouthed and in awe of the prospect of owning our own homes and becoming middle class. Meanwhile Thatcher systematically disassembled the unions and privatised everything in sight. Worse still the moral fibre of the working class was irrevocably destroyed and consigned to history.

Thatcher, the woman responsible for beginning the unraveling of our tight knit communities. Miner against Miner, neighbour against neighbour, each person with one thing in mind. Me, me and me some more. Oh and one other thought, to stamp and shit over anyone else who gets in my way.

Some will say I’m looking at things through rose tinted glasses and I’ll concede they probably have a point. But consider these things:

Take a look in the street where you live. Do you know everyone in it? Do they know you? If you had to shoot off somewhere sharpish for an emergency is their anyone you could leave your kids with? Is everyone watching out for each other and making your street a safe place to live and your kids to play? Of course not, too self indulgent to give a fuck about anyone but themselves. Ask anyone of a certain age to name everyone in their road when they were growing up and they can. They can do it in Widescreen, Surround Sound, Sky-Plus , Touchstone Pictures Presents, Digital Quality accuracy. A true working class quality, community and togetherness.

When was the last time your street had a Bonfire Night were one family made the treacle toffee, one bought the potatoes for roasting and each family dragged a sofa out for the adults to sit on in-between taking turns in lighting the fireworks? There’s no sense of community and every sense of one-upmanship that leaves each one of us diametrically opposed.

Anyway I think I’ve made my point and I can feel myself getting increasingly pissed on the cheap wine that I bought from the local corner shop. A defiant but small gesture that reminds me of my roots. So I’ll sign off whilst I’m being quintessentially (put that word in your pipe pseudo) working class.

First published in The Mudhutter online e-zine, can't remember which one !!

Excuse me, can I have two minutes of your time Sir?

Now as you may or may not know, I got married during the close season (that’s the bit in-between last season and this season). As a result of this I’ve made a pledge to my fellow writers/sellers/ne’er do wells at Mudhuts Towers. I’ve made the same promise to my close friends and family, and it’s this. It’s that I will spend less time getting bent out of shape about the activities of others. No more will I get hypertensive and tachycardic at fucking idiots whose mere existence is seemingly set to serve one purpose and one purpose alone. That being to make my life in-fucking-tolerable!

You can drop your chewing gum on the pavement, I care not a jot. Be my guest and slurp your coffee and chomp your food like a scruffy dick, not a problem. You can even let me hold the door open in the local chemist whilst putting the pram with my daughter in it to one side to allow you in with your pram. Then, as I expect a return of the compliment or even a simple thanks, you can just walk through, letting the door shut on me and my daughter as you saunter away, unaware of my kindness let alone my existence.

You know what? I’m okay with it all, I am unfazed by anything that life has to throw at me. Why would I be? I’m a newly wed and the new season is here, what more could I want?

However, whilst walking through town the other day this do-gooder felt the need to ask me a question. Now it wasn’t something offensive, or for that matter was it something that I hadn’t been asked before. In fact I’ve grown all too accustomed to being asked the same bastard question over and over.

“Excuse me, can I just have two minutes of your time please Sir?”

“No you fucking well can’t as it happens!” I retorted in my mind, as I deftly manoeuvred myself away with all the grace of a young Rudolf Nureyev to get to Wigan Wallgate and on my train.

The only two minutes you’ll be getting sunny jim will be the two minutes needed to put my fucking size 12’s on your head in Wigan baths and end your constant questioning. What is it with these people that they feel the need to assault me every time I try to get from A to B across my own town?

You see my friends I’m not a mean spirited man. Moi? Non! I’m all for charity but not when I get hassled to involve myself in it every fucking day. Not only that, but the whoppers who are trying to acquire my business are reason enough not to give to charity again. If it’s not some idiot being whacky in a fucking rubber suit, then it’s some scruffy student with fuck all better to do. Only maybe getting a job would be a good idea eh you work shy fop? But why would you bother to do that when you can get me to pay taxes to fund your fucking fees, whilst you sit up the student bar supping bitter that I have paid for whilst you slag me off for not signing up to the charity you’re representing in a piss poor manner!!
Standing there with your “MIND” t-shirt on with no fucking knowledge about what you’re talking about. I would fucking love to say “here pal, MIND this” as I throw your tub of natural yoghurt and cucumber in your scabby, bum fluffed bearded fucking face. THAT I’M FUCKING PAYING FOR!

And it doesn’t stop there. No my friends, that’s only the beginning, the real fun starts when you get to work. It’s “I’m collecting for this. . . .” or “I’m doing a sponsored shitathon for the fluoridisation of Zimbabwean political prisoners of conscience fucking teeth”. It never, ever, ends. . . and how enthused we all are that we can do our bit, whether we want to or not. Like I said I have nothing against charity. . . . . . . .

On the theme of work I must mention the fucking collection. Some bastards will collect for anything. You’ve hurt your leg playing football? Let’s start a collection. You’ve just become a parent? Let’s start a collection. You’ve trapped your cock in your zip? Let’s start a fucking collection! I’ve recently stopped collecting my wages and have asked for them to be divided equally between my colleagues, so they can pay for presents for the sufferers of broken nails and for a fresh water well in Leigh.

I shouldn’t complain though. The collection they got together at work for my wedding gift netted me £200 and I’m sat wearing most of it whilst I’m typing this. Well they do say charity begins at home.


Dirrrrty “the honeymoons over” Old Man

First published in the Mudhutter 17, August/September 2008 and MFE18 August 2008 2008

Fern Britton - An open letter

Well you big fat lying lard arsed cow! We believed in you Fern and you shit up our backs, in fact you shat on the doorstep of all of your fans, fat and thin.

So you used surgery to shift your considerable bulk whilst hoodwinking us, your adoring public, into believing you shed the pounds with eating less, cycling and walking the family dog. It’s all well and good you giving it the big one by saying that you owed no cunt an explanation about your helping hand from under the knife. I spent a small fortune on those wafer biscuits you were advertising. The fuckers stuck in my throat every fucking day, once for breakfast, once for tea, and all because I thought you were with me. “If Fern can eat these, I can eat these,”- I thought to myself.

Meanwhile that effeminate wee husband of yours, Vickery, was filling your restricted heinous fucking gut with all manner of goodies.

The strange thing is I’d have rode the hole clean off you Fern when you were a big un. You had an air of confidence about you Fern, the air of a women who was at ease with herself physically, spiritually and sexually. I bet you put a great turn on as well. I can imagine you looking at me over your shoulder, eyes wide and innocent, with index finger seductively placed between your lips.

But no, that wasn’t enough for you was it Fern, you had to keep pushing it didn’t you? I blame that cunt John Leslie, a poisoned chalice that bastard. You play with fire and you’ll end up getting burnt and from where I’m sat I can smell the pork crackling away

Go on Fern, get to fuck away from me whilst I decide where we go from here.

First Published in The Mudhutter 16, July 2008

Richard Madeley - An Open Letter

I’ve always hated you Madeley, right from the fucking word go. You sit there with that smug fucking grin on your face don’t you? Sitting there as if you think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you Madeley?

It was a black day on the 13th May 1956, wasn’t it Madeley? The day you entered the world. There was no need for forceps when you were delivered, I bet you fucking shot out you slimy wanker. I never could and never will be able to stomach Shakin’ Stevens, but how I applauded him when he had you in that headlock on the telly all those years ago. That was Shaky’s big chance if you ask me. If only he’d gone a step further and given you a proper fucking hiding he could have been a national treasure.

But he didn’t and you’re still here aren’t you Madeley? You and that gibbering wreck of a wife of yours, is it any wonder she shakes like a shitting dog living with you?

Fuck off Madeley, you make me fucking sick.

First Published in The Mudhutter 15, May 2008

Ask your Grannie

Grannies are great aren’t they? Well maybe not. My Grannie, or Nan as she preferred to be called, was an absolute tyrant of a woman. A woman so evil in fact that she wouldn’t have looked out of place sat in the company of the worlds most feared dictators. If she wasn’t knitting me jumpers that were designed with one thing in mind, to strangle me, then she was making me eat her homemade cooking. The cracks around the head were also memorable as well, and reminiscing about the violence still fills my heart with joy on those balmy summer evenings of thoughtful meanderings.


In between her attempts at prematurely ending my young life she seemed intent on using me as a guinea pig for a variety of experiments. I have to admit to being
impressed with her in-depth knowledge of every non-medical remedy known under the sun, and quite possibly beyond.

Her vast knowledge and life experience also lent itself to beauty tips, gardening and plethora of handy hints. She was in fact a walking of Bella, Woman’s Own and Home & Garden rolled into one. So, with that in mind here are a few of Grannies, sorry Nan’s pointers for a wholesome and fulfilling life.

Bacon in a stocking - Placed around the neck for a sore throat (what a waste of food and lingerie)

Cabbage leaves in your bra - To keep breast’s cool in summer (I’ve got no tits, maybe she thought I was one)

Potatoes in your pockets - To help ease arthritis (Bag of crisp would be easier)

Bathing feet in a bucket of piss - A cure for athlete’s foot (Erotic pissing? Not for me Nan)

Butter - For a bang on the head (Where she had hit me AGAIN!)

Salt Bath - To clear infections (Fart and burn your ring piece)

Tea leaves - Good for plants (Even special herb gardens in the loft)

Spicy food - Induces labour (I’m just big boned)

Crusts - Curly hair (I don’t want a free Chris Waddle)

Buttercup under chin - To see if I liked butter (Just ask me Nan)

Tea bags - Used for fake tan when she’d used up all her wrinkled stockings to help cure my sore throat (See No 1)

Dry biscuits - Hangover cure (You drank too much anyway, didn’t you, GRANNIE)

First Published in The Mudhutter 3, February 2005

It's a question of taste

The beauty of being able to understand and appreciate the written word is an often underestimated art in our twin turbo, go faster stripes world we live in. Why take the time to develop an interpretation of something, when you can have it served up to you in a one size fits all fashion that requires little thought at all. Think Cheeky Girls and you'll understand where I'm coming from.

The prosecution will now provide evidence that flies in the face of the usual literary shite dished up. Thus proving categorically, that the written word is still King.

The Cure - Faith

catch me if i fall
i'm losing hold
i can't just carry on this way
and every time
i turn away
lose another blind game
the idea of perfection holds me...
suddenly i see you change
everything at once
the same
but the mountain never moves...

rape me like a child
christened in blood
painted like an unknown saint
there's nothing left but hope...
your voice is dead
and old
and always empty
trust in me through closing years
perfect moments wait...
if only we could stay
please
say the right words
or cry like the stone white clown
and stand
lost forever in a happy crowd...

no-one lifts their hands
no-one lifts their eyes
justified with empty words
the party just gets better and better...

i went away alone
with nothing left
but faith


As a written piece it's pure poetry. Set to it's music the words take on another dimension. Especially with Smith's voice gliding softly, but deliberately over the stark arrangement. 1989 seems a long time ago and my trip down to the Wembley Arena to see the last two nights of The Cure's European Tour seems a distant memory. The make-up that was painted onto my young drunken face never did seem to be completely rinsed away and the words remain embossed on my mind forever.

The prosecution rests.

I coulda been a contender

It’s Friday night and I’m sat alone in my house. Our lass is at her sisters trying on make-up. Not just any old make-up, but make-up for our upcoming wedding. A wedding that will be taking place in less than ???? weeks.

It’s not like we’ve met at the airport and I’ve paid her Mam enough money to feed the family rice for a lifetime, she’s not from Bolton. We’ve been together 11 years, and we’ve got a couple of sprogs into the bargain. Despite this I’m fucking shitting myself and I don’t mind telling you that I’m losing sleep over it.

All kinds of shit is floating through my brain. I keep waking up in the morning mid-dream/argument with people I’ve fallen out with in the past, or people I’m expecting to have disagreements with in the future. It’s supposed to be the happiest time in my life, but I’m struggling to see when the ‘happiest’ bit is going to kick in. I’m failing to see the sense of humour in any of it and quite frankly I’m getting disinterested in the whole gig.

If it aint broke don’t fix it, but I’m involved in fixing something that’s not even got superficial bruising.

In the midst of all this confusion and indefinable paranoia I’m sat here watching Later with Jools Holland, and it’s not helping. I’m sat here watching the young new things and the old were things and thinking to myself, I could have been a contender! That could be me in Jools studio giving it rock all, instead of sitting here bricking it.

Whenever I watch Jools my mind automatically drifts towards memories of New Years Eve or Summer festivals. Invariably my thoughts lean toward pop stardom and the conveyor belt of drugs and nubile women that should have adorned my black satin bed linen. Alas no more, and here I am alone with my worries and my doubts.

So Jools if you’re reading this, leave a comment on my blog to help soothe my troubled mind. Something along the lines of:

“Dirrrrtyoldman you’re doing the right thing. Your Polly is a top lass and you’d be daft to pass up the opportunity to shack yourself up with a top bird like her”

Otherwise get me a slot on your show and let me prove to everyone that I could have been a contender.

Fashionless Fashion

First Published in the Mudhutter Football Express Issue 13 August 2007

No matter which way you carve it up fashion is important to all of us. Even the scruffiest bastard mincing around your local area has at the very least a slight interest in their own sartorial elegance. I mean, there are choices to be made aren’t there? And with those choices comes a common acceptance of how you’ll be perceived. I’m sure even the most vehement anti-fashionlists (yeah I know the word doesn’t exist) would concede that they would end up looking a tad foolish by denying that their selection of attire didn’t say something of how they wanted to be viewed.

Now years ago I would have been in the “I don’t strictly adhere to fashion” brigade, but that has definitely changed. A strange thing happened to me recently and I suddenly found myself spending an inordinate amount of time in High Street department stores. I even ended up with a store card and found myself getting over aroused at the thought of looking right smart in my new clobber. It’s a funny thing when you have kids, but you feel duty bound to look half presentable. If not for yourself then at least for the kids, you don’t want your little Johnnies pals telling him that his Dad looks like he hangs around the bus station bogs do you? In fact there’s a definite element of competitiveness between parents. What you used to wear for a night out you find yourself wearing to do the school run. The school pick up is the new night out, Monday at 3:30pm is Saturday evening on the tiles.

There’s been some cracking fashions over the years and by and large there is an ideology attached to them. Take the Nazi’s and their Nazi Chic. Now I’m in no way condoning the atrocities’ of the 2nd World War, but you have to doff your cap to these lads and lasses, they didn‘t half scrub up well.. Especially the SS dressed in black from head to toe, now that was a sexy fashion. Their actions, although not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, were at least pro-active in trying to achieve their Aryan race dream.

To be fair the Germans aren’t all bad, who can honestly say they didn’t want to go there to be a brickie or a chippie after the first series of Auf Wierdersehen Pet? God bless Pat Roach, aka Bomber, not a terrorist Bomber I hasten to add, Bomber was his nickname, although I bet he could have turned his hand to Bombing. After all he went from wrestling at teatime on World of Sport, to acting. There would have been some mess if Pat had been a Suicide Bomber, he was, shall we say, a big unit, blood and snot everywhere.

Anyway back to the article. The fashion of the Nazi period has never completely died, take the Punks. Now as anyone worth their salt knows the Punks weren’t exclusively or even in the majority a movement about Nazism, they were about freedom of thought, kicking against authority, anarchy and being an individual. They did however take on at least part of the Nazi fashion in the form of the swastika, and didn’t they wear it well! Along with the swastika, they dressed to shock with their dyed Mohicans, chains and safety pins. Every component of their ideology and presentation were again trying to move things forward, trying to say something, trying to affect a change.

Whilst we’re on the subject of Nazis and Punks, what about those Adolf Hitler European Tour t-shirts in the early eighties? Not very politically correct, but very very funny.

From the hippies who championed sexual liberation, peace and love, psychedelic drugs and Eastern Religions whilst wearing ill fitting and over elaborate clothing. To the baggie trousered devotees of the second summer of love standing on the terraces pilled off their tits. The fashion and ideologies behind those movements went hand in hand, and all of them believed that they could make things better. Some of course were misguided, some, like the Nazi’s were just plain evil, but all of them had beliefs and hopes for what they envisaged to be a better future.

And so to the crux of the matter, the Chavs. I’m not sure that’s what this set of scum are called nowadays, but they’re the ones you see dressed in black tracksuits. As much as I championed the youth of Wigan a while back in ‘Memories of a Teenage Disco Dancer’, I can only pour equal amounts of disdain on this set of trash.

First things first, the black tracksuits. What’s the fucking script with black tracksuits? I know they’re supposed to form part of their identity but please, is that the best they can do? They look awful, there’s nothing redeeming about a black fucking tracksuit. Is the hood up meant to instil fear and intimidation into the hearts and minds of us, the unsuspecting public? Oooooh I’m shitting myself! And what would one find under their hood? A cap! A cap under your fucking hood! Is the weather forecast so bad that you need two pieces of headwear to keep you dry if it pisses it down? Or is it the dick under the hood is so ugly that it’s face is double bagged and hidden? As if that part of the image isn’t bad enough what do these pillocks wear on their feet? Shoes! Shoes with a tracksuit! Who thought that one up, because someone obviously did and it doesn’t end there. Have you seen what they do with their tracksuit bottoms? They tuck them into their socks! Fuck me fucking furiously, tracksuit bottoms tucked into your socks and then finished off with a smashing pair of shoes!

Now you’re talking, now you’re ready to show us what master plan you and your ill educated white homies are going to foist upon us dried up old hippies, punks and baggies. Go on hit us with it whilst you stand their cupping your balls down the front of your black fucking tracksuit bottoms!

Silence. . . .. . . . . . . . . . .zilch, nothing, zero, nought, absolutely fuck all.

They don’t have an informed opinion about anything. They have no industry, no aspirations to define a change and no sense of accountability for their actions or the consequences to themselves or the world they live in. They just want to drive about in the cars (usually blue Citroën Saxo’s) that Mum and Dad are paying for on the drip, smoking psychosis inducing cannabis and then when it all goes wrong blame everyone else and let the rest of us pick up the bill.

They don’t seem to stand for anything except apathy, the occasional mugging and a complete lack of manners. All of which aren’t designed to send a resounding message of positive youthful defiance to us elder statesmen.

Why do they all think they’re black as well? A black dude being a black dude is unbeatable in the cool stakes, but when some brain dead, scrawny white lad who is so pale you could read him like a fucking road map with his veiny blue body, starts wearing a black tracksuit and flicking his wrist shouting “respec” then I can‘t help but become a little cynical. Ali G isn’t real you thick bastards.

But as bad as their lack of a philosophy is, in pushing forward their generation, it’s their lack of a decent fashion which is totally unforgivable. “Clothes maketh the man” they say. But for the subscribers of fashionless fashion “Clothes maketh the twat”, and empty headed ones at that!

Choose today’s Britain

First Published in the Mudhutter Football Express Fanzine February 2008

Choose today’s Britain. Choose income tax, council tax, does anyone remember the poll tax? Choose value added tax, inheritance tax and every other fucking tax under the sun. Just when you think the whole thing is becoming too taxing, don’t worry, the bastards will invent a new one. Choose chocolate puddings from that advert that is on TV and buying into it’s shallow depiction. Choose congestion charges, toll roads and parking permits to park on the roads you’ve already paid for with your car tax. Choose fermented urine as a natural fungicide next time you’re having coffee at your organic java hut. Choose global warming and being duped that it really is the biggest threat to humanity whilst the waters in the Persian Gulf are boiling over. Choose to let yourself be distracted long enough so you wont see what their left hand is doing whilst they tickle you on the belly with their right. Choose inflated petrol prices, domestic fuel charges and every other charge that they can link to Black Gold, Texas T, as the powers that be rename and repackage the war on terror as a moral crusade. Choose to join the armed forces and go half way around the world to fight a war against an invisible enemy with boots on that melt in the sun. Choose faulty weaponry. Choose to have your family back in Britain living in a shit hole that is imaginatively called a barracks whilst your local mugger resides in a 5 star prison. Choose the tail wagging the dog. Choose to conform to everything that you’re told is fashionable without further question. Choose premiership football. Choose to free all people from oppressive regimes except the ones whose oppressors have economies to trade with and whose armies are too big to defeat. Choose to join the ranks of the pseudo middle classes and forget your roots. Choose the NHS and to pay into a system that promises to deliver treatment to you at the point of contact. Choose to wait in a hospital corridor lay in your own piss soaked bed to see a Doctor who isn’t even there. Choose to have fought in two world wars for the privilege. Choose to live in a lottery postcode culture and hope to receive the treatment. You didn’t choose to die before the ruling changed. Choose to subscribe to a variety of overseas charities that you can’t remember the name of, but always remember to casually bring up at dinner parties. Choose to show no charity to the men and women you went to school with who just want to be paid a fair wage in their local low paid sweat shop. Choose to pretend you didn’t hear. Choose purple, as labour red and conservative blue meet in the middle and melt into each others arms. Choose the centre of the fence to sit on. Choose an ASBO and choose to wear it like a badge of honour. Choose the glamour of a mid-morning weekday show to display your ineptitude. Choose 3 litres of 7.5% cheap cider a day to mask the pain. Choose a lack of respect for your elders and a passport to unnecessary oblivion. Choose today’s Britain, a nation full of self serving, inflated egoed, vacuous, pseudo middle class pompous prats. But why would you do that?

Christmas 2007: The Trilogy

First Published in the Mudhutter Football Express Fanzine February 2008

Happy New Year readers, I hope you had a good one, I wish you all the best, out with the old in with the new, look to the future, peace prosperity and happiness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and every other tired cliché known to man.

26th December 2007 21:00

I should have been at work this evening but the cold has laid me low so I’m in the prone position on the couch. Feeling a bit peckish I ask our lass to knock me up some cheese and crackers to fill the gap left by a long day being sick as a parrot.

Now there’s several things that immediately get the alarm bells ringing. Firstly no spread on the fucking crackers, nothing, bone fucking dry.

"You always have ‘em like that"

"No I fucking don’t you lazy cow, get back in the kitchen and get it sorted or the weddings off"

So back they come fresh with a spread, Country Life butter. But what’s this before my eyes? Roulé cheese. Dirty, dirty French muck and she’s bought it from the European Market that visited Wigan just before Christmas, and that is supposed to somehow normalise this most distasteful experience.

Just as things couldn’t get any worse I clock the fact it’s those fucking stupid crackers with bits in and in all kinds of stupid fucking shapes. Crackers = Jacobs, simple as, no fucking fancy shit for me thanks. Oh and if you don’t mind I like the air bubbles in Jacobs that pop and crunch when I bite into the bastard. So when you do get me my Jacobs crackers make sure you don’t butter them on the wrong side and burst my fucking bubbles.

Finally though, the ultimate insult.

I love my pickles but I don’t want to choke to death on one. So why the fuck do you bring me my crackers topped off with a big pickle sliced into two???

It should always be two silver skin pickles cut into two (4 halves) and placed with equal spacing on top of my cracker. The fucking European Union eh? Bastards are even messing with my Cheese and Cracker Etiquette.


27th December 2007 16:30

Well I’ve just come back from the annual family ‘Christmas’ day out. I should be back in work but I’ve binned it for another day for the highlight of the social calendar. Fuck ‘em, it’s the time of the year for Britishness. And what could be more British than throwing a sickie. Especially as I’m a Public Sector worker.

Had a lovely day out today. Firstly the Uncle-in Law decides that it’s his turn to pick the location and then takes us through every back water to get there. It’s not even scenic.

This year he decided we would go to Formby Sands to see Antony Gormley's "Another Place", the statues looking out to sea. The same lad who did the “Angel of the North”. It’s Another Place alright, because this surely can’t be mainland Britain? The beach was fucking littered with empty bottles, used durex, etc. A fucking disgrace. The Scousers are living up to their self appointed title as “Every Scouser is a comedian la” as they’ve put Santa’s hats and beards on the statues.

To top it off we got back to the car park and the sister-in-laws car had been done. Luckily there was fuck all worth robbing as the boot was empty. Even the local AA man who turns up to repair the window tells us how he would never leave his family car parked here.

Still doesn’t stop me smiling gently at an American family who parks up as we’re leaving. Well, the fucking Yanks deserve it don’t they.


29th December 2007 14:00

Well Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t waste a whole day in IKEA. The meatballs and sauce in the restaurant are alright though, and the refills of coffee just about balance things out. Nice drop of strawberry cheesecake too.

Can there possibly be a bigger collection of non-descript, follow-my-leader bunch of people than the crowd that visit Sweden’s biggest export?

It’s took us nearly an hour to get here. An hour to get all the way to Warrington. I never realised Warrington was so far. Maybe that’s why our fat friends don’t travel too well. I’m sure Warrington is quicker to get to normally! Must be the Christmas holidays AGAIN! Where do all these people come from? Do they import them? Is this the influx of Eastern Europeans that we keep hearing about?

It’s like when you do your Christmas shop. The shops are only shut for a day or two so why can’t I get a fucking loaf? Do they know something I don’t?

We leave with our usual purchase, two packs of tea lights.