Happy Friday

It's my penultimate Friday at my job, and thanks to no internets at home, I cannot update you all on the journal today.

So instead, take the time you would have spent reading my blog, to text a loved one how much you truly hate them to their core.

It's also my mum's birthday! Yay!

Mum said something about the Black Swan, so I was ready for a drinking session, but it turns out that it's a movie about ballet psychosis. I look forward to letting you know what I thought.

Ciao for Niao.

Have a glorious weekend and remember people. If their status updates piss you off that much, just delete them from your facebook/myspace/life.

The Baby Blog: My reaction

Like most couples, we'd had our share of "scares" in the past, so when my long suffering lady wife Louise was telling me that she couldn't remember the last time Aunt Flo had visited, I paid it no real attention.

We'd been at a friends wedding, and I recall Lou had been complaining about how her bra's were too small. I blamed the tumble dryer for this (I also blame the tumble dryer if Lou comes home and the house is untidy, and it also gets the blame if the bin wasn't put out) and I thought no more about it.

Then one fateful day, not long after the wedding, I was beckoned upstairs by my lovely wife, for her to reveal that she had done a test, and it had come up positive. All at once I was overcome with joy and disbelief and my face kept switching between two expressions: gob smacked and happy. I must have looked like I was having a series of strokes!

So as the test was a cheap ASDA one (the 11+ of the pregnancy test world), Lou took two more "more reliable" tests, and both of them, after only a minute of conferring with each other, came back saying that we were due to be parents.

It took me a few days to really get my head round the fact, and I just kept thinking "no way, the test's probably wrong". I just didn't trust the technology and wanted a doctor or someone official to confirm it, but the midwife just took our word for it and it wasn't until the ultra-sound till I had someone say "and there's the baby"

A load of worries dawned on me when I realised I'm going to be a father. There's so much I need to do, to prepare, to buy and to learn, before the little one arrives.

I always thought I've got a lot of love to give to a child, and I'm not the dumbest person in the world, so I've got a lot of knowledge to give (some of it useful) but things dad's can do, I can't. You think of your stereotypical father, and they're good with cars and DIY and you know, just manly stuff. But I didn't pay attention in Design Technology and was always worried I'd get a splinter or burn myself, like the wimp I am, and I'm far from manly.

But all my worries (and there are a lot) are overshadowed by the thought of having a mini version of me and Lou running around. I had joked with Lou from the offset that if we were to ever have children, they'd come out 3 foot tall, have claws and razor sharp teeth and they'd try and kill her. Hopefully this wont be the case, and it'll inherit Lou's good looks and my wit. If it's the other way round... god help us all!

Pally and The Directors

12

Pally and The Directors

"Whoops! Wrong button" the camp voice called out, then the light turned green. "You guys were fantastic! Jayme and Bin, take them to the rehearsal room, we've now got a full compliment!"

"Wait!" I replied, mustering some courage from somewhere deep within myself "I haven't got time for this, I've got to find my long suffering lady wife Louise, my cats and friend are out there too and Hagley's better half Myke, he's still unaccounted for. We can't stay, we need to get out there and find them! So you'll just have to find someone else to do your show"

Silence. Then the voice spoke again in a more stern yet still surprisingly camp voice.

"You have a choice darlings, you can either perform in our pantomime or I can vaporise you on the spot."

I didn't really have to think too long about the options. I sometimes wish I had chosen to be vaporised, thus ending my pitiful existence, as things for me have gone steadily downhill since The End, but I chose the cowards way and agreed to do their show.

"Oh that's excellent. Well we'll just break for a quick luncheon and then rehearsals can begin. If you'd follow these two gentlemen, they'll take you to the tea bar for some lunch."

Lunch. I hadn't had lunch since before The End, and I hadn't realised how hungry I was until my stomach was reminded that it's main function wasn't to expel it's contents. So we followed Jayme and Bin out of the theatre and across the road.

The tea bar, was a rectangular room with tables and chairs laid out for people to enjoy a hot beverage and some cakes between shows. The table and chairs were laid out, but there were no cakes or drinks available. Instead in the centre of the middle table was a large pot with a grey substance bubbling inside and several bowls stacked up by the side with metal spoons in a messy pile next to them.

Jayme said something that only Bin could understand and they both left the room, locking it behind us. As soon as they had done this Hagley proceeded towards the pot, got a bowl and spooned in some of the unknown substance. She'd gone back to whatever world it was that she was living in, sat down and began to eat whatever it was.

My stomach was rumbling but I wasn't sure I trusted the grey substance, Hagley however had finished a bowl and seemed to still be breathing. The pangs of hunger took over and I decided to tuck into some of the unknown stuff, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but my god it was the most awful substance known to man. I can still taste it to this day.

The grey stuff looked like a mixture of porridge and diarrhea, and smelt like the devil's crotch after a three day sex marathon with various sea creatures. The taste, was like nothing on earth, a combination of burnt hair, the contents of a dead mans catheter and beetroot. I hate beetroot.

I put the spoon in my mouth, and as soon as the grey stuff had touched the tip of my tongue, my stomach went back to it's default mode and began to lurch. I had nothing to bring up however and just curled up in a ball hoping to die. Hagley on the other hand, helped herself to seconds.

"How can you eat that stuff?" I cried out to her, but she was too busy wolfing down the foul mixture to reply.

The door suddenly opened and the last person I ever wanted to see, bounded in the room. No it wasn't the devil himself, it was the only person I ever hated. One of the worst actors I'd ever been on stage with. It was Pally Arvin.

I had acted with Pally a while back in a nautical themed show and he drove me scatty. For some reason, when you acted opposite him, he always looked up at the ceiling. His face would be towards you, but his eyes would be in the roof. It was unsettling. This wouldn't matter if he was an alright guy, but he was up himself more than an elevator in an elevator shaft.

After that show I'd done at least one more with him, but tried to keep my distance and ignore invites to any social gatherings he invited me to.

Pally was unaware that I actually loathed him as was evident when he came bounding over towards me. The End seemed to be punishing me on purpose. How was it that my friends who were a lovely bunch before The End, had been turned into monstrosities or turned deranged, yet someone as annoyingly smug and genuinely full of shit as Pally had been spared?

Pally, for some reason using an American accent, bellowed at me "My gosh, if it isn't Adamicus. Why I ain't seen you since we did that show about Kansas!"

"Mores the pity" I replied, as I got up off the floor.

"I'm so glad you're doing the show, I'm doing the choreography!"

Pally knew less about dancing than I knew about Chinese Particle Physics, so I was just a little surprised. My hunger was replaced with anger when it occurred to me that he was behind all this theatre madness. I pushed him over one of the tables and put my hands around his throat.

"All I have to do is squeeze Pally. Why are you doing all this!?"

"I'm just doing what The Directors told me to do." He choked back, his eyes not looking at me like they used to when we acted together.

"I want to meet these Directors of yours" I replied, getting angrier at the lack of eye contact I wasn't getting.

"Sure, that's why I came down, to bring you to them... if you let go of me, I'll take you."

I let go of him, and he squirmed towards the door leading out, opened it and beckoned me and Hagley to follow. Grabbing Hagley's hand we left the room, following the despicable Pally Arvin as he lead us upstairs, down a narrow corridor, passing several doors before coming to a particular door that had never been there before The End.

"Enter" a camp voice called out.

So Pally opened the door ajar and ushered us through, closing the door behind us. I didn't quite know what to expect, but I can honestly say that I never expected to see enormous glass jars with floating brains inside them. These were The Directors, and they had plans for me and Hagley, theatrical plans...

The Baby Blog

For those readers who choose to read my blog, and for those who are currently in a North Korean jail cell being forced to read the crap I write as a form of punishment, I'd like to let you know that I am about to embark on my most adventurous adventure yet (previous adventures being surviving puberty and climbing mount Snowdon)

As you know, I use this blog to offload the creative juices that ooze out of my pores like the poison those south American tree frogs secrete from theirs. Unlike tree frog poison, my creative juices won't kill you, in fact I'm always passing a mug of my secretion around for all to sip from... and on that note, my long suffering lady wife Louise is going to become a mother. Luckily, I too shall be becoming a parent!

These blog entries are usually full of my views on the world, or stories to raise a smile or cast a frown, but I shall be taking some time to write up what you humans call "thoughts and feelings" and will be boring you all no doubt with my journey to parenthood.

Computer Heartbreak AKA I got me No Internets!

Ouch, my internet has taken a shot right to the groin.

You see, a while ago, I introduced Ms. Computer, to Mr. Dongle. They seemed to have a lot in common, and together they made beautiful internets together. However, the other night Ms. Computer must have checked the internet history and seen that Mr. Dongle had been viewing inappropriate material, which she considers cheating.

Subsequently, Ms. Computer no longer recognises Mr. Dongle, meaning I can't get access to my internet at home, meaning I can't update my blog for you three who read this.

I keep trying to remind Ms Computer that Mr. Dongle is actually an ok guy, but she just won't let him in anymore.

So I'm going to have to retire Mr. Dongle, and find something else on the market that Ms. Computer will be compatible with.

Casting Call

11

Casting Call

Acting was a big part of my life for some time before The End, and I had spent quite a lot of time in theatres over the years. I'd even studied drama at college and had hoped that one day I'd be doing it as a profession, but life had other plans for me and I'd ended up being an office drone. Although I didn't act as a career, I still kept my hand in by doing plays, drama festivals and making short films with my friends. Was I dissapointed by the way my life had turned out? No, not really, as if I had gone down the acting route chances are I'd have ended up on a soap (the number 1 cause of actor demise)

I wasn't the best actor, or singer, or dancer, but I had good timing and a knack for playing character parts that landed me some good roles in my past. This would work against me in what was Panto Season, and after the events that happened I swore on the corpse of the dear friend I lost during that time, that I would never act again...

Bin Nutter and Jayme More had saved us from Chavs but had only done so, so that they could take us for their own. Hagley and I were once more prisoners. I could have made a break for it, but two things were stopping me. The first being that as crazy as she was, I didn't want to leave my pal Hagley with these guys and secondly Bin Nutter and Jayme More were built like brick shit houses and the years of playing Rugby that they had accumulated between them would mean I wouldn't get far before they tackled me to the ground.

The journey, from what I remember, was un-eventful and soon we were back in my hometown and at my local theatre. In some ways I was looking forward to going to the Theatre as my family might have sheltered there, but I was also worried about my long suffering lady wife Louise, my cats, Molly and what was awaiting me inside.
The Theatre itself looked normal from the outside, as if The End hadn't happend at all, but there were two large posters that read "PANTO AUDITIONS INSIDE! ALL WELCOME" pasted onto the walls. I'd seen an "all welcome" sign before and that was at the home of Ray and Shav who were eating people, so I wasn't exactly comforted by the welcoming welcome that welcomed Hagley and I.
Bin and Jayme took us through the lobby and into the Auditorium to where all the action was happening. The seats were all empty apart from the middle row where a single video camera was positioned facing the stage. The orchestra pit had a solitary piano, which was manned by someone but from where I was, I couldn't see the pianist. The Stage wasn't lit except for a single spotlight the shone down on the centre of the stage, and in that light was yet another person I knew.

I recognised instantly the figure standing in the spotlight, it was a guy called Dick who I'd been in a production of Half A Sixpence with (he was known for creating silence after he finished his lines, as the actors he was on stage with were gobsmacked by the lack of talent this kid had). He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and his acting really was atrocious. So Hagley and I watched on as he began to sing his version of Sex on Fire (which for a song about VD, I felt was highly inappropriate for a panto)

I can honestly say that I'd never heard that song played on an old piano before and there was a reason for that... it sounded awful, but at least it was drowning out a bit of Dick's awful singing.

Dick had gotten up to the chorus before the powers that be decided that he wasn't what they were looking for for their Panto. Usually in an audition the director would thank you and send you on your way, telling you you'd recieve a phone call, leaving you with a little false hope, but that was before The End, before insanity was normality and before mutated people made up 99% of the population. Dick was about to sing the start of the 2nd verse when the spotlight turned red. The Piano immediately stopped and a horrified expression manifested itself on Dick's face.

He had just enough time to shout "No" before a laser beam fired from the camera in the auditorium, and vaporised Dick into a cloud of dust. The spotlight went white again and a disembodied camp voice said "Next"

Jayme muttered something in his language, I turned to Bin for a translation. "Your turn" he said.

"I'm not getting up there!" I protested, but I didn't really have a choice as Jayme pointed this crossbow he'd used to dispatch the Chavs with, at my face.

Nervously I walked down the aisle, and slowly ascended the stairs till I was on the stage. I heard a noise behind me and turned round to see that Bin and Jayme were forcing Hagley to join me. So not only did I have to pull a musical number out of my backside from nowhere, but I had to do it with a slightly un-hinged teacher who not so long ago soiled herself in front of me whilst trying to teach a class full of dead children!

As we arrived under the spotlight, the disembodied camp voice spoke "Well, this is super, we had no idea that the pair of you were still alive. We really enjoyed you both in those Youth Projects you did. Well, looking down the list of characters, we need a comedy duo, so do a comical song and dance routine for us. We do hope for your sake that you're what we're looking for"

I don't know whether it was the familiar theatrical surroundings or not being in a room of dead children, but Hagley was suddenly lucid! She whispered to me. "If we don't do something good, we're never going to see Myke or Molly again."

Hagley suggested we do a number from Anything Goes called "Friendship", so I knelt down to ask the pianist if he knew how it went. The person sitting at the piano however had been dead for sometime, but the Piano was alive. You couldn't make this shit up!

So the music started and Hagley and I began to sing and dance for our very lives! It was one of the best performances I had ever done, and in true musical style, we both somehow pulled the choreography out of nowhere and although we had the pressure of death by ray gun hanging over us, for the first time since The End, I actually enjoyed myself.

At the end of the number we both knelt, jazz hands waving for several moments of silence that seemed to go on. Then the spotlight above us turned red!

Prisoner Transfer

10

Prisoner Transfer

Well, I survived Christmas, so I guess I better keep writing this like I said I would.

To recap, more for me than for you, I had escaped Ray and Shav momentarily and bumped into my now crazed friend Hagley who believed the class of dead children were learning whatever it was she was teaching them. Unless she was teaching them to play dead, they weren't doing very well and would probably fail any exams she had planned to concoct.

Then my ol' pal Molly appeared, another friend who'd survived the apocalypse only to be more messed up than she was before it, she was heavily mutated and just plane weird looking. I tried to shake some sense into Hagley that her partner Myke was probably just like the children in the class room, i.e. dead. But she ran off, the crazy bitch.

As I didn't want her to do something she'd later regret, like killing herself, I decided to run after her, leaving my two cats in the care of a monstrous weirdo who for all I knew, would eat them both in an instant.

I had thought that Hagley would run out the school's main entrance and I was right, but she was stopped by the same Chavs I'd been trying to hide from. There was no point trying to get away from them as I was already out of breath from chasing Hagley, which was odd for a guy who was able to climb Snowdon before The End, with such ease.

So, I shall continue...

We were tied up in no time and the Chavs marched us out of the front doors, all the while Hagley cried and wouldn't respond to me trying to soothe her with false promises about how we'd be okay and that there was nothing to worry about. They were surely going to get revenge for me killing Ray and Shav even though it was actually Simba that killed them both by knocking Ray into Shav's mouth and choking her to death.

At this point I was totally oblivious to the idea that maybe they had survived, but ignorance was bliss.

The Chavs were silent all the while as they walked us down the long and lonely road back towards Ray and Shav's house. I recall that I was wondering what would happen to my cats, who had been left in the care of the weird entity that was now Molly. How long would they survive? And then I thought again of my long suffering lady wife Louise, was she even alive? I'd find out of course, but not yet.

My memory isn't what it used to be thanks to recent developments that I can't go into right now, and this particular time in my life is a little hazy, but I'll try and be as accurate as my memory allows me to be.

We'd been walking some time and Hagley was getting tired but the Chavs wouldn't let us stop as they were pretty much brain dead and had no needs apart from to fulfill whatever orders they had received from Ray and Shav. So in true girly fashion Hagley fell to her knees and the Chavs immediately moved to her to pick her up, which was when the people who had been following us for a while, decided to strike.

Arrows shot from behind two bushes, that I hadn't noticed (due to being in a world of my own) had been following us. My first thought was that the bushes were another thing that had been effected by The End and were going to kill me before Ray and Shav got a chance to, but these particular bushes were people in disguise.

Those Chavs didn't stand a chance and within a matter of minutes they'd all been dispatched and our would-be saviours revealed themselves. It didn't surprise me in the slightest that once again it was someone I recognised, and I do remember that that was the first time that I thought I had died and gone to my own private Limbo as everyone seemed to be people who I knew. This wasn't the case.

The two men who stood before me were older than I'd last seen them and had been affected by The End in yet another way. I'd met both of them at my local theatre when I had done Youth Projects in the past and over the years (due to distance and different lifestyles) I'd lost contact with them.

The first guy was Jayme More, who had been Scottish before the end, but after The End his accent was so thick that he sounded like Chewbacca from Star Wars after smoking sixty fags a day. The other guy was Bin Nutter, who was rocking an enormous Afro and whose eyes never stayed in one place for more than a second. It was creepy. He kind of looked like a Ghetto Chameleon

As Bin untied us, Jayme said something in his native language that neither myself nor Hagley could understand, but luckily his pal Bin was able to translate.

"He said, you're lucky we found you when we did, Shav's Chavs have killed some of the most talented people. It's such a waste for The Theatre."

I shudder at the very thought of that dark place, but I started so I need to tell you all about Panto Season and the horrors that I endured. So, where was I? Oh yeah...

I thanked the pair for saving us and told them that we had to go back and get my cats and Molly, but they weren't having any of it. For like the Chavs, this pair had their orders and they had to fulfill it or face the wrath of The Directors. (please feel free to insert a dramatic "dun dun dun!" everytime you read "The Directors")

"You're not going anywhere" Bin said, at no one in particular due to his eyes constantly shifting. Jayme then uttered something in whatever the hell language he was speaking, to which Bin replied "That's right, we're taking you to The Theatre, you're exactly what we need..."

Hagley smiled at me and said "Are they taking us to see Myke?" to which I lied and said yes, just to keep her fragile mind on something positive.

And with that, we had gone from being prisoners on their way to certain doom, to being prisoners on their way to un-certain doom.