Christmas is Coming – The goats are off to Africa

Last year, with my blessing, Mum bought me an African goat, not actually for me you understand, but to help a poor African farmer. I didn’t even get a thank you goat note. I trust the farmer made best use of it and enjoyed many a baked goats cheese souffle with piquant red onion and not wasted it on just providing milk for his family and stuff.

“Another goat for Christmas this year, to add to the herd?” Asked mother.

“Charity begins at home this year Mum, I have just moved into my new house remember? So unless that goat knows how to renovate old floors boards, plaster and build a loft conversion then frankly I am not interested”*

Maybe I can send the farmer a gift list this year? The brochure would read – This year there are many struggling corporate workers in the UK, house prices have gone through the roof, do your bit to help them, can you do one of the following:-

Build a 56” TV from goats shit and rain water?

Build an espresso maker from mud and bamboo?

Build an American style fridge from a dried up well and a goats skull?

I look forward to your gifts

*I am not a heartless shit and have done my bit this year raising £3000 for the British Heart Foundation. No goats or African farmers were hurt in the writing of this post.

Punter TV – Fast Food for the Soul

“Punter TV” is Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor, and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Like fast food for the soul, I am overwhelmed by a temporary feel good factor, which will soon disappear and leave me feeling sick and full of self loathing.

As I tighten the belt around my arm, slap my vein and get further jacked up on Ant & Dec, MSG (from my takeaway), and my second bottle of Rioja, the worry that I might be damaging the spark in my synapses fades into a hazy blur.

I shouldn’t feel guilty about deleting parts of my massive brain. I wallow in the comfort that six million (current viewing figures) other people are also destroying their brains, and the other 54 million are probably out binge drinking. I promise myself that next week I will read a book instead.

Public Transport – A Class System.

Occasionally I am forced out of the leather clad, air conditioned bliss of my car and on to stinking, vomit stained, graffiti decorated public transport. My nearest main train station to my Royal Borough town is Slough so the genetic quality of the passengers cannot be guaranteed.

My owl like vision (ignoring my lazy eye, short sightedness, astigmatism and colourblindness – maybe its me with the genetic issues?), honed in a vacant seat. The once plush blue velour double seat stood out like an oasis in a seat wilderness, tempting me in to quench my sitting down thirst.

I sat down and familiarised myself with the immediate surroundings. It seems I had sat next to an escaped genetic experiment. Try and imagine a walrus that had mated with that big happy genie from Aladdin – this lady was the result, she had lost the blue skin though. She was so fat and so bald I was half convinced it was a post-op Big Daddy.

“Sweets Mummy Sweets, sweets , sweets sweets” shrieked the woman’s toddler.

“Why is you always asking for sweets, why can’t you be asking for chips or somefing”

As this distant descendant of Jabba the Hut continued to verbally abuse her child..

“Shut up innit, I don’t need your bullshit today”

I foraged deep into my “bag o’ bovverds” to try and find some sympathy for the obvious terrible socio-economic background she had come from, but the bag was bare.

I will write to Great Western trains to suggest they operate the carriages in a tax bracket system, 40% at the front, working your way down the carraiges to the unemployed on the roof, thus meaing I wouldn’t have to suffer such an unpleasant journey in the future.