Unbelievably, some people have asked me what I’m talking about. What is IDST, they ask, before putting a slipper on their hands and saying “DID I DO RIGHT MNNNNGGGGG”.

So, Lesson Zero : IDST stands for If Destroyed, Still True. You add it to a written insult to ensure that the person you are insulting remains insulted long after they’ve scribbled over it and said “SHUP UP YOU’RE BULLYING ME”. What follows details the historical wranglings between the insultors and the insultees.

	LESSON ONE : BASICS There is nothing controversial here. Simon is a bra, and if this message is destroyed, then Simon remains a bra. The orange IDST forms part of the sentence - this is acceptable. There should be no commas, and definitely no semi-colons, between the graffito and the IDST. The purple IDST uses the trusty arrows technique to apply its protection. Both are equally effective. Simon, suddenly, has no logical way to prove that he is not a bra. Should he remain aloof, and ignore it - allowing the allegation to go unchecked? Or should he take active steps to "destroy" the graffito, which amounts to a signed confession? That is a matter for Simon.
	LESSON TWO : INDST At first glance, INDST seems a valuable addition to the graffitist’s arsenal. It puts the graffiti in an enviable position - whether it’s destroyed or not, it is true. Immortality is almost guaranteed, surely? Well, no. To be honest, INDST has the stench of insecurity about it. The very fact that you hate picnics is written on a wall, desk or bus seat, should be conclusive evidence that it is true; to be overly concerned about what should happen should someone NOT destroy your graffiti, is to be close to neurosis.
	LESSON THREE : BASIC DESTRUCTION To remove an graffito with IDST protection is a simple process, but one with a very important chronology. A careless wipe, scour, or sandblast here might first destroy section (2). This triggers the protection afforded by section (1), the IDST, rendering the graffito forever true. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from writing your own reply - but negative graffiti, such as "my mum’s face doesn’t just taper off" occupies a strange area. In real life, people will believe you if you say "I’m gay" (unless you’re talking to an ugly woman). If you say "I’m not gay", however, they’ll say "alright, stop being so gay about it, you gay". The same applies to graffiti; negatively-phrased graffiti will be taken to mean the complete opposite of what it says.
	LESSON FOUR : THE CHAIN IDST One of the earlier innovations in IDST technology was the chain IDST. In this diagram, (a) protects the sentiment - that pogs went out with the dinosaurs. (b) protects (a), and (c) protects (b). This can go on, ad infinitum. The idea that this protects the graffito with any more security than a simple IDST is folly; however, any attempt to destroy the scrawl without rendering it true for ever and ever, must "work up the tail". Destroying (c) renders (b) destroyable, likewise (b) to (a), and (a) to the actual message. Destroying (a) first activates (b), making (a), if anything, even truer than before. Now we have a similar situation as in Lesson Three - with IDST (a) now being the most true thing in the world, the main message will forever remain protected by it, and there’s nothing you can do about it, not now, not ever, not no way, uh-huh. Similarly - if you destroy (b), (c) promotes it to absolute truth, making (a) indestructable. The destruction of Chain IDSTs relies on the outermost IDST being unprotected by its own IDST; once you have an indestructible, non-conditional IDST in the chain you are destroying, you are lost.
	Lesson 5 : The Gordian IDST The Gordian IDST is, in effect, a chain IDST in a pretty frock. It relies chiefly on the impatience and unwillingness of the aggrieved party to follow the chain around and destroy the IDSTs in the correct order. A simple wipe across could set of an tangled explosion of immutable truth, creating enough fact sparks to lend the writing a translucent glow. With such a magnifying effect, it can hardly be doubted that the writer could smell Lindsey - not only at the time of writing, but now, and forever more, amen. And so can everyone else, because let’s face it - Lyndsey honks.
	Lesson 6 : Gridlock The next major advance in IDST came with the innovative idea of co-dependent IDSTs. See this example, and marvel at the elegant simplicity. Each IDST carries out a dual purpose - to protect the main message, that james eats more calories than he expends, and also to watch the back of its brother. Destroy one IDST, and the other automatically becomes the "straight dope". You’re therefore trapped - there is literally nothing you can do but pay awed homage to the innovators of the Gridlock method. If you are James, you might also face-hug a Tunnock’s Tea Cake.
	Lesson 7 : Arrow Destruction In the constant battle between those who use graffiti to insult their fellow man, and those who seek to destroy it, the greatest innovation by far was the isolation of the arrow from the IDST. For a long time, it was assumed that the arrow and the IDST formed an inseperable unit, but the development of the Gridlock tactic caused some theorists to question this; three arrows, and two IDSTs? How can each arrow belong? It became clear that the third, double-ended arrow was an entity in its own right, and could therefore be destroyed independently, allowing each IDST to be destroyed afterwards with ease. So no longer must Claire have to put up with the insinuation that she makes sandwiches for the darts team on their fortnightly visits to the local pub.
	Lesson 8 : IDST Arrows : The IDST H-Bomb? Consider everything we’ve covered so far. The weakness of the IDST comes from its open end (in the case of simple, chain, or Gordian methods), or from the weakness of the linking arrows in the closed grid methods. So what if the arrow and the IDST were fused? Into one element that performed both functions? To my knowledge, this has never been used in practice, and if you did employ an IDST arrow, people would probably say “fuck off, you gay”, which beats everything in these situations.

< < Who’s Brenda? : Meet Her | Fear Her | Touch Her | Hear Her

I have just been forced to overhear the most excruciating conversation of my so-short life. Brenda has just invented and solved a problem that affected no-one, in one of her frequent shouting sessions that let everyone know how fucking loud she is. Today, she let everyone know how important she was by howling at a chinese student temp, who didn’t understand her.

Brenda
You’re going to have to clean your desk for next week, aren’t you?

The Chinaman, whose name used to be Jason, but is now Jackie, looks at her. He isn’t sure she is talking to him, as she didn’t look at him, say his name, or engage him in any way. She simply thought it, and said it. This is Brenda’s magic.

Brenda
I said, you’re going to have to clean your desk for next week. Aren’t you.

Jackie points at his desk and makes a gesture to himself. His English isn’t so hot, but he’s really keen to learn. He lives with other Chinese people and values the times when he’s forced to listen to and speak English. Unfortunately, the distracting elements of Brenda’s conversation - hideous, shrill crow-noise and hypnotic repetition - mean that you can only really listen to her by not listening to her. The second you focus on what she’s saying, the nausea rises and you start to black out.

It’s the conversational equivalent of looking at a partial eclipse in a bucket of water, I suppose.

Brenda
I said, Jackie. [sensing that she doesn’t have his full attention] Jackie, I said if we’ve got the data team coming in on Monday, you’re going to have to clean your desk out. They’ll be wanting your desk, won’t they?

I love the idea of a data team. You don’t fuck with the data team. They keep all the student records. They can cancel your library card, change your name. They’re the fucking architects. And there’s seven of them, each with mastery over a different colour of the rainbow.

Anyway, I’ve been drawn out of writing a bunch of shit about gambling, and my attention’s now firmly stuck on Brenda - I tend to start listening at the second repetition, because that’s when the nausea starts being perversely enjoyable. Jackie now gets the gist of what Brenda is cawking about, and looks confused. He begins to say Jan, our immediate bosses’ name. But he doesn’t quite get the chance to put it into a sentence.

Brenda
Well it’s no good Jan Sherlock saying anything, the data team are coming in on Monday! Jan Sherlock can’t stop that, can she?

She really enjoyed saying that. As powerless and frail as she is, nothing pleases her more than other people not being omnipotent. But she’s aware that this sounds a touch bitter, so she adds an aural ;) at the end by generating a staccato laugh with no mirth or sincerity. This woman is no stranger to nervous breakdowns; I just wish she’d stop fucking bouncing back from them.

I can’t emphasise enough how little Jackie has actually said. This is a monologue.

Brenda
How will that leave space for the people coming in, then? Answer me that! They’ll have nowhere to sit! Someone needs to do something about that, don’t they?

I’m so embarrassed on Jackie’s behalf that I’ve started chewing on my finger skin. He hasn’t got a clue how to respond to what this monster cunt is saying, but he’s too polite to walk away. And she can’t see how what she’s saying is wrong, and is unwilling to stop talking, ever. Listening to Brenda’s voice is like trying to pick out the stringy bit from an egg white, while somebody stabs you in the knees.

Jackie thinks he is being told off. He doesn’t know how to reply to this torrent of rhetorical white noise, and Brenda’s momentarily run out of steam. This results in ten seconds of Jackie shuffling nervously, and Brenda looking around for people to agree with her. Jackie stammers another boss’s name, and something clicks with Brenda. She’s either recognising this new person’s authority to issue desks, or she’s slowly becoming aware of what an aggressive, bullying cunt she sounds.

Brenda
Oh, Denise said it? That’s all right then.

And that’s where it ends. As dramatically complete as a Stephen King novel. I wanted it to carry on, to see how many times she could repeat herself, I wanted Jackie to just scream at her to fuck off. But no… Brenda’s decency valve once again stopped her just short of me lunging across the table and snapping her fucking neck, and denied her life the conclusion it so sorely needs.

Gambling is brilliant. Whether you win twenty pee on watching a horse run, or six pounds on whether a drunk dog will bite your newborn child, gambling is exciting, profitable, and best of all, it’s erecting an fizzing neon YA BOO NOBBER and pointing it at God.

God doesn’t like gambling, apart from a £2 flutter on the Grand National. Every bet you make is a bet against God. So when you win, God has to put another bucket of gold ingots and spicy hams in your locker in Heaven. (There is no hell, as such. Just a rubbish heaven with no gold and bland hams.)

I’ve gambled throughout my entire life, so I’ve picked up a few tips.

ROULETTE

1. Always bet on 33.
Seriously, I have played roulette for six years now, and on every spin of every wheel, the winning number has always been 33. This is one of the most closely guarded casino secrets - they actually employ people to say things like “24 feels ace” and “SIX IS HOT TO GO” to stop you betting on 33. Also, sometimes the croupier will put his thumb over one of the threes, and say “Oh Look! It’s number three.” If he does this, politely but firmly ask him to remove this thumb.

This never happens - it is a combination of paints and photoshop trickery employed by casino owners to stop people betting on 33.

BLACK JACK

1. STICK ON 21
It’s so, so, easy to get carried away, especially because the casino way of saying “do the twist” is to say “hit me baby upside one time”. Say these two things in your head.

WHAT YOU SAY	HOW YOU SOUND
“HIT ME”	Fuckin’ shit banana splits. You sound like a player. WOO YOU.
“No thanks, I’ve got enough cards.”	Oh, BOO HOO. I don’t want any more cards because my hands are full. My lickle wrists might snap in two if you put another card - which incidentally weigh about two grams - in them, because I am a shit-eyed FAG.

But remember, even though it sounds really boring, you are going to have to say it at some point. When I started playing Blackjack, the croupier eventually stopped me when I got up to 253. “Dude,” he said. “I admire your tenacity, but you have to learn to let go.” Then he asked me to shut up when I wouldn’t stop saying “hit me” throughout everyone else’s turn. Eventually he hit me LOL.

2. DON’T SIT ON YOUR HANDS
It looks childish and you’ll need at least one hand to move your chips around. If you like the feeling of sitting on hands, then fill a rubber glove with mince, microwave it for thirty seconds, and sit on that.

CRAPS

Craps is named after Christopher Lillicraps, who would - as a child - put five dice up his anus and squat above a bath-tub. Then he’d swallow burps until they turned into a trump, which blew them out. His family were originally horrified, but their discouraging gestures were misinterpreted by the short-sighted Lillicrap as betting punditry. When his family realised that they had accidentally won over £75, they bought Christopher a bigger bath, and took their game to the mafia, who reduced the number of dice to two, because that’s all they had on them.

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t win at craps - if someone refers to you being on a “red hot roll”, that’s just casino slang, and they’re calling you gay.

MELLANCAMP

The rules of Mellancamp are lost to history, so it’s virtually impossible to say whether you’ve won or lost - you just have to stand in absolute silence until one of the judges hands you an upturned bell (meaning you can enter the exoskeleton for a two-minute aisle dash), or a hoof (which allows you to go under the table, where the main game takes place). Once under the table, it’s a free-for-all, as everyone shouts numbers and swear words, and hands massive bunches of five pound notes to each other with a sense of playful purpose. There’s a pair of bears ripping each other to shreds in a cage, but no-one really pays attention to that, and it’s only really kept in for tradition. After two weeeks playing Mellancamp, gamblers are asked to write a 1,000-word essay saying what they have learned, and the most lucid account wins a five-minute exoskeleton aisle dash (but must remember to refuel regularly or they lose everything).

---

WOW-TIME : I have bought a DEFINITE winning roulette strategy from ebay. It only cost £2.50, and very soon I’m going to be a roulette billionaire. I’ll keep you updated, because I’m very excited about my imminent jetsetting lifestyle in Monte Carlo and I might buy The Hague. Well, I say that. The guy hasn’t emailed it to me, yet. Man, I can’t wait. EMAIL ME MY PASSPORT TO MILLIONS OF POUNDS, YOU FUCKER!

I was born in 1974. To celebrate, McDonalds opened their first UK branch in South London, and Mohammed Ali beat George Foreman. I later told Mohammed Ali I would have preferred it if George Foreman had won that fight, and he developed brain damage by way of apology. Sadly, Britain was so taken with my birth that it forgot to keep control of Grenada, which accidentally went independant. But, on balance, the Queen said she’d rather have me than Grenada anyway, even though I pick my nose too much.

But the 80s weren’t a good time for knitting. People were just discovering the joys of metalwork - Fred West was idly doodling his first plans for a metal rendition of the word “cunt” that he could put above Rosemary’s side of the bed. In the 70s, he would have had to make do with making her wear a knitted jumper.

So I’ve not been weaned on woollens, you see. In fact, until my 30th birthday, if you’d come up to me and said “look at the knitcraft on that panda - there’s some flawless-ass stitchwork on that fucker”, it would only have been a disciplined upbringing that prevented me from whipping it out and pissing on your knees. Now I’m older, wiser, I piss on whatever knees I like, and strangely enough - I love the woollens. So where do I get my fix?

Naturally, I go to Arnold Hill Comphrensive School’s Annual Craft Fair. Look at that woolly shit, all piled up there. You know what I’m talking about. See that elephant with its trunk kinda coming out the top of his head? That’s EIGHTY PENCE. You try making an elephant like that for 80p. Even if you were to put its trunk in the right place, you’d be spending probably seven pounds on a ball of wool, some knitting needles, which as it turns out cost around twenty five pounds (unless they’ve discounted them to something gay like £1.79 to make me look like a dick). Then you’ve got to have lessons, and those old women do not go easy on you. My tutelage with Nana Harper nearly killed me, but now at least when I enter a pensioner’s house, we respect each other. Even though we know one of us has to die.

I nearly forgot! There was a tombola, too. You pull a raffle ticket out of the hat, and if you get a number ending with a 0 or a 5, you win! Does that sound too good to be true? Have you just relaxed every sphincter in your body with a frankly ill-advised delight? Well prepare to fly around the room like a fucking balloon when you see what you can win.

That cassette is a NINETY MINUTE cassette. What lasts for ninety minutes? Nothing! You could put everything on that cassette. Also there is a small bowl!

If there’s anything I’ve grown to love in my adulthood more than wools, it’s evasiveness about the number of cards I get for £2.50. Ask how many cards you get for £2.50 in WH Smiths, and they’ll winch a gigantic and unequivocal number one from the ceiling. “No need to be showy about it,” you’ll grump, and shuffle down the street with your hands in your pockets.

It’s not like that at the Craft Fair. £2.50 gets you mostly 10 cards. But that’s only the beginning. When Maureen got her daughter to pack the bags, she said “put mostly ten cards in those bags, dear”. This insanely relaxed attitude makes the child think - “hey, she said mostly ten - it won’t matter if I put mostly mostly ten”. By the time you’re two mostlies away from a number, things can get crazy. I swear, one day I got fourteen cards for £2.50. I walked home fast that day - I wanted to count my cards. There were fourteen!

Of course, there’s a downside to Craft Fairs, and that’s pornography. They’re absolutely littered with turbo-grade filth, and in the more sordid rooms you’re ankle deep in grunt-sweat.

Drawer Fresheners. Who doesn’t gasp in horror every time they open their drawers, at the violent stench of decay and the cloud of erupting spores? Drawer fresheners are a modern essential. But I can’t buy these! Not because they’re lavender - that’s my favourite! - but if I hang around this stall for even a fraction of a second, people will think I’m getting my cheapies from the “vintage” ladies.

I tried to brave the situation (I really wanted those drawer fresheners, I can’t explain), and ask innocent questions about the drawer fresheners, but I was so constantly distracted by the breast-outed lady that I found myself ejaculating the most brutish innuendos…

• Hello! Have you got anything I could slip into my drawers to deaden the smell of mince?
• Lavender… lavender… Oh no! I didn’t just say “Love in da lav, in da anus!” I didn’t say anus at all, twice!
• How much for unsafe?

Well, you know what it’s like. I can’t imagine any of you, as cheeky youths, haven’t pinched a policeman’s helmet to stop him doing a spunk in your mouth.

I was so fucked-up after my outburst at the drawer freshener stall that I spent some chill-time with a couple of dolls and a bear. Look at all the booties! Can you imagine the sense of achievment from making all those booties? I’d be like “I don’t want to go to the pub tonight, I’m going to stop in and look at my booties”. Then I’d be like “now, if only I could find something with the right size feet to put in the booties. If only atoms had toes.”

But that’s what the Craft is all about. You make shoes that someone wears, you are a cobbler. You make a six dozen booties that no fucker will ever want or use, then sir - you are a craftsman.

Look at the Lavender-filled crinoline ladies. They’re the fucking best - and don’t tell anyone, but I’m using them as drawer fresheners. This is a stroke of genius, I swear. Sure, they’re £2 apiece, and the drawer fresheners are like £2 for three, but look at the craft. These ladies are so full of art that they look like mice. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a metaphor.

Idiot Customer : I would like to make a complaint. This crinoline lady is a mouse.
Wise Craftsman : Aren’t we all like mice, in a little way?
Idiot Customer : No, I am a human being. That is absolutely the most unlike a mouse you can be!
Wise Craftsman : Look inside yourself, and embrace the mouse. But remember you are the kind of mouse who has money, and pays for things.
Idiot Customer : OH GOD THE CRAFT IS IN ME, I AM A MOUSE
Wise Craftsman : They’re £2 each. £20 for mostly 10.

Craft Fairs are amazing. Here’s a Craft Fair on the internet. That’s CYBERMAZING. (Check out the Rotamake 360 - if you are serious about your craft, then you would be some kind of elbow-swinging retard not to buy one).

Video Week has been cut short! Why’s that? I’ll tell you for whys! I got really, really, distracted.

A) I was chatting to loads of people on MSN Messenger and they were all like “come on join the party” and I came back with “you better get this party started cos I’m the kinda guy who’ll never settle down”. Seriously, I am the most fun to party with. I say things like “Walla walla BONG” and crazy shit like that.

B) The second reason was that it’s been a truly magnificent day for my beast-colleague, Brenda. Who would have thought that Brenda’s most awful behaviour to date would revolve around the bereavement of a colleague? I shit you the fuck not, she was crying more than the woman whose dad had died.

C) We had a sad-face complaint from the Law of the Playground. I don’t have time to explain now, but the glorious upshot is that we made someone cry about her fat dead mum. I think we can probably step aside now, and say “mission accomplished”.

By way of apology, I’m going to go to Nottingham for four days, and come back on Sunday. Is that OK? Does a period of self-imposed Midlands sound fair enough to you? Or do you want more? Take a piece, I’ve got loads spare.

Before I go, though - if you want to see a photo of me murdering whores on the internet, then you really should probably go see Jekyll and Gingernuts. I’ve never looked dapperer, and frankly, you could have made more of an effort.

COMMENTS HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEKEND
Answer one or more of the following questions.
1. What do you bring to the party (bear in mind I’ve already brought the vodka and dancing honeys)?
2. Once I’ve wiped out all the whores, who should I murder next? Seems a shame to waste the momentum.
3. Should I take down this story from the Law of the Playground?

mahr keef Mispronunciation of “My Keith”. Used primarily by the mother of [name removed], a gargantuan lumpy beast of a woman, who had a melted owl face and corned-beef arms. Her protective cry of “MAHR KEEF”, warped into a gigantic trumpet by her fatty fatty fatfat lungs of fat. She drove a car named “Cheese On Toast”, presumably because the idea of sitting inside of a huge piece of food made her wet her fat knickers in morbid glee.

Monday : Tuesday : Wednesday

As part of my promise to myself not to write about Brenda for a week, I’m trawling through some video files and seeing if they’re any cop. And lo! Some are better than others.

Wednesday brings the zany antics of Jaws and David - two goldfish who simply couldn’t be crazier! Also, there’s Paul and Tom in “The Ankle That I Have Broken”. Crazy days! If there’s one thing crazier than Paul, it’s Tom! Crazy time!!

THE GOLDFISH BOWL

The brief that 3 gave us was to be edgy. They were a new mobile network provider, and wanted to be seen as groundbreaking and “dangerous”. The cuntishness of “dangerous comedy” aside (hands up if you like Monkey Dust - now, everyone with their hand up, please slap yourselves silly), we soon found out exactly how dangerous they meant. Our forbidden list included:

• all swear words stronger than pinkies
• any reference to sex, beyond “a wry look at the difference between the sexes”
• any reference to any drug, including alcohol
• any violence that might be imitated (lasers were OK)
• cruelty to animals. One episode of Paul and Tom featured a robot dog getting tapped on the nose with a spade. It was rejected.
• Arbitrary Other : Robot Q, with his effeminate voice, was judged to be a child, so we couldn’t be cruel to him. The solution? Write a script where he claims, proudly, that he is seven hundred fucking years old (without the fucking, obviously). Then mangle him in every way possible.

They were also so sensitive about appearing racist, that a cartoon was ditched at the last minute because someone noticed that the zookeeper looked a bit Indian. “You can’t imply that an Indian man molests pandas”, they said. Our reply, of course, was “OH COME ON, THEY’RE ALL FUCKING AT IT, TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND”.

“We might as well write about a couple of fucking goldfish,” I thought wryly to myself, whilst puffing on my +1 Pipe of Intelligence. And the rest is zany fishbowl history!

So, how do two goldfish entertain themselves with no external stimuli? Well, they piss and shit themselves, so that’s two episodes sorted. Then there’s special guests, which included an Uncle, a nephew, a deep-sea DJ, and in this episode, a hapless bear and two hundred spectators.

PAUL AND TOM

You’ll remember from Monday that Paul and Tom are intensely competetive, and that by episode forty we’d got so desperate that we had them bickering about wardrobes. This is episode fifty. Seriously, when it came to awful, repetitive comedy, we wrote enough unchanging shit to put Little Britain to shame.

Monday / Tuesday
It’s Video Week! But I’m not going to make it easy for you - I’m going to write words, too. Stupid, annoying words!

THE PITCH

Although this was Simon’s baby, I get the absolute fear in situations where I have to “sell an idea”. There’s some humble-valve that stops me from claiming that anything I’ve done, or any idea I’ve had, is anything other than hugely flawed.

Of course, I’m being cunning here, and making myself sound modest. In actual fact, it’s pure cowardice. If I say I hate my idea first, then it doesn’t matter what you think - I’ve already distanced myself. It’s safe, and it gets nothing done. Excellent.

SNIPPETS FROM HISTORY : 1933
DES : Listen… I’ve got this idea. It’s not brilliant, and I haven’t really worked out the details yet. It’s just a little idea - well, more of an absraction, really - just a skeleton.
ADOLF : Go on.
DES : OK… you probably won’t agree, and that’s fine… but I was just thinking about having a massive Kristallnacht then killing all the Jews. No, forget it, terrible idea.
ADOLF : Yes, let’s move on.

And we all know how THAT one ended. A decent idea, lost to the conniving, gobby demagogue. For the purposes of this analogy, I have assumed that genocide and holocausts are “decent ideas”. You might disagree.

In this clip, although I’m voicing the blustering blowhard, because I like shouting into microphones, I do get a little bit angry for Tommy, doomed to get shouted over by enthusiastic salespeople with all the volume and no fucking clue.

THE ROBOT WARRIORS OF QUADRANT F

When you’re writing animations, it’s always nice to give the animators a helping hand. Lip synching can be time-consuming and tedious - so why not have a cartoon that features robots, whose talking-grills would just light up when they’re talking? That would free up the animator to put all kinds of pleasing nuances into other aspects of the cartoon! Or, as this clip demonstrates, not.

Background : The Robot Warriors of Quadrant F are a formidable race of steel creatures. Robot X and Y are the foot soldiers, Robot Z is the boss, and Robot Q is the enigmatic creation who talks like a girl and wears a jumper his mum made. This strip perhaps shows myself and Simon operating at the very trough of our vocal powers.

More moving video shit tomorrow. Sigh!

<< Previous Video Clips : Cervix : Collection : Arousals : F&W1 : F&W2 : F&W3

NOW IN A HIGHLY COMPRESSED FORMAT WITH VISIBLE LOSS OF QUALITY

When I get distracted by other things, and forget to write blog entries, I like to throw a video decoy, to draw attention away from my indiscipline. So it’s back to what I will hatefully refer to as “the vault”, to dig out the stuff that I wrote for 3 Mobile Phones, before they focussed their attentions on ripping apart cartoon animals.

FIRESTARTER & WATERBOY : THE DINNER DATE

The love-lives of Superheroes are notoriously complex - Spiderman has that whole “responsibility” thing going on, Superman also has that whole “responsibility” thing going on, and The Thing keeps accidentally doing the Invisible man up the arse while he’s fucking Batgirl. With great power comes a sharp decline in getting your fingers dirty.

PAUL AND TOM

We never really knew the target audience of 3, although you can imagine the endless fun we had saying that we had a target audience of 3, lol, etc. When we asked their people who were buying the phones, they shuffled uneasily and muttered that they weren’t at liberty to talk about that sort of thing.

So, we had to guess who we were writing for. As the initial 3 packages were £60 or £100 a month, we guessed that the kind of people using the new, frankly hideous phones (with a less than 12-hour battery life) would be early-adopting idiots who had to have the best of everything, with scant regard to the cost or quality of the service.

So, the “skinny” with Paul and Tom was, they’re best friends in a race with no other runners. And they’re competitive. DVDs, Hi-Fi, Home Cinema, they’re both constantly attempting to outdo each other in every aspect of their lives. Lampooning your own audience - very big, very clever. Worked for Nirvana, and there was nothing self-destructive about them.

It worked - this early episode was used in a TV advert. (We were given strict time limits of 30 seconds to begin with, hence us both talking very quickly.) Hearing your own voice in the break of Big Brother isn’t such a bad thing, and getting texts asking “was that you?” was testimony to my poor voice talent.

Forty episodes later, we were running out of ideas. Draw a list of things to be competitive about, and when you get to the 30-40 mark, you start writing things like “extreme novelty socks” and “cocktail cabinet globes”. In one episode, Paul spent the whole sketch dreaming about making his future-baby piss in Tom’s face.

In a moment of hysterical blandness, I wrote this episode - The Wardrobe - and was aghast when it was approved. It’s one of the rare moments when I’m not voicing the only insufferable dick, Simon takes a break from voicing a long-suffering submissive quasi-gay partner, to voice a long-suffering insufferable dick.

Brenda was on a bit of a roll, yesterday. I listened to it for half the day, and I was getting to such a state of frantic desk-scratching, that I decided to boot myself up the arse and do something about it. Did I confront her, and ask her to stitch a zip on the mush? Pih! Did I offer to help her with her backlog of work, which would give her the opportunity to thank me, but say in that superior way “only I can do it”, so that no-one else ever gets to see how little she really fucking does? Bof! Did I turn on my Nintendo and play Castlevania under the desk? Not yesterday, no.

What I did do, was turn my dictaphone on for three minutes and see if she said anything particularly shit. Although she was running low on steam by 2pm, there’s still some classic Brenda moments.

It’s 700k and two minutes of mp3, hidden behind this link. I would have done an embed link, but someone complained that it crashed their computer. Sorry.

I have never written poetry. Which is strange, because I sincerely believe that I’m the only intelligent and sensetive person in the world. I’ve just never thought to make my vital musings on the human condition rhyme. And because it’s absolutely paramount that I express myself in as many ways as possible (because my feelings are so intense and important), I’ve decided to share with you, blessed reader, my innermost essence.

This first poem is about meeting someone on the street and saying “Hello”.

THE YOU I HELLO’D
You looked at me said that it was half past eight
I said that that was not very late
You squinted at your watch
Like I am squinting at the sun
You said your watch had stopped
I said I think the sun has stopped too
And in anticipation I puckered my lips
And closed my eyes for the kiss of life
But no kiss came
I puckered more
I opened one eye
And puckered further
You had gone
And I looked like Benny Hill fondling a big tit

That poem, I think, sums up perfectly the chance encounters that rule our lives, and the slavery of the human will to the deterministic clash of mindless atoms. This next poem is about the great duty that comes with the power to truly hate. My hate is so pure you can actually squeeze it like a key fob.

LOVE AND HATE ARE OPPOSITES LIKE HAPPY AND SAD
When we kissed, were you thinking of me?
Or was it Tony?
I only ask because you said “Tony”.
And you asked me to pull my Tony face.

Sometimes it is difficult feeling things in such an acute fashion. You will understand this a little, but not properly. This next poem is about the removal of the barriers between the emotions. I have now done this, and now I feel every emotion, at full strength, constantly. Yesterday I snarled joyfully in placid horror. Times ten.

MANDY PORTER OH NO
mandy porter, i love you
mandy porter, i do
even when you’re far away
i think of you

This is just the chorus - now it goes into a freestyle MC session, of the kind you might recall in such hits as Paula Abdul’s Opposites Attract or The Fat Boys and Chubby Checker’s The Twist.

oh mandy porter, i never shoulda fought ya
there’s a knot in my hanky
to remind me of something
one time two time thanks for that
i’m hungry
have we got anything in?
(i’ve got something in you
but i’m still hungry for food)
the two things are distinct
do you see mandy? mandy?
OH NO MANDY PORTER HAS DIED IN MY ARMS TONIGHT
OH MANDY :(

[chorus]

dead girl in my arms, tra-la-la-la-la
there’s a dead girl in my arms, traaa la la-la-la-la
dead girl in my arms, tra-la-la-la-la
at last i can do her up the bum
bum! bum!

That might seem off-colour to you, with your black and white worldview. I live on a different moral plane. I am so far advanced that it pains me to even call myself human. I should be the kind of creature that says things like “puny mortal”. Brian Blessed or something. This next and final poem is about my feet, which I think are just the right size.

FEET
Left foot right foot
My feet are so clean
Me and my feet are
Gonna see the queen

It is my sincerest hope that you have been improved by my poetry, and if you wish to share your own inferior verse, do so in the comments.