Category: Uncategorized

More irrefutable evidence that I am becoming a miserable old sod. A couple of teenagers sat next to me on the train yesterday; a boy and a girl. The girl did all the talking:

“Anyway, like, she was like, you know, so like I was like ‘you’re so, like, you know, er .. you know’ and she was all like ‘yeah like whatever’ you know”

Amazingly, he claimed he did know. While he stayed on the right side of her by nodding periodically at her I was living the teeth drilling scene in Marathon Man. I simply couldn’t bear to listen to her nor could I block her out. I know I have alow tolerance for annoyance but even I was surprised at how agitated all this was making me.
My options seemed to be:

(1) Tell her that if she didn’t stop saying “like” I was going to push her off the train;

(2)  Throw myself off the train;

(3) Just skip the warning and shoot her.

Then I remembered, o blessed thing, the fact I had my walkman with me. I fumbled in my backpack like a fox in a bin, whining to myself. Headphones on. Please please please let the batteries not have run down. “Yes!”, I made a little air punching gesture and as McLusky flooded into my ears I noticed that the pantomime desperation I’d been gripped by had actually drawn the attention of the torturess herself. She gave me a pitying look and pressed on numbingly.

Can someone please explain this to me?

I had a call from my clerk a while ago. “I see you’re running in the NY Marathon”.

“I am?”

“Your wife has booked the time free in your diary. Apparently you told her you would do it.”

“I raised it in the bloody abstract”.

It is one of P’s missions in life to keep an eye on my doughy middle-aged form and to intervene in the entirely subtle and diplomatic manner so favoured by George W Bush. I stumbled into the house with a vague intention of going for a run when a magazine left casually on the coffee table caught my eye:

I racked my brain. Had I bought it? It’s not my kind of thing but I do sometimes feel that senility may be quietly nibbling at the corner of my mental carpet. Then it dawned on me: P had bought it. So which of the many banner headlines was aimed at me?

It’s possible she just thought I would be interested in the Mourinho article. Or was she anxious I should “smell sexy” or, more disturbingly, “master the quickie”. “More sex less begging” rang a bell – wasn’t that one of my New Year’s Resolutions? But did she really think that I was going to develop rock hard abs?

As I leafed through page after page of gel haired 20 year olds with polished pecs and shaven nipples misery fell upon me.  I longed to be outside a pub with my fellow balding weebles; our centres of gravity merely inches above our shoelaces.  Why can’t someone publish “Indolent Fat Fuck’s Monthly”? I’d subscribe. P came through the door and I challenged her. “Oh it had been bought for the jury at Portsmouth Crown Court and the usher was throwing it out.”

“Yes but what are you trying to tell me woman?”

“That Jason Statham is gorgeous … can I have it back now please”?