With today’s headlines predictably dominated by my shocking failure to update The Trash Whore Diaries, this comparatively trivial morsel of news may have escaped your attention: ‘Woman, 30, battles for right to die’. Thankfully I am on hand (belatedly, admittedly) to give it the prominence it so richly deserves.
‘A terminally-ill woman began a ground-breaking bid to end her own life yesterday in a legal case which could have implications for hundreds of patients a year’ reports the Press & Journal. ‘Kelly Taylor, 30, who has been given less than a year to live, argues that medics are breaching human rights laws by refusing to provide treatment which will lead to her death. She is attempting to compel doctors to vastly increase her morphine dose to sedate her into a coma-like state.’ Where’s Harold Shipman when you need him, huh? It would appear that this woman has become so accustomed to sponging off the NHS she expects them not only to feed her - by dint of a nasal tube - but also to kill her at her behest. Next thing you know, she’ll be asking them to cover the cost of her funeral as well. Oh, hang on a sec… ‘An initial hearing at the High Court in London yesterday heard Mrs Taylor would also be seeking damages under the Human Rights Act.’ So let’s get this straight; she wants them to kill her and then she wants to sue them for not having killed her sooner? Is it any wonder the NHS is in financial meltdown when there are people like Kelly Taylor burning it for every penny it doesn’t have? If she really wants off of this earth so badly, why doesn’t she go ponder the matter in her car…with the engine running and the garage door shut? I mean, I’m gonna hazard a guess here and say that Kelly Taylor isn’t quite as robust as Bruce Willis. In fact given her terminal illness, I’d imagine she’s about as unbreakable as a Shoji paper screen. So why all the hullabaloo over a task so simple that even a terminally ill patient could perform it? Hell, all she needs to do is pull out her feeding tube and she’ll be dead within a week. But then it’s not about the dying, is it? It’s about a cry for attention, just like it is with all would-be suicidees. Let’s cut to the chase here: Kelly Taylor is dying which, sarcasm aside, is pretty shitty. What’s even shittier though is that the world in general hasn’t paid her the slightest bit of notice. You’d have thought the human race could have had the decency to don sackcloth and ashes or at least observe a minute’s silence to commemorate Karen Taylor’s misfortune at being the first person ever to be stricken by a terminal illness, but no, civilisation appears to have selfishly overlooked her plight. So what does Kelly do? She does what any attention-seeker in her position would do; calls up the media and unleashes a two-pronged assault on the NHS, ordering them to kill her and suing them for not having had the decency to do the job sooner. Why, you may be wondering, does Ms Taylor not take matters into her own hands and end her wretched life? (And I mean wretched in a literal - not a pejorative - sense.) Instead, she seems intent on prolonging her suffering by pursuing her case through the courts. Doesn’t that defeat the whole point of dying quickly to ease the pain incurred by a terminal illness? In fairness to the woman, I guess you could reason that in her weakened state she might be physically incapable of committing suicide, and would require the assistance of a third party - i.e the NHS - but you’d be wrong. The fact of the matter is, Kelly Taylor is so accustomed to sponging off the state, she’s become incapable of doing anything for herself. I mean, why bother going to the effort of stockpiling a fatal supply of medication when you can get the NHS to do the job for you and railroad the media into drumming up a few murmurs of sympathy into the bargain?
A few weeks ago, I penned a blog in which I pondered why we, as a society, are loath to speak ill of the dead. Well it would appear that the deceased are not the only ones to be undeservingly feted and sainted, for so are the dying. It’s the only reason I can think to account for why no one has had the sense to tell Kelly Taylor to quit whining and die quietly like every other terminal NHS patient. I’m not mocking her affliction but I am mocking her propensity for afflicting the rest of us with her maladies and malaise. As someone once said, the best things in life are free, and when you happen to be afflicted by a terminal illness, death is the best you can get. For zero pounds and zero pence (or the price of a Bic razor at the very most) an untimely demise can be yours. So why all the fucking about with lawyers and courts and doctors to obtain permission to commit suicide? Did Kurt Cobain seek permission from his fans before he/his wife (delete according to which theory you ascribe to) pulled the trigger? Did Sylvia Plath seek permission from the gas board before sticking her head in the oven? No. So why should Kelly Taylor - no matter how heart-rending her plight may be - involve the media - and by proxy you and I - in a matter that is no one’s god-damn business except hers? Life might be sacred, but death, it would seem, is profane.

I was sitting in the bandstand above the St Nicholas Centre - the very same bandstand that never resonates to anything more musical than the squawking of pigeons - eating my lunch when I got thinking. The thing I found myself thinking about the most was my lunch, probably because it was staring me right in the face. When I had finished ruminating and masticating my sandwich, I turned my attention to dessert, a baked snack that purported to be a ‘Delicious Handmade Chocolate Brownie’. I took a bite of it and discovered, much to my delight, that it was indeed delicious. But handmade? I couldn’t really say. It was around this time that my culinary thinking mechanism went into overdrive, and I found myself pondering the following conundrum: Why are handmade goods automatically assumed to be superior to their machine made equivalent? Weren’t machines given these jobs in the first place because they are better than humans? More efficient, more reliable and less likely to leave blood, hairs and semen in the food. Why would I want some minimum wage stranger’s chicken-choking hands interfering with my brownie mix? Give me a sterile electric whisk every time. Some things just shouldn’t be made by hand. Like chocolate brownies. And condoms too. I don’t want some Philippino sweatshop worker getting two cents an hour to finger a condom that’s destined for my dick. Not unless I’m personally paying her the two cents an hour, in which case she can finger my sheath until I render it unsanitary. I'm not so keen on homemade goods, but ho made does it for me every time.

In case you weren’t aware, I happen to be a dad. And not just any old dad, but a proud dad. I’m proud because I played my part in creating another human being, and that sets me apart from all the other dads out there. Sure, I know their errant sperms also fertilised eggs, but not in the way mine did. Mine was different because it - she - isn’t like all the rest. She’s special. And in proudly believing that my child is superior to all others, I must surely be unique. Of course, raising a hyperactive, destructive, rampaging toddler - even one as adorable as mine - brings with it its own problems; no sleep and not enough sex, screaming tantrums (not least from girlfriends peeved at the paucity of sleep and sex) and of course dirty nappies. But I’m not here to whine about the trials and tribulations of being a father. After all, I have it on good authority that my parents went through exactly the same rigmarole with me. Admittedly, I don’t recall any of my supposed brattishness, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, and say for the sake of argument that they did change my nappies and mollify my tantrums. In selflessly doing the same for my own progeny, that doesn’t make me dad of the year.
It’s a fact of life that shit happens, but when you’ve got a baby, shit³ happens. Several times a day. Thankfully it’s not all bad however; in fact to my surprise, it’s mostly all good. Remember Listitis, the weekly themed list I began in The Trash Whore Diaries while in prison? Well today it’s back, featuring a compendium of my top reasons for having a baby...

1. You get to use the Parent & Child parking spaces at supermarkets. OK, so you can use them anyway as customers are not obliged to undergo biological testing to certify their paternity, but now that I’m a bona fide dad with brat in tow, I can use Parent & Child parking without getting glared at by irate mothers. They should really be thanking me for forcing them to park further away, thereby walking off some of their excess baby fat, but for some reasons the stroppy bitches don’t see it like that. And frankly, I’ve no desire to incur their wrath. They’d most likely reverse over me several times and then escape a murder rap by citing post-natal depression.

2. You’ve always got a packet of baby wipes on standby. For cleaning cum off your dick; for cleaning cum off your girlfriend’s tits; for cleaning cum of her sister’s ass before the family dog wakes up and tries to lick it off. The possible uses for baby wipes are endless. Oh, and supposedly they’re pretty good for cleaning babies’ pooey bottoms with too. Who’d have thunk it?

3. You get chatted up by MILFs in coffee shops. Picture the scene: you walk into Books & Beans with the bairn in tow and locate the table with the high chair, only to discover that a yummy mummy has beaten you to it. You’re just turning to go when she calls out; ‘Here, we can share the table if you like.’ The next thing you know, she’s whipped out a portable baby seat, made from an apron tied around a chair, and the four of you have begun bonding over baby food. One minute you’re asking how old her kid is; the next you’ve ascertained that she’s eating alone because her man’s always working abroad, leaving her with kids to raise and itches to be scratched. As an icebreaker, babies are truly indispensable; after being flashed a cutesy smile and high-pitched ‘Hiya!’ from my butter-wouldn't-melt bairn, even the frostiest of MILFs can’t help but crack a smile and thus acknowledge the fuckable father pushing the pram. They don’t say it but I know what they’re thinking; ‘If I play my cards right, his perfect DNA could be making me a beautiful baby just like that.’ And they don’t know it but I’m thinking almost exactly the same thing…only in my fantasy, the sperm doesn’t end up in their uterus. It sure as hell ends up everywhere else though.

4. Chicks on the bus flash you knowing smiles. As I explained in January 3rd’s blog, ‘After somehow completing the Byzantine task of lifting pram, pram cover, shoulder bag and baby on and off the bus, I realised that I had developed a newfound appreciation for Heather Mills. It’s hard enough holding a baby and buggy, but to do so while hopping onto a bus with a prosthetic limb tucked under one arm? I couldn’t do it if you paid me. Although if you paid me £20million then, like Heather, I suppose I could give it a shot.’ What I didn’t explain was that there is one small advantage to lifting your baby onto a bus, plonking her down in the aisle and then returning to stow the buggy and pay the driver: by the time you’ve climbed the stairs onto the gangway, the bairn has trotted off towards the back of the bus in that cute, wide-eyed loping way that only babies can. (Or that only my baby can anyway.) In the process, the tot has attracted doting smiles from all onboard - old ladies, skater boys and hot chicks. Upon catching sight of me - the lone parent - struggling manfully onto the bus, their looks turn from adoring to sympathetic; 'Look at that poor boy - a single father, reduced to bringing up that cute wee bairn on his own. How could the mother walk out on them like that?' I can’t bring myself to tell them that mumsy is at home sleeping any more than I can bring myself to tell mumsy that all the women on the bus - old ladies included - want to mother my baby and smother my baby face between their heaving bosoms.

5. You get second helpings of everything. Every meal your baby can’t finish - porridge, pasta and mum’s milky paps - is yours to dispose of as you see fit. And we’re not talking leftover soggy seconds here - we’re talking the finest organic food that looks even finer than the luxury cat food that used to make my mouth water so much when I watched the Sheeba ads while in jail.

And that’s about all the reasons I can think of for having a baby, but what reasons! Free Parent & Child Parking, limitless baby wipes, second helpings of dinner and admiring glances from MILFs? It almost makes the ensuing 18 years of penury and teenage tantrums worthwhile. I’m not saying you should go out there and start trying to make babies on the strength of the above incentives, but it’s comforting to know that should you ever find yourself getting fast and furious without a connie, having vowed to pull out at the last moment, but it feels so warm and wet you just can’t bring yourself to disengage, well, it’s not all bad. Parenting isn’t a chore - it’s an investment. Get it right and they’ll pay to put you in a nice nursing home in 40 years time. Get it wrong and they’ll kill you for your inheritance.

I never used to be able to understand how couples could stay together in a loveless relationship, co-habiting long after the co-joining of bodies had stopped, but then I moved in with a girl of my own and discovered the bitter truth. The fact of the matter is that people stay together long after the love has left the building because it’s easier that way. Sure, one of them could move out and move on, but that would involve disentangling joint mortgages, finding new lodgings and fighting a bitter custodial battle over the family dog. It’s far simpler to stay together by default until eventually the irreconcilable differences - i.e. the husband’s penchant for wearing adult diapers and holding S&M orgies in the basement - force them apart. Living together without the love might not be ideal, but the other alternative - separation - is a logistical nitemare. I dread the day when push comes to shove and my girlfriend boots me out of the house for good, leaving me shivering on the front step with only the embers from my smouldering possessions to keep me warm. (That’s why I don’t keep lighter fluid in the house; hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Especially a scorned woman who’s high on lighter fluid.) I might not have a mortgage and sprawling CD collection to split, but I do have a bairn to share, not to mention a cumbersome 42" plasma to move, which I vowed never to dismantle and reassemble again. Thankfully, my relationship has yet to reach the point of having to worry about the intricacies of disengagement. I’ve not even got to the loveless stage yet, let alone the irreconcilable differences part. Although I can’t therefore claim to share the aforementioned husband’s penchant for wearing adult diapers and holding S&M orgies in the basement, I can sympathise with his predicament. After all, his wife can’t exactly be normal either; if she hadn’t turned into such a frigid bitch, he wouldn’t have been driven to seek fulfilment in less salubrious ways. Until her mood-swings and his swinging got too much however, an uneasy truce prevailed. Sure, he might have hated the cow, but for all of the five minutes a day he saw her for, it was easier to maintain the status quo. A few moments of awkward smalltalk over breakfast is a small price to pay for avoiding a costly divorce.
As it stands, I see about as much of my girlfriend as I do the postman. (Although she sees a lot more of him. In fact she sees all of him.) I don’t particularly care for the postie - not cos he’s fucking my girlfriend but because he’s a fucking postie - but so long as he keeps delivering my mail, I can abide with him. Likewise my girlfriend; sure, she bugs the hell out of me sometimes, but the friction is kept to a minimum because we hardly ever see each other. And we do manage to grab some quality time together, we’re usually more interested in generating friction of the mutually pleasurable sort. Ours isn’t a loveless relationship - at least I don’t think it is - but we see so little of each other it’s hard to tell. (For example, as I am writing this blog, the clock on the computer indicates that it is 12:21pm. I’ve been up for five hours, but have yet to set eyes on my girlfriend, who is still sleeping. By the time she arises, I will have left to go into town and by the time I get home, she will be leaving to go to work.) Although living separate lives under the same roof is not ideal, on the plus side, it means we treasure the snatched moments we do get together. Late at nite, when the bairn is asleep, the day’s work is done and Desperate Housewives isn’t showing, we are able to curl up on the sofa, hold hands and just talk. And it is at these times that I am reminded precisely why I love my girlfriend: because of her blondisms.
My girlfriend isn’t blonde, but that’s not to say she can’t act like one at times. I’m lucky because I get the best of both worlds - a pretty brunette with all the dizziness of a bleach blonde, but without the visible roots and the cupboard full of peroxide. (Peroxide wouldn’t normally bother me, but while electronically tagged I’m anxious not to leave myself open to prosecution, not least for stockpiling materials that may assist in the commission of an act of terrorism.) Like all true - and fake - blondes, my girlfriend is prone to spouting fatuities from time to time. (Example: ‘Why is Boxing Day called Boxing Day - is it because after Christmas everyone gets rid of their cardboard boxes?’) Her most heinous crime however is to fail to get my jokes. Ask women what they look for in an ideal man and they’ll say ‘Someone who makes me laugh.’ Well guess what - my girlfriend got such a man and yet what do I get in return? Nada. Not so much as a snigger or a nod to acknowledge my comedic efforts. Much as I would like to make out that it’s because my jokes are so high-brow, the fact of the matter is they are puerile and predictable. Yet even corny counters deserve some recognition surely? ‘There’s a new film out called Déjà Vu’ remarked my girlfriend the other day. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen that one before somewhere’ I replied. My girlfriend stared at me blankly. Another time, she informed me that the toilet was leaking. ‘I just went in and found this puddle of water all over the bathroom floor’ she complained. ‘I bet that came as a shock to the cistern’ I interjected. Once again, my half-assed joke failed to elicit the half-assed laugh it so richly deserved. And that’s why I’m re-telling this anecdote - I need you to laugh to make me feel special. This weblog is an outlet for all my brilliant - and not so brilliant - one-liners that go unnoticed in real life. My girlfriend doesn’t laugh at anything I say; my daughter laughs at everything cos she’s too young to know any better, but you - I like it when you laugh, because it is discerning laughter, measured to fit the quality of the joke that precipitated it. My girlfriend, to give her credit though, does have her own occasional moments of wit, even if it is left to me to apply the finishing touches. ‘Before I started going out with you, I used to think you’d have a really small penis that wouldn’t touch the sides’ she once confessed. ‘Thankfully I was proved wrong.’ ‘Yeah, I know - it turns out that I’ve got an enormous penis’ I replied modestly ‘…and yet it still doesn’t touch the sides.’

Although my updates have been about as frequent as my underwear changes lately, rest assured my interest in The Trash Whore Diaries is not waning. (Dirty underwear, on the other hand, has never interested me, unless it is of the Japanese schoolgirl variety and I am inhaling its heavenly aroma.) Frankly, life has been a bit hectic lately, what with my endeavours to obtain a proper job, be a proper dad and commit improper acts with my girlfriend. By the time the day’s job hunting is over, the bairn is sleeping, the missus sated and South Park finished, I’m too shattered to produce anything more creative than a Walnut Whip-esque spirally shit. And satisfying as it is to stand up and admire one's own handiwork, it’s not the sort of thing you can publish in your weblog. After all, for all its scatological references, the TWD is not Ratemypoo.com. So until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow provides me with enough respite to squeeze out a proper blog, I will leave you with these small crumbs from my over laden table of literary sumptuousness - the weirdest weekly search terms that have led the world’s freaks to my weblog.

‘Having caned her he put his cock into her vagina and fucked hard’
I should think so! After caning the bitch, administering anything less than a hard fucking would be a complete anticlimax. Canings followed by tender lovemaking just don’t work, and believe me, I’ve tried.

‘filling her white ovulating pussy with potent black cum’
I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t matter how black you are, your cum will always be as white as the palms of your hands. Especially if you’ve been palming off into them.

‘whore charges for pissing in her mouth’
Tight bitch. (And by tight I mean stingy, not vaginally tight.) She ought to be paying me for the privilege of being coated in my amber nectar.

'how do i stand to poop in my nappy diaper'
Who typed this - a two year-old? Well if they can work the internet, I’m pretty sure standing to shit shouldn’t be much of a problem to master.

‘i want a baby but i've still not fallen pregnant’
Well you’ve come to the right place darling. Send me £9.95 in a SAE and in return I shall mail you 10cc of the manliest, most potent cum every to further the human race. 100% conception guaranteed, or I'll refund my money shot.

‘how do you deal with a crack whores past’
What past - the fact that there was once a time when she wasn’t a crack whore? You don’t. All you can do is load up another pipe, light it for her and then tell the bitch to start sucking on you dick to pay for the next one.

‘nite vision hidden blowjobs’
If you were to ogle a blowjob through nite vision goggles, would the cumshot look green? Mind you, my cum looks green anyway, although I believe the medical term for it is a penile discharge.

‘smearing faeces in toddlers’
Shouldn‘t that be the other way round? I mean, everyone smears toddlers in faeces from time to time, but smearing faeces in toddlers? What kind of a sicko would do something like that?

‘white trash sluts who fuck on there period’
I wouldn’t have said there was anything particularly remarkable about this search term were it not for the fact that the next person who accessed my blog did so by searching for ‘cleaning and hygiene’. Proof that there really is something for everything in The Trash Whore Diaries.

In the five years in which I have been intermittently writing The Trash Whore Diaries, I have introduced a motley crew of bizarre characters to you, delineating their idiosyncrasies, extolling their virtues and ridiculing their vices. Who can forget such mavericks as Paul Macklin - knife-wielding, Yardie-slashing, cop-hating psycho - and Alex Dick - ginger-haired, sexually predatory, odious yet hilarious prick? Today’s blog is dedicated to one such Trash Whore legend, a guy who back in the day starred in more than his fair share of blogs. Long-time readers of this weblog may recognise the name of Dave Bradley. To the uninitiated, he looks something like this:I could explain the context of the fotograph but I don’t see the point, for the picture itself tells you all you need to know about Dave Bradley. Four years since the scoundrel last appeared in The Trash Whore Diaries and two years since I last set eyes on him, Dave Bradley is back by dint of an appearance in today’s Press & Journal. We’ll get to that story in a minute, but first, allow me to refresh your memory by reprising some of Bradley’s more memorable cameos in this weblog…

26th June 2002: My marketing mentor at the office was a certain Dave Bradley, the same Dave Bradley who had played bass for Sirius at our Elgin gig, despite not knowing any of the songs, before proceeding to go skinny dipping in the North Sea. Today he was wearing a suit, talking like a toff and looking like a yuppy competing with his brothers for a share of daddy’s inheritance, desperately trying to look sophisticated in order to impress. But like all good personal sellers, there was method in his madness as I was soon to discover. Dave had only been with the company for ten days, but already he had been promoted. He had a certain flair that both endeared and endangered him to the public in his quest for bites. I sat down on the other side of the table, picked up the extra handset and listened in as Dave dealt his dodgiest lines to members of the unsuspecting public. He had decided to appropriate an eccentric upper-class accent for the purposes of his job, and it went something like this: ‘Oh hello! Is that Mrs Smith? Oh jolly good, marvellous! I’m Mr Bradley from… and I’m carrying out some market research in the Bridge of Don area for a competition we’re running next week giving homeowners the chance to have a luxury kitchen installed at no cost at all. Now let me see, I’m just looking up your details on my fictional computer in front of me… ah yes – you’re the property owner and your kitchen is over five years old, could you verify that for me? What do you mean you’re not interested, not interested in what – a million pounds?’ The woman starts to explain why she is not interested and it is at this point that Mr Bradley hangs up. He is rude, obnoxious, over the top and a complete maverick. Yet somehow, it works.

1st July 2002: Dave Bradley is definitely madder than an FCUK condom. Today he was perfecting his fone technique, which involved calling up housewives and trying to sell them kitchens by introducing himself as Mr Bin Laden, Michael Caine, Mr Spam Javelin or, best of all, Mrs Haemaphroditey. The rest of the morning passed quickly, with Dave trying out a number of stupid voices on unsuspecting fone victims, his best one being ‘The Constipated Yorkshireman’. He also did his best to slip into the conversation, wherever possible, the fact that he’d ‘Just cracked one off.’ That boy needs therapy, he really does.

11th July 2002: Dave Bradley lost his job last nite, and it was in unusual circumstances. It wasn't his punctuality or his lack of respect for managerial authority that got him into trouble. And it wasn't even his fone manner - calling people up and telling them he had a colostomy bag and was a raging paedo had nothing to do with it. No, it was a lot simpler than that. David Bradley lost his job because he wrote 'No Brains' next to Billy's name on the whiteboard. It wasn't unusual for staff to have nicknames added beside their formal monickers - Dave was 'Bradders' or 'Tosser', Darren was 'Dazza' and I was 'Sickboy'. The problem with labelling Billy 'No Brains', apart from the cruelty of the insult, was that his was the only nickname that had been added to the board… And so it was that on 11th July 2002, Mrs Haemaphroditey found his/herself unemployed again after just four weeks as a kitchen telesaleser. But like a bad kebab, I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of the smooth-talking scoundrel in the days to come.

16th July 2002: Dave returned to work today, one week after he was given the sack for making fun of Billy No Brains. The kebab did indeed resurface for sloppy seconds, just as I had predicted, and it was ranker than ever….Mr Bradley celebrated his return by announcing to those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end that he was calling from The Floating Fortress Of Doom and had a colostomy bag attached to himself. After a week away from the office, Bradders was madder than ever. The psychotic look of pleasure that wells up in his eyes when torturing his victims over the fone has to be seen to be believed. I wouldn't want to be his pet hamster.

17th July 2002: Behind Stevie, sitting at a desk of his own, is Dave Bradley, known to everyone else in the office - and himself - as 'Tosser'. Tosser Dave is drinking beer and foning householders on his sheet to inform them that he is a small Brazilian frog, and would they like a luxury kitchen installation at no cost anyway?

22nd July 2002: There's also a new manager, Paul, who is assisting Alex and possibly trying to tame the deranged beast that is David Bradley. Today he was 'The Second Coming of Jesus Christ', doing research 'into your anus' and a friendly telesaleser who promised Mrs Lamb that he wouldn't fleece her for a kitchen. Most of Dave's off-the-cuff comments went unchecked until Paul had the misfortune of calling back a potential customer who was puzzled as to why the previous gentleman had said 'You may have seen our company before on Crimewatch.' Every circus needs a clown. It's just a shame for the residents of Aberdeen and Tayside that we got Pennywise.

28th July 2002: The Essex girl, who had never had the pleasure of Dave Bradley before, was astonished by his fone manner, especially when he started informing members of the public that he had a dripping penis and would they like to smell his cheese?

3rd August 2002: Dave Bradley, a performing seal whose name may be frustratingly familiar to you, was sent home from work on Thursday for misbehaving yet again. It wasn’t a member of staff he had insulted this time, but a member of the public who had the pleasure of learning that ‘My name’s Dave and I’m a wanker’ as well as some gooey details about the pre-cum developing in Dave's boxers. Fooling around in front of Paul is one thing, but when the branch manager is in the room it’s career suicide, or at least it would be if Dave had a career to live for in the first place. As a salesman, Bradley is pretty average, but as a morale-booster for the rest of the staff, he works better than any hot coals team-building exercise. Telesales is not a job; it’s a means of venting your frustrations on the rest of society

6th December 2002: David Bradley, who is back within the fold for the fifth (or is it the sixth?) time. To the public, this means receiving more calls like this: ‘Hi, my name’s Mr Bradley and I’m doing market research into your redneck community...Let me just check – you own the property, the kitchen’s over five years old and you love the cock, am I right? What do you mean you don’t understand? Are you retarded or just senile? How old is the kitchen? It’s hardly quantum physics. Jesus Christ, I’d better go – a building’s just fallen down.’

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. (Incidentally, if you enjoyed that selection of vintage me, might I suggest you check out the TWD archives. Sure, some of it’s more immature than an aborted foetus but it’s also damn funny in places, if I say so myself.) In the four years since Dave Bradley last disgraced The Trash Whore Diaries, our paths have crossed on occasions, such as the nite I witnessed him eating omelette ingredients before sticking his fingers down his throat and making himself sick, frying up the resultant vomit and eating it for a £200 bet. Having not seen hide nor hair of Dave in over two years however, I thought he’d either grown up and gotten a proper job or been tracked down and slain by an irate telesales customer. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the Press & Journal this morning to find a fotograph of Dave Bradley being dragged across a lawn by his legs accompanied by the caption ‘Student James Provan’s friend David Bradley pretends to eat grass as a human lawnmower.’ The story (which can be viewed in full here) noted: ‘An Aberdeen student whose film about making pancakes was seen by thousands on the internet and then millions more on US TV is to have another one of his clips used in an advertising campaign. James Provan's video showing him getting out of bed and cooking up his favourite breakfast treat last year became one of the most popular clips on the website You Tube, which allows users to upload their home movies. Now the 24-year-old computer science student's latest opus is to be used in an US TV advert for an internet service provided by media giant Time Warner. Filmed in his parents' garden in the Aberdeen suburb of Milltimber, the animation shows a leaf collector sucking leaves off a tree and includes him pushing his friend along the grass as if he were a lawnmower….The Aberdeen University student's films have now been seen by about 3.5million people online…Producers of Good Morning America, one of the most popular TV shows in the US, contacted him after You Tube put the clip on the website's main page.’
And here it is - the clip itself, featuring Dave ‘Lawnmower‘ Bradley:



People, places and governments may change, but Dave Bradley will always be a tosser of the highest order. And I can’t pay the boy a higher compliment than that.

I encountered an inspirational piece of graffiti today, scrawled in an uninspiring place - the bogs at Cornhill Hospital. In my experience, public toilets are an excellent place for picking up ideas, and sometimes random strangers too. The best graffiti slogans can always be found in toilet cubicles. My favourite scribbled one-liners, as blogged some years previously, emanated from the gents’ at Aberdeen University, where I was pleased to learn that ‘Will Young turned gay here’. Not only that, but beside the toilet roll dispenser, someone had helpfully written ‘RGU Management Degrees – please take one’. Today’s permanent marker masterpiece was less comical but eminently more inspired. It simply read: ‘Assassins Of Allah.’ My first thought upon reading it was ‘What a great name for a band!’ Not as great as Merchants Of Despair, as explained in some detail previously in this weblog, but brilliant nonetheless. Upon getting home, a quick Google search revealed that the band Hawkwind have already used Assassins Of Allah, but only as a song title. As a band name, however, Assassins Of Allah would really come into its own. Sure, your Asian tour would be more disastrous than Jade Goody's mooted diplomatic trip to India, but look on the bright side - at least you’d be guaranteed a large, vociferous crowd at every gig. In fact the audience would be so proactive, they'd probably make effigies of the band and wave placards with their name on. Given that Hawkwind were - and probably still are - a trippy, drugged-up space rock band, it was not surprising that one of their fans should have wound up in Cornhill, presumably after suffering one too many bad acid flashbacks.
As I was leaving the ward where I had been visiting an acquaintance, it occurred to me that the offices within the hospital were probably no different from those of any other institution. I wondered, therefore, if the office staff at the mental hospital were permitted to display the same hackneyed notice that can be found in office blocks the world over: ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…but it helps.’

Despite having done nothing of note lately other than scratch my balls and take my daughter to Ramboland (though not at the same time), I seem to find myself in the local and national press once again. I thought I had used up all my column inches and screen time last year when The Trash Whore Diaries and accompanying ‘Perjurer Wrote Blog From Prison Cell’ story graced the Press & Journal, News of the World and North Tonight. Now I’m back in print due to popular demand, or possibly due to it being a super-slow news day across the country. First up is today’s issue of The Times, where on page 27 the following column filler, entitled 'High Prais', can be found: ‘Three Indie pop musicians in Aberdeen named their band after the criminal lawyer who defended one of their friends in court. Edgar Prais, QC, was unable to keep Kai…, 23, from being found guilty of perjury in 2005, but the band was impressed enough with his performance anyway to officially adopt his name.’
Next up is the Daily Express, which under the headline 'Band name is music to QC's ears' reports: 'One of Scotland's top criminal lawyers has been honoured by having a band named after him...Mr Prais defended Kai..., 23, of Aberdeen, when he appeared in court in September 2005 accused of committing perjury in the trial of a man accused of two attempted murders....[The band] were so impressed by Edgar Prais QC's court room skills that they chose to honour him with the biggest gesture they could think of. And yesterday the respected advocate said he was delighted to hear he was now proving a big hit in clubs across the country.' Then we have The Sun, which opts for the headline 'It's songs of Prais' accompanied by a similar report. The Daily Record and The Scotsman also follow suit. The Press & Journal, naturally, expands on the story, devoting half a column to the astonishing revelation that a band should choose to name themselves after a man who actually exists. On page seven of today’s paper, the following account can be found: ‘One of Scotland’s top criminal lawyers has been honoured by having an Aberdeen band named after him. Members of indie pop band Edgar Prais chose to name themselves after the veteran QC after he defended one of their friends. Mr Prais acted for their friend Kai…, 23, [incidentally I must thank the press for shaving a couple of years off my age] when he appeared in court in September 2005. But despite [Kai] being found guilty of a perjury offence and sentenced to three years in jail his friends thought the Edinburgh-based QC did a “sterling job”. They were so impressed by Edgar Prais’s skills that they chose to honour him with the biggest gesture they could think of. Yesterday the respected lawman said he was delighted to hear he was now proving a big hit in clubs across the country. Edgar Prais QC said: “I can’t imagine a finer compliment. I know the band are from Aberdeen and that they are something called an ‘indie band’…although I don’t know what that means. I only hope their music is better than their taste in band names!”’
Prior to my imprisonment in September 05, the nascent Edgar Prais band - at that point unnamed - had begun practising at my rehearsal studio. Their drummer, Christy, had attended my perjury trial and was wowed by the flamboyant Edgar Prais’s skill as a rhetorician. (Sadly the jury weren’t quite so enamoured with his oration, although I suspect their majority verdict had more to do with my inescapable guilt than any failings on his part.) When I learned, while in prison, the name that the band had decided to adopt, I was mildly amused. I never thought much more about it however and certainly never envisaged that it would become a talking point (albeit on a snail’s paced news day) in the media.
The story really began to gather momentum last week when I bumped into my solicitor in town. He asked if I knew the band Edgar Prais and why they had chosen to name themselves after the Edinburgh QC. The real Edgar Prais had been sent a gig poster with his namesake printed on it, and was curious to know how this had come about. According to my solicitor, word was going about in legal circles that after Edgar Prais succeeded in acquitting a man charged with murder, the exonerated defendant proceeded to form a band in his honour. The real version of events - that it was a convicted perjurer, not an acquitted murderer who inspired the band name - was far duller. It seemed the Edgar Prais story was destined to be retold and embellished until it became the stuff of urban legend.
For the final word on the Edgar Prais story, we must go back a few months to when I was still in Craiginches. I was sitting in the education department one morning chatting to another inmate when he informed me that he was due for a meeting with his defence advocate, Edgar Prais, to discuss his forthcoming trial. The accused had yet to meet EP, and asked me if I’d ever heard of him. I explained that Edgar Prais was widely regarded as being among the top three advocates in Scotland and that he usually handled the most serious cases - rapes and murders. That he had failed to secure an acquittal in my trial was through no fault on his part. ‘I think Edgar Prais specialises in cases that involve sexual assault, but he seems to cover a lot of other stuff too’ I concluded. ‘So what is it you’re charged with anyway?’ ‘Rape’ replied the man. Ah, rape. So that’ll be an alleged rapist I’ve been sitting next to in the education department for the past few weeks. Thank you for telling me so soon. Funnily enough, when the case came to trial, Edgar Prais succeeded in acquitting the man of the double rape allegation. Consequently, it would appear that one of two inferences can be drawn from this: Either the man really was innocent, or maybe, just maybe, Edgar Prais was so damn good at his job that he got the dirty beast off with rape. One thing’s for sure - I might have chosen the right QC for my trial, but I chose the wrong offence. Next time I need to summon the help of Edgar Prais, I’ll see that it’s not for perjury but for his speciality - the old ultra-violent in-out.

(Wednesday 22nd November 2006)

‘Verdict On Devoted Dad Killing’ read the Press & Journal billboard outside Marks & Spencers. The devoted dad in question was Dean Jamieson, whose killers had just been found guilty of murder following a five-week trial. Seeing the headline got me thinking about dead people and the way in which we - the living - canonise them. If Dean Jamieson were still alive, would he be referred to as a devoted dad? Let’s look at the facts: While it should be noted that the father-of-four opted to stay at home and look after the kids rather than go to work, that makes him no different from the millions of other housewives and husbands who bring up their children while their partner goes to work. For example, I’m currently a househusband, left at home to look after my daughter while my girlfriend works, but that doesn’t necessarily make me a devoted dad. For all you know, I could be smoking crack and fist-fucking whores while the bairn clings to the bars of her cot and screams for a nappy change. Anyone can be a dad; to be a devoted dad however requires large doses of one essential attribute - devotion.
Dictionary.com defines devotion as ‘profound dedication…earnest attachment to a cause, person etc.’ Was Dean Jamieson devoted to his kids? Let’s look at some more of the facts: It was noted in the Press & Journal that the Kemnay father was prone to going on three-day drinking binges that usually culminated in him showing up at the house unannounced, skint, bladdered and in need of £20 to pay for the taxi that had taken him home. Does that sound like a devoted dad to you, downing ten pints and ten rum and cokes in the Criterion Bar, as he did on the nite of his murder, before attempting to make it home only when the money ran out? Surely a devoted dad would be at home tucking his kids up in bed and reading them a goodnite story. Of course getting pissed from time to time doesn’t make you a bad father. But neither does looking after the kids make you a good one. I’m not suggesting that Dean Jamieson didn’t love his kids; merely that the facts of the case don’t tally with the maudlin reporting of it.
Why are we, as a society, loath to speak ill of the dead? If all sinners become saints upon their deathbed, what’s the point in living a devout life? Far better to skull fuck puppy dogs and deal smack to school kids, safe in the knowledge that you’ll be canonised upon quietus anyway and thus guaranteed a prime position in heaven at the right hand of God. (If sinners do become saints upon their death, God’s right hand must be significantly larger than his left to accommodate all the thrones pulled up around it. Not to mention all the wanking he does. After going flat out to create the earth in seven days, he’s had fuck all to do since then but sit about masturbating.)
Of course ‘devoted dad’ Dean Jamieson isn’t the only victim to be posthumously bigged up by the media. A few weeks ago, the following piece appeared in the Press & Journal: ‘The airline passenger who led a fight back against 9/11 hijackers is among ten heroes to be hailed by Gordon Brown in a new book, it was reported yesterday. Todd Beamer is said to be one of ten 20th century figures chosen by the chancellor. Mr Beamer spearheaded a bid to storm the cockpit of United States Airlines Flight 93 - which crashed.’ Given that the plane crashed, taking with it all evidence as to whether Todd Beamer did indeed storm the cockpit, have you ever wondered how we can be so certain that he was a hero? Incredibly, it all comes down to two words that he uttered during an in-flight call to his fiancée: ‘Let’s roll.’ Then the call broke off and the plane crashed shortly afterwards. Based on these two words, it has somehow been deduced that Todd Beamer went on to storm the cockpit, attack the hijackers and attempt to regain control of the aircraft only to tragically die in his valiant attempt at averting disaster. As well as being feted in books and the media, his character has even been immortalised in the film United 93 including, naturally, the immortal line ‘Let’s roll.’ So was Todd Beamer a hero? Well, once again, let’s look at the facts: This guy was on a hijacked airliner that he knew was headed on a suicide mission straight for the nearest metropolis. Todd Beamer and his fellow passengers were fucked, whether they acted or not. So if Beamer did indeed storm the cockpit in an ill-fated attempt to prevent the aircraft from crashing, these were merely the actions of a desperate man trying to save his own skin. A hero is someone who puts themselves at risk to save the life of another. Todd Beamer’s death certificate was already signed by the time he acted. He had nothing to lose. In the end, his actions only served to bring the plane down prematurely. Had he stayed put, perhaps the plane would have crashed into a building, taking out even more innocent victims. Or perhaps the military would have shot it down and a few passengers might have survived. We’ll never know. What we do know is that Todd Beamer’s actions - be they courageous, foolhardy or selfish - didn’t make one shred of difference. If a man jumps into a freezing lake to save a drowning puppy but ultimately drowns along with the mutt, does that make him a hero? No, it makes him an idiot. Similarly, had Todd Beamer succeeded in his mission, I would readily join in the chorus proclaiming him a hero. But the bottom line is, it didn’t pan out that way and - albeit through no lack of effort on Todd’s part - it all went tits up. No happy ending, no handshake from the president, no hero’s welcome.
The rest of the world might have extrapolated on the basis of two words that Todd Beamer entered the cockpit and simultaneously entered into folklore, but not me. While it is certainly one theory that cannot be discounted, there is another one that I believe to be equally plausible: When Todd Beamer shouted ‘Let’s roll!’, he wasn’t urging his troops to storm the cockpit, but rather was expressing a desire to enjoy his final minutes in this life. If the complete transcription of his final call to his fiancée were made available, I think you’d find his words were actually ‘Fuck the no smoking signs, I’m gonna spark up a fat cone. The rest of you might be going down, but I intend to fly before I die. Pass the Rizlas and let’s roll!’
You may think I’m being a bit harsh on Dean Jamieson and Todd Beamer, but ask yourself this: Is that because I cruelly disparaged them? Or is it simply because the subjects of my mordant rant happen to be dead? Had they survived their respective fatal encounters, no one would bat an eyelid at a lighthearted blog at their expense. As soon as they pass over to the other side however, it becomes a capital offence to speak ill of them and their ilk. Well given that they’re not here to defend themselves, I’ll make a deal with you to even the score: Not only do you have my express permission to speak ill of me now, while I am alive and kicking, but once I rendezvous with the reaper, I urge you to diss, cuss, denigrate and castigate me. Piss on my grave; use my ashes to grit your path. Frankly, I couldn’t care less, cos by that time I’ll either be sucking Satan’s scaly pecker or smoking crack with Jesus and his homeboys. Whatever my fate, it will be safe to say that a few choice words uttered by the living won’t impact upon my decaying bones.
Whether they be alive, dead or in a persistent vegetative state, don’t saint the unsaintly and deify the ungodly. Oh, and one other thing: If you’re thinking of renting United 93 to watch action superhero Todd Beamer utter his immortal line before single-handedly kicking the terrorists’ asses, here’s a spoiler for you - Don’t bother. They all die at the end.

Last nite, I found myself studying the notice board in my local chipper while waiting for my artery clogging fare to fry. As I casually scanned the advertisements for piano tuners, plumbers and mechanics jostling for space on the crowded cork board, my attention was drawn to an unprepossessing business card. Hand-written upon it was the following message: ‘Do you find your ironing load stressful? Well let me ease that load. Give Elaine a phone. £15-20 per load.’ I was immediately tempted to wap out the moby there and then and ask Elaine if she would ease my load, but decided against it. Nice as it would be to have someone else do all the hard work, it seemed somewhat profligate given that there were girls by the harbour who would perform the same job for a tenner. In fairness to Elaine though, she lived within cumming distance of my village abode, whereas the harbour hoors wouldn’t risk venturing this far out of their pimps’ sight for any less than a teinth of white and broon. At £20 a load, perhaps Elaine wasn’t such bad value for money after all. But before I could pick up the fone and ask for my load to be lightened, another notice caught my eye. This one had been posted up by the local Girl Guides and listed details of the meetings held by their various groups. These all sounded wholly unremarkable. All of them, that is, except for this one: ‘Beavers. Age 6-8 years. Wednesday 6.-7.15 at the primary school.’ With underage beavers and load lightening mums competing for my hard cash and cock, I was truly spoilt for choice. In the end however, I wimped out and spent my wad on hard chips instead. Empty balls would have been nice, but as my empty wallet and girlfriend concurred, a full stomach was even nicer.

When I used to deal drugs, before police and prison put paid to my profession, I was always amazed by the assortment of words used by my customers to refer to the same sticky substance. I might have only been selling one product - weed (with the odd bit of pollen and resin thrown in, which is essentially weed with added dirt) - but there were a hundred different names for it. Remember the drugs education classes you used to have to sit through in secondary school (or primary school if you hailed from Torry)? They used to make you learn some of the ‘street’ names for hash, so that in the event of some shady stranger approaching you outside the school gates and offering you a ‘spliff’, you would know that he was referring to a rolled cigarette containing cannabis. You would also know that if you were to inhale said spliff, a good time would be had by all, probably culminating in you accepting a lift from the stranger to pick up some more of the good shit from his dealer. In reality of course, those drugs awareness seminars were useless, for hash - like all illegal drugs - has so many different names that you could take a PHD on the subject and yet struggle to cram them all in to your final thesis . I always thought it would make for an interesting blog to list the miscellaneous terms I’ve heard stoners use to refer to hash. While I was actively selling the stuff didn’t seem like the best time to announce my insalubrious profession in my weblog however. (OK, so I’ve admitted to far more incriminating things in my blog, but let’s not go there.) But now that I am a model citizen once again - in looks and occasionally in conduct - I am able to publish without being damned. For no particular reason, I present to you a list that is of no particular use to you whatsoever - 42 names for hash. If I’ve missed any out and you‘re feeling pedantic, add them in a comment at the end of this blog.

Bar
Bifta
Black
Block
Broon
Brown
Bud
Chronic
Dairty
Dope
Draw
Dirt
Dirty
Dirty res
Ganja
Hash
Herb
Good Stuff
Green
Leaf
Mary Jane
Poll
Pollen
Pot
Product
Res
Resin
Rocky
Schmee
Shit
Shizzle
Skunk
Smoke
Snifter
Snifter McBifta
Soap
Soap bar
Soapy
Soapy joe
Stuff
Weed
Widow
Wood

It has occurred to me that I may unwittingly be providing undercover cops - who still call joints reefers and pay 30 for scores of res - with all the information they need to infiltrate the rough and tumble world that the rest of us operate in on a daily basis. But in actual fact, the above list merely shows that anything and everything can be, has been and will be used to describe the wondrous substance that is cannabis/weed (that’s cannabis resin/herbal cannabis to you coppers). So if the clueless CID ever intercept my text messages and note my request for ‘10 key of wood to be picked u fae the don’, maybe I am ordering ten kilos of hash, to be collected from the River Don. Or maybe I’m simply ordering 10 kilos of timber from an Aberdeen supporter. Although given my previous, I’d stake out the littoral location just in case, boys, if I were you. The leopard never changes its spots, right?

Much as I enjoy writing about all things trashy, whoreish and trash whoreish in The Trash Whore Diaries, I do also have a life to lead outwith my weblog. With a baby to change and a girlfriend to mollify (or is it the other way round?) I'm kept pretty busy these days. So busy in fact I occasionally find myself longing for the good old days in Craigie, when I could bash out two 1,000-word blogs a day and still have enough time for a gym session and a hearty nap before dinnertime. Nevertheless, this busy life I lead does have some things going for it. Like sex, which has been known to happen on occasion, when the baby is asleep, the girlfriend is at home and in the mood, it's not that time of the month and the planets have aligned to bestow me with a ball-draining. Judging by the text my girlfriend just sent me from her work, it would appear that today is just such a day. I had been planning on bashing out a blog, but after reading her lascivious message, I decided my time would be better spent bashing out a quick one and and then washing my knob before she gets home and climbs aboard, promptly dirtying it up again. But don't worry, in all the excitement over my impending emptying I haven't forgotten about you entirely. To tide you over until tomorrow, I leave you with this - the article I wrote for last month's Red Final. While I'm scoring at home, you can read all about scoring from the comfort of your own home, for the article you are about to ogle is on the subject of goalscoring celebrations. Excited? You should be, but not as excited as me. I'm hard already, but that's because I'm off for a pre-sex wank to prevent premature ejaculation when the main event commences later. Just think; by the time you've finished reading this article, my spunk will be sticking to the wash basin.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy getting to grips with my piece. I know I certainly will...

You don’t see it at Pittodrie, Tynecastle or Ibrox. You rarely see it at Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford or the Nou Camp. You certainly never see it at Allan Park or Borough Briggs. And yet it is the scourge of the modern game we like to call fitba, afflicting every club the length and girth of the country. I’m not talking about venal agents, avaricious players or endemic simulation. (That’s diving to me and you. As pejoratives go, ‘Simulating bastard!’ doesn't quite have the same ring to it.) The problem that weighs heavily on my mind is more serious than that for it strikes at the very heart of the game, spoiling the sacred act of scoring, football’s apotheosis. And yet in spite of the pervasiveness of this scourge, you won’t see it at any of the aforementioned stadiums for, like dwindling attendances, it is a problem that is conspicuous by its absence - the goalscoring celebration. As sure as sectarian singing follows Her Majesty's huns, celebration follows the act of scoring. After all, if you can’t celebrate your team sticking one past the opposition, what can you celebrate? Admittedly, if you’re Bernd Schneider, having just put the thirteenth past San Marino, the celebration might be more muted than most. Otherwise, however, it’s bums off seats and hands in the air time. It doesn’t matter which team you support, be it Aberdeen or Arsenal, if you persevere for long enough, you’ll eventually be rewarded with a goal to celebrate. Yes, even at Pittodrie it is possible to witness such a wondrous spectacle, provided you stay until the bitterly cold end. And when such a moment does transpire, it will invariably be accompanied by fists raised in jubilation, arms extended in triumph and shirts grabbed in elation, as all goals have been marked since football began. And therein lies the problem.
In recent years, football has moved on. The clothing has changed, the hairstyles have changed, the stadiums have changed, hell even the rules have changed. The only thing that is still stuck in the Dark Ages (OK, make that the 19th century) is the goalscoring celebration. And frankly, it’s starting to jar. What was once a spontaneous outpouring of elation has become an ossified exercise in banality. Instead of galvanic displays of exuberance, we are treated to enervating reprises of the previous Saturday’s half-arsed celebration, the same one that was rolled out the Saturday before that and the whole season before that. While there are only so many ways to score a goal (in spite of Jamie Langfield’s calamitous attempts to conjure some new ones), there are an infinite number of ways to celebrate one. Or at least so you would have thought. Yet what do we get, at Pittodrie on a Saturday afternoon and on the Premiership highlights on a Saturday night? Arms in the air and hugs all round. Professional footballers can be wonderfully creative when it comes to being tackled in the box, yet the moment the ball hits the back of the net from the resultant penalty, they suddenly come across all gauche, exhibiting all the grace of a Buckied-up ned pegging it from the cops, as they attempt to run the length of the pitch only to be pulled back by their team-mates, who are hell-bent on wrestling them to the ground. In the end, the exuberant scorer gets as far as the halfway line before having his jersey pulled off his back by his equally exuberant team-mates. That’s not a celebration; that’s a stramash.
A good celebration makes a bad goal good and a good goal better. It is the Wonderbra of football, covering a multitude of sins. Just scuffed a mis-hit cross that fluked in? Expiate it with a memorable celebration. Unleashed a 40-yard screamer into the postage stamp corner? Ice it with an equally stunning celebration. A good celebration can both atone for and complement everything that has gone before, be it a penalty-box scramble or an unstoppable piledriver. Robbie Fowler’s penalty spot-snorting celebration has been etched into football folklore but who can recall the goal? And everyone remembers the drug-crazed phiz of Maradonna charging towards the camera at World Cup 98 (except for Maradonna of course) but what about the goal that precipitated it? Goals, by their very nature, are ephemeral. One is quickly forgotten about as soon as it is supplanted by the next, unless you’re Gary Dempsey, in which case every goal is to be celebrated as if it were the last night of your life, the stag do that precedes 50 years of wedded hell. (I had been intending on making Darren Mackie the butt of all my goal drought jokes but the sleekit bastard appears to have rediscovered - or rather discovered - his scoring touch in recent weeks.) And yet, in the 21st century, the goalscoring celebration has become more hackneyed than Setanta’s football punditry. As a case in point, pick a football match - any football match - and watch what happens when the ball hits the back of the net. If I was a betting man (which I was until my missus cut up all my cards and cancelled my Ladbrokes account), I’d lay a tenner that the goal will be accompanied by one of the following celebrations:

1. Hands Up.
2. Bodies Down.
3. Babies Out.

Hand Up incorporates all celebrations in which arms are raised in jubilation; punching the air, salutary waves to the crowd and other such scintillating variations. Bodies Down covers all celebrations in which the players end up prostrate on the pitch, either by sliding along the grass, diving on top of one another or simply lying on their backs with their arms in the air. Babies Out is a unique celebration that used to be reserved for special occasions - i.e. following the birth of a child - but now seems to be wheeled out every weekend. One can only assume that it has become as common as Cockneys due to the high number of illegitimate kids fathered by professional footballers these days. The Babies Out celebration consists of one or more players extending their arms and moving them from side to side as if rocking a baby to sleep. The perpetrators of such choreographed observances clearly know nothing about parenting or they wouldn’t simulate rocking a baby to sleep with a violent action more akin to lobbing it into the canal inside a bag of bricks. Rock a baby like that in real life and you’ll get charged with infanticide. Perhaps a more appropriate celebration would be an exaggerated signing motion, as if writing a cheque to pay for child maintenance. Not only would this gesture signal that the father was absolved of all other parental responsibilities, such as rocking the baby to sleep, but it would make for a more joyous celebration, smug in the knowledge that the goalscoring bonus will easily cover the child maintenance and still leave some for champagne and strippers. It’s certainly one for Neil Lennon to bear in mind, for the next time he manages a goal, the chances are he’ll have spunked out a few more illegitimate brats of the ginger variety.
To find a celebration that doesn’t conform to the three trite models described above requires a trip to the most incongruous location - The City of Manchester stadium. Not known for their scoring prowess, Man City are one of the few Premiership clubs to eschew mealy-mouthed celebrations for making a three-course meal of it. Recent notable flourishes include City’s late equaliser at Everton, in which Joey Barton mooned at the crowd. The gesture came naturally to the Scouser, who is accustomed to baring his arse, albeit in the cop shop for a rubber-gloved official to reach in and remove the narcotics stashed within. The Everton fans were less enamoured with Barton however, possibly because they feared he was going to follow through and ruin their pristine pitch. Then there’s Man City’s commemorative corner flag series. First came Corradi’s in the 3-1 victory over Fulham. After scoring, the Italian removed the corner flag and knighted his team-mates with it. A few days later, against Villa, Corradi again interfered with the corner flag after scoring, this time playing it as a guitar. Sadly, most Premiership footballers are more blasé when it comes to celebrating. Consider Thierry Henry, whose celebrations are so nonchalant that they are hardly worthy of being called celebrations; acknowledgements would be more appropriate. Henry doesn’t shrug off his achievements because they come so easily to him. Rather, he plays it cool because he doesn’t want to look like a dick for over-celebrating if the effort is subsequently disallowed, as happened to Didier Drogba. After hitting the back of the net, the Chelsea striker ran the length of the goal line gesticulating wildly to the fans to share in his moment of glory. The only trouble was, the fans weren’t gesticulating back, for like everyone else in the stadium, they had seen the linesman’s raised flag. But there’s also another reason why Thierry Henry and his ilk serve up such lacklustre celebrations - because they are not obliged to. You see, teams like Arsenal don’t need stunning goals complete with matching celebrations to enjoy the game; they’ve always got the dainty passes and pretty stadium to ooh and aah at. At Pittodrie, goals are essential in order to restore circulation to fingers and toes and erase all memory of the preceding 80 minutes of shite. (Incidentally, if you’re wondering why this article is so Anglo-centric, it’s because theirs is the only football available to us mortals who can’t afford Setanta. I would love to comment on the goal scoring nuances of the Scottish game, but between attending Pittodrie on a Saturday and watching Scotsport’s blink-and-you-miss-them highlights on a Monday, I’m not party to many SPL celebrations.)
It may seem fatuous to list lame goalscoring celebrations as the greatest malaise affecting football in the 21st century, but then isn’t the game supposed to be about entertainment? If so, then surely such embellishments are as essential as the strike that precipitated them. Despite the attempts of football’s killjoy governing bodies to regulate the act of celebrating, there is still much fun that can be had without players leaving the pitch, removing their tops or flicking a middle digit in the direction of the opposing fans. It’s high time professional footballers stopped celebrating their achievements in insalubrious nightclubs and began celebrating them where it matters - on the pitch. I don’t want to see goals marked with back slapping and handshakes all round; I want celebrations that are actually celebratory; effusive, ebullient, flamboyant or - to put it in plainer English - fucking crazy. Chefs spend hours perfecting their signature dishes, so why can’t more strikers spare a few minutes on the training ground to develop their own signature celebrations? Robbie Keane might have his two-gun salute and Peter Crouch his robot, but these efforts are too lame to count. Coming from the land that invented Morris-dancing however, we should expect nothing less. Surely though the home of Scottish country dancing should be able to conjure up something better? The English clubs might enjoy hegemony over TV rights, media coverage and pecunious foreign investors, but the one thing they can’t monopolise is goal celebrations. Whoever said that the best things in life are free was a scrounging cheapskate, but when it comes to goals, he’s got a point. The ceremony that follows a net-bursting strike should be an unfettered and unmetered celebration of one of life’s best things. No matter which rich oligarch buys out the club, the one thing he can never control is the manner in which goals are memorialised. The day has yet to come when, after opening the scoring, the players line up on the turf to spell out their sponsor’s name. Thus when it comes to celebrating, all teams are on an even playing field. For once, Aberdeen Football Club find themselves in a position to become trendsetters by developing the neglected art of goal aesthetics. Where they lead, other clubs will follow. To perfect their celebratory techniques need only take a few weeks of double training sessions. In the morning, Calderwood and Nicholl can put the squad through their paces, concentrating on fitness and ball control. Then, after lunch, Redz & Co can help the first-team work on their synchronised goal celebration routines. The number of permutations is virtually limitless. They could develop their own corner flag technique for instance; Mackie scores, pushes the flag between his legs and pretends to wank it off. Or better still, offers it to Nicholson to deep throat. Such homoerotic celebrations could win the Dons a whole new fanbase amongst the gay community. Admittedly, some diehards might not be too happy at the idea of sharing Pittodrie with a bunch of limp-wristed turd-burglars, but frankly the club can’t afford to be choosy right now. It’s got to be preferable to opening the whole of the South Stand up to the old firm. If Mackie wants true immortality however, he first needs to stick one past the huns before celebrating by launching the corner flag into the visiting section. As the missile bounces off a blue-nosed coupon and the referee reaches for a card, Aberdeen’s prodigal son can proudly troop off the pitch to chants of ‘Nice one Mackie, nice one son.’ In one fell swoop, the Dons’ most infuriating striker would have become the talk of not only the town but the entire footballing world. Remember when the Klinsmann celebration first caught on? One German dives onto his front and skids across the pitch and suddenly it’s ubiquitous. (Trivia geeks may be interested to know that the correct term for this is a meme; ‘a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition analogous to the biological transmission of genes.’ In other words, Mackie performs his flag-throwing celebration and the next thing you know, kids all over the country are being rushed to A&E with projectiles lodged in their craniums.) Of course, Mackie et al don’t have to resort to flinging corner flags. There are all manner of props that could be used to mark the occasion; they could dry-hump Angus the Bull; perform a pole dance on the goal frame; dive into a puddle and pretend to swim; pick up a sod of turf and apply it like war paint. Aberdeen might not be able to afford 50-foot plasma screens or even a toaster for the players but they can afford a decent celebration. Admission to the game might be a wallet-busting £21 and the match programme a hefty £2, but witnessing Darren Mackie remove the corner flag and pretend to machine gun the visiting support with it would be truly priceless.

What is the price of sex? Down by the harbour, it’s £70 an hour or two tokes on a crack pipe. Or at least so I’ve heard. At home however, sex is supposed to be free. (Unless it’s sex with the Swedish au pair, in which case it costs double time and your marriage.) So why do I find myself paying the highest price of all for cumming in the comfort of my own home? Allow me to elucidate…
The bedroom in which my girlfriend and I perform our bedroomly duties is ostensibly perfect, the sort of idyllic setting in which women the world over dream of losing their virginity. (And not just because it happens to me my bed and therefore my meaty shaft pummelling their hymen into oblivion.) In the centre of the room, there is a wooden four poster bed bedecked with strings of star-shaped fairy lights that hang behind the headboard and gently illuminate the proceedings. The bed covers are black, the lights are low and the mood is quintessentially romantic. It is not the sort of seedy bedsit in which one gropes, makes out or - god forbid - fucks. No, this room is designed for making love in. All that’s missing are two components - a beautiful girl and a horny boy with a ball-load of spunk. Thankfully, my girlfriend has pulchritude in abundance while I am similarly well-endowed in the sperm department. Like the bedroom itself, we are ostensibly perfect and fit for purpose. But then the beautiful girl jumps on top of the testicularly blessed boy and the problems begin. No, not those problems – these problems: As our bodies start to convulse, so does the four poster bed, which in turn causes the fairy lights to join in the jouncing. These rattle against the wall with the resonance of a ghost rattling its chains, causing a cacophony that wakes the bairn, who was hitherto sleeping in the next room. There follows the sound of covers rustling and cot bars creaking as the baby stirs and promptly bursts into tears. My girlfriend’s sighs change from pleasure to displeasure as she dismounts and dashes through to calm the caterwauling. A few minutes later, she returns, I re-erect and we go for take two. Only now I can hear the sound of the bairn’s mobile in the next room, exuding mollifying melodies to induce her back into soma. Soothing as the lullaby is, it is the last thing I want to hear right now, as the music naturally makes me think of my daughter lying in her cot, and nice as that thought is, it is not conducive to sustaining…yeah, you know. I can’t even bring myself to say it in this context; it’s just wrong. And so we start again, trying our damnedest to block out the cutesy sounds emanating from the next room while stifling the rhythmical sex sounds emanating from our own, but this time we just can’t get into our groove, knowing that if we surpass the decibel threshold again, the bairn will reawaken, and will stay awake for an hour or more just to spite us. My girlfriend wearily dismounts and walks through to the adjoining bedroom while I head to the bathroom and empty my pent-up frustrations into the sink.
What is the price of sex? When it happens in my bedroom, in all its headboard rattling glory, the price is no sleep by dint of a screaming brat. While sex can be bought, sleep will always be priceless, which is why I find myself reluctantly eschewing the romance of a fairy-lit four-poster bed for the substance of a cold, loveless fuck by the ocean’s edge.