Posts filed under 'Bedtime stories'
Gerry used to have a great job.
“It was my life, and I loved everything about it. That job was me and I still am that job. If it was that easy to let go I would have done a long time ago. I really would.”
Gerry is a giant. Between 1987 and 1999 his legs were the tunnel just before the turn off for High Wycombe on the M40 in the South of England. Not many people are aware that the Government employed giants in this capacity to cover large sections of roads.
“Originally it was to save money with construction costs. They told us that it took twenty years to build a tunnel and we believed them. It was only later that we found out the figures were wrong, that they’d lied to us. The workers who were going to be employed to make the tunnels would throw rubbish at us as they drove past shouting, “Job stealers!” and “Faddy Long Legs!” but it’s hard to hear anything when they’re shooting past you at 90mph. I thought they were gloating about their facial hair.”
Gerry still looks back on those twelve years with a lot of fondness and warmth. A lot of his friends were also employed in the same scheme.
“Samantha was the overpass on the M5 near Bristol. Danny would double as the tunnel near Birmingham city centre and that one as you come out of Manchester depending on what day it was. My best friend Liam was only a few miles down the road from me and we’d spend most of the afternoon talking about sheep. Liam loved sheep.”
When the budget cuts were announced in the summer of 1999 a lot of what the government considered to be unnecessary services were abandoned including penguin traffic cones, squirrel dusters in the House of Commons and the Giant bridges. Gerry was the last to go having done it the longest. He remembers vividly the last day.
“I didn’t want to do it anymore. I had lasted all that time and this was the only day I didn’t want to do it. I kept picking up cars and using them to pick my nose. A few people were shocked, they had never realised it was a giant and not a tunnel. They ran screaming from their vehicles. The army were almost called in until Jimmy Saville, running his thirtieth marathon that year, stepped in and sorted out the situation. I still owe him a pint.”
Since leaving Gerry has had a varied and ultimately unsatisfying series of jobs that never quite capture the imagination and thrills he experienced from being a tunnel. It is something that practically none of us will ever fully know about.
December 17th, 2009
Episode 23 – If I Were You, I Wouldn’t Want To Know You
During a fatal ice skating accident in which three dwarves, presumably looking for Santa, are maimed by a falling electrical pylon, Sir Chester Lester manages to frame Vixen Hawk for the aggrevious error and sends her into hiding. Whilst hiding Vixen must face several home truths including the concern she has about the mysterious door in her mum’s cellar that leads to suspicious surroundings. Then there’s also all those picked body parts clogging up the freezer. Then there’s also the man from the Council who claims he’s Vixen’s estranged father and that he would have been back sooner were it not for the amount of paperwork after the 1979 boating gala confusion and general filing over the last ten years.
Meanwhile Sir Chester Lester, with nobody to hold him back, goes on a rampage across the many eateries within a three mile radius, stopping only to take in a show between mouthfuls of chaos! Vixen is stuck at a crossroads. Literally. The traffic is so bad on the M17 that she can’t even reach the top of OD Cliff for a dramatic “what should I do” cliffhanger pout of multi-national proportions. But she doesn’t have to for by the time she gets to the scene it’s all over! Another mysterious character draped in tea towels and sporting a ridiculous Australian accent has single-handidly put Sir Chester Lester behind bars and vanquished his cronies to the far nether regions.
The man moves forward to shake Vixen’s hand, but can he be trusted?
December 14th, 2009
Ian’s Christmas Party
Weren’t there? Well now you can be. Here is the 384 word version of what happened through the eyes of someone who was there but also in some ways wasn’t. Let’s start from the briefest of beginnings:
“I started off early. It was only 5pm and I’m buying a bottle of Jack Daniels, walking briskly through the streets and by coincidence I bump into the three guys from work I was looking for. They’re in a rush to get to the World Cup draw – I’m following because I’m not the person with a room at the hotel.
Inside and the bottle of Jack is gone in about an hour and a half, and that’s me taking it slowly. The room isn’t whirling but my balance has been compromised. They get ready and I sit feeling slightly under-dressed in my dark blue t-shirt, grey jeans and steampunk goggles.
I don’t remember how we got to the ground floor but it must have been the lift. I get outside and meet the people from my team – they can tell I’ve been drinking if not from the smell then surely by the slightly slurred speech and red cheeks. Inside moves quickly. Between initial hellos the first course is brought and I’m ordered to drink my soup. I think I had a conversation with my boss that made her feel slightly uncomfortable. I pretend I ordered the chicken and tuck in. I hope whoever got my beef is enjoying it.
There is a blur and an empty space where the desserts should be.
Plenty of dancing wildly to various guff the DJ plays. I drink some more, red wine from the bottle, occasionally handing it to my now equally drunk friend. I make out one of the senior partners in the middle of the floor. A lot of people stand around the side probably too afraid to chance it. I don’t really care anymore and continue drinking until I am in a delirious state of bewilderment. My steampunk goggles seem to be popular and disappear for half an hour.
When the f*ck did they serve the desserts?
It’s approaching the end. The last five hours obviously weren’t long enough. No amount of sensible behaviour and coffee will bring this yuletide bender to an end. After another hour of drinking alcohol other people have been kind enough to buy me I feel too distanced from the rest of the crowd and make my own disappearance into the night. I’m home in twenty-five minutes.”
December 6th, 2009
Stood in the takeaway after going to Digital at about half two in the morning. The pizza has been ordered and it’s taking longer than it should. I spy a strange looking man stood directly opposite me and even though I’m watching the awful music video on the TV behind him I can tell he thinks I’m looking at him and debating whether or not to come over and start a…
“You know that food shop two places down?”
Erm yeah.
“Don’t go in there. The guy touches himself up whilst he’s doing the food. Behind the counter when you’re not looking he’s doing it. You believe me, don’t you?”
Of course I do man.
“It’s disgusting, it’s just disgusting. Touching yourself and doing the food and… it’s disgusting…”
He then proceeds to wander off with his equally odd-looking friend.
I didn’t sign up for that.
December 4th, 2009
Following on from the recent and very successful ‘Zombie Bunny Big Beans’ advertising campaign, a shock survey has revealed that the respected and well-known website Pouring Beans does not have enough beans.
Three years or so in and with not much of a profitable following but yet a cult following in certain circles, Pouring Beans crashed onto the world wide web with a cheeky smile and an abusive attitude. The attitude was kerbed though and once all the misogynstic comments and rude pencil drawings had been removed it was considered a success. Not so much a success in the conventional sense of the word, more of a success within three friends who slapped each other on the back knowing that they had left a mark somewhere in this crazy world.
This survey though has seen PB morale drop to an all time low: just under the seven mark. “Being here and knowing that, I know that if I wasn’t here and I was somewhere else,” dribbled out Pouring Beans stalwart Ian “Mac Mac Mac Mac” McIver, “I’d still know that and it would make me cry.” Asked how the crew was going to deal with the crisis Mr McIver merely made an increasingly loud noise, mentioned something about being “hairy on the go” and fled the scene clutching his “welcomes”.
How they react to this is anyone’s guess. My guess is that they will put more beans on it. FACT!
December 1st, 2009
I’m confused. I’m mystified. I’m dragging myself all over the place and not settling on any sort of sane or reasonable explanation.
December. Prime Panto season, right? So why is it that every year I am forced to watch posters of these two knob jockeys crop up around Newcastle?
http://www.theatreroyal.co.uk/whats_on/pantomine.asp
The poster boasts that the two main actors, and I use the term loosely, Danny Adams and Clive Webb are returning again for what seems like the fifth year in a row due to, and I quote, “overwhelming public demand”. Overwhelming public demand? Who are these people that their lives are so devoid of any life or sense of purpose that they go into the Theatre Royal on a regular basis to enquire when those two lovely lads Mr Adams and Mr Webb are returning? Do they have an “Overwhelming public demand” voting box and whoever gets the most votes they get the moniker to appear on their next poster?
Bring back the Chuckle Brothers. All is forgiven.
November 23rd, 2009
Welcome to November!
Now I’m a pretty open-minded individual, except when it comes to music of course. Once I even took off my shoes to scratch my foot. Twice I opened a man-hole to let bandit rats escape into the sewers. I was greeted with a curious sight this morning. I opened the Metro (the paper, not the actual Metro, although I did really because I pressed the buttom so I could get on the damn thing), read through all the tat and got to the back pages. Bouncing about on page 48 was some adverts for jobs and O’Briens Irish Sandwich Bar are advertising for two distinct roles. They are:
- 2 x Assistant Accountants
- 2 x Accounts Assistants
Does anyone else get the impression someone is taking the piss? Reading the specifications it is clear why they are different and all that but it just looks wrong.
Perhaps it’s like in the Simpsons where Homer is unemployed and there’s a job for a Supervising Technician. “I’m not a Supervising Technician, I’m a Technical Supervisor.” Titles don’t mean anything anymore.
Still, if you could be an Assistant Accountant or an Accounts Assistant which one would you be?
November 2nd, 2009
What we have is a first-hand account of what has been described as literally the Face of Terror. This face however does have a few add-ons that most faces don’t have. Our eye witness for Newsboost, Professor R, had this to report:
“It had twenty hundred legs, all different coloues. The nose was actually two noses to make up one nose. The monster also had noses for eyes, four arms made of cars and a traffic light for a body. Don’t forget the tail made of jelly!”
Was it male or female, Professor R?
“It was just a monster, okay?”
You heard him. If you come across this abomination of nature please make sure to not only take pictures but to count the number of legs and noses to ensure we have an accurate description. You personal safety should not come into question. Do what we say.
October 28th, 2009
Are you in? No, not you, the other one at the back. Yeah you… are yo… what? So that’s a… a no right, okay.
Episode 18 – Noose Lips Chop Chips
Hanging from the nose of the president Vixen uses the last of her strength to pull herself back up on top of Mount Rushmore. The eternal monument has a red haze; a lot of blood has been spilled and all in the name of death!
Still, with Sir Chester Lester finally behind bars it appears as though the greatest enemy of the city has finally been vanquished, or has it? Has he? Will they now?
Vixen attends a celebration in her honour only to have ti crashed by a very attractive and familiar-looking woman. Before she can change into her now slightly more alluring costume guest speaker Angela Lansbury has been captured. The streets are filled with screaming people. Bobby Paul needs to take his shirt back to Next and get a refund. Such a tall order. Vixen follows the trail left by her new nemesis to a crocodile-infested swamp. Luckily though theur gnashers are nothing compared to our heroine’s personalised style of judo karate kendo martial arts, taught to her secretly at the age of three. She was still on rusks then.
In a cafe in the middle of the swamp Angela Lansbury hangs in a cage next to the specials menu above a pit of seedy vultures, desperate for attention. The queue at the cashier hasn’t moved for the last five minutes as a minor searches through his pockets for enough change to buy a custard cream. The evil capturer is revealed: but… it’s Vixen! How can this be? Oh no no, the capturer may look like her but she’s no Vixen. This is Crazy Gazey, Vixen’s identical half-sister who could also be her cousin only nobody went that far with the family tree. A titanic battle ensures however it ends with the inevitable yet satisfying conclusion with Angela Lansbury safe in the arms of a 2.99 coffee and donut lunchtime deal. But what of Crazy Gazey? She escapes and comes back in the, ah ah, that would be telling.
October 6th, 2009
This morning I woke up and I decided to lie in bed a little bit longer before I got up at my usual time. My usual time is 8:12 because I like the even numbers. If I wake up at an odd numbered time I immediately close my eyes and pretend to sleep until the time flashes to an even number, than I wake up. Titter titter.
For breakfast I put two pieces of bread into the toaster and heated them up until they weren’t white anymore. Only two minutes and out they came, brown as brown, hot and toasted somewhat. After opening the fridge I decided upon two different spreads for my toast; butter and jam. It was a tough choice between strawberry and blackberry but in the end strawberry won for the following reasons:
1) it has strawberries in it
2) it tastes like strawberries and
3) the other one doesn’t have strawberries in it
I put the layer of butter on before the strawberry jam because that is very important. If you don’t put the butter on first then it goes very wrong. I spent several minutes deciding whether or not to remove the crusts from the pieces of toast eventually ending on the decision to leave them on because my hair is already curly and anymore curliness won’t damage my hair. I then moved my attentions to the kettle where I stood for the next hour…
(to continue at a time when it becomes more exciting)
September 22nd, 2009
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