Fuck 'Em

Why I won’t be watching Shutter Island…(Spoiler warning)

Chris — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:12:13 +0000

Shutter Island.

I was half-excited for this film, an adaptation of a book I’ve never heard of because I am an uncultured swine. Or it’s unreadable, generic pap…one of the two. The film is coming out in a bit of a dry season for good cinema, with nothing on the schedule really catching my eye. ‘The Crazies’ is out could be interesting, but I missed any hype there might have been for that, and a few lacklustre reviews means I’ll probably wait a few months for Lovefilm to drop it at my doorstep. Kevin Smith’s next directorial shot, ‘Cop Out’, is miles off because I happen to live in the UK and Warner Bros hates me. No other films have really jumped on to my radar in a meaningful way. ‘Alison Wonderland’ looks like a ridiculous CGI-ridden mess, and the pairing of Burton and Depp is wearing as thin as a celebrity girlfriend.

Plus the last film I dragged myself to was ‘The Wolfman’, in which Del Toro gives a masterclass of looking thoroughly bored and Hugo Weaving plays a talking moustache. It was so horribly bad I wanted to, ironically, grow fur and maul everyone.

So when I saw Shutter Island was out this week, I was a little bit interested. I made plans to go and see it, checked times, and sat feeling smug that I had an alterative to spending my Friday night eating pizza and throwing Southern Comfort down my throat. My liver did a little dance. I also re-watched the trailer, which I first saw before a screening of ‘Moon’, and it was suitably creepy, building tension days before I would even see the film proper. I was very interested. I love those precious few ghost movies that mess with your head and burrow into your psyche so you jump at every shadow on the way home. I even thought ‘The Sixth Sense’ was good, though it wasn’t exactly a horror film. There are precious few of these films, because even when they start off well, they’re usually ruined by a bloody stupid plot twist towards the end.

Except I will now never bother to watch ‘Shutter Island’, and this pre-emptive review (er…preview?) will tell you why. I’ll try not to swear loads, but can’t promise anything. Also, obviously, spoiler alert.

Yes, I read the story outline on Wikipedia. Couldn’t help it. I effectively ruined the film for myself and I’m so incredibly glad I did, because it would have only made me angry. The ending is the type you joke about over your popcorn during the trailers, pre-film and post-’Dallas’. You’ll be whispering quietly, hazarding guesses at what direction the plot will take, and someone will undoubtedly say “It’s all a dream! DiCaprio will wake up in the shower!” and you’ll all politely laugh at your friends rubbish joke.

Now, it isn’t exactly that, but it’s about on par. Basically, the story decides to eat itself and winds up screaming “It’s all in his head!”, whilst shoving it’s foot firmly down it’s own throat. Faux-psychology wrapped up in a supposedly intriguing plot that makes me want to throw up on whatever bored writer thought ‘Yep, that’ll wrap it up nicely’. It’s a twist designed to shock you, much like “Bruce is dead!” in The Sixth Sense. Except all it really does is kill the rest of the film, making all the scares up to that point entirely redundant. As it’s all in his head, it doesn’t even nearly exist, and only he sees it…so what, exactly, are you being scared of? The notion that some other man’s lack of marbles is giving him a bit of a shiver? Ooo.

If a man approached you in the street, and told you the most harrowing tale you could ever imagine, full of terrifying depravity and laced with supernatural happenings, and somehow managed to convince you it was all entirely real, but then ended by saying something like “and that’s when I woke up!”, would you be pleased? You’d be thrown back into reality, and you’d be pissed off at the crazy man for wasting your time. Dreams are boring when recountered, regardless of the content. Do you really want to give upwards of £7 to a cinema so you can learn that, no matter how expertly it was told, a mental patient had a bit of a nightmare?

Assuming it was a well made flick (which, being Scorsese, it probably is), it’s likely the film doesn’t exactly hint at it before the final reveal, otherwise it’d ruin the movie even more. So it might be entertaining right up until the final scene, but if I’d been sat in the cinema, gripped by every scene up to that point, I’d have been absolutely livid by the pointlessness of the ending. Saying “It’s all in his head” negates any impact the film might have had up to that point, and effectively kills what interest I’d had. Knowing full well it’ll send me into an irate rage, I’m going to give it a miss. They should put a warning on the poster, underneatht the tagline: “Warning: The Ending Is Retarded”. You could have the best sex of your life, but if your partner hops off you before climax, and slaps you in the face, you wouldn’t be ecstatic about it. Well, unless you’re into that. Whatever. Anyway.

It makes me angry simply because they could have mentioned it at the start, and we could have all gone home early. It means every scene that preceeded the big finale was rubbish, pointless, and only the character played by DiCaprio knew any of it was going on. I’d be expecting to see people wandering around with cups of coffee, reading the newspaper whilst he ran around screaming and pointing at figments of his own imagination. Imagine the exact same film from another characters point of view (except, maybe, for any of the ghosts, as they don’t exist at all). Say, one of the doctors in the mental home. There might be a layer of sinister intent to the whole thing, but you’d be watching Leo chase around an innocuous building, probably humming his own dramatic soundtrack.

“It’s time for your meds, Leo. Sit still a second…”

“NO! I can’t! I must avenge my dead wife! Dum dum, dum dum dum dum…do dooooooo dum dum dummmm…”

The reason I hate this sort of ending is because it reeks of laziness – I understand it’s based on a book that probably uses the same tired ending, and I am basing my entire opinion on a Wikipedia plot summary, but still. Why can’t we just have a straight-up ghost story, one that takes all the shocks, scares and psychological trauma of the genre and then doesn’t fuck it up at the end? No trickery, no contrived Scooby-Doo twists where the mask is yanked off, revealing a series of utterly fucking useless events beneath the glossy, latex sheen. I want a horror film that uses ghosts to their full, nerve-shredding potential, without a caveat at the end that drags them back in to the real world with a boring, often obviously-signposted explanation, or into the mind of someone you don’t really care about. Or if you are going to do that, make it interesting. Watching a film that largely takes place inside a man’s head, helping him deal with his problems and come out of it a better man at the end? That’s not scary. That’s a session on a psychologists couch.

And ‘Mirrors’, ‘House On Haunted Hill’, et al don’t count, because they were shit.

I want to be scared without having to wait around to have the film ruined for me.

I think, basically, I just want to sit in a cinema and play Silent Hill 2.

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Rant!!! Not mine, either.

Chris — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:43:45 +0000

An email send around in my work earlier.

Hi Guys

Sorry, but can you please stop taking Milk that belongs to other people.

We buy this Milk for our Breakfast, so that we don’t use the Milk provided by the office for Coffee & Tea.

If you are going to use someone else’s Milk, can you at least have the common decency to ask first.

Thanks

XXXX XXXX

Payroll

XXX

Now, I don’t go anywhere near the fridge so I don’t know, but it seems like a big deal to some people. I’m still going to mock it. I like how ‘Breakfast’ is capitalised.

Here:

——————————————————

Hi Guys

Sorry, but can you please stop taking Dick that belongs to other people.

We buy this Dick for our Breakfast, so that we don’t use the Dick provided by the office for Coffee & Tea.

If you are going to use someone else’s Dick, can you at least have the common decency to ask first.

Thanks

XXXX XXXX

Payroll

XXX

———————————————–

Hi Guys

Sorry, but can you please stop taking former WWE Wrestler X-Pac that belongs to other people.

We buy this former WWE Wrestler X-Pac for our Breakfast, so that we don’t use the former WWE Wrestler X-Pac provided by the office for Coffee & Tea.

If you are going to use someone else’s former WWE Wrestler X-Pac, can you at least have the common decency to ask first.

Thanks

XXXX XXXX

Payroll

XXX

—————————————————

Hi Milk

Sorry, but can you please stop taking Guys that belongs to other people.

We buy these Guys for our Breakfast, so that we don’t use the Guys provided by the office for Coffee & Tea.

If you are going to use someone else’s Guys, can you at least have the common decency to ask first.

Thanks

XXXX XXXX

Payroll

XXX

Feel free to add your own. Most imaginative wins an emailed picture of a cookie with the word ‘cunt’ written on it with icing.

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AHAHA except not really.

Chris — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:22:30 +0000

I hate office humour. I hate it. Loath it. It’s so obnoxiously shit and should be punishable by public beatings or at least a short walk over a floor covered in thumb tacks and up-turned plugs. On fire. In the dark.

It’s disgusting.

The type of ‘joke’ that’s borne from a single, stupid misunderstanding or minor non-event that the wheelie-chair jockeys latch on to and repeat, ad nauseum – all day – until your eyes bleed and your brain begins to starve itself of oxygen, screaming for a way out. It might be a slight trip or a stumble whilst carrying a cup of tea, that magically transforms into OH MY DAYS, DID YOU HEAR WHAT ALF DID EARLIER? HE FELL! FELL! THERE WAS TEA EVERYWHERE! IT WAS A TEA-MAGEDDON! AHAHAHA!. This piss-poor excuse for conversation is then usually repeated to the people who were present, and already know full well the banality of the situation, but still join in the guffawing like retarded hyena’s choking on speedballs. Then some other poor fucker, usually someone like me, will wander past minding their own business, carrying various bits of paper and trying to look busy enough to divert the attention of anyone in charge. And they’ll be stopped, perhaps physically, and the entire bloated saga will be retold, acquiring various bells and whistles along the way. A shitty re-imagining of something that barely happened. It’d be like re-making ‘The Happening’ or something. The hapless office-worker in question will then mutter a polite ‘lol’ or some other appeasing utterance and try to be on their way. Except they won’t be allowed to go.

Oh, no.

They didn’t find it funny enough, did they. So more ‘AHAHA’S will be barked, and the story will be told again at a higher decibel. “YOU WILL FIND THIS FUNNY!” they scream, blind to the fucking obvious fact that THEIR AUDIENCE WILL NOT.

This epic retelling will happen every time someone new happens to walk past, regardless of how many other poor bastards are sat in the vicinity, hearing the same tepid story for the sixteenth time within the hour. Often, the same people will be collared, again, and have it rammed down their throat, again. Occasionally the jabbering twat-tards will recruit another comedy leech, who’ll hook on to the main group and throw in their own AHAHA’s, and repeat it again to the same unfortunate folk who the first lot have already grabbed. It’s like a violently depressing mobious strip. You can’t see where it ends or why the fuck it’s so interesting.

“OHMIGODDIDYOUHEARWHATALFDID?”

“Yes. Yes I did. Off at least six people. I also got the circulated email and the stack of post-it notes you left me.”

“WELLLETMETELLYOUAGAINBECAUSEITISBRILLIANTOHMYGODYOUWILLLAUGH”

And out of mis-guided politeness and an over-all desire to not be fired for lashing out and scraping a co-worker’s tongue out with a biro, before punching holes in it with one of those little machines (forget what they’re called), you sit, and you smile, and you listen again. Acutely aware that you’re stabbing yourself in the thigh with a compass; you can feel the blood dripping down into your socks and you fantasise about being anywhere – anywhere – other than where you are right now. Your brain flits happily to a dream-land, where you’re stuck in a Beirut prison, sucking cocks to avoid a shivving. It’s happier there.

But, I digress. As with most of these shoddily written tirades of abuse, my thinly-veiled anger is actually centred around a real-life incident that has happened, and managed to catch the attention of my ire. Office Humour. I hate it.

An example:

Yesterday, an elastic band was being idly played with by a bored co-worker; thumbed and stretched and twisted around fat, useless fingers when it suddenly decided it’d had enough and it darted off, up into the air and landed innocuously on the ground a few feet away.

That doesn’t sound like award-winning comedy, does it? But that’s where you’d be WRONG. Clearly. You fucking moron. This is Graham Linehan territory, this. It’s destined to go down in history as the single funniest occurrence since Jade Goody kicked the bucket. It’s absolute fucking GOLD. Duh. How did you not realise? Are you stupid or something? Maybe you didn’t hear the exact details, so I’ll repeat it again, louder and a little too close to your face for comfort.

Yesterday! An elastic band was being HILARIOUSLY played with! Thumbed and stretched and twisted around glorious, comedy-imbued fingers! When it suddenly decided it’d had enough! And it darted off, up into the air and landed INCREDIBLY FUNNILY on the ground a few feet away! AHAHAHA.

Ahaha inDEED.

I got back to my depressing little desk and was greeted by the shining, happily spastic faces of all of my co-workers (I am genuinely fucked if any of them ever find this site). They were eager to tell me the news; some literally bursting at the seams.

And they told me the story, each of them.

“Oh” I said, sitting down and flicking my monitor back on. Wrong answer. Incorrect reaction. Error 404: Humour Not Found. I didn’t say “AHAHA!” and run off to tell the cleaner, like they expected any normal person to do.

So they told me again, highlighting each point and bookending it with more hysterical laughter.

Strangely, I didn’t double over in fits of torrential laughter this time either.

The worst part of it is, one co-worker wasn’t in work yesterday. They are in today; so it took less than ten minutes of the working day before I heard the entire story yet again, this time with the added bonus that it almost hit someone. So yesterday’s piece of nothing suddenly becomes the hottest topic today. I’ll be surprised if it isn’t on the company homepage by lunchtime.

The strength of this particular brand of innocuous humour lives and dies on the strength, or weakness, of your imagination. If you can hear the above story and stop your brain immediately leaping to something more interesting (say, a blue pen) then you have a chance of finding it funny. If, however, you prefer your comedy to have any sort of substance or funny bits, you’re destined to remain outcast from their inbred society, living off scraps of genuine humour. Or reading Twitter all day.

For example, something half-funny happened regarding the elastic band incident. During one particularly hellish retelling late yesterday afternoon, one of the less intelligent specimins cried out “HA! THEY SHOULD CALL YOU THE……….”.

Then they stopped, and fear flashed across their eyes as they realised they had absolutely nothing else to say. No ending to the sentence they’d birthed without thinking. A horrid botched-abortion of a line that had no right to exist in the first place.

Five seconds passed and “…..band…..” dripped from their mouth, desperately fighting against itself, not wanting to be heard.

Another lengthy gap of vapid nothingness passed as her audience waited with baited breath. Or, in my case, lurching awkwardness smothered in cringeworthy comedy. Then “…..snapper…..” came out, rounding off the full sentence. Was it an attempt at a nickname? Was she about to say something offensive and had to do a mental u-turn at the last second? Is she just a bit thick? We may never know.

“That was pathetic!” I said, smashing the silence with a hammer. “Why did you even bother talking?”. Mean, maybe, but I’m all about negative reenforcement.

It was priceless, watching her slowly die inside as the words refused to come, culminating in the most pointless line of the whole escapade.

Anyway, rant over. You band-snapper.

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Speedoman

Chris — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:16:03 +0000

The first of many pointless, fucking stupid “Superheroes” I plan to make up between now and the end of time. Whatever keeps me busy, like.

Speedoman! Not Paedoman.

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The VizpodChriscast… Also featuring Marc!

Chris — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:09:04 +0000

PODCAST! LISTEN! CUNTS!

27-02-2010%20VizpodChriscast1.mp3

Love,

Viz, Chris and, to a lesser extent, Marc.

PS – Cunts.

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Fuck Build-A-Bear

Chris — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:33:02 +0000

My views on Build-A-Bear will already be known to anyone who has been unfortunate to walk past one of their disgusting little outlets with me. I can’t help it; just a quiet stroll around town throws me into an irate, raging fury as soon as I see that bloody yellow sign and the retardedly chirpy members of staff; they’re worse than the ones in the Disney Store, where you have to be a special brand of mentally disabled just to qualify for an interview. The kind of person who would retain their unbroken smile and glassy-eyed look even through serious interrogation by shadey, underworld crime-bosses.

Now I feel like submitting my views to the internet, so I can just hand out post-it notes with a link scribbled on it to every disillusioned Dad dragged in there by a six year old attracted by the bright colours and false promises.

I understand, sort of, that some kids might like the idea of having a bear they ‘built’ themselves. But I don’t. I disgree, on the most basic level, with everything that the shop does, everything they sell, and the premise under which they sell it.

I’m thrown back to childhood whenever I see one, and a small, 8-year-old version of me is horrified by the thought of it all. That is then filtered through my innate ability to detest every single little thing on this earth and it comes out of 23-year-old me as a flurry of abusive tirades aimed at the sickly, corporate-approved ‘fun machine’ which idiot kids and child-like, retarded women, desperate to cling on to their youth with ever-yellowing fingernails seem to go fucking nuts over.

I know it’s all just unfounded spittle aimed at something I don’t like, and I know I’m over-thinking a complete non-subject but I don’t care. Fuck you. I don’t care that my views are crushed under the weight of every single other ‘tragedy’ in the modern world; I’m blinded by red bile burning a hole in my stomach.

First of all, not a single customer there actually ‘builds a bear’. Technically, all they are is the very final workers on a depressing, primary-coloured production line. Every kid who runs from the shop, giddy at having just forced their parent and/or groomer to shell out upwards of £15 on a worthless piece of tat is simply provided the company with the ability to save money on production and QA. Why employ workers to stuff the bears with cheap, irritation-causing fluff when the kid’s hapless parents will pay and extra £5 to see it shoved into their new object of desire? Nothing is built, just stuffed. ‘Stuff-A-Bear’ isn’t quite as friendly on the ears, though.

The actual bears are all there as soon as you walk in, sat hollow and lifeless on a shelf looking discarded like used condoms covered in fur. The only ‘building’ that is done is when the vicodin-addicted shopgirl shoves the deflated mess of material and stitching onto the end of the metal lovepole and jerks it around until it’s full of the white stuff. And you pay money for this. Yes, I’m linking ‘Build-A-Bear’ with the horrid prostitution of semi-unwilling, lifeless husks.

It might as well be called ‘Build-A-Whore’ and come with the option of inserting a Flesh-light where it’s fluffy guts should be.

Then there’s the machine itself, the one that ’stuffs’ them – it couldn’t be more unpleasent if it tried. And I’m under the sneaking suspicion that it DOES try. See, there’s a window on the side of it that shows all the bear’s soon-to-be innards, flowing around like inedible candy floss. Now, you have to remember that this is what goes inside the bears, it’s a mush of internal teddy-organs being pushed around a machine for your amusement. You sick bastard. Then, shining proud and stiff from the end of this machine, is a sharp metal pole which the carcass of the bear is viciously shoved on to and raped until it can’t take any more. They really should just stick a bell-end on it and be done with it.

Another option, which I believe costs about £1, is to put a ‘heart’ inside it. A little piece of plastic machinery that vibrates in methodic bursts, mimicking the heart beat. This means the bear is ‘alive’, which is fucking shocking considering the ordeal it’s just been forced through. This is all well and good for the first few weeks, and the small unwitting child is pleased as punch that their little bundle of furry joy is showing some signs of imitated life. But then that’ll break. The battery will run out or it’ll just cease to function because it’s a poorly-made piece of shit. Can you deal with the inevitable discussion on mortality with your small child?

“WHY IS MY BEAR DEAD, DADDY? WHY DID HE HAVE TO LEAVE ME? I BOUGHT HIM A LITTLE SPIDER-MAN OUTFIT AND EVERYTHING!”

It’s heart breaking. They’re even given a birth certificate. Are you ready to mock-up a death certificate when the bears heart ceases to beat? Are you comfortable burying £15 of your hard-earned cash in the garden whilst your young child weeps softly in the corner, unsure of what’s real anymore?

Fuck Build-A-Bear.

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If you found us through Google, you’re weird.

Chris — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:02:50 +0000

So, in an effort to write at least one thing a week, whilst also battling against severe boredom and a bit of writer’s block, I’ve decided to cannibalise the site itself in order to get some content.

The below is a list of ‘Search Terms’ that members of the ‘Internet’ put into a ‘Google’ and found this ’site’. All 100% real, and about 90% terrifying. Most give off an aura of the unclean, or are just plain weird. I want to put the website in the shower and hose it down, knowing these people have been reading it. Although I’m sure next week we’ll have at least one more hit from someone searching for “Hose it down website” or something.

The numbers after the terms are the amount of times it’s happened.

Search Terms

tony starck 19
This one is normal enough. I don’t have a problem with it. I guess quite a lot of people put Iron Man’s name into Google, and 19 of them found our site. I think I’ve mentioned it once. All good. So far, so ordinary.

site:www.onlybees.com onlybees.com 5
Again, fine. They’ve googled for the site address rather than put it in the address bar. Not a problem. Move along.

werewolf rape 3
Yep. This is where it starts getting a little weird. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on the site (If I have, I’m sorry) and I’m not about to search for the same thing to check it out, but this isjust the first in a line of strange search terms. Werewolf rape.

delta taxi crossword 3
There was a few similar to this one. Basically, we received a crossword through our front door from a local taxi company. Mick threw the answers online…then people searched for it. Why the fuck would you cheat on a crossword that was put through your door? That’s like searching for the solution to the puzzles hidden in Milky Bar wrappers. And being a retard.

mogan fucking
Ah. Mogan isn’t that common a name, and one of my friends is named Stephen Mogan. So, the only logical conslusion is that Stephen Mogan has a sex tape that he doesn’t want people to know about, and he’s googled it himself to make sure it’s not popped up online. However, instead of stumbling upon the video of the bearded wonder hammering out his A-Game, he’s found something I’ve written that includes, seperately, the words ‘Fucking’ and ‘Mogan’. The dirty bastard.

“have eaten no”
This was searched for, and consequently found our site through, twice. I’d like to know what these people have eaten none of.

neon nazis 2
I really hope this was someone with far-right political view, but bad spelling.

white stripes stealing chris pontius rif 1
No idea.

“hot loner” 1
Let’s just blame Mick for this one and move on.

“no consequence” “tech metal” 1
Some unfortunate soul searching the the absolutely awful band ‘No Consequence’, who I ripped to shreds for being utter shite.

self help people fucked 1
We’re getting down into the ‘fuck’ ones now. There are quite a few. I can’t quite explain any of them but I’m starting to see the problems that my excessive swearing might cause.

free fuck viz 2
Exactly the same situation as Mogan, but for Viz. Maybe the video is Mogan and Viz, getting hardcore.

advent calendar with fuck 1
If this isn’t a thing already, I’m definitely patenting it. Every day in the run up to Christmas, you flick open a window and do whatever filthy, depreaved sex act that the baby Jesus tells you to.

fuck pcworld 2
I agree.

fuck cretin bssy movie 1
?

dog fuck 1
Mick’s fault again.

marty mcgovern 1
Marty clearly has a stalker. Go Marty. Also, I hope for his sake that it wasn’t a girl he fancies. The article all about him doesn’t put him in a lovely, take-to-meet-your-mother sort of light.

werewolfrape 1
AGAIN.

fuck to the future games 1
Is there a porno version of Back To The Future? I hope there is. “Where we’re going, we don’t need pants”.

fat people jokes in “workplace” 1
My reputation preceeds me.

facial characteristics of welsh people 1
Nose-deep in a sheep.

depressed? weird? 1
Yes. Why?

snow phallus liverpool 2010 1
Hehe. I’ve made many a snow-cock, so this one sort of makes sense.

18 teen fack in turkey 1
A cockney, looking for some over-seas boinking.

fuck bt option 3 not unlimited 1
Mick struck a nerve.

sister and dog fuçk 1
WHAT.

lord of the rings filmed in wales 1
It wasn’t, but thanks for asking.

writing about sausages 1
I don’t know.

what funny things should i shout out my window 1
“Anal”.

fat peoples bums 1
This shouldn’t be searched for. Never.

boys fuck cows 1
Hmm.

perfectly legal in this country wales 1
Not the sheep thing.

Paperchase Can Steal My Shit

Chris — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:16:17 +0000

After the furore that work-stealing bastards Paperchase caused recently (well, a design studio that Paperchase hired anyway), I thought I’d weigh in a little. A few days late, obviously. I don’t want to appear topical or anything.

The full story has already been covered by the people at BoingBoing (http://boingboing.net/2010/02/11/artist-chases-paperc.html) and probably every other reputable blog already, but essentially they used a design without permission. Then, they refused to acknowledge the artist when questioned about it. To put it bluntly, they were pricks about the whole thing. That was, until Twitter got hold of the story, and ran with it. Now, through the wonder of Twitter, they’ve been forced to issue a weak acknowledgement that’ll probably go absolutely nowhere. Because really, people being angry on Twitter is a bit like people being angry inside their own minds, or screaming into an empty void. Or telling Katie Price.

No one gives a shit.

Although I do agree that the artist in question was well within her rights to kick up a fuss. It’s a blatant, shameless copy of her work. They even made it look worse, by cluttering up the neat little drawing with all kinds of extraneous shit that didn’t need to be there. No one needs butterflies. No one.

To help avoid such a problem in the future, where genuine artists get shafted by a big faceless company (especially one with a sickly, faux-’we’re dead quirky look at our mad bags we’re MAD’ veneer), I’ve drawn some things that are absolutely fine to steal, rip-off or otherwise sodomise at their lesiure.

Really, folks. The below master-works are 100% free. I’m expecting to see them on tote-bags, album covers, rape alarms or the face of an elderly lady within a week.

They might not be the best quality, but fuck you, they’re free.

Larry The Lucky Loo-Roll

Use me on your bum! And be lucky all day long!

The Magic Square of Confused Misery

A really ugly bird, possibly with a disability.

Dinosaurus Rex

Captain Pirate

(Note, the above is bollocks and I will totally sue the living shit out of you if you use it anywhere. Because I can. I saved a man’s life in Nam, now he’s a big hotshot lawyer and he’ll come GUNNING FOR YOUR ASSES. Do you want your asses gunned? I thought not).

Also, because we, as a collective mass of Internet, are hilarious, can we start calling them Papercha$e? With a dollar sign where the ‘S’ should be. Like ‘Micro$oft. Because THAT sure didn’t get old the minute after the first PS3 fanboy spouted it on a games forum. No siree. lololol.

One Man & A Baby

Chris — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:23:54 +0000

Tomorrow, I’m being tasked with looking after my little 4-year old sister for an entire day. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to mind her on her own, having usually enlisted the help of my little brother who is better with this sort of thing. Sadly, that little bastard has gotten out of it by only being six years old and in school. I am tremendously under-prepared. This is the first time I’ve ever really been called into action as a responsible adult in charge of a smaller person’s life. For an entire day.

Now, if this was the early 90’s, I wouldn’t be writing this. No, instead, I’d be putting together plans for either: a) a film starring Ted Danson or b) a TV show, probably starring Ted Danson. A fish-out-of-water story about a man with a pouffy hair-do dubiously looking after a baby that is not his own, handily side-stepping the paedophile thing by making the baby kick-ass and street-wise. A light-hearted comedy where everything happens ‘With Hilarious Consequences’.

She’s going to smash something expensive. With Hilarious Consequences.

She’s going to eat too many sweet and throw up all over me/the dog. With Hilarious Consequences.

She’s going to go missing. With Hilarious Consequences.

I’m going to be in horrible over my depth. With Hilarious Consequences.

I’d have called it “With Hilarious Consequences”.

I’ve looked into it, and any kind of restraints for a full day is illegal and against her tiny little human rights. My problem is that she’s too quick, and she knows her house better than I do. I don’t know if there’s a way into some sort of crawl space between the walls, but she will. My day tomorrow will likely end in a country-wide manhunt, and she’ll just be sat in the shed all along, playing with the power tools. My day will end with my parents returning home to a fresh-faced, wide-awake little sister and me, covered in my own blood and dirt, falling asleep at the dining table.

With Hilarious Consequences.

‘On an Island in the Sun…’

Marty — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:50:47 +0000

A few weeks ago, whilst enjoying an extremely exhilarant converse at a gathering hosted in a dear friend’s dwelling, I found myself holding court with a group of freshly-made acquaintances. The chat bustled back and forth as we all excitedly traded tales from our pasts. Where we were schooled, relationships that we may have formed, both romantically or otherwise, our preferred past-times etc etc. Oh how we enjoyed probing each other, digging deep with the aim of unearthing yarns detailing embarrassing endeavours of days gone by, giggling at the preposterous parallels that our life paths had inevitably taken. With the second chalice of red Wine starting to infiltrate my already merry mindset, making me even more at ease with my new friends (not to mention susceptible to mockery), I started to really open up and explain my love of Artistic expression. Once i’d exhausted my somewhat tedious spiel on Music journalism and reinforced my desire to one day craft a piece for Rolling Stone Magazine (a topic that i’ve been throwing out at parties for over five years, usually to the very same stifled laughter, traditionally followed by the feigned encouragement that could only be expected from a gaggle of drunken minds you’ve just been introduced to/encouraged to engage with), I commenced the obligatory speech on what I was doing to achieve this lifelong ambition of mine. Naturally it wasn’t long before I regaled the masses with the details of this very site you have stumbled across/been forced to view by Chris, Mick or myself. I chatted animatedly about the wonders of ‘blogging’ and the courageous pursuit of flinging the thoughts and feelings I would so desperately like to have the stones to convey in the real world into cyber space.

As I reached for the cheesesticks, feeling somewhat superior that my drunken desciples were hanging off my every word, my reality was inexplicably ravaged down from upon the charismatic cloud my bragging had elevated it to.

‘Well, I just don’t see what you could possibly write about all the time Marty. How do you keep readers coming back every week’?

That was a sudden slice of sobriety I could have done without.

As we grabbed our coats and headed into the bitter evening air I started to do what no aspiring writer should ever do, I started to THINK!

When it all comes undone, i’m rather like any other single, caucasian male hurtling towards that most maudlin of milestones ‘Thirty’! I’m still as foolhardy and frustratingly forlorn as I was a decade ago. I can be found frequenting the very same dankhole bars I probably should have outgrown midway through the ‘noughties’ and, perhaps most depressingly of all, I am still an underappreciated, nah, underachieving office Monkey who makes his own lunch everyday as a cost-cutting exercise and wears Captain America briefs to convince himself he is still, y’know, a ‘zany’ type of guy. Shirley was right, what on earth did I have to say that anybody would ever have the slightest shred of interest in? Worse still, how was I even going to convince my friends to tune into my latest entry? My confidence was shot, the unthinkable had happened: I’d lost the power to boast!

The next couple of nights consisted of tossing and turning and panic-stricken scribbling that resulted only in nonsensical noodlings so awkward it could have been torn straight from an adolescent Adrian Mole diary. This was quite a slump. What the hell was I going to do?

Then, it hit me. OF COURSE! I had a wealth of wisdom that was just waiting to be tapped into. A set of stories so scintillating, so spectacularly scandalous that I could dine out on it for months. All I had to do was lift the lid on one of the most embarrasing episodes of my young life thus far. I guess enough time had passed to share with the World (Wide Web) MY TRAVEL DIARY!

For you see dear reader, I spent ten monumental months entertaining guests from all over Europe as part of an Animacion team in the enviable location of Spain. My time there was unquestionably the most adventurous journey, not to mention an unprecedented period of self discovery, that I have ever had the pleasure to undertake. Needless to say it was also inhabited by a cast of characters, unsavoury serpents and weird and wonderful wimseys. A troupe of theatrical treasures you very seldom have the chance to cross during the rather dull nine to five existence.

I hereby officially announce the commencement of a five-part mini series, my account of those heady hedonistics right here at ‘OnlyBees’.

So if you’d like to learn about how I was almost killed by Spanish gangsters, my days spent in Canarian crack dens, my brief romances with German goddesses and Slovakian princesses, how I was touched inappropriately by a five foot homosexual choreographer or the night I finally got to see my idols Boney M perform ‘Daddy Cool’ stay tuned to ‘ONLYBEES’.

Episode one to follow…

Ciao bella

Marty!