Me, death & the white van man

The world spun under my wheels, buildings flashed by like smoke stacks - landmarks rendered soft and inconsistent by speed and peripheral vision. My bike is a rusty, wheezing nightmare of patched-up rubber and dented, groaning bearings but if the morning light falls just right and the sound of my velocity is sufficient to mask the agony of the aging mechanism beneath, it is still a pleasure to ride. And there I was, fragments of real life streaming past me, hunched up over blurring wheels, riding the morning thermals to work.

My route to the Jewellery Quarter takes me over a number of ancient bridges, brick work carbon-stained and pitiful from centuries of barges passing, coughing and belching beneath and trucks and lorries thundering above. As you hit the top of the rise the canal system races away from you on both sides- brown water with rainbow squalls, bordered on both sides by greying vegetation and sporadic, pitiful starbursts of dirty purple and dark amber flowers. For a moment it is like falling through time, this anachronistic crossway that shrugs off the 20th century and disappears to the horizon, but then tyres hit pavement and you are catapulted back into a world of Vauxhall Corsas and advertising billboards.

On this particular day, as I raced down the far side of the bridge I noticed a dip in the curb that would allow me to move from the pavement back to the road and onwards down the unbroken sweep of the High Street towards the red brick buildings of the Quarter beyond. Without really thinking I pointed my front wheel towards this depression but for some reason had second thoughts at the last moment. Synapses fired and I turned my handle bars away, the rubber treading on my wheel barely grazing the edge of the curb as a white van, seemingly from nowhere, shot past missing me by centimetres.

Now I don’t know how fast that van was going but as I looked up it was already too far away to read its license plate. What’s absolutely certain is had I continued on my former vector and joined the road, I wouldn’t be here now. I’d been in several pieces scattered across the street and possibly floating in the canal.

And that would have been it. No more stupid blog entries, no more weekly shops or nights in with my family; no more weeks of light and wonder, no more worrying about my weight, no more Perfect Dark marathons. It would all just have ended with a sudden percussive impact and a sack of skin hitting tarmac.

I know, believe me I know, I’m not being profound, I know wiser men than me have discussed this since the dawn of civilisation but I don’t think I’ve ever truly realised before how the mundane and the sublime moments in our lives are equally precious. When my own personal white van of inevitability finally ploughs me down, will I be thinking of standing ovations and tropical sunsets or the way my Dad sometimes smiles, something Red said that struck me as funny, if I’d paid the gas bill … ?

I think there’s always going to be a piece of me lost in that moment, that split second decision that saved my life, at the interchange of past and future, caught between the pavement and the sky …

Tescos vs Iconic Silver Age Hollywood Horror

So I'm having an 80s party. We're not going to dress up or anything, we're just going to eat 80s food and watch 80s films, observe the Blockbuster in its foetal stage before it learned how to be charmless and slick and effortlessly forgettable. I've always loved that particular genus of 80s cinema, there's this whole group of films that are linked by nothing more than a puppy dog enthusiasm to please, at least one bit where a woman with big hair gets topless and that rubbish 80s special effect that looks like blue lightning. You know the one, the one that the Emperor splurges from the end of his finger tips in Jedi (although doubtless George has buffed that particular FX up to a pointless digital gleam for the latest 'I want a 100ft statue of JarJar Binks built at Skywalker Ranch' Edition of the trilogy).

Anyway, I digress, several times, lets concertina in the tangential meanderings and get back to the point. Short Circuit, Inner Space, Back to the Future, Flight of the Navigator - these are serious films, classics of an loosely recognised genre powered by cheesy music and dodgy blue electricity, they require serious snacks - 80s style.

Consequently, there I am in my local branch of Tescos loading my basket with Wagon Wheels, Discos, Space Raiders, Pez Dispensers, Hula Hoops, Sherbet Dip Daps, Iced Party Rings and enough ingredients to make some seriously good toasties (ham and egg being a personal favourite). But as I walk up to the till I sense that something has gone seriously wrong.

It appears Tescos have hired The Creature From The Black Lagoon to do the night shift.

And its name is 'Sharon'.

The creature regards me for a long moment. Something very close to intelligence flickering behind its dead eyes. Slowly and with great effort it begins to speak, opening its thick lips in a hideously strangled attempt at communication.

'D'you need help with packing?'

'No thank you' I say, giving it what I hope is a placating smile 'I'm sure I can marshal my faculties sufficiently to take on the enormous task of putting groceries into plastic bags. After all, I didn't educate myself to degree standard in order to go about balancing produce on my head or pathetically resorting to sellotaping it to my upper body and torso after failing to unlock the mysteries of your carrier bag system.'

This does not go down well with the creature. My botched attempt at levity seems to anger it still further and it flares its nostrils in a way that makes me afeared for the safety of nearby womenfolk. I decide to change the subject.

'Buy one, get one free on the Iced Party Rings, I notice'

The creature ignores me, the full weight of its bestial cognitive capacity employed in the task of dragging various items over the barcode scanner. But somewhere deep down inside its powerful body a growl has begun that is so low frequency I can feel it vibrating my internal organs. I decide now would be a good time to concentrate intently on a display of 25% off electric toothbrushes.

The rest of the transaction passes without incident except for the fact that I can't get everything into the bags and end up holding some of it in my teeth. The creature takes my money, presses some buttons at random as if to see what they might do and then gives me an approximation of the correct change.

'Fhank choo' I manage through teeth clenched around a variety pack of Monster Munch, before turning smartly on my heel and running for my life.

One can only wonder at the wisdom of hiring iconic silver screen monsters to tend to late night shoppers but I guess we have to presume that it makes some sort of sound financial sense. Thinking about it I'm sure I saw a Triffid behind the deli counter and Mecha-Godzilla having a fag by the delivery entrance.

Strange times, but I can't worry about it now, I have a party to plan ...

The Big Big Brother Phone Vote Con: Boo Hoo

I don't normally print other people's articles but this was simply too good not to flag up. See what you think ...

"What more innocent pleasure is there in life than building up a good head of hate for some berk you've never met, then spending a tenner or so voting and re-voting for them to be booted out of the Big Brother house? Whereupon they'll vanish completely from what you laughingly refer to as your 'consciousness' (although you're sure there's a 'science' bit in there somewhere... 'sinescence'? 'Saucisson'? Whatever), because that's what you *paid* for with the money you earned picking your teeth at Superdrug. It's not like the housemates' tweezered removal, like the expunging of a tick swollen with the sucked blood of public attention, will give way to 100% ubiquity in all papers and across all media for the next two weeks, longer if they get a woeful television show of their very own. Nah - because this is Britain, you hear? And we play *fair*. You only have to look at the totally just and decent treatment meted out to the BB inmates by increasingly sadistic and power-mad producers to know that.

Alas, it seems it ain't so. In a dazzling feat of Machiavellian telly-twistage/an increasingly desperate attempt to keep slack-jawed viewers interested and/or riled (delete as applicable), 'Big Brother' has given agog viewers the chance to vote some of the bastards we hoped we'd never hear of again back into the house. This, far from being a nifty move, actually ruins any shred of dramatic tension that was previously engendered. It's like 'The X Files' carrying on after Mulder and Scully have snogged, only five hundred times more crap.

But it's certainly whipped up publicity, which is the DNA of 'Big Brother', its cells and its nasty toenails and spit. The trouble is that the idea may actually have backfired. Apparently Channel 4 may be obliged to refund the squalling fools - 2,700 of whom have complained - for their squandered phone vote money. The complaints are vociferous, most featuring the phrase 'we paid *good money* for this', in order to differentiate the legitimate funds used from the ones raised through selling drugs. Regulators are looking into whether or not it was inexcusably dodgy to exhort people to pay to vote housemates out forever, and subsequently allow them to be voted back in. If they decide that it is, the channel might have to refund £3 million or so. The Sun, champion of the little guy and the spoilt brat, has got up a petition, to go with its petition about not hanging dogs from trees, and about bringing one cute photogenic limbless/eyeless child back from a war zone, because that's almost as good as helping the other few thousand who aren't quite so cute. God bless them.

Firstly, if we may calmly address the complainants - not only is there a war on, there are about fifty fucking wars on, you mewling cretins. Get some perspective. Secondly, on what would you have spent that money you willingly and gladly and knowingly frittered away? Oven chips? Hair putty? A ringtone designed by NASA to instantly pulverise the frontal lobes of any unfortunate passer-by with its sheer nuclear-strength irritatingness? Thirdly, did you try and get a refund for the emotional investment you made in the new 'Star Wars' trilogy? Are you that easily upset? And have you ever quibbled over the thousand ways you are genuinely ripped off every day, by banks and service providers and your scrounging mates who never buy a round? Fourthly, does it even occur to you that the charities Shelter and the Teenage Cancer Trust were getting 10p from every normal vote, and so if you whine and pule about getting your money back, and the craven idiots in charge of refunds cave in and refund you, you are essentially doing your bit to whip the duvet from a shivering homeless person and yank the IV from a 14-year-old leukaemia sufferer? Well?

Oh and fifthly - what did you *expect*? 'Big Brother' has been running for several years, has snowballed into a summer-long beast with ever-higher stakes, and needs to employ increasingly drastic measures to keep twots like you engrossed. You're put out that the twist 'is on the viewers when it should be on the housemates', but if you couldn't tell that this has ever been the case, and that the viewers are mere speckles of bug poop on the less important side of the screen, then you shouldn't be allowed to even own a television in case you try to eat it.

You should be pleased they didn't take your dosh and use it to give all the housemates plastic surgery, so you can't even tell which bandaged, groaning nonentity you're voting out of the hospital. You should be grateful you've even got the money to waste. We should be demanding money from *you* for buying into the whole racket, and thus ensuring Channel 4 is unwatchable every evening until September, and that the osprey-shrieks of Nikki and the gumball-mouthed-mumbles of Glyn ring in our ears when we're trying to sleep.

Not long now. Not long. It's going to be OK. There will once more be documentaries, and films, and new drama, and surreal comedy. And one day even 'The Friday Night Project' will die alone in its seedy bed, like something out of 'Seven' only with stupider hair and fewer laughs. We're going to get through this. It's OK. It's OK."

I am in awe of these guys - they are fantastic writers. Go here for more:

The Friday Project

There is no 'My friends rock' in team

Well our little digital community has started to pick up some serious momentum. What with Shoelace channelling Maddox and Tucker Max to predictably nose-thumbing and side-splitting effect over at Balls to Monty and Cowboy Funk going Into the Neon Sun with some truly evocative and thought-provoking writing it seems my posse is going global. Even the Gaffertape Messageboard is ablaze with geek rants and self-referential love fests. And it drops my jaw to think what we're capable of now, how this new media is making traditional publishing routes look as antiquated as a guy with a lute riding from town to town singing about last year's coronation or beheading or interesting plague. Whatever.

I love how much closer the world is. Distance has collapsed in on itself and we can push through the membrane of linear space and reach people a lifetime away. Everyone is now in earshot. We can huddle from the four corners of the Earth.

And this is brilliant news because what I love more than anything else in the world is being in a gang. I want to be Face in the A-Team. I want to be Wash onboard Serenity, trading gags and bullets with embittered Space Mafia. I want to join the Avengers and borrow Thor's shampoo, I want to hang out at Central Perk, I want to be one of the Dirty Dozen who survived. I want to fly Memphis Belle, I want to share a flat with Daisy and Tim, I want to discover who stole Mrs Simkins famous sponge cake as part of the Famous ... six. I adore teamwork, shared purpose and group memories. Do you remember when ...? a friend used to say, is a phrase which binds people together for life. The Scooby Gang, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spooks, The West Wing, Hustle, Starsky and Hutch ... these are great teams, they are part of something bigger than themselves. And they get to banter.

Because as you grow older you move away from your friends, you set up your home where the work is and there's no more popping round to your mates for tea. No more deciding to watch the sun rise at 5 in the morning. No more 'do you remember when?'.

But now there's the internet and suddenly we're all together again. Chatting every day, making each other laugh, coming up with mad plans for the future. And suddenly without warning ... I have my gang back, I'm part of something bigger again. So I can work on a new show poster design with Cowboy Jonny or shoot bad guys atop digital mountain peaks with Shoelace. I can congratulate a group of people on a brilliant theatrical production and even though they are now spread out across the whole country, they'll all hear me.

People say technology is creating a sterile and sectioned society where no one talks anymore. I disagree, perhaps one day in the future machines will rise up and throw off the yoke of human dominion and crush us under their electronic heel but until then I say give them a break.

They gave me my friends back.