1960s memories

It's funny how memories are like pulling a thread, one comes and the others all follow when you keep pulling. Back to the 60s when I was born, the smells are everyone's easiest route back and it reminded me of a family we knew called the Osterweils with three kids whose house always smelt of poo. Like they'll read this... There were many memories from before we moved from Kingsbury when I was 5, and my mum often went back to the same places after we moved including the hairdressers where there son used to give me copies of dirty magazines while I waited for her to be done. The centrefolds then went on my wall when he changed them over and gave me the old ones. But that was about 1970 and no muff back then so my mother had little to object to.
When I returned to live here in 1995 the shop was still there and only closed a few years ago. The family who owned it then were long dead but a lot of it was the same and I had my own hair cut there a few times.

Back to poo and the story I've probably told already but can be repeated indefinitely. It was about 1964 and my class was in one of the portakabins typical of so many British schools. The walls were yellow and the teacher stopped what she was doing and asked "Tony, are you alright?" "Yes" "Miss there's something on the wall". "It wasn't me" said Tony. It was. There were brown circles smeared on the yellow wall like Chimp art, he'd shit himself and rather than leave the incriminating evidence in his pants decided to do his best to conceal and camouflage it by smearing it thinly on the wall as if no one would notice. That's pretty clever for a four year old really. Unfortunately a couple of years later when I was in the back of my friend's mother's car waiting to pick up his brother I was surprised by a huge weight of turd and had no alternative but release it. I took the silent approach and hoped they wouldn't notice but within seconds the smell was obvious and I ended up in the bath surrounded by brown floating material making its way down the plughole.

I suppose poop is the most memorable area of most children's past, not just my own. Or is it just what I focus on? We went to Bath when I was a year or so older and climbing a stile I saw a huge pool of mud underneath and jumped into the middle as kids would. But it wasn't mud, but my first introduction to cowpats. We had to drive home 100 miles with me covered in it. Of course it wasn't all faecal connections to that period, and of course we had the usual episodes of urinary escapes in the classroom as well. Plus Alan Laurier (anyone know him?) who sat in his chair at school after lunch surrounded by what looked like a ring of snow. Miss Sharp said "Alan, what's that?" "Nothing" "Empty your pockets" and two pockets in his grey flannel shorts emptied the day's mashed potato on the floor from lunch he hid as he didn't want it. Of course that's more of an indictment of the old policy of forcing kids to finish their lunch but made for some good stories.

Obviously we had our doctors and nurses as well, the private inspections when boys visited girls and the public when one or more girls showed boys their equipment in the playground. I was of course fascinated and obsessed with pussy ever since. No better obsession for a man in my opinion. One by one I lost contact with them as we all moved schools and houses, and moving to an all boys school at 9 cut me off totally for 3 years till I managed to escape. Being an only child I was glued to the TV from soon after I was born, Associated Rediffusion channels 1 and 9, Five O Clock club, Watch with Mother, Space patrol, Top of the Pops, White Heather Club, Ready Steady Go, Juke Box Jury and some panel game with Groucho Marx on it. There were many well and less well knowns as well, Wally Whyton, Nadia Cattouse, The Seekers, The Spinners, Fred Barker and Ollie Beak the puppets, Tingha and Tucker with Auntie Jean, Bob Monkhouse on the Golden Shot, up, up, left a bit, right a bit, fire!
Much is now on Youtube for anyone who wants to see it again, and many I hadn't seen since they were last shown 40 odd years ago.

My grandparents had a shop in the West End where I'd sometimes go in the school holidays and my father would meet me for lunch and go to the Old Kentucky (pancakes and a free lollipop) or Lyons Corner House on Oxford Street or the celebrity Vega vegetarian restaurant nearby where many well known musicians (mainly jazz) used to go who my father all knew. Sometimes we'd get the nearby Green Line coaches to Hertfordshire for a few (old) pence each, and although I remember waiting for them and the insides haven't a clue where we ended up. And finally I remember trolleybuses along Edgware Road which I only recently discovered stopped in 1962 when I was just 2. And our hotel in Paris the previous christmas in 1961 where we went with my grandparents and amazed my mother years later when I described the lift man and having breakfast where they'd brought my cereal so they knew I liked it. With clear memories going back to the age of 1 then there's a whole lot of material to get through but these were the highlights, or lowlights I suppose.

An assortment

Following the latest teaching I've come across, enjoy the small things rather than look at the rest. Besides discovering my 5 second appearance on Big Brother has gone online I've just seen a video of someone describing their enlightenment word for word from the manual. He seemed genuine enough, and really seemed to be experiencing what I'd describe as human evolution, where we are able to move up a level of consciousness to one I certainly see as not quite enough. If indeed this is happening more often it's unlikely to be the effort of the teachers. These guys have been around the west since The Beatles made them popular, and I still bump into old hippies who have spent years in India or followed these guys elsewhere and are still no further on their journey than me. It's about success rate. Many teachers say how few students will become enlightened but some are now seeing it happen more and more. I don't think they know why either as we all basically do the same things, hear the same things and only some practice more than others. But the stories of those at it for years show effort is not the only factor in success. Others say it's either going to happen or not anyway and out of our control. But either way it sounds the way I should be and will work at the rest of my life between the other things.




I'm on between 1.30 or so and 1.40 shaking hands with Jason.
Otherwise it's business as usual. I like words, especially rude ones, and it's always funny how business means work and shit as in my case the two are very similar. Currently as my attempts to forge a career have made me a jack of all trades and barely doing any of them. How many other words are like that? Duty for one, in America anyway. Done my duty means exactly the same two choices, and it's no coincidence people assign the same words to work and jobs (one more) to defecation. Jobs, business, duty, made a pile (two meanings again), the human mind has always related muck and brass probably back to the stone age. We didn't actually record a shit age, but Freud did, as we all go through the anal stage, and any disturbance with transition leaves us attached to whichever one it was, so mine is obvious. So overeaters were probably disturbed during the oral stage and all the others with current results for each. That makes my mind automatically drift to all the other fetishes we don't share, one man loves and another hates. We all know the places I mean, feet, piss, bottoms etc. Very few men have no opinion, they either avoid them or make a beeline for them, and none can change how they feel per area. But Freud (had he not actually been so embarrassed as he was a prude, despite his findings) would have assigned each preference to an early experience although I think some are just programmed in from birth like preferences for food or anything else. But better to think about than global warming, Barack Obama or any of the other media drizzle that's overwhelming us from all angles.

Now if either candidate said they'd make oral sex legal across the country (some states still ban it) they'd get a landslide. Imagine that, the cunnilingus president. Barack Obama went down in history in 2008 for making cunnilingus legal. Now that would get my vote and a poster on the wall. I'd want them to knock down the statue of liberty and replace it with Barack going down on his wife for that. Even though it doesn't affect me it would be one of the greatest things to hit the world since some countries in Europe legalised prostitution. Politics, world affairs, art, literature? Give me bodily functions over all of these as they are real and here now. Look at Chaucer, he became part of English classes the world over by writing about farts. I make no apology for bringing things back to the bathroom or bedroom as that's where we all share something, and can enjoy every experience at no cost or study. Actually if I was in charge I wouldn't just legalise oral sex, I'd make it compulsory and on demand. Why just do half the job?

Of course besides the physical my other great passion is the supernatural, as like our limited normal consciousness, our physical limits are both restricted and have the potential for much more. I know the edges but others claim they extend far more. I'll keep looking and don't believe there won't be more.

Updating very little

Before I start looking up other blogs as I have the time and the means, I may as well report my own little activities. Firstly the activity hasn't changed here since the links were returned, whether people don't get me any more or the huge volume of new active blogs (at last) means there are too many to go round. I wonder if like radio callers some people prefer to read blogs than write them but as I am more of a writer I wouldn't know.

I've done very little more than usual, my father reminded me of some places round Sudbury and Harrow on the Hill which I did yesterday, and mainly got the stations. More crappy accounts today, the accountant left a request from May till now although urgent, and assumed we received it then as well, which we hadn't. He wants me to learn a new trick and get it done by Friday. He'll be lucky. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel, if I wasn't so desperate for work I wouldn't take stuff which means I can be called any time of the day or night, often to do things I'm not qualified to do, and be paid the same as I was in 1998.
And get no thanks for it, only complaints after saying some of the work was beyond me.

Otherwise besides spending the rest of yesterday getting the video clip sorted for youtube it's been business as usual. Each week I have plans and hope for a little better, but just get what I expect. Maybe forever. Technically I have broken into the media now as planned for 46 years, although only just, so as will be shown over and over again may attract the attention of someone important eventually. Meanwhile I still have a little list of jobs fair and foul to keep me occupied for a week or two. If that's the best I'll ever get then so be it, and maybe it will force me to just stay in and meditate which is not dependent on outside events. Maybe if I start talking about bodily functions again, or worse, I'll get some readers back, but I may have used up that rich seam of faecal material. I've been doing it all my life and have to run out of combinations of ways of saying poo, fart and fanny eventually. But I know there are some people around like me who titter at the slightest mention of droppings in any form, so maybe that will return as my trademark. Not that I can help it anyway.

Poo poo, the train's coming...

Well, as part of my new quest to revive blogger (since they unlinked all the fucking members, the crazy arseholes) I've been using the only linked blog facility I know, London Bloggers. OK, it limits me to only locals, besides those clever clever wallies who think it's amusing to say they're in London while writing from the Phillipines as they once spent a week in Earls Court in 1989.
Anyway, one trip took me to Ealing Broadway where guess what, he was offering and requesting poo stories. As soon as the blog site emails me a password I'll add mine, just the best one, as no one wants to be reminded of 10 minutes in the back of a friend's car at about the age of 6 with the fullest pants it's possible to have in human terms. It was just too big to wait. Well now I've told you instead but it's the wiping circles on the wall story for him, the one that had the 6'4'' John Mitchell doubled up with laughter in the school corridor when told by mt friend Peter in about 1976. Those were the days. Except for the exams, not that I even minded them then. A bit of travel (as a private candidate I got sent all over London per O and A level) and competition, with the inevitable fail grades the following summer. What a foundation laid for my future.
OK, I resat the Os, having started a year early for fun, and passed next time, and just scraped 3 As rather than fail, followed by failing nearly every exam in my degree till I got a private tutor. All's well that ends well in exam land anyway. My biggest shock at 16 was discovering I'd stopped growing at the exact height all my friends were when they started. Despite a long string of girlfriends I believed for many years this would hold me back although the evidence all contradicted it. And of course I'm stuck at the size (and mind) of a 14 year old all my life now, and it is absolutely no advantage at all. Like having one leg. No silver lining wherever you look. We can't even go after midget girls either now as besides achondroplastic most are now fixed with growth hormone and half probably overtook me at about 13. I suppose if there were to be a silver lining I think unlike Steven, my neighbour with the personality of a snail (after being trodden on), who walked into a disco once and the girls literally queued to dance with, forced me to use my personality as guys like him pulled with no need for one. A mental Napoleon complex. Pushed my mind to its limits as because my body couldn't grow I had to use the only thing that could.

I still think I missed a few hundred extra women though but I only ever wanted one good one. Still waiting. Meanwhile, where it lets me, I'm commenting on blogs again hoping to revive this dying format, and if I add enough maybe someone will have a look in here. An 80% reduction of hits in a year is pretty drastic and luckily this isn't a business. Flickr is how this was a couple of years ago. Loads of comments and unlike blogger you can track your own comments for replies in a click, which is so fucking simple to do it makes you wonder if this whole site is created by a machine and has no actual human brain behind it. It can't log me in automatically despite checking the box and the post labels are of no use to anyone as I always write about the same few topics anyway. If we could search other blogs with it then it would work, but our own? What the hell use is that?

It's pissing with rain and I'm waiting to collect the car from its service. I had a couple of spare hours as a result and decided to listen to the radio programmes I record overnight. I was busy yesterday, took the car in, had a friend over and had computer problems which have now been bypassed rather than totally repaired. Then saw Chelsea and Man Utd shlep out a pointless 0-0 draw having decided the champion's position already. I've got all my jobs done work or not this week and the rest is a bonus. But good to see poo stories are alive and well. Going back to holidays as a teenager when sooner or later someone would tell a poo story and it would last all night as we remembered car journeys and school assemblies where noises and smells gave away the unavoidable evidence of an unplanned dump. Going behind sofas, in back gardens, finding soiled pants discarded in a room etc are universal except possibly in primitive socities where that is all they do anyway, like Saudi Arabia. I joke not, anyone spending time in Edgware Road around Paddington will know they go wherever they are, and squat indoors in any available corner. Or outdoors once they leave the hotel or Harrods. My friend lived there for a couple of years and besides take a photo or ask me along to look I trust his word for it. Better than their bombs I suppose but almost as unpleasant.
Yesterday they had a programme on TV for non P.C. humour, and basically concluded if you make one subject taboo then how do you pick which? All or nothing really, and jokes are far less harmful than direct insults. But Arabs crapping in hotel rooms sadly is not funny unless you see someone step in it.

I still don't know how many spastics it takes to screw in a lightbulb though. Probably because it's impossible...

Your inner child

OK, how deep do I have to dig to find it? Mine was revived by my friends' younger brothers who wanted me to keep them entertained with rude words. By the end of day one I was back laughing at them myself and that never left me after that.
The inner child can be accessed directly via the toilet. Not funny, you say? How hard do I have to work to get a squeak or titter from what made me laugh at primary school?
Wiping my nose on my sleeve? Dog's business? Horse apples? This was a competition we had when going to or from parties to see who could make me laugh first. And I was about 20 at the time. Sound and word, the rude word and the rude noise. Drop one, pass wind, blow off, all the same thing but so many ways to say it, depending if child, parent or rugby player. Have you done a windy? was the favourite in my household, and still one of my favourites. Made a smell is also a classic, polite but directly descriptive. All this flows like sewage from my fingertips.

Having just had another birthday the quantity and quality of poo-related cards shows my fascination must be universal. William Henry Smith's emporium has the best selection of faeces themed cards I've ever come across, and have been known to stand there reading the cards just for a laugh. One favourite is the fish with bubbles coming from it's arse and his wife saying 'come on, we all know it was you'. And though fish do fart I just read it's normally contained in bubbles in the poo so we rarely see it happen in tanks. I don't think I can think of anyone better than Ben Elton at his peak for turd and fart jokes, I used to memorise many routines to give myself a laugh at any time. 'The turd was so high there was snow on the top', for instance, relating to the inverse dog size-turd size equation, combined with the new shoes-poo homing device formula. Maths can be fun when the right examples are chosen.

Bogies, skid marks, wet farts, anal tags, nature made them and I remind people of them at every possible opportunity. You can't pretend they aren't there, under every expensive pair of underwear lie the same hidden treasure. Sooner or later. If the queen in her annual speech started talking about how embarrassed she was when she let one rip with Tony Blair, or how she's so lucky she didn't have piles like her late mother. And how she can't stop Andrew picking his nose at 47. He may have fought for his country but can't keep his finger out of his nostrils. And the news- can you picture Trevor MacDonald saying I'm finding it hard to concentrate, I've got a huge erection? Natasha Kaplinsky admitting to stress incontinence after a stray sneeze? Believe me, they all do it but do they share it with us? No, but they would be loved if they did. The weather- it may be cold out there but it's hot in my underpants.
This may be exclusively British and male humour, I'm not sure what they think about droppings and dung in Germany or Russia but being in touch with the whole world it is my duty to spread that theme as far and wide as possible. You know it makes wind. Case closed.