I'm on a roll

This hasn't been a good weekend for me, vis-a-vis animal fatalities. On Friday I ran over a cat on the way to a bunny party (I'm sure that is somehow ironic), and on Sunday the boat I was rowing in crashed into and killed a duck. I'm not feeling so guilty about the duck as my responsibility was lessened. I was not steering the boat. And it wasn't my oar that hit its soft, supple body. So I'm going to count myself as being 'less responsible' for the goose's death than I was the cat's, even though I don't know if I was the one who mashed the moggy's noggin. However, on the other hand I have been directly involved in the deaths of TWO cute animals in the past week. It isn't good for my karma.

As it was, we were rowing along at our usual RIPPING rate of 36 strokes per minute. Our lycra was sweaty. There was juice flying in all directions. We were nearing the end of our pulse-rate-recovery piece and to be honest we were all feeling pretty tired; however there was also 45 seconds left to race. Unfortunately, we were running out of river to row in, as in about 200m there was a waterfall. So it was exciting and Indiana Jones stylee - would we finish the piece before flying over the edge? Would we have to stop early? WERE WE GOING TO MAKE A HOLE IN THE BOAT? Man that'd be cool I kind of wish we had done now. But as it was, it was a tricky situation that required a delicate touch. Therefore, our cockswain, Andrew 'Felix' Curry (that isn't meant to be a funny nickname, he just calls himself 'Felix' for jokes), was pretty busy concentrating on the rapidly approaching dead end. EMPHASIS ON THE 'DEAD' DUH DUH DUUUH that's foreshadowin'. A little too busy concentrating on it, eh, as he failed to notice the long-necked duck (in FACT it might have been a goose) that happened to be swimming into our path.

Well, I say 'happened to be swimming', I just have decided that it was fully intending on ramming our boat as some sort of revenge for the cat. I believe that all animals have some sort of mental telepathy, which allows them to plan and scheme against us humans and will result in our eventual downfall. So when that cat lay smasming in the road, with its last ounce of strength it managed to twist its torso round and take one long good look at my face. And then it sent out a pulsar-wave of concentrated hate with my face attached to all of the animals in the world. Kind of like a mass facebook note, except instead of "How Gay Are You? Take This Test 2 Find Out!", it was just a snapshot of my traumatised face with the words KIL HIM like, scratched on in blood. And so the duck picked it up, saw me rowing along and thought to itself "FOR THE FATHERLAND!" and dived in head first.

Unfortunately, the thing about rowing boats is that while the carbon shell itself may seem vulnerable and thin and easily broken by the swift bill of rough Duck Justice, and. Wait a second there. I'm sorry to suddenly bring the narrative flow of this post to a crashing halt but... DUCK JUSTICE? What a combination of words! I'm sorry, but does that not sound like the BEST idea for a show EVER? It'd be a bit like Darkwing Duck, except with a load of ducks solving crimes like fraud or malicious letter-writing... that would rule NOBODY STEAL IT. Duck Justice. Featuring A Duck in the role of Officer AJ "Wild Cannon" Mallard, a street-smart duck with a dark history who has to balance a balls-to-the-wall job of kickin' asses and takin' names with fighting the beurocratic bullshit from those office ducks back at Whitehall, as well as tackling the impossible task of being a single father to a cute teenage gosling. With celebrity guest appearances from William Shatner as Wilkins, Mallard's closest human ally, and Tom Sellick as a shady fisherman known only as "DASTARDO".

DUCK JUSTICE: THE POND SCUM WON'T KNOW WHAT HIT IT.



Duck Justice. Awesome. Ok, where was I? Oh yeah. The thing about rowing boats is that while the carbon shell itself may seem vulnerable and thin and easily broken by the swift bill of rough DUCK JUHUSTIIIIIIICE, it is actually protected by a load of fast flying carbon oars which scythe through the air at high speeds. The duck, to be honest, never stood a chance, and before it even got a chance to bother me, our bowman's blade schismed into its long thin easily splinterable neck with a piercing whistle that brought a tear to my eye.

In an instant, the duck's life flashed before its eyes. It recalled long lost rainy days paddling in ponds and splashing about in puddles, dancing uproariously under the fog of a winter's morn and circling the island in the darkest recesses of the night. And in that instant, the duck realised that all was lost and that it had given up its life for a puny ordeal. "Oh, mercy!" it squawked. "Why have I done this? I should have just lived my life! But no! Alas! Now I am slain, and for what? For a cat? Nuts to cats I should have died for something more exciting!" It would have gone on more to repent its lifetime of cardinal sins, but unfortunately it suddenly remembered that it was a duck and was thus unable to speak. The fact that it had said as much as it had done was, frankly, a surprise.

As we rowed away, I kind of lost interest in the boat, and watched it. Usually when we hit a duck on the water (which to be honest, happens about once every two months), it will submerge a bit, then come back to surface, look a bit embarassed, ruffle its feathers and then sail off as fast as is dignified. Not this one. It returned to the surface. And it ruffled its feathers. And then it tried to pick up its head. Didn't happen. Was NOT going to happen. The neck was fucked, frankly, and its head kind of flopped about from side to side pathetically. Its wings fluttered and flapped randomly back and forth. Its neck swung from side to side. It started to rotate in the water. Its neck continued to flop from side to side. It gave a soul-tearing final squawk, and died. But not before flopping its head over, taking a long look at my face, and then sending out another mental-wave of anti-Tom hate. Oh God. My face was like :-o NOT AGAIN. Everyone else was like :-D lol@that. Then a load of tiny ducklings came out of the bank and carried the corpse to the bank, singing the funeral dance of the fallen. That was sad.

But, oddly enough, NOT THAT TRAUMATIC. Because I suppose that I'm used to crashing into birds in my boats now. I mean, the most obvious example had to be at the finale of the biggest race of the year back in June 2006. We had to come in the top 3 to qualify, and with 250m of the 2k course left, we were about half a metre down on 3rd. It was exciting. It was close. And we were about to take it back with an awesome finish. Unfortunately, what should happen but a FUCKING SWAN just crashes into the side of the boat. My face was basically like this :-o again. The swan's face was like >:@. You know how swans are essentially cunts? Just because they're white and the Queen digs them means that they can do whatever they want. Well this one was being an extra big cunt, it purposefully got tangled up in the rigger and flapped its wings about and just generally made a knob of itself. And it was the rigger next to me so I couldn't even ignore it and hope it'd go away. So I was like PISS OFF SWAN, and it was like HEY FUCK YOU BUDDY, I'M A SWAN I CAN DO WHAT I WANT. And I was like GO TO HELL so I dropped my blade, leant over, and donkey punched that cocksucker in the back of the head. It responded by pecking me in the nipple and I was right, screw this, so I kneed it in the jaw and then totally got it in a headlock and chipped its beak on the bottom of the boat. It let go and I gave it an extra clout with my blade as it fled in a flurry of feathers. Unfortunately at this point I was bruised, bleeding, and the race was over. We ended up coming 4th. But the important thing was that the swan was gone and I maintained my dignity. Yes.

(NB: For the records: I did not actually donkey punch a swan)

Oh God, maybe all of this animal death is just a punishment from my brutal beat-down of that swan back in 2006? Because we all know that swans are Barons of the River Fowl. The Herons may think they're in charge, but the swans are the ones who really call the shots.

So, maybe I DIDN'T run over the cat, it ran up to my car and headbutted it in an attempt to harm ME. I mean, I have noticed that animals have been a lot more hostile to me in recent months. My dog barked at me the other day. A sparrow pooed on my windshield. A squirrel ran into my leg and ate my Babybel. A pony stole my hat. Two inebriated mice followed me down the street yelling racial epitaphs. It was horrible.

Oh God.

This is just going to get worse, isn't it?

Oh God oh God.

What if I turn around after watching this, and both the cat AND the duck are waiting at my doorway? The cat, slightly more mangy and worm-eaten, riding on the back of the duck, which is dripping with algae and slime and dragging its head behind it like some foul appendage. And their eyes all glow orange. And then they approach me and peck and claw and bite and nibble me to death. OH GOD.

This has all got a bit horrific. And I really don't think it's suitable for my younger readers (yeah, like young people really read this blog. Even if they managed to navigate here by accident with their Dad, I think the words "Swans are essentially cunts" might have alerted them to the fact that this blog is not suitable for anyone). Perhaps I should summarise what I've been saying in pictoral form, using well-known characters that my Junior Demographic can appreciate?



You know, I act like I find this really funny, but to be honest I don't. It's kind of grotesque and horrible. And it makes me depressed.

And hungry. Is there any of that hoisin duck left in the fridge?

Amy's Bunny Rabbit Party (20/4/07)

This party got off to a good start when I ran over a cat on the drive there.

Actually, I don't know if I was the one who actually hit it. There was some confusion. Basically, I decided that I'd be a nice boy and pick up Cassie from her house, as I thought she deserved a lift for being a lovely jolly person. Also, I didn't know the way to Amy's house and frankly couldn't be fucked to look it up on Google Maps. Cassie therefore subsituted for a little fat TomTom with legs. So I arrived at Cassie's street, which is filled to the brim with cars that are inconveniently parked at distances that are JUST SLIGHTLY TOO SMALL to park into. I mean, I tried. I saw a gap and tried to reverse park into it. However, following my driving test in September, I have only been called upon to reverse park once, and thus I couldn't remember how to do it properly and I crashed into the kerb. Some old people drove past and looked at me. At that point I thought 'fuck this' and phoned Cassie to inform her to sort her life out. While I was doing this I drove into a little cul-de-sac to turn around. I wasn't really paying attention in the drive into the cul-de-sac, as a bad song came onto my iPod and I was fiddling with it. However, I was also only going at about 3mph and the road was clear when I entered it so we're not talking A BOY RACER here.

When I reached the end of the cul-de-sac, I turned around and drove back, and there was this cat spazzing out in the middle of the road. At first I thought it was just doing that thing that all cats do, after they've hit the catnip or the crack or something and they just go mental for a few minutes and roll about on the floor waggling their feet in the air. I figured, hey it's a nice day, perhaps it's just enjoying the sunshine. This figuring was stumped when I drove up to the cat and saw that, not only did it not get out of the way, its movements were, to be honest, nuts. It was arching its back and kicking the air and flailing about like there was disco in its soul and fire in its heart and funk in its blood. Unfortunately, this blood-based funk was being liberally splashed all over the road, as its head appeared to be squashed by some car. It was rhomboid. "Oh God" I thought, "This cat is fucked. This is not good." This thought was followed about half a second later by "Wait, that wasn't me that did it was it? I do not need THIS."

I honestly didn't know if it was me or not. I mean, I felt no collision whatsoever, and a forensic examination of the car later proved that there was no blood or gore splashed onto the front of Nora's bumper. Equally, the cat was directly in the centre of the road, and thus I would have passed smoothly over it instead of squashing it with a wheel. However, on the other hand there was nobody else around and surely I would have seen spazzy McGee the cat on my first drive through. It was just confusing. And to be honest, a bit annoying: for if there is one thing that cartoons have taught me, it is that cats are made of rubber; every time Tom gets run over by a car driven by Jerry, he just squishes really flat and then has to use some sort of pump to re-inflate himself. This was clearly not the case in this situation, and makes me wonder what else in the cartoon world is a lie. I mean, can pelicans REALLY be used to mix cement? Do the animals of the serengeti HONESTLY have a huge party led by a wise baboon every time a new baby lion is born? CAN MONKEYS LAUNCH SPACESHIPS? Oh God... I don't know what to believe in any more.

These thoughts flashed through my head in an instant, but were instantly vanquished when the Cat rolled over a bit and looked at me. Our eyes met and for a splitsecond we understood each other perfectly. Its eyes, which, I swear to God, were GLOWING BRIGHT YELLOW, bored directly into my soul. It gave me a concentrated glower of pure undiluted malice that said, quite clearly and succinctly "YOU DID THIS, THOMAS. MY BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS. YOU WILL PAY FOR SLAYING ONE OF THE CATS. WE WILL FOLLOW YOU TO YOUR GRAVE." It was literally the most horribly traumatic thing I have seen for so long. My face was like :-o. The cat was more like ::(:-3, except obviously angrier. And a bit flatter.

For a few brief seconds, time halted. The cat stared at the car. I revved the engine a few times. It was a facedown. The universe held its breath as I tried to decide what to do - to get out and help the cat, or to wuss out and just drive off. Well, to be honest it wasn't much of a contest. I didn't know if I was even the one who had hit the damn thing, which was still flailing miserably about on the road like a fish with cabin fever, and there were a million worst-case-scenarios that could arise from getting out of the car. I could step out and, just as I bent to look at it, a group of young children run crying into the road screaming "TIDDLES! YOU MURDERER!" and it'd look like I was totally guilty. Or the cat could be beyond help and then I'd have to stamp repeatedly on its head to put it out of its misery. Or I could get out and look at it, and then the bleeding shattered wreck could just LEAP horrifyingly from the tarmack and, like, attach itself to my face and just hang on grimly. Or it could have just been a diversion to lure me out of the car; as soon as I got out of the car a load of other cats hiding round the corner would just leap out and jump on me, beat me up and steal my car, my iPod and my lunch money. It just wasn't worth the risk and to be honest I was in no mood for this shit and so I figured, fuck this, and drove over it again. I think passed clearly over its body without touching it. Well I hope so. Oh God, I just had a thought... what if the cat, like, grabbed the bottom of the car and was dragged along, being slowly ground down as I drove along? What if it was only FAKING an injury to get attention, but I then actually ran over its head for real? What if it saw my licence plate, and with its last breath told a passing feline? Oh God.

The fact that I had probably just killed a small animal and had fled its body like a coward put me in the mood for a party and so me and Cassie rolled up to Amy's house bare excited. Well, I wasn't really as I'd only been invited on a whim four hours earlier by Fati, and I didn't even know whose house it was. I thought she was called "Chloe" for the entire evening. I also realised when we arrived that I in fact had been to one of Amy's parties before, and they are unique because they all take place in ONE ROOM OF HER HOUSE. Everyone sits in the attic IN THE DARK and listens to rave music, dancing ironically and getting drunk with their friends. I was up for doing this, except I couldn't drink because I was driving, and I only knew two people. I was also reminded that parties are properly boring when you are single. This one basically featured me sitting on the floor with Cassie and Fati and Roxy and taking hilarious photographs of myself wearing bunny ears. Oh yeah, the theme was 'Bunny Rabbits' for some reason, and so everyone was wearing bunny ears. I of course went one step further and brought a massive full-scale rabbit mask made out of foam rubber that was about twice as big as my own head. I wore this for about twenty seconds and then remembered why I had relegated it into the back of my cupboard; it is literally the most cumbersome uncomfortable thing ever. So I threw it at Fati's head and stole her ears.

Another interesting fact of the party was that everyone had drawn whiskers on their cheeks to imitate rabbits. Of course, they all also looked a bit like cats to me, which was a lovely reminded of the writhing creature that I had left on the road behind me which even now was probably shudderingly crawling towards the house party, inexorably drawn by my scent of guilt and fear. I wanted a drink.

To be honest, as parties went, I wouldn't recommend it. Everyone pretty much left by 11.30 until there were five people sat in the room. In silence. Only person was drunk. It was great. It really reaffirmed my faith in the teen spirit. However, then this jolly fat bloke (not Cassie) showed up and said funny things and I was amused again. You can just imagine the laughs we had. Oh man, I can't even pretend to make this party sound exciting. Well, I say party, I mean 'Sitting in room in dark with camera and rabbit mask on trying to drown my sorrows with Coca-Cola and chocolate'. Sigh. I think that this is as good a time as any to implement something which I hope will become a regular feature of my party reviews, the

Horribly Unimpressive Photographic Summing-Up of the Soirée



Yep. That sums it up.

The party ended on a high note, however; I dropped off Cassie and we went to the cul-de-sac to see if the cat was there. It was gone. However there was still an obvious and huge pool of blood. I figured that the cat was probably found by someone and was taken immediately to cat hospital and is probably right now making a full and frank recovery. Perhaps. Who knows?

This Party Review was Live and Kickin'. Tune in next time!

(Oh God, I just had a thought. What happens if, when I finish typing this blog and I press post, I turn around, and THE CAT IS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY TO MY ROOM? Just glaring at me with those glowing orange eyes.
I'm actually afraid to turn around and check now. What was that creaking noise? Oh God. Ok, I'm turning around to look... now)

Rub-a-dub-dub

"So," I said, forcing joviality into my voice, "I bet when you first met me you didn't think we'd end up like this."
There was a swish of bathwater as Curry turned and looked at me quizzically. He fingered his lycra.
"That is true."
There was silence, punctuated only by the nervous dripping of the faucet. I tried to think of something to say.
"So," I said, slowly brushing some bubbles off my chin. "I bet when you got up in the morning you didn't think that we'd end up at this point."
"Oh no," he said wisely, "At this point in our relationship, nothing comes as a suprise to me."
There was silence again.
This was shattered as Carl and Julian sprinted, cackling, into the bathroom and vaulted bodily into the bathtub. Opaque water sloshed liberally over the side and soaked LJ's shoes. Carl is a lithe norwegian with flaxen hair. He was wearing bright pink Y-Fronts. Unfortunately they were already sodden when he entered the bathroom and had entered a phase of semi-opaqueness. It was like one of those magic pictures; stare too closely and an all-too-familiar shape begins to emerge out of the darkness. Fortunately I was unable to stare too closely, even though my eyes were unavoidable drawn in that direction, for Julian chose to leap into my half of the bathtub and I got a faceful of armpit. Julian is kind of tubby and covered in a fuzz of wavy body hair. He skin is all bumpy and weird. His nipples are misshapen and they look like they could fall off at any point. He was wearing boxer shorts; however he is one of those greasy little people who, when you look at them, you can't help but imagine them masturbating furiously into the early hours of the morning to badly-drawn Pokemon porn (Misty getting buggered by a Squirtle or something), and as his briefs were gaping and soaked through I was getting a far too vivid view of his stubby little choad. Chode? Choade? Who knows.
To make matters worse, Julian was holding a foam dart gun. He shot Paul in the head with it. Oh yes, there was a guy called Paul in the bath too. Paul was eating nuts and he dropped some of them into the water as he attempted to dodge the incoming green bullet. He splashed water at Julian, who naturally leapt sideways. I had just extricated my head from his armpit when suddenly I was bodily impelled downwards by the whiplash effect of Julian's meaty side-flab.

For a brief terrible second my head was plunged below the surface of the water. Underneath... oh God, it was horrible. The water, which was scoldingly hot as we were unable to figure out how to get the tap to emit anything but "Ice" or "Magma", was a murky shade of grey, what with the amount of sweat, blood and suncream that we had on ourselves when we first climbed in. Equally, there hadn't been any bubble bath at the hotel, so we'd improvised by squirting two mini-bottles of shampoo, some shower gel, a bit of sun-cream and a bit of deodorant into the throthing water while running it. This potent concotion had, indeed, been fragrant and had resulted in a not-bad level of bubblage, but I discovered - to my horror - that it also doubled as a horrible eye-acid that melted my retinas and scarred my conjuncivas. Thus, my sight was blurred and I think that I am glad that it was; for there were sights under that water that no man can see and live to tell the tale. There were all sorts of things flapping about under there, hairy legs, floating nuts and weird blobs of stuff that I just hope was suncream. I opened my mouth to scream in horror and the water flowed in. It was not pleasant tasting, I'll tell you THAT for free.

With a cry, I burst back into the relative comfort of the surface. The bathtub was only really designed for one -two at a push- so I was forced to slide out between Julian and Curry's slippery torsoes rather like a cow being regurgitated by an anorexic snake. I tried to rub some of the foul gunk out of my eyes, and no sooner had I opened them, then I was dazzled by the flash of a camera clutched by LJ, who was busily taking photographs of our slippery bodies, probably for blackmail purposes. I wanted to cry "What happens at Rowing Camp stays at Rowing Camp!" but I was choked by Julian, who got me in a half-headlock and raped my forehead with his armpit hair. LJ took another photo.
"You look HOT, Phipps".

[Quick note: LJ was not his actual name. His actual name was Thomas. However, at the beginning of the week, we decided to nickname him 'LJ' as he is a Lying Jew. He is a Jew because we think he kind of has a jewish face, and he loves money. He is a liar because he claims that he is not Jewish. He carries this rediculous fallacy on to extraordinary lengths; he eats pork, chomps bacon, observes no Jewish rituals or holidays, isn't circumsised (we asked his weird-looking but LOVELY girlfriend) and worships the Christian god. Basically, he is pretty unjewish. However, on the other hand, he bought Harvest Moon at the shopping centre and was really good at jacking up the prices. We also asked him whether he was for or against the Holocaust and he said "against". Sounds pretty jewish to me, m'lud. Oh man we were so mean to him. It's because we love him. IT WAS ALL IN A SPIRIT OF FUN. We love you Tom. You are probably the best rower in our boat too. xxx]

I thrashed about in the water a bit like a confused fish and decided to cut my losses and flop out of the bath. However due to the fact that I have literally no hair on my legs whatsoever, I was unable to get any purchase on the tub and I slipped deeper into the mire. Oh God, I thought, how had our pleasant shared bath turned so ugly so quickly? Only an hour ago, I suggested to a few pals that we all strip down to swimming trunks and jump into a bathtub together. It would be a good crew-bonding opportunity. And when it had been me, Paul and Curry, it was fine. A bit awkward, but fine. NB: Curry is a person. Not the delicious indian meal. I think that a candlelit ethnic meal for two in a bathtub could be misinterpreted as, you know, just a tad gay. As it was, it definitely wasn't gay. We are ROWERS, manliest of the manly men. We see danger and we laugh at it and then bite off its ears. The fact that we'd spent the past three days listening to Take That and Vanessa Carlton on pretty much a continuous loop had NOTHING to do with it (listen yeah, I made that mix-cd in the belief that we'd listen to it once IRONICALLY and then throw it into the lake and listen to proper music from somebody else's CD collection. How was I to know that nobody else was bringing any fucking CDs to the camp, and thus we HAD to listen to my Take That/Blue/Celine Dion ETC heartbreak mix on loop for ten days? Gah).

And so that's what we did. We ran the bath and we all sank into it. And yes, it was just a little bit awkward. And Curry was wearing yellow lycra. And we were just hangin'. And we were thinking about getting out. AND THEN CARL AND JULIAN RAN IN AND JUMPED ON US.

And it was horrible. We had such a beautiful dream, and it was ruined by Julian's stubbly back. That just goes to show that there is nothing too beautiful that humanity cannot find a way to utterly wreck it. I think that our bathtime has raised some really important and scary questions about mankind's future. It could be analagous to global warming. Because if three grown boys can't have a bath together without it being torn about by the warring conquests of some greasy little pot-belly and his blonde little twat sidekick, what CAN humanity achieve? I think that the apocalypse is coming.

Fortunately, Julian and Carl ran away again when we threatened to pinch their thighs, and LJ got to take some really good photos of us making badass motherfucker poses. Like, I was doin' rock'n'roll hands and Curry was looking damn seductive and Paul was just tonk. Unfortunately when the picture was uploaded onto Facebook it also appeared that he was fondling himself, but that takes NOTHING away from the power of the photograph. And the fact that we managed to achieve those awesome bathtub snaps shows that maybe that might just be hope for humanity after all.

It wasn't gay.

Seriously.

NOT GAY. Why can't three boys bathe together without it being branded gay? Let's ask rowing pin-up and official manliest man around Donald Macdonald what he thinks about communal bathing:



Fuck off. People who live in glass houses, mate. You were showering NAKED with a bunch of men in True Blue! Gay as Moby? What does that even MEAN? You're full of shit, Macdonald! You and your dumb bean-bag face.

I am going to Amsterdam tomorrow

I will be back on the 15th. So expect your next blog post to be sometime in the middle of summer, judging by the previous blogging speed.

I'll miss you all.

Not Steve so much.