Oblong Scone

Crushed potatoes. Not mashed, crushed.  Not softer spuds. Brittle not mushed.  Hail though potato Oh friend of mine.  Without you I’m so lost.  So Carb me like I need you to. 

 And so we come to the end of a day. A momentous day. Almost more than momentous. Almost a day that can't be described using the English language, or in fact any language that has words. Because words are out of their depth today. Words are embarrassing themselves. Words have massive holes in their pants. We should all stop talking, writing etc. The very act of communication has been shown up for the fraud that it is. Consciousness itself, guilty of being wholly unprepared by the solemnity, the pageantry, the commitment to service, we have been a witness to.  The sword held single-handedly by an empress MP Mordaunt, wrapped in a wizards cloak. The sword put down and picked-up again and then put down and then passed across and then paid for and then picked up again. I don't know where the sword's gone? We should find the sword.  No more "Queen's Consort". Now just "Queen", like the band. Prince Harry was there, placed carefully behind the hat of Princ...

No sausages left. All gone. Taken while my eye was off the ball. Sausages consumed by structured souls  who attend breakfast buffets "on time". Those Prompt Sausage munchers know The early bird catches the piggy worm. Held teasingly in the beaks of accountants. Whilst I am left with bacon.

You’ll have to excuse me. I’m experiencing a moment of extreme clarity. I have seen deeper into something than perhaps could be expected of even the most serious man. I have interpreted past the sum of parts and find myself staring into the cold hard centre of a middle distance. What a distance that is.  And just look at the sea, isn’t it big. Bigger than our sulking imagination can handle. Even bigger than a bus. A big bus - multiple decks with each level representing some layer of consciousness or something equally equal.  Layers of a cake with each one a levels on a bus. A maximum of two levels to stop the boss toppling and thus upending the cake as it navigates twists is the never ending road that will eventually come to an end. To think just twenty minutes earlier I was buying jacket potatoes from the Coop, and now here I am, wind blowing through my long hair (I don’t have any hair), standing rigid and reflective on the edge of a cliff on the Dorset coast, realising that ...

My password was about to expire. I've been told this by a personal computer in no uncertain terms. It has been made more than clear to me - more than clear to me - that I am expected to choose a new one.   It had to be memorable. Have a mix of capital and lower-case letters. Maybe the odd numeric thrown in. It had to say something about me. Something positive, yet something no-one else would consider about my character if they looked at me hidden underneath this thick thick jumper. It had to have a beginning middle and an end, a driving narrative, a startling opening with  a devastating twist at its conclusion,  repeated again and again in an infinite line of be-straggled asterisks.  Any missed detail, how ever slight, would leave me open to a savage and violent attack. My account hacked, my Spotify T’Pau Hidden Gems playlist published all over social media, printed on posters, displayed on billboards, read out in solemnity in every church in England.  I cl...

“Fancy meeting you here” We’re both doing the same dull thing at the same dull time, because it’s the most likely dull thing for us to do. There’s no coincidence, just a lack of imagination. A dark empty void in which all we pretend autonomy. Listen to the beeps of the self-service checkout. Listen as they never, ever stop.   Coincidences are mundane common sense dressed-up in a raised eyebrow. A cheap and broken distraction from the stupid rain that stops you going for a walk at lunchtime.  "Dog," in the lost language Mbabaram, is "dog." This is a supposed coincidence, except what else could you call a dog? “Le Chien”, “el perro”, “Der Hund” are some of the other names you could call a dog if you spoke other languages in an evening class, but none of them really say “dog” as well as “dog”. To me, it’s more remarkable that anyone calls dogs anything other than “dogs”.  So if coincidences aren't going to get any better than this, let's rest our voice inflecti...

I have limited knowledge of coffee. It's a liquid form of coffee cake and is very popular with people. I am vaguely aware of the different types available because of my interest and commitment to popular culture. There's Latte for example, as well as double-latte, cappuccino, double cappuccino, cappuccino and egg, Expresso, Expresso and egg, Americano coffee double-bubble with egg. Basically, there are a shit-load of different coffees. A couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that I was missing out and walked into my local coffee shop to try and get involved. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I simply asked the lawyer behind the counter for, “a coffee”.   “So you want a cappuccino?” she replied. I shook my head and at that point knew this wasn't going to be straight-forward.  I never did get a coffee. I felt, that both me and my potential server tried our best, but we just couldn’t make it happen. There were moments when it was close, when she even went to t...

 Isn’t it getting dark early? It wasn’t like this last year.  That’s why the badgers are not getting out of the way of traffic. Too dark. Too dark this year for badgers to sidestep Nissans.  That’s why petrol’s so expensive. Last year it was cheap. So cheap I bathed in it. Cooked my ham in it. Had extra lying around…just in case.  It’s why there’s no crisps. There were crisps in the sunshine.  Lazy crisps, salt’n’Lineker crisps, crisps you could use as Lego. Not anymore. I don’t know anyone who can get their hands on crisps anymore.  It’s too dark to play football. Those that struggle on can’t find the goals. 0-0, 0-0, 0-0, then maybe a 1-0. But nobody can be totally sure it really went in. Too dark for that. 

Self-deprecation and I post the selfie with the comment: "I look old..ha ha." It's been 15 minutes and no one has left a comment telling me I don't look old. It's lucky this is not what I'm after. This is not why I posted this.  I took that picture of myself looking like the kind of person who would have no reason or interest in taking a picture of myself. In that picture I look like someone who would never care what they look like, whilst at the same time, and by pure coincidence, look like someone who spends hours worrying what they look like.  I may look old, but not as fucking old as the majority of people my age. 

An American fridge the colour of an old swan will stand solidly within the tiny waves of Weymouth Bay. Once it has been there for a couple of weeks it will disappear overnight. Someone will write a letter to the Echo about it going - not out of concern - but as another opportunity to reference their disdain for the lasers. Dear Dorset Evening Echo, I notice there has been a great deal of discussion about the American fridge that appeared without explanation in Weymouth Bay, and its subsequent disappearance. For the record, I strongly take exception to certain people's insinuations that it was damaged or removed by paddlers. I can assure you as a paddler myself, we have no interest or capability of getting that far out, even in tennis shorts. I cannot say that I am particularly bothered about its "removal", but I do at least give the fridge some credit for actually having physically existed, unlike certain multi-coloured lasers beams I could mention. Why the counc...

Before the internet came along, it was generally accepted that the only people who would use computers in their leisure time would be "enthusiasts". But with the dawn of computers doing interesting things like sending smileys, showing pictures of naked people (I remember having to look at wire-frame naked people back in the eighties, you had to use your imagination, it wasn't all done for you) and breaking news stories about cats, technology is no longer just the preserve of the ginger bearded. People who watch operas even have a twiddle. But these non-techy people wriggling their manicured   toes in the pond of technology still seem to intuitively understand one important technological principle: computers are binary. Trip Advisor demonstrates this well. As of 20/11/2014, not one single review, all of which use a scale of 1-5 stars to indicate your assessment of a service, has been assigned a score other than five or one stars. Every hotel and restaurant in th...

Sometimes you need a flapjack. There is no metaphor here, because if there is one thing that cannot be used figuratively it is a flapjack. I'm not reporting something here, I am telling you that this is the way it must be. If you need to make an overarching point via the medium of analogy use football matches or a paperclip factory, or Belgium, leave the crazy fudged up oats alone. Sometimes you need a flapjack. It was such a day today. The centre of Bristol has jettisoned its Chandos sandwich shop, has thrown the woman with the Salted Monks by the Watershed into mythological memories. You are a man surrounded only by pretzels. Only by pretzels. People really want to sell you pretzels. They carry plates of pretzels around offering you free sample after free sample after free sample. The world has produced too many pretzels and the pretzel foot soldiers are hungry for battle. In a few years they will be tired and disillusioned as happens in every war, but for now they only want y...

I join a line. I’m a position. I’m near the back or I’m almost there. At one point I’m in the middle and I become absolutely nothing. There’s a shout: “Turn”. We all jump 180 degrees to face in the opposite direction. Those that were at the front have to start all over again and those that are now at the front are experiencing something happening far too quickly. “Counter number 5 please” She asks me if she can help. It seems too little too late, but I don’t tell her that. In fact I fake enthusiasm while she hands me form after form after form. I’ll come back later with them.

Many people have eaten pork. Some famous, some not so famous. It’s the non-famous pork eaters that are perhaps the most interesting. They don’t have the distractions of fame and fortune. Thus, eating pork becomes something akin to becoming married to a person or catching a train on your own for the first time. Potatoes are always there of course. Lurking in the background with a flask of coffee and a copy of Metro. They’re content to play second fiddle to Mr Pork today, with the full knowledge that long after everyone has become tired with that attention seeking pig-death, they’ll be still being invited to the plate night after night to look after the children and produce “art” on an iPad. To finish off there’s the green beans. Let’s all pretend we’re happy they’re there. Let’s in fact pay them extra attention: talk to them about their job. Discuss how motorways should be wider and longer and altogether more satisfying.

There's no particular point to it. No point, just expect it to be there don’t you . You expect it? And it’s a disappointment if it’s not. What every time you see a bald person you’re disappointed that they have no hair? I am. But what happens if it’s the same person you see again and again, are you disappointed each time? I am. So if you meet someone, and they have no hair on a Wednesday, and you see them again on the Thursday, you are again disappointed on the Thursday? I am. Surely your expectation at the second meeting is that they would continue to have no hair and because of that logic it can’t be a disappointment? It can be. How? It’s hard to explain things to people who aren't born to listen.  Are they supposed to buy a wig before they see you the second time? If they want. It’s their head. I think the act of buying a wig is disappointing. Well, it’s a matter of self-respect. Wearing a rig demonstrates self-respect. Wig not rig. ...

The stadium lights shimmer against the ornate curved edges of a national treasure’s bosom. She stands proudly in front of the fake London Eye and rests lightly against her lectern. Hugh Edwards steadies his eager Welshness and whispers with hushed authority into his commentator’s microphone: “Katie Price”. “The author”, Trevor Nelson adds as if we need introduction. “Bambie’s hair extensions were beginning to need attention…” Price has started. Her authoritive reading casting an audience of 80,000 spellbound. She reads on for five minutes from Angel Uncovered – her third and my favourite of her novels. The camera pans slowly around the excited crowd, many of whom mouth along the familiar prose as Katie reads. Controversially she chooses to next read an extract from her new novel Literally Naked Ambition . A decision that draws Hugh Edwards to admit he is a little surprised. But whilst some of the crowd would have rather have heard more from the classic material, the goodw...

Only 24% of people voted in the Bristol local elections. I wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately I was at work; and when I wasn’t at work I was at the gym; and when I wasn’t at the gym I was watching Neighbours; and when I wasn’t watching Neighbours I was wondering if I would still be the same person if my parents had called me Tarquin. So you see, unlike other people, I really had no opportunity to vote. It’s not that democracy is unimportant to me, it’s just that being called Tarquin would be very odd. It doesn’t really matter though. Because my failure to engage in even the most minimum way with politics is all the politicians' fault. Because they’re all money-grabbing, corrupt, Tory, socialist, weak, lying, damaging, “don’t understand what it’s like for the man in the street”, side-parting obseesed, sleazy, slimy, createnous, grimy, right-wing, left-wing, centreist, bentiest, slantiest, wrongiest. This is the complete polar opposite to me - who is none of these things. I w...

We miss you Sommerfield and all your silly shelves full of all those things, that anywhere else, would never have been able to sit next to each other. Baked beans striking up conversations with Sellotape; cheese crying on the shoulder of Cif after falling out with an obscure Sandra Bullock DVD. It's been three months, and your tears are black ice. Co-op has replaced you and it tries its best: It wears slightly eccentric jumpers and watches films by Mike Leigh. But the flowers in its hair are from a local garage and it sells olives boringly. It will tell you about how it's put bits of blue cheese in with them, but the olives hate this imposter. They want you back Sommerfield. We all do. We're sorry about everything we've ever said.

High-five Jesus – the Gallaries shopping centre in Bristol now has a shop completely dedicated to your birthday. You can buy all sorts in there, as long as what you want to buy is sparkly and aggresively soul-destroying. You might want to accelerate your second coming Christ - get in there and change all that shiny shit into something more worthy. Something that'll make us reflect on the virgin birth and 'love' and why the sea looks so angry these days. But I'm going to take the next exit off this lazy cynicism motorway. For one of my favourite hobbies (listed on my CV) is to listen to people become exasperated by the premature appearance of Christmas related high-jinx. A great place for this is just outside this new Christmas shop. “Re-dic-you-lous,” says the woman with eyes lost behind Dierdre Barlow's spare pair of 'sexy time' glasses; she throws her the palm of her hand downwards in reflex disgust. “It's just so unnecessary,” her friend replies, m...

I had nothing to offer the world today. These days happen about once every couple of months. However much I try to muster enthusiasm, intelligence or even just effort, it doesn't come. I sit at my desk, tapping 'page-up', 'page down' – hoping one of them will bring me back into the game, but the hours throw themselves away. Nothing is really getting done. “Do you want a bag?” the girl in Sommerfield asked. I didn't know. I had bought a carton of orange, chicken breasts and two tubes(?) of shower gel. I could of balanced it all without a bag and done my part to save the worldy thing that we live on, on the other hand... I realised I didn't have it within me to make a decision and that it had now been a good few seconds since she'd asked the question. My only option was to just choose one of the two words 'yes' or 'no'. I could spin a coin – but that would be so damningly odd I'd probably have to move flat and grow a beard. I get gin...