Stuff

First we went to the zoo. Dudley Zoo, and I swear to you on this, has RATS in its kiddie's corner section. Cool. (Yes, I know these are mice, there's rats in the next one. Trust me.)

Then it was time for a little Duke Nukem. My boy stabbing the trigger while I dodge and weave. We bond.

 

Lying in bed this morning, I reached over the sleeping Nastassja Kinski to grab a handful of illegal drugs and, as I watched the fifty pound note with which I lit them writhe and disintegrate, I got to thinking. There is a great deal of STUFF I should really be doing. Surely, there must be more to life than money and the endless, endless sex? Suddenly, the ennui evaporated and I was filled with a spiritual rush. I 'phoned Winona Ryder to tell her I couldn't make it for lunch and, hanging up on her sobs, slipped on my leather dressing gown and headed downstairs...

In the number two drawing room, rummaging around among the discarded champagne bottles and exhausted starlets, I found a small boy. He was about two-and-a-half years old, blond and, on questioning, turned out to be my son. "Where's your mother?", I asked, recalling, now my memory had been jogged, the German woman called - I believe - 'Margret' with whom I been living for the last eight years. "Mama's barking.", replied the boy.
"Ah yes, so she is... Looks like it's you and me then." I scooped up the little tyke and we set off to get in some quality time.

Which, by marvellous good fortune, we managed to find on the panel on the left-hand side.

And that, as they say in Brazil, was that. I had discovered a new, deeper meaning to life. Invigorated and my soul refreshed, I was able to fling myself once more into narcotic excess and sexual promiscuity with all my old vim.

I hope you've learned something from this, I know I have.

And finally... a good hot bath, blow dry his hair into an amusing style, and it's off to bed for the piglet.

No! It Can't Be More Stuff? Surely?

Oh, yes it can. I have decided to include Dreams here, for no reason whatsoever. (I play by my own rules and women love me for it. Quite possibly.)

Dreams

In a just and equitable world, Antonio Banderas would spend his sleeping hours dreaming of chipboard, whereas I would lay my head on the pillow, be fellated for a solid eight hours by Courteney Cox, and wake refreshed and ready to face the day next morning. Perhaps whistling.

As all but the most wilfully stupid of you will be aware, however, the world in not remotely fair. Just look at All Saints. It is therefore my lot to suffer the most atrociously dull dreams; tedious beyond daytime TV levels, even. Often my offspring (there is now another, Peter, along with First Born, above) save me from actually remembering my dreams by being super enough to wake me up smartly at 5.40am by shouting in my face. The few recollections I list below will be added to as and when this does not occur.

  • I am standing in my kitchen. Cooking meal after meal of convenience food. Following the instructions exactly as they are written on the packets.

  • I have to spend the morning laying strips of bacon across the top of our swing-top bin. Because it's 'National Bacon Day'.

  • I can't get the 'E' string and the 'B' string of a guitar quite in tune.

  • I have a headache.

  • I'm washing up sink after sink of greasy ovenware.

  • I dream I am watching the entire length of The Deer Hunter. Possibly the only thing more tedious that actually watching The Deer Hunter, is to dream yourself watching it. I woke up drained.

  • I come downstairs in the morning, Margret and the kids are at the breakfast table. I say "Is there any toast?". Margret snaps back "No - you can listen to that instead." pointing at one of those bulky, tinny, old-style cassette players like we used to use to load games onto the Spectrum. I sit down and press 'play', it's Spandau Ballet doing 'True'. I listen to the whole song in silence before getting up and going to work, hungry.

  • I'm making a calculator that can add up in seconds, minutes and hours using Visual Basic.

Compare, if you'd be so marvellous, those pathetic apologies for dreams with these from unnamed colleagues

  • Wrestling the 'Bat Out Of Hell' in a ring with Meatloaf as the referee.

  • Bending over in a corridor, having a gynaecological examination. The doctor pulls out at biscuit and says "Ah, that's the trouble, right there."

  • Not strictly a dream, but 'A Colleague' was in one of our local sex shops and noticed they were selling pills that claimed to give you smutty dreams. Checking the ingredients on the label he discovered that the major one appeared to be sugar. In a move that reflects, in no way, on his social life he went home and ate loads and loads of cake before going to bed. Didn't work, incidentally. (But now all his teeth have fallen out.)
  • Brace yourself, here we go... "Well it starts that I am a FBI agent partnered with Scully and we are bored so I say to Scully "Want to go out for a meal tonight?", she says "yes" and we agree to meet at a restaurant. I could see that Scully wanted me bad. Anyway, Scully goes home and I get a phone call from Will Smith out of Men in Black and he tells me to meet him at Area 51 and I drive there. I get to Area 51 and I get into this car powered by Alien technology and we sort of hover through America in the car with sparks of lightening flying from the car. We eventually reach Wolverhampton town centre and Will Smith says "the truth is here" I get out the car and he drives off. I then come across 3 guys who I know and we are sat in Jay's café. They tell me we are the chosen ones and we are going to get killed by a guy. But the thing is this guy will only kill you if you look at his face so if you keep your eyes down and don't look at his face he won't kill you. I am shitting myself at this point 'cos I am one of the chosen ones and I don't know what he looks like but the others do. I then say "shit I'm supposed to be with Scully now in a restaurant and she wants me bad". Well, then I decided to go for a walk into the town centre and come across the French babe - she says she wants to marry so that she can stay England so I agree and we end up in Wolverhampton Registry Office and get married, she then goes mental and starts smashing up plates in the Registry; she eventually tells me it's tradition but I was having to duck and dive to avoid the plates. I then jumped out of a window and got to the town centre. I then see my 3 friends running towards me and I look up and see this guy who looks like a technician from the computer centre - soon as I saw his face my friend shouted "you idiot don't look at his face" but it was too late he gets his knife out and it had a 9 inch serrated blade. The guy then took two swipes at me with the knife and on both occasions he cut me quite deep in the stomach. I then fall to the ground and see the guy run off. I then remember coming round on the number 529 bus with Scully sat next to me. She says my wounds have healed due to some magic cream she used on the wounds. I look at my stomach and can see two faint scars. I then ask her how long I had passed out for and she says 20 minutes." I get about five e-mails a day from this person. And they're all like that.

  • People I don't know have now started sending me their dreams. Yes, I am scared. Sleeper 'Mason H' heaped the following on me - I've edited it, for clarity. "It was happening during my marathon snooze button pushing... about four times, each time altering slightly... marshmallow-happy-land with my bed being outside... when I was living at Curt's but it isn't... this really cool brown and orange 70's carpet... my friend Ryan from Regina, but I don't realise that until much later... like those pedophile Calvin Klein ads with the wood paneling... now I am in the hallway... they are becoming coated with some sort of Limestone powder that is seeping from their pores... Just then an oriental woman... and said, "Yeah, like mucklucks"... having to move their cold bodies out of my house... And that is when I got up for real." Now there's a man you'd be happy to have his finger on the nuclear button, eh?