SHORT: Happy Valentine's Day (2024)

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

Roses are red;

Violets are blue;

J.K. Rowling is an appalling, transphobic witch who misappropriates the tenets of Second-Wave Feminism in a bid to mask the hatred that lies within her cold, dead heart;

Fuck her.

C.C. 14/02/24

SHORT: The Pseudo-Ironic Sophie Ellis-Bextor Revival [2024]

THE PSEUDO-IRONIC SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR REVIVAL

Yes, it finally came to pass - just like we all knew, deep-down, that it ultimately would. Five years on from the pseudo-ironic Craig David revival (“Met her on a Monday, shagged her on a Tuesday, syphilis on the Wednesday – I’m Craig David”) comes the inevitable return of ol’ coat-hanger face herself.

It was always going to happen. As if summoned by that half-arsed joke that did the rounds a few years back about a death in the hotel room of a famous French footballer - “there’s a murder on Zidane’s floor” - up lifts the rock, and out crawls the deathless double-barrelled hyphenate that is Sophie Ellis-Bextor, fresh from a series of timely kitchen disco-dance videos on Youtube.

You can just see it all unfold now in gory slow-motion on New Year’s Eve, 1.4 million streams deep into the festivities, as Kevin from Hartford loosens his top bottom and starts to shimmy from room to room, just like him out of Saltburn. “Look at me!”, he says. “LOOK AT ME! I’m that Scouse guy, dancing with his cock out!” Yes, Kevin – yes, you are. That’s you, that is. The accumulated throng of Amazon Prime subscribers yelps with delight, watching in wild amusement as our hero heads outside to try and find a mound of dirt to hump.

There’s a killer line to be had here somewhere, just like at the climax of the film itself – something, anything that would make it all satire, instead of a dead-eyed knock-off of Kind Hearts & Coronets. But alas, it never comes. I’ll be honest – I’m not entirely sure what it should be, but then again I’m not pretending to be an Oscar-winning screenwriter.

As for our intrepid heroine, it’s surely only a few dainty steps between here and the inevitable West End musical. After all, why not her? There’s gold in them thar hills. It’s all happening nowadays in Retro Popland: Steps are still touring, so why shouldn’t she? There’s potentially even an opening on the S Club bus, after him who used to fuck that other one opted to cark it rather than live life as a grown man reduced to singing ‘Bring It All Back’ every night. At the very least, maybe she can help make up the numbers now that 5ive are down to just 2wo. After all: “When the rainy days are dyin’, gotta keep on, keep on tryin’ – ah-ah-ah-ahhhhhhhh…!”

* * * 

Six months later at a pseudo-ironic Disco-themed BBC Prom, things are all going swimmingly to plan. Bextor works her moment in the spotlight, gamely trotting out her repertoire of three songs while modelling a glittery skirt.  “If this ain’t lovvvve… - come on everybody, you know this one! – Why does it feel like, why does it feel so good…?” No more matinee performances on Hits Radio tours for her, eternally sandwiched between some sad-eyed TikToker pedalling a plaintive acoustic cover of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ and whoever the fuck it was that did “Bluuuuue, da-ba-dee, da-ba-daaaaiiii, da-ba-dee…”. It’ll be off to Glastonbury next, bringing a little sunshine and sparkle to The Other Stage at 2:15pm on the Saturday before Edith Bowman reports back to the nation how amazing the whole thing was. “If you think you’re getting’ away, IIIIIIIIII will prove you wrong…”

’Twas ever thus in the twilight of humanity’s brief reign of terror here on planet Earth. Just out of her eyeline on stage-right, Orson, Alphabeat and The Hoosiers wait hungrily in the wings, looking to sup merrily from her post-show bathwater in the hope of ingesting some of the magic elixir. Meanwhile, Old Mother Culture yawns in the corner, teetering on an upcycled vintage rocking chair while sporting a pseudo-ironic retro-contemporary haircut that’s part raspberry and part mullet. She clutches her bumbag and shellsuit combo close while perusing a back-issue of Ms. magazine and wondering how much she can get for a piece of old rope on Depop. Meanwhile, the last surviving major record label salivates in anticipation of next year’s great pseudo-ironic Noughties comeback: the Fast Food Rockers. McDonald’s. McDonald’s. Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a Pizza Hut.

Three members of the audience are members of theaudience, the short-lived indie band fronted by Ellis-Bextor during her bored teenage years in an attempt to escape the shadow of Mummy’s Blue Peter badge. Originally formed as a £100 bet back in the Britpop era, one of them now works at Bextor’s local branch of Waitrose, and is frequently forced to endure the ignominy of having to do a price-check for his former bandmate whenever she comes in to pick up her weekly supply of quinoa. The three of them are hoping to recoup the 37p in Spotify royalties she owes them for 20 years’ worth of streams on their song ‘Pessimist Is Never Disappointed’, which she promised she’d get her accountant to send over last summer but never seemed to get around to. “Sophie! Sophie! Remember me…?”, shouts the guitarist.  “I’m the one who plucked you from a life of Bourgeois drudgery studying English and Drama at Queen Mary Westfield by selling my record collection to fund our first demo…!” Alas, his cries are drowned out by the shrill shrieking of a 32-year-old spectrasexual ambivert wearing Mickey Mouse ears and a pair of shiny angel wings – just like a Disney butterfly.

As the clock ticks ever-closer towards 14:59, Bextor contemplates the long ride home to the million-pound mansion full of quirky vintage crap that she shares with hubby Richard Jones, formerly of Brit School-educated performing Alps ski-lodge outfit The Feeling - a band whose infinitely disingenuous moniker betrayed the fact that their music contained a grotesque, plastic surfeit of literally anything but. He’s had a busy evening challenging a court summons he’s been sent for vandalising a ULEZ camera in protest at not being able to gallivant round the city in the couple’s tricked-out SUV. Thankfully, there’s just enough time left for the woman of the hour to dispense with the pièce de résistance, a joyous ode to disco homicide accompanied by the least-convincing swear of all time: “There’s a murder on the dancefloor… but you better not kill the groove! DJ! GONNA BURN THIS GOD DAMN HOUSE RIGHT DOWN…!”

Needless to say, there are no calls for an encore – there is simply nowhere left to go, both literally and metaphorically. Leaving the stage to a volley of pseudo-ironic applause, she taps out the PIN-code on her complimentary iPhone and calls ahead to announce that she’s on her way back. Unfortunately, she gets the answering machine. It’s a track from The Feeling’s debut album Twelve Stops and Home, charmingly repurposed to suitably whimsical effect. “I love it when you call, I love it when you call… I love it when you call, but you never call at all. Whooooo…!”

- BEEEEEP!

“Darling, it’s me. The peasantry were suitably appalling, but just letting you know that I’ll be home shortly. Please make sure Juanita’s put all our private-school brats to bed so that I don’t have to. By the way, can you also have her stick a pot of Camomile on to brew for when I get in? I think I might be pregnant with our 57th child. Goodbye, darling.”

Pausing for a moment to snort two lines of gak off a newly-pressed vinyl reissue of her seminal 2001 debut Read My Lips (available now from all good HMV stores, priced £59.99), she hits the intercom button on the deluxe-model limo she’s chartered using License-Fee payers’ money. “Take me home. Take me ho-o-ome!”, she says to the driver – but not before insisting that he winds down the front window and feeds her an After Eight.

As they speed away into the night, a song comes on the radio that I think I remember from way back when. I think I remember it sounding different, though. I think it used to be so much better. I think… 

“So remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk;
City lights lay out before us,
And your arm felt nice wrapped round my shoulder…”

 

C.C. Jan 24

SHORT: Violent Night [2023]

VIOLENT NIGHT

From: c.columbus@chicagohospitaltrust.org
To: profiling@fbi.gov

SUBJECT: Suspect profile

To whom it may concern,

I am writing in relation to a matter of grave urgency, concerning two patients admitted to the A&E department of Chicago General Hospital earlier this evening. Despite being brought in under police custody, the level of violence inflicted upon these men is honestly among the most horrifying I have encountered within several decades of working in the medical profession.

Detectives, consultants and diagnosticians alike are currently baffled as to who – or what – could have caused such an appalling array of injuries. While the patients themselves remain under strict police supervision, the full list of impairments we have been able to document thus far includes the following:

* Multiple ribcage fractures and internal cartilage damage from beatings with a crowbar;

* Innumerable back and torso injuries caused by a variety of slips, trips and falls;

* Puncture wounds to the feet, inflicted by a range of items including glass ornaments and a large household nail;

* Air-rifle pellet wounds to the lower groin and forehead;

* A branding mark to the outer palm, centred around the carpal bones;

* Notable scorch-marks and bruising to the face in what seems to resemble the outline of a regular household iron;

* Third-degree burns to the parietal area of the scalp, evidently inflicted at close-range by an object of considerable intensity - perhaps even a blow-torch;

* Glue and feathers liberally applied to the upper body in an act of humiliation akin to the retribution faced by sectarian terrorists of the 1970s;

* Blunt-force cranial trauma caused by the sizeable impact of what appears to be a paint can to the face.

While my colleagues and I continue to work tirelessly in a bid to aid their recovery, we would greatly appreciate your input as to what kind of a sick-minded individual would do such a thing, with an obvious view to prevent it from ever happening again.

Regards,
Dr. Christopher Columbus, M.D.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

From: j.hughes@fbi.gov
To: c.columbus@chicagohospitaltrust.org

RE: Suspect profile

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your email – your message was passed to me by a member of our regional Field team. I am Special Agent Hughes from the FBI’s profiling unit.

Somewhere in my memory, I seem to recall hearing about this incident on the office teletype – it certainly does sound like the victims have been subject to a prolonged, brutal and painful ordeal at the hands of a lone sociopath. I have therefore prepared the following profile in the hope that it will prove useful to your colleagues and partners in law enforcement.

It may surprise you to learn that your suspect is most likely an 8-year-old boy. Severe abandonment issues coupled with an acute lack of parental supervision will have caused him to act out in a number of highly specific ways, most notably surrounding the sanctity of his family home. In short, it is his house, and he has to defend it. (In mitigation, fair warning would likely have been served upon any intruders, who I imagine would be given to the count of ten to get their ugly, yella, no-good keisters off his property before he pumps their guts full of lead. I cannot guarantee, however, that the full count would have been honoured before hostilities commenced.)

It is highly probable that the suspect will be making the most of his new-found independence by partaking in a range of activities usually denied to him – specifically, by eating junk and watching rubbish. It may therefore be worth contacting the local food delivery services to see if anyone has recently ordered “a lovely cheese pizza, just for him”. You might also want to check whether staff members at the local convenience stores have encountered a young man displaying an evasive and belligerent attitude when questioned as to the whereabouts of his immediate family. (Him, an eight-year-old? Here? Alone...? I don’t think so.)

It does sound suspiciously like the two gentlemen in question may have fallen victim to a number of highly avoidable injuries, and indeed might have escaped largely unscathed were they not prone to being scammed by a kindygartener. Perhaps they are an example what the French might call “les incompetents”. Either way, I sincerely hope you manage to identify and apprehend the sadistic little bastard; God only knows what sort of damage he might be capable of inflicting were he let loose at this time of year in a major metropolitan area.

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal...

Sincerely,
John.

C.C. December 2023

SHORT: We Didn't Start the Fire [2023]

 WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE
- "Celebrating" 13 years of disastrous Tory rule -

David Cameron on a mission, has to form a coalition
Nicky Clegg: misplaced ambition – ends up at Facebook.
George Osborne, austerity, funding slashed to Nth degree
No NHS, no libraries - you all can get to fuck.

Operation Yewtree, Queenie Diamond Jubilee
Army drummer Lee Rigby, Farage and UKIP.
Cameron fucked a pig’s head, Georgie blarting, Thatcher dead
Record-buyers sing instead: ding-dong to the witch.

Asylum policy mismanaged, billboards touting racist language,
Milliband eats bacon sandwich, Labour at a disadvantage,
Scottish pride has gained momentum, Independence Referendum,
AV vote a rude addendum, takes the piss and fucking then some…!

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re trying to fight it…

Jo Cox murder, knife crime, BNP on Question Time
David Cameron resigns after Brexit stink.
Beast from East flies off the handle, Amber Rudd and Windrush scandal
Churchill statue sprayed by vandals: 10 years in the clink.

Hammond and Theresa May, governing in shades in grey
Fields of wheat and naughty japes, charisma of a goat.
Invoke Article 50, Grenfell public inquiry
Waning May authority – take it to a vote.

Puts faith in democracy, loses her majority,
Corbyn internet for free, best call in the DUP,
Boris rides in for the steal, he knows how the country feels,
Oven-ready Brexit deal: plate of shit for every meal…!

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re trying to fight it…

Covid-19 lung pandemic, inequality systemic
Partygate shows lies endemic – stick that in yer pipe.
Government have lost control, panic buying loo roll
Wankers topple 5G poles, anti-vaccine tripe.

Captain Tom and Black Lives Matter, FIFA chiefs indict Sepp Blatter
Public confidence in tatters – country gone to shit.
Daily briefing, “Next slide please”, Matt Hancock, no PPE
Cummings notes bluebells lovely – gets away with it.

Boris takes us all for fools, claims he never broke the rules,
Sewage spills and crumbling schools, irate workers downing tools,
Obfuscation and fake news, Trump declares election coup,
Cranks the volume, turns the screw, MAGA muppets storm the pews…!

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re trying to fight it…

Boris exits in disgrace, Lizzie Truss soon takes his place
Premiership lasts 40 days – hapless twat rebuffed.
Did the maths and somehow fudged it, Kwasi Kwarteng, silly budget
Middle-class will soon begrudge it – mortgages are stuffed.

GDP not kept afloat, blame the migrants, stop the boats
Rishi grabs it by the throat – wife does not pay tax.
Syria conflict, Prevent, ISIS, major cost of living crisis
Claims Ukraine war drove up prices – notice the Dead Cat.

Braverman, Priti Patel, we’ve entered Seventh Circle Hell
Rwanda flights? They might as well – what a pair of pricks.
Nadine Dorries peerage row, fuck that fucking awful cow
How’s she get her damehood now? Couldn’t give a fig.

Chris Pincher virility, Rees-Mogg no humility,
Massive instability, drowning in futility,
Country laid out on the floor, don’t blame us if you’re now poor,
“It’s Putin’s illegal war” – I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE…!

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re trying to fight it…

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
It will just burn on and on and on… 

C.C. 30/6/23

(With thanks to Andy Sutton -
and apologies to Billy Joel)

SHORT: Taylor [2023]

TAYLOR
- To the tune and backing music of Lemon Water by Guttermouth -

 “What in the hell is wrong with people?
The deranged should be caged, what is wrong with people
It must be them, can’t you see that it couldn't be me
Where their road ends, that’s where my day begins…”

I’ll tell you what really winds me up on a near-daily basis, is adult fans of Taylor Swift. When did it become acceptable discourse for the likes of Taylor, Kylie and Girls Aloud to be treated as highbrow musical concerns by broadsheet critics and readers alike? Honestly, Taylor Swift could fart on the toilet and the BBC would run a story about it. No-one asked for this situation, and yet we all seem to have been saddled with it anyway - a bit like salted caramel, cucumber shavings in the table-water at wedding receptions, or a slice of lemon added to your half-pint of Coke. 

“Have you heard it though, Chris? Have you heard her latest album? Have you sat waiting patiently for 20 years in an online queue in a futile bid to obtain tickets for her upcoming stadium tour?” No, I haven’t, and I’ll tell you why – because I’m not a 14-year-old girl. I don’t need to listen to Taylor’s latest heartfelt entreaty to “be my besty” to understand that it isn’t meant for people like me - i.e. grown adults. Honestly, is there anything which makes your heart sink more than logging onto Tinder – or, as it should perhaps now be better known, ‘The Binfire of the Vanities’ – and seeing a grown woman claiming to be a “Disney fanatic” while listing ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ as her own personal anthem. There is a reason why these people are still single, and it is just that. Literally the only thing I can imagine being more embarrassing is someone in their mid-40s claiming that ‘Bad Guy’ by Billie Eilish somehow speaks to them. I can absolutely assure you that when she grows out of it in a few years’ time, Billie Eilish is going to bitterly regret having ever put her name to the bit in that song that goes “Duh…”, and curse her misfortune at having to now regurgitate it every night to an audience who’ll then be pushing 60. In the meantime, Sandra from Lenton, you are 46 years old. Please have the dignity and intellectual wherewithal to acknowledge that the likes of Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift have precisely nothing to say about your life.

“What in the hell is wrong with people?
The deranged should be caged, what is wrong with people
It must be them, can’t you see that it couldn't be me
Where their road ends, that’s where my day begins…”

- No, before you ask, I haven’t had any matches on dating apps recently. However, please don’t think I’m being sexist or reductive when I say these things; I am an equal opportunities abuser when it comes to matters of musical taste, or lack thereof. I once met a man who was also in his mid-40s and who claimed, without the merest hint of irony, that his favourite record of all-time was Jennifer Paige’s ‘Crush’. Just think about that for a second: you are stranded on a desert island after the nuclear apocalypse, and can now only listen to one song for the rest of your life. Having given it careful consideration in the face of existential oblivion, you’ve decided that what lurks deepest within the recesses of your soul is a mall-pop tween anthem from 1998.

It could be worse though, I suppose – you could be one of those infernal men-children who still listens to American frathouse pop-punk from the early-to-mid noughties as a matter of course. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I liked Blink-182’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket as much as the next person back when I was a teenager, and am still able to locate a modicum of nostalgic value in a song about Grandpa shitting his pants on Labour Day. However, while you might think this is a bit rich coming from someone who still dresses like they’re 15, I think it’s fair to suggest that doing synchronised chord-rips and choreographed pogo routines while going about telling everyone how you fucked their “Mom” last night - as the likes of Blink and Simple Plan still are in 2023 - rather lacks a certain grace and sense of self-respect. I saw a video recently from the Blink reunion tour in which they invited a 12-year-old boy onstage and handed him the microphone. Evidently inspired by the terminally juvenile antics of his suburban punk heroes, the best he could muster was to shout “FUCK YOU” at the assembled masses, to much yukking and wild applause from singer Tom DeLonge - a man who is now just two short years away from turning 50. I ask you, in all seriousness: what kind of fucking rebellion is that.

“What in the hell is wrong with people?
The deranged should be caged, what is wrong with people
It must be them, can’t you see that it couldn't be me
Where their road ends, that’s where my day begins…”

I swear to God, I don’t know what I clicked on a couple of weeks back that’s caused the Facebook algorithm to think I give anything even approaching a glittery neon pink shit, but if I see another fucking post in my News Feed about the Barbie movie, I am going to absolutely chin someone. Congratulations to Greta Gerwig on navigating the testy waters of Hollywood and turning out what is no doubt a sassy postmodern take on the contemporary blockbuster that operates on a level which is at least 4-out-of-10 subversive. I for one can certainly appreciate the merits of pissing off Ben Shapiro, Sarah Vine and a bunch of other right-wing fucknuts who think that any film in which a woman speaks onscreen is somehow “woke”. However, can we please all just try to get a little bit of perspective here and see this for what it is, which is essentially a 2-hour commercial for an existing toy property.

“Have you seen it yet, Chris? Have you been to see it yet?” No, I haven’t seen it, but I’ll be sure to catch it on Blu Ray at some point in the future. I’m fairly sure it’ll turn out to be distinctly bang-average, just like Oppenheimer will be, having also been hyped beyond belief by people who think that Christopher Nolan and his massive brain represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement. Frankly, listening to clueless internet movie bros talk up The Dark Knight and Inception, blithely tossing around words like “masterpiece” when their only frame of reference is Tarantino films and Guardians of the Galaxy 3, is a bit like the moment when a 15-year-old boy tries to tell you that Muse are really intelligent, simply because they’ve never actually encountered anything intelligent and thus don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. But that’s where we apparently are now in the modern media landscape, where having continual access to everything, everywhere, all at once across a multitude of platforms has meant that we’ve lost the ability to differentiate between what is actually good, and what is merely talked about - just so long as it keeps unfolding before us in an endless, unbroken stream of “content”.  ‘Barbenheimer’, is it…? Fuck me sideways and call me Margot. Let these massive corporations do their own fucking marketing, rather than having you willingly step up to do it for them. I wouldn’t worry too much about those idiots who’ve been body-shaming Florence Pugh for her nude scene though – they’ve never seen a naked woman in real life, and likely never will. 

“What in the hell is wrong with people?
The deranged should be caged, what is wrong with people
It must be them, can’t you see that it couldn't be me
Where their road ends, that’s where my day begins…”

C.C. 1/8/2023

SHORT: Wooly Bulley (a.k.a. 'Social Media Influenza') [2023]

WOOLY BULLEY

(a.k.a. ‘Social Media Influenza’)

There’s a woman gone missing down by the canal;
I saw it on ITV News.
So I got out my smartphone and went to help out -
and now I’ve got 10 million views.

I’ve love to admit that my motives were pure,
and I want to discover the truth;
But the fact is, I watched some true-crime shit on Netflix
and now I’m an amateur sleuth.

“Do you think the Dad did it? Was it the dog?
The police now are under suspicion…!”
Of course, finding the answer’s the mootest of points;
To raise my own profile’s the mission.

So I pore over the details of Nicola’s life,
like whether she’s had HRT.
But when all’s turned to dust, I’m not really that fussed
’Cos it’s not about her - it’s about me.

“Now sound the alarm, ’cos I went to the barn,
and discovered an old piece of plywood…!”
I don’t care if it’s true – I’ve said it’s a clue;
and now my viewcount has rocketed skyward.

“The cops came and found me. Now I’ve been arrested!
It’s surely proof of conspiracy….!”
MATE. Your moronic pretence is disturbing forensics,
destroying the fucking crime scene…!

“Well, I’m not a professional, much less an expert;
I represent the curious majority.”
That being the case, shut the hole in your face -
there’s a reason you have no authority…!

It shouldn’t need to be mentioned, ’cos it defies comprehension
there are those making hay from her name.
And if your intervention is for ‘Likes’ or attention,
then you should be fucking ashamed.

When you trot theories out to enhance your own clout,
It’s an exercise in nothing but vanity.
Territorial pissing, while a person’s still missing –
and you’ve lost sight of your basic humanity.

Unable to contribute anything of worth,
and no chance that you’ll ever join MENSA…?
Then why not just sign up to Instagram?
You too could be an influencer!

So put on a bib, warm up a plate,
and devour the shit that they’re feeding ya
When idiot people with nothing to say
put it all out on their social media.

“My followers have gone to 6 million from zero,
And now I’m a legend on TikTok!”
I’ll tell you what, pal – that don’t make you a hero;
Just a sadcase, a pox, and a dick.

…Cock.

C.C. 22/2/23

SHORT: Howl [2023]

HOWL

I

I saw the greatest minds of my generation
co-opted to write back-end coding for the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through line upon line of proprietary algorithms
then hauled before Congress and told to explain themselves
Which of course they could not.
Alexa: sell my data to the Russians.

I sometimes wonder if any moment in human history
can ever, or will ever be as great
as that scene in Problem Child 2
when Junior pisses in the lemonade
and his obnoxious adult neighbour drinks it.
Consider the conceptual brilliance in an act of comedy so sublime:
a 10-year-old child urinating into a glass pitcher
and handing it to the adult who has previously insulted him;
while we, the audience, all know that it’s actually a jugful of piss.
He chugs it down merrily,
smacking his lips at the end
and uttering the masterful one-word synopsis:
“Tangy”.
What is the point of even going on
when the greatest artistic endeavour in human history
has already been achieved.
I ask myself this daily while contemplating life here on earth.

I once had a dream
that the lovely Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway was my wife.
In this dream, we would awake each morning
and she would proceed to sit on my face and disco dance.
It was a glorious dream
Vivid and stimulating
So you can only imagine how upset I was
to awake and find
my actual wife lying beside me instead.
Extremely upsetting,
and not at all how I wanted to start my weekend.

I saw a piece of graffiti once
written on the cubicle wall of a public toilet.
It said, in plaintive text without punctuation:
“What is love
Baby don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me
No more” – Haddaway, 1993.
That struck me as curiously profound
for some reason.

On the subject of love, I sometimes play a fun game
in which I substitute the word ‘love’ in any given song title
for the word ‘muff’.
It brings me endless amusement
giggling at the likes of
How Deep Is Your Muff
Make You Feel My Muff
Muff is a Battlefield
Need Your Muff So Bad
Muff in an Elevator
Can You Feel the Muff Tonight
Bizarre Muff Triangle
and Can’t Get Enough of Your Muff, Babe.
It is a childish game
Infantile, even
But it brings me comfort in this world of pain.
Try it yourself sometime
and you too may know what true spiritual fulfilment feels like.

II

Did you ever stop to consider how,
prior to the release of the most recent Rambo movie,
The fifth in the franchise
That this would be, quite literally,
Rambo Number 5.
A little bit of violence, all night long
A little bit of slaughter, in the sun
A little bit of massacre, here I am
A little bit of gore makes me your man.
Aaaaaight.
As it turns out, the series denouement was basically just
a really nasty version of Home Alone set on a ranch,
though I certainly enjoyed myself.
But to think, all this could have been easily avoided
John Rambo’s 40-year orgy of destruction across multiple continents and American states
If they’d just given him what he asked for at the start of First Blood
and served him breakfast when he wandered into town.
All this needless bloodshed, for want of a bacon sandwich.
It truly
beggars belief.

Can you imagine what it would be like if the Go Compare Man was your Dad.
How would that conversation go at school during Show & Tell, I wonder
“And what about you, Timmy?
What does your Daddy do?”
“My father is Gio Comparo
He puts on a silly moustache and acts like a cunt on national television
Nobody likes him, least of all me;
My mother exists in a perpetual state of loathing, embarrassment and shame
No longer able to show her face in polite society for fear of violent recrimination
Now flush my head down the toilet, o willing tormentor
It is no less than I deserve
For being the son of a national disgrace.”

The only thing worse is those fucking meerkats
Aleksandr and Sergei
Twatting about in their oligarch’s mansion
Doing the two-handed hoover to MC Hammer.
What must it be like
to be one of those people
who collects limited edition soft toys of the awful furry bastards
and their insufferable rodent offspring?
Are they proud
to be someone
who goes onto comparethemarket.com
and enters into a commercial dialogue with a price comparison search engine
simply for the purposes of obtaining
a Sleepy Oleg toy.
These people must exist somewhere
There are millions of them out there in the world
And yet I have never met one.
A bit like George Michael fans.

Speaking, though, of MC Hammer
I once bought a doll of him
from a knick-knack shopfront in Singapore
for the princely sum of $10.
That’s £6.10 translated into British currency
at the time of writing, though obviously subject
to future market fluctuations.
I’m sure you think that I am joking, but I can assure I am not -
Look, I have it here in this orange carrier bag.
Behold the wonder of MC Hammer in moulded plastic form
The craftsmanship is quite exquisite
Right down to the sparkling baggy Hammerpants.
Spare a thought for the artist formerly known as Stanley Kirk Burrell
A man who once had everything:
Gold-plated toilet seat
Saturday-morning animated kids’ TV series
and, most importantly:
pumps and a bump.
Jamie Foxx got an Oscar for Ray
But where oh where was Romany Malco’s award
for his scintillating portrayal in the lead role
of the made-for-television biopic Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story.
Again, I’m not making this up, I can assure you -
I own it on DVD.
Look, here it is.
Foxx gets all the plaudits
while Malco goes home empty-handed from pretty much every awards show going.
I ask you,
a bit like Lemar off of Fame Academy in that silly song of his,
where is the justice.

III

Why is it
that every fucking idiot you ever went to High School with
insists on having three children.
Not content with just one, or two,
they must continue their spree of aimless procreation
and shat out a third
just to make sure their appalling gene-pool lives on in the collective consciousness.
As if the world weren’t over-populated and headed for catastrophe enough already
They marry into their own kind
The sort of women who cry at Ed Sheeran and the John Lewis Christmas advert
I am so glad these people find each other
So the rest of us don’t have to.
Three, is the magic number
They give their progeny Playstations 5s
Down another four-pack of Stella with the lads
Then go back to being idiots
And we wonder why
The world is so fucked.

What will the aliens say
when they land on our abandoned planet
centuries after the Climate Emergency has washed us all away.
“Were they kind people?”, they will ask;
“Were they wise people?”
“Behold”, they exclaim as they consult the historical record;
Behold, the Sistine Chapel
The collective works of Swedish pop duo Roxette
And that bit in Marc Cohn’s Walking in Memphis when he sings:
“Tell me, are you a Christian, child?
I said: Ma’am, I am tonight”.
Or will they say:
Behold, Cher Lloyd’s Swagger Jagger
A record so mind-meltingly, staggeringly awful in its sheer obnoxiousness
As to attain a sort of zen perfection.
They were capable of so much
But they spuffed it all on Celebrity Love Island, fast fashion and Business Studies textbooks
How will we explain to them
the enduring popularity of Spandau Ballet
as evidenced in footage of full-time accountants in dreadful hats having it large at a festival
to the risible strains of Gold
on Spandau Ballet’s much-hyped 2010 reunion tour.
Tony Hadley! I am with you
in the pseudo-ironic 1980s Romo revival
Tony Hadley! I am with you
in occasional news reports of your latest solo offering
I am with you
in that god-awful chord which follows the chorus in True
For if this is the sound of your soul
It is truly akin to Donald Duck farting in the bathtub
Hadley be playing on the jukebox;
Worldwide, brute force, and full of money
Worldwide, brute force, and full of money
Tony Hadley, I am with you
For your inevitable appearance in the I’m a Celebrity jungle
alongside coat-hanger-faced 90s songbird Sophie Ellis-Bextor
and no doubt also Keith from Boyzone.
I am with you, you floppy-haired fucking git
I have no choice, since the great British public
simply refuses to let you die
I am with you, Tony Hadley
As your simpering fucking aspirational yuppie yacht-rock
Reverberates in perpetuity at the end of time.
I am with you
in countless landfills full of discarded Funko Pops
I am with you
for the 59-thousandth retrospective documentary about the making of Back to the Future
I am with you
for the announcement of LadBaby’s 537th consecutive Christmas #1
I am with you
as Salt Bae infiltrates NORAD
and brings about the end of the world
by pushing the nuclear button live on Instagram.
The ultimate viral moment:
Don’t forget to Like, Comment and Subscribe
as nuclear fire
rains from the heavens.
For that is how humanity ends:
Not with a bang, but with a TikTok
3000-plus years of human history
selfie’d into oblivion
for 10 seconds of internet fame.

I picture a dystopian future in which literally every fucker has a podcast.
We’re basically already halfway there.

C.C. January 2023