The Joy of Pissing People off.

Well, there you go. ‘Free from cancer.’ Three words you want to hear from an Oncologist. I am contemplating having them tattooed on my arse in Verdana size 16 font.

A little over a year ago, I went through the invasive but necessary tests to determine whether the cancer has returned to eat more bits I need to enable me to function normally. The all-important news, the results of said invasive probing, incredibly took another WHOLE year for an appointment to tell me.

So, it’s been five years since being told I had bowel cancer and subsequent surgery, on tenterhooks since then, not knowing if it’s come back, not wanting to know, avoiding strenuous exercise or anything that will get the heart rate up. Scared in the irrational belief that those bastard little cancer cells will wizz faster around my battered insides and attach themselves to the bits I need the most.

From the moment, I asked ‘How bad?’ the original answer of ‘About nine months without drastic surgery’ put me in a life stasis. Immediately ambition, wants and plans went on hold, time stood still and did for five years or so. Now I’m a bit like an old locomotive rusted to the tracks, with my three new words that may or may not end up on my arse (going off the idea already, I’m so fickle) I’m creaking forward slowly hissing my way to whatever lay before me. Finally.

Cockier than ever it seems, I’m certainly pissing people off. The all clear has made me more of a cheeky fucker than normal; I’ve even recently picked a fight with a little bloke and give my astonishingly supportive wife a lot of lip. My cockney is reasserting itself like never before. Frankly, and apparently I no longer give a flying fuck.

Is there a parable playing out here?

Maybe that cheeky teenager, the abrupt old man or woman with the fuck you persona you met today had a ‘life on hold’ term of stasis recently. Give them a bit of slack, maybe they are finding their place in the world once again. Believe that they are actually glad to be alive and are enjoying one of life’s greatest pleasures. Letting YOU know they are here having stepped out of the shadow of death.

The joy of pissing people off?

Dee-lic-ious.

Broke Back Mountain Bike

A Bike. Not broke obviously

It is another warm summers evening, humidity is high and I have parked my cab by the beach, my eyes are half closed and a waft of charcoal smoke from a nearby barbecue combined with the dappling of shadow and light from the gently swaying trees are having a sleepy hypnotic effect on me.

Whilst in the cab with my windows down, relaxing and enjoying this sensory massage, there appearing in my sleepy gaze is the torso of a man, silhouetted against the low sun walking toward me as if in slow motion. He is carrying upon his large shoulders a mountain bike.

‘Can you get this in?’ he breathlessly asked. I snap into action quickly and I am out of the cab surveying all that was before me. I agreed to carry him and his large swinging package that he has now placed in my hands. ‘You sit in the cab and leave this to me’ he did not hear me as he was already reclining in the front seat; his long tousled dripping hair was draped over the back of my seat. Extreme exertion had beaten him.

Put the back seats down quickly, so I can lay this large load down was my objective now. He lazily half-asked me if I needed assistance getting it in the rear. I declined; I wanted the challenge of getting it in myself. I spend too long fiddling with small knobs that seemed to do nothing, and in one almighty push, the back seats went down. I stumbled and slipped behind him; he turned, looked down and gazed at me. He turned back and shut his eyes with a slight satisfied smile, perhaps knowing I was in control.

With the back open wide, my next objective was to get this huge thing in the rear. It will be tight, so tight.

I slid it in and it just flopped about. His seat was too high and proud, so I slapped his leathered saddle hard a few times and it eventually complied. Next was the front half, which was at an awkward angle, it meant I had to put my arm around and give it a good yank a few times, it succumbed to my powerful grip and in no time the front half was pointing toward me.

I slammed and rammed it in hard at least a dozen times before it went fully in. He stirred in the front as my suspension jumped up and jiggled. I gently told him not to worry as I finally squeezed it in behind him.

I climbed in the front and sat next to him, he looked exhausted and I too was breathless, my heart pounding more than usual. We finally set off towards a sun set low in the sky and thirty minutes later, we arrived.

We both got out and I pulled his bike from out of the rear, it came out easier than it went in and I handed it to him. I climbed in to pull the back seats up. ‘It’s bent!’ he said as he was gesturing behind me whilst I was still on all fours. ‘And broke’ he continued; ‘My saddle, it’s torn too!’ As I climbed out, I reversed into him. He stumbled back. ‘This cost me two grand!’ he exclaimed again and again whimpering almost, he now even had that dribbly slack jawed look about him. The bike DID look a bit bent, broke in fact.

He got increasingly angry and redder; I told him it did not help that he just sat in the front and left me to get on with it.  I REALLY do think short tubby fair weather bicyclists with limp greasy long sweaty hair should buy a cheap bike to learn and get fit on instead of being a big Mr Flash Bollox, and go out and buy an expensive carbon and aluminium lightweight fragile one.

I couldn't find a pic of a big bloke on a bike

I gave him my insurance details and I left him and his broke mountain bike.  In my mirror, I could see his yellow sweat stained Lycra top had now slipped over his rotund beer belly. His face was redder than the setting sun. I was fifteen quid better off and my insurance company was £2,500 worst off (new for old) the wanker didn’t tip me though AND he got a new bike out of it. Bastard.

NB: By the by, only the white carbon composite (apparently, yawn…) bicycle was bent in this article if you catch me drift and no other males sexuality was harmed during the process of writing this bollox except mine. Yes, in fact you can say I, er…took one for the lads.

A Handy Hand out for all Taxi Drivers Around the World

 

This is a handy list I have had to firstly laminate because of minging garlic sauce and kebab juiced fingers. Secondly, I have had to produce this because of the constant repetitive requests. I have not covered everything, because there are some things I quite like doing and it breaks up my working night.

Please don’t ask me to…

• Take live sheep, one in the boot and one on your lap to a Halal butchers, wait for them to be cut into handy freezer sized pieces and then bring the warm twitching meat back home for you.

• Put a freshly road killed deer in the boot. Store it over night and take it to your mate the butcher in the morning.

• Be an removal lorry for students, A waste lorry to the local dump or a fridge freezer/cooker/washing machine deliverer and installer.

• Transport a dead dog to a sunny spot five yards from a cliff edge then be handed a hymn sheet and be expected to sing while you bury it.

• Be a getaway car for sacks of booze stolen from the pub plus three of your friends and not expect my office to phone the police who then arrest you at the lights. The paperwork is a mare.

• Be asked to drive onto a lawn so you can stand on my roof to break in through a window and steal back your CD’s and then ask me to come back later for the telly.

• Carry a freshly roasted whole hog to a beach party then go back for the white hot drum it was cooked in.

• Kidnap ANYONE. And that includes being part of an intervention to save your son from a life of drugs. Its still kidnapping.

• Keep quiet about the gun you are carrying, even if you did wink nicely and tip me.

• Listen to YOUR music. Anyway my CD player is broken and weirdly miraculously only works with MY CD’s.

• Taste anything. That includes body parts and strange food you have just smuggled into the country.

• Pretend I’m your boyfriend, male or female no exceptions. I may know your parents.

• Not notice you have drugged a girl and expect me to help you carry her into your flat and NOT phone the police.

• Use pliers to liberate your fanny piercing that has been wired shut by your sadistic boyfriend… All right I did this, but don’t ask me again.

• Launder money.

• Sell drugs for you. Even at wholesale rates.

• Help you beat up your ex girlfriends new boyfriend.

• Not laugh when you say “Follow that car” or “Drive” or “Step on it” or “Go! Go! Go!”

• Take your bitch home, It has caused offence in the past when I’ve assumed it was a girlfriend but on occasion it has actually meant a big nasty dog…

I reserve the right to accept or decline any of the above  or combinations thereof depending how feckin’ bored I may be.

Enjoy your Journey.