bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Dear Rachel,

Last year, my summer holiday consisted of watching twenty bored labradors being led around a field to Solitary Sister by Seal, in the pissing rain. Afterwards, I spent an hour talking to some Star Wars hobbyists in a tent, and fruitlessly entered a raffle.

This year has been, if anything, even more exciting. It has thus far consisted of having a Slush Puppy and watching some fat majorettes in unfortunate leotards twirling and thumping along to the theme tune of Match of the Day. One of them was asthmatic, and appeared to be playing her inhaler. I suppose that if she had really been getting into the spirit of things she could’ve thrown it behind her back and over her head and all that, but considering one of her comrades was actually on the phone, I for one am willing to forgive her.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal smoking secrets for the suave adolescent, among other things]

I had, however, in my enthuastic charge towards a rekindled childhood memory, almost frozen my diaghragm (not contraceptive device) by banging down half a Slush Puppy in one go. If you are unfamiliar with Slush Puppies, they aren’t actually called Slush Puppies, but they were when I was a young primate in Newham. Basically, you get a load of ice, mix it with additives and sugar, and give it to children who you want to do very badly at school. The various flavours were called things like Very Berry, Orangetastic, and, I dunno, Furious Anger. The reason we all became underage smokers was simply because, after all the sugar and additives, we needed fags to calm us down. I can still see the face of the girl behind the counter as I flirted away over my first cigarette purchase like I was James Bond or something. I’m surprised I didn’t ask her for ten Benson and Hedges, a box of matches, a roulette wheel and a car with machine guns coming out of the back, because at fourteen I obviously would have been quite a catch for a yoyo knickered twenty five year old from Stepney who was probably called Sharon and enjoyed fighting in the queue in chip shops.

Next summer I am going to go to the seaside, as I quite like all that. I stood on a beach once, watching the waves swell and bubble and rush up the shingle, then turning about and chasing each other back to sea. Huge and grey and rolling like the centuries, charging up the beach with a great pash!, like a million piece dinner service falling on flagstones, and then retreating with a vast hungry scroop!, as if wanting to hide the evidence. This, I thought, was the sound of time itself, each minute emerging from nothing and then falling back upon itself to make way for the next, from nothing to nothing, age upon age. I was, I further reasoned, hearing this through the same ears as any ancestor, Saxon or Norman or Roman or Briton, or distant Pangean relative with only the faintest answering echo of humanity. They must have been absolutely fucking freezing.

Pictures – top: Pikey Dave, who cannot remember a fifteen year period of his life.

Middle – Self at Joe and Abby’s wedding, this time last year. it is hard to believe, but a fact nonetheless, that i am actuaaly conducting the service. I am not a vicar, or indeed ordained by any recognised reliigious organisation, but I have a nice shirt on.

Bottom – After the wedding, heading back to a minibus. Note groom second left. Bride absent in this picture, but happily turned up later on. Joe and Abby are living in a suitably happy manner in a proper rough part of Bristol.

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