I Want Napoleon Bonaparte's Penis!

We all, from time to time, like a little 'retail therapy'. Even the most hardened hater of shopping will, at some time, buy something that excites them. A female friend of mine who hates doing the girly shopping routine for clothes and shoes etc, actually had some sort of overpowering euphoria when she received a chainsaw that she had ordered!

I have in the past been on crusades to find certain books or records/CD's and just can't explain the short lived happiness when I actually find them usually in some small, dusty back street shop. When I was a seven-year-old child, I asked Santa for a life sized fully functional Dalek. I would lay awake at night in excited anticipation counting down the days until I would be joined with a piece of hardware that would enable me to create the mayhem, and destruction that I could only dream of. When I received a plastic and PVC suit on Christmas day all my hopes and dreams were crushed, but the local bullies and the teachers at St Joseph's junior school were safe from my planned tyranny!

So it's safe to say that I have wanted and craved to buy some odd things in my time, but I have never, ever awoken any morning with a passion to own Napoleon Bonaparte's penis!

I remembered the strange story the other day, while having a coffee and catch up with an old friend of mine. We were talking about a tribe of people that worshipped Prince Philip, thinking he was a god.

As with all good conversations, you start on one subject and end up on something completely different. We then found ourselves talking about pilgrims who travel thousands of miles to stand in reverence in front of a small box that is said to contain a body part of some sort of saint. I don't know what the logic to all this is, as the body part will no doubt belong to some poor hapless sod that died a horrible death many years ago. Most of the saints that the said body parts are supposed to belong to never even existed, and if they did, if they were so holy, how come they died? Sorry, I forgot. God sent his son down as a human sacrifice didn't he? I have visited the un-holy land and been to the place where they say Joshua/Jesus/Yeshua (a man of many names) was finally buried/entombed. There were priests selling small wooden parts of his coffin! The fact that people wouldn't have been buried in coffins at this time doesn't seem to bother the faithful. My wife, who is religious, something most people find odd as she is married to a rabid non-believer, actually bought one of these relics. It is is here in front of me as I type this.

We visited Israel in the year 2000 and the piece of wood is in the shape of the implement of torture used against the said son of God (a cross, if you've not heard the story). It looks as new now as it did on the day my wife bought it. I would bet my house that I'm older than the tree that that piece of wood came from. But I saw at least two people burst into tears at the thought of owning a piece of a non-existent coffin. Not only that, but just how big was this bloody coffin?! They must have sold millions of pieces over the years. He was either a giant, or he was buried in a forest!

For some reason, as we had this morbid but fascinating conversation, I suddenly remembered reading about Napoleon Bonaparte's penis going up for sale many years ago. Like God, my mind also works in mysterious ways, because I cannot give any reason why I should jump from that conversation to Napoleon's dick! I remember reading that his doctor, while doing the autopsy on the most famous of all Frenchmen (he was actually Italian, by the way, and initially fought against the French) decided to cut off his manhood! Why he would do this is beyond me, I cannot think of any reason to do this! The doctor then gave Napoleon's nugget to a priest. It was later sold on to another doctor for $30,000, I think. Since then as much as $100,000 has been offered for this useless piece of flesh.

There are many descriptions of the appendage, ranging from a small shoelace to a small piece of beef jerky. Do you notice the use of the word 'small' each time? This, I think, is to mock the former colossus of Europe. The reason that it is small is because it no longer has a blood supply or any hydration and had been unceremoniously lopped off its former owner while having an unexpected autopsy. Why are people so bothered about whether Napoleon had a big willy or not? And why am I trying to defend the size of his manhood? Either way, it is such a strange thing to want to own!

I suppose I can understand people wanting to be able to touch history in some way but there are some parts of history that I have no interest in touching, Napoleon's willy being one of them. I have written before about looking at the flat cap belonging to my wife's father which hangs in my office. I always smile when I see this, as it just seems to symbolise the man. He was such a gentle giant, a man who wished no harm to anyone. So, for my wife and I, this hat is priceless. The same goes for my father's carpentry tools: they, too, have become relics of sorts. Though on going through them one day, I did notice that he had nicked quite a few of my tools while I worked with him!

So for me body parts are not to be worshipped, or sold to morbid collectors: they should be left with the original owner. But if you do want to deal in body parts, why not get a donor card, and then if something should happen to you, your misfortune can bring happiness to others so you, in a strange way, also get to live on, helping someone else to have a full and active life.

So. My friend and I started by talking about Prince Philip and ended up discussing an old shrivelled dick. That's what I call full circle!

Silly Words!

If, like me, you write for a living, words are the tools of the trade. Writers have different ways to make their words have impact. Some like to keep things short and sharp, even brutal, while others like to elaborate, and use flowery phrases to make a point.

Language is the greatest weapon humans have. Words can soothe, incite, love or hate. Wars have been started because of words, but peace has also been found through words. Lovers court and entice with their illicit promises, while hate-preachers scare with their ignorant bigotry. But what about silly words? What about words that are not in dictionaries, but are just used to amuse the speaker and the listener. I have made a living out of these 'silly words' I litter stories with usages of these words, sometimes just for my own amusement. So I thought I would share a few with you and give you the definitions, so you, too, may use them. I'm not organised enough to work them out in alphabetical order so I shall just put them down as I think of them.

Chiggy Wink:

A wood louse that is found eating rotting wood, often found in houses. It's like the armadillo of the insect world.

Top Box:

Your head, the box where you keep things away from others.

HP7:

A thug, a mindless idiot. These people make a lot of noise and like to be seen, but lack any noticeable intellect due to their brains being powered by HP7 batteries which are very small and not fit for purpose.

Whelk:

This is rather unfair to the innocent molluscs that are eaten by brave or starving individuals (you wouldn't eat one for any other reason). But a whelk is also a low-life, the sort that robs or beats old ladies. It's the worst form of a HP7!

Bungee Snot:

A long slither of snot that shoots from your nose as a result of a sudden sneeze, cough or unexpected joke. It then proceeds to swing with gay abandon above your top lip, like a hypnotist's watch!

Bogey Wig:

Nasal hair, usually found on the ageing male.

Zombie Tongue:

This is the result of to much alcohol or other mind altering substances. Your mouth tries to pronounce words while the tongue wants no part of it, resulting in incomprehensible speech.

Belly Farts:

This is a pastime that fathers and young children take delight in. The parent blows on the child's belly to make the best farting noise he can, while the child laughs themselves insensible. This can also be used by drunken lovers that are too drunk to have sex!

Bingo Wings:

Flaps of skin that hang down from the underside of the arm of women of a certain age. This can be seen in most bingo halls across the land!

Tuppence:

A woman's vagina.

Granny Sporran:

A large flap of fat that hangs down over the fat girl's 'Tuppence'

Fried eggs:

Breasts that no longer have the will to live and have gone flat!

Winkle:

A small penis!

Top Box Duvet:

A comb over, the worst concealment known to humanity. The concealer is under the impression that no one knows that he has combed his hair over his bald patch!

Builders Bum:

This is the amount of flesh shown when an overweight hairy man with ill-fitting trousers bends over!

Astronaut:

Not the type of person that goes into space, but the type of man that refuses to admit that he's lost! This will result in a short journey becoming space miles as he refuses to look at a map or take advice from his spouse!

Brain Donor:

This can also be applied to the 'HP7' or the 'Whelk', but it mainly applies to middle-aged men who think they are irresistible to young attractive women. They will dress inappropriately for their age and also use inappropriate language to young women thinking that this will have them falling at their feet.

Care Worker:

The wife of a brain donor!

Feel free to drop any of these words into your conversations, have fun!

Eating Paté With Hitler

I'm always quite amused by what people term as a "party". I come from a working-class background and when I was young a party meant losing three days of your life; two of them at the party itself, and the third at a later stage in life, because of the damage the alcohol had done!

I have woken up in strange places with strange people. My brother once woke up on new year's morning with no eyebrows and a full face of make up (guilty as charged, your honour!) We once put a friend on a train to Crewe the night before his wedding, only to get an irate phone call from both the bride and groom the next morning. He was so drunk that he happily waved to us as the train pulled out of the station. This was pre mobile phones, and he had no money and only a couple of hours before he was due in church. He arrived, dishevilled, in the clothes he had worn the night before, on the back of a friend's motor-bike. My friend did stick a carnation in his crash helmet as he walked down the aisle, and luckily he was marrying a truly remarkable girl who saw the funny side of our little prank! I have crashed parties in my youth where there were things going on that made me feel like I needed a wash just in witnessing them. So when I turned up at a party recently and found that "smart casual" meant a suit and tie, I knew that I was in for a long night.

I fell out of love with alcohol a couple of years ago. I don't really know what happened - I just became fed up of drinking. Don't get me wrong, I still have a couple of pints from time to time but I can't be bothered drinking wine, which used to be one of my loves. I can't be bothered getting drunk, but at this so-called party, the thought of getting drunk started to become more and more appealing. I'm not one of those people who get drunk then have a personality transplant, I tend to either get all huggy kissy or want to put the world to rights. When I'm sober, I'm quite well known for saying the wrong things, and when I'm drunk, this becomes even worse. I'm not a person who is easily offended, and I don't mix with people who are easily offended. I'm a Yorkshireman. If you are reading this and you aren't from Britain, you should know that people from Yorkshire are famous for telling you 'the way it is'. We don't tend to dress things up, and we are not purposely trying to be offensive, but we are just naturally inclined that way. The whole topic of conversation this particular evening seemed to be geared around what people did for a living, This type of conversation, I find, tends to be dominated by some arsehole in marketing or sales! Interesting people don't usually go to these parties.

I was amused to be offered canapes, as a "canopy" in Yorkshire is something you hide under when it starts to rain, but here, it was biscuits with paté. I got talking to a man who pointed out to me that jeans and trainers and a suit jacket is not evening wear, so I pointed out to him, “Who gives a fuck?” I had had one or two drinks by then, and decided that he was going to be my victim for a 'Gezzy' (see previous blogs). I couldn't help but think that I knew this man from somewhere, but I meet so many people that I'm rubbish at recognising them when I see them again. I asked him if we had met before because I seemed to recognise his face and he laughed. “Lots of people say that to me...” What he did next was so disturbing that I genuinely thought that I was drunk and imagined it! He took out a small moustache from his pocket, then stuck it on his top lip and did a Nazi salute!

“I'm a Hitler impersonator” he announced gleefully.

I was so stunned that for the first time in ages I was lost for words, until I found myself saying, “You are bothered about me not wearing a suit to this poxy party, yet you'll happily parade about dressed as a despot who was responsible for killing millions of innocent people?”

“It's only a bit of fun,” he replied, defensively.

“No. Dressing up as an Oompa Lumpa at a fancy dress party is a bit of fun. That's weird! Not only that, but you actually carry the moustache in your pocket to impress people with! You is one sick bunny!”

He tried to walk away, but by now I was on a roll. “Just who the fuck hires someone to turn up to a party dressed as Hitler?” As I said this, the room fell silent, and people turned to look at me. My wife threw me the naughty step look, but I was helpless by now. Mouth must say what mouth must say!

“Go on  -  tell me what sick retarded idiot would part with money to have you parading about as Hit...” It then sunk in that he was at the party not as a guest, but to work! I felt ill thinking that I had turned up to a party with people who find this sort of thing amusing or even worse might even admire this sort of politics. I told my wife that I was going. If she wanted to stay, that was up to her. She shuddered at the thought of being stuck there any longer and quickly ran out of the door with me.

While walking down the road after escaping from this event, I told my wife that she knew some seriously sick people. 

“I know some sick people? I didn't know one person in there! They were all a bunch of weirdos, they were your friends!”

“My friends? Do you know any of my friends that would have a dress code to a party?”

“It was supposed to be (name withheld)'s party, though I didn't see him or his wife anywhere!”

“He cancelled that party a month ago. He's in Dubai, the lucky git!”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I did, but you must have been talking at me at the time, and why would he tell you it was smart casual?”

“They didn't. I told you that, so you wouldn't turn up looking like you were going hiking.”

“So we have just turned up to some sort of right wing rally?”

“Seems so. Do you want to go and get drunk to forget?”

“OK, just for you, but promise me we won't ever talk about tonight again?”

“OK, but you will, no doubt, write about it, sooner or later.”

“No I wont!...”

The In-Between

We are all inbetweeners, from the moment we are born. Sometimes it's beneficial, sometimes not.

The best time to be an inbetweener is when you no longer look like a child and don't yet look like your dad! You look young and fresh and people may actually find you attractive without the use of alcohol or desperation. This is a time to be carefree; after all you know that you are immortal and will look this good for the rest of your life. Then the years of self-abuse and gravity set in, to remind you that nothing is for ever.

The next in-between lasts from when you get married to when you realise just what you have done! You love everything about each other, the way he opens his mouth when eating or the way she reminds you to pick up your clothes that you left in a pile on the bathroom floor. She asks you if you had a good night when you come home drunk after a night out with the lads, while you understand that she has to sit up all night with her friend who has been dumped by that ignorant idiot who she should have never gone out with in the first place. Then something happens. No one can explain this phenomenon, but suddenly he seems to have started eating like a pig! While she has become a nag, always going on at you for leaving your clothes on the bathroom floor and coming home drunk after a night out with 'those losers!' Then you find yourself going out for a drink with that ignorant idiot so his ex can go round to yours and sob all night to your wife!

The next in-between is from the happiness of having a child until the realisation that you can't afford one! When you find out the happy news that you are both soon to hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet, you are over the moon, sitting up until the early hours discussing what to call the bundle of joy, or who it will look most like? After three months of parenthood you wish that the pitter-patter of tiny feet had been a mouse infestation! Your disposable income has now become disposable nappies, and you both have a strong odour of milky vomit! The man is jealous because the child is getting his share of booby time while the woman is irritable because the child was born with one tooth and she says it's like trying to breast-feed a beaver!

The next in-between is when your child finally leaves home. Your phone bills become minuscule after years of keeping an international communications company afloat. You find that one loaf of bread actually lasts three days and not just a matter of hours. You can lie in bed together at the weekend without a voice constantly coming from the other bedroom asking what is for breakfast. Your car has once more become just for your own personal use and you realise that when someone says, “can I borrow twenty pounds?” they actually give it you back to you later! Then he/she has children of their own, and suddenly your spare time has become timeshare! They think that you have a desperate longing to see them and their family at the weekend! All those Sunday lunches they couldn't be bothered to come home for when they actually lived with you seem to be very appealing to them now!

Then they learn to be totally independent of you and you are now in-between finding out who you both are and the inevitable! All these years have been taken up with stuff! This stuff has always been so important, that you have never stopped to smell the flowers. You now appreciate things you didn't care for before. Quiet times together or alone, catching up with old friends, when the realisation hits home that some are no longer with us. Your grandchildren become a source of pride and you laugh at your children as they seem to be turning to younger versions of yourself. Things that were once so important to you now seem insignificant while the things that seemed insignificant now seem so important.

Life is always changing: when you are young, it is changing at such a fast pace you are trying to get somewhere but never know where the destination is. While when you are older, you know where the destination, is but you prefer the journey. Wherever you are in life, take time to stop and appreciate the people who matter, the people who care about you and who you also care about. Don't take anything or anyone for granted, nothing is forever!

Families: Emotional Dictatorships?

There is a strange myth going around that people actually love their families. This includes the myth that all mothers love their children and vice versa. I know that this is not true; it would be more correct to say that we love some of our family.

I have family members who, if I were to never see them again, it wouldn't cause me the slightest concern. Whereas I couldn't imagine life without my immediate family. I think I'm genetically programmed to love my children. I know that I only have one son, but I also regard his daughter as if she was my child. This also applies to my wife. I have seen her being really down in the dumps and fed up with things only to turn into another person completely when little Harleigh walks in the room. It's as if she has had had some sort of injection to put life back into her.

We do not, of course, choose our families, they are just accidents of birth. There is no reason for you to like your siblings. For me, they must earn respect as must others that I encounter. I'm from a large family and I love some of my siblings deeply, while I can't believe that I'm genetically linked to the others! I'm sure this also applies to them as well!

I have known lots of women in the past who have chosen to run away with a new lover, leaving their children to go into care. I have also known fathers who don't even know the names of their children.

I have friends who I would regard as family, some of whom I have known nearly all of my life. You choose your friends, and, as a rule, you spend more time with them than you do with your extended family. Your friends usually have the same interests as you, plus, they don't expect anything from you just because you know them. I'm not talking about acquaintances here, I'm talking about the people who are standing with you shoulder to shoulder when the shit hits the fan. I'm talking about people who you could phone at four in the morning because you don't know where else to turn. I talking about people who just smile and put the kettle on, when you turn up at theirs ranting about something that has pissed you off!

The reason that I'm writing all this is because Iggle Piggle, sorry, David Cameron, the great oil slick in a suit has been banging on about how we in Europe are all just one big family! If we are, then we are the most dysfunctional family in the world, and it's safe to say we have had the mother of all fall outs over the years. The truth is that all the countries in Europe, apart from possibly the Germans, want to remain independent.

When the EU was set up, or 'The Common Market' as it was known then, the powers that be wanted Europe to be one big federal state. This is a fact, as it was written into the manifesto for the Common Market. If we are just one big family then, like all families, we get on with some family members while we prefer not have anything to do with others! The family analogy is just politicians trying to patronise the great unwashed! The myth about the EU not wanting to trade with us if we leave is just a load of old 'couilles'! The truth is that most small to medium businesses suffer from being in the EU. The people who do, however, benefit from us being members are the big multi-nationals, you'll be surprised to know. The EU is funded by five countries, while the rest take more than they put in, but with open borders, big business can move in to the other countries and make billions.

As for Cameron's promises for us to be more independent because of his imaginary negotiating skills is just a load of old 'testicoli'! He's just throwing grain to the chickens - ask the Scots just how good he is on keeping his promises. He was throwing promises at them like a cheating husband who'd just been caught with his pants down! But once they took him back, he reverted to his old arrogant dismissive ways.

So if you think we are better to stay in the 'Family' remember that we are one of the biggest importers for German cars. We are also one of the richest nations in Europe (I know it's hard to believe). The biggest markets of the future will be China and India. Do you think that Europe doesn't trade with them because they are not in the EU? What about America or other European countries that don't want to be part of the 'Family', do you think people don't want to trade with them? The money we invest in the EU would be much better invested here in Britain to help our schools and hospitals and not used so big multi-nationals that pay tax to other countries can benefit.

As with all families, it's best sometimes to move on,

and keep in touch from a distance!