What's in a name?

It's at this time of year, Easter, that I ask myself, "What's in a name?"
You might find this question a bit strange as there are surely more important things to think about like Easter bunnies, chocolate, oh and say Jesus being crucified.
But it is because of this last one that had me questioning the whole religious fervour around GOD.
So what's in a name? A lot it would seem. What some people call God, others call Allah or Ehyeh or Brahman or Parabrahman or even Gitche Manitou.
But If you are a scientist you would call it energy.
As far as I can see it's a matter of semantics. God is a word. As is energy. Or any other name you choose to give to whatever deity you choose to devote your time and energy to.
The sad part is that as far as I can see all religions believe the same thing. There is a God, check. That is everywhere, check. Is all powerful, check. We are made from God, check.
Science says the same about energy. So what science calls energy another might call God.
Round and round we go but it all leads to the same place, it's a name. That we humans choose to give it.
So why the hell are we so obsessed with fighting over the details on how we believe? The rules, if you like, of religion?
My God's better than your God. Excuse me but that is a complete and utter pile of horse shit. You all believe the same fucken thing, by a different name. Are you people thick?
Organised religion disgusts me.
From everything I've seen, read and experienced religious organisations are morally bankrupt. Child sex abuse scandals, starvation in third world countries and generally teaching their followers that anyone who doesn't believe what they do is the enemy.
This is all based on a book written thousands of years ago, in a foreign language that lost a lot in translation, written by people a long time after the events and changed along the way to suit who was ruling the church at the time.
Have you ever played Chinese whispers? What starts out as a relatively simple message gets passed along, when it gets to the other end people's interpretation messes with that message until you have something that is unrecognisable from the original message. That's the holy books that these people quote, word for word.
You can justify any action by reading the Bible. Where Jesus said if someone wrongs you, turn the other cheek. Be the better man. But in another chapter it says an eye for an eye.
What people neglect to recognise is that the Bible was written by MEN. Ordinary people, not God.
I've heard it said that it was God writing through these people. Uh huh. Yeah righto. If today I said I heard the voice of God in my head or saw a burning bush that talked to me I'd be institutionalised pretty quick and rightly so but because it was written in a book from a couple of thousand years ago it makes it correct?
I understand people's need for religion and God but that shouldn't overtake our basic reasoning skills to recognise that whatever other people think and believe they are just as human as each other.
I think that is probably what upsets me most is that religion separates and segregates us more. Men, women. Black, white. Catholic, Muslim. We are all people at the end of the day and having yet another separation of us because of religious factions is completely ridiculous.
Call me a religious zealot, I could care less, water off a ducks back but just because I don't attend a church or follow an organised religion doesn't make me less of a person in fact it probably makes me more in touch with other people from different racial and religious backgrounds because I haven't had my world view tainted by some outdated book that while supposing to be for the benefit of society actually has a detrimental effect.
The sooner all of us wake up and realise that essentially we all believe the same thing the sooner we can get on a whole lot better and forget about all the petty bullshit that separates us on religious boundaries.

Page three

I had an online debate about Page Three the other night. Now if you don't know what Page Three is then you obviously don't live in the U.K.

 Page Three is in a newspaper called The Sun. The newspaper itself is completely useless, not fit for anything except perhaps lining the bottom of a birdcage or perhaps a rabbit hutch or soaking up an oil spill from your driveway from that leak in the sump of that piece of shit car you have to drive, due to the fact that you don't have any money left from your pay packet because your wife spends any additional money on makeup and clothes. More on this later...

On Page Three is a picture of a bare breasted young lady from somewhere in the UK. 

It must be said at this point that I don't read newspapers in general but never The Sun. I really couldn't care one way or the other if Page Three exists or not. It won't impact on my life whatsoever. Or will it?

Although not quite in the same league as the horse meat scandal there is an  uproar that Page Three should be canned (pun intended).

There is a petition; how very British. 

The argument against it is so wide ranging it's hard for me to fathom how all the threads tie together.

The main crux of the argument is that it sexualises women which apparently leads to rape, human trafficking for prostitution and as far as I can see every ill that has ever befallen women across the entire face of the planet.

While I want to say "what a fucken pile of shit" I can surely engage in an adult debate without name calling; maybe.

Surely there is some correlation in the crime statistics to show these links? Not that I can see. If you look back over the last 40 years that this has been printed in the paper then you would expect to see something, anything that stood out. Nope. Perhaps I'm just reading it wrong? Maybe. What the hell do I know about crime statistics anyway.

The argument apparently is not that a pretty young lady who chose to appear and got paid for it, is semi naked, that's not the issue. Well they say it's not the issue. 

No, the issue I'm told is that page three "sexualises" women; that in turn leads to rape and all of the above. What the fuck? How the hell do they fit together?

Now you have to understand that during this debate I was called a muppet and was told that I was wrong, naive and that I was being "educated" by people much more knowledgeable than myself. 

I don't claim to be a brainiac, in fact my I.Q is roughly my shoe size (but I wear big shoes) but being educated about something by people that have got their information from what is obviously an unreliable source offended me. 

If you take the lazy option, and I did, ask Wikipedia, it gives an explanation of sexualisation and it clearly states, with references to research done on the subject, that the supposed links to trafficking and prostitution are sketchy at best; downright wrong at worst.

I'm a man so I'm probably a little biased because I want to see naked and semi naked women and really, why the hell wouldn't I? I love the female form. They are beautiful. If women weren't sexual why the fuck would we want anything to do with them? It's natural that we men are sexually attracted to women. If we weren't the the species would come to a grinding halt.

As a man I can honestly say that women drive me batshit crazy. Christ if it wasn't for the sex I probably wouldn't want anything to do with them.

This led me other things. I'm not really a cultural guy, you may be able to tell by the way I dress or perhaps the way I express myself; in fact a tub of yoghurt has roughly the same amount of culture as me, perhaps a little more. Now I've tried to remedy this by visiting London's many art gallery's, well they are free, and have visited the London portrait gallery many times. I was led to believe that this sexualisation was a recent problem and was getting increasingly worse in the last couple of years. As I've walked around in the art galleries of London I've seen a LOT of naked women. Naked. In a free museum. That children can visit.

I mention this because I was told that this National newspaper that you have to pay for was sexualising women to children because they can look at a semi naked woman, and I quote, "While they eat their cornflakes."

Surely it is a parents responsibility to decide what is appropriate for their children. After all what are parents for if not to raise morally aware and upright citizens?  Letting your child read The Sun, to me, represents child neglect if not outright abuse. 

So if children can visit a FREE art gallery with painted pictures of NAKED women but you have to PAY to buy a newspaper with SEMI NAKED women I think that part of the argument is sorted. Maybe I'm wrong because that's culture. 

Next on the agenda is women themselves. Surely if anyone is sexualising women it's women themselves? 

The women appearing in this newspaper and indeed any other publication where they bare their bodies for cash are as guilty of sexualising women if not more than the publications themselves. They know us men, and I'm sure quite a few women, want to see them naked, taking full advantage of that and getting paid very well for it, thanks very much. 

Are they being exploited? Hell no! If anyone is being exploited its us simple minded males who make most of our decisions with the wrong head. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but surely women want to be seen as sexy? Why would they wear makeup? Nice clothes? Sexy underwear? 

All of these things are on show, every day, on every street and in every nightclub every week. 

Makeup for one has been around for centuries. I don't know a single woman who would wear makeup if they didn't feel the need to wear it, but then there will probably be some tool saying that women are oppressed by us men and feel forced to wear it. Bullshit! They force themselves to put that shit on their face to look better, for men to look at them. To reinforce that point it's important to note that I said to my wife that I think she is beautiful without it. She hasn't worn any for some years now. 

After the abuse I suffered at the hands of those educating me I thought perhaps I didn't understand the question? The words. Being the great unwashed, uneducated pleb that I obvious am I went out to understand the WORDS better.

First point of call was, as I've mentioned sexualisation. Ok understood. Also in the explanation of sexualisation the word pornification was mentioned. 

I think that with the advent of the Internet, porn has become more mainstream. That's not to say that it wasn't a massive industry before but it made it so much easier to access. You didn't have to frequent a seedy back alley store with sticky carpet, peep shows and all manor of implements available for all kinds of weird fetish shit. 

When I was a kid this stuff was around in magazines and videos. There is more now because people realise there is money to be made from their own home or bedroom. It's a massive multi-billion dollar industry.

It's more easily accessible to children but again that should rest with parents and those responsible for those children. If you don't want your children exposed to it it's up to you. It's been said that children are being sexualised, well yes they are. They are being treated like complete fucken idiots by us adults who forgot what it's like to be a child. How curious and how quickly they soaked up information and how incredibly intelligent these children are.

Education is key and we are failing. Children need to be educated that porn isn't the norm; that it's not real, well apart from a few one night stands and maybe early in relationships, experimental college years and certainly before marriage and kids. 

If we don't talk to them and let them find out for themselves then they'll grow up thinking that is normal and it could ruin their relationships and their expectation from their partners. Let's be realistic, there is already so much expectation on sex anyway, especially from us men without the added pressure to live up to a professional porn star. Some of us aren't built for that. I'm not including myself in that because I'm fucken awesome in bed; all thirty seconds of that sweet, sweet lovin.
 

It just grates on me when conservative fucktards try to tell me what's good for me and the rest of the population. Like the health and safety assboys. My god. Who the hell  does that job? They are  the bastard children of unscrupulous lawyers and complete morons. Prime example, printing "To prevent suffocation, do not place this plastic bag over your head."

Surely anyone that could read that wouldn't be stupid enough to actually pull a plastic bag over their head? No? Is it aimed at young children? Who have no clue what suffocation means? Perhaps a picture of someone with a plastic bag over their head with a cross through it? 

For my mind anyone that doesn't know that if you pull plastic bags over your head it could kill you then let them; they're falling victim to Darwin's theory of evolution. 

But I detract. This argument is about sexualisation after all. 

Since when is nudity a bad thing? I personally love being nude and when I'm at home I usually I am. I have children so does that make me a pervert? I think not. I'm not embarrassed of my naked form and I don't want my children to be either. I guide my children to good moral choices, my morals, not some outdated religious based nonsense. That I feel is my role as a parent. To teach them what is acceptable and what is not. It's not about right or wrong because that is subjective.

When I say it won't matter to me one way or the other if page three is banned I mean I won't miss it as I've never looked but it should matter to us all.  The reason being that if these fundamentalists get their way then what's next? Tattoos? It's an infringement on our right to CHOOSE. You can choose to look or look away.

If you don't like it you have the right to be offended but that doesn't mean it should be banned any more than, say, people wanting to adorn their flesh with tattoos.

I'm offended by people who consider me a moron or an idiot but my offence shouldn't be made law. 

If these people get their way, my writing, which is also offensive to some, I'm sure, could be next and we really don't want that now, do we?

Are you kidding me?

"Are you fucken kidding me? Seriously? You're a writer? Really?

I thought you were maybe a crack dealer or a heroin addict or something like that. I would never have guessed you were a writer."

I'm not joking when I say that people have actually said that to me. Am I really a writer? Are you a writer before you get published? I think so because, well, you write.

For me at least it is all about the act rather than the title. People are so caught up in titles; as far as I've seen they always have been.

So I'm going to jump on the bandwagon.

I was at a club once and at the bar awaiting the barman who was obviously serving anything with breasts first; I considered taking off my shirt because at this wanky club I probably had bigger tits than most of the women there. I spoke to a woman next to me, a mistake I realised about thirty seconds too late; I said "Hey, how you doin?" She said, and I'm not paraphrasing when I say she said, "What car do you drive?" Mentally I went, what the fuck did you just say? Verbally I said "A Mercedes. It's parked outside in the bus garage." Bear in mind that at that time in London, Mercedes made the London buses.

How shallow do you have to be for that to be the first question out of your mouth when you first talk to someone? Do I look stupid? Do I look like a professional football player? Really? Bitch.

That's not to say that all footballers are stupid but there's another label for you.

It's this kind of bullshit labelling that really gets me wound up.

If you know anything about me you know that I've been professionally cooking longer than Gary Glitter has been a fucken pervert. That's a really long time. That's a label that sticks. Oh you're a chef? Apparently that has to mean that you're a deadbeat, alcoholic, drug addict piece of shit. Well I'm not denying any of the above but I dare to dream. So sue me.

Then comes the next question. I can hear it forming in their brain before they even know what's coming next; I've had this conversation a few times, you may have guessed.

"Where do you work?" Another fucken label. Damn it. It's inescapable. Do you work somewhere they know? Or have you worked with someone famous? Shit.

That's the beast that this industry has become, name dropping.

Yeah I fingered Gordon Ramsey in the dry store at blah de blah or I did coke through dry penne pasta with Anthony Bordain at such and such. What a pile of shit.

Can I cook? Yeah, I do ok but any Muppet can cook. I've taught chimps to cook. Complete tools that could literally burn water to be able to serve a busy Saturday night shift in a two hundred seat restaurant; and do it well.

Not everyone can write. Very few can write and even fewer get published.

Which leads me to marketing geniuses like Katie Price or Jordan or whatever the hell she calls herself? I don't mean to single her out but I'm using her as a representative of completely talentless fucken idiots that get publishing deals for no other reason than she is famous. There are seriously talented writers who can't get publishing contracts; I'm not counting myself in this group by the way. I don't even understand how to speak the English language let alone be able to know how to punctuate it. Colon? Semi colon? Isn't that somewhere in my digestive tract?

Don't get me wrong here, it's not that I'm bitter and twisted; I know that publishing is a business and business needs to make money, but really?

I suppose I'll be called a hypocrite at this point. What kind of self-important wanker tweets, Facebook's, and writes a blog, calls proven, selling, published author’s frauds? I do.

I'm in a really fortunate position in that I don't give a shit what people think of me. Never have. Sorry.

Just because you're famous for one thing, in Jordan's case, getting your tits out, doesn't mean you have talent elsewhere.

I don't blame people like her that milk it for every penny that they can get, after all plastic surgery isn't cheap but in the end it comes down to sales I suppose.

Who the hell reads her books? Have they got pictures of her with her top off? If so I'd say guys with a boob fetish would snap all the copies up off the shelves so they have some pages to stick together on those cold, lonely nights stuck at home watching "take me out" hoping that they could just get some girl to look at them naked without laughing or throwing up in their own mouth and swallowing it back down again.

No, it's women who buy those kinds of books. I once watched a TV show starring Katie Price as she went to a book signing and they interviewed people in the majority female queue and asked why they were there. The standard answer was that they saw her as inspirational. Really? People are inspired by a woman who takes her fake breasts out to be photographed, inspirational? Amazing. So. Um. I'm really confused right now.

So let me see if I can get this straight.

Fake boob’s equals good writer?

That settles it I'm getting a boob job.

As I said she's not alone. She has a brilliant marketing mind. She's not stupid.

Look at someone else let's say, Sharon Osborne. Smart lady. I think we can all agree but talent?

She obviously has some; she married a rock star.

Writer? Who knows? Not me. I've never been that desperate for something to read; and I've read tea leaves before.

And another question, do they actually write their books?

Anyone who has written knows that writing can be a long, laborious, thanks less and at times tedious job which begs the question, why would someone with a heap of money in the bank commit themselves to it? Passion? Commitment to their art? I think not.

Then there's the next set of complete assholes, the pop stars and reality TV stars. What a complete fucken joke.

Half of them are in their 20's and get a book deal to write an autobiography. What? What have they got to say? They haven't even lived yet. I could even give you a synopsis without ever having read one. Shall I? Ok.

I was born to a couple of complete retard parents who mistakenly had sex in a nightclub toilet stall and my mother got banged up. They were so busy with their own lives that us kids, all ten of us had to fend for ourselves in our caravan parked next to a rubbish dump. It made me determined to be someone special, so I went and got locked in a house with a bunch of completely talentless fucken idiots and you morons watched that shit and made me famous. I got PAID! And a book deal. I'm twenty now. What does the future hold?

Who the hell would read that shit?

Boo hoo so you had a tough time when you were a kid. Join the club and get over it. What does the future hold? Probably a massive drug habit that will rob you of whatever looks you have and all your ill-gotten gains. Hello Kerry Katona.

The blame rests with us. You and me. We are the buying public. It's our money that decides who gets a book deal. Don't settle for the shit that these people try and peddle.

As far as I'm concerned those kinds of people should just be locked in a house, no cameras, just locked in. Done and done.

So if you have to pigeonhole me which pigeonhole do I fit into?

Well I'd have to say an angry young man. One who cooks and writes and generally likes to have a good time.

But who am I to say? Or should I say who will know?  I don't have a book contract.

What are you looking at?

What are you looking at? Is probably the most pointless fucken question posed by someone when it's quite obvious you're looking at them.

This is the question that gets asked to  me, most often by women, who having taken what appears to be some considerable time in choosing the outfit that they are wearing to show as much of their body off as to be considered inappropriate in any situation bar perhaps a centrefold shoot for playboy; black label edition.

I mean really? If you've got your boobs basically hanging out, what the hell do you expect me to do? Not look? Please, I'm a man, that's what I’m programmed to look at. If that upsets you then don't put it in my face, or put some clothes on.

Now I'm aware that I have a face like a bashed crab which probably has something to do with it. If I was a pretty boy that spent every waking moment in the gym, spent an hour adjusting my hair before I left home; had teeth whitening treatment each week and generally focused all my attention on myself, I probably wouldn't notice anyway but that's the kind of guy that THAT girl wants to notice her. Work that out because I can't.

I once had an occasion I was walking along a high street in London in the early afternoon in summer. I noticed, as I always do, a woman walking along in what can only be described as a belt. She would have said it was a skirt but it was actually a belt. So anyway there she is walking one of those yappy, annoying little fucken dogs that you just want to kick up the ass really hard and wear it like a slipper. As I'm walking behind her taking in the view but at the same time trying not to look, she bends down to pick up the hairy little creature and there it is, staring me in the face, winking at me. It's beaver time. A bit odd I thought to myself, walking a dog on the high street with a tiny, barely there skirt and no panties bending down, I mean fuck. What the hell am I supposed to look at? She sees me and what does she say "What are you looking at?" Before I can fire off a quick retort like "Well I can see what you've had for lunch and gutted rabbit was on the menu." Or "Hey, nice beaver" she then continues and say's "Fucken pervert." Before walking away with her little mongrel under her arm.

Now I'm not massive on social etiquette but how am I the pervert in this situation? I had trousers and underpants on. Surely she wanted someone to see but it wasn't me.

This incident sparked an idea that I wanted to try. I was tired of being on the receiving end of THAT question.

I had a pair of trousers that had quite a large split at the crutch and even when I wore underwear you could actually see my balls. I think we can all agree that was never going to be a good look.

I'm in a shop getting some things and a woman actually comes up to me and says, out loud " Excuse me "Your trousers’ are split and I can see your ball bag." This was just the opportunity I'd been waiting for.

I looked her in the eye and said “Why are you looking down there anyway? Were you trying to see my junk? Filthy bitch."

The look on her face was priceless.

She looked just like the kind of princess that would use that line on guys like me. She stood there, mouth open with a total look of shock and no clue how to respond. I'm not even sure I could come up with something witty to say back to that.

Is there a lesson here? I'm not entirely sure and I've thought about it often.

Should we men be looking at women? Should we make it look like we're not looking? Does some of the blame for us looking lie with those that wear revealing clothing?

Now I'm sure there is going to be some asshole reading this that says yeah and next you're going to say that because a woman wears a short skirt she deserves to be raped but you can just fuck off right now. Let me say this loud and clear, NO woman deserves to be raped EVER!

The thing is that whether you believe in God or evolution it's irrelevant, we were given eyes for a reason, to look at things. As a man I feel compelled to look at the fairer sex and like it or not that is you ladies.

I'll apologise in advance if that offends you but please try to take it easy on me, after all, if I'm looking it means I think you are beautiful and that can't be all bad, right?

Chefs Vs. City Bankers

Chefs Vs. City Bankers

(The next step in evolution??)

Evolution in humans is defined by the tools we use as part of our society.

Chefs as we all well know, train for many years and hone their skills to use their tools (Knives, amongst others) to create mouth-watering, delicious essentials of life;  Food.

City Bankers (Insert W where necessary) on the other hand, what tools do they possess? They would say their tool is their brain. If that is the case and they are indeed their brain, then they are tools; No argument there.

I bring this argument to you today to highlight something that I feel has been left out of the public domain for far too long but is something that has been discussed in professional kitchens for as long as memory serves.

Why is it that these Bankers (Insert W) insist that by watching and no doubt salivating over Nigella Lawson cooking shows that they know more about the food they order than the people cooking it? I'm sure that not all the people in this position of obvious knowledge are all Bankers (You know what to do by now) But a large portion are, due to the huge disposable income generated by guesswork, at best.

Now I can already hear the protests, denials and I'm sure the "What the hell would an uneducated chef know about what we do anyway" In my defence I DO know what you do and like most chefs take an interest in other topics outside our field and have an opinion. I have been lucky? Enough to attend gatherings with the forenamed and what a pleasurable evening was to be had listening to people obviously very HIGH on Life? Discussing how much money they made this week and showing everyone by buying the most expensive bubbly to prove it. Hedge-funds anyone?

Like surgeons, chefs must make hundreds of decisions every minute lest your food be ruined, and also like surgeons sometimes we get it wrong. I use this analogy because to US food is not life or death, but the way these people react when something does go wrong; it would seem it is.

When money is no longer the driving force in this world ask yourself, "What would you do?" Most chefs would do as they do now because they have passion, determination and skill that they practise even when not working. Bankers???? Perhaps they would play with their tool; as they do now.

Now all I ask you to take from this Rant is this; when evolution comes calling which side will you ally yourself with? Life giving nourishment FOOD, or Bankers?

Paying guest

I don't know about you but when I pay for something I want my money's worth. I'll give you examples. Firstly I live in London so there are occasions when you have to pay to use a toilet. Even if I only need to pee I'll sit and take a dump too. I want the whole experience in this toilet, you understand? I want the experience of firstly wiping down the piss soaked seat and lowering my trousers, hopefully not into that pile of puke conveniently located right in front of the seat. Then the feeling of your bum actually touching the hopefully cold seat. A warm toilet seat, to me represents a little too close contact with the person who just vacated their bowel on the very throne on which you now find yourself. Then to the final part of the experience to the loo paper. Will it be those wax strips of uselessness; the ones that you use about a thousand, covering your fingers in the exact thing you're trying to rid yourself of. Or that utilitarian giant roll that when you arrive in your stinking cubicle looked like there was plenty left only to find that you have grossly underestimated just how bad the deposit  you are making was going to be. Or if you are somewhere incredibly fancy and they have scented bog roll, firstly you want to smell it, so I normally take a few extra moments to linger and blow my nose, even if there is no pressing need.

Will you have that novelty of waving your hand at that "non touch" toilet flushing mechanism that always seems to trigger, for no apparent reason while you are mid dump and you have to wait for an age for the tank to refill so you can hide the evidence that remained after what must have been a courtesy flush done on your behalf. Is there a toilet flush button at all? Having spray painted a bowl because it felt like you were about to explode, you have that dread of not being able to dispose of the devils artwork before the next customer in a busy toilet facility. It's always nice to visit a toilet that that's just occurred in too.

Then onto the hand wash station. If you are very fortunate then it's there right in front of you sharing your stinking cubby hole. Hand wash or foam? It always seems a bit Heston Blumenthal to me with the foam.  Is it the Automatic one that's just makes me feel lazy when I use it, or the special pull draw that you just know is covered in other people's shit.  But you normally get there and there's none left anyway. So now not only do you have your own excrement on your hands but everyone else's who came to visit today.

Then it's onto the water. Warm? Hot? Or the normal that the bloody tap doesn't work either. After carefully disinfecting my paws I normally give the face a good wash too; and why not right?  I'm paying for this shit.

Then comes the final task of your visit, drying your hands. At this point I feel fortunate to be a man. If you've just taken a pee, and as long as you've taken a bit of care not to piss all over your hands then as far as I'm concerned you're good to go; maybe a quick check in the mirror, just to confirm just how awesome you look. People will no doubt question my stance on this but really, I know where my dick has been all day and unless its recently been in someone else's ass, which is a possibility as you're in a public toilet after all, then I know it's clean. But rest assured I normally wash my hands purely out of courtesy to you all.

 I'm not too sure how it works in women's public toilets as I've never been in one but I have a creative imagination. Scenes like pillow fights in bras and panties and women openly groping and tongue kissing each other with the heady scent of aroma therapy oils penetrating their nostrils in a pristine clean environ, is a fantasy that often tries to creep in on those rare occasions when I think about what it's like to visit a women's toilet, but I think in reality it's probably more like a Saturday night at a bar in a rough part of town when everyone has had just the right amount of alcohol to believe they are ten feet tall and bulletproof and are looking for a fight. With women stealing quick glances at the others, judging if they are better looking, if she looks bloated or if her hair is dyed. Then perhaps they notice a girl who has a body, in an outfit that would change the course of most men's worlds and that thought comes round to suggest that she's a bitch. Then more like a rugby scrum around the mirror as they make final adjustments to their face to make sure we men still want to look at them.

At this point I stride out of the toilet and through the turnstiles with a big smile on my face knowing that I've had more than my money's worth, thanks very much.

Or when I go on holiday to a foreign country and staying in a hotel, I want the full experience and of course my money's worth.

If it's got a gym, I'll use it. Even if I wouldn't normally visit a gym back at home. A swimming pool? I'll go for a swim and pee in it. You're seeing where this is going. I'll have a shower with the little shower cap on, well half a shower because I want to wash my hair with the combined shampoo and conditioner that comes in the same bottle. No idea how that works but hey, they do it. I was once staying in a hotel in Rome, called the Hotel Milo. The only reason for me staying there was that as a kid I used to love drinking and eating strait out of the tin, milo. Now, in my room there was a bidet. I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to ever use one but having a jet of water shot up my ass fills me with as much enthusiasm as having a warm load of horse gism shot in there. Not a lot. But not wanting to miss out and not use this appliance I duly wash my feet in it. Admittedly, washing my ass would probably leave less of a stain and smell than me washing my feet at that stage of the day.

If the hotel room has a hair dryer I'll use it on the hair on my head and of course dry my pubes and ball hair, if I have any at that point.

I'll poke into every nook and cranny of the room to be sure I've found and made use of everything that's there to be used.

Ironing board? I've specifically called down to reception to have an iron sent up to my room when I had nothing to be ironed, so I ironed my underwear; never had the experience of pulling on warm, perfectly creased underwear? I can thoroughly recommend it.

I stayed at quite a nice hotel in Vegas once and found a hotel branded makeup kit in the bathroom, nice touch I thought, although I can't imagine there would be too many women forgetting their makeup on a trip to Sin City. Not wanting to actually apply the makeup, well I didn't know how did I, I found the hotel writing paper in the draw next to the bed and set about making an impromptu art piece that Pro Hart would have been proud to exhibit, which I left for the no doubt surprised and I'm sure delighted cleaning staff, signed of course. If they're extremely lucky, had exceptional foresight and it had been kept in the back of a wardrobe somewhere in mint condition, it will no doubt be worth about twenty cents when I hit the big time.

I think my favourites by far are the slippers and bathrobe that as soon as I arrive I'll take off my clothes and slip into, before I've showered, just so I know I've tainted it to the point that the cleaner will probably not even bother to put it into the washing and just throw it straight into the hotel incinerator. One thing you don't find too often these days and it’s probably because of me, sorry, is a Jacuzzi. If they have one of these I'll fill it up and put all the little bottles of bubble bath, shower gel, hand wash, combo shampoo and conditioner and switch that bad boy on. I've done this perhaps a little more often than I should have, especially since that      one hotel in Berlin wanted to charge me extra to get the carpet in the room dried and the soap marks half way up the walls washed after a particularly foamy bath gone slightly wrong. On that occasion I got lost in the bathroom and it took me a half an hour to find my way out. I thought I was back in one of those dodgy foam parties popular back in the 90's.

Which brings me back to the reason why I stated to write this little tirade in the first place, British Airways breakfast. It may seem a little strange at this point as to how a breakfast platter on a plane can bring forth memories of taking a shit or hotel stays, but stay with me. Of course there will be some among you who believe that the correlation is that airline food is toilet and well, toilets but they would be wrong. I was travelling recently on a plane to Amsterdam and we we're all served breakfast on our trays, with the plastic cutlery of course, after all we don't want anyone trying to hijack the plane with a butter-knife now do we? Or a pair of nail clippers. What has the world come to when you can't board an aircraft with a pair of nail clippers? I think I'd actually like to be on a plane where a would-be hijacker tried to take over the plane with a butter knife or a pair of nail clippers. I wouldn't be able to help myself; after changing my underwear because I had pissed my pants I'd pin them down and smother them with those same piss soaked under cacks. To me that is Darwin's evolution theory in practice. Survival of not the fittest per se but rather the person wielding saturated jocks.

But I digress. Part of the breakfast platter served was yoghurt. Now I hate yoghurt, but being the person I am, someone who wants not only to get the full value of the experience and my money's worth, I felt compelled to eat it. And if that wasn't enough the guy next to me expressed his displeasure at yoghurt offering it to me. I of course took it and ate it. Now I was starting to feel like the costs of this flight were starting to swing back into my favour. I asked and received two cups of tea and two lemonade's. I was starting to feel pretty pleased with myself and wanted to be sure that I used all the facilities available to me. This included a visit to the toilet. I think you've probably got a good understanding of my toilet etiquette so I don't feel pressed to expand on what I have written thus far, suffice to say that I returned to my seat confident that I'd made up for three or four people's lack of interest in getting their money's worth from the flight.

It's at this point I ask, am I the only one who feels this way?

It would seem, amongst my friends at least, that I am.

Upon reading this I watch, as when they first start reading they laugh at the stupidity, like the German tourist who when walking through the airport scanner and it repeatedly going off only for him having to take off another piece of clothing each time thought it would be a good idea to strip naked and yell at the airport security "Are you happy now?" (He was duly arrested). Then seeing the concern creep onto their face when they discover how deep this runs in a friend they no doubt thought they knew.

So I put this to you, in hope that you agree or at least sympathise with my plight.

I don't really worry if I stand alone on this as I know that over time I'll take up the slack in what you all leave behind and be sure to leave satisfied, whatever I do or wherever I go.

 

I'm an asshole and I know it.

There's something you need to know about me, I'm an extremist. Not in a political and definitely not in a religious sense. No I'm an extremist in that it's yes or no, it's black or white,  in short there's no middle ground; no grey area. No maybe.

If I'm out to party, expect to see me get home tomorrow, sometime in the afternoon. But then I won't go out for a month or two and in that time not even have a drink.

It's because of this attitude of no middle ground that I come with caveats. A set of rules or to use a better word, guidelines that you must adhere to in order to maintain any reasonable time in my company.

I'm difficult and I know it.

For instance I have a tendency to write things down on scraps of paper or empty boxes; anything that I can find in the vicinity when I need it. Phone numbers, account numbers etc. All if incredibly important; and it will be left there, wherever that is and I expect it to be there, exactly where I left it, when I need it, anywhere up to a month later. My wife has fallen foul of this "guideline" before, it must be said early in our relationship. We had many heated discussions before she gave up arguing and just saved anything with writing on it for when I needed it.

I like things done "my" way. As far as I'm concerned my way is best. I've spent my whole life developing "my" way to have the best possible result. To give an example, I get on the train at the door where I intend to get off, to save time on my journey.

 I entertained the idea of developing an app for people with a similar mind-set but in the end I couldn't be bothered. Which leads to something else you should know about me, I'm an ideas man. I literally have hundreds of them, all day. While I work my brain is off doing its own thing quietly, (sometimes not so quietly) solving the problems around me or around the world. I once had an idea for a 26 hour watch. You take 4 seconds from a minute and four minutes from an hour and you have an extra two hours a day. See what I mean.

The problem (one of) with having all these ideas is that I start a bunch of things and never get them finished. I'm great with the initial idea but the day to day running of it bores the shit out of me. The monotony of doing the same thing day after day bores me and boredom is not a good state for me because I tend to annoy the hell out of the people unlucky enough to be around me.

In addition to these, another trait that my loved ones try hard to tolerate is my total, complete belief that I can do whatever it is that I want. My 100% knowledge that nothing is out of my reach and that if I set my mind to something I can do it. The problem is that that is what I do. I can do anything. Not fantastically but do it nonetheless. Write a movie, yep, done it. Travelled the world, yep, done it. Wrote a book, yep, done it. Wrote and sold a TV show, yep, done it.

Do I say this to show off? No I say this to prove a point. The point is that I come from an average working class background, my parents working two jobs to make sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table. To make sure we had a good education.

I don't come from money and I have done the things I've done by working for them. Working HARD. Nothing has been given without me earning it.

So it grates on me that people sit around on their ass and expect that the world owes them something. Or they say something like oh you're so lucky to have done those things. My response is "well that's funny because the harder I work the luckier I get."

I may not be the best at what I do but I'm prepared to work harder and longer than everyone to achieve what I want. Most people aren't prepared to do that and that's why they will never have what they want.

Opinionated, I hear you say. Yes indeed. Everybody has an opinion and I'm more than happy to be vocal about mine. I have a strong belief in my opinion and am always ready for a debate.

I also find it hard to admit that I'm wrong but will admit it if I see the error of my judgement. It doesn't happen very often though.

I will fight to defend what's mine both physical and mental. I won't idly stand by while a friend or a loved one is being threatened. Ever. And to that end if you cross me or try to fight me I will end you. I will not rest until I have done my utmost to make your life a complete misery. (Isn’t that right Qantas? I'm not finished with you fuckers yet.)

I suppose there are a few plus points that negate the negatives and I think my friends focus on those in order not to strangle the shit out of me when I'm going off on one about some slight or another.

I suppose in the end that the thing that really counts, that really matters is time. The time I devote to those that I really care for and about. I think that is the key to any real relationship. Even when you're the asshole of your group. Every group has one and for good or bad I'm their asshole.