Guardian All Ears 28th February

I too have never seen Top Gun but I ain't getting too angsty about it...

(article by Michael Holden)

I was in a decent restaurant waiting for someone to arrive and when the waiter handed me a menu I hid my face inside it as though this might make my listening less conspicuous to the men on the next table.

Man 1(sniffing some freshly poured wine but mentally elsewhere) “Have you seen Top Gun?”

Man 2 “Of course.”

Man1 “I never saw it when it was out, it was sort of everything I hated at the time. Anyway the kids were watching it the other night so I thought might as well see what all the fuss was about.”

Man 2 “What did you reckon?”

Man 1 “Well it’s balls, isn’t it? I have to try and keep quiet when the kids are watching a movie I hate, not that they care what I think particularly, but you can get wound up when they’re enjoying something that you think is awful.”

Man 2 “So what did you think?”

Man1 “Well I could cope with all the flying around…”

Man 2 “The aeronautics…”

Man 1 “Yeah, I could live with the fact they were flying upside down at Mach whatever taking Polaroid photos, and I could cope with the fact that he’s having an affair with Kelly Mcgillis who’s supposed to be an authority figure, I mean it’s all ridiculous, but then Tom Cruise is playing volleyball, he keeps leaping up and slamming the ball down, and he’s a midget, isn’t he? That wound me up, I had to say something.”

Man 2 “What did you say?”

Man 1 “I said to the kids I said either he’s on a trampoline or that’s not a real Volleyball net. They didn’t even react but, you know, I’m right.”

Man 2 “Why did it annoy you so much?”

Man 1 (starring into his soul) “I…don’t know.”

Man 2 (trying to help) “Because you’re tall?”

Man 1 (having exploredl the possibilities and formed a conclusion) “No, because it’s bullshit!”

Suprise!

Drawn as a memento mori birthday gift!

Guardian All Ears 22nd February

Madagascar flavoured bedding - luvverly!


(Article by Michael Holden)

On the back of a bus in Humberside two women in their early twenties were discussing their respective boyfriends. The first had little to report except her chosen consort’s perceived unpleasantness, but when the second got going things took on a more remarkable complexion.
Woman 1 “Everyone said he were a bastard, he used to say if that’s what they reckoned best not disappoint ‘em.”

Woman 2: “That’s like when I moved in with Liam, everyone disowned me, I had to move to the other side of Hull.”
Woman 1: “Well when you love someone I don’t matter what anyone else thinks. You just gotta get on with it.”
Woman 2: (fondly) “He sends me a lot of texts, texts me all the time. I do that sleep texting thing though…”
Woman 1: “Eh?”
Woman 2: “If I text him while I’m in bed and he texts me back I send him another text but in my sleep, I don’t know I’ve sent it.”
Woman 1: “What like?”
Woman 2: “Some right old bollocks, he used to ring me up to ask me what I were on about but that would wake me up, so now he knows not to.”
Woman 1 (eager to assess the strength of her friend’s relationship via a more orthodox phenomenon) “He taken you out anywhere nice?”
Woman 2 “He took us to see that Madagascar 2.”
Woman 1 “How were it?”
Woman 2 “It were alright. I say this for him though he’s dead clever. When it finished I was ready to leave and he said hang on, he knew there were extra bit at the end, over the credits, where all the animals like sing and dance about and that.”
Woman 1 “Worth staying on for?”
Woman 2 “Not really. No.”

Guardian All Ears 14th February

Ha ha! Spot the sad Dr Who references...

(Article by Michael Holden)

By a mainline station there is an old police call post, nothing more than a thin blue pillar that must once have held a telephone and fitted with a sign confirming it’s dereliction advising those in need of help to look elsewhere. Any resemblance to its celebrated relative in Dr Who is negligible, but on a match day afternoon I watched it beguile two tipsy fans as they tried to make their way home.

Fan 1 (quite fat, clearly the leader) “Where the fuck are we?”

Fan 2 (smaller, younger, confused by disposition as much as alcohol) “Station innit?”

Fan 1 (seeing the police post) “Whassat about?”

Fan 2 Eh?

Fan 1 (getting excited) “It’s the whatsit, it’s the TARDIS!”

Fan 2 “Eh?”

Fan 1 (really happy now) “The TARDIS!”

Fan 2 (looking a bit annoyed) “That ain’t the TARDIS…it’s just a thing.”

Fan 1 (seeing two policemen approaching in the distance) “Go ask them coppers where we are.”

Fan 2 (moving off) “Right”

Fan 1 (calling after him) “Ask them if this is a TARDIS!”

The younger man ran up to the police, talked to them and then ran back.

Fan 1 “Is it the TARDIS?”

Fan 2 (defiant) “I never asked ‘em about that.”

Fan 1 (seeing the police coming closer) “I’ll ask ‘em myself.”

But as they arrived he noticed they were heavily armed and as though the alcohol afforded him a vision of an all too feasible future where pratting about is a capitol crime, he elected to say nothing at all.

Guardian All Ears 7th February

(Article by Michael Holden)

Just when you think you’ve sniffed outall the premier eavesdropping locations, a new one presents itself. This time it was Argos-one of an elite group of environments where it’s almost impossible not to have a pen. I was leafing through the catalogue when I became conscious of a young couple opposite who perusing the goods on offer with a whimsical air that made me wonder whether they were actually shopping or had just come in to get out of the rain.

Woman: (turning what she saw into a demented low level chant) “Lava lamp, lava lamp, love it, love it, love it!”

Man: (oblivious, reading a catalogue of his own) “Where would I put I mirror?”

Woman: “ You know the shower head in your bathroom? I don’t like it.”

Man: (looking up) “Well you don’t have to have it spraying like that, you can change the settings.”

Woman (already moving on) “Shoe tree!”

Man: (flatly) “Get one.”

Woman (pointing at something I couldn’t see) “We so need that.”

Man: (looking across, smiling) “Mick has got one of those in room, it so made me laugh.”

Woman: “I might get this hook that goes on the back of the door.”

Man: (without looking) “Get it.”

Woman (pressing on into the catalogue’s outer limits) “We could get a cooler, for when summer comes.”

Man: (absorbing without rancour what seemed to me to be an absurd proposal) “I guess so. It’ll be so warm.”

Woman: (pressing on) “We need a bedside light, I hate getting up to turn it off and on.”

Man: “Yeah. It’s horrible.”

Woman: “I wish our bed had drawers underneath.”

Man: “It does.”

Woman: “But you have to lift the mattress up to get in them!”

Man: (without hesitation) “Yeah, but that’s much better for dust.”

Woman: “God you’re gay, gay in a good way.”

Man: (as though struck by a vision of the promised land) “Let’s go to Ikea.”

New York sketchbook (slight return)

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