Guardian All Ears 23rd May

...I know all french teenagers don't have Amelie haircuts but what's a little bit of light racial stereotyping between friends...?

(article by Michael Holden)
I was in the corner seat at the back of the upstairs of a bus that steadily filled with passengers. Initially there had been just me and another man opposite and I watched him bury his head in a free newspaper as the seats around him filled up with teenage French girls. Oblivious to his predicament he read on as the girls talked among themselves and looked through an English/French dictionary before finally presenting the traveler with a question.

French Girl 1“Excuse me?”

Man (dropping his paper and looking out suspiciously at his interrogators) “Yes?”

French Girl 1 (slowly and carefully) “Do you know, which are the good parks, for feeding squirrels?”

French Girl 2 (for added emphasis) “Yes, the squirrels.”

The man looked seriously at them now, as though wondering whether this were some sort of joke, sensing this, one of the girls began to mime eating a nut, in the manner of a squirrel, but with a look of complete sincerity.

Man (unsure) “You can find…I mean, they’re pretty common. They’re, everywhere, you know?”

French Girl 1 (handing him a pen and paper) “List the parks.”
Man (unsettled further by the sustained gravity of the matter Well, like I say they’re all pretty good, for squirrels, I mean, hmmm.”
He made a list of four large parks in the city, good choices I thought, and then handed back the pad. The girls looked at the list approvingly. He went back to his paper, but you could tell things weren’t quite the same.

90th birthday

Have never drawn a 90th card before (he worked as a postman, sold the Evening Standard & was in the Navy in the war ..phew!)

Guardian All Ears 16th May

Hmmm - men of a certain inclination & demographic... it's a fair cop!
In mitigation I'd like to point out I never wore white gloves, bandanas or bought Vick's Vaporub - as for Smiley t-shirts - wasn't it only undercover cops & Daily Mail journalists uncovering 'this evil Acid cult' that wore them anyway?

'you...think it's cool to wear a Smiley!' © Julian H Cope - well said sir!

(article by Michael Holden)

By inclination and demographic I am drawn to the concerns of men who can’t quite believe that they are now, irrefutably, adults. I was fortunate then to find myself sharing a bus with two such characters, probably in their early 40’s, one of whom had an urgent confession.

Man 1 “I hadn’t heard this tune in 15, 20 years. But I was obsessed with it like, back in the day. So I’m finishing my lunch and this bloke in the bar, setting up for the evening, sticks it on..”

Man 2 “Mental.”

Man 1 “Innit? I tell you mate a fucking chill went down my spine. I thought I was dreaming, then I’ve gone up and I’ve told him how I used to love this song but I never knew what it was and all of that.”

Man 2 “And what’s he said?”

Man 1 “Well he’s loving it. He’s one of us of course, went to all the same do’s. So I got on the fucking Internet, and this is the thing, you can buy it, just like that. Three days later the things come through the door except it hasn’t. The postman’s left it next door, they’ve given it to the wife so when I get in she’s got the envelope and wants to know what’s what.”

Man 2 “What’d you say.”

Man “Well I’ve told her, but there’s no way I’m sticking it on while she’s in ‘cos she’ll say something, start taking the piss. So I’ve waited till she’s gone out and wallop, I’ve cranked it up.”

Man 2 “How was that?

Man 1 “It was fucking awesome mate, like time travel. It made me wanna get right on it.”

Man 2 “So what you gonna do?”

Man 1 “I’m gonna wait till I’m on my own and do it again.”

Guardian All Ears 9th May

Big up for Greggs the bakers & sorry Darryl Hall, I think I've stolen your hair this week - but WHAT HAIR!!!!

(Article by Michael Holden)

Outside a pub I watched two men slouch across a picnic table. The first man was sober, his posture a consequence of fatigue perhaps. The second, through well dressed and affluent was on the cusp of being completely plastered, a stare of affairs that clearly caused his companion some concern.

Man 1 “How long did you stay off the drink for.”

Man 2 “Three days, more or less. Well we had some Rose on the third day. It was the kid’s birthday, that didn’t really count. Then I had a meeting this morning, had a drink after that, sat outside. Bumped into Chris, had some lunch. Popped over the road and now here we are.

Man 1 (looking at his own drink as though reckoning his own worthiness to pass judgement) “Well, best make this the last one then, for today.”

Man 2 (laughing) “Fuck off.”

Both men laughed a little, then settled down. Next, a man with a preposterously developed torso and open necked shirt strutted past. He looked ridiculous, an antiquated stereotype reborn. Other people at the pub laughed discreetly at him, the drunk man laughed loud enough for them all.

Man 1 “Quit, he’ll hear you.”

Man 2 “Who?”

Man 1 “That bloke.”

Man 2 “I’m not laughing at any bloke.”

Man 1 “So what are you laughing at?”

Man 2 “That bag.”

He pointed at a paper sack that was blowing down the street while his mate looked at him in some despair, seeing that his friend had attained the mindset of a veteran street drinker, even if he still had decent clothes.

Guardian All Ears 3rd May

(article by Michael Holden)
As warm weather breeds inertia so that inertia breeds an increased reliance on takeaway food, at least in my world. I was just inside the door of my local Chinese when the two women ahead of me continued a dialogue that was so off putting you could have written it down and sold it as a diet.

Woman 1 (Staring out the window, considering what would follow) “I won’t have any of the meat. I’ll just have the juice off of it.”

Woman 2 (Somehow blind to the disturbing nature of the suggested image) “Right.”

Woman 1 “I don’t like nothing too dry neither.”

Woman 2 (agreeing) “No.”

Woman 1 (apparently philosophical) “What we doing here anyway?”

Woman 2 (suspicious) “Eh?”

Woman 1 “How come we’ve come in here, instead of ordering it on the phone?”

Woman 2 (reassured) “It’s an extra pound.”

Woman 1 “What is?”

Woman 2 “If you want it delivered, it’s an extra pound, if the order’s less than fifteen quid.”

Woman 1 “You ever use the one in Mile End? They do the delivery.”

Woman 2 “No.”

Woman 1 “It turns up stone cold.”

Woman 2 (unaffected by these revelations) “Right.”

Their food was ready and they accepted it in great steaming bags while the woman behind the counter read out their order in confirmation.

Woman 1 (anxious to head off any misunderstanding) “Like I said, you have the meat, I’ll have the juice that it sits in.”

Woman 2 “Right.”

They left and I tried to place my order, but the menu seemed to have lost its appeal.

Guardian All Ears 28th March

Ok Ok - I've been in Africa for a month so this is very late...

(Article by Michael Holden)

I was in a large public building eating a sandwich at a group of tables occupied only by myself and the maintenance crew of the place who were enjoying a moment of collective leisure and discussing the covert self abuse techniques of someone they all new.
Bloke 1 (as though what followed were a scheme of great ingenuity)“She goes to bed and he says, ‘I’m staying downstairs to watch a programme,’ then he slips the DVD on. If he hears the stairs creak and she comes in, he flicks over to a documentary.”

Bloke 2 “Have you seen Dom though? He’s open about it. He’ll buy ‘em with her in the pub, I’ve seen it. The DVD bird’s come in and he says, ‘got any porn?’ She says, ‘ain’t you got enough at home?’ He asks her which one she fancies and she says ‘I don’t watch ‘em, I don’t care!’”
Bloke 3 (allowing the laughter to subside) “Who’s on Tuesday-Wednesday?”
Bloke 4 “When does Alan swap with Ursula?”
Bloke 1 “Tonight.”
Bloke 4 “The night shift bores me to tears.”
Bloke 1 “He loves ‘em. I’d rather do Saturday.”
Bloke 4 “Now, is he a shy person who prefers his own company, or is he a bit weird?”
Bloke 1 “He’s a bit weird.”
Bloke 2 (as though this might explain something) “I heard his dad was Lithuanian.”
Bloke 3 “He ignored me, and Tottenham won yesterday. When we were struggling he would talk to me more.”
Bloke 4 “He has put on a bit of weight.”
Bloke 3 “Yeah, but that’s no reason not to talk to someone.”
There was a lot of quiet nodding about that. Evidently Alan had better loosen up if wanted to get along.

Guardian All Ears 21st March

Funnily enough I'd just spent a small fortune on Deet & Mosquito nets for my upcoming trip to Africa when I got the copy for this week's article - very prescient! My wallet is now smarting from paying for 4 week's worth of Malarone anti-malarial tablets so the little f***ers better leave me the hell alone -
I swear I've actually seen mosquitos donning napkins & holding knives & forks when they see me coming - nice to be popular with someone I suppose (even if it's pesky insect filth)
This will probably be my last post for a few weeks due to my aforementioned trip to Africa (never sure if anyone reads / looks at these things anyway so might just be talking to myself!)


(article by Michael Holden)

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times but I’m hearing a lot of conversations lately where people are trying to outdo one another by some abstract measure. I sat on the bus the other day and found two teenagers at the back debating who had the least hospitable ancestral connections.

Teen 1 (emphatic) “The mosquitoes back home are out of hand.

Teen 2 (quietly confident) “They’re big where we’re from.”

Teen 1 (after some consideration) “I’ve been bitten enough times. I think I’ve had malaria.”

Teen 2 “You’d know if you had malaria. It kills folk.”

Teen 1 (unhindered by fact) “Where I’m from the mosquitoes come out in the day.”

Teen 2 (like this was a good thing) “It’s worse at home because of the sewage.”

Teen 1 “When did you last go home?”

Teen 2 “When I was four.”

Teen 1 (emboldened by his friends lack of recent first hand information) “I tell you, where I’m from you can’t walk anywhere without water. You’ll dry up. You will die.

Teen 2 (sagacious, dismissive) “I’d never go home at this time of year. I’m not kidding it is literally like walking on fire.”

There was silence for while then, no comeback proved forthcoming. Teen one then got up to leave.

Teen 2 “Did you do that maths homework?”

Teen 1 “No.”

You could see from his face that he understood that no amount of competitive nostalgia was going to change the fact that he was going home with a sports bag full of problems still unsolved.