Bat tiff!

Guardian All Ears 6th September

Bloody paper credited this to someone else this week - sandle wearing bastards!


Midsummer, midweek, mid-afternoon and bad weather proved no obstacles to the group of women with whom I shared a smoking area outside a pub on the edge of a park in Humberside. Their alfresco healthcare debate was evidently not a forum that could be curtailed by drizzle, commitments and ignorance, or any combination thereof.

Woman 1: (righteous, animated, slightly outraged) “She asked me to save her half of my cig, I said ‘I ain’t doing that, you’re on medication.’ She says, ‘Not anymore!’ I said well what were them tablets I see you taking?”

Woman 2: (anxious for an outcome, partly because she seemed desperate to say something judgemental) “So what did she say?”

Woman 1: “ She said, ‘don’t worry about those, them’s me medication ‘cos I am a nymphomaniac!’”

Women 2 & 3: (In unison) “No!”

Woman: 1 “I swear.”

Woman 2: “What’s she on about, nymphomania tablets?”

Woman 3: “She’ll be making all that up. You don’t wanna believe a word out of her. She wants truth drugs, never mind bloody sex pills.”

Woman 1 “Yeah but she had them tablets, those tablets that they give you when they’re not real tablets, what are they called?”

Woman 3 (definitely not joking) “Gazebos?”

Woman 1 “That’s them!”

Woman 2 “I don’t care what you call it, it’s just an excuse for being a slag.”

And having reached a verdict they crushed out their cigarettes beneath their feet and went back inside.

Article by Michael Holden

Guardian All Ears 30th August

Had a Japan based break last week so no illo in last week's Guardian - this one was quite apt due to my own fading jet-lag but I only really like the sinister pigeons in this one!

Eating a slice of pizza by a boating lake my attention was drawn from the flock of aggressive birds gathered about me in expectation of leftovers toward a man sitting behind me, persistently describing his jet lag on his mobile phone.

Man "Yeah, we just got in from Bali, this morning. Got upgraded... business class. Yeah, pretty decent sleep, but still...yeah. Well it's ten PM Bali time so...we might head home for a nap. But, yeah, see you Monday, thanks.

These days I strive not to make negative assumptions about people based on snatches of conversation, so I let this one go. Five minutes later though he said almost the same thing again to someone else, and then there was nothing I could do to stop myself.

Man "Yeah, well we've been in Bali, got in this morning. Swung an upgrade, to business class. Must have got about seven hours sleep, so, can't complain. Well it's what...ten past ten at night Bali time so...yeah, well, we're gonna try and stay awake."

Now I had to turn to look at him. He was like a malign remix of Nigel Havers. His wife just stared into the middle distance as he droned on.

Man " Well it's great that you're in London and we made it back in time to see you. If you wanna do something touristy then let us know, because we never get to do stuff like that. House of Commons? Absolutely, I think there's a tour...well it looks great from the outside...I'd like to turn it into apartments, no, better than that, a pub! A pub for me and my friends!"

I wondered what time it was in Bali.

Man "It's twenty past ten in Bali, so...yeah, absolutely. Let's speak tomorrow."

Article by Michael Holden

Guardian All Ears 16th August

Also finished at breakneck speed prior to going to Japan - ha ha! I LOVE GOTHS THEY'RE ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

I was a shocked on a recent cinema visit to find that the process of buying a ticket had become totally automated and that there was no human being in the lobby who could tell you about anything other than the price of sweets. The queue for these refreshments was thus horrendous, but, thirsty as I was, I had to join up and wait. As I wrestled with the familiar sensation that everything that makes life bearable is being systematically destroyed, I noticed that the couple in front of me were talking about television.

Man “ Did you see Panorama, about how china are funding the Sudan? Brilliant! The trouble is China will never go on the record as saying anything.”

Woman “Well they just do things differently?”

Man “Yeah, but still…”

Woman “It’s just a different mind set, the Chinese mind set.”

Man “I suppose.”

Woman “ I took the boys to Camden, they absolutely loved it, Max bought a sort of a cap.”

Man “They’ll turn into little Goths.”

Woman “They were saying, ‘everyone here is crazy, if you dressed like this at home you’d get slated’. And it’s true”

Man “Do the kids take after you, you think?”

Woman “Well they are very open minded.”

Man “Meaning what?”

Woman “I mean I took them for an Ethiopian meal last night and they thought it was great ”

Man “I can’t stand that place.”

Woman “There you go then.”

Article by Michael Holden
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Guardian All Ears 9th August

Finished at breakneck speed before heading off to Japan...


Sometimes when I travel by train I swear won’t subject myself to the conversations of strangers and instead listen to music through headphones designed to block out all ambient sound. But if I can still see people talking then eventually I have to know what they’re on about, and so it was that I found myself bound for the south coast turning down my music and tuning into the private drivel around me again.

Man: (holding an open book, but seldom reading from it) “I’ve had my bike stolen, in broad daylight, outside Waterstones.”

Woman: (setting aside a magazine) “I’ve left mine for three days at Euston, and it’s been fine.”

Man: “You were lucky.”

Woman (matter of factly) “There are about 500 bikes there.”

Man: “Maybe I was unlucky.”

Woman: “Maybe.”

There was a pause while they weighed all this up.

Woman: “I’m going to Finland again.”

Man: “That’s great.”

Woman: “’I’ve got a friend who lives in the middle of a lake. It’s amazing.”

Man: “What do you mean, ‘lives in a lake?’”

Woman: “On an island.”

Man: (perhaps expecting a more Arthurian explanation) “Oh.”

Another pause, then the woman poked at her reflection in the window.

Woman: “I can only be smart (+I)and(-I) comfortable if I’m wearing black.”

Man “What are you wearing tonight?”

Woman: “Black. You know what she’s like, she won’t be happy unless everyone’s wearing an long dress.”

Man: (maybe anticipating an evening of reluctant transvestism ahead) “Yeah. I know exactly what it’s like.”

Article by Michael Holden

Things I hate (slight return)

Jeremy Kyle*...Is 'absolutely fucking despise' putting it too strongly?

* See previous post

Guardian All Ears 2nd August

Have also managed to squeeze in a picture of the odious Jeremy Kyle* into thew background of this illustration because every time I'm in a hospital waiting room this sort of soul rotting programme is on the TV

(* unless you're a) unemployed b) a student c) freelance with weird working hours you will hopefully have been spared this hideous man & have no idea what I'm going on about)

Anyway...the article follows...

Spend enough time waiting in hospitals and you find yourself noticing that your fellow patients can be split into distinct types, each having developed different behavioral traits based on the extent and nature of their experiences with the health service. A recurring character is the “Angry Optimist” who believes the way to overcome long waiting times is through verbal indignation based on a sense of perceived injustice. Though they may have a point, it is far from the Zen mindset required to wait four hours for an appointment you were half an hour early for anyway, as the two people I watched unravel last week demonstrated.

Woman:(in her 70’s, indignant) “I was first here, we should be the first to be seen. Why are other people called first?”

Receptionist:“That’s not how the clinic works.”

Woman:(dentures clacking softly) “Where’s the girl what’s normally here?”

Receptionist: (with audible envy) “She’s moved to the pharmacy.”

Woman: “But these lot have got 8.45 appointments, ours is for 8.30”

Receptionist: “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

Man: (the woman’s husband, who it transpired was the one who had the appointment) “Yeah, just sit down.”

The woman sat down but carried on complaining quietly to the man until he’d eventually had enough.

Man: (shouting) “What do you want me to do about it?”

Woman: “But we were here first. Where are you going?”

Man (walking off) “Nowhere.”

Woman “Say something to them.”

Man (almost in tears) “Will you shut up for five minutes? Will you please just shut up and stay out of my head?”

That did the trick. Five minutes later they called his name.


Article by Michael Holden

Guardian All Ears 26th July

A PROPER Oompa Loompa (with added eye poke!)



I was about to overtake a man who was walking along the pavement in front of me when I caught wind of his mobile phone conversation and reduced speed to try and hear more of what he was saying. I made a swift diagnosis of what was going down and came to the assumption that he was talking to the mother of his kid, a woman he no longer lived with, and who had called him to ask why their daughter was in a bad mood.

Man: (wearily) "Well she got home from school and she was all upset, there doing Charlie and the Chocolate factory as the school play, they've cast her as an Oompa Loompa, she isn't happy…no of course not…she wanted to be a human."

He was silent for a minute while he listened to her response.

Man: "Yeah but it's more than that. She says the same kids that got the lead parts before have got the lead parts again…exactly…so I said well if you don't like something you have to speak up in life, I want her to know that this is how things are in life and this is what you do, you gotta speak up…she wasn't keen, she said they're teachers, you can't argue with the teachers…"

He listened for a moment and then his tone changed became harsher.

Man: "If there's a reason she doesn't know the difference between asking a question and having an argument, whose fault is that?"

There was evidently an emphatic response from the other end.

Man: "Ok, I'm sorry…well in the end I said to her, who do people remember from the story? It's Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Oompa Loompas, it's a big part…no, she wasn't buying it. She just wants to be a human."

Article by Michael Holden
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Fight!

"Don't be soft...have a fight!"

Threatening geezers

Having a general muckabout with some nice textures etc. - we call this research not procrastination!

Guardian All Ears 19th July

I like a floral dress me!

Mostly elevators are spaces where conversation ceases. In very tall buildings though where you can be in them for several minutes no such rules apply, as I discovered as I descended slowly from work one Friday night with an elderly couple who's weekend planning had gone awry.

Woman: (coyly)"How would you feel about…"

Man: (sensing danger)"C'mon, I'm holding my breath here."

Woman: "Andy coming to the house on Saturday?"

Man: "Andy who?"

Woman: "Andy, you know Andy. He just turned 65 and I haven't even acknowledged it."

Man: (scowling) "What do you mean' acknowledged it?' Who is this guy?"

Woman: "I mean I didn't even send him a card or call him up. I have to do something."

Man: (looking at the ceiling of the elevator as though it were the sky) "Well the weather doesn't look very congenial."

Woman: "He won't care about the weather. He's a very outdoors person."

Man :"Who is he again?"

Woman: (angry now sensing subterfuge) "Andy! My friend with the horses."

Man : "What horses?"

Woman "He used to run the polo stables in Uruguay, now he lives here."

Man: "Andy! Christ, he drinks, right?"

Woman: "He's an expert on wine."

Man: "He can come."

Woman: "I didn't say he was going to bring wine."

Man: "He can bring what he wants, I'm not going to be around."

Woman: "Where are you going?"

Man "There's a thing at the university."

Woman "Maybe we can all come?"

Man (staring hard at his reflection in the polished door) "Maybe."

Article by Michael Holden

Things I hate Pt 7

The devil's vegetable! Horrible big green lump of fuck all...& don't get me started on beetroot...

Things I hate Pt 6

What IS the point??!?

Guardian All Ears 28th June

The temptation to draw a 'Sting' prophylactic was very strong with this one!

I was having a haircut, feeling quite pleased that fortune had provided me with a barber who wasn’t inclined towards small talk when the customer in the next chair suddenly emerged from a hot towel treatment with all kinds of things he wanted to say.

Customer: (nodding towards the radio) “This is The Police, innit?”

Barber: “It is.”

Customer: “Roxanne?”

Barber: “Yup.”

Customer: “Don’t talk to me about this record!”

Barber: (declining to point out that he hadn’t been) “Oh?”

Customer: (animated by his sense of the imminent anecdote’s hilarity) “Fella at work, right? He’s made this Doris on a park bench, at lunch time, and he’s started going out on like, dates with her!”

Barber: Yeah?

Customer: “She called Roxanne! Or that’s what she told him anyway. So to wind him up we start playing this record-Roxanne-over and over again in the office. I tell you, by the end of it he was going nuts. Almost crying he was.”

Barber “Right”

Customer: (changing subject effortlessly) “You ever been to Muay Thai?”

Barber: “No. What is it?”

Customer: The old Thai boxing innit.”

Barber: “Right.”

Customer: “Blood all over the shop.”

Barber: “I’m gonna put another towel over you, ok?”

And like a caged bird, that proved sufficient to silence him.

Article by Michael Holden

Guardian All Ears 14th July

Whoops! Managed to scoop myself by publishing this weeks article with last week's image last week (if that makes sense!?!?!) - here's the article again with the correct image!

Of the many things to admire about New York City its inhabitant's
uninhibited facility for loud public conversations naturally falls
near the top of my list. The simplest excursion will likely lead you
though the edges of endless dramas. Why anybody watches television
here is beyond me. I was eating breakfast when the people across from
me launched into a complex business/wildlife analogy.
Man 1: "It's a tough organization, there are sharks on the bottom, and
Huck is like a great white-he'll eat a rubber tire, and he'll keep
coming at you- not so smart but he'll do anything."
Man 2: "Edna's like the good shark.
The other man pulled a face that said "What do you mean by 'good shark?'"
Man 2: (Trying to bail out) "I mean, the kind of shark that, you
know…not like a great white, the one that floats around. Helping
people…"
Man 1: (Frowning and laughing) "What kind of animal, is this? Where
did you hear about it?"
Man 2: "You know, I mean she's good, Edna."
Waitress (pouring coffee) "You want more coffee?"
Man 2 "What's that, a rhetorical question?"
Waitress: "Ooh, 'rhetorical question.' I'm impressed.'
Man 1: "You should be, he's trying to impress you."
Man 2: (staring into some form of hand held device and considering his
professional existence) "You know I won't even take my blackberry home
with me."
Man 1: "You've drawn a line in the sand."
Man 2 " I'm saying, 'this is where it stops.'"

Man 1 (looking past his friend toward the waitress)"I have so much
admiration for that."

Article by Michael Holden

'Support Your Local Butcher'

Meat! ...just do it!

I love those pictures of really enthusiastic animals who are about to be eaten - there's something extremely disturbing & wrong about that 'pig butcher' on the pork scratchings packet

Guardian All Ears 5th July

If the Guardian can do 'Organic Vegetable' wallcharts for kids with biblical names I figure the Telegraph readers might go a bundle on my Fox Hunting wallchart concept - or am I stereotyping?

I took a seat on a train and was struck by the aristocratic tone of the accents behind me-a rare sound in the modern phonetic landscape, and one that often merits closer investigation. I turned round to see a girl of around 16 sitting with her father, who must have been in his late fifties.

Girl: “You know Rachel?”

Father: (Peering over the top Britain’s only remaining broadsheet) “Hmmm?”

Girl: “She faints, all the time, she doesn’t mean to, but she can’t help it.”

Father: “Yes, I know the kind of thing.”

Girl: (Tugging at the armrest) “Does the seat move?”

Father: “I imagine so.”

Girl: (Struggling with the mechanism) “How though? How?”

Father: “Backwards and forwards, like a car.”

She tipped the seat back and spilt coffee on her jumper

Girl: “It’s stained!”

Father: “How many of those jumpers do you have?”

Girl: (As though this would never be sufficient) “Three.”

Father: (Perhaps considering this excessive) “Hmm”

Girl :(Dabbing at the stain) “I can’t tell what color it should be now, or whether it’s just damp.”

Father: “Well stop rubbing it, or you might find you lose the color completely.”

Girl: (Recovering) “Thanks for coming with me on the train.”

Father: (Animated by her gratitude “Well, we were quite fortunate. Your mother dropped me off at the station last week and I noticed they had some special offers. It worked out about £20m one way.”

Girl: “Is that good?”

Father “It is good.”

‘That’s better than good’, I thought to myself. ‘ It’s cost me three times that amount, you organized bastard.’ I was angry with myself really, but for the next few minutes it was all about them.

Article by Michael Holden

Guardian All Ears 23rd June

Hmmm...had to draw cuckoo clocks in two separate jobs this week...must be something in the air!

In a department store I queued for the till behind two men-colleagues on their lunch break I assumed-who were buying some lamps. As we waited for the lone employee to return from some errand I could see one of the men eyeing the display of clocks on the nearby wall.


Man 1: “My old man’s got a cuckoo clock.”

Man 2: “Eh?”

Man 1: “Yeah, my dad’s got a cuckoo clock.”

Man 2 (baffled): “What like, and a cuckoo actually comes out of it.”

Man 1: “Yeah, the whole deal.”

Man 2: “Had he been to Switzerland or something?”

Man 1 “No, no. He’ll have got it from somewhere in Hull. It’s not even much of a cuckoo. It’s just like a beak that comes out.”

Man 2 “You’ve had a proper look at it then?”

Man 1 “Oh yeah. I was round there with me daughter just after he got it. He says to her, ‘At five O’clock a little bird will come out.’ And I say, ‘It’ll cuckoo five times.’ Anyway, five O’clock comes and the thing goes nuts, keeps coming up, my daughter wants to know what’s going on. Then I’ve realized, it’s on 24 hour whatnot.”

Man 2 “So it’s come out 17 times?”

Man 1 “Aye. But I wanted to be sure. So I waited for an hour to see if it came out 18 times, but my dad said something to me and I lost count.”

Man 2 “So what did you do?”

Man 1 “Well I wasn’t hanging about for another hour, but I figure that must be what’s going on.”

Man 2 “That must drive your dad mental.”

Man 1 “He’s alright. He’s in bed by nine.”

Article by Micheal Holden

Rabbits!

Rabbit strewn Phantasmogoria with a cheeky nod to Ed D Wood - bless his soul!

Guardian Guide June 14th

This week I just wanted to concentrate on the 'dog-on-string-soap-dodger' angle as I've been on the end of so many worthy but absolutely clueless self righteous rants from folk addled on cheap cider & cock awful 'tribal psy-trance' bollocks!

the article follows...

I was in a café sat adjacent to two girls and man in their mid twenties who would once have been described as “crusties,” though they presumably now enjoy some more contemporary title. Either way, matted hair and willful squalor was the overall vibe as they discussed their disappointment following a recent charity event.

Woman 1: (annoyed) “All that money at the gig that they collected they said it was going to Africa, right? That was the whole point.”

Woman 2: “Yeah, that was the whole point, right?”

Man: (quite exited at the thought of some wrongdoing) “No-you’re gonna tell us they nicked it?”

Woman 1: “No, but get this. They flew there on a plane! They got three returns to Africa out of it.”

Woman 2:(sensing something wrong in this but unable to find words to express exactly what) “Wah!”

Woman 1 “Yeah, so they got there and then it turns out they were just taking them art supplies, no food!”

Woman 2 “What, like pens ands things?”

Woman 1 “You know what I’m saying? This is Africa innit, take some tins. Take art supplies but come on, get your priorities sorted, take some food too.”

Man (forming what he evidently assumed was a lucid vision of the mechanics of global charity) “You can imagine the disappointment of the people that are hungry. When those three got off the plane-imagine the kid’s faces. They would be expecting some grains or something, and all they have is like…easels and shit.”

Woman 1 “It’s too much.”

Woman 2 (moving on) “What are you doing later?”

Woman 1 “I’m gonna go on line and look for a trip hop night.”

Man “Nice.”
-

Guardian All Ears 7th June

This week's copy...ruminations on cat indolence...



I arrived at an airport with several hours to spare and having made it to the departure lounge without let or hindrance and not consumed by the urge to buy a foot long Toblerone or try and win a car in a raffle there seemed little else to do but repair to the hideous “pub”. This proved a popular option and soon I was sharing a table with a couple fretting about their abandoned pet.

Man “I hope the cat’s O.K.”

Woman “It’ll be fine.”

Man “I worry about him.”

Woman “ I dunno why, it’s not like he’s gonna get into a trouble, he never does anything when we’re there, I don’t imagine he gets up to much when we’re away.”

Man “You never know…”

Woman “You never know what? You think it’s gonna have some friends over and wreck the place?”

Man “No, I mean…”

Woman “What?”

Man (as though revealing a guilty secret) “They get lonely”

Woman “He’s too lazy to be lonely.”

Man “That’s not fair!”

Woman “The other day I was watching him and he was staring straight at the sun. I couldn’t figure out why an animal would do that and then I thought-perhaps it’s easier than dilating your pupils, perhaps it’s his way of doing even than less than he was doing anyway-which was nothing-just lying on his back looking at the sun in the sky.”

Man “The Egyptians…”

Woman “Don’t even start with the Egyptians, they built the pyramids. You worship a cat and you won’t even put up a shelf.”

Guardian All Ears 31st May

Five Star haven't figured in my imagination for quite a while but this week's copy for 'All Ears' has changed that irrevocably....


I was in a bookshop whose layout made no sense to me, searching for something but not about to ask for any assistance when I noticed a couple talking to one another across a giant display of discounted hardbacks. They spoke so loudly the subtext of their conversation seemed to be ‘Check it out everyone, we’re in a bookshop!’ Perhaps it was their first time.

Woman (leafing through a huge volume of collected British pop facts) “Were Five Star from Britain?”

Man (genuinely surprised) “Are you kidding me?”

Woman (miffed, showing him the book) “Well they’re in here…”

Man (Essex accent becoming more pronounced) “I can’t believe you asked me that, they’re from down my way innit? Romford. ‘System Addict’ that was a tune. When did it come out? ”

Woman (studying the tome) “1986”

Man “Whoah, that’s what, twenty odd years. This is making me feel old now. What was the album?”

Woman (losing interest) “I dunno…they made loads…”

Man (excited) “Silk and Steel! Oh yeah, I had that. What happened to them?”

Woman (annoyed with the lack of further information) “I doesn’t say, this is just lists.”

Man “I remember they moved to a big house. They had a private disco and a fair and all that, like Jacko. Cars, you name it. Except this was in Berkshire maybe, they left Essex, I remember that.”

Woman “Did they have a monkey?”

Man “Not in Berkshire. I don’t think they’re allowed.”

Things I hate Pt 5a

...people who peddle LIES like this

(see 'spiders')