This is all I've got at the moment.
]]>"I don't even know what they were doing there" commented Hodgetts from his hospital bed. "They're meant to be officiating cricket matches, not forcing entry into my workplace and throwing their light meters around. The power accumulated from adjudicating international cricket has clearly gone to their heads".
Illingworth responded through his agent late last night.
"Whatever Mr Hodgetts is saying the conditions were deteriorating quickly and someone was going to get hurt. The meter readings were below zero which explains why the last print Mr Hodgetts attempted missed the t-shirt completely and ended up on the side of a fridge. Given our expertise it wasn't conscionable to stand by and let this happen so Billy Bowden and I called an end to the day's play thereby precipitating an ugly confrontation and aggressive behaviour. Hodgetts refused the order to handover the squeegee and that's when it kicked off".
"We will be recommending that the International Cricket Council take severe action against Mr Hodgetts including a possible ban from printing in the forthcoming tour of South Africa" added Illingworth.
It is unclear where this leaves Me Hodgetts and his Accidental Republic company. Specialising in t-shirts that are variously described by him as "ironic and cool", "unusual and witty" and "true originals", he is left damaged but unbowed in his hospital bed despite suffering from cloudy eyes, severely pulled ears and crushed knackers.
"Somebody needs to reign in these idiots before they start barging into heart bypass operations or school assemblies" he said speaking through a straw.
"These men are used to throwing around their authority but a line needs to be drawn somewhere. I don't know, maybe the line marking the edge of a cricket pitch would be a sensible starting point?"
It's an interesting suggestion that's for sure. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.
A spokesperson for Accidental Republic was refusing to answer fresh revelations last night that they have been suspended from International Tennis tournaments because apparently they don't play tennis.
We are expecting a similar statement from the Professional Golf Association shortly.
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In my case this might be any of the following: screen-printed t-shirts, t-shirts printed by hand, artisan t-shirts, limited edition t-shirts. The problem with using any of these as keywords is that there is lots of competition who make t-shirts in the same way. I need something that marks me out from my competition. So I move to focusing on the content of my designs or jokes as many people call them.
Odd humour t-shirts, strange t-shirts, weird as fuck t-shirts, ham t-shirts, slyly amusing t-shirts, bizarre t-shirts, bad joke t-shirts, Dad joke t-shirts....
This is better but I need to find a wording that is less negative and suggestive of nervous breakdowns. So now I'm onto: unusual and witty t-shirts, unique and cool t-shirts, original and idiosyncratic....blah, blah, blah.
It's torture isn't it? How has the world come to this?
Know your customer everyone is telling me. What are they like? What do they like? The only thing I'm sure about when it comes to my customer base is that they're the ones who get the jokes. I might sell the odd t-shirt to someone who for want of a better argument just likes ham (see "There's only ham" t-shirt fiasco) but these are in a minority. For the most part my customers understand there is a joke or some ironic intent and decide they want to wear it or give to a friend or family member because they think it fits. The joke that is as well as the t-shirt.
Which leaves me with one of the most unwieldy keywords ever: t -shirts for a minority of individuals who understand irony and appreciate the handmade artisan ethic and limited edition culture of Accidental Republic.
For those of you reading this blog and suspecting I've only written it to get more keywords into my website shame on you for your cynicism. I am hurt and disappointed in your lack of faith. It's like I don't even recognize you anymore.
Oh...
]]>There’s been an enormous amount of expectation and industry buzz around the new house move of Bob and Sandra Fortescue and it behoves a serious-minded critic to separate out the myth-making histeria from the facts of the case.
Of course, the Fortescues first came to national attention eight years ago after pulling off an audacious move from an inner-city, high-rise, one bed apartment to a fabulously chic Edwardian terrace in the delightful Cotswolds village of Binton Mosley.
Much was made of the impressive inventory skills that Sandra brought to the project and Bob’s resourcefulness in getting all their Ikea furniture down five flights of stairs sustaining only minimal damage to a sideboard and his shins. A reporter from the local newspaper records the word “bollocks” being used at least a dozen times. It is exactly this type of ‘colour’ that made the move so notorious.
Sandra’s sister Bethany served sandwiches and hot drinks throughout the day and Bob’s brother Dave drove the van. Conveyancing by Trevor Denton.
The difficult second move, two years later, to a near-derelict lighthouse in Dumfries received more mixed reviews. “Bordering on the nonsensical” declared The Scottish Bugle’s ferocious editorial, characterising the move as “a monumental folly by a couple of profound idiots”.
The Times Educational Supplement, traditionally more open to radical departures, saw it very differently:
“For followers of the form, this latest move from Bob and Sandra Fortescue is tantamount to a kind of free-form jazz. Rather than taking the easy path of repeating an early and much heralded success, they have opted for something altogether off-the-wall, dangerous, and dare I say it, improvisatory. Not one of us saw it coming. Bravo!”
The official records detail physical aspects of the move were managed by Stan Collins and Sons in their customary forthright and unfussy manner. Sandra provided snacks and Bob supervised the demolition of a shed. A piano and a ladies bicycle were lost in transit. Four dinner plates and a gravy boat failed to survive the journey.
Lee Macenzie was the agent (useless) and Margaret Wilkes did the legal work.
Debate has raged ever since about whether the Fortescues are the so-called “real deal” as their supporters maintain or a couple who in the words of The Telegraph’s Senior Lifestyle Critic, Ben Silvers, “got lucky once, hit it out of the park with no idea how they did it or how they might do it again”. Savage stuff.
Much then was riding on this latest move, especially given strong rumours that if all goes well, the Fortescues might be considered for a call-up to the United Kingdom squad for the upcoming European Championships, a meteoric rise for a couple who have only recently turned professional.
This move into the professional ranks coincided with, and indeed was made possible by, an exclusive television rights deal with Sky. The latest switch - to a spacious houseboat moored in the Thames Estuary - was broadcast live to the nation last weekend and received an astonishing four million viewers which suggests the Fortescues have a glittering career ahead of them.
From the offset, it has to be granted that Sandra looked fabulous. Wearing an off-the-shoulder Karl Lagerfield taffeta gown in deep magenta with matching shoes by Marc Jacobs she drew audible gasps from the men unplugging the dishwasher. There could be no mistaking the new artistic direction, especially when compared to the previous house move which Mrs Fortescue conducted in a Diadora tracksuit and wellies.
Bob was wearing a petrol-blue morning suit by Stella McCartney with brogues from Charles Taylor. Lilac cravat by Paul Smith. Sausage and egg sandwiches by Big Phil (breakfast bar, layby of A455).
The big dramatic moment came at 3.20pm when Sandra confronted Bob about where the cat was. With the action beginning at the top of the lighthouse and then continuing through the rest of the building it was an impressively staged tour de force which was photographed superbly by multiple Bafta winner Roger Deakins. Key grip was Barbara Mendel.
As we’ve come to expect from the Fortescues, the dialogue was snappy and at times profane. Sandra’s exasperation was beautifully played although this reviewer felt Bob’s performance was a little overwrought and possessed of a neurotic intensity that wasn’t justified. According to sources, he didn’t even like the cat.
Additional dialogue by Tom Stoppard. Choreography: Lisa Odell.
The journey of household goods was undertaken by Malcolm Turner Logistics.
A curtain pole was bent out of shape and a lamp shade was perforated.
Three hats, all of them Bobs’, went missing. The cat was never found.
On the balance of reviews already in, there seems to be a wide and popular consensus that the houseboat move is a clever and entertaining piece of business. The kitchen located in the bowels of the boat is rather cramped and dark but the main living area more than makes up for it with a surprising airy nonchalance. The plumbing in the bathroom is very romantic and the bedrooms express an endearing wholesomeness bordering on the ironic. Cupboards positioned either side of the engine room offer impressive storage space and unlimited opportunities for criminal activity.
The Swindon Chronicle was ecstatic. “It takes the breath away, this latest jaunt by the Fortescues. There is an undeniable recklessness to their talent which adds a whiff of danger to everything they do”.
“A triumph!” shouted the Doncaster Examiner, “surely an international call-up is now a formality”.
Even the normally sober and august trade publication What Move Monthly could barely contain itself hailing the duo as “the undisputed new darlings of the house-moving scene”.
Given the critical hallelujahs it may prove difficult for the Fortescues to keep their feet on the ground and there will surely be added pressure now to perform house moves on a more regular basis. Three a year has been suggested by some agents. For the time being, however, Bob and Sandra maintain that they won’t be moving for the sake of it and that they will be bringing the same intensity and authenticity to all their subsequent outings.
Let’s hope this outstanding couple can resist the obvious commercial temptations put before them and are given time to develop into the property-switching game-changers they are capable of being. They have the potential, and I do not say this lightly, of moving just about anywhere, Hall of Fame included.
]]>As everyone knows conventional cheese is produced using the milk of cows and/or other animals but it is more than a natural product. It is a collaboration between humans and beasts using processes established by generations. We don't just find it tucked inside a cow ready to eat. Bacteria needs to be added. It needs to be carefully cultured. Cheese is by definition a cultured thing. It is inevitable that ideas and numerous other things will fall into the vat.
No surprise then that all of the cheeses I've enjoyed over the years have contained traces of the most refined elements of our shared history and traditions. Some of them are blatant in this tendency to summon up lazy idyllic days spent by the river, others offer up their references less willingly and it might take a while but keep chewing that Queso Iberico and it is inevitable that your thoughts will turn to finding a windmill to tilt up against.
I've had Orkney Extra Mature Cheddar that had so much structure to it there was no way it could have been attempted without the inspiration of modernist architects such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. The way in which the sharp bite of this cheddar is suspended until the final denouement also put me in mind of Hitchcock at his most manipulatively obtuse.
Who can forget the great Blue Stilton Truckle releases of the 1970's? A cheese that had so much narrative intensity that angry mobs started descending on the tiny village of Colston Bassett to demand the latest hair-raising instalment. It is surely no coincidence that the great visionary Russian film-maker Andrie Tarkovsky used to spread this delicacy on his sandwiches.
Even milder cheeses that haven't risen to the meaningful heights of those mentioned above - say a Wensleydale or a Double Gloucester - contain unmistakable whispers of rural folk getting increasingly annoyed by Londoners buying up second properties in the area and consequently ruining the local pub. It is there in the nutty aftertaste.
Which brings me to the bizarre cheese I encountered last week. The branding and packaging should have prepared me better for the shock but somehow it didn't. Meaningless Cheese™ looked just like many other cheeses. It was yellow and cut into a wedge. It was curiously un-smelly but I knew that wasn't necessarily an indicator. But on putting it in my mouth.....nothing. Not a thing. Just absence. It left me feeling flat and lifeless. What is the point of this? Of me? Of anything?
I might as well go and crash my car into a tree I thought.
But just as I was revving up the engine a rogue thought entered my head. Hold on a second...what if...what if?
Could it be that Meaningless Cheese™ was some kind of avant garde cheese-disguised intervention meant to brutally ridicule the notion of finding meaning in 2020 Britain and indeed the world?
Is it less of a culinary and cultural catastrophe and more of a meta-ironic slap in the face in the manner of dialectical theatre impresario Bertolt Brecht?
My head was spinning with possibilities. Everything seemed up for grabs. And then I read the small print on the product's packaging.
It turns out that Meaningless Cheese™ is made from a herd of cows who get all their information about the world from the Daily Express.
They are therefore phenomenally disinterested in anything apart from the unexplained circumstances of Princess Diana's death.
They just stare into the void producing milk that can't be made interesting whatever you do to it.
It is no good to anyone.
It's all their fault.
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Well, apart from the G4S characterisation, I'm here to inform you this is all complete nonsense.
There are several reasons why I haven't been writing regular blogs none of which have anything to do with stealing fishcakes from the local Spar (Daily Express) or counterfeiting fake Matalan store cards (The Mirror).
To begin with I've moved house at least twice since I last blogged. The disruption this causes has been profound not least because in all the confusion I lost the website. I don't know how this happened because I remember writing "WEBSITE" clearly on the outside of the box but these things happen. Of course I am being deliberately mischievous here. I didn't really lose the website. I just lost the passwords to access the website. I also lost my computer into which I put the password. I'm not a complete idiot!
The other important thing to remember is that I am not one of these artists who carefully nurtures their originality by avoiding the work of other creatives. Just the opposite. I have spent the past summer immersing myself in several brilliant books, the very best of was Milkman by Anna Burns and Everything Under by Daisy Johnson, both of which are stunning literary achievements, treating language like a bunch of wobbly notes emanating from the bendiest of guitars.
https://accidentalrepublic.com/products/hank-panache-bendy-guitar-poster
I attended some amazing gigs including Lucinda Williams in Birmingham and Edwyn Collins in Manchester. As is now custom I went to the Green Man festival in the Brecon Beacons, taking the Accidental Republic bandwagon on its annual jaunt. Although I didn't get to see/hear much in the way of bands at the festival - such are the demands of running a superstore - I did catch sets by the marvellous Tiny Ruins and Hand Habits. I also caught the very end of Sharon Van Etten's performance on the main stage. Fittingly she was singing her lovely ditty "Every time the sun comes up I'm in trouble" which has become my perfect morning song ever since I acquired diabetes. That is a joke about unmanaged sugar levels in my blood for anybody who didn't quite get it.
Talking of people not getting it, I ran the numbers at Green Man this year (which means I just made it up based on how I was feeling) and the indifferent/bemused/bewildered camp now stands at about 85%. Anyone who considers themselves part of the Accidental Republic contingency are definitely a discriminating minority. Having said this, there is a heart-warming fervour displayed by my crowd best exemplified by the slightly drunk fella remonstrating to me that "I don't even buy bloody t-shirts!" whilst wearing 'Why is my Life Happening To Me' in a black tencel jersey with blue print.
https://accidentalrepublic.com/products/why-is-my-life-happening-to-me-shirt
Incidentally, this may well have been my last festival outing as a big part of doing it was having a crazy adventure with my son every year and he is now of an age where the stardust of watching his dad trying to erect a rusty clothing rail, whilst swearing like a character in a Tarantino film, has finally started to wear off.
I'm not sure yet what this means for the future of the Republic as the summer festival was always the badminton net over which the shuttlecocks of my mind were launched and visibly received. Securing a pitch at these festivals is also eye-wateringly expensive making it one of the most overpriced badminton nets I've ever seen. I either need to source a new reasonably priced badminton net or transform the business into more of a swing-ball model, a game I can play on my own, in the quiet of my own back yard, not bothering anyone else with the exception of neighbours close enough to hear all my sweary complaints.
One of things I hate most in the world is product placement. All of those annoyingly straight-faced column inches masquerading as honest content when all along it is nothing but a blatant exercise in sleight of hand marketing and purposeful befuddlement. Apart from anything else it's insulting to think that anyone would fall for it. Especially in the run up to Christmas and the gift-giving season. They must think we're a bunch of mugs or something.
https://accidentalrepublic.com/products/accidental-republic-enamel-mug
I have to stop now because its time for my yard exercise.
Until next time.
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https://accidentalrepublic.com/products/stand-up-for-cats-shirt-mens
The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed a slightly different look to our website. That is because much work has been going-on by our technical team led by Mr Hawkins (he is the team, there's no one else) to move the site to a different location on the internet with better views. As you can imagine this is easier said than done but Old Hawkins who likes nothing better than laughing in the face of technical challenges took hold of the tablecloth that was underpinning the old site and snatched it off without disturbing a single piece of cutlery or glassware. Such is his gimlet-eyed expertise and flair for misdirection, not even one customer looked up from eating their dinners. A Royal Variety Performance surely beckons.
All that remains apparently is to call in 3 or 4 big fellas who can rotate the new site so it points exactly at our customers. According to Hawkins this might take a few goes.
Now cats have been added to the galleries of my collection the full list of animals reads as thus: horses, elephants, beavers, bunnies, squirrels, otters, fish, alligators, mouses, birds, monkeys and apes and now mogs. Bearing this impressive menagerie in mind it is worth relating an encounter I had with a potential customer at Green Man festival earlier this summer. After looking carefully at all the wares on my store she turned to me with a slightly disappointed look and asked "I don't surprise you've got anything with camels on have yer?"
She seemed in earnest but....you have to wonder.
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Columbo, who is rumoured to be 103 years of age will take over the role from 79 year old David Dimbleby in September. The appointment is widely seen as a surprise move by the BBC who had been under pressure from critics to install a female candidate in the role for the first time.
Kirsty Wark, who had been touted by many as a serious contender for the position, described the news as “very disappointing”.
“Given all the recent controversy over the pay gap at the BBC and the under-valuing of women in our profession, this would have been the perfect time to make some redress by appointing a woman to this role. Instead, the Corporation have chosen yet again to go with an even older white man than the one who was already in place. It is especially disappointing that the new Question Time presenter is a fictional character” said Ms Wark in a statement released to the press.
The BBC have defended the decision citing Columbo’s demonstrable track record of getting his questions in, even when the interviewee has clearly had enough. Director General Tony Hall said he was looking forward to a new era of the programme where politicians would no longer “get away with murder” in their responses.
Hall, was initially impressed by the Lieutenant’s forensic questioning after meeting him at a dinner party. “He asked me where I bought my shoes which I found quite disarming and before I knew it I’d offered him the Today Programme and a salary of 4.5 million pounds”.
“It turned out Columbo couldn’t commit to a three-hour morning radio slot as it would be a long time to keep his basset hound waiting in the car. We compromised on Question Time which is only an hour long and less onerous for the dog” said Hall.
The pay unit at the Corporation who are famous for their hard-nosed intransigence are reported to have offered Columbo 7.2 million pounds for an hour’s work a week.
Columbo speaking on the phone from Los Angeles was said to be delighted with the deal.
“It’s a great honour to be offered this very important role on Question Time. My wife is a huge fan. She loves it. Watches it all the time. She’s gonna be very excited when she hears about this”.
In a related but unexpected development David Dimbleby has agreed to take over Lieutenant Columbo’s job at the LAPD Homicide Unit.
The move has been criticised by the group Black Lives Matter as “a bewildering development”.
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I had a dream the other night that our planet was visited by some very middle-class aliens who were unfailingly polite until they discovered half-price avocados at Waitrose. Then it all kicked off. It was a bloodbath.
For a while now I’ve been putting off scrubbing some old screens and making new ones up as it seems wrong to destroy what I presume to be perfectly good work. On the other hand, thinking rationally, it makes sense to make room for new ideas and new work by removing the old.
This is what creative renewal and keeping sheds clutter free is all about. What I hadn’t anticipated when i started this company was how attached I’d get to the actual screens and the designs on them. Some of them feel like old friends. Admittedly the sort of friends who are always letting you down and defying your expectations. Like bad pets or surly kids. I loved them nevertheless. And now they are gone. No more ‘Inner Baboons’ or ‘Fishes on a bike’. No longer will have the pleasure of ‘Middle-class bus’ or ‘Elephant in the Room’.
On the plus side it means I now have a new raft of designs to fill my screens with. Stuff I have been promising but not delivering. ‘Otter Stupidity’ for instance will soon be making its grand entrance. ‘Why is my Life Happening To Me’ is waiting impatiently in the wings. ‘Wet T’Shirt Competition Winner 2018’, ‘Jesus was a Carpenter’. It’s a veritable rosta of instant classics! What I’m trying to say is that I am actually doing some work here instead of being paralysed by indecision. Now I’m bracing myself for the inevitable “we preferred his early work” comments that will undoubtedly come my way. And if you do say this, I won’t believe you. Remember, I have the sales figures to back it up.
My teenage son like many teenagers spends a huge amount of time on You-Tube chuckling away at inanities. In an attempt to broker a new dynamic in the father-son relationship I suggested we should collaborate on making a You-Tube video. He leapt at the idea and insisted on filming me as we went on a walk. He asked me lots of questions about my business which I answered with great wit and wisdom. Then he edited out all of the intelligence and posted the following video online. Apparently, his school mates all think it’s hilarious.
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I can see there is logic in this advice but there are dangers too. For stories – as marvellous as they can be – can also be structures that limit and even imprison us. They bind us to a time-based commitment often making unwelcome calls on our concentration and focus when we haven’t even bought a ticket. For instance this morning in the shower I became aware that my soap of choice is apparently “so tempting, even angels will fall for its heavenly masculinity”. It troubles me that someone wrote that and that I had to suffer reading it. This sort of bollocks-talk is everywhere now and surely we have a responsibility at the very least not to make the problem worse.
I find myself yearning for a time when it was possible to buy a loaf of bread without having to discover the inside-leg measurement of the artisan baker responsible and how he needs to be repeatedly tickled to achieve an even distribution of sesame seeds on his delicious baps. Am I alone in caring little for the detail that the flour arrived from Venezuela by speedboat that very morning? Does this make me bad person?
There’s a particular deli that I attended recently owned by the inevitable young and yummy couple (made of gingerbread I think) where I was subjected to exactly the same stories about exactly the same products as I had been the previous week. “This bread is made by the brother-in-law of Poldark’s cousin…blah blah blah.” In went on like this for a while until I noticed I had fallen asleep next to a horse.
I had revisited the shop a week later in the naïve expectation that the stories would be different or would have developed somewhat from the first time but this wasn’t the case and it was impossible to leave without hearing the whole thing out again. “Let the other customers go” I bravely suggested. “They’re just women and children for gods sake. Tell me about the Spanish Omelette. I want to hear to about it….”
Unfortunately no one got out of the shop without getting the whole production which is presumably why they have a bolt on the door. This kind of hostage situation is fast becoming the prevailing orthodoxy in such outlets where every product is weighed down by levels of significance not seen since Umberto Eco wrote The Name of the Rose.
“Its only a piece of bloody cheese”. I want to shout. “Just hand over the fucking cheese!”
So what I am saying about stories is that we seem to have travelled from a refreshing premise – that stories can inform and enliven our transactional activities – to a point where the idea has effectively wrestled control of the steering wheel and is so busy ransacking the glove compartment for Murray Mints it hasn’t noticed how sick everyone is feeling in the back seats.
Given that this is the unholy mess we find ourselves in, a world where a person can’t even enjoy a shower without being bedevilled by the most gruesome inanities, how must a good person be compelled to act? In this bloodbath of scrotal meaningless is it acceptable to pick up our guns and fire more bullets into the fray?
This is the mighty question we must ask ourselves. But not before I’ve written this one.
]]>Anyway to cut a long story short, it hurt. A lot. And naturally I told everyone I knew about it. At length. And some people I don’t know also. But when on the odd occasion the person I was telling summoned up enough interest to enquire about the nature of the pain I had, I struggled to explain it. The trouble is, I realised, is that we just don’t have the vocabulary for it. Beyond the solitary outliers of ‘dull’ or ‘sharp’, I might as well be whistling like Roger Whittaker or performing a contemporary dance routine.
It plainly isn’t good enough. Which is why I’ve come up with an ingenious solution to the problem. Here at last is a means to communicate the full spectrum of sensory pain using our common knowledge of cinematic baddies from the Hollywood Golden Age. Instead of casting around for words that don’t show up, cast some actors instead!
As an example case, on twisting my ankle in a ditch I can describe the feeling of slight nausea and panic as “a bit Richard Widmark in The Bedford Incident”. A searing, immobilising spasm in your back would be “I can’t come in to work today, I’m being held hostage by Lee Marvin in Bad Day at Black Rock”. From the same film (which contains a thrilling array of evil swines) you could choose from an Ernest Borgine cricked neck or a Robert Ryan burst appendix. Excellent stuff.
The beauty of the scheme is that it allows one to scale up the intensity (from a snide and snivelling Peter Lorre up to the full grinning horror of a Jack Palance) should the medication not be forthcoming.
Now as brilliant as this all this I can already hear all those critics who enjoy nothing more than shooting pregnant ideas-geese out of the sky. It won’t work they will say because other people – especially NHS staff – don’t have the time to familarise themselves with lots of old films from the 40’s and 50’s. Doctors and nurses, they will say, already have to study years to acquire the essential knowledge that enables them to diagnose and address a multitude of symptoms and ailments. The last thing they need is to add another two years on to their training for Film Studies with particular weighting given to the Film Noir sub genre.
Well if it’s too much trouble for doctors and nurses to really understand what their patients are going through, if they aren’t sufficiently bothered to recognise a discolouration on someone’s arse as resembling Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter, then its a very Burt Lancaster (in The Killers) state of affairs so it is. The medical profession needs to take a long hard look at itself in my opinion and hope it doesn’t see James Mason looking back out of the mirror.
I have to stop now as I’m getting a bit of Barbara Stanwyck wrist cramp. Ouch.
]]>Be it contemplating how difficult it is to prize a lid off a jar of jam, achieve the precise balance between teabag, water, milk and sugar in the perfect cup of tea or deliver a headshot to a member of the Taliban with a high velocity rifle at a distance of 250 yards, these truth-sayers uncannily have a way of bringing any everyday task back to the old JC. On reflection what’s surprising is not the way in which they are reminded of Jesus as much as their tendency to be reminded. They must be forgetting about him all the bloody time.
This forgetful tendency goes at least some way to explain the Catholic Church’s collective response to allegations of child abuse by the clergy. Just a thought. For the day.
Talking of which have you noticed how many organisations, when confronted by stories of complicity in evil and wrong-doing are taking to announcing investigations into themselves. Be it political parties, football clubs or the Met Police, the latest trend is for official spokespeople to affect dismay and express an unflinching commitment to hunt out the truth with a frenzy not seen since we saw Ed Balls on Strictly Come Dancing.
Imagine if individuals started behaving in a similar fashion. If Gerald responded to an accusation by his wife Mavis that the previous night he had drunk eleven pints of beer by saying “This is deeply concerning. I’m going to get to the bottom of this by launching an enquiry into my actions of last night, starting right here by analysing why this lampshade is on my head”.
It wouldn’t inspire confidence would it. Even if he added: “Make no mistake. My determination to seek answers is such that I am now deputising my right hand to take the necessary steps to discover what my left hand was doing between the hours of 8pm and 2am and why find out why there are traces of Wotsits on my fingers”.
As I write this the carnival of Christmas-time is vomiting down upon us and I find myself engulfed by seasonal headlocks and festive sing-a-longs. In fact, I can’t step outside of my front door at the moment without finding myself caught up in alcohol fuelled choirs, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas or violent street mobs setting fire to things.
I hate people who refuse to enjoy Christmas, choosing to express my hostility by forcing sherry trifles through their letterboxes and slamming mince pies into their ears. Bastards! What is their problem.
Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill to all of us and if we let a few miserable gits opt out it just doesn’t work anymore. So don’t let them. Smear their faces with brandy butter! Bombard their conservatories with pork pies and sausage rolls! If you see them in the street not wearing a jaunty pair of antlers feel free to punch them repeatedly in the face.
Because people who don’t see the utter loveliness of Christmas and instead focus only on what they see as negative – the Michael McIntyre Christmas Specials, excessive and unsustainable levels of consumption and gluttony, blocked drainage systems, David Walliams – they don’t deserve our respect or our love.
When it comes to Christmas the fact is THEY LOST.
If they don’t like it they should leave the country.
At Chez Accidental Republic, I for one will be celebrating a traditional family Christmas of rich food, fine wines, paper hats, Bing Crosby, the Queen’s Speech, Irish country dancing and bare-knuckle boxing. Although I’m personally a little squeamish about the hyper-consumption levels of recent years I will be gutted if I don’t wake up to a new speedboat and diamond-encrusted egg timer.
We will probably take in one of those feel-good festive movies after dinner – the sort of thing that leaves you feeling all fuzzy and hopeful inside. Bad Lieutenant is my Mom’s pick because she always tries to model herself on Harvey Keitel. We all think it’s funny because in reality she’s the spitting image of Burt Lancaster.
As the New Year beckons I will soon be taking the opportunity to unveil an exciting new rosta of Accidental Republic tees and accessories. I’m developing a range of shirts targeted at those people who aren’t easily able to express emotions. Men is other words. Hey presto! The new shirts will do the heavy lifting ! Fear, Dread, Shame, Regret. I’ll have all the bases covered!
Until then, such sentiments will have to go tragically unexpressed and the silence around the table will hang heavy in the air as it always has done. Like a rancid cloud of intangible restlessness it will lurk menacingly in the space above your paper hat glorying in the lack of any eye contact or common understanding.
Happy Christmas then.
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HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE RISE OF THE APES? Urghh!
(Insert your own Brexit joke here. I can’t be bothered to make it myself).
When those amazing documentaries about apes running our planet first aired most of the excitable commentary and chat was perhaps understandably fixated on their hyper-aggressive attitudes towards humans and also Charlton Heston. No one in their right mind would complain about that. But what was missing after all the predictable fuss about them riding horses and raiding the wardrobes of David Essex and Gary Numan had dissipated was a necessary focus on some of the consequences of their ascendency: namely, the amount of ape housework that suddenly needed doing. It might be curtains for the human race but curtains as we all know don’t clean themselves.
Now at last these fascinating matters are the subject of a blistering new film. The Planet of the Aprons is a high-octane thriller about the annoying domestic chores that will inevitably fall to the species that replace us.
Focusing on one particular ape (Gerald) and his struggles to run a dry cleaning business at the same time as keeping his two-bedroom apartment spick and span, he begins to pine for his old compound back at MonkeyWorld where all he had to worry about was getting to the swing-tyre before Bozo every morning. “Life under the humans was humiliating” he laments to himself, “what with never having a shit that wasn’t video recorded by hundreds of gaping idiots. But at least we never had to clean up after ourselves. Those were the salad days”.
Will Gerald get his old life back? Is he on his own thinking such treacherous thoughts or are there others like him, other hairy lazy arses tired of cleaning out the bath?
The Planet of the Aprons is at a cinema near you shortly.
And even if it isn’t you can still get t-shirts and tea towels featuring Gerald doing some hoovering because Accidental Republic cares about you having access to the best of things. Coming soon..
On the indignity of it all.
The other morning I fell out of my car. It isn’t what you’re thinking. It was stationary at the time. I’d just turned up to work and my feet got tangled up as I attempted to get out the vehicle, thereby precipitating a ridiculous and prolonged stumble across the tarmac. Avoiding a full collapse by skilfully impersonating a deranged Michael Flatley in reverse I finally corrected myself about six metres from where I started and had to walk back to the car to retrieve my belongings, all the time surveying the local environs to ensure no one had witnessed this bizarre piece of slapstick. I think I got away with it.
I’ve since had the thought – probably inspired by watching the gymnastics from the Rio Olympics – that gymnasts routinely dismount their chosen apparatus (be it parallel bars, or pommel horses) by the technique of triple twisting somersaults with a half tuck and painted on smile and if they somehow fail to land on the head of a pin they get deducted an outrageous amount of marks. It occurred to me that in the context of this athletic prowess my car-park stumble was especially disappointing. I don’t know where it leaves me but it’s certainly out of the medals.
The reason this is so difficult for me is that I used to be an unusually graceful sports person myself. And there was a time – a considerable amount of decades even – after ceasing to play sports when I carried this efficiency of movement and yes, grace is not too strong a word, through my everyday practices and routines. I was, though I say it myself, a veritable David Gower putting my socks on in the morning, an Eric Cantona putting out the bins. And now it’s come to this. Falling out of stationary cars like I’m auditioning for the part of Jacques Tati in a remake.
Life is cruel and then some.
]]>If you stand in front of such a shop wearing your freshly laundered Accidental Republic t-shirt and notice the shirt’s reflection fits nicely into the arrangement of existing items then we could be in business. Don’t delay. Tell us about it! Any tip-offs that lead to something will be handsomely rewarded with a t-shirt of your choice and a virtual key to our website’s VIP restroom once it’s been mopped out.
When we were at Green Man Festival a middle-aged man burst into our stall at a ferocious pace. “Have you got anything with sleeves?” he asked. “Yes” my mate Rich answered quick as a flash. “We do sweatshirts. I’ll show you the designs we have…”
“I’m not worried about that” interrupted the customer. “I’ll take an extra large”.
Richard passed the man a beautifully-crafted ‘Things Just Occur’ sweatshirt in a subtle navy with a vibrant yellow print. As the man roughly pulled the sweaty over his head and down to meet his jeans he handed-over the twenty-five notes without once looking at the garment in question.
“Fits all right” he announced before running off back into the festival melee.
“That was an easy sell” I commented, forever giving it large on the understatement.
“Wasn’t exactly discriminating was he?” said Rich.
I reflected on this momentarily. “You’re right. He might as well have said ‘Do you have any of those pieces of cotton with holes in that you can put your head and arms through to keep you warm?'”
“You should have had a tantrum and told him you’re an artist and shouldn’t be treated like that” said Rich.
I nodded wryly congratulating myself on my even temperament and started wondering on the man’s lived experience of the festival. No doubt he would have listened to some of that noise that people with guitars make and eaten some of that food that people with funny hats spoon into cartons and drank some of that bronze coloured liquid that people kept putting into his glass when he gave them coins. As for the people he came to the festival with he has absolutely no fucking idea who they were.
The problem if you haven’t noticed it is that things just aren’t funny. Intrinsically funny that is. Which means that people like me have to make a tremendous effort to make them so. How much easier it would be if things were just funny by themselves. Then, all people like me would have to do is read out lists of the funny things: “elasticated trousers”, “bassoons”, “some cheeses”. It would be so easy!
My faith in this feeling was briefly shaken a few months back when the story of Boaty MacBoatface was briefly in the news. For those of you who don’t know already this was the story of a public poll being conducted to find a name for a new vessel about to set forth on an expedition to the Antarctic. A member of the public with a subversive streak put forward the name of Boaty MacBoatface and the British public quickly weighed in behind him eschewing all the other sensible and no doubt redoubtable suggestions. Maybe the world is funny after all I thought to myself chuckling at the BBC Six O’clock news bulletin. But just as the boat was going to be confirmed with this splendidly absurd moniker, the brother of Boris Johnson (some low lying minister of something or other – who’d have guessed?) stepped in to ensure it didn’t happen. He pulled rank and instead christened the boat after Sir David Attenborough, making sure that everyone knew how amused he’d been and how he’d definitely got the joke and just loved it so much, it was brilliant but that er, it couldn’t happen for reasons that only proper grown ups would understand.
Boaty was a brilliant prospect but the world isn’t supposed to be funny intrinsically. Not in the open like that. Certainly not on the open seas where seaman from other nations would presumably laugh at the boat going past them. We can all agree funny has its place in the world but it isn’t on the side of boats in international waters flying a Union Jack. This particular funny clearly fell into an even more dangerous category than normal. It wasn’t just funny. It was too funny. And by that I mean it was obviously funny. It wasn’t remotely difficult to laugh at it.
Apparently that won’t do. Because laughs have to earned in the same way as kit-kats and pints of beer. With blood, sweat and tears in other words. Comedians presumably know this better than anyone else. It hurts to think up jokes and hurts again (in different ways) to share them. My son tells me it also hurts to hear them but I’m not sure that’s relevant to this discussion.
In my more idle moments when the effort of being constantly hilarious has overwhelmed me – I look squarely at the painfully unfunny, unreceptive world and say to myself “why do I piggin’ bother?”
My jokes leaves as small an impact on the world as to be negligible. As soon as they’re spoken they evaporate into the air like farts at a party, leaving a similar vista of appalled faces in their wake.
And in a few months time as a group of Icelandic fisherman gather to watch the big British boat glide past them and one of them points to the words ‘Sir David Attenborough” inscribed onto the side and bursts out laughing his mates will look at him disparagingly because they understand something he doesn’t. It just isn’t funny. That’s the problem.
In the run up to summer 2017 summon up all your audio playing devices and start playing five very different pieces of music at the same time achieving the affect of an indigestible aural soup that invades and occupies your head with all the maddening effects of actually being stuck in Hollyoaks. (Devised by Phil Redmond it says here).
Remember to tie your stall to the ground with guide ropes. Otherwise it will blow away when you are serving a customer, thereby leaving you no access to brown paper bags with the words Accidental Republic stamped on the side.
When your stall does blow away run after it before considering what a bad omen it is. That can be done later with the assistance of beer.
Don’t under any circumstances go to Wilderness Festival again. It is not a Wilderness, except of the moral and spiritual vacuum kind. It is rather a contrived chicken run upon which entitled hedonistic idiots get glittered up and run amok like characters from Hollyoaks but with posher accents. The Governor of the Bank of England was only one of four decent people I met there. The others were from the band Mik Artistic whose booking to play the festival must have been a calamatous clerical error as they were properly witty and terrific human beings. Oh and there was a nanny whose job it was was to look after someone else’s kids because it was in the morning. The kids were feral. I felt sorry for her.
Own a van that doesn’t break down five times on the way to Womad (urgent). It is important to get to Womad as the people there (all of them so it seems) are bloody lovely.
Take some food with you as there won’t be food available until the festival opens and then you won’t have to beg the stall next door for some of their food. Thanks to the Dumplings people – you were very kind to us. By the way I’m diabetic you know. It was an emergency.
Don’t go to festivals in the British Summer Time. The weather makes you look silly.
Waterproof the stall.
]]>When the mysterious customer edged closer to examine my ‘V.I.P reserved rail’ at the back of the stall, I made my move.
“People probably say this to you all the time but you look just like the Governor of the Bank of England”.
He smiled to himself before answering in a low but confident voice “That’s because I am the Governor of the Bank of England”.
“That’ll be why you look like him then” I cleverly observed.
“Yes” he said, accepting the salience of my point.
It started to make me wonder what things would be like if Mark Carney didn’t look like the Governor of the Bank of England. He would have enormous difficulty getting into his office every day instigating unseemly and unprecedented wrestling matches in the Bank of England’s foyer. Nobody wants the man in charge of setting the country’s interest rates to begin each working day in painful arm-holds and headlocks. “This bastard is going nowhere” shouts Garth the doorman with his knee in the small of Carney’s back barely ten minutes before an important statement is due on the Third Quarters’ lower than expected growth rates.
It would also be disorientating for the assembled ranks of the media if Carney actually made it to the Press Conference and started speaking. Why is this man speaking into the Bank of England’s microphone they would ask. Is he testing the sound system? And the end of Carney’s brilliant and devastatingly insightful speech he would invite questions and only one would emerge: “Where is the Governor of the Bank of England?” they would ask. Embarrassing.
Luckily none of that is the case and Mark Carney looks every inch the current Governor of the Bank of England. He chose the Che Guevara ‘Touche’ t-shirt in a fetching red with black print. As we did the money thing I turned on my famous charm.
“Do you get recognised a lot” I asked him, hinting at my brilliant powers of detection.
“It depends whether I’ve been in the news lately” he answered.
“I see” I said sharing a small of moment of empathy about the lack of privacy in his life.
Five minutes later some slimy fart pretending not to be working for the Mail on Sunday came into the shop and fooled me into imparting key information about my exchange with the Governor. A story duly appeared the next day in that disgusting shit stream of a news rag commenting upon Carney’s ‘bizarre’ purchase of a t-shirt celebrating revolutionary socialist Che. Of course they missed the point. It wasn’t celebrating one Che. It was celebrating two Che! And it took the man in charge of the country’s counting to notice.
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“If you think about it. What else is there?”
I perhaps ought to give some context to this insight. She had been ruminating on providing packed lunches and this was her conclusion. I must have looked a bit puzzled so she added. “No it’s right though isn’t it? If you think about it, what else is there?”
I looked across the room to see what my brother was making of this statement and to my surprise he was nodding along in agreement. It appeared to be just me who thought this was a strange thing to say.
“Do you take packed lunches to work?” I asked my brother.
He nodded.
“And what do you have on your sandwiches?”
He thought a moment and answered “Fishpaste”.
I was on my own in thinking this was funny. Maybe I still am.
I ought to explain that my mom has some serious form when it comes to delivering bizarre bon mots. Years ago she was bemoaning the absence of a nice girl in my brother’s life when she added: “I don’t understand why you haven’t got a girlfriend because you have some lovely jackets”.
I thought this was hilarious until realising the full implications of the remark. She didn’t think it remotely surprising that I didn’t have a girlfriend. After doing a quick audit of my wardrobe i realised why. My jackets were plainly rubbish. It was a sobering episode to discover the cold hard truth of this particular cause and effect. It was a kind of family science this logic. No wonder I struggled so much in my biology classes.
Much is made of the so-called wisdom of elders but it does depend on who your elders are. It’s one thing, I imagine, to grow up with someone like Carl Sagan or Nelson Mandela as your homely sage and another to be surrounded by wrinkly old crackpots who announce with deadpan sincerity “There’s only ham”.
At the risk of making my t-shirt business so niche that only I understand it watch out for my new “Only ham” commemorative t-shirt. Out soon!
]]>A few weeks ago a well-meaning friend of mine bought me a bunch of flowers to cheer me up. I was naturally puzzled but decided to give it a go. Unfortunately the flowers did nothing to cheer me up. I watched them intently. In truth the whole idea perplexed me. How could they cheer me up? They were flowers slowly dying in a vase.
After a week she enquired “Did those flowers cheer you up?”
“No” I said.
In fact they made me feel worse because they made me realise something in me was missing. The part that is supposed to be cheered up by flowers. Clearly I’m some kind of emotionally dead freak who isn’t moved by the things normal people are. So the flowers-gift represented another failure of character and sensitivity. Its like someone accidentally spilling a bucket of hollandaise sauce on your favourite rug and then suggesting a sprig of parsley will make it all right again. Weird.
I have a similar absence of feeling about birds which marks me out as a degenerate in the company I keep where everyone bangs on about them gushingly all the time. I recently moved a few months ago to a different rented property in the same neighbourhood. As I hadn’t moved very far I expected to hear the same chirpy chirp chip chip noise as I opened my bedroom window for the first time here. It turns out that moving a few hundred yards down a road can profoundly affect your encounter with nature, especially if there are a family of crows (Asbo’s galore) living 30 yards from your house.
The cacophony is appalling and ugly as hell. It is like listening to that professional television cackler Allan Car all bloody day and if I wanted to do that I’d put Channel 4 on but I don’t. To choose never to put Channel 4 on and still have to put up with that fucker Allan Carr perched on top of a tree at the back of my house clap-trapping away at all hours is a disgrace. What’s next? Hollyoaks in my laundry basket? Kristen Guru-Murphy in my dressing-up box? It’s a worrying development.
Aside from the crows there seems to a popular perching spot for smaller birds just outside my bedroom window where the guttering from next doors roof has grass growing in it. Assorted birds of the cuter variety come and settle on this spot allowing me to observe them from the safety of my bed. I’m trying to find it within myself to like them because then that will mean that I am fit to join with the rest of the human race but I’m finding it difficult. Their little heads – and no one ever talks about this – swivel, from what I can see, just about all the way round. It’s creepy. Something comparable once happened in the Exorcist as I remember and no one went rushing to put out bird seed then. The proper response is to run screaming from the building or duck back under the duvet.
Which is where I am now. Until it’s safe to come out.
Or until I become a so called ‘normal’ person capable of feeling something other than grave disappointment and horror where others feel shimmering transports of delight. I have to conclude there’s something very wrong with me.
I don’t even like garden centres.
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