A Drinkers Guide to Portland

So, I spent last week in Portland. Ostensibly the point of the trip was a leisurely look around the outskirts to see if we would fancy a move up there at some point. The endless California sunshine, that a mere 18 months ago I would have described as a golden gift I would never tire of, has started to become a smothering sweltering heat that is actually boiling my spuds in the bag. Whether this is due to climate change, or just the fact I am a pasty northerner raised in the only part of England where the sun is permanently obscured I cannot say. 

 Also, the  endless Beijing-style traffic jams are not to be sniffed at either. As Middlesbrough has never had a single tourist in it's 150 year history, the traffic there is laughably light. The ten mile an hour rush hour "traffic" found in towns up and down the UK pales in comparison to the actual traffic that fills the streets and freeways of California has to be seen to be believed. You can look out of your window at 4am and the freeways are still backed up, its so bizarre its almost a tourist attraction in and of itself.

 Anyway, I figured that I would go check out Oregon because it is supposed to be lovely, and the family were leaning towards the possibility that it may be worth moving up there some day. 

 Upon arriving there, I found myself in what appeared to be the most youthful town in North America. Not that I have been to that many you understand, but I have been to trendy hubs like Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, and.. er... does Virginia count as trendy? 

 After landing at the airport and being greeted by two teenage baggage handlers who looked as if they could stick their heads out of the car to shave effectively, we caught a shuttle to the hotel. Amusingly this sign was behind the counter when I checked in.

"Welcome to Portland mon!"

I chuckled and asked the guy behind the counter how long ganja had been legal and he said it had only been freely available for a short while. Obviuously the natives have took to it with gusto, which explains why my room smelled as if Bob Marley had died in the bathtub.

 After a nights rest, we took an Uber into the city center and had breakfast at what is apparently an extremely popular breakfast restaurant named Gravy (3957 N Mississippi Ave) As always, I found the food to be perfectly acceptable, but not worthy of the endless praise showered upon it on Yelp, and certainly not worthy of the 45 minute wait to get in at 10am on a Tuesday morning.

  Indeed, in America it seems that merely serving 4 lbs. of food as a single serving on a plate the size of a dump truck wheel is enough to warrant a 5-star rating. My corned beef hash was more than passable and the eggs were decent, but there are kids eating mud in Haiti so I feel a bit guilty when I get my hash-browns served to me with a shovel. Personally I recommend splitting a plate with a friend, or just getting coffee and a half-order of French toast (The half order looked like a telephone directory covered with powered sugar.)

 By this time, we still had two hours to burn before we could check in to our digs, so we walked a couple of blocks down the street to StormBreaker Brewing on the junction of Mississippi and Beech Street. I got a 5 beer taster that for some reason was served in King Arthurs lunchbox.

"Gadzooks! Sir Gawain has just been chinned by a bouncer."

Tasters are rarely offered in England, and when they are, it usually involves 3 or 4 warm glasses on a plastic dinner tray. I found that in Portland they always came in increasingly elaborate carved wooden frames, boxes, old tea-chests, and anything else that looked like it was pre-World War One. Pretty cool I suppose, but frankly, who gives a fuck how they present your booze? Its whats in the glass that counts. 

 I can report I was more than impressed with the ale, the lager was a bit pissy, but the Americans often like it that way. The IPA was as powerfully hopped but excellent as it always is this side of the Atlantic, and the stout was top-drawer, stronger and much more flavorful and than a timid pint of Guinness. A few pints later I dropped my gear off at the apartment we were renting and walked a short distance to another place just down the street, Ecliptic Brewing.

 This place was not as welcoming to my eyes as StormBreaker was, as rather than an old-fashioned wooden bar and some benches it was a huge, bright, metallic building. Indeed, it looked like one of the aircraft hangars that Nicolas Cage hangs about in in Face Off. I'm guessing it is a recent expansion as it all looked very shiny, not as pleasing to me as a dimly lit, urine stained bar, but its the ale we are here for so I took a seat at the bar and ordered another taster. 

If you can drink 4 of these and not roll off your stool you are a better man than me.

If the name and spiral design of the taster tray don't give the game away, all of the beers are named after constellations and such like. The beer was all pretty good, but I didn't really like the staff. I started a jovial conversation about golf with a guy at the bar and we started discussing whether or not we thought golf was a real sport of not (it isn't.) We were having a laugh and a joke about how its should definitely be up for debate because pensioners and fat guys can still win titles and the bartender appeared to take real offense. I know that in California they tell bartenders to avoid heated debates with the customers, but in hip and youthful Portland, everything appears to be fair game, which explains why the fat bearded guy behind the counter called us a pair of clueless bastards and stomped off in a huff. 

 He did have an arse like a water-buffalo though, so I can only presume golf is his game of choice, he certainly didn't look like a speed skater. To be fair he did come back ten minutes later, but I thought he was being a bit of a pansy. A few more pints later and I was half pissed, I went to several more bars, but I'm fucked if I can remember where they were and I fell asleep by about 9 0'clock. I'm not getting any younger.... 

The next day we went for breakfast in another Yelp favorite, one of the several thousand food trucks that has popped up in Portland. The place is called The Egg Carton and while the food was excellent, it was pretty steep for a truck ($13 for a special with eggs and potatoes and a coffee) and the service was genuinely awful. Four of us ordered and the food came out at 10-15 minute intervals for each member of our party. To be fair to the lad who was working there, he was fucking quick considering he was clearly high at work (legalized pot in action folks.) When I was that stoned at work in my teens I couldn't even fasten my shoes, let alone cook four breakfasts.

 We went into the downtown area after breakfast and walked around for a bit. Nipped into the massive Powells City of Books after being told it was a "must see" by several of the locals. Basically its a really big book shop, but as the main aim of a bookshop is just buying a book, I don't really see what all the fuss is about.

A very nice bus and a metal sculpture of a sperm fertilizing an egg, but there is a book store behind it honest.

Unless you are after some ancient tome they are unlikely to stock on Amazon.com, I don't really see the point of cramming into a massive sweaty building filled with other bored tourists who stupidly followed the advice of the natives and walked very slowly around the place even though they didn't want to buy a bastard book. I count myself among the stupidest of tourists obviously, because I'm old enough to know better than following the advice of youthful travelers who say something is a "definite must see" (fuck you Stonehenge.)

 After that, we hit Fat Heads Brewery for a few pints because it was almost midday and I had a perishing thirst.

One of the fattest heads in Fat Heads... and a woman with a normal sized skull

 I ordered a taster, big surprise, and it came in another strange wooden frame. The session ale was lovely and at less than 5%, I could actually drink it steadily for several hours, unlike many American "session" ales that weigh in past 6% and leave you in ruins after three hours. I know Americans work much longer hours than their European cousins, but unless you work a 90 hour week 3 hours just doesn't count as a session. I also had the Imperial IPA (ridiculously hoppy) the Trail Head IPA (wonderfully easy to drink but gets you pissed a bit too quick) the superb Bone Head Red (beautiful but about 9%) the Starlight Lager (a bit tasteless but a steady percentage) a kinda disgusting blueberry lager with actual berries floating in it, and a stupidly strong stout I forget the name of (not too good but still tastier than Guiness.)

"Excuse me mate, some arsehole has dropped vitamin C and antioxidants into my harmful carcinogenic beverage."

 I got another pint of the red because that was my favorite, and then I felt half-pissed so we went to TILT for lunch. Its a decent place with a sort of.. metallic British Steel sort of air about it. All of the chairs are brushed metal, so anybody that has ever worked as a welder or a steelworker would probably prefer a trip anywhere else. As for the food...

In America, it isn't a butty if it fits in your mouth

I got a Reuben, which for the uninitiated, is basically pastrami on Rye with Russian dressing (fuck knows) and some sauerkraut. The sandwhich was good, but those weird jalapeno popper things on the right were one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth, and I have ate a Parmo from The Europa. They are a sort of.. cheese and potato paste mixed with peppers, and battered, similar to the excellent potato balls at Portos in LA but better. 

 The highlight of the day, other than the 12 beers obviously. 

After lunch we nipped over to the Nob Hill Bar and Grill, which I was disappointed to find was not actually a gay bar but an ordinary bar and grill. By this time I was smashing pints into me at speed and I have absolutely no idea what I drank, but I remember the staff were very friendly, and then I think we ended up in Prost a German themed bar that was small and cosy but had a really nice beer garden with a separate bar outside. I was leathered by this point, but I do recall drinking massive 1 liter steins for $10 a pop, and I was baggage by around half past 8. 

Real men get carried home by their 110lb wives and fall asleep before 9 o'clock

I scraped my face off the pillow the next day and we went to another apparently popular breakfast spot named The Stepping Stone Cafe. Like a great many of the bars, restaurants, book-shops, and.. well, anything in Portland, it was very hip and youthful, and it looked like I was the oldest, sweatiest, and most haggard person in there.

 Sadly this also includes my mother-in-law, who is 30 years older than me. 

 The menu proclaims "You eat here because we let you" in that sort of, tongue-in-cheek, unfunny hipster way, but this should not dissuade you, the food is really good. 

This is what it looks like when a Tesco freight train hits a Waitrose truck and they make a meal with the wreckage

My choice was a steak that they deep fry like a chicken, cover in cheese, peppers, paprika, onions, and hash browns, then wrap in a massive omelette. Oh yeah, and the gravy has sausages floating in it, because in this wonderful country, there just isn't enough meat in something that is made out of a cow and fried in a liquidized hen. 

I was tiring of Portland by this point, so we buggered off up the the coast to Astoria, its about two hours north and its a nice drive because you can see an ocean that isn't full of burning tires, hypodermic needles, and dog shit.

On the way, you can stop at the totally awesome Tillamook Cheese Factory off the 101 Highway. Its only a factory of course, but they have a massive gift shop, and a big open buffet where you can stand in a line and essentially eat as much cheese as you like. You can also pose for the obligatory shite tourist picture. 

Looking at that uncommonly handsome bull, I can almost understand why the Welsh shag sheep.

After that we cracked on right up the 101 to Astoria, which if anybody even remotely cares, is where they filmed The Goonies. Unfortunately the poor old couple that live in the house that they forced that fat kid to dance outside now live in perpetual fear because drunks rock up on their garden and start dancing with alarming frequency, so I didn't want to go and take a picture. I did get a picture next to those big rocks in the sea that One-Eyed Willie's ship sailed past though.

There must be a hideously deformed football player and a crass Asian stereotype around here somewhere....

After having clam chowder and a few pints at a place with an excellent view but very generic and entirely forgettable food (Moe's, Cannon Beach) we cracked on up the road to Astoria and first port of call was Astoria's oldest brewery, the Wet Dog Cafe.

It hurts so good....

This place was one of my favorites, the bar tender was warm and friendly as soon as he heard my accent as we had a good craic. The craic basically involved me making bad jokes and him giving me all of the beers I had missed off the list for fuck all, what a positively splendid gent.  I got a taster tray that looked like a big square table-tennis racket and I drank too many beers to keep track of, but the vast majority of them were excellent. Oh, and the fruity ones were a lot more subtle and pleasing than the alcoholic smoothie I drank at Fat Heads. 

A much better use for a table tennis racket than actually playing table tennis

Anyway, I was pleased after leaving the Wet Dog Cafe, and not just because I was pissed, the staff were excellent, the beer was cheap, and it was all of good quality. 

 We then walked 5 minutes up the street to Fort George Brewery + Public House.  a large and new looking place on the crest of a hill just off the main street. The taster in this place was the biggest yet.... 

A very lucky 13... Until you piss the bed.

 Anyway, this place was very trendy, everyone in here was young and bearded and wearing pants tight enough to cut the flow off to their ankles. I tried to strike up a conversation with a few people but didn't get anywhere, and the bartender was merely cordially polite. Still, by the time I left I was minging, so I can heartily recommend it. 

Last stop in Astoria was the excellent Rogue Ale Public House, situated right on the pier and with a lovely view across the bay. 

Excuse the writing, I was pissed and convinced I could do calligraphy despite never being shown how.... what a bell-end.

Rogues beer is some of my absolute favorite, when I was in San Francisco I bought a case of their Hazlenut Brown after merely sipping one. Anyway, the ale was excellent, the locals were all friendly too. They get some sailors and fishermen in here and they are a good bunch. One of them let me swig his truly bizarre stout-with-ice-cream pint when I crudely said it looked like something had died in a pint of Guiness, and.. well.. it tasted like something had died in a pint of Guiness as well, but its the thought that counts. The only gripe I would have from this great little place was the fact that it is so large and airy that the toilet is about 200 yards away from the bar and I have a bladder like a walnut, but you can't have everything.

 The next day I started off half-pissed and it went downhill rapidly from there. Grand Central Restaurant & Bowling Alley, was a cool place with loads of video games, (shooting digital rhinos on Big Buck Hunter is a surprisingly gratifying experience for an animal lover) and bowling alleys. They have plenty of cheap drinks specials and the staff were eager to please. After that, just when I thought the tasters couldnt get any bigger, we went to the Hopworks Urban Brewery and I was presented with these bastards...

And then Captain America and U.S. Agent hit the town.....

They dont come on wood in here, presumably because they dont want to decimate the surrounding woodland, so they come on the back of massive metal trays as big as the shields that Captain America throws at terrorists. One of the 15 beers on the stock tray was some sort of pissy, shandy lemonade thing, but the other 14 were pretty good, even the sour cherry thing that tasted a bit like Samuel Smith's Cherry Beer mixed with Listerine. The pretzels and fries were good as well, so they get top marks from me.

15 mini beers with a slightly larger beer taster

 We also ate at the very trendy Fire on the Mountain, but the food was only average and I didn't like the youthful clientele very much. They also had three walls full of photographs of people that had completed "The Challenge" but considering it had more names on it than a Battle of the Somme memorial I don't understand how challenging said challenge can possibly be.

 Second last stop was The Kennedy School which is a huge auld school that they converted into numerous bars, distilleries and restaurants. 

Perhaps the only school where the kids get more drugs in the classrooms than the bathrooms.. 

I'm sure anybody who reads this will head straight there as soon as they land in Portland because it sounds so awesome, but to be honest, I suppose its more of a gimmick. Yes, it is pretty cool wandering around the place and taking a few snaps, but ultimately the food was rather bland and the beer.. well, its good everywhere, and better at those other places that give you more for cheaper. Still, head along, I'm sure you are going to go regardless of what I say. 

Dad was right, they are the best years of your life.

Anyway, that's about me, I think I have forgotten at least ten of them, such as this one I don't even remember being in (Lompoc?) 

Answers on a postcard...

This place that was somewhere between Portland and Astoria... 

The Golden Valley was forgettabley Golden

 And the many I never took any pictures of. I can heartily recommend a trip to Portland to anybody if only because there are more breweries than Oliver Reed could safely manage, but it was a little hip to the point that it may grate on people over the age of 30, with a penchant for shaving, or a preference for baggy pants and crew cuts. (Lots of top knots.) The service was pretty bad at almost everywhere we ate, but New York and Los Angeles are just crazy econmic hubs where everyone is in a hurry all the time. Once you get used to the laid back attitude and the abundance of youthful trendy people with fashionable shirts on, its a very fun place to visit. The traffic is much worse than I expected and its pretty crowded, but I enjoyed it more than Chicago (just as hip but much colder) and San Francisco (who the fuck wants to walk up a mountain when he comes out of the pub pissed at half past 11?)   

In Defense of Walt...

It's Only Some Stolen Valor

In a post that would shock and surprise many of my former military comrades if anybody actually read my fucking blog, I am now going to compose an article in defense of that most mocked of creatures, the Walt.

 The term is most popular in the UK, but I believe it is becoming increasingly common in the United States. Although over here, in a typically American manner, the much more direct and grammatically correct term "Stolen Valor" is more commonly used to refer to the actions of those who claim to be soldiers but are anything but. I believe the term Walt derives from the story of Walter Mitty a meek friendless man in reality, who lives a vivid and boisterous fantasy life inside his own head.

"We were running Black Ops out of Saigon.. Dave was out of ammo and Mikey was bleeding out, so I pulled down a tree, swung it.. musta killed me 50 or 60 of the muthafukkas."

  The term is sometimes incorrectly used for people that serve but inflate their achievements. If anybody is interested, the term Bloater is usually reserved for these people. There was a famous instance of a Royal Marine being charged for claiming the rank of Sergeant, and also an American soldier adding unearned Ranger patches to his uniform for a homecoming meeting at his local airport.

 Anyway, as someone who had to grit his teeth and drag his fat, stumpy frame around every inch of Dartmoor in pursuit of the coveted green beret and went to Afghanistan twice (it was much nicer than North-east England) Iraq twice (Afghanistan with running water) Northern Ireland (Afghanistan with drunks) and Sierra Leone (African Afghanistan) many people may find it strange I would stick up for Walt and his consistently mocked kind. Indeed, even patriotic civilians love to pour scorn on poor old Walt, and barely a day goes by without some "viral" video of some possibly mentally ill, usually obese fellow, standing next to a war memorial or attending a parade, with several upside down medals pinned upon his chest, or "Kung-Fu Battalion" patches sewn upon his shoulders.

In Fallujah we called these fermented vegetable drinks "combat cocktails"

 But I confess I find the ire servicemen have for them to be most perplexing. I am comfortable enough with my own life and achievements in general that I care very little about whether or not some desperate loner is attempting to ride on my coattails, it seems like a small sin indeed in the grand scheme of things. Do one guys lies wipe clean a real soldiers impeccable service?

 So lets get to it. Like Atticus Finch (who is apparently much worse a person than Kim Kardashian nowadays, do me a fucking favor) I shall stand in defense of a man (men) that everybody just loves to hate, Walt.

Why? Well, that's pretty easy. I can do it in 3. 


1. Freedom, bitches

Everybody in the military loves to talk about freedom, especially in America. As a true libertarian who believes that anything is kosher as long as it doesn't harm anybody else, I think that free citizens should always have the right to be lying bastards. I might not like it, but there you go, people tell lies, we might as well accept it.

 How many people tell lies on a daily basis? Is telling small lies illegal? When you meet someone for the very first time at the office and they tell you their favorite TV show is Glee, or they show you a family picture and point at their "beautiful" wife and she happens to have a face like a smacked arse, do you answer honestly and say "You watch shit TV" or "Your wife looks like a woodpecker tried to make a nest in her face."

 Of course you don't. 

 We might not like it, but free people have the right to tell lies. If they wear the uniform to defraud someone, or perhaps engage in some kind of elaborate fraud (dressing as a serviceman to elicit charitable donations and pocket the cash for example) I am all for throwing those assholes in the brig, but for trying to get laid?

"I've got trials with Manchester United next week luv... Alex... ff..f.. Ferguson said I'm gonna be the next Ronaldo"

Men tell lies to women all of the time, and serving soldiers do it too. Plenty of times I've sat in pubs and listened to Army Signalers and Vehicle Mechanics tell women "I was clearing the caves in Afghanistan with a shotgun, it was hard, close quarter fighting baby." How many soldiers lie about having their wings, how many sailors tell girls they are Marines?

 It seems terribly hypocritical to get hugely outraged about men telling lies, when men tell lies in all kinds of other ways, they just don't involve uniforms. If we locked people up for telling lies when trying to get laid, then every man in America would be in prison, and I would never have got married. 

 I wasn't going to tell her it was only 2 inches long on the first fucking date was I? 

2. Publicity 

Many people might not have noticed, but we have a serious recruitment problem. For some inexplicable reason, modern western kids just aren't interested in sitting in a trench surrounded by flesh eating flies while bearded desert-dwelling fanatics throw grenades at them. 

 Walts provide great publicity. No news is bad news when you want publicity, just ask Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and anybody else who essentially became famous by shagging in front of a camera.

 Shit, if I was guaranteed to get a few million bucks out of it I would probably suck an ice hockey player off on television as well.

"Well, I suppose if its going to help those kids walk again......."

Videos featuring Walts regularly go viral, generating an enormous amount of publicity and filling young men with an urge to quickly head to the nearest recruiting office and show those pansies how its really done. 

 Well, second stop after they drive around to the Walts house and kick his head in, obviously.

3. Free Manpower

Obviously not free manpower in the strictest sense, because frankly I would rather stand in-front of the Taliban than in-front of a pasty, deranged fantasist in an eBayed uniform with an automatic rifle he has never been trained to fire.

 No, I mean free manpower for all of the really lame things, like standing outside a school to deter another pasty deranged fantasist in an eBayed uniform with an automatic rifle he has never been trained to fire. Or free manpower for attending one of those memorial parades where the Ministry of Defence charges for sending real soldiers, so they rely on the old, the lonely, and the Walt to make up the numbers. 

 I'm presuming that fake soldiers are better than no soldiers at all if you want to march down Halifax high-street in the rain on a Sunday morning and salute the grizzled wheelchair-bound veteran who thought nobody was going to show up. 

 Indeed, once you get past 90 your vision is so bad you are probably utterly incapable of registering the fact that everyone has their medals on upside down and one of the teenagers sports an Iron Cross and something from the Boer War. 

"I got this one for shooting, this one for surfing, and this one for coming top at seal clubbing school in 'Nam" 

 In such a case, I make the argument that seeing a decent turn-out for a parade in their honor is a good thing, and it will make their heart swell with pride. They expected nobody to show up, and are instead greeted by legions of fine, upstanding young men who have not forgotten their sacrifices.

 Lets face it, most young people fucking have.

  If I get to 90 I would love to be greeted by a group of earnest young men who assure me that the efforts of my brothers and I were not in vain and many of them died for a reason. The Walts might make the difference between an acceptable turn-out and no turn-out at all. 

 So lets not be too harsh on Walt. If I get to a parade and I am lucky enough to see it well-staffed, I wont be looking too harshly at everbody's uniforms, like most cynical old soldiers Ill simply be happy that somebody showed up at all. 

Conclusion

 So, there we have it. My premise is simply this, mock Walt by all means, send your friends the videos, hit "share" on Facebook and have a chuckle. But let it end there. Public shaming has already gotten out of hand,  and prison?Considering we are running out of space for terrorists, pedophiles, pushers, and pimps, I consider the humble lying bastard to be beneath my notice. 

 Do you disagree? Do Walts grind your gears/curl your commando flashes/peel your patches? I'm happy to engage in spirited debate, leave a comment and I shall happily tell you to fuck off and leave me alone. 

 Unless of course you served during Operation Flaming Fists of Fury, at which point I might be too scared to enter into debate with such a badass.*


*It was actually called Operation Flying Fists of Fury, fuck off Walt.

7 Reasons not to Vote for Donald Trump

Donald Trump. He's a character isn't he eh? Loud, arrogant, talks a bit like Rosie O'Donnell if she gargled with whisky and razor-blades every morning. He is so easy to mock he reminds me of Sarah Palin. Well, an ugly, balding Sarah Palin with a disgusting, ginger penis*. I could probably talk you out of voting for him by just going off how he looks and sounds, but there is much more to him than an intensely irritating voice and shit hair. 

 Anybody wondering why I would rather spend a week trapped in an elevator with two televangelists than brush past Donald in the street, can find 7 very good reasons below.   


1. He Tweets Like a Teenager

Everybody knows that Donald is a bit touchy. There have been numerous stories about his ridiculous personal attacks on people in the media that he takes disliking to, but I think this one "Trumps" all others. 

That's called logic, suck on it America! LMFAO!

Rather than attacking their politics, he throws personal attacks at fellow politicians. Unfunny, mean personal attacks that you would expect to hear spat from the mouth of a bulimic cheerleader. Its not a stretch to imagine a President Trump invading somewhere due to some minor disagreement, or dropping 200 tons of napalm onto Mecca because someone who happens to be a Muslim scratched his car.

2. He is overtly racist.

The most amusing quote from his ridiculous press conference was without doubt "Mexicans... they're rapists!"

The man has all the charm of a pissed off rattlesnake.

Clearly it is not that difficult to say something sensible about the immigration issues that America has without throwing his rape hat into the ring. I also loved his other quote on a similar topic, which surely deserves its own spot on the list...

3. "I have a great relationship with the blacks"

Donald appears to think that "the blacks" are like some sort of, small family of magical midgets that he lets live in his pool-house. The very fact that he just refers to (I'm presuming he means American people of voting age that happen to be black) a wide and diverse group of tens of millions of people as "the blacks" is statement in and of itself. As if all of "the blacks" are pretty much identical really, a bit like Dwarves from The Lord of the Rings.

 Basically, he comes across as a condescending idiot. Unfortunately for Donald, coming across as a narrow-minded idiot while speaking in public is not generally considered a personality trait that voters like to see from a prospective president, unless they vote for Rick Santorum of course. If they vote for Rick, they think that forcing the kids to pose for photographs with a dead baby is totally normal, at which point, they have much bigger problems to worry about than merely being condescending.

4. Everything he said in his announcement speech was factually incorrect

If this wasn't obvious from the whole rape thing, you may be more gullible than you thought. Donald said that current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States was currently "below zero" (it isn't) he said that "there are no jobs available" despite the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting on June 9th that there were over 5 million job openings in the continental United States, the highest since December 2000. Basically if I sat and typed all of his lies out I would be here until November, and I can type pretty fast. Other gems include "There are no Chevrolets in Japan" (there are a shit-ton of Chevrolet's in Japan) and "Obama's website cost 2 billion dollars" (it cost less than half that.) 

 All politicians tell lies, you don't get to be a famous politician if you aren't willing to tell a few lies, but I wouldn't believe Donald Trumps radio.

5. He's a "Birther"

Donald was constantly harping on about this ridiculous story long after everybody else had finally given up. When even Bill O'Reilly has finally stopped going on about something tasteless and you are still plugging away, you have to accept the fact you may well be a walking toilet.

This is a quote from Don three weeks before President Obama released his birth certificate to the public. 

"If he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility, then he has pulled one of the greatest cons in the history of politics!"

Worse than this, he is a conspiracy theorist in all kinds of other ways too. He also said..

"Global warming was invented by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive" 

When the evolution-denying, young earth creationist Mike Huckabee is much smarter than you are, sorry, but you aren't smart enough to be president.

6. He brags incessantly

I almost vomited typing these Donald quotes out, but they are absolute corkers.

"My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well been documented, are various other parts of my body."

"All of the women on 'The Apprentice' flirted with me,  consciously or unconsciously. That's to be expected."

"Let me tell you, I'm a really smart guy. I was a really good student at the best school in the country."

And on, and on, and on it goes.

I started cutting and pasting quotes on here and after ten minutes I had about 40, obviously nobody wants to read 100 lines of complete insanity, so I cut it down to 3 quotes that show....


7. He is absolutely off his fucking tits

He is.. to use a Briticism, completely fucking bonkers. Actually, I think "off his fucking tits" is a Briticism as well. 

 He pays people to cheer for him at his speeches. He made a TV show about firing people. He is bright fucking orange. He walks around in a toupee that makes him look like he has special needs. He is definitely a narcissist and quite possibly a sociopath. He might not have gone as far as flying around Alaska shooting bears from a helicopter, but that is surely on the cards. They say that the King who essentially caused the American Revolution was completely insane thanks to the presence of mercury in his wigs, and I can only assume that Donald uses the same tailor. 

 Or whatever it is you call someone who makes your wigs for you.

* I have never actually seen Donald Trumps flaccid, unpleasant member. 

Why So Serious?

I dont often do serious, but I thought I would try and be a little bit serious this week. After all, even the most talented comedian finds it difficult to throw some funnies in when the topic is rape.

Last week I had a Twitter discussion with a prospective Liberal Democrat MP. Well, more of a brief chat really, its hard to have a discussion in under 140 characters unless you resort to text speak and teenage acronyms that nobody over the age of 30 can understand.

In brief, a LibDem campaigner named Daisy Cooper insisted that this poster was offensive and sexist.

Vile and offensive pleasant advice..

And insisted it should be replaced with this one. 

Drinking Fosters actually is a crime however...

Now, I don't usually take issue with this kind of thing because it seems a bit crass for a man to wade into the discussion. Sort of like a Saudi Arabian bloke telling an American that gender pay inequality in the United States is an outrageous affront, while simultaneously beating his third wife with a stick because she reverse parked the car.

I took umbrage with this though, because just like almost everything to do with politics,  I find it all terribly shortsighted.

Daisy seems like a nice lady, but I think misguided and shortsighted activism often does more harm than good, so lets explore the big picture and I shall attempt to make my case in more coherent sentences.

If 100 of each poster go up in Sussex, we can presume that lots of women will see the first poster and say "I best be more careful, its a harsh world we live in and you never know when a weirdo is going to try something" 

Sure, plenty with a very aggressively feminist worldview may take offense, but they will probably still heed the advice, a seed has been planted. Be careful, some men are arseholes with the moral fiber of heroin-addled televangelist with a gambling problem.

The ones that see the second poster are pleased it directs itself at men, obviously the instigators of rape, but it affects the ladies actions not at all. Indeed, it might make them think "Yes, rape is rape and if I want to get so smashed I eat a pizza out of a recycling bin that's my business"

Thus you could fairly argue that the second poster only directly attacks the issue from the one angle, it tells men that when a woman says no, she means no.

This is also a somewhat toothless argument. I don't want to burst any bubbles here girls, but the majority of men are fully aware that no means no. There are not many men out there that would happily drag a woman into an alley, tear her clothing off her limp body, and jump her bones convinced he was a bastion of morality.  Does anybody actually think that the members of grooming gangs and serial rapists would have their hand stayed by a strongly worded letter?

Add to the fact that in places like Glasgow and Middlesbrough the men cant actually read, while the women take the time to learn such valuable skills.

Why not have both if stopping rape is really first thing on the agenda? Launch a withering two-pronged assault. Remind (the vanishingly tiny percentage of utterly idiotic rapists) that consent cannot be given by an unconscious "partner" who is face down in the gutter after four bottles of Lambrini, and also remind women to be careful, because some men have no shame. 

Is that really so hard to understand? 

Obviously thanks to the aforementioned short-sightedness that pervades modern politics Daisy Cooper and her equally short-sighted supporters have won the day, and the poster has been removed.

But I really want to know... am I being a fool here? As a happily married agnostic fellow, I certainly consider myself a feminist. I think women should be paid the same, and because I have always had terrible dress sense I think Im probably less judgmental of a woman's appearance than most women are. My wife never wears make up and rarely dons a dress, she naturally looks better than the hairy dwarf she stupidly agreed to marry. I don't presume to even remotely influence what a women says, wears or does.

Yet here I am, wondering "Am I sexist then? Do I tacitly endorse FGM and polygamy just because I think removing sound advice does more harm than good?"

The "victim blaming" culture is definitely a terrible thing, but we have come a long way since 1960. I don't for a second believe that anybody with half a brain cell really thinks that a woman somehow "deserves" to get raped for almost any reason at all. In fact, I only know one person who thinks that, and he is currently leading the Taliban.

I have to mention, Emily Cooper also used the "slippery slope" argument, perhaps the worst logical fallacy ever. "Allow euthanasia, and the next thing you know everyone will be executing their family members" (visit Belgium and the Netherlands) "Allow gay marriage and the next thing people will be marrying vacuum cleaners and donkeys" (Denmark saw no rise in marriages to household devices or wild animals after legally recognizing same sex unions in 1989) "Give women the vote and the next thing you know they will be chopping men's dicks off while they are sleeping"

Ok well, forget that last one. 

So please ladies especially, let me know. Am I in the wrong in this? Is the first poster genuinely offensive to the majority of women? Considering most rapists are unlikely to heed the advice of strongly worded posters, but most victims are likely to think twice after seeing one advising caution, I firmly believe removing it is basically playing into the hands of predatory men. 

Women are always the victims of rape regardless of the circumstances. The problem is, most men already know it.

Anyway, to end on a positive note, I have decided to design a poster that both tells women to be careful, and also lays the blame squarely at the feet of men. I shall of course make this masterwork of digital manipulation available to all of the Police Forces in England and Wales free of charge, as a public service to women everywhere.

You are very welcome ladies. ;)

Feedback is much appreciated. I welcome insults and derogatory remarks about myself and my family (especially my big fat brother) please do not hesitate to call me a sexist prick or post dogshit to my house. If you put it in an Amazon Prime box with an iPad or an expensive laptop, I probably wont even notice until it is all over the kitchen or something.  

Light in Tone

I recently had a few short monologues (3) accepted by a publisher for a comedy book. Obviously I not a professional comedian of legendary repute so I had several rejected as well, apparently because they were not "light enough in tone."

It seems bad manners to publish the accepted ones, but I shall happily reprint the rejects here.

Personally, I figure they were not too obscene, merely not very funny, but I shall let the very small group of people that bother to read the shite that I write make your own minds up. 

Here is the first and shortest one I wrote, entitled: 

Don't Visit Japan Son, Bomb it.

When I was a kid a friend of mine was threw off the school team just because he had a beer despite the fact he was nearly 17 years old.

Lets face it, if a teenager can get drafted and shipped off to Iraq or Syria or wherever else we happen to be bombing the shit out of that week, its a bit fucking harsh denying the lad a pint if he makes it home with both of his bollocks still attached.

Modern parents and governmental organizations alike seem to think that young guys in their late teens shouldn't have any leeway at all to drink or smoke, despite the fact both practices are legal and young people have done such things for centuries. Fucking hell, they used to make children work in coal mines and fight in wars, I doubt they would deny anyone a beer who was shoveling fucking coal 18 hours a day either.

Parents are short-sighted too, they love talking about "the good old days" when their dad would scrub himself in ice cold water in a rusty tin bath after a 12 hour shift in a corned beef factory, and anyone listening is well aware that the good old days sound pretty fucking awful. Usually parents can't type more than ten words a minute either, but they like going on Facebook to spy on their offspring and "like" all of those shit MEMEs that poke fun at the younger generation. They always say things like "In my day we used to drink from the hose and we turned out fine" or "I shared my drink with 8 kids and a stray dog and nobody died" and it's total fucking nonsense. Are we sure Osama Bin Laden never drank from a garden hose? My granddad used to do the same, he would endlessly complain that kids were visiting Japan or learning German in school, as if flying over Japan to drop an atom bomb on it was a more productive way to spend your time than going on a fucking field trip.

I don’t for a second believe all of the conservatives who complain about anything and everything the millennial generation enjoys buy any of their own nonsense either. In Victorian Britain they were all a bunch of perverts and junkies behind closed doors, but everything was all prim and proper in the streets. I think it's probably the same in America today. If some pastor or preacher constantly whines about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, it stands to reason he spends his evenings snorting coke off a prostitutes tits while listening to Slayer.

It is pure hypocrisy, kids have always been the same, and some old crusty who complains about teenagers being "soft" because they dont want to share a bottle of Pepsi with six friends probably turned his nose up exactly the same. And if they didn't, well they probably didnt live long enough to sire children because they caught hepatitis.

Maybe they like to complain about the small things because it stops us talking about the big things. Like if your grandpa says "Oh yeah I was a rebel when I was your age, I never used to bother wearing a helmet when I was out on my bike" then he doesn't have to say "Oh yeah I was a rebel when I was your age, I pushed a disabled lesbian down four flights of stairs."