2008,
So farewell then…
It’s been a funny old year. Bit too bloody funny if you ask me. Still, horizons broadened, no arrests, met Boyo: Yeah, all things considered I’d say it was on the credit side.
And, there was the odd touch of genius about the place.

Which was nice.

Here’s one here;

Why does everyone have to bang on about sex the whole time? There are other things, you know, and I don't mean food or sums.
Here is a list of other things:
The M25 upgrade
Co-ordinated half-point rate cuts
The Clone Trooper Helmet
Salford Quays
Noble rot
Jonathan Kelsey for Mulberry
Foinavon
Broviac catheters
Arnold Palmer
Ambre Solaire
The Hillman Husky

Oh, before I forget, If God spares me, I SHALL. Every single day.


See you all in 2009.

2009 Resolutions

As God is my witness,

I will follow my own script.
I will visit Las Vegas for the first time
I will go back to New York
I will use my spectacles to read the Indie on Saturday and the Observer on Sunday
I will accept my weird eating habits
I will buy wonderful bread and make sandwiches
I will watch TV under a blanket
I will eat olives and smoked salmon and blinis
I will visit the pub on Saturdays for two drinks max then return for a nap at four
I will have just one glass of wine on Sunday until I have helped with dinner
I will remain kosher
I will be charitable
I will be faithful
I will be honourable
I will write about Islamist terror cells in Clackmannanshire
I will never compromise
I will tell the world about Dr Maroon
I will be me
PLAY IT LOUD!! ALRIGHTAH !!

Have arrived Windhoek 1300 hrs today.
No jetlag just knackered.
Had two bloody marys on flight from Johannesburg [sp?] and fell down stairs gratefully onto Namibian soil.
Locals thought I was so pleased to be back that I was kissing tarmac just like JPII. They weren't far wrong
Luckily it is full summer here (42 Celcius) so have sweated it out in 20 minutes and am now ready to hit the town. No sign of any cholera YET.
Cannot embed song (shitey bloody hotel computers) so will type out link below.

Back soon.

See when I'm pissed? I do love led Zepplin. They've got sumpfing, god knows what it is, but it's summpfinn.
This is for you because I love you all so much. It's almost poetry. It isn't, but it almost is. Whatever it is, it has balls, and that is what matters at the end of things, it has balls and gumption and they were a fantastic band. They were the very best of bands.


If the sun refused to shine etc.

Minus 6 all day.
The first sniff of a deep frost is always profoundly evocative for me. It’s an acid flashback is what it is. I am returned to the bedroom I had as a fourteen year old, God knows why I am transported back there, it’s just where I am taken is all.

It was a cool bedroom, everyone said so. I had painted a big Oor Wullie sitting on his bucket on one wall and a big version of the face on the King Crimson LP on the other. I had posters from Sounds and pictures cut out of NME, especially Frank Zappa, tacked and sellotaped to the wall and I played my records on a huge valve radiogram the size and shape of a chest freezer. I bought it at a scout jumble sale and they, the 72nd Troop, brought it round in a van and bustled it into the house in their kilts totally ignoring my mother’s embarrassing objections.

And then there were the fabulous mobiles that I made out of tin foil hanging from the ceiling. It’s a thirteen foot ceiling so they worked really well. I had painted the ceiling and frieze deep blue and stuck white stars on it. I loved those mobiles. They were an excellent embodiment of some-sort-of-Roger-Dean-type-mysticism.

Back to the green microdot. On just such a cold night as last night then, I sloped back in, having dropped some LSD. Well I ask you. There I was, fourteen and a half, eyes like organ stops, sitting up in bed listening to Wishbone Ash considering the mobiles and the soft focus girls in Mayfair, when God unexpectedly turned up in my head to tell me everything.




I mean the lot. The whole meaning, the structure, the point, 42, everything. I felt very pleased with myself. It was a marvellous privilege having God explain everything. After an hour or so, once God was sure I understood all these marvellous revelations, they were gently withdrawn, in the way you would remove a book from the hands of a sleeping child.

By December the room was emulsioned white, the mobiles, posters, and radiogram were gone in favour of Habitat Scandinavianism and I had inveigled my way into the 17th birthday party of a girl whose boyfriend never turned up. Obviously I kept the Frank Zappa pictures, because he, more than anyone, I realise now, was who I wanted to look like! Can you believe it? Frank Zappa. Me.

35 years later I was floating through Tate Liverpool on its disturbing sprung floor, tutting and sighing to myself at their utterly pisspoor mobiles when I was arrested by something much more to my taste; the altogether breathtaking sight of a beautiful woman. Well, who would have thought it?

If you are very, very, good, I will tell you what the smell of woodsmoke does to me. RZZZZZ!

I cannot believe the gall of David Miliband.
Instead of putting his shoulder to the wheel on the home front, he rushes off to Syria to kowtow on our behalf. Syria is at war with Israel with the avowed intention of invading the Golan Heights (Israeli sovereign territory) in order to launch terrorist attacks against innocent civilians.
He must know that you cannot have any truck with despots like Bashar al-Assad so what is his game? In what way can this nauseating appeasement of Hamas and Hizbullah and the Sunni insurgents advance Israeli or our own homeland security?
I hope Miliband’s road to Damascus takes him through Tel Aviv where some sense might rub off on him.

I have a Geraldine who helps around the place sometimes; she it was who had the misfortune to answer a bailiff’s adamant knocking upon my door yesterday.
It being just noon, I was still foetal under a downie on the chaise longue; a shelled clam of a man, my bulging eyes peeping out on a fearful dangerous world. I listened.

“Is the old devil in?”

(Please God, do not forsake me now. Stop up my ears!)

“I’m sorry?”
“You will be; is he in?”
“I’m afraid Dr Maroon is incommoded today.”
“Is he pissed?”
“I really don’t think…”
“No, you probably don’t. Is he fearful pissed?”
“You cannot measure genius by such a yardstick.”
“Oh yes I can. Where is he?”

There was a two second absence of sound, then eager footsteps. Christ, she’s coming this way! Duck! Incoming!

“There you are. Or are you? Why are you trembling?”
“Clarissa.”
“Stop croaking.”
“I may feel like it but I hadn’t thought to croak just yet.”
“Yes, très drôle. Your voice, what has happened to it?”
“I have been singing.”

She stared at me an uncomfortable minute then busied herself at the sideboard. There is no finer sound than the preparation of a complex drink by an expert.

“Drink this.”
“What is it?”

Another uncomfortable minute and perhaps the beginnings of an impish smile.

“A cure.”
“Some verse springs to mind.”
“What? ‘The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.’?”
“No, I was thinking of ‘…And when the Angel with his darker draught, Draws up to Thee - take that, and do not shrink.’.”

My hand reached out of its own volition.

I see I haven't lost my touch.
What day is it and where is Clarissa?

I can’t keep it in! I want to tell everyone, shout it from the rooftops!
Not five hours since, the most beautiful and magnificent human being it has been my privilege to know, paid the singular honour of asking if I would join them in perhaps the most sacred adventure remaining to me.
To say I am overjoyed would be an obscenity.
I am jubilant!
It is fitting that you, my dearest friends, should be the first to know.
It was here after all, on these unworthy pages, that I tentatively introduced the individual in question. There was some friction at the time, I remember, a natural anxiety that my attention was being diverted from you, but nay, for my part, that was never the case. At any rate, we are a family at peace again, all water under the bridge and I hope you will join me in offering a Cape to Rio welcome.
I know you will.
I have been engaged previously in similarly uncertain circumstances but I have given my assurance this time that I will not drop the ball.
James (Jimmy) McGlinchey, the Cumbernauld Cat, wants me as his ghost writer! That’s right! ME! Can you believe it? I haven’t slept.

Three nights in another town.

Jimmy Page kept a better hotel room. I was not embarrassed by the premium TV channels on the bill but £14.40 extra for laundering the bed linen was a first. Just desperate. Desperate.

I questioned everything on the bill of course, (Scrooge) big mistake. They would not listen to me as I tried to explain that the stains were chocolate. Just that. Chocolate: and how I had obviously fallen asleep on a Fry’s Chocolate Cream.

I was mortified, just mortified.

I don’t think they approved of my torn carrier bag of munchies on the second night either. A trail of Monster Munch and Wotsits across the lobby floor will exasperate the most taciturn of concierges. I had an excuse; before leaving Perthshire I had been given some top notch pollen to try out and had developed an insatiable appetite for corn based snacks at around 4 am.

Le weekend had gone so well up till then: the very best of company (a truly magnificent woman) copious strong drinks and a benign city eager to welcome us.

What day is it now? Thursday, right? Jesus. 72 hours.

72 hours and that’s me just coming round, that is to say, able to face a hair of the dog.

Where was I? Why, Heaven of course: dolts!

I promise to explain.

She's a local girl, "Our Shirley"
You can tell. Wee ferrety face, attitude, skinny, I like her.
Fab song, she wrote it, good band too.
Yes, cheers me up.
I have spoken!

On the twentieth day of the month I made an amazing resolution. Life in my leisure hours had been strenuous during the whole of September and most of October, so when I awoke with another frightful hangover, I decided emphatically to abstain for the duration. Teetotal.

I had to tell someone.

“Teetotal!” exclaimed Mrs Pouncer, much shocked. “You shouldn’t joke about such things and you in the throes of a hangover. Surely a hair of the dog at dinner?”
“Not one drop.”
“Tut tut Achilles, one glass of wine.” she persisted.
“Not even if it was champagne. My mind’s made up. Drink is a curse and I’m done with it for I can’t stand it.”
“Nobody is asking you to stand it, I’ll get them.” she explained, “I am not without means.”
“It’s no odds,” I said “not another drop will I taste –“
“Stop, stop!” she interrupted, more shocked than ever, “Don’t say anything rash for you might be struck down dead and then you’d be sorry for what you said. Do you mean to tell me that you are going teetotal altogether?”
“Hardly. I’m not that desperate, I wouldn’t care to go all that length, but I’m going to be teetotal until Martinmas.”
“Well I think you foolish Achilles,” she said, “October of all months. Why, summer is hardly over and Christmas is coming. Could you not put it off for a more sensible time?”
“No, October is the month for me, forbye, it’s half over. I tell you I’m thraiped with it.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s neither muckling nor mickling.” I explained.
“Are you taking a rise out of me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well just talk as your mother and father brought you up to talk then. Now sither, we won’t go over the ins and outs of this, but I think I aught to talk to your mother. What do you say to that?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered, hanging my head.
“Well don’t look like you’ve lost a shilling and found a sixpence, you’re not dead yet. Straighten up! Now sither, you’re not a young man, you have a long way to go, but you can’t do it by thisen. Think on.”

She left me feeling she had said something sage and shrewd although I was unable to fathom quite what she was getting at. It took a couple of drinks before I understood.

Daphne reminds us how much easier it is to rise than fall. For many, the very prospect of modified cloth cutting is too much and they hang themselves (quite ingeniously) in the front hall stairwell.
A young neighbour of mine did that. I discussed it with my closest friend.*

“Why d’ya think he did it? There must have been an alternative.”
“He was tired. He couldn’t face starting again. There was no alternative.”

I love when laymen give an opinion on economics. Small business men are the best. They come out with the funniest remarks. What they never consider is that they are testing predictions against an intelligent system. They haven’t a hope.

*My closest friend lies buried in the ash pits of Lanarkshire, put there by his lazy doltish family.

For Inkspot

Three Deborah Kerrs in Colonel Blimp and three here at

Cape to Rio

I know which is my favourite.

Because I'm Worth it.

You may be interested to know that I shall soon be opening a Berkshire branch of AHK Maroon Chiropractology Limited.
I shall cater for sciatica (leg pain) sport injury, migraine, stress, bullying in the workplace, slipped disc and arthritis.
I have already insured my hands for One Million Pounds at Lloyds of London. That is £100 000 per finger!

I am presently auditioning 25 year old assistants. You know who I mean, no make up, fresh, beautiful, pony tail, anais anais. I will pay full equity rates plus 50%. You must not skimp on professionalism.

Berkshire is wonderful. I love it. Sooooo bucolic. Constable country.
Its lanes are spattered with charming pubs and twists and bends which the motor just adores.
One strange thing, the livestock form swastikas when feeding in the field!
I assume the farmers have a sense of humour and lay out their cattle cake upon the sward in that unfortunate symbol for some English reason that is beyond me.
It's like the hoax forest swastika in East germany.

With me along some B road yet unknown,
That just divides the desert from the sown
Where name of Costa and McDonalds scarce is known
And pity Gordon Brown on his throne

Here with a Loaf of Bread not far from Slough
A Grand Cuvee, a GPS - and Thou
Beside me panicking in the wilderness
And Berkshire is Paradise enow.

Ah, fill the Cup:-what boots it to repeat
How time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!

For some time now I have had this terrrrible realisation.

Within the next five to ten years I will suffer an embolism. I will be confined to a Bath chair and only the philanthropy of the Royal Society will keep me from the poorhouse.

Worse, I will be provided with the services of the most beautiful and magnificent woman to care for me. I shall be unable to move, react or speak. I will write notes in a small crabbed hand to her which she will ignore.

Worse, in the course of taking me to the bar and putting a straw in my mouth her magnificent body will brush past me at every opportunity and there will be no way for me to react or cop a feel.

Worse, all this will be plain to her and she will take advantage of me, pretending to listen as I try and whisper in her perfumed ear whereupon she will take the complete opposite meaning quite wilfully.

Worse, she will answer enquiries on my behalf taking care that the answers she gives cause the most consternation.

Worse, she will be punishing me for a lifetime’s slacking and wasting and dissolution. I will deserve it and know in my heart that I deserve it.

Today, Mater and I enjoyed the West End sunshine and pushed out through the Byres Road throng for lunch in Ashton Lane.. She was on particularly good form and never once brought up her disappointment that Peter Mandelson was back in cabinet for the third time and I have yet to be called. (such high expectations). We had lunch in a little Italian bistro and there were no cracks in the crockery and the ladies’ lavatory was clean and well stocked with paper towels and soap. Result!
We were in her crowd. That is to say 50 000 Glasgow West Enders of all ages; involved at the university, or in art or the media or just plain flamboyant. Ask Eryl, she knows what I’m talking about.
We had a bottle and a half of some Italian wine which was red I believe. She put it away like the old days and we stumbled off over the cobbles for a fag and a coffee and a sticky bun. In the next hour, we watched another multitude, there were no clones, none of them were ugly and Viviane Westwood would have passed unremarked.
I am so old.
Hey! I noticed young men are back into Bono boots! The ones you tuck your trousers into, with straps and buckles and stuff. Dead 1980’s.When the fucking Hell did that happen?

CSI Miami vs CSI Glasgow.

Consider the scene. A man is engrossed in a private passion when from 36000 feet a small meteor of blue ice, not the size of a football, crashes through his roof killing him instantly.

Miami

Within the hour, CSI Miami arrive, they take samples, temperatures, they shine a laser up through the holes in the ceilings to verify trajectories. In another hour they have the flight path of the plane and the name of the stewardess who pressed the button.

Glasgow.

Three days later, CSI Glasgow kick in the door.
They are appalled by the crockery in the sink and the piles of bed linen awaiting laundry uplift. They step round the body, sneering at the red tartan pyjamas. The blue ice has melted over a pleasing Turkish rug.

“What a stink!”
“Jesus look at this, he’s been so drunk he never made it to the bog”
“Dirty…drunken…bastard”
“Aye.”
“Christ look at that”
“What?”
“There’s a hole in the roof and the lazy fucker hasn’t even put a bit of felt over it.”
“What an arsehole.”
“Drink is a terrible thing”
“You said it mate”
“Right, call it in, I’ll see if there’s any whisky left in the house.”

As they return to their flashing car, they comment on the state of Scottish alcoholism.

“Did you see how his dick was stuck in that syrup tin?”
“ Yeah. Now, that WAS fucking weird.”

That historic meeting.

AHK: Clarissa, darling! What can I get you?
CLdeM P: A taxi?
AHK: I tried to warn you. Brandy, that’s good for shock.
CLdeM P: I thought you were being modest. Jesus! Make it a Bushmills and coke.
AHK : Shall I supersize that?
CLdeM P : What do you think?
AHK : It’s just shock, it will wear off.
CLdeMP : I fucking hope not. Oh God, those emails!
AHK : You said they were erotic
CLdeM P : Yes, but at the time, I imagined they were sent by…
AHK : Who? Cary fucking Grant?
CLdeM P : Well, not Norman fucking Wisdom.
AHK : Cheers.
CLdeM P : Sante.
AHK : Another?
CLdeM P : Keep them coming and what the hell is that?
AHK : What is what?
CLdeM P : I take it you have nothing in your pocket?
AHK : I’m sorry, it has a mind of its own just now.
CLdeM P : Well can’t you drape a coat over your lap: it’s distracting?
AHK : It has been a problem; there isn’t a stone wall left unmolested in Scotland.
CLdeM P : You’d stand a better chance with a stone wall.
AHK : I’ve got gravel rash for Christ’s sake.
CLdeMP : Are you quite sure your parents weren’t related?
AHK : God, I need another too.
CLdeM P : In that case, get to the bar!
AHK : I can’t stand up now. It happened when you walked in.
CLdeM P : Carry your coat in front of you.
AHK :.Carry my coat? I could fucking hang it on it.
CLdeM P : Jesus, call him over then.
AHK : I could hang an anvil off it.
CLdeM P : Yeah, yeah, just call him over.
AHK : So you’ll stay for another?
CLDdeM P : God! Why not?

Cont. page 94

COMMENT FUCKING MODERATION!

Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? That little bastard Glark must have chewed through some wires in his demented frenzy and to think of all the virtual steaks I fed him. Fucking ingrate! I will get this sorted. I promise. While we’re waiting, whatya think of the stark modernity? I like it, me. It’s a whiteout on the top of Ben Macdui in the spring when even your sat nav compass is useless. I love whiteouts up there. You have to stand still and wait them out. It can be ten or thirty minutes. They are incredibly disorienting and you feel totally free. I was hit in the forehead by a snow bunting during one. It must have been doing 30 mph when BLAM straight into the Tefal brow of Yours Truly. It was a spiritual experience for both of us. I survived right enough, the poor bunting didn’t so it was probably more life changing for her. I buried her in the snow 4500 feet up in the Scottish highlands. Great days.

Glark's Gone!

He heard his master's voice and chewed through his chain.
I tried to stop him but the little fucker bit me and ate the whole sidebar.

I am confused and upset, so while we're waiting for site repairs please stay tuned for
Charlie and the Chocolate Starfish.

A small post about anal bleaching in post feminist Britain.

You will be delighted to know that this is the last from the jukebox for a while
Hurrah!
Back to Debbie.
Well, she's a looker ain't she? I like the squinty shapes her mouth makes as she sings. Like a Gibbs SR toothpaste advert.
And such a snappy little dresser!

May I be indulged? Not long now, just a little longer.
We're coiling up the ropes and polishin' the gimbals, raking throught the signals chest for the blue peter.
Wind's changin' see. Turnin' warm, turnin' offshore, tide's stopped too.
It'll turn soon now as well.

Think we'll have some more Janis.
It has been a very Joplinesque week. And I have been singing White rabbit for days, esp the intro (one of the best ever) and I need to clear my palate.


Play LOUD!

I am, you may be surprised to hear, a brave man. I take no credit; it’s a trick!
I learned how to do it on an Outward Bound course. Any fear, you just switch it off. I have to qualify that by saying I am also shot through with a craven cowardice like veins of gold in quartz. That’s right! It’s the cowardice that keeps us all alive.
Anyway, I have made the drinks run to Tesco these last five nights and bought the exact same items every time. Three litres of perry, two litres of squeezed orange juice, a bottle of Basics vodka and some fairy liquid just for the look of the thing. I have made sure my shirt is tucked in and my shoes are polished. (cowardice, see?). This is all to do with Kim Ayres and me saying to him that I wanted to work the checkouts. I’m sure of it.
Anyway, the other night there was a young student type on the till and bugger me if he didn’t engage me in conversation the little weasel. lets call him "Overly familiar checkout guy"
(OFCG)

So, while he was packing:

OFCG: alright?
Me: yeah...
OFCG: been a hard day, eh?
Me: yeah, something like that..
OFCG: hard week more like!

I thought; this is just what I need. They are either squashing all your stuff down the end of the conveyor belt or doing behavioural science 101 on you. So, I LOOKED at him. I looked into his very soul and he shut the fuck up.

So next night I bought the exact same stuff and I’m walking down looking for an empty till and I see him again. My first thought was “fuck” then, “Christ, I am a customer! I’ll go to any till I please.”
So he says hi and starts to put the stuff through. He stopped at the Basics vodka. Something had clicked. He looked up at me and it was all I could do not to wink at him.
That’s right my friend, the psycho’s back for his fix.
He never bothered to ask for a loyalty card.

Am I a domestic god? I have spent the best of the day cleaning the Perth foot on the ground. It was far from improving. Fear and loathing in the heart of darkness more like. I am concerned that a future burglar might disapprove of my obvious corner cutting and leave me a note calling me a slovenly bastard.
When do you know when it’s time to change the bed? When your very best Egyptian cotton sheets look like the Turin fucking Shroud, that’s when.

That’s not the whole reason right enough. No. I was on the drinks run to Tesco and overheard four boys talking at the door. One of them made a remark to his friend about a girl he knew and I was suddenly so angry. So very angry indeed I will never repeat it so don’t ask. I looked at the four of them and I knew I’d get a beating and I still wanted to jump up and down on his vile head. I’d be in fucking Broadmoor unable to explain myself.
Ho hum, a nice Jaffa cake and milky tea will cheer me up.
Nothing beats the smell of lavender pledge. Know what it smells like? Smells like victory. One day my war will be over.

Derange! That's what they said. However, here it is because I love her so very much. The beautiful white song, sung by beautififul white kids, for beatiful white kids, in a beautiful white summer. white rabbit.

Nine years later, we, the punks of this world, spat in their eye.
Hooray!

nb play it loud!

I had a terrible terrible crush on Grace Slick, I finally shook it off three weeks ago last Wednesday. She's a bloody good singer.

But, we must not leave the Jukebox just yet.
Ah yes London in the eighties.
Wasn’t it more sunny then?

I was twenty before I took any notice of Janis Joplin. There was a film documenting her life on tour for a year. I watched it in a smelly little cinema in Cambridge high on hash. Fifteen minutes in, I was a convert. Watching her matured me and I was devastated to discover she was already dead.
This trip down the Maroon tow path must be a pain in the friggin’ haggis for you all.
I know SheBah will be reaching for her Gucci sick bag and we may not be here tomorrow (according to Ayres), so get it while you can.

Update: the bastard thing won’t embed so if you want to see it (and by Christ, you better) you must follow this link.
late update! It does embed.


These songs will finish soon I promise, there is nothing worse than a drunken host hogging the Dansette at the party.

Everyone got a drink?

LET’S SNOG!

Love this song, and after all my mathematical profundity, what a welcome change!

You will all be familiar with looking at a misshapen vase only to suddenly see the silhouettes of your handsome father and beautiful mother. Imagine then a remarkable young schoolboy surfing through mathematics like a bowl of frosties and now under the tutelage of a famous Cambridge don returned to his old school talent spotting. The young lad is struggling with something, it’s instinctive, and the old don tells him to relax, not to think, not to try and grasp the concept, just keep going, and see what you will see. Well, none of you know the language of mathematics, no offence, it’s not your fault, but that afternoon, something went clunk and the boy stared at the old don who wasn’t that old at all now that he noticed and the don smiled back, because he knew that the boy had just seen a landscape that he never knew existed. More, he knew how privileged the boy felt to have been led to such a precious gift.

Well the boy grew up and pissed some of his life away having a high old time of it, but that profound feeling of understanding and privilege returned to him today 10 minutes before he met his brand new chairman. So he smiled and his eyes watered a bit and he girded his loins and met his new chairman. He looked the fucker in the eye and led his team. He ran over his allotted time by an hour and at the end the new chairman thought the sun shone out his ass and shook his hand and told him to come and see him in Toulouse and Dick was furious because he said fuck all to him and he was back in his car on the M90 by 8pm and here I am, sitting here, wondering not for the first time, if there might be a God after all. If there is, She is smiling on me. I have been so lucky recently.

And so, back to work keeping Britain's balance of payments in the red. The prospect fills me with such dread. I'd rather put my hand in a bag of ferrets. Aren't Monday nights awful? I once confessed to Ayres that I'd like to be a checkout girl at Sainsburys and just sit there all day pushing stuff past that laser thing. I said it would be great. After a while I would start making comments to the customers about all the rubbish they were buying. He was right, he said I'd hate it and I should buck my ideas up.
A Maroon was never beat! I shall set my lantern eyes and gimlet jaw to the wind and all shall break against me like hurricane Gustav (shit name for a storm) but I shall remain. Gigantic and magnificent.
Something like that. I'm off to work, wish me luck.

I'm just a little blue today.

Here she is.

Ok, that was good ol' Blondie.
This one's going out to a 'very good friend of mine, Mr Conan Drumm, I think he'll preciate it.
and also anyone else who's tryin' to get a handle on the ol' doctor, (yrs truly) here.

LETS ROCK!

Please stay tooned for Ella Fitzgerald,. (the best singer ever.)

"No, I don't believe in luck..."

This week I have been mainly listening to Blondie and that little teaser who says she kissed a girl and liked it- the taste of her cherry chapstick. Well I ask you.

I had forgotten just how beautiful Debbie Harry was, so here she is.

Well it was either going to be her or Rick Wakeman.

Doctor Maroon’s Hangover Cures Number 1

(There IS no number 2. Trust me, I’m a fucking Doctor)

Take 500 mg Paracetamol
Take 500mg ibuprofen
Take 500 mg aspirin BP
Take 1 Beecham’s powder.

Wash down with copious shambuie.
An Auld Alliance of Scotch and French, d’ye see?
Liqueur and champagne
You mix it 4:1 champagne to liqueur.
Put the champagne in the glass first you dolts!

(That carpet was cleaned last month.)

Swallow!

Just had a call from Mater. I was expecting it; they have a quality much prized by secret intelligence services around the world. They can pick up the slightest nuance, careless word, pause, anything and then focus on it with forensic ruthlessness using every lever in the toolbox to get IT out of you. It’s intrusive telepathy like in that film The Village of the Damned.

Hi mum,

Achilles, it’s your mother

Yeah I know, it tells me before I answer

How is everyone?

Fine thanks

How are you? How was your day? Still busy?

Well not so much…

Still having to work away overnight?

It’s tailing off now, we…

And what about within yourself?

What?

How are you, within yourself?

Is everything all right mum?

I am perfectly fine, it’s you I’m worried about.

Why are you worried about me?

How did you get on last Saturday at the dockyard?

It was fucking awful

That, is a terrible way to speak to your mother. Anyone could be listening.

Everyone’s out.

Someone could be listening at the exchange.

Really? I don't think so.

Hmmm

What. What is it?

Something’s different.

I’ve got to go mum there’s someone at the door.

Please keep in touch.

Right-mum-bye.

That was close.

Shite for shore eyes.

What’s the old clown thinking about? Not only has he produced a bewk, but also called it “Being a Scot” Pass the sickbag Alice. Here’s a tip for you Shir Shean, STOP.
‘kin Hell. I mean, getting your nutty wife to ghost write your autobiography; why, that would be like me writing a tedious pisspoor tale about the True Cross being found in Scotland (Pilate’s birthplace) in a weak formulaic attempt to jump on the Da Vinci Code bandwagon…
Oh.

Hi everyone, it’s time for MIDWEEK ROUNDUP! Foot Eater is in Sood Effrika (mid winter there) and is moaning that Cape to Rio is rotgut. Well of course the FIRST one is, but after that there is no finer raw white spirit currently on the market in Southern Africa.. I like mine with ice and bitter lemon, -ZESTY! Talking of which, our zesty southern belle Savannah, and Kitchen Bitch Eryl apparently visit our good friend Mr Gorilla Bananas, (Best Blog yeah, yeah, get on with it) but both remain silent. See that? Mr Bananas? I’ve still got it mate. Me an’ Sav go way back, back to the days of Dick Headley, and quite often we’ll burn the midnight oil with a tincture or two, And Eryl said she would spit in the Vice Chancellor's crème brulee if it came to it, so, you maybe get the awards chum, but I get the burds. Talking of which, Kim Ayres is moving in on Pat when we had an agreement, - he took an oath the bastard, - that he wouldn’t. The future of the Blogosphere is at stake! Funny how life in the unreal world of Russia and Georgia (not that one Sugar) is mirroring life as we know it here. Back off man, I’m a scientist. You’ve been warned. Conan Drumm, Chipping Norton MUST be a corruption of the French. Which brings me back to Foot Eater, and his solipstic claim that I was never further south than Kirkintilloch; Johannesburg mate! That’s the furthest south I’ve been. Any further south and you’re in Shackleton territory, which brings us back to… Nearly forgot. Harry Hutton (leader of our Order) posted the perfect post on the death of Solzhenitsyn. It was exactly what I wanted to say but was too crap to manage . It begins; "Champion bore Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died." That's the spirit.

Down the hatch! Now!