The influence of (s)laughter

Posted on Sep 21, 2016 by headinablender

This morning I came into work and one of the guys I work with asked me, “Hey, you know the word ‘Homie’; well, in England, do you say ‘Flatie’?”

He looked proper proud of himself. I think he’d been rehearsing that question all morning to be honest.

Anyway, after I’d finished laughing like a corpse, the subject turned to my blog. It seems one of my colleagues had been reading it and absolutely loves it¹. It was at this point that the joker (let’s call him Castro) asked if his awesome joke would make it onto my blog.

For clarity, Castro is a 6’5″ Black dude, built like a brick shithouse with the ability to punch me in half.

Yes Castro….(gulp)….your joke made it into my blog.

^{(Please don’t hit me).}

¹ And who can blame her?

Getting your fear on track

Posted on Sep 19, 2014 by headinablender

This morning I saw a man on the London Underground accompanied by his wife who was dressed in a Burka.

Some people unfairly assume that, being a Muslim, he is probably up to no good like bombing the train or something equally insane.

This is, of course, ridiculous. It is an irrational fear created by the few extremists out there ruining it for the rest.

I have to say that I disagree with the oppressive nature of the burka, despite the excellent UV protection it provides. Having said that, I do have Muslim friends and my experience has taught me that their religion is no more or less peaceful than any other (except maybe Buddhism).

Also, this dude had his wife with him. There isn’t a man alive (or dead) who wants to be greeted by 72 virgins with his wife!

Unless that’s their thing.

Which I doubt.

So I wasn’t worried.

However, this guy was wearing a T-shirt that wasn’t doing him any favours whatsoever.

It read:

I must not think bad thoughts

I must not think bad thoughts

I must not think bad thoughts

Hilarious.

There were some uncomfortably sweaty people on the train this morning.

Spider, man.

Posted on Jul 15, 2013 by headinablender

I have a fear of spiders.

I don’t care that everyone knows. I’m a 6ft tall, heavily tattooed man and I’m scared of teeny tiny eight legged beasties.

I can’t bring myself to pick one up if my life depended on it, instead resorting to the old ‘pint glass and envelope’ technique; followed up with moving through the house at great speed screaming “open the door/window quick quick quick QUICK QUICK!!”.

As you can see, I’m very butch and manly about it.

Mind you, in my defence, house spiders are big fuckers.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to attack my front garden which had grown to Jumanji proportions; towering above my kitchen window and plunging it in darkness. I knew something had to be done when I realised that recently I always seemed to be cooking at night, no matter what time of day it was.

So I donned some heavy duty gardening gloves, hired a local jungle guide called UmBongo*, messaged my family to tell them I love them and ventured out into the leafy unknown.

It’s obvious that as soon as you start to uproot all sorts of flora and fauna the local wildlife will scarper like chavs in Poundland, but never before have I seen so many different sizes and shapes of spiders in such a small area in such a short space of time.

Did I squeal like a girl and cry for my mum?

Nope.

For some reason, because I had heavy duty gloves on, I somehow felt a bit invincible. I even had the little shits crawling over my flip flopped feet and I simply brushed them away like I was channelling Chuck Norris.

This reminded me of those times when I was a kid trying to get to sleep and hearing a noise or creak in the darkness of my bedroom. I was shit scared and hid under the covers (with a little gap for oxygen of course) because that was somehow enough to protect me from a burglar, a monster or a fuck off massive chainsaw.

As I think back I realise how daft it was to think a duvet would protect me. How could a little bit of material make an appropriate barrier to the nastiness outside?

And yet here I was, a full grown man, with ‘magic gloves’, providing a lack of fear of anything with more limbs than me.

Except Tarantulas.

Definitely not Tarantulas.

Tarantulas can fuck off.

Seriously.