long jimmy lambert
start work tommorow. me, souness, john, carl and mark, working with jimmy lambert. jimmy's an old mate from school who's doing up houses for some greek bloke in Mile-end. it's not painting though. it's demolition work. musn't grumble. as long as we're getting paid. we met jimmy in the grapes last night. £40 a day cash in hand he's paying. that'll do nicely jimbo.

he's a funny bloke is jimmy. he's 6ft 10 and weights about 13 stone. bloke's a fucking bean-pole. and he can't keep still. keeps tapping his leg the whole time. whatever he's doing he's tapping his fucking leg. maybe if he stops tapping his leg he'll drop down dead or something. it's hillarous watching him play pool. takes about 10 minutes on each shot trying to keep himself still. never quite manages it. never pots a ball. he's been 7-balled more times than souness

jimmy was short at school. in fact we all used to call him shorty. then we left school and jimmy went to work up north for a year. when he came back he was tall. something to do with up north i suppose. must be all that hovis they eat

got a postcard ...
... from fraser this morning.

alright. it's me. i'm in lanzarote. 'orrible 'ere. weather 'orrible. 'orrible volcanoes … bit like being on mars. sharon can't stand it. says it's 'orrible. the worst holiday she's ever had. hotels 'orrible though I've not seen any scousers so that's summit I suppose.
weird swede woman with a big head walking about. looks fucking gormless with a cap on. 'orrible.
seen 36 volcanos. told the tour guard they should fill em in and tidy this fucking place up. told him it looks 'orrible. lather everywhere. waste of money. can't wait to come home. 'orrible place. fucking 'orrible.

all the best,

fraser

kipping at marks
i'm kipping round at marks tonight on account of the wife having slung me out again. talk about kick a man when he's down.
i can't be bothered arguing with her in fairness. this whole fiasco at the weekend's phased me good and proper.
anything for a quite life at the moment that's my motto. i need a a good rest and mark's spare room is just the place to get it.

it's a good job i'm between jobs at the
you got to thank the lord for small mercys i suppose.

on the subject of work ... i was gabbing with john on the plane home and he reckons we
should all go into business together. painting and decorating.

he's always having these ideas is john. it'll probably come to nothing.

mark's missus knocked us up a nice bit of supper tonight. nothing worse than going to bed
on an empty stomach is there. could have done with a beer to wash it down with but i
can't complain. i'm easily pleased me.

i'm lying on the put-you-up in their spare room writing this. left mark on
the sofa downstairs watching some film about a rugby team that crash their plane
into the side of a mountain. it's not long before they run out of grub and start eating
eachother. not sure mark should be watching films like that when i think about it.
not with his depression and all that.

oh well. lights out. i reckon.

marshal's dictionary

scouser
a skally shitnit from liverpool who only has one aim in life, to rob more wheels than any other skally.

wheel robbing lacoste wearer

pikey from liverpool who talks like a twat.

an irish person who can swim

nicked at knock

me and the lads have just been deported from ireland on account of that daft scaly 'souness'.

me, mark, john and carl have just spent the entire fucking weekend in a police cell at knock airport on account of that idiotic, lacoste wearing, hub-cap thieving’ scouser.

we'd had a cosy little flight over, few beers, no aggro, and were about to go through customs when toxteth's finest decides to tell them he's got a bomb in his luggage.

"it was a joke!" screams souness moments later as a team of counter terrorist plod hit us from all sides, screaming "down on the fucking floor, hands above your heads!" and all that bollocks. they drag us out back, down into the cells, and lock us up for two fucking days under the prevention of terrorist act.

eventually they have to let us go. all except souness that is who's still over their. i hope they charge him and send him to the maze via a good fucking kicking that's all i can say!

more later, i'm off for a kip

fraser and the yellow v-necks
went to see me mate fraser's band (the v-necks) last night at some toilet of a pub in dagenham. went with mark, carl, john and souness. we're all off to ireland this weekend so were all just starting to drift into warm glowing feeling that befriends you in the days leading up to a monumenal piss up.
what a night. we should have stayed indoors.
in fairness, fraser wasn't that bad. i mean, he was okay. but the rest of the band were just horrific. a bad dream. in fact if you dreamt about this lot you'd need therapy to get over it. the bassist had to be in his 90s. he bore a striking resemblance to someone who was dead. i mean, this old duffer actually looked like he'd been shovelled up for the occasion. 15 minutes into the gig the poor sod lost all bodily coodination, pissed in his pants, and had to be carried off the stage by Mary the pub bouncer. the drummer kept losing his sticks during the songs and nearly had the barmaids eye out during a rendition of 'oh boy' when the stick shot out of his hand and across the room, missing her by an inch. and then their was the vocalist. i mean this guy was an insult to bad singers. imagine the worst kareoke singer you ever saw singing a duet with the worst kareoke singer you ever imagined and you'll have some idea of the drivel we had to listen to last night. roll on dublin and some proper music.

fraser came up after and asked me what i thought.

"brilliant," i lied.
"you reckon we've got a chance then" he said.
"chance of what," i said wondering where the nearest cab firm was.
"chance of the big time."
"not a doubt in my mind old son."

ireland
off to ireland this weekend with the chaps. we fly out this friday. come back sunday night. can't wait. i love ireland. love everything about it
i think that's why i love the pogues so much
need to do a bit of shopping. need some new strides
wife's not happy about something. she'll be less happy when she knows i'm off to ireland for the weekend
bollocks to it. a man needs his space

carl's looking smug about something. he hands me a sheet of paper more or less as soon as i walk through the door.
not only that: this is a sheet of paper with words on it. bloody hell carl, things are looking up mate.
i scan the page. looks like a poem.
looks like a good poem at that.
i'm no expert but this is a decent bit of writing in anyone's book.

i read the first four lines ...

... Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head ...

... look up at carl, who's looking as happy as i can ever remember him looking.

i read on ...
"And, the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced ..."

i stop.

"carl?"
"Yeah."
"You didn't write this did you?"
"Eh?" he frowns, appalled at my suggestion
"This poem, it's not yours is it?"
"It is."
"Who wrote this Carl?"
"i wrote it."
"carl. mate. what do you take me for? Who wrote it?"
carl visibly slumps ... "Oscar Wilde."
"I can't believe you."
"You forced my arm"

these are the people i have to deal with in my life on a daily basis.

writers block
carl's writing a book about his life. there's a little snag: carl doesn't have a life. no much of one anyway. he's still living at home with his mum and dad. I went round there last night to see how he's getting on and he tells me he's got writers block. it doesn't even occur to someone like carl that to suffer from something like writers block you really do need to have written something at some stage in your life.
"i've written stuff," he says, when i angle this little chestnut in his direction
"oh right, yeah, sorry i forgot you sent a postcard to your mum a couple of years ago when we were in Benidorm"
"look, just because you haven't seen anything i've written ... don't mean i aint written it does it. "
"well prove it then."
"alright i fucking well will" he says.
then he just sits there staring into space.
"carl, it may have passed you by but there's a little thing called life that some of us are busy living," i tap my watch "so if you don't mind ..."
"come round tomorrow night and i'll dig out some of my poetry."
this cracks me up. carl writing poetry? carl might be a friend but at the end of the day he's a potato and you know as well as i ... potatoes don't write poetry.