On depression and anxiety

Picture: Ted Ed/Helen M. Farrell/Metro

I haven't sullied the pages of the internet with my execrable blogdumps since 2012, having decided that no one is remotely interested in anything I might possibly have to say. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. And in 2012, I was diagnosed with depression. Which, in hindsight, might be connected with my firm belief I have nothing of worth or interest to say on any topic...

I have decided to break my blog slience just this once, to write down what it feels like. I am, as I type, in the midst of the deep, dark embrace of my illness - I have good days, average days, crap days, alright days and completely fucking awful days. Today is one of the latter. I'll try to describe it.

I didn't sleep last night. Anxiety made sure of that. Anxiety (for me) is a hollow feeling in the stomach, a shakiness in the limbs, a blurring of the thoughts, an inability to focus on any one thing but instead a compulsion to think about, worry about, fret about, obsess about everything. EVERYTHING. It's the little voice that tells me I'm an idiot, a fuckup, worthless, pointless, that everything I ever have ever done was wrong, and that everything I ever try to do in future will fail.

Anxiety, in short, is a bastard.

Anxiety and depression often go hand-in-hand, I'm told - which both makes perfect sense, and is one of the meaner tricks played by whichever vengeful bearded tit / psychotic sky fairy / unfeeling, unknowing universal physical law you currently believe is the ultimate creator of all things. This double whammy combination joins forces to lay its victims low and keep them down.

Depression (again, for me - everyone has different experiences) is an absolutely insurmountable sense of hopelessness. It is a barrier between me and my life. It locks me in a room, away from anything that is enjoyable, fun, worthwhile. It is like being held down under a soft but immensely heavy and enormous duvet - both utterly terrifying and yet, at the same time, sometimes strangely comforting. It restricts movement, limits vision, makes it hard to breathe.

My depression was a significant contributor to the breakdown of my marriage last year, and it is THE significant contributor in my inability to move on. It contributed by making me ridiculously defensive and thin-skinned, unable to bear being criticised (being able to take criticism being an essential skill in any marriage), sometimes making me loathe any human interaction to the point of hiding away in a room rather than converse with my wife or kids. It crippled me emotionally, so that even when I knew I had upset my wife, even when I knew all I had to do was say sorry, to climb down, to show some warmth, to BE A HUSBAND, I was incapable. Even though I wanted to make things better, it stopped me. It made me pathetic.

And pathetic is how I remain. Nothing seems to be able to shift it. I've tried a bewildering combination of drugs with unpronounceable names, none of which have done anything much beyond giving me some expertly-produced nightmares and a mouth drier than Charlie Brooker's sandpit. I've tried counselling, but I hate the sound of my own voice. On more than one occasion, I've had the nerve to trouble the Samaritans with my inconsequential bullshit, thereby undoubtedly depriving someone in much greater need of their invaluable services. Yet here I remain.

Anyway, enough. Writing this down has made me feel a bit better. It's a bit like talking about it to some of the real friends I used to have. Thanks for listening. And if you're in a similar boat, try writing it down too.

UPDATE: November 2016.

Since I wrote this, I have had what I suppose would best be described as a mental breakdown. After learning of the death of a friend, albeit a distant, virtual one, and having come to the conclusion that life really is a pile of fucking old shit, I resolved to turn it in. So one Monday morning, I woke up, decided that I would not go to work that day, and instead I would wander into town, have a look in the shop windows, maybe grab a coffee and throw myself under a tram.

I called my manager, said "hello cough I'm afraid cough I won't be in work today I'm cough cough not very well" and got dressed. Before leaving the flat, I paused. Did I want to do this? Could I do this? No. I could not. I didn't care about me any more, but I couldn't do it to the people I love. And who, to one extent or another, love me. My kids. My mum. My friends. Others.

So I didn't. Instead, I called my mum. She had no idea. No idea. She knew of my marriage breakdown but everything was fine, mum, hey, shit happens, you know, fuck it, life goes on. She obviously knew I was talking bollocks - I'd broken down in front of her at Christmas, albeit that I'd brushed it off as a side effect of the appalling red wine she insists on buying.

She got me emergency counselling. Paid up front, talk about anything, or nothing, or something. Just talk. Which I did. And I went back to the GP, said I had to get help, got sleeping pills, got anxiety meds, got anti depressants, got beta blockers, got the lot. And they worked. It all worked.

What I'm saying is: don't give up on yourself. Reach out. Ask for help. It's there. If not from family, then friends. If not from friends, then professionals. Someone will listen.

I'm in a better place than I was 6 months ago. I know I'm not out of the woods but the woods seem like a less scary place now. Might even get a tent and a CampingGaz stove and settle down here. The squirrels seem friendly.

Help is there, if you need it. Ask me on Twitter if you want.

Spirits Blamed for Mysterious Wet Patches

"Marie Williams says she feels free of the spirits that have plagued her home."

Well, that's good news, isn't it? No one wants their home plagued by spirits, do they? So if you were plagued by spirits, but now you're not plagued by spirits any more, on balance, you'd probably be pleased to be free of any spirits which might have been knocking about the place, you know, being all plaguey and that. (And, it seems, leaving mysterious wet patches all over the place. As they do.)

By way of background, Marie Williams is a fat credulous northern bogdonkey largish Sunderland lady who, according to an article in that esteemed newspaper the Sunderland Echo has been plagued by spirits for quite some time. The unkind among my small but enormously stylish readership might suggest at this point that she had been plagued by spirits of another, more earthly, sort but that wouldn't be very nice, would it?

So, there she is, all plagued by spirits. Until, that is, Derek Acorah turned up.

You may know Derek as the orange-skinned "medium" from that perenial favourite of the terminally shitwitted, "Most Haunted". Or, you may know him, as I do, as a lying, fraudulent, semi-literate, manipulative, greedy sack of shit who should be put away for a ten-stretch for obtaining money under false pretenses.

Derek, it seems, somehow heard about Marie's plaguing problems, and out of the goodness of his heart, he offered to perform an exorcism on the house. This he did by sprinkling salt across a doorway and somehow sealing up an imaginary portal to "the other side" which had allegedly manifested itself in Marie's front room.

There are so many things wrong with this picture that I don't even know where to start

Now, look. Quite obviously, there were no spirits, plaguish or otherwise. The woman is an idiot, and should be gently but firmly told that either she shuts the fuck up and stops complaining, or the horrid people from the Social Services will be calling round. Again.

And, also quite obviously, Acorah is a Ronsealed turd in a hideous jumper, who shouldn't be allowed out of a secure unit, let alone given money - oh, and I am very sure that he was given money - to sprinkle condiments on people's floors and have his picture taken in nasty living rooms showing off his ghost kung fu moves or whatever the fuck he thinks he's doing in that photo.

One quote from the Echo article emphasises quite how irredeemably thick Marie Williams is:

"The people who have helped us from the beginning – Sean Roper, Mike Halliwell and Steve Taylor – have been fantastic and have never asked for a penny."

Those three, by the way, all claim to be psychic, or clairvoyant, or a spirit guide, or "gifted" - or, as we say in the real world, liars. And they can't have been that fantastic, can they? Otherwise there'd have been no opportunity for Derek Fucknugget Acorah to get involved, would there?

You can read the Echo article here: http://goo.gl/CYodp. Do feel free to tweet @derek_acorah to tell him what a massive human tampon he is (I'd do it myself, but he's blocked me).

Some pictures I took from the London Eye. I mean, I didn't take them "from" the London Eye - they're my pictures, the London Eye can't take pictures. Well, unless you count that stupid touristy automatic camera when you're coming in to "land". That's what they call it, you know. "Coming in to land". It's a hangover from when it was sponsored by British Airways, I think. These days it's EDF Energy so the whole "coming in to land" thing makes no sense, but then EDF is a French company (EDF stands for "Electricité de France" which means Elecricity of France) so they're probably all too drunk or too stupid or too busy surrendering or some other cliché about French people to do anything about it. Anyway, I took these pictures while I was on the London Eye. It was dark, so I had to use a long exposure. I wasn't able to set the shutter speed so I had to rely on the automatic "night scenery" setting on my shitty little camera. It's not actually "shitty", I mean, that would be disgusting. It's just not very good. Well, it's good, compared with compact cameras of even just a few years ago but it's not as good as, say, a DSLR. I used to have a DSLR but it broke. Well, I still have it, but it's broken, so it doesn't count. I miss it.

Anyway, here are some pictures I took from the London Eye:

St. Paul's + The National Theatre Part I

St. Paul's + The National Theatre Part II

The Shard I

The Shard II

St. Paul's Heartbeat (140bpm)

St. Paul's + OXO Tower

The Nuthouse I

The Nuthouse II

Well, that's it. If you like them you can buy prints by, I dunno, taking your computer down Snappy Snaps and asking them to print them out. If you want, you can buy them off me, but I doubt you'd want to do that. But if you want, you can. If you want. All pictures are © me 2012 until I die and for quite a long time after that so if you steal them for commercial gain I will be legally entitled to come round your house and do a smell in your kitchen.

How the BA / Olympics campaign SHOULD look

Surviving Hell

So you're in Centerparcs. Let's not get in to how you got there - it probably involved a drunken conversation with your other half in which you blithely agreed with everything she said in the vain hope that she'd shut the fuck up and let you hear what was going on on "The Walking Dead".

Ironically, how much of the plot you were able to understand - between witterings about curtain fabric and what her mother has done now - will directly affect your chances of survival in the depths of the forested hell in which you now find yourself.  Because surviving a zombie holocaust requires almost exactly the same skills required to survive your own expensive ordeal.

BRAAAAIIINS

I'm going to provide you with some basic rules to improve your chances of getting out alive and with your sanity intact. I have experience here - through various mishaps and misadventures, I have found myself in that betwigged hell a total of three times. And each time, I got out by following some very simple, but very important rules of engagement. Come with me if you want to live...

1. Know your environment. The first thing you need to do, before you have even unpacked, is to work out your exit routes. Get hold of a map, and plot the key strategic locations. Firstly, where have you parked your car? You don't know? Then I am afraid you're dead. The car park is HUGE - you saw the bastard when you arrived. You MUST know precisely where your vehicle is located AT ALL TIMES - escape on foot is not possible. There is nothing - NOTHING - within a day's walk of the gulag worth walking to. There are, however, two prime objectives reachable by car: a supermarket and a pub. Find out where they are. Failure to do so WILL result in failure, soldier. There will be only one exit from the camp, so get to know it.

Learn this. Learn it.

Another key point on the map is your chalet - I'm sorry, but that's what it is, so you can call it a "lodge" as much as you like but we all know the truth. This is your safe haven. Yes, it might have peeling wallpaper and a broken toaster, and there might be a highly suspicious smell coming from the toilet. But it has lockable doors and a fridge in which to keep the all important cache of the one substance that will save your life

2. Booze. You have to have some booze. Not just some, a metric twatload of the stuff. Whatever your preferred tipple, it is vital that you keep your fridge stocked with enough of it to float a medium-sized guided missile cruiser. "Oh, but we have kids", you cry. Fuck 'em, I say. They're having fun, they don't know the horror. They don't know, man. They don't know. Put them in bed and tie one on - trust me, it's the only way.

If, through poor planning or base stupidity, you don't have alcohol in your chalet (shut up, it is), then it is imperative to locate and patronise a bar at the first opportunity. There will be several to choose from in your locale, but there will be only one which is not packed to the rafters with soul-eating zombie shitblasters. Your target will be the one furthest away from what is laughably known as the "pool complex' but which you will come to know as the Watery Portal to Hades Populated By Satan's Least Attractive Demons From The Lowest Pit. Find this bar, make it your own, hope it has a soft play area for the kids. Make full use of this unlikely sanctuary, but do not, no matter how famished you may be, eat there. The food is drugged and you will end up like the rest of the mouth-breathing, tracksuit-clad morons you previously disdained. And most importantly of all:

3. Do not, ever, regardless of the circumstances, make direct contact with any other guest/inmate. Conversation will be required, on occasion, with the guards/staff, but this should be kept to the bare minimum. "Beer, two, now" or "Bike hire, where, now" will suffice. DO NOT speak to or touch the other guests, as they will almost certainly be infected with the F-virus (fuckwittius cocktwatianus). I have personally seen people - seemingly normal, healthy people - make conversation with the evil daft, leading to an invitation to get together for a bike ride the next day and their inevitable disappearance.

4. If you have children, you will have no choice but to go swimming in what I call "the hive" and what "the others" call "the pool". It's like walking into a moist, overheated cavern full of cunts. DO NOT SWALLOW THE WATER. And get out as soon as you can.

5. When walking in the forest, stay alert. The controllers let the victims have bicycles, even though it is abundantly clear that they lack the basic coordination or understanding to control the bloody things. Listen out for the sounds of approaching doom - screeches of "Wayne, I cahn make ver fuckn fing stop!" or "har har didjoo see ver look on vat old bloke's face when I kicked im into the bushes". Protect your loved ones and return to the relative safety of your lodge as soon as possible.

As with global thermonuclear war, the only winning move is not to play. But if you cannot avoid exposure, follow these simple instructions and you should live to fight another day.*

*I accept no liability for injury, death, loss of or damage to possessions, descent into lunacy or discovery of lumps in the danglies resulting from any advice provided in this blog.

Twit Shit

This is disgustingly self-indulgent, so if you're easily sickened or just can't be arsed with babyish whingeing, go away now.

I've had a bit of an epiphany: I take Twitter far too seriously.

This is probably something that occurs to most regular twittererers - am I doing this a bit too much? Is it becoming a little bit too significant in my life? Am I a mouthy gittish twat? Well okay, maybe you don't ALL think like that, but I have an embarrassingly addictive personality and I think a lot of you do too. Go on, admit it - it's the first step to recovery.

Anyway, my Road to Damascus moment came when I was unfollowed by someone I love following - a funny, creative, talented, adored bastard shitblizzard motherfucker who has achieved a great deal in life and whose tweets are things of beauty. When he followed me I felt like my own inane, fatuous, insulting rantings on Twitter had attained a sort of kudos - I felt validated. And when he got fucked off with my pathetically transparent attempts at getting him to recommend me to his thousands of followers and unfollowed me, for at least an hour I felt like I'd had the rug pulled out from under me.

How fucking pathetic is that?

It's even more pathetic than this. I know - hardly seems possible

So, I'm going to take a step back. In retrospect, I've been tweeting far too much for someone who has a full time job and is married with two young kids. I'm going to change the way I "do" Twitter. Rather than follow people in the childish hope they'll follow me, or because they already do follow me and I worry they'll desert me if I don't, I'm going to follow only those who entertain, amuse, inform or enrich me. Oh, and people I know personally and who would be all "hey, why you no follow me no more" if I do what I should and unfollow the boring, middle-aged fucking cunts).

Jog on, you stagey bastard

 All of this is apropos of absolutely fuck all EXCEPT to say I'm not playing the game any more. I have been following people because they've been following me, even though it turns out that these people are so boring they could cause a hermetic monk to beat themselves to death with their own cocks. From now on, there are rules, and I think they should be adopted by anyone who doesn't want Twatbox to take over their lives.

Rule 1: Nah poofters.

No, wait, sorry, that's Monty Python.

Rule 1: Anyone who quotes Monty Python at me gets unfollowed.

Rule 2: Anyone who tweets about football more than 8.65% of the time gets unfollowed. I have a sophisticated algorithm that, when I'm not using it to predict movements in commodity stock prices or the size of the penis growing from Simon Cowell's forehead, is put to work on twitter to identify transgressors.

Rule 3: I will not follow anyone - ever - who asks for a follow back or who in any other way is, or can be suspected of being, a subscriber to the arse-climbing fucknugget collective variously known as Team Follow Back, TeamFB, FollowBackWankbags or Ultimate Cult of the Deep One Cthulhu and his Pisspoor Collective of Bieber-Loving Bastards Who Shall Burn In Eternity For Their Crimes Against Humanity.

Rule 4: I won't follow you if a large majority of your tweets consist of insulting minor celebrities by calling them a cunt, or in some other way demeaning or belittling their careers, when they have achieved more in the last 13.5 seconds than you and your hideous offspring will achieve in ten thousand generations (unless I agree that they are cunts in which case carry on).

Rule 5: I won't follow racists and that.

Rule 6: I won't follow Ken Livingstone.

Rule 7: I won't follow anyone whose entire raison d'etre is to demean, belittle, insult or threaten anyone else who happens to share a different political ideology to themselves. Grow the fuck up and look around you. You tit.

Rule 8: Nah poofters. Oh, shit, sorry, Python again. Bugger, that means I have to unfollow myself. Oh well, no great loss.

Rule 9: if you follow me at all, you're probably an idiot so it's only fair that I reserve the right to unfollow you at any time. As such, why not save yourself the bother and not follow me in the first place. I'm a bit of a cunt, truth be told.

That's it. Let us move forward in a spirit of collaboration and mutual amusement, and if you don't agree with any of the above, you can fuck the fucking fuck off you fuck.

Peace and love xxx

Your Nurk.

Death, Rockets and Linda Lusardi

You'll have to indulge me - I've come over all nostalgic for my childhood. Days of innocence, guileless optimism and good clean fun. Fuck you up the arse if you don't like it (see what I've become?).

Tonight, when I got home from what passes for my career, my four year old son greeted me at the door with the words "Daddy, why did your daddy die?" [Background: my old man died just over two years ago, at the age of 60, from a series of strokes caused by working too hard, drinking too much, smoking like a dirty chimney and foolishly having 4 kids in quick succession with his second wife. The strokes would probably have finished him off by themselves, but they were followed swiftly by a dose of the NHS house cocktail (c. difficile + MRSA, shaken over lack of interest with a splash of poor hygeine) so he never really stood a chance.] Anyway, this is the first time my son has ever talked about him dying, and to be frank it kicked the shit out of me. "I fink he loved you, Daddy, and he loved me too. Why did he die? You're not going to die, are you daddy?" (No, really, he actually said this. If I didn't know he'd been at school I'd think he'd been watching crappy daytime movies on Channel 5 all day.) Well, as you can probably imagine, it ever so slightly fucked me sideways.

This new-found interest my son has suddenly developed in human mortality is entirely my fault - over the weekend I showed him YouTube footage of the last ever launch of the shuttle - STS-135, or Atlantis as it's known to non-geeks (I'm a geek). He was utterly smitten, and I was suddenly very sad that he was going to grow up in a world without the Space Shuttle, so I showed him some more videos of the Shuttle and other space type stuff. Unfortunately, he then spotted an image of the Challenger disaster and asked me what it was. I showed him the video, and when he asked "where did the rocket go?" explained that it had "gone wrong" and that the astronauts flying on it had died. He didn't quite understand at first, but then he seemed to get it, and he asked "why did it go wrong?" I tried to explain that it was partly because silly people had forgotten to check important bits of the rocket, and partly that it was just something that happened when people try to do extraordinary things. He was sad for a minute or so, then asked to see "the gone wrong one" again. And again. And again. Evil-minded little tosspots, these four year olds...

Then it dawned on me that he's going to grow up in a world where people just don't do extraordinary things anymore. I know this sounds drearily whiney, almost Clarksonesque in its petulance, but if you think about it, it's true. I was born in 1973 and, as a result spent my formative years living in a special place called the 1980s. I remember being in awe of the huge number of unfeasibly cool things that human ingenuity and derring-do had wrought - Concorde, the SR-71 Blackbird spyplane, the DeLorean DMC-12 and the Lamborghini Countach, James Bond's submarine Lotus Esprit, Evel Knievel, the X-Wing and the Millennium Falcon, Formula 1 races where the cars actually overtook each other, the Raleigh Chopper... You get the picture.

Here's the picture just in case you didn't get it. Nothing this cool has ever been made since.

These things are all gone. Concorde because it crashed once and was a bit too expensive for the grey-minded beancounters at BA, the Blackbird because the CIA decided satellites were more useful (even though in the time it took to move an orbiting box into position over an area of interest, the Blackbird could've got there and back 10 times), the DeLorean because (okay) it was a bit shit, Formula 1 is a tedious parade of safety devices on wheels, and the Chopper disappeared after a kid fell off one in Droitwich (fact). James Bond's cars no longer fly, shoot missiles or go underwater - instead, they're equipped with defibrillators, first aid kits and a digital connection to Claims Direct. Evel Knievel broke every bone in his body and then inconveniently died, and no one's taken over from him. Lamborghini still makes fast pointy cars but they're now owned by the same company that makes the VW Polo. And the spaceships in the lastest Star Wars films look like they were designed by a committee of vegetarian manic-depressives.

The Challenger disaster was a major catalyst in all this. First launched in 1983, Challenger was by far the busiest and best of NASA's fleet of shuttles, the first to have a payload capacity large enough to attract commercial and military clients and thereby realise NASA's intention of running a profitable orbital delivery program. Its first mission (STS-6) saw the first space walk by any astronaut in over 10 years, and on its 4th mission in 1984, the astronaut Bruce McCandless did this:

Imagine the size of his balls

McCandless is completely on his own out there, strapped to a previously untested jetpack which might have left him stranded in space, floating around until he ran out of air and either plummeted into the atmosphere or got eaten by space sharks. Yes, space sharks. They existed in the 1980s, too. They did. Look them up if you don't believe me.

That image of a human man floating free in space is one of the most enduring images of my childhood memory, along with this:

This was an actual, real thing

This:

We were told we weren't going to need roads where we were going. Tell that to the M25.

And this:

Linda Lusardi - in 1987 the sexiest thing most 14 year olds would see*
*outside of their mum's Littlewoods catalogue

Oh, Linda. Linda, Linda, Linda. The things I would have imagined doing to you if they'd been invented in 1987 and I'd been old enough to know about them.

Moving on.

Two further untethered EVAs (geek speak) took place in 1984 - one more from Challenger, one from Discovery. This was the future - mankind floating around in space unconnected to anything. Then in 1987 Challenger blew up, and when NASA finally grew its balls back and started Shuttle operations again, it was decided that untethered EVAs were just too dangerous. Since then, any spacewalks have been conducted using technology not discernibly different from that used in the 1960s. Sadly, at the same time, the commercial sector and the military decided that they'd rather send their satellites up on rockets (strange, given that rockets were statistically far more likely to blow up) and the dream of a profit-making Space Shuttle died. From that point on, the entire Shuttle program was doomed. Last Friday, it shuffled off its mortal coil and another piece of my childhood died with it.

I suppose I'm just getting old, but it seems there's a lot less amazement out there for kids, even with all the technical advancements made in the last 20+ years. Consider how children today interact with computers - if they notice them at all, they're virtually part of the furniture. My kids treat my stupidly clever and ridiculously poncey MacBook as just another TV which happens to contain pictures, videos and games of every single thing they can imagine (known to us dreary adults as "the internet"). If such a thing had existed when I was a kid, I think my head would have exploded in wonderment. We had a Commodore 64, then a ZX Spectrum, then a BBC Micro and finally an Archimedes. These were awesome machines that did impossible things with cassettes and 8-inch floppy disks. My kids could probably build a Spectrum out of Lego and a deflated balloon, but back then it was like staring into the unfathomable visage of a strange and powerful god. Technology is now a right, not a privilege. Innovation happens every day but it's consumer-focused and mainly passes unnoticed. I remember being amazed when our old rotary telephone was replaced with a wondrous new device with a keypad. I get the impression if I was to come home tomorrow with a fully functioning battle droid, my eldest son would barely look up from his interminable AlphaBlocks DVD, and my youngest would pee on it before wondering off to dismantle the dishwasher. Again.

One day, I hope there will be tourism in space, and hypersonic passenger planes, and flying cars and R2D2s and a new version of the Chopper with laser wheels and holographic handlebars. My kids need more than 3D cartoons and interactive curling on the Wii...

Johann Hari - The Lost Interviews: Kermit The Frog

Kermit The Frog has made an unusual journey in his fifty-six years of life - from a childhood in the Okefenokee swamps, where his mayfly-addicted mother died of bogflu, to lead performer in the late Jim Henson’s stellar but now-defunct Muppet Show. But when he glides past a large marble bust of Miss Piggy in marbled hall of his palatial Miami Beach home to greet me - a two-foot shimmer of green - he looks like something else again: a Gap model, perhaps, or the ballet dancer he once wanted to be. He holds himself with a perfectly straight posture, and speaks in a soft voice that forces you to lean forward a little to hear him.

Most people, when they look back at his career, are staggered by the diversity of his characters. After a number of years struggling to make ends meet as hard-bitten crime reporter for the Sesame Street news, he went on to front the prime time Muppet Show, appearing in numerous Hollywood films and being interviewed by all the greats (myself modestly included). His big break came when his friend and colleague Cookie Monster asked him to sing backing vocals on “C is for Cookie”. During the recording session, George Martin and Brian Wilson (who were co-producing the record) noticed the unique quality of his voice, and within weeks Rogers & Hammerstein had written “Bein’ Green” and a star was born.

After Sesame Street, Henson was looking for a new platform and came up with the idea of the Muppet Show, a weekly star-studded variety show featuring the biggest showbiz names of the time. The obvious choice for compère was Kermit, but the frog was suddenly stricken with self-doubt, worried that the still deeply racially divided America of the 1970s would not tolerate a frog fronting such a high profile prime time show. I ask him why he had such a low opinion of himself at the time. He looks at me with sadness in his eyes, but with a wry smile on his lips. “It's not that easy bein' green, having to spend each day the colour of the leaves, when I think it could be nicer being red or yellow or gold or something much more colourful like that.” I think I know what he means.

When I ask him about his life, he smiles, but it's a small smile, looking to the side. Then he says carefully: "I've had a pretty extraordinary life so far. I've met kings, queens, presidents and pigs. I've worked with some of the greatest talents of all time - from Bob Hope and Rudolph Nureyev to Quentin Tarantino and Robert DeNiro. I've made movies, TV shows, music, and the occasional tabloid headline. And through it all, I've been surrounded by some of the finest friends and fans a frog could ever want."

His upbeat attitude belies difficult, not to say tragic, beginnings. His mother had him and his 3,265 siblings when she was very young, and crashed into mayfly addiction soon after. He was forced to fend for himself in the harsh surroundings of a Southern American swamp. When he turned eleven, he had an epiphany, and realised he had to escape the swamp if he was to have a chance of making something of himself. Walking into town, he had a chance meeting with a young Jim Henson, also down on his luck and looking for a chance. Over coffee, the two of them realised they shared the same vision. I ask Kermit how he felt when he realised he had found a kindred spirit. “If just one person believes in you, deep enough, and strong enough, believes in you, hard enough, and long enough, it stands to reason, that someone else will think “If he can do it, I can do it.””

I ask him if he still thinks about the swamp. He looks up, seemingly surprised to be asked the question, fixing me with a glare before softening. "The swamp will always be a part of me. The swamp is who I am and where I come from. It’s my birthplace and my hometown, my refuge and my strength, my past and my future.  Plus, it’s one heckuva great place to hide from pigs." He falls silent for a moment, and I realise he has inadvertently touched on the delicate subject of his much-publicised love-life. For it was while working on the Muppet Show that he first met Miss Piggy, diva and prima donna, porcine Juliet to his Romeo.

I pause too, wary of stepping over an invisible line. The on-off-on again nature of his relationship with Piggy has been examined from every angle, and I am concerned that by taking the interview down that route, my credibility might be damaged. Kermit seems to sense my unease, and smiles. “Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star?” I ask him what he means, but he has said enough on the subject and waves me to silence, turning to gaze out of the window. I worry that the interview might be over, but after several minutes he appears to remember I am here, and turns his attention back to me. I am relieved, and not a little irritated – after all, does he not know who I am?

And then he apologizes for getting angry, sweetly, with another of his full smiles. He's like a whirring empathy-machine, constantly trying to soothe and charm and woo the people around him: at the end of the interview, I see him doing it with everybody else in the offices too. Meeting Kermit is like drinking a strong alcoholic drink on hot, stormy day - it's soothing and intense and anxiety-making all at once, and leaves you feeling a little woozy.

As the interview comes to an end, and I start to pack up my notebook (realising as I do that, once again, I have been so engrossed I have forgotten to take notes), he grips my elbow and fixes me with that intense stare again. “I am green and it'll do fine. It's beautiful! And I think it's what I want to be.” 

So do I, Kermit. So do I.

Modern Nursery Rhymes

Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard 

to get the poor doggie a bone. 

When she got there the cupboard was bare 

as she’d spunked her entire pension on the bingo.

I've bleedin' pissed meself

Oh,the Grand Old Duke of York, 

he had 10,000 men, 

but half of them were laid off in the Defence Review 

and the rest had to buy their own boots.

Twat.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. 

Stupid fat fucker was pissed off his tits 

but he still got 5 grand from Claims R Us.

These grapes are fried in cheese

Mary had a little lamb, 

its fleece was white as snow. 

The EU adopted a policy of positive discrimination and Mary lost her subsidy due to perceived racism.

Whatchew mean I iz adopted? 

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, 

she had so many children she didn’t know what to do. 

Luckily she got 36k a year in benefits 

so they had Sky+, and XBox 

and when they ran out of money 

they burgled their neighbours' shoes.

Fuck off, yeah? I like well know my rights an' shit.

What are little boys made of? 

Tartrazine and sodium benzoate and polydimethylsiloxane –

that’s what little boys are made of.

Do you want your kid to turn out like this? WELL DO YOU?

Hey, here's an idea, kids: why not add your own modern twists on classic nursery rhymes in the comments. If I like them, I'll steal them and pass them off as my own. Can't say fairer than that!!


Disclaimer: If you've already seen these on Twitter - tough shit.

Pay Attention At The Back

Settle down, children. Settle down. Come on, now, settle down. Children!

SETTLE DOWN RIGHT NOW YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!

Thank you.

Wayne, put that away. Yes, I'm sure Shaznay wants to see it, but that's why Shaznay already has two children of her own.

Now, today's lesson is on "Hypocrisy". Who can spell "Hypocrisy"? Anyone? No? Oh well, I suppose it was a vain hope. Does anyone know what "Hypocrisy" means?

No, Spatula, it is not the name of a ganster rapper.

I'll tell you. Hypocrisy is when someone says they think or believe one thing, but then does something diametrically opposed to that thing. "Diametrically", Rambo, you horrible little oik, means on the opposite side. Yes, like United and City, if you must.

Now, who can give me an example of hypocrisy? Anyone? Anyone at all? Well yes, I suppose Ryan Giggs saying he's a family man then "sticking his cock up some mingers hole", as you so delicately put it, Violencia, is one example. Well done. Anyone else? No, Carling, it's not like when Chavnika said she'd let you touch her vajayjay if you gave her 10 Bensons but then wouldn't let you touch it cos you could only get Mayfair. See me after class, both of you.

Well, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the country was ruled by a wise old king called Tony. Under King Tony, everything was lovely. The sun shone, the birds sang, and everyone was able to get cheap credit to buy things they didn't need. This was because Tony's friend Gordon, who was responsible for managing the economy - "economy", Fistula, it means the country's money - thought it would be a lovely idea to borrow lots and lots of other peoples' money, even though the country already had lots of money of its own. Gordon thought this would be a good idea because he wanted the economy to look as healthy as it possibly could so that he would look like a very clever man and eventually he would get Tony's job. So he borrowed and borrowed, and encouraged everyone else to borrow and borrow, so that they would feel like they were very rich and later they would all thank Gordon for looking after them so well. And because everyone felt so rich, and because the people who ran the banks thought they were on a never ending streak of fortune, people borrowed more and more and more, often borrowing more than the entire value of their house, and no one ever thought their good luck would come to an end.

Unfortunately, Gordon was a psychotic lunatic - yes, Kebabron, that means "nutter" -  and the banks were all run by people who were even greedier and even more stupid than the general population. So of course the winning streak did come to and end, and suddenly all that money wasn't there anymore. No, Pritstik, we don't know where it went. No one does. But it went somewhere, and the country was poor. Worse, we owed lots and lots of money - all that money we'd been borrowing - to lots of nasty people in foreign countries, and they all wanted their money back.

Now, for a long time the Labour Party had survived due to the fact that the majority of people in this country are very, very stupid - yes, Polycysta, that does include you, you can't even count to five without pissing yourself - and enough of them were persuaded to vote for Tony and his friends in return for lots of free money. When the money ran out, a small but significant minority of these morons realised they had been duped, and when it came time for an election - "election", Bendybus, you filthy minded squirt - Gordon lost and a man called David took over.

It very quickly became clear to David that Gordon and his gang had left us all in a dreadful mess and that if something wasn't done soon, we'd all end up being owned by the Chinese. So David and his friends set about trying to reduce the amount of money the government was spending, so that they might be able to pay back the money owed to the nasty foreigners more quickly and we wouldn't have to learn Mandarin. This seemed like a good idea to everyone who works in the private sector - that's all the companies that make all the money to give to the government so it can pay for the public sector - that's bin men and nurses and firemen and diversity coordinators and social workers - yes, Shiznit, including the one who comes round to see if your mum's injecting Mr Sheen again. After all, people in the private sector were having to make sacrifices  - prices of food and petrol and everything else were going up faster and faster, and any money they'd saved for retirement wasn't going to be worth anything, so they'd have to tighten their belts and make do. They thought it seemed only fair that the public sector workers - whose salaries and benefits had, for the first time, overtaken those in the private sector - should do their bit too.

Now, as you can imagine, this didn't go down at all well. Us public sector workers have got used to above inflation pay rises and final salary pension schemes, so why should we have to take a hit now just because there's no money left? And that's why, children, on 30th June the school will be closed and I and all the other teachers will be having a well-earned day off. Yes, it's term time, yes, it will mean you miss school even though we tell parents it's essential you are here every day, and yes, we've always bleated on about how we don't do the job for the money, but for the satisfaction of educating the next generation. Well yes, Yobetta, I know we don't do a very good job of it, but it sounds good at dinner parties. So today's lesson is "Look after Number One, and if you don't get what you want, throw your toys on the floor and walk out".

And that, children, is hyprocrisy. Any questions?

No, Gobshyte, you can't feel my tits.

Britain's Got Coalition and the Nick Clegg Connection

I have been sent an explosive email making serious allegations against a high-profile production company which relies heavily on audience participation to make money, but which (according to these allegations) has been systematically fixing the system for its own gain. I'll let the email speak for itself. None of what follows has been verified as true:

For reasons which will become obvious, I can't reveal my full identity. But let me just say that, I am a Conservative MP with many years experience in shagging my secretary. My work involves close liasion with David Cameron's TORYCO company and, as a result, I have seen what goes on from the inside and this has left me increasingly uncomfortable about the integrity of Britain's Got Coalition and the workings of TORYCO.

It's long been known that there is a quite a degree of "fixing" in BGC but press reports on "fixing" are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to TORYCO's manipulation of the electorate and hopefully, in this blog post, I can shine some light on the smoke and mirrors trickery of TORYCO.

Take Election 2010 for example. Scouts working for TORYCO first saw Nick Clegg (the 12 year old plonker) some two years ago when he was just 10 and was appearing in a farce called No Government Please, We're Liberal Democrats.

Fresh-faced, young, full of hope. Poor bastard...

Following that, Nick was privately auditioned by TORYCO scouts on several occasions and, as is usual practice on BGC, he was "invited" to audition, as a "preferred" candidate, for the part of Patsy in the Conservative's new production, The Importance of Being Arseholes. At the same time, Nick and his parents (Paddy and Vincent) were "required" to enter into a contract with TORYCO. Like all TORYCO contracts, it is heavily weighted in favour of the Conservatives. David effectively signed Nick for life and he's got little or no chance of ever getting out of it...unless David decides to terminate. As one senior Tory MP said to me recently. "These people are mugs. They'll sign away their own mother just to get into government. It's a fucking turkey-shoot and then we own their arses!"

It's no big secret that David had been looking for an idiot who could be used to take all the shit for TORYCO's bad decisions. A development package, which included professional whinging, excuse-making and U-turn tuition was arranged for Nick.

Until now Nick had been encouraged to "boy-up" and it was planned to present him as an everyday Tory-boy. But with his girliness still showing through, the image just wasn't believable. So a decision was taken to encourage and allow Nick to "release" and enhance his uselessness . Disgustingly, TORYCO planned to fuck him over. They were well aware of course, that if they fucked over a young girl all hell would let loose. But with Nick, as one MP put it, "no one has ever seen a Lib Dem get arse fucked before, it'll be a novelty." As for the core Tory voter market, it was accepted they wouldn't care if Nick appeared useless or not...most probably don't know what Lib Dem is anyway...

Nick Clegg today - look at him. Look at the EYES. 

The email continues, providing further details which point to a massive conspiracy to manipulate the British public into believing that Nick Clegg is something he is not. If true,  TORYCO has some serious questions to answer. Not that they will, of course - they'll just tell everyone to fuck off, as usual. 

Injunction Busting - Who's Next?

Where did it all go wrong?

Now that the Ryan Giggs injunction is out of the way, it's time for Twitter to turn its collective attention to other holders of injunctions preventing details of their private lives being published or discussed in public. In the interests of justice, your fearless correspondent has decided to reveal the identities of several individuals and companies currently misusing the legal system to hide their disgraceful activities. I ask nothing in return other than your undying admiration and love, and any spare change you might have lying about the place.

1) Harry Garry, professional shagger and occasional footballer. Has been having an adulterous affair with erstwhile Sunday Sport model Trixie Wibblytits. Injunction granted by Lord Justice Flugelhorn prevents any discussion of Garry's extramarital activities or of the fact that he has a tiny, tiny penis.

2) Sir Bob Banker - former Chief Executive of the Bank of Wank, took out a so-called super-injunction preventing his being referred to as a "useless cunt" and any publication or discussion of his extramarital affair with a member of staff, the dirty, dirty boy. The injunction granted by Mr Justice Bassoon prevented any mention of the existence of the injunction, any acknowledgement of the existence of the word "injunction"and any mention of the word "shameless Scotch prick" by anyone to anyone. Also prevented any discussion of the fact that Sir Bob had personally and directly overseen the virtual collapse of the bank, leading to thousands of "little people" losing their jobs, an absolutely obscene amount of money being spunked up its ungrateful corporate flue in the form of a government bail out and, as an indirect result, the advent of those fucking Halifax adverts.

This poor woman didn't deserve to end up doing that god-awful "ISA ISA Baby" ad.  She's a trained actor, for God's sake. 

3) Travestyra PLC - enormous global corporation engaged in digging stuff up, watering it down and flogging it on to investment banks and sovereign funds at a ridiculous mark up. The company in 2003 loaded a great big supertanker with ebola virus, copies of The X Factor Winners' album, hundreds of gallons of battery acid and 10,000 tonnes of rancid beef. It sailed it to a poor African country and dumped the lot in a reservoir next to an orphanage and kitten sanctuary. Emails unearthed in a subsequent investigation revealed that the company had done this "for shits and giggles". The company sought an injunction to prevent anyone anywhere ever publishing or discussing its actions in any form, including via the media of dance, mime, abstract sculpture or during a game of Pictionary. Lord Justice Totaltwat granted the injunction but MP Farrelly Brothers tabled a question in parliament detailing what a complete set of bastards these people really are, and the injunction was lifted. Travestyra was subsequently fined 0.000001% of the Finance Director's biscuit budget.

4) Gideon Shouty, celebrity chef and creator of cuntish cuisine. Shouty built his reputation around being an insufferably rude, intolerant, foul-mouthed, sexist prick, and made a fortune by building a business empire around his ability to make people cry. Took out an injunction to prevent publication of details involving his being insufferably rude, intolerant, foul mouthed and sexist to a member of staff and making her cry. Mrs Justice Fannybatter granted the injunction because she thought he was a bit dishy and, having heard that he wasn't terribly good at keeping his bratwurst in his lederhosen, was hoping for a shag.

5) Mr D'Arcy Buggery - actor, not terribly well known but has been in that thing with the people in the house. You know, the one with the war. And the boat. And that posh bird who was in that other thing. Buggery sought and won an injunction to prevent any publication of some rather unpleasant details involving his having a prostitute insert things into his bottom. Mr Justice Fang granted the injunction out of sympathy as he too enjoys being pleasured by brass tarts with great big plastic strap on cocks. They're all at it, apparently.

These are all the details I am able to divulge, at this time. There are other far more stringent injunctions in force - so-called Mega-Fuckoff-Hyper-Bastard-Fucking-Hell-You're-Joking-Injunctions, but to report on these would leave me vulnerable to state-sanctioned assassination (Case in point: Bernard Matthews, just before he mysteriously and suddenly died at the young age of 80, was about to reveal details of a serving member of the House of Lords and ex-Prime Minister who had for a number of years been borrowing prize Norfolk Bronze turkeys and returning them in a state of some disrepair).

Sort of like this but up the other end

I have done my bit, Twitter. Now it's your turn. Let battle commence!!