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alternative sub-headings for this blog site...

• Shangatopia – if you can’t handle the truth, you’ll like it here.
• Shangatopia – a catchy phrase to follow.
• When it rains, it rains flour and dough and when the sun shines ever so brightly, all that dough becomes croissants. This is Shangatopia.
• Lose yourself, then find yourself pants-less on the foot of a strangers bed – at Shangatopia.
• Practice what I preach – but don’t get better at it than me.
• Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re still pretty ugly.
• Feeling tired, emotionally volatile and lacking self esteem? Click the back button on your browser now you good for nothing, moody troll!
• Life tastes like a rainbow at Shangatopia – minus the short bearded ginger fellow with that pot of gold. We all laughed at him when he didn’t buy shares but look at him now!
• Shangatopia – where all your troubles mate and multiply.
• You can’t spell Shangatopia without letters.
• Shangatopia – a place about as real as your new year’s resolution… fatty.
• Shangatopia – the answer to your prayers… if your prayers consist of some light reading before surfing for porn.
• Your dreams come true at Shangatopia – because you dreamt of surfing the net when you should be doing other things right?
• Don’t surf the net. Fluff it, at Shangatopia.
• To get your free Shangatopia tattoo, write ‘Shangatopia on a post it note, stick it to your forehead, go to the tattooist, and offer him a reach around.
• Shangatopia t-shirts, now available where all blank white shirts and marker pens are sold.
• Violate your mind at Shangatopia.
• Shangatopia – it’s a late night Maccas run for your mind.
• Shangatopia – where society grabs it’s ankles.

Leave a comment pointing out your favourite or submit your own!

image courtesy of Ken Crompton

I have a few journalist friends. I idolize them all. They're doing or have done what I've never had the talent, focus, direction, aptitude and drive to do. What draws me to it? It's the mass mind fucking one can do. I present to you exhibit A. I saw the above right headline on ninemsn.com today.

Words have not and will not ever be created to fully capture just how disappointed I was when I read on to find it wasn't a real bird with a girlfriend. When I read the title, I immediately went into Shangatopia and visualised all sorts of typical scenarios containing a boyfriend and girlfriend, with the boyfriend being a parrot, parakeet or budgie. But not a toucan, those things are just creepy.

"What's should we do for tea sexy?"

"sqaaaaawk!"

"oh hun, sunflower seeds again? we had that last night"

"sqaaaaaaaaaaaawk!"

"don't you raise your tiny little talon at me!"

"sqaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawk!"

And despite their bickering, they move in together. Into his place. And man does she have a hard time sleeping on the perch.

Oh, it was Greg Bird, Rugby League player. Just because you have the brain of a bird doesn't mean you are one.

Disturbed Intervention

Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible if you find the content of this composition offensive. Actually, I probably could, but I will not go quietly.

My friends Callee, Garth, Zoe and myself passed this place of worship in the back streets of Laverton. To say Laverton is the toilet of Melbourne would be cruel and unjust. It’s more the half flush button on the toilet. And that toilet is in a stinky old service station. A servo in Laverton. Anyway, upon realisation of their unfortunate choice of words, I performed a textbook full throttle burn out u-turn and parked on the front lawn. On the count of three, say Cheese-us!

Never mind the fact that at least three of us are apathetic non intrusive atheists, we were also on our way to an all girl pro-wrestling show in which Zoe & Callee would actually be tearing other girls to shreds. Love thy fellow man? Well it doesn’t apply when it’s no men and all women!

The epic clash of the gash (I cannot believe I just wrote that) was enthusiastically accompanied by Garth and me cheering raucously with all the vigour, jubilation and mindless violence mongering to rival that of barbaric pagan warriors of old. And the canteen sold hotdogs… which was… you know… awesome.

The show was fascinating, although I’ve been to a few events like this now and knew the sort of antics to expect. What I didn’t expect to see that night was a full moon… in a skirt. Oh dear merciless Christ she was horrid. Probably a nice girl. But I’ll never know. Now, one would think if you had an ass like that, you would do your best to conceal it. Like when a family has an ugly child, they grow his hair over his face, encourage an interest in wide brimmed hats and teach it to walk only in the shadows. They do not shine a great big bloody spotlight on the fugly thing and have flashing neon signs and a 12 piece choir all drawing attention to it. It was like the skirt was alive and was doing it’s very best to stay away from her dreadful rump. It literally stayed up, defying gravity, for her entire match. It looked like a fat lampshade yawning. Jesus Christ I’m an asshole sometimes. But if she’s going to parade around like that, she’s simply advertising a hearty heckling.

Now, please bow your head and drop your pants in prayer.

Our Father, who aren’t in Laverton, Shallow be Hal’s name Thy’s favourite word is come and thy will be done, in a gym sock as it is in Laverton. Give us this day our daily porn. And forgive them their scripts, As we forgive those who hold it against us. And lead us straight into temptation, and deliver us the evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the FIRE!, and the gloryhole, for ever and ever.
Amen

Shane reviews: Country Living, Ballarat.

Howdy folks! Welcome to a new segment here at Odd at Ease. Given my propensity to be opinionated, falsely knowledgeable and a card carrying ho to the pimp that is shameless writing, I’ve accepted the position appointed by nobody to review things you never wanted to know about. Not even a little.

Today, I’ll be donning the role of a Catriona Rowntree from the television programming spackle, Getaway. Except my name is Shane, not Catriona, and my show is called GoAway. And it doesn’t exist. Not yet. Not ever.

Dust off your akubras, fish out your oversized belt buckles, start up the ute, halve your vocabulary and punch a stranger in the neck next Saturday night because today’s review is on Country Living. That’s right folks, there may be gold in that them there hills but there sure as shit ain’t no grammar schools, as I give to you my review of Ballarat, Victoria.

In 1851, gold was discovered in Ballarat, and in less than a year, over ten thousand miners had moved there, making it Victoria’s largest settlement. If only some of the gold stayed in Ballarat. The miners are now gone but the minors remain and can be found lurking on the routes that link the hotels through the town on any given Saturday night, stumbling, fighting and generally trying to tread the metaphorical water in a dusty pool of fist fights and unwanted pregnancy.

As I write this, I have the slightest fear of retribution from the locals for casting such slander at their school yard of a town. But then I’m eased by the fact they need to be able to read in the first place, making this review an unbreakable code.

But it’s not all tobacco chewing, tractor derbies and horse fondling. Now that I’ve lived here, I can say my initial impressions of country living may have been slanted unfairly toward the court of toothless yokels. That’s not to say they don’t exist, my word they exist in droves. It’s just a matter of fact. The country have yokels, the cities have crazies and the beachside have buoyant stoners. But I must confess, I find country living quite agreeable.

In most cases, I’ve found people to be relaxed, patient and helpful. If Ballarat had its own motto, it would be, “she’ll be right mate”. The town centre itself is adorable and the sense of community is strong and somehow comforting. It’s a shame to see that the Lake is about as moist as a… (oh God, I’m simply not going to write that!).

Item reviewed: Ballarat, VIC.
How to get there: See that bus full of hicks? Get on it.
Don’t miss: adolescent males yelling obscenities from the back of an overcrowded VN Commodore, (if you do miss, adjust your sight scope and fire again).
Verdict: 8/10. A nice place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit there.

Bill Gates and alphabet soup.

And Bill Gates said, let there be blog.

Ok, perhaps it wasn’t the man who has more money and more pants than Scrooge McDuck but I’m sure he was part of it… or at the very least spying on the idea’s inception through the mini-camera installed on all his products which direct feed back to his space mountain lair on Mars. Hi Bill. How are ya? Enjoying your spying are you? Still have to pay for sex? I thought so.

…that was weird, I just had to reboot my computer after that last sentence.

Blog is a contraction of weblog and to weblog is to take a thought, type it up, publish it and then obsess manically over how many hits it’s got. Then you realise what a tool you’re being and log off the computer and log onto a bar. The thing is, at the bar, you get felt up by a midget in a polar bear costume, just the bottom half of it, and you can’t wait to blog about. And end scene.

I’ve often wondered, since about eight minutes ago, what did people do before the internet? Was there a pre-interent blog equivalent?

Some would suggest it was the Diary. To those people I say fooey because Diaries were always kept under lock and key or sheet and pillow as it were. The diary was the heavily clothed nun’s apprentice while the blog is a Surfers Paradise tube top scragg in logic defying ‘fuck me’ boots. Yeah, we get it Cynthia, you’re a platinum blonde with a horrendous lip gloss to non lip gloss ratio, the letters OMG worn out on your pink Motorola’s keypad and a fake tan so orange that people either speed up or slow down because they think you’re about to turn red.

So did people just type out their fancy on paper and leave copies of it scattered around town? Send a copy of it out to hundreds of strangers? Calligraphic graffiti? Sky writing?

The more I think about it, (which is, to be honest, not a whole lot as I’m quite sleepy), the more I feel there actually was no medium available for the prolific pen master to post his or her rants and raves for all to see and quietly judge. And for that reason, people weren’t lulled into the flawed ideal that’s ok to blurt out one’s opinion on absolutely everything. There was more control, more respect. And the ones that were so good at conveying the King’s language in print, were able to do it professionally, therefore, most things you read back then had exceptional content and phrasing mixed with seamless wordsmithing.

The act of blogging has given wide berth to the literary equal of effluent and allowed rant cowboys like me, who don’t even know that wordsmithing isn’t even a word, to spread like the spilt vat of alphabet soup that we are.

Dirty Old Man.

My word, I am indeed a dirty dirty old man. Walking along the train platform this morning, my attention was lured away from the ground in front of me and up towards the inescapably captive motion of a woman walking ahead of me. Grace. Confidence. Innocent abandon. Legs.

I was so very hopeful she was on her way to a fancy dress party. Or maybe she was playing the role of a character much younger than her on the set of movie. But alas no. The hordes of other uniforms and the fact it was 7:30am made all deductions assimilate the fact that she was indeed a school girl.

I forced myself to look away. The school uniforms aren’t exactly conservative in Ballarat. This lass must’ve been close to 5’10” and it seems they only made dresses for students up to 5’6”. Whether she intended to advertise this or not, she had legs, and she knew how to use them. A movie star harlot when compared to the gaggle that was now busy establishing a pecking order on the platform.

When I looked away, I passively observed almost everyone around glancing or flat out staring at her. So sultry was her walk, I half expected the sun to go down, a spotlight to shine on her, a microphone to drop from the rafters and witness her cascade into a piano bar jazz number.

The fantasies continued as she flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder and turned to enter the coffee shop. At that point, the shampoo advertisement director in me yelled, “Cut! Perfect, you got it, that’s a wrap!”.

Judging by the height of the students and the broken voices of the males, I estimate they were in their final year of school, putting them at 17 or 18 years of age. If I was the same age, my thoughts could be interpreted as an adorable crush. But I am not the same age and that makes me a dirty dirty old man. Like every single other bloke there.

Shane Butler Users Manual

Shane Butler
Model# 1978

Congratulations on your recent acquisition of Shane Butler’s friendship. We here at Evolution Industries, (Butler Subconscious Division), are proud to present to you the finest in friendship technology. The following is a guide to assist you in getting full enjoyment and satisfaction from the Shane Butler (model#1978).

Contents:
§ Getting to know your Friendbot
§ Tips & Tricks (basic)
§ Tips & Tricks (advanced)
§ Tips & Tricks (Criminal)
§ Maintenance & Repair
§ Friendbot FAQs

Getting to know your FriendBot

It’s important to understand, your Shane Butler#1978 is not just for Christmas, he’s forever. Or until such time he grows bored of you and abandons you during a shared taxi ride, leaving you to pick up the full fare. Apart from demonstrating basic human courtesy, there’s really only one simple rule when interacting with your Friendbot.

**Do not, under any circumstances, point out that he looks like a bigger version of that drummer from ‘Hanson’.**

Tips & Tricks: Basic

The Shane Butler is delivered with a wide range of default programming. For instance, he is pre-programmed to pee in the toilet and not on your house cat. Technology like this should make your transition into friendship with your Friendbot a whole lot easier.

Tips & Tricks: Advanced

For the advanced user, you can customize the default programming to your liking. For instance, you like your house cat to be coated in piss. Then simply click on his tool, then options, then uncheck the box behind his scrotum marked “do not pee on house cat”.

Tips & Tricks: Criminal

In case you haven’t noticed, your Shane Butler is huge. Let’s say you like the handbag that woman at Gloria Jeans Coffee is carrying. Let’s say you want it. Simply right click on Extras. Then select Remorseless Mugging from the dropdown box. Other items in this list include, but are not limited to: Hug a Nanna, Steal an Ice Cream, Compliment a Minority and the popular Head butt an Emo.

Maintenance & Repair

With the Shane Butler#1978, maintenance is as easy as 1, 2, 3.
1. Buy a bottle of scotch
2. Throw away the cap
3. Hand said bottle to the Shane Butler
Compared with previous units, repair has been made even easier by following this 1 step.
1. Keep the receipt.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. My Shane Butler won’t shut up about everything. What do I do?
A. Do not anger him. Things will get immeasurably worse.

Q. My Shane Butler is coming on to me. Advice?
A. He’s clearly mistaken you for a crack whore. Stop wearing the tarty clothes and lose the habit!

Q. My Shane is often missing for days, he’s in constant maintenance and offers little or no emotional support.
A. Congratulations! You have a perfectly functioning Shane Butler that will degrade then neglect you for many fulfilling years of depravity to come! (or at least until that doom ridden taxi ride. *see Getting to know your FriendBot)

Evolution Industries would like to take this opportunity to thank you on your recent acquisition of the Shane Butler#1978… but we won’t.

Support:
Phone: 1900-NOTLISTENING
Email: hesyourproblemnow@evolutionindustriesdoesntexist.com.org.net.gov.edu.heyyou.au
Alternatively, you could go fax yourself.

optimism

why did the chicken cross the road?




to die...

in the rain.

like Dave's of our lives...

Even though I vowed I never would again, I currently work in a gigantic sterile office tower for a gigantic faceless company. Both these things exist to make money and nothing else. The people inside are making money too but for a variety of reasons. After extensive research, (I popped my head up from my desk and looked around), most are there to earn money to support their families, pay their mortgages, pay off their cars and so on. And I can safely add that almost all of them are miserable with their jobs. The company I work for, which will remain nameless to protect the… well… to protect the titanically guilty, is in the telecommunications industry. Every decision, and I mean every single one of them, is made on considerations and calculations of cost and profit. You know what this means, precise and absolute zero job satisfaction for the employee.

Look, I’ve never been one to hug trees, save Koalas and fondle Dolphins, but even I am searching for something with a little more meaning. A means of making money where somewhere along the working week I actually feel the slightest stir of a job well done. The knowledge that I’ve contributed, directly, to a person’s happiness. As it stands right now, I’d settle for, at the very least, contributing to my own. And this is my theme today. My happiness at work.

If you’re still reading, I figure you can either relate, you’re concerned for my well being… or you just learned to read and now you’re just showing off by making it to the third paragraph. Because there sure as shit hasn’t been any light hearted funnies yet! Stay the course Captain… Giggle Island Hooooooo!

For the life of me, or even you, I can’t remember where I heard this. But it struck a chord with me, which made me smile. It then struck an angsty teenager in the face with a sack of angry badgers which outright made me laugh… then pick up the sack and finish the job. Ah yes Badgers, they truly are the smiley and somewhat rascally emoticons of the animal kingdom. So anyway, I heard some human describe another human as, “yeah, that guy was so happy, he could see the silver lining in a mushroom cloud”. I love that. What I love most is that it’s really quite misleading. In fact, it’s morbidly appalling. I mean, what sick son of a whore actually get’s pleasure from seeing the cloud that results from an atomic bomb blast?

So it seems that my workplace is the mushroom cloud. So what then is the silver lining? Well I figure I’ll just be the silver lining damn it!

As previously mentioned, I’m not the feel good nature boy kind of person. I don’t have bumper stickers that say Magic Happens. I don’t have a poster on my desk of a kitty cat hanging off a wire with the caption “hang in there”.

My name is Shane, and unless we’re already friends, you exist for my amusement. Now dance rummy! I’ve commenced the cavalcade of subtle office madness already. If I can’t be happy instead of miserable, I’ll just take mad.

Sound good? Do you want in? Shane wants you! You can start immediately. In fact, turn towards the nearest person and say, “excuse me?!” in a really shocked and disgusted tone with a fair bit of volume. Before the victim can respond, leave in a huff. Come back a minute later, act as if nothing is wrong and then ask them what on earth they’re babbling about when they question your behaviour.

Another favourite is to whisper and exact replica of a conversation someone else is having. Do it so they might just be able to hear it. It’s basically an echo effect and I bet you dollars to douche bags that you’ll even start creeping yourself out at how spooky it sounds.

For those of you with the power to pull it off, call everyone by a name that sounds dreadfully similar to their name but isn’t their name. And when you address them, look about 3 inches to the left of their eyes. I’ve done this and you wouldn’t believe the sort of internal chaos this wreaks on their poor unsuspecting brain. You see, in an office environment, most people are on auto-pilot. Everything is so routine that their brain need not more engagement than stand-by mode. So when you walk up to your colleague, Dave, and say, “so Dane, how do you want your coffee?”, you can actually watch his brain implode like a 60s Vegas casino. In that simple sentence, combined with the fact you’re looking just over his shoulder, (but you’re making it seem like you’re actually making eye contact), you completely and utterly destroy is thought pattern. His brain pilot comes back to the cockpit to find the auto-pilot is upside down, on fire and the plane is heading for a giant fucking mountain! Why exactly? Because, like a computer, you just gave his brain far too many calculations to cope with and it crashed. It takes just under 3 seconds to casually say, “so Dane, how do you like your coffee?”. And in those 3 seconds, he’s trying to address the following:

“My name is not Dane? Does he know what? Should I correct him?”
“how do I want my coffee? I didn’t even ask for a coffee. Should I just answer him anyway?”
“hang on a sec, I don’t even drink coffee!”
“is he coming on to me?!”
“what have I done to lead him on?”
“jesus, is he even looking at me? Is there something behind me? Should I turn around?”
“oh crap, now I’ve been standing here in silence for a few seconds, he’s going to think I’m weird”
“but that’s not fair, HE’S the weird one! Screw it, I’ll just answer him…”

“I’ll have my coffee black thanks Shane”.
To which I respond with…
“EXCUSE ME?!” and storm off.

old school...

No, not old "skool" you pale lame gangsta wannabe. You're not ghetto, you're not streets and your low slung baggy pants will only slow your escape as I chase you down and beat you like the slave to misguided trends that you are.

Settle down Shane. As if you would beat up a gangsta wannabe. You'd just blog about it.

I'm talking old school because, while at my course this evening, I realised why it's so easy for me to learn now compared to when I was in school.

This year, I've been learning a little about xhtml, css, media manipulation and other webdesign related topics. I'll tell you what I have NOT had to learn:

• How to sit up straight.
• How to not walk pigeon toed and knock kneed.
• How to talk and interact with a girl.
• How to get out of triple dunce in school yard handball.
• How to conceal my crush on Melody Baker.
• How to prevent my ass getting handed to me by the grade twelves.
• How to avoid a raging and uncontrollable erection during speech and drama class.

Being free from all these lessons that weren't in text books has given me unparalleled focus. I honestly feel like I'm copying and pasting the lessons straight into my brain and I can 'ctrl f' it whenever I want.

Sweet.

(Melody Baker - I just realised your name, taken literally, implies you bake melodies! I'm a musician too!)

I’m on the train… and I hate John Mayer.

Fact: you say I’m on a train if you’re heading somewhere social however you say I’m on the train if you’re heading to work.

Like a child unwrapping a toy remote control car on Christmas Day, I opened my laptop this morning with wide eyed ambition and youthful exuberance. Unfortunately, all this positivity was hacked mercilessly to death by the scerated broadsword of reality. It’s another Monday morning, absolutely identical to every other Monday morning in every way. And as the train pulls away from Ballarat station at precisely 7:46am en route for the hive, Melbourne, the revelation insists itself upon me that the toy remote control car was a lovely gesture, but the batteries weren’t included. Last year, I was doing backstroke in woman shaped pools of beer and scotch and fun. Now I’m barely treading water in suits and budgets and targets and I’m pretty sure I’ll soon be dead from drowning in all these ridiculously misguided metaphors.

“stay positive”. That’s what you need to do big Shane-o. Stay positive. That’s the key. Wise advice but as I sit here amongst the biological droids on their way to their respective nine to fives, I’m starting to wonder, (in fact, now I am in full wonderment), if the “stay positive” approach is the long term solution or just a disease soaked bandaid of inevitable demise. If it is indeed the key, then it’s the key to a door I don’t want to fucking open. A door that leads to a room of suppression and misapprehension. My dear friends will know I perform at my optimum when I’m fired up and angry. From doing the dishes to driving my car, from competitive games to competitive sports, from the boardroom to the bedroom, I do it best when I’m angry, (that’s right babe, you’re beaten battered and bruised and you’re welcome). I’m a big fan of anger. I find it provides the necessary and easily accessible framework for powerful focus. You know what doesn’t help me focus. Yeah that’s right.

So the alternative to staying positive is to remain outright fucking livid, irate and/or any other ill-tempered mood that gives you the sort of drive and focus that could help you punt a fluffy penguin 100 yards. You’re flying now you fat, lazy, overdressed beak donning bird imposter! No amount of staying positive would’ve made fluffy fly. Chalk another one up for anger.

It’s by no means the best way to go about things. But right now, I need to use whatever methods I have at my disposal. If anger can power the Shangatrain (lame) to the last stop, then I shall embrace it. After all, we can’t all be perfect… like John Mayer, sleeping on a bed made out of thousand dollar notes made of satin and being woken up each morning by a bevy of supermodels gently gnawing at the genitals. God I hate John Mayer.

Shane of Train and the anonymous funk.

So here’s my idea. When you buy your train ticket, you are not given an actual ticket. Instead, you’re given a small beeper like device that you clip onto your collar. Why Shane? What’s the basis of your proposal? Is it some ingenious method of researching public transport data? Are you doing this in the pursuit of a more efficient commuting future for your fellow man, woman and grommet?

Well, as the invasive and anonymous gaseous filth born in the bowels of another passenger slowly washes over and in my defenceless nostrils, I can safely and securely announce that NO! My idea is not intended for anything so grand. The purpose, the ONLY purpose, is for this beeper to start beeping and shrieking (with as much frenzied electronic franticness as its tiny battery will allow) when the person wearing it… farts.

I’m completely fed up with commencing each and every day by being unwillingly subjected to an onslaught of human waste. An armada of ass acrobatics the likes of which should never be smelt. Poo samples. Because that’s what a fart is. It’s shit, molecularly altered to take flight in gaseous form and relocate from a strangers ass, down the aisle and into your nose, ears, lungs and perhaps even your eyeballs.

Here’s why the beeper would work. The device would automatically calibrate to the user’s scent and instantly recognise the aerial discharge of said user and not the scent of a nearby passenger, thus eliminating the ‘blame it on the dog’ defence. Upon detecting a user offence, the beeper would set off in a pitch and frequency that draws attention of everybody in the carriage to the filthy offender. The fear and shame of drawing attention to oneself in this way will deter most potential sample stirrers.

But what about the few that have no shame and will not fear the beeper. And what about all us non-offenders? As we sit peacefully and respectfully, will we have to endure the sounds of beepers for our journey? I’m glad you asked. Both concerns are valid but in actual fact, they cancel each other out. Initially, non-offenders will become more and more irate at the beeping. So much so, that the stares, glares and potential beatings from non-offenders will scare the fart mongers’ sphincters shut tight. So you see, even though some punks have no shame and don’t fear the beeper, they will indeed fear the thrashing they might receive from other passengers. Ergo, no offending takes places and no beeping will have to be endured by the respectfully clenched commuter.

This is the way of the future as it has been predicted by famous philosopher, Nostrilledanus.

Funny the way it is.

Culture. Even public transport has it’s own culture. I’ve commuted by car or foot ever since I’ve had a need to commute. So now that I ride a train two hours every day, the public transport culture has been a real eye opener for me… because until now, I’ve been walking and driving with my eyes… closed?

Back when the earth was still cooling and I attended primary school, I rode the bus to and from school, (school = a place where every other child on earth who wasn’t scrawny and so pale he was transparent would go to endlessly taunt scrawny transparent kids). The bus hierarchy was simple. Cool kids down the back, below the radar in the middle and geeks, nerds, nannas and myself up the front. In fact I was so uncool, I was sometimes the hood ornament and spent the afternoon walk from the bus stop to home carefully removing nanna’s spitballs from the back of my head and thinking of all the comebacks I should have said at the time. Comebacks like, “that last spitball was a great one old woman… but now this is happening” and throw her bitter chalky skinned ass off the moving bus. And on that note, young bullies be warned. Choose your next victim wisely as he may just grow up to be 6’7” and over 100kg with a temper to rival that of a thousand over cooked Gordon Ramsays with an unyielding penchant for revenge whereby the punishment supersedes the crime by a universally epic margin. One poor chap has learnt that the hard way in 1999 and now his nose is still on his face but he has to do a handstand to smell something.

The earth has since cooled, the core stable, the mantle restless but restrained and the crust dormant and docile. And with that comes my transition to my thirties. My how the hierarchy has changed. Recently I’ve taken to riding in the very front carriage of the train, (toward the far end of the platform). Initially I did this to avoid the fat, wheezing, anti-punctual yet highly perspirant seat molesters who would turbo waddle onto the train just as the doors closed and sit right next to me. Now I realise there’s more than just the extra 40m walk keeping these poor soon to be dead burger king and queens away from me. Every day, without fail, I see the same business men and women sitting in exactly the same seats in the front carriage. This is their commute too. Week in, week out. And weak out. No messing about. The front carriage has an unspoken prerequisite for occupancy: Treat others with respect and dignity and accept nothing but the same in return. There is no bending of this mission statement. This is the front carriage culture (F.C.C.) and today I witnessed a series of delft moves to seamlessly eject a young man who was still operating under the bus backseat spitball guidelines. He entered the almost full carriage, loudly speaking into his mobile phone about how ‘wasted’ he got last night. To avoid the whole pot calling kettle black routine, may I make it clear I have no problem that he got wasted last night. It’s just the manner/volume in which he chose to communicate it given his surroundings. Conflicting with the F.C.C. and still on the phone, he approached several spare seats but each time, the seat was either occupied by a briefcase or a comment to the tune of, “my wife is sitting here”. Clearly she wasn’t sitting there. No-one was sitting there. But this punk didn’t dare put the lie on trial. It then dawned on me that I had unwittingly gained acceptance by the pride. Perhaps by the honourable way in which I conducted myself. Or more likely because no other lion was big enough to challenge. Either way, my commute is more often than not, free from the great unwashed.

Funny the way the hierarchy has shifted from the back of the bus to the front of the train. It also means I was actually cool back in my school days too. I was just ahead of my time. Fuck you Nan.