It’s November today, unless you’re reading this in the published form Lewis’ greatest blogs in the middle of July. Then it’s not November, but chances are the issue will be the same whatever the time: Christmas.
I should love Christmas. What’s not to like? People buy you stuff, you buy them things you’d like in return, maybe in the hope they won’t like it and just leave it hanging around for you to take home. There’s good TV. You can eat too much, drink too much and any inappropriate comments towards family will blamed on the rum content in the Christmas pudding and forgotten by the time the New Year comes in.
I get carried away by the excitement of it all and end up splurging vast quantities of cash on incredibly wasteful pre Christmas presents for myself. ‘Tis the season; I deserve an ivory carved back stretcher to go with my gold plated truffle chocolates.’ That’s fine when there’s 3 weeks of build up. My bank account can just about survive the onslaught.
When I walked through the local shopping centre last Monday (25th October) my heart sank. Christmas lights already. I couldn’t help it. A manic smile slowly started to form. Jingle bells began to be whistled. My hand reached for my wallet. Only 60 shopping days until Christmas, must ... buy ... crap.
Now I’m open and exposed. Everywhere is decorated; there’s no escape. Even the websites have festive trims. I’m like a heroin addict walking a world full of giant smack filled needles that I can just drop onto any time I like. I kid myself, that by using a card and not money it doesn’t count. But of course it does and I always end up spending the first week after New Year’s sobbing at my overdraft and eating Tesco value baked beans for every meal.
The Americans have thought this through. They have thanksgiving at the end of November.A nationwide family gathering where presents aren’t exchanged and cards aren’t bought. Everybody wins but the turkey. A staggering 46 millions turkeys get eaten in the USA each year at Thanksgiving. It’s a feathered genocide; 2 words I can’t imagine putting next to each other in many other contexts. It’s also the biggest evidence so far against evolution. Surely if the birds could evolve they’d have started migrating in October by now?
This mass consumption of gobblers means that people only start to think of Christmas when December arrives, and so none of the joy is lost.
By the time Christmas arrives here I’m all Christmassed out. Cracking and eating nuts has lost its novelty value, can’t stand the sight of tinsel, I’ll punch you in the face if you offer me another mince pie.
Each year Christmas seems to creep further and further back. Soon I’ll be eating Stollen in June, next year putting the tree up in March, to the point where I’ll be out buying things in December for the Christmas the year after.
Anyway, I must dash, there’s only 75,318 minutes left until the big day.
On the occasional sunny days that Oldham offers me I like to wander into town to take my lunch. Despite walking through Oldham, it’s generally a pleasurable experience. I get to poke about in the market stall, ask the people in the pound stores how much everything is and if all that gets too much, I can sit on the one bench not covered in gum and bird shit just outside the court house and watch the comers and goers; this helps me feel smug and self satisfied about my middle class place in the world.
The main reason I cherish these days of splendour so much is that they’re so few and far between, so it was with joy in my heart when I trotted out of the office yesterday to spend 60 minutes of avoiding vomit, drunken maniacs and potty mouthed youths.
I walked up the high street not caring about the man with the lopsided beard asking me if I’d like to see his smelly bishop.
Then it happened. It loomed into view like a teacher coming into the class room as you’re mid white board graffiti. I froze. Mistake. They pounced on my weakness. It was a chugger. A charity mugger. They show no mercy.
For my American readers a chugger is one of those folks with a clip board full of pictures of puppies looking sad or children quietly sobbing. They wear a t-shirt for the charity they work for and generally some kooky accessories that make them look cool and worth talking to. They’re not, so don’t.
The conversation with a chugger usually goes like this.
“Hello Sir. You look like a generous kind of guy. My kind of guy. Your shoes are cooooool. Mind if I stop you for a minute to have a quick chat about my charity that helps middle aged women in Nantwich that have limited access to good Rioja?” “Yes I do mind. Fuck off!”
Or rather I want to say that, but instead I just crumble like Cheshire cheese into a serving of meekness; ready for them to take advantage of. I mutter something along the lines of ‘no thank you, I don’t have time, please, I want to buy my lunch.’ But then they show me a picture of dying baby seals.
“See what happens when this 50 year old accountant’s assistant doesn’t have a nice glass of Bordeaux to help her through her meaningless existence? SEE WHAT HAPPENS?” “YES, yes, I see. Please sobbing, please no more, take my money.”
And so I sign up and promptly cancel the direct debit. Promptly in this case meaning 4 months later, just in case they notice and send somebody round to my house with pictures of a shop selling kittens for drowning.
They’re masters at making you feel horribly guilty and that your life won’t be worth living unless you sign up to give £2 a month. Yet that feeling should be the other way round. Chuggers make £7 an hour for their part in this spreading of depression. That means that if you donate for a full year you’ll pay for a chugger to be on the streets for a full 3 ½ hours until a penny of your money goes to the charity.
This scam is just a transfer of money from your account to the account of another so they can stand about persuading people to keep the cycle going.
At this rate more people will be chuggers than aren’t and they’ll start fighting each other for your cash. Chuggers will climb down your chimney, claw at your windows. All the while saying could I just show you this?
So next time a chugger shows you their guilt book tell them you’ll consider their offer, and if, after consideration, you still want to donate, then you’ll access their website and donate there.
With enough of us doing it, maybe they’ll get the picture and chugg off.
Today’s difference isn’t strictly between Korea and England, rather America and England, although a night out in parts of Seoul often merges USA and Korea into one. Show an American a room full of flowers and they’ll tell you how wonderful they look. They’ll tell you how much they love flowers, even if they don’t. You’ll end the meeting feeling good. Show somebody English the same room and they’ll ask where the coffin is.
One night in a bar in Chuncheon I had a conversation with two American guys on the topic ‘top five people you’d like to meet.’ It was full of positivity as we discussed our heroes and how they’ve shaped our lives.
On my first day back in my Oldham office a colleague asked me: “If you could punch 5 celebrities flush in the face, who would they be?”
In the spirit of national pride here is my punch list. The rules are that the punches are to the face, will not kill or leave permanent marks and they are also without repercussions, so if there’s a famous woman you dislike, fret not, punch away; it’s only a blog.
Shane Ritchie
My first answer and it was made immediately. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve always despised him. Maybe it was his smug smile as he replaced people’s stained shirts with new ones and claimed Daz did it(it takes a special kind of desperation to pick up Danny Baker’s rejected jobs). Perhaps it was the needless abuse he dished out to Peter Simon during his time as presenter of Run the Risk. More than likely though it’s because one of his boys is called Shane jnr, and another is called McKenzie Blue. Anybody who puts a colour in their child’s name is practically asking to be punched.
(Punch me, punch me right in the face)
Garth Crooks
Football is a world that’s easy to hate, and there’s plenty of punchable people. It could be Ashley Cole: “55k a week is taking the piss.” Sepp Blatter: “Women should wear tighter shorts.” John Terry: “I just had sex with your wife.” (lawyer’s note, this is not a genuine quote)
But all of these will feature on so many punch lists. I like to spread the wealth and so my football man is that ditherer of questions, that confuser of events that have just happened. A man whose fourth most searched for term on google involving his name is 'Garth Crooks Idiot.'
Garth Crooks (shouting): “That should never have been a red card, only ever a yellow card.” Steve Claridge: “It was his second yellow card Garth.” GC: “But still.”
His job started at the BBC as a post match interviewer, and it’s not hard to see why when he excels in that art with hard hitters like this:
“That was clearly the result you wanted wasn’t it?” (To a Dutch player after they’d won 3-0) or even this question made to Arsene Wenger: “David Seaman made a phenomenal save today. Is he capable of saves like that?”
Such a poor performance in such an easy task as asking coherent questions would have most people fired, but sadly Garth has just moved further up the pecking order at the BBC and into that realm of football pundits that really shouldn’t be eating unassisted, never mind offering their insight into the game.
Imagine if a journalist was to interview a celebrity and just asked ‘You’re good, aren’t you?’ Or a doctor that asked ‘It hurts when you move your knee. Are you capable of moving your knee?’ A world full of Garth Crooks is a frightening prospect and for that reason he deserves a punch.
Chris Moyles
Chris Moyles is the peak of the Radio One Iceberg. That’s not to say I don’t want to punch him on his own merits, but in this case he’d be taking the punch for the whole of Radio One, especially the news desk.
I love the BBC. It makes me proud to be British. The website is magnificent, the shows are generally of high quality, and it shows why privatisation isn’t always the best way. Programmes get made by the BBC that don’t make money, but are quite clearly high points of our culture. Think of Blue Planet, The Thick Of It and Have I Got News For You. These are programmes that don’t insult the intelligence, that promote knowledge and are made by people at the top of their professions.
Sadly Chris Moyles and Radio One are the antitheses of these qualities. The breakfast show seems to consist entirely of Moyles talking about ‘funny things I said in the pub’ all of which have been written by producers. If there’s one thing worse than bombing, it’s bombing other people’s material. Such funny things include shouting down the microphone, referring to a ringtone as ‘gay’, introducing himself to Halle Berry as a ‘big black man,’ saying Polish people make great ‘prostitutes and ironers’, and having footballers on his show who say the word ‘faggot’ without reprimand.
Radio One news is no better. BBC news should be a bastion of impartiality and informed comment, and yet it allows Radio One to constantly follow up its new reports with opinions of the public disguised as intelligent statements, such as “James from Luton says ‘I think the floods in Pakistan are terrible.’” Really James? How informative; I may have struggled to have come to such a conclusion had I only been presented with the raw figures of 3,000 dead.
“Chelsea from Salford thinks ‘Them MPs aren’t right, they need to be sorted out.’” Fantastic Chelsea; would you like that to be implemented as a policy to tackle Government corruption? Just as simple as sort them out. If only such laws had passed but 5 years ago, think of the waste that could have been avoided.
For this and for only ever being Northern when it suits you, Chris Moyles, given the chance I would punch you full in the face.
(How has this man made money?)
Paris Hilton
To keep this blog from being accused of sexism I have decided to include a woman. Namely Paris Hilton. As a child I was well taught in the ways of the world by my father, and so I know never to trust anybody with a monobrow, anybody who wears a hat with no practical purpose and women who carry dogs in bags.
Through no fault of her own Paris sums up the worst in rich children who really don’t have a clue, and don’t really need to, because even if they flunk everything, they’ll always have money.
“All British people have plain names, and that works pretty well over there.”
No Paris they don’t, just ask Shane Ritchie.
Number 5
I do my best to make the blogging experience as interactive as possible, and because of this, and in no way due to my laziness I have left the 5th option open to public discussion. Who would you punch in the face? You get to leave a comment at the bottom and I get more dwell time on my website; it's a win win situation.
Apartment living has its benefits: Heating bills are kept lower, there’s no garden up keep and you don’t have to negotiate any tricky steps when you’re drunk. However, it does mean your access to neighbours is limited to looking into their living rooms across the carpark.
During my time away in Korea our house was rented out. For the most part the tenant left it in one piece, however, a gardener he was not, and so my first job on returning was to tidy the garden as best I could. The first two priorities were cutting the grass and removing a vine plant that had gotten out of control. To do both jobs I borrowed a pair of blunt shears.
After hacking at the grass for some minutes I finally removed two blades. Exasperated I moved onto the vine plant. When I left England it was growing, but was a manageable size. Now it was a beast of epic proportions. As I removed leaves I saw the remnants of eaten plants, scores of crushed snails and the bones of next door’s cat that went missing. It seemed impenetrable, especially so since my tools had developed a layer of rust that chipped off only to reveal older rust. A Russian doll of rust lay beneath.
After an hour of squeezing leaves between the ‘blades’ my neighbour, whom I have never spoken to, offered to lend me her secateurs. The offending plant was massacred in minutes. My gloveless hands bled as it went down fighting, but I kept on. It went deeper than I thought possible. The inside was a graveyard of bugs, plants, snails, Russian spies. As I went under the leaves to cut the plant at its main stem I felt the branches closing in on me, but despite its best efforts I cut it down to the roots. All thanks to the kindness of neighbours, neighbours I never would have spoken to had I lived in an apartment.
Having said all that my other neighbour is a twat.
The start of the World Cup, coupled with an Auntie and Uncle of mine moving to Brighton has had me thinking about a life changing moment of my own. A moment I finally admitted my true self to my father.
Before I did some research I was under the impression that Brighton is a place to move if you’re retired, a hippy, homosexual, or a combination of the previous. Some light reading soon revealed my ignorance; some students also move to Brighton, although they don’t pay taxes so I’m not too sure if they count.
Time in University, Sussex or otherwise, is similar to moving to Brighton, in that it is often a time when homosexuals can finally be themselves and live true to their hearts. They can finally go about their daily lives around liberal people, free(r) from bigots and self enforced celibate child abusing priests telling them that their desires are unnatural.
I have empathy for such a situation having been through a similar time of denial myself.
When I was still a primary school student I was an Oldham Athletic fan; a small team for my American readers, with an average attendance of around 5,000. I went with my dad most weeks. I talked the talk to my fellow fans, and even read the local paper to keep up to date with players. I was a committed fan; a signed ball in my room is proof of that, but all the while something didn’t feel quite right.
Cheering goals never came naturally; the appointment of a new fitness coach didn’t have me on forums. I just didn’t feel like other Oldham fans. I was unhappy and unfulfilled.
And then came Arsenal. As a 13 year old I found myself awake late one Saturday night watching Match of the Day. I didn’t need to watch it. As an Oldham fan I should have been indifferent as the news of an unknown Frenchman taking over a Premiership team was announced.
But little did I know how Arsene Wenger would come to change my life completely. Over the next few weeks I started watching MOTD in secret, with my TV turned down. I was thrilled at last. I was experiencing the pleasure the other boys got when they talked about Oldham.
Watching Arsenal was like a dream, like nothing I’d ever seen before. The ball was passed around on the floor. They didn’t kick people. They were playing football. I’d found myself, but it would be years for me to come to terms with it.
Right into my 20s I watched the Gunners in secret, making games I did see look like a coincidence. I’d go to Arsenal friendly bars, and then ignore the people I’d watched games with if I saw them on the street. If I watched Arsenal in a regular pub I’d put my jumping up when they scored as cramp, shouts of yes were because of a polite form of tourettes; anything to avoid people knowing I wasn’t really an Oldham fan.
Something had to give. I was living a lie, and lying to those closest to me didn’t sit comfortably. I began to confess to my friends. I told myself in the mirror I was an Arsenal fan, then it was friends who didn’t care about football. A trial run of coming out. It felt like a weight had been lifted every time I said the words “I’m an Arsenal fan.”
Eventually I let thing slip, I’d argue the qualities of Pascal Cygan with such gusto that people knew something was wrong.
Some guessed, some I told and some simply asked me outright. Soon there was nobody that didn’t know. Nobody except my father.
I told him over and over again in my mind, but each time it came to doing it in person I bottled it. I was too choked with emotion that I just ended up asking him the time. He was never quite sure why this was ‘big news,’ nevertheless I couldn’t come out. I didn’t want to upset him.
Then came a charity hike with friends. My dad was the driver, taking us to various mountains to climb, all in the aid of a good cause. The discussion inevitably turned to football, at which point a member of the group, that I didn’t know as well, asked that question:
“Who do you support Lewis?” The friends that knew looked around uncomfortably, twiddling thumbs, silently whistling, doing anything to avoid eye contact. One friend even blinded himself with a penknife just to make sure.
I waited one second....two seconds....three seconds. My dad turned and looked at me. I could see it in his eyes ‘what’s the rush son? It’s an easy question.’ I couldn’t do it anymore.
“Arsenal.” It shot out like a bullet. I’d confessed. I turned to look at my father. The man who made me, who would look to me to pass on the family name. He just smiled and turned around to look at the road and switch the radio to five live; the Arsenal game. Turned out I had no reason to worry after all. I sighed as he began to talk:
“Now, you know who was a great defender? Pascal Cygan.”
The 1999 Bronze Medal winner from the annual blog awards, in the catagory 'Ok blogs about people called Lewis who move from the North of England to South Korea and back again.'
Other stuff to read when you've read all my blogs twice over
Scroll down far enough and you can read about my time living in South Korea.
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