The other person who is interesting/terrifying in the park is Mr. Boring. That’s not his real name. I don’t know what his real name is but Mr. Boring definitely suits him. And he’s definitely a nutter. He walks his dog every day in the park. Not much wrong with that except that his dog has been dead for a long time and doesn’t really need walking anymore. That doesn’t stop Mr. Boring. He’ll walk his dog, in his head, round the park anyway. That’s not the reason that I call him Mr. Boring. The reason I call him Mr. Boring is because any time that I bump into him its lecture time.
He talks. He talks a lot. And only about tedious things. There’s rarely a time that, when I actually do speak to him, that he hasn’t got another amazing fact about what happens to grass inside a dog’s digestive system. He’ll talk about it for a minimum of 25 minutes. Do you know what happens to grass inside a dog’s digestive system? NOTHING. Not a fucking thing. But, 25 minutes later he’s still talking about it. That’s not all he can natter about. He has a wide range of subjects such as; Why you should only buy scratchcards 10-at-a-time, Why the sea can never destroy Japan, How many women pretended to vote for Obama and How to repair anything Victorian. He’s a font of bollocks. The main reason that I love him though is because of his strange quirk. He was born in London and has lived in London all of his life. He’s now in his late sixties. The thing is, sometimes he talks in a broad Geordie accent. I mean a full-on, Auf Wiedersehn Pet piss-take of a noise. When you ask him why he’s speaking in a Newcastle accent he goes red, denies it, gets angry and storms off. THAT, my friend, is a proper British nutter. We should salute him. A bit.
Now, when I say nutter I obviously mean “incredible excentric”. That’s all the park nutters really are. They don’t harm themselves or other people and they’re not unhappy (except when you point out that they’re not from Newcastle). Yesterday I took a train to Leeds. On my way I was sat near a woman who worked in Mental Health. I knew that she worked in Mental Health by the amount of time she screamed about working in Mental Health down her mobile phone. She was awful. I am now terrified for people who need help in this field because if this bag of ignorant sonic-rape is anything to go by then people in need are fucked. I picked up on a few of the thick-as-pig-shit’s lines as she shouted subtly. Stuff like : “The thing is, if they’re autistic you should just ignore them or they’ll punch you”, “They’re hilarious when they shout all day” and “I could never take any of that lot seriously”. I’m certainly not saying that everyone working in Mental Health is as ridiculous as that heap of crap. Hopefully, this woman is a one off and is now dead. It was a terrifying thing to witness though. What if she is actually in charge somewhere? Someone do something. Now. And don’t think I’m a coward, because I tutted a lot during her phone call and I’m sure if she wasn’t screaming louder than a Metallica bomb she would have heard me.
I had a lovely night in Leeds last night. There were a few highlights that have made me very happy. My hotel had a bunk bed in it. It also had a normal double bed but the bunk bed was just above it and, as I haven’t slept in one in nearly 30 years I thought I’d give it a go. It was great. Well, it was OK. It’s not the same without my brother in the lower bunk kicking my mattress to try to make me fall out of bed. Yeah, growing up in Northern Ireland was tough.
I did two gigs last night for Toby Jones. They were both excellent. The thing is, I think Leeds was having a special “Dress As A Twat” night. Both bars (but not the actual venues) had lots of people in embarrassing fancy dress and being wacky. I fucking hate wacky. I could barely move for Harry Potters, Jokers and Elvis’. In a way, that’s all fine. It’s not my thing but if people want to dress as Harry Potter, The Joker or Elvis then, I suppose, they have every right. But what about the two lads dressed as Hasidic Jews? Isn’t that just in bad taste? Isn’t that EXACTLY like blacking up, wearing a turban or any other form of HIGHlarious racism? I suppose they did look exactly like Hasidic Jews so if actual Hasidic Jews walked in the worst they would think is “Let’s go and say HI!” and then these two lads would be so embarrassed that they’d have to along with it and, by the end of the night, would actually be Hasidic Jews. I know I’ve got drunk many a night and woke up only to find that I’ve joined yet another religion. Men! What are we like?
I met some really nice people at the gigs too. Ben Schofield is very nice as is Hannah who worked on the door at the Library gig. She’s only about 12 but is married with a child. How quaintly Northern! She was a lot of fun but also quite deep. She asked the question “Would you fuck a sad clown to make it happy?” which made us all ponder how far we would go to help those in need. We came to the conclusion that Gordon Southern is, therefore, the kindest man we know.
It was a lovely night. I don’t even care about the six hour journey home. Johnny Candon is STILL in London so nothing has changed at all. The only thing that is disturbing me is the picture below. DO NOT LOOK AT IT.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2080511&op=1&view=all&subj=126409310321&aid=-1&oid=126409310321&id=560989251
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
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