Mother Load 2
My last post reminds me of the scene that met me at Kraken Junior's creche one morning...
I drove up to find the creche's security doors open while childminders were scattered liberally about the place, shrieking, standing on chairs and pointing at the fucking enormous spider lounging in the doorway. Really, it was huge. It was growling and chewing on a beagle. Yet the kids, as unfazed as ever, were running about merrily shrieking that Incey Wincey had come to visit them like it was Christmas frigging morning. Never has anything so deadly looking been welcomed so rapturously. Mind you, it's funny how the heftily applied sole of a shoe was never mentioned in the nursery rhyme. The kids didn't half learn something new that day.

Mother Load

Hit this. Hard.

Here's another great reason for dabbling in contraception. While doing my weekly voluntary stint at Kraken Junior's school, said offspring went bug hunting with her little cohorts. That's it, that's it, get 'em out from under our feet. Only that upon her return she bowled up to me and triumphantly plonked in my lap a small plastic tub containing a...spider. 
For fuck's sake. If my own house was ablaze I'd rather burn than pass any eight-legged bastard lurking in the doorway. Problem is, in an effort to raise a fearless mini kraken I've never let this onto her. I've quietly smiled at our domestic spider skirmishes and then snuck off to heave my guts up, leaving her to think that I'm equally as brave and fearless. 
Well, I'll be fucked if that plan didn't bite me on the arse today. As Kraken Junior dropped her scuttling booty in my lap I tipped backwards off my stool, agog with fear, and beads of sweat visibly formed on my face as I shrieked "It's lovely! Good girl!". Trapped between deliberately stamping KJ to death or befriending the spindly little fucker (that's the spider, by the way), I actually managed to display supreme pride from the neck up and blind, hysterical panic from the neck down. I almost tore myself in two at the neck.
Today was the day that Kraken Junior realised her mother was less Boudica and more Bag-of-Bollocks. Note it in your diaries.

Jingle Balls
Please allow me to stab myself in the ears. I've just heard that Smooth Xmas, a new radio station, will be launched this week. It touts itself as "the UK's first national pure Christmas station" and it will be sucking the living shit out of my festive cheer from November 1 (November the fucking first!) until December 27. So frigging much for Bonfire Night then. Jingle balls indeed.

Ow's About That, Then?

Rattle n warble

Right, I know that if you have nothing tidy to say, you should say fuck all but whose blog did you think you were looking at? Doris Day's musings, fearful readers, are thataway.
So, Jimmy Savile has popped his running shoes and gorn orff to the big gold lamé factory in the sky. Cue the inevitable bloody outpouring of showbiz sadness, semi-hysterical celeb quotes, pre-written obits and Daily Mail readers beating their withered and bitter breasts.
Forgive me, though, if I, The Kraken, don't join in. Look, I know the guy's barely cold but, fuckaduckadingdong, he didn't half creep me out. And this freezing and insidious dread was in direct proportion to his marathon running/ fundraising/ cigar sucking. The more he wooed the nation into believing he was the second coming the more I'd feel the need for a frantic scrub in the shower.
Even as a mini Kraken in the 70s I'd recoil from that fucking warble-cum-yodel. Can't say that  feeling's changed much now that I'm a woman in my 40s either. 
Put it down to his hideous self-promotion, his overblown persona, my towering paranoia or just my innate hatred of begging, bowl cut kids in tank tops. In fact, you can put it down to any fucking thing you like. It doesn't change the fact that Savile gave me the shits faster than yak chop suey in the Himalayas (which disintegrated my bowel at roughly the speed of light). I guess, whether you're mourning his passing or not, that won't be happening any more. 
Like I said, Doris Day's musings are thataway.

Whole Lotta Trotter

Like I said, the devil's bum juice

I'm excited, nay thrilled, to report that Conjugal Kraken is currently suffering from a particularly agonising bout of gout. But why such joy, you trill? Because medical advice suggests that gout sufferers should avoid yeast extract which means Marmite, the devil's own bum juice and Conjugal Kraken's most coveted treat, need never darken our cupboard doors again. Just the thought of striking it off our weekly shopping list makes me pirouette with delight.
OK, OK, so seeing CK in searing pain is a terrible thing but this has been nicely offset by this latest domestic development don't you think? 

(Not so) Good to Talk

You ain't fucking kidding

Look, if you're going to drag your kids to the park can you not leave it up to dull fucks like me to keep an eye on them? Every frigging time I'm in the park with Kraken Junior I find myself surrounded by screeching offspring being dutifully ignored by their phone-adoring parents. Yeah, there are only so many times you can watch your first born tackling the slide before you want to stab yourself in the gonads but c'mon, will you?
Today, I saw one guy texting with one hand while guiding his kid up a ladder with the other. Then, while still engrossed in his LMFHOs and LOLs, said kid ran off only for him to panic over this disappearance when he bothered to look minutes later. Put the phone down you dull fuck!
Take the last time I took Kraken Junior to the swings. Parents sat with their backs to their toddlers while taking phone calls, young kids legged it while parents texted... and you know what I did? I spent my time helping kids I don't know and will never see again, saving them from getting hit by swings, stopping them from tripping on ladders and asking them if they were OK when they stood sobbing after falling, all alone because their parents were ignoring them. 
Look, being a parent can be a complete and utter fucker. And yeah, other shit creeps in and takes over sometimes but Jesus, are these people for real? Sadly, yeah.

A Child's Portion?

Dry heave on the count of three

Shit on a shovel! I, The Kraken, witnessed a harrowing sight today while scoffing lunchtime fodder in Frankie and Benny's. And I'll be fucked if you'll see it on a Disney channel anytime soon...
A boy n a girl came in and plonked themselves opposite Conjugal Kraken, Kraken Junior and myself while we were face down in the trough. Now these kids were aged about 11 although fuck knows what their real ages were. With those Bieber-like mops they could have been heavily disguised 50-something train drivers. Anyhoo, after shoving themselves into a booth they proceeded fumble with their Blackberries before fumbling with each other. Aye, fumbling, of the conjugal kind. So far, so Kidulthood. Then the waiter came over and you know what they did? In the manner befitting two young loves enchanted with each others' nooks and crannies they ordered food...off the children's menu.
The children's menu! But seconds before ordering their chicken nuggets and fruit juice they'd been re-ordering their own chicken nuggets in the privacy of their own crotches. I didn't know whether to offer them teeny tiny condoms or extra large crayons. I'd have handed them a wet wipe although fuck knows what they'd have done with it.
It was like witnessing the crossfire of childhood and adulthood. I dare say that they're tucked up in bed by now (8pm) although I hope to Christ it's not with each other. I mean, where the fuck will the teddy bear sleep?

Got wind?

Leave it mate. He ain't worf it!

This is strange but true and I know I shouldn't find it funny but what the fuck. A woman has been found guilty of manslaughter for stabbing to death her husband during a row over whether to watch Harry Hill's TV Burp which begs for the following: Now I like Harry Hills TV Burp. But I also like whatever else is on TV at 7pm on  Saturday. But which is better? There's only one way to find out...FIGHT! (But with knives. And, er, for real.)

Twitter Litter

Pot. Kettle.

Whoa! Just how much do some people use Twitter? I'm abso-frigging-lutely astounded. I opened my Twitter account sumfink like two years ago and barely used it until a few days ago when I started feeding through my blog (or whatever the fuck you bright young things call it). Christ knows what I expected but it sure as shit wasn't almost constant dialogue from other Tweeters. 
Yeah, loads of people tweet (or twat as the glorious Stuart Lee calls it) but I had no idea that the activity actually replaced more traditional human pursuits such as eating, shitting and having a wank. I've never seen such garrulousnessnessness. When the fuck do some people put down their Blackberries or iPhones or whatever they're using to inform the world that they're picking their teeth/ eating peas/ scratching their arses? Their devices will have to prised out of their cold, dead, yet forever twitching, hands.
I've never felt so fucking out of touch. I thought I was being all out there by blogging. I wasn't prepared for the creeping cyber-demand for me to announce the heaviness of my periods or the strength of my last fart.
Look, this blog ain't going to make me any friends but please, I beg you, retreat to the po and treat yourselves to a long, slow whizz with a good book. And leave your device of choice on the other side of the locked door. There's nowt wrong with the odd tweet but, man! You may want to announce the marmalade shade of your morning wee, but, I sure as shit won't be waiting for it. Do tell me when your battery is about to run out though, eh? That really would be a tweet worth reading.

Tits Up 2
Thank fuck for @caitlinmoran. We have a joint dismay of the flaunted funbags and muffular regions of wimmin singers. Between my last blog post and her latest column we could start a revolution to save our daughters from attending their first interviews/ dates/ nativity plays while clad only in see-through nipple grazing nylon. Or bouncing their arses along the ground like worm-riddled puppies. The Cardigan Campaign starts here!

Faux Fun

Fetch me the cricket bat

I, The Kraken, must have lost my fucking marbles. Yesterday Kraken Junior should have gone to school dressed as a Fairy or Scary (how's that for a PC alternative to Halloween? Jesus). Course, I and the Conjugal Kraken completely forgot until hometime when KJ told us that everyone else had dressed up except her.
Well, fuck me if, in a fit of guilt, I promised that I'd spend today making her any costume she liked. Talk about over-frigging-compensating. It made sense when I was weeping over her mournful face. It made one fuck of a lot less sense this morning when I was bound to my promise.
And do you know what costume KJ wanted me to make? A rat. But not just any rat, no. A pink and yellow rat, dressed as a fairy. Course, I dangled the carrot of a Halloween witch, a pumpkin or a ghoul in the hope that Asda could come to my rescue. Ha. Like that worked.
So what have I done with my Saturday afternoon? Dragged KJ through fabric shops on the hunt for vermin-like fur (before she plumped for lurid pink fleece), hacked the living shit out of a cereal box to make a rat mask (whose ears were too small, KJ announced) and sewed a black button nose onto said mask (via the nail bed of my left index finger). I even wrestled with the hot pink sequins that KJ found, making her look like the Shirley Bassey of the sewers.
And what do you think KJ said when I presented her with her verminous disguise? 
"Can I have a hamster costume instead?"
Tell me, is it OK to say "fuck" in front of a three year old?

Tits Up

This is more like it

Tell me, are you as sick of seeing Lady Ga Ga's fun bags as I am? And Rihanna's ladygarden? And Nicki Minaj's tag nuts? Christ, every time I turn on a music channel (pick one, any one) I'm treated to a continuous loop of one of the above striptease artistes, sorry, singers. Apart from the fact that none of them ever seems to take a fucking day off it's clear that none of them ever gets fully dressed either. 

Look at Ga Ga. When she's not dressed as a medium sized, free range bantam egg she's in knickers that are made from garden twine and a bra the size of a wet wipe. Same goes for Rihanna. For fuck's sake, is someone permanently stealing their luggage? Did their wardrobes burn down? Or do they have some allergic reaction to dignity? Just get dressed, will you? I want to hear you sing, not see your five week muff stubble.
It's not just that they're permanently nekkid but that they flaunt it so fucking violently. It's wagging arse cheeks and juggling knockers at any given moment. Take the astounding looking Minaj. She's like a blow-up doll brought to life, a wank-inducing Pinocchio. She is this close to advertising her rates and phone number, for fuck's sake.
Perhaps it's spawning Kraken Junior that turned me all Whitehouse-like but what do I tell her when she asks me why the singing women are naked? That it's so they can sell, sell, sell? Fuck me, how's that for a lesson for life?


Voice Over

Just like Culshaw:
the wrong kind of impressionist

Is it just me or is John Culshaw (the laughably titled impressionist) shit? It says it all that he starts each impression by naming who he is 'doing'. "I'm Simon Cowell" or "I'm David Beckham" or "I'm a BBC lapdog who churns out utter bollocks for the less discerning gimps, or viewers, as they like to be called, because I'm so fucking desperate for fame". And even if he doesn't have to name that tune, he spends the rest of every skit spoonfeeding whichever poor bastard is watching him by leaving such leaden-footed clues about his impression that Helen Keller could work it out. At least there's one impression that he's good at though, and that's being dumbed the fuck down.

The Shite Factor

Where the fuck's the off switch?

As I arse about on t'web my conjugal Kraken has The X Factor on the telly. Jesus. It's like a gaping wound that you can't stop staring at. I've just seen a 40 something man dressed in a kimono while whinnying a Kylie song. Worse (depths can always be further plumbed) he's had slanty eyes drawn onto his face to add to the faux-Oriental schtick. I feel as if I've been culturally assaulted and left for dead in the alleyway of taste. 
And as I was about to sign off this post I glimpsed four girls (I think that's what they were) sat on their arses on the stage while choking on their own false eyelashes/ notes. And then some bird came on dressed as the purple one from the Quality Street tin while balancing a tiger loaf on her head. 
I can't stop staring at it. This must be what it feels like to attend the death of a rapist in the electric chair. The whole thing makes you want to scrub your memory bank with caustic soda. Thank Christ I'm taking anti-psychotics. How the rest of the nation is getting through it is fucking well beyond me.

Hack Attack

Gaze into my navel,
not around my navel...

Speaking as an ex-journalist, d'you know what I find really fucking irritating about journalists? This stupendously egotistic idea that no one ever really experiences parenthood/ depression/ cancer/ poverty until they have. You know this from the endless stream of weekend features about said subjects with the appropriately stricken hack gawping at you from some double page spread or other.
Christ, it's unbearable. If I have to read Giles Coren banging on about his newborn again, as if fatherhood had been freshly minted in his back bedroom, I'll have to replace my eyes with dung beetles. And there are other journalists I know who have turned their offsprings' development into entire blogs, actually listing - yes, writing lists - of their kids' achievements. As if anybody gives a shit. Chances are that most parents won't have time to read said bollocks because they are too busy weeping over their own kid's terrifying ability to produce a pint of snot per sneeze. 
Why do journalists do this? Or why do editors want to run with this stuff? OK, if said hack has gone through a lightning-strike type of experience, let 'em write about it. Take Melanie Reid in The Times who writes a weekly slot on living with her crippling injuries after breaking her neck and back in a horse riding accident. It's genuinely a window into a world most of us have no knowledge of.
You can hardly say that of a yet another hack's skirmish with childbirth can you? Look, unless you gave birth while swinging from a trapeze during which you have to plead with Iran's Ahmadinejad for your release from captivity don't bother me. I've given birth, I've had depression, I've been broke... your tales of feeling a pinch low because you couldn't afford to host a dinner party just aren't cutting my brand of mustard.
And yeah, I admit that when I was a hack I wrote about myself once in a very, very long while but at least these were justified by my suitably freakish circumstances or relevant to a national issue which formed the bulk of the story. They weren't the prurient outpourings of someone who simply thinks that they are important enough to accompany a random reader's breakfast. Fuck cracking my boiled egg. I'd be happier aiming for Coren's writing hand.

Someone Needs to Learn

"La la la la la la!"

Now, when it comes to parenting I'm a great believer in not having a fucking clue what I am doing. Yet, there are those moments when you just know that you can't be nearly as crap as someone else. 
Take today's experience as an example. I can't give too many details so suffice it to say that the following debacle occurred while on a school trip of three year olds with Kraken Junior. 
The tale begins on a coach...


Mother: "Tyson, we're getting off the coach in a minute. Put your coat on please."
Tyson: "No."
Mother: "Put your coat on."
Tyson: "No."
Mother: "Put your coat on! Now!"
Tyson: "No."
Tyson takes off his coat.
Mother: "I said put your coat on!"
Tyson: "No!"
Mother (louder): "Yes!"
Tyson: "No!"
Mother (louder) : "Yes!"
Tyson: "No!"
Mother (shouting): "If you don't put on your coat we're not getting off the coach!"
Tyson throws his coat on the floor. Mother relents and lets him get off the coach.


Lunchtime...
Mother: "Tyson, sit still to eat your sandwiches."
Tyson: "No." 
Tyson walks off with a crust in his hand.
Mother: "Get back here Tyson."
Tyson: "No."
Mother: "I said get back here!"
Tyson keeps walking.
Mother: (hollering): "Right, get back here or you can't go into the castle!"
Tyson: "OK."
Mother: "I'm bloody sick of you!"
Mother takes Tyson into the castle.


Hometime...
Mother: "Tyson, I've told you already, it's time to go home."
Tyson: "Don't wanna go home!"
Mother: "We're going home, now."
Tyson: "No!"
Mother: "Get here now!"
Tyson (shrieking): "Naaaaooooooo!"
Mother picks Tyson off the ground as he screams. Tyson starts kicking.
Mother: "Tyson! I'm bloody sick of you!"
Tyson: "Wanna stay!"
Mother: "Just shut it! Shut it!"
Tyson: "Arrrrrrgh! Arrrrrrgh! Nooooooo!"
Mother: "Right, that's it! I've had it! We're never going to a castle again!"
Tyson is bundled onto the coach by a teacher who immediately calms him. Mother steadfastly refuses to be mortified at her astounding lack of parental control. Well, fuck me. Someone needed a stiff lesson in discipline today and it sure as shit wasn't young Tyson.

Face Ache

He's Dostoyevsky. He's allowed.

Now, those of you who know me know that I'm a book obsessive. Every room in my lair is lined with books (including my shed). So it goes without saying that I've seen the mug shots of many an author. You know the shit - turn to the inside back cover, gawp at whoever had the time/ money/ obsession to belt out 350 pages of whatever.
So WTF is going on with those mugshots? Christ, have you ever seen such vile, egotistical pretentious toss? It's not the pics that are the problem but the gurners who inhabit them. Without a doubt you'll find them peering earnestly at the lens as if their tome is of such import that it reduces Dostoyevsky's efforts to the Chick Lit bargain bin. 
Jesus, as a journalist I've tossed about the idea of writing a book a thousand times. And you know what? If I had found the time/ energy/ obsessiveness to write one I as sure as fuck would not come over all Bon(i)o about it. I suspect that my book jacket pic would feature me unhinging my jaw with a stupefied grin while champagne dripped from my fringe. I'd look like I'd been happily flogged with my own winning lottery ticket. What I would not look like is some snotty prick forced to gaze upon the illiterate proles that surround them. No. I save that particular look for when I'm watching Jeremy Kyle.


Snow Go 

This dwarf ain't called Happy

As I type this my lovely offspring is glued to Snow White. It's not long into the film when the eponymous heroine flounces into the seven dwarves' digs for a rummage and a snooze (dragging half the fauna of the bloody forest behind her, I hasten to add). 
Now, in the light of the recent UK news that homeowner Vincent Cooke was relieved of a murder charge for stabbing to death the burglar who was raiding his house, who could blame the dwarves for setting about Snow White with their hatchets, thereby saving us another hour of Disney schmaltz? 
Just sayin'.

Ding-a-Frigging-Ling

Wakey wakey!

Remember that episode of Curb, where Larry David banged on about the evening cut off time for phone calls? Well, bugger me if I had my own moment of phone-based fury this week. 
I'd gone to bed ridiculously early at 9.30pm (that's a daily dose of anti-psychotics for you) only to be woken at 10.30 by a fucking phone call. And my ire wasn't just about being woken up but about being woken up by what I thought was a call announcing the death of my entire family/ the discovery of some tumour or other/ the lack of biscuits in the house. 
I mean, who calls at that time of night unless they have devastating news to impart? At what point did 10.30pm become prime time for a chat about the frigging weather? OK, so I retreat to my pit early these days but for fuck's sake. This isn't bleedin' Childline.
Anyway, as it was, said caller didn't have shit news. They just had shit manners. Oh and the social etiquette of a snagged polyp. Bastard.

Proud to be thick

I will not learn, I will not learn...

There I was in my local library the other day, furiously trying to educate my first/ only born when I overheard a conversation between the librarian and the local yoof. 
Said yoof (a beautiful stereotype of a hoodie-wearing ape with burning acne) was asking for a carrier bag to transport home a pile of books he was picking up for a relative. Course, now that bags are banned here in Wales (well, you know what I mean)  the librarian was unable to oblige. The result? The yoof loudly declared, "I'm not walking down the street with books. I'll look like a right twat!" before leaving the tomes on the counter and lolloping out of the building.
Looks like The Jeremy Kyle Show has stage fodder for a good few years yet. 

Dr Who WTF?

Mate, I know how you feel

Now Dr Who annoys me on many levels: the stage school-style overacting, the gurning, the ridiculous quips and until recently David Tennant's slack-jawed, boggle-eyed panto schtick. But you know what makes me shriek at the telly the most? The weekly fucking claim that the universe will end unless Dr Who waggles his Tardis somehow or other. Yes, weekly. And Christ, hasn't that gotten boring? 
The problem is that once the writers have plundered the universe saving plot - usually in the first bloody episode of the series - where the fuck else can they go? Suddenly, rescuing Earth from some alien onslaught takes on the dullness of an arse wiping. So it's back to the same old all over again.
Take this week's incessant barking over the last Dr Who of the latest series. Every fucking trailer bangs on about how he dies. Who, exactly, are the people who suck up this bollocks, tuning in for another week of cyber-disappointment? Are they retarded? I mean, do they really think he's going to die? In every episode we're reminded that he can't snuff it so is it really going to happen now?
And to add insult to injury, the bloke who writes this shite has now had to reassure viewers that this won't be the end of the franchise. For fuck's sake! You told viewers that Who is copping his whatsit so what the fuck did you expect? Sobbing pre-teens is the least of it.
Really, who is the dumbest here? The people who get sucked into this or the guys writing it? Or perhaps it's me for getting so frigging arsy about it that I'm belting this out on a Saturday night, instead of watching the show. Personally, I reckon it's my time that's been best spent.