Mad Mark - the man, the myth, the legend

Let me introduce you to our pal Mark. He's something of a hero of mine, and gets called Mad because he looks like the kid from the mag of the same name:

So we're sat round a campfire with Mad Mark, downing some cheap lager and having daft chat as we always do. The conversation is "Best ever gig" and Mark hits us with Alice Cooper. Wrong.

We debate the best four Metallica albums. To everyone else, this is simply putting 'Kill 'Em All', 'Ride The Lightning', 'Master of Puppets' and '...And Justice For All' in the correct order (which, incidentally, is MOP, AJFA, RTL and KEA). Not Mark. He lists 'Metallica' and 'Load' and 'Reload' in his top four. Horrific.

Then the conversation turns to "At what age did you lose your virginity?", and while most of the 20-odd campers bore us with stories of being 16 and getting five minutes of missionary, Mark hits us with the story to end all stories.

"I was 13."

What?!

"We were in the woods."

Yes.

I piped up with the obvious question on all our minds: "Were you drinking some cider from a 3 litre bottle?"

"We were drinking some cider from a 3 litre bottle."

This tale was suddenly taking a turn for the fantastic.

"Me and my mate were there with two girls. They both wanted a shag, so I took one and did her against a tree."

Protection?

"Err, no. So, we finished up and I thought that was that. But then she tells me she wants go back to her place for more."

So what happened?!

"I told her it was my bedtime and that I had to go home. So I went home."

Epilogue - his mate pumped her instead.

Question...

I ask you, to what end has a dog ever helped an FBI investigation?

There's a great myth in Hollywood that finding out about a man's pet holds the key to his undoing. This seems like nonsense to me.

Take "The Fugitive" for example. Quoting directly here: "Find out his name, his age, his weight, his social security number... his location, relatives, pets, everything."

In various altered forms I've heard this line uttered in countless crime films and TV shows, but not once have I seen any evidence that finding out that the man in question has a black staffy called Tasha helps the hunt in any way.

It actually seems like a real waste of police resources. For instance, I'd think sitting his wife down and holding a cattle prod to her fanny would be far more likely to produce the guy's location than say checking local veterinary records and confirming that he once owned a cat that had to be put down due to complications with diabetes.

One of these days, I'd love to see a criminal undone by the home address listed on his pet's collar.

For Those About To Rock (Fuck Off)

Something is very wrong with the world when people like AC/DC.

In uttering the words "I like AC/DC", you're effectively saying that you have no problem with this:

To a man, they are easily, without any competition, the gimpiest rock band of all time.

Musically, they're every bit as bad as a man in a small girl's purple vest. Ever noticed that you literally never hear anyone mention an AC/DC song that isn't "Highway To Hell", "Back In Black" or "Thunderstruck"? That's because every other song they've released on 15 albums (yep, 15!) is absolutely woeful, and almost indistinguishable from the 3 big singles. As for Brian Johnson's singing - like Mickey Mouse sucking helium after a kick to the balls. Woeful. James Hetfield needs to slam his head against a car door, Taken-style, then go "HUH! Yeah." in his trademark style.

I would honestly rather dook for apples in a chip fryer than listen to any AC/DC album from start to finish.

Take new album "Black Ice" - featuring such classics as "Rock 'n Roll Train", "She Likes Rock n Roll", "Rock n Roll Dream" and "Rocking All the Way". They put more imagination into naming the Saw sequels (Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI and... Saw 3D! Hah, see)

Lastly, something I feel has gone unaddressed for far too long now:

What is this man doing?

Duck Walking around stage... In a school boy's uniform. A velvet school boy's uniform.

All I'm saying is, there's no justice in the world when Dimebag Darrell gets gunned down in his prime and Angus Young roams unscathed.

You are less of a man than Aron Ralston

You are less of a man than Aron Ralston.

Sorry, but you are. I am. Even Jack Bauer is, and I don't say that lightly.

You think Chuck Norris is manlier? Wrong. Despite what the idiots at Chuck Norris Facts may claim Chuck Norris can do, all he's actually done is grin and grimace his way through a bunch of shite films that no-one actually watches.

Aron Ralston, meanwhile, went off into some mountains alone and got trapped by a falling boulder. His arm was crushed between the huge rock and a mountain wall, pinning a lesser man to his untimely death. After five days of being trapped, out of food and drink and with all hopes of help diminished, Ralston was pissed off and decided he was having no more of this bullshit - so he used the vice-like grip of the boulder to break his own arm and then sawed through the bone with a dull pen knife.

That's right. He cut off his own fucking arm.

Starving and dehydrated, arm bleeding profusely and close to shock, it was enough to kill any lesser man (you, I or Dawn for example). But not Aron Ralston. Bleeding arm and all, he then rappelled 65 feet, hiked 7 miles and climbed 800-feet to safety.

Here he is now, looking suave with a claw for a hand:

Yes, a CLAW FOR A HAND. Could he actually be any manlier?

Aron Ralston: manlier than Dawn.

1, 2, 3...

A music festival's fine and dandy when there's brilliant bands on, but the difference between a good fest and a great fest is what you do in the down time - when all the bands are shite power metal "wank wizards" (as Barbour would call 'em), you've got to innovate and have a little campsite fun.

At Bloodstock '08 we cured the boredom with a tarpaulin of all things.

This is one of our better efforts:

This attempt wasn't quite so successful, resulting in a dislocated shoulder and a trip to the First Aid tent:

The paramedics soon appeared and politely asked us to stop as they were "running out of ambulances". Barbour suggested taxis, and we continued. This poor fella clearly wasn't a fan of his time spent mid-air:

At the top, he decided he wants off - and at the bottom, he scrambled like a half-eaten zebra escaping the jaws of a lion. Big wimp.

Last but definitely not least, gravity said "No" to this fat bastard:

Suffice to say that the next time we go camping, a tarpaulin will be up there with loo roll on the packing essentials list.

The 3 greatest things on the internet

After much internal debate, I can now reveal what I believe to be the three greatest things on the internet, not including the sort of rancid porn video that you sit a mate down to watch and then video their horrified reaction, which is obviously comedy gold in a very league of its own.

3) In 3rd place, it's Garfield Minus Garfield, the greatest comic ever. I do love Perry Bible Fellowship and think that deserves special mention, but the fact that some smart-ass has taken possibly the least funny comic of all time and turned it into something as genius as this - http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/ - deserves immense credit. Without his irritating little tit of a cat, Jon becomes the saddest, most tragic cartoon character of all time. And that's excellent.



2) 1000 Tiny Things I Hate, the only blog on the internet that's better than mine. Seriously - http://tinythingsihate.blogspot.com/ - different class. On discovering it, I caught up with 108 blog posts in one night. I now check it faithfully for updates. I have no idea who Jon Brown is but I really want to meet him, just to give him a good firm pat on the back.




1) The best thing on the internet, bar none. This picture:




Of course I don't expect anyone else to find it funny. I don't even know why I find it funny. But I really, seriously do. No amount of captioned lol-cats will ever make me cry with laughter the way I did when I first saw an anteater looking for a square-go.

God bless the internet.

Yvonne Smith

Everything that's great about my pal Yvonne can be summed up in one picture:

This is the story, which was later picked up by The Sun and Daily Star, of how Yvonne discovered Biffy Clyro and a year later had spent £10,000 on following them around Europe. The woman is, in a word, silly.

So when the discussion between five of us once came round to dirty sex, Yvonne was at once out of her depth and in disbelief.

"You've never heard of a Donkey Punch?"
"No? What is it?"
"It's when you're doing someone up the bum and as you reach the point of ejaculation, you punch the back of their head to make their anus tighten up."
"What the fuck?! No-one actually does that!"

"What about Blumpy?"
"What's that?"
"When you're getting oral sex while taking a shit."
"Eugh! Gads! That's horrible! No-one actually does that!"
"Dawn's done it."

(Dawn will probably deny this, but it'll sure make for a good rumour)

"You must have heard of Angry Pirate though."
(I mean, who hasn't?)
"No. Do I even want to know?"
"That's when standing up, you're getting oral sex and jizz in the girl's eye. She jumps up in anger, you kick her in the shin and so she's left hopping around on one leg, one defunct eye and screaming "AAAAARGH!" - thus, Angry Pirate."
"That's horrible. That doesn't happen!"

"What about Docking?"
"Docking?"
"Yeah. When two men stand with their dicks out, let the two heads meet, one pulls his skin back while the other pulls his skin forwards and over the other one's head."
"That's awful!"

After a pause where we all enjoyed another giggle at her expense, she came out with something that she has never since lived down.

"Do straight guys do that?"

"Yes, Yvonne. Straight guys, who would never normally look at another man's dick, are the world over docking each other's cocks something rotten. I know there's nothing I love more of a Friday night than getting the boys round, sinking a few cold ones, playing Pro Evo and while the night's still young, housing my best mate's helmet in my foreskin."

Yvonne Smith, ladies and gentlemen.

PS, I Hate You

I recently watched "PS, I Love You" on strong recommendation and the express promise that I'd love it. People had come out of the cinema ecstatic, a new lease of life - my mum and sister couldn't stop talking about it - even my mate Gav confessed he nearly cried, and he's from Pollok for Christ's sake - it was suggested that this may indeed be the first film to make me cry since I shed tears at the ending of "My Girl", aged 6.

(Seriously though, Macaulay Culkin dies?! What the hell?)

So I survived only half an hour of "PS, I Love You" before refusing to suffer any more. Here's why: Gerard Butler's accent.

Now, my sole previous experience of Gerard Butler was 300. With that, he went straight to the top of the list with Russell Crowe and Kiefer Sutherland of celebrities I'd love to sink a pint, have an arm-wrestle and share a packet of KP salty nuts with.

Just look at this shit: "This is Sparta!"

Brilliant.

So I don't think it was unreasonable for me to assume that his role in "PS, I Love You" would be vaguely similar; that if he wasn't booting people off of cliffs, he was at the very least wrestling wolves and shouting loudly.

Then it turns out that he's a loved-up (I suppose the clue was in the title) half-man with the world's WORST ACCENT OF ALL TIME: What is this??

He's from Paisley! Gerard Butler does not speak with an Irish accent. There is a sea between Paisley and the people who do speak with an Irish accent.

His voice is actually nails-on-a-blackboard intolerable, which is why the DVD had to go off. I admit, I did cry at "PS, I Love You", but only at the worst impression of an Irish accent ever commited to film.

Ways they could have made this film better:
1) Cast an Irishman as the Irishman
2) Have Gerard Butler play a Scottish character
3) Have Gerard Butler play an Irish mute

King Leonidas must be shouting loudly in his grave.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Poseidon Adventure!

I found an old message board topic from a few years back over on our forums yesterday which had involved us taking two movie titles with a common word and amalgamating them into one. In most cases frankly I'd sooner see our version than the original. Here are some of my favourites:

American History Pie

A hysterical gross-out look at four violent neo-nazi high school thugs who make the ultimate pact: to lose their virginity by prom night.

As the desperate group try to work their way into the pants of their female classmates, the comedy just keeps on coming as their plans hopelessly backfire on them.

The laughs come thick and fast as one student fails to score with a foreign exchange student, while another decides to try his luck by curb-stomping a black would-be car thief. And you'll feel your sides splitting come the movie's comedy finale: the shower rape scene.

A light-hearted teen comedy that hilariously teaches the lesson that violence begets violence.

----

The Godfather of the Bride Part II

Family trouble continues to plague Michael Corleone (Steve Martin) in this hilarious comedy!

As he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba, Corleone must also deal with mid-life crisis - brought on by the double pregnancy of his newly-married daughter and wife, Frank "Five Angels" Pentangeli's problems with the Rosato Brothers, and an assassination attempt at his family home.

Audiences will be rolling in the aisles at this sequel's rib-tickling scenes, including the baby shower of the century and the miscarriage of Michael's wife!

----

Deep Throat Impact

A teenage astronomer (Elijah Wood) discovers an object amongst the stars at night. He and his teacher soon realise that it's a comet on a direct collision course for earth!

When the NASA space mission "Messiah" fails to destroy the comet, the President (Morgan Freeman) announces that special caves will be built, and the government will have to hold a lottery-of-fate to randomly select 800,000 ordinary American citizens to repopulate the earth after the strike.

But all is not lost. A routine check-up on Linda Lovelace (herself) shows a bizarre anomaly; the doctor finds that her clitoris is located at the back of her throat. Linda soon becomes proficient at the art of "Deep Throat" oral sex. Now, she faces her biggest challenge yet; swallowing an entire comet.

Rated 18 for scenes of nudity.

----

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Party Liason

Popular 18th century autobiographist Laura Ingalls Wilder finds herself in some American university, organising parties for nerds. But disaster strikes, when a poor summer leads to a low crop yield, forcing all the students into a life or death struggle against the elements, prairie dogs and rampaging cowboys.

----

Ferris Bueller: Judgement Day

A street-wise shape-shifting cyborg decides to take the day off school to kill a young boy, John Connor, in order to prevent him from becoming a resistance leader. The Human army have forged a doctor's note for the reluctant Cameron, a reprogrammed Terminator nerd whose job is to protect Connor.

Ed Rooney, the suspicious Dean of Student Robots, knows all about Ferris' plan but fails time after time to catch him in a variety of hilarious ways! Meanwhile, Ferris' sister droid Jeanie is frustrated that Ferris gets away with his ploys and she doesn't. Can Ferris assassinate John Connor; or will his principal cyborg manage to save the day?

----

Big Mamma Mia's House

Set on a colourful Greek island, FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) is going deep undercover as he disguises himself as big black grandmother Hattie Mae Pierce, aka Big Mamma Mia.

Assigned to trap a brutal bank robber, Turner must bring his suspect down through a mixture of sleuth work and randomly performing wholly irrelevant songs by popular 70s pop group ABBA.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings!

----

Cloverfield of Dreams

Clover (himself) is a novice creature who becomes convinced by a mysterious voice that he is supposed to go on a rampage around New York ruining everbody's shit. The film's underlying themes are the fulfillment of dreams, how people can overcome any regrets they may have about the life choices they make and fucking shit up.

A delightful, heartwarming tale for all the family. May contain extreme peril.

----

Bill and Ted's Excellent Poseidon Adventure

At midnight on New Year's Eve, the S.S. Poseidon is struck by a tidal wave and is capsized.

The Reverend Frank Scott heads for safety with nine survivors, including a New York detective and his ex-prostitute wife, two honeymooners, haberdasher James Martin, and Bill S Preston esq. and Ted Theodore Logan of rock band Wyld Stallyns. Failure to escape the ship would be both bogus and uncool!

Setting out from the grand ballroom the survivors eventually reach a time-travelling phone booth, whereupon they set out on an awesome historical adventure involving Billy The Kid, Joan of Arc and Abraham Lincoln!

The survivors band together through their plight, generally being excellent to each other!

----

And one last one - someone obviously didn't get the point of linking films by a common word, but it's great all the same!

Taxi Jaws

A disillusioned shark goes on the rampage in his taxi in 1970s New York city. Robert Shaw stars as a 12 year old prostitute.

T-Bone is Da illest

A thought-provoking or hilarious piece of graffiti is one of my favourite things in the world.

Scotland has a real lack of clever graffiti, instead boasting walls with "KYT Ya Bass!" and rarely-complimentary messages about the police and/or pope. There's no Bansky to be found in Ayrshire, just a fanny called Joke who "wis ere", there and everywhere.

A sharp wit and a permanent marker is really unbeatable for a good giggle:

Scotland, of course, is not without its own jokers. While neds who scrawl barely legible bollocks on bus stops outweigh the true comedians, they do exist. My favourite piece of graffiti was in the maternity ward of a Glasgow hospital, where a poster read: "THE FIRST FIVE SECONDS OF A CHILD'S LIFE ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS..." 

Underneath it, someone had scribbled: "The last five aren't so great either."

Dawn Roper

It's time to introduce you to someone - a lady, if she can generously be described as that, who will be a recurring character in my blog. That lady's name is Dawn Roper, and she is a very silly person. With Yvonne, who we'll meet later, she forms the worst double act since Hitler & Göring.

So. Some friends and I recently took a wee road trip down to Manchester for a club night, foolishly allowing Dawn to tag along. We arrived in town, unpacked the bags at the hotel and set out for the night with designated driver Kel at the wheel.

As we stopped at some traffic lights, clubbers and revellers spilled out in front of the car and went on their merry way. Gesturing at one pair, Dawn casually remarked: "Those two went a bit overboard with the fake tan, eh?"

Stunned silence.

"Dawn," I managed. "Those women are black. Actually black."

"Oh..."

Sex, Toast and Rock & Roll

I've dipped my toe in the various pools of the music industry. I admit I'm no major player - I've got nothing on the guy who removes brown M&Ms for Van Halen, or the Photoshop genius who edits Lady Gaga's dick out of every publicity pic - but I've done enough to know that it's a pretty nutty business.

Your first look at a tour rider is enough to make you realise this. Divas run amok. From stadium-touring girl groups to the grimmest black metal bands, musicians are ready to flip without warning if their dressing room is found to be without the vegan-friendly, wheat-free, gluten-free, Fair Trade lettuce that they asked for.

The funniest example I've ever heard of balls-to-the-wall craziness involved a certain mega rock band who for legal reasons, will not be named. Suffice to say they are smashing, pumpkins.

A chap I know, who we'll call Jim not so much to protect his identity as through a long-held desire of mine to write a story that required a name change, has a job driving vans at Reading & Leeds Festival every year. I was surprised to learn this, not least because he looks 11 years old, which last time I checked is not old enough even to own a provisional.

Bands arrive and get driven around the huge site by Jim, for which he gets a free ticket and camping. I begrudge him this, because I or anyone else at the festival could quite easily perform this simple task in order to get a free ticket. I'd probably struggle after the daily crate of cheap cider I consume, but I'm pretty sure I could do it without fatalities. (I don't actually have a driving licence, although I do have all gold cups on Mario Kart 64, including the Mirror Mode ones)

So one time, Jim is happily driving this particular rock band around site, and is given the fairly major task of ferrying them to stage for their headline performance in front of 80,000 fans. Having done so successfully, presumably navigating a course of lost and drunk students along the way, Jim arrives backstage with the band in one piece. He smiles, switches the engine off, and there's a silence which would normally be punctuated by the band saying their "Thank yous" and stepping out.

Suddenly, frontman Billy says to Jim: "Eat this bit of toast."

Jim, momentarily confused and fairly certain that 'What to do if a headline act offers you breakfast' wasn't covered in the short Dos and Dont's speech that the festival representative gave the crew on Friday morning, manages to quickly regain composure. Flying solo without prior toast-based guidance, he swiftly thinks on his feet and replies: "No thank you."

Strangely persistent, Billy says again: "Eat this bit of toast."

Jim replies: "No thank you, I'm not hungry."

There's a shift in the mood of the van. Suddenly there's a tension. Billy seems offended, then irately and with deadly seriousness utters the immortal line: "Eat this bit of toast or we are not going on stage."

And with that, Jim accepts the toast and forces himself to eat it, secretly knowing that his action and his action alone is responsible for the headliners taking to the stage that night. He bravely shoulders the responsibility and refuses to disappoint 80,000 anxious fans, consuming the toasted bread. The band went on to play a hits-packed set to rave reviews that night, their first UK festival appearance of the decade.

And I just want you all to know that we have Jim to thank for that.

Hello reader

Three beekeepers meet at a conference.

One asks the other two, "So, how many bees do you have?"

The second beekeeper responds, "Well, I have around 50,000 bees in 3 hives."

The third says, "I have about 150,000 bees in 8 hives. How many do you have?"

"Oh, I have about a million bees," says the first beekeeper.

"A million bees?! How many hives do you have?"

"Just the one."

"You have a million bees in one hive?!"

"Yeah..." he says. "Fuck 'em, they're only bees."