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.