Blog « A I S L E 1 6 . C O . U K

The Ballad of Fat Josh

Fat Josh – his forehead dripped with lard
his manner blunt as bricks
he lead a gang of burly boys
with swear words on their lips
an appetite for violence
and a bigger one for chips

they hung around outside the school
collective gut immense
they yelled, and spat and vomited
and caused untold offence
they robbed pizza delivery boys
then ate the evidence

at school they roamed the playing fields
trying to spoil the fun
on beaches in the summertime
they took up all the sun
they evacuated shopping malls
with odours from their bums

and in this way Fat Josh remained
over-weight and cruel
Pavarotti meets Al Capone
In the dark with power tools
untouchable, that was until
a new girl came to school

Polly was pretty, Polly was kind
Polly was cute and funny
When Polly walked into a room
The room felt really sunny
And every time that girl strolled past
Fat Josh sucked in his tummy

until one day he bit the bullet
Swallowed it, scoffed the pack
Spat into his beefy hand
And slicked his hair right back
He walked straight up to Polly and
he gave her bum a smack

Alright Pol’, wanna be my bird
said Josh with onion breath
Polly smoothed her school skirt down
And trying not to wretch
replied with perfect diction
given the choice, I’d choose death.

And with the laughter of the girls still
Alive within his ears
A heart that seemed as if it had
Been pierced with poison spears
Fat Josh wheezed his way back home
And struggled with his tears

Through long dark evenings of the soul
His bedroom deadly quiet
Until the answer dawned on him
Till Josh could not deny it:
Two words that filled his heart with dread
Exercise and diet.

So he wheezed his way on treadmills
He panted on the bikes
He gave up watching telly and
He went on ten mile hikes
And cried and gnawed his sausage hands
When hunger came to strike

For those who’ve followed diets know
That Burger King’s’s invalid
The rabbit food he had to eat
just left him looking pallid
Love can do some awful things
But few as bad as salad

and so the August days went by
the teachers got a break
lotion fried on pale white skin
at festivals and fetes
till one September day there was
a stirring at the gates

jaws were hanging open cries of
who the hell is that?
familiar grimace on the face
the belly strangely flat
oh my days, it is, it’s Fat Josh
only … he’s not fat

the arms were toned the chest was ripped
his shoulders four foot wide
with chiselled cheeks and thighs like trees
that caused a John Wayne stride
he stalked across the playing field
and stood at Polly’s side

grinning and puffing out his chest
like he’d just won a fight
you thought I’d never do it Pol
his voice shot through with spite
he spat the words like acid phelgm
you’re out with me tonight

You idiot boy! Polly yelled
Which took him by surprise
You belly never bothered me
In fact I like fat guys
or short or thin or ginger ones
it’s just bullies that I despise

and so once again Josh sloped off
knocked around and beat
a moral forming in his head
which I shall now repeat:
you have to change your attitude
not just the things you eat

Playing God

The first fish I make is rubbish.
It has no gills, it has no fins,
it looks like a wet sock full of sand
and, what’s more, it can’t swim.
When I throw it in, it just sinks.
Yeah, the first fish I make stinks.

The second fish I make is a little better.
I manage to get a funky kind of tail
and something that narrowly fails to be a fin.
When I throw it in, it stops, takes a breath, thinks,
then flaps its not-quite-fin and sinks.

The third fish has eyes as big as clams.
The fourth likes to float on its side.
The fifth fish has fins that look like hands.
The sixth mysteriously dies.
The seventh, eighth and ninth fishes
all look at me accusingly as they float upside-down.
The tenth makes a sound like a fart,
then falls apart in an awful pinkish cloud.

With the eleventh fish, I have a breakthrough.
I take two fins and move them down towards the tail.
Suddenly, my fish can’t fail.
He flails his fins, spins and he’s away.
He is fast. The last ten only bobbed around
and picked up speed when when they floated down
to the bottom. Number eleven has got them all beat.
Number eleven is sweet.

Number twelve is good, but doesn’t last long.
He’s eaten by number eleven. I move on.
Number thirteen – big fins, small eyes –
swims into the side of the tank and dies.
Number fourteen eats number thirteen,
number fifteen eats number fourteen,
number sixteen eats number fifteen.
This goes on for a while.

The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-fourth fish I make
can speak perfect Dutch.
The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-fifth
has a wristwatch made of plastic.
The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-sixth
walks across the bottom using driftwood as a crutch.
The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-seventh
is annoyingly sarcastic.

The six billion, four hundred million,
two hundred and nine thousand,
nine hundred and twentieth fish I make
asks me what I’m doing.
‘I’m making fish,’ I say.
‘I’m not a fish,’ it says.
‘Yes you are,’ I say. ‘You’re the six billion, four hundred million,
two hundred and nine thousand, nine hundred and twentieth
fish I’ve made.’
He looks dismayed.

By the time I hit ten billion,
I notice something strange.
The way I make the fish has changed.
I now arrange their features in an oddly familiar way.
They all have little beards. They look up at me and say,
‘You look just like us.’
I am not sure I trust these fish.

The four hundred billionth fish I make
looks exactly the same as me.
When I look closely, I see that he has something in his hands.
I lean in. I look. Then I understand.

The first fish he makes is rubbish.

Tim Clare For Regent

As prophesied, the Last Days came
The mountains fell, the oceans boiled
Great nations drowned in lakes of flame
Men screamed for God or cursed His name
And underpants were soiled
Flesh crunched with scabs, hair crawled with lice
It was, in truth, not very nice;
Yet – humankind survived somewise
In hidden coves and caves of ice
That echoed with their cries.

They cried like this:

‘Who will lead us from our sorrow?
Who will harken to our prayer?
Who will forge a brave tomorrow,
Scourge the Devil in his lair?’
They seek him here, they seek him there
The choice is clear – the choice is Clare

His ears are firm, his chin is brave,
His breasts are muscular and wise
He uses broken glass to shave
He eats our firstborn sons in pies

And when it’s time to phone a friend
On whose crisp voice can we depend?
Who wants to be a millionaire?
The choice is clear – the choice is Clare.

Whose riches rival dead King Tut’s?
Who slugged a tiger in the guts?
Who kicked the Kaiser in the nuts?
Who turns coy mistresses to sluts?

What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare
While one man calmly fucks a bear?
The choice is clear – the choice is Clare.

The choice is clear – the choice is Clare.
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes! His floating hair!
His gaping hirsute derriere!

When first he sang, the angels wept
He laughs – ah ha ha ha! – at fools
He’s welcomed everywhere, except
Within one hundred yards of schools

For he on honeydew hath fed
His arse a runny poo hath bled
As if the eye of God had shed
A single, pungent Bovril tear
O close your eyes with holy dread!
As from his pale and pimpled rear
It dangles by a russet thread
Between his bum-juice dappled thighs
With hints of ochre, mauve and red
The chocolate milk of paradise

Such craftmanshit! Such fartistry!
He defecates with rare aplomb
A standard stool’s a travesty
Against his mighty bum croissant

As on and on his minions march,
His pinions arch, his nostrils flare,
He strops his talons on a throne
Of tattered skin and blackened bone
Within his citadel of stone
And passing countless hours alone
While tortured traitors writhe and groan
While foes to foaming hounds are thrown
He ponders all his wrath hath sown
How seeds of pain have slowly grown
To weeds the Reaper’s scythe hath mown
The deeds for which none can atone
The bloodied virgin lying prone
The toothless, blind, abyssal crone
The goatchild playing the trombone
And blasting from that golden cone
One last apocalyptic tone –

He whinnies like a harpooned mule
Then slumps back in his blighted chair
The voices, fear, and poisoned air
The choice is clear – the choice is Clare

My Socks Hate Each Other

They have broad commitment issues
that can probably be traced back to their honeymoon,

A long weekend of hollow agreements,
where they saw in each other what they hated in themselves.

Granted, neither of them got to be the looker.
It must have felt like going to the prom with your brother

so I, their vicar, their appointed councillor, encouraged
an attitude of open experimentation, left them to their own devices

in the cantina bar of my airing cupboard,
where they hooked up into ever more gruesome twosomes:

A tan thermal; one of Mark’s withered Argyles; a white pop sock
(probably Laura’s); some frayed Homer Simpson vehicle…

Everyone in our house must accept the wanderlust of hosiery,
the dense soap opera of break-ups going on beneath our feet.

To map it would drive any one of us insane.
One of my socks calls round regularly

with increasingly fresh-faced companions.
I find it hard to look cool with this

though I know the other one is probably stuffed
down the side of someone’s mattress,

Mercifully preserved in the moment it was forgotten.
Single life treating it well.

My Shoes Are In Love

Although I’ve never seen them kiss.
But whenever I collected them from your hallway

they always looked so sad at my return.
(It always took ages to unpick their laces.)

“Hey,” they would say. “Hey, lets go to an expensive sushi restaurant,
or a mosque! Let’s go round to Michaels house!”

Michael, with his ambitious new white carpets.
I knew they were just trying to get rid of me.

Occasionally, I would scuff them
to remind them who’s boss.

Once, in a hotel, I kicked them off into separate corners
Both of them landing on their heads for the loneliest night of their life.

Because of the way I walk, one aged faster than the other.
I sealed up his slathering mouth with superglue

Re-inked him with biro when the other wasn’t looking,
then took them both bowling as a special treat.

And then I left them there, walked out in my bowling shoes,
Pinching at my toes all the way home.

Sometimes I think about my trainers and their love
that I had no use for.

I flick through blurry photos of them, all taken accidentally.
Caught off guard, looking away from one another

Secure in the knowledge that I will always be there
To hold them both together.

Slade and Wham at Christmas

It’s so cold at six on a December morning
it’s when you think about changing your job
find something closer to home
hopefully for a bit more money.
You spend your lunchtimes emailing CVs,
circling vacancies in the jobs section
of the Norwich Evening News

but then you hear Slade and Wham
and for a few mintues can think
about sitting with your family on Christmas Day
Gavin and Stacey’s on this year
and things don’t seem so bad
when you’re listening to Driving Home for Christmas

by Chris Rea.
You spend all year working so hard
cycling home in the rain
making small talk on the phone
and sometimes things seem pointless
but then you’ll hear Slade and Wham
and it’s impossible not to think
of nativity scenes and sleighbells
and all the people you will meet up with back home.

Outside there are children singing Christmas songs
and for a few minutes you can put your life on hold
and think of nativity scenes and carol concerts
Ferrero Rocher and watching Home Alone
and listening to Slade and Wham
and White Christmas by Bing Crosby
and Fairytale of New York
and that one by Paul McCartney
and 2 Become 1 by the Spice Girls
and Stay be East 17.

Who’s John?

Now I don’t do this often
But before I move on
There’s a man here in spirit
Sorry madam – who’s John?
I’m being told John
And a connection with Paul…
If I said the name Dave
Would that make sense at all?

Maybe David?
Bavid?
Yes, all right.
Yes, I’ll tell her.
He’s saying he’s really surprised you don’t remember Bavid.
He’s showing me a gentlemen
With a couple of

Eyes and a very long, uh,
A very, very long, white
Chin
That curled up and back on itself
Rather like an elf’s shoe, madam
Who’s Bavid
With a chin like an elf’s shoe?

Could be Karen

Now I’m being shown a lady
I would say in her mid to late fifties
With two enormous ossified growths
I feel like they’re bursting from the rear portion
Of her cranial cavity
Out like this
Like a pair of majestic horns
Only they’re so heavy she’s can’t lift her head
Would you understand if I said
That before she passed over to spirit
This lady would stagger the streets
Bent double with the weight of her huge antlers
Bellowing like a wounded sow
While kids pelted her with old satsumas and sticks smeared in dog shit?
Okay, well madam she says
That earring you lost last week?
Check down the back of the sofa.
Not the big sofa, the little one.
You checked there before but you didn’t look hard enough.
She’s saying: ‘Look again love.’

Who’s Ivanovitch?
Who’s Norbert Schneider?

I’m being shown a fair-haired man
Naked
Hefting his thick, erect penis
Almost like a cosh

There’s a young girl
Playing bagpipes
As she’s forced at gunpoint
Through a carwash

I’m seeing six crayons
Some cheese at the circus
A nursery room papered with Socialist Workers
Was he into gymkhanas?
Did he live in an egg?
Could he trigger typhoons
With a switch on his leg?

Who’s Milli Vanilli?
What’s Home Alone 2?
Who’s stuck on the A534
Outside Crewe?
Who whistled in Dutch?
Were you recently shot?
What’s the cube root of pi?
Does stuff… happen a lot?

Would it really give solace
To talk to the dead
If your loved ones returned
Except all that they said
Was:
‘You have a photo.’
‘You’ve been quite sad.’
I mean, is Heaven so boring?
Is it really that bad?
What’s it all like?
Can you smoke?
Do you poo?
Do you still have to work?
What does everyone do?

Or is nobody there?
Are those people just… gone?
Will I disappear with them?
Who’s Tim Clare?
Who’s John?

My Curriculum Vitae: The Musical

OPEN to sounds of an economic upswing. Offstage, new departments are filing their first notions. A boxfresh monitor is ceremoniously degaussed.

CURTAIN UP on R. SUTHERLAND. Friendly and industrious. Sutherland has the air of a man you would wish to slap on the back and laugh riotously.

   ROSS
     Ah, what a fine day to graduate
     from a mid-league table comprehensive.

Enter GIANT LETTER ‘A’. Hands protrude from each side of the letter. One clicks its fingers. The other holds a fresh Martini.

Straight into a capela swing duet: “And That’s All Ya Need To Know”

   (click, click, click, click)
   Wha? Eh? Whats-that you say?
   We can’t hear nothing but the A! A! A!
   Whether tuning a piano
   Or fallin out of a window
   ‘A’ is all ya need to know!

   Yes, that’s all ya need to know!
   That’s-as-far as the conversation needs-to-go!
   So just give me some cash
   For that sweet Dot-Dash
   And we’ll get on with the show!

   One for the army, two for the taxman
   Three for our dear papa!
   No one tips the scale like an alpha male
   So just open your mouth and go “Ah!

   And, yeah, some folk talk of A-Star,
   But those spacemen bin drifting too far
   Those Joe-90 bro’s
   got no hair down below
   And they’ve never been served in a bar!
   But proppin’ up the-nerds,
   We’re there, surfin’-the-curve
   For us there ain’t no-where to go-o-o
   but back to zed!
   And we won’t sleep till we’re dead!
   And that’s all ya need to know!!

Enter HEADTEACHER.

   HEADTEACHER
   Congratulations, Ross. Plus, AS-levels
     are no longer meaningless.

Diorama revolves to reveal the ziggurats of the University of East Anglia.

Headteacher dons mortar board.

ROSS
Malcolm Bradbury!

   BRADBURY
     Correct. Although I never taught you
     directly, I was heavily connected
     with this university.

   ROSS
     It’s an honour to be part of this
     common misconception.

BRADBURY
I wrote The History Man. (exit)

Enter CHORUS OF LESSER STUDENTS
for the ensemble hymn: “A Good Command of Rhetoric is a Fundamental Skill.”

   A good command of rhetoric
   is a fundamental skill.
   A good command of cleverdicks
   Will sweeten every pill.
   A good command of specifics
   Will sharpen up your will.
   A good command of Messerschmitts
   and you can land one on a hill.

   A good command of het-up-chicks
   And they’ll take off their jeans.
   And like a good command of exorcists
   You’ll turn up in their dreams.
   A good command of Pegasus
   Will fly you over things.
   And with a good command of rhetoric
   They’ll never see the strings.

   Look it up in a book.
   Look it up in a book.
   Look it up in a book
   if you don’t believe me.

Refrain repeats as lesser students experiment with drugs and gradually lose interest.

Drumroll. Bradbury log dances on a giant scroll, which slowly unravels to reveal the phrase “With Honours”. Cymbal.

   ROSS
     Well, looks like I have a flawless
     academic record. Gotta find an
     employer fast, before I literally
     explode into an rainbow of money!

Runs off, stage left.

Possibility radiates from the vomitoria, then

BLACKOUT

LIGHT UP on Ross in a suit, working behind a comically large computer terminal. Ross picks up an oversized telephone.

   ROSS
     Hello? Oh! Thanks for the compliment.
     I’ve always felt at ease working
     with the general public. Goodbye.

Enter EMPLOYER (with THEIR OWN PROBLEMS)

   EMPLOYER
     We at the Royal Bank of Scotland have
     reduced our entire customer service team
     to you, Ross Sutherland.

ROSS
I am greatful for the challenge.

Employer sweeps all of the desk’s contents onto the floor, then begins to punch Ross repeatedly in the face.

The rhythm of punches is augmented by rings from the giant phone, twitching on the floor like a repeatedly violated dream.

Enter CHORUS OF UNMENTIONABLE BOSSES, cartwheeling out of a 1970s training video
for the frenetic dance number: This is a Character-Building Experience, and Everyone Has To Do Jobs Like This, during which Unmentionable Bosses chase Ross around the stage in silence, trying to urinate up his back. Ross somersaults around the stage, trying to look on the bright side of things.

Three year intermission, during which Ross does things of scant merit.

CURTAIN up on a grey sea of meaninglessness.

A banner drops down that says “Welcome to Liverpool, during this crucial period of creative infrastructure development in the lead-up to our City of Culture celebrations in 2008”

   ROSS
     Liverpool, eh? Looks like my undisclosed
     personal reasons might have led me
     to a very exciting time and place!

Enter Headteacher, wearing two mortar boards.

ROSS
Wow! Phil Redmond!

   REDMOND
     Hello Ross, though I never met you, I own the
     building you work in. There’s a good chance
     we have passed each other in the corridor.
     What is it that you do?

   ROSS
     I teach undergraduates about The Matrix and
     Douglas Coupland. I am trying to complete a PhD.

REDMOND
I probably approve.

ROSS
Thanks!

REDMOND
I invented Grange Hill. (exit)

Enter CLASS OF UNDERGRADUATES under a spell of unparalleled intellectual transformation.

   CLASS OF UNDERGRADUATES
     Tell us more about what other people
     have said about Douglas Coupland!

ROSS
With pleasure!

Sudden lighting change due to unforeseeable circumstances.

Enter hideous incompetent SCHOOL CLERK.

   CLERK
     Hiss! We forgot to confirm your impressive
     MA result with the AHRC. As a result,
     you won’t be able to get funding for
     your PhD.

   ROSS
     Agh! I have no choice but to suspend
     my studies!

   CLASS OF UNDERGRADUATES
     Tell us more about what other people
     have said about Douglas Coupland!

ROSS
Grr! I hate Douglas Coupland!

Single spot on Ross, semi-translucent yet personally developed.
Ross is lifted on a wire above the audience for eyeball-busting solo ballad: “Suspended”,
during which AHRC applications flutter down from the rig.

   Suspen-ded!
   Suspen-ded!
   But no-thing has en-ded!
   It’s just not currently on.
   It’s just not currently on.

   The rain never ends
   It’s only suspen-ded
   long enough to say, “Look, no rain”

   Haircuts never end
   They are only suspen-ded!
   Your hair even grows in your grave.

   The novels of Dean Koontz
   are only suspen-ded!
   Even after the en-ding,
   You can always read them again.

   A conversation
   with a charming obstetrician
   has not en-ded!
   It is only suspen-ded!
   There are always more questions
   to ask an obstetrician.

   Our house never ends
   It is only suspen-ded
   Till more people need to get in
   And then we will build an extension.

   Lying on my couch
   I’m suspen-ded!
   About two feet from the floor,
   Between the hours of three and four
   Between the endless works of Shakespeare
   And the endless albums of Al Jolson
   And endless conversations with doctors
   In a house of endless people
   I…
   Am…
   Sus-pen-ding!
   Sus-pen-ding!
   But I’m always inten-ding
   To carry these things on
   To carry these things on

Ross lands gently on the apron to deliver his PERSONAL STATEMENT:

   ROSS
     (laughs to himself) So. Looks like
     this highly qualified individual
     is back on the road. Hard to believe,
     but hey, the workplace is driven by
     more factors than skill and team spirit.
     It’s rainin’ dice on the stock exchange,
     kids being sold off for scrap in every
     playground. We all just got to keep our
     heads. See, I learnt something this year:
     We’re all team players. Every one of us.
     Some of us are just still searchin’ for
     the right team…

Enter REFERENCE ONE, downstage-left, red-faced on a pale horse.

   REFERENCE ONE
     There goes one helluva asset. To think,
     he’d still be working for us if we weren’t
     such unmitigated arseholes.

Enter REFERENCE TWO, downstage-right, grim in a suit made of lottery tickets.

   REFERENCE TWO
     If it weren’t for that man, I’d still be
     hawking shit for sexual favours. He’d never
     say it himself, but he changed the face of
     Working forever.

Darkness pours in through the Gods. Ross lights a cigarette.

ROSS
And to think that I am only 29 years old.

Distant rumble of photocopiers.

BLACKOUT.
FIN..

Listening to Stuart Maconie

You shout crossword clues

while I iron my work shirts

and it’s payday tomorrow

and there’s a stack of DVDs we ordered on Amazon

we still haven’t watched

and Stuart Maconie is on the radio

you like him

and we’ve skyplus’d The Apprentice

and it’s only two weeks until we go to New York

and the chicken is nearly roasted

and our friends will be here soon

and we’ve a case of red wine to get through

and a massive Toblerone

and Stuart Maconie has just played Waterloo Sunset

and if it’s still sunny at 8 o’clock

we can drink gin and tonic in the garden

and tell everyone that Katie called this morning

to say she’s expecting twins in September.

But as I sit waiting for our guests to arrive

I can’t help but look at the patio doors and think

‘What if men burst in wearing balaclavas’

and I imagine an elbow through the glass,

a man holding a gun in your mouth

while I am told to fill a bag with valuables.

NEW WRITING: The Secret by Ross Sutherland

A Google Poem.

The secret is not in knowing how to pick someone’s lock;
the secret is knowing how to get them to open the door for you.
The secret is learning to control a small stream of air into the harmonica.
The secret is base 64 encoded.

The secret is in the crust.
The secret is in the sauce.
The secret is in the egg roll.
The secret is not to diet, but simply to stop looking at fat people.

The secret is only secret when there is no secret, or no appearance of any secret.
Even if the secret is no secret, even if there has never been a secret,
a single secret. Not one.
The Secret Is There Are No Secrets.
The secret is bigger than that.
(The Secret is also a hit movie)

The secret is a name for what is without properties.
The secret is a point in an m-dimensional space.
The secret is quantum physics in action.
The secret is one of the “greatest intellectual achievements of humankind.”
The secret is Stockton.

Man from Mansfield says the secret is in the transmission.
Anders says the secret is a magnetic coil that looks much like a Slinky toy.
The former host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” says the secret is “be yourself.”
105 year old virgin says the secret is celibacy.

The secret is not mystical
The secret is, if nothing else, an extraordinarily successful example of “viral marketing,”
The secret is a $279 a month dedicated server.
The secret is exceptional customer service
so that people want to come and deal with you.
The secret is nitric oxide.

The secret is to have the words on the screen, then read out the words,
and then direct them to where the words appear on their printed handouts

The secret is 80 miles northeast of Birmingham, Alabama,
70 miles southwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee
And 90 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia.
For this reason, the secret is an excellent pivotal point
from which one can discover some of the best secrets in the south.

The secret is in the hug.
The secret is integration.
The secret is idealism, commitment and doing what you like to do.
The secret is that it doesn’t work that well.
The secret is in discovering it.