What have you been up to?

"I've just been listening to Candle in the Wind a lot"

Look at it, Richard!

I had to add this link to the blog, it's the funniest thing I have read in a long while.

My co-worker said I laughed like Beavis and/or Butthead while I read this. That's how good it is.

Thirteen fucking pounds

Thirteen fucking pounds.

Thirteen fucking pounds. £13. For 18 pictures processed at Snappy Snaps.

That's 72p a picture. 7" x 5", matt with no border.

I left 18 of my favourite pics from my recent travels in Snappy Snaps, one of the few remaining photo labs left on the high street, thinking it might be £3.50, maybe £4. It's 18 little bits of paper. They don't have to go to a dark room, they don't need to buy red bulbs. Nope, a spotty twat called Dean can just press print. He doesn't even have to do that, oh no, Dean is a workshy little bastard; dean just 'Ctrl + P's.

So for about 3.45 seconds work, a one hundredth of a colour ink cartridge and and 18 small pieces of paper, they charged me £13.

Thirteen fucking pounds. And some of the pictures come out shit.

So what have I learned? Well, yet again London has pushed me up against a wall and buggered me with its prices. I've also learned that rent is expensive in the West End (their excuse when I asked why they had just raped me) and I have learned that I am still stupid enough to hand over the money.

Dean is probably out now, spending my money on weed and Sainsbury's own brand cookies. While I am here with some below-average print work. Thank you Snappy Snaps, thank you.

A few things...

First off,

I'd just like to make a full and personal apology on behalf of Lee. This thing of ours, this torrent of hatred/self loathing with some pretty pictures has become very 'Chris heavy' of late. Lee's gone rouge, off the radar smoking cigarettes and hanging out in Beat nik clubs. I've tried to have a quite word, let him know we have a reading public who want their length of Lee (Hi Rob!). He doesn't care though, tries to say that things like working extra hours, being married and having a social life are what's getting in the way. He knows it's not good enough and will send anyone who e-mails in their postal address a picture of himself topless, looking out of a window at a sunset. It was an early marketing ploy, we've got two cases full of them so please write in.

Also, this morning was one of the worst hangovers of recent times. I had tears in my eyes and a rip in my stomach lining. The reason? Singstar. We've had this PS3 just sitting in a Tescos carrier bag after a house party we had ages ago. Turns out that Singstar is actually the perfect night in for four lads in their mid 20's. Me and Lee were by far the weaker duet. We did decide that although we might not sing the 'Singstar' way, we had the most feeling. The other two were going for 'consistency' and 'tone' but they did not look as good kneeling on the carpet with their tops off. I'm fairly certain I could feel Jimmy Morrison's proud hand on my shoulder, "finally, someone to take over my mantel". All this was going on as we banged through 9 bottles of wine, drank some whiskey and smoked cigarettes, then we started investing in songs. Downloading Bowie and Toni Braxton. I love David Bowie, like asking girls to sing the first few lines of "Jean Genie" in bed like him. Didn't sing it though, too drunk. Too drunk for David Bowie, I literally feel ashamed.

...We've already planned the next one. We're all going to buy £5 worth of songs each, really build up the back catalogue. All I need to do is reign in my showboating.

Tom's Pic

Hello,

Have look at the above picture, drawn by Tom Kollmann. We attended the same Cartoonin' class at the back end of this year. I love this picture, it's so grimy, full of movement and feels of a time & a place. The plan is to get it printed onto a t-shirt at some point but at the minute I don't have enough money to buy basic food stuffs. Although I do have £7 sat in scratchcards. Recession proof!

"Lady luck is fickle but a lady is allowed to change her mind"

The Fifth

Tuesday the 20th of January 2009,

A historic day, I mean...just wow. That's right, Battlestar Galactica finally made it's way back onto our screens. I never thought I'd see the day, hadn't even let myself dream about it. 'Hope', such a soft fragile world, often feeling like a small plant growing from dead, nuclear soil. Even the slightest breeze could take it away. On Tuesday it felt like something in the universe went right for once... I got to look at Adalma's grizzled face again.

It was an amazing hour of television but my God, it was bleak. Bleak like the husk that is Earth or wherever it is. If people weren't killing themselves they were trying to, looking a bit miserable. It was powerful though, stark and real (well, as real as space ships and robots can be). I think watching it might have actually stung a bit at one point. The use of 'Frak' has never been more blatant either. I'm sure in series one it was used far less frequently and the meaning was less obvious. Series 4 isn't 'fraking' about with lines like "She was fraking everyone in the fleet". It just means fuck and there's no two ways about it. I'm also fairly sure there was a reference to the urethra in this weeks episode.

There is one problem though which detracted from the feeling of sheer unbridled awe, Iggy Pop. Weird, gnarled skin bag Iggy. His lust for life style persona used rather nonsensically to try and sell me car insurance. The guy looks as if he's never worn a t-shirt, let alone driven a Fiat Punto.

That aside, that Barack chap became the President. I won't go on about it, too many people are. I saw these two fruity Brit lads who went all the way over there to see him being sworn in. That's a bit much, watch it on Al Jazeera like everyone else. I have his book, and his action figure. If you're ever on the 253 towards Camden in the morning, keep an eye out for a scruffy looking chap with hay like hair reading 'Dreams of My Father'. Note that he won't be reading a single word of it, he's just trying to catch girls eyes with a sort of "oh, this? Well, it's Barack's book - yes, I know" look.

CX

There was only 12 of them

Right

Everyone in London is right. Not one decision made by the 8 million is ever wrong. You are bumped into on the street because that was their right of way. So they pushed into you.

A woman just swanned passed 8, yes 8, people in a Sainsbury's queue. She didn't give a shit. She even looked round at us, as we stared at her, open mouthed, like she had murdered a child. A similar thing happened waiting for Oyster top-up on Monday morning, a fat bastard just walked past and jammed his sweaty coins into the machine with his sausage-like mitts.

But she was right, and he was right. Everyone is right and you are wrong.

The tube magnifies this bloody-minded arrogance. It makes even the nicest person a cock of megalomaniac proportions. That's my spot, I am going to get on this train and this is where I am going to stand. So fuck you and fuck you. This is put to the test when a hauty middle-aged twat twitters: "Can you move down, please". No, fuck off Grandma. My spot, I'm right and you can kiss my arse.

The trouble is rarely are people right. In fact 99% of the time, London is wrong. Of course, I am right, but everyone else is wrong.

The end is nigh!

Okay,

It’s the end of the world. I’m not sure how exactly but it’s happened. Possibly in an obvious, ‘disease’ related way, a plague we hadn’t made provisions for or was too aggressive to combat. Maybe it’s something more elaborate, a ‘Triffids’ style astrological blinding of the whole human, thus rendering us at the mercy of those giant man eating plants.

Either way, you’re either the one person, or one of the very few who have been spared from the cull of humanity. A pretty heavy thing to think about really, something me and my friends talked through in a Weatherspoons. What exactly would you do in that situation, imagining you woke up one morning and found that over night humanity had ground to a halt?

Perhaps it might all be too much to handle. Thinking about the entire collective history of the human race may tip you over the edge. One of my friends reckoned that he’d top himself within the hour (although, secretly I think that’s just because he couldn’t live in a world where there’d be no one to listen to him). Every book or piece of history would be nothing; you’d be all that was left as an example of humanity. That’s a bit too much responsibility, I was sick on a bus once, it oozed down the aisle towards some kids. I felt dead low.

I reckon I’d do some right odd stuff if left to my own devices for too long. Even spending an afternoon by myself results in me developing new words for universal language, wearing odd clothes and drawing all over myself. And the masturbation, red raw my little fella is. I think in this setting I’d go royally off my rocker, I’d build a shrine to the forgotten age, old music players and Andy Warhol pictures everywhere. A bit like Camden Market I suppose. Listening to music on a crackly old gramophone, drinking tea from a china cup while the Gherkin falls into the earth. Oh, and I’d definitely be wearing a cravat.

I also decided I’d have a wander down to the MI5 building, have a read of some secrets. When it was pointed out to me that I’d most likely be unable to get into all the digitally encrypted files we decided to settle for going down to Buckingham palace and having a tug over the Queen’s pillow.

Here’s a list of what we’d get up to pending near obliteration of the human race:

Ride a little golf cart. Everywhere.
Go down to Oxford Street and set Topshop on fire.
Find Tommy Cooper's fez (What, ride a golf cart without a fez?)
Asphyxi-wank at No. 10, then remove that big gold sceptre from Parliament and put it in the cart.
Go to the arcades in high heels.

Tears for fears

"By the end we were both crying. I think it was then that I realised the whole 'gay' thing wasn't really me"

A support group?

The MDL

"Hey baby, do you like cloudy drinks and moist, dark car boots?

If so, pick me"

A literal stream of thought

Okay,

An observation and some general things. First off, if you see someone with a cassette player in 2009, something isn't right. I saw this chap on Oxford street, whipping out his Sony Walkman. For reasons I can't fully explain I was gripped with panic. This shell suited chap wasn't wearing it in some trendy Hoxton style way ("Hey, aren't cassettes like totally cool?" Not really, if we're honest. They got obliterated into history by the CD. It was Darwinism at it's most beautiful). I instantly thought, 'God, he got that as a gift from a visitor. He's loose!'.

Also, and I know I shouldn't be gutted but I am, Patrick Maghooan has died. I loved him and The Prisoner. I realised that I base a lot of my office persona on his Number 6. In these times of redundancies & cost cutting what you certainly don't need to do is act like a man who can't be bent by the system. If anything I should be defacing myself at every single turn to keep my job.

"I'm not a number!"

"No one said you were, this is a disciplinary hearing"

CX

"I hate manure"

LondonLove

The LondonPaper - 5 minutes of not very entertaining tosh (for those not in the know it's one of the two evening free papers commuters are hit with on the way home from work) but one thing that always catches the eye is LondonLove.

LondonLove is a section where people can blindly text in attempts at finding love: "To the brown haired hottie who likes to sit down on my train in the morning" or "To the fit bird on the tube..." you know, "romantics" who think true love is perving on someone on public transport. So you text in with your plea, and maybe, just maybe, the lucky boy or girl will respond "YES! I love you too, strange person who I have never met".

Anyway here are some of our attempts, that we shall be texting in. Keep an eye out!

“To the extremely muscley woman at Paddington on Thursday, I was the tiny, mustached man with the comb over. Can I watch you work out? Please?"

“I was the tall guy with the hundred yard stare and the knife on the N4 night bus to Islington on Saturday. Any of the women on there will do.”

“You told me to ‘fuck off you fucking weirdo, put your cock away’ on the tube at Baker Street on Wednesday night. Want to give it another go?”

“Homeless man who just stole a guy’s mobile needs change for food. You will find me in a green sleeping bag at Liverpool Street. Nothing less than 50p, please, my dealer is pissed off at me using coppers.”

“To the girl who always dresses really funky at Tufnell Park, In my head you’re the answer to my bullshit life. Drinks? xox”

“To the shift eyed, scruffy looking man at Tottenham Court Road. I know you took my purse but I think I love you”

“I was the guy kicking the shit out of the asian fella on the 12:02 to Milton Keynes, you were the fit bitch looking on, horrified. Meet up, yeah?”

“To the really old creepy guy who stares at me in the mornings while touching his cock, my self esteem has hit rock bottom after a series of life-shattering let downs. Quick fuck in the toilets tomorrow?”

“I was the guy at Goodge St tube station, you’re the girl who had a clump of her hair pulled out at Goodge street Tube station – I still have it x”

“You’re the girl reading The Da Vinci code, five years after everyone else. I’m the guy that whispered the ending in your ear at Oxford St”

"Well at least I tried God damn it"

"Yeah, initially I was glad to see Wispas, but now I'm bored of them again"

Toilet attendants

I'm a bit hungover, so I am not going to beat around the bush. I hate toilet attendants.

If I am paying £8 for a vodka, I think it's pretty fair that I get to piss that up the wall for free. And I know £8 is too much for some watered down, cheap vodka and some economy OJ, but there is an honesty to being ripped off in a trendy, City bar. They could write "we will be ripping you off, you stupid dickhead" on the door, but they don't need to. I know it's going to happen, they know it's going to happen so let's get on with it, and make it a double.

But having a bloke standing around the toilet, usually singing something about sex, is not an honest arrangement. It's supposed to be a break from de riguer of the evening - a few minutes where it's a bit quieter, you can have a breather and think about what you are doing. 

Every man in a bar on a saturday night will unzip, begin splashing out the urine which cost oh so much to create and heave a big sigh. That sigh is a little indication that we know we are talking rubbish, shamelessly attempting to have sex with anything in a skirt and helping our livers die just a bit quicker. We know what we are doing is sad and wrong and will only lead to pain, frustration and regret in the morning but we are doing it anyway. So leave me the fuck alone to wee in peace.

Also, I am confident of few of my abilities, but one I pretty much have down pat is the ability to toilet. I can release all that needs to be released in a timely manner and clean up after myself without too many problems. Oh there have been slips - a splash here, a mark there, the occasional unwashed hand - but I am, on the whole, good at going to the toilet. Thank you.

So why should I have to give a tip to a barely-hirable idiot who's only job is to stand behind me, watch me piss (and maybe comment on my abilities) then offer me some soap and a handtowel? I can squeeze soap out of a dispenser myself and I can pick a towel from a pile myself. Shit, I can even wipe my own hands.

No, I don't want a squirt of cheap cologne, I have my own. And no I don't want a lollypop, I am not on pills or 10. I want to wee alone, maybe have a mumbled conversation about how pissed I am with a fellow micturator, heave a big sigh, and then maybe wash my own hands. I don't want to have to feel obliged to give a twat a pound for a job that I can, and wish to do myself.

There was a time where men were not paid to stand around toilets. They paid for the privilege. And no matter what people say about George Michael, dammit it's more honest than the toilet attendant scam that's blighting the stinking piss holes of our country's fine establishments.

The Black Dossier

Tales of intrigue,

I got an interesting message on Facebook the other day from the mysterious Ms Black. She isn't a 'friend' of mine on there (but how many really are?), she had no profile picture and she was asking who I was.

She wanted to know if I was the same Chris who was in the Army (!), the one who was stationed in Korea (!!). Wow, I wasn't really sure what to make of it. I have a namesake who's some kick arse G.I.

I had a couple of odd reactions to this. The first was this really existential line of thought where I started to think about my life, all the things I hadn't done. This other Chris had been off, fighting in that damn war. Probably fell in love with a local girl, shaped some experiences with his bear hands.

Secondly, and inevitably, my mind turned to sexual thoughts. I began to think, I could say that I'm the same guy. She may get on a plane from where ever she is, she may be beautiful. When she gets here it could be played one of two possible ways. First, she could get here and find my lies and deceit hilarious and endearing. We'd tell our kids the story of how I pretended to be a Green Beret before she found out I was actually a clammy office spore. Alternatively, I could sidle up to her and just say, "Yeah, well, I know that the last time we saw each other I was this 6" black guy but, y'know, this war has changed us all baby".

Lee (co-author, constant kick and the occasional finger up, the arse) thought that it was some CIA plot. That I'd end up in the same cow shed where they hanged Saddam, having the shit water boarded out of me.

In the end I decided to do the right thing and tell her I wasn't the same guy she was looking for. I told her that I probably couldn't be further away from this other Chris and that the closest I'd ever been to being in the armed forces was my big long stint on Call of Duty. Not exactly the same, but it probably gave me a 15 rather than a 1000 yard stare.

I wished her luck though, especially if he was on the lamb from paternity payments.

CX

Theatreland

I ventured into Theatreland today. I never have before, but today I dipped my toe into the part of London I have always thought of as bit 'fruity'.

It's a strange world, the theatre. A world of grease paint, of curtains, of drama, of comedy. A world of laughter, of tears, of showmen and of elderly homosexuals in make-up.

I didn't see a show nor did I act. No, I just bought some tickets for a friend's visiting sister. She wanted to see a) Dirty Dancing or b) Lion King, so I offered to pop down and buy them.

When I asked for the tickets, I was offered "restricted view" tickets to Dirty Dancing for just £52 each, or a "full view" for £64.

Now I thought every ticket to a play, or for anything for that matter was a "full view" ticket. I didn't know that a proportion of theaters had 'shit' seats. Like at school where if you got in last you had to sit next to the smelly, weird kid who blatantly couldn't wipe his own arse and smelt like marmite all the time.

So this meant for £52 each they could almost see the play. For £64 each they could see all the play. That's a discount of nearly 20% - but is it restricted by nearly 20%? It would help if they gave brief explanations of how 'restricted' the seat is:

£64 - full view. 

£58 - just sort of behind a pillar, won't really piss you off, you might tut a bit to begin with. 

£52 - it'll piss you off a bit, your neck will hurt from straining and at one point you will whisper 'I can't see a bloody thing'. 

£37 - this seat is shit. You can't see a fucking thing. You'll probably walk out half way through.

It's like going into a restaurant and being told half your meal is inedible. Would you still pay nearly full price if the waiter told you the chef had wiped his balls on nearly 20% of the steak?

I opted for Lion King "full view" tickets. Least that way, if it's shit, they will know first hand.

Xbox for sale

Right,

I'm selling my Xbox. I brought it on a crazy whim after getting £200 extra back from an old flat deposit. Spent an extra £100 on games and a wireless Internet connection and subsequently lost about 5 months of my life, my ability to think and my girlfriend.

I got on this crazy drug, a dizzying high called Call of Duty 4. Nothing made sense anymore, I snapped at colleagues and friends alike literally just thinking about getting back online and tapping the right thumbstick. Thus garroting an American kid. Maybe throwing a smoke grenade...oh yeah, slowly.

In a weird way, it was the best of times but it was also starkly the opposite, I'd go so far as to say it was one of the single most depressing sections of my life. The first thing that hits you, playing at being an army man, is the breathing problems. The amount of respiratory disorders online is gruesome. A load of teenagers, wheezing away making some horrid comments. Not just horrid, some really out of order stuff, although that is mostly the Americans. Once though, I did hear three Manch teenagers ripping into some American kid who said some rubbish joke about Michael Jackson being like an Oreo or something. One just went, "No mate, no. That's really good mate. Where'd you get that, off the back of a Penguin bar". Mental.

Literally in all the time I spent on that infernal machine I could have become conversational in French, or really good at sex. Rather than being a sort of "Listen baby...it's just because I like you so much. Don't leave...please" type of guy.

CX

Fashion

Teeny, tiny, little leather jackets,

Teeny, tiny, red pumps,

Teeny, tiny, little pairs of jeans,

Fucking huge scarves.

It's really cold in London this week, barely over -5C (about 20F, Americans), but clothes haven't changed much. Well, the scarves have got bigger, exponentially. Each drop in degree adds about 6 or 7 inches of neck knitwear.

Twisted round and round and round, on top of tiny little jackets.

I think people have been watching too many Loony Toons. They have watched Bugs Bunny skating on ice, turning Elmer Fudd into a snowman, merely wearing a scarf and people have assumed that Bugs is a decent barometer of winter wear. 'Oooh it looks chilly, what would a cartoon rabbit wear?'

London, Bugs Bunny should not define winter wear. Put on a big coat, some gloves and maybe a hat. And blow your fucking nose. There is nothing more unattractive than a sad-looking sniffer, girls.

No, I love YOU!

"Okay, it turns out I'm not nearly as good looking as I thought I was.

Whadda ya say we give it another shot babe? I mean your life must have lost a lot of music after I split"

The Things I Now Know about...Nicholas Rowe

I see a lot of celebrities,

Okay, maybe that's not 100% accurate. I've seen a couple of celebrities since I've moved to London. I saw Amy Winehouse on the Northern line, messing with her fellas pork pie hat once. He had a distant look in his eyes, almost as if he was thinking "Okay, Back to Blacks selling awfully quickly & no one really has any idea what I actually do for a living - I can cope with this".

Mostly though, I tend to see a whole host of former, bit part or fringe celebrities. Today I was lucky enough to stumble across a real gem. Nicholas Rowe, I chiefly remember him from the 1985 art house smash, Young Sherlock Holmes. A poignant and heart wrenching tale of mystery, first love and ultimately...loss. There is also a scene a gravestone turns into a fridge and all the cakes come alive and start messing about with young Watson, something to do with mind bending, hallucinogenic Egyptian drugs & human sacrifice. All very much in line with the spirit of Doyle. For his part, Rowe takes the character of Holmes and delivers an aloof intellectual, bubbling with sexual intensity. He was also one of the stoners in Lock Stock, the one who got his foot blown off through the cage.

Here are the things I now know about Nicholas Rowe as of this afternoon:

• He got on the Victoria line at Finsbury Park.
• He's reading 'Things fall apart' by Chinua Achebe. I couldn't judge his reading speed, I am also equally unsure if this is a first time, or a re-read.
• He had four sealed envelopes. Belated Christmas cards (I can only think of one person who could solve this problem...like the way he solved the mystery on his first day at boarding school - the clay was from the art department!)?
• He's a tall chap, he had some black shoes on. They didn't really go with his jeans.
• His wife puts a splash of lavender on their pillow every night*.

CX

*This is purely guesswork. I had to fight a powerful, sexual urge not to get off & follow him at Kings Cross.

Welcome to Introversial

Good tidings merry gentlefolk,

Welcome to Introversial in London, a blog and cartoon website created by a couple of cheeky cockney chappies* living and breathing in't City in't 2009.

It might be a bit risky, a bit racy and always a little blue but we aim to put across what we see, do and think in and amongst the grey and the fog of London town.

We will always try to update as regularly as we can, but we are only human. Sometimes there will be something good on telly.

So enjoy, feedback, comment, tell your friends and 'ctrl D' the shit out of us.

C & L

* disclaimer: we are not cheeky nor cockney

Drug maths

Going past some yoofs in Camden yesterday, I was treated to some very technical drug maths.

Yoof 1: "'ow much we gonna get yeah?"

Yoof 2: "Well, right, we bin off a week yeah, and we gone through 30 quid's worth, and we still 'ave a week left."

Yoof 1: "So we gotta get 40 quid's worth?"

Yoof 3: "yeah, man, get 40"

Yoof 2: "yeah, bruv, wicked"

Drug maths. 2 + 2 = 4 and a bit. 3 + 3 = about 8. 10 + 10 = shitloads.