Cigarettes & Alcohol

Confessions of a Stag Weekend

Phil Sloan

© Phil Sloan 2013

Phil Sloan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published 2013 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

This book is dedicated to Louis, Tanya and all my family & friends. Love ya!

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Stags Are Rampant!

PART ONE: AMSTERDAM

Chapter Two: The Airport Jellyfish Tank

Chapter Three: A Carton Of Ciggies

Chapter Four: Puff Pants & Torture Chambers

Chapter Five: The Amsterdam Whore Equation

Chapter Six: That Dutch Dog Sure Is Handsome

Chapter Seven: Somewhere A Village Is Missing Its Idiot!

Chapter Eight: Amsterdamgoodpissup!!

Chapter Nine: I Know My Basic Human Rights!

Chapter Ten: The Euro Gimp Boy of Amsterdam

Chapter Eleven: A Lizard Gets Milked!

Chapter Twelve: Cardinal Charlie Chunder Comes A-Knocking

PART TWO: EDINBURGH

Chapter Thirteen: Dead Rabbits and Cock Crazed Hens!

Chapter Fourteen: The Edinburgh Pyramid Catastrophe

Chapter Fifteen: A Short History of Stagging

Chapter Sixteen: The Cursed Saturday Night in Edinburgh

Chapter Seventeen: The Trail of a Snail Ruins Jeans Made of the Skin of a Mole

Chapter Eighteen: The well moody old juicer of Edinburgh Town

Chapter Nineteen: Playing One Handed Pool

Chapter Twenty: I see the shit storm rising

PART THREE: BRIGHTON

Chapter Twenty One: Back to the Present AKA Flab in the Future

Chapter Twenty Two: The Stag, his Scrubbers and a Very Bruised Penis

PART FOUR: BEXLEY VILLAGE

Chapter Twenty Three: The One Hundred Metre Dildo Relay

Chapter Twenty Four: Why I Hate Flying with Chewing Gum Cocks

Chapter Twenty Five: A Quick Nightcap, I mean Recap.

Chapter Twenty Six: The Luggage Carousel of Doom

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Stinging Ring of Exhibition Arse

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Stags Gone All Blotchy

Chapter Twenty Nine: A Tiny Cock Causes a Huge Collision

Chapter Thirty: The Last Smoke of the Condemned Man

Appendix Number One: The Glossary of Tossary

Appendix Number Two: Cures for a Bastard of a Hangover

Acknowledgments

Extract from The Instant Best Man’s Speech by Michael Davenport

Chapter One: The Stags Are Rampant!

Let’s face it, every man loves a stag do. Whether it’s a night down the local public house or a full weekender away on the lash, what’s not to like?

It’s your chance to let your hair down. You can become the ultimate ‘man’s man’ by immersing yourself in beer, strippers, football, cigarettes, more beer and illegal substances.

You’re let off the leash. All the grief at work and chores at home disappear in a top beer buzz.

During the early to mid-nineties, a number of my mates decided to take the plunge into wedded bliss.

For the couple concerned this was a major commitment and a huge outlay of cash, involving loads of planning for the big day, the honeymoon, the dress and all that good stuff. To the lads this meant just one thing…..STAG DO!!!

The wedding day holds no interest to real men, not even the groom. Getting togged up in a dodgy looking hired morning suit that reeks of piss, being on your best behaviour, paying out for yet another new outfit for the Mrs (even though her wardrobe is already full to bursting point with kit) it’s all dull, dull, dull.

The first question on hearing that another sucker is being dragged down the aisle is ‘Where we going for the staggie then lad?’ These weekend jaunts were where legends were made, crap was talked, gallons of alcohol drunk and drugs were smoked, snorted and slipped into people’s drinks. Not the sort of behaviour to condone really, but as my Old Man says, ‘if they can’t take a joke, fuck ‘em!’

The main stag attendees were guys I’d known since school. We were in our early twenties, had cash on hip and were well up for abusing our bodies in the name of a good time. We’d all grown up together and knew all there was to know about each other: our dating failures, the states we got ourselves into, the jobs we did, the fact that most of us still lived at home with our parents.…all the embarrassing stories that would have us howling with laughter whenever we got together. Obviously more and more exaggerated since the last time the tale was told.

There’s no point describing these guys, you know what a group of blokes being blokey are like, you’ve been round the block yourself I’m sure. There’s the cool one, the thick one, the permanently-drunk one, the loud one, the good-looking one, the slightly-creepy-looking one, the border-line-serial-murderer… the list goes on.

In addition to the core stags were various family members, workmates, flatmates and anyone else who fancied it. As long as you were male, could drink your own body weight in Stella Artois and smoke hard you were welcome to be part of the weekend.

In this book, characters are going to be known as Kid A, Kid B, Kid C etc until they do something truly spectacularly daft and then will gain the nickname that has followed them around for the last twenty odd years.

Yeah that’s pretty lazy writing but if you want a love story, you’re in the wrong place my friend. This is a book about a group of immature lads on ‘the hit and miss’. If lavatory language and bodily fluids being spilt is not your bag, look away now.

Also by giving nicknames to the characters this will protect the guilty from getting the old ‘broken television set’ routine from their other half. You know what I mean, a couple of weeks of no sound and no pictures from ‘her indoors’ as punishment for your drunken crimes.

You’ve heard all the old clichés…what goes on tour stays on tour…you’re not cheating on your girlfriend if you’re in a different time zone and all that old nonsense. Well this book shows you what really goes on when the lads disappear for the weekend. Most people think stags just want to fight, flirt and fuck. Well we do, but we do other things as well, like talk utter horseshit and laugh at other peoples’ misfortunes.

This book is real stag stories, almost 100% truthful, OK maybe 90% truthful, though embellished for maximum levels of embarrassment and laughter.

Some may well find these tales of debauchery highly offensive and sexist. I honestly do not want to upset any sensitive souls out there. This book is no more sexist than your average ‘chick lit’ paperback dribbling on about shoes, shopping and shagging. In fact this book may be the first in an all-new genre called ‘dick lit’ as it is about a load of dickheads just dicking around. The only shops you will find these stags in are beer shops!

The ‘Cigarettes Smoked Countdown’ at the end of each chapter is simply a plot device giving the book some sort of framework to connect all the incredible tales of idiots being inebriated. I’m certainly not telling people to go out there and smoke 200 cigarettes in one weekend because that will properly ruin your lungs your health and your looks. Same with ‘The Booze Binged Counter’ featured in each chapter, this book is a work of fiction not an instruction manual for the easily led!

Also for those civilians who do not speak Cockney/Mockney/Estuary English/Man of Kent/Kentish Man-speak as well as I do, there is a ‘Glossary of Tossary’ at the back of the book. Here you will find translations and explanations of some of the phrases used within this book that you may not understand.

The action takes place across three days of one mad weekender on two stag do’s in Amsterdam and Edinburgh from way back in the early 1990’s and then one in Brighton in the present day, so do try to stay with the programme. We flit about across time and space like some demented drunken Dr Who.

So please come with me, in this time travelling DeLorean, like in Back to the Future.

Buckle up, set the dials to 1993, hit 88 miles an hour and bada bing here we are in an airport lounge…..it’s time to Laugh, Joke, Drink, Smoke!!!!!!!

PART ONE: AMSTERDAM

Chapter Two: The Airport Jellyfish Tank

Another single man falls into the matrimonial chasm and the usual gang assemble at the local airport early on a Friday morning for a weekend on the pop. There are fourteen of us in all, overnight bags, passports and loads of local currency in hand. Remember stagging isn’t cheap!

It’s six a.m. and we’re already on pint number two sitting in a bar next door to a huge duty free shop full of toot that people swarm around and buy before they fly. Wallets and purses are being opened and all sorts of expensive crap is now being bought by the great unwashed.

What good is a king sized bar of Toblerone going to be when the plane crashes into the North Sea? It’s not a flotation device, pal.

Why buy all that overpriced perfume and aftershave? That bad boy jumbo comes down from 37,000 feet, all you are is a nice smelling corpse.

If people really buy stuff at airports to overcompensate for a fear of flying and possible impending death, why don’t the shops flog parachutes? They’d make a bleeding fortune.

This is why I drink heavily before boarding a flight because I don’t intend dying sober if I can help it.

Two of the lads have wandered off to a table away from the rest of the herd. The conversation looks serious and we all know that Kid A is not getting on with his girlfriend.

They’ve only bought a house together six months ago but there’s trouble in paradise already. Nobody’s going to be surprised when their gaff is back on the market. The only person coming out a winner in this scenario is the local estate agent, odds on another juicy bonus coming his way soon.

Kid A and Kid B are yakking away so we let them get on with it. The following was overheard by a nosey fly on the wall:

Kid A ‘Things ain’t going too well at home at the moment, so I am well happy to have a damn good excuse to be away this weekend. Am getting a bad case of the cold shoulder and the girlfriend seems to have a terminal case of Siamese knees!’

Kid B ‘What you done now then bro? Surely it can’t be any worse than turning up at ten o’clock, totally off your head, when you were meant to be home at seven, to have dinner with her folks.’

Kid A ‘Not my finest hour I’ll grant you, feel it’s all going to end in tears very soon. There’s a huge difference of opinion in my household. I think I’m a top fella, unfortunately she thinks I’m an arsehole.’

Kid B ‘But you are, she’s got you well sussed. You can’t blame her for wanting out really.’

Kid A ‘Good point well made. I’ve got to tell you a top story though, but keep it to yourself. The other night I got in from work & dived straight into the bath for a chill out. Grabbed a bottle of Bud and was having a good soak when I thought….right, time for a wank. So I pull a cheeky quick one off the wrist, rinse myself off and my spunk looks like a load of albino jellyfish floating in the water. Swim my pretties, swim! I shout with glee.

‘I get out the bath and the very soon to be Ex-Mrs comes bowling into the bathroom and says mind if I use that water I’m going out in 5 minutes and can’t be bothered running another one? No knock yourself out I say with a wry grin. I can’t really fess up to having a toss, can I, so she jumps in.’

Kid B ‘So are you now scared that you’ve somehow made her pregnant with your floating man fat?’

Kid A ‘No chance of that, she’s got a bush like a scouring pad, my Harry Monk will just get caught up in that. Maybe it got stuck in between her toes giving her webbed feet like The Man from Atlantis or some such.’

Kid B ‘You really are one sick puppy my boy. You could have just told her the water had gone cold and got her to run another bath. In fact it’s not too harsh to call you Deviant Boy.’

And so, two things happened that day. Kid A was given his nickname of Deviant, that follows him around for the next two decades and a bath is henceforth known as The Jelly Fish Tank or JFT for short.

I did ask my doctor once if a woman could get ‘in the family way’ by getting into a bath full of floating spunk. He just gave me a very strange look and politely asked me to leave the surgery before he called the police.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 0

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS OF LAGER & A SOUTHERN COMFORT AND LEMONADE

Chapter Three: A Carton Of Ciggies

Two of the other lads have drifted out of the bar into the duty free shop of crud. They want to avoid pint number three that is currently being shipped in, even though it’s still silly o’ clock on Friday morning.

Boys will be boys. Standing by a huge display of cartons of cigarettes they start squabbling like a couple of school kids, which they were not too long ago.

Kid C starts winding Kid D up big time saying ‘Do you see that pack of 200 smokes over there?….They are fronting you out. They are proper staring at you.’

‘What are you talking about you plum?’ Kid D replies, sick of the conversation already.

‘That carton reckons that you couldn’t get through the whole lot in one weekend like a real man would.’ Laughs Kid C.

‘But I don’t even smoke, you know I just ponce the occasional one. It’s cheaper as I don’t buy my own and it’s better for my health as I convince myself that I’m a non-smoker. I’m not some desperate addict like you. Besides to smoke 200 cigarettes in less than 72 hours I’m going to need to have the nicotine intake of a chimp in a test laboratory. What’s the point? Is this some new sports event, the 5,000 metre inhale or what?’ moans Kid D.

‘Come on,’ says Kid C, ‘let’s get amongst it. Are we going on a stag do or an OAP’s coach trip to Margate? Let’s buy this carton and you can smoke the fuck out of it by Sunday night. It’ll be an achievement you can be proud of and tell your grandkids about.’

‘That amount of ciggies is going shrink me to four foot nothing and besides what about the damage to my lungs?’ worries Kid D.

‘Fella, with the litres of booze going down your screech this weekender, I wouldn’t be concerned about it. Your liver will pack up way before your chest does. Trust me, I’ve got a medical background, I’ve been up the STD clinic. Shit, did I just say that out loud? Anyway I’m buying the carton and you is smoking the ‘kin lot. You cool with this?’ asks Kid C knowing he’s won.

‘Does James Brown get down? Ship ‘em in and I’ll get smoking hard!!’ Kid D relents.

So fags get bought. The lads wander outside the store and crack open the carton. There’s something about the smell of a new pack of cigs and the way you tear out the silver paper that makes you want to waste a shit load of cash on them over the years you use the deadly coffin sticks.

Kid D lights one up, breathes in the vapours and even a casual passer-by gets a free lungful as well, lush! Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 1…..199 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: NADA

Chapter Four: Puff Pants & Torture Chambers

After sinking a few more beers on the plane, we finally land at Schiphol Airport, wobble over to the station and catch the first train into Amsterdam city centre. Being Friday morning the place is packed with average Joe commuters on their way to work. Now we’re racing. Bring it on. Beer, Drugs, Smokes and Hookers - result!

This being a lad’s weekend away we obviously haven’t sorted anywhere to stay, but we know we’ll be fine as we have that alcohol-fuelled confidence that all is going to be Rock N Roll. Besides we’re not here to sleep. Drop some pills and all will be well.

On the train one of the guys - Kid E - stands up and puts his hand down his pants. Has a rummage about for a minute or so and comes up with a big lump of black cannabis resin.

‘What the fuck?’ we all pipe up amazed. It’s a better trick than a crap magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat at a five year olds birthday party. ‘Where did that gear come from?’

‘My puff pants,’ beams kid E proudly.

‘Your what? Explain yourself man!’ Deviant Boy shouts.

‘Puff Pants! I had my Mum, bless her, sew a little pocket into the seat of my pants in between my balls and my arsehole.’

‘What near your gisp you mean?’ says Deviant. ‘That area is known in medical circles as the stinky ridge but I believe on a woman it can be called the chin rest!’

‘Yeah that’s where,’ laughs Kid E. ‘I wrap the gear up in cling film put it in the pocket, spray it with aftershave and then the natural whiff of my bollocks and bum hole do the rest. I’m telling you lot, no sniffer dog or customs officer is going to beat the Puff Pants fellas. Let’s get some joints skinned up pronto!!’

Cigarettes, Rizla’s and lighters fly his way and he gets building the first jazz fags of the trip.

With my head in my hands I say to him, ‘Bro, you do realise that drugs are as good as legal here in Holland don’t you?’

Kid E stops what he’s doing and says ‘Shit I thought we were in Cologne.’

‘What made you think we were going to Cologne you bell end? You’ve just smuggled an illegal substance from the UK into Amsterdam. You are now officially the most shit Drugs Mule on the face of the planet!’

The whole gang piss themselves with laughter and Kid E is now known forever after, as Mule. We then passed around the joints and started puffing hard, all a bit uneasy that not moments before the gear had been nestling in Mule’s genital area: it’s a well-known fact that the back of his pants have more skid marks than the flight deck of an aircraft carrier but we don’t care to dwell on that.

A nice high floats in as the train carries us into Centraal Station.

We stagger out of the station and walk along one of the main roads leading off to Dam Square. It’s not even ten o’clock yet on a Friday morning and half of us are half-pissed and the other half are totally stoned (try to calculate the maths in that statement!)

Laughing and joking we wander along a street that would win any game of Scrabble hands down: Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. It’s pretty surreal reeling around at this time of day and we probably look like some sort of homeless convention as we shamble our way up the road.

We pass a few hotels that look a bit pricey so carry on looking for a pit for the night. One of the boys spots a sign in the window of a kebab shop down one of the side streets with a sign in the window saying ROOMS FOR RENT. Although it’s still early in the morning the kebab shop is already packed with hungry customers.

‘This will do,’ someone yells and we bowl into the shop to see if they’ve got room enough for the lot of us.

‘Hi guys!’ bellows the Turkish shish kebab seller behind the counter. ‘You English? You want rooms? You like Man United in the football? Here for a stag do, the ladies, the hash hish…….Come on in, I’ll sort you out!’

The fella says he has six large rooms available and that we’ll all squeeze in just fine. He takes us through a side door and up the steepest set of stairs known to man. It’s like climbing the North Face of The Eiger only instead of being battered by evil snow storms and deadly ice falls we are assaulted by the thick smell of grease and burnt meat.

The walls are tacky with grime and haven’t seen a lick of paint in a few decades at least.

On the first floor he opens a door into the first of the bedrooms. It looks like someone’s been using it as an abattoir, there’s blood and what looks suspiciously like shit smeared up the walls. There’s no doubt that the food you can buy downstairs was slaughtered up here.

The carpets are crawling with mites, covered in dodgy white stains and have not seen a vacuum cleaner, since, well, probably ever. The beds must have come from the nearest maximum security prison, with the thinnest, rankest mattresses with springs popping through. I don’t want to think about the other bodily fluids that this thing pretending to be a bed has been marinated in, let alone kip in it!

We then get shown the bathroom and the lavatory. One room is an open sewer; the other is an open sewer with a shower head above it. The stench is worse than Satan’s arse with a very bad case of the trots. To get rid of the stink we can just have a smoke going all the time even when we are asleep, there’s nothing to worry about because there’s no chance of anything catching fire under a layer of rancid animal fat.

‘We can’t stay here. This is someone’s torture chamber. We’re gonna end up as a headless torso floating in the canal or under a big bag of lime in a forest by tomorrow,’ worries Kid D.

‘I don’t fancy getting buggered and flayed alive, I’m out of here,’ he continues whining.

‘Well I love the place,’ pipes up Deviant Boy. ‘What’s the damage chief?’ he asks the owner/ mass murderer of backpackers and daft English stags.

‘It’s ten Guilders each per night,’ says the kebab man, overjoyed he has some new guests or potential victims staying in The Hotel of Doom.

‘Tell you what mate, chuck in a free doner each per night and you’ve got yourself a deal my friend!’ and with that the accommodation and our fates are sealed.

The guy has the front to make us promise that we would not smash the rooms up and that we will leave them in the state that we found them. No worries friend. They can’t get any worse.

Bags get dumped, armpits sprayed, hair gelled and out we go to see how messed up we can get in The Dam.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 11…..188 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 1 PINT, 2 BOTTLES OF LAGER AND A LIMONCELLO

Chapter Five: The Amsterdam Whore Equation

It’s Friday afternoon and we’ve stumbled on a fantastic bar off one of the canals near the red light area. It’s got some cool snake theme thing going on and the beer pumps are chrome cobra shaped and look well cool. This bar is ticking all the boxes needed for a top stag do:

-Cold Beer

-A top shelf loaded with Spirits

-Pool Table

-Juke Box (With Banging Top Tunes)

-Fruit Machines

-Food

-Drugs

In the drugs category they have a dealer in the corner sitting behind a counter chock full of gear. It’s like being in a sweet shop for adults and offers the best ‘pick and mix’ on the planet.

They serve grass, resin, skunk, super skunk and some trippy ultra-strong variety of weed called purple haze. The local Dutch lads take their drug smoking seriously and sit with a coffee and enjoy their buzz. They know alcohol + spliff = game over.

The mad English attack the Stella Artois and the gear together. This is not a good idea and will only result in a state of unconsciousness. It’s a fatal mistake to ask the dealer to ‘give me the strongest shit you’ve got man.’ He will and you will regret it. Probably some weed with LSD mixed in it which will massively mess your noggin up for the next week.

Also on offer in this most excellent establishment are ‘space cakes’, brownies baked with cannabis resin in them for the non-smoking wimps amongst us. These are a major error again because they are super strength and will send you into a coma before you know what hits you.

They also sell cannabis teabags to enable you to eat a ‘space cake’, drink cannabis tea and smoke a joint all at once. This will definitely get you hospitalised so make sure you’ve bought some fully comprehensive travel insurance.

We all skin up and start puffing hard. This is a ‘brown bar’ as you are allowed to smoke gear in it. Why they are called ‘brown’ is beyond me as the walls are yellow with nicotine and the place reeks of the sickly sweet smell of the grass.

But we love it. The tunes are pumping out the juke box and the pool table is seeing some hustler action. This is the life. I’ve got a massive buzz on, the chat is racy and the laughter comes thick and fast: I’ve not got a care in the world. It’s fair to say that not a single gram of fuck will be given today.

Meanwhile Kid H has been looking at Kid I for a while and says ‘I know you. I recognise you now.’

‘Course you recognise him you plum you’ve been drinking with him all day, he’s Kid G’s cousin,’ Kid C mutters.

‘No,’ Kid H continues ‘I know you from before the weekender.’

He is staring hard at Kid I who says he has not got a clue as to where they might have met before.

‘You live in the village and you drive a silver 4 x 4 thingy don’t you?’ Kid H asks of Kid I.

‘Yeah that’s right but I am sure that our paths have not crossed before.’

‘You must recognise me. Have a really good shifty at my picture. Is my face ringing any bells yet?’

Kid I has not got the faintest idea what Kid H is banging on about. In total frustration Kid H stands up, drops to the floor and starts rolling about making horrible noises. He is holding his arm at a weird angle and screaming in pretend agony.

‘Recognise me now you tit?!’ he yells while writhing about on the floor looking like an earth worm who is just coming up on an E.

Kid H looks like he is having some sort of seizure or fit of some sort but none of the locals seem to bat an eyelid. Suddenly the penny drops for Kid I. You can almost see the light bulb that starts to glow above his canister. PING!

‘Oh Shit. Kid H I’m sorry mate. You’re the fella that I knocked off his bike a couple of months ago. I did not recognise you without your Lycra budgie smugglers on. Got to apologise but I’m sure the accident was your fault anyway!’ exclaims Kid I.

‘How do you work that out? I was coming down the hill on my bike on the way to work and you just pulled out of a side street without looking. I hit the front side of your car and went straight over the bonnet and cattle trucked my arm when I hit the ground. How was that my fault?’ questions Kid H as he gets up off the floor.

‘Well, if you had been driving in a car I would have seen you for sure. Anyway I did stop and check that you were OK. You said all was good, no damage to you or the bike and we shook hands. No harm done. However there is the small matter of the dent and scratch your bike put in the side of my jam jar though, but buy me a pint to call it quits.’

Kid H can’t believe the gall of Kid I. They eye each other up warily and then crack up laughing.

‘Fuck me. It is a small world huh. I was almost killed by Kid G’s cousin. Is that how you find new mate’s is it? By running them off the road you crazy fool?’

At that moment Kid H becomes ‘Hit’ and Kid I is nicknamed ‘Run.’

The ‘Hit & Run’ lads are still good mates today, nearly two decades later and the story has become so embellished by now that Hit’s head actually came clean off as the bike went straight through Run’s engine block causing a massive explosion. After all, what is a bit of exaggeration between friends?

“PISSED UP CONVERSATION #1: ‘Let’s open up a bar exactly like this one when we get home, it’ll be the mutts nuts!’ shouts one of the lads, Kid F.

‘Well two things are going to knacker that idea straight away,’ says Mule. ‘First we’d drink all the profits and second drugs are illegal back home. Don’t think the local police are going to be too happy about a bar full of kids stoned outta their heads.’

‘But everyone would be so chilled out that they wouldn’t be arsed about fighting. Check it out here in Amsters. It’s only the English acting up and getting out of control.’

‘Yeah the English disease they call it. Can’t handle our mind altering substances or our drink, cool ain’t it? Get another round in son.” END OF CONVERSATION….

Although it’s only early afternoon, two of the single guys in the stag party have disappeared off to the red light area for a bit of window shopping and maybe [this means definitely] sample a bit of the old ‘in and out.’

For the record I have never paid for sex although I have the sort of boat race that would suggest that I have to.

The ladies always look red hot all togged up in their full kit and webbing but I just can’t indulge because of the mathematics of the game as follows:

Let’s be generous, very generous in most cases and say the average bloke’s penis is six inches [half a foot] long when erect.

Say Hooker X entertains eight clients during each working day, 8 x 6 inches, this is four feet of cock per day.

Suppose she works five days a week this becomes, 4 x 5 = 20 feet. After three weeks work in the month, due to nature, this becomes, 20 x 3 equals 60 feet of nadger each month.

So the grand total of nob in one year, would be 60 feet x 12 months = a massive 720 feet of man meat.

To put that into perspective Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in London, England is only 169 feet tall. Therefore your average brass gets four times as much ‘Man Column’ over the year than Lord Nelson!!

That’s what puts me right off and why I don’t join the two lads on their jolly. They have convinced themselves that by going on a Friday afternoon they will end up on top of a cracking bit of MILF (Mum I’d Like to Fuck) who only works while her nippers are at school.

She only shags a few select punters during the daylight hours and then disappears off back to her ideal home, hubbie and 2.5 children of an evening.

This idea is the exact opposite of the ‘go ugly early’ theory when out on the pull in your local night club.

If you’re into a bit of Hermann Goering [Whoring] fair enough, I’m not the shag police, just rubber up and dive on in!

I’m certainly not disrespecting Prostitution as a career choice. It is the oldest profession on Earth and hookers are clearly doing something right by providing a most pleasurable experience. It’s just not my cannabis-laced cup of tea.

Back at the snake bar, we’ve got chatting to a great bunch of local girls and lads. They can’t believe the state we are all in so early in the day and are ripping the piss out of us daft English mad dogs.

The banters flying back and forth, there’s a brilliant laid back vibe going on. One of the ladies is an absolute cracker. Long wavy blonde hair, a great body and a razor sharp tongue on her. She is giving out a load of stick and knows who to pick on in the group to get the maximum laughs.

She told us that her name is Kristall, not like crystal the gem but spelt with a K, an I and two L’s. Her English is excellent, which is a right result, as none of us speak a word of Dutch and most of us are currently only speaking Pissed. She tells us she has five big brothers at home, so is used to hanging around with a herd of crazy males.

I suspect she also tells us this to let us know that any unwanted funny business could be met with a pretty severe kicking. She has also skived off work early to grab a few beers, seems they celebrate POETS day here as well. You know ‘Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday’. Avoiding work to go out drinking is the same in any country it seems.

Kristall just may be the perfect woman. You can see that most of the firm have got their eyes on her but don’t have a chance of pulling really, not until they become half sober at least.

She’s telling us how great Amsterdam is and where all the cool clubs, bars and cheap but cheerful restaurants are. ‘You’ve got to visit Anne Frank’s House, see the trendy art in The Rijksmuseum, take a bicycle tour along the canals, it’s just amazing.’

Kid C interrupts, ‘You must be joking love, none of this lot have got any culture whatsoever and apart from the freely available drugs, the only Touristy thing we might go and see is The Museum of Sexy Time!’

‘Wow I love that place!’ says Kris, ‘Let’s go there right now.’ With that she rustles up a few of the lads and a couple of her girlie mates come along for the stroll. Some of the boys are not keen to leave the snake bar until chucking out time, which will be very late doors.

Back home the pubs still close at three in the afternoon and don’t reopen until seven. It’s like living in the Stone Age. Being here in Amsterdam, somewhere more civilised that allows all day opening is an opportunity not to be missed, certainly not to go to a museum.

‘Catch up laters dudes,’ we say high-fiving the rest of gang as we wander into the sunlight on our way to see how grotty and quite literally, packed full of grot, The Museum of Sexy Time is.

Like hard sex with your other half, it doesn’t disappoint!

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 10…..178 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 3 PINTS AND A CINZANO BIANCO

Chapter Six: That Dutch Dog Sure Is Handsome

We arrive at The Museum of Sexy Time to be greeted by two massive plastic cocks as we walk in which make us all laugh and we shout out ‘Helmet!’ just for old times’ sake.

We have been yelling ‘Helmet!’ for years since school as it was an in joke. We still shout it out now at gigs, in restaurants, bars, nightclubs and even in a church once during someone’s wedding. The vicar even cracked a smile. We’ll never grow up.

For a Friday afternoon the place is packed with a mixture of nervous looking tourists, dirty old men and pissed up people (us).

We pay a couple of Guilders and go in with the promise that we will see erotic art (dirty paintings), antique love photographs (porn for the oldies) and unique objects which I’m guessing are going to be whips, chains, vibrators the size of marrows and gimp masks.

It’s great. As you go up the stairs to the next level there is a plaster cast of an arse hanging on the wall, which farts compressed air at you when you stand on a certain step. This might just be the funniest thing we have ever seen and we march up and down the stairs in our semi-slaughtered state, giggling like a load of four year olds.

Farting is the ultimate gag and one that lads never seem to grow out of. The smellier and louder the guff you can produce the more respect you get from the gang for quacking it out.

Always remember not to push it out too hard and soil yourself. So, not a good look my friend.

We wander about looking at the pornography on display, some of which is kind of titillating, some of it just bizarre, and some that is going to mentally scar me for the rest of my life.

The majority of the right grim stuff is seen in their recreation of two video booths which have a warning on them that the films shown inside are of a very explicit nature and that viewer caution is strongly advised. This is the understatement of the century.

We’d seen video booths along the canals and they looked like the 90’s version of the old peep show. For a small bit of change you went into your own private cabin, selected the grot movie you wanted to watch and got ten minutes worth.

To be honest that’s about all the time you need really. The plot of most sex movies isn’t really worth a wank, but hold on, actually it is!

I wondered whether office workers in the Dam popped out at lunchtime for a sandwich and a much needed one off the wrist. Was masturbation part of the national culture here or were the booths just for the stoned stag parties?

If the former it was no surprise that the locals were all such a happy and sociable bunch.

The Museum had two video booths sitting next to each other so three of us crammed into each one. I ended up sitting in the one with Deviant Boy and Kristall.

Now this wasn’t a first date, but if it was, it was most definitely not the place to take a lady you wanted to impress. For a start the floor of the cabin was littered with used tissues. Call me naïve, but I liked to think that the last user just had a particularly nasty cold!

We put some coins in the slot and Channel 1 comes on. There’s a big button under the screen which you press to change the video so you can scan through and find something that floats your boat. Now I’m as broad minded as the next guy but some of the utter filth I saw that afternoon was worse than any horror movie yet created by Hollywood.

On the screen a woman has just taken her top off and has the largest top set you’ve ever seen. The gang next door are watching the same channel as someone yells out ‘Bloody hell she’s got some shopping on her!’

She plays around with her top bollocks for a minute and then whips off her skirt, now we’re getting somewhere. But she’s packing meat and two veg, she’s got a cock! A huge groan comes out of the other cabin. This is ‘The Crying Game’ all over again.

In the movie there’s a knock at the door. It’s the post woman with a special delivery. In she comes, whips off her top as obviously she’s run out of paper so she needs her tits signed as proof of delivery of the parcel. The two start deep throat kissing and soon postie has her skirt off as well.

Who’d have thought it? She’s got a nob as well. It’s a cock in a frock! What the fuck are the odds of that happening in the real world?

It seems a bit greedy to have breasts and a penis but let’s face it, if man had evolved both a vagina and a cock, the human race would still be living in caves shagging themselves stupid. There would be no society or inventions like the wheel or the laptop. What would be the point?

Why bother going out on the hunt for a life partner when you’ve got all you’re ever going to need in doors? You wouldn’t have to tell people ‘to go fuck themselves’, they already would be if they had any sense.

I’m not sure this movie has got the mass masturbation appeal for it to ever cross over to the mainstream. Seems the only people likely to enjoy watching it again are the two bods starring in the frigging thing anyway. Still live and let live! They’re enjoying themselves and who is anyone to judge what turns others on. Let them get on with it.

Just as they are about to get down to some serious action, the gang in the booth next door shout out to whack Channel 5 on pronto.

Kristall turns the channel over saying, ‘I’ve seen that movie a couple of times before anyway. Honestly it doesn’t really get any better. It was on the TV at home the other night. My parents were watching it.’

The next channel is showing another head spinner called ‘Grandmothers Lust.’ Don’t even want to describe what was going on in this one. But it did what it said on the tin. Just leave it. This wasn’t exactly ‘Help the Aged’, more like ‘Hump the Aged.’

On Channel 3 there are two individuals dressed up in overalls and they are slowly unravelling a huge plastic sheet and covering up the floor of a large room. Think that some DIY programme has slipped into the videos by mistake.

‘Move on geezer,’ prompts Deviant, ‘I want to see some real muck. This has been well tame so far!’

We flick over to Channel 4 in the booth to catch a bit of ‘Anal Action 17’ just in time to catch sight of a huge bell end coming out of the place where the sun don’t shine, covered in what looks suspiciously like bits of sweetcorn. By now my guts are well turning.

Can’t believe this film has had more sequels than ‘Police Academy.’ That just doesn’t seem right somehow.

We turn back to the DIYers on Channel 3 but they are still unrolling loads of sheeting. There’s no action whatsoever.

Channel 6 is showing a straight fuck flick. It’s almost a pleasure to watch two people of different sexes having sex and I must admit to getting a bit of a lazy lob on. Crammed into this tiny booth sitting next to Kristall is definitely making the blood go south.

We see the ‘cum shot’ which instantly turns the models face into a plasterer’s radio and then press the button back over to Channel 3 to find out what the hell is going on with the painters and decorators. Wish we hadn’t.

The sheet is now in place covering the carpet and the bloke is lying down on his back looking up at the woman who is squatting over his head. She then unloads the contents of her bowels all over his face. From the looks of it, she has not made a Number 2 in about 6 weeks and will be considerably lighter in weight, very soon. She is shitting like a race horse all over the fella’s mug and he looks as if he is proper loving every minute of it.

This is all wrong. How can this be pleasurable? The stench alone would put me right off, let alone the feeling of being covered in someone else’s faeces. I got a massive bollocking for doing a ‘Dutch Oven’ on the Mrs at home once.

A ‘Dutch Oven’ for the unenlightened, is where you release an anal hand grenade (fart) in your bed and then hold your other half’s head under the duvet to let her ‘enjoy’ the aroma of your back door wind. Why this is called Dutch or an Oven is anyone’s guess. It’s not very good foreplay is all I can tell you.

The movie is unsurprisingly called ‘Shit Lovers 5’ and I can’t believe there are four other movies with the same theme before this one. If I was a porn star (some hope with my tiny wedding tackle) I’d sack my agent for getting me a part in this monstrosity.

Deviant’s had enough. ‘Turn it off for fucks sake, there’s a woman present.’ Although worryingly Kristall has said nothing and actually seems to be enjoying this particular film more than any other of the hideous, kinky stuff we have sat through. Bet she’s got a glass coffee table in her home, say no more.

I turn to the last channel, number 2, to see a woman on all fours with an Alsatian behind her. The dog is well excited and his little red lipstick is hanging out, ready for action. All I’m worried about is whether the dogs had his nails clipped or there’s going to be some severe back scratching going down.

This unfortunate chick is about to quite literally get it ‘doggy style’. She must be high as a kite on heroin or been fucked into insanity to even consider a bit of canine intercourse. The title of the film comes up on screen.

It’s called ‘Handsome Dog.’ To be fair, the dog has a rather fetching grey beard look going on, his teeth look clean and he has a nice luscious coat of fur, so it’s a great title.

Luckily at the very moment when the bestial deed was about to be performed the screen goes black. Our money has run out. What a touch.

We pull out a packet of smokes and light one up each.

‘Was it good for you too?’ enquires Kristall of Deviant and myself, with a big smirk.

The three of us look at each other and crease up. The gang in the second booth come out and hear us all howling with laughter and think you lucky, lucky bastards! What have you all been up to? Bit of mutual masturbation? Spit Roast?

After sitting through those vile videos, I decide there and then that my relationship with HCP (Hard Core Pornography) is well and truly over.

Well at least until tomorrow or maybe the day after.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 6…..172 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: ZIP…..NO BAR AVAILABLE…..SHOULD HAVE TAKEN A HIP FLASK FULL OF WHISKEY TO KEEP US GOING

Chapter Seven: Somewhere A Village Is Missing Its Idiot!

Now is as good a time as any to introduce Kid C who is already a legend in his own right. He’s a top fella to have about as he’s always got a great story to tell and gets his round in. We’ve found the Joker in the pack!

While sober he could hold a conversation, charm the birds from the trees and was centre of attention.

However tip alcohol or illegals down his ‘sheep and goat’ and he became the modern equivalent of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde….simply fuel Kid C with excess loopy juice and he changes into The Village Idiot!

Kid C was also known as The Beer Messiah, but his was no second coming. The state he would get in, by closing time, his girlfriend was lucky to get the first!

Here is a choice selection of some of the Village Idiots Greatest Hits so you can appreciate the full extent of his lunacy:

1] One night in the local he had necked some E’s like smarties and was way off his head. He was walking around the boozer on his own trying to talk to people who were avoiding him like a dose of the clap. He finally pitched up at one end of the bar and sat there talking to a painting that was hanging on the wall. The portrait was of some lord or other in all his 18th century finery. What he thought of The Village Idiots rant we’ll never know. Eventually after half an hour of trying to communicate with an oil painting The Idiot bellowed out ‘This bloke is a fucking arsehole and won’t answer any of my questions!’ and went wandering off to the kebab house. He returned a full hour later with a bag of Jelly Babies. Still don’t know why.

2] Village is always the first to down the shots. He does the full lick of salt off his arm first followed by the Tequila and finally chomps down on a slice of lemon shouting out ‘You fucking love it!!’ However once he was a couple of bevvies over his limit he was prone to strip off in the pub. He would stand there completely starkers with everything hanging out. People would laugh hysterically and point, because Village is hung like a hamster downstairs which is probably doing the hamster a disservice. Why he feels the need to show the world his tiny old chap, is just one more reason to love the guy. If the Government really want to put the general public off binge drinking, they should print a photograph of Village in the nude on every beer bottle, with the message ‘If you drink to excess, this could be you.’

3] His pissed up attempts at chatting up the ladies were always a disaster and often ended in a black eye or swift kick to the groin area. One night on the tube in Central London he was sat opposite a good looking girl who had a big heavy coat and a skirt on, so you could see she had a great set of pins, but the top half of her body was a sight unseen. Village was trying to make conversation but was making no sense whatsoever. He finally leant over and touched her ankle, then her thigh, saying ‘From here to there, I like. The rest I don’t know.’ Then he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that it was her loss that he could not give her the full once over. The poor girl just did not know what to say and got off at the next stop. I wish she had lashed out at him, would have served him right and more importantly, made me laugh even more. Village should not really be allowed out in public unattended as the fella is a total fucking liability.

4] After a week away in Ibiza with the lads on a boozy holiday, he was feeling in a terrible old state and went straight from the airport to the Doctors with heart palpitations. He was in a right mess, sweaty, feeling faint and had convinced himself he was going to die. The Doc took his blood pressure first using a Sphygmomanometer - I had to look this up - which is that cuff thing they attach to your arm to test your blood pressure. He looked at the reading, frowned and took the device off his arm muttering that it must be broken and pulled a second one out his drawer. Again the cuff went on Village’s arm and again the Doc looked confused and said ‘You seem to have the blood pressure of an eighty year old man. What have you been up to?’ Village explained that he had been away with the lads for a week and had probably drunk in excess of fifteen pints of beer. The Doc says that fifteen pints over a week should not get your body in this state. Village said sorry Doc, that’s fifteen pints A DAY! This fella read him the riot act with a major tongue lashing. Your liver will be fucked [am paraphrasing here] think of your health lad, you just can’t go on like that. Cut down now or you will be in all sorts of bother later in your life. Village took the rocket, left the surgery and went straight to the nearest public house to get a hair of the dog. Men of medicine know nothing about hangover cures!

5] When he DJ’ed on a local hospital radio station on Sunday afternoons he always started his show with the tune ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ by The Blue Oyster Cult. He also pretended he had had a request for a Mr Richard Head (think about it) who was having a vasectomy that afternoon. It made him giggle as he never actually had a request for real the entire time he worked there.

So Kid C, even though you are certainly a sandwich short of a picnic and a couple of drops short of a piss, we now salute you evermore as Village Idiot!

You are officially FAF [Funny As Fuck!]

Keep on Keeping on dude. Don’t go changing.

Chapter Eight: Amsterdamgoodpissup!!

Friday afternoon rolls on and we are all knuckles deep in alcohol.

The stag, Kid J, has been bricking his pants all day with the anticipation of knowing that we are going to get him. Everywhere we go he is super suspicious that a stripper will appear to inflict maximum embarrassment.

It could even be a male stripper as the whole idea is to humiliate not titillate the stag. If he enjoys the punishment we have dished out, then we have failed. He refuses to drink beers or eat anything that has been handed to him for fear of being spiked with some LSD to make him lose his tenuous grasp on reality. He is Captain Paranoid.

As the day is marching on he is getting more and more worried about his fate but nothing is going to happen to him on Dutch soil. Oh no, Kid J has a grand finale coming when we get home. He is the climax, ‘the money shot’ he just does not know it yet. He has got to sweat it out for two more days.

Once we are back in Blighty on Sunday night then he needs to panic as the fun will begin - for us! There are a whole gang of blokes who could not afford to join us in Amsters, call them the B team, who will be waiting for him in the pub.

They are more than willing to make him suffer. Handcuffs, Nudity & Pain are all on the agenda for stag boy and then some. We have also invited his close family and even his fiancé along to witness the carnage in store.

He’d be better off claiming asylum in Holland than going home but he obviously does not know this yet.

In a vain attempt to avoid impending ritual doom at the hands of his friends the stag had organised an activity for late afternoon, a bicycle tour around the town centre. We all went to a cycle shop where the owner, a whinging old coffin dodger, had the maddest moustache I have ever seen in my life. It was huge and waxed into massive spirals looking like he had a piece of Swiss Roll stuck on either side of his gob.

His facial furniture was a proper work of art and must have taken hours each morning to get ready for display. We got a photograph taken with him standing in the middle of the crew while we all shouted out ‘Qis Tache!!!’ over and over again like a group of seven year olds. That means ‘look at his moustache’ in the Queen’s English.

The guy took ages getting bikes out for us all and then insisted we all wear crash helmets to protect what little brain cells we had left after the alcohol had eaten most of them away over the weekend. This brought random shouts of ‘HELMET!’ from the gang.

This was one of our favourite sayings back in school driving the teacher’s crazy by yelling it out during lessons ‘HELMET!’ during assembly ‘HELMET!’ or in the playground ‘HELMET!’ The longer version of the yell was ‘CHERRY RED HELMET!’ or cutting that down to size ‘CHELMET!’

You could really get the staff narked by doing a double call with the first fella screaming ‘HEL!!’ then someone else would yell ‘MET!!’ Very, very juvenile but it still makes us laugh today.

One of the gang got hauled up in front of the head master who asked him why we were obsessed with the word and what it meant. Trying not to piss himself with laughter, he said that he did not know it was just a phrase that we all found amusing.

I always wish that the head had turned around and said ‘Come now lad we all know you are referring to your bell end. Stop shouting out about your purple headed warrior and get on with some work you spotty little teenage geek.’ Would have been a classic but the head missed his opportunity and besides may well have been sacked for talking about cock with a pubescent lad in his office.

So there we are back at the cycle shop and are all kitted out and ready to go. We get all of 200 yards along the road before we pass a boozer. ‘One for the road’ someone shouts. Cycles are parked up and we go in to get absolutely sozzled, for a change.

We ended up pushing those damned bikes back to the shop late in the evening as we were in no fit state to cycle them back. I did wonder why the bikes all looked like they had never even been ridden. It was probably because they were always hired out by hard drinking unfit Brits who could only get as far as the first bar before deciding what a ridiculous idea it was to go cycling anyway.

You don’t ride a bicycle at home so why do it here for fucks sake? Bikes get abandoned and beer gets tackled.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blurred beer bubble. When you are out on a session, time seems to stand still but then go really fast. You look at your watch and sometimes hours have passed by in what you could have sworn were just a few minutes.

This is the exact reverse of ‘work time’ where you think hours and hours have passed by, yet it is just thirty seconds since you last glanced at your time piece. I’m sure that the work hours between nine and five during the week are in fact crammed with more minutes than your hours of freedom but perhaps that’s just me.

Maybe if you actually have a job that you enjoy and love then this ‘time freeze effect’ does not happen. As I know no-one in the world this state of affairs applies to, I could not actually tell you for sure.

“PISSED UP CONVERSATION #2:

‘Lads I’ve got a plan,’ brags Kid F. ‘Seeing all those punters waiting to get their hands on some boneless mutton trunk in pitta bread from the kebab shop made me think of the perfect business plan for post pub entertainment. After closing time, what three things does a true lad need? I’ll tell you: food, lift home and a bunk up! So let’s launch Kebab-ya, Cab-ya, Shag-ya.

‘You rock up to the late night fast food emporium once the pub kicks you out to get a doner, or shish if you are feeling posh, then a cab turns up driven by a hooker who takes you home and accompanies you in doors to make the beast with two backs. It’s a sure fire winner. You can charge 200 sheets per person per night and we are sorted, we will be minted.’

Village sees a down side saying ‘Kid F, don’t want to piss on your parade, but prostitution is illegal back home, so by running Kebab-ya, Cab-ya, Shag-ya, this would make you a full on pimp.’

‘That’s even better. I could dress up like a 1970’s one from Starsky & Hutch with massive flares, loads of gold chains and pimp slap any fool who got in my way. I’d spend all day shouting “Woman don’t make me hurt the back of my hand!”’

‘But you could end up in prison worrying about getting chivved or dropping the soap in the shower.’

‘Oh well sounded a good idea rattling around in my alcohol soaked brain, back to the drawing board yet again. Talking of meat and stuff a mate of mine killed a cow in an abattoir using one of those bolt gun things.’

‘What did he work there or was he on a school outing or something?’

‘No he flogged meat as a salesman and went to see a client who let him have a go. Think the fella was border line maniac anyway so bet he enjoyed it.’

‘There’s no way I’d do that. What had that cow ever done to him?’

‘Someone has to do it. You eat burgers, don’t you?’

‘Yeah but I wouldn’t kill a cow like that. I thought they all died of old age when they were akip before they were ground up for burger heaven. Wish that cow would come back and haunt that geezer by lowing quietly at the end of his bed keeping him awake at night. Maybe the ghost cow could annoy him by rubbing his phantom udders over his face drenching him in spectral milk or drop spirit cow pats on him.’

‘What the fuck are you dribbling on about Village you have well lost the plot. A ghost cow, have you lost your marbles? You talk absolute hat stand mate but that’s why we love you.’

‘Thank you Kid F. That is the nicest thing you have ever said to me. I’m welling up, I truly am. Fancy another pint?” END OF CONVERSATION…..

Early evening arrives and we are steaming. We head back to the cess pit we are staying in to get changed. When we arrive, the kebab shop is busier than a whorehouse giving out free blow jobs. They must be sprinkling crack cocaine on their MRM to keep the punters coming back for more.

We climb the stairs to the shit holes we are kipping in to get ready. Unlike a lot of blokes who moisturise, cleanse, exfoliate and generally ponce about, I subscribe to the 3S system: Shit, Shave & Shower. For the younger generation this could also be known as the 3D system: Dump, Dig in the grave & Douche.

Why waste VDT (Valuable Drinking Time) fannying about beautifying yourself when there is lager to be sunk? Those beers will not drink themselves you know. This is a stag do not a spa weekend so man up!

Just do a quick ‘Whore’s Wash’ of the armpits, face and crotch areas then you bugger off out. Just remember to do the face bit before you do the crotch if you are using the same flannel. Don’t want those annoying yeast problems from downstairs spreading to your boat.

Like a typical man I ignore my own advice and decide to brave the rank shower. I open the door to be hit by a wall of stench, worse than an open sewer. It makes me gag and tears spring up in my eyes but still I go in.

It smells like a lavvy on a building site around mid-morning on a warm day, after a load of cooked breakfast cables have been freshly dumped down it. The floor of the room is covered in filth. I may as well shower in my socks to keep my feet clean.

The plug hole is blocked with enough curly watch springs (pubic hair) to stick to an elephant and create a modern day woolly mammoth without the need for cloning.

The tiles are only held on to the walls by the thick mould where grout once was and I am sure there was a nice growth of mushrooms sprouting up in one corner. It is well grim. In fact it is grimmer than Jack McGrim of Grim town.

Anyone with half a brain would just leave well alone but I convince myself that once I am in the shower I will be cascaded by a glorious spray of hot water and all will be well.

Disappointment predictably hits me. The water is freezing, seemingly pumped in straight from the nearest canal judging by the greenish colour of it. I start washing all the gank of the day off me and sober up a bit.

I get convinced that no live human being has been in this shower before. It is only used to rinse the blood off the recently deceased, soon to be served up downstairs as corpses. All the sharp knives, hatchets and serrated blades needed for body dismemberment are also washed and cleaned in here ready for the next victim who will soon be part of the elephant leg seen spinning in the kebab shop window.

I am sure that the owner of kebab towers will be running through one of us with a bayonet just for kicks as meat supplies downstairs start to dwindle. Think it’s all the puff I have consumed today that is turning me into a head case imagining all this serial murdering impending death bullshit. Need to move on.

I rinse off and leave the vile shower room to return to the vile bed/torture rack room I sleep in to get changed into the night’s clobber. My uniform is Converse trainers, black jeans and a flowery shirt. I stick a bit of gel through the crew cut, dab some aftershave around the neck and a bit downstairs for luck, then its wagons roll!

The rest of the troops are ready to rumble so we march over to the nearest coffee house for Stella and a spliff. The place is well rammo with a thick fog of cannabis fumes hanging in the air. How the bar staff breathe this smoke in all night and can still pull pints is a wonder of science. I guess it’s a major perk of the job, getting high for nothing and the boss cannot even stress you out about it. Good as gold!

We get tucked right in again and it is not long - well two joints - until the conversation takes a turn towards the nonsensical. Hit and Miss are standing at the jump talking the following utter load of horse manure that I am unlucky enough to have to overhear:

HIT: Are we going to meet up with Kristall and her saucy mates again tonight?

MISS: Sure are. She’s taking us to some trendy restaurant she knows and then on to some mad techno club.

HIT: Result, she is definitely in my target market. She looks like she bangs like a barn door in the wind. Bet she fucks and sucks until midnight then turns into a six pack and a pizza. She is a real looker with fantastic NLT’s.

MISS: NLT’s?

HIT: You know Nice Little Titties. Mind you some of her mates are a bit moody. One of them is a definite Prawn.

MISS: Prawn? What she is pink and fleshy? She lives in the sea?

HIT: No you fist, it means she has a delicious and tasty body but get rid of the head because it ain’t all that. It is a real shame that another one of the lasses is a big old unit with some fantastic fun bags but the last time I saw legs like hers they were attached to a billiard table.

MISS: And that right there is why you are going to end up as a simpleton singleton for the rest of your natural. Get used to a life of Mrs Palmer and her five lovely daughters my sexist 1971 dwelling caveman friend.

HIT: Oh fuck off Mr Feminist, what about the ‘Who’s The King Baby?’ competition you were bragging about earlier that you and your seedy flatmates have started?

MISS: Where’s the harm in that? We bought a crate of lager that will be awarded to the first one of us blokes who brings a woman back to the flat that they can get into the sack. While rogering her senseless they will shout out: ‘Who’s The King Baby?’ and if she yells out ‘You are! You are!’ we have a winner! Obviously we will need an independent witness to verify the event or the lager stays shrink wrapped.

HIT: I don’t know where to start. That is so far off the wrongness chart it’s staggering. So are you all videotaping your conquests as evidence or do the rest of the lads listen at the bedroom wall with glasses to their ears while you have your wicked way with some poor unfortunate girl? What were you smoking when you came up with this plot? I’m telling you that slab of lager will be well past its sell-by date and underneath six inches of dust before any of you sad sacks pulls a woman to win that nasty old contest.

MISS: Well that’s where you are wrong Mr Woman’s Lib. I have a plan to snatch victory. I’m going to pay a brass to come round and I’ll pretend to have pulled her up at Mushy Peas. Then I’ll ride her like Shergar and as I am paying she will be screaming like a good ‘un. You’ll be able to hear her from out in the street bellowing ‘You are! You are!’ at the top of her voice and the crate is all mine.

HIT: Brilliant. Spend a oner to get a take away hooker so you can win a poxy twenty quid crate of beer. Economics was never your strong point was it?

MISS: Bugger I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe your sister will do me a favour and come around and let me pretend I’m humping her. She wouldn’t mind would she?

HIT: Not in this lifetime. Stay away from my skin and blister. I don’t want to end up related to you. It’s bad enough that I have to drink with you. Let’s talk about something else before I get the hump. What about that cracking bird standing over there by the window, would you felch her dripping arse for a tenner?

MISS: I’d do it for nothing. It would be a great honour. What the fuck.

HIT: Talking of FUCK do you know where the term came from?

MISS: Errrr your Mother?

HIT: Leave it! No back in medieval days you had to get permission from the monarchy if you intended shacking up with and indeed shagging someone before marriage. The king must have been a right pervert wanting to know when his loyal subjects were getting laid and how much they were getting. You had to go to the royal family to receive a ‘Fornication Under Consent of the King’ form, thus creating the acronym FUCK, which then entered the English language. This was how a vulgar way to describe the sex act was created. So if you fancied a hand shandy instead of the real thing you then had to apply for a MUCK approval: ‘Masturbation Under Consent of the King’ to show you were a right wanker.

MISS: What a crock of steaming moose shit. How could they have policed and enforced this law preventing the peasant masses from ‘getting jiggy with it’ without permission? Was there a team of crack Intercourse Inspectors who were paid to peer into people’s bedrooms at night or to check sheets for Harry Monk stains in the morning?

HIT: You really are a massive GUNT fella.

MISS: You’re just making this up now aren’t you? What the hell is a GUNT?

HIT: A GUNT is the layer of blubber that swings between a woman’s huge pie gut and her cunt. You will spy this wonder of nature that is caused by over eating, down most local high streets on many leggings wearing members of the underclass. It’s a work of art and right gives me the horn.

Luckily Kristall and the Dutch contingent turn up at this point ending their rotten conversation before they can say anything that will really offend more sensitive folks within ear shot.

The locals get a round in with shots and then ask us what we have been up to during the day in their fair city. They rip the piss out of us remorselessly when they hear about our cycling adventure. ‘You English are crazy’ they keep saying.

They just can’t believe that we are all still standing after having drunk and smoked hard all day. In The Dam the more sensible cool people go out late in the evening and make a real night of it. Most of us will be lucky to make it past eleven without collapsing.

We sink the drinks, leave the bar and walk about fifteen minutes to the restaurant that Kristall has been raving on about. It’s a small family run place that we completely take over as there are twenty four of us in total in this Anglo-Dutch posse. The owner is well chuffed to have a full house and he really fusses over the lot if us making us feel really welcome.

It is like being in someone’s house and amazingly the lads all are on their best behaviour and are on top form. The laughter and the mickey taking is what a stag weekend is all about and I feel genuinely moved to have such close mates around me. This ‘booze camaraderie’ is a great feeling or it could just be caused by all the illegal chemicals flowing through my blood stream.

The waiter brings over the menu’s which are written in Dutch but on the following line are very helpfully translated into English, so it should be a breeze to order your scoff.

Not for Village. He’s so far out of his head that when he reads the menu all he can see is a total nonsensical jumble of Dutch and English words. He stares long and hard at the menu trying to work it out but he has no chance. He cries out ‘Help I’ve caught dyslexia, I can’t read the menu at all.’

‘For dogs sake,’ replies Kid B ‘you can’t catch dyslexia you are born with it.’

‘Well maybe you can fuckwit,’ Village spits back ‘cos you just said for dogs sake so stick your dyslexia theory up your hole!’

The wind ups go on and on. Old stories get wheeled out and aired for an all new audience who lap them up.

Kid G is unimpressed when the old tale of him smoking a joint we had rolled for him that was made from an Oxo cube instead of real gear, gets trundled out. He puffed his way through it and we then asked him if he had had a meaty high?

He announced it was a great spliff, weak but sweet. Trying not to wet ourselves we then went on telling him that the puff had mind-altering effects that really helped you to take stock of your life. This type of marijuana enabled higher thinking, thus giving new ideas to make some real money by boarding the business gravy train.

We didn’t tell him for months that he had been inhaling Oxo granules. Everyone howls with laughter. The Dutch contingent, haven’t got a clue what is funny as they probably don’t even have Oxo over here, but they laugh along politely.

The food turns up and it is amazing. I had always thought that the Dutch national dish was chips smothered in Mayonnaise but I was way wrong. The tucker is right tasty and hits the spot. After a day on the pop dining on burgers, kebabs, crisps, chips and space cakes (every one of your ‘five a day’ food groups there!) it is brilliant to consume something delicious to soak up the alcohol. Three courses, vino and coffee later and we are done.

Talking of food the full English Sunday roast dinner with gravy and red rocking horse is the apex in International Cuisine for my money. You just cannot beat it. Way better than sushi. My opinion on that raw fish old tosh is that if they can’t be arsed to cook it then I can’t be arsed to eat it. It is as simple as that!

We have had a top night with some top people but it’s time for us all to move on. We pay up and then we hit a place called The Melkweg and from here things start to become all a bit of a blur. The place was a superb music venue, club and bar all in one hip spot. I remember that a ‘lower league’ Brit Pop band were playing a gig there so we all went to see them and had a mad jump about. Pills get dropped, powder is snorted and predictably the local brewery will have to do an extra shift next week to replace all the beer that we sunk.

Women are hit on and I think someone else got hit for hitting on the wrong blokes girlfriend. I then go into full wobble mode and lose hours of time in a hideous tail spin. My body cannot handle the abuse any more. We somehow manage to lose Kristall and all her mates in the club, or more likely they decided to lose us. Our drunken English charms had worn well thin by this time of the night.

We do the offski.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 16…..156 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 5 PINTS, 2 BOTTLES, A PORT & LEMON, 2 X BLACK SAMBUCA AND A CARTON OF KIA-ORA

Chapter Nine: I Know My Basic Human Rights!

Friday night slides into Saturday morning as the fourteen of us wobble around Amsterdam town centre. Finally we come across a nightclub that has a queue of bodies waiting outside to get in. It looks right up our strasse as it’s a hard house night and the queue is full of ladies.

We all get in with no bother from the bouncers. They have a strange system for buying drinks though as they don’t take cash at the bar. As you pay to go in they give you a card with eight empty boxes on it. Every time you get a beer, the staff on the bar, stamp the card and as you leave you present the card and pay for your alcohol as you exit the club.

All drinks cost the same so you pay per stamp you have on the card. Seems well over complicated to me, but when in Rome, I mean Amsterdam. Besides what could go wrong?

Inside the club the volume is turned up to ELEVEN. It’s a huge warehouse-looking place and the DJ is spinning his ‘platters that matter’ from a booth at one end. He’s playing full on bibbly bibbly house music. This is proper ‘industrial house music’, with bass so low it rattles your fillings.

The place is full of folks getting down to the hard beats. Plenty of people have their hands up in the air, pumping their fists, arms waving about. All that ‘big fish, little fish, cardboard box’ nonsense is going on. Or was it ‘big box, little box, cardboard fish?’ I could never remember.

Just a noisy, smoky room full of ‘pilled up’ clubbers, gurning their faces off. Everybody is pouring with sweat and wearing ‘shit eating’ grins as they have a top night out. Most of the ravers are swigging bottles of water, rather than beer, not a surprise.

It is crazy loud though, loud enough to wake the Devil and all his imp helpers. Even my tinnitus has tinnitus. We wander up to the bar which is empty, even though the club is busy. This is a sure sign that illegal chemicals are fuelling the majority of people in this joint.

We shout in a round of beers, so everyone has to produce their cards that then get stamped and returned. We then explore the club properly.

Some of the lads make a bee line for a group of fruity looking frauleins dancing around their handbags and start up all the old chat. A few others are up on the podiums waving their arms about and throwing shapes like they are having some kind of seizure.

Although the music is way too heavy for me we all have a great laugh. We are all smoking, boozing, sniffing and snorting.

The dance floor is a big slab of raised metal. Kid G legs it halfway across and then slides on his knees the rest of the way. He looks extremely cool and it looked like bloody good fun.

Then Hit runs and flops down on his belly to glide over the dance floor. Some of the locals join in and soon a big crowd take turns bombing across the floor on knees or beer guts. This sliding game is something for nursery school children or folks with limited intelligence to enjoy. Know what category we fall into. We’re well feeble minded.

Suddenly the bouncers appear and with just two words ‘No More’ our fun ends. That’s that game over for sure. Was a giggle while it lasted but ‘rules are rules.’

DUN-PHER! DUN-PHER! DUN-PHER! The music is absolutely blaring louder and louder, our eardrums are in serious danger of splitting. Kid L has got chatting to the manager of the club while standing at the bar. He has given the guy a healthy dose of bullshit and told him that back home he is a top London DJ playing at all the big clubs. He would gladly spin some tunes in this establishment for the next hour for a couple of free beers.

The manager is well chuffed and leads Kid L up to the DJ booth that overlooks the ice rink like dance floor. Kid L is in his element. He waves his arms over his head, raving it up.

The punters in the club go mad believing that Kid L is the real deal and that some heavy duty house beats will soon be coming their way. This is going to be aural pleasure for all, live and direct from London town.

Unfortunately there is a major fly in the ointment. Kid L is higher than the sun after sticking half of Bolivia’s finest export up his nasal cavities. His coke-fuelled enthusiasm for DJ’ing is let down badly by his sad lack of experience. He has never actually DJ’ed in his entire life but to his credit he tries valiantly to get by.

As the track is still playing from the regular DJ’s set Kid L goes through the stack of vinyl and selects the next disco biscuit to be played. He takes the record from the sleeve, places it on the deck and sticks the headphones on his bonce. He looks like he knows what he is meant to be doing. He may even pull this stunt off.

On the dance floor the ravers are right raving and Kid L chucks his arms aloft soaking in the adoration of the crowd of party goers. He starts fiddling about with all the buttons on the massive DJ console convinced that his Charlie-induced confidence is enough to see him through.

The tune is now coming to the end so it’s time to mix one song into the next in a flawless superstar DJ kind of way. Kid L starts looking desperate. Even though his pupils are the size of pinpricks you can see the utter terror in them. His arms get thrown up in the air yet again hoping this will make everything alright.

Suddenly the record stops, the club becomes as silent as the grave. You could hear a squirrel fart, if they let squirrels in this gaff. Kid L is frantically pushing buttons and tugging on levers but nothing is happening. With a huge blast of feedback Kid L picks up the needle off the record and plonks it back down at the start of the hard core tune once again. Sorted!

Arms reach for the sky, his mug has a huge grin over it but the game is up. I look over at the manager who is shaking his head and mouthing something in Dutch. I’m not too sure of the exact translation of the phrase ‘Oh for fucks sake’ but I’m sure that was what the fella was saying as he put his head in his hands.

Kid L gets escorted from the DJ booth ending his very brief career as a house DJ. He is still posing and flapping about like a nut job as the ching makes him feel unbeatable. The bouncers come over and ask us all to leave. We are no longer welcome in the club so it’s time to beat a hasty retreat.

We all troop back up to the entrance where we now have to pay for all the liquids that we have consumed.

There are fourteen of us, so they are expecting fourteen cards with stamps on them. Unsurprisingly there’s a disaster as between us we can only find thirteen of the soppy cards. One of the bouncers starts hassling Kid B who seems to be the one who has lost his card and the pair of them are having words.

Kid B in his inebriated brain is convinced he has already paid his drinks bill, the bouncer knows that he hasn’t. The volume of the argument is going up. Harsh words are said and things are looking likely to go bandy very quickly.

I have a chat with the bloke at the till collecting the dough. Apologising that we’ve lost a card, I offer to pay for all eight drinks that could have been on it, to get us all out of there with all limbs intact.

He agrees so I pay up and everyone is happy. Apart from Kid B who is still shouting and cursing his head off at a very displeased looking bouncer who has now called the police.

Kid B is not backing down even when the bouncer pulls a wicked looking cosh out and threatens to use it. Luckily the cops arrive just in time and grab Kid B.

The red mist has descended by now and he goes completely potty. Kid B starts howling about his basic human rights and how the act of placing him under arrest is actually a contravention of The Geneva Convention.

Mule tries to calm Kid B down but there’s no chance, ‘Kid B you don’t work for Amnesty International, just apologise to 5-0 and we can walk away.’

With that line Kid B is now renamed Amnesty and will be for the next twenty years. Even his kids call him Amnesty Dad.

He explodes ‘Just fuck off you pigs!’ Police are unimpressed and he is thrown in the back of the cop car in handcuffs.

We can hear him still banging on about his rights, that this is an illegal arrest and bizarrely that he knows his way around The Data Protection Act of 1984. He is having a right old ding dong, yelling at the top of his voice. The dummy has been thrown out of this pushchair for sure.

As they drive off to chuck Amnesty in to the nearest cell, I find the last card that we all thought was missing in my pocket. It’s only got one stamp on it, so I go back to the guy at the till who then gives me a full refund for the other seven drinks that I’d overpaid.

He even apologised for the fact that the police had been called and got my mate in trouble. What a top fella. All that grief and aggravation for nothing in the end, apart from a great story and yet another new nick name.

Poor Old Amnesty’s night does not get any better. On the way to the cop shop, he’s still making a right old noise. He just does not know when to shut up.

The policeman in the passenger seat has had a gut of it. He turns round and punches Amnesty right between the eyes. He’s got these great big gloves on, like a boxer and it gives old Amnesty a beautiful shiner and a great big lump on his face that he has for the next couple of weeks.

The cop comes out with a pay-off line worthy of Arnold Schwarzenegger after delivering the blow: ‘You are NOT in England now!’

What a fantastic line, fair play to the Dutch cop. I’d have whacked him too! Fancy bringing up the boredom of Data Protection, you deserve a knock Amnesty. Although you didn’t need to be Mystic Meg to see that the card system in that club was always going to end in tears.

Amnesty gets a night in the cells with a free pancake breakfast thrown in. I’m not going to bother booking a hotel room for the next trip, just get arrested and you get free B&B accommodation!

The rest of us left are flagging as it has gone three a.m. by now. We find one last bar to have ‘one for the road.’ This soon becomes ‘two for the road’ and so on. I sneak off and find a quiet corner and sink down into a comfy chair.

My eyelids are dropping, time for some kip. Just a quick forty winks and I’ll be as good as gold.

As I’m starting to drift off, one of the lads slips me a pill and urges me to, ‘get this down your Gregory, it’ll perk you right up. You won’t regret it.’

But I do. Oh I do.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 13…..143 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 3 PINTS 2 BOTTLES AND A CRÈME DE MENTHE FRAPPE

Chapter Ten: The Euro Gimp Boy of Amsterdam

Kid D awakes with a start. His head is pounding. He feels all floaty like a cloud in a storm and has the urge to vomit. He has no idea where he is, what day of the week it is or what time. He just is.

He is having difficulty breathing because there is something round and hard in his mouth, secured there by a tight strap around his head. He slowly opens his eyes. The light is too bright and hurts his eyes, so he closes them again. They start watering and finally he can focus.

As he reopens his eyes, he sees he is in a large room with mirrors along one wall and another mirror above him in the ceiling. This can’t be good.

He can see his reflection in the mirrors and it is not a pretty sight. He is lying face-up on a four poster bed, tied to each corner post by what look like silk scarves. One securely knotted around each ankle and the same around his wrists.

He’s held tight, there’s no escape.

All he has on are a pair of skimpy tight leather shorts, a leather sleeveless, wife beater style vest with studs all over it and a mask.

Though this is not a Halloween fun mask, this is black PVC gimp mask with red eye rims and a zip for a mouth. I know I did not pack this get up to wear out of a night, he thinks.

The zip in the mask is open and he can see the S&M gag ball stuck in his mouth. He is still finding it tough taking a breath and he tries to shout out but it’s just a whimper. No-one’s going to hear that.

Where in fuck am I? He has no idea. His watch has disappeared. His wife to be bought him it and she is going to have a massive paddy if it’s gone on the missing list. More importantly if he could see the time it might help him to remember.

Through the fog in his head images start to appear. Are they distant memories or things that happened within the last few hours? He has no clue. Concentrate. He needs to get his head back on straight.

How did he get here? Wherever or whatever this place actually is.

For a very bad few minutes Kid D fears he is in the Amsterdam hovel they are staying in, tied up awaiting certain death by butchery in The Hotel Kebab. He does not want to become the next ‘chefs special’ shish kebab served up!

Then he realises that the room he is in is clean, tidy and has decent furniture in it. The bed is really comfortable and even has satin sheets on it. There’s no danger he’s in that fleapit he reasons quite rightly.

But where the fuck is he and why? It’s not his stag do. Or is it?

More wisps of memories start to appear. Arriving at an airport somewhere very early in the morning. Then we are on board a plane. Some beer gets drunk. Some pills get taken. Powder is indulged in. Cigarettes get smoked down to the filter. No they are in Amsterdam.

Definitely, Maybe. He’s pretty certain of this much at least, but why?

He tries wriggling about a bit but it’s no good he’s tied up too tight and he’s going nowhere. This is a ‘Cluster Fuck’ or just might become one, he worries.

Kid D gets all paranoid that he is soon going to be starring in his very own version of ‘Handsome Dog.’

Please don’t violate my tea towel holder, he prays. I like my ‘balloon knot’ just the way it is currently knotted, thank you very much!

Think! If he can remember how he ended up here, he may just figure a way out. He has not got a Scooby Doo (clue) what has gone on. He tries to shout again but the ball stops any real volume coming out. He could use one of these at home he thinks.

But then the penny finally drops. Through his aching head Kid D remembers something and a cold sweat covers his body. He is afraid, very, very afraid.

HE has suffered the ultimate double bluff. It’s his turn to suffer. This is payback for all the other stags that he’s stitched up over the past few years.

Like a gang war, it’s escalated from petty and childish levels to what is sure to be a full on nuclear assault. One stag was made to wear a dress all weekend, the next poor sod is stripped naked and tied to an inflatable sheep while being covered in brown sauce.

You shave off the eyebrow of one stag boy the next one loses his full head of hair. Tattoo one stag and the next has his left ball bag removed with a blunt razor blade while asleep.

As you get older you are meant to mature, but not on a stag do! It’s all about how much suffering you put the main man through. Escalation is the name of the game. Stagging is great fun it’s just not worth dying for.

So this is your comeuppance Kid D and he knows it is not going to be fun. For the rest of the herd, but not for him, it will be the highlight of their weekend.

His stag do is next month in Edinburgh but the lads have decided to get him, right here, right now, when he is least expecting it in Amsterdam. Kid D has to admit it is a work of genius. Stitch up the pretender to the stag throne before his own stag do.

The old brain finally kicks into another, higher gear and there’s the realisation that Kid D, soon to be rechristened for eternity as ‘Euro Gimp Boy’, is ME!

Yep that’s right, your hard smoking guide/narrator through these super smoking stag do stories and tall tales of madness. I am Euro.

It’s my turn to take the heat, all in the name of my impending matrimony next month.

So what have my so called mates got in store for me here then? All bets are off.

They may be my lifelong buddies that I can rely on for anything back home. But abroad on ‘the pop’ and ‘the whizz’, I would not trust any of the bastards as far as I could throw them.

Now I am really nervous thinking I’m going to get ‘Teabagged’ or ‘Donkey Punched’ to death or worse.

Suddenly a door starts to open. I am bricking myself massively. My arsehole starts pulling shapes, doing that old ‘fifty pence/five pence’ twitching thing. One second my ring piece is little, the next second large. Opening and closing like the gob of a goldfish.

I have a bad feeling about this. Things are not going to end well.

They say that as you face death your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well there was no flash this time, which either means I have lived no life worth reliving, up to this point (a distinct possibility) or even better, somehow I’m going to survive.

The door opens further...light floods the room and finally I remember everything.

Oh shit. This is going to be trouble, big trouble. Bigger than the biggest trouble, trouble.

Oh Shit. My memory returns…

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: ZERO…I’VE BEEN SECURELY TIED TO A FUCKING BED…TRY TO KEEP UP!!!....143 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: NOWT BUT WOULD HAVE KILLED FOR A BAILEYS TOP

Chapter Eleven: A Lizard Gets Milked!

The final piece of the jigsaw slips into place. I’ve been spiked. A good mate of mine, Old Mr Reliable has stitched me right up.

This fella is normally the ‘go to guy’ of the gang. Got a problem? No worries he will sort you out. Well he’s properly sorted me out this time, slipping me some dodgy pill that has knocked me out, leaving me at the mercy of the mob.

That’s how I’ve woken up tied to a bed in a brothel in Amsterdam early Saturday morning, on my stag do and I am pantsing it.

I wonder what they’ve got in store for me. I’m going to find out pretty soon as the door is opening wider and wider.

The fear has gripped me now. I’m convinced this is going to end badly, when in walks Kristall. I’d recognise her anywhere, the crazy blond hair and shapely bod are unmistakeable.

‘Mharmharmm?’ I try to shout as I’ve still got the gag shoved in my gob.

She looks incredible. On her feet are the highest pair of stiletto’s I have ever seen. Is it even possible to walk in them? Well obviously as she is now sauntering sexily towards the bed.

Kristall is wearing stockings and suspenders with the tiniest pair of panties ever invented and a push up bra. What an amazing body. Is this the worst that the lads can do? Bring it on!

‘Hwfmmahhh!’ I mumble again. She walks up to the bed saying ‘What have we got here? Have you been a naughty boy? I must discipline you.’

It’s then I notice what she is carrying and start to panic. In one hand she has a leather riding crop and in the other, well as the old joke goes, I pray it’s her thermos flask and she’s about to pour me out a nice cuppa. Some hope.

The vibrator looks like a coppers truncheon, it is ‘kin massive. Shove that up someone’s back door and you could tickle their tonsils with it quite easily. No thank you. Why does it need to be so big? I don’t want to find out, that’s for sure. Not my scene but each to their own.

She whacks the crop down across my thighs hard. A band of pain burns through to my brain in an instant. That hurt. I look down and can see big red welts already appearing on my legs.

‘Fwwoooarrr!!!’ I yell, looking pleadingly at her, begging with my eyes not to be hit again.

‘You want some more, you maggot?’ and again thwacks me hard across the legs. Tears spring up in my eyes. How can anyone find this a turn on? Stop it.

She looks down on me and smiles a strange smile that isn’t exactly reassuring, but does reach over to remove the gimp mask and gag ball, which she throws on the floor.

I draw in a deep breath, ‘Kristall what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘I can be whoever you want me to be honey, so Crystal it is’, she replies.

‘Not Crystal; Kristall with a K, an I and two L’s. We met earlier today and spent an afternoon watching rotten porno films together in that museum before having dinner together. Don’t you remember?’

‘Sweet thing, don’t you just know how to show a girl a good time? Look I’ll spell it out for you just once. I’m in charge here. You are here to be disciplined so no more talking or it’s punishment time,’ she holds up her hands and laughs like she is going to enjoy this a lot more than I am.

‘Welcome to the house of pain!’ I look again at the dildo she has. It is so long you could rod the blocked up drains with it to dislodge the shitty nappies that your simpleton of a neighbour keeps flushing down her toilet.

I decide to keep quiet. I stare at this woman again and realise with horror that she looks absolutely nothing like my mate Kristall and I am in some pretty deep plop here for sure.

She climbs onto the bed and straddles my chest. Reaching up she undoes her bra and throws it over her shoulder. She has a great top set and her nipples look like two puppy dogs noses.

Leaning forward she brushes them across my lips and face. More of this and less of the whipping with the crop please. Happy days! She’s all over me like a cheap suit.

Then she moves back down my body and sits between my legs. She reaches up and pulls my shorts down a little way. My little soldier is standing to attention, helmet ready for polishing.

She grabs hold of my shaft like she’s got a cows udder that needs a damn good milking. Not to put too fine a point on it but if she carries on like this, she will soon see some white fluid appearing. Not milk, but fair to say you could call it man cream.

Tugging away on my turgid todger, she starts screaming about all the filthy stuff she is going to do to me soon. She’s touching herself up and making all sorts of pretty unconvincing fuck noises, really putting on a show.

Throwing her head and titties about like she’s having the best orgasm she’s ever had, even though I’m tied up and can do nothing to her, even if I wanted to.

I guess that she just wants it all over with so she can bugger off home, same as any wage slave really. It is a big old turn on though, must admit and it seems like she has been pulling on my cock for ages when the inevitable happens.

Readers, you are all big boys and girls so you don’t need me to paint you a picture of what happened next.

So please select your favourite description from the following:

TOP TEN EUPHEMISMS FOR EJACULATION

1] My chicken has been choked.

2] My one eyed spitting womb ferret has spat.

3] My load has been blown.

4] My lizard has been milked.

5] My monkey has been spanked.

6] My weasel has been greased.

7] My python has been siphoned.

8] My bishop has been bashed.

9] My bolt has been shot.

10] My pelvic cream cannon has been fired.

So there I am tied to a bed, my undercarriage hanging out when a door opens in the mirrored wall and the lads (obviously minus the recently incarcerated Amnesty who has missed the show) all come bowling out from a side room in hysterics.

The mirror was one-way glass and they’ve all been in there watching me like a very, very, crap peep show. No one would pay good money to see that performance. ‘Captain Premature’ isn’t exactly one of the titles you can rent from your local video shop of smut is it?

The boys are bent double with laughter, ‘We’ve seen your fuck face!’ is one of the kinder remarks. My favourite though was the classic line ‘Look at the two-pump chump!’

One of them suddenly takes charge of the situation.

‘Right untie this poor excuse of a man and for fucks sake cover up his smeggy little worm. Then you can all get lost. We’ve paid for an hour of this good ladies time and by my watch we, I mean I, have at least 59 minutes to pull some shapes in her. So come on, bugger off!’ he bellows already fishing around in his wallet for a condom and taking his clothes off. He jumps on top of the poor woman like he’s never had sex before in his life (this may be the case actually).

He’s a single guy so no harm done. Rules are rules! Every hole is a goal and all that. He wants to get conkers deep.

I finally get released from the scarves that had secured me to the bed and we all troop out. As I’m leaving I look back into the room and notice the gimp mask, gag, handcuffs and my watch lying on the floor. Fantastic news! Try explaining to the ‘soon to be breadknife’ that you lost your over-priced timepiece in a knocking shop. Good luck. One wedding pretty swiftly cancelled would inevitably be on the cards.

I creep back in to retrieve my kit and already Mr Shag Nasty is ‘up to his nuts in guts.’ He is really going for it. Happily pumping away like a steam engine. Foreplay to him must be shouting ‘brace yourself I’m coming in’ OR ‘part your kidneys here I come!’

He’s on top of her and all I can see is his BOLAB going like a blur (Back Of Leg And Bollocks). He is getting stuck in right up to the makers name plate and I’m sure he was trying to push his back wheels in as well. I avert my eyes in double quick time.

I grab the stuff off the floor and run back out trying to forget the horrendous sight I had just witnessed.

Take my word for it your mate’s hairy conkers jiggling about is not something you want to ever see. I dart out the door pronto wishing I could un-remember the last few minutes of my life as I spark up an oily rag.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 1…..142 TO GO……I JUST LOVE A POST COITAL SMOKE!!!!

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: ZIP-O-LA

Chapter Twelve: Cardinal Charlie Chunder Comes A-Knocking

I am in a deep, deep trouble. My face is flushed and sweaty although I am freezing cold. My skin has a yellowish jaundiced tint which can’t be a good thing. My heartbeat is erratic one minute it is racing then it slows right down. The room spins crazily like being on a super-fast Waltzer ride at the local crappy fun fair.

My chest feels tight and after hitting the ciggies way too hard all day I am breathing like Darth Vader. A rattling breath in is followed by the rasping escape of a stinking cloud of beer fumes. The Force is certainly not strong in this one, oh no, I am lagging and badly.

I need some fresh air so I stagger out of the bar reeling from side to side like a sailor on a ship in a Force Nine gale. I am a total mess.

It’s almost sun up on Saturday morning in Amsterdam and I am, not to put too fine a point on it, ruined. Falling out into the street I gulp the clean oxygen deep into my lungs, desperately trying to sober up. I have been overindulging on the piss all day and there is now more alcohol than blood flowing through my veins.

I just can’t take the pace and my body is telling me to put the brakes on. Desist! Stop! Cease! You are fucked mate! My liver screams at me. It is so soaked in alcohol that if you put a match to it you would get an instant liver flambé.

I wander off down the road to get away from the drinking hole we are in, knowing that if I am spotted outside I will be dragged back in by the wild boys and be made to drink even more. It’s time for a sharp exit.

Wandering down some side streets and alleyways I haven’t got a clue where I am, just glad of the respite. The night is warm, dry and I start to feel a tiny bit better. As I turn a corner I see an amazing sight: The Rijksmuseum lit up in all its glory.

All that architecture stuff seems well poncey to me. How people get in such a big froth about bricks and mortar is well beyond me but there is something about this building that is absolutely stunning. Looking up at the huge towers and the shadows cast all over this vast building really takes my breath away.

Suddenly I can hear a choir singing which is really strange as I am nowhere near a church. Their voices are incredible and they must be Dutch as I can’t understand a word of it. But then I realise that it’s far too late for any God-botherers to be up at this time of night and I wonder where it is coming from. Listening to the harmonies makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This lot have the voices of angels.

I feel amazing. There seems to be a golden glow of light around me like I’m starring in a Ready Break TV advert from the 1970’s. I then see a vision of my future. It is as if there is a glitch in The Matrix or a tear in the space/time continuum or something as I get to see myself years ahead.

In the dream my wife and I are walking through a field of lush green grass. There are tall trees in the distance that we are casually striding towards. The sun is shining and it’s one of those days that make you feel glad to be alive. We’re holding hands with a little boy who we are swinging between us. We shout ‘One Two Three’ and then swing him up into the air. I look down at my son who has spikey blonde hair and the most incredible icy blue eyes.

He is giggling and screaming out ‘Again! Again!’ I am overcome with happiness. In this vision my lad is about five years old and he stares up at me and says four words that melt my heart ‘I love you Daddy.’ I reply ‘I love you too son.’

I glance over at my Mrs who is also grinning from ear to ear. The three of us are then walking on laughing together.

Then there’s a loud popping sound that ends the vision, the weird glow and the singing all at once like a television going off in a power cut. I am utterly convinced that I had just had a sneaky peek at an event that was years in my future. I am overwhelmed and overjoyed.

This is my Fortean Times moment. I have never seen a ghost or a UFO in real life (I would love to) but I know that this vision was the real deal, a glimpse of what will be.

Seeing my future son has filled my soul with goodness. I’m not going to be the fuck up I thought I would become, I will have something worth living for, a family and a happy one at that. I’m going to have someone to be proud of and look after so I’ll have to knock my drinking and immature ways…it’s a good intention that will never happen but just for those few seconds I actually fool myself into believing I will do. These are the typical delusions of a drunken man.

I feel a huge lurch in my stomach. I am going to be a father one day, I know it. It doesn’t scare me at all; I can’t wait to meet my son. Looking up at the stars I see the moon which is shining as brightly as a ravers glow stick. I stare at it dumbstruck for far too long as my head starts spinning again. I get a watery taste of bile in the back of my throat and know that Charlie Chunder has come a knocking.

Suddenly without warning I vomit hard and fast. A column of sick comes racing out my north and south (mouth) covering my shirt, jeans and shoes. I am bringing up litres of spew, far more than seems humanly possible to hold in your gut sack.

All the greasy, fatty, crap food I’ve consumed to soak up the gallons of alcoholic fluids over the last twenty four hours now covers me and on the floor there is a multicoloured pavement pizza the size and depth of the kid’s pool at the local swimming baths. I am in a right state.

My eyes are streaming with tears, my beak is running with snot and I am battling to draw breath. I calm down and try to relax. I can’t have anything left to bring up I think, just as I projectile vomit up what looks suspiciously like half a lung or part of my gall bladder.

I hurl up a load of rancid stomach lining which splatters all up my shoes and stinks worse than a baboon’s chocolate starfish. The spew just won’t stop coming, I am doing a superb impression of that possessed chick in The Exorcist but without the mucky crucifix stuff.

If I don’t stop soon I am going to turn my intestines inside out and maybe lose a tooth with the force of ralfing my guts up so hard. Finally the sick switch turns to the ‘off position’ and I reel away from the huge humming lake of hurl I have made.

Still it will give the birds and local foxes something to dine out on. Don’t say I don’t do anything for our animal friends!

I decide to get back to the hotel for some well-earned R & R. Sparking up an oily rag as I’d rather have breath stinking of fag smoke than the gutsy smell of vom, I wander off down the road. My jeans are stuck to my legs by the warm thick sick and as I walk they unleash a vile stench which almost sets me off again but I get through it.

All I have to look forward to now is the hangover from hell in the morning which is just a few short hours away. I’m going to wake up with a splitting head and a mouth as dry as the bottom of a budgerigar’s cage, complete with cuttlefish and a manky bit of millet, but hey, what the fuck.

As they say, if you can’t do the time then don’t do the crime…

I wobble around the streets for half hour or so and I have no idea where else I have been but somehow I’ve ended up back in my room of doom at Kebab Heights.

Obviously the ‘beer scooter’ got me home in one piece yet again. I lay down on my filthy, stinking bed.

Despite the stimulants I have necked, sleep is now almost upon me. My last thought of the night is what my brother & I used to say to each other when we were kids at bedtime: ‘Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.’

Some hope of that in this filthy dive, my bed is crawling with the nippy little flesh-eating bastards.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 1…..AS A POST VOMIT BREATH FRESHENER…..141 TO GO.

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: WITH MY HUMONGOUS UPCHUCK THIS IS A NEGATIVE AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL!

PART TWO: EDINBURGH

Chapter Thirteen: Dead Rabbits and Cock Crazed Hens!

Two things pop into my head as I slowly wake up. Firstly how did we survive that crazy Friday night and secondly why is there someone with a pneumatic drill in my head?

My bonce is splitting and as I check my watch I realise it’s now late morning on Saturday. Was I really tied up and manhandled by a hooker in front of all my best friend’s just hours before? No that was last month over in Amsterdam. We are somewhere else today – Scotland, I’m sure of that.

There are fourteen of us just waking up in a guest house in Edinburgh. We’ve taken over the whole of the place, all five rooms of it. A small family run place, it’s cheap and cheerful but located in the centre of town. Right in the thick of all the action, exactly where a load of rampant stags want to be. The place is nicely done out with lots of potted plants in the hallways and is smartly decorated. Far too nice a place for us bunch of reprobates.

After all the legends of the last trip have gone round the local it was easy to get the same recruits for this do up in sunny Scotland. This time around it is me heading down the aisle to certain wedded doom, so it’s the usual drill of flight, fooling around, drinking, drug taking and smoking for the weekend.

We got in from a night on the beer just a few hours ago but all agreed to meet up at twelve noon for breakfast and get ready to get on the sauce again.

At reception the owner apologises but says we’d missed breakies by yonks. He did knock on all our doors but got no response apart from a mouthful of abuse from one of the rooms. He’s now serving up lunch so offers us all haggis, tatties and neeps. Thanks but no thanks, we need deep fried stodge to sort out our minging hangovers. There’s nothing better than grease encrusted eggs, sausages, chips, bacon, beans, toast, a Nancy Drew (Brew) and more chips to soothe your grumbling guts after a skin full of ale.

The guy suggests visiting some dodgy pub along The Grassmarket as they do a superb all day breakfast with an amazing black pudding. To me, black pudding is the devils work but I keep quiet. He gives us directions to the battle cruiser (boozer). It’s about a five minute walk away, so we head straight down there.

Some of the geezers look remarkably well considering they’ve had a very heavy day out yesterday. It’s almost like they have got a fresh identical twin they have sent out in their place today, while they lie down in a darkened room feeling as rough as a badger’s arse.

Others look a right mess with yellow-looking sweaty skin, big black bags under their bloodshot eyes and their breath smells terrible, like they’ve been necking turds all night.

Still it is nothing a fry up and a pint will not cure. In fact just chuck the cooked breakfast and beer into a big old blender to make the perfect hangover solving soup. Get that down your screech fella, you’ll be fine in five minutes!

We rock up to the drinker which is in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. It’s a massive place with wooden floors, big tables and comfy looking sofas. The pub has pool tables, fruit machines and a top shelf packed with more varieties of gold watch (scotch) than you can shake a shitty stick at. Single malt, double malt, aged for 15 years, 25 years and on & on it goes. We will be tucking into that lot pretty soon me thinks.

We order up fourteen full house breakfasts with pints of lager as chasers, then we move some tables about so we can all sit down and get tucked in. As we are waiting for our breakfast remedy Kid F tells us the following story:

“Gentlemen I promised you a classic tale and so here it is. As you all know I recently moved in with my girlfriend who has a little terrier dog. Next door are a nice family with this little girl who’s about five years old who has a rabbit in a hutch at the end of the garden. She is always out there playing and cuddling this little grey rabbit and I must admit it is kind of cute.

Anyway last Saturday evening, disaster strikes: our dog wanders into the kitchen carrying this rabbit. It’s well mangled up covered in blood and dirt and is very definitely an ex-rabbit.

The dogs only been next door and offed this much loved pet rabbit. The poor wee girl is going to be absolutely heartbroken but I can’t go round next door carrying their dead rabbit that our dog has killed. The dad is a big old lump and doesn’t look the reasonable type. I somehow doubt he’s going to see the funny side.

So I decide to wait until it was well late and climb over next door under cover of darkness, to place the dead bunny back in the hutch. I leave the door slightly open so hopefully the local fox population will get the blame. I gave him a bit of a clean-up first as the rabbit was filthy and covered in dirt. Job done! P of A (Plan of Action) sorted.

The next morning the sun is out so the Mrs & I are sitting having a very pleasant breakfast in the back garden. We hear the back door of the neighbour’s house open and the little girl comes out to play. We’re holding our breath as we know what’s going to happen next.

Sure enough there’s a huge scream and a big flood of waterworks. The dad comes flying out the house to see what the emergency is and why his daughter is sobbing her heart out. We can hear all sorts of commotion going on.

Nervously I poke my head over the fence and ask if everything is OK. The fella has a face like thunder and tells me that his kid’s rabbit died last week and they buried it in the back garden. Now some evil fucker has dug it back up again and placed it back in the hutch.

‘There’s a load of sick bastards out there’ he’s telling me, ‘if I catch him I’m going to tear his head off and shit down his neck for upsetting my daughter like this’. To say he is unhappy is the understatement of the year.

‘I’ll keep an eye out for you,’ I promise the bloke. It is difficult for me to keep a straight face so I make my excuses and leave. There’s no way he’s going to believe a fox killed that rabbit now.”

Through the laughter someone says that you are kind of the modern equivalent of Burke & Hare the grave robbers and so from that day forth Kid F becomes Burke.

The breakfasts arrive, although by now it is almost two o’clock in that afternoon, you can’t even call this brunch now, more a mid-afternoon snack, and we make short work of them.

Hangovers dealt with, we get back on the sauce with a vengeance. This pub just rules. Some great tunes are being played, smokes are being smoked and we are having a top time. The weekender is rocking on in a big style.

I know that now we have bedded down in this public house, there is no way we are leaving until closing time. Why we bother to leave our own postcodes to go on a stag do and sit in the same juicer all day is a total mystery. What about seeing all the sights that Edinburgh has to offer?

We have the castle just a minute’s walk away, it’s not getting a look see. What about the thriving theatre scene, the restaurants with award winning food, the gift shops and all that?

Blow the lot of it, this is a stag do. It is time for us real men to smoke hard and drink tough. We have decided to nominate Kid G as the stag this afternoon instead of me. Again this is the ultimate double, double bluff as Kid G does not even have a girlfriend and is a long way away from any form of a wedding.

Kid G takes the abuse in good spirit agreeing to wear the clothes we provide, no questions asked, pretending to be the ‘stag’ for the day. He looks like he wants to be centre of attention, so I just sit back and let him take the shit.

Then the carnage really starts - a hen party of twenty tipsy tasty women turns up.

These hens are all totally teacup. The woman getting married is in her mid-twenties and has the full hen uniform on that you see everywhere. Long white wedding veil covered in unravelled condoms, inflatable penises and L plates. From the look of her, she has not got anything to learn but I bet she’s a bloody good teacher. She’s wearing a low cut top and a pink short skirt with stockings and garters on show. This may well be the get up she is planning on getting wed in, as she is a right classy broad.

All the other hens are wearing silly tee shirts, printed with various pictures of the bride to be in dodgy poses and various drunken states. Well judging her by my own low standards, I just assume that she was well inebriated when the photographs were taken.

The girls march up to the bar and order several vats of wine, some pints and a load of tequila which they start slamming back with salt and a lemon. This is not going to be a quiet afternoon, that’s a racing cert!

We all start chatting. Where you from? Where you staying? What club did you end up in last night? Who did you end up in last night? Who’s the stag they ask?

As if they couldn’t tell Kid G is the only fella in the place wearing a dress and has the word TWAT written on his forehead in permanent ink. Good luck getting that off before work on Monday, boss man is not going to be best pleased with you Kid G.

We then decide to cable tie the hen and stag together wrist to wrist and are then made to ‘down’ cocktails packed with brain damage amounts of alcohol. These two are inseparable all afternoon. Wherever she goes, he goes and vice versa.

It’s all good clean fun until substitute stag boy (Kid G) feels the urgent need to go and off load the scran he ate last night. All the booze and the breakfast he has shoved down his throat, has pushed down on his full to bursting point, bag of guts and tommy turd is very definitely in the departure lounge.

The poor hen is not happy when he explains that he has to very urgently go and turn his bike around. They are tied together so she has no choice in the matter and is visiting the men’s toilets as well.

Kid G gets his dress and pants down with one hand and mounts the porcelain throne.

The hen is trying to get as far out of the cubicle as she can and is pulling on Kid G’s arm in desperation to escape the danger zone. Then the stag let’s go and the stench is incredible. There are local sewer farms that smell better. Kid G’s arm is nearly yanked from his socket as the green-faced hen tries to get away, but they are tightly secured.

The noise of his brown snake hitting the pan sounds like a cruise liner being launched off the coast of Portsmouth and it probably displaces as much water as well. Finally he finishes seeing an old friend off to the coast with the words ‘That was a belter!’

The hen is gagging by now, she is definitely not impressed, particularly when the stag asks if she would not mind helping him wipe up round the back, as he only has one hand available and this is definitely a job for two!

She does see the funny side and starts laughing, even cops a sneaky peek at his meat and two veg as well. This makes her laugh even more, probably glad that she is not getting wed to something that small and hairy. She then feels even sorrier for his poor intended bride to be. Just imagine having to clean out the loo after this fella has been through it, leaving more skid marks than are found on the outside lane of the M25.

The girls are a great laugh and the afternoon disappears in a sea of booze and a cloud of tobacco smoke.

All the ladies seem to have husbands and/or boyfriends. Some have boyfriends and other people’s husbands. Others have regular ‘fuck buddies’ they call when they get the urge, which seems to be most nights of the week and why not? All is fair in love and war or some such.

They all go on about sex more than us lads do. You would think there is some sort of National Cock Shortage on, the way they speak about it. They certainly seem to be working their way through the EU man member mountain.

One of the hens is all over one of the stags like a rash, her knickers must be wetter than a Trawlerman’s boot and soon the pair of them go off on the missing list. They return half an hour later looking rather sheepish and dishevelled. You can bet they haven’t been around Edinburgh Castle looking at the sights, but wager he has been scaling her battlements! To be frank the smell of fuck is all over the pair of them.

Kid N has fallen asleep on a big overstuffed comfy sofa at the back of the pub. He is really giving it some heavy duty Z’s. The hens silently descend on him with make-up bags.

As he sleeps his lips get sticked, his lashes get mascara-ed and his nails polished until he looks like the most crap transvestite in all of Scotland. The girls do a cracking job on him and he doesn’t realise for hours after waking that he has a full face of make-up on.

He just wondered why everyone was giving him the skunk eye and laughing openly at him.

The bar staff love it because we are filling up their tills at a frightening rate. They are giving out more free shots than a couple of doctors handing out TB jabs at a primary school.

Music is pumping out of the pubs hi-fi system at full blast and now the party is going full tilt. It’s not long until Village jumps up on a table and starts stripping his shirt off while trying to down Tequila through his eye. He’s overjoyed when one of the hens joins him and does the same. The stripping I meant not the whole drinking through the eye socket thing which is just bloody stupid and not to be encouraged.

It does get you well pissed though.

The hen’s top comes off to a massive cheer that finally wakes Kid N the new king of cosmetics. This afternoon we are getting more flashes of tit than an avid bird watcher sitting alone up on the local moors with just his binoculars for company.

It’s all going like some mad absinthe-induced dream until someone starts chanting one word over and over that totally ruins the pretend stag’s day.

PYRAMID!

PYRAMID!

PYRAMID!

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 17…..124 TO GO.

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 1 PINT, 3 BOTTLES OF LAGER, AN ARCHERS AND LEMONADE & A MALIBU AND PINEAPPLE

Chapter Fourteen: The Edinburgh Pyramid Catastrophe

According to the all-knowing internet world wide web thingy ‘The Great Pyramid of Giza’ took over twenty years to build and is over 470 feet tall. This height is approximately eight months of hard cock labour for our working girl earlier in this book (See chapter five. I cannot guarantee that all figures included there are correct. They probably aren’t but what’s your problem? Maths was never my strong point. Besides this is not some sort of dissertation for university, it’s just a book packed full of filth and nonsense).

The pyramid is an amazing feat of human ingenuity. Millions of stones, each weighing tons in weight were somehow lifted into position, hundreds of feet off the ground. There were no massive cranes or petrol driven machines to help out. Just hundreds of thousands of slaves who were worked/flogged into early graves to erect (snigger) a huge tomb in memory of Pharaoh Khufu.

It is an enormous structure and takes your breath away when you think that this pyramid has been on Earth for over four and a half thousand years. It is totally incredible and almost worth an actual trip to Egypt to see it. I’ve only ever seen it on the telly, but honestly feel that is the better option.

They say travel broadens the mind. By travelling on multiple stag dos, the only thing you are going to broaden is the waist band of your jeans that support your ever increasing beer belly AKA your ‘bay window’.

Anyway ‘Great Pyramid of Giza’ I SHIT YOU!

Give me ten able bodied men and within five minutes I can build for you ‘The Shite Pyramid of Geezers!’

Back in the Edinburgh bar on Saturday afternoon, the chant is getting louder and louder. It is now broken into three syllables being howled at the top of our voices:

PY-RA-MID!!!!!!

PY-RA-MID!!!!!!

PY-RA-MID!!!!!!

So let’s get building. The first four lads get down on their hands & knees in a row next to each other. Then the next three climb onto their backs on all fours as well, supported by the chaps below. Are you getting the picture?

The third level is two lads on the backs of the three below with one space at the very top reserved for the stag. As we are constructing our very poor excuse of a geezer pyramid (at about eight feet tall in total, it’s not really that impressive) the bar staff put on The Bangles tune ‘Walk like an Egyptian.’ We stop working and strut around to the song, doing crazy Egyptian poses with the hens, who are absolutely loving it.

Top eighties pop tune over and it is construction time again. Levels one, two and three are complete, so now it’s time for the pretend stag to climb up to the top.

Obviously he is still attached to the chief hen so we cut him free of the cable ties before he is able to scale the man pyramid. We have plenty more cable ties so we’ll just tie him up again later, as and when the mood takes us.

The stag (Kid G) is well wobbly on his feet by now as he has consumed the best part of a small brewery over the afternoon, but he finally gets to the top on his hands & knees supported by the nine other dudes below him.

The pub goes wild. People are cheering and rush over to take photographs with those cheap disposable cameras that get taken away on weekenders. The stag is enjoying all of the attention and tries to stand up on the backs of the two lads below him. Big mistake! He is not the lightest of guys, although after his recent mammoth dump, he must be at least half a stone lighter than when he woke up. The pyramid starts to look a bit shaky. ‘BAD STACK! BAD STACK!’ one of the crew screams.

Suddenly one of the lads at the bottom of the pile, Kid J can’t take all the weight from above and his knees give way, causing the whole pyramid to collapse down on top of him.

Poor old Kid G falls at least eight feet from the top and lands face first on the wooden floor. There is a huge sound ‘SPANG!’ like something out of a cartoon, as his gob comes smashing down on to the floor. He has come down massively hard on to the hard wood surface and the noise sounds like his jaw has definitely been broken.

As Kid G gets up from the floor we can all see that his lips are now a massive bloody mess and as he opens his mouth, we clock that he has lost his two front teeth in the dreadful accident. Claret is pissing out all over the place. His face looks like a really badly made up zombie from some cruddy VHS horror movie from 1986.

Kid G is trying to say something but his jaw is definitely FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition). The hens start cooing about him, mopping up the blood and the bar staff call up an ambulance.

Because of his dental deficiency Kid G is instantly renamed GAP by one of the gang. However, he is not the only pyramid casualty. Kid J has busted two of his fingers which are now hanging at a very odd angle on his hand. He is so drunk he didn’t even feel it and only noticed what had happened when he tried to lift his pint pot.

GAP is in a terrible mess and has started to cry. He has an interview at work on Monday and he was sure that he was finally going to get a well-paid promotion to management level. Now he has no chance as it looks like he has been trying to nosh off a chainsaw.

His gob is in a right state, it looks like he has gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer.

With the lack of two front teeth, a sensible conversation with a potential new boss is well out of the question. Finally the ambulance turns up to cart blubbing GAP and Kid J off to the local A&E. That’s two of the herd lost in the last five minutes. At this rate there will be none of us left to get the plane home down south tomorrow night.

The collapse of ‘The Shite Pyramid of Geezers’ kind of ruins the party atmosphere and the group of hens decide to chip off and get ready for their big night out. They vaguely promise to meet us in some nightclub later that evening.

We get another round of drinks in and have a seat to reflect on the afternoon’s mayhem. Deviant has found one of GAP’s front teeth embedded in the wooden floor. The sick puppy is absolutely overjoyed.

‘This is going to make a fucking brilliant lucky charm to attach to my gold belcher chain!’ he crows.

Not so lucky for GAP though, I guess.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 13…..111 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, 3 BOTLES, A PINA COLADA, A DRY MARTINI WITH DIET LEMONADE, 1 BLUE CURACAO

Chapter Fifteen: A Short History of Stagging

The first recorded example of the traditional stag do was seen in Sparta in the fifth century. Those who have seen the movie 300 will know that the men of Sparta were load of double hard bastards with a mega short life expectancy.

Before a lad was sent off to his almost certain death with the Spartan army his comrades threw him a huge party. This was a big night out of drinking hard with all of your mates before you were sent off to the front line, probably never to return.

So there was no need to worry about chronic liver disease from the boozing, heart problems from the smokes or even some nasty rash that appears on your ‘little soldier’ after a ride on the local bike (don’t forget those STD’s hunt in packs!) because all those parts of your body were very soon to be hacked into tiny pieces on the battlefield.

Go on, have a top night out with the posse. No responsibility tonight and the odds of you actually seeing another night are so remote anyhow, that you may as well party hard Spartan dude.

Celebrate your last night of freedom before you take a massive plunge into an early grave. So the tradition of giving your compatriot a superb sending off with a sore head is probably where the tradition of a lad’s night out before the wedding came from.

Over in pre Christian England, people worshipped a god known as The Horned One, whose antlers made him be seen as a virile male form. This possibly is where the ‘stag’ bit comes from.

The change from an immature child entering into matrimony and becoming a man with great responsibility (well that’s the theory anyway) is a perfect excuse to celebrate by having your eyebrows shaved off and having to wear a gorilla costume for the entire weekend.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the modern stag do!

In France this rite of passage is known as the ‘enterrement de vie de garcon’ which translates as ‘the burial of the life of a boy.’

The wedding cynic among you may say that the real meaning is ‘the end of your life, mate!’ Game Over. Do not pass go and do not collect £200. I do not want to live a life full of compromises and curtail my activities of excess gambling, drinking, shagging & smoking, they say.

Mr Cynical may not be happy selling his soul for a three bed semi in the suburbs and a load of sauce pan lids (kids).

However I am not a cynic at all. Marriage may well be the end of certain things (well most things) that your new bread knife will not approve of, but just think of all the new hobbies you can then take up instead.

Like decorating or hanging about in your new potting shed (everyone knows this is where your porn was stashed in pre-lap top days) and changing nappies full of runny green shite after nights without any sleep. But hey-ho, marriage makes a man of you they say.

The stag do has been around for centuries so it is your duty, as a man, to carry on this tradition if you are daft enough to get wed. There is nothing like getting totally shit faced and walking around with a traffic cone on your head to compensate for a wedding you will still be paying off for at least the next decade. Single gentlemen out there in the real world, please feel free to join this exclusive party whenever you want.

Here are a few historical highlights of stag nights throughout the ages:

1] Henry VIII suffered from a very rare condition that was known as ‘I-love-a-stag-do-i-tis.’ He was totally nuts for a big night out with the knights and hence his marrying of six wives. He could ‘take or leave’ the actual wedding day, he proposed simply to have royal permission to have the six stag parties. These events were legendary with a 15 course meal followed by as much jousting, sword fighting and public executions as you could shake a shitty stick at. All the Lords from across England were expected to attend, bringing with them untouched maidens for the post banquet entertainment and some local peasants who had various bits of them removed, just for laughs. Henry just loved some eye gouging or finger breaking before indulging in a bit of ‘in & out’ with a bit of Tudor grumble. Old Henry was in the midst of getting rid of wife number six and preparing for stag do number seven when the gout finally got him, the poor randy old soak.

2] In Victorian times, the wearing of real antlers while on a stag night became the very height of fashion. The more ornate and sharp they were, the more respect you would receive from your drinking chums. I have a theory that the murders of prostitutes in the East End of London back in 1888 that have always been blamed on Jack the Ripper were in fact caused by gentlemen out for a beery night on the tiles. Stag parties would descend on Whitechapel after pub closing time, for a quick knee trembler down some fog strewn alleyway with a cut price brass. Unfortunately as the stag approached our ‘tart with a heart’ he tripped and fell on the cobblestones and accidently sliced the unfortunate woman of the night to pieces with the razor sharp antlers on his head. The stag party had to be on their toes quickly to avoid certain arrest after leaving a sliced up lady lying bleeding in the street. There was no Peeler in London who would believe this was an accident and the fact that this sad mishap happened five times in the same area in quick succession would never be believed. The murders all ceased on the very day that a law to stop antlers being worn on stag do’s was passed. That was no coincidence, believe me. It’s my conspiracy theory and I am sticking to it. Five terrible stag do disasters and the deaths of five young women were all blamed on the one shadowy figure, our Jack, who never got caught. The fact that in modern cockney rhyming slang ‘Jack the Ripper’ means ‘stripper’, is further proof that this is all true and was covered up for over a hundred and twenty years, until now. (This is all utter toss I’m afraid. Or is it?)

3] During the 1960’s - a time of hippies and free love – weddings, and therefore the stag do, fell out of favour. Everyone was too busy shagging at orgies and throwing their car keys in at wife swapping parties. Why bother getting married or going out on the lash, while a ‘wall to wall shag-a-thon’ was taking place everywhere. Get taters deep and forget all that heavy commitment stuff man. Insert a peace sign here and go drop a couple of tabs of acid while watching Easy Rider on DVD to get the full 60’s space kid effect.

4] The seventies were a dark dull time with three day weeks, power cuts and white dogs muck. The stag do did come briefly back into vogue with groups of badly dressed men wobbling about town, dressed from head to foot in man-made fibres, desperately searching for a public house that would do a ‘lock in’ beyond the depressingly early closing time of just 11 o’clock at night! Many were found in a local park necking Watneys Party Sevens early in the morning just to carry on the festivities after hours. That was about it for the seventies stag, depressing really.

5] With the huge popularity of the home video machine in the early eighties, the interest in ‘stag do’s’ again took a bit of a nose dive. Why go out when you could sit indoors and watch the latest Chuck Norris action flick in the privacy of your own home? Porn was freely available for just three quid a night rental, with the classic Electric Blue soft porn range (remember the theme tune? Of course you do you sex addicted, skin flick watching, over forty year old). Horror films were ten a penny, providing excellent levels of sex and violence that you just did not see on the three channels of terrestrial TV. What was great about renting a VHS tape from the local video shop was that you knew when something exciting was going to happen in the film as the picture would start to go all fuzzy and grainy just before a decent scene. You could bet that a flash of tit (even bush if you were really lucky) or a cool explosion and/or beheading was coming your way as soon as the screen went all moody. This was caused by people pausing then rewinding the film over and over again to re-watch their favourite bits of the movie. That was all part of the charm of home video in the eighties, as a rule the grainier the picture, the better the movie. The fact that the top loading video player machines were the size of a fridge and the tapes were as big as a house brick was totally immaterial, you could watch what you liked, when you liked. Well that was until the whole ‘Video Nasties’ episode which took a lot of the decent hard core violent horror films off the shelves of your local video emporium. What a bunch of bloody killjoys. What on earth is wrong with wanting to watch ‘Skull Fucking Acid Dropping Killer Nazi Zombies from Cheam’ anyway? What a man chooses to view in the privacy of his own house with a box of tissues is his own affair.

Later in the decade of ‘day-glo’ the stag do finally returned to its rightful place in the spotlight, with the rise of the YUPPIES (Young Upwardly-mobile Professional PIE-eaters) and the DINKY’s (Dual Income No Kids Yet) brigade who had tons of DI (Disposable Income) in their sky rockets (pockets). If they were not earning huge amounts of ‘cash to splash’ by working up in the City, dealing stocks or other dodgy stuff then that was not a problem. Just get a credit card and run up vast sums of debt you will never repay just to enable you to ‘live the dream.’ Thatcher’s Britain was full of money grabbing tossers downing huge bottles of Champagne and snorting half of Colombia’s finest illegal export up their beaks. With the advent of big gaudy ostentatious weddings, the stag event finally came of age. Paintballing and days at race circuits, bombing round in flash jam jars, were then followed by reservoirs of over-priced booze being drunk. The more expensive something was in the 80’s the better. Designer labels took off and excessive excess was applauded everywhere. ‘Stagging’ as it is now known was born and just one day was not enough, it had to be a full weekend of debauchery. Major city centres across the UK were suddenly awash with big groups of lads wearing ‘Frankie Says..’ tee shirts and trendy jeans, getting right on it. They had ‘Loads-a-money!’ and were spending it on birds, booze and bugle. Dripping with designer clothes, sovereign rings and gold chains, carrying a big wedge of fifty pound notes, you could tell the YUPPIE stag as he acted like a massive cock, full of his own self-importance. However they did raise the bar for a decent stag do, so I say ‘good work fella’. Without the dinosaurs of the 1980’s the stag weekend would not have been re-invented and this book would now be full of blank pages (some might argue this would be the better option!) The gloves were off and during the weekend anything went. By the way, the first recorded ‘stag handcuffed to a lap post with no trousers on’ incident happened in 1985 in Newcastle.

BIG DISCLAIMER: This whole chapter has no historical accuracy or truth in it whatsoever, especially the ‘Jack the Ripper’ part, which really is a load of steaming horse dung. Apologies but if you wanted a factual history book you should have bought one. They’re in your local book store under B for Boredom.

Chapter Sixteen: The Cursed Saturday Night in Edinburgh

We’ve made a schoolboy error. We’ve all dropped a massive bollock and returned to the guest house to freshen up for the big Saturday night in Edinburgh.

On a stag weekend, stopping your alcohol intake is the very worst thing you can do. You’ve got to maintain a steady drinking pace the whole time. Drink through the peaks and troughs that a booze infused day throws at your body, almost like being put on a drip at the hospital.

If you cease the beer, smokes and illegals being taken on board even for a few minutes, you are going to drop like an aeroplane when one of the engines blows. Sooner or later my friend you are coming down hard!

But stop we do and find our way back to base camp. The guest house is a three storey terrace in a quiet street. The top floor is where the family live and the lower two floors are where the five guest rooms are. Four lads are in the biggest room then there are two rooms of three and another two rooms of two. Well there were fourteen of us this morning all looking bright and breezy but we’ve lost two so far in the great pyramid disaster.

Along the corridors in the guest house are big potted plants and pictures of Edinburgh through the ages line the walls. We all disappear into our rooms to get ready and agree to hook up in an hour to hit the town.

However some fall for the old ‘just a few minutes of power nap will sort me right out’ theory. Bad move as they end up deep asleep never to awake until the next morning and miss all the fun.

Amnesty Boy is sharing a room with Mule who has had a lie down and is now totally out for the count. There is no waking him up so Amnesty does the only sane thing you can do in that situation and stitches him up like a right kipper.

He goes down to reception to see if they have any shoe polish that he can borrow as he wants his boots to shine to catch the eyes of the ladies. The owner of the guest house is only too pleased to lend him some, but that polish is ending up nowhere near any shoe leather, that’s for sure.

Amnesty goes back up to the room where Mule is snoring away like a good ‘un. He smears a load of polish all over his fingers while he sleeps on. Then Amnesty starts tickling Mules nose who then wipes his polish smothered hands all over his own boat race. Within seconds his whole face is covered in the stuff and he now looks like a crap camouflaged Rambo.

Amnesty rushes across to our room to show us his handiwork. It is a work of art. The polish is even all up his nose now, as he must have been having a cheeky pick while he’s been fast a kip. We try not to laugh too much and wake the sad bloke up. Let him be, he can’t take the pace of ‘the in crowd’.

That’s one more casualty added to the two guys in casualty so the posse is down to eleven men now. We start knocking on the other rooms so we can make tracks into the city. Lads start to appear, ready for action but in various states of health. Some look well sorted after a quick splash slash and dash.

Others still look a bit pasty with the beer sweats and red veiny eyes that suggest that they may well be struggling to keep up the drinking pace. Then there are the ones chemically enhanced by ‘Class A’ substances who have pupils the size of pin heads while talking utter tosh at one hundred miles an hour, but they are definitely ready to go back into battle.

We knock on one room but the two guys (Kid K & Kid N) inside refuse to answer. They just cannot face chucking any more ale down their sheep and goats (throats) today. We know that they can hear us shouting abuse about them being wimpy let downs and they know that we know they can hear us, but they will not be intimidated into coming back out on the piss again.

They instantly gain the new nick names of Light and Weight. We never could tell which one was which, so we ended up calling them Lightweight 1 and Lightweight 2. In fairness the pair of them had recently had babies with their wives and only came on the stag do to get a decent couple of nights sleep away from the nagging Mrs and the endless supply of milky baby sick that would end up all over their designer threads.

So that is just nine of us heading out for a night of hard stagging without an acting stag because he is still up at the hospital with a cattle trucked gob.

With his wired up jaw he will be only able to open his mouth a few centimetres and it will look like a letter being shoved into a post box when eating his new all flat diet consisting of poppadum’s, crisps and pizza’s.

We leave the guest house saying a fond goodnight to the owner who is on reception. He has on the moodiest Irish jig (wig]) I have ever seen in my entire life. The colour of his rug does not even match the small remaining wisps of his natural hair poking out from underneath his very crap Syrup of Figs (wig).

What the fuck is the point of wearing ‘an oil rig’ (wig)? Just shave the lot off and man up!

Apart from his love of wearing half a dead cat on his head, he’s a good bloke and tells us about a cheap boozer up the road that he assures us will be full of top quality women. Hopefully his eye for the ladies is not as poor as his selection of fake hair pieces.

We decide to pop our head around the pub’s door as it’s on our way into town anyway. However not one hundred yards further down the road, Burke somehow manages to walk straight into a lamp post. Believe me this took some doing as he was reeling about from side to side and was finding it hard to walk in anything even remotely resembling a straight line at the time.

With a massive CLANG! noise, he goes down like a ton of elephant shit being dropped. Village rushes over to pick him up and already a huge bump the size of an over-sized egg has come up on his forehead. This does not look good for Burke. If he manages to avoid a minor concussion we are all going to be amazed.

We escort him back to his room and all know that he is out of the game as well. Another one bites the dust.

It’s like our night has a major Tutankhamen type curse on it or some such. There are just eight of us left now but we will make every pint count and compensate for the short fall in our ranks.

We find the drinking establishment that our follically challenged, Farmers Pig (wig) wearing, new best mate has recommended and horror of horrors there’s a Karaoke Night on.

I am not sure exactly what Karaoke actually means but I am convinced that it must be ‘shit singers singing shit songs shitly.’ My advice to anyone is not to enter any premises that hold these truly ear torturing tedious nights. No good will come of it, believe me.

As we walk up to the door someone is murdering the tune of some already agonisingly awful song so we decide to avoid the place and go find somewhere else to knock back our quota of grog.

We need to get some solids on board. Generally ‘eating is cheating’ on a staggie but it was now nine at night, after heavy hours on the beer we needed a gut full of nosh or we would be in all sorts of bother later on.

Luckily we spot an Indian restaurant up ahead so we dart in for some top curried food.

The owner of the place did not exactly welcome us eight noisy English tossers with open arms, but he led us to a big table out back, well away from his other punters where we couldn’t offend anyone.

We ordered up some scran and yet more booze and inevitably the chat pretty soon turned nonsensical:

“PISSED UP CONVERSATION #3:

Kid M: Are we ever going to get THE SUN TATT on the market and make our fortune?

Kid L: Remind me of this sure fire money winner again. We always chat about this when I am out of my box and can’t remember the P of A (Plan of Action)

Kid M: THE SUN TATT. It’s a piece of plastic cut into cool shapes, like a beer bottle shape for instance. You then stick the plastic on your arm when you sun bathe. Let the currant bun [sun] give you the perfect peter pan [tan] and you then remove THE SUN TATT leaving that part of your skin un-tanned but in the shape of a beer bottle.

Kid L: Genius bro. You could have anything you wanted tattooed on your arms, legs or chest, without all the pain and aggro of a real tatt. Amazing!

Kid M: You could cut names into the designs, so your SUN TATT could read Mum or whatever. You could sell swallows or little heart shaped bits of plastic. They would look right classy unlike real tattoos.

Kid L: Obviously, there’s no need for laser treatment when you want to get rid of your SUN TATT either. You just go back out in the sunshine and you are sorted. A winner, let’s do it.

Kid M: I’ve even got the advertising jingle all worked out. SUN TATT, SUN TATT, STICK IT UP YOUR BUM TATT. It will be great. Anyone on holiday is going to buy hundreds of these things for sure.

Kid L: Yeah the kids are going to dig this. We’re going to make millions and get out of the shitty rat race. Tattoos for anyone, without the need for ink or needles. Result. I’m going to patent this as soon as we get home.”

Obviously he didn’t. He’s still as skint as the rest of us! END OF CONVERSATION…..

Halfway through the meal I had to dart out for a piss. ‘Breaking the seal’ is never a good idea when out on a session. Visit the lavvy once and from then on you’ve got to have a slash every ten minutes to empty your belly of pissy beer.

It was a nightmare getting the old todger out of my fly as I had a brand new pair of 501’s on and it took ages of faffing about getting the buttons undone. When I got back to the table there was no-one there, just loads of plates of half-eaten food and half-drunk pints of beer.

The owner was standing at the deserted table with a phone in his hands saying, ‘I’m calling the police. Your friends have all run out without paying so unless you have the money to cover the bill, there is going to be trouble.’

‘I haven’t got enough cash on me mate. It’s my stag do. I do have a credit card back at the guest house we are staying at. I’ll nip back and get it.’ I reply.

The owner is getting the right hump by now. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? There’s no way you are leaving here without paying your bill,’ he menaces. Suddenly a couple of the cooks almost magically appear next to him holding big shiny and very sharp meat cleavers.

They are wiry little blokes but look like they know they’re way around the choppers they are waving about in the air.

They also look pretty unimpressed that this English fella can’t pay up. Looks like someone is getting a kicking very soon and that person is me.

‘Look guys, I’m really sorry, my mates have well dropped me in it here. Look, I tell you what, I’ll leave you my watch and get back to my hotel where I’ve got a credit card and I’ll sort this out’ I beg and plead.

‘I don’t want your fucking watch or your card, I want Pound Notes and lots of them,’ he spits. ‘This is an insult to my family. You come into my restaurant, you little turd and eat my food without paying. I’m going to fuck you up!’ he exclaims.

He is absolutely seething. The two chefs are smiling and look like they are going to really enjoy delivering the beating that is surely coming my way. I am terrified. I wonder if breaking out the tears will get me any pity.

‘Please fella, calm down,’ I whimper. ‘Let’s call The British Consulate, we can sort this situation without violence.’

On hearing this, the owner and the cleaver twins start howling with laughter. He whistles and all the lads reappear from a room behind me where they have been hiding and listening to me crawling for my life. One guy shouts out, ‘British Consulate, you massive ball of cock cheese!’ Nuff said. The stags are all falling about. They’ve heard the whole lot.

‘We got you!’ says the owner. He absolutely loves a wind up and he can’t stop laughing, so brings out another round of Cobra lagers on the house. He then grabs his camera and takes loads of photographs of me and the boys being ‘attacked’ by the lads with the meat cleavers.

‘These pictures are going up behind the bar,’ he announces proudly. So if you are ever in Edinburgh in an Indian restaurant and you see the evidence hanging up, spare a thought for the seat of those nice new jeans I was wearing. They were a little squelchy I can tell you.

The lads are over the moon that they stitched me up. ‘That will right learn ya, stag boy. You thought because we got you in Amsterdam you were getting away with it this time out. Well you are wrong so you best be on your guard fella,’ crows the gang.

Food gets put away. Beers drained. We shake hands with the owner and job done, it’s time to make like Tom and Cruise.

We carry on down the road and soon see a huge neon blue sign that holds us like a tractor beam, slowly drawing us in. There is no escape. It’s as if our minds are now in someone else’s control and our will is no longer our own.

This place is calling out to us, it is our destiny. The sign is just four letters glowing in the dark saying ‘T I T Z’.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 8…..121 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: COBRA x 3, A GLASS OF BLACK TOWER WINE, A DOUBLE BACARDI AND COKE

Chapter Seventeen: The Trail of a Snail Ruins Jeans Made of the Skin of a Mole

The eight of us join the short queue of people that are unsurprisingly, all well shifty looking gentlemen. All making a bad hash of looking like they really don’t want to be here, but they very obviously do.

We reach the front and ask the bouncer standing there in his regulation black bomber jacket and earpiece, what the full S.P. (starting price) is.

His reply must be the same answer he has been reeling off for months as he does not even pause for breath as he explains:

‘Right this is a lap dancing bar. It is £3 each to get in, £2 per drink and then £5 per private dance. The rules are very simple to understand. Number one, you do NOT touch the ladies. Number two, you do NOT proposition the dancers. You best believe that you will not be getting a ‘poke in the whiskers’ in this establishment. Number three, you do NOT touch the merchandise or there will be big trouble coming your way. We only employ the sexiest ladies and I guarantee you no munters on these premises! Gentlemen step this way.’

To be perfectly straight the fella lost me at the words ‘this is a lap dancing bar’ the rest of his spiel was a load of white noise, blah blah blah, with a threat of mindless violence if Captain Grope pays a visit! We get it. Look but do not touch. There is no ‘try before you buy’ policy in this joint.

We hand over three sheets each for the entrance fee and enter the club. As soon as we get through the door we notice one very small detail that ‘Mr I love the sound of my own voice’ has rather conveniently forgotten to mention. Unsurprisingly, the fella’s out-number the scantily clad dancers by about twenty to one.

The place is absolutely ram-packed solid with geezers who are all over the sexy ladies like bluebottles buzzing about turds. The club has certainly seen better days with a 1970’s décor of tack, disco balls, loads of mirrors and a carpet that is as sticky as quick sand. I am hoping this is due to the number of pints of ale spilt on it over the years and not stray bodily fluids.

One side of the place is a long bar that is about fifty deep, all hollering for lager, at the two over worked and totally pissed off bar staff standing behind it.

On the other side of the room is a small stage with a steel pole, where one of the girls is slowly peeling her kit off to applause and cheers from the leering punters. The way she is throwing herself around the pole really is impressive. Twisting round and round the silver pole in the centre of the stage and then hanging upside down legs akimbo, with not a stitch on, is certainly a skill worth learning. Maybe they should do a degree course in it. She has an amazing body and if pole dancing was a new Saturday night tea time TV programme, viewing figures would go through the roof.

It’s no surprise that Deviant has rushed straight down to the stage and elbows his way to the front where he stands with a shit eating grin, beaming from ear to ear. He is in his element. There is no way on Earth we are getting him out of here tonight.

Other strippers walk around the club in their best underwear asking if you would care to join them for a private dance in one of the rooms out the back. Your five pound note gets you one song, during which your chosen lady will strip completely naked and give you a real eyeful. She will also have a writhe around on your lap, a wriggle up your thighs and if you are especially well behaved, may even give your veiny bang stick (that will definitely be on the semi) a half-hearted squeeze. Then it’s a peck on the cheek and you get fucked off before the next customer. It is a fiver well spent!

Business is brisk, as soon as one of the girls reappears from the booths at the back of the club, another bloke grabs her and she is back taking off all her scrundies that she has only just put back on again. They are coining it in.

The amount of silicone enhanced breast on display is staggering. As Village remarks to the gang, ‘This place is packed with fake tits and real cock-ends!’

We manage to get served a round of pints and stand there soaking up the ambience. The place whiffs of cheap perfume, mould, man sweat, stale cigarettes and eggy beer farts. If you could bottle the pong, you could make dough selling it as the brand-new cologne for ‘the right dodgy geezer in your life’ and call it ‘Eau de Seedy.’

The blokes in here are mainly young fellas out for a few laughs and looking to top up the old ‘wank bank’ by ogling pretty girls they know they could never pull in a million years. There is an atmosphere of desperation about the place but it is the perfect venue for a stag do.

Let’s face it you are very unlikely to meet the girl of your dreams while you are totally incoherent with a gut full of booze surrounded by all your mates in the same rotten state. Stag boys tend to lose their respect for women along with their power of witty repartee while under the influence and revert to shouting out Neanderthal man comments like ‘Get your tits out for the lads!’

At TITZ [you can tell it is a classy place as the name uses a Z and not an S] the girls are only too pleased to ‘whop them out’ as long as you pay, so everyone is happy!

Over a weekend the dancers here will probably earn more than I will for a full week sitting at a poxy desk doing telesales bullshit so you have to ask ‘Which one of us really is the mug?’

Well me, as usual, to be honest. If I had a gorgeous body I could use to make a living and avoid the ‘nine to five’ rat race, I certainly would. Unfortunately the only modelling work I could get with my beer gut, would be the ‘before’ photograph in an advertisement for the local gym. I am not even going to be able to donate my well knackered body to medical science after I’ve finished with it.

Back at the bar we spark up some coffin sticks just as Deviant returns. He has already had three private dancers out the back and is now skint so is looking to borrow/beg/ponce another fiver so he can stare at another one of the fantastic girls undressing.

‘Do you get your money’s worth out the back in the private booths then?’ asks Kid L.

‘You bet!’ Deviant roars. ‘This place is full on rock and roll. The Jacks (Jack the Rippers-Strippers) are top dollar. They get completely naked and climb all over you dangling their bits in your face. They have less hair downstairs than you can find on Kojak’s head. You get a better view of their pubic area than a fully qualified Gynaecologist! Although saying that, one of the girls was a major disappointment. She dropped her panties and she had a pierced clit. It was a right let down, was like finding a five pence piece in your doner kebab! But I swear one of them was completely in love with me and deffo would have let me shag her. She was wetter than an otter’s pocket. I was knuckles deep and she was all over my cock like a rash!’

‘Well that is lucky then,’ replies Kid L, ‘as you have a rash all over your cock after that visit to that Dutch knocking shop the other month, but we won’t mention that.’

‘Come on Kid L don’t be tight, sub me a tenner so I can road test another couple of these top fillies. Hell, why not come along and we can both nonce them right up? Let’s go and grin at some quim! Let’s go and fumble with some grumble!’ yells Deviant at the top of his voice.

With that the two lads wander into the crowd searching for their next deposit into their personal Bank of Wank Fantasy Investment Portfolio. You know the rules: a shag’s alright but you can’t beat a bit of the old mind’s eye!

So now there are six of us left at the bar to get stuck into yet another round and then wobble over to the stage area to join the mob of geezers standing there gawping with their eyes out on stalks.

Why waste a Lady Godiva (fiver) going out the back for a private when you get a free fully nude show out here for zero pence? There’s more bare skin on display than at ‘The Changing of The Guard’ up in London. Sorry that’s bear skins, so that’s my mistake, that analogy really does not work does it? We will move on.

While watching the show Kid M is looking really uncomfortable, which is odd as a beautiful girl is slowly taking her bra off to reveal a splendid set of top bollocks, not five feet away. This is not something you see during your daily drudgery at work so he should be getting a right good stare on.

‘What’s wrong with you mate? Not classy enough in here for you? Not enjoying the reek of desperation?’ I ask.

‘No it’s not that Euro, I errr, I really need to go and take a big shit - that curry has gone straight through me. My guts are rotten.’ He blurts out.

‘Well go and have one then, they have got bogs in here.’

‘But the bouncers will think I’ve gone in there to jerk myself off. I’d feel right embarrassed cos I don’t want them to think I’m a pervert.’

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation, this is surreal. This guy has got some real issues with public defecation that need sorting.

‘I promise you they have not got cameras in the toilets to stop people having a quick Jodrell. Besides you won’t even get in one of the traps as there will be a load of ching monsters in there hoovering the white stuff up their conks. Just go to the lav, wait for a stall and have a dump.’

‘I just can’t stand to do it in here I know it’s going to be a three flush jobbie at least. I’m going back to the hotel.’

‘That is the lamest excuse to skip the beer I have heard in my entire life. We only let the pretend stag avoid appearing on tonight’s show because he’s lost two of his pearly whites and he is up the local A&E. You’re baling out to go home and have a poo. Get a grip on yourself top man, stop being such a massive flange piece.’

‘No I’ve got to go, I’m touching cloth already. I can feel the turtle neck poking out. I’ll see you back here in half an hour I promise.’

With that Kid M is in the wind and we are now down to seven in total. That’s half of the herd lost and it is not even ten o’clock at night. This is a piss poor performance. There was a famous saying during World War II that went: Loose Lips, Sink Ships.

The modern version of this in the lighter than lightweight Kid M’s case would be: Loose Bowels, Lose Pals! The rest of the posse are not surprised that he has performed an early retreat from the booze battle. ‘He’s normally full of shit anyway,’ someone remarks.

I stand at the bar staring at the woman gyrating sexily on the stage and go off into my own little world. I look like a tit in a trance or rather I’m in a trance staring at tits.

At that moment I get a tap on the shoulder and turn around to see one of the scrumptious strippers in her full kit standing there yawning away. She looks very well-travelled and I don’t mean that she goes on holiday a lot.

Through her open gaping mouth she manages to ask me, ‘Would you like a private dance out the back?’ She yawns in my face again and I get a whiff of her halitosis. Thanks love!

‘I do very sexy dance for you. You can touch my pussy and my tits,’ she says and yawns sleepily for a third time.

‘Darling you need to work on your sales technique. You should be rubbing your Jack & Danny up and down my leg or tickling my todger, instead of looking bored shitless when chatting to me. I really don’t think that your heart is in this stripping lark. You ain’t getting a fiver out of me, so do one!’ I tell the disinterested tart. She spins on her heel and slouches off giving me the finger. I don’t think she is overly keen on her chosen career path.

Just then, like a bad penny, Deviant pops back up again. ‘What have you done with Kid L you twisted spleen eater?’ Village asks.

‘Slight problem there guys, he’s just been thrown out. He went out for a private and kept groping the poor girl up, he was all over her Bristol’s. She was having none of it and called the bouncer over who gave him a right good clip round the ear and threw him out.’

Unbelievably we are now down to just a half dozen made up of: Me (AKA Euro) Deviant, Amnesty, Village, Hit and Run. What a total let down. We are on a stag do of disaster and losing bodies at a horrific rate.

But just as the night was looking bleak, Amnesty spots something that will elevate this evening to legendary status. An evening that will be discussed long into the future with the whole gang pretending they were there to witness it. Exactly like everyone of a certain age knowing where they were when JFK got shot.

Amnesty points at the front of Deviant’s trousers and asks ‘what the fuck is all that?’

Over the weekend Deviant has been banging on and on about his brand new pair of black moleskin jeans that cost him a fortune from Covent Garden. He has been rabbiting on about denim being dead and that moleskin is the future of trouser wear.

Needless to say that moleskin is not actually made from the skin of a mole - that would be gross! It is a heavyweight cotton fabric brushed on both sides to produce a soft, smooth pile surface that has a velvety kind of feel to it.

Up and down the thighs of Deviant’s jeans are white trails of crusty gank that looks like a load of snails have been competing in the 50cm world sliming championships.

Deviant knows exactly where this mess has come from and boosts proudly, ‘I told you all, that dirty lap dancing bird wanted a piece of me. She was really frothing at the gash as she was writhing about on my lap and thighs, covering me in her lush clam jam. Knew I was making her all gushy by putting on the old Deviant charm, works every time. No one believed me when I said she was right into me and I could have been conkers deep into her. Well there’s the proof, sticky fanny batter all over my moleskins!’

He is so proud of the snail trail stains that I’m sure he is going to get the trousers framed when he gets home. It would be like having a signed Charlton Athletic Football Club (go on you reds!) shirt hanging up in your front room. The frame would become a family heirloom that you keep to pass on to future generations.

But I reckon those trousers are beyond saving and even after a boil wash are only destined for the nearest rubbish bin. Even the local second hand shop won’t take them in.

We all stand about laughing and joking but Deviant is having none of the piss taking. In fact he is jubilant about the cruddy muck on his moleskins.

A random stranger walks by and clocks the state of them saying, ‘bad move fella, black moleskins and lap dancing don’t mix. Get yourself some stone washed denim jeans, they hide all the evidence!’

And there’s another bit of free, great advice to live your life by.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER 9…..91 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, A BOTTLE & A SHIRLEY TEMPLE COCKTAIL WITH A PINK UMBRELLA

Chapter Eighteen: The well moody old juicer of Edinburgh Town

We’ve left the smeggy cock whiff of TITZ far behind us and rocked up in some right dodgy battle cruiser near the city centre. As soon as we walk in we are greeted by the traditional friendly Scottish welcome of:

WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA?

WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA?

This is being chanted at us full volume by a group of feral, ferrety looking fuckers at the back of the bar. They are getting right into it, pointing at us and snarling, really making us feel wanted.

This joyful song is then followed by a few choruses of; ‘Who the fucking hell are you?’ to really get across the fact that we have strayed off the beaten track and are now about to get a beating.

These lads are obviously not old enough to drink legally but have covered their chins in bum fluff to look older and wiser than their years.

Their uniform of shell suits, sports clothing, tracky bottoms and scuffed up trainers (from climbing up walls and through open windows while out robbing people’s houses, no doubt) all spells out one thing: TROUBLE!

They look like nasty bastard tea leaves (thieves) who are quick with their fists and would gladly support their local dentist by smashing all your teeth out.

Up here in Scotland they are known as NEDS (Non Educated Delinquents) over in the good old US of A they would be called TPT (Trailer Park Trash) but I call them Plague Kids, as in ‘Avoid like the….’

There’s a group of ten Plagues all hanging around two knackered looking pool tables at the rear of the pub. They don’t seem to be playing though, just using the tables to roll up the thick joints we can seeing them smoking and you can smell the Mary Jane from the doorway.

There is an air of violence and menace hanging over the whole place but the impending threat of danger is just not sinking in to our pissed up brains.

At this end of the bar nearest the entrance is an older crowd of mainly men all suited and booted in their best clobber. They all look in their sixties but are probably only in their mid-forties, with faces that suggest they have lived very hard lives being very hard men.

What with the bad diet of prison food, filter-less cigarettes, home brewed alcohol and a heroin habit, what chance did they have? Male models this lot most certainly are not.

These ‘oldies’ all seem to have bits missing, like teeth, brain cells and parts of ears/noses which can’t be good. They may even be the parents/grandparents/great grandparents of the no marks younger crew, who are still sizing us up from the pool tables.

There are women in this joint but even they look tougher than tough. If one of them asked you to accompany her out to the car park you would not be able to tell if she wanted to pull you or punch your lights out.

With our beer goggles firmly on, the six of us just cannot see the potential for a damn good kicking in this drinking establishment so we approach the old crone behind the bar.

‘It’s my round gents, so choose your weapons!’ shouts Village. The following is what was ordered up, using an Enigma code breaking machine to decipher the actual alcoholic drink required:

1] VAL……Vodka And Lemonade (AKA Valerie, as in ‘Dob us in a Valerie, cocker baby winkle)

2] Supersonic……Gin and Tonic.

3] JD and coke……Jack Daniels and Coke, bit ‘kin obvious that one.

4] Gold Watch…Scotch.

5] Large Rouge….Half a vat of red wine.

6] Uri Top…(A Pint of Stella Artois with a splash of lemonade. Uri Geller is mockney rhyming slang for Stella. For the more politically aware chap you could also use Nelson Mandela)

With a round like that it’s no wonder that half the blokes in here want to knock the snot out of us, while the other half laugh and would then stick the boot in themselves. We should have ordered six pints of heavy to at least make an effort to try to fit in.

******DRINKS INTERLUDE******DRINKS INTERLUDE******

At this point in the proceedings here is a short do’s and don’ts list for ordering drinks on a stag do:

DO: Pace yourself. It’s a marathon not a sprint, so feel free to order a bottle instead of a pint. A man has to know his limitations and keep within them.

DO: Order regular strength ‘cooking lager’ rather than the stronger stuff available. It’s a better session brew. It will still get the job of intoxication done but over a much longer time of supping.

DO: Avoid entering the spirit world for as long as possible. As tempting as it is to hit the top shelf early in the day it really is not the way forward.

DON’T: Order a Lager Shandy EVER. Yeah it is a refreshing alternative when behind closed doors at home where no one else needs to know. On a stag do you will have the piss ripped out of you by the rest of the gang, for at least half an hour for shouting one in.

DON’T: Order Lager & Lime. Enough said. It ruins the taste of a perfectly good pint and again opens you up to verbal abuse. The same rule applies for white wine spritzers, alco-pops, etc.

DON’T: Drink anything non-alcoholic. This is all shades of incorrect.

******DRINKS INTERLUDE OVER******DRINKS INTERLUDE OVER*****

We get served and sit at a table mid-way between the young hard nuts screwing us out and the old hard nuts who are also giving us the evil eye.

This table seems to be in the ‘no man’s land’ of the drinker that separates the two different groups of head cases.

I wonder if on Christmas Day they have a truce, kind of like during the trench warfare of World War I. Someone brings in a football to have a bit of a kick about with. Jumpers for goalposts! All good clean fun. They then have the traditional pub lunch of roast turkey flavoured crisps and buy each other a pint.

Half an hour later they are battering each other senseless in the street, losing more molars and parts of their anatomy. Merry Christmas everyone!

I have a moment of clarity and wonder what the hell we are doing in this scuzzy tavern? It is all going to go Pete Tong in a matter of minutes.

As the toilets are down at the Plague boy’s end, it’s a racing cert that when you have to go and empty your bladder, this will result in a definite mugging that will also empty your wallet. We all cross our legs and aim to get our drinks down us in record time so we can get The F out of D (The Fuck out of Dodge).

We sit there feeling like we’ve accidently entered the pub on the moors in that top movie ‘An American Werewolf in London.’ The two unwary tourists enter the place to a right frosty reception and it goes completely silent until they are then warned to ‘stay on the path boys.’

I’m no mind reader but it seems everyone in the bar wants us to Foxtrot Oscar and sharpish. The six of us English lads are as popular as a fart in a spacesuit in here. But so what?

We sit there and pretend we are not cacking our whacks and front it out. The conversation as usual soon turns nonsensical. We laugh at how the number in the stag party has been whittled right down as if we were starring in some ‘stalk and slash’ horror movie from the 1980’s. Who is going to reach the end credits and what body parts will be left on them?

We all decide to grab another round as closing time is fast approaching. The clientele in this ‘inn of doom’ seem to tolerate us a little, even though we are still getting stared at by the scrotal little savages by the pool tables.

The gang is all cool with this, except for Amnesty who is getting the right hump by now. He keeps glancing over their way and mutters to himself under his breath. All the signs are there that very shortly he is going to go completely radio rental.

It looks like the red mist is starting to descend. Like Dr Bruce Banner he is spinning out of control and you won’t like him when he is angry. No good will come of it.

Amnesty is fed up with being bogged out by the plague of plagues and jumps up saying ‘Right I’m going to show those little twats who is the main man in here!’

He marches down to the back of the pub looking like a man possessed. He has well and truly lost what little plot he had left. His face looks like thunder and it is very likely someone is going to get a punch. This situation is only going to end with flashing blue lights, sirens and bags of donated blood.

He approaches one of the pool tables and slams down a twenty pound note with the words ‘I bet this twenty spot I can beat any one of you bastards at pool using just one hand! Come on then who wants some of them apples?’

Amnesty has finally wigged completely out and fallen into the mouth of insanity. What the hell is he thinking? Even if he really can beat them he will still end up in a fist induced coma.

The plagues stand there looking shocked and confused. They’ve just been challenged by a lunatic who wants to play one handed pool in their local juicer on their table for money. Finally one of the plagues, let’s call him Bubonic, breaks the silence and puts down his own note saying ‘I’ll take that bet you massive numpty. I am the king of this table. When I beat you the lot of ya can fuck off out of here!’

About the only response we can expect from Bubonic I guess. It’s a very fitting nickname as he looks like he could end your life in a very painful way or leave you with permanent facial disfigurement. He even has scars on his chin that may well have been caused by The Black Death centuries ago but this is more realistically to have been the result of acne or too much teenage glue sniffing.

As Amnesty selects a cue from the selection leaning against the wall, a couple of the mini plagues rack up the balls and it is ‘Game On!’

We gather around the table to witness what will surely be the quickest game of pool in history, swiftly followed by the fastest hospitalisation of six pissed up blokes from down South.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER 9…..82 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 1 x VODKA, A PINT OF LAGER AND A LITRE BOTTLE OF WHITE LIGHTNING CIDER

Chapter Nineteen: Playing One Handed Pool

The game of pool is mainly the domain of the true ‘geezer geezer.’ It takes years of practice to be any good at the sport which really means years of hanging about in the nearest pub drinking while honing all the skills needed to be a top pool player.

There’s so much to think about, like your stance, the way you grip the cue stick, where the balls are on the table and where you want them to end up (in the pockets obviously!)

The cue stick must have a smooth shaft (sounds a bit rude) with a well chalked tip (‘Oooooh Matron!!’) and held so your right arm is at a right angle. That’s ninety degrees to you thick bastards without a GCSE in Maths.

Basically you need to sink your seven balls and then the black before your opponent does, to win the game.

By keeping a positive mental attitude, all will be good. Breathing techniques to ensure you stay relaxed and calm during the game are also available and should be used regularly.

Me, I ignore all the good advice above and just whack the balls as hard as I can in the vain hope that one will go down making me look like I did the shot on purpose. To be honest I just do not have the patience to play pool and find that it just gets in the way of a good pinting session.

However if you are skilled at the game there is the added bonus that it is a fantastic excuse to get out of the house and into the local drinker whenever you want. The words ‘Sorry my love I’ve got a pool match this weekend’ are a guaranteed fully stamped up pass to freedom.

Reading through all the tips and demonstrations available online what I could not find was one person that suggests playing the game with just one hand against a herd of maniacs who want to clatter you unconscious.

So the stage is set for a huge game of pool with possibly our very survival at stake.

It’s time to watch the Bubonic versus Amnesty pool grudge match of Edinburgh town. Like a one-legged man entering an arse kicking contest our Amnesty is setting himself and us, up for a mighty fall.

Bubonic can’t believe his luck and thinks you can’t play pool with just one hand. In his mind he is already spending that twenty spot on his next bag of draw.

‘It’s my boozer so I’m breaking,’ Bubonic crows as he powers the cue ball into the fifteen balls at the other end of the table. It is a fantastic break with two striped balls and one spotted ball all falling straight away. Bubonic is right good. This game is not going to take long.

‘I’ll give you a chance and be spots,’ he decides before sinking a further three of his balls until he leaves one of the spots covering the middle pocket making it even harder for his opponent.

Now it’s Amnesty’s turn. I can see this going bandy straight away and imagine him tearing the green baize of the table with his very first shot ensuring that claret is spilt within seconds.

He steps up to the table holding the cue in a vice-like grip. He takes his time then hits the cue ball which kisses one of the striped balls sending it into the top left pocket. There is a stunned silence from the plague lads.

Amnesty takes another shot one handed and another ball goes down. The cue stick seems to have become an extension of his arm and he knows exactly how hard to hit the ball. Whack! Another striped ball goes down.

By now the plagues are applauding his skill with comments like ‘He must be some sort of Paul Newman Hustler motherfucker.’ Even some of the old school gangsters by the door have wandered down to see what all the fuss is about and they cannot believe what they are witnessing.

They are all impressed and so are we. No-one has ever seen Amnesty’s party trick before. What a talent. Where did he pick this skill up from? Has he actually sold his own soul to save all of ours?

Two more shots are sunk and he is on the black already. Bubonic still has three of his balls left on the table.

Amnesty has become that evil liquid metal T-1,000 killer robot from the future in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The cue stick must have been fused into his body creating a whole new arm/cue type thing enabling him to hit these amazing trick shots. He is playing out of his skin.

His brain must be chock full of physics shit to be working out all the angles and pulling these shots off one-handedly.

But then, disaster strikes, he hits the black ball but does not give it enough legs and it stops just short of the pocket.

Bubonic steps up confidently and starts to sink his last three spotty balls. Whether it is the spliff that he has been smoking all night or the shock of getting his backside whupped by a bloke playing with one hand, I could not tell you but his game is well off and he has a shocking visit missing his last ball, leaving a gift of a shot on the black for the Amnesty Android.

With one last smash of the cue ball Amnesty is victorious. He snatches up his winnings from the table and yells ‘OK who the fuck wants a shot of tequila?’

Unsurprisingly the whole bar takes him up on his offer. The ice is well and truly broken as we start chatting to the plagues and the older nut jobs. We find that their hearts are all in the right place, unlike their eyes, ears, noses etc.

They all want to play Amnesty the one armed king of the pool table but no one can defeat him. During a break between games I ask him ‘Fella how the hell did you pull that off?’

‘Dunno, I have been doing the one handed pool hustle for years. I won some big dough over in France once playing for cash against Johnny Foreigner. I have to be in the zone. If I’m sober I can’t relax enough and hold the cue properly. If I’m paralytic I’m worse than if I use both hands. However when I stick just enough alcohol in the tank I seem to be able to see everything clearly in my head and can whip anyone who steps up to the table one handed. Maybe I should go pro and bug out of the nine to five grind.’

Amnesty gets his five minutes of fame and we get matey with the locals. They gave us daggers when we walked in because they are fed up of boozy wankers taking over their pub during The Fringe Festival and who can blame them?

Soon the final bell rings and it is chucking out time. The barmaid yells out the old line of ‘Ain’t you got homes to go to?’ which is a polite way of telling everyone to bugger off.

The plagues invite us on to a nightclub called Zen where they know the bouncer and will get us in for nothing. Result! Sure that was the club that those hens from earlier were going to end up in.

After seeing ‘The Shite Pyramid of Geezers’ we are convinced the ladies will at least buy us a couple of pints each and/or give us a snog. Our luck must be in.

Gentlemen lead on……With only our beer blankets to keep us warm we wander off into the cold Scottish night.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 11…..71 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, A LIGHT & BITTER AND AN ADVOCAAT

Chapter Twenty: I see the shit storm rising

We’re back in Sweaty Sock Land in the guest house in Edinburgh run by the fella with the most unconvincing rug on his head. It’s six a.m. Sunday morning and all fourteen of the stag party are at last in their beds giving it some heavy duty ZZZ time.

Some have been asleep for hours like Light and Weight in Room #1 who avoided the whole Saturday night of dodgy strippers, one handed pool matches plus moody scum bags named after The Black Death. The pair of them are both recently married with young babies and are well chuffed to get to spend so much time in the Land of Nod away from early morning feeds, endless sterilising of milk bottles, plus the constant nagging from the enemy (wife) about how they can’t go out and enjoy themselves now they have a new born who cries every hour, on the hour. This night is pure luxury to these boys and the only reason they bothered to get a pass stamped for the weekender was to finally get some unbroken SLEEP.

In the largest room in the place Room #2, four of our heroes are kipping. Kid L the groper of the poor working girl, Deviant the king of the crusty moleskins, Burke with half a concussion after head butting a lamp post and finally Kid J who has two fingers bandaged up that got broken in The Great Pyramid of Geezers topple in the afternoon. He finally sobered up after spending eight hours in the local A&E department waiting to get his digits fixed.

Room #3 sleeps three, Village, Euro and Kid M. Of the trio Kid M and his lack of being able to have a clear out in a public lavatory has had the most rest. Village and Euro went off clubbing with The Plague Kids until four o’clock meeting up with the filthy hens from the afternoon session. Village even managed to get a snog and cop a feel off some poor inebriated lass who to be frank, had a body off Baywatch but a face off Crimewatch! Mind you he is no oil painting himself. Still at least he pulled a real live woman in front of witnesses and for once no money changed hands.

In Room #4 Hit and Run are snoring away while a very distraught replacement stag, our top man, GAP is still heavily medicated after getting his jaw wired up. His lips are all fattened up, scabby and bloody and it looks like he has been French kissing a liquidiser while it was turned on. He has lost his two front teeth, one of which will soon be hanging from Deviant’s gold chain as a fashion statement. That statement being I have no fucking fashion sense what-so-ever! GAP is having some weird old dreams due to the sedatives bombing through his battered body. It will only be when he wakes up and clocks himself in the mirror that his real nightmare will begin. His Mum back home is going to tear him a new arsehole for ruining his forthcoming big interview day with his mangled up kisser.

Finally Amnesty the one handed pool king and Mule who is covered in black boot polish are totally sound-o in the final bedroom, Room #5.

Unfortunately there is a humongous load of faeces heading their way and our happy campers are about to have their R&R very rudely interrupted.

The door to Room #2 comes crashing open and in strolls the owner carrying a baseball bat screaming ‘Wake up you dirty fuckers!’ To say he is unhappy is an understatement.

‘Get your stuff and get lost!’ he bellows. The four lads in the room are jolted awake but are totally bemused by his behaviour.

Deviant says ‘Hey mate take a chill pill. Where’s the fire? Who’s taken a shit in your handbag?’

This comment does not help as Captain Hairpiece’s face seems to go a shade redder: ‘My handbag? No one has shit in my handbag but one of you bastards has taken a dump in one of my pot plants in the hallway. There is shit everywhere, up the wall and all over the floor. This is a disgrace. My family live here, this is my home and you have treated it like the local lavatory. You have disrespected me. I will not stand for it. I want you out of my hotel NOW!’

Kid J tries to reason with him ‘Mate calm down. None of us in this room has done a plop in the hallway. There’s been some terrible mistake. We’ll all take DNA tests if you want us to prove that it wasn’t any of us.’

The owner is still going ballistic. His wig seems to have developed a life all of its own and is moving about all over his sweaty pate. ‘It’s nothing to do with you lot eh? Well explain that then!’ he yells pointing at a trail of shitty footprints encrusted in the carpet leading straight over to the bed that Kid L is sleeping in.

Kid L takes a sneaky peek under his bed covers and starts to look a little sheepish. The owner spots this guilty glance and rushes over to the bed and pulls back the blankets. It is not a pretty sight. Kid L is lying in what looks like that deep river of chocolate crud that the child with ‘body image issues’ drowned in during the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

(Actually that’s quite enough of the politically correct old bollocks about ‘body image issues.’ I meant to say the obese obnoxious little fat kid in the original film and not the pointless remake version either.)

Within Kid L’s bed there is definite proof that shit really does stick to a blanket. Sticky flaky bits of turd are all over him and this instantly gains Kid L the new nick name of DUNG BEETLE, as those insects just love rolling around in their own excrement. There is no need to call in the CSI boys just yet to carry out the proposed forensic testing, our friend Dung has been caught red handed…well brown handed I should say.

The bed looks like a farmer has unloaded a lorry full of slurry into it. The shite is everywhere. Considering that Dung started in the hallway and then finished off within his pit, the dirty bastard has probably lost nearly half a stone in weight!

To his credit Dung instantly makes a stab at fronting it out ‘This isn’t my Tom Tit (Shit) I swear to you. I’ve been framed. My Eartha Kitt is a nice reddish brown colour and consistency. This stuff all over me looks like rusty motor oil. One of these other cunts has stitched me up by taking a chod in my bed planting the evidence and making me look guilty. Come on, who was it?’

He stares at the three other lads in the room, but they are having none of it.

‘Well someone has to clean all this horrific mess up,’ says the owner.

‘Good luck with that,’ crows the Dung Beetle Boy. ‘Thems the breaks of the inn-keeping trade, you knew the dangers when you opened this guest house. You are shit out of luck fella. I am certainly not cleaning up someone else’s Top Ten Hit (Shit) I’m off for a shower.’

The owner is incandescent with rage by now and it looks like he is going to take a swing at Dung with the baseball bat as he skulks off towards the bathroom but instead he just mutters like a broken man, ‘You have five minutes to get the fuck out of here before I call the police.’

He slams the door to Room Number 2 (ironic really as some posh folks call a poo, a number two) and the three guys howl with laughter, baying like hyenas on mescal.

‘Can you believe the balls on the Dungster?’ admires Kid J. ‘I almost believed that someone else had dropped that load and that it wasn’t him.’

Burke, still sporting a huge lump on his forehead just feels nauseous as the soiled bedding stinks worse than the port-a-loo’s at The Glastonbury Festival after a week of hippy faeces has been passed through them, remarks: ‘I think we had better get our shit together and depart.’

Another round of giggles and then clothes get chucked in bags. These guys know when they have outstayed their welcome. It’s time to leave before the shit really hits the fan, oh arse it already has!

The first thing the three of us in Room #3 know about this crud kerfuffle is when the owner comes and knocks on our door about ten minutes later. He spends a good while hammering on the door before we all finally wake up and Village tumbles out of bed to open up.

‘Right you lot, OUT!’ says the wig wearer without any ceremony at all.

‘What’s the problem chief?’ Village asks.

‘Your mates are animals. One of them has taken a shit in my plant pot, bed and floor leaving me to clean it all up, so the lot of you can just leave, right now!’

‘OK fella but how is his loose bowel movement our problem? I apologise that he is a massive tosser with a dodgy ring piece but really it’s not our fault there’s a grim old mess. I’ve only been in bed for two hours and I need my beauty sleep!’ Village protests.

‘Look I am giving you ten minutes to leave and then I am going to call the cops,’ he snaps and then buggers off.

The three of us get packed to skank off as soon as we can and walk along the hallway to Room #2, the scene of the crime.

The poor owner is down on his hands and knees scrubbing shit off the carpet and walls with a brush and bucket of soapy water. What he is completely unaware of is that flecks of brown watery shite are now stuck to his unconvincing fake mane.

Kid M is droning on to the fella about how Dung is a right prick and well out of order. However he stops well short of actually offering any assistance in the clean-up operation.

I nudge Village and Kid M to craftily point out the poo flakes hanging on to his fake barnet and the three of us are barely able to contain our laughter. I am biting the inside of my mouth so hard to try to stop the giggles that I actually draw blood.

Just as we are all about to explode a young lad of around seven or eight years of age appears in the hallway. Looking down at his father he says ‘Papa you have some on your trousers.’

We all look down and sure enough there is a huge patch of Dung Beetle’s brown do-do now attached to the bottom of his trendy slacks.

This is too much for us to handle, so the three of us leg it down the stairs and out the nearest exit before totally pissing ourselves. Village is near hysterical and will probably need a slap around the face to help him regain control before the yellow stuff flows.

For years to come the words, Wig, Shit, Papa and Trousers will send any one of us into convulsions of laughter.

We finally calm down and take a wild stab in the dark as to where the rest of the crew have ended up and sure enough there they all are in the local bar a few hundred metres up the road.

Although it is not even seven o’clock yet the publican has opened up early for us and the smell of cooked breakfast is in the air. He is even serving up pints of lager to see us all, once again well on the way to Groggsville. Top man, top wages!

Cigarettes are passed around (I still need to go some way to smoke through the carton of 200) as everyone gets to hear about the open sewer that once was Dung’s bed. To this very day he still denies having an accident and insists that he was set up by MI6 or some other shadowy Government body.

Has Dung Beetle’s weak arse pipe got him into further trouble over the years with a huge follow through of hot liquid plop laid in the marital bed not too long ago covering both him and a very unimpressed wife in shite?

You’ll have to ask his wife because I am keeping well schtum. Let’s just say that there was a badly soiled double mattress fly tipped not too far away from their flat recently.

CIGARETTES SMOKED THIS IN CHAPTER: 5…..66 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS AND A FERNET BRANCA

PART THREE: BRIGHTON

Chapter Twenty One: Back to the Present AKA Flab in the Future

Somewhat predictably, as it is now mid-afternoon on Sunday and we have been drinking since the pub opened, the crew is completely mashed.

However the big twist is that we are no longer in 1993 but have leapt forward in time twenty years, back to the present day.

Welcome to the year 2013, a world where people are obsessed with ‘their status’ and with gathering as many online friends as possible, friends they will never actually meet so may as well be imaginary ones.

This is the future, where people name their child Sky, not after the beautiful blue dome above our heads but after the TV channel they were watching when the kid was conceived. Probably the result of a bare back quickie during the advertisement break of an all new show called ‘When Anal Bleaching Goes Wrong!’

In 2013 the machines really have taken over the planet, the internet is king. The majority of ‘The Nation of Idiots’ that we have raised, seem to have a mobile phone constantly fused to their hands 24/7 and are unable to engage in even a simple conversation without reverting to moronic text speak or adding the word ‘like’ to every sentence.

The great unwashed masses continually utter the phrase ‘You know what I’m saying?’ in every sentence they utter. Of course I know what you are saying you huge bell end I do speak the Queen’s English! You don’t need to ask me over and over again.

The words ‘At the end of the day’ are just verbal diarrhoea and you really don’t need to insert this really annoying phrase repeatedly into your conversation, but at the end of the day you can’t blame the children. I blame the parents. What sort of example do we set them?

We are the most selfish, self-absorbed, generation that nature has produced, always looking for ‘Me Time.’ It’s no wonder our children are a dead loss really when we are their role models.

This Sunday afternoon in May 2013 sees ten middle aged men, most of us with kids of our own, hanging around a bar in Brighton getting pissed, when we should be doing ‘family stuff’ like arguing, shouting and swearing at our loved ones.

Our excuse for a day on the beer is that an old school mate is getting married for the second time and this is his stag party. Twenty years ago in 1993, the bright young things we used to be would have been on it for a full weekender. Now all we can manage is one Saturday night out that we spent in a club with a crowd that was at least half our age, looking like a bunch of sad old perverts on a day release from the local nonce prison.

To make me feel even more out of place I ended up wearing another man’s shoes, that were these big pointy things that were as long as a pair of skis. The bouncer on the door to the club had deemed that my shoes that I had on looked too much like a pair of trainers (traineresque, if such a word even exists?) and I was not going to be admitted entrance until another more kindly bouncer took pity on me.

He lent me a spare pair of his own fashionably over long shoes that had unfortunately seen much better days and were curling up at the ends, making them look like they were owned by a court jester or The Genie in the Lamp from Arabian Nights.

I got ribbed remorselessly by the guys and could not even walk about normally in the borrowed shoes as they were far too big like two canoes. I ended up shuffling round the club like an OAP traversing the North Pole on a Zimmer frame.

There comes a point in every geezer’s life where he realises that he is no longer ‘with it’ that his time has come to settle into middle age and that The Grim Reaper is hovering close by. Last night was my moment, standing there in a ridiculous pair of clown shoes thinking ‘Roll on Death.’

To escape the depression, we got up double early this morning on a mission to get upside down just for the sheer hell of it. I always find the Sunday afternoon session the best bit of a stag do anyway as you all laze about reminiscing and telling new stories as you get your beer buzz going.

The ten guys sitting here slowly getting hammered are: Euro, Village, Mule, Burke, Gap, Second Time Stag Boy and four other, new recruits who are various mates/family of the main man.

All of us are now on the wrong side of forty and starting to suffer the ailments of the borderline oldie including:

Weak eyes that require spectacles to correct vision: 4 out of the 10 dudes.

Double chins and Bay windows: 6 out of the 10 dudes.

Hair loss: 5 out of the 10 dudes.

Bald Bastards: 2 out of the 10 dudes.

‘Crows feet’ that are deep enough to use as a magazine rack in which to store copies of HEAT: 3 out of the 10 dudes.

Erectile Dysfunction that needs medication: Don’t know how many out of the 10 dudes. Statistically at least one, but who the fuck is going to admit this to their piss taking friends?

Even with our looks and dress sense fading we all like to think we are all still trendy teenagers acting cool. We are all sure we could pull at the drop of a hat (some hope) but one thing is for sure we all speak the same old bollocks that we always have.

It is a great tale and we all crack up as we sink another pint. Then Mule asks the gang ‘Has anyone seen Deviant recently? I wondered if he’d managed to wank himself to death yet?’

‘You ain’t seen him because he’s inside,’ replies Gap.

‘Inside a sheep?’ laughs Mule.

‘No he’s in the clink, in the nick, locked away at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. He is in prison. He got caught stealing his neighbour’s underwear off her washing line the sick bastard. She complained to the police who went round to Deviant’s house where they found a huge collection of stolen scrundies or nicked knickers if you will. The cops said it was the largest haul of undies ever found in the UK. There were hundreds and hundreds of pairs of them that he had robbed. There was a story in The Currant Bun (Sun) so it must be true. There was a photograph of Deviant in the article as well so I know it was definitely him. It had the word PERVERT in massive letters under his mug shot. It was a work of genius and must be true or they wouldn’t be able to publish it in a newspaper, would they?’

‘What a crock of shit,’ says Mule, ‘Deviant wasn’t that twisted was he?’

‘I’ve got a picture of the newspaper article on my phone and I’ll prove it to you then,’ replies Gap whipping his top of the range mobile phone out with a flourish.

Sure enough, there it is in black and white. Looking at his photograph, Deviant had certainly changed from hunk into chunk over the last two decades. He had got sent down for purloining nearly one thousand pairs of panties from the local community. He was not choosy either, big or small if the undies were there for the taking he would teeth them.

He genuinely was one sick puppy and had been well nicknamed by the posse!

Mule is shocked, ‘That’s the last time I have him round my gaff. Don’t want him going down my wash basket and my wife’s draws ending up in The Deviant Summer/Autumn Pervo Collection ready for sniffing.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that happening mate, he’d be more likely to nick your pants,’ Gap says to start the wind up going, ‘he always did have the glad eye for you fruity fella.’

‘Fuck off! You’re just jealous geezer,’ Mule counters, ‘after all it was your front tooth that he used to wear lovingly around his neck on his chain for years!’

Gap knows he is well beaten and skulks off to chuck a tenner into the fruit machine to end the conversation before his stag do tears are mentioned for about the millionth time in the last twenty years. He may as well sling the cash down the nearest drain but it does save him from getting the inevitable shit ripped out of him yet again, so it’s worth every penny.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 11…..55 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 3 HALF PINTS AND TWO CRABBIES

MY OLD BLADDER CAN NO LONGER HANDLE A HEAVY PINTING SESSION WITHOUT AT LEAST TWENTY TRIPS TO THE BOG!

Chapter Twenty Two: The Stag, his Scrubbers and a Very Bruised Penis

The afternoon in Brighton meanders on for the middle aged crew. Alcohol is consumed and cigarettes smoked but not actually inside the public house of course. This being the year 2013, smokers now have to get up off their arse and walk outside to smoke in designated smoking areas if they feel the need to suck down a tab or two.

Even with this extra enforced exercise the Health Police still have the front to call smokers unfit layabouts, what a bloody liberty!

The lads have got well tucked in and by now the stag is completely off his face. We all know that he is a massive quim hound who just cannot stop chasing skirt. He once told me that he really believed that he had a problem and thought he may be a sex addict.

My advice to him was just three words: Have a wank!

It’s no wonder his first marriage fell apart as he couldn’t keep it in his pants and his ex-wife was nicknamed Margarine because she spread so easily, I guess it was a recipe for disaster really.

When his divorce came through he went off the rails a bit and took six months sabbatical from his job and went off to see a bit of the world and to ‘find himself’.

This just meant dogging it around a lot and sleeping with trashy women across the globe. He has kept his cards pretty close to his chest since he came back but he is seriously drunk now and feels that he needs to unburden himself so he starts to tell us about some of his misadventures:

“I feel that I can really trust you guys so I’m going to tell you about my recent trip. It was amazing. I started in The States, did Route 66 and all that jazz for a few months, then did a month in Oz which was awesome and finally spent ages in Thailand mainly kipping in a hut on the beach doing bugger all. It’s such a spiritual place that I just connected with myself there.

I was in a pretty dark place after my marriage collapsed but soon cheered up in the land of the Thai when I hooked up with some like-minded travellers. We found this amazing brothel down one of the side streets in Bangkok. You were sat at tables facing a small stage that women were paraded around on. You could take your pick and escort them to one of the rooms out the back to get a bit of the old jiggy-jiggy going.

The prostitutes all had these huge badges on them that had a number ranging from one to six followed by a letter from A to F.

It was some kind of complicated pricing system that we never could get our heads around as they seemed to charge whatever they thought you could afford to unload your nut sack.

Me and the guys I was with imagined that the numbers were a rating of prettiness, while the letters were some sort of scale of vaginal tightness.

For instance an ‘A’ rated woman was muscular enough downstairs to fire out ping pong balls or to snap your little pencil in two. A ‘D’ grade pussy was as loose as a wizards sleeve while the ‘F’ rated twat was as tattered as an old wind sock and had had way too much traffic through it.

As for the numbers on the badge how can you rate attractiveness? They say that beauty is in the eye of the beer holder and let me tell you they are not wrong! After all in Thailand one man’s meat is another man’s lady boy!

The hen house was a real depressingly sleazy place and was totally degrading to the women involved. I can honestly say that we only went there for six or seven nights running before we all got bored of it!

I would always go for a 2B (or not 2B that was the question) and hung out of them like a toboggan. When in Rome and all that….

Anyway I got a real taste for whoring which continued when I got home after my trip. I just felt it was too much effort chasing a real woman when you can just pay to off load your dirty water.

I started using this local escort agency that I found online. You selected a hooker you liked the look off on the website, gave them a call and shortly a beautiful brass turned up in lush lingerie, so that you could have your wicked way with her. It was £150 a time well spent.

Like shouting in a takeaway pizza but without all that stuffed crust nonsense. The agency offered a great service, the women turned up I got laid, they got paid and then they went. I started shipping one in on a weekly basis at least.

Often one of the girls would ring me claiming to be ‘in the area’ and wondered if I wanted some company. Late at night after a few bottles of rouge I thought why the devil not? It was kind of like a ‘booty call’ only you had to put your hand in your pocket for it.

However my fuck habit was getting way out of hand. One night one of my regular bits of slap and tickle came round for some horizontal action. Before we got down to it she asked to use the bathroom. ‘No worries,’ I replied ‘but use the toilet in the spare bedroom as the one in the main bathroom is broken.’

To which the prossie replied ‘Bloody hell mate that lavvys been busted for months now. You said you were getting it fixed last time I came round why haven’t you had it sorted yet? Nice house like this you should be looking after it. Get the plumber round tomorrow.’

Fuck me I was getting nagged at by a call girl about domestic chores. I finally realised it was time to get my life back in order. I started using the escort agency less and less. One night the lass who had moaned, about the bog and not my performance, called up to see if she could pop round as she was only down the road.

To get rid of her I told her that I was defrosting my fridge, which thinking about it sounds like a great euphemism for knocking a quick whitey out. It was probably the lamest excuse she had ever heard in her life for not wanting to get laid but the sad thing was it was true.

There was water all over the kitchen floor and I just could not face getting my lug holes nagged off by that escort again.

I decided at that very moment that I may as well get married again and get moaned at by a woman I was actually in a genuine relationship with and not one I was paying to get my ears bent.

So I gave up all my slutting and three months later met my beloved and now can’t wait to get wed all over again.”

After hearing all this old toffee, if second time stag boy had suddenly developed the power to read minds, the exact same thought was going through all the nine lads heads around the table at the same moment, ‘I give your marriage six months tops before it all ends in tears.’

We’ve all met wife number two who is the very definition of ‘high maintenance’: designer frocks, over-priced shoes and no wrinkles on her forehead thanks to her new mate Captain Botox. Once his bank account is bled dry she will be off to the next middle aged sucker.

But who knows, only time will tell if they are happy together, although even the local bookies are only offering twenty to one odds against them lasting a full year of matrimony. Certainly it is worth a punt at that price.

After a short break to breathe in some more nicotine, take a Jimmy Riddle and get yet another round in we move on from a ridiculous conversation about fucking to a fucking ridiculous conversation about having a vasectomy.

Gap had been snipped a week ago and was complaining about how painful it had been. His cock was really bruised up and half of his shaft had gone black.

He did offer to give anyone who was interested a quick peek in the toilets but unsurprisingly no one took him up on his very kind offer. A glimpse of your mates’ ‘Old Bill’ injured or not, is something to avoid at all costs.

Gap was happily banging on about how, once all the swelling had gone down he had to have twenty ejaculations before going back to the quacks to have a sperm test to ensure that the vasectomy had been a success.

As one of the lads kindly pointed out, twenty spunks was at least three years of his sex life with his Mrs so what was the point of getting your ball bags fixed?

During the conversation Village is looking more and more bemused. ‘So when you go back to the Doctor’s what exactly do they test then?’ he asks with a confused look on his mug.

‘What do you mean?’ asks Gap.

‘Well if you have had the snip you don’t spunk any more right?’ Village enquires.

‘There is no more sperm in my jism if that’s what you mean,’ Gap answers.

Village still looks dumb. ‘But I thought that there was no fluid produced at all and that when you came just air flew out of your cock.’

There is a stunned silence from around the table. Nine lads look at each other. Tumble weed drifts slowly across the bar room. In the distance a lone bell tolls sorrowfully.

Then there is a huge eruption of booming laughter.

‘What the fuck planet are you on Village? You really thought that you could spunk air? What is there a loud sound like PHHHHFFFTTTTTT as you come, like an odourless fart? That is the craziest talk I have ever heard. Did you take Biology in school?’

‘I must have been off sick that day,’ moans Village. ‘How was I meant to know what happens? I haven’t had me bollock tubes sliced.’

Gap retorts ‘You could use your common sense. Hang on I’m just wasting my breath here aren’t I?’

One of the boys makes a loud PHHHHFFFTTTTTT noise again followed by a daft looking ‘vinegar strokes’ face and again we all roar with laughter.

That is why Village Idiot Version 2013 at over forty years of age still carries his nickname with pride. He really is as thick as two pieces of shit nailed together. He is as mad as a box full of badgers’ bum holes.

CIGARETTES SMOKED THIS IN CHAPTER: 8…..47 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, A PINOT GRIGIO AND A LONG ISLAND ICED TEA.

PART FOUR: BEXLEY VILLAGE

Chapter Twenty Three: The One Hundred Metre Dildo Relay

With another huge leap, we jump back through time to return to the early nineties on a Sunday afternoon in Amsterdam. The guys from the last chapter instantly regain hair and lose pounds of ugly fat from around the waistlines of their future selves.

Having sat in a bar getting stoned for way too long, the gang are now rushing to catch their plane home that leaves in less than an hour’s time. We’ve managed to grab four cabs that are speeding us towards the airport. It really is ‘touch and go’ if we are going to make it.

We have big plans in place for the stag, Kid J, once we get back to England which will very obviously be knackered if we miss the flight. As the taxi zooms through the city centre someone screams ‘Stop the cab matey! Stop now!’

The driver puts on the anchors and pulls over fearing that one of his passengers is about to spew their ring up. He certainly doesn’t want to be cleaning up someone else’s vomit this early in the day.

He needn’t have worried though as it’s only Kid J who wanted the cab to stop. ‘I’ve forgotten to get a wedding present for the Mrs. She will go bat shit if I don’t bring her something back to give her on our big day. So I’m just going to pop in here.’

Kid J points out of the window at a shop called ‘Pillow Talk’ which advertises itself as ‘Europe’s Largest Warehouse of Sex Toys: Home of The Anal Intruder!’

‘What the fuck are you going to buy for your bride to be in there?’ demands Amnesty. ‘We can’t hang about waiting for you, we’ve got to make tracks or we are going to miss the plane back.’

‘Look I’ll meet you at the airport. I’ll grab another taxi, no worries. I’ve got to get her something, I’m off!’ and with that Kid J darts out the sherbert and into the shop of love toys.

‘Nuts to him then. Come on driver, let’s get to the airport and don’t spare the horses!’ cries Amnesty to the cabbie and we speed off again.

We arrive at the airport with barely minutes to spare, sprint into the terminal and what a surprise, the ‘kin plane is delayed by half an hour. We could have smoked a few more spliffs before flying, thanks for nothing bastard airline!

We get our tickets, go through passport control and wander up to the departure gate. Luckily there is a bar there so we grab some liquid refreshment and smoke hard before we have to catch the plane.

Time slides by way too quickly, it is time to make like a banana and split, yet there is still no sign of Kid J. Other folk start to get on the plane. It is going to be gutting if the stag misses the flight as he is the star of the grand finale we have planned for him back home.

Minutes tick by. Finally an announcement blares out ‘This is the final call for all remaining passengers for Flight Number 69 to London Gatwick. Please go to the boarding gate now as your service is ready to depart.’

It’s now or never for Kid J. It’s time to shit or get off the pot! He is going to miss the plane and the torture planned back on home turf.

All of us grab our bags and make for the gate. We’ve lost one. We are a man down and it is the stag. How we going to explain this to his fiancé?

Suddenly someone yells at the top of their voice ‘Hold that plane, I’m here!’

At the other side of the terminal we can see Kid J come legging it out of the metal detectors at security. In his hands are two of the largest vibrators I have ever seen. One is a bright red colour and the other is transparent with flashing lights inside of it looking like a huge cock lighthouse.

He is holding them above his head and waving them about for all to see. If he smacked someone over the head with one of them he could easily be up on a murder charge.

Judging by the size and girth of them, they are more likely to cause massive internal injuries rather than any kind of sexual fulfilment.

As Kid J runs towards us these two humongous dildos are wobbling all over the shop and we can hear them buzzing happily away, even from where we are standing.

He is running his arse off to get to the gate and looks like the only contestant in some bizarre one hundred metre relay race but instead of batons to pass on to his team mate he has two massive plastic knobs!

In my head time seems to freeze and Kid J appears to be running in ultra-slow motion. His arms are pumping and he is getting his knees up well high just like a sprinter giving it their all.

Time slows down. Kid J’s long brown hair bounces around wildly as his legs power him towards the gate, the plane and home.

He looks like he is in that cool scene in ‘Chariots of Fire’ as all those serious running dudes peg it along the beach, but obviously without two massive wobbly plastic cocks in tow.

I start to hum the theme tune from the film out loud. It’s a classic.

I can’t write sheet music at all, but you know the song I mean. It’s a fantastic piece of stirring notes that really gets the heart going as it builds to an amazing crescendo of sound. Mr Bean played it with one finger at The Olympics 2012 Opening Ceremony.

Other lads hear what I am humming and they start up as well. We sound like the most crap choir in town who have forgotten the words to the tune but we get louder and louder as Kid J legs it towards us.

He is proper going for it but on hearing the tune we are humming he slows down and runs in ultra-slow motion like he has suddenly beamed up to the moon where he is legging it, through less gravity. He looks like he is running in treacle as his arms and legs move through the air.

It is at that second that Kid J gains the nick-name Chariots. As he reaches us we break into a huge round of applause. What an entrance, beat that!

We overhear a small lad nervously ask his dad standing nearby ‘Daddy why does that man have two big plastic willies in his hands?’

The father gives the standard and in this case very appropriate answer of ‘Go and ask your Mother!’

The two vibrators up close are just obscenely big. Surely more useful to give pleasure to a horse or an elephant and not to re-bore Chariot’s dearly intended.

Amnesty takes one look at them and says ‘Chariots please tell me those dildos are not your fiancé’s wedding present. You can’t give them to her in front of her Mum. That’s just not correct.’

‘Yep they sure are,’ replies Chariots wearing a big shit eating grin. ‘One up the front bum and one up the back door. She will love these Furburger Helpers! I’m telling you she’s got an elastic arsehole.’

Amnesty replies wearily ‘Fuck me fella are you sure that she wouldn’t have preferred some nice perfume or some chocolates?’

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 11…..36 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, A LAMBRUSCO AND A SHERRY

Chapter Twenty Four: Why I Hate Flying with Chewing Gum Cocks

The fourteen of us make it on to the flight home from Holland, but only just. We are the last ones to board and everyone on the plane gives us the daggers for making them all wait.

We march down the aisle trying to find odd empty seats left available next to sober upstanding members of the general public. The other passengers are not happy that they have been sitting here waiting for a rabble of pissed up tossers to arrive.

Needless to say we are all well mashed up. Kid M in particular is drunk and I mean rock and roll star drunk. If he had a car (which he doesn’t) and a swimming pool (which he definitely doesn’t) he would be driving one into the other in a Keith Moon stylie.

It is a miracle that he has even been allowed to fly as he is in a right state, totally off his rocker. He has been smoking some mad gear called ‘The Widowmaker’ and it has turned his brain to mush.

For some reason he believes we have been to Dublin all weekend. Why he has this notion is well beyond anyone, he is currently living on his own inebriated planet. He keeps yelling at the top of his lungs ‘There’s more to Ireland than this!’

He then randomly screams out famous Irish pop bands like ‘U2! Daniel O’Donnell!’ Then he falls silent for a few minutes until he starts all over again.

Kid M has found a seat at the front of the aircraft next to an elderly couple who are particularly unimpressed. He is shaking like a shitting dog and yelling out random crap as if he has got a terrible case of Tourettes Syndrome.

The old crumblies look away and suddenly find something of great interest to read inside the in-flight magazine, probably an article about fisting on the French Riviera.

I am seated at the very back of the plane and can clearly hear Kid M shouting out, ‘Thin Lizzy! The Dubliners!’

Then a pause as he takes a breath followed by ‘There’s more to Ireland than this! The NEW Dubliners!’

This is hilarious, to absolutely no one else on the aeroplane but to us idiots. Kid M is now interrupting the safety demonstration that the cabin crew are giving. You know what I mean that pre-flight talk when they tell you about how you can survive a crash by adopting the brace position. What a load of old scrotum.

Believe me this pose will just break your neck quickly in a real smash ending your suffering right quick, after plunging thousands of feet at hideous speeds. My favourite line of the presentation is when they say ‘in the event of landing on water’ like it is a perfectly natural place for a plane to end up.

They should say ‘in the event of landing on water, you are fucked because this baby is going to sink like a stone. Unless you can hold your breath for a few hours it’s game over!’

You cannot hear a word the ‘air grumble’ is saying over the cries of: ‘The Boomtown Rats! Clannad! Riverdance!’

The trolley dolly has had enough and half way through her spiel about emergency exits she approaches Kid M to tell him to shut his gob. She even says that she will have him removed from the flight, but it is a pretty empty threat as we are now on the runway starting our take off.

This is the part I hate. The acceleration of the plane bombing along the tarmac and somehow getting off the ground into the air makes my insides go all watery. It just seems unnatural that a machine weighing several tons can escape gravity and get up into the sky. It scares the pants off me.

I have the fear and sit their gripping the armrests of my chair as if that will somehow help the pilot get airborne. I am in a cold sweat and even feel I have sobered up a bit which is not a good thing as I have invested so much cash this afternoon to get out of my box.

Suddenly Kid M starts up again ‘There’s more to Oireland dan dis!’ he shouts in a terrible fake Irish accent. ‘Dana! Saint Bob Geldof! Boys II Men!’

He is so wrecked he means Boyzone or Westlife, but what the fuck it has us all in hysterics giggling like a load of school girls on a mad acid trip.

Kid M is awarded the nick name ‘Paddy’ for his sterling work promoting Irish pop culture and could easily get a job on their tourist board or some such if he wanted.

After a few more random shout-outs, my favourite being ‘Do you like dags?’ by which I assume he means dogs and not the rank sweat stains you get under the armpits of your shirts. Paddy soon runs out of steam, his batteries have emptied it’s time for a recharge.

Christ knows what is flowing in Paddy’s veins but he crashes right out and is deep asleep. It is time for us to get our revenge on the noisy little bleeder, but more on that later…

As I have said previously in this book I fucking hate flying, always have and always will. My fear of aeroplanes does not stop me getting on one to go on holiday or on the piss for a weekender but I do get right anxious about the whole experience. I am bobbing myself from the moment I arrive at the airport and after spending the whole flight touching cloth it is only as we touch down at our destination that I start to relax.

I blame my terror of flight on an overactive imagination. You honestly won’t believe the crazy shit that I stew over as I sit in a cramped seat thousands of feet above the ground travelling at hundreds of miles an hour biting my nails down to the quick.

I panic that a meteorite will plunge through the atmosphere and hit the fuselage causing a huge tear in the hull of the aircraft which will suck passengers out still attached to their row of chairs hurling them towards the ground to their certain doom. I wonder whether you would freeze to death first or if it would be the impact that would kill you? I guess either way you are fucked and if this does happen no one survives to tell the tale anyhow.

I then worry about when the plane was last checked over by the airlines maintenance guys. Was the team thorough enough in their testing or was it Friday afternoon just as the pub was calling so checks were rushed or forgotten completely?

How about a lightning strike or clean air turbulence? I have heard about planes suddenly dropping thousands of feet and passengers who were not buckled in to their seats breaking their necks or backs as they hit the ceiling. In my head snowstorms, random clouds and even a light drizzle of rain can bring a jet down, no sweat.

Flying over The Bermuda Triangle is obviously also a concern. Hundreds of flights have gone missing in this part of the world. Although even I do not ponder over this too much on a pan-European trip as we are miles away and going nowhere near the place. You never know though as the plane may end up getting diverted there for some obscure reason, so I can never scrub this worry fully off my ‘shitting myself list.’

I am also ‘crapping it’ about engine failure from a bird strike, pilot error, a total loss of hydraulic power and whether there is enough fuel in the tanks? Even when I hear the ping of someone’s call button my guts start spinning around like a butter churn full of shite.

Every time the pilot puts on the seat belt sign I convince myself that major trouble is in store. The captain is telling us over the Tannoy that we will soon be flying through minor turbulence and it is nothing to be worried about but I know that in reality we are going down quicker than a five dollar whore.

Don’t even mention Hijack or terrorism to me but I always cast a good eye over my fellow travellers on board just in case, reassuring myself that I could spot a nasty bastard at ten paces and would ‘hero up’ if need be to prevent a catastrophe. In reality I wouldn’t, I would just sit there quietly filling up my underpants.

I also dread alien beings in a UFO abducting the pilots in mid-air thus bringing the plane down. I definitely saw this in an episode of The X Files which as everyone knows are based on true stories. I admit this could have just been some weird old reefer induced dream I once had though and is pretty unlikely to really happen, but you never know.

My fears of being airborne have only been reinforced by Hollywood. As special effects get better and better the aeroplane crashes in the movies get ultra-realistic and totally believable. The graphic sounds, images, smashed up body parts, twisted metal and massive explosions make my arse go well slack. Watching these films, it is almost like you are a passenger on board and on your way to an urgent appointment with The Reaper of Grimness.

If they wanted to totally terrify the entire plane during a flight they should just serve up the following films on a continuous loop to all the lowlife in cattle class:

1] Final Destination. The plane becomes a huge fireball, it’s never explained why, it just does. Death by melting!

2] Die Hard 2. The baddies reset sea level by two hundred feet on the radar so as the aircraft comes in to land they are way too low and hits the deck like a blue bottle fly hitting your windscreen. Big Boom! Dental records required for body identification.

3] Fight Club. Two planes into the same air space do not go. It’s a long way down if you have not packed a parachute. Night, night!

4] Cast Away. Plane comes down in a hurricane and you end up the sole survivor on a desert island with only a volley ball to converse with. This would probably be preferable to being stuck with some of the riff raff they allow on planes today. DIY dentistry with the blade from an ice skate is also available.

5] Alive. Proof, if you need any, that you cannot fly a plane when the fucking tail has come off it after hitting a mountain in The Andes. This movie is based on a true story so is even more distressing as they have no food left and have to chow down on the corpses of their friends. Bet it tasted better than a horsemeat burger.

6] Fearless. Plane comes down well hard. If Jeff Bridges touched your shoulder as he wandered through the cabin before the crash you survived. If not, you are well over cooked and crispy by now. You will not be able to have an open coffin at your funeral.

7] Knowing. Aircraft added to overhead power lines gives you bad CGI fires. This movie has got great sound effects of tearing metal and a well mangled up airframe to recommend this scene to the discerning lover of air crash porn.

8] The Grey. An arty crash sequence but still shit me up, where has the side of the plane gone? Survivors end up as wolf tucker.

Hopefully after reading all this old tosh about my flying fears, I have somehow managed to infect you with my concerns then I won’t be the only prat hyper-ventilating during the next flight I have to take. Enjoy! Welcome aboard Flight Paranoia.

And so the time has come for us to teach dear old Paddy a lesson. He has been silent for at least ten minutes now, deep asleep due to all the illicit substances he has snuffled up.

Revenge will be ours. Amnesty has a big pack of chewing gum which he has been dishing out to all the lads sitting around the plane.

Everyone is chewing away like a cow chomping down on some cud. Amnesty has told us all to mould little cock and bollocks out of the gum which we will then stick on to Paddy’s face.

It is a military operation. One at a time we go into stealth mode and creep up the aisle to where Paddy is giving it some pretty major Z time. Then as quietly as possible we affix the penis of chewy onto Paddy’s boat race.

Somehow we manage not to wake him as it is a real effort not to scream with laughter at the sleeping simpleton, as he looks well funny with a face covered in tiny nobs.

By the time we have all paid him a visit, Paddy looks like that Pinhead demon creature in the Hellraiser flicks but with miniature meat and two veg all over him, not razor sharp pins.

He has become a living breathing work of modern art, we could string him up in The Tate and all retire on the dosh we would be paid for our handiwork.

People are walking down the plane to point and chuckle at the comatose chap with a canister covered in chewing gum cocks.

It is brilliant. Even the cabin crew come along and take photographs of the buffoon to show to their mates. They love it and ship us in some free tinnies of lager to thank us for cutting the gobby tosser down to size.

Paddy is snoring away still in blissful ignorance of the fact that he has a face full of mini man meat models. A legend is made, a star is born.

Unfortunately the peace and quiet does not last long. Soon the beast awakens and he is not happy. We can see Paddy pulling off all the gum-nadgers off his face. In his drunken state he has managed to get some of the sticky stuff stuck in his Barnet and he is going spare.

Paddy repeatedly buzzes the call button above his seat and is asking the two old biddies next to him if they know who did this to him. The pair of them cop a deaf ‘un and want no part of it. The coffin dodgers stare out the window wishing they were sitting anywhere else on the plane and wondering why they always end up lumbered with a head case in their row. They decide that they are going to fly club class next time to avoid the pond life scum you get seated in economy.

Finally one of the air stewardesses reaches Paddy’s seat and ask him what the problem is. He then has the audacity to blame her for the penile protuberances that have mysteriously appeared while he slept. He is really going into one asking why she stuck the crud all over his face and that he wants to talk to the pilot and/or his local Member of Parliament to put a strongly worded complaint in.

The poor woman is desperately trying to calm Paddy down apologising for the incident and asking him if he would like some free coffee to sober him up.

He then starts demanding his membership of The Mile High Club which he swears blind was promised to him when he booked his ticket. ‘Come on Air Bint how about a quick knee trembler in the bog? You know you want to, you dirty slag!’ he shouts.

That’s it. The air stewardess has had enough and she slaps Paddy around the face with an open hand, hard! It is a beauty of a smack as we all heard it from our seats way at the back of the plane. Serves him right, she should have just opened the door and flung him out to his doom.

She storms off leaving Paddy sitting there with the perfect imprint of her hand in red etched on his cheek. Bet that stung like fuck. He doesn’t seem in the least bit bothered by the slap and sits there grinning away like an imbecile.

All the other passengers around him are stunned into silence and all look away not wanting to catch the mad man’s eyes. You could hear a pin drop through the aircraft until the old broken record starts up again with a yell of:

‘THERE’S MORE TO IRELAND THAN THIS!!!!’

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER…..NOT ONE………IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOU COULD LEGALLY SMOKE ON A PLANE AND JOIN THE ELITE RANKS OF THE ‘MILE HIGH TAB CLUB’…………………..…36 TO GO.

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 3 MINIATURE BOTTLES OF TIA MARIA…..REMEMBER THE RULES….ON A FLIGHT DON’T DIE SOBER.

Chapter Twenty Five: A Quick Nightcap, I mean Recap.

As we have now rechristened all our barmy band of hard smoking and binge drinking bastards here is a quick recap of who is who:

Kid A: Deviant

Kid B: Amnesty

Kid C: Village Idiot

Kid D: Euro Boy [Stag of Edinburgh Trip AKA Your Narrator]

Kid E: Mule

Kid F: Burke

Kid G: Gap

Kid H: Hit

Kid I: Run

Kid J: Chariots [Stag of Amsterdam Trip]

Kid K: Light [or was it Weight?]

Kid L: Dung Beetle

Kid M: Paddy

Kid N: Weight [or was it Light?]

All these lads were given perfectly acceptable names by their parents at birth, but I’m buggered if I can actually remember any of them now. Their legends live on……

Chapter Twenty Six: The Luggage Carousel of Doom

‘Thank you for flying flight 69 from Amsterdam. Welcome to London Gatwick, where the temperature is sub-zero, it is pissing down with rain and the local time is 5:25 PM.’

Arse! It’s Sunday evening and the pubs turf you out at ten thirty. That means I have less than five hours to puff my way through the remaining thirty six smokes.

I calculate my FPH speed (that’s Fags Per Hour) is about seven or approximately one cigarette every eight minutes. That should be a breeze or should I say a huge nicotine cumulus cloud of gas to inhale. But I am going to do it!

What started as some macho bet has now become a matter of family pride. I will get through that carton of ciggies if it’s the last thing that I do. I’ve always wanted lungs as knackered as a 1920’s coal miner or a 1950’s asbestos worker and finally my wish is coming true.

I am wheezing away like a ninety year old codger trudging down the local high street through a snow storm to collect his pension from the post office.

They say that over indulgence is a great way to finally stop smoking and I could not agree more. It is lucky that the same principle does not apply to alcoholic bevvies otherwise I would be a tee total by now!

The plane finally lands, taxis to the gate and comes to a stop. The front door is opened and we all troop down to baggage reclaim to grab our bags. My pooper stops going ten to the dozen and my heart rate goes back down to normal now I am off that aluminium flying bird in one piece. I light up a cigarette to chill me out.

We get to the reclaim area and are prepared for the usual lengthy wait for our luggage to appear. All the lads around me are bored already and have started arsing about.

Chariots has his two giant vibrators out again which are merrily buzzing away, waiting for the moment when they will be shoved somewhere that the sun does not shine.

Amnesty and Deviant are giving some Doris standing near them the glad eye. Hit and Run are playing ‘Penny up the Wall’ together, gambling the minutes away until hopefully our bags appear. Unless of course they have ended up anywhere else on the planet but where they are meant to be. This is a distinct possibility.

Village Idiot and Mule are well pissed up, having spent the flight quaffing mini bottles of champagne and are now play fighting, acting out the final scene of The Karate Kid. One of them stands on one leg while shouting out ‘Wax on! Wax off!’ and then does a high flying kick that narrowly misses the balls/gut/throat/moosh of the other fighter.

This is not a sensible course of action as they are both well bandy and there is a great chance that claret will be spilt. Although a spray of arterial blood will certainly liven up a well dull wait for the luggage carousel to start up so we leave them to it.

After I have sucked through two more smokes the thing finally grinds into life and the belt starts going around but without one single item of baggage on it. Folks start to crowd around hoping that their bags will appear first, so they can get home.

The carousel is a huge oval shape that goes around the hall and then disappears beneath strips of plastic that look like a huge jelly fish has been stuck to the doorframe leading out to the loading area behind. This plastic stuff stops you peeking out at the room where the baggage handlers stand around scratching their back sides, reading newspapers and generally doing anything but unloading the suitcases awaiting collection.

(Dear reader I don’t mean to be condescending by explaining to you what a luggage carousel is. I am sure the vast majority of you are well travelled intelligent individuals. I have put this paragraph in for the plebeians who have never boarded an aircraft before and think that I am talking about a funfair carousel for kids. They are expecting some garishly painted horses to appear in this tale instead of suitcases and for that horrendous pipe music to start up that goes on until you want to rip your own ears off!)

Occasionally a lonely bag does travel around the carousel until someone claims it or it disappears out the back again to then return, minutes later for another victory lap.

Mule and Village are getting well close to the belt now and their fight has become serious. They are doing some mad karate moves both of them looking like Bruce Lee if he had been on a twenty-pies-a-day diet. Suddenly Mule does a crazy two footed flying kick that smashes into Villages mid-riff sending him through the air to crash down onto the baggage carousel.

Due to the fact that Village is hammered and that the belt is moving a furious rate of knots he cannot seem to get off of it.

His legs are hanging over the side and the people gathered around the carousel waiting in vain for their suitcases all have to take evasive action to avoid getting booted.

‘Sluts!’ Village yells as he passes the other passengers by. ‘Help me you sluts!’ He is really struggling to get off but the belt sends him round the hall and through the plastic covering out to the loading room at the back.

As Village appears sitting on the belt, one of the baggage handlers exclaims ‘What the fuck are you doing out here mate? This is a restricted area. You can’t be out here. I’m calling security.’

Village does not hear a word of it but unbelievably spots his bag on the trolley that the guys are just starting to unload.

‘I say old bean,’ the Village Idiot utters in a plummy English accent, ‘would one of you kind fellows mind passing me that grey sports bag over there? It’s the one with the words VILLAGE IS A CUNT written on it in black marker pen.’

The handler man is so shocked that he hands Village his bag as he trundles past on the belt. As he reappears through the plastic sheeting into the reclaim hall he lifts his bag skywards like he is holding up the World Cup or something and shouts ‘The self-service baggage collection carousel is now open!!’

He travels around on the belt proudly showing the crowd the cuss word written on his bag to where we are standing and we help him off almost uncontrollable with laughter.

Only Village could pull a stunt like that without getting a punch and/or getting arrested. He opens up his bag, pulls out a huge bottle of vodka which he unscrews and swigs down his gullet. ‘Come on lads, let’s get loudy!’ he screams as we all pass his booze around necking it furiously.

All our bags eventually turn up so we head through to customs. It is then that I realise that I still have two poly bags full of cannabis in my pocket. I meant to smoke it all before we got on the plane but in the mad rush to the airport and all that Chariots buffoonery I completely forgot about them. It is too late to bin them now I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed I don’t get caught.

As we walk towards the ‘Nothing to Declare’ channel I totally start to brick myself. Even though I only have an eighth of gear or less on me, I imagine getting caught and banged up in some shit-hole prison like in Midnight Express. All I would have in my future would be a life sentence of arse rape, chivvings with sharpened up tooth brushes and a shower room far worse than the one at school or in the kebab house of Amsterdam.

Let’s face it though with this quantity in my pocket I am hardly some international drugs baron like top man Howard Marks!

I break into a sweat. My under arms gush like Niagara Falls as my face goes all shiny and moon like. Quite simply I look as guilty as a motherfucker. I pray that there are no customs officers on duty but some hope, as we turn the corner there are tons of the uniformed bastards waiting there but luckily no sniffer dogs.

I am convinced I am going to get a tug. If only I had a pair of Mule’s patented Puff Pants on, I’d be on easy street.

I walk nervously through customs. Luckily Village is a few steps behind me and still tucking into his open bottle of vodka.

I hear the words ‘Excuse me sir’ and turn around slowly bricking myself, sure that the officer is talking to me. This bloke has got built in X-Ray eyes and has spotted the two bags of dope in my pocket. This is it. Criminal Record Time!

But as I look around it is not me the fella is talking to but it is Village copping the grief.

‘Excuse me sir you can’t drink that in here. Can you come with me please sir’ the customs cat demands. It’s then that he clocks Village’s graffiti’ed up sports bag. ‘I also understand that you took a little ride on our carousel recently sir.’

What a touch. Village is finally getting his comeuppance. Hopefully the full rubber glove strip search of his anal chuff piece that he is sure to receive will teach him a lesson. Mind you he will probably enjoy it and ask for seconds.

Village gets whisked away into one of the interrogation rooms out back to await his fate while the rest of us make a swift exit.

We join the cab rank outside to grab some sherberts home have a couple of fags and roll up a couple of bomber joints for the journey. We’ve still got one last big night ahead of us.

Next stop the nuclear sub, a lamp post and a humiliated naked stag itching away like a dog with a bad case of fleas.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER 9…..27 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: COUPLE OF BIG SWIGS OF VODKA

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Stinging Ring of Exhibition Arse

It’s not long until we reach the front of the queue and we all pile into cabs destined for the local.

I end up sharing with Deviant, Amnesty and Mule, which is a real pisser as they normally all pretend to be skint leaving me mugged up to pay the entire fare.

‘Where do you want to go to guys?’ asks the cab driver.

‘Bexley Village, Kent please mate,’ replies Amnesty Boy.

The four of us must stink of marijuana smoke and have the vacant glassy eyed stare of the perpetually stoned because the driver then says ‘Been to the Dam for a weekender by any chance lads? Had a couple of days of pussy, puff and premium lager? Good on ya.’

‘How did you guess where we’d been?’ wonders Deviant. ‘Do you pick up a lot from the airport and get a feeling as to where your passengers have been?’

‘Don’t be daft my friend. I’m not psychic. I read the labels on your bags that said Schipol Airport. It weren’t just a stab in the dark.’

‘Nice one,’ replies Deviant. He then goes on to ask the most dumb rhetorical question that everyone asks a cab driver ‘Have you been busy today driver?’

Why do people bother to ask a cabbie this? You already know the answer you are going to get. It’s totally pointless and like asking any sane bloke if he enjoys getting a blow job.

Of course your cab driver has been busy because he has spent all day ferrying around the dregs of society who are either, too poor, too old, too stupid or too intoxicated to be in control of their own motor vehicle.

Everyone knows cabbies well coin it in. They only moan that times are hard because they worry that you might be the tax man sticking your beak into their cash-in-hand, paying the minimum amount of tax possible, huge income. I’ve never met a skint cabbie. Good on them though would you want members of the dim general public fouling up your jam jar? No thank you.

Finally someone asks the drive a sensible question. ‘Dude I see the No Smoking sign there but any chance of us sparking up, I’m dying here?’

‘Sure thing, just don’t burn the upholstery as I’m only renting the cab. Also if you want to smoke the gear that you accidently left in your pocket from Amsterdam that’s not a problem. Only rule is that you skin me up a fat one as my tip so I can have a puff when I get home.’

Result! Lighters appear and we smoke through the ready rolled jays. This is shaping up to be the best cab ride ever, as I sit here buzzing off my tits as we cruise around the M25 which amazingly isn’t just one huge car park today.

The journey home is the bittersweet part of any stag do. You don’t want the weekend to finish but you are well looking forward to sleeping in your own bed. You know that you have one last night of debauchery followed by what is sure to be the Monday morning from hell.

Getting out of your pit on Monday to go into work is bad enough but when you have a mega hangover and feel like a bag of washing it’s even worse.

The sensible stag attendee will always book the next day off as holiday from his no mark job and stays suffering in his pit all day.

But after the weekend we’ve just had the pain is worth it. Legends have been created and we have all survived more or less intact, well minus some ball bag juice.

We’ve also had a few scrapes with the law. In fact Village is, at this very moment, getting a free prostate examination from the customs officer that he’s upset. Then again at least he acted as a decoy for me the ace drugs smuggler. He is taking one for the team and apart from his wrecked rectal hole, there’s no real harm done.

The miles fly by and we are nearly at our grand finale. Mule pipes up with the following story to pass the time:

‘Guys I had to go to Hannover for a week recently to some boring trade show. Me and one of the other sales guys I work with Dan went there to flog our shonky wares to unsuspecting European mug punters.

It was well dull. The exhibition was absolutely massive, halls and halls of dull engineering bollocks really. I spent most of the day walking miles to get to a client’s stand only to find that the person I wanted to talk to was not there but would maybe appear later.

I covered miles wandering around trying to look busy and praying for 5 o’clock to roll around so we could go out on the piss and visit the nearest girly bar. Anyway after a few days Dan started to suffer from an ailment known in the sales trade as Exhibition Arse.

This is caused by having a sweaty old bum crevice from too much walking around and being entertained on stands that are boiling hot making you over perspire a small river. Basically your ring piece gets well sore making you walk about like John Wayne after riding his horse for two weeks straight.

There is no escape from Exhibition Arse once your chocolate starfish goes red you are on a one way trip to Pain City Central. It really is no laughing matter, but as it was Dan who had it and not me, it was fucking hilarious. Dan’s arsehole was so inflamed it looked like a blood orange.

He was suffering and we still had two more days at the show. As we were in Germany there was no chance that he would be able to communicate with the Fraulein in the local pharmacy that his anus was alight and could he have some sort of soothing balm to cure it.

That evening we returned to the hotel where Dan and I were sharing a room because our boss was too tight to weigh out for one room each. I jumped straight in the shower as I was keen to get away from his constant complaints about his chapped cat flap.

As I came out the bathroom Dan was bent over his bed stark bollock naked trying to open his arse cheeks with one hand and apply some Lypsil he had found to his sore tea towel holder with the other.

It was priceless. He was almost in tears of agony and was trying to soothe his red hot Khyper Pass with a chap stick. He was mortified that he had been caught red ring handed.

Promise me that you will never tell anyone about this moment he begged. But deep down he knew he was fucked. It was just too funny a story to keep under wraps. Inevitably the tale went round the office like wild fire.

Dan is now known at work as Flag for having a ring piece that looked like the Japanese flag. He is a top bloke, love him like a brother but just don’t ever ask to borrow his lip balm!’

Sitting in the cab stoned out of our minds this tale makes us piss ourselves with laughter and we all start shouting out ‘FFFFLLLLAAAAAAAAGGGGG!!!!!!’

Even the cabbie has a giggle, probably because he gets a sweaty Arris from sitting down all day driving. Maybe Exhibition Arse is known as Cab Crack in his profession.

To be honest I don’t know if Cab Crack even exists all I know is that I never want to catch it!

At last we pull up outside the local drinker. Our story is reaching its end. It’s time for Chariots to start taking the heat.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 10…..17 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: NOTHING…..THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Stags Gone All Blotchy

As the four of us enter the rub-a-dub-dub we see that The B Team have assembled en masse to witness the ritual humiliation of our stag, Chariots.

Various brothers, cousins, assorted in-laws and mates of the soon to be chained up are all present and correct. Colleagues from his work are also there to ensure that the tale gets told during the hum drum of the nine to five. There will be nowhere to hide from the shame.

One guy Stiffy has also turned up. (He is not nicknamed for the fact that he has permanently got a hard on but because he once tried to claim expenses for a lunch with a client who had died two weeks before. He got found out and sacked by his boss who had actually attended the poor fella’s funeral. Oh well shit happens.)

Even Chariots fiancé is there and she can’t wait to see her man finally get what he’s been due all these years. She really wants him to be embarrassed in public and has brought along some itching powder to totally knacker him.

‘He’s allergic to this stuff,’ she whispers handing the powder over to me. ‘Be sure to throw it all over him,’ she says pointing down at her crotch and giving me a huge theatrical style wink. What an evil cow. I wonder what sorrows married life holds in store for Chariots?

The second cab full of stags appears with roars of ‘Oi Oi Saveloy!!!’ and ‘What’s Benning?’ The pub becomes a sea of smiling faces, bear hugs and high fives. The atmosphere is electric like being in a crowd before a boxing match (EUUUUUUBANK!) or an Oasis gig (Noel! Liam!) Everyone is on a booze fuelled high knowing that the main event is now just minutes away.

Oily rags (fags) get smoked and pints swiftly despatched until the man of the hour, Chariots saunters into the juicer.

As soon as he sees the full herd gathered he knows that his luck has run out and that he is cattle trucked. His confident smile vanishes and he tries to run out the door and escape his fate but the crowd is far too quick for him.

He is grabbed and frog marched up to the bar where he is made to down three shots of Sambuca.

Gap has designated himself the ring leader of tonight’s extravaganza and says to Chariots: ‘There is an easy way and a hard way to do this. You can do as you are told or we will make you do it. There are enough of us and only one of you so make a choice bro. Get your kit off now!’

Chariots is well aware that he is beaten and starts taking all his clothes off. He undresses until all he has left on are his underpants.

‘The lot!’ demands Gap.

‘Come off it mate,’ pleads the stag.

Gap relents ‘OK fair enough, take your boxers off and I’ll give you this to wear instead.’ He takes a long white sports sock out of the bag he is holding.

‘That’s all you are allowed to have on and no arguments.’ Chariots removes his boxers and pulls the sock on over his cock. He stands in the centre of the pub looking like a right prat as the gang takes pictures of the naked lad with just a sock to cover up his nether region.

‘Put these on your feet as well stag boy,’ says Gap handing over two bright pink marigold gloves. He slips them on his plates of meat and Chariots now looks like some crazed human penguin hybrid creature.

‘Where’s your suitcase fella?’ enquires Gap of the distraught stag.

‘Over in the corner,’ comes Chariots half-hearted reply, he knows what’s coming next.

‘Mule can you go and get them two vibrators out of his bag mate.’ Mule whips the dildo’s out, turns them on and Gap gaffer tapes them to Chariots hands.

‘You better not have bought those for me you filthy fucker!’ bellows his Fiancé. ‘What do you think I am some sort of dirty whore? You cheap shit you know I wanted some nice perfume!’

She has got the steaming hump. At this point one of the lads from the stag do helpfully pipes up ‘He said you had an elastic arsehole, love.’

That is it the final straw, the camel’s back is broken. She goes into meltdown and punches Chariots in the face then knees him in the balls just for good measure. He goes down like a ton of rhino shite. The pub roars with guffaws.

His stag humiliation has barely even started yet and already he is on his knees.

As we have taped the dildo’s to Chariots hands creating fists with cocks protruding from them, he is having a real struggle to get back on his feet until one of the crew lifts him up. He really looks like a broken man so our mission so far is a success.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen it’s tattoo time!’ shrieks Gap clearly enjoying his role as chief stag tormenter. He grabs a load of black marker pens from out of his bag. ‘If anyone wants to make their mark on Chariots’ rather athletic body, now is your chance.’

Folks step up to take pens and then cover Chariots in all kinds of offensive shit. He has a large W with an anchor underneath drawn on each of his forearms (did you crack the code W-Anchor…Wanker).

Bolts are sketched on either side of his neck. Massive tits are etched on his chest and knobs of all sizes with dribbles of semen flying from them are scrawled everywhere. A hinge adorns each elbow and the most colourful words in the English language cover his body.

Chariots has become one massive lexicon of very rude words, almost an illustrated dictionary of the sex act. This has all been drawn on him in permanent ink meaning it will take weeks of showers until he can remove all the evidence.

Some wicked sod has even coloured the insides of his ears in with one of the marker pens, let me tell you that ain’t ever coming off! It is no surprise that Chariots is starting to get the right royal hump by now and throws a big hissy fit when Gap utters one word ‘Outside!’

He starts lashing out with his dildo hands at anyone who dares to come anywhere near him. He does not want to be out in the street looking like this that’s for sure. People back away from him knowing if they take a whack from one of those big buzzing bastards it could take their head clean off.

It is at this very moment that The Village Idiot makes his late entrance into the juicer and instantly catches a slashing vibrator right on the end of his beak. Blood flows quickly from his conk ruining his white shirt. It certainly is a case of assault with a deadly wobbly fake nadger. Add this incident to the shame of having a customs officers’ digit up his dung hole earlier and that makes for a pretty cruddy day in anyone’s books.

Village’s bloody nose is just the distraction the gang needed and now Chariots is being hustled out of the ‘near and far.’ Across the street there is a conveniently place lamp post that Chariots is swiftly and securely attached to with a load of cable ties.

He is going nowhere fast, standing there with his cock sock, pub tatts and rubber glove feet he certainly is a sight. Finally the ‘piece de resistance’ gets whipped out, the itching powder.

Chariots face is a picture of abject terror. ‘Please geezer not that stuff. I’ve got a massive allergy to that shit. It well fucks my skin up.’ His begging gets him no mercy. The itching powder is thrown all over his chest, legs and ball bags. It is well sadistic but seeing him trying to scratch his bollocks with his plastic penis hands is just all wrong.

The skin on his chest has gone all blotchy and looks like it itches worse than a hooker with saddle sores. Our Chariots must have been a very naughty boy in a past life because ‘what goes around, comes around’ as they say.

‘You utter, utter bastards!’ Chariots is yelling. ‘Let me go! I don’t want to be the stag anymore. The wedding is off! I thought you lot were my friends.’

‘What can I say Chariots?’ Gap retorts. ‘You trusted us, you fucked up!’

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 7…..10 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, A SHERRY, A SNAKEBITE AND BLACK

Chapter Twenty Nine: A Tiny Cock Causes a Huge Collision

The lamp post that Chariots is attached to can be found along Bexley High Street in Kent opposite the pub full of grinning lunatics and next to a mini roundabout with three junctions.

This roundabout is a well-known traffic hotspot. It is a really tight turn that buses and lorries always have a right torrid time of getting around in one piece.

Even cars regularly have nears misses on it with daft folks being too easily confused about who actually has the right of way. To all you dumb mo’fo’s out there with no concept of The Highway Code you have to give way to the vehicle on your right!!!

Any road, with Chariots making such a spectacle of himself, the traffic soon starts to back up along the High Street and into Bourne Road.

People in cars slow down to laugh at the state that Chariots is in and helpfully shout abuse at him. The audience in the pub love it. All standing there in the warmth of the bar, with a pint in one hand and a fag in the other giggling their holes off, it’s better entertainment than when the footy is shown on the big screen TV’s.

Chariots on the other side of the road is not a happy chappy. He writhes around trying to get free but the cable ties are holding him firm.

An old boy walks along the pavement with his dog who decides to approach Chariots to have a damn good sniff. (The dog does the smelling NOT the old crumbly obviously!)

The dog pushes his snout up into his crotch like he has some obsession with whiffing cheese. He keeps nipping at the sock dangling down off of Chariots Old Bill as his owner tugs on the lead pulling the animal away.

Suddenly the dog lunges forward and bites the sock, tugging it off to reveal Chariots wee small tadger to the whole world. He is standing there naked as the day he was born, apart from the rubber gloves on his plates.

The pub goes berserk, we could not have planned it any better. The comments come thick and fast:

‘Look, it’s like a nob but smaller!’

‘HELMET!!!!’

‘I didn’t know it was that cold outside!’

Chariots’ fiancé yells ‘Even my clit’s bigger than that poor excuse for a penis!’ She really has it in for him. It’s a grudge that will last throughout their short but eventful marriage.

Then someone else worryingly shouts out ‘Hello Mum!’

Out in the street our canine pal trots off with the sock dangling out of his jaws while his owner looks back in disgust muttering something about how National Service would sort this generation of scum out.

Cars are now crawling along the High Street beeping their horns at the stag. On the roundabout two vehicles come together with a huge crash. There is glass and bits of jam jar everywhere and all the roads are now completely blocked. Nobody is going anywhere.

One of the drivers was very obviously some B.H. (Bored Housewife) who was too busy eyeing up Chariots’ meagre cock when she should have been paying attention to the road ahead and caused the shunt.

Folks are getting out of other cars to make sure that no one has been hurt in the accident and insurance details are being swapped. I would just love to see that insurance claim. I wonder if you are covered for causing a smash while checking out a naked man’s wedding tackle.

The whole of Bexley Village is now totally and utterly grid locked. The traffic has come to a complete stand still. There is now a big crowd of people around Chariots mainly admiring his body art and the gloved feet style that he is modelling.

One bloke however does not get it. He starts having a go at our stag thinking that he has done this to himself and is some kind of sad exhibitionist sex case pervert. Chariots is trying to explain to him that he is the stag taking his punishment and asks him to scratch his chest as the itching caused by the itching powder is now unbearable.

The fella is not amused and moves away sharpish. Chariots is screaming his head off to be freed and has huge red hives all over his body. He is going full on nutso, ‘Let me go NOW you fucking wankers!’ he bellows over and over again.

The scene in the street is a total cluster fuck with abandoned cars and people everywhere. No one is going to forget this stag do in a hurry.

Suddenly with a flash of blue lights a police car goes flying up the High Street on the wrong side of the road. With the accident blocking the roundabout and the hordes of bodies hanging around, the police must think that a full scale riot has broken out in this usually sleepy little town.

The cop car stops opposite Chariots’ lamp post and two officers step out. One goes over to the two cars embedded in each other on the junction and the other guy wanders into the pub.

‘Great stag do lads,’ he says ‘you’ve done him proud. Sorry to break up the party but you’ve got to let him go now so the traffic can get moving again. So who is responsible for this?’

The entire bar goes silent, thinking that someone is about to get arrested on some dodgy public order offence. No-one wants to take responsibility for the state of Chariots. Suddenly someone bellows, ‘I AM STAGTACUS!’

‘NO, I AM STAGTACUS!’ someone else replies. Then another voice squeaks ‘NO, I AM STAGTACUS!’ This phrase goes round like wild fire. By the time even the bar staff get to shout this out as well, the gag is well and truly milked, like my trouser lizard.

The policeman cracks a smile. ‘Very droll but it’s time to sort this mess out. I’ve just got to get something out of the car, you can take some last pictures and then we’ll let this poor fellow go eh?’

With that the cop walks back out the bar and goes across to his car. All the lads troop outside and go over to Chariots. The police officer re-appears carrying the biggest thickest truncheon you have ever seen, putting to shame the two vibrators taped to Chariots hands.

The policeman then starts posing for pictures pretending to smack Chariots over the head with his riot baton while we whisk cameras out and take some classic photographs that get shown during his wedding reception. What a top cop. He is certainly game for a laugh and for a change he does not want to arrest any of us on trumped up charges.

Not even Chariots for being in possession of an under sized penis while in a public place.

‘Nice one lad’s,’ says police. ‘Let him go now. Have a good evening.’ He then wanders off to help his colleague clear up the wreckage from the car crash.

Within minutes the road is cleared, the traffic starts flowing again and life in Bexley returns to some sort of sanity.

Begrudgingly we cut the cable ties from Chariots who legs it over the road straight into the pub’s bogs where he spends the next half hour desperately trying to scrub off all the abuse written on his body. The water does wash away the last of the itching powder but his body remains all red and blotchy like a miscoloured Dalmatian puppy.

He has a change of clothes in his case and eventually comes out of the lavvy fully dressed to a warm round of applause.

‘Good on you Chariots,’ states Gap, ‘you took your humiliation like a man.’

‘Fuck you Gap, one day it will be your stag do and I am going to ruin you. I promise that you are going to pay for that lamp post stitch up big time. I am going to break you’, vows Chariots.

The colour drains from Gap’s face. He had not even thought about this before instigating Chariots’ night of pain. Gap realises that revenge is a dish best served cold, so all bets are off for his stag do, if he ever has one. There will be blood.

Beer is shipped in and cigarettes are consumed at a terrifying pace. All around the pub you can hear phrases like wig, chewing gum cocks, knowing your human rights, Boys II Men, baggage carousel and ‘Pyramid!’ are being bandied about.

One guy is telling his girlfriend in great depth about the state of Dung Beetle’s bed, describing the mess of it as being like someone had poured an industrial sized tin of ox tail soup into it. The fella was not even on the stag do!

These stag stories will live on long after we have all passed away from knackered lungs or livers, you can be sure of that. However always remember the number one rule of lad-dom: Careless talk costs wives! Not every other half is quite so considerate about their man’s over indulgence in illicit substances or ‘accidentally’ falling repeatedly into another woman’s body.

The evening goes by in a flash. Burke has had enough. ‘That’s it gentlemen. I can’t do this anymore. All this copious drinking and taking recreational drugs is destroying my brain cells. I’ve had enough of this lifestyle. I’m going home to chuck me man milk up the Mrs and get her in the family way. I need a kid to get me away from you lot. You are leading me astray just like my Mum always said you would.’ He is up on his soapbox and his tongue is well racing away now.

‘I need a child to get something worthwhile out of my leisure time rather than sitting in seedy bars with you reprobates. All we talk about is boozing, sports, drugs, beer and weird sexual practices. I want out.’

Mule interrupts this speech asking if anyone fancies yet another pint. Amazingly given his rant Burke is the first to pipe up, ‘Thanks matey I’ll have a large G & T and a pack of porky scratchings, I’m Hank. Emptying my nut sacks can wait until tomorrow.’ And so it goes on.

Conversations around the place are about albino jellyfish, sun tatts, dead rabbits, lost teeth, TITZ and Bubonic. With each re-telling the tales are becoming more embellished and more incredible. Loud shouts of ‘Helmet!’ and ‘There’s more to Ireland than this!’ are greeted with gales of laughter.

One of the lads goes off to the toilet and when he returns people have been down his bag and are now wearing his dirty shirts, jeans and pants. It takes him a good half hour to even notice.

But all good things must come to an end. The pub bell tolls, it’s time for last orders one final drink and then it’s time to go home.

CIGARETTES SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 9…..1 TO GO

BOOZE BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 5 PINTS, A WATNEYS PARTY SEVEN, A LAMOT PILS AND A BOTTLE OF EKU 28

Chapter Thirty: The Last Smoke of the Condemned Man

With the last pint sunk it’s time to say goodbye. The weekender is over, finished, kaput, terminated, clipped, done and dusted.

The parting isn’t too sad though because I’ll see all the lads again tomorrow night for The Monday Night Mellow Madness beer session where I’m sure we will re-live every moment of action from the last three days of excess.

I grab my bag, slap some palms and wander out the back of the pub to the car park where I am meeting the soon to be wife. I rang her earlier to plead for a lift home at lobbing out time and incredibly she agreed to come and pick me up. I did push my luck a bit and asked for a bit of NORWICH as well but got nowhere. Got two hopes there I reckon, Bob and no.

(For all you innocents out there NORWICH stands for Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home.)

As I walk out the smoky bar I pause and spark up the very last cigarette with a lighter. It tastes vile. I am well smoked out but at least I beat the carton. I am a winner. The carton of ciggies has been defeated and I have the totally knackered breathing apparatus to prove it!

I stroll across the car park to my breadknife’s car sucking down the last hit of nicotine. I toss the final dog end into the nearest drain and open the car door. ‘You don’t smoke,’ she states giving me a filthy look.

‘Not any more I don’t, that’s a fact,’ I splutter back.

‘So, how was your weekend then?’ she asks, dying for some juicy gossip to share with the girls.

‘Oh you know that lot they’re a boring bunch of teetotal bastards. We were all tucked up in bed by ten o’clock enjoying mugs of cocoa,’ I reply.

‘Yeah right, cocaine more like and a load of fanny on your mugs. Come on fess up who pulled and who got arrested? Who went whoring and who got hospitalised?’ she wants to know the full SP.

‘Come on love you know the rules. What goes on tour stays on tour. You never rat on your friends. Always keep your gob shut. I’m not some stool pigeon, grass, FBI informer type. All I can tell you is that I behaved myself and The Village Idiot was his usual fuckwitted self. I’m going to blame him for all the bad shit!’ I blag sitting there with my fingers crossed feeling like I’m in court in the witness box getting the third degree. ‘Besides you’ve got that hen do next weekend and you will be right mashed up if you last to this point in the proceedings.’

‘You are not wrong,’ she replies. ‘Newcastle here we come. Lock up your sons the saucey southern slags are on their way. It’s going to be a mad one!’

‘Yep I bet. Knowing your crazy mates it’ll be a miracle if any of you make it back alive,’ I say.

Silence fills the car. I am exhausted. The over indulgence of the last three days have caught up with me. I can hear my bed calling and my normal boring weekly work routine just waiting to wrap its cloying arms around me again.

I sit there with a huge grin on my grill remembering all the great stories from the weekend. I am truly thankful that I have some amazing friends and family around me. I am a blessed man for sure.

I get all emotional as we pull up in front of our house, knowing how lucky I really am. Life’s a fucking fantastic ride so get out there and enjoy it!

‘I love you,’ I blurt out.

‘I love you too,’ she replies ‘but you really are a tit.’

GAME OVER…..YOU ARE SPACE CADET….TRY AGAIN…….THE END

Appendix Number One: The Glossary of Tossary

Arris: This is cockney rhyming slang for ‘arse’ which originally came from ‘bottle & glass.’ Then in a slang within a slang style, Aristole means bottle so this got shortened to Arris in the end. What a fucking palaver, why not just write the word arse in the first place, it’s only four letters.

Balloon Knot: Your ring piece because it looks like the knot in a child’s balloon. Simple as that!

Battle Cruiser: Translates to ‘Boozer’. Other pub related rhyming slang include: Nuclear Sub-Pub, Rub-a-dub-dub….again Pub. Near & Far…Bar.

Breadknife: Wife AKA ‘She who must be obeyed’ AKA Her Indoors AKA The Other Half AKA She who will be soon residing under the patio AKA Love of my life AKA ‘The Enemy.’

Disco Biscuit: For all you young eggs out there with your trendy MP3 Players a disco biscuit is an old vinyl record played at 33rpm for an album or 45 rpm for a 12 inch or 7 inch single. To my ears vinyl sounds far superior and more ‘lived in’ than the clinical over produced digital quality of modern recordings. Mind you as I am as deaf as a post so please pay no heed to my opinion.

Donkey Punch: A sexual practice not really recommended for the marital bed. As you are indulging in a bit of doggy sex you punch the back of the neck of your lover as you are about to come. Apparently this increases your orgasmic pleasure levels but is more likely to end up in your partner’s death or an assault charge. Either way it’s best to leave this nasty unpleasant business well alone. There is a movie about this called, strangely enough, DONKEY PUNCH if you want to check it out, where unsurprisingly it all ends in tears.

Felching: To suck recently delivered still warm semen from vaginal or anal passages after sex. I’m sure that it tastes exactly like eating fresh oysters.

Fortean Times: The greatest magazine on the planet. It is your monthly fill of bizarre news items and features on all aspects of the unexplained. The ‘strange deaths’ column alone is worth the investment. I urge you to purchase a copy when you next go to your local news agents to buy your porno mags.

Harry Monk: Easy one this, it means Spunk. I wonder if there are any listings for people actually named Harry Monk in the telephone directory. What were his parents thinking?

Mallet: Refers to a late-developing teenage lad who has yet to grow any pubic hair around his meat and two veg. My wife informs me that the female equivalent insult at her school was ‘White Triangle.’

MILF: Mum I’d Like to Fuck. As I am hitting middle age this is gradually changing to an older age bracket of GILF……Granny I’d Like to Fuck.

Mushy Peas: This was the nick name/rhyming slang for Tees Nightclub in Erith. A well dodgy old place that was full of ne’er-do-wells, manual labour types and lots of loose women up for a one night stand. However you were far more likely to get a smack on the kisser than a kiss on the smacker. It was a well classy joint with mirrors everywhere, big sofas and a dance floor that lit up like the one in Saturday Night Fever. Basically you only went there so that you could get a late drink once the pubs had closed.

Siamese Knees: A strange condition that usually occurs after an argument where the knees of your Mrs seem to become fused together giving you no access to her ‘Holiest of Holies’ for at least a fortnight or until you apologise.

Teabagging: The rather dubious practice of dangling your ball bags on to the forehead of a sleeping mate. It is massively immature but very amusing particularly if one of your ‘curly watch springs’ falls on to the face of your victim.

To turn your bike around: To go and take a shit. Why it is called this I have absolutely no idea and could not be bothered to even Google it to find out.

What’s Benning? This stands for ‘What’s Ben Hurring?’ (Occurring) As in what is going down? Also can be used as ‘What doth Benneth?’

Appendix Number Two: Cures for a Bastard of a Hangover

Before you dive into these notes, I want to state, for the record, that I am not a qualified Doctor and as such have no right to give you any medical advice. However I do know that drinking to excess regularly will lead to all sorts of horrible diseases that will end your life prematurely. You’ve got to face facts that none of us are here forever, so you may as well enjoy it while you can!

All the following supposed ‘remedies’ for over indulgence in the loopy juice known as alcohol are a result of both personal trial and error plus tips I got on line through a very lazy search entitled unsurprisingly ‘hangover cures’.

Some of them may work and others are just a load of old pony but probably worth a shot when you are desperate. Obviously the easiest way to avoid a hangover is not to drink at all the night before but really where is the fun in that?

So when you are downing yet another shot of Black Sambuca at gone twelve on a school night, knowing your boss is waiting to break your balls first thing in the morning, you will pray hard that one of the following suggestions will at least tide you over to lunchtime when you can grab a swift top up pint.

1] The Hair of the Dog:

Or to use the full saying ‘More of the Hair of the Dog that Bit Me.’ This was a belief dating back to the Medieval days when if you were bitten by a rabid dog, a cure could be made by applying the same dog’s hair to your infected wound. Talk about stupid, you’ve been bitten once you tool and now you’re going back for seconds in the vain hope that sticking dog hair in a gaping bloody gash will see you right. You are going to be one foaming at the mouth, rabies infected motherfucker very shortly, my friend.

This quick fix is also known as ‘The Hairy Dog’ and basically involves getting up and carrying on drinking. People reckon that a small measure of drink on waking can cure a hangover or at least take the sting out of it.

I tried this once back at school during my A Levels. I had got completely upside down the night before a Chemistry exam that I knew I was going to fail, on account of going to none of the classes during the year, so had gone out and got steaming just for the hell of it.

I woke up feeling like my head was going to cave in and was shaking like a shitting dog, so I mooched downstairs for some water. On opening the fridge I saw a cheeky can of lager giving me the eye, so popped the lid and downed it in one. I would love to report that this gave me super powers like Spinach does to Popeye but it didn’t. I still got a U grade and just postponed my hangover until I was mid-way through the poxy exam and then felt like I was going to have a stomach turnout in front of the whole class.

As a hangover avoidance system I will have to give this ‘Hair of the Dog’ method a D-grade.

I mean when do you stop topping up the booze? Five years later when you are sitting in a shop doorway in a urine sodden pair of pants drinking ultra-strength cider at ten o clock in the morning? It seems a rocky road to becoming an alcoholic to me, which I am not.

Well maybe I could be a borderline case.

2] Physical Exercise:

Some deluded hung over souls choose to voluntarily go out for a run, take their push bike out for a spin or go to the gym on the morning after. As these pursuits are all fucking dumb things to do when you are sober we will discount these straight away as a cure. Grade F

3] Skive off Work and Sleep:

If you’ve been on a massive bender all weekend and just can’t face the Monday morning blues at work this is a corker. Call in sick claiming to have dodgy guts, a family crisis, real man flu, an in-growing eyelash or whatever gets you off the hook and go back to bed.

Then indulge in a crafty HW (Hangover Wank) to get rid of all those nasty toxins. You will certainly feel better for a few minutes before you drift off back to sleep. Just don’t forget to hide your ‘wanky hanky’ or used tissues before you doze off.

Morning sex is also a great destroyer of hangovers, although there are not many women who will let you paw them up and then have full ‘rumpy pumpy’ while your breath stinks of second hand lager, mouldy kebab with onions, half a curry and a portion of large chips smothered with burger sauce.

Even if you don’t get a leg over I’d still give this ‘cure’ an A-grade not because it will sort your head out but it does mean an extra day off from the drudgery of employment which is obviously top! If you do jib off work and manage to wangle some ‘beard and langers’ whilst under the curse of a full monty hangover give yourself an A+ grade. I can teach you no more my young apprentice.

4] Non-Alcoholic Drinks….Yes they do exist!

In this category The Bloody Mary comes out top of the chart. The tomato and lemon juices give you back all those important vitamins that your drinking has depleted. Quite what the Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces do is a mystery but the overall package seems to work. Best leave out the vodka though or you are back at Point 1 above and again end up avoiding the inevitable. I’d also leave out the celery as it tastes bloody horrible going down and repeats on you all sodding day. I don’t care what the food experts preach; any salad item found on your average restaurant ‘all you can eat Salad Cart’ is no good for you, apart from the bacon bits.

(By the way the name Bloody Mary is meant to have come from Queen Mary I the persecutor of those of The Protestant Faith. She had a pretty novel hangover cure for believers in this religion she lopped their heads off with a whacking great axe. Bit extreme and certainly not legal today according to The High Court Judge who drinks in the local.)

We move on to the magical hangover smashing qualities of pure orange juice. My favourite cure of all time is two paracetamol washed down with O.J. The jolt of vitamin C added to the pain reliever sorts you right out…..most of the time.

Someone I used to work with swore by drinking ‘a pint of Thames’. This was a half pint of OJ and a half of cola mixed together. I guess it was called a Thames as it would end up looking the same grey/brown colour as the river and would probably taste just as bad, although hopefully it wouldn’t have the used jimmy hats, eels or dead bodies of East End gangsters floating in it.

I was going to try a pint of this purely for research purposes while writing this book but to be honest I could not be arsed. Try it yourself you lazy hung over twat.

In Poland, apparently they down shots of pickle juice in the morning to recover from the ill effects of the ‘one too many’. Personally I would rather suffer the throbbing head.

Diarrhoea medicine also came highly recommended by the internet to put you back on the road to Wellsville. It would restock all those lost minerals and help to rehydrate your well knackered body in addition to stopping you shitting like a race horse all day after consuming that late night burger that was made up entirely of rotten animal guts with churned up eyelids and arseholes.

Overall Grade B+

5] The Frankly Bizarre:

Somewhere in mainland Europe that I won’t name as this idea of a cure is just so blatantly dumb I would not want to embarrass the country in question…OK it’s France. Here they would bury the ailing person up to their neck in moist riverbank sand to help them recover from their night on the tiles.

Two words…Incoming Tide.

The garlic quaffing snail eaters really hadn’t thought this through had they? Mind you it was a great way of losing some of the more shall we say, ‘intellectually challenged’ members of their society. Quite frankly as a cure this really bites the big one. Grade U

Acknowledgments

A massive shout out to my brother Dan and brother-in-law Tony as they encouraged me to start writing this book and they have helped me all the way through the writing process. Also my team of crack copy checkers, Rod, Tanya and Mum (sorry if some of it was a bit over the top for you Mama. I Love You). Also Cheers to Tony S for putting me in touch with the lovely people at Endeavour Press particularly Amy, Matthew and Richard.

Also got to pay maximum respect to all the following lads listed in alphabetical order as you are all crazy dudes:

Andy, Chas, Dad, Dubstar Steve, Ersoy, James, John, Kev, Mags, Mark B, Mark D, Mark G, Martin, Mike M, Mike R, Nick, Party Boy Brian, Paul A, Paul N, Pete, Richard B, Richard W, Robbo, Ron, Seanie R [give it 20K man on the one and two’s!] Uncle Vermin & all the other stag boys from ‘back in the day.’ Also love to my Sis, Abi and Joe.

As for The Village Idiot, the man who still does not know his alcohol limit and is the ‘booze muse’ or ‘idiotic on narcotic’ star of this book I will take the secret of his true identity to the grave with me. You’ll never get it out of me.

But Village, you know who you are, you ‘one foot bigger than the other’ crazy mo’ fo’.

Peace Out!

Phil Sloan

If you enjoyed reading Cigarettes and Alcohol by Phil Sloan you might be interested in The Instant Best Man’s Speech by Michael Davenport.

Extract from The Instant Best Man’s Speech by Michael Davenport

Introduction

Whether you’ve downloaded this guide in plenty of time to rehearse your speech for the big day or, as is customary, have left it until a week, day or hours before the wedding - please don’t panic!

Public speaking can seem daunting but it’s worth remembering that delivering a speech at a wedding is one of the easiest addresses you’ll ever have to give.

Unlike corporate presentations or trying to amuse dignitaries at an exclusive dinner, a wedding is an event where everyone present will be on your side. Nobody gets paid to speak at weddings (even though you may currently be feeling that you should) so everyone present will appreciate you getting up and overcoming the nerves that every best man experiences.

This isn’t like trying out new material at a comedy club to a hostile and paying audience. Everyone will want to laugh and support you.

Remember, there’s no pressure for you to ensure a return booking! Unless you’re an exceptionally popular guy this is something you’ll only have to do once or twice in your lifetime so the key thing is to simply enjoy it.  If you do, so will everyone else.

Best Man’s Duties

As well as giving a speech being a best man can encompass a number of duties.  You can find out in advance exactly what is expected of you prior to the big date (attending wedding rehearsal, stag night planning etc) but duties on the actual day may include the following:

At Church/Wedding Venue

Before Service

Ensuring groom gets there dressed and ready on time (at least 30 mins before).

Organising ushers, issuing buttonholes, order of service sheets and rings.

Collating cards, telegrams, text messages and emails to be read at reception.

Sitting on the right hand with the groom.

Holding rings until they are asked for during service.

After Service

Witness the signing of the register, if necessary.

Confirm all fees are paid to the church or registrar.

Escort the chief bridesmaid out of the church.

Assist photographer in posing guests for photographs.

Making sure everyone has appropriate transport to reception venue.

At Reception

Join receiving line to greet guests arriving.

If there is no toastmaster you may be expected to announce speeches.

Read out cards, telegrams, emails and text messages.

Give the third and final speech and thank the bridesmaids.

Announce the cutting of the cake whenever they have decided to do this.

Dance with the chief bridesmaid after the bride and groom have finished their first dance as a married couple.

Ensure the wedding car is decorated and has the bride and groom’s luggage on board ready to leave.

Make sure wedding gifts are safely stored.

All or some of the above may be expected but, again, don’t panic.  The groom, families, a wedding organiser or toastmaster can help you.  Now to that speech…

Speech Length

There is no accepted length for a best man’s speech.

Some best men are entirely uncomfortable with this part of the day and will speak for as short a time as possible.  Having downloaded this guide, however, we’ll assume that you’re determined to fulfil your duties properly and deliver a memorable speech.

Don’t feel that you have to entertain your audience for half an hour.  Nobody will be timing you.  Using this guide and employing some personal details of the bridegroom, construct a speech that ultimately you’re comfortable with.

I’ve written many best men speeches in the past and the most common length is ten minutes.  However, if you feel you want to do more or less than this the decision is entirely yours.

This guide includes a template best man speech that you can personalise, lengthen or shorten.

Delivery

Whether you speak in public every day or you’ve never done it before, there’s no denying it can be nerve-wracking.

Many people adopt a different voice or persona when they’re giving an address but this particular speech certainly calls for you to be yourself.

Faced with a room full of people this advice may seem strange but try to relax!  If you are, your audience will be.  Remember the all-important fact: By the time you give your speech your audience will probably be fed, content and relaxed.  Some of them may have had a few drinks and will be loosened up and feeling benevolent.

Don’t think of your speech as an audition or ordeal more as a conversation with friends.  After all, even if you don’t know them all individually, you’re all there to celebrate the same happy occasion.

Depending on the size of the venue you may need to project your voice to people at the back of the room.  If people can’t hear you you’ll soon be told!  Many venues will provide a microphone so remember to ask for one if you feel you’ll have difficulty.  Very often a toastmaster will organise the speakers so you can ask them what they think is the best option.

It’s very commendable if you want to learn your speech by heart and deliver it without notes but it’s also traditional at weddings for pages to be produced from an inside pocket.  You’re not a professional speaker so nobody will expect you to be word perfect.

If you’ve rehearsed sufficiently (see below) you’ll be able to pace your delivery but remember to be flexible when it comes to their reaction.  If they’re laughing at one of your stories allow them to finish before moving on.

You’ll quickly get a feel for the audience’s mood and you can always have your notes on hand if you lose your way.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Stags Are Rampant!

PART ONE: AMSTERDAM

Chapter Two: The Airport Jellyfish Tank

Chapter Three: A Carton Of Ciggies

Chapter Four: Puff Pants & Torture Chambers

Chapter Five: The Amsterdam Whore Equation

Chapter Six: That Dutch Dog Sure Is Handsome

Chapter Seven: Somewhere A Village Is Missing Its Idiot!

Chapter Eight: Amsterdamgoodpissup!!

Chapter Nine: I Know My Basic Human Rights!

Chapter Ten: The Euro Gimp Boy of Amsterdam

Chapter Eleven: A Lizard Gets Milked!

Chapter Twelve: Cardinal Charlie Chunder Comes A-Knocking

PART TWO: EDINBURGH

Chapter Thirteen: Dead Rabbits and Cock Crazed Hens!

Chapter Fourteen: The Edinburgh Pyramid Catastrophe

Chapter Fifteen: A Short History of Stagging

Chapter Sixteen: The Cursed Saturday Night in Edinburgh

Chapter Seventeen: The Trail of a Snail Ruins Jeans Made of the Skin of a Mole

Chapter Eighteen: The well moody old juicer of Edinburgh Town

Chapter Nineteen: Playing One Handed Pool

Chapter Twenty: I see the shit storm rising

PART THREE: BRIGHTON

Chapter Twenty One: Back to the Present AKA Flab in the Future

Chapter Twenty Two: The Stag, his Scrubbers and a Very Bruised Penis

PART FOUR: BEXLEY VILLAGE

Chapter Twenty Three: The One Hundred Metre Dildo Relay

Chapter Twenty Four: Why I Hate Flying with Chewing Gum Cocks

Chapter Twenty Five: A Quick Nightcap, I mean Recap.

Chapter Twenty Six: The Luggage Carousel of Doom

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Stinging Ring of Exhibition Arse

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Stags Gone All Blotchy

Chapter Twenty Nine: A Tiny Cock Causes a Huge Collision

Chapter Thirty: The Last Smoke of the Condemned Man

Appendix Number One: The Glossary of Tossary

Appendix Number Two: Cures for a Bastard of a Hangover

Acknowledgments

Extract from The Instant Best Man’s Speech by Michael Davenport