Whyte & Mackay, Special Blended Scotch Whisky, 40.0% ABV

Last week I wrangled some volunteer hack work with the Flaneur Art Blog for this year’s Edinburgh Festival. They said there was no need to wait until the festival itself started and mentioned, among other things, a desire for people to write for a new food section; the words ‘whisky reviews’ were used – well okay then.

By sheer coincidence I happen to have a bottle of Glasgow’s finest underneath the table. Of course I realise what I should be doing is sampling wee drams of nefariously expensive single malts on the Royal Mile but as this is an expenses free gig, this philistine is calling the shots.

They’d seen my own blog so knew what to expect. The only strictures were that there must not be any obscene, libellous or blasphemous content; yet it should not be boring. Such a feat could prove troublesome. Because I’m impatient I’ll post the results here before they get a chance to have a read; I’m very interested in what they cut out, or in fact if they decline to post it entirely, which I admit is far more likely.

So, if memory serves, a single measure of whisky on this wet island is 25ml. In order to make this ‘tasting’ as scientifically accurate as possible I will measure each drink. Unfortunately all I have is a salad dressing shaker but then I am doing this alone in my room like some chronic addict so that’s perhaps the least of my embarrassments.

In the interests of science I will be drinking the whisky straight; tasting it, savouring it – not slugging it back. I will not be spitting it out either; waste simply isn’t in my nature. Insert prison joke of your own here if you wish.

Drink #1

Whyte & Mackay is a blended scotch whisky distilled in Glasgow, Scotland. The writing on the back of the bottle is quite small and prone to blur if I squint so we’ll go over that first.

The whisky is a blend of aged single malts that is left for several months; then, aged grain whiskies are added and ‘married’ in sherry casks. It’s this process which, they say, makes the whisky special.

I visited the Glengoyne distillery last year. As I understand it, the single malt we bought there uses malted barley dried using only warm air, hence the lack of the strong peaty taste I’m not overly fond of.

I’ve got a bit of a bunged up nose as I’ve just been on a four hour meandering reconnoitre through the rain of south Edinburgh; but I can’t say the drink smells at all ‘bad’ or as sickly caramel as Chivas Regal. I drank a bottle of that with a lecturer once and neither of us came out fighting.

As far as I can see, ‘Special’ – which is how I’ll refer to it from here on in, simply because it means less typing – is typically golden in colour and reasonably smooth; around the sharp double kick there is a flavoursome tang. Not too sweet or troublesomely smoky.

Drink #2

I went on a second date the other day – with the young lady who instigated contact by comparing me to Charles Manson - and it was her suggestion that we take a bottle into the cinema with us. There in the dark, she provided us with polystyrene cups and poured us both a measure.

Previously, she had led me to believe that my customary habit of adding a splash of water to my drink showed me to be no better than a common tourist and a probable homosexual. I therefore drank it straight, and in the excitement with Joss Whedon’s master work, drank swiftly.

I hadn’t seen the bottle as she poured it but on sticking my nose in the cup was assailed by a most delightful aroma, reminding me of the time I had money and left more than £50 to the Glasgow barkeep who introduced me to Talisker.

But amusingly enough, or not, I looked to the floor and it was a bottle of Special.

‘Good call,’ I said, and she smiled.

I guess that just goes to show that olfactory senses rely as much on memory as scent itself; or possibly it was a serendipitous reaction with the polystyrene and cinema odour.

The Binturongs, or Bearcats, of Edinburgh Zoo leave musk that stinks like popcorn; and of course there’s a popcorn stand nearby. Oh the hilarity of discovering that for the first time. I digress.

Drink #3

I’m pretty sure caramel is added for colour, but I’m deliberately avoiding tasting notes or reviews because they might unduly affect the genuine layman’s innocence of this very serious scientific endeavour.

It’s really cold today. What happened? Back in March I was drinking beer in the sun of Princess Street Gardens. Now I’m shivering.

Drink #4

I remember once, years ago, when one of my flatmates and I had to leave our apartment for fear of getting shot by another of us. It was sub zero and snowing so we holed up in a children’s play area drinking cheap supermarket pilsner and smoking roll-ups.

It was cold as hell, but that gun was never discharged in my presence.

Drink #5

Whyte & Mackay also offer ‘The Thirteen’. It was on offer once in Asda so I got a bottle; it comes in a box and everything – well posh. I had to google to remind myself of the name and couldn’t help but snatch ‘…the rounded quality of the nose…’ off the page.

Don’t expect any of that kind of language here though, young Padawan. Oh, and no need to be concerned about contamination as the salad shaker is unused. What’s that? You’re not surprised, looking at me. Oh how witty of you.

Anyway, 13 year old Whyte & Mackay is certainly tasty. The distillery has quite a selection, most not available in our local supermarket. The most intriguing surely being a whisky recreated from samples of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic stash found beneath the ice. I mean that’s pretty much the Isla Nublar of whiskys; and if you got that reference, let’s have babies.

Drink #6

The drink is doing its job.

As I said, I was at the cinema the other day; I forgot to switch my phone back on though so wasn’t sure if anyone had tried to contact me. You see I’d reminded my date that I used to cook for a living and she’d invited me to make dinner for her before swallowing my jaw and dashing for her train.

That’s what the whisky under the table had been for, but I called it off for reasons I’ll bore you with.

Drink #7

In retrospect, I should have guessed there was something awry when her cold shoulder excuse to me later was the same as the one she made to get a day off work once cloistered in my sweaty pit.

I’m listening to Portishead and just started singing along to one of the slow ones. As you can imagine, how good it feels to break those harmonies is inversely proportional to how horrible it sounds; like a cow begging for mercy.

We had, it seemed, a lot in common. I guess that’s not such a good thing after all; I mean if the sum of all my quirks make me an unhinged, maddening imbecile, why on earth would I seek out similar traits in others?

Drink #8

A wave of strange sadness has overcome me. Dopamine and serotonin levels at critical Captain! Hull breach imminent!

I’ll drink this next one quickly and put something else on the music box.

Drink #9

Hull breach – that’s hilarious, she was actually from Hull. I don’t believe in Freudian slips, not now I’ve been to Hull and back.

That’s ridiculous. I’m such a weird obsessive monster.

This is dreadful, how do alcoholics do this, day in, day out? According to governmental guidelines, this 700ml bottle contains almost precisely the UK units a man is allowed over the course of a week. To attempt it in an evening is pure madness.

But I remember hearing how five portions of fruit and veg a day was pretty much the maximum anyone imagined they could convince the average Brit to eat. In Denmark it’s ‘Seks om Dagen’, which is a play on words because their word for sex is sex, which rhymes with their word for six, which is seks.

So does that mean I should technically drink even less?

I’m a bit drunk now and I realise I forgot to change the music, but now it’s okay.

‘I just wanna be a wo-ho-man…’

Just in case this ever turns up in a pathologist report, today I’ve had a flask of coffee and a very drab sandwich from Greggs because I got there too late for their bacon roll and coffee deal even though it was a whole six minutes before 11am.

Fat white guy problems.

When I returned home, I consumed two modest bacon rolls – purely as a form of protest.

Drink #10

I don’t know why but I need a wee, is that normal? Seriously, that can’t be good. Am I allowed to drink water?

Drink #11

That’s better, I can think straight now. My kitchen always seems to smell of barbecued ribs and boiled sweat. Someone’s washing has been dumped, wet out of the machine, on the kitchen table and has sat there for days now, festering into sad mould.

I live with people like myself. Happy to be divorced from ordinary social interaction – glad for the robins and the blue-tits in the garden, the bunny rabbits and the squirrels – just so long as the ordinary man doesn’t trouble us with normalcy.

Unfortunately, social misfits seem unable to clean up after themselves.

I’ve got one of those toilets with the curly hairs stuck fast with dried urine motif; and I swear someone’s chewing on the seat.

Drink #12

Michael Jackson is singing now. It doesn’t feel right but I’m afraid if I change then God will think I’m listening to the tabloids.

I live in Scotland. Why on earth would I sleep with an English girl? I’m such a racist.

The thing with this salad dressing measuring device I’m using for my whisky science is it gives you the relative levels in what I take to be an order:

• 50ml cream
• 20ml white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar, pich of salt

Now each of these has different volumes/densities right? So in ignoring the sugar and salt and simply adding a glug over the level for white wine vinegar, can this really be considered accurate measurement?

I think I’ve broken science.

Drink #13

When I was a kid, I didn’t see my dad for the longest time. His excuse was that he didn’t want to speak to my stepfather – somehow oblivious to the fact that I had to live with the psychopath.

When I started secondary school, I got my Sherlock cap on and found I was two bus stops away from the old man. I knocked on the door and, amusingly, he mistook me for his other son.

Son #1 never came back, yet he did instil in our father a quite arresting love of debilitating skaggy hash.

Which is where I came in; Dad would ask me to go to the school labs to procure Erlenmeyer flasks to construct bongs out of. I remember they had accurate measurements on the side.

Drink #14

Rather than break with tradition, I’ve just eaten a small bacon sandwich. I washed it down with a good few good swigs of water.

I should have made a note of the time. It’s only been a couple of hours, tops, pretty much, I think. As whisky reviews go, I realise this is missing vital tasting points.

But then again, hasn’t this become more a test of resilience and strength than one of how the smoke tickles my tongue?

Michael Jackson was depressing me; not because of the songs – which I usually enjoy – but because I got to thinking about the whole ‘did he?’ or ‘didn’t he?’ press fiasco.

I’m starting to get angry, thinking about the Leveson inquiry, but this is the pub, right? Let’s leave Murdoch outside with the dog muck, where his ilk belongs.

Drink #15

This is horrible. I don’t feel drunk, just kind of wasted. Maybe I should go out. Am I drinking too slowly?

Drink #16

Okay, the slow warm buzz is back. Maybe the bacon’s games are done. This feels pretty sad though, just sat here in my musky dressing gown, the heater on full, watching the grey sky through the tree.

I’m tempted to knock this on the head, but the minute I step outside I know I’ve the hill to contend with, and the bus trip into town.

I’m not an animal, this is how drunk teenagers feel when they challenge police officers.

If I continue, perhaps I’ll learn something.

Drink #17

Hunting trumpets on the music box now.

The International Wine And Spirit competition named Whyte & Mackay Global Distiller of the Year 2009. Whyte & Mackay Special (this one) has been a silver medallist over the last consecutive three years of IWSC awards

40 year old Whyte & Mackay received the highest award possible at the Scotch Whisky Masters in 2010. It has also won the Best Blended Whisky category at the World Whisky Awards.

Drink #18

Wondering about my date, if perhaps I was hasty in calling it what it was; but if you’re going to bate a trap, don’t use your vagina.

Remember, ladies and gentlemen, eighteen drinks in – to me that was hilarious.

Drink #19

The trick here, is not slowing down.

Drink #20

I’ve only been to a couple of tasting events before and come to think of it, that’s probably more what they were suggesting, rather than reviewing the descent into a single bottle, like a radge Aldous Huxley.

I’ve given up on the measure – two fingers is plenty.

Ha ha, that was sexual.

When we were kids, we bought Bells or Teachers. I shared my first cigar with a mate and one of those small bottles behind a fruit and veg stall by the Tricorn in Portsmouth. Thankfully for Pompey both the Tricorn and the man I stole that cigar from are now dust but it still reminds me of that taste.

White and Mackay’s taste is infinitely preferable to Bells or Teachers but kind of on a par with Famous Grouse, if memory serves. That’s all I got.

Drink #21

I don’t understand women.

I feel belligerent, empty and bored.

I can only imagine how hungover editor Chris is going to translate the cluster of consonants pertaining to be ‘belligerent’ tomorrow, because at the moment the spell check wants to correct it to bell-ringer.

Another bacon sandwich and

Drink #22

watch the news.

Drink#23

Throbbing head, dull boring pain. Am I drinking this too slowly?

I wonder if the ghost of my great grandmother is watching this pathetic spectacle. I still can’t get over how, of all the places I could move to in Edinburgh, I came, purely by accident, to pick the old hospital where she spent her final days.

Drink #24

Confused and knocked out. I can’t continue. Whyte and Mackay is a fine wee dram but for the love of god don’t be an idiot like this idiot. Add some water, even if it does make you a a homosexual, I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact I’m considering it.

Gentle guys only first, please.

Mah heid is pure bangin. Ganneh gah eet fer a wark.

Whyte & Mackay, Special Blended Scotch Whisky. 40.0% ABV

Enjoyed sensibly: 7 out of 10

Spelling, grammar and profanity was corrected during a most cruel and unusual hangover.

They taught us to always include an image with an article so here’s this one of the guitar I’ve just stripped down and finished. It has nothing to do with the post itself, but then nor does my sex life, which is what it pretty much replaced for a fortnight. It doesn’t have any strings because I was an idiot and thought I’d save a pound by ordering them online.

I remain connected to my Teesside classmates through Facebook and Twitter. It’s fun to see the relationships between them growing; strangers becoming buddies, flirts becoming fucks – all that dirty romance.

I’m selling my untouched textbooks on Amazon; stubborn, arrogant and poor to the last. I was part of all that, and it was a good crowd, but I chose to leave; and today, when my public affairs lecturer asked for my old reflective essays, rather than be a dick about it and tell him to look in his inbox under my name in the relating period, I looked them up myself.

It was an assignment his visually arresting predesseor had given us an hour or so to write. It was a Thursday morning colder than the canteen bacon rolls; I had a gin hangover but she wanted answers. I did my best.

The story that will allow me to sleep at night is one of a faculty lamenting my passing, framing what little they have of my academic work as a lesson to themselves to mount on the wall and make damn sure they don’t let anything like this happen again.

Or the courts are building a case.

Let this be a lesson to us all in this day and age of employers and the like making us write our feelings down; or as an illustration of how easy it is for anyone to change their tune – and therefore how quickly you should dismiss any heartfelt nonsense you read on this blog – here is me, redacted, circa October ’11.

(Be advised, this isn’t me toying with the space-time continuum again, simply naive old Chris from the past, being honest and wanting to be loved.

Just remember, if They ever ask you how you feel, lie through your teeth and all will be bunnies.)

As I start my course…

The reason I chose the Multimedia Journalism course at Teesside University is…

I’ve always loved writing, telling stories, observing and trying to describe what I see. I studied art at college but drifted away from drawing into music and started to travel. I continued to write – dreadful poetry and a white-knuckle journal – but the thought that I could ever do it professionally, as a work-thing, always seemed unlikely.

As I continued working a succession of shit jobs, convincing myself that because I was abroad it was a worthy waste of my life, more and more I knew that I had to get a vocation.

Serendipity came in the form of knee surgery and as I had injured myself at work the Danish state was forced to rehabilitate me in the form of an education. I wasn’t spoilt for choice so went for Multimedia Design and over the course of those two years gained the confidence that I hadn’t left it too late and was capable of holding my own against the youngsters.

On graduating I returned to the UK, adamant that I would top up the AP Degree and get a Bachelor but that was easier said than done. The Institution wasn’t recognised by UCAS so the universities I had applied to for top-ups began to refuse. Teesside was one of them; It was on a whim that I had tried to get on the Journalism top-up so I wasn’t particularly surprised but when they offered me a place starting in the first year I was quite taken aback.

I researched further into the then course and the mixture of academic and real hands-on vocational training sold it to me. I didn’t wait to hear back from my other choices and accepted before Teesside could change its mind.

I want to be a journalist because……

Put simply, I want to be paid to do something that I love. I’m not convinced I’ll be the next Paxman or Brooker, to be honest I’d be content writing stories about cats up trees, at least until I could find the swine in government that had forced that cat up the tree and colludes with foreign terrorists to keep the poor creature clinging to the highest branch.

Put another way, I want to make a difference; I want the world to be better for me having lived on it. There’s a lot of talk these days about offsetting your carbon footprint: well I want to offset my arsehole footprint. It’s unavoidable to contribute towards the destruction of our environment but that doesn’t mean I have to contribute towards the subjugation and misery of other humans.

If I can write a story that makes someone smile and reconsider doing something stupid; if I can uncover some horrid little conspiracy that gets the perpetrators put away; if I can make a town safer from bullies or polluters or rapists then that’s the best use of my time I can think of.

Better that my name is on the front page as ‘reporter’ and not ‘defendant’.

Over the next term:

I am looking forward to:

Reading all the books I can get my hands on to try to get a better hold on the labyrinthine madness of the British political system. I would imagine that as the weeks pass and the class begins to work together more there will be some great insight and opportunities to collaborate and learn together. And parties.

I am not looking forward to:

The possibility that my old brain is unable to take on the information and I will fail the NCTJ exams, damning myself to be a celebrity reporter for a men’s magazine, running around in the early hours of the morning, desperate to get a crotch shot of a D-list celebrity so I can pay my rent. But seriously, I’m positive about the whole lot of it, it’s very exciting; there are just not enough hours in the day.

I am worried about:

In the next few months I will be starting a course of CBT, I do have unhelpful thought patterns, behavioural ticks and paranoid delusions that often make it hard to get on with people. I hope that I will be able to keep this in check and be a productive member of the class.

Blah, blah:

Blah, blah, blah.

I guess I just want to be happy.

Bruce Wayne had other rather more exotic coping mechanisms than psychotropic medication. He also had Vicki Vale.

If you get treated like a patient, you’re apt to act like one.

- Frances Farmer

So I made up my mind and will not be going back to Teesside, nor will I complete the year. From here on in, this guff comes straight from the heart.

I’m going to mention mental health now but I promise I will touch upon it as briefly as I’m able; then we can get back to talking zoo animals, gig reviews and reasons why the white man will be the death of us all.

I’ve had some awful stomach cramps this past week, which I’ve been thinking may have been part of the withdrawal symptoms of coming fully off of the sertraline; that along with the almost frightening electric night spasms and the homicidal antipathy that admittedly could simply be the result of answering my mum’s phone calls.

Put simply, in an existence of multiple universes – all once identical but for subtle changes, here and there, that formed strange or delightful or terrifying mirrors to our own – I would be surprised if there were any more in which my mother has, for misguided reasons known only to herself, not cut the family to pieces like the pigs we are.

I digress. Now it’s hard to write about mental health without coming across either as a whining cunt or a boorish know-all. There’s a horrible stigma that comes with asking for help and seeking answers; especially with maladies that have no physical symptoms, which are very much open to interpretation or the whim of fashionable understanding.

Yet surely coming to know yourself, in being aware of why you behave in a certain way, is good for everyone; and of course there will be countless avenues where people have knowledge and savvy that you lack so it stands to reason you need to open your mouth, rather than simply sit beneath a tree.

Four years or whatever ago I’d taken to interpreting drinking and the dick I became to be self medication for my personality. These days I know I’m just agoraphobic, paranoid and hyper-sensitive, and that appears to be pretty much it; but it’s taken a while to come to that (self) diagnosis – one that those who know me could’ve told you without the need for all this navel contemplation.

They would no doubt also add ‘arrogant’, ‘stubborn’ and ‘tiresome’ to the list.

Various terms have been mumbled at me in surgeries and clinics, and in the end it seemed the only way to get help was to take the psychotropic carrot offered; because drugs will always trump booze in kick and effectiveness, and what’s not to trust about Big Pharma?

In order to be fully effective, medication needs to be taken in tandem with psychotherapy, yada yada, and believe me I’ve tried. In spite of the massive waiting lists – indicating either a criminal shortage of psychotherapists or the fact that feeling at odds with the world isn’t such a minority bent after all – I’ve been fortunate enough to get some proper sit down time with several professionals.

The trouble is, each one contradicts the one before and the last one couldn’t even remember our appointments. Here you are, vulnerable yet still managing to open up and trust, yet the cunt can’t even get his schedule sorted. You know you’re an arsehole when even your therapist doesn’t want to listen to your shit.

So, inevitably, I spent a lot of time online. The internet is a fantastic place not only for information, but also for anecdotal evidence of how everybody else is feeling and reacting. Most pros will tell you to avoid such forums, because when people read something that fits their experience they tend to fast-forward through a decade of medical school and start second guessing their GP.

Regarding medication, people online seem to only ever complain about side-effects or symptoms; those that offer help are often on the shit end of the same stick; but, in my experience, although many return to update on their condition, it is seldom that anyone for whom treatment is working from the off will elect to seek out these forums and throw their hat into the ring. They’re probably too busy off flying kites or making love in rose gardens, the swine.

The thing with being a hypochondriac who can not only make it to the end of a text only Wikipedia entry, but whose ex was addicted to House, M.D., is that I realise that maybe I’m twisting symptoms I recognise into conditions I feel I have, in order to be prescribed medicine I believe will if not cure me then point the doctors in the right direction before my liver gives out and an enraged dragon with sarcoidosis performs a lumbar puncture with its scaly barbed phalus.

Possibly a hallucination.

Family history tends to come up in discussions about the mind and even in as small a control group as my immediate family, it gives me pause for concern. I know almost nothing about that side of the family but as I understand it, my father’s mother was a probable schizophrenic; institutionalised some time after single-handedly ‘thanking’ every serviceman returning to Portsmouth at the end of World War 2. My mother’s father was a Royal Marine who, after doing some beaucoup bad shit for Queen and country, returned with PTSD and that didn’t end well for anyone.

Not to suggest that the fallout of warfare should be placed in the same realm as not-enough-hugs, only simply to suggest that one man’s picnic is another man’s purgatory. Gone unchecked, mental illness can wreck generations; it can define a family, and it will spread like a virus; like begetting like. Mental illness doesn’t only effect the ‘weak.’

I would say more about my family history but I’d better not, as some of them can read.

And if anyone is thinking: ‘Well you wonsta think yerself lucky – plenty a kids in (insert whichever country is getting proper fucked lately) wood be glada the life you got.’ then please, allow me to retort:

Go fuck yourself, idiot; that’s not how this works.

I’m no more depressed than the next guy and I’m pretty sure I never was. I’ve certainly never felt sorry for myself outside of the terms of childish heartbreak – I’ve just got one of those frowning faces, like most people from Portsmouth with any sense.

I was simply led to believe that a few pills a day could make me more content and therefore a more productive member of society; these two states spiralling upward together; a double helix of self-satisfaction; secreting tax and well adjusted offspring until the world was better off for the bloated carcass I eventually left for some poor bastards to winch into an oven.

This isn’t about people who sit about feeling sorry for themselves – neither of us wants to hear about ‘those sorts’ (cough) – but there are a hell of a lot of people being prescribed SSRIs, apparently more than one in 10 in Scotland and a few years back it was something like 400,000 Danes; and that lot are supposed to be the happiest in the world. Go figure.

Some people just have a harder time getting it together than others; power to you if you’re a happy bunny but there’s no need to be a dick about it. Nature, nurture or some creepy shit that happened in the school showers – we’ve all got our cross to bear; but it’s not to be judged and pigeonholed like a talent show. Any person, in the moment, dealing with their tribulations, finds them all encompassing, depleting of spirit and robbing of rational thought.

If anyone made it this far looking for an answer or perhaps advice, I’m sorry but I honestly couldn’t comment on whether or not taking the pills prescribed to me was a good thing or not. I’ve tried various different types, and all ended up at a maximum recommended dose. I remember at times swearing by them, and other times when they tuned me into a manic, jabbering buffoon. All I know is, I didn’t taper down this time, I just cut off, and I’m still here, so if you’re having a bad time then take a week off sick and just come right off them (See Disclaimer Above.)

To be honest, the only way I know I wasn’t taking a placebo, is the almost comic kickstart of my libido and that now I’ve started biting my nails again, it ends a little before the second knuckle.

I still have no idea what’s ‘wrong’ with me, and to be honest I’m tired of asking. SSRIs effect different people differently; and you should certainly use them in tandem with talking with a professional. Don’t avoid forums and discussion groups, but don’t come to rely on them either. Doctors are fallible and at times plain incompetent, but I’d have them over a priest any day.

I’m going to try cod liver oil and vitamin D for now and see where my unadulterated brain takes me. I hope the Chris Parlett that has developed over the past four years isn’t just a phantom that will vanish in a puff of smoke at the first sign of trouble.

Finally, a message to all you parents out there: Children are like sponges; and if you use them to soak up your shit, don’t be surprised if when you squeeze them you end up with shit all over your hands.

1. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)

"Hey, wanker. That's shit on the glass and it's there for a reason; take a hint and fuck off."

2. Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua)

"Wull they said somethin about a leak in our pool so they shoved some eh us oop here and sent the rest tae other places. Thin ah heard a rumour mah fella was still aroond - och, lovely head a hair and you should have seen the way he swallowed a fish. Beautiful wee man. Six months they reckon it'll take tae fix our bit but still the bamboo keeps on coming. Fuck they pandas, it's no right."

3. Grevy’s Zebra (Equus grevyi)

"If I wanted to see a pair of black and white imbeciles who turn not fucking each other into a circus then I'd spend more time with my parents. Go away."

4. Hoofstock

"Hoofstock? You mean we don't even get named properly? I knew it, stuck up here where nobody even looks - you're the first person to talk to us in I don't know how long. You see that tower over there with all the bits on it - 'air traffic control' is what they say it's for but you know it's giving us all cancer. That morning we woke up and Frank was gone - that was after all those strange lights in the sky. 2012, man - it's all going down. Believe."

5. Rockhopper Penguin (Eudyptes moseleyi)

"Ah tell ye, they panda cunts appear and uhvery thing turns teh shite. It's no the same; feels like folk dinnae wanna ken us Penguins. Ah'd peck they feckin eyes oot given half a chance. Och, listen ta me - I just miss mah man."

6. Meerkat (Suricata suricatta)

"Meerkova? Das verstehe ich nicht - wir kommen aus Köln."

7. Queensland Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus adustus)

"Edinburgh Zoo's the only place in the UK you can see Koala and yet here I am, all ready for the talk at 12.45 and they go and cancel on me without so much as a word. I'm not mad - I'm disappointed; and sleepy."

8. Diana Monkey (Cercopithecus diana diana)

"Well I wasn't going to say anything but since you ask, I believe we should simply let those Orientals have their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Mark my words, we monkeys will be here long after the bamboo fund has dried up."

9. Patagonion Sea Lion (Otaria flavescens)

"You again, ya fuckin radge? Yeah ah saw yous wi that tripod before, dippit wee cunt prolly takin pictures aw they wee lassies. Face like thunder wuv they shriekin an wailing; well methinks the laddie doth protest too much - why else come by on a seturday, furst day a sun eftur a week a rain. Get tae fuck, ya obvious beast."

10. Black Stork (Ciconia nigra)

"No good coming to me for anything, human; I'm not endangered and I mate for life. Couldn't give a toss about Panda bears either way - live and let live. Why not try asking the Beavers in the next cage over what they reckon - although you might find them a bit shy, bearing in mind you lot did hunt them to extinction in this country 400 odd years ago. You used to believe their anal secretions cured headaches; I reckon that must be pretty tough for a species to get over. Go on, put your finger through my cage and stroke my beak, motherfucker."

"What'll it take to make you people dance?" - Coxon and band visited Edinburgh to perform songs from the new album A+E plus oodles of old favourites.

7PM Monday 16th April 2012.

Graham Coxon hasn’t had a drink in ten years; I’m itchy and twitching after ten minutes stood in the queue outside the Liquid Room; waiting for the purple doors to open; wishing I new someone, anyone in this town that could sell me drugs.

He’s in town to promote his new album, A+E; here’s me from the future – as far as this tale is concerned - with a few words about it:

So anyway, I’d gone for a fortifying pint at The Last Drop – so called because, back in the day, the condemned would get their final drink there before being led to the gallows opposite. As I entered, a child in a buggy dropped his toy car on the street in front of me; I bent to pick it up and offered it back with what I took to be a kind, understanding smile but from the reaction of the mother – perhaps missing the reason I had the toy in my hand – it was a chilling impression of Pennywise the Dancing Clown from IT.

Off to a good start, I thought; an act of kindness taken to be the predatory sexual advances of an immigrant beast. And that’s why I wouldn’t be offering to buy any women drinks at the gig.

I wasn’t really sure if this was the kind of happening I should be writing about but I needed something, and quick; I’d handed in my resignation to Teesside University but after a telephone conversation with Bethany Usher – my Senior Lecturer - I’d been convinced to stop being a stubborn cry-baby and complete the last few assignments so I could at least get a piece of paper saying I hadn’t just lost another year to bad choices and a debilitating fear of humans.

She felt I should leave myself with the opportunity to return in October, in case I had a change of heart. You see, the first year of a degree is ungraded – it simply needs to be passed; and with a pass rate of 40% I read between the lines and took Bethany to be saying – ‘You’re so achingly fantastic that even if you wipe your behind on a sheet of A4, as long as there’s no slander, libel or potty-mouth then you’ll be all right.”

But please, let’s keep that little insight between us, okay?

This article requires multimedia elements so I had my poorly endowed dictaphone and trusty camera with me along with a collection of pens and a small notepad. I was prepared to cover The Story, yet much like the lonely poet in a bookstore coffee shop, I really just wanted a female to come and tell me how to behave for the night.

The Liquid Room is an intimate little venue, which I always prefer but is hard to get with big name performers. I immediately went to the bar and bought a Staropramen for £4. T-shirts and the usual were on sale in the corner and a man in the bathroom handed people tissues after they washed their hands, and offered a selection of toiletries and sweets. I told him I didn’t like lollypops but gave him a pound anyway. Nice guy. I camped out at stage right. It was too dark for me to make out people’s faces.

The support act came on – Scotland’s own ‘Cancel the Astronauts‘; handpicked by Coxon from the recommendations of fans – a different local act for each gig on the tour was being chosen in this way.

The noise waves immediately rocked through the crowd; a tight, big sound that was easy to thrill to. We all warmed up, nodding our heads, coming to terms with our enjoyment. At one point the singer tells the crowd: “You all look very good looking; you all look very clean.”

They played for a half hour or so but it was time enough to have the enduring impression that ‘they’re good at this’ and that if I was half as happy as their drummer looked, there wouldn’t ever be a blue day again.

The stage was stripped of Astronaut gear and replaced with Coxon’s. I went back to the bar.

The crowd had grown pretty tightly packed, but not so you had to barge through like a fool. There didn’t seem to be the gaggles of younglings you’d find at, say, a Muse gig; but older people who grew up with Brit-pop and grunge as their mode of social conciousness; a time that, for me at least, had a line drawn under it when Tony Blair presented David Bowie with an Outstanding Contribution Award at the ’96 Brit Awards; and the mixed emotion still plays out on their faces.

Activity on stage: Coxon and his band – two girls and four boys in all – walk on to cheering and applause. With a croak he tells us he broke his voice that morning but soldiers straight on into ‘Advice’ – the first song from the new album. The next four are all from ‘Love Travels at Illegal Speeds’ and then they play five more from the new album; roaring and screeching, tearing the night a new one in the most gentle, overdriven way. Perhaps his voice is killing him but it’s not killing us, in fact I’m sure the matter has been completely forgotten.

"My voice! Listen to that croaking." If anyone noticed, Graham, they didn't care.

Again I go to the bar and change my viewing angle. The oldest song of the evening is played: ‘You Never Will Be’ from the eleven year old ‘Crow Sit on Blood Tree’; then we get the first of the songs from ‘Happiness in Magazines’ and then another of the new ones. I’ve lost track of time. Coxon thanks us and the band walk off stage to shrieking ovation and people start screaming: ‘ENCORE’ as if it’s even a question. Such energy in the room, and the stink of sweat comes not only from me.

They come back on in minutes and play five more songs: two from ‘A+E’; two from ‘Happiness…’ and then my recollection gets hazy and my writing difficult to interpret but I believe the last song was from ‘The Spinning Top’.

I loathe critics, and critique more, so that’s not what this is. I don’t read gig reviews so my apologies if this is a poor one; but imagine this akin to asking a hungry drunk to review a hamburger. I’ve not had one in a while but I’ve had plenty in the past, some good, some terrible. I’ve pissed metres from a singing Bowie so I know good hamburger; rest assured, Coxon was no burger last night – he was a steak.

And at the risk of coming across as a gushing sycophant, he was fucking delicious.

The set list in full (probably):

• Advice
• Don’t Let Your Man
• Standing On My Own
• I Can’t Look At your Skin
• I don’t wanna go out
• The Truth
• City Hall
• Meet and drink and pollinate
• Bah singer
• Running for your life
• You Never will be
• All over me
• Ooh, yeh yeh

• Seven Naked Valleys
• What’ll it take
• No Good Time
• Freakin out
• Tripping Over

This is where I live. Please don't come and murder me.

So it turns out that the squirrels that scamper around the bounding bunnies to the refrain of robins and mischievous magpies (sorry) are the descendants of the very rodents my great grandmother enjoyed watching before she died.

Yep, call it coincidence or providence, but this old hospital I’ve moved into is where my mother’s nan spent her final months. She passed away metres from where I type these words.

I had no idea. I mean I knew, of course, that it had been a hospital but I was sold on the grounds and wildlife; I can’t check with my family every time I move to see if one of us died in my new place – I drift too much for that.

My room is in the nurses quarters but I do wonder if her spirit wanders these corridors. If she’s anything like her progeny I expect one day to emerge from the shower to find ‘you really should try to lose some weight’ written in the steamed up mirror.

I’m going to explore the main house later. I’m concerned it might be like the library basement scene in Ghostbusters – the women in my family are terrifying enough when there’s skin on their bones and they’re not floating in mid-air. Mum assures me she was a nice lady though; I hope she rests in peace.

This next bit is being written after a night’s sleep and day drilling holes, changing the contents of boxes, and drinking to the Queen back-catalogue. I’ve been a Muse fan since Showbiz came out but I always held Queen on too much of a pedestal to give much credence to the comparisons; because, let’s face it, Muse have their fair share of cheese on the last few albums.

But spending a day with Mercury et al makes me realise that amongst the blinding anthems and tearful ballads, they too can be Cheesy. Yes, that’s a capital C.

Anyway, that’s not what I was going to say.

Two things happened yesterday to get me thinking. The first was reading a gushing column in the Guardian from some ex-pats extolling the virtues of bringing up their toff brats in Copenhagen; this on the back of – as I mentioned in the last post – Denmark being given the arbitrary title of ‘Number One Awesomest Top Happy Country’ or whatever. Again.

Back when I was living there my mum once sent me the front page of The Sun; it was the build up to some football match and the hacks had stuck a grinning Hagar the Horrible on it with some words saying how pleased with themselves the Vikings all are and even if they lose to England on Saturday, they’ll still have better sex, nicer jobs and their children’s faces won’t be rotting off from scurvy.

I read between the lines and took her message to be: ‘So cheer the fuck up, you maudlin cunt.’ But this isn’t about me.

On the bus, yesterday, I went to the top deck and sat above the driver, as is my wont. But rather than being allowed to pretend I’m controlling the bus with an imaginary steering wheel, I was forced to listen to the two girls to my left, who were speaking Danish.

Craning my ears to hear, I hoped for something juicy, but they just blathered on about being thirsty and going back to their apartment. They didn’t sound happy; just these curt, cut sentences; perhaps they missed home.

They had the typical blonde, baby-fat, sex-doll look many of them have. If I’d had a shield to hand I would have gazed at their reflection a while, but I didn’t, so I looked out the window.

They are certainly coming out of the woodwork though, these Danes. The Killing’s Sofie Gråbøl herself gave Camilla Parker Bowles one of those famous Sarah Lund jumpers so it’s all kicking off.

Now excuse me if I’m coming over all hipster here, but I wrote a book that celebrated the differences between the cultures of our countries way before Denmark was mainstream.

Each copy hand-written on ancient papyrus in the blood of orphan kings; bound with the twine of unicorn manes and brought to your door or place of work/study within 24 hours by a motherfucking dragon. Written by an idiot.

So purely out of my altruistic desire for people to get a more objective view of the country before forming an opinion, instead of the sycophantic dross I keep coming across, here is a link to where you can purchase a copy. You’re welcome.

This isn’t to say that I don’t still love the place with a passion. They certainly seemed to enjoy having sex with me more than the British; but that’s another story, for another time.

Shit, did I really use ‘et al’ in a sentence?

The height of Summer 2000 in the north of the great State of Victoria. Cells like these were home for itinerant farm workers. On moving in to this one I discovered my bed was home to a Red Back nest. It was too hot to cry.

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

- William Gibson

It’s good that, isn’t it; I love that sentiment. Saw it on a t-shirt the other week and looked it up. Not familiar with William Gibson, but from scanning his wikipedia entry he sounds interesting. I think Rickerby told me about him, back in the day.

Anyway, it was with this thought in mind that I decided to radically cut down on the little white pills proffered by a long line of GPs with an angle on going straight. None of them have ever been able to adequately explain what is ‘wrong’ with me anyway; and, oddly, most seem to lambaste my desire to find a label, calling them ‘unhelpful’.

Well the countless boxes of various SSRIs I’ve naively gobbled my way through over the past four years or so have plenty of labels – and warnings. I just wanted answers; but as Tesla/Bowie said in The Prestige: “Exact science… is not an exact science.” Hey ho.

My decision has nothing to do with my move from Middlesbrough to Edinburgh. I expect there to be plenty of arseholes up here but equally, there will be greater opportunities.

How nice the place you live in never had any bearing on its arsehole quota anyway. Money doesn’t make people kinder, nor does sunshine or a kinder society make people more empathic. I’ll go out on a limb here and say Portsmouth was a shit-hole when I were a lad and so it came as no surprise when drunken townies would try to kill me for having long hair.

Thing is, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, Denmark is the world’s happiest country. A good friend of mine prefers living on its streets rather than returning to the welfare bosom of the UK; but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its fair share of arseholes.

Surprisingly enough I was badly stomped in Aarhus and due to the concussion can’t remember whose fault it was. I would love to know what it was I said to a stranger living in the happiest land in the world that would inspire him to leave a bootprint on my face that took a week to fade and almost crack my skull.

I’m just an arsehole, I guess.

I digress. So I’ve cut down from 150mg to 50mg and haven’t noticed too much of a difference in my brainthing yet, although the main side-effect – the double edged sword of arousal disorder – appears to be abating with quite some ferocity.

Stay with me – I am going somewhere with this.

Last quote: “Heroin had robbed Renton of his sex drive, but now it returned with a vengeance.” From this city’s own Trainspotting. And here I’ve been, waking up of a morning with an engorged bedfellow all throbbing and uncomfortably large.

I guess the drugs are wearing off; not that it’ll matter, as the only action I envision it seeing is the rumbling of the Xbox controller every god damn time some shrieking fucking urchin riddles me with bullets three seconds after I spawn.

Well, I guess I’ve painted quite the image for you now, my apologies; but if you’re still reading I’ll get back to the subject of single beds.

I’m new in town but even so, I didn’t expect to be sleeping in a single bed at my age. During a course of rationalisation and denial I came to the following conclusions as to the benefits of a small bunk; with your permission I will share these now:

1. Half as many sheets to wash.
2. Nurtures intimacy / grumbled embraces with your sleeping partner.
3. Encourages creativity during sexual congress if all participants are to achieve satisfaction.
4. Equality, in that any fluid affected areas must be shared.
5. Violent reprisals for snoring and/or hogging of sheets is easier to blame on sleep myoclonus.
6. If, unlike me, you have the space for a double bed but instead prefer a single and have optimised that free space for Scalextric and Lego, save your breath berating your farting partner for the crime of having a body allergic to the very vices that keep them alive and kick their stinky arse down onto the pointy spaceship and garage.
7. Morning wood becomes everyone’s problem.

That’s all I got.

Cities of Gold and Mirrors: Got a little high and went along to MIMA before I left town. Not as big as it looks but definitely worth a look if you like your art modern and your staff friendly.

A girl I developed a debilitating and unrequited crush on once called me a drifter down her perfect nose. We’d met at a staff party; I’d been drinking warm beer in a friend’s apartment, watching England lose to Germany with the sound off, A-ha on repeat and bag of something expensive went up my nose before I could leave the house.

I’d just broken up with my girlfriend and everything was a mess, then this divinely sculpted creature asked me to dance. I took offence at the drifter tag, but then again I was younger and stupider back then – now it seems to fit.

This week marks the 11th time in seven years that I’ve bundled my life into a van and driven off at speed. I moved to Middlesbrough from Glasgow six months ago on an awkward and ill-planned mission to grab a bachelor degree by the balls before the price went up; I seemed to be doing quite well but somehow it didn’t seem to fit.

Three years in a town with which I have no history stretched out ahead of me, in a region devoid of any contacts whatsoever, to make a life, to forge a career – and with my plan being to move on graduation anyway. And four months off each summer? God damn it – what would I do?

Perhaps I’m too old and grizzled, but aside from the initial Pavlov’s dog impersonation, the bell of a cute teenager only makes me wonder if her mother’s a nippy wee divorcee with something to prove before her womb dries up – and how to arrange an introduction.

No, fuck it, I thought; I need to put some roots down, and as well as there being a family connection, I’ve always liked Scotland and as I think I mentioned before, I would have been raised a Scot if it weren’t for my Nan’s curious dislike of the country that spawned the father of her daughters.

Call me a bad apple, a rotten egg or a dirty banana all you want but I needs me some Edinburgh; I’ll find a school up here and continue with the learning, and then when the Salmond Wall is built with its venom dipped razor wire, dogs and machine-gun nests, I’ll thank the gods I’m on the right side.

Oh right, the death part of the headline. Well the government cocked up and wrote a letter to my mother offering their condolences on the death of a certain Mr Harding – something of a shock considering 17 years have passed since the divorce but welcome news, nevertheless.

Pity it didn’t happen 27 years sooner but, well, I suppose I should say a few words considering the man’s grip on my mother’s and my psyche.

Burn in hell, Terrence William Harding; you hateful, sadistic, psychopath.

That’s better. Anyway, I live in Edinburgh now, less than half a mile from where the hottest couple around are getting down to it. If you’re in town I’ll let you buy me a drink. If I owe you money then I’m sure I’ll see you at the window, one witching hour; I’m unarmed but I’ll bite that thing off if you try putting it in my mouth.

Good luck, Group 2, most of you are wonderful and will go far in life – I will miss some of you. Sincere thanks, teachers – your guidance has been key in keeping me out of the morgue. Hugs and inappropriate kisses to you all.

So long, Middlesbrough. See you in another life; where you’re a frog and I’m a princess.

Polishing the brass on the Titanic? – An economy in crisis; cheap, out of town hypermarkets; and the ease of internet shopping could change the UK high street as we know it forever.

Middlesbrough town centre’s future as a shopping destination has received an eleventh-hour reprieve in the form of two exciting initiatives.

The projects come at a time when the town’s failure to secure city status in its recent bid has disappointed many locals; the first is a ‘Portas Pilot’ town bid and the second, a proposal to introduce a Business Improvement District (BID).

Councillor Charlie Rooney, Middlesbrough’s Executive Member for Regeneration, said: “Both the Portas Pilot and the BID have the potential to bring new ideas and approaches to our town centre.”

Mary Portas, a retail expert, was appointed last year by the Prime Minister and his Deputy to carry out an independent review on the future of UK high streets.

Her report ‘The Portas Review’ was published in December 2011. One of its recommendations was that a competition should be launched to encourage creative approaches to revitalising high streets.

Middlesbrough will go head to head with towns and cities across the UK for the change to be among the 12 Portas pilot towns to share a £1million regeneration pot.

It already has an excellent track record in creative ideas in the town centre, such as Corner Emporium and the We Are Open project; and the council is now putting its head together with retailers for fresh ideas.

The option of town centre markets, a community hub and a voluntary group of retailers/landlords/residents working together are all viable alternatives to traditional retail space.

Middlesbrough businesses with a rateable value of more than £10,000 will also be voting to introduce a BID. This initiative – already operating in over 110 major towns and cities in the UK – agrees on what improvements an area needs with implementation funded by a levy on business rates.

This investment would not only improve the area but also aid competition with out of town retail parks and nearby towns and cities.

Over 10% of shops in Middlesbrough are vacant. In 2010, just half of all retail spend was in the high street; by 2014 it will be less than 40%.

‘Change or die’; ironic and perhaps fitting that for the dinosaurs of retail, actual dinosaurs could be what is needed to rejuvenate interest in our declining town centres.