Fatty Nobhead and Lamp Man

This blog follows another morning of flat viewings. I won't harp on about them too much here as I realise that a) the regularity with which such viewings may occur will get make the repetition of what I write about become somewhat tedious and b) I can't play the harp. Boom! Sigh. What I will state though is how on earth some estate agents ever walk into a property that looks like its been designed by a damaged child on a Sinclair Spectrum and give themselves the willpower to tell other people that having a living room the size of a crumpled matchbox is a good thing. Somewhere, deep inside their souls, these estate agents must know that taking around a group of hopefuls such as Nat, Matt and myself to a place so conveniently located near a pub with its own driveway will only spark unfair excitement that they know will instantly disappear when its pointed out that one of the bedrooms is as large as the others, but only vertically and unless you plan on standing up at all times, is otherwise barely a cupboard. Still despite what we're being told about a huge lack of property at the moment and how we should snap somewhere up, we are all remaining cool, calm and as collected as three comedians and a musician who have to shout 'we have guarantors' as quickly as possible to just sign on a estate agents register, can be. I have absolutely no doubt that with time and patience we will soon be living in our dirt cheap mansion with swimming pool, sports field and helicopter pad before you can say 'you'll live with your parents forever and never escape'. I have all the doubts. Sigh again.

FATTY NOBHEAD AND LAMP MAN

Yesterday I witnessed two men doing things that made me realise I love people for all their oddities and madness. Much like penis straw woman last week, these people were indicative of what happens when people give up and stop caring. The first was a man walking down Upper Street at about 5pm last night. Wearing tracksuit bottoms, shiny new trainers and sporting a very round skinhead, this man was yelling down his phone about having 'fucking post fucking Bestival fucking flu'. This caught my attention not only due to his insistence to punctuate every gap between words with a swear but also knowing that Bestival finished over a week and half ago, I admired his ability to pretend he still hadn't recovered. The dialogue that made my day however was this. Please imagine this said in full wideboy accent and shouted far louder than it needed to be considering it wasn't too noisy around him and it was directed into a phone:

'Nobhead? Nobhead? What nobhead? What fucking nobhead? What fucking nobhead? Oh Fatty Nobhead. What's he up to?'

Amazing. I would like to know just how many people he knows that are referred to with the moniker 'Nobhead'. I don't have a single friend or acquaintance I would refer to as Nobhead to the extent where I would need to differentiate between them and other friends by a further insulting addition to the nickname. I hope that this man lives an existence where he and all his friends are 'The Nobheads' and automatically respond to being as such as long as the correct first name is used, all of which are not dissimilar to an adult version of Snow White. Druggy Nobhead, Spazzy Nobhead, Fucky Nobhead etc etc. I would like to find out what sort of Nobhead he was, but I will never know. It was clear he was definitely a Nobhead of some kind.

He was only trumped later when strolling by Finsbury Park station with my brother at around 10pmish where a man walked past us holding an empty lampshade and scanned us with it. Corin at first thought it may be a dog's flea collar, but the floral print suggested otherwise unless dog owners have got even more whimsical than sticking their pets in tiny bags. What's next? Dog crochet? No. So clearly a lamp shade. He made no noise as he waved it past us, but had hugely wide eyes as though expectant to find something from such a scan. Perhaps he had a lamp in their just moments ago and wanted us to be as surprised by the disappearance of lamp as he was? Again, something I will never know, but I applaud his weirdness

VIZIBLE THIEVERY

I was informed yesterday that a gag I wrote many moons ago in 2004 and have used on stage almost consistently since (primarily because I can't write anything better) was printed in Viz this month, but someone emailing it in anonymously. Now, I'm sure someone else could have come up with the concept that 'Lionel Richie is both rich and looks like a lion', but that's been my signature sign off for sometime and I worry that from now on, people will accuse me of stealing it from Viz. It saddens me when people take gags without asking. After Cheggersgate and all the furore that that caused I can't understand how people might still think such a thing is ok. Sadly as it was sent it anonymously I have no way of knowing who did it and can't really do much about it. If however it happens again I will find the person responsible and kill them and their family. Or have to write new gags instead. Possibly the latter.

Nothing else for you today. Its all this property hunting. It makes me pretty tired. You could say I'm 'flat out'. Huh? Hey? Steal that Viz readers you fuckers! Sigh the third.