Tuesday 26 December 2017

Highlights: 2017


*Audio: Beeves

Highlights: 2017

Listening to speaker-phone hip-hop
Fly-tipping your wheelie bin
Playing kerby between two derelict fridges
Driving your Skoda Fabia at high speed while wearing a polyester parka
Trying to look nonchalant while your dog pisses on next door’s gatepost
Playing with your knob in Sports Direct
Eating Pot Noodle in a Portakabin
Kicking the green hamster of sphagnum down the wooden steps
Discussing who will look after the technical side when Geoff’s gone
The dead twigs in plastic pots and the fake bells of All Saints
Mending a caravan and shouting for Susan
Improving Yorkshire’s sewers
Discussing a mutual neighbour: “That twat over the road”
Pushing a baby in a pushchair past some discarded bathroom scales
Snowflakes settling on your luxuriant mahogany perm
Wearing matching purple anoraks
Goldfinches squabbling in polythene trees
Unfashionable bell-bottom jeans in indigo
Galahad Premium Lager and bags of green potatoes
Eating peanuts while the man with the Father Christmas bag-for-life hugs a spaniel
Walking your Akita past the temperance fountain
Threatening to jump from a railway bridge
Gathering around the modular seating at the Hyundai showroom
Decorating your Smart car with an Iron Cross motif and the word ‘Luftwaffe’ in an elaborate jackboot font
Cutting out the word ‘J-Dog’ from some silver foil and displaying it in the window of the cab of your truck
Smashing the windows of a VW Golf and dragging out the driver
Sitting on a bench with analeptic leg shakes and an eagle print t-shirt, smoking weed
Couch grass paving flags and fake lawns in acid green
Wearing Crocs to chamois your Skoda Yeti
A brace of German saloons and a statue of the Buddha
Making use of the pejorative overtones of the word ‘titivate’ while discussing your neighbour’s new outdoor LED display
Walking down Newsome Road with your head in your hands
Arguing about which of you understands dogs the most
jumping from a four foot high garden wall using a Morrison’s bag as a parachute
Leaning on the bins and drinking strong cider
Seeing if you’ve got a bag of Cheetos in the third drawer down
Installing a lurid 3D picture of a blond haired Christ adjacent to the front door of the vicarage
Wearing superman pyjamas to withdraw a tenner
Accidentally going to Whitby during the Goth weekender
Having a bloody funeral to go to

Wednesday 20 December 2017

5.30a.m.: It’s cold. I don’t go through the park because it’s too icy and too dark in there



5.30a.m.: It’s cold. I don’t go through the park because it’s too icy and too dark in there. Instead, I duck under the overhanging holly at the entrance and walk around. I edge along glistening pavements, past frozen crisp packets, polystyrene cups, shimmering vomit, sticking close to the railings so I can grab them when I slip.

An old man who smells of weed stops me in the street to wish me a happy Christmas. He puts his hand on my shoulder and hums a short tune. “What’s that then?” I ask. “Music” he says, and he wanders off over the road.

At the house with the broken satellite dish and an empty Foster’s can in the garden, the front door has been graffitied with a marker pen: inside a wonky love heart it says, “I miss you Mum”.

Two young men in grey tracksuits and snapback baseball caps walk past drinking lager and listening to loud auto-tuned pop on mobile speakers with no bottom end.

Outside the Polish Corner restaurant in town, a chubby man in a tracksuit is pretending to buff-up his bald head while he takes a selfie. His friends can barely contain their mirth.

The woman on the bus recommends the Wills O’ Nats pub, “The staff really look after you”, she says. “Really nice food, really nice atmosphere. It was just nice to get home afterwards”.

At the shop.
Man at self-service checkout: This isn’t working, love. Must be manned by a woman.
Female shop assistant: You’ve put your card in upside down.