The Great Thames River Race

For me boating conjures up the image of middle class, middle age toffs, in espadrilles, white trousers (the ones that go see-through and show the world your massive 1970’s pube afro), and stripy blue and white t-shirts, drinking Pimms and Champagne whilst stuffing  salmon sandwiches into their mouths before the seagulls, or poor people get a chance to steal them. A hobby for dickheads, I presumed until very recently. Hugh Grant probably boats. I can’t find any evidence of this on the internet, but when he’s not playing feeble, rich, emotionally challenged dullards in middle of the road rom-coms, I would wager he can found sailing the HMS Sad Twat on the Pan Peninsula whilst sniffing high quality cocaine of off gorgeous prostitutes’ vaginas, under clear blue, cloudless skies.  If you have too much money, and too little imagination you had might as well purchase a boat, and dick about on the river once a month, with or without Divine Brown.

I have for a number of years shied away from any sort of sporting endeavour. I was a relatively good rugby player for a long time during my youth, and as I got older I was on the fringes of selection for my county team, was captain of my club side, whilst I also enjoyed several semi successful seasons playing for my schools 1^st XV, despite the fact I wasn’t part of the schools sixth form,(and had no intention of being for that matter). Even to this day, beating the Italian U18 National Champions on a tour of Italy, is one of my proudest achievements – which probably indicates how little I’ve achieved in the 8 years since, but it still makes me smile when I think about what was quite a feat at the time. Sadly, (I’m not sure who for) I reached the age of 16 or 17, and found women, drugs, women, and some drum and bass. I also found partying, and I found that I was old enough to make my own choices. Strenuous, potentially dangerous exercise had to go. Instead I replaced it with strenuous, potentially dangerous partying. Simultaneously I developed a passion for doing nothing, lots and lots of doing nothing at all.

I have lifted weights sporadically for 4 – 5 month periods in my life; At several junctures during my teen years I decided that because I had a vest and a bald head, and access to a gym, I could actually be the next Vin Diesel. 8 years later, I have no girls throwing themselves at my oversized biceps (because they don’t exist), no movie deals, and in fact all I do have to show for it is an incredibly sore shoulder joint; a self inflicted injury, sustained as over zealous 17 year old, assuming big muscles and tight vests would equal “bare pussy bruv”. Massive weights as a weedy teenager = massive pain as a weedy grown up.

When my company entered a team in the Great London Boat race (a gruelling half day challenge course up the River Thames) I thought I would enter for a laugh. Having an alter ego like Mr Lean is hard work that takes maintenance (by maintenance I mean I have to get fucked up a lot, and spend a majority of the time acting like a twat) and so for obvious reasons for the most part I’ve tried to hide Mr Lean from my work colleagues. Unbelievably, (seriously, most people call me a liar when I tell them what I do) I have a job that is quite involved, and I have employee’s who I would rather respected me than knew the truth. Alas every so often I’ve failed in containing my inner party animal/wannabe comedian/general dickhead so I was sure in myself that I wouldn’t be selected. We were even asked to write a paragraph about why we should be selected. In my paragraph I lied outrageously, for comic effect if nothing else. According to my statement, I was more Linford Christie, that Michael Carroll. I’d “given up smoking, especially, in preparation for this prestigious event”, I was “desperate to represent the company”, and “I was experienced in such long distance boat races.” When I read it back to myself it was clear that these were lies. I even imagined a situation where I received a shitty email telling me to stop wasting everyone’s time being a dickhead. When I did receive an email it was to tell me that on the 17^th September I would be rowing 21 miles, with a team of 8 fellow employees. I cried at my desk.

Today is the 20^th September. My dodgy shoulder hangs limply by my side; like a lame dog’s busted, newly blistered leg drags painfully along the tarmac during a particularly long walk. I am still soaked to my bones. My fingers look like prunes that have been in the bath for too long and when I breathe it hurts. I was nearly drowned. I hit myself in the face with an oar. I have a bruise across my buttocks that is perfectly rectangular, and strangely black. Yet, if I could to the race again this afternoon, I would bite your hand off for the opportunity to do so. In my current condition I would probably need a new pair of arms, buttocks, face, bones, and fingers, but I would love to go again – I had so much fun, I’d probably try and do 30 miles.

That’s not to say that the race was easy at all. For once in my life I took something quite seriously and prepared well. I had 54 days to prepare for the race, and I spent 44 of those in the gym. Only when I had not slept, or partied particularly hard the night before could I not be found in Richmond Canons, rowing & running, and attempting to make myself look like Vin Diesel again. I’ve made my shoulder a lot worse in the mean time, but I would, much like the race itself do it all over again.

I was in a boat with a collection of individuals, who as people I really wasn’t particularly keen on (with the exception of one or two, who are actually friends at work. Honestly, I thought a good number of them were complete twats. However, as cheesy as it sounds I now feel a closeness to a group of people that I haven’t felt since the victory over the previously referenced rugby champions with long hair, and beautiful girlfriends. If it wasn’t for my experience on the Thames, I would still be avoiding most of these people, whispering “cock” under my breath every time I walked past them in the corridor, received an email for them or accepted their offer of a free beer after work. (I know that makes me a mean, cynical, hypocritical prick, but I like beer, and I like swearing at people, so it’s fine; I am comfortable with what I have become).

To say that these people now feel like surrogate brothers and sisters would be a step too far, but I have a massive respect for them all. There are 8 people in the building with droopy broken dog leg arms like mine, shrivelled prune fingers, and bruised buttocks in our office today. 8 others, who could have drowned, but worked as hard as physically possible to ensure that none of us did. We did not capsize, and die, because we were, for 3 hours and 1 minute, working for each other, and not just for ourselves.  Very dramatic yes; I appreciate I am hardly William Wallace, leading a small band of Scottish Warriors into war against a gargantuan English army, but we were a team, and it was a strange long forgotten feeling, to see a group of people around me, and to put their needs on a parallel with my own.

Finishing the race was an amazing feeling. People who talk about “high on life” are generally self righteous, annoying Christian types. Unashamedly for about 3 hours after the race I was one of them. A massive sense of achievement, pride, and happiness stayed with me until I slept that night, and even into the next day. I spoke to a close friend on the phone and I talked and talked and talked, probably just telling her how brilliant it was, over and over. Even now, when someone asks me how it was, I can’t help but tell them it was brilliant. Even if I wanted to lie, and say it was shit, to keep up my ultra-cynical Mr Lean persona, I couldn’t. I simply had too much fun to say other wise.

It turned out, after I had prejudged, and actually misjudged a lot of my team, and that some of them were just like me (albeit not so cool/stupid). I was fuming, but secretly jealous, and slightly amused to find out two of my team hadn’t slept the night before the race, because they were eating hero sized portions of MDMA, and gurning on people all over West London, ironically whilst I was showing more restraint than I ever had, in not doing exactly the same; gurning on people in Tonbridge. At breakfast, other team members drank pints, and smoked excessively, and once in the boat I was ecstatic to learn we had a quantity of whiskey, and cans of Stella. Just for once though, it wasn’t alcohol, or drugs, or hi-jinks and acting like a twat that made the day what it was. It was for the first time in a number of years, a sense of belonging.

I appreciate that all this happiness in one post is now bordering on plain gay, but I really wanted to write something for my blog that was positive and uplifting (after my friends girlfriend said that my blog was “brilliant but depressing”) and I hope I have achieved that. I do hope however that this doesn’t read like a love letter to the river gods and my team members.

Soon, the pain will pass, my skin will revert to normal, and the bruise on my cheeks will fade. So will the feeling of kinship with my new team members, and I can go back to calling them pricks and spreading rumours that they have AIDs. Until then though, I will tell anyone I come across what an awesome day I had. I recommend it to anyone, regardless of fitness level, and I am seeking some volunteers to go again with me next year. Be warned though, if you stay up all night doing Class A drugs, whilst I fight the urge, I will fuck you up.

Big thanks to the organisers, my team members, and our experienced helm Danny, who was on hire from the Docklands River Centre. More information can on the event, including the standings and finishing times for the race can be found here: http://www.greatriverrace.co.uk/

More stupid customers services letters Pt 2

Today Ben fell off his bike, which he brought at Sports Direct. In between my hysterical laughter, and ripping the piss out of him, I wrote Mike Ashley a letter seeking some compensation:

Dear Mr Mike Ashley,

Today, I was nearly killed. I still might die. I could have drowned, and even though I didn’t there is a real chance I’m going to bleed to death from the injuries I’ve received because of your negligence. I was nearly slain, by the sword of Sports Direct.

Thankfully, for you, and I, and my family – the tree I skidded into, not whilst on the death trap bargain bicycle you forced me to buy, might I add, but more painfully, and dangerously I would imagine, on my side, prevented me from falling straight into Tonbridge River. Were it not for Mother Nature, I would be dead.

During the brief period of time, in between me leaving the bicycle, and being saved from deaths clutches by a lump of wood, I sustained several savage, probably life endangering injuries. I would already have called the Ambulance to come and save me, but due to my religious beliefs and my staunch belief in alternative medicines, I am going to leak blood all over my sofa, until such a point that I pass out. The blood will continue to leave my body, like decent footballers leaving your terribly run football club, until such a point that I simply cease to live.

I should explain that upon cycling up a slight incline, next to the river bank, on my daily jaunt to the local gymnasium, I attempted to lean forward and accelerate, which I would imagine is a relatively common thing to do on a bicycle, bargain or otherwise. However, apparently the reduced price I paid for the bicycle means that there is a reduced number of functions it can full fill. Seemingly, peddling uphill is not one of them. I attempted to pull away and the chain snapped in two. I was thrown forward, like a crash test dummy, flying horizontal, and helplessly through the air, and landed at the top of the steep incline to river. I reached out to try and grab onto some of the undergrowth, but it was too late. I began sliding down the hill. I was gaining momentum heading towards the gushing torrent of brown water below, which I knew would spell certain death. I learnt later that I soiled myself, presumably at some point during or immediately after this realisation.

From the first second I layed eyes on your death trap, I have had nothing but aggravation, pain, and danger thrust upon me. The shoddy construction of your bargain bicycle, has endangered my safety on numerous occasions. Most recently, (prior to today’s probably fatal accident of course) the pedal came off whilst I was crossing a 3 lane roundabout. Cyclists are killed every day, when they have fully functioning bikes. They get hit by cars, and they die. I had no pedals, and I had to traverse the roundabout using my legs like Fred Flinstone. I was nearly crushed, I was beeped at, and I was spat on. I cried, with embarrassment, and frustration.

I had imagined that purchasing an alternative method of transport might liberate me. I really believed that this £90 would be the best use of such a sum of money, possibly ever. I had dreamt of being able to traverse hill sides, and circumnavigate circular lakes with my children running alongside. A beautiful two wheeled frolick if you will. I had planned to use the new “joy-mobile” to take me to work and back, and had even gone so far as to sell my car. I am now car less, bike less, and my beautiful dream of family fun lays tattered like the flesh of my injured arms and legs.

I have attached the pictures of my wounds, although I would advise if you are of a nervous disposition or get squeamish easily it might make more sense to ask one of your interns to have a look and describe the extent of my massive lacerations, and the other savage injuries.

Obviously I would like to hear from you at your earliest convenience. Your quality control department should have noticed the defects in these bicycles, and they should never have been sold. Your ineptitude and incompetence has nearly cost me my life, twice. It has changed my life, in a massively negative way, and I am keen to learn how Sports Direct plan to compensate me for that. And that’s assuming I don’t die. Pictures are attached:

Mummy, It really hurts.

I got a brubru on my neenee.

Ready the transfusion kit and defribulator.

Yours in Disgust

Benjamin Lionel Dhir.

Fuck Internet Dating

I’ve recently, embarrassingly, entered the world of internet dating. I’m thinking of it as a brief foray into the world of the desperate, old, ugly, strange or just plain forgotten. But perhaps that’s not the case? Apparently, much like same sex relationships, sending obscure introductory messages to every girl in a 5 mile radius of you, with the intention of sexing them, is no longer a social taboo. However you look at it (in the case of the Civil Partnerships, and the on-line female haranguing) it’s all a bit odd. When I’m in the smoking area at work, I don’t run around to every female there, whisper in her ear “Hi, I’m Karl, I really like the look of you. I’ve read your profile and I think we have some things in common, let go for a drink”, before sprinting over to the next female, without even waiting for a response. That’s just not cricket. As far as I can gather though, that IS internet dating.

The difficulty I’ve found is that I am not really comfortable taking the “scatter-gun” approach, which
most people on the sites seem to favour. A one line message, as described above, sent to anyone
who matches their “type” and plenty of others – it is effectively the (super un-) romantic version of
hedging your bets. It’s like flirting with several women in the same office, only less charming witty
lothario, more pervy stalker Fred West.

Firstly, you have to write a profile. Apparently it should include your interests, hobbies, passions,
and a few facts about you. I’m not sure that prospective future divorcee’s want to know about my
hobbies. I thought about being completely honest. “Hi, my name is Karl/Mr Lean. I am a borderline
Schizophrenic, borderline drug addict, who enjoys masturbating, minimal drum and bass, and
peddling hate, on my under subscribed, over hyped blog. I also enjoy cussing Tonbridge, making
jokes about paedophilia, and exposing myself in public places. Nothing makes me happier than
making other people feel bad with witty insults and put downs. Basically I am a massive prick.” Then
I remembered I want to have sex, as opposed to get arrested, so I hastily reconsidered. I thought
about it toning it down a bit, but I realised, paedophilia aside, those attributes are what makes Karl
Poulton, Mr Lean. The fact that I consider Karl Poulton and Mr Lean equal parts of my personality
quantifies the earlier schizo thing, I suppose.

So I am left with a choice. Lie, and make out I am caring and sensitive, and feel things deeply, or
create a profile that errs on the side of caution. A profile that contains enough information for any
potential sexee’s to take an interest, without actually telling them anything about me. I might post
up what I went for later on, but to be honest admitting I am indulging in internet dating is filling
my cheeks with the red stuff enough, without actually completing my indignation and showing the
handful of people who read my blog what a twat I am.

So once you have created a profile, which is witty, amusing, charming, cheeky, and interesting, without revealing too much, or too little, and picked 3 photo’s where I don’t look like someone has spiked my drink with a potent mix of ketamine, MDMA and heroin, which is more laborious than you might think, seeing as I am blessed with the same level of facial beauty as John Merrick, crossed with Rocky (the kid out of the 1980’s Cher film Mask) and then crossed again with Stuart Pearce, it is time to find yourself some “pussay”.

Excellent, I thought… This should be easy. Quick search for women of a similar age, variables set
to “my type” and we are good to go. I was instantly pleased to note that there were approximately
100 women in a 20 mile radius who fitted the bill. I almost rubbed my loins, in preparatory glee.

My main problem in my romantic life is that I have mainly been out with girls who write like spastics.
I very recently decided that the problems in my relationships started from the fact that the women
I was involved with, don’t care enough about how they are perceived, particularly in the way they
write. The issue wasn’t that they were abusive/evil/drug addicts/horribly depressed/plainly mental
(not all the same girl, but you get the idea), the issue’s either was, or started with the fact that
they were mainly purveyors of text speak, and awful spelling, and we should also consider the fact
that for the most they possessed lexicon of a small child as well. Consider the writing, a literate-
manifestation of their problems. If they cared about their writing, they might care about their drug
abuse. If they wanted to learn to spell properly, perhaps, they might have wanted to deal with their
anger issues, as so on, and so on.

Imagine my dismay, upon opening the profile at the top of my list of potential suitors, who was
apparently one of “my matches” (more so than the others according to the flashing banner
stating “your match”, which I thought was a little strange in what is actually supposed to be a list
of “my matches”…but anyway) upon opening the profile I was slightly confused. The list of questions
at the top, with the obligatory one word answers was fine. A dental assistant, local, no children,
drinks and smokes socially (although no mention of whether she’d enjoy my new favourite tipple,
Special Brew and K Cider snakebite), drives, and is of a very similar age. The pictures were fine,
she looked like a nice enough lady type, no pictures of her receiving a massive facial bukkake from
Tonbridge Angels football team, nor was a she a whale; pretty face, nice smile, nice body. “This
internet dating lark could be OK” I dared to think. How wrong I was about to be proven: The actual
profile spiel was just an awful jumble letters, “smileys”, and inappropriate capitalisations. At first
I wondered if it was written in another language, there were lots of capital letters were there
shouldn’t have been any, which instantly made me think of the German β but there was no Ich, or
Arbeit, or any of the other 5 German words I might recognise. Upon further inspection, the woman
in question was writing in English, just very very badly. So I had a choice: cheesy introductory
message to the half decent, half interesting (although clearly thick as shit) “match”, followed by
feigning faux-interest, or forget this woman, and check out a few more profiles. Next.

I am starting to think, (and this has been confirmed by anther internet dater, who shall remain
nameless unless I feel particularly mischievous later on in this post) that it may be the site I was
perusing. Apparently other sites actually have clever people joined up, but people who can write,
spell and punctuate, are in a massive minority here.

Basically I decided I was going to go for a subtle approach. I’m not really comfortable sending 1000
messages to a load of women who can’t write, hoping that I will receive a message back. In all
probability I would receive a message along the lines of “Alryt Sxc xxx”. I really have had enough of
women that speak like that, and I am really concerned I might actually have replied: “I can see from
your initial contact that you are a thick, depressed, drug addict, self harming, under educated bint.
Whilst I would smash one out over your ample breasts I am actually looking for a female with a brain
AND a vagina, and for that reason, you can fuck off”, but that wouldn’t be fair on the poor amoeba’s,
so I’ve avoided that situation completely.

Eventually I found a total of 5 women within 50 miles of me, who shared an interest in music, who
were of a similar age, and who didn’t look like burns victims, and most importantly, could write to a
more advanced standard than a Tonbridge junior school student. I sent them each a short message,
detailing the fact I had looked at their profile, that they didn’t look too horrific, and perhaps they
would like to converse with me. I thought I could now relax and wait for swathes of vagina. I
wondered if I might need to fortify my windows and doors, should a zombiesque hoard of horny
clever woman decide to visit me all at once, but in the end I sat down with a congratulatory, almost
smug, spliff and a glass of wine and decided I would wait for the messages to fly back in. I didn’t
receive a message for the first night, which I thought was relatively normal, but after the second
night, I was bit concerned. All of my self picked matches, as opposed to the ones provided for me by
the website had, according to their respective profiles been online. That’s OK I thought, they might
be too busy literally frothing at the vagina to reply. Give them another few days.

Alas, here we are. Day 5. No reply. No hoards of naked women smashing my windows and clawing
at my penis. Not even a message back. I had imagined, and read on several forums, and heard via
word of mouth that this particular website was excellent for meeting, and lets not beat around
the bush, shagging women. I had even prepared a little joke for the lucky participants: Should
one of the “matches” ask me to “Come over for a D.V.D?” I was fully prepared and ready to
answer: “Sweet, I’ve always been partial to handing out Deep Vaginal Drillings”. Alas, no terrible
joke, no interest, and moreover the feeling I might be alone forever is infiltrating my soul, more and
more every day.

And so I am left with the choice. Follow the other men on the site, and change my profile photo to a
ridiculous T-shirtless pose, or better still a picture of my boxer shorts barely holding back my blood
filled member, and email every single girl on the site, or I could do exactly the opposite of what
champion boxers do. Retire, before I’ve even won.

I am not going to get my cock out for the women of plentyoffish.com, and I am not about to
message every single girl in Kent in the hope of a fondle in the disabled toilets of McDonalds. I am in
fact going to delete my account, and revert to type, masturbating, writing stupid shit for this blog,
and hoping I find a women who is stupid enough to fall for my limited charms, whilst retaining
enough brain power to string together a coherent sentence.

Good luck internet daters, I think you are going to need it.

More stupid customers services letters.

Today, I nearly brushed a womans fanny on the train, because it was so packed. So, because I am a bit retarded, I wrote a stupid letter to Southwest trains. For the record, the video mentioned further down, does not exist. I am a wind up, but I am not a sad c*nt.

"Today on your train I brushed someone's genitals. Not in a fun way, nor did I do it because of some sick sexual perversion. Quite simply you made me do it. Southwest trains lack of rolling stock or timetabling know-how effectively lead to me (mildly) sexually assaulting someone. The lady who's front bum I accidentally patted was not too pleased, understandably. Had someone touched my member I would certainly have seen the funny side, but quite clearly the nice young lady in question was furious, although after some remonstration understood I had no choice. She shared my view eventually that Southwest trains had infact, albeit indirectly, meandered their collective hand over one of her erogenous zones. Your incompetence has lead me to be late on a number of occasions, it has lead to uncomfortable journeys every single day since January, but until this day the ineptitude of your planners has never put me in a situation that could lead to the addition of my name to the sex offenders register. If the woman had decided to press charges would you have come to my aid? Of course not, and even if you had, you would have been delayed because a pigeon shat on your windscreen, or some other terrible excuse.

There were, at a rough count, 40 standee's in the door area of the first carriage, multiplied by 2 per carriage is 80. Times that by 12 carriages, and there were a lot of embarrassed people brushing the genitals of other embarrassed customers. Not only were these paying customers sexually assaulted by Southwest trains, they were also pretty angry at having paid for a ticket, and then being packed in like swan vesta matches in a box. They were hot and they were angry (about being violated, and about not having a seat) and most of all, all of those people, particularly myself were disappointed and weary, that yet again we have been so badly failed by you.

I emailed previously and was told in no uncertain terms by M****** P***** that the doors on your services open at the same speed as any other TOC. I did ask Mr Parnell at the time why he was lying to me, and explained that your doors take 13 seconds before they open, where-as Southeastern take only 4. I offered to send a video illustrating this to Mr Parnell, and blow me down with a feather, I never heard back. My next question was going to be: On a boiling hot train, where I am forced to stand, jammed in again, air con not working again, if I was to snap at a fellow commuter and physically attack him or her, probably not in sexual way, more likely out of sheer rage (caused by your incompetence) would you support me, and detail the cramped overhot conditions that I had had to travel in, in a court of law? No of course not. So what i really really want to know is when you are going to increase the seating available on your trains, so that I can stop assaulting and sexually harassing your customers on your behalf.

Sent from my iPhone"

Fuck Tonbridge

Most people dislike their home town, I’m sure. (Except residents of Bristol and Brighton actually, but I’ll probably come back to that.) I’ve disliked the majority of places that I’ve lived over the years, but I can think of places I did like, and still do; Rochester is picturesque in places, with its Dickensian charms and old buildings, and I did enjoy my brief tenure in Bearsted (before the aforementioned house fire). The cricket green our house backed on to, juxtaposed with two old style pubs was definitely aesthetically pleasing, and the village as a whole was pretty in its construction; lots of green spaces, old thatched roof cottages, and happily for the 3 male occupants of our house there was a near continuous stream of fit women pouring into the pub next door.

There have been places that were less enjoyable of course: Chatham was, as the area’s reputation might indicate, an absolute dump, populated by for the most part, very scummy people – for example my neighbour (who I’d know for years and who I always knew was a slight strange) turned out to be a rapist. That’s just an example of the type of people that live there; I’m not saying just because you lived in Chatham once upon a time you always precede coitus with a savage beating, but if the cap fits…

Most areas generally have a redeeming feature, one silver lining in amongst the retarded inhabitants and horribly designed cityscapes. For example in Chatham, there is a lovely park next to a college, which means you can effectively sit in the sun and get stoned and pissed whilst looking at 18 year old art students. In Horsmonden the general tranquillity and the horses at the bottom of the garden made up for the fact the village is the most remote place in the whole of Europe, and in Rochester the historical references to Dickens and co are redemptive of the fact that the town is sandwiched between Strood and Chatham. (For those not au fait with the area, imagine a sexual experience with Courtney Love, and Natalie Cassidy. You’re the ham in their sticky pale skin sandwich, in much the same way Rochester is infringed upon by two frankly horribly shit places.)

There is however once place, that has no saving grace; A place where it has rained everyday since 1952. The same place where bizarrely there are no married couples. The sky is always grey there, and rumour has it there are no fish in the river. In this place it’s perfectly normal, and acceptable for girls to have had sex with 49 men before their 18^th birthday (She actually used to read this blog, until she decided I was a “two faced prick” so I doubt she will be reading anytime soon.) Legend has it that Hitler initially had this place earmarked for Auschwitz but was worried about the effect the smog there might have on his German soldiers. This place, Tonbridge, is my town, and I hate it.

Apparently some people like Tonbridge. I don’t believe them. I think they hear my best friend and I constantly cussing the place, and have decided we are pricks and just want to argue with us. There is no reason to like this town. There is nothing here for anyone, except evidently amorous teenagers…

Situated between Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells, should make for a decent place. We have two relatively rich neighbouring towns, with haven’t really been overly affected by the recent period of austerity and we are geographically close to London, and Brighton, with decent travel links also. I know what some readers might be thinking at this point – redeeming features? NO. These things are a further kick in the teeth. Our richer, more historically important neighbours simply serve as a reminder of how disappointing a place my home town is. The river meanders through the town, which could be quite pleasant, but the problem with the river is the drunken dickheads constantly attempting to kill themselves/their significant others/their children in it. On a day where the council aren’t fishing bloated bodies from the river a stroll down by the riverside could be enjoyable, however the reeds and the muddy banks beside resemble a landfill site. A landfill site with a special section for needle and nappy disposal.

Tonbridge, according to Wikipedia, has 30,340 residents, all of whom can be found in the Wetherspoons, which is named after Humphrey Bean, on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. I put in some research to find out about Mr Bean (the namesake of the pub, as opposed to Rowan Atkinson’s perennially unfortunate television character) in the hope that he would turn out to be a paedophile/mass murderer/insert other despicable crime here, as this would certainly add to the conviction of my diatribe, however it turns out he doesn’t exist. That’s good enough for me. Tonbridge’s primary watering hole is named after a fabricated character. In Rochester, they have the actual chalet Dickens wrote Great Expectations in, and the pub next door: Great Expectations. Even in Horsmonden (remember its half a million miles from civilisation) their pub is named after a local war hero. In Tonbridge they didn’t even have anyone worth naming a pub after). I’m going to assume Mr Bean’s mother actually named him Humphrey, because at times that’s the level of general retardation the unfortunate looking occupants of Tonbridge display, so that would fit nicely.

Pubs aside, Tonbridge town is bleak as fuck. I was recently looking through some pictures of the Somme. It looks a lot more fun than an afternoon in Tonbridge.  The “town centre” is one road. It has 145 hairdressers, 55 charity shops, and about 15 chain restaurants where you can buy 2 meals for 10 pounds (Microwave + Table + Waiter = Tonbridge ASK). 50% of the shops are empty and thus badly vandalised, and on Saturday morning, I genuinely counted 15 piles of sick between my house and the local McDonalds. That journey was probably 200 yards. More concerning that then sick piles however was the blood caked thong, deposited neatly next to a dog shit bin. That was just beautiful.

Tonbridge parenting is something else. I said there are no married couples, which was a bit of an exaggeration, I realised two of my friends are married, so there is at least one married couple. It would be too easy to label all of the parents here as the “Jeremy Kyle generation” but I know of three couples who live within walking distance who have featured on the popular mid morning freak show that is JK. Discipline in Tonbridge is, as far I’ve witnessed non existent or frankly sadist. The two general schools of parenthood appear to be “ignore the little shit” or “scream at the little shit”. Either way, we have created, (as detailed in my Intersports > JD Sports blog post) a generation of mongy, disrespectful youths who’s idea of a nice time is harassing punters outside of the local off license, or harassing punters outside the local pub, which is incidentally where their absent fathers can be found, when their not harassing the mother of their children’s new boyfriends. I am not going to talk about anyone personally, as I have set out to mildly offend a whole town, as opposed to horribly offend particular people, but suffice to say you would be shocked at some of the things I know about a number of the parents in this town. The half naked toddlers running riot in estates all over North Tonbridge (the very nadir of what is already an abhorrently horrid town) really do remind me of the famous picture of the Vietnamese child covered in napalm running down the road, except children of Tonbridge aren’t covered in 46 parts polystyrene, 33 parts petrol, and 21 parts benzene (napalm to most people), they are covered in a light layer of dirt. The parents of the dirty children are “horribly depressed”. So “horribly depressed” they smoke weed all day every day, and sniff copious amounts of cocaine at the weekends. I am not one to talk about partying habits and whatnot; however I do not have a number of young dependants, by a number of absent sperm donors. Dirty children in clothes that don’t fit obviously pale into insignificance when compared to the parents need to blunt the edge of the knife of realisation, by “bunning” (youth speak for smoking, so I’m told) some of Tonbridge’s finest home-grown herbal remedy. The realisation, of course is that your children are going to grow up to hate you, because you are shit parents, coupled with the fact you live in a shit town. The doctors surgery in Tonbridge is inundated with young-ish mothers seeking repeat prescriptions of their anti-depressants/anti-anxiety pills/sleepers – perhaps a more sensible idea would be to ascertain the scale of the women’s drug abuse, and build a care plan based around that, so that next time I go to the doctors to get my ears syringed my appointment isn’t actually delayed by 2 hours, because of an emotionally unstable North Tonbridge mother deciding to have a breakdown (read probable drug induced spastic attack) in the surgery. Remember Tonbridge mothers, when all else fails: “SHUT UP YOU C*NT, YOU’RE DOING MY F*CKING HEAD IN!” – Yep, it really is that bad.

The people, the shops, the pubs and the geography aside, Tonbridge has a horrible feeling associated with it. A general unhappiness resides, and hangs heavily in the air like mustard gas, so much so that it makes my soul hurt to spend longer than 15 minutes in the town, and I am almost sure that much like the theory about smoking cigarettes (1 cigarette depletes 15 minutes of your life) living in Tonbridge is terrible for your health. I had one grey hair when I moved here, and 2 years later I’m at the stage of finding grey hairs in my beard, and even one on my chest recently, which makes me quite unhappy. But not as unhappy as living in Tonbridge. We recently went on a rather massive party weekend, spent time in London and Bristol. I cannot put into words how sad I felt on the main road back into Tonbridge. Ben simply rolled down the window, looked at the decimation we were entering and bellowed: “SHITHOLE!!!!” Tonbridge.Nail.Head.

I know basically I am a bit of a prick, because there are plenty of Somalian children in Mogadishu, who would kill for a meal in the ASK, a pint in the Wetherspoons, and to be shouted at by some strange North Tonbridge woman for no particular reason, but I for one harbour an intent to leave this town, and all of the retards in it behind, and until the day I relocate to Bristol, or Brighton, or somewhere more suited to the lifestyle of Mr Lean I will continue to insult this shithole town and its retarded residents, and if you don’t like it, you can find me in the Mr Bean Wetherspoons, insulting you, the mother of your children and your town.

Big Kisses residents of Tonbridge, you truly fucking suck.