Filth

Car Stereo Chews Up Michael Bolton Tape

Big Ben chimes, Radio Times. Meant to be fucking Christmas and the telly is shite, all repeats. Stronach’s got the right idea with that dish of his. I bitterly resent paying a licence fee to those BBC wankers for absolutely fuck all. I’m feeling rough this morning, channel-hopping rough, my heid nipping. I try to light the fire and get a reasonable blaze going. I’m almost tempted to shelve my plan to get Bladesey. The fool seals his ain fate though, by phoning me up, reminding me of the Boxing Day game of tenpin bowling we’d arranged when we were three sheets the other night at the Lodge. Iain McLeod from the craft has gied me the keys for the alley, he reminds me. I was wondering what these things jangling in my pocket were.

Ten-pin bowling on Boxing Day. With Bladesey. How sad and nae-mates can you get? Decline and despondency in all I see. The house is like a toilet, there’s rubbish and smelly auld clathes piling up everywhere. Even I’m beginning to notice the Judi Dench when I come into the hoose. Those irresponsible weak suicide cases, those druggy kids and those fuckin jakeys have got a better deal than me at this time of the year. Carole wants to get it sorted. If she could only see the inconvenience she’s fuckin well caused me . . .

I’m shaking, sick and jumpy. I won’t drive today. The car stereo chewed up the Michael Bolton tape. I must get a fuckin CD fitted in the car. The thing is, you get fucked as the issue of storage always raises its ugly head. That smart wee cunt Bladesey’s gone and got one, the wee bastard. He’s roond for me early doors for the ten-pin, as planned.

I look witheringly at his CD. – I considered switching to compact disc but then I thought: storage of discs. The same rules apply, I tell him.

– Well, I um actually find that they don’t really take up that much more room than cassettes.

– No go. Storage, I snap at the wee cunt.

Then this spastic’s smiling like the retard he is and pulling out this drawer below the stereo unit that’s crammed with fucking discs. – They fit this storage unit underneath. Takes up to fifty discs, he smiles. Cock-eyed wee cunt.

– Right, I say, my voice coming out gruff and duty-polis like. We go indoors and I’ve accidentally on purpose got the box on. The little creep’s looking around disdainfully at the mess, but he kens better than to say anything.

I fling out a pre-emptive strike, in case he asks about Carole and the bairn. – So how do things stand with Bunty . . . you were trying to tell me the other night, but I was cabbaged.

– Not so well Bruce, Bladesey looks mournful. – Actually, I’m driving down to my mother’s this evening, down in Newmarket. Just for a few days. See the family and all of that. Bunty’s decided she’s staying up here. She’s making such a song and dance. I mean, I only see them once in a blue moon for goodness sake.

– Hmm, right enough, I nod. – It does seem a wee bit much.

So old Cunty Bunty’s going to be on her own for a few days. Well, we can’t have that!

– Yes . . . it’s a real problem . . .

– A tough one Brother Blades. So, this creep that’s hassling her, what does he sound like? I ask.

– Actually I believe it’s sort of a nasal accent, um North of England, Manchester actually . . . Bladesey says.

– Man-chesh-tehr, I say crappily, – I’m shite at accents, I’m afraid, except for the Cockney cause I used to live down there. – Orlroight moite? Dahn the old frog n toad . . .

Just then, as I had planned, Frank Sidebottom’s large head appears on the screen as the announcer of the next dire pop act on. The Radio Times does have its uses.

– My God . . . that chap on the box . . . that’s exactly the way Bunty does his voice. That puppet on the television.

– Eh? I say, turning up the volume. Frank’s going on about how this act’s usually on very late at night on Jools Holland and his mum won’t let him stay up to see them . . .

– The chap in the mask . . .

– Right. Somebody’s obviously impersonating that television personality.

We wait for the credits to come up. – Gosh, says Bladesey, – his name’s Frank. Frank Sidebottom.

– Right, I say, standing up and moving to the phone. I pretend to dial the operator, then I pretend to ask for a number for Granada studios, – Just getting their PR people on the line . . . Right, hello . . . I’m wanting to enquire about Frank Sidebottom who was on your show . . . I stand talking for a while to a dead line going, Mmmhhmm yes and doodling on the notepad, occasionally winking at Bladesey’s huge startled eyes. Magnified under that glass, they look bigger than Frank Sidebottom’s. Meet Bladesey’s new specs. Same as the old specs.

We slam down the phone and give Brother Clifford Blades the thumbs up. – Right, we have to take off to the record shop and find some of Frank Sidebottom’s albums and tapes. This is where this cook conducts his fantasy world from. The lassie on the phone was saying that it’s easy to do his voice. You just put your fingers over your nose. Mahn-chestehr, I go, again sounding crap deliberately.

Bladesey’s away though, – No, listen, I’ve got it. Muhn-chiz-tih! He’s chuffed.

– That’s more like it Brother Blades! Nice one! I start to choke as the hangover from last night is really coming on. Now that my kidneys are so inefficient with pish over the years it takes later and later to kick in, and you sometimes feel that you’re going to escape, but when it comes it comes harder and longer than ever and I’m as jittery as fuck as we drive into town. Fuck the ten-pin, Rose Street here we come. Hair of the dug that mauled you. Bladesey’s on orange juice, as he’s driving south later on. I don’t try to discourage this as I want the wee cunt to leave Bunty on her lonesome.

Although it’s Boxing Day, there’s loads open in toon. Some of the shops have decided to start the first day of the January sales today. Bladesey gets a couple of tapes from Virgin and HMV and listens to Frank Sidebottom Salutes the Magic of Freddy Mercury and Queen and Kylie and the Timperley EP. We hit a few more Rose Street pubs with me getting semi-pished and I give a couple of criminal cunts the eye, particularly that fucker from Oxgangs, Fingers Billy, who’s dressed in his regulation white coat and carrying the clipboard he always uses when he rips oaf shoaps.

Fingers Billy’s usual M.O. is to just stride into a shop and order the backroom staff to load up his white van. Then he gets them to sign and he’s away. – Billy, I nod.

– Mister Robertson. How’s business? the shifty cunt asks.

– Oh very good. Yourself?

– Fine Mister Robertson. You, eh, working the day?

– Would ah tell you if I was? And you? Dressed for it I see.

– Mister Robertson . . . Fingers Billy smiles and turns up the palms of his hands. Then he smiles and departs.

– A friend of yours? Bladesey asks.

– Of sorts, we smile.

We get back to mines with the tapes and a carry out and spend the entire afternoon doing the impressions of the recorded material. I deliberately screw up, but Bladesey gets it off-pat. The wee cunt really seems to be having genuine fun. I’d say it was sad, but in reality it’s way, way beyond that. – Yeah, you’ve got it Bladesey. I think it must be because you’re English.

– Would that mean that the pervert’s English too? Bladesey asks eagerly.

We choose to humour the doss wee cunt. – Sharp Brother Blades, sharp. But we don’t know that. He might just be better at impressions than the likes of me. But on the balance of probability it might be a good starting assumption to at least entertain the possibility. We have to start from the principle of the application of the same rules.

Bladesey gives a pathetic knowing nod and grin. – Well, I must set off. South of the border down Newmarket way.

My friend Brother Clifford Blades departs for the bosom of his spastic family in England while I give Hector a bell, to make sure that we’re still on for Monday morning. Then I check with Claire at the Fish Factory. It’s all systems go.

Just the thought of Monday’s frolics sets up the horn in me. I consider calling in at Bunty’s, seeing as she’s on her tod, but I decide to leave it till the morn, let Bladesey get further out of sight and mind first.

I just realise that he’s left the tapes he bought from the record store on the coffee table. I chuck them out with the rubbish, embarrassed at being party to something which gave that simpleton his petty pleasure, no matter how fleeting. I throw some McCain’s oven chips into the tray and heat up some beans, adding curry powder.

To my great elation, my friend Brother Blades realises that he’s left the tapes too. I thought that this would take a while to happen, but no, the stupid little twat is cutting his own throat for me. He phones up later that night and I don’t lift the receiver, letting him babble into the answer machine. Fate can be a cruel bastard, especially to the likes of Bladesey.

– Hello, is that Bruce Robertson. This is Frank ere. I should be sal looky, looky, looky, looky, I should be sal looky in loove . . . I’m on my way to my mam’s . . . but I left me bloody tapes. Look after em for me, will ya!

And he does it all in a beautiful, impeccable Frank Sidebottom voice. I rub my hands together and press the ‘Save’ button on the answerphone.

Gotcha!