A Winter Trilogy

The Ghost of Christmas Past
(…I’ve come to know the wishlist of my father…)

When I was first married, I lived in a small flat within a granite tenement near the centre of town. In many respects, this was ideal. We were young, had little responsibilities and behaved accordingly. Where we lived was like a city centre village, a remnant from the Victorian era, with its parks nearby and all the benefits of the city centre amenities close at hand.
It was walking distance to all the best bars and, geographically speaking, ideally placed for a curry or a kebab on the way home. The neighbourhood had shops; grocer, butcher, baker, fishmonger, home brew shop and guitar shop.
Christmas shopping was a piece of piss.
Ten minute walk to the west end shops, four hours later, hundred quid lighter, it was done.

The flat had been a typical Victorian tenement; shared outside cludgies; big copper steepie in the back lobby; coal boiler and bunkers; scrubbing board and mangle; two rooms with open fires, eight foot high ceilings and bugger all else.
If this was the typical tenement flat, why should we expect it to get anything more than a typical 1980s tenement conversion?
Front room left exactly as was but with the added attraction of having the fireplace boarded up; backroom unevenly quartered to provide a poky wee hall, a poky wee bedroom, a poky wee bathroom and the usual non-cat-swing kitchen, barely large enough to accommodate two people and a turkey.

After four years of us living there the transformation was complete. The final insult to the Victorian era; pink and grey walls complete with black ash, smoked glass and chrome.

One of the downsides though was that the building had no central heating to speak of. In fact, when we moved in, it had no heating whatsoever.
Not being endowed with great wealth, we saw fit to install a couple of electric panel heaters; the kind of thing that you can set on a timer to come on before you get in from work; the kind that give off the thermal equivalent of a puddle of cats piss. On more than one occasion, it was so cold that the ice formed on the inside of the windows and the only way to get any heat was to have a bath.

The real trouble with tenement living though, the main thing that drives most sane adults into semi-detached suburbia, is mostly that you have multiple neighbours.
This, in itself isn’t so much of a problem as their antics.
I was naïve enough to expect that there would be a degree of community spirit within the building. That we would all look out for each other and be like a big but slightly disjointed family.

Sap!

The reality was that, right up until the day we left, with only one exception, we never really knew any of our neighbours.
We were fortunate to have an elderly couple opposite (except they weren’t really a couple, more of a widowed old guy still clinging the notion that his wife had just popped out for some spam and would be back in a wee minute) and an elderly and, generally, harmless old biddie upstairs but, as time wore on and sheltered housing beckoned, all that was to change. We also had a Spanish chef who lived directly above us. He was known to come home from work and, in what I could only assume to be a fit of depression about either a lost love or a burnt paella, blast out Harry Nilsson singing Without You on a permanent loop. I guess we can now count ourselves fortunate that it predated that skirling bitch Mariah Carey. Other times, we would hear him working out on one of those trim-track rowing machine contraptions, the endless swish-swoosh coupled with his grunting, set to a Dr. Hook soundtrack, all conspired to sound like a bizarre, marathon sex session.
Upstairs on the other side, the sweet old lady, whose washday was Monday and woe betide anyone who ignored the fact, vacated the premises when its owner sold up. As a replacement we had the Ginger Medusa and her daughters the Peroxide Rottweiler and the Peroxide Doberman. Nobody had much to do with them because we all knew a single look could turn mere mortals to stone.
Washing ceased to be an issue though as they never seemed to do any.
Downstairs, across the hall from us, the old man with the ill fitting gnashers and his imaginary wife soon felt the warm hand of benevolence and succumbed to the pishy stench of a care home in the country.
The flat was sold to an agency, done up with a bit of new paint and after months of being empty, we had new neebs across the hall.
It was all quiet for the first couple of weeks but very quickly, that spiralled into a depressing cycle of Thursday afternoon, he got paid; Thursday evening, he came home shit-faced; Thursday night, she’d kick him out; Thursday midnight, he’d kick his way back in; early Friday morning he’d crank the music up full blast and kick seven bells out of her. Monday morning the door would get fixed so he could kick the shit out of it again a couple of weeks later. Rest of the time, he would shout at her, she would shout back, doors would slam, music would get cranked up and we would dread the doorbell ringing.
We came to suspect after a while that the job he claimed to have as a chef at the local nut house was nothing but a fantasy and he was in fact one of the inmates. Either that or it was one of those situations like owners and their dogs getting to look like each other, where he had been around bams for so long he turned into one.
The final straw came when, after he had smashed a six-inch hole in the shared lobby wall, presumably because the door had remained locked, he managed to get into his flat taking my wife with him.

Eviction soon followed.

Domestic trials aside, those were happy times. We generally lived by our means. Drank a lot of homebrew, took lots of baths and wore lots of layers in the winter.

We’d had a few practice runs at the roast dinner by the time Christmas came around. One spectacular disaster springs to mind when, having invited my in-laws for Sunday dinner, I went to the pub after work, leaving my wife to deal with the roast. I wasn’t exactly blootered but let’s just say that me and that chicken weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye. My less than sober attempts to carve the beast ended up with the chicken skiting across the plate, performing an intricate pirouette with a full somersault and twist before landing on the floor. The following battle to restore the trussed up bird to its place of glory alongside the tatties was one I was never going to win and in the end it looked like the neighbour’s cat had got at it.
We spent a lot of time preparing for what was our first, and when I think of it, probably only Christmas alone together. Bought a nice bit of beef (never could stand turkey); some nice wine; a dinky little Christmas pudding; even turned the heating on in October to let things warm up. I can’t recall much about what gifts were exchanged but I do remember it was the first year I had ever had a real Christmas tree. It was eight feet high, touched the ceiling and I had to use a stepladder to reach the top. We bought a whole stack of glass baubles, loaded it up and stuck it in the window.
I’ve always thought of the Christmas tree as a binary sort of thing – one of life’s classic polarisers – you’re either real tree with needles or fake plastic tree without.
I grew up in a needle free house.

This was my revenge on my childhood. This was my way of exercising my right to freedom of choice. I wanted to post handfuls of pine needles through the letterboxes of all the homes with plastic tress in their windows.

When Christmas Day came round, among the presents was a bottle of Moniack Sloe Gin. For those not familiar with Scottish wineries, Moniack Castle is a wee place up past Inverness and let me tell you, these guys know a thing or two about making gin taste good.
As the day went on, and the level of the bottle went down, dinner seemed like less and less of a reality. I’m not sure if it got burnt or even reached the oven but I can remember the two of us watching some crappy James Bond movie on a 12” TV, laughing our arses off amid the piles of wrapping paper.

Our lives were so uncomplicated then.
We could be happy with the simple wish of being together.
Now though, the wishes are not our own…

Opening the Christmas parade, Joe Pug.
Watch out for this guy; buy his album when it comes out. Hails from Chicago. Writes like Dylan crossed with Josh Ritter. Simple style. One man; one guitar. Saw him supporting Steve Earle. The rest is just the usual trawl through the archives…

Joe Pug – The Pageant, St. Louis
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mtt6nx

Steve Earle – The Pageant, St. Louis
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfvo6e

Tom Waits – San Diego Folk Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xggcac

Bob Dylan – Hartford
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ydqlet

Rockpile - Bottom Line
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qcfdoc

Wreckless Eric – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/87u7h5

Rachel Sweet – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3vsg5q

Lene Lovich – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zmsh4j

Rachel Sweet – Cleveland Agora
http://www.sendspace.com/file/57u0dg

Steve Wickham – Dublin
http://www.sendspace.com/file/e0klk9

Lloyd Cole – Paris
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4z492k

Karine Polwart - Marlborough Town Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/850iia

Arab Strap – Live In Melbourne
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5xmtu6


The Ghost of Christmas Present
(…think this bus is stopping again to let a couple more freaks get on…)

Having conceded to the fact that I had to do some Christmas shopping, at least to get my own present, I had enlisted the help of those jolly nice chaps at Amazon.com. Deep inside though, I knew there was always going to be something that needed a trip into town.
Shopping can, for some people, be an enjoyable, rewarding and sometimes therapeutic experience. The catharsis of spending your hard earned bawbees on something you really want, having spent the preceding five days doing a load of stuff that someone else wants, sort of makes it all worthwhile. For many of us though, it is a strange and often frustrating experience. Maybe its just familiarity but the same old shops touting the same old wares and the same old fake jewellery stalls blocking the same old thoroughfares hold no excitement for me whatsoever. I always find shopping in another city a more pleasurable experience. Glasgow has the Buchanan Galleries; Birmingham has the Bull Ring; Manchester has Trafford Park; Dundee has the Wellgate; and Newcastle has the Metro Centre. We have the Bon Accord Centre, the Mall Trinity, and the St. Nicholas Centre. Now, as an added bonus, presumably for good behaviour and exceptional endurance, we get Union Square.
A fourth shopping mall, claiming to be just what the city has been waiting for!
Am I missing something here? Aren’t we in the midst of economic gloom?
We’ve never managed to fill all the units in the old shopping malls so what the f4ck do we need another one for? It’ll just be another place for scummy little tabbie munchers and underage mothers to hang out with their screaming weans.
Worse still, they built the place a stones throw from the harbour bars and the red light district, the seedy underworld of Stuart MacBride novels.
Even worse than that, they built it between the harbour and the fish market. Now what sort of olfactory sensation is that likely to spark?
Just the inspiration you need as you’re leafing through the Faith and Zara designs; fish guts, salt and diesel. Somehow I don’t think my wife would be too happy with a yellow sou’wester and a pair of matching 20 joule, steel toe cap wellies in her Christmas stocking.
– note to self – next time Walkers are looking for new crisp flavours…

Still, at least it’s next to the bus station and the rail station.
Handy, Really handy!
Especially when you consider that ninety percent of the people who are likely to visit the place don’t have direct access to a rail link.
I’m lucky; the railway runs past the end of my street. Shame some bastard shut the station in the 1960s. Still you can’t have everything. At least I’ve got the bus service. That runs through my particular little part of suburbia with the usual regularity and because I live in a group of streets that now resembles a triangular island surrounded by three main roads, I have three options from which to board said omnibus.
Because this also involves the merging of three routes, it also means that at one of the stops, a bus is due every ten minutes or, if you inhabit the real world, three times an hour, usually grouped together, with the other three broken down somewhere on the other side of town.
It’s funny that whenever I’m a pedestrian trying to cross the street there are buses zipping back and forth with all the frequency of the last remaining space invader; and isn’t it funny when I’m in a hurry to drop the kids off before going to work, I get stuck behind one that then stops at every stop before halting for a chat with its mate going the opposite direction.
Funny Funny! Ha Ha f4cking Ha!

Another problem with the bus service and living where I do is that the normal city bus service goes up what used to be the main shopping street.
Now maybe it’s me and maybe I’m just being a little over sensitive or perhaps even a little too forward thinking here but what the hell is the point of running a bus service up a street where there haven’t been any shops since Moses was a lad.
Yeah, OK, it might be tradition and yes, I agree, the routes have to be interconnectable to get from all the As to all the Bs but that is of no comfort to Old Maisie in her blue raincoat and polythene head-square. She doesn’t want to have to trudge an extra quarter of a mile in the cold and the rain with her throbbing bunions and dodgy hip while dragging her little tartan shopping trolley down the steps. She may well have a buss pass but she doesn’t want to take three buses to get from her front step to Woolies. No wonder old people moan so much.
Thirteen different lines and they all go up the same street. Not one of them goes to the bus station. What good is that?
Even the park and ride goes straight up the old main drag. The only moment of sanity in the whole parade is on Sundays, when the P&R goes to the new shopping centre. Just as well I’m not a church goer like Old Maisie.
So to get to where I want to go, I have to get what is called a country bus. This is the service that goes from the station, ultimately, to Inverness and back again. It runs about once every two days and is the technological equivalent of the Oregon Trail.

Anyway, here we are, mid-December, Aberdeen, pissing rain and not a parking space to be had so, being a fine young specimen of manhood and feeling fit, healthy and free from hangover, against my better judgement, I decide to take my chances with the city bus.

Aside from the lack of ‘door to door’ aspect, which I can live with, for many years now I’ve had a long running mental battle with public transport.
Back when I was a kid, in the days of double deckers and clippies; Aztec bars and blue lemonade; when we wore platform soles and Oxford bags and Bowie and Bolan were the ultimate style icons, public transport was widely used by all manner of people. It was cheap. It went exactly where you wanted it to go, it was frequent, on time and you didn’t have to worry about parking on the high street.
We even had a sitcom dedicated entirely to the realm of the bus depot.
For years I travelled by bus to secondary school. This again was cheap and the trip was largely for the benefit of school kids and commuters.
After I left school, I became one of those commuters. Even though it was only twice a week, it was something I dreaded. Six of us would make the 30 mile, Sunday evening trip up the coast, already longing for the trip back the following Friday but even then, the journey was bearable.
Then something changed.
Firstly, I passed my driving test, which meant I literally could travel door to door.
Secondly, I went on an ill-advised holiday to the Costa del Sol that departed from Newcastle airport. The ensuing bus trip was one of those that seemed to be unending.
Finally, when I was about 25, a drunk driver pulled his transit van in front of me, writing off the first decent car I owned.
The battle with the insurance company that followed was a protracted affair that left me with no car for around six months. The battle with my own nerves left me shitting myself every time I was anywhere within 50 metres of a Transit van. It was back to the good old number 19 for me. This left me with a deep-rooted resentment for public transport.
The thing about it was that, in the same way as if I was at a gig, at a football match or standing in a queue at an airport, I would always land up with some total fruit-loop next to me.
Like the DHSS, Primark and the council offices, buses are a magnet for the great unwashed. I use that term not as a metaphor.
My recent adventure to the city illustrates the point perfectly.

I leave the house at 9.15 and begin the walk to the bus stop. About a hundred metres away from my house, I take a shortcut through a hotel car park. This is a diagonal route that saves me taking two sides of a triangle and avoids the ‘young offenders’ home at the bottom of the street. I dodge a number of piles of dog shit and reach the main road where I pass two pubs outside which the pavements are littered with tabbies. There are the usual broken bottles and glasses, not to mention a couple of technicolour yawns decorating the pavement. Round the next corner, I pass a Chinese takeaway and, after a couple of hundred metres, the obligatory Chow Mein. I’m not sure if this is first or second hand and I’m not interested enough to want to find out. Another 100 metres or so and I’m at the bus stop.
At one end, the window has been tanned so I move in and turn my back to the wind.
The whole place stinks of stale pish, cigarettes and old newspapers.
I’m eventually joined by a young mother with a pushchair. Judging by her figure, which is disproportionately round in comparison to her scrawny face and neck, she’s going to have to get an extension fitted to the buggy pretty soon. I warn her against taking the wee one into the bus shelter. She scowls at me as if it was me who pished in the corner. The oversized geet scowls also, which makes his face look like a monkey’s arsehole.
An elderly couple are approaching, maybe about two hundred metres away, as the bus steams in to view. As it draws closer, the words Out Of Service become clear on the front. Why the hell is it on the road if it’s out of service is my immediate thought. Like my whole take on the offside rule, (that if you’re on the pitch you bloody well better be interfering with play, unless you are the goalkeeper) it’s a thought that I keep to myself.
Another bus comes into view, with another, a couple of cars behind. An 18 and a 21.
Both due to stop. Both intent on keeping going into town.
Eventually another 21 shows up and pulls into our stop.
Someone exits through the middle door.
As I hang back to let the elderly couple get on first, the scowl and her arse faced offspring barge past me to confront the driver.

“Eh min, fit i fckinell is iss aboot like min? Bin wiytin’ here fraboot a fckin’ oor like. Ah shouldna hivtbe staunin’ oot in is caul in ma condition, ‘is isny gidinuf me freezinmititsaff like. Three o youze jist drove past me, me wi a bairn an in ma condition ‘n’ ah. Altiye iss, if ma lad wiz here he’d fckinsortyiz oot so e wid. Ah’ll fckintell ‘im fan ‘e gits oot”

“You can’t take that on here”
I’m not sure if it’s the buggy or the sprog the driver is referring to. Maybe it’s her festering gob.
”Fit i fckinell d’ye mean like? Fit dyemean a canna tak iss oan here? Hoo the f4ck am ah mint tae get is wee shite aboot wi’oot it like? D’ye hink ahm fckin wundirwummin like? Fckinell, youze are a i same. Altiye iss…”

“Miss, you can’t take the pushchair on the bus. There is no room. Have a look. There is standing room only.”

“Fitye mean staunin room only? Ah canny staun in ma condition. Hiv ye nae een ye fckinbam? Kin ye nae see ahm riddy to fckin drap like?”

It’s at this point that the other bus pulls in and, thankfully, I leave the exchange.

The elderly couple board, flash their passes and I follow, parting with my £2.50 fare.
I do a quick scan and opt for a seat next to a window midway up the bus. Just as I get comfortable and jam my phones in my ears, the inevitable happens, I see arse face and his scowling mother stomping towards the bus.
Please drive off, please go, go, go – too late, they’re on.
She hauls arse face out of the buggy, collapses it and hurls it at the storage rack.
Please sit up stairs, go on, turn left, go on – too late.
Please don’t sit next to me or even near me, please, go just keep going, please –
Aw f4ck.
Why did she have to sit behind me?
Opposite or in front of would have been bad enough but behind? Why behind?
Who knows what manner of snotters, spittle or generalised barf I’m going to get covered in.
After a couple of minutes I get a tap on the arm.
“Eh min, yigotonyfagslike?”
“No sorry I don…”
“Ah yifcka aatsfityizasay. Geeza a fag yigrippybasturt”
“I told you I don’t…”
“Goat ony beer en? Yi must hae suhin’” she says as arse face tugs at her arm.
“tifckuryiwintinyiweeshite?”
“Oose, oose” is the gurgled reply.
As I turn away from her, she produces a plastic bottle of something red and fizzy and I’m thinking “oh shit here we go”. I hear arse face grab the bottle with delight while she’s still trying to get the cap off. I sense a mini tug of war behind me then a fshfwooshhhh. I’m waiting for the wet sticky spray on the back of my neck but it never comes.
I sneak a look at the reflected scene in the window opposite and notice that the scowl, the bump and arse features are covered in wet cola splats.
Maybe there is a God after all.
I stand and head upstairs, safe in the knowledge that in the equation (her lazy arse + her bump + cola-boy) x spiral stairs, the result is going to be peace and quite for me.
Yes, there definitely is a God. For now at least…

Weird Al Yankovic – The Essential
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jppcm3

Leonard Cohen – Live In Amsterdam
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0uzhdb

The Waterboys - Live In London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/o9onpi

REM – Lyon Tapes
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xn3lir

The Men They Couldn’t Hang - Never Born To Follow
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uvnu2y

Velvet Crush – Live in Providence
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pgzp28

10,000 Maniacs – 10km
http://www.sendspace.com/file/p0dorq

Paul Weller – Live at the Barras
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5ftcz0

Bob Dylan – Blackbushe
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l1qvuo

John Mellencamp – Check This Out
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1rmd63

Gun – Hard Rock Hell
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h7gdab

Bob Dylan – Jersey Boy
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xcyzx7

Julie Fowlis – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/chhtkb

Felice Brothers – Live (re-upped mp3s this time)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oa0yh1

Roddy Frame – Live at the Belfast Empire
http://www.sendspace.com/file/z1s9dw

Lisa Hannigan – Live at the Troubador
http://www.sendspace.com/file/yzclae


The Ghost of Christmas Future
(…maybe this year will be better than the last)

So having spent a few Christmases shivering in our poky wee tenement, we made that long and winding, bus trip to where we are now. The full on, family Christmas! Just like all the Kerry Katatonic or Colleen Moron ads on the telly, the picture of health and happiness all rolled into one, minus of course the Iceland platters.

Over the years I have become very close to my wife’s family. It’s not that I have any issues with my own parents; it’s just that if stability had a face, it would look like my in-laws.
I’m proud of the fact that neither of us asked them for anything yet they fed us when we were hungry. Put us up when we didn’t have a roof. Supported us through a lot of personal shit.
Year after year, they did the deed and we helped where we could.

Time moved on and saw us all have kids of our own. A full family dinner now needs a 20-foot table and a squadron of the detested turkeys but still, my wife’s parents stick to the task of providing for the extended and ever growing tribe. I see them getting older and with every year, coping with the hassle and stress of it all with no less dignity but just a little less ability.
Every year we tell them to do less but they do it because they think it’s expected and every year everyone lets them get on with it because they think it’s what they want.
Every year my father in law works too hard, makes himself ill and it hurts to see him being taken for granted.
Every year my mother in law gets upset because she thinks she has failed to please everyone.
In truth, they’ve never failed. Not once. Even on the Christmas Day when we took over completely and I ended up in casualty having accidentally ripped out a fingernail, they were there to apply suitable amounts of anaesthetic and serve the dinner on my return.

Someday, it will be full circle. Someday, the youngest generation will be with their partners, freezing their bollocks off (metaphorically of course) in their first homes, putting up with annoying neighbours and laughing their faces in half at something they’d normally think was a load of shite.
Someday we, their parents, will have to take up the baton and run with it.
I guess that’s what Christmas future holds for us.
I’d like to think that we will find the whole thing a lot less stressful.
I’d like to think that the load will be evenly shared and that a bit more humility comes to bear upon us all.
I’d like to think that each year finds us better than the last.
I’d also like to think that, maybe for a change, we could let it slide – go with the flow, but the older I get, the more I see myself being shackled by the stupid ties of tradition and my misguided understanding of what other peoples expectations are.
I’m sure they too will be going along with it all because they think it’s what I want.

One day we will probably all turn into the things about our parents that annoyed us the most.
However inevitable it is, I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

Counting Crows – Warren Haynes Christmas Jam 2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/txxpqr

Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – Old Town Music Hall Late Show
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4qurvu

Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions - Queen Elizabeth Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/90ifjj

Laura Marling - Royal Festival Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6ev8cv

Roddy Hart – Sign Language
http://www.sendspace.com/file/758jaz

King Creosote – Woodend Barn
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0pkp5b

thenewno2 – Charlotte
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jbdsxk

Biffy Clyro – Liquid Room, Edinburgh
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9pd6w7

Camera Obscura – Firlej, Wroclaw, Poland
http://www.sendspace.com/file/tni8xt

Joseph Arthur – Geneva
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9vtvr6

Blind Pilot – Great American Music Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wd73s6


Hope Christmas for you is what you want it to be.
Life may not be all James Stewart and Donna Reed.
But it is a wonderful life all the same.


Glossary of terms

“Eh min, fit i fckinell is iss aboot like min?” –
I say my good man, can you please tell me what is happening

“Bin wiytin’ here fraboot a fckin’ oor like” –
I’ve been waiting here for about sixty minutes

“Ah shouldna hivtbe staunin’ oot in is caul in ma condition ‘is isny gidinuf me freezinmititsaff like” –
I don’t think it’s proper for a woman in my condition to have to stand here until my nipples are hard.

“Three o youze jist drove past me, me wi a bairn an in ma condition ‘n’ ah”
Three of your colleagues failed to halt with is a bit off considering I’m an expectant mother.

“Altiye iss, if ma lad wiz here he’d fckinsortyiz oot so e wid. Ah’ll fckintell ‘im fan ‘e gits oot” –
I will tell you this, my good man; if the father of my bastard offspring was here today he would give you a seeing to. I will make him aware of this on his release from prison.

”Fit i fckinell d’yemean like? Fit d’yemean a canna tak iss oan here? Hoo the f4ck am ah mint tae get is wee shite aboot wi’oot it like? D’ye hink ahm fckin wundirwummin like? Fckinell, youze are a’ i same. Altiye iss…”
What do you mean I cannot take this on here? What other method do you suggest I use to transport my child? Can you not see I’m lazy? You are not from here and I don’t like the look of you. I will tell you this…

“fitye mean staunin' room only? Ah canny staun in ma condition. Hiv ye nae een ye fckinbam. Kin ye nae see ahm riddy to fckin drap like….”
What do you mean standing room only? I can’t stand. Do you not have eyes you ignoramus. Can you not see that I am pregnant?

“eh min, yigotonyfagslike?”
I say, do you have a cigarette?

“ah yifcka aatsfityizasay. Geeza a fag yigrippybasturt”
A likely story. Please may I have a cigarette?

“Goat ony beer en?. Yi must hae suhin’”
In that case, do you have a beer. You must have something

“tifckuryiwintinyiweeshite?”
What do you wan’t?


Have a good one

Hooli