Four and a half years ago, on the ultimate day of my work placement at Real magazine, my blog consisted of the following succinct message, repeated over and over in bold type: ‘I GET LAID TODAY!’ Back then, I had spent six weeks in London without the company and intimacy of my girlfriend. Today, the setting might be different, but the message remains the same: I get laid today, 58 weeks after I last got laid. But that isn’t the only cause for excitement. After the initial thrill of interlocking with my girlfriend followed by the swift anticlimax of my premature climax, there are other firsts to experience. Like meeting my daughter properly for the first time. I may have spent 50 hours in her company to date, but broken down into weekly 30-minute chunks, it doesn’t feel like 50 hours. It feels like 30 minutes.
As well as meeting the bairn outwith the confines of the prison visit room, I can look forward to talking to my girlfriend without our speech being metered by the visit length or the fone credit and marshalled by the voyeuristic, eavesdropping screws. Body parts that I’d forgotten I had can be dusted down and put to their intended purpose. And not just my dick, but my teeth too. Not for biting during sex (I’m past the age of leaving hickeys on 14-year-olds), but for biting during dinner. I haven’t chewed food in 13 months because there hasn’t been any food worth chewing. Prison fare doesn’t require masticating because it is little more than slops, the sort of mush served up to geriatrics in nursing homes with plastic cutlery. For every mouthful that is spooned into their gaping mouths, a fraction falls down their oesophagus; the rest dribbles back out and congeals on their pyjamas. The cons here aren’t quite as dottled, but they still demand a soft diet to expiate their lack of teeth. As well as chewing, I will also need to reacquaint myself with many other skills that most people take for granted, like text messaging. With a little practice, I’m sure it will come naturally however, just like bicycle riding, beer drinking and kebab regurgitating.
Now that my bird – as cockney geezers are apt to refer to jail time - is at an end, I can reflect on the positives that have emerged from my spell inside, while endeavouring to bury the negatives. Physically, I’m in much better shape, and aesthetically I’m looking pretty good too, or at least I will be as soon as I get a decent haircut. I can’t wait to walk into my regular salon (Angels 2 on Justice Mill Lane, in case you wanna copy my style), gasp in wonderment at the cornucopia of female flesh framed by the ubiquitous blonde highlights and then sit down to be treated to the ultimate in relaxation therapy – a hair wash, cut and colour. The salon’s piece de resistance does not sport pert breasts and immaculately straightened hair however but a long neck and a propensity to go down easy. That’s right: beer, a complementary bottle served up while you wait for the dye to take. I need a colour to accompany my cut, for to my consternation I recently discovered two grey hairs. And most heinously of all, they were on my head, as oppose to my balls, where at least they could have been shaved off or sucked off during an overenthusiastic tea-bagging.
With this, my final prison blog, essentially being my Oscar-winning speech, I suppose it behooves me to thank mum, dad and God for making all this happen. Cheers guys for letting me rot in jail; mom and pops by having the temerity to create me in the first place and God for not springing me out of jail the way you did with Joseph of Joseph & The Technicolor Dreamcoat fame when he was languishing in the slammer. I like the way you were prepared to perform miracles back in the day, when people were more gullible, but now that TV’s been invented, you can’t even bring yourself to perform one solitary miracle live on CNN to prove once and for all that there is a god. And while I’m dishing out the plaudits and the pejoratives, I suppose I ought to thank you too, dear reader, for patiently wading through all the detritus that I’ve filled this weblog with. Hopefully you’ve been amused more times than bemused. Seeing how I’m doling out the accolades like Ferrero Rocher at the ambassador’s banquet, I might as well say thank you to the people who faithfully kept in touch throughout my incarceration. It was appreciated, and you will be rewarded in heaven for your altruism. Or if you don’t make it there, I’ll square things up with you in hell. And as for the ones who said they would write but didn’t, well, I don’t bear you any ill will cos if it were the other way round, and you were in jail, I wouldn’t have written to you either. Although neither would I have promised to do so before reneging on the deal. For those to whom that applies, don’t feel you have to cross to the other side of the street out of guilt when you see me in town. By all means approach me and compliment me on my toned physique and beautiful daughter. Even buy me a pint if you like, for I have neither roubles nor scruples. Just don’t call me ‘bro’, like we’re long-lost friends.
Not long after I went to jail, my very own bro sent me a letter in which he included an extract from an AA Milne play called The Lucky One. In it, one of the characters is bemoaning his impending incarceration. A friend of his imparts the following advice: ‘You must not go to prison and spend your time there brooding over the wrongs people have done to you, and the way the world has treated you…You simply must make an effort to come out as good a man as when you went in.’ I’ve gone one up on that by coming out of prison a better man than when I went in. But then considering the badass muthafucka I was when I arrived, it would be hard not to. I may have survived a year in Craiginches but I know it’s nothing to boast about. Compared to the life you currently have and that I once had myself, it’s pretty harsh in here. But compared to many jails, where there’s 23-hour lock-ups and no mod cons for the cons, I know I’ve had things pretty easy. The hardest part hasn’t been about what’s in here; it’s been what lies on the other side of the wall; my girlfriend, daughter, friends and family. No amount of digital TV and gym sessions can compensate for their absence. I’m not the staunchest advocate of God, as you may have gathered, but I feel this moment calls for an invocation of his sacred name: Hallelujah! I'm outa here.
PS: In case I forgot to mention it earlier, I GET LAID TODAY!
As well as meeting the bairn outwith the confines of the prison visit room, I can look forward to talking to my girlfriend without our speech being metered by the visit length or the fone credit and marshalled by the voyeuristic, eavesdropping screws. Body parts that I’d forgotten I had can be dusted down and put to their intended purpose. And not just my dick, but my teeth too. Not for biting during sex (I’m past the age of leaving hickeys on 14-year-olds), but for biting during dinner. I haven’t chewed food in 13 months because there hasn’t been any food worth chewing. Prison fare doesn’t require masticating because it is little more than slops, the sort of mush served up to geriatrics in nursing homes with plastic cutlery. For every mouthful that is spooned into their gaping mouths, a fraction falls down their oesophagus; the rest dribbles back out and congeals on their pyjamas. The cons here aren’t quite as dottled, but they still demand a soft diet to expiate their lack of teeth. As well as chewing, I will also need to reacquaint myself with many other skills that most people take for granted, like text messaging. With a little practice, I’m sure it will come naturally however, just like bicycle riding, beer drinking and kebab regurgitating.
Now that my bird – as cockney geezers are apt to refer to jail time - is at an end, I can reflect on the positives that have emerged from my spell inside, while endeavouring to bury the negatives. Physically, I’m in much better shape, and aesthetically I’m looking pretty good too, or at least I will be as soon as I get a decent haircut. I can’t wait to walk into my regular salon (Angels 2 on Justice Mill Lane, in case you wanna copy my style), gasp in wonderment at the cornucopia of female flesh framed by the ubiquitous blonde highlights and then sit down to be treated to the ultimate in relaxation therapy – a hair wash, cut and colour. The salon’s piece de resistance does not sport pert breasts and immaculately straightened hair however but a long neck and a propensity to go down easy. That’s right: beer, a complementary bottle served up while you wait for the dye to take. I need a colour to accompany my cut, for to my consternation I recently discovered two grey hairs. And most heinously of all, they were on my head, as oppose to my balls, where at least they could have been shaved off or sucked off during an overenthusiastic tea-bagging.
With this, my final prison blog, essentially being my Oscar-winning speech, I suppose it behooves me to thank mum, dad and God for making all this happen. Cheers guys for letting me rot in jail; mom and pops by having the temerity to create me in the first place and God for not springing me out of jail the way you did with Joseph of Joseph & The Technicolor Dreamcoat fame when he was languishing in the slammer. I like the way you were prepared to perform miracles back in the day, when people were more gullible, but now that TV’s been invented, you can’t even bring yourself to perform one solitary miracle live on CNN to prove once and for all that there is a god. And while I’m dishing out the plaudits and the pejoratives, I suppose I ought to thank you too, dear reader, for patiently wading through all the detritus that I’ve filled this weblog with. Hopefully you’ve been amused more times than bemused. Seeing how I’m doling out the accolades like Ferrero Rocher at the ambassador’s banquet, I might as well say thank you to the people who faithfully kept in touch throughout my incarceration. It was appreciated, and you will be rewarded in heaven for your altruism. Or if you don’t make it there, I’ll square things up with you in hell. And as for the ones who said they would write but didn’t, well, I don’t bear you any ill will cos if it were the other way round, and you were in jail, I wouldn’t have written to you either. Although neither would I have promised to do so before reneging on the deal. For those to whom that applies, don’t feel you have to cross to the other side of the street out of guilt when you see me in town. By all means approach me and compliment me on my toned physique and beautiful daughter. Even buy me a pint if you like, for I have neither roubles nor scruples. Just don’t call me ‘bro’, like we’re long-lost friends.
Not long after I went to jail, my very own bro sent me a letter in which he included an extract from an AA Milne play called The Lucky One. In it, one of the characters is bemoaning his impending incarceration. A friend of his imparts the following advice: ‘You must not go to prison and spend your time there brooding over the wrongs people have done to you, and the way the world has treated you…You simply must make an effort to come out as good a man as when you went in.’ I’ve gone one up on that by coming out of prison a better man than when I went in. But then considering the badass muthafucka I was when I arrived, it would be hard not to. I may have survived a year in Craiginches but I know it’s nothing to boast about. Compared to the life you currently have and that I once had myself, it’s pretty harsh in here. But compared to many jails, where there’s 23-hour lock-ups and no mod cons for the cons, I know I’ve had things pretty easy. The hardest part hasn’t been about what’s in here; it’s been what lies on the other side of the wall; my girlfriend, daughter, friends and family. No amount of digital TV and gym sessions can compensate for their absence. I’m not the staunchest advocate of God, as you may have gathered, but I feel this moment calls for an invocation of his sacred name: Hallelujah! I'm outa here.
PS: In case I forgot to mention it earlier, I GET LAID TODAY!
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