My Back.. Christ, My Back...

Certain things (Lush grey beards, natural Must, 80th Birthdays, and mechanical bladders) announce the arrival of old-age. Another of them is Back Pain.

This morning, at a time I previously did not believe existed (5.07am) I awoke screaming, like a little girl (in a blender). An ariel shot, as I lay on the bed, would of shown a body in twisted agony, and also rather worryingly in the shape of a swastika. Like a human tea-towel being wrung out by some huge pain beast, I was a crumpled mess. I attempted to writhe about and generally wallow in my own suffering but I couldn't. I groaned and cried until I even began annoying myself. By 5.09 I had somehow raised my contorted self and dragged my faulty body out into the sitting room. Bent over, like a creepy and naked hunchback, I caught sight of myself in a mirror. It was an image that would make a priest burn his bible.

The pain was intense, so naturally I began to attempt a number of idiotic and ill-advised things to ease my suffering. I grabbed a mop first, and proceeded to try to use this to straighten myself. I may have caused irreparable spine damage with this method, and I most certainly broke the head off the mop. I proceeded to stretch and bend myself but all I achieved was a series of smaller, slightly less painful aches on other parts of my body. Eventually, I was on all fours, back arched, like a camel, literally howling at the moon (like a Werewolf, or Werecamel if you will) and that's how I stayed. Quite pitiful really. Eventually the pain subsided and I was able to get up, weeping slightly and attempted to go back to bed. It was however, time to get up.

If anyone from work is reading this, I'd stay well away from me today..

Drink: A rant. And some stuff about a Binman

At what stage do you officially become an 'alcoholic'?. I mean, when I was 17 and literally swimming in Dorfmeister each night, I used to laugh at suggestions that I may have a problem. All bets are off, I'd say, when you're 17 you immune from everything. No disease could touch you. No ailment would bring you down. No addiction would cripple you.

The current blame game being played by the good and the concerned has got me thinking. Is alcohol abuse a major issue in modern Ireland. Are we becoming a brash, abrasive and ultimately dangerous race because of booze? And if so, what can we do. We obviously can't stop drinking because that would be like asking a horse to stop being a horse. In a country that has given the colour 'grey' a happy retirement home, is it right to ask the miserable to stop drinking and face up to the fact that you live in a civic mess and deal with it. Is it right to ask the old schoolers who call on rebel songs and beards to remind them of where they are from, to stop tearing into the porter, when all they know revolves around a pint of plain? Should we ask the kids, who have watched in awe as their Fathers came home, smelling of a wonderful evening of Smithwicks and song, laden with pub crisps and mint crisps, not to drink? What would you suggest they do?

And, if we did. Say we alienated the drinkers, like we did the smokers. What if we banned alcohol advertising, hiked up the prices and raise the legal drinking age. Would this work, or would it lead to a lot of kids turning to drugs for cheap thrills. Would it take people from the pubs, and back onto the streets. Would it lead to further alienation of the old rural folk, and lead to more isolation in our outposts. Home drinking, surely would soar, as it has been. But would this lead to more drink driving, as families scatter all over the commuter belt?

But is it the problem anyway? Do you think drink caused the murders of the two Polish men last month? Indirectly, yes. But the guys who did it, where they hammered? Had they just fallen out of a pub and thought about killing two innocent guys, no. They wanted drink though, but only because they had nothing else to do.

You know, alcohol has a responsibility to this country. Our reputation is solely based upon it. It has served a purpose in our development as a nation and should continue to do so. It has given a social forum for a most people, it has encouraged most of our romances and it has created an image abroad that would be financial suicide to change. And that is the real problem.

I didn't know where this post was going, and I kinda hoped it would fit together. I was prompted to write it when the binman bumped into me as I brought down a bag of rubbish last week. Taking it from my hand and hearing the clink of all the bottles, he winked at me as to say 'Looks like you've had a good week!'.. I grimaced back to say 'Week? That was just this mornings helping man, I'm hammered'

And I was.

EDIT, I just saw Twenty's post about same, I reckon we compliment each other here..

When we were Young

So as to prevent an onslaught of birthday cards, Disgrace isn't going to divulge the date of his birth, but let's just say it was a 'couple' of Popes ago. Additionally, a lot of you may think of the big 'D' as being an androgynous and sexless being. I can at last reveal that ND is most definitely butch and despite being a technological manifestation, 'boots up' like the best of them. So, like all at Château D'isgrace, we like to look our best. In order to do this, we have to try and look younger. We balm. We scrub. We spin. We splash. We nibble. We barricade ourselves against the onslaught of age.

We're talking full on restoration here.

All this containment is fine and dandy as long as it works, but it means nothing if you can't back it up. This I'm afraid mean involves ACTING young also. I have clean, relaxed skin. You would swear you caught a glimpse of yourself in my cheeks if I allowed you get that close, and my hair, bouncy and full, is as vitalic as that of a thoroughbred stallion. I dress to impress too. Disgrace looks stunning in (or indeed out) of a crisp pair of booted denims with a sloganed Tee stretched across his rippling chest. Put simply, ND blazes a trail.

There is a but.

Dubliner Magazine talks of the fading glory of being a lad. It warns you to drop the charade. Bloat it out. Forget about Nivea and get stuck into Calpon. Ditch the limited edition lilac cons and slip in some Marks and Spencer's loafers. Marry the first, least ugly girl you can find. Stay in on weeknights. Forget about bands with 'the' in the title.

Essentially Dubliner, and it's not the first time they've advised this, are suggesting you'd be better off completely dead.

ND has a friend. A real, blood filled, human pal. We'll call him 'Marvin'. Marvin is 31. He lives in Rathmines. He's looked better, but he's looked worse too. He's had more hair, but then again, he's had less too. He may have a bit of a spread, but he can be comforted that his belly is filled with 'fancy stuff'. He literally drowns his face in Anti-aging uber replenishing super duper revitalising wrinkle annihilating fuck juice wonder cream every morning and goes about his business. His jeans are genuine Diesel (not like the Dublin City Centre con job) and his hair has been twisted and manipulated more times than the voting public of Ireland. He looks the shit. He looks pretty damn good. He looks 27.

All good?

Except he acts 31. He gets tired in the evening. He drinks wine whilst cooking dinner. He wakes up at night screaming 'SERVICE LEVEL REPORTS'. His nights out have become 'afternoon tea'. He gets all 'gooey' inside when he sees babies. "Whelan's?? Where's that???" he asks. His iPod is never full. But at least he has one. Sometimes he wraps himself up in the past and uses that as his excuse.

And this is where he's got it all wrong.

Marvin needs to either act his age (and burn the threads), or act his shoesize.

Oh btw, Marvin is actually..... me