Harry BawBags Blurt

… is alive and kicking ahm telling ye!

The other day me and the missus escaped drudgery, compromise and countless other tenets of modern human civilisation … How did you manage that Bawbags?

Well it was easy really – we just went to Cornwall and flew a kite!

Simple!

On the recommendation of a certain Mr William Deed I found myself punching the name Porthleven into a TomTom and making the 2 and a half hour drive down into the depths of Cornwall.

Driving through Cornwall using a TomTom is a baffling experince … it often indicates that you are not infact driving on that nice new stretch of road, but actually driving in a field and heading in the wrong direction to your destination.

I really must update that bloody thing.

Anyway … the destination in question was this …

The Loe Bar Sandbank.

Yes Mr Deed you are right! … It is kinda sublime!

It wasnt the kinda weather for a picnic as he had suggested … but it was the perfect weather for dusting off the old kite …

Luckily the sandbank was deserted so there was no chance of me maiming an innocent bystander through my kite flying rustiness. It ragged me all over the place for a couple of hours but I got back onto the swing of things eventually.

At one point I very nearly tripped over this …

How inconsiderate are those artists …

I mean really?!!!

Anyway it was a great day ahm tellin ye … Meditative.

So meditative in fact that I never felt my hands being messed up …

… and I didnt even know that I had amassed a miniature pebble collection in ma size 9s!

Who needs gurus, shaman or the Pope eh?

All ye need is a kite!

Ahm seriously think ahm gonna get back itntae it … you know, the kiting and that.

The bairn that I am eh?!

Lifes too short tae grew up.

Thats what I think happened to me … or at least something similar.

I had an episode of this in my early twenties also … One minute I was pissed of at my mothers Highland home – the next I knew I was coming out of an eight month bender in Blackpool. Even today my memory of what happened during that time is sketchy … I sometimes worry about it and all of a sudden I get a flashback which sends me reeling away from wanting to remember anything about it at all. In effect I became a different person. Freaky eh. Perhaps some form of hypnotic regression will reveal some awful truth about myself and forever be haunted by my actions. The stuff of nightmares eh. Cold sweats and eternal regrets. Bawbags is caught up in his own wee Kafka novel at times.

Anyhow…

These things I am sure of … It was the highways and byways for me. I remember toying with the idea of bunking up at my brothers in Glasgow for a while. I threw that notion out of the window quickly when approaching Glasgow on the M8. Him and his wife have just had their second baby …they had their first one 3 and a half years ago. I had still yet to visit them. In fact I hadnt seen him in eight years bar for one family funeral. My Brother, His Wife and my two Nephews … All strangers tae me. The longer time passes the more difficult things become. And how would it look, BawBags turning up at those strangers hoose with all his worldly possesions in tow … the phrase fuckin brass neck would apply. Nah, it wasnt for me. I bypassed Glasgow & continued my merry way south over the border.

Time passed but it was measured in miles per gallon not seconds, minute or hours. I remember often thinking “Ahve no been there!” on seeing a road sign directing me to a town … and I would just follow it. If I had kept a list I wouldve been feverishly adding to it it like some trainspotter. But I wasnt that together and I didnae have a kagool either. I wasnae well if the truth be told. I slept in the car mostly. Blackpool was visited and I remember driving along the Golden Mile and feeling sick to the stomach. I slept in the massive sand dunes at Lytham St Annes for three nights in a row. There I was approached by a man in his 50s and he may have propositioned for some kind of sex … I may have murdered him … or just ran back to the safety of my car. I think the latter is more likely but the former more desirous.

At some stage I bought a TomTom in a service station on the M6. On the way out of the shop I felt a huge wave of tiredness wash over me and sat on one of those massaging chairs that you put money in the slot and it soothingly vibrates your worries away, allegedly. I didnt care what anyone thought – it was very early in the morning and hardly anyone was about. I fell asleep instantly. I awoke with a jolt after an indeterminable amount of time to discover I had wet myself. Oh Fuck. I bolted and sped away a la The Professionals. It was 50 miles down the motorway when I remembered about the TomTom. I had left it in the bag beside the seat. Dear oh dear … I wrote it off with a mental note not to try and piss myself again. It does nothing for ones dignity.

Manchester, Sheffield, Lincoln, Skegness.

I caught site of a weird looking bloke in a shop window … it was me and I almost yelped with horror … fuck me I was hairy!

Other places were visited and my cars back seat began to sag with all the sleeping mass it was accomodating. On the M25 one sunny afternoon I realised I was gravitating towards London. Fuck that. I eat an unbelievably large all day breakfast in either Reading or Staines which sustained me for almost two days as I meandered west. I washed up in Weymouth where my Halifax Cash Card refused to allow me to withdraw 50pounds, then 40, then 30 but gave in at 20. Shite. So that was that account dried up. I sat under the clock tower on the front and had an ice cream and considered my options. Almost a month had past since waving goodbye to Mr Patel. Ach well … that was mad, was all I could think.

So there you go … One month, a nervous episode, illicit propositions and pissing myself in public … all in 444 words – Beat that, Jack Kerouac.

My face has been restored to its original condition for two days now.

Thank Christ!

I truly thought that was it for me – a life of creams, potions and alarmed expressions from strangers.

But no! … Back to my gorgeous self once again.

Hh!

Its made me helluva conscious about ma appearance though.

As I said in a previous post I never use to bother looking in mirrors – Its me! BawBags! Take me as I am! – But not any more.

Without any effort on my behalf I have managed to stay looking fresh and youthful … always being mistaken for 23 or 24 when in actual fact Im 30 … Ive almost taken that for granted – but not now.

I have been checking in the mirror over the last week, keeping an eye on how well the medication that the doctor prescribed was working on my face rot.

It was doing wonders … each time I looked there would be signs of healing … first the neck and forhehead reparing … then the scales on my eyelids and round my lips flaking off … then, behind my ears, the burning sensation was dying down …

Brilliant! I thought … in a couple of days those tiny wee lines at the corner of my eyes will go too.

Theyre still there.

They were there before.

I had just never really noticed.

Shite! … Whit next? – Sagging of face? Receding of hair? Spreading of middle?

Nature is a cruel, cruel beast ahm tellin ye!

Lifes a bitch … then eventually your pubes go grey.

Great eh!

Its aw doonhill now fir me now … Poor BawBags.

Diddums!

Ach its aw shite! … Ah dinna care really!!!

I was practicin ma boddy poppin dance moves in the shower this morning, mixin in a wee bit o robotics too.

Nature will never take me alive ahm tellin ye!

Its good to be back.

Ahm pure fuct off so I ahm.

Since I last blogged ahve been getting ma heid boiled … well thats what it looks like anyway.

Ahve been stricken by some kind of skin disorder and it feels like Im getting my face turned inside oot!

It started about five days ago.

I got out of the shower and was drying myself off and ma face just kinda felt tight, I thought nothing of it and just carried on my usual routine.

Ye see the thing is Bawbags isnt the vain type … he doesnt even bother looking in the mirror most mornings.

90% of his daily ablutions are carried out within the confines of his shower – the washing of face and body, the brushing of teeth, the shaving of beard and sometimes head are all done there – its easier that way … all goes down the one hole.

In more care free and bohemian moments the emptying of bladder is sometimes included in that list … but never, nae never, the evacuation of bowel.

Apart from just that one time which I dont really wish to expand on in public forum.

But I will say this …

There is a Scottish musical group called Arab Strap … infact they are now no more as they have recently disbanded.

I had always had a very deep affection for them … the first time I ever heard them I could’ve sworn that I thought they were talking about me. Their cultural reference points, their backgrounds, their language and, to some extent, their lifestyle mirrored mine exactly.

It really was like listening to a commentary on things that I had experienced myself.

I cannot listen to them anymore as I had a strange experience once while listening to a song of theirs.

It was one of my big music moments … an epiphany of sorts.

The first time I heard the lyrics for a song called “Fucking Little Bastards” I had to dash to press the eject button and I never put any of their cds on there again. It contains a line regarding ablutions and it is delivered in a manner that made me have the most all consuming nightmare flashback of an incident that my mind had tucked away in a box marked – “Leave Alone – Contains Degredation of Self.”

See! … Music CAN change your world!

I wont ever forget the time I heard that song – truly frightening – “Its too close too home and its to near the bone” sang someone whimsical a while back.

Anyway, enough of that shite, where was I? … Oh yes! – mirrors …

Ah never look in them unless I must.

So when I got to work I was a bit alarmed to see the reaction in their faces …”Fucks sake mate! … Whit happened to ye? … Somebody drag ye here by yer feet!”

I looked in the mirror in the kitchen office … Fuckin Hell! … Its The Singing Detective!

I was scared – no joke – it looked like I had very deep sunburn … dry and peeling … except for ma nose – it alone was in tip top condition but the rest had melted to flaky shite.

Ah was straight to the doctors in double quick time.

So ahve gotta use steriodal cream, antihistamines and special moisturisers for the next ten days.

Ahm not vain, but ah fucking hate looking like a belisha beacon.

Pure murder so it is.

The doctor cannae work oot the exact cause … “Could be a number of things” he says.

Could be stress … Could be an allergy … Could be excema …

Or it could be that I, Harry BawBags, occasionally have a piss in the shower.

Im a bad bad man.

Aw the best

P.S. – Ahm pretty sure its an allergy

P.P.S. – Honest!!!