pantalogical

There's a conspiracy of pants against me.

All my life, I've suspected that my trousers hated me. From the day I went to my brother's wedding, with a fly that I can only describe as canyonesque, displayed to all the county in the local paper (and preserved forever on microfiche, now that I think about it), to the day I sat across from one of my very dearest, if slightly sheltered friends, with a hole in my jeans so large that, had I been wearing underpants, she would have been able to read the label on the waistband.

In short measure: her eyes went wide, I heard a high-pitched shriek that bats and dogs later reported to me as the word "Pink!," and my friend left the room at vacuum-inducing speeds, having seen something that no good Catholic girl should see.

Hello Clare, if you're reading.

She was never quite the same...

PANTALOGICAL HATRED

By Matthew Craig

I'm a relatively peaceful person.

Stop laughing.

Okay, I'm not the first person people think of when they hear the word "calm," but I'm not the most aggressive person, that's for sure.

I've only ever been in a fight a couple of times in my life.

The last was when I was twelve years old.

When I was a schoolboy, I used to carry my school bag everywhere. Everywhere. I didn't let it out of my sight for a minute.

I don't know what I was afraid of, exactly: Maybe I thought that somebody would poo in it or something. Whatever it was, it made me hold onto that bag like a life-preserver.

This caused a lot of good-natured amusement amongst my contemporaries, and may attempts were made to wrest the satchel from my sweaty grasp.

I actually had a satchel, for the first few weeks of secondary school. It took a lengthy conversation with the affable Martin Neeson to persuade me that I didn't need to follow school rules quite so closely, and a more fashionable sports bag was purchased that very day. For 2 quid. What can I say: we loved that cheap-ass mall.

It's odd, looking back on it, but I cared a lot more about things like that when I was younger. "Looking cool" and all that. Not that I ever was cool, you understand. But I guess I made a half-hearted attempt to fit in that never really stayed with me past 15.

This school bag of mine, though, was hardly the most "wicked" piece of kit ever owned by an adolescent, it has to be said.

But I liked it. And the fellas who tried to get it off me that cold February morning (I think it was February: I was definitely 12, and the sky was a cool grey; it must have been late Winter/early Spring) must have thought I had half the Tuck Shop in there or something. Because at one point, I had five lads on my back, trying to get at my stuff.

I suppose I must have fought well, because after lifting these five boys bodily off the ground and swinging them round on my shoulders, they let me go, having had a few minutes distraction from the approaching horror that was R.E..

One of the lads, however, didn't get the joke. This became obvious when he tried to start a fight.

He did all the things they tell you to do in the Playground Antler-Bashing Handbook. He pushed me. He said, in a clear, loud voice, "Come On." But I think he was a bit fazed by what I did next.

I bowed slightly, and with a flourish, said, "After you..."

I suppose this was why his punch only grazed my chin, and didn't connect fully: he'd never been in a fight where his opponent had stood there and politely let him make the first move.

I know, I know. You're all waiting for the obvious denouement: where Your Host takes a deep breath, and calmly punches the other lad into the stratosphere, leaving behind a pair of suddenly empty, slightly scuffed shoes.

That's what you get for watching too many Hollywood movies screened before test audiences of the intellectually-challenged.

Instead, I started to cry, and I walked off.

Sorry.

I couldn't hit back. I just couldn't. I don't know if it was because I was a coward, or I was afraid of hurting this other lad (trust me: if that was his best shot when offered a stationary, polite target, then he couldn't have hurt me), but it didn't matter. I was crying, and that was the end of the fight.

I cried all the way through R.E.. I cried all through the walk up to Maths. I even cried on the bus home, I think.

I don't know why I was so upset. I wasn't hurt. I'd walked away, so I didn't have to feel bad about getting into a fight. Maybe it was because I couldn't fight back. I don't know. But, fortunately, I've managed to avoid getting into fights since then, so I've never had to really think about it, or for that mater have the shit kicked out of me.

The reason I mention this is, I saw that lad today. He was with his missus in the shop when I was buying my groceries. I think he recognised me, despite the years and the extra poundage and the beard.

So he'll probably shop me to the police for hitting him with a well-targetted frozen chicken as I drove off, hee hee hee.

Ahem. Not quite.

It's a shame, I suppose, that my only memory of this guy was him hitting me like a dork...

Is it me, or has somebody rewritten time?

Look, it's not as strange as it sounds.

I was in Woolworths today, and I noticed that they had some of the new calendars in. The ususal suspects were there: Britney, George Clooney, and SClub7 (just what does the "S" stand for? Shitcake? Succubus?).

It was this last calendar that caught my eye.

I don't have much time for pop music at the best of times. There's way to much reliance on the cover version and the cheap lyric for my taste. For instance: Louise Nurding.

Louise, I understand that you want to maintian your career's initial momentum, with songs such as "Naked" and "The Other One, You Know, The One Where You're in Soft Focus." I can understand that you might have a new album out, and you want to put out a single that would have a lot of instant appeal. One with a ready-made audience, if you will.

But why did it have to be "Stuck In the Middle With You/"

You obviously haven't seen Reservoir Dogs, have you, Louise?

That song is playing during a lurid and very bloody torture scene in the film, where Michael Madsen's Mr...er...Mr. Puce cuts the ear off a hapless lawman and proceeds to douse him with petrol.

Jamie Theakston regretted insisting on the more accurate staging for Louise's live appearance on L!ve and Going...

Louise Nurding. Hm. She's beautiful. But in a vanilla ice-cream sort of a way. You know it tastes good, but you just can't bring yourself to be enthusiastic about it.

Just the sort of thing you want to be reminded of during a Saturday morning kids show.

Witless dandy-ette.

SClub7. I'm sure one of the group has been replaced without anyone noticing...

To be honest, there are more people in SClub7 than I can be bothered to keep in my head.

There's the Brunette with the Big Mouth. There's the Shoe Shop Girl. There's the Jailbait One. The Mousey one with the Webbed Feet. The Lad who isn't Beckham. The Other Lad. And Bradley. How could you possibly notice if one was replaced? They're all faceless, sexless automata.

That's it. "S" stands for Stepford.

SClub7.
All I need is one bullet. Just one...

And it's the Other Lad who appears to have changed identity. I'm sure I've never seen the lad on the calendar before. And I've seen these hairless, laminated freaks at least once a week for two years, right? Unintentionally, I might add.

This gimp in the middle.Who is he?
Why are these bozos famous? Why aren't they down at JJB Sports, where they belong?
I met JJB's daughter once. Nice arse.

Admittedly, I've probably paid a lot more attention to the distaff members of the group (they are NOT a "band"), but this was such a glaring alteration that I felt I had to say something.

So, has anyone else noticed anything...unusual happening? Any people out of place, anybody you've never seen before, acting as if you've known them years. Any actors or characters that don't...look quite right any more?

This happened on Home & Away, once. One of the actresses couldn't make it in for a days filming (I believe she had to have a rather urgent breast examination), but rather than rewriting the scenes to cut her part out, or waiting ot film them until she came back to work, they just brought in an understudy. At the end of the episode, it said "Sheila was played today by Talula Kscykyscyszy."

I mean, how insulting is that? Imagine how demoralising that would make you feel, to find out that you were utterly replaceable as an actor?

This happens more than you think in soaps. It happens to the child actors all the time, sure. This seems fair: you can't expect a child to be forced into staying with a soap for the sake of continuity. But when it happens to adult actors you have to wonder just how little respect the producers and writers have for the actors and the audience. Different actors bring different idosyncrasies, insights and, hell, bloody faces and voices to the same roles. In many cases, you may as well create a new character. And it seems a shame that they don't do that instead.

If there's a connecting thread that runs through this piece today, then it's that the Universe offers us a great many opportunities. Some are opportunities for action, and should be seized. Some are opportunities for reflection, and should be taken up in earnest. Still more, however, are opportunities to accidentally expose your private parts to your best friends, and probably shouldn't ever be mentioned again.

Ahem.

Today, Matthew Craig was played by Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman, 23rd September 2001.

Postscript: As I write, the Teletubbies are doing aerobics, directed by a disembodied voice that not only sounds like one of those Fitness Camp nutcases from WWII (you know, the ones in the German propaganda videos), but almost exactly like the Voice of the Village, from The Prisoner.

You know what? That explains an awful lot...

Christ! Now they're playing with Rover! This is fucked up beyond belief, man...

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