Cracker by Damian Christie

After three days in London, I saw the sun. And Lo, all was good in the world. A crisp cloudless winters day was, to quote an Eels’ lyric, Novocaine for the Soul. And it provided a wonderful backdrop for my long but leisurely walk from the Tate Modern, across the Minnellium Bridge, past St Paul’s, Picadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Carnaby St, Soho and Oxford St.

It was a bloody long walk actually. But after three days, all I’d seen were the little pockets of activity surrounding various tube stations. I figured in a city of eight million people, there was bound to be something between those stations. It took a few hours, much of which was spent consulting my mini A-Z or bewlidering passing locals who had no idea why I’d possibly want to walk when there was a tube station just over there, innit?

It certainly helped with my geographical bearings. Previously I’d been puzzled why the West End was in North East London. It’s not. Then again, I always thought Oxford was South of London, in non-existent lush part of Southern England. But don’t tell them I said that.

I’d like to say the day’s highlight was the Tate, but the sad reality is I was happy as a geekboy at Epic Heroes, two storeys of pop culture merchandise, from Star Wars to Simpsons, Russ Meyer’s erotica to the Matrix.

Then I sampled store after store brimming with sneakers on Neal Street and the street fashion delights of Carnaby Street, where I bought a cool print by UK graf/stencil artist Eelus:

I’m liking the big city, even though (or maybe because) I’m haemorrhaging dollars like there’s no tomorrow. And in London it’s always possible there might not be. In the South Pacific you forget – or at least I do – that the Iraq war is not just about America and Iraq. Oh no, England’s up its armpits in that little conflict. So, understandably for a nation at war, it occupies quite a bit of the media.

I use the word “Orwellian” far too much for my own good, but I can’t think of any other way to describe Tony Blair’s new “Respect” policy.

The Sydney Morning Herald <a href="http://smh.com.au/news/world/blair-details-plan-to-take-on-yob-culture/2006/01/11/1136956242168.html
" target="_blank">sums it up pretty well:

The plan creates the power to evict anti-social householders and to "shut and seal" their homes for up to three months.

Extreme problem neighbours could be sent away to residential "sin bins", special units where they will be forced to stay and learn social skills.

Expanding existing programs, the Government will offer teenage parents £30 ($70) a week to attend parenting classes, force parents whose children are disruptive at school to attend classes on discipline skills and even establish a Parenting Academy.

Skills to be taught at parenting programs include getting up in the morning, how to pay bills and living together as a family.

What part of ‘undesirables’ being evicted and sent away to special camps for reprogramming doesn’t scare the shit out of any human rights fan? First they came for the yobs, and I didn’t speak up...

Is it possible God’s started talking to Blair too?

In reference to last post's trivia tidbit, "changing at Baker St", Paul writes to say:

Getting Off at Redfern is old Sydney slang for Coitus Interuptus, Redfern being the last stop on the train before Sydney Central.

Without wanting to lower the tone completely, there's also a delightful (and hopefully self-explanatory) North Shore saying, "If the tide's in at Red Beach, head round to Browns Bay".

Anyone else have any public transport/geographical euphemisms they'd like to contribute?

I’ve arrived in Oxford today. Wish you were here.

The thing about writing anything about London, is it’s all been written before. Usually by people a lot smarter and more astute than me. Or should that be I? (Better sort that one out before me head to Oxford on Thursday.)

But anyway, a few brief observations about the trip thus far.

Long haul flying sucks. If the Catholics are right (just say), and there is such a thing as purgatory, I bet it resembles a transit lounge at 1am. There’s only so much fun you can have riding the travelators and window shopping outside closed duty free stores.

The only thing worse than a transit lounge (which by definition must then be Hell) is having to sit on the plane at Heathrow for an hour – seatbelts fastened, no toilet or overhead locker action – because they can’t find anywhere for the plane to park. Thirty hours in the air, the least they could do is put one of those little orange cones to reserve a space for you. In the end they realised they could just put some steps up to the plane and we could get off that way. Genius.

I’m beginning to think we, i.e the human race, might have our priorities wrong. Why can I fit 10,000 songs I don’t even like that much onto my ipod, but it still takes more than an entire day to get to the other side of the world? I’m thinking 12 hours is about right – an hour per time zone. It makes good, intuitive sense.

If you thought “would you like to biggie size your meal for only 50 cents” was annoying, try having your inflight movie interrupted every ten minutes because the head flight attendant thinks it’s really important you understand the benefits of buying your duty free on the plane direct from Qantas, as opposed to those nasty airport stores. “There’s never been a better time to buy”. Seriously? How bout fetching me another beer instead of flogging souvenirs eh buddy?

If you’re in economy, don’t bother buzzing for a flight attendant. They’re trained to assume it’s a malfunction and will continue hawking their wares.

Curiouser and curiouser: On the flight from Auckland to Sydney, I was told I’d been ordered a special Halal meal. “It must be on your profile” they said, as they handed me a chicken curry – sure enough, my name and seat was written on the top. I tried to remember whether I’d ticked the box for a laugh, which is the sort of thing I’d do. A joke for one. Then it hit me – they probably only have one style of Halal meal on the menu. Breakfast lunch and dinner was going to be chicken curry. But, as mysteriously as it appeared, my status reverted, and the next meal I ate was pork wrapped in bacon, with a side of gin.

It is an immutable law of long distance travel that you will spill something from every meal on your clothing. So when you arrive, not only will you have whatever the opposite of the Lynx effect is, your shirt will also be a dappled canvas of soy sauce, chocolate and chicken gravy. This will help create the impression you are in fact homeless, and will not make passing Passport Control any easier.

On the flipside, other than immigration, the English clearly don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone is bringing into their country. At Customs I selected the Green “nothing to declare” aisle, turned a corner and found myself standing in the main airport lobby. It’s like an honesty box for drug trafficking.

London itself is a paradox; frighteningly efficient, yet struggling under its own weight and ennui. The Heathrow Express from the airport to Paddington couldn’t be simpler. The tube strike that morning meant a half-hour, 200 metre queue for a cab. I notice oddly impractical things – there are no rubbish bins anywhere near the tube stations, which is fine if you’re trying to thwart people planting bombs, but rubbish if you’ve got to carry an empty drink can from one side of the city to the other because there’s nowhere to discard of it. Public toilets, same deal. I haven’t seen one anywhere, not at the train stations, not on the street or in the parks. I’ve already learnt which chain stores and fast food restaurants are (obliviously) happy to take my bodily waste. Cheers, Borders.

From the time you arrive at Heathrow, to every day riding the tube, you are guided by automated voices. Mind the gap. This train will terminate at West Leceistershiresteadwick. Change here for Bakerloo and Circle. The white lines are for loading, unloading and snorting. Stand Right. The overall impression (at least until you tune out, I’m hoping on Day 3) is Orwellian. They know you’re there. They’re telling you how to stand, when to move and how to step doing it. Of course, it’s All For Your Own Good…

Interesting thing I have learnt #1: “Changing at Baker St” is a euphemism for gay bum sex. As anyone with an intimate knowledge of the London underground will tell you, it's the only stop where you can swap from the pink Hammersmith & City line to the brown of Bakerloo.

It’s not as cold here as I was led to believe. Sure, it’s no picnic in Havana, but it’s nowhere near as cold as Queenstown on a winter’s night. And it doesn’t even rain, well not properly. As my mate Graeme put it, striding through Notting Hill last night, it never rains, but the streets are always wet. The buildings are always brown, and the streets are always wet.

The darkness is going to take a bit of getting used to. (Judging by the dour avoid-all-eye-contact expressions on everyone trudging around, no-one really has.) While the days are starting to get longer, sunset at 4pm isn’t anything to boast about. And as there’s little evidence of sun in the first place, the sky being uniformly grey during the seven hours of daylight, you’d hardly call it sunset. So it’s dark at four, but the city is still humming, the shops are open and everyone’s going about their business. It’s like late night Friday night at the mall, every day of the week.

I'll take my camera out today. Pictures soon.

Wish you were here.

Okay, time’s up. Pens down please.

Thanks for your votes. I can now announce the winners from the three rounds.

Round one: When Christmas Parades Go Bad. Also winner of most overall votes. I’m not reading too much into that because voter turnout dropped over the three rounds, and I suspect it had more to do with general apathy than the standard of the entries.

Special mention (and second in overall votes): Claws.

Round two: A narrow win to Chily Willy. Greg, I wish one of the prizes was a book on the merits of sub-editing, but alas, you’ll have to choose from those on offer.

Best descriptor goes to David for Early Bird Gets the Worm: “It sounded like a fish being hit against the bench.”

Round three: Henry, Henry & I. Scotland Yard have also offered a free trip to the UK if you’re interested Barry?

All of the stories mentioned above get a book. Take your pick(s) from those below. There are limited numbers of each, so if you don’t sort it out nicely, priority goes to the story with the most votes. Democratic, see.

As previously discussed, the books on offer are:

The critically acclaimed (and actually very interesting) Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories,

A great little book called The Meaning of Tingo

For the more edu-ma-cated amongst you, Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions – conversations with Noam on the post 9-11 world.

Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy by Bernard Lagan (all about Mark Latham's rise and fall, and again supposed to be a Cracker read).

And as I’m too full of methampethamine and eggnog Christmas Cheer to name anyone's the worst story, Hitler Was a British Agent by Greg Hallet and the Spymaster is also up for grabs. If no-one chooses it, I will randomly include it in someone’s prize package.

Again, thanks to everyone who entered and who voted. What a great way to end the year here at Cracker HQ.

Finally, a couple more stories. Since you all liked the Christmas Parades story so much, here’s a tale from overseas, and I'll finish up with a yarn from my mate Bob that I reckon is worth a read.

Merry etc everyone. E haere ana koe me ena kakahu? (Google it if you're stuck)

GOLDEN ANGELS – LA BABY LA!
By Bob

There are very few skyscrapers in LA. The terra is far from firm. Downtown has a few brave towers stretching through the smog but this city was designed with earthquakes in mind. The latent force of the San Andreas Fault lingers under the surface of everything.

From my taxi I watched film images come to life – mustard-yellow school buses, smudged baseball fields, police weighed down with weapons. My cab drove me through the labyrinth of urban blocks sliced by endless roads streaming tonnes of traffic through the electric city.

I felt like a fragment in the kinetic wash, enjoying the drifting monotony of the freeway, until something snapped and everything stopped – everything except the two cars ahead of us, which collided and rolled heavily down the road.

Through the fog of jetlag my eyes worked in slow motion: two Jeeps slid across the road like it was ice; glass spewed into the air; one Jeep crunched into a wall, the other rolled in the distance; tired locked and screamed; someone got out and jumped off the freeway; a Reebok was left in the middle of the road; people were lifted out of the passenger window; a petrol tank added smoke rings to the smog.

My fellow passengers reacted diversely: one chanted – “Oh-my-God”; the other calmly pointed his mobile phone at the wreckage and took a photograph. I felt I should have been traumatised but, like everything in LA – it looked fake, it felt like a film. In true LA style everyone moved to the left lane and kept on driving. LA never stops; stasis is unacceptable in this city of speeding electrons.

The city moved on and the taxi drove me from a nightmare to a beautiful dream – a night at the Playboy Mansion. LA is a flat scrubland except for one road that rises out of Hollywood Boulevard like a lavish airstrip and lands you in the opulence of Bel Air. Poor hopefuls eek out a living below: rich untouchables cavort above. Besides taxis, all the cars in Bel Air are sumptuous symbols of wealth. Only the obnoxiously rich frolic in these manicured hills.

My cab dropped me at UCLA where big men with clipboards and walkie-talkies confirmed my identity and I was branded with a bunny rabbit stamp and put in a shuttle bus with the other guests. Taxis are not allowed to go directly to Hugh’s mansion; the celebrity cocoon has to be protected. Surrounded by paranoid-looking bodyguards whispering into walkie-talkies it felt more like we were off to see the president of the United States. Although I guess in the city of sex the man who publishes the porn is King. And so we drove further into the lush hills to Hugh’s castle.

We were greeted by women wearing only smiles and body paint. They treated me like God and I indulged, briefly, in Hugh’s porn-tinted life. They were paid to be pleasant – pleasant is not an unpaid guest in LA – but nevertheless I bask in the bright artifice of it all, watching bronzed women flash their Da Vinci Veneers for leering lenses.

My magnetism was obviously working because when I sat down three Playmates immediately joined me – they were all dowsed in perfumes, all wearing silk clothes and all very, very old. They introduced themselves as: Playmate 1954, 1964 and 1973. Soft makeup and violent surgery created chronological confusion: 1954 looked younger than 1973, and 1964 looked like a man. They were women from a different era, golden girls, displaying their wares before I was even a twinkle.

I asked Dolores De Monte, Playmate 1954, if Hugh still lived in the Mansion and she laughed at me – “No honey, Hugh lives up the hill”. Which means two things: he does, in fact, live up the hill but, more importantly, in a fairly tale way, the further up the hill you live the richer you are. Altitude equals affluence.

My misspent youth revealed itself when I recognised one of the ladies on the sofa. She had acted in a classic 1960’s boobyilicious cult movie called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

When I said, “Are you Cynthia Myer?” she said, in a rather pleased tone – “I surely am, darlin’”. We talked about cult moviemaker, Russ Meyer, focusing mainly on Meyer’s – and, in an unspoken way, my own – interest in voluptuous women. Cynthia was a woman who had lived and learned: “I hate LA – too many guns! Too many schmucks! I live out in the sticks with my horse. In the low lands.” Once again: the American obsession with gradients.

As I wandered through the party the friend I was travelling with had yet another American Psycho experience, a moment of mistaken identity. A man came up to him, pointed at him, smiled and said, “Hey Johnny – looking good, my man. Didn’t know you were back in town, dude.” The first few times it happened my friend tried to correct them, “I think you are mistaken. Actually my name is Ollie…” but he soon realised that people in LA don’t care, they don’t have time to listen, it eats into their talking time; they are too busy pitching their personalities, shouting, trying to be outrageous, trying to be discovered to actually listen. Before Ollie could finish his sentence the man had vanished behind a wall of flesh and was shouting, “Call me, man, we must catch up.”

After the party, the paint peeling a little, the digital memory cards brimming with breasts, we were all herded back on the shuttle bus. On the bus home there was a clash of another sort – a generation clash between Playmate 1966 and Playmate 2005. The argument was into its final round and, although they were sitting at different ends of the bus, the two women craned their necks so their insults travelled, before calmly continuing their conversation with their friends.

When I sat down beside Playmate 1966 she said suspiciously, “Where you from?” I told her and she handed me a card with a picture of a young girl, naked, bar a web link across her belly. It took me a moment to realise the sweet girl in the photo was the same nicotine-yellow woman who sat beside me but before I could say anything she was lobbing another attack down the bus at Playmate 2005.

Playmate 1966: “What do these new girls know? Not a pick on her. We had political reasons for doing what we did in our day; we had style!”

Playmate 2005: “Get a Zimmer frame for your dangling tits, granma!”

1966: “Have some respect, young lady!”

2005: “Ah, go blow yourself!”

They were both from different generations but they shared a delight in public shit slinging. Don’t let porn’s Vaseline lens delude you, boys – these are tough women; galvanised in the kiln of exploitation, hardened by years of being over-viewed.

I was dropped off and got lost in the UCLA campus – so expansive and sterile that it looks like a space station. I wandered into the UCLA police station to ask where I was and, behind the metal mesh, a cop was polishing a revolver – it may have been a Magnum .45 but that could just have been too many Dirty Harry movies fuelling my imagination. Stunned, I mumbled something like – “Where am… Um… Taxi?” – avoiding looking at his gun as though his fly was gaping open.

I retreated to my homicidally hip hotel – The Standard. The proprietor is the disco loon that owned Studio 54 and it shows. Inexplicably a woman in white underpants and bra lounged in a glass cube above the reception area. All day she listened to her iPod and all day she was ignored by everyone – everyone was far too busy paying attention to themselves to notice her. LA is at war, a war of attention: big breasts battling it out with massive cars overshadowed by towering billboards drowned out by loud voices and endless egos.

As I waited for my room key I looked around the hotel and saw a flock of beautiful people drift across the lobby past a gaggle of bored teenagers draped over Philippe Starck sofas. I also noticed the frosted glass of The Standard lobby. It clouded when I looked directly at it but granted me transparent slithers when I walked by and looked at it askance. Of course, walking forward, while looking to my right, resulted in me bashing into a wall. That is LA: an illusion that ends in a slap.

Talking to the moody concierge I once again felt the gap between this man’s hopes of becoming an actor and the reality of him remaining a bellboy. In LA that gap divides the young and hopeful from the old and bitter. It may partly be because as a tourist I was a slave to the service industry and all of its faux-formality, but the citizens of LA struck me as being robotic, servants of the fast currents that powered this city – all squeezing quixotic dreams into servile lives.

This city of angels is only for the fallen variety and – though entertainingly superficial for a fleeting voyeur – it is a desert-city where faint lines divide entertainment from exploitation, clothes from paint, waiters from actors, and fabulous success from atrocious failure. I was finally handed my room key, or room card, and exhausted from a day of crashes, guns and porn stars, I turned to Ollie and said goodnight, he told me he needed a drink so I left him at the bar. As I waited for the lift I saw a tall, chisel-jawed man sit beside Ollie and say, “Hey. Johnny, good to see you man. You look great!” Ollie said, “Hi, yeah I’m great, you look great too.”

Okay. Five more stories as written and submitted by you, and that’ll be all she wrote. I haven’t had as many votes for the last lot as for the first five, so if you don’t mind having another look over those too and voting for your best (and worst if you’re feeling the Inner Grinch). There’s no overall winner, just picks from each heat. My favourite will also get a little something extra.

Thanks for taking the time to put some of your tales into type. I know a number of you have found the process quite rewarding, and judging by the feedback I’ve had, you’ve made a lot of readers laugh embarrassingly loud in their workplaces, so take a bow.

I’d also like to thank Phil and Renee for being, thus far, the only actual people to give me a Christmas card this year.

Sure, I’ve got cards from my local real estate agent, any number of PR agencies, publishers, distributors and other corporate entities. I’ve even got a few foreign numbers on top of my television addressed to a woman named Sue. Sue, if you’re reading, Mike & Ada; Sal, Neil and family; and Amy and Sarah all send their love from abroad. Perhaps you could have at least been a decent enough friend to have let them know you moved house two fucking years ago.

On with the stories. A couple of these have been written in third person, but I’m assured in each case the author is one of the characters. Another even has a pseudonym to disguise its celebrity author (ohhh, how very 'We Live In A Small Town) Poor Judi kicks things off though, and opts for no such disguise…

(Vote early, vote often – winners announced on Thursday)

THE DAY I LEARNED HOW TO HANDLE EMBARRASSMENT
By Judi

John Cleese recently described the meaning of life for the English as getting through life without embarrassment. I, however, must be too many generations removed from my English pioneering ancestors, for I embarrass myself with feverish regularity.

But one incident burns bright in my memory - an incident that taught me how to cope with all the embarrassments to come... Once upon a time, a long time ago when I was a grad student, I was diligently slaving over some dastardly computer code, completely engrossed in what I was doing when, suddenly, a voice behind me asked, "What's that?" I swiveled around to see my PhD supervisor, a roughish gentleman in his early sixties, pointing to a small bundle of red fabric on the floor. The eyes of the other grad students scanned from the floor to my perplexed face.

It took a moment for my brain to recognise this object, this flotsam, which was horribly, horribly, out of context. It was a pair of knickers. Not just any knickers, but my knickers. And not just my knickers, but my most scungiest, grottiest pair! Not a pair of pretty, lacy, or even clean knickers, but faded red cotton, worn through in places, and with sproings of elastic poking out.

Thinking quickly, I scooped them up and shoved them in my pocket, face burning. What could I do? What could I say? Everyone by then had worked out what they were! So I calmly said, with head held high, "they're my knickers." And I swivelled back to work.

To this day, I do not know how they got there.

SAFE SEX SUBWAY
By Mark

She stood there every morning, day after day, handing out pamphlets, looking at the unhappy masses pour out of the Metro station and rush headlong into streets, jobs and lives they were only reluctantly taking part in. Madness.

What was so important to them that not one of them has the politeness, or even the curiosity to stop and listen to what she had to say?

A sick ex-prostitutes perspective on safe sex and HIV might not be to everyone's taste first thing in the morning, but surely someone, any one, would reward her efforts by stopping. Surely today someone would listen.

"Excusez-moi?" she tried again, as a fresh batch of commuters rushed past.

No one stopped. Averted gazes. Angry glares. Guilty looks and sighs of relief as they passed.

"Putain" she muttered, enjoying the irony, and settled down to wait for the next trainload to spill form the station.

"I'm sorry I ignored you just now" she heard, in terribly accented French.

An English guy probably, no, no, the pronunciation wasn't quite that bad, ah oui. Irish.

The traveller stood on front of her, stumbling awkwardly through an apology but relaxed and smiling, looking her in the eye. "It's not like I'm rushing anywhere in particular, I shouldn't have been so rude to you just now; what were you trying to say to me?" he asked.

"I felt today might be the day" she smiled to herself, and launched into her tale, full of dire warnings, sound advice and warm caring. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he chatted back freely, so soon she was telling her story, asking him his, her mind off the job, just enjoying the connection.

Small personal details were exchanged, separateness displaced by their spontaneous exchange of intimacies.

And then it was over. He started to thank here, shuffling from foot to foot, drawing back from her, readying himself to move on with his day. She felt the distance of strangers appear between them again.

“One last thing, take these" she insisted, grabbing some condoms from her pamphlet bag and pressing them into his hands. "and make sure you use them. We would never have met like this if I had taken my own advice".

"I only hope I get the chance to" he joked, then caught himself, mumbled something in awkward understanding, and was gone.

She settled down to wait for the next trainload to spill from the station.

HENRY, HENRY & I
By Barry

Squatting seems to be over in London now, but back in the mid-80s, it was quite the way for thrifty, adventurous young Kiwis to live. We prided ourselves on our practical ability in breaking into vacant council flats, fixing the dunnies, and living rent-free until we were kicked out.

But my first crack at breaking a squat didn't go too well (neither did my second, but that's another story). It all looked good for a while. A few squatters on the South London estate where our friends lived had been turfed out lately, and there were quite a few empties.

My friends C and J and I picked our night, gathered at a nearby flat, and stoutly set out to get ourselves a place to live. I got to carry out the grisly (and loud) business of forcing open the bathroom window. Eventually, we got in and I was just feeling pretty chuffed when a policeman appeared at the wide open front door. Bugger.

I very briefly considered doing a runner, but there was obviously nowhere to run to. I think C had managed to dive behind an old couch, but that didn't last long.

When we came out onto the landing of the council block, there wasn't just one cop. There were cops for Africa. And a couple of other continents too, probably. It turned out that there was a mass eviction planned for first thing the following morning, and the policing operation had already started. Doing a runner was definitely not an option.

So we got in a van and went to the local police station. In the watchroom, we sat at a table. C and J were processed before me. Naturally, they had to turn out their pockets, and this prompted me to explore my own left front pocket. Horror.

The three eighths of hash I'd purchased for myself and a friend before the expedition were not, as I had imagined, in my big black jacket back at the flat. They were in my left front pocket.

Carefully, I palmed the hash into my left leg. Then, when the sergeant turned to me, I swept it off onto the floor beneath the table. Excellent. The cleaner would find it in the morning and no one would know it was me.

With a sense of relief, I dumped the contents of my pockets onto the table. Horror.

Two little pieces of hash were under the table. And one was sitting there on top of the table, between me and the sergeant.

"Ah," said the sergeant.

He told me I'd have to be strip-searched, and, for the only time in my life, I was. It was not memorable.

By the time I came out, C and J were in a cell, and looking kind of freaked. I was put in a separate cell.

Presently, I was fetched, and brought before a detective. He was straight from ITV central casting, middle-market cop drama. He was stout and balding, with a moustache and a Houndstooth jacket.

He looked at me quizzically.

"So," he said, "What got you into drugs?"

A split second later, so soon that you might even debate whether it was actually a conscious decision, I decided that there would be an advantage in playing the dumb, naïve Kiwi.

I claimed, preposterously, that dope was near as dammit to legal in New Zealand, and I'd assumed it was so in Britain. I made up a cock-and-bull story about wandering unawares into the Railton Hotel with my chums and being pressured to buy by an unnerving Jamaican man. The detective nodded sagely.

I even claimed to have been offered the hash at an unusually low price, then thought that that was a stupid and unnecessary complication. But the detective just nodded sagely and observed that that was, indeed, an unusually good price.

I was pretty sure I was on for a diversion when I was led back to the cell (correctly, as it happened) but I still had a problem. A big one.

Every time I had been walked past the watchroom table, the two other blocks of hash had danced before my eyes, like accusing lollies. They were still there, identical to the block that had been surrendered and negotiated over, and when they were discovered in the morning, my dumb-naive-Kiwi act would start to look pretty bad. Angry detective, quite probably.

So I had to get them back.

Understand that I have never had the courage for shoplifting. But needs must. While C and J signed their forms, it took me an agonising four attempts to casually drop my sweatshirt under the table. The fourth time was really close. I scooped up my sweatshirt, and the two blocks of hash with it, cradled it under my left arm, signed my form and got the hell out.

I kept a straight face until we got around the corner, and then informed my friends what I had done. I had entered the police station with three blocks of hash, been strip-searched - and left the building with two of them.

Chuckling, I removed the two blocks from their place in the sweatshirt, and put them in my sock, just to be safe.

"Mr Barry!" rang a voice as I still had my hand in my sock.

Horror.

There was a young cop behind me. I expected the worst.

"Mr Barry, you didn't sign one of your forms."

He had been kind enough to bring it around for me. I signed it, my heart hammering, and thanked him for his efforts.

When we got back to the flat, at dawn, I skinned up a fattie and we went out onto the landing to watch the circus outside. The mass eviction was in progress: cops massing, tenants massing, the odd squatter getting stroppy

I inhaled, sighed, and felt like I was in a left-wing art movie.

LAUGHTER - THE BEST MEDICINE
By Bruce

I have always had a challenging tendency for uncontrollable laughter at inappropriate moments. It started early, at my Brethren friend's prayers before dinner, school assemblies, the usual stuff. The recurring theme was convention making it impossible for you to get away.

The night tour of the Karori Bird Sanctuary last year was a low point. The volunteers were charming if hokey, and very safety conscious, so we had to stumble around together in the dark. Let’s face it, all the birds in there are sleeping at night, there’s nothing to be heard. So when we got to the darkest corner and the poor volunteer was desperately hushing us as a kiwi had been heard near this corner a month ago, all that could be heard was my Muttley chuckling, on and on and on.

And so to the worst. My partner's father, who I loved deeply, died this year. He used to be a cop. The police college has an annual service of remembrance and my partner and I went. You can see where this is heading. Uh oh. The problem, if I can deflect a little from my own irresponsibility, was that the convener was a true David Brent. He welcomed us all with grave self-importance. The dignitaries filed in. We sat in chairs lined up with military precision. David’s choir, in which I could see from the programme his own son was performing, were very, how shall I put it...down home. He conducted them with a lot of arm movement. They swayed. Then the first hymn was sung. But who was singing so loudly? David was wearing a Madonna style microphone. I felt a smile race across my lips, but kept a lid on.

A central part of the programme was the reading of the names. They were read, and I cried when I heard his name. But then, David started playing his wretched organ as backing music, I want to say the wind beneath my wings, but surely not. And then, the final undoing, he and his choir started gently mooing with big cow eyes, as backing as the endless list of names were read. I lost it, but actually, my partner set me off, as she was away first. It was fucking hell. I tried everything, not breathing, covering my face with a tissue in my hands to simulate paroxysms of grief, pinching my skin to hurt. Nothing worked. A couple of years later, it ended, and we could leave, shaken and chastened.

How bad is that?

OLD MAN ON BROADWAY
By Samuel

The old man seems to be badly hurt. He is wandering about in erratic circles on Broadway's Upper West side, two or three doors away from an all-night coffee shop. His shirt has no collar and his old pair of too-large trousers are held up by a pair of frayed suspenders. The night is cold and he has no coat. When he turns away he reveals that the back of his head is cut open and blood is streaming down through his sparse white hair and under his shirt. He is muttering unintelligibly to himself and gesturing weakly at an unseen audience.

Inside the takeout coffee bar people are shouting angrily. A plain roundfaced girl with dark hair tied up in a dirty scarf has the floor. Her two male companions are hunched over the counter, not looking at anyone.

"What a fine manly thing to do," she yells. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

It is not immediately apparent whom she is shouting at. Everybody is ignoring her. A white-faced cook is nervously walking back and forth behind the counter. He doesn't know what to do.

Then a stocky European with olive skin and black hair mutters sullenly, "Shut your face." He has a thick accent and is standing further down the bar with a friend.

"That's right, be charming, you nasty piece of scum," the girl cries. "We don't need your sort in this country."

Finally the young European is goaded beyond his endurance. He storms out, pausing only to spit a large gob of phlegm at the girl. She averts her face but it splatters in her hair.

"Old men and women are just your size," she shrieks. "That's how strong and brave you are." She is screaming out the door after him. "You miserable little man."

Her words force him to reply. He shouts back a weak excuse. "I can't help it if he fell over."

As he passes behind the old man, who is still staggering around in small circles oblivious to the scene, the European abruptly stops. He grabs the back of the old man's head in both hands and examines the open wound closely. It is a belated gesture of concern. Then he and his friend stride off quickly across the road. It is hard to tell from their response whether the injury is superficial or something quite serious. The two men disappear into the night down Broadway in the direction of Times Square.

A young couple stand on the sidewalk looking at the scene. The man wears an expensive long leather coat and the woman is protected from the cold by a glamorous ankle-length lambskin coat.

The man bends down and picks up a crumpled dollar bill from off the pavement, looks at it, then thrusts it into his pocket.

"Give it to the old man," the woman with him quickly urges. "I saw that too, I thought it was his. He could have lost it when he fell over."

"No, it could be anyone's," says the man shortly.

"It could be his," insists the woman.

"Forget it. It could belong to anyone," he says, embarrassed by his unfortunate luck. "Come on, let's go."

"Why don't you give it to him?" she asks.

"It's only a dollar," he says. He feels he can't back down now. He just wants to get away from the scene. He doesn't want to become involved with the injured man. "It doesn't matter. Let's go."

They walk off down the street past the old man with the bleeding head. He is lit by garish neon signs, stumbling on the sidewalk of New York city. Nobody comes to his aid, not even the girl in the takeout bar.

Right. Thanks for your votes and comments on the various stories.

Despite the best attempts of one competitor to have When Christmas Parades Go Bad disqualified (on the basis that it didn't really happen to the author, but rather her grandfather), I rule it admissable. She was there, therefore it happened to her. No correspondence will be etc.

But, even if it was as ill-fated as Bauble Peters' strike against Bob Clarkson, the challenger had good instincts: When Christmas Parades Go Bad romped home, followed by Claws. And coincidences abounded, one of the votes for All Aboard came from someone claiming to be the stories' sweaty antagonist.

So onto round two. There may be one final round after this, on Monday morning, of any stories sent in since my last post. Gotta be in to win and all that.

As well as the books offered in the last post, the stakes have also been, er, raised, with two new prizes on offer: Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy by Bernard Lagan (all about Mark Latham's rise and fall) and the brilliantly (unintentionally I think) wacky Hitler Was a British Agent by Greg Hallet and the Spymaster. Not only does it describe how Hitler survived WWII, it goes on to draw some startling insights into Aotearoa:

New Zealand is the spies' holiday and retirement home. In New Zealand it is not illegal for a woman to kill her male partner, as long as she is dark brown, lesbian, lesbians are attracted to her, or she has a history of mental illness... New Zealand's legalising of 'female murders male' came under the KGB operative Prime Minister Helen Clark...

Wow. Okay, maybe that book should go to the worst story, because let's be honest, there are a couple of shitters. Votes for that too please.

Also a warning: By his own admission, Greg's story, Chilly Willy, is really long. I've put it last, so you can just read down to there, and if you run out of time you can print it out, and use it to occupy those down times during the next five day international.

Crap titles mine once again.

Oh, and finally before we start: I was searching for Cathy Odger's new blog the other day, and accidentally stumbled on this little gem of a blog. It's like a haiku trapped in ice - perfect in its frozen simplicity.

And now...

EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM
by David

I've never been a fan of waking up. I'm a dreadful morning person and no amount of caffiene can cheer me up. I found it particularly difficult to wake up at a reasonable hour while at university. I tried everything - moving my alarm clock to the other side of the room - hiding it in different places every night - using multiple alarms. All to no avail.

During one of my years at varsity - undergrad or honours, I guess, I discovered a foolproof way to wake up. Only, it wasn't by any action of my own. We were living in this absolute dive. Mould everywhere, freezing cold (Chch winters...) and really thin walls. Anyway, I found myself waking up to this really weird noise. It sounded like a fish being hit against the bench - followed by what can only really be described as being like a wounded possum vomiting hairballs. Bloody possums, I thought, and spent the next several weeks trying to find out where this injured brute was. I'd wake up just before each time (without any alarm being used) to try and pinpoint the sound. It wasn't in the ceiling, on the roof, or in that pitiful excuse we called a 'tree'. I couldn't find the bastard anywhere. Until, as you've probably guessed, I realised it was the sound of one of my flatmates whacking off in the shower.

I felt really dirty but would you really want a shower after that?

I still hate alarms.

BOOTLEGGING
by Kris

I was born in Sweden, and when I finished high school I took a year off and went back there to work on a freight ship that sailed around the Baltic and the North Sea. Duty free booze was sold on board, and everyone made the most of this because of the high taxes on alcohol in Sweden. You were only allowed to bring in one bottle of liquor and one crate of beer at a time, but the crew changed at a small, remote port and the older hands were adamant that there were never any customs agents there.

I was too young to buy booze legally at the time, so I took two bottles of liquor with me when I disembarked. The first machinist was considerably more gung ho, taking several bottles of liquor and several crates of beer which he wrapped in plastic bags. He told me that the amount he had was just under the definition of smuggling: if he was caught with any more he could have faced jail rather than just a fine.

So we got off and, sure enough, there were a couple of customs agents waiting on the dock. Being a fairly clean-cut kid, I hadn’t had any run-ins with the law, so when they asked me if I had anything to declare I stuttered nervously but managed to say no. I was sure one of them gave me a suspicious look, but luckily they didn’t ask to check my bags and turned their attention to the first machinist. Standing in the midst of all his booze he said breezily ‘Nothing to declare, you can have a look if you like.’ I was fully expecting one of the agents to say, ‘You must be joking, open your bags,’ but it didn’t happen. Such was his chutzpah that they just thanked us and drove off, though I’m sure that in hindsight they must have wondered what was in all those beer crate-sized boxes wrapped in plastic.

I learned a valuable lesson about bulshitting that day.

IT WAS PROBABLY INEVITABLE
by Carl
Many years ago whilst doing the backpack thing I spent three months in the middle east, flying to Israel in early Jan from Amsterdam. This little trip around Europe had soaked up a lot of my travelling funds unintentionally. Anyway I arrived in Israel with only $300 and an return airfare. Luckily I also had a credit card. Anyway after sleeping on a beach in a cafe, at night, for three weeks, I hooked up with some Scandinavians who were headed back to their Kibbutz.

After a month there we all decided to carry on over the border into Egypt. By this time I was very low on funds, deciding to travel cattle class to Aswan on Egyptian rail (which makes NZ rail look like the TGV). About two weeks into the Egypt jaunt I said goodbye to the scandys and started heading north to Cairo. Please note that this was 1988 and there was no internet.

Anyway down to my last tenner I decided to risk one more trip to the bank to get some funds on the credit card - only to be confronted by a bank official cutting up the Visa in front of me! INSUFFICENT FUNDS!

Emergency calls to New Zealand ensued with 1988 style phone systems and toll charging ($20US for 5min max!). I think that I scared my poor parents who tried to get John Banks (MP for Whangarei at the time) to intervene. Anyway I managed by pawning off my camera to a fellow traveller. (I actually managed to get that back eventually too).

I was only 22 at the time so it was probably inevitable something like this would happen.

MY TWO NANAS
by Louise

My mum had invited my two Nanas round for dinner. (They were both in their early eighties at the time and one has since passed away - although she wouldn't mind me telling this story.) I overheard a conversation they were having on the couch - talking AT each other, as old people do.

They were both talking about 'sets' except that one Nana was talking about TV sets, and the other about sets of dentures. Despite talking about two completely different things, they seemed to be agreeing that 'sets' were expensive things. The best line was TV set Nana suggesting to denture set Nana that she should consider getting a second hand set, because 'they work just as well as new'. The look on denture set Nana's face at the thought of it was priceless.

PLIMSOLLS
by Brian

The sun was warm and the space was clear, I smiled and started removing my plimsolls. Toes together I arranged them, pointing into the yard, heels about say 6 inches from the wall. Socks, shaken stretched, laid over the shoes, at right angles about where the knots in the laces would be. Pants folded flat, creases aligned, layered back and forth. Again placed upon and at a right angle to the socks. With the belt finishing over the heels of the shoes. Shirt the same with the collar ending over the belt, singlet a heap in the middle – a cushion.

Still the little pile under my bum was comfy and the wall was warm against my back. I turned my attention to my kit and removed the brown paper bag, unfolded the top, slid out the sandwich I'd made in the morning and sat it on the flattened bag between my feet.

The bread was white, soft cotton wool, thick sliced for the toaster. Avocado spread thickly as butter. Crisp leaves of lettuce providing the textural contrasts, and a liberal sprinkling of salt and ground pepper for taste. On the way here I'd picked a lemon, I removed this from my and bit into it. I lifted the the top slice and squeezed on the juice, the gooey avocado split apart, some sticking to the bread, some caught in the folds of lettuce.

With the top back on I lifted my head, two guys were standing nearby, well not just standing, it looked like they were hugging. Upon closer attention I realised they were fighting, or one was punching the other but standing far to close to get in a decent swing. I wondered at this and guessed they can't have been too serious. Anyway back to my lunch, I reached for my sandwich, to see soaking into it the last drops of a spurt of blood, that ran back to the hugging couple. Blast! It would be a while before I would get another avocado.

AIRPORT HUMOUR
by Mark

Air marshals in the US yesterday shot dead an airline passenger who had 'indicated he was carrying a bomb in his bag'.

18 months ago I flew to Romania with six hard disks in my hand luggage. I had flown from London to Munich to Bucharest and surprisingly no one looked twice at what I thought was an unusual enough collection of hand luggage.

It was only when I tried to leave Romania that things got a bit interesting, I placed my bag into the x-ray machine, and waited, 30, 45, 60 seconds while three security guards stood around the screen trying to figure out what they were looking at, then they started looking at me, back to the screen, back at me, they finally let the bag continue with the command to empty the contents out onto the table, which I duly did.

More staring at collection of electronics that was my luggage, more staring at me, some head scratching, and all the while the little knot of tension in my stomach was growing and growing. I had done nothing wrong, but I began to sweat. Profusely. The first thing they asked was "what is this?" I explained as simply as I could. More stares, more head scratching, until finally one of them turned to me and asked their second question: "Are you working for Al Qaeda?" Then silence. Three blank stares waited.

"No smart arse comments" I thought. "This is no time for fooling around" I reminded myself. "Keep it together here" I roared in my brain, but – to my horror – the words "you look more like you'd be working for them than I do" escaped from my mouth all by themselves!

A couple of horribly long seconds passed, and then one of his buddies turned to my questioner and laughed "he's right, you do". Mercifully, the four of us fell into joking and teasing as I repacked my bag – their 'airport humour' was great, but I've never been so relieved to get on a plane.

NEROLEE
by Jody

When I was a teenager I regularly attended church at the Salvation Army hall in Whangarei. Often there were times, towards the end of Sunday services, where members of the congregation would be encouraged to come forward to an area below the stage and the pulpit but in front of the pews, to kneel and pray, should they feel so inclined.

Now one weekend, the youth group from the Hamilton Salvation Army Corps had travelled to Whangarei. Amongst them was a pretty red headed girl called Nerollee, upon whom I had formed a crush. I wrote her a poem, and one line of the poem referred to her teeth sparkling like silver, in reference to the magnificent set of braces she sported. It was meant to be in jest but she took it seriously. If that wasn't bad enough, after a particularly passionate sermon, I felt moved to leave my seat at the back of the hall next to the lovely Nerollee and go forward to the aforementioned area to kneel and pray, and beg forgiveness for my numerous sins.

What I had failed to realise, was that I had gotten hot during the service and had removed my jacket.
On that particular morning I had decided to wear under my jacket, a recently acquired long sleeved T-shirt that I insisted that my mother purchase me for my birthday. It was a Bad Boy brand T-shirt and on the back of it was a cartoon picture of a scowling young man raising a fist accessorised with a studded bracelet. But the best bit about the T-shirt was that underneath this image the words "SHIT HAPPENS" were written. (You can imagine my mother's joy when I took her to the surf shop in Whangarei and told her that this was what I wanted for my birthday, more than anything in the world.)

So there I was, asking the Lord above to save my wretched soul, whilst displaying to all and sundry my 'SHIT HAPPENS' shirt, and completely oblivious to this fact. When they had realised what had happened, one of the uniformed members of the church quickly knelt beside me to join me in prayer and placed their arm around me, thereby conveniently covering the offending literature.

After the meeting had finished I retrieved my jacket, said my goodbyes and went home. No one mentioned anything to me about what had happened. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that my father, (who hadn't attended the service in question) bailed me up at the dinner table about it, and accused me of attempting to bring the good name of our family into disrepute. Apparently he had received a phone call about the incident from an irate member of the congregation, who had totally failed to see the irony of it all.

And I never saw Nerollee again.

CHILLY WILLY
by Greg

One night back in 1996, my good friend and flatmate John and I were having a few beers, and both trying to write short stories for the writing competition in Critic, the Otago Uni student newspaper. Periodically as we got a little more under the influence of the beers and a little more impeded by writer's block, we would hurl insults across the hallway at each other, proclaiming our prowess at both writing and beer drinking, a la Charles Bukowski, who we both admired a lot. Finally this culminated in a challenge to a game of Scrabble to the death to prove once and for all who was the superior wordsmith. A little way into the game I began to realise that Speights was not increasing my word power, in fact I seemed to be reduced to scrambling for words like 'cat' and 'and', while John was gleefully laying out stuff like 'irony' and 'paroxysm', as his score raced into triple figures akin to an Australian one-day cricket score against Jamaica.

Realising that I was in for a serious pasting, but never wishing to admit defeat to my old friend and foe, I put on a brave and proud face and declared emphatically that he would never beat me, and if he could, I would happily run down the length of George Street naked.

To cut a long-winded tale slightly shorter [but not much - Ed], of course he caned me, as I continued to drink beer and my score shrivelled. John nobly offered to allow me to forgo my forfeit, as it was about 11pm at night, and surely quite chilly on the Dunedin streets. But I was insulted by this and refused.

So before long I was standing on a corner of Moray Place, handing my clothes including shoes and socks to John, to be placed in his backpack, along with a camera. So with John on his skateboard following behind, I immediately set off at a cracking pace on the left hand foot path of George Street.

Now being a Tuesday night in sleepy little Dunedin, there was not a lot of traffic to contend with but I did get the occasional whoop from a passing car, and because I had chosen the main shopping street, the sidewalk was well lit as I sprinted past Arthur Barnett's, and the Robbie Burns pub, giving any passers by a full view of my state of mind.

I kept going at full tilt until I cleared the main shopping area and was past Governor's coffee shop, where I slowed down and John caught up with me.

We started to discuss whether I needed to go all the way to the far end of George Street, when we suddenly noticed a police car slowly easing up beside us. It was time to cut my losses and run, and I told John to pretend he didn't know me as I shot up around the corner and into a block of flats behind the 24 hour dairy.

The police car followed up but no-one got out at that stage. I disappeared into the concrete block jungle which by coincidence was the flat complex I had been living in for the last two years. After a few panicky circuits with my heart beating fit to rupture I realised the police had done a circuit, but didn't seem to be around.

So I went back down to the corner by the 24 hour dairy, looking for John, and to this day I don't know if it was because I was drunker than I thought, or because I have some sort of mental issues around exhibiting my chicken legs and bony ass, but I seemed to be on that corner for much longer than was reasonable, at some points in the full glare of the neon lights.

I still don't know exactly what happened to John, he got freaked out, naturally, but before I had time to think more a police car again hit the scene, and this time I sprinted up the pathway with some real live officers after me. It's an odd sensation that you have when being chased by the police, it is kind of exhilarating but at the same time there is an edge of the unknown, a kind of giddy terror.

This block of flats has some built on funny angles into the side of the hill, with deep banks by the bottom floor, and as I ran like a hopped up rodeo clown up a narrow pathway, terrifying a poor international student returning from the library, I ran out of driveway and plunged headlong down one of the banks. The resulting cut on my knee didn't faze me at all as I was so pumped up on adrenalin. I rounded a corner and headed straight for a large tree, and threw myself under, trying to bury myself under the leaves and rubbish gathered around the low lying branches at the base of the trunk.

The human heart is really quite like the drums I like to play, and at that moment there was an enormous bass drum right pounding in my ear, right in the middle of the still of the night. I had time to pause for thought, and apart from the unprintable words going through my head, there was time to reflect on the error of my ways, and almost chuckle at how I had come to find myself lying there in the dark, a few metres beneath the window of my old flat, clothed in nothing but leaves and old Twisties packets.

The silence was disturbed by the voice of a police officer nearby, stating words to the effect of he knew that I was in the vicinity, and that he had someone with him, namely a canine companion, and unless I wanted his friend to start looking for me personally, I should do the right thing and reveal myself.

Faced with prospects which would bring a wince to the face of any naked and vulnerable man, my better judgement returned for the first time that evening and I surrendered myself to the nearest available blanket of the law.

From there, it was a long short trip to the police station, being admonished by two police officers for scaring the crap out of the students by tearing around like some flashing pervert, which on reflection was fair comment. The police gave me a stern dressing down back at the station. John arrived with my clothes, and I was allowed to dress, minus my shoelaces and the drawstring from my trackpants.

After some more lectures from the staff sergeant, and the threat of a disorderly behaviour charge looming, I was released with a warning. And so John and I headed over to A & E to get a couple of stitches in my knee.