the Big Chill, what to do?

The Big chill….

What is the big chill?

It is the freezing feckin’ weather that has us all wearing layers upon layers of clothing, it has us burning Oil, Gas, old chests of draws, tyres, old Tom Jones LP’s and anything else we can find to keep us warm.

So unless sliding all over the icy footpaths and roads is your idea of fun then it would seem best to remain indoors eating tins of mushy peas with ancient freezer waffles and formerly frozen bread rather than brave the cold, slippery and treacherous conditions. Indeed it is time like this that make us re-evaluate what is truly important.. What are you prepared to do without? Milk? Beans? Steak? Asparagus?

Personally I shall stick to the essentials, Milk for tea and booze for me and to a lesser extent .. Food.

While children delight in the white powdery gold that is snow many adults frown and ponder how they will get to work, will the kids be off school and if so who will look after them? And then there is Illness. As immune systems struggle to cope with the limited recourses provided by frozen and tinned food such as “All day breakfast in a can” (not recommended) or kidney beans on toast (yuck) supplemented with supplies of multi vitamins shrewdly squirreled away before the mini Ice age hit we (a vast number of us) shall succumb to the onslaught of viral bastards that seek to make camp inside our ear, nose and throats. Yes, the return of the cheeky little chest cold/infection that plagued you many moons ago. Just when you had thought that Christmas had skipped by on its merry was without any bouts of sickness the political spokesperson for the Virus continuation front announces “then haven’t gone away you know” and low and behold the have not…

Ok, so you could, and probably will grumble somewhat at the situation that you find yourself in but there comes a time when you must just embrace the fact that ;

1. It’s very cold
2. It’s also very slippery
3. It’s not getting any warmer
4. It’s still very cold and very slippery

Once you have accepted these fact it is all up hill… or is it down hill? Errr….
Well it’s not so bad

Any illness can be countered by the ingestion of hot whiskeys, lemsip and further hot whiskeys. So whilst you are very much aware that they “haven’t gone away” you feel free to share your body with these guerrilla virus’s as long as you are drunk, getting drunk, or just simply looking forward to getting drunk. As you indulge in the simple pleasure of mixing whiskey, sugar, cloves and lemon with hot water and then quaffing one after another of these wonderful tonics….. Life is not too bad after all.

Admittedly your new housebound state may restrict your entertainment to the piss poor TV schedule which seems to be made up of news, assholes buying houses and lonely pig people raiding their attics for antiques and valuables to sell under the gaze of a rather under whelmed but chipper “EXPERT”. While this may seem like hell on earth to many the hot whiskey kicks in again and offers a ray of sunshine to the formerly suicidal viewer.

All of a sudden from a state of deep hatred rises the innovative and wonderful phoenix from the flames of drunken pleasure. You decide that in order to make the television’s subject matter palatable you must find an angle… Perhaps you will await the sale of one of the pig dogs prize possessions knowing that it cannot possibly sell for anywhere near the reserve price that said pig dog has placed on it. As the bids fail to appear you watch piggies’ face drop as the “expert” then informs him/her that the reserve was “a little on the high side” to which piggy replies “I’m actually quite pleased to be taking it home with me” (face desperately trying to convey a smile) Of course we all know this is bull shit as it never would have been dragged to the auction in the first place had this been the case.
The same scenario occurs time after time, as item after item goes unsold and with each failure the mask becomes harder and harder to wear at which point you can try and pinpoint the exact moment murderous thoughts begin to gather in pig dogs mind towards the “expert”. Perhaps you will even detect a minute smudge of “I told you this would happen you fucking asshole” in the back of the experts mind.

Even if this is pure speculation it has indeed made the dreadful program palatable for it’s duration and needless to say pig dog does not raise the required cash to buy their daughter a new pony and shall therefore go unloved for another 12 months until the little shit turns 8 and expects two ponies and a car of some sort.

Ok, that’s the late morning TV sorted, now what?

Deal or No Deal…. A show where a man who is too big to be a jockey but too small to beat a child in a fight encourages the idea that opening random boxes takes a great deal of skill and is very exciting (all this while he slowly dies inside episode by episode… admittedly getting considerably richer as he does so).

As you may be aware Blue boxes are filled with low cash amounts , this prompts the audience to chant “Blue, blue, blue” in order to somehow influence the contents of the box about to be opened. Believe it or not this chanting actually works sometimes with the box in question turning out to be one of the much maligned blue cash sums… and sometimes it doesn’t and it’s… well… it’s red.

The excitement does not end here though because there is the person in the chair, contestant if you please to consider. Each one coming with there own lovable personality and back story. Such stories may include a dead parent or the desire to win money to buy a new wheelchair that doesn’t cause it’s occupant to suffer terrible back pain or bouts of unexplained cancer.

This is where It can get a little tricky. Most people are compassionate, descent sorts that take no pleasure in the suffering of an already wheelchair bound or recently widowed contestant …. However, with Noel and the rest of the fuck wits shouting “blue,blue,blue” you find yourself wishing for red… And when this wish is granted you take a little guilty pleasure in seeing the pricks in the crowd feeling rather disillusioned, each and every one asking themselves “why? I was shouting blue and it was red.. WHY?” I’ll tell you why, Because you are a bunch of fuckin c~~ts… that’s why and you personally have ruined this mans life..

My favourite episode featured a young girl who had dealt at a few thousand pound only to find out that the bankers offers would rise and rise and rise yet again. Each offer summoned more tears from the winging girl. Ok, so maybe I am a bad person for taking such pleasure in this incident of human torment but she was such a greedy asshole and had the most irritating personality imaginable. I cannot say I am proud of my laughter on this occasion but it was very funny and I couldn’t help it.



Having now been at this computer screen for way to long I must conclude by saying that it is cold, yes.
But drink helps….

Happy new year