BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

Belfast adventure playground / the camera lens had to be ice-scraped / shadow teenager in spack-a-mac / it was January 18 1977 / wet wind sucked marrow out of brittle bones / anti-heroin advert / and cost a lot of money flying the star back home / not so much to tempt this junkie spidey outdoors / just a small bag / nothing lethal / and zoomed in on his zits / arched cheekbones like tits / his eyes were full of death / then we had to zoom out and pan / and the kid dissolved into the mist / George Best turned to camera / he looked like rough Jesus / leaned in close and shook his mane, with a smile sadder than a fake grin / "Why can't young people just enjoy a nice drink?" / image was cut at 01.48 / then the car ploughed into the front of the editing suite / and it all went

BEYOND THE IMPLODE

(NB - EDITED COS THE ORIGINAL TOOK ABOUT A YEAR TO READ)

"What you are running here is not a factory, it is a zoo. But in a zoo there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys who dance on your fingertips, others are lions who can bite your head off. We are the lions, Mr. Manager"
-Jayaben Desai, Grunwick '77

Reading the piece on K-Punk about unemployment (and the rather spiffing additional commentary by the gombeen man who runs 'Scrabbling At The Lock' Blog, which I'll link to shortly - I bet you're well chuffed!), I'm struck by the realisation that I've spent almost all of my adult years employed. I've always 'been' 'doing' 'something'. Most times, when I worked between the ages of 17 and 24, I was either a) about to be evicted and needing to cough up rent, like, pronto b) doing it as a shortcut to that ever-elusive Flying V guitar. I never did buy a Flying V, as when I subtracted the actual dosh for rent, alcohol, fags, gigs, Es and the odd ragga clash tape or TG live album, there normally wasn't enough left to buy a pack of custard creams. (Anyway, I finally got to have a 60-second thrash on a Flying V at the Notting Hill MVE Instruments shop, even though the moribund bastard behind the counter unplugged me for the mere technical foible of 'not being able to play').

I'm sure counter cultural types will snigger - after all, this supposed punk rocker, wasting his youth working for The Man! I will return to this point and dissect it later. Yes, at the time it seemed unfair - why did my friends all manage to get cool jobs? Ben, for instance, got a cushy number in a second hand bookstore on Charing Cross Road, working with Dave Tibet's girlfriend. Mike Leigh used to pop in his shop and they got to sit around all day talking about Thomas de Quincy and listening to Stereolab. WHEREAS I always seemed to end up getting hit by whatever revolting slop the Jobfynder General had scooped from the depths of the U-bend. And in the meantime, years and years of rejection letters from magazines...("Dear Martin, Many thanks for your interest in the vacancy for the position of staff writer on 'Model Railway World'... unfortunately, your cover letter was hand-written in illegible scrawl and you declined to mention any interest whatsoever in old Hornby kits, which we deem a vital quality for those privileged enough to work for our august publication...")

Anyway, I've decided to make a list of some of the various jobs I did . This will probably be of zero interest to the average reader, and should be seen as an act of highly personal catharsis - but cut me some slack, as I never had a 'year out' to ponder existence and discover myself. At best, you can shake your heads and laugh at my folly.

1) GARDEN DESTROYER

You used to be able to pick up 'cash in hand' jobs in a number of pubs in Camberwell. I scored a lot of garden work with a Rangers fan called Billy (what else?), whose claim to fame was that his cousin had shared a cell in borstal with Les Mc Keown of the Bay City Rollers. We used to drive down Clapham in a van and then he'd bugger off and leave me in a rich woman's garden with a load of tools. Smashing her shed to a debris of splintered wood and broken glass was fun enough, though ripping the limestone out of the earth was backbreaking.

Why are middle class people so mean? Even though it was sweltering, the woman would bring me a tiny glass of tapwater, which I'd glug down in 3 seconds, and then offer me nothing for the rest of the day. Whereas whenever Billy sent me on lawnmower duties to the estate off Flodden Road, the old dears in the flats would ply me with endless mugs of tea. One even cooked me a fry-up once, and told me what a nice young man I was and how my mum must've been dead proud, and wasn't it awful for young people today, no future and no money and all the crime and the drugs, and you live in this country all your life and the council never sorts out the leak in your kitchen, but they come round as soon as the coons next door have a problem....they were nice sausages though...

Anyway, the Clapham woman's mother came round one day and started screaming at me and Billy, "I SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU NOT TO REMOVE THE LIMESTONE! IT'S TO BE KEPT HERE! YOU'VE PROBABLY TAKEN IT OFF TO SELL IT, WELL I WANT IT RETURNED, ALL OF IT! AND YOU'RE TO STAY HERE AND SUPERVISE THIS BOY, LOOK WHAT STATE HE'S LEFT THE BACK POSTS IN!" Billy just laughed and drove off. I packed it in one day when it rained. I got paid 35 quid a day, which was my weekly rent in the roach motel in Camberwell Church Street (above 'Andrew's Insurance', if it's still there - if you're passing, pop in and tell the miserable bubble that me, Andy and Caroline had a massive party on the money we never paid towards the phonebill)

Worst memory - the time my strimmer hit a wet dog turd and the rancid shit splattered all over my arm. But it was quite cool coming back on the tube from Clapham to Oval, arms, T-shirt and face smeared in earth and mud stains, with a big canvas shoulderbag, packing a massive fuckoff hammer and a pickaxe. I'd walk up to the Skinner Arms, down a pint of Guinness and flirt with the old bag behind the bar. I was the only teenage punk rock navvy in Camberwell and if you wanted a shed pulverised, I was your man.

2) TRAFFIC ENUMERATOR

God, this was unbelievable. Had to lurk around outside Oval tube like a pervert, in the rain, and note how many vehicles, by type, passed by. I popped in the caff at one point, and some retard with an identical clipboard followed me in, yapping, "You can't just wander off, it's not allowed, they'll do you if they find out!". I did get done a few days later, and couldn't have cared less. Nobody ever ticked off the correct numbers of motorbikes vs HGVs anyway, surely - or, here's a scary thought, maybe they did!!!

3) RING MY BELL

Me and my Californian flatmate Brian one day realised we'd spent almost all our money on drugs and couldn't afford electricity, so we decided to become bus conductors. You'd think it just involves turning up at the depot, but you actually have to fill in a never-ending form, supply London Transport with urine samples and do an aptitude test before you even get down to the basics.

Everyone laughed at me when we got our uniforms and I asked where the hat was. "S'alright mate, you don't have to wear one", one of the blokes said. But I insisted on the hat! One of the guys dug one out and I was ready to do my first of many trips on the Number 36. I know some people hate the idea of having to wear a uniform cos it negates their individuality and all that, but I actually quite liked it, in a furtive "Mr Ben" way.

The route went - Lewisham (pick up scabby, dribbling old drunks) ; New Cross (all the anarcho punks, crusties and freaks) ; Peckham (rude boy crews stomping up the stairs) ; Camberwell (art students and bedsit writers) ; Vauxhall (gay clubbers spilling out of the Vauxhall Tavern) ; Pimlico (most people had gotten off by now) ; and finally Victoria, where some scabby, dribbling old drunks would get on, and the whole thing started again.

Every weekend night without fail, someone would return to the depot with bruises and cuts from where a passenger had
attacked them. Never happened to this cat - I couldn't be arsed to ask for fares half the time. Some furious looking Jamaican would kiss his teeth and snarl "CHILD FARE!" at me. "That'll be 40p, son" I'd reply. No way was I getting bashed in the snout for LT. Funniest though was when a load of kids got on for some 'Legalise Cannabis' protest march. I was chatting to some tasty punkette with a circled 'A' T-shirt, when she flashed me a yearly travelcard - woaah, smash the fucking system!

Anyway, Brian got fired cos some woman got off too early or something and broke her ankle. I lost my job a week later when I blew out a weekend of shifts to go up to Glasgow. It was good money though, and allowed me to buy TG's stunning 'Rafters - Psychic Rally In Heaven' bootleg album.

4) PROZAC NATION

Packing pharmaceuticals in a factory in Perivale. This shithole was run by a bunch of Pandits who demonstrated aptly why (admittedly thick) kids end up supporting the BNP. When I rolled in at 8am, the slimebag in charge insisted on showing me around the site. This took half an hour. "OK, we'll put you down as beginning at 8.30" the cheeky vulture announced. I told him that I'd be back down the Jobcentre and reporting him for fraud, and he grudgingly ticked me off as having started at 8.00. Cunt.

Well, what did I do? I packed legal drugs into cardboard boxes, by order. Prozac was a constant big seller, though Christ knows, if anyone needed it it was me, working in that dimly lit hive. Fag breaks meant you were docked 15 minutes' pay per smoke, but seeing as we were in the middle of an industrial estate and there was nowhere to go for lunch, I just took four lingering smokes every day instead.
There was an old guy there and I really felt sorry for him. He'd worked at Kodak for 30-odd years, had then been made redundant and, by some hideous freak of fate, ended up here. He was bitter and angry and scornful, but undeniably sad. This place was killing him, but he couldn't bring himself to tell the pack of them to fuck off. Next time you feel like penning a lyric about how cool you are compared to the idiotic, blank slates doing dead end jobs, bear in mind this bloke was a fellow human being who'd hit his 50s with no family or friends, and had nothing to look forward to except another round of 10-hour shifts. I have no doubt, given the mentality of the vermin who employed us, that if he'd dropped dead from a heart attack, they'd have phoned the local temp agency before bothering to dial for an ambulance.

Things came to a head when I refused to climb up a metal ladder that contravened every safety regulation under the sun. For some reason, not wanting to end up in a wheelchair was seen as a sign of insubordination and I was given a 'caution'. I told them that my Uncle Jimmy had died (he's died numerous times since 1986, often to help me get time off -cheers Jimmy!) and that I had to fly over to Ireland for the funeral, so I wouldn't be in the next week. The wanker replied, "Do you have to attend?" I told him to go and fuck himself, with a bit of a cliche'd "Watch your back around Wembley" threat, and I've never been back to Perivale since.

5) FILM CRITIC

Ha ha ha...oh my sides, what a wit...I was employed to - actually I don't know. It was a branch of Lloyd's Bank in Wembley, and I had to sift through transparencies of account statements, and look for certain transactions by date and customer. I'm sure I did it all wrong. I didn't really talk to anyone, I was seen as temp scum and only good for doing the most menial of tasks. Imagine trying to read reams of Spectrum-generated text on 10,000 strips of camera film, and that's what it was like. I used to fuck up constantly, normally by accidentally spilling half the transparencies onto the floor, or by placing them back in the wrong envelopes.

Look, this was braindeath, so I'll cut to the filthy part ; I had a bossy Indian supervisor who always wore high heels and a short skirt and had massive thighs, and I once wanked off imagining shooting all over her legs . I lasted six weeks.

6) MISTER MOP

I hope that everyone who attended South Bank Polytechnic in Elephant & Castle in the 1995-1996 year is thoroughly grateful for the sterling work I did in mopping your robust academy's stairs clean. Working with bins and toilets is never pleasant, and I really deserve a pat on the back for scraping the chewing gum off the floor in the lecture hall. I worked with some guy called Ray who used to call me 'Marxist' instead of 'Martin', and would do his cockney wide boy impersonations until someone of higher authority in the cleaning chain demanded he fix yet another problem. "'Ere Marxist, there's a load of ants in the toilet! Oh bloody 'ell, we'll have to call the pest inspectors in. Get down there Marxist!" AND DO WHAT? Serve the ants an eviction order? Mop them to death? This job was completely crap, and as soon as I'd raised enough cash for a couple of months' rent, I sacked myself off.

7) BEER MONSTER

I thought being a barman would be a bit of light relief, but I ended up in a pub in Edgware called The Beehive. The place was patronised by underage drinkers who would always kick off after two bottles of Kronenberg. The bar manager was a pederast called Bex, who used to regularly slip off upstairs with a 14-year old, leaving me to deal with the baying throng. There was a Korean barmaid at one point, and some cunt spat at her and called her a "Japanese bitch". Eventually, when the ashtrays started getting waved around, I'd tell Bex I was going to get some ice and just sit in the basement, relaxing with a cigarette and a bottle of Woodpecker.

Not many fun stories, which is unusual for a barman, granted. I did once accidentally pour someone's girlfriend a white wine and cider (as opposed to soda) - neither saw the funny side. I took it down to the basement and drank it, and it wasn't that bad. But by 10pm, I'd have a thirst on, and serving pint after pint after pint to other people on a Saturday night just isn't on. Somebody got stabbed outside one night, and a gang of idiots turned up for a spot of revenge, laying into a group of kids who'd been sitting by the door, and that was it - I just told Bex to stick his 3 pounds an hour and walked out.

Conclusion - I learnt it's way harder to pour a good pint of lager with a decent head, than to pour a Guinness.


Assuming anyone's still reading at this stage, I would like to point out my findings. Yes, in some respects, I have worked in menial, crap jobs when I could have signed on, foregone the TG albums, and avoided work. You could argue that immersing myself in the psychogeography of the route of the Number 36 is a poor substitute for all the additional books I could have read had I never shown up at the Camberwell depot. But I had to live on something.

However, I'd like to go back to the whole counter culture / wage slave intersection. In all my jobs, I believe I have met a wider range of people from all sorts of background than I would have had I stayed in some isolated 'scene'. I also managed to get to grips with workplace psychology, how to cover my back and test limits, and the methods by which a number of commercial enterprises operate. This is no fucking advert for going out and getting a job, but I refuse to buy into this absurd notion that the workplace is a pen for mindless sheep (to be clear - this is NOT what I read into K-Punk's piece, but more a criticism of other, more romantically minded 'individuals', whose scribblings I've had the grave misfortune to witness).

I've seen some lunatics in shirts and ties and London Transport jumpers who would probably shock most self-professed 'alternatives' with their outlandish behaviour and offbeat personalities. The idea that everyone who passes through these temp agencies, pubs, depots, offices and factories is a dull clone, compared to Davey O' Cool down the Music and Video Exchange, would be amusing if it wasn't quite so repulsive.

Overall, life's too short for regrets though. If I was told I'd never be allowed to write again, I wouldn't have a problem with sweeping the streets, if that's what it came down to. I'm not cursed with the Protestant work ethic or 'job pride', thank you very much. And it's really for the best that I couldn't ever play guitar, cos I would have been the most arrogant, power-mad, irritating cunt to ever have disgraced the cover of 'Melody Maker' had I been able to play more than an atrocious rendition of "Chainsaw" by The Ramones. No shit!

I'm sure nobody needs reminding of the tragic events that unfurled in London this summer. I thought that fucking cricket world cup would never end, but thank Maradona, the expected elevation of the victorious team members to super-cool celeb status has been pretty muted so far. Anyway, what are all you 'pundits' chatting about?? Cricket becoming 'trendy' and capturing the hearts of our nation's youth--- even back in the 90s, the Pakistani kids in South Luton were always playing it, up against that disused Methodist church off Bury Park Road , with chalked 'stumps' on the brickwork and a tennis ball (well, til the cops came, searched them all and confiscated their cricket bat - but they always came back, sometimes using a plank). The Ashes = Live 8 ; Luton street cricket = Conflict at the Brixton Academy. DIY not ECB!

I'll be honest, I'm not a very sporty person. I blame PE. PE teachers really are the lowest lifeforms on the planet, aren't they? I mean, what sort of boring cunt tries to recapture his youth by putting on a TRACKSUIT?? Terrible language I use, I know, but I've never spat "Spastic!" in a child's face because (s)he couldn't get to grips with 'rounders' (UK version of baseball, but twice as boring), and quite frankly if you, dear reader, have ever taught PE, I'd like to wish you a violent and excrutiating death under a loaded tram. In fact, if you've ever taught PE- what the fuck are you doing on this URL anyway? Pervert!

BUT! ANyway...for a break from all this music schtick, here's the definitive BTi RIP guide to the wonderful world of SPORT. Nazi Ron take note!

HORSE RACING

Called the 'Sport of Kings', but does anyone actually watch it if they haven't got a bet on? Can you imagine? "Oh no, I never gamble, what a waste of money! I just like watching the horsies run around and seeing if the man in pink beats the man in blue and yellow". BTW, big up the IRA for disrupting the 1997 Grand National - when they did the re-run the next week, the subdued mood meant that the favourites all bottled it, and my horse, Lord Gylene, stomped to victory and landed me 80 quid. Shame he's probably been boiled into glue since.

AMERICAN FOOTBALL

There was a time when UK schoolkids suddenly contracted American Football fever. Small kids would be grabbed by the shoulders and asked "Chicago Bears or LA Raiders??" "Er...Ch..Chicago Bears!" small kid would stutter. "Chicago Bears are GAY!" bigger kids would announce, before laying into him. Why did everyone in rainy Britain insist on liking LA Raiders? Cos Eazy-E dug them? I thought it was a load of old pants. Worse still was when ex-Spurs player Clive Allen joined some English American Football team - the Crouch End Commandos, or some equally pathetic name. Even more embarrassing than that Hoddle / Waddle single, "Diamond Nights".

RUGBY

American Football without the shoulderpads and SPG helmets

SHOT PUT

Oh come on. Caber tossing I can understand - but chucking a tiny wee metal ball from under your chin? Hardly worth the effort. And these liquidised raw liver-glugging freaks call chess 'sad'!

ICE SPEEDWAY

Now, here's a real sport - take a load of kids, stick them on motorbikes without brakes, and make them speed around an ice rink. The last rider remaining, after the others have skrikked across the ice like big eels and are being stretchered away from their mangled bikes by a St John's Ambulance Crew, is the winner, and gets to spray champagne all over lapdancers.

GOLF

Golf is shit. My first ever job was tidying up a shooting range for three sovs an hour, when I was 15. I had to show up at 5am, and spend 3 hours scrambling around in mud and rain, picking golf balls out of the quag and then loading them into a washing machine that spat them all back out onto the floor. I only did it once and that was enough to make me hate all golf players and fans til the day I croak. Wankers.

VOLLEYBALL

I never got into basketball either. It's obvious that the point of 'shooting hoops' is cloaked in archaic fertility rituals, and not very interesting ones at that. Now, if the hoops represent wombs, dangling in mid-air, then what does the horizontal net of the volleyball court represent? Either way, when I was at school, watching volleyball was the only time I wished I was a girl (do you know, my ma told me that if I'd been born a girl I'd have been christened 'Katherine'. I haven't a clue why I just blurted that out). "Oh yeah", you tut, "How original. Every moron with a plonker likes watching volleyball, with those scantily clad Brazilian girls sweating and grunting on the beach". Bollocks! If you really want an erotic vision of volleyball, imagine four girls with identical mod haircuts and pasty white skin, all playing it outdoors on a freezing cold, grey Wednesday morning, in total silence, wearing white T-shirts and short, neatly ironed skirts, and then the ball smacking off one of the players' thighs and leaving a red mark (what can I say, it does it for me)

KABADDI

I think this is an Indian variation on the old UK craze 'British Bulldog', where two lines of kids charge into each other and anyone who gets caught on their own ends up with two black eyes and a broken nose (recently revived at those violent 'corridor of death' stand-offs at Brazilian parties, but you're better off asking one of the bloggers who actually knows about it). Channel 4 used to show it on Saturday mornings in the early 90s. I don't know if this was because they genuinely thought it was interesting, or if it was just an excuse to laugh at the Indians with big moustaches being 'wacky'. I asked an Indian seafarer about it, not so long ago, and he thought the idea of it being televised in Britain was 'mad'. British Bulldog was banned in the end.

DARTS

Numerology (and therefore occultism), matched with heavy drinking and the best bunch of misfits since the X-Men. Steve 'The Adonis' Beaton, "Truly a dartist among dartisans", etc etc etc

SNOOKER

A Stakhanovite's take on pool.

KICKBOXING

Never really got into boxing, as I was disappointed that televised Barry Mc Guigan slogs never equalled the intensity and bloodshed of "Rocky 2", but Thai kickboxing tournaments are a must see. If you ever go to Bangkok, go to Lumpini Stadium, and go for the cheapest tickets (about a fiver) behind the chainlink fence, right at the back, at the top - you get all the hardcore gamblers going crazy and doing old 80s football ground-style surges down the concrete steps. Plus, you also see some bone-cracking ultra-violence, but with an interesting ritual before each match and some ace drumming.

DONKEY RACING

I don't know if anyone recalls, from the days of the original BTI, the All-Ireland Donkey Derby in Mullaghmore. A few people thought I'd made it up, but it does actually exist and is a bona fide annual event. All I'll say is that this is the best spectator sport I've ever had the pleasure to witness, even though for weeks after it felt like it was some crazy dream. Maybe it's just a Celt thing, but if you do, heaven forbid, get bored with the constant patter over the tannoy (including requests for children to refrain from interfering with any of the runners), there's usually a fortune teller's caravan next to the burger van, where you can go to be told you'll drown next Tuesday. For best effects, go when there's a downpour.

TABLE FOOTBALL

Unless you're fortunate enough to support the mighty Tottenham, fuck real football! Bunch of overpaid prima donnas....reclaim football now! I don't want to provide advertising for anyone on here, but I'm heading down BAr Kick in Shoreditch this weekend for a serious game of table football and there's 20 quid riding on Burnt Oak beating Northern Ireland. So come on then, bring your crew, I'll thrash you all! Obviously though if you walk around saying, "Excuse me, are you Martin?" I'll shake my head and feign ignorance. Which, as you may have sussed six months ago, isn't exactly hard.