Felders' Blog

my hair is blue, my eyes are straight
my noses are both smooth
my little finger sits amidst
my one foot’s only groove

my wonky leg has extra bones
it borrowed from my shoulder
and ever since i lost 4 heads
i’ve looked distinctly older

perhaps somewhere there is a shop
that sells spare body parts
i’d gladly buy three extra ears
and part exchange my arse

This was my and Claire’s contribution to art in Finchley.

She is called Rose and her hair is made of parsley.

…here are 3 things for you to do today.

1) Sing the phrase “big fat hairy balls” to yourself, to the tune of the LA Law theme. It’s surprisingly enjoyable.

If you can’t remember the theme tune to LA Law, try “my big fat hairy balls” to the tune of Walking in the Air. For added enjoyment (if you’re male) scrunch your own testicles to imagine what it must be like to be Aled Jones.

2) Write your name on a post-it and stick it to yourself. Answer all questions for the rest of the day as if you were a contestant on a game show.

3) Address absolutely everyone as ‘Cunt’ and see how long it takes you to get fired.

Following being tagged in Silas’ blog, I feel I should follow suit and present you with 7 things about me that you may not know.

1. I was an Arsenal mascot

Unfortunately, whilst being one of the best experiences of my life, this also set the scene for one of my biggest regrets.

It was March 6th, 1988 and I appeared at Highbury as Arsenal mascot in a televised game against Spurs.

However, being the jumped up little shit I was, I spent my whole time running around the touchline waving at the fans and before I knew it I was called over to the halfway line to have my picture taken with Tony Adams. My time was up and I’m fairly sure I must be the only mascot in history not to kick the ball. What a little tosser.

2. The first time I ever saw the Star Wars trilogy was when it was rereleased

This is sort of part of a broader picture - there are lots of big films I just haven’t seen. This is possibly due to my Dad’s involvement in the video industry and the sheer volume of films available to me as a child. My theory is that availability reduces excitement - a sort of mental microcosm of the supply & demand principle of economics.

Anyway, consequently I saw several eighties films rather later than everyone else - I only saw Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time last year and haven’t seen the rest of the series.

Unfortunately, this does mean I often find them a bit crap. And saying ‘Star Wars isn’t actually that good’ to some people seems to have a very odd effect, as if what I’ve actually said is, ‘your mother is a tuppeny whore and I’ve had her in every orifice’.

3. I was first rejected by a female when I was five

My parents employed a string of au pairs when I was young. When I was five we had a girl called Helena (I think) living with us.

My mother and I were out one day and returned to our house expecting Helena to be in. Instead we were greeted by an empty house and a note saying ‘Sorry, I’ve left. I wish you all the best and hope you can find someone who likes Gary’.

4. I could read at a freakishly early age

My Dad used to win bets with me because I could read almost as soon as I could talk; at 18 months I could read a few words and by age two I could read pretty much anything.

However, this occasionally had embarrassing consequences. When I was about two-and-a-half, my Mother took me into a public loo when I needed to go - being that age I was a bit young to toddle off on my own so I accompanied her to the ladies.

Very excited by the vending machine, I ended up throwing a tantrum because Mum wouldn’t buy me what was inside despite my tearful screams of ‘Mummy I want a Tampax! I want a Tampax!’

5. I used to have an irrational hatred of ‘Happy Birthday’

I’ve no idea why. I hated it. It made me cry when people sang it, whether to me or someone else. This strange foible was frequently accompanied by me slamming my fist into birthday cakes - again, be they mine or someone else’s.

My Grandfather turned 70 in 1981 - I was just over two. I ruined everything by slamming my fat baby fist into his cake in a restaurant.

As I’m writing this, I’m realising what a horrific little fucker I must have been and I’m sending out mental waves of apology.

For the record, I no longer hate it. I quite like it in fact.

I’ve realised lots of these are related to my childhood so rather than waste anymore points on that, I’ll tack a few addenda here:

* I also hated shoe shops.
* I used to bite people a lot, sometimes even strangers, resulting in being dragged to several child psychologists. I got over this in about 1985.
* Apart from that, I was lovely.
* When I was 9-10, I appeared in an Arsenal merchandise catalogue with my sister two years in a row.
* I once went on stage at the live ‘Sooty Show’ and received a ‘Sooty sheriff’s badge’ (it was a Western theme that year). I lost it.
* I appeared in two videos - ‘The Gary Lineker Story’ & ‘The George Graham Story’, also when I was nine. Oddly, when I was in Cyprus as a teenager, one of the many pirate video shops had ‘The Gary Lineker Story’ on its shelves. When I pointed out I was in it, he put it on the screen and beckoned passers-by from the street to come in and watch, as if I were famous. I wasn’t.

6. I am the hairiest person I know

This neither gives me pleasure nor pride.

7. I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been

This sounds a bit gay, but I don’t care. I have the most wonderful friends in the world, a fabulous girlfriend whom I love to pieces and I wake up in the mornings looking forward to stuff.

It’s not to be underestimated, nor taken for granted, and I’ve a feeling Silas would agree.

Wow, that’s more personal than I usually do in a blog entry. Fuck it, I’ll allow myself just this one.

OK this may be pedantic, but it’s annoying me.

There is a story - here, among other places - discussing the recent broken wind turbine in Lincolnshire.

“Until we have some idea, some plausible explanation that it was not a UFO, I don’t think we should rule it out".

Now, they have accepted that it was hit by a flying object. They have also not identified what that flying object was. Therefore, I think I’m being reasonable when I say that it was, indeed, hit by a UFO. Because that’s what UFO means.

If someone identifies it, it won’t be a UFO anymore.

Saying something is a UFO doesn’t necessarily mean acknowledging alien life. So there.