I ain’t sayin’ she a gold digger…

A few months ago, Nic started keeping a list of “shit to buy Emma when I get rich”.

I’m an impatient fuck, so I stole it:

1) Totoro bed

2) 1980s Bruce Willis

3) The entire Vivienne Westwood range (except the Union Flag stuff)

4) Space (all of it)

5) A really fat Asian chef (never trust a thin chef)

6) A pub

7) A Mega Piranha

8) Bellhop and monkey, in matching uniforms

9) Crop circle

10) Wii U, because ZOMBIES

11) The beetle earrings from Moonrise Kingdom

12) A tetanus shot

13) The complete Arrow Video collection

14) Hong Kong Disneyland at Christmas

15) Those creepy but awesome tights that make it look like you have cum dribbling down your legs

16) That thing we came up with when we were drinking, then promptly forgot before we could write it down (working title)

17) The 3-litre bottle of Jack Daniel’s behind the bar in the Caroline of Brunswick

18) Pepsi Max, on tap

19) Atheist bus banners, because there’s probably no God

20) A bra maker, whatever the proper name for one of those is

Hey motherfucker, who’s the fool?

Chandlers Ford, 1999

I stood back and admired my work with a mixture of pride and spray paint fume giddiness. Three beautiful, swirly lines of text on each side of the subway, which had only been freshly sand-blasted the day before. It was about one in the morning and the air was still and cold. I could see my breath and my fingers were numb and splattered with pillar-box red. I was also, for reasons that now escape me, handcuffed to Tom.

Tom had been my unofficial graffiti partner for a few months by that point, largely because his parents were just as bad at keeping track of him as mine were of me. He lived in Otterbourne, near the chalk pits that would later become infamous for hosting our pit parties, and between his house and mine there was a mile-long stretch of vandalism-baiting suburbia.

We quickly became a two-man crime wave, hopped up on Tom’s straight-edge party mix of sugar, Nesquik and coffee, which he doled out by the spoonful out of a battered sandwich bag.

It made your heart pound like a bitch if you had to run anywhere. We found that out about thirty seconds after I finished my subway soliloquy. As the car ground to a halt above our heads and we heard the car doors slam, we realised we had about five seconds to pick a direction and bolt in it.

We chose left. I held Tom’s hand tightly to stop the handcuffs wrenching our wrists, the metal gleaming with flashing blue lights. We ran into an overgrown field of nettles and brambles, which was an exceedingly painful but ultimately wise choice. We pushed our way into it as far as we dared before ducking down for cover, foetal in the icy mud, trying desperately to slow our breathing.

Then we waited for the footsteps. The vice-like hands on our shoulders. The walk of shame back to the beckoning lights.

They never came. Five minutes later, we heard the car doors slam again and our would-be pursuers pulled away.

We waited another five minutes before venturing back out onto the main road. The cars drove in a circuit at that time of night, so we didn’t dare wait any longer in case they caught us on their next lap. We took the quietest, most convoluted route that we could think of back to the relative safety of the skate park.

There, on the swings, still handcuffed to each other, Tom taught me the lyrics to Catch-22’s 9mm & a Three Piece Suit in their entirety.

Steve took three or four
Heather took more
She lit a cigarette
Now they’re walking out the door
With a semi automatic and a ski mask on
They look to one another
And they say to themselves
“What fun”

Follow that star

Peter Symonds College, late 2000.

When Jamie pulled the Christmas light out of his rucksack, under the corrugated iron shelters of our college’s post-apocalyptic smoking area, we were filled with awe. Okay, it was just a rope light fashioned into the shape of a star, but it was stolen, verboten, beautiful.

We wanted one.

College playthings had been thin on the ground of late. We’d dragged battered mattresses into the smoking area to sit on, and we had Hoss, the hideously bedraggled hobby horse that Will had pulled out of a skip, but our lives needed more sparkle. More pizazz. More shiny stolen shit.

Also, we needed something better to do that afternoon than set fire to Happy Meal toys and lob them into the fountain by the post office.

That afternoon, we set off into the town centre with copycat crime in mind. Jamie had been cagey about precisely where he’d sourced the light, but Winchester’s a small, sleepy little place. If you sat on top of the Buttercross and waved at the CCTV cameras they’d nod back at you, so we knew it couldn’t have been anywhere on the main high street. That only left a few CCTV-free side streets to choose from, and sure enough, one of the alleys leading to the Cat Grounds had a slight but noticeable star-shortage. We sat down on a wall and contemplated our options.

“It’s like fifteen foot up,” Sam said wistfully. “Jamie’s a creepy little ninja.”

“One of you could sit on my shoulders,” Cunt Girl offered. “Then we could hit it with something.”

In the end we formed an unwieldy human pyramid, topped by Will and my umbrella. After five wobbly minutes and several decisive strikes, our star fell to earth.

“FUCKING LEGEND!” I screamed, as we jumped around congratulating each other on our astonishing ingenuity.

Will put the star in his bag and we split up to head home, satisfied at a job well done.

Five minutes later, as Will and I were waiting at the bus stop opposite McDonald’s, the police car pulled up. Instinctively, we knew it was for us, so we scrambled up off the pavement to greet the approaching policemen.

“I have something for you,” Will said coyly, unzipping his bag and offering our star prize to the larger and distinctly less impressed-looking of the two officers. He shook his head grimly, and started leading Will to the car.

The younger officer turned to me. “Would you like to accompany your boyfriend to the station?”

Ha, boyfriend! I thought over the contents of my bag, which included a couple of wraps, a can of spray paint, and a three-inch lock knife.

“No thanks. He’s a big boy, he can look after himself.”

The next morning, a rather chastened Will met us on the battered mattresses, and recapped his evening in the cells.

“They installed CCTV down that road two days ago,” he muttered reproachfully. “They showed me the footage and asked me to explain what had happened. Oh, did I mention that I was in my t-shirt and pants the entire time? They wouldn’t let me keep anything else because of all the safety pins.”

“So how the fuck did you explain the footage?” I asked incredulously.

“I said that at first we just wanted to see if we could touch the star, and that once we managed that we decided to bat it around a bit, to make it look pretty. When it fell down, I said we were jumping around in shock and panic, and that I decided to put the star in my bag to give to the nearest authority figure. I explained that was why I handed the star to the officer before he arrested me.”

“Hang on, what about when I was screaming FUCKING LEGEND at you?”

“I said you were saying NO WILL, BAD WILL, PUT IT BACK!”

“Wow, okay.” I said, struggling to take it all in. “Did they buy any of it?”

“Nope. Caution for theft, plus another for criminal damage if it turns out we’ve broken the light. Better hope that fucker bounced.”

“Will?”

“Yes Em?”

“Did I look fat on CCTV?”

The Alternative Test

The following is a transcript of The Alternative Test, created back in 2001. Go on, play along. It’s well scientific.

The Alternative Test

Desperate to be an individual just like everyone else, but don’t know what path to take in life? Let our definitive test tell you what kind of alterno-look you are most suited to:

1) How do you spend your Saturday nights?

a) Sipping red wine and waiting for death

b) Looking at your shoes and moaning that your girlfriend left you

c) Composing songs only you appreciate on your acoustic guitar

d) Getting sweaty with a group of men in a club whilst pretending it’s entirely heterosexual

e) Beating up your friends and pissing down your trousers

f) None of the above

2) What is your favourite colour?

a) Black, like the abyss that is your life

b) Brown

c) White, like the Beatles album

d) Black, like the Metallica album

e) Neon, like all the pretty lights

f) None of the above

3) What is your drug of choice?

a) Opium and lambs’ blood

b) Calpol, to numb the pain

c) Poppers

d) Coke and heroin, like all the big rock stars

e) Speed

f) None of the above

4) What is your earliest childhood memory?

a) Your mother/best friend/goldfish dying. Oh, the pain.

b) Sitting by yourself in the playground looking at your shoes. Oh, the pain.

c) Grazing your knee and running to Mummy. Oh, the pain.

d) Microwaving your pet gerbil

e) Being dropped on the head as a baby

f) None of the above

5) You are at a gig. The crowd start moving along to the music. You…

a) Pose and sway

b) Stare at your shoes

c) Rock back and forth and pretend to understand

d) Beat up the bloke next to you

e) Run in a circle until you’re dizzy

f) None of the above

6) What is the most likely reason for you to be upset?

a) I’m still alive

b) My girlfriend left me

c) Nobody understands me

d) The beer’s run out

e) The cider’s run out

f) None of the above

7) You find a lost kitten. You…

a) Share its pain

b) Go to pick it up, but it leaves…just like everybody else

c) Write a song about it

d) Chow down

e) Set its tail on fire and watch it run around in circles until it’s dizzy

f) None of the above

8) What is your favourite drink?

a) Red wine (you’re allergic to blood)

b) Anything they’ll serve you

c) Weak lager with a shandy top

d) Stout and Jack Daniel’s

e) Cider and petrol

f) None of the above

9) What is your favourite method of transport?

a) Broomstick

b) Skateboard

c) Bicycle or bus

d) Motorbike

e) The crowd beneath you

f) None of the above

10) Out of these items of clothing, which would you prefer to own?

a) Something black and lacy

b) A rucksack

c) An obscure band t-shirt

d) Denim jacket. No sleeves. Big patch.

e) Anything ripped, studded, blood-stained or pinned together

f) None of the above

RESULTS

Mostly As? Congratulations, you are destined to be a GOTH.

– Throw out any coloured items of clothing.

– Adopt a pretentious name. Morpheus or Letitia will do nicely. Avoid Pugsley at all costs.

– Redecorate your room with candles, black paint, velvet and cobwebs.

Mostly Bs? Congratulations, you would make a great EMO KID.

– Buy an interesting pair of shoes; you’ll be looking at them a lot.

– Spend seven hours a day (minimum) making your hair look perfect…then shove a beanie on top of it.

– Force your girlfriend to leave you, if she hasn’t already.

Mostly Cs? Commiserations, you are a BED-WETTING INDIE WANKER.

– Adopt a bad haircut.

– Only listen to bands that no more than seven people have heard of, and are obviously rehashing stuff from the sixties.

– Sit in your room writing songs on your acoustic guitar. Forever.

Mostly Ds? Congratulations, you are a METALLER.

– Ask the hairdresser for a mullet. Invest in lots of hairspray.

– Develop a liking for stout, and thus develop a beer belly.

– Buy a double-necked guitar, and learn to fret-wank without getting your hair caught in the strings.

Mostly Es? Congratulations, you are probably a PUNK. However, if you did not require adult supervision to complete this quiz, you are not a TRUE punk. Re-do the quiz. If not…

– Pierce yourself until you get blood poisoning, then carry on anyway.

– Force as many people as possible to drink your urine.

– Drink cider and run around in circles until you get dizzy.

Mostly Fs? Fine, be an individual, but no one will like you. (See BED-WETTING INDIE WANKER)

Created by Sam (METALLER), Emma (PUNK), Tom (EMO KID) and Sarah (BED-WETTING INDIE WANKER). A bunch of stereotyping cunts.

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