Pregnant? You Need Some Drugs

On the train on the way home on Saturday I had my head in a book and didn't look up when a couple sat opposite me. I waited for a few minutes. It was a sort of mix match of a couple at first glance.

He was a skanky mess. Dirty white trainers, dirty old black denims, dirty white/blue 'windcheater', dirty face, dirty dark blue baseball cap perched on his shaved head. His fingernails were dirty, caked with some black filth, his stained fingers rolling an old yellow pence cigarette lighter around and occasionally flicking it on.

She, on the other hand, at first glance looked amazing. At first glance...
She was wearing a long white and black dogtooth check coat, matching handbag, long dark hair. Her face was striking. Dark eyes. Amazingly cheekbones. Bloody huge cheekbones. She could have been a model.

They were having a quiet conversation between themselves. I tried but I couldn't hear. Then she leant over and spoke to me.

She mumbled and I leant forward and said "Sorry?"

"Is the next station Anniesland?" she mumbled a bit clearer. Her eyes were dead. Her eyelids drooping down, half closed. Her face was caked thick with makeup. She was completely off her face. It wasn't drink though.
I told her it was Anniesland, but thinking it was a bit late to be checking if you're on the right train.
As the train pulled in, they got up, and I saw for the first time that she was pregnant. The big coat had hidden it. How sick can you be?  Pregnant and getting off your face on drugs.

It's Been A Dry Week

It's been a poor week for people doing weird things and this was really the most exciting or tedious actually, thing that happened to me.

This morning I was on the train into Glasgow and there was a young guy sitting opposite me. The train was busy with plenty of people standing.

I heard some woman saying "Excuse me, excuse me," and looked round to see her pushing her way through the crowd to stand beside me. Her and the guy opposite me swapped 'hellos'.

"Whit ye up tae?" he said.

"I'm just going to work," she said nodding with pursed lips as if resigned to her day.

"Aye?"

"Yeah," she said with pursed lips.

"White ye been up tae?"

"Nothing much, just working away, you know," she said nodding with pursed lips as if resigned to the fact her life is crap.

"Goat plans fir the weekend?"

"Nothing much" she said, still nodding with pursed lips.

She'd pushed her way through the friggin crowd to talk to this guy, started a conversation and then this is the pish she comes up with.

At least make it up for chrissake to make it sound a bit more interesting. After all, everyone within earshot was listening in.

If I ever meet anyone on the train, I say I'm just back from New York or Rome or some shite like that. Some people have no clue.

Would You Like a Brick With That?

The neds round my way are getting more vicious as they are all over the place. My street is used as a thorough fare between two particular areas, and the neds from each place don't appear to like each other too much. On Friday and Saturday nights we can hear banging, shouting and screaming going past. I've had my cars keyed a couple of times and vandalised more but the incident that happened recently was the worst by far.

A neighbour had come back from the town on the train about 10pm and was walking back home. The route dictates that you have to walk through either one of two tunnels, which is invariably where a bunch of neds hang out. It's pot luck whichever route you choose from the station as the streets go in a circuitous route back to the same point where you must go through these tunnels to get to our street. If you see one tunnel is blocked you might have a long walk back to the station to go back again through the other just to avoid them.

A few months ago a guy walking his young daughter back from school had to walk through the tunnel and past a group of neds. He asked them to stop swearing because of his daughter. They beat him to the ground and kicked his head in. He was an off duty Police Officer.

I've been beaten down and kicked in the head before. Luckily the offender was wearing his white trainers which were relatively soft when hitting my skull. They matched his all white tracksuit. The policeman actually laughed when I gave him that description. That was in Finnieston.

My neighbour isn't frightened of them so he walked straight through this group of about eight males/females, about 15-18 years old. And there the games began.

"Whit you lookin at?" said one guy.
"Nothing, pal."

"Whit'll ye dae if I punch you?", said a wee lassie, which she promptly did, right to the side of his head.

"What'll you do if I do that to you?" he asked back.

At which point they started to surround him. He got off his mark. He might not be scared but he's not stupid. Eight wee psycho neds against one. They chased him the couple of hundred yards past his house and got round him on all sides.

The slab of concrete they threw first just missed his head. I found it later beside my car, happy it wasn't on my car. It was about 18 inches long, 3 inches deep, by 7 inches wide with a metal rod sticking out both ends.

Next came the brick. Straight in his face, and he went down. We heard screaming outside and by the time we looked out we just saw his wife run past. She told us she'd gone round the corner and they'd run off. His legs were like jelly so she had to drag him back to the house.

As I was standing outside later talking to a guy who'd seen it all, he commented that one of them was coming past again, but that he'd changed his top to avoid identification by the Police. A Police van turned up, seemingly spoke to the group, were given details of the change of clothes, but appear to have made no arrests at all.

The neds have some nerve. They've just smashed someone in the head with a brick, the Police are there and they're still wandering about.

And the icing on the cake, as they passed his 15 year old girlfriend enquired of me,

"Whit are you staring at you cunt?"

I said nothing to her. No respect or decency at all. Tch tch.

I'm going out this Saturday night. Let's see if I make it home.

Spar Customers

I was in my local Spar shop yesterday for a few essentials…bread, milk and butter. It was unusually busy.

The majority of them were young females, all seemingly part of the same “troop.” All were wearing a similar uniform of pastel coloured hoody tops, distressed loose baggy jeans, you know…where the back pockets render themselves useless as they are down at the back of the knees, hair scraped back into a tight ponytail, showing off their Glasgow Tans, and white trainers.

One of them was occasionally tending to the communal baby in a pram. I’m not sure which one it belonged to. Oh, and they kept jumping the fecking queue. It starts behind me!!

They were also in to get essentials. All of them were making a purchase of crisps or sweets and a two litre bottle of fizzy juice, mainly Irn Bru. Do these people not have a bite to eat or a drink before going out to meet their pals, or is it cool to go out hungry and munch crisps and swig from your big bottle of Irn Bru on a street corner while tending to the baby which someone brought along? It seems so.