A friend in need…
Posted in Blog by Twenty Major on July 19th, 2008
Last night was drinking some pints in town and close by was a chap with no legs and really short arms. His mate had to hold his beer for him while he drank it.
Now, his mate also had to accompany him to the jacks when it was pissing time. And we all know that beer = piss.
I like to think that I’d be that good of a friend if something happened to one of the lads. Actually, I don’t like to think that at all. Accompanying Dirty Dave and having to whip out his mud-coloured chopper while he took a slash is making me feel distinctly unwell.
I’m pretty sure whoever did have to do it would certainly encourage him to drink fewer pints and simply partake of shots of whiskey instead.
What happens to that bloke when he’s on his own though and he gets a power-itch right on his chocolate starfish? That must be fucking maddening.
It’s hard to imagine that even the proximity of good friend is going to be doing him much good when that the itch arrives.
Lad holding is one thing, starfish plunging quite another.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
If he can’t scratch his hole, how does he wipe it?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
1
I am sure there must be an invention for that kind of thing, I will check the Kleeneze catalogue and get back to you.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
2
Maybe his friend has a mohican?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
3
I’d say he’d just do it doggie style. ie scrape his arse off the ground.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
4
The verb ’scooch’.
“Mommy, what’s Rover doing?”
“Don’t worry sweetheart, he’s just scooching because he’s got a really itchy anus”.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
5
A bidet might be the solution. Spray the poo off.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
6
How would he turn it on?
July 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
7
I wonder if there is a servant who does that for Prince Charles ?
July 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
8
Maybe his mate who took him to the toilet isn’t really his mate. Maybe he’s a nurse who gets paid to go with him everywhere and scratch him everywhere.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
9
Get your application in now maggot. You never know!
July 19th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
10
I saw a beggar in Madrid with no arms and he was begging with a small plastic bucket held in his teeth. I spent the rest of my weekend there wondering how he managed loads of things. How did he even spent the money.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
11
And what did he do when the coins made the bucket heavier?
July 19th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
12
I remember when I was a kid there was a circus - might have been Fossetts - that had an armless guy who played the piano with his feet.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
13
Good ole freak shows.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
14
“an armless guy who played the piano with his feet.”
Tinkle Toes!
July 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
15
heh
July 19th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
16
Hmmm… doesn’t Britain pay some poor idiot to wipe the shit off the ass of the Blind Sheik? Anybody who blows off their hands while making a murderous bomb should have to take his own chances with the ol’ hook hand tearing himself a new one.
Still, I had to consider your same sort of thoughts when a poor dolt showed up in our social services office with two broken arms and a drunken friend. I figure his friend had to stay drunk enough to be able to help out with the doody duty.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
17
“Caring is sharing,” as I recall from a profound children’s animation series, subsequently movie-ised.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
18
three Croats and a black dwarf walked into the restaurant on Wednesday….true story, not a joke. I was tempted to ask if he wanted a half pint but the Croats were big fellas so I side stepped that one….
July 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
19
I thought caring is sharing came from Barney. Ptooey!
Never again will I use the phrase ’scootch up a bit there’ when at a crowded table.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
20
Heh, chocolate starfish. I once went to the Leonidas counter in Blackrock and asked for a chocolate starfish. The poor woman looked at me as I as I started to giggle and told her I meant a chocolate sea-horse. Redner.
Maybe they should do chocolate starfish.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
21
It was those loved-up Care Bears, Jo.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
22
Joan of Arrgghh! If anyone in government reads your piece there will soon be a new job listing on the civil service rolls. Ass Wiper. Must start at the bottom. Requirements, no self respect. Hmm, maybe it aready exist.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
23
Ah, CareBears. E-Bears, more like.
Barney steals everything. Even his theme tune is Yankee Doodle… ptooey!
July 19th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
24
Seeing as nobody else has asked - how do you know the colour of Dave’s wiggie ?
July 19th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
25
He must have seen it previously.
‘Ever seen a grown man naked, son?’
I was at a gig and saw a guy in a wheel chair who was only from the torso up. No legs, no arse. I like to think it was the same as I saw in Chicago Hope once, where the operation was a maverick solution, performed to save an embittered, unpleasant man with bowel cancer, who was nonetheless brave enough to want to stay alive for his daughter, the one good thing in his life.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
26
Must start at the bottom - heh.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
27
Twenty you mentaler, how are you with your ballady type music?? I heard somebody sing a song years ago and I love it and could never find out who sang it or what it was called. I heard a chap sing it again last night and want to know what it is pronto. By the time I got to the stage last night the young yobo had acted like a shepard and got the flock outta there, I also googled the lyrics to no avail.
Even if you know any ballady type websites, that would be most helpful??
My apologies for the blatant misuse of your blog. Thanking you in advance Sir.
Nonny
July 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
28
try http://www.lyrics.com if you know any of the words.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
29
Twenty you mentaler, how are you with your ballady type music?
Well he’s well known for his love of Damien Rice so you’re obviously on the right track.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
30
He must have seen it previously.
The public deserves to know the truth.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
31
Thanks Joe.
Morgor you little smart arse, would you really accredit Damien Rice as being a traditional Irish ballad singer?
July 19th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
32
I’m not a boy. Could you pass that on to the world? Not a boy. Jo not Joe. Thankfully, my parents did not call me Joseph.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
33
Morgor you little smart arse,
Passes mooncup to nonny
July 19th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
34
Sorry Jo, It didn’t work still no luck finding it. In my search I did find this,
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=wgrrQwLdME8&feature=related
Which is possibly the sweetest thing I have ever seen in my life. It breaks my twiddle heart.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
35
Ì can’t argue with you there - ‘rerer’ instead of ‘let her’ - !
I wonder if Twenty would class it under orphan or dwarf atrocity though?
July 19th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
36
I heard somebody sing a song years ago and I love it and could never find out who sang it or what it was called
Was it Safety Dance?
You’re not giving me much to go on here…
heh, maggot.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
37
Well I followed Nonny’s link which was adorable, and then on one of these weird little paths the internet has, which start out looking like something ordinary like Tescos but lead to a land where the colours orange, blue and green are outlawed, I ended up here, a land (Britain) where there is a mother still breastfeeding her daughter at 8 years old. The video is incredible. They seem like fairly normal rational people but she has an 8-year-old clamped to her boob!.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:12 am
38
“how do you know the colour of Dave’s wiggie ?”
Is that like a pubic toupee?
July 20th, 2008 at 12:14 am
39
I’m not for it myself, but there are loads of countries where breastfeeding naturally continues up to the age of ten… we’re just conditioned not to go past a year - or six months - or three months…
Not everybody sexualises breasts in the same way we do. It’s not necessarily perverse, it’s feeding your child - with a substance far better for them than cow’s milk.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:20 am
40
Mmm, she was on a channel four programme, maybe this one, about ‘extraordinary breastfeeding’ - what pissed me off is they ran it for National Breastfeeding Week - as if to suggest that this is what breasfeeding IS, feeding the disgust that so many people feel about women breastfeeding their infants :(
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036330/McDonalds-apologises-group-mothers-staged-sit-breast-feeding-ban.html
July 20th, 2008 at 12:29 am
41
Ha, the baby looks fiercely like Chris Evans!
July 20th, 2008 at 12:31 am
42
I’m not for it myself, but there are loads of countries where breastfeeding naturally continues up to the age of ten
No way.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:05 am
43
Don’t most women wean when the we’an gets teeth?
July 20th, 2008 at 1:16 am
44
Anyone that lets their 10 year old suckle from them is a seriously sick individual
July 20th, 2008 at 1:17 am
45
Careful Twenty - safer not to express an opinion - this is one of those areas pff-limits to XY.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:21 am
46
Ha, Maggot!
I certainly don’t feel disgust for women who breastfeed. I breastfed my twins. It’s not necessarily the sexual thing that troubles me either, although I do wonder whether she’d be breastfeeding her kids at 8 if they were boys.
This woman is infantilizing her children, way beyond infancy. Surely a mother’s job is to prepare her children for the world. Security blankets are great for kids if they need them but the process of childhood is a process of learning how to cope with life, not muffling life out with even more security blankets. I’m all for children having something that soothes them - my daughter sucks her thumb and rubs her hair on her face - but you have to let them find their own ways out of it, not actively compound it. Raising children is a long goodbye in some senses, heartbreaking though it is - they grow away from you and they must. Parents are there to be watchful and hopefully wiser than their children. This physical need for their mother begs the question - how much harder for these girls if something happened to their mother? She is far more than the emotional security blanket that most mothers are to their children - she is a physical one and at some stage they will have to stop, although the girls seem to think it can go on forever. When though? Life gets more and more complicated and stressful as you get older. What about exam time at 16? What if they’re beside themselves with worry about something? Most mothers will hug and soothe their kids in other ways - verbally ususally - and thus the child learns. These girls might also have that but they haven’t been prepared to cope without their mother’s boob.
Also,
1. this mother hasn’t given them the opportunity to do without it,
2. She seems to be taking her cue from her kids - “They’ll decide when they want to quit” - who exactly is the parent here?
3. It smacks of a sort of disingenuous martyrdom - “It’s only a few years out of my life” and a sort of holier-than-thou maternalism.
4. It also smacks of putting herself before the child. Anyone who’s breastfed knows how peaceful and rewarding it can be to nurture your child yourself. Many women find it hard to give up. This woman couldn’t bring herself to do it at all but she pins it on her children “They seem to still want it.”
July 20th, 2008 at 1:49 am
47
Leave you all with the master - Texas 1985
Rory Gallagher - Philby
July 20th, 2008 at 1:54 am
48
I’m trying to be as honest as I can about my reaction here and it is possible some of my reaction is visceral, and a result of Western conditioning or something. But I don’t think that, because women from other cultures breastfeed into the double-digits, it’s necessarily a good thing. I think an argument for it has to proceed from something more than that.
So is my reaction based on Western sexualisation of women’s bodies to the detriment of their nurturing role? That is very hard to completely rule out - I am, after all, a creature of my time and place - but I truly don’t think that’s what the main thrust of my reaction comes from, or is even a significant factor.
I really do believe mothers do their children a needless disservice emotionally and socially by breastfeeding children as old as that. To make them a little bit smarter? A person has more chance of being happy in life - and prepared for the slings and arrows and shit - if they are emotionally and socially sound, than if they get a first at Oxbridge.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:02 am
49
Sorry for hijacking your blog, Twenty! I’ve got a big gob. I’ll shut up now.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:04 am
50
No doubt the armless bloke wil have trained and lenghtened his tongue to keep his rusty sherrifs badge lemon fresh. As for Maggots comment no.8 ; Prince Charles does have a maid for licking his ringpiece clean, name of Camilla , a face like a horse’s bum-bum, no big hindrance as she’s behind Charlie for her most important task.
July 20th, 2008 at 7:32 am
51
That’s what a chocolate starfish is?
Fred fucking Durst.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
52
followed pcb’s link (strange but in the great scheme of things a lot better than letting your kids lick an e-tab off the floor) & found a link to ‘Donald Trump shaves head’ which sounded mildly interesting (nits? some tropical disease? to show the 666 tattoo?) but it was a cheat -he & some other waste-of-space billionaire ‘wrestled’ by proxy, winner to shave loser’s head - but video no longer available.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
53
maggot, you left your sister’s cage open.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
54
Sorry Monkey Balls, you got that the wrong way round. Notice the strange silence from Maggot even on wimmin’s issues?
July 20th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
55
You and the grubs would know all about nits sister!
July 20th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
56
Twenty, the lyrics are (to the best of my knowledge) as follows,
“When I got my first guitar my fingers bed till I learned a cord or two… (A snippet of the chorus if #I may) And If I get an encore I’ll go home feeling like a king, It’s a two way situation, I like to play the auld guitar and I get a lot of pleasure when I sing..
…”
It’s a fairly lively ballad. That’s all I know. Not much to go on, but I love the song and want the music so I can play it.
Thank ye very smuch.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
57
That should be “fingers bled”
Sorry.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
58
Nonny - that sounds a bit like this by Christy Moore
July 20th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
59
Maggot you are a little peach! Grant it I can’t sing but anyone I ever asked said they never heard of it, I couldn’t find it on you tube or limewire, I am gonna nip into town now and get it.
Cheers amigo!
July 20th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
60
damn he found the key. mind you given the amazing ’spot the obscure Christy song’ maybe he has a future in pub quizzes, like The Oracle
July 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
61
PCB, I actually agree with your points, and feel the same myself. Her girls were fairly obnoxious too - I wouldn’t be able to hack feeding kids that old, it would annoy me too much! When my son was born my daughter asked to have a drink and I did find it too uncomfortable.
I stopped feeding my daughter at 14 months, worried it was me hanging on to it. But I’ve read a lot more about the benefits of extended breastfeeding since, and my son’s one this week, and not as healthy, and this time 14 months feels very soon.
I don’t fancy feeding a kid who can talk, and thus argue about whether it’s noo noo time in the supermarket, I have to say.
Re teeth - children get their front teeth first, which don’t help them chew, they use their gums til they get molars, so the teeth thing isn’t so relevant.
July 20th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
62
At least my grubs don’t poop in swimming pools sister! Can you say the same ?
July 20th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
63
absolutely not but the 2nd one worked at the council leisure centre last summer & used to pray she would be on the bowling alley- every time somebody’s little darling shat in the pool it had to be cleared out of angry customers (while the culprit generally slunk off unnoticed in the fuss over refunds & threats to sue the council)& then cleaned up by the staff on duty…ugh.
Jo- sorry to mix topics- some of my friends kept on the night/early morning feed until around 2, found it easier to manage when they went back to work…
July 20th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
64
“Can you say the same ?”
absolutely not
Grub 4 would be my guess!
July 20th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
65
Yep, Sister maggot - I’d say that’s what most extended feeders do, and nobody’s any the wiser. My mother fed me til about 2, I think.
It’s only a few who give it a bad name - I did hear a horror story of a v liberal woman bringing her kids to a party and the eight year old running up and unceremoniously flinging up her top for a drink. That’s certainly no favour to your kid’s development, anyway.
July 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
66
“I don’t fancy feeding a kid who can talk, and thus argue about whether it’s noo noo time in the supermarket, I have to say.”
Ha ha, noo noo time.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
67
Well, I suppose it’s worth a try, Holemaster :)
July 20th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
68
A friend of mine is real trouble getting her son to stop breastfeeding. I think he’s about 10 months but she can’t get to take anything other than breast milk.
I wondered if putting something like vinegar or marmite on her boob would put him off? Then, he could really like marmite.
This is probably a typical male solution and completely bonkers.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
69
I’m always leaving whole words out my posts. sigh.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
70
If your friend’s husband smoked Condor that would probably work
July 20th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
71
Holemaster, people do that, they put mustard on!
Chances are, her baby’s got a bit of an allergy to dairy. If I were her I’d start giving him expressed breast milk, gradually adding in increased levels of formula - I gave my daughter soya formula, not dairy.
Tell her to go to the breastfeeding board on rollercoaster for some good advice.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
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http://www.rollercoaster.ie that is.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
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Other women just go away for a couple days - that strikes em as a therapist’s dream though.
‘So your mother disappeared for a weekend, you didn’t know where she was gone, and you never got to breastfeed again? Perhaps that experience is where your abandonement and commitment issues stem from’.
I think the mustard thing is equally traumatic, personally. I weaned my daughter four months after your friend, she was used to bottles at that stage - I asked her if she wanted a bottle instead, she did, and she sat up, delighted wiht herself, had her bottle while watching Home and Away and never looked back. I would have kept going if she’d been broken hearted about it.
Sorry, I hope no one else is reading all this. Twenty needs a withdrawing room for innapropriate subjects, such as breastfeeding.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:45 am
74
Nothing wrong with breastfeeding.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:47 am
75
Thanks for that Jo, I’ll pass it on to her.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:54 am
76