Howling Blog

The Trouble With the English...

2006-09-14T19:53:00.000+01:00

I love to tinker around with CD cover designs and here's one I came up with a few months ago.

At one time I considered setting up Howling Dog Graphics for the many folk who produce their own CDs and would appreciate a 'homebrew' kind or service. After a while, however, the idea went away and I began to do other things.

This is one of my favourite designs, the image of St George coming from a stained glass window in Wigan Parish Church. I took my original photograph and began to experiment with the image till finally, I arrived at this design. Once that was done, the rest of the cover made itself.

Hope you like it...

One of my photographs...

2006-09-06T23:35:00.000+01:00

Just thought I'd post this as it's an image I like because of its simplicity.

It was taken a few weeks ago on the promenade in Blackpool and even though the photograph gives the impression it was a quiet day, in fact it was just the opposite.

There were the usual Summer crowds and traffic was very busy. I spotted the scene, lifted the camera to my eye and had time for just the one shot before the whole thing was ruined and Blackpool returned to its normal self. If you've been, you'll know what I mean!

Not a prize winner, I admit, but it's one that gives me pleasure. Hope you like it too.

Mummy's Boy - Chapter 1 - The Fuzzy Feeling

2006-09-05T23:12:00.000+01:00

The night before I started ‘big school’, my mother thought it best to explain that Father Christmas didn’t exist. Her intentions were good. She did it so that the older lads wouldn’t take the rip, but I was so upset I didn’t sleep a wink and went off to my new secondary modern feeling a complete nob. How could I be so naïve? Other kids my age were smoking, spitting, swearing, even shagging round the back of the scout hut. While I still believed in Santa Claus.

It didn’t get better. By fourteeen I’d still not kissed a girl and my idea of a good night in was a Saturday evening spent building an Airfix kit. I even kept the glue at a safe distance so that I wouldn’t inhale the fumes and become one of the losers who took drugs and ended their miserable lives lying in a pool of piss. Not for me a life of wanton drug taking. In fact, I often thought it a pity that a fine hobby such as model construction had the potential to tempt its followers into the evils of sniffing polystyrene cement.

Catholicism played a massive part in how I grew as a teenager. My grandmother, a big-boned Irish woman who smelled of lard and thought dancing was the work of Beelzebub, would give me a weekly quizzing as to whether I’d been to confession. She’d ask who the priest was, what pennance I’d been given and she’d demand to know which Mass I’d be attending on Sunday morning. Every week I’d stand before her like the dumb kid in class who’s just wet himself, and I’d offer the same pathetically truthful answers. And always, at the end of our little session she would ask the question ‘now tell me truthful Donald, have you played with yer little twinkle since we last had a chat’? My answer was always ‘No Nanna Flannery, I haven’t’.

I knew all about the perils of masturbation. My friend Gerald Gibson, a gawpy lad whose twin passions were rugby league and shooting rats, had given me the full picture one warm afternoon as we lazed around on a the grass in Pretoria Park.

‘Our Jemmy’s towd me summat” he confided. “He says it’s the dirtiest thing anybody can do. It’s a mortal sin an’ it makes you go blind. In both eyes. An’ it makes you go mentally insane. An’ it makes hairs grow in the palm of yer hands. An’ they never go away. Ever’.

‘What is it’?I asked, gob wide open in anticipation of Jemmy’s great revelation.

Gerald looked around to ensure that no-one could possibly eavesdrop and then leaned in close to whisper in my ear ‘It’s called havin’ a yank’.

At eighteen I was dull. A lad with no personality, no social skills, wit, charm or common sense. Everyone saw me as a big, soft pillock still tied to his mam’s apron strings. Yet something sort of simmered underneath. It was a feeling I didn’t understand and that I’d not known before and it was telling me to break free, to become an individual. It had to be the voice of the Devil because it whispered clearly in my left ear, ‘Become your own person. Be true to your inner voice. Tell the world to fuck itself ‘. It happened twice a day for the entire summer and on into the autumn. Then, three days before my nineteenth birthday, I met Sam Jolley.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

It’s a bitterly cold November evening, so cold my mum recommends I wear my new duffle coat and I happily take her well-meant advice. I’m on my way to the the North Swindale Model Engineering Society’s Annual General Meeting and I’m waiting at the bus stop at the end of our street. I’ve decided to ease the boredom by enjoying one of my fantasies. I consider the one where a senior St John’s Ambulance lady slowly removes her uniform and then ties my wrists with an elasticated bandage, but decide I can’t risk getting on the bus with an erection in case the Grammar School girls are on their way home from hockey. I remember what happened last time and, reluctantly, put the notion to one side and choose the tank fantasy.

In the fantasy I’m standing very proudly in front of a 1:32 scale Panzer tank, modelled to perfection by my own skillful hand. I’m grinning insanely and there are small beads of sweat on my forehead. I’m Model Maker of the Year and I’m about to receive my prize cheque from Blue Peter presenter John Noakes. John is giving me a big, cheesy smile and he’s walking towards me with hand outstretched when the number thirty two to Ansdell Green swings noisily round the corner and pulls in at the stop. The driver’s running late, he’s moving too fast and he fails to spot the deep, oily puddle of rainwater that’s gathered in the gutter. The water whooshes across the footway and soaks me completely, head to toe. My duffle coat is sodden and the dirty water dribbles down my face and glasses. I begin to feel slightly angry.

The bus doors swish open and without understanding why, my anger takes over. I scream at the driver, ‘You stupid, inconsiderate twat’.

I freeze as, without giving the matter more than a second’s thought, the driver springs from his seat, jumps to the floor and smacks me in the eye with enough power to leave me flat on my arse on the cold, wet, flagstone pavement.

The bus driver’s standing over me, he’s pointing a finger and he’s telling me to watch my filthy mouth when a young woman rushes off the bus. She steps up smartly behind him and with her umbrella lands the bus driver a crumper of a blow across the back of the neck. The man groans and slumps to his knees and she looks straight at me and winks. ‘You’re right love, he is a stupid, inconsiderate twat. Can I buy you a pint o’ summat? You look like a lad who can shift a few beers. There’s a Dagnall’s pub on Brigg Street’.

I wobble to my feet and she starts to wipe water off my duffle and all the while she’s laughing. I get this fuzzy feeling, a sort of tingling which starts in my feet and works it’s way up to the back of my head. Then it spreads out slowly till it becomes a warm glow that seems to seep into my entire body. It’s nice.

‘I don’t drink’ I mumble as she stops slapping the water off my coat and looks at me waiting for an explanation. I don’t offer one.

‘Well now’s a good a time to start’. She laughs again, takes my hand and leads me away from the kerfuffle that’s developing at the bus stop.. ‘I’m Sam. Twenty-six. Single. Always up for a few drinks an’ a laugh. Heterosexual. Definitely heterosexual. What about you?’

‘I’m Donald Deakin. Nineteen next Friday. Single. Not homosexual. Definitely not homosexual’.

‘I think I like you Donald Deakin. Let’s get pissed’.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

The Dagnall’s pub on Brigg Street turns out to be The Turk’s Head. A boozer tougher than a donkey’s toe nails and with a reputation known all across town. Tonight’s quiet and it’s easy to find a seat in the grubby, badly decorated snug. I sit at an old, flaky cast-iron table by the jukebox while Sam goes to the bar. In two or three minutes she’s back, she’s carrying two pints of Dagnall’s Winter Warmer and I’m on the brink of my very first taste of beer.

Sam sits beside me and looks me directly in the eye for what seems like ages, but is really no more than five seconds. She lifts her pint pot. ‘Cheers Donald Deakin, here’s to a new friendship. Let’s hope it turns out to be a dirty one’. She takes a great slug on the beer, shifting two thirds of the pint without stopping. I’m impresssed and try to do the same, but two tiny gulps is all I can manage before spluttering and putting my pint back down on the table.

Sam laughs again. ‘Good eh’? she asks.

‘Well no, actually. It tastes like monkey piss. Is there any chance of a glass of hot Vimto?’

‘You won’t get rat-arsed off hot Vimto’.

‘I don’t want to get rat-arsed. I’ve never been rat-arsed. I’ve got an AGM to go to. It starts at eight o’ clock, we’re electin’ a new president an’ it’s gone half past seven already.’

‘Are you a virgin’? Her expression’s dead pan and again she’s looking me straight in the eye.

I’m not sure how to reply, but then I remember my mother’s advice to always combat an awkward question with another question. ‘Are you a gypsy?’

‘No, I’m not a gypsy, yes I work in the circus, but circus people aren’t gypsies. In any case, what have you got against gypsies?’

‘Nothing whatsoever. Are you really with the circus? The one that’s on the field behind the athletics track? What do you do? Are you a juggler?’ I can’t believe how neatly I’ve sidestepped the virginity question.

‘There’s no time to answer all those questions, you’ve got to get off to your precious AGM remember?’

At first Sam’s expression is solemn, but then she starts to smile. She reaches out and touches me gently on the cheek, keeping her hand there for perhaps half a minute. ‘This could’ve been good Donald Deakin, but it’d be wrong of me to let sexual chemistry get in the way of an AGM. What time’s the next bus?’

I’m getting the fuzzy feeling again. It starts in my toes like before, but this time it only travels as far as my groin. Once there, it reaches round, under my balls and I start to get an erection that would make Nanna Flannery pray out loud to the good Lord and all his saints and angels. This is bloody great this is.

‘Bollocks to the next bus. An’ bollocks to the AGM an’ all. Let me buy you another drink an’ you can tell me about the circus.’

My first Howling Blog post...

2006-09-05T18:32:00.000+01:00

It’s always the beginning that’s most difficult. The first sentence or the first line are always the bits that give me most grief, but the first sentence is done now, so from here everything should be a breeze. Well, that’s the theory anyway! And it seems to work for Jeffrey Archer, so why not for me?

So….. welcome to the very first dollop of Howling Blog. I suspect ‘dollop’ is the right word to use, because it’s never going to be delivered as if it were a dish prepared by a celebrity chef. It won’t have fancy ingredients, it won’t have a garnish of green bits and a drizzle of truffle oil. No, it’ll be thrown on your plate in much the same way as my mother used to serve up her beef stew and dumplings: with little finesse, but with tons of love and enthusiasm. And there’ll always be a bottle of sauce on the table for you to splash around as you will.

How HB began…

I’m in the pub one Monday evening with friend and fellow scribbler Bernard Wrigley. Our pub visits aren’t made because we like to drink beer and chat and play grumpy old buggers and ogle the blonde lass behind the bar. No! No! We are carrying out valuable research that will be of use to future generations of ogleing, grumpy boozers. It’s something we seldom get thanked for, but more of that when our research is published in 2012.

So we get the beers and sit down at a quiet corner table where we can swear without causing too much offence and we comment on the pub décor and the fact that it could bring on a migraine the size of Elton John’s ego. Then Bernard asks

“Have you thought about doin’ a blog? On yer website, like.”

“I’ve thought about it” says I “but I’ve never got farther than that. Anyway, I wouldn’t know how to fill it. And I’d be more concerned about the barmy buggers who might stay in of a Saturday night and actually read it. And besides, my creativity’s dried up. I’m writing nowt at the moment. I had trouble with a shopping list the other day.”

“Well I’m thinking of doing one” says Bernard.

“If you’re having one then I’m having one” I reply. And we move to another pub where the décor is a little less traumatic and we swap the blonde lass behind the bar for an eighteen-year-old goth with a learner beard and soft, clammy hands and we press on with our research.

For some strange reason, the conversation turns to Barbara Windsor's acting talents and we continue to drink beer till Bernard gets called in for his tea.

What will HB contain?

Stuff. Simple as that. Mindless ramblings, poems, the odd monologue, photos, and owt else I can cram into a blog.

But that’s all for now!