Castout

In our evermore permissive society, it's becoming increasingly tough to make lifestyle choices that people will object to; Hetro, Metro, Homo, BoHo, everyone is ok with it. Whatever you do, no matter how outrageous the lifestyle choice, people just love to be cool with it. 'Nah nah I think it's great for him, really, I mean why shouldn't he live as a cross dressing squirrel if he wants to?' But not everything is so easily accepted. These days being a Christian is almost the modern equivalent of coming out:

- 'Mother, Father, I've realised I'm Christian!'
- 'Cynthia dear, feed him to the lions... or the cat.'

For added shock go for the 'born again' variety... or, for even more fun, convert from Anglican to Catholicism, then you'll piss off everyone you know. People hate it; they love to hate it; they hate to love it and love to love hating it. I mean sure, there are bad things done in the name of Christianity, but the same could be said of bananas, there was a whole war about them! It's fair to say it's had a bit of a dodgy past, I mean take the Spanish inquisition; what an incredibly mild way to describe what went on there. Inquisitive is looking down the back of the fridge to see where the chip went, not putting someone on a rack until their ankles pop. But we're all learning, and the path to forgiveness is long and winding. So join hands everyone! Kum ba yah ma' lord...

Three lines and the truth

I just got Sky. My roof caved in.

When I go shopping I drive a hard bargain. Or sometimes a car.

If I went on mastermind my specialist subject would be questions where the answer is blue. I think I’d do quite well then.

Su Do Nym

People often ask me where my name came from; it's from my Dad, Mr van der Put. And everyone thinks it's a stage name... have they never met a John before? But being funny aside, I am thinking of changing my name, Vince van der Put, Dan van der Put, not sure yet, feel free to vote. You may have thought with a name like van der Put, school wouldn’t have been much fun. Fortunately I had a saviour, a guardian angel, a scapegoat in the shape of Ryan Condon. Ah yes, whilst he was ribbed I was protected. However all that changed one dark dark spring morning when some scholarly jobsworth decided to upgrade our school registration system from the paper tick box of practicality, to an all new fancy singing and dancing electronic system. Unfortunately one of the many limitations of this new system was that it could only display the first 8 characters of a name, so picture the scene:

Teacher: Roberts?
Roberts: Here sir.
Teacher: Simpson?
Simpson: Here sir.
Teacher: vanderpu?
Me: [silence]
Teacher: vanderpu??
Me: [stony silence]
Teacher: VANDERPU!?
Me: I’m here!! I’m here! Goddamnit.

What were they trying to do to me? My name went from being a suave international playboy of a name to a fantastic turd - the wonderpoo.

Henry the Frog

Once upon a time last Tuesday, lived a small frog called Henry. Henry was not like all the other froggies at the pond, they were kinda mean and used to push him in the water when he was cowering at the edge. You see Henry was afraid of the water, and for a frog that is very bad. When he was just a little tadpole he had a very nasty accident. A small crow had flown down early one bright spring and taken an extra large gulp of water. Henry, being very tiny and little was accidentally swallowed by the crow, who although meant no harm, nevertheless caused it. So Henry floated in the mouth of the crow like a water baby, which is technically what he was. But then as the crow flew around a lot he got very tired and so it was that he decided to land and take a rest at a new pond, far far far away from Henry's. The crow coughed loudly and out spilled Henry with a plop into his new world. Scared and frightened Henry cowered in the shallow end of the pool. When he awoke, Henry was far from home and the new frogs were far from friendly. In fact they were quite mean. Days passed slowly in the beginning, hours trickling like drops from an icicle and Henry would stay in a quiet corner and watch the sun make it's slow passage across the sky. What he longed to do more than anything was to be near the top of the surface like the others, flicking flies from the air at will. It seemed to Henry that this would never change, that he would constantly be the frog on the side, alone and weeping, and as he thought this, his salty tears began to mix with the freshwater, lost in the dilution. Then one magical morning Henry awoke to the noise of great chatter. 'What does this mean?' One frog asked his friend. 'I've never seen anything like it, I think perhaps we are all in a great deal of trouble.' Henry opened his little eyes wide and gazed up; the surface normally a shimmery wobbly haze of light was today crystalised, shards of cut glass, twinkling like the stars Henry had once felt so far away as he flew high above the earth in the mouth of that crow. Finally and finally he summoned and plucked the courage to venture from beneath his ledge of stone. As he softly paddled to the middle of the pond, all the other frogs hushed their voices and began to stare. Despite their accusing eyes, Henry continued to plod to the middle of the pond. Once there he looked around and after a few moments nervous pause he saw what he was seeking. Swimming furiously towards a gap in the glass he struggled through a sliver of a hole, barely big enough to fit a lizard. Pulling himself up he found himself standing on thin sheets of ice, peering down at the sets of blinking eyes beneath his feet. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scarf his mum had knitted for him the winter before. Wrapping it tightly around his neck he put his hands behind his back and began to skate. Schwoom, schwip, schwoom he went, carving tight neat circles into the freshly crisped ice. Pirouette followed pirouette, twist followed turn, and soon a whole host of birds, bunnies and badgers were watching from a nearby tree. Spontaneously they applauded, breaking out into bursts of clapping like furry little fireworks. And as he skated over his adversity Henry for once felt ok.

Pet Habits

There once lived a girl who had six cats
She did not collect them
But preferred them to bats

Creamy Beans

I home and a little bored. I may have some cornflakes in a bit, but that would mean I have to have soya milk with it and... well... it's just... well what does that stuff taste like? It definitely doesn't taste like milk that's for sure, because it's not from a cow is it? So how can it? What's it supposed to taste like anyway? The milk of a bean? You can't milk a bean. I end up thinking about it too much, like people who think prawns taste like worms, or lychees look like eyeballs, and I can't drink it. Puh. Yuk. Nasty stuff. And also I'm sure I heard that it was responsible for the destruction of the rainforest cos of all the Soya farm trees they keep chopping down. But maybe if I disguise it with cornflakes it'll be ok. Because I really like cornflakes, and for the lactose intolerant such as I, there may be no other way.

Things I'll Miss From Hospital

1) Extreme Sports Channel
2) Err...

Unhandy Bags

What is it with women and their handbags that they can never, never locate their phone. All the women I've ever met, without exception, store their mobile so deep down in the darkest recesses of their Prada or Vuitton's that they have to drop breadcrumbs behind them everytime they want to check for messages. Soon as that familiar ring goes off they start scrabbling around like puppies in a sandpit, turfing keys, tampons and God knows what else out of their satchels and always, always managing to just miss the call. Then what do they do? Put the phone right back at the bottom, dump everything on top and shuffle it all about like a toy in a cereal box! I mean c'mon! Those bags have like a million pockets. They have pockets within pockets! Please for the love of all things sacred will you just start using one, just one tiny little compartment to keep your mobile close to home!

Ailing

'Growing old is hell' - Capt John Allan Smith, Edgar Horne Ward

There are two perspectives. My current one is trapped in a hospital bed watching fellow inmates stop, drop and flop dead, queasily diseased with a suprising ease. It is all I can do to stare out at this from under my four sheets of flimsiness and observe the lack of life, the steady suck and drag of the lifeforce being slowly extracted from us, like a long thread unravelling on an ever-distancing car door.

The other one is under the current; under the sea, see? The ocean, teaming with all sorts of ridiculously extravangant, outrageously eccentric and fundamentably incredulous lifeforms. Just an incredible superabundance of Life and Creation. And all that energy, that creation and rebirth of nature's cosmic birth cycle is trapped miles below the surface for no one to observe, blacked out by a light that never shines. Ah who knows what to think right?

Bedside Manners

I'm lying in bed at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London dosed out of my eyeballs and under observation by a couple of close friends (so I know this definitely happened). Anyway this woman brings me my so-called-food for the night, and as she puts down the tray in front of my sweating, yellowed, pin-prick-eyed carcass of a human shell of a body she looks at me and says 'Hey! Weren't you in Mikey the Pikey?!" "mfh?" I manage. "Yeah," she continues, "we saw it in Edinburgh, best show we saw!" A pause. I pause and look at her. "oh... thank you... what?"

I'm thinking about my Duracell...

This is really spooky. When I left for Edinburgh I put two new Duracell batteries in my Sony CD MP3 Walkman Thing and split for the door. It's over a month and a half later and they show no signs of running out, down or dry and more and more signs of running anything. I've played this thing on average for two hours a day. No three. Do the math: 3 x 7 days a week x 6 weeks since I put them in... That's 126 hours! Plus I forgot to switch it off one night and woke to find it still playing. And for the last three days I've had it on continuosly in the hope of killing them off once and for all. It must be getting close to two hundred hours. This is really spooking me out. I'm just gonna throw them out, yeh that's what I'll do, throw 'em out, real easy like...

Cigarettes and Alcohol

I'm on a health drive at the moment, and it's going very well; I've given up pethidine, cyclizine, amitrypiline, and a host of other prescribed assistants. Although to cope with the residual pain I've had to take up smoking and drinking again. Sooo... yeah way to go there. Man what is it with the stimulants? Everyone has some form of narcotic to null the pain, whether it be smack injecting or stamp collecting, it all seems to provide some sort of vital required escape. Like we'll all go crazy without the necessary distractions from the humiliations of the day-to-day. But are we trying to escape from, or escape to? I'm not sure, but I'd be grateful to find out.

Phone Cull

My phone had an accident; like an old person it stopped working and died. Consequently I lost the contents of its rather preoccupied memory, which meant no more numbers for me, all digits gone bye bye. Plugging my SIM into a new phone and powerless to ring anyone, I had quite the excitably enjoyable pleasure of waiting for people to call me up. Tum tum tum. It took a while. After a week I was back up to about 50 numbers, a month down and I’m approaching a nice 200! I’ve dropped a few friends and gained some new ones, I might do this more often. But if you think I haven't called you in a while, now you know the reason... (oh and that applies especially to my Godmother, if you're reading this, I've totally lost your number) And if anyone else would like to add their number to my ever expanding list of friends, just give me a call on 07802 770 966!

Late Night Tails

Emelié and I were lying on my bed, I, highly medicated. She asked
me to tell her a story. This was a bad idea. This was the story:

The owl was sitting in the tree eating carrots. Chup chup chup he ate. Each time he ate a carrot he would spin his head all the way round, chup chup, spin, chup chup, spin, that’s the way he ate. Then along came the rabbit, and rabbit was bored and looked up at the owl.
    ‘What are you doing?’ asked the rabbit.
    ‘chup chup- Eating carrots,’ replied the owl.
    ‘Oh. Why?’
    'Because I’m hungry.'
    'Oh.'
    ‘And they help me see in the dark.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Would you like one?’ asked the owl.
    ‘No thank you," the rabbit sniffed, "I don’t eat carrots, I only eat cheese.’
    ‘Cheese? I thought rabbits ate carrots?’
    ‘I prefer cheese.’
    ‘Oh. Why don’t I give you these carrots and you can call them cheese. Then you will think you are eating cheese.’
    ‘That is a good idea.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But I am just off to the shop to buy some cheese. See you soon.’

And with that the rabbit left and went to Tesco Express. When he was there he went to the dairy section and picked up a cheese the size of the moon, or the size he imagined the moon to be, which to you or I is roughly as big as a frisbee. It was bigger than the rabbit though so he could hardly walk and had to balance it between his ears. He carried this to the checkout and dropped it on the conveying belt.
    ‘Do you have a club card?’ The checkout girl asked.
    ‘Why?’ Said the rabbit.
    ‘You get 50 extra reward points if you buy this.’
    ‘What are reward points?
    ‘They go on your club card.’
    ‘What’s a club card?’
    ‘It saves you money.’
    ‘Why would I have a club card, I’m a rabbit?’
    ‘Oh, yes, sorry.' She paused. 'How would you like to pay for this?’
    ‘Visa.’
So the rabbit put the cheese on his visa card and, balancing it carefully, he left the tesco express. He went back to the owl to eat his new cheese, but on the way he saw the other rabbit.
    ‘Have you got it?’ said the other rabbit.
    ‘No not yet,’ said the first rabbit.
    ‘You still haven’t got it?’ the other rabbit shouted angrily.
    ‘No, but I’ve got something else you can have.’
    ‘I’m gonna cut your ears off.’
    ‘I have a lot of cheese.’
    ‘Cheese?’
    ‘Yes, it was on special offer, and I would have got 50 extra reward points but I didn’t have a club card.’
    ‘I’m still gonna cut your ears off.’
    ‘Don’t you want some of my cheese?’
    ‘Well maybe. Ok. Yes, all of it! I am a greedy rabbit.’
So the first rabbit cut the cheese into quarters and gave the other rabbit some, secretly hoping he would get full up. All of a sudden the other rabbit looked up at the owl.
    ‘Look at all the cheese I got,’ said the other rabbit.
The owl didn’t say anything.
    ‘Hey owl, look at all the cheese I got.’
    ‘I am busy.’
    ‘Why are you eating carrots?’
    ‘I’m just pissing around.’

Return of the Spring

Do I have the keys? Gemma, lend me your keys. Damo? Keys? Where are the keys? Does anyone have any keys? -I open my eyes: I'm no longer in Edinburgh, I'm in London. I'm no longer rousing myself at 10am after 4 hours of sleep to flyer the unsuspecting public with Chav related material, but padding around barefoot in my house trying to decide between toast and cornflakes. This is very strange, and it's easy to feel a little anticlimatic now that each and every one of the 31 days of August is now spent and over, like coins in a phonebox; it's easy to let a lot of sadness creep into the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new, but we've achieved something amazing, so let's focus on that: We played to an average audience of 140, we were the only musical of 90 to achieve official sell-out status, mythical celebrity figures appeared in the audiences, we appeared on BBC news and in all the national press, people loved us, people hated us, we were hugged and shunned in equal measure, and most unbelievably of all, the show turned a profit. Not only that, but magicwise, having been advised of the dearth of magical based employment during festival time by almost everyone I knew or heard of, I managed to clock up a record nine paid gigs in the town, due in no small part to the awesomeness of my new manager! So what better way to celebrate than to spend yesterday in an MRI chamber, being injected with hormones that would subsequently lead to me hurling in Hyde Park, spewing the liquid based contents of my overworked, over tired, on the verge stomach into the clean green grass? A cake you say?