Monday 5 July 2010

GetAway

Well then, here we are, Monday… again! Someone much smarter and funnier than me once commented that Mondays are a dreadful way to spend a seventh of your life… and who ever it was who said that was right, and now just to make things worse I open the doors to the 19th edition of the Aldershot Woes, a blog that is so consistently dreadful it has labelled me the Phil McNulty of Comedy Blogs…

But much like our proud Lions, even in the face of mounting criticism after a string of dreadful performances, I refuse to say sorry and carry on regardless of how much of an absolute shit I am, it is the new English way (ok maybe not that new). But as we now look towards the Semi Finals in the aftermath of some true World Cup greatness we can finally wash our hands of the English performance, that was last week this is this week, until next week when it becomes last week or last week when it was next week, but right now it is now all the way up until its then, which isn’t for some time now. And with that in mind I welcome you all to slap on some factor 50, roll up your trouser legs and paddle playfully through the exciting and often controversial world of… Holidays!

Its that time again, you have been saving for the last year putting away every penny you can, making sacrifice after sacrifice all for this, 2 weeks of uninterrupted nothingness! Bliss… You have booked the time off work, you have tirelessly and relentlessly planned every little detail. Like an SAS mission every last action and occurrence is taken in to consideration and back up plan after back up plan is painstakingly thrashed out and committed to memory. With everyday that passes the hollow empty misery of your life bears down on you with more force, which only serves to strengthen and compress your resolve, nothing can stop you, not even god himself, your time is nigh the wait is almost over, your going on Holiday!

To the airport or the open road, be it by air, sea or land you are on your way… No stress of work, no regular shitty boring bollocks of a life, no more shit to deal with, no more you, not shitty bollocks work and life you anyway, this is holiday awesome fun-time mega you… the best you there is! Like a full moon to a werewolf the beaming light of the holiday transforms you in to a selfish unrelenting party-goer, or a methodical chill machine that even in the midst of a full scale rabid monkey attack would not break the unyielding meditation of relaxing, “huh, what rabid monkeys, oh they’ll leave when they get bored, now stop screaming and bleeding would you, I have read that last sentence three times already”.

HOLIDAY- whoop-whoop!!!…

Be it raving our tits off in Ibiza, fishing by some idyllic lake in the highlands or just sitting by a pool reading a pile of books for 2 weeks sipping cocktails and bronzing our skin with care free abandonment playing a game of cat and mouse with melanoma, everybody seems to love the annual get-away and recharge… Everybody except me that is, as I am a grumpy bastard, or perhaps I am the only sane person left on the planet! (I’m going grumpy theory personally).

Holidays are shit, simple as that really, but unlike the England team I will put up some form of defence for my argument (breathe deeply, let it go man….). As a kid I had holidays, but not like any holidays that my mates had. All my friends went to Spain or the South of France or Disney World or some other exotic fun filled mystery land a billion miles away from the mundane mind thump of the grey pavements and shitty brick buildings and predictable lamp posts and grassy patches of mine and every one else’s shitty estates. And those that didn’t jet-away to distant sun kissed lands of wonder and come back with colour in their usually pasty cheeks and awesome stories and t-shirts in foreign languages, went to places like Butlins or Pontins or other family orientated mad-factories, where they got to play in swimming pools all day whilst their parents got drunk as judges and let them basically do what they want for 2 weeks, resulting in them coming back home and regaling me with tales of frenchying northern girls and underage drinking. Lucky Bastards all of them… they all stayed in hotels or chalets and had meals from restaurants and went to discos and did all manner of awesome naughty shit, which they never got in trouble for as they were on holiday! But mine was a different fate, as I had to endure the hell of never ending zips and swishes and gas stoves and bad backs and cold shivery nights and insect bites and all the other hellish sacks of spunk that go with Camping… Camping, fucking child cruelty is what it is!

Here’s the thing about camping when you are young it is actually pretty cool, the thrill of the great outdoors and all that bollocks, and when you are 8 years old and knives and fires are really cool, camping does rock hard, but come on, your 8 what the fuck do you know? As every year passes camping gets lamer and lamer until you get to about 13 and it is truly unbearable. And that’s not just because you have found a new way of getting the most out of spending time alone and a crowded tent is hindering that, it’s because of everything, the grubbiness, the coldness the bad back and above all the gut wrenching embarrassment of being stuck in a fucking tent. Something not helped by the condescending looks of pricks in caravans, with fucking TVs and mattresses, what a shower of bastards those guys are. But as I said at a certain age camping is OK, and for some people that childish appeal stays and they continue to camp through out there lives. Just so your clear my dad never took us camping because of any sentimental reasons, it was coz it were cheap. Now I am sure there are a bunch of people who go to nice campsites and spend their days on beaches and have a great barrel of fun, well I never… we’d go to dreadful places on top of hills and look at other hills and dry stone walls and nature, god nature is great fucking bore when your young, and we’d walk, by god we’d walk… my old man loves walking it was a genuine hobby of his, they call it Challenge Walking, and you basically just walk in a great big fecking circle, usually for 100KM. And in his wisdom my dad thought that he would have his family partake in this for there holidays… So there you go I had about 15 years of walking, looking at hills and nature and sleeping in a cold tent waking up shivering and miserable and returning home after 2 weeks suffering from exhaustion, looking generally unhealthy and walking like a 97 year old. Happy fucking days indeed. Now to be fair we did occasionally go to a beach and have regular people fun, but even that was a drawn out curse, my dad hates paying for parking, it goes against all of his inbuilt skin-flint principals, to my dad the thought of a good free parking spot is better than anything else in the world. As a result of my dads unnatural hatred of paid-for parking, when we did get to go to the beach, we would park about 5 miles away, and would be frog marched down to the beach, yet further embarrassment for me as we struggled for miles laden with cool-boxes, inflatable’s, blankets, buckets, spades and all the other tat you NEED for a day at the shitting beach… So by the time we had marched down to the beach and we were too knackered to do anything anyway. But once you have rested, eaten a warm ham sandwich and spent the remainder of the day either looking moody and aloof if you are a young teenager or by digging a huge fricking hole if you are not quite a teenager, you have to pack up and do the LONG trek back to the car carrying all the shit you carried down, back up again, but this time with the addition to sand eroding away at your thighs. God what a hell it was.

Now you may be saying that I am bitter against all forms of holiday just because of the vast cack I had to deal with on my holidays as a nipper, well so what if I am, holidays are still shit. As I am grown up now soon I will have to start organising my own family holidays and I am petrified. Luckily right now my kids are too young to bring on holiday, but that won’t last forever, soon I am going to have to take them on holiday and here is what scares me about that. When I was young I wanted to go to places like Butlins and Pontins and that sort of thing, but now the idea of it makes me want to vomit my skull out of my head. I couldn’t stand it, I would want to kill everyone I would hate it. And as for Disneyland I would genuinely want to commit Harikari if I had to go anywhere near the magic kingdom, and despite wanting to right the wrongs of my holiday hells, I will be fucked if I take my kids to any of them places (sorry guys, why am I apologising, you can’t read yet?). And the thought of being in charge and taking 3 kids on a plane and having to shout at them non-stop, god spare me… Plus I doubt very much I could afford such an exotic holiday, unless I became one of those people who saves up all year long, and I’m not one of them people, as holidays are shit.

So in a couple of years when the kids are old enough just where will I take them? Well the truth is this… I’ll take them camping, it’s cheap as anything and for the few years it’ll be an adventure for them. We’ll go to the beach mind, but I’ll be ballsed if I am paying for parking… Right now though I take my holiday and I go nowhere but home, I spend a week or so slobbing about, watching telly, playing with the kids, and being as lazy as I can (which is nowhere near as lazy as I’d like to be). If it were up to me, I’d keep holidays like this forever… I really couldn’t be happier.






Well, aren’t I miserable fucker, what was the point in all that, I’m not even going on holiday so I don’t know what I’m all whinged up about, ah well… I actually haven’t been on holiday for nearly 10 years now, and if I did go I’d probably have a smashing time, but if you want a cheery read about lovely getaways go read Judith fucking Chalmers blog… Holidays, grrrrrrrrr….

And with that gritted harrumph at holidays we rap up the teenage years of the Aldershot Woes, what will the 20th Woe bring, I never really know till I start writing, but one things for sure it will be an embarrassment to all who speak English. As ever I’m sorry.



You can’t follow me on Twitter as I am on holiday, it’s a cosy eternal get away from all forms of social networking called life.




Woe.

21 comments:

  1. RBA...hi-5 (sneakily getting in on the RBA/H2H act). Top blog mate......im sure we can all relate to a load of that.

    i had 3 holidays with my parents.

    My uncle built a camper van out of an old post office van. He was a carpenter but not a mechanic, so whilst it was broken down every other day on the side of the road, we were comfortable....ish.

    Then, we had 2 weeks in a caravan in cornwall, on a site where we overlooked a beach covered in oil and litter with an oil rig on the horizon. The campsite was patrolled by a gaggle(?) of geese who went for anyone trying to get in their cars or the caravans themselves. It rained for 13 out of 14 days.

    Then, when i was 15, we had 2 weeks in lanzarote in january....where...erm..it was lovely.

    So dont think you are alone mate. Oh and i bought a tent the other week!!!

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  2. GAZ, i expected no less mate... haha.

    STGP, mate i have been to a couple of these ruraly, real shit campsites and they are always patrolled by angry angry geese... wtf is that about!?

    Its them campsites where you have one toilet for everyone whihc is outisde and dreadful, so you try and go a week with out pooing, but your dad is chuffed all week and brags to all who will isten that its only £2 for the week where he is staying...

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  3. Any ideas as to what I should blog about?

    Hatred? Liverpool?

    Kinda the same thing.

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  4. Well done blogs you win...

    Gaz do a blog about Liverpool and hatered as the next season will be weird noe they have the old man from the werthers original advert as their skipper....


    Blogs, you do one on what Mandrake would do!

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  5. i meant one, i spelled noe, just how fucking retarded am i????

    very... thats how!

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  6. We’ll go to the beach mind, but I’ll be ballsed if I am paying for parking…

    ----

    haha. ive NEVER paid for parking in my life. i'll DIE first.

    next theyll be charging me to breathe air, drink er dirty stream water and eat er hedghog

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  7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcthree/2010/07/special-1-tv-episode-5-what-next.shtml

    SHUT UP FIFA!!

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  8. For about 15 years it was Filey, Scarbro or brid in the old mans jalopy usually staying in the same b&b, seeing the same people, but as Parky said Scarbro has the best cricket beaches

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  9. Excellant blog RBA, i actually cried with laughter!!!

    Up the Shots
    (i can't believe they let Ruuuuuuuuuiz go?!)

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  10. i just re-read this so i could have a right good redoubled laugh again, rba

    are you victor meldrews grumpy gandson?

    you are right of course, holidays are like the England WC campaign. fookin expensive, big build up big hype and then reality bites.

    i went on holiday for a decade in my twenties and the truth is a week on a campsite in margate doesnt really measure up

    however, you know how kids like being on holiday, well, you dont rba because you dont take yours, so i'll be camping soon

    but before i go i'll embark on a massive rant at gaz about how hate-filled he is and then disappear for a few weeks heheheheh

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  11. Hi di SN Hi 5 campers. (Sorry Scholsey, you gotta work on it mate)

    Excellent piece once again bro, must admit I don't hate holidays anymore, although I did loath them as a kid. I would never dream of going on vacation this time of the year though, everything's too busy, I usually go in the winter hen everything's quiter.. Roll on February, Holliday time, wahoo!

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  12. PS. Is Robbo's blog f**ked, I can't seam to get past comment 200?

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  13. Cheers guys, always appreciate the good words, or even the not so good ones...

    DET, i really dunno what dillons up to, heis signing players like mad, but i do have alot of faith in him... Just read he wants another 5 to add to the, what 6?, he signed already???

    fingers crossed it all works well...

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  14. what is with blogger today... i cant post fuck all have i been banned and put in to bloglimbo?

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  15. haha, whats weird is i don't even hate holidays just some wangchung in my office was going on about thiers and i thought "shut up holidays are shit anyway and i hate you, grrrrrr, wheres my my blogging pen!"

    (Hman, props on the Hidihifive mang... Braaap!)

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