Fiction – Wrightsite

Rebellion’s Pulse – A Synopsis

Via ChatGPT on a slow Boxing Day afternoon.

In the gritty urban sprawl of East London, 2024, “Rebellion’s Pulse” breathes new life into the iconic action hero figure, He-Man, for the modern age. Paul Mescal takes on the role of He-Man, a working-class hero who discovers an unexpected ally in Riff, a street-smart and fearless character portrayed by the renowned rapper Dave. Together, they face the resurgence of far-right ideologies led by Skeletor within the Conservative Party, with their unanticipated connection becoming a powerful force.

He-Man and Riff, products of a working-class background, find themselves entangled in a growing and complex connection that takes them by surprise. As they assemble a diverse team of rebels to stand against Skeletor’s oppressive influence, the film explores the evolving nature of masculinity and the transformative power of their bond.

Teela, portrayed by Jodie Comer, is a brilliant tech genius and a powerful woman challenging stereotypes with her skills and determination. Smith, played by John Simm, is a seasoned union worker bringing his blue-collar expertise to the team. Orko, portrayed by Potter Payper, is an eccentric environmental activist with a unique enthusiasm for cheesy beans on toast.

In the era of post-gentrification, where East London stands as a graveyard of empty, unnecessary skyscrapers, He-Man and Riff lead their team into action. Dave’s dynamic soundtrack adds an emotional pulse to the love story, blending grime with emotive melodies that mirror the raw energy of an East End in turmoil.

The action sequences are emotionally charged, showcasing the power of He-Man and Riff’s complex connection to overcome even the most formidable foes. Skeletor, a puppeteer of predictable culture war positions, haunts modern love with beliefs he doesn’t genuinely hold but spouts in desperation for publicity and votes, adding a layer of present day political commentary to the narrative.

As the film unfolds, “Rebellion’s Pulse” delves into issues of prejudice and discrimination, emphasizing the idea that love, even when unexpected and unfamiliar, can be a powerful force for change. In a climactic confrontation, He-Man, Riff, Teela, Smith, and Orko face Skeletor’s forces together, with their connection serving as a source of inspiration for the community and over time, nation at-large.

The movie concludes with East London celebrating its victory over Skeletor’s influence. He-Man and Riff continue as guardians of their community, grappling with the complexities of their connection and advocating for a more inclusive and compassionate future. “Rebellion’s Pulse” is a groundbreaking action film that redefines the superhero narrative, showcasing the enduring power of heroism, love, cheesy beans on toast and societal transformation in a modern context.

The Fab Thigh

Towards the end of the set Nancy started to feel tired; the irregular bolts of hunger pains in her stomach charging her eyes open for another couple of bars.

As familiar as the encore’s fireworks were, the loud bangs and bright flashes stirred up enough attention for her to wave and applause as Paul wished the crowd a goodnight and looked to the side of the stage where she stood weakly, leaning back on a tower of speakers for support.

‘Right baby, let me shower and change and we’ll hit the VIP lounge for a quick meet and greet. Did you see that banner on the front row? Ha!’ said Paul as he approached, passed and walked into the backstage area away from Nancy. A member of Management appeared with her coat and bag, ushering her along in the same direction, but now fifty meters behind.

‘It would be great to grab a quick bite to eat and some water. I’m overcome with exhaustion. I’ve barely had a minute to rest’ said Nancy to Management, her hands on her empty, rumbling stomach.

The manager saw the hunger in her eyes as he tuned in to instructions being given through his ear piece and gave her a faint half smile of sympathy, encouraging her to pick up her pace with a gentle push of her back.

‘Did you like the show? I hope we didn’t miss any of your favourites!’ said Paul to Eamon Holmes and his wife in the middle of the VIP lounge.

’Oh no, Paul. The entire Beatles and Wings catalogues plus your solo material and orchestral scores really covered it all! Don’t get me started on that amazing Gaga collaboration. Is she still here?’ replied Eamon.

The busy, noisy room was packed full of TV presenters, journalists, movie stars and politicians.

Gary Barlow stood eating a handful of unsalted cashew nuts whilst Sporty Spice told him how nicely their voices might blend on a charity single for her Trackies For Turrets Foundation.

An ex-husband of Big Brother season two winner Brian Dowling and now Love Island contestant told Maureen Rees from Driving School that without her, reality television and his entire life would never have been possible.

Cornered on the other side of the room from a table of healthy nuts and bowls of quinoa salad, Nancy nodded and smiled as Bruce Forsyth told her that the only thing he loved as much as his work was golf and that he’d never give it up, for else what would he do.

Even weaker and fainter now, Nancy stood nodding and smiling, not really listening to his words. Colourful, almost edible trails of food related thoughts blurred her vision to the point she couldn’t be sure which national treasure she was talking to, the Strictly Come Dancing or Dance Tonight star. She knew it couldn’t be true, but my God this man’s head resembled a giant, golden Scotch egg, she thought.

‘There she is, the love of my life. Isn’t she great!’ said Paul loudly to either the dictionary corner girl from Countdown or the business reporter from BBC Breakfast News. Nancy wasn’t sure. ‘Lady love, come over here!’ he shouted, encouraging her past Bruce, Gary Lineker, Little Mix, June Sarong and now to his current conversation.

‘Is it true the vinyl in the next series of re-releases comes in different edible shapes Sir Paul?’ asked Mark Ronson in his strange half New Yorker, half cockney accent.

‘That’s a great question Mark and yes, you’re right my man. The White Album’s wax is actually going to be apple shaped and you can guess what the 7” of Strawberry Fields will be shaped as!’ replied Paul.

‘Ya know, we’ve re-packaged this stuff so many times now but the fans still eat it up. The records won’t actually spin on the turntables or play, but what can you do?’ he continued.

Nancy looked over to the goodie bags desk by the exit, hoping there’d be some advanced copies of Sgt. Pepper to feast on, but the only thing laid out were signed copies of the sheet music to Paul’s new Compositions For Gardeners project.

The night drew on and the crowd slowly thinned out; every single attendee having had a personal twenty minutes with the star of the night and his starving wife, now stood by a cleared catering table, subtly trying to see if James Cordon had missed any of the pistachios he’d dropped and got down on his knees to retrieve and eat. He hadn’t.

‘Right, babe. What a night. I’m beat. Let’s call the driver and get back to the hotel. I need a few hours kip before tomorrow’s schedule’ instructed Paul to Nancy, who rubbed her eyes in disbelief as her husband’s head appeared to her as a giant, cartoon beef burger.

The married couple sat back in their blacked out, stretched limousine and almost instantly fell asleep, Paul exhausted after ten encores of Hey Jude, Nancy passing out trying to recall the last time she had eaten a decent meal.

As the stars walked across the reception area of their hotel, they were greeted by a full team of concierge staff, all working late for a glimpse of rock n roll royalty. Paul signed a few autographs, whistled the full fifteen minutes of Carnival Of Light, told the story about writing Yesterday and then gestured for the lift to be called, pointing to a lamp he said John’s Aunt Mimi would have simply loved.

‘Can we have any food prepared and sent to your floor Sir Paul?’ asked a member of staff as Nancy’s eyes somehow widened and glowed with the little energy she had left. With all the force she could muster from her weak, tired body she opened her jaw a little, desperately trying to respond that she’d love some, but the words were too heavy for her to say fast enough.

‘Oh no, that’s fine. I know I’m a Beatle and all that but I’m not one to bang on about it. We’ll eat like normal people at breakfast tomorrow. Besides, it’s 4am. You should be getting home yourselves kids’ replied Paul.

Up at their room, Nancy didn’t bother undressing or getting into bed, instead surrendering her body to it in one resigned backwards flop, Paul telling her how beautiful she looked with chords on the guitar he’d picked up to sing her a goodnight melody with.

The couple were woken up the next morning by a loud knocking on their door by Management, there to get them on their way to the airport for a flight to Manchester and another show.

Nancy looked over at the clock on the wall, thinking to herself it didn’t feel like she’d actually slept at all. The minute hand resembled a pork chop and the second, a Peperami. Paul was already out of bed by the time she could yawn, strumming out a new riff on his guitar that had come to him in those few hours of sleep.

‘It’s got this kind of, ya know, train track rhythm to it, this one. It sounds so familiar. I might have ripped it off someone. Have you heard it before?’ asked Paul. Nancy shrugged her shoulders as she changed into fresh clothes and gathered her belongings.

‘When Prince died I read that he used to fast as a way of focusing the mind and encouraging creativity. It kind of, ya know, seems to be working.’ said Paul, strumming the riff over and over and over again.

Management led the pair through reception, declining their breakfast along the way, and before Nancy could ask that they stop at the airport’s McDonalds, they’d boarded the plane, completed the journey and were arriving at another venue for another sound check performance. These were pre-concert concerts attended by around 500 very rich, very strange super fans – the sort you see dressed up in Union Jacks outside hospitals when another Royal Lizard’s hatched.

By the time the night’s main show was underway Nancy was on the brink of collapsing, her hunger now a fierce stabbing sensation in her stomach and beyond. She could barely concentrate on a sound or sight, visions and sensations of food overtaking her every sense. The endless crowds of screaming fans resembled not the black silhouettes of music lovers but dark, round, shining balls of caviar. The band’s drums looked like ovens, opening every time they were hit to release the delicious thick steam of an almost baked steak and ale pie, mince beef lasagne or bacon sandwich.

As was customary, Management checked in on Nancy halfway through Paul’s performance of a more recent song, one of several in the set where the whole arena usually headed to the toilets and bars, making it unnecessary for Paul to actually finish them. Instead he used the breaks to Snapchat Ringo using the Rocky Raccoon filter.

‘Thank God you’re here. I really, really need some food. I haven’t eaten anything all tour and I’m literally about to die. Can you get me something? Anything?’ pleaded Nancy to the Manager who looked down at her like she was asking for too much, for the world.

In a few minutes, Paul was back to the old numbers, the crowd back in their seats sipping organic beer and eating vegetable chips. Management was nowhere to be seen, no doubt busy taking 360 degree photos of the adoring crowd for Paul’s Facebook page rather than doing as they’d been asked and finally fetching some food, Nancy thought.

As Paul recalled the time George was dying and gifted him a ukulele, Nancy felt a tap on her shoulder and then the blissful sound of a white, polystyrene catering box moving towards her. Everything suddenly became suspended in time as the heat of whatever food inside it warmed her lap. The box’s steam drifted up towards her nose as her eyes watered in joy that she was finally about to eat.

Overcome with excitement she wondered if it would be a delicious, gravy drenched bed of sausage casserole and mash, meat balls and spaghetti, a heavenly sea of lamb curry or slice after slice of greasy, gorgeous kebab?

Nancy detached the top of the box to open and access its contents, her heart thumping and mouth filling with saliva. Too eager to wait for cutlery, she took a hand from her rumbling stomach and scooped whatever the food was into her mouth in the dark shadows of the arena, almost pitch black besides the one spotlight on Paul’s performance of Blackbird. As Nancy began to chew, to rejoice in finally eating, a new, less than ideal reality gradually unfolded.

The first chew was powered by her vivid imagination of fried chicken but it couldn’t have been that. The texture wasn’t right. On her next chew she thought she might be eating an onion and ketchup coated hotdog but that wouldn’t have been so rubbery. And then it all became clear. 5 countries, 10 cities and 20 shows in as many days later, Management had finally brought her something to eat; one plain, half cooked Linda McCartney sausage.

Nancy finished her vegetarian banger quicker than Paul could reel off an anecdote about the time he wrote Here Today for John. As a projected vignette of old tour footage lit up the area, she looked down at her now empty food box and felt a surge of anger and desperation bolt from her stomach, down each leg and arm and take a hold of her mind. As she stood up to furiously break through the barrier of Management into the general admissions catering area, she suddenly realised a blinding spotlight focused on her and 100,000 faces looking her way.

‘A great friend of mine once sang Isn’t She Lovely? How about we have her come up here on stage everyone?’ asked Paul to the audience. Within half a minute Nancy found herself sat on a stool in the middle of the stage, immersed in blinding lights and deafening screaming from the crowd as Paul sat at a piano, singing her a recent single, My Valentine.

This time the crowd didn’t disperse for a toilet break or refill of drinks, for what started to unfold on stage would fuel the next fifty years of message board threads, Daily Mirror front page puns, Channel 5 re-enactment documentaries and a forest worth of updated biographies on Paul.

Nancy’s brief sausage had fooled her body into thinking food was finally upon it, multiplying her hunger threefold when nothing else came. As she sat unstably trying to balance on the stool as Paul sang the song’s first verse, his thin crinkly fingers pressing on piano keys appeared as rows of turkey twizzlers, making her tongue start licking her lips feverishly. Paul’s arms transformed into salmon and his torso a huge crispy duck.

Paul, lost in the music with his eyes closed, launched into the song’s chorus as Nancy stood from her stool, moving towards where he sat, saliva now running from the corners of her mouth down her face. Management watched on, assuming the couple were playing out a piece of choreographed affection, a declaration of their love for all the fans to rejoice in. As Nancy reached into her handbag for what they expected would be a ring or red rose for her husband, a plastic knife and fork appeared from within.

A key change and final chorus to go, Nancy was steps from Paul, still seated, lost in the music beneath his trademark brown died hair which she saw as a lake of the nation’s favourite instant gravy, Bisto. Paul’s face, a bronzed, shining thigh of moist chicken drew Nancy’s cutlery clenching arms towards it with a magnetic force. So tenderly, the chicken came away from its bone, each succulent slice calmly being forked into her mouth, her body growing in strength by the minute, her stomach no longer cramping but filling with deliciously slow cooked meat.

Nancy finished her final bite and took a napkin from her bag, delicately wiping her mouth clean. She hadn’t felt this alive and well since 2007, she thought, as her vision became clearer and attention refocused on her surroundings. She looked around to see an ocean of stunned, silent faces looking at her as silence filled the arena. Her fingers loosened their grip around the knife and fork that fell to the floor in a clink. She took a step back from the piano seat and slightly lowered her gaze.

‘Oh my God! I’ve eaten a Beatle!’ she cried.

Paul’s body, now headless, sat motionless on the stall, his arms no longer salmon and fingers no longer turkey twizzlers. Suddenly, a twitch of Paul’s fingers pressed down on a note that pierced the arena’s shock and disbelief ridden silence. One by one more notes started to be played, until Paul’s arms were fully animated again, giving the crowd his first ever live performance of I Am The Walrus as fans slowly started nodding their heads, moving their feet and dancing once more.

‘I am the chicken thigh head man, they are the chicken thigh head man, I am the walrus! Goo, goo g’ joob!’ he sang, Nancy by his side with one arm on his shoulder and the other waving around in the air in time with the music, relieved that by only partially eating her husband, he could still live and perform on.

Backstage, after the show, headless Paul stood in the centre of the VIP room again, surrounded by countless Northern celebrities.

Heather Small of M People was helping untangle Mick Hucknall’s ginger locks from a fire extinguisher he had jokingly got down on his knees to pretend to drink from for a selfie. Nobody was very impressed.

Liam Gallagher and Steve Coogan were deep in conversation about their favourite bread recipes.

Judy Finnigan was knocking back any glass of red wine she could find whilst Richard Madely was stealing any bottle of red wine he could fit into a Tesco bag for life.

‘Get Nancy some food, Management. We don’t want her turning this meet and greet into a meat and eat!’ joked Paul to the cast of Coronation Street; Kym Marsh, Shane Ward and Les Dennis seeing who could out-laugh each other the loudest to win his attention.

That night at the hotel, Paul ordered the usual army of hotel staff to cook Nancy whatever she desired, even meat. Nancy ate through to the morning and again every remaining day of the tour.

The following month’s music press had a field day with their headlines, ranging from She Really Got A Hold Of Him and Maxwell’s Silver Platter to Mean Mrs. Mustard, I Eat Mine and All You Need Is Grub.

Nor Paul or Management ever disregarded Nancy’s requests for food again. Paul retained his remaining body parts for five Off My Head world tours, three ‘The Headless Demos’ box sets, two volumes of Shoulder To Shoulder Blues poetry anthologies and counting. Nancy no longer attended every date of every tour, instead staying at one of their homes to enjoy gardening, without a portable stereo.

One Crisp Morning.

The monster munched his way through the disco until he chipped his sticks and couldn’t hula hoop to his favourite golden wonders any more. One crisp morning he got ready and shaked his head, for he had seen a pack of walkers frying the French! ‘McCoy!’ he cried. ‘Open the kettle, for there is a quaver passing over me for what I have just seen!’ McCoy went into the kitchen and prepared a cup, tea bag and spoon – you know, the usual nik naks. ‘Thank you McCoy’ said the monster munch. ‘Those squares have tato for brains, thinking those French were space raiders.’

James Sullivan addition:

This story, wotsits about? Monster munch got himself in a bit of a state. His head must have been full of frazzles. I wonder, were the teabags triangles or squares?

Running Around In Circles

The Nike coach gathered everyone to the stadium’s start line and introduced the first drill; three 200m intervals, alternating speeds from steady to fast. The crowd of enthusiastic runners stood silently whilst the routine was explained, besides one middle aged runner who’d been energetically jumping up and down on the spot and doing lunges back and forth whilst the coach spoke.

‘Yeah, this is a great one guys. Remember to pace yourself and that it isn’t a race. We’re all different people with different bodies and different abilities. Right, let’s go!’ he said, whilst everyone else stayed quiet and broke into a jog, filing behind the young, reserved coach. The drill was completed and everyone gathered back to the start line to catch their breath and hear what was next.

‘Great stuff everyone. Lovely form coming into the back straight. Remember to keep your head up and those knees high.’ said not the coach, but the vocal member of the pack, as everyone else panted, resting their hands on their knees and leaning forward in exhaustion. The coach had his support staff set up rows of hurdles and demonstrate the next drill, focused on technique.

After five rounds of moving over and under the rows of hurdles, everyone gathered once more at the side of the track, some shaking off their now stretched legs whilst others strolled trackside to sip from their bottles of water.

‘You mustn’t underestimate the importance of hydration guys, but don’t just go drinking any old liquid. Train with the drink you’ll be using on the day. Some people gulp any old sugary juice down and end up throwing up mid-race, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ commented that same guy, again to a crowd that shuffled back and forth in much silence.

After an hour of drills focused on speed control and running form, the coach introduced the final activity of the day, a steady two lap race. The winner would receive two tickets to the following weekend’s professional athletics event, courtesy of Nike, the run club’s sponsor. The runners lined up across the start line and set off to the coach’s whistle.

For the first lap, everyone moved around the track in one reserved, very British group, all staying in pretty much the same position. As they approached the final lap, the vocal man began moving through the pack towards the front. ‘Time to pick it up now guys. Excuse my running commentary. Pardon the pun!’ he shouted, moving around the outside of the pack into third position.

‘One more bend and the home straight to go. Will experience triumph over youth in the home straight!’ he continued, passing another runner to place himself in second position. ‘He’s got one more runner to pick off before he does it. Surely, this will be a victory of wisdom over naivety!’

With 50 meters to go, the young front runner stretched away, effortlessly striding through the finish lane, creating a large gap in front of his loud competition. The coach handed the winner his tickets as the rest of the group caught up and huddled together, sweaty and breathless.

‘Great session guys. I saw a real improvement in all of you. Well done. This is my eighth week here and I have to say, there’s such a great atmosphere amongst us. There’s not one person that grates on anyone else and takes it all too seriously!’

The coach and group made their way under the spectators stand into the changing rooms. The middle aged man dropped to the floor and started doing press ups.

‘Don’t forget your stretches guys. It’s real important you warm down…Guys?’

Meeting Adjourned

The training course broke for tea and biscuits. Most people left the room to smoke or piss.

’…back when I was growing up in North London’ said the instructor to one attendee.

‘Oh, what part of North London are you from?’ said another attendee who overheard.

‘Up in High Barnet.’ the instructor replied.

‘Ah, I’m from High Barnet too!’ replied the attendee, excited by the rare mention of his home town. ‘What school did you go to there?’ he continued, eager for the imminent skip down memory lane.

The instructor dunked half a custard cream biscuit into his mug of tea, pressed his glasses up his nose with an index finger and stood up, over the attendee.

‘Oh gosh, no. I wasn’t schooled in Barnet. I boarded at Bishop’s Stortford College. The cross country around its 130 acres was divine.’

‘Ah, right.’ said the attendee, giving a polite, empty smile before facing down towards his notepad and making a purposeful ‘I’m not dwelling on what’s just happened’ act of taking the lid off his pen.

The room fell silent besides the distinct second hand of its wall clock, before people started filing back in.

‘Right then, everyone back in their place and we’ll begin’ said the instructor.

A long weekend.

‘Hi, can I help you?’
‘My friend asked me to order myself a chocolate McFlurry.’
‘Which one would you like?’
‘I have never had a McFlurry before.’
‘Well, there are many varieties, like these two pictured here.’
‘Okay, I’ll have that one.’
‘Do you like chocolate?’
“Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘That’s £2 please.’
‘Oh. I don’t think I have that much.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh. I do.’
‘Thank you. Enjoy your meal.’

‘Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt your journey. Can I sit here and ask you some questions?’
‘Yes. Okay.’
‘I’m from TFL, doing a survey about your experience today.’
The man proceeds to ask around five questions about the customer’s satisfaction.
‘So, you have rated this journey seven out of ten. Can I ask you why?’
‘Oh man. How long is this going to take?’
‘This will take around three minutes.’
The polite Polish woman sighs but with a kind humoured exhale.
‘I said seven because there were stairs to the platform and I prefer lifts.’
Nine more questions exceeding the duration of around three minutes are asked.
‘And what is your phone number so that should my management want feedback on me, they can ask?’
The woman proceeds to tell the man her phone number and postcode out aloud to a packed carriage.
As she says the last digits and hops off the train, a seated passenger makes notes on a paper bag.

The Inaugural Hackney Marathon

0 to 5k:
Begin your run passed three of the area’s organic groceries.

5 to 10k:
Take in the sights of thick framed hipsters rolling cigarettes outside a craft brewery. Shout ‘Hey!’ to Horatio.

10 to 15k:
As you pass the Latvian brothel styled coffee shop, give those ‘We keep the area edgy!’ drunks on the bench a wave.

15 to 20k:
You’re doing brilliantly. Don’t focus on the pain. Instead, ask yourself; What’s the top three colours you’d like to paint your bicycle handle bars in?

20 to 25k:
You’re doing so, so well. Distract yourself from the miles ahead by rehearsing negotiations with Father as to how early you can have your inheritance.

25k to 30k:
Assume you’ve persuaded him successfully. Bravo. Now, what’s more ‘up and coming’, a bus shelter turned half bedroom studio, or a garage parking lot in Hackney Wick?

30 to 35k:
It’s mantra time. ‘The Cock Tavern lives up to its name but the beer’s great. The Cock Tavern lives up to its name but the beer’s great!’

35 to 40k:
You’ve just a few more selfies to take. It’s a good job you set out with a comb for that tash. #nofilter #redfacelols

40 to 42k:
Thank your friends for their concern and explain you’re spending the recovery time in hospital to scratch out an invisible novella using syringes.

10 ways Zack De La Rocha spends his days.

Vegan cookery courses and foraging weekends away with Saul Williams
Mowing the lawn and growing vegetables in one of his mansion’s gardens
Deleting voice messages from Tom Morello
Laughing therapy to the Audio Slave back catalogue
Dusting the fireplace’s antique Zapatista ornaments
Writing a line of lyrics, scribbling it out and then reading Immortal Technique’s blog
Reading Buddhist teachings on excessiveness and learning to ride a hand made unicycle
Transferring Rage Against The Machine reunion pay packets to Questlove, DJ Shadow and El-P
Felt tipping over brand logos in his cupboard and reading biscuit baking recipes
Ignoring beats posted by Questlove, DJ Shadow and El-P. He doesn’t trust e-mail

In the office with Chris.

I’m interviewing a tree for my blog about how it’s turned over a new leaf.

Tomorrow I’m meeting with a wall to talk about its problems. People keep trying to climb all over it.

Can you cover me tomorrow morning? I’m meeting a lamp post’s paving slab. He wants to moan about life in the spotlight.

This evening I’ll be live tweeting from a zebra crossing about its opinion on road safety. It’s not as black and white an issue as you may think.

At lunch I’m meeting with a Royal Mail box. Follow the live stream. It’ll keep you posted.

How’s this title for my interview with a pay phone? ‘The system keeps boxing me in’.

I’ve got a meeting with the stapler. It wants to consolidate projects.

The calculator keeps shouting at me. Apparently things don’t add up.

HR aren’t happy with the way I’ve been treating my keyboard. I’ve done nothing but push its buttons.

My mouse filed a complaint against me. I keep pushing it around.

I’m due a face to face meeting with the Sellotape tomorrow. I’m expecting a sticky situation.

I’m really worried about the scissors’ attitude. They think they’re a cut above the rest.

It’s just one thing after another with that printer.

I can’t work with my compass any longer. He goes around and around the same old thing. Though he does have a point.

I’m in charge of revolutionising the mail room. People say I’m really pushing the envelope.

I found my conversation with the dictionary really confusing. It had to spell everything out for me.

Want to know why the film about Twitter failed? There weren’t enough characters.

I hate chatting to my bin. It’s so full of garbage.

I love my Mac. It really is the Apple of my eye.

I can’t work out where I am with the office window. Sometimes it’s really open and other times so closed.

I’ve been seeing this AC unit. She’s so hot, but then she’ll go all cold on me.

I’m always a bit nervous about how people will take to the blinds. They’re a bit shady.

I was on Google’s social network the other day. It’s got its plusses.

The office lights are usually fine to work with, but sometimes they just switch off.

I was on the internet the other day. It was refreshing.

We interviewed a very confident and ambitious lamp yesterday. It’s got a bright future ahead of it.

When Chris isn’t writing comedy gold, he’s tweeting as @cwelton, which is sometimes comedy gold.

High Street Hangover

A shopkeeper moved up and down the narrow aisle of pots, pans, staplers, feather dusters and doormats. A hungover guy in his late twenties stood before an array of plastic goods and scanned each shelf from left to right, looking very lost.

Frustrated that he couldn’t find what he wanted, the guy looked towards the shopkeeper for attention. He was ignored and walked passed three times until he spoke up.

‘Excuse me. Do you have any, um, dish drainer things?’ he asked. The shopkeeper looked up and down the shelves, then gestured for the guy to follow him around the corner.

‘Oh, no. Sorry, I meant for washing up.’ explained the guy who’d been pointed towards a stack of silver sieves. The shopkeeper looked around a little more and walked the guy around a few other customers to the end of another aisle.

‘Kind of… What I’m after is kept in the kitchen, but it’s got bigger holes in and is longer. It holds your clean dishes.’ said the guy, struggling to describe what he meant as he faced a bargain bucket of colanders. The shopkeeper gave a knowing grin.

Led once more by the shopkeeper, the guy walked to a different section of the shop where his guide turned to face him with a proud, task fulfilling nod towards the top shelf. His neck clicked as he raised his head to take a look up, at a row of big dish washer machine draws.

‘I’m really sorry. I don’t have a dish washer. I clean the dishes and cutlery up myself, then put them on this tray… a stand thing with holes so that the water drips off as they dry. This happens in the kitchen after I’ve cooked and eaten dinner.’ said the guy, gesticulating each point of his description, from a spoon stirring in a saucepan of food to a plate washing motion.

The shopkeeper lowered his head away from the top shelf of dish washer draws and thought to himself whilst gazing at his feet in a disappointed, rejected manner. After a few seconds he looked up quickly towards the guy with determination in his eyes that suggested he finally knew what was wanted and where in the shop it was.

The guy was now sweating out the previous night’s cocktails, flustered but focused not to waste his day off work being unproductive and ignoring a to-do list of house chores. The shopkeeper knelt down and stood up holding a large plastic basket of holes, only more suited to carrying laundry with than filing a dinner party’s sink load of cleaned props across.

The shopkeeper and guy looked at each other, both fatigued and smiling at their loss of words and resolve. The shopkeeper gave a warm, apologetic shrug of the shoulders as the guy gave a nod of thanks for his efforts. The guy stepped out into the busy, wet street and headed home to order the drainer online.

Kudos and the Easy Rinse Formula

‘Can I borrow your phone for a minute mate? My battery’s dead.’ asked one eye this way and one eye that, dressed like an extra out of a 2 Tone band from the eighties; his grey, ironed trousers sitting on a bony waist, side parting hair dipping out from beneath a chequered flat cap and a warm, proper London accent you’d be both suspicious and loveable towards.

‘As long as there’s no rushing off, though you’ve been in this queue for a good ten minutes, so I doubt that’d happen, unless you’re really after a new phone or just don’t care about shitting your pants.’ replied Jack, leaning against a wall, in his own sweaty world until the question, feeling a lot more trustworthy than normal on account of the past hour and a half of dance music he’d just raved to.

‘Dad, it’s Charlie. I’m in a bit of a situation here. I got split up from Moog in the crowd and my battery’s dead. What I need you to do is look in the phone book for Moog. Give him a call and tell him I’m at the toilets where we were earlier. If he doesn’t show up, I’ll just go back to the flat. Cheers Dad.’ instructed Charlie with a tone that said everything about his relationship with his Dad come mate, old school practice of keeping paper records of electronic data and commitment to leaving with the person he arrived with.

By this point it was finally Jack’s turn to use a cubicle. He’d favoured the shelter of an inside toilet as opposed to the racks of halve pipes outside, where people had to stand face to face, an inch away from touching each other with their private parts. He did one day festivals for sounds, not splashings.

‘That’s a good effort. I hope you find your friend. Take care.’ said Jack, taking the phone from a smiley, appreciative Charlie.

‘If he rings back and I’m still here, can you give me a shout?’ asked the cockney, 25 at most and clearly nearing the end of his night that by the sight of him, included a lot of dancing in mud, twisting of his preppy clothes and consuming beer, amongst other things.

‘Sure.’ said Jack, taking to a cubicle.

After he’d taken his emergency toilet roll from his back pocket, wiped the toilet seat a good two times, undone his baggy jeans and sat, the lights went out. Sighs bounced between the walls of cubicles, the lights flickered back on before being cut again, everyone sighed some more and so repeated Jack’s call of nature.

It’d been a long wait and a demanding day on Jack’s legs. With that in mind, he took his phone out, sent a few messages and used the solitude of his surroundings to be what a stuck up spa would call relaxation quarters. When the phone buzzed in Jack’s hand and Luke’s face flashed on its screen, Jack pinged out of his daydream and rushed back to the main arena.

‘I can’t believe we found each other after you charged away to the front. What a great gig though. Who’d have thought they’d still be doing this so many years on.’ said Jack to Luke as they waited for their train to London Paddington.

‘I can’t believe how long you were in that toilet for. You must have been in a pretty messy state. Still, it looks like we’ve beaten the crowds. Beats me why they’d stay for that last band. They’re certainly not headliner material.’ replied Luke.

After exchanging a few comments about the set of their favourite DJ collective that they’d been counting down to all summer, conversation didn’t dry up so much as take a subdued simmer towards a state of peaceful satisfaction. The two friends had jumped around in excitement on the train up, ripped every other band of the day apart, hanged off each other’s necks in celebration of their near idols arriving on stage and spent four hours in the near dark, circling the festival site, trying to find the right exit.

‘Charlie!’ shouted the usually more reserved Jack.

‘What’s going on? Who’s Charlie?’ asked Luke, opening his eyes from an intense ten minutes of gig recollection and random thoughts such as ‘Are you really inside if there’s a window open?’ and ‘How do those one legged, foldable festival seats hold you up?’

‘It’s that guy we met earlier’ replied Jack, standing up from his seat, squeezing past the knees of Luke and walking with a pace of intent down the carriage isle to the far end where sat a silent group of friends face to face on tabled seating, designed perfectly for co-travellers and horrifically for any solo commute.

‘Can I help you mate?’ asked one of the guys in the group, raising an eyebrow that tucked in under his dark brown cap.

‘Great to see you mate! Did you get a charge?’ inquired Jack.

‘I’m not sure it’ll ever come to that mate. We’ll see I guess… So your final stop’s London? We’re going for some drinks in our local. Care to join?’

By this point, Luke, not recalling having met anyone at the festival, had caught up with Jack, curious as to what his friend was up to, seated with a bunch of trendy strangers, talking as though they were all best friends. Jack had always been more of a gaze out of the window type of guy, quick to implode with passive aggression any time someone as much as walked passed or caught eyes with him.

‘Hi there. Sorry about this. Come on Jack, let’s sit back there and leave these guys to it. We’re almost home.’ replied Luke.

‘It’s okay mate. It’s not a problem with us. You should both come along for a drink. We’re not going much further than Paddington.’ replied the capped stranger.

III

One short stop in Slough, a shared Taxi through Paddington and a skip past Baker Street, the group of friends, Jack and Luke arrived at a pub nearby Great Portland Street tube station. It’d been an unbalanced journey of much silence, left field interjections of conversation from Jack, exercises in damage control by Luke and a textbook cabbie tale.

‘What’s everyone having?’ asked the capped man in the group of strangers. Luke and Jack moved to one side and positioned themselves to buy their own beverages. They’d learned the pitfalls of other people’s generosity on several previous occasions.

‘They seem like a nice bunch.’ suggested Jack.

‘Sure. The drive was pretty strange though. They’re not saying much to each other. Ten minutes in and I was welcoming you putting your foot in it about the tragedy of wearing caps and growing beards.’ replied Luke.

No sooner had everyone been served a drink, the landlord turned towards a dusty, seven tier system of CD trays and buttons, rotated a nozzle and filled the near empty, sorry looking residential road pub with music. The group of friends from the train immediately recognised the song.

‘Are you having a laugh? Time and a place mate. You do know what happened this afternoon?’ asked one of the strangers, dressed in a singlet and revealing two drum sticks in his back pocket as he leaned in towards the landlord over the bar.

No questions were asked but the nozzle was rotated back to where it pointed. The party looked at unease with one another, the landlord consulted his phone’s messages to work out what the guy had meant and Luke ushered Jack to one side.

‘I haven’t seen familiarity between a boozer and landlord like that for years. It’s all ‘help me fund my degree in model village architecture by pouring you shit pints’ these days’ observed Luke, drifting into a head spin about life as an overseas student come flyer pusher by night in London.

By 2 AM, the group of strangers Jack and Luke had arrived with had splintered off to different corners of the pub. The cap-wearing centrepiece had been in deep conversation with the landlord who took him behind the bar and into the back quarters.

Jack had gradually become less scattered in his talking, Luke was less distant in thought and by unnoticeable dribs and drabs, punters were floating in like puzzle pieces on an auntie’s table that never seem to be moving or building towards something until the picture’s suddenly right there.

‘I’ve got to get my hands on some of the tracks the guys played tonight. When it went dark and they came back out to that really nasty beat, I literally went weak at the knees. I became that cliché!’ said Jack excitedly.

‘You literally did. We literally lived that set as much as this pub is literally a pub and our early exit home was literally an escape from a sure bet waste of time.’ replied Luke, speaking as the pair often did with a crossbreed of fact and sarcasm that usually cut short even the keenest of newcomers.

‘You mean Kudos and the Easy Rinse Formula?’ asked an energetic, high-pitched voice of disbelieve.

‘What?’ asked Luke back.

‘KERF! I couldn’t believe it when Harry just threw the guitar in Gary’s face like that. Sinead and me were waiting all day for their set. Never has my brother been so useful. We wouldn’t have found out about this place ourselves!’ said the girl, looking up at the wall of the dated pub as though it was Mecca.

Jack, who’d been starring at his thighs, frowning in confusion, looked up at a lost Luke.

‘Did I get lost on my trail of thought in the toilet block and take a wrong turning at my formula for the best quantity of sliced cheese and tomato sauce in a toasted sandwich?’ he asked.

‘What?’ asked the girl back.

‘KERF! One of them wears a cap right?’ asked Jack.

‘Isn’t it great? He’s like a throwback to that mid nineties series about a 1950s policeman in the countryside. He’s so bold and ironic.’ claimed the girl, reaching for her empty glass that she marched extended by her arm towards the bar for a refill.

‘Four hours we walked around that festival site, to avoid those, no, these idiots, and four hours later, we’re in their bloody local with a legion of their devotional, quarter of their age groupies.’ figured Luke, looking at Jack with a headshake of disbelief.

‘So’ said the squeaky, irony-loving girl on her return from the bar. What are your names?’

As the girl moved her arm to hang around Luke’s neck, Luke moved his neck to escape, signalling with his eyes and a nod for Jack to follow him away from the table besides a fruit machine.

‘Just relax mate. I reckon this place will stay open for ages, being tucked away around here. Maybe the mighty KERF! will resurface so we can collect autographs!’ joked Jack.

The two friends had always shied away from the bands that took centre place on music magazine covers and entertainment shows on the television. For the past summer KERF! had not exploded into the mainstream, they’d arrived, blown a multinational’s marketing budget, ripped off a few seventies classics – adding a few layers of computer generated fuzz cultural commentators called ‘an innovation in composition’, and made an absolute fortune, so considered Jack and Luke.

‘O.M.G!’ screamed the girl. ‘It’s Gary! Look, it’s Gary!’

As the girl worked her way through a dictionary of abbreviations, panting heavily and fiddling in her ridiculously sized handbag, presumably for a phone to let everyone know what was happening, the rest of the pub stopped in their conversations, looked towards the door and watched to see what Gary would do.

‘Evening all. I’m not the sort to charge. Enjoy your night.’ announced Gary, moving slowly towards the bar where the landlord stood to pass over a drink that’d already been poured.

‘So, what is the score?’ asked Luke with a sense of surrender about his tone.

‘You don’t know? One song into their set, Harry and Gary exchanged whispers. Before you could chant the first line of ‘Everybody’s Special’, the arm of Harry’s bass guitar was bouncing off the cheek of Gary. Look, it’s still red!’ pointed the girl.

Luke looked around to find his friend who was nowhere to be seen. He stepped outside to search the smoking crowd but nothing. Next on the manhunt were the pub’s toilets, one urinal and one cubicle big. Jack wasn’t in there either, so up the stairs Luke walked, necking the last of his drink.

‘Luke, you know Harry, from the drive here. Pull up a chair. We’re talking about morning radio and how early you have to go on if they’re playing your exclusive’ said Jack, sitting with Harry and the rest of his band, minus Gary.

‘I thought Harry was the guy I met in the toilets earlier who wanted to charge his phone. When I asked about the charge on the train, he thought I meant getting his mate Gary arrested!’ explained Jack enthusiastically.

As Jack tried explaining the crossed wires to Luke, how he’d managed to get them stuck in a pub with a band they left the festival early to avoid, Harry and his group fidgeted and looked uneasy, clearly still feeling raw about the afternoon’s events.

‘Um… I’ve got chatting to that girl from downstairs. I’ll catch up with you in a bit. Let me know before you leave and we can share a cab home’ replied Luke.

Dismayed that his close friend was spending the aftermath of the big calendar event with a lead singer from a band they both despised, Luke moved back down the stairs and fetched another drink at the bar. Sure enough, the girl he’d reluctantly engaged with earlier was still around, by herself, on her phone, trying to chat to any passer by who’d make eye contact about the Harry and Gary incident.

‘She’s a good girl. A bit of hard work at first but her heart’s in the right place. Be gentle’ said Clive, moving slowly and confidently across the pub and passed Luke who’d sat himself on a bar stall.

‘Oh, we’re not…’ replied Luke.

‘Hi again babes!’ greeted the girl, slinging her arm around Luke’s neck.

‘That’s my brother. He works at KERF!’s label. He told me this is where they’d likely be hanging out after today’s non-gig. Let me go and find out if Harry and Gary have spoken yet. B.R.B!’

Door to door.

Through the window, near motionless nodes of life stood drumming their fingers methodically over smooth, shiny blobs of plastic and glass, all laid out tidily on grand tables of thick pine wood. Between the walls, floor and ceiling a repetitive drumbeat looped, occasionally accompanied by dense synthesised keyboarded melodies. Lee panned into the scene feeling out of complete sorts with the other passing occupants littered around the vast open plan retail space. The overly warm, still air immediately brought a pink to the young man’s face, reducing his appearance of age by some five years, increasing the extent to which a member of staff could patronise at his each undoing of a shirt button or scarf knot to release the itchy warmth of consumer angst.

Lee’s fingers remained firmly inside his pockets whilst little eye contact above floor level was made. The anticipation of patronage rolled along with the store music. Contact lurched slowly towards him, commenced by a firm, confident hand from behind, patting his shoulder. A blindingly white set of perfectly formed teeth danced behind a smile so smug it could snap.

The intruder of personal space’s eyes scanned every pixel of Lee’s face. The maximum volume of Lee’s voice seemed muted by the assistant’s unsettling over familiarity. He reached into his inside pocket, presented a diagram of the input ports behind his new television and pointed at a presentation laptop he owned a model of. The intruder swaggered into a back room, half dancing in his stride on returning and placed a series of wires into Lee’s hands. Lee paid for the items, re-knotted his scarf and did up a few shirt buttons. With determination, he power walked through the sliding electric doors to outside.

‘It’s incredible, the self importance great marketing can provide someone who ultimately just works in a shop’ typed Lee into his personal diary, letter to pen pal, tape cassette player and camera all rolled into one digital soapbox come necessity, whilst taking in the real, fresher air of the street. Outside of that businesses’ doors, he could have been standing anywhere, such is the regularity of international brand strategy. This time he was in London. The usual mild busyness of a mid morning performed choreographed poses the city knew too well.

‘It’s equally as unfathomable how right and sure a customer is that a particular product is the best choice because of bleached white television adverts positioned relentlessly throughout programming schedules’ typed somebody outside of that company’s San Francisco equivalent, into their own pocket PA system.

Lee stepped down into an underground station and watched the insides of his eyelids until his mental tally told him it had been six stops and was time to get up. The peaceful solitude of his own mind’s canvas was then drowned in buckets of noises sweeping, hanging, stomping and wheeling around the market stalls pitched immediately at the exit of his destination’s tube terminal.

In between prams, past snail paced shoppers, behind a leafleteer and across a set of traffic lights, Lee walked across an uneven terrain of paving slabs, seemingly against the flow of the earth, as baggy tracksuit bottoms, clouds of smoke, hints of urinated upon walls and bus dust marched towards him. A crisp packet got stuck on his foot. The unzipped tracksuit top of somebody running for a cab pinched past his forearm. At his front door atop six flights of stairs he refused to take a lift to avoid, Lee panted, took keys from his satchel containing an apple, notepad, box of cigarettes and newspaper, and shut himself away from it all.

Fertile Baguette quarter four pitches.

At 11pm on Saturday night in the bushes of Soho Square, freelance journalist Gordon Edwards searched for his family’s missing guinea pig. Whilst he didn’t return Lineker to his wife’s and children’s suburban detached home in Hadley, he did arrive with a muddy iPad that on powering up, appeared to be from Electronic Life Aids (EMA) magazine’s Top 100 listed agency Fertile Baguette.

What follows are extracts from the social media plans for their client base. Gordon Edwards, having amassed a portfolio of this one investigation, intends to return to his life long occupation as officer to the 1st Boys Brigade company of Hadley. He has only visited Soho once. Lineker was found dead in a crisp packet inside his briefcase.

British Pumps
Proposition: A Facebook application where users collect points by digging up virtual squares of Africa’s coast line. Reach: It will gain virality through letting players invite friends to catch oily zebras before CNN journalists arrive to expose the drilling. Projections: Higher engagement in oil wells with unemployed males, 18-24. Uplift in perceived entertainment within the sector.

Magical Meats
Purpose: To propel sales of the processed meat manufacturer’s new Glam product; tinned slices of luncheon meat cut into the shapes of ear rings, diamonds and pearl necklaces. Demographic: middle aged housewives and the children there of. Method: A campaign micro-site showcases a prominent gallery of photographs that a TV advert campaign from 3.30-4pm encourages people to submit photos of meat being magical to. Outcomes: Individuals in the photos become brand advocates, Glam is seen as an innovative and modern consumer choice. Magical Meats’ identity pillars gain sustainability. Contingency: A physical album of submitted photos is published with a forward by David Blaine about the power and mystery of meat. Photo subjects will crave ownership of their moments of fame, as will their friends and family, creating a new revenue stream altogether.

Going Faces
Objective: Re-launch the traditional travel agency as the one stop shop for tourists struggling in the current economic climate. Campaign elements: Paid for banners on Twitter superimpose profile pictures onto backdrops of sun and sand. On clicking, a micro-site launches allowing visitors to choose a destination, upload their photo and be e-mailed a zip folder of staged holiday snaps. Revenue stream: Visitors can purchase bolt on extras to their snaps such as incremental Photoshop tanning through photo collections. Customers can purchase iron on immigration and customs stamps to place on their passports.

Editor’s notes: When Gordon Edwards stumbled upon these findings, he printed off a hard copy. Whilst popping out for a stroll in Hadley Woods before we arrived to meet him, he dropped and lost much of the printed pitches and the iPad. He would welcome you continuing his investigation and hunting for the remaining papers. His accident occurred within the large bush 20 meters left of the oak tree. He also lost a sock. His wife doesn’t want him going for long walks anymore.

Sketches: Equality & Diversity Training

A man opens a door at the front of a meeting room, where sit fourteen employees looking up at a white projector blind. A stern lady sits at the front of the room behind a laptop which is broadcasting a cartoon onto the wall.

On one side of the screen, crowd together a family of otters. The other side sits a big, hairy seal. One by one, the otters run at the seal, trying to steal his colourful inflatable ball. The otters finally capture the ball and the seal sits, crying out loudly.

One of the otters takes pity and tells his crowd that they should return back the ball. The two sides gravitate towards each other with caution and the pitying otter passes the ball over. The seal is delighted and claps whilst keeping the ball afloat on his nose. The otters all dance around.

Will Smith’s ‘Just The Two Of Us’ begins to fade in as the otters and seal continue playing. The song fades out after three minutes at which point the otters and seal look head on at the audience.

The man looks back on the people in the room.

One lady looks towards the open door, taking a handkerchief to her watery eyes. An anxious man bites his nails, erratically tapping his foot.

The otters and seal sing the line ‘We can make it if we try’, taking each other’s hands as the screen fades to black.

The patient man looks to the laptop operator. Everyone waits to see what he wants.

‘Tallulah is running late. She rang and asked me to let you know.’

The man leaves the room and closes the door behind him whilst a new video begins playing. The weeping lady and fidgeting man sigh, looking back at the screen.

One black and one white gentleman stand at the door of a bus. They both gesture for the other to step onto the bus first. Neither move and the bus drives away. They hold hands and walk off into the sunset.

Sketches: Feedback

‘There you go.’ said Jane, placing her creation on the creative director’s desk.

‘Ah, right, thanks Jane.’ he replied, looking down from his computer screen at what she’d just handed in.

‘You’ve done well there. The shading looks good. It’s really well contained.’ he reviewed on.

‘Thanks. I wanted to avoid too much spillage so kept it a little short from full.’ explained Jane.

‘Great. One thing for next time. Can you add a little sugar?’

Swings and Roundabouts

Today began in a near empty Boots pharmacy which routinely deceived me in thinking my shop would be a simple in, out job. Nothing’s ever that straight forward in there and as I approached the counter, a suit from the city leaked in front of my prime position.

‘How can I help you?’ asked a cashier. I held high hopes that the businessman knew what he was after, that it’d be a quick ‘here you go’ and ‘thank you’ routine ahead of a two minute turnaround of my needs. Yeah, right.

The man proceeded to describe a ‘severe’ muscle pain on his shoulder and enquired as to what pain killers he’d need to get through the next couple of days. To be fair to her, the cashier, or was she a nurse – I can never differentiate nor trust, offered something pretty swiftly.

‘Right, and how strong are these? I need to be able to raise my arm this high for a few hours tomorrow.’

As if the nuclear orange tone of his fake tan that I couldn’t help but reposition myself to get a double take on wasn’t shocking enough, what came next was.

In the middle of the shop floor, to an audience now of four more ‘in, out’ optimists turned melt downs, the guy placed his briefcase down, took his jacket off, passed it to the nurse, or was she a cashier – I can never differentiate nor trust, and gave a five minute, repetitive demonstration of the actions that together, comprise a golf swing.

Quite surprised herself, which is saying something for someone that deals with a constant stream of skin troubles and gammy gums each day, the young lady handed back the man’s jacket and presented something from the array of pills behind her. ‘This should do the trick Sir.’

The man studied the tiny print of the small cardboard box for around two minutes, then looked up to the lady now even more eager to take the money and close the deal. He play acted out some pain in reaching into his inside pocket and pulled out a mobile phone come portable office tower.

‘One second. Let me just ring my Physio.’