Today I had to go down to the dole office to see about New Deal which is a load of bullshit. I told Mrs. Puddinghead about my Sweaty Metal Band. She snorted up her piggy nose and rolled her wonky eye more than usual and asked had I never played a Lambeg. I told her that I might use her head as a bongo and break the skin (if you know what I mean) she threatened to sign me off and I kicked the counter and told her that I knew where she lived and it was me who had been the cause of the rats she got that summer when she went on holiday and unless she wanted to wake up some night to find me in the corner of her bedroom bouncing up and down on a trampet (small trampoline) then she'd better sign me on.
She burst into tears and said she wouldn't mind finding me there because she gets awful lonely. She started to shake with tears. I reached across the desk and held her hand and she looked up grateful for a little contact from another human. In that moment something good passed between us, then her wonky eye rolled away and she spat "fuck you and your sweaty metal, the system will grind you to dust and you'll blow away" she still signed me on though, even if I gave her the fingers on my way out the door.
When I got home Fabian Wildman was screwing a suspension harness into the ceiling of the livingroom. He looked very excited. He stopped occasionally to huff a bag of glue at his side and dance. This is the song he was dancing to (apparently it was the song that won Eurovision for Estonia in 2001):
