Writing out loud - Pepsi, Stickle Brick and Chopsticks

I’ve decided after at least 100 flights that I’m scared of flying, I don’t have a fear of the flying itself and I don’t get nervous about being in the air, not even take off or landing… But I’m terrified, Terrified, of how dehumanised I feel  by the time I’m airborne.

After the 15 minute concentration camp we’re subject to prior to take off, as we taxi the runway and a team of cheerful Nazi’s on minimum wage strip me of my free will and dignity

Fasten your seatbelt

Put your arm rest down

Put your tray table up

Put your bag under the seat infront of you

Open the blind

Take your headphones out

Turn off your Kindle

Turn off your phone

Put your clothes back on

“Sir this flight cannot take off until you feel inferior, we need you to feel powerless before we get you to your destination, here’s a tiny can of coke, have a nice flight”

I swear these trolley-bots spend more time on Autopilot than the aircraft itself.

They insist on teaching me how to use a life jacket on every flight too, every flight, not just the over seas ones. The flight path I take the most is the return from Newcastle to Bristol, now I’m not great at Geography but if in that one hour I’m supposed to be flying I find myself swimming I’ll be fucking furious. If one of my Bristol jaunts suddenly results in me treading water in Lake Windermere with some slut polluting the water with her make-up telling me it’s all because I had my armrest up on take off, I’ll bite a hole in her life jacket and use the top of her head to stay afloat until she stops struggling.

I’m tired of dealing with programmed drones, don’t get me wrong I’m grateful to anyone in the service industry but I haven’t been served by a human in so long…

“Can I have a pint of coke please?” … “Is Pepsi OK?”

“That’ll be 3 pounds sir” …. “Is 3 Roubles OK?”

I feel for them though, they probably hate saying it as much as I hate hearing it. I couldn’t do it, I’d break if I was under those instructions, I couldn’t be that autonomous, I’d suggest anything BUT Pepsi

“Can I have a pint of coke please?” … “Is Shepherds Pie ok? Or Perhaps a song from the Juke Box? Is a strip of Raffle tickets ok??”

You know what Fuck Pepsi, how is Pepsi a thing?

Coca-Cola created this magical fluid, no-one really knows what it is but it tastes great and it goes with everything, it’s perfect for every occasion, it’s refreshing... in fact it’s so tasty it took over Christmas! What the shit has Coca-Cola got to do with Christmas? Is that what Frankincense and Mir is? You know milk is made up of Curds and Whey do you think if you separate Coca-Cola you end up with Frankincense and Mir? Like I say no-one quite knows what the fuck it is, what we do know is that it’s the utility drink of the known universe and they shift over a trillion gallons of it each year… Yet Pepsi come along and went “I’ve got an idea…. THEIR IDEA”

It’s like stickle brick, if stickle brick was a drink it would be Pepsi. Lego have been sticking bricks together with absolute perfection since Sir Walter Lego spawned the idea, I don’t know if that’s his name but fuck it, it sounds convincing. Sir Walter Lego mass produced this simple yet brilliant work of architectural genius and shaped our child hood, shit, I only want to have kids so I can play with Lego again…

“I’ve bought you some Lego son, now get to bed, it’s 4pm and you have school in the morning.”

Everybody likes lego, name me one person who is indifferent to Lego? 

NO-ONE

Unless you stand on it, but if you’re standing on Lego you’re doing Lego wrong. I mean we’ve all agreed Coca-Cola is awesome but don’t go shooting it up your arse in an enema, don’t fuel your car with it, it'll only ruin your day.

But for some reason Paul Sticklebrick sat in his lair scratching his chin, he’s definitely called Paul, no-one who’s ever had a good idea is called Paul

There may be a few Paul's reading this right now, and you Paul will be at work tomorrow, at Homebase, and you will tell one of your colleagues a worse version of this thought and it will dawn on you “that’s why I’m called Paul”

Paul Sticklebrick, riddled by the insecurity of his own insignificance went “I see what Walter Lego is trying to do but what the world needs is spiky clumps that even in the hands of the worlds greatest architect could still not plug together to make a recognisable structure, they must hurt more when you stand on them and not only that they must be impossible to store”

The Taj Mahal made with Stickle-Bricks

I sometimes use chopsticks to eat rice.

I know, how retarded am I…? RICE? I’d have better luck eating rice with boxing gloves but it’s tradition to use dowling rod so I do it.

We’ve invented the spoon. In case you didn’t know. It’s been around a little while and it’s perfect for the task of transporting mouth-sized portions of rice from A to B. The spoon has probably been around for longer than the wheel but the wheel gets more press, something to do with the worlds natural resources I think, the spoon doesn’t add value to oil the way the wheel does. 

Just like the spoon, the wheel is a revolutionary invention but for some reason nobody, not even in china, decided to go “I’m going to build a car but instead of the wheel I’m going to use Chopsticks… it’s twadition” I’m not being ridiculous here; Chopsticks are as much an adequate replacement for the wheel as they are for the spoon but no-one questions it. It’s like watching a game of football and seeing Lionel Messi get substituted off for The Queen... No wait worse than that, it's like watching a game of football and seeing Lionel Messi get substituted off for Chopsticks!

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings, I usually just write if I'm inspired by something but with the deadline looming for my new Edinburgh Show and my agent asking me to write some clean material, I'll be sitting down with a blank canvas and writing out loud quite a bit between now and August.