Sinister: War and Peas

[robin stout]

Hello!

Well, it looks like we’re winning this war. The army took Newport on 
Saturday and stood guard outside the public toilets with their sub-machine 
guns. I had to pop into a café instead. "What’s the army doing?" I asked, 
but the waitress was gazing out to the boy with the shiny boots and 
square-cut head. Maybe I can shave this beard off now, I thought, and 
wondered if they might set up government in the Debenhams on the High 
Street.

When the marching band began I remembered it was Remembrance Day on Sunday. 
I began to feel a bit insensitive, because I was going to go paintballing 
that afternoon. It was another one of those work things – a supposedly 
good-natured bonding experience which turned into the English versus the 
Welsh. I wasn’t very good, and got hit lots, like this;

My head: 1
My leg: 1
My willy: 1
My arse: 10

Oooh. I could hardly sit for three days. I wasn’t very lucky.

Now events in Afghanistan have taken everyone by surprise again, I hope 
people will start being a bit more reasonable and take longer to jump to 
their conclusions. Everyone’s been using the war to say "You see, I was 
right all along. Of course, in a few weeks this will happen." And it hasn’t. 
All that’s happened is that we’ve been reminded there are few simple answers 
to anything.

When I used to work in Sainsbury’s there was a man who worked "out the back" 
and wheeled the trolleys off the lorries. He looked a little like Captain 
Pugwash. I used to sit with him sometimes in the canteen and he’d always be 
telling us, as we sat round the table with our chips and peas, some 
astounding fact that he’d heard on the telly. "Did you know that the 
Siberian tiger can run faster than a skidoo?" he’d say, and we’d listen, 
hushed and privileged to be receiving such wisdom. Then one day he was 
eating a Crunchie and he wiped his mouth and said; "Do you know what this 
middle bit of the Crunchie is made from?" We didn’t.  "Edinburgh rock", he 
said. The other lads nodded knowingly behind their steaming cups of tea. But 
it isn’t Edinburgh rock, is it? I told him: "No it’s not – they call it 
"honeycomb" I think. I’ve had Edinburgh rock and it’s definitely not that. 
Look at the wrapper." He glowered at me. No-one else said anything. I 
pretended to try to catch a difficult pea. I started sitting at a different 
table after that.

I imagine he’ll be in his element now. "Did you know that Osama Bin Laden 
has men in caves who are ten feet tall and have beards they use to smuggle 
babies in?" God, just shut up. Everyone thinks they’re a fucking expert 
these days.

I've just read the new story on the B&S site. I like the way the story 
button has been squeezed in between the others. Isn't Struan ace?

And after the example of Mr Miller I've decided to read War and Peace. I'm 
going to skip the boring bits, though. And I hope there's not too much War, 
I've had enough of that.

Robin x

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