This is the end, my friend

This will be the 236th and final blog posting on Sucker Punch.

This is not an impulsive decision. This is something I have been thinking about for many months. In an attempt to reinvent and streamline my daily life, it was time to shake things up, change things around, and take that jump off a cliff.

Sucker Punch has outlived its usefulness. I don’t need it any more. Neither do you. There are new mountains to climb, instead of trying to plough the same ol’ furrow on an irregular basis.

I hope you’ve enjoyed coming here as much as I have enjoyed writing here. If you have been here more than once, then Thank You for indulging some of my more skewed flights of whimsy and strangeness over the last few years. But we had some fun, didn't we?

I have no doubt that I will blog again at some point in the not-too-distant future. And when I do, it will have my real name slapped on to it. No more hiding behind a flimsy alias. Time to stand by my words with a big badge pinned to my chest, proudly proclaiming who I am once more.

This is not an ending. This is a new beginning. There are other, new, different and exciting words to write. Somewhere else. So keep your eyes open. The Internet is a Small World, and you never know where I might pop up next…

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.

Pain In The Grass

Seasonal allergic rhinitis. Pollinosis. Hay Fever. Call it what you like. Me? I call it a month of neverending discomfort and nasal horrors.

I wake up every morning with my eyes glued shut like the cast of Facial Humiliation after a particularly gruelling shoot. After scraping the gunk away so that I can finally see again, my eyes remain puffy, swollen, itchy and ever so-slightly watery for the rest of the day.

I have to splash my face, hands and hair with water regularly throughout the day to get rid of any stray pollen that has decided to take up residence on my person in an attempt to make my whole body rebel in snotty anguish.

The sides of my nose are forever tender from blowing, wiping and removing the copious amounts of mucus that I seem to be generating. On particularly unlucky days, I get a nosebleed too.

Hay fever sufferers can never really enjoy the good weather of the summer, because of all the unpleasant side-effects.

The pollen forecast for the immediate future remains on High Alert. And all the anti-histamine in the world isn’t going to save me from a world of pain.

Give me an arctic cold winter, a raging fireplace, a good book and a generous tumbler of bourbon over this bullshit. What have I got instead? A host of physical annoyances, made infinitely worse with the constant intrusion of either Big Fucking Brother or the World Fucking Cup, straddling the popular consciousness of the nation like two over-fed, brain-addled colossi, raining shit down onto our heads at irregular intervals.

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

The Devil's Advocate

It is the sum of the squares of the first seven prime numbers.

It is said to be the Number of the Beast, based on the Old Testament Book of Revelation 13:17-18.

It is the sum of all the numbers on a typical roulette wheel.

It is also a marketing hook for the shonky-looking remake of The Omen.

If you suffered from hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, you would probably be hiding under your duvet, shitting yourself violently right now.

But, for all of those sweating from a surfeit of superstition, and who are hobbled by an abiding love of dubious folklore and specious numerology, remember: it’s just a number. Let’s say it again. It. Is. Just. A. Number.

And, today’s date? It is 06/06/2006. Not 666. OK? OK.

Resume your normal daily routines. However, I would recommend avoiding angry crows and large sheets of glass if at all possible.