Surprise, surprise!

Question - Place in order of "most likely to be heard in a lifetime"

a) Hey, Gyula, I'm going to build a fucking house out of these sticky toffee puddings they're cut so big.

b) Hey Bruce, what the fuck are we doing here, isn't there more to our existence than these infinite, perpetual cages?

Answer - for me A, for you B.

Surprise, surprise, I'm back, at the request of Dave and Danny, and I've had a few surprises lately.

I surprised myself by drawing a picture for Hillary, spellcheck, no sorry Hilary, see that's how much I care, in ballpoint, on a piece of carbon cheque paper, of a duck, going to a duck spa, who had left her overnight bag next to a big tree.

Surprise, surprise, I like to put in a little extra effort now and again, and during service Wayne asked, "Who made this mixed herb salad."

"I did," I said.

"Lovely Bruce," he said.

He had perhaps noticed that I'd cropped the top off a basil stem to garnish the top of a tightly-packed tower of rocket, seeds, olives, cucumber, cherry toms, mint, coriander, parsley etc surrounded by an immaculately-placed drizzle of house dressing.

That recognition meant a lot to me, because I could have just put a pile of shit on the plate if I'd wanted to.

Surprise, surprise, I'm working with Anthony Knox and he was my first girlfriend.
Antonia knows what I mean, and so does Ant, but they have both led so very different lives.

People have very different lives.

Surprise, surprise, the original title of this post was, "Fuck you all, you wastrel fools, in denial about the accidental eternal nothingness of your existence."

But then, I couldn't push out from my mind, the fact that I had had some help with all that food prep I had to do. That I wasn't on my own. I might, quite reluctantly, even be part of a team (though I very much detest the fundamental concept of a team)
People help me.
As much as I like to think of myself as some sort of lone wolf in the wilderness of a bizarre and twisted edible forest, I am not.
My son said to me the other day, "Dad, you like to pretend you're hard, but you're not."
He was right, I'm not. Just like I'm not a loner.
I pretend. Just like I pretend to know what I'm doing in life, when in reality, I muddle along with all my fears and paranoia and insecurities while I stick something generic in the microwave.




Surprise, surprise, I got my photo taken today to perhaps put on the Facebook page of the Boathouse with a little blurb about me and how I like to write.
Well, while you're at it Bruce, please do tell our customers how I like to write - how I like to write about Mersault killing the fucking Arab and what it means to me - how I like to write about my pizzle stiffen and drizzle when I hear Pachelbel's Canon in D while I watch the waves -  and don't forget to tell them about how I like to write about the Rock of Joy School in Uganda with all those little kids who are pretty hungry and don't have shoes - yeah, all those little kids in Uganda, praying for clean water while our fat arses are complaining about the fucking shrimp. Shrimp?

Why yes, you're fucking right I like to write, I like to write whatever I fucking want, whenever I fucking want and so point them to it - everyone is welcome - point them to this website and all the others and tell them to remember those hungry kids in Haiti, Angola, Burundi, Sudan, Eritrea, Niger, Vietnam, India, or wherever the fuck they are - while they're eating that fat, greasy portion of fish and chips and complaining about the state of the tartar sauce.

Yes, surprise, surprise, I'm back - but it might not seem so amusing now -  because if I am on a team - I'm really not so sure whose team it is I am on.

Surprise, surprise, I'm thinking, people are starving while we drive around in our little metal boxes, complaining about how big the queue is at the drivethrough in McDonalds. Craig likes to write alright, but whatever you do, don't really let them read it, it's not good business sense.

"Hey, Gyula, surprise, surprise, I'm going to build a fucking house out of these sticky toffee puddings they're cut like bricks - that is if I can ever stop these god-forsaken cheques or at least become independently wealthy enough to end this financial trade-off which devours the very seconds of our existence and excretes them into the past leaving a thin trail of priceless vapour which hangs around as a memory in the minds of a few, soon to be blown away and forgotten, who are soon to be forgotten themselves... ...or no, I'm going to build a monument with these brownies, a church perhaps, the church of the poisoned mind, maybe a sculpture, no a monument, no a..."