I bought a Christmas tree the other day, actually about 2 weeks ago. I’ve always had real trees, but as a sat down fella that is a bit limited the needle and cleaning up drop factor is a challenge. In other words someone else has to do all that for me. Blimey it’s quite a lot of ongoing tidying isn’t it really? And there’s the buying process, the delivery process, the daily cleaning up for about a month, the fact that it only looks good for about a week or so in reality ( before its droopy ) and then there’s the bloody disposal of it. That’s become so contentious! Pre injury it was a case of me throwing it out of the window, rather than drag it through the house to make a lot of mess everywhere, and then leaving it to be taken away, or me occasionally throwing the ( obviously degradable tree ) into the Thames ( which is a big old river full of lots of wood that it picks up as it courses from Wiltshire ). Where I live now there’s a right drama with Christmas tree collection. Whose responsibility is it, what precise day is that collection, what do you do if you miss that day, how much trouble you’ll get into if you leave it with general waste etc etc.

Last year I asked my Carer, Gorana, to get rid for me, and blimey there were needles appearing still about 6 months later… so this year I went Fake tree.
They were a bit expensive for sure, up to £200 for some with built in lights etc, and you can bet that 4/5 years later the lights don’t work and there is no guarantee lasting that long, so I had a look in B&Q and found one without lights that looked pretty authentic. It was a bargain I thought… but hey there really is no such thing as a free lunch.
Someone had promised to help me, but never did, so I thought yesterday that I’d put my tree up, and managed to get the box onto my lap in the spare room. However I couldn’t then through the door to leave, as the box was 4 feet long. That means you either have to put the long box vertically on your lap ( which means it probably going to topple off ) and don’t forget I can’t hold it with my knees or even feel it, or you have to throw it back onto the floor and then nudge it through the door using your wheelchair as a JCB, making sure it doesn’t get stuck sideways in the door. I did that, then had to push it through another door at right angles to the first one, again without getting it stuck across the doorway. About ten minutes later ( that’s about 2 feet per minute of travel ) I get to where I want to be. Then I had to use my ultra grip grabber to reorient the box so I could get it back on my lap to open the box.

I had wondered how they had managed to get what I thought was a collapsible 7 foot tree into a 4 foot box…

Ok then… it was because they had broken it down into … SIXTY EIGHT PIECES.

It took me no less than 2 hours to put it all together. It wasn’t hard or anything, it was just the necessary amount of time to make it look right. And actually it does look almost real. I’m converted! I’ve trans’d in the tree department.

The silicone tits of trees, you could call it. Just like silicone tits, it’s great from a few feet away, but just looks a bit too good to be true. And it just doesn’t FEEL right either. However once the fake is dressed ( decorated ) to distract the eye, well you have to do a double take before you can be sure. It’s probably just best to ask the owner if it’s naturally grown, or not, I think. I don’t see a problem with asking that question. It’s not offensive to me if someone does, and it’s surely a compliment that it looks so good that people aren’t sure. Of course sometimes the fake ones are quite obviously fake. We’ve all seen them – just the wrong shape, and unnatural looking.
I never thought I’d be able to write so much about artificial ones! Im hoping to get admiring glances from everyone that sees.

Obviously Roger the monosyllabic Lodger didn’t say a word ( as in nothing at all – not even as he saw me struggling to get it up ). He is certainly an unusual one. He’s doing night shifts at an Amazon warehouse for a job at the moment. I don’t know how his mind works ( and he’s definitely not thick, he’s educated ) but his 8 hour shift at £12 an hour necessitates 4 hours of travelling ( 2 there and 2 back ). So that’s 12 hours of his time for £96, also probably deducting £15 for travel. Well that’s then 12 hours of his time for £81. Well that’s under £7 per hour overall ) which is less than minimum wage. Why doesn’t he get a job around the corner for £7 per hour then that saves him 4 hours a day, AND wouldn’t involve night shifts? There’s definitely plenty of employment in London leading up to Christmas especially.

In july I bought tickets to see Jim Jeffries, an Australia stand up comic, after a recommendation from my buddy Lee McMacMackeyMac. He said I’d love it, and blimey I did! He is absolutely HILARIOUS. There were 20,000 people in the audience He just says whatever he thinks on topics from sex, to relationships, to sexuality, through gender ‘ issues’, through fatness etc etc. He just brought the house down, he really did.

It struck me that what he says obviously strikes a cord with many, many people. You couldn’t say ANYTHING that came out of his mouth in a modern workplace, without finding yourself penalised, but I do think it goes to show that ACTUALLY people don’t subscribe to the Snowflake ways that society is now supposed to behave, and the route to popularity ( well the 20,000 there last night LOVED him ) is to be far more honest about what you actually think.

So from now on I’m not going to be more honest. My problem is that I’m just too PC. People actually like to hear/ read an honest take on stuff. If people say ‘ you can’t say that!’ I shall reply ‘ yes I can actually, go fuck yourself ‘ ( or words to that effect )

I laughed so much at his observations. One was about bedtime. He said that as a fella, he had 2 things to do before bed – to piss and to clean his teeth, and that he’s got doing both at the same time down to a fine art. Women, however, normally have a Pre bed 20 minute ritual, which involves locking the bathroom door and lots of bottles of stuff. Then, he said, what they do next is to get into bed beside you… and tell you exactly what you’ve done wrong that day …

Sound familiar, does it?

He said his 75 year old Dad surprised him by being fine with gays getting married, and voted yes for it in their referendum on it. When he asked him why he had voted yes, his Dad said ‘ well I don’t see why gays shouldn’t also have the right to be a miserable as fuck after 30 years of marriage, just like the rest of us ‘

Would I see him again? Gawd yes, I‘d want to see him again tonight. Stick it on your bucket list if I were you.

Getting back from the O2 was fine actually. Again I got on the wrong Piccadilly line train ie I should have taken the one to Heathrow not Stanmore, but I didn’t think to check. Again though the tactic worked. If you need help ask the guys who have been drinking alcohol. THEY are by far the most enthusiastic at lifting you up a step. What a wonderful thing beer is then, for the disabled!