Currently retained by an investment bank to twiddle his thumbs animatedly, Crispin Cornelius Aloysius St. Clair Tampon (bestowed the sobriquet "Eric" by his father in order to avoid beatings) entered the world as the janglings and power chords of the first wave of British Popular Music gave way to the first fumblings up the self indulgent dayglo skirt of psychedelia. Raised on a rather nice tree-sodden council estate, Eric found himself consumed by anger engendered by decimalization rendering his collection of thrippenny bits worthless overnight. This anger was mainly vented at the Alpine pop wagon (Eric being a staunch supporter of Schofields' saccharine-laden Cream Soda offering).
School came and went in turbulent fashion for the young Eric; his ability to buy and sell his teachers in the arena of factual information earned him a place on the autistic spectrum and several good shoeings. Any interest in formal education the lad may have had were finally ended by the insidious attentions of a squat middle-aged deputy headmaster, who was also a predatory homosexual. Happily for Eric, he cottoned on to the fact that the slobbering Welshman had more than his "O"-level results in mind, and emerged from the encounter with his fundament virgo intacta. The other party later "went postal" in class and was last heard of in the confines of an order of Franciscan monks.
In fact, the only thing to really capture the attentions of the pubescent Eric was The Everton Football Club Company Limited; Eric's father was nominally a supporter of The Red Bastards of Beelzebub, but was one of the legion of "supporters" who "couldn't get the tickets, lad". One day, shortly after his 11th birthday, a friend of Eric's procured two Main Stand tickets at Goodison Park for a fixture versus Coventry City FC, which resulted in a 6-0 victory for The Toffees and featured a hat-trick from a fabled figure known to the crowd as "Fat Latch". Eric was thus trapped in the manner of the bluebottle within the spider's web, and a lifetime of cynicism and almost constant disappointment was ensured, with the odd moment of coruscating happiness to balance things out.
Having drifted out of education and into low-paid work, Eric rose without trace through a blur of pharmaceuticals, broken relationships and frenzied wanking, and became the UK's pre-eminent Systems Analyst, a position he held without any real challenge until 1999, when he simply gave it up because he couldn't be arsed anymore. Now earning just enough to pay for his rather constraining mortgage and outsize wardrobe, and having become a permanent fixture of the morass of self-centred lower-middle class pricks in London's outer suburbs, his attentions were now focused on a new, burning ambition; the desire to become the nicest man to infest internet message boards.
Having since been dismissed by the constituency of such fora as something of a crank, Eric feels that he is merely a misunderstood soul, a voice of surreal wisdom in a howling wilderness of Meow-Meow fuelled madness and pervasive greed. With this in mind, he has decided to concentrate his thoughts into one corner of the virtual playground, with the occasional visit to a nearby toilet for a quick piss now and then. Some regard these thoughts as being the product of a brilliant, yet tortured mind; some regard them with a mixture of bewilderment and curiosity; and some just laugh like a fucking drain at the soft twat. And not in a good way, either.
Nevertheless, to quote Eric himself, the question remains... "What do others think?"
The parallels with stumbling into watching the Blues despite Eric's father's leanings, and my experience, are uncanny.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a family of Gooners, and around age 9 hadn't really made my mind up (the only game I had been to was West Ham v Liverpool, and neither team really grabbed my attention).
My primary school merged with another and moved into a new, single story, 'campus-style' school, and Bob Wilson was booked to perform the Opening Ceremony. Unfortunately the (other) red shit(e) decided to chose that year to copy Spurs and do the Double, so the gig was off (tbh Bob visited my school the following year, but by then I had gone to Big School).
Central Foundation Boys', with its high proportion of God's Chosen People, was the perfect catalyst to turn my head from N5 to N17.
The lifetime of a feeling of slight under-achievement interrupted by brief moments of euphoria at winning some cup or other are what I have to show for this.
I bet Eric and I are not alone ;^)