Chr*stmas has been a huge success. If this is what I can do with Chr*stmas, then I love it.

Friday was very quiet at work so I took an extended morning break to go and buy the weekend's food. I'd not been looking forward to having to go to Oxford Street, I could have avoided it completely but I was set on getting my delectables from Selfridges. Whenever I have to visit Oxford Street I miss my combine harvester. Chr*stmas time would be especially rewarding, I could start at Marble Arch and work my way towards Tottenham Court Road, sucking up Euros, Orientals, everyone. Feeding them into the front and having them splatter out of the back. Euro soup, or better an eclectic mix of Euro-Oriental red miso with chunky bits on a bed of shredded GAP and dusted with John Lewis fibres.

'This time of the year makes me sick to my guts, all this good cheer is a pain in the nuts'

Oxford Street was not that bad. Selfridges was hell. I had never been to Selfridges before, in ten years I've not set foot inside the shrine to consumer obedience. Not knowing what was inside was far more satisfying than knowing. I preferred to bestow upon it an aura of mystesism and lure, I could play a game of temptation and always win. This year however I knew where I could find the delicious things I wanted to be trapped in a flat with over a totally unnecessary and incomprehensible time of the year.

I paused in front of the building, listening to the noises of Oxford Street. All the calls of year-end clearances, claims of service after sales, perfumes, furniture, it cleans, it cooks, it does everything you want it to do. I contemplated the inevitable encounter and confirmed to myself that I'd always had a sadistic streak. I stepped into the rotating pod, encapsulated, incorporated into the production line, set in motion, looking through the glass, into the glazed-over appearance of the person being ejected. I was sucked in and spat out into a hot gust of air that rammed down the back of my neck. The rotating doors had started me on my mission and all I needed to complete the task was night vision, a gasmask, several cannisters of teargas, smoke granades, handgranades and an Uzi. Point of no return.

Flustered, I tried to integrate myself into the new environment. Assimilate the competition, annihilate them and make off with the loot. Salmons, smoked and cured, Foies Gras, chestnuts and a goose in my bag. I could do this. I was not even half a minute into the panic when I realised that nothing was signposted. How was I to know where to go and I'd not taken the scale of the place into consideration. Shopping drones streamed by me, not registering my presence, a stampede of frenzied little christmas robots and a 20 man strong chorus of poofs and a paino hammering out yuletide renditions of songs that should be banned startled me.

I was sweating and the typical human reaction was to find someone who worked there. Someone in uniform, someone I could find comfort in. I made my way to the escalators, my hypnotic state must have led me to believe that they could take me to a higher, calmer level but these levels of Selfridges are like the levels of hell, there is no calmer. I stepped onto the moving metal, the teeth on the edge of the stairs, the hard, sharp and menacing corners of the stairs induced an ancient fear of falling, smashing into them with my teeth. I step off at the top, nice and smooth but I'm blinded by the light. I walked to my left and slipped straight on to the row of teeth going back down. I stepped off and confronted a security guard dressed much like Poncharello from "CHiPs". I ask him for a floor plan but he tells me where the info desk is, he's going to be hard to crack but I persist and manage to extract information on where the food halls are.

Food halls in Selfridges at Chr*stmas time turn people into animals.

I found the source. Just like Poncharello said, 'past Godiva chocolates, on the left'. It was frantic and I quickly took my place in the queue at the fish counter. It took half an hour to get served, but I was not leaving without my festive gob clobber. Smoked was the flavor of the day and I ordered eel, salmon, cod roe, mackerel and marlin. None of this turkey bullshit. We eat turkey now because America had a surplus of cranberries so it was decided to market the wood chip flavored bird and send with it all the trimmings like cranberry jelly. Chicken tastes better. A plathora of smoked fish and roe, tubs of vacherin melting and smelly require no preparation or clean up. Even better.

I left the food hall with my fish and smelly cheese. The wine and beer sucked me in and I did a pretty good job of decimating their pittiful selection of belgian beers. Although there were exotic Abbey ales, chocolate flavored, wheat beers, doubles and tripples like my old friend Grimbergen, there were not enough.

The revolving glass doors ejected me, through the pod I saw the calm in the eyes of the fool being sucked in. The calm before the storm, the innocence before the horror. I want to see the horror in their eyes but I've got my bags, my food and drink, my comfort and Oxford Street seems safer anyway.

Not once did I have to utter the meaningless words Merry Chr*stmas. It has taken a few years of being a grumpy young man but I feel I have made progress. I am beyond Chr*stmas, I am unaffected, unafflicted. I can see. The ripples of my acrid and scathing cynicism have reached their shores.

I spent the dreaded day with my mother and sister on Primrose hill. The long walk there, the crisp air and the spectacular vista of London made us all laugh, laughing about the past and stories that we remembered. We had lunch at mine and watched Curb your enthusiasm till late into the evening, drinking and laughing.

I've just been presented with a leaving card and gift. I was certainly caught by surprise as I looked up to find all these people in a crescent around my desk. I've had a good run at Unilever and learned a fair bit about the systems, the supply chain and business rules and practices. My face is still burning from the partial embarrassment; in my role as grumpy young man, I thought they would just let me slip away, quietly, let me die in my chair, at least in my sleep, wait for the end of next week and slip away into the darkness of my future.

Last night I listened to Andrew's radio show on Anti-gravity. It was very well done and the mixture of nutters and scientists was very funny. The old boy who had a flying machine smash through his ceiling, his land-lady's ceiling and the roof, only to have it hover above the trees glowing whilst the neighbor's son shot at it with his pellet gun had me rolling on the floor laughing. I recently read 'Regeneration' by Pat Barker which explores the world of PTSD experienced by WW1 soldiers. OK, it had more to do with Sigfried Sassoon and his homo buddy Wilfred Owen. I couldn't help but think that the old boy who, when he switched on his fabulous flying machine and watched it take off from his kitchen table, breaking through roofs and ceilings and ended up glowing and hovering above a tree outside, was actually deeply scarred by bomb raids.

Why must mysterious things always glow and hover?

We've had a couple of good dinners lately. On Thursday night we had roast duck bordellaise with apple & walnut stuffing, beetroot and lyonnaise potatoes. All of that was washed down with some spectacular wine going as far back as 1974. Although the '74 was no longer with us, there was a '92 and a '96 that both went down very well. Last night we had smoked ham hock that I poached in stock and then roasted with a honey and mustard glaze, we had this with sweet potato mash, parsnips and carrots. Once again it was accompanied by fine wine.

I am being left comments to Google Tom Rymour.

I have been Googling Tom Rymour for some time now. Tom Rymour is a play on Thomas the Rhymer, otherwise known as Thomas Learmont. Thomas the Rhymer was around in the 13^th century and has achieved a legendary status. It is said that as a child he was carried away to the Faerie Land where he acquired knowledge beyond human capability. He was kept by the Queen of Faëry for seven years before being allowed to return to earth to astonish his fellow human beings.

He was known as a poet but regarded as a prophet. One day whilst reclining and making merry with his folk in the Tower of Ercildoune, it was reported that a hart and a hind had wondered into the village, the prophet followed the animals into the forest and was never seen again.

And so Learmonts are descendants of Thomas the Rhymer. It's comforting to know that of all the prophets and Gods that are, ours could just be the one that returns to save us from ourselves. It is believed that he still resides in the Faerie Land and is expected to return one day.

My Uncle Tommy writes under the alias Tom Rymour, he recently published an online novel titled After the Eclipse which is set in the radio-active desert that Africa has become in 2235, where a few hundred thousand black aristocrats rule over a white trash population of 6 million people. We have witch craft, prophecy, shamanism, sex and violence; for those interested in something different.

Does Uncle Tommy see himself as the return of Thomas the Rhymer and has the prophet returned?

Bless me blogger for I have sinned, it has been 5 days since my last post...

I enjoy the way age or sage slowly sets in using the warped coat of time to its advantage. Stealth. Louis Armstrong singing Hello Dolly for me.

You're looking swell Dolly, I can tell Dolly.

Before you turn this one over, on second thought listening to Louis does not in any way consititute wisdom. I really do get a kick out listening to the man squeeze his soul out of his trumpet and his spine through his throat, nicely coated in fresh mellow tones of warm meat. Slowly is nice. There does come a point when we begin notice new qualities, things become qualitative. I should not be speaking for the rest of us, I do know people even I considered fucked up as a youngster who had actually read all the classics. I was 22 when a good friend handed me a copy of Jitterbug Perfume which I miraculously read on the spot, more or less. After turning the last page, the blank page and the back cover I put the book down, looked at my friend and proclaimed 'These book things, they're OK'

The Mack, he's back in town

1992 or there abouts...

I was on the best possible start to a very colorful career as nobody and nothing. I was working in Ba Pita in Rockey Street at the hight of its very own Haight Ashbury period. We were all in the thick of it, swept by the tide of pure uncontrolled debauchery. Life was a full contact sport and the party was for the psychos.

This weird guy walks in to the bar, it's the arse-end of the afternoon and for a drug metropolis like Yeoville and Ba Pita he looks out of place. Then again all types were catered for, in a way. Weird guy looks like a text book picture of an Afrikaans civil servant and repressed homosexual. He's gone for the brown, beige and gray outfit, not dressed by his mother anymore, these are tips he picked up from his grampa who was dressed by his grandma. Anyway weird guy sits himself at the dark end of the bar and orders one of everything. I'm easy, really I don't care but I thought I'd pass this one past the manager. Weird guy gets his drinks, all of them, his children - I don't know, like I said, I don't care.

Stars fading, but I'm longing to linger on till dawn dear

It's probably four in the morning, weird guy is now weird drunk guy and has slumped off his chair. He is now a soused, sorry and spent heap on the grimey floor where mad men and drunks have pissed and plummeted to the darkest depths of sick. We drag weird drunk guy outside and leave him, probably about to choke on his own vomit. It's what he wanted, you should have seen it, one of each, a small crowd of all our beers, shots and drinks spread out in front of him. He didn't finish his lot, but he'd done OK - another kudo to the man who if he was stupid enough to do that, must have been party to a host of other spectacular fuckups.

Weird drunk guy mumbles through the drool and we try to understand, a fleeting moment of human caring, fleeting, before we go through his pockets and empty them of money and car keys. He wants to go home but really he can't even bring himself to his knees. We drag him to his car, which he miraculously manages to identify, like a sack of shit we pile him into the back of the car. So there we are driving a Toyota Cresida, white with government plates through Hillbrow at somewhere round four in the morning with its stinking simple servant homo owner in back about to wretch and drown in a noxious medley of alcohol that must be turning his world inside out. Mother must have loved him too much, maybe dad. We find his block of flats and force him to walk the stairs, we're not prepared to carry him as we've already gone the distance. Weird drunk guy on exiting the stairwell on his floor goes crashing through a glass door and is now weird drunk bloodied guy. He has lost his keys and claims they're at work, please can we take him there, please begs weird drunk and bloodied guy.

Where do you work? Went the question.

Joburg morgue. Came the reply.

Andrew says fuck that, he's knackered and wants to go home. I bully weird drunk and bloodied guy back into the car and burn the tyres and gasoline, we go tearing trough the streets of Johannesburg administering as much abuse to the car as possible knowing there are government plates on the car, I charge through red lights and wreak havoc, give drunken sack of blood and shit in the back the rollercoaster ride I bet he really doesn't want. We get to the Joburg morgue and I park the car. I'm nervous and by this stage weird, drunk and bloodied guy can move, even though it's in a wide arch. He fumbles at the door while I stay well behind, keeping my distance in case alarms go off and I need to speed off and abandon the bleeding idiot.

I follow him inside, surprised that he was actually telling the truth about the morgue and working there. He walks past high shelves stacked with parts in formalin, the fetor makes me wretch. He walks into them, using the shelves to steady himself and the clink of jars makes me think how spectacular it would be if he knocked the ancient shelves down, formalin and 40 year old body parts from past forensic examinations splattered all over the floor. I leave him and take a walk around the place locating the coolers. Walking through passage doors the place is dark and cold and to say it exuded unease would be an understatement. I want to look in the fridges, witness the horror for free. It's human nature, we stare at traffic accidents when what we really want is a private close-up inspection of the damage done to what was once a walking, talking and breathing body. What used to be someone, with stories and a history, with a family and friends, now spent and extinguished. Rubbish for the heap. I get spooked and turn back, I want to leave and I tell weird, drunk and bloodied guy, who has now pissed himself that I am leaving with or without him. He mumbles incomprehensibly. I demand to know where the pharmarceutical cocaine is and he swears there isn't any. I take ownership of a bottle of ether, weird, drunk, bloodied and pissed on guy makes a pass at me and I want to batter him, push him into the shelves and cover him with formalin and spare parts. I run out, get into the car and start it up. Weird, drunk, bloodied and pissed on guy finds his way out and passes out on the back seat.

I dumped the car with shit bag in the back, I left him for what could just as well have been dead, maybe I should have left him in the morgue, died on the job, save on the journey and admin, no need for an ambulance.

The rest is an ether induced haze from which I came to in someone's backgarden a few blocks away from home. Christ, was it true, did it happen, it did and it's nothing spectacular really, there were many mad happenings and it's singling them out that's the difficult part.

I said I didn't care, but I did really, well I do now and I hold on to whatever age brings with it, memories, respect and hopefully some wisdom. The ability to appeciate Louis Armstrong and the naivity with which he tells me about Moon River or the dark side in Mack the Knife, Zippidy-Doo-Dah and Hello Dolly. I can look back on the horror and smile, no experience is bad experience. I have my happy place and it peacefully co-exists with my dark side, neither can be denied, both should be embraced.

Christmas cheer has started, only it's not cheery. Ads bombard us and nowhere is safe. Last night Channel 4 was pushing Christmas dog food, because they're special and part of the family, because they, the dogs know it's Christmas and are going to feel left out of the festivities if there are not tin can shaped wrappers under the tree.

We've had Christmas tyres, for the car because cars love to celebrate the day the baby Jesus was born in a barn, and Dad will love them too. Christmas toothpaste for that extra fresh and minty Christmas breath. Christmas frozen food from Iceland, Christmas oven chips, Christmas Cottage Pie, Christmas frozen peas and Christmas baked beans.

We love Christmas.

The invitation to the Christmas party at Phil's work misspelt Christmas omitting the 't'. Finally, Phil said to his colleagues, they've left the Christ out of Christmas.

I am surprised how many people still buy into the Christmas thing. It serves to do nothing but throw jet fuel on a marketing frenzy. I can understand the family, tradition aspect but you can do that anyway. I don't love my family more round Xmas time.

I had an interview at BsnssObcts - new place yesterday that went very well. I don't want to count chickens but I am feeling hopeful. I was grilled for over 2^1/2 hours and was tired out by the end of it. I need to move on before I become soft in the head.

Maman has arrived in the UK for a few weeks. I have just spoken to her and she sounds well, and happy to be here. I phoned the Cape Town branch of Learmonts a few days ago and they all sounded well. Father Learmont sounds like he's leaking and slipping further into eccentricity - and they think I'm losing it. At least I know where it comes from if I do.