“Early Memories part one” or “Darth Vader is scary. Rolf Harris isn’t. Rolfaroos are a little bit.”

The following happened one special afternoon many years ago when I was about 5 years old. In a rather bizarre publicity stunt (or an employee had hired the costume for the weekend and wanted to get his money’s worth) none other than popular Stars War baddie Darth Vader was making a public appearance at our local Morrison’s supermarket. I somehow got to know about this and seeing Darth Vader at Morrison’s immediately became the thing that I wanted to do more than anything in the entire world. Even more than being a spaceman or going that high on the swings you did a loop the loop. I’m not sure exactly how I asked my mum if I could see Darth Vader but I’m pretty sure it was something like this: “I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! I WANT TO SEE DARTH VADER! PLEEEEEEASE!”. Following my enthusiastic pleas, I ensured my mum that seeing Darth Vader would make me the happiest little boy in the world and she agreed to take me to see him.

The wonderful day came and we arrived at Morrisons, I’d never been so excited, my whole life had been building up to this one moment. We entered the store and there was a small to medium sized crowd around the frozen food section. “He’s here!” I eagerly cried out. We swiftly approached the freezers, excitement bubbling in my brain, this was going to be the greatest moment ever! Then as we reached the front of the crowd, fish fingers on one side, a chicken product comprising of beaks and arseholes on the other, I caught a glimpse of his shiny black helmet. I then glanced upon his soulless face. At that point excitement turned to fear and I burst into tears as I looked into what (at my tender age) could only be described as pure evil. He bent down to try and reassure me and that made it even worse, I was completely convinced that the sole reason Darth Vader had come to Morrisons was to kill me. I was swiftly picked up and taken away by my mum. I cried all the way out, I was so distraught passers-by must have surely thought that I’d witnessed the killing of a field full of kittens with a hammer. Either that or Darth himself had touched me with his lightsaber.

 

Thankfully my first brush with a celebrity didn’t scar me for life, I later met Lion-O, the esteemed leader of The Thundercats and painter, noise maker and bearded extraordinaire Rolf Harris. Lion-O was great, in fact I think seeing a big yellow/orange person with big hair set me in good stead for the vast majority of girls I see on a night out. Rolf Harris was great too, he sat me on his knee (which was slightly weird, as I was 15) and drew me a Rolfaroo (although I do find the concept of the Rolfaroo a little disturbing. It’s like Rolfs mum got impregnated by a kangaroo and had some horrible mutant beardy baby). Darth Vader was one scary motherlicker though and even to this day, whenever I see him on the tellybox I think of frozen chicken nuggets and salty tears.

PS. I wasn't really 15 when I sat upon the knee of Rolf. I kind of just added that for comedy purposes. I was more like 8.

"The Horrible Pooey Take That Incident" or "Take That Pants!"

This rather unpleasant incident happened relatively recently, in fact, it was just two years ago. In the months leading up to this I'd dragged Mrs C to see a number of bands that she'd never even heard of, so in return I ended up accompanying her to see Take That at Old Trafford cricket ground. We met up with four others on the morning of the concert and made our way to the ground via a few pubs. Upon entering the ground it became immediately obvious that this wasn't the kind of gig I'm used to. There were a large number of middle aged women who seemed to believe that if they got there early and put a tartan rug and inflatable chair on the floor it automatically entitled them to take up approximately seven hectares of space that would become entirely theirs. If you entered into this space it was as if you were approaching the gates of Hades itself to find Cerberus on a really bad day and feeling a bit hormonal. 

 

Once we managed to find a spot where we weren't disturbing somebody’s picnic we decided to go and get drinks. We very cleverly suggested that Mrs C put up her silver umbrella which would guide us back from the bar like a big shiny beacon. At some point during the expedition, as we fought our way through inflatable chairs, victoria sponge and thermos flasks we forgot the umbrella was silver and began to believe it was pink. Whilst at the bar it began to rain and upon leaving the bar, still feeling quite clever about our pink beacon, it became apparent that almost the whole crowd had pink umbrellas. Evidently some unscrupulous fucker was selling them just to confuse me. It was almost like one of the impossible challenges on Saw. I could almost hear Jigsaw saying "Let's play a game. You wanted beer, but how well can you carry it? In front of you are a million pink umbrellas, under one of these is your friends. Can you find them, without spilling any beer, your life depends on it?" The task before us was immense but we made our way through though and eventually reached our (silver) destination. I think the confusion over the brolly was the beginning of the end, nothing good could ever come of this day now.

At this point the torrential rain started, the like of which hadn't been seen since Noah had his little zoo or that time around 2006 when everywhere flooded and that French man got stuck on that roundabout and PC World got looted. As I stood there in the torrential rain for a few hours, enduring Take That and getting angry about people in a large crowd wearing giant rucksacks, I started to get a strange sensation in my stomach. I soon realised that it was that sensation when your stomach is announcing its intention to evacuate everything from your arse in liquid form. I quickly turned around and began to force my way through the thousands of people stood behind me. It was like the battle of the Somme but with screaming women and a few gay men. Half way there I realised I wasn't going to make it in time as a warm sensation flooded my pants. I eventually reached the toilets and realised there were about 100 womens toilets and not a gents to be seen anywhere. I decided to squelch into the nearest womens and collapsed into a cubicle. Once all the arse eruptions were complete I discovered a lack of toilet roll. Calling out to another toilet wasn't an option as I was in the ladies, I figured I needed to remove my boxer shorts anyway, so using these would be my only choice. At this point it's worth mentioning that I was wearing very tight skinny jeans and chelsea boots. Both of these items are quite difficult to remove at the best of times but when a bit drunk and soaked to the skin it became something akin to the Krypton Factor. I tried and tried and tried but I couldn't do it. At this point I fell into a huge spiral of despair. I tried to phone Mrs C, I'm not actually sure what I would have said, maybe I was phoning just to say some last words as by this point I think I'd become convinced that I'd never be able to leave this dirty cubicle and would actually die here. I began to see the headlines, "Man Found Dead and covered in poo in female toilets at Take That gig." I even considered phoning my mum to say goodbye but it was a bit late and she always thinks late phonecalls are bad news. Best leave that to the police. I was genuinely convinced I was going to die and started to prepare myself for heaven or hell. I began to think that most deaths involving poo would almost definitely result in going to hell.

 

Eventually I mustered the strength to retry the boot removal and suddenly there was movement when I tugged my boot. As it came off I half expected part of my foot to come with it, as it was quite possible that trench foot had set in. Removing my boots was the hard part, the trousers were easy in comparison. I removed my boxers used them for operation cleanup and unfortunately had to leave them on the top of the toilet. If I had a pen and paper I would have left a note of apology for the cleaner ("Sorry about the poo pants" or something). I often think about the poor cleaner to this day. I re-donned my trousers, now commando style and quickly emerged from the cubicle feeling triumphant that I had genuinely cheated a horrible pooey death, newspaper headlines and grief and embarrassment for my family.

"Tummy Button Terror" or "It's Scarier Than a Cat with a Chainsaw, It's the Dangly, Trunklike Cancer Button!"

When I was little, my belly button used to freak me out. When I say freak me out, I don't just mean like the old man with the wonky eye who used to say he could show me puppies the like of which I'd never seen before (Luckily due to my phobia of dogs I was never molested). 

This was a bigger kind of freaking out than any purveyor of paedo pups could instill. Imagine someone who was scared of cats going to a cat museum, but it wasn't just a cat museum, it was a museum about cats who walk on two legs and have knives and chainsaws and scary stabby shit. And wasps, wasps are scary (in fact wasps are worse than anything, I hate wasps, nearly as much as raisins and nuts).

I was proper freaked out by my belly button. The source of the freaking out was that I used to believe that if I scratched it I could actually unravel it and it'd spring out and hang down like an elephant’s trunk. I genuinely believed that there was some kind of witchcraft in my tummy that meant that upon unravelling it would measure at least 75 centimetres and everywhere I went people would point and stare. Kids in the playground would actually hold me down and draw elephants ears and a face on my tummy. I’d probably have to have a specially made bag to put it in or wrap it round and round my waist. On the plus side I’d probably never have to buy a belt again. That’s a pretty small plus point in comparison to all the negatives though. It wasn't enough that if this actually occurred I would look like some kind of elephant stomached freak, I also believed that excess scratching of my navel would result in cancer. Yes, you did read that right, cancer. It was like I had a big red button attached to me that read "Do not press. Cancer and trunk extension". I spent a large part of my life believing that if I scratched my belly button not only would I have a weird trunk sprouting from my tummy, I would also have cancer. 

Looking back I've no idea where this belief came from. However, a small part of me believes that I couldn't make something like that up and that it could actually be true. Due to this, even to this day I always take care when the need arises to touch my belly button.

"The Bad Mumps" or "The Swollen Ball and The Auschwitz Retard Bus"

There's loads of diseases and illnesses that you typically get when you're a child and people always say if you get them as a child then you're laughing because you don't have to have it as an adult. I never had mumps as a child, I didn't ever think it would be a problem but nothing could prepare me for when I got it as an adult. Don't get me wrong, it could have been worse and it could have made my little swimming JC's dysfunctional. However, it was a bad experience. It first manifested when I woke up and had a hugely swollen neck. I did an amazing impression of either Marlon Brando in the Godfather, or just some big fat necked freak. I went to the doctors and was told I had mumps, rest for a while and all would be OK. 

The following weekend I had a weekend out in Manchester planned. By the Friday the swelling had gone down and I felt good. Myself and my mate JM headed off to Manchester for the weekend. We had a good time but on the final night I started to feel a bit rough. The following morning I got up and went for a wee, at which point I had a dramatic collapse onto the bathroom floor. I kind of stumbled into the wall, slithered down it, then the next thing I knew I was laying on the bathroom floor feeling sorry for myself. Looking back there are two theories about this, one, I was very ill and collapsed due to my illness ravaged body, two, I got up really quick and was dizzy and still a bit pissed and just fell over. To this day I still think I blacked out.  

 

Anyway, we headed to the train station and were told no trains were running. We were herded onto a dirty bus, I imagine if the trains to Auschwitz had stopped running and they'd been put on busses it'd have been very, very similar. The bus seemed to be full of the graduation party for the Retardville School of Chavs. Mid way through what was seeming like the longest journey anyone had ever been on a gentleman asked if there was a toilet on the bus. Upon being told there wasn't he proceeded down the steps to the emergency exit (which happened to be right in front of us) and pissed in his empty Stella can. All this while an elderly woman behind us sung "Songs that won the war". This was a definite low point, a man in a track suit pissing into a Stella can to the sound of a deranged geriatric singing Vera Lynn’s popular classic "The White Cliffs Of Dover". I thought it couldn't get worse than that but all the time my left testicle was gradually growing to the size of a melon. 

After enduring the bus journey I went to the emergency doctors and had my balls groped by a wrinkly old man. It was the return of the mumps. The bad mumps. The following day I phoned work and told them, apparently I told them too much information, they actually didn't want to know exactly how big my swollen ball was (it was big though). The whole experience was one that will live with me for a long time. I spent the following week off work, sitting on cushions and walking like someone who'd ridden too many horses. The good news however, is that I made a complete recovery and I'm not infertile. In fact, I had to wank into a pot and the jizz inspector said it was the best jizz he'd ever seen.