simon dunn: scriptwriter & comedian

I’m getting quite militant in my anti-alcohol stance, and it’s not helped by the time of the year. Perfectly nice get-togethers are going to be plagued with Sloshologues and Slurrysations.

You know the thing; a half-baked ill-informed observation is bandied about by someone who can barely talk in a coherent manner, while people of equal disequilibrium respond without thought.

So far, so boring.

But Pissedmitribes don’t end there. With all three facts on the subject ejaculated from the frothed mouths of be-whiskied dicks, the original beered-ballbag makes his original observation again, this time slightly more vociferously, as if the extra volume lends added credence.

This is usually my cue to go home; but that’s not always possible.

Shanta

So instead, the drunkomoans drone on, reiterating each of their one salient points with increasingly less articulacy, but more fervent vigour. It’s usually at this point I’m accosted by a clamping embrace, unable to make an escape from the alcoholic verbiage, trapped under the weight of a vodka-breathed man twat.

My sarcastic retorts to observations that immigrants are eating our children go unheard in the melee of the shittergasms.

Anyway, Christmas would be so much nicer if Santa wasn’t an alcoholic.

I shaid, Crishmuss wld be sho mush nicsher if …

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I’m pretty sure someone just phoned me by accident.

My mobile is plugged into the wall, and cannot be moved more than a metre from where it sits, thus negating its entire purpose. This, combined with the fact that the electronic noises that emanate from it drive my eyeballs insane, and I have to have them all switched off, means that I was unaware that it rang.

It just sat there, flashing gently like an overly polite pelican crossing, mumbling something to me about there being a missed call and a voicemail message. Without wishing to anthropomorphise a piece of circuitry, this is exactly what I would be like were I a Nokia 5800 whose owner was a dribbling twat. And all my well-mannered understatement would be for nothing when I was finally noticed and the owner cursed me for not doing my job.

Yup, I’d hate to be my mobile phone, not least because I’d have to sit alone in dusty pockets and dangle far too close to my own balls.

Having tutted passive-aggressively at my Finnish ear block, I then tugged out the charger and it decided enough was enough and retorted with an equally passive-aggressive heckle.

“Now unplug the charger from the wall. It wastes electricity,” it huffed snootily.

Before long my kettle will be scoffing, “there’s too much water inside me you cock munch,” and lights will just turn themselves off whenever they want, leaving me to type in the dark, lit only from a monitor that is moaning about how I don’t look at it enough. “You’re more interested in that keyboard than me,” it will pout, then slip into a sulky hibernation.

So anyway, I called my voicemail, and Julia Sawalha* reminded me how to navigate my way around, but tonight I detected a slight air of annoyance in her voice, irked that she had to tell me all this AGAIN.

Finally, having traversed the disapproving tone of all my technology, I heard the message, and I suspect the person had meant to phone someone else instead.

I don’t mind real people dismissing me, but I’m starting to resent that my phone, who I pay 30 odd quid a month to keep me company, is now starting to despise my existence. Maybe it doesn’t like me checking Twitter when I’m in the toilet.

*After some research, it turns out it’s Ruth Gibson, not Saffy.

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I’ve been doing something all day that I realised my Dad would never do. I keep darting looks at my phone, convinced that I can hear it vibrating. He would also never stop in the middle of a supermarket and dive into his pocket wondering if his phone was buzzing. For some reason he’s never paranoid about having his keys either.

It got me wondering about all the little things I do in my life that my Dad would never find himself doing:

Staring at the back of a DVD in a certain light checking for scratches.

Seeing a pile of discarded coins and feeling compelled to stack them in denominations.

Wondering if he should combine all his email accounts into a single GMail.

Staring at a monitor trying to think of an interesting Tweet.

Weighing up whether Twat Wagon is an appropriate term in a script for Radio 4.

Swearing at Mini Coopers.

Using a toothbrush to clean his Playstation controller.

Contemplating a walk to the shops to buy a Wispa Gold.

Going up the stairs on all fours pretending to be a tiger.

Watching Rocky Balboa.

Getting paranoid that Facebook is still showing him ads for Russian brides.

Berating people who use headsets in Call of Duty Team Deathmatches.

Arguing with his spell checker.

Swearing at people who use exclamation marks as full stops.

Wondering if he would like to hug William Shatner.

Not checking the oil level in the car for months.

Pretending a marker pen is a Cuban cigar and imagining he is David Letterman.

Writing pointless missives on the internet.

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For some people, their birthday is an annual marker of how time is passing them by. For some it’s the New Year and the promise of broken resolutions. But for me, there’s a more robust indicator; the moon.

It’s a constant reminder in the sky that I’m never going to be an astronaut.

So I have this giant visual metaphor telling me that my life is ebbing away in twenty eight day cycles. I need a tampon for the soul.

I have a deep rooted loathing for that fat lunar bastard.

And I particularly despise its agent. How many times must I be watching an otherwise enjoyable and engaging film, only for that silver prick to barge in and remind me I’m dying? Hmm?

That snow white testicle in the sky is never pretty, it’s never awe inspiring and it most certainly is never welcome in my house.

I mean, what has the moon ever done for us? Huh? Eh? Yeah wow, tides. And werewolves, and they don’t even exist.

And because of some very complicated tidal forces, the moon is actually getting further and further away from the Earth with each passing year. About a centimetre further annually in fact. So I am LITERALLY getting further from my dream of walking on the Sea of Tranquillity.

It started so well. When I was growing up I was actually getting closer to it, but once I got older it began getting further from my grasp. Now, the only way I can imagine I’ll ever get any closer to realising my dream is to strap two toddlers to my feet and taunt them to grow quicker.

So yes. The moon can fuck off.

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I’ve been planning all day to write something about the Apollo 11 moon landings, but something much more pressing has come up than the anniversary of the greatest event in human history; yes, something annoyed me, and my irked brain is infinitely more important than some poxy bally heroes who risked their lives to skip about in some dirt.

I’m becoming increasingly concerned about the efficacy of the intertoobs algorithms. This morning, Amazon suggested I might like a pair of pink suede trainers. What is it about my purchasing history that prompted it to presume I would want these?

More worrying still are the adverts that Facebook has been putting up for me today. Most of them are asking if I would like to buy a Russian Bride. I’m not even sure what sort of activity I’ve been doing to make it believe I’m in the market for an eastern bloc skank. “Ah, Mister Dunn, I see you like the writing of David Lodge. Perhaps you might like to take a look at our catalogue of saucy vixens. And then buy one.” And yes, it’s the fact that this impugns my character that I object to, not the heinous crime of people trafficking.

Then, on top of all that, some twunt-faced dickmunch wrote an article in The Times today suggesting we didn’t really learn too much from landing on the moon. What an objectionable fucknut. That’s cuntitude of Piers Morgan proportions. He poses the question “is that all there was?” then belches some fatuous arguments which must only make sense in the thicket of his own brain.

To my mind, such indifference is actually worse than the hoax theories. That “yeah whatever” shrug to such wondrous endeavour, the one feat which united an entire planet, has given me a headache all day. It has only now been relieved having read the one Amazon review for his book, which is worth quoting in full:

“Easy reading, dotted with interesting (to me) factoids. I did look forward to reading the next instalment of the authors search each night. However I feel it led to a disappointing conclusion which makes me think maybe I should have read something else instead.”

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