My 6 Days in Sutton/Hell

Hello readers, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. I understand it couldn’t have been too great seeing as there have been no updates on my Blog, but don’t worry people, step away from the oven, don’t put your head in yet! I’m back to tell of my Christmas. For those that don’t know, I live, study, work and pleasure women (and girls) in Derby but I’m actually from Sutton-in-Ashfield. Sutton (as it’s commonly known) is a small town in Nottinghamshire, right next to Mansfield, another purposeless town. For Christmas I returned to Sutton to ‘celebrate’ with my family and drink with my friends.

Monday 22^nd December
I caught the bus from Derby to Sutton and my journey began. While on the bus my mind was wondering away and I started to have random thoughts. This often happens to me if I have nobody to talk to. I was thinking about a few years ago and how all these rumours came about that surrounded possible terrorist attacks on random places. The main two I remember were Sutton’s ASDA and Centre Parks, of course there was never any terrorist attacks planned on these places, I’m willing to bet that terrorists don’t even know these places exist. I kept with these thoughts on terrorists and I began to think about what if a terrorist was on my bus, totally unlikely of course, but sometimes my mind just doesn’t stop thinking. As I thought about this, I began to think if a terrorist did blow up my bus I would totally support it, even though it would kill me. Think about it I was on a bus from Derby to Sutton, this was a bus full of scum! Undoubtedly I’m great and the world would miss me greatly, but if 30 or so oxygen-wasters get killed, I’m in full support.

So, I made it to Sutton and nobody blew up my bus. I carried my heavy bag to my house and went out to get pissed.

Later on I ended up in ‘Spoons (the HQ for me and my friends) to see my friends who I haven’t seen in a while. So we had a little chat and I told them about my experiences because for some bizarre reason they don’t all read my Blog. Which I don’t understand, hopefully the ones that can read will start reading it as a New Years Resolution. Anyway, I got talking to Ash, who had clearly been reading my Blog (shout out to Ash!) because he had grown an outstanding beard. Personally I think this was in response to my brilliant “Where’s My Bloody BEARD???” Blog, just in spite to show me he could grow a beard. So after a few beers at the pub, a few of us went back to Graham’s house.

Now, as many of you may know I spent much of my youth, and killed off many of my brain cells, at Graham’s house. So, on my return I thought I better not change tradition and began drink and smoke. But I wasn’t drinking larger or bitter! I was on Graham’s dad’s homebrewed ale. Which I can only describe as George Best’s blood! This stuff made Special Brew taste like shandy. After a while it took its grip on me and I had to go and sit outside for a while. Just like the good old days. After I came back around I chilled out for a while then made my way home.

This should be the end of this day, but it’s not because someone had left the keys in the front door, which meant that I couldn’t get in to my house. So I had a phone my sister to let me in. I then climbed into bed, which was a task seeing as I have to share a bunk bed with my younger brother. The first problem with my bed is that I’ve been forced into having the top bunk. Now ten years ago, when I was 12, having the top bunk was cool, now I’m 22 it’s far from cool. In fact it’s a massive fucking challenge to climb into bed after a couple too many beers. The second thing is that this bunk bed is quite old now, and I’m not sure it was built for a 22 year old to sleep in seeing as the whole thing creeks and shakes if I move slightly. And I couldn’t stop moving because I was extremely uncomfortable seeing as my duvet was too small, it didn’t have a duvet cover, I had no pillows either, in the end I used a rolled up mattress cover. It’s a good job I was pissed or I never would have fell asleep.

Tuesday 23^rd December
I took it easy on Tuesday. I went to see Danny, seeing as his parents had gone away for Christmas, maybe they were sending some kind of subliminal message to him by doing this. I mean, leaving your son home alone for Christmas, the most family orientated holiday of the year, I think there’s something they’re hinting at. One day in the not too distant future I think Danny might return home to find the locks changed and all his stuff on the street – but seeing as Danny (like me) lives in ‘Lemo’ (the rough area of Sutton – although my street is quite nice) all his stuff would be stolen before he returned home, if it was left on the street … but back to the subject at hand. I went to see Danny seeing as he’d be Macaulay Culkin’d* because I felt sorry for him. Of course Danny being Danny, he was already drunk and stoned by the time I got to his, so I took it on myself to get in the same state as him.

There’s a few things about Danny that sum him up quite well, he’s ginger, he loves getting wrecked and he has a weird taste in films. Well it’s not really weird but he watches some of the most obscure movies ever. And I was in for a treat seeing as he had a new movie for us to watch; Frontier(s). A film about Neo Nazi Cannibals … that was in French. It was a brilliant yet disturbing film! After that we chilled for a while and we were joined by my biggest fan; Dave (a/k/a Batch). Some more chilling was done, Danny fed me, I stole some of his dad’s sweets then I left Danny and Dave to watch Frontier(s), I was tired and didn’t want to watch it again.

So I made it back to my house and once again tried to unlock the front door, but I was unable. So once again I had to ring my sister. She came and let me in again. I then released that I was using the wrong key! I climbed into my terrible excuse for a bed and fell asleep, seeing as I was drunk again.

Wednesday 24^th December (Christmas Eve)
The excitement was brimming in me as I woke up, seeing as I didn’t have a hangover. I then released it was Christmas Eve and I was low on funds and I still hadn’t bought anyone a Christmas present, but fuck it, I said I was boycotting this bullshit holiday. I hung around my house for a while then headed to ‘Spoons to meet my friends.

At ‘Spoons the usual stuff happened I drank, I called my sister’s fat friend “Fat” and she got offended! Observational humour is sometimes not well received … especially by fat bitches. Also I had to make this guy, for the purpose of this story I’ll called him Faggot-Fucking Foetus-Features, apologise to my sisters because he said some horrible shit about their dad. And I love my sisters very much and more than that I’m the only one that gets to say horrible shit to them, I can’t let Faggot-Fucking Foetus-Features move in on my patch. I was expecting a fight or at least a little attitude but Faggot-Fucking Foetus-Features was surprisingly nice and he apologised. So we all continued to get drunk.

After the pub, some of us went to Danny’s again; I don’t think I stayed long … although I can’t really remember. But I do know I made actually opened my front door on my own, third times the charm. I once again crawled into my top-bunk and fell asleep.

Thursday 25^th December (Christmas Day)
I woke up around 11.00am and went downstairs to discover approximately four gifts for me under the tree. “What did Santa bring you Ben?” is probably what you’re now thinking. Well people, Santa bought me the same things as last year; misery and disappointment.

Me and the family sat down for Christmas dinner, all apart from my youngest sister she managed to escape to her boyfriend’s house. So we all starting stuffing our faces and after that I thought it’d be a good time to start drinking while I waited for someone to get in touch with me telling me the plans for today. This took longer than I expected and by the time I made my way out I was already quite pissed. Shockingly it was Danny that got in touch with me and I once again went to his.

Then the both of us attempted to kill off our livers while watching five films; Dark Ride (another random Danny film), Alpha Dog, Harold and Kumar Get The Munchies, Planet Terror and something else. I can’t quite remember because I was totally hammered by this point. Somewhere in between all these films Dave arrived at Danny’s to join us. At the end of the night Dave was nice enough to give me a lift home. Which saved me having to stumble along the road for the three minutes it takes me to get from Danny’s to mine.

I once again mastered the door! Go me! Bed. Sleep.

Friday 26^th December (Boxing Day)
My mum woke me around noon to inform me food was ready. I wasn’t feeling too ‘fresh’ but I was hungry. Sadly it wasn’t what I was expecting. My mum had prepared a little buffet with cobs (rolls), crisps and all that shit. Not the breakfast I was expecting but apparently everyone else had already had their breakfasts! Fuckers, do they not even care I was out until 5.00am? So I munched on some BBQ Ribs and went back to bed.

A little while later I found myself in ‘Spoons, I told you it was HQ for me and my friends. Liam had been nice enough to invite me out. So once again I started drinking. But shockingly we actually went to another pub; The Swan to play pool. After The Swan we went to … Yes! We went to Danny’s again!

We chilled out for a bit, but around midnight everyone decided to go home. I think by Boxing Day everyone was wanting an early night, I know I was. So I went home to get some sleep. But sadly for me, it was next to impossible to fall asleep in my bed when I was sober. Finally I did nod off.

Saturday 27^th December
My last day in Sutton! I started the day off by going into town to see if the cheque my dad had sent me had cleared yet, but it hadn’t. This left me with £5.00 to my name and I was really looking forward to having a haircut while I was home, I guess that’ll have to wait until I’m next in Sutton. I returned home, but not before posting some sweets threw Danny’s letterbox – I’d been munching his dad’s sweets for the last couple of days and I’d hate for that to be the final straw that ends Danny’s current living arrangements. Once home, I borrowed some money off of my little brother. There’s nothing sadder than borrowing money from someone that’s too young to work.

I started packing my bag to get ready for Derby. But I couldn’t fit all my ‘misery and disappointment’ into my bag so I to leave some stuff. I also checked my Facebook before I left for Derby, and I had a message from Faggot-Fucking Foetus-Features! Which, as I could decipher through the terrible spelling and stupid ‘text language’, basically sad he’d “let me off” but if I ever did that again “I would see” and then he asked me if I’d like to “meet up and settle it on our own”. Here’s what I wrote back to him:

Look Faggot-Fucking Foetus-Features, what you said to my little sister upset her. I'll tell you now I'm not a guy that settles stuff with his fists, that's why I came up to you like I did, I could have just jumped you, but that's not what I do.

If you've got a fucking problem just say, mate. I just wanted to clear the air. But fuck it.

Which is the truth, I’m not a fighter, I’m a writer (and a lover).

I then got my shit together and went for to catch my bus back to Derby. Now, this part of the day may seem strange but I swear it is all true. I got on to the bus and sat on the back seat because I’m on for the whole journey and the backseat has more foot room for my massive bag. I was sat there with my phone in my hand, which now was probably the worst thing I could have had in my hand! I was joined on the backseat by some guy who saw me holding my phone and starting talking to me about phones. This guy went on for about 30 fucking minutes talking about all the phones he has. Apparently he has four, all on different networks because he uses them for different things. For example the one he had (an O2 phone) was just for calling his girlfriend seeing as she was also on O2, now this is quite normal, but what’s not normal is the fact that they are constantly on the phone to each other. And when I say this I in no way mean they are constantly talking to each other, what I mean is they are always on the phone. He had his earpiece in and she was on the other end of the phone doing whatever the fuck she was doing, they weren’t talking to each other, they were just on the phone, but not talking! I hope you understand, the guy even showed me his phone and sure enough it said that the current call was at something like two hours and 30 minutes long. Now this was the first sign that this guy is not all there. Secondly was the fact that he was drinking Super Skol on the fucking bus. Thirdly, he wouldn’t stop mentioning the fact that he’d been to prison. But the time we’d got to Alfreton he got off and I was counting my blessing, then at the next stop he got back on the fucking bus. It turns out he’d just got off to take a piss, he’d got off at one stop, cut across the town centre as the bus looped around on the long slow moving road. Luckily some people had taken his seat so he couldn’t sit next to me again, sadly for me the seat in front of me wasn’t taken so he fucking took it! Now he was right in my fucking face. He then starting telling me about how he was building a motorbike illegally and how to get around it all, I really couldn’t have given a shit. He told me about how he gets all his bus rides for free because he complains to them and they send him free tickets. I thought about writing a letter to Trent Buses actually, asking them why the fuck they let people drink on their buses.

He didn’t spend all his time just talking to me and did try to draw me into conversation by asking me if I was a student, I told him yes and what I was studying (Media Studies), he asked what that involved so I told him; journalism, writing, TV Production and so on. He then decided to tell me that I was learning how to be bias. I just let him chat his shit. At one point he did actually start talking to his girlfriend over the phone, this was because he’d hit a black spot, a place were his signal cuts out on his phone, so he had to call her back, the conversation went something like this; “Hey Honey, just hit that black spot on route to Derby, here do you want to talk to my new friend?” Then he passed the fucking phone to me. I didn’t want to talk to him, never mind his missus. He then went on to tell me about the inventor of the bouncing bomb, he daughter, his alcoholism, his first marriage – which ended when he caught he wife fucking the window-cleaner – who he then kidnapped, or so he told me.

We were getting to the outskirts of Derby, the fucking racism started. All the stuff before was annoying as fuck, but if there’s one thing I can’t fucking stand it’s racism. He started chatting bollocks about how Muslims are trying to take over England and turn it into an Islamic state and all the bullshit that Daily Mail readers spout off. He was complaining about how Muslims get off their holidays (such as Ramadan) but also holidays such as Christmas, I think this also tied into something about while they were working in prison, at this point I wasn’t too interested in what he had to say. A few minutes before we pulled into the Derby Bus Station I thought I’d give him a piece of my mind seeing as I’ve had to listen to his bullshit for what seems like a lifetime; “Look mate, if you’re moaning about the fact that Muslims get time off working in prison for their holidays and Christian holidays, that’s not their fault! It’s the systems fault. If you could have Ramadan off you would, wouldn’t you?” To which he replied yes, which made my point, but I thought I’d echo the point seeing as he was such a cunt, “Well you can’t blame the Muslims for it then can you, you’d do the exact same. If you want to be pissed off at anyone be pissed off at the system!” And with that the bus finally arrived, I grabbed my bad got the fuck off that bus and lit up a much needed cigarette.

* Macaulay Culkin’d means to be left home alone by your family during Christmas.