Trash Wars - The Condom Strikes Back

To waffle on about my new television would be the hight of tedium. I will therefore refrain from a full scale invasive inundation and give you only a sprinkling of techno-babble. Instead of the dual-scarted, Freeview built-in, 26" television that I was hoping to get, we have ended up with something that ticks none of these boxes (except being a television). As mentioned in my previous post, my tight walleted parents were eyeing up a single-scarted, non-Freeview, 23" Philips in the Richer Sounds Catalogue. Thanks ever so much, Jason Richer, for stocking crap TVs at cheap prices. Sigh. Even when my step-father unwrapped it he seemed slightly surprised that it only had one scart. I won't bore you with the consequences of having only one scart. This is the iPod listening, Internet browsing, heroine taking generation - I'm sure most will be more than competent.

Anyway, there doesn't seem to be much litter around Princes' Park these days. Our clan (Jingo, Robin and I) have been out there in the wilderness collecting beer cans and Mars bar wrappers. It seems slightly odd that a chocolate covered caramel-fest of a snack bar is supposed to help you work, rest and play. How can 300% of your GDA of sugar in just four mouthfuls help you to rest? Last time I had a Mars Big One, I couldn't sleep for a week. Damn you New Order for adding Blue Monday to their latest advert.

Fun ensured however when Robin decided to climb a 30 foot high tree in the park. That's not to say he climbed up to the top; he only managed half-way, despite his monkey-like qualities. As we were leaving with our sack-fulls of trash, three ten year old kids marched over with a Rotweiler.

"Oi mate, why you'd climb that tree over here then?" the smallest belched.
After deciphering what their first message meant, Robin replied: "Because I wanted to."
"What? You're crap at climbing," he complained, surrounded by an air of arrogance, and his cronies.
"OK," Robin concluded the lengthy conversation.

We turned or backs on them and set off for the humble comforts of Robin's two pokey flats. For some reason, Jingo had the nerve to turn his head round and to take a glance at these kids. General rule of thumb: don't stare at yobs, no matter how small and young they are. What a rookie, he never lived in Tokie. This place was Robin's current 'hood and my formed 'hood. I buggered off out of Toxteth to the suburbs, after being the only one in my primary school without an ASBO at the age of ten. What he then saw made us chuckle and chortle all the way home. These kids had only made it a third of the way up the tree that Robin had failed to scale and were instead struggling up a small dead tree that was bent over so that the highest part was about a metre off the ground. Rebels.

Robin's dad then came screeching down the path towards us on his bike to embarrass his son in front of his mates with talk of private family matters seemingly regarding toothbrushes.

Back at Robin's flat, I read the sports supplement of the Guardian. Jingo shredded the rest.

I then bored the others with camera jargon whilst Jingo snapped happily away with his Canon Ixus into direct sunlight, completely disregarding my advice about the 'rule of two thirds'. What he found to photograph in Robin's bleak and untended communal garden, I'll never know.