Ambient music remains something of the scorned, dorky cousin of current electronic music. Dabbled in by scores of artists working primarily in other fields, but still for the most part too esoteric to attract a large audience, the music has been characterized as everything from dolled-up new age, to intellectual, over-indulgent dross, to boring and irrelevant technical noodling. Partly as a function of its relatively limited appeal, ambient in a definitional sense remains extremely vague, a notion also related to the fact that artists considered to be working within its "borders" seem to be drawn from such a wide spectrum of different traditions; more "academic" experimental electronic (Chris Meloche, David Shea, Asmus Tietschens, David Toop, Oval), space music (Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana, Klaus Shultze, Jeff Greinke, Alio Die), dub (Bill Laswell, the Orb, Mick Harris, Drome, Woob), ethno- or 4th-world electronic music (Jon Hassel, Banco De Gaia, Astralasia), gothic or industrial (Lustmord, Merzbow, Final, Aube, James Plotkin), and the vast contemporary hybridity of back-room club culture (everything from the KLF, Global Communication, and Mixmaster Morris to Biosphere, Higher Intelligence Agency, and Sun Electric, to Tetsu Inoue, David Moufang, LTJ Bukem, and Autechre). As dance-based electronic music has moved increasingly toward the indiscriminant intermingling of influences characteristic of trip-hop, electronica, and jungle/drum'n'bass, ambient has shifted away from being a concrete genre and more toward a less identifiable (though no less specific) approach to sound, registering its influence in terms of space, color, and texture rather than the presence or absence of a backbeat, recognizable melodic or harmonic structures, etc.

Nonetheless, like other strains of experimental electronic music whose branches stretch into the most complex of arrangements, ambient has its roots, and historical evaluations of ambient music usually begin with Brian Eno. Although Eno's application of the term to his "background" composing of the late-'70s itself had precursors in the "furniture music" of Erik Satie, the dadaist and futurist manifestos of Marcel Duchamp and Luigi Russolo, the proto- and high-modernism of Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky (as well as in non-Western musical and religious traditions such as Indonesian gamelan and African pygmy chanting), and New York School experimentalists such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, and LeMonte Young, it's with Eno that "ambient" music -- i.e. music designed to be heard as an integral part of the environment in which its played or listened to -- first became an end in itself. And his series of recordings bearing the term (and subtitled things like Music For Airports, Music For Films, and On Land) remain watermarks. Formerly a member of pop/new wave group Roxy Music, Eno was among the first to integrate found sounds and field recordings into the context of the recording studio in order to construct an environment with his music -- not necessarily (though in some cases) to recreate existing places, but to build from scratch a music which suggested a sense of context, one which could not only be heard but also experienced by the listener. It's also with Eno that ambient or "environmental" music was approached with predominantly electronic instruments; ambient has few contemporary examples of acoustic-based composers (Pauline Oliveros is one), although the combination of electronics and acoustic-based instruments is common (particularly among so-called electro-acoustic musicians such as Steve Roach, Carl Stone, and Michael Danna).

Of equal influence and importance to Eno's work was that of German synthesist Klaus Schulze, who represents something of the formalist arm of ambient's prehistory. Though aligned more directly with the European classical tradition than Eno (whose background in avant-garde pop and new wave had its consequence in the comparative subtlety and modesty of his music), Schulze's pioneering work in analog synthesis and his extended, highly conceptual compositions based solely on the timbral qualities of electronics were crucial in suggesting new directions for electronic music apart from not only its "pop," bit also its academic and classical contexts. Although Schulze's earlier work was more immediately caught up in exploring (and exploiting) the sonic particularities of his medium (a notion which has tended to garner him more criticism than praise), Schulze increasingly sought the fusion of his technical mastery with elements of the lived environment; pieces such as his Dresden Concert drew liberally from nature recordings and source tapes which documented the bustle of everyday life, and his mid-'90s recordings with noted new school ambient composer Pete Namlook (of the Frankfurt-based Fax label) brought Schulze's formidable role in forging ambient's early aesthetic full circle.

Although much of the more visible instrumental electronic and electro-acoustic music produced in the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s appeared under the aegis of "new age" -- a marketing phenomenon more than anything else, applied most often to musics linked by some method or other to relaxation, meditation, and/or escapism -- even the overwhelming conservatism of that period had its antithesis in a range of musicians operating at the outer fringes of experimentation, pushing electronics-based composition into ever more challenging, abstract territory. Artists such as Steve Hillage (formerly of Gong), Harold Budd, early Tangerine Dream, Michael Stearns, Robert Rich, and Steve Roach, among others, sought to compose music as free as possible from the weighty baggage of both pop and Classical, as well as Western academic and high cultural traditions, turning instead toward methods of composition and performance lacking conventional developmental structure, music which relied instead on programmatic elements such as repetition, texture, alternate tonality, and harmonic and subharmonic relationships (over and against the chordal, melodic, pentatonic, etc. concerns of most Western musical forms). Members of this loose agglomeration of artists often referred to their work as "space music"; not, as is often believed, because it sounded like it was from outer space (although in some cases this was true), but rather since the music tended to refer almost singularly and directly to the space in which it was heard, as well as the inner, more subconscious emotional and contemplative spaces of the listener. Although quite apart from Eno's definition, which sought to locate music in some intermediate between foreground and background, space musicians sought to fuse the two in such a way that the music became the background of its own active exploration; the latter represented an extension of the former, since the relationship between music and the lived environment was the compositional preconception much of the music turned on.

Although the context was in many respects radically different, it was a similar impulse that led to ambient's renaissance in the late-'80s/early-'90s U.K. rave scene, the source of some of the most exciting innovations in not only the music's sound, but also its presentation. The by-now familiar construct of the "chill space" -- that back-room alternative to the high-speed hedonism of main floor raves -- was the nexus of that renaissance, with clubs such as Land Of Oz (at London's massive weekly Heaven), Telepathic Fish, and Oscillate some of the first blips on the new ambient map. It was at clubs such as these that DJs like Alex Paterson (of the Orb), Mixmaster Morris (of Irresistible Force), and Jonah Sharp (of Spacetime Continuum) began blending together the early ambient experiments of Eno, Schulze, Hillage, Pink Floyd, Robert Rich, and Steve Hillage with everything from stereo test and demonstration records, Songs Of The Humpback Whale and other nature and field recordings, minimalist Classical, non-Western ritual and traditional musics, Jamaican dub, and, eventually, live electronics. As crowds began turning out specifically for chill rooms, all-ambient nights and even weekend-long ambient events became more common, with the appearance of recordings by the KLF (Chill Out), the Orb ("A Huge Ever-Growing Brain" and Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, among others), Irresistible Force ("Space Is The Place" and Flying High), and the soon-to-be ubiquitous Pete Namlook (Silence, Air, Dreamfish) contributing momentum and a growing, non-club-based audience.

The proximity of chill rooms to rave culture meant much of the music reflected elements of acid house and techno, and hybrid terms such as "ambient house," "ambient techno," "ambient dub," etc. began to circulate, serving to differentiate this music not only from the more rigorously environmental experiments of the '70s and '80s, but also (and increasingly) from many parallel contemporary strains of ambient. Including such varied sources as the U.K.-based Beyond and Rising High labels, the (respectively) Frankfurt and Belgium-based Fax (Pete Namlook's prolific label) and Apollo imprints, as well as the electronic experiments of Mille Plateaux, dark ambient/industrial and isolationist artists such as Coil, Mick Harris, and Aube and labels such as Cold Meat Industries, Projekt, and Staalplaat, ambient soon, as journalist/producer David Toop put it, began taking on the properties of a "glue term," sticking to whatever it was thrown at. But ambient's steady demotion to the status of textual modifier also suggests the increasing fervor with which barriers separating styles were up for dismantling in the atmosphere of the mid-'90s post-rave experimental underground, a process that's given birth to more variations on the theme of electronic dance music in the past four or five years alone than in the previous two decades. This stylistic deconstruction has given birth to dozens of new genres, subgenres, and sub-subgenres (ambient dub, dark ambient, ambient jungle, electronica, post-rock, etc.) even as it's made the very pursuit of "genre" a mawkishly naive task. This is not to say ambient artists working more or less within the tradition of many of the music's earlier strains have ceased to exist -- indeed, ambient's proliferation in the last several years has also contributed a sense of focus to artists pursuing one or another of its mutant strains -- but rather that the palette of sounds which constitutes the raw materials of atmospheric or environmental music has broadened to such an extent that many of the definitional criteria of the music (lack of prominent percussion and/or a strong melodic presence, etc.) have been steadily reoriented or altogether abandoned.

Because of the range of musics (to say nothing of the ambiguity) implied by the term, no single, encompassing introduction to ambient exists. However, many good compilations are available which serve to fill in significant portions of the music's historical progression. Virgin's four-part Ambient series -- each a two-disc set bringing together many of the biggest name artists from the '70s, '80s, and early '90s -- is a good place to start. Also released by Virgin is the double-CD Ocean Of Sound, compiled by musical historian David Toop to accompany his book of the same name (published by Serpent's Tail in 1995), and including everyone from King Tubby to Aphex Twin. Label compilations also provide good reference points (particularly with regard to the music's more recent mutations), with Beyond, Rising High, Instinct, Fax, Apollo, Warp, Silent, and Recycle Or Die all reputable sources for high-quality various artist collections.


Essential Recordings
01. VA - The Ambient Cookbook (Fax)
02. VA - Ocean Of Sound (Virgin)
03. KLF - Chill Out (TVT)
04. Irresistible Force - Flying High (Instinct/Rising High)
05. Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land (EG)
06. Pete Namlook - Air 2 (Fax)
07. The Orb - Orbus Terrarum (Wau!/Mr. Modo)*
08. Robert Rich & B. Lustmord - Stalker (Fathom)*
09. Tetsu Inoue - World Receiver (Instinct)*
10. Global Communication - 76:14 (Dedicated)*
11. Vidna Obmana - The Trilogy (Relic)
12. Woob - 1194 (Instinct/Em:t)
13. Eno & Fripp - The Essential Fripp & Eno (Virgin/EG)
14. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. II (Sire/Warp)
15. Throbbing Gristle - Second Annual Report (Mute)

GREAT!

While the U.K. underground dance scene has been both an important point of introduction and a source of almost limitless expansion of American dance music forms such as disco, house, acid, techno, electro, and rare groove, England, it's often been noted, has never really had a dance music of its own. Not, that is, until jungle. Although jungle's most direct roots lie in the hardcore breakbeat style of techno popular in clubs in the late '80s and early '90s, the music's mutation of elements from not only hardcore, but reggae, ragga, hip-hop, jazz, and dub, as well as its origins in social and economic factors such as racist and class-based oppression, is a distinctly British mix. Born largely in the working class suburbs of London's East End and the island's Eastern seaboard and now popular throughout England, as well as Europe and North America, jungle has coalesced since it's birth into one of the most exciting and distinctive British musical movements since the 1960s rock explosion.

Like American hip-hop (to which it is often compared), jungle (or drum'n'bass, a stylistic synonym used to describe the music's two main aesthetic components) is an extension of the larger breakbeat heritage which extends back to American funk, soul, and jazz. And like hip-hop, which uses samplers to capture drum break segments from old James Brown, Meters, Jimmy Smith, and Bob James records, jungle uses the beat as a jumping off point, starting with a four- or eight-bar break and cutting, splicing, rearranging, and recombining elements of the beat in almost endless variety. But it's this last element that gives jungle its unique place in the evolution of electronic music; where hip-hop and other sample-based forms of dance music work with beats in a more or less serial fashion (looping, combining, adding, subtracting, etc. rhythmic elements), jungle's approach is nonlinear and, increasingly, polyrhythmic, approaching beats, rhythms, and basslines as more or less malleable raw materials from which new musical ideas can be extracted.

One of the key developments in this approach has been the availability of cheap, relatively easy-to-use sampling technology and desktop digital sequencing tools such as Cubase and Vision, which allow for incredible control and variety. In many respects, these tools have made the music possible, as new techniques such as timestretching (extending a sample's length without altering its pitch) and the music's cut'n'paste approach to rhythm have only recently been made possible through the explosion and subsequent economic democratization of digital audio.

Although, like most origin mythologies, jungle is fraught with intriguing stories of its birth and etymology (even extending to a street gang in Kingston, Jamaica known as the Junglists), most agree that somewhere down the line "jungle" took on a racist connotation stemming from its popularity among England's inner-city black population (although, to a far larger extent than in America, England's inner-cities are of mixed race and are stratified more by class). True or not, the term has been widely embraced by musicians and audiences alike, and remains a genus-type classification for the dizzying array of species of drum'n'bass that have popped up in recent times (see below). In an historico-aesthetic sense, jungle's immediate roots lie, of course, in the English underground rave scene of the early '90s, when the repetitive banging of acid house and techno gave way to hardcore breakbeat techno. Although originally referring to a more rave-oriented strain of hardcore (so-called "happy hardcore," which translated many of the more escapist elements of acid-house and dancefloor techno into a breakbeat context), a more complex and abrasive strand of "darkside" hardcore soon began to grow in popularity, becoming the post-rave underground music of choice, particularly among urban inner-city and working class youth.

Drawing from the music's audience (and of course the musicians themselves), the music began incorporating more complex beat patterns and elements of reggae, ragga, dub, calypso, and other non-Western black musics, mutating (through artists such as Rob Playford/2 Bad Mice, SL2, Acen, and Urban Shakedown) into the high-speed breakbeat madness of jungle's first wave. Though still the soundtrack of the urban English underground, by the time ragga jungle hit, a wider audience began to form around the revolutionary new sound, particularly as labels such as Suburban Bass, Kickin', Sound of the Underground, and Moving Shadow began to move into CD-based compilation releases, which helped spread the music into new geographies at a rapid rate. Though the cliches of ragga dated quickly (the booyaka chants, the Scientist samples, etc.), the basic skeleton of the music was refined and elaborated (in a less-obvious fashion) in so-called hardstep and darkside, which aimed at preserving the intellectual and emotional impact of the music in a more mature, less gimmicky fashion. The following years would see a dizzying mutation and hybridization of styles, as jungle worked its way into every stylistic context immaginable (from Lee Perry and the Wu-Tang Clan to Soul Coughing and Everything but the Girl), with styles continuing to proliferate to the present day.

Like early hip-hop and, to a large extent, present day house and techno, drum'n'bass remains primarily a 12-inch culture, with the bulk of artists and musicians engaged in nuts'n'bolts music-making designed directly for DJs and dancefloors (although, like techno, the gap has begun to close a bit through wider popularity of ambient and "intelligent" styles and large-scale CD production and distribution). The rapid intermixing and evolution of styles is also fueled in part by widespread use of white labels, dubplates, and test pressings, which allow artists and DJs to gauge the popularity of a tune only hours after its been completed in the studio. (Dubplates and test pressings are wax and mylar versions of records -- usually only playable ten to fifteen times -- cut prior to mass production to insure proper manufacture.) A reasonably reputable DJ may spin anywhere from 10 to 50 percent dubplates in a set, with artists who also DJ often cutting their tunes months in advance of their release (if indeed they're ever released!) to build crowd excitement and anticipation.

As discussed above, like other recent directions in experimental electronic music, jungle has sectioned off into a dizzying array of subgenres and style classes (ragga, hardstep, darkside, jump-up, techstep, ambient, and ) that can make getting a handle on it pretty frustrating. The following is a brief description of many of the most prominent:

Hardcore/Happy Hardcore
An urban working-class offshoot of techno, popular in the late-'80s/early-'90s, with looping, sped-up breakbeats and dense, angular basslines. A more mainstream, rave-oriented brand of "happy" hardcore remained even truer to the music's acid house roots, drawing wailing divas and upbeat piano and synth lines in close proximity to hardcore's brash rhythms. (Artists: Acen, 2 Bad Mice, SL2)

Ragga
Ragga jungle was one of the earliest and most widely embraced forms of drum'n'bass not to rely overtly on the cliches of hardcore techno, and was a direct reflection of the rising embrace of drum'n'bass among the street-level urban population (of which a sizeable portion are of African and Caribbean descent). Ragga jungle is characterized primarily by fast, complex beat patterns, deep, tight bass, and the use of sound system-type MC chanting sampled from old reggae, ragga, and dancehall records. Ragga also makes jungle's connection to African and Caribbean traditional and popular musics most evident, with rhythms recognizably descendent from nyabinghi and calypso-style drumming. (Artists: 2 Bad Mice, Rude Bwoy Monty, Shy FX, Amazon II)

Hardstep/Jump-Up
A spare, limber refinement of hardcore and ragga, which retains the hardness and rhythmic complexity of both while subtracting much of the bonus fat (rude bwoy chatter, excessive samples, etc.). Hardstep also carries more of a sense of progression, varying drum patterns more musically and focusing on bass as a melodic element. Although slight variations obtain between hardstep and the more recently-applied jump-up (with the latter generally referring to a sprighter, more dynamic brand of hardstep), the two are for the most part used interchangeably. (Artists: Ray Keith, DJ SS, Dillinja,DJ Zinc)

Darkside
A somewhat historically rooted term, darkside refers to a sparer, more pessimistic style of hardcore seeking to differentiate itself from the more above-ground, mainstream appeal of rave that by the early '90s was producing only the most repetitive and uncreative of music. Darkside artists stripped the bright melodies and sped-up samples from hardcore and replaced them with gloomy basslines, and less obvious melodic passages more reminiscent of Detroit techno than happy hardcore. Darkside is also something of a bridge between early hardcore and the increasing sophistication of the hardstep and experimental drum'n'bass of DJ SS, Solo, Source Direct, and the Metalheadz artists.

Techstep
Techstep is similar to hardstep in its beat structures and attitude, but differs in the use of techno-type elements such as bleeps and synth squelches, as well as dense, heavily treated basslines. After the softening of drum'n'bass in the wake of jungle's first wave of widespread popularity (major label signings, international tours, etc.), darker techstep-type jungle has risen to the fore of the underground, proving one of the most active and interesting splinter styles in its experimentalism. Labels on the bleeding edge of this style include Emotif, No U-Turn, Penny Black, and S.O.U.R., and a good introduction exists in Emotif's label compilation, Techsteppin', as well as S.O.U.R.'s Nu Skool Update. (Artists: Ed Rush, Nico, Solo, Shapeshifter)

Ambient/Intelligent
First used to designate drum'n'bass styles drawing heavily on atmosphere and environment, the term has come to have something of a negative connotation among the hardcore, referring to loopy, relatively unchallenging rhythmic programming and a predominance of sugary, pop-oriented melodic textures. Most likely the backlash has as much to do with the fact that it was the softer, jazzier ambient style drum'n'bass that was the first to sever its roots with the underground, gaining popularity among a wide audience. (Artists: TPower, Omni Trio, Source Direct, Photek, 4Hero, Dave Wallace)

By Semirrahge. To be read with "My Weakness" – by Moby, in three minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

Fade from black... as the camera spins erratically, turning up onto a vertical axis over an unmade bed, focusing finally on a man. He lies awkwardly, the sheets and blankets rumpled and pushed aside, his arms and legs lay as if he was thrown onto the bed. The twisting and turning orbit of the camera somehow manages to keep his face in focus, and bits of the room – all messy – are visible during some of the more stable moments.

As the music begins to pick up, the action slows and the camera’s movement becomes more stable as the image zooms onto his face. His face; torn by pain or fever, or perhaps the inner demons of his own memory, is frozen in an oddly gentle rictus of agony, the look of one who has succumbed to the peace of unconsciousness, leaving his subconscious mind to fight alone while his body receives some measure of respite

And the camera finds his left eye, -still open, unfocused- and we slowly crawl into its inner blackness. Darkness comes, and-

The colors are twisted, psychotic blues and a touch of a blur tint the image that we are now a part of. The landscape we see is a lush green plain of rolling hills and a blue sky, yet the bizarre coloring shows us that is it not a peaceful scene we view – rather, a scene of sinister nightmare, thinly disguised in its veil of peace.

The music crawls into a sobbing cry, and our image moves down, around – and we find below us the man from the bed before. He staggers as one drunk or in great pain, and after a few quavery steps falls to his knees, denting the soft ground beneath and breaking the cover of the green grasses to show the rich brown-black of the soil.

Our view moves down to the top of his head, the hairs matted and sweat-soaked, and rotates down until his face fills the frame. It is no longer torn by some inner agony, but his eyes are full of unshed tears, and the surrounding face seems to be a wall, resisting the tides of sorrow pushed upon it by the weak and traitorous eyes.

The wall slowly crumbles, and turning to view his profile, we see the tears come streaming from his eyes – and throwing his head back, a scream tears itself from his throat. On and on it shrieks, echoing off the seeming-soft hills that show themselves now for what they are: prison walls in this nightmare dream.

Camera: rotating around, and finishing where it began – facing the tormented. Arms thrown wide, fists clenched tightly, his scream seems to be alive of itself – no part of the tears dripping steadily down the sides of his face.

As abruptly as it started, the scream ceases, the echoes stopping instantly, and he convulsively pulls his arms in to his chest. Head down, face enveloped by his once-clenched hands, there is brief silence – but the music plays on, relentlessly driving him onward, and it climbs now into its final end.

“Why?” he moans, or perhaps says “No...” But the end has come. He is knocked forwards, left arm outstretched, fingers grasping the ground in a futile attempt to ward off the inevitable.

The fingers, - nails full of grit – meet hands, - fists full of grass and soil – and slowly crumble, merging with the dust they hold. He – we? – sob convulsively, and it is a plea for respite from destiny.

No avail. The camera coolly shows the hand, arm – and the entire self slowly fails, clothing crumpling without support; and then, as the music begins to fade away, the camera swings up- over the silhouette of clothing –and even that remnant fades away as the camera spins on its axis, the colors fading...

...And rolls in from black to rest in an open doorway. A room, a bed – the same? Ours-his? It is empty and neatly made, pillows undimpled by fevered heads, the room clean and orderly –

-and the music stops.

(by Irvine Welsh)

As far as it went wi me it wis aw her ain fuckin fault. The ****s at the hoaspital basically agreed wi ays n aw, no that they said as much in so many words, bit ah could tell they did inside. Ye ken how it is wi they ****s, they cannae jist come oot and say what's oan thir fuckin mind like that. Professional fuckin ettiquitte or whatever the fuck they call it. Well seein as ah'm no a fuckin Doaktir then, eh! Ah'd last aboot five fuckin minutes wi they ****s, me. Ah'll gie yis fuckin bedside manner, ya ****s.

Bit it wis her ain fault because she kent that ah wanted tae stey in fir the fitba this Sunday; they hud the Hibs-Herts game live oan STV. She goes, - Lit's take the bairns doon tae that pub it Kingsknowe, the one ye kin sit ootside ay.

- Cannae, eh, ah sais tae ur, - fitba's oan it three. Hibs fuckin Herts.

- Wi dinnae huv tae stey long Malky, she sais, - it's a rerr day. It wid be good fir the bairns.

So ah thinks tae masel, mibee no too bad an idea but. Ah mean, ah hud ma bevvy in the fridge fir the game, bit a few scoops beforehand would set ays up nicely fir the kickoaf. So ah sais, - Aye, awright then, but wir no steyin oot long mind, the fitba's oan at three so wi huv tae be back by then. So ah'm thinkin, lit hur git hur ain wey n it'll keep her fuckin trap shut for a bit.

So wi gits oot, n it wis a rare day n aw. Wi heads along tae the fuckin pub n wi starts gittin a few peeves sunk back: her oan the voddy n hooches n me oan the pints ay Carlsberg. The bairns ur happy enough wi thir juice n crisps, even though ah hud tae batter him for pillin her hair whin the cheeky wee **** thought ah wisnae lookin. Eh goat a shock awright whin ah gave um a fuckin wrap acroass the jaw. Ah sais, Aye, n dinnae fuckin well burst oot greetin like a wee lassie Jason, or yill fuckin well git another yin!

Anywey, ah've goat an eye oan the fuckin cloak, fir the fitba likes, but she's flingin thum back like fuck n whin ah says it wis time tae drink up n move, she starts. - Kin we no jist stey fir one mair, she's gaun, n ah'm gaun, - Awright, bit jist a fuckin quick yin mind, then wi fuckin well Johnny Cash.

So ah fling back ma pint but she's fuckin well strugglin. That's her aw ower: thinks she kin fuckin well take a peeve, but she cannae handle it when it comes tae the fuckin bigtime. Ah jist tells her, - C'moan. We need tae fuckin nash. So ah nod tae the bairns n thair comin doon the road wi me, n she's laggin behind, the fuckin fat cow thit she is. That wis the main reason that it wis her fault; too fuckin well fat, the doaktir said it; he fuckin well telt the ****, fuck knows how many times, eh. Ah'm shoutin,

- C'moan!

Course, aw she kin dae is tae gie ays that fuckin look which gits ma fuckin goat.

- Git movin, n dinnae well pit that fuckin face oan, ah telt the ****.

So wi gits intae Kingsknowe Station n ah goes, wi kin cut through here. She turns roond n starts walkin doon the platform tae that overheid bridge. Ah goes, - C'moan tae fuck ya radge, n jumps straight doon oantae the tracks, ken. She starts makin a fuckin exhibition ay hersel: gaun oan aboot the train comin, n ah should be able tae see that cause ay the people at the platform. - Aye, bit you're forgettin something, ah goes, ah used tae work for the railways. This wis before me n wee Tam Devlin goat the boot. The bevvy, ken? The ****s git as stroppy as fuck aboot that. Even a couple ay pints, that's you fuckin well snookered. N ah wisnae the fuckin worse, bit it wis scapegoatin, as the **** fae the union pit it. No thit that did much fuckin good but, eh no.

- Bit it's comin! she sais, thir aw waitin oan it! Ah deeks at the fuckin cloak at the station n goes, - it's no due fir another five minutes yit! Moan tae fuck! Ah takes wee Claire n lifts her doon oantae the track, n we go ower n ah lift her up ontae the platform at the other side. The laddie, that wee **** Jason, he's ower like a shot n she finally waddles oaf the fuckin platform doon oantae the track. Fuckin embarrassment that fat ****.

So ah've goat the bairns up oantae the platform, then ah hears this tinny noise and the track under ma feet starts tae vibrate. It sounds like one ay they intercity non-stoapin joabs. Ah jist fuckin tipples: these ****s've been diverted tae here cause ay that flood damage oan the other line. Ah minded readin aboot that shite in the News. So ah'm up sharpish and ah'm sayin tae this fat ****: - Gie's yir fuckin hand!

Well, ah grabs her mit, but the fuckin speed oan this inter-city joab; ah mean these ****s seem like thir gaunny rip the whole flickin station apart the speed they go through it at, an wi her bein that fuckin hefty, well, ah managed tae sort ay half git her up oantae the platform and she's screamin aboot the bairns and ah'm sayin the fuckin bairns ur awright, fuckin move, but the fuckin train comes along and it fuckin well hits her, n ah jist feels this force, pillin her, wrenchin her right ootay ma fuckin grip.

Well ah fuckin well jist aboot shat masel, ah'm fuckin well tellin yis. Whin ah looks up ah'm half expectin her tae be in fuckin Aberdeen or somewhere like that, ken, bit she's only a few feet away fae ays further doon the platform n she's lookin up at ays n shoutin: - You, ya fuckin stupit ****, at me, in front ay every **** in the station, eh. So ah'm tellin her tae shut her fuckin mooth or she'll git ma fuckin boot in it and tae git up oaf her fat erse n git a fuckin bend oan n wee Claire's laughin n ah looks at Jason and he's jist standin thaire frozen tae the fuckin spot, eh, so ah'm aboot tae lamp the wee **** whin ah look doon at her n ah realise that she's goat nae fuckin legs; it's like the fuckin train hud jist clean whipped thum oaf, n she's tryin tae come taewards ays crawlin along the fuckin platform, pillin hersel wi her hands and thirs this trail ay blood comin fae her.

The radgest thing aboot it aw is that ah looks doon the platform n ah sees the fuckin legs, jist sort ay severed fae her boady. At the thigh likes, eh, the baith ay thum. So ah shouts at the wee ****: - Jason! Dinnae jist fuckin stand thair, pick up yir Ma's legs! Git a hud ay thum! Ah wis thinkin thit ye could git thum tae the hoaspital n git thum stitched back oan. The wee bastard jist starts greetin, right oot ay fuckin control. Some ****'s shoutin tae git an ambulance, n she's lyin on the groond cursin n ah'm thinkin aboot the fuckin fitba, kick oaf in ten fuckin minutes time. But then ah gits tae thinkin thit the ambulance'll maist likely huv tae go past oor bit oan its wey up tae the hoaspital n ah could bail oot n catch up wi her back up thair, eftir the game likes. So ah starts gaun, - Too right mate. A fuckin ambulance then, eh.

Wee Claire's went ower tae her Ma's legs n she's picked thum up, gathered thum in her airms and she's running taewards ays, n ah lits that sneaky wee **** Jason huv it, right acroas the fuckin jaw n eh fuckin well felt that yin cause that stoaps ehs greetin right away. - You fuckin well should've goat they legs ya daft wee ****, fuckin leavin it up tae yir wee sister! She's only a bairn! How auld ur ye? Eight! Fuckin well act it!

This auld ****'s doon at her side hudin her hand and sayin, - Yir awright, it'll be fine, the ambulance is on its wey, try tae be still, n aw that shite. Another guy says tae me, - My god, this is terrible. Ah jist goes, - Fuckin well surein it is, probably missed the first two goals, eh. This nondy **** comes up tae ays n sais, - I know you must be under terrible stress but it'll be okay. She's hanging in there. Try to comfort the children. Ah jist goes, - Aye, right ye are.

So ah sais tae the bairns, jist as the ambulance comes, -Yir Ma's gaun tae the hoaspital fir a bit, but thir's nowt wrong wi her.

- She's loast her legs, wee Claire goes.

- Aye, ah ken that, but thir's nowt wrong wi her, no really. Ah mean, aye, fir anybody else, anybody ordinary likesay you or me, it wid be bad tae huv nae legs. But no fir yir Ma cause she's that fat she widnae be able tae git roond oan her legs that much longer anywey, ken?

- Will Ma die? Jason asks.

- Ah dinnae ken. Ah'm no a fuckin Doaktir, um ah? Dinnae ask such daft questions Jason. What a laddie for fuckin questions. See if she does, n ah'm no sayin thit she will, but see if she does, jist sayin, right? Jist supposin thit she wis tae die, n this is jist sayin mind...

- Like pretend, wee Claire goes. Mair brains thin her fuckin Ma, that yin.

- That's right hen, jist pretend. So if she wis tae die, n mind, wir only sayin wis, it's up tae youse tae be good n no tae gie me a hard time, cause ye ken what ah'm like when ah start gittin a hard time. Ah'm no sayin thit ah'm wrong n ah'm no sayin thit ah'm right; aw ah'm sayin is dinnae youse be giein ays a hard time at a time like this. Or yis git this, right? ah goes, clenchin ma mit n shakin it at the wee ****s.

So by the time the ambulance boys manage tae lug her intae the fuckin van, wi her fuckin weight, the game'll huv already sterted. Ah takes the legs oaf the bairn n goes tae lob them in the back wi her, but this ambulance boy takes them n wraps them in polythene n ice. We gets in n the back wi her n the boy thit's drivin's waistin nae time. Whin wir near our bit n ah sais, - Ah'll jist bail oot it the roundabout ahead mate.

- Eh, the boy goes.

- Jist lit ays oaf here, ah sais.

- Wir no stoapin here mate, we're no stoapin until we git tae the hoaspital. Nae time tae lose. You'll need tae register your wife and look after the kids here.

- Aye right, ah goes, but ah wis still thinkin ahead, - Is thir a telly oan the wards mate? Bound tae be bit, eh.

This **** jist looks at ays aw funny like n then goes, - Aye, thirs a telly.

A fuckin wide ****. Anywey, she's goat that oxygen mask ower her face n the guy's gaun oan tae her aboot tae try no tae talk n ah'm thinkin: some fuckin chance, ah've been tryin tae git her no tae talk fir fuckin years, eh. Hearin her n aw: gaun oan tae me like it's ma fuckin fault. It wis her wantin mair fuckin drink as usual, pished up cow. Ah telt her, if ye spent as much time lookin eftir the fuckin bairns as ye did oan the fuckin pish, then they might no be so far behind at the school, especially that wee **** Jason. Ah turns tae him n goes, - Aye, n dinnae think thit you're jist gaunny doss oaf the school, jist because yir fuckin Ma might be in dock fir a few weeks. You'd better fuckin well shape up son, ah'm tellin ye.

Sometimes ah think tae masel that ah'm giein the wee **** too much ay a hard time. Bit then ah go: naw, cause ah goat it aw, the very fuckin same treatment fae ma auld man n it did me nae fuckin herm at aw. Cruel tae be kind, like they say. N ah'm livin proof thit it's the best wey. Ah mean, ye nivir see me in any fuckin bother wi the polis, no since way back. Learnt ma fuckin lesson: ah keep ma nose clean n ah gie they ****s a wide berth. Aw ah ask ootay life is a few bevvies, the fitba n the occasional ride.

That makes ays think bit: what's it gaunny be like ridin her if she's no goat any fuckin legs . . . So we gits up the casualty n this doaktir ****'s gaun oan aboot me bein in shock n ah'm thinkin aboot the fitba n if these ****s've scored awready ah'll be in fuckin shock awright. Ah turns tae the boy n goes, - Hi mate, ken me n her, ken like whin wir the gither?

**** wisnae gittin ma drift.

- Ken in bed likes? The **** nods. - See if she's no goat any fuckin legs, will ah still be able tae cowp it likes?

- Sorry? this **** goes.

Thick as fuck. A fuckin doaktir this is n aw. Thought ye hud tae huv fuckin brains tae dae that joab. - Ah'm talkin aboot oor sex life, ah tell um.

- Well, assuming your wife survives, your sex life should be normal, the **** says, lookin at ays like ah wis some kind ay radge.

- Well, ah goes, - that's ah bit ay fuckin good news, cause it wisnae fuckin well normal before! No unless ye call a ride every three fuckin months or something like that normal, n that's no what ah fuckin well call normal.

So thair ah wis, tryin tae watch the fuckin game oan the waitin room telly. Nae bevvy or nowt, n aw they radges hasslin ays wi forms n questions n the fuckin bairns playin up gaun oan aboot 'is she awright', n 'when ur wi gaun hame' n aw that shite. Ah fuckin well warned the wee ****s aboot nippin ma heid n aw: see whin ah git youse hame, ah telt them.

Tell yis one thing fir nowt though, whin she's oot ay that hoaspital, see if she cannae dae things aroond the hoose, ah'm fuckin offski. Too fuckin right ya ****. Lookin eftir a fat **** wi nae fuckin legs! That will be fuckin shinin bright! It wis her ain fault as well, the fuckin fat ****. Fuckin things up fir me like that. No thit the game wis anything tae write hame aboot mind you, another fuckin nil-nil draw but, eh.

(by Irvine Welsh)

Third time lucky. It was like Sick Boy taught us: you've got to know what it's like to try to come off it before you can actually do it. You can only learn through failure, and what you learn is the importance of preparation. He could be right. Anyway, this time I've prepared. A month's rent in advance on this big, bare room overlooking the Links. Too many bastards know my Montgomery Street address. Cash on the nail! Parting with that poppy was the hardest bit. The easiest was my last shot, taken in my left arm this morning. I needed something to keep us going during this period of intense preparation. Then I was off like a rocket round the Kirkgate, whizzing through my shopping list.

Ten tins of Heinz tomato soup, eight tins of mushroom soup (all to be consumed cold), one large tub of vanilla ice-cream (which will melt and be drunk), two bottles of Milk of Magnesia, one bottle of paracetamol, one packet of Rinstead mouth pastilles, one bottle of multivits, five litres of mineral water, twelve Lucuzade isotonic drinks and some magazines: soft porn, Viz, Scottish Football Today, The Punter, etc. The most important item has already been procured from a visit to the parental home; my Ma's bottle of valium, removed from her bathroom cabinet. I don't feel bad about this. She never uses them now, and if she needs them her age and gender dictate that her radge GP will prescribe them like jelly tots. I lovely tick off all the items on my list. It's going to be a hard week.

My rooms is bare and uncarpeted. There's a mattress in the middle of the floor with a sleeping bag on it, an electric-bar fire, and a black and white TV on a small wooden clair. I've got three brown plastic buckets, half-filled with a mixture of disinfectant and water for my shite, puke and pish. I line up my tins of soup, juice and my medicines with easy reach of my makeshift bed.

I took my last shot in order to get me through the horrors of the shopping trip. My final score will be used to help me sleep, and ease me off the skag. I'll try to take it in small, measured doses. I need some quickly. The great decline is setting in. It starts as it generally does, with a slight nausea in the pit of my stomach and and irrational panic attack. As soon as I become aware of the sickness gripping me, it effortlessly moves from the uncomfortable to the unbearable. A toothache starts to spread from my teech into my jaws and my eye sockets, and all through my bones in a miserable, implacable, debilitating throb. The old sweats arrive on cue, and let's not forget the shivers, covering my back like a thin layer of autumn frost on a car roof. It's time for action. No way can I crash out and face the music yet. I need the old 'slowburn', a soft, come-down input. The only thing I can move for is smack. One wee dig to unravel those twisted limbs and send me off to sleep. Then I say goodbye to it. Swanney's vanished, Seeker's in the nick. That leaves Raymie. AI go to bell the **** from the payphone in the hall.

I'm aware that as I dial, someone has brushed past me. I wince from the fleeting contact, but have no desire to look and see what it is. Hopefully I'll not be here long enough to need to check out any of my new 'flatmates'. The phuckers didn't exixt for me. No **** does. Only Raymie. The money goes down. A lassie's voice. "Hello?" She sniffs. Has she got a summer cold or is it the skag?

"Is Raymie there? It's Mark here." Raymie has evidently mentioned me bacause although I didn't know her, she sure as fuck knows me. Her voice chills over. "Raymie's away," she says. "London."

"London? Fuck... when's he due back?"

"Didn't know."

"He didn't leave anything for me, did he? Chances would be a fine thing, the ****."

"Eh, no..."

I shakily put the phone down. Two choices; one: tough it out, back in the room, two: phone that **** Forrester and go to Muirhoose, get fucked about and ripped off with some crap gear. No contest. In twenty minutes it was: "Muirhoose pal? To the driver on the 32 bus and quiveringly sticking my forty-five pence into the box. Any port in a storm, and it's raging in here behind my face.

An old boot gives me the evil eye as I passed her on the way down the bus. Do bougt I'm fuckin boggin and look and a real mess. It doesn't bother me. Nothing exists in my life except myself and Michael Forrester and the sickening distance between us: a distance being steadily reduced by this bus.

I sit on the back seat, downstairs. The bus is nearly empty. A girl sits across from me, listening to her Sony Walkman. Is she good looking? Who fuckin cares. Even though it's supposed to be a 'personal' stereo, I can hear it quite clearly. It's playing a Bowie number... 'Golden Years'.

quote:

Don't let me you hear you say life's takin you nowhere -- Angel... Look at those skies, life's begun, nights are warm and the days are yu-hu-hung...

I've got every album Bowie ever made. The fuckin lot. Tons of fuckin bootlegs and all. I didn't give a fuck about him or his music. I only care about Mike Forrester, an ugly talentless **** who has made no albums. Zero singles. But Mikey bairn is the man of the moment. As Sick Boy once said, doubtlessly paraphrasing some other ******: nothing exists outside the moment. (I think some radge on a chocolate advert said it first.) But I cannot even ondorse these sentiments as they are at best peripheral to the moment. The moment is me, sick, and Mikey, healer.

Some old ****, they're always on the buses at this time, is fartin and shitein at the driver; firing a volley of irrelevant questions about bus numbers, routes and times. Get the fuck on or fuck off and die ya foostie old ****. I almost choked in silent rage at her selfish pettiness and the bus driver's pathetic indulgence of the ****. People talk about youngsters and vandalism, what about the psychic vandalism caused by these old bastards? When she finally gets on the old ****** still has the cheek to have a gob on her like a cat's arse.

She sits directly in front of me. My eyes burrow into the back of her head. I'm willing her to have a brain homorrhage or a massive cardiac arrest... no. I stop to think. If that happened, it would only hold me back even more. Hers must be a slow, suffering death, to pay her back for my fuckin suffering. If she dies quickly, it'll give people the chance to fuss. They'll always take that opportunity. Cancer cells will do nicely. I will be a core of bad cells to develop and multiply in her body. I can feel it happening.. but it's my body it's happening to. I'm too tired to continue. I've lost all hate for the old doll. I only feel total apathy. She's now outside the moment.

My head's gone down. It jerks up so suddenly and violently, I feel it's gonna fly off my shoulders onto the lap of the testy old boot in front of me. I hold it firmly in both hands, elbows on my knees. Now I'm gonna miss my stop. No. A surge of energy and I get off at Pennywell Road, opposite the shopping centre. I cross over the dual carriageway and walk through the centre. I pass the steel-shuttered units which have never been let and cross over the car park where cars have never parked. Never since it was built. Over twenty years ago.

Forrester's maisonette flat is in a block bigger than most in Muirhose. Most are two stories high, but this is five, and therefore has a lift, which doesn't work. To conserve energy I slide along the wall on my journey up the stairs.

In addition to cramps, aches, sweats and an almost complete disintegration of my central nervous system, my guts are now starting to go. I feel a queasy shifting taking place, an ominous thaw in my long period of constipation. I try to pull myself together at Forrester's door. But he'll know that I'm suffering. An ex-skag merchant always know when someone is sick. I just don't want to bastard knowing how desperate I feel. While I would put up with any crap, any abuse from Forrester to get what I need, I don't see the sense in advertising it to him any more than I can help.

Forrester can obviously see the reflection of my ginger hair through the wired and dimpled glass door. He takes an age to answer. The **** has started fuckin me before I even set foot in his house. He doesn't greet me with any warmth in his voice. "Alright Rents," he said.

"Not bad Mike." He calls me 'Rents' instead of 'Mark', I call him 'Mike' instead of 'Forry'. He's calling the shots alright. Is trying to ingratiate myself to this **** the best policy? It's probably the only one at the moment.

"C'Mon in," he tersely shrugs and I dutifully follow him.

I sit on the couch, beside but a bit a away from a gross bitch with a broken leg. Her plastered limb is propped up on the coffee table and there is a repulsive swell of white flesh between the dirty plaster and her peach coloured shorts. Her tits sit on top of an oversized Guinness pot, and her brown vesty top struggles to constrain her white flab. Her greasy, peroxide locks have an inch of insipid grey-brown at their roots. She makes no attempt to acknowledge my presence but lets out a horrendous and embarrassing donkey-like laugh at some inane remark Forrester makes, which I don't catch, probably concerning my appearance. Forrester sits opposite me in a worn-out armchair, beefy-faced but thin bodied, almost bald at twenty-five. His hair loss over the last two years has been phenomenal, and I wonder if he's got the virus. Doubt it somehow. They say only the good die young. Normally I would make a bitchy comment, but at this moment in time I would rather slag my granny about her colostomy bag. Mikey is, after all, my man.

In the other chair next to Mikey is an evil-looking bastard, whose eyes are on the bloated sow, or rather the unprofessionally rolled joint she is smoking. She takes an extravagantly theatrical toke, before passing it onto the evil-looking gadge. I've got fuck all against dudes with dead insect eyes set deep in keen rodent faces. They are not all bad. It's this boy's clathes that give him away, marking him out as wide-o extraordinaire. He's obviously been residing in one of the Windsor group hotels; Soughton, Bar L, Perth, Peterhead, etc., and has apparently been there for some time. Dark blue flared trousers, black shoes, a mustard polo-neck with blue bands at the collar and cuffs, and a green parka (in this fuckin weather!) draped ower the back of the chair.

No intros are made, but that's the prerogative of my baw-faced icon, Mike Forrester. He's the man in the chair, and he certainly knows it. The bastard launches into this spiel, talking incessantly, like a kid trying to stay up as late as possible. Mr Fashion, Johnny Saughton I'll call the ****, says nothing, but smiles enigmatically and occasionally rolls hsi eys in mock ecstasy. If you ever saw a predator's face it was Saughton's. The Fat Sow, god she is grotesque, hee-haws and I force out the odd sycophantic chuckle at times I got to be roughly appropriate.

After listening to this shite for a while, my pain and nausea force me to intervene. My non-verbal signals are contemptuously ignored, so I steam in.

"Sorry to interrupt you there mate, but I need to be puttin my skates on. You got the gear there?"

The reaction is over the top, even by the standards of the crappy game Forrester is playing.

"You shut your fuckin mouth! Fuckin radge. I'll fuckin tell you when to speak. Just shut your fuckin arse. You didn't like the company, you can get to fuck. End of fuckin story."

"No offence mate... It's all tame capitulation on my part. After all, this man is a god to me. I'd walk on my hands and knees through broken glass for a thousand miles to use the ****'s shite as toothpaste as we both know it." I am but a pawn in a game called 'The Marketing Of Michael Forrester As A Hard Man'. To all thsoe who know him, it's a game based on ridiculously flawed concepts. Furthermore, it obviously all being played for Johnny Saughton's benefit, but what the fuck, it's Mike's gig, and I asked to be dealt a shite hand when I dialled his number.

I take some more crass humiliation for what seems like an eternity. I get through it no bother though. I love nothing (except junk), I hate nothing (except forces that prevent me getting any) and I fear nothing (except not scoring). I also know that a shitein **** like Forrester would never put me through all this bullshit if he intended bolding out on me.

It gives me some satisfaction remembering why he hates me. Mike was once infatuated with a woman who despised him. A woman I subsequently fucked. It hadn't meant a great deal to either myself or the woman concerned, but it certainly bugged the fuck out of Mike. Now most people would put this down to experience, you alway want what you cannot have and the things that you didn't really give a toss about get handed to you on a plate. That's life, so why should sex be different from any other part of it? I've had, and brushed off, such reverses in the past. Every **** has. The problem is that this shite's intent on hoarding trivial grievances, like the fat-chopped malignment squirrel that he is. But I still love him. I have to. He's the boy holdin.

Mikey grows bored with his humiliation game. For a sadist, it must have all the interest of sticking pins into a plastic doll. I'd love to have given him some better sport, but I'm too fucked to react to his dull-witted jibes. So he finally says: "Got the money?"

I pull out some crumpled notes from my pockets. and with touching servility, flatten them out on the coffee table. With an air of reverence and all due difference to Mikey's status as The Man, I hand them over. I note for the first time that the Fat Sow has a huge arrow drawn on her plaster in thick black marker pen, on the inside of her thigh, pointing her crotch. The letters alongside it spell out in bold capitals: INSERT COCK HERE. My guts do another quick birl, and the urge to take the gear from Mikey with maximum force and get the fuck out of there is almost overwhelming. Mikey snaffles the notes and to my surprise, produces two white capsules, from his pocket. I'd never seen the likes of them before. They were little hard bomb-shaped things with a waxy coat on them. A powerful rage gripped me, seeming coming from nowhere. No, not from nowhere. Strong emotions of this type can only be generated by junk or the possibility of its absence. "What the fuck's this shite?"

"Opium. Opium suppositories," Mikey's tone has changed. It's cagey, almost apologetic. My outburst has shattered our sick symbiosis.

"What the fuck do I do with these?" I say, without thinking, and then break out in a smike as it dawns on me. It lets Mikey off the hook.

"Do you really want me to tell you?" He sneers, reclaiming some of the power he'd previously relinquished, as Saughton s******s and Fat Sow brays. He sees that I'm not amused, however, so he continues: "You're not bothered about a hit, right? You want something slow, to take away the pain, to help you get off the junk, right? Well these are perfect. Custom-fuckin-designed for your needs. They melt through your system, the charge builds up, then it slowly fades. That's the ****s they use in hospitals, for fuck sakes."

"You reckon these then, man?"

"Listen to the voice of experience," he smiles, but more at Saughton than at me. Fat Sow throws her greasy head back, exposing large, yellowing teeth.

So I do just as recommended. I listen to the voice of experience. I excuse myself, retire to the toilet and insert them, with great diligence, up my arse. It was the first time I'd ever stuck my finger up my own arsehole, and a vaguely nauseous feeling hits me. I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Red hair, matted but sweaty, and a white face with loads of disgusting spots. Two particular beauties; these ones really have to be classfied as boils. One on the cheek, and one on the chin. Fat Sow and I would make an excellent couple, and I entertain a perverse vision of us in a gondola on the canals of Venice. I return downstairs, still sick but high from scoring.

"It'll take time," Forrester gruffly observes, as I swan back into the living-room.

"You're tellin me. For all the good they've done I might as well have stuck them up my arse." I get my first smile from Johnny Saughton for my troubles. I can almost see the blood around his twisted mouth. Fat Sow looks at me as if I had just ritually slaughtered her first born. That pained, incomprehensible expression of hers makes me want to piss my keks with laughter. Mike wears a very hurt I-crack-the-jokes-here look, but it's tinged with resignation through the realisation that his power over has gone. It ended with the completion of the transaction. He was now no more to me than a lump of dog shite in the shopping centre. In fact, considerably less. End of story.

"Anyway, catch you later folks," I nod over to Saughton and Fat Sow. A smiling Saughton gives me a matey wink wich seems to sweep the whole room. Even Fat Sow tries to force a smile. I take their gestures as further evidence that the balance of power between me and Mike has fundamentally shifted. As if to confirm this, he follows me out of the flat. "Eh, I'll see you around man. Eh... sorry about all the shite I was hittin you with back there. That **** Donnelly... he makes us dead jumpy. A fuckin headbanger of the first order. I'll tell you the full story later. No hard feelins though, eh Mark?"

"I'll see you later Forry," I reply, my voice hopefully carrying enough promise of threat to cause the **** a little bit unease, if no real concern. Part of me doesn't want to burn the ****** down though. It's a sobering thought, but I might need him again. But that's not the way to think. If I keep thinking like that, the whole fuckin exercise is pointless.

By the time I hit the bottom of the stair I've forgotten all about my sickness; well almost. I can feel it, the ache through my body, it's just that it doesn't really bother me any more. I know it's ridiculous to convince myself that the gear is making an impact already, but there's definitely some placebo effect taking place. One thing that I'm aware of is a great fluidity in my guts. It feels like I'm melting inside. I haven't shat for about five or six days; now it seems to be coming. I fart, and instantly follow through, feeling the wet sludge in my pants with a quickening of my pulse. I slam on the brakes; tightening my sphincter muscles as much as I can. The damage has been done, however, and it's gonna get much worse if I didn't take immediate action. I consider going back to Forrester's, but I want nothing more to do with that twat for the time being. I remember that the bookies in the shopping centre has a toilet at the back.

I enter the smoke-filled shop and head straight to the bog. What a fuckin scene; two guys stand in the doorway of the toilet, just pissing into the place, which has a good inch of stagnant, spunky urine covering the floor. It's oddly reminiscent of the foot pool at the swimming baths I used to go to. The two punters shake out their cocks in the passage and stuff them into their flies with as much care as you'd take putting a dirty hanky into your pocket. One of them looks at me suspiciously and bars my path to the toilet.

"Bog's fuckin blocked, mate. You'll not be able to shite in that." He gestures to the seatless bowl filled of brown water, toilet paper and lumps of floating shite.

I look sternly at him. "I've got to fuckin go mate."

"You're not fuckin shooting up in there, are you?"

Just what I fuckin needed. Muirhoose's Charles Bronson. Only this **** makes Charles Bronson look like Michael J. Fox. He actually looks a bit like Elvis, like Elvis does now; a chunky, decomposing ex-Ted.

"Away to fuck." My indignation must have been convincing, because this radge actually apologises.

"No offence meant, pal. Just some of they young **** in the scheme have been trying to make this their fuckin shootin gallery. We're not into that."

"Fuckin wide-o ****s," his mate added.

"I've been on the peeve for a couple of day, mate. I'm gone fuckin radge with the runs here. I need to shite. It look fuckin awful in there, but it's either that or my fuckin keks. I've not shit on me. I'm fuckin bad enough with the drink, never mind anything else."

The **** gives me an empathetic nod and unblocks my way. I feel the piss soak into my trainers as I step over the door ridge. I reflect on the ridiculousness of saying that I had not shit on me when my keks are filled of it. One piece of good luck though, is that the look on the door is intact. Fuckin astounding, considering the atrocious state of the bogs.

I whip off my keks and sit on the cold wet porcelain toilet. I empty my guts, feeling as if everything; bowel, stomach, intestines, spleen, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs and fucking brains are all falling through my arsehole into the bowl. As I shit, flies batter of my face, sending shivers through my body. I grab at one, and to my surprise and elation, feel it buzzing in my hand. I squeeze tightly enough to immobilise it. I open my mitt to see a huge, filthy bluebottle, a big, furry currant of a bastard.

I smear it against the wall opposite; tracing out an 'H' then an 'I' then a 'B' with my index finger, using its guts, tissue and blood as ink. I start on the 'S' but my supply grows thin. No problem. I borrow from the 'H', which has a think surplus, and complete the 'S'. I sit as far back as I can, whout sliding into the shit-pit below ays, and admire my handiwork. The vile bluebottle, which caused me a great deal of distress, has been transformed into a work of art which gives me much pleasure to look at. I am speculatively thinking about this as a positive metaphor for other things in my life, when the realisation of what I've done sends a paralysing jolt of raw fear through my body. I sit frozen for a moment. But only a moment.

I fall off the pan, my knees splashing onto the pishy floor. My jeans crumple to the deak and greedily absorb the urine, but I hardly notice. I roll up my shirt sleeve and hesitate only briefly, glancing at my scabby and occasionally weeping track marks, before plunging my hands and forearms into the brown water. I rummage fastidiously and get one of my bombs back straight away. I rub off some shite that's attached to it. A wee bit melted, but still largely intact. I stick it on top of the cistern. Locating the other takes several long dredges through the mess and the panhandling of the shite of many good Muirhoose and Pilton punters. I gag once, but get my white nugget of gold, surprisingly even better preserved than the first. The feel of water disgusts me even more than the shite. My brown stained arm reminds me of the classic t-shirt tan. The line goes right up past my elbow as I had to go right around the bend.

Despite my discomfort at the feel of water on my skin, it seems appropriate to run my arm under the cold tap at the sink. It's hardly the most extensive or thorough wash I've had, but it's all I can stand. I then wipe my arse with the clean part of my pants and chuck the shite-saturated keks into the bowl beside the rest of the waste.

I hear a knocking at the door as I pull on my soaking Levis. It's the sense of wetness on my legs, again, rather than the stench, which makes me feel a bit giddy. The knocking becomes a loud bang.

"C'mon ya ****, we're fuckin bursting out here!"

"Hold your fucking horses."

I was tempted to swallow the suppositories, but I rejected this nothing almost as soon as it crossed my mind. They were designed for anal intake, and there was still enough of that waxy stuff on them to suggest that I'd no doubt have a hard time keeping them doon. As I'd shot every out of my bowels, my boys were probably safer back there. Home they went.

I got some funny looks as I left the bookies, no so much for the pish-queue gang who piled past me with a few derisory "about-fuckin-time-n-aws" but for one or two punters who alocked my wasted appearance. One crazy **** even made some vaguely threatening remarks, but most were too engrossed in the form cairds, or the racing on the screen. I noted Elvis/Bronson was gesticulating wildly at the TV as I left.

At the bus stop, I realised what a sweltering hot day it had become. I remembered somebody says that it was the first day of the Festival. Well, they certainly got the weather for it. I sat on the wall by the bus stop, letting the sun soak into my wet jeans. I saw a 32 coming, but didn't move, through apathy. The next one that came, I got it together to board the phucker and headed back to Sunny Leith. It really is time to clean, I thought, as I mounted the stairs at my new flat.

(by Moby)

to put it simply, and it's not a problem that only conservatives have, conservatives very often confuse (or conflate) ethics and aesthetics. when gertude himmelfarb lambasts our (as she perceives it) "amoral," "sexually deviant" and "polymophously perverse" culture she is primarily responding to something that she finds culturally foreign and aesthetically threatening.
i agree with her that values are oftentimes a good thing, but only when they are born of an ethical and pragmatic perspective, not an aesthetic one.

the conservtatives want a seemingly neat and compartmentalized society wherein stable appearances are maintained an archaic cultural archetypes are adhered to religiously. i grew up in a world of rigid cultural archetypes. i grew up with white businessmen going to office buildings while their wives stayed at home and their kids went to school, or, more accurately, i grew up with alcoholic, adulterous businessmen who lived culturally insular lives while their wives took sedatives and smoked cigarettes and vented their frustrations on their kids, and these same kids took reams of drugs, got abortions, drove drunk, and victimized the weaklings. i grew up in what most conservatives would consider a utopia; lots of money, prestige, cultural cohesion, and good conservative values.

but their values were in fact aesthetics, and maintaining these aesthetics ruled and ruined their lives. almost everyone in this suburban bourgeoisie system hated their lives, but because they have brought up to worship these aesthetic myths they felt that to question them was an admission of personal failure.

what are these myths? they're old an platitudinal but i'll trot them out again: that money makes you happy, that society is right, that poverty is bad, that maintaining convention in every aspect of your life is the ultimate good, that aberrance from these ideas is sin, etc.

I'm not going to say that the polar opposites of these clichés is true, that would be one of the failings of the radical left. i believe that for the most part these criteria are irrelevant. money can make life easier, but it can also make life miserable. poverty can be bad, but it can also be fine. convention has some good points and some bad points. what it all comes down to is a flexibility that should allow for the well being of the individual without compromising the rights of other individuals.

when conservatives trot out their litany of evils--homosexuality, single parent families, multiculturalism, etc, i'm always left asking "why?" if people are happy being gay then what's wrong with that? it may be a lifestyle that's aesthetically different from what we've been fraught up with, but so what? and single parent families? better a loving single parent family than a "conventional" family wherein the parents hate each other and the father is a demagogue.

one reason that we have such a wide variety of alternative lifestyles is that the conventional lifestyles that the conservatives champion are often quite flawed and restrictive.

restrictive mores can be terrific when applied to peoples' violent impulses, but restrictiveness is terribly unhealthy when it's used to get people to conform to arbitrary social archetypes. this restrictiveness can make people feel inadequate and inferior and it needs to be done away with.

if someone's gay, let them be gay. if your son wants to marry a black woman (or white or yellow or jew or muslim) then let them. we need to love each other and support each other even if we choose to live in alternative but harmless ways. obviously if your son is a rapist of a wifebeater or a child molester then you need to question your support of his actions & values.

i'm not championing a retreat from responsibility. i believe that personal and social well being is built upon a foundation of hard work, loyalty, honesty, diligence, respect, tolerance, and other good "values." but it doesn't matter what the cultural manifestation of the values looks like. it can be straight or gay or male of female or white or black or anything so long as it's respectful of other and makes the practitioner feel well.

so my advice to cultural conservatives (and others) would be to cultivate an approach to values that's based on principles rather than aesthetics. i would also say that any pronouncements on the values of others, especially pronouncements veering into the pre-scriptive realm, need to be cautious, pragmatic, logical, and not just the typical hateful and reactionary vacuities that we've grown so accustomed to.

here we are, saddled with 4 1/2 billions years of biological legacy, essentially designed to live short, aggressive and violent lives on the plains of the serengeti, but yet forced to be good, contemporary citizens. life is hard for everybody. we're all trying to eke out an existence in unbelievable confusing circumstances.
given our biological inheritance i think that we need to be more tolerant of ourselves and more tolerant and compassionate in our dealings with others. the standards that we have for human behavior are at times noble, but at times quite absurd. we're genetically designed to be lustful, aggressive, gregarious, productive creatures, and it can be a good thing to hold ourselves to high community standards of behavior, but we need to deal with ourselves as who and what we are, not just what we think we're supposed to be. the last thing in the world that we need to do is judge and condemn each other. i can understand locking someone up if they're violent, but i can't understand judging that person without compassion and tolerance. if you have a five year old child that likes to kick cats you don't abuse him and lock him in the basement and tell him what a horrible person he is. obviously you talk to the child and try to get him to figure out why kicking cats is not such a great thing to do. and you recognize that he's kicking cats not because he hates cats, but because he's expressing something that he feels and can't otherwise express. abuse begets abuse, compassion begets compassion. i'm not advocating a soft approach to criminal, violent, or anti-social behavior, rather i'm advocating an enlightened and realistic approach to our human-ness. locking a criminal up in a horrible place and making them feel like shit is neither a compassionate nor a culturally expedient way to deal with the situation. it's also not taking into account the fact that we're all essentially guilty of the same things. if i had been brought up in a different environment that was abusive and only reinforced violence and aggression i'm sure that i would have turned out differently. so how can i condemn someone and judge someone who was raised differently from me? i can, with justification, prevent someone from hurting someone else, but i can't comprehensively condemn them for it. we're all saddled with a violent biological and cultural legacy, it's just that some of us have the skills and upbringing to deal with it.

in most cases people just aren't aware of the effects of their actions. you can't take a creature who has spent the last couple of millions years reproducing and fighting and living a short and difficult life and them plop them in a suburb and ask them to enter data into a cpu and expect them to be well adjusted and fine. we're supposed to be out chasing and being chased, eating and being eaten. nothing in our genetic lineage has prepared us for most of what we deal with on a day to day basis. if you took a penguin from antarctica and put him in a corn field in mexico would you be surprised if he got sick and died? same thing with us humans. for the last million years we've, for the most part, lived in tight communities and led urgent and vital lives. we're not designed to be slothful and indolent suburbanites.

i'm not advocating a rejection of modern conveniences, but i am advocating an acceptance of what we've inherited and what we are as biological humans. christ took pity on us and had compassion for us, so why can't we try to have understanding and compassion for ourselves and for each other?

oooohhh Irvine Welsh! I've only read two of his books so far (brilliant stuff). I need to read more...

quote:

Originally posted by Ves oooohhh Irvine Welsh! I've only read two of his books so far (brilliant stuff). I need to read more...

you like? which books have you read?

Groovy baby

15 pages since i last checked, nice work!