And one more, this is Stephen Fry’s Heineken ad

Another Great UK beer ad

Carling Black Label beer ad from UK in 80’s. Classic

This is the monsters bollocks

Let me know what you thought of Humbug and The man with the ants in his eyes, if they have potential I’ll start polishing them shiny turds. If not… well, I guess I’ll go back to the drawing board.

It started raining when I was halfway there, the police station was right over on the other side of the estate. I was riding like crazed kid, my hair stuck to my face and drops of foul tasting water continuously hopped off the end and entered my mouth.

Images of Spider chasing me around the houses with all manner of weaponry in his hands plagued my mind as I pedalled. I had no choice though, my friend was in detention for something Spider had done. I assume Spider had done it for very gallant reasons, his friend was getting the blame for the attack on his mother, he was hurting because someone had battered his mother, so the psychopath had done what he felt was right to ease his pals pain. But it had backfired badly, when Spider told Lee what he’d done Lee went off the deep end.

Lee rained punch after punch down on Spider, Spider, to his credit, stood there and accepted the beating.

“That was my fucking Dad,” Lee cried as he kicked and punched his friend. I’d watched all this from the catwalks, it made sense, Spider had orchestrated the burglary at my Dads work which meant he was in possession of a hammer, rumours were abound indicating Frank Thompson as the attacker of his wife. Lee was adamant of his innocence and I for one believed him, I’m guessing Spider believed him too.

As Lee smashed the car with the grid cover he was ranting over and over.

“That was my Dad, you can’t kill my Dad, why did you kill my Dad?”

I approached the roundabout at Brownley road, I was almost at the station, spray from the car in front rendered me temporarily blind.

Police. A hundred yards away the word flash white on a blue background.

A loud screech involuntarily jerked my neck to the right.

I wanted to get home in time for the A-Team.

A large grill filled the view to my right.

I liked Murdoch, he was funny.

Leyland, read the chrome legend in the centre of the grill.

I wish my plans always came together the way Hannibal Smith’s did.

A blast of deafening horn joined the screech in a moment of orchestral brilliance. The two bled beautifully into one another as they rose to a crescendo before…

It was ace the way BA had to be drugged to go on a plane, the damn fool fell for it every…

I caught a glimpse of the horrified expression above the grill.

All went black as a thunderous cymbal crash brought the performance to its rousing conclusion.

I couldn’t shake the sight of the dead guy from my mind, I woke at night with vivid images of ants crawling out of his nostrils, earwigs emerging from open wounds, the sightless eyes with all manner of insect life scurrying across them.

The smell of his decaying body lingered for days.

I couldn’t bare company, I hid myself away.

That was how I came to be lurking alone on the catwalks when Lee and Spider came around the back of the shops.

“He fucking deserved it,” Spider shouted that.

“No he fucking didn’t,” Lee was crying, I don’t recall seeing Lee cry since we were about eight years old and he twisted his ankle. We were doing garden patrol with Lester and all the bigger kids, we smashed through Mclusky’s hedge, up over Barret’s fence, we were on Brown,s tricky fence/hedge combo when Lee landed funny, his ankle swelled like an inflated rubber glove and he bawled his eyes out.

All the big kids took the piss and he seemed to take their advice because from that moment on Lee hardened the fuck up.

“Well, it’s fucking done now…” That was when Lee lunged at him.

I pulled my legs up to my chest, made myself as small as possible.

“I’m not going to fight you,” Spider yelled as Lee rained punch after punch at him.

“Fucking bastard, fucking bastard…” Lee was chanting as he exhausted himself.

“ENOUGH…” Spider took one swipe at Lee that sent my friend clattering to the ground. I was rooted to the spot, unable to intervene, my heart was beating a tattoo in my chest.

“I did it for you,” Spider looked like a madman, he aimed a kick at Lee, paused, thought better of it, let out an almighty roar and stormed away.

I was about to jump down and console my friend when he jumped up and started screaming, he tore the grid cover from the ground and began yelling and swearing and trashing a car with it.

I melted into the wall and stayed there for an hour after the shrieking and crying and clang and scrape of metal on metal had died away.

“There’s the sea, kids,” my Dad’s announcement sounded pretty grumpy.

“Where?” Lester and I said at the same time.

“There” he gestured out of the front window, past the speeding wiper-blades as they squeegeed buckets of water from the glass.

Outside the rain fell in a relentless torrent.

“Where?” Lester asked again.

“THERE, THERE,” he yelled back at us. He was gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white.

“Hey, it’s not their fault it’s raining,” my Mum said.

We went on a one week holiday every year, my uncle had a caravan that he let us have for free. My Mum filled the shopping trolley full of breakfast cereal and washing up liquid and eggs and tins of beans and… pretty much everything we needed for the week.

It had rained all week so we hadn’t managed to play on the beach or paddle in the sea.

The car was all packed up, we were heading home.

My Dad thought it had been a waste of a holiday, what was the point of going to the seaside if you can’t have a splash about in the sea?

The grey, rolling ocean was just visible through the persistent wall of grey rain.

Lester and I had spent all week in the arcade, our sandwiches hadn’t consisted of as much sand as ham and we hadn’t had to endure the embarrassment of playing on the beach in our Y-Fronts.

Best holiday ever.

“I don’t think he should watch this…” My Mum had said that to my Dad.

“He’ll be fine,” my Dad had responded.

The movie was great, but…

I lay in bed listening.

I could hear voices coming up through the floor boards.

I could hear the TV, sound effects, boioioing, then voices.

My Dad said something then coughed.

I heard my Mums laughter, it was a sound that enveloped the listener, cocooned them in its warmth.

then…

The light had changed, it was darker.

The room was colder.

All was silent, my Mums laughter had vanished.

The TV sound effects had been silenced.

It was coming true…

I pulled the eiderdown a little higher and hugged Jedzi, my bear, a smidgeon tighter.

Someone out on the street screamed, my heart began racing faster.

There was a hill opposite our house and I could imagine him moving slowly, mechanically over it.

A shrill wind whistled through the pass between our house and the one next door, my bedroom window rattled as a particularly diligent gust tried to dislodge the glass.

A loud bang outside caused my throat to constrict.

The wind whistled around the house, it was as shrill as a thousand screaming babies.

I had the blankets and bear over my head when Gort smashed the front wall down, the robot looked at me for a second as his visor rose then the huge black and white robot vaporised me with a blast of pillar box red laser light from his one eye.

“Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!” I screamed, I raised my arms as they and I turned to dust.

I sat up in bed, I was shaking like a jelly in a food fight and sweat was pumping out of me.

Maybe my Mum was right when she suggested I shouldn’t watch the Day The Earth Stood Still.

The first frost of the year covered the ground the day they buried Frank Thompson.

I wasn’t invited to the funeral, hardly anyone was.

He wasn’t a popular man, he’d gone mad a few years ago. I don’t know the full story, just the bits I’d overheard at Lee’s house or my parents saying. The local news papers had enjoyed spinning truths and untruths about The Man in the Woods, they had printed stories about his time in a mental institution, they had interviewed locals that were only too happy to spread shit about the dead man.

“He was violent,” they told reporters.

“He went mad when he lost his job at the abattoir,” was another quote by a local nobody.

“He used to beat his wife, he tried to commit suicide, he has a tattoo, he pays prostitutes, he likes the Muppet show…” The publicity hungry bastards from the estate threw any muck they could down onto the poor mans grave.

The pieces I put together from Lee and my parents were that Frank Thompson had lost his job, he worked in an office at the abattoir. Like most on the estate, he was a proud man, he didn’t ask for or accept charity and when the Thompson’s started struggling financially Frank began to lose his marbles.

There were some big fights between Lee’s Mum and Dad, Lee always said his Dad never beat his Mum, they just fought, argued.

Luck had obviously deserted Mr Thompson, for on the day he tried to kill himself, a task that should have gone quite smoothly considering the method the man favoured, he failed. When Frank Thompson jumped off the motorway bridge on a balmy June morning, what were the fucking odds of him landing on the back of a flat bed truck. He broke an arm and a leg and was hospitalised for his own safety.

His wife and mother-in-law attended his funeral, they both wept. His son was in a prison cell for a crime he didn’t commit so didn’t get to mourn at his fathers grave. I was up a tree on the outside of the cemetery, I watched the poultry cortege roll into the graveyard, I watched the two actual mourners supporting one another at the side of his grave. I saw the spattering of vultures and leeches, newspaper men, photographers and local rubber kneckers come to get their fifteen minutes.

Locals that didn’t know Frank Thompson.

Locals that didn’t even like him.

Locals that wanted to be a part of this scene, this event, the only newsworthy event the estate had ever known.

Locals that just wanted their fat fucking faces standing near the grave on the cover of the local rag.

It turned my stomach.

I couldn’t bare it any longer, I climbed down from the tree and went to the police station to tell them who really killed Frank Thompson.