Dan Taylor

A lovely winter warmer of a tale by Kriddy T, who still refuses to blog. One of the best things I’ve read for months and happily reproduced here from Kriddy’s message. James Kelman in reverse. Enjoy…

C A S H  C O N V E R T E R S : MY HELL –

So i got my nat king cole (kriddish for dole) money on tuesday and went on a spending spree. The day started with me going to Penge. I had a little look on the internet for a musical instrument shop that sold maracas (that weren’t £15 or above) and found a good place that had them for £9 (not exactly a bargain but probably the cheapish i could get). I then took the 176 up to the good ol’ Walworth Road for a look in the fine boutiques and bistro’s, I bought a microphone from cash converters that seemed pretty decent and that was a tenner, I also spied a black 8Gb iPod* at £24.99 as I went out but thought “nah, fuck it”. I then went off to south london’s finest market, east street market (or ‘da fackin lane’ if your a prole) and looked at all the useless shit on offer, i contemplated buying a green denim shirt but then i got scared of the thought that i might look like a t4 presenter so quickly binned that idea. *my old mp3 player fell in the bath

Next stop was tottenham court road, I got the 12 up to oxford street cos i wanted to go into this charity shop that has sometimes has decent clobber on sale but there werent much on offer so I walked down oxford street whilst stopping in HMV to have a look at the albums n stuff. I like having a look at the albums, mainly just to have a closer inspection of the cover art (which is alway good with The Fall) even though im never gonna buy them as all i do is simply type into google “[album name and artist] mediafire” and hey presto! Free music.

I got down to Denmark Street and realised that it were so like totally hilarious and LOLZ that theres a Job Centre on a street full of musicians n shit, like bare funnzy innit. So I went into a shop and had a look at the guitars trying not to feel too intimadated by the fucking cunts who eyeball your every move in there (also while i’m here, i have to say, they have the worse taste in music imaginable) and i asked the guy “how much is your cheapish guitar lead?”
“£15”

So i took a trip to few other places and found a shop that did a lead for £4, which isn’t too sore at all.

All this walking around was thirsty work, I went into a little shop and bought one them lamb samosa things you getter in plastic packet (i usually get them when im pissed so this made a nice change) and thought “y’know what, i’m gonna go for pint…..by myself”. Now some people might say I am a sad little man spending his dole money in spoons by him self and i might well probably agree, then the thought of someone seeing me drinking by myself made me anxious, I downed the pint quicker than can say….”pint”.

The 176 turned up eventually and I boarded back to camberwell, it started fucking pouring it down, but the sun was still bright so it made central london extra atmospheric, i took the opportunity to take a photo on my fone (cos im one of them twats that does that) which prompted some american tourist to come sit next to at the front and take a picture too (plagiarism). Then I got a flash back of the iPod in the cash converters. I wondered whether to buy it and thought to myself “I wonder whether to buy it”. Yes, yes I will.

At the cash converters the same guy got the iPod for me from the glass cabinet and handed it over to blonde polish assistant (weren’t that fit as she sounds if your wondering) for her to try it, which she did and showed me it was working. As she checked it she went “Aaliyah!” with a smile, the previous owner hadn’t deleted the contents so I was in for a nice suprise of r’n’b and other pop ditties. I handed over the cash and left with a now bulging bag full of fun.

I felt a little peckished so went to Greggs (where da fuck else?) for a sausage roll and then headed into morrisons to see if they had any good stuff in the reduced section eg. scotch eggs, yoghurt, booze, pork snacks in any shape or form etc. I bought three bottle of stella (those big one’s) for fiver (i got id’d and i havent shaved in a week!) and headed for the bus.

I tried to have a little look at my iPod on the bus but there was no battery in her, so just enjoyed the lovely ride down the boulevards of the walworth road into the salubrious area of Loughborough Junction.

When I got indoors my Mum was on the computer doing work, i cracked open a bottle of John Graham Mellor (kriddish for Stella) and i gave one to my mum, she likes a drink from time to time when shes doing her work, cant blame her really. I climbed upto my room to and fired up the laptop, not before i had a little mess around with the maracas and I checked the microphone was in working order (which it was). I plugged the iPod into the laptop and got ready to get down to some serious file transfering.

It came up as “aisha’s ipod” (yes it had a name), I deleted all the old crap and christened it “My IPOD”, which is a cracking name i know. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank “PHILLIPS 8Gb MP3 PLAYER” or Phil as he was known for his longstanding service until his untimely death in which he drowned in the bath with me, his corpse is now lying in the kitchen next to the teabags. I started putting all the stuff i wanted on to it, starting with ATV (there actually not too bad as it goes) finishing with The Velvet Underground. Happy days i thought (not the tv show), I disconnected the iPod which was now pregnant with fine music and switched her on to have a gander at it.

Everything was fine with it except the fucking menu button didn’t work, so you could listen to a track but if you wanted to go back a step you didn’t have a chance in hell. “Fucksake!” i roared.

I had a look on the internet, maybe there was someone way of tackling this, maybe on yahoo answers there might be some thirteen year old kid from Ohio who knows the way of unlocking it or something. I found one page which showed you how to open an iPod, with a vague suggestion there might be problem with dirt or something stopping the menu button from properly clicking. I got my manly wife (kriddish for stanley knife) and prized her open. This was the electrical product equivalent of key hole surgery, one wrong wrong move and she’s brown bread (cockney for dead). I then got too scared to carry on for fear of braking her. I carefully closed her body up and put it back in the bag. Refund was now on my mind.

The next day I got up and watched some shite on youtube for a bit and read about the stone roses reunion (to be honest i dont find the stone roses interesting but they do have some alright tunes tho, the reunion will be pretty darn embarrassing as they usually are but i spose it will make a lot of people happy so I why not pilage your legacy eh) and went downstairs for some toast with Sainsburys peanut butter.

The thought of the showdown at Cash Converters was weighing heavy on my mind. Now is the time, bring it on, “let’s fucking do this shit, yeah!?” i screamed at the top of my voice (in my head).

At the Cash Converters I was served by a different guy, a polite african bloke served me and asked if i wanted a different iPod. I agreed and he fetched a new one. He checked to see “My IPOD” was as bruck up as i said it was and he let have the new iPod (i say new, it was second hand with abrasions to sides and back), it was a kinda crappy teal colour instead of the black, but i thought this was a good sign, a sign this its going to work. I asked the guy if i could have a thorough look at it, i spent a minute whirling round the menu and clicking everything making sure it was in 100% tip top form which it was, and the guy let me have it even though it was priced ten pounds more at £34.99. Happy days (again, not the tv show) i thought.

A sausage roll later im on the bus trying to check it out, see if I could have more of a look at it, there was nothing on it so i switched it off, the previous owner was obviously savvy to the wonderful and frightening world of second hand retail and had eradicated the contents to not annoy the future user. Thank you sir/madam/

I got her home, going through the same process, for amusement purposes I called her “CRYPOD”. I got all my music on there and thought “now i can get on the bus and listen to music and i wont have to bat an eyelid at those charity bastards you see outside sainsburys in brixton cos ill have earphones in my head therefore meaning i dont have to talk to anyone”. Everything was working fine, the wheel and all the buttons on it worked and all my music was on it. I was happy. I plugged in the headphones and played taxidermist from the trendy sequencer-botherer’s Factory Floor (sound like these new puritans when they first started, s’alrite like).

“Fucking hell…” i moaned like housewife in a tone that suggested i had done this before.

The headphone jack on it was messed up, it only came out of one side. I checked to see if it was the headphones and plugged them into my laptop, perhaps they were damaged in the drowning incident on that fateful monday night when Phil died. The headphones worked. I tried plugging my iPod into my speakers and the sound only chimed from one side of the speaker.

“What the fuck!?!”

By Kriddy T