Experement gone wrong.

On Monday the 5th of June I did something fairly foolish for some easy money (a bad reason to do anything). Unfortunately, it didn't pan out the way I had hoped.

A friend had told me of a trick to get free money out of a cash machine - A fairly foreboding first sentence of an anecdote I'm sure you'll agree - basically the trick is you take out a fairly large amount of money (the number of notes is the key to the scam), I took out £50 possibly too little. You then just remove the centre notes and wait until the machine swallows the remaining notes back up - the idea being that the atm will refund your account the whole amount, but you will have half the money. Sounds like a good idea and I have no qualms about stealing from the banks that have been stealing my tax money over the last couple of years.
So picture the scene it is 7.30pm, storm clouds roll ominously over the town of Penzance I am following Becca and Monika to the Chinese, after spending a couple of pints in Kasbar. As we are passing Natwest I decide to check my bank balance, nothing suspect about that... I’m standing there waiting for my balance to pop up when this thought pops into my head, it’s been sitting there dormant for a couple of weeks but now… why not. I hit the 'new transaction' button. I hit the withdrawal button. £50 (who new withdrawing money could be this exciting). I took two tens from the center and waited. Beep beep beep – computer language for ‘please take your f’in money’. No one else on the street. Beep beep beep…. Gobble gobble gobble. So I check my balance again and low and behold... It’s minus £50. Fuck, Frazer you wanker you’ve just lost me £30.
So it’s the next day. I am about to put into action a skill of mine I do not readily use (it would be unfair on the rest of the humanity) my ability too blag. I strolled into Natwest, up to the enquiry desk casual as anything:
"Excuse me the machine outside chewed up some of my money last night, I'm wondering what the procedure for getting it back is?" (Keep it simple, people always overcomplicate lies).
"Oh, you have to fill in this form and if the atm doesn't balance when we change it we can refund your account. Have you got your bank card?"
She finds me on her computer. Here comes the fuck up.
"How much did you withdraw?"
Now, do I tell her the actual amount I tried to withdraw or the amount that was left in the machine?
"30 I think." Weak Teagan she's suspicious now.
"Well it says here your most recent withdrawal was £50."
"Oh yea actually it was."
She looked up at me sceptically "I'm going to have to write the reason for you not receiving the money and if it’s at all suspect we are allowed to refuse repayment."
I felt my cheeks begin to warm up. I had to think on my feet now so I go into my ‘hesitant coming clean’ bit, awarding me some precious thinking time "Awww... It's just it's a bit, ummm, well embarrassing really."
"What happened did your cock flop out or something?" No word of a lie that’s what she said. She was in her mid 20s and a bit of a joker it seemed. I cast aside this outrageous accusation and carried on with my story.
"Urhh no, I was at the cash machine wallet in one hand phone in the other" I demonstrated "and as I grabbed the notes with my wallet hand I only managed to snatch a couple, in doing so one of the tens slipped out of my hand and began to blow down the street. I chased it down the street like an idiot, luckily no one was about at the time." That covered up the embarrassment. "By the time I got back the money had gone. Like I said there was no one about so, the machine defiantly took it."
After writing this and a few more details in the form she let me go. I was rung up a couple of days later and told the full amount of 50 pounds had been transferred back into my account. I think what I got out of this experience is threefold firstly: crime sometimes does pay, banks don’t give a shit about dolling out small amounts of money and lastly in retrospect I am probably partly responsible for the recession.

Too cool!

I wrote this a long time ago, found it in an old notebook.

I've woken myself up drowning 1000 times, but its you I'm trying to save. Water rises, rithing around me. Constricting but so free. Snow blind. Salt bite eyes, closed tight. Seconds like minutes, minutes like hours. I stirke out. The tyres spin in the mud. Drift wood helpless in the waves.

Your two strong arms lift me.

It's you I will live for. To make the same mistakes as you, and worst. Make the connections you would of made, if you'd just had the time. This will be my way to maintain a peice of you in this world.

All we are is driftwood in the shallows, waiting for that rip to drag us out for the next set. Lets hope it's a good one.

Self-indugence.

I was wondering why I have started writing this 'blog'. I have no conclusion as of yet, I'm just hoping to find out as I write.

First off, writing is something that I very much enjoy to do. I'm generally good at expressing myself, whether its through talking to people or writing, but I find that I'm more free to be completely open when I write. It’s like being on ecstasy your inhibitions are loosened and the truth is more likely to flow out whether you mean it to or not. Which I think is a good thing, I occasionally play dark and mysterious but I think I'd live a happier life if I was always straight with people, and I can be when wrighting - I don't feel the need to stay within the norms of social conduct, to restrict myself to avoid embarrassment, as I believe I do in most everyday conversations.
But this makes me think to myself; am I doing this for selfish reasons or am I trying to enrich and enlighten the lives of other Blogspot users... It definitely is not the later. This brings me to thinking is everything I write to indulge myself? Is there any non-selfish form in which to write my mind? I've written reviews and articles and the like which have been solely for the reader but I don't think that counts, I'm still writing for me as well, to accomplish something.
The reason I am thinking these thoughts, is because I read an article today by someone who is the definition of self-obsessed, he tells the story of his struggle to 'overcome' body dysmorphic disorder, an 'illness' in which you are completely obsessed by your appearance. The article was for a website called Health and Spirituality (eeeew). The irony of the piece was how he was writing about overcoming his self-obsession but in an entirely self-indulgent way.
Everything I have so far written (on here) is either to inform, entertain or both. But who is my target audience? Who am I trying to inform and entertain? Me?

Encounters.

A man is looking across the busy park at me. He is curious, out of place. He is wearing a battered old 3 piece (no tie), the seams have come apart around the shoulders, giving the impression the jacket is to small for him and he is pooping out, it conjures a picture of Bruce Banner transforming into the incredible Hulk. He approches, sits down beside me, he smells - I would guess - like a man who hasn’t washed for several weeks, his age is undeterminable under his bushy salt and pepper beard, and his leathery, weather beaten face, I get the impression he was once quite strikingly good looking, puts me in mind of a young Mickey Rourke before the plastic surgery. He is sitting right beside me, shoulder to shoulder looking down towards his hands. I look at his hands, they often say the hands are the key to telling someone’s age. His show strong veins running down onto his knuckles, they are free from skin imperfections which often come with age, but are dark and show off the spoils of fights and possible bites, both scattered with whitened scars. He looks up at me then back down to his feet, I’m a little frightened by him but there is something in his beetle black eyes that he had flashed at me that draws me to say something.
“Wh…”
I think twice, we carry on sitting in silence.


I've written this because I was wondering what stories this man had, he was definately a character and I think one day I'll write him in to something. If only I'd had the courage to talk to him, I'm sure I would of got alot from it.

Buggies in Bath

Last night I got back from me and Dano’s road trip to visit Bath Spa Uni. We set off 1ish on Sunday, with the plan to stay in my mate Sam's halls and then be up early for the Uni open day on Monday (yesterday). You may be asking how a cripple like me can be ripping up the southwest, touring cities and universities a mere 12 days after a major knee op. The answer is simple get yourself a caddie to drive you around, carry luggage etc (Dan served me very well). Secondly and very importantly use peoples sympathy to your advantage! I don't think I opened one door the whole trip don't underestimate the kindness of strangers!

The trip was very successful in the sense we did everything we went to Bath to do, can't truthfully say the road to achieving our goals was entirely bump free or pot hole free for that matter. Lets just say Bath is not a very car friendly city and after navigating the one way street, traffic light and difficult junction riddled roads for about two hours both me and Dan were about to pack in the idea of ever living in this automobile nightmare. You would expect the people of bath would ad least have a vague idea of the layout of there city, it would seem not.

After the initial madness it seemed to make sense (as we weren’t getting anywhere) to park up and await rescue. This was about seven and as Sam wasn't going to be in Bath until about nine, my mate Oscar, who also lives in bath, agreed to meet us and show us around. The closest place to where we parked (it had to be close due to my crippled ness) was a Weatherspoons, cheap beer just what we needed after the days stresses. It was great to see Oscar, very cool guy, and he filled us in on the places to be in bath, student life etc.

Sam turned up at 9 introductions and more pints, then after goodbyes to Oscar it was straight off to Sam's as we were all knackered after late nights and long journeys.

Arriving at Sam's without a hitch, the three of us were shocked by the state of the kitchen; we had entered a skag den. The bins were overflowing onto the mud covered floor, there was not a clean plate in sight. I'm not the cleanest of people but I wouldn't be able to spend 10 minutes in that kitchen. A fuming Sam led us into his fittingly spotless, tidy bedroom and we set out mats (far to thin) before falling into our deep well deserved sleeps we watched a couple of Heeelarious South Park episodes 'Pandemic' Series 12 soooo good! "I'm so startled".

Watch Pandemic Part 1

Watch Pandemic Part 2

The next morning we left Sam's with some directions to Bath Spa Sam had drawn for us. The directions were good but are tired brains took a while to find are destination, we were about 10 minutes late in the end after going right off course.
After an introductory seminar we were told to head up campus to the English and Creative writing buildings, I was offered a mobility scooter (hahaha) and after some deliberation I accepted. At first it was slightly embarrassing scooting around, a lot of hotties at this event and I felt a bit of a 4 wheeled prat! After the first few minutes I got into it though, offering rides, speeding up and slowing down to comic effect etc.
The Lecturers seemed pretty cool and the courses seemed as good as I had hoped.

After returning to the meeting point, me and Dan were given a private tour of the accommodation, by a lovely young lady, funnily enough from Truro (only half an hour away from Penzance - my home town) she was a little ditzy and presumed I had brought the buggy from home "yea took me four days to get here on the M5!"
The accommodation is brilliant; the kitchens which are shared between 8 people are massive! The girl showing us around said they had a party the night before with a band in the kitchen and over 60 people!! Crazy!
We got another campus tour to get in all the other sites, the castle, the SuBar... Our tour guide for this (another private tour) was another lovely young lady who liked to re-enact the civil war in her spare time - hmmm.

The drive back was uneventful, but it was sad that the road trip was coming to an end.
It was an enlightening trip and it has reconfirmed my decision to spend the next three years of my life in Bath Spa University. Speed on September.

Distractions...

I'm writing this to distract myself from the surgically created vagina on my leg, which is desperately trying to give birth to the springs and wires that have so rudely interrupted the peaceful, natural healing of my knee ligaments.

Dan, Me and Tegan Kasbar 9pm

How this annoyingly long term ailment 'popped' into existence was during a night of debauchery in the debauche capital Penzance. It was my lovely friend Tegans Birthday (yes we share the same name) and a good time was being had by all. Kasbar to Weatherspoons, to The Star for twister and pool, to Sportsque for rattler and finally Studio Bar for dancing and eventually ambulances.

I've had quite nasty pains in my knee before (probably should of gone to hospital but not a fan) so when I first slipped on the - pound a bottle - Carlsberg drenched floor I initially thought to myself "oh fuck here we go again" but when I sat down and inspected me knee what I discovered was fairly unnerving... my knee seemed to be sticking out at a very unusual angle. As my friends went into their drunken emergency procedure, calling ambulances and holding back the swaying inebriated throng of the dancefloor from my leg, I sat (I’d like to think patiently) waiting for that bastard ambulance. After what seemed like an hour but was probably nearer 15 minutes I could not stand the insufferable pain any longer and so decided to try and shove my knee back into position and it worked… sort of. I was later told, when in A&E, that I hadn’t put it all the way back in and was then given a lengthy and agonizing demonstration of how it is meant to be done.

Me in the ambulance 2am

It is now 5 days since the accident, nearly 2 days since the operation and I am presently living in our spare room living for the Co-codamol and playing Playstation – something that I stopped doing a long time ago but it helps keep my mind of my throbbing bionic centre of pain.