Who Is Andrew Beattie?

Yoo Hoo,

It’s me here. Seriously though, who else where you hoping to find here, on my blog? So it’s a blog again is it? The truth is I still have no idea. I’m still writing to myself currently and so I suppose it isn’t but I won’t tire you once again with the whole not having a website thing currently as by the time you are reading this I will have and it won’t be relevant to me at that point in time. I’m also likely to have several children at that point and just to put some perspective on that last sentence for you, I haven’t had sex with a woman for a very long time and so for me to have several children at the time of you reading this will make this at least 9 months into the future, and that’s based on the assumption that I’ll have sex this evening, which I won’t. I’ll move on now shall I?

It is 3pm, on an overcast, clammy, bank holiday Monday and just down the road in Liverpool, there are lots of people having fun, getting drunk and listening to live music as they have been for the whole weekend. I’ve just returned from Liverpool, but I wasn’t having fun, getting drunk or listening to live music. The reason for this is that today marks the second week of abstinence Andrew and a sober Andrew isn’t inclined to stand amongst a lot of fun having people, retching from a weekends alcohol intake whilst listening to bands that all sound alike. This Andrew is a boring Andrew and I should probably hate his guts, but I don’t.

What is certain though is that I am need an adventure of some sort to re-awaken the inner beast within the outer beast and so in the spirit of my list I’ve decided to plan some holidays for next year to a) give me something to work towards and plan for, b) give me something to write about and, last but not least, c) get me out of the country, away from my desk and in touch with new people, experiences and sights. I long for the last one, daily.

Where to go though? I’ve always fancied India, the colours, the smells, the sights, sounds, and the craziness of the volume of people living in such small areas. The whole raj thing also appeals to me, crumbling relics of a bygone era. I currently have a tingling down my spine at the mere thought of it and I’ve never been. I had planned to go to India this year before I decided to leave my job, security and money and even bought some books, and a map, which I’ve just found on my desk. What kind of person buys a map of India? This kind of person, that’s who. I had planned to book a flight and a couple of hotels and just make my way across northern India by foot or train. Anyone who knows me will know how radical the idea of me walking is but I guess it could be fun and just the type of excitement I am looking for. There it is, decided, and about to go on the list:

13. Go to India in 2010.

But, there is another trip that I also fancy making next year and again something that I had planned to do this year before, well you know what before means and so I’ll not repeat myself. Go across Europe overland. Now, I can’t drive and so by overland I mean by train. Me being me I had bought a series of books and checked out prices and had a little route planned. Liverpool to London, London to Paris. Paris, via overnight sleeper train, to Italy, and so on and so forth through another 7 countries and eventually back to Liverpool. Wait there a minute, what is this on my desk, another map? I was evidently very intent on doing this if I’ve bought a map. But I couldn’t could I? I couldn’t go around Europe and go to India in 2010. Money would be an issue but then I suppose it would give me something to work towards and ticks the whole what I’m looking for off the list. Well it was on the list to begin with and so I suppose I should stick to it. Wait there a minute whilst I add the last one:

14: Go around Europe via rail in 2010.

I’m feeling more upbeat already and so I’ll be off now to plan how the hell I’m going to manage to get the funds together whilst being upbeat and read my book, still on ‘The Last Cigarette’, whilst being upbeat.

Right, so here’s the plan. I’ll see you back here at some point over the next week and will have developed my plan somewhat on how the hell I’m going to raise funds for some adventures next year. I will also have booked some tickets to the theatre as I plan to do that. I haven’t added it to the list as I haven’t been to the theatre for many years and so I’m not sure if I’ll like it enough to warrant doing it again. If I suppose that if I do, I’ll stick it on the list but then….oh forget it. Until next time I will remain,

day dreaming of hot air ballooning across India and thinking of her, the one that got away.

Take care,

Andrew

Yoo Hoo,

I’m back at my laptop, at my desk for another exiting edition of stuff from my life starring me, Andrew Beattie. This particular episode will cover a range of topics from things I’ve done, right the way through to other corkers such as, things to do when you have lots of spare time and own a shovel and lighter fluid. Are you sitting comfortably? Right then, let’s get going.

Last weekend was my first weekend for several years in which I haven’t woken up with a hangover, on account of my self-imposed total ban on alcohol. It seems to be going ok and so far I haven’t felt the urge to have even a sneaky pint or slug of rum. It would appear that my not drinking is seen by some as a challenge and I have received 2 wagers against my abstinence, which amuses me a great deal. It did dawn on me as hands were being shaken that a) I should have told them to fuck off and b) that their total overconfidence in making the bet is likely to be a result of them being certain that I am either very weak willed or an alcoholic, or both. For me at least, this totally vindicates my decision to stop drinking and I look forward to videoing the next time that they are drunk and playing it the next day, 40 foot high and wide, on the side of the Liver Buildings with a revolving message underneath that reads, “Payback’s a bitch”, “Not so funny now is it” or simply “Big Twat”. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to get hit with a big fine for using the last one for false advertising and/or slander. It’s probably best if I leave the revolving text off the bottom, it could be seen as overkill. On the other hand, I could stick a 0800 number on there, leave the text on there and make a killing.

 Anyway, my not drinking was put to its first test when at the weekend I joined my younger Brother, David and doppelganger, Dad, at the 21^st birthday party of Phil, David’s best pal and all around good guy, where I sat in the corner for an hour or so, slowly drinking a can of coke and smug in the knowledge that I wouldn’t wake in the morning after having publically urinated in his garden, danced with myself and attempted to woo a married, much elder, relative of the birthday boy. On the other hand I was very boring and so I’m yet to decide which is the lesser of the two evils. For now at least I will decide against week long hangovers and self loathing.

Now if your reading this in the future and would like some context as to when I am writing this I will take this opportunity to say that England have just, this very week, won the ashes. That just happened.

Right, I’ve scanned my little notepad again for things that I have achieved since I last sat here and have found no inspiration and so I’ll leave now to jump straight into my latest read, the 3^rd Volume of the Smoking Diaries. I finished the second volume a couple of nights ago and had planned to move onto “The Essential Groucho” but it was not to be. “Ok, just one page” I told myself sternly and without first stopping to think how ridiculous it is to talk to one’s self. Ten pages later and the bookmark was taken from the pages of Groucho’s endless wit and wisdom and he was replaced on the bookshelf to joke another day. I did however, later that evening, atone for this slap in the face of comedy by watching Monkey Business, Duck Soup and Room Service. What can I say; I’m a sucker for the funnies. I’m not sure at this point why I’m still writing; maybe I’m not finished just yet. Oh yes you bloody well are Beattie. I appear to be talking to myself again and so I’ll stop now before I ramble on and take up any more of my time.   

Thank you once again for stopping in and reading. Until next time,

Django Reinhardt on, book out, bag of Everton mints open, and I’m gone.

Andrew

P.S. Ah ha, I forgot something that I noted down in my pad. I, Andrew Beattie, would like to join a Writers Circle in Liverpool, or online. If you are in one, or can recommend one, give me a shout with the details and I’ll reward you with riches beyond my wildest imagination.

Dear Diary,

It’s Friday and I’ve just arrived home, changed into shorts and sat down at my laptop. Today is the Friday after last Saturday and the self loathing has subsided enough for me not to break out in heavy cold sweating as the locker in my mind releases small windows into last weekend’s events that I watch through a haze. This week Karma chose my mind to punish me and for a good while there I was Karma’s bitch. Then I got over it, wrote it down and threw it away. So fuck you Karma.

Anyway, I decided today that this little thing I do from time to time at my laptop for a website that still isn’t live is going to be a diary, not a weekly diary but a medium for me to throw some thoughts down whenever the urge takes me so that I can look back on it in 20 years when I’m an astronaut and smile fondly at the time that I wanted to be a writer, grew long hair and a beard, before changing into my suit to meet the Vulcan emissary. The fact that I have decided today that this will be a diary probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am still reading the Second Volume of the Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray and also because I’m not posting it live onto a website for the world as yet which means it’s certainly not a blog. Yes, it’s a diary. Let’s see how long this will last.

The week has flown like banana and without much incident in truth. I’ve been spending a little time writing for my friend, Robin’s, motoring website which is owned by the company that I still work for from time to time, although my recent stint has been pretty much full time and will be till next week when it will end suddenly for a week or so and then I’ll come back for a couple of weeks, and so it will continue, my working life. The writing has been good; well I’m not guaranteeing that the writing has been good, but rather that the experience has been good and I’m looking forward to getting Robin’s feedback next week which will be kind and evasive to the fact that he didn’t like it. I did also buy some books but then I can’t really class that as a major event of my week as I do this most weeks. So that was it, my week. Oh no, it wasn’t, something else did happen this week, and it’s a biggie.  Football has returned to my life.

I’m a Liverpool fan, season ticket holder to be precise, and this week we won our first game of the season, first home game, but the second game into the season, if that makes any sense at all I’ll be very surprised but I’m not going back to edit it now. We are only two games into the season and so it’s too early for me to write about my hopes, expectations and fears but no doubt it will feature heavily over the coming months in laughs and tears and in you, my diary. Vomit.

I also had a rather strange set of events on my journey home this evening. I’d warn you that it’s not that interesting but you’re a diary so shut it. It all started when I arrived at the platform and sat down to read my book next to a lady who at the time was also reading, but I couldn’t catch what although it did have big letters. Shortly after I sat down she stood, replaced her book in her bag and walked along to the next set of seats where she sat next to a very loud, and clearly very drunk, young couple, he with spiky hair, she with massive hooped ear rings, both with shiny tracksuits and both with a pram containing a small baby, whom I currently feel very sorry for, for having such moronic parents. What was I talking about? Oh yes, the reading lady. Shortly after sitting down she stood again and walked away (which didn’t surprise me at all) and sat at another seat further along the platform. I returned to my book for five minutes before having a quick look up and finding the same women had returned to her seat on my right. She then repeated the whole thing again but mixed it up with a slalom effort of walking in and out of the various entrances along the platform. The whole thing lasted around 10 minutes until a train arrived and she boarded it and off she went. It was fucking bizarre but utterly entertaining and so I’ll be getting the train more often in future if this is the quality of live performance, and free live performance as well.

That’s it, except for a man in a smart and expensive looking suit who glared at me with his tongue out the side of his mouth for 20 minutes or so. I sniffed my arm pits twice to make sure that I didn’t smell and didn’t and so assumed that he had crossed my path last Saturday. If so, I hope I called him a twat or pissed on his shoes, or both. Actually that would explain the whole wanting me dead look and it would almost certainly grind my gears if someone had a wee on my shoes whilst they were on my feet. The very least I would do is glare, maybe even stick my tongue out.  I’m now almost certain that I saw him last Saturday, called him a twat and pissed on his shoes; it’s the only logical explanation for the glaring.

That is just about that for tonight. On account of me not drinking, I’ll be spending the night drinking Cherry Coke and attempting to write the second chapter of a book I’ll never finish. I’m glad I’m not going out to drink as I couldn’t take another mental beating at the hands of Karma. Maybe that man from the train station was Karma sending me a message. If so, I really hope I called him a twat and I’m sorry I didn’t do it again at the station. Ah well, until next time.

I don’t know what we’re yelling about.

Andrew

Aloha,

I’ll make this first section quick and to the point. I, Andrew Beattie, am a big fat dickhead. There, said it. The reason that I am a big fat dickhead will be obvious to those who happened to cross my meandering path on the Saturday just gone, people who I cannot apologise enough to for my drunken behaviour. I’ll begin by setting the scene. Late on Friday afternoon I asked a colleague, and good friend, Mike if he fancied meeting me for a few beers after he finished work on the Saturday. Mike, whose wife was down in London watching some Musical or another, was only too happy to oblige. Saturday arrived and my first big mistake of the day was not eating prior to arriving at the pub at 2pm. I vividly remember thinking that I would eat something early in the pub so that I would not get very drunk, very quickly. This was to be my last clear thought of the day. I’ll let me diary scribbles tell the rest of the story.

2:00 – Pig and Whistle Pub. No Food – Upset Stomach.  

3:26 – Mike has just said that Liverpool has lost its sense of humour. I’ll show him. 3 Pints.

3:45 – Small Work Related Rant. 4.5 Pints. No food.

4:00 – Told Mike and Tony that I cried about my Cat and potentially having to give him up a couple of nights earlier. 5.5 Pints. Still no food.

The next large blank stage in my notes is because we had moved to the bar of a very, very nice hotel across the road whose pleasant, well spoken and damn undeserving clientele witnessed me getting to around 8 pints and 1 rum and coke in a very short space of time, shouting loudly on my phone, being told to quieten down by the bar staff, insulting the bar staff, being told to shut up and still being allowed more drink. Drinking more at this stage was my second big mistake of the evening. I don’t remember any of the above events. They have since been retold to me. Somewhere or another I must have remembered my pad and decided to note down the following pearls of absolute wisdom.

7:30 – Now on my own. Rum and Coke. Started phoning through women on my phone.

8:15 – Refused more drink. Champagne at end of bar. Dislike Champagne and palm tree on bar. Told to fuck off several times by women whom I’ve called. Refused sex twice. Asked to leave.

I’m told at this point that I got a cab heading for home although I have no clue. I do however remember going to the pub on the way home for more alcohol and to meet Nick and Tank, two school friends who have since not taken my calls. Not going home was my third and last great mistake of the day. I woke with glass in my trousers the next day and so I’m likely to have smashed a pint glass or two which would explain my shunning. I also vaguely remember hugging a stranger in the pub and so I may well have been asked to leave here also. No man has ever been asked to leave this pub before me. I may never go to this pub again.

Now I know this is hardly the biggest pissed up night in the history of man but the problem is that this wasn’t a night, this was the middle of the fucking day, and so I have now added something else to my list which unlike the rest of my list I’ll be taking seriously-ish and will attempt to stick to.

12. Stop binge drinking with immediate effect. In fact, stop drinking at all or at least until you can have one drink without following it with ten more.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I’ll let you know about some other stuff I’ve done since I last sat here, in my usual spot, writing this thing of mine. Work is what I’ve done, work. It does however feel good to be back in work and if I hadn’t got totally plastered at the weekend I would have written sooner and would now be getting some final bits done for my website which isn’t live as I write this. Last week this would have annoyed me, this week it doesn’t. The reason it doesn’t is that I’ve given up on rushing it; it will be live when it’s live and not a moment before. I’m sure I’ll care again by Thursday, once all the alcohol has left my system.

I’m now going to depart from this week’s me writing to me effort to go and continue to read the ‘The Year of the Jouncer’ by Simon Gray. It’s the second in a four book memoir and it is fucking brilliant. In fact it’s that good that I’m not doing any more work for my site until its finished and so I’ll only have myself to blame once again, which is the story of my fucking life.

Until next time,

Don’t binge drink, it’s not cool,

Andrew

Hello Again Me, Me Here,

I hope you are damn well Skippy and enjoying some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, like me. It’s been a while since I wrote last and it will be a while longer until anyone is actually reading this which will be strange for people reading this now on my website which for them will be live now. No, don’t stop reading, this isn’t a mistake and you aren’t reading last week’s update, I am merely pondering inwardly to myself as I am currently writing this, to myself. Anyhow, it has been a while and so let me fill the gap with a small update of happenings in the world of me, Andrew Paul Beattie.

Since I last wrote I have:

1. Worked. This includes several hours on the telephone mixed in with toilet and smoke breaks and a constant and nagging feeling that I should have finished my degree.

2. Declined nights out. Against the best wishes of my list of stuff I need to do and my friends who are now starting to advise me that I am a boring bastard. And they haven’t even read my ramblings yet, ah ha.

3. Attempted to get my website live. This involves not trying hard enough to get my website live.

4. Not Written. No letters, no updates and no other writing unless in 140 characters or less.

5. Planned a Canoeing trip that I will never go on to prepare me for Canoeing the length of the country which I will never do.

What a busy chap I have been since I last sat here attempting a blog which incidentally this isn’t as I’m still writing to myself, like a twat. Anyhow, I missed something off the list, something that I’ll go into in a little more detail. Starting……..now……

I suffer from Panic Attacks. I’ve suffered from Panic Attacks for several years now and I’m sure it’s as a result of having smoked a little or a lot of pot when I was in my later school years. I haven’t, had a panic attack for 18 months or so now, the last being the time I last smoked pot and the last time I will ever smoke pot, until the next time, and so I was totally unprepared for the feeling of impending death as a result of my heart giving out before I had managed to have sex on the top of Everest and climbed a plane. I had been feeling pretty good on the day, had tea and a walk around Liverpool in the day with my cousin and returned home for some tea and a few beers in the house with David and then, like a ninja in the night, kerblamo, I am dying. “No mother, you will not drive me to the hospital” I exclaimed calmly whilst hyperventilating and pacing the house, ‘‘phone me a fucking ambulance”. This made perfect sense to me at the time as I was under no illusion that my heart was at that very moment doing its lap of honour around a very small playing field but not, clearly, to the paramedics who arrived on the scene like shining green and yellow knights and burst through the open door seemingly in slow motion to the Baywatch music with not a drop of sweat on their taught, crease free brows. It must be very difficult for paramedics not to be a little pissed off when they arrive at the scene of a panic attack and find a heavily sweating, overweight and bearded 25 year old on Wikipedia researching thrombosis, without blue lips, but fuck them, I was fucking well dying and my mum doesn’t have fucking electro paddles in her Toyota Yaris to shock the life back into me should I snuff it on route to A&E. I will point out that the paramedics were pretty damn nice and considerate to my condition, even if they didn’t acknowledge that I was potentially dying and instead discussed whiskey and Saturday night television with my mother in between telling me to calm down and calling me a sissy wimpy girl, all the way to the hospital.

Hospitals on a Saturday night, particularly in a major city like Liverpool, are much better than Saturday night television for several reasons but mainly because Piers Morgan isn’t there and so I was cheered up immensely upon arrival by several habitual hard drug fanatics and people with worrying in-growing toe nails whose feet, literally, felt like they were falling off, not that I’m judging at all because 30 minutes earlier I was, literally, dying but I’m the fucking victim here and you’ll do well to remember that. I was strapped to a heart monitor shortly after arrival and several litres  of blood taken pretty quickly after that and was soon back in the waiting room which hadn’t changed a great deal since I was last there, a bit like an old friend who stinks of piss and is an alcoholic heroin addict with a broken limb. It dawned on me whilst I was sitting there, pondering as is my way and dying a little less at this point, how much of a good job that the A&E staff actually do and with some patience I can tell you. It must be very hard to not get the electro paddles out and surprise attack Saturday night’s latest wino on the back of the head. Maybe I’ve touched upon the future of television here – A&E Ninja Prank Nurses hidden camera show with Ulrika Johnson as the host so that a generation of watchers can comment about the time when she used to be sexy and about the time when she got smacked around by Stan Collymore, who in turn got smacked around by a gaggle of Rugby players and later threatened to smack around Vanilla Ice, on a farm. I can see a trend growing here and I don’t like it.

 Anyway, after 6 hours of waiting, probing, blood tests, very pretty nurses who wanted to have sex with me (I may have slept for an hour or so and so this may have been in a dream, which would certainly explain the nipple clamps, the Morgan Freeman Voiceover and her, the one that got away) and a pleasant young graduate in white coat who cupped my balls before taken for the X-Ray on his broken foot, I was discharged with the usual panic attack prognosis, which I had sussed an hour after arrival, my tail between my legs and safe in the knowledge that I will not be back for at least 18 months. Cue another massive panic attack.

Anyhow, that’s just about enough from me. Checked the notepad and this is a taste of the other stuff that I have done that I have now forgotten about already.

09/08/09 – Back to work tomorrow although unsure exactly what I’ll be doing? Also, hospital panic attack notes for journal (I actually called it a journal, ha!)

10/08/09 – Not fucking working tomorrow, that’s fucking well what I’ll be doing. Big sweaty bollocks. Getting drunk tonight.

Until next time,

Calm down and take care of your nurses.

Goodbye,

Andrew