Some years ago I had a girlfriend. She was a very nice, very pretty, fun and lovely woman. In fact, she was so nice I married her and then bred a heir.

Before this taking on of responsibility however, and incidentally girls I'm now single (!), we occasionally had a reckless time. She worked in a factory as a senior new product development bod (she was a food scientist) and her Christmas bash was approaching. Her colleagues (with one exception) were a bunch of wankers so we agreed to pop down and show willing, before coming home early. This was partly as we loathed the company, and partly as we were a bit skint.

That lunchtime I indulged in my usual lunchtime ritual of a pub visit. I had £4 in my pocket, bought a pint and decided to lob the last quid into a fruit machine. I won £107.

This was a good thing. I bought a round, had £80 odd bar left, and then went back to the office, resolving to buy my wife some nice underwear or something similarly romantic. Surprisingly this didn't happen.

We went and met her colleagues. In the first bar m wife got hit on by one of them, so I smacked him, booted him out of the pub and told him that if he went near her again I would kill him. This rather set the tone for the evening.

The whole 80-odd quid was spent on vodka. My wife had a pint drinking contest with a huge Geordie bloke, and won. I convinced people I was a football hooligan and that my father was Howard Marks. Then I did the YMCA (this is incredibly out of character). We had a massive row in the street, then went home at 4am, with work the next day...

Morning came, and my wife swiftly realised that driving to work was not an option for her. Ever her gallant champion, I removed my head from the pillow; "Don't worry! I'll drive you!" I cried, in the manner of a heroic cabbie rescuing a bride whose car had broken down. I got from my pit, tumbled over, straight through the glass door of the wardrobe. I fell over a further three times reaching the bathroom (a whole 10 feet away), and my wife concluded perhaps she should arrange a lift instead of relying on me.

I left her waiting, took some paracetemol and hopped into my motor. Pausing only to be sick out of my window, I turned the key, and gunned the engine. This was unwise. I got onto the main road, just, then hit the kerb several times in a matter of seconds. A thought tried valiantly to penetrate my vodka fuelled brain, and eventually did. I pulled over (or rather abandoned the car), called a mate and got a lift in.

He saw my condition, and turned up the tunes. And sang. The bastard. I puked up at work (and I was the manager!), then fell asleep at my desk, waking an hour later covered in dribble.

We had spent all my winnings, plus some more. Good work us!

It was a bright sunny day. I'd woken mid-morning, as was my custom, and I thought I'd begin the day by relaxing in a gentleman's way and making the most of my natural morning glory.

I conjoured some filthy thoughts, and commenced. As I was approaching the point of no return, tongue out of the corner of my mouth and peculiar expressions aplenty, my bedroom door burst open.

Standing there, open mouthed and shocked, were two of my housemates. Immediately I was struck by the horror of situation and I wanted the a hole to open up and swallow me (fnarr!). Fortunately though, I retained my presence of mind. Aware that if I showed my embarrassment my life would be made excruciatingly cringeworthy for months I gave a cheery wave and said "Alright lads, just wanking myself frigid. You couldn't give us a minute could you?"

They left, and whenever it was spoken of people laughed with me instead of at me. Result.

I woke up. My eyes were as yet unopened, but sound was creeping into my ears and a headache was enthusiastically making itself known. I shook my head and buried it further into my pillow. It didn't work; I was conscious and loathing it. I began my daily routine, thrusting my hand into my boxers and having a fumble. "Yup" I thought, "two of them, one of those, all present and correct" I forced my eyes open, struggled to recognise my location, and looked down at myself. What I saw shocked me... how the hell had I become covered in mud? Why had I only one shoe? Why, in the name of God why, did I have an enormous cuddly horse enveloed in my arms?

The answer wasn't long in coming. My friend Oli heard my coughing upon awakening and appeared with a spliff.

"Urgh" I said. " Why does my mouth taste like something has had a shit in it?"

Oli replied "Because we did loads of mushrooms, and ketamine, and you didn't brush your teeth before bed."

Memories came rushing back...


TBC

An unfortunate and somewhat complicated series of events had led to me being in the possession of the police. After protracted discussions (and an overuse of the word filth) I was escorted to my friend Oli's house.

Oli and I fired up the X-Box and drank some wine. Then some beer. Then some vodka. Our performance on the X-Box declined and sad to say we decided that we really did need some more booze. This led to a couple of problems becoming apparant. Firstly we had no money and secondly we had no transport.

As we were at Oli's folks house we went and raided their cellar, pilfering some high quality brandy. We stole it and drank it and retired to our separate rooms for sleep, pissed as little beetles.

We woke, groggy and stumbling, and decided the cure would be to get stuck into some spirits. We did, and settled back to watch the Grand Prix. During our cheering of Hamilton, Oli noticed the screen had a slightly soft focus. Further investigations revealed that there were big issues with the floor, namely that it was wet. As were the X-Box games, attested to by the now-wrinkly sleeves.

Then we discovered it was piss. One of us, neither of us admits (or recollects) it, pissed on his tv.

I think it was him; the evidence being that the tv was in the room he was sleeping in while I was upstairs opposite the bathroom.

A couple of years ago. I had been out the night before, and consequently had a whole variety of noxious gases fighting one another for release.

I gamely held them in, but was becoming more bloated by the second. Eventually the pressure became critical and a fart that had been brewing for hours was released.

It was a warm, cosy experience lasting whole seconds, and was blessedly silent. It was just bad luck that I happened to be in the downstairs of a particularly small and over populated shop.

I eased my way around the room, distancing myself from the scene of the crime. Then it started. People began to migrate towards my side of the shop discussing the smell. Some started discussing a potential drainage problem. Seconds passed and if anything the odour intensified as it wafted towards us.

My missus, recognising it as one of mine (partially because I was trying to suppress a grin), gave me a filthy look and left the store, hotly persued by every other customer, all looking around to see who had perpertrated this horific crime. I was trying to look equally insulted by the pong but all the time I was biting my cheek to prevent myself laughing and was feeling rather proud of myself.

Outside the shop I began to laugh, nearly weeping.My missus, less impressed, was very annoyed and embarrassed.

And that is the story of how I cleared an entire shop just by farting.

Oh, and as a post script, I did exactly the same 20 minutes later in a jewellers. I was sent home in disgrace and spent the entire evening chuckling.

It was a summer's night. The weather was fine and the pub had a barbecue. I met my friend Jim, and went for a beer. I only took a tenner as I planned only to have a couple.

It went wrong. Badly, badly wrong. WHile visiting the gents I saw a man filling the fruit machine with an excessive amount of pound coins.

Being a bit of a slot jockey, I realised that it was going to pay out and summoned Jim to assist me. We took the machine for £85, then the next one for £60. It was approximately 7 in the evening at this point. I remember little else, but there is a persistent memory of honking up in the harbour and buying an excessive amount of Chinese food on the way home.

On my arrival back at my house I tried to be silent so as not to disturb my sleeping girlfriend, gradually disentangling myself from my clothes with a grace that would have made an elephant ashamed, and then tumbling into bed.

I was told what I had done the next morning. I had got out of bed and stumbled into the wardrobe, making a hell of a din and waking my girlfriend. She asked what I was doing and I explained that I was having a wee. She gently pointed out that I was in the wardrobe and suggested I use the toilet. I grunted acknowledgement and made my way via the walls and floor towards the bathroom.

I took a wrong turn along the way. We had a chest freezer at the time. I made my way to the freezer, lifted the lid and let fly with a huge beer filled piss, then returned to bed.

The first I knew of this was the almighty scream that woke me at 7 the next morning. My girlfriend had spotted a large puddle on the floor and investigated by opening the freezer. The odour combined with the yellow tinged ice had told her what had happened.

My life was miserable for the rest of the week.

I have worked at the same company for five years. This years have been generally successful, ambitious and moderately sensible. However they have been punctuated with some notable disasters. From the Christmas party when I ended up 60 miles from home, to the races of two years back when Natalie and I caused mayhem and she was threatening to force sex on Andy, to the incident with Rob in the car park which led to speed humps being installed, to the incident with Rob, the earpiece and the maggots. I have been told that for all my qualities I remain the person most likely to generate a lawsuit by accident. This is not something I'm proud of, and I promised myself I would change.

"This year's horse races will be different" I said to Nat, meaning I'd have a few pints, get a bit merry and go home and do some household chores. Naturally, bearing in mind the title of this journal, you've probably anticipated that this isn't what happened.

Natalie, being a knob, was pissed within the first five minutes of getting to the track. The afternoon was spent in the company of lots of people going "Aah" and "Ooh" as the races were run, the crack of opening cans, the sound of Oli and I skinning up and cries of "Fuck!" "Cunt!" "You know, don't you!" and the World's Loudest Cackle were heard coming from the balcony of our hospitality suite. These sounds were audible from the trackside bookies sites' some distance away. "Lo!" I thought smugly. "Surely that isn't the fair Nat! Not at the races? Again? While I'm sober?" I may even have laughed out loud.

It was Nat. And I was about to learn that smugness heralds embarrasment. Embarrasment, Inconvenience and a bit more embarrasment.

The embarrasment began as we were leaving the course. That hideous gravity that compels us together on company days out, pissed, began to come into affect. Nat's volume grew, my irrelevance became worse, and our MD (a patient and forgiving man, fortunately), knowing what was coming, kept us apart as we reached the coach, ensuring a peaceful journey home and nothing dreadful to worry about the next day.

His plans were thwarted. Nat bashed a colleague, a lot and called everyone a bunch of cunts (all affectionately meant). I had a falling out with my mate Andy. He affectionately called me a fat cunt. I suggested that the hobbit should fuck off back to The Shire and slapped him on the head and so he punched me.

There was unseemly grappling for a moment, a colleague began doing a racecourse commentary, we agreed to fight later and then we forgot. Then I remembered as we diembarked the coach and am told I had him in a headlock. We again forgot it and made friends again. Now it's amusing. Then it was a sensation.

I left the pub and met a friend to do something else, briefly, before returning. Natalie and I were thrust together once again, a brief and obscene conversation followed, and then, after explaining we wouldn't change one another for the world despite our occasionally frosty working relationship, and exclamations of "If you didn't exist I would have had to invent you!" we decided to leave the pub, enjoy some personal time, and get smashed.

We stumbled out of the door clinging on to one another for both balance and support and made our way to my local. I was removed from this pub 3 days prior to this as my mate couldn't stand (thanks Steve!). I hoped Natalie would be better behaved. Foolish really, aren't I.

We went outside, smoked, argued, and decided on Sambuca. Natalie, who is a lady with a loud voice, and louder cackle, somehow pissed off the landlord and I was asked to escort her out. So I did. So we went to another pub. I fell over. Nat was waving her arms and howling for the moon. They wouldn't serve us. We went to a shop to buy vodka. We did, but were once again ejected.

I called a cab. Nat needed a wee. Found a hidden doorway and let go. Class act! Then she was confused as to why her wee looked so dark. Convinced she needed a doctor, a bit of worry crept into her voice and was only dispelled when I pointed out she was on tarmac, it was 10.30 at night and demonstrated that mine looked the same.

We then thought we'd like to stay out longer so we cancelled the taxi and stumbled to another pub, swigging from the bottle. This was silly. We had planned to go to mine with more booze, get some sleep, cope with the inevitable innuendo the next day at work and not feel too hungover. Yeah. As if it was likely.

The next, and final, pub started well. In between gossip and mutual assurances of our deep yet platonic affection for each other, punctuated by creative swearing, we began to get more pissed. And louder. Then it happened. A man bumped into Nat, spilt her drink and suggested she should get the fuck out of his way. Nat asked him to be more polite ("What the fuck are you doing, cunt?"). He called her a whore, or something a little worse. I objected, to calm things down, but my hearty greeting was misinterpreted, I was assumed to be Nat's champion and defender (correctly, as I'm the only person allowed to cast doubt on her sexual habits, parentage, and history) and I'm sad to say he clocked me one. I nutted him, Natalie joined in with relish, and there was a brawl that culminated in 7 or 8 people getting nicked. Us amongst them.

This was bad, but got worse. I had something naughty with me, got some privacy in the bog with an officer on the door and boshed the lot, swallowing the container. This led to my calling my accompanying officers PC Munchkin and PC Cheesy Feet.

Nat and I were separated, desolate, and asked what had happened. Neither of us were really sure, and suggested we had been unjustly set upon. They believed us as we were evidently that daft looking at the time. We kept in overnight, Nat was released at 7 and I was kept until 6pm. PC Chhesy Feet was evidently a vindictive man.

The crowning glory of the night were the phone calls to our already disgusted sales director, half an hour apart, saying "We got nicked! Might be late in." This was bad. The Ballad of Johnnyball & Nat 2007 (Summer) is ended, other than the incessant Bonnie and Clyde jokes, the Free The Office Two posters, the photoshopped prison images and other piss taking.

God help us at Christmas.
Tuesday, however, following my release, things took another turn for the worse when I bumped into another friend...

Some years ago, when I was 15, I was capable of being a little foolish from time to time. This particular occasion was on a visit back home to my mate Ash. We were wandering through town and we bumped into some old friends, Steve and Laney.

Steve's folks had gone away for a bit, which meant that we had access to his house, some booze, and a credit card. We spent a lot of money on more booze and were roundly pissed by about 3pm.

About this sort of time a guy called Yorkie popped round. He was a cock, but he was bigger and older and had access to drugs so we naturally thought he was a bit cool. A plan was hatched; we wanted some weed, we were lazy, but above all we were lashed. So, having Steve's mum's car (and keys) handy we decided that it would be sensible to drive. Yorkie assured us he could drive, despite not having a license owing to some unexplained misfortune. Thus the decision was made.

Initially, we couldn't get the car reversed out of the driveway. At this point alarm bells really should have rung, but being young, pissed and excited we managed to block our concerns out.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Steve and I managed to push the car out, position it so it facing in the direction we wanted to go in and relinquished the keys to Yorkie. Then we had to show him where to put the keys. This had disaster written all over it.

The engine was started, then excessively revved, and we were off! We accelerated rapidly and seemed to be going in about 17 different directions at once. Yorkie was not an expert driver.

We approached what seemed like 7 million miles an hour on the first corner leaving Steve's house, and swung a hard right. A BMW was in our path, and suddenly everyones voice rose by several octaves. Swerving, we missed the Beemer, but careered wildly across the road and on a course guaranteed to cause destruction.

Praying the brakes worked, we braced for impact. The world slowed; I saw the rhodedendron bush shatter in front of us as the car ploughed through a garden. While the world slowed down, the car didn't. Yorkie, Grand Prix rookie that he was, hit the accelerator instead of the brake. Reaching about 40 mph we slammed through a bay window and came to a stop several feet inside a living room. The old lady living there had a stupefied expression, obviously not expecting Countdown to end in such a dramatic way.

My brain kicked into action, and I said the first sensible thing of the afternoon; "Fucking leg it!" We did.

Ash and I legged it, dodging police and fire vehicles all the way, and made it to a village some distance away before going to his mum's. Steve, less intelligently, ran to his house. Yes, the house from which we had borrowed the now compact car. Laney was bleeding and injured, and Yorkie hid behind the pipes in Steve's loft.

It was only a matter of time; the filth arrived and Steve (having slightly less sense than an apricot when pissed) thought it would be sensible to fight the law. He lost, and was dragged semi conscious from his house. Laney went willingly and Yorkie was eventually extricated from the plumbing.

Those three were fucked. Ash and I though, were home clear (bar my swollen eye). Or we thought we were. We called Steve to find out how the arrest had gone, and were told we'd been named. After seconds of interrogation Laney had broken.

We later saw his interview transcript; "My name is Andrew Lane (not a lot of people know that). The others you are looking for are Johnnyball and Ash." Wanker.

So, we all got nicked and dragged before the beak. One of the magistrats was our textile teacher. Steve and I were very unruly in school. This was not a good development. Eventually though, we blagged it and got off with a caution. Except Steve (who must have turned up at court pissed). He xswapped his caution for a fine and a 2 year driving ban. Twat.

As an aside, the most entertaining bit of this whole sorry episode was Steve's folks return. He had tidied the house and so on to soften the blow, but when his folks got back from holiday thay had bought a local paper and found that on the front page under the headline of YOB CULTURE was a picture of their car in an unexpected location. The ready boiled kettle did not cut a lot of ice with them.

I've been trawling my mind for some more stories, and inspiration struck the other night. I was talking to Niall (see Fat Birds, Foursomes and Fornication) the other night and we discussed some disastrous women we've known - from the girl who went lesbian (one each!) to the young lady I'm about to describe.

It began in the usual way. I'd got a big bag of pills, and around teatime we decided that perhaps, in lieu of tea,we should maybe eat some. So we did. Later that night we were to be found in the Leadmill, on Tuesday's "Hell" hard house and trance night, Nialll doing his usual top-off, Elvis glassed, on the spot stomping routine, me in a pair of shorts and skinny top making shapes, skipping and basically looking like a big gayer. I always looked tremendously gay when dancing.

As the evening wore on, Niall and I left reality further and further behind, and by dint of being the two most fucked people there we began to attract attention, not least from a young girl (quite nice looking) and an older woman; stringy, ratty and not really my type of person before. The girl kept talking to me, cghttering away, and I was civil and chatty, and very polite. She began to dance like a twat too, and we had lots of fun. Then the older woman joined in... drunken old slappers not being my thing, I was civil, but short, and evaded her to go back to my friends. Suddenly, there she was, lying on the floor making obscene and gruesome pelvic movements. It turned my stomach, so I turned away, and told the younger one that I was busy. She copped off with my mate Fat Tom, and the older lady attacked me. She was removed, and overhearing the fight between her and the bouncers I began to understand she was the young girls' mother. Christ.

Anyhow, the night ended and the next week I was back again, smashed out of my brain, dancing like a twat, and having a competition with Niall to see who could ingest the most chemicals without passing out. We were both going great guns, when who should I spy but the young girl, without her mother. Fat Tom, being cool (!), wandered over to chat her up, resume where he left off and hopefully get his end away. She said "Fuck off Fatty" and made a beeline for Niall and I.

I doubt she was fussy as to which of us she might get, but I ended up succumbing to her. We had a chat and snog. I gave her a little squeeze to ensure everything was present and correct and up my high standards, and she asked if she could come back to mine. I would have obliged, but I had Little Beki coming over for an afterparty and was already on a promise so we fixed up a date for two nights hence. This proved to be a mistake.

Two nights later we met up, and went to a nice clubby bar. Immediately she looked out of place. She was also a little younger, a little commoner and a great deal stupider than I had anticipated. I worried a little, but thought I should give her chance, perhaps I was being a little harsh.

I wasn't. Within half an hour she had told me that she had had an abortion at 16, her mum was on the game, or had been, and a whole host of other stories that I was fairly confident were bullshit. I didn't doubt she was a bit rough, however. Eventually she went for a pee, and I called Niall, explaining my predicament. Well, he said, perhaps you should double drop. SoI did. Half an hour later, I was having a wonderful time, ripped to the tits!

Whilst I spent most of the night laughing at her, she was nice enough, we had a nice time together and then I took her home and gave of my best! She was an attractive girl, and pleasant enough too.

Anyway, the next morning came, and I was overcome with a feeling of grottiness. I put her on the bus home, had a shower and went back to bed, feeling seedy, yet satisfied.

This was a feeling that didn't last long. Within hours I was receiving text after text after text. Within days she was pestering me with calls, demanding my attention. I had to change my mobile number, and being as I used it for business too, this proved to be a pain in the arse. Then she began turning up at the door. I became frightened to open it in case I was attacked by a 17 year old nympho with the stability of a ferry with the loading doors open.

Then the letters began. All addressed to my nickname. She never knew my real name thank God, or doubtless she'd have followed me up and down the country.

Eventually I stopped going to the club she met me in and moved to a new house. Then it all went silent. After a week or two I missed being stalked, so me and Niall began a campaign of prank calls, just to hear her lunatic northern voice. Then we got bored and moved onto the next mishap.

One of the web communities I belong to/use has a different question to answer each week. This weeks is crap sex. Sadly I have a whole lot of stories on this topic, and I thought I should begin with this one...

When I was a student, there was a house in which 7 girls lived. I had great sex with 2 of them and disastrous experiences with 2 of them. I hasten to add that this was in my first year, and I was still not terribly experienced or indeed competent.

One night I had turned up there, pissed, with Mystic Rod. I was covered in mud, following doing a runner from a cab, and was trying to impress. About midnight Eve came home. I'd never met her before, but was impressed by her general appearance. An argument started, and she punched me in the face. I picked her up, ran the bath, and dumped her in it. We grappled for a bit and ended up kissing and fondling before legging it off to bed.

It was a shocking performance. It lasted barely minutes, and was amateurish in the extreme. The crowning moment was a loud fanny fart... "That wasn't me!" I said, crassly. I topped this a moment later when I let rip with a loud beer fart and said "That was!"