I am probably more successful than you

I once heard that you can only really judge someone’s success by using their own aims. In this way Pol Pot is one of the most successful leaders of all time as I heard he had a little wall chart in his bedroom that he marked every time he killed 80,000 people. He only stopped when he reached his elusive goal of 25% of the population dead (which thankfully as we all know he achieved in 1979).

Anyway, we are not here to talk about how great Pol Pot was. No, this is a blog so I have to pretend to be erudite so you realise how great I am, but be slightly self deprecating so you don’t realise I am a turd like you with this goal in mind (just like that, and this, and that). I would just like to point out that I am listening to really good music whilst writing this. It’s the kind of music you like, but I know slightly more about it than you so that makes me a little bit more impressive than you. Come on be impressed by me! Come on, that’s what blogs are about. I never used to keep a diary because I knew that I could never be arsed to go back and read about what a twat I was yesterday. Now with a blog other people can do that for me and hopefully slap me on the back for it.

I digress. I decided to use this measure of a person’s success on myself by trying to score my life according to what I my aims were when I was thirteen. I will then know if I am successful in meeting my aims. Let’s begin.

For starters I have a PC and laptop (that’s right both). The PC has two screens. I would have wet my pants for that. But that’s not all, both can play the original Grand Theft Auto whenever I want (in your face mum). It gets even better. We have our own network and more PCs hanging around. So many in fact that we can play network games of GTA2 (also free) and have done so until 5am, when we decided (on our own) that we wanted to go to bed. We also have the internet. That means if I would like to see a woman nude I can in about three seconds flat without fear of my mum walking in and telling me that “it’s ok to be curious”. If all that isn’t good enough I can also walk into and pub or club and buy myself a beer. Then I can drink it. Yeah I know, pretty damn sweet. Lastly I have a girlfriend and sometimes I get to touch her boobs and it isn’t even awkward anymore. In school I would only be able to squeeze past girls in tight spaces and get a bit of boob with my elbow (the elbow has nowhere near the same sensory nerves as the hand).

So it looks like I am nearly as good as Pol Pot. No one can ever have ago at me again. At thirteen I would have never dreamed that I would be living the perfect life.

Pete

Mould

Today I ate some mould. I smeared some pesto onto a corn-on-the-cob and, on devouring the cob, I discovered that the pesto jar was riddled with mould. I cursed my own stupidity for not checking the pesto jar for mould before smearing it on my cob but – considering green pesto looks like mould anyway – I would’ve had to have been extra vigilant. I hope I last the night.

Dan

Children

“It’s ok! I don’t want to steal and fuck your kid”. If only I could say that and it be alright. Yesterday I was travelling home on a bus that was carrying far more people than was legally allowed, so many people in fact that around ten people were standing upstairs. Upstairs! I am very good at travelling in crowded areas due to my complete lack of interest in other people. I see them as objects that move at random that simply need to be negotiated. Yesterday though was different. After fighting my way onto the bus I worked my way to the stairs knowing that there may be a few seats on the top deck of the bus. For some reason the stairs act as a sort of impenetrable barrier for most people. While there may be standing room only downstairs, upstairs is usually a desolate utopia of better views where the dream of bagging yourself a double seat becomes a reality.

Not yesterday though. On manoeuvring myself past the usual crowd downstairs I was shocked that the top deck was so full I had to wait on the stairs for some young men to shuffle back so provide me room for my assent. I then learnt why they had done this. The only free seat was next to me and housed a small girl who was wriggling around on a double seat. Shit! This was a no win situation. I had the pressure of everyone on the bus thinking “why doesn’t that dickhead sit down and clear some more space for people” while at the same time a small child without parental responsibility to contend with. Suddenly she stopped wriggling, sat up straight, moved over to the window and looked at me signalling that this was an invitation to sit next to her. “Out of the frying pan…” I thought.

I am only comfortable around children when boundaries are set. I like a professional relationship with them. Sitting down I said sternly “Thank you, much appreciated”. Someone on a close by seat laughed at my inappropriate tone and language as though I should have sat down and said condescendingly “Thank you for sharing this seat with me little girl. Isn’t it fun to share?”

A few months ago when I had just started my current job I needed to buy some black trousers. The answer as always was Primark at £6 a pair. They really are perfect aside from the fact that they give me a look of a permanent erection and were made by someone working a 30 hour day for 4p a year, probably.

Around the same time I bought these trousers Dan, Chris and I were sat in a pub garden waiting for some women we knew to show up (we had arranged this; we weren’t just sat in hope of the affections women). We were accosted by two small children of inadequate parents whom I suspect were using the kids as a way of endearing themselves with young men (although these female mothers were of a similar age to us). These children were very active and kept jumping on us and asking for our mobile phones to play games on. Dan was plagued particularly as he was able to remember and find the games on his phone. The favourite of the children was called Stack Attack. At one very surreal moment Dan had the duel horrors of a small child pulling on his arm shouting “I want to play spack attack!” Whilst the other child, a little girl, started unbuttoning his shirt. Dan looked as though someone had used a stun gun on him, jittering and moving uncontrollably in random defensive limb actions. I thought this the funniest thing I had seen that day, but now it strikes fear into me.

So, there I sat next to the little girl on the bus in my £6 trousers looking like I had a big hard on hoping she wasn’t going to grab the ruck and shout something like “Look mummy I have caught the snake!” or worse undo my flies and expose my bare penis so that a passer by would just witness me with my cock out looking startled at a young 4 year old girl next to me. I know the chance of this was low but using Dan’s experience as a precedent I was scared.

I noticed numerous glances to my left from the worried parent as they calculated the percentage chance that the skinheaded young man sat next to their daughter was the guy who stole little Madeline from her bed (I hope you are still remembering to look for little Maddy. Chris forgot to look for her on the way to Tesco so Dan and I stuck her image above his bed so that he sees it when he wakes).

The only people that children don’t evoke fear in are children themselves and paedophiles. I have drawn a crappy MS Paint diagram to illustrate this unchecked social problem. Sorry, I am too tired to fire up Photoshop to do a decent one. Fuck you anyway, I have work in the morning, you are lucky I did that.

Pete

Ladma Steals the Accolades

You probably won’t be interested, but with every Ladma film made there is a sort of ‘unofficial’ soundtrack, which is as much responsible for the final product as we are. Favourite tracks in the past have been The Fat Boys ‘All You Can Eat’ and ‘We’re In Jail’ (that’s not the title but it is the chorus), Scatman John’s body of work (in particular ‘Scatman’ and ‘Scatman’s World’), and of course the Picard Song (if you haven’t heard it, go to YouTube and search for it now – fuck reading this).

I feel we must give credit where it is due, and so thank you, John Williams, for the complete Jurassic Park score from films 1-3. Okay, so you didn’t do the third one (that was some other dickhead) but you did the first two and produced two shit-hot albums that stand alone even without their respective films. You need only listen to stand-out tracks such as (our personal favourite) ‘Dennis Steals The Embryos’ to fully appreciate it’s depth and mastery. So what if the main theme repeats about every minute in each song? Why have burgers when you can have steak?

Since it’s my turn to write in the blog, I get to tell you about the load of stuff we’ve won recently. Well, two things. The prestigious Cotswold Festival’s ‘Best Comedy’ and ‘Runner Up’ in the ‘Emerging Film’ category at Stamford Film Festival, proving once again that we are brilliant at comedy and emerging. We’ve also got two films showing at Portobello Film Festival – but that’s not the good part of that. The good part is that they gave ‘Safe Blokes’ an ‘18’ rating and the message ‘Warning – Extremely Bad Taste’ after the description that we gave them. Unless Pete or Dan wrote that on there without me knowing, I’m pretty sure we didn’t write that. An 18! Not bad for a film that has no swearing, nudity, or other explicit content. Is the subject matter really that bad? We are quite lucky that it is being shown at all, though. At the moment the only award it seems likely to get is ‘Most Rejected Film’.

Most important of all recent events is that Look North! has been finally finished. Yes, we have finally relieved ourselves of its burdens, and now we bestow those very same burdens on to you. Please tell us what you think. We’re pretty sure its brilliant but we’d like a second opinion. It took ages, as well. If you're wondering what's next for Ladma, keep checking the news page. Although I can tell you now its podcast and writing live stuff mostly.

-Chris

Long Live the King

Unto every generation is born an enlightened oracle, a prognosticating prophet, a soothsaying sage. Bygone eras have seen such perspicacious gurus as Jesus Christ, King Solomon or Mohammad. But no erstwhile augur’s insight or wisdom compares to today’s sagacious Svengali – the rotund messianic paedophile Jonathan King.

King was imprisoned in 2001 following four indecent assaults and two sexual offences on boys aged 14 and 15. King has always maintained his innocence and – in 2007 – released his exhortational album Earth to King. Earth to King is a modern-day Bible for the internet generation and is available on Myspace, YouTube and Google Video.

The centerpiece of Earth to King is a passionate defence of Britain’s most prolific serial killer, Harold Shipman. In The True Story of Harold Shipman, King seeks to rehabilitate Shipman as a martyr who practiced euthanasia. King sings: “…but a real psycho monster who’s killing for fame would leave notes for a claim to establish his name”. King raises a good point here. As far as I know, all criminals leave notes detailing all the crimes they’ve committed. Otherwise they lose track of how evil they are. Shipman didn’t leave any notes – unless they’ve fallen down behind the fridge – and so must be innocent. King didn’t leave notes either and ergo I can assert that Jonathan King is as innocent as Harold Shipman. As the King said, for God’s sake don’t fall for a media demon!

The True Story of Harold Shipman



In his ode Plead Guilty, King urges all those facing false allegations (like himself) that
“the verdict’s never true…the law ignores the truth” and suggests “whatever you do, plead guilty”. King argues that the whole system is wrong and wants a guilty verdict from the onset. He claims people shouldn’t be judged without a fair trial and that the media shouldn’t have such an influence. This is interesting because, in Vile Pervert, he suggests that Jesus, Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Putin and Prince Charles are vile perverts who ogle boys, lift their shirts, look at girls and roll in dirt. But I’m sure he has his reasons. And I’m sure Prince Charles has probably fingered a few young boys too.

Plead Guilty



Vile Pervert



Finally – and without wanting to go through all of King’s album – in Satan’s Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction King attacks society for persuading children that “love is wrong” (56 secs) and – in I Hate Coca Cola – he argues that society should accept people’s beliefs whatever they are – even if they are loving children. He goes on to assert that he hates “all organised structure that tell you what to do” (1 min 8 secs). Yes, or ‘prisons’ as they’re usually called – the same place you’re told to go when you try to teach young children that love is right.

Satan’s Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction



I Hate Coca Cola



And so there you have it, words of wisdom from one of today’s greatest minds. Keep an eye out for his new singles Adolf Hitler – The Misunderstood Genius and Genocide Isn’t Always Bad.

Dan

Tennis Elbow

Many weeks ago Dan and I had decided to play tennis together. We had spied out a school yard court that became desolate when the children had been released home to play on their consoles and chat with each other over MSN Messenger. Dan and I were looking for completely the opposite release. We were trapped, flat bound in a day long struggle with our computers that demanded our undivided attentions for editing, emailing, burning, and chatting with each other over MSN Messenger (they also demand our sexual attention but this rarely happens in daylight hours). The escape route to personal fitness heaven was agreed to be tennis. I have a genetic tendency to be shit at all sport, but tennis appealed to me for two main reasons. The first of these was that I had never really played before and thus could fool myself that I might actually be good at it. The second being that I required a tennis racket to play, which I knew at the back of my mind I would never get around to buy and thus would never have to make the effort. Alas, whilst shopping in Tesco I came across cheap rackets and balls that sealed mine, Dan’s and Chris’ fate.

A long spell of bad weather finally ended last Sunday. This was bad news. We were now in the middle of Wimbledon tennis season. At the sight of three people playing tennis badly in the middle of Wimbledon season, most people would assume that we had just seen it on television and thought that it was fashionable to be playing it now. They might easily expect us to be playing cricket next month and snooker the month after, like the fickle trend followers we are. But no! We had planned this months ago you fucks. On the walk down to the school court I could feel the scornful eyes sweep us with disdain. “If only there was some way of letting people know we aren’t playing tennis today because of Wimbledon” I remarked to Dan. Little did I know that in a few short hours he would be wishing for that scorn and the ability to play once more.

After about three hours of serving the ball into the net and the inevible realisation that I was indeed shit at tennis as well as every other sport, Chris (who had also interloped onto the Wimbledon tennis bandwagon by deciding he would accompany us on the trip) finally won a game again the previously invincible Dan. The winner stays on policy that was in operation meant that Dan never left the court. Chris and I were at a comparable level of shitness.

He might claim that he beat me more times than I beat him and while the “facts” may support this hypothesis I was a much better ball boy so win the moral victory. Even so he decided that the title “ball boy” was inadequate for him and stated that he was to be referred to as the “ball master” (his idle walks across the court mid game to retrieve balls did this title a major disservice). Dan not caring about denting Chris’ ball authority declared himself the “ball viceroy”. I, not wishing to upset the balance of power declared myself the “ball deputy”.

Finally, in the last match of the day the two squared up. Could Chris take invincible Dan down? He did. My vantage point as “ball deputy” gave me the hideous view of what befell. A shot very close to the net sent Dan running at full steam to make the return. I still wonder why Dan, at about 12” from the net was still running with all his might towards it. Knowing he would be unable to stop, Dan made an all too meagre jump to clear it, but on clipping both feet landed elbow first on the other side of the net onto the concrete floor. The result of this action was a hospital trip in which he was informed he had broken his radial bone and many questions from people asking “how did you break your arm playing tennis?”

He then for the past week has been sling laden and annoyed by his own disability. I have been annoyed that the only time we were ever able to play tennis it looked as though it was because we thought it was “in”.

Pete

Birth of a Blog

Dear Friend,

I’d like to take this opportunity to cordially invite you to the christening of Ladma’s first blog. Various things run through your mind when you decide to bring a new blog into the world. Can you support the blog financially? Are you bringing the blog into a loving relationship? But more important than the blog’s health or weight is the blog’s name. There’s no easy way of choosing a blog’s name. It’s not like naming a baby. There’s no book that says “You better not call your child Adolf because people might wrongly (or rightly) assume that he’s a fascist”. You can’t just reminisce about people you’ve known throughout your life and think “I remember Phil, he was a nice guy. I don’t know many other Phils so I think I’ll call my child Phil. And the good thing is I’m not in contact with Phil anymore so he won’t think I’m naming my son after him (even though I am) because that would be weird. Also, Phil doesn’t rhyme with penis, fanny or minge so he shouldn’t be bullied at school.” To apply this logic to the world of blogging would be farcical. Only a fool would do so. We’d be left with a blog called ‘Ladma’s Phil’ which would be shit.

But we didn’t call it ‘Ladma’s Phil’. Instead we called it ‘Thoughts of a Ladma’. To reach this stage we first asked ourselves one simple question: who are we? Ladma came the reply so out came the suggestions:

The Curious Incident of the Ladma in the Night
Harry Ladma and the Philosopher’s Stone
The Good, the Bad and the Ladma
Treasure Ladma
The Guinness Book of Ladma
Ladmas Aren’t the Only Fruit….

These all seemed like weak suggestions. And so we asked ourselves the second question: what are we doing? We’re writing down our thoughts. We’re chronicling our opinions. We’re logging our ideas. So what would it be? The Diaries of Anne Ladma? Very nice, but none of us are called Anne. The Tale of Two Ladmas? Nice literary reference but there are three of us. If only Dickens could have been more forward thinking! Ladma’s Daily Log? Well, I’m not sure we could keep our logs that regular…even if we do eat more roughage. And so we came careering and skidding to crash at the door of Thoughts of a Ladma. Thoughts because we will be logging our thoughts and ‘of a Ladma’ because it will be written by one of the Ladma team– be that Chris, Pete or Dan.

God knows what form the blog will take. He also knows how often it will be updated. So if that’s what you’re interested in why not ask him at god@hotmail.com? All he’s told us is that these entries might be funny, they might be us venting our spleen, or it might be us letting you know in a bit more detail what the hell is going on with our petty little lives. Hopefully there’ll be a new entry every couple of days, but don’t hold your breath.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to return to the newborn baby analogy. Like a new born baby, a new blog is finding its way in the world. Both often smell of excrement and both take a while to find their feet. After all, they’ve both just spent 9 months incubating in a lady’s womb. Some grow up to be Harold Shipman, and some grow up to be Mother Teresa. Who knows what this blog will grow up to become? I hope you’ll join us along the way. At least that way you’ll be partly responsible if the blog ends up killing 300 old women in Manchester.

Anyway, thus draweth to an end the first Ladma blog. It consists almost entirely of an account of the naming process. One can only wonder at what the blog may have contained had we immediately stumbled upon ‘Thoughts of a Ladma’. Perhaps we would’ve gone on to discuss how we designed this colour scheme or decided upon our description. But that, my friend, is for another time. I hope you’ll return in the future to join us on what promises to be a prolonged and agonising journey.

Please, why don’t you join us, please.

Dan