The Politics of Camping

If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'd have to admit I'm a fairly angry young man. According to the Alphabet of Manliness, I is for Irate and I'm all too inclined to agree. In this modern age of MyBook and FaceSpace and complete cunting control over your own ringtone, we've got a lot to be pissed off about. Like every hot-blooded man, my righteous anger is ignited by the classics: kids that insist on comparing their mediocre lives to those of the characters in teen-drama's like Skins, The OC, Hollyoaks, etc; people that think Soldier of Fortune: Payback was a good video game; reality television; those bastards that disagree with me.. But lately somethings been fucking me off more than all of those combined (well, maybe not that first one..):

Those god damn 'Hummerzine's!

This is a message to every one of you pig-disgusting sub-humans that have ever funded this cack: Hummerzines are NOT FUCKING COOL. How these abominations made it past the design stage is a mystery to me. The only explanation I can fathom is this: it's all one big inside joke. I can picture the designers, laughing their asses off and rolling in ignominious wealth whilst parents shell out crazy money to fund these redneck limos. I like to think of two car concept artists taxed with the job of creating a new form of transport. In a final desperate brainstorming session precluding the day of their presentation, the men lose all hope of inspiration and turn to liquer and cocaine to drown their sorrows. The next morning they awake in a puddle of their own drool with a sketch of the bastardised limo, stripped of any class or style it once representated. Clearly the panel of judges were either off-their-tits on jenkem or just had a really bad sense of humour. Christ, I hope it's the former.

So the Hummerzine is a great success, or at least it would seem so on a Friday night in Glasgow. Funny, it's always the same type of persons you'll find riding in (or more likely sticking their head out the window, tongue hanging out like a dim Alsation) these oversized gas guzzlers: 10-17 year old skanks, caked with makeup and cheap jewelery, screaming at passers by as if anyone gives a toss that their daddies paid for a glorified taxi. Makes you sick just picturing it, huh?

The suave, if grossly pretentious style of a Rolls Royce clearly has no place in Glasgow anymore. Today, it's not about how smooth you are - it's how obnoxious you can strive to become that really matters.. I think I might throw up.

Let me just make this clear from the start: I am not Liam. I don't know any Liam. I have no plans to become Liam. And yet..

About a week or two ago, I got a new phone. Hooray! However, from the start it was plagued with confusion. I got a text on the first day from an unknown number.

"Hi how are you hows uni wen you home vicky"

Given that I just started university, I was a little confused - I don't know any Vicky. I figured it was a bad number so I ignored it. A day later, I recieve:

"Hey Liam how are you how is uni going"

Confused, I replied with:

"I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong number"

Response:

"Why who is this"

Obviously, the question mark is a stranger to some.

"Not Liam anyway. This is a new phone number."

"Did you get it off Liam"

"No, I don't know any Liam."

"Ok"

With the situation resolved, I continued my everyday, carefree lifestyle. With the exception of a couple phone calls from people who also recieved my number from the same person, life went on. But at 10pm on the 28th of December, my horrendous trudge through Soldier of Fortune: Payback was rudely interupted by another text..

"Did ya not want me to have ya number"

In hindsight, I should have seen this a mile off - no question mark. Like a fool I responded, thinking it was a friend I hadn't told about my new phone number.

"Who is this?"

The now dreaded response..

"Vicky"

I began carefully crafting a text message explaining I'm not when I recieved this:

"Guess not then lol"

To which I replied (bare in mind I wrote most before I recieved it):

"Er. You have the wrong number dear.. Again."

To my surprise, I recieved:

"No i aint kala just rang ya"

Reason dictates kala has a different number in her phone book (Liam's correct one) to the one Vicky has... right?

"And you're sure this is the same number she called? How did you get the number? I've had other people calling and texting me asking for Liam and unless i'm a schizophrenic, I'm pretty sure I'm not Liam nor know anyone by that name."

By this time, I'm thinking.. Jesus christ, I should have told her I was Liam and I hated her and this would have been over by now.. Well, this is just the beginning.

"Full of shit kala just spoke to you Liam on this jumber just 5 mins ago if you dont want me to have your number just say so"

I'm getting a little annoyed.. But then I thought, wouldn't it be SO RAD if after this we laughed about it and eventually became best friends? I should say. And if she thinks that's creepy and stops? WIN WIN.

"Look. Check her phone. Compare her number to the one you've got. You ad some others have obviously gotton the wrong number from the same place. I am not Liam. Your persistance is admirable though. We should hang out sometime."

Physically LOL'ing, I didn't recieve nowt for a wee while and figured I gotton it right. Then..

"nah mate whatever"

I felt bad. She may have lost faith in her friend because of some mixup. I had to take action. Halfway through writing my message I recieved:

"Look your a fuckin prick"

I continued my message and sent it. By this time, I was thinking about how cool it'd be to post on the internet:

"... Does that mean you believe me or you've given up? If it's the latter, get kara to call him again then ask him to call you. Then you'll see it's a different number. Then tell the people who got this number the real one so they'll STOP FUCKING CALLING ME. It'd be a shame for you to think Liam's trying to ignore you when he's probably not, y'know?"

Yeah, I am a fucking gentleman.. Apparently, not too credible though.

"Look 5 people just said its Liam ok just fuck off i guess i done something wrong to Liam"

Okay, so screw gentleman:

"Well then they're retarded. What do I need to do to prove I'm not Liam?"

At this, I got a phone call. I don't remember how it went word for word, but there was something like

Uh, hello.
Hello, Liam?
No, I'm not Liam. I don't know any Liam. I have no plans to become Liam. You and some others have the wrong number.
What, so you're American now?
What? I'm not American. I'm Scottish!
So that's a Scottish accent then, is it?
What? No, but it's my accent!

After that, it involved her telling me to stop putting on a voice and when I said I wasn't there was raised voices and swearing. All on her part. Terrified, I hung up. I thought about how weird it is she thought I was faking my voice and didn't go for the more obvious (and impossible for me to disprove) idea of Liam getting me to pretend it was my number. She's either stupid or batshit crazy.

I got a text.

"Your own mother just told me this is Liam so ha"

This is getting fishy. This is too obviously a prank. No-one is that fucking stupid.

"This is a prank, right? You got the wrong number a while ago and now you're pranking me. It's that or you're just really, really cunting jaded."

Long pause. I thought maybe I had figured her out and she stopped. A part of me hoped she'd give me some closure.. the rest was just happy she finally bollocksed off. Too good to be true:

"No its not Liam i know its you I'm on contract I can go all night"

Oh god no.

"Well I'm not and I can't. Look.. There's no way you can be serious about this. Why would anyone go to the extent of lying and even faking his voice and accent - and if he was, it would be exceptionally well done - rather than just ignore you? There's no way you can be THAT jaded. This is obviously a pisstake."

To which I recieved..

"Nah mate i know this is Liam for a fact i know him and i know he is good at putting voices on thats why i like him loads cuz he makes me laughook i have obviously done something wrong for you to do this"

I took time after that to write all of this out. Confused, tired and a bit emphathetic again, I write:

"Look, you're obviously not going to believe me and I'm clearly not going to get any sleep if I try to resolve this. I suggest you contact Liam through someone elses phone or talk in person or something. That's the only way I'll have my case proven. I don't know if you're dicking with me or if you've got a bad number or there's some sort of double numbering going on at Orange HQ, but it's not my problem. Give me a text when you're actually convinced so we can laugh about it. Until then, there's no point in going on."

And now, I await her response..

Edit: I got a response. I guess I'm pretty disapointed.

"Look you dickhead your a TWAT"

:(