Bad taste, poor judgement and a complete inability to act responsibly

Bad taste, poor judgement, and a complete inability to act responsibly

Part 1

A journal of misadventure

By Matthew Myeson

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Matthew Myeson

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Chapter 1: Introduction

I have a tale to tell. It is a simple story of an unremarkable man, of terrible, drunken excess and of interesting people met in exotic places, but there are no deaths, evil plots or anything quite so extraordinary as that. The man is me and, so far as I remember, the story true.

Actually that may not be strictly accurate. I describe myself as a man, and by simple reference to my age to do so is right. But I am not really as mature as the word suggests. I might be the wrong side of thirty now, but I continue to spend most of my free time hanging around with my mates, chasing skirt, playing sports, watching sports, drinking, travelling and getting wasted. Although it sounds somewhat ridiculous to say so, I haven’t yet figured out what I want to do when I grow up.

It is fair to say that plenty of people take a dim view of my behaviour. But then I have never worried too much about what others think. Besides, I don’t believe my kind of lifestyle is an entirely negative one, although I accept it may reveal personality traits that are less than positive, for example my inability to act responsibly. I probably also suffer too many bad hangovers for someone of my age, but there are certain aspects of my way of life that are not all bad. Well, that's my view anyway. Having fun is a good thing, likewise being active and few things in one’s existence are as important as having plenty of good friends.

Besides, I may be somewhat laddish, but, to my mind at least, my personality is not without some degree of complexity and depth of character. Then again, it is possible I would like to think I am more than in fact I am, and that which I perhaps at first appear. Maybe the reality is I am nothing more than a male bimbo with an inflated ego.

But what does one’s own view of oneself really matter anyway. By its very nature it is inevitably biased and thus pretty much entirely irrelevant, so I will shut up, leave any attempt at self analysis there and simply try to concentrate on giving you the facts. If you can be bothered to do so, make up your own mind. Alternatively, just read the book and do your best to enjoy it.

Chapter 2: The tale of the tape

As I have already indicated, in many ways I have never grown up. This may have something to do with the fact that, in my mind’s eye, I am still the lad I was in my late teens and early twenties. I am only ever forced to contemplate the reality of my advancing years when I stand in front of a mirror, something I rarely ever do, probably for that very reason. Another manifestation of my immaturity is that I find it very hard to take anything seriously. In that sense, I have a very long history of messing around and, in spite of long hours spent standing in the school corridor having been thrown out of class, never managed to learn any better. My ability to bring my friends down to my level can sometimes make me a little unpopular with their respective better halves.

I am a real enthusiast about…well…things. Putting it another way, when I like something, I tend to like it a lot, at least until I grow tired of it, which almost always happens sooner or later. I wouldn’t really describe it as being passionate, because I don’t really care about very much; I'm just enthusiastic and shallow. I can definitely be greedy, and will go to great lengths to get as much as possible of those things I like. Invariably that tends to mean I end up overdoing things, and therein lies the reason for me growing tired of them.

A good example is food. When I discover a new dish that I like, I will eat it over and over again. Certain meals have dominated my diet for months, on a couple of occasions for years, in fact until I couldn’t stand the sight of them any longer and then I moved on to something new or sometimes reverted to an old favourite. I got through three years of University cooking only two different dishes, a shockingly spicy curry that gave me farts de mort as one slightly pretentious young lady once called them and chicken in a barbecue sauce, which I subsequently ate every evening I was planning to go somewhere there might be women.

So, moderation is a concept I have always struggled to understand. But it is a fault that, like my many others, I have learnt to live with. That is what I do, you see. Self improvement is really very hard work.

I am afraid I am not really the type for classical culture, even though I sometimes think I would quite like to be. After all, those culture vultures do seem to love it, and I guess there must be something there if only one can see it. Of course, I may not have seen it because I haven’t actually looked. But nevertheless, and maybe unfortunately for me, there is no escaping the fact that I find the very idea of things such as fine art, opera and classical music unbelievably boring. I think I would even prefer to watch horse-racing, a so-called sport that is so interminable its fans have to risk losing large amounts of money to make it even slightly exciting.

At the other end of my own personal interest spectrum from the fine arts, you will find toilet humour and most other sports. How’s that for a stereotype.

For example, unlike the woman who christened my possibly toxic curry farts, I find a loud and well timed trump hilarious. In fact, I have few doubts that in the grand design we were actually given a backside as an aid to comedy rather than anything else. Using it to get rid of bodily waste was almost certainly an afterthought and nothing more than an added benefit. A good double entendre, usually identified by one of the classical markers, by which I mean a quick fire retort in the form of a …said the vicar to the showgirl or even a simple woof woof, can also make me laugh. I have been told repeatedly for as long as I can remember that my mind is in the gutter and don’t doubt that it’s a fair observation.

Sports-wise, racing aside, there aren’t many I don’t like. Three day eventing is certainly another (maybe it’s a horse thing), but I can happily settle down in front of the box for an hour or two of snooker, darts or even crown green bowling. Then, there are football, cricket, rugby, basketball and the like. Watching or playing any one of them is a sure-fire good time.

Chapter 3: Where to start…

I have an English comprehensive school education, and enjoyed my formative years a great deal. I played a lot of sport and was pretty successful doing so. I progressed to county representative standard and that made my school life really quite easy. I regularly got days off to play matches and, if my experience is anything to go by, being good at sport certainly helps make the school-yard a friendly place. Plenty of the tougher kids played for the football, rugby and cricket teams, and as my team-mates were also my friends. I never had the nasty streak you need to be hard, but always had lots of friends who did. So I never really had too many enemies. I also had a pretty good memory in those days, which meant I did quite well academically, although a lack of effort on my part ensured I didn’t excel. I am no genius, but suspect that if I had got my head down I would have done a little better with my grades.

I was always very keen to play the part of the class joker and felt some kind of an obligation to keep my classmates entertained, although, with the benefit of hindsight, it is possible that some of them may have considered me more of the class loud-mouth. It was rare I didn’t have something to contribute and it was usually less than constructive to the lesson being taught. As a direct consequence, and as I have mentioned already, I spent a fair amount of time standing in the corridor having been kicked out of class. Nevertheless, I didn’t tend to get into serious trouble. I was more mischievous than bad and spent more time in detention than in the back of panda cars.

Although I always enjoyed school, at least the social and sporting aspects of it, I still wanted to leave and get a job at 16, the same as a lot of my friends. However, my father had very different ideas. He prevailed again a couple of years later when I had completed the sixth form and I ended up going to University. Of course he was right that I should go, but the manner in which he convinced me to do so, which was much the same angry and aggressive way he typically reacted whenever one of his kids had the temerity to disagree with him, damaged our relationship for years to come.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand his motivation. I always did. As a boy, he would have loved to have had the chance to further his education beyond the age of 16, but it wasn’t an option for him. He had to get a job and bring some money in to support his mum, his layabout step father and his numerous half-siblings. I, on the other hand, had the opportunity, and the support, to be the first person in our family ever to get a tertiary education; yet all I wanted to do was get a crap job with no prospects. But even then, I have no doubts that there are better ways to convince your children to take what is actually the best option for them.

Although I went to University, I did so devoid of enthusiasm for my studies and consequently made no real effort, doing an absolute minimum of work. In fact, after three years, I earned a law degree without having read so much as one law report. My method was simple, and it worked, although only because my memory was still doing me proud in those days.

I went to all the lectures on six topics in each subject, where I listened and took decent notes. It stuck in my head and I regurgitated it in the end of year exams when we had to write essays on four topics in each subject. Having done six meant that I was covered, pretty much regardless of what was left out of the paper. At least I think it meant that, and it always worked out. I guess I was either right or lucky.

Fortunately, grades, and thus performance, were entirely dependent upon results in the end of year exams, a system that was absolutely fantastic for a wastrel like me and really very unfair on others who may have had a poor memory and bad nerves, but who worked extremely hard. No complaints here though. I got a respectable lower second class honours degree and, surprisingly, just failed to get an upper second. A third or even a straight pass would have been far more representative of my actual acquired knowledge.

I then took a year off for the simple reason that I didn’t have so much as a first clue as to what I wanted to do with my life, save that I knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer. Most of my contemporaries at University had long since secured training contracts with law firms that were due to start just as soon as they had completed a further year’s studies at Law School and the awfully tough professional exams that followed. However, by that stage, my outlook had shifted pretty much a hundred and eighty degrees from my school days, such that I found even the idea of settling into a 9 to 5 existence, at such a young age, to be nothing short of horrific.

All the same, and again at my father’s insistence that I did something about my future, I got myself interviews with four of the large accountancy firms. I certainly did not want to be an accountant though and so quickly set about sabotaging my own chances. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t just lie about having the interviews, which would undoubtedly have been far easier for all concerned.

When the big firms tour the Universities on recruitment drives, they tend to identify interviewees a little beforehand and then take them out for dinner or have a drinks reception for them the night before the interviews take place. The first one I attended involved a meal at a very nice Chinese restaurant. The evening started off for me just like it did for everyone else; quietly and with my best manners to the fore. However, I was soon knocking back the drinks with a couple of junior accountants, who had been brought along to give us an insight into life as a trainee at the firm and who turned out to be quite good fun. As the night wore on and the drink count started to climb towards a dangerous level, I began to get somewhat louder, more opinionated and, if the truth be told, a little bit carried away. At one point I started a small food fight and managed to get some sticky, red sauce on the attending Partner’s suit. He laughed it off at the time, but the interview didn’t last as long as I had expected it would the next day, which was actually no bad thing because I had a killer hangover.

There were three more to go, and I got progressively worse. I actually only went to two other receptions and got smashed at both of them. I couldn’t even be