Wayne's Weird World

I am Wayne Weir and I would like to tell you about my weird world.  When I left school I
really wanted to work but after 6 months of trying, I came to the conclusion that getting
a job was much too difficult for me and I'd be happier if I didn't try.  Then I became
depressed and didn't have the energy to do anything.  I couldn't work now if I
wanted to.

Unemployed people have discovered a meal called dunch.  It is a meal half way
between dinner and lunch, for those who get out of bed in the afternoon.  To be
authentic, dunch mustn't be cooked in your own kitchen but must be purchased
from a take away.  The woman in the fish and chip shop has a greasy face.  She
is Scottish.  No one knows her real name, they just call her Haggis.  If you eat too
much haggis you begin to look like a haggis yourself.  That is the one thing that she
is expert at making and the one thing that she lives on.  Haggis and chips contain
all the essential nutrients, including iron and vitamin C.  Haggis sells me my dunch.
It is a fish and chip shop but not many people buy fish there because they can't afford
it.  Pie and chips, please.  I eat my dunch at home watching something on the television.
I have a strange black and white portable that looks like a football.  Oddly enough, you
can plug it into a digital tuner or a DVD player.  It might look really old fashioned
but it can still function in the modern world.  I'm one of the few people in Britain who
still genuinely have a black and white television licence.  Like most things in my flat
the television cost £35.

How do I cope with the Jobseeker's Allowance interview where I have to prove I'm
looking for work?  I slammed my fist down on the desk and shouted, "I wouldn't be
able to work, I couldn't cope with the stress!"  From the look on their faces I think
they believed me.  The security guard who came rushing over certainly believed
me.  I was given all this extra money.  I was put on the sick because I was depressed.
I could afford to pay the bedroom tax.  I could afford cod and chips in the fish and chip
shop.  All because I slammed my fist on the desk and refused to work.  One day I had
a new interviewer.  She asked me why I thought I was too depressed to work.  She
wanted a sick note from my doctor.  I got one.  Six months later she said if I was still
going to be on the sick, I needed to see a psychiatrist.  So I saw one.  He asked,
"How is your daily routine?"  I told him about dunch.  He said he would give me a
tablet to help me get out of bed in the morning.  I asked him what was the point of
that?  Surely people would rather get out of bed in the afternoon.  He said, "There is
a limit to what the medical profession can do in these situations."

I'm a Christian.  I never go to church.  I've made a decision to folllow Jesus and it
doesn't require me to go to a place of worship or to share my life with my brothers
and sisters.  The only thing it does require me to do is to complain.  To write a
letter to my MP complaining about gay marriage and the legitimisation of sodomy,
to walk around shops at Halloween with a camera and put messages on my
Facebook site, 'Supermarkets teach children to worship Satan.'  Hate the sin and
insult the sinner.  I use the computers at Upperthorpe Library a few times a week.
It's open until 8 o' clock at night.  I'm nocturnal.  You can use it for a whole hour, or
longer in the evening because nobody's there.  Thank God for Christian websites
and for Facebook.

I have a friend called Michael Z.  He is called Michael Z because, throughout his
life, people have asked, "What's wrong with Michael's head?"  The highlight of my
week is Wednesday night when Michael Z and Haggis come round to my house
with a few cans of lager and watch a video with me.  One week we watched a
video about Martin Luther King.  Afterwards we discussed the film.  I said,
"Martin Luther King marched 60 miles from Alabama because he was angry."
Haggis said, "Wayne, black people in America in the 1960s couldn't vote,
they had to go to the zoo on different days to white people, they couldn't sit in
the same seats on the bus as white people, and if they were murdered their
assailants were protected by a white legal system and a white jury.  What have
you got to get angry about?"
"I have to put up with the wild behaviour of wreckheads on the bus, my neighbour
has his television too loud, and I have to put up with the noise nuisance of people
riding mopeds and motorbikes around the park.  I asked a policeman if riding a
motorbike around the park was illegal.  He said it is technically.  That's not good
enough.  I want a policeman on duty in the park ready to arrest anyone who does
it immediately, I want land mines on the field to blow up the motorbikes."
"I know what I would do to a noisy neighbour," said Michael Z.  "I'd get a gun and
I'd blow the lock off their front door.  I'd go in there and I'd kill the whole family for
having their television too loud."  Haggis looked horrified.
"Would you not just ask them to turn the television down?"  I looked at her and
laughed.
"It doesn't work," I said.  "You could kill one noisy neighbour but how many will
you kill before the police kill you?  They could send an armed response team in
a matter of minutes, they could send a helicopter.  We'd be better off organising
a civil protest.  I'll arrange a meeting of the Residents' Association."  The really
dangerous people in this country are not people who have been released from
mental hospitals, they're people like Michael Z who've never been to a mental
hospital in their lives.  Just thank God that you live in the UK and people like
Michael Z don't really carry guns.

Next Wednesday I got up really early, at one o' clock in the afternoon, to chair
the meeting of the Resident's Association.  I stood behind the microphone.
"Upperthorpe Court residents have to put up with endless noise nuisance.
Motorbikes and mopeds in the park.  I want a policeman on duty there all
the time, ready to arrest anyone who rides their machine there immediately.
I want land mines on the field to blow up the motorbikes."
"If you mined the field that would be dangerous to children and to residents
walking their dogs," said one of the residents.
"The police haven't got the resources to have someone there all the time,"
said the local councillor.
"The behaviour of wreckheads on the bus is getting worse and worse,"
I said.
"There's nothing we can do about it," said the councillor.  "It's a privatised
bus company."
"There is something we can do," I said.  "In the 1960s Martin Luther King
marched sixty miles from Alabama."
"What?" came a shout from the crowd.
"I'm organising a civil rights march from Sheffield to York."
"Because people ride motorbikes around the field and teenagers
misbehave on the bus?" asked the councillor.  "A civil rights march?"
"That's not all," I said.  "My neighbour has his television too loud and he
bangs the railings at night to keep me awake.  I reported this to the
council but they did nothing about it."
"It's the rain falling on the railings," said the councillor.  "And we couldn't
evict someone for having his television too loud without any proof."  I
looked at him and laughed.
"You gave me a little diary and a decibel meter.  How loud is the television?
How many days a week is it on?  What time of day?  Who will join me in
my civil rights march against noise nuisance in Upperthorpe and wreckheads
on the bus?"  The room was strangely silent.  "We'll meet in the car park
outside Upperthorpe Court on Saturday morning."

Saturday morning.  The only 3 people in the car park were myself, Haggis and
Michael Z.  We set off carrying 3 signs.
"Evict the man at 191," my sign said.  My neighbour who bangs the railings
and has his television too loud.  Haggis had a sign saying,
"Ban wreckheads from the bus," and Michael Z carried a sign that said,
"No mopeds," with a photograph of a bright green moped I had copied from
somebody's website.  We walked for miles up the A61.  We met a policeman.
"Are you going to attack us with truncheons and tear gas?" asked Michael Z.
"Why should I do that?"
"Have you ever seen the film Alabama?" I asked.
"Where's Alabama?"
"Where Martin Luther King led a sixty mile civil rights march," I said.
"Is that what you're doing?"  The policeman spoke into his radio.  Someone
spoke back to him.  "You'll be all right as long as you disband into groups of
no more than 4 people."
"That's all right," I said.  "There are only 3 of us here anyway."
"I thought there were hundreds of you following a mile or two behind."
Lunch time.  We reached a village on the outskirts of Sheffield.
"Is this York?" asked Michael Z.
"No, it's a village on the outskirts of Sheffield," I said.
"Looks awfully like York to me."
"We're nowhere near York.  York is past Wakefield and Leeds," I said.
We came to a bus stop.
"We can get a bus from here to Sheffield city centre," said Haggis.
"In which case we can't be in York."
"We've been walking all day," said Michael Z.  "We're going home."
I left them at the bus stop and carried on marching on my own.
That night the police stopped me on the motorway.
"Are you all right?" asked the police woman.  "What are you doing
on the motorway?"
"I'm on a civil rights march."
"By yourself?"  I told them about the film Alabama.  They took me to the
police station 'for my own personal safety.'  How kind that the police are
always doing that.  The next day I saw another useless psychiatrist who
informed me once again that, "There is a limit to what the medical
profession can do in these situations."  When I got home the council
had sent me a letter telling me that the flat above me at 191 had been
empty for years.  They had the audacity to tell me that the whole thing
had been a figment of my imagination.