XVIII - Smoggy On A Swan Boat

Well, the work trial is over. The clouds of battle have cleared.

The job is mine.

I'm finally working.

Take that, grumbling OAP's of Britain who think everyone on the dole, stays on the dole. I finally did it. I am finally working for money, in a job I fucking adore.

And I am ecstatic. Or I would be, if it wasn't for the flu.

However, if there is one thing that characterises me, it's that I'm a fan of the hunt. It's probably the Scandinavian in me, being from the North. Nothing excites like the Wild Hunt. Once you've caught something: HEY! GREAT! What's next?

I will be giving 1000000% to this job, but my mind turns to a bucket list. I've got a job, i've finally taken that step onto the ladder, that one step is all I needed. It's time to look to the future, and something looks back at me.

With a long neck and a plastic body.

Y'see, on my bucket list is something that, to outsiders, may seem odd.

I want a swan boat.

No, seriously, keep reading. I'll try and explain this shit.

To me, Scarborough is a place that epitomises my life. I'm not a wanderer (Not YET), and my life has been pretty much on Britain. This one land mass in the middle of bloody nowhere where nothing seems to go right. Not even the Germans could bomb it properly, that's how much things don't go right, no matter what. Even William the Conqueror, when stepping onto England's shores for the first time, tripped and fell face-first into the sand.

But for all its flaws, several pieces and places of Britain endear themselves to me and have stuck with me constantly. Whitby, York, Fish and Chips, Corned Beef and Tatie Pie (Give me a slice of it, and I will honestly walk up to God and chin the bugger if you wanted me to. That's how much I love it.), Yorkshire Pudding, Geordies (Did you know that the reason Geordie slang is so unintelligible to modern English ears, is because in geordie slang, 80% of the vernacular is rooted in Anglo-Saxon? They are not speaking gibberish, but are the oldest speakers of PURE GODDAMN ENGLISH. I BET YOUR HEADS ARE EXPLODING AROUND THE FACT THAT GEORDIE'S SPEAK ENGLISH MORE TRUE TO ENGLISH THAN THE ACTUAL MODERN ENGLISH.), Queueing, complaining about everything (Yes, I LOVE THIS!), the cold, wet weather...

And Scarborough is there.

See, people have places like Majorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Lanzarote: You know, shitholes inhabited with so many Brits it IS little Britain, filled with drunken teenagers and lewd old men mingling with the locals who range from the terrified bewildered bystanders to the angrily violent local who wants the Brits off of his balcony and to cover up their tits, for Gods sake. But for me, I have Scarborough.

Even if I became a novellist, became world-renowned, raked in so much money I could buy a chain of islands off of Dubai and have slaves arrange them to make my grinning face so any extraterrestrial who floated by would know the face that launched a thousand ships...(...in the opposite direction)...I would still go to Scarborough.

For those who don't know, it's a small seaside town in Yorkshire. To me, it's the quintessential seaside town of Britain. It's got parks, stands which sell overpriced tea and coffee, shops filled with unique, cheap tat, a city that stands above it and watches over the locals like an angry bouncer ready to punch that bastard busy chatting up the ladies while vomit rolls down his tanktop, and dozens of amusement arcades. And yes, those arcades are filled with penny sliders, claw machines, and other machines designed to rob us (And we, as Brits, know this. But it combines our love for complaining with our love of gambling. If we lose? THAT MACHINE YOU SON OF A BITCH IT STOLE MY MONEY IT'S RIGGED RIGGED TO HELL DAMMIT I WILL DESTROY IT WITH MY BRITISH RAGE FUELLED BY THE PURE ANGER OF TEN QUINTILLION SUNS. If we win? OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER NOT EVEN TEN THOUSAND PUPPIES COVERED IN COTTON CANDY AND SPRINKLES CARRYING GOLD BARS UNDER PINK BOWS ON THEIR HEADS COULD MAKE ME FEEL BETTER. It's the ultimate machine for Brits.) It's got beaches, open-topped busses, mazing streets, shops selling food designed solely to kill you and kill you dead (Donuts, burgers, cotton candy......VEGETABLES? GET OUT OF HERE, YOU PISSANT. THIS IS THE NORTH. THE ONLY GREEN WE TOLERATE IS THE HALF-DEAD GRASS THAT LINES OUR MOORS.)

For every Summer I remembeer, we've been there. And I still love it. I love the smell of the sea, the irritating sunlight, the blistering heat, the legions of orange and brown OAP's marching onto the sands like leather couches who have suddenly grown sentient, the open-topped bus rides, the tea and coffee. The lemon tops (I would chin an angel if you bribed me with a lemon top. Corned Beef and Tatie Pies and Lemon Tops: A combo which would make me kill Gods to get them.), the hordes of people, the amazing cheap tat you cannot get anywhere else...

...And Peasholm Park.

Y'see, I love Peasholm Park more than any other part of Scarborough.

Why?

Well, it's odd. It's a living contradiction/. I said I loved the Britishness of Scarborough, but Peasholm Park is different. It's actually designed with Japanese and Chinese stylings. It's got pagodas, eastern archways, a Buddha statue (For no apparent reason. HEY! THIS PARK NEEDS BUDDHA!.."But we're in Yorkshire"...YEAH!..."Okay. Why not?" That is probably the entire process behind putting it in Peasholm Park) and various other pieces of Eastern decor.

It's lovely, often calm (Ironic, considering it hosts a semi-famous naval warfare show, designed solely for you to watch glorified model boats explode), and it has sprawling waterways...inhabited with swan boats.

And I love them. I love those little boats. Watching as they slowly march across the water.

I think it may be my nomadic spirit peering out from my heart, but I honestly want a swan boat. Maybe it sees a unique waterborne craft and thinks "I WANT TO SAIL IT TO NORWAY AND PLUNDER THEM FOR A CHANGE". I don't know. I love how elegant and graceful they like.

I've told my family repeatedly, that I plan on sneaking into Peasholm Park one night, and stealing a swan boat, and bringing it home to use.

Use for what?

To sail to America or China.

Look, i'm not even shitting you. I would honestly love to do that.

So many stupid records are trying to broken every day....Longest bath in beans, longest time in a snake pit, longest time spent teabagging tuna (or something), so why can't I be the man who conquered the seven seas on a swan boat?

To me (Even though other countries have them), the Swan Boat is just...so British.

It's so....shit. Yet so, so elegant.

And we should adopt it as a symbol. Forget the Queen, fish and chips, the Union Jack...We need more swan boats. The Ark Royal's gone? Why not a titanic swan boat that shoots lasers from its eyes? The world would tremble as two thousand of the Royal Navy's finest pedalled for North Korea and decimated the communist regime with the power of the swan boat.

It's such an odd obsession, but I will always have the sight of the swan boat lazily pedalling across water in my heart. Even when my travels take my to new and exotic lands, I will always see a body of water and think of a swan boat. 

There is some corner of a foreign river, that is forever sailed by a British swan boat.

One day, maybe I will sail the seven sea's. Maybe I will steal my precious swan boat and sail the seas. Maybe i'll paddle in the sea and show future generations how such shit things can stir the greatest feelings of sentiment.

If you happen to be an American Coastguard and are reading this, you have been warned. The British are coming. And they are on an army of  swan boats.

It's the Viking's your mother never warned you about.

My mind is on my job, but my heart is on a swan boat. And one day...maybe one day...You'll turn on your television, change to the news, and see this Smoggy on a Swan Boat making a desperate bid across the seven seas to make it to China, armed with a swan boat, a suitcase, and legs of sheer titanium as he pumps away, presumably as several armed gunboats surround him.

And then i'll write a memoir about it.

Call it Smoggy in a Swan Boat.

Sounds much better than Smoggy On The Run, eh?