How nice to finally get a chance to sit down and write my journal. It’s been busier here than MC Check’s mum at chucking out time. We’ve had a triple whammy recently of Christmas, new year and moving the Muck FM studios to their new home, Muckingham Palace- a fine old stately home that had fallen into disrepair before the good people at the Worthing branch of Betty Ford’s Over 90s Dangerous Sports Society bought the house and surrounding grounds (including a maze based on Hampton Court’s and stables competently run by head lad Clare Balding)
They renovated it to house up to fifty residents, all being treated for various addictions and all with a love of dangerous sports. Their reputation was based on an excellent safety record, maintained despite sending hopelessly addicted and terminally depressed patients out bungee jumping, hangliding and freefalling. Apart from that nasty parkour accident involving old Mrs Jones with the brittle bones their record is unblemished. At it’s peak, the house had a health spa (MC Check who is a big fan of spa weekends has rated it in his top ten), with gym, sauna, indoor swimming pool, and a restaurant cheffed by Antony Worrall Thompson. There were two bars, a casino and a Dutch style coffee shop to relax in after a hard day’s addiction therapy, and a 24 hour helpline for those who felt unable to cope. Or needed more chips for the blackjack table.
Unfortunately though the News Of The World exposed the Betty Ford Over 90s Dangerous Sports Society in 2008 as a front for scientology and money laundering, and after the trial Muckingham Palace was boarded up and forgotten about until Mrs Muck and I stumbled across it while searching for the new Muck FM HQ. You see a combination of the Muck sound system, records, Mrs Muck’s shoes, Sandy’s cache of weapons and drugs and Handy’s gimp suit collection meant we had outgrown our original studio sometime ago and as soon as we saw Muckingham Palace we knew we had found our new home.
We moved in last week in what was one of the longest days of my life, but one that was surprisingly unstressful thanks to the crew who lent a hand, not least Scul and Gramswagon- respect to you! Even the twins and Jamal didn’t fuck things up. Handy took a handful of valium in the morning washed down with a pint of Jamal’s fermented ungulate seed and sat in the front seat of the removal van pouting from behind oversized sunglasses asking “are we there yet?” at various intervals. As for Sandy and Jamal, well, I think that despite their bravado (which I’ll come to in a minute) they are both pleased to be out out of prison and aren’t in a hurry to go back. It’s not that they can’t handle themselves, and it’s not because they can’t get drugs, because they are rife in the prison system- it’s that they can’t get any poonani, and poonani is what drives them. Handy couldn’t believe they didn’t turn to the brown side during their incarceration, but I know Sandy, and that’s not his style. Jamal on the other hand is from a culture where as he puts it “any Bedouin will do when you’re tired” and blushed a crimson colour under his dirty beige complexion when Handy started pushing for answers. So, they too were pretty well behaved on moving day, although neither of them lifted a finger to help and instead sat next to Handy in the van chain smoking joints and doing lines of coke off the dashboard. Sandy seems to have picked up a nasty little crack addiction while in prison, which Handy joyfully pounced on with a string of barbed euphemistic comments about shower time and Prisoner Cell Cock H. It’s a shame and slightly ironic that the only people who could help Sandy are the former owners of Muckingham Palace who are now serving life terms for fraud, sexual assault and endangering lives by using hundreds of rubber bands tied together instead of a proper bungee cord.
We have settled in nicely, and life is slowly starting to return to normal- well as normal as it gets here anyway. The studio is set up and the acoustics are fantastic- the soundchecks were done by Phil Spector, who was flown over in a maximum security plane after I called in a few favours from my contacts in the FBI. Don’t worry, I made sure that Sandy’s cache was locked away out of reach and the geisha girls were far away from this particular wall of sound. The studio has been totally soundproofed and I’ve started picking out tunes for the Muckingham Palace debut show. It’s a fantastic feeling to be mixing again after months where the decks were inaccessible due to stacks of cardboard boxes piled high in front of them prior to our move. We’ve got the builders in this week (not a euphemism, except for Handy who always likes to get builders in as often as he can) and they are constructing a 200m high transmitter on the roof, which once finished will alllow people across the world from Tehran to Timbuktu to tune in to Muck FM on their digital radios. Via the internet you can also tune in to Jamal’s live Camelcam, which relays a 24 hour feed of the herd going about their daily business, from grazing and mating to, well, doing their business. Those of you wishing to see footage from the Camel Toe lapdancing club next door will have to subscribe to Camel XXX, a subsidiary of the Muck FM franchise with monthly contracts starting at £19.99- with deluxe packages also available which include broadband and landline with 1000 free minutes per month to anywhere in the world (except Croydon). Jamal himself hosts the channel, and swaps his grubby grey crimplene suit for a lurid lime green sequined affair with oversized collars. He likes to open by crooning for a while and thinks of himself as an ethnic Frank Sinatra, but the truth is he is more like an ethnic Frank Spencer. Thankfully his moustachioed mug isn’t on screen for very long before Fifi and the geisha girls start strutting their stuff. And strumming their stuff too… So just to recap folks, that’s Camel XXX from only £19.99 per month! (plus £99.99 postage and package)
The geisha girls themselves have been adding their own feminine touches to Muck HQ, ably directed by Mrs Muck from the sofa, where her pregnant glow is getting bigger and bigger by the week. I wouldn’t say she’s huge, but when she stands in front of a table lamp it’s like a total eclipse, only more spheroid than any moon, and with far greater mass. It’s only two months now until our little Muckette pops out, and I won’t lie, it’s pretty scary. I’m just glad that JP’s baby is due a month or so earlier which means I will be on the phone to him at all times of the day and night seeking advice on how to change/burp/breastfeed. Nothing quite like the voice of experience… JP, you’ve been warned!
Christmas on the other hand wasn’t quite so tranquil I’m afraid. Sandy and Jamal were released from prison on Christmas eve, and unbeknownst to me Handy had arranged a full mafia-style welcome home party, with lashings of crack and hookers. The celebrations lasted throughout the night and no one got any sleep due to the raucous noise/copious amounts of drugs. Sandy had emerged through the gates of Brixton prison with lines cut into his eyebrows and gang tattoos across his chest, while Jamal trailed behind wearing his usual filthy charcoal grey 1970s suit with a gleeful smile on his face under his moustache and untamed stubble.
Christmas dinner itself was a farce, with everybody dog tired, except Sandy and Jamal who chattered incessently recounting stories from their time inside between wiping dribble from their nostrils. Apparently Sandy had quickly affiliated himself with gang members from across the UK (“networking innit”), and had been employed as an enforcer, collecting debts and dishing out beatings to those who stepped out of line. Jamal meanwhile had fallen in with the “Boom Boom Massive”, a group of extremists based in Luton, who just also happened to share a penchant for Jamal’s favourite tipple, fermented camel sperm. Apparently they had a still in the corner of their cell which bubbled away 24 hours a day, untouched by the screws due to a selection of backhanders passed on a regular basis, along with free passes for all the family to all mosques participating in the government’s Open Jihad scheme. Despite Jamal now saying Allah akhbar after every sentence and calling us all kafir we all know that he doesn’t really believe in holy war against infidels, and his membership of the Boom Boom Massive was simply a ruse to feed his camel seed addiction while inside.
As Christmas dinner went on, the boys didn’t even bother retreating to the toilet to powder their noses and instead brazenly racked up Hollywood sized lines on the dinner table between toying with their untouched food. After the stories of prison life were (finally) exhausted, Jamal then started regaling us with stories from his travels around the world and his theory about how women from different countries taste like their national dishes.
“Eez true innit- Kupus taste like pad thai, Scottish girls is pure haggis, and when in Japan I always like to get me some sushi innit!” slurred Jamal.
Silence descended over the dinner table with everyone looking down into their plates uncomfortably, except for Jamal who was beaming moronically and glancing around for reactions which were never going to come. Except for muggins here who as head of the table felt something needed to be said to break the ice and reign Jamal in.
“Oh right” I said naively “so English girls taste of roast beef then do they?”
“Naa Mooky, your mum tastes of me innit!” said Jamal cackling.
It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if we hadn’t invited my parents down for Christmas and they hadn’t been sitting directly opposite Jamal. My mum’s turkey was pushed away untouched- and no, that’s not a euphemism before you ask. It wasn’t long before they made their excuses and left, leaving us to stare blankly at the floor as Jamal and Sandy’s rambling continued late into the evening.
Jamal went on to announce that with the imminent arrival of Muck junior he is setting up his own childminding business and will give us special discounted family rates. According to him all you need is a stash of rohypnol, and with one mixed into every feed “they go down better than Mooky’s mum innit.” Dear God, Jamal in charge of young children is a scary thought, and the idea of him in charge of my child is terrifying. Luckily his ranting, which had reached a crescendo after dinner came to an abrubt halt when he pulled on his dirty stained mac and announced that he was “feeling rapey” and was off out to “pull a cracker.” Well, lucky for us that is, not the poor unsuspecting female population who happened to be out on the streets that evening. I can’t imagine it will be long before Jamal is back in prison- I just hope for the sakes of all women, children and my unborn child it will be sooner rather than later…
After Jamal departed Sandy continued drinking port until he was semi-conscious and was eventually carted off to hospital with a serious case of gout. The rest of us finally got a chance to relax and enjoy our last Christmas in the old studio. It served us well, and was the birthplace of Muck FM, but 2012 for us is certainly the year where old chapters close and new ones begin. Out with the old and in with the new… happy new year everyone!