6:47 AM – Alarm’s Wailing Like My Ex’s Solicitor
The phone’s buzzing on the bedside table like it’s got a personal grudge against my eardrums, vibrating across the scarred wood with the ferocity of a cornered rat trying to gnaw its way to freedom. It’s not just noise; it’s an assault, a mechanical banshee howling demands I haven’t the bollocks to answer. The bedside table itself is a battlefield relic: chipped veneer from where I once hurled a pint glass in a fit of footie-fueled fury, a condom wrapper from a date that ended in disaster (hers, mostly), and now this traitorous iPhone, screen cracked like my psyche, demanding I face the day. The room’s a horror show frozen in time – posters peeling from the walls like sunburnt skin after a bad holiday, faded relics of a youth I squandered on lager and lads’ mags: Oasis in their heyday (ha, like me), a topless Page 3 girl whose tits have more lift than my spirits these days. There’s a half-empty bottle of lube gathering dust on the windowsill, a sad sentinel from that particularly desperate Netflix-and-chill session with myself last Bank Holiday – the one where The Irishman dragged on longer than my performance, leaving me blue-balled and bewildered, wondering if self-love’s just another word for self-loathing. And there, in the corner, Regret the goldfish doing lazy laps in his bowl, the water murky as my motives, those unblinking orange eyes boring into me like he’s got the full backstory on every fuck-up from fresher’s week to this very moment. “What?” I groan, voice a gravelly gargle that tastes of stale smoke and stale everything, slapping the phone silent with a palm that’s clammy from night-sweats. The noise doesn’t die; it bounces around my skull like a pinball in a machine rigged for pain, amplified a thousandfold by the three warm lagers from last night’s ill-advised wind-down and the Match of the Day replay that started as a harmless highlight reel but morphed into a three-hour pity party, me ranting at the telly about missed penalties and missed opportunities, tears blurring the scoreline. Bed’s a fetid swamp now, no longer a refuge but a reminder: sheets twisted like the noose of my regrets, knotted in the night from tossing and turning over unpaid bills and unanswered texts from mates who’ve long since moved on to mortgages and minivans. Sweat-stains map the topography of my failures across the mattress – dark blooms where hope once lay, now just yellowed echoes of exertion without ecstasy. “Just five more minutes,” I mumble to the ceiling, its water-marked plaster staring back like a Rorschach test for the damned, but we both know it’s bollocks, pure and simple. It’s code for “fuck the day, embrace the coma,” a secret handshake with sloth that my body’s all too eager to comply with, limbs leaden, eyelids glue-trapped, the weight of the duvet pressing down like the accumulated arse of all my ancestors, urging me to sink deeper into the mattress’s maw.
8:22 AM – The Great Escape Attempt
The sun’s mocking me through the grimy curtains now – a weak Manchester apology for daylight, filtering in like diluted piss, casting long shadows that dance like deranged marionettes across the floorboards warped from years of neglect. Eyes crusted like yesterday’s cornflakes, flaking off in gritty protest as I finally haul my carcass upright, vertebrae popping like gunfire in a quiet street. Regret’s still staring from his bowl, bubbles popping lazily like tiny accusations of neglect, each one a pop of “you forgot to clean me yesterday, you lazy prick.” “Alright, you orange oracle of oblivion, I’ll sort you later,” I rasp, voice echoing hollow in the empty flat, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed where the frame sags under the strain of too many solo somnambulists. Bollocks to brushing teeth – the minty tyranny of Colgate can wait for a man who’s already gargled with regret; a swig of Listerine from the bottle on the dresser, swilled around like mouthwash in a suicide pact, then spat into the sink where pubes from God-knows-when float like survivors of a hairy shipwreck, bobbing defiantly in the plughole’s porcelain prison. Stumble to the kitchen – or what’s left of it after the great curry explosion of ’23, when a vindaloo-fueled vomit volcano painted the lino in abstract hues of regret – tripping over the invisible ghost of the cat that scarpered with the first wife, his phantom claws raking my shin like a reminder of loyalties lost. “Traitorous tabby,” I mutter, rubbing the bruise that’ll bloom purple by bedtime, a badge of battles never fought. The coffee machine’s jammed again, its innards a tangled mess of grounds and grudges, probably clogged from that time I tried microwaving Heinz baked beans in it during a blackout, thinking “hot beverage or bust.” Black sludge it is: bitter as my soul, scalding as fleeting rage, poured into a mug chipped like my chin from a bar brawl in ’09. One sip hits like a gut-punch from an old mate – acrid, awakening, and utterly uninvited – and the plot thickens like congealing gravy: call in sick? Feign the lurgy, blame a phantom plague that’s “sweeping the nation” (or at least my fevered imagination)? Craft the perfect lie, voice croaky with feigned phlegm: “Boss, it’s the lurgy – lungs like sandpaper, arse like a baboon’s.” Nah, he’d see through it like cellophane on a condom, that nasal Manc twang barking back “Croft, you sound like death warmed up over a Bunsen burner – get your sorry arse in or you’re out on your ear, plumbing the job centre instead.” Charming as ever, that one, with his comb-over and his clipboard of contempt. So I dress for the dirge: yesterday’s boxers (sniff test: pass, barely, with notes of musk and misery), jeans with a mystery stain on the thigh (ketchup from last Tuesday? Cum from a solo session last month? Who the fuck cares at this point?), and a polo shirt that’s seen better decades, collar frayed like my nerves, logo faded from too many washes in a machine that’s more temperamental than my ex.
11:32 AM – Plumbing the Depths (Literally)
The van’s a rolling testament to tardiness and turmoil: McDonald’s wrappers breeding grounds for new life forms in the footwell, tools scattered like the shrapnel of my shattered ambitions – spanners and snakes tangled in a Gordian knot of grease and grievance. Rain’s pissing down outside like God’s personal vendetta against the working class, turning the streets into a slick slide to nowhere, wipers slapping rhythmically like a metronome of monotony. Pull up at Mrs. Hargreaves’ bungalow – a squat sentinel of suburbia that’s seen more leaks than my love life, its pebble-dashed exterior weeping condensation like the walls have emotions too. Wrench in one hand, optimism in none (what’s that, anyway? A fairy tale for plumbers?), I knock with knuckles that ache from yesterday’s gripes. She’s 82 if she’s a day, all cardigans and cataracts, opening the door with a smile that could curdle milk if it weren’t already sour from her endless cups of Tetley. “Morning, love,” I say, forcing the charm like it’s a suppository up a reluctant arse, plastering on a grin that’s more grimace than glee. “The toilet’s backed up again, Owen. Like your life’s going nowhere fast – swirling round the bend without ever dropping off.” Spot on, Gladys – you psychic old bat, reading my aura like yesterday’s racing form. Inside, the air’s thick with lavender and loneliness, a cloying cloud that clings to the lungs like second-hand smoke from a lifetime of sighs; her husband’s photo on the mantel, sepia-toned and stern, staring accusingly at my gut as if to say “You call that a belly? Try carrying twins through the Blitz.” Down to business in the bog: snake the u-bend, that coiled serpent of domestic doom, its depths darker than my darkest debts. It fights back viciously, spewing a hairball the size of a ferret – grey and gnarled, laced with what looks suspiciously like yesterday’s corned beef hash and a rogue rubber from God-knows-when. Metaphor for my soul? Too bloody right – tangled, tainted, and tenaciously refusing to flush clean. Yank it free with a grunt that echoes off the tiles, flush triumphantly as the water swirls like my swirling despair, vortexing the evidence away to the sewers where all good secrets go. “All sorted, Mrs. H. That’ll be thirty quid – cash or card?” She pays in coins that jingle like mocking bells in her purse, a relic from a ration-book era, slipping me a Werther’s Original as a tip. “For your sweet tooth, dear – melt it slow, like life’s little pleasures.” Sweet? My teeth are rotting faster than my resolve, cavities carving canyons of calcium collapse, but I pocket it anyway, a butterscotch bribe against the bitterness.
Home by noon, knackered as if I’d wrestled a kraken in the Mersey, the van’s engine coughing to a halt like it’s got the same flu I faked this morning. The flat greets me with its usual fug of familiarity: damp walls weeping condensation in rivulets that trace tears down the plaster, post piled on the doormat like unanswered prayers from Jehovah’s rejects. Sofa calls like a siren’s song – or a succubus, more like, luring me into its faux-leather folds with promises of oblivion. Sink into it with a sigh that’s half-relief, half-resignation, remote clutched like a crucifix against the undead day. TV flickers to life, ads assaulting the screen: life insurance peddlers with their polished smiles and promises of “protecting your loved ones from the unimaginable.” Loved ones? Regret doesn’t count – he’s got a three-second memory and zero inheritance claims – and the mates? Scattered to the winds of wives and wage-slavery. “Unimaginable,” my arse – I imagine it daily, the cold slab, the empty pews, the eulogy that’s just “Owen Croft: he tried, sort of.”
3:15 PM – Afternoon Anchor
Deal or No Deal‘s on now, that lottery of losers where contestants clutch briefcases like lifelines to mediocrity. Noel Edmonds with his eternal perm and his platitudes, grinning like he knows where the bodies are buried – or at least where mine’s headed, six feet under a pauper’s plot. “Open the box, Owen, you lazy twat,” he seems to beam directly into my brain, his voice a velvet vice tightening around my temples. I do, virtually – thumbing the remote like it’s the magic banker, and the virtual reveal’s a fiver. Bollocks to that; I’d take the devil’s deal for a tenner and a time machine. The hunger hits then, a hollow gnaw in the gut that’s equal parts starvation and soul-sickness: order up from Golden Dragon, chow mein noodles tangled like my thoughts, spring rolls crisp as crushed dreams, extra MSG for that numb-tongue numbness that makes existence bearable, like anaesthetising the soul one swallow at a time. Delivery promised in 28 minutes; I time it with the microwave clock, that eternal 12:00 blinker mocking my grip on chronology, its digital derision a constant companion in the chaos. The bag arrives at the door like a reluctant paramour, greasy paper crinkling under my fingers, the scent of soy and sesame wafting up like incense to the god of gluttony. Eat straight from the carton on the coffee table scarred from cigarette burns and spilled stouts – fork abandoned halfway through when the prongs snag on a noodle, fingers diving in desperate like miners after fool’s gold, scooping strands slick with sauce that drips viscous on my gut, pooling in the folds of my paunch like tears on a suicide note, each drop a testament to the tide of takeout that’s slowly submerging my salvation.
Evening drags its weary arse across the clockface like a drunk on a deadline, shadows lengthening in the flat as the light leeches away. EastEnders for company now – the Queen Vic’s a vortex of vicissitudes, Phil Mitchell’s rage a raw reflection of my own impotent ire, Dot Cotton’s sermons hitting too close to home with her Bible-thumping bollocks about “the wages of sin.” “Aye, Dot,” I mutter to the screen, cracking open pint four from the fridge (warm now, flat as my affect, but faithful as a dog’s lick), “sin pays in instalments – alimony, arrears, and an arse that’s spreading faster than the national debt.” The bottle sweats in my hand, condensation cold against the clammy palm, each swig a small surrender to the slide. Monday’s tail-end: a limp dick of a day, twitching toward tomorrow’s noose.
9:47 PM – Bedtime Blues
Shower? Skipped – the day’s grime can marinate overnight, a crust for tomorrow’s cleanse. Wank? Contemplated in the gloom, hand hovering like a hesitant hangman, but the boner wilts under the weight of weariness, fizzling out like a dud firework on Bonfire Night. Lights out, the room plunging into inky intimacy, Regret’s filter humming a mechanical lullaby of loneliness – bubble-bubble, toil and trouble, fishy fumes in my cauldron. Dreams? Dregs of despair: exes entwined, jobs lost, a life unlived. Monday’s down, but the week’s a gauntlet gaunt with ghosts, and I’m already limping into the fray.
Twisted Tally: Zero productive shits given, just the reactive ones from the curry conniption. One existential void filled with MSG and monosodium misery. Monday: 1, Owen: Fucked sideways.
The Knobfather out May 11th 2026