| Product: |
Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation - Martin Millar |
| Date: |
22/06/01 (157 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: very very funny, surreal, has a lot of truth in it
Disadvantages: if you don't like conversational writing, you may recognise parts of yourself, he never finds his robot, or the biscuit barrel :-(
"Jesus Christ what a f***ing wreck I am, my face looks a hundred years old, people would scream if I went out on the streets, my hair's all falling out, there's a woman from the Milk Marketing Board trying to kill me. She learns my address, that's it, I'm dead."
Ermm…sorry about that. I was going to introduce you properly: I'd like you to meet a friend of mine, well, more of an acquaintance really - his name's Alby Starvation, and I think you might find him…well, 'interesting' to know. But he's butted in and started ranting on as usual; well, that's Alby, that's what he's like. He doesn't mince words, he doesn't often think about anyone but himself, and he uses the f-word far too much for a family site like this. I've a feeling he's going to interrupt this op rather a lot, so I apologise in advance.
Give him a chance, though. He's got a lot of problems. Obviously he's not 100% in the mental health stakes. He's been feeling pretty ropey recently too – not surprising really, as he hardly ever seems to have any food in the house other than lettuce, which he hates, and the most exercise he ever gets is walking across Brixton to sell amphetamines to his friends Fran and Julie. Oh, and going to the doctor, of course. Poor old Alby's convinced that the reason his doctor won’t help him, is not that he recognises a classic case of hypochondria when he sees it, but that he's in fact secretly waiting for him to die so that he can steal his valuable comic collection. You have to feel sorry for someone who suffers with paranoia that badly. You're probably wondering why I wanted you to meet such a loser. Well, the oddest thing is – the Milk Marketing Board really *are* trying to kill him.
It's best if I explain from the start. He'd had health problems for ages (or so he says).
"'But doctor,' I'
d croak, my insides are fighting to get out and my skin looks like an old newspaper and my left eye has completely closed up and there's blood seeping out of the right one and I haven’t been able to keep down food for four days and I feel sick even when I get better.'"
Well, thanks for that, Alby. I think we get the picture. His friend Stacey was so fed up with listening to stuff like this that he suggested Alby went on a fast. Clear out his system, work out those hidden allergies. So Alby tried it. Felt much better, and by introducing one food at a time, discovered that he's not allergic to brown rice, carrots or lettuce. Then he tried milk. All his hideous symptoms came back (no, thanks, Alby, we don’t need you to elaborate at this point), but they passed soon enough, and he’d got the problem sorted.
"Milk? Who needs it?" Well, quite.
The problem is, he just couldn't let it go at that. He had to tell everyone he met, and they all told their friends, and before you knew it, the local paper got interested. People started writing in to express their gratitude at being cured by the fasting method. It all went to his head of course…
"From there things seem to snowball somehow. It would still have been all right if it hadn’t turned out that so many people were allergic to milk."
Too late now, Alby, they were, and that's that. You should have known that the Milk Marketing Board would never stand for it. Their April sales figures were down, and when people started protesting outside dairies with banners saying 'STOP POISONING OUR CHILDREN', they had to take action.
"Is there some bit of this missed out? I mean, are you clear on everything so far?"
Oh, be quiet for a minute, will you, I'm telling this my way. I didn't actually know all this was going on at the time, but a bloke called Martin Millar, who knows A
lby very well indeed, told me everything he knew about it. There was an awful lot of weird stuff going on in Brixton, and elsewhere in London, at the time. Apart from our friend and his problems, there was an immense rivalry between two Chinese arcade-game players, that seemed to reach epic proportions as they and their fans battled it out to see who could "Kill Another One" with more skill.
Some professor was searching for an ancient crown in a very underhand way, after finding an old document about it hidden in a Beano annual. The manager of the local supermarket was cracking down hard on shoplifters, including Alby's friend Julie, as he needed to prove himself in some way after his cat died, when no-one would take him seriously any more. "How could we promote a man whose cat died of cancer? If he couldn’t look after a cat properly what would he do with a major branch of Big Value?"
Martin Millar also knew the contract killer hired to 'deal with' Alby. She seemed like a very smart woman. She knew a lot about philosophy and plants. I was glad to hear, however, that "she does not talk to them because in her experience it does not make any difference."
On the whole, I feel for Alby, and I think you might do too, when you get to know him.
"One time I lost a toy robot in a biscuit barrel on a bus.
My heart is rended. They are both presents, it is a brilliant robot and I am hurrying home to play with it. I nip into the biscuit shop to put some new biscuits in my new biscuit barrel and get on a bus, I plan to spend the day eating biscuits and playing with the robot. But I leave it on the bus.
It is a dreadful experience and I am really upset to think of this robot being kidnapped and taken home by some stranger. I go next day to the London Transport lost property office but they deny all knowledge of the affair.
I expect that some of their staff are in
on it. When I go in asking for a toy robot in a biscuit barrel some people around actually start laughing. Bastards."
Alby also loves reggae, and he’s good to his hamster. He buys it Maltesers and everything. I like him a lot actually, I really do. I recognise far too much of myself in him to do otherwise. I enjoyed hearing about him when I was 19 and had purple hair and thought I was a little bit on the edge. I enjoy hearing about him now that I'm 29 and fairly boring, and still like to read books that take you into a corner, wherever you are, and say 'let me tell you a story…' I think Alby is a superb tragi-comic hero, and if you don’t agree, then the purple-haired skinhead in me says 'Up yours, grandad!'.
Anyway, if you want to hear more about Alby and how it all turned out for him, or lots of other weird and wonderful characters, why not look up Martin Millar sometime? You'll usually find him hanging around at www.martinmillar.com. You can't miss him, he's the sexy-in-a-dishevelled-way one with the tattoos. He might even tell you a story in his gorgeous Scottish accent. He doesn't mind strangers coming to introduce themselves at all, as you'll discover if you e-mail him. Just don't get him started on Buffy.
"After all these terrible experiences I hurry home to hide and sulk."
I thought you'd gone a bit quiet. Sulking, were you? Look, I'm willing to admit you’ve had a hard time in a lot of ways. But can’t you lighten up a bit? People on dooyoo aren't going to want to read about a paranoid depressive addict, even if you are funny and surreal and often very, very true. Make an effort for the nice people, please...
"There's a hired killer out to shoot me! There's a Chinese gangster after me! I'm getting old and I'm always ill! It’s great! It's fun time down here in sweltering sun-drenched
Brixton, no more complaints from me!"
Ok, Alby, you win.
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