The Obama Chronicles - Barack gets Inaugurated

Hilary Clinton sits on Barack Obama’s lap in the Fox news camper van. The van is dimly lit and smells like bacon. Strapped into the bed at the back of the van is Bill Cosby, convulsing. Bill’s breaths sounds like boots on wet gravel. Electrodes are pinned to his forehead.

Beside the bed is a jug of blood.

‘So, it’s the big day, huh?’ Fox’s political correspondent, Shirley Zuul says.
‘I…um,’ Obama says, peering at the jug of blood.

Zuul clicks her fingers until Obama meets her gaze. ‘Hey, Obs. You a fan?’ She aims a finger at Cosby, who stirs slightly.

‘Shirley,’ Obama says, biting his thumbnail, ‘That man seems very nice, and he smells delicious. But I think I should go-I’m not sure what’s going on in here.’

Shirley mimes jacking off. Hilary snorts on her fizzy lemonade.

‘How long d’you think you can last in a country like this, Barack?’

Barack thinks carefully, as if all the puzzles and mysteries of the silent black universe confront him. Suddenly, he stands, swivels on a dime, yanks open the van door and rushes into the crowd that has been waiting for him since dawn.

Supporters have seized the streets below the inauguration podium. Mel Gibson faces Barack Obama, ready to swear him in on an Amway catologue. Obama blinks.

Mel reaches out and wipes a finger across Obama’s cheek. He rubs his thumb and forefinger together, and then pushes out his bottom lip.

‘It doesn’t come off,’ Gibson says. ‘You know,’ he continues, ‘I thought you’d be less ...’

‘Lithe?…I get that a lot,’ says Barack.

‘No, less African American. Is there any chance you’ll get whiter with age? That would suit me.’

‘I like to think I can accomplish anything,’ Obama says decisively.

‘Well,’ Mel says, ‘that’s it. You’re in. You’re president.’

Obama frowns. The thousands gathered erupt. Gunfire cracks. Housewives climax. Klansmen wash their sheets on high. Fundamentalists check their flight schedules…

‘Is that it?’ Obama asks.

‘Yep,’ says Mel, ‘now listen to me you fuck. If you nationalize ANYTHING I will roll deep and get all up in yo’ ass.’

‘I have no idea what you’ve just said, but I’m sure it was nice, so thank you,’
Obama says, raising his hands to the sky as if he’s just hit a 3 pointer.

Obama glides to the front of the podium, high fiving, pounding, spinning, whooping and winking.

‘People of America!’ he begins, promisingly.

A silent bullet hits his forehead. Splits his skull. Crack. Blood gurgles. He collapses. Two long seconds later he jumps to his feet and waves stiffly. The shocked crowd screams like never before, as if he’s passed his first test.

‘People!’ he stutters… ‘Pe, peee, peopppple, of The, ug,ug, America!! Obey me…obey..ME. And you will not get hurt!!’

Barack’s eyes are too alive, he has jowls and graying temples, electricity crackles around his body as if he’s being molested by Arnold Swarchenegger. An observant observer prods his friend.

‘That looks like Bill fucking Cosby, man,’ he says.

Speed dating with the Catholic church

St. Gabriel’s church loiters tantalizingly close to Rockwell primary school in North London. This proximity has inspired the church to create a speed-dating programme for the cheeky, knife-wielding seven to ten year olds. The increasingly 'backed-up' church authorities believe it’s a good way to reach out to the hairless youth, pull their arms behind their backs, unbutton their flies, and deliver God's sermon.

Thomas Weengold is the pastor. He is a thin man with child bearing hips, and today he ushers the skipping lonely hearts into the church with a beatific growl. A giant white banner flaps above his head that reads, 'This is just between us, ok Johnny?'

The children are injected one by one into the confessional where they discuss their hobbies and previous relationships. The youngsters queue in nervous excitement, reenacting the truffle shuffle and peeking under Jesus’ skirt. But after the date they have a adult look in their eyes, as if they’ve seen the face of god and want to phone Child line.

The day is over. The children are quiet and still. The nervous pastor phones the Pope, who puts his mind at ease by promoting him. I ask one child how he felt the day went. ‘God’s love comes in many forms, I understand that,’ he told me, ‘but I thought it would be …less horrific.’

I asked Weengold whether he thought the day had been a success. ‘Well,’ he said, pointing at children sitting awkwardly on the hard pews, breathing heavily, eyelids flickering, ‘they’re at peace….and, and, you can’t prove anything.’

They are at peace, it’s true. And yet one feels it was unnecessary for Weengold to empty all the coffins lining the church, squeeze the children into them, and wheel the death caskets out of the church and down the hill towards Tesco.

The Obama Chronicles - Obama moves in

Barack Obama tall and lithe and also black, but that’s not relevant, drives a hummer through the front window of the White House. The chunky tire marks on the front lawn mark the moment when white imperialism flatlines and is pimp slapped aside for the next generation of African American’s; who simply want our women, and the police to keep it above the waist.

‘Where do you want all your black guy stuff,’ a pale servant says, adopting a south paw stance, flicking out a jab every few seconds.

‘What would you class as black guy stuff?’ says Obama earnestly, always wanting to learn.

‘Mostly weapons, chains, gold front teeth, crack and some bitches maybe.’

‘You can have Michelle, but I want the weapons because...’

In a flash Barack unsheathes a .45 and blasts a sniper on the curling marble staircase behind him.

‘I’ll keep the gold fronts too, they’re orthopaedic...’ Obama whispers, as the white supremacist topples down the stairs like a slinky.

In the Oval Office, Hillary Clinton climbs out from beneath the presidential desk where she has kneeled for over 15 years, servicing Bill, and trying to yelp some advice as she spits and dodges.

‘Do you really want to be President, Barack?’ Hilary drawls, while sliding a finger down his cheek.

‘Uh-huh,’ Barack mumbles, while trying to control his raging semi by thinking of Dick Cheney eating a cheeseburger.

‘I never liked you people. I think I’m going to stab you a lot,’ she says, peeling crusty gunk from her forehead.

Obama sleeps on the roof that night. But he isn’t alone. The Press Whore helicopters swoop and hover above.

‘You know that cunt in power before you,’ one journo screams, ‘who everyone hated and wanted to kill, um, you know, Martin Luther King... Don’t you think you should leg it before the same happens to you, by, maybe, one of my boys?’ he says, hooking a finger at a couple of chubby pencil-lickers, holding nooses and clubs on fire.

‘I’ve got more glocks and tecs than you,’ Barack says, clutching his African American teddy tightly.

With that the men inside the choppers jump to safety, allowing the unpiloted machines to hurtle towards The President. He tries to deflect them with his black super powers, but he doesn’t have any. He is torn apart; arms from shoulders, legs from hips, pummelled like pizza dough. His blood seeps through the Oval office ceiling onto Hilary’s head, as she lies on the President’s desk in bra and panties, flicking through a hunting knife magazine. This is what happens when you vote in a black man. It’s just not worth it.

List of victims of the Economic Crash

Cinemas

No one will pay to have a hate-wank over Angelina Jolie in the cinema anymore. They’ll just bring their laptops and crack one off in the cinema lobby while singing ‘Rocky Road anyone!?’

Sex

There is far less sex because everyone is poor. No one wants to get fingered in Burger King near the deep fat fryer because it’s cheap and hot and Judy on chips is fitter than any girl you can get.

Foreplay

There’s just not enough time for it with all the poverty, I’m being serious now. Best thing is to get straight to the anal, pull out for a facial and sell the DVD to Chris next door who can get it projected onto the Tate Modern within the hour.

Nights out

Girls seem to be less slaggy, as if they’ve gained a more moral outlook, a grip on reality or something. They certainly refuse to swallow daddy’s medicine and fart it out their ass; a move I encourage all women to recreate before I give them a pap smear.

Fighting

Men, real men, men who fight in streets, on cars, around lampposts, on buses , outside homes, up the doorsteps, in kitchens, in bedrooms while shagging some poor girl who looks a bit like Alan Carr; these men are broke and tired and can hardly smash the buttons on the fruit machine.

Instead they talk, get know each other, appreciate each other’s sensitive side, discuss previous relationships, weep and wail, and yet yearn for the days when they had the energy to thrust the rim of a pint glass into their new best friend’s lovely face.

The homeless – don’t worry, they probably like it

Daniel has always been homeless. He was born in a Renault 5 which he learned to drive soon after. He took fares, taxiing bald hookers with knives in their eyes to their dates. Pimps shot up his baby formula on the car's bonnet. All this before he was eighteen months old.

Eventually Daniel’s car was stolen by a three year old bully and he had to learn how to walk and beg for money too. He made a good living, sitting on newspaper in Leicester square. He wailed and pleaded for Farley’s rusks, as he clasped a bottle of Cillit Bang.

But the gravy train couldn’t last forever. He soon became a middle-aged man; an age when asking for pureed food seems creepy. He owned a knee length suit and six nectar cards that could claim three Toilet Ducks. And so the circle of life continued. And now he’s sitting in front of me drinking coffee. It doesn’t seem right that he be allowed into Starbucks.

‘I have never had sex with a woman,’ Daniel said, ‘and yet I’m not a virgin, if you know what I mean.’

I didn’t.

‘I have never seen The Wire. I have never felt the love of a dog that didn’t hump me and feel ashamed soon after. I have never tasted ice-cream, I mean I really don’t think what I ate was ice-cream. I have never slept a night without the fear someone will steal my papier-mâché fort'.

Later, as I walked him to his card-board box, moulded into the shape of a red sports car, I realised it’s not just us, the shiny bench pressing white rulers of the planet, suffering from this mentally retarded, paralysed from the waist down, amputated, clinical depression of a financial crisis. The fact is homeless people have been whinging for years.

As I departed Daniel grovelled, ‘Can you spare some change, please.’

I thought about it, rifled through my pockets and lied, ‘Um, I don’t have any. Sorry.’ I felt no guilt. These are the times we are living in.

Britney Spears' legacy - She legalized paedophilia and cut sex crime down by half

Britney Spears, who was ejaculated into the face of the public’s consciousness when she was sixteen years of age, legal in the UK, illegal in the US but definitely worth it, died by her own hand today after suffering a karate chop depression. She was devastated because public opinion had sidled up to Miley Cyrus and Vanessa Hudgens, blew in their ear, sniffed their hair, and dropped aggressively soothing pills into their Alco-pops.
However, to many middle-aged male primary school teachers with candy floss stuck in their beards and wanted posters across Thailand, Britney died when she hit her teens.

War...it's like, ow, that really hurts

War… what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. The original title of Tolstoy’s most famous book. Instead he settled on War and Peace, and we will never know if the original title would have created more success for the underrated Russian thriller.

But war, is it all bad? Can men in indie-kid clothes, shooting at other men forced into battle by their CIA backed tyrants, really be wrong? Is oppressing inferior races who don't believe in allergies and refuse to wear jeans, necessarily a bad thing? Yes. But pushing that to one side, ever since childhood when we crashed a plastic truck over our little sister’s head to steal a wham bar, we realised the joy of battle. It is only one step from the crib to the SAS. My father picked me out as a soldier as young as three, as he’d spent all the family’s savings on MDMA and heard the army was a sweet deal.

Living with the British soldiers, in Iraq, 2003, I learnt the true price of war. I was shocked to see them cower in fear each night, popping speed cubes, biting their fingernails through their bullet proof gloves, cringing as the Colonel screams for one more yard, one more push, one more dead body, that will lead to the end of this terrifying though necessary war. One soldier, who shall remain anonymous, due to him being an unreliable source and not strictly speaking being in the army, said, ‘I can’t take this, the Americans have killed my family, I have no food or water, why is this happening?.’ ‘Shit, ‘I replied, ‘I didn’t mean to interview you.’

I was lucky enough to be positioned in Baghdad when Tony Blair arrived to smirk at the troops and pull some Iraqi Chicks. You could say I looked into the eyes of death and realised just how much I needed telly to convince me it would be alright. The men and I were gathered on the basement floor of a high-rise block of flats near the centre of Baghdad. It was cold. Soldiers had to sit on top of each other. Some men were gazing at the ceiling as the plastic chairs bent back.

Tony skipped in, waggled his lips with a finger, half turned and whacked the back of his hand against his forehead, announcing, ‘teeeerup!’ Soldiers stared, their jaws slowly falling open, eyelids flickering as Blair waved in two Iraqi boys, pushing a lazy-boy. Blair collapsed into the leather seat and flicked the footrest up. He groaned, pulled a Cadbury’s fruit and nut from his pocket and tore into it.
‘Now,’ Blair chomped, ‘I’m gonna cut straight to da chase. Big anti-war protests, lotsa people slagging me off, yeah? Well the long and da short of it is, I’m banning youse from killing people,y'understand?’
‘Pardon?’ Colonel Godamn asked.
‘Sorry, jus don’t make me look good, ya git me.’
‘How do expect us to defeat the enemy Prime-minister?’
‘Well, dope question, homeboy. I believe we are de most charming mo-fuckers on de planet, yeah?’
‘Er,’
‘Yeah so if some geezer giving you shit, screwing, yeah, you just slide up to him and slip ‘im a spliff. Blow a kiss t‘is ladee yeah…? That type o’ shit. I’m outta here check youse all later. Peace out.’

Watching enemy children, hanging off your fellow soldiers' shoulders, clasping each leg, bashing him to death with stones, while unable to retaliate by shooting them in the head with an AK, is a sad sight. But this is the way warfare has been for centuries. An out of touch leader makes decisions from his underground bunker thousands of miles away from the bloody horror-show, declaring war, while enforcing a one-sided, undeclared ceasefire. All of this made irrelevant by the American's carpet-bombing campaign killing millions.
Ain't war hell?! Yeah boyeee!

Jade Goody - A nation mourns in their lunch breaks, the media burp

Jade Goody, an ordinary young woman, catapulted to fame for her lively personality, charming lack of intelligence, and ungraspable mass appeal for so many Heat magazine readers, was born on reality TV and has died in front of the media’s binoculars. Many say the public’s interest in watching Jade’s life fall apart, ending in an agonising death, is due to a nationwide desire to become pathologists. One member of the morbidly inclined public, said, ‘Watching her hair fall out was satisfying, but the money shot was seeing her eyes go cold and her body stiffen from rigor mortis.’
Heat magazine and some broad sheets paid tribute to Jade by publishing photos of her two sons clambering on to Jade’s hospital bed and shaking her to wake up. Lengthy articles beneath the photo pointed out the sons’ ignorance, and that Jade was dead, the wallys.
The Dail Mail came into its own during Jade’s rapid decline from a virulent, though very commercial form of cancer. It chewed her up from the inside and provoked a pain even the finest gossip journalist could not describe. Many tried though. Some of the descriptions were, ‘She felt like she’d been punched on the arm by her little brother, but worse.’ Another moaned, ‘It was as if she’d forgotten her keys, but worse.’ Another honest journalist emoted, ‘She was very profitable and it’s sad.’
Journalists’ ability to capture the mood of the nation, by publishing slow-motion videos of her physical deterioration were criticized about not securing a live feed for the autopsy. Reporters hit back by saying they gave vivid descriptions of what her guts would look like; black and mossy green, and three reporters were killed by being fired from a cannon at jade's hospital-room window, each clutching a microphone, notepad and plastic penny bag for tissue samples.
The public’s fervour for pictures of Jade’s tampons, pregnancy tests and French symbolist poetry archive was a new phenomenon in the media. There are rumours that when Jade was castigated and ignored by the press for alleged racism, many in the media realised the only way they could achieve another big payday was for her to die or be forgiven.
Therefore Ok magazine employed a crack team of ex-CIA agents to, in the nicest possible way, assassinate her. One ploy was to line her wet-suit with bird flu. Another was to rig a small bomb to her favourite Cuban cigars. It is also rumoured an ex-KGB hit man walked up to her in Sloane Square and placed a gun to her head. He fired, missed and killed an already dying Jodie Kidd.
None of these money-making schemes worked out, but fortunately Jade had developed a terrible, incurable cancer that would go on to mush up her guts, eventually making two children motherless and her husband a widow. A spokesman for the group mind that is media, said, ‘Thank god nature’s so cruel,’ as he violently cackled, causing his office to turn their heads and stare, and then snorted a line of coke from his secretaries forehead.
In a touchingly contrived wedding ceremony, journalists were able to stuff themselves with canapés and drink chilled red wine from paper cups and feel as if something wonderful was happening. Many said the canapés were for Jade as they were wheat-free and she is highly allergic. Journalists denied this then added defensively, ‘whatever, it’s all bollocks anyway.’
Jade will live on in the hearts of the nation and will continue to make money for the media from rehashed photographs of her vomiting and losing her fingernails. Yet many will forget Jade and are now waiting for Amy Whinehouse and Kerry Katona to die.

Madonna - Music that created the effect of a US bombing campaign

Madonna, known for her ability to pray and bench press her bodyguard ‘Big Tone’, has died today due to swallowing her strangely feminine foot while trying to master an obscure yoga move. The position involved slicing off her foot, temporarily, and putting it in her mouth. An ancient practise developed by the late Victorians, it is said to alleviate the desire for food. Madonna, 70% muscle when she passed, was widely reported to be in an almost constant state of hunger, like the homeless but without the taste or the sense of community.
Madonna’s death has affected many people. People across the nation struggled to hold in their grief, pretending to smile, punch the air, bellow high-pitched obscenities and buy a round of doubles for the local pub. When asked how he felt about the Madonna’s passing, one punter said, ‘Buy me another fwarcking drink an’ I’ll tell ya.’ This reporter agreed and that is all he wants to say about that evening.
Madonna rose to fame by beating an angular Sean Penn into a more symmetrical shape. Penn went on to have an outstanding movie career, where he drew on his pain from his relationship with Madonna, to play roles such as a child abuse victim and a pussy- whipped psychopath. Rumours spread, and impressed music execs, who said in a public statement, ‘She’s brassy. She has hair in the right places. I’d like to….’ It seems Mafioso music enthusiasts have a taste for tough women and she was quite willing to, ‘get medieval,’ she boasted ‘so I can fight injustice,’ while sipping a can of Tennants from a brown paper bag.
Madonna was notorious for her many image transformations. The media was impressed by her ability to dye her hair and change her clothes. One time she wore a cowboy hat, at all other times she seemed influenced by broken girls loitering on the streets of Soho illuminated by green and red neon lights from cult bookstores. In the new millennium some have controversially implied they expect more from a musician than make-up.
It was only when she turned forty and noticed parts of her body turning a primary yellow colour with hints of squishy black, did she experience a sense of her own mortality. So she joined a religion so obscure she could be its enlightened figurehead, who performed peculiarly compelling, but ultimately meaningless, shows to hundreds of thousands of hysterical followers, just like the real messiah. Its headquarters was someone’s uncle’s tie-dye carpet shop in suburbs of Tel Aviv, and even the All Seeing Eye had overlooked it, as it sold pricey and poorly made Bulgarian throes.
Madonna has led a controversial career. In many of her shows she lies on a bed and masturbates with a crucifix while her head rotates 360 degrees and vomits green bile. In other disturbing shows she sings a medley of all her songs. Audiences seem to enjoy her work, but this is a confusing world of almost constant war, genocide and high taxation leading to a wider gap between rich and poor.
Madonna will chiefly be remembered as someone who chewed on her foot and died because of it. But she also left a deep imprint on English culture by forcing Guy Ritchie to act like a cockney, who then made dark introspective movies about cockneys which in turn destroyed the UK movie industry.

Tom Cruise - The man behind the man, but not in a gay way

Tom Cruise, most known for humping chair legs and kidnapping Katie Holmes, was murdered today when a reanimated L. Ron Hubbard tracked him down and bashed him repeatedly over the head with a replica Oscar Cruise had fashioned for himself out of Holmes’s bra wires. Hubbard publicly justified his actions by suggesting Cruise was a Christ-like figure and he had lived out his destiny. Sources close to Hubbard, however, complained Cruise had twisted Scientology’s teachings by implying it was secret club for repressed homosexuals who wanted their dates assassinated and disposed of immediately after coitus.
One source recalls Hubbard saying, ‘Jesus it’s cold in here, or is it the after effects of cryogenic freezing? I’m gonna kill Cruise…Hey is Burger King still that cheap? Are they beyond inflation or are they just savvy advertisers?’ Hubbard is in hiding now, rumoured to have burrowed a hole in the H of the Hollywood sign and is meditating on his next Scientological opus, ‘How I did it…if I had killed Tom Cruise.’
During Cruise’s highly successful and disturbing life he had a poor impregnation rate. He failed to knock up waif-like upright poodle Nicole Kidman, horse and broken-english enthusiast Penelope Cruz. Fortunately for Cruise, and the rest of Hollywood, the third world was invented for them. Hollywood is well known for being able to import physically healthy babies of a somewhat darker, but still sociably acceptable shade. Thankfully, there is a scheme for returning the favour to the grimy underworld of poor people and sending deformed and disabled babies the other way. A spokesman for this widely acclaimed system has said, ‘Yeah, we get healthy black babies, but they get white kids in return and that cancels out the disability…check out my flip chart.’
Some have said these imported products are merely status symbols and are discarded in later life. The truth is there is a contract made with the baby, who uses an adult to sign for it, being the new Hollywood parent, that states when the import comes of age it will be allowed to become a runner on a light-weight art-house movie starring a resuscitated Steve Buscemi. It is true to say, however, once the children grow out of being all ‘cute and cwuddly’ the parents find they tend to blend in with the other immigrants who cook and clean in their house. Angelina Jolie claimed that one of her older children went to wash up a cup in the sink and never returned.
Cruise finally figured out how to impregnate a woman. He realised punching her in the belly was counter-productive and decided to allow his co-star from the highly problematic romantic comedy Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman, to ‘have a go.’ First time out the bag Hoffman delivered a massive load and within a week Katie Holmes had hurled a strangely business-like looking baby into the next door neighbour’s, Angelina Jolie’s, swimming pool. Jolie is reported to have believed god was now finally delivering babies to her door. She realised her mistake when she saw the baby was a little too ‘Caucasian’ and ‘carrying a briefcase.’
It would be wrong to write an obituary of Tom Cruise and not mention his movie career.
Cruise became a very controversial spokesman for Scientology. He claimed hospitals were made of wood and penicillin turns people black. Thousands of people in central and southern U.S. died and a surprising amount of white liberals in Manhattan guiltily passed away.
Cruise’s legacy is one of developing a new method of acting, that of chewing gum and opening his eyes. He will be remembered for his strange pecks and employing a vast range of cobblers.

Celine Dion - If she were on the ice instead of Winslet, Leonardo would have fit

Celine Dion, the Canadian singer, who has inflicted much happiness on an ignorant nation, has died today, not on stage, but on a small boat as she tried to recreate the famous titanic scene where Leonardo Di Caprio tries to clasp a hungry Kate Winslet. Bean-pole Dion was being hugged by her morbidly chubby manager/lover when the dinghy capsized. Dion, nose shaped like Nissan micra, was caught up in violent undertow which dragged her deeper and deeper into the darkness and the rotten cold where sharks and piranhas tried to find a decent meal but were disappointed to find she had disolved into a vague, flower-scented, cloud, entirely devoid of substance or artistic relevance.

Fortunately, for him, stick-woman Dion’s manager/cleaner, Danny ‘Dapper’ Doppel, survived the terrible event, and is as we speak getting to work on a new Dion album, drawn from vocals taped during their lovemaking. Dion was able to spontaneously burp songs of remarkable commercial quality while maintaining her signature 'scorched earth' sound. He has obviously had to carefully edit the vocals as she tended to shout ‘Deeper! And ‘Not that hole! Only weekends!’ But sources close to this reporter, (my brother), have told me Doppel is planning to make a highly sexual rap album with a host of rappers willing to collaborate… Mr Mouse the Torturer has said ‘I have always wanted to split that shiny pencil in two, knowwhatimsaying yo, and this feels close to that, dog.’

Dion was most famous for jerking across a stage like she was on stilts and worbling inane sentiments about 17th century literature. Crowds went wild as they hysterically threw money at her, paper-clipped to brochures of affordable but well respected plastic surgeons. Until she died she never took the hint and we will never know whether she would have cleaned up her face and put on a few pounds. This reporter suggests any fan should take pictures of her and photo-shop her giant nose, her weighty over-hanging brow and chin that seems to be making a run for it.
Dion’s songs were highly successful. Scientists have done many tests on her music and discovered some of the sonic resonances have contributed to global warming. And yet we should remember she is a terrible person and her evil has infected society in many unseen ways. I will just mention cancer, aids and genocide.

So, how should the world, nay, history, remember this rat-faced elongated pygmy. Well the truth is history is an ever-changing ungraspable hologram, where the viewer changes events whenever he looks at them. They say history is written by the victors, and so who will speak for the oppressed masses? Who can capture a personality, a soul even? Life is a mirage, a mirror and a bad joke. I think, however, the most apt way to describe Dion is that she is awful, just awful.