British Comedy Guide

Should I or shouldn't I?

This is only my second post, so here goes.

I've read alot on this forum and I think youre all an alright bunch to get some valuable feedback from. Youre obviously not averse to calling a spade a spade andthat's what I need.... ok...enuf baftaesque grovelling.

below are the first few pages of a book I'm contemplating.

A bit of background. The story is about yemeni immigrants set in the late 80s. I know not everyone realises that there is a sizeable yemeni community in the UK (apparently since the 19th century). Anyway.... I won't say anymore. If it needs explaining then its no good. here goes. I apolgise in advance if ive broken any forum rules about length or about waffling like this.... ok..ok.

CHAPTER ONE

"It's not fair dad" whined Nasser, or Nas to everyone else "you know I wanted to go". Muthanna Thabet, Motty, was a towering hulk of a man, brought up in a ramshackle house in the southern part of Yemen. A time of his life he had effectively blocked out of his memory. He arrived as a fresh faced young lad of 20 in 1955. To be met by his cousin, Askar, as he headed out of the arrivals hall at Heathrow Airport. Their destination was to be West Bromwich, home to West Bromwich Albion, the 1st Division football team. Not that that held any interest to Muthanna. He was here to work, and by God, he would do just that till his fingers bled.

He was used to a hard life. In fact, he left home at 12 and got himself a job serving tea in a local tea house in Aden. It was a thankless job but it was a respite from his meager existence with an abusive father and an equally abused mother.

"Listen you bastarr" Muthanna rasped, leaving the d off the end of the word sort of arabised it, "I not telling you again. We can't afford you go on that bloody school trip. Ok?"

Deep down in his heart, Nas knew they couldn't afford the eighty pounds it would cost for him to go along with some of his classmates to Paris for three days. Last year's sixth formers related stories of drug induced orgies, stories that were still ringing in his ears. It didn't matter that they were riddled with adolescent exaggeration; it didn't take much to get his juices stirring. The thought of him giving Sandra Beaton one made his dick quiver. Well worth the eighty pounds. Paris was just a bonus. His imagination was running amok now. He and Sandra locked in such passionate embraces that it seemed they were both made out of rubber, except his dick of course. That was made of the stuff they drilled oil wells with. He damned his throbbing member loudly in his head. He was in desperate need of a good old wank.

Wanking had become an art -form for Nas. He had devised wild and wonderful means. His particular favourite was a rubber glove filled with Vaseline. This was rolled up in a towel and the opening of the glove folded over the edge of the rolled up towel. Sheer bliss. Why he thought that his mother's Rubbermaid washing up glove rolled up in a towel felt anything like Sandra Beaton's fanny is a testament to the power of adolescent sexual imagination. In fact, he'd never even seen female genitalia, apart from a childbirth video at school. That actually put him off wanking for two days. He would have lasted longer, but he spotted his neighbour, Mrs. Simms, taking a shower. Her silhouette through the heavily frosted bathroom window was indistinguishable from anyone's. She could have been a gorilla and it wouldn't have mattered. It was too much for Nas's vivid imagination and saturated balls. He rushed into the toilet and frantically relieved himself, if he had stroked any faster, his dick would have burst into flames. The force of fluid shooting out of his knob almost knocked him back. If he was in a swimming pool, he would have skimmed across the water backwards like a jet ski.

Although Sarah Beaton managed to get to sixth form, it was only by the grace of God. She was of the type that leaves school, get pregnant (or gets pregnant then leaves school), settle down into a mundane lifestyle surrounded by screaming kids and an equally loud husband. A husband who's just a nameless boiler suit in a factory, comes home, takes a shower, eats his tea and then down the pub with the lads. Staggering home at closing time, high on beer and the expectation of supper and a shag, which he almost always got unless his performance let him down. Nonetheless, her parents had forced her to go on to sixth form and "get some bloody O levels you slag"

To Nas, Sarah was a dream. She fulfilled all his criteria for the perfect woman, breasts, a fanny and she spoke to him once. It didn't matter that it was "Excuse me please, is this the O level Home Economics class?". He deluded himself with the notion that of all people in school, she had chosen him to talk to. She was well into him. It was only a matter of time. Once she mustered up the courage, she would approach him. Ask him to pop her cherry. Shag her till she screamed his name, clawing his back passionately as he forced his rampant throbbing shaft into her tight expectant hole. Nas often had these rants in his head. The cocktail of hormones ravaging his insides played havoc with his mind. Added to that a scrotum with an endless supply of sperm and a dick that a pterodactyl could use as a perch made him a little bit disturbing.

He turned to his dad "I'm just going to the toilet dad". His dad just carried on digging the vegetable patch. A contemptuous look said he knew what his son was going for. He was jealous. His own dick now a flaccid shadow of the tower of love that it once was.

Margeret Thabet, or Madge to everyone else except the doctor, was standing at the sink washing dishes as Nas walked in through the kitchens back door. She met Motty back in 1956. He had lived in the same road her father ran a grocery shop in. She was smitten by him from the first day she laid eyes on him. His lean muscular build, his olive skin, the way he struggled with English. She was barely out of school but she knew then that he would be hers.
"You better not dirty my floor. I've just mopped it". "I won't. Ill take me boots off here anyways" he replied sheepishly. "I've got the tea on" she continued "get washed up and come down right away" he heard her as he reached the top of the stairs. That immediately put a dampener on his designs of a relaxed tossing marathon. His mother was using the gloves anyway.

He went into the bathroom, removed his trousers and pants and proceeded to daydream about Sarah Beaton. This time, it felt as if she was really there with him. His hand replaced by her moist warmth.

"Nas!" he heard his mother bellowing downstairs. He closed his eyes tight and continued. Grimacing as he fought to drive away all images except that of Sarah Beaton.

A few minutes later he was bounding down the stairs. Face a little flushed. Trying to look normal and doing a very bad job of it. His mother and father were already sitting at the dining table with knives and forks in hands, eating in silence, clearly oblivious to his presence.

"Don't mind me. I wouldn't dream of interrupting your meal" he remarked sarcastically. His parents looked up from their meal and just stared at him, open mouthed as he pulled a chair out from under the table. "Look at you two. You look like a pair of guppy fish. What's the matter? It's called sarcasm you know. Supposed to be funny." The noise of his mother's fork hitting the tiled floor and her running screaming out of the kitchen took him by surprise. He looked incredulously at his father who just sat there, with that look on his face. The look Nas knew all too well meant trouble. "What the f...., what did I say?" Nas innocently remarked. His question was answered by his father leaping up across the table, grabbing him by the hair and giving him five or six hard slaps across his face." You are a fukkin f**ker. You come to eat and you bollocks hangin out like that". As Nas somersaulted through the air, he caught a glimpse of his naked bollocks retreating like an airplane's undercarriage.

Nas lay silently in his bed nursing aching cheeks. Understandably, he didn't have the appetite to eat his tea that night. He really didn't feel he could face his parents. Not after walking up to them at the dining table au naturelle, his balls swinging between his legs like a medieval coin purse with very little inside it. What the hell happened? He asked himself. Had been so engrossed in his dream world that not only did he forget to put his trousers and pants back on but he was oblivious to walking around half naked. Couldn't he even feel a breeze? Didn't the unrestricted swinging tip him off? That was the grip that Sarah Beaton had on him. He was a slave to her cameo appearances in his head. He was sure that he could plead diminished responsibility or temporary insanity. Somehow, he didn't think he could sell that idea to his dad. He closed his eyes and imagined himself in a courtroom, presided over by the Honourable Judge Motty. His mother was wearing her Sunday best, seated in the first row of observers behind him, quietly sobbing into a handkerchief. "I put it to the jury that the accused, with blatant disregard to the suffering of others, and with premeditated malice, deliberately subjected his parents to the hideous crime of flashing his bollocks while they sat in the safety and sanctity of their kitchen. When they sat at their meal that fateful day, they naively assumed that the meat and two veg that they would see would be on their plates". His mother sobbed some more into her handkerchief. "I put it to the jury that they have no choice but to find the accused guilty of the crime of having the ugliest bollocks ever and using them maliciously with intent to cause mental distress"

I would certainly be interested in reading a fictional book from the perspective of someone from the Yemeni/UK community but from your opening chapter you haven't really displayed why this is a selling point.

You've got the 80s tone well in the flippantness but need to emphasise with cultural references. I would personally be more intrigued to know about a normal young male being a normal young male in recent times as I presume the family if not the individual is Muslim.

Others may disagree but a long section about wanking on the first page would put me off- I don't know enough about this character to get any literary insight from knowing these more personal aspects.

Perhaps I'm older than your intended audience but at this stage I'm much more fascinated by the father's and mother's thoughts on how their son is integrating.

This is a good idea for a book but you need more context and information about the community and history you're writing about, otherwise it's just another teenage suburbian rebel book.

Thank you very much AJGO. I will certainly take your comments onboard. Regarding the fictional work, I don't think I have it in me to do it justice, however, its a thought.

you presume rightly that they are muslim (except the mother). I supposethat's where the overt sexual frustration comes from :-)

i was hoping that I would contectualise it within the cultural aspects as the book moves on. the characters would develop more dimension too.

that said, I will certainly have another bash in light of your comments.

Again, thanks for taking the time to read it and your valuable feedback. really really appreciated.

Thank you very much AJGO. I will certainly take your comments onboard. Regarding the fictional work, I don't think I have it in me to do it justice, however, its a thought.

You're welcome. Is this not fictional? If it's not I know far more about you than I wish to

:D

you presume rightly that they are muslim (except the mother). I supposethat's where the overt sexual frustration comes from :-)

If this is something that you think could be interesting, introduce us to the religious perspective that he will have been brought up with and then consider how this could conflict with other perspectives that he's exposed to (but later in the book please!)

i was hoping that I would contectualise it within the cultural aspects as the book moves on. the characters would develop more dimension too.

Certainly this will happen, but to bring the reader in from the start you need more context to show that this book offers a story or viewpoint or experience that they won't easily find elsewhere

that said, I will certainly have another bash in light of your comments.

Do! I would genuinely be interested to see it in light of more research and development

Again, thanks for taking the time to read it and your valuable feedback. really really appreciated.

Well done for getting this far, and for posting
:)

Well it's an unimpressive rejigging of Portnoys Complaint via any hackneyed tale of wanking teens.

Is this for real?

If it is you might to rewrite extensively and actually develop some plot and characterisation.

Otherwise dejavu, how are you...?

thanks for the pointer sooty. I actually had to look up your reference, id never heard of it before. I guess its back to the drawing board.

I really got drawn in, amazing but I really liked it. Not offended I realise how much wanking is a force with men. Well written, I have read 'Portnoys' and laughed, thinking it was grossly exaggerated, alas not.

Please carry on, not enough is divulged about male sexual repression, about time it was tackled 'hands on', pardon my expression. :D

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