Dogged Readers Who Like Outpourings of Hatred From a Potential Ogre,

These past 4 weeks have been blighted by The Canadian, he’s finally gone home but we’re still dealing with the fallout.

The Canadian is Father’s cousin’s son. We received a call saying, “I arrive tomorrow, can I live with you?” Out of loyalty to his uncle, Father agreed but then asked my aunt, down the road, if she could let him live in one of her spare rooms. So, these were the arrangements: a Canadian stranger, aged 21, who we were lead to believe was a little naïve, didn’t drink or smoke and who would be doing his own thing out of our way (visiting Belfast, Newcastle, London, Brighton and Gibraltar!), would turn up in 24 hours, he would do his own thing, not drink, not smoke and might require our guidance now and again.

He informed my aunt that he liked taking walks and going out for jogs.

After 24 hours, it became apparent that he was either on the run from the law in Canada, on the run from his family to join the UK army or his family knew he was horrid and just wanted rid of him for 4 weeks. He had all kinds of human slurry turning up at my aunt’s door looking for him, he was going out for these “walks” at all sorts of weird times and then these “walks” were followed by mammoth stints in the shower. He was on the phone dialling everyone and anyone. My aunt would ask him what he’d want to eat, she’d prepare it, tell him when it would be ready and then at time of serving, he’d say he was going out for a walk. He trashed the room he was staying in, he was found drinking neat vodka of a Sunday morning and he was very aggressive towards my aunt.

After a week of this, my ever-diplomatic Father decided to move him in with us, to, at least, save his sister’s nerves; this meant brother sleeping in the livingroom on a blow-up mattress and that creep turning his room into a pigsty. All the same stuff happened.

He was just horrible. He preached religion to us. He tried to impose his right-wing politics on us. He lay in bed until lunchtime. He stared at MyArse through the night. He did try to join the army, he went to speak to them, they found it a little weird that a foreigner would like to join the UK army but they said they’d call him. Meantime, he worked on a letter that he would voluntarily write to strengthen his application, the letter is hilarious but also insulting; I don’t put words in the same dead great grandfather’s mouth. I asked why he didn’t want to join the Canadian army, he replied, “They just use the cast-off weapons of the Brits.”

He kept his “walks” up, he kept his showers up. There was always an extraordinary amount of time between him coming up the garden path and actually coming in the door, I have no idea why. It was quite obvious that he was an alcoholic, who desperately tried to eliminate the smell of booze from his self. Of course, he used all our toiletries to do this. I like brushing my teeth as much as the next person, but I don’t have the whole house smelling of mint.

In any discussion with him, he always sided with the lazy, the dishonest, the criminal that exist within our society – because he was one of them. He took great interest when we explained to him the various breeds of human slurry that live in our street; he took great interest in the drug dealers, “Show me the house”.

He didn’t eat meals with us, he skulked off to buy take-aways before dinner, otherwise he lived off what he could sneak out of our chocolate biscuit barrel and our crisps box. The crumbs accumulated under brother’s desk and bed. When he wasn’t on his walks, he was in bed or on MyArse. I heard the shouts one day to which I rushed through.

“I am such an idiot.”
“What have you done?”
“Do you know anything about MySpace? Can I change my age in my profile? I’ve put down my age as 17 but I can’t pass for 17 with the photo I’ve added.”
“Why are you making up fake MySpaces?”
“It’s a contingency plan, man”
“What?”
“If I don’t get in the army, I’ll meet a nice English girl.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.”
“What? You don’t think MySpace is the best site for that?”

He is 21; everyone thought he was 15, in his build and the way he acted. Eventually, we all just hoped he wouldn’t talk to us. He eventually got the message that I hated him after I issued an ultimatum; I said he should stay in, hug the phone and wait on that call from the army or make the most of his holiday because one walk around Methil is enough for a normal tourist.

“If you like walking so much, try the Fife Coastal Path, bridge to bridge, it’s a great walk as long as you’re prepared. Do a section and then get the bus back home.”
“But then I wouldn’t meet any drunken tramps.”
“What?!?!”

He knew I was onto him. I told him that he could do what he was doing here back in Canada and at least, my brother wouldn’t have to be sleeping in the livingroom while he did it. He decided he would practise an evil stare at me for the next few days. I would quite happily have come to blows with him; I was sharper mentally and physically. He never spoke to me for the rest of his time except to ask for some photocopies of a letter the army had given him; after my ultimatum he decided to Edinburgh to pressure them into a decision so that he could go and visit London (i.e. make the most of his holiday) the day after he met with them. He never did visit London, he was supposedly going to London for 3 days, leaving on Thursday, this turned into supposedly leaving for Newcastle on Friday, then he finally left on Saturday, supposedly to stay for a few nights in Glasgow - but he came back after a few hours.

There was no getting rid of him. He was a racist (a stout defender of Nick Griffin), a bigot, a sexist (very aggressive towards women), an alcoholic, a smoker (“Can you wash this jumper it has a mark on it?” “That’s a burn mark.” “No, it’s not.”), a liar, ungrateful, greedy, smarmy, ignorant, selfish, loud, all other negative adjectives in the world can be applied to him.

He used our resources as if they were unlimited. He couldn’t work the television, he asked me how to switch it on, he said that it was too complicated and that he’d just leave it on when he was finished watching it. I showed him how to switch it off, but he stuck to his word, he just played music very loudly to drown out the television. His music was George Michael, Queen, Sting, Elton John, Proclaimers and U2, he called all of my music “life music” based on hearing me play Shoot the Head, Kill the Ghoul by Jeffrey Lewis in the car when I had to give him a lift one evening. I had intended to scratch all his CDs before he left or, as they were all copies, switch them for copies of good stuff, but I’m bigger than that.

One of the best Canadian incidents occurred when he coming back from one of his “walks”, he ran into Jehovah’s Witnesses. He came in a few minutes later boasting. Mother went mad.

“I told them not to come to our house because we’re a good Catholic family.”
“Excuse me?”
“What?”
“Don’t you ever tell anyone that they can’t come to our door. And another thing: I was christened as a Protestant.”

He was disgusted.

“And my sons don’t have a religion because I have given them the right to choose their own beliefs. Also, might I add, you haven’t been to mass since you arrived.”

He spent 4 weeks here, he wandered the streets of Methil, he lay in bed and he played on MyArse. He spent two days in Edinburgh, during which he hassled the army recruitment officers and went to the cinema. He spent two days in Glasgow; he said he went on a tour of the bars there “because there’s some history in those places”. He came back bragging about making a friend in Glasgow, he showed us the freak’s number on a scrap of paper: someone called "Alex” – a swastika denoted the letter “x”. He never saw any of the beautiful scenery Scotland enjoys.

None of my friends understood my hatred of The Canadian. The Bellyaches readership will probably think I’m over-reacting. The world is a lesser place for his existence. He’s hoping to come back. He might have serious problems with drug abuse and alcoholism and he might come from a unsettled background but that's not a reason to cross the Atlantic and foist himself upon us. I'd have a modicum of respect for him if he admitted these problems and started dealing with them. He arrived as a stranger, he left as a stranger and as far as I’m concerned the White Stripes have to be obeyed, we don’t know him, we don’t owe him.