Monday, July 31, 2006

proper English twit.

Well I'm back from Benacissim and beyond.

I excitedly returned to the throngs of the internet to note that my last post- informing you of my impending jaunt to Spain to soak in the sites, sounds and smell of the Benacissim festival didn't work. Ho hum. (though I note it has since appeared after posting this blog?)

It was a great little holiday for us all and we saw some great and not so great bands too, notably in the 'not-so-great' section live Julain Cassablanca's little beat combo-they were effing awful! Sadly my time out there was somewhat blighted with a long list of ailments I endured and I almost turned into a Woody Allen esq sniveling hypochondriac if it wasn't for the persistent reassurances from my nearest and dearest to "stop effing moaning".

I also write with a heavy heart that I can no longer describe myself as a sun cream Nazi, after succumbing the heat of the sun myself. Despite taking the utmost precautions to ensure that I arrived home as pale and white as ever, I did get burned and it was as an unpleasant experience as I remembered it to be. The hardest part to take was on the particular day in question, my body was smeared in Factor 30 sun cream and with the exception of a dip in the sea, I remained under the shade of a parasol, yet my legs- mostly around the ankles were in all kinds of sun induced agony, so much so that on the next day I arrived at the beach wearing a pair of thick black socks with my shorts and converse trainers. Ye Gads!- I looked remarkably daft- even by my lowly standards. My glasses and badly out of shape cap didn't exactly make me look like the Fonz. Whilst in this ridiculous get up, I thought at the very least that the only people who could laugh at me (to my face) me would be my friends and having known them for years I can look stupid without feeling too embarrassed. Of course the hundreds of speedo and bikini clad sunbathers on the beach probably had a good laugh at my expense. Alas, as ever, my luck got worse. Whilst waiting at a bar on the way back from the beach I discovered that I was sat at a table next to two girls who were on my degree course. After acknowledgements were made to each other we started to chat and whilst I was desperately trying hard not to mention what I do for a living (this is always a minefield of conversational problems- do I say I'm a musician- but currently doing a temp job whilst I wait for the big fat payolla? Or do I say I work in an office as a dog's body, whom according to the recently published hierarchical flowchart I am on a par with the Fax machine. I decided a few years ago to avoid talking about this area of my life at all costs to avoid embarrassment or worse- asking about the band- which should you know by reading previous posts I don't like to discuss as it is now the sole topic of conversation people start with me! "how's the band doing?" AGGGGHHH! I'm a person -not a bass player!!!) I could feel her gaze be drawn to my red shins, black sock clad legs. As usual, defense to this is to explain as to why I looked this way in the most self-depreciative way as I can get way with. For the first time ever (or as i recall) I felt a proper English twit.

On a plus note regarding this encounter, I wasn't made to look like a weird obsessive fool as I often do when meeting up with old acquaintances. Usually, if we do the 'stop and chat' I always remember their name- no matter how long ago in the past it was when we knew each other and for the majority of the times my politeness is usually met with "sorry about this, but I can't remember your name" which is thoroughly degrading for one to keep hearing. This time, I knew the face and I remember always getting on with her- after all she was a fellow illustrator, but for once my embarrassingly awkward excellent long term memory failed me and I was forced to apologies for forgetting her name. Of course she had forgotten mine too- or so she said, perhaps she felt it polite to pretend that she'd forgotten mine (a strategy I shall no adopt for future encounters with characters from my past) which left me feeling oddly satisfied as we were therefore on the same level.

But back to the music- seriously The Stokes…wow it’s sad to see just how crap and predictable they’ve become. Okay, perhaps I hold them responsible for the change in the music industry and the plethora of curly haired, skinny, denim/leather clad ‘punks’ that blight me ear on a daily basis, but still they were sooooooooooooo boring. Cassablancas stage demeanor looked so cliché and his slight mumblings in that annoying too cool for school American drawl to the audience did little to raise the spirits. More often or not I dislike it when a singer talks for hours on end (with the exception of Billy Bragg & Elbow) he could have at least informed the crowd that they were going to play their last song, or indeed say good bye to the crowd, rather than skulk off the stage after another two and a half minute long blandpunk–shitty-disco-pop leaving a rather bemused crowd wandering what was going on.

Anyhow, I’ll bore you with some more detailed information later- I’m off to burn my Strokes CDs.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

so long sukers!

Well I’m off to Spain tomorrow –for hopefully some cooler temperatures over at the Bennicissm Festival- check out the link to see just exactly what you’ll be missing.

www.fiberfib.com/


So long Suckers!!!!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The incorrect side of the reception desk

Okay- so yesterday was without question the longest and dullest day I’ve had in this dull and dour office, which is now officially amongst one of the top three dull and downright depressing jobs of the 27 jobs I’ve had. So you’d think that I would actually be grateful for some work to come my way? Incorrect. I now have a steady trickle of menial tasks to be getting on with, but I simply do not have the energy nor the enthusiasm to complete.

As soon as I was set to task, my new tumour- Kelvin decided to bugger about in my brain leaving it redundant and useless to all and sundry. A chink of light however has been handed to me though, with the heady mission of delivery some documents to Manchester. Oh bliss. Nearly two hours away from this morbid hell hole.

This will be my third trip to our Manchester based solicitors after two previously successful missions. Alas, I didn’t endear myself to well with the ladies on their overly efficient reception though. Once more I put this down to my unpleasant demeanour at the time and my naturally scruffy appearance. I incorrectly thought that they would be most grateful for my hard work in the deliverance of the most important documentation, however I found their mannerism rather curt. I incorrectly assumed they would at the very least offer me a cup of tea or coffee? Of course I don’t drink coffee, however the gesture of goodwill would have ensured that I recommend that we retain their services for any forthcoming projects. Of course I have no say in this matter what-so-ever, but they aren’t to know this, and their assumption that I am the Office Dog’sbody (which is true) and can talk to me in a manner not fitting of the lowest manservant in Hiltler’s holiday home simply wouldn’t do.


My first visit to their office after arguing with several painfully churlish and jobs worthy voices on the other side of intercoms regarding my mission, I eventually struggled back and forth up three flights of stairs with the five boxes of heavy documents and dropped them by the reception desk. I waited there for at least 6-7 minutes before the receptionist asked me if I could move the boxes to the other side of the triangular reception desk, as they can’t help me if I remained standing there. “what?” I was incensed by the act of pedantic ness, (or should that be pedancy?) and moved the boxes around as she requested.. Remembering that at the time I was in a most foul and unpleasant frame of mind caused by the change in season, I stood there for an further ten minutes before she turned to me and asked if she could help. I explained that these boxes were most important and that their recipient should be informed post haste. She looked blandly at me and said if I just left them there she was sure he’ll get them.

I bid her good day and tried unsuccessfully to get out of the door which I had slowly trudged those damned heavy boxes several times earlier. I went back over to the desk when it became clear she was ignoring my requests to open the door for me. This time I waited ion the correct side of the desk and was eventually informed that the only way down the stairs was in the lift. At that moment had I been an animated character my eyebrows would have leapt right off my face is astonishment. “Lift!??? Why didn’t you tell me you had a LIIIFT!?”

She just smiled whist she answered the phone and wagged a bony over manicured finger in the direction of the lift.

I chuntered a few expletives and got in the lift, found my car and got the hell out of dodge and headed back to Liverpool.


On my second journey, I was told by the car park receptionist to park in Bay No. 16. I was not surprised to see that someone else was already parked in this bay, and I used what little initiative I have and parked in another space. This time I remembered the lift, although I only had a handful of papers that needed delivering. Upon my arrival to the reception, I noticed it was a different receptionist, in fact it was a female security guard complete with a million ear earrings and Doc Martin Boots. I noticed that she was dealing with a gentleman on the “incorrect side of the reception desk” .
So I stood behind this gentleman and waited to be seen.

When she finished dealing with his query and signed for safe receipt of the package he had brought in, she rolled to the opposite side of the desk pushing herself on her chair. I waited for a minute until I caught her eye. She saw me and her face dropped
“can you move round to this side of the desk please”

I turned around to see if someone was nearby where I could give them a look of disbelief and astonishment, but the only person there was an elderly gentleman wearing a matching security uniform-but minus the million pieces of gold threaded through his ears. I just wanted to ditch the documents and go home as the Germany Vs Argentina game was due to kick off shortly.

“I asked you to park in bay 16” she bluntly told me

“someone was already parked there”

She looked at a monitor behind her desk and shook her head slowly.

“no- it’s free.”

“oh- well there was someone there when I came in”

She didn’t say anything, but gave me the look of “do I look stupid?” which of course with all that gold hanging from her ears was true and handed me a piece of paper to sign, which I duly did- once again signing the ‘Print name here’ section and printing my name in the ‘sign here’ section again.

I thanked her but didn’t mean it and went back to my car via the elevator, only to find a black BMW which looked like the ‘effing Bat Mobile blocking me in. Great. I waited ten minutes before buzzing the intercom to explain my predicament. The snotty reply was ‘I’ll see whose car it is”. I’m sure I heard her laughing as before I was cut off.

I didn’t believe her so waited impatiently for a further ten minutes before another well dressed solicitor type slowly walked to the vehicle and drove off without looking at me or acknowledging his mistake. This pissed me off.

I followed his car up the ramp out of their car park and as he was turning right and I was turning left I shouted over “don’t mention it!”

He looked over coolly with his suit and sunglasses making me feel scruffier by the nanno-second, and sped off in the opposite direction. I got caught in the Mancunian traffic and missed the first half of the game. Bugger. Perhaps I’ll just pay a homeless guy £5 (from petty cash naturally) to take in my delivery to their office and save myself some bother or perhaps I should enquire as to how one goes about becoming a receptionist for their utterly pedantic company as surely this would be a role I would excel in and I’d do a damned better job than the two banshees that had previously caused me such anguish.

Please find suitably defiant music for your own personal battles:

Fight The Power- Public Enemy

Theme from Shaft – The Wedding Present

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

pound signs in my eyes

Okay once more I am at the peril less mercy of the demon known as boredom. Today I have had sod all to do. I have now given up the charade of pretending to look busy. After all what’s the point- at least if I look as utterly bored as I am then surely someone will perhaps ask me to do something.

Unfortunately the only tasks I do get set are scanning, photocopying and perhaps if I’m lucky some typing. Time is dragging painfully slow.

Yesterday though, despite the boredom I was on one heck of a high.

Lisa called me last Friday to inform me that she had found a £10 note in a shirt pocket of mine. Hozzanaah in the Highest I’m rich- I exclaimed. With my newly found wealth I joined in with our office’s World Cup Final score predictions. Having previously abstained form such frivolous expenditure of my diminished capital, I entered knowing that I could be looking at a nice little earner should I guess correctly. Lady Luck was indeed casting her gaze upon me and I correctly predicted that it would be 1-1 and Italy would win on penalties.

Cue the ‘Party’ music…

Yesterday I drove into work with pound signs in my eyes and a maniacal grin. I claimed my £6 prize money first thing in the morning and promised myself that I would send my cash in the most exorbitant manner I could think…a sandwich from Tamarillos! Yes for the dizzy price of £2 I had myself a cheeses and salad sandwich…and it didn’t stop there. Further to my newly found wealth I acquired a packet of 25p crisps and a Twirl bar…in addition I also acquired the day’s milk, and did exactly the same again today! I explained my good fortune to Lisa, who after all was the one whom discovered my hidden cash, and found the greatest way to describe my feelings was to compare it to the pivotal moment when Charlie discovers a coin and gorges himself on chocolate in the incorrectly named film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). Lisa found this funny but ultimately quite sad. I agreed.

This afternoon I received an e-mail from Murray – my ex-brain tumour asking how I was. I explained my good/bad fortune of late and his reply was genuinely sympathetic. He asked if I was in need of his services again and I thanked him but let him know about Kelvin my tumour apprentice. Murray didn’t reply and I think I may have hurt his feelings.

Far be it from me champion chronic headaches but Kelvin is a gentler type of headache than Murray was and although I still feel like I want to go home, close the curtains and have a relaxing snooze for and hour or so, I feel that Kelvin can be bested by taking paracetamol. I made the decision not to take any though as I wouldn’t want to crush Kelvin’s spirits….not before I go on Holiday next week.

Anyhow- once more please find below tunes de jour.

Cumberland Gap- Lonnie Donnigen

Green Grass of Tunnel.- Mủm


Tenderfoot.- Smudge

A Mars bar and a few sparse cola bottles was all it took to buy his silence

As the weekend gone was fairly uneventful with the obvious exception of the World Cup Final, I have chosen not to go into my usual longwinded ramblings about the tedious details of my days in doors watching TV and playing the guitar for hours on end. Instead the following is a short regaling of the only time I’d actually been shit on from a great height and the one and only time I’ve head butted someone (see tenuous link between Zidane’s moment of lunacy?) Granted my head butt was hardly as well executed as ole’ Zinadine’s but for no reason at all it triggered a memory whilst driving on the way to work morning..

I’m pretty sure it was 1990 or perhaps 1989- either way it was a while ago and I was on my annual week long summer scout camp in the Lake District. Come to think about it, it must have been 1989 as we were privy to seeing a fantastic display of RAC fighter pilots training four or five times a day, screeching above the clutter of old Canvass Patrol tents and flying low through the valleys. We later learned on route home that the world was at war with Iraq after they’d invaded Kuwait. All quite exciting and scary at the same time I remember- wow my first war!

Anyway, should you be unaware to the hierarchy in this sadistic club for kids then I won’t bore you with the details but suffice to say that I was 2nd in command of our six man Patrol. The Patrol leader was a prick called Stopher who was a couple of years older than me and significantly larger than I. It’s fair to say Stopher and I never got on and it would be fair to report that he was probably the nearest thing that I’d ever encountered to a bully in my life. He made my life relatively miserable, but looking back at it now there was nothing too bad and certainly nothing that kept me awake at night. The constant piss taking and the odd punch to the arm/headlock was about as bad as it ever got. Thankfully as these things go- I wasn’t the only one to be on the receiving end of the twat’s malice, but I think what set me a part was the fact that I wasn’t slow in taking the piss out of him or standing up against him, especially when he picked on the new kids- usually the 4 stone weakling kids, straight out from primary school. Of course nothing was as bad as my first few month’s of scouts and the customary melvining (or wedgies if you prefer) from the sadistically sad Ian ‘Binzy’ Binns. (This former bully stayed on for years in the Scouts and got his comeuppance when after a swimming session a young scout pointed out that he had a extremely small penis! Binzy’s reign of terror ended shortly afterwards- after all what could be worse than being told that you’ve got a small pecker by someone who hasn’t yet started puberty) I remember that I always avoided Binzy’s confrontations as I befriended the ‘gentle giant’ Steve Osbourne, who at 6’2” was not to be messed with. Granted he had learning difficulties which made him relatively cowardly for a chap with such a large frame, but sticking close to him certainly kept me and my big mouth out of trouble. I remember looking on in horror as Binzy lifted some of the other new scouts above his shoulders by their undies, whilst the poor crying victims’ pants cut through their arse like a cheese slicer on a Tesco’s Deli counter.

Anyway, on this camp I’d kept my distance from Stopher as much as I could. In the 6 man patrol tents, he slept at the top end and I slept at the bottom end, and the four other kids slept in between us. On this camp, I’m pretty sure that Stopher was getting too old to be in the scouts, spending the majority of his time hanging out with the aforementioned Binzy, who for whatever reason had decided to join the Venture Scouts (Nelson Muntz Style “ha ha”) and was there to ‘help’ the leaders. It was only on seldom occasions that we were required to be placed in close proximity with each other and it was on one of these occasions that I lost my cool and head butted him. To be honest, I don’t recall what it was about, except he was winding up one of the younger scouts up and from what I’d remembered reduced this poor lad to tears. As I was sitting next to him on a bench at the time I decided that enough was enough and planted a head butt on his face. Granted it was a ‘proper’ head butt, more that I connected with his face with the side of my head but I did so with as much force as I could muster. From what I recall his reaction was shock, followed quickly by anger and he gave me several painful punches on the top of my head. I tried my best not to cry, but it was inevitable I suppose.

Not a lot was said about it, but I felt I’d won a moral victory of sorts despite him making me cry in front of my friends-which as you’ll no doubt recall from your own rambunctious past was certainly not the thing to do. That evening Stopher stayed away from our patrol area, and we all watched him sitting crossed legged with Binzy at the top of the hill eating their food and watching us carefully like an Indian Chief looking at the scared and weak settlers out in the Old West. We were forced to cook for ourselves without his ‘supervision’ and I took control with my close friend Dan Walker as my number 2. Dan was always a good laugh and I knew him very well as he and his family only lived around the corner from me. Over the next few years he was a permanent fixture round at our house- notably when we both got Amiga computers. As it was such a long time ago, I’m afraid that I can’t remember what was cooked, but I do remember showing some poor kid how to light the large gas stove by dropping a lit match into the burner. Alas he burned his eyes lashes together and lost half of his eye brows when he tried to replicate my fool hardy actions. Walker smeared his face in butter and blagged him not to grass us up to the leaders by offering him some of his tuck shop allowance. A Mars bar and a few sparse cola bottles was all it took to buy his silence. I’m pretty sure the meal we cooked would have been sausages or some other simply cooked food substance with little to no nutritional value to it, either way we obviously didn’t do a great job…

That night in the tent Stopher still hadn’t re-joined the group. Nerves were a little fraught as we contemplated what course of revenge he’d dish out upon us. The patrol tent was about 6 feet high and had entrances on either side, which was held shut with a threaded rope which was laced between the to ends of the canvass like a shoe lace. This was always kept loose so should we require to go for a star light piss in the middle of the night it could be easily done. Granted the usual course of action was just stuck our dicks out of the holes and piss from the comfort of the tent.

As he always slept the farthest from what we used as the tent entrance, I decided that I would take his place so he wouldn’t wake us up- or more importantly deliberately stand on us.

It was probably sometime after midnight when we heard him stumble and crash into our tent.

“what are you doing in my space dick head?”

“fuck off Stopher and just sleep there’ I bravely informed him.

“Prick!”

He took off his boots and jeans and got into his sleeping bag. The sound of his size eight hiking boot being launched in my direction made me flinch but thankfully it hit Carl –who was sleeping next to me- on the head. He started to cry, but Stopher told him to “Shut the F**k up you big baby!”- Which he soon did and we all went to sleep.

*

When I awoke the next morning I was cold. I tried to immerse myself in the sleeping bag to keep warm but it wasn’t working. I could hear that the rest of the patrol were soundly asleep- Stopher snoring loudly from the other side of our large tent. I knew the only way to keep warm was to put another item of clothing on, so I popped my head up out of my sleeping bag and reached out towards my rucksack. Alarmingly I spotted several tissues covered in shit. What the….?

I rolled onto my back at tired to think what I could have done during my slumber? I started to panic. Matters were made worse when my eyes had adjusted to the daylight and I could see that some of the excrement had somehow found its way on to my light blue sleeping bag. Yikes! What had I done? I sat up and could see that Stopher’s rogue boot lying next to Carl’s sleeping bag, which alarmingly had a few smears of brown on it too!

I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. Worried about what I had done during the night, I lay they scared shitless of what would happen to me when my fellow Scouts woke up. Harrogate is a small town where news of crapping yourself would soon be abound, naturally I assumed that my life as I knew it would be over and as I lay there shivering I wondered how I’d convince my parents to move to a different town. I rolled over on my side, cold, depressed and nervous. As I looked out under the bottom of the tent door to the picturesque English landscape I could see a litter of approximately ten to fifteen brown stained tissues on the dewy grass. I tried not to cry and just lay there waiting to face the music.

I lay there for about another 15 minutes, trying to ignore the smell of crap and think about what excuses I could use to get myself out of this terribly sticky situation. I really needed a piss too, but decided that I should wait before getting up and lay there in silence.

“EEE-UUUWWWWW!” Carl had woken up to see the shitty tissues between his and my sleeping bags. I pretended I was asleep and that the whole thing was a surprise to me. He sat up and I could fully see that he had more crap on his sleeping bag. I sat up feigning surprise at the mess. (Richard? or James? I can’t remember his name) who was next to Carl bolted upright in his sleeping bag and ye gads! He had even more shit on his bag and (gulp) some on his face too!

‘Aggggggggh!’ Carl cried “You’ve got shit on your face!!”

The poor lad looked stunned and I was in total shock- what had I done!!!!??
Panic set in and the other kid next to him –who again, his name escapes me- woke up in similar fashion to the sounds of screaming kids and the smell of poo. He had even more shit on his sleeping bag than anyone! Panic set in and he jumped out of his sleeping bag revealing crap on his T Shirt and we all recoiled in disgust. Dan, who was next to him, and also next to Stopher had his back to us sat up and turned around to face us.

“Oh For The Love of God!”

He had shit all over his face, his hair and the inside of his sleeping bag was dripping in the stuff! The four of us shrieked in horror at him. It was like a scene from the Three Bears…only they didn’t have porridge they had crap.
“Who’s been crapping in my bed….”

“I had diarrhoea during the night and couldn’t get out of the tent” Dan wailed.

Phew. What a relief! It wasn’t me who’d shat on his fellow scouts…I breathed a big sigh of relief then the reality hit home that I had Dan’s poo on my sleeping bag. “Agggggggggghhhhh!!!!!”

A mixture of screams from the three younger scouts and myself, the sobbing from Dan was all drowned out by the hysterical laughing of Stopher. The spawny bastard had slept next to Dan all night and didn’t have a speck of his poo on him.

“har har har, thanks for swapping places McPartlan! Har har har har”

I could still hear his laughter ringing in my ears as I watched from a distance as the Scout leader Carol hosed down Dan with a look of repulsion on her face and her fag in the corner of her mouth, Fat Anita hanging out the 5 shitty smeared sleeping bags out to dry in the morning sunshine, whilst male Scout leader –and all round cool bloke Digger tried to comfort the traumatised youngsters and persuade Stopher to stop laughing at them.

It transpired that poor ole Dan indeed had a nasty dose of the squits, possibly caused by the meal we poorly prepared that night or perhaps caused by his large intake of chocolate. He awoke in the middle of the night with a rumbling in his bowels. In the pitch black dark he was already spewing excrement from his backside as he climbed over his sleeping patrol mates and stood over me as he untie the ropes at the wrong entrance. Luckily for me he gave up when he realised the knots were impossible to untie in the daylight-let alone in the middle of the night whilst he was in the grips of diarrhoea. I’m assuming that he did eventually make it out of the tent but it was too little too late. Somehow a miracle on par with the scene from Pulp Fiction where Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega’s somehow dodge the bullets of the young unnoticed man screaming “Die you motherf***ers!” occurred, as Stopher remained unscathed from the air turds…and that’s what really pissed me off.

Of course as it was still early morning I had the sad duty to inform the other patrols as to why Dan was sobbing, the other three had the ‘thousand yard stare’, five sleeping bags were drying on a clothes line and why Stopher looked so bloomin’ happy. Naturally we were all bribed by Dan to keep our mouths shut about it and not tell his Mum.

So the simple lesson to be learned here is that a head butt will result in being shat on from a great height- (or from the arse of a good friend) Nothing good will come of it.



Thursday, July 06, 2006

perhaps his threats were only idle

I feel like bear with a swore head and swore arse today. A severe lack of sleep caused by our less than considerate neighbours and their insistence of having a extremely loud and aggressive argument out on the street between 2.30am and 3.30 am this morning. I’m not talking a petty domestic argument, I’m talking about a full on scouse shout-threat fest.

Because of the ridiculously hot weather we had the bedroom window open in a vain attempt of getting some cool air in our stiflingly hot flat, I awoke in the early hours with the vitriolic and caustic threats echoing reverberating down our otherwise relatively quiet and peaceful street.

When it became clear that the row wasn’t going to quieten down, and it was very likely that a fight would ensue, I decided to have a gander out of our window to see what the ‘effing hell was going on. Unfortunately because of the huge tree directly outside our window I was once again unable to have a good nose at the fracas. The noise appeared to once again be coming from the bespoke flat opposite ours- and involved the same chap who is often heard banging on the door at 5am on a Saturday morning demanding that the “stupid f**king bitch” let him in. Oddly from what we have gathered the other occupiers of the flats appear to be middle aged mild mannered law abiding citizens, yet in all the times we’ve heard row erupt we’ve never heard any one of their fellow tenants tell them to shut up.

Lisa had also awoken, and asked worriedly why no one had called the police- I suggested that someone probably has but as per usual with these situations they won’t appear until several days later. I decided to shut the window and try and get back to sleep. This did little to prevent the noise from disturbing us, but after another 20 minutes of threats and abuse, the sound of screeching tyres could be heard and a blissful silence then followed…temporarily. 4am we were once again re-awoken by further yelling which thankfully was only audible for ten more minutes. It would be fair to say that both Lisa and I were not too enamoured with them, and as we got into the car this morning Lisa joked that there was no blood on the pavement so perhaps his threats were only idle.

It was hot last night though. Another night sleeping without a duvet-which as my ole chum Ant would always cite that you don’t feel as if you’ve had a proper night’s sleep when you do this. Also I always feel a tad uncomfortable sleeping stark bollock naked with no cover to hide my modesty, especially when the curtains have blown open in the wind
and you awake to see a startled looking window cleaner with a look of horror and curiosity at me and my dormant apparatus with his foamy rag in his hand. Oddly this happens now on a more than regular basis, and you like to think that I could perhaps wear some clothing to stop this flesh thirsty pervert from molesting me with his eyes- or perhaps report him to the police as we’ve never hired a window cleaner and thinking about it, I was never sure why he had a camera with him. Perhaps I shall end up a denim cut off clad ‘Nevernude’ like Tobias in Arrested Development. Speaking of which, the actor who plays Dr. Tobias Funke in the show, David Cross has a really good website which I urge you dear reader to investigate.

http://www.bobanddavid.com/david.asp

Other than the excellent Arrested Development I wasn’t aware of him or anything he’s done, but he’s actually brought out a few CD’s of his stand up –released on Sub Pop Records. It’s not the funniest stand up routine I’ve ever heard but its still pretty darned funny all the same- a particular favourite moment of mine when referring to his friends entering the throngs of parenthood:

“you think having a child is hard work!? Trying to convince your girlfriend to have her third consecutive abortion- that’s hard work!”

Anyway- I’ve posted two summery (ish) tunes for your pleasure and feeling guilty about it I’ve included two nasty pieces of work – if that’s more your type of thing. (apologies for the obvious connections)


Arrested Development-Tennessee


Silver Jews-Tennessee.


Twat – John cooper Clarke


Grumpy old men- Jegsy Dodd & the Original Sinners

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

mostly testicles, eyeballs and hoofs

I left the flat yesterday afternoon to head over to Manchester for a ‘meeting’ with Dave, our Record Comp Head Honcho with ‘tother members of our little beat combo. I had no particular reason to suspect that I would return several hours later with a belly full of San Miguel. Not that I didn’t assume that perhaps a couple of beers would be consumed by the other band members, but after yet another shocking revelation from my dear old friends at Halifax Bank earlier during the day, that I had once more exceeded my large overdraft limit- I therefore didn’t have a penny to my name. As a man who’s moral fibre consists of being too proud- well too embarrassed, to accept charity, I’d hoped that I could enjoy a odd glass of water, or even perhaps a solitary beer be offered by those kind hearted folks in the band. Yet when we arrived at the rendez-vouz point, a Spanish bar/restaurant off St. John Street, Manchester who’s name escapes me, I reluctantly accepted a beer. It then became apparent that good ole Dave was to provide food an beer for us all and the Dinny Skog ensemble…Pete, Guy, Gina, Scottie et al. How marvellous I thought as I sipped on a ice cool beer straight from the bottle and engaged in my usual pointless and non-sensical ramblings.

A good night was had by all despite my alcohol fuelled conversations and a minor beer spillage incident. I was also informed by both kloot’s Pete Jobbo’ and Steve; little tips of deleting websites on my ‘history’ that one would not want one’s other half to see, should that occasion ever arrive.

The festivities certainly made up for what, until that moment, had been a thoroughly irksome and miserable day. As mentioned above, I was yet again embroiled in another rant over the phone to my bank over their blatant disregard of human rights. Well actually that’s a tad harsh, but they had once more let me down. To add to my woes, I’d decided to go for a stroll to a local Texico garage in order to withdraw my last £10 (or so I believed) in order to buy some soup that should keep me stocked up for my lunch provisions. Upon the revelation that I had indeed exceeded by agreed overdraft limit, I trudged back in the ‘effing blazing hot sunshine to the cool surroundings of my office. It was 1pm, and I was pretty darned hungry, but too pissed off with my fiduciary problems to worry about how I would eat.

I distracted myself by watching footage from the Henry Rollins Show which I discovered the previous week. His US show has already had a fine roster of bands performing, and happily you can watch these performances by the miracle of the internet
http://henryrollins.ifc.com/episodes/shelter.jsp?episode_id=0008 Watching footage of Dinosaur Jr and Death Cab for Cutie momentarily eased my pain but it wasn’t long before long my stomach felt incredibly and un-naturally void of substance. The two weetabix accompanied with sour and thoroughly unpleasant milk, which I’d had the misfortune to eat as my breakfast, seemed a hell of a long time ago. I decided the best course of action would be to drink as much tea as I could. This worked in the short term and prevented me from keeling over at my desk however I was pissing like a racehorse. At 4.15pm I decided that enough was enough and drove home in my excruciatingly hot soon to be ex-car for food and provisions.



Anyway, today I ensured that I wouldn’t be left to go hungry again and planned to bring a selection of fruit for my lunch. Alas, I forgot it. Thankfully I noticed my gaffe on route to work and Lisa thankfully provided me with £1 so I could get some food. How did it come to this?

This lunch time I idly strolled around the near by Stanley Foods looking to get the most for my solitary pound. After much deliberation I eventually settled on a Cross & Blackwell tin of Spaghetti Bolognaise wrongly assuming that you can’t go wrong with it.

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I sat at my desk with a steaming bowl of it in front of me I closed my eyes and it was as if I was in Italy, all I needed was some parmesan cheese, red wine and a rude waiter. Of course, it is my duty to inform you that this, as you’d imagine, was a grievous error of judgement on my part. As I sit here writing these here blog, I can feel the re-constituted meat- no doubt cow offal containing mostly testicles, eyeballs and hoofs; eroding its way through my poor old body. My porr old Grandma made the finest spaghetti known to man –followed closely by both of my parents- perhaps I’d just been spoiled. No doubt it won’t be long before I hurriedly squirm my way to the toilet and dispense of last night’s tapas. I think I actually preferred yesterday’s predicament as surely pissing like the aforementioned race horse has got to be better than shitting like a chocolate fed puppy.

I enclose this picture to serve a reminder to me that I really ought not to be that stupid again. Ho hum.