The Dog'sbody Dreadnought

Every picture tells a story...or not- in some case a picture shows one's disillusionment

2009-05-19T18:25:00.002Z

Cleaning my work computer...I found this. I think I did it around Christmas 08 time...not sure- anyway I'd completely forgotten about it. Pretty crappy really, but is testament to how much spare time I had on my hands in the office

Each to their own Eddie. (RIP Dom Deluise)

2009-05-06T17:35:00.006Z

As I walked up the steep flight of stairs upon returning to my office from my lunch break, my thoughts turned to the sight I had encountered whilst taking a walk in the nearby surroundings of my place of work.

It was whilst passing the slew of shabby second hand shops, budget jewellers laden with classless gold adornments and betting shops with Presbyterian Church-like slogans in the window, I walked past the local branch of MacDonalds. Usually the sight of uncontrollable children with cola moustaches and aggressive looking mothers in uniform blue tracksuits and shabby coats greets me, however on this occasion I happened to note that the window seats were occupied by an elderly couple. I noticed nothing but contentment as they ate their food, sitting opposite each other quietly.

The gentleman was leaning back against his chair and had a slight stoop as he held the remainder of a small child size burger. In the few seconds that it took me to walk past this sight, I saw him take a very small bite and place the unsavoury looking food onto the grease proof paper that I noted he had flattened and then folded in half to make a small plate for himself. After doing this he slowly chewed and dabbed the corners of his mouth with a neatly folded napkin before crossing his arms to continue chewing. The man had a slight and gaunt frame, his thinned hair was snow white, and was brushed back over his shiny dome of a head. The female was chewing slowly also and I noticed she had chosen to acquire a hot beverage to accompany her meal. She too had folded her burger wrapping and was using it as plate of sorts. From the brief opportunity I was given to examine the food on this plate, I am confident in saying she had opted for the 'small cheeseburger'. Unlike her male companion she had decided to keep her coat on and was looking blankly out of the window.

Trudging back up the office stairs, with my sore knee and winter coat I couldn't shake this image from my mind. Was it an impromptu visit? Was it some form of treat? Or were they regulars? Perhaps they had received some form of bad news?

Whilst pondering this, a colleague caught up with me on the final flight of stairs between the third and the forth floor. We made small talk, with him doing most of the chatting as my mind was elsewhere. As we approached the entrance to our floor, a young and modestly attractive woman wearing black trousers and cream coloured jumper left the door, and held it open for us. I thanked her politely, and she smiled back in return. On the other side of the doors, ensuring she was out of earshot my colleague said:

“Phwoar” and smiled sickly at me. It was inappropriate but not necessarily or particularly offensive, well not to me anyway.

“I wouldn’t mind a go on that, would you?” he said affably.

I shook my head remorsefully. “Each to their own, Eddie, each to their own” and thought more about the elderly couple in MacDonalds.

"It only hurts when I point"

In other news, Dom Deluise (Picture above) star of a many a zany comedy film sadly passed away...

His sterling work, most notably for his performance in Cannonball Run shall not but taken for granted by myself.

MP3:

G.Love & The Special Sauce Fatman.mp3

Killing fields flat (Birthday Pt 1)

2009-05-01T15:00:00.007Z

The woman from the Council said that someone would be round between 9am to 5pm when I phoned four days earlier. I reluctantly agreed and had to take the day off and wasn't best pleased as it was my birthday.

The Friday morning the door bell rang out at 8.20am, we were still in bed. Finding a shirt and a pair of shorts I ran down the stairs whilst this impatient son of a bitch kept ringing the bell incessantly . I opened the door to be greeted by a small and unusually sweaty man of about 30 years, with a bucket and wearing a pair of large rubber gloves.

"Mice?" He asked the second the door was open.

"Yeah...sorry I've just woken up, the woman on the phone said it would be between 9 and 5"

"Nah, we start from 8 now"

"Oh..."

He followed me up the stairs and I pointed out the large hole in the skirting that looked like a mouse hole. He explained that he couldn't put any poison on a landing in case it killed someone.

I opened our flat door and he stormed up the stairs, bucket in hand. He turned into our back room and started to fill two little cardboard boxes with holes in either end with little red poison pellets. He placed one by the door and in the far corner after I said where we found mouse evidence. Whilst tending to the latter area he stumbled over my better half's shoe collection and nearly spilled all of his poison.

He then said he'd be visiting flat 2.

Miffed I said that we had also found 'evidence' upstairs. He said, again, that he could only put poison where he'd been told by his office, as the poison could kill someone. My better half, who by now was up and making a cup of tea, reassured him that 'upstairs' merely meant our living room. He rather hurriedly laid one more little box of killer pellets then speedily walked down our stairs stating he had to put poison down in one of the other flats. I followed him, giving my better half a look of disbelief.

I could hear him knock on the door and then state he was coming in.

I caught up with him and he was letting himself into the wrong God damned flat.

"what are you doing?!" I barked in hushed tones "it's this flat!" pointing out Flat 3, with whom I had shared my rodent discovery.

"Nah, it says flat 2 on my paper work"

Before I had the opportunity to call him a dickhead, the door to flat 3 opened and our neighbour stood smiling and thoroughly apologetic for sleeping in, stating that she shouldn't have gone drinking on a school night.

The poison guy walked in and I waited on the landing, he emerged less than a minute later barging past me, stating that he'd be back in 2 weeks. Whilst following him barefoot and still discombobulated from the rude awakening, on my birthday no less, I recommended that he looks in the cellar.

"Is that downstairs?"

I resisted the opportunity again to call him a dick head.

He led the way and I tried to converse with him about mouse traps. He asked me what I used for bait, to which I replied chocolate.

"The little buggers go mad for that stuff." he said smiling before tipping the bucket of poison into two of the corners on our dark and dank cellar before barging past me up the stairs.

He repeated that he or a colleague would be back in two weeks. For what I don't know.

On the way back up the stairs to return to my bed, our neighbour waited for me by her door.

"Is that it?" asked rhetorically.

"I guess so- a waste of time really wasn't it? I could have just put some poison about the flat. He was an odd fellow"

She agreed.

"He wasn't quite the Pied Piper of Hamlin character I had expected- though he did look like a mouse" She said.

I concurred at returned to our killing fields flat.

MP3's:

GANG - Rat Poison.mp3

Ganja Smuggling (Live).mp3

Landlords' Idiot Son (Birthday Part 2)

2009-05-01T11:00:00.004Z

It wasn't too long before the doorbell rang again. I had been out of bed for only a few minutes cavorting around our home in a pair of ill fitting pants, so once again upon hearing the dulcet chimes of our doorbell I raced around the room looking for some clothes wear in order to answer the door. I wearily trudged down the ill kempt lino covered stairs and was disappointed to see that the caller was in fact our landlords’ idiot son standing on our door step with his familiar look of confusion, concern and worry on his scrawny and feebly bearded rat face. He was wearing a spectacularly awful jumper and his usual shabby grey coat.

He alluded to the fact that the grass on our lawn, if you can call it that, needed cutting and asked if he could plug in the lawn mower into one of our power sockets.
We of course reside in the top floor flat, making this request impossible.

I resisted from calling him a dick head.

He said he would ask another tenant, perhaps one on the ground floor, I concurred and went back to the flat to pass on the good news to my better half who rolled her eyes with frustration upon hearing this news that he was here.

As I pottered around the flat, tidying in readiness of an overnight visit by my brother and his better half, I could hear the sound of the Landlords’ son’s lawnmower try to hack its way through the shin high grass and weeds. From our bedroom window I could observe his extremely poor efforts with the contempt his shoddy work deserved.

No sooner had he started when it started to rain, however to my surprise and much to his credit, the landlord’s son persevered with this long over due task.

I watched him from the bedroom window, on my birthday, for a good twenty five minutes whilst he toiled away in the light rain.
I was transfixed.

He had removed his coat and I noticed that his jumper looked more spectacularly awful from this vantage point and thought about him and his life and how it came to be that here, in this lousy flat, he would be here, in his awful jumper, toiling away. I pitied him.

It was only 10.30 am and I looked out earnestly for the next visitor, the Virgin Media Engineer who had promised to arrive between 9am and 1pm. It was going to be a long morning.
My better half brought me a cup of tea and asked politely why I was staring out of the window.
I couldn’t explain.

MP3:
Gorkys Zygotic Mynci -Mow The Lawn

The Engineer (Birthday Part 3)

2009-05-01T09:00:00.001Z

The engineer was kind enough to phone me to explain that he was running later than expected and I thanked him for letting me know. He arrived an hour or so after he’d called. I was still sat by the window watching the landlords’ idiot son struggle with the overgrown garden.
I bounced down the stairs in anticipation when I saw his van arrive. The engineer stayed in his van for 5 minutes so I was forced to converse with landlords’ son. He was packing up slowly stating that he would get his father to arrange to get the garden finished.

I looked at the mess he’d made. It looked slightly better than before but it was a poor job to say the least, and he was ill equipped to deal with some of the thicker weeds which remained intact but squashed from the weight of the lawnmower. I reported what the ‘mouse man’ had said and he raised his eyebrows in faux interest whilst stuffing a large bin liner with some of the grass cuttings. Whilst I was wasting my time talking to this imbecile, the Virgin Media Engineer walked up the drive with a cardboard box and tool kit in hand. I recognised him from a previous visit, in fact I was pretty sure it was the guy who originally installed the system, though I couldn’t be sure. I led the way up the stairs.

He insisted on wearing some covers for his shoes before entering our living room. I insisted that he didn’t need to do this, however he was insistent than I; stating that it was his company’s policy.
After covering his footwear, he picked up his tool box and it tipped over onto the floor, spilling dozens of little screw, nails, and other TV repairman type paraphernalia. I helped him clear it up and he looked grateful for the help and also a little discomfited. Some of the screws landed near a box of mouse poison and it was my turn to feel embarrassed.

He had a quick look at the problematic apparatus, and after testing it with a futuristic looking but scratched and beaten up telephone, he whipped out modern looking replacement from the cardboard box he had brought with him, and proceeded to remove the wires from the existing unit. I offered him a cup of tea and he graciously accepted.

My better half was in the kitchen baking scones- she had intended to bake a cake in honour of my birthday, however as I had made one for hers the previous month and it took up far too much energy and time, so I was content with the scones.
I brought him his drink.
I stood arms folded and chatted to him on a number of matters, some related to the faulty equipment and other topics of conversation had nothing to do with it.

The more I thought about it, this wasn’t the chap who installed our system, that bloke talked incessantly about sport, and after spotting one of my guitars, he blabbed on about his friend’s band who played weddings and various working men’s club in the North West. I remember very clearly as he said that his friend’s band were paid £900 for a one hour and a half set of cover versions, whilst I had just played a gig in London in conjunction with the release of our latest single and we were only paid £50, not that I told him this. That gobshite had me talking like I used to when I worked on the building site and various factories; with an over exaggerated Yorkshire accent and swearing and cursing unnecessarily, however with the gentleman currently working hard to ensure I don’t spend the whole God damned bank holiday weekend without television, was quiet and I felt I could be myself.
Soon enough it was working and I resisted calling him a beautiful person.

I must have thanked him several times before waving him off at the door. As he walked down the drive I noticed that he was still wearing the shoe covers and as he got to his van I saw that he’d noticed this and berated himself under his breath.

The landlords’ son was still there packing up his equipment very slowly. He has a skulking and creepy way of walking, let alone the fact that he’s particularly unusual in his appearance.

I asked in a friendly manner if he was heading to the tip with the grass cuttings to which he replied with a non committal ‘yes’.

“Would you mind taking this Christmas tree with you please- it’s been here for ages and I have no idea who’s it was” I asked.

I pointed to the dead Christmas tree. It was approximately four feet high and had shed most of its pines. I had moved it to the side of the porch stairs when I had spent a good 40 minutes in the garden trying to remove the melted wheelie bin from the garden wall in mid January last.
“Oh…I don’t want to uproot it, I don’t know who’s it is” He said with surprising defiance.

I looked at the dead tree, then looked back at him in that stupid jumper and then back at the tree and for the hundredth time, resistant the urge to call him a dick head.
I lifted the tree with my right hand and raised my eyebrows.

“Oh” He said and walked towards me and I handed him the tree. He skulked off down the drive way.

I shook my head and shut the door and trudged up the stairs back to the flat towards the smell of freshly baked scones and mouse poison.

MP3:
Television- Venus

False Contentment

2008-04-23T16:50:00.001Z

After a self imposed hiatus from blogging, I find myself once more hunched over my work PC tapping away speedily on the crumb covered and tea stained keyboard which, rather distractingly I realise I must clean it sooner rather than later. Since my last sporadic enteries in the latter part of 2007 I have been somewhat uninspired and uninterested in pouring my angst, frustration and trivialities out into the public domain, even if these words are seldom read by others. Part of this reluctance to write came from a slightly drunken and unconsidered thought I had as I was laying in bed one night and re-evaluated my existence as a blogger. I decided to tred enthusiastically into the world of music blogging- leaving aside my usual tales of narcissism and foolhardy behaviour for a more interesting subject matter. After only several posts, my enthusiasm waned. What was the point? There are literally hundreds of far superior blogs out there doing a thoroughly decent and more dedicated job than I, and more importantly; it had become too much of a burden to keep it up to date. I felt slightly out of my depth so I quit. Since then I have remained somewhat idle. This lack of interest was partly due to the fact that over the past few months I have found myself in the relatively unusual position of having an abundance of work to do and in the even more unfamiliar arena of contentment, or at least I think it was contentment? Perhaps my malaise had simply reached a tolerable level? Why? I'll try and explain:

These woes commenced almost immediately after Christmas (the time of my last blog entry) upon my return to work after an extended and most pleasant Festive break; the enjoyment of having nearly two weeks away from the office, gorging myself with food and drink and watching a vast array of varying quality television programs was eradicated within a few short minutes of me returning to work. Within a matter of an hour I was close to tears. Within two hours I was close to lobbing my computer out from the window and joyfully skipping out of the office, explaining to my shocked looking colleagues, that I no longer had the desire to remain in the pitiful job, and that I bid them all adieu and have a good life, laughing maniacally at their requests of me to reconsider and at the looks of disbelief as they peer out of the window to see where my computer had landed. Naturally I did no such thing, and instead just bottled up my frustration. Mulling it over it now with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear to me that I made the wrong decision. Granted I would be broke beyond all recognition, as despite the relatively good pay I earn, I struggle financially come the end of each month and embarrassingly in the more desperate of months, it is usually with the fist week! However I would at the very least be a little happier than I am at present. I have of course had one other long term and equally as depressing job, which after over three years of gainful employment I quit on a whim. Of course, I had to give my notice, which was four weeks, rather than ignominiously quitting and walking out with my head held high in an emotional charged moment of clarity. That blessed day I hit the street after handing in my security pass and receiving a few emotional and fond farewells; ranks fairly high in my all time greatest feelings list; sandwiched between scoring and injury time goal for the school football team and that time when having spent my last penny the night before on a pricey drinking spree whilst on a University trip to London, finding 10p and on the street (yes- exactly like Charlie Bucket) and winning £5 on the 'Naughts and Crosses' fruit machine in the Trocadero thus enabling me to buy a sumptuous meal at the Burger King located in Piccadilly Circus and a bus home to my modest student accommodation from Liverpool City centre.

As the office was operating at a snail’s pace I had the time and the inclination to scour the job vacancies pages on all the neighbouring Council’s. This was a fruitless exercise- not surprisingly no one was advertising jobs over the Christmas period. This left me feeling even more disheartened and disillusioned and I left work at the earliest opportunity (3pm) without saying so much as a ‘goodbye’ to any of my colleagues.

This feeling of sheer and utter despair forced my hand somewhat, and a mist the depressive stupor I somehow made a weary trek to an old haunt of mine, the local art and crafts shop and in a desperate attempt to put a halt to the laborious rut I have found myself entrenched in. I purchased several items quickly and hurried out of the shop to start my masterpieces.

I sat at my dining room table still in my work attire of shirt tie and trousers. I had removed my shoes and had since donned my faithful old slippers. I opened the new sketch book and stared blankly at the vastness of white that lay before me. This was no time to be faint hearted I told myself and took a slurp of tea. I decided that a pencil was possibly the best place to start, however it soon occurred to me that of the two pencils that I owned were extremely blunt. I set about looking for a pencil sharpener but to no avail. Un daunted I strode into the kitchen and returned with a medium sized knife and attempted to sharpen my instrument the old fashioned way. Alas, this only exacerbated the situation, so with a heavy heart I decided that I would forgo the use of graphite and instead go straight to the use of my mighty pen.

Removing the pen’s lid seemed more problematic that I had could of imagined, but with a firm twist the struggle ended and I came out victorious. Using an old envelope that had at some point contained a household utility bill, I tested the pen. True to form after some initial stiffness the ink flowed from the tip with grace leaving me somewhat relieved and I graciously thanked my lucky stars. I returned my attentions to the beautifully white, crisp piece of paper and recalled the pleasure I used to experience upon christening a new sketch pad and that in just about every new sketch book I have ever purchased, and there have been many; the first drawing had always been of a high caliber, guaranteed. Suddenly my bleak and pitiful dog’sbody existence ceased. An escape route was in view and all I had to do was produce the first in what would hopefully be a series of high caliber pieces of artwork. I think I banded the term ‘masterpiece’ with no sense of irony on several occasions.
That first day of drawing proved pretty fruitless in terms of finished artwork, but the ball was rolling and I felt invincible!

The next day at work I arrived with a newly found vigor and thought about drawing from most of the day when I was called into my manager’s office. Of course my first emotion upon receiving such a request was panic and my brain quickly went through all of my recent misdemeanors and fuck ups. I entered his office and closed the door behind me. I made small talk about football, which bought me some time- but he soon diverted the conversation back to the office. In a nutshell, he said, I was to be seconded over to another post within our department. I was intrigued, especially as he said that I would be doing the exact same job that I was currently doing only earning what would calculate to be an extra £200 a month until June when my colleague returned from her maternity leave. I was shocked to say the least and after going over the details I left his office feeling thoroughly satisfied with myself. After all my colleague did nothing all day! Not to say that she was lazy,; there was very little work for her to do! This was a win win situation for me and I decreed to my fellow workers that I was leaving early that day- which I promptly did. Instead of getting down to some drawing I decided to celebrate on my own, and continue to celebrate when Lisa arrived back from work, and moved my sketch pad and old faithful pen to one side.

My work continued exactly the same as it had been previously. The work was monotonous and uninspiring and I was sure that I was being asked to do even more tedious task than ever before, but shamefully I suppressed any of the emotions of bitterness and angst that I usually display in these situations and with a genuine smile I set about these tasks.

I lost the ambition therefore to write or even draw. I was relatively content with life. Sure it was depressing at times, but I just thought about the extra funds in my account and all of those CD’s and records I could buy. I considered finally entering into the Council’s lucrative pension scheme and made in roads into buying a house. I even went and looked at some 2nd hand cars!

Sadly, day by day and week by week, this contentment evaporated- but I continued to put a brave face on things. I had ceased looking for alternative employment as the with my wages, not to mention the flexi time and other Council perks was as good, if not better, than other jobs. I even contemplated sticking this job out even though I knew I wasn’t really happy but I was busy at work which kept my mind from wandering to much. I no longer felt as if I was entitled to be doing something better with my life.

Then the other week I was struck down with clarity! I was jolted back into my old happy-that-I’m-unhappy ways. I became me again! What was the catalyst for this spark on ingenuity that had broken down all the walls? Well the source of this inspiration took me by surprise too. I in all seriousness would not have expected it to have stemmed from such a low brow and contrived masterpiece of self awareness. The film of which I speak?

You, Me and Dupree!

Yes- You, Me and Dupree has saved my life! I have found my “ness” again. I am back baby, I AM BACK!!!!

Bah Humbug but that's too strong, it is my favourite holiday

2007-12-19T22:26:00.000Z

So the Christmas period draws ever closer, and today I finally completed all my Christmas purchases. Huzzzzzar!! In the office, the wind down for the holidays continues (though to be fair it started in October) and I've pretty much been left to my own devices- which means I've just stuffed my face with chocolate and arsed* around with the P.C making a compilation of alternative Christmas tunes for some colleagues and drawing countless pictures of Father Christmas (that's Santa Claus to ye Americanos).

To improve the already relaxed atmosphere here we had a fire alarm too...frigggin sweet! I was so happy I almost puked (though this could have been an result of the copious chocolates I'd devoured during the course of the day) Whilst compiling said CD, it occurred to me that perhaps I had been too hasty in my declaration of love for Jonah Lewie's 'Stop the Cavalry' on my last post. It is, as I'm sure you'll agree a magnificent song, however I had overlooked the aural delights of The Waitresses - 'Christmas Wrapping' which is almost defiantly, probably, kind of, my favourite Xmo tune. Anyhow, I have therefore decided on a whollyoriginal theme for my first Podcast....Christmas! Watch this space! I've also been racking my chocolate addled brain to come up with the usual tiresome list of favourite albums and songs and in a ode to St John of Peel's festive Fifty, I shall be compiling (and perhaps podcasting) a list of my favourite songs and albums shortly...hopefullybefore the New year. (also any recommendations would be welcome)

*The Technical term

MP3

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping

you scumbag you maggot...

2007-12-18T19:58:00.000Z

Okay-as St. Noddy of Holder commented once or twice at this time of year:

"Itttttttttt'ssssssss Chrisssssssstttttmasssssssss!"

Well very nearly at least.

I think I may have finally resolved some technical problems and after a self induced hiatus, I shall be re-commencing my blogging duties- and even harbour ambitions to post some Podcasts here (watch this space). Meanwhile, after reading and downloading a plethora of different alternative festive Mp3s, I've noticed that the vast majority have overlooked two of my favourite Chrimbo tunes.

If you'd have asked me two years ago, I would have definitely said The Pouges feat. the late Kirsty McCall was the all time greatest Festive song, however having heard this song 40 plus times already this year I'm a tad fed up with it. Hilariously, BBC Radio 1 (the main culprits for its overplaying) decided that they'd blank out 'faggot' in the classic line 'you scumbag you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot'. Even funnier was the public outcry abut this. It's strange that the thin skinned members of the public who would usually complain at any form of offensive language, chose to campaign to keep this lyric in. Picking and choosing your grievances is possibly more annoying than anything else.

Anyway- bom bom bom bom-bom bom bom bo-bom-bom...

MP3:

Jonah Lewie - Stop The Cavalry

Hope can be a dangerous thing.

2007-11-22T20:15:00.001Z

As Morgan Freeman's character Red in The Shawshank Redemption famously stated :

"Hope can be a dangerous thing".

It would have been better if Israel had been hammered by Russia on Saturday rather than build up the Nation's expectations. I suppose I ought to be grateful; we won't have to endure the barrage of football related adverts, the usual all too familiar sound bites from the players and managers, no more faux nationalism, flag waving and the inevitable feeling of either being cheated by a referee or the heartbreaking defeat in a penalty shoot out.

What's the difference between the English FA and Lewis Hamilton?
Hamilton's still got McLaren and he's going to Switzerland.

MP3 hosting still not working :(

Lazy Bones

2007-11-15T09:52:00.000Z

Apologies, apologies, apologies- gonna get my finger out of my arse soon...I promise! I have been busy(ish) and alas this 'ere blog has been somewhat neglected. I plan to make amends.

Don't go a changin'!

(I was going to post some toonage, however to confound matters my file hosts have gone weird! So you'll have to bare with me)

Evidently Chickentown

2007-09-12T18:07:00.000Z

Above all other TV shows, I love The Sopranos.

Sadly I fluffed up the timer on our DVD recorder so we missed the first of the final 9 episodes which was shown last Sunday whilst we were away in Scotland, taping instead the incredibly unfunny Phone Jacker and Big Brother's Big Mouth. As I'm sure you'll agree these are in no way shape or form a suitable replacement for Big Tony and his merry band of Italian American hoods.

Sadly though, whist in New York I did accidentally learn of a major plot development whilst skipping through the plethora of US TV channels. This has haunted me somewhat and has tainted my enjoyment of, what is in my uninformed opinion; the greatest TV program in TV History...or certainly the greatest US TV series.

I've always been a fan of the music they put into the show too, a large portion of which hail from these shores and come from a variety of lesser known artists. I can recall with head swelling pride when Tony had his first breakdown; James Gandolfini is sat in his customary dressing gown and white vest with tears streaming down his fat face, all the while Stuart Staple's bleak and unmistakable (and utter perfect) voice warbles tenderly on Tindersticks' 'Tiny Tears'.
I can also remember Mogwai's ‘Cody’ being played in another similar moment of emotional high drama; though this is possibly my least favorite Mogwai track ever- but you can’t have everything (this was possibly because when the record ‘Come on Die Young’ was released the idea of Stuart Braithwaite attempting to sing was, in my snobbish mind anyway, an act of heresy)

In the last episode, as Tony is reflecting his relationship with Chris in his physiatrist- Dr. Melfi's office, a bizarre voice started to emanated from our TV set as the credits start.

“Wait a minute...surely not?”

I looked to Lisa who was frowning knowing that she recognised the unmistakably broad Mancunian drawl.

Holy shit! It's John Cooper Clarke's 'Evidently Chickentown'.

We both laughed that an artist as obscure as him could make it onto a show of such a high stature.

I felt as if a friend of mine had 'made it' to the big time and we both hoped that he was significantly financial rewarded for his endeavors.

I'm sure that over the past 9 or so seasons of The Sopranos there has been many, many musical highlights, but surely you can't top a bit of ole Johnny Clarke can you?

MP3's

John Cooper Clarke- Evidently Chickentown [Album Version]

Tindersticks- Tiny Tears

Mogwai- Cody

(New) Captain of industry

2007-09-11T11:06:00.000Z

I awoke this morning in an unusually pleasant frame of mind and a full-to-bursting bladder. The bright sunshine seeped through our bedroom curtains and it felt good to be alive. Awakening early as I did, I decided to make haste, ensuring this peculiar feeling of contentment and enthusiasm was not wasted and good golly Miss Molly- I was in work some twenty minutes early!

My punctuality was noted by some of the more observant fellow shlums and after the rudimentary pleasantries were exchanged with colleagues, I set about getting straight to work choosing to forgo my usual internet surfing. All the outstanding work that had taunted me from my desk for the past few months was irradiated in what can only be described as a Herculean blitz of professionalism. One by one the tower stack of orange files that lay dormant on my pine workstation slowly disappeared. When beverages were offered by some kind hearted souls in the office, I barely made eye contact- only enough to convey my gratitude so resolute was my conviction to bust my hump. After dealing with the conveyancing reports of several proposed acquisitions, hunger pains taunted my focused and determined mind. I chose to ignore these urges, lambasting my weak body for such cravings- assuring my growling stomach that lunch wasn't too far away. I called solicitors and surveyors and was firm and direct with my slew of requests as opposed to my more customary laid back and thoroughly affable approach.

Between manically typing up purchase reports and amending spreadsheets accordingly I reached to my left and grabbed my tea mug without averting my gaze from the numbers and names that I was scrolling through on my computer's monitor, taking giant gulps from my now tepid tea. It wasn't long before my energy levels started to flag. I was pragmatic about this decline; after all I wasn't used to this.

I permitted myself to gaze idly out of the office's window at the beautiful and awe inspiring perfect blue sky before putting my head down and continuing with my tasks. When my phone rang, I answered it in my usual eloquent manner, but continued to crunch the numbers whilst still effectively and professionally dealing with the call.

Soon my shirt's top button was unfastened and my sleeves were rolled up. I felt like a captain of industry. I felt like I could accomplish anything. I felt of use.

I looked at the clock to see if I'd missed my lunch break.

It was 9:20am.

Shit!

I had effectively done all my work for the week and the realisation that the rest of the day would now drag like the proverbial motherfucker. What have I done?!!!!

Knee class blues

2007-09-10T20:29:00.000Z

I made my knee rehabilitation class debut last Friday morning and I'm fairly proud of the fact that my operation scar is far bigger than anyone else's.

I did have to haul my weary carcass out of bed nearly an hour before I usually have to get up which I wasn't too enamored with. I then had to walk twenty minutes to catch the bus full of over exuberant school kids that takes me near to Broadgreen Hospital, whereupon I have a 10 -15 minute walk to get to physiotherapy department. When I arrived I was already perspiring and slightly red in the face.

Luckily I managed to catch the bus with seconds to spare. Relief!

My joy at catching this bus was short lived was. I walked onto the bus behind the giddy schoolies and I noticed that I only had a tenner on me. I apologised to the driver for not having any better change. He looked at me through his despondent and possibly hung over eyes and seethed:
"I can't change that!"
"(SIGH) What time are you departing?"
"Right now- you better buy some'ink from der shop; I'll pick you up by the traffic lights."

I hobbled off the bus and with my bag weighing me down tried to get to the nearby newsagents as quickly as I could, knowing that the next bus was not for another 30 minutes. Because my bag was heavy my limp was more prominent than usual, and of course I slightly exaggerated it for the benefit of the unhelpful bus driver.

The shop- which is only a stone's throw away from the bus stop- was teeming with school children of a variety of different size and age in a multitude of different coloured uniforms. I fought my way to the counter with a bottle of water and paid and pushed my way back through the kids just as the bus was pulling up at the traffic lights. I paid the driver and thanked him for waiting though this was an insincere display of gratitude, but definitely not one laden with sarcasm. My MP3 player tossed out some tunes at random and included Jarvis' astutely witty 'Fat Children' , which I listened to with a wry smile on my face as I watched the lawless teens run amok on the bus scoffing their McCoys' crisp at 8.15am.

The class was good and I certainly felt the benefits from the knee exercises the two semi-attractive and fake tanned physios had prepared for us.

It was fairly evident from the start that I was the 'new boy' as everyone knew exactly what exercises to do. I looked on with wide eyed envy at the exercises I could only dream of doing i.e. shuttle runs and the trampoline. The vast majority of the fellow post operation classmates were attired fittingly and wouldn't have looked out of place in a gym or running a marathon perhaps. I on the other hand looked as if I hadn't done any exercise since the 1980s. My spurs shorts looked faded and probably showed too much flesh, my GAP hoodie was taken off within five minutes due to the perspiration revealing a cheap (but most adored) Gaudi tourist T-Shirt my folks brought back for me from Barcelona 6 years ago. I had black office socks rolled down my leg as far as I could and I tried my utmost to conceal them within my trainers with little success. The class reminded me of a Police Academy style group of misfits and as I warmed up on the exercise bike I looked around identifying the rich tapestry of character types. There was the loud mouth, the brute, the comic, the pretty boy, the old guy, the wacky one, the quiet one (also the only woman), the hippie, the token chap from an ethnic minority, the arse kisser, the rough neck, the over exuberant and generic extras who just faded into the background. I wondered which I could be considering that most of the positions I am usually associated with were already taken. I figured that I'll just see how it pans out before labelling myself to fill a character void.

I'm sitting down, enjoying my holiday

2007-09-09T14:35:00.000Z

Whilst on a Withnail & I theme (as per my last post) I’ve had a rejuvenating weekend in the country whilst in attendance at Scotland’s newest Festival; The Connect Festival, Inverneshire, last weekend and once more today I must feel the short stabbing pains of displeasure at yet another monumentally depressing morning as I return to work after an enjoyable few days of annual leave. Whilst unhappy that after such a fine weekend I must once more return to this soul sapping office environment I do feel strangely pragmatic and upbeat- and dare I say: positive.

As something of a music festival veteran and connoisseur of sorts (tongue firmly in cheek whilst I typed that I assure you) it’s got be said that with the exception of the ankle deep mud which made walking about the site a tad hazardous (especially for someone with a not-so-stable knee as myself) it was possibly the finest festival I’ve attended in the UK. Not only was the music choice on display an excellent, if not slightly eclectic mix of old and new, the surrounding picturesque views of the Scottish countryside (which if you’ve ever been fortunate enough to see then you must agree there is no where as beautiful in the world) but possibly its finest asset was the incredibly friendly atmosphere provided by the other revellers in attendance; perhaps a result of the unusually high quality food and drinks on offer (Organic food stalls and a mouth watering selection of ‘real ales’). Usually at our annual trip to the Leeds Festival, I do spent a large portion of my time muttering “tosser” under my breath at the antics of some of the fuckwits whom attend and annoy me, and I am usually left bemused at the frequent number of Randoms* sporting black painted fingernails asking me if I’d seen a generic Emo/Crap Punk Band and that I “should” check them out (though as soon as someone tells me I should listen/read/watch something I tend to get unnecessarily irked at the audacity of folks whom assume that by listening/reading/watching something will significantly benefit me. This usually results in a rather sarcastic response from yours truly along the lines of “why the fuck should I?”. After all if someone was to say “you should do more exercise” or “you should check your testicles for lumps” then I can see the importance and can fully accept the use of the phrase), though nearly everyone I encountered last weekend was of a most pleasant disposition.

So what about the Music eh?

Well highlights would have to be Seasick Steve, CSS, Jarvis, Emma Pollock, Bat for Lashes, The Beastie Boys, Teenage Fanclub, LCD Soundsystem, James Yorkston, Mogwai, Regina Spektor and Polyphonic Spree.

Primal scream were pretty good too, but was overshadowed somewhat by bass player Mani getting smacked full on in the face, by a pint of beer that had been hurled with some venom from a crack shot in the audience. Perhaps it was someone who had been unfortunate enough to have witnessed one of his DJ sets? He wasn’t amused, and bravely invited the guilty party on stage where he would (and I quote) “break his fucking nose”.

Now I don’t agree that people should e able to get away with throwing stuff at bands on stage, especially liquids (though I would rather get hit by a pint of beer than half a pint of piss) but because the crowd in Liverpool where we saw Primal Scream earlier in the year (read my blog about it here http://dogsbodydreadnought.blogspot.com/2006/11/keep-on-keeping-on.html) did exactly the same thing. Is there some underlying reasoning behind throwing pints a Mani? Answers on a postcard please (and please I know he IS a twat)…

* Randoms- Stranger at a festival who will engage you in affable conversation. Whist at the festival I overheard someone ask her friend if as to the whereabouts of a pal of theirs. Her response was “Oh there she is. She’s talking to a random”.

To make matters worse(r)

2007-08-26T14:31:00.000Z

I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither

You may have perhaps been wondering as to my whereabouts? Worry not, I had merely taken a momentary hiatus from blogging to order to re-charge my batteries and renew my enthusiasm.

The past few weeks have been packed with some rather notable events too, which on the most part were exceedingly good for ones soul. For starters I went on my second ever Stag Do for my future brother in law, which was a damp squid somewhat, resulting in me arriving home whilst Match of The day was still on the telly! I can assure you that it was not due to alcohol intolerance on my part, but sadly that of my sister’s fiancé and his best man- not to mention general tiredness from other members of the party and one poor soul’s unfortunate and untimely dose of the shits.

At work it was the end of an era as my colleague Sean (mentioned countless times in these hallowed pages) finally left our team to return from whence he came…The Wirral. An above average work night out ensued with some surprising results. Most surprisingly of all was that I actually enjoyed myself – something I haven’t managed to accomplish on a staff night out for an eon. It was more rawkus than the aforementioned stag do with all my colleagues falling by the way side due to over indulgence of alcohol. I would like to point out that perhaps this was due to the incredibly unwise decision for him to have his leaving meal at the tapas restaurant La Tasca, as by the very nature of tapas it did little by way of soaking up the booze, so much so that only a few hours after leaving this vaguely Spanish themed establishment it was a tactical necessity for me to devour a pizza from on of the city’s many poor quality Take-Aways.

We saw Jon and Eve off in style as along with a merry band of chums, staying in a remote barn near Colne for a couple of nights. Indeed it was good- complete with as many relevant Withnail & I quotes you could shake a shitty stick at. We lit fires, ate an abundance of meat, drank a shit load of beer and made merry. Indeed it was seriously good. It was also my lil’ sister’s wedding, which was a most beautiful day for all and of course we had our final –final send off and goodbye for Jon and Eve this weekend gone, which proved to be more emotional than I had first anticipated; culminating with me forlornly sat in my front room yesterday morning,30 mins after they had departed, drinking some of their left over beer, eating some of their unwanted chocolate, tears rolling down my cheeks (of my face) staring at the framed Sweet Johnny poster ole sweet Johnny had given to me to look after until their return. Lisa too was very upset and despite our excitement for their forthcoming Round-the –World-Trip we couldn’t help but feel lonely and rather sorry for ourselves (hence the Baird’s quote above- notably used in Withnail & I – incase you didn’t know- though you really ought to)

I’ve also been back at work.

This, as you’d imagine, isn’t exactly to my liking and has done little to raise my weary and dwindling spirits. For the most part as I’ve been forced to take some annual leave off for Barn Trips and Weddings (not to mention The Connect Festival this weekend) it’s been more tolerable than I’d become accustomed to, however tomorrow I’ve been asked to come in early to prepare Tea and Coffee for a meeting. Not just any meeting but for my ex. Bosses and colleagues who’s last contact with me was a departmental meeting, where they took great pleasure and pride informing the rest of the organization that I was quitting to go into the studio for 6 weeks to record the band’s debut album. Possibly the last time I felt optimistic about anything.

To matters even worser[sic] my usual protagonists and now mortal enemy, Mersey Rail have pulled out all the stops to really get on my tits. Not only are they only providing a train every half hour instead of every fifteen minutes, but they are only providing these trains with only 3 carriages, resulting in there being no space on these effing trains. So in order to arrive at work on time to provide these beverages (which by they way just entails pouring water into the tea pot and coffee pot- which both already have the correct amount of tea and coffee waiting in them and the milk, sugar etc has been taken car of in advance too) I’m going to have to leave the house at the time I usually get out of bed. And it was this bombshell which has only just been dropped that I decided to reacquaint myself with this ere blog. Sharing my pain. Venting my frustration.

Grrrreeeaaat!

Aplostonic bender

2007-08-04T14:17:00.000Z

I knew I was making a scene.

I was devouring a Subway Meatball marinara sandwich on Hearty Italian bread and making a total fucking mess in the process. The one solitary napkin the spotty adolescent had provided for me was not in anyway adequate enough to meet my needs. The poor girl whom had the enormous misfortune of having to sit next to me on the Leeds to Liverpool train, edged as far away as she could until her shoulder blades were pressed firmly against the train carriage's window, her face buried firmly into her trashy novel. I tried my best to act as if I was sober, but sadly the vast quantities of alcohol I'd devoured during the day made this an impossible task.

I was so hungry though and knew that I needed to soak up the booze. Actually I was beyond hungry. I needed food in my body. I ate my subway as if my life depended on it.

Thankfully I had managed to finish the food before a mealy mouthed looking train conductor asked for my ticket, giving me a look of distain in the process.

"What's your problem?" I slurred at him, spitting globules on un chewed sandwich at him in the process.

He avoided eye contact with me and continued to ask the other passenger for their tickets.

From the corner of my eye, I could see a woman put her arm around her young daughter in a protective manner and look at me fearfully. Her daughter looked scared yet wildly curious.

Never before had I instigated such fear and loathing in other people. I was impressed and I lapped it up. I gave them a smile and the child's pupils widened through fear and the mother turned her head so not to look at me. I sat back in my chair and laughed quite loudly to myself, before coughing harshly on a piece on meatball that had reappeared in the back of my throat. I really couldn't believe it. After years of avoiding confrontational pissheads on public transport, I had finally become one myself. I thought back to what Mark, Luke and I had agreed upon earlier in the day; that perhaps the cider drinking winos who congregate on the park benches of our country, have perhaps got the right idea. As I contemplated my new life as a Bukowski-esque drunkard I felt the need for sleep and all went dark.

I awoke confused, disoriented with the taste of minestrone soup in my dry mouth. The girl who was sat next to me was stood up and trying to get past me. She looked disgusted. I moved my legs wearily to let her get passed, then slumped into the warm seat she'd vacated. I rested my face against the window and looked out over the gloomy industrial landscape of Manchester and let out a little whimper. I felt like death. One of my main reasons behind drinking at 9.30 in the morning was for hangover prevention, however the proceeding 7 bottles and five pints only exacerbated the situation. I tried to blink, but my eyeballs were so dry my eyelids found close properly.

I could see that the young mother and daughter were no longer sat opposite me, instead a rather large black gentleman was reading a copy of the daily Star. My booze fuelled bravado had deserted me and I was left to suffer the pains of day time drinking. I let out a long and thoroughly pathetic groan and with my head in my hands mumbled "what was I thinking?" to myself, but smiled at the hazy recollections of that morning and the preceding night.

Some twenty two hours earlier I was heading in the opposite direction, full of verve and positivism. Not only was an old chum's 30th birthday but also my first day at work for over 6 weeks. I felt of use again.
On route to Leeds I'd had a thoroughly pleasant sleep whilst listening to Joanna Newsome on my MP3 player. I'd arrived with enough time to spare to make it over to Luke's gaff in order for me to drop of my bag and sleeping bag. With the exception of a rather confused taxi driver with sat nav whom couldn't find the street- the journey was a success. Thankfully he had a dog eared A to Z which he proceeded to thumb through whilst driving at speed and I eventually arrived to find Luke and Mark sat on the doorstep swigging beer from the bottle on route to intoxication.

Several hours later after helium balloon hilarity and pints of quality pilsner, it all started to get a little messy. As my alcohol tolerance is at an all time low, my memories of the night’s events were sketchy to say the least. I’m convinced I talked more crap than usual, and from my foggy recollections I talked to Luke’s sister and husband for an eon on a range of subjects which I can no longer recall. I do however remember dropping my pint in the courtyard/alleyway where we were stood and it covering Luke’s sister Mary and some guy whom I’d not been introduced to yet’s coat, which lay oddly on the floor by a wheelie bin. This guy, whose name was revealed to me at a later point during the night, looked fairly put out by my customary clumsiness and as is accustomed; I apologised profusely… I think?

It was from this point things really started to get sketchy. The next bar we swaggered to had a very steep staircase and a rather dodgy banister which it was unwise (not to mention unsafe) to put any weight onto.

The beer choices were good though, Erdinger and Staropramen on tap. I’m certain that due to confusion and an act of overwhelming generosity from Mark the Deviant, I ended up with three pints of varying pilsners. I can assure you that none of this was wasted.

As the night drew, clarity went right out of the window. Where was I? What time was it? Where’s this other pint of Erdinger arrived from? Why’s some forlorn looking woman telling me that my cohort is acting like an asshole? Why was my knee feeling particularly swore? Most of these questions remain unanswered still.

I do, however remember Luke’s courageous proclamation that we should head back to his, where he had a fridge full of beer. This sounded like a plan, though I had a ¾ full pint left. Not being the wasteful sort, I concealed this drink by placing my coat over it whilst it remained in my hand. It was the perfect crime.

At a nearby taxi rank, two rather surly looking Asian gentlemen told us that they wouldn’t provide us with transportation due the inebriation of Mark.
”He’s going to be sick” They told us.

Somehow, we persuaded them that he wouldn’t although I’m still not exactly sure how we were able to do this. They pointed towards a taxi that was parked outside. Our carriage awaited us. I chose to alight in the front passenger seat. Alas as I was about to take my seat, a dazed and confused Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci T-shirt clad friend of mine, decided that he didn’t want to get this particular vehicle and disappeared down a nearby side street mumbling incoherently. Luke gave chase and I decided to take my seat.

I apologized to the friendly looking driver for the confusion and introduced myself. I think I may have told him about my knee and the funeral I had attended that morning. The stolen pint was still under my coat and I wanted to show the driver but thought better of it.

It seemed like ages before an exasperated taxi driver told me that Mark and Luke had got into the taxi parked behind us. I swaggered out of the taxi and could see Luke swaying in the back seat. They got out and found their way into the correct car. It would be fair to say at this point I realized that we were all drunk as lords.

I don’t remember how long it took to get home or who paid for the cab, but we were soon in Luke’s gaff and I whipped my coat from my hand to reveal the ¾ full pint and decorative glass. “Da da daaaaa!”. I knew that Lisa would be so proud when I return with this beauty. Somewhere along the way some typically peculiar and almost unlistenable music found its way on the record player. The room was spinning and after a brief moment of unfamiliar charity on my part whereupon I had attempted to clean the house’s toilet for no good reason, I was on the sofa listening to the end of the record and Mark’s snoring and I was out like a light.

The following morning I was awoken from a heavy and alcoholic slumber to the sound of someone equally overhung as I searching for a pair of £4.99 H&M sunglasses. The bright sun seeped through the thin curtains and pierced my eyelids causing my head hurt like a cunt. Once these problematic sunglasses were eventually found (in his bag no less) I was wide-awake. It was 8.30am. This was unprecedented for me and the early morning caught me off guard. It was less than an hour when a bottle of Carlsberg Export was placed into my shaking hand by Mark, who by now had already knocked one back and was encouraging me to join the party. We sat on the doorstep looking out at the world, a cold beer in hand, not overly concerned by the neighbour’s look of contempt. Rhid provided us with conversation and some cracking cheese and crumpets; not to mention an introduction into the rocktastic word of 1970’s garage band The Gizmos which had just arrived via the post that very morning. Once Luke was up and more food was consumed the beer started to flow at a faster pace than it had already. By 10.30 I’d already had 3 or four beers. I felt like hybrid of Chinaski and Sir Digby Chicken Ceaser and all was well.

The morning flew by and by 12pm there was only a few bottles left and therefore the allure of pub was too overwhelming to ignore. At the time this seemed like a good idea, but it only made things messier.

The pub was deserted expect for the Fararr slack wearing, side parted and neatly combed short sleeved shirt wear regular who watched us closely whilst we sunglasses clad piss heads chatted to the amiable barmaid. Despite her slow Yorkshire drawl and her butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth face, she was razor sharp, perhaps a byproduct of having a baby at the tender age of 15. When Luke did the formal introductions she made a joke about our Gospel inspired names.

“Where’s John?” She asked.

Until that moment, I’d never really realised that we where a John short of a Gospel.

We sat inside and discussed a plethora of different subjects that are almost mandatory when one is hammered. We argued playfully on many subjects but we all were in agreement that our soon to be King’s on/off girlyfirend Kate Middleton is a hottie.

I don’t recall much else except a particularly scary looking dog running amok in the pub’s car park and that we’d agreed to form a band, accordingly named; The Apostles.

It must have been getting close to 4pm before we staggered back to Luke’s. I don’t think I noticed Mark was missing until I was slumped in my chair in the taxi on route to the train station and I could vaguely recollect Luke calling his mum on the phone to apologise for the state he was in.

My next memory was trying to act sober eating my subway. I can’t even remember buying it though.

When I arrived in Liverpool at 8pm I managed to somehow crawl into a taxi and not puke up. I couldn’t get rid of the taste of Minestrone from my mouth and I craved what would only be my second non alcoholic drink of the day. I was also rather alarmed to notice that my arms were bright red and feeling rather hot.

Once home, I truged wearily up the stairs to our front room where Lisa sat reading the paper. I slurred some words that indicated how cruddy I felt and she suggested I take a shower. I agreed and dropped my bag to the floor dramatically.

“What was that?” She asked.

I didn’t know. My bag had made a nasty smashing noise. I opened it to see what was left of my Erdinger glass.
”…shite”

Broken Household Appliance

2007-08-01T11:57:00.000Z

Well I successfully managed to extend my little holiday for a few more days, however due to a combination of our utterly useless and bamboozling landlord and a broken washing machine, not to mention Lisa’s reaction when I divulged that in times of anxiety I find it soothing to urinate in a sink, I’m not exactly jumping for joy.

Instead of enjoying my extra day away from the office, I’m now ringing around to see if I can get someone out to repair it, then call our landlords back and forth with quotes. Plus the dozens of household jobs Lisa’s roped me into doing.

Wish I was back at work.

Grandaddy - Broken Household Appliance National Forest

Band of Horses- The End’s Not Near

Edwyn Collins (with Bernard Butler) - In a Broken Dream

Sebadoh- Not Too Amused

That's neat, that's neat, that's neat, that's neat, I really love your tiger print ironing board

2007-07-30T10:31:00.000Z

Being something of a twat at times, I’ve always loved Monday mornings, however today I can related to the rest of the world whom wake up with a depressed groan. I’m supposed to be going back to work on Wednesday (ain’t that a kick in the head?) and I don’t think that I’m fully ready to be reinstated in the working environment and I am currently racking my brain for possible and plausible ways for me to avoid going back until next Monday. Sadly my doctor’s note expires on the Wednesday, but I’m in the hospital on Thurs and on the Friday I’m hoping to leaves fairly early in order to get to the fair city of Leeds for Luke’s birthday felicitations. It all seems pointless really, plus there are a few more films I want to watch before I go back.

This weekend proved to be a success in all respects and Lisa and I made it past the finishing line and watched the final episode of Heroes. We both patted ourselves on the back for managing to watch the entire series (23 episodes- each one 40 mins long) in one week. Sadly, it’s left a huge void in our evenings’ viewing.

Amongst other things, Lisa tricked me into acquiring a new ironing board. We’ve needed a new one since we first moved into together some 2 and a half years ago. One of my key contributions to the household (besides the pile of guitars/amps/keyboards and tea spillage) was my Tiger print ironing board which has been in my care for some 8 years.

Way back when, when I first moved back to Liverpool I rented a small one roomed bed-sit. I did have to share a kitchen and a bathroom with the other four tenants, which was a complete nightmare and the main reason for my talent at being able to urinate into plant pots or other small receptacles, but I got to meet some other blokes of a similar age group, which whilst not making any long lasting friendships was for the most part a positive experience. One such chap was the previous owner of the aforementioned Tiger Print ironing board.

I’m pretty sure after several minutes of trying to remember; his name was either Jamie or Paul and was several years older than me at the time. He was pretty much the only other tenant who ever would knock on my door and be pro active in starting a conversation. I remember the day he moved in. I left my flat to go to work I was greeted with the sight of a very, very attractive blonde girl in a fake fur coat, tight jeans and FMBs. I was immediately elated that I would be having such and attractive tenant. I locked my door, took a deep breathe and walked over to her to introduce myself. She clocked me and gave me a warm and friendly smile. As I got closer a tall fella’ with collar length hair came of the room and quickly thrust one of his giant hands out in my direction. After shaking it heartily he explained that he was the new tenant and had moved up to Liverpool to be closer to his girlfriend. I think he was from Wakefield or Huddersfield- either way he was from my neck of the woods. I remember thinking that I would have moved from Australia to be near her. He was very proud of her, as any man would be, and looked like the cat who’d got the cream.

Anyhow, he would knock on my door from time to time to ask to borrow the odd item of food or a lighter, the usual neighbourly type conversations. I never ever invited him into my flat, it was a door step friendship.

On one particular occasion, he knocked on my door and asked if he could borrow my mobile phone to contact his girlfriend as the pay phone located on our landing was out of order. I let him, but wasn’t too pleased that he’d ask such a favour. He had promised that he’d only be a minute or so, but after five minutes I started to pace up and down in my room, chuntering obscenities under my breath and looking at the clock.

Several minutes later, after wearing the cheap carpet thread bare, I heard the familiar knock upon my door. I opened it and there he was with his hand outstretched with my phone. He didn’t look good though and I could tell that something was a miss.

“She’s just dumped me” He said, sounding slightly dazed and understandably dejected.

I gave some generic words of support and pulled sympathetic grimaces as he explained what had happened. For a moment when he looked like he was about to burst out crying, I almost broke convention and invited him into my room, but thankfully thought better of it.
I did feel sorry for him and thought it amusing that he was dumped on my phone, in some funny way, I actually felt responsible.

The next time I saw him was a couple of weeks later and he was back to his usual buoyant self. He informed me that he was moving back to Yorkshire the following week and thanked me for all the things I’d leant to him. I, in return, thanked him for all the things he’s leant to me; though both he and I knew that I’d never borrowed anything from him during his short tenure.

Later that week I spotted a man who I assumed to be his father, helping him move his stuff into a people carrier. I sneaked into my room to avoid helping.

I was strumming my guitar gently and watching TV when I heard that unmistakable knock on my door. When I opened it, he was stood there beaming with a Tiger Print ironing board under his arm.

He knew that I’d been using a bass amp and a towel to iron my clothes and offered me this monstrosity.

“My brother gave this to me, when he moved in with his girlfriend. I think it’s time for me to pass it on to you”

I joked that I was honoured- but I liked the story of it being a symbol for bachelorism and thanked him for this thoughtful present. I wished him well and I never saw him again.

At the time, I assumed that I would have this ironing board for another year, perhaps two, as I figured that Lisa and I would soon be living together. It took another six years and three more homes before I managed to convince her it would be a good idea. By the time we did move in, I was the only one of the two of us who was an ironing board owner and despite her hatred of hit, we’ve used it ever since.

I did promise to buy a new one about a year ago but for the usual reasons I never actually got around to doing it. At least once a fortnight Lisa’s reminded me of this fact.

So I was tricked into buying one at Home & Bargain yesterday. I told Lisa I am unhappy to part company with the ole tiger print until I had found a suitable home for it. I mentioned that about a year ago, I had offered it to Jack- the only bachelor I knew. Alas, he didn’t want it despite being suitably intrigued when I regaled the board’s origins.

Anyway, I’m going to iron some of my work clothes- that is if they still fit me. Sitting on my arse non stop for the past 6 weeks has resulted in me gaining a few pounds.

45 hours before I return to work...

Mp3’s
(follow link)

Pulp- Monday Morning

Palace Music- Work Hard-Play Hard

Dolly Parton- 9 to 5 (live version)

Yo La Tengo- Big Day Coming (demo version)

Dean Martin - Ain’t That a Kick in the Head

Ape Shit

2007-07-26T09:17:00.000Z

I’m feeling shitty.

I’ll be back at work this time next week and I’m actually starting to look forward to it, which does not bode well for my current state of mind. What once was a pleasurable, utopian experience is turning into a nightmare the better my leg gets.

I woke up in a foul mood this morning too which hasn’t helped. Since returning from hospital I’ve been making myself get up with Lisa at 7.45ish, but this morning I decided that I would allow myself to have a lie in as for the third or forth night in a row I didn’t get much sleep. Much to my dismay some chump working for Virgin media rang our door bell at 8.10 am.

“That’ll be the cable guy” I said sleepily to Lisa.
“Well I’m getting ready” Was her matter of fact reply.

I looked around to find a T Shirt then opened the bedroom window and shouted down to see who it was and as I did this Lisa screamed at me and followed it up with a slew of abuse. Alas due to my sleep deprivation I’d inadvertently opened the curtains whilst she was stood naked in the room. I shouted down that I would come down and let him in and struggled to find some clothes in the bedroom whilst Lisa continued to lambaste me for my carelessness. This incident was exacerbated by the fact that I have berated her for years for opening the bedroom curtains whilst I have no shirt on, or I’m in my pants. Call me a prude but I don’t really want my neighbours to see me like that.

“You’d have gone ape shit if I’d have done that!” She seethed.
“You did go ape shit…” was my stupid response.
“Oh this isn’t ape shit! This isn’t even close to ape shit!” She growled.

She was right, this wasn’t her ‘ape shit’ mode, however, this irate state that she was currently in the midst of, was on a par with my ape shit mood. Her ape shit mode is off the scale. It’s a sight to behold, it really is. My ‘ape shit’ is quite modest in comparison.

I tried to explain this whilst putting my jeans on. This wasn’t a clever idea on my part and her mood increased from ‘irate’ to ‘very irate’. I hobbled down the stairs to let this chump in and could hear Lisa still bollocking me when I got to the front door.

The guy was an idiot and the whole visit proved to be a total waste of everybody’s time. Because of my little altercation with my beloved and the fact that he turned up at ten past fucking eight in the fucking morning, I was understandably extremely curt with him.

Since he left and Lisa left for work I’ve spent the majority of the morning trying to stomp about the flat, but my knee isn’t strong enough to enable me to successfully pull it off. To make matters worse, Lisa will of course be plotting her revenge- which means I’ll never be able to be changed in the bedroom for fear of her opening the curtains. After all she is as childish and vengeful as I am (well maybe not AS childish-but close.) which is why we’re such a perfect match.

Radiohead- Go to Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.)

Nirvana- Very Ape

(Smog)- Live as If Someone Is Always Watching You

Madness- My Girl

Billy Bragg- Sulk

The Wedding Present- Anyone Can Make a Mistake

The inevitable urge to piss cometh

2007-07-23T10:08:00.000Z

Aside from my father’s marriage on Friday, two major and life changing events took place yesterday. One of which was that I saw the first four episodes of Heroes last night on DVD. I’ve been on the look out for a TV programme for some time now that would completely take over my life and I truly believe I’ve found it.

Having heard so much about it I was dubious as to whether it could live up to the hype, but it appealed to my mostly suppressed -inner sci fi geek.

I love it right down to the marrow of its bones!

Sadly, the second life changing was not as pleasant. It is my sad duty to inform you that I somehow I managed to wet myself! Between episodes I went to the toilet and was distracted to the sound of the rain pounding down onto the huge beech tree’s leaves from the open bathroom window as I pissed. When I walked back into the front room afterwards, I noticed my leg was slightly damp. I looked at my legs to see the unpleasant sight of two massive wet spots on the inner crotch of both legs. I turned to face Lisa and just looked at her open mouthed.

“Erm, I’ve wet myself” I said.
Lisa jumped up and looked at me eyes wide open.

“I don’t believe it! Probably a troublesome and stray pubic hair down my foreskin got in the way of my piss stream?” I said reassuring myself.

Lisa found it hilarious and I too saw the funny side, but I was actually pretty traumatised by it. Even now I’m not sure how I couldn’t have noticed.

“Are you sure you didn’t splash yourself with water from the tap?” She asked.
“Noooo! I didn’t wash my hands” I reluctantly admitted.
“You’ve probably pissed all over the floor too!”
“Nah... I doubt it”

She stomped off to check whilst I stripped my piss soaked jeans from my shameful body. I was surprised to notice that my underpants where bone dry- which re-assured me that I hadn’t suddenly become incontinent.

“It’s all over the bloody floor!!” She shouted.
“I didn’t piss my pants though!” I exclaimed proudly.

The last time I’d ever pissed myself (well sort of) was on a family holiday to France. We stopped off on route to the usual remote campsite my parents always insisted on taking us to, to use the facilities. At the impressionable age of 15 I was pretty alarmed to find out that the toilets over there were just a hole in the floor. At first, like so many unenlightened Brits, I assumed it to be a shower, however after consulting with the family friends we were travelling with and my father, I was told this was what some of the toilets were like over there. It was the first time I’d heard anyone use the phrase; ‘When in Rome…’

Sadly, on that particular occasion I needed a ‘number two’ which made my standing toilet debut so much more challenging.

I half-squatted but leaned back on the wall and relaxed my sphincter.

I can still recall the sound it made as ‘it’ fell through the air; akin to the sound Wyle. E. Coyote made when he fell off the cliff in the Roadrunner cartoons.

Fire two… Again the same noise.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief that I had managed to have and authentic French crap. Sadly as when ever one takes a dump the inevitable urge to piss cometh, and this was no exception. I stared to wee, but because of my squat/leaning position I had adopted, I was unable to move my pants and jeans out of the way in time and I was pissing straight into my clothes which were in the customary position of being around my ankles. I struggled to stand up straight and feared that I may slip and fall near where I’d dropped ‘the kids off at the pool’ so had to swivel my hips so that the piss steam went against the wall.

Once the bladder had done it’s worse, I managed to regain my posture and stood up and assessed the damage. The seat of my jeans and pants were piss wet through…literally. This made the next six hours of travelling most unpleasant. Of course I didn’t tell anyone and just suffered in silence with only my cheap personal stereo and a home made Guns N’ Roses tape to lift my spirits.

Number One Cup- Why Did You Piss Yourself

Jamie T - Dry Off Your Cheeks

The Kingsbury Manx- Piss Dairy

Badly Drawn Boy- Pissing in the Wind

The Hidden Cameras- Golden Streams

Greenday- Armatage Shanks

Sly Old Dog- The Man From Del Monte Suit

2007-07-17T10:00:00.000Z

I’m still mostly housebound. I can now hobble about without the aid of crutches or a walking stick, but holy shit; it is hard going.

Yesterday, I decided that I ought to bask in the short lived sunshine we were enjoying here in the Northwest. I also had to drop off my new and ill advised suit that I recently acquired off at our local Dry Cleaners. The suit itself was ill advised because it’s of a light colour, and needless to say that if you’re as clumsy and messy as I, especially near food or drink, then the odds are you’ll end up with food and or drink spillage on my garments. My usual charcoal grey suits I wear would for the most part adequately hide any such spillages; alas the new suit makes my food indiscretions painfully obvious to all and sundry. So having only worn it once, I was a little aggrieved to be having to take it to the cleaners, especially as I’ve been a suit owner for 7 years and this is the first time in my life I’ve ever taken an item of clothing that I own to dry cleaners. It was an experience to savour nonetheless.

I hobbled in and rang the hotel style bell on the counter and a rather jolly lady came bounding round the corner with a cackling laugh and a spring in her step. I complimented her on the bell, and she said I could ring it again, and I duly obliged.

I showed her the suit, and suggested that because I was foolish enough to purchase one in such a light colour I’d no doubt be giving them lots of business. She laughed and commented to the man who’s appeared from the back room.
”guess where this suit was made” she asked him
“Let me guess… Turkey?” He answered.
“Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!” She replied.

I gave her a strange look, and she explained.

“Oh I just love Turkey, I’ve been there 47 times! I’m off in a few weeks. I need to get away from all these bloody crap weather”
I just responded with the raise of my left eyebrow and a jocular smile.

She stared to write the ticket and read out loud as she wrote it out, chuckling away to herself as she did it.

“You can tell she’s new.” The man said to me in friendly manner befitting the laid back atmosphere of the establishment.

This time I responded with a raise of both eyebrows and a nod of my head.

I asked them if it would be ready before Friday and I was assured that it would be which came as a great relief to me, especially as Lisa had told me that there was no chance that they’d be able to do it in time.

“Phew. This is my only suit [a lie] and other wise I’d be going to the wedding in my jeans and trainers” I said making idle chit chat.

“Oh you’re going to a wedding.” she said with genuine interest but without looking up from her scribblings on the ticket.

“Yeah, my Dad’s.”
“Your Dad!” She said surprised looking up at me.
“He’s off to his Dad’s wedding…sly old dog eh?” She told the man who chuckled politely.
“Your Dad’s wedding…” she continued laughing and shaking her head disapprovingly.
“…that’s weird. The sly old dog, the sly old dog.”

I was taken aback with this statement. Granted, yes, it is a bit weird, as attending a wedding to any of your parents would be, but no need to call my old man a sly old dog! How does she know that my mum isn’t dead? How can she assume that my Dad hasn’t been a struggling widower for the past twenty years? As these thoughts ran through my head I contemplated for a split seconds suggesting that I take my business elsewhere and that my mum had died, but thankfully I stopped myself. This wasn’t because I didn’t want to get embroiled in a web of lies, but because they were the only cleaners in the vicinity.

She carried on muttering “sly dog” and shaking her head whilst continuing to slowly write out the ticket, when suddenly she looked up at me.

“Is your mum still alive hun?”
“Sadly no…erm… she died 9 years ago” I said without even thinking.

Fuck!!! Why did I say that?! My mum would bloody kill me if she found out I was telling people she was dead.

“Oh my God, I’m sooo sorry hun! There I am implying that you’re old man’s a sly bastard…oh I’m soooo sorry” She looked mortified but nullified it with her warm smile..

I thought that I’d gone too far this time a recalled that episode of Curb your Enthusiasm where Larry’s mum dies, and he uses it as an excuse to get out of things.

“Tell you what, I’ll only charge you for the one item” she said
“Really, there’s no need.”
“No honestly, you must have thought I was a right insensitive cow”
I laughed and re-assured her there was “no need.”
She insisted though and I reluctantly and sheepishly accepted.

I left the shop, and instead of basking in the sunshine, I was wallowing in self loathing and guilt. I decided to go home and contemplate where these heinous things I say come from.

Of course, when I informed Lisa of this little conversation, she looked at me with massive indifference.

“Well that doesn’t surprise me” She said in such a disapproving manner.

I think that could have been the cruellest thing she’s ever said to me.

I contemplated trying to justify it to her but knew she wouldn’t agree. I decided to appeal to her fugal side and told her of the discount.

“What? She’s only charging you for one item?!” She repeated concerned.

“Yeah, she said she’ll only charge me for the one item. It’s only going to be a few quid saved, but it’ better than nothing isn’t it?”

“What did you get cleaned again? Your ‘man from Del Monte’ suit?”
“(sigh) yes”
“And what else?”
“That was it.”

She started to laugh.

“Ohhhh Matt!!!”
“Whatttt!!!???” I snapped back.
“They’ve got an offer on saying that they’ll clean a two piece suit for the price of one item!!”
“What?”
“They’ve got an offer…usually you pay for the trousers and jacket separately…yeah?”
“yeah?”
“…but they’ve got an offer now saying they’ll only charge you for one item if you bring them in a two piece suit!!”
“So?”
“So?...She hasn’t given you any discount!”

It took a moment before I understood what she was saying and then the penny dropped.

“The lying bitch!!!” I thundered.
“Ha ha ha ha!!” Lisa cackled heartily, I could see the unbridled joy in her eyes at my unhappiness.

I do feel though that I can take the moral high ground on this though issue, after all as far as she’s concerned, my mum did die, and offering me a discount that already existed is no way to treat a potentially lucrative customer such as I. Lisa recons it’s karma, but I disagree. Regardless whether my mum is alive or not, she still shouldn’t have referred to my dad as a “sly old dog”.

As I said to Lisa; “Had she called him a ‘sly old fox’, then I’d have been okay with it.”

MP3:
(Follow links)

Ivor Cutler- Who Tore Your Trousers James?

Pavement- Easily Fooled

Jeremy Warmsley-Dirty Blue Jeans

The Young Knives-Tailors

Spite for spite's sake

2007-07-16T11:41:00.000Z

I had an amazing revelation whilst on route to Harrogate to attend my father’s stag do, that all the major decisions I’ve come to make in my life have been either the result of guilt on my part, or more frequently the result of spite.

I’m not ashamed of my spiteful side, as it’s not in anyway meant to cause offence but it’s the fuel that gives me my super powers as Lisa so succinctly put it:

“You spiteful? No shit!! It’s what makes you the twat we all know and love.”

Saw the Hold Steady on last Wednesday, and they were fantastic. Sort of GBV meets Husker Du. I’ve since re-listened to their album and have been berating myself incessantly for not appreciating as much as I ought to have. I went with Tom and mentioned my spite revelation to him. He concurred. Though he did try and convince me I was often churlish and contrary. I disagreed.

So my father’s stag do eh? This was my first ever stag do, and it wasn’t as anywhere near as freaky as I thought it would be, in fact I had a good time.

The journey was a nightmare though. I had to leave the flat early as I had a college interview for this Dreamweaver/Multi media evening course I fancied. It turned out to be a bit of a farce. I knew I was going to get on the course when the tutor noticed I was more qualified than he was.

I had been notified that the interview could go on for 3 hours, so I brought my Macthel (my man bag) and had planned to head off to the train station straight afterwards. Alas, the interview was over by 9.45. I didn’t fancy getting a taxi home, waiting a few hours then getting another taxi back to the station especially as it was £7 each way, after all you can take the boy out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take the Yorkshire out of the boy.

So I arrived at Lime Street Station some 4 hours earlier than I had anticipated. I was soaked too and as I was hobbling along on one crutch it took my ages to walk there. I noticed that I was once again wearing my girl’s army surplus jacket again (I purchased it in NYC but wasn’t aware it was a girl’s jacket until I returned home), and with the bedraggled look and crutches, I felt that I resembled a Vietnam War vet a la Born on The Forth of July.

I had to kill 40 minutes once I’d arrived at the station and read a wide range of magazines in WHS Smiths.

I got to the platform with plenty of time to spare and a Chocolate Brownie and a cup of tea and got myself a decent seat once the train’s doors opened. I was still soaked and feeling peeved over the journey and the interview. The chocolate brownie was a good idea, and dunking it in my tea caused the cake to get stuck in my gums, but I didn’t care.

Alas, before the train departed I was involved in a altercation with a fellow passenger.
As I was happily muching on my cake I heard a woman’s voice ask:

“Does this train go to Manchester Piccadilly?”
No one answered and gave her blank looks.
“It goes to one of the Manchester stations- though I’m not sure which?” I said through a caked filled mouth.
“What?!” She said rudely shaking her head at me in a mixture of distain and confusion.
“It goes to one of the Manchester stations- though I’m not sure which. It’ll be on the screen on the platform.”
“I’ve check that and it doesn’t” She snapped back.
“It should do. If you just wait a moment, it changes screen and the destinations will be on the next screen.”
She tutted at me, shook her head and walked off chuntering that no one could be arsed helping her.
“Ohhh you’re quite welcome” I hollered back to her.
I was pretty outraged by her rudeness. I was only trying to help. A fellow passenger looked at me in agreement.

I popped my headphones in my ears and switched on my MP3 player and tried to forget about it.

After the train set off, this girl came back into our carriage and took the seat opposite me.
At the time I felt quite guilty for shouting down the train at her, so avoided any eye contact and just looked out of the window and the industrial landscape of the North West.

As our journey progressed, she was frequently on her phone arranging to be picked up from Piccadilly and bemoaning Virgin Trains and the fact that and I quote: “no one in this city seems to want to help anyone”. Of course I was listening in and had stopped my MP3 player in order to do so. I was pretty outraged with her, but being the easy going chap I am, I didn’t let it get the better of me.

The journey passed pretty much without any points of interest however, as we pulled into Manchester, I glanced over to my right and noticed this girl was asleep! I decided that me waking her up would be quite disturbing for her, and chose to let the tannoy announcement alert her to the fact we were approaching her destination.
The robotic and monotonous voice announced that we were arriving at Manchester Piccadilly yet she didn’t move. Again, I assumed that she would still wake up in time, but as we pulled into the station she was still fast asleep.

At this juncture, I convinced myself that she might not have been departing at this station, and merely wanted the information for a friend who wanted to catch the same train as her. I therefore chose to do nothing and let her sleep peacefully.
Deep down I knew this was the wrong thing to do and that I was being especially spiteful, but frankly I didn’t give a shit.

As we approached Huddersfield, her saw from the corner of my eye her wake, and switching off my MP3 player, I pretended to be asleep.

I noticed that she was quite calm, however when we approached Huddersfield, she looked a little panicked. She asked the Conductor, who was walking past, if we were near to Manchester? I found it so hard not to let out a sly and devious cackle when he told her we’d been passed Manchester.

She got off at Huddersfield which was only a few minutes away. She looked upset and was on her mobile. It felt good.

The rest of the journey was a nightmare, but thankfully no spiteful actions on my part.

I had to waste time in Leeds, and I got soaked.

I arrived in Harrogate at 3pm, and both my brother and father were at work until after 5pm, so I thought it sensible to seek refuse in the near by cinema.

“What’s the next film that’s starting; that’s NOT Harry Potter please?” I asked the fresh faced girl behind the counter.

“What any film?”
“Any film….except Harry Potter” I repeated.
“Shrek III is showing the trailers now and starts in five minutes.”
“One adult for Shrek please!” I ordered slapping a tenner on the counter.

The film was okay, but nowhere near as good as previous Shrek films.

I also looked like a kiddie fiddler, in drenched, bedraggled and sat on my own at the back. The rest of the audience consisted of young parents and there excited offspring. I was the only one there sans children. I felt weird and noticed a few odd lokks from the respective parents and guardians.

After the film, I went to the toilets to put in my contact lenses ready for the stag do. Whilst doing so some kid came in and asked me what I was doing.

“Just putting my contact lenses in” I answered.
“Why?” He asked.
“So I don’t have to wear my galsses” I responded whilst delicately trying to concentrate.
The kid, walked out without using the toilet.

20 seconds later an old lady knocked on the door and walked in. I could see her in the reflection of the mirror.

“Ohh I’m soo sorry” She said
“Erm…it’s okay” I said slightly perplexed.
“My grandson came running out saying there was man doing something strange in the toilet!”
“It’s okay. Just doing my contact lenses”
“Sorry.” She said again closing the door behind her.
As she closed the door I could hear a Odeon member of staff ask if everything was okay. I felt the pressure of trying to get these lenses in quickly.

Allow me to introduce my eldest son” my dad said proudly as I hobbled into the Old Bell.
“How was your journey?”
“Crap! It was full of Spite, arguments, chocolate and I was almost attacked by an old lady in the cinema toilet who thought I was a child abuser…” I answered.
“…Does anyone want a drink?”

MP3's:
(follow links)

The Hidden Cameras- Ban Marriage

Buffalo Springfield- On the Way Home

Calexico- Drenched

Superchunk- New Low

You don't sweat much for a fat chick.

2007-07-11T09:37:00.000Z

Whilst still being off from work, normality is an ambition still on the horizon; however thanks to a sweaty Beth Ditto I am encroaching upon outer reaches of my familiar lifestyle.

It was my first social occasion since the op, and was the perfect remedy to my cabin fever. Sweet Johnny only really realised he was going to be in Normandy on a school trip at weekend gone, so had to send his apologies. I took it upon myself to locate a suitable replacement and thankfully my first choice of replacements, Tom, was more than happy to step up to the plate.

It was fairly clear from the get go this was not going to be your standard gig judging from the sight of my fellow audience. It would be fair to say that there was a fair few people there whom are not your ordinary gig goers, or more appropriately, not the usual gig goers that my friends and I see. I likened it to an England International football game i.e. the crowd was not built up of the ‘regular’ attendees of Association Football matches.

We handed in our tickets and entered the venue. Tom told me that someone behind us made some comment along the lines of “Oh I nearly knocked over the cripple” by which of course he meant me. The usually highly dangerous stairs in the venue proved even more troublesome especially knowing that there was a swarm of ‘big boned’ ladies wishing to get past me. I eventually made it to the top and was totally fucked. The non-alcoholic beverages I was drinking at the bequest of my pharmacist served as scant conciliation for the epic trek I had just endured. We found a suitable place for me to stand whereupon I wouldn’t get trampled and waited.

It wasn’t long before the main support act Robots In Disguise arrived on stage.
The band comprised of three girls caked in 1980’s kitsch make up and Chrissie Hyde/Russell Brand haircuts. It came as no suppose to me that despite all the gusto and enthusiasm they possessed, musically they were without any redeeming features whatsoever. The songs themselves were built around drum loops upon which the drummer (who looked like a cross between the Kiss’ Paul Stanley in his full stage make up, and kids’ TV cartoon Gem) mirrored adding little interest to them. Simple bass lines and guitar chords stabbed out in staccato style were played with no imagination or interest either. The vocals, which mostly comprised of the two guitar players moronic shouting really was the cherry on the cake. Of course though, the sell out crowd for the most part, lapped it up.

It was a depressing start to the show and with the increasing audience I was getting bustled about a fair bit and my crutches were knocked on several occasions. It was getting hot in there too.

Whilst waiting, Nik walked directly past us. I tapped him on the shoulder and he decided to stand with us. He was rather excited about the show and looked a little like a child on Christmas morning.

It wasn’t long before they took to the stage. The crowd went wild and the atmosphere generated from their legion of supporters had us all wide eyed and excited.

She looked marvellous wearing a gold jump suit and a sliver glitter wig.
The difference in quality from The Gossip to Robots in Disguise was a vast a gap can be between bands. The understated drums and hooky bass lines left the space fro Ditto to fill it with her impressive voice…and what a fucking voice. Her stage presence is as good, if not better, than anyone I can think of ever seeing. Not only did she do it gusto and passion it was clear to see how connected she was with the music and the audience.

Lisa’s had the album on loop in our flat for the past month, and despite never actually sitting down and listening to it I know most of the songs-though with the notable exception of ‘Standing In the Way Of Control’ I couldn’t tell you any of their names.
Whilst Ditto belting out a number is a sight to behold, the understated playing of the rhythm section can’t go unmentioned. Tom succinctly put it that they were like Nirvana with glitter.

Please check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWTVMJWD4jE

Between songs Beth addressed the crowd with humility and respect which was reciprocated by the sweaty masses. Not one for being overly impressed all that often, I was in total awe of her stage presence and he voice.

If not ever so slightly predictably, they closed with ‘Standing In The way of Control’ and the place went fucking nuts! And I mean FUCKING NUTS! The floor was shaking, drinks were being tossed aimlessly into the air and the annoyingly too common spectacle of every other person’s mobile phone being thrust in the stage’s direction (which was handy other wise I wouldn’t be able to attach the above YouTube clip. It was awesome. Ditto, now sans wig and drenched in sweat, made her way down to the front of the crowd, connecting with the audience – by which time were foaming at the mouth coupled with the strobe lights, that the engineers had obviously been saving until the end.

After the show it was agreed by one and all that they were fucking amazing. It was a perfect antidote to the past few mind numbingly boring weeks. I also coaxed Tom to come and see The Hold Steady tonight too- so even more reasons to be cheerful!!!

It’s my house and I can be a twat of I want to

2007-07-09T13:17:00.000Z

So the weekend came and went. It was devoid of anything interesting, Lisa’s friends arrived and it was nice. I left them alone for most of their stay and sat in watching the truly terrible Live Earth gig on the telly, occasionally switching over to watch Escape To Victory on ITV2.

The ‘great lie’ was pointless and I didn’t have the heart to execute it- informing them that my leg has improved drastically in the last week. They arrived at 2.45 ish and sitting down with a cup of tea, we scratched the surface of what our lives had entailed for the past few years. I tried to pretend to be interested in the blandness of some of their anecdotes, and I was mightily relieved when they trotted out to the pub at 4pm.

I watched most of the concert and with few exceptions all the bands were tosh. I was looking forward to The Foo Fighters but Lisa and Co rolled into the flat as they took to the stage and I had to answer three drunken girls who’d ruined my uptopia as to who was performing.

“It’s the Foo Fighters”
“Who?”
“The Foo Fighters!”
“Who is it Michelle?”
“The Red Hot Chilli Peppers”
“No it’s The Foo Fighters”
“I didn’t know they looked like that?”
“U-huh”
“God they’re really rocky aren’t they?”
“Yeah”
“You don’t think of The Foo Fighters as a ‘rock’ band do you?”

A just looked slacked jawed and made a mental note of the conversation for this ‘ere blog.

Lisa tried to motivate them to hurry up in order for them to hit the town. But it was clear they were half cut already. Both of her friends decided to ask me what accessories they should wear with their respective outfits and emptied the contents of their over sized bags on our sofa. After talking throughout the performance Dave Grohl started up The Best Of You and despite being mid conversation Michelle screamed at me:

“TURN IT UP, I FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG- IT REMINDS ME OF PERTH!!!”

I rolled my eyes and turned it up- though the TV was pretty loud already to account for their loud shrill voices.

“C’mon turn it up Matt!”
“I have”
“Louder!!!FUCK!!! I Love this song!!”
“It’s loud enough””C’mon you boring bastard, turn it up”
I turned it up a notch.
“FUCK-louder!!! I love this song.”

I gave her the remote and got up to leave the room. I didn’t have many options of where to go as they’d decamped into the spare room and Lisa was getting changed in our bedroom. I found refuse in my fortress of solitude; our ‘little’ toilet and read a Select Magazine from 1994 whilst The Foo Fighter rocked it at Wembley. I could hear it clearly as it was blaring out from our TV.

I heard Lisa round them up as they were going to hit the town and the sound of high heeled shoes stomping on our poor quality laminate flooring ensued as they all relocated in our bedroom.

I got back into my chair and turned the volume down to a normal level, but the band were leaving the stage.

“Great.”

I’d already agreed to tape Madonna’s performance for Lisa so didn’t see the need to watch it and turned over to watch Pele’s overhead kick Sly Stallone save that penalty.
Her friends drifted back in to the room.
“Is Madonna on yet?”
“Yeah- I’m taping it for Lisa”
“Can I just see her for a bit please?”

I flicked over to see Madge with a Gibson Les Paul and the Gogol Bordellos. I let out a sad and frustrated sigh and turned back.

“Oh please can we just watch this song?”

Escape to Victory had finished so I reluctantly agreed.

“Do you like Madonna Matt?”
“I don’t hate her, but she is a Dick Head”
“Why’s she a dick head?”
“You know…just look at her”
“NO really why? I thought everyone liked Madonna”
“Aw c’mon? Really? You’ve been living in London too long.”
“Seriously – you think she’s a dick head? Why? I don’t understand? You’re the first person I’ve met, besides my dad , who doesn’t like Madonna”
“Why? Erm…I don’t know, but she is the personification of the term dick head isn’t she?”
“I really admire her…doesn’t she look good for her age?”
“I guess so. But that shouldn’t be a reason for admiring her though”
“Why not?”
“Because if that was a justifiable basis for admiration , then you’d have to admire Cliff Richard too.”
“Well…”
Hah! I’d got her with my legal reasoning’s.

“She’s still an amazing musician and dancer though”
“Oh- unquestionably!” I answered with the sarcasm dial turned up to 11 and watched here ponce around stage like the dock head she really is.

I watched her performance and laughed loudly like a Bond Villan throughout.

I could tell this wasn’t being appreciated but didn’t care, after all it’s my house and I can be a twat of I want to. It’s a good job Bono didn’t turn up.

Just Call Me Costanza (another web of lies ensues)

2007-07-06T14:49:00.000Z

For once it’s Lisa who’s suggested a web of lies for me to perform, and as ever I’m ready for the challenge.

Lisa was due to go over to Leeds to meet up with two friends from college whom she hadn’t seen for a while. She was looking forward to meeting up with them and she was especially looking forward to a night out in the fine city of Leeds. The weekend had been planned for nearly 6 weeks now, but when texting one of these chums to see if it was okay still for her to stay at her flat she received a text saying words to the effect that they couldn’t be arsed going out in Leeds and preferred it if they could come to Liverpool to ‘reminisce’ and “it’s okay for us to stay at yours isn’t it?”

Naturally Lisa was offended by this, after all you don’t change plans last minute and assume to be staying at someone else’s? I agreed with her wholeheartedly when she relayed the correspondence, in fact I don’t think I had ever taken such a keen interest in any of her problems or stresses as much as I had with this particular predicament.
She did the sensible thing and text back stating that I was crippled with pain, on crutches etc etc and that it wouldn’t be a good idea and could they re-arrange for another time?. Of course I said that I didn’t mind if they wanted to stay.

“Really you wouldn’t mind?” A friend asked me when I regaled this scenario.
“Well that’s what makes me such a special person” I answered quietly confident they wouldn’t be staying.

…I was wrong.

Once Lisa had sent this text message she immediately received a phone call from the friend in question. Lisa, who’s preferred method of ‘text lying’ Is to ignore the message and say that she hadn’t seen it until the following day, by which time of course it’s too late or she has time to conjur up an excuse (the world’s worst excuse I frequently tell her) so when she answered the phone she was out of her depth and comfort zone and in a muddle of panic and guilt agreed to have them over.

“No….really? they’re coming?”
“You said you didn’t mind” She informed me.
“I know, but I was confident they wouldn’t come”
“Well it serves you right then doesn’t it!?”

It was only for Saturday, so I could cope I suppose. After all I’ve always got on with them. One of the girls in question lived with Lisa for a few years and went to my halls of residence so I know her quite well. A nice girl but who swears way too much in her loud Northern Irish voice. “Fuck NO!!!!” is her favourite line and is used in place of a “no way” type scenarios or just generally yelling “Fuck!!” at the top of her voice for no apparent reason.

Her other friend we haven’t seen for about 6 years, in fact I think the last time I saw her was the day of my first ever gig with the band! Both of her friends always laughed a little too heartedly at my jokes, which at first is flattering but after a while becomes grating -“your SOOO funny” and applauding over zealously at the merest whiff of humour.
There was a caveat to their staying however:

“I told them you’re bed bound…”
“What!?”
She found my reaction hilarious.
“Well I had to make Michelle feel as if it’s really bad so they couldn’t come.”
“But I’m getting better- I’m only using one crutch now!”
“So- you’ll just have to use both of them when you get up- but I told her you spent all you time in the bedroom.”
“Why should I!? They’re your friends- I can’t get to the Playstation/computer?! Can’t you just explain that I’m recovering much better now?”
“I can’t- I laid it on pretty thick.”
“Then why the hell is she still coming?”
“Because she reckons the three of us won’t be able to meet up until 2013!!!”
“Okay- but why can’t you go to Leeds still”
“She wants to reminisce!”
“What she wants to go the Student Union, drink watered down larger, play some pool, cop off with some spotting hair straightened stripy top wear emo student go to the Jackeranda and spend the remainder of the evening dancing in Baa Bar?”
“Oh I don’t know…but I thought you revelled in your excuse making and web of lies?”

She appealed to my ego....

“…I mean, how many times have I got embroiled in one of your lies to get you out of anything?”
“When!!??” I demanded to know.
“Yesterday you fat head!!…You made up a back story so if Steve asks me where you were when he asked if he could come over.”

She had a point. When I told a friend that I wasn’t home without giving an explanation I told Lisa to pass on the story that I was at the hospital waiting to be X-Rayed and had to wait an eon to get it done and hilariously (and typically me) I left my copies of the X-rays in the back of the taxi. OF course I was just sat on the bed watching The Pink Panther and couldn’t be arsed seeing anyone.- but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

So reluctantly, I’ve agreed to have to ‘put it on’. If ever there was a challenge I relish, it’s providing people with elaborate excuses- after all I’ve so frequently been called the master. So with much gusto I shall try to pull the wool over Lisa’s two friends. It ought to be easy too- just lay in bed watching TV.

Just call me Costanza!

MP3

(follow links)-

Broken Family Band - Honest Man’s Blues

Sugar- Feeling Better

The Earlies- Burn the Liars

The Kingsbury Manx- New Old Friend Blues

video (games) killed the radio star

2007-07-03T13:16:00.000Z

Since my operation I’ve had many well wishers enquiring as to how I’m feeling ‘in myself’. I’m not a fan of this phrase; however I have been very civil and honest in my responses and confirmed that I’ve never felt better and that I’m actually having a whale of a time!

Sadly however, Lisa is off sick too, which is obviously terrible for her, but it bad for me too as it has slightly affected my daily routine. For starters at 1pm when I’m usually in the font room listening to some records and reading, Jeremy Kyle was on our telly! I couldn’t stand it so I had to leave and start watching Seinfeld in the bedroom earlier than scheduled. I even decided to forgo my nap and Lisa’s presence even affected my daily movie watching. According to my schedule, Citizen Kane was Monday’s movie de jour, however we watched Rocky Balboa instead.

I’d like to point out at this juncture that with the notable exception of Rocky V, I’ve not seen any of the Rocky films. I’m often laughed at by peers of mine when this fact is brought up but despite enjoying boxing I’ve never felt the inclination to sit down and watch any of them. (It’s the same with Rambo too, though I saw First Blood for the very first time the weekend before we went to NYC) Anyhow, Rocky Balboa was lent to me when Jon and Eve came round to visit. Jon thought I may be running out of films to watch so loaned me a few choice DVDs from his impressive collection which included the aforementioned Stallone ego fest. Safe to say it wasn’t the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it amongst the worst films I’ve seen in a very long time. Not all that surprising is it?

Anyway, so Lisa’s not well, so I decided to get up after her alarm had woken me. I came down to the back room and switched in the radio, which was still on Radio 6 from last night. On a whim I decided to enter a competition for a new X-Box. I e-mailed my name etc via the BBC website.
About a minute later I received a call from the producer, who was from what I can ascertain calling me to make sure that I’m succinct and not going to freeze on air. Safe to say, a minute later I received another call from another producer to inform me that I’ll be on air in 30 seconds….coool!

Anyway- you can listen back here (aprox 8:40am):

HERE!

I didn’t win, but it was fun. I was squashed between Blondie and Interpol.

Oddly, it was on this day about 4 years ago that I made my second Radio 6 appearance, when the band recorded a live session for Marc Riley, I remember the date as it was my Dad’s birthday (as is today obviously) and at the time he was attempting and subsequently succeeding in walking Mt. Kilimanjaro at the time.

My first ever live interview performance was for Radio 6. At the time I’d already done several recorded sessions for Radio 1 XFM etc, which at the time was nerve wracking enough (though the second Peel session wasn’t- that was just a joy to do!) so going down to London to appear on Gideon Coe’s mid morning live BBC Radio 6 show did have the butterflies going in my stomach.

Sadly, it wasn’t a very pleasant experience.

I was supposed to be picked up by our (now ex.) manager who was to drive us to the BBC HQ on Great Portland Street. We’d planned to set off at 6am in order to make good time. Our manager had even hired a car for it, however after waiting for him for 40 plus minutes I had the feeling it wasn’t going to be so straight forward. I tried to call him but there was no answer. I called Tim and Ellen who were the only other band members travelling down for this acoustic session, and they’d been trying to reach him too but to no avail. We re-assured ourselves that because he’d made such a big deal of the session, there’s no way he’d have forgotten…or would he?

After another twenty minutes or so we had to come up with a contingency plan, and despite never driving further than Hull before Helen stood up to the plate and offered to drive us to London. Of course, they live the other side of the city, so I had to wait nervously for another thirty minutes before I saw her car arrive. At the time I had an acoustic bass guitar that had been leant to me by our ‘other’ manager. It was awful and looked the type of thing that the lanky cunt from The Manic Street Preachers would use or a session musician (the scourge of we crappy indie band musicians), but I was just happy (as a bass player) that I was permitted to attend an acoustic session.
I sat in the back of the car and laid the guitar, which had no case, across my lap and proceeded to chew my finger nails for 4 hours until we’d arrived.

After we’d crossed the Runcorn Bridge our manager, Glenn called me panicked and flustered to say that he’d slept in because his house mate’s toddler had unplugged his alarm clock. We didn’t believe him but he said he was going to set off and reckoned he’d get there before us and we could follow him as he knew the way. He didn’t but called every 30 minutes on route to check on our progress and being generally as unhelpful as someone can in these situations.

By the time we’d started to leave Liverpool, the traffic on the motor way had started to get heavy- and continued to do so until we reached the outskirts of a pre-toll road Birmingham and the motorway was at a virtual standstill. It was a proper race against time.

At one point it was looking like we weren’t going to make it and Ellen had refused to go over 75 mph he shouted down the phone at me “Tell her to out her fucking foot down” I decided not to pass this message on for fear this may cause more problems and in my own style suggested that if possible and safely we could go a little faster.

Obviously he had called ahead to inform them of our impending lateness and from text messages I received from friends listening to his show told us that they’d announced that we were running late, stuck in traffic etc on air.

We found the BBC Studios easier than we thought possible and screeched up outside and ran into the building with guitars in hands. Our radio plugger met us in the reception and he wasn’t pleased, but we did the only thing musicians do in these scenarios; we blamed our manager. I don’t think I’d apologised so many times for something that wasn’t directly my fault before.

We had a few minutes to tune the guitars and discuss what songs we were going to do.
I remember Tim asking our radio plugger if we had to do our new single.
His eyes widened so much that they encompassed the entire of his skinny bald head, making him look like a Tex Avery cartoon.

“OF COURSE YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR FUCKING NEW SINGLE! That’s what they’ve invited you here to play!!”

I wanted to reason with him that surely the DJ plays the new single and we play non-single tracks, but decided ‘not to go there’.

We were then bustled into the studio and met the DJ. We sound-checked and were on air with 15 minutes left of their show. The DJ, as nice as he was, just asked us what food we’d eaten on route. “Ginsters Pasties or homemade sandwiches” and other question of this ilk for seven or so minutes.

“What a buffoon” I thought and laughed along with his quasi humours musings.
We played the two songs okayish, though the acoustic bass was a terrible idea. At the time, as Simian was still in the band there would have been no way he’d have let me get away with playing his guitar parts to the songs though he couldn’t attend the session. I recall the band being a political nightmare at the time, Steve and I ensuring that the equilibrium was maintain between the other band members- a tough job to say the least.

It all went very quickly. After we’d finished and exchanged niceties with the DJ and production staff our sweaty and stressed looking manager burst in dispensing apologies all round. I thought the whole thing was hilarious, but it appeared I was the only one in the band who thought so at the time.

Glenn then offered to take us for food where he grovelled some more, and took us to meet some more radio pluggers and PR type folks, most of whom we’d met before and all of whom were very nice. I loved grassing Glenn up about him sleeping in. I really got a kick out of it. I think I heard him say in response “Christian’s baby had unplugged my alarm clock!” at least two dozen times. Also I remember it was the day after Jemini had got nil points on the Eurovision Song Contest. This was slightly embarrassing to us as our ‘other’ manager was at the time their manager and released their single in his own record label!! I think at that point I knew we were fucked but stupidly remained optimistic.

Things got tense as we’d been up since 5am and it was a 4 hour journey home and Ellen by her own admittance was getting cranky and wanted to go. This just made our manager more cantankerous and argumentative. “I’ve said I’m sorry, you still made the show…it wasn’t my fault it was Christian’s baby who must have unplugged his alarm clock!”

I remember saying: “We were on a break!!!” in reference to ‘that’ episode of Friends in a hopeful attempt to clear the air. It didn’t work though Tom laughed.

We had to leave early, and as ever I was left to pacify the ‘artists’ and ‘the management’ individually. Glenn said he could give me a lift home though he was visibly upset at the way he felt he’d been treated. I did actually feel sorry for him, which I did throughout his tenure as our manager, though I felt he had it coming as he’d been pissing the band off now for sometime. I politely declined his offer as he was unquestionably the scariest/fastest driver I’d ever had the misfortune to be in a car with- something of a joke amongst those who knew him- plus he smoked heavily and I couldn’t be arsed listen to him bitch about the band. Instead I opted to go home with T&E.

Considering Ellen had never driven to London before she did a bloody good job at getting us there on time and in once piece, though I can recall on the journey home wishing at some point that I’d gone with Glenn instead as we pulled into two service stations to sit down take a break a coffee etc. and arrived home some 5 and a half hours after we set off.

This was a clear sign that I must have been thoroughly shattered as in the cold light of morning I would never in a million years have got in a car again with this oaf.

Rock n’ Roll!

MP3:

Richard Thompson – I’ll Tag Along

Micah P. Hinson- Patience

McFearless

2007-06-30T12:06:00.000Z

I had my staples removed yesterday, and for the most part it was without incident with the notable exception of the large woman who looked like Baron Silas Greenback from Dangermouse who took it upon herself to sit next to me in the waiting room and insist on talking to me and minor curiosity that my taxi driver had a blue biro in his right hand whilst he drove.

I’d clocked Greenback the moment she waddled in to the medical centre. She had the deepest voice I’ve ever heard in a woman, so much so when I heard her speak I assumed her to be a fellow member of the male gender until she gave her name to the receptionist. She squashed into the chair next to me with her fat rolling over from her seat and actually touching me. She also had especially poor body odour. I did my best not to look directly at her whilst I answered her intrusive questions until my name was called.

15 of the 18 staples were removed from my knee without any real discomfort, but 3 hurt like a bitch and bled a little. I was glad that I’d pre-warned the nurses that I was a big coward with no tolerance to pain whatsoever. They were very kind and told me I was “very brave”. This made me feel like I was 7, rather than a (currently) heavily bearded 30 year old, but I kinda liked regressing. I’m not entirely sure when I become such a wimp- but my own cowardice and squeemishness often takes me by surprise.

MP3 Toongae:

Neal Casal – Tonight I’m going to Bleed

Super Furry Animals - Short Painkiller

Pavement- Sensitive Euro Man

Stevie Wonder- Ordinary pain

Phat Kat- Nasty Aint It

Kings Of Leon- McFearless

Should have stayed in bed

2007-06-27T11:40:00.000Z

After a week of cabin fever I finally left the warm(ish) and safe confines of the flat this morning to go to my first Physio appointment. My pre-ordered taxi arrived on time at 8am and Lisa helped me down the many, many stairs and waved me off on the door step in her dressing gown with a look of concern across her face. I felt like it was my first day at school or something.

The taxi was in fact, rather confusingly so, a minibus and the driver was ever so helpful as I struggled to get in the passenger seat.

“Easy now” he half heartedly muttered.

He was in his early sixties, and had Reg Varney type Brylcreemed hair and the aura of some one who is, or was a heavy smoker. Should you ever had attended my school and were unfortunate enough to get the Acheason’s busses-namely the Knox/Jennyfield ones as I did and recall Ken and Ken then you’ll know where I’m coming from.

I’d given myself 45 minutes to make my appointment but hadn’t counted on my driver not knowing his way around Liverpool and he took me the longest way that was possible. Not only that but he insisted travelling via the notoriously busy Queen’s Drive. The conversation was okay until he started to slag off the Council and the City of Culture. Although I kind of agreed with most of what he was saying but after 15 minutes of being stuck in traffic with a painful knee and some oily cabbie shouting from his soap box I’d had enough and tactfully changed to conversation to the weather.

It became clear after twenty five minutes I was going to be late. So I tried to call the hospital to let them know, but my cabbie chum told me we were just around the corner and not to worry, so I hung up before anyone answered. After all I’d never seen this Hospital before so could only take his word for it.

Ten minutes later and we were only ten feet closer to our destination, I decided to call. As I dialled he started banging on about the state of the road and the lack of decent car parking facilities for the local people. I gestured towards my phone to indicate that I wasn’t being rude, but I needed to make a call. He didn’t stop gassing though. Eventually after waiting for a polite moment for me to make the call I just dialled the number, held the phone to my ear and waited for an answer, all the while he was still bemoaning the Council’s so called efforts to get the city’s roads road worthy. When the receptionist answered I couldn’t hear her because of the combined noise of the mini bus’ engine, the radio, his taxi C.B and his incessant chatter. I told her my name and appointment time and apologised that I was running late and that I couldn’t quite hear her.

Ten or so minutes later we’d arrived at Broadgreen Hospital. I told him the name of the building and he calmly told me that I’d have to go to the main reception. I paid him (£8!) and thanked him before struggling to get out of the taxi. I almost slipped and fell.

“easy now”

“cheers!” and called him a dick head under my breath.

I was 15 minutes late and was sure that they’d have given my appointment to someone else. As I walked- well crutched (what word describes the motion of moving under the aid of crutches?) my way to the reception I started to concoct excuses in my head.

The receptionist, a pretty thing in a black polo necked jumper was on a phone call and put her hand over the receiver when she saw me.

“Therapy Dept please?”
“Down the corridor turn left then right. You can’t miss it”

I followed these directions but ended in the Osteoporosis Department. I had to wait in a queue for five minutes before being told that the receptionist was crap and that I was on the wrong side of the building.

I raced off as fast as I could down another generic hospital corridor over a bridge, down some stairs and down another long corridor past the blood transfusion department to the physiotherapy section, but even going as fast as I could took ten or so minutes. I raced past the elderly gentleman on a Zimmer frame and almost collapsed with exhaustion at the reception.

“Hi- I’m sorry I’m late…I’m here for my 8.40 appointment”
The chubby but pretty faced receptionist looked up at the clock which was at 9.10.
“The taxi driver was a buffoon and your main receptionist is hopeless” I gasped still trying to catch my breath.
“That’s okay- did she send you to Osteoporosis?”
“As a matter of act she did?”

“That sounds about right. I’m sorry about that- you can’t get the staff these days. Okay, what’s your name and the first line of your address please?”
I gave her all the necessary data protection answers she asked.

“Hmmm; there’s nothing on the system for you. Are you sure it was today”
I grimaced and pulled out the piece of paper I’d written the info on after they’d called me last week.

“Yeah- today at 8.40am"

“Can I see that?”

“Sure…I guess?”

I handed her the scrap of paper which was by now covered in doodles and other messages and the word ‘MILK’ written in huge ink letters that Lisa had scrawled on as a reminder to herself along with my details for my staple removal of Friday. I couldn’t see why she’d want to see this it was hardly evidence.

“Hmmmm” She said examining it closely.

She stood up walked over to chat to another clerk who was in the ‘record room’ located behind the desk.

The other clerk came over and asked me the same questions and I responded with the same answers-patiently I may add. She eventually went and checked in a massive tower of paperwork.
“Ah ha! Found it!” She exclaimed after thumbing her way through this truly impressive stack of paperwork..

“Phew- thought it was going to be one of those days” I said to the chubby receptionist who reciprocated my relieved smile.
“Oh- it says this appointment was cancelled by phone toady”
“What?”
She walked over with the appointment sheet with ‘cancelled by phone 26/06/07’ written across it.
“I never cancelled it” I said stubbornly.
“Are you sure?” asked chubby.
“Oh- quite sure”
“I don’t know how this could have happened? ” She called out to a man with a white shirt and awful Daffy Duck tie on.
“Have you taken any calls to cancel any appointments today?” She asked.
The man shook his head.
“Not today…why?” He replied walking towards us.

By now my good leg (ole righty) was hurting from taking all the weight from my left leg and I could feel my temper getting shorter and my eyes were starting to roll.
“Does it matter? I still want the appointment” I asked politely and hopefully.
“Of course, do you want to take a seat please sir”

I duly obliged and slowly sat down in the waiting area.
They were still discussing the cancellation and a rather large black woman tottered over to join in. She looked annoyed and turned around to me.

“You phoned up half an hour ago to cancel”
“Nope. ‘fraid not” I answered.
“Yeah you did, Matthew yeah?”
“Yes- but I never phoned to cancel. I called to say I was running late because of the traffic”
“No- you definitely said ‘to cancel the appointment’ as you were unable to make it”
“Sorry- I think there’s been some confusion. When I called I was literally around the corner. Why would I cancel when I was so close? I was just trying to be courteous.”
“Well it would have been more courteous if you’d been on time!” She said emphatically and walked off.

I tried not to let it get to me, but it had. I sat there twiddling my thumbs looking over at chubby and her cohorts.

“We’ll try and fit you in soon Matthew” she said apologetically.
“thanks….sorry about the confusion” I said and regretted apologising instantly.
“Yes well can you try and make it on time next time please?”

After nearly 45 minutes of waiting the Physio called me in.

I ‘crutched’ over and sat on the bed.
After three simple manoeuvres, she asked me to continue doing what I was doing and to book an appointment for next week.

“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yes, unless you’ve got any concerns you want to ask me about?”
“Errr…oh yes! When can I get the wound wet? I’m dying to take a bath”
“Well I’d leave it at least a week after you’ve had the staples removed.”
“Okay then…thanks”

She helped me put my trainers back on and led me towards the reception.

“After next week we’ll try and get you using your crutches less- a bit more weight baring on it- but if you want you can go swimming- front crawl only though!”
“I thought you said I couldn’t get my knee wet?”
“Yeah….oh? Erm…actually don’t go swimming. See you next week!”

‘How reassuring’ I thought.

She left me with the moody black woman to book another appointment.
“Next Thursday okay?”
“That’ll be great thanks…what time?”
“9.30am.”
“Okay thanks…”
“..Better make it 10am, as I know you find it hard to get out of bed early in the morning”
“I…oh, okay. Ta” I said shaking my head with contempt.
I hobbled down the corridors and to the main reception where the fit girl in the black polo neck jumper was still on the phone and filing her expensive looking nails.

“Is there a taxi rank anywhere please?”
“Just go out the door and turn to your left…you can’t miss it!”
“Ta!”
I walked out and turned right finding the taxi rank within seconds. As I waved it over I realised that I’d left my piece of paper with the info regarding my staple removal at the reception.

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!!” I thundered.

Reluctantly I hobbled slowly and angrily back down the corridor over the bridge, down the stairs and down the annoyingly long corridor past the blood transfusion department to the physiotherapy section.

Chubby was sat at reception.
“Back again? What did you forget?”
“I gave you a piece of paper with some info on it- which I need when I get my staples removed”She looked blank at me the clicked her fingers once the penny had dropped..
“I remember! Just give me second, though I think I may have thrown it away”
She searched in vain for a minute or so on her desk.
“No sorry. I must have thrown it away.”
“Perfect.”

I thought about asking her to look through the bin, but realised it was futile, after all as she said ‘you can’t get the staff these days!’ Anyway, surely the NHS treatment Centre where I’m getting my staples removed would have all my information on their system…surely?

When I eventually climbed wearily into the taxi drenched in perspiration I realised that I’d have to go through this rigmarole on Friday and imagined the scenario “I gave the info to a chubby woman working at Broadgreen!!” and shuddered and the prospect.

“Where to hop-a-long?” Said my cheerful cabbie.
“Stationary Box! And step on it” I replied.

Only When I Laugh...

2007-06-26T10:39:00.000Z

So hospital eh?

What a cool experience! I love hospital…seriously. What could be better? Laying in bed, pleasant nurses bringing you food, tea, drugs etc. I had a blast!

I wasn’t all fun, fun, fun though I did have to wear a pair of pants that resembled the little white net you put your washing powder tablets into. I also had to have several injections, which whilst not all that unpleasant made me act like a child.

As I commented of the day of my day of arrival to the ole’ hospital I was slightly nervous, though this was cleverly disguised as hunger. I was frickkin’ starving. I just drank as much water as I could and chewed my way through as much chewing gum as Big Sam Allerdyce and Alex Ferguson combined.

My taxi driver who drove me from Runcorn station to my impending date with the surgeons looked a lot Dan Castellaneta and didn’t ask me what I was going in for. The fucker should have seen I was anxious and at least given me a token conversation. This rudeness cost him his tip! (He won’t be doing that again I fear)

Having already been to this particular facility I knew where to go and I was mentally prepared as I could have been.
After a ten minute wait and more water and chewing gum, my name was called along with anther chap’s. He stood up and I followed the porter, the other patient and his tidy looking blonde girlfriend whom I’d clocked as soon as I walked in. This made me feel ever so slightly ill at ease. We were led into a lift and a two minute walk later we were in a ward. There were four beds, two of which already had people in their gowns. These two guys were both in their late fifties/early sixties and one of them was a rather hefty looking chap who was laying on his side reading a copy of the Express. The other look quite sensible as if he’d been an Bank Manager or something.

Eventually a young and not particularly good looking nurse arrived and drew the curtains around me. She asked me to get changed into my gown and pants. I wanted to make sure that I wore the gown the correct way round this time and regaled my story of putting on backwards last time. She found this hilarious (as did a nurse friend of mine when I told her) especially when I explained that the nurse then told me they could be worn either way- though she failed to point out that my knackers were on display. She proceeded to ask me a slew of boring but necessary questions then shaved my knee with a electric razor.

About ten or so minutes later I was led by the not particularly good looking nurse to where I’d be getting ‘cut’. I had to wait outside for several minutes whilst a women (An anaesthetist I’m guessing) asked me more of the same types of questions. She was wear clogs and the archetypical surgeon’s scrubs. She was alarmed when I told her I’d drank lots of water and had chewing gum, in fact she looked so concerned thought I’d put the kybosh on the whole procedure.

“No one said I wasn’t supposed to do this!” I repeated apologetically.

She gave me that look as if to say it was obvious. My life was in her hands so I decided not to argue.

I was led into the operating theatre where there was a solitary and scary looking table and approximately 5 people cleaning and sorting surgical apparatus (I assume it was surgical apparatus) wearing the mask and cap and scrub type regalia. Some beardo hippie looking type doctor attached a valve into my left hand (which hurt) and the anaesthetist strapped a huge tourniquet across my thigh. I winced with pain as the velcro on the tourniquet removed several hairs on the inside of my upper thigh -millimetres from my tackle. She laughed and told me not to be a baby- I demanded the drugs and they duly obliged.

“You’re going to stat drifting off shortly” Beardo said as I could feel the anaesthetic entering my veins.

“I’m going to count…1…2…3”

I felt my face go funny- sort of pins and needles, which was akin to the first time you smoke a cigarette, I felt dizzy and before I could get a remark about him being like Derren Brown I let out a girly giggle and I was out….

I can sort of vaguely remember a female doctor telling me to remove my oxygen mask. I was very disoriented and I wanted to go back to sleep.

“How’s the pain?”
“Huh?”
“How would you rate it? 1 out of 10?”
“11”
“It really hurts does it?”
“yeah- you’ve done the wrong leg”
“What!!!”
“Only joking….” And I drifted back to sleep.

I awoke again and tried to crack the same joke. In fact looking back at it now, I regrettably said it six or seven times to this very patient soul who was still stood beside me.

“We did the ACL
reconstruction”
“Woooo!”
“All went well…”
“You’ve done the wrong leg….zzzzzzz”

I awoke again and she was still there. “piss off and let me get some kip” I thought but didn’t say out loud.

She chatted to me trying to rouse me from my slumber taking about iodine and other complex medical issues. My doctor came over and said something, but I couldn’t hear him. It was like the teacher in Charlie Brown; “wa wah wa wah wah wah wa”.
I noticed a clock and it said 4.30pm. I walked into the operating theatre at 12.20...some sleep huh?

I was wheeled back to my ward on the bed and I felt like a child. It was great. We slowly glided through corridors, in a shiny metallic lift, past some pretty nurses sat behind a reception. As I trundled past them they gave me a sympathetic smile and I in turn gave them the thumbs up as if I was a RAF pilot who’d been shot down during WWII- their hero!

Soon I was back in my ward and one of the two gentlemen from before greeted my return and I saluted him.
All I wanted to do was fucking sleep. This was thwarted by nurses who insisted on taking my blood pressure and temperature every 15 minutes. It seemed that every time I closed my eyes I was awoken by them with their kind smiles and reassurances. I must admit I was starting to like it there.
In between nodding on and off and having my temperature and pulse taken, the phone by my bedside rang and Lisa was on the other line asking how it went. I grunted down the phone for five minutes but was feeling pretty lousy and extremely thirsty and from what I gather from speaking to her afterwards – I made little sense.
The two guys opposite had knee replacements. I lay on my back thinking this was a pretty sweet life as another nurse pumped some drugs in me via the valve on my left and.

The heft patient laying next to the guy opposite me was something of a character, something of an old sage if you will. He had a Ricky Tomlinson type scouse accent and cracked jokes at any given opportunity to the nurses and patients alike. As I tried to sleep I could hear him chatting to the other knee replacement guy opposite me about how he only had an epidural and was awake during his procedure.

“I could hear them sawing my bone and stapling me back together.”

He then spent the next hour or so ringing around his huge family, kids, grandkids, nephews etc. He had a very sweet way of saying “hello” when the person he was calling picked up the phone. It was the kind of ‘hello’ you may expect a dear old cleaning lady to say as she popped in the office to give it a quick Hoover before calling everyone love and discussing Coronation Street.
I didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t exactly make out what he looked like. He was a hefty fella though and no mistaking.

After a good snooze I awoke to the sound of the guy opposite my puking and apologising whilst doing so.

“I’m dreadfully sorr---bluuuuuuueeeugh!!! This has never- bleeeeugugh oh I’m so sorry Speeeeeewwwughhh” I awoke feeling much fresher and was offered some tea. This made me feel sick and I got the spins. Despite not feeling hungry I accepted some sandwiches which I ate with my head in my hands, knowing that I must be hungry so this will make me feel better and fighting the sickly feeling in my head and gut.

Thankfully they stopped checking my temperature and blood pressure and they wheeled in the chap who came in with me (the one with the fit girlfriend). He looked very sleepy and didn’t answer many of the inquisitive questions asked by the hefty chap. I chatted to the two other patients and the big chap relayed a dozen or so anecdotes about when he was a copper in the seventies/eighties and the injuries he’s had. Despite my reservations that this man was a twat of the highest order, I was entertained by these stories as was the nurses and other patients.

I felt very comfortable on the bed, and listened to my MP3 player whilst the other patients had their visitors. Despite insisting Lisa didn’t make the arduous trip to Runcorn (From her work this would almost take and hour and a half there and the same back) I wished that some of my friends had offered to drive her there.

Groggy, I watched Gordon Ramsay’s ‘The F Word’, was given more tea, biscuits and drugs. I asked the large and friendly African nurse how I was supposed to take a piss. The nurse drew the curtains and gave me a bottle.
“Can I not walk to the toilet?”
She pointed to the valves and other apparatus coming from underneath my bandage and out from my knee.

“bugger”

After nearly fifteen minutes I finally managed to squeeze some dark yellow urine into the bottle. It smelt funny.

When the nurse collected it she gave it an impressive look and congratulated me.
”If you hadn’t passed any urine we’d have had to have out a catheter on”

“And trust me YOU don’t want THAT!” shouted the big bloke whilst the other knee patient pointed to his and winced.

The pressure was on.

I went to sleep fast.

I awoke to see the nurses switching on the lights above the big patient. ‘Wow! That was one of the best night’s sleep ever’ I thought. I looked at the time and it was 12.30am. Great!

After more blood pressure test I was finally left to sleep until 4.30 when I woke up to the dulcet tones from the snoring of the hefty patient and a full and bursting bladder.

“Don’t think about the catheter, don’t think about the catheter, don’t think about the catheter” I muttered to myself as I tried will much gust to take a piss in the bottle in the dark in my bed. By 5am the bottle was almost full and I was fully awake.

I stayed awake and listened to the loud snoring from the big patient, who when he awoke at 6.30 claimed it didn’t sleep all night.

I was then met by the doc at 7am who told me it was unlikely that I’d be leaving that day. Half and hour later a nurse told me the opposite, and after a bed bath- which I’m glad to say I was allowed to do myself my small Indian physio told me the same.

After the physio session where I was given some crutches, I the had to wait until 7pm to speak to the doctor who was to give me the all clear. It was 10.30am. This time dragged. I spent most of this time trying to sleep but chatting and to a certain degree, bonding with the fellow patients. When I was finally told to piss off home, and wheeled out of the ward on a snazzy looking wheel chair I felt very sad to be saying good bye to these men whom I’d spend so much time with, but never once enquired as to what their name’s where.

The taxi driver who drove us straight home, didn’t say much but had strong B.O and a photo of his kid bluetacked on to his dashboard.

When we got home and up the miles of steep stairs, I tried to make myself comfortable and raised my glass (well my tea- I’ve been booze sine I went in) to the hefty chap and the other guy, who were to remain in the hospital until Sunday at least. 5 days!!!! The Lucky cunts!

MP3:

Cold War Kids-Hospital Beds

LCD Soundsytem- Never as Tired as When I Wake Up

Noah John- Infirmary

Tiger- I’m in love with RAF Nurse

ALIVE!

2007-06-24T11:53:00.000Z

I lived...

The doc's have signed me off work for six friggin' weeks- so as previously stated expect lengthy rambles more frequently.

My knee is swore and uncomfortable but other than the fact that I haven't washed my hair since last Tuesday all is well, except my carer (Lisa)is starting to quietly air her grievences at the situation.

"Shut up and bring me a sandwich"

The pics above is what my knee looks like at the moment

'clear liquids'

2007-06-19T09:06:00.000Z

Well I’m off to hospital today for my knee operation. I could be out by later today or I could very well be in there for a couple of nights. I'm not allowed to eat and can only drink 'clear liquids' i.e. black and or green tea.
I'm rather hungry too.

I’m going to be off work now for a few weeks- so expect frequent blog entries unless I become so self absorbed in watching daytime TV and sit waiting for a message on Facebook- which I am thoroughly bored with already I’m hasten to add.

Sadly, due to a thoroughly bizarre two weeks, I’ve not been posting any blogs. Rest assured I’ve been writing them (well amalgamated into one lengthy one) and no doubt this tale of self-indulgent woe , disaster and cowardice will be on this hallowed pages soon…unless of course I die during the operation…oh shit…I could die I suppose?...great!!

Okay- if I do- then will someone please tell Lisa that I still (despite her not believing me) that I want ‘The Monster Mash’ to be played at my funeral!

here we go again....

2007-06-11T17:36:00.000Z

After the recent Big Brother race problem- in which they were dead on in kicking her out of course- the resulting furore has caused a tidal wave of poor responses from our good ole British public. Nothing irks me quite as much as white folks trying to justify using the 'n' word by saying "they" use it all the time...or "its in hip hop lyrics" etc. I picked up the Metro-the free paper- on the train this morning and this was the opinion of three fuckwits who decided that their opinion on race and racism is so important that they felt the need to write to the paper to express their views and some dim schmuck in the paper's office snorting loudly in agreement. (I do appreciate the hypocrisy in that statement) The emphasis of these letter's was that it was people in the black community who are to blame- which is the biggest pile of tosh I've ever heard. Not only that but some fool actually wrote in to say something along the lines of how come no one has pulled up the Housemates on there bad language which is just as bad!! I think not madam, I think not….

Thus far no one (that I've heard at least) has brought into question the role of white writers/directors etc who use the word frequently and somewhat unnecessarily in their work such as Quentin Tarrentino (does the sign say 'Dead N***** storage' to you?) , Kevin Smith (Porch monkey's -we're taking it back) or even Simon Pegg (whazzup n******?). Now that the taboo seems to have been lifted and it’s seen as okay to use the word are you surprised that someone with no brain cells comes out with this sort of clanger? Surly recent events; notably Ron-I'm not A Racist-Atkinson, Michael I'm not funny anymore and I'm not a racist either- Richards ought to have put his issue to bed- I thought it was quite simple-just don’t use the word!!!

I mean; how stupid do you have to be to say that word on a TV programme that picks up ever utterance and whisper and with whom had been embroiled in a race storm previously. What is worrying is a) her justification and subsequent statements saying she didn't cause any offence-when it was quite clear she had b) a large number of the good ole' flag flying, Sun reading, overweight, Findus' Crispy pancake eating, England shirt wearing fuckers making up a portion of the British public people not seeing any harm in using the word and most importantly c) how that word could just slip out?! One of my all time favourite songs uses the 'N' word some thirty plus times-but I've never felt the inclination to use that word in any other way except for waving my hands in the air and hollering the badass lyrics to all and sundry (MP3 below).

Alarmingly, it has caused us to watch the damned show after I pleaded with my missus for us to forgo the programme this year and up until then we'd been successful!

I'd been thinking about this clip before this recent fiasco-as it's one of my favourite Family guy moments- with a nod to Curb Your Enthusiasm, which may I add is about the only damned clip not on effing Youtube!

Brian: It’s like that time you faked being racist to get out of Jury duty …
(Cut to Peter sitting on a Jury of which half are black and half are white)

Peter: There sure is a lotta’ Honkeys here today…

Wu Tang Clan - Shame on a Nigga

NO yoke

2007-06-10T12:16:00.000Z

Since returning to Blighty, I've been putting off writing a brief description of our little excursion. I did make an earnest start on the following day, but due to the jet lag my enthusiasm waned somewhat and it can be added the ever increasing half completed blog entrees I've written over the past few months. Suffice to say that it was a most splendid holiday, and the Big Apple is indeed a fantastic city to visit. There was plenty of amusing moments, notably my row with the snotty American air stewardess on the way home where I uncharacteristically lost my rag in a very public way.

Since returning home and appreciating all things English/British/Uk'ish/European again I've had little time to spend with my feet up relaxing due to my semi-annual leaflet delivery duties and nipping home to see the family.

After returning to work on Monday, it already feels as if I'd never been away except for the gargantuan amount of e-mails in my inbox and having to repeat the same answers about our holiday- which wasn't a problem until he 20th time a well wishing colleague asked "how was it? What did you get up to?"

Some shocking events however, have lifted my re-crushed spirits, namely the fact that I'd received an e-mail from our HR Dept, informing me that due to some admin error, I wasn't getting paid enough for the whole of last year, and a backdated payment of over £400 will be in my next wage slip, not to mention last April's pay rise which they also neglected to give me. I've tried hard to be pissed off about it, but I can't as a nice big lump couldn't come at a better time....huzzzar.

Then today, the good luck continued when I was struck by an egg thrown by some twunt from a speeding car.

The good luck part was that it pounded into my doughy gut and then proceeded to bounce to the hot pavement before breaking. I looked around to see a boy-racer style black Vauxhall Nova speeding off into the sunset. An egg drive by no less and I had remained unharmed. Joy o' joy! I checked my shirt and trousers to see what damage had been caused from this unnecessary projectile and I genuinely punched the air with glee when I realised that in fact I had escaped unscathed.
I felt exhilarated and I've had a spring in my step since my lucky break.

Of course should the egg have exploded on impact, I would have had to have gone home to change especially if you consider the unnecessary hot weather we're having. Seriously, what are the odds?

This isn't the first time I've been struck by an egg I'm hastened to add, on Aigburth Road about four years ago, I felt as if someone had thrown a golf ball at the back of my head. When I turned around to see what had just struck me so venomously, I spotted a broken egg lying on the concrete. I checked my head for any yoke or shell, but there was nothing, zip, zero, nada, nowt. That time I was slightly freaked out as I was on safe and familiar ground and was extremely paranoid that I had egg in my hair, not to mention slightly shocked (kudos me or not writing 'shell shocked') with the event. I'd gotten away with it then too.

Perhaps I'm blessed, and if I was to be a Superhero this would be my superpower. If it is, then it does no good to mankind or me as far as I can see?

Start spreading the news....da da dada da da

2007-05-20T11:57:00.000Z

NYC tomorrow baby yeah!
I can’t wait. I’ve been practising my cut glass English accent to charm them’s Americanos and sound like Rex Harrison playing Jay Gatsby. “What an absolutely splendid resposte old sport”- just need to find a monicle.

Nerves are jangling slightly, but I think we’ve actually got everything ready now. As I write this I can hear Lisa in one of her many diversionary tactics scrubbing the oven to avoid the 4 hour ordeal of her packing. Always a highly stressful occasion.

We’re both feeling sadness too, as my favourite jumping shrunk in the wash yesterday.
“Have you checked the label Matt?” She asked beforehand.
“Yeah….mumble mumble” I lied.

That’s the forth favourite jumper of mine in the past 4 years to have caused genuine upset. The honour roll goes as thus:

My thick black jumper I left by the stage door of the London Garage Venue when we supported Cinerama. I left it in a pile by the door whilst I was moving our equipment out of the venue, and when I returned it was missing, but strangely my coat and bag –which both had beer bottles in (nicked from Dave Gedge’s rider) wasn’t touched. I didn’t feel too bad as a) it was the last night of a tiring three week tour and b) no doubt some homeless chap enjoyed the warmth it provided. It was a few days later when the pain of its loss hit me.

My famous, and all time favourite brown jumper with the suede patches on the elbows. Sound awful doesn’t it, but I loved it greatly. I lost it one night in Jimmy’s Nightclub in Harrogate one Christmas a few years back. I had it round my waist and the beginning of the night, when I was walking home with pizza in hand I realised it had gone. I phoned the cunts at Jimmy’s and they weren’t interested.
My mum gave me £20 to go and buy a new one as I was skint an cold. It’s replacement was a stripy jumper I didn’t really care for.

My new tope coloured thin jumper that shrank and bobbled hideously after only one wear and one wash last January.

The dark brown V-Necked jumper that shrank last night. Lisa said “Awww- I loved that jumper, it really suited you” only makes me feel worse.

Anyhow, holiday tomorrow.

NYC themed toonage:
MP3:

They Might Be Giants- New York City

taking the piss

2007-05-17T23:19:00.000Z

Only a few days to go before we set sail for New York city and I'm burdened with the lethargy that ensues when one is so close to two weeks away from the hustle bustle of this office. I also had yesterday off as I had an appointment at a hospital in Runcorn who were going to examine my troublesome knee and it t'was a day blighted with confusion and embarrassment, but mostly satisfaction as no matter what unpleasantness I ever get embroiled into, I can say to myself "It could be worse, at least I'm not in work". I could be captured by Al Queda forced to go on Iranian television and beg Allah for forgiveness, subjected to hours of horrendous, evil and tear educing pain and torture but the mere notion that if I'm not at work then any alternative is less depressing and would keep me going until the bitter end when my head is ritualistically prized from my head by a rusted Swiss Army Knife.

So considering the alternative, I made the most of it. One of my greatest skills is my ability to wait patiently. I've been a master of this for years, and providing I have a book or magazine I actually quite enjoy a good wait or queue. In fact noted to Lisa last night as I regaled the details of the events of my day, that I would be quite happy to travel on trains going no where in particular for hours on end and enjoy myself as long as I have a good book, some money for a tea or beer and my Mp3 player. She made some remark along the lines that this was one of the saddest things she ever heard.

The night before I was a little anxious over the details of getting to this facility as I was not particularly familiar with the town of Runcorn, so I ensured that I would give myself an extra thirty minutes in order to avoid the usual comical mistakes I make on trips such as these. It worked perfectly though- much to my surprise and delight- and I arrived with 30 minutes to spare, so I acquired a sausage sandwich from the canteen. I would like to note that I was ultimately unsatisfied with this sandwich as I was initially enticed by the prospect of a sausage bap or roll, alas I was informed that the baps (barms, bread buns, tea cakes whatever your preference is)on display hadn't yet defrosted, and all she could offer me was bread or toast.

Five minutes before my appointment I went over and introduced myself to the receptionist. She was an elderly lady with an unpleasant skin condition but she had a kind face. She told me I was to go through immediately.
I was told to sit in a long corridor with several doors with the names of the consultants/surgeons/doctor's on them. I noted they were all foreign names and it read like a UN dinner party. Whilst I pondered the demise of the British Medical system and smiled at the nurses as they walked past, I remembered my urine sample....

The information I was sent through the post had asked me to ask my local GP or pharmacist for a clear sample bottle and to bring it with me for my appointment and naturally I didn't make any endeavors to do so until the night before. Unbelievably, getting ones hands on a sample bottle proved a tad more difficult than I expected. Firstly, I ventured to the local pharmacists near to our old office and I was reliably informed that they were unable to sell me (sell me!!??) any as they've run out. They suggested I tried the doctors next door.
I did, but the voice on the intercom told me bluntly that they could only provide their patients with a bottle and as I wasn't on their books they wouldn’t be able to assist. They suggested I tried next door at the drug centre. These chaps were far more helpful and whilst one member of staff searched for an adequate bottle I made small talk about pigeons and their dialect and assured them that I wasn't a smack head but rather it was for my bloody knee. They laughed and said "sure it is..." in a jokey way.

I've had to give urine samples before so I knew what they looked like, but the bottle they gave to me was huge! It resembled a plastic jam jar and had a bright red lid the kind of thing a primary school child would use to mix his or her poster paint in. I was warned that it may be prudent to carry this container in a plastic bag as the lid wasn't too secure. I thanked them for their assistance and went on my way.

I'd decided that I would do my sample before I went to bed, so that it was fairly clear and not too smelly, after a couple of drinks the night before, your early morning dark yellow piss can smell a tad pungent like erm...pissy Sugar Puffs.

The whole journey I carried the Matchel (my man bag) with the utmost care and diligence so that the piss wouldn't leak. However, the frozen barms must have distracted me as I can now recall stupidly dropping my bag to the floor several times with care free abandon, so whilst sat outside the doctor’s office, remembering about the sample, feared the worse.

I picked up my bag and could feel it was slightly moist on the bottom. I cautiously opened it up knowing full what the inevitable outcome would be. It was wet through! I picked out the sample bottle in it Asda carrier bag and I could see the liquid squishing around noticing that the lid wasn’t shut properly. Eeeekkk! Literally the second that I realised the extent of this calamity, a door opened behind me and I heard my name being called.
Fuck!
I stood up, not sure if I should say something. I shut my bag and noticed liquid on the rubber covering of the chair I'd been sitting in.
I walked into the doctor's room in something of a daze and he stood up and thrust his hand out.
For a split second I recalled that episode of curb Your Enthusiasm when Larry refuses to shake someone's had after he sees them sneezing ("It was a DRY Sneeze!!") and I reluctantly shook hands with him. It was all very surreal, almost formulaic. I didn't have time to wipe my hands on my trousers or anything- it was one of those- everything-is-going-in-slow-motion type moments.
I took a seat, and tried to come to grips with this situation I had put myself in and panicked inwardly.
The doctor, a very nice man of Polish Nationality, wore a red Slyvester The Cat tie and asked me lots of questions about my knee but I found it very hard to concentrate on his words. A huge poster reminding staff to wash their hands at all time haunted from his office's wall.

After him poking and twisting my knee several times, he made his prognosis that not only was my cruciate ligament knackered but also the cartilage on the outside of the knee and he would recommend surgery, but he would need to do a MRI scan of my knee first. I was still fazed by the piss spillage. He also did seem too responsive, when I asked him if this qualified me for a disabled sticker.

I was escorted out of his room to another waiting room by the nurse. On route I asked her if there was a toilet nearby, and she assured me that there was one in the MRI waiting room.

I gave my name to the Australian receptionist who had one of those irritating accents that sounded like everything she said was a question and asked where the toilet was. She pointed out this door that was amongst all the chairs., of course it was a disabled toilet. I went in and locked the door behind me. I was very conscious that ever sound I made would be heard by the few people sat patiently only a few feet on the other side of the door so I very quietly tried to wash the inside of my bag, dispose of the sample and try and dry Mystic River; the book Lisa had leant to me (which is a jolly good read if your copy is piss soaked...c'mon I had to read something!). I remained in the toilet as long as I could without trying to raise any suspicions but eventually after stuffing the matchel with paper towels I had to sit with all the other bored looking patients.
I tried desperately to see if it smelled, and thank fuck that I decided to complete my sample the night before.

I wasn’t at all dispirited by this turn of events; it would be safe to say that it amused me greatly, and from that moment in I had a childish grin on my face.

The remainder of the day flew past, and aside from the obvious I had fun- well as much fun as someone can have as an outpatient. The MRI scan was not without it’s moments too but once more I have drifted into the realms of what ought to be a short sweet blog entry into a small essay/long boring ramble, but suffice to say that not only did I struggle to put on the gown they’d given me but I caused offence to the nurse who was operating the machine. I’m one hundred percent sure you’d have said the same thing as I did, i.e. respond with the words “piss off!” when offered headphones as the machine is extremely noisy whilst the thirty minute scan took place. Why this response, well when I asked her if there was any music being played through them (not expecting there to be) she said yes- “It’s The Feeling”, nuff said really.

I'm disabled!? A blaggard's lament (Disabled toilet Part IV)

2007-05-10T17:49:00.000Z

After what was probably the best birthday I’d ever had over the weekend I awoke on Tuesday feeling different. I felt a little more focused than I had previously. I felt that with the dawning of a new era I can at long last succumb to maturity and adulthood.

This didn’t last long and I was soon back to my old self when I read my work e-mails, or should I say e-mail. It had been sent to the entire building from the big boss, our Strategic Director, stating that colleagues should refrain from using the disabled toilets in future!

“Oh well, If I can’t use them, no one can” I reasoned.

It then occurred to me that I wasn’t supposed to be using them anyway, so why not carry on? After all there is nothing quite like a danger poo in clean and familiar surroundings?

Alas it was this foolhardy approach that almost cost me dearly!

At my usual 11ish bowel movements, I went discreetly to the disabled toilet and did my business. Whilst there I was bent over wiping my bum, when someone tried to open the door. I froze for a moment, worrying unnecessarily that I may have perhaps left the door unlocked and be caught as a 'standing up wiper'. Thankfully I had locked the door efficiently, so I continued and finished. Before exiting the toilet I waited a few minutes….silence. The coast was clear!

I opened the door gingerly and stood leaning against the wall was the Strategic Director looking thoroughly pissed off.

“Gulp!”

I tried to play it cool, and raised my eyebrows in what I felt was a friendly manner and I was taken aback when his demeanor changed drastically and he smiled back in my direction!! In these instances I have always felt that getting you excuse in first can make the difference between life and death.

"Hi Mike, erm....about your e-mail..."
"Don't worry about it" He said apologetically.
I was stunned.
"...of course you're okay to use it- I don't want you to think that I 'm excluding you! The Equalities Team would have my guts for garters!!" He smiled warmly and walked past me to the toilet, shutting the door behind him.

I was totally perplexed and my heart was beating like a fucked clock.

I walked back to my desk trying to fathom why he'd say that to me.

It then occurred to me that perhaps he thinks I’m disabled!

Thinking back this would make sense. I went out to purchase the cream cakes on Tuesday I was limping heavily and my back was hunched over so that I could breathe properly. I was really struggling and couldn’t help think that at the at the point of turning thirty I would have ever felt so damned old and decrepit.
As I hobbled along slowly, cakes in hand when a car pulled over and offered me a lift. It was my Departmental director, Alan.

I happily jumped into the back of his expensive Saab. In the front seat of his car was the big Boss, so I made sure I avoided saying anything too funny or interesting so that he wouldn’t remember me. I was introduced to him again and shook his hand. This was actually the forth time I’ve been introduced to him, it’s very similar to Homer and Mr. Burns. Despite him referring to me as a “hippy” once, he never remembers me.

We all made small talk about the forthcoming football match between Chelsea and Liverpool. When we stopped at the traffic lights near to our office, the big boss turned around and asked me
”Why did they (my colleagues) let you go and get the cakes? That’s a bit out of order isn’t it?”
“It’s no problem, I’m not ready for the knackers yard yet” I answered assuming he was referring to my milestone birthday.
“I admire your spirit” He said.
“Well you know…”
“Alan wouldn’t” he said it chuckling to himself.
“He gets more money than me!” I replied and they both burst into fits of laughter.

He laughed and we continued to talk football.

It was either that or the cream cakes?

So I’m now in the unfortunate position of having to limp heavily every time I’m in his company. I can foresee that this is going to get complicated especially as my boss Alan is actually disabled, but doesn’t like to consider himself to be. He always uses the regular toilets etc. I’m really worried that the big boss now thinks I’m a braver disabled fellow that Alan. Worse than that is that he now remembers me!

I just hope my back and knee stay bad so I don’t forget to limp; however I have the toilet all to myself.

Iron dash! (Disabled Toilets Part III)

2007-05-04T19:11:00.000Z

I realised at 12.30pm today that I’d left the iron on in the flat and had to make a mad dash home on my lunch in order to prevent the house from burning down.
I’m going to decline from telling Lisa this as it won’t help anyone, though I’m sure that once I’ve had a drink, I’ll ‘fess up.

My brother’s coming to town for a weekend of festivities which ought to be good!

I’m also in a pleasant mood as before the Iron dash- I was in the office kitchen making a round of drinks when The Big Boss came in. I smiled polietlly at him, and he grunted some form of ackowledgement at me.

This was weird. I’d never seen him in the kitchen ever before, I assumed being so bleedin’ high and mighty this form of domestic duty would be left to one of his two P.A’s, yet low and behold there he was.

He walked straight over to our fridge (there are several- each for a different Department) and took out the two remaining cream cakes that I had bought on Tuesday.

He turned to me and smiled polietly.
“I’ve had my eye on these for the past few days” He boasted.
“Help yourself” I said nervously.
He looked stunned.
“Are they yours?”
“Yeah, I bought them on Tuesday, take both if you like, they’ll only get binned by the cleaners if not”
He beamed a smile of gratitude my way.
“what a break” I thought to myself
“Cheers- I’ll have one now and t’other later”.
He looked genuinely chuffed. Perhaps it was guilt that he’d been busted, either way it couldn’t do my career prospects any harm.

As I made the seven teas/coffees for my team, he leaned against a work surface slowly eating the strawberry and cream tart. He snoted whilst he ate. I finished and carried the tray of piping hot beverages towards the door. As I was doing so two colleagues from a different department came in mid conversation and held the door open for me. Their timing was impeccable as if a corny sit-com writing had engineered such a perfect moment of coincendence.

“….yeah but the toilets bloody stink. It’s f**king disgusting”
“tell me about it- that’s why we all use the disbaled toilets”

I heard a strawberry get lodged in his throat as the door swung shut behind me and beat a hasty retreat. I could hear muffled shouting through the walls and sniggered to myself.

Schmuck toilet thief -Generosity never helped anyone.

2007-05-03T21:15:00.000Z

My back was in a bad way at the weekend after a trip up to Scarborough to see my mum and grandparents, mum’s dog, cousins aunt & uncle, and my bloody knee wasn’t helping either. On the Sunday night my back hurt so much so I couldn't breathe properly when I was in bed and didn’t manage to get to sleep until after 5am. As soon as I mentioned I was having breathing difficulties to Lisa the following morning she insisted I visit to the doctors (the second time in a week- my knee was my last ailment). The Quacks reassured that I would live so I called work, laid on thick took the day off and tried to get some rest (ISS Pro Evolution & Seinfeld). Despite the pain it was a bloody good day.

Upon my return to work on my birthday I ventured out to purchased the customary cream cakes for my department, ensuring there was enough for all. £12!!!! Infact there are two spare ones in the kitchen still and should no one lay claim to them, I shall consume them both myself. I was a tad disheartened when in the midst of my pain and suffering I was sent out to buy the cakes myself. No doubt my colleagues watched me from the window hobbling down Stanley Road, hunched over walking like an 80 year old and having a good laugh at my expense. Luckily my boss drove past on my way back to the office and gave me a lift. Funnily, he was giving the Strategic Director a lift too, and I'm pretty sure he didn't recognise me as the guy who failed to warn him about the lack of toilet paper in the disabled toilet. I was dying to ask him if he ever found that copy of The Metro I stashed.

My back is now easing up slightly though my knee is still causing trouble. I now have a hospital appointment in two weeks in which I hope is the first step towards an operation and finally getting it sorted. I received a pack in the post from the hospital asking me to bring a urine sample with me. This had me confused somewhat as I'm convinced that the knee and the bladder are not connected- anyway Kelly, a nurse friend of mine brought me some ultra strong painkillers that she 'borrowed' from the hospital on Tuesday night. I haven't had any yet though should my back pain return or dull ache that plagues my left knee worsen I have suitable provisions. They're now safely out of children's reach in our ever growing medicine cabinet- which until two moths ago only consisted of a packet of paracetamol and now resembles a small chemist.

Along with a new sense of maturity, a new spirit of generosity has washed over me too- but alas once more my pleasantness and generosity has been plagued with disaster.

Yesterday I was in the kitchen assisting my colleague Tony in the making of a round of drinks. Usually of course it doesn't require two people to make the brews, however I was in the kitchen and felt guilty about leaving there to make them on his own. Tony brought up in conversation his discontent with the new building's toilet facilities. Although there is now a massive pile of paper towels and a limitless supply of soap, the general unpleasantness of their condition was making him wait until he gets home before he did his business.
"You wait all day!?"
"Ohhh Matt, I'd rather do permanent damage to by kidneys and bowels than have to go to here but I'm nearly fifty four- there's no way I can wait all day- why do you think I set up so many Goddamned external meetings?"
"Because you're our Finance Manager?"
"God no! It's so I can 'drop the kids off at the pool' during the day without wanting to have a bath in Detol afterwards"

I've always liked Tony and his extreme reactions to everything. In many ways he's been something of a wake up call to me, as there are many of his personality traits I seem to share with him, and as much as I like the guy, I'd hate to end up so highly strung. I decided that a man of his age shouldn't be having to set up meeting with some of the organisations so he can take a dump- so I gave him the nugget of information that is the disabled toilets.
At first he looked worried as if he would be trespassing on private property or committing some heinous act of deviance. After reassuring him that thus far I think only myself and the Strategic Director use them and that it'll be okay his reservations and fear melted.
"Thanks Matt! Would you do me favour and finish making the tea, I'm dying to go!" He said hurriedly.
I just smiled and nodded my head, patting him on the back as he rushed past me and out of the door.

I felt smug.

Tony reemerged into the office looking at least two stone lighter and had a light bead of sweat on his top lip like the Thunderbird puppets. He gave me a wink.
I felt even smugger.

That night I felt content. I slept well dreaming of my beautiful banjo (note:- this isn't a double-entendre _ i was bought by my chums for my birthday- a beautiful banjo)

The next day I arrived at work with the same positive attitude and vigour as I had the day before. The usual trivialities didn't burden me. I even smiled and said hello to Geronimo- who although she didn't smile back at me or acknowledge my existence didn't hit me- so things were really on the up.

At 11 o'clock after several cups of tea, I tottered over to the toilets. I did my usual checking around to make sure the coast was clear. I pushed the door only to find it was locked. I looked at it bemused and noticed the little red plastic square that indicates that it was engaged.

I shrugged my shoulders and went back to my desk.
"Another 10 minutes won't do me any harm" I thought.

After ten or so minutes elapsed I once more waddled over to the toilets and once more I noticed it was locked.
This time round I wasn't so patient so I walked to the third floor to use their disabled toilets.
of course, the risk is much higher using these as I was in unfamiliar territory. Alas these toilets were locked too.

I debated whether or not I should venture to the second floor or retreat back upstairs. The communal toilets were not an option. I decided to wait upstairs, and investigate who was using my own personal throne.

I waited by the lift pretending to use my phone for what seemed an eon until the schmuck toilet thief showed his face. I’d never seen this guy before and he had the type of face you’d remember and a moustash; and I never forget a moustash. Once the coast was clear- I entered with caution and did what I do.

I was reasonably annoyed that some other able bodied person would have the outrage to use a disabled toilet.

This thought stayed with me throughout the day and was heightened when I tried to go again (obviously the stress of this ordeal had prevented me from going properly the first time around) and I was greeted with the alarming sight of the red plastic again.

I was raging.

Once more I pretended to be on the phone until the culprit showed his face. This time around it was a face I recognized from the kitchen. It was the cheeky cunt who asked if I was a student the other week. I smiled politely and once more ventured in unsure as to what state it would be in. It wasn’t in the pristine condition I had come to expect. I was unhappy and this reflected in my lack of ‘passing’.

I spent the next day constenstly checking the disabled loo. It was engaged nearly all day. When I did get enterance it was disgusting. A weaker man would have shed a tear, I just let out the longest dissatisfied sigh I could muster.

At luch time Tony thanked me again for my little tit bit of toilet information. I smiled and wished that I hadn’t. I boached the subject with him delicately.

“Thanks again Matt for the toilet tip” He beamed.
I just smiled pathetically.
“You wouldn’t believe how many people have thanked me for passing it on…”
“What, you told people..” I replied
“Oh was I not supposed to- I’m sorry I told Peter in Technical Services…”
He looked genuinely apologetic and suitably guilty and I did my best not to convey the rage that was building up from within.
“…and Dave in Admin…”
“You’d have been good in the war!” I quipped stopping him from regaling the list of people he’d shed this informational nugget with.
“Perhaps if everyone is using the disabled toilets then the normal facilities might improve” he suggested optimistically.
“Hmmm.” I grunted.
It wasn’t his fault it was my own.

My utopia was banished.
Generosity never helped anyone.

I better start arranging some meetings myself!

30

2007-05-01T11:24:00.000Z

I've only been 30 a few hours now and the wheels are coming loose already.

Bad back,
Swore knee,
unpleasant disposition.

A new era cometh, one of further ailments and hypochondria no doubt.

MP3:

The Ramones - Happy Birthday Burnsie

The Madrigals - My impending death

Neil Young -Old Man

The Beach Boys- Old Folks at Home-Ol' Man River

Paperback Wiper (the jig was up)

2007-04-27T16:54:00.000Z

The new office, despite having more space and access to natural light does have its down sides. Obviously my recently acquired fear of the militant cleaners is one but I have also been embroiled in a long drawn out battle of wits with the security staff who work here and their jobs-worthy-pedantic ness. When I regaled these recent events to Lisa she was quite astute in commenting that I'm not happy unless I'm involved in a on going dispute with someone and of course she is dead right.
I'm going to resist detailing the incidents and my hollow victories for the time being, as at present there is more pressing concerns- namely the office toilets.

Having come from a small pokey office with just one toilet, we now have to share a toilet with the other departments on our floor. It's your standard shared toilet set up with the option of using either one of the five urinals or one of the five cubicles. We also have the option of using hand towels or the hand dryer, although the latter only worked on the first week and has sadly been defunct since. Like I said, this is fairly standard for an office of this size, but without wishing to be too graphic, they smell bad...real bad. Worse than they ought to- you know; service station bad.

To be totally honest it has rocked my ethos that I could "go anywhere" on which I have been more than keen to share with people when toilet etiquette is brought into conversation, which actually happens more often than you'd think. For starters I'm fully versed on the daily toilet schedules of all my close friends and actually learned at the weekend that two friends, who happen to be twin sisters, both hover when they use the toilets at work!
Anyway getting back to the matter in hand, the toilets on our floor aren't good and have been duly noted by all- so much so it was brought up during a team meeting last week. I made a wise crack about peeing in the room with padded walls (the elevators) which got belly laughs all round.

Since moving into this office six weeks ago I have been using the disabled toilet located near the elevators as my own private stall. It's very much like our old office toilets, spacious and it has the handy emergency chord. At first I was unsure as to whether I should use this toilet or not, but once I'd seen our strategic director use it I figured that if it was good enough for our scary head honcho it would be okay for me too. I do feel ever so slightly guilty about it though and certainly haven't told my colleagues, this would no doubt end up as disgustingly smelly and pube laden as the 'shared' facilities. It was my own personal place of solitude…well, the directors and mine.

As these toilets are near to the elevator and the entrance to the corridor there are often people milling about near to my sanctuary, so I have often waited around pretending to use my phone until I'm sure the coast is clear. I also listen ever so intently to ensure no one sees me leave or to make sure no one can hear the 'splash down' as using my patented courtesy flush is obviously out of the question. This has proved to be a unpleasant task at times as I clench with all my might whilst I can hear clearly fellow employees chatting at length through the thin walls, begging for them to shove off. The blessed sound of the corridor door closing followed by a couple of seconds of silence it the most blissful sound in the world followed very shortly by the most blissful feelings in the world. Thankfully because of similar experiences at some of my previous jobs, my bowels and anus are a particularly resolute team. Thus far there has been no problems.

Today, alas I feared the jig was up. At my usual 11 o’clock bowel movement I trundled down the corridor towards the toilet. Perhaps I am getting complacent; I had made the schoolboy error and left my glasses at my desk so my vision wasn't 100%. In hindsight I can see I was ill prepared for the mission. I walked out of the door and on to the landing. The coast appeared to be clear. I grabbed the handle to the toilets and was half way in when from nowhere a woman came bounding down the stairs.

I panicked and let go of the door dramatically, stepped back and looked down the stairs as if I was trying to find someone. I then proceeded to walk down them slowly looking confused and avoiding eye contact with this woman. I could vaguely see the woman stop and look at me from the corner of my eye. I was acting very suspiciously if I do say so myself. It was clear I was doing something I shouldn’t. Sadly, I didn't get to see her face as without my glasses I am blind, all I know was that her face looked kind of blurry and she was wearing red.

Thoroughly busted, I held my breath and ventured into the communal toilets.

I stepped in and almost stepped back out again. The smell of bleach and warm urine made me shudder like Homer Simpson and it stung my eyes. I chose the cubicle furthest away from the entrance because it didn’t have any ‘left overs’ floating in the water and someone had courteously left a newspaper. The Lord takes with one hand but gives with the other-or something like that. After wiping the seat with some loo roll, (because we all know cheap toilet paper kills all germs) I sat down, relaxed and picked up the paper. Suddenly I heard the main door swing open and someone rush into the stall next to mine, lock the door and pull their trousers down in a hurry and let rip.

'keeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfffttt-rrrrspallllllllllt-thhhhblurrpt- t-t-t-t-t-t- thurrrrpppppppfeeeeechet-t-t-t!!!!!!!!'

It was the worst sound I have ever heard in my goddamned life.

I shook my head in disgust, pulled up my pants and with the newspaper under my arms retreated to disabled toilet.

This time the coast was clear.

I sat down and read the newspaper (the Metro) and lamented the fact that I hadn't stuck with the courage of my convictions and just used the disabled toilet in the first place.

I also remembered my pre thought out alibi that I concocted when I first started to use it; in case of being caught just pretend that I'm getting some paper towels as there wasn't any in the communal toilets. I cursed myself for not recalling this earlier. This would have been the perfect excuse as there has been a lot of grumblings in the building about the lack of paper and hand drying options. I have my own theories on this; that somehow the security staff and the cleaners are in cahoots and no one has the balls to confront Geronimo and Co and ask for them to provide more hand towels. I think they may be selling the spare towels on the black market or something.

Anyhow, I proceeded to 'do' my business and finished off reading the paper. “All’s well that ends well” I thunked.

Then as if it was some poor low rate teen American gross out comedy, I reached over to my right and noticed there were no effing toilet roll!!!! Eeeek!!! I immediately looked for the hand towels- which whilst not being a perfect replacement are the next best thing….AGGGGG!!!! Nothing!!

My first impression was that the blurry woman in red had deliberately removed these items so that I couldn't use the facilities in an act of pettiness so deplorable it was on a par with some of my recent escapades. Then it occurred to me that perhaps, someone had noticed that there was no paper towels or loo roll in the gent's toilet and taken...sorry stolen them from MY toilet! Whatever the reasons, I was without the appropriate paraphernalia needed.
I had taken my eye off the ball for a second and I was, pardon the pun: in the shit.
For a moment I contemplated pulling the emergency cord.

Because of the sloppiness of my excrement, pulling up my trousers and walking down the stairs to the gents to wipe was out of the equation, so I did the only thing I felt appropriate in the situation and used the newspaper. I felt guilty wiping my backside on the picture of the malnutritioned African on the cover, so turned to the back pages....Jose Mourinio....Perfect!!!!

This may surprise you but this certainly isn’t the first time I’ve substituted toilet paper with newspaper but it had been a while so I had forgotten about newspaper’s flushing capabilities and it did require several time consuming re-flushes. Of late, I have become especially wary of the length of time it take a toilet cistern to refill- this was discovered whilst in the midst of my courtesy flush insistence- so I was very careful as not to flush prematurely. Whilst I waited for the cistern to refill it occurred to me that had it not been for the mysterious woman in red, I would have been without even a newspaper and would have been up shit creek without a paper (groan). I felt somewhat relieved and chuckled to myself quietly.

Once I’d finished the cycle of flushes, I hid the what was left of the newspaper, washed my hands drying them on my trousers and opened the door at least a stone lighter than I was before I’d started this mission.

As I stepped out of the toilet, the unmistakable blurred silhouette of our strategic director came storming in my direction.
I froze with fear.

My first thought was that he must have been waiting for me and would be furious at being kept waiting! I felt my bowel and anus tighten again.
Mercifully he walked right passed me, smiled and went into the toilet locking the door behind him.

“I hope you find the newspaper” I chuckled under my breath.

As I walked back to my desk, I thought about the tale of the mouse and the lion and how the little old mouse helped the ferocious lion by removing the thorn from his paw. It certainly improved the mouse’s life to have such a gracious and powerful friend.

"I could be the mouse" I thought.

Should really go back and put some sheets of paper under the door, or offer some assistance to the guy?

Nah! Being a twat is its own reward!

MP3:

Richard
James- My Arse Is On Fire

The
Beatles-Paperback Wiper

Three Muffins- A tale of Remorse

2007-04-20T18:09:00.000Z

Returning to the familiar guise of being a twat, I've been reveling in my own unpleasantness the past few days. I'M BACK BABY- I'M BACK!

This was mostly inspired by an office cake incident this week to bring out the inner twat..

On Tuesday I inadvertently ate someone's cream cake which happened to belong to the current bain in my life. It was an honest mistake- but the nicest cake I've ever eaten.

Traditionally, the colleague who was celebrating their birthday has always bought the team cream cakes, and on Tuesday birthday felicitations went out to our boss. We were informed that we each had a designated cake waiting for us in the fridge and to ask his PA as to which cake is theirs. This sounded tremendous, though the allotting of specific cakes confused me somewhat.

Moments later, I overheard a conversation between said PA and a friendly manager.

"Am I okay to help myself to a cake Sue?"
"Of course- just wait a second...” She checked a piece of paper.
"Take anyone you want- except the chocolate muffin- that’s mine" she said politely but firmly.
"Great- thanks!" He replied, and trundled off towards the kitchen rubbing his stomach in anticipation.

Five minutes later another member of staff.
"Am I okay to help myself to a cake Sue?"
"Of course- just wait a second...” She checked a piece of paper again.
"Take anyone you want- except the chocolate muffin- that’s mine" she said in the same tone as before.

I waited ten minutes and ask the same question.
"Oh, I'm sorry Matt, but I've designated a cake to everyone who asked for one yesterday"
“But you said Neil and Lee could have anyone”
“Yes but he said they didn’t mind what cake he had when the team was asked yesterday”
"Oh. But I was on leave yesterday"
She gave me a guilty look and a shrug of shoulders
"Well, we wanted to make sure that we didn't buy too many. Just wait a second and I'll see if we've got any spares"

She walked in to the Director's office with her precious piece of paper leaving me feeling like a mook. I could feel that I was rolling my eyes and grimacing.

She came back in still looking guilty.
"We bought a few spare ones so you could have one" she said reluctantly.
"Great!" I said trying not to sound too needy.
"What's probably best is that you wait until later this afternoon and see what's left once everyone's had one."
"Wha....oh??? Okay" I smiled harshly and stomped over to my desk.
"Who the fook does she think she is, and cream bun nazi!" I thought.
Not being the petty man I am often mistaken for, I decided not to let it get to me and tried not to think about it, however after my brief spell as being a pious son of a bitch, I wanted as much cake as I could eat. I had a thirst for cream.

Time ticked on.

Upon my return from lunch, I saw a note on my desk from said PA which read:

"had to leave early today…"

I dealt with this note as I always deal with pointless tit bits of information she gives me and binned it wondering why she bothered to tell me- like I give damn.

I decided to stretch my legs and went over to the kitchen where two colleagues were making a cup of tea and talking about cakes.

"A'wight Matt" said Sean
"Ho Ho you better be making me a brew...make sure you stir it slowly to the left" I exclaimed.
"OI! you Cheeky little bleeder!" Bob retorted.
(This was usual office banter. I say something sarcastic or cheeky, and Bob shakes his fist at me and refers to me as a cheeky Yorkshire swine etc.)
"Have you had a cake yet?"

I signed and told them I was on the waiting list for one and explained.

"It's a cake not a bleedin' kidney" Bob declared.
"Just take one, who does she think she is?" Sean quipped.
"She's a cake Nazi" I remarked.

I decided to wait in a moment of honest to God compassion and consideration for my colleagues. For all I knew Karen or Tony could have been waiting all day for their cake, and for me to stroll in and wolf it down as funny as it would be, wouldn't be right. "What would Saint Matt the Pious do?" I thought.

Upon returning to my desk I was in conflict but soon figured ole St Matt the Pious would probably take one and scoff it greedily with his steaming hot cup of tea (stirred as requested ; slowly and to the left).

I re-entered the kitchen as there was four cakes left. 1. Vanilla Slice, 2. Choc Eclairs and 1 Chocolate Muffin. I was a no brainer, but I was conflicted. Perhaps this is Sue's muffin? But reasoned that she would have eaten it during the morning, brought it home or even hidden or labelled it. In any event surely she’d have bought more than one of this variety when she was sent on her little mission to buy them.

With a shrug of my shoulders I grabbed the chocolate muffin and brought it to my desk.
It was fantastic. A thick chocolate muffin with its top removed and a think layer of real cream piled on, with the muffin's lid resting eloquently on top of this calorie laden snack. I gave me a semi.

The next day at work I had forgotten about the muffin, but as Sue approached me with an unhappy expression on her face I recalled my actions.

"Matt?"
"Yep!"
"I don't want to seem churlish, but which cake did you eat yesterday?"
She looked embarrassed to have to ask me.

Now I could have explained my dilemma, and apologised, but as I'm especially poor at either of these and doing so I could envisage myself offering to go and buy her another one, so I lied.

"Oh- I didn't have one"
"Oh."
"Why? Is everything okay?"
"Well, I'd made sure that I bought a Chocolate cream muffin for me as they are my absolute favourite, but someone's taken it"
She said ‘favourite’ like she was a child. This irked me.

"Ohhh." I tried to look empathetic
"Have you asked the rest of the team?"
"Oh it doesn't matter.... it was probably someone from another department. I knew I should have written my name on it-…bother! I was really looking forward to it." she skulked off mumbling about getting one on her dinner break.

My guilt was overridden by a fantastic feeling of victory. I sat back in my chair and put my hands behind my head with a broad smile on my face.

That dinner break I went for a walk. I was some how drawn to the cake shop like a moth to the flame. I was being sucked in like the Millennium Falcon into the Death Star. All the while Sue’s voice was ringing around my head “I’ll get one on my dinner break…I’ll get one on my dinner break…”

I walked passed Sayers.
They had one solitary chocolate muffin in the window looking at me.
It was last bun in the shop.
“Don’t do it” my conscious cried, but it was too late.
I went in, paid for it and scoffed it on the way back to the office, looking around to ensure I hadn't been spotted.

In truth it didn't taste as good as the 'stolen' bun. In fact I felt a little sick. Remorse and chocolate are a lethal combination,

An hour or so later, after my obligatory 20 minute daily toilet break, I returned to my desk. Sitting next to my phone was a chocolate muffin from Sayers.

"What the...?!!!"

I looked around and everyone was quietly getting on with their work except Sue who was grinning at me like a loon.

She walked over.

"Is this from you?" I asked
"Yes- well it's a long story, but I felt sorry that I'd accused you of taking my muffin earlier on today."
"Oh....you didn't have to. Thank you very much."
I felt sick as a pike.
"Well I felt terrible. It was that I was so down in the dumps this morning because of yesterday."
I look perplexed.
"...my mother? Sorry, I thought I’d written a note to say my mother had been rushed into hospital- that's why I had to leave early."
"Oh sorry- of course. How is she?" I bluffed.
"…well not too good if truth be told. She had a heart attack and at her age (90) it’s not a good sign”
I looked sympathetic, but really I was racked with guilt.
“...anyway, I went out on my lunch to buy a muffin, but they'd sold out! I was about to cry, but decided to get a taxi into town to get one."

"Really, ran out?..."
Christ I felt like a shit.

"yeah -well, I decided that it wasn't fair that you didn't get a cake yesterday” She smiled an angelic smile at me.
“The taxi cost me £5 though, they’re the most expensive cakes I’ve ever bought! So I hope you enjoy it."

I didn't.

Pious Matt is dead

2007-04-14T13:45:00.000Z

Pious Matt is dead. Long live Matt the slovenly bafoon.Since my last bloggage, the blessed feast of Easter came and went. I attended mass and got into an argument with a member of staff at Subway beforehand. One's soul can't be cleaned on an empty stomach.

To celebrate the end of Lent I went on a bit of a bender down the ole Lark Lane. It was like getting the nod from Jesus himself to go out and get rendered, and like the pious God fearing fellow I am, I duly obliged.

My first pint (Pictured above) was, alas, a massive anti climax. I'm not ashamed to admit for a moment I thought my taste for alcohol had deserted me. Thankfully, by drink number 3 it was back baby, it was back!

Geronimo.

2007-04-04T18:45:00.000Z

Geronimo.

The cleaners in our new office scare me

When I arrive in the building, usually just after 9 o'clock, they've almost finished their rounds and are stood around together with their tattoos and navy blue tabards, arms folded and looking surly near the entrance to the forth floor corridor.

There is this one particular cleaner, in her early forties who looks like she's the leader of the gang. She's tall and looks as strong as an ox. She has dark sun tanned skin, but unlike the majority of the women in this neck of the woods, it appears to be natural. With her shoulder length jet black hair she could easily pass for a Native American if you saw her from a distance.

I referred to her as Geronimo the other day on conversation, which got belly laughs from my co-workers.
The rest of the cleaners seem pretty standard really. Round friendly faces in jogging bottoms and cheap market style trainers. As I climb the stairs in the morning I try to say 'good morning' to the friendly looking ones, but avoid eye contact with the others.

It is when they are all together they look pretty damned fearsome. Several of these ladies have large visible tattoos on their upper arms and have their gold necklaces hanging over their institutional-styled tabards. They look like ex-cons. No doubt they see us office workers as "them" in a "us and them" divide. I've never been one of "them". I've always been one of "us". I now feel I belong to neither. Of course I was a cleaner for a while too, a long time ago. I cleaned a school every evening, my old school in fact. The cleaners there were a lot different. For a start there was only one woman who worked there and she was 17 and a stunner. We all fancied her. This lad called Will claimed to have been intimate with her, but I sincerely doubted it There was my friend Gibbo and some other guys of our age, an ex-squaddie in his mid to late fifties with a hunch back, blotted tattoos of naked women on his forearms and about a dozen ex-wives. He was the laziest man I've ever worked with. He taught me a lot.

Geronimo is the only one of our cleaners I have ever heard speak. Her voice is gravelly and quite deep. As time goes on, I can foresee her confronting staff on the mess they've left by their desk. If that's the case I'm a marked man. Yesterday morning Sean dropped my hole puncher, scattering the little white round circles of paper everywhere. As the day progressed, these were trod on and dispersed across the office. It looked a real mess. I half expected a severed head of a family member to be waiting for me on my desk when I arrived this morning.

There is this other cleaner though who I've seen speaking too. She looks by far the youngest- in her mid twenties perhaps. She has long ginger hair and is quite small, chubby and wears designer glasses. Infuriating I'm sure I know her from somewhere. I think she worked with me when I was an insurance advisor. The Insurance company ran two separate training groups for new starters. I was in the dull group with older recruits and it was boring. Several of these fellow trainees had barely used a computer before and were all in their late fifties and consisted of ex policemen, a vicar's wife and a housewife who hadn't worked since 1985. Progress in this group was slow. The group was so dull that when our wacky trainer Dave, gave us the opportunity to listen to the radio whilst we plodded through the simple computer test- I was the only one who wanted it on. The other training group on the other hand consisted of 7 young, brassy girls and two frightened geeky looking guys. They were always laughing loudly and we'd always hear them in our training room which was laughably referred to by the company as a studio.

Once we'd all completed our four weeks training we are assigned teams and started a 3 month probationary period. In the first week the brassy girls took turns ringing my phone and laughing every time I answered it and hung up. I wasn't amused. It was embarrassing. As our phones were monitored, my team leader or manger must have heard this and mentioned it to their particular manger. Their irksome phone calls stopped. Later that week I was accused in front of thirty new colleagues as being a 'grass'. I protested my innocence but to little avail. It took me years to repair the damage they caused.

None of these girls made it through the probationary period and were all let go at some point for being unsuitable or something- perhaps they felt it was because of these prank phone calls, and therefore my fault? I'm really sure she is one of them. She's evolved into the second in command of a militant group of office cleaners. That's more on a progression that I've made!

I hope that if it is her, she doesn't remember me.

Things could get awkward I suppose.

Silent scourn refusal - The greatest human being ever

2007-04-03T19:26:00.000Z

On my morning route to the train station over the past few days, I've noticed the increasing number of fellow commuters who feel the need to run to part of the way to the station.

Yesterday morning the familiar sound of quickened footsteps could be heard over the music from my headphones. The rapid beat of firm shoe heels on the asphalt accompanied by the sound of a tuppaware lunch box rattling within a bag and the jangling of keys and coins in a trouser pocket. I turned around to see from where this cacophony of sound effects was comining from. Very slowly a scrawny kid who couldn't have been no more that 23 years old, feebly ran right passed me. He had longish- almost gingerish hair, and his right foot pointed in a different direction than his left one. As he passed me I noticed that the back of his trousers had started to fray ever so slightly because they were just that little bit too long for him and were getting worn down on the pavement. He had a dark brown corduroy jacket and a over sized leather satchel. I had never seen him at the station before. He looked as if he was the sort of person who was picked on at school. Interestingly the corduroy jacket made no significant noise that I could detect.

He stopped running about twenty five metres ahead of me, clearly out of breath and broke into a walk. I continued to walk at the same steady pace, and within a minute or two I had over taken him. I felt no remorse and inwardly I punched the air victoriously.

We all have our talents and one of mine is being able to walk faster than most.

As I continued to walk towards the station under the huge beech trees' shade in the middle of the road, I looked back and he was almost out of sight.

As I grew closer to the station, another road adjoined to the one which I was speedily galloping down. More commuters joined the race. It is usually at this point I decide to pick up the pace. I didn't this time as I could see there was no queue to worry about.

Suddenly, and surprisingly the runner slowly ran passed me with his tired thin arms flailing about, his head back with his mouth open. He looked as if he was on the final stretch of a marathon. I couldn't help but admire his never say die attitude and his lack of inhibitions. Cruel thoughts entered my head and I could feel myself increasing my walking speed. Soon I had caught him up and we were side by side for nearly twenty seconds; me walking and him running. I felt I had toyed with him enough as we entered the Station's grounds and I slowed down, giving the runner some dignity. He lolloped ahead breathing heavily. I though to myself that I am perhaps the greatest human being of all time. Dignified, strong and yet merciful. I just hoped to God that he wasn't going to pay by credit card or cheque.

As i walked into the station, the runner was being served by the ticket seller, and had difficulty explaining where he wanted to travel to due to his breathlessness.

'A single to Brunswick'

This is the very next station on the route and I couldn't help wonder why after all his efforts he didn't just walk there himself as I and most people would have surely done. No doubt he had his motives.
When the ticket seller printed off his ticket, the runner quibbled with the 95p asking price- repeating it with a hint of disgust in his voice.

I noticed he had a southern accent. Possibly Kent.

Once he'd gone the ticket seller shook his head in contempt and I felt protective for the little bugger and refused to join in with the silent scorn.

Ha! Just because I’m sort-of-pious doesn’t mean I still can’t be a twat.

2007-04-02T20:29:00.000Z

By my calculations I have uttered the sacred words of "I've got to get a better job than this" at least 11 times throughout the day thus far. This is not by any means a personal record, but higher than the average day.
With my head still clouded and dilapidated with this cursed man flu, my patience is wafer thin at present.

Firstly I had to endure a certain colleagues fussing over printer difficulties and the incessant mispronunciation of the word 'gobble-de-gook' preferring to refer to it as 'gobble-de-guck'. This, I was surprised to discover, is actually more irritating than hearing her mispronounce the word data - infuriatingly calling it daar-taar, which I think must be a way of trying to sound posher perhaps than she is? Perhaps it's naivety on her part? Either way, it cuts right through me.
I'm not especially fond of folk giving me a running commentary of what they are doing- especially when I have neither care nor interest in a banal subject such as printer gobble-de-gook.

To further rile me was an e-mail I received from our Director stating that during a three-month period last year I exceeded my job's capabilities. Huzzzar I thunked; I'm getting moved up a pay scale.

Alas sweet justice waa not to be mine; as instead of being moved up I am to get a 50% of the difference between the two pay scales for the months he judged that exceed my job description.
In lay terms I’m getting £200 after tax for all the work I did. Now you may think that perhaps I have gone soft and since I have been employed by local Government I have become a money grabbing greed head. Perhaps you are right, but my point is that I have been exceeding my job description now for over two years quite significantly and whilst being grateful that at least some of this effort has been recognised, I feel a tad insulted with the offer. I think I would have preferred if he hadn't said anything that way I could at least concentrate on being bitter rather than bitter, insulted and greedy.

I think my boss was expecting some form of display of gratitude from me, but he's going to have to wait a long time for it. Ha! Just because I’m sort-of-pious doesn’t mean I still can’t be a twat.

Also, despite my best efforts to conceal some rare talents I possess, I have sadly discovered that my powers to heal electronic hardware have become more evident to my fellow team members.

Having been off on annual leave last Friday, both the office's printers were out of action and judging from the number of e-mails I received on the matter upon my return to work today, no one was prepared to have a poke at trying to fathom the problem.

Indeed; the machines lay dormany. A state of panic could be felt across the office.

I crouched down close to the larger of the two printers- the Toshiba 3411 and carefully, I turned the power off for several seconds.

I talked to said printers in my calmest voice.

I reiterated to them inhush tones that there was beauty in the world.

I reminded 'her' of better times, of times when the toner was full and plentyfull - days before the great Tip-Ex spillage of Feb 2005.

I soothed the beast and hugged it warmly.

I walked slowly backwards to my desk and attempted to print off an e-mail. I don't recall the e-mail's content.
I didn't have to wait long before the sound of fully rejuvinated machinary could be heard by the department's expectant ears and a sea of hot white paper was spewn forth from the beast's belly.

Once more I was a hero.
...I am a printer/copier whisperer.

Would this constitute a pay rise?

Driven to cheese

2007-04-01T11:37:00.000Z

I’ve been far too focused on other silly little time consuming waste of timers to update this blog- which is a shame when I consider some of the little events that have amused, annoyed and befuddled me in the past week. Notably, watching paint dry (literally) at a friends house warming, Lisa’s birthday and the small matter that I was driven to cheese last week.

Two days into our new office and being sat within earshot of a certain colleague had me storming over to the local sandwich shop and slapping a £2 coin of the counter and demanding the a cheese sandwich post haste!

It did little to ease my woes and the remorse and guilt felt afterwards was a thoroughly unpleasant cocktail of misery and despair. I also made a fundamental error in admitting my lapse to Lisa, who of course the berated me to start drinking again- or more importantly to her, to drink on her birthday which was last Saturday. I didn’t relent. My resolve remained. The cheese was a stress induced blip.

Aside from that the and suffering at the hands of man flu, this morning’s unpleasantness puts it all into perspective.

Firstly, I can kind of accept that despite all the berating by my nearest and dearest to ensure my Glastonbury registration’s photographs were adequate (I had to retake the required passport photos due to my unfeasibly large noggin not fitting within the picture’s frame) , and that I had sent the completed registration forms within the allotted time. I also had to endure an unpleasant 30mins looking for my registration form which I had simply and innocently misplaced, whilst an irate girlfriend lambasted me for my general slackness. However, despite getting up at 8.30 am (which is unbelievable for us on a Sunday) stricken with the aforementioned man flu we proceeded to attempt to acquire some Glasto tickets.

Off course despite using two phone’s and about a millions attempts to access their website we were unjustly unsuccessful AGAIN.

To compound matters my least favourite cheeky television/radio ‘star’ Vernon Cunting Kay was on our radio with a whole host of chav knob heads ringing up to boast about their ticket joy. Some even bragging that they managed to get their greedy little mitts on 12 tickets! Of course these fuckers when being asked what bands they’d like to see respond with fuckwit answers like “oh I don’t know, I love razorlight…”

AGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

On one hand if the Festival is going to be full of shit for brains like these then I suppose it’s not such a bad thing, but as I’ve never been yet, I’m starting to get slightly fucked off. I’ve been lucky enough to attend Leeds/Reading 7 or 8 times, V Fest, Euro Sonic, Benacassim and SXSW yet this fest eludes me. Leeds and Benacassism are ‘off’ for us this year as my sister and my father are both to be married on these weekends.

We (the band) were asked to play Glastonbury one year but our very much ex –manager, in his wisdom turned it down as he thought we should have been on a bigger stage. We only learned this several months afterwards and we were strangely never asked again.

Oh well.

Anyway, I’ve got to get back to consoling my distressed girlfriend.

Vernon Kay I hope you’re happy you cunt.

Bastard ball of Blue Tack

2007-03-16T11:14:00.002Z

Ahhh, after days of packing boxes we've finally moved out of the ole office today, and only one thing is in the forefront of my thoughts is....why cant some invent a Sellotape or parcel tape that tastes nice?

Aside from the taste cutting generic sticking tape with your teeth is one of the few primitive urges used today (expect the obvious ones; to kill, to shag, to kill and shag…oh and eat). Granted I know people whom open chocolate wrappers using their teeth, but I find this method rather crass. I think it all stems from when ancient man would sit around the fire and try to put up their caveman cave painting posters to liven up their cave type abodes, and having not invented the scissors there only means of cutting the tapes was to use their teeth. Of course this was years before the invention of Blue tack.

By the way, the office walls, now bare and empty, are littered with small Blue Tack marks, scraps and stains. If I had the time I would collect the scraps and make a moderately sized ball of scrap blue tack, firmly bonding and mixing the different brands, types, colours etc. Alas, I don't have the time or the inclination to do so.

As a child I was the purveyor of many a bastard ball of blue tack. In our household Bluetack was a priceless commodity, and used as a currency between us children, akin to Tobacco in Prison or Cheese in Student Accommodation. Over the years -notably the great 'tack' drought of 89', I used staples, homemade glue (flour and water) and even rolled up Sellotape to keep my beloved posters in their rightful place. Of course all these methods were strictly prohibited in our household, but the knowledge I gained from using said contraband materials proved invaluable. E.g when I ran out of drawing pins I stapled all my notices to my notice board in the office. Sadly, I have spent the past 40 or so minutes removing this staples.

Not one notice/picture/scrap of paper ever fell from that board- not one! This feat was often marveled upon by my colleagues, who in fits of jealously would often take to sabotaging my famed noticed board- though they rarely succeeded. Anyhow- a new office awaits, tomorrow I am “working from home” i.e. watching Seinfeld for hours on end. Bliss.

Holy water indeed.

2007-03-16T11:14:00.001Z

Giving up booze for lent (along with the lesser abstinences of chocolate, crisps and cheese) has given me the glorious opportunity of using the word pious as often as possible. I’ve even perhaps over used it in recent days, but there isn’t many other opportunities one has to use it in a succinct sentence on a day to day basis.

The ‘d’ word has been used a couple of times though much to my disliking. Firstly it was Tony at work who asked how my diet was doing. I over reacted – rectifying him that I was on a noble and spiritual quest- and that men don’t diet- it’s a “health kick”.
Lisa also has used the word- as I chose to bring some grapes to snack on when we went to the cinema last week. She said enough was enough and I was going to waste away- “you never said you were on a diet” she asked me.
Once again I was quick to correct her. Despite it being a firm non-diet, I’ve managed to shed nearly ¾ of a stone in just over 3 weeks.

Eating grapes at the cinema was a smart move though. The grapes were juicy so I didn’t need a drink, quiet so I didn’t disturb the other patrons and tasty so I didn’t feel the need for popcorn or other generic confectionary. As I told a colleague the other day “this pious shit’s great”.
It would be fair to say that the grapes were probably the most interesting thing about our cinematic outing, as the film; ‘23’ was pretty poor, and I had the weirdest feeling that I’d seen it before.

Despite the pious existence, even going to see the excellent LCD Sound System on Saturday was not in any way hampered by my sobriety. Instead of the customary mass of sweaty and impatient bodies trying to get served at one of their two bars (which I hope to fucking God they rectify in their forthcoming refurbishment), I simply strolled over to the vending machine by the toilets to acquire my tasty Still Harrogate water. Holy water indeed. I think I even managed a crafty chuckle and uttered “suckers” under my breath at the hoards of thirsty punters trying so desperately to be served. St Matthew the Pious 1- Unhappy beer swilling masses 0.

I was also able to enjoy the gig as opposed to having to miss key moments whilst I fought my way through the crowds to relieve myself, only to struggle back, eventually find my friends then realise I need a drink or another piss (alas the latter is becoming a more frequent occurrence).

It was also a pleasing experience to wake up the following morning and actually be able to recall the events of the previous night. By the way the gig was fantastic- and I felt the sweet taste of justification in my choosing this show as opposed to the Fall’s annual shindig which fell on the same night over in Liverpool. Oddly enough the ole LCD Soundsystem kind of reminded me of the Fall in a peculiar way. Perhaps it was the repetitive rhythms and bass lines, or perhaps the way in which the front man James Murphy carried him self on stage, often fiddling with band member’s amplifiers and equipment.

T’was one of the best shows I’d been to in an age, and worth not being able to hear for 48 hours afterwards. A personal highlight was ‘Daft Punk..’ which was played about 15 BPM faster than on the record, and rocked like a mo fo- and rather pleasingly it was played second on the set.

Don't talk just kiss

2007-03-10T12:41:00.000Z

Not knowing the correct terminology can cause embarrassment, none more so as when one is growing up. When I was 11 on a school trip to Devon, I was excitedly told by a friend that two class mates had 'frenchied' for1 minute.

I didn't know what the fook he was talking about and asked innocently as to what this meant.
I was laughed at nervously and mocked by my friends for my naivety, suggesting that until five minutes ago they where unaware too.

"French Kissing!" I was told.
"Oh!" I said.

I thought for a moment trying to rack my brain as to what this could mean. I must have looked confused and was badgered by said friends to provide an explanation as to what it meant. I thought on my feet, which was lucky as I was standing up:

"It's how French people greet each other" I suggested.

This was greeted by looks of confusion, no doubt assuming that our Gallic neighbours stuck their tongues down each others throats upon meeting one another.

"You know, kissing on each cheek" I explained. A look of relief and modicum of disappointment washed over their faces.

"ahhhhhh- you don't know what french Kissing is" Was the taunt hurled into my innocent ears.

I came clean about my innocence.
One of my friends tried to demonstrate to me-not on me of course. After five minutes of confusion of my friend sticking his tongue out and waggling about it was fully explained to me....

"1 Minute!!!??" I said when I realised!
I had opened Pandora's Box.

Later in life, approximately 4 years, I still hadn't had a girl stick her tongue down my throat and I was literally bursting with hormones. If we'd had a dog in the house at least I could have practised on it, but thankfully for all, we only had cockatiels. Trying to kiss a small tropical bird wouldn't have been a pleasant experience for either me nor the bird. Alas, it appeared that all and sundry were snogging. I was informed of a party where an acquaintance walked in the door and had snogged two girls within 10 minutes, he said it was easy. This sounded too good to be true, akin to the last days of Rome and not knowing any girls willing to play spin the bottle with, it sounded like the only course of action to take. Thankfully Fortuna smiled on me in the form of a school trip to Ypres so I didn't have to befriend these harlets togain access to their inner sanctum. A day and a half travelling to Belgium, 3 hours of looking around some old trenches, followed by another day and a half of travel.

"It was a sure thing", I thought.

Sadly my lack of knowledge of kissing terminology cost me dearly. At the time, I had was pretty much head over heels in love with a girl from my class. Before we set off, I ensured that this was known by at least acouple of her friends- setting the wheels in motion and she'd find out. If she liked me in that way then all she had to do was ask me out, if she didn't then I would throw myself from the Famous White Cliffs of Dover on route to the continent.

The signs were good, I was sat next to her for most of the journey. Alas, once in Ypres I was asked in front of a large group of my mates by her closest friend "would you get off with her on this trip?".

I say "Alas" as I was unaware what 'Getting Off with' meant. I though it meant full on sex, which freaked me out. My reply was "really???"

"Yes-you could do it on the coach on the way home"

I freaked and could feel the pressure "well, that depends on how much you pay me".

Her friend tried to pick me up from my seat and drag me over to where she was sitting. I fought her not to move from where I was sat as I had the biggest erection ever! She left to inform this girl of my response. My friends thought I was insane. It would be safe to say that when I found out what 'getting off with' meant in the following few minutes I tried to jump of the white cliffs of Dover on route back to Blighty.

Anyway, I promised myself that if I was ever asked by a girl to do something that I wasn't sure about, I'd say yes- it had cost me too much heart ache. Anyway, the other night I was asked by Lisa if I wanted tobe fisted.....

LCD Soundsystem tonight...sans booze should be interesting.

Tattie Water

2007-03-09T19:24:00.000Z

I arrived at work this morning shocked to learn that some sadisticschool has sent a poor defenceless 15 year old girl to this office for her work experience. Worse for her is that she's going to be guided and mentored by Tony. Already he has ensured that she will be attending someof the most boring meetings one could imagine as well as our 6 monthly team 'away day.'

I felt like slipping her a note, informing her to run for her life- but I suppose two weeks here will be enough to put her on the straight andnarrow, after all working shoulder to shoulder with moaning gits likemyself would be enough to inspire any young scholar to knuckle down andwork hard. Interestingly and suprisngly she seems quite keen to learn. I hope to God for the sake of the future generations to come, she doesn't enjoyworking here.

My previous work experience experiences have been nothingmore than a manager's son/daughter coming into work, looking bored as hell and playing patience on the computer trying not to get under anyone's feet. I saw her write something earlier today, and she wrote with the paper a full 90 degrees anti clockwise from how any normal person would write. It reminded me of the girls from school...Anyway,I'm going to be nice to her as she'll probably be my boss in about ten years.

Of course being a veteran of some 27 jobs, I can recall my own work experience in Currys when I was 14 and the positive impact it had on my life, after all I wouldn't have got where I was today if I hadn't worked there. I remember enjoying the experience, especially as most of the staff there hated the job, but at the same time appreciated that it was easy. Perhaps my career path could be attributed to this ethos? Most of all I recall going to the local greasy spoon, Gloria's for a portion ofchips every single day. I can also recall a really awkward conversation I had regarding this cafe. When asked what I thought of it I said something to the effect of "it full of smoke and single mums". This was greeted with "what's wrong with single mums?" and the admission from mycolleagues that they were brought up by a single parent. Of course Idon't think there is anything wrong with single mum's, and looking back at it now I can see they were just fucking with me, but I felt terrible for years about that. Oddly enough, whilst working as a labourer some 9years later I was left in Gloria's for three days to gut the place out.Ironically the purveyor's of the unhealthiest food in my local town was to be converted to a fruit a veg shop.The Cafe was is a very poor state, t'was REALLY disgusting.

On the first day our boss arrived with brand spanking new gloves for us all. This was surprising to us all as despite the fact the gaffer was a top bloke, he was as tight as a camel's arse in a sandstorm. When I saw the extent of the dirt and grime in the cafe I was extremely grateful. Alas, within ten minutes, I attempted to remove a extraction fan duct. Big Al' and I moved this heavy cylinder together slowly and took it outside to the skip. As we lobbed it in bothh is and my gloves were stuck fast on the 1 inch think grease that coated the metal and we both almost ended up in the skip too. We had to sacrifice the new gloves as they proved impossible to be peeled off fromthe ex-duct. Our boss wasn't too enamoured when he asked for the gloves back at the end of the day.

Whilst doing this job, I encountered a dog'sbody roofer in his late forties who look as if he'd smoked forty a day for the last 30 years.For some reason the topic of masturbation came up- I can only assume it was myself who started it. Anyway, this guy said that he could easily wank about 6 times a day and his p.b was 17!!!! He then uttered these haunting words that have stayed with me since:

"When I was your age (22) it was like a flow of hundreds of whitehorses galloping into the sea, and now it's like tattie (potato) water"

Anyway, I passed this useful and insightful information to our work experience girl today though I'm not so sure she understood what I meant. Providing a sample for her probably wasn't the best idea I've ever had.

Rot.

2007-03-08T21:12:00.000Z

I think I’d make an excellent boss of somebody. I’d be harsh but fair.

I think I’d ware my heart on my sleeve, perhaps, some unbelievers would say too emotional- too fiery. But it wouldn’t bother me, after all the only thing that would interest me would be getting results. I’d be a cross between Spender and Brian Clough…only with more sarcasm.

Alas, I do not enjoy being given any responsibilities. I’m too much of a good moaner to be wasted on management. I’m also very poor at attending meetings- as today proved. I sat looking like a bored school kid in detention, doodling and drawing away. I’m pretty sure this was noted by my bosses, but I was too bored to care.

If it wasn’t for me reciting a few films in my head, recalling the few German and Czech phrases I knew and working on ideas for my previously aborted sitcom I think I would have rotted away.

some dog shit receptacle

2007-02-28T20:26:00.000Z

As I left the flat this morning our neighbour ' lesbian' Kate (as opposed to our other named Kate aka 'squeaky' Kate) was in our front garden with her two whippets. I say garden: soil, patchy grass and litter would be the best fitting description of the sorry excuse of greenery that besmooches our otherwise pretty abode . Once again she was letting the ole dogs piss and shit in the garden. I tried to look to see if she had a carrier bag or some dog shit receptacle but couldn't see anything that would indicated that she would. I've never confronted her on this, as surely she would leave the dogshit in our garden? I don't know her well enough to be so bold- Lisa knows her better as recently she discovered that she too is a social worker, which naturally changed her perception. Previously our land lords had told us that she was signing on. Lisa would often mention that she should get a job when she played her loud house music at 11am waking Lisa from her long slumbers at the weekends. I tried once more to make small talk and failed. After the ususal "morning" and "hiyas" I felt the urge to converse:

"it's a bit weird without the trees isn't it"

(oh yeah I should note that the much beloved that induce such tranquility in me during the usual summer time blues. I returned form work early in the week to see the two large Beech trees stripped of their leaves and branches. T'was as if the poor buggers had been raped and executed- left with the indignity to show their nakedness to the neighbourhood. The next day I returned from work and all that remained of these once glorious and noble tree was two stumps. What would Ashley the Tree Surgeon say?)

"yeah" She replied politely.

yeah, the leaves acted as a....urm.....urm....errrr....aa....." the word I was looking for escaped me
"...blinds of sorts, so we never needed to shut our curtains (this is not true) "

"oh"

"yeah- anyway gotta catch that train...."

Once I'd walked around the corner I grimaced and sucked the air throughmy teeth and laughed at my own inadequacy at being able to talk to her. No doubt she now thinks I would covort around the bedroom, window open in the nude- although nothing could be further from the truth, I won't take my shirt off if there's a little gap between the curtains. Lisa always retorts: "Yeah Matt, there's some guy out there with a telescope watching you". This is one of the few times I can be in complete agreement with Lisa, when she states that sarcasm doesn't help.

an Orangutang in error

2007-02-27T20:23:00.001Z

Today at work the conversation of Chester Zoo arose. I'm not entirelysure as to what prompted this inane banter but as one of my colleaguesis having her wedding reception at said zoo I can only assume it was related to this topic. Tony, on a roll and as he would succinctly put it: "got his late tackle in early" and suggested the idea that Sally marries an Orangutang in error. He said at least she wouldn't have to worry about male pattern baldness. He wasn't ashamed about laughing over zealously at his own 'joke'. I just shook my head, partly in disbelief, partly out of obligation.

He asked for the name of the Orangutang in the Clint Eastwood films. Myonly input to this mid morning chat was to inform him this ape was called Clyde. For the next ten minutes Tony couldn't get passed this notion, asking everyone in the room "can you image if Sally married Clive from 'Any Which Way but Lose?' I didn't correct him.

Flase economy fatty (it's lent!)

2007-02-23T20:20:00.000Z

Ahhhh, I love Lent above and beyond any other religious festivities.Seriously, I love it.This year, to proceed Lent, I have enjoyed gorging myself with as much shite I can shovel down my throat in anticipation, knowing that my plansfor this year's lent would involve me abstaining from alcohol,chocolate, cheese and crisps. In essence it is an excuse for me to goon a bit of a health kick, without having to suffer the indignity ofsaying "I'm on diet". Thus far it's gone reasonably well, having gorged myself on fruit for the last few days.

Of course lent is only three days old. Lisa found the notion of going sans booze hilarious and absurd, but asI quite reasonably pointed out to her, it is my duty as a Catholic. Ofcourse she was quick to point out that I don't go to mass and that I'vedone little else to promote the impression that I am a devotee of thefaith. To reassure her of my intentions, I've proceeded in covering mostof our pictures with a purple cloths, (well tea towels actually andthey're not purple). Anyway, this morning I received a rude awakening after weighing myselfdiscovering that I'm nearly 1 and a half stone heavier than I thought!Granted it has given me a stronger resolve to continue with my quest,however I do fel foolish that I have set up a false economy in this regards i.e. put on weight only to lose it again.

Post-rock died when the first post rock kid said "post-rock's not dead"-

2007-02-17T20:17:00.000Z

So I went to see Micah P Hinson last night in the unfamiliar surroundings of a former warehouse and current art gallery. In Liverpool last night, and t'was a mighty fine night indeed.Firstly the venue resembled a large garage (something noted by the young Texan when lamenting the venues no smoking policy) and there was no stage. Aesthetically it looked great, though as the crowd grew in size, the visibility of the acts slowly disappeared from view.

The opening act, The Twighlight Sad, slowly picked up their instruments and chatted quietly whist the crowd gathered with curiosity clutching their plastic pint glasses with anticipation. Naturally, for those unenlightened to their work, with a name like The Twighlight Sad and from their appearance, I assumed it to be delicate, thoughtful shoe gazer type loveliness; but received a rude awakening when the first thunderous chords came out on full assault from the P.A. I noted that the audience moved back a step or two- driven back by the sheer force of the volume. Even before the barley audible vocals could be heard from their intense looking front man, there was no way that this band could have hailed from anywhere but Glasgow, sounding not unlike Mogwai or Aerogramme only played faster and harder, less predictably and backed by a monster of a drummer; who's aggressive pounding and continuous stomping of his bass drum had my teeth-a-rattling throughout. Despite the sparseness of the songs which were led by a delay pedaled guitar (with the delay set for two hours) the singer kept himself busy, spending a large portion of the show on his knees face the drummer, occasionally smashing the ride cymbal with a splintered drumstick, and occasionally rocking back and forth banging his head on the floor. A compelling sight to accompany the excellent sounds.

To me post-rock died when the first post rock kid said "post-rock's not dead"- however these chaps have quickly rekindled a long since dead love for this form of music.Micah P. Hinson, was a different kettle of fish altogether of course, and was only backed up by banjo/lap steel playing drummer and a harmonica (ist?), one half of The Opera Circuit who provided the musical accompaniment fro his latest release. His Southern charm warmed the crowd, introducing himself and this songs in a long since forgotten tradition; humble, gracious and informative.” Hello Ladies and gentleman, my name is Micah Paul Hinson and I come from Abilene in Texas, America. I hope you enjoy the show. "Since I last saw him nervously perform at SXSW 2005, he has followed up his highly acclaimed (though not highly enough in my opinion) debut 'The Gospel of Progress' with a collection of sparse demos recorded before his debut’s release 'The Baby and The Satellite’ and the more recent '...and the Opera Circuit' and delved from this impressive back catalogue, even throwing in Richard Hawley cover version to boot, not without a full explanation as to his choice of course.Adding a little more drama to his songs by slowing down introductions changing the tempo, was further testament to his now slick stage presence, which if you consider his age is can only be attribute to the vast amount of shoes he's performed at over the past 3 yea, touring and supporting just about anyone who could accommodate him.

Despite his reservations regarding the England's impending smoking ban, and the fact that no one really laughed at his 'jokes' it was clear to see that he was enjoying himself, so much so he and his Opera Circuit decided that they didn't need microphones and stood amongst the crowd performing acoustically on a couple of numbers, facing each other a clearly loving it. After nearly two hours, and after some of the less perseverant audience members had slinked off home, he closed the set with his 'epic': 'The Day Texas Sank to the bottom of the Sea' with it's opening lines "here's all that I have to give, I'll admit it" eloquently befitting.

Mo's first gig

2007-02-14T20:13:00.000Z

St Valentine's day...great.Surely St. Valentine's ought to be exclusively for the single people inthe world? Every year I lament the fact that my better half is a firm and steadybeliever in this bullshit day and as ever, I do my best to make the dayas "romantic" as possible despite my misgivings, but as the years go onI find it harder to find the enthusiasm. "Every days is like Valentine'sday" I've stated on many, many occasions to little or usually no avail.

My folks got married on Valentines day, and since their unpleasantseparation and divorce a few years back, the day seems that little bitmore hollow than it used to be. As my mother tearfully reminded me lastnight, they would have been married 31 years. So I saw Plan B last night. It was better than I thought it would be.It was just Eve and I in attendance as Lisa, bless her, had too muchwork to do. Sadly, Killa Kela was a no show- ill apparently, so we hadto make do with a not very good honkey rap outfit.

I did however bump into Mo from the rehearsal rooms and chatted for awhile on the unique forms of hip hop drumming and his love thereof. Hesheepisly admitted that this was his first ever gig! I wasflabbergasted, as I know he's played the venue several times before. He explained that he's been to see a multitude of local bands, most ofwhich he knew, but had never been a 'proper' punter. I felt happy forhim especially as he told me of his admiration for Plan B. Knowing he aspires to be a professional musician I found it a bit oddthough, especially as he's 20. I hope he enjoyed it. Anyway, Lisa and I are planning something low key (hopefully so low keyit's barely noticeable) and she just wants to relax and watch The BritsAwards! As I have a unbridled hatred of this crap back slapping awardceremony it'll be interesting to see how long I go on watching itwithout a barrgae of swearwords aimed at the Gallaghers and the otherindustry nit wits and ruining the ambience. I'm going to have to tryreal hard. Hopefully my gastronomic pursuits may perhaps act as an idealdistraction...here's hoping.

A drunken blogger's lament

2007-02-12T19:19:00.000Z

Aside from the obvious problem that I’m now having to fill my day working, the problem with not having access to this ‘ere blog during “office hours” is that I’m now forced to write it in the confines of my humble abode. This sadly means I am now prone to drunken posting, and as the last post demonstrates this does not make for the greatest posts. It came as a great dissapointment for me to read it back the following day, slightly hungover and really realise that it wasn't quite the comic prose that I had thought. Rather non sensical guff. Alarmingly there doesn't appear to my ususal abbundance of grammatical and spelling fuck ups.

I headed homeward, well to my mum’s new home town of Scarborough, this past weekend and aside from the obvious enjoyment of seeing her and my brother who arrived early morning with a half defrosted slab of beef; I was reacquainted with the pleasure of a long train journey enabling me to sit and read my book (Michael Azzard’s ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life’), listen to some music and enjoying a late morning beer. If it wasn’t for the other passengers, it is in an ideal world, exactly how I would like to spend my time. Oddly enough there was no comic bad luck or disasters and this appears to have lulled me into a false sense of security as due to train difficulties both on route to work, and on my journey home resulted in my calling an innocent ticket seller a “lazy cunt” and kicking a wheelie bin. Naturally I feel fairly ashamed of myself, but due to the water being cut off today in the office I was dying to have a shit, and this made me more susceptible to being a mardy twat. I was literally full of shit

In other news: life is good! I heard the forthcoming Fall single at it genuinely sounds amazing, sadly I've already booked tickets to see LCD Soundsystem on the same day Mr. Smith and Co. arrive in town. This will be the first time in four years that I've missed his show, and as they've got better everytime I've seen the, I can only assume they will be excellent.

Off to see Plan B tomorrow and I'm not sure why agreed to go as I came to the conclusion rather quickly that I dislike his music rather intensely. Kila Kella is the support so hopefully this should make up for it. Also Micha. P. Hindson is playing a small art gallery on Thurs- just hope someone I know is willing to tag along. I've met him on a few chance encounters and finally got to see him play at SXSW 2005, so here's hoping.!

Confidence Trickster...moi?

2007-02-08T19:26:00.000Z

The realisation of one’s inadequacy can come as something of a relief. “The pressures off- get on with it!” I rightfully assured myself when I looked in the mirror one morning.

Looking back now, I can see this inadequacy has plagued my life thus far. Inadequacy that was often mistakenly labeled as ‘potential’ by people paid to reassure the populace. I guess any potential fizzled out rather unspectacularly a year or so after leaving University and rather than accepting my lowly status, I’ve remained eternally optimistic. This now is where I can see my road to failure began. As a wiser man than I once said “hope can be a dangerous thing, can drive a man insane”. That wiser man was none other than Morgan Freeman, and he has the kind of screen presence that makes everything he says appear sincere. Of course he didn’t write that line, he’s just an actor and of course he was referring to life inside the walls of Shawshank Prison and naturally, Tim Robbin’s character contradicts this- encapsulating the feeling Hope can be a beautiful thing, but c’mon, it’s Morgan Freeman.

Anyway, as I continue to make my way in the world as a Jack of All, master of none, I have the confidence to believe that there is something for me in the big bad world. After much deliberation I have deducted that I shall be …a confidence trickster.

Announcing this to friends and family was something of an ordeal however, as rather than encouraging me to seek out my dreams, they didn’t really have much faith in me; lambasting me stating “I had no potential”. This was the first time in my life I had been told this, as during all my other ‘crazy follies’ such as University, art college, the band, glass blowing, fox hunting and the whole fizzy cheese debacle, those closest to me have been nothing but supportive. As I showed absolutely no potential what so ever in becoming a confidence trickster, people have immediately tried to persuade me to follow a different path in life. I feel this negativity from one and all can only be a positive thing and spur me on to achieve all I desire.

My first trick was to convince myself that I can do this. Alas, thus far I proved a harder nut to crack than I first anticipated, worrying about the legalities and the morality of such a folly not to mention my abilities. Ironically confidence was an issue. But a true grifter wouldn’t give up that easily, so I set about an elaborate scheme using all my cunning and ingenuity to trick myself into being more confident. Sadly, after weeks of setting up this sting, I miscalculated and the project was aborted. This was not only a blow to my confidence and self esteem but also a financial misnomer- having pumped exactly £2,000 into false moustaches and other gentleman thief regalia, but as chance would have it I conned myself into baring the brunt of these costs….the perfect crime and my only success in the confidence trickster trade which in turn has given me further confidence.

With confidence at an all time high, though there is some part of me (my elbow I think) that feels ill at ease with this, worried that in fact the newly acquired confidence is indeed an trick? The fact that I can’t be sure probably means I was more of a success at the art of grifting than I first thought (itself boosting my self esteem- confusing huh?) As another great man and the world’s greatest liar/confidence trickster, Kaiser Sosia said:

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist”

I confused myself enough to become utterly crest fallen with this new self esteem, and I gave up on my dream, re-realising my own inadequacy. I tried to acknowledge this to potential employees, preferring to get it out in the open and prevent the inevitable disappointment on both our parts.

Thus far, this approach was met with a mixed reaction. Some have been confused whilst others found my approach amusing. One interviewer in particular said I should be on stage but he was unsure that my being upfront regarding my failures would help me in my job, stating that it was other people’s jobs to find failures- so he hired Steve McClaren instead. I didn’t mind though. I was in over my head. As he pointed out, afterall I am one quarter Maltese.

I wasn’t bitter and took his advice regarding being on stage seriously and applied for a job as a curtain in the local theatre. I was unsuccessful, perhaps it was nerves, or perhaps it was that I couldn’t pull myself together in time. Mad as hell at another rejection I waited outside the theatre to ‘have words’ with the director and producer. After stewing in my own rage for 2 hours, and left to simmer for 35 minutes I was thoroughly cooked and charged up to these hacks to show them what I could do. They were still unimpressed however they offered some more specific advise regarding my future career on the stage and recommended I try to make with the “laugh laughs “ and become a stand up comedian. A cartoon lightbulb appeared above my head when she said this and I agreed. She said all you need is to keep being true to yourself and above all convince yourself that you could do it.

I rushed home to do exactly that

Thankfully I still had the false moustaches and other miscellaneous confidence trickster paraphernalia to do so, and worked long and hard at it. Sadly the tattoo stating “I am inadequate” written backwards on my forehead to remind me not to dream of a better life each time I look in the mirror was proving something of an hindrance to me. After all I wasn’t even sure I could persuade myself that I could convince myself!

Drastic action was called for. I sat myself down in a dimly lit room, and tied myself to a wooden chair. After an arduous few days, I had successfully convinced myself that I could grow my eyebrows upwards to cover the slogan, and once I had done this – it reassured me that I COULD convince myself of anything, and proceeded to convince myself that I should pursue the life of a comic.

My first gig was the worst. I was nervous as hell and my now enormous eyebrows repeatedly drooped down into my eyes beforehand and only applying litre of ‘Spray Mount ’ was able to keep them in place.

I was second on the bill after a Bernard Matthew’s tribute act booked erroneously instead of Bernard Manning. Due to the bird flu problems of late, his act didn’t go down too well but was certainly funnier than Manning. One of the few Turkeys on stage with the Matthews impersonator (Frank?) stole the show with a timely piece of post modern comedy, recreating the scene in Star Wars when Obi Wan can sense the destruction of the planet Alderan, only relating it to the cull of the thousands of his foul brethrens, other than that the act was poor..

My name was read out by the generically almost funny, compare. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Alas, due to the spray mount my eyelids became glued shut. This didn’t phase me as after all I had belief.

I stepped out on stage and could feel bright lights glaring through my firmly shut eyelids and I realized that I hadn’t actually written any material and spent too much time trying to believe in my talents (or should I say -lack of). I freaked out and had a total breakdown on stage. Someone with an Irish accent heckled me until I wet myself and started to cry, and this caused the uncontrollable laughter amongst the audience silencing the Irishman’s abuse. Once I had them laughing it was like shooting fish in a barrel- wet, messy, unnecessary but easy (providing the barrel wasn’t too big of course) I told them about auditioning as a pair of curtains but being unable to pull myself together, and it lifted the roof! (Though I did feel cheap) All I had to do was convince them I was funny! I wish those pricks who rejected me during curtain audition could see me now- “I’ll show them” I raged inwardly.

I was a somebody!! I no longer felt inadequate!!!! Hope springs eternal!!!!!

After the sweat had dissolved the Spray Mount and I was able to open my eyes I walked off the stage to the sound of thunderous applause. “thank you Finch & Firkin you’ve been a wonderful audience” I emotionally bellowed. Backstage a gentleman who looked very much like myself only with a monocle and false moustache approached me and put his right arm around me, popped a lit cigar in my mouth and said “son…you’ve got potential” and offered to manage me.

I agreed and gave him his £2,000 signing on fee….”the perfect crime” I muttered under my breath.

A Yorkshire Yoda

2007-02-08T19:25:00.000Z

“..the weather outside is frightful…”

Touching wood in advance to proclaiming the following; but despite the snow fall the train (for once) were running just fine. As a matter of fact there was less people huddled under the walkway, sheltered from the snow, awaiting the train than I had expected.

There was some new faces though, one of which I was most intrigued about. She was about 22, pretty, REALLY pretty, and juggling two Yakult drinks whilst trying to lock her brand new BMW. She met her goofy looking boyfriend in the ticket queue who looked young, stupid and unsuccessful. I couldn’t help wonder a) do people really believe in the ‘good bacteria’ vs ‘bad bacteria’? Scam and b) how the fuck did she get a new, sexy looking BMW?

This has bothered me all day.

I arrived at work today and was treated to a Spanish Inquisition by several colleagues regarding my supposed 'surprise' half days annual leave. It was assumed that I had sneaked out to attend a job interview. Alas this was not the case.
I had taken the afternoon off as I was still feeling ropey from the excesses of the Krazy House last Saturday, a surefire signal that "I'm getting too old for this shit". It was also time for my quarterly haircut, which I was surprised to see that when people were grilling me about what I had been up to, hadn't noticed that I'd had my ears lowered.

Apparently I missed a bit of a kafuffle whilst I was away tending to my locks. Debbie reliably informed me that; "the little cherubs" (A phrase used often to describe the little urchins whom roam and run the streets in their matching black tracksuits like a modern day equivalent to Noodles and Co. in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America) had thrown about six eggs on the front window/door in our little reception. Debbie, being as fastidious as anyone I've ever encountered before, had to clean them off immediately and regaled this to me in great detail. Not that this was overly unnecessary, it's just her shtick.

and it was a good job she was in yesterday too(she works part time), otherwise it would have been down to me to sort- and of course I would have done sweet f.a. about it , ;leaving the eggs to fester in the Bootle sunshine.

I suggested to her that she should have left it to the local window cleaner, dubbed affectionately as 'Mr. Happy' or 'Chuckles' due to the incredibly dour and miserable nature of the man. Every fortnight he cleans our three windows in about one and a half minutes and charges £5 and I thought he would appreciate the challenge.
This brought about a comment such as “They get good money do window cleaners” or something similar. I regaled that I was once offered a job as a window cleaner in Harrogate, but politely declined it, naively believing that I could achieve more with my talent, gusto and moxy than that of a life of a humble "visual technician". As I retorted to my colleagues; "looking at the way my career turned out, this was a terrible decision".

The guy who offered me this position was a small white haired gentleman in his very late sixties, who had become part of the set up in our pub football team, which I was a proud member of before attending University. As the team were pretty crap, a mixture of thugs, piss heads, men in their mid forties who were obviously pretty good back in their day and of course all of their mates, our manager Bob or 'Shaggy', had been introduced to this sweet old fool as he was a scout for Scarborough Town F.C. I think because he looked a little like a Yorkshire Yoda, it was assumed that he must have some great Brian Clough-like footballing brain. Sadly, he was never given a chance to prove this to us.

He was the town's window cleaner, and had been for some forty years. He was one of the last few Last of The Summer Wine type Yorkshireman living in my old town, and referred to everyone: man, woman and beast as 'Love'- and old Yorkshire salutation (or so we were led to believe). This at first put a few people's backs up, though the sight of him calling our Desperate Dan look-e-likey burly prison warden center back and his equally large brother as ‘love’ was too much.

On his first pre-season training session, we took the piss. He had the 'squad' running around the practice ground, and when he blew his whistle we would turn left, if he blew it twice we turned right, however whilst running away from him we chose to ignore him and kept running and running, and he kept blowing his whistle like a maniac until we were out of site. It never really improved from there, but he was nice enough to offer me a job working for him. naturally I politely declined, as I had a new life in the land of Liverpool to look forward to. The same applied when our 2nd team goalkeeper (who had eyes going in different directions- but a good shot stopper and brilliant when coming off his line) offered me a job in a car sales room where he worked.

His downfall as a 'sporting director' was the installation of a former class mate of mine as the first choice goal keeper. From playing with him in our school football team I knew how hopeless he was, and the soppy old bugger even gave him a trial for Scarborough, which of course he failed.

The poor bastard tried to get the team more cohesive, fitter and focused, but the players didn’t really want to know. When we were invited to an exhibition match against the mighty Harrogate Town A.F.C he gathered us all around in the dressing room to reveal his new secret weapon: Jelly Babies. He’d read that Curtly Ambrose and some of the other West Indian fast bowlers would eat them as a energy replacement between Overs. Sadly, they were all scoffed by players, substitutes, player’s friends, injured players, the manager ten minutes before the kick off.

I’m not sure, but I think he’s dead now.

MP3’s

Neil Young live at BBC 27th Feb 1971 – Old Man

Aphex Twin –Window Licker

social butterfly

2007-02-06T12:13:00.000Z

Suitable festivities ensued last Saturday night in an 'official' night out in celebration for ole sweet Johnny's 29th birthday.

T'was a frightfully odd night odd, something you should expect once one makes the decision to venture in to the sticky floored sweat house that is Liverpool's infamous Krazy House, and for once I was genuinely looking forward to it. Once more I was accosted by several strangers throughout the night whom decided that they had some salient information that they wished to share with me. Not that I condone this sort of thing, but it begs me to ponder; why do strangers only choose to converse with me?

The first of the night's stranger conversations was partly my own fault. This twenty something woman was sat in the same vicinity as where our 'party' were festering away in the night's first bar: The Kubrick inspired Korova (http://korova-liverpool.com/), without doubt one of the finest bars this fair city has to offer- if you don't mind the gaggles of meffy Russel Brand esque student sorts, complete with scruffy beards and wooly hats, but the place is c-c-c-cool man.

This woman stood up momentarily and from my standing position I glanced over to see if she was leaving or in fact going to the bar etc. Her gaze caught mine and she sat down quickly. I immediately assumed she'd sat down quickly in order to keep her beloved seat, so I leaned over and said "I wasn't going to knick your seat you know". Alas she didn't hear me, and looked uncomfortable. I tried to redeem myself, and leaned over a second time, this time trying to laugh it off, apologising for the confusion and repeating what I'd said seconds earlier. She laughed awkwardly and said she was going to the toilet, but she loved the Suzie and The Banshees song that had just started so she'd decided to wait. Her boyfriend and her then decided to chat to0 me about Suzie and her God damned Banshees and Blondie, eventually offering to move up in order for me to get my sizeable ass on the chair. I declined and politely killed the conversation before it got out of hand, imagining the pair of them wanted to befriend me, take me home asking me to shag her whilst he filmed it on his mobile phone, or the otherway around (cue Homer style shudder).

Some ten minutes later whilst waiting at the bar a young man and young lady (both early twenties) were holding a conversation. Sadly, my head was between the two chatting kids, and as they failed to understand each other they moved their heads closer and closer so that I had to bend backwards to stop them from spitting in my ears. The chap then decided that he'd talk to me asking me if I was here to see any of the bands, which of course I wasn't. I explained away my predicament regarding the birthday felicitations and the pre-arranged shindig at the aforementioned Krazy House. He went on to explain that he was one of the promoters that night and the band were going to be huge. He explained to me that this band comprised of a drummer and a singer/guitar player. I replied "A la The Black Keys?". This was an error, as no doubt it showed too much knowledge of music, as he told me he thought I was going to say The White Stripes.

This costly error of judgment resulted in a very boring conversation about bands. I just stood smiling politely until he mentioned Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, and which point I proceeded to tell him that I'd seen them the night before (if only he'd mentioned ...And You'll Know Us by The Trail of Dead so I could have a second stab at the joke-see last entry). Unimpressed he told me he'd seen them when they played the tiny Academy venue in Liverpool. I told him I had too (this was a lie). Before I got caught out, I made some ramshackle yarn about a friend of a friend getting me in for free, but we were rather late and only got to see two songs. It worked and there was no follow up questions on the gig. He then proceeded to tell me about some of the band he was friends with. I'd not heard of any of them and smiled inwardly at this braggart's unimpressive boasts. My drinks arrived, he shook my hand and told me his name. I think I told him my name was Ruben or something like that, either way bullshitting strangers has always amused me and is a sure fire way of knowing that the Guinness is having an effect. Perhaps it was the years of lying to women in the numerous bar/pubs and clubs during my formative years in a vain attempt to persuade them I was cool, and/or interesting. (one such occasion I spent an entire night lying about my love for Oasis, stealing my friend Burdy's anecdotes- including having the back of my T-Shirt filmed by The O-Zone, presenter Jane Middlemass stating that "this was the nearest we'll come to meeting the band"- she said she had this on video at home- it came as no surprise that she ignored me the following week)

I collected my drinks and the girl my hapless new friend had been chatting to asked me if I wanted a hand. I declined but thanked her anyway. She said “you’re very well spoken” which I took as a compliment, and proceeded to talk like Charles Hawtrey/Russell Brand for several minutes, remarkably she giggled and laughed throughout. This made me feel ill at ease as she was young and pretty, so I made my escape. She asked me something as I walked away, but couldn't quite make out what she'd said and pretended I hadn't heard her imagining that she was checking out my arse as I returned to my friends.

Upon my return, Jane mockingly referred to me as a "social butterfly", and Lisa proceed to regale her with the many incidents whereupon totals strangers bore the pants off of me with inane chit chat (not literally of course).

After we were all fairly tanked up, we decided to head towards The Krazy House. When we arrived the bouncer said something and I immediately laughed out loud, but the look on his face meant that I'd probably misheard so I turned around quickly and waited to pay.

After paying, Janet looking annoyed with herself, informed me that she'd dropped a pound on the floor, and being the gentleman that I often pretend I'm not, proceeded to retrieve it. This meant crouching down at the exact same point that some emo kid was queuing up, and my head was only centimeters from his groin. I made light of this, so he didn't get the wrong impression, and I hope he understood what I meant, when I said "don't worry I've only got my head in your crotch to help my friend". From then on in, the night became something of a blur to me. I recall my usual feeling of contentment when I looked across the dance floor seeing 50 or so goth/emo/punk girls shaking their booties. Not to mention the few teenage Elvira look a likes, complete with two bald men hiding in a vest type cleavages.

As the night drew on I drank heavily, and proceeded to throw some shapes on the dance floor from Rage against The Machine to The Foo Fighters to The Proclaimers, whilst topless men danced with teenage black mascara-caked young things stripped to their bras (one such bra sporting young rock chick had one of the largest racks I’d ever been up close to before and was wearing a white bra which glowed in the dark- very hard when drunk not to get hypnotized by it shaking their thing to Led Zep’s ‘Rock n’ Roll’ ) trying avoid the hundreds of discarded glass bottles on the dance floor ; it was quintessential Krazy House. I felt a bum ‘bump’ into mine, and turning around to see as to whom had done this discovered it was the emo kid who’s crotch was rather too close to my face. I smiled and slow danced backwards through the crowd and went to the toilets. “It’s like the last days of Rome” I thought.

I discovered that their so-called newly installed toilets don’t have any facilities to wash your hands with, which came as a shock; just two massive urinals. This alarmed me to think that ¾ of the men on the dance floor hadn’t washed their hands. I decided to head back and drink some more and avoid shaking hands with anyone.

These toilets were sacred to me, as the venue was the host to my first snog on Merseyside some 11 years ago. I remember thinking I was going to get lucky so acquired a condom from the machine in these hallowed toilets. I can still recall my infuriation when the damned thing promptly swallowed my pound coin. Luckily, thanks to assistance from a stranger we bashed the thing until a Whiskey Flavored condom popped out. I never used it as a friend of hers was comatose and I helped carry him to a taxi, so instead proceeded to blow it up on my long walk home to my Halls of Residence, and instantly regretted wasting it when I arrived back in my Prison cell like room beered up and horny.

Anyhoo; something weird went down at 1.30am ish as it was rumored that Sweet Johnny had gone home in a huff following a row with his nearest and dearest. Eve-e-o was in floods of tears and surrounded by concerned friends. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to dance with Jon’s brother Sweet Benny and his sister Sweet Janey who also rightly assumed that everything would be “all-l-l rigg-g-ht”.

It wasn’t long before I was fucked and had to take a break. I then spent and estimated hour and a half glued to the big screen TV which was playing Match of the Day –Classic Matches of The Eighties. I was completely engrossed by mustachioed premed stars of yesterday playing it what now looked like Speedos, and on the occasion when cohorts and the like came over to chat, I could hear them but couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

The night continued, but once things had calmed down and Jon had been found, we decided that a journey home via a kebab shop/pizza shop was in order.

The Pizza shop was as crowded as an establishment like that could be and resembled a mosh pit at a Music Festival. I chatted to Sweet Benny about the poor quality Liverpudlian Pizzas, bragging about the excellence of Harrogate’s best asset; Chico’s Pizza. Sweet Benny told me that Sweet Johnny had informed him that “I was obsessed with this topic”.

Pizza King was the food outlet of choice. We waited patiently until Lisa spotted some rogue scally pushing in and proceeded to inform the rest of the hungry masses, who didn’t take to kindly to this. An argument ensued between an emo chick and this pilled up, skin headed little shit. The take way owners repeatedly asking, fairly timidly for him to stop swearing, but he was having none of it, and they served him quickly to try and get him out of their establishment. After receiving he chips, and continuing his shouting at these poor girls he called the kebab shop workers “bag heads”. This resulted in a cacophonous booing and people telling him to fuck off, and the smallest of the workers removed him, riding on the crest of people power. I was drunk, and continued to boo, and get my phone out and film it.

I scoffed my pizza in record time, whilst Lisa once again decided that she would wait until she got home before unwrapping her chicken kebab. This precious and over protective approach to her food consumption has always caused friction between the two of us, as I see little point in not devouring it immediately as her food is always cold when she gets back, and she always laments her decision drunkenly and often loudly.

Eventually a taxi was located. As we boarded it, I heard a fella shout “Fuck you- you knob head” in my direction. I innocently pointed to myself and asked if he was talking to me. He bounded over to where I was stood:
”What are you looking at?” he eloquently asked me.
“Where you calling me a knob head?” I asked affably.
“Who are you calling a knob head!!?” he screamed.
“No one- sorry, I thought you were talking to me?”
“What’s it got to fucking do with you? I was talking to him (taxi driver)”

Lisa, grabbed me by the collar and dragged me in the taxi and he sped off. I was quickly informed that the taxi had stopped from these two aggressors, and were quickly ejected by the driver. As we drove past them we all vigorously flicked them the ‘vs’ mouthing “wanker” and the like. I could only assume that they’d said something to the driver, who as Lisa retorted was “the only clam person we’ve met since leaving the Krazy House”.

Upon return to the flat, Lisa lied and said her Kebab was still warm and we watched Krypton Factor until 5am, both in awe of on particularly inept contestant called Marjory and how young Gordon Burns looks, with his Alan Partridge regalia.

Clench your fist and say 'fuck you'

2007-02-03T16:56:00.000Z

Last night I was in attendance for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Manchester Academy and it t’was a fine night of music, public transport, drunkeness and ‘Clockwise’ style comedy disasters, but at least for the first time in an age both my contact lenses stayed put on my eyeballs.

As Tom astutely observed, it was good to see that the singer from said band, talks like he sings, though his squeaky New Yorker accent did bring to mind Marge Simpson’s ex Boyfriend Artie Ziff. Unusually, we were also witness to two fights, both involving some Mancunian (citation needed) ladies. Certainly an odd sight to behold, especially considering the many gigs I’ve been to I’ve never seen a fight, well one that didn’t involve any members of the band. They were very good though, but not having listened to their new album my mind did wander slightly whilst they performed, this way partly due to the beer that we had been chugging throughout. Their support band, Cold Water Kids too were very good, though I sadly missed most of their set whilst trying to buy some drinks for me and my cohorts.

Whilst waiting at the bar a young scruffy kid whom was stood next to me started a conversation regarding the song the band were currently playing. As I wasn’t in the best frame of mind for conversation at that point due to the calamitous journey to Manchester, which left me feeling so exasperated (perhaps an by-product of my newly found work ethos), I did little to keep the conversation going until he started talking on the subject of getting tickets that day to see …And You’ll Know Us From the Trail of Dead.

As he regaled this fairly boring anecdote about meeting the singer at recent Leeds festival, and all I could think was I could at last crack my ‘Who are Hansel and Grettlel’s favourite band? And You’ll Know Us by the Trial of Bread’ joke, which once he had come up for air I put to him. He laughed and then proceed to tell me how he always cracks bad jokes at funerals—though I suspect, or should I say hope, that he was in fact not being exactly truthful and trying to be funny. He then thought it would be appropriate to crack unfunny and extremely racist joke.

Eeek. I didn’t laugh and said “oh dear- that’s a bit out of order isn’t it Jade?”. He looked awkward and then sneaked in front of me in the queue. With any luck it was he whom we saw get punched in the face by the fiery berry hat clad young lady later on during the show.

After, being away from all that interest me on the internet I've been catching up with the various music blogs I enjoy reading. One such, Aquarium Drunkard (see link to right) has posted news about the now sadly defunct Arab Strap, and it brought to mind just how much I love Arab Strap, and the first time I saw them supporting Mogwai in The Duchess of York in Leeds back in the summer of '97, and the magical moment when Adian Moffat joined Mogwai on stage for 'Now We Are Taken' which he co-wrote and recorded with them on the '4 Satin E.P'. Anyway, I couldn't resist posting it:

MP3
Mogwai- Now You Are Taken

golden shower of kudos

2007-02-03T16:49:00.000Z

As per post on 26th January, the buggering Council thought Police have heightened their internet filters and security, which under normal circumstances would make my life intolerable; however I have been enjoying the relative satisfaction of busting my hump and proving my worth at work. Naturally, I expect this new found zeal for corporate servitude to disappear shortly, but for the meantime I’m revelling in my newly discovered self–a lean, mean Excel Spreadsheet producing machine.

Alas, the reason for my increased office stimulation has little to do with the fact that I can’t access ANY decent websites with the exception of the BBC and Wikipedia, and more to do with the D-Day for the culmination of four years work in our department and the serving of some 500 legal notifications across the country. I had very little to do with this, but my closely honed skills of quick efficient spreadsheet (complete with decorative colour schemes- my art degree NOT going to waste thank you!) compiling and the set up of a monolithic mail merge.

As the suckers in my office are not exactly IT savvy, they have all bowed their heads in wonderment and befuddlement at my ability to produce a list of names and addresses on a spreadsheet, moreover they have all been over zealously convincing me that I shouldn’t be so modest when they scratch their heads at words like ‘filters’ and ‘mail merge’. I was at one point nervous that they may consider this work to be witch craft and proceed to lock me in the smaller of our two stationary cupboards, only occasionally prodding me with rulers until they could fathom a way of destroying me or perhaps imprisoning me in one of them’s odd flat prisons a la Superman II.

Of course this work was literally a piece of piss to do and despite protests from me that any dolt could perform these tasks; it has certainly been a while since I’ve basked in a golden shower of kudos from the upper echelons of our department. The only conceited member of the office staff not happy or wowed with my work was of course my nearest rival in the office, the fax machine, who has now had his keys to management toilet taken away from him, and I believe has started his own blog regaling his disenchantment with its station in the office pecking order.

I have also enjoyed two days of serving these notices by hand to businesses and residents alike. Of course any excuse to flee the confines of our office is always appreciated, but I especially enjoyed strolling into offices, legal documents in hand chatting to a variety of very attractive receptionists. This proved to be a most enjoyable and unexpected perk. If I was the wearer of a rimmed hat in the vein of a trilby, bowler or porkpie, I would tilt in a jocular manner to signify contentment. I don’t, so upon my return to the office I enjoyed putting my feet up on my desk, leaning back and eating a packet of crisps rather noisily.

I had also, for the first time in an age, stayed at work until after 5pm! Ye Gads!!!
This meant I had to board a much later train filled with new faces. One such train was inexplicably filled with a plethora of strangely beautiful office attired hotties, rather than the usual familiar surroundings of dour and sour faced losers. Perhaps only the disenchanted office plebs catch my usual train home, which would of course explain why there is usually a lack of any joy in the eyes of my fellow commuters. The vocationally satisfied obviously burn the midnight oil (I will not be posting any Midnight Oil tracks okay!?) preferring to stay later at work and perhaps this satisfaction and diligence increases their beauty? Of course my better half would come under that bracket, only she stays at work because it appears the shit hits the proverbial fan on a daily basis, but she is beauty no less.

Can't buy me lunch

2007-01-30T16:54:00.000Z

After an impromptu three day weekend from the ole millstone that is the daily grind of the office, I enjoyed the relaxed pleasure of loafing about the flat, drawing, playing guitar, listening to records and drinking some recently acquired hippie type fruity tea.

I also acquired myself for the pricesly sum of £3.99 the DVD of ‘The Rutles- All You Need Is Cash’ from one of the more infuriating high street establishments. Being, as most people I know are, a Beatles aficionado, and a fan of parody (my dissertation was on this subject titled: ‘A Thin Line between Stupid and Clever’- Parody in films’ and I frequently quoted the film, despite never actually seeing it) Anyhow- at £3.99 it was too much of an opportunity for me to miss out on.

I was, to be honest, expecting the film to be a let down, but was greatly surprised just how well the film has dated, and just how well crafted Neil Innes’ song are. Obviously, there are many classic moments throughout and some beautifully observed Beatles-esque tunes (‘Go Home’ had me laughing out loud so much that I had to rewind this scene several times), however one particular song stood out- notably because I knew all the words. It didn’t take me long to remember that I had in fact heard a version of this song previously as a B-side to Teenage Fan Club’s ‘Mellowed Doubt’ CD single, and had featured it on many of the Mix Tapes I’d done for friends and family back in the mid nineties. Naturally I have since dug out this CD, which also features a version of ‘Have You ever Seen the Rain’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and posted both of these tracks below:

MP3:
Teenage Fan Club- Have You Ever Seen the Rain
Teenage Fan Club- Between Us

I also moseyed on down to the local monthly flea market in an attempt to purchase some cheap vinyl. Alas, it appears that increased Market for cheap old records has resulted in a price hike and beardy student types swarming around the record boxes so much so that despite spending at least half an hour in the smoke filled church hall I was unable to get any where near the table containing ‘the better records’ from the chap I usually buy from. Instead I was left to flick through reams of bilge, but spent a tenner on two albums that caught my eye; Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band’s 1954 ‘Good Time Jazz’ and Original Soundtrack Recording from Carl Foreman’s Victors. Both were disappointing beyond belief, partly because they were scratched to buggery and partly because they’re just a bit rubbish really.

The Kid Ory album, was a chance purchase because I liked the cover and because on the back of the cover had two recipes for Shrimp Jambalya and Creole Gumbo Filé and needless to say that I have learned not to judge a record on it’s Deep South recipes.

Sorrow

2007-01-26T12:56:00.000Z

Shock News!

My kind employees have decided to put a filter on our internet and, suffice to say, I can't gain access to any My Space site or any Blog site as they're deemed to be "inappropriate as per the terms and conditions blah blah blah".

Thankfully I can at least peruse my e-mail accounts and wikipedia, but this is scant concilation.
I have now got to find another way of using my time constructively whilst in the office, although it has certainly encouraged me to find employment elsewhere. It is a very sad day indeed.

It reminds mre of the dark ages when the only thing to keep me entertained whislt in the work pllace was communicating to my colleagues and working, occasionally spending weeks at a time using 'Paint Box' to amuse myself.

This will be my first ever blog from the dimly lit surroundings of my cold, cold spare room, where I find it too difficult to write anything, what with all the distractions I have littered about the place, and this computer is a big pile of tosh.

Dark times.

Mp3 David Bowie - Sorrow

Pol Pot & Khmer Rouge 1- Media/Ugly Betty 0

2007-01-24T10:12:00.000Z

Has Russell Brand been reading this blog? (Despite the obvious connection that Russell Brand and Miss Goody have the same agent, which somewhat confuses the issue, and the fact he uses the term 'silly' rather than 'fucking stupid' which as i think you'll agree is more apt given that she was well aware that there was some 5-8million viewers watching her...but anyway.)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/24012007/344/russell-brand-says-jade-silly.html

Have the Indian Government/Channel 4 been reading this blog?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/24012007/140/race-row-jade-s-plan-save-career.html

Word to the wise to Jade's Agent, would be not to visit India. Seriously, with the best intentions in the world she will at somepoint say something that will re-open the ‘racist debate/debacle’. I’ll give odds of 2:1 that she makes some remark about ‘it smelling like curry’ or something else equally as crass (or should I say 'silly'?)

Mp3Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy- Ain’t You Wealthy, Ain’t You Wise

In other exciting news: I forgot my glasses today and have noticed a stark contrast in the way I've been treated by colleagues and fellow commuters. Could it be that despite the years of progress, the wearing of glasses is still considered as something funny? C'mon surely those cliches don't exist anymore do they?

Consider this: As moderately enjoyable as 'Ugly Betty' is ,as far a high camp and sillyness before the last five minutes of American schmaltz that seems to be mandatory in any US comedy- she isn't really that ugly though is she? As quoted in the Simpsons : "I wanted TV ugly, not Ugly Ugly!"

America Ferrera (yes her real name is America!) who plays Ugly Betty seems to be some form of spokeswoman for the 'uglies' in US TV, and had already starred in the HBO show 'Real Women have Curves' where she tries "to balance her mother's traditional view of women with her own contemporary ideas while dealing with self-image issues and exploring a new romantic relationship" (The sound of puking and yawning at the same time). Also, international 'hottie' Salma Hayek (gratuitously pictured below) is the executive produer of the show- discrediting it somewhat. I'm sure she can relate and empathisie to the Betty's plight though can't you.

It's a bit like ole ''Plain Jane Superbrain' in Neighbours...put some glasses on her and some frumpy clothes and she's 'ugly' too (allegedly). Why is it most 'TV ugly' folks wear glasses? They're installing the thought to the Populus that if you're a 'specky' then you're ugly. Let's not forget how fickle Lousie Lane wouldn't look twice at Clark Kent, but got a wide-on every time Superman flew into the vicinity. "Down with their cynicism and cliches" I say. (Lazer Eye Sugery is the work of Satan etc etc)

(note/trivia: Jim Robinson is in Ugly Betty!!)

At least the former policies of crackpot dictator Pol Pot suggested that all glasses wearers were intellectuals, which is not funny especially considering his regime had anyone wearing glasses executed, (well it kind of is funny I suppose - his hired goons waiting with big sticks with nails through them outside Specs Savers) but he never denounced them as Ugly (Pol Pot & Khmer Rouge 1- Media/Ugly Betty 0)

I actually went to have my eyes tested this week, and Lord be Praised! my right eye has improved marginally! Woot! I don't know how this is possible, perhaps I've used that eye less? Perhaps I've got moderatly prettier?

Whilst at the Opticians I was toying with the idea of purchasing a new pair of glasses, I noticed that the models in Glasses Advertisements don't look like 'proper' glasses wearers? i.e. people who wear glasses. This is difficult for me to explain succinctly, but they almost look like generic photos of models that someone has drawn a pair of 'bins' on them. I'm guessing that these models are too vain to wear glasses (I repeat 'Down with their cynicism and cliches!') and perhaps it's the image of beautiful man/woman with a pair of Hugo Boss angular glasses on his/her face that just looks out of place. I'm not sure how this could be resolved. By me suggesting that 'ugly' people should model the new range of designer glasses is essentially admitting that glasses wearers are, for the most part; ugly. It's a mystery, shrouded in an enigma, shrouded in a mystery for sure. My solution would be to re-cast the role of Ugly Betty with Kathy Burke playing the role- similar to that of her character Linda La Hughes in the brilliant 'Gimme Gimme Gimme'. That'll learn em! (plus it will make the program infinately more viewable without having the sick bucket on hand)

Of course the way in which my colleagues are treating me could be down to the fact that I can't see them very clearly or that I in fact look worse without my glasses. On thing's for sure, there has been no presumptions that I am an expert on all IT matters and hence a little more time at work to concentrate on writing these 'ere blog rather than showing the same colleagues how to find their Word documents on their computer, how to change the toner and more annoyingly how to send an e-mail! (these are GENUINE requests I get on a daily basis, much to my discontent!)

MP3 The Annuals - Bleary Eyed

Bus hero no more (alas)

2007-01-23T14:26:00.000Z

"What do I know, whom am I?
My two left feet my big dumb face.
I'd so the same if I had the chance; cheat the system, rig the race."

I awoke this morning with the discomfort of being absolutely freezing and waking up alone. I decided the only course of action to prevent myself from catching hypothermia was to fully submerge me body under the two duvets that were doing an especially poor job of keeping me warm. Sadly, this prevented me from hearing my alarm, and after clambering out of the duvet to breathe I heard the usual inane and unfunny rumblings of Chris Moyles and I knew I'd be pushing it to make it to work on time. I eventually mustered the will to get up, and a scolding hot shower eventually defrosted me.

I dashed about the flat like a loon determined to arrive at the office before 9.30 and rushed out in to the beautifully sunny and crisp Tuesday morning. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Teenage Fanclub kept my spirits up until I encountered the depressingly familiar sight of the Office clad walking away from the train station. One of the more friendly commuter types informed me that once again the trains were cancelled.

I looked at it pragmatically, as my MP3 despite having it set on the usually unreliable 'Random' selection was spitting out some great tunes. I'll just catch the 60, and if I'm lucky I'll make it to work before 10am I reasoned.

I caught the next available bus and sat near the front so I could feed my curiosity and pleasure at watching the bus driver waving to the other bus drivers. For the first 5 or so minutes I was in heaven. The MP3 random selections included The Fall's 'Groovin' with Mr. Blow/Green Eyed Loco Man' -Peel Session (which I played twice), Lift to Experience's 'These are the Days' (I skipped the 3 minutes of noise at the end though), and The Broken Family Band's 'Behind the Church'. It was turning into a good morning despite all the obvious set backs.

It wasn't long into the journey when some Scally lads got on the bus. This of course didn't bother me (why would it?) but about a minute after they had boarded the bus, the foul stench of cigarettes wafted its way towards me. I subtly looked around and could see that the smoke was coming from their direction. I thought about confronting them. I really did. Sadly I figured that this could be an unwise move. Usually my travels on public transport increase my blood pressure massively, and I have in the past shouted at conductors, staff, drivers and other passengers. However, after another dose of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci I was feeling at peace.

I looked around on the bus and it was mostly women with young children and a few elderly ladies and gentlemen. They gave me a look of "...well aren't you going to say something?". Shit I felt awkward. I stopped the music in my ears, and prepared myself for the oncoming barrage of abuse I would no doubt be inflicted to. Then, as luck would have it, an American (or possibly Canadian) woman boarded the bus. After paying the driver, she took a few steps-clocked the Scals and stormed up to the driver.

"Why are you letting them smoke on the bus!!?" she demanded.

I could see the driver looking in his rearview mirror in their direction.

"Come on, no smoking on the bus please" he said timidly. No doubt the vast amount of times he's been spat at and physically abused by little fuckers like these had taught him to turn a blind eye. I immediately felt a wave of sympathy for the driver. The woman was made of sterner stuff however.

She barked at them:

"What's the point in me showering and putting on perfume if as soon as I get on the bus I stink like an ashtray!! I don't mind you smoking but please not on the bus, its not fair!"

This was very noble and brave, and had her American accent not sounded so whiney I would have given her a slow respectful clap.

The little fuckers reply was not what I'd come to expect.

"Were not smoking" was their pathetic response.

"I can see you, please, just have some consideration for the other passengers who don't want to stink of smoke"

She took her seat and looked at them with scorn.

Moments later the smoke had stopped.

'Shit' I thought; it worked! Why didn't I do that? I slumped back into my chair and put my MP3 back on. I had no right to refer to myself as a 'Bus Hero' as I had done since my altercation with a bus driver in town on the Friday before Christmas last. I was patted on the back by and applause from other commuters then. Granted I'd had a few pints in town prior to this, thus accelerating my bravery. I just won't tell any of the 50-60 people that I'd regaled that story to, about my recent act of cowardice.

Thank fuck my MP3 continued it's fine selections and I slowly began to cheer up.

I did, though see a rare treat in the 'bus drivers waving to each other' department. The driver, whilst maneuvering around the t Queen's Drive/Walton Church round-a-bout, proceed to flick the 'Vs' in a violent manner in the direction of another bus. I caught his face in the rear view mirror creased with juvenile pleasure.

BINGO! I thought.
I would have made it to work before 10am as I'd hoped, but chose to walk a longer way to listen to 'Blood of a Young Wolf' by Buck 65 a few more times with a sloppy grin on my face, eyes squinting from the bright sunshine. After all I’m sure they’ll be able to cope without me, after all the instructions about how to change the toner is etched onto the printer/fax and photocopier. I’m sure they’ll survive.

Oh, the Jade Goody debacle continues. Obviously humility isn't one of her strong points http://uk.news.yahoo.com/23012007/140/jade-goody-thugs-attacked-home.html

Buck 65- Blood of a Young Wolf
The Broken Family Band -Behind the Church
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci- This Summer's been good from the start
The Fall- Grooving with Mr. Blow/ Green Eyed Loco Man (Peel Sesh)
Lift to Experience- These Are the Days

Gee thanks gran!

2007-01-22T12:55:00.000Z

After the entire country was embroiled in the most overblown media panic in recent times (need I mention it?) I was most optimistic that the conversation on the topic would be forgotten. That is not to say the overarching topic of racism and bullying ought to be forgotten, however the trail of Jade Goody and Channel Four ought to be today’s fish n’ chip wrapping. Sadly, I awoke to the exclusive news on Sunday that Miss Goody’s own grandmother has gone on record (no doubt for a princely sum) to sate that her Granddaughter IS a racist and IS a bully (Gee thanks gran!) and awoke to further more excuse making and grovelling this morning.

As a person whom in the past has enjoyed the public executions of BB contestants as they leave the house to a barrage of hate and venom, I found the whole deal quite scary on Friday’s show. Millions watched it all shaking their fists at the telly hoping that the usual sunny Davina McCall would somehow have transmogrified into Jeremy Paxman and give Jade a firm telling off, pointing out her ills-which without actually slapping her across the face she did okay, just leaving Jade with enough rope to hang herself and had Channel 4 persuaded her to model her hair for that night on Adolf Hitler? Conversely, there was a large portion of the public, who believe that it’s political correctness gone mad (the usual signal that someone is infact a bit of a racist )

Anyway, instead of crawling under a rock to eat humble pie (which she ought to do to in order to give us a ‘effing break from her annoying face) she is now even more of a news story blubbering away on just about every TV station about her harsh upbringing being a young mother etc etc and admissions that she is a bully and she is a racist! I’m probably right in thinking there is some slimy money grabbing agent out there telling her to admit to everything, assuming the public will grant her forgiveness. I sincerely believe this will backfire massively as if she keeps harping on about how hard her life has been, and trying to excuse her way out of it- she’ll end up turning into Ron “I’m not a racist” Atkinson soon. No doubt a TV documentary where Jade visits India will be winging its way over to the TV in the not too distant future “Oh I ‘fought tha Taj Mahal was a take away hehehehe”.

Above all, for me the worst part of the whole incident is the fact that Jade’s mother Jackiey (sic) repeatedly referred to Shilpa as “The Indian” in the weeks proceeding the media furore, when it was widely reported about the plummeting viewing figures the ‘show’ was receiving. This, for the most part was widely ignored by our sensitive and wizened cultural commentators- though from the snippets I saw, it made me feel extremely ill at ease that no one pulled her up about this.

The worst part is that the Nation, who as you should remember were petrified about Muslim women wearing veils in the months leading up to Christmas in a display of massive racial intolerance, now suddenly turned into moral guardians; are once again glued to trials and tribulations of a collection of irksome fame seekers confined into a house with no stimulation. Kudos to the folks at channel 4 for doubling their viewers so quickly – but the very worst of it is the conversation at work continues to revolve around the bloomin’ program. I arrived at the office in a poor mood after suffering at the hands of the cunts at Merseyrail once again. After I had taken my seat and looked depressingly at my screen saver, I was given some un-requested information regarding the relationship between Teddy Sheringham and “the scouse-one” off of the aforementioned TV program. A colleague reliably informed me that he’d dumped her.

Thanks for letting me know that.

Really though, who cares? What a start to the morning. What a start to the week.

Anyway, as the public get their pitchforks at the ready for another public lynching of the other two racist instigators to leave the BB house (whom have both obviously been made aware of the situation and decided to blame Jade for their actions) sit waiting for the inevitable public vote laughing themselves silly watching Borat, 24 and The Simpsons.

Dinosaur Jr - Repulsion
Spearhead – Television The Drug of a Nation
The Ramones-The KKK Took My Baby Away

Give me hope Joanna

2007-01-16T15:51:00.000Z

I had only my second "one to one" in three years with one of the many managers whom grace my hallowed work place.
I lied through what's left of my teeth on my "progress" "ambitions" and on how much work I have to do. I felt no remorse for the blatant porkies I told.

As mentioned yesterday, I went to see Joanna Newsom last night accompanied gracefully by the sublime Northern Symphonia- a 24 piece orchestra. Suffice to say I was humbled and inspired to witness it. The venue, Manchester's Bridgewater hall, certainly played a significant part and aided the experience. During the coda of 'Sawdust & Diamonds' my arms resembled a kiwi fruit, and despite the warmth of the theatre, I could prevent myself from shivering.

Awesome (in the truest sense- not Bill& Ted/Frat boy overkill sense)

I've tried to find some footage of last night's gig, but the best I could come up with was footage of her from the night before in Glasgow, though rather dissapointingly it doesn't show her performing with the orchestra (note- she did comment that she was quite tense the night before and although it was good she was enjoying/enjoyed last night so much more...bless). I tried up in the nose bleed section to record some footage but gave up after a few seconds as I knew it was futile- but have attached it none the less.

A Tree Surgeon called Ashley

2007-01-15T14:34:00.000Z

My most recent and enlightening career's advice came in the form of Michael J. Fox this weekend in his 80's aspirational film 'The Secret of My Success'. I'm all ready fixed in the lowly position within the hierarchy, all I need to do now is find an empty office and proceed to make bold and enigmatic decisions bowling over the upper echelons of management with my charm, wit and boyish good looks.

Funny ole film though. As likeable as Mr. Fox is, you can't help but shudder at the ideals of his dreams of wealth and decadence, and having successfully ousted his evil "coat tail" relative as the director of a major company, his first idea is to use the company jet to fly out to Kansas to show his girlfriend off to them. Surely this is a blatant mis use of his shareholder's money and should be in-dighted at the earliest opportunity and removed so ironically from his new acquired office. It also teaches us that without any experience at all, someone can get a job (providing a relative runs that company) and lie and blag your way up the ladder of achievement -providing you manage to be successfully seduced by your relative's wife. It gives hope to us all, it really does. Aside from, what now appear to be very dated aspirations of career success it was good to watch though.

I recall watching it in my teens and remembering a conversation which takes place in the early scenes of the film, something which I remembered throughout my early post-university days.

Whilst in a job interview:

Interviewer:"I'm sorry, we're looking for someone with some experience"
Brantley Foster: "I've got experience- I've got college experience!"
Interviewer: " Yes, but we're looking for someone with practical, real world experience. If you'd joined us as a junior when you left High School, you'd have the right amount of experience by now."
Brantley Foster: " So why did I go to College for?"
Interviewer: "You had fun didn't you?"

Knowing this, I ensured that I did have fun whilst at Uni- and for the most part I did. Sadly after proudly graduating from university my first job was working as a gardener for the local council. Okay, the term 'gardener' may be pushing my job description somewhat, but I didn't think the term 'Weed remover' would have looked so good on my C.V. Oddly enough this was without question the greatest job I have ever had. I loved every minute of it. The fresh air, summer time in the valley gardens and being at one with nature was sheer bliss. So much so, old folks used to walk up behind me as I was trimming the edges of the lawns and say "you must really love your job". This made me appreciate it more so. I also got to meet Johnny Ball, who actually told me to "clear off for a minute" whilst he demonstrated some fancy pants invention that assisted bin men in their carrying of wheelie bins up stairs-conjured up by some geeky looking local school kid. When I was told to clear off, it was said in a jocular manner, rather than a vicious manner which in writing it may appear. Though when I did decide (for those three months) that I wished to pursue a career in the arts, it was disconcerting to read on every advertisement "Minimum of Two Year Experience required".

I often think back to that job in the sweet summer of 99 with rose tinted specs, and recall how I would joyfully remove the contents from the dog shit bins, whilst dressed in my scruffiest attire; so we resembled members of some Southern American chain gang, how my supervisor called me Max by mistake for four weeks and I spent three days weeding a round-a-bout in on Leeds Road. I also was befriended by an odd fellow who was the new Tree Surgeon called Ashley (or as male Ashley's for some reason prefer: 'Ash'), who at weekends would find a forest and just climb and sit in a tree- at one with nature. He also told me how he goes out on his own on a weekend and that he see's no shame in procuring prostitute when he felt the need was required. Despite the picture I'm painting of him, he was a top fellow and when he was told (by way of punishment for his cheeky nature) to spend the day with me pruning a rather large thorn bush by Harrogate College, we spent most of the day chatting about films and music. I think I left an impression with him too: as we started work at 7am, we used to have a break at 9am where everyone would whip out their Thermos flasks and read their copies of the Daily Star/Sun etc (there was always someone who thought they were above reading the 'red tops' and because they had a NVQ in badger burning or something, they'd read the Express.) Anyhoo, I used to bring some cereal in a tupaware along with small bottle of milk, have my breakfast then. To my amazement, everyone there was shocked by this innovation of packed-breakfast. It was prbably akin to when the Earl of Sandwich brought out of his picnic hamper, a Sun Blessed bread bag containing some soggy cheese and marmite butties. Ash was genuinely stunned. He said that he'd being trying to figure a way of preserving breakfast for years. He said he'd tried toast, cold bacon, sausages, porroge in his thermos etc. I didn't know what to say really. I got the idea when I worked in a Mattress Factory, where the hours where the same, and everyone did it there. But seriously, and alarmingly Ash and the other gardeners were amazed. During my short time there, I saw this innovative method catch on and I felt something of a pioneer. I often think that they ought to have a statue of me eating some Weetabix from tupaware in my honour.

It wasn't all a laugh a minute though, there was a tragic story I learned about whist working there. Every morning for the previous 5 years, the Council workers/Gardeners etc removed from the same bin, a carrier bag full of sick. I too had to remove it and can testify to this- in fact I saw a younger colleague who was unfortunate enough to resemble footballer Peter Beardsley lifting this carrier bag and it bursting on him. At the time, witnessing this was one of the funniest things I've ever seen, but the origins of this vomit appear to be quite tragic. For years, the carrier bags where surrounded by those giant Diary Milk wrappers, but as time went on, the Dairy Milk wrappers became Morrison's own branded milk chocolate, but more recently, they were accompanied by bun cases. The general opinion was that some wretched soul would gorge themselves on chocolate then regurgitate it into a plastic bag, tie a knot in it and leave it in the bin. Clearly judging from the decline in quality of the food substances, money was running out to fuel this obsession and in desperation would bake his/her own cakes to gorge on. Harrogate Council (so I was told) was spending thousands of pounds to install CCTV cameras to catch this culprit. Perhaps ole Michael J. Fox could make a movie about this? Perhaps he could use his patented charm, wit and boyish good looks to get himself promoted from round-a-bout weeding duties to become the mayor? Certainly the supervisor who called me Max, was very much of the same kind of "I'll be watching you, you snot nosed punk" types, that makes films like that so much more enjoyable.

Off to see the delectable and fascinating Joanne Newsome tonight, jealous? You ought to be.

Dinosaur Jr. - Pebbles + Weeds
All Smiles - Pile of Burning Leaves
Mudhoney -Touch Me I'm Sick

beeping slag

2007-01-12T11:41:00.000Z

This footage was discovered on my mobile last whilst I was bored waiting for our flight from Prague last week. It was a pleasant discovery indeed. I don’t remember recording it, but it has proved most insightful about what happened that night and why I felt so rough on Christmas Day. Granted, I’d only had 4 hours cat disturbed sleep on my brother’s living room floor in my beeping slag* (thanks again bro) after a long night of ales (including Oyster Stout) and waking up with a pizza in my pocket etc..

The footage is a little grainy and it is quite hard to make out what’s going on, but it appears Dom’s heavily tattooed ‘girlfriend’ (please note my use of irksomely ironic quotation marks used to highlight the fact he didn’t consider her to be). Anyway, this is footage of her trying to audition as a lap dancer- and as Lisa astutely observed “she’s not very good is she?”. I recall vaguely that she asked us all if we’d want her to perform a lap dance for us- most of us politely decline, however there was one amongst us who was asleep and therefore it seemed an appropriate way to wake him.

Unless something goes tits up next Christmas, I won’t be in Harrogate and will miss the annual ritualistic Christmas piss up and Chico’s Pizza. I shall miss it and is usually the highlight of the whole Christmas weekend. The best ever Christmas Eve involved me being carried out a pub by a bouncer holding my throat, Luke falling down a hill with his hands in his pockets and helping a guy start his car- giving us a lift then realising as he was swerving across the traffic that he was drunk and that the car was stolen. The year before that on Christmas Eve Eve (23rd) I puked on myself in Harrrogate’s reprehensibly bad night club Jimmy’s decided to stay and dance it off (a sure sign that I wasn’t at my best) then, unable to walk –collapsed in a gutter on King’s Road leaving friends incoherent phone messages on their answer phones- all of which were played back to me the next day.
Falling flat on my face but managing not to drop my pizza a few years back with my brother was another highlight.

Anyhoo- every now and then Pitchfork bring us news that is actually of interest rather than some tit bits and gossip about some band I’ve never heard of, and in all probability won’t like- instead they bring news of a new Smog…sorry Bill Callahan record!

There isn’t too many artists/musicians that I wait with genuine anticipation for, but Mr. Callahan is certainly top of that pile. His last outing ‘A River ain’t Too Much too Love’ was easily my favourite record of 2005 and ‘Supper’ was my favourite record of 2003 (see ‘Feather by Feather’ MP3 below) anyway as if this news wasn’t enough to wet ones appetite, SFA front man Gruff Rhys is going to be performing at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall to promote his new LP ‘Candilion’.
Should you never have been lucky enough to have stepped foot in this hallowed venue – it is really special-. We’ve seen, Gorky’s, Yo La Tengo, and Lambchop (including their amazing ‘Sunrise’ performance.

Judging from the other venues on his tour, he; or the people representing him, must be fairly confident of good turn out especially as the other city’s venues are so small we’ve played most of them!

Reasons to be cheerful indeed!

Gruff Rhys- Gwn Mi Wn

Smog - Feather by Feather

*"Beeping Slag" Copyright McParty 2005