Abbey Road Misleading Crossing

The Abbey Road crossing on The Beatles 1969 album has recently been made a grade two listed. “It means that its secure for a whole new generation of Beatles fans,” a BBC news reporter on London Tonight said last week. “People from all over the world come here just so they can have their picture taken on the famous crossing,” he went on to say as it cut to tourists walking on the crossing.
Then at t the end of the report he slips in he that its not the original crossing as the crossing made famous on the album cover was further down the road but no longer exists. Hold on a minute. So its not the crossing on the album cover at all, its just the nearest one to it. So why has it been made listed? Surely the original crossing should have been made listed before it was taken away. Its not the real one but sshhh don’t tell the tourists.
Marc Boland fans put flowers by the tree that his car crashed into and killed him. If that tree got cut down you can’t just put flowers up against the nearest tree to where the tree was. Well you could but that would be a bit of a dumb thing to do. But then again putting flowers by the tree is a bit dumb or a bit weird anyway. If you were a relative or good friend of Marc Boland’s then laying down a bunch of flowers on the anniversary of his death is understandable but not if you’re a fan of him. Especially as he died over thirty years ago. But then some fans are like this, I saw a documentary on Buddy Holly were every year fans of his would stand out in a freezing cold field in Iowa and pay their respects to him. Pointless.
If you’re passing a place where something is relevant to a musician you like then that’s fair enough, but I don’t think that going out of your way to stand in a field where a plane crashed is.
Going back to Abbey Road- I’ve just read a book on The Band and a lot of the book revolves around the time that they lived in a pink house in Woodstock New York. Bob Dylan used to come around and they would knock out a few tunes in the basement. The Bands first record was called Music From Big Pink ,and if I was passing through Woodstock I’m sure that I’d take a look at the house and its surroundings. But if it had been knocked down I wouldn’t get my camera out take a picture of a nearby house and show people and say, “Look this picture its the house just up the road from the pink house where The Band used to live.”

Post-Pub Wii

I’ve always loved playing video games. I’m not a hardcore gamer who reads gaming magazines and who must have the new Call Of Duty game as soon as its released. I would rather buy it second hand a few months later. And I don’t have to have the latest games console that comes out, so I don’t have defunct consoles like the Game Cube and the Dreamcast laying about collecting dust.
The first games system I had was the Commodore 64 which at the time I thought was truly amazing. Now I have an Xbox 360 and I do believe that its truly amazing. Maybe in twenty years I will think of the Xbox 360 in the same way that I now think of the Commodore 64.
I’m guessing that the next step with gaming is 3D. This might make games consoles like Nintendo’s Wii slightly more interesting to me. But not that much more as I have no interest in the Wii. I’ve played it post-pub around a mates house a couple of times and the novelty rapidly ran thin.
“Come on its your turn to bowl.”
“Alight, how do I do it?”
“Its easy you just have to swing your hand back and up again.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah that’s it.”
Its so easy to play and that is why I don’t like it. That and the awful early nineties Lego type character graphics. The Wii advert on the TV at the moment is an old lady playing it as its aimed at people who don’t usually play video games.
Nintendo have this market sussed. I would never have imagined that I would buy a video game for my mum but the last two Christmases I’ve bought her a Nintendo DS game. Its good as I usually struggle to think what to get her (and everybody else) for Christmas.
The Nintendo Wii is good for social gaming, its just that I prefer to sit in on my own with the curtains drawn as I lose track of time trying to get past a certain point of a game.

Tuition Fees (another 2p worth opinion on the matter)

I really don’t know where I stand on these student protests that are going on. Should further education be free? Yes, no, in a way, well when you put it like that, yes, but saying that., no.
About five years after I left school it seemed like all of a sudden everybody was going to university. I’ve met some people who are at or who went to university who seem as plain dumb. Does that me and most people I went to school with were dumber? No, because only the really academic went to university.
Or maybe since the prominence of the internet more people are gaining the good A level results to get into university. Copy and paste from Wikipedia and then alter it a bit to make it look like their your own work. Or maybe I’m being over cynical. Or maybe I could have gone to university if Wikipedia was about then. Or maybe if I did any homework and studied at all.
Anyway, the students don’t have to pay the money back until they leave university and get a job. So what are they moaning about. Then again nine thousand pounds a year does seem excessive.
I’m all in favour of a protest and making a stand. But what’s the point in smashing windows and spray painting a Winston Churchill statue.
Are the police heavy handed? They have a history of it from the poll tax protests and miner strikes. But I can’t stand them protesters that shout right up in the faces of the police, spit at them, throw missiles and then scream police brutality when they get a slap back. But as long as they don't slap them as hard as they did in China.

The Heating

"Send in your pictures of the snow to our email address,” the BBC news presenter said., for a pointless edition to their website. That was when the snow first hit. The newsreaders aren’t so perky about the snow now that its been here for over a week and flights, roads, and rail have all been heavily disrupted.

At this time of year I prefer crisp cold whether and snow than mild grey skies that always threaten to drizzle. That is until it puts my travel arrangements in jeopardy.
For me the worst thing about winter is the gas bill. But not anymore as the gas bill is inclusive in the rent. The only drawback with that is that I have no control over the heating as the landlord has set the timer and the boiler door is locked. The heating comes on at five which is understandable because the other people in the flats get home about six. But I get home in the afternoon and yesterday I had the day off. I could see my own breath as I lay on the sofa covered under blankets.

But I would still rather that than have to pay my own heating bill. In a previous place I lived my flatmate would leave the heating on full blast all the time. I would wake up in the morning in a sweat as the heating had been left on all night. Then he wondered why our gas bill clocked in at £265.
It was much better with the previous flatmate when we used to play a game called first one to turn the heating on is a pussy.

That Awful Song (fuck off James Blunt)

I don’t think that I would recognise any other James Blunt song apart from ‘Your Beautiful.’ I intend to keep it that way. I noticed that he was on Never Mind The Buzzcocks the other week so I took it that he has a new album out just in time for Christmas. I checked, he does. Who buys this mawkish shit? People who like James Morrison and think that Coldplay are edgy and want to get the new Rod Stewart American Songbook record (just in time) for Christmas. But at least James Blunts new record seems to have slipped under the radar. Not like in 2005 with that awful song Your Beautiful.
I fell out with a girl over that song. She was playing it on her phone. She’d recorded it onto her phone by holding it up against the TV speaker and pressing sound record. She had a load of recordings like this. I was bemused.
So I say to her, “Could you please not play that terrible song.”
“What do you mean terrible? If its so terrible then why has it sold so many records?” she says.
“Just because its sold loads doesn’t mean that it isn’t terrible.”
“I don’t think that you should criticise him until you’ve anywhere near as much money as he has. Which you never will.”
That comment really annoyed me. “Look, every time that I hear that shitty song from James fucking Blunt I want to punch him in thee face and keep on punching and punching,” I said as I smacked my right fist into my left palm.
“You couldn’t beat up James Blunt, He was in the army you know.” She then starts singing allow with the chorus.
“So what,? So is prince Harry and I’m sure that I could beat him in a fight.”
She dismissively tutted at me and said, “Prince Harry would beat you in a fight. He plays Rugby.”
“So, so fucking what if he plays a little bit of Rugby?” I was getting angry with her. She started to sing again.
“Look,” I say trying to compose myself, “whether I can or can not beat up James Blunt or Prince Harry is not the issue. That issue is that that song is shit.”
It ended there. I don’t see the girl around anymore and my feeling on that god damn has not mellowed.

Sport At School

The education secretary Michael Grove has said that £162m will no longer be set aside for the national PE scheme. The money that was for sport will now be spent as the headmasters see fit to.
Many people may think that its right that the headmasters should spend their budget how they please. Maybe so. But I think most headmasters will drastically cut their sports funding.
Well so it should be, right? I mean maths, English, biology, chemistry, physics, geography and history are much more important. Those are the subjects that are going to get you on in life aren’t they? Well for most people yes, but sport is good for all kids. To boil it down, sport keeps them fit. And for those who really like it and take it seriously it can keep them out of trouble.
Michael Grove’s proposal doesn’t surprise me as the last time the Tories were in power they didn’t care about sport and sold off as many sports fields as they could.

When I was at school in the 80s and early 90s I wish there was a certain amount of the money that our headmaster had to allocate to sport. Especially my secondary school as the sporting facilities were between nonexistent and pathetic.
There was no sports field so most of the our outside PE lessons took place in the school playground. That or we got on the school bus to the sports field or athletics track. This wasn’t so bad as it was only a few minutes away, but swimming lessons were a complete farce. A forty minute round trip to the pool, plus changing time left us with enough time in the water to do three or four lengths.
I appreciate that most comprehensive schools don’t have a sports field or swimming pool but some new tennis rackets and cricket bats wouldn’t have gone amiss. Our school football kit was tatty early 70s style kit that was used by all years. It was an embarrassment to play in.
My school wasn’t run down and in desperate need of funding, it was just that sport was low down on the headmasters priority.

Due to a spree of injuries and a girl getting a football in the face for about a week he banned us from playing football in the playground. Football in the playground was one of the few things I liked about going to school. There was always about four games going on at once, and when in position of the ball you had to try and remember who was on your team and had to dribble past people who were involved in another game. Instead of a Monday night bore of a game on Sky between two teams that are quite happy to settle for a nil nil draw I would rather see four professional teams play playground style.

Sunday Truckin'

Last Sunday I went to see the Drive-By Truckers at the Shepherds Bush Empire. The Drive-By Truckers are one of my favourite bands. I’ve got every album of theirs, even a bootleg called Christmas At Cooley’s House which is a recording of them getting pissed and playing acoustic versions of their songs. I’ve seen them numerous times, including when I was passing through Chicago and had to pay a ticket tout way over the odds to get in.
On the way to the gig I wasn’t looking forward to it as much as other Drive-By Truckers gigs. Maybe because it was on a Sunday. I think it would be so much better if Sunday gigs began late afternoon as things start earlier and end earlier on a Sunday. On Sundays you eat the main meal of the day earlier, go to the pub for a few pints in the afternoon, then early evening go back home and sit in front of the TV trying not to think about getting up early for work in the morning. Well for most people of my age anyway (which is the demographic of the Drive-By Truckers fan base).

When I got there, went to the bar and had to fork out just over four quid for a beer that wasn’t even pint size I would’ve rather stayed at home, that is up until the band came onstage and banged out the opening chords to the song Uncle Frank.

The Drive-By Truckers are always good value for money, but it wasn’t one of the best gigs of theirs I’ve been to. Nothing to do with the band but I preferred it when I saw them at smaller venues like the Highbury Garage, The Carling Academy and Dingwals. Surely everyone would rather see a band in a small venue. Medium sized venues like the Sheppard’s Bush Empire and The Roundhouse are okay but I don’t think I’ll watch a gig in bigger places than that anymore.
One thing for sure is that I will never make the mistake of seeing a gig at either the Wembley or Docklands Arena again. Just awful.
The bigger the band the more money you pay to get a worst view and sound. Give me The Luminaire in Kilburn or The Borderline in Charing Cross anytime.

The Beatles On ITunes

So the Beatles are finally on iTunes. And on the first day of release they own 15% of the top 200 downloaded songs.
People must have been really waiting for this day. Why? Its not like its hard to get hold of The Beatles songs is it. If they are fans of The Beatles then surely most have them must have their music on CD anyway? Just import it to your iTunes library.
Or do they like to buy the same product on a different format? Maybe some of them even bought The Beatles back catalogue on Mini-disc.


Downloaded 3mps won’t last forever. What when the computer dies? Even if its backed up on an external hard rive, that could die one day. Or sometime in the future become redundant to some new format. That might seem hard to believe right now but twenty years ago who would’ve thought that something called an Mp3s would be the way most people listen to music.
There are other ways to loose Mp3s. Earlier this year I was trying to free up some space on my hard drive and I accidentally went a bit too far when I clicked the wrong button and lost a load of Mp3 files that I didn’t have backed up. To get most of these songs back I had to go to my folks place and go through my CDs stored in the garage and spent the whole afternoon importing them back on to my laptop.
Some of the lost files I had downloaded from iTunes but instead of buying them again I downloaded them illegally. I’ve bought it once so I don’t think that I should by it again.
When I was a teenager most of the music I bought was on tape and recently I’ve illegally downloaded some of those albums. Like Troublegum by Therapy and Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins. (I’ve yet to download the Ugly Kid Joe record and never will)

When CDs took over in the a the 80s people bought records that they already owned., and since then record companies have been trying to flog people the same product by bringing out remastered editions, which means the volume is a touch louder than on the original CD and deluxe editions which means there’s a few extra outtake songs that were never intended to be on the record in the first place.

Living In The Past To Make Money

The radio stations usually on at work are Magic FM or Absolute Radio. On the odd occasion XFM. I don’t care for these stations (XFM was a great station in its formative years up until Capital Radio bought it and turned it into play listed landfill indie) but at work whatever is on is just background noise.
The last couple of week its mainly been the Christian O’Donnell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio, and they’ve had this feature about football players. Because of the general noise in the office I haven’t quite grabbed what its about but what I do know is that interviews with footballers are boring.
Players today’s are boring enough with their generic post-match clichés but players from the past are usually worse.
Martin Peters droned on to Christian O’Donnell about playing in the 1966 word cup. He was on autopilot as he’s no doubt repeated the same story time and time again. Geoff Hurst was on too and he droned on about the hat-trick he scored. He still protests that his second goal was over the line even though it blatantly wasn’t.
Geoff Hurst makes a living out of the hat-trick he scored and I don’t blame him. Footballers didn’t earn a huge amount back then (and they will make a point of telling people this and then protest that they‘re not at all bitter) and most of the 66 team have sold their winners medal. The other week Nobby Stiles sold his for £188200, good luck to him, your average Manchester City player earns that in a week.

But surely Peters and Hurst must be sick and tired of talking about something that they did in their twenty’s. It takes living in the past to a new level.
But it’s a living.

Today’s crap story from the metro

The free paper called the Metro that you can pick up from tube stations hardly contains the most in depth reporting. Its basically a paper of headlines with news snippets. And the sports reporting is just plain awful.
But there always seems to be a story that leaves me somewhat confused.
Today’s is about a woman with a rare condition that makes her vomit whenever she gets exited called cyclical vomiting syndrome. She says, “As much as I try not to think about exiting things, I can’t stop them happening.
She spent most of a holiday in Las Vegas being sick. (So she must have been on a good winning streak, so it couldn’t have been all bad).
Her husband surprised her with a break to Paris. Where she was sick 144 times in 24 hours.
144 times in 24 hours, that’s every ten minutes. That’s a lot of excitement. Surely after having your head down the toilet throwing up bile and stomach lining the excitement would wear a bit thin. And 144 is a specific number. Why was she counting?
Also why is her husband surprising her with a trip to Paris? To limit the excitement which leads to constant vomiting surely he should’ve eased her into it by suggesting the idea first.
I hope this condition developed after they got married as throwing up while walking down the aisle wouldn’t have been a pretty sight.
‘I pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss the bride.‘
‘Thanks vicar but I think I’ll wait until she’s brushed her teeth.‘
As for their sex life…
See I don’t think its fair that this poor woman suffers with this condition when it could be put to good use with some overly annoyingly excitable people. I’m thinking Jedward.

Fifa 11

Fifa 11 come out at the beginning of October and I had the following week off work. Which meant that all of the plans I had for the week went out the window. Be more productive than I usually am when off work, do some stuff I’ve been putting off, sort some stuff out, go out and see some stuff was the original plan. But the simple equation was week off work + new Xbox game = not getting a lot of shit done. My week went something like this. Wake up, TV, breakfast, look for something to watch on the internet, lunch, Fifa 11, dinner, pub. It was a good week off work.
A month later and I’m still playing it. Obviously not as vigorously but an hour here and there.
I’m playing in the virtual pro mode which means that you create a player. His position on the pitch, height, weight, facial features, hair. And you only control him on the pitch and over matches played you improve his ability. It might sound boring but its addictive.
My player looks as close as I can get him to me. Face, hair and the same height and weight. And the players name is the same as mine but with a Russian kind of flavour added. At times when I get drawn in I really do believe that the player I’m controlling is myself. Living out a football fantasy of curing in a 25 yard winner in the last minute.
I go through periods of playing video games every day. It engrosses me. Even when I’m not actually playing I can be in bed trying to get to sleep but running through my mind I’m planning out a strategy to use to get me past the bit in the game I’m stuck on. Run for cover, tack out the sniper in the window, throw a grenade down the alley way and take out the two of them as they run from the explosion, climb up the ladder to the roof, switch to the sniper riffle and take out all the hostiles approaching, then switch to the rocket launcher and bring down the chopper.
Then I can go weeks and weeks without switching the games console on. But I think I will never not play them completely, even when I’m an old man. In-fact when I’m retired I can spend every day like my week off work.

The Customer Is Not Always Right

Been watching a lot of food programmes lately. Each weekday at five is Come Dine With Me. Everyone who watches it knows that the food is secondary, no one watches it with the intention of getting a good recipe. The bigger the culinary disaster the better.
Then at half five its Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals. I know that Jamie Oliver can be a bit of a dick but I do like his cooking as its good hardy meals that are free from pretension. What I’ve learnt from watching it is that I need to get a food processor.
Then there’s Gordon Ramsay’s best restaurant. Its been the same every week. Two restaurants who both cook a certain type of food compete to go into the next round. These restaurants have been voted the best in the country, so there’s a lot less of Ramsay’s swearing rants that have turned into a parody.

But he still hovers around the kitchen telling them where they’re going wrong.
Then they’re tested unknowingly and filmed by restaurant critic types who deserve a punch in the face. In the Thai restaurant the waiter said that he’ll have to call the police if the bottle of wine wasn’t paid for. The waiter explained before hand that if the bottle is opened he will have to pay for it. Gordon Ramsay was astonished with the waiter. I’m on the waiters side. Why don’t you order a bottle that you know you will like? Are you going to get them to open bottles of wine until there’s one that you find suitable? Go wine tasting in a vineyard, not in a restaurant you fool.
On Tuesdays episode food was ordered then ten minutes later the undercover critic wanted to change the order. That’s why there’s a menu. You look at it, pick what you want and then order. That’s how it works. Its like they’ve never been to a restaurant before. They must’ve had so must gob in their food. If I was the chef I know I would've given them a ‘special ingredient.’

A trailer for the next round showed Gordon Ramsay in a helicopter. Why, we weren’t told. Maybe the chef has to come up with a dish using five ingredients while skydiving or something.

Chile Rocks

Don’t know why this miner was so happy, what with all his cheerleading and playing to cameras as he was one of the first to get evicted from the Chilean version of Big Brother. I prefer the Chilean version. Its so much more extreme. But the contestants still crave celebrity. I mean look at them now all walking around in sunglasses like rock stars.

I shall stop being facetious for a moment. It’s a truly great story. A rare feel good news story that captured the world. And it was interesting because you could watch the rescue happen as it was happening. Perfect for 24hr news channels who usually struggle to fill time.
One thing for sure is that the Chilean president Sebastian Pinera is loving it. Its a vote winner wrapped up in national pride. Until this accident I had no idea who the president of Chile was or what he looked like. Not many people outside Chile did. Why would you? Now his face is in ever paper in the world.

So well done in the rescue, but in truth it was an awful mining exertion. After 69 days down there they never came back with one piece of copper.

Passing Trade

When I walk down the high road where the main shops are in the east London suburb where I live. I have often thought: ‘How the hell do these shops make any money? Maybe there’re a front for something.’
Well since the recession a lot of the shops have closed down, especially at the end of the high road. They’ve been boarded up for a while now and a doubt if even a charity shop would open up there.
There’s a few shops that are hanging in. A shop that sells art work, a women’s clothes shop and a shop that sells modern design lamps and tables and stuff like that for the home. But if you want a paint brush or hoover bags then forget it. You have to go to a big DIY store for that.
Its become a one dimensional high road that’s all about eating and drinking. There’s supermarkets, takeaways, restaurants, cafes and pubs in abundance.

The high road where I work still has a healthy mix of shops, and they all seem to be doing good business. All apart from any shop in the arcade. The only constant shops in there are a café and a beauty parlour for dogs. The rest are a constant turn over. Traditional sweet shop, six months, clothes shop, six months, fancy dress shop, six months, shoe shop, six months, physic reading place, six months. She should’ve predicted that that wouldn’t last long.
What do they expect when there’s no passing trade.

Are great place for passing trade are shops in airports. Well its not really passing trade its more like: I’m stuck here with nothing but these shops until I can board my flight and I need to get rid of this foreign money trade.
But in all the times that I’ve been to an airport I’ve never seen anyone buy a pen from the pen shop. Never. How does this shop survive? It’s a pen, so what if it looks nice and expensive, it’s a pen and it writes. I’ve never received a birthday card and thought, ‘That looks as if it was written with a nice pen.’

The Second/Third Cheapest

Yet another series of MasterChef is starting again tonight. If I come across a cookery programme while in front of the telly then I will usually give it a bit of a watch, but I get annoyed with the way the medicine ball headed one on MasterChief tastes the food. He takes his fork to the plate, scoops up the food and then ever so slowly moves the fork to his mouth. When the fork is almost there he leans his big head slowly towards the fork then puts the fork in his mouth and holds it there for two or three seconds. This dramatised way of tasting food just grinds at me.
Also I usually find the food a bit too poncy. Poncy food in poncy restaurants doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve been to a couple and sure the food was good but about on par as the restaurant I went to a couple of weeks before where the main course cost as much as the fifteen percent tip that I left at the poncy restaurant.

When I was at this restaurant I ordered the second cheapest bottle of white wine. I would’ve ordered the cheapest but the girl I was with suggested the second cheapest and I didn’t want to look cheep. There was a bottle on the wine list for a grand. I found this obscene. The only reason someone would order that bottle is to show off that they can afford to blow money on a bottle of wine that costs as much as an round the world plane ticket. Is the taste in the twenty pound bottle and the thousand pound bottle really worth that greater margin in price range?
In my experience with wine there’s the dirt cheep wine from the off-licence that’s so foul you need a mixer with it. Then the second cheapest wine which is usually fine, and then the rest which all tastes a little better than the second cheapest. My experience with whiskey is the same. But to me the most over rated drink is champagne. It’s glorified cheep fizzy wine. Rather have a beer anytime.

Popemania

So the Pope has ended his tour of the UK 2010 by playing Hyde Park and is now back in the confines of The Vatican City.
His visit was building up in the news for weeks, and when he finally came it was all so overblown. I doubt if all that pomp and ceremony would endear anyone to become a catholic. And all that riding around in the popemobile waving like the queen.
The truth is that he’s not some holy divine god like supreme being. No, he’s just some old German man who wears a dress and a stupid hat who bangs on about the dangers of an increasingly secular society and how condoms will not help prevent the spread of aids.
Will his visit have a lasting impression and put more bums on pews on a Sunday morning? I doubt it.
Phoney popemania has bitten the dust.

Birthday Grime

I’m rapidly approaching my 34th birthday. Since being in my thirties I don’t think too much about upcoming birthdays. I used to. When I was in high school I never cared for the month of September. Back to school, the nights drawing in and my birthday just around the corner. Which meant a year closer to being an adult. Being an adult meant acting responsible, and acting responsible didn’t seem too much fun at all.

As a kid I can’t recall ever having any type of party for my birthday. On my 18th I remember going to a grimmy pub in Leytonstone with three mates where the barman made any drink that they told him to give me. I think that the tipping point was a pint of Guinness mixed with Gold Label. Gold label makes Super Tennants seem like a nice cold Red Stripe on a hot summer evening at the end of the working week.
I have no recollection of any other birthdays. Even last years.

But I’ve never been one to celebrate it. Usually I have to be dragged out for a few beers. Only this year it falls on a Saturday. Which means I have to go out anyway as its kind of the Saturday night law. And I guess that people will ask me what I want to do. Well I don’t want to go to the west end or on a pub crawl around Shoreditch or Camden. No I want to go to my local grimmy pub. The pub that gets filled out when a big football match is on but is then almost empty as soon as the final whistle goes because most people don’t want to stay there any longer than need be. But I genuinely like it there. If you want to pull then its no place to go as its not the sort of place that any right minded girl would drink. If you want to eat then its not the place to go. Apparently they do food, I’ve seen a menu on the wall. But the only food I’ve ever seen anyone eat there is bar snacks. If you want a good beer selection then its not the place to be. There’s no strawberry flavoured shit on tap. The toilet floor is never dry and it stinks awful. But it’s a cheep local working class pub with no pretensions and every suburb and town needs a place like that.

34, officially mid thirties, oh well at least if I make it to the beginning of next month then I outlived Jesus.

The Outdoor Type

The last time I went to the Reading Festival I bought a day ticket. For some reason me and a couple of mates got up at five thirty in the morning to catch a train there. Only to realise that it was Sunday service and so we had to wait just under an hour until the first tube. Once on the train from Paddington to Reading the drinking began, and by late morning I was already feeling quite drunk. Twelve hours later I was on my own walking around as it began to rain looking for the area where some mates who camped the weekend were. I walked through tents after tents trying to find them until in my drunken haze I fell thigh deep into the river. The river that is full of piss and what else I don’t know. Then instead of walking all the way to a bridge over the river I straddled action man style across a barrier. In the process of doing this I cut up the palms of my hands. By the time I got to the area where they were camped I was soaked through from the river and the rain with blood smeared on my hands.
On the train home in the morning I smelt worse after the one day than people who had camped there for four days.

It’s the Reading festival this weekend. I’ve just seen some of it on the TV and it’s a quagmire. Even if all the great dead rock stars came back from the grave and formed the most super of super groups I’d be apprehensive about getting a ticket. If the weather was guaranteed to be good then I’d consider going, but this is England not California.
Even if the weather was nice and sunny the whole time I’d still be apprehensive to camp for four days. I’ve only been camping a few times (I take it that sleeping in a tent in the back garden as a kid doesn’t count), and I have no intention of ever camping again. Maybe for one night in the summer if the weather is nice, but I’m just not really the outdoor type. I prefer concrete under my feet.

Brand Not A Band

I will watch any music documentary. Iron Maiden tour documentary, I’ll watch it. The Carpenters: Behind the Music, if it’s on I’ll watch it.

Yesterday morning, feeling a bit hungover I had a look on BBC iplayer and came across a Bon Jovi documentary. Girls love the band, even girls that I know who generally have good taste in music like Bon Jovi. But to me they have no redeeming features. Take the name for a start, it’s the singers surname. The terrible power ballads. The terrible soft rock stadium anthems. The guitarists stuck in the 80s look and the way he holds his guitar and makes gurning facial expressions when bending a note on an instantly unforgettable guitar solo. The keyboardist curly perm.

I don’t think I’ve watched a documentary on a band that said so little about them. I learnt that they miss their family when away on tour, that the drummer used to drink a lot but now days likes to play golf on his day off, that after their initial success the band had a few problems and hired a psychiatrist who helped them to get back to communicating with one another, that the bassist is a session musician (there were no shots of him on stage at all), that… no well that’s about it.
One thing that stands out in the documentary sums up the band for me. It’s when Jon Bon Jovi is on the phone to a promoter. There are some hitches getting in the way of putting on a show in Central Park and he says, “I'm the CEO of a major corporation who has been running a brand for 25 years.”
It’s not a band it’s a brand.

On iplayer at the moment there’s the world pipe band championships. Think I’ll give that one a miss.

Serching For Bobby Davro

I don’t usually watch The Weakest Link. It’s just not a very good quiz show, but I caught an episode the other day which was the most cringe worthy television that I’ve seen in a long time. It was a look-alike edition and the contestants stayed in character for the whole show, apart from the Mr T look-alike. I guess that it would be too much to have him shouting the whole time and calling everyone a fool. The Gordon Ramsey look-alike stayed in character minus the swearing. What was the point in that then? How the Sven Goran Erikson look-alike is still getting work I don’t know. Then there was a Marilyn Monroe, a Madonna, and a David Brent look-alike. No, not a Ricky Gervais look-alike but the character that he plays in the office. And when asked to do the David Brent dance he didn’t hesitate for a moment. I couldn’t watch anymore, it was too painful, so I changed channels. Maybe not as cringe worthy as Richard Madley dressing up as Ali G but it’s pushing there. And defiantly not as cringe worthy as Bobby Davro on Come Dine With Me. That’s was beyond sad. Beyond salvation. It’s got to be seen to be believed. So bad that I can’t find it on youtube.
This I can though.

Streamlining CDs

So I’m sorting through all my stuff as I’m moving again. I’ve nowhere near as much stuff to throw out as my last move, and nowhere near as much stuff as the time before (blimey, did my ex-girlfriend collect some shit). Only a little streamlining has taken place, such as throwing away worn out socks and pants. Why do I put them back in the draw instead of chucking them out in he first place? No idea. I’ve decided to get rid of my CDs. Well that’s not strictly true. What I mean is that I’ve boxed them up and I’m going to store them in my folks garage. I probably won’t look at them again in years.
I never got into buying vinyl. Cassettes was the first format I bought as they were much cheaper than CDs. Back in the early 90s I CDs cost more than what they do now. But vinyl records did help me get into some good music, I remember the time that I properly had a look through my dads records and put on a Bob Dylan’s Bring In All Back Home. I’d never heard anything like it. The first song Subterranean Homesick Blues just blue me away. It was a watershed moment as from then on listening to Pantera and Megadeath seemed juvenile. When I go to visit them I sometimes put on Bring It All back home as the worn out crackling sound is so different from CD version that I own. But in a good way.

Subterranean Homesick Blues . Bob Dylan from ghibli on Vimeo.

Now days I seldom put on a CD. When I buy one I rip it on to my hard drive and go from there. So I don’t have much point in hoarding around boxes of them., especially when it’s CDs that I’ll probably never play again. Like the couple of jazz albums I own. A few years ago I though that I should try to get in to jazz, so I bought Miles Davis Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s record Blue Train. Classic must have albums is what I kept reading in various music publications. I played them a couple of times and really tried to like them but just couldn’t. I learnt that I don’t mind jazz for about ten minutes, and I don’t fancy revisiting them ten minutes anytime soon.
Another supposedly classic must have album that I own but have no intention of ever playing again is Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. I like some Captain Beefheart stuff, like the early R n’ B and the more commercial sounding records.



So after that I thought I’d venture on to his apparent masterpiece. It doesn’t take long to realise that it’s an out of tune mess of a record with Beefheart spouting random nonsense that some people interoperate as surrealism. I’m sure that nobody actually listens to it.

Wanted Man In A Provincial English Town (this is not a blog about Raoul Moat)

Today for the first time in a while I listened to the song Wanted Man from the Johnny Cash live at San Quentin album. The song basically lists a load of places in America down to Mexico.



In American music but especially in country music there’s a lot of name checking of places and it got me thinking that if the narrative of Wanted Man was set in England it just wouldn’t.

Wanted man in Peterborough
Wanted man in Birmingham
Wanted man in Northampton
Wanted man in Chelmsford.

Or if The Rolling Stones in the song Jumping Jack Flash sang, “Sold it in a market down in Southampton.” It doesn’t really work for me. Maybe it’s because these provincial English towns don’t have the same romanticism as the American places. Maybe an American would feel more for a song that did name check Northampton? Maybe but I can’t see it.
Maybe it’s because of the vast size of America. So maybe if the song was wrote from an English prospective to work it would have to branch out to Europe and go something like:

Wanted man in Scandinavia
Wanted man in Portugal
Wanted man in the Low Lands
Wanted man in Germany.

Even highways in America get romanticised. The wide open roads through the desert, up through the mountains, along the river. I doubt the song Route 66 would sound as good as it does if it went. “Get your kicks out on the A12.”

But then later I heard another song that I hadn’t heard for some time from the Leeds band The Mekons where there’s a line that goes, “I'm going up to Sheffield I don't know when I'm coming home.” And that works fine.
And of course songs mentioning London work. But if The Clash wrote a song called Middlesbrough Calling then I very much doubt it would be as iconic.

No More Football Phone Ins

Well it’s been a week now and I don’t want to hear anymore about the England football team. Now I’m not of one them English people that pretend to be happy that England are out of the World Cup because they like to appear oh so contentious and edgy. But I’m not disappointed. My disappointment lasted from about when Germany's third goal hit the back of the net to when Emile Hesky came on just after their fourth went in. When needing three goals in fifteen minutes putting on Hesky seemed like a statement from Fabio Capello that said “Fuck it, who gives a shit anymore.” Sometimes I get like that when playing Fifa on the Xbox and losing by two goals near the end of the match. I start hacking over every player. Fuck it, who gives a shit anymore.

When the fourth went in I didn’t care if they got a fifth. I’m glad England went out getting a caning instead of losing of penalties and getting portrayed like heroic losers with people going to Heathrow airport waving their flags to greet the team. Because instead of bleating on about how unlucky and hard done by the England team were losing 4-1 can’t hide fundamental problems in the England set up.
Another plus is if England did go on to win the World Cup. I know it’s hard to believe right now but lets just say that Wayne Rooney stopped playing like a pub team player and changed England’s form around. And some sort of minor miracle happened and England did win it then The Sun would campaign for the team to be knighted. Sir John Terry. It just doesn’t sit right. There would be a World Cup winners song which will no doubt feature the unfunny self appointed fat cheerleader that is James Corden. Side note- Corden, you’ve had a good run but you can only get so far doing your wacky dancing party piece. Now please go away.
Imagine all the TV adverts the players would do. Imagine all the WAGS raising their profile.
Another good thing about England leaving the party early is that all the adverts using England to help sell their products are off the TV. Like that Carlsberg the best team talk in the world advert. The advert suggests that if the team are passionate and remain strong they can win the World Cup. Well I’m afraid that it takes a lot more than that. Like a good first touch and passing to your own player. It’s a Danish beer anyway.
Then there’s that Kit Kat advert (that for some reason features Sol Campbell sighing autographs) that suggests that England can win if you cross your fingers. Sorry Kit Kat but it will take a lot more than superstitious nonsense. Like a tactical gameplan and avoiding defensive howlers.

Three lions. Why? The only lions in England are in the zoo.

Empty The Fucking Bin

Steeling milk, not replacing toilet roll, spending an age in the bathroom, making noise late at night, boy or girlfriend always over, leaving a mess in the kitchen, chasing up money for bills, pissing on the toilet seat, not doing washing up, are some of the many annoying things about a house share. In the place I live now the main thing that really pisses me off is the rubbish bin situation. It’s never really been much of a problem in other places I’ve lived. I guess it’s because I used to share with one other mate. But now I live with some girls who never empty the rubbish. It’s a mans job is it? Does that mean if it’s an all girl house share then the rubbish will never be emptied? Would they be contempt to live in piles of shit?

The problems I had in my last place were more on a personal level. I would just get so sick of the fucking sight of my flatmate. The slightest thing used to annoy me. Like the way he took an age to light a cigarette. Holding it for a minute or two. Then after a few false starts with the lighter he’d slowly raise his hand to light it. Then the way he sat back and smoked it would wind me up even more so.
What also annoyed me about that place was getting money for the bills. Making me feel like the bad guy for asking again. Maybe the bills wouldn’t be so much if you didn’t turn up the heating full blast and leave it on all day and night! You don’t need the heading on when you sleep! And stop forgetting to leave it on when you go out and there’s nobody at home!
At least in this house it’s all inclusive so I don’t have to chase people up for bills.

But the rubbish situation here annoys me whenever I go to the kitchen. The bin is obviously full so don’t put any more rubbish on top of it! Fucking empty it! And don’t put cans of beer and bottles in the rubbish bin, put it in the recycling box that is just out side the patio door. It’s only an extra two meter walk and yet sometimes there’s normal rubbish in the recycling bin. It’s not hard to work out what goes into the bin and what goes into the recycling is it?!?!
Sometimes there’s a two litter plastic coke bottle balancing on top of the full to the brim bin. A double annoyance.
There is one other bloke here that does empty the rubbish but he is the worst offender when it comes to what needs to be recycled and what goes into the bin. Plus when he does empty the bin he puts the black plastic bag outside the patio door. It goes out in the front garden! How can the bin men collect it when it’s out in the back garden?!?!

It’s full right now, I’m going to empty it but then I’m on strike. No rubbish emptied for a week.

Some Sight Seeing At Least

Holiday's, sometimes I’m conflicted between what I want to do and what I think that I should do.

I know that I wouldn’t enjoy a holiday if I had an organised itinerary. On my days off work I don’t feel like doing much at all until after lunch, and when on holiday there’s no change in my disposition.
I don’t want to rush around on holiday, I want to relax. But I don’t want a in the sun by the pool type holiday either.

When I’m in a new city I spend a lot of time walking around. Just walking, with no real plan what to do. I just walk and get a feel for the place. Sure I’ll do a bit of sightseeing, but If I didn’t see the things that you supposedly have to see then it wouldn’t really bother me.
Recently I was in Berlin. I went to the wall. It wasn’t there anymore. I went to the Brandenburg gate looked at it and thought ‘How long am I supposed to look at it for?’ It’s a monument gate. Not much to look at really. I mentally ticked it off the list of things to do and moved on.
When I was in Australia some people on different occasions asked me if I was going to Ayes Rock (Uluru). When I told them I wasn’t the response was usually something like, “Why not? You got to see Ayres Rock while you’re here, It’s one of the main things to see in Australia.”
To which I usually replied, “I just don’t have enough time.” When really I was thinking: Why the hell would I want to book a flight to the middle of Australia where there’s nothing else around just so I can look at a big rock. I don’t care if it’s a spiritual place for the aborigines. It doesn’t have magical powers, it’s just a big rock in a barren wasteland. I know Australia doesn’t have a long history, and so there’s not many cultural landmark things to see but thinking a big rock in the middle of the desert is a must see place is still really pushing it.”

When I passed through Arizona I did kind of regret not seeing the Grand Canyon. I was staying a couple of days in Flagstaff where I met a girl who said that her and a mate are going to hire a car and drive to the Grand Canyon and that there was room for me if I wanted to come. Of course I said yes. Then she tells me they're leaving the hostel at 6 in the morning. I told her that I will see her then. But I went out drinking until two in the morning and of course didn’t make it.

Holidays, it’s somewhere else to drink and be hungover.

A Tribute To Cover Bands

I used to play in a band with a really talented guitar player. I don’t know what happened to him, the last time I met up with him he was already so drunk that he rambled incoherently for half and hour then passed out. Not seen him since. I called him a couple of times and both went straight to voicemail. I never bothered again as he was one of them people who was always losing his phone and getting another number.
When I played with him me and the bassist always had to try to hold him back. Get him to cut guitar solos to a minimum. If a song was going to have a solo then it would have to be a short burst of one that fitted into the song. Before then he had no concept that less can be more.
Then once a week or so he would have a gig with his cover band that did standard classic rock songs. This is where he would get his ‘look how good I am on the guitar with this ten minute solo’ fix. God did they play in some dives. Well actually they only played in dives. When at a loose end one night I went to see them play in a pub in All Saints, maybe the most shittiest part of East London. If Dawn of the Dead had a local pub then this was it. I didn’t stay long.

I can understand if you’re a bunch of old mates and just want to get together and bang out some tunes in a pub for beer money. But a young band getting together and playing someone else’s songs, usually badly. Why don’t you just play you own?

But what is much worse than playing in a cover band is playing in a tribute band. Pretending to be someone else. Copying all the moves. Please, have some respect for yourself.
I’m sure that most tribute bands are just having a laugh. But I have first hand experience that this isn’t always the case.
In my late teens a band I was in started off playing in a local venue. (we didn’t get much further than the local venue) After playing a few times there we got offered a gig on a Saturday night. Great, we can get a lot of people down on a Saturday night no problem. We were the second of three bands on. The headline act was a Status Quo act who took themselves ever so seriously. We got a ten minute sound check as did the other band. The tribute act took forever. Especially for the song In The Army Now. There’s a bit in the song that goes “Hand grenades flying over your head.” then the drums imitate hand grenades exploding by doing a plodding drum roll on the toms. The drummer took about twenty minutes getting every tom tom level and sound just right. They asked if they can have the grimy backstage room all to themselves. Well they didn’t ask they took over it and when we went in there they told us the owner said that’s it’s exclusively theirs for the night. Bunch of wankers.

Well we did get a good sized crowd down to see us. Most of whom left when the tribute act came on, meaning that they played to a much smaller crowd than what we did.

Gigs On A Tuesday Night

Whenever I try to venture out in a new city, if I get the chance I like to see some live music in a place where local bands play. Some other city’s version of The Water Rats or The Hope And Anchor in North London. When I was in Stockholm my mates band (http://www.myspace.com/letssaywedidmusic) had a gig in a nice little place above a restaurant. In Dublin I found a venue called Whelan’s. The first band I don’t remember at all. The second band were a three piece that I remember two things about. First that they did a really good cover of a Black Keys song and the second that the female drummer was amazingly good looking. Then came on a band that looked like they’d just wandered in from a travellers site and sounded like a Rage Against The Machine tribute act.
In Chicago I stumbled into a bar that quite randomly had a night of hardcore punk bands. Two hours of very short songs at a breakneck speed.
On the way back to the hotel that night some drunk bloke walking behind me called out at me. I ignored him. He then calls out, “Hey buddy, could you please sing me a song?”
This time I turn around and in bemusement say, “What?”
“Please, I need to hear a song." Then he holds onto my arm and pleads over and over with me to sing him a song.
“Please, I’m blind,” he says and tries faking being blind by half closing his eyes and putting his hands outstretched as a guide.
“What would you like to hear?” I say.
“Anything, anything at all. Please, I’m blind and need to hear a song.”
I tell him that I can’t think of anything, then I walk away from him very fast. And as I do I hear him singing himself.

When I was in Berlin I went out to see some music. The first problem is that it was a Tuesday night. The most dead night of the week in any city. I walked in on the sound check of a fresh faced emo/metal type band that went on for another twenty minutes. It was ten thirty by then. God knows when the sound check started. I go to the bar and get another drink and go outside to smoke a cigarette. By the time I come back their actual gig had began. There were two more people in the room than at the sound check. About ten in all. But did these ten people make up in volume and encouragement for what they lacked in numbers? Fuck no. Not one of them seemed like they wanted to be there at all. In-between songs they could only just about be bothered to raise their hands to put a few claps together. Meanwhile on stage they were acting like they were playing to a sold out crowd at whatever Berlin’s equivalent of the Brixton Academy is. For the first two songs the lead guitarist had on sunglasses that flashed red at the sides. Then he changes to a regular pair of sunglasses. Almost every song had its own signature move that the two guitarists and bassist did in tandem in a certain part of a song. On some there was a regular head bang. Then their was the side to side headband. And on one song they pulled out the ‘jump up and down at the same time’ move. All shockingly awful things to do, but I got to hand it to them for pulling out all the stops to the most disinterested Tuesday night crowd.

Shoot Out

So the football season is over, (well apart from the play off finals, the FA cup and Champions League Final) so no football until August then. No wait, the World Cup is this summer. I’m looking forward to it and will be watching every game like I always do. I want England to win but for me it’s always club over country as it doesn’t feel right cheering on Arsenal and Chelsea players that I can’t stand.

But there’s a few things that I won’t be looking forward to like people who have no interest in football talking about the match the previous night. I know that at some point I’m going to phone up my mum and she’ll say something like, ”It was a good game last night wasn’t it? It’s good that they got through but I don’t think that Rooney should have been sent of do you?”
To which I will reply , “Mum please don’t talk to me about football,”
Then I guess she will say, “I know about football, when you were a kid I used to watch you play sometimes.”
Finally I will say, “Yes and it was embarrassing when you used to shout things out like ‘go on kick the ball’. Could you put me onto dad please.”
At least my sister is honest about it. When the last World Cup was on she said, “Yeah of course I only like football when it’s the World Cup and England win.”

No doubt there will be some penalty shoot outs, and what will really get on my wick is that the commentator will say that it’s came down to the lottery of penalties. It’s not a lottery. A lottery is random chance. Say that Germany have fifty penalty shoot outs with New Zealand then I reckon that Germany would win about forty eight of them. And New Zealand would win about forty eight times against the Cook Islands. Doesn’t sound like a lottery to me.
When England went out of 1998 World Cup to Argentina in a penalty shoot out, the manager Glenn Hoddle said that they didn’t practice penalties because you can’t recreate the pressured of a penalty shoot out in training. But surely if you practice you get better which in turn will make you more confident of scoring. With Hoddle’s kind of logic why practice anything. What’s the point of strikers practicing one on one with the keeper when there isn’t the same tension and the crowd in training. Might as well not train at all. Just turn up and play.

You Need To Get Out More

There are a few quite people at work who I’ve said nothing more than a passing hello to. And one guy who doesn’t even give that. He doesn’t say a word to anyone. It’s a bit off-putting. Potential serial killer off-putting.
Over the last few months I’ve managed to get more than just a hello from one quiet colleague.
Before I ever talked to him all I really new about him was that he owns a tortoise and likes to get breakfast at MacDonald’s. But since I’ve occasionally been working next to him I’ve managed to get some more information from him.

He’s forty seven and has lived in the same house all his life. His brother is fifty and he’s never moved out either. They don’t really speak to eat other, only a passing hello and that’s it. Not even at Christmas as he said it’s just a normal day in the house. Might get a turkey but that’s about it.
“He’s a piss head, he can’t be bothered to go upstairs to the toilet if he’s drunk late at night so he opens up the back door and goes out there. And if it’s cold outside then sometimes he will piss in the kitchen sink,” he told me.

He’s never been aboard and has never even owned a passport. The furthest he’s been from home is a few days in a Yarmouth caravan park when he was a kid.

It really doesn’t seem to bother him that he doesn’t do much with his life. I imagine that he doesn’t have good days or bad days. He just has days.
Today I asked him what he will be up to over the weekend.
“Get a takeaway, go to Sainsbury’s, give the tortoise a run around in the back garden, maybe take the car for a little drive around so it keeps ticking over. That’s about it really.”
“So you never go to the pub for a few beers?”
“Oh no, I might have a can of Guinness at home but that’s it.”
So seeing that he’s never out drinking I ask him if he’s ever, and I repeated ever in his whole life been out past midnight. I wasn’t surprised when he said no.
“Not even on something like new years eve?” I ask him.
“No, it gets too rowdy doesn’t it. It’s just another night to me.”
I couldn’t help but dig deeper, to get to know more of the things that he doesn’t do, and when I ask him the last time he went on the tube to the centre of London or around there he tells me it was 1980. He lives in a London post code close to the Essex border by the way.
“I guess it’s changed a lot since then. I wouldn’t go on the tube now, not with all the bombs and terrorists,” he adds.
“What were you doing up there?”
“It was a training induction thing for this job. Did a few days in Mount Pleasant and then a few days in Kings Cross. Someone told me that there were lots of prostitutes in Kings Cross and they were right. I walked past one and she asked me if I wanted a good time. I said no thanks I’m going to get a Wimpy.”

Too Much Information

Everyone on facebook has ‘friends’ on there who are nothing of the sort. I have people I went to school with and have never seen since or would never care to see again. And a few friends of a friend who I met at a party once. In fact I would probably cross the road if I saw them coming my way so I don’t feel like I have to stop and say hello and ask how they are and they say good and they ask how I am and I say yeah I’m good. Then stand there having nothing to say, and as I don’t care what they have to say we say ‘well see you later then.’

None of my real friends play Farmville or Mafia Wars or Pet whatever it‘s fucking called.
None of my real friends give a mundane running commentary on their life with update’s every couple of hours.
None of my real friends constantly tell everyone what their kid is doing. ‘My little man went to the toilet all by himself!!! I am so proud of him.'
None of my real friends take pictures of the dinner they just cooked and post it up.
None of my real friends status updates are crap poetry that they’ve just written.
None of my real friends take a camera with them every fucking time that they go anywhere and put them up on face book the next day. It’s like it didn’t happen if their isn’t any photographic evidence. They are tagged in about two thousand pictures. Think I’m tagged in about thirty five.
None of my real friends just constantly moan in their status updates. Maybe there’re just looking for sympathy. Well sorry but you won’t find it hear. No, but it does make me laugh. One girl especially. She constantly updates, and the updates are a running commentary on her life combined with whinging.
I know so much about her yet I’ve only met her a handful of times. She gives away way too much information. Like saying she’s had enough of the pills that the doctor is prescribing her and she thinks it’s time for some professional help. Too much information. You don’t constantly have to be an open book.
Another update was a rant about how much she hates her job and her colleagues. Then at the end she adds that she also has the worst period ever. Too much information.
I could delete her as a friend but I read all her updates and all the comments because they crack me up. She is totally devoid of humour but she’s unintentionally making me laugh.

Right, I’m hungry think I’m going to make a cheese and marmite sandwich, but first I need to find my camera.

Shit Ghanaian Bloke At Work Says

There’s a popular fan page on facebook called, Shit My Dad Says. It’s quotes what this bloke’s dad says. (didn’t really need to explain that but you know)

I was thinking that maybe I should start a page called, Shit That The Ghanaian Bloke At Work Says. I won't but I thought about it for two seconds.
He’s a very friendly guy about fifty who looks like Errol Brown out of the band Hot Chocolate.
And example from this week, about the couple at work who are expecting a kid:
Him: “Now everybody knows. Everybody knows that he is pregnant.
Me: What do you mean he is pregnant, how can he be pregnant?
Him: Yeah, he and she is pregnant.
Me: No she’s pregnant.
Him: No when a woman is pregnant then the man is pregnant too. He put it in her. You know, it takes two to tangle.
Me: You mean it takes two to tango.
Him: Yeah, it takes to tangle.

He’s very proud that he’s got British citizenship, as he told me while stood to attention with his chest pushed out. “I am British man. I have British passport. I sing to the Queen and I can bend down and she can hit me on each shoulder with her stick.”

After a recent altercation with a manager he comes over to me and says, “He is stupid he talks all jaba jaba jaba all the time. He thinks that he can get away with me because he thinks I am stupid African man. Well I’m not. I am British man.”

He’s lived in London for thirty years but his command of the English language sometimes suggests otherwise. To comic effect.
Him: Why do I always get these letters for E14? E14 The Arse Of Dogs, All The time.
Me: How do you pronounce it, the what of dogs?
Him: The Arse Of Dogs. All the time I get The Arse Of Dogs.
Me: You mean The Isle Of Dogs.
Him: Yeah, The Arse Of Dogs.

Bring Back Kabaddi

I like sport. Or do I, because I’ve realised that I couldn’t care less about most sports.
Football yes. And I’ve always liked watching Athletics. I like playing the American football video game Madden but don’t get the chance to watch the real game much.
I used to watch a lot of boxing but not anymore. Not since the big fights moved to Sky, not since they made the fights pay per view and they come on at four in the morning.
The winter Olympics was on a few weeks back, I would liked to have watched some of the ice hockey but whenever I watched the highlights they had on downhill skiing, (which you can watch for fifteen minutes. Any longer and it’s repetitive boredom) dancing on ice, bowling on ice with brooms or as it likes to be called curling. What makes a person want to take up curling anyway?
I saw a little bit of cross country skiing. If you’re going to put on a pair of skis then go downhill. It’s the Winter Olympic equivalent of speed waking.

Rugby annoys me because it seems that most of the points are scored by a penalty kick. The crowd or players never dispute a penalty because no one realises when an offence has occurred. Then there’s a chance to get three points from the innocuous foul.
Cricket, test cricket especially is ridiculous. It’s a game where they leave the field for lunch come back again then go off a few hours later for tea. They play for five days and the game can still end up a draw. It can rain in the last session and it’s called a draw. Almost five days playing, a light shower and the match doesn’t even get resolved properly. Ridiculous.
Tennis, people try to care about it when Wimbledon is on but that’s all. Couldn’t care less if Andy Murray wins. But how could anyone like table tennis more than tennis? A miniature version of tennis on a table. Brilliant! It’s like preferring table football over the real game.
Basketball, one end to the other, score, score, score, bore, bore, bore.
Formula one, I only pay attention if there’s a crash.

No, really it’s football all the way for me. Or if they brought back Kabaddi on channel 4...

The Levee's Gonna Break

Something’s got to give.
I’ve lived in this place a year now. It’s been an eventful year and a year I won’t forget. I’m glad I moved into this house as it‘s been an experience and believe me there’s a book worth of material in it.
When I first moved in. The very moment, as I was taking the boxes from the car the police turned up. The landlady and a tenant had had an argument and she called the police. Welcome to the new place!

With eight rooms being rented out there’s been lots of comings and goings and a very diverse mix of people.
Nationality’s I’ve lived with in the last year: French, Polish, Slovakian, South African, Albanian, Angolan, Romanian, Malaysian. As I say it’s been interesting.
All these people from around the world, and where was I born? The hospital a couple of miles down the road.

I’m living in reverse. I’m living my thirty’s like I should’ve lived my twenty’s.
I’m thirty three. When I was twenty three I’d already been living with a girl for two years. and would do so until I was twenty eight.
Now days I rent a room in the type of housing situation for people who first come to this country. That’s not putting them down at all but this house seems like a stop gap. And I repeat, I’m thirty three and was born two miles away.

I need a new living arrangement, and a new job maybe?
Working for a living, it kills you, it’s soul destroying. I’m surprised that more people don’t go postal. The same shit day after day, week after week. Taking the shit. But how else am I going to pay the rent for this room.
It breaks you down. I need a holiday. Maybe a long one. Maybe move away. As I said, I was born two miles up the road. A change. But I like this place. I like living in London. People gravitate here to find a better life and find a dream. But what when you’re from here? Where do you go? Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester? No, fuck that. I don’t want to live anywhere else in this country. Abroad? What job would I do to pay for a small room aboard? I don’t know. Work in a bar or something?

Sooner or later the levee’s gonna break. I need a change before I lose my fucking mind.

Housemate quote of the day: This one from the Manchester United fan who’s conversations about football I try to end fast as he knows nothing about the game but talks about it every day.

Him: Did you see the draw for the Champions League? Oh my God, Arsenal, Barcelona. And Manchester United, we got Bayern Munich. Oh my God what a game. Have Manchester United ever beaten Bayen Munich in the Champions League? I think they have.
Me: Yeah, in the Champions League final. Think it was in 1999.
Knows a lot about his club then.

Keep Your 90s Nostalgia

In the 1980s my parents would occasionally go to a 60s themed party. My dad was reluctant to get involved where as my mum was always up for it. Even though I was only a kid I still remember thinking that it was a bit lame to go to a themed party to relive something in the past.

Last decade 80s nights were the thing. That’s on it’s way out so next it’ll be about reliving the 90s.
And guess what it’s only two and a half months into this decade and I have an invite for a 90’s party. A club that I used to go to in the mid-nineties is having a reunion night.
I declined. Not interested in such nostalgia. Save that to the people who used to go there who’re now married and have kids and therefore rarely go out. No, you can save the “Remember when we used to…” And “Back in the day I used to…” That’s what a lot of my mates who have kids are like. Always talking about way back when. “Do you remember the time when?” Yes, you relive it each time I manage to drag you out once a year. Why don’t you do some other stuff so that you’ve got some other shit to talk about?!?!

This reunion night just sounds like it’ll be too much of an embarrassment. Especially the people that will take it to the extreme. I can imagine them drinking cider on the bus, wearing a Nirvana t-shirt, (or for the slightly later era Oasis or Blur t-shirt or god forbid Shed Seven) ripped jeans, taking advantage of the drink offer as best they can, getting drunk and dancing with a look on their face that says- “Remember this one?”
This type of nostalgia makes me cringe.
Look I’m sure they’ll have a good time but nostalgia doesn’t interest me as much as it does Peter Kay.

See I know that a lot of these people stopped listening to new ‘alternative’ music after they left collage. Because they weren’t really into the music, they were following what was supposed to be cool and when they left collage they had to find new music themselves. But as they weren’t really into it they stopped listening to new stuff. Only stuff on the radio and they think Coldplay are alternative because they have guitars. And now they like x-factor. How do I know this? From a good proportion of ‘friends’ on facebook. Their status updates when the x-factor was on. They actually cared about who got voted out.

I’m still listening to new music and going out drinking every weekend. So sorry but you can keep your 90’s nostalgia.

Uncut Lapse

I used to look forward to the end of the month. Not because it’s pay day, as I get paid weekly. But because the magazine Uncut that I’ve bought religiously every month for the last twelve years comes out. Okay maybe looking forward to the end of the month is an exaggeration, but I always looked out to see if it was in the newsagents around the time it should be out.
I still buy it but don’t look forward to it, if I happen to be in the newsagents and it’s there then I buy it.
I’ve found some of my favourite music from reading reviews in Uncut. Richmond Fontaine, Drive-By Truckers, Lift To Experience, The National to name a few. But I don’t rely of Uncut to lead me onto new music anymore. If it wasn’t for the CD which usually turns me onto a band that I haven’t heard before then I wouldn’t buy it anymore.
This months issue has Keith Richards on the cover. I know the story! I know about The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin. How much more can you write about them?!
At a glance what else is in this months issue? Some pictures of Lemmy, one with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Jesus, Nancy makes Lemmy look good looking.
An interview with John Paul Jones. Move on.
The making of the Carly Simon song You’re So Vain. Who is she referring to? Who cares.
An article about the band Orange Juice. Never cared for their pop songs with jaunty guitars.
The annoyingly voiced harp player Joanna Newsom. I imagine harps being played in heaven. If so then damn me to hell.
Something about Twin Peaks. Never watched it. Might have a quick read through.
Townes Van Zandt. Yes I know he was a drunk. Will read later.
Pictures of Morrissey. Apparently you must like The Smiths if you’re seriously into music. I don’t buy into that. Don’t get what all the fuss is about.

The CD is pretty good though. So I guess I will buy Uncut next month.

Avatar

The selling points to the film Avatar seems to be that it cost an obscene amount of money to make and the 3-D special effects.
Well anyway, I saw it the other night and it was alright and it was good to go to the cinema for the first time in ages but it felt like I was in a video game. Or watching a video game. If it felt like I was in Grand Theft Auto then fine. But it wasn’t, more like one of them video games aimed at kids that I don’t play.
If I was a kid then I’m sure I would have loved it, so let’s not pretend that it’s much more than a kids film.
But it’s got a message don’t you know?
Yes but I don’t need a gazillion dollar 3-D film to teach me about imperialism and the raping of indigenous peoples land. If I was a kid then maybe.

Some other thoughts:

Jake the marine gets in this pod and controls the avatar, then when the avatar sleeps he gets out of the pod. When Jake the marines avatar gets with the female avatar and they fuck I was wondering if he will wake up in the pod with his underpants a mess.

At the end of the film Jack the marine chooses to be transformed totally into one of them blue people, leaving his human life behind. I couldn’t help thinking that this is patronising to people in wheelchairs. “Well wouldn’t you do this if you were wheelchair bound?” Is what it said to me.

Okay I get it! It’s in 3-D! It’s the future don’t you know? Films in 3-D, sport in 3-D. What next, porn in 3-D? That’s a winner I’m sure.

Neil Or Buzz

How did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin decided who would be the first out of the shuttle and set foot on the moon.
Maybe they flipped a coin? No they couldn’t do that in the shuttle, because what with there being no gravity the coin would never land.
Thumb wrestle? Maybe. Or maybe Neil Armstrong said to Buzz that as people call him Buzz it’s the sort of name people will remember. I mean who would remember the second person on the moon if he was called Neil?
He probably said that in a few years a film might be made where toys come to life and one of the main characters is a spaceman toy called Buzz Lightyear. They are hardly going to call it Neil Lightyear are they?

Doctor Google

I went to the doctors last week, to sort out my rash. It flares up in red blotches over my chest, shoulders and arms when it’s hot. Yes I know it’s winter. But you dress for winter, go out to work or somewhere and the heating is up full blast.
I sweat easily. It’s a running joke at work. I ride into work and when I get there I usually have quite a sweat going on.
“He can’t help it, he’s a very sweaty person,” a colleague of mine always used to call out to me first thing. He wasn’t best pleased when one day my response was “Yeah that’s what your mum said when I banged her last night.”
Quite possibly the first time I had used a your mum joke since school. He hasn’t said it since.

So I go to the doctors I tell him about the rash and take off my shirt to show him. He looks at it curiously and for some reason asks if he can take a picture of it. For his studies and teachings I guess. He goes on his computer and does a bit of research. I see him typing stuff into Google, then he has a look at Google images and there are pictures that look similar to the one that he took of me.
“Yes this looks like it,” he says and tells me the name of the condition which is some long name that I wouldn’t be able to pronounce if held at gun point.
He reads a bit more about it and tells me that it’s usually occurs in hot climates.
Maybe I should move to Siberia.
It takes years to get the qualifications to be a doctor. Or just search around a bit on Goole. Still, I’m not complaining as the cream he prescribed to me sorted out the rash in a couple of days.

Play Count OCD

I think that I got to take a step back. I’m getting a bit over familiar with the play count of my iTunes library. If I click on play count the songs arrange in order of how many times they’ve been played. It’s getting to the stage when I notice when a song has moved up in the top twenty.
To register a song being played the song must end. Which means if I’m out somewhere, lets say going to the pub and I’m listening to my ipod on the way there, and I’m almost there but the song hasn’t finished, then I will start to walk real slow so the song ends and it will count as being played.
And I’m often in a dilemma about skipping songs. Some songs, the song in itself has really ended but there’s two minutes of feedback which sometimes becomes boring after a minute or so. I can either ride through and see it to the end, or fast forward until there's a second or two left so the song counts as being played.
Sometimes I’m listening to something and feel like listening to something else. The rule I’ve set myself is that if it’s about two thirds through I can skip to the end. Under that and it’s okay to skip to another song and not count as a play.
When I bought a new laptop last May the play count was reset. This did kind of distress my for a moment I must admit. The top ten songs were almost hitting a hundred.
The play count doesn’t resister all the music I listen to because a lot of the time I listen to music on a small stereo next to my bed. I did think about noting down what I had listened to and then the day later click on the songs on iTunes and then skip to the end to register a play.
But then I realised that would just be fuckin’ insane.

Why I hate Coventry

So it was FA cup weekend. And yet somehow I managed to avoided hearing all the usual cliques that get churned out every FA cup weekend like- ‘The Romance of the FA cup’ and ‘that’s the magic of the FA cup.'

My best and worst FA cup memories- The best is no doubt being at Wemberly stadium in 1991 seeing Tottenham beat the scum 3-1.
The worst was a game that I didn’t see live or even watch live on TV. 1987 I was ten years old, Tottenham got to the FA cup final against Coventry City. I remember my dad calling up to me in my room. I went to the top of the staircase and looked down to my dad at the bottom of the stairs. He had the biggest smile on his face.
“We got them, we got them!” He shouts with joy as he waves a pair of tickets.
I couldn’t believe it, I was going to the FA cup final!
But me and my dads joy was to be short lived.
“When is it?” my mum asked.
“16th of May,” my dad said.
“Well you can’t go then.”
We look at her like she’s mad. Like the last sentence that came from her mouth was in some alien language.
“Well that’s the day we’re going on holiday isn’t it?.” she says.
A feeling went through the pit of my stomach, a similar feeling in my stomach that I would feel a few years later when my first girlfriend dumped me.
Our pleas to change the flight for the day later fell flat.
“Sorry can’t change it, non refundable,” were the words my mum kept saying.
I was gutted.

Come the day of the final and of course the day of the holiday to Spain. The match kicked off when we were flying somewhere over France.
“What do you think the score is?” I kept asking my dad.
When we landed the match was over but we had no idea what the score was.
On the coach to the hotel we still didn’t know.
When we got to the hotel, checked in and took the bags up to the room the suspense was killing us. I went for a wander around the hotel in the hope of somehow finding out the score [it might seem weird now to let a ten year old just wander around a hotel but I guess it wasn’t back then].
So I walk around, then in the lobby I see a group of blokes walking towards me. They’re cheering and singing and I notice what shirts a couple of them are wearing. I check again as I don’t believe it. No, no please no! They spot me in my Tottenham shirt and a loud roar goes up. “Losers,! 3-2, 3-2, aargggrhhh,” and they point at me. I walk past them, run up to the hotel room, lie face down on the bed and burst into tears.
“The holiday is ruined, it's ruined. They might of won if me and dad were there,” I cried.
The holiday wasn’t ruined, I soon got over it. But when Coventry got relegated a few years back I laughed. I laughed as I remembered them blokes laughing at the ten year old me.
Bitter, me? Yes, yes I am.