...ruffles...

Andrew's best mate is Jez. Jez is as close as anyone I know to being a playboy; he drives a Porsche (which matches Andrew's), he drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, charms ladies, and is constantly telling crap jokes and stories of debauched adventures.

'Why are men like tights? They either run, cling, or don't fit round the crotch'

He lost an eye a few years ago falling on a bottle, this is regularly used to his advantage as without a second thought he pops out his glass one to show people, or drop to it in their drink. On Friday he went to get it out, to which Australia Jo berated 'No Jeremy, these people don't know you well enough yet?. He was once heard talking to a girl who had spurned him for another bloke asking, 'What's he got that I haven't? How many eyes has he got?'

David Beckham retires from football and becomes a manager, on his first day he stands in front of the players and gives his first speech. 'Well their small, round and minty, and come in a plastic box I like them, my wife likes them and my son likes them.? And then sits down. The coach walked over to him and whispers 'David, you're supposed to be talking about Tactics.'

He recently went on a bender after running the Paris marathon; the alcohol numbed the pain of the race for a number of hours keeping the muscles loose enough to frequent many of Paris' finest bars. In the early hours of the morning lost deep in the city he and a friend made for their hotel. As the cold night deepened and the effects of the alcohol released its grip his muscles tightened and cramps set in. They spent hours walking like a couple of drunk, English cripples trying to find their hotel. On the flight home he managed to hold the entire plane up because he couldn't get his legs to walk him down the steps. The steward was advising one step at a time, to which he'd reply 'I fucking can't!'

A bloke from Lancashire wants to take his mate out on the town for his birthday, but he's only got £10 to spend. On the night he says to his friend (adopt thick northern accent) 'Dave I've only got '10 to spend, but I've found a place which does a pie, as much drink as you want, naked dancing girls, and the finest cigars for a fiver a head, what do you think?' to which Dave replies 'One question, what kind of pie?'

On Friday we went to the Mole and Chicken, which is where we always go when everyone is home. Afterwards, as always we went back to Andrew's parents. Andrew's mum has the demure fragrance of Mary Archer, a quintessentially English lady, and one of the nicest, and most tolerant women you could hope to meet.

Jo got the hiccups and was using every old wives tale to try and cure them. Jez walked in and told Jo she needed a fright. He turned to Andrew's mum, who he has in the past urinated on whilst she slept, and said 'Mary* get naked.' During the evening he also described her as the biggest e dealer in the village and accused her of growing heroin in the back garden.

Last summer mother told me to go into the garden and dig a grave for the dog, I said 'he's not dead', to which she replied, yes but he may die this winter and if there?s a heavy frost the ground will be too hard

Andrew and Jez had recently hooned their way across France in their matching Porsches to a wedding anniversary party. They went via the Channel Tunnel. During the break Andrew went to the toilet, he shut himself in his cubicle and started taking care of business. A few moments later Jez came in and in front of a bunch of toileting truck drivers started shouting 'Butt Lord, where are you, Butt Lord!' after a couple of moments of silence, a Andrew's voice sailed over the cubicle. "Will you not call me butt lord in public".

To which Jez stood in the middle of the loo and berated him "Fucking hell Andrew did you have to tack 'in public' on the end of that sentence."

He's a bridesmaid at a gay wedding in Amsterdam next month.

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Labels: General me

Although uncorroborated and until yesterday not brought to my attention, it seems this site could have recently been hacked. Apparently, my recent posting regarding our trip to Brighton, and particularly the references to cocktails had become links to, well, let’s say slightly unseemly adult sites.

Firstly, this was clearly not of my doing, it is a matter of editorial policy that although the language and content on the site is largely uncensored, any links included will not lead you to anything that will get you into trouble at work (unless you have particularly draconian web controls, in which case you probably shouldn’t be here in the first place). If it does become necessary to provide a risqué illustrative link, you will be properly forewarned as to its content.

If anything like this happens again, please email me.

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Labels: General me

Life is rather like the earth; starting with nothingness, over time you acquire layers; family, friends, and experiences. As you make another friend or have another experience, the layers become compacted down under the weight and become as hard as rock.

Upon this foundation is money, money is rather like sand, if don’t you have enough no matter how hard you try to keep hold of it, it always slips through your fingers, and no matter how thinly you spread it you can’t make a beach. If you have a beach it’s so ubiquitous and expansive you sit on it not fully appreciating its there, or the fact that it’s being constantly eroded away by the sea. If you have a beach there’s always more sand to build castles.

The beach is your launch pad; this is where you catch your thermals of luck, opportunity and situation. If you’re climbing, the exhilaration is breathtaking, so much so it’s difficult to imagine what a fall will be like, you may even reach heights where it’s best not to know how far you could drop, because it’ll hurt so much. If you’re up there, you might as well get on and enjoy it. You can, if you like, cruise at a comfortable altitude, the risk of falling isn’t as great, but neither are the rewards. It’s not always your choice as to which you end up doing.

And falls do come, from whatever height, the thermal gives way and you begin to return back to the ground. Sometime it’s faster than others, sometimes it’s just an air pocket and you drop for a short period of time, catching another thermal to return to where you were. Sometimes you’re shot down, and you wonder why it’s you, and not others who have hit the ground so hard.

Back at the beach, you talk to the sand for advice, move it around and pile it up to build a platform you can take off from, but it’s too flimsy and you can never get a good footing, you become super conscious that it is being eroded away by the sea and there’s nothing you can do about it. In short the sand is useless. The wind is still and launching back into the sky seems too distant and improbable, rather like going to the toilet in a rowdy pub, you sit there wondering how you do it normally, but no matter how much you think about it, nothing happens. It becomes necessary to dig in the sand and you realise that in fact there isn’t an endless supply it just seems that way. You begin to dig, and dig, and you don’t get far before your hitting rocks of your family, friends and experiences.

The rock is always there, it hardly ever changes, whether your high in the sky, digging in the sand, or cruising at low altitude, it’s always there, the opinions of you don’t change, the support doesn’t waiver. When you hit the ground and begin to dig, you think you’ve hit the bottom and there’s nothing left. When hit the rock, you realise there’s still along way to go until nothingness.

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Labels: General me

I present to you week 2 of the Ruffles Big Brother standings with last week's standings in brackets, and to make it in the slightest bit interesting, if they were a musician they’d be….

1. (2) Gos – P Diddly plays it like a playa, but as hip hop as your mum
2. (1) Nush – Brittany Spears, attractive, nice to the point of distraction, most unlikely person ever to have become a rap stars beeatch and Kylie – has a default setting of likeable.
3. (3) Cameron – Daniel O’Donnell, you might want to smack him in the mouth, but you know your it would break your granny’s heart if you did
4. (9) Jon – Simple Minds – Jon said “Look I get paid a shit load to do this (negotiate with people)”, Jim Kerr once said “It’s good to be playing small clubs again” the day before playing Wembley Arena. Well you need a good hate figure
5. (4) Steph – Dannii Minogue, you keep forgetting she exists but she’s been there throughout, and you know for sure she’s going to hang around like a bad smell
6. (10) Tania – Jennifer Lopez, oozes class and glamour in a cheap shop worker style.
7. (7) Scott – Jonathan Wilkes, not quite Robbie Williams, which makes him both very very right and very very wrong
8. (8) Federico – Peter Andre, it’s good to see a fine swordsman fail.
9. (11) Justine – The Lighthouse Family, bland, but nothing a crossbow wouldn’t fix
10. (6) Sissy – Scooter, screeching noise pollution dressed up as populist fun, wears Acupuncture trainers like the mid nineties never happened
11. (12) Ray – Blue, good looking tedious sod with no talent but an unfathomable bulletproof popularity

And Anouska is obviously S Club; annoying at first, then you liked her and now she’s gone, you kind of miss her.

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Labels: TV and radio

I delude myself that I’m many things; resting professional footballer, trans-county DJ, international playboy, but I’ve never previously viewed myself as a gayboy dreamboat. I have apparently been the target of some lust homo-style in the past, which until yesterday, I thought it was a one off.

The wedding season is upon us and I needed a new suit, the variety of men’s suits is woeful – blue, grey, black, pinstripe or country casual fawn. My plan was to go with black, which would be good for work. Staring at the selection I was under whelmed by the tedium. Instead, driven on by the sweltering hot day, I was drawn to the light summery linen suits.

Within seconds Mr Humphrey’s from Are You Being Served pounced on me. He began to help me find the right jacket, and to ponder the colour, oh, and to chat me up.

“Are you a fireman?” he asked, I can’t underplay how camp he was.

I said no.

“Ooh you’re tall like a fireman”

“I’m not brave enough” I said

Before he could say ‘would you like to be a fireman, for me.’ I was making for the changing rooms.

“Go on sir, slip your pants off” he said as I did.

Once inside I could hear him talking to Emma

“Ooh, he’s ever so tall isn’t he?”

Their conversation veered through our holidays, our cats, how long we’ve been together, my evolving body shape. I sent Emma a text message.

“Will you shut up!”

I was looking sharp in the suit, and thoughts turned to shirts. Mr Humphries was off into the shirt section, he returned with several options, each one of which he slipped inside the jacket, inadvertently brushing his hand against my nipple. I began to feel invaded.

After we’d bought it, he shook my hand and rubbed my arm. “God bless you” he said with a smile and a twinkle. I’m not kidding, the man turned to jelly at the sight of me.

Later we bought some Ben and Jerry’s and a couple of big bottles of Leffe beer for a bar-b-que at the Nobscrubs. The woman on the till looked at me with a twinkle.

“That’s an intriguing selection of shopping, wine (it was beer) and ice cream”

See, now I’m a gay icon women have started wanting to turn me straight, they’re even making saucy suggestive comments about my private life from till 7 at Tesco.

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Labels: General me

It’s that time of year again, ten weeks of utter drivel, pointless nobodies trying their very best to get a bit of fame. People scrambling for something to say to fill the tedious void. Yep, the Standard and the Mail are writing about Big Brother again.

The supposed highbrow tabloids coverage is exactly the same as it has been for the last four years. Last week the Standard once again ran a story about how BB was Orwellian in its concept. Which you have to admit is breathtakingly perceptive. The Mail believed it to be like Lord of the Flies and even Animal Farm. Presumably aiming to demonstrate their extraordinary depth of knowledge of A Level English Literature. Next week: why Big Brother is like Cider With Rosie, and Kes.

It is banality dressed up as intelligent commentary, which is basically how the world turns, but it’s at times like these that you turn to something altogether more honest.

The Sun and the Mirror are just in there swinging away with their own brand of pure banality. The Sun is the Official Big Brother paper, spending most of their time analysing the girls’ boobs – did you know that Sexy Sissy is a 32A but would like to be a cup size bigger?

The Mirror is unofficial and apparently Anti-BB despite, curiously, carrying the BB logo without any apparent infringement of copyright, hmmm. They basically run the same story but prefix each contestant’s name with something alliteratively derogatory - did you know Sad Sissy is a 32A but would like to be a cup size bigger?

What’s there not to like about Big Brother? It isn’t a social experiment, it is affected by editing, there is an element of cruelty, extroverts and show-offs tend to apply and there are long periods of nothingness. But is that not your life? Long periods of quiet moments, punctuated by periods of interest and excitement, your hard earned reputation and public façade eroded by other people’s misconceptions of you.

I find life is too busy to have to work my way up a moral totem pole. I spend my whole life bluffing about my ability, so I feel no need to pontificate about the flaws in the Big Brother concept. It’s far easier to kick back and enjoy it for what it is. So, in what I hope will be a regular feature, here is Ruffles’ BB current league table.

1. Nush – Can’t fault nice people, not nearly as precious as she looks.
2. Gos – Who cannot like the Hip Hop Asian, who responded to the first night nominations with “Man youse peoples are harsh”. Respect due.
3. Cameron – Dull, dependable, nice, apparently in complete awe at being there.
4. Steph – Kind of like Cameron
5. Anouska – Warmed to her, but she gone.
6. Sissy – Seems OK, did you know she’s a 32A but would like to be a cup size bigger?
7. Scott – Seems OK
8. Federico – Seems OK, although has the look of a arrogant turd
9. Jon – Spectacularly dull, always worth keeping him in just to gnaw away at the others’ goodwill.
10. Tania – Barely registering, bar tabloid scandals about her bedding Peter Andre
11. Justine – Much the same, without the Peter Andre bit.
12. Ray – Much the same without anything at all

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Labels: TV and radio

Emma’s birthday has always been like a Hindu festival. It takes days to complete and has many sections and phases. 12 days after her birthday we entered phase four, the others being her actual birthday day, the ex-work colleagues dinner, and the dinner for people who couldn’t make Brighton. This was the trip to Brighton for the people who could make Brighton.

Vicki picked out the groovy boutique hotel the Alias Seattle in the Brighton Marina for us to enjoy a day or so with Simon, the Dobscrubs, and Russ and Sam just kicking back drinking with beautiful people in the cocktail bar, eating with beautiful people in a local restaurant, and watching fireworks with beautiful people from our seafront balcony. (To the beautiful people, we were the ugly people pointing at you).

We breakfasted in the Café Paradiso as the morning sun kissed our cheeks (the ones on our faces). We played on the decaying Air Hockey tables, and rode the Crazy Mouse rollercoaster at the end of the pier (terrifying), meandered through the meandering Lanes, ate Funky Tuna Bagels, and decided that once we got home, our lives would be different, we wouldn’t get wrapped up in work, our houses would be fashionably minimalist and hotel spotless, we would go down the gym and get buff, and we would spend our lives sitting in coffee shops philosophising during the day and drink in cocktail bars at night.

Today - Crash, burn, flames, everywhere.

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Labels: General me

I have a good brain for ‘tabloid geography’ – i.e. not real geography, but the geography of knowing the name of different capital cities. I know where Sofia is, and Bucharest and Tiblisi. This has come from years of watching European football on the telly. I also have a well developed understanding of underlying cultural politics, which I have developed from years of watching Eurovision.

I’m not sure where my family’s fondness for Eurovision comes from. As kids we’d get in loads of sweets, and watch all nine hours of it (well, what felt like nine hours). We’d score each song, sometimes using the Radio Times cut out and keep score card (does anyone keep those things) sometimes using dad’s very own computer scoreboard programmed on the Commodore 64 – which was often more hi-tech than the scoreboard being used at the show. My sisters would always score UK 10 out of 10, making the whole thing a sham but it was an important part of family bonding that has served us well as we’ve grown up.

That’s rubbed off on many people, My sister’s best friend has been known to engineer nights in with my parents to watch it, and whoever I watch it with becomes strangely obsessed. Last night, it was with Gareth and Sara. Gareth is an aggressively competitive 23-year-old boy’s boy who had just won his football team’s player of the year award. He had a notebook out collecting scores based on song, performance and look. When we’re in town, everyone goes Eurovision.

As a family we we’ve always been pro-Europe (the irony being, you can’t actually be anti-Europe), and Eurovision has always been the image of an idealised Europe. All countries smiling and dancing with each other, the UK in amongst them arrogantly confident that despite all evidence to suggest otherwise, we are still the greatest country in the world.

But it’s all changed, last night’s national disgrace Jemini (she’s called Gemma, so it’s like Gem ‘n’ I, but spelt with a J geddit?) failed to notch a single point for their woefully flat performance of Bye Bye Baby. In the past countries coming bottom have been relegated because of the influx of East Europeans wanting to enter, so like football in the eighties, politics in the, erm, well, now and business in the 70’s whilst we have smugly sat around thinking we were the best, things have moved on and we’ve slipped out of the elite into oblivion.

I for one will be thinking long and hard about how much more I can take.

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Labels: TV and radio

Wycombe is a town in a valley; it has grown up through its furniture making industry, presumably because of the abundance of raw materials available in the Chiltern Hills. Furniture making is not really a big business in the town anymore. Because of its valley location and subsequent poor access people only go there when they really have to. The local industry is a reflection of this, the town is full of dour but necessary industries. The interesting industries go some place else. It doesn’t make for a great town.

It’s a similar situation with the people, George talks of ‘valley people’ who live in Wycombe and tend to be a bit odd. It’s not surprising, if you were bright and intelligent, you would live in one of the local villages, or perhaps Oxford, or London. Wycombe is the last place you’d try.

Being a good natured chap, I wasn’t prepared to believe it until yesterday when I had to go and pay a bill in town. I waited in the queue and used the pen on a string to fill in my pay slip, then stared vacantly as I moved forward. Suddenly I felt and nudge and a rustle, I was being manoeuvred out of the way. I turned to see what was going on. A small Jamaican lady was edging her way past me. “Excuse me” she said reaching down the counter. I moved out of the way unsure of where she was trying to get to, she picked up the pen I’d just been writing with, gave it a yank to break the string, and put it in her bag. She then shuffled back to her spot in the queue.

A little disturbed by the desperation of someone so openly stealing a 20p pen, I went to WHSmiths. I was looking for a magazine when one of the staff came up to an old man reading an angling magazine. “Can I help” she said obviously trying to push him into making a purchase, or put the magazine down. He looked up.

“No thank you dear, I’ll just read the bits I’m interested in, then I’ll go.”

And then he carried on reading. It’s a town of fruitloops.

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Labels: General me

In my minds eye, the cup final existed on another planet. You drove in the vague direction of London or now Cardiff, and eventually a causeway would open and you’d drive to FA Cup Final Island passing as you did Bert Trautmann rubbing his broken neck, Ricky Villa weaving his way through the Man City defence, and Stanley Matthews waving from his very own Cup Final Condominium (with a Stan Mortensen looking grumpy behind him).

At the gate Ossie Ardiles’d greet you, and with the magic password “Tottingham” you’d go in.

The reality is not so far from the truth; Saturday was everything I hoped it would be and feared it wouldn’t. The colour and the noise, the perfect conditions (helped by the stadium roof), and the magical other worldly quality that only comes from 24,000 grown men in yellow and blue tinselly wigs made it the spectacle I needed it to be for me to retain a bit of boyhood delusion.

It was the Southampton fans that really made it; they filled their end an hour before kick off, the entire place bedecked in yellow and blue. Arsenal fans on the other hand arrived ten minutes before kick off, displaying the arrogance of success that made the day their consolation prize, not their dream. An arrogance which makes them forget that it’s teams like Southampton that makes their superiority mean something.

A Southampton goal would have made it, judging by they reception they got for coming out, the scenes if they had hit the back of the net would have been breathtaking. Arsenal demonstrated moments of guile, pace and creativity which is frightening to watch, let alone play against. At times they appear stuck, passing the ball around midfield, running crossfield, then all the cogs slip into place and they’re all moving, cutting their way through the Saints back four. It’s like each player splinters into five more and suddenly they’re a swarm. At Oxford, I know exactly what the players are doing; they just do it consistently better than me. Arsenal do things I can’t imagine trying to do, the faint, drag back, push and go, all in one fluid movement. Each section ending perfectly poised and balanced to move into the next. Southampton had no answer, their two dimensional attack nullified by Marsden’s poor crossing starved Beattie of service and failed to release the pace of Ormerod. They ran out of ideas and energy and Arsenal were the winners.

And then they lifted the cup and Seaman danced like your dad at a wedding. We clapped the dejected Saints players and made for the exit and back into the real world.

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Labels: General me

The Cup Final actually meant something in our house. That day more than any other saw my family (excluding my philistine sisters) acting like the archetypal 1950’s nuclear family round the television watching the build up and the game.

Dad had the inordinate talent for naming every cup winner since 1872, usually annotating his answer with a neat bit of trivia; “Ah yes, 1939, the Monkey Glands Final”. Such a feat was made all the more staggering in that he usually fell asleep ten minutes before half time waking up ten minutes before the end to announce that “This is the worst cup final I’ve ever seen”.

What was special about the cup final was the build up. It always started early, perhaps with Cup Final Swap Shop. Then you’d see the players getting up (having their first fag, kicking the old tart out the bedroom etc.), you’d see them choosing their cup final suits (grey, shiny, white flecks), going on the coach to the game and finally disappearing into Wembley.

Intertwined was the showbiz element. Stan Boardman, Cup Final Question of Sport (Emlyn Hughes, Bill Beaumont), the celebrity fans. What’s more, it was BBC and ITV at the same time. One year we set up a portable black and white next to the normal telly so we could watch both sides at the same time. As technology progressed, we’d record ITV whilst BBC was on live. We’d often miss bits because there weren’t three strong men available to lift the new tape into the machine. This was when you hit record; the buttons would give off a satisfying “KERCHUNK” noise.

You were usually exhausted by kick-off. Traditionally it’s always hot, often you’d get some old pro announcing that it was 450 degrees at pitch level and that the players, dehydrated from the previous night’s booze up wouldn’t cope. Cramp was an occupational hazard and there are many stories of players having to go off after scoring because they exhausted themselves celebrating.

The games weren’t always classics, Alan Sunderland’s last minute goal in 1979 probably making that year the best cup final in a generation. His hairdo was probably the best perm in a generation too. Coventry in 1987 was a classic, Liverpool v Everton in 1989 set to the backdrop of the Hillsborough disaster was an amazing day. Not least seeing people scaling the walls of Wembley to get in.

Anyway, I shall be thinking about all this as I sit in my seat on Saturday.

Oh sorry, did I forget to mention I’m going to the Cup Final this year?

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Labels: Football

Emma was delighted when she got out of bed that her boobs didn’t hit the floor, she was less pleased to find out that all that was stopping them was her knock-knees. It seems despite the onset of time she’s holding up rather well, mind you suddenly she’s dressing very young for her age.

Happy birthday m’luv.

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Labels: General me

If it weren’t for Emma’s Irish dancing fund raiser at school I’d have probably never have gone to EMAYL on Friday. EMAYL is not some groovy boho urban eatery with brushed steel industrial fittings and seventies porn playing on plasma screens in the corner. EMAYL is our local Eat as Much As You Like Chinese.

EMAYL is much more Sara and Gareth than Justin and Emma, we like atmosphere in our dining establishments, they like volume and value for money. With Emma off the scene, I tagged along with them for my fill of Chinese and to watch the crock of shit that is X-Men 2.

I mention this only because it gives me an opportunity to articulate something that I am not usually able to during normal conversations – other things being “Men’s futile obsession with thongs” and “Paedophilia, it’s not all black and white” (‘Just a very dark grey’ according to the visibly disturbed Nobby). I once phoned EMAYL to find out whether they were open. The woman who answered was particularly terse when I asked if it was the Eat As Much As You Can restaurant, no, she said, it was the Eat as Much As You Like restaurant.

Why was she so adamant about the difference? Well, Eat As Much As You Can means eating so much that your gut expands and begins to press on your spinal column causing you to lose feeling in your feet and your vision to narrow. East As Much As You Like, means eating until you don’t really fancy anymore watery noodles or Fried Anything covered in thin sweet and sour sauce (usually after about half a plate).

The difference is absolutely crucial to the success of their business. If everyone came in to eat as much as they could the business would be bankrupt within weeks. People wouldn’t leave until they you could see crispy chilli beef coming out of their nostrils and hoi sin sauce leaking out of their tear ducts.

Mind you, some of the people there on Friday were giving it a good go.

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Labels: General me

Listening to Miss Kittin’s Radio Caroline mix tape she announces in her ethereal non-specific European accent that this music represents a soundtrack to her life (a movie that is real, apparently). The mix is not what I expected being a CD of Warp Records style techno; Auterche, Mu-Ziq etc. it pootles along nicely and she chats over the fudged mixes.

The assertion that the music is a soundtrack to her life is hardly what you’d call groundbreaking. If I were to concoct a soundtrack of my life it would probably have to start with ‘Under the Moon of Love’ by Showaddywaddy and finish with Skattered Jazz by Dirty Sole getting from one to another will be tricky because so many points needed to be touched in between.

I’m surrounded by piles of music, I carried 25 CDs out of the boot of my car yesterday, and dumped them on 25 more CDs that came out of my car a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve got a drum and bass version of The Dad’s Army Theme, two copies of KLF’s 1987 (The bootlegged complete one, and the one where all the samples are taken out for copyright reasons and you’re given a book on how to recreate them (includes instructions like, record 1984 Christmas Top of The Pops and splice up the chart run down leaving out 17). I have a ludicrously early pressing of Aphex Twin’s Didgeridoo, I have It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back on all formats (tape when I was a teenager, CD when I got a CD player, and Vinyl when I found a copy for £3.99 in HMV). I have everything Justin Timberlake’s ever committed to vinyl and over forty Depeche Mode singles. Music leaks into my house – between me starting and finishing this post I got a new record I ordered it months ago and it’s just arrived. I don’t even have to leave my house anymore.

I’ve even changed my buying policy to purchase only records that I actually want – this will only mean something to people with a voracious appetite for buying music (sometimes you have to buy an album or two to know you don’t like someone). I still don’t have Just A Little Bit by Liberty X, Celebrity Skin by Hole, She-La-Na-Gig by PJ Harvey or Don’t Stop Movin’ by S Club but I really want them. And if anyone is willing to part with Tricks of the Shade by The Goats on CD, I have money.

Despite this, you’d hope that I have a record to satisfy every point on my multi-dimensional mood graph, but for some reason no. Listening to Ugly Duckling in the car yesterday and I wanted to listen to Elbow, it wasn’t quite rocky enough, so I moved onto Elephant by The White Stripes, it still didn’t hit the mark so I figured maybe something like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

But I don’t even have any Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, I’ve never even heard a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club record, why would I think that would suit my mood?

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Labels: Music

We were once asked by an American to point to Stonehenge on his map. This would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact he was looking at a map of Windsor and standing in front of the castle. Naturally we vaguely pointed to somewhere just out of view, indicated that he could follow the signs and legged it.

No doubt Madonna, when she reads this, will be laughing at the foreigner’s stupidity. No doubt she’ll be drinking her beloved pint of Tommy Taylor’s bitter down the Dock and Duck in Soho whilst she does it. This is just a…. hang on….

Oh, fuck off woman.

There was a time when we as a nation were accused of being little more than a big US aircraft carrier, now we’re a bloody rehab clinic. Going British is the latest US celebrity fad, fuck Tai Chi, and Macrobiotic diets, let’s have pie and mash and a night down the dogs. Madonna and Guy Ritchie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, Nicole Kidman and Ewan MaGregor, Dustin Hoffman and Johnny Vegas. Americans wanting to immerse themselves in some kind of ‘real’ British culture (“with all that history”, as though history is a commodity). They do their theatre, drive their Minis, see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in concert at the Monarch, joke about they’re terrible theatre wages on leftfield talk shows. It was a neat novelty at first; but the fad is gone, isn’t it about time they all went a bit eighties and moved to Berlin to be close to the burgeoning Nu Punk Synth Scene?

Much more of this and we’ll have Americans shopping at Tesco and visiting Bracknell. Nothing is safe, soon sniggering landladies won’t be able charge treble their normal price because the bed they bought from Argos was “The one King Henry the Eighth first bedded JK Rowling in”. It’s a bloody disaster.

I’ve been trying to find a term for these people I’ve toyed with Van Dykes, and Brankies but have come up with an acronym:

Migrating Yank Celebrities Hope to Initiate Pitiful Pursuit of Ill-conceived English Traditions to Help Evolve Image, and ValiditY

OK, it’s not great, but it does kind of spell out….

MY CHIPPIE THE IVY

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Labels: News

Anyone who saw Manchester United v Real Madrid had to be impressed by the fluidity and skill on show. Two of the world’s best sides playing it like a Playstation game, all immaculate passing, flawless tackling and perfectly executed goals.

If football is theatre, this was pure Andrew Lloyd Webber; glossy, skilful, entertaining, and totally anodyne. A minute after Ronaldo equalised you could see United fans smiling broadly enjoying their evening with the family, sharing their drinks and reading the programme. When Ronaldo went off having embarrassed United’s ‘world class defence’ Old Trafford applauded politely. All very lovely.

This is fine, and it’s just the kind of harmless light entertainment that ITV wants for Tuesday night viewing. But if you think that’s what makes football the biggest sport in the world, you’re wrong.

Football is mostly gut poppingly frustrating, a total waste of time, and often a complete waste of money. As a form of entertainment it registers just below heart surgery. But the elevation from these regular frustrations to the preciously rare joy that comes from a success is what makes it the greatest sport on the planet. In a fortnight Southampton will be in the FA Cup final for the first time since they won it in 1976. Their fans have watched their team for the intervening 27 years with little reward, but they still go every week in the hope that they’ll do it again. If they lose to Arsenal, which they probably will, they may have to wait another 27 years for another go. On that basis you’re looking at perhaps three moments of tangible joy in a football supporters lifetime. And Southampton are one of the more successful teams in the country.

Yesterday Oxford were on the verge of a rare moment of joy, if Lincoln lost to Torquay and we won, Oxford would be in the play-offs. From the play-offs we could be promoted from the cloggers and animals in Division 3, to the cloggers and animals in Division 2.

Oxford scored after two minutes and never looked like losing, near half time the place erupted even though the ball wasn’t on the pitch. Lincoln were losing. We were winning. We were in the play-offs and chasing promotion.

The second half came, somebody leapt up shouting “Torquay have got a penalty!” There was a pregnant pause, if you can imagine the pregnant pause of six thousand Oxford fans waiting to hear the news of a Torquay player taking a penalty in Lincoln. A moment later stadium was jumping, Torquay were 2-0 up. As the concrete stands cracked under the cacophony the bloke in front of me tuned into his radio, he turned to me perplexed; “They had a penalty, but they missed it”. It was the biggest game of Chinese whispers Oxford had ever seen. Somebody shouts they’ve got a penalty, somebody else translates that as they’ve scored a penalty. Somewhere in Lincoln, a Torquay striker holds his head in his hands as the ball nestles comfortably in the arms of the grateful Lincoln keeper.

Lincoln were still losing though, we were winning, that was enough. The tension rose, which made reading the quietening crowd more difficult, each text message beep that went off, each ripple of the crowd, the occasional bloke who jumped up shouting “It’s 2-0!” which caused another surge of delight, but turned out to be another reference to the penalty they scored but missed. What would it sound like if Lincoln scored and doomed us to another year of Division 3 football? With four minutes left we found out, yelping, swearing but overall a ghostly silence drifted across the stadium.

And that is what football is about. In a season you watch 69 hours of frustrating, largely un-entertaining football, and despite this investment you may miss out with four minutes of those 69 hours left. Your next opportunity will only come after 69 hours more of football. It’s like reading the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, only to find out that when Frodo gets to the Mount Doom he left the ring on the mantelpiece back in the Shire, and the Mount Doom have been turned into a Hungry Horse restaurant with child’s ball pool and play area.

If you don’t follow football but see David Beckham on Pepsi adverts and think that’s what it’s about. It’s not, it’s all the kicking and screaming under the media sheen that makes football what it is. Football isn’t really about the top teams and players; it’s about Vietnamese second division promotion race, the Mongolia Vs Greenland international friendly, the Peruvian cup quarter-final second replay. People forget that.

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Labels: Football

Whilst it isn’t updated that much, I love this site, it mirrors the comments we make when we watch the Hollyoaks omnibus on Sundays. Although at no point does it say “I don’t know why I’m even watching this, I’m going to have a bath”.

If you don’t watch Hollyoaks there’s been a serial killer plot running almost as background noise for months. Will Davies is the investigating police officer who’s infatuated with his partner Drew, although she slept with Ben, Will’s son. Ben continues to have a love hate relationship with Izzy the posh DJ (whose eclectic style veers from acid trance to the Waterboys to drill and bass to SClub 7 (RIP) with every new tune). Izzy’s last boyfriend was Café owner Tony, who she split with after he accidentally asked two people to marry him. Tony recently got involved with sunken-faced laundrette owner and older woman Helen whilst she was married to Mr Cunningham. Helen is rather hotly pursued by younger men and was recently obsessed over by Bombhead who once went on a date with Abbey even though she is now with Lee. Izzy, meanwhile, went out with Dan Hunter, but split because of his self-destructive streak (which turned out to be diabetes), Dan now goes out with Debbie. Izzy is currently on the verge of an affair with Christian. Christian’s past conquests includes Jodie who slept with Gay Nick when he thought he was straight, more recently she had a brief flirtation with Max. Max barren love life didn’t preclude him from snogging his half sister Mandy, who briefly went out with Adam who is confined to a wheelchair after a car crash. Adam, has now embarked on a simpering smiling relationship with Becca, who once slept with Matt when he was on a break from his now fiancé Chloe.

Adam's final year college project is a Big Brother pastiche The Fish Tank, one of whose contestants is the aforementioned Christian who after his appearance is being obsessed over by reformed self-harmer Lisa, this has put undoubted strain on Lisa’s relationship her boyfriend Cameron. Lisa’s self harm was appeased in part though, not totally through poetry and music, her problems were appeased wholly when she became old enough for the producers to let her wear bikini without inviting accusations of paedophilia, then all her problems were conveniently forgotten. Lisa got very close to Norman who had an unnaturally close maternal relationship with Sally who is married to Les. Lisa’s emotional outlet of music and poetry ended up with her shacked up with gothic Christian rock singer and Kilmarnock fan Brian. Who had been going out with Zara. Their relationship was irretrievably damaged when he slept with Steph Dean, who slept with ‘evil’ nightclub owner and former England footballer Scott Anderson. Anderson’s was alleged to have raped Beth Morgan, who embarked on an empathetic relationship with OB whose recently become infatuated by Roxy, yes, Roxy who he met on the Internet. Roxy has recently been murdered by Toby in a psycho sexual attack inflamed by Ellie, his girlfriend who has embarked on many relationships, including aged landlord Jack and Ben who slept with Drew, whose infatuated by police inspector Will Davies.

And that my friends is the worlds first Thirty Six Sided Love Polygon.

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Labels: TV and radio

I feel ashamed by what I’ve done. I don’t even know why I’m putting this in such an open forum. It’s so hard to articulate it face to face to people I know, people who have a certain view of me, well, I’m not the person you think I am.

I’ve had a moment of madness, seduced into something I never wanted to get back into, I’m in a very bad place. Rather than you finding out yourselves, as you inevitably will, I wanted to try and explain myself.

I try to analyse how I got into this situation, maybe I was tired of the same old same old. I needed something new and exciting, something harmless. Perhaps a quick screw so nobody gets hurt.

And it’s so easy to get into, you just pay your money and it’s there, on a plate, anything you want, whether it’s something conventional or something a little out there, rubber, binding, anything. If you want a themed room, they can do that for you, all your fantasies satisfied.

Then you get home and you take stock of what you’ve done, but you try to live with it, and you get in deeper and deeper and you feel so dirty.

And dusty.

That’s right, we’re doing DIY again.

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Labels: General me

We have very needy cats. Peanut is a white cat with her head and tail dipped in ginger. She was the runt of the litter and quite evidently needed to be a bit canny and bold to survive. She is now gregarious and a bit of a bully. She will follow you around and ask to be stroked with a screeching miaow; if we go out into the garden she will push you out the way so she can get out first. She doesn’t know her place.

Waddle is a big floppy black and white cat who runs away from everything and morphs and distorts when you stroke her. She has uneven splodges on her face; it makes her look a bit autistic, which seems very appropriate.

Depending on the temperature they will both usually sleep on the bed. The colder it gets the closer they will get to us, Waddle will sometimes sleep between us causing her to take most of the duvet. Emma invites her under the duvet so we can retrieve what is rightfully ours. Waddle then overheats and disappears. It’s better than throwing her against the wall, which is what you want to do at 3am with an icey chill blowing up your pyjama trousers.

I woke this morning at 4.45 with my brain racing about the things I had to do today. Of course when I got in to do the things I wanted to do today my brain started racing about the things I wanted to do at home. Go figure.

Upon waking I turned over to see Emma fast asleep. Then in the half light I could see something else poking out of the duvet. Slowly I focussed. It was Peanut asleep between us, she was totally submerged under the duvet, only her head could be seen, and that was on a pillow.

I woke her up and she looked at me, I looked at her as if to say that she’d pushed it a little too far. She stared momentarily concluded that I had woken her for no reason, and went back to sleep.

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Labels: General me

Yesterday I joined the first wave of bank holiday DIY'ers at B&Q to pick up some Polyfillar and some varnish in an attempt to progress our two year kitchen project.

I say first wave because wave one is buying the goods required to make whatever it is you plan to make, this usually means buying far too much of the wrong stuff (Get four hundred gallons of white emulsion, it might be useful in drilling some holes). The second wave is returning to buy the stuff you forgot or the stuff that will fix your botch.

"I can't get this bloody stuff to work"
"Have you read the instructions"
"I don't need to read the bloody instructions"
"Look, it says here, apply paint with paintbrush, did you get a paintbrush"
"No I bloody didn't, why doesn't it come with a paintbrush’ Where are my keys"

Fixing the bodge means buying something progressively more dangerous than the thing you bought the first time you went in. For example, during the kitchen project we bought a worktop (potential dangers: Could saw finger off when cutting (no) or could drop on both feet when manoeuvring (YES)) We cut it to size only to find that when we put it in it was considerably shorter than we expected (repeat this mantra: ˜None of the walls are straight").

As a result I had to get expanding foam to plug the gaps. This required me to wear gloves when applying. These safety instructions are always overly cautious so I squirted it on, and spread it out with my gloveless fingers. Now, this stuff is what you might describe as a Liquid wall and as such it dries like concrete. It did a fine job of melding my fingers together. I had to sit for three hours with washing up liquid, baby oil, cocoa butter and anything would keep stop my hands turning into trotters. I saved my career as a pianist but managed to smell like a cheap hooker for days.

More recently, when applying gloss paint to the skirting boards I decided we'd get a better job done by stripping the old paint off. Whether you're doing DIY or not paint stripper is worth using just to see it in action. You apply it to the paint and nothing happens, then three seconds later the paint blisters violently and the noxious fumes fill the air. It's the sexiest DIY application on the market.

I used it wearing gloves as directed. Fine except the shards of paint kept dropping onto my bare arms causing my skin to fizzle and burn. Managing to burn enough holes in my arms for people to think that I was half man half Curly Wurly, Emma's dad went out and bought some new wood at a fraction of the cost and replaced the old crap in a matter of minutes.

Given the danger of this particular product I cannot be far from the DIY bodgers dream using an application that requires a facemask and chain mail.

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Labels: General me

My morning routine is a simple and well drilled affair, I wake up, go straight to the shower, come downstairs, iron a shirt whilst the kettle is boiling, drink tea whilst I watch the TV review on GMTV with Kate Garraway (WEY HEY!, a thousand more hits for me) and Richard Arnold, finish my tea, pick up my rucksack and make for the car. Stop the clock, forty minutes.

The eagle eyed amongst you will realise that whilst I have a smartly pressed shirt, I appear go to work naked. Interwoven amongst this routine, is dressing, almost every day.

I hate getting in the shower. It’s the point of no return, a surge of energy, sparked by our badly tuned clock radio, propels me to the bathroom. Once I’m in the shower I’m no longer allowed to be a sleepy lumbering beast, theory says in three minutes I have to be awake, alert and ready.

To lubricate my passage (WEY! HEY! two thousand more hits) is shower gel. It’s like the big lever Han Solo pulls on the Millennium Falcon to make the jump to light speed. It’s supposed to take you through the barrier into the world of the awake. Much like the Falcon’s flux capacita, every time I use it, it fails to live up to expectations.

It’s always called something like Sunshine Sunburst or is the fragrance of a far off paradise like Aloe Aldershot. I expect my skin to crackle and sparkle into life when the gloop touches it. I expect it to invigorate my mind, open it up to embrace the challenges ahead (challenges like, how to write 500 words about shower gel, for example). I want it to feel like I’m having colonic irrigation using Sherbert Abdabs and Semtex.

It never does of course, it makes no difference to my morning, it goes from orange goo to orange goo with a couple of bubbles to orange goo with a couple of bubbles making haste towards the plughole. I’m so disappointed.

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Labels: General me

Emma, like all teachers, lives on a different time convention to most people. She will say things like, “Shall we go to Brighton on the last weekend of the spring half term” as though anyone knows when that is.

It’s day one of the Easter holidays and like the big meany I am, I have made it quite clear that if Emma is to start redecorating the hall (her planned Easter project) we have to have finished the 2 year old kitchen project first. This has spurred her on to great things, today she was out of bed before lunch time.

I got a phone call at one o’clock.

“The painting looks crap, the dentist can’t see me for three months, I phoned the council (about something complicated) and they said it’s not their fault, I phoned the cinema and their systems are down and you’ve had an email giving you information about penis extensions, I assume you didn't have anything to do with that?”

I laughed hysterically and a little too loud and denied it all, afterall, what do I know about cinema computer systems?

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Labels: General me

For me, the last three weeks have been dominated by exhibitions, putting stands up, taking them down, standing staring blankly trying not to look bored. Being an exhibitor is a rotten job because you spend three days trying to convince yourself that this is all worthwhile, when all your doing is exposing yourself to the maddest people on earth.

First up are the people wearing slightly obscured badges, all you can read is that they’re job title says “…ing Di…” and you hope beyond hope that this means they are Managing Director. Eventually they reveal themselves to be a “Catering Dining Room Assistant”. They turn up on the first day and are queuing outside before the doors are open. Their boss has sent them to the exhibition because it’s a day out and cheaper than training and a pay rise. Yet despite this rare freedom, they fear they will be found out if they saunter in at lunchtime having spent the morning on Oxford Street. They look around listen intently at the to what your telling them, give positive comments like “That would be good in our company” then when you ask if they want to set up a meeting they cackle wildly, turn red and say “Ooh my boss wouldn’t like that” and shuffle off. But not before they take one of each piece of promotional literature you have. They wear beige anoraks and are laden down with promotional plastic bags. You later see them having a coffee and a flapjack fretting they won’t be allowed to claim it on expenses.

If you let your guard down you’ll find yourself turning and walking into a man invading your personal space by standing two inches from you. He will have a jet-black perm with silver grey sideburns. He is a magician/hypnotherapist/dolphin trainer who specialises in motivational and/or quit smoking techniques. He is about to sell to you. On your space, which you have spent in excess of £7000 to construct he spends twenty minutes convincing you he will help you give up smoking in seven days. Tell him you don’t smoke and he will insist he can help you start smoking in seven days, “or your money back”. He will always have a business card that says Flat 9a, Edgeware Road, which it will be above Carphonewarehouse.

Occasionally somebody apparently credible will come and talk to you. Sometimes they will reach into their pocket and before you know it you have a business card imbedded in your forehead. “Send me something to that” they say before disappearing off to maim someone else. Either that, or they will stop and ask what your business is about. “Well…” you say before they interject and spend an hour telling you that they’re doing something very ordinary “I’m recently redundant, er, an independent consultant who is specialising in helping people eat carrots” you nod “But I’m doing it a bit differently to most people” at this point your inner ear caves in and you can’t hear anything apart from “Revolutionary technique from America” and “Using computer simulations online”. All the while over his shoulder you can see the Bill Gates perusing your literature saying to his handmaiden “If I can talk to this guy I’m going to buy this for every single one of my employees and all my wives.”

At the end of long and busy show your mind turns to going home, and hey presto! the mad people turn up. Mostly they collect leaflets that they will sleep in. Others will draw you into a conversation, which is apparently making sense, until you realise they have teeth made of pegs, eyes that are different colours and ears growing upside down. Then the show closes and you cut them off mid sentence and turn and rip your stand down in a frenzy.

When you’ve finished and everything is packed up, you realise they are still standing there waiting for you to finish. Either that or you accidentally pack them up and find them back at the office running your IT system.

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Labels: Work

Having been super busy recently, I haven’t posted much up on the site. In a panic to appease my growing fan base (I’ve decided now to refer to all readers as ‘fans’) I posted an all too hasty note about the boat race. Rubbish wasn’t it?

So to alleviate my fans, here are some snippets of conversations held throughout that day: -

Conversation number 1: - Russ and Sam are going to Canada on holiday

Simon “So you’re going Whale spotting?”
Russ (nodding in acknowledgement) “Visiting relatives…that’s not to say we’re related to Whales”
Sam “Although in a sense I am, because I’m half Welsh… and half Canadian”
Scott “Exotic”
Russ “Yes, but we don’t have water spurting out the top of our heads”

Conversation number 2: - Simon looks for his college colours

Simon “I haven’t seen anyone in my college colours (Churchill)”
Scott “Why do Churchill have pink and brown college colours”
Simon “Apparently it’s the first principal of the college, it was his wife’s favourite colours”
Scott “Oh right, like the colour of her dogs or something… er… one being a chocolate Labrador, and one having fallen in a vat of Immac”

Conversation number 3: - Tips for business luncheons

Mike “I’m having lunch with my new employers tomorrow, any tips?”

Responses included: - 

• Order just after everyone else does, or just before
• Don’t have noodles, sucking them up and having them slap your forehead on the way in doesn’t leave a good impression
• Don’t drink anything, although as they’re paying, you should drink as much as you can, it will relax you and loosen you up
• Wear clowns boots and a twirly wirly bow tie
• Would you like us to come and sit at the next table reading newspapers with eyeholes to give you tips and see how you’re getting on

Mike visibly shrivelled muttering something about being “nervous beforehand and terrified now.”

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Labels: Friends

At the age of 13 I turned up to a maths exam without a calculator – the effect was catastrophic – my mark was lower than expected, meaning I dropped down a group for maths, meaning my GCSE grades weren’t what they could have been, meaning my A Levels suffered, meaning I didn’t get into either Oxford or Cambridge University and in a moment of teenage forgetfulness, my hopes of a rowing blue were scuppered forever.

To the people who know me, I hope your snorting your coffee out of your noses at the phrase “My GCSE grades weren’t what they could have been”.

Russ invited us to his club, I didn’t really like Russ until I found out he had a West London club, now I’ve found him to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. When he asked us to join him to watch the boat race, we were all over it faster than you can say “I’m 19, at Trinity College, I feel the need to wear a blazer, fedora and slacks.”

Although we watched just 12 seconds of live rowing as first the reserve crews, and then the proper race sped by our balcony vantage point, it was a fantastic day with friends, drinking (too much for a school night) and having a right laugh.

Whilst I could, and maybe will, elucidate further than this, I won’t because to say it was just great fun says it all really.

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Labels: Friends

Rents in Marylebone are oppressive as it is, but in terms of rents paid per utilised square metre, the Linhope Corner has to be the most expensive real estate in the northern hemisphere.

Whilst the whole of Linhope is a chaotic nod to modern day consumerism, it is just one small corner of the living room that appears to be utilised with any great vigour. Usually my visits are brief, often starting at 3am after a night out, we will get in, Simon will survey the detritus of Linhope Corner and analyse who is currently in the house, and what has been going on there.

“Hmm, cigar, copy of FHM, TV control, half bottle of whiskey, Baz clearly went out on the spaz*, didn’t enjoy it too much, came home, watched TV fell asleep and is currently upstairs in bed, hmm the FHM is puzzling me… I concur that he’s alone.”

If I stay at Linhope, The Corner is where I sleep, it’s where the sofa bed is, and the widescreen TV which only plays Soccer AM and The Simpsons (oh, and Seinfeld now), and the copies of The Sun and FHM, and piles of change (ask Simon to do his ‘Barry’s Pocket’s Routine’), and the games consoles, and the blurry pictures and tokens of ventures past, and many other media related short term consumables.

Try moving everything you own into three-square metres of your house, that’s what it’s like. It’s so densely packed with stuff you can’t help thinking that perhaps it’s an art installation and that the actual living takes place elsewhere. On Saturday I went over to find, for the first time, all three of the residents sitting in Linhope Corner enjoying a lazy Saturday morning. Barry lounged across the sofa, Davis was slouched star shaped on one chair and Simon was geeking on his laptop in the other. Soccer AM was musing in the corner. Through some miracle of mathematics and particle physics they all actually fitted in.

*Linhopian slang

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Labels: Friends

Whilst I can't think of any link between the two, wouldn't it be great if there was a song with the lyric "Geography is just like pornography."

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Labels: General me

Recent phrases upon which this site have been found include “my sister has very big boobs”, “Vicki little biggest boobs” (twice), “Michael Jackson with boobs” and just to prove they aren’t all about boobs, “New builds in Rickmansworth”.

However, in recent weeks I have enjoyed somewhat of a spike in my stats. I now attract about 50 visitors a day; this is not just down to my biting yet hilariously comical views on life and its absurdities. This is down to Kate Garraway.

Kate, GMTV’s second string Couch Cookie, Settee Siren, Chaise Longe Chanteuse, is the reason for no less than 30% of my search engine referrals. She attracts more than the next twenty-two most popular subjects put together – including her arch nemesis Fiona Philips, Blazin’ Squad, Amanda Holden, Michael Jackson (with or without boobs), and SAS Are You Tough Enough?

So why is this GMTV Sofa Sexpot playing second fiddle on Britain’s favourite morning TV programme? Clearly her popularity is not being exploited to it’s fullest. I decided that these stats needed a wider airing so I’ve written to her agent Jayne Roseman.

Dear Jayne
In the course of writing an online log for my web site I have come across some very interesting information, which you may find useful in developing the career of your client Kate Garraway.

To provide you with some background, I recently critiqued a web site that referred to Kate and her GMTV colleague Fiona Phillips rather ungraciously, as “Big Titted”. My view being that this was a sad reflection of the FHM/Loaded world we live in, one which defines the complexities of personality in terms of physical attributes and sex.

The mere mention of Kate’s name on the site caused in a leap in the number of people visiting. 30% of referrals from sites like Google come through people searching her name. Fiona Phillips, by comparison, has attracted just two visitors in the same period of time.

It strikes me that when negotiating for a client you are probably often required to call upon subjective notions of popularity and ability in trying to secure a deal. However, saying it and proving it after very different things. The statistics surrounding Kate appear to be a very useful objective measure of her popularity and may prove to be useful in providing leverage in any future negotiations you may hold on her behalf.

I personally find Kate to be a pleasant, bright and able presenter, comfortably able to deal with the complex demands of a magazine show like GMTV. As such she is surely well positioned to occupy, what might be described as the Yummy Mumsy niche previously occupied by Judy Finnigan, Fern Britton (another of your clients I notice) and perhaps most recently by Carol Smilie. Clearly these people have developed lucrative and successful careers on the back of a wholesome image and a certain degree of sassyness. I think that Kate is in good stead to step into their shoes, or at least into a role with more prominence at GMTV.

Whilst my site is hardly a barometer for the nations affections, the popularity of Kate is so overwhelming, I thought it was worth letting you know to arm you with additional objective material in future contract negotiations. I hope this helps.

Kind regards

Justin

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Labels: TV and radio

My dad said the sheer size of the British economy truly struck home when he saw an articulated truck full of Halls Mentholyptus. Imagine the number of packets that truck contained, consider how many people are required to eat those packets, and yet consider still the absolute inconsequence of cough sweets. Vast numbers consuming inconsequential produce = UK Plc.

You get similar awe (but, alas, no shock) hanging around the Olympia Exhibition Centre for a week.

My week has been spent at Olympia exhibiting at a rather dull show, it wasn’t an IT show, as the tarty yet strangely attractive girl in the tight top, short skirt and long boots claimed as she handed out leaflets to anyone who would stop and stare, but it wasn’t far off. As an aside, yes, the trick of using dolly birds to sell products still works an absolute charm. My exhibition contained people in suits, or if they were really modern, in polo shirts and slacks.

The other events going on were more interesting. Professional Beauty 2003 featured a host of satellite exhibitions including The Vitality Show, and my personal favourite, the Professional Spa Exhibition. Replacing that was the opening day of Stitch 2003, the national sewing show, and, incidentally the flagship event of National Stitching Week.

To appreciate the impact of these shows in terms of economic worth, you have to appreciate the role of the exhibition. Exhibitors buy stands for as much as £400 a square metre. This must be paid for through sales they wouldn’t have otherwise got, to a value over the cost of the stand. Put it this way, you don’t get much change from £5,000 for an exhibition stand. You have to sell an awful lot of string and needles to justify that.

The anthropological slant on exhibitions is also worth noting. The shows are honey pots around which cluster like-minded individuals. As I travelled in to set up my stand on Monday, the train was full of glamorous women. I would call them beautiful, but they were only beautiful in a caricatured way. The application of copious amounts of make-up was impressive, but the resulting look was, well, a bit plastic. My nostrils singed with the stench of perfume, and that peculiar smell of what I’ve always assumed, without foundation, to be foundation. If you were to score them for their looks against the classic beauty traits, they’d do well – red lips, glowing skin, long eyelashes. To look at them less objectively, you’d realise there were quite a lot of pigs amongst them.

More interesting still was the clientele of Stitch 2003. They were either over weight, or worryingly emaciated. Either way they all looked troubled and worn down by life. Perhaps entering Stitch 2003 relieved them from their troubles. Indeed looking over the shoulder of the doorman as I walked towards Kensington High Street for a sandwich, the hall was full to the rafters. It was like witnessing the movements of an Orc mine, only with ambient lighting and shopping trolleys.

At the end of each day these people spill back onto the streets and gradually dissipate throughout the city, and eventually the country. So rarely are they quorate, you hardly notice their contribution to the world that turns.

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Labels: General me

Emma’s assistant at school is a master at turning molehills into mountains; the simple task of organising children to get ready for PE becomes the equivalent of organising the Million Man March and The Poll Tax Riot in the Sahara, and then coinciding that with the first Saharan Winter Olympic Games. She has been charged with putting together the school summer concert. According to Emma…

“She’s making a right song and dance about it”

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Labels: General me

That’s my second favourite Rubbish Lyric With A Sensible Sentiment (RLWASS). My favourite RLWASS is on People are People by Depeche Mode; “People are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully”.

Nobby has made an interesting comment on his web site that him and the wife (Vicki) are ‘pro war’. Because he’s chosen not to elaborate, is a startling and jarring statement. I know he likes military history, but this is taking it rather too far.

I’m sure it’s not as simple as that, and that the Dobscrubs are not essentially ‘Pro War’, unlike Colonel Bob on GMTV yesterday who described the arrowhead positioning of British tanks, a classic attack formation, as giving him a “Soldierly excitement”. He also described the death of eight service men in a helicopter crash as “Lousy”. Colonel Bob could provide good value during this war.

It made me think about my stance, and that being anti-war/pro-war is really not enough to define how I feel. I’m not a cabbage munching pinko commie, I actually believe there is such a thing as a ‘just war’. I believe the first Gulf conflict was a “just war”, because a. the invasion of Kuwait, and b. Oil. The protection of oil is a valid reason for going to war. Conflicts only ever arise over two things, ideology, and resources. For some reason, according to anti-war protestors the protection of resources is no longer a valid reason for going to war. Which bucks the whole of human history.

With the exception of Colonel Bob and his soldierly excitement, I don’t think that many people are “pro-war”; few are excited by the prospect of wading in with tanks and planes bombing the hell out of Baghdad. I know I’m not, but the warmongering stick is convenient for anti-war protestors looking to simplify the argument to suit their ideal.

In isolation, I believe the current conflict is a just war. It is widely accepted that Saddam Hussain and the higher echelons of the Iraqi regime are a brutal lot and that rest of Iraq is probably politically moderate, preferring to get on with their lives. Unfortunately these people probably can’t because they live under Saddam’s hammer. I also believe that it’s not all about oil. If it was, we’d be invading Venezuela, who’s oil supplies are probably bigger than Saudi Arabia and therefore have a huge impact on the US economy.

Added to this, is something that stuck in my mind on September 11th; academics and middle east experts claiming that they had warned the US and UK of the Al Queda threat and that there had been no reaction. Anti war protestors indulge in hindsight management all the time, i.e. ‘you should have done this, you shouldn’t have done that’ but if you’re making the decisions without that benefit, then sometimes, the decisions will carry a significant risk. Bush was damned when he did, and damned when he didn’t.

So I’m pro-war. Or am I? The flipside is the way it’s been done. The bulldozing of the UN Security Council sets a precedent. Firstly it takes the power out of the hands of “the world”, secondly, it will inevitably force many nations to line up behind the US on issues they may not agree with but feel they have to support for fear of reprisals (economic reprisals principally). Perhaps this is why Tone has lead the UK to align with the US. He has flaunted public opinion (both popular opinion, and the government elected to represent public opinion) and continued to back aggression. Maybe he knows something we don’t; maybe he doesn’t need covert US sanctions effecting what is already a shaky economy and has decided this is the way to avoid them.

By flaunting the proper procedures to gain support from the UN, the US becomes a unilateral aggressor. Taking me back to my point of we play by the rules most of the time, but we’re all in a position to decide the rules aren’t worth playing by. The US did just this, they decided the UN, and the principles upon which it is founded, no longer suited their needs. If I walked into a supermarket and walked out with a basket of food because I decided that the universal principle of allowing people access to food based only on their ability to pay was unjust, would I be able to get away with it? Of course not.

Now we’re actually underway, I hope they achieve all their objectives quickly, protecting oil reserves, and ousting Saddam. But if, once this is over, we find that all the things Bush and Blair have been saying proven to be wrong (weapons of mass destruction, huge human rights violations etc) then they must surely be accountable for their actions. If they are right, then they should be applauded for their conviction and decisive action. After all is that not the result of taking great risks?

Is there any chance of a mass demonstration for people who see both sides of the argument?

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Labels: News

My How To DJ Properly book talks about how to listen to records. Anyone who has been into a record shop recently will be familiar with the scenario of the spotty teenager armed with 150 records, all of which he listens to, all of which he buys, just to have an armful of banging tunes. In truth 99% of those records are likely to be awful.

The book suggests when you listen to a record you should imagine the people playing the music, listening to each instrument. This actually works, the music becomes more defined and layered and you get a much better sense of what works and has lasting appeal.

Obviously you sometimes just want to let it wash over you, but recently I’ve been driving quite a lot and trying to work out why certain records work and some don’t (resulting from the fact, I realise I don’t really like The Clash very much).

This has evolved into a game I’ve devised called ‘Be the drummer’. To play, you have to imagine the album you are listening to is being recorded in the studio. You are the drummer and having laid down your patterns you are sitting nonchalantly at the mixing desk as the lead vocals are being recorded. Listen to the vocals and imagine the lead singer in his booth getting down and doing his thing. Remember, you’re the drummer listening to his singing, you simply have to react to as you see fit.

Try it, especially with Hatful of Hollow by the Smiths. Morrissey’s bizarre falsettos, slurs and lah lah lah’s, make you just jump around doing double takes, raising your eyebrows and screaming “WHAT THE FUCK DID HE DO THAT FOR?”

It changes the whole listening experience, and is great in rush hour traffic.

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Labels: General me

Last week I had to go to a black tie do at the Savoy Hotel. This sounds rather grand, and I suppose it was, but I’d have much preferred to watch Liverpool versus Celtic on the telly. It was work related, so I was working, I drank 1 glass of water, 1 glass of lemonade, and watched my P’s and Q’s all night. It was unpleasantly boy-ish with plenty of toilet humour and talk of “totty”. Dull.

The highlight was the food; Tuna steak, Beef thingamabob, and vanilla whatjumacallit. I’m no culinary expert, but I know what I like. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by good cooks. Emma’s cakes and desserts are fairly awesome, the Dobscrubs never fail to rustle up a fine meal, Penny’s Thai Curry on Saturday was delicious as was the Smarties Ice Cream straight from the bucket.

There’s very little food I don’t like. I love a quintessentially English curry, and am quite a Dhansak connoisseur (well defined fruity taste, lentils should add texture, the chillies should be a noticeable background noise on the pallet). I would never turn down a Chinese takeaway.

Tonight I am going out for dinner with work people to celebrate the impending retirement of one of the ladies here. Breaking with the traditional sandwiches and wine farewell on a Friday afternoon, she was asked where she wanted to go out to dinner. Would it be Chinese (or er, Cantonese), Malayan, or Thai fusion? The choice was hers.

“I want to go somewhere with plain food” she said.

Yum.

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Labels: Work

I'm feeling rather good at the moment, the sun is shining, George Bush is president of the USA, the Wonder Stuff and the Inspiral Carpets are on tour and we're at war with Iraq There was an American General on telly gee'ing up his troops by claiming the order to go was ¡°Hammer Time. Good lord, even Sonia's back on our screens ARRRGH!. Exactly like the year I did my A Levels.

I'm not feeling good because of the war; I have resigned myself to a fuck 'em mentality relieving some of the pressure of my recent Big Thoughts. Let them do what the hell they like, and let us enjoy the sun whilst it's out. I have been liberated from the social and cultural responsibility which goes hand in hand with being white and from the west, oh, and being British, oh and being middle class, oh and being someone who voted in the wide-eyed warring maniac.

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There has been a running joke and a little concern that Sophie (my niece, star of my first ever post and as old, to the day, as this web site) cries every time she sees me. She is a naturally inquisitive and knows no fear, which means she busies herself until she is tired, then continues to busy herself until she’s overtired and cries in frustration. I rarely see her when there are less than 10 people in the house so there’s usually far too much for her to be inquisitive about, which means she gets even more tired than usual, and cries more than usual. It just so happens she usually cries when she’s sitting on my lap.

It is for this reason, and the simple reason that we don’t do it enough, yesterday Kirsty, Dudley and Sophie came over for a relaxing un-pressured Sunday away from the crowds of family and friends which overload Sophie’s brain.

And what a great day it was. The house was basked in sunshine all day and as long as you turned Sophie upside-down every couple of minutes she was happy to play, she smiled and laughed and shouted all day, crying only when she when she crawled into the door. She hasn’t yet learnt to look up whilst she’s going to wherever it is she’s going.

She crawled, played with things that rattled, read her book “That’s Not My Lion”, smashed the living daylights out of her toy telephone, and beached herself on a toy which made loads of different noises. Every time she kicked and struggled to free herself she set off another noise, PARP, WHISTLE, MIAOW, BRRRRING, WOOF she sounded like an eight month old Three Stooges fan. She fell asleep on the settee, flat on her back, star shaped, woke up shouted a bit, stuck her tongue out, ate yoghurt and sucked on a banana. Then she pooed her nappy, got changed, did it again, got changed again, put her coat on got into her chair and went home.

She’s welcome anytime.

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George Michael recently gave his superstar backing to the stop the war campaign with a spectacularly ostentatious and tuneless performance on Top of the Pops of Don Mclean’s ‘The Grave’. Before he was finished I was forcing my way into Aylesbury Territorial Army base trying to hotwire a tank to drive to Iraq myself.

This morning, Mick Hucknall was on GMTV giving a pro-war stance (and talking about his brand new album “Dull Soul”). At which point I drove up to Strike Command on the edge of Wycombe and tied myself to the nose of a F16 Fighter plane chanting ‘Don’t attack, don’t attack Iraq”.

Why do celebrities do this? What added credibility for either argument really comes from celebrity endorsement? Perhaps if the UN Security Council’s impasse continues they’ll use album sales as a count back mechanism.

Germany: No
UK: Yes
USA: Yes
France: No
George Michael’s record sales: 25 million
Mick Hucknall’s record sales: 18 million

Pack your bags fellas there ain’t going to be no war on this watch.

Is the celebrity of these people strong enough to sway national opinion either way? Their musical influence is virtually nil nowadays, where does their political credibility come from?

Mick: “Well, when I was snorting cocaine off the breasts of Alicia Duvall whilst on tour in Australia, and I was looking at her naked on the bed and thought, man, it would be a tragedy if Saddam Hussain had Alicia in his bed, that cat’s gotta be stopped. Then we shagged all night.”

George: “I’ve seen the effect of authoritarian aggression, that policeman who caught me with my willy out was really really mean. Tee hee wasn’t I naughty, did I mention I’m gay, and I mean really really gay.”

This issue is complicated enough without these two dirtying both sides arguments.

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Labels: News

I am in a rather perplexing malaise at the moment. I’m having such very big thoughts, that the sniping at the minutiae of the world that has become the stock in trade for this site has become somewhat, well, fudged.

With war and economic crises knocking on the door, I’ve been contemplating my very own existence. Well, not existence so much as welfare.

Here’s the rub. September 11th and all that jazz told us but one thing. People don’t all think the same. Osama and his buddies are not cackling fiendishly at the evilness of their doings, as we are commonly led to believe. They fundamentally believe that what they’re doing is fighting for good. They are Good, and we are Evil. Whereas to them ‘We’ are Evil and they are Good. Some of us think we are flawed and they are flawed. Never the twain and all that.

Goodness is defined in terms of a series of generally accepted ideals. In the west, the one thing that rules our principals is that the accumulation of things is good. This has extended beyond the accumulation of objects, to the commodity of experience. That is, if you’ve had more, or ‘better’ experience than the person next to you. You win. Religion, new agedness, and vegetarianism are included in those virtuous ‘better’ experiences.

The commodification of experience is, in effect, the service industry. A box of popcorn at the cinema costs 6p to produce. That’s everything from the box to the food. To get it into your hand is 6p. Cinemas sell this stuff for upwards of £2.50. The product is 6p, the experience of eating it at the cinema, is £2.44. People eat it because it’s all part of the cinema ‘experience’.

So experience has been codified into accepted, valued practices. These have been given a monetary value that we trade and subsequently rely on. In the popcorn example, 98% of the value is experience. Extrapolated across the whole economy, 98% of what we do relies not on need, but accepted codified experiences.

We are free thinking beings, what happens when we change our minds? What happens, some bloke decides he doesn’t want the cinema popcorn experience, but wants to fly fuck-off big planes into the World Trade Center?

Our world, I call it our world, not because of separatist notions of them, and us but just because it’s easier that way, relies on us not changing our minds, examining our needs or re-evaluating our value of our experience. As we’ve seen, if we change our minds and our values, we are given a completely different world, requiring different skills to survive. Skills that have been taken out of us through thousands of years of domesticity. In the popcorn industry, 98% of popcorn sellers welfare, existence, comfort, warmth, and shelter relies on people believing the cinema popcorn experience to the value of £2.44 a box. If you decide the experience is valued at less than that, or indeed is worthless, the people who sell popcorn lose 98% of their livelihoods. That's all the Playstations, Ford Mondeos, Holidays in Malaga, and Organic food, gone. If you decide that flying planes into buildings as part of a jihad is the valued experience instead, that that is Good, the axis shifts violently.

The premise of valued experiences is so flimsy; I just can’t see us getting away with it for much longer. I for one will not be able to cope in a world focussed on need, on hunting and gathering or strength, stamina and survival. Or even a world which moves towards that. I cope very well in a world which values experience, something that drives western defined notions of intelligence and creativity. I don’t actually know whether what I do is right or wrong, I just do what I do and enough people believe me to value it. I’ve got to convince people for perhaps 35 years that this remains the case. The pressure is unbearable. It only takes one person to step back and realise that I’m contributing nothing to their need (eating, having shelter and warmth), just a bit to their experience of eating cinema popcorn.

The day people realise this, me, and millions of others like me, will be doomed.

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"Is Walt Disney really called Walter"
"I suppose so"
"So is Mickey really Michael Mouse?"
"Only in contract negotiations"
"And Donald Duck?"
"Known as Don down the golf club"

As is only right and proper, we went to Disney with dark cynicism in our hearts. Disney is, after all, one of the main pillars in America's consumer lead imperialism - an evil cell holed up on the edge of Paris eating away at thousands of years of European culture, conditioning people to the laws of Americana.

Someone at work told me that anyone who didn't enjoy Disney needed their head seeing to, she also told me she'd walked out on a Whitney Houston concert because it wasn't as good as Celine Dion. It strengthened my resolve.

But Disney was great, it was saccharine and idealistic, but that is what they do, they're just not trying to be anything else. The parades are all about how everyone should love each other and get on, we can mock, but it's a fine sentiment. People may say that its unreal, and typically American - the Rough Guide was scathing, snottily proclaiming it to be fine for kids and stupid people, but anyone with a brain, i.e. anyone who reads the Rough Guide and who has kept it real by spending their holidays in small jazz clubs, will hate it.

But going to Disney is what people do, it's as valid as walking in the Andes or Yack herding in Peru, or any of those more 'real' pursuits people do in an attempt to justify their proclaimed eclecticism.

Mickey is, of course, an obvious presence, but disappointingly Donald Duck appears to be ostracised in favour of Winnie the Poo and his friends. I was shocked to see Ee Aww doing the running man dance during a parade rather than concerning himself with blustery days, but generally Disney have retained the values of Poo - which is to be applauded.

What you don't get from the Disney films is how close together all the characters live to each other. Did you know that Pinocchio and Peter Pan are neighbours? If you watch the films, you never see Peter Pan in the background when Geppeto is carving the lying bastard little boy in the garden. You would expect him to appear at the window naked scratching his testicles and rubbing his eyes or something.

At the end of the day we walked back through Main Street USA trawling the parade of shops looking for something for Emma's sister. The range is bewildering, you could easily furnish your house with Disney stuff, wear Disney outfits, live a 24/7 Disney life. People were trying to do it, scooping up great hoards of merchandise, as with all merchandise you have to try and take what your buying out of its context and put it back into real life. A 24 piece Mickey dinner service may look great at Disney, but at home? Think about it.

We moved from one store to another trying to find something to suit Sara, Emma carefully examined things, pulled a face and put them back. In the final shop she stood ponderously, behind her were hundreds of Mini Mouses all piled up. There she stood, with this backdrop. She looked me in the eyes and said "I don't know it's just not DISNEY enough".

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Labels: Holiday

My dad is, by his own admission, a democratic socialist. He doesn't look like Fidel Castro and took no part in the Poll Tax Riots, it's just an ideal that governs his ways, and although his ways have started to become set, it's served me rather well.

His belief of the inclusive rule of the people gave me a happy stable childhood which has set me up well for everything that has come at me since. That and being middle class, we middle class people are much better at being stable than the less well educated.

When I was three dad's idealism was tested to the fore. He is a lifelong Wolverhampton Wanderers fan, having followed them since the 1950's when they were the mightiest force in all European football. Wolves have the best football kit in all the world - old gold shirts, black shorts, and old gold socks. It's a mighty motif, even though the club are now a shadow of their past.

Turning three dad took me to get my first football kit. He'd probably dreamt of this day since my mother announced I was "Y'know, not a girl, the other type". It was the only opportunity he'd get to bestow the religion of football into a son. This was the day his only son would wear the old gold and black of the greatest football team ever to walk the earth.

Or so he thought.

These were the days when football kits were thick cotton, and where Arsenal's red shirts with white sleeves was deemed a bit flash. Mostly kits were one colour, the shorts were a contrast, the socks, the same colour as the shirts. Football kits for men with impressive moustaches.

Dad's dream was to turn me into a Wanderer, yet it clashed with his ideal as a democratic socialist. If he was going to buy me a football kit, I would have to be allowed to choose which one it was. The ploy was simple. The shopkeeper pulled out an old gold shirt, and for comparison, a blue one.

"Which one do you want" asked dad pointing eagerly at the old gold shirt

"Blue" said I

Then came the shorts, black Wanderers shorts, or white ones?

"White"

And finally the socks, old gold or blue?

"Blue"

The plan had backfired, I chose the opposite to what I was supposed to choose and dad found himself father to an Ipswich Town fan. For a few years, spurred on by my kit, I followed Ipswich through one FA Cup and one UEFA Cup, and countless other glories. It wasn't that long before the Oxford bug got me, but that's another story.

In the interveneing years that kit remained the one and only complete football kit I ever had. I got new football shirts, even a cool Bayern Munich one, but I never had the complete set of shirt, shorts and socks.

For my 29th birthday Simon bought me an Oxford shirt emblazoned with Ruffles on the back. It was set to be another in a long line of football shirts. But when I started playing 5-a-side I realised I needed proper kit, I went and bought some shorts and socks from the Oxford club shop. As if by magic 27 years after my first football kit, I had my second.

A story I've depicted in this artwork I call "The tragedy of time".

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Labels: General me

I've done Glastonbury just once, y'see you don't 'go' to Glastonbury, you 'do' it. The year I did it was the year AWOL Take That dancer Fat Bob Williams appeared on stage doing the Running Man to Oasis' Cigarettes and Alcohol. Legendary in a Heat and Smash Hits kind of way.

Me, Chogggaz, Wiggaz, Melissa, and Glidder went. We saw thousands of bands; Tricky, Oasis, Orbital, Massive Attack, Charlatans, Elastica, Pulp and a Japanese band who had two bassists and started every song counting in with "On OOh Fee Four" before embarking on an ear-splitting sonic assault indistinguishable from any other song in their set.

One morning we made our way to the NME stage to see Shed 7 or someone, it was busy but we spotted a gap that was perfectly central to the stage. We made for it, edging our way through, the crowds cleared in our midst. Looking down we saw the reason for the apparent space. Crouching on the floor was a completely naked man having a poo in front of everyone. People didn't know whether to look and laugh, or hide and be sick. Thankfully he was just finishing when we got there, at which point he got up turned and looked me in the face said "Animals That Swim rock man" and disappeared off...

In narcotic parlance I believe he was buzzing off his tits.

I also experienced the joy of the rave at that Glastonbury, one night me and Wiggaz went for a tea, it was about 1am. We chatted and then made our way back to our camp. We turned right down the main thoroughfare into the novelty hats and veggie burgers village. The stalls had turned into sound systems and for as far as you could see there were thousands upon thousands of people dancing in the hazy light. There was something quite tribal about it. We went and had a little dance. It was ace.

Our camp was next to a group of girls who had their tent ransacked on the second day. They left a note on their tent, just in case the thieving rapscallions came back, asking for their stuff back because they were off to Cornwall and wouldn't be able to go if they didn't have their stuff. Oddly, they didn't get it back.

Our neighbourhood hadn't looked good when we first arrived, we didn't have much choice of where we went, and as we set up we heard a shout.

"I have no remorse, I'm the motherfucking murderer"

Sitting opposite was a northern beer boy, or more precisely, a northern brandy boy, he was swigging from a huge optic. He'd clearly drunk about half of it. He commentated throughout the entire construction of our tent.

"Look it was a some cloth and poles, now it's a home"

Sometimes it was funny, mostly it was threatening. It was a little unnerving for people who were quite overawed with the 100,000 plus festival site. As he bated us he told us that him and his mates had come from Bolton three weeks previously, parked up their van, and the perimeter fence had effectively been built around them. That's what he said, and who are we to argue?

"Big Bad Bo Billy, in the mother fucking house"

We hadn't spotted the half constructed two man tent with the pair of legs sticking out the end. Inside was Big Bad Bo Billy, it was difficult to tell how Big and Bad Bo Billy was, but his workman's boots suggested, fairly.

"I have no remorse I'm the motherfucking murderer" said the bloke swigging more brandy, he asked us where we were from, we said Oxford, he laughed. "Billy, they're from Orrrrkkkssfooorrrdd"

I thought we were in for trouble, and Big Bad Bo Billy hadn't even taken the stage.

It was, thankfully the hottest Glastonbury in an age, and that, plus the Brandy turned our friend a little groggy. Slowly he fell asleep on a half made camp bed. We had from rest bite. Then Big Bad Bo Billy began to stir. I expected him to emerge with a pickaxe or something. Slowly he unfolded himself from his tent, he was 48 feet tall. He stood up, stretched, adjusted his sunhat, said "'allo lads, sorry about 'im" he said nodding to his comatose friend. He then walked over. picked up a towel and gently placed it over his mate's head and arms to stop him burning.

Then he carefully undid his mate's trousers, pulled his willy out and walked off 'for a burger'. It was midday, it was 32 degrees, there wasn't a cloud in a sky and he didn't wake for another four and a half hours, by which point his willy had become a fried radish.

We had no problems with him for the rest of the weekend.

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Labels: General me

The difference between my generation and that of my parents is the invention of the video camera. My dad can tell the story about the time he set fire to a farmer's field, but he has no proof. When Sophie and my little second cousin Harry ask about the antics of their parents, uncles, and aunties we'll just reach for the video tape.

Harry will be able to watch his dad, Jonathan, twice eating cat food, and his uncle, Jeremy, sticking his head in a garden pond or spitting a mouthful of ketchup all over a window. The stunts were done for the benefit of my dad's video camera. Jonathan was spoofing a cat food advert where the food was literally 'good enough to eat'. Jeremy was being a Blue Peter gardening expert, looking for fish. This was all part of the fun of going to see our cousins.

The same video also sees Jonathan demonstrating a recipe involving an old 7" record, a fish tank, lots of water and four bags of flour. He then pours it over himself. My sister Kirsty is seen wearing tights on her head whilst tied to a set of railings. Don't ask.

Yep, when Sophie and Harry come asking, they'll get it in spades.

Sadly though, the oddest day of them all was never recorded on video. It was Christmas, we were visiting Auntie Joanna and Uncle James as part of our Christmas family tour.

Upon arrival we were furnished with champagne, Uncle James’ default position is standing in the middle of his living room with a bottle of champagne tilted at 45 degrees. You say, can I have a drink, and he pours. For the first time my sister Annia's now fiancé Chris had joined us, through a combination of paranoia and nerves, she got absolutely mullered on champagne. Chris was left to fend for himself whilst Annia lay prostrate on the couch groaning.

Auntie Joanna spent the day talking almost entirely in pidgin Italien. She had just retired and was about to buy an 'apartmento' in Italy. She also planned to rent rooms of their house out to foreign students. Jonathan and Jeremy weren't long left home, but as you know the church of your parents is a tough ministry. It was Christmas, Joanna handed out crackers. Inside were blow up toys... no no not what you're thinking, they were blow up balls and bats, tennis rackets, baseball bats etc.

The house has a long hallway, and when we were kids we'd either play football in the park opposite, or in the winter, in the hall. In the park we'd play first to 175 in an empty swimming pool. I vividly remember Jonathan, looking like a seven year old Leo Sayer, purple faced with his top off celebrating putting his team 168-165 in the lead. We were of course, too big to play in the hall now, except the blow up toys unleashed uncontrollable feelings (don't they always, fellas?). There was an impromptu game of football, four grown men; me, Jonathan, Jeremy and Dudley pushing and shoving and smashing ornaments like a bunch of eight year olds in a three foot wide hallway.

Joanna was insistent after lunch that we help her move a settee from the top floor three flights of stairs. We went upstairs to survey the work. When we got there Jonathan spotted that something wasn't right. It had been his room, and by the simple rules of displacement, his stuff had to have been put Somewhere Else. But where?

When asked, Joanna told him that they'd been thrown in the skip as part of a massive clearout. Everything had gone, teddy bears, clothes, games, books, shells collected off the beach, and two completed football Panini sticker books from the late 70's, valued of £1000 each. Gone, his childhood, gone, his heirlooms, gone. All of it in a landfill site somewhere in Hertfordshire.

Jonathan's soul was ripped right out of his throat where he stood. He was flabbergasted, devastated, and not to say a little hurt. It took Joanna a good hour to realise the extent of what she had done to him. Although she probably should have noticed him standing in the middle of the kitchen silently mouthing the word "Why?" to nobody in particular.

My dad helped, the same thing happened to him when he was a kid, he told Jonathan, that "If it's any consolation, you'll never get over it". He hasn't, we're advised not to talk about it.

All the while Jeremy had been quietly enjoying the spectacle. It wasn't that he wanted his brother hurt, but there's something satisfying in seeing it happen. He shouldn't have been quite so smug. In an attempt to get an explanation, Jonathan asked why his stuff, and not Jeremy's. Well, Joanna is nothing if not fair. She'd skipped all Jeremy's stuff too.

Jeremy couldn't believe it, by this time Joanna had become very very aware of what she'd done, she couldn't console them both at the same time. Every time she went to Jeremy, Jonathan would start mouthing "Why?" every time she went to Jonathan, Jeremy would ask about something else. All of which had gone in the skip.

"What about Sooty?"
"I threw Sooty out"
"But" he gaped with a Thousand Yard Stare "Sooty had a Sooty Passport"

Ever the pragmatist, Joanna realised even though she had placed black spots on her sons hearts, she still needed her settee moving. So we moved it, five men, three floors. Every turn we took a chunk out of the wall, we ripped wallpaper, we chipped the stairs. But we did it, eventually.

It was time to go home. We'd got drunk, had hangovers and recovered, we'd regressed back to our childhoods, then been wrenched into our present and faced with the transience and disposability of our lives. Another nice day with the family.

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Labels: General me

I've been busier than a German beaver after the Dambusters paid a visit, but in all the stresses and strains we've had the photos from New Year, and you can't beat people in wigs.

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Labels: General me