...ruffles...

This weekend I will go to the football and watch Oxford play Mansfield, we’re top of the league and still unbeaten so I’m looking forward to it. The rest of the weekend is pretty blank, we may go to the cinema, we may see Katie, we may even visit the Dobscrub’s new baby, if Vicki conveniences us all by having it on Friday or Saturday (come on Vickster, some of us have to work). But we don’t have much on, and frankly, I’m glad because I’m emotionally spent.

The first time I remember meeting Sara she was in full Stone Roses chic in a pair of flared jeans and wallabies shoes. She was about 13. I don’t remember the first time I met Gareth, but it would have been about four years ago and Sara would have insisted on him dressing up in his best clothes when they came over. Sara doesn’t wear flared jeans anymore, and Gareth barely changes out of his slippers when he comes over. Things change.

They finally did the biggie last weekend and got married. In what was a full day, I nearly wrote off the Rolls Royce (with one working door) hired to ferry Sara around. The Pastor decided to call Sara Louise, “Louise Sara” during the vows. Two people did a runner when Sara walked in realising they’d got the wrong wedding, and then returned having forgotten their camera. A guest sitting at the front of the church in full view of everyone suffered the crippling embarrassment of her camera film rewinding and her phone going off… to which she cursed herself with an audible “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

During the reception, the best man Tim took his duties somewhat literally, his speech dismantled Gareth’s personality bit by bit with stories of vomit, drinking, and nudity, which were illustrated with pixilated photos. Afterwards Emma’s Grandma said that Gareth and Emma’s dad’s speeches were marvellous, but for some reason neglected to mention the best man. He also started a near riot by opening up some old East coast, West coast shit*.

Despite a minor panic over a late arriving DJ, the evening do saw Gareth’s often monosyllabic teenage brother turn from gangling pubescent to Fred Astaire, wowing the ladies (including, most disturbingly, my mum) with moves so nifty it was like he’d been force fed Ceroc lessons since a young age. He finished the night off at 2am returning to his teenage roots, ordering tequila and two vodka shots and then disappearing to the toilets to throw up.

There were other cameos, Donkman’s dancing, the appearance of a back up bridesmaid, Tom doing a Del Boy prat fall when trying to lean on the shoulder of his girlfriend just as she stepped away to talk to someone. Gareth’s mum’s first words when she appeared in her beautifully tailored, carefully chosen designer outfit: “Ooh I’m sweating like a pig”. Then there was Claire shaking her booty like a high class table dancer two minutes before bursting into tears like someone had shot her dog blubbing “It’s like she’s left us”. Another rendition of “One more tune” like we were back on the Stag. Emma’s auntie filming the whole shebang on a video camera the size of an elephant. Tim breakdancing. The dancefloor invasion during the first dance… by the mother and father of the bride. The Waitrose Paprazzi pushing their way into the cheap seats “’scuse me, scuse me, oh no I don’t want an order of service, I’m not invited”. Me and Katie looking on aghast as Gareth’s divorced parents enjoyed a tongue sandwich then walked off the dancefloor revealing themselves to not be Gareth’s parents at all. And what about the ushers and Sara posing for a picture whilst questioning through fake smiles “What the fuck is he doing” as one dirty old bugger tried to lick the ear of the photographer?

The biggest surprise of all was being singled out in Gareth’s speech. Apparently me and Emma have offered “support, advice and above all common sense” which, whilst I’d have preferred “Elk racing, Leer Jet flights and fire breathing” was very touching.

So ubiquitous is the presence of Sara and Gareth in our lives, I had totally forgotten how close we are as friends. But moreover it confirmed to me that we’re on track with the Ruffles Philosophy. Y’see, we want a house that our friends can come to anytime they want. You may have to take us as you see us, which is usually in a mess, but you’re always welcome, the kettle is never cold.

I love the way Sara and Gareth come over in their tracky-bots to do little more than chat the world away, eat takeaway and watch the telly or how Simon appears on a Sunday to watch the 1980 version of Flash Gordon. We may not impress you with our cooking, or the size of our house, or our off-beat holidays to Upper Volta but if you come over there’s no pretence. Totally relaxed, totally normal. I like having friends who let us be like that.

On Saturday Gareth helped confirm to me that the philosophy is working, if during the 20 months of organising, we helped make things a little easier then I’m happy.

*we went to a split site school; there were two lower school’s Lower School East and Lower School West which merged into one upper school in the fourth year – there were rivalries.

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Labels: Friends

Someone’s been watching me, having read “Have gun will travel – the story of Death Row Records” on holiday I got thinking about the gap in my record collection dedicated to Gangsta Rap. During the height of Gangsta Rap I was enjoying the more left field acts of the genre who ploughed a more conceptual furrow – The Goats (Politics Hop), The Gravediggaz (Death Hop), Pharcyde (Silly Sausages Hop) Cypress Hill (Munchies Hop).

I wasn’t a fan of G-Funk; it was a little weedy after the sonic onslaughts of Public Enemy and NWA, and the brilliantly creative samples of the Party Hip Hop it was now eclipsing.

The book is basically the story of Suge Knight, yet, if it was good enough to have a subtext (it isn’t) it would actually be the story of Dr Dre. Reading it I began to realise that with the exception of the few lyricists with anything to say (Eminem, Chuck D), the producer is god in Hip Hop. All the great dynasties have been themed through their production teams; Sugarhill Gang, Marley Marl, The Bomb Squad, Dr Dre, Timabland, and The Neptunes – the lyricists are two a penny.

Lyrically, Gangsta Rap is banal, but reading the book, so are the lives of its protagonists - which are a very boring cycle of fights and beefs punctuated by about three stories of interest i.e. Suge Knight holding Vanilla Ice out of a 23rd story window by his ankles to make him sign over rights to his album, and the killings of Tupac and Biggie Smalls – which seem to be little more than petty spats that got out of hand rather than any lawless street war. There doesn’t even seem to be very many guns involved – in fact they all seem to jump out of their skin when a gun appears.

Given Death Row’s extensive roster of acts you’d think it’d be difficult to find the definitive Death Row album, but it becomes clear that since the 90’s hip-hop has been all about franchising (Wu Tang Clan with Method Man, GZA, ODB, etc, Eminem with D12 and 50 Cent) and most of the spin offs are crap reproductions. The Death Row records worth having have been produced by Dre, and of those The Chronic is where it all started.

The Chronic is a brilliant album, as well produced as any I’ve heard, especially turned up to 25 in the car. But after The Chronic, the genre (sub-genre? whatever) leaves me cold, I like Snoop’s drawl but the rest on the West Coast just make up the numbers and the East Coast equivalent is really very lame pop RnB.

However, being a consummate archivist when it comes to my record collection I needed something to fill my East Coast Gangsta void. The record that always comes into my head is Mo Money Mo Problems by Notorious BIG (featuring inevitably Puffy on backing “Ah Ha’s” and “Oh Yeah’s”). This record is several years old, and was deleted ages ago. I’ve been trying to track it down since I got back from holiday, preferably on 12”, but I’d even failed to find it on CD. The Diana Ross sample has drilled into my head constantly ever since – you don’t know how pre-occupied I’ve become with the record.

Well, someone does, yesterday whilst virtuously walking from Blackfriars to Marylebone after a meeting I dropped into HMV. On a rack of re-released classics, there it was; a repress of Mo Money Mo Problems by Notorious BIG. It wasn’t there last week, but there it was: it – perfectly positioned product meeting me – target demographic. It was expensive, but I’d become so obsessed by it I just had to have it.

WHO’S BEEN WATCHING ME, HOW DID YOU FIND OUT, DAMN YOU CLEVER MARKETING MEN, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL.

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Labels: Music

Who hasn’t had a few scrapes on a bike? OK, OK, you can put your hands down now, don’t draw attention to yourself, you’re at work remember, you’re not supposed to be reading this.

I’ve had many; I’ve used a peddle-back break, one which I didn’t know I had, whilst taking a corner making me involuntarily apply my front break and sending me flying over the handlebars. I’ve slipped a bike into neutral losing all power causing me to slide alarmingly across a gravely road tearing my 'Battle of the Planets' t-shirt in the process. I’ve been hit by a car, and was so startled just jumped back on and rode off without a word to the horrified driver.

Having cut and banged my knee in that accident, Emma, along with a number of her maternal friends insisted that I visit A&E to get it checked out. After all, they said, knees are funny things; a small bang can come back and haunt you in years to come. It was a little swollen and quite sore. I think Emma may have made me a cup of tea out of sympathy. Yes, it looked that bad.

So the next day I went to A&E and sat with the children with pots on their heads and the winos who had overdosed on Vim. Being healthy, male and in my early twenties, having walked in unaided and wandered around picking up leaflets, I was left to wait for two and a half hours for my check-up. Eventually I was seen by a dashing young doctor who rolled up my trouser leg carefully so not to damage ligaments or dislocate the knee cap. I sat and looked down, wincing and what we might see. I was shocked to see…

My knee.

I swear, even the cut had healed up, the swelling was nowhere to be seen, the doctor muttered something like “another Munchausen tosser”. When I asked him to clarify he looked me in the eye in a pitying way and said. “Would you like a tube-e-grip to go on it?” I said no and left in a hurry.

Despite this my greatest fear and scrape has always been with divots; little folds in the road, the lowered part of pavements that allow cars to access driveways. Anything, in fact, which is less than a quarter of an inch high.

For some reason I can bunny-hop any Doberman that comes my way (I used to have a BMX Raleigh Burner with yellow Mag-wheels and trick nuts… Ah now you’re checking my flow.) but when it comes to navigating over something you can barely see from six inches away I’m all over the place, I inexplicably line up my wheels in parallel with the fold or curb and find myself hurtling along unable to steer with my legs sticking out desperate to stop myself. When eventually I come to a halt, all the cars that have stacked up behind me drive past, laughing hysterically.

I’ve been on my bike everyday this week; I’ve been near to catastrophe about two hundred and forty times.

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Labels: General me

I’ve often thought there’d be mileage in a blog dedicated to commenting on Daily Mirror stories. I used to read The Guardian on the train, but I found I only liked G2 on Mondays (sport and media) and Fridays (Music and TV (which is like Monday’s Media section without the interview with the BBC Head of Welsh Cultural Programming). That plus I can’t turn the pages of a broadsheet without giving those sitting around me a blooded nose in the process. Instead I buy the Mirror which I can read in an hour, be thoroughly entertained by, and usually ensures me a double seat. Three things caught my eye today: -

Firstly this story, which I’ve edited to the essentials: - “Heather McCartney has registered her name as a brand and could develop a range of cosmetics. A spokeswoman for McCartney said she did it to use her name to benefit land mine charities and had no intention of releasing a range of cosmetics. If she does, the Mirror screamed, the range could compete with Stella McCartney’s own range of cosmetics creating further tension between Stella and her dad Sir Paul.”

Unconfirmed reports also saw Stella McCartney buying a nail file from Boots, she said it was because she had a rough edge to one of her nails. HOWEVER, (eyes narrow suspiciously) IF she uses that nail file to saw off her leg at the knee in a desperate attempt to win back the affections of her father this could create further tensions between Heather and her husband Sir Paul. The intrigue!

The letters page offers this cracker: - “Can the recent blackouts in London and New York be too much of a coincidence? Could it be that terrorists are tampering with our infrastructure in preparation for a major terrorist attack?” (This is my favourite bit) “Come on Tony Blair, tell the truth for once.”

Tony Blair resisted the urge to tell us the truth for once in answering “Yes, it’s probably too much of a coincidence and no, it probably isn’t terrorists.” Wriggled his way out of it again, the snake.

What about the enigmatic little boxes that contain corrections from previous issues. In the Guardian they usually contain things like “Correction: - The King of Deheubarth died in 1063 and not 1062, oh how we all had a jolly good laugh at that.” In the Mirror the corrections leave you panting for more. Today’s included: -

Correction: The lowest temperature possible is -273 degrees centigrade; it is not possible for temperatures to drop to -700C.

What was the story?!

Mind you, it might be worth getting the Star ocassionally on the back of today's issue the headline bellows in letters as big as houses “BECKS GOES AWOL!” referring to a story whereby David Beckham’s flight from Spain was diverted from Manchester to Stanstead causing the footballing icon mild inconvenience. The drama!

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Labels: Music

Sadly I can’t claim ownership to this rather incisive social observation. For it is Simon who accurately concludes that women communicate their excitement through the medium of showing each other their wrists, hence…

WRISTS! WRISTS!

I have much to tell you, the week in Italy you know about but we’ve also done lunch at Le Manoir, a weekend in Mallorca with my favourite people in the whole world, and Australia Jo’s wedding.

I have developed the theories of Bridesmaid’s Envy and Airport Machismo, pondered structuralism in relation to my friends; have developed firm opinions about the role of producers in Hip Hop. I’m redesigning justinruffles.com with masses of new functionality (if pictures and good spelling can be classified as functionality). We’re on a healthy living kick. And Oxford are on a six game unbeaten run, third in the table and in the second round of the Carling Cup.

And we have Sky!

WRISTS! WRISTS!

What’s more, it’s Sara and Gareth’s wedding on Saturday, the Dobscrub’s baby is due. The social diary is packed with Willy’s birthday, and Dave Gorman and Al Murray gigs. And we’ve got a party in the planning. All I have to do now is find some time to tell you all about it.

And we have Sky!

WRISTS! WRISTS!

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Labels: General me

Imagine if you will, the people of London converging on Trafalgar Square singing the songs of their region. East Londoners; The Lambeth Walk, those from the West; Tosca, the North, If I Were A Rich Man and the South; 21 Seconds by So Solid Crew. Each follows a horse and a little man in pyjamas, upon which their hopes and dreams rely.

The Siena Palio is the Italy’s most spectacular festival. Every July and August the town’s seventeen family groups or Contrada establish bragging rights through a series of brutal, lawless horse races around Il Campo, the town centre, not the Bolton centre back.

Before each race the Contrada march through the streets, singing songs of battle, afterwards they feast and celebrate. The races are riddled with corruption, it’s been known for jockeys, local Italian cowboys, to be kidnapped on the way to a race. Corruption runs so deep, it is said that by the time they get to the start line no more than three of the seventeen horses have any chance of winning such is the drugging and bribery that goes on.

After an hour and more of jockeying for starting positions, the race lasts 90 seconds, jockeys ride bareback and are frequently sent crashing to the floor. It’s a contradictory event, the rivalries are fierce, yet the atmosphere celebratory and friendly, the racing is chaotic, yet regimented by history and pageantry.

Emma nearly fainted in the crowds, we waited for three hours for something to happen, I’ve no idea who won. It was ace.

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Labels: Holiday

On holiday we rarely got going before 4 o’clock. The heat was oppressive (the car registered 42 degrees one day) so we did little more than sit by the pool and siesta. I don’t really do sunbathing, to use a Danny Wallace-ism – “I know what I want and I know how to get it, it’s just that usually what I want is a cup of tea and a biscuit, and how I get it is by going to the kitchen.” So in between my five books we did frequent a few local towns.

The nearest was Pistoia, a town typical of the area, although you can become complacent of Tuscany’s beauty. As we sat in the square watching the Galetaria seller open her stall in preparation for the evening’s trade I turned to Emma and asked her a question I’ve wanted to ask for ever: -

“Is sweat dripping down your back and into your bumhole?”
“Yes what about you?”
“Yes”

Pistoia’s like that; it really needs something to lift it from being more than just another Tuscan town. Pisa is equally unremarkable but at least it’s got the tower. When you walk out of the meadow and into the town it is remarkable for its emptiness. It’s a town built on bad surveying techniques. Figuratively, not literally, if it was literally built on bad surveying techniques it wouldn’t be there.

Italian towns in August are dead; you can walk through them on a Saturday afternoon and not see a soul. Siesta is very unnerving for those of us cursed with a protestant work ethic. Would it be too much to ask the locals to siesta in the town square to assure hapless tourists that people live there? For all we know everyone could have been killed by a huge leak of noxious gases.

Florence on the other hand doesn’t fail to deliver or impress. When I went as a teenager it was in the middle of huge clean up so the Cathedral and surrounds were covered in scaffolding. That gone it is everything you hope for and more.

Emma, whose map reading skills are nigh on legendary told me before the holiday that we were so far from Florence that it wasn’t on our map although we were just 20km away from Firenze. It makes me wonder, how many people, and there have to have been a few, go to Tuscany intending to visit Florence but never make it because they are unaware of the Italian spelling.

We parked in a city centre car park, when we returned we were greeted by a swarthy unshaven Italian covered in sweat, in a dirty vest. He muttered something to his mate then turned to us and said “That will be 10 Euros please” in a voice which suggested he had learnt English from Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? As we sorted through our funny money he broke back into his growling Italiano. we handed over the cash and he said “Thenk-ewe very maaaarch, your car is around the corrrrrner”. He even rolled his ‘Rs’. Apparently he went to boarding school in Dorset which has clearly paid dividends now he’s secured this late night shift in an undercover car park. Whilst we were tempted to ask about buggery and the intricate private school fagging system, we had to get home.

You’ve got to admit I’m a bit of a Bill Bryson, we visit the cultural behemoth of Florence and tell a story about the car park.

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Labels: Holiday

Strategically it was a simple holiday; low key and low maintenance, and whilst there was something very fedora hat and imported copies of the Independent about a week in Tuscany, it met all pre-defined objectives. We were based in Il Cagnagno; a tiny hill village outside Pistoia which was accessible only by “A rough but asphalted road”, as if to say, ‘well at least it’s asphalted, what do you want? Jam on it?’

Emma took driving responsibilities, a fair challenge for the winding ascents to the apartment which were reminiscent of family holidays driving through the Alps and Pyrenees. One time mum took over from a tiring dad whilst driving over a precarious Alpine pass. As she pulled away, a guide book balanced on the dashboard slid down and jammed behind the steering wheel locking it up and putting the car on a direct trajectory towards the edge of a million foot drop. She eventually decided to brake, and shaken they swapped back over so dad carried on driving, fully rested from travelling fifteen feet in the passenger seat.

Our apartment was a converted something or other with narrow windows like those you find on castles. Maybe Il Cagnagno was an independent state, as many of the towns in the area seem to have been, although with a population of no more than six, its nuclear arsenal was likely to be limited.

The pool next door was a honeypot for beautiful middle class locals. Young Italian women are without exception slim sexy bronzed nymphets able to wear bikinis without a second warning, capable of walking in 38 degree heat without perspiring a bead of sweat, and able to exit and enter swimming pools like supermodels. But their gorgeousness is short lived because young sexy slim Italian women just don’t grow into older sexy slim Italian women. They leap straight to being gnarly 32 stone deep sea monsters with jowls like a clowns pocket. Could it be that the diet of pasta and pizza, and inevitable stream of dates they attract catches up with them? That they wake up one morning with legs like oak trees. Perhaps Italian men don’t marry the thin ones because mama wouldn’t accept them (no child baring hips, don’t like their food, sullied by years of being gorgeous) and the fat ugly ones, hidden away learning to cook for years, suddenly become desirable wife material. Emma thinks that British Women win overall because they may start plain, but at least they sustain their plainness longer. 


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Labels: Holiday

I am currently away from this blog, I shall be returning in a week, I will deal with your queries then. If your need for blog relief is urgent, please contact another blogger. But then come back to me. I’m funnier, and rely on your site hits to give my life value and purpose.

Yep, I’m off on holiday, which I’m sure you’re relieved to hear. I am fully aware during this hottest of hot patches, you could perceive from my recent musings that I, the boy Ruffles, have spent the last month playing tennis once, going out for dinner with Katie once and watching a whole heap of TV. This isn’t true. The TV bit is, but I have done other stuff.

It’s true I don’t really like the heat, if I were to choose one season to live in for the rest of my life; it would be winter (I can’t abide the Halfling seasons of spring and autumn). I find it very difficult to enjoy a hot day. I can’t sit in the garden and read a book, I mean I can read, but I’m not like Clare at college who covered her legs in cooking oil when sunbathing. She fried, quite literally.

This is the funniest time of year for me. It’s my birthday on Saturday, an occasion of underwhelming gravitas. The school summer holidays meant opportunities for parties and presents from friends were limited. Even when people were around, I wasn’t. I’ve spent many birthdays sitting in the boot of a car waiting to board a ferry on the first stage of an annual family invasion of Europe. We’ve even had holidays when I’ve gone back to work after two weeks on my birthday.

It doesn’t even have a particularly special place in the family calendar. Y’see we have a family birthday week. Two days before mine is Annia’s birthday, three days after is Kirsty’s. Yeah, go on, parents as regular as clockwork. Even Australia Jo’s is on the 5th. Emma’s 30th, which exists in blessed isolation in the middle of May, lasts forever. Her 30th lasted a month. My 30th was cocooned in several other birthdays and eclipsed, quite rightly, by Penny’s wedding. Over the years my birthday has simply paled into insignificance.

But I’m not bitter, the football season starts on Saturday which is compensation enough for me - life’s not that bad.

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Labels: General me

I should have gone to the gym or the pool or have done something because by 9pm last night my teeth were itching with boredom. Emma turned to watch That’ll Teach ‘Em on Channel 4, a series where children of the noughties are taught in the style of the 50’s.

There was nothing wrong nor right with the programme, it filled a space in the schedule whilst most people enjoyed the last of the evening sun in parks and gardens up and down the country.

The only interesting thing about it was Mr Daplin the PE teacher. Y’see, Mr Daplin was one of my PE teachers at school, a PE Teacher Without Portfolio. He wasn’t the debonair Mr Jones (Brittle Bones, Jam and Scones) the head of the department and destined for a deputy headship. He wasn’t in the brigade of young bucks, like Mr Bannister, who was subject to enduring, probably apocryphal tales of being banned from one of the school’s sites after being found in the showers with a sixth form girl. Nor was he, The PE Teacher Who Used to Play for Morton, who definitely did enjoy carnal knowledge of someone he taught, because nowadays they are often seen cosily doing their weekly shopping together around town.

Mr Daplin was just a ubiquitous presence in the changing rooms of our school (am I allowed to say that?). Little did we know of the successful TV career he was planning for himself.

I can’t let this pass without giving you the simple stratification of women games teachers. There were only two kinds, the Gorgeous Ones (at our school numbered one – though thinking back she did look like a Duran Duran groupie, but at least she was young and wore a short games skirt), and The Lesbians. The Lesbians all had husbands and children, but because they were women and hung around where women got naked, and had short hair they were all lesbians, those were the rules. Don’t blame me for it, this is the law of PE.

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Labels: TV and radio

I took the opportunity to watch Fat Bob’s Knebworth shindig on Saturday and I just don’t get it. I don’t blame Bob himself; he’s just doing what he’s doing, and getting paid handsomely for it. And I don’t deny he can be entertaining. But is he really 375,000 people in three days entertaining?

Don’t get me wrong, he’s not blameless; his craving for fame is nauseous, thanking everyone from his family to his manager but “most importantly his fans” and claiming he was “Your son Great Britain”. But why do people pay £30 and more to watch a bloke doing a wedding reception cabaret? Bob claims he wants to be Iggy Pop and Johnny Rotten when he goes on stage but it all comes out Norman Wisdom and he hates it. He’s right, he’s basically a cynical rip-off of stadium performers throughout the ages – from Freddie Mercury the yodelling call and response skit to the Bono-esque ‘saving’ someone from the crowd crush (a crush incidentally, which everyone else on the front row seemed to endure with big smiles on their faces). Throw in a little bit of the big show off at the school disco, and you seem to have a pop phenomenon.

There is an element of empathy in all successful music. So perhaps that’s it, maybe the girls want to regress back to school and be all giggly and silly around the good looking fool, the cheeky chappy who could get away with looking up their skirts in science lessons. The blokes just wish they could go back to that time or have had the guts to get away with it.

There are other benefits of course, it’s definitely cheaper and easier to see one Robbie gig than put the effort into seeing Oasis, The Stones, Queen, Bowie, U2, Bono, Take That and Wisdom live. It’s also easier to buy one Robbie CD than the back catalogues of all these bands. It’s definitely more interesting to see it at Knebworth than at a working men’s club. Although, don’t kid yourselves, we saw Oasis at Knebworth and when you’re as far back as we were, it’s more of a buzz for the singer that the crowd.

Will we look back on the Robbie phenomenon with a slightly embarrassed snigger, much like we will look back on Sex And The City and conclude that the women looked not like fashion icons, but like crap on a rope stick (whatever that is) and that all we fell for was the fact that Kim Catrell was prepared to do full frontal nudity in a mainstream TV show, and say “fuck”, or as she actually says “Fuuuurk”.

It’s definitely on the cards, the show last night seemed to involve Let Me Entertain You followed by two hours of fillers rounded off with Angels. In between were a series of skits and celebrity guests (well Max Beesley) and few vaguely recognisable hits, of which only Kids really makes the grade. What I assume is the new stuff, sounds like ropey copies of the old stuff and whilst I’m bored of it now, others’ will get bored of it soon enough. What Robbie does for his fame then, god only knows.

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Labels: Music

I’ve put a new mix in the mix club. Knowing that Simon, who will always gets a copy, occasionally does his gym stuff to Ruffles’ mixes, and knowing how hardcore Plump DJ’s TB Reality is, this is called the Simon Splits A Kidney Mix.

Shake It (Mutiny Funk Mix) - Marascia
Stucco Homes (Return of the Ghost Mix) - Brett Johnson and Dave Barker
Shine On (Circoloco Remix) - Lucky Vs Hill Sixty
Patricia Never Leaves The House (Wally Lopez & Dr Kucho 2003 Edit) - Wally Lopez and Dr Kucho
Thrill Me - Junior Jack
Dooms Night (Da Hardstylaz Remix) - Azzido Da Bass
Body Freefall Electronic Inform #2 (Counterplan Mix) - Luke Slater
Bucci Bag (Wally Lopez Weekend Con Mazo De Graves!! Mix) - Andrea Doria
TB Reality – Plump DJs
Remember My Name – Plump DJs
No Ticket to Run – Santos
Killa Instinct – Initial Research
Noels House Party – Midfield General
People of the World Unite (Jon Carter Mix) - Tony Thomas & Access S8
Deeper Down (Hill Sixty Remix) - DKS

Hell, I’m so excited, I’m going to put another mix in there, it’s an oldie but a goodie - here’s my Wedding Special: -

Young Scene
Groove is in the Heart – Deee Lite
Doin’ The Doo – Betty Boo
Vogue – Madonna
Can’t Get You Out Of My Head – Kylie Minogue
Static Avenger
Roger Sanchez
Café Del Mar – Energy 52
Professional Widow (Armand Van Helden Mix) – Tori Amos
Red Alert – Basement Jaxx
Renegade Master (Fatboy Slim Mix) - Wildchild
Hey Boy Hey Girl – Chemical Brothers
Because of You - Scanty Sandwich
Born Slippy – Underworld
Star 69 – Fatboy Slim

By the way if you have asked for a CD, I’m getting round to it.

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Labels: Music

I rather like Busted, well I like the principle. Whilst I’m sure they’re not a statement on the hackneyed rehash of punk rock attitude that fills MTV, it would be nice to think their was some art statement going on behind their chiselled good looks.

Emma often talks about their single “Year 3000”, in which they claim to have been to the Year, er, 3000 and how the story in the song doesn't ring true: -

Overlooking some outstanding rhyming couplets including “Funny noise” and “Rowdy boys” the story begins when the lads see their neighbour Peter holding a Flux capacitor, part of a time machine he’d built. Instantly, the boys recognise it as like the one they'd seen in a film. Peter, the errant genius replies with the rather unsettling “Yeah, Yeah”. Now we’re not given any indication as to whether this was a nonchalant agreeing “Yeah Yeah” or a rock god “YEAH! YEAH!” either way it’s a less than inspiring response from someone who has changed the face of science using no more than Back to the Future as reference.

Things then begin to spin out a little. You see, thanks to Peter, they’ve been to the year 3000 where not much has changed but they live under water. Here I must interject, I know younger people are more agreeable to evolutionary change, but surely even they must agree living underwater is somewhat of a significant change, for example, you couldn't eat digestive biscuits anymore.

Now whilst change is unnerving the Boys reassure us that your great, great, great grand daughter is pretty fine. Now my reaction to any punk with a guitar making overt advances on a relative would be to pin him up against a wall and cut his throat. However, if this is your great great great granddaughter, to be still living in the Year 3000 she would have to be nigh on 800 years old. In which case Busted are a bunch of sick little shits. On the other hand she may be your 23rd generation granddaughter, but that wouldn't scan.

The next thing they see in this world where not much has changed is triple breasted women who swim around town… totally naked. They're adament that this is fairly normal.

But as the song progresses it sounds like Busted are doing OK. Their song has gone multiple platinum – which is not surprising, Prince has a big hit in 1999 with 1999, Eurythmics with 1984 in 1984, presumably Paul Hardcastle will be raking it in with 19-9-9-9-9-9-9-19. But that's a few year's off, and a terrible terrible joke to boot.

Things are going well for the boys, everybody buying their seventh album and its outsold Mich…. Hang on, SEVENTH? What the bloody hell have they been doing to cause them to release an album on average nearly every 143 years? Those cheeky scamps with their boyband rock hybrid music are cheating the fans. Looking at the evidence, and their simple workshy attitudes, I think they could be an evil marketing scam pulled by a major record label.

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Labels: Music

Getting back from dinner with Katie on Friday, not tired and having heard nothing of the result of the Big Brother final I decided to watch it on video (yes, yes, we videoed it, bite me). I sent a text to Emma who is away on Sara’s hen do: “Watching BB on vid, don’t know who wins.” Seconds later she replied “Cameron wins”.

Well of course it’s not been as good other years but the killer 10pm daily update are perfect to keep you watching, Once you’ve bedded in for the night, its too late to go and do something new or demanding, too early for bed. You might as well let BB keep you company.

In Jon Tickle we’ve been able to watch the seduction of fame. Despite claims that he feared it in the outside world he, quickly fell for the whole national hero bunkum. So complicit was his fascination with the fickle mistress, by the time they put him back into the house, he truly believed that he had some kind of holding power over people claiming he would mess with their heads. This, he plainly failed to do, resorting to bleating embarrassingly at Cameron about why he never expressed an opinion. This was because Cameron was too canny to expose himself more than he needed to. Sadly Jon’s own mortality was cruelly exposed in that he was an ordinary bloke in an extraordinary world, not the other way round.

Of Cameron’s opinions, the one that did stand out was that he didn’t believe in same sex marriages. Sissy, who grated both in and out of the house, claimed that he shouldn’t win because he didn’t have the same view as “normal” people. Mind you this was the same person who developed a series of vendettas with people who nominated her, like it was in anyway avoidable. The crucial thing about his view was that he began the sentence, “It is certainly my opinion…”, that is he didn’t want to impress it onto others, that was just how he saw it. It is certainly my opinion that it is OK to hold a personal opinion, whilst I don’t agree with his view, his opinion is valid on this point alone. He also doesn’t believe in sex before marriage or excessive drinking, but I didn’t see him casting opinions or shunning those who did.

Big Brother is like a night out with friends. It could be just another night, it could be the best night of your life, either way, you participate to see which it will be. This is probably why it’s often branded boring, because it’s hard to induce the entertainment on demand. When you do try to do that it’s totally crass and cack handed… and called Fame Academy.

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Labels: TV and radio

I once bought mum a kite for her birthday. After some aborted launches throwing it in the air in a vane attempt to catch a gust, dad suggested we take a run up with the kite trailing behind. The instructions on the kite contradicted the approach, but Dad countered that he knew more than most about kite flying as he’d been doing it for “30 years”. It didn’t take Stephen Hawkins to work out that this would mean he’d started flying kites in his late twenties, about the time I was born which is a funny hobby to take up in a crisis. Either that or maybe time got lost somewhere.

“Your summer sport?” said Emma incredulously “When have you ever had a summer sport?”

Tennis is my summer sport; I just haven’t had a tennis partner for fourteen years. I used to play every day and was a member of our local club; we used to play best of about 140 sets in a single session. I was a bit of a Boris Becker, and a lot of a Boris Johnson.

I’ve not had a regular tennis partner since, what kind of girl do you think I am? I don’t just play with anyone. In Gareth I now have a potential tennis partner, so my natural talents could again grace the (school) tennis courts of Britain.

Playing on Wednesday for the first time in at least two years, I thought I would be rusty, but it was positively alien. The fourteen year gap since I played regularly opened up in front of me like a yawning chasm. Hitting a tennis ball involves moving your feet into a position far enough away to get a good swing, close enough to hit the ball. Power comes from your legs, through your spine and into your arms. The forearms are used for direction, and the wrist adds the spin.

But playing was not like riding a bike, for one thing, there’s no bike. Much as I tried to work it through, my brain couldn’t move my feet, so before I knew it the ball was hitting my forehead. The new fangled racket I borrowed off Sara did all the work in terms of power, so my viciously whipped forehand top spins sent the ball sailing over the fence, over the school maths block, and the English block, and into the Eastern bloc. Whilst I wrestled with the basics, Gareth waited patiently for a ball to come over the net, or eagerly chased after each homer lamped over the fence. Me? I apologised, a lot.

And now my shoulders burn, my fingers have blistered, my summer sport is as alien to me as buffalo racing. We’ll try again next week.

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Labels: General me

ITV have introduced a new programme into their Thursday night ‘ooh the weekend is coming’ schedule. Previously post Big Brother was Club Reps and Pleasure Seekers – a programme that shot itself in the foot by introducing its features before the programme began.

“This week on Pleasure Seekers, a woman who dresses like an antelope for sexual pleasure”

Click, bed time.

The pack has been shuffled by moving Falaraki based Club Reps into the later Pleasure Seekers slot amidst tabloid outcry of teenagers going to the Greek Island on cheap holidays and drinking and having sex. The 10.30 slot is now occupied by Young, Posh and Loaded.

This is a “Reality TV Show” aka a documentary with no substance that ridicules the likes of Donetella for the indulgencies of her parents, one of which was her £45,000 Mini, a present from her dad for failing her driving test.

We were also introduced to a 23 year old “party animal” whose name escapes me; he wants to control London and everyone in it. His David Brent philosophising had a future of heroin addiction and bankruptcy written all over it.

He tells us his privileged background only gave him the foundation for take-off in his career, his ability provides the dynamite, his drive ignites the fuse. He didn’t need a weapon to murder the analogy; he strangled it with his bare hands.

Furthermore, it was all about the money, nothing else. “Some people think money is a dirty word, I don’t think money is a dirty word, in fact I think it’s a particularly clean word” – illustrating ‘clean’ by stretching an imaginary elastic band between his fingers.

None of this prepared us for Victoria Aitken, daughter of disgrace MP Jonathan. Victoria claimed she was neither posh, nor loaded, in fact she’s the opposite to Jennifer Lopez (what? Small bottom and, er, what’s the opposite of a velour tracksuit?) She even had a lyric to describe it - she was, it seems, “just Vicki from the yacht, she had a lot now she’s got a little”.

Victoria’s natural rhythm and her rhyming ability clearly cut her out to be a “rap star” – a career she’s very serious in pursuing. Now I don’t know if the TV crew simply gave her a couple of grand to make an idiot of herself, but for reasons best known to herself, she went to Soho for a hip hop open mic “battle” session. She was clearly intent on showing the rough boys how she can spit lyrics with the best of them. Without shame or hesitancy she got on the mic in front of hundreds of hardened hip hoppers for her first battle in a pair of slacks and a red jumper and danced like your mum at a wedding. Thankfully her lyrics saved her: -

“I wear red like Queen Victoria, Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah”.

Her battle partner opened with something like, “You’re a sloan, I’m gonna give you my bone...” going on to describe how he would flip her over, fill all the holes she had etc. etc.

Guess who won?

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Labels: TV and radio

As a result of the imaginatively titled “Computers for Teachers” scheme, Emma’s been given a laptop in order for her to obsessively play Solitaire. To her credit, although she’s unlikely to ever test the outer limits of its functionality, the first thing she did was create a short PowerPoint presentation for my benefit.

The first slide informed me of “the rules” relating to use of the laptop. There was just one; that Emma could make them up as she went along. Subsequent slides informed that, as she embarks on six weeks of summer holiday, she would be engaging in a large amount of sleeping, shopping, reading, sun bathing, and playing with the cats. If she’s not too busy she may do some stuff on the kitchen project – perhaps in celebration of the second anniversary of its inception.

It’s about time the government coughed up with a free laptop for us; after all it’s over three years since they gave us £500 towards a new PC.

The appearance of the Notebook has implications for this blog; I can now post in front of the telly, so I can watch The Cheeky Girls (bodies like Baywatch, faces like Crimewatch) performing their risible new single “A Cheeky Holiday”. I can watch Eat My Goal on CD:UK and hear the ‘Latest football scores’, including “Toy Story 2 How The West Was 1”.

The net effect on the quality of this blog (what do you mean, what quality?) is to be confirmed, I’m well aware that this country can only sustain three decent TV channels, with ITV and five being a crock of poo. Can this blog sustain my almost unlimited access to a keyboard? Will I have to refer to downgrade sexual innuendo, rehashed tired old stories, celebrity tittle tattle and sensationalised trivia to keep things going?

Oh alright then, how about…

Will I have to refer to more downgrade sexual innuendo, more rehashed tired old stories, more celebrity tittle tattle and more sensationalised trivia to keep things going?

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Labels: General me

I woke up at 6.07 this morning, despite having gone to bed at 1am with work hassles buzzing around my head. And one particularly nauseous hassle who deserves a pike rammed up his hairy arse – but that’s another, altogether more offline, story.

For me, as soon as I’m awake, that’s it, I’m awake, I can’t turn over and snooze, I have to get up. So I did, I was out of the house by seven, and at work by half past. Whilst I know that it’s not motivation, but a full bladder and an inability to snooze that makes me do this, being in early always makes me feel virtuous, I unlocked the offices, turned the alarm off, got the kettle on, walked around the office whistling a happy tune, went to the toilet and was still doing my trousers up whilst walking down the corridor – you can do that when you’re first in, and at any other time if you absent minded as me.

What’s more there’s little traffic on the road which begs the question, who said we work longer hours nowadays, it always seem to me that that roads and trains clog up between 8am-9am and then again between 5pm-6pm even though we’re all supposed to be working 15 hour days and don’t see the sunlight for weeks on end.

I started working, four emails before 8am, six before half past, each one sent with increasing self congratulations; “I bet when the person checks out when this was sent they’ll be impressed”.

About 8.40 the door went again, somebody drives in harbouring smug satisfaction that they will be the first in. They’re crushed as they see my car, with the engine cold as ice, sitting in the car park. What’s more it’s the same person who left me to lock up last night. I know what they’re thinking; “Wow he’s been working all night, and look how fresh he is, he’s such an unstoppable juggernaut, imagine how fertile he is”.

The office door rattles open and shut as 9am approaches, our MD chooses today to come in a little later, by this point I’ve already sent him two emails (check out when they were sent, and don’t fuck with me come pay rise time).

My second coffee is at 9.45, I’ve scratched off four things from my To Do list. By 10 I’ve cleared up two more queries. By 10.30, I’m making another coffee, by eleven I’m surfing the web, by 11.30 I’m writing a blog entry, It’s nearly twelve, I don’t have lunch until 1.30, I could see whose updated their blogs, but I just... Feel. So. Tired.

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Labels: General me

We went to the Thames Valley Youth Games to see Emma’s class play tag rugby as representatives of their district on Saturday. It was a major event with 3,000 kids playing about 15 different sports, including Boccia, which is likely to be some kind of hybrid sport using moulded plastic bats that were featured on Blue Peter, but we never found out.

The constant theme of people who talked to me surrounded why I’d been ‘dragged’ there. Giving all those tawdry and tired ‘under the thumb’ jokes of “Did she give you the choice of this or DIY?” or “You just take orders you don’t ask questions”.

This is all very difficult when you actually wanted to be there. There are worse things to do on a Saturday than sit in the sun on Eton’s playing fields watching sport.

The team did well winning two with displays of fast free flowing passing, which is something I hadn’t expected of either the game or 10 year old kids. Unfortunately they lost the crucial third match to a team who were better than everyone else by some margin (and subsequently according to the blinkered parents – a load of cheats).

The sun blazed down, which had its drawbacks as we got burnt to a crisp. Emma was so busy ensuring the kids had slapped on the factor ten she neglected to take her own advice. I also got burnt but I think my Barcelona bronzing helped set off the redness a little.

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Labels: General me

Penny’s birthday couldn’t have had a better setting, or better weather. Out on the balcony of Doggets Badge and Coat overlooking Blackfriars Bridge we enjoyed the sun setting on The City as we drank Pimms and £4 glasses of Hoegaarden.

We DJ’ed, Simon played some smooth deep house to soundtrack the setting sun, and then I came on at the point when people probably wanted to dance and generally cocked things right up. In mitigation the volume control on the French windows didn’t help. With the area being residential, when the doors were closed the volume went up, with people constantly traversing from the bar to the balcony via the doors this made it practically impossible to cue records up. But it wasn’t just that, I was just a little too drunk. At one stage I managed to take a record off that was still playing – something I’ve only ever done when DJ-ing in public, never, ever at home. My worst home DJ-ing moment was when, 45 minutes into a recorded mix, Peanut the cat decided that records were interesting and jumped up to stop it turning. Great fun for cats.

I have learnt to pack a small number of party standbys for times like this and it wasn’t long before my patented Neptunes Production Half Hour had people swaying a little. Many thanks to Beyonce, Nelly, Britney, Justin and, of course N*E*R*D, for getting me out of a hole.

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Labels: General me

It’s the end of the school term next week and Emma is packing up her kids ready for the big school. Whilst the kids wind down, Emma’s timetable has cranked up. On Monday she attend a meeting to discuss a parent who last week accused her of being unprofessional because Emma told her class “She just wanted to get in her car and go home”. Given that she said this 10 months ago I'm sure you'll agree it was clearly a matter of some urgency. It, of course, had nothing to do with the fact the woman's little girl recently had a tantrum in front of all the parents after a school trip. This was Emma's fault you see, she's unprofessional.

The women has been backtracking ever since as the issue has been escalated up to the Governers. She stubbornly stands by her accusation of unprofessionalism, but claims the view is in no way a reflection on Emma's teaching ability. The term 'UH?!' springs to mind. She also said that “Hindsight is something that none of us possess” – which is fine, except we all have hindsight, just no foresight. Clearly a women to be listened to.

That safely negotiated, and with the Governers fully behind her, Tuesday and Wednesday was the school play, a harrowing depiction of life in World War 2. I went with Nobby, Vicki, Katie and Gareth on Tuesday. Our appearance caused a furour, they were even asking for my autograph. Then things turned nasty as the kids wanted to know, rather forcefully, why I hadn’t been to their Peter Pan play, and why I wouldn't be going to the school disco.

Thursday was Area Sports, a kind of Olympics for all the local schools. It’s been going for years, I remember when I was at primary school kids who were picked for Area Sports were Da Bomb.

Saturday is a Tag Rugby tournament in Eton, somehow I’ve been press ganged into going to that (well, I'm not going to the school disco see). I’m hoping for a sunny day in a field with a pile of newspapers and Harry Potter.

Next week is the school disco that I'm not going to. Emma's dreading it because she’s just done The Puberty Video, described in our house as Emma's sex video. Now they’re all sex mad, in fact a week or so ago packing up after sports day was delayed because one of the boys claimed to be having "Women trouble".

No wonder teachers get six weeks off for the summer.

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Labels: General me

Gareth and his mates have a relationship based on a tight cycle of piss take and mild violence. Whilst Tim slept off his sleepless night in Barcelona airport on Sunday, Gareth poured water over his crotch and plucked his leg hair. At one point in the weekend I watched Tim and Gareth take turns to kick each other. As with all banal repetition, it’s very funny.

Donkman is part of the gang, the one your parents want you to be, he’s polite, bright, successful and friendly. He sent his girlfriend flowers whilst he was away “just because”, and he took time from the drinking onslaught to pick a present for her. He’s often a target for the abuse, partly because he takes it so well but also because he’s so gullible, the story of Donkman and the Phantom may illustrate this.

Donkman worked on the fish counter in Waitrose whilst he was at school. One day the phone rang, he answered and at the other end someone was someone breathing heavily and then the line went dead. Then again, ring, ring, heavy breathing, and line went dead. Over and over again.

His intuition was right; he accused Gareth and Tim but they denied it and to put him off the scent set up a ruse whereby Gareth would talk to Donkman whilst Tim nicked off to the phone. Then vice versa. On this basis Donkman wrote them off his list of suspects.

The calls continued, for weeks, months, and years, the caller was nicknamed The Phantom. Donkman would shout down the phone “I’ll get you Phantom, I’ll find out who you are”.

On one occasion, the Phantom called and Donkman could hear Tim in the background talking. Instantly he rushed over to where Tim was working, but rather than accuse him again, he asked him who had been on the nearby phone, Tim said he hadn’t seen, and Donkman went off on another wild goose chase.

Donkman inexplicably accused a girl in his German class, who also worked at Waitrose. As his desperation set in, the accusation crossed the line into bullying. It got out of hand and he had to explain to the teachers the reason for his actions.

Eventually two and a half years later, over a few lagers on a lads holiday in Magaluf, Tim and Gareth came clean. They were the Phantom who for years had haunted his Fish Counter with their heavy breathing.

The only thing that hadn’t been cleared up was why Donkman exacted so much of his venom on the girl. Walking from the cable car in Barca he explained.

“She was the only person who wasn’t Gareth and Tim with the same shift pattern as me.”

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Labels: General me

Due to the Law of the Stag, I’m mandated to not to tell you what on at Gareth’s stag weekend in Barcelona, so here are a few of the things that didn’t happen.

• Nobody fell asleep in a porn cinema within three hours of arriving and got lost for six hours trying to find the hotel.
• The stag didn’t at any point have to drink a pint with nine shots in it
• Nobody dipped their willy in someone else’s pint whilst they were in the toilet, then got mixed up and drunk it himself
• Nobody gave the stag a wedgie which tore his thick cotton boxer shorts clean off
• No one fell into a water hazard on a roof top crazy golf course in front of six security guards
• Nobody was ceremoniously dipped into the same roof top crazy golf course water hazard two days later.
• This also wasn’t in front of six security guards
• Nobody went to a strip bar, paid £14 to get it, £10 for a beer, then negotiated with a stripper to do a dance for £85, thanking her for giving them a discount by buying her a drink for £20
• Not one of that party of four claimed it was his birthday and subsequently enjoyed a majority of the dance
• Nobody got the stag to drink ten shots in a row, an endeavour illegal in this country
• Nobody ‘thanked’ the best man Tim by buying him five shots, singing the theme song Tim’ll Fix It, whilst he drank them.
• Nobody dreamt up that the best man should have a “Best Man’s Favourite” which meant he should drink three shots of Absinthe
• Nobody who was over six foot three with the bulk of a body builder rode a children’s ride whilst others bought food from a supermarket
• Nobody bought the stag a vile looking vodka and baileys which curdled and separated
• At no point after he finished it, did we get a round of vodka and baileys for everyone because it was so nice
• Nobody called out to a German who had just hired the services of a prostitute on Las Ramblas “She’ll make you pay for it you know, she doesn’t love you”
• Nobody, being constantly propositioned by prostitutes whilst everyone walked back to the hotel shouted “Prossies make me laugh!”
• Nobody threw themselves off the Marina into the sea at six in the morning as the result of a bet, despite having seen big fish and jelly fish earlier in the weekend
• Nobody built a quasi religion around “The Curb of Apparent Doom”
• Nobody fell over the “Incline of semi-embarrassment”
• Nobody engaged in conversation with a German with man breasts who asked “Are you from the Techno Conference”, to which was replied “No but you are”
• Nobody accidentally bought forty-two drinks for six people
• Nobody bullied an Irish band to play for twenty minutes more than they were booked by continuously chanting “One more tune”, then, when they eventually packed up, booed them off
• Nobody tried to proposition a prostitute with free Tequila shot vouchers from a bar
• Nobody when asked whether they were coming to Guadi’s unfinished cathedral, said “Tell them I’ll come when it’s finished”
• Nobody, in a conversation about ‘having your brown wings’, claimed to have his white wings, explaining to the blank faces it was “Sleeping with a girl with a uterus infection”
• No one, not even Banno, sent a text message to his wife Clare saying “We think International Team Banno are the business”
• She didn’t reply with a message saying “Great. We’re watching a video tonight, love you C.”
• The Stag didn’t at any point jump to his feet offering the bemused waiter high tens every time he brought out another bowel of tapas shouting “Yaaah TAPAS!”
• Nobody told someone we were having an non-existent olive eating competition and the record was fifteen, then forced that person, who hates olives with a sickness, to break the record.
• Nobody, not even the same person as above, asked what happened to the name game we were playing in a restaurant when our food was served. Despite the game having died on its arse, at no point were they told it was their go. At no point did he without blinking start to drink whilst thinking up his name. At no point was he told that every subsequent name he came up with had ‘been done before’. At no point did he continue to struggle for at least ten to fifteen minutes.
• The stag didn’t have a twenty minute rage about how you couldn’t “catch a hotel in this country”, when he meant a taxi.
• Nobody, whilst lost at five in the morning accosted a couple of Belgian girls with a map waving his arms shouting “Parlez vous Francais”
• Nobody downgraded the word C**t to a “category b swearword”
• This conversation didn’t happen: -
• “What time are we going out? About 11.30?”
• “Fuck off you c**t, 11.30!? Quarter past”
• Nobody fell asleep in the departure lounge toilets whilst the plane was boarding
• Nobody woke up surrounded by sick on his bed, and then deny it was his.
• Nobody said that he was disappointed that the last night ended a bit early, at 5.30 in the morning
• Nobody stole every towel apart from a flannel from someone’s room whilst he showered, he didn’t then come out and walk around the corridors trying to find it
• Nobody told an American that he hated the Swiss because they were “hoarding Hitler’s Gold”
• Nobody tried to wave away a persistent flower seller by raising his arms and saying “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”
• Nobody knows how the long stay car park works at Gatwick Airport

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Labels: General me

Nobby can’t work the new Blogger interface, Simon’s too busy adventuring, Michelle Ineffable is heavily ensconced in writing her dissertation, and Jo Who’s Quintessentially Steppenwolf is still spinning out from Glasters.

I need blogs fill the white spaces in my day, but there’s a dearth of posts on my regular blog tour. Why oh why do these people insist on having lives?

I thought I was going to have to rely on Nobby accidentally stumbling across the ‘publish’ button from time to time. His confusion around new Blogger is rather like the old man with his video camera who manages to get the stop/start button the wrong way round and films four hours of grass, then just as he lifts the camera to focus in on something interesting, turns it off.

My void has been filled with the launch of Vicki Dobscrub’s pregnancy blog. I feel strangely paternal towards Vicki anyway, so it’s reassuring that I can keep myself abreast how things are progressing. This is despite the fact I’m almost certain Nobby won’t let me within six square miles of the baby once it is born.

I’m also delighted to report that Vicki can write, and has captured with some aplomb what it’s like taking Nobby to a public place, things can only get better.


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Labels: Friends

Emma’s Mum, Lesley, and her dad went on holiday to France last week. Whilst they were there France enjoyed thunderstorms and lightening. Lesley phoned Sara and Gareth back home to ask them to go up to her house and check the computer hadn’t set fire.

Gareth, rubbing Aftersun onto his burnt skin and drinking a litre of iced water as Britain enjoyed its dry sunny spell, asked why.

“Well” said Lesley “We’ve had terrible thunderstorms (in France) and I’m worried that the house (in Britain) may get struck by lightening.”

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Labels: General me

Despite getting back from Melissa’s wedding at 1.30am, we were up at 8.00 to hold a dog. Dark Charlie, who I used to work with at the little publishing company in Oxford, was running the Thame 10KM with his mate Andrew. His dog, Wire, needed holding.

Once we were out of bed and out of the door it was nice to be in the sun. We met up with Charlie with surprising ease. Wire was slightly over excited, except when Charlie walked off, when he would whimper forlornly. The race kicked off and we headed for the finish line.

Simon, home for the weekend to ride in a helicopter, joined us as the runners started coming in, then my mum arrived to promote her own 10K race in Tetsworth, with dad, Kirsty and Sophie in tow.

Sophie enjoyed playing with Wire, as fifty-one week old babies do, by trying to grab his ears or better still, his tongue. After we finished, mum, dad, Kirsty and Sophie went home and, with it still too early for the pub, we went to the Coffee shop in town to sit in their sunny courtyard, ahem, alleyway, drinking coffee. Katie arrived back from Central America, well, not right then, just that was her last known whereabouts and joined us.

After a chat, sun, and coffee, Charlie, Wire and Andrew made for home, me, Emma, Simon, and Katie went to the pub for more sun, and chat, and drink. Having safely negotiated this, we went back to mum and dad’s for a bar-b-que where, for variation, we sat in the shade until the early evening.

Everyday should be like that.

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Labels: General me

It all started one night about five years ago, Melissa and her stable long term boyfriend were safely ensconced in their new home. The road was a straight one, the weather was clear; they would build careers, get married, and have babies. Upon watching a programme about the lives of a group of thirty somethings, the boyfriend got the heebie-jeebies and ended the relationship on the spot.

Storm clouds gathered, the road narrowed and Melissa began to climb towards a meandering mountain pass where the drops were stomach turning and the cliff faces sheer. This took her on an adventure which included a year shaking out the cobwebs partying, a year travelling around Australia, a year having itchy feet and learning to teach English as a foreign language, and eighteen months teaching in Ecuador.

There were other complications along the way, but out of the fug came Carlos, and on Saturday they were married. The fat free wedding was arranged in six weeks with no clingers on, no complicated political family table plans, just a small band of thirty family and friends touring the Kent coastline from registry office to reception to evening party. The evening saw Carlos salsaring with the ladies, and all the other men doing the traditional English step to the side dance (with occasional air guitar for variation).

The day had a sense of lilting clarity that you rarely get with the hullabaloo of a big wedding. I hope it’s the theme of the marriage, and that the oncoming niggles, including Carlos’ visa application is as easy and straight forward for as the day itself.

During the break between the reception in Sandwich and the party, we went for a walk and saw a sign for the Sandwich Centre for Retired People. Now, was that the where they can get sandwiches, or was it the location?

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Labels: General me

In Episode 2 of Star Wars – Attack of the Clones we learn the formidable Stormtrooper army is made up of clones recreated from the perfect genes of Jango Fett. Once constructed, the army goes on to become the most powerful force in the entire universe.

In Episode 6 - Return of the Jedi, Han, Laya et al are tasked with capturing a heavily guarded power generator on the planet Endor. The guards, the formidable cloned Stormtroopers are caught out by tricks which include; an Ewok stealing a speederbike and flying off upside down, to which all but one of the guards sets off on foot in pursuit shouting “GET HIM!”, the remaining guard is caught out by Han who runs up, taps him on one shoulder before around the other.

Schoolboy error.

So flustered is the Stormtrooper he runs straight into a bank of cutthroat rebels.

These are rather rudimentary errors by the Stormtroopers, can this really be the same spawn of Jango Fett? what happened at the cloning factory that caused a whole batch of clones fall foul to such playground japes. Can it really be that somewhere in the lab somebody switched the genes of a Jango with the genes of someone capable of falling for this kind of trick.

Step up Paul and Barry Chuckle. These giants of comedy have made a career from doing this kind of thing to each other. I can only think that the Empire was planning a giant celebration party once the rebel alliance is crushed, wanting the most perfect of entertainment for the most perfect of clone army’s, not wanting to risk the domination of the universe being dampened by poor entertainment from, say, Jim Davidson, they turned to create the perfect comedy duo. Having scoured the universe with probe droids they kidnapped the Brothers to be taken back to be cloned. Credence is given to this argument, when watching Chuckle Brothers, every show is identical, they are clearly just re-runs with the Brothers on a different blue screen.

Somewhere along the line the genes were switched and a massive batch of clones were recreated in the image of the Chuckle Brothers. Dressed in their white suits that could tell of the mistake until after the battle of Endor.

Let their names be added to the roster of heroes: - Skywalker, Solo, Calarisian, and now Chuckle.

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Labels: Films

Christmas is an exciting time when you’re a child, you wait and wait, preying that the day will come but the more you yearn the slower time passes. That day promises presents and food and excitement, it promises that you will be furnished with things beyond your wildest dreams.

When you buy a car, you step through the looking glass into a parallel universe where Christmas day becomes Car service day.

A car service is an excruciating time when you’re an adult, you wait and wait, preying that the phone will ring but the more you yearn the slower time passes. That day promises torture and torment and vast expenditure, it promises that you will debagged of all you financial wealth in a slow and systematic way.

When you have a service you drive your car to the garage and everything will be fine in exactly the same way it has been for ages; you’re getting from A to B without too much fuss or hassle. But despite this you know that you’re about to find out you’re driving a death trap. At least if you have to take it in with the bonnet on fire, you are already preparing for the worst.

So you hand your car in and hand the keys over, the clock has started at usually around £100. This is for your 400-point check, checks that usually include counting the number of front windscreens.

You don’t watch the patient go through its operation, you walk away from the garage. But don’t look back because you will see a greasy monkey jumping into your car, and driving it into the garage on two wheels in reverse without taking the handbrake off.

And then the agony begins. The call they promised in an hour doesn’t come. After two hours you call in and they seem incredulous that you didn’t find out through telepathy that they’ve found a small problem, and they’re waiting for a quote for a part. They’ll call as soon as they get the price

You ring off and pace the floor for the next three hours and call in again. The part cost £2.50, you tell them to fit it, and they tell you they already have. Great, you’ll pick the car up in ten minutes.

“But we’ve found another problem, your mywifeneedsanewtumbledrier is down to 6.33042 on the q axis, 0.443 on the middle row”
“Is that serious?”
“If it goes it will kill you, then hunt down your family and torture and murder them, it will delete you identity and you will be erased from history for the rest of time”
“Blimey”
“On the other hand it might be fine”
“No you’d better do it”
“If you do it now, it won’t need doing again for another million miles”
“Right”
“Or your next service, whichever comes first”
“How much will it be”
“Well Dixons are doing them for £250”
“Dixons?
“Er, yes, Dixons, the car part supplier, for another £100 they’ll throw in a fridge, er, complete set of tyres”
“Are my tyres dangerous?”
“If they go they will kill you, then hunt down your fam…”
“OK, do them too, what’s the total cost likely to be”

At this point he mumbles a lot of numbers, the only audible ones are under £5.

“£750”
“Oh Christ”
“Your spark plugs may be OK, I’ll knock those off”
“(grasping for air) Great, thanks, how much will it be”
“£748”
“(losing consciousness) OK, just do it, do it all, let’s get it over and done with”
“We’ve done it already, you can come and pick it up whenever you’re ready”
“OK, I’ll be over as soon as I can sell the cats”

And you pick the car up and drive it off and it’s no different to how it was when you drove in. Don’t believe me? my service included £17 to tell me that my exhaust was a bit noisy.

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Labels: General me

It is hard to believe but David Beckham did just change jobs last week. News at Ten ran what was, to all intent and purpose, an obituary, but he is almost certainly, alive.

The obituary writers had better not pack their pens just yet because the assassination of Beckham begins here. Not least in Saturday’s Daily Mail, I confess we did have it in the house, and yes, I did read it. The story ‘Goldenballs Vs Goldenboots’ was a systematic dismantling of Beckham in a comparative assessment of the golden boy of English rugby Johnny Wilkinson, I quote: -

“One is arguably the greatest English rugby player of all time and pays £8.50 for his haircut. The other’s a multi millionaire who captains a lacklustre England side and wears an Alice band. How do they compare?”
It doesn’t sound like it’ll be a balanced assessment does it? The premise upon which the story is built is pretty sinister. We learn that Wilkinson has A levels and achieved a place at Durham University whilst Beckham has no qualifications and reportedly couldn’t spell the word ‘Professional’ or ‘Footballer’. Also, Wilkinson’s dad is a financial advisor, and that his mum still washes his kit. Beckham’s dad is a Gas Engineer, his mum a hairdresser. Wilkinson lives in a modest house, Beckham is lives in a mansion, Beckham drives ‘anything flash’, Wilkinson a Mercedes.

Most telling is their ‘philosophy’. Wikinson’s is a quote, “You’ve got to go out and chase your dreams. You have all your life afterwards to think about your reputation.” Sniff, that’s beautiful.

Now deadlines must have been tight, because it seems journalist Paul Harris was unable to unearth a single quote from Beckham about his dedication to his game, or his family – including how he rages a one man war against an entire culture of laddism, nothing about his ambitions and dreams, about playing for Manchester United and captaining England. Instead Harris is left to summarise Beckham’s philosophy without the benefit of a quote, his summary? Beckham’s Philosophy is “I fink (sic) therefore I am.”

In short Wilkinson is middle class and therefore good, and Beckham is working class and therefore crass and gauche. The more paranoid amongst us could take this further, could the Mail be saying that the unconventional, non-educational, Beckham route to success is bad, and that the only good success is the classic middle class route? Could they be giving out a message to talented non-academic kids, or kids from working class backgrounds that regardless of what success they achieve it will never be as good as their more fortunate counterparts?

Sadly they had to edit out the section on “Sport Played” so let me recreate it here for you now: -

Beckham: Football, interwoven into fabric of global society, crossing every continent, every religion, every sex, race, colour and creed. A sport that can dictate political success or failure, economic stability or crisis, war and peace. A sport capable of dictating the fortunes and progression of society and mankind itself.

Wilkinson: Rugby, a sport of significance amongst certain socio-economic groups in Britain and some, though not all, old commonwealth countries.

If you don’t believe me, look at the world’s obsession with the World Cup (we don’t even need to tag on which world cup we’re talking about), and compare that to this autumn’s rugby World Cup.

What do you mean you didn’t know there was a rugby world cup this autumn?

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Labels: News

“Nothing shocks me”, said I, during a discussion about just how outrageous hen and stag dos can be. And it’s true, I’ve seen people taking drugs, drink until they’re unconscious and take their eyes out at the dinner table, but when it comes down to it, it’s never effected me. Partly because I haven’t partaken, and because as a spectator I’ve survived these escapades wholly intact, I’ve never found this sort of thing shocking.

So unshakeable me buys Mixmag this month and turns to the story about the couple from Bolton hooked on the legal drug GHB. Too much GHB sends you into a deep psychotic madness, this couple having become reliant on the drug entered into what is known as a stupidité au deux – a stupidity of two – a shared hallucinogenic experience. Now pay attention, this bit’s complicated. The woman started to believe that her body was missing, stolen by a witch and a clown. The man, having ‘seen’ the witch and the clown running around upstairs began to panic that his girlfriend’s body had been stolen. Paramedics were called, apparently they asked whether the two were on drugs, they left shortly after having not reached a conclusion either way. The bloke then went to see his kids leaving the woman alone. She panicked that a witch had stolen her body aided and abetted by a clown, and started to assume that her body was trapped, what for it, inside her body.

So her miniature body was trapped inside her normal body that wasn’t her body. The only answer was to get it out, and this she did by pulling out 13 teeth with a set of pliers. She nearly died from blood poisoning, he was up in court on a charge of torture, but having put these troubles behind them are now living happily together (apparently only taking a bit of wiz now and then, so that’s OK).

This story was supported by the story of the man who worked in a gym equipment factory. One night he decided to masturbate by pulling his willy on the running machine belt. Unfortunately his scrotum got caught and tore. That short sentence alone sends me into apoplexy. Embarrassed by his accident, his solution was to staple his scrotum back together again. It was only when it reached the size of a grapefruit did he think to go to the doctors to get it checked out.

These are the things that shock me.

My final true story is of a bloke decided to commit suicide. His rig involved a guillotine above his bed made from metal sheet fashioned into a blade and a paving slab. He took enough sleeping pills to ensure that he would lie down and stay in the same position whilst his decapitating machine did its business. He set a timer that would turn on an electric knife, which would begin to cut away at the rope that held up the blade. The thoughtful suicidee realised that once the knife went through the rope, it would continue going, potentially fusing, burning out or damaging the floor. So he shortened the cable of the knife so that when it went through the rope and onto the floor it would automatically pull the cable from the wall and turn off. Added to this, in order that his dad didn’t disturb him he set all this up with the door wedged closed. The blade was attached by a piece of rope to the wedge. When it dropped, the wedge was pulled away allowing his dad easy access to come in and clean up.

Punchline number 1: - The jury’s verdict: Genius

Punchline number 2: - If only he’d been able to make a career as world Mousetrap champion.

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Labels: General me

I’m heavily tuned into the sentiment of Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. It’s not exactly your average Romcom Saturday night in with a tub of Haagen Daz but it’s well worth a couple of hours of your life.

Marylyn Manson and Trey Parker were both implicated in the Columbine massacre because they played loud rock music and made adult cartoons. They were also most informed in their assessment of the situation. Manson describes America as a country built on fear and consumption. Where success and consumption are one and the same. Be perfect, drink Pepsi like Brittany, eat McDonalds, like N’Sync. Ate too much Pepsi and McDonalds? You’ll get fat and nobody likes fat people, so take these pills, or buy this exercise regime. If you become fat and unpopular you won’t get a job and there’s nobody to look after you. And where do failures go? To the ghetto, an evil lawless world like the one portrayed on TV every night, like the Bronx or South Central i.e. where black people live. Parker wisely assesses that America is so prescriptive in its approach to success that kids could easily believe that their failures at school are permanently scarring. It’s one messed up country.

America is so fearful that its empire will fall apart that it’s taking its paranoia onto the world stage. Fear of Iran? Fund Iraq. Fear of Iraq? Fund Iran. Fear of Russia? Fund Afghanistan. Fear of Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan? Threaten to tear them to pieces. Suddenly they’re threatening to kill you if you do, and kill you if you don’t. So you do, right into the World Trade Center, hell why not, there’s nothing to lose.

Stoking the flames is, of course, George Bush announcing that the Justice Department had announced “a blanket alert of a general nature”. Like that statement informs you of nothing more than you should be scared of something or other. Still, there’s always an upside; sales of gas masks, duct tape and bottled water rose again. Is it any wonder that with this constant picking away at your fear, crime falls but the fear of crime rises?

At the pointy end a couple of kids in Columbine began to believe they were already failures by the age of 16. Having cashed their chips in so painfully early, with their bleak destiny laid out in front of them I guess it didn’t really matter what they did next, so they went and got famous.

And the blame? Well that was placed firmly at the feet of ‘mixed ethnicity’ (said Charlton Heston) which is no greater than in Canada, the break up of the family unit, which is no greater than the UK, and the old favourite, rock music promoting death and destruction, which is no greater than in Germany.

What was left was fear. Without healthcare or welfare, failure leaves you working in the Orc mines eating mud for a living. A welfare system is the one thing that all the above countries have that America doesn’t. It relieves the tension by giving people an alternative and a second chance. People are too damn mean to look after others without supervision, so freedom is a dangerous game, is pure freedom not anarchy? Is America not the land of the free? Do not Mr Heston and his chums at the National Rifle Association not exercise their free rights by having guns that can kill people?

Of course wherever America goes we follow, blindly down the same path. Richard and Judy testing the latest in inflatable panic rooms telling us that terrorist attacks are imminent (ignoring the fact that this country has lived with imminent terrorist attacks for thirty years), even this morning Fiona Phillips telling us the ‘terrifying’ side effects of hay fever tablets. It all drives another wedge into your calm and your sanity. Before you know it you’re on the same roller coaster.

I, for one, am not convinced about it.

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Labels: Films

I wasn’t going to bother with the Ruffles Big Brother table this week. After all things are a little flat in there, but for want of something better to write, here it is: -

1. (1) Gos – Holding onto top spot by default
2. (3) Cameron – Anyone who says ‘Fiddle’ when he messes things up deserves to stay
3. (2) Nush – Becoming a touch sour faced
4. (6) Tania – Is what she is
5. (7) Scott – Is what he is
6. (11) Ray – seems an OK kind of person
7. (5) Steph – wouldn’t irritate me at a party, wouldn’t like to spend more than a day with her though.
8. (4) Jon – Yeah yeah, uber geek, blah blah whatever
9. (8) Federico - Split between keeping him in to and watching him stir things up
10. (10) Sissy – Petulant urchin thug girl – burn burn burn

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Labels: TV and radio

The formula of a good stag weekend is simple, it sucks you in, something happens, it spits you out. The bit in the middle is impossible to predict. Talk of drinking games, nudity and shaving rarely materialise. For Russ’ I didn’t expect to spend Saturday night having a quiet drink discussing Marcus’ childhood in the paramilitary wing of the Cub Scouts, for example.

The weekend was in jeopardy almost before it started. Fog meant Russ and his two pals couldn’t land at Jersey airport. The best man’s flight from Manchester was cancelled, so was ours although we heroically got up at 4am on Saturday to fly over.

These shenanigans had a profound effect on proceedings. No best man, and for Russ, five and a half hours spent shuttling between Gatwick and Jersey drinking neat vodka. When they eventually landed at 10.30 they celebrated with gusto, helped by the ominous welcoming party of Jerseymen Mike, Marcus and above all JC.

We arrived on Saturday morning and Russ’ hotel room was carnage. He couldn’t get out of bed, complaining his eyes weren’t working. Surfacing eventually, the first activity of the day was sea kayaking. The sky was blue, the sun was hot, the sea was calm. We paddled gently around the coves and caves making weak jokes about the shags and splashing each other.

Then Russ drifted out to sea and began retching over the side of his kayak. We came to a beach and he disappeared, returning to lie comatose on the pebbles. Eventually he gave up the ghost completely and fell in. He was hauled back into his kayak and towed home.

He slept through lunch, but still declined the clay pigeon shooting so he could sleep some more in Marcus’ fiercely hot Land Rover. We had no best man, and now, no stag, Mike’s mates were filling in the gaps left by the absentees making it a re-run of Mike’s own Stag do nearly two years ago. Afterwards, at the pub, Russ had a pint of water, declining ice and lemon because his stomach couldn’t handle it. He had a pork scratching which fuelled the cracking of a joke before plummeting again and racing to the toilet to drain whatever moisture was left in his body.

General stag brouhaha was the plan for Saturday ‘though the fragile Russ wanted to go to the pub for a quiet chat. He was coaxed into the curry house where he slumped on the table raising his head only to berate Mike for ordering a Korma, and announcing that there were only two things he loved – curry and beer – before correcting himself and adding “Sam”. That’s what lead to the quiet portside bar for a few drinks.

Russ did manage a pint which perked him up (everyone said he should have done it at 11am), we ended up in a club until 2am which gave the night an air of respectability. On Sunday, with clear heads, we went to the beach and got burnt to a cinder. At 5.30pm we boarded the plane home that took us away from a weekend that was as normal as it was surreal.

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Labels: General me

Buying a new Radiohead album is rather like meeting the band on the side of a field. They hand over the new record and start walking across to the other side. On the other side of the field is their next album. You follow for a while, but then you think you can get to the other side on your own. Having plotted your own course when you get to the other side you wait for the next record to be handed over, but the band are on a different corner entirely. It’s only at that point you realise that’s where you’re supposed to be. Each new album is a readjustment of your musical belief system, Indie pop, to stadium rock to DJ Shadow, to Warp Records to well, have no idea what side of the field we’re on at the moment, but I like it.

I have great affinity to Radiohead, for one, they’re from Oxford so we have the greatest brains, music and football team in the world. There was a time when it wasn’t wholly unusual to see Thom Yorke slouching around the city in enormous neon orange combat trousers, or Johnny Greenwood looking like a student, unless of course, it was a student who looked like Johnny Greenwood, who could tell? We also saw them the week they released Creep at Kingston University. They were very noisy, I wasn’t sure whether Greenwood could actually play, Yorke, the same sniffy urchin he is today, hung to the ceiling like a chimpanzee. In a ropey case of six degrees of separation, Choggaz was in a band who supported a band whose drummer was Radiohead’s soundman in the early days. Via a range of festivals, medium sized venues, through to stadiums we also saw them playing in front a majestic backdrop of the dreaming spires mottled by teaming rain in South Parks, Oxford. All that and, of course, they’re innovative and popular. What nirvana.

I am, however, currently loving King of the Boots, a triple CD-ROM of bootlegs I bought from Rough Trade last year, but hadn’t trawled through properly until very recently. Currently soundtracking my early summer are two fantastic Freelance Hellraiser mixes which cuts up D12, Depeche Mode, Brittany Spears, The Beastie Boys, Christina Aguilera, The Strokes and Shirley Bassey and some absolutely bitchin’ party hip hop.

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Labels: Music

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