This Is This

Attache (pronounced a-ta-SHAY), as in those little leather document holders somewhere in between a briefcase and a binder. I’ve been carrying one around this week and discovered it is impossible to say the word without sounding suave and mysterious.

Attache , old boy.

Here’s a thing:

Blind people are entitled to a £63.25 reduction on the £126.50 annual price of a television licence.

Think about this for a second. Does actually seeing the TV only constitutes 50 per cent of the pleasure of having one? Is there some other wierd level of enjoyment for blind viewers that we don’t kno wabout because our senses are not as heightened as them? Do they have smellivisions?

Deaf people, however have to pay the FULL amount. So even if blind people are deriving only half their viewing experience from listening to the TV, deaf people have to pay the full amount even though they can’t hear the TV.

If you watch a black and white TV you pay £42 a year, as if colour only represents 33 per cent of the televisual experience. So a blind person pays more for their colour television that they can not see than a sighted person with a black and white TV.

Still with me? Because now it gets even stranger. The good people at TV Licencing say:

The blind concession is 50% off the full TV Licence fee, so you’ll pay £63.25 for a colour licence and £21.00 for a black and white TV Licence.

A blind person gets charged in accordance with the pictures which they can not see.

You love it.

I am colourblind, but I have a colour TV, so these people say I have to pay the full amount.
If I declare that my TV is black and white or if I only pay the black and white fee then I could be fined and end up with a criminal record, even though, like I said, I am colourblind.

So I am being charged a compulsary fee according to the type of technology in my house, regardless if I benefit from it or not. That would be like your ISP charging you for 6 Squillionbit super fatband access that you don’t need, and their excuse would be: “Well, it’s available to use. Whether you choose to use it or not isn’t our problem. We have to pay the people working on it somehow.”

Let me explain to any foreign readers how a TV licence works:

In the UK, you have to pay an annual fee to watch television.
It’s good television, mostly, but you have to pay to watch it.
All the money goes to pay for the BBC’s programme, because they don’t have advertising.

Here’s the Goodfellas part:
You don’t watch the BBC? Fuck you, pay me.
You already pay for your cable or satellite? Fuck you, pay me
Your television was broken for five months of the year? Fuck you, pay me.
Your entire family is blind? Fuck you, pay me.

—
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If you are interested in televisions then you can compare prices and buy televisions from our shops.

I love this one. Whenever you get someone on a talkshow, a panel-type round table discussion or even voxpops in the street on TV, you hear people say this phrase. I use it myself, because as all mums and dads know, if they start a sentence with “Speaking as a parent…” it entitles them to be as sadistic and cruel and uniformed as they like without sounding like extremists or ignorami.*

Example:

“Speaking as a parent, I think these people should not be given access to either spoons, tin foil or belts for a good five years. Then let’s see how easy it is for them to take drugs.”

I’ve got kids, and speaking as a parent, my views have changed.

One night this week a neighbour’s house alarm went off. His lights were on so it looked like someone was in the house. Within two minutes my shoes were on and I was on his lawn, standing there in the dark, like that poster for The Exorcist.

The alarm’s going off like crazy and there is no movement in the house. I step up to the front window, about 20 feet away from the house. The net curtains are drawn, so I can’t see in too clearly and I don’t want to get too close, because I think this could be the real thing, especially as the family who own the house were broken into 6 months ago.

Suddenly, I see some movements and two kids run down the stairs burst into the living room and disappeat into the kitchen. They are moving fast and my heart starts racing. I look back towards my own house see Wife in the door way. I put my arm out towards her, palm outstretched and look through the window. Neither of us understand what my gesture means, but when you’ve been married for 7 years you don’t dwell on it.

The kids haven’t come out of the kitchen and I sidestep and check the alley behind the house. Nothing’s happening apart from the alarm still going off. I walk back towards the house, faster now and get closer to the door, which flies open and the owner of the house is running towards me in that dark.

Despite having perfected the ninja footsave, in this instance I freeze and don’t know what to say, hoping he recognises me and doesn’t think I’m the burglar psycho and he is looking for his missing kids. I walk towards him quickly to get back into the light, hoping he doesn’t think I’m the burgalar. I hope my watch doesn’t catch the ligh and glint to make him think I have a knife. Maybe he has a knife. I hope he doesn’t think it’s wierd I’m looking into his house. I hope he doesn’t think I have been watching his kids. Which of course, I was. Oh shit. I think all these things, and still I don’t say anything. God, I’m an idiot. He gets within 5 feet of me, and he raises his hands, and keeps walking towards me.

“OK! OK! It’s OK!” He pats me on the shoulder.

“The alarm… I thought…”

“No, no, it’s fine. Bloody thing. Thanks very much.”

“You OK?” I say.

“Fine, fine, thank you.”

I told a neighbour about this today and they said they needed to get an alarm. She asked if what I would have done if it were a burglar.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but if someone came into my house I would come at them with all the fury of a parent with no relative disregard for my own safetly.” I actually talk like this sometimes.

But I think all parents are crazy - in the way that bears are crazy.

*this means “stupid people”, or, if you are reading this, you. It does not mean like when you fold paper into little animal shapes.

Two of the best websties I have seen this week are:

Overheard in New York
Memorable quotes includes: “Yo man, that bitch stole two ounces of coke from my house. She’s your friend, you go get it back.”

If you live in New York, please send in things you’ve overheard. The rest of you, please laugh your hubcaps off at this.

and

The Skeletal Systems of Cartoon Characters
I’m not sure if this is genius or madness

Woman on the bus had a loud phone conversation this morning. She didn’t mind her fellow passengers hearing it, so I’m transcribing it here as she goes on. I’m not sure why, but she wanted us to hear her, so I’m just passing the message on.

This is what your typical commuter talks about on their way into London:

It has, but it’s been a bit tricky and shortlived.

I can’t hear you Bev. I’ve got this number now and I’ll be texting all the time.

Alec had a bit of turn on Saturday night. It was Trevor and Alec and they were at the Abingdon and then went on to the Gothic.

I will send him your love, he’ll be thrilled.

Send my love to those little girlies. Ask them it they’ve got boyfriends, they will laugh their head off a that. (She actually said “head” - singular. This got me thinking.)

and my favourite line:

Just go down - but Beverly: see the villages.

They sell a product in health stores and pharmacies here called “Magnesium OK”. I don’t know what it does or why you would take it. I know magnesium is a soft, light inflammable metal which can help you start a campfire, but I don’t know anything about its medicinal benefits.
What I do know is that this brand has a cool name because it’s when you talk about it or ask for it, you sound rude.

Chemist: “Would you like anything else?”
Me: “Yeah, I’d like some Magnesium OK.”

It sounds wonderfully sarcastic. “I’d like some Magnesium OK. And after you go and get that I’m going to ask for something else.”

Colleague: “What’s that you’re taking?”
Me: “It’s Magnesium OK”
Colleague: “Fine dude, I’m just asking. Jesus.”

Doctor: “Take some Magnesium OK”
Me: “Hey. You don’t own me.”

They should start other lines called Zinc Now, Vitamin B All Right and Vitamin C This.

Boots also sell bags of dried fruits and my favourite is a product labelled simply “Ready to Eat Prunes”. In my dreams I’d break into the shop at night and put a question mark on every pack to make it look like a sentence: “Ready to Eat Prunes?”

It’s a challenge. It’s aspirational. It’s a marketing man’s dream.

“Ready….to…Eat……..Prunes…..? You know what? I think I just might be. I’ll take a pack of those.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. Get me some Magnesium OK.”

Does anyone think it’s a little strange how the theme tune to Sesame Street is a load of kids singing about how to get to a street? They are singing it in unison, as if they have been asking it for some time. It’s almost rhetorical.

I find it chilling, but then children singing together has always scared me. Film-makers know it too. Listen to the opening music in Amityville Horror or the chanting in Nightmare on Elm Street. No doubt about it, the Sesame Street music makes me uneasy.

First, its their disjointed speech that makes me think something’s not right. “Come and play…” That’s odd - a lot of kids saying it at the same time. There is no answer. I wonder what they mean. Do they sound drowsy? Perhaps euphoric? I can’t hear any adult voices. They reassure you that everything is, in their own words, “A-OK”, but it doesn’t sound very convincing.

“Friendly neighbours there that’s where we meet,” they explain. Why do they meet at the neighbours? Surely it makes more sense to stay home with their parents until someone shows up. Where are the parents? Perhaps they are stuck in Sesame Street. Perhaps the last message they got out before they were incapacitated was a text which read: “We R in Sesame St. Go 2 nxt door and w8. M&D”

The children then ask for directions, but it takes two attempts to get the question out.

Then everything goes quiet.

There is not a sound, apart from the faint wheeze of someone playing a harmonica. From the proficiency of the playing I would guess it’s an adult and it sounds like he or she is on their own. Where have the children gone? Why were they looking for Sesame Street? Were they trying to get back there? Were they trying to get away from the harmonica player?!?! Good god, someone please answer.

And still the playing continues, almost in guiltily, like someone whistling to mask an earlier incident.

Next week: Blues Clues. It’s almost as if they want us to find out. It seems too easy.

Whenever I drop something, it is my natural reaction to throw my foot under the falling object to break its fall. This is known as The Ninja Footsave. It isn’t totally irrational; I have saved a few family hierlooms, bottles and keepsakes from shattering due to my quick-thinking footwork. Then, while the object is falling, the decision making process of whether or not to remove foot takes place. It goes like this:

1) Is Object valuable?
If 1 = no, remove Foot. If 1 = yes then do not remove Foot and go to 2

2) Will Object break when it falls?
If 2 = no, remove Foot. If 2 = yes then do not remove Foot and go to 3

3) Will falling Object break my Foot?
If 3 = no, remove Foot. If 3 = yes then see Appendix

Appendix
If both Foot and Object will break as a result the falling, then Foot has the right to withdraw without notice and will not be liaible for any damade caused to Object

This all happens at lightning speed. I am there in the moment, focused, knowing nothing but having wisdom. I am the object. I am the foot. There is no falling, there is only this moment.

But it takes me 15 minutes to read a bus time table.

I was buying shoes yesterday in London and this guy walks in. He’s smartly dressed and it’s a fancy shoe store - Paul Smith. I don’t know what I’m doing in there, because I quickly realise everything’s too expensive, but I look at a few things and decide it’s cooler to pout shoeward in consideration rather that balk at the prices.

It’s clear to the sales assistant that I’m not going to by anything and she politely smiles while I take an interest at the shoes closest to the door and my way out.

Before I get to the door, this guy walks in and sees the sales assistant. He’s confident and collected and he’s in control. He walks right up to her, points at his feet and says, “Hi, I’m looking for something like these, but lighter and with a leather sole. Is Doug in today?”

See, if I were in his shoes (thanks), I’d say “I’d like some shoes please,” and then wait for an answer. Not that I can’t talk to people. I can, I’m just not great. I have the English thing of feeling like I’m intruding. Like - “excuse me, once I buy these, I promise I’ll be out of your way”. But if conversation skills were Eurovision, I’d be Cyprus.

(Example: when we came home from the hospital after my son was born, we introduced him to our neighbours of four years. We proudly announced his name to them. “Aw, how sweet,” they said, “because that’s your name, isn’t it?” It wasn’t. “Oh. Right,” they said. “He’s got his mother’s eyes.”)

The sales assistant says: “Doug just came in. I’ll go and get him. Steve, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” he says and he takes a seat and I walk out, thinking.

Now. You’ve got to be buying a lot of shoes for the people at the shoe store to know your name. I didn’t count how many feet this guy had, but this place seemed like a second home to him. Maybe he’s on some lease agreement - you know, he trades in his old pair for new ones to keep the mileage down and offset the depreciation you get when you buy shoes at sticker price.

Maybe he’s seeing Doug.

Maybe he’s broken up with Doug and he’s using the sales assistant to get him back. The sales assistant, of course, knows all about it. She’s had a crush on Doug for years and to her it seems just a little too convenient that his ex happens to need shoes just as he’s walking by the place where Doug works. The shoe-buying ex knows Doug has a thing for brunettes and this Saturday sales assistant is just his type. So every week since they broke up four months ago, the ex casually walks in and buys a pair of shoes, hoping to drive a wedge between Doug and the girl and maybe find his was back into his ex-lover’s life. Plus he gets a new pair of shoes every week, so he’s thinking why not?

It would be cool if there was a film in which an ancient Native American Indian tribe wanted to dig a burial ground only to discover the site which had been sold to them was previously a quiet suburban neighbourhood.

Families burying their dead will discover in horror that the family tomb they were were digging had once been occupied by (gasp) a basement den, complete with pool table, tool rack and home entertainment system.

And local rumour had it when you listen very carefully on a quiet Sunday morning you can hear the sound of lawnmowers.

The film would reach a climax when the ground opened up on a stormy night and filled the air with the stench of pot-pourri. The film could be called “Keeping Up The Dead (With The Joneses)”

My other idea is a drama called Pastor of Muppets in which Kermit is torn between his calling to the clergy and the pig he loves. That’s just a working title, obviously.

This site gets more searches on the subject of pikeys than anything else. I don’t know why this is, but type pikeys into yahoo.com and you’ll end up back here, or specifically, here.

Maybe I’m being watched by a pikey techno-elite scout patrol who call themselves the Broadband of Gypsies. They camp out in the lay-bys of the information superhighway, leaving a stream of broken links and unused fonts behind them when they leave.

Maybe I’ll wake up one morning and find a load of caravans parked up in the blank space under the nav bar. I’ll ask them to go to council webpages and set up there, but they would have done their homework and will tell me I don’t own the internet.

“Yeah, but this is my website,” I’d say.

“Technically it ain’t yours mister,” they’d say, because that’s how they all talk, “It belongs to Blogger, so it does.”

And they would have got me there, because they know the system, and probably the system administrator. Meanwhile, site in my links section gets offers to redo their templates while some of my jpgs mysteriously go missing. Coincidence, I think not.

Anyway, I’m digging a ditch around my frames, so don’t get any ideas.

Pikey Search sounds like a reality tv show where contestants from around the country compete to be selected to live the life of a genuine pikey. I can imagine you’d get Simon Cowel as the tough judge, saying, “I found your dog-on-a-string unconvincing, your drivewave paving was excellent and your children couldn’t even swear” and a whole host of sponsors waiting to cash in on 15 of fame enjoyed by the winner: Beanie Pikey dolls, Nike Pikey leisurewear, Hungry Hungry Gypos, etc.

Last night we beat Manchester United. I had been looking forward to it all season. We played like kings and we won. A day later I haven’t even thought about Wayne Rooney, because what matters is we won. I have been wondering if we can possibly finish in the top four and get into Europe, and now I feel like Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters: “I have my answer.”

Winning the big games isn’t just about the result, but about what the result means.

My grandfather used to go and see Everton in the 1910’s. He lived down the road from the ground and he went to Gwladys Street School in the shadow of Goodison Park, where they played. And when he joined the army, he signed up at the recruiting office in Everton Road. When he fought in the First World War he heard about Everton winning finishing top in 1915 as he stood shoulder to shoulder in the trenches with his pals who would be praying to live to see their families again, have a beer and go to see their heroes play.

We are born, not made. Being an Evertonian is about how my dad always knew he was going round to see his uncle (a supporter of bitter rival red-shirted Liverpool) because my grandfather used to put blue ties on him and his brothers.

It’s about Dad losing his shoes in the Boy’s Stand of Goodison in the 1930’s and having to walk home in his bare feet and not caring because we won that day.

It’s about me taking him to that same stadium some sixty years later for his 70th birthday, and how I pulled a few strings to get us to meet the players and walk through the team’s tunnel onto the pitch on a match day and crying as I watched him and his two brothers running around on the turf like kids. And it’s about that day being the last time he saw either of them alive.

So you can say it’s only a game, or that sport fans are shallow or that football is a pastime for people with deep pockets and small minds. And I’ll tell you that it has all the love, passion and fury of a lifetime. And I woudn’t give it up for anything. Bless you Everton. Bless you Harry and Walter and the Grandad. Dad, we can do this. Son, one day all this will be yours. Everyone else - thank you for reading.

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Well, not the best words, but the best sounding words are:

Pink
But not when you pronounce it “PING’k” like everyone else. Say it like its spelt: “piN-k” so you can hear the N. Try it - it will make you happy.

Mollusk
There aren’t many words that make you feel like the animal when you say its name. Kiwi, cicada and gecko are notable exceptions, so for that, I take my hat off to “mollusk”.

Time
Ah, what can I say about this word. What can’t I say? It means nothing, it means everything, it is emptiness, it is form. The phonics of it - the hard consonant followed by a long vowel and a soft consonant. If this word were an order at a bar it would be a single malt scotch followed by a pint of Guinness and an Irish coffee. In culinary terms it’s garlic mushrooms then pad thai and strawberry cheesecake. The sound of it, the meaning, the way it comes across differently depending on who says it and what it signifies to them - makes the word “time” my favourite word of all time ever in the history of words. Best sung by James Taylor in Baby Buffalo, but good by Michael Stipe in Low (”You and me - we know about time”). God damn yes.

Zamboni
This is the machine that smoothes over the ice in rinks to level out the grooves made by skates and hockey sticks. It is cool because:

1. It would be really fun to drive one .
2. It is named after Mr Frank Zamboni and no one could think of a better name for it, while the inventors of the jetski and the snowmobile probably lived out their days in bitter anonymity.
….but most of all ….
3. It sounds like the scat singing at the end of “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book:
“Habbadoooweee!”
“A ram bam booty”
“Skiddy bo ZA!”
“Wit’ da big Zamboni!”
“Skiddly bop! Skiddly bop! Skiddly bop! Skiddly bop!”
“Rahhh rahhhhhh….”

I’m solid gone.

So they’ve picked a new Pope and the name on everyone’s lips in the Vatican is Benedict XVI

ESPN: Batting Number 1 for the Roman Catholics is number 16 …………… Joseeeeeeeeeeeeeephhhhhhh Ratzingerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

E!: Benedict, egged on by wellwishers in Vatican City, Italy, steps out in a silken red all-in-one with matching hat

The Guardian: Satan Slams Vatican Decision As “Fix”

BBC: New Pope Named: Benedict XVI

Variety: Masses of Masses for Masses

The Sun: Pope Smoke “Not a Joke”

Since I’m going to hell now anyway, our neighbourhood priest when I was a kid was called Reverend Ball. Later on in his career he became Cannon Ball. I think he should have walked up to the pulpit with The Breeders playing Cannonball over the PA, so like a boxer he could have his own theme tune playing when he goes to work.

I used to have a doctor called Doctor Burn, which I thought was a little cruel, like if your mechanic was called Michael Dent. In fact, what if your name actually hindered your choice of career? Like if your name was Peter Nosedive and you wanted to be a pilot. Or you wanted to be a proctologist and your name was the butt (sorry) of toilet humour jokes throughout your childhood.

Aside from that - nothing - but NOTHING - beats the name of someone I went to school with whose name was Anastasia Frisby. When your name is Jones, you can only be humbled.

God, everything’s annoying me today. I work with London’s technorati, many of whom are fine individuals but they can’t communicate. I just had this conversation:

Someone: So we’re go for Phase Three?
Me: I thought Phase Three hadn’t launched yet.
Someone: Well, it kind of has. This will be Phase Dash Two Forward Slash Three.

He actually said “forward slash”. That’s not even punctuation! It’s an html command!!! Listen to yourself, man!!! Do you see the conditions I have to work under?

It bugs me when people walk out of shops without looking where they going. It’s a basic courtesy to pay attention. And yet every morning when I walk down the street on the way to the office, there’s some knobhead waving goodbye to someone in the coffee place as they blindy walk out thinking, “Well, that’s me sorted: I’ve got my £2.75 coffee now everyone can get the fuck out of my way.”

What if God was one of us?
Joan Osborne
Here the artist resorts to the past tense instead of using the subjunctive. She might mean “what if God were one of us”. This might encourage lay Christian to keep grounded in their faith. “Just a stranger on the bus,” she goes on, as if to encourage us that the Creator was just a regular person. A person on our route home, maybe even a neighbour. What if he called round when they get locked out? You’d offer him a cup of tea. You might be out of proper grown up biscuits. Does God like Wagon Wheels? Anyway, what the song is saying is “what if God was one of us”, in other words: he might have been, but he’s dead. It probably wasn’t God anyway. Probably just looked like him or something. So basically what we have here is: stranger on the bus dies. Shame, but not worth writing a song about, really.

The Wall
Pink Floyd
“We don’t need no education”
Actually you do. Not just because your grammar stinks and this is a doubt negative, but because you expressly say you don’t need no education, therefore I take it you do need at least some education. Members of Pink Floyd went to my school, so I have proof that they did have at least some education, but I say it’s good that they want to further their studies.

You Wanna Be Starting Something
Micheal Jackson
“..you’re stuck in the middle, and the pain is thunder.”
Michael’s just making up adjectives here. Let’s hope he does better when he takes the stand.
Prosecution: “Do you admit to sharing a bed with this boy?”
Jackson: “Yes.”
Prosecution: “And how did that make you feel?”
Defence: “Objection!”
Judge: “I’ll let the question stand.”
Prosecution: “Mr. Jackson, how did that make you feel?”
Jackson: (silent)
Judge: “Answer the question Mr Jackson.”
Jackson: “Thunder, you honour.”
Judge: “Let the record state Mr Jackson felt ‘thunder’.”

I work in a busy newsroom - there are at least 4 TV’s on at any one time on 3 different channels, newswires, computers, phone calls and a couple conversations, usually referring to something than happened 5 minutes ago and at least one of the parties in that conversation won’t know that the decision that was reached then has changed at least twice since they were involved.

So while this is going on, I play the role of the Mekon, floating about between these, sometimes in an organised way, sometimes butting in when I see something out of the corner of my eye.

This happens a lot. Something looks like it might be interesting and usually turns out not to be. It’s the tempting glint in the sand that turns out to be a ring-pull (OK, we don’t have ring-pulls any more, but go with it) instead of a Rolex. I think if I walked around at an angle and spent all the time actually looking out of the corner of my eye, I wouldn’t miss as much.

I have discovered that my ears also have corners.

Once a gathering of my steamed colleagues pointed out an incredible goal scored by a football player. A real 20 yard screamer (the goal, not the player), which drew gasps of admiration before they went about their business. About two minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I see the same player score an equally incredible goal.

“He’s scored again!” I yell to no one in particular. “Bloody hell! Did you see that?”

No one says anything for a while, and I can see they are impressed.

“Um, that’s a replay,” someone says.

As well as being an equally incredible goal, it was an indentically incredible, and therefore “credible”, goal.

So for the rest of the afternoon, every time they showed the replay, in every highlights package, someone would say something like: “Cliff, you’re not going to believe this. He’s just got another one.”

This joke still amuses them, and for month afterwards when an instant replay came on, someone could be relied on to say “he’s done it again”.

The election has been called, Tony Blair’s not packing and the parties are out in force. The prospective Conservative Member of Parliament has already called round my house, but I wasn’t in. Wife was, but she didn’t ask the candidate anything.

I hope next time they call, I will be in, so I can ask them really dumb questions and see how stupid I can get away with sounding. They’ll buy it, too because they have to be so nice to get your vote and the dumber I get the funnier it will be.

I’d ask where they stand on public transport and listen to their rehearsed answer. When they are finished I’d say, “But where do you stand on public transport? Like when there ain’t no seats.”

Billy Ocean Colour Scene
Shortlived Britpop indie shitehawks run through pop hits of 80’s solo phenomenon

Def Buckley
Spandex-clad stadium fillers present soul-searching, singer songwriter cult classics.

Sheryl Quo
Pub-rockers-got-lucky play West Coast radio-friendly songs

Fleetwood Knack
Folk-pop crossover giants apply their melodic blend to My Sharona and other hits

Hans Ferdinand
Retro darlings of the music press turn postmodernism on its head with a twist on the German Oompa sound. Smashes include Take Me Aus.

Daft Monk
French techno hits interpreted in Gregorian chant by a remote order of Francescan monks

The Beachy Boys
Screechy whiteboy rap and funky beats crossed with close harmonies and inventive instrumentation and arrangements

Crowded House of Love
Antipodean songsmithery laced with early 90’s shoegazing

Dr Dre and the Medics
Gansta rap laced with pop party anthems. Greatest Hits album entitled Chronic Asthma.

Echo and the Jivebunny Men
An uptempo mix of all those intraspective 80’s hits you loved on one foot-tapping single!

INXS-Express
Sultry pop with a hard house backing track

Blink 182 Unlimited
Winey power pop with no limits

Eminem People
Stanbag

Aimee Manfred Mann
Postmodern indie mixed with sixties bollocks

Huey Lewis and the Muse
West coast pop candy with a dark centre

Earth, Wind and Fire. And Air.
A heady mix of disc(/tech)no with Gallic flair

Thelonius Punk
Dark, brooding jazz given a French techno twist

Nat King Queen
A royal flush of camped up standards. We will shock you.

The Crazy World of Jackson Brown
Folksy protest songs with a 70’s glam feel

Abba Ranks
The irony of flawlessly-crafted, perfect pop songs with homophobic overtones

Simply Red Hot Chilli Peppers
California funk-rocker play cash-spinning kitchen sink ditties including Money (Give It Away Now)

REM Speedwagon
Lame soft rock meets southern-fried alt-folk rocksters

The Rolling Joss Stones
R&B sensations play a back catalogue of drug-fuelled bluesy hits

Kenny Rogers & Hammerstein
For the mums, this one: the golden age of the Hollywood musican in a country and western style

The Dead Nigel Kennedys
Vivaldi meets the moshpit. Hits include “Holiday in Cambodia (Spring)”

Al Green Day
Smooth soul and blazing punk

Bing Crosby Stills and Nash
Pot-laced harmonies of fireside classics

Talking Radioheads
Quirky arthouse band meets whiney indie die-hards

The Byrds Feeder
Jangly hippy melodies infused with angsty Britrock

The Bee Gee Fugees
Screechy-voiced disco hits with a rootsy hip hop feel

Marylin Hanson
Candy-coated nuggets kiddy pop

Van Halen Morrison
The Belfast Cowboy with blistering axe riffs and tight lycra

Porno for Pixies (the searches I’m going to get now…)
A bizarre shouty circus of loud guitars and conceptual lyrics

Buffalo Tom Jones
Welsh hipswivvelling college rock

The Police Cars
Eclectic post-punk kings of the hook meet 80’s be-shaded MTV popstars

Badly Drawn Boyzone
Acoustic alt-folk meets boybands in a heady mix of screaming teens and media types in chord blazers

The Foo Bangles
The funniest band name yet and I’ve no idea why. Hits include Manic Generator and the controversial Learn to Fly Like An Egyptian.

I don’t know how Google’s mind works, but I if you type in sabutamol into google.com today, you get my homepage as the first entry. The world’s top selling asthma drug and it brings up my site.

Another search reference I got today was this , which is what happens when you type in the word “thunderbird”, “children’s” and “balloons”. I would like to explain that Thunderbird is a superhero crime-fighting team of characters, not an nasty fortified wine drunk behind the wheel of a muscle car from a paper cups.

“Walk in the woods” brings me up in yahoo below the book by laconic Anglofile and columnist Bill Bryson (and author of the book by the same name), which I can live with.

I guess I’m surprised that after 6 months of starting to write this blog, it’s getting hits from search engines. So before I go, I’d just like to say Free Glastonbury Tickets, Pope John Paul 2, tax return, Paris Hilton, Poker, MP3, Charlotte Church and crop circles.

I am not a chatty person in the mornings, but people think I am. Today I got off the bus this morning and start walking down to work when this guy who gets off the same stop says:

Him: Wonder why all this is?
Me: What’s that?
Him (gestures to traffic): This.
Me: Dunno.
Him: Could be that the kids are back from Easter holidays.
Me: Could be.

I walk on in the same direction, wondering if the conversation has ended. I consider if it would be rude to put my sunglasses on. I’m walking east into the rising morning sun and my eyes are hyper sensitive to light, so I squint alot and have wrinkles around my eyes.

Him (gestures towards shop): Well, I’m going to get my eggroll.
Me: Bye.

I am 33 and I am happy with that. But I notice my tastes changing as I get older. Much as I swore I’d never become my parents, I have a bit. Just as your folks live on in you when they die, you grow closer to them as you get older.

So to celebrate that, here are some things I like now that I didn’t care for 10 years ago:

Wine
Family history
Cheese (not your soft white ones that you spread on crackers, I’m talking crumbly peppery ones with blue bits in - gorgonzola, stilton, dolcelatte, bresse, goat)
Gardening (not just a cactus on the window ledge, I mean propogation and repotting and hardening off)
Folk music
Walking

I’m also aware of back pain and grey hair for the first time in my life. And when I forget stuff stuff I think it’s a senior moment. It’s comforting that I can write off my own stupidity to genetics. Not that either of my parents were senile. But it could happen, OK?

Now where did I put that “Publish” button?

To sum up feelings
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffi-

Thursday the 12th
You Haven’t Told Me What You Did Last Summer
Quintapussy
Three Princes

They keep moving the stuff around in my supermarket. I mean really moving it around. Where once there was bread, there are now pizzas. Later, that space will be condiments, then possibly easter eggs. I know they want to keep me moving around to keep things interesting, but it’s not as if this is a lifetime relationship. Even if it were, a little change is good, but not too much. If Wife said to me, “Honey, did you know I can play the bass clarinet?” I’m not sure delight would be my first reaction. I might feel uneasy. I might start wondering if she was a Shaolin monk jujitsu expert or something.

So when my supermarket says, “Oh yeah, you know that French bread you like? It’s over there now - fancy 12 kinds of bratwurst?” No. Imagine if your satellite TV channel started moving things around to get you to watch other channels.

But I’m in my thirties (barely, right?) so I’d rather play the system than fight it. So here’s what I’m thinking: I start an experiment to make my life more interesting by limiting my shopping to three aisles, picked at random but I stick to them for a month and try to live off what thatever they sell over a month. This could be tricky because I’m a vegetarian and I could find I have to live on mustard and greeting cards for a week. But you never know, next week it could be the deli counter and cheeses.

Again with the supermarket thing. I don’t know.

Iain suggested as a prequel “The Sparklers of the Vanities” he rocks and he proves it here.

As Hollywood is flirting dangerously with prequels. The Star Wars films were first, and although my heart said yes, even my head said yes, my eyes said no thanks. There’s also some talk of them making The Hobbit, but I’m not sure they should.

The prequel thing could get out of hand, so here’s a list of films they should not make:

Clockwork Satsuma
The Penultimate Samurai
The Credibles
Offers Bashfully to Buy Wolves a Drink, Then Says “Great Song…”
The Young Man and the Sea
Pickpockets of the Caribbean
11 Monkies
My Small, Trim, Greek Date
Mission: Likely
Courthouse Rock
An American Werewolf at Heathrow

Any suggests? Leave a comment below.
Honestly - you never write, you don’t leave messages, you come and go as you please…

I keep seeing Big Cat Diary in the TV listings - it’s a big deal on the BBC apparently, but I’m not sure what it is. I haven’t watched it because of my New Year’s Resolution not to watch any reality TV shows, and I’m afraid this one will be similar territory.

BIG CAT DIARY (excerpt)
Monday
Went hunting. Caught a gazelle. Quite fancy trying that dried food. Shiva says a lot of cats in Europe eat it. Must write to cousin Tiddles.

Tuesday
Simba spoke to me! He asked me how my gazelle was. I said fine but couldn’t say anything else. I don’t think he knows I killed it so I asked Shiva to drop it into conversation with Akula by the baobab tree because I know that’s where Simba hangs out after lunch.

Wednesday
Simba was asleep. Typical. Coughed up hairball. That’s the trouble with gazelle.

Thursday
Why am I so much bigger than all the other cats? I hate my life!

Friday
Stayed in. Bloody Discovery Channel is making my life a nightmare. How would they like it? I have my pride. I can’t leave the den without being photographed. Last month one of their snappers sprayed antelope wee on his clothes and spent three days up a tree waiting for Nala to give birth. Where does it end?

Saturday
Simba killed a wildebeest and left me the carcass! Shiva told me to keep my tail down and “stop being so obvious” but I don’t care. Everyone knows she’s a slapper.

Sunday
Tiddles writes: “Yes, we eat dried food and live in houses. Some cats eat meat but it comes from cans. We still hunt sometimes. I caught a mouse the other day (enclosed). Bit cheesy, but otherwise tastes OK. Love to Auntie. - T.”
Houses. Show off. And what the hell does “cheesy” mean? He wouldn’t last ten minutes in this place.

I seem to have acquired some esteem among my fellow commuters following yesterdays shenanigans. When I got on the bus last night people asked me how I got on getting in, and what time I got to work. One person said what I did was very noble and they all saw my empty coach on the way to get me come past them the other direction on the motorway as they went to into London to work.

I tried to be modest and humble and pretend I had made a small sacrifice of their behalf and that the company would be hearing from me because as commuters, we aren’t going to take this lying down. Paying money for no seats…. pah! No “Sir/Madam”! Not us - and Cliff Jones was going to let them know about it, that’s who, because no one should have to go through what I endured yesterday.

Alright, I didn’t say all this, but I they felt grateful, which feels good.

What I didn’t say is: “No, it was cool! I got to ride a big orange bus by myself and we got to go really fast because it was after rush hour! And I spoke to the driver and now I know how much busses cost and that they have ceramic clutches and one driver went through six in two months because he’d only ever driven manual cars before and now they only let him drive automatic busses. And it reminded me that every day is an adventure even though on the face of it they can all look very similar and how you should remember that change is good and like I said to my friend Iain ‘You can’t walk into the same river twice’ but I really got it, you know?!”

… because then they wouldn’t feel I’d done something good by putting others first and that maybe I was slightly mad.

It wasn’t the point, but maybe next time they will step off the bus, figuratively speaking. And maybe, because of their gratitude, I’d do it again. Random acts of kindness, or sometimes just random acts, are a good thing. Enjoy your day.

This morning the bus turned up full this morning. Not a gripping opening sentence, but this is a cool entry, so bear with me. Commuting is boring, but I have to set the scene. If I could lay down some beats, I would, but that’s not me.

I get to work in the morning on a big orange tourbus coach thing which thunders down the 3 lane motorway into town. It’s not the double decker busses that spring to mind when you think of London, packed with men in bowler hats, plucky chimney sweeps saying “Gawd bless ya, me love” and teddy bears in dressed as beefeaters.

No, it’s pretty much your regular crowd of Josephs (f. -ines) trying to get to work. So this morning they were one seat short, so I asked the driver “What do we do now?” They looked for a volunteer to get off, so I put myself forward. I’d worked over the weekend because of the Pope thing, anyway, so I was owed time.

He said he would call another coach (as in “bus”, as opposed to “lifestyle”). I said there was no need, and they could call me a taxi, but they insisted on “getting their customer to work to honour their commitment as a value provider of….” - to be honest I switched off at that point. 90 per cent of customer services these days seems to be hot air.

So to cut a long story short, I came into work this morning as the only passenger on a 41 seater brand new megabus. It was way cool and I sat next to the driver, just talking about life and stuff. I had to supress the urge to run up and down the aisle going WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!, turning all the lights on and off as the bus rolled in to London.

If would have been fun to stand at the back and run up to the front as we passed lorries so I could keep eye contact with the driver, just to wierd them out.

Being the only person on a train is just scary. Having a big bus to yourself: cool as.

Someone in the news conference this morning pitched me a story doing the rounds about how old school bosses from hell are now a thing of the past.

Duty editor: “We could run it high, saying that bosses are now pussycats. What do you think?”
Me: “Over my dead body. And get me a coffee.”
All: (polite nervous laughter from all)

It’s all about the fun here.

They ran it anyway.