A review of a gig what I went to last night (20)

And the gig counter hits twenty (ish).

Last night was Thirteen Senses at Fibbers, more than ably supported by Four Day Hombre. The bar staff all had matching TS t-shirts, the audience were dressed more variably. Audiences tend to do that.

Both bands were excellent. Say no more. I'll be seeing FDH again next week - which will take me to a total of five for the year.

Soon the AR(SE) table can be laid to rest, but for now, here it is updated for this weeks gigs. Both scored a rubbish one. Hey, Actuaries! Go to gigs more!

5.0: Puressence
4.5: Trachetenburg Family Slideshow Players
3.5: Easyworld / Snow Patrol 1 / Graham Coxon / Keane / The Brakes
3.0: The Open 2 / Thirteen Senses 1 / David Devant
2.5: Four Day Hombre 1 / Snow Patrol 2
2.0: Delays / Athlete / Dawn of the Replicants
1.5: The Ordinary Boys
1.0: The Open 1 / J. Richman / Four Day Hombre 2 / Simon & Garfunkel / Seafood / Thirteen Senses 2 / Cherry Falls

Next up, Ethan Daniel Davidson at Fibbers on Wednesday. I have no real idea who he is.

Counting Actuaries

I have just been so close to winning a pound from my staff. He had noticed that a lot of the photos of people in this month's The Actuary magazine, were of people dancing or doing gymnastics. He was correct - there are several. This led us to make a bet on what the profession of most of the people pictured was.

I bet one pound that the majority of them would be actuaries. He bet a pound that the majority wouldn't be. We counted and classified people as best we were able.

This gave a count of 31 to each side, with one person we just couldn't decide on. Research on the internet was unable to settle the matter either. So we were forced to concede a draw. Darn. No pound for me.

Disclaimer: Because some actuarial judgment had to be used in this exercise, the conclusion we came to may not be definitive. I don't care.

A new dawn

(last political post for a while... promise)

It's the morning after, and there's no pill that'll sort things out today. I suspect if Bush had his way there'd be no morning-after pill full stop.

We'll never know what President Kerry Edwards would have been like. Oh well. What kind of a boy's name is Kerry anyway? A rubbish one, that's what it is. It's not a good manly Famous Five style name like George (and on the subject of names, isn't it nice how well the names President Bush and Vice-President Dick go together?).

But I suspect that President Edwards would have been better for the world as a whole than monkey-man will be.

Well, hopefully everyone will just put the whole sorry fiasco behind them and just start being nice to each other for a change. Cos if you give a little love, then it all comes back to you (la la la la la la la). You know we're gonna be remembered for the things that we say and do (la la la la la la la)...

Final thought: The Bush administration has just stood by its approval for a book being sold in US National Parks museums and book-shops. The book claims that the Grand Canyon is only a few thousand years old and was caused by Noah's great flood. I think that speaks for itself.

A review of a gig what I went to tonight (19)

Is it naive to think that if all America just got together, sat down and watched a few bands over a couple of pints of decent bitter, then they could all just be friends, look to the future and hope for the best? Obviously it would have to be a bloomin' big bar, but I'm sure it'd help things.

I went to see some more bands at Fibbers tonight. They made me feel good, and nobody had to invade anybody else to provide that feeling.

I was all on my lonesome again, mainly this time because I hadn't bothered to ask (almost) anyone else along. But that didn't really worry me. And the first guy on was also on his own, though he did seem to have a lot of friends in the audience.

Thom Mills was his name. I'm still not sure about that spelling of Tom. I know yer Radiohead blokey has been using it for years, but it seems slightly wrong. Does anybody know any Tims who spell their name "Thim"? No, of course you don't, it'd be ridiculous and people would laugh at them. So why do we allow "Thom"s to get away with it? And don't give me any crap about "Thomas" having an "h" in it either...

But despite the crazy spelling, he was really good. Looked a bit like Will Young, but had some great songs, and a great voice. He appealed for people to join him as drummers or extra guitarists for future gigs. I refrained from offering my services because I suspected he wanted people who were competent. And also he wasn't very tall and I'd have made him look little if I was near him.

After him... I Am Jack. There were more than one of them though, and I don't know if any of them actually were called Jack. Lead singer looked like a grey (one of them alien types, not one of them accountant types). But other than that, they were again really good. Not unique, but very enjoyable. Don't think they were happy about the election result though...

And so then onto tonight's headliners, Cherry Falls. I've seen them once before, supporting Ooberman back in March '03. I don't really remember what they were like, but I'd managed to remember them in a positive enough light for me to have bought their last two singles. Which then hadn't impressed me hugely... But live, they were a different proposition. Think of early period Travis (which I mean as a compliment). Lead singer (and probably the whole band) is Scottish and very chatty and personable. Good tunes.

So I had a pretty decent night out, all told. To cap it all, I heard the new single from Grandaddy, "Nature Anthem" on the radio on the way into town, which is a fantastic little tune.

"I want to walk up the side of the mountain,
I want to walk down the other side of the mountain,
I want to swim in the river and lie in the sun,
I want to try and be nice to everyone."

And that's the entirety of the lyrics. It builds nicely and has a kid's choir towards the end. It's too early to tell whether it's one of those songs whose simplicity will make it a classic, or whether it will just become annoying.

On the subject of that band, I think my favourite song of theirs is "He's simple, He's dumb, He's the pilot". Remind you of anybody? :-)

Whoops!

Oh, you silly Americans, what have you gone and done now?

On a plus point, you've at least given the rest of world statistical justification for claiming that the majority of Americans are arrogant selfish idiots...

Cliche Warning

Here's a thought: every bad thing that has ever happened to you, somebody will have found it really funny. It was probably me. That's how people work. Every break-up, every loss, every death, every mistake, somebody will have found it hilarious.

The sooner you are able to agree with them, the sooner you'll be actually happy yourself. Because, really, everything has a funny side. Face the world with a smile, and the world will smile back at you. You give a little love and it all comes back to you (as they said in Bugsy Malone).

It's all true.

Mild irritation

Does anyone else get very slightly midly irritated by the way that often when you wash your hands after using the toilet, it's just after you've flushed said toilet? This tends to mean that the water from the tap is at a lower pressure than normal and doesn't wash you as well as it could.

So then of course you turn the tap up more than you would normally, and when the pressure returns to normal, you get soaked.

This is only really an issue in places where the toilet cistern is right by the toilet - eg in the bathroom of a private house. Public toilets tend not to be as affected, especially ones that mostly contain urinals.

In other, possibly unrelated, news it looks like the monkeys are choosing a new chief chimp today. Choose wisely, my ape bretheren. And sistren. And cistern. See, it was related after all. Where are my tablets?

The end of Summer

British Summer Time ended in its usual way yesterday with the clocks going back to where they used to be. On Saturday at this time it was coming up to eight o'clock. Now it's only coming up to seven. This has the effect that it's REALLY DARK when I come home from work, even if I get away at five. This doesn't seem fair.

I am losing an hour of good evening light just so that some Scottish farmers can see their cows udders of a morning. Or something. Many studies have shown that a lot of accidents would be avoided if we didn't do this time movement every year, but more importantly, leaving work in the dark makes me feel miserable. It makes me feel like I'm leaving at eight or some evil time like that. It's wrong. But it doesn't have to be this way...

We don't have to let ourselves be dictated to in this way. Let's face it, the only reason it's now seven and not eight is because Tony Blair says it is. Nothing actually changed in the world yesterday. Nothing in nature forces us do partake of this madness each year.

So I think it's time for some mass civil disobedience. Change all your clocks back to where they were on Saturday. Reset the clock on your computer at work. Reset the clock on a colleague's computer at work. If you work in a church, change the church clock back. Maybe you're even a scientist at Greenwich? If so, change all your posh clocks. Let's stay in British Summer time for the whole winter.

If you don't have access to clocks, then just turn up to work at 8 (on the evil time system) and leave at 4 (on the evil time system). In your head you'll be doing the classic Dolly Parton hours, and that's what matters.

And this could even have hidden benefits. Pubs will still be on the standard Mr Blair time zones, and they will close at 11 (OTETS). But if you are in the pub and have been following my advice, then it'll be like they are actually closing at midnight. A whole extra hour's drinking just from changing your own timeframe! Racing to catch that last post collection at 5pm (OTETS)? Not a problem any more - now you have until 6! Missed your favourite soap opera? Not any more! It's on an hour later than normal! So many everyday problems just vanish.

So come on my people. If together we all say that it's two o'clock, then it will be two o'clock. Time is an illusion, but it's one that we can control. We just have to grasp the proverbial clock-hands and all push together.

And more vitally, I'd be able to leave work in daylight. For an extra week at least.

Scary Deleted Scenes

I've just got wind of some scenes that got deleted from the final series of Buffy. My favourite is the one where Buffy slays Spike completely to dust. Here's a freeze frame:



I think they decided to not run with this scene because Spike doesn't actually get slain by Buffy so it would have confused the plot somewhat.

Scary Tea

I've found a strange (scary) new fruit tea to add to my cupboard: Melon, Grape and Aloe Vera. I'm not sure what kind of melon it is, but based on the illustration on the box, it is definitely a melon melon rather than a watermelon.

Tastes alright.

Scary Dressing Up

Tomorrow night it is Halloween. Night of witches and demons and ghoulies and vampires.

Tonight I am going to a Halloween party. It's a little early, but you can't do these things as well on a Sunday night, at least not if you have a job to go to on the Monday.

I think this is only the second such party I've ever been to. The first was around seven years ago (possibly exactly seven years ago) in Norwich. Like all good parties, it was fancy dress, so I went as Ash from the Evil Dead films. Specifically, as he appears in "Army of Darkness: The Medieval Dead", which is an utterly great film.

"See this? This is my Boom-stick!"

That time, I'd made myself a chainsaw and a shotgun, both of which were pretty impressive. They were my first foray into the realm of cardboard weaponry. Although, sadly, the shotgun does not exist any more, I do still have the chainsaw. Like in the film, it was designed to fit over the stub at the end of my arm where I used to have a hand. I actually did have a hand there as well, I wasn't going to do that degree of attention to detail, but you couldn't see it when the chainsaw was being worn.



Since it was mostly constructed from cardboard, there is a slight problem with blade stiffness.

The shotgun looked more realistic. I was quite nervous around carrying it around town so I put it inside my guitar case and carried that instead. I understood why the bad buys all do that in films.

Tonight's party has a slightly more specific theme: Buffy (and Angel). So I am reusing my Buffy costume from the Summer. I have reupholstered my breasts to make them a little perkier - last time I got many complaints about droopiness. I expect this time people will complain that my eyebrows don't match my lovely blonde hair or something. People are never happy.

A tale of two some kumquats

The following post was typed at two separate times:

BEGIN AT WORK DATA ENTRY:

When I went down to Ealing for the Wedding last week, I allowed myself plenty of contingency time. I didn't want to miss the ceremony, that would have been very bad form. As it turned out, since the ceremony was an hour and a half long, I could have easily missed some of it and not really missed much at all if you catch my drift.

The Wedding was at three pm. Despite having a miniature hangover from Friday night, I managed to get up on Saturday morning, pack, dress and leave York early enough so that I was in Ealing at around one pm with two whole hours to go. Nice - what could possibly go wrong?

I was supposed to be meeting up with a friend from Uni who was also going to the wedding, but since he did not share my organisational excellence, and is also a lazy bas***d, he had slept in and was running late. I found a nearby bar and ordered lunch and a pint of German lager whilst I waited. I had nothing to read unfortunately, so I just had to sit around and wait. Which I didn't mind. I was happy to just sit and watch the world go by.

After an hour, I'd eaten and drank. I had also spoken to lazy bas***d on the phone, and he assured me that he was on his way and would be with me shortly. Have another pint, he said. This I was happy to oblige. I also then realised that I did have something to read after all - a copy of this week's New Scientist. So I ordered another pint, read magazine and hoped LB would turn up soon so that I could go to the toilet (had a load of stuff with me which I didn't want to take to the loo, but didn't want to leave lying unattended in the pub earlier).

At a quarter to three, I decided I couldn't really wait any longer, so I went to the loo (with all my stuff), left and called LB to tell him I'd meet him at the wedding. Unfortunately, not knowing Ealing at all, and only having a very dodgy map,

CLOSE AT WORK DATA ENTRY

BEGIN POST-PUB DATA ENTRY:

... Balls. The map I had was not good. I attempted to use it to send me towards the church. But all that happened was I ended up lost. I phoned LB, and asked a random walking person where Ealing Abbey was. The daft bitch had no idea. What is the sodding point of having members of the public walking around this land if they can't give you fucki*g directions???

By this point, it was raining.

Anyway, after more phone conversations to LB, who had finally manged to turn up in the right city, I ended up in the right direction. But only after a big running session. When we arrived in the church, you could have wringed the sweat off me and served it as communion wine.

But, it was a long service which allowed me to dry off.

So despite arriving with two whole stupid hours to spare, the fact that I had friends caused no end of trouble. Fucki*g losers.

The best laid plans and all that shit...

I'm pretty sure that when I started typing this, earlier in the afternoon, I had much more fun anger to get out.

Seem to have misplaced it now. Sorry.

CLOSE POST-PUB DATA ENTRY

PTFPDPOSCWTATAFTD

This is not a post about John Peel.

Occasionally you don't know somebody for that long, but you make a kind of connection and then miss them enormously when you have to part. I hate goodbyes.

It's been a strange kind of week.

If we're going to meet again, we'll meet again. If we're not, we're not. Either way it can't really compare to the kind of disappointment I had at work today. Let me paint a picture.

One of the most entertaining things we do at work from time to time is the "Put The Fake Plastic Dog Poo On Someone's Chair Whilst They Are Temporarily Away From Their Desk" game. Or PTFPDPOSCWTATAFTD as those of us in the know call it. We played today but it didn't go as planned.

Imagine, for the sake of anonymity, there's a girl called Buffy. It's not her real name, or even a name she's ever used. But in an ideal world, all girls would be called Buffy. I left the Fake Plastic Poo on Buffy's chair whilst she had gone to get drinks, and pushed the chair under the desk, poo out of sight. Normally what happens is that person gets back, sees the poo, goes "Urgghh!" or "Arghh!" and we all crack up. It's hilarious.

What happened today was that Buffy came back with drinks, sat down on the poo on the chair, didn't notice anything awry, and carried on with work. It was wrong! Next time she left the desk I recovered the poo and replaced it back into my drawer. It did give us some amusement that she hadn't noticed, but not as much as if she had. But it at least means that we can play PTFPDPOSCWTATAFTD again another day.

A dog may be just for Christmas, but the fun of a plastic poo is eternal.

The Tribute Wall to John Peel

There were a couple of us at work today who felt similarly about John Peel's untimely death yesterday. So we decided to, for a few days at least, make use of the empty old Wall Of Great Englishmen (And Women). We have now decreed the wall to be The Tribute Wall to John Peel. Here it is in all it's glory:



Ok, so it's not exactly The Louvre, but it's not supposed to be. Richard Herring wrote earlier: "We mourn him like a friend because he was a kind of friend." Spot on.

John Peel RIP

Some days I unfortunately don't need to think too hard about what to write about. Because sometimes something just hits you hard.

John Peel died today.

I've listened to his radio shows for many, many years, and even aged 65 he was still playing better music than the majority of DJ's out there. OK, some of it was shit too, but that didn't really matter. Listening to his show, you'd always hear something new, and maybe something good too. It was John that introduced me to Hefner, Cinerama, The Crimea, and they're just three that popped into my mind without thinking much.

I couldn't count the number of times that his voice was the last one I heard before falling asleep at night. It's hard to believe that that won't happen again.

I'd like to write more, but I'm actually quite upset, so I'll leave it here.

He will be much missed.

She smoked in my bed cos she thought it would annoy me

A line from a fantastic old Hefner song there, from what was possibly their best album, "The Fidelity Wars". I miss Hefner.

Question time.
Are smokers:

a) Antisocial, evil-smelling, yellow fingered, weak-willed people who taste like a four day old ashtray;

b) Poeple who like John Lennon's favourite vegetable, peas, should be given a chance;

c) Dying slowly;

d) Funny;

e) All of the above (they're definitely c, I guess - we're all c)

Ummmm.... Sleeeeeeppppp.

After a distinct lack of sleep on Saturday night, I think I have made a huge in-road into catching up, with close to 12 hours last night. Proper sleep too, not just lying in bed trying to get to sleep as can sometimes happen. Nice.

Wedding

Yet again I have been away this weekend, back to The Dirty South for the wedding of a friend from university. Since he and his new wife are Sri Lankan, the wedding had some degree of Sri Lankenness. Firstly, there were lots more speeches than is normal, since it seems anyone from either family who wants to make a speech is allowed to make a speech. Or possibly put on a slide show. The other main manifestation of Sri-Lankenness was that the dinner was (a selection of) curry.

It is quite possible that since I have never been to a similar wedding before, these things are not in fact traditional or usual.

I saw some good friends that I've not seen for a few years, and one that I hadn't seen or heard from for around 9 years. That may seem like a long time to not have any contact with a friend for, and you'd be right. If I knew people that I had no contact with for that long, then I would fully expect for them to cross me off their Christmas card list, and for them to state to the world: "That non-contacting person is no longer a friend of mine".

However, she had not had cause to make this statement, since I had slightly exaggerated the strength of our friendship above. Perhaps what I should have said was that "I renewed my acquaintance with a foxy girl I met once, for a single evening, 9 years ago in The Fountain Inn, Cambridge". That would have been more accurate. I think it's fair to say that since we have now spent two evenings together in the whole of our short lives, we are at least twice as good friends today, than we were last week.

Anyway, after much dancing (possibly including some dancing to bhangra), much wine, and much frolicking, I eventually got to a state of sleep. I was definitely appreciative that I had a room in the hotel where the reception was held. Taxis or buses would have been far too complicated.

Now I am lots of tired, and so even though it has just passed seven pm, I fully intend to go to bed shortly.

Viva la English

Yesterday, I finally decided that it was possibly time to take down the remainder of our Euro 2004 decorations at work. The competition was back in June, but it's been nice having a bit of colour around the office. But all good things do tend to come to a messy end, and it's a wise man that knows his own father, and also sometimes when to stop.

So I took down the wall of Great Englishmen (and women). I took down the wall of Superb English Quotes. And I took down the wall of Why England Is Best, reasons chosen by myself and a colleague. This last wall celebrated in four A4 sheets of paper all the things that are good and proper about England, land of the English (and not many people called Eng).

The walls look very empty now.

I thought I might record here for posterity the some of the contents of the Why England Is Best wall. Just so any of you non-English people can realise what you are missing.

Things The English Are Best At
- Grammar
- Crosswords
- Cooking
- War
- Peacekeeping
- Dog training
- Playing fair
- Queueing
- Getting angry at queue jumpers
- Stopping queue jumpers getting in
- Celebrating any time you stop a queue jumper getting in
- Keeping things in perspective
- Diplomacy
- Tolerating other countries inadequacies
- Humility
- Being the voice of reason
- Knowing when we are better off
- Giving to the poor and needy
- Being able to analyse whether the poor and needy really are so poor and needy
- Self analysis
- Denial

Great English Inventions
- The wheel
- Fire
- Bingo
- Skiing
- Sex Pistols
- Water Pistols
- English
- Tea
- India
- Harry Potter
- Harry Secombe
- Sooty
- Soot
- Dick Van Dyke
- The sunbed
- Dale Winton
- Julie Andrews
- Andrews liver salts
- Cod liver oil
- Scouse humour
- Joyriding

Places You May Commonly Find An Englishman
- In the local pub
- In bed
- Down t'garden
- Not in Wales
- A Portugese jail cell
- Strapped to the torture table of an evil genius
- In the gutter
- In the Big Brother house
- Spain
- Being evil in a Hollywood film
- Inside a Punch and Judy booth
- Milton Keynes
- Under the boardwalk
- At the front of any race
- On a bus
- On The Buses
- By the rivers of Babylon
- In a lift
- Trumpton, Chigley and Camberwick Green
- In top rock-combo, Slade
- In a cheese shop
- Hanging from a hangman's noose
- Dudley
- In bed with Madonna
- Late night talk radio
- Outside the kebab van, late at night
- England

Anyone who says that I'm just writing things here that used to be on a wall at work because I'm too lazy to think of anything original is wrong.

That sudden feeling of misery :-)

Do you ever go out, have a good time, and then for no particular good reason find that your mind has decided to go all maudlin on you? Rather than being out you'd rather just be alone somewhere with a glass of whisky and a comfy pillow? Eventually the feeling goes away, and you may enjoy the remainder of the evening. For today at least. Maybe it's just me.

At such a time, should you...
a) Cry and hide in a corner.
b) Cry and hide in the toilets.
c) Dance your cares away, worry's for another day.
d) Have another beer until you feel better.
e) Wait until tomorrow. Repeat.

I think d) works well.