fake plastic lee | words

silent Valentine

2012-02-13T22:14:00.001Z

Still here. Slaving away on lots of work, good to be busy. 3 Weeks in. it's gone quickly but a tiny part of it really. Missing my man a lot at the moment. He's in the jungle so off the grid. Feeling perky and productive. The work nonsense is turning to something of a motivator. Work life balance heavily in the favour of work at the moment but every little helps. Mid fringe binge. It's good, managed to pick up mostly what the hell's going on after 2 years. I need to be a bit better at doing my spanish, I've been slacking off that a bit recently. being a domestic good today I made salmon en croute and some flappy flapjacks. all good things alex doesn't like.

an eye for an arm and a leg

2012-02-03T23:36:00.001Z

So, the main news is that my stupid health plan won't cover my op, which means starting the while process again on the NBA. Which will probably end up with the same procedure carried out by the same doctor with the same outcome, just without the small factor of shelling out £4k. Not much of a choice then. In other news, the next ice age begins any minute now. Time to stock up on sausages and beans. Tonight wad the first might where I've not had anything planned since the adventurer departed. I probably should have done some work but hey ho. Watched paranormal activity instead. Not necessarily the best idea when you're home alone but it was a bit of a damp squib. still creeped me out enough to have shut myself away in bed (door closed though so safe from the demons). New national discovered this week to which was nice and BSP ep2's in the post. All good. Been good at writing to Xander, though don't think he's received anything yet! Sleep time now, knackered and up in the morning to do done work. yawn

surging call, the winter charge

2012-02-01T23:23:00.001Z

Brrrr, it's chilly. Winter is upon us. this blog has quickly begun going the same way as my previous attempts, trying to keep up with it though. Been busy, working hard, freelancing hard, time's whizzing by. All of it is a bit self-consciously busy. Almost looking forward to a couple of days without anything booked in to do. Spoke to the adventurer on the phone which was a very nice surprise. Still strange, I think it will be for the next week or so before phase one begins. I think it's harder knowing he's a bit homesick and not being able to do a lot it. Should be finding out tomorrow when the op is going to be, and should also make sure that it's going to be covered! That's all going on with a lot of momentum. Which is probably good as it doesn't give much time for thinking too much about it. Need to be good at writing (and getting the letters in the post). And work out how big a package I can send and get something in the post. Freezing so off to get to bed now.

Where pigeons beat their wings

2012-01-24T22:57:00.001Z

Got home today to a card from the adventurer, courtesy of funky pigeon. good old them. I sent him packing with a few of their cards on standby for upcoming occasions. They have awful adverts admittedly, but at least they're not moon pig. That was a nice surprise. 2 days in and it's been a but funny, still slightly in denial about it all, though because I'm feeling under the weather anyway I miss not having someone to tell me to stop wallowing and being a hypochondriac. Doctor visit today not done a lot to help that but hey ho. Probably not writing this and catching up on sleep would be the best thing I could do, so I'll save the rest of my profound offerings till another day. Night night.

alexander set out on a great adventure

2012-01-22T19:41:00.003Z

it's been a long time since i've written in here. but the next couple of months might be something to write about, so i'm resurrecting this today.

alex jetted off this morning - although almost managed to go without his travellers cheques. i'm grateful for that though because it meant a sad goodbye turned into a funny one. my flight tracker app says he's currently circling Newark.

today's been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. it's easy to forget that we're not going to be seeing each other for 3 months. THREE MONTHS!?!? in a lot of ways it's not that long really. today it seems like a lifetime though.

it's partly just him leaving, but also feeling under the weather today. and have been for the past few days. maybe it's lack of sleep. maybe it's stress from the last week and the big departure. alex would be (and has been) accusing me of being hypochondriac. perhaps he's right. will give it a few days and see how it goes.

since dropping the boy off at the airport, went into chessington to buy my annual pass and then have done a tax return and a bit of work. it's all go here!

this blog is a displacement activity from finishing off a bit of work and is working so far. there's also an ominous pile of washing up hiding behind the wall. who's going to know about that though.

he's at 800ft now, so on the ground soon. though not too long before he's back up into it again.

so this is christmas

2008-12-22T16:42:00.001Z

once again, i've been appalling at keeping this thing up to date. it's not even as if there's not been anything worth writing about for the last couple of months. having lost and job and found another one. having a little trip to the sun last month (gratuitous pictures of which are on the photos site - which I've just noticed there isn't a link for on here). but it's xmas now. work's as quiet as a morgue (no, that's not what the new job is) - which probably explains why i'm actually blogging something for a change. the halls are decked. the tree is up. the shopping is more or less finished. the turkey's in the fridge. i'm having a crack at xmas dinner this year - which should be fine. after all, it's really just a roast dinner with the added pressure of ruining everyone's xmas is you fuck up. so the giggle of redundancy lasted about a month in total and i managed to find a job who were nice enough to let me take the holiday we'd booked. which was fantastic. lots of lazing around. a nice accomodation upgrade. a few too many german nudists but you can't have it all i suppose. maybe a new years resolution, not that i really believe in then, could be to post more frequently on here. but we all know that's not going to happen. perhaps a quality not quantity system could be applied like on the moblog, but that'd probably mean posts would dry up completely. ho ho ho hum. see you in 2009

while you're away, my heart comes undone

2008-11-04T21:07:00.001Z

inside me a lunatic sings

2008-09-19T14:13:00.003Z

if yesterday was a beautiful day i'm not sure what we can describe today as. glorious maybe? i'm laying in the sun listening to the fantastic new sigur ros album my sis got me for my birthday. it's perfect. lazing on a sunny afternoon. in spite of the stress and the nonsense, thank god i'm not at work.

it's a beautiful day (and no-one's gonna stop me now)

2008-09-18T17:57:00.002Z

so the search goes on... have been ups and down as far as positivity goes in the last couple of days, but today's ending on a reasonable up - in spite of the fact that somewhere i interviewed at yesterday were due to be emailing me some homework to do and they haven't. which really isn't the end of the world. i think maybe we both reached the conclusion that it was the wrong candidate for the wrong role at the wrong place. something just didn't click with it. i came away less than enthused and i'm not going to be losing much sleep over that one. but had a couple of meetings today with agencies who were enthused and optimistic and that's been kind of infectious. tomorrow i'll give myself the day off from searching, being my burfdy and all. it's been a beautiful day today which always helps. one of the agencys was up in the west end and i was running a bit early so got off the tube and did one of my favourite walks, over the hungerford bridge and up towards trafalgar. stopped for a bit of sushi by the river for lunch. i wish i'd have the camera with me. i was obviously so relaxed i ended up slipping a huge cup of water all over the table when i got the agency, but i don't think they have a 'clumsy' column to mark against on their paperwork. been listening to the secret machines album again while writing this. it's weird. i like it. hope they come over here to tour soon and that i've got a bit of money for a ticket or can finally find something worthy of my ticketmaster vouchers.

the walls are starting to crack

2008-09-16T19:48:00.002Z

hello adoring public. once again, i'm been neglecting my audience and no written in here for ages. not that anyone's noticed so there ya go. turns out, just for a change, i have something to write about. last week, i got made redundant. which sucks. it's the first time in (what i loosely refer to as) my career that i've not been the one making the decision about when it's the right time to move on. which, granted is debatable whether i've always made the right decisions in the past. but that's pretty irrelevant. so here i am, gainfully unemployed. job hunting's a full time job, you know. the panic's not setting in quite yet, i have a months notice before the well runs dry, so am not applying to pizza hut quite yet. give it a few weeks tho and i might be a bit more worried. in the meantime, have been busy tarting up my 'business' website and portfolio and firing off cvs and things. one meeting with a recruitment agent on thursday and waiting on a return call about one position tomorrow. i should keep an up to date record of how it all goes. but i guess i should be busy with more proactive things instead of that. i have been to the gym every day this week so far, so if i can keep that up i'll be a) in good shape for the holiday we booked before the buggers made me redundant (assuming i actually get to go!) and b) more likely to make money whoring myself on a street corner if all else fails. everyone's a winner. in other news, the new secret machines album has leaked and it sounds rather good so far. all the worries when brother thingy left haven't amounted to a huge let down. in fact, it's sounding a lot more meandering than the last one. which is a good thing.

who wants to be a millionaire?

2008-09-01T08:15:00.001Z

what a nice way to start the week. the first email in my inbox on a monday morning is from the national lottery with the very exciting subject line: congratulations, you've won £1,200,000. if it wasn't for the fact that i do the lottery online and love sending u emails about things, i would have dismissed it as spam straght away. but there were a few seconds between reading the subject line and getting as far as the address to reply to which, somewhat unlikely, was @msn.com where i was quite a bit better off than i was when i woke up this morning. sadly, that bubble didn't last too long. we live in hope though...

try not to worry about what's been missed

2008-08-22T19:59:00.004Z

i've not written on here for ages, so i should make amends for that. i had posted a nice little video clip a while back, but that wasn't very sunny apparently. so, i've been in hospital and had my appendix out which was exciting. i've got a nice scar now, there's a picture of it on the moblog if you're interested. it all happened very quickly, i was going into surgery within about 12 hours of first going to the doctors. the only thing problems was just as i was going under the anaesthetic i got a look at the surgeon, who looked a lot like a part-time john mccririck look alike wearing a bandana. the one little detail that didn't set my mind at ease as he was pressing against my throat just before going unconscious was that each of his eyes was going in a completely different direction. tho, to be fair, he can't have been bad, assuming of course that it was my appendix they removed after all. that'll do for now. i've cut my finger and typing without it is proving to be a pain in the arse. i'll post something else soom probably. maybe.

about today

2008-07-31T08:47:00.001Z

you will be first against the wall

2008-06-26T08:33:00.001Z

people who go to gigs and:
• talk all the way thru
• show up late and push to the front - "my mates are up there" yeah right
• 'sing' along to every song at the top of their voices - it's not singing, it's shouting
• squeeze into a tiny space in front of you so that their 7' tall head is millimeters from the front of your face
• can't stand there for more than 10 minute without having to go to the bar or the toilet
• talk. all the way thru.
• blow smoke in peoples faces
• watch the entire gig thru the screen on their mobile fone so they can have crappy video of random lights and inaudible noise
• phone their mates and try to have a conversation about how fantastic their favourite song is, meaning that they and all the people around can't hear the bloody thing
• talk all the bloody way through, especially during the quiet songs. shut. the. fuck. up.

so far today, i have eaten...

2008-05-14T16:02:00.001Z

some english muffins
lots of lovely home-made sushi
2 donuts with chocolate on top
half a mango
an apple
a mini crunchie
a mini dairy milk

an extra half hour at the gym every day this week i think. being healthy is no fun

beep beep

2008-05-12T19:09:00.000Z

along with a disproportionally high number of blog posts from me today there is also a disproportionally high number of cunts on the road today. i'm not gonna apologise for using that particular word because it's factually accurate. was it official let your braindead best friend drive day today and i missed the memo or something? if natural selection was getting it's job right, then they'd all be in a massive pile up together. cocks. in other news the sainsburys near me has got a clever new sign up that tell you when you're arriving along with nice little read out of your number plate and what time you need to leave the car park before getting a seventy quid fine. is it me or is that a little bit 1984? little robot cameras recording you and recording it in a little database. not good. while we're on sainsburys am i the only one who's incapable of opening up those bloody plastic bags. tesco ones are easy peasy but for some reason those little orange bastards are a nightmare. the overeager checkout monkey had already scanned more or less everything before he had to help me open the first bag like some kind of invalid. rant over.

i don't like mondays

2008-05-12T09:03:00.001Z

after such an ace weekend, monday morning was never going to be good but today's been exceptionally rubbish so far. traffic was amazingly bad and now i'm here our servers are down so there's not a lot i can do. which is probably why i'm writing this which isn't likely to be one of the most entertaining posts in the history of blogs. but then that's probably continuing the trend of mediocrity for this blog. i might think of something more interesting to write later if everything stays broke. but i doubt it.

och ai the news

2008-04-27T19:45:00.001Z

you might have noticed if you've been paying attention that i've got a new job. there are lots of reasons why this is a good thing. one is having the radio on all days. it's meant i get to hear a lot of new exciting music, like the fantastic new futureheads song. but, so they say, every silver lining has a cloud and the one thing about radio 1 is that they like the news. for the end of last week they were busy panicing everybody in scotland by telling them not to panic-buy petrol. what seemed like every half hour if not more often. they had someone driving around seeing if they could get petrol anywhere - presumably wasting a large amount of petrol i the process. the real brucie bonus was the interviews they were doing with the poor panic stricken scotsfolk about how they're gonna cope. at least i presume that's what they were talking about because frankly they might have well have asked someone from outer mongolia for all i could understand of it. hmmm... bit daily mail? sorry. someone was telling me how much they love the scottish accent, and i have to admit that with the right one, i'd have a certain weakness myself. but there were straight out of braveheart or something.

now here's the sun, it's alright

2008-04-23T16:18:00.001Z

this morning was incredibly rubbish getting in to work – made worse by the weather, those horrible little brats being back at school and whichever muppet is in charge of the road works in south wimbledon. but looking out the window now it looks ace. maybe we're on our way to summer? maybe this is the best we'll get til next year? who knows? it definitely feels like it won't be long til its time to while the evenings away sitting outside a pub, preferably by a river somewhere. and as if that wasn't summery enough, and ice cream van's just pulled up outside work so we've all be treated to a 99 each. yum yum!

filling the silence

2008-04-21T09:31:00.001Z

it's been ages since i've written in here, sorry about that. the whole, post a picture every day on the moblog sort of evaporated after a month or so too. i'm such a slacker. anyway, we're now almost a third of the way into the year. where's that gone? search me. i started a new job last week, so that's exciting. the schools went back this morning, which is less so. my journey in's more than doubled which is a biatch. ho hum. the chances of finding a job i want to do on my doorstep is pretty slim so it's sitting in traffic or cramming onto the tube. have switched from a church to a barn - the contents remaining much the same though. more creative i think so feeling a bit fired up with ideas flying around my brain at the moment. they don't seem to be able to escape onto the page/screen/wherever at the moment though which is a pity. been a bit under the weather though so that's been holding me back. obviously. i could break through the ceiling, if i just turned and ran. it's the turning and running part that's difficult. still, lots going on - which is better than nothing. i think. what else have i been up to? saw radiohead playing in a tiny little room - smaller than where we used to have assembly at school. one of the best hours of my life, without a doubt. is that bad? i don't think so. saw björk as well, who was also fantastic, but there were a few more people at that one. money sucks at the moment. switching between jobs probably means emergency tax. which isn't good. had to shell out for a new car stereo soon because mine seemed to become possessed and turn itself on at full volume whenever it fancied it. another change for the better though. at least now i can play cds straight away - and mp3tastic ones at that! you may have noticed that this is one of those slightly rambling blogs where i don't have much to say but feel i need to fill the silence. let's not go into the larger resonance of that statement. maybe there'll be something of significance to write about soon. maybe there won't.

the arseholes are out there

2008-01-24T09:25:00.001Z

i've been screwed. well and truely screwed. by some devious and conniving chinese pirate. and not of the comedy eye-patch and stuffed parrot variety. of the fraudulently using some poor man from somerset's ebay account to list crappy fake dvd box sets, so that unsuspecting dvd completists like my good self, can purchase them only to find that when they arrive from china (rather than somerset) they look nothing like the item listed in the auction and half of the bloody discs don't play. Good old ebay withdrew the item from auction the day it arrives, so i can't even lodge a dispute with them because as far as they're concerned it doesn't exist any more. so paypal is my only hope, and i'm not holding my breath. apparently within 30 days they will resolve my dispute. and if the other person doesn't respond, they will resolve it in my favour. but that doesn't neccessarily mean that I'll get all of my money back. which is poo. for a tenner or so more i could have bought the legit thing on ebay and been happily watching to my hearts content. bastards.

i'm still just a cliché

2008-01-04T14:23:00.001Z

because everyone else does it, i'm gonna do a list of albums from last year that i liked. i'm not gonna put them in an order cos that's too hard.

!!! - myth takes
aqualung - memory man
arcade fire - Neon Bible
art brut - it's a bit complicated
battles - mirrored
bloc party - a weekend in the city (despite some cringeworthy lyrics!)
editors - an end has a start
interpol - our love to admire
klaxons - myths of the near future
lcd soundsystem - sound of silver
moving units - hexes for exes
the national - boxer
radiohead - in rainbows
stateless - stateless
white stripes - icky thump

nothing too unexpected on there i suppose. if i could only choose one it'd have to be the national. björk was a bit of a disappointment, hopefully she'll make up for it live.

2008 is looking promising with a fantastic new album from british sea power due out in a couple of weeks, which is there's any justice in the work will make them huge. rem have a chance to redeem themselves after around the sun in april so fingers crossed for that. new final fantasy coming in the summer too and probably loads of other i can't think of right now.

so here we are...

2007-12-07T18:27:00.000Z

...sitting in the window of starbucks in islington like an amsterdam whore. i decided to try a sprinkling of cinnamon on my mocha - let's just say it seemed like a good idea at the time. not really written anything of any substance recently, and have been copping out with easy youtube tastic video posts. Which is very 2.0 but also a bit lazy. this post doesn't look like being am increase of standards. my people watching antics aren't being helped by it being dark out there and very bright in here, meaning that the main person i'm able to watch is myself. which isn't terribly interesting for anyone else let alone myself. tomorrow looks like it's going to be xmas tree collecting day. there's a slightly mad seeing lady who's claimed the table next to me. it'd take too long to explain exactly why she's a bit peculiar so you'll have to take my word for it. i'm sure there was loads i was going to write about but i can't remember any of it now. maybe next time...

i'm being cut to shreds

2007-12-03T16:35:00.001Z

deck the halls with disney products

2007-11-20T22:35:00.001Z

i know my last post was whining about how awful it is having xmas stuff everywhere in the middle of october, well i suppose with the drop of temperature, my cynicism has thawed a little. i was up at oxford circus last night trying to do a bit of xmas shopping (the majority of which will be done online, therefore totally avoiding the bastard high street) and i was a little disappointed to see that the xmas lights have been hijacked by disney's new modern fairy tale, enchanted. it might be 20:20 hindsight of course but i'm sure when i was little the lights were a big deal, with santa and his elves beavering away in their workshop or something without having to relentlessly whore some kind of nonsense. i may not be the most christmassy person but mickey mouse shouldn't be allowed to steal the limelight from poor little baby jesus.

aaaah!

2007-10-17T19:28:00.001Z

now it's fucking slade courtesy of argos! time to throw the remote away and write a book or something

don't forget santa

2007-10-17T18:49:00.001Z

it's the middle of october and i've just had to listen to mariah bleeding carey chirping on about what she wants for christmas thanks to those pikey sofa peddlers dfs. it's bad enough having to tolerate the hideous shrieking banshee for a couple of weeks in december but putting xmas songs in your adverts 2 months early is just not on. i suppose it's an omen of things to come as everyone works themselves up into a lather over JC's birthday. happy days.

downs dogging disaster

2007-09-04T18:00:00.001Z

i'm sat on epsom downs at the moment, looking out of london on a beautiful evening, eating a bit of sushi before i have to head to sams in a while. it reminds me of the last time i was up here on my own. it was many years ago now and a lot later and darker than it is at the moment. i had been round my boyfriend's house but had made an early exit to avoid getting caught in the crossfire of a row with his folks. i had my laptop with me so decided to head up here and do a bit of work before going home. because i was working and reading from notes and things i had to put the inside light on a couple of times to see what i was doing. after a while a girl in her twenties i suppose emerges from the dark and frightens the bejesus out of me by tapping on the window. apparently someone had pulled up next to her car (where she was having a nice chat with her boyfriend) and proceeded to have a bit of a wank and she just wondered what i thought she should do. i said maybe if it was upsetting her and he was still about, call the cops or something. I was so blissfully naive. it turns out that sitting in your car and turning the light on and off is some kind of code to help doggers identify each other and people who are up for it. it really wouldn't have taken a genius to work out that what she was really after was a bit of audience participation from me, but i'm afraid to say that that went right over my head, so i missed my chance there. so far this evening though i've not been propositioned although there is a very suspect transit van with curtains in the back which has been doing the rounds, so maybe i'm just not his type. or maybe i've just let myself go a bit since my close encounter a couple of years ago?

watch out for the yellow t-shirt

2007-08-21T20:39:00.001Z

this is the news!

2007-07-28T17:55:00.001Z

the other night, the beeb had some exclusive report on baby trafficing from albania or some such eastern european place. i wasn't really paying too much attention but it all seemed very outrageous and generally not so good. poor little albania kiddie-winks being ferried over here for a few thousand euros, really outrageous, a bit of a coup for the bbc uncovering it really. poor old itv news, they really are the netto of tv news. they obviously didn't want to be outdone so the following day they had an exclusive of their own. Not on child smuggling, but disabler chinese kid smuggling. it all seemed a touch desperate really, with a certain part of the day today about it. like they'd seen the bbc report and thought, we'll see you your child smuggling and raise you one batch of disabilities. i'm sure it was just as newsworthy as the albania thing, but itv should stick with standing in puddles and letting the beeb do the news stuff. Rant over.

spikey spikey!

2007-07-27T14:23:00.001Z

queer as four

2007-07-26T21:09:00.001Z

so, channel four are having a bit of a thing at the moment about the 40th(?) anniversary of the decriminalisation of those dirty gays. i agree this is something forth getting excited about, but i'm not convinced that their program on sunday, clapham junction, does the cause a great amount of good. they managed to roll out all the standard stereotypes: cruising for sex in public toilets, check! trying to bed straight men left right and centre, check! cocaine habits galore, check! cheating on your boyfriend at the reception of your civil partnership, check! the cherry on the cake was the paedophile trying to seduce a schoolboy. granted they had a vaguely different take on it, but it seemed a bit off that following an extended arguement on big brother beforehand about gay men being equated with paedos, c4 then went and perpetuated that myth. no wonder there seems to be a preconception that all gay guys are drug addicted paedophiles with a sideline in shagging straight men. it'd be really nice if for once there was a gay character on tv that bore even the slightest resemblance to me or any of my gay mates. Failing that though, i guess we'll have to make do with paul nichols knob...

the youth is out there

2007-07-23T12:27:00.001Z

maybe it's the influence of big brother and stuff like that, but for the last couple of month i seem to have started turning more and more to dvd box sets for entertainment. with the selection consisting mostly of this life and x-files, it's like being right back in the 90s. we finished with this life a couple of weeks ago and i'd forgotten how fab it was. my memories of it turned out the the fairly vague so in a way in was like watching it for the first time. shame that the +10 reunion a couple of months ago wasn't much good. x-files was virtually something of an obsession in my formative years and with each series only £15 on play i've been starting that one from the beginning. i know it really tailed off in the last few series (though i never actually watched them to be honest, i suspect the curiosity might get the better of me on dvd) but for the first few years it was actually a pretty ace tv show and for the most part stands the test of time. we'll see how i get as we get further into it when it all starts getting silly. this life's place i think is going to be taken by six feet under from the beginning, which i suppose is probably the last show that i was hooked on. that won't have quite the same degree if reminiscence about it, but should still keep me out of trouble for a while.

these are the days of our lives

2007-07-22T12:28:00.001Z

i've added about 50 entries to this today. i found the blog that was here for a year from may 2004 archived so have added everything from that onto here. i've resisted the urge to tweak anything , so the entries that are added to here are the same as were originally posted. i can't remember whether i was blogging anything between may 05 and july last year but i'm not sure i was. the blogs from before may 04 i think have been lost forever in the mists of time. but now is better than the whole of the past, so we shouldn't worry too much about that. hopefully i'll get around to posting something a bit more current soon!!

things that go bump in the night

2007-06-04T21:35:00.001Z

you should all go see zodiac, it's great. it's not so great to see when you've got to drive home on your own in the middle of the night. i forgot to check the backseat before getting in which was a fatal error. well, potentially fatal i suppose seeing as i'm sat here writing this. but anyways, there's something unavoidably creepy about driving back at night after watching a film about a serial killer who shoots people to bits on the roads. once you're done with the driving home wondering about all the lights in the rear view mirror, you have to drive into a spooky underground car park full of nasty dark corners perfect for bad people to hide in. i made it in intact though, with a quick trip round the flat to switch on all lights and check all potential hiding places. maybe mr bean's holiday wouldn't have been such a bad alternative after all.

get me out of here

2007-05-31T18:31:00.000Z

it's started... big bloody brother. is there any avoiding it? not living with alex there doesn't seem to be. but i'm damn well gonna try. the plan is that every time i find myself sat in front of it, i'm going to do something productive instead. like writing this blog entry. potentially things even more productive than blogging but that remains to be seen. if nothing else, with any luck there might be an increase in posts on here.

a-maze-in mitcham

2007-04-26T20:23:00.000Z

an occupational habit of searching for jobs on reed using the word 'design' is that you'll usually get bucket loads of urban design/traffic planning type nonsense jobs coming up. one of these days i think i'll try my luck and apply for one anyway, because to be honest i couldn't do a worse job than whoever it was who's responsible for the rabbit warren of mitcham. it's worse than my anti-climatic ant farm as far as dead ends go. it all seems to have been lovingly build, planned and mapped out, only for them to realise they ordered a few too many barriers from the tescos online store so had to find places to stick them, and the criteria for that seems to have been based on causing the most inconvenience possible and wasting time at either traffic lights that only let 3 cars through at a time or a level crossing which someone how intuitively knows when i'm going to be passing through and has a train waiting on stand-by just because i manage to get across the bastard. regardless if i set off 5 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later, those bastard little gates still have to come crashing down right in front of me.

sleeping is giving in

2007-03-12T20:31:00.001Z

why is it that at the weekend, no matter how much i drink and what time i drop into bed, i'll be up wide awake at the crack of dawn with a complete and total inability to get back to sleep. but when monday morning comes round i could happily sleep til lunchtime. i'm sure i'd do better in the med, somewhere i can be justified in having a couple of hours kip in the middle of the afternoon. it also wouldn't if it was nice and hot so i could spend half my time sat on the beach soaking up the sun.

unlucky in love

2007-03-11T16:49:00.000Z

i don't know whether it's anything to do with the big black cat which jumped out at my in the dark the other night, scaring the bejesus outta me, but i seem to be having a bit of a run of back luck at the moment. the other night we went to bingo with a couple of mates (don't laugh). alex and me have both been a few times before with his work-mates, though never managed to convert our enthusiasm and optimism into hard cash. surely our luck would be in this time. apparently not. the two newcomers to the delights of bingo we took along with us, managed to win not once, but twice. each. although once, by the time he'd realised that he'd won, it was too late and he's missed out. it wasn't particularly big money bingo, but a small token win wouldn't have hurt anyone. it's not that i'm a bad loser, and i'm happy for those that won - you'd have just thought it was about time it was my turn! that's not the end of it though. the next night we were meant to be in the audience of fame academy (again, don't laugh!). we trekked up to where they do the filming, and met the people from the audience company and got ourselves our little numbered pink ticket. incidentally, the guy behind the desk, while perfectly nice enough and with great taste (constantly referring to lex as sexy boy!), was about as much of a walking, talking stereotype of a gay guy that works in the media that you can get. anyways, back to fame academy. our camp little pink tickets were number 174 and 175. first up anyone under 150 are called up to swap their ticket for a coveted wristband giving access to the hallowed halls of the academy. then numbers 150-160 get their turn. it stops at 162. arse. that lot are eventually led off to the studio with the rest of us being told there's probably be more space, and that last night there were only 18 people they couldn't fit in. a quick count up round the room shows that their are a lot more than 18 people waiting and the majority of them came later than as so, it's not looking too bad. the graham norton wannabe behind the desk then calls everyone under 180 over to grab standby wristbands, so that we're poised, ready to burst into action at a moments notice. which, as it turns out we needn't be. with just 4 people in front of us they announce the studio's full and we're all outta luck. if only we'd not stopped to get cash at waterloo, we'd be front and centre on primetime bbc one cheering on a load of minor celebrities murdering the karaoke classics. as it turns out we had quite a nice night anyway, thanks very much so we don't need you and your silly tv show. fingers crossed that the luck's swinging back in opposite direction, cos in two weeks time we're meant to be in our new flat, which will be a whole new exciting adventure of its own.

singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart

2006-12-26T21:33:00.000Z

it's christmas. well, it was. so i've given myself a little present. came online to cddb a couple of cds i'm ripping to my phone and just thought i'd have a little look on the arcade fire website while i'm waiting. i like arcade fire. a lot. i'd been telling myself that i wouldn't be downloading anything from their album and would have the will power to wait til it could get my grubby little hands on it in the shops. a couple of weeks ago zane lowe had the world exclusive play of a new song 'intervention'. obviously within a couple of hours it had appeared on the internet and i was downloading it. i justified that one by thinking that it was actually just a new version of a song which i've had an acoustic early version of for about a year, so that's fine really. and it's got church organ on it, so it's a bit christmassy. it's all rather wicked. the other day intervention went on sale on the US iTunes store. except it didn't. someone fucked up. they uploaded the wrong song, labelled it as intervention and let the internet do its worse. which is how i came across it and downloaded it and am listening to it now. which is definitely breaking the rules. it's called 'black wave/bad vibrations' and i like it. it's different to funeral. but it's the arcade fire. and it's new. and the goddamn album's not out til march 26th, so it's going to be hard hard work getting through the next three months.

frosty the bowman

2006-12-26T20:17:00.000Z

i've been watching vodafoof tba with snow patrol playing in the royal opera house. it's all quite good. although they're not especially cool, i do have a soft spot for em - what with being a hopeless romantic i can't resist songs about broken hearts and failed relationships. one things with impaired my enjoyment somewhat was the inane blithering of edith bowman who was doing all the links. trying to work out what she was on about was similar to trying to get your head round a distinctly difficult series of cryptic crossword clues. maybe it's a scottish thing. she reminded me of the scottish hotel owner from little britain. it's not the serman on the mount, it's a corporate whore fest with some pretty sounding songs. or maybe it's because she's a bit of a blonde airhead.

yeah, but is it art?

2006-12-24T13:03:00.000Z

i've not written in here for a while. slapped wrist. that'll have to be a new years resolution i suppose. lots to write about. fab holiday (see photos), work xmas do, not to mention close encounters of the orlando kind. one thing that caught my eye i wanted to write about was something that happened a few weeks back. some guy called michael stone burst into the irish assembly with some homemade explosives. now, that in itself isn't anything i'd usually comment on but this week he appeared in court where his lawyer gave the defense that, instead of trying to blow the place up, kill oodles of people and throw the irish peace process off course it was all in fact a piece of perforance art. if it wasn't all quite so serious, it'd be hilarious. it must have been a real eureaka moment when they band up with that stroke of genius. i've not been to see the turner prize yet this year, but i reckon he's probably made himself an early favourite for next year.

miracle midget mechanics

2006-10-19T11:31:00.000Z

while i'm on the subject of taking your car to get sorted, where is it exactly that garages get (and hide) their midgets. when you go in, everyone appears to be of fairly normal dimensions, but how come when you get your car back the seat it always so far forwards it could only have been being driven by a fun-size person. as far as i can see, there are a couple of possibilities. firstly, there could have been some kind of mass, wonkaesque expedition to a far off land where hoards of angry locals were rounded up to be shipped off to worship at the altar of kwikfit. alternatively it could be the principle cast members of snow white and the seven dwarfs getting work during the obviously difficult downtime between the middle of january and the beginning of december. i think i might test that theory by taking my car in sometime in december just to see. i suppose it could be also be jeanette krankie trying to make ends meet since television's passion for transvestite midgets waned somewhat in the late eighties, although she does seem to be good at finding work because she seems to work shifts at every bloody garage i go to if it is her. they really shouldn't keep whichever part of the vertically challenged community hidden away though. i can ony imagine they keep them locked in filing cabinets when needed, and that, to be honest, is just not on!

i'm in love with my car

2006-10-18T16:24:00.000Z

after a decidedly iffy friday the 13th, yesterday was a good day. for the first time in 7 off years of owning a car, i finally passed an mot first time around. for the last two years i've needed to shell out about £300 so a measly fifty odd was the stuff that dreams are made of. i always get a bit wary when it comes to problems with cars. the main issue being that i know very little about them apart from when it works and when it doesn't. which makes me a little vulnerable to the risk of getting ripped off. it always seems that the guys who work in garages are all about 17 and look exactly the kind of people we'd pick on me at school (and who probably still would today). excuse the sweeping generalisation. but you can also (or i can at least) imagine the whole thing descending into some kind of german twinky garage porn movie (based on the sketchy details and limited knowledge of such things i've acquired over the years). but, for better or worse, yesterday no such antics kicked off and the only buttons that got pushed where those needed to enter my pin, cough up the cash and drive off into the sunset! fingers crossed for next year.

so knives out | cook him up | squash his head

2006-10-12T12:03:00.000Z

i've got a stupid big bandage thing on my left index finger. yesterday i intelligently managed to slide a chunk of it off with a scalpel. which unsurprisingly resulted in a fair bit of blood. and swearing. lots of swearing. and it still hurts like a bastard. changing the dressing this morning wasn't much fun. the cut'd attached itself pretty firmly to the dressing so there was reasonable amount of ripping required to seperate the two. which resulted in another fair bit of blood. and a little more swearing. i couldn't really bring myself to look at it too closely but it wasn't green or anything. i'm sure it'll eventually return to normal, but in the meantime i'm walking about looking like an extra from an episode of fingermouse entitled 'fingermouse goes to hospital'. which isn't a good look. and i bet you anything it'll glow like a bastard under uv lights if i'm out this weekend.

mousey elliot in da house

2006-10-12T11:39:00.000Z

apologies in advance for the copious amount of typos which will probably appear in the next few entries, for reasons which will be explained later. whatever - this i was meant to write about weeks ago but never got around to it. the other we, it was a friday night/saturday morning sorta time, we were in bed happily asleep when all of a sudden missy elliot starts playing really really loudly in the hall right outside lex's room. lex, seeing as it was his house and i didn't have a clue what the bejesus was goin on, leapt outta bed and went running out to see what was going on - only to be greeted by the site of a mousing dancing about in the hall (presumably getting funky to the music). when they saw each other, it seems that neither were all that impressed and alex shreiked like a bit of a girly girl and the mouse proceeded to dancing about around him, before running away from the screaming, flapping naked man stood before him. turns out that the cd has got stuck earlier in the day, and when mister mouse went wanding over the top of the stereo, he obviously knocked it free and got the party well and truely started.

more bubbles than a tea party at neverland

2006-09-21T14:43:00.000Z

hello adoring public. been a bit slack on the updating from again recently. oh well, no great loss i'm sure. got a couple of bits i've been meaning to write up but not got around to it, so they might make on on here soon. in the mean time i thought i'd share with you two songs which have been inexplicably stuck in my brain all day. firstly lady in red by chris de burgh, which is bad enough. i think that might got in there something to do with hungerford. anyway, that was then replaced with michael jackson's ecotastic ing along heal the world. bastard. at the moment, you'll be pleased to know, there's nothing in my brain so i suppose we're back to business as usual. in other news, this has been my first post from my appletastic desktop widget. wickedy widgety woo.

i want a perfect soul

2006-08-20T22:26:00.000Z

Radiohead have been playing at v this weekend. Last night at about eleven i got a couple of texts off people who were there about them playing creep which, in case you didn't know was their big first breakthrough single and which they've generally ignored for years. I couldn't really get as excited about it as most other people seemed to be- there probably literally dozens of other rhead songs i'd rather hear over that but just now i got a call from the bf who was up in staffs listening to it tonight. And hearing it on a crappy phone connection with a load of people singing it so out of tune was actually pretty amazing. Maybe i'd gone off it cos i don't actually listen to it all that much recently. But i remember a time when i sat in my room with it on repeat. The words meant a lot then. And i guess they still do a little now. Only i'd hope with less teenage angst attached. Maybe i've just not really listened to them as much recently. maybe i'm just a hopeless romantic, but i suppose with stuff like that you don't want to be listening on the end of a phone. You want to be there in the middle of it, with your arms around the one you love, singing as loud and as out of tune as the rest of them. But you can't always have things the way you'd want, and if that's the next best thing then it'll do me fine.

transgender t-shirt trauma

2006-07-22T11:48:00.000Z

Cross-dressing is never something i've felt all that interested it. I mean, i'm not desperately interested in girls wearing pretty girlie clothes, so why would i want to myself? Well it seems on some unconscious subliminal level i am because every time i go to a gig and want to buy a t-shirt it usually turns out that it's a girls one. Perhaps it's the gay gene kicking in a bit more. Or maybe the t-shirts they make for guys could just be shit? And even out of the one's that aren't for girls the one i decide i usually want is sold out. So as a result i'm without a secret machines, graham coxon and !!! shirt which isn't really satisfactory. Especially when the silly machine and chk people's websites tease you with nice pictures but you can't anything out of them for love nor money! I guess it serves me right for being such an average, stereotypical gig-going medium sized man.

every good turn deserves headbutter

2006-07-21T21:27:00.000Z

i headbutted a pensioner today. now, i realise that's not something to be proud of, and it's not as if i'm boasting about it. but she did put her head in the way. i was quite happy wandering along lunch in hand minding my own business, when a nice harmless looking old lady asked for a hand getting her wheelchair out of the boot. being the chivalrous gentleman that i am i plonked my sarnie down and grabbed it. i know i'm not the beefiest boy on the block but think i can handle getting a little wheelchair out of the car. granny obviously didn't agree and decided to help. so she snuck up on me and as i turned around whacked her on the head. luckily for her, her industrial strength blue rinse perm cushioned the blow somewhat so we both escaped unscathed. the morale of the story: don't help grannies.

here we go again...

2006-07-18T20:50:00.000Z

well, the blog's back. and this time it's on someone else's server so that if it goes belly up i can blame someone else. i'm still playing about with what i want it to look like. and i'm sure that'll take just as long as it will take for me to think of something interesting to write about. i've still got the moblog kicking about if you want to look at that. and there's some other photos on the fake plastic lee website. normal service will be resumed shortly, i assure you. expect post titles stolen from song lyrics, moaning and ranting, the occasional picture, and a load of pointless waffle.

politics

2005-05-05T17:23:00.000Z

so, there's an election going on today. that's all very exciting. this year, for the first time since i've been able to, i won't be voting. rather than a overdose of voter apathy it's really because right now, as far as the electoral register goes, i don't exist. i guess i chose the wrong time to move if i wanted to get involved in the whole democratic process. having said that though, i don't really think i'd know who to vote for. i don't think i could ever vote tory, there's no way i could vote labour and let mister blair think his arrogant administration they can get away with it, and lib deb, well, apart from that fact if they got into power they'd not have a clue what to do, i don't think i could bring myself to vote for someone who called his son donald. i guess perhaps i could have turned up and drawn a comedy cock all over the ballot, just to register the fact i care but aren't keen on any of the options. still, electorial limbo means i'm outta the democratic process this time around. anyway, more pressing at the moment than the comings and goings in westminster are the office politics where i work. now, i've got myself a new job, in the same company but a different department. i was never happy about the prospect of certain people higher up the food chain not relishing the opportunity to screw someone over in order to avoid having to readvertise my old position. well, it turns out my suspicions were pretty close to the mark, cos rumour has it that if i'd have gone through certain managerial channels when applying for the new position, they would have headed me off at the pass and stopped me getting it. as it is, once they found out that i'd been offered it, i think they were planning on making it difficult for me to move. althought thankfully they seem to have realised i'm not the sort of person that would have sat back and let them screw me over like that. as a result, my notice period has been extended and it seems a lot as if i'm a pawn in the middle of an overly elaborate and complicated argument between different departments and levels of management. if it wasn't for the fact i'd got the contract in the post and signed the day before all this kicked off i'd be starting to worry. but the fact is, i'm still moving, the exact date of the move doesn't matter too much. and they way things are at the moment the sooner i'm out of my current department and in the art studio the better, although not for my current colleagues, cos i have a sneaking suspicion that the pursestrings'll be tightened right behind me and my seat's gonna remain empty for a while. it's all fun and games.

close encounters

2005-05-04T10:31:00.000Z

yesterday i was sat quite happily in the sun in trafalgar square with my head in a book while i waited to meet a mate. it was fairly busy cos the sun was out but there was a bit of a gap between me and the person sat next to me. although then one of his mates came along to fill the gap. all very well and good, i just go on reading my book. then i begin to notice a few things. like the way he's sitting, the uni course he's talking about, his funny brown shoes. after about a minute i realise it's someone who a matter of about 8 months ago i was 'dating' for a while. i say dating, but it would seem that we each had very different takes on the situation. anyway, there we are sat next to each other and the question has to be asked whether he's not noticed/recognised me, or has just decided to pretend he hasn't - exactly the same way that i was with him. but to be fair, he had a pretty good chance of seeing me, to be honest i can't imagine he could have avoided it. whereas i was sat with my head in a book. so i guess that means that it's a pretty safe bet that he had seen me and chosen not to say hi. which is fine, we'd established a fairly long time ago that, despite my initial opinion, he's a bit of a dick - and i wouldn't have thought we'd have a great deal to say anything, which is a shame i suppose, but then it's his fault for being a dick. aaaanyway, i guess it just goes to show what a small world it is. out of the hundreds of people in trafalgar square, and the load of places i could have sat, i happen to have settled down next to one of his mates and he just happened to have wandered along and met him. there are people i would have rather have bumped into and plenty of people who i'm glad i haven't crossed paths with, but fate really shouldn't take the piss like that - it's not fair.

this is not a competition

2005-05-03T08:53:00.000Z

the story of my new job's just thickened a little. I'm going to be one of two graphic designers working in our art studio here. And i've just been introduced to the new junior graphic designer, who'll be joining us. whilst I dunno a great deal about him, he doesn't look especially junior. i guess it shouldn't be a problem seeing as he went through the whole application process the same way that i did, and i'm the one they gave the graphic designer position to. but now the pressure to raise my game and come up with the goods is increased. if johnny junior (who's got a 3 week head start over me) hits the ground running, it wouldn't look good if i falling short in the creativity stakes. need to wake up that part of my brain and have 3 weeks to brush up on things.

don't panic

2005-04-29T18:50:00.000Z

so after all the excitement and ranting of the last couple of posts it's time to get back to reality. hopefully the general tone of this thing will be improving considerably over the next few weeks/months. the main motivating factor for this being a new job, which will mean less all round tedium, miserableness and moaning on my part hopefully. 3 more weeks of the old job to go, but it's remarkable how much more enjoyable it is when you know you're not gonna be there til the end of the world. in other news: i hate the new black eyed peas song with a passion; julian's name is michael; it's a long weekend...

walk the walk, talk the talk

2005-04-26T20:15:00.000Z

the trip to the clinic the other day wasn't without it's plus sides. one particular source of amusement was the guy sat next to me in the waiting room. he was a bit of an odd one really. from what i can establish he was on the phone to his mum - i wasn't deliberately being nosey and listening in, honest - whose name was mary. it's all a bit beyond me to be calling your parents by their first name, mum or 'you' usually suffices. anyway, this guy, let's call him julian for arguments sake, is chatting away to his mum, telling her all about his little trip to the gum clinic and how he fancies the nurse who does the test. all of which is in the most outrageously camp voice going. apart from his laugh, which was deep enough to give brian blessed a run for his money. so the question is, is julian really a screaming queen or is he putting it on? and if he is putting it on why? i'm sure he's a perfectly lovely, reasonable guy, and i've got nothing against camp guys in principle, but i just wonder why certain people think they need to fit a certain kinda stereotype to feel part of the gay community. maybe it's just that, while in the closet these guys tone themselves down for general consumption and then when they do come out, revert back to their natural state. either way, if they're happy, so what? it's just bizarre. being gay you can find it hard to be accepted by straight society. but equally i reckon some guys must find it hard to feel accepted by the gay community unless they wear the right clothes, go to the right places, walk the right walk and talk the right talk. and what do we end up with? a scene full of standard issue Sohomo's. and i reckon that is that's at the expense of people just being comfortable being themselves, it's a bit of a shame.

positive thinking

2005-04-26T19:42:00.000Z

i know it's been a while since i've written anything worthwhile in here, so here we go...

positivity is generally thought of as a good thing. the power of positive thinking and all that is suppose to bring dreams into reality i guess. if you believe in something enough - you can make it true. positive is good. but not always, there's one notably absence. three little letters. hiv. who'd have thought something so small could be so huge at the same time? it seems like over the past few months, i've had every cold, fluey thing and general under the weather-ness that's been doing the rounds and i suppose there's only so many times that you can be told you're immune system's fucked before you start wondering if there some truth to it. and i guess as a gay guy, who's had the safe sex message rammed down ur throat (no pun intended) since u were first sexually active, a fucked immune system equates to one thing - those three little letters. and those three little letters equate (in my head, and totally naively, of course) to a long, slow, drawn out, painful death, completely alone and devoid of sex. so, as a result of a level of paranoia worthy of an x-files double bill, i popped along to my local gum clinic last week for a hiv test. which was nice. i guess however careful you are, there's always gonna be a remote possibility of something going wrong somewhere along the line, but i suppose i was pretty certain i'd get a negative result. in fact, due to the fact i was raised on a healthy dose of denial, if i'd really thought for a moment the result would have been positive i probably wouldn't have been sat there in the first place. you can keep knowing what you're up against and being able to fight it the best way possible. ignorance, as an alternative, is truely bliss. so with the test done, there's a couple of days to stew before the results get back. within the space of 2 days i'd gone from being convinced i was negative, and stupid to have been there and even considering it for a second, to being equally convinced that the results would be positive. in fact, i'd even decided on the title of the first blog entry i'd write depending on which way things went. on the way to collect the results things seemed to be going pretty well. my new mobile was winging it's was to me in a courier van which was worth getting a little excited about, pretty much all the traffic lights on route were turning green for me, the sun was shining and parking wasn't a problem. i guess before i'd really had time to think about the options and how the scenario might really play out, i was sat there with someone holding my little folder of notes and the all important blood test results. then after a few minutes it's pretty much done. walking off out into the sunshine and heading off to work, where the only sign of where'd i'd been that morning was the little bruise where the blood'd been taken and a bit more of a bounce in my walk than usual. the alternate blog title was gonna be 'jesus fucking christ, dear god no' and the result was negative.

ambition :: tearing out the heart of you

2005-04-11T19:34:00.000Z

sometimes i wish i could be like the other people i work with. one guy's been there for twenty years. doing the same thing that i'm bored to tears of within 20 months. it's be much nicer if i was happy spending ten hours a day sitting at a computer without engaging my brain (and i'm not talking about cruising on gaydar). but, alas, i'm not. and it's high time i got off of my arse and found something a little more worthwhile to do with my life. unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be as simple as deciding I want a new job. there's the minor task of finding another job i'd rather do, and the not so minor task of applying, interviewing and getting the bastard! i think perhaps if i don't find someone soon i'll be force to lobotomise myself, so that, even thought i'd still be doin the same brainless shit, i wouldn't mind so much and have no desire to do anything else.

sleep the clock around

2005-04-05T08:33:00.000Z

there's a common misconception in this country that when the clocks jumped forwards last week for BST it's british summer time. in fact, the truth is that it's in celebration of the fact that when the weather's like this - beautifully bright without a cloud in the sky - there's nothing better to do than listen to the bright and breezy summery sounds of belle and sebastian. so, for further reference BST = belle (and) sebatian time. go forth and listen.... in other news, the lovely spangly weather isn't likely to last for long, cos there's gonna be snow at the weekend apparently. and there was me thinking that spring might have sprung. still, it's a lovely day to be stuck in front of a desk...

let go - there's beauty in the breakdown

2005-04-04T19:57:00.000Z

well, i've not written in here for a while. there's a few things which i've thought about writing about, including welsh bands turning shit, the pope and the catholic church, and various other shit. unfortunately, these flashes of inspiration didn't coincide with me sitting at a computer, ranting about it and sharing it with my adoring public (that's you, that is). so instead of reading about that, you can read about this. which I think is going to turn into one of those entries where I find a very long winded way of saying nothing at all. i'm reasonably confident that it'll be less miserable than the last one. perhaps not a lot though. I was reading a thing about depression last night, and there were a list of 9 symptoms or tell tale signs of someone suffering depression. out of the nine, i would said i could fairly conclusively tick off eight of them in the past couple of months (if you're wondering the one which i couldn't check off was suicidal thoughts). now the sun's putting in a bit of a more regular appearance i think i've perked up a little. i think perhaps i must only write in here when i've got something to moan about - if you were to just read this and not see my any other time it could probably give the wrong impression. i should write more i think, and pop to the moblog more often. i saw someone the other day who i'd not seen for a good few months. in amongst the usual 'where you been, what you been up to' catch up, i said i was busy trying to work out what to do with my life. the response was 'still?'. which is guess is a good point. how much as changed in the last few months? how much progress has been made? truth be told, not a lot really, in some ways progress has been reversed. but i'm nothing if not a little optimistic (although i admit, you'd be hard-pushed to notice recently). i promise next time i'll have something significant (although i'd settle for vaguely interesting) to write about. just means you might have ot wait another month or so....

children don't grow up - our bodies get bigger and our hearts get torn up

2005-03-08T21:38:00.000Z

at some point i'd expect to feel like a grown up. it'd be nice to imagine it happening eventually. but i guess on some level you're always the same person you were born as. with the same shit going on in your head half of the time. and seeing as the people around you are changing at the same rate, and it's all really just relative, the people who are older - who are the 'real' grown ups - are always gonna be older - until they're not there any more. sure, the stuff around you changes and the circumstances you're in do too. beyond that, what difference does it make? i think grown ups are meant to be in control of things, and a lot of the time it feels like things are out of control. which can be exciting sometimes. let the big on a rollercoaster between the top of the hill and the brakes. there's no controlling it, or stopping it happening mid way through. exciting's all well and good, and you need to be able to sit back and enjoy the ride while you're on it, but occasionally it'd be good to be able to just hit the brakes and take a breather.

it's so cold in this house

2005-02-25T08:26:00.000Z

so i guess this must be winter, right? the view outside of my window looks a lot like the view on my desktop right now. trees, snow and a white sky. at least the sun's putting a bit of an appearance in behind the clouds. i even managed to leave work with a little bit of daylight the other day. which is always nice. in fact, leaving work is more or less the only good thing about being there in the first place. but still, it could be worse. it's not as if i have to spend every friday night there. except that it is. which is starting to grate a little now. eventually i'll start caring enough to seriously start doing something about it. but at the moment i don't, got other stuff to worry about really. one month and counting..... it can only be downhill from here.

2005 is brought to you in association with the letter B

2005-02-14T22:13:00.000Z

it didn't look like the year was gonna be too for music and artiists in the key of B - what with the sad demise of busted, and that b*ddingfield chap releasing some more of his standard pap. however, hope is at hand! there are reasons for those of us who don't happen to run a greetings card shop or florist to be happy about today. the fabulous bloc party's equally fabulous new album silent alarm is out. their single so here we are is at number 5 in the hit parade - thought to be fair it's really not their best. in other news on the B front, the equally brilliant, if slightly less mainstream, accessible and london, british sea power are back soon with a new album, starting out with single it ended on an oily stage. bsp are quirky and unique and hard work at times i think, but the decline of... is still one of my all time favourite albums so i've gotta say i'm looking forward to the follow up. they're also always a safe bet to be entertaining live, so that should be fun, complete with added shruberries. last but not least on the B front at the bravery who have churned out a couple of fab singles and have an album to follow so fingers crossed on that front too. obviously no-one can replace matt, james and charlie in our hearts (even if you do name check palahniuk in your fightstar song), but we can try and replace them in our cd racks.

i hate daniel beddingfield!

2005-02-12T11:33:00.000Z

i realise it's very childish and ultimately pointless coming on the internet and writing an extensive rant about a little jumped up ADHD munchkin who is reasonably easy to avoid in my day today life but he really is a little twunt isn't he? firstly i've got major issues with the way he forced himself on an unsuspecting british public by jumping on the whole uk garage scene thing before ditching that the instant he was signed and insisting on churned out drag, dull and dreary ballad after drab, dull and dreary ballad. then he has to be all over the tv performing them like he's been drinking too much orange juice and the e-numbers have gone to his head. the final straw though had to be the brits. not content of being a chump on his own he has to get his sister involved in doing a crumby version of a previously good song. for some reason he thinks that if he jumps about and shouts things while practicing for this years gurning championships it'll be emotional. WRONG!

i could break through the ceiling if i just turned and ran

2005-02-04T11:02:00.000Z

the problem is that my legs are killing me, so the running for the time-being's reduced to a bit of a dawdle. but the potential's there, or at least it'd be nice to think so. the future's looking bright, there just a little bit of the here and now that's gotta be ventured through before all that stuff. it's nice to have a plan tho. or plans. despite what we all know about the best made plans. which is why they have to be kept vague and non-specific, that way they can be adapted to fit whatever the reality turns out to be, making everyone a winner. but the ceiling's there waiting to be broken through - it's just before you go running you need to get your trainers on and warm up. so this is the warm up. the hard work starts soon.

modern art makes me want to rock out

2005-01-19T15:38:00.000Z

hidden away on on the south lawn, a presumably often unused piece of grass, behind tate modern (away from the river) are a group of portacabins. you'd be forgiven for thinking they were something to do with the renovation work going on in the gallery. there's not a great deal of signs or fuss made about it. but in the inconspicuous temporary exhibition is a collection of work with more passion, emotion and meaning than pretty much anything you'd find inside the bankside power station, or at mr saatchi's collection in county hall. shrinking childhoods has been created by a group of kids who haven't had the greatest of starts to life. whether through abuse, drugs, violence and mental illness. there's a room made by crack addicts, one by victims of sexual assault, another by victims of parental neglect. and each room tells a story that's even more moving because it's real. it's be impossible to see this stuff and not be moved. if a cold-hearted cynical bastard like me is, then any living, breathing person should be. these kids have shared their stories, which, judging by the work and texts accompanying them, must have been incredibly difficult, brave and courageous. just as appalling as the work itself and the lives these kids have been forced for live with, are the stats which are spread around the exhibit. these kids aren't in the situations they're in through any fault of their own - it's the people who are meant to care for them the most that have let them down. shrinking childhoods is the work of tate modern and childrens charity KidsCo so don't get any funding off the state. it's there until the middle of february so make sure you get down there and check it out. read the messages that people have written on the boards, write your own. just be there and support it. these kids should be given a voice and it's our responsibility to listen. i realise this probably sounds a bit wanky compared the usual tone of this shit but, fuck, life's ain't always about spam and buskers.

great balls of fire

2005-01-11T17:57:00.000Z

it seems that today is international huge cumshot day. or at least it is judging by my e-mail inbox. it's weird how all the different elaborately named people in far flung corners of the globe all decide to concern themselves with the contents of my balls all at the same time. if only more people in geographically convenient locations too that sort of approach, it'd make for a more exciting life, wouldn't it?

hello, is this thing on?

2005-01-09T22:21:00.000Z

for some reason this morning i was awake at six. it was still pretty much dark but the sun must have been coming up cos the birds were making a lot of noise. i guess it must be quite nice for them to get so excited about something as mundane as the start of another day. i was just laying in bed listening, watching the colour of the holes in my blind change from streetlight orange to something a little more natural looking and wondered why the fuck i was awake so early and having dodgy dreams. when this fake plastic lee thing first came online many moons ago, it used to be a bit of a dream diary kinda thing. apparently if you record what dreams you have and keep doing it over a period of time, your dreams will become more and more vivid and you'll be able to remember more of the details. i soon got bored of that, and don't really feel like picking up that tradition today. but still. dreams are good. like chicken nuggets. that comment's funny to me, and about two other people at a push. but that's good enough. this is all a big ego-trip anyway. i'm sure there was gonna be a point to this somewhere. but it got lost somewhere in amongst that lot. this is a pretty good timescale for posting, albeit without anything worth posting. but we can work on that. now dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians!

now it's overhead

2005-01-07T21:44:00.000Z

so, it's 2005 and, as promised, i've moved this mess to a new server and can carry on posting nonsense for no-one to read. for which we can all be greatful. i'm sure something noteworthy must have happened in the past couple of months but at the moment that particular nugget of information escapes me. this time of year there's a reasonable amount of social pressure to layout something of a manifesto for the year ahead. me however, i like to be different. so instead i'm going to completely ignore the year just gone (which, to be fair, for the most part, i probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been there) as well as the year ahead (cos we don't know what's gonna happen with that yet). instead i'm planning on concerning myself with why i have to work late on friday nights, just how flexible channel 4's definition of the word celebrity is and if derren brown's not the messiah, who is? something a little more worthwhile here soon.... honest

we are hope despite the times

2004-11-12T19:31:00.000Z

it's gotta be said the outlook at the moment doesn't look like being worth getting too optimistic about. thanks to the bible belt we're faced with the prospect of '4 more years'. mr arafat shuffling off this mortal coil could well open a big whoop-ass can of worms. on a marginally smaller scale, i've been ill for the best part of a month, and no-one really seem to know why and how to make it go away. not forgetting an ever decreasing bank balance to throw into the mix (or should that be ever increasing overdraft). all said and done tho, things aren't all that bad. the sun's starting to put in a few more frequent appearances and it'll soon be time for those perfect winter mornings when it's so cold it'll freeze ur bollocks off but without a cloud in a clear blue sky. a few more weeks and it'll be time to surround outselves with a load of old tat all in the name of some beardy bloke. as anyone who knows me'll testify, i'm hardly one to throw myself into the festive spirit, but this year'll be different - there's a baby on the scene. and he can always be relied on to raise a smile. lets hope mr doc's nice pills to the trick and i can let myself loose on the general popular in time to take full advantage of any well placed mistletoe without worrying about who i'm giving my germs to. or, more to the point, which bastard's gonna gimme the lurgee and make me ill again. tis, indeed, the season to be jolly. :D

la la la

2004-11-02T17:49:00.000Z

when someone gets on a tube train carrying a guitar, it's fairly natural to be wary. when said guitar carried utters the immortal words "i'm a wandering minstrel" it takes a great deal of self control not to be reaching for the emergency axe and embedding it into his head. no, you're not a wandering minstrel, you're a hippy with a guitar and everyone on the train would appreaciate it if you'd piss off and spread your special little brand of joy somewhere else.

been there, done that, got the t-shirt

2004-10-31T18:08:00.000Z

last night i saw someone out wearing a john peel commemorative t-shirt. now i can undestand why someone might want to get a t-shirt with the guy on it, certainly more than i can understand a load of von dutch clones wandering around, the guys had a pretty profound effect on the uk music scene. that's not a problem. i just find it a little cynical thta some fucker somewhere is selling t-shirt and raking the money in before the guy's body's even cold.

teenage dreams, so hard to beat

2004-10-27T14:36:00.000Z

i'm not usually a huge fan of the national outpouring of emotion (or the personal kind if we're being honest). i was largely unimpressed with the diana thing. the overiding emotion when the queen mumsy snuffed it was most likely mild amusement at the absurdity of it all. so imagine my surprise when i realise i was actually genuinely a little sad that that nice old john peel chap had died. it's not as if i was a devoted listener to either of his radio shows - in fact i think i probably caught a bit of his radio 1 show maybe once or twice a good few years ago. tho i'd not really been that into what he was doing, the results of it have had a pretty profound effect on me. music's always my great love and the list of acts that peel helped to break reads like a long list of many of my all time favourites, from joy division twenty odd years ago to bloc party who were meant to be recording their peel session next week, and with plenty of stops in between. if he was the only dj out there working against the grain in giving people like that a break, where does that leave us now? at the peril of simon cowell, clearchannel and time warner i suppose. and that's not a good place to be for anyone. looks like i might have to seriously considering making the trek to glastonbury next year cos, let's face it, without peely there's going to be fuck-all joy to be had from watching it on the beeb.

a heart of stone, a smoking gun

2004-10-23T18:48:00.000Z

so, it's saturday night and i'm sat in front of the computer writing this shit. that probably speaks more about the state of my life at the moment than anything i could possibly write in here. but that's not gonna stop me. so my shortlived spell as a pedestrian is at an end and not a moment too soon. tho i'd gladly get rid of the damn thing if only i had a nice job i could get to on a bus. i could read then. or look out the window. but alas no. i'll be contending with school mums in their big fuck off jeep things, brainless people who can't grasp the concept of a box junction and kamakazi cyclists for a while longer by the looks of things.

i'm tender and i'm tired

2004-10-20T20:23:00.000Z

isn't the weather cheery at the moment? i think there's more and a little pathetic fallacy going on. with the sky having taken on a permentant state of being the same colour as the background to this site, life's more than a little grey right now. while the details are sketchy vortex 3 was pretty good. tho, thanks to the famous cock (who deserve to be named and shamed) stopping serving food 3 hours early, ended up involving a lot more vomit than we would have hoped for. at least that meant (and this is subject to no-one from work reading this) i got to catch up on some judge judy on monday rather than heading back to work. tuesday came and went pretty uneventfully from what i can remember, most likely a case of same shit - different day. today's been a bit of a bastard really. car went in for MOT. didn't come out again. fuck. guess i'll be handing over a shit load of money i can't afford and spending the next couple of days as a pedestrian. happy days indeed. in other news, i'm looking for another job. not that seriously quite yet, cos xmas @ my place is a piece of piss so i won't be heartbroken if i have to hang about til then. but the money shit. and it'd be nice if i could find somewhere i can get to on a bus or something so i can get right of the piece-of-shit car before something falls off it. and i have a sneaking suspicion one of my freelancing clients is in the process of ripping me off. i realise this post isn't really in keeping with the rest of this blog thing, but i'm sure it's best to share these things. oh yeah, all men are bastards too. maybe.

love and destroy

2004-10-17T15:25:00.000Z

the sun's come out. which has to be a good thing. this country's been phenominally miserable weather wise recently but it seems to have lifted slightly. a coincidence that michael fish has recently retired? i think not. so, yeah. i've been kinda ill for the past week or so. nothing terribly exciting, the standard cold thing that i'd be tempted to call flu is i was being dramatic about it. it seems to have settled into a bit of a slightly-sniffly, plenty of coughing rut at the moment. i suppose i'll be back at work again tomorrow. more's the pity. ah well, rent's gotta be paid somehow. and tomorrow will see a large chunk of my bank balance winging it's way to gigsandtours.com. looks like my hop over to the continent will be put on hold for a while. again. in the meantime, tonight is vortex of now 3 - this time without the selfish cunt. though i'd really be best advised to spend the night infront of the tele, which isn't that bad tonight. ah well, maybe get a free badge. i'm gonna be in a great mood at work in the morning.

if you had such a dream, could you get up and do the things you believe in?

2004-10-04T19:49:00.000Z

so it looks like i've been being a bit slack on the updating front. i guess that's not neccesarily a bad thing tho, cos there's a reasonably good chance that one reason for not writing in here is that i've been busy doing other much more exciting stuff. and it's not that i've been a busy boy doing the usual sort of unproductive rubbish i usually spend my time on - tho there has been a reasonable amount of time put aside for that sort of thing. the bid for global domination starts here i guess. you would have thought that my first entry for a few weeks would be a bit more exciting, but nevermind. c'est la vie.

for chips and for freedom i could die

2004-09-13T21:36:00.000Z

what sort of time is 8 o'clock for any self respecting chip shop to be closed? frankly, it just ain't good enough. after successfully negotiating my way home around kennington and to vauxhall in the rain, onto the right train, and the right bus, i expect to be able to stuff a load of greasy food in my face in a sure fire attempt to counteract the effects of a reasonable amount of tasty beer stuff. a nasty dry, tesco prawn sandwich just does not have the same effect.

carry my joy on the left, carry my pain on the right

2004-09-09T10:21:00.000Z

hello everybody, long time no write. anyway, what to talk about today? firstly i should point out that it's a beautiful day and i'm stuck in work. it's also quite possibly the last nice day we're gonna see before 2005. what makes matters worse is the fact that nothing's fucking working so i've been sat here since half 8 with work piling up and no chance of doing anything. the highlight of the day seems to involve me wandering up in to tescos in the sunshine in a minute or two to buy an overpriced sandwich (whatever happened to those tasty ginsters southern chicken wrap things tesco/esso used to provide me on a regular basis). So yeah, life's a bitch, not as much of a bitch admittedly as spending the best part of 5 hours trying to get home from whipsnade yesterday, thanks to some muppet throwing a load of concrete all over the m25. hooray for spending 2 hours going 10 miles and then an exotic and overly elaborate detour via tourist attractions including a model village, windsor castle, legoland, runnymede and thorpe park (or yeah, slough too). looks like tomorrow's gonna be a long day - what's not to love about spending friday night in front of a mac? quite a lot in fact, but then it's payday next week so it's not as if i've got the money for a social life at the moment. at the moment the joy:pain ratio's around about 50:50, thanks mostly to the sun being out and listening to good and weird music (including that lovely bjork woman's new and very very strange album - in all good record stores now). right, belly's rumbling so i guess it's time for a trip to lunchville.

the next entry is dedicated to wellington boots

2004-08-27T08:34:00.000Z

what exactly's wrong with this fucking country? it's meant to be summer for christ's sake. but instead there's torrential rain, cornish villages being wiped out and some poor unfortunate people off to reading up to their eye balls in mud (who i was kinda jealous of but no slightly less so). i was always under the impression that BST was meant to be british *summer* time (as well as belle and sebastian time since everyone knows they would great when the sun's putting in an appearance). the few days of decent weather we've had has not been enough to get myself a proper lovely sun tan. as a result, thanks to contant sun related t-shirt wearing i've got a suntan which looks like i've been playing all creatures great and small with my arms halfway up a cow's backside - not a great look really. so i'm faced with a couple of options. first up i can keep my pastey, cow fisted tan of the moment, and assume that there isn't going to be many opportunities to expose more flesh than my arms to the general public in the foreseeable future. i could always wait patiently sit and wait hoping we'll get one of those indian summer things when it gets lovely during summer, in plenty of time for my week of work. last, and not totally discount yet, is the final straw option fo going to stand in a glorified toaster and get a tan that way. which may or may not be almost as gay as the stupid damn sailor's hat (which i should point out, is yet to have found another chance to be worn in public - deepest darkest surrey doesn't have a high seamen population really). all these decisions. anyway, it's probably best that the sun stays hidden away seeing as my sunglasses managed to go flying out of my pocket while spinning around on a roller coaster, and i can't really be bothered, or waste the money, replacing them. still, it's almost the long weekend, it's almost the end of pass season, and it's ever closer to payday. oh yeah, and a name has been decided on: ant farm it is....

blah blah blah

2004-08-24T09:12:00.000Z

it's bright and early on a tuesday morning. this week's going to be long and busy, the week before a bank holiday always is. this week's going to be even longer and even busier for a couple of reasons. for starters, i'm being a sell-out whore and doing a big chunk of overtime (maybe i might eventually get the little numbers in my bank account in black rather than red). next up there's the fact that i'm getting my self a big dose of good karma coming my way by staying up all night wednesday, then straight into work again at half eight the next day. we're also moving to a spangly new office over the weekend so should be busy packing, sorting and generally getting organised. last, but not least, is a little meeting i've got thursday night after work. all this adds up to a few good night's sleep when i finally wander out of work at about 10 friday night. the pressing problem, however, is that this morning, nothing apart from the internet is working. if you've read this thing before you probably know that a reasonably significant proportion of my time seems to be spend online - mostly because at times the works comes few and far between. but that's fine in little bite size chunks, grabbing a look at b3ta here, and quick visit to nme there. when the day consists of nothing more than that, the novelty quickly wears off, especially when the work's piling up and looking suspiciously like it's going to eat into my hollyoaks viewing time. damn those it people all to hell.... in other news, i have red feet, but that's a long and boring story which i don't even really care about so won't subject you to, particularly since i couldn't without resorting to overall bitchiness.

i got 419'd!!

2004-08-11T17:57:00.000Z

just when it seemed like all the exciting stuff was happening to other people, what should drop into my inbox but a lovely e-mail from Dr Celestine Eze from Nigeria offering me a once in a lifetime opportunity to get my hands on a 40% share of $15.5m, which, if my maths is up to scratch, would give me around about $6.2 million to spend on sweeties or other such delights....

I am Celestine Eze, Branch Manager with Bank of the North, Victoria Island Branch, Lagos, Nigeria. I have an urgent and very profitable business proposition for you that should be handled with extreme confidentiality. On January 6,1998 a Foreign Oil Consultant and contractor in Nigeria Mr. James Herbert by name made a numbered time Fixed Deposit for twelve calendar months valued at US$15.5M (fifteen Million, five Hundred United States Dollars Only) in my branch.

Upon maturity I sent a routine notification in accordance with the Bank policy to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers in Nigeria that Mr. James Herbert died from an automobile accident. On further investigation, we found out that he died without making a Will and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless. I therefore made further investigations and discovered that Mr. James Herbert did not declare any next of kin or relations in all his official documents including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank.

This sum of US$15.5M has been carefully moved out of my bank to a Security Company in Europe for safekeeping. No one will ever come forward to claim it and according to Nigerian Law, at the expiration of 5 years the money will revert to the ownership of the Nigerian Government if nobody applies to claim the fund. This prompted us to contact you.We will like to front you as the next of kin of our late client thereby making you the legal beneficiary of the sum of $38.6 million U.S Dollars that is presently in a Security Company in Europe. I contacted you because it is against our code of ethics to own and operate foreign accounts and your assistance would be needed to claim the money in the Security Company in Europe.

We have unanimously agreed that 40% of the entire sum would be for you if you agree to take part in this profitable transaction,50% for me and 2 of my colleagues while the remaining 10% would be used to pay back the expenses that may be incurred during the course of the transaction by both parties after the fund has been claimed and lodged in your account. In the event that you are genuinely interested in the transaction,the following information would be needed from you to expedite action.

1) Your Full Name and Address that would be used to establish you as the next of kin of our late client thereby making you the legal beneficiary of the fund. This would ensure that the Security Company in Europe releases the Consignment/Fund to you.

2) Your Private Mobile,Telphone and Fax numbers where you can be reached at all time because this transaction entails constant communication.

The transaction is 100% risk free as all modalities has been perfected to ensure the hitch free success of the transaction. If you are interested, send the requested information via email

I await your response urgently.

Regards,

Celestine Eze
drcelestineeze@katamail.com

oooh look!

2004-08-11T12:09:00.000Z

the more observant amongst you may have noticed an extra little link has appear at the top of the page. praise be, there's some galleries! nothing terribly exciting in there i'm afraid, apart from for the people who are in them i suppose. the wonders of modern technology and being able to share stuff with the click of a mouse. it's still got one or two bugs in it which i'll iron out when i get round to it (i.e. don't hold your breath). i wouldn't hold your breath waiting for frequent updates in there either. let's try getting me writing something worthwhile in here every now and then for starters. i guess the moblog is probably my most frequent port of call, because it involves very little as far as effort is concerned - which can only be a good thing. anyways, the sunshine is calling me so i'll go and read some and try to think of something for you to read.

just for the record...

2004-08-06T16:23:00.000Z

i'm a b3ta beater. on july second i posted a picture in my moblg, which has turned up in this week's b3ta newsletter. if only i had e-mailed them, i'd be a legend in my own lifetime. instead, i can just sit here in my smug annonymity, knowing i'm better than them.

blue monday

2004-08-02T09:15:00.000Z

it's not a particularly blue monday, either literally or metaphorically, but no-one's written a song about a slightly hazy (again literally and metaphorically) monday morning, so today's entry will be brought to you by the colour blue and maybe the letter X. generally speaking, monday morning's suck. even more so when you've had a good weekend. and especially when you've had a good weekend and then made the mistake of checking your balance to find out just how much a good weekend costs these days. this monday morning, in spite of meeting all criteria required to suck (and not in a good way), is actually quite nice. monday morning's at work are usually quite nice at easing you into the week. there's only 2 of us in, only a bit of work to do, so plenty of time to do constructive things like writing in your blog or downloading the graham coxon bootleg i'm listening to (if only i'd been more efficient on the ticket buying front i would have been there). give it twenty minutes and the troops will arrive en mass, shattering the peace and reminding me that, however nice a start the week might get off to, it's only a matter of time before it all decends into the realms of mind numbing tedium. i think my time here is almost done. the question remains, at my forthcoming review do i tell them what they want to hear or offer the truth as a nice alternative. i think i'm plenty good enough at my job not to get thrown kicking and screaming out of the door, and i'd rather wait til i've got something lined up to run on into, seeing as the bank balance does not support the notion of running away to somewhere sunny and nice quite yet. there's also the thought that, chances are, wherever i go to work next, i might actually have to do some work. this one's gotta be more than a job, a step in the right direction and one which can't be backtracked on. there's plenty of big ideas, and i think its about time i pulled my finger out and started working and bringing them a little closer to realisation. monday morning has been bought to you in association with a new order song, a graham coxon bootleg and an overwhelming sense of optimism. this, as colin would say, is hope....

this is the eeeeeennnnndddd of the woooooooorld

2004-07-26T15:48:00.000Z

google's broke. how am i supposed to find new stuff to waste time looking at at work when google's bust? yeah, i know there are other engines, but that's not the point (or perhaps it is). regardless, google can't be broken. google's never broken. fuck it. google's broken. 1 hr 40 minutes and counting til i'm out the door. here's hoping for some exciting breaking news story (apart from google going down obviously) to give my refresh button a workout. and in case you think i'm slacking, i'm not. there's fuck all to do anyway. how does factor sound? i'm not sure. might have potential. and you're not sure what i'm on about, and are probably only here cos google's bust and u can't find anything else to look at.

lee in the park - sunday

2004-07-15T18:24:00.000Z

sunday's line-up was always the more attractive of the two and things were set to get off to a good start with a double whammy of the scissor sisters and franz ferdinand. considering it was the middle of the afternoon the crowd who had turned out was huge. being a sunday, and also having only just returned to 3d after being squished in front of the nme stage last night it was decided we wouldn't squeeze our way to the front. scissor sisters came on and injected a much needed dose of disco into precedings, camping it up in spectacular style. even the weather seemed to be enjoying itself, with the sun putting in a brief experience. their set came to an interesting end when lead singer jake, who'd be sporting a rather fetching tartan toga throughout managed to drop it in front over everyone giving about 30 thousand odd people an eyeful of him naked as the day he was born. next up were returning local heroes franz ferdinand so gave pretty much every act playing that weekend a run for their money, and unlike a few other people genuinely seemed to be having a ball up there. they're set was over all too quickly, with more of less their whole album and a couple of b-sides played, highlights being love and destroy, take me out and michael. what a delight it was to see a load of pissed up scotish holigans singing and dancing along to a song requesting michael to "come all over me". the end of their set meant it was time for my mid afternoon nap, overpriced food break and a trip to the ever delightful portaloo (too much info??). the napping didn't happen so instead it was frisbee time, with possibly the world's worst frisbee (available for 99p from your local wilkinsons). after a while i left my compatriates to their three legged frisbee game to try and find someone who i was meant to be meeting. tho having said that it's not very easy finding one person in a crowd of 60 thousand, when your phones not working and you can't stop thinking they look like beck! so once that had been given up on, i wandered round to the tut tent to catch the end of amy winehouse before mull historical society came on. only thing worth saying is that she should be called whinehouse and she overran. it make no secret of the fact that mull historical society are one of my fave bands, and they show the put on at T was pretty damn good. the presence on stage of a large dog wearing a wig more than made up for the lack of british sea power's big bear. despite a short set, and colin seeming to be pissed as a fart, the home audience who aren't quite as obsessive as me seemed to enjoy themselves. seeing as it was sunday afternoon it was time for some well deserved lazing, in the shape of some ice cream. somewhere in the background the kings of leon were moaning about something or other, maybe it's cos we weren't in quite the right place to hear it properly but they're set seeming pretty uninspired and didn't do much to brighten up a grey and dreary afternoon. the band who were next up on the main stage had been getting quite a few people hot and bothered all weekend. the pixie live is a big deal apparently, cos they've not been doing that sort of thing for a while. personally i'm not an obsessive fan of theirs, i've got myself a nice little selection of mp3s of the usual suspects (which were all present and correct) and i like what i've heard. anyway, the point being i thought they were just a little ordinary and it seemed that frank black (francis... whatever) and co were more or less going through the motions. pleasant enough though. with one of the biggest bands around second on the bill, who would have the pleasure of bringing t to a chaotic end? the strokes, that's who. and they did not disappoint. if you made it throught to the end of my saturday update you would have seen my top 5 all time gigs, well the strokes at ally paly are just squeezed out to number 6, and only by a tiny margin. their two albums are great, and live they're awesome. julian casablancas is clearly well and truely off his face, at one point hiding underneath the drumstand, but that mean's he's pretty chatty, albeit erratically. once the band kicks in the they're a force to be reckoned with. a perfect way to end the weekend really. in case it isn't obvious i kinda got a bit bored of writing this half way thru sunday so i'd imagine you got really bored reading it. normal service will be resumed shortly.....

lee in the park - saturday

2004-07-13T16:09:00.000Z

saturday started reasonably last. once the initial shock of waking up in a glorified plastic bag in the middle of a field in deepest darkest scotland it was time for a slow meander over to the arena for the first batch of music. second on the bill of the main stage were the beta band, who i have to admit although i'd always been a little curious about had never really listened to. they're 45 minute-ish set proved to be the unexpected hit of the weekend and was inspiration enough for me to get (ie download) a few of their songs on my return to civilization. next up was the zutons, who have only got one song that i'd heard and by the time they were done, i felt like that was plenty for my liking. i'd like to think it was for a reason other than the fact looked like he should be called barney and working behind a fruit and veg stall on a market somewhere. perhaps i could use the excuse that it's often difficult to get into a band for the first time when seeing them live. but i can't, seeing as they were followed by british sea power whose slot supporting the strokes at ally pally last year had made me go on out and buy their album (and in this case i actually parted with some money for it. in a shop and everything). it's fair to say that bsp can be a bit of an acquired taste. at least this time out they weren't in their military uniforms. after a nice little instrumental intro (which i was convinced would erupt into a song sitting at the back of my brain but never did) they rattled thru their set. Highlights had to be the crazy drummer (i should learn peoples makes and be polite but i can't be bothered) wandering thru the crowd in remember me. while i thought they were pretty fab, on a par with the strokes support gig, it would have been nice if they'd played more than 3 songs from their album which would have allowed for more bounciness and singing along. also a minor disappointment was the lack of the big bear, who apparently has danced his last. RIP. a marked improvement on the zutons tho, and i'm looking forward to the new album. that was saturdays first batch of music, and it was time to head back to the campsite for a food break in association with tesco's value range and a quick bit of kip. although the kipping was a little overlong, because by the time we'd treked back to the arena the king tut tent where a last minute addition ash were about to get into action, it was already full and we were forced to improvise. unfortunately in this case, improvising meant heading over to the nme stage to make sure we'd be in a good place for the libertines and muse who was headlining saturday. unfortunately in this case, improvising also meant we were there well before the libertines were due onstage and instead had to dubious pleasure of being in a prime position to witness the wu tang clan. to be honest, the least said about that the better really. evidently it's really not my thing, but the gaggle of kevs who had beseiged the stage seemed to enjoy themselves (tho our resident gangsta in chief ian claims they weren't much cop). following a mass exodus and influx of newbies, the libertines wandered on, minus one mr peter doherty. i've not heard a lot of the libs stuff but what i've heard i liked and was quite looking forward to seeing them. maybe i was expecting too much cos i wasn't that blown away. they were definitely good, but nothing particularly exceptional i thought. maybe i was still in a state of wu tang related shock? one band who could be relied on in the blowing away department were muse. how the darkness (who were headlining the main stage saturday night - why?) can claim to be the best british rock band around when these guys are still in business is beyond me. the whole set was truely amazing. that matt belamy's a clever bunny and he can do things with a guitar and piano, and not to mention his voice, which people really shouldn't be allowed. i can't really explain what was so good about them but they were by a fairly safe distance the highlight of the weekend for me and up there in my top 5 live performances ever i think (the others being: REM @ brixton academy, björk, radiohead and MHS at the ICA (i think)). time for a hike back to the campsite, a bit more overpriced drink and food....

q in the park

2004-07-13T13:39:00.000Z

come about 7 o'clock friday night i'd successfully convinced myself that t in the park was actually only called that because of an unfortunate typo when someone missed the letter q. getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning and joining rush hour complete with a couple of bags and a big fuck off tent is not an experience i'm in any rush to repeat. the 4 hours sat on a train was pretty harmless enough, but pouring out onto the platform at edinburgh was were the real fun began. in our infinite wisdom we'd decided not to bother booking tickets for the bus from station to site and it would appear we're not the only ones. was our fault for not planning ahead, so can't grumble too much at an hour or so's wait to get the all important piece of paper. bargain, we'll be on site in an hour, tent up in half an hour and down the bar by 6. or not. there's a few people waiting for the buses (which are running every 10 minutes). oh look, a few more. not just a few, in fact, a mile and half long queue's worth. so another couple of hours of queuing and we were on a bus. the festival site is in a nice little corner of scotland called kinross which is about an hour out of edinburgh. off the bus and a bit more queuing and then we were in and searching for a spot to stick the tent, which took an impressive 10 minutes to get up. a while to explore, stock up on excessively overpriced beer and then off to bed with a stomach full of butterflies and anticipation for a weekend's music.

i'll take the rain

2004-07-08T20:37:00.000Z

you've gotta love british summer time. i think someone should tell the weatherman (where's b*witched when u need em?). i wanted to go see the diana, princess of whales memorial log flume today but it was a bit too soggy. i made it as far as the serpentine gallery (which i decided is now official my favourite 'space' in london) but decided it was too rainy to be bothered to cross the road. 4 galleries in as many hours isn't bad going really. admittedly they were relatively fleeting visits but still. serpentine take longer to get to than to get round but they're always showing something interesting. popping into Tate Brit Michael Landy's Semi Detached and the current Art Now exibit. which i much admit, mainly due to not paying too much attention had me pondering the significant of a stool (of the sitting on variety) by the wall. that was until one of the security peeps went to sit on it. who's to say modern art is obtuse? that's one story i won't be sharing with my family because it'll be the start of the same argument we're argued too many times before. the national gallery was more a stop to shelter from the rain, along with all the opera fans who had been looking forward to an evening of culture. i've never been much of a fan of there to be honest. there's only so many picture of jesus or generic old man on horse i can look at. the usual suspect of turner, monet and van gogh still get a visit though. the national portrait gallery's always worth a visit, tho similar to the national, i seem to spend my time in the same rooms every visit. this time there was the added bonus of sam taylor wood's david, which shows mr beckham having a bit of a snooze. i'm sure it's a nice commentary on celebrity and art or something (i'm think a tenuous connection to leonardo here) but there's a load of her work i prefer. one think i noticed though was a load of little machines similar to what u get in classic b-movies juttering away when there's an earthquake coming. cue much stomping around trying to get it to wobble for me, with no descernable result (apart from a couple of strange looks). so that was london on a rainy wednesday in july. well that, and a couple of hours in strarbucks (boo hiss, i'm a sell out) with a book, some nice food (well, pizaa, but it filled a hole), a film and a beautiful meander back to waterloo in the dark. i make no apologies for the pretentious and overly artistic nature of this post. and i know this wasn't meant to be a today i did this type of thing, but it is what it is, and i'll let it be what it wants to be. expect something on tuesday about mud, tents and a whole load of great music (and a reasonably level of conflict i'd imagine). should make for a good weekend.

the adventure of the unefficient nuggets

2004-07-07T11:55:00.000Z

who would have thought it? after crashing and burning on last week's music quiz (which we'd all like to think would be our specialist subject), not to mention getting in a fight with the moron running it (and for the record, the right answer was Obviously by Busted), "we've got colin's dog" (the team with the name that only 3 people understand) returned for the tuesday night bog standard pub quiz and didn't they do well! the fatal error of the previous week (saving the ever useful joker for a later round) was rectified and we were well off in the lead. as is all too often the case we peaked too soon and slowly slipped down the board a little, no thanks for rocky (twat) and his masturbating guinea pigs. however, in the end, and thanks in part to some unethical use of a mobile phone's calculator, we ended up in a more than respectable fourth place. and what's more importantly we beat the overly competitive people on the table next to us who were throwing their toys out of the pram because they couldn't hear the sound round (bless). and what, you might ask, did we get for our outstanding acheivment? nothing less than a nice crisp fiver! which, seeing as that's not easily split 3 ways was decided to be invested in some tasty chicken nuggets. more precicely 13 of them, following some extensive haggling and numberous attempts to pretend we were being offered 15. so roughly 39p/nugget which isn't too bad, except when u think u can probably get about 50 from sainsbury's for the same amount. but that's not the point, four each, and an extra one for me for driving and not being able to drink, although ironically the lack of alcohol in the system makes them a little less appetising. still can't complain really, a job well done all round.

my friend the addict

2004-07-06T18:17:00.000Z

it seems my fondness for quoting song titles or lyrics as post titles hasn't faded, despite not having posted for a while (this one's from the new mhs album by the way). was gonna write something about mull gig last week and a close encounter of the star trek kind but that's all a bit last week now. anyway, the pressing matter today is google. more specifically google and me. as well as my fake plastic incarnation i have a really name with a real surname and a real website. that one's listed on google. which is nice, it's even listed quite highly on google. the second result when u search for my name (without the fakeplastic and with the real bit after) on UK google. which is nice. only problem is the number 1 result. not only is it someone else with my name. it's also a heroin addict with my name. which is hardly the sort of impression i want to give prospective clients for my amazing technicolour freelancing goodness (we'll forget for the moment that this is all dependent on people who are after amazing technicolour freelancing goodness searching for my name - which they wouldn't). anyway, that's why heroin addicts shouldn't have websites written about then cos it ruins other people's google results.

derren brown weighs the same as a duck

2004-06-23T16:34:00.000Z

so, whilst this blog isn't really meant to be a 'i did this' kind of thing, i wanna write something about an evening spent in the company of lucifer's earth-walking spawn (who prefers going by the name derren brown). if you've seen his tv shows you'd have a rough idea what to expect going to see derren brown live. i think it's one of the few occasions that i'd be happy to be stuck way up in the cheap seats and away from his evil clutches. i'm reasonably convinced that at least two of the people brave enough to get up on stage with him are going to need some form of therapy. a lot of the stuff he does is very clever. a lot of it will baffle the hell out of you trying to work out how the fuck he manages it. and the rest is just pure unadulterated evil. although sitting safely in my seat in the rafters of the palace theatre and well out of reach of him and his frisbees, he could still pretty much read me like an open, and astoundingly predicatable book. i'm being hazy on the details here cos i wouldn't want to spoil it but the man's a genius (albeit an evil one) and it's definitely the best £15 i've spent for a while. i'm also curious to know whether the hockey t-shirt wearing person i swear i saw wandering around outside beforehand was one of his minions sublimally placing the word hockey in my brain, random joe public or a figment of my imagination. regardless, you should either go see his show or avoid any dark alleys around shaftsbury avenue for the next few days in case you bump into him and he puts the whamey on you.

i don't know why i feel so tongue tied

2004-06-22T14:21:00.000Z

not written in here for a while. the moblg's being updated a bit more often with some random pictures. i'm sure everyone will be pleased to know that the mushrooms situation is much improved. who would have thought that a simple paper bag could work such wonders? anyway, in other news... i now have about 2 and half months to get into shape for a 7 mile run. considering the furthest i've run in recent memory is probably from one end of waterloo to the other in order to avoid the ordeal of a nightbus, you'd have thought that i'd be more keen to get practicing. eventually i will i'm sure. day off tomorrow, the perfect opportunity of course. most likely one which will be passed over. we'll see. off to see the witch now.

my mushrooms are frozen all over

2004-06-12T16:33:00.000Z

for some reason i'm having mushroom issues. not sure why i'd imagine you'll care but i'll write about it anyway. the last few times i've bought mushrooms i've happily used a few then stuck them in the fridge. where they should be able to stay quite happily for a good few days. unfortunately, this doesn't happen. it's usually takes no more than a couple of days for them to go all manky and end up in the bin. i would really be all that bothered about it if it wasn't for the fact that my flatemate can buy the same mushrooms as me, put them in the same fridge as we and still be able to use them long after mine have gone to the compost heap in the sky. obviously the exact part of the fridge they're in might be something to do with it, but i've tried pretty much all available options and they still end up the same way. the only course of action i can think of taking is whenever i want tasty mushrooms, pinching a couple from my flatmate's stash and replacing them with some from my ever dwindling supply. not entirely ethical, but seeing as my flatmate's doesn't know about this blog and my cunning plan, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her, so why the hell not? i can't believe i've just written an entry exclusively about mushrooms, i'm even boring myself now. move along, nothing to see here....

la langue internationale du ronald

2004-06-08T19:40:00.000Z

i'd like to think it was the fact that i was wearing a t-shirt proudly displaying the name 'british sea power' that singled me out. rather that than my milky complexion or over-riding englishness. regardless, there i was standing minding my own business in the middle of a french shopping centre. a french shopping centre, i should add, which i had gone to visit a super market of the same chain which is five minutes drive from my home in order to buy beer which is the same as that which i can buy from the aforementioned supermarket five minutes from home. admittedly it was a fair chunk cheaper but that's reasonably irrelevant. anyway, there i am, stood there minding my own business when i notice someone blundered towards me. a quick checklist soon identified the origins of this person. no fashion sense: check. bright pink face from sunburn: check. large hoopy earings: check. by the time sharon (which may or may not have been her name, though it clearly should have been) had reached me she had been successfully identified as the Brit abroad. 'sharon' dispensed immediately with anything resembling chit chat and got straight to the point by bellowing "mcdonalds" at me. i assume she thought i may have been french because everyone knows that if you talk loudly enough, all foreigners revert back to their natural understanding of english. i thought that it was a fairly safe bet that 'sharon' didn't know a great deal of french, so, seeing as i didn't do too badly at french gcse i thought it'd be fun to remind myself of some of my long forgotten language skills. so, with my best french accent, which admittedly is only marginally better than those deployed in the name of comedy in monty python and the holy grail, i told 'sharon' where she could find her restaurant of choice and indulge in the same shitty greasy burger she could have got from her local maccyd's in deepest, darkest essex. directions were never the strongest part of my french, i'd always get confused between droite (right) and droit (straight ahead), but it's safe to say i was talking to someone with less idea about how to speak french than me. poor old 'sharon' seemed a little confused but happily wandered off in the direction i had vaguely flapped my arms in, with a 30 decibel "thank you", never to be seen again. there's nothing quite like experiencing another culture. admittedly i did wimp out when it came to the snails but at least, once my trip to tesco had been dealt with, i ventured to a part of another country which at least felt further afield that lakeside.

climbing up the walls

2004-05-20T09:20:00.000Z

so, it's just after ten o'clock (despite what the time on this post says - i'll have to look into that), been at work for an hour and already run out of stuff to do. the situation is not helped by having someone on my right who insists on eating really stinking bananas and someone on my left who will refuse to listen to anything other than shit like agadoo and rolf fucking harris - i dread the day i forget to bring my headphones in. now to start with, i have to admit i was quite fond of the idea of getting paid for doing fuck all except surfing the net (and reading my book when i can get away with it) but the novelty is definitely starting to wear off. there's only so many times a day you can look at BBC news when there's nothing much exciting going on in the world. with any luck there'll be some kind of momentous world event taking place later today which i can watch unfolding online. even better would be for something exciting to happen outside the window (which i must admit is more and more resembling prison bars recently), but seeing as nothing exciting has ever happened in north cheam this isn't really a likelihood. obviously it'd be unfortunate for whoever it was who's country was being 'liberated' live online, but if that's the price that has to be paid to stop me going loony tunes sat in front of a computer then so be it. it's going to be a long day.....

i haven't moved from the spot where u left me

2004-05-18T16:37:00.000Z

needless to say, the re-appearance of this blog has not coincided with a sudden burst of inspiration on my part and a flurry of posts. so i suppose i should write something of interest today then. well i'm ill, so i may as well moan about that a bit. not that it's really worth moaning about. somehow it doesn't seem right, not to mention fair, to have a cold over the hottest weekend we've seen in a while. once i again i've chosen the option of ignoring it and hoping it'll go away (a trick i think i picked up from my mum ;) ). besides it wouldn't have gone down well at work if i'd phoned in sick after having a week off. therefore i've decided to share a healthy dose of my germs with the poor unfortunate people i work with. one thing i've noticed this time around is that rather than waking up in the middle of the night, sneezing and spluttering, i wake up and am unable to get to sleep until i sit up in be which, as soon as i do it, makes me burp and lets me fall back asleep. maybe i should donate myself to medical science? a handy way of supplimenting my measly income and meeting those nasty student loan repayment and being able to eat at the same time. i'm assuming they'd pay me - tho the use of the word donate makes me wonder. i may need to research this one a little. anyway, trusting in the all conquering power of lemsip i'll be back on here soon posting something a little more worth wasting your time reading.

third time lucky

2004-05-13T20:52:00.000Z

well, this is, by my count, the third version of this site, and hopefully this time it'll stick around a bit longer. this time around i'm keeping things nice and simple, cos, i don't really need an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza of a website, and i'd be kidded myself if i thought there were more than a few people looking at this thing. but anyway, here it is, and here we go. expect the same erratic posting patterns as displayed previously.