Umm....hello? Is there anyone still out there? There must be someone, surely.
Ah, there you are. I know it's been a while, but I'm back now. You could at least try and look pleased about it.
Although not quite as long as the famous break between posts on the band Faith No More's blog ("We've split up!" Eight years later; "We're back together!") it has been a long time, and I've had lots to tell you or moan at you about, but I've never really had the time, or if I did, this archaic steam-powered heap of shit that I call my computer would decide not to work. I've been gone that long, I was half expecting this blog to be an ex-catalogue furniture shop when I came back.(That's what happens here in Birmingham whenever a shop gets closed down and left vacant, ex-catalogue furniture shops. There's one not far from here that says (sic) 'EX-CATALOUGE SHOP' on its sign in big letters, and there's another one that lists 'Chester Drawers' amongst the goods they're selling on its cheaply made sign. Surely, if your living is selling ex-catalogue furniture, at least learn how to spell what it is you actually fucking do!)
During my absence I've had lots of things distracting me. There was my Granddad's funeral, mentioned in my last post, which was probably the most emotionally moving thing I've ever experienced. He had a send off he'd have been proud of. I've never been to a funeral where it was standing room only, with people also stood out in the church's courtyard because there was no room inside. Bless him.
There was my trip to the States, which I'll probably tell you about in my next post. It was a trip that encompassed San Francisco, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, San Jose and Santa Cruz. It was my first trip to America, before, all those place names were just things I saw written on sweatshirts hanging on a rail in TK Maxx (which, I noticed, is called 'TJ Maxx' in the US, strangely.)
There was also a trip to Liverpool, where I watched England get knocked out of the World Cup, went to The Cavern, and bumped into Jimmy Osmond by the statue of Billy Fury on the Albert Docks. It's weird seeing the guy who sang 'Long Haired Lover From Liverpool' actually in Liverpool. It's not as if he lives there, is it?
There was also the book I was working on for a publisher called Insomnia. I say 'was' because Insomnia is now no more. There's still a lot of legal stuff going on at the moment, so I can't tell you any more, but it's all a bit disappointing. Luckily, because of issues I had with the company and contracts and lack of communication, and the time I lost due to bereavement, work and holidays and so on, I didn't really get that much done. There are lots of pages of character sketches and designs and a few finished pages of artwork and lots of hours spent researching and drawing which all now seem a bit of a waste. The writer and I are looking to pitch the book at other companies, so, hopefully, it might rise from the ashes one day.
However, it gives me a chance to get back on with the projects I had to put off because of the Insomnia gig. It might just take me a week or two to summon up the enthusiasm to pick up a pencil again, though.
So anyway, I've decided to start blogging again. Watch this space. And honestly, try and look pleased about it.
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Birmingham City 0 Aston Villa 1
After a tight game and a tense finish we beat our scabby neighbours from Small Heath 1-0 with a goal from the lovely-looking Gabriel Agbonlahor (left). Isn't he beautiful?
It was all too much for me and my blood pressure. I'm off for a lie-down now.
UP THE VILLA!!!!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
What I did in the school holidays, by Mick, aged 35.
Hello again! Sorry for the lack of updates, but it's been a busy few weeks, mostly taken up with work, various trips around the country and spending time with my nippers during the school holidays.
If you're interested, these are a few of the things I've been up to. If you're not, well, you can stop reading, I suppose.
Nine Inch Nails/ Jane's Addiction
Blimey, this seems like ages ago now. Those of you that read this blog regularly, or actually know me personally (that does happen, sometimes) know that I'm a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. Ever since I first saw them live way back in 1991 in a shitty little club here in Birmingham that isn't even there anymore. The American leg of this tour was called the 'NIN/JA' tour, which sounded cool. I can imagine Trent Reznor thinking 'Well, we're NIN, so we need someone with the initials JA to support us, just so we can have a cool name for our tour.' So, after Julie Andrews, and then Birmingham's own Joan Armatrading both turned him down, they asked the recently reformed again Jane's Addiction. ( I'm only kidding! I know Trent Reznor is a big fan of Jane's Addiction, even sampling Perry Farrell's screaming for 'Ringfinger', the last track on NIN's debut album Pretty Hate Machine, as well as using 'Sex Is Violent' on his soundtrack for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.)
As I said, NIN/JA was the name of the US tour. By the time it got to th UK, it had changed its name to 'Wave Goodbye' as Trent Reznor had decided that NIN aren't going to tour anymore. So I can say now that I saw them on their first tour, and their last. I bet Trent saw me in the crowd and thought 'I'm glad Mick's here, it kinda bookends the whole touring experience for me.'
Anyway, the gig was in Manchester, at the MEN arena. The hotel me and my glamorous other half stayed in wasn't very good. Should've been, for the price, but it was awful. I'm not a big fan of Manchester anyway, I've been there four times now, and it's never impressed me. That said, each time I've been has only been a flying visit, maybe I'd enjoy it more if I stayed there a bit longer. (Did that sound diplomatic enough? Good.)
Because we left after work and drove straight up there, we missed about half an hour of Jane's Addiction, but what I did see was very good. I was slightly distracted by the vertical sweat stain that was on the back of the bassist's shorts, but the music was good. However, at one point, a couple of scary-looking women in front of us turned around and asked me if I liked it. When I said 'Yeah' they shook their heads and the scariest looking one said 'I just don't get it, me.' So, in summary, Jane's Addiction: Good, but not for everyone, especially if you resemble Morticia Addams' chubbier sister.
Looking around the stadium, I realised I was one of the oldest people there. Most of the crowd probably weren't even born when I saw them in 1991, which is a frightening thought. Anyway, when NIN came on, they were awesome. Their light show probably damaged my retinas forever (this was before the government's ban on filament bulbs) and even though this was their last ever tour, they didn't go for the standard 'greatest hits' setlist. They played songs that I'd never heard them play live before, as well as some of the old standards. It was, basically, a great night, and I'm glad I was there.
Banksy vs. Bristol Museum
That wasn't the end of it, either. Banksy had had a go at the rest of the museum, too, replacing pictures and exhibits with his own. So, you get what looks like a Constable, a country landscape, but this one has a car in it, with a visible bare arse in the windscreen , and it's titled 'Dogging'. It's not highbrow, but it's funny. There was another one where UFOs were attacking an old painting of a busy seaport. My favourite of these replaced paintings was this one, called 'Agency Worker':
This was a clever way of geting people to have a look around the whole museum, trying to find the bits Banksy had tampered with. There was all kinds of puerile things, including a dildo in the stalactite collection, a plate with a turd on in a cabinet full of ceramics, and one of those awful plates with a photo of kittens on it was put in a cabinet with fine china.
Anyway, we had a blast. It's the first time I've been to an art exhibition and come out laughing. I'd recommend you go, but I think it's finished now. Oh well, go to Bristol Museum anyway, it's a lovely building.
Other stuff.
I've also been on various trips around the Midlands with my offspring: Cadburyworld, West Midlands Safari Park, and Warwick Castle, which were all good fun, and I've also been down to Brighton for a wedding, but I'm knackered now. I just want a nice, relaxing stress-free weekend for a change. Oh, hang on, Villa play Blues this weekend! Aaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!
If you're interested, these are a few of the things I've been up to. If you're not, well, you can stop reading, I suppose.
Nine Inch Nails/ Jane's Addiction
Blimey, this seems like ages ago now. Those of you that read this blog regularly, or actually know me personally (that does happen, sometimes) know that I'm a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. Ever since I first saw them live way back in 1991 in a shitty little club here in Birmingham that isn't even there anymore. The American leg of this tour was called the 'NIN/JA' tour, which sounded cool. I can imagine Trent Reznor thinking 'Well, we're NIN, so we need someone with the initials JA to support us, just so we can have a cool name for our tour.' So, after Julie Andrews, and then Birmingham's own Joan Armatrading both turned him down, they asked the recently reformed again Jane's Addiction. ( I'm only kidding! I know Trent Reznor is a big fan of Jane's Addiction, even sampling Perry Farrell's screaming for 'Ringfinger', the last track on NIN's debut album Pretty Hate Machine, as well as using 'Sex Is Violent' on his soundtrack for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.)
As I said, NIN/JA was the name of the US tour. By the time it got to th UK, it had changed its name to 'Wave Goodbye' as Trent Reznor had decided that NIN aren't going to tour anymore. So I can say now that I saw them on their first tour, and their last. I bet Trent saw me in the crowd and thought 'I'm glad Mick's here, it kinda bookends the whole touring experience for me.'
Anyway, the gig was in Manchester, at the MEN arena. The hotel me and my glamorous other half stayed in wasn't very good. Should've been, for the price, but it was awful. I'm not a big fan of Manchester anyway, I've been there four times now, and it's never impressed me. That said, each time I've been has only been a flying visit, maybe I'd enjoy it more if I stayed there a bit longer. (Did that sound diplomatic enough? Good.)
Because we left after work and drove straight up there, we missed about half an hour of Jane's Addiction, but what I did see was very good. I was slightly distracted by the vertical sweat stain that was on the back of the bassist's shorts, but the music was good. However, at one point, a couple of scary-looking women in front of us turned around and asked me if I liked it. When I said 'Yeah' they shook their heads and the scariest looking one said 'I just don't get it, me.' So, in summary, Jane's Addiction: Good, but not for everyone, especially if you resemble Morticia Addams' chubbier sister.
Looking around the stadium, I realised I was one of the oldest people there. Most of the crowd probably weren't even born when I saw them in 1991, which is a frightening thought. Anyway, when NIN came on, they were awesome. Their light show probably damaged my retinas forever (this was before the government's ban on filament bulbs) and even though this was their last ever tour, they didn't go for the standard 'greatest hits' setlist. They played songs that I'd never heard them play live before, as well as some of the old standards. It was, basically, a great night, and I'm glad I was there.
Banksy vs. Bristol Museum
My girlfriend's old friend Sarah came over from Amsterdam (She's not Dutch, she works there.) to visit and we all agreed that going to the Banksy exhibit would be good for a laugh, so we booked a night in an ibis (always fun!) and buggered off down to Bristol. This was the first time I've been to Bristol without being there for the Comics Expo. It was kinda strange not seeing any imperial stormtroopers or kids dressed as Wolverine milling about, but that was cool as I like Bristol. I've had many a fantastic time there. And, unusually for the Summer we've just had, the weather that weekend was fantastic.
We were told to expect queues, and by the time we got there on a Saturday afternoon, the queue was massive, and we were told that we were likely to be waiting for three hours, so we didn't go that afternoon. Luckily, unbeknownst to us before we got there, Bristol was holding its annual Harbour festival, which consisted of loads of boats, obviously, live shows, music and comedy and lots of barbecues and drinking. We watched some of the live show, but after watching some woman fanny around on a tightrope whilst some bloke sat by the side playing flamenco guitar, (It's supposed to be 'arty', but I call it 'bollocks'.) I thought it would be a good time to go to a pub. Then again, I always tend to think it's a good time to go to the pub. Thing is, because of the festival, all the bars were heaving, and they only served you drinks in plastic cups, which I'm not fond of.
So, after a few plastic pints (for me, anyway. The ladies had cocktails. That's because they're ladylike and posh, and I'm neither of those things!) we went for an overpriced al fresco dinner, which tasted nice, I suppose, but it was kind of ruined by the sight of a local teenage girl who was too pissed to stand up and throwing her ring up. We took this lesson about binge drinking to heart and then went for a few more plasticky pints in several of the dockside bars.
The next morning, we got up early, which isn't good if you have a hangover, had a mediocre breakfast and several coffees at the hotel , then headed up to the Bristol Museum an hour and a half before it opened. It sounded like a good plan the day before. Still, the wait was worth it. It was a fantastic exhibition. I've been to a few exhibitions before (including the ones I was a part of) and they tend to be dry affairs. Except for the ones where there were free drinks (which was the only reason I went to a few of them). Not this one. This exhibition was fun. Sick and twisted, but fun. No free drinks, but great nonetheless.
As you go in, you notice the Ronald McDonald figure stuck to the front of the museum, he's very high up, his make-up is tear-stained, and there's an empty bottle of Jack Daniels perched next to him, and it looks like he's about to jump. As you enter the exhibit, you walk past a burned-out ice-cream van, and behind it is a policeman on one of those kiddie's rides you see outside supermarkets, with distorted ice-cream van music, and the effect is eerie. Before you go into the exhibition proper, there's a painting riffing on the old Hansel and Gretel story, only it's Michael Jackson opening the door to the children. Out of respect, there was a candle burning in front of it. This set the tone for the rest of the show.
The main part of the exhibit focuses mostly on his graffiti stuff, most of which is very clever, although a lot of it is anti-police, and that gets a bit boring after the fifth image of coppers kissing each other or holding hands. The highlight of this first room was a giant painting of the House Of Commons, only the politicians have been replaced by chimps.
The second room was set out like a zoo, several cages with animatronic puppets in them, one with a caged ape painting an imagined sunset, one with chicken McNuggets hatching out of eggs, a rabbit putting make up on in front of a mirror, a Birdseye crispy fish-steak swimming around in a tank, and so on, all basically highlighting how awful the human race is to animals. Which is a fair point, but I reckon it's the animals' fault for being so damn tasty. My favourite part of this room was the cage with an aged, wretched-looking Tweety Pie in it. I could've stood there and watch that thing sigh all day.
That wasn't the end of it, either. Banksy had had a go at the rest of the museum, too, replacing pictures and exhibits with his own. So, you get what looks like a Constable, a country landscape, but this one has a car in it, with a visible bare arse in the windscreen , and it's titled 'Dogging'. It's not highbrow, but it's funny. There was another one where UFOs were attacking an old painting of a busy seaport. My favourite of these replaced paintings was this one, called 'Agency Worker':
This was a clever way of geting people to have a look around the whole museum, trying to find the bits Banksy had tampered with. There was all kinds of puerile things, including a dildo in the stalactite collection, a plate with a turd on in a cabinet full of ceramics, and one of those awful plates with a photo of kittens on it was put in a cabinet with fine china.
Anyway, we had a blast. It's the first time I've been to an art exhibition and come out laughing. I'd recommend you go, but I think it's finished now. Oh well, go to Bristol Museum anyway, it's a lovely building.
Other stuff.
I've also been on various trips around the Midlands with my offspring: Cadburyworld, West Midlands Safari Park, and Warwick Castle, which were all good fun, and I've also been down to Brighton for a wedding, but I'm knackered now. I just want a nice, relaxing stress-free weekend for a change. Oh, hang on, Villa play Blues this weekend! Aaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
It's Back!
At last! Tomorrow sees the start of the Premiership season 2009/2010. Weekends have a purpose other than just shopping again! I did start writing a post about how football is being ruined by the excessive money being bandied about by the rich clubs, but I deleted it, because I still love the game, and I can't wait for the footie to start.
The club I've supported since I was swimmimg around in my dad's ballbag, Aston Villa, has had a funny old pre-season. Gareth Barry, our club captain, left to join moneybags Manchester City, which was weird, because he always said he wanted to play in the Champions League, and if Villa didn't get there, he'd join a club that did. Before last season, Liverpool kept trying to sign him, but our manager, Martin O'Neill quite rightly told them to fuck off. This season, however, he's gone and joined Man City, who aren't in any European competitions at all. He gave some bollocks excuse about becoming stale at Villa, but we all know the hundred and twenty grand a week he's now getting in wages is the real reason he went there. I'd love it if Manchester City win absolutely fuck-all this season and finish nowhere near the Champions League, but then, I'm childish like that.
We have also lost our talismanic centre-half Martin Laursen, who retired through injury, and we've not replaced him. We've signed three new players in the close season, Fabian Delph, from Leeds, who, by all accounts, is going to be a star one day, but he's untried at the top level, Habib Beye, a defender from Newcastle, who got relegated, so he can't be that good, and Stewart Downing, a winger from Middlesbrough who is a decent player, but won't play until at least December, because he's broken his leg. O'Neill keeps moaning about how small our squad is, yet he never seems to buy any players. Put up or shut up, Martin. You'd think it was his money he's afraid of spending.
Villa won the Peace Cup in Spain, beating Champions League teams Porto and Juventus along the way. I know you can't read anything into these two-bob pre-season tournaments, but it shows how far we've come since O'Neill joined Villa. What was weird was seeing Villa get the cup from the Reverend Moon when we won. Strange.
As we've got next to no chance of winning anything this year, what I'm really looking forward to are the the derbies. Wolverhampton Wanderers and Birmingham City are both back in the Premiership this year, and it's good that the Midlands has a decent showing in the Premiership this year. The Wolves games I'm not that bothered about, although I hope we beat them, of course, but the priority is Birmingham City. We have to beat them. We will beat them. The 5-1 beating we give them the season before last was a fantastic result that will live long in the memory. It's almost up there with the birth of my kids as a great day in my life. The bluenoses (that's what City supporters are called up here) have been too gobby since they got promoted, and I'd love it if we shut them up.
So, basically, I'd love us to win something, but we probably won't. I'm just glad football is back after a boring summer watching shite like cricket, tennis and athletics. If we start doing badly, maybe I'll publish that post about how football is rubbish these days.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Roman Holiday, part one; Getting There.
It's been a while since I last posted, I know, but I've got a good excuse this time, as my girlfriend and I were in Italy for a good part of my hiatus. This was my first proper holiday in God knows how long, my girlfriend and I were going to celebrate our Birthdays in Rome (yep, our birthdays are in the same week. Weird, huh?) and I was looking forward to it immensely, but the main problem about Rome is the fact that it's abroad and you have to get on an aeroplane to get there. And you can't get there directly from Birmingham International Airport, either, you have to go to Heathrow, which is nearly a hundred miles away.
I'm not a big fan of flying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of it; I quite like the bit when you're actually up in the sky. I love looking down at the world from above, seeing coastlines and the tops of mountains and the topside of clouds. It's just a pity I can't sit in a window seat because I'm poor and can only afford to travel economy and therefore end up with my knees around my earholes because I have the audacity to be taller than six feet. Anyway, as I said, I enjoy the actual flying. What I don't enjoy is all the rigmarole you have to go through before you can actually get on the plane. All the checking in and security checks and putting all your bottles in plastic bags and all the general fucking about really gives me a cob-on. (That's a Brummie phrase meaning 'in a bit of a mood')
When you get on a bus or a train, do they ask you to take off your belt first? No. And recent events tell us that buses and trains are just as likely to get blown up by terrorists as planes are. The stuff they won't let people take on, either; Tweezers, for example. If anyone ever mounted a successful hijack armed with just a pair of tweezers, then they deserve the fucking plane, if you ask me. (Not that I had a pair of tweezers, by the way. Anyone who knows me well enough to inspect my eyebrows can testify to the fact that I don't use them!) Don't get me wrong, I know we need security, but there's a difference between security and paranoid hysteria.
So, anyway, we flew from the new Terminal Five, which looks like something out of Flash Gordon, but unfortunately without a bellowing Brian Blessed. Actually, it'd be cool to have him do the Tannoy announcements. You certainly wouldn't ignore them. Typically, as this is England, our flight was delayed for an hour and a bit, but after we got on, it was all fairly plain sailing. Or Plane-flying, if you will.
Two and a half hours later, we land at Fiumicino Airport, and I knew for sure we were in Rome as the woman who checked my passport looked like a Vogue model and I was surrounded by loads of nuns.(Sounds like a dream I once had.) These nuns weren't your normal, boring, black-and-white penguin types, these ones were all in white, except for their wimples, which were navy blue. I suspect these nuns were Tottenham supporters. (if they were indeed Spurs fans, I bet their faith has been sorely tested lately!) Anyway, I get through passport control with a minimum of fuss as I'm from the EU. My girlfriend, however, with her American passport, had to queue for ages with the rest of non-EU undesirables. However, this just meant I had to go and get our luggage, which, as is usual for me, were the penultimate bags to come out onto the belt.
We were picked up by an elderly taxi driver and taken on a half-hour walk to where his car was parked. We were staying in a hotel which was on the other side of Rome, in a town called Ciampino. The taxi driver couldn't find it, and spent a lot of the journey talking and swearing to himself in Italian. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Rome, but one of the things about the place is that everyone there drives like an absolute nutcase. The speed limit is seen as just a rough guide and stuff like traffic lights and roadsigns are just there to make the roadside look a bit more interesting. It's like Death Race 2000. (RIP David Carradine, by the way. Surely, he should've learned from Kill Bill that the palm technique was dangerous?) The village we were staying in didn't have the big roads Rome does, it just had single-lane roads and dirt tracks and roads that share space with train tracks and no pavements, so sitting in the back of a taxi with a swearing taxi driver who's lost whilst everyone else is doing their level best to collide with you was a bit worrying.
Anyway, after a while, and probably more through luck than judgment, we got to where we were staying, and it was a lovely-looking place. It was an old farmhouse which had been converted into a few apartments. We checked in, dumped our bags and went for a night-time al-fresco dinner. I normally struggle to make any kind of decision, especially when picking from a menu, but the hotel's menu helped me on this score as it only had three dishes to choose from on it. Chicken, beef, or a plate of cheeses. A vegan would be fucked, basically. Anyway, I had the beef, Heather had the chicken and afterwards we drank and looked out over the lights of Rome in the distance. It wasn't the best meal we've ever had, but it was just what we needed.
(Right. I seem to have been typing for ages, and we've only just got there! Serves me right for going off on one about air travel. There's another five days of this shit yet, so I've decided to do it in episodes. Next one soon!)
I'm not a big fan of flying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of it; I quite like the bit when you're actually up in the sky. I love looking down at the world from above, seeing coastlines and the tops of mountains and the topside of clouds. It's just a pity I can't sit in a window seat because I'm poor and can only afford to travel economy and therefore end up with my knees around my earholes because I have the audacity to be taller than six feet. Anyway, as I said, I enjoy the actual flying. What I don't enjoy is all the rigmarole you have to go through before you can actually get on the plane. All the checking in and security checks and putting all your bottles in plastic bags and all the general fucking about really gives me a cob-on. (That's a Brummie phrase meaning 'in a bit of a mood')
When you get on a bus or a train, do they ask you to take off your belt first? No. And recent events tell us that buses and trains are just as likely to get blown up by terrorists as planes are. The stuff they won't let people take on, either; Tweezers, for example. If anyone ever mounted a successful hijack armed with just a pair of tweezers, then they deserve the fucking plane, if you ask me. (Not that I had a pair of tweezers, by the way. Anyone who knows me well enough to inspect my eyebrows can testify to the fact that I don't use them!) Don't get me wrong, I know we need security, but there's a difference between security and paranoid hysteria.
So, anyway, we flew from the new Terminal Five, which looks like something out of Flash Gordon, but unfortunately without a bellowing Brian Blessed. Actually, it'd be cool to have him do the Tannoy announcements. You certainly wouldn't ignore them. Typically, as this is England, our flight was delayed for an hour and a bit, but after we got on, it was all fairly plain sailing. Or Plane-flying, if you will.
Two and a half hours later, we land at Fiumicino Airport, and I knew for sure we were in Rome as the woman who checked my passport looked like a Vogue model and I was surrounded by loads of nuns.(Sounds like a dream I once had.) These nuns weren't your normal, boring, black-and-white penguin types, these ones were all in white, except for their wimples, which were navy blue. I suspect these nuns were Tottenham supporters. (if they were indeed Spurs fans, I bet their faith has been sorely tested lately!) Anyway, I get through passport control with a minimum of fuss as I'm from the EU. My girlfriend, however, with her American passport, had to queue for ages with the rest of non-EU undesirables. However, this just meant I had to go and get our luggage, which, as is usual for me, were the penultimate bags to come out onto the belt.
We were picked up by an elderly taxi driver and taken on a half-hour walk to where his car was parked. We were staying in a hotel which was on the other side of Rome, in a town called Ciampino. The taxi driver couldn't find it, and spent a lot of the journey talking and swearing to himself in Italian. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Rome, but one of the things about the place is that everyone there drives like an absolute nutcase. The speed limit is seen as just a rough guide and stuff like traffic lights and roadsigns are just there to make the roadside look a bit more interesting. It's like Death Race 2000. (RIP David Carradine, by the way. Surely, he should've learned from Kill Bill that the palm technique was dangerous?) The village we were staying in didn't have the big roads Rome does, it just had single-lane roads and dirt tracks and roads that share space with train tracks and no pavements, so sitting in the back of a taxi with a swearing taxi driver who's lost whilst everyone else is doing their level best to collide with you was a bit worrying.
Anyway, after a while, and probably more through luck than judgment, we got to where we were staying, and it was a lovely-looking place. It was an old farmhouse which had been converted into a few apartments. We checked in, dumped our bags and went for a night-time al-fresco dinner. I normally struggle to make any kind of decision, especially when picking from a menu, but the hotel's menu helped me on this score as it only had three dishes to choose from on it. Chicken, beef, or a plate of cheeses. A vegan would be fucked, basically. Anyway, I had the beef, Heather had the chicken and afterwards we drank and looked out over the lights of Rome in the distance. It wasn't the best meal we've ever had, but it was just what we needed.
(Right. I seem to have been typing for ages, and we've only just got there! Serves me right for going off on one about air travel. There's another five days of this shit yet, so I've decided to do it in episodes. Next one soon!)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Brits.
I like to think I'm a cool dad. I like to think, because I'm younger than most of my daughters' friends' parents, that I'm more with it than them. But I'm not. I'm turning into my dad, and that's a scary thought.
I have my children staying with me at the moment, because it's half-term, and after the Villa match finished last night, my kids nagged me into watching the Brit awards. I've never really liked the Brit awards, they never have any of the bands I like on, or are they likely to, but there's usually something on there that might be fun or interesting. Not last night. What a load of old shite. Watching that, I realised that I've reached the point in my life when I hate everything about modern popular music. I'll soon be shouting at my kids 'Turn that shit down' like my dad did. I'll soon be telling them about how music in my day was proper music and this stuff today is just noise and that in my day at least you could hear the words, even though none of the statement is in fact true.
Admittedly, I didn't see all of the awards, as I was watching the Villa outplay CSKA Moscow but still only getting a draw. Maybe the first hour of the Brits was amazing. I doubt it.
I turned over to see Take That fly in on a UFO. Robbie Williams has spent most of last year looking for UFOs fruitlessly and all he had to do was swallow some pride and get on the phone to Barlow, who had one in his back garden. And they were miming. Nominated for best live act and they turn up to lip-synch to their god awful song. No wonder they didn't win. (Weirdly enough, Iron Maiden did! )
I hate Take That. I hated them in their heyday and I hate them now.I know they write their own songs and they've come back from the wilderness and all that shite, but because they came back successfully we had to put up with all the other disbanded once-popular manufactured boy/girl 'bands' coming out of retirement too. I could cope if it was just Take That, but it's Boyzone reunions and Spice Girls tours and all the other wankers releasing crap records.
Duffy won three awards. Don't know why, as she seems to be a watered down version of Amy Winehouse. A lot nicer to look at, though. Tom Jones give her her last award, banged on as usual about how great being from Wales is (even though he lives in Las Vegas and L.A. most of the time) but now he's chucked the Grecian 2000 away he looks like Count Dooku.
Coldplay were nominated for four awards but won nothing. Good. It's a crime they were even nominated in the first place. An ex-colleague once summed up Coldplay when he said 'Coldplay are trying to be U2, but U2 turned into wankers, Coldplay are wankers already'. Still, lots of people inexplicably like them, and I bet any hurt they felt at being snubbed is balanced by the joy of looking at their bank statements. Lucky bastards.
Girls Aloud won Best Single for 'The Promise'. They moaned that thay haven't won one before, but that's because they're awful. I wish they'd promise to piss off. I don't get Katy Perry either. She won Best International female for singing about kissing a girl. Big deal.
The show itself played safe and was fairly dull, no controversy, and the acts they had on weren't interesting. They teamed up the Ting Tings with Estelle and they did a medley of their own hits. I heard they only got Estelle because they couldn't get Rihanna, who couldn't come because she got beaten up by her fella, ella, ella.
The 'celebrities' they got to dish out the awards were awful. David fucking Hasselhoff. Gok fucking Wan. Alan pissing Carr. For Christ's sake. And as much as I like Gavin and Stacey, I thought the hosts were shit, and they're getting everywhere those two, like dogshit.
By the time that wanker Brandon Flowers turned up (wearing a dead pigeon on his back) to sing with the Pet Shop Boys (who were this year's Outstanding Contribution winners) I'd completely lost all interest in music. At least I've still got football.
But that's starting to piss me off as well.
I have my children staying with me at the moment, because it's half-term, and after the Villa match finished last night, my kids nagged me into watching the Brit awards. I've never really liked the Brit awards, they never have any of the bands I like on, or are they likely to, but there's usually something on there that might be fun or interesting. Not last night. What a load of old shite. Watching that, I realised that I've reached the point in my life when I hate everything about modern popular music. I'll soon be shouting at my kids 'Turn that shit down' like my dad did. I'll soon be telling them about how music in my day was proper music and this stuff today is just noise and that in my day at least you could hear the words, even though none of the statement is in fact true.
Admittedly, I didn't see all of the awards, as I was watching the Villa outplay CSKA Moscow but still only getting a draw. Maybe the first hour of the Brits was amazing. I doubt it.
I turned over to see Take That fly in on a UFO. Robbie Williams has spent most of last year looking for UFOs fruitlessly and all he had to do was swallow some pride and get on the phone to Barlow, who had one in his back garden. And they were miming. Nominated for best live act and they turn up to lip-synch to their god awful song. No wonder they didn't win. (Weirdly enough, Iron Maiden did! )
I hate Take That. I hated them in their heyday and I hate them now.I know they write their own songs and they've come back from the wilderness and all that shite, but because they came back successfully we had to put up with all the other disbanded once-popular manufactured boy/girl 'bands' coming out of retirement too. I could cope if it was just Take That, but it's Boyzone reunions and Spice Girls tours and all the other wankers releasing crap records.
Duffy won three awards. Don't know why, as she seems to be a watered down version of Amy Winehouse. A lot nicer to look at, though. Tom Jones give her her last award, banged on as usual about how great being from Wales is (even though he lives in Las Vegas and L.A. most of the time) but now he's chucked the Grecian 2000 away he looks like Count Dooku.
Coldplay were nominated for four awards but won nothing. Good. It's a crime they were even nominated in the first place. An ex-colleague once summed up Coldplay when he said 'Coldplay are trying to be U2, but U2 turned into wankers, Coldplay are wankers already'. Still, lots of people inexplicably like them, and I bet any hurt they felt at being snubbed is balanced by the joy of looking at their bank statements. Lucky bastards.
Girls Aloud won Best Single for 'The Promise'. They moaned that thay haven't won one before, but that's because they're awful. I wish they'd promise to piss off. I don't get Katy Perry either. She won Best International female for singing about kissing a girl. Big deal.
The show itself played safe and was fairly dull, no controversy, and the acts they had on weren't interesting. They teamed up the Ting Tings with Estelle and they did a medley of their own hits. I heard they only got Estelle because they couldn't get Rihanna, who couldn't come because she got beaten up by her fella, ella, ella.
The 'celebrities' they got to dish out the awards were awful. David fucking Hasselhoff. Gok fucking Wan. Alan pissing Carr. For Christ's sake. And as much as I like Gavin and Stacey, I thought the hosts were shit, and they're getting everywhere those two, like dogshit.
By the time that wanker Brandon Flowers turned up (wearing a dead pigeon on his back) to sing with the Pet Shop Boys (who were this year's Outstanding Contribution winners) I'd completely lost all interest in music. At least I've still got football.
But that's starting to piss me off as well.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Snow joke and other updates.
Most of the blogs I've looked at today tend to consist of photos of peoples' gardens or streets covered in snow. Yes, it looks pretty, but it's a right royal pain in the arse.It never ceases to amaze me how unprepared this country is for snow. It happens EVERY FUCKING YEAR, you think we'd have the mechanisms in place to deal with it by now, but no, of course we haven't. We can find untold billions to pay for missiles to rain down on Iraq, or to pay for the Olympics, but when it comes to dealing with snow, we're fucking hopeless. I bet Canada are laughing their bollocks off at us right now. I mean, our capital ground to a complete standstill, no buses, trains or planes at all. The 7/7 bombings never managed that!
This recent snowfall apparently cost the economy an estimated 1.2 billion pounds, and there's more on the way and we might run out of road salt. I'm not an economist, but surely spending a few million quid making sure we can deal with snow and making sure people can get to work and supplies are delivered, etc. will save us billions in the long run.
Still, at least the kids had a nice day off from school.
>Update on the previous post, my recent appearance on local and national news has now only bleeding gone online. See my full bell-endedness in glorious full colour. I apologise in advance for making you listen to Ace Of Base's (note the apostrophe!) 'The Sign'.
> My shoulder's still not brilliant, but it's a lot better, thanks for asking.>Since Johnny Dixon passed away last week, two more Villa alumni have gone on to play for God's XI. Vic Crowe, former player and later manager of Villa died last week, and Monday saw the passing, at the very young age of 46, of Paul Birch. Birchy's death is particularly sad for me, because he's a player I actually remember, he was part of Graham Taylor's fantastic team of the late Eighties. I remember him marking Inter's Lothar Matthaus out of the game in our 2-0 win over them in the UEFA cup (the less said about the 3-0 defeat at the San Siro in the second leg, the better). I had an old Panini sticker of Birchy on the inside cover of my school hymn book (along with Gordon 'Sid' Cowans and Derek Mountfield and a posh foil sticker of our old round crest) He was a player from the time I used to go down to Villa Park regularly (those days are long gone! Can't afford it these days.) and though it's often claimed falsely that a player always gave 110%, Birchy always did, and that is why the Holte End still sing his name in our version of 'My Old Man'.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Johnny Dixon RIP.
Today sees the passing of a true Villa legend; Johnny Dixon. A winger and inside-forward (remember when there were such positions as 'inside-forward'? I don't!) who signed for Aston Villa in 1944 and spent seventeen years at Villa Park as a player, and a further six as a youth team coach. He will always be remembered by the claret-and-blue half of Brum as the captain of the F.A. cup winning team of 1957 (where we beat Manchester United's Busby Babes 2-1; albeit by flattening their goalkeeper!) which, sadly, was the last time we lifted the cup. Hopefully, we can win it this year as a tribute to the great man.
(Actually, winning anything would be nice! We've got as good a chance as we've had a very long time this season, though.)
So long Johnny, thanks for your contribution to the history of the mighty Aston Villa!
Monday, January 05, 2009
Happy New Year!
Yeah, yeah. I know it's a bit late, but it's been a fairly hectic festive period for me. I didn't even start my Christmas shopping until three days before the big day because I had an art job (maybe I should say 'art favour' seeing as I've not received any payment yet) for a computer games company which took far more time than I wanted it to; it started off being five pages but then I received the script, which crammed far too much into its five pages, so I decided to virtually re-write it, making it more reader-friendly (and making it easier to draw!) and so it ended up being nine pages. Still, it was a useful exercise- I now know, should I need to, that I can produce four fully-inked, fully-lettered pages in a week and still do a day job. (Saying that, I did do the last twelve pages of Septic Isle in a week. I didn't go to work or have any sleep, though!) Some of the artwork was quite good, too, even if I say so myself:
Anyway, after that was done, Heather and I spent a weekend down south catching up with her friends and folks and spreading a bit of the Christmas cheer. Now, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my lovely girlfriend is crazy about Christmas. She absolutely loves it. Normally, I see Christmas as a royal pain in the arse. I hate standing in queues in department stores listening to endless repeats of Slade or that awful one Paul McCartney did that sounds like an intestinal disorder (I'm still wondering why I never heard 'Rock n' Roll Christmas' by Gary Glitter at all this year. Funny how some festive songs go out of fashion, isn't it?) and all the forced jollity (you should know enough about me by now to know that I don't really do 'jolly') and repetitive strain injury from writing out all the Christmas cards for colleagues who probably don't even like me that much.(Although this year, I didn't bother with cards for work. I'm glad we don't do Secret Santa at my work. God knows what I'd receive!).
However, my girlfriend's enthusiasm rubbed off on me a little bit, so we ended up getting a massive tree (eight feet tall! I spent all Saturday sawing the bastard up and putting it into bags. I only had a poxy little hacksaw so now my arms and back are sore. Poor me.) and it did look nice, I suppose.
Christmas itself was a strange one for me, as it was the first Christmas day I've spent without my kids being present (I got them the next day and we had a nice time) but Heather's parents spent Christmas with us and had dinner and a nice day was had by all. Although, Heather was a bit pissed off that her folks had bought me more presents than they did for her! I'm currently working on Heather's dad, trying to make him an Aston Villa fan. I did succeed in getting him to say 'Up the Villa' as a Christmas toast. Sounds great in an American accent. Sounds great in any accent, actually. Especially as the Villa are doing well at the moment. (When I was doing some shopping in Woking, I saw a young lad wearing a Villa shirt, so it looks like we're picking up some of the glory-hunting Southern support. It's a good sign. He was probably an ex-gooner.)
As I said, I got my girls on Boxing Day, so we got to have Christmas all over again, and my brothers and their spouses came over the day after that for a festive drink or three. The highlight of that was when we played 'Who's in the box?' a game where you take pieces of paper out of said box, and have to describe who's written on them to your partner. You have a minute and have to describe as many as possible. This game threw up some great descriptions and answers. My partner was my youngest daughter, and her description of Gandhi as 'some bloke from the past who wore glasses' didn't win me a point. My eldest daughter's description of Jimi Hendrix as a 'left-handed guitarist, brown' got some giggles as well. My youngest got my description of Paris Hilton as 'that slag from America with a dog', which is just as well, because when I read her name all I could think about was the video 'One Night In Paris', and I didn't really want to be describing that to my thirteen year-old daughter. Other descriptions of note were:
'Old Christian singer with a turkey's neck and a colostomy bag,' and 'Rasta frog who ruined Star Wars.'
The main reason Christmas was a good one this year, however, was that I managed to get ten days off work and Heather and I spent them doing nice holiday type stuff like not having to get up, or going to the lovely Electric Cinema ( a restored 1900's cinema here in Brum where you can book a sofa and watch old movies. they also have this great service where you text them what you want from the bar and they bring it to your sofa) and watching It's A Wonderful Life on New Year's Eve. It almost made me want to emulate Jimmy Stewart when I came out of the picture house and run down the street it's on shouting 'Merry Christmas Old Rep theatre! Merry Christmas old Midland Red bus depot! Merry Christmas Adultworld sex shop and porno cinema!' but I managed to keep myself in check. We also went to the Thinktank at the Millenium Point, where I showed Heather the Spitfires built here in Brum at Castle Bromwich, and we learned that most of the guns used in the American Civil War were also manufactured here in Birmingham's Gun Quarter. So, not only is Brum responsible for keeping Hitler at bay, we're also responsible for the freeing of America's slaves. We also went to the planetarium there, where we watched a film about what Ancient Egypt saw when they looked at the night sky. And we watched Villa score a flukey win against Hull in a packed boozer in Moseley, and another flukey win against Gillingham in the same pub. All in all, it was a fantastic Christmas and New Year, and I enjoyed it so much I might even do it next year.
Hope your Christmases and New years were good too.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Always Has Been, Always Will Be.
I read in the Birmingham Mail yesterday that some arsehole local councillor wants the mighty Aston Villa Football Club to change their name to 'Aston Villa Birmingham' and we should also replace the motto 'Prepared' on our badge with 'Birmingham'. He reckons that a lot of people don't actually know that Villa are from Brum and the name change will help raise the city's profile if the Villains win the UEFA cup.
Firstly, let's try and win the cup first. Secondly, we've been Aston Villa since 1874. It's been good enough for the last 134 years, why change it now? I mean, back in 1874 , Birmingham wasn't even a city yet, and Aston wasn't part of it.
Lots of football teams don't have the city they're from in their name, I mean, just off the top of my head, there's all of the London clubs, Everton, Port Vale, Lazio, Ajax, FC Twente, Espanyol, Benfica, Celtic, Rangers, Hibernian, Queen Of The South and Juventus. There's probably loads more. Any proper football fan knows Villa are from Brum. Anyone who doesn't know probably isn't that interested in football, so how does Villa winning a trophy raise Birmingham's profile in their eyes anyway? The main reason this is a bad idea, however, is the fact that our local rivals and worst enemies are called Birmingham City. How is Villa incorporating the scum's name into our own going to be a popular idea? It's not our fault if the team actually bearing the name of the city aren't raising it's profile because they're a pile of wank is it?
If the council want to increase this city's reputation, how about they spend their time coming up with better ideas, such as cleaning up the shit bits, for example? (I reckon one of the main reasons Birmingham has a reputation for being a shithole is, ironically, because of football, as both Villa Park and St. Andrews are situated in dogholes, so visiting supporters go home with a bad impression) . I know this idea isn't going to come to anything, and it will all blow over, but it has bugged me no end. Football is all about history, and our name is part of our heritage, so leave it the fuck alone.
If you want to read about how we got our name, and also, if it wasn't for Aston Villa there wouldn't be a football league to start with, read this fantastic article from the Times Online.
Firstly, let's try and win the cup first. Secondly, we've been Aston Villa since 1874. It's been good enough for the last 134 years, why change it now? I mean, back in 1874 , Birmingham wasn't even a city yet, and Aston wasn't part of it.
Lots of football teams don't have the city they're from in their name, I mean, just off the top of my head, there's all of the London clubs, Everton, Port Vale, Lazio, Ajax, FC Twente, Espanyol, Benfica, Celtic, Rangers, Hibernian, Queen Of The South and Juventus. There's probably loads more. Any proper football fan knows Villa are from Brum. Anyone who doesn't know probably isn't that interested in football, so how does Villa winning a trophy raise Birmingham's profile in their eyes anyway? The main reason this is a bad idea, however, is the fact that our local rivals and worst enemies are called Birmingham City. How is Villa incorporating the scum's name into our own going to be a popular idea? It's not our fault if the team actually bearing the name of the city aren't raising it's profile because they're a pile of wank is it?
If the council want to increase this city's reputation, how about they spend their time coming up with better ideas, such as cleaning up the shit bits, for example? (I reckon one of the main reasons Birmingham has a reputation for being a shithole is, ironically, because of football, as both Villa Park and St. Andrews are situated in dogholes, so visiting supporters go home with a bad impression) . I know this idea isn't going to come to anything, and it will all blow over, but it has bugged me no end. Football is all about history, and our name is part of our heritage, so leave it the fuck alone.
If you want to read about how we got our name, and also, if it wasn't for Aston Villa there wouldn't be a football league to start with, read this fantastic article from the Times Online.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Stuff I've Been Up To. (part two)
House Hunting:
One of the main reasons I've haven't been blogging as much as I'd like is because i've been looking for somewhere new to live. When I say 'I', I mean 'we' as my lovely girlfriend and I have decided to move in and rent a place together.
Now, as all of you who have ever been house or flat hunting know, estate agents can be economical with the truth. We wanted to move to the Moseley area of Brum (or as I call it, Mos Eisley. I'll explain why later), but so do a lot of people. This means Mos Eisley is prohibitively expensive, and estate agents say properties are in Mos Eisley when they're not. We looked at places that were in Hall Green (famous for its dog track) when we were told they were in Moseley so they could bump the price up a bit. Also, what an estate agent calls a double bedroom is not what I would call a double bedroom. what they would call 'desirable' some times is what I would call a 'shithole'. We looked at one house that was a relatively new build, but inside it was terrible; the stair rods were mostly missing and every room's walls were riddled with holes. (I reckon the previous tenants were fans of the 'floating shelf'.) Apparently, having a house that resembles swiss cheese is 'desirable' these days! Not to me, matey!
My lady and I also saw a house we subsequently referred to as 'the house of death'. It was completely beige inside, beige walls and beige carpets all through the gaff. It smelled bad. Its kitchen hadn't been updated since about nineteen forty-seven and it was obviously a house where someone old had died. To be fair to the estate agent on this one, though, he could tell it wasn't the right place for us and looked suitably embarassed as he was showing us round.
We did luck out though. The house we settled on is in King's Heath, not far from Mos Eisley, it's got four bedrooms, it's in our price range and it's lovely. We'll be moving in a couple of weeks, so I'm up to my ears in packing and measuring stuff and buying washing machines. It's worse for my girlfriend, who is moving up from Winchester, so her hassles are probably ten times what mine are.
Mos Eisley Folk Festival:
My girlfriend is middle class, and I'm obviously not, so we're kind of putting ourselves through a cultural exchange. She makes me watch rom-coms (some of the time, anyway! I still won't watch anything with Reese fucking Witherspoon in it, though. I have some standards!), I make her watch kung-fu and zombie movies (but not Peter Jackson's Braindead, yet. That combines the two genres in one fantastic scene. You should all go out and see that movie if you haven't, yet. One of my faves.) I make her eat baltis, she makes me eat salad from wooden bowls. (This is the biggest indicator that someone's middle class, this is; owning wooden salad bowls.)
My girlfriend's a big fan of Seth Lakeman, who I'd not heard of before I met her, and I've since found out that he's a folk-singing midget who mostly plays violin as well. She found out that Seth was playing at the Mos Eisley folk festival, so she bought tickets for her and a friend to go and see him, and all the other bands playing at the festival. As the festival got nearer though, it turned out that her friend couldn't go, so I agreed to accompany her. This had a cultural exchange aspect to it too, as I stipulated that we had to watch the Villa-Liverpool match (which was on the same day) in a grotty pub first before we head off to the folk festival.
After watching one of the shittest nil-nils I've seen in a long time (fair play to the mighty Villa though, we're third in the Premiership as I type this, only one point off top) we headed off to Mos Eisley. Now, Moseley does resemble its Star Wars counterpart. It's a weird place, maybe not the 'wretched hive of scum and villainy' that Mos Eisley is, but it does have a strange mix of residents, so the pubs do resemble the cantina from A New Hope. There are a lot of posh people, you know the types with people carriers who take their kids to violin classes, there are also a lot of grungey students, lots of new age types, all wiry hair and sandals and creative facial hair. And that's just the women! (Insert rimshot noise here) and, Moseley also has more than its fair share of tramps. Not the modern Big Issue, dog on a string homeless, but your old-fashioned tramp. Meths-drinking, mismatched shoes-wearing, big overcoat-wearing, piss-smelling, giant beard wearing paraffin lamps. There was a famous itinerant called 'Pete the Feet' who used to bother drinkers in Moseley for small change, he was called that because he refused to wear shoes. But I digress.
We went to the festival and it was pissing down. Torrential. As has most of what we used to call 'summer'. A friend of mine said that the British weather is like the Muslim community, sometimes Sunni but mostly Shi'ite. (But, Brum's muslims are mostly Sunni, apparently, so it's a crap joke, really)
The festival was in Moseley Park, which is a park you have to go down an alley to get to, and the festival was like any other festival you've been to, but a lot smaller. That's a good thing, the queues for the chemical bogs are much smaller, for one thing. There was a real ale tent. Another good thing. There were a few stalls, including, weirdly, one that sold violins. I think the cheapest one was three hundred quid. Hardly an impulse buy at a music festival, is it? Unsurprisingly, the stallholder wasn't doing much business. There were all the usual jewellery, joss stick and hippie shit on sale, and there was quite a good book stall. Because most of the festival goers were new age-y types , I was worried I wouldn't be able to get anything substantial (i.e. meat) to eat, and, at first glance my worries were confirmed, falafels, veggie burgers, vegetarian indian nosh. I opted for a falafel, and it was lovely, but I dropped my girlfriend's chilli, so hers wasn't as nice as mine. Then, after I finished my falafel, I noticed the hog roast stand. Bastard!
The rain was coming down in big sheets, and we couldn't shelter under a tree because all the other festival goers were hugging them. And the music, whilst not my thing, was fairly good. It's nice to see proper musicians playing instruments and enjoying themselves. Bit too much accordion, though. People have a go at the metal music I like for being all morbid and obsessed with death, but it's got fuck all on folk music. The songs are about such heartwarming subjects like lifeboat disasters, the highland clearances and dead sheepdogs.
After an escape from the rain for a bit (we went to the O'Neills round the corner) we headed back into the park to watch Seth Lakeman, and he was good. Not good enough to convert me to being an Arran sweater wearing/desert boot folky, but he was alright. Despite the rain and the boring footie match, it was a good day.
One of the main reasons I've haven't been blogging as much as I'd like is because i've been looking for somewhere new to live. When I say 'I', I mean 'we' as my lovely girlfriend and I have decided to move in and rent a place together.
Now, as all of you who have ever been house or flat hunting know, estate agents can be economical with the truth. We wanted to move to the Moseley area of Brum (or as I call it, Mos Eisley. I'll explain why later), but so do a lot of people. This means Mos Eisley is prohibitively expensive, and estate agents say properties are in Mos Eisley when they're not. We looked at places that were in Hall Green (famous for its dog track) when we were told they were in Moseley so they could bump the price up a bit. Also, what an estate agent calls a double bedroom is not what I would call a double bedroom. what they would call 'desirable' some times is what I would call a 'shithole'. We looked at one house that was a relatively new build, but inside it was terrible; the stair rods were mostly missing and every room's walls were riddled with holes. (I reckon the previous tenants were fans of the 'floating shelf'.) Apparently, having a house that resembles swiss cheese is 'desirable' these days! Not to me, matey!
My lady and I also saw a house we subsequently referred to as 'the house of death'. It was completely beige inside, beige walls and beige carpets all through the gaff. It smelled bad. Its kitchen hadn't been updated since about nineteen forty-seven and it was obviously a house where someone old had died. To be fair to the estate agent on this one, though, he could tell it wasn't the right place for us and looked suitably embarassed as he was showing us round.
We did luck out though. The house we settled on is in King's Heath, not far from Mos Eisley, it's got four bedrooms, it's in our price range and it's lovely. We'll be moving in a couple of weeks, so I'm up to my ears in packing and measuring stuff and buying washing machines. It's worse for my girlfriend, who is moving up from Winchester, so her hassles are probably ten times what mine are.
Mos Eisley Folk Festival:
My girlfriend is middle class, and I'm obviously not, so we're kind of putting ourselves through a cultural exchange. She makes me watch rom-coms (some of the time, anyway! I still won't watch anything with Reese fucking Witherspoon in it, though. I have some standards!), I make her watch kung-fu and zombie movies (but not Peter Jackson's Braindead, yet. That combines the two genres in one fantastic scene. You should all go out and see that movie if you haven't, yet. One of my faves.) I make her eat baltis, she makes me eat salad from wooden bowls. (This is the biggest indicator that someone's middle class, this is; owning wooden salad bowls.)
My girlfriend's a big fan of Seth Lakeman, who I'd not heard of before I met her, and I've since found out that he's a folk-singing midget who mostly plays violin as well. She found out that Seth was playing at the Mos Eisley folk festival, so she bought tickets for her and a friend to go and see him, and all the other bands playing at the festival. As the festival got nearer though, it turned out that her friend couldn't go, so I agreed to accompany her. This had a cultural exchange aspect to it too, as I stipulated that we had to watch the Villa-Liverpool match (which was on the same day) in a grotty pub first before we head off to the folk festival.
After watching one of the shittest nil-nils I've seen in a long time (fair play to the mighty Villa though, we're third in the Premiership as I type this, only one point off top) we headed off to Mos Eisley. Now, Moseley does resemble its Star Wars counterpart. It's a weird place, maybe not the 'wretched hive of scum and villainy' that Mos Eisley is, but it does have a strange mix of residents, so the pubs do resemble the cantina from A New Hope. There are a lot of posh people, you know the types with people carriers who take their kids to violin classes, there are also a lot of grungey students, lots of new age types, all wiry hair and sandals and creative facial hair. And that's just the women! (Insert rimshot noise here) and, Moseley also has more than its fair share of tramps. Not the modern Big Issue, dog on a string homeless, but your old-fashioned tramp. Meths-drinking, mismatched shoes-wearing, big overcoat-wearing, piss-smelling, giant beard wearing paraffin lamps. There was a famous itinerant called 'Pete the Feet' who used to bother drinkers in Moseley for small change, he was called that because he refused to wear shoes. But I digress.
We went to the festival and it was pissing down. Torrential. As has most of what we used to call 'summer'. A friend of mine said that the British weather is like the Muslim community, sometimes Sunni but mostly Shi'ite. (But, Brum's muslims are mostly Sunni, apparently, so it's a crap joke, really)
The festival was in Moseley Park, which is a park you have to go down an alley to get to, and the festival was like any other festival you've been to, but a lot smaller. That's a good thing, the queues for the chemical bogs are much smaller, for one thing. There was a real ale tent. Another good thing. There were a few stalls, including, weirdly, one that sold violins. I think the cheapest one was three hundred quid. Hardly an impulse buy at a music festival, is it? Unsurprisingly, the stallholder wasn't doing much business. There were all the usual jewellery, joss stick and hippie shit on sale, and there was quite a good book stall. Because most of the festival goers were new age-y types , I was worried I wouldn't be able to get anything substantial (i.e. meat) to eat, and, at first glance my worries were confirmed, falafels, veggie burgers, vegetarian indian nosh. I opted for a falafel, and it was lovely, but I dropped my girlfriend's chilli, so hers wasn't as nice as mine. Then, after I finished my falafel, I noticed the hog roast stand. Bastard!
The rain was coming down in big sheets, and we couldn't shelter under a tree because all the other festival goers were hugging them. And the music, whilst not my thing, was fairly good. It's nice to see proper musicians playing instruments and enjoying themselves. Bit too much accordion, though. People have a go at the metal music I like for being all morbid and obsessed with death, but it's got fuck all on folk music. The songs are about such heartwarming subjects like lifeboat disasters, the highland clearances and dead sheepdogs.
After an escape from the rain for a bit (we went to the O'Neills round the corner) we headed back into the park to watch Seth Lakeman, and he was good. Not good enough to convert me to being an Arran sweater wearing/desert boot folky, but he was alright. Despite the rain and the boring footie match, it was a good day.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
A Right Royal Embarassment.
It's been a while since my last post, I've been busy with real life these last couple of weeks. I know it's hard to believe comic nerds have lives, but there you go. I'll probably blog about it in the near future, including my drunken hiking trip in the wilds of Worcestershire, but I'll wait until a bit more dust has settled on what my youngest brother now refers to as 'The Bewdley Incident' before I tell you all the gory details.
This post is about the Olympic Games that are happening at the moment. Whilst I'm pleased that Team GB has won so many medals this time, there's one thing that pisses me off about it all, and that's when our national anthem gets played when they're on the podium. What a horrible, dreary, out-of-date tune.
From a purely musical point of view, it's dull. In my opinion, a national anthem should be rousing. Not the same note over and over again. It's the lyrics and sentiment of it that bugs me. There are sixty million people living in Britain, why should we focus all our thanks on the one person, who, by accident of birth, happens to be our head of state? Especially at sporting events. I mean, for example, was it the Queen who got up at five every morning to go to the local swimming pool and train for years? Nope.
It's the same whenever the English football team play. I get embarrassed when the anthem is played. Only half of the team sing along. I've noticed that it tends to be the southern lads who sing along, and the northern lads who just stand there stony-faced (unless it's a northern lad that's the captain, he kind of has to or the newspapers will moan at him).
No other European monarchy's national anthem is so arse-kissy. You don't hear the Spanish football fans singing about their king (but that's probably because they're too busy making monkey noises at the opposing team's black players).
And what do the Scottish and Welsh athletes who win gold think when the national anthem is played? I can't see them giving much of a shit about our Queen. Since devolution, the Scots and Welsh have their own anthems now, so in that respect, God Save The Queen is outdated. It's a throwback to the days of the empire, and seeing as the empire no longer exists makes the song obsolete.
Maybe it's because I'm from an Irish family that I have a bit of disrespect for the royal family (my grandad used to spend his mornings writing funny comments all over the royals' pictures in the paper, and he never calls Prince Charles by his name, always referring to him as 'Lappy Lugs') but I do think of myself as English, and I'm proud of my Englishness. I just think that in the 21st Century, the thought of bowing and scraping to someone just because they happen to be from a cetain family is ridiculous. At the very least, we should change our bleeding horrible national anthem to something that's a bit more celebratory and inclusive.
This post is about the Olympic Games that are happening at the moment. Whilst I'm pleased that Team GB has won so many medals this time, there's one thing that pisses me off about it all, and that's when our national anthem gets played when they're on the podium. What a horrible, dreary, out-of-date tune.
From a purely musical point of view, it's dull. In my opinion, a national anthem should be rousing. Not the same note over and over again. It's the lyrics and sentiment of it that bugs me. There are sixty million people living in Britain, why should we focus all our thanks on the one person, who, by accident of birth, happens to be our head of state? Especially at sporting events. I mean, for example, was it the Queen who got up at five every morning to go to the local swimming pool and train for years? Nope.
It's the same whenever the English football team play. I get embarrassed when the anthem is played. Only half of the team sing along. I've noticed that it tends to be the southern lads who sing along, and the northern lads who just stand there stony-faced (unless it's a northern lad that's the captain, he kind of has to or the newspapers will moan at him).
No other European monarchy's national anthem is so arse-kissy. You don't hear the Spanish football fans singing about their king (but that's probably because they're too busy making monkey noises at the opposing team's black players).
And what do the Scottish and Welsh athletes who win gold think when the national anthem is played? I can't see them giving much of a shit about our Queen. Since devolution, the Scots and Welsh have their own anthems now, so in that respect, God Save The Queen is outdated. It's a throwback to the days of the empire, and seeing as the empire no longer exists makes the song obsolete.
Maybe it's because I'm from an Irish family that I have a bit of disrespect for the royal family (my grandad used to spend his mornings writing funny comments all over the royals' pictures in the paper, and he never calls Prince Charles by his name, always referring to him as 'Lappy Lugs') but I do think of myself as English, and I'm proud of my Englishness. I just think that in the 21st Century, the thought of bowing and scraping to someone just because they happen to be from a cetain family is ridiculous. At the very least, we should change our bleeding horrible national anthem to something that's a bit more celebratory and inclusive.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Auntie's Bloomer.
There's been a lot of moaning lately about the publicly-funded BBC and how much it is paying presenters like Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton. I can't say I'm that bothered, but what does strike me as a total insult is the fact that Auntie Beeb has seen fit to give Steve McClaren a job as a pundit on their coverage of Euro 2008.
This man is the main reason England aren't taking part in the finals, yet the Beeb in its infinite wisdom has decided to give him a fat cheque for giving his opinions to an audience that has no-one to support. A situation that is his fault! I see this as a waste of my licence payer's money, probably more so than giving Graham Norton money for hosting endless shite talent shows.
And while we're at it, the BBC's 'Who Will You Support' ad campaign for the event really annoys me. No Englishman I've ever met would say 'Come on Germany!' And that Scouse kid who is supporting Spain because Fernando Torres is 'elastic' really bugs me.
I'm just bitter, I suppose, because England aren't playing, and that's a shame. Saying that though, from what I've seen of the tournament so far, I reckon we'd have struggled anyway!
This man is the main reason England aren't taking part in the finals, yet the Beeb in its infinite wisdom has decided to give him a fat cheque for giving his opinions to an audience that has no-one to support. A situation that is his fault! I see this as a waste of my licence payer's money, probably more so than giving Graham Norton money for hosting endless shite talent shows.
And while we're at it, the BBC's 'Who Will You Support' ad campaign for the event really annoys me. No Englishman I've ever met would say 'Come on Germany!' And that Scouse kid who is supporting Spain because Fernando Torres is 'elastic' really bugs me.
I'm just bitter, I suppose, because England aren't playing, and that's a shame. Saying that though, from what I've seen of the tournament so far, I reckon we'd have struggled anyway!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Aston Villa 5 Birmingham City 1
YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe I was nervous about this game all this week. We've got five goals against the scum and it looks like that sorry shower is on its way back to the championship. I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow and taking the piss out of my bluenose colleagues. As important as the chase for a European place is, it's not as important as sticking it up our neighbours. God bless Martin O'Neill!
John Carew, Carew! He's bigger than me and you!!
He's gonna score one or two, John Carew, Carew!
Bring on the Toffeemen next Saturday, that's all I can say.
Normal service will resume soon.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
This morning, I watched a 25-year old edition of ITV's The Big Match. ITV 4 have been showing them on Sunday mornings lately, and they showed me what happened in the world of English football exactly 25 years ago. And on this week a quarter of a century ago, Villa (then European cup holders) were playing Graham Taylor's Watford, and Villa were undone by a goal in the fourth minute of injury time. How times have changed! (Villa were undone by a late injury time goal yesterday as well!)
Anyway, I caught myself saying 'Ahh, them were the days', but were they? There's a big 80's revival happening at the moment, there's kids walking around with big 'Frankie' type slogans on T-shirts, Rambo, Rocky and Indiana Jones back in the cinemas. Knight Rider has made a comeback, and the top toys of the time, Transformers and GI Joe, have been or soon will be big Hollywood movies. And, of course, there's Ashes to Ashes on at the moment as well, cashing in on the current clamour for all things eighties. And there was that shit Calvin Harris record.
You see, I remember the eighties as being generally rubbish. Thatcher, Miner's strikes,Mullets, Reagan, Recession, The Falklands, Stock, Aitken, Waterman, the Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth riots, Careless Whisper, IRA mainland campaigns, Piano-key ties, Greenham Common, Bucks Fizz, The Minipops, Howard's Way and Howard Jones. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. On a personal note, the eighties might've been the decade Villa won the Championship, the European Cup and the Super Cup, but it was also the decade in which we were relegated and we got Deadly Doug back. I did most of my puberty in the eighties, and that was a shit time. Having a squeaky voice and terminal acne is bad enough, but try combining that with having to wear Farah trousers, stonewashed denim jackets and tan leather neckties. Not a good look, especially when topped off with a flat-top haircut. Also, the eighties was the time when my parents split up, so I don't look back on the era that fondly.
But I did live through them, and my memories are first hand. A lot of the kids about now who are re-living the eighties weren't even born in the eighties. People having their first legal pint this year were born in 1990! That makes me feel old. To those people, Michael Jackson's always been a white bloke! Why have they latched onto the '80s? Is it the because the '90s didn't really have an identity?(I recently went to a '90s themed party and I honestly couldn't think of anything to go as, so I just wore an old football shirt. For a so-called comics artist I really do lack imagination! But it proves what a fairly nondescript decade the 90's were.) If the most recognisable star from the 90s is Liam Gallagher, then it really was a shit decade culturally. I really don't see the point of having nostalgia for a decade you weren't around in, and young adults might want to try creating their own cultural movement instead of borrowing one that wasn't that good in the first place.
God, I sound old!
Anyway, I caught myself saying 'Ahh, them were the days', but were they? There's a big 80's revival happening at the moment, there's kids walking around with big 'Frankie' type slogans on T-shirts, Rambo, Rocky and Indiana Jones back in the cinemas. Knight Rider has made a comeback, and the top toys of the time, Transformers and GI Joe, have been or soon will be big Hollywood movies. And, of course, there's Ashes to Ashes on at the moment as well, cashing in on the current clamour for all things eighties. And there was that shit Calvin Harris record.
You see, I remember the eighties as being generally rubbish. Thatcher, Miner's strikes,Mullets, Reagan, Recession, The Falklands, Stock, Aitken, Waterman, the Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth riots, Careless Whisper, IRA mainland campaigns, Piano-key ties, Greenham Common, Bucks Fizz, The Minipops, Howard's Way and Howard Jones. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. On a personal note, the eighties might've been the decade Villa won the Championship, the European Cup and the Super Cup, but it was also the decade in which we were relegated and we got Deadly Doug back. I did most of my puberty in the eighties, and that was a shit time. Having a squeaky voice and terminal acne is bad enough, but try combining that with having to wear Farah trousers, stonewashed denim jackets and tan leather neckties. Not a good look, especially when topped off with a flat-top haircut. Also, the eighties was the time when my parents split up, so I don't look back on the era that fondly.
But I did live through them, and my memories are first hand. A lot of the kids about now who are re-living the eighties weren't even born in the eighties. People having their first legal pint this year were born in 1990! That makes me feel old. To those people, Michael Jackson's always been a white bloke! Why have they latched onto the '80s? Is it the because the '90s didn't really have an identity?(I recently went to a '90s themed party and I honestly couldn't think of anything to go as, so I just wore an old football shirt. For a so-called comics artist I really do lack imagination! But it proves what a fairly nondescript decade the 90's were.) If the most recognisable star from the 90s is Liam Gallagher, then it really was a shit decade culturally. I really don't see the point of having nostalgia for a decade you weren't around in, and young adults might want to try creating their own cultural movement instead of borrowing one that wasn't that good in the first place.
God, I sound old!
Monday, January 21, 2008
"Evolution is a lie."
I know I said I wouldn't be on here for a bit, but I've just drawn one of the best pages I've ever done, and had a down and up and down again Villa match to put up with (we're still sixth, I suppose!) so I need a bit of internet downtime to calm down! It's a shame my scanner is still problematic, as I'd share the page with you.
Anyway, I have to share this site with you, I don't know if it's hilarious or frightening. You decide!
Anyway, I have to share this site with you, I don't know if it's hilarious or frightening. You decide!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Shut Up And Get Me a Macchiato! Pronto!
I have to share this with you all. (Apologies to those of you I interfere with on Facebook and have already seen it because I sent it you). Maybe it's because I'm a comics geek, maybe it's because I've seen loads of the type of films this is spoofing, maybe it's because I'm a Londoner (although I'm patently not!) that I love this clip and haven't yet got tired of it!
Right. Hope you liked it. My next post will be a proper one, no football or anything (even though we did beat the scum on Sunday-still chuffed!), honest!
Right. Hope you liked it. My next post will be a proper one, no football or anything (even though we did beat the scum on Sunday-still chuffed!), honest!
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Blues 1 Villa 2
YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm actually looking forward to going into work tomorrow.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Local rivalries.
The best header of that particular season!There's a weird atmosphere at work this week. It's weird most of the time, but this week it's worse. Everyone's tense. The reason? Derby day. Birmingham City are playing the mighty Aston Villa at St. Andrew's on Sunday. (this is referred to in the media as 'The West Midlands derby', but it isn't. It's the Birmingham derby. If we were playing Coventry or Wolves-that's a West Midlands derby! Right-that's off my chest.)
You see, I am and always have been a Villain ( 'Villa', apparently, was the first word I could write. After that, I was taught to write 'Elvis', so I had V's and L's down pat pretty quickly. This was last year. (c) shit punchlines limited 2007 ) and so are a few of my colleagues. The majority support that other shower and are known locally as 'Bluenoses' (or 'wankers' by us Villa supporters), and most of the time, I get on okay with the noses. I might even call some of them 'friends', but all that goes out of the window for ninety minutes on Sunday.
I enjoy the banter, the piss-taking and the rivalry, most of the time. There are tossers from both Blue and Claret-and-Blue who can give it but can't take it shouting their mouths off. There's monetary wagers being set-up (a recipe for disaster). There are the rogue colleagues who support West Brom who watch from the sidelines with amusement, and there are the odd total fuck knuckles who support Man U or Liverpool who don't really give a toss about what's happening locally, as they're glory-hunting bastards.
Like I said, I enjoy the banter. But only when we've won! The stick I got when we got beat 3-0 a few seasons ago was unreal. My clock card and locker had '3-0' written on them in permanent marker. My coat was covered in royal blue plastic and I had to listen to 'Keep Right On' all fucking day because someone had brought it in on CD. This is on top of all the verbal abuse I had to suffer. But what can you do? You have to take it, knowing that one day you'll have your turn. And we did.
Anyway, it's tense this time round, as Villa are playing like shit lately. We've not won away from home all season. Even with a 4-1 lead at Spurs we managed to draw! Blues are losing a lot, but they played well against Liverpool and Man Utd, but they were absolute shit against Everton, so both sets of supporters don't really have a lot of confidence in their teams for the big match. But, that said, I'm looking forward to it, as it's the only proper local derby left in the Premier league these days (all the other ones are blighted by the prawn sandwich glory hunting bastard supporters who are from other parts of the country than the club they 'support', so all that 'local' rivalry isn't that important to them. Villa and Blues tend to have mostly local support-probably because neither of us have won fuck-all for ages-Blues never!).
Right, no more football talk now, I promise.
UP THE VILLA!
You see, I am and always have been a Villain ( 'Villa', apparently, was the first word I could write. After that, I was taught to write 'Elvis', so I had V's and L's down pat pretty quickly. This was last year. (c) shit punchlines limited 2007 ) and so are a few of my colleagues. The majority support that other shower and are known locally as 'Bluenoses' (or 'wankers' by us Villa supporters), and most of the time, I get on okay with the noses. I might even call some of them 'friends', but all that goes out of the window for ninety minutes on Sunday.
I enjoy the banter, the piss-taking and the rivalry, most of the time. There are tossers from both Blue and Claret-and-Blue who can give it but can't take it shouting their mouths off. There's monetary wagers being set-up (a recipe for disaster). There are the rogue colleagues who support West Brom who watch from the sidelines with amusement, and there are the odd total fuck knuckles who support Man U or Liverpool who don't really give a toss about what's happening locally, as they're glory-hunting bastards.
Like I said, I enjoy the banter. But only when we've won! The stick I got when we got beat 3-0 a few seasons ago was unreal. My clock card and locker had '3-0' written on them in permanent marker. My coat was covered in royal blue plastic and I had to listen to 'Keep Right On' all fucking day because someone had brought it in on CD. This is on top of all the verbal abuse I had to suffer. But what can you do? You have to take it, knowing that one day you'll have your turn. And we did.
Anyway, it's tense this time round, as Villa are playing like shit lately. We've not won away from home all season. Even with a 4-1 lead at Spurs we managed to draw! Blues are losing a lot, but they played well against Liverpool and Man Utd, but they were absolute shit against Everton, so both sets of supporters don't really have a lot of confidence in their teams for the big match. But, that said, I'm looking forward to it, as it's the only proper local derby left in the Premier league these days (all the other ones are blighted by the prawn sandwich glory hunting bastard supporters who are from other parts of the country than the club they 'support', so all that 'local' rivalry isn't that important to them. Villa and Blues tend to have mostly local support-probably because neither of us have won fuck-all for ages-Blues never!).
Right, no more football talk now, I promise.
UP THE VILLA!
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