29/12/09

Gosh, I have 6 weeks of cultural wigwammery to get in to this post *cracks fingers*. Here goes, kids.

It seems that the next ‘thing’ that I did after the last post was to go and see Russell Howard record an episode of a TV show called Russell Howard’s Good News. After the previous debacle that meant missing out on Harry Hill, we almost cocked up again, nearly missing the show. We actually arrived at the allotted time to queue in the rain but there were already hundreds of people ahead of us. We were given reserve spots and some very kind people let us take their place in the audience. I say very kind. Cruel and heartless would be more appropriate. Because Russell Howard’s Good News is an unmitigated dribble of crap. The show falls somewhere between Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Mock The Week, with Howard alone on stage doing gags about the week’s news, commenting on news stories, showing amusing videos etc. It was horribly, horribly charmless from the outset. It was fleetingly funny at best and Howard came across as a total ass. He acted like he was too good for the show and seemed to look down upon his audience, which for the most part, consisted of starstruck 14 year old girls. This was best exemplified by the section at the end of the recording where he had to come back on to record bits that didn’t work or went wrong the first time round. He openly displayed contempt at the show’s producers, questioning their decisions with supposed mock outrage which, frankly, was more than a bit uncomfortable. And during pauses, he asked if anyone in the audience had questions. Most questions came from the aforementioned girls and went along the lines of ‘can i hug you?’, ‘what did you have for dinner last night?’ etc. Again, Howard showed his anger at the questions, taking the piss out of his followers. Again, very uncomfortable. Perhaps Mr Howard, if you didn’t front such a crap programme that appeals to teenagers then you wouldn’t have the following you’ve got. But you do. Yuk, bad experience.

At the beginning of the month, Mary and I flew to Berlin courtesy of some very cheap flights courtesy of RyanAir, found on Martin’s Money Saving Tips. £12 for 2 returns they cost! We booked an apartment in the Fredreichshine area of the city, which is in the East. We found the apartment on Way To Stay and it was great. A nice big room in a great location near to shops, nightlife, restaurants and transport links. And all for £25 each a night. The first night we arrived we went for food at an Ethiopian restaurant called Langano in Kreuzberg. It was great. Nearly all or maybe all of their meals are eaten with a bread thing called Injera, which is like a big flat bread that’s a cross between a pancake and a tortilla. On my injera I had a kind of meaty, tomato-y stew that was dead nice. The bread absorbs the sauce and you kind of mop it up with it. All eaten with your hands too. And they were really good and provided a good gluten-free version for Mary too. After that, we wandered the streets of Kreuzberg, which is supposed to be the place to go out. We struggled to find anywhere that looked good but then stopped at a bar called Cake, which was alright. Had a few drinks then home. The next day we got up and went to a place to try and find a tourist office. We walked a lot and found nothing. In fact, we spent quite a lot of time a bit lost in Berlin but hey, who doesn’t on holiday, eh? Anyway, the area we were in had a really big Xmas market, which was lovely to wander through in the freezing cold. In the afternoon, we did a Brewer’s walking tour. The tour took 3 hours, was free (there’s an optional donation) and was my favourite thing that we did. The woman who led us was brilliant. She was really enthusiastic, funny and charming and made the history of Berlin fun and interesting for 3 hours in sub-zero temperatures. Basically, you’d want this woman as your school teacher if you were a kid. Saw all the sites (Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg gate, bits of the wall, a chocolate shop where they had a massive model of the TItanic made of chocolate, Hitler’s bunker, the holocaust memorial and probably loads more that I’ve forgotten), got knackered but had a great time and was more than willing to hand over a lot more money than nothing for the tour. If you go there, I recommend you do this. In the evening, after dinner in the flat, we ventured to what is, apparently, Berlin’s most famous techno club, Berghain. It took us ages to find it cause we didn’t actually know what it was called. When we did, it was worth it. The club is a massive disused warehouse or power station or something, kinda reminded me of a smaller, broken down version of the Tate Modern building. It has different rooms and different levels and bars, which it seems on some days are used for weird sexy stuff. There was none of that when we were there though. Instead, we saw Battles play as part of Warp Record’s 20th anniversary party. Enjoyed Battles a lot, although I did get a bit bored towards the end and I do get tired of the nuts effect he puts on most of his vocals. After them, some techno DJs played and we went home. The next day, we were going to go to the Reichstag to have a look around and get some good views of the city but there were queues in the very cold for 90 minutes to get in. Instead, we went for a walk through Tiergarten and walked up a column thing to get views of the city. We kind of forgot that we’re both quite scared of heights, so the whole thing was slightly traumatic. After that, we went to the DDR Museum, which takes a look back at the golden age of East Germany, mostly choosing to ignore the bad stuff that happened, the spying, the disappearing and all that. It was fun! You get to see loads of cool 70s stuff and go in a Trabant. What more could you want? In the evening, we went for a drink in a local shisha bar, which was full of young students. I’d never tried shisha before. It was alright. Made me feel a bit weird but I was probably doing it wrong. Then we headed to somewhere, mmm, I can’t remember, basically it was a bit like Barfly and it was rubbish. We left there after having a contretemps with a moody bargirl who refused to refund my 2Euro bottle deposit. We got it back in the end though. YEAH! After visiting a strange, tasteful and horrid bar we chanced upon some kind of bar/club thing that had good fun music and lots of people dancing. We joined them until 6am, not really realising how long had passed. Quite refreshing to see people partying with no clear end in sight. Slept most of the next day but managed to visit a great flea market in Boxhagener Platz, just down the road from our place. Probably if you wanted to buy cool old 70s stuff from the DDR, this would be your place. In the evening, we took a trek to somewhere or other to go to a Georgian restaurant. I can’t really remember why we went to such an effort but we did. And we had a perfectly reasonable meal. We then came back to near where we were staying and found a lovely cafe that stayed open late to drink coffee and play backgammon. Which, it turns out, I am rubbish at. The next day, we took a train out of town to Grunewald, which is a massive forest to the west of the city. We kinda wandered for a bit not really knowing where to go so just headed into the forest to see what would happen. We got to a hill that was made from rubble cleared after the end of the war that now has a dilapidated former US listening post on top. It’s not a hill of rubble any more, by the way, it’s like got trees and mud, it’s just a normal hill, OK? Walked up the hill and round the listening post, which was frankly a bit spooky. Then we came back down and tried to find our way to Nico‘s grave. Sadly, the transport links to her grave are not all that and I didn’t fancy being stranded in the middle of the forest in the freezing cold just to get a look at poor old Nico’s headstone. Instead, we headed for Potzdam, which was supposed to be really pretty. By the time we got there it was too dark for any prettiness, although we did see a kind of palace thing that looked OK. Best thing about Potzdam was it’s market, which was lovely, lovely, lovely. In the evening, we headed towards home, had a curry (don’t have a curry in Germany, they’re rubbish) and played more backgammon in the same cafe. The next day was our last, so before our flight we visited the Jewish museum, which was excellent. The stuff about the war was really well done and quite moving and the rest of the historical stuff was presented well and made for interesting viewing. Could’ve spent more time there but sadly, had to leave. And I really was sad to leave. From the moment I arrived I really enjoyed Berlin. It seemed to be a relaxed, spacious city with lots going on and loads of really interesting history. Think I could happily live there, except I don’t speak German. (oh yeah, there’s a P.S. here. I forgot… we went and looked at the wall too. They’d taken loads of bits of the wall and got people to do ‘art’ on them that ranged from the shit anarchy sign/peace hippy bollocks to the great). Yep, go there.

A couple of days after getting back home, I went to see a comedy duo called The Pajama Men, on the back of some glowing recommendations. I had no idea what to expect but was really excited to see it. But, erm, it turns out I’m the only person alive in the whole wide world who doesn’t like them. Their performance is fantastic, full of energy and great acting. But I just don’t like what they do particularly, which is very physical comedy. Lots of pulled faces and twatting about. I dunno, it just didn’t do anything for me. However, every single other person there seemed to think that every look, every move and every word was THE most hilarious thing they’d ever seen. Seriously, they were splitting their sides, like, every 2 seconds, sometimes seemingly for no reason, so funny this apparently was. This just baffled me even more. Made me feel like a right freak, being the only one who didn’t particularly enjoy it. Actually, I think I probably did enjoy it a bit, it’s just the over zealous laughter made me not like it more than I did. If that makes sense?

The following weekend I watched Hotel Rwanda, which was pretty disturbing, as it should be I guess but well done, and went to Spitalfields Market, which I really enjoyed having a look about. It was stupid busy being near Xmas and all but there was loads of good stuff to look at. All I bought though was Otis Blue by Otis Redding and Boys Don’t Cry by The Cure on vinyl.

On the Tuesday after I went to The Lexington to see Kurt Vile. I got his album a while back and slowly came to really like its weird pull. Sadly, they were difficult to judge live as one of the band’s 3 guitarist’s amp blew halfway through the set, leaving them to carry on as a 3-piece. Up until then though, they were brilliant. The band look and sound like reprobates. They carry an air of derangement and idiocy that gives their strange songs a kind of authenticity. Like they couldn’t have made any other music other than this. When they get going they do chugging, 2-chord rock really well and along with their other, flightier numbers, they’ve got a lot going for them.

A couple of days later I went with John, Mac and their friend Neil to see Spiritualized perform the whole of Ladies And Gentlemen We’re Floating In Space live at The Barbican. Way back, months ago, when I was REALLY short of money, John bought me tickets to this, a rather lovely gesture. I’d never seen an album played live like this before and was a little apprehensive as the band appeared on stage to a hushed revery from the crowd. But, from the moment the recorded voice of Kate Radley, announcing the album’s title, was heard, I was hooked. During that first song, and especially when the gospel choir came in with the previously banned Elvis sample, I had the shivers, big time. I didn’t realise it would last practically the whole gig. What’s amazing about the album, to me, is that it takes in gospel, rock, orchestral pop, huge sections of blistering, free noise, blues and a big old weepie ballad and yet it’s held in such high regard by so many. With the sound at The Barbican absolutely perfect (you really could hear every tiny element of the noise throughout), it was a perfect chance to experience the album, you suspect, as it was intended. I Think I’m In Love is terrific with bass runs that you can feel in your belly, Electricity is given an extended noise coda, No God Only Religion is as jarring as ever, The Individual goes on for an eternity, with continuous strobing and an absolute wail of noise that becomes a real endurance test not unlike My Bloody Valentine’s famous ‘holocaust’ and Cop Shoot Cop is as epic as ever. There was even a point during Cop Shoot Cop’s noisy mid-section were I convinced myself I could hear the screams of the choir, even though they weren’t singing. However, when their aaahs did came softly through as the fog of noise slowly drifted away, it was truly wonderful. After an ovation, the band came back on, did Out Of Sight from Let It Come Down, one other that I seem to have forgotten then finished with a lovely version of Silent Night to send us beaming out into the snowy evening.

The next night, I got a surprise! During the day, Lisa, John, Jonny, Anna, Charlotte, Stu, Andy, Leah and Iain all came up, decorated my house, made a massive chilli and then hid after Mary had convinced me to wander aimlessly around shops for an hour or two. Yay. Bloody brilliant. It was quite weird to come home and find 9 people in masks of my own face in my lounge. But much fun. We ate chilli, drank mulled wine, did a Paul Barnett quiz (I bloody love Paul Barnett quizzes) and then played games into the night. They also bought me presents including a ghost walk, a meal at a very fancy Japanese restaurant, Rough Trade vouchers, an album by a fella called MIJ and tickets to see a stand-up called Tim Key. Friday nights don’t get much better. By bedtime, my face hurt from smiling.

The next day, some of us went to the Science Museum. I don’t like the Science Museum. I think it’s because I remember loving it as a child so it will forever be disappointing to me from now on. Maybe I need to take a child with me. After that, I went to my first Arsenal game, taking over from my brother’s season ticket, as he’s gone travelling for the rest of the season. We played Hull, who are rapidly taking over Bolton as my 2nd most hated team. They don’t bother playing football. And they have an orange manager. I hope they go down. Anyway, after labouring a bit during the first half, we stepped it up a bit in the second half and won 3-0 comfortably in the end.

16/11/09

On Tuesday, I paid a visit to The Social for Huw Stephen’s Introducing… night. First band on were Muchuu, a brother and sister duo who play electro-pop. Weird that this sort of thing isn’t only reserved for mega-rich, super-produced stars any more. The girl one threw some sparkly stuff in the air at the end. I liked that. Next on was Y Promatics who, aaargh, I’ve totally forgotten. That’s bad, isn’t it? Perhaps they were energetic indieness, I can’t remember. After that, it was The Last Republic who seem to be aiming for stadium rock glory. They’ve won The Road To V competition, so maybe they will achieve that. Who knows? Last band on were Internet Forever, who did shouting, exuberant indie-pop stuff. Sometimes they were fun, sometimes they were shonky and they did a good cover of The Walk Of Life by Dire Straits. I enjoyed this night.

The next afternoon I went to see Jarvis Cocker make an exhibition of himself. He’d installed himself in a warehouse in East London with assorted friends and passers-by for three days to make music and do a bunch of other stuff that might have involved soundtracking yoga classes and that sort of thing. When I arrived, he was onstage with about 7 other people playing some kind of extended 2 chord jam, which included a man whacking a saw. It was ace. Then, another man joined in on vocals and kinda ruined everything by emoting, blues-style over the droney stuff, like the best thing the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club ever did. Not very good. When he fucked off, it got better. I had a cuppa and an excellent chocolate and lavender cake, then some circus acts came on and did their stuff. Then I went home. A brilliant way to spend an afternoon that was.

On Friday night, I attempted to watch Synecdoche, a Charlie Kaufman film. Attempted because I never made it to the end. It was incredibly self-indulgent, which was no surprise, but it didn’t do enough else to warrant continued watching. It was mega depressing, which meant that the Kaufman jokes just became tiring really quickly.

On Saturday I watched, all the way to the end, Wall-E, which was brilliant. Amazingly involving on so little dialogue.

Yesterday, went to Scrabble Sunday at The Lexington where I lost to Mary for the first time. Sad face. In the evening, I won tickets (thanks to The Line Of Best Fit website) to see The Dodos at the Scala. Now, the Dodos are a band I’d found to be more miss than hit before and they proved themselves to be WAY less than that last night. The band are a 3-piece with a singer/guitarist, drummer and a, erm, vibraphonist. The singer’s voice was rubbish, the vibes added little but the occasional BING BONG and the drums were too loud. The tunes that the band do have were totally lost. Found the whole thing boring, frankly.

09/11/09

OK, so I took a, erm, a sabbatical. But what’s important is that I’m back, for the next, ooh, however long I can be arsed. I imagine the spur for me writing this is that I moved to London 10 days ago. My first cultural outing came last Saturday courtesy of a Cardiff artist/friend who I never got round to seeing perform when in Cardiff. The man in question is Paul Granjon and he’s a performance artist. His show, at the Chelsea Theatre, was called Black Box = Ni and it was the first time he’d performed it. I can’t really tell you what it was about, but it did involve some talking about military robotics, a slide show, a blow-up sumo costume, Paul shooting himself with a paintball gun (very funny), a box that randomly gave him orders and some dancing robots. It was bonkers, fun and I’m not sure what it was all about.

The next day, I went to a Halloween storytelling thing in a yurt in Green Park put on by Spoken Ink. They’d decked out a yurt with lovely, wintry warm trimmings and cushions and scary bits and bobs, which we all, old and young, crammed into. It was lovely in there. And 2 storytellers told scary stories that, really, weren’t that scary but were, in places, wonderful and atmospheric, funny and sometimes odd. It didn’t always work but overall it was a cosy success. Had a rather lovely pumpkin risotto at Carluccio’s afterwards.

On Thursday I’d gotten tickets to see Harry Hill’s TV Burp get filmed, something I’d been wanting to do for ages. However, I arrived slightly not early enough (it’s first come, first served) so missed out by just 4 people! VERY disappointing. In a sad mess, wandered aimlessly around Westfield, which is apparently the largest shopping centre in the world or something then headed to Leicester Square. Once there, we found a restaurant called The Mermaid’s Tail, which is a bit crap but notable for the fact that they do ceoliac-friendly fish and chips. I enjoyed my normal fish and chips greatly actually. After that we went to the Prince Charles cinema (which I believe I mentioned in an earlier post) to see Broken Embraces, the new Pedro Almodovar film, a tale about a blind writer who relives a past affair. As an Almodovar film, I didn’t think it really did anything new and it did sag badly just when you thought it was about to get exciting but it was fairly gripping nonetheless.

On Saturday, I paid a very brief visit to the Tate Modern to see Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is installation in the Turbine Hall. Put simply, it’s a bloody massive black box that you go in. It’s one of them huge containers you see on the back of ships and, as you walk in it gets darker and darker, with the only light provided by the window opposite. What this means is that it gets dark very quickly but the faces of people leaving the box are fleetingly lit, with the light giving them a ghostly, unreal presence. I’ll admit, it was very scary. I didn’t realise I was quite so scared of the dark, but it seems I am. In the evening, I forewent the opportunity to see fireworks (ace, I hate fireworks) as Lisa gave me the wonderful gift of tickets to see Daniel Kitson‘s latest show. As usual, it was a brilliant show, thoughtful and funny in a way that no other comedians are, and in The Union Chapel too, a stunning venue.

Yesterday, I went to The Lexington for a game of Scrabble in the afternoon. I really like The Lexington, it’s relaxed and has nice decor and on Sundays they have Hangover Lounge DJs who play nice, headache-friendly tunes. Lovely stuff. In the evening, went to The Roundhouse to see Yo La Tengo supported by Euros Childs. Euros played as a three-piece, which seemed a bit odd, especially in such a big venue. Some of it worked, some didn’t. It was brilliantly weird though and some of the lyrics were amazingly odd, typically Euros I guess. Yo La Tengo I was a bit disappointed by. A lot of it seemed a bit flat to me. But there were moments that were absolutely spellbinding. More Stars Than There Are In Heaven from their new album, in particular, was monstrous and Tears Are In Your Eyes, beautiful. I wasn’t too keen on the venue either. Although the building is brilliant, it felt a bit soulless, like a TV studio or something. And the sound seemed to boom about a bit. In particular, the string section, when they came on, were almost impossible to hear.

Today, I watched a whole load of telly including the Harry Hill episode I missed, which gladly, wasn’t that amusing. Because I’d heard so many people talk about Miranda, I watched that. It was rubbish. So, I caught up on the new series of The Thick Of It, absolutely fantastic, love it.

14/04/09

Hello, hello and hello. It’s mid-April and I’m still writing down the stuff what I did. This is some huge achievement. I’ve also been carrying on doing sporty things. For example, the other week I had a game of tennis against John. I’ve only played tennis about 5 times in my life and the last time I did must have been about 12 years ago. I imagine that it’s quite unlikely that I’ll bother with it for quite some time again. It was pretty rubbish. Mainly because it was so hard. I enjoy running about generally and I did like hitting it about. But to actually get any play going was next to impossible and you have to keep running to retrieve balls and stuff. It just generally wasn’t very satisfying. So, I thought I’d try squash. Now, I’ve never played squash before and had always been kinda anti- it because of it’s association with wanker businessmen and people with too much testerone and stuff. But, there was an extended section during Saturday by Ian McEwan where he describes a game and it sounded brilliant. I like a bit of competition so thought it’d be worth a go. I played Stu last week and it was flippin brilliant. We were both pretty crap I’m sure but it’s not so hard to feel like you’re actually having a game, it’s pretty intense, you get a good run-around and it’s constant so no waiting or retrieving or anything (well, a bit of waiting for Stu to get his breath back and that but not too much). Fun it was. So much so that I played again with Mike today. Ace. You’ll notice that I’ve not mentioned the results of any of the games. Loser. I’ve still been running occasionally and playing football too so I reckon I can now consider myself ‘sporty’. Actually, maybe you have to be GOOD at sport to be considered sporty. Maybe I’m just enthusiastic about the playing of sport.

We’re going back awhile now but at some point I saw The Postman Always Rings Twice. I can really remember very little about this. Either the film was a bit average or my memory’s going. Both options are quite possible. The film is about a drifter guy who gets a job at a diner, falls in love with the owner’s wife and then gets embroiled in some kind of restaurant owner murdering situation. I think actually, yes, my opinion was one pretty much of indifference. What I do remember is how quickly the guy kissed the girl and told her he loved her. All seemed a bit rash to me but then I’m one to take things a bit slower than that. Since last time I also started to watch Stir Crazy with RIchard Pryor and Gene Wilder, a combination I bloody love from See No Evil, Hear No Evil. I’d seen the film before and recommended it to Mary and Iona who both fortunately fell asleep before it started. Fortunately because it was rubbish. Pryor and Wilder just goof about. No jokes, nothing funny, just goofing. Turned it off after half an hour. More recently I watched Little Miss Sunshine again. First time I saw it was on a aeroplane. I liked it then but thought it might be one of those films that wouldn’t stand up to repeated viewing. Gladly, it did. I mean, the storyline’s a bit trite and it’s pretty simple, pleasant stuff but I felt moved at the end and did a big out loud laugh at my favourite bit (“WENDY”) so all good there.

Only seen one band since last time and I didn’t really see them as I was working the door. But I could kinda hear Dent May And His Ukelele through the bar door. I didn’t really like it to be honest. All a bit too kitsch for me. Reminded me of Mike Flowers Pops but everyone I spoke to seemed to have a good old time so maybe I missed something being in a different room, like.

Oh yeah, I mentioned this earlier but I finished another book, Saturday by Ian McEwan, kindly leant to me by Tomos. I’d say, of the McEwan books I’ve read I probably enjoyed this the least but I still really liked it. It follows the events of one Saturday in the life of this brain surgeon fella and covers things like the anti-war marches, street violence, music, poetry and squash. I think it was this that made me not like it so much. I find it hard reading fiction about events that I actually remember and I really hate it when people whose music opinions I don’t trust talk about music I’m pretty sure I’d hate. And that’s what happened here. Also, the characters were either poets, lawyers, musicians or brain surgeons. So, I found it kinda hard to be too bothered I guess. Apart from the squash bit though, I loved that.

Oh yeah, Carl and Nay had me round for dinner the other week too. Carl cooked for me! He did kebabs, like proper ones and top notch they were too. We chatted and watched an episode of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. Now, this is probably the best thing on TV by a mile. BUT. I still don’t really like it that much. The stand-up bits are great but the sketches are just awful, I cringe when they come on. They seem like a real afterthought, maybe an excuse to spend some budget or something. It seems to me that they’ve gone for Jam-style sketches, which I’m guessing would only really work in a programme where the whole thing is weird and not really straight-ahead funny like Jam is. They just don’t work and oddly, because of them, it feels like a bit of a trial getting through each episode.

I’ve also been to some theatre recently to see a play called Stove Pipe. I’m not experienced in the ways of theatre but I’m guessing this play was pretty unusual. You go to a shopping centre in Shepherd’s Bush and get taken to an underground car park where there’s some kind of Iraqi conference going on, of which you are a delegate. The conference has to be evacuated at which point, security lead you to another section of the car park, which is done out as a hotel bedroom, which is where the next scene is played out. It’s called Promenade Theatre, apparently. Sometimes you just view like a normal audience member and sometimes you are kind of part of the action, although not in an interactive or uncomfortable way. I loved the way the sets revealed themselves and walking round as it happened was really good fun and totally unlike anything else I’d experienced before. The acting was really good. There were only maybe 4 actors playing 2, 3 or 4 parts each and every time I totally believed they were that person, forgetting instantly about their other roles. The story, I thought, was only OK. Again, with it being about recent (or current I guess) events, I found it hard to be completely immersed in it. But it was pretty gripping and kept you hanging on, so it’s a minor complaint really. Excellent.

Whilst I was in London I also went to Jumble at The Amersham Arms again. It was a bit rubbish, to be honest. Not as busy as last time and there was no one selling records, which made me realise that these things really aren’t for boys at all. After that we went to Borough Market and had some lovely burger things and some Pimms in the sunshine. The next day, played some boules on Clapham Common. I probably won that, had we counted. Yeah. Then the next day, spent a lovely day in Battersea Park walking, climbing a tree to my own height before I got scared, rowing on the lake and see Margaret Thatcher actually in person. She was having a walk, just like us. Except for she had security and is a mass murderer. Since this event, mention of my meeting with the former leader has provoked heated debate on a number of occasions. In the evening, did a pub quiz in Clapham, which we did OK at. Came about halfway I think. It kinda swung from being impossibly hard to stupidly easy but it was a good laugh nonetheless. Actually me, Stu, Carl and Iain did another pub quiz at The Grange in Grangetown on Thursday. It was possibly THE most lo-fi, old school pub quiz ever. Just a bloke reading 50 general knowledge questions pretty much non-stop. We came last. But it wasn’t such a disgrace. We were only 7 points behind the winners and actually, coming last, we won some cheap sweets. Yes!

And then it was Easter. I don’t like Easter. All I remember about Easter from being young is, strangely, not eating easter eggs or having fun days off but my parents using the time off as time to spring clean or do rainy day jobs, for which I was often roped in. Well, I certainly remember being made to clean some brass or something one year. Also, I think maybe the time that I had to have a nurse shove a massive needle in my face for some illness I had a couple of years back over Easter has given me bad feelings towards it. However, this Easter was an excellent one. On Friday Nic Finch got married to Debbie and I was there! Well, they actually got married 2 days before but they kind of re-enacted it for us with all the boring bits taken out. Result! Instead of boring old hymns, we sung Close To You, Islands In The Stream and Loving You, which was bloomin brilliant, a great idea, really funny. Except that I’d somehow managed never to have heard Islands In The Stream before so had to kind of goldfish-mouth the whole way through. Then we had food (provided by the ace Baltic Cafe people), drinking and dancing. A really nice night. On Easter Sunday we had a special Scrabble Sunday because it kinda doubled up as Lisa’s leaving do before she moves up north and a celebration for Claire Vaughan’s birthday. This meant shitloads of cake, music provided by us and board games that aren’t Scrabble. Loads of people came and drank and played and ate and listened to John, Iain and Carl play some rubbish records and me playing some hits by artists such as Tiger and Black Box Recorder and High Llamas’ b-sides too. Think we’re gonna carry on with the additional board games too as it made everything more lively, unsurprisingly. Afterwards, managed to sneak into Gwdihw with Carl, Nay and Andy to see the end of Ashli Spillers’ top 100 records. Rounded off the weekend with an aMAZ(E)ing day of fun in, yes, Ross-On-Wye. As Anna-Marie rightly pointed out, we’d all driven from north to south Wales many times before and vowed to stop off at the sign that said “Hedge Puzzle” but never had. So now we should, she decreed. And we did. Firstly, we tackled the maze. In fact, before that we had to deal with a rather sinister man who claimed to be one of the brothers who built (planted? I dunno) the maze. He talked for about 5 minutes and I’ve literally no idea what he was on about. I think most of what he said made no sense. Whether that was intentional or not, I’ve no idea. Anyway, the maze was pretty small and took less than 10 minutes for all 15 of us to reach the middle. Still, walking around a maze in the sun can’t be too bad. Upon leaving the maze, you reach the ‘Maze Museum’. Inverted commas because I really don’t know what it was. Some kind of random collection of vaguely maze-related artefacts coupled with some decidedly dodgy maze ‘facts’. It was weird, looked like it had been made and not changed since about 1980 and was mostly hilarious. My favourite bits were the computers (from, yes, around 1980) on which you could design your own maze on a DOS-based programme that asked you questions like “By how much would you like to increase the vertiger of your syntax” or something. Anyway, whatever you did, it always produced the same crappy line-drawn maze. Oh yeah, there were letters from kids on the wall too, most of which were about how much they enjoyed the diablos, one boy even said he now practices for 3-4 hours every night. Bullshit, kid, bullshit. Then, I went and sat on the grass in the sun (with others, not on my own) whilst most people went to the butterfly zoo that they had there. I couldn’t summon enough interest to go see some butterflies, I really couldn’t. Not for money anyway. Then, we all had a massive game of crazy golf, although as Mike pointed out to me today, it was probably more like mini golf. Anyway, semantics aside, it was all good fun but frankly I was a little disappointed to have finished behind Iain Peebles as I think I played a pretty good game, was focussed throughout and played quite a few crowd-pleasers along the way too. Anyway, like I said earlier. Loser. Then we went to a pub and talked about how we would make our fortunes building applications (or ‘apps’) for the i-phone. However, I looked today and it turns out that you need to know Objective C to do this. I don’t even know what that is, so I guess I’ll just have to make my fortune another way or just get some rich lady knocked up so I can live off her funds.

26/03/09

I’m a bit bored of this now. But then, I’m a bit bored of everything right now. The last two days have bought good news. My applications for Jobseeker’s Allowance and Housing Benefit were accepted. That’s why I’m a bit bored of everything. When news like that is good, you know you’re in trouble. Will someone just give me a job, please.

I remember the weekend though, that was actually good. On Friday I made some gluten-free brownies with chunks of white chocolate in. I’m not normally a fan of rich chocolate-y things but these were mmmm tasty. On Saturday it looked warm so I took the advice of Buzz magazine and went to Cardiff Castle to get involved in the free jousting display that was on. However, I got to the castle to find out that the jousting was in June and that it cost £9. Thanks Buzz, nice one. We were all quite upset at being forced to mingle with the rugbys and so retired to the park to sit and chat and eat and drink. It was a nice time, although it was actually freezing cold. In the evening I watched an Ingmar Bergman film, The Silence. I found out that Ingmar Bergman is actually a man. I think I’d been confusing him with Ingrid Bergman. Anyway, I’d seen The Silence once before, many years ago when Channel 4 showed it as part of a banned films season they did. It was banned because one of the ladies in it has a bit of a wank. You only see her hand move beneath her skirt and then her ‘oooh’ face so it’s not like porn or anything. In fact, it’s nothing like porn. The dialogue is minimal with the film mainly made up of meaningful looks and gestures and stuff. This is what I imagine all Bergman films are like, aren’t they? Kinda bleak and serious. Anyway, The Silence is a nice looking film, it’s easy to watch, not exactly a thrill a minute but the relationship between the two sisters is played interestingly and it does its job well. Oh yeah, not sure if we made it to the end actually. The film abruptly ended, going from a shot of a boy’s face to the Film4 is shut logo with no credits or anything. Anyone know how it’s supposed to end? (note: I just read the ending on imdb and it turns out this was the correct ending).

The next day we went to Barry Island on the train from Grangetown. Had a go on the crazy golf, which looks good but is actually a bit dull. Certainly not crazy. Whilst playing saw a young fat boy get stopped from playing by his fat mother, cause she thought he was mucking about. He wasn’t though, he was being nice and having fun. I wanted to intervene to let him finish his game but she’d probably have kicked my face in. Poor fat boy. Then we went on the beach and arsed about in the sand. Again, it looked warm but was freezing. Oh yeah, had a go in Penny World but lost some pennies. Which is the idea I guess. In the evening went to Bristol to see Animal Collective at The Trinity. Before the gig we went for a rather pleasing Japanese at a place called OBento. I had a Tonkatsu Curry. Rather nice it was. Animal Collective were good and not so good. I have problems with The Trinity although I’m sure it’s improved since the last time I was there. They’ve raised the ceiling and the stage a bit so it feels a bit nicer but my main problem this time was with the sound system, which I thought was weak. For a noise like Animal Collective make, you want to feel encased by the sound, not as if it’s coming a specific point, if that makes sense. Basically, it wasn’t loud enough. Their set was pretty good on the whole. The three of them don’t really play instruments apart from the odd guitar, keyboard and drum. Instead they just seem to twiddle knobs and manipulate theirs voices and other sounds they make maybe. Kinda hard to tell. You just have to assume that what they’re doing is technically pretty impressive when really I guess they could just be pressing play and stop. There were times when they built up amazing layers of sound that were completely hypnotic but at other times, it was a bit laboured. They played Brother Sport, which is my current favourite I think so I was well pleased with that. I also think I might have a bit of a problem with a Bristol crowd. I always seem to encounter dickheads there. This time I ended up stood behind people who seemed to think they were at a rave, jumping about, hands in the air and stuff. It seemed a bit of an inappropriate response to what was often pure, beatless noise. Perhaps they were ‘on drugs’.

The next day I finished yet another book, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I really am a reading machine. I struggled with it at first, finding the made up language a bit upsetting and that I couldn’t really disassociate what I was reading from my memories of the film. As I went on though the language became much easier to read and I was able to immerse myself in it, thoroughly enjoying it in the end. Obviously being a book with a political or social point to make, I found it hard to figure out if he had any kind of moral stance on what he was writing about by the end though.

Whilst eating me dinner the next day I watched an old episode of The Old Grey Whistle Test with John Martyn, who died recently, in concert. All I knew of him really was an album, Solid Air I think it was, I’d heard years ago, which I remember being kinda similar but less interesting Nick Drake. So, I was surprised to learn how far out and experimental he was. This concert featured just him and his acoustic guitar with some ancient looking effects things. It was amazing the noise he could make by himself and to do it whilst singing like he does is quite remarkable. One funny thing was the way he was between songs. He’d play this weird, quite bleak and arty folk song then he’d make stupid voices, burp and tell daft jokes to the audience before starting another miserable and weird song. I’m sure, nowadays, bands are much more po-faced when performing this kind of art.

After that I watched A Scanner Darkly. This was recorded from V+ who’s entirely shite description said that it was a future cop film, basically. Failing to mention that it had Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey JR and Woody Harelson in, is based on a Philip K Dick story and is a film which used an animation technique whereby they filmed the whole thing and then drew over it. You think they might have mentioned some of those things. Anyway, it was really good. The animation thing makes it look brilliant. Robert Downey JR is excellent and the coats they wear are ace. The story is clever and often funny. Although, the voiceover man said the Philip K DIck story was semi-autobiographical, which seems, well, impossible.

Last night I went to see Richard Herring at St David’s Hall courtesy Of Lisa, who very kindly bought me a ticket. What a mighty, mighty good (wo)man. I’d seen the show before in Edinburgh and liked it then. So I kinda knew I’d like it again. And I did. Hurrah. It’s all about him trying to work out how he’s fucked up his life and become a dick and whether his dad being his headmaster had anything to do with it. It’s a good show with lots of laughs and it’s a bit more touching than his previous, more base shows (although I think it’s his more base stuff that makes me laugh most). However, I’ll admit there is something that nags me about him. Lisa is prevented from liking him because she thinks he actually is a dick, like he says he is. And I think maybe there’s a bit of that with me too. I dunno, I sort of get the feeling that his entire existence is just a way to get girls. It’s a strange and convoluted way to go about getting girls, admittedly but there’s a sense that, despite all the self deprecation and honest soul searching, what he’s essentially saying is “I’m a great bloke”.

20/03/09

Hi! This week has been a nice week, weather-wise. I’ve enjoyed being unemployed, with the window open and that. Still, I’d rather have a job than the continuing uncertainty of whether I’ll ever have any money ever again. Still, as my dad said this week (something along the lines of) “when you start at the bottom, I suppose you’ve got nowhere to fall”. He was trying to be nice, bless him, but got it a bit wrong.

OK, so last Friday I went to Gwdihw, a new-ish bar in Cardiff. It’s nice there. It’s a bit like going into someone’s living room but instead of being given free beers and food, you have to pay for it and mix with complete strangers. It’s nicely decorated and has some Pete Fowler arty stuff, which is all very pleasant indeed. I was there to see some music in the shape of Sweet Baboo, who played with the double bass fellow from Fredrick Stanley Star. Sweet Baboo is ace on toast. I think I may have seen one of his first gigs (certainly the only time I’ve seen him with a full band). It was at Tommy’s Bar and it was terrible. From what I remember it was as if no two members were ever playing the same song. At the time I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. There is a disclaimer on this in that I spent much of the rest of that night puking and sleeping in the toilet there so my judgement probably wasn’t at its peak. Anyway, since then I’ve grown to like Baboo more and more and, having heard his new songs, like him more than at any point previously. He has fun, whistly songs that never take themselves too seriously but at the same time are still interesting and never throwaway. With the double bass man, he was particularly good. Alex, I think is name is, is a great guy to look at. One of my favourite faces in Cardiff he has and he seems to be a born performer, jumping about and mouthing along as he plucks his, er, beautiful instrument. Really, it is a great looking double bass. Then Le B headlined, as the gig was hers for launching her new EP. She covered Karen Dalton and Galaxie 500 so massive big-ups there and it all got a bit singalong party-party at the end, which was fun. Sadly, Gwdihw was way packed for this gig so I spent most of the gig bent into awkward and painful shapes and/or moving to allow people to come by.

The next day I spent watching Hitchcock’s North By Northewest, which it turns out I’d seen quite a lot of before, although I don’t think I’d seen it the whole way through. It prompted me to think to myself “they don’t make ‘em like this any more”. They probably do but I’d just not be interested in a straight-ahead spy thriller if it came out now. And it would probably have more explosions and helicopters and tits and lorries with Carlsberg written on them in so I guess, maybe, they don’t make them like this any more. It’s pretty frickin ace for that sort of thing then.

In the evening I went to Tafod to celebrate Ewan’s birthday. Carl and sometimes Iain, Andy and Huw DJ there of a Saturday night. It’s an under-rated place to go. Well, I say that because, er, I like it because you can sit and talk and I prefer sitting and talking these days to standing and shouting. I guess if other people actually went to the place, that luxury would not be afforded me. I wish they’d turn the telly off. I often found myself gazing at (I think it was) Australian rugby league or something instead of actually being in conversations. Came home to watch Match Of The Day, as my interest in football has returned, which I can assure you is absolutely nothing to do with the return of Arsenal to some kind of form. Oh no.

The next evening I went back to Gwdihw as Casey puts on a weekly film night there called Club Foot Foot. This week he was showing Manson, a 70s documentary about the Manson Family. I had a surface knowledge of what happened and the strange cult that surrounded it but this film did quite a lot to pique my interest so that I think I’ll try and find out more. It was nuts. It all looked great, as low budget stuff from the 70s tends to do and some of the interviews were just mind-boggling, specifically the one where the woman talked about the guy who said he was gonna kill himself so her mate thought it would be good to be having sex (specifically, orgasming) whilst he pulled the trigger. This happened with the lady particularly enjoying lapping up the blood that poured from him. In fact, she said it was “groovy”. Never has such an innocuous word been applied to something quite so gruesome.

On Tuesday John ‘enjoyed’ watching me ‘enjoying’ watching Arsenal v Hull in the cup. It was one of those games that had by blood boiling from every angle. Our performance, Hull’s time-wasting, the referee, everything really. Apart from the result.

And last night. Oh, last night. I’ve got V+, see. Which means I get to record a lot more films than I’d normally bother watching. All good. Of course, it does mean that some of the films I see will be arse. The Football Factory. You may wonder why I bothered to record such a film, me being me and all. Well, I read the book (and many of John King’s other books too) some years ago and remembered liking them. I even remember defending them as not being mindless football thug books. I seem to remember that it was more concentrated on the characters than the actual fighting, which was something of a backdrop to the story. With this in mind, I thought it would definitely be interesting to see how they coped with making it into a film. I won’t lie, I had massive reservations. I know there are plenty of people, well, men, well, idiots out there who thinking there is little cooler than seeing a bunch of fat hooligans talking about “claret”, taking drugs, shagging “birds” and fighting so imagined that this film would eschew the book’s intelligence and instead focus on the fighting. From the opening credits of real footage backed with banging dance music I knew what was coming. The biggest bunch of cliched, pathetic, “oi you big billy bollocks, stick some schnozzle up me pear an’ faarrk off or i’ll open ya up, ya caaarnt” trash I’ve ever seen. Artless, brainless, witless, without morals, just utterly, utterly worthless. I imagine that Guy Ritchie makes films like this, these days. The sad thing is, I guess there are quite a few out there who thought this film cool. They were all wrong.

13/03/09

OK, I’m back ON IT. I’ve realised that there has been a fair bit of culture that I’ve taken in that, somehow, I’ve managed to forget about. The forgetting is not a comment on the culture, it’s a comment on how forgetful I am. Part of this week’s blog will clear up this forgotten culture.

Ages ago, I saw Peter Broderick play live at Clwb. To be perfectly honest all I knew of him was that he’s a member of Efterklang and the songs I’d heard on his Myspace. Now, Efterklang are a band who I struggled to find anything interesting about and his Myspace songs, probably with that pre-conceived opinion, did nowt for me either. So, I had low expectations. Maybe having low expectations is the best way to approach culture because he was fantastic. He played alone using one of them loopy machines (I don’t know what they’re called) to layer his instruments and create self-made harmonies and stuff. I always love seeing people do this. Done well it can be spectacular, and it was. Some of his songs were just little instrumental, vaguely classical pieces (I think I’m remembering rightly here) that lasted only a minute or two and some were bigger things that layered and layered and layered. It ended with him swinging one of them tube things about (dunno what they’re called either), y’know, they make a weee-ooop noise. Ace. I should mention that this gig was only partially spoilt by a Welsh lady talking through many of the songs, despite the fact that the rest of the crowd was pin-drop silent. Not being a Welsh-speaker, I couldn’t understand her but from her actions she seemed to be relating a story about her falling off of her bike in the snow. Probably not something deserving of talking over a gig that lots of other people are really enjoying. I actually told her to be quiet, which is a rarity and something that I’m rather proud that I did. She was quiet for a song or two but then started up again. Hrumph.

Talking of people talking inappropriately, I’ve remembered what I did last Saturday. I went to a lovely cinema in Clapham called The Picture House to see Slumdog Millionaire. This outing featured a middle-aged lady talking incessantly throughout. Surely everyone knows this is against the rules. Surely? It’s given me the idea that middle-aged people actually have less manners than us youngsters. But I shouldn’t tar all middle-agers with her chatty, irritating brush. I didn’t tell this woman to ssshhh, which I’m disappointed about. But there were some crucial differences but the Slumdog incident and the Broderick affair. At the gig I could look around and see that all the other people were being pissed off by snow-bike-Welsh lady so I knew, going on to ssshhh her, that I’d be backed up if she kicked up a fuss. At Slumdog, in the darkness of the cinema, I couldn’t tell if other people were irritated by her or not so feared a possible audience backlash against me, should she have got irate about it. Basically, I’ll only tell people to ssshhh if I know I’ll be treated as some kind of folk hero, once I’ve done it. Anyway, the film. It’s had so much hype and the story was so familiar to me by the time I’d seen it that I found it hard to judge it on its own merits, only against what other people had said about it. That said, I did really enjoy it, it was a good time and I did feel good afterwards. Visually, I thought that it had a lot of nice touches and ways of making you feel part of the action. But basically, it didn’t have enough of an effect on me to warrant all the praise that it had.

Another thing I’d forgotten about is that I picked up Richard Hawley‘s first album for £1 in a charity shop. As his first couple of albums seemed to sink without trace before he really got noticed, I presumed this would be a bit sub-standard. But it’s not at all. In fact, I’d say it’s the equal of Cole’s Corner, his most recognised album. Obviously, it’s on no way different to that album but that’s fine with me. It makes me think I should listen to some of the original crooners.

Last night I watched another Danny Boyle film, 28 Days Later. I started off not really liking it at all. It seemed like a really inferior, typically low quality version of a proper Zombie film, like Zombie Grange Hill or something but then, as the film went on, I realised that was a big part of it’s charm and by the end of it I loved it. There are some questionable aspects to it – some of the acting, the cliched characters (the posh army major and the cockney geezah who, at one point, I think says something like “whaddaya want, mate, a facking biscuit or someink, you facking caaaant”) and the soundtrack but the fun factor outweighed those things, even made you amused by them. It seemed to have some quite dark themes but they were all treated quite lightly, never allowed to get in the way of what was a bit of a romp.

I’ve finished a couple of books this week. The first one, The Fallen by Dave Simpson, has taken me ages to read. This was a book bought for me for Christmas by my brother. An excellent present as it was a shot in the dark, something I’d never expressed an interest in. And I was interested in it. So, well done Simon Barnett. The book follows the authors attempt to track down every former member of The Fall, what he calls The Fallen. He hopes that doing so will give him a better insight into one of Britain’s strangest and most cult bands and its leader, Mark E Smith. It didn’t really work for me I’m afraid. At first it’s interesting and you learn all about the unusual working methods of an unusual man and band. But, after a while, it just becomes repetitive, I think hence the reason it took me so long to get through. The blurb of the book promises a kind of Dave Gorman-style quest that takes over his life and that the book will weave the author’s own obsession into the story. This part of the book always seemed like an afterthought to me though. Judging by the really very sad ending (and the really very sad acknowledgements, or lack of) it really did take over his life, possibly ruin his life at that particular time. And whilst I don’t want to encourage using your misery and pain to make a book more interesting, he probably should’ve done. After that I thought I’d go for something short, which turned out to be the play of Look Back In Anger by John Osborne. I’d never read a play before so the style was a bit weird but not a problem for me. I like dialogue I guess. Didn’t like the book at first, the main character just seemed a bit ridiculous but gradually I got into it and started to see why he was like that and it became easier to read. By the end of it I really enjoyed it. Not sure I’d like to see it as a play though. It’s very bitter and angry (as the title suggests) so can imagine it a bit of a drag. But, as a document of a different, unstable period in Britain, it’s an engaging read.

Musically, I’ve been enjoying Fredo Viola. He seems to manage to combine Sigur Ros, The Beach Boys and electro. Sounds rubbish I know but he gets away with it. I’ve only heard his Myspace songs and am not sure whether it would work for a whole album or not.

10/03/09

Back again and I’ve given myself too much to remember again. The search for some kind of employment and the fear of financial ruin have kinda put paid to this blog a bit. Anyway, here goes.

The weekend before last I was back up in London to see Mary. We probably did something during the day on Saturday but I can’t remember for the life of me. I’ll probably get told off now for forgetting something really important. Maybe I’ll be reminded and then can write about it at a later date. In the evening, we went to The Lexington in Islington to the Wales Uber Alles gig. The Lexington is an ace pub in Islington with a great room for watching bands upstairs. Annoyingly I missed The Silver Gospel Runners but got there in time to see Fredrick Stanley Star, a band who, on the whole, I enjoy. I think this was the best time I’d seen them, particularly the bit at the end where the lady donned a crash helmet, which was used as percussion. I think this band should be heard more by more people. Then, Spencer McGarry Season played. They were on form, as ever, although I don’t think it’s for me, really. After that, Cate Le Bon played and, if I’m honest, I think I was bit too drunk to appreciate it so probably became one of those twats who just talked all the way through it. But I was at the back so it didn’t matter, right? After that The Joy Formidable played. I’d not seen them before but thought they were great. They made a big old noise for just 3 people. And I like a big old noise. Wasn’t too sure about the theatrics of their front lady though. Noise needs not theatrics. Then Threatmantics played. I like Threatmantics a lot but think I’ve seen them too many times and I was too drunk by then. Oh dear me. Afterwards, there was more drinking (they serve Sailor Jerry’s there – mmmm) and I foolishly lost my coat and even more foolishly made a big drama queen drama about it, crawling around the floor and such. Oops. They found it in the end, minus my hat. Ho hum.

The next day, for my birthday present from Mary, I got to go on a boat! Woop. I love going on boats. This was some kinda lifeboat style thing that goes REALLY FAST (like, 60mph) up the Thames from Embankment to the Thames Barrier and back. The driver made it go up and on its side and stuff. Sometimes a man gave interesting facts about buildings and sometimes they played James Bond music. I was quite scared a lot of the time and did spend a bit too long contemplating what would happen if something went wrong. How long would I survive in the water? Would I be able to swim in the water? Would I have to save that small boy over there? What if the boat hits my head as we go out of control? Then, surely, I’ll pass out and just sink to the bottom of the river, a dead not-quite 32 year old. Anyway, I’ve also typed too much about it now too. It was bloody great.

Back at home the next day, I settled down to watch The Big Sleep, another classic film noir. I know that film noirs are supposed to be confusing and that you’re supposed to feel the confusion that the main protagonist usually feels but crikey, I found it bloomin impossible to get head or tail of what was going on here. I was a bit sleepy, which didn’t help, but on the whole, I just found this a bit of a trial. Which is a shame because there’s so much that I love about these films.

The next day I became 32. I celebrated in the evening by going to The Halfway in Pontcanna, drinking some pints of lager and playing skittles. Sadly, Tomos got a lucky break and won but if I’d have won, I’d probably accused everyone of letting me win because of the occasion. So really, I felt better losing. So, stick you Tomos! I got a selection of great cards, Leah brought along a homemade cake, which was flippin lovely and prompted an amusing health and safety argument between Carl Morris and the landlord, who wouldn’t give us a knife to cut it, presumably because we might have knifed each other to death and then sued them for it. They also gave me a bunch of money to spend on a posh hotel for the weekend in Bath that I’ve got coming up. Oh yeah, and Leah made me an ace book of fun stuff to do in Bath. Woopteewoop, thanks friendios.

The next evening, I popped out to the hilariously decorated but vastly improved (for live music) Buffalo to see Wavves and Pens. Pens were, like, 3 stupidly young girls who played rudimentary, lo-fi pop. I’m sure some people will praise their ramshackle charm and youthful exuberance but I found myself almost completely indifferent to them. Wavves, however, just bored me. What I’d heard on Myspace I liked but live, they came across like a sixth form band with no talent and no songs and on stage, they were completely unengaging. There seems to be a lot of this sort of thing about at the moment and I don’t like it. So far, the only band I’ve heard who do this sort of noisy, lo-fi thing well is Times New Viking, who rule. Oh yeah, I should mention the things about Buffalo that make me laugh. Firstly, the enormous ‘What The Fuck?’ neon sign. Christ. It’s like, yeah?, we’ve got a sign, yeah?, that says fuck, yeah?, like, in lights? Secondly, the posters of ‘cool’ bands. Thirdly, they have a night called ‘Fuck London’. Yeah! Fuck London, man. I hate London. I wonder if there are any nights in London called Fuck Cardiff? I also saw one night that promised “scenesters”. What IS that? Do I pay extra for scenesters? Redeemingly, they do have a ska night called Ska-diff though. Fair play.

Onto this weekend now. Back up to London again, this time for Scrabble Saturday, which me and Lisa were doing at The Amersham Arms in New Cross, as part of a thing called Jumble. The Amersham Arms is a nice big pub and Jumble is like a jumble sale, market type thing that sold clothes, cakes, records, shoes and trinkets. It was pretty cool. Really nice atmosphere, mostly nice people and lots of stuff to look at. I also bought a huge stack of vinyl. For £32 I got Double Nickels On The Dime by Minutemen, a comp called Lowdown Memphis Barrelhouse Blues, Q: Are We Not Men? by Devo, a copy of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s and Revolver, a comp called Mean Mother: Independent Women’s Blues Vol1, and another called Cap’n You’re So Mean, Negro Songs Of Protest, Kick Out The Jams by MC5, Record 1 by Big Star (I think this might be worth a bit actually), Movin With Nancy by Nancy Sinatra, an LP version of Echo Dek by Primal Scream, Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones (with the actual zippy zip cover), a mini-LP possibly called Pee Pee The Sailor by Butthole surfers and a compilation called Kill Rock Stars. Phew. We weren’t in the easiest of locations for Scrabble but we left a load of boards in the pub and people just took them and started playing so that was cool. There is potential to do it properly there so it might be something we do again. The next day we drove back to do Scrabble Sunday for the first time at our new venue of Tafarn, which is in NosDa, which is the same as Tafod, which is in The Riverbank Hotel. They should just give the place one name. It’s really nice in there and they do good food. I like.

Last night I watched the best film I’ve seen in yonks. Thriller In Manila is a documentary about the third and final fight between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier. I’d always seen Ali as some kind of hero despite only having a surface knowledge of his life so this film, presented mostly from Frazier’s side, was something of a shock. But the events that took place were truly staggering, the characters involved amazing and the recriminations that still exist as a result of it, incredible. I just couldn’t and can’t believe some of the things that were said and done. It was moving, emotional stuff and parts of it had me welling up. Sport and old people are two things that make me well up so combined, it was lethal. Even if you’re not into boxing at all, I’d still recommend watching this. Bloody brilliant.

27/02/09

I’ve given myself a lot of culture to remember again so not sure if I’ve remembered it all. Speaking of which, for the sake of completeness, I should say that the other week I watched The Magdalene Sisters, a watchable but not particularly thrilling film about some girls in Ireland who get treated rather badly by some nasty nuns.

Recently I’ve been watching a lot of Masterchef. It’s bloody hilarious. Especially the bald man who has to SHOUT EVERYTHING. Usually he just shouts about SEASONING. It’s possibly the most over the top TV programme I’ve ever seen. Also I’ve found that watching it whilst doing nothing else and on your own is tedious. It seems that to really enjoy it you need to be with others or doing something else whilst occasionally looking at it. I hope that the Kiwi guy, Matt, wins. He seems nice.

Musically, Spotify has changed my life! If you don’t know already, Spotify is an application that has bazillions of albums that you can stream in good quality and only interrupted by a few pesky adverts (unless you pay). They have a surprisingly large catalogue of music including really new stuff too. So, for me, I’ve managed to listen to loads of old stuff I’ve really wanted to hear for ages and to find out about bands I really ought to know about but don’t. Oddly, most things I’ve heard have disappointed me a bit. But that’s probably because I’ve been wanting to hear them for so long that they could never really meet my hopes. I’ve struggled with The Fall and Tom Waits and there’s a whole bunch of other stuff that I’ve forgotten too. But personally I view listening to music you don’t like just as valuable as listening to good stuff. It’s just not as fun.

Films I’ve seen this week are all ones I’ve seen before apart from Thank You For Smoking, a satire on the tobacco industry, which I’d advise you to not bother with. It was unbearably smug and came across like some kind of knowing, clever-clever (except it’s not really clever) US sitcoms. Not funny or interesting in any way. I also watched Chinatown, an excellent film noir with Jack Nicholson and Annie Hall, which wasn’t as good as I remember from when I saw it the first time. In fact, I even found myself getting a bit annoyed with Woody Allen’s neurosis.

On the weekend I went to The Drones comedy club at Chapter Arts Centre for the first time. I find comedy quite difficult to watch at the best of times so was quite nervous about this being a local, up and coming affair and it being a Hunter S Thompson night to celebrate the anniversary of his death. I thought this could lead to some unnecessary cheesiness. It didn’t, fortunately but I still found it quite hard going. I did quite enjoy the little fella who looked like a girl called Jared though.

On Saturday I went to an art/science/gig thing called 24 Fragments at The Millenium Stadium. The idea was that 24 gigs would take place at various locations across Britain over 24 hours and that each venue would be linked, sound-wise with fragments of sound bouncing between venues, affecting the sound that gets bounced on. Or something. It was supposed to mimic the way that the human brain processes sound. Sweet Baboo and Threatmantics played acoustic sets in a section of seats with about 100 of us watching. It was nice to see them and really weird to be at a tiny gig in a massive, empty stadium. Actually, that reminds me, I’ve heard a lot of Sweet Baboo’s 2nd record this week, mainly courtesy of driving around in Lisa’s car, which has it constantly in the stereo. It’s ace. The best collection of songs that I’ve heard him do. I hope it does well.

This week, a few of us went to The Croft in Bristol to see Spectrum, the band featuring Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3. If you know me well, you’ll know that I love most things connected to Spacemen 3, Spacemen 3 offshoot bands and sometimes even Spacemen 3 offshoot offshoot bands (that didn’t extend to Lupine Howl but it did to Dakota Suite and Triumph 2000, bands I’m mentioning only so that I can tag Elliot Reuben here because, much to my excitement, it turns out he was ACTUALLY IN these bands, AND I MET HIM). Anyway, Sonic promised a set with Spacemen 3 songs in so it was quite exciting and I’ve not seen him with a band for over a decade now. His band were all roughly 20 years younger than him and seemed a bit green, especially as Sonic seemed to be telling them what to do as they went along. My favourite part of the set was when I looked up to see Sonic mouth “Just keep going” to the guitarist, as if there were any other instruction needed when you’re playing with Sonic Boom. It’s quite repetitive, see. In total, I think they played four Sonic originals, plus covers of Mudhoney and The Red Krayola songs. It was bloody brilliant, a whole load better than seeing Spiritualized is these days. Sonic is a man who has stayed true to the drone and the less is more maxim. Christ, I’m fairly sure he played no more than two chords. They encored with a 20-minute version of the traditional Spacemen 3 set-closer, Suicide, which culminated in the band leaving the stage to let a wall of feedback ring out for 5 minutes, during which a crusty man placed his nose on the speaker at the front and didn’t move a muscle the entire time. I’m guessing his ears are still ringing now.

I should also mention the support bands.Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the lady who opened because she was really good. She had a violin and built up enormous, scrapy walls of juddery noise. She kind of ruined it by playing a proper song at the end though, which was a shame. The other support were Fuzz Against Junk, a band I’d heard of but knew nothing about. There were seven of them and, taking the stage, they looked like they had the potential to be appalling, mainly because they were all middle-aged crusties. As an aside, it was interesting to note that they had a 1:1 glasses ration, which, Blind Boys of Alabama aside, would surely put them up there among the worst sighted bands in history. I guess that would explain the dreads, hats and facial hair on show. Anyway, they started and their first 2 songs were brilliant. Kinda heavy psychedelic noise with big fat, Krauty grooves and a loud triangle presence (I’m ignoring the lead Sax on the first song, which was what I was mostly trying to do at the time too). Then they immediately turned into the band that they looked like and starting laying appalling, riffy blues rock with a man growling “SEXY LAAADY” quite a lot. Laughable.

17/02/09

I’ve not been slack, I’ve just been away. Which means that I have a lot of culture to catch up on.

Last Sunday I popped up to London originally intending to stay for a couple of days. However, I ended up staying for a whole week. On the Sunday, I met my brother at The Effra pub in Brixton to watch Arsenal draw 0-0 with Spurs due to an incorrect decision made by the ref to rule out a perfectly valid Arsenal goal and the sheer idiocy of Emmanuel Eboue, who it seems is doing everything he can to elevate himself to the status of one of the worst Arsenal players in history. I’m already mentioning him in the same breath as Gus Ceasar and Eddie McGoldrick. After that, we went back to my brother’s and I played on a Wii for the first time. I thought I’d hate it but it was good, although, as with most computer games, I was predictably shit.

At some point too I finished reading On Chesil Beach by Iain McEwan. I’ve read some ace books this year but I think this one tops them. The ‘action’ takes place over an hour or two on the wedding night of a couple married in the late 50s. There’s very little actual dialogue, mostly just the two main characters’ thoughts. So it’s not really anything like anything else I’ve read before. This, and the fact that it was so tense and so engaging, I think is amazing. It was completely absorbing and I’d have said it was perfect if it wasn’t for the last chapter, which seemed completely unnecessary and jolted really badly with the rest of the book. The use of the phrase “Internet shopping” was particularly upsetting. But really, all things considered, this is a minor gripe. I must read more of his books.

In the evening I watched a programme called Undercover Princes, which was hilarious although quite obviously shit. Glad I watched it but won’t be doing so again. Also, they subtitled the men speaking when it was really very clear exactly what they were saying. Just because it was spoken with an African or an Indian accent doesn’t mean my ears can’t take it. I suspect the person who made these decisions is the sort of person who refuses to deal with people in Indian call centres, because ‘they can’t understand them’.

On Monday, went to Battersea Arts Centre, mainly because Lisa was doing her storytelling thing there as part of a 4 day event curated by the comedian, Josie Long. We saw a thing called Storytelling Club, which involves a compere and four comedians, yep, telling stories. Essentially, it was just stand-up. Actually, it’s the way I believe stand-up should be or the way stand-up is at it’s best (more of this later). Funny stories. I can’t remember who played or who was good but the whole experience was pleasant and amusing. After this, we went and recorded a, erm, story with Lisa, although I’m fairly sure it was just me waffling and giggling and not really saying anything of consequence. Like this blog. And then I drew a picture of an avocado on a display because it asked me to draw the best thing I’d seen that day. I’d had a bad day and the avocado was a treat and tasted incredible. I love avocados.

The next night, we watched the film Sophie’s Choice, a film that won a lot of awards back in the day. I found it to be watchable fare, but completely unfocussed. I couldn’t really work out what the main story was and the whole thing just seemed a bit of a mess at times. However, Meryl Streep is amazing in it. Well done Meryl.

Went back to Battersea Arts centre another day. This time we didn’t see an actual performance but it was still brilliant! Firstly, we discovered a hidden room in a basement with loads of crazy stuff in. Then I learnt how to knit. It’s completely impossible and I cocked it up about a million times. Then, we made a physical representation of a tube station name out of felt and fabric and stuff. I went for Burnt Oak and made a rather pleasing tree on fire. Although as a rather overly critical man did point out, the picture I’d made was really Burning Oak. I drew a picture of my own face, flew a paper plane, discovered another hidden room and played and lost at Battleships.

On Friday, we tried to go and see the exhibition at Tate Britain but misread the website and got there too late. So, instead we went for a walk by the river to the Houses Of Common and down to the Tate Modern. Had a nice time there. Favourite thing I saw was a bunch of Soviet Communism posters. I liked their style, even if their politic system did go a bit wrong. Due to a lack of dvd player, earlier on we went to some charity shops and bought some videos. For £1 we got a Croatian film called Black Cat White Cat and Derek And Clive Get The Horn. £1! VHS is the way forward, I’m tellin’ ya’. Black Cat White Cat was a fun, throwaway tale about, well, a bunch of stuff really. Er, a tall guy marrying a small woman, some gangsters, a loser type bloke with a moustache, a young chap who wants to marry a girl but gets married off, some messed up weddings and some dead old men who get frozen to stop them going off. It was fun. Derek And Clive Get The Horn is a film documenting Peter Cook and Dudley Moore record some sketches for some ultra-offensive records they made in the late 70s. Didn’t watch it all but I’ve heard most of it before. It can still make you laugh like a drain but there are bits that are a bit uncomfortable and there were long periods with no laughs at all.

The next day, we went to the Wellcome Collection to see their War & Medicine exhibition. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that excited by the prospect of it but it was really good. There was a lot of grim stuff to look at and some really interesting bits to read. I particularly enjoyed the British 70s information film on what to do in a nuclear attack. It was frightening in a weird, cartoony way. Afterwards, we went to The Lexington to see some bands. The night was curated by Fanfarlo and to be honest, they were the only band worth talking about. Dunno who the others were but none of them did anything for me. However, Fanfarlo were excellent, even if they’ve clearly been listening to a lot of Arcade Fire over the last few years.

The next day went for food at a place called Lost Society in Clapham. Really nice building with loads of different spaces. I had a chicken roast, which was pretty nice considering roasts from pubs are usually a bit guff. Best of all though was the cocktail I had, something involving Sailor Jerry’s, strawberries and mint. Mmmm. Afterwards, we went to see some comedians I’d never heard of at The Exhibit in Balham. Now, my advice is DO NOT go to The Exhibit in Balham and definitely DO NOT go there to see comedy. Firstly, the beer there stank. It was watery nonsense. Even the wine tasted watered down. Surely people don’t water down wine? The comedy. Oh. My. Good. Lord. There were about 8 comedians and they ranged from shit to fucking awful to tedious to inexplicable. So, so bad. It’s weird when you see something like that. You end up drawing positives in places that would usually be a negative. I mean, the compere was OK. You know, he didn’t make me want to curl up and die when he was on. And ONE of the comedians had a passable level of professionalism to his act, even if all of his jokes centred around the seemingly hilarious notion that he was black and the audience were all white. Elsewhere, there was a man who talked at 1000 miles an hour, which was incredible to watch. He’s obviously got a real talent. However, he’d forgotten to actually add any vaguely funny lines into his act. Another woman just waffled inanely about her cat to the point that I just couldn’t care enough to concentrate on her stupid words and the final man just seemed to come and say some stuff he’d done lately. I really couldn’t tell if it was meant to be funny or not. Oh, and another man thought that if he told stories placing him masturbating in unusual places, that would be enough to have us all chuckling into our watery pints. Sadly, for some of the fucknuts in the audience, this was true. Not for me though.