Lists End

So time to squeeze in one more set of top tens before the year end. And the subject is... music.

Last year it was albums, gigs and singles but I haven't really bought any singles this year so it's just albums and gigs this time.

A quick scan down the list of favourite albums reveals 1) I haven't bought much music this year and 2) banjos are in but I still rate the noisy stuff:

1. Shearwater: Palo Santo
2. The Broken Family Band: Balls
3. Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam
4. The Innocence Mission: Birds Of My Neighbourhood
5. Micah P. Hinson: Micah P Hinson & The Opera Circuit
6. Seth Lakeman: Freedom Fields
7. Muse: Black Holes And Revelations
8. Four Day Hombre: Experiments In Living
9. Neil Young: Living With War
10. The Flaming Lips: At War With The Mystics

A quick scan of the gigs reveals that 1) I've only been to 9 gigs this year and 2) I really hated on of them:

1. Zappa Plays Zappa @ The Albert Hall
2. Micah P Hinson @ ULU
3. The Broken Family Band @ The Scala
4. Hope Of The States @ Koko
5. Last Man Standing @ Madame JoJos
6. Seth Lakeman @ The Scala
7. Four Day Hombre @ The Barfly
8. Hellwood @ The Mean Fiddler
9. Sun O))) @ The Islington Academy (I actually hated this gig and left but it's been the only other one I've seen this year)

What gigs and records did you like this year readers?

Tunes:Steven Moshi's Christmas Compilation

Me, Two Years and A Pair Of Running Shoes

The image on the top is from our work intranet and was taken of me in November 2004 when I joined BMC. The image on the bottom was updated in November of this year after someone couldn't find me using the original.

It's not like me to want to show anything of myself (least of all that top one which makes me grimace) but I've been pounding pavements at 6am most mornings since March of this year and I'm really quite proud of me.





Tunes: Tilly And The Wall: Bottoms of Barrels

Well It Made Me Laugh

As the man said, when marketing gets it right

The Year Endeth, The Lists Begineth

I can't sleep.

Every year my old school buddy, Erum, and I swap our top ten movies of the year in time honoured movie geek style. And so the time is upon us to perform this ancient ritual once again.

Unlike previous years I haven't kept any particular record of what I've seen in 2006 so I had to do a bit of research into what's come out. In doing that I realised that there have been a few movies that might have made it on to the list had I seen them, but for numerous reasons, none of them good, they've waylaid me somewhere along the line. For the record then here are the top ten movies I've missed this year in order of wanting to have seen them:

1. Little Miss Sunshine
2. United 93
3. Snakes On A Plane
   
4. Capote
5. Casino Royale
   
6. Volver,
   
7. The Prestige
8. Syriana,
   
9. Good Night And Good Luck
10. Clerks 2

Most years we also try to pick only movies we've seen at the cinema but if that were the case X-Men 3 would make it onto the list by default and that would be a BAD thing. So I'm having to pick in a post-modern stylee from all forms of media.

Of the 32 odd movies from this year that I've figured out I've seen 7 were sequels and 2 were remakes and one was The Break Up. That probably says more about the kind of shit I'm prepared to sit through than anything. The list is basically the movies I've enjoyed the most. What makes a movie I enjoy is a questionable blend of being either very good, very odd or very very bad. But not X-Men 3 bad or Pirates 2 bad. They share a unique badness usually associated with plagues, sores, boils and magot infested genitalia.

So here goes, the winners are:

1. Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (sheer class in every aspect)
   
2. The Proposition (as above but with facial hair and much slower)
   
3. V For Vendetta (they blow up parliament - that's a good thing)
   
4. Lucky Number Slevin (wildly entertaining hocum)
   
5. Fearless (peace and love and shit kicking)
   
6. Stranger Than Fiction (I really do like Will Ferrell in this)
   
7. A Scanner Darkly (if you've read the book)
   
8. Saw 3 (because it follows a hideous path to the bitter end)
   
9. Final Destination 3 (for the nail gun bit)
   
10. Superman Returns (but only the first two hours, the last bit resides in the disappointments pile)
    

And you can keep your complaints to yourselves or post your own lists on the comments thingy. These are my choices and therefore highly questionable in their own right. And I should know, I have a degree in this crap.

Honourable mentions go to:

1. Shortbus (for being wonderfully weird)
2. Silent Hill (for not sucking as much as I thought it would)
3. Slither (for all the glorious, gooey mess - I could also have said that about Shortbus)
   

Disappointments (i.e should have been good but were actually a bit shit) are:

1. Cache (where was the big deal huh?)
   
2. Munich (it was just DULL)
   
3. The New World (The Thin Red Line only tedious and with pantaloons)

And last but not least the worst. Not as in so bad they're good but as in so bad I'd rather eat my own vomit encrusted shit than ever have to endure them again, let alone admit to any of you lot that I've seen them in the first place. So let's carve up a crusty one:

1. Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 [whatever the bit in brackets is] (how to turn an average idea from a good movie into a stinking dungheap of mediocrity. No FUCKING EXCUSES after such a good lead in)
2. The Omen (what's with the sickly antichrist, that kid couldn't take over a paper run let alone the world, all those concerned in making it will be spending some time in hell, those who watched it already have)
3. Broken Flowers (except for the hot naked lady it was about as interesting as watching paint dry and I've become quite an authority on that subject this year)
4. X-Men 3 (wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG. HOW COULD YOU, YOU USELESS MOTHERFUCKERS????????????? YOU HAD IT ALL. YOU HAD IT ALL AND YOU WENT AND PISSED IT UP THE WALL. AAARRRRRGGHHHHHHH.....)
5. The Break Up (would have been better had it ended like War of the Roses with both of them DEAD)
6. The last half an hour of Superman Returns (so, like, stop when the movie gets REALLY FUCKING BORING)
7. Aeon Flux (I don't even think I would have enjoyed this when I was 14)
8. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (utterly loathsome self-indulgent garbage)
9. Underworld 2 (please stop making this crap, it's not big, it's not good and it's sure as fuck not clever)
10. The Hills Have Eyes (I was beginning to wish the cannibals had got to me)

Anything else was either just ok (like Deja Vu) or I just can't remember.

Night folks, and sorry about all the swearing.

Merry Christmas

From me, Clint, the angel James, the baby Lars, and the other two

Tunes: The Shins: Wincing The Night Away

Gone?

Going...

Going...

It's Been One Of Those Beautiful Winter Days

The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

I've said it before and I'll say it again, don't fuck with mother nature.

Usually the top step lies flush with dry land - that'll be the concrete bit at the bottom of the picture. It took half an hour to get from usually to when I took the picture. That's a whole lot of water came floating past.

A few days ago I watched the mud churned murky brown water tumble and eddy around Chuffy's prow. It was mesmerising watching the power of the flow as it cascaded past, almost terrifying. I'm enjoying watching the gulls go skimming past on the surface, looking slightly confused at their unplanned progress back down towards the lock.



Tunes: Explosions In The Sky: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

Spooky Alien Writing

I won't bore you all with the tortuous tale of what it took to get my old hard drive put in Mook's old Powerbook - complete with spooky alien screen writing - but to cut a long story short the bastards erased my hard drive. Everything. The lot.

Fuckers.

Still, every cloud and all that, at least I have a nice clean hard drive from which to start afresh. The good news for anyone who's emailed of late and not heard back is that I'm back on email again and I'm ready to start ploughing through the 300 + messages that are currently sitting in my inbox.

Life's been a little crazy of late but in a good way.


Tunes: And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead: World's Apart

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

I watched Jaws last weekend and dreamed of sharks.

That's a little fucked up when you live on a boat.

I also saw a sighted person bump into a blind guy at Waterloo.

That tickled me.

Tunes: Luna: Rendezvous

Will It All Be Better In A Year?

So I had this idea for a movie recently. Set in the near future the world has been devastated by religious conflict, millions of people are dying in an unending succession of wars and terrorist attacks on all sides. The sons of Abraham are lined up along some Middle Eastern desert facing each other with their arsenals of global annihilation. This is the last battle of mankind: Christians, Muslims, Jews all waiting to stamp their mark upon the last page of the history book. Not even Bruce Willis and an Aerosmith soundtrack is going to save the world this time.

And then just as the whistle is about to blow on 200 000 odd years of unruly homo sapien behaviour a trumpet sounds from the hills and out of the sunrise an army of Buddhist monks charge down to twat the living shit out of the war machines and teach the fleeing armies a lesson in arsekicking in the name of peace. We all live happily ever after.

It's kind of Fearless meets All Quiet On The Western Front with possibly just a touch of Dodgeball thrown in for the kids. Could work, I dunno, whadda ya think?


Tunes: Tapes N Tapes: The Loon

What The World Needs Now, Are Some New Words Of Wisdom... Like La La La La La La La La La

I've had a couple of gentle digs this week about my sudden slide off field this year. And fair play too. So I'll say this as a parting shot on the proceedings. Sometimes I guess you have to crawl alone through the dark places to get to the better ones beyond. You have to defeat the demons and ogres first before you can earn the right to kiss the princess and find the treasure.

Tunes: Cracker: Garage D'or

The Horror... The Horror

And there's more here


Tunes: The Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience

Stolen Moments And Tender Kisses

First fire of winter: watching the kindling catch and the flames dance again for the first time in almost eight months. Slowly the coal softens into glowing embers as pine cones burn white hot and smoke crawls from the chimney into the night sky.


Tunes: The Flamin' Groovies: Groovies Greatest Grooves

Bring Me The Hydro Spanners

It has been the most beautiful day today. One of those days that was made for lounging around on boats; hazy autumn sunshine cutting through the slow thermometer slide into winter, the clatter of gull cries and a warming stillness, almost as if the land is yawning, getting ready to take a little afternoon nap for a few months. So what better day to go crawling around Chuffy's hatches, doing a little sealing, a little cleaning and tidying and getting covered in grease and oil and general unidentifiable ooze.

I'll probably regret saying this because it's an uber geek admission, but you know how guys of a certain generation have this thing for Princess Leia in the bronze bikini? Well, it's not that I don't, but I always went for the: "My hands are dirty", "My hands are dirty too..." moment.

Today my hands got very dirty.

So I washed them.


Tunes: Secret Machines: Girl From The North Country

Happy Hampers

It's been a weird old day. This morning I sat in a room listening to two people talk about being physically and sexually abused as children, wondering what fucked up gene it is that makes us act more like people and less like human beings and why someone can't give someone else a grant to find it and stamp it out. Then hours later I was creased up with uncontrollable laughter, eyes streaming, gut aching, rocking back and forth consumed by that self feeding, almost primal, loss of control. It's such a wonderfully contradictory feeling to be so helpless and yet feeling so good at the same time; the ultimate expression being 'I laughed so hard I pissed myself', something I've come close to but never yet reached that damp patch plateau of hysteria. I talked to someone down here once who said they'd never laughed like that. How can a world where someone can say that they've never laughed till it hurt call itself in any way a decent place to live? To me that's just seriously fucked up. I won't bother you with the story of why I ended up like that, it's all complete lack of social graces, period pain, the search for ibruprofen, some to die for expressions and a bagful of horse-tranquilizer strength pain-killers. Wouldn't come across well at all.

This has been one of those weeks where I've felt like I'm in a Simms game being played by some particularly mischievous Greek Gods. Here I am trying to live this peaceful life by the river and nothing is really going quite to plan. It's like having a micro-managed head-fuck. At the end of it all I was expecting to wake up this morning feeling, if I may purloin the phrase please 'a little basket case'. And all day I'm walking around like the Dalai Lama. Right there in the eye of the storm I found the calm I'd been looking to get back all summer. I've just been pondering what to say next, so you could put a long pause in there if you wanted for extra realism, and I think that what it boils down to is that for a whole ton of reasons, some of which may seem to the more rational of you, completely insane, I'm just feeling totally at peace with myself. Just wanted to share that with you really.

And the plan sucked.

Tunes: Eels: Blinking Lights And Other Revelations

Pram Devoid Of Toys

The last thing I wanted to do on a day I was off sick (even though I made it as far as Waterloo before biology got the better of me) looking and feeling as grey as my t-shirt was to spend the evening hand-pumping the back bilges again (for reasons as yet to be ascertained although likely to be related to the huge volume of water that's currently flowing past at speed). So the last thing I did on a day I was off sick (even though I made it as far as Waterloo before biology got the better of me) looking and feeling as grey as my t-shirt was to spend the evening hand-pumping the back bilges again (for reasons as yet to be ascertained although likely to be related to the huge volume of water that's currently flowing past at speed).

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

At least I have all those wonderful delays after the Waterloo derailment to look forward to. I need to beat this morning's personal best of a 1hr 15 train journey on a 40 minute route.

Tip of the day: If you have one of those window scrapers that takes a Stanley blade, don't put a new blade in by pushing it down into the holder using the end of your finger.




Tunes: Elbow: Cast Of Thousands

The Booze And The Drugs

Various things I've missed mentioning recently (in no particular order):

• Watching Rog extract a fish hook from a somewhat indignant swan's beak (and not getting too wet in the process).
• Having payroll screw up my pay this month.
• The sale sign in a Kingston shoe shop that said 'buy one, get one free'.
• Things calming down on the home battlefront.
• Not getting rained on.
• Wondering when to start the fire up.
• Awesome fog rolling down the river.
  
• The episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Peter Boyle refers to a German Shepherd that used to terrorise him as a child as Ilsa the She Wolf. No possible reference to the somewhat notorious movie: Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS then. Not on a US family prime time sitcom surely?
• Listening to an ex member of Bucks Fizz sing blues standards on the pontoon outside accompanied by the sax player from Spandau Ballet on acoustic guitar. Actually, that was really fucking weird. Had to put my headphones on to watch telly though.
• Recommending The Proposition if you haven't seen it.
• Getting half a team back and still being too busy to blink.
• Finding out that two of the men who died when their yacht was hit by a P&O ferry were at school with me. One of them even lived in Tooting the same time I did.
  
• Being played what purported to be a phone call from the second of the Twin Towers just as it fell - probably the single most terrifying and upsetting thing I've yet heard.
• The best album review I've ever seen
  
• Getting out to a couple of great gigs again and really enjoying the company.

I'm sure I've forgotten loads more but there's probably a good reason for that...

Tunes: The Broken Family Band: Balls

Nighty Night Campers

Anyone who's spent any time curled up on Chuffy's big sofa will know that it has strange and wonderful relaxing powers. Nothing, I hasten to add, to do with my company I'm sure! Those of you who are fans of snoozing on my sofa will be glad to know that it now has a spanking new cut to fit matress and seat covers; courtesy of my most excellent folks. How comfortable is it now? Well it took some gargantuan effort to climb off it and write this.

I like to watch how people negotiate the sofa. There's no earthly way you can really sit on it properly. You sit down, lean back slightly and realise that the back's about a foot and a half away. So if you try and sit properly you're forced to perch rather straight backed and uncomfortably on the edge. The only way to do it is to kick your shoes off, and curl up in one of the corners with your legs tucked under you. But that's not what you get taught to do when you visit someone's place, at least not until you've been round a few times and sampled their cooking. But there are some who seem to imperceptibly understand the way it's meant to be and just curl up anyway without waiting for an official nod. I don't get offended either way, I just find it kind of fascinating. Oh, and by the way. Next time I see you down my way, I expect instant slobbery. And I won't be offended if you fall asleep. Chuffy just does that to people. And you wonder why I never get out much...

They Say That Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

Well, that and poverty. Do you like my nice new shiny rain cowl. That's the silver dome thing in the foreground. The chimney stack is behind. The idea is that underneath each of those cowls is an air vent. Now some of them are a little broken. So what happens is that the rain falls through the holes that let the air through and gradually seeps down through the broken bits, through the roof and on to me! So I thought it might be a good idea to find some cowls to sit over them. What I ended up with, and what you see there is a 99p mixing bowl from Wilkos scilicone sealed to a block of 4x2 and then sealed again to the top of the vent.

It works...


What you see above is not an air vent. It's the inside of the boat, between the curve of the roof and the ceiling, specifically here, in the back bedroom. Those red, white and black things are, as you've probably guessed electric cables. That dark watery looking mess underneath them is indeed water. By now you've all got that water / wires = bad thing going on. The reason I knew this was there because the water carried on past the wires, through the ceiling and down on to the bed below. And it did this at various points along the walls.

The great thing about the kind of heavy rain we had on Saturday, i.e. the kind of rain that's so heavy it wakes you up with a start at 6am, is that it does tend to point out where the leaks are. 6 in total. Suddenly Chuffy had become some bizarre, warming Kafkaesque instrument of Chinese water torture. I'll admit to a bit of swearing and shouting and strop throwing but why not, it's what you do when it rains on the inside.

Probably foolish of me to think that I might get a weekend off. So instead I'm jumping between rain burst with a roll of kitchen towel and a tube of scilicone sealant and if you think that sounds rude, you should have been there. In between the dry bits I was unscrewing bits of ceiling to chase the drips. Do I have them all? Almost, there's one in the bathroom I haven't located yet but that could just be the taps. Shit, that's not good either. Have I been successful? No idea, I'm still at work. I'll know in about an hour and a half when I get home.


Tunes: Mercury Rev: Stillness Breathes (1991 - 2006)

Something In The Air

Rain mostly, and quite a bit of it too.

Summer turned to Autumn, the sunshine turned to rain and my head turned to jelly as I spent four hours on Sunday hunkered over a tin of yacht varnish. And very nice stuff it was too. So that's one more weekend working pretty much every available hour of daylight and packing up in the dark. And it looks like it's the last one now. Sure, there's still a few bits and pieces to finish, a couple more coats of varnish, the odd patch of paint, a line of scilicone and a smearing of filler here and there but we're pretty much done.

The air is turning, the sun dropping lower. The trees are beginning to turn brown and there's a flutter of migrational energy in some of the bird life - the geese are practicing their formation low flying again, skimming the roof tops in a glorious cacophony of death-metal honking. It's not yet cold but the heat is slowly draining from the days. Sure we have some beautiful golden sunshine ahead but the land is taking it's slow path into winter and it's time to start reaping in the efforts of the year passed. For me, I guess that means hopefully having a dry winter, keeping the covers off maybe for once, and laying back in my beautiful home. For the next few months, bar the odd weekend, I can turn my attentions to a little p&d inside and maybe a touch of entertaining before the fire comes on and we all do the bear thing until March. So I guess it seems appropriate that I laid my last major brush stroke down on the first day of the season.

I guess it's been nigh on two months of pretty solid work outside now. 7 cans of paint, 1 (so far) of varnish, 4 tubes of sealant, 3 tubs of filler, enough sandpaper to line the walls of a decent sized room, blood, sweat and perhaps the occasional tear.

I do still need to get some more timber though...

I'm So Tired Of Being Tired

But I guess that's why they call it work...


Tunes: Tom Petty: Wildflowers

I Was Always Told Not To Pick At Things

Don't worry folks, it's all fixed now...

And I Feel Fine...

This weekend I have been mostly...

• breathing in the fumes from: boat paint / glass fibre based resin filler / wood filler / heavy duty multi-purpose filler / silicone sealant
• breathing in the dust from sanding the above
• removing the rest of the skin from the fingers on my right hand
• working every hour of daylight that God sends
  

That'll explain why I'm so damn tired all the time.



Tunes: R.E.M.: The Best Of The I.R.S. Years (1982 - 1987)

Sorted...

One of today's few pleasures was getting home, crossing the car park and seeing Chuffy in her new splendour. The last four days have been pretty full on and hard graft but also four of the most pleasurable days I have spent on the mooring this year.

Chuffy was last painted just before I moved on and she'd never been quite finished; there was always that pesky red stripe left undone. I had meant to paint her properly last year but it never happened. So from the moment the sun first broke through this year my thoughts turned to painting boats. There were times when I thought I'd never make it. When I thought I'd never finish and be left with rain seeping through all the cracks I'd opened up. And there were many more times when I dreamed of how she'd look when she ws completed.

The end results were beyond my expectations and there are still a few more things I have to do before she's totally complete outside. Working on your own place is a true pleasure, all the more so in Chuffy's case because she is who she is; not least to say very much a part of me. It's been a labour of love, time has been taken and it shows. I'd kept the work very much to myself until the end so I was so pleased that Annie was able to come over and get covered in very expensive yacht paint. I've spent many hours helping her decorate her homes over the years and it felt good to finally have one of my own that she could help me with.


Tunes: Pulp: Different Class

Life And How To Live It

Book a four day weekend.

Purchase £140 of quality UV resistant boat paint (7 three quarters of a litre tins @ £20 each, 5 x Donnegal Green, 2 x Rustic Red) plus sand paper, brushes, rollers etc...


Finish sanding...


Fill (note mandatory glamorous assistant)... then sand filler... then clean

Paint (1 coat per day over 2 days)...


Stand back and admire work with a glass of wine...

...then collapse!



Tunes: R.E.M.: Fables Of The Reconstruction

Let's Begin Again...

This has been one of those weeks where I knew from the moment I opened my eyes on Monday morning I should have closed them again and just stayed in bed. I only have a team of two developers at work and it was hard enough work getting those. So just to round off John leaving on Tuesday Liam handed in his notice first thing Monday. I'm happy for them both as they're moving on to better things and more money.

But it feels as if I've been battling an iceberg for the past two years and I've suddenly just taken a peek under the waterline...

So heres a picture of a coot that's figured out we put bird seed up on dry land and overcome it's natural timidity to grab some munchies. Go the coots!




Tunes: R.E.M: Life's Rich Pageant

It's Times Like These

Strange to think that a week ago I was sitting in hot tub on the banks of Loch Lomond, with four good folks including one of my best mates, looking up at the night sky with a glass of whisky as the satellites whirled up above.

For those who commented favourably on the last batch of pics there are a few more here


The sun broke for the first time in a long time. And now my hands hurt.






Tunes: Foo Fighters: One By One

The Pupils Dilate While The Heart Implodes

So here I am, sitting in this beautiful cabin on the banks of Loch Lomond, tapping away on Mark's iBook (the cabins are all fitted with wirless broadband). We're here to celebrate the big man's 40th birthday and spend some time relaxing in the highlands.

We've not even been here 48 hours yet and already I've done two six mile runs, swam in the Loch twice, had a couple of hot tubs, a bath, a massage, a sauna, bounced on the trampoline, been on a boat trip around the nature reserve, cooked a big breakfast for the crew, eaten crisp sandwiches, drunk copious amounts of alcohol, watched hawks hover, swallows swoop, wag tails wobble and the satellites spinning overhead in the night sky. I've lain on the floor to watch the milky way overhead and seen my stars (Leo) for only the second time in my life.

I don't feel as if I've done anything at all.

If I didn't have my lady love at home half sanded and unpainted I'd seriously think about packing it all in and staying here.

I feel good.

I feel me.

Greetings From Balmaha

Cheers!


Tunes: xx: xx

OK So...

I've been a little hasty in my reactions to recent situations. I'm constantly and wonderfully surprised by said party's ability to resolve such crises in a sensible and human manner. Plus life's looking up for the big fella and you can't wish anything more than for your friends' lives to take a turn for the better, especially when they've been in darkness for so long. Looks like I'm still going to be spending the August bank holiday sitting in a hot tub on the banks of Loch Lomond.

My reactions make me realise that I'm still somewhat frazzled by recent ructions at home. But sitting on Chufy's nose this morning, watching the baby coots lined up, balancing on Jenny's mooring rope as their parents fed them was a wonderful tonic. Something I definitely needed.

I always make a fuss about confusing needs and wants. Most of what we say we need we don't. Life isn't going to stop without them. I don't need a bright shiny new 20" iMac. I'm not going to wither away and fall apart if I don't get one. I do, however, really really really want one.

On the other hand I do need a massive hug that lasts for at least an hour, to immerse myself completely in water and a shag!

I Have A Bad Feeling About This

Last night I stood on Chuffy's nose in the silence and stillness with only the gentle spray of the rain disturbing the calm waters of the river.

And I wondered why my friends currently seem to be falling out with the 'family' groups and ending up at my place as a final place of refuge.

So as of this evening I have a new house guest for a while.

John, one of my developers, handed his notice in yesterday. Kind of throws a spanner in the work works as well. Although I'm really pleased for him as it's a great step forwards.

It would be safe to say that on the whole yesterday sucked.

I've never done this before but when I arrived home I sat on the bed and just shouted obscenities for a minute or so, grateful for my neighbours double glazing on one side and deafness on the other.

It did feel good I must say.


Tunes: REM: New Adventures In Hi-Fi

Life's A Beach

Until you make one!


Tunes: Soul Asylum: Grave Dancers Union

Walk The Bridges Before You Burn Them Down

We'd all hoped that time and distance might have softened the tensions that have beset home recently. It was not to be. One party returned from the West to stay for a week or two, one (the one that almost gets forgotten because of the other two) was at home in Norway and the other working most daylight hours. All good. No one around = no direct tension.

That was until Sunday. It had been such a lovely day, time spent with family and a few folks around. All it took was a 15 second phone call; one party reacted selfishly and stupidly to the news that the other was on the boat. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or disappointed at my reaction. What I did was to speak to both parties, separately, and inform them, as gently as you can inform someone that they're being a total cunt, of how I and the others felt. I knew that feelings would be hurt but what I wanted to do was to drag them both into the same room, scream at them with absolutely no hint of mercy, decency or restraint for their feelings and then beat the living shit out of them both until I was too tired to do any more damage and feed their still breathing remains to the fish.

Now, no-one expected any friendships to be restored but we'd all hoped that at least the people concerned might have managed to be adult enough to be able to stand in the same space together and remain civil. There are enough unnecessary conflicts* raging across the world today without some pointless spat adding to the global mess.

Watching two grown men circle each other, avoiding each other, constantly keeping watch through open doors and windows waiting for a safe time to move has been one of the most depressing things I think I've ever had the misfortune to be a part of. Their pathetic claims that no-one else was meant to be involved shows either gross stupidity or egomania bordering on the psychotic. I have lost a great deal of respect for two men who've both had, until recently, a significant and positive effect on my life and thinking. Their stupid pride that led to both saying it was the other who had to back down is nothing but childish in the extreme. If we all had guns everyone on the mooring would probably be dead by now.

As I look back on the past two months I question my own actions, reactions and decisions and wonder whether my silence was complicit in how things turned out and how I've felt. And I believe to some degree it is. I explained to Annie that it was she who taught me that you stand by your friends no matter what,. She looked at me, smiled sweetly and said with absolutely no hint of irony: "Perhaps I was wrong!" Had I had the courage of my convictions would matters be better or worse? We'll never know.

As is stands now is that one party returned suddenly to the west, never to return until the other is gone and the situation is therefore 'resolved'. Not my word...

Not the word I would use at all.

I still believe that we should judge our own humanity and that of those around us based upon our words and how far they fall from our actions. But also that in doing so we ALL fall short. And I know that mine fall far short on a daily basis (fuck it, I'll even write you a list if you want). Therefore our judgments should be always be tempered by humility and understanding, by education and by forgivness, by love and by compassion for all things. For surely to do anything but is to give into the darkness.

"So unforgiving yet needing forgivness first"

Let this be the end of it.

*All conflicts are unnecessary. To go to war shows a complete failure of society, civilisation, humanity and spirituality. To condone in any way the loss of civilian life (and by condone I mean to do nothing to stop it) is to show how far back in the primordial soup we've regressed. I'm reminded, with all the horrors that appear on the news every day, of a friend of a friend who returned from Baghdad so appalled at the humanitarian crisis there that they said the only way for the 2 B- boys to atone for the situation they'd helped create was to publicly commit suicide. I'd add the insurgent leaders to that list. Plus those who are lobbing shells at innocent civilians on both sides of the Lebanese border and and and... They're all the same, playing power games with pain and suffering.


Tunes: Pearl Jam: Marker In The Sand (From the album Pearl Jam)

Life's Remedy A Melody Floating On

So, today is my 36th birthday.

I'm 36.

I have absolutely no idea what that's meant to mean. Am I supposed to think a certain way, be doing something specific by now, act in a certain manner, earn a particular salary? What are you meant to be at 36? Is there some kind of average consensus and if there is then I don't think it's me.

I've never really been one to celebrate birthdays as the passing of time, which is why I'm always very bad at having birthday parties. I tend to see my birthdays as a more reflective day, a time to look back and see if I've learnt from the past and to look forward at where I want to be heading next. It's probably something we should do every day but a birthday's a decent enough milestone to judge things by. A whole series of orbits of the earth around the sun from the moment you first appeared on earth.

I find our fascination and loathing of aging to be most strange. And quite sad. I feel as if as a culture we're constantly trying to offset the inevitable rather than embracing the idea and then just going off and enjoying life whilst it's still there. We can't fight age and we can't fight death. To deny this is to deny nature and to deny nature is ultimately to waste all the beauty that it has to offer. And it doesn't change the fact that there is an end, somewhere down the line. So instead we spend millions trying to look younger, offset the signs of age and then cast off our elderly as if they were a plague, in doing so somehow affirming that perhaps we will be the first ones to be immortal. When one day it will be these people reaping the fears of aging that they have sown, cast off themsleves as the next generation blunders ahead into a sea of anti-wrinkle creams and hair dye.

And yet the most beautiful people I've ever seen are those who wear the signs of their life proudly, with dignity and distinction. Every line, scar, blemish, wrinkle tells the story of their life and for those who have lived lie to the fullest it is a wonder that no artist, poet, musician or film-maker has ever matched.

So here I am, 36 years on this planet. 36 years of experience that is my own and no-one elses. 36 years of tools to discover, challenges to face, changes to experience and conquer; each year that has passed and each year that is to follow the same, each one to be taken on its own merits. I hope that I will always feel this way on my birthdays each and every year I have left: looking forward to what life has to throw at me rather than retreating further from it. Because as far as the numbers go. Well they're just numbers really.

There's a SNUFF song that never ceases to plaster a smile across my face. It's maybe a little cheesy but I like it:

I catch my thoughts and I pray that love will warm your day
If life is cold and cruel, I pray love warms to you
If the seasons turn against you, the winter wind should get you down
If life is cold and cruel I pray love warms to you.



Tunes: SNUFF: Sunny Places (from the album Demmamussabebonk)

Coming Over All Tim Robbins

At the end of The Shawshank Redemption Morgan Freeman walks across the sand towards Tim Robbins who's sanding his boat. I think that what Freeman's character is thinking at that moment is: "Hot damn, we've got a boat!" And Robbins is thinking: "Thank Christ, now I have some help..."

There are, I believe, two schools of thought to the sanding of boats. There are the romantics and idealists who see it as an honourable task: the care and attention taken to the noblest of all travelling vessels in man's eternal quest to battle the greatest of the elements; the constant struggle of our ultimate destiny with total freedom. Then there is everyone else who thinks it's just nuts.

None of the first group actually own boats.

My hands are rubbed raw, everything hurts, I have splinters with splinters in. There is so much more to do it's quite terrifying.

Of course I loved every last skin flaking minute of it. I'd still be sanding now if it wasn't a) dark and b) I'm physically incapable of doing any more.

This past week at work has been what management trainers would call 'challenging'. This is possibly why they fall only a few paces above traffic wardens and third world dictators in the food chain. If I want to be challenged I'll try talking to someone in a civil manner before I've had a shower.

Tunes: Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam

Q: How Do You Make Five People Really Miserable?

A: Go with four friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl.

This highly unpolished lump of steaming excrement is quite possibly one of the worst films I have seen for ages. It is as Ant put it, as bad as you expected the first one to be.

Only much much worse.

Dull, unimaginiative, badly everythinged and wasting a classic character in Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow.

Two word review: utter fuck. I'd rather eat my own shit than have to endure that again.

EDIT: yeah, its Dead Man's Chest. Sorry. So incensed I couldn't even remember its name.

Saturday Evening

You know how hard it is to get a swan to pose?

Look At The Size Of That Thing

After their arduous climb the little green adventurers came to the mouth of the giant ice cave. Their jaws fell open as they saw the behemoth: a vessel from another world; a monument to ancient Gods...

I also like:

Pod Solo, Princess Pea-a and Peabacca race towards the Millenium Frozenbagofpeas on the planet Hothpoint whilst being chased by the evil Darth Broad Bean.

And All Your Talk Of Such Burdens, No It Won't Bring Me And All My Friends Down

Despite a particularly rude awakening (that's spawned a new mooring saying: "Change your t-shirt"), it's been a grand weekend. Chuffy's shed her waterproofs and had a bath. And she looks just swell thank you.

I'm also now on my third Mac of the year, fluttering between the G's - it's a 4-3-4 formation looking for a boot up to 5... and now the fifth machine from which I've penned this blog. Apropos of nothing that must mean something right? Or is that the other way round. Anyway it makes me want to cry sometimes.

Butterflies and birds have been flittering across town and dragon flies do their flittery glittery thing across the surface of the still water. On Thursday night I watched a shooting star dart across the night sky before flashing green and exploding into a glitter of colours. Yesterday I took some time out to sprawl across a sofa on the end of one of the pontoons and feel the water buffer itself below me as the boats passed by. If I could have given you all even a tenth of the peace I felt at that moment it would have been the best present ever.

I have a new favourite song. I'll type out my favourite part at the end and I don't think the band will sue me because I know their label manager's sister so I must be safe yeah? I know I'm a hippy and all but here's a snippet from today's Guardian online first.

"...a series of air strikes which left 30 civilians dead."

"We will sing pretty songs about love, and we will fight if that's what it takes, and
we won't back down.
No we won't shut our eyes and go to sleep.
We will write all over your walls, and we will dance to no music at all. We will do
what it takes to get through to you."

As long as there are people there is hope for humanity.

Shout out to Evil for the new tunes.
.
Tunes: Tilly And The Mule: Wild Like Children (Go to Summer - Music - Wild Like Children - The Ice Storm, Big Gust And You

Finding Old Bottles, Blistering My Hands

I love the summer but it gives me neck ache.

I can see now the old fairytale waking the princess with a kiss metaphore. A good snog definitely perks you up!

Think I'll paint my toenails again tonight.

I'll have to rant about Mallards later. Evil fuckers.


Tunes: The Rainmakers: Tornado

I Can't See The Forest For The Matchsticks Sometimes

Just as everything was getting back to normal, I turned the iBook on last night and fizz pop, nothing happened. Well not quite nothing. It made some clattering sounds and never quite made it into boot up mode. So I'm offline at home AGAIN. It may be easiest if I go back to pen and paper and Christmas chain letters...

I still haven't seen my email for about a month.

Just in case anyone thought the 'Tough Shit' comment was a little harsh, it wasn't meant to be. Really not. But it's also true!

We all received letters from the landlord last week informing us that the mooring had become a little too messy - we have more dried plants than a florists right now and enough scrap metal to build a large scarp metal pile. We are obliged under our mooring leases to keep the area looking pretty and it's a fair point. Sunday afternoon we filled a skip load from the sheds under the railway bridge and there's probably a couple of skip loads to go. It was fun and I managed to retreive some sheet aluminium that will make a rather fine splashback behind the oven. So good things come from getting dirty and sweaty.

Come to think of it good things pretty much always come from getting dirty and sweaty.

But back to the letter. Each one of us had a few things we have to do and mine, surprise surprise was paint Chuffy. Something I was going to do anyway. But now there's no going back.It's going to take some time, much graft and probably a whole lot of swearing. And it has to be completed before the end of August which means that all my spare waking hours are pretty much taken. Thankfully lunches and the odd post work drink / movies are still on the cards although I feel like I'm making excuses now.

Hopefully tonight I'll have some more news on the Mac.

Next time I get back in here I think I need to have a rant about Mallards.

Anyone out there like Mallards prepare to be disappointed as I uncover the hideous truth behind these foul fowl.

I am listening to A LOT of Rainmakers right now.

It's great.


Tunes: The Rainmakers: Flirting With The Universe