I've managed to catch up with quite a few old friends so far this year, which is more than I can say for my blogging. Anyway, it's been good to be out and about a little more than usual, traversing the country from Norwich to Cambridge, down to Finsbury Park and on onwards through Streatham to Crawley.
The only thing wrong with being both a non-driver and catching up with old friends is that you're subject to Sunday public transport. Or more accurately, traversing through the gaps in the schedules left by the various bouts of engineering works that currently blight my life like the thirteenth plague.
Getting home often involves a squirrel-like ingenuity combined with a level of strategic planning that's rarely applied to major global conflicts. It's not simply a case of things not running, it's all those shifting timetables you've missed seeing, and the often varied interpretations of what exactly is meant by every half an hour.
The great wildcard is, of course, the rail replacement bus. When will it leave? How often do they run? How long will the journey take? Of course, it only stops at the main stops. But that often seems to mean it takes the worst routes. So what if I take this tube to here, or an overland to there? Then I grab the other bus. But what if I miss the connection? Am I going to spend the best part of my day just trying to get somewhere, even anywhere? And is it really worth worrying about? Or should I just sit my arse down for however long it takes, plugged in to poddy, with the copy of 'Kevin Smith Speaks' that Gaz lent me? But then again, I don't want to spend any more time standing in front of Clapham Junction than I unavoidably have to.
Once I would wait patiently for hours on the side of a road, trying to thumb a lift.
Listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
And I feel myself slipping away
Apparently I am:
37.55 years or
451 months or
95928 weeks or
13704 days or
328896 hours or
19733785 minutes or
1184027076 seconds or
118402707612 milliseconds old.
As of today.
I'm not sure about the minutes bit.
Listening to The Rainmakers' Skin
37.55 years or
451 months or
95928 weeks or
13704 days or
328896 hours or
19733785 minutes or
1184027076 seconds or
118402707612 milliseconds old.
As of today.
I'm not sure about the minutes bit.
Listening to The Rainmakers' Skin
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
One day a year like this should do me fine
And so the festival of Saint Valentine is upon us once again: a beautiful celebration of love between two (or more) people, or a hideously over-commercialised rampage through the flower beds of the world. If you've ever seen the roaring trade in icons in and around the Vatican, you'd think the Catholic Church would be happy to endorse the latter.
I'm still uncertain as to the level of my ambivalence towards this day. On the one hand I think it's good to indulge in a little over-indulgence with your partner, all cynicism aside. On the other, if you're having to cram that in to just one day a year, then I suggest you take a long hard look at the state of your life and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But if there's money to be made and a song and dance to be had, then we're there.
So now the media can't give you enough ways to please your lover this February 14, to avoid that hideous predicament of the crushing blow of mis-managed expectations. Because get it wrong and the only people laying pipe round your way for some time to come will be the water board. No pressure folks, we're only hinting that your future happiness lies in how you fulfill your duties on this most auspicious of days, we don't really mean it. No wonder so many seem to think that switching off is the only safety net you have, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the anti-Valentines market seems to be an equally pointless kick in the other direction, and as someone wise once said: surely you should fight fire with water.
Now if you are single, well how's that for a comment on your sad, stinking, lonely, and very possibly grotesquely ugly existence? But that's ok, because there's a columnist out there waiting to jump to your defence with another 2000 words on how you're really comfortable with who you are, which is why you'll be renting SS Experiment Camp and eating cold pizza from your arse with some friend you really fucking hate, explaining to everyone you know how you're really comfortable with who you are, because you can't tell them that you'd rather be sitting at home sharpening knives, one for each member of the opposite sex that has done you wrong.
As usual, there's nothing more likely to make you feel different, than having it made VERY CLEAR to you that you're really not different at all.
Bitter? Not me. Love's about the only thing that really is better than sex. I'm waaaaaaay behind that one. But right now it feels like everyone's on the defensive, singles and couples. We're fighting a losing battle to meet the unholy expectations (and profit margins) of Messrs Hallmark, Thortons and InterFlora, not to mention their buddies in the luxury hotel market. Some days these fuckers tell more lies and cause more misery than Philip Morris.
Of course, there are loads and loads and loads and loads of folks who will just get on with their lives, unflustered by the blog posts, clippings and social instructions. I'm more than happy to get home tomorrow, stick a movie on, cook some food, ignore my email and go to bed. Although, I may cook first, then watch the movie, unless of course there's something good on the telly. I may or may not feel a twinge of sadness that there won't be (or at least is very highly unlikely to be) a naked body climbing in to bed next to me that I haven't procured Burke and Hare style. But perhaps no more than any other random day. To all those brandishing their trophy bouquets of undying and unrequited love, I wish you well, I truly do.
It is of course, far too much to ask that next year, we just let everyone get on with it, possibly only massive global nuclear devastation will sort that one. I'd like to think that we have the capacity to realise that if we stopped chasing someone else's idea of how we should be happy, we might just get on and be happy. But then again, I also own a copy of Poison's Greatest Hits.
Watching Elbow at Porchester Hall
I'm still uncertain as to the level of my ambivalence towards this day. On the one hand I think it's good to indulge in a little over-indulgence with your partner, all cynicism aside. On the other, if you're having to cram that in to just one day a year, then I suggest you take a long hard look at the state of your life and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But if there's money to be made and a song and dance to be had, then we're there.
So now the media can't give you enough ways to please your lover this February 14, to avoid that hideous predicament of the crushing blow of mis-managed expectations. Because get it wrong and the only people laying pipe round your way for some time to come will be the water board. No pressure folks, we're only hinting that your future happiness lies in how you fulfill your duties on this most auspicious of days, we don't really mean it. No wonder so many seem to think that switching off is the only safety net you have, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the anti-Valentines market seems to be an equally pointless kick in the other direction, and as someone wise once said: surely you should fight fire with water.
Now if you are single, well how's that for a comment on your sad, stinking, lonely, and very possibly grotesquely ugly existence? But that's ok, because there's a columnist out there waiting to jump to your defence with another 2000 words on how you're really comfortable with who you are, which is why you'll be renting SS Experiment Camp and eating cold pizza from your arse with some friend you really fucking hate, explaining to everyone you know how you're really comfortable with who you are, because you can't tell them that you'd rather be sitting at home sharpening knives, one for each member of the opposite sex that has done you wrong.
As usual, there's nothing more likely to make you feel different, than having it made VERY CLEAR to you that you're really not different at all.
Bitter? Not me. Love's about the only thing that really is better than sex. I'm waaaaaaay behind that one. But right now it feels like everyone's on the defensive, singles and couples. We're fighting a losing battle to meet the unholy expectations (and profit margins) of Messrs Hallmark, Thortons and InterFlora, not to mention their buddies in the luxury hotel market. Some days these fuckers tell more lies and cause more misery than Philip Morris.
Of course, there are loads and loads and loads and loads of folks who will just get on with their lives, unflustered by the blog posts, clippings and social instructions. I'm more than happy to get home tomorrow, stick a movie on, cook some food, ignore my email and go to bed. Although, I may cook first, then watch the movie, unless of course there's something good on the telly. I may or may not feel a twinge of sadness that there won't be (or at least is very highly unlikely to be) a naked body climbing in to bed next to me that I haven't procured Burke and Hare style. But perhaps no more than any other random day. To all those brandishing their trophy bouquets of undying and unrequited love, I wish you well, I truly do.
It is of course, far too much to ask that next year, we just let everyone get on with it, possibly only massive global nuclear devastation will sort that one. I'd like to think that we have the capacity to realise that if we stopped chasing someone else's idea of how we should be happy, we might just get on and be happy. But then again, I also own a copy of Poison's Greatest Hits.
Watching Elbow at Porchester Hall
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Everybody here comes from somewhere
Seems to have been a very musical start to the year for me. I've picked up Sandy Denny's 4 studio albums, Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy and the new Black Mountain, and I've listened to more. I've seen Thistletown in a folk club in Euston, The Broken Family Band at the Cambridge Barfly, Okkervil River at the Scala, Dropkick Murphys in Norwich (don't ask) and hopefully Elbow this Tuesday in Queensway (cheers Ken). Okkervil may have laid down the benchmark, a stunning show, as passionate as Neil Young leaning into Old Black, but the sight of a stage full of student girls dancing up with the Murphys will keep me smiling for a while!
But somehow, I can't stop listening to the new R.E.M. single.
Listening to R.E.M.'s Supernatural Superserious
But somehow, I can't stop listening to the new R.E.M. single.
Listening to R.E.M.'s Supernatural Superserious
Saturday, February 02, 2008
An epiphanic vomiting of blood
I've just seen one of the funniest song titles I've come across in some time. It's off an album by some dirge-like noisemongers called Gnaw Their Tongues. The song's called: My body Is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness
Genius.
Genius.
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