Friday, December 29, 2006

Exquisite Taste

There was a programme on the telly the other night about the Beatles ‘Love’ thing. I hadn’t realised that it was (quite liderally) a tossing circus.

They decided to represent John Lennon's mother being run over and killed (this is the CIRCUS remember).

They did this in spectacular circus fashion by hitting a woman in red with a car and catapulting her into the roof on a trapeze - while pieces of car flew about.

I hope my death will be performed in the CIRCUS someday and in the same exquisite taste.

Shopping

Entirely predictable from me I know, but why is is that people do nothing but shopping in the run up to Christmas (as if there was anything to run up to by the way) and spend all their money - and then complain about it? Then after Christmas - they go SHOPPING!

Go to a shop when you need something you can't do without, buy the thing you can't do without and GO HOME!!

Shopping is shite, don't do it - it really is shite. All the shite people go shopping for shite in shite shiteing centres full of shite that people think they might want -but its all shite.

SHOPPING IS SHITE - DON'T DO IT!!!!

Eco Balls 2

Luckily, the leaflet just arrived from Powergen to explain how green they are – they’re ‘generating (great pun guys, I nearly split my sides) a sustainable future’. They produce mounds of this kind of junk mail. The philosophy seems to be that talking about stuff is the same as making it happen, which is of course how the modern world works (or fails to).

This is them on marine power:

“In 2005 we established a marine team to investigate how wave and tidal technology can help reduce carbon emissions and create a sustainable power supply for the future”

So, exactly what percentage of power does that mean you produce from waves then? – 0% by any chance? Still, never mind though eh, you’ve had a meeting.

Lovely glossy paper too, no expense spared. Bastards

Eco Balls 1

As Neil Young once said ‘A man needs a maid’ – helpfully adding ‘just someone to keep my house clean, fix my meals and go away’. Unfortunately, my maid makes me do the washing once in a while (and not Neil's best ever lyric we may agree).

With this in mind I bought some ‘Eco balls’ which wash your clothes without any powder (find out for yourself how they work). They're very clever and you should buy some. So there.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Death, Hell and Holidays

One way of looking at death is to see it simply as a reduction in thinking and feeling to the point where you’re not conscious of anything.

So, it’s really just like Christmas then.

Hell, on the other hand, is where you're constantly reminded of just how awful your situation is.

So, hell is just like Christmas too – but in Cleethorpes.
- note to the North East Lincs tourist people – you can use that one if you like.


Now, back in the mists of Blog I may have mentioned this before, but not only are death and Hell very similar, holidays these days are all the same. Anyone who ever had relatives with a desire to ‘go away for the weekend’ and a Hoseasons brochure will already know this, but if you decide that you want to do ‘something a bit different’ it’s actually not possible.

So, you decide to stay in ‘a log cabin’. What you get is a static caravan with the wheels taken off and the outside walls covered in plastic panels moulded with fake wood grain in 'half log’ shapes.

‘A tepee’ is the same static caravan with the wheels taken off, only with a plastic triangle erected over it (and forget any idea of it being round, or even square inside. It’s static caravan shaped.

A ‘castle’ meanwhile is a standard industrial unit with some plastic castle bits stuck on the front. A castle with a sloping steel roof and girders everywhere.

They’re all just off a major road, next to a golf course. You can always hear the traffic and there's nowhere to walk to.

These are real examples by the way. The ‘castle’ was called ‘Sherwood Castle Holiday Forest’ no less. You might think it’d be Sherwood Forest Holiday Castle but you’d be wrong. Not even Forest Castle Holiday Sherwood or Sharwood's Mild Castle Holiday in a jar.

As Damien Allbran and his mates once said - modern life is rubbish.

Monday, December 25, 2006

My Other Exciting Present

In my list of fab presents I forgot to mention that I'd been bought some blank video tapes. So, here goes....

I got some blank video tapes.

It's great being a top recording artiste.

Here's to the death of organised religion (and a slap for the disorganised ones)

Ho Ho Ho once more.

Ho Ho Ho

Much as it pains me to leave the 4-day party which is my rock and roll / acoustic Christmas (must do a Christmas album incidentally, chunky jumper et al), I thought it my duty to report in from the cutting edge of acoustic singer-songwriterdom to you little people who buy my records making my life so decadent and luxurious. You’re probably wondering what a top star such as myself gets bought for Christmas eh?

Well, here’s a short list of my favourite presents:

10 M&S white cotton hankies
1 drawstring laundry bad
1 purple party joke wig
1 turkey basting brush
2 pairs Matalan socks
1 Matalan sweatshirt
1 Matalan jumper (wool cycle, dry flat, re-shape while damp)

and a fucking partridge in a pear tree eh?

Ho Ho Ho!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

WSM Gig

It'll probably kill the Whole Sky Monitor boys but we have decided to to 'a gig'. We do this about once a year if we can be arsed (please note, we might do more if someone paid us). It's at the New Roscoe at the junction of Roseville Road and Regent Street in Leeds on Wednesday 7th February. I'll look terrifically cool and forget some song words. No-one will notice, but some of our new songs are 'awesome'.

Christmas Weak

They were advertising a ‘race night’ at our local pub. I couldn’t decide whether to black up or go as a rabbi. In the event, the sight of a black rabbi betting on horses (which is what ‘race night' turned out to mean) upset some of the locals and I had to escape into Tescos.

A notice at Tescos tells me that a mobile phone is ‘the ideal way to keep in touch at Christmas’. I bought one and moved to a hotel for a week for an ‘ideal’ Christmas.

Well Done Mr Clayton

Well done to the James Clayton School of motoring for blatantly barrelling through the red traffic lights at the junction of Roundhay Road with Easterly Road on Thursday morning. Either they let the learner drivers out on their own or the person teaching you to drive drives like a twat.

So, for the benefit of Mr Clayton the driving instructor:
Red means ‘stop’ (that’s when the car isn’t moving any more).
Funnily enough, amber also means stop (that’s that kind of orangey colour on that metal stick next to the road Mr Clayton).

Another driving instructor (forgot to write down the name, damn) let their pupil turn without signalling while I stood there wondering when the law changed.

Now this one needs a bit more explanation….It’s where the road goes almost straight on from one section of Roundhay Road to the next one. It’s a left turn off the A58 and signalling, if I remember rightly is for when you’re turning or changing lanes or changing direction. And guess what – that junction is all three! Oh yes, there’s also the thing about letting other road users know what you’re doing. THE PEDESTRIANS WAITING AT THE CROSSING WHO AREN’T FUCKING PYCHIC NEED TO KNOW WHICH WAY YOU’RE FUCKING GOING YOU MORON!!!

Sunday, December 10, 2006

More Triffic Traffic

On Roundhay Road there’s a sign at the pedestrian crossing saying ‘Beware of left turning motorists violating the traffic lights’ - There are some seriously bad drivers around here but they usually just ignore the lights – violating is going a bit far eh boys? Cars (of course) just ignore all the traffic signs and mini-cab drivers are obviously exempt from traffic laws even when not in the Harehills / Chapeltown area anyway, but I've never seen one of them actually shinning up the lights to shag them - they just do it metaphorically. Perhaps the sign should say 'beware of metaphors attempting to kill you'?

I also have to report a failure on the part of the Militant Pedestrians. Last time I took a boot-swing at a car I went and missed. No satisfying thunk, just a swinging leg and another maniac on his way to run another light with no consequence - Damn. It was the third one through the green man too. I told the man next to me that I physically attacked cars steaming through the pedestrian crossing and he looked at me like I might be going a bit far. Sort of person who thought that concentration camps were fine but gas chambers were a bit much I suspect. Steaming through red lights and across pedestrian crossings is a completely justifiable attack reason in my book and I'm going to continue to do it.

More on the gate

The fantastic Jurassic Park gate at the WSM rehearsal room?

Well, when it’s a bit blustery it doesn't work - because the phone line to the operations centre breaks up and you can't get through. So, you stand at the gate in bad weather and you can't get the gate open because a man presses a button in some control room somewhere only when you've been able to get through to him by phone - and it doesn't work! - and the gate doesn't work either! People park their cars outside and just climb over it under the security camera.
Oh, and there's a blank space where the phone number of the company should be written so you can phone form your mobile or somewhere - only its blank.

I should point out that it's the same sort of people who will be designing New Labour's nuclear power plants (for peaceful purposes only of course, completely different to the Iranians) and weapons of mass destruction. Again this is a completely different situation to that in Iraq - they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction.

Let me know if we're getting invaded or doing the invading. I guess it depends who's sponsoring terrorism - that's New Yorkers giving money to the IRA isn't it? Was '9/11' (the 9th November) done by the coalition of the willing?

Fag man

Today I saw a man throw his empty fag packet down in the street about 3 feet from a litter bin....I hope I never have to ask to use his bathroom.

No way, bonobo!

ITV really do have a new programme (or ‘show’) where viewers phone in to help save their favourite endangered species.

I say screw the pandas, vote for the polar bears. Or was it screw the blue whale, vote rattlesnake? Insect you've never heard of anyone? - nah, it's being turned into CO2 mate.

Maybe the NHS could move to this system - vote people out of hospital and such.

What will I have left to say when the whole world moves beyond parody? - Coming very soon it would appear.