House of Jealous Lovers

Ahoy.

I realised I hadn’t really written anything proper since the StewLee gig and felt the urge to, then came to write something, wrote that first sentence, didn’t know what to talk about and closed the page… only to open a new one about thirty-four seconds later. What’s wrong with my head? Come on, hands, do the typey thing, you know how.

I’m seriously worrying about my memory, it’s shocking at the moment. As a result, I can’t really remember what I’ve done since the aforementioned blog… or maybe it’s just a case of me not having done anything interesting until last week. That seems depressingly feasible.

Cinema-wise, I finally saw ‘Up’! Also ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’. This is all I remember from the weeks previous.

I made a spur-of-the-moment trip to Edinburgh last week. About a month ago, I’d jokingly texted my sister, after seeing a trailer on tv for New Moon, saying, “When are we going to see New Moon then?”
This also related to the fact that at the start of the year, she’d dragged me to see Twilight on the promise that it’d be unintentionally hilarious (which it definitely was). So, a text from her last week asked if I was up for travelling down to the lovely capital to see it with her and Clara. This, coupled with the fact that it was £15 a return rail ticket AND payday, made me giggle and accept her offer.

On Friday, I caught my train which was due to leave at 12.07pm. By 12.02, I’d been joined by three women, which is the plight of choosing to sit at an unreserved table, who immediately set out a tablecloth, christmassy napkins and what can only be described as a ‘fuckload’ of food (including “Chocolate Sunties! [Santas] There were eight, but I had two of them yisterday!”).
By 12.05, they’d offered me some of the vodka and coke they’d brought along for the ride. I politely declined, but mainly due to the fact that I don’t drink coke anymore. I already had my headphones in, but had paused my magical music-box when they started talking to me and decided that these, the most Aberdonian women in existence, would be great entertainment, so kept it paused for a while as I pretended to be listening and staring out the window.
I predicted correctly. It took a lot of strength not to laugh at some of the stuff they were spouting and to pretend I wasn’t listening in on them, especially as the journey went on and they steadily got more and more drunk.
“Och, I winna hae too much to drink or else I’ll nae be fit for shopping. I’ll be buyin’ shite!”
One of them, whilst trying to open her sandwich packaging, exclaimed, “It’s like the bloody Krypton Factor, this!” which was very hard not to giggle at. For the rest of the journey, I referred to her as KF on Twitter. Incidentally, it felt like I was shouting into the sea as I could only post things on there and not view them due to my phone having another breakdown. Ho hum.
Here is a selection of train-fun I posted onto said site though…

-Krypton Factor is justifying everything she eats by saying “It’s fae Markies!” or sometimes just “Markies!”. This isn’t just food… 12:34 PM Nov 20th
-More gold from Krypton Factor: “Yer in Scotland now. We hinnae got big trains here, we’ve just got wee choo-choos!” 1:37 PM Nov 20th
-Oh christ, they’ve teamed up with the whisky-drinkers at the next table to get involved in the comfortable conversational terrain of cancer. 2:03 PM Nov 20th
-Off the topic of cancer now and are joking about incest. This is brilliant. 2:16 PM Nov 20th

They had a good laugh with the people at the next table, two of whom were from Keith. They exchanged numbers. I found out the ladies were off to see Here Come The Girls, a concert featuring Anastacia, Lulu and Chaka Khan (not to be confused with Barack Obama). It sounded great… (It’s hard to convey sarcasm in typing)
Soon, our journey came to an end and I was getting sympathy from the cheeky Keith lot for having to sit next to the Eberdeen Ladies for three hours.
I bid them all farewell and went to meet Matthew. We made our way to Kilimanjaro for some hot chocolate and conversation, then bought some cakes to take to Clara’s. We walked up the street to meet my dear sister from work where we saw a shifty looking character in a Free Hugs tshirt and some koi carp. Exciting to have fish outside your office, but I wondered how many had copper-damage due to people’s love of throwing coins into water. Coin-drunk fish flailed around as Free Hugs guy passed us again and went into the building. Turns out the sister knows him. He still looked a bit sketchy though. She emerged and Matthew left us, cakes an’ all to catch a bus to Clara’s. We got there, had a drink and brought the baked goods through to eat whilst playing with her tiny tiny new kitten, Cardhu. I took no photos, so have stolen these two off her Facebook which best illustrate his fluffiness.


HE’S LIKE A TINY LION!!!
Ahem… We spent so much time winding him up that we forgot about the cakes. We soon had to head to the cinema. We got there and met up with Clara’s friend Jodie at around 6pm, but all the showings of the film were sold out until 8.15pm, so we went for that. All of us bar Jodie had cinema cards, so they had to be put through as separate transactions to her’s.
Knowing that we’d two hours to kill, we decided to go for food and eventually ended up at some Italian. I had something rice and chicken based, but I’ve no idea what else was in it, but it was enjoyable. We stayed there for a while and it was very pleasant indeed. When the waiter asked if we’d like anything else, Clara told him we’d better not as we’d a film to see, he asked what, we looked ashamed as we told him and Clara said “We’re secretly thirteen year old girls.”
He said he was too.
He was also Italian and attractive, so swoon, baby, swoon.

We left and made our way back to the cinema where we began to queue outside as it was unreserved seating. At about 8.10pm, it started moving and Clara checked she had all the tickets. It was here that she discovered she did have four tickets and three were for the right film, but Jodie’s one that she’d been given separately was for The Men Who Stare At Goats. There was a brief moment of nervous laughter before we remembered the film was sold out, then there was panic. And the queue was disappearing. Morven and I were handed two tickets and told to go grab four seats. We did so and plotted a way to get Jodie in if she was given a refund, but fortunately, it didn’t come to that and they joined us moments later.
The film itself was, as predicted, hilarious. The reaction of the audience at certain points was also very very funny.
I particularly enjoyed how Stephanie Meyer’s strict message of “No sex before marriage, kids!” was conveyed blatantly throughout and the really rubbish werewolves. They just looked like non-threatening big alsatians. Poor show! But nonetheless, much mirth to be had. After we got back to the flat, I remarked upon how I’d laughed so much that night that I felt really healthy. The best type of laughter.
Then everybody went to bed.

I awoke early the next day, still very tired, but put on Adam and Joe at 9am and continued to drift in and out of consciousness throughout. Into the second hour of it, I was joined by Morven and Matthew and we had breakfast. Previous day’s brownie? Omnomnom, as I believe the French say.
After the radio show, we watched a little bit of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle then headed into town for lunch and a wander. It made me feel sad to walk around Edinburgh when it wasn’t festival time, going past all the venues that didn’t have people milling around outside was strange. I think when I was in Edinburgh with Rory and John, it was one of my happiest times of the year. It was nice being summer and warm and everywhere being open until ridiculous o’clock, so there was always something to do.
Gah, digression. Yes, we wandered around and I’ve no idea what we did with the time as it all went so fast. As I recall, a small portion of time was spent laughing uncontrollably about… male bodily functions. I do love my sister more than anyone in the world. We went to a nice little sweet shop, then to Vinyl Villians and Fopp where I spotted this for £3 and decided I must have it…

“James Murphey (Brian Krause) is a rugged cryptozoologist, who thirty years earlier, during a trip to Loch Ness, Scotland, had a fatal encounter with the fabled “Nessie” creature that killed his father, and left James with deep facial scar. Twenty years later, James is hunting for Nessie, when his search leads him to the sleepy town of Pike Island, Ashburn, on Lake Superior. Hiring Josh Riley (Niall Matter) as his guide, James and Josh bond over their mutual scientific interests and deceased fathers, while James tries to convince Josh’s mother, Sheriff Karen Riley (Carrie Genzel), that the 60-foot plesiosaur is killing and breeding.“
I’ve not watched it yet, but oh my, I can’t wait much longer!

Soon I had to head off and catch my train home which was a bit rubbish, but I was kept amused by the size of the thing. Two carriages. I sat at a table opposite an old couple. They were very polite despite being disgruntled about the seats they had booked not actually existing. At one point, the man said “Robbin’ bastards…” quietly and his wife used that old lady warning voice to say, “Stevie…” sternly. Very sweet.
The journey didn’t seem to last long and soon I was on a bus to the Bridge of Muthalovin’ Don, ordering a chinese and running for a shower as soon as I got in so I could eat it in my pyjamas whilst watching the Thick Of It, which was so so good. It just gets better and better. Peter Capaldi is definitely some sort of god…

Anyway, work on Sunday, blahblahblah, nothing interesting to report. In the evening, I headed to the cinema with Amber and Bazzles. Baz had texted asking if I wanted to go and when I asked what was on, she replied, “I’m thinking 2012 at 8.50?”
I asked, “Has it really come to this?” but resigned myself to the fact that I was actually seeing it, but for free, small victory. Amber spent most of the car journey telling Baz we should go see New Moon as it’s hilarious. She said she would never see it. We got to the cinema and Bazzles asked for “Three for 2012.” I was there and that is what she definitely said, but as we walked away, I looked at the tickets and noticed the guy had given us three for New Moon. We killed ourselves laughing. Until Friday, this had never happened to me before, yet this was the second time in two days. Baz took it as a sign that everyone hated her and wanted her to see this film so we went. And we laughed. Lots.

I got home and discovered a man called Al Finn from Ireland had added me as a friend on Facebook. I didn’t know this man, but he was already following two girls called Kirsten Innes. I decided to decline his friend request, I did not want to be part of his perverse collection…
I also found out that I’d won a copy of Ricardo Fulchero’s ‘Tiny Acts Of Rebellion’ purely for this…
Rebellion².

Uh… What else happened? I played a lot of Tetris. That was good. On Tuesday, I awoke at 5am due to blinding tooth pain and took some drugs which got me back to sleep just after 6. I woke up with the left hand side of my face all swollen for the second time this year. Weak. Fortunately, my Simon Munnery dvd had arrived so I spent most of the day before work in bed watching it. It’s so brilliant, I can’t even explain. What a guy.
That night, after work, I decided I’d definitely go to Newcastle for my Exciting Thing To Do On The 25th, but as you’ll see from my previous entry, that didn’t happen.

I caught the bus into mother’s work today and became enraged by the bus driver. I was stood waiting to get off long before we reached my stop, but he didn’t stop at it. I was stood right next to him! As he drove on, I remained silent, contemplating what to say to him when he let me off at the next stop. I thought of a sarcastic, “Oh, I’m allowed off the bus now, am I?” or maybe even just the simple, exasperated, “Dude!” but because I’m not confrontational enough, I just left the bus shaking my head and making it look like I was in a rush to go back from the direction we’d come in, so he’d know how much he’d inconvenienced me. But do you know what the thing that definitely would have hit him hardest was? The fact that I didn’t even say “Thanks” as I alighted. Bam!

So, that’s pretty much it. Next week should be pretty exciting, I’ve got a busy week. Gonna get the final injection to make sure I don’t get diseases (it’s not the swine flu one, I don’t think I’m getting it) on Monday, then a job interview on Tuesday and One Hundred Days starts (more information on that on Tuesday), then I go to London (it’s been too long!) on Wednesday – Saturday for Kerry’s birthday. So yeah. Looks set to be pretty sa-weet. Here come the freakin’ girls.

Tradition Fail

Please completely disregard the previous post.

Nearly ended up in Newcastle, but remembered that I’d quite like to go to London next week, so couldn’t justify the £46 it’d cost to go there. Also, my teeth are causing me hell again and for the second time this year, one side of my face is all swollen and horrible.
So, instead I went to the coffee shop with Amber, Biggles and Bazzles. That was nice, but not the same as invading Sheffield.

I hope you accept this blast from the past by means of apology:

Collision With Tradition

Last November, I briefly touched upon the fact that on the 25th of that month in 2007, I’d done something exciting by going to see Matt Berry live for the first time and decided I didn’t want to bother with that crazy university lark. Then on the 25th of November last year, I journeyed to Sheffield to meet Selly and see Jarvis. Again, quite exciting.

Now, my often-sentimental, idiotic side clearly saw some sort of theme here and has been tugging on the sleeve of my misanthropic, pessimistic side saying, “Ooh! OOH! Why don’t we do something memorable every November 25th? Can we? Can we? Can we please?”
It gave in.

But what to do this year? I’ve been pondering for a few months now and all of a sudden, we’re six days away and I’ve still no idea.
As it stands, it looks like I’m going to go to the train station at 8am and just get on the cheapest train to a destination I’ve never been before and spend a day there. The thing is, this could backfire spectacularly. With no plan, I could spend the entire day in a place I don’t know, with no knowledge of touristy crap to do, which will probably result in me finding the nearest pub, spending all day there, depressed, and will drunkenly miss my train home. Also, I’ll be going alone as everyone I know seems to be working or at uni (the squares!), so that could make things dull. My phone has decided to have a mid-life crisis and is currently refusing to work, so I can’t use it to research wherever I end up in order to find something to do or to go on Twitter and say, “Hey! Who’s near [name of destination]?! Let’s go for beers!”

So, I’m at a bit of a loss. I’m imagining the two worst scenarios at the moment. By the time Wednesday comes, I’ll either still be sat at home, in a corner, weeping OR I’ll be stranded in a village in the north of England regretting the fact I’d stupidly got on a train to the arse-end of nowhere and wishing I was sat at home, in a corner, weeping.

Please help, gang.
Any suggestions are welcome. I like an adventure. Please bear in mind that I need to get to the place on the 25th of November and preferably home again that night, but not necessarily. If something is exciting enough, I’ll book a travelodge!

Thank you.
Love you long time.
x

Kingsmill Confessions

An advert on the television recently has grabbed my attention.
“Very well done to the advertiser, that’s sort of the point…” you may be thinking, but no. This advert has just been irritating me so much so that I’m considering starting to buy the product it is advertising in order to be able to boycott it.
It’s Kingsmill.

Their latest attempt to garner any sort of consumer interest is by telling a story which, if you disregard the far-too-detailed explanation of just what exactly a ‘Kingsmill Little Big Loaf’ is, seems sort of plausible but not really entertaining enough to justify thirty seconds worth of airtime.
Here is just one…

“Have you got a confession? Tell us at kingsmillconfessions.com“.
I’ve checked out the site and apparently, if you send in a confession you stand the chance of winning £250 of Red Letter Day vouchers and maybe your submission will feature on the packaging of certain Kingsmill products… providing your confession is heavily bread-based.

Oh.

Oh, Terry Christian’s let himself go…

Two heroes in just under a week.
I think you might have to take it as a given that most of my blogs from now on will be structured thusly:
-description of going to see someone I admire deeply in the flesh
-a nostalgic look at someone I admire deeply
-the excitement of meeting someone I admire deeply, sometimes punctuated by a photo of me meeting that person I admire deeply.

Shall we just end this here then?
You are your own person, do what you like.
Unfortunately, I am mine and am going to self-indulge as it’s the only thing I fear I know how to do well. Really. It keeps me awake some nights.

So I met up with Pete and some of his friends at the Music Hall on Tuesday to go and see comedian who is sometimes off the tv, Stewart Lee. If you’ve read more than one of my blog posts, chances are I’ll have mentioned that man in it and how he is my favourite comeejin ever. I saw him live for the first time in August, and although I knew it’d be the same show but maybe just a tiny bit longer, I definitely wanted to see him again when he came to our Music Hall. We got into the hall and were bemused by the strange set up. It said on our tickets that we were at a table, so presumed it would be set like a comedy club, but instead, the tables were in perfectly organised rows, as were the chairs which all faced the stage. Peculiar. We sat where we believed were our seats and basked in the sounds of Robert Pollard’s vocals over the PA. Soon, StewLee came out, hair all over the place,  commented on and laughed about how formal the seating was. He told us about the last two times he’d been in Aberdeen since he last played at the Lemon Tree when he, in his own words “had to come up to meet some people who were protesting against something I’d written [Jerry Springer: The Opera], which was nice…” and “when I came here on Honeymoon by mistake”. Very sweet.
I didn’t realise he’d a support act, so thought it was very strange that he was starting a show in such an off-the-cuff manner. We realised this wasn’t the start of the show when he introduced Henning Wehn, which was a lovely surprise. As with Paul Foot, Henning Wehn had been on my would-like-t0-see-live list since seeing him on Channel 4’s FAQ U in 2005. He did a delightful twenty-five minutes and then there was a short break, during which time we joined Pete’s friends who had two spare seats at their table which was slightly nearer the front than ours. I felt like a meganerd that as Guided By Voices’ ‘Glad Girls’ came on, I began to get excited, knowing that during the next song, StewLee would return to the stage. And he did.
Unlike when I saw him in August, it all went ahead as he planned with no technical faults.

The show itself was not too different from August’s, but there were a few changes. In Edinburgh, he’d shown his Caffe Nero loyalty card to a small room of maybe 100 people, but as he’d mentioned, he was in a large echoey hall so not everyone could see it. He ended up having it blown up twice, but the scanner would only go about half the size of A4, so he’d had to paint a giant version of it onto a large sheet of paper (“this is the furthest north this has been…” he said with a slight chuckle). He didn’t mention Jeremy Clarkson being the least unfunny motoring journalist, but he did get to drop his mic, jump off the stage, come into the sea of tables, around five feet away from us and shout about how he’s not one of those people who thinks everything was his idea. He stood on top of a table too, which was good and brave because they were not very sturdy.
When he did his rendition of Steve Earle’s ‘Galway Girl’, I tried to record the sound on my phone (but it didn’t turn out brilliantly) and again, wanted to cry a little bit. It’s horrible when a song you love gets ruined for you by tv adverts. He’s got a good voice though, that man.
He left to lots of people making lots of positive noises. We headed in the direction of the bathrooms and said we would rendezvous in the foyer  five minutes later. I was a bit early and saw a big crowd in the foyer by the merchandise table. I looked over, hoping that I’d see a StewLee in amongst the bodies and I did.

Now, again, in Edinburgh, you may recall a minor freak-out that I had after seeing him standing two metres away from me. In fact, I wrote about it in an embarrassingly dramatic tone on this here blog,
‘I glanced over to my right, the direction she had just shot off towards. My attention was caught by a figure two metres away in a rain-jacket who had his head down, looking at his phone but was also listening to the woman next to him. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew who this was. I froze completely. He looked up, spoke to the woman, she said goodbye to him and joined the end of the queue and he put his phone away, stood for a second looking blankly like he’d forgotten where he was and then moved towards the door. As he hovered in the doorway with his back to me in his little Berghaus anorak, I shook myself out of my stunned state and knew I had to walk over and shake this man’s hand or I’d regret it for a long time. My knees moved but my feet didn’t. He’d already started to walk away and within seconds he was gone. I did not say hello to Stewart Lee.‘
So obviously, when this opportunity presented itself to me once more, I’d have been a fool not to take it. I joined the queue of people waiting to get things signed and figured out what I was going to say to him. I had no idea though.

A couple of weeks ago, I logged into my oft-neglected Myspace page and saw that he had posted a bulletin. Shocked by the fact that people still used Myspace, let alone StewLee, I sent him a message about music. More specifically, about the Male Nurse. I managed to get a couple of replies off him, but was worried that I was irritating him as the it’s difficult to get across your intended tone via typing words into a box, so didn’t bother him any more. I thought this would be a better time than any to apologise in case I had pissed him off somehow.

A man in front of me seemed to be showing Mr Lee some sort of toilet book. I can only assume this from the fact that Mr Lee said, “Oh right, wow, an actual toilet book…”
Said man appeared nervous and quiet but seemed to me to be a perfectly lovely comedy fan. I smiled as he walked away and then made my way forward to talk to my hero. I am aware that the smallest of encounters I report are excruciatingly detailed, but they mean a lot to me, in my sad little life so I like to write them down to make sure I don’t forget anything. It is my one tiny OCD thing.
I stepped to his table and said, “Hello.” as he held his hand out to take my ticket off me. I cannot be bothered using repetitive words that I would to describe the next minute, so I will use dialogue which is roughly exactly what was said… As with most of the conversations I get involved in, it consists of a lot of ‘Oh’s.
Me: “That was brilliant. I saw the show in Edinburgh and–”
SL: “Oh really? At the Stand?”
Me: “Yeah, it was great.”
SL: “And what’s your name?”
Me: “Kirsten.”
SL: “K-I-R-S-T..?”
Me: “E-N.”
[SL writes 'Kirsty' on my ticket]
Me: “Oh no, sorry, it’s Kirsten, T-E-N. Sorry, I’m a mumbler.”
SL: “Oh no, it’s me, I’m sorry, I’m going more and more deaf after every show.”
Me: “Ha, I can imagine. Oh, by the way, I’m sorry about pestering you on Myspace about the Male Nurse.”
SL: “About what, sorry?”
Me: “The Male Nurse.”
SL: “Oh! That was you, was it?”
Me: “Yeah, sorry I kept asking stupid questions and–”
SL: “Oh, not at all!”
Me: “Is it alright if I get a photo with you as well?”
SL: “Yeah, sure.” [He stands up, I go to take a photo and the guy behind me in the queue offers to take it. During this time, SL begins to tell me about one of the Male Nurse performing live Hammersmith Apol-- Hammersmith Lyric, sorry, that got really good reviews." ]
I then told him about seeing the Rebel live and how nobody seemed to really understand what was going on except me and my friend who were loving it. Amazingly, he looked quite interested and I can’t really remember what else he said. I shook his hand, told him again that I’d really enjoyed the show and that I’d probably pester him again in the future.
“Take care.” He said as I walked away.

You must always have at least one semi-banal conversation with the people you like the most. I think this is a good way to live life.

I saw Henning Wehn by the exit talking to some people, so I thought I’d kill to birds with one gun and quickly tell him he was very good too. I sort of hovered as he signed a man’s dvd and he turned to me, “Hello, young lady!”
I told him that he was a lovely surprise and that I didn’t have any money with me to buy his dvd, but I’d get it online. He seemed in a most excellent mood, which was very nice to see. One thing struck me about both of these comedians; how smiley they are. It filled my tiny heart with joy and I left a very happy Kirsten.

I met up with Pete outside and then caught a bus home. Everyone on the 2A to Ashwood looked pissed off. I smiled out the window and planned a poorly-written, dull blog on the evening I’d just had.

Monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, you

What a bizarre night Wednesday night was…

At around 7pm, I went to catch a bus to get me to the AECC for 8pm, only to find out that the next bus wasn’t due for another forty minutes, so I phoned the father and he ended up taking me there. On the way to the bus stop I saw lights in the sky and chuckled at the thought of them being there for Eddie Izzard.
By the time I got to the AECC, it turned out they were. Oh baby, you so decadent.

I found my seat (nine rows back, sa-weet!) quite quickly and immediately whipped out my phone as I do when I’m alone at gigs, so I can at least pretend to look like I have friends. There were two big screens at the side of the stage, both of which were showing various members of the audience, mainly looking flushed, but one guy started stripping much to the embarrassment of the lady next to him. Several women hid behind handbags, one man did an evil stare. Izzard’s twitter feed was also shown on both of the screens. As I watched messages flood in, I saw one that I’d sent whilst on the way to the gig about the lights posted. This, along with the need to keep my head down and stare at my phone, prompted me to post several more things. It was very strange. At one point, there were only about two other people in my row of seats, so I posted “There’s hardly anybody in my row. Why do you hate me, people of Aberdeen? I’m one of you. One. Of. You.”
By the time this was eventually screened, I had two guys next to me. One of whom read out my message and chortled. I was proud. They did this with another of mine later. There were, and it pains me to admit this, twelve that appeared in total. This would never have happened if I was with people! Well… it would have, but they would have maybe been entertaining… ANYWAY! That’s not the point. For now, I’ll let you know that one of these messages said simply, “STEPHEN!” (and to my delight, some boys a few rows behind me laughed to themselves and said “Just coming!” but in their partner voices.)

Soon the lights went down and there was a trailer for THE EDDIE IZZARD STORY!!! or whatever it is really called, then he came out and I got too excited and just sort of grinned at nobody whilst clapping.
I do not remember how old I was when my sister bought her first Eddie Izzard video, but it was a good good day. He became a massive part of my childhood and love of comedy in ways that I never would have imagined.
Most of the time, this was an excellent thing. I memorised everything he siad and did and when I was possibly about eight or nine years old, I recall acting out his Evil Giraffe (despite not knowing what a herbivore was… I can only imagine we’d not covered that by primary five…) in the playground at school much to the bemused faces of my friends who, again, did not know what the hell I was talking about…

Some other times, however, his teachings which I had taken for absolute truth, would leave me looking like a tit.

In first year, our year head, Mr Gibson (woop!) was taking our Social Ed class for some reason. I assume he was trying to get us motivated and to share things about ourselves with one another as he asked if anybody knew anything about Achilles. I, confident I knew all about this guy from the Izzard, raised my hand and said, “All of his important things were in his heel:  his brain, his liver, his lungs, his spleen…”
Gibson looked confused and said, “…No, uh… not quite… anybody else?”
Curse you, Izzard! But I still loved him. Forever and ever amen. Now back to November 2009, Kirsten. Oh, okay.

So… yeah. He came onstage. I was in awe and wasn’t really concentrating on what he was saying to start with, but caught up eventually. He was looking great. In boy-mode, but with a fantastic jacket on.
I don’t want to give too much away in case anybody reading this is due to see this tour/buy the dvd soon. Except I think there’s only one possibility that that might happen, if my dear sister decides to read this and she is off to see him in Glasgow in a few days time.

Some things I like though…
-Around three minutes into the show, came the first round of applause, but it wasn’t for Eddie. He mentioned something about the moon and how soon there’ll be comedy gigs on the moon. A guy shouted out, “Aye, but there’d be no atmosphere!” and everybody laughed. Everyone loves a well thought-out science related gag. Apparently Izzard didn’t hear it.
-He said “So…yeah”, “action transvestite” and “I’ve said this before, but who goes on holiday in pyjamas?”, all of which made me happy. He even managed to crowbar in a quiet, “Covered in bees.” And nobody whooped at the reference and acted more excited than they were, which I was expecting and not looking forward to. Well done, Aberdeen.
-Mentions of place names in Scotland. Including asking if we get sick of English people coming up and saying ‘Aberdeen’. “You should just make it four ‘e’s in a row, it wouldn’t make a difference.” He pronounced Kirkcaldy correctly (incidentally, “Kirkcaldy correctly” is a fun little phrase to say).
-Very very funny animal mimes and dinosaur impressions. Hooray!
-He mentioned Valkyrie and how he really enjoyed the end product because it was a film that English kids and German kids could both watch together and see both of their sides try and fight the nazis. A woman shouted “Stop plugging!” He didn’t hear her, then figured out what she said and said, “I’m not plugging! I’m just saying that it’s a good film ‘cos it shows that there were Germans trying to stop the nazis too! …So fuck off!”
Everyone applauded again and a man at the back went, “Waaaaaaaarrrrrggh!” or something similar. Eddie looked bemused. Just before the interval, he said, “Go get a drink, go to the toilet, maybe knife a few people…” pointing in the direction of the rubbish hecklers.

After the show, I checked my phone and had a text from Paul which said “JUST COMING!”. I hadn’t realised he was at the gig so texted him to find out where he was, bought some things, went to the bathroom and then left. I took a photo of one of the massive, excessive Eddie Izzard: Stripped trucks and slowly walked to the barriers where several people were waiting to meet the man himself. I wanted to stay behind and wait, but again, was weirdly self-conscience about being by myself. I heard a guy next to me talk to one of the security women about how he was studying journalism. He was very charming. A few people left and the makeshift queue moved down a bit. It was here that I heard, “Kirsten!” and saw Paul with two of his friends. Huzzah! Someone to stand with! I knew I woulda hated myself forever if I’d left then found out that Paul had met the guy. At around 11.30pm, three security guys came out. One, being followed by the other two, said “If you’d just like to come with me…” and everyone walked after them. I presumed he was talking to us and not just the guys he was with. What a faux-pas that would have been! They led everyone inside, which was strange, and for the second time in a week, I hoped I wasn’t going to be kidnapped. There were about twenty of us by this time and we walked into a side door of the AECC to a corridor that I recognised from my brief stint as part of the waiting staff there. The door directly in front of us as we walked in led to the arena and there was another to the left which led backstage.  People began queueing again and we stood by the backstage door where we believed to be the end of the queue as we figured if he was going to do a similar thing to the queen, he’d go down the line and spend most time with the people at the end. Clever, eh? Just as we were plotting this, Izzard came out of the door right next to us and we were the only ones to notice him at first in his little anorak (first StewLee in one, now Eduardo) so let out a little “Heyyy!”. Then everybody else caught on and came over cheering.
He said that he was very tired and if it was okay by us, he’d do a little Q&A for us. Wow! He said to take photos and videos and whatever we liked, so I did, just to prove how close we were to him, if anything…

I also took a video of him talking briefly about transvestism and doing films, but it was on my phone and the memory started to go because my phone is terrible, so it only lasts around 2minutes 30seconds and the woman in front of me’s head kept getting in the way, but I’ll try upload it someday.
There was a guy recording the whole thing, but it was also on his phone, so if it does end up on youtube, the quality might be a bit rubbish.
He spoke about bits of the show that change every night, how one of the ideas he kept returning to that night had spawned from being onstage two nights before and how he likes to talk to hecklers, but it really slows the show down if responds to people who just make noises and he can’t hear. He also mentioned that he’d seen at the interval on Twitter what the “no atmosphere” guy had said (I think I may have been this Twitter-nerd, Twerd?), apparently he’d only heard the word “atmosphere” and thought the guy having a dig at that show despite it only being a few minutes in… until everyone laughed and applauded. He mentioned the woman who said “Stop plugging!” and asked if it annoyed people when he spoke about Valkyrie, which I thought was very sweet, but nobody got to answer because a guy at the back shouted, “She’s here!” and the woman who had shouted it looked embarrassed, apologised and said she she was only joking… and it was her birthday!
He finished off after about half an hour, which I think was just lovely of him and people started clambering over to shake his hand. I ended up doing that thing that I always seem to do whenever I meet someone I adore but don’t want to interrupt anybody else and was hovering by his right elbow. A girl had a massive poster of Steve McQueen for him to sign which he seemed bemused by. As she looked for a pen, I politely (I must stress that I’m always very polite. Always. All the time. You prick.)  stepped in and asked for a quick photo in a very apologetic manner. He obliged and we both stared at my phone at the end of my outstretched arm… it didn’t flash, so I checked the screen, “Camera in use by another application”. I let out far too loud a “What?! No it’s not! What does that mean?” Eddie looked frightened. Whilst I tried to sort it out, several others came and spoke to him, hugged him and shook his hand. Again, even more politely and apologetically, I said “Sorry Eddie, I’ve got it working, can we try again?”
He said yes again and I expected him to look irritated in the photo which did take this time, but no!
The Twat In The Hat could not hide her delight at standing next to her hero.

What a diamond. I don’t even mind that I look hilarious.
That’s one more off the list. Would have quite liked to tell him about the Achilles thing but alas, he had to head to Cardiff and I didn’t want other people to not have a chance to speak to him, so  said, “Come back soon, Eddie!” and left as he said, “Okay, I’ll try.”

I walked home. I was a bit too excited, so didn’t know what music to listen to or care, but put shuffle on. LCD Soundsystem. So I stuck with them. I ended up walking home in thirty minutes when it usually takes around an hour. Excitement! Adrenaline! Izzard! I planned on watching lots of his dvds when eventually arriving home, but instead I ended up speaking to dad into the wee small hours and just went to bed.

I am still very excited.

On Thursday, I wandered around town, ended up being passive-aggresive via text and then meeting Baz to continue my wanderings but with company. We met up again later, bought some gin and sauntered to Rory’s house, where, again he had bought fireworks. We feared for our lives, but only ended up with a near death experience, once! Hurrah! One of the fireworks was supposed to explode in the sky, but was stuck too deeply into the ground and so exploded in the garden. Terrifying, but if it didn’t happen, we’d worry…
Bazzles, Amber, John and myself  left quite early. John was very drunk. I’m glad he never actually attempted to light a cigarette off of a firework and instead stuck to doing it from a sparkler.

The last line in my dream before I was awoken at 7.40am was “I broke a mirror. Let the bad luck start now…” It was appropriate. Unlucky to be up at such a miserable hour. But it was for a good cause! We set off to the train station to catch ours to Edinburgh. It turned into a bus…
The journey was alright though. I don’t mind buses. As you may know, I only hate them if they last more than twelve hours and claim to be “MEGA!!!”
We met up with my dear sister and then Clara and quickly had some food before heading off to Caroline Castigliano to try on wedding dresses. Immediately, I noticed Chaka Khan’s ‘I’m Every Woman’ (not to be confused with Barack Obama’s version) was being played. “How appropriate! I bet they have some kind of YOU GO GIRL!!! playlist.” How wrong I was. It was just that one song. On repeat. For the whole time we were there.
Other than that, though, it was funtimes. Morven tried on quite a few dresses and looked looovely in every single one, but was torn between one that was quite floaty and another that was very vintage-looking and lacy. The delightful laydeez who worked their wrote up the details of the lacy one for her and sent us on our way. Then we saw the price of it and deflated a bit. Yikes. It wasn’t that nice anyway… [insert fist bite here]
We went for cake at Kilimanjaro again. Yes, actual Kilimanjaro, not just a coffee shop called Kilimanjaro. Then we went back to the dress shop we’d gone to a few months ago for another appointment.
The sister tried on a few more dresses, including a huuuge one that we all were in awe of, but it wasn’t right. Then she tried on the one she really loved last time and we had a winner. Floaty AND lacy! She looked wonderful too. But veil? No veil? Who knows!
The deposit for it was made and we left with high spirits and went to find father for some food.

A successful day! Hooray! And it wasn’t stressful at all.
Again, it felt like we’d barely arrived before we had to leave, but we got to the station and got on an actual train! To Dundee… but a train nonetheless! Fortunately, there was another to Aberdeen at Dundee, so we didn’t have to catch another bus.

This has been long and far-too-detailed and probably full of typos, but I cannot be bothered to back and check at the moment. For now, I’ll leave you with something spectacular I first saw last night. Not strictly ethical, but a must-see. I found myself pretty emotionally-attached to the goat by the end…
Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I give to you, A Monkey Riding A Goat On A Tightrope. Watch right to the end…
G’night!

Omnishambles

COMMENCE BORING, FAR-TOO-DETAILED SUMMARY OF THE WEEK!!!

Picking up where we left off, Question Time was hilarious. But that was SO two weeks ago, so eff that ess, girlfriend. I don’t remember what I did the day after. It was a Friday. I’m going to guess I planned my day around Peep Show (which wouldn’t be hard to do as it wasn’t on until 10pm).

Saturday saw the return of the closest tv show to perfection of recent year (okay, it shares that title with Peep Show. Peep Show. Peep Show… PS: Peep Show) – The Thick Of It. And it was on BBC2! GASP! It was, as predicted, very very very very good. I love Peter Capaldi hard. There is much much more to him than being the king of creative-swearing, but have Tucker’s Law anyway as it beautiful… (But don’t play it, if you are offended by the use of various f and c-bombs.)

If someone would like to embroider that onto a tea towel for me, that’d probably be the greatest christmas present I have ever and will ever receive. Jus’ sayin’…

Two days later, I was coerced into seeing Michael McIntyre at the AECC. I’ve always had a confused view on this man. My first encounter of him was (I think) when he was on Mock the Week or something. He seemed very stupid and sometimes stupidity offends me, but usually only if it comes from posh men who think they’re funny. For some reason, though, I nearly ended up seeing him in Edinburgh last year. I suppose I must have deemed him ‘passable’ by this point. My mother received his dvd as a christmas present last year and after I’d watched everything I owned and had become increasingly bored, I ended up watching it. At the time, I was ashamed to say I laughed. Lots. It was hard not to, he’s like a drunk child. By this point, I had decided that he was ‘okay’. This was the most I was willing to admit to to anybody who wasn’t a close friend or a family member.
Anyway, the gig on Monday was peculiar. The only comedy I believe I’ve ever seen at the AECC was the Mighty Boosh, so I didn’t really know what to expect. We had good seats though and there was a massive screen behind him for those who didn’t have such a good view. He was very funny and exceedingly amiable. It’s just nice to see a stand-up enjoying themself so much onstage. But I imagine anyone would if they were raking in the cash-dollars as much as he must be.

An exciting week for cinema-ing too. On Wednesday, Bazzles, Biggle, Amb…les and myself inexplicably decided to go see Michael Jackson’s This Is It, which I keep calling Is This It by mistake. It was two freaking hours long… but nice to have a sing-song in the dark, I guess. Never been much of a fan, but the show looked like it was going to be extravagant theatrical piece of genius, so it’s quite irritating that he died. Bah!
We also went to see Fantastic Mr Fox. I had no intention of going to see this as it just seemed all weird to me. Wes Anderson? Foxy not being an English dandy? Wrong, wrong, wrong. But I went along anyway and found myself enjoying it. GASP #2! And I’d forgotten Jarvis was in it, so that was good. Nice soundtrack and by the end, even Clooney/Mr Fox’s annoying little whistle and click wasn’t making me angry. I left feeling… positive. What’s wrong with me?

On Thursday, I ended up working Janet’s shift as she’d covered for me on Monday. I decided that before going in at 5, I’d quickly check out the new shopping centre that had just opened, Union Square. Holy eff. It was huge. I was not expecting that. I didn’t go into any of the shops as it was packed, but I had a wander round for about 10 minutes, got bored and headed to work early. I struggled to get a bus afterwards. I hate First Bus. Forever and ever with all my heart.

Friday was the most Halloween-y I’ve ever been. I’ve hated this fake-holiday since I was little. I was a Scrooge-child. I would go out, but I’d never enjoy it. The strangers round here didn’t ever have good sweets. And they did genuinely want to give me sweets as opposed to wanting to kidnap me. Poor show. Last year, things started to look up. In fact, on this very blog, I wrote “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m opposed to this day as much as any sane person, but being allowed to legally drink has brightened it up a bit.”
I think this also comes from a fondness of zombie-films and classic horrors. New horror films seem to be mainly psychological balls. Give me a zombie or a werewolf anyday.
Anyhoo, yes. I’d noticed that An American Werewolf In London was showing at the new Cineworld at Union Square at 11.20pm, so decided to buy tickets. I went to get them quite early in case they sold out (this turned out to be pointless as it was terrible weather, so hardly anybody turned up). I was waiting for a bus from 4.20 until around 4.50 and when I eventually got onto one, I just read a book. I didn’t realise that soon I was the only person left on the bus, until the driver asked where it was I was going. “Uhh… Bridge Street?” I replied. He said, “Oh, good, I can take a shortcut.” I feared for my life.
In the end, he didn’t take any shortcuts, but instead turned on the ‘Sorry, Not In Service’ sign. It was quite exciting. I got into town at 5.20 and had bought our tickets by 5.30, then got on a bus home at 5.40. Amazing. Twenty minutes in town.

Baz came round to mine for a chinese and we watched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre which always seems much funnier when you watch it with someone else. I also realised that Eddie Argos looks like a much skinnier, not-at-all annoying version of Franklin…

We also watched Shaun of the Dead and then Supernanny (terrifying) while we waited to hear from Amber to see if she was planning on accompanying us to the cinema. We hadn’t heard from her by around 10.30, so presumed she wasn’t coming and caught a bus in the pishing rain. The centre was pretty deserted, but I guess that’s to be expected at 11pm.
The trailers started and while it attempted to play the new one for Wolfman, the screen froze and the sound jumped which made for funny stills. As this was happening, I was convinced that the people in the projection room were being mauled by zombies and that there was some sort of apocalypse happening outside.
Some staff came in and apologised and said they were going to reset. We saw the trailers again, then the Wolfman one came on and got further than it had the first time, then froze again.

More staff came in, said that it was clearly just that one trailer that was messing up, so were just going to play the film. I’d forgotten how excellent An American Werewolf In London is and it’s even better on a big screen. It went without a hitch… until the very last scene when the sound went completely, but the film kept playing. Everyone was giggling in a very British “Hooray for things going wrong!” way and the guys behind us provided their own voiceovers which consisted mainly of…
“David… is… is that you?”
“Raaaaaawr! Yes! I’m a werewolf!”
Very funny. Most definitely one of the strangest cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. We ended up getting free tickets to any other film. I plan on taking my mother out to see something soon.
We caught a taxi and got home at around 2.30am. An enjoyable eve.
Incidentally, I did eventually get to see the trailer that kept effing up. Here you go…

Did that crash your computer? DID IT?! (It didn’t crash mine. Sad times, I thought it might genuinely be cursed.)

Saturday was dull. I spent most of it tired and ill. I didn’t go out, my phone broke and we had no tiny children at our door demanding sweets. I’m pretty sure we haven’t had for the past three years or so. Time to give up the dream of being a child-catcher and become a writer instead. Although this blog has been so poorly written that perhaps I should give up that dream too.

Yesterday was Sunday. I woke up feeling like death, but went to work like a good’un. It dragged due to feeling fluey. I’ve had a few times over the past few weeks where I’ve felt like you do when you’ve got flu starting without it actually developing into anything. Infuriating. I got home, went to bed in the hope that I could go out if I felt better, but ended up still feeling shit so stayed home. I ended up being sick at around 10.30 and definitely thinking I had Swine Flu. Woke up today and felt much the same, but took some Benilyn and watched four episodes of Adam and Joe Go Tokyo in bed and am now feeling a little better. Again, I’m going to go to work. I am such an effing trooper, buy me things.

Another thing you should definitely do is check out a new comic called The Abortion by my lovely lovely friend Jamie (or Jamie Jamie: the artist formerly known as Big Jamie on this here blog).

Seriously, check out the blog and order yourself a copy. But remember, it’s FOR ADULTS ONLY! No, Little Timmy, no! Oh, go on then, you scamp, you need to learn about walking abortions sometime…

Until next time: take care and watch out for zombies.

Spookify

What better way to celebrate tomorrow’s pointless holiday than with a Halloween Spotify playlist?
I wanted to make one that did not include ‘Thriller’ or ‘The Monster Mash’. As good as they are, they seem to appear on every Halloween mix ever made… ever.
I started off looking for songs that genuinely make me shudder, but could only come up with ‘Little Susie’ which has freaked me out since I was a child and ‘What’s He Building In There?’ which needs no explanation, so I decided to open it up a bit and include some Scooby Doo-esque spookiness.
I hope you enjoy it… and my purposefully crap-looking (yeah, it’s on purpose… ahem… Well, what can you do with MS Paint?) album cover…

1. Henry Hall – Hush, Hush, Hush (Here Comes The Boogie Man)
2. Michael Jackson – Little Susie/Pie Jesu
3. Thomas Truax – In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)
4. The Cramps – Save It
5. Gary Numan – RIP (Gary Mix)
6. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand
7. Marilyn Manson – This Is Halloween
8. The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – Drunk On The Blood
9. The Cure – Subway Song
10. Franz Ferdinand – Jeremy Fraser
11. Elvis Costello – I Want You
12. The Horrors – Excellent Choice
13. Blur – Far Out
14. Screaming Lord Sutch – Jack The Ripper
15. Tom Waits – What’s He Building In There?

To listen, click ANYWHERE on this line. Really. Anywhere. And go on then, anywhere on this next line too. See? Amazing!

Take it, switch off the lights and have a listen. Then let me know what you think.

Thank you to my sister and my father for suggestions. My father will never read this. I really wanted to put on more Nick Cave as he is Master Of The Fright, but there were too many songs.

You’re in my eyes

That fake-book post seems to have brought in an overwhelming number of views. I may now have to, not unlike the BBC, censor my content or the record number of hits could become a record number of complaints.

I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

I was out of action at the start of the week with throat-death but still soldiered on to work. What a trooper! Sunday was enjoyable. And I managed to shock Lee, or Captain Filth. This was before we opened at 10.30am too, so I felt after that, I deserved to take the rest of the day off. I didn’t though… because of the whole being-a-trooper thing I mentioned earlier. Then on Tuesday night, he turned up and I managed to freak him out again. I am apparently the only person who has ever done this. I am quite proud.

I had a productive day on Tuesday (ie: I was up before 9am). I met up with Amber at 10.30ish and we caught a bus into town, took lots of photos and went in search of good comics. At 1pm, we went to Slains and sat with lemonade and resisted ordering food until Garry and chums arrived. Amber was worried about meeting him as I’d shown her some of his artwork on his blog, which is amazing (You heard me, Milne: AMAZING.) and she was threatened. I think this made him blush. It was sweet.
We ate some lunch and I led the way to Retrospect, which is a shop I often forget about despite it being ace. There’s always at least one garish top, but I will still always want to buy it. This week’s one was a bright orange and black one that looked a bit like the top half of a wetsuit. Garry and I mused over what the bottom half would be like. Yikes.
All too soon, I had to make my way to work, so I bid the lovely boy a good day and head to work, but not before promising again to get down to Dundee to visit him soon. I am rubbish, so haven’t been down and I’ve been saying it for nearly a year now. Therefore, this December I will definitely go down and if I don’t, he has the right to do a complicated boogie along my spine (is it obvious I’m listening to Jarvis’ ‘Further Complications’ right now?) .

This week in the cinema, I have seen Couples Retreat and Zombieland. The former I mainly went to see due to Serafinowicz being in it, who was brilliant. Zombieland was also far too good. I forgot how much I love Woody Harrelson, that crazy vegan! Also, as I had been led to believe beforehand, the cameo in it is spectacular. I’m shocked that I managed to avoid finding out who it was before seeing it.
It was Laura and I who went to Zombieland and we got to experience one of our five-a-day adrenaline rushes: social awkwardness. As per usual, other people were sitting in our seats when we arrived at the screen. Easy enough procedure, I’m usually more than happy to ask the people to move, but this time I was very tired and saw they were being occupied by loud, smelly rugby boys. I didn’t feel up to confronting them, so we sat in the seats directly behind them, in the knowledge that if we were sitting in someone else’s seats, we’d either a) say, “Oh, I’m sorry!” and move further down the row or b) do some fake acting and exclaim, “Oh, are we? I’m sure we’re… oh, no wait, we’re D10 and 11! D! Sorry about that!”
The trailers were due to start at 9.10pm, so when that time came, the screen was still pretty empty, so we reasoned we might not have been sat in anyone else’s seats. As soon as we voiced this to each other, the screen started to fill up. Every time someone walked up the steps, we’d start nervously laughing. It was tense. We were pathetic. People kept continuing up the stairs and we’d breathe a sigh of relief until more people came in. Baz was killing herself laughing silently at how rubbish we are. I told her that extreme sports can eff off, social awkwardness is more exhilarating. We really are goons.
Today I was back at das Kino with Keri. It seemed all that was on was Love Happens, which looks so so boring and unoriginal and… Jennifer Aniston-y that I’d rather splash acid onto my face, and the Invention of Lying, which I’d seen already. Fortunately, Keri hadn’t, so we got to avoid Love Happens. Hurrah!
I’ve still not seen UP and I really want to. Not in 3D though, I don’t want to have to pay to see it. Imagine!

A thing I learned this week is that there is actually an English word for schadenfreude. It is ‘epicaricacy’. This is exciting if you’re a nerd like me. But you probably already knew it.

What else did I want to ramble about?
…OH! Again, at work this week, Scott began to compile a list of books about time travel. I recommended Stevie Fry’s ‘Making History‘ and in return, he showed me one he’d found on his Wikipedia list of Time Travel novels, ‘Time After Time‘ purely because it’s about Jack the Ripper… who gets hold of a time machine and goes to San Francisco in 1979. Amazing!

It dawned on him that he’d actually seen the film of this. I told Kerry about it last night and we’ve concluded we need to get a copy of it. It could be the new Deidre Hall Story for Speccy Nerdy Fucknuts Film Club.
Apparently the sequel to Time After Time is released next year and is called ’Jaclyn the Ripper’. The premise: “H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper through time again—only Jack has transmogrified into a beautiful woman.” Wow. I have ordered the first book off Amazon. It’s going to be terrible, I can’t wait.
Find out more about Karl Alexander here and the books the Library Journal praised as “Quite readable.” WOW! 

In other news, I’m sad that I’m not at Karaoke Circus tonight. Especially as this time last year, I was in old London town and it’d be good to be there in October again. But on the plus side, it means I get to watch Nick Griffin on Question Time. Someone on the Aberdeen Music site had pasted the email he sent to his idiots onto the site, but was keen to point out that, as a very very anti-BNP man, the email was not sent to him:

“Fellow British Patriot

Question Time is scheduled for 10.35pm tomorrow evening (Thursday) and will be a milestone in the indomitable march of the British National Party towards saving our country.
Our violent opponents on the far Left have promised to lay siege and barricade the studio venue, because they know only too well that this could be THE key moment that propels the BNP into the big time.
Never before have we had the chance to present our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain’s nightmare situation to the public at large in such a prominent fashion.
However, members and supporters must be aware that this show will be a stage-managed farce organised in a specific way to leave several impressions:
The audience will be hand-picked and overtly hostile – thus giving the impression that the British people at large must be hostile to BNP views.
The panellists will be overtly hostile, even the non-political guests will be hostile. Everyone will be hostile – this will leave the impression to non-informed viewers that BNP views have minority status.
I will, no doubt, be interrupted, shouted down, slandered, put on the spot, and subject to a scrutiny that would be a thousand times more intense than anything directed at other panellists.
It will, in other words, be political blood sport.
But I am relishing this opportunity, and I know that, despite the stage-managed hostile audience and panellists, YOU, the ordinary members, supporters and voters of the BNP, will be in the studio with me as I take on the corrupt, treacherous swine destroying our beautiful island nation.

Yours sincerely for Britannia

Nick Griffin MEP

Chairman, BNP”

Riiiight… Of course, anyone who opposes him on tv is doing so purely to “sex up” the show, aren’t they? Those sexy filthy-lefty slags! It couldn’t possibly be because they disagree with him and everything he stands for- don’t be ridiculous!
I sort of feel sorry for him a bit if he really thinks this is going to be “THE key moment that propels the BNP into the big time“
Poor, deluded little Fat Hitler.
My favourite part is probably, “our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain’s nightmare situation“. Common sense. Forgive me, readers, but: LOL. When did he turn into the Pub Landlord?
And when did he think it was acceptable to interrupt two guys just hanging out and having coffee..?

What a dick.

Guerilla

Recently, we’ve been noticing strange things afoot in the shop. For a number of weeks now, we have been discovering library books that have found themselves on our shelves with fake covers on them which in no way relate to what’s inside. Some of them are brilliant.

I apologise for the picture quality, I took these in a rush at work yesterday…

Rolf Harris Explains The Uncanny Valley.

12 Good Reasons For Giving Up Hope.
The cover of this is just black. Inside, the actual book is an old edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

Harrison Ford’s Guide To Loneliness.

And my personal favourite…

The Wrong Towel Can Kill.

As far as I’m aware, they’re not doing us any harm. The original books that are inside aren’t from our shop, so nobody’s messing with stock. These things cropping up just brighten the days!
If I caught anyone doing it, I’d be tempted to turn the other way and let them get on with it.
Whoever you are, I salute you.