“Oh, I see we got ourselves a wise-acre!”

It’s the fourth of July which can mean one thing and one thing only. Yep. That’s right. I’ve now been at the bookshop for a year. Which also means that it’s been just over a year since my and John’s New York Cop obsession started up and nearly a year since this blog began.
More on that later.

Since the last blog, I’ve been alright. No wayward behaviour, merely japes and misadventure! (Not really, but I bloody love those words.) Last Friday we went to my cousin’s wedding in Inverness. I do really like Inverness, even if it does think it’s a city (aww, bless! — Only joking, Invernessians! …Is that what someone from Inverness is called? Nessies?). It’s very pretty. The night before, the sister and her boy came home and we got caught up in the Michael Jackson frenzy. That was exciting, but weird. It’s strange, I don’t imagine people dying a lot, but he’s one of those people you never really expect to stop living and being a bit weird…
So, yeah, Friday. The wedding was lovely. It’s always nice to see family again, isn’t it? Sort of turned into a bit of a touristy weekend after that. We left to go home on the Saturday and ended up in Aviemore having lunch, then various other hot-spots, including Granny’s hoose. Och aye. That was a surprise for her, and I think it was a good one.

It’s been a strange week. Really hot. Like ridiculously so. Apparently Aberdeen was hotter than LA on Wednesday. That’s just insane. On Monday, it was enjoyable. I was working from 8.30am-12, then had a five hour break in which I got to soak up the sunshine for a while. I don’t think I needed to go back at 5pm, but it’s extra money, innit? And as it says in the bible “Every Little Helps”.
Worked again on Tuesday and on ridiculously-hot-Wednesday, Amber and I said we’d go to the beach, but ended up in town with ice cream and lounging around in Union Terrace Gardens. There are plans to move the gardens up to street level. I’m not sure why. I think one of the reasons was that nobody goes into them just now. I think this is because it’s never hot enough to enjoy them, but when it is, like this week, it ends up packed with people. Strange old Aberdeen…

On Wednesday night we did the quiz for the first time in ages. Ended up coming second again but got no prize as they were all out. I’ve been told to keep pestering them when they might have them in. Exciting. Afterwards we did a sort of unintentional pub-crawl purely because we didn’t know where to go that had a beer garden that wouldn’t be packed. Siberia’s was, but we went to the air conditioned side room there for a bit, then Enigma, followed by Korova and finally Exodus. A highly enjoyable night.

Thursday came and went relatively quickly. I met up with Jill for the first time in months to go for a quick lunch, which was very nice. I don’t remember what took up the rest of the day, but presumably I read lots. All I remember is that at night I watched That Mitchell and Webb Look, Psychoville and Question Time with my mother. Rock and/or roll.

Yesterday was Friday and I did nothing ’til about 2pm where I went into work and signed a card for Pam. Then came home, briefly watched some of the tennis and headed out to Pam’s. We got to the Braided Fig at about 6.30pm and had a few drinks and a general lovely time. Joss ended up buying Joan tequila, poor lady. She did not enjoy it. As with the christmas night out, the numbers slowly dropped and soon merely eight of us ventured to Prohibition. It was here where I discussed the fact that I’d been at the shop for a year and reminded Arlene that she had interviewed me. She said that after I’d gone from the interview, she’d said to Pete that I would “really fit in” and he agreed. This made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Aww…
Soon, only me, Pete, Pam and Shane were left but decided to leave. We took cover from the pouring rain (quite refreshing, really) under a tree until Pam got picked up, then Shane went home and me and Pete decided we needed tea and biscuits so went back to his to have just that. We ended up watching Alexei Sayle’s Merry-Go-Round and The Amazing Screw-On Head’s pilot. I knew we were in for a treat with the latter as Pete pitched it to me by saying “It’s got Niles from Frasier in it as a guy called Emperor Zombie.” It was great. Why did that never get commissioned?
I left at about 2.30am and oddly managed to get a bus really quickly. I got home, planned to do some writing, but fell asleep instead. Rubbish, eh?

So, like I say, this year’s passed really quickly and I don’t like it. Ultimately, I’m still here and this still makes me sad. But at the same time, I’ve got to stop and remember that I’m not even 20 and should shut the hell up sometimes and quit acting like I’ve wasted my whole life. It’s ridiculous. If someone could remind me of the fact that I’m being stupid the next time I jump aboard the downward spiral, that’d be nice. Thanks readers: Theaders.

There has been a constant in my fairly varied week. That would be Mr Stewart Lee. Finally, my own copy of 41st Best Stand-Up arrived on Monday. The rest of the week has been spent watching This Morning With Richard Not Judy.
I’m now even more excited to see him in August. I’ve only bought tickets to see him, Rhys Darby and the DO’D at the festival so far, but I’m also hoping to see Trevor Lock, Paul Foot and I suppose Richard Herring at some point too. Anyway, aye, Mr Lee is at the festival, but also coming back to Aberdeen in November. I really would rather like a ticket to that too, but funds prohibit me at the moment. Back off to the happy place on the 19th July. Doing the silly thing and taking the bus for the first time since January. If this heat continues, it’ll probably be the worst journey of my life.
…So that should be fun! I’ll hopefully do an update before I head off, but probably not. If I do, it might mean because I’ve gotten over the hideous writer’s block or something actually noteworthy has happened. Here’s hoping!

Spinning in its metaphorical grave

What a fun-filled week! (Mainly not fun filled.) Let’s discuss. (Mainly I talk, you listen, ie: I type, you’re forced to read. Sorry.)

Last Friday I started feeling pretty shitty, but ignored it and went to bed. I awoke early on Saturday knowing that I’d have to get on a bus to Edinburgh. I didn’t feel as bad, but still not 100%. That’s a really crap feeling because you don’t really deserve sympathy, but you still want it. Anyway, the journey down there was spent reading and listening to music and being bored. I went with the parents (aww…) and they apparently aren’t accustomed to such a lengthy journey (3 hours.) This allowed me to bang on about how short it always feels to me now after my horrendous 13 hour bus trips to London. Yeah! That’ll learn ‘em!
Anyhoo, we got down there and caught a bus to Morven and Matthew’s new flat. Apparently it’s right next to the path where a human head was found in an Ikea bag. The sister did not inform the mother of this until they’d been living there for a good two months. They both still have their heads, so I think it may just have been a one-off. There was some amazing rain that we sat inside and avoided and then went our own ways.
My sister, my mother and I went to a wedding dress type establishment so that the sister could try on some lovely garments. There was a slight fuck-up in that they didn’t have the same dress that was meant to be put aside for her, but this was soon cleared up and Clara arrived to join in.

She tried on quite a few, one in particular made her look like she wouldn’t have been out of place in Enchanted. They were all very very lovely, but that’s my dear sister for you. Lovely lovely. It was decided that another slightly more full-on dress-day was needed and we headed out and to Kilimanjaro for some refreshments. Time passed too quickly and we felt as soon as we’d arrived, we had to go. So we did. We went to the Doric, I was eyeballed by some bints (I’m still not sure why. I have a face that wasn’t hidden by two inches of orange make-up and perhaps this confused them.) and ate, then we grabbed a Fringe guide and made our way home. Possibly the shortest day I’ve experienced this year. On the bus home, I made a list of gigs I want to see at the fringe. Rhys Darby, DO’D, Trevor Lock and Mark Watson’s last ever 24hr show are the shows I’m most concerned about.

By the bus journey, I’d reverted back to feeling like balls and so went straight to bed when I got home. This meant that I was up in time for work on Sunday, but still got given a sympathy-lift as I was coughing up a lung. A day of hard-grafting happened and I was glad to get home.
Monday came and it was possibly the worst day of work I’ve experienced. I was doing the 11.30am-8pm shift and as soon as I got there, I felt stressed. By about 3pm, it had all calmed down and we did fuckloads of cleaning. Really rough cleaning too. Coughing up dust for days afterwards type cleaning. This, coupled with my feeling aidsy, was not brilliant, but I still managed to clean the entire fiction, sci-fi, true crime, crime, classics, horror and erotica sections. Yet no matter how much I clean, erotica will always be filthy… I went home and clambered into bed only to wake up at 6am on Tuesday. I proceeded to watch some Partridge, then headed back to repeat the shift I’d done the previous day. Yet more cleaning.
By 7.20pm, Candace and I were shattered. I told her I’d “hit the wall” and she confided that she believed we’d never leave. When 8pm did roll around, we got asked to do some last minute things and I feared she was right. But I was out by 8.20 and stumbled to the bus stop. I got on a 1 and phoned my mother to ask if she could pick me up from Danestone. I’m not ashamed (well, perhaps a little) to say, in the car, I cried. Again, I went home and passed out.

Then yesterday came. Again, I woke up early, but had a work-free day and stayed in bed, awake, ’til 11am when I remembered that I’d to go meet Keri at 12pm at the cinema. I managed to get there by 12.10, we bought tickets to the Hangover, had lunch and then saw the film. I don’t think I did much else the rest of the day other than read.

Today was similar. It mainly consisted of reading and watching things on iPlayer. Rory picked me up at 7pm-ish and we collected Daryl and John and headed to the Tunnels. Again, my main criticism of the comedy night there is that the guys who end up performing obviously make each other laugh, but probably in their bedrooms… whilst quoting the Simpsons and doing Family Guy impressions. I don’t wanna knock it, ‘cos it’s nice to see people trying to build up some kind of comedy scene here, but… sometimes less is more. The guys who run it should perhaps not feel obliged to let certain people perform just because they know each other and should maybe work on getting guys who are genuinely funny in that environment. It just seems like a testing ground and a whole night of testing doesn’t necessarily make for an enjoyable evening. John was very good though. Think it was a nice comedy booster. I didn’t especially want to bail after he’d been on and not wait ’til the end because I think that’s a bit shitty, but Rory needed to get home so he can get up at ridiculous o’clock tomorrow and he was giving me a lift back, so… y’know. I think I might stick to Snafu for the comedy Aberdeen-wise, but I’d like to see if that night turns into something beautiful.

I’ve somehow managed to write 1029 words in this entry and I don’t know why. It’s not particularly interesting or well-written today, but I suppose I have missed this blog a little bit. Kinda in a typey-typey-typey mood. May see if that transfers to pen and paper writey-writey-writey mood now. I doubt it. I’m very motivated recently, but have no ideas at the moment. Last Thursday I stayed up ’til 4am writing ramblings about how frustrated I am by this and how I hope I’m not in a rut, but it seemed a bit angsty and horrible. Maybe I should burn it and in doing so, nice things will happen. Or maybe I’ll go watch Cloverfield…

Orange

Crazy few weeks. Possibly. I can’t really remember. So in reality, probably a very mild few weeks.

This is gonna be a boring list-type blog. I hate to do this and it’s blogging for the sake of blogging, but I feel I’ve neglected this place somewhat…

Things
I
Did:
-Bought lots of comics.
-Spent too much money.
-Regretted spending too much money.
-Confiscated a pen-knife off of John.
-Waved Baz off to America for three months.
-Went to a fairly terrible comedy night to boost John’s ego after his second gig didn’t go to plan the week before. He ended up being a ventriliquist’s dummy which was… bewildering.
-Went to London to see Morrissey.
-Visited the London equivalent of Slain’s.
-Was bumped into and apologised to by Rhys Ifans. In Notting Hill.
-Was cancelled on by Morrissey. Had a Fuck You, Morrissey party instead… which involved fawning over Morrissey. (PS: Morrissey.)
-Started strange shifts at work.
-Recorded a hideous sound-quality podcast: http://whatthepodcast.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/live-live-live/

I feel very dull. I think I need to get away. Somewhere hot that I’d initially hate but grow to love. Possibly Spain.

Further Complications

Buy this.

From the “complicated boogie” of the album’s title-track right to the musically Barry White-esque ‘You’re In My Eyes (Discosong)’, I do not want this record to end.
I just want to put this album in my mouth. I bet it even tastes good.

HMV | play.com | Amazon

One Zyrtec, two Advil

I’m not going to talk about the past week. I’d like to not think about it and I don’t really have much to say. Although I did spend the majority of it watching live streaming of Jarvis dancing around in an art gallery in Paris which was more than enjoyable!
Look!

Anyway, yes, to the future, briefly. And this entry will be brief. All my friends seem to have finished their exams, so apparently summer is now here. This means barbecues and lapping up the tiny bit of sun we get up north. This is all a given, though. This year, we’ve a new element.

Podcast!

Yes. Myself and John have decided that a bit of self-indulgence never hurt anyone (I’ve known this for a while, it explains this blog for a start). He read my life list on my About The “Author” page and saw I’d written “produce an amusing podcast” and suggested we go for it. So we are. Right after we figure out how to do this…

That brings me to YOU, readers. I need both of you to send me some suggestions for what we can call this future-podcast. If you wanna leave a comment on here, that’d be good. You don’t need to sign up to comment. I think you need an email address, but no-one will actually email you or be able to see your address. This is gonna look well fuckin’ futile when nobody replies. Can I get a sad LOL?
We had the idea of What The Podcast?! and others but I can’t remember them.
We need your brains.

The Degenerate Parade

Recurring theme of this week looks set to be: Assholes.

…But more on that later.
Last week consisted mainly of frustration at my lack of ability to talk about myself. Had to fill out a very important application form and talk about aspirations, ambitions and motivations. I have it all in my head, but limiting it to 9 lines without sounding like a moron was tricky. In the end I opted for sounding like a moron.

On Wednesday, we spent a lovely day being indulgent. Rory, John and I walked to the Mains and proceeded to stay there for about six hours. We sat outside in the sunshine that took us by surprise and led us to exclaim “What a lovely day!” every twenty minutes or so. We were soon joined by Ryan and Laura and generally had a very nice time and concluded we should do it more often. Then we (minus Ryan) headed back to John’s, watched some Frasier and rolled our eyes affectionately at Rory. Rory and Baz soon left, we continued with some Frasier, then headed to mine to copy a cd and watch the IT Crowd, allowing John’s love of Matt Berry to blossom.

I don’t think I did anything on Thursday…
Friday was spent in the company of my father, continuing the application form and watching Airplane. In the evening, I was far too tired and opted to go for a little nap before heading out to Pete’s birthday party. As soon as I went to put my head on the pillow, lovely Pam called and I got up and caught a bus to her place instead. We walked to Shane’s whilst discussing our futures. We’re very deep, y’know? We got to his and I listened in on their kerazy university chat. Sounds stressful. We headed out to Pete’s just after 10pm and proceeded to indulge in good-conversation and foolishness until gawd-knows what time. Me and Shane slept there and left at about 10am, feeling like death. I got on a bus, came home to an empty house, had a shower and had to go meet my mother in town again to pretend I didn’t want to throw up while failing to make an attempt at eating lunch. ‘orrible.

Eventually got home at about 3.30pm and went straight to bed with the idea that if I got some sleep then, I could go see Jeffrey Lewis at night. Woke up at 6.30 and couldn’t force myself to move. I knew I’d inevitably regret not going to see that lovely man in concert again, but I just couldn’t handle it. I watched lots of Frasier to make up for it. Eventually fell asleep again, but woke up shattered for work. Can’t really remember much of the day. Nothing too eventful happened. A fair share of irritating, impatient customers came in, one in particular stressed me out amazingly and so: sympathy hugs ensued for Kirsten.
I sighed. I came home. I finished series 1 of Frasier.

I was looking forward to work on Monday as I often do, but it was clear from my arrival that the evening would be… tricky. As I walked up the shop to the staff-only door, I spied Cat-Man. Oh woe. I don’t want to divulge too much information about his peculiar bookshop habits on such a public forum in case by some mad coincidence, he comes across this page. However what I can say is that he comes in frequently, keeps us chasing around after things for him for far too long and once left a stack of Jehova’s Witness magazines on one of the flats fanned out in a lovely presentation. He is… strange to say the least. Anyway, he had accosted Julie at this point and I managed to sprint past them to hide downstairs for half an hour before I was due to start. A regular occurence. By the time 5pm came around, he was still there and had managed to engage Joan. Poor lady. I jumped into the travel section at one point to hide. He eventually left at 5.30 (but he came back for a bit later, as predicted.) and had been there for an hour. Wow.

I presumed this would be the highlight of the usually slow evening, but no. I was standing at the till with Pete, both of us re-pricing (almost a year there and this was my first shot ever with a price-gun!) various items when a guy came over and asked if he could try to buy a book with his business credit card. I said we’d give it a shot. When it came to him typing in his PIN, it said ‘PIN locked.’ I told him this.
“So what can I do then?”
Pete wasn’t with a customer, so offered up the friendly advice that he’d probably just have to go to the bank and get a new card. He started to say that he presumed that even though it was a business card, it’d work in the same way as a regular credit card.
What the man heard was “You’re an idiot, you don’t know how a credit card works.” which was obviously not said at all. He took this as a personal insult, had a rant at Pete about how he was a thirty-five year old man and he knows how a credit card works, all the while, Pete tried to explain that he’d asked what to do next, so he was just trying to help.
The man’s ‘prick’ status was upgraded to ‘wanker’ when he said the following, “And anyway, I was actually being served by this girl who was doing a perfect job, so why don’t you butt out and get on with your stickering?”

If I’d been thinking on my feet, I’d have told him that I was refusing to serve him due to the fact that despite him being thirty-five, he obviously didn’t know how to treat people and that just because he had a business-account didn’t mean that I respected him any more than anybody else. Also, I would have pointed out that his pinstriped shirt was not flattering and that I was sure that I was soon to be hit by one of the buttons popping.

As it happens, I wasn’t thinking on my feet, and so: sympathy hugs ensued for Peter.

He didn’t even leave the shop right away, he continued to browse. I walked past him later and he smiled a you-did-good-Kid-don’t-you-find-me-attractive? smile at me. I glared. This is my small act of rebellion. I’m more than willing to give this information online, as if this man by some twist of fate comes across this blog, he might learn something, whereas Cat-Man’s harmless, really.

That put us on a downer for the rest of the night. The fact that we had nothing to do and no customers in didn’t exactly help. Slowest. Night. Ever.
Finally it ended, I bought a copy of Ghost World and caught a bus on which, a drunk old man threw up. Bleak.

Today I had to do some tests for a job I applied for a while back. Just numeracy and literacy tests. Apparently I passed as I’ve an interview with them on Friday. It’s a strange time just now. Allow me to type hypothetically for a moment. If I get this job in the metropolis in summer, great, but I’ll need some money to get myself down there. Working at the bookshop is lovely (except on the days when there are more pricks than kicks) and I adore working with everyone there, but I seriously need money to get to London and I can’t live on the wages I get from the minimal hours I do there. I just don’t wanna screw them around at an already stressful time. But c’est la vie! Might not even get this other job, might not even get the one in London, but you’ve gotta take the risks…

Realised that exactly four years ago today, we were getting ready for Granny’s funeral. Fuck, I can’t believe it’s been that long already. Insane in the membrane. I should buy some Happy Faces as a tribute to her. We bloody loved Happy Faces!

Plan for the rest of the week? Probably run into more assholes against my will. Would quite like to do something tomorrow. Possibly go to the cinema, not been for a while. Cineworld, though, so I don’t need to part with any more cash-dollars. Spent too much money I should be saving last night on the following…

Me and Amber are due to go see Let The Right One In at some point this week. It’s only showing at the Belmont though. And I’m not a student, so I predict £lots.

‘Til next time, happy gang.

In the city that I love I’m looking through your lens and I’m feeling good

What a week, gang!

Shall we do this chronologically and get it out the way in an organised fashion? I’d wait for a reply to that, but it’d require posting first and that would just confuse matters.

I’ve got a feeling this post is going to be a long one, so I will attempt to break it down with some pictures. Now, I didn’t take any pictures this week (Whaaaa’?!) but I’ll befriend Google Images.

I finally packed. As always, I left it ’til the early hours of the day I was due to depart and then complained when I woke up ridiculously tired at stupid o’clock in the morning. Despite it being a local holiday (news to me…) my father had offered to give me a lift to the station the day before. He did so and proceeded to drive straight into amazing traffic. This resulted in me getting out of the car while we were stopped at some lights, grabbing my suitcase out of the boot and running to the train station. The journey seemed to pass relatively quickly, probably due to the fact that I had a plug-socket next to me and so could abuse the free internet on my phone.

We got into Kings Cross after 3pm and within two minutes of my being there, I’d spotted somebody famous. That guy wot used to be in Coronation Street, then ended up in Dr Who… I’ve since been informed his name is Bruno Langley. Anyhoo, I dumped my case in Left Luggage and with nothing to do ’til 6pm, hopped on a tube to Oxford Circus and wandered around for a bit. I soon heard from McK and was told they were all at Water Rats, so I headed back to Kings Cross in the blistering heat to join them. I got to the venue, heard them soundchecking and ordered myself a drink and read some Will Self.

I was joined by the fellas and we sat around having a chat about nothing in particular. My favourite subject. Too soon, it was 6pm, so I dashed off to phone-a-Grace and they rushed away to fill their bellies. I called Gracie and we decided to meet at left luggage. So I retrieved my case, sat on it and five minutes later fell off. I moved to a chair instead.
The lady miss lady soon arrived and we swanned off to her place for no real reason. I’ve no idea how it got so late, but we ended up in Shepherd’s Bush at Nella and Kerry’s at about 10pm and decided to go for late dinner. Apparently, Wagamama staff will hate you if you turn up half an hour before closing. Whodathunkit?
Grace departed and the rest of us walked back to the house, stopping only to look at discarded videos. Sleep soon came.

Tuesday.
Woke up at the same time as Kerry and decided to accompany her to work. Evidently, we were the only people awake at 9.30am despite the bus being packed. This meant that we were the only ones talking. Not necessarily at great volume, but as we were the only ones, it must have been hard not to listen in. Before we got off at our stop, Kerry attempted to subtly convey some information to me. I didn’t pick up on this at all as I was attempting to write out an email on my phone and not sound like a dick in it; a difficult task for a dick like me. We got to the top of the steps and she told me to look two seats behind where we’d been sitting. I tried, blog, I really tried, but with the bus jumping up and down and me trying not to fall down the stairs AND shut my phone (which Kerry had texted out of sheer frustration of me not understanding her hints while we’d been sitting down.) up, I couldn’t concentrate, so didn’t notice the person she was trying to direct my attention to (could that be the most complicated sentence in the world?).
We got off the bus and she immediately asked if I saw who it was. I hadn’t. Turns out it was Simon (Mc)Farnaby. And he was listening in on our thrilling conversation. This made me giggle lots. Then worry about what we were talking about in case I’d inadvertently said something offensive.

I dropped Kerry off at work (I wanted to say that so I could sound like a mum) and walked down Portobello Road. The heat was insane and not many places were open, so I didn’t make it all the way down. I honestly can’t remember what I did next. Possibly went to Carnaby Street, but I’ve no idea. Was I drugged? I do remember that at about 2pm I went to Kensington Gardens, had some food, wrote Sarah a letter and lay around for about two hours in the sunshine. Amazing. Perfectly content being in my favourite city, yet doing nothing. At about 4.30, I headed back to Oxford Street-ish in the hope that I might find a quiet pub near the 100 Club to sit until 7pm-ish when I’d meet Grace. Instead, I ended up just walking around until about 6, not finding anywhere and having to settle for a Pret A Manger.

We walked down to the club and joined the queue, then left the queue and found Sarah and Lucy, then Nella and Kerry and re-joined. We didn’t get chairs for some reason, so leaned against a bar all night. Jon Richardson was hosting the comedy night. It had been announced that Sir Matt Berry had been added to the bill after we’d decided to go. Happy accident if anything. Anyway, yeah: Jon Richardson – very funny. Tom Deacon – meh, alright. Broken Biscuits – no. Then a break. Mr Berry was introduced when the interval was over. He came on, set up, did about four minutes then left the bemused faces. Andi Osho – probably not too bad, but me and Kerry were better. Phil Nichol – just no. After Berry’s set, Kerry went out for a smoke and we saw the man leave. Turns out he’d walked past her complaining to someone that he was thrown onto the bill at the last minute just so they’d have another name on the list. Poor sod, but good of him to perform anyway.
After a lost phone drama frustration, Grace made her way home and the rest of us went to the pub for a cheeky drink, then also parted ways. Nella, Kerry and I singing walking down Oxford Street. Then to the bus, then home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Wednesday.
I awoke with Kerry, again, and we jumped on the bus we’d now decided to call the Farnaby Express. He wasn’t there. I got on a tube to Victoria and decided to do my Victoria – Southwark walk. There were Sri Lanka protests down at parliament…

Even as I got to Westminster Bridge, I was regretting it due to my shit shoes and feet dying, but I struggled on and walked along Fleet Street and went into Stephen Fry’s house, the Twining’s Shop. Had never been in before, got overwhelmed by the smell of loveliness so went straight back out again. I eventually got to the Tate Modern, wandered around for a bit, then caught a tube to London Bridge at roughly 1pm where I sat in the pub with a rum and a book until about 2.30 when the wonderful Sarah turned up. We had a couple of drinks, sat about there for most of the afternoon, had a quick jaunt to Notting Hill to retrieve a bag I’d left with Kerry and then headed to Kings Cross to go meet Lynsey and Anna at a pub near the Scala. We were soon joined by Grace and then we rescued Jubey from the Scala queue and brought her back to the pub.

We left for the venue quite late and missed the support band by standing around talking and admiring people’s boots. By the time we bothered ourselves to go through to the stage, the place was packed, it was fantastic. All those people there for that one man. Lovely. And he came on and lapped it up and looked slightly taken aback at how it was a full house. I felt happy for him. The man did good.
Spoke to him briefly afterwards despite having nothing to say. I did not demand a hug, therefore feel I have redeemed myself. I’ve just remembered that I put on my life-list something like “Meet Matt Berry again and leave him not thinking I’m peculiar…” as a joke, but I could probably technically score it off now. Eff it, I’m gonna. It’ll make it look like I’ve done more.

After the gig, I headed with Anna and Sarah back to their abode and proceeded to stay up ’til 5am with Sarah watching the Apprentice and… god knows what else we did for four more hours! Youtube was involved. And general internetness. And cups of tea.

On Thursday we just hung out all day. Walked around, went to Kensington Gardens again. Missed Kerry somehow, but I’ve got a feeling we were waiting at different gates. I felt really terrible about it anyway and ate too many croissants to take my mind off the harrowing guilt. I later bought her something pretty to make up for it.
We had some Pimm’s, then food and drinks with Lynsey, Jill and Katie. We were enjoying the quiet, but lovely atmosphere until several old men turned up. One of whom smelled Lynsey’s jacket. He was strange. We called it a night not long after and again, I made my way to Chez Sarah.

We took it easy again on Friday. We somehow managed to spend the whole morning making cds and watching Darkplace. I wish I could spend every morning doing that. After saying “I really better do something…” for about 2 hours, I finally left in the early afternoon. I said a nearly-tearful goodbye to the Lady Miss Penrose and sat still on the train. Sad times. Then McGrogz called as we were pulling into London Bridge and that cheered me up a bit. As time went on, I started to feel really crap in my tum-tum, so abandoned plans to go to Camden and get a Friday ticket to the Crawl. I went sad again ‘cos I knew it was my last chance to see Grace, but I really couldn’t face the crowds. I sat alone in Kensington Gardens, doing a bit of writing. Mainly self-pitying mumbo and jive about how I felt shit and didn’t wanna go home. I took some pills and about an hour later started to feel better. Decided to walk around Oxford Street for a bit, then go meet Kerry from work.
We met up, then tried to find a pub that wasn’t packed to go and sit in. We were soon joined by (look, gonna be formal and use real names…) James and Paul and spent a delightful evening out the front of the pub discussing anything we could think of. Then we moved on and just had a relaxing night basking in each other’s company and generally having a lovely time. Good company, good conversation, good drinking. A perfect final evening.
Then we caught the bus back to Shepherd’s Bush and with a heavy, but moderately tipsy, heart I went to sleep.

On Saturday, again I woke when Kerry woke and joined her on the bus to Notting Hill. For the gazillionth (…fifth?) time in two days, I said another sad goodbye and dragged my case to Camden for a last-minute search for shoes. To no avail. I ended up in Waterstone’s there and bought a book purely based on the fact that it was “fate” (there was one copy left and the shop was playing the Lovecats.)

I made my way to Kings Cross early, waited a while for my platform to be announced and boarded the train to Edinburgh with a head full of memories and a bag full of… leaflets, mainly. Then we changed in Edinburgh and were in Aberdeen by about 8.30pm. After the week of glorious sunshine down south, it was inevitably raining up in the Granite City. I sighed and wanted to cry a bit, but sisterresisted.

Here we are. It’s Tuesday (technically Wednesday morning) and I’m feeling better. I’ll move there soon. I’m hopeful… I think.

Sorry if you read all of that. It got a bit… lacklustre at the end there.
You are clearly mentally ill or dedicated to chronological rambling. Either way, I admire you. Have a prize.

*

A Big Ben duck!

*This may or may not have been the “something pretty” I bought for Kerry… I am an amazing friend…

Wacca Wacca Wacca

I should really be packing.

J.G. Ballard died today and I only found out just now. Weak.

Clement Freud died on Wednesday and I had to find out over Twitter. Even weaker.
I always find out people I adore have died over social networking sites. Another memorable one was Syd Barrett. I found out about that on Myspace… and Steve Irwin… and possibly Humphrey Lyttelton. I’ll stop now or this will read like a war memorial.
The sister and her Boy were up for the weekend. I told Matthew the above. He thinks he’ll set up a Twitter account and will only tweet as soon as he finds out about the deaths of famous people. It will be called the Otwituary. He puns, therefore he is.

I worked on Friday in order for me to be able to not work tomorrow. I worked today.

I am very lazy.

I’ll leave you with this, it’s really very funny…

London tomorrow at about 7am. If you’re there, give me a text and we’ll go for a drink or something.

I should really be packing.

Pregnant with pure evil

SPEED-BLOG!

An odd easter weekend, thus far. Enjoyable though. Last week got off to a strange start in that we went to see the Boat That Rocked again on Tuesday and I began to re-love the Ifans a bit. I got home, saw a man-sized spider in the bathroom, stared at it for a bit then decided I should go downstairs and get a glass and some paper. By the time I returned, he had disappeared. I spent all of Wednesday and Thursday morning being paranoid that it’d find me and crawl all over me. Then I found it beside my bed on Thursday lunch-time and acted quickly…

So that was good. Then I had to catch a Megabus with Amber and Baz. We met up with big Jamie briefly and he decided to go read some comics while we dumped our bags at the Travelodge and got some food. We met up with him again at the venue and got ready for Rusty Brandstein. Who was very funny. Mr Gee was there too. He wasn’t very funny, but I like his poems.
Afterwards, I saw a familiar face in the crowd of people waiting for the Brandyman to emerge. Tomtom! We attempted to talk whilst simultaneously being shoved around by fangirls. Screams alerted us to the fact that that guy with the hair mighta turned up and we were soon aware that he definitely had.

He is a bit attractive, isn’t he?
He buggered off and sadly, my brief time with the Thomias was over, but I’d really rather like to have a proper meet-up with him and the rest of the happy gang. Soon, I hope.
For now, have a picture of us looking a bit manic. No, I don’t know what’s up with that weird ring of hair on my forehead either…

And so we walked back to the Travelodge, didn’t watch Footloose despite turning it on and instead played Shag, Marry or Kill in bed.
We didn’t have time to do much yesterday so the day was all just a big rush. We left earlier than I would have liked originally, but it turned out this would be for the best as lovely Garry was in town again and it meant I got back in time to bask in his glorious presence once more. I’ll need to get down to Dundee so we can make a proper day of it. Hopefully when I get back from London at the end of the month.

Last night I left abruptly after shouting “Shut the hell up!” at my arguing parents. I can’t stay here much longer, it’s driving me insane. I went to the pub with Baz and Keri was already there. Her friend Hannah soon turned up and we played cards. All very violent but funny. With about 20 minutes ’til closing, Rory and John turned up, so after being kicked out, we went back to John’s to watch Frasier.

THIS IS THE NEWS.
Most rushed blog ever, but for once I don’t care. I’ll still apologise for it though.

Turkey Mambo Momma

It may look to the untrained eye,
I’m sitting on my arse all day.
I’m biding time until I take you all on.

I’m still undecided whether the above, as an opener, is pretentious or menacing. It is not intended to be either, I was just listening to some Pulp on the bus, heard it and thought it strangely fitting to my life at the moment.

Bring the noise.

I’ve neglected you again, Blog, and for that, I am truly sorry. I’m blaming part of it on the fact that I was out of action for a week due to mouth-aids. Turned out I had a gum/tooth infection and it made my face swell up. It was very painful. But on the plus side, I got to legitimately do impressions of the Elephant Man. A weekend off work and in severe pain, then off to the dentist who put me on lovely drugs. It was here that it dawned on me I’d be unable to have a celebratory drink on Baz’s birthday. Which is what happened last year too. Same drugs and everything, pretty much the same problem, but not quite so severe. The Verve were wrong though, the drugs do work. The swelling went down, I returned to work and then to the dentist again yesterday. He attempted to take out the fucked up tooth, then concluded I had “big roots” (oh, you flirt…) and so he had to cut up the root a bit in order for the tooth to actually come out. This resulted in me having to have stitches in my gum. Holy mouth-fun! I’ve never had stitches in my life and now I have them in my mouth…

Last night also saw John’s first ever stand-up gig at Snafu. We all went down for moral support. I was very nervous for him. But he did very well considering it was his first gig. The only thing that was irritating were the drunk bints who kept shouting out. Fair enough, it happens, but him feeling the need to respond ate into his time a bit which sucked. I’m sure he’ll get offered to do some more in the future though, he’s a fun guy.

Today I went to see the Boat That Rocked. A very good film, highly recommended. Everyone in it is fantastic, especially Bill Nighy, Rhys Darby, Chris O’Dowd, Katherine Parkinson and Rhys Ifans. Oh, and Nick Frost.
Eff it, the cast is just brilliant in general.
I now want to produce a podcast with some of my amusing friends more than ever. I’ll look into it.

I highly recommend you check out the three new episodes of Goodnight Burbank. You can find them here if you search ‘Goodnight Burbank’, set to list them alphabetically and watch them in order.

Right now I’m bending and breaking credit cards, eating a red pepper and contemplating sending an email that could help me get to Londinium. Life is quiet. I am content.