Half of what I say is meaningless [30/100]

It’s been a nice week. Morven has returned home and Matthew has joined her, so we’ve a full house. I like it when this happens.

We had a rare family outing tonight. We decided to go see Nowhere Boy in the cinema. It is the third film I’ve ever seen at the pictures with my dad (The History Boys and the Simpsons Movie being the others, if you were interested/a bit wrong in the head).
It was really very good. I’ve never really been too bothered about Lennon in the past (always liked him, because, let’s face it, he’s a Beatle, but wasn’t interested enough to learn much about him) but after that, I feel I should buy another book…

This film has also allowed me to open up my What I Will Look For In A Husband list… The first two have always been there…
-A man who is not afraid to wear braces.
-A man who says, “What the deuce?!” and ends sentences “What!”
-A man with a quiff, or the ability to conjure up a quiff in emergency situations.
-A man who is a comedian with a musical side or a musician who is a bit funny.
-A man who is not afraid to wear a military jacket.
-A man who can pull off big glasses. Not literally, probably most men with working hands can pull off big glasses, even if they are really big, they’re only big for glasses, so probably still quite small.
-Facial hair optional. Unless it looks ridiculous, in which case, I hold shaving rights.

Artist’s impression:

(Please forgive lack of detail, especially in the guitar. Clearly, in that respect, I am not my father’s daughter, for he gets quite autistic when it comes to guitars.)

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.

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.

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.

Nineteen

Again I’m getting blog-guilt for neglecting this page, but I’ve genuinely not done anything interesting or uninteresting enough that I can put a exaggerated negative spin on for your perusal.

I turned nineteen last Tuesday. As I do with every birthday, I immediately felt glad to be shot of that wanker, Eighteen. Even though it was a very good year and I was glad to finally be able to sit reading in pubs hassle-free, I feel this age may be better because now when people ask how old I am, they won’t have the thought of “Oh, you’re a new adult now!”, they’ll have to think, “Oh, you’ve been an adult for over a year now!”
I can guarantee that on my 20th birthday, I’ll make some “Oh thank god I’m not a teenager anymore, this last year has been unbearable!”

Last week, or birthday week, was relatively quiet. I did, however, manage to eat out every day. On Sunday, I felt a bit blue and so Pete made it his task to keep me entertained. I said that it was maybe due to the fact that my birthday was coming up. He seemed impressed that I was getting so old so early on in my life. The fact that this cheered him up only depressed me more. Mommy, am I normal?
I also worked the whole day on Monday and 5-8pm on my actual birthday. I’d not been sleeping much for a few days and I thought that after nineteen years on the planet I’d be granted a lie-in, but no. I woke up at 7.30am and didn’t go back to sleep. The father helped me tune my new tv and I listened to Terry Wogan’s breakfast show for the first time in ages. He announced he was quitting the day before though. Wogan, not my dad.
At around 11, me and mother went to the cinema. I’d gone with John, Amber, Laura and Mark to see 500 Days Of Summer the night before, but it was the only thing showing at 11.30 on a Tuesday morning, so we saw it again. It is a sweet little film, though, so I didn’t mind. The soundtrack is very familiar too. I think it all already lives in my iPod… We went for lunch afterwards and it was very relaxed and lovely. I do really like it when I can go out with my mother for the day. I felt a bit bad that I was working in the evening though, and so, couldn’t have a meal with dad there too, but we said we’d do something on Wednesday night instead, so that was fine. I needed to go back to the bookshop and pick up something I had set aside for my sister and send her it along with other things as a late birthday present. I went in and everyone wished me a happy birthday and Dawn gave me a little bag with dinosaurs on it and chocolates in which I thought was especially lovely. It was apparently because she felt bad that I had to work on my birthday and also because she’d kept me late a few times when she had to lock up. I told her not to be silly, but graciously accepted anyway. We made our way up to the post office, I posted Morven’s things and then wondered what to do for an hour before work. My mother went home and I decided I’d just go into work an hour early. There was a nice atmosphere though and Julie had bought me a Dip-Dab (pronounced Dib-Dab by everyone, though). I sat with Jenny for a bit and people kept coming down to grab things but I distracted them. Apologies, The Man. Soon everyone but Dawn and Janet left and we worked, or tried to, but it was Irritating Customer Hour apparently and we were kept on our toes.
We finished at 8 and were out by 8.15pm which was quite an achievement. I’d had a call from Rory to say that John’s gig was sold out. I’ve now realised I’ve not actually mentioned that, but John was going in for Scottish Comedian of the Year at Snafu and as it started at 8, they didn’t get in. I met Rory, Stuart and Jamie at Triple Kirks instead where we were photographed by a man from the Evening Express. I wanted to shout “Can’t you people leave me alone?!” but didn’t have the balls. Baz picked us up after about 20 minutes and we went to Tesco for supplies then back to her’s. I felt bad for hardly seeing my dad all day so went home for half an hour and opened the cards that had arrived that morning. Then it was back to Casa BazBaz. The evening passed quickly and it was most enjoyable, but I was very tired and didn’t fancy getting stupidly birthday-drunk, so went home sober and listening to podcasts. (Theme of the past month: Podcasts. I’ve been listening to old ones more than I have music, which led me to realise that I’m struggling to feel anything for new music these days… but that’s for another time…)

It was nice to wake up with a clear head as per every other post-birthday day. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually been birthday-drunk. I want this to stay. I lounged around most of the day, felt a bit depressed and then got over myself and went to the coffee shop with Laura. She told me tales of a certain someone’s slight breakdown at her house after I’d left the night before. All I could do was shake my head and say, “What an asshole…”
I stand by that, until there are changes!
I ordered what I thought was a regular cream soda, but turned out to be “Cream Soda with a twist of raspberry”. Before drinking it, I announced that it would either be repulsive or would become my favourite drink ever. I drank it and formed no opinion on it whatsoever. We parted ways again and I returned home to a message from Jill asking if she could nip in past. She did so and presented me with gifts, then had to shoot off as the food I’d ordered for myself and the parents arrived.
Again, a pretty event-free evening. I told Baz to come round for cake and made her watch Back to the Future as, alarmingly, she’d never seen it before. Oh, actually, we watched Derren Brown predict the lottery too, so that was technically an event.

Since then, I’ve just been catching up with people, going to the cinema and eating food. We had a gas-leak on Saturday that was quickly dealt with, so that was exciting. My Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle dvd turned up and I watched the first two episodes. I also went to see my Granny out in Dufftown. I did a tiny bit of writing out in the garden with the mountain-view. I felt a bit like an ageing rockstar who has to get away from the city in order to attempt to work on another album. But with less talent. It was blisteringly hot, which was surprising, but pleasant. A pleasant surprise, some might say… Yesterday, Sunday, I worked again. Today, I’ve done a grand total of sod-all. I’ve now finished watching StewLee’s latest dvd, all the extras and listened to the commentaries. Worth the money. I am currently waiting for Jill. There must be something about Mondays that means she will suggest meeting up, then not turn up. This happened two weeks ago and I’ve had no reply from her today… Worrying. I’m going to start keeping a record of this for the good of our health.

Work this evening, I hope I don’t die of boredom. Supposed to be going out for drinks afterwards, but I plan on getting the last bus home. A pub-evening followed by a bus and more podcasts. Perfect. Why am I an old person inside? In the words of Kate Jackson, “Nineteen, you’re only nineteen for god’s sake…”

So much to answer for…

This past week should be soundtracked by ‘Insomnia’ by Faithless.

The week before isn’t worth talking about as I don’t remember much of it. We did a stock-take at work that finished weirdly early. So that was nice.
I also saw Bruno and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in the cinema. The former was better than I was expecting and everyone in watching it giggled quietly like they were laughing at something naughty they shouldn’t have been and with the latter… meh… It was alright, but mainly because Rickman is a genius. As always.

On Saturday, I caught the beelzebus at 7pm and headed to old London town. This was the first time I’d been there via bus since January and it made me remember why I don’t do it that way anymore. Hellish. I was alone until we got to Glasgow when a woman who had been sat opposite the aisle from me asked if she could sit next to me as I had a sort-of table in front due to sitting behind the stairs. I presumed she had a laptop or some writing to do or something, but no, she started to prepare a small amount of sushi on little foldaway mats and from a little set. It was round about 11pm. Is 11pm the best time to prepare sushi? Peculiar but pleasing to watch. Of course I pretended that I wasn’t watching and that this was, in fact, the most natural thing in the world and continued reading Richard Herring’s ‘Bye Bye Balham’ until it got too dark to. From then on in, it was a night of frustration at being unable to sleep or get comfortable in the slightest. I won’t bore you with details this time, though.

We pulled into Victoria (oo-er) at around 7am and I proceeded to walk to the southbank and just sit down and figure out what to do with the morning. Caught a tube to London Bridge and at around 11am, met up with Sarah. We then made our way to South Kensington and went to the science museum where we’d planned to bump into Lynsey. After wandering round trying to figure out what a “Bloid” is, pressing buttons that didn’t work and walking up too many stairs towards a disappointing future, we were ready to leave. Then we saw this sign…

And we had. So we listened. And it was good.
It was an exhibit called the Listening Post which is actually quite cool. More on that here. After ooh-ing, aah-ing and mainly laughing, we headed out up the lifts that were supposed to go down. It took about ten minutes for us to leave. When we eventually managed to do so, we walked to the tube and I sadly bid goodbye to Sarah. It felt a bit strange that I’d only been with her for about two hours when usually I’m used to at least a full day (and several episodes of Frasier or Darkplace!) Me and Lynsey continued to Kings Cross, then caught the Farnaby Express to the ‘Bush. There was a rushed goodbye as she realised she needed to get off the bus and I made my way to Casa Nella and Kerry.

With the Victoria line out of action, we ended up leaving for Brixtonia much earlier than first planned. It involved two buses. Exciting. This allowed me to explain Richard Herring’s Consecutive Number Plate Spotting game to Kerry and Nella. We started playing.
Until we got to Vauxhall and I saw this, which made me point and say, rather loudly, “Look!”

Kerry’s immediate response was to gasp and shout “Daddy!”
This set the tone.

We eventually got to Brixton and met up with Sarah, Dan and Aniyah and had a few drinks and two fire alarms in the pub. As with most of my blogs, I’m putting too much detail in. We went to the gig. The gig was good. I didn’t get many good photos, but I quite enjoyed this one…

(Click it, it’s only mildly less shoddy.)
See! He’s lovely really…

I ended up catching three plectrums which isn’t really saying much as loads were thrown out, but I still felt like fucking Shaft… until I eventually found everyone outside and realised they all had at least two. I’ll get a Moz-shirt someday, maybe…

Monday was spent running around looking for a fairytale shop no-one knew existed for my sister. Eventually found it, though. Exciting times to be a Kirsten. Wandered around for the rest of the day. Have no real idea how I managed, but I did. I planned on meeting up with Anna and Tom and figured that might happen in Camden so hung out there for a bit. I never heard from them, so decided to go to my Lahndahn Local at around 6pm for a bit. The old men were out in force, it was very good. I made my way to Kings Cross for 7pm to meet Kerry to go see Herring. We met up and walked up York Way, opposite side of the road to the one we knew the venue was at. We passed the Guardian offices and exclaimed, “Ace! Let’s go get jobs!” but we never did. We ended up pretty far and were approaching an industrial estate. We crossed the road and doubled back on ourselves. Turns out the massive building we believed to be the Guardian HQ was mainly Kings Place, the venue we were looking for. It was huuuge! So we wandered in cautiously, collected our tickets and sat downstairs in the room for the gig. We were the first there and nearly sat in the front row until I remembered I was wearing a Bros tshirt and had a carrier bag full of cakes. We sat in the second row.

The place gradually filled and soon Danielle Ward came on. She looked familiar but we didn’t know where from at the time (we later found out she was on Brooker’s Newswipe, the person who changes ‘recession’ to ‘moneygeddon’. Genius!), but she was very very funny and gave us hope. A female comedian! Who didn’t go on about how shit men are! Or periods! Or talk about how hard it is being a woman! I would recommend her to a friend, A+++. She’ll be in Edinburgh in August with her show, ‘Lies’. Go see her. She might have an actual phone instead of a banana. (Clever, eh? Now you’ll have to go to find out what that could POSSIBLY mean… Except it’s pretty much what I just typed. Shut up, fuck you.)

We got some beers at the interval and then Herring came on. He was really very funny. Ridiculously so. Again, I felt guilty for overlooking him in the past in favour of his Stewart Lee shaped counterpart. I’m sorry, Rich! You’re really very lovely and ridiculously funny. See, I’ve always known this, but just sort of let him get on with it. Bad fan, bad!
He was at the bar afterwards so, as I had been reading it at the pub, I had my copy of Bye Bye Balham in my bag for him to sign. Lucky, eh? I also said that I’d to give him into trouble for bringing his number plate game into my life, thus taking over my every journey and ruining my already limited concentration. He said “Oh, I saw that on Twitter…” Cue my embarrassment. Had I been talking about this bloody game too much? Evidently so. He then asked if I was playing old school or new rules and discussed tactics. It’s possibly one of the strangest post-gig conversations I’ve been involved in… although that being said, probably not the strangest overall as I met Ross Noble after an Aberdeen gig in 2005…

We left, Kerry found a fiver on the ground, we bought drinks with that fiver.
Thus concludes best two days ever!

Sorry about this entry. It got lacklustre from my account of arriving at Nella and Kerry’s onwards. It’s 2.53am on the 27th July 2009. I am alone in the house, I’m listening to Elbow and drinking a peculiar blend of vodka, Irn-Bru and Red Bull. I wanted to type this to get it out of the way, but in doing so, I’ve neglected the things I really wanted to talk about. Herring’s book of blog entries has opened my eyes even further and seen that my little space of internets here is pretty dull. I’d like this to change, but I am very lazy.

On a more positive note, the trailer for the new web series by my ol’ chum and all-round good guy H. Blizzle (ahem) has gone online. Check it out at DailyMotion.

I’ll also leave you with this as I’ve been listening to an eff-load of these guys recently…

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.

Jumping someone else’s train

My neck hurts like a rancid beast.

A line from Snuff Box, but also the truth. I don’t know what I’ve done to it, but every time I try to move it, I get shooting pains up the left hand side of it.

In all honesty, I don’t really know why I’m posting this. Not much has happened, but if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know this is a regular occurence. Let’s do the happenings bit, then we’ll get onto the rants and rambles… if I still have the will.

Last weekend went by in the dull way it usually does. Except on Saturday, I decided to accompany my mother into town to meet up with my auntie. I learned a lot. Such as her fingernails have gone stripey thanks to chemo which we all found very strange but she is quite enjoying them. Also, a bit of family history in the form of distant relative thieves and poachers. 

We went to the cinema after work on Monday, but all that was on was Confessions Of A Shopaholic. We went anyway. I do love a predictable chick-flick… set in America… where the love interest is always English…
The best thing about it was being in the big screen with loads of people. Most of them gasped at the bits they were supposed to gasp at and laughed hard at the bits that were mildly amusing. It must be nice to find films like this exciting.
Anyway, afterwards, Baz filmed me talking ballcrap about technology for one of her art projects because, as she and Jill always claim when I order food in restaurants, I have “a wonderful public speaking voice”. Lies. So yeah, she filmed me. In a car. This part was unpaid.

On Tuesday I got in touch with someone about an archives assistant job. This meant I had to give my National Insurance number and later my post-code. Inevitably, I was asked “Sorry, was that N or M?”
My thoughts went thusly: -”Ha! ‘N or M’! That ca-razy Agatha Christie…”
-”Oh god, what’s the big people alphabet? Alpha… bravo… cat… dog, d’oh!”
-”Shit? What starts with ‘M’? ANY word. Come on, brain, ANY WORD!”
Instead I opted for, “M for… Matches.” I do not know why I said this. I also do not know why I made it plural. I made up for it later though…
Lady: “And is that S for Sierra?”
Me: “No, it’s F for Foxtrot.”
I was proud I remembered Foxtrot.
I am not aiming for a career in tele-sales.

Keri called later on and used the phrase “what a LOVELY day!” and insisted we go for a walk. It wasn’t that lovely a day… I’m glad I made her bring a jacket. So was she about twenty minutes later when it got really cold. We headed into town at about 6pm and went to Slain’s for food, then went to the Music Hall to see Ed Byrne who was on fine form. Very funny. I was relieved that he was as this was my christmas present to Keri.

On Wednesday I went to the quiz for the first time in about a month. Not much to say about the night. It was alright, but I spent most of the time trying to save money and avoiding getting soaked by people insistant on spilling my drinks in Exodus. Cough cough.

Yesterday was possibly the most boring day I’ve experienced in a long time. The highlight of my day was re-watching the entire series of The Modest Adventures of David O’Doherty. Not a disrespect to him; it was, as ever, very enjoyable, it’s just that even that event took place at the computer. I need to get out more.
Someone give me another job please.
Actually, also got a text from Laura yesterday that just said, “My pem tutor thinks you’re hilarious. Haha xx” I was confused, then realised she must be editing her thing she filmed me for. I don’t remember saying anything particularly amusing, but apparently I made some observation about wheels or something and they’d thought that was hilarious. I don’t care. I like being told I’m funny. It’s rare these days, but still always delightful when it happens. Damn ego.

So here we are. I’m having another horrible day. It’s actually okay, it’s just I’m feeling sorry for myself and again, isolated. This isn’t helped that there’s no-one around to talk to and never seems to be. I just need something to do. To spend my time doing. Because if not, I think too much and wind up depressed.
I’ve been taking my mind off of not having any money or anything interesting about my personality by trying to figure out how I can make certain trips. I don’t know how I’m going to do all these things I’ve planned to in the next few months. [Oh, just been listening to that cd of Cure covers and I put it in a playlist with Charlotte Hatherley's first album, so it's just started and I smiled. Mem-o-rieeees.]
I’m going down to Edinburgh on the 13th March to see Lily Allen with Jill in Glasgow on the 14th. But DO’D is doing another Glasgow date on the 13th, so may be going to that too. I’m supposed to be saving though! And this would mean I’d have to go Aberdeen > Edinburgh > Glasgow > Edinburgh > Glasgow > Edinburgh > Aberdeen in the space of about three days. Bloody unrealistic short trips…
My main one is the Berry gig in April. Mainly because I reckon I can make a week of it. Go down on the Tuesday, Berry on the Wednesday, general Londonness Thursday, Friday, Saturday, go see Stevie do the recording of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on Sunday and come home on Monday. Plan, right? I just need more money.
That’d be good if that was all I needed, but it’s also really frustrating not knowing what I’ll be up to then, job-wise. If I’m still just doing what I’m doing just now, it’d be easy enough ‘cos I would somehow manage to get time off, but then I’d have hardly any money to get there and stay there and everything.
Then there’s the Morrissey gig in May that I’m getting more and more doubtful about. And no-one’ll buy my ticket if I definitely can’t go ’cos it’s not actually a ticket, just a print off that I’ve to hand over at the venue and they scan.
Ah, trivial things, but they still get me down.

I see pictures of where I want to be and I ache a bit. I just wish I could jump into the future a bit. Not too far, just a few months down the line and see if progress has been made. I don’t mind waiting around, I’d just quite like to know how long I must wait around for. Ideally I’d like to have a couple of thousand in the bank before setting off for the Happy Place, but how long is this going to take? Is anyone ever going to get back to me about jobs? Even to reject me would be fine, but I’m constantly frustrated by the lack of any response at all.

I think I’m getting repetitive now. As per usual. Mr T was on the One Show last night. He re-affirmed his hero status. It was surreal but it was very very funny. I never thought I’d type this next sentence but: DAMN! Mr T DIGS Adrian Chiles!
So I feel I should leave you with this…
Take care, lovely reader.

Keep feeling fascination

Today’s been sort of productive, but at the same time not very. I’ve been looking for jobs all day but to no avail. Damn credit crunch. If I can’t find anything up here, I’m feeling pretty sceptical about the available jobs in London. But, realistically speaking, I’ll be able to move there when this whole financial fuck-up is over. I can wait… well… I can pretend to be patient, it’s the only thing I can do.

Not really been up to much, but it’s not been long since my last blog. Me, Laura, Keri and Amber went for food and then to see Seven Pounds last night. Me and Amber had figured out what was going to happen quite soon into it but it was still an okay film.

OH! Actually, yeah, me and Keri went to the football on Saturday. It was so dull. I woulda rather stayed at home and not watched it on tv. £16 to stand in the cold, get showered in man-spittle and to listen to some, admittedly genius, football chants. I did teach Keri Adam and Joe’s song though. She’s never heard it, but it was stuck in her head. A good sign, I feel.

Hmm… what else? Oh, a message from Steve earlier made me embarrassed that I’d forgotten him off my epic 2008 post. He’s too awesome though. Will message back when I’ve got something more interesting to say than “ARGH! Not good, need job, can’t get job!”

Ah, life, eh?

Have some visual joy…

Round Five: Boys, Boys, Crazy Boys [The Final Round]

Well that was an epic few months! Nice climax too. HA! Climax.

Where did I finish the last blog? ‘Twas written on Saturday morning, so before the madness. I forgot to mention that we watched Festival on Friday night. I’d never noticed Chris O’Dowd’s testicles before…

Saturday was a strange one. I was up relatively early. Me and Grace listened to various interviews with lovely people and headed into town at about 3pm. On the bus we pondered many things. One such thing being what hotel the Boosh would be staying at. We chuckled at the thought of walking past Carmelite and seeing them at the reception trying to get a hairdryer. Oh, how close we were. We had to go to the market ‘cos I promised my mother I’d put her shoes in to get re-heeled. So, this meant going past Carmelite. We glanced in the window and who was at reception? Only Dave bloody Brown. We walked past again to confirm it was actually him and not just a look-a-like and it definitely was. We giggled and went to Books and Beans to use the interwebs and get Grace’s boarding pass printed out seeing as I am printerless. Then we had to go to the station to check out bus times for Grace going to the airport which again meant walking past the hotel. This time, we saw the bus was parked outside and got a bit excited, but didn’t want to hang around so continued to the bus station. After we’d checked out bus times, we made our way back up. We decided we’d perv on the tour bus a bit, but from a distance. We eventually got cold and bored and decided to go catch a normal bus to go home. As we were walking up the street the hotel was on, we saw Mike come out of the hotel and head towards the bus with a suitcase. He was round on the side of the bus that was on the road as opposed to the pavement side that we were on. Grace asked if we should get a camera and ask for a photo. I reluctantly agreed. She looked for her camera and I looked at my phone. When I looked up, Mike was about 4 metres away from us on the pavement and I went “shit!”. He went back round the other side and we kept walking up the pavement, Grace searching for her camera. She found it, but Mike had gone into the bus at this point. It was then that Grace’s phone went off. Normal enough occurence. But her ringtone happened to be Bainbridge and Fossil’s rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart, so hurriedly panicked to shut the phone up. While this was going on, I glanced across the road, forgetting we were opposite the hotel still and saw Dave, Rich, Julian, Noel, Danny, Ollie, handsome Pete and various other crew members in the lobby, lounging around getting ready to leave. Grace managed to talk me into the idea of speaking to them when they would eventually emerge. I didn’t like the thought of this primarily because we were in such an odd situation of accidentally being outside their hotel and I presumed they would think we’d been waiting there all day and were stalking them. But yeah, I just wasn’t too comfortable with it. If it had been in the middle of town and we’d just bumped into them, fair enough, but it just so happened to be outside the place they were staying. The last few sentences are a ramble and repetitive. I’m not going to bother reading back, onwards to the future: Anyway, they came out and we started to cross the road towards them, but just as we were about to approach with an awkward and shy greeting, about six kids came out of nowhere and noticed them, “Oh my god, it’s the Boosh!” So we slunked off into a corner in an attempt to distance ourselves from them. The Boosh got in the van and we continued on the journey we’d started to catch a bus home.

We stopped in by Asda on the way and bought some food and some booze. Then we hurriedly tried to eat and got picked up by Laura at about 7pm. Boosh time. We told her our story and headed to the Exhibition Centre. We found our seats and discovered that Shane was sitting right in front of us. Funny. Anyway, as per usual, Fleetwood Mac’s ’Tusk’ played right before the boys took to the stage and again, I got that nervous/excited feeling in my stomach. Fulch put a lot of effort into his final introduction, telling us to welcome the “Mighty Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh”. I think he popped a lung. Future Sailors as we have grown used to and love. Everything else that followed was lovely. The dandruff dance was missed from Bobby Bob Bob’s Dance Academy and the Sandwich Grab returned. There was an addition in that he asked for someone to come up onstage and dance with him. Funtimes. 
Uh… My mind’s gone blank. Shite. Things of note…
-Dave’s ad-libbing when talking about going on Dragon’s Den was hilarious. Especially as he went right up into Noel’s face and acted out what he’d do if he was on the show. Noel was pissing himself laughing.
-When Tony Harrison was on, a guy right behind me shouted “you sexy bastard!” which prompted the H-Man to slate him. I laughed. The guy behind me’s friends laughed. Everyone else laughed.
-Crack Fox mentioning that life was tough and now he was stuck in a bin with a bloke behind him (cue bin-mover poking his head out from behind the bin and waving)
-The Hitcher didn’t come past us this time. I think Shane was relieved.

During the interval I went to get a drink, then tracked down lovely Jill T! We told her our tales and figured out how to get things to the boys with her and her friends (one of whom was Grace’s robot twin.)
We were still standing talking to them when the lights went down and everyone ran to their seats. Julian was onstage wearing a dressing gown. I attempted to make him react by doing a spazzed-out wave at him but he just stared at me with hatred… maybe not, but he only gave a “who is this square?” look. We found our seats. On with the show:
-It turned out someone from the night before had stolen Julian’s jacket that he usually wears at this point. Noel pointed out that the thief had walked past all of his (Fielding’s) clothes and not nicked anything, so they were clearly looking for a blind man.
-During the news reports, Fulch and Mike had to keep mumbling awkwardly as Fielding didn’t turn up on time. When he did get on stage, he had to stop himself from laughing.
-Dave went all out in his final fall of the tour. He wheeled the globe offstage, did the fall, then proceeded to cause chaos by miming throwing it against walls and stuff. Julian looked bemused.
-Rich and Noel’s cockneys were extra special. Rich started singing Step In Time and Noel went for A Spoonful of Sugar.
-Nanageddon, followed by I Did A Shit. Then Noel said to Julian, “I’ve just got to go get something, you hold the fort…” which prompted him to do his jazz version of I Did A Shit. The scatting was particularly enjoyable. 
-Noel came out dressed as Old Gregg and announced he was “Howard’s last night surprise…” and they played his theme tune. He got mangina and he live in the sea. Ollie Ralfe started filming all the additional stuff. I hope they make it onto the dvd.
-Everyone was on their feet for Charlie and the boys seemed proper elated. They introduced everyone onstage (and Danny) and had a curtain call. Then it was time to go.

So, we went to the lavatory and went outside. We went straight to the car, deciding to wait there for the guys to come out. It was warm, I enjoyed it. We heard a bit of commotion, so got out to have a proper look. All the while, singing Bobby Bob Bob’s “Boys, boys, crazy boys…” song. To-night. TOOOONIGHT!:

We stood there for a bit, but then went back to the car where we reversed and went forward and reversed and went forward.  Easily amused. Nice. Then we heard screaming, so went back out again and joined the end of the queue. The best place to be when meeting lovely people. Dave came out first and I took a photo of him and Laura, she returned the favour and Grace took one herself. I said something along the lines of “Oooh, you don’t need us!” and Dave told her he was lovin’ her style.


Hair fail, Innes! But in my defence, it was fucking windy!

He continued up the line and we thanked him and he was just genuinely lovely.
Then Captain Cardigan made his debut…


When he was right in front of us, Grace said “Julian, can we get a picture?”
He said “Yeah, sure, snap away.” which prompted us to look confused and just kind of go shrug at each other but he was still making his way up the queue.

He went by again later and he was in his own little world. I said “Julian, can we get a photo with you?” To which he didn’t reply. I threw in a “WITH you, prick…” but still no response. Sad times! 
I saw Fulch coming up and I got excited. That man is magnificent. I took a photo of him with Laura. He did about five different poses in the freezing cold before settling for:

He signed stuff for the people next to us while saying “Nobody says DUDE!”
I wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. Plus, I still had a pocket cup to give him.  This is essentially the whole conversation: 
 ”Rich. Rich. Rich. Rich.”
“Yeah?”
“I met you a few months ago at Snuff Box so–”
“Oh my god, yeah! Hey!”
“Can I get another picture?”
“Sure!”
(as it was being taken, he did the thing I’m getting accustomed to, talking. You’re supposed to hold still.)
“Have you tried to message me recently, ‘cos I’ve been pretty bad with myspace and stuff the last few months…”
“Uh… no, I presumed it wasn’t you running things at the moment. Oh, I got you a present. It’s a pocket cup.”
“Oh wow, thank you!”
“Yeah, oh, also… -Some crap I don’t remember about my cinema card with the picture of me with the Fossil top on- It’s yours now.”
“Ha, thanks! But yeah, email me again.”
I can’t remember how I ended the conversation, so I presume that I was rude and got distracted, although Grace says otherwise. Grace also says other nice things that I hope are true.

Face fail, Innes. But hair win, Fulch.

Grace asked him for a photo, he got confused but they got there in the end…

He looks like Kyle from the View. I think it’s just the hair though. He needs a fringe more.

He was quickly followed by Fielding the Elder who was being ushered quickly past people by Danny. I went to take a photo of him and Laura but his hat started to fall off due to crappy wind.

He kissed Laura on the head while I waited for the camera to load again to take a photo. I just missed though…

This was the part where he grabbed Grace, turned her round, kissed her on the cheek and thanked her for coming. As soon as he did, he was gone and she exclaimed “…I didn’t ask for that.” I hope that was caught on camera. She looked mildly disgusted, it was gold.

Fielding had buggered off by this time

but Rich was still signing stuff for people…

In the end he had to be escorted from the premises…

Mike came running past, high-fiving everyone. I didn’t even notice him ’til he grabbed my glove. A lame effort Fielding the Younger…

but kudos on your footwear…

So, we left on a high, but had lost Jill T. Sad times. We waved at the bus in the nerdiest possible way. And spazzed all the way home.

Then me and Grace watched the series 1-3 box set extras ‘cos I’ve not seen them. I got to bed at about 3am and was up at 8. Hellish. I felt like death. I got into work and Iain asked if I wanted the good news or the bad news.
“There is no good news, is there?”
“No, no good news.”
“There never is. What’s the bad news then?”
“Pete’s phoned in sick.”

So, it was basically me and him for the whole day except between 12 and 2 where Jenny came in to help. Bless ‘er. On the plus side, I got a lunch break with Gracie. On the down side, I didn’t get an afternoon break. Apparently this means I’ll get out earlier next week or something. Win.
But yeah, we both felt like shit, but luckily it was quite quiet so we got a lot done.
My mother picked me up ‘cos Grace had reported that I was feeling like balls
and she was in town to pick up my dad anyway. He’d been in the pub with my cousin to celebrate Aberdeen beating Celtic 4-2. I still refuse to believe this actually happened, but oh my, what hilarity.

We all had tea round the table. Unusual, but nice. Then Baz picked us and Keri up to go to the cinema. We ended up seeing Slumdog Millionaire. It was pretty good. Not the feel-good film of the year though…
We returned home and attempted to watch Lucky Break but didn’t really pay attention to it.
Instead I did a “camera rape” apparently. It’s my new favourite game. And I get to do the same pose each time.


I did another one at the bus station today but it’s not on the computer yet. Effort. And I’m only just motivated to finish this blog. I’ve been writing it for ages. Fail.

Right, yeah, so we went to bed at about 3am and again were up at ridiculous o’clock and caught a bus at 8am to get Grace to the bus station to get to the airport. Phew! It was sadtimes parting, but we must do something in February.

Right, that’s all for now. Better get ready for work soon. So sleepy. I feel a blog this length should have a conclusion other than “Peace and fucking, believe!” so… uh… Boosh tour was good. The best gig was Friday’s, I reckon, but the finale was perfect. I’m glad to have seen it so many times and on both opening and closing nights. It changed a lot. Fun though. This paragraph is balls. I’m not gonna proof-read this blog. I’m off to grapple with a bear.