Filed under: Arts, music | Tags: crazy rhythms, Domino Records, the Feelies
…this outstanding album (Crazy Rhythms) immediately finds its way onto my albums of the year list on account of it being re-released this month by Domino Records.
My vinyl copy from 1980 is amost unplayable now. But it really rocks. Indeed it apparently ranked #49 in Rolling Stone’s top 100 albums of the 1980s, and #69 on Pitchfork Media’s similar list.
Although every track is a classic and self-penned by the band the one that totally freaked me was “Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my Monkey” – a Lennon/McCartney cover fro (I think) The White Album. It’s played at a hundred miles an hour on jangly guitars that apparently were fed straight into the sound-desk for their distinctive sound. It’s a classic and you can hear it on Spotify.
Trust me. You’ll love it. And I count myself among the visionaries who bought and cherished it! (I don’t know ANYONE else that has it).
Filed under: Arts, family, humour, jokes, life, tv | Tags: esther ranzen, sausages, that's life, That's life dog
This was a highlight of my childhood and it is as funny today as it was then.
It is humongously funny. MUST WATCH!
Filed under: Arts, humour, jokes, life, politics | Tags: cassetteboy, gordon brown
The loan shark gag is appaling but hilarious.
Filed under: Rants, humour, jokes, life, politics | Tags: Adolf brent, cassetteboy, Nick Griffin, Question Time
Thanks Alan.
This is quality…
Filed under: Rants, politics, stories, tv | Tags: BNP, Nick Griffin, Question Time, racism
There’s a lot of hot air blowing off on this subject and in particular I listened to that oaf, Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary, mouthing off on 5 Live the other day to Nicky Campbell about the subject. His argument was repeated again and again that Griffin shouldn’t be allowed on the programme because the BNP were illegally constituted!
Oh really? So that’s the reason that freedom of speech in a democracy should be denied?
Maybe Mr Hain prefers the regime in Afghhanistan.
Now, I fully expect Nick Griffin to be seriously undermined and his attitudes exposed for what they are, no more than racism.
Nevertheless, his party has an elected European MP and a considerable number of Metropolitan council seats across England. Therefore they, as we, the electorate, have decided, now have the right to broadcast their views.
Hain described them as a minority party, but what then are Plaid Cymru, the SNP, UKIP, the Greens? No-one is saying any of them should be denied a voice.
Clearly Question Time is going to have its biggest ever audience tonight and certainly the reporting of the Programme, and an analysis of Mr Griffin’s performance, will be in every paper, blog, facebook posting and tweet tomorrow.
That’s good.
Let’s hope he fucks up big style.
Hats off to the The Drum for thinking up one of the inanest awards schemes ever. The Golden Twits; a scheme that awards Twitterers for great “Twiting”. My opinion of Twitter is no secret. I think it reeks of piss and ham, but I do persevere.
Anyway, I thought I’d enter in a subversive way and this is my entry…
I hope they take in the spirit it was meant.
Filed under: family, life, olympics, sports | Tags: beth tweddle, british gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics world championships
Could you do that? No. Could David Beckham? No. Could Beth Tweddle earn a percentage point of his income? No. Is life just?
I totally agreed with Robert Kitson’s column in The Guardian today that lamented the relative prominence of news stories on Monday; reflecting on the weekend’s sporting achievements.
Like many, I was enthralled by Jenson Button’s critic-bashing performance. Sublime, determined and gutsy.
Well done mate. You showed the sneering hacks.
But…
It wasn’t a bloody patch on Beth Tweddle’s.
My youngest daughter knocked her pan in for a number of years as a member of our nearest gymnastics club (10 miles away as it happens). She grew muscles that put me to shame. She was fit as a butcher’s dog. She had extraordinary strength AND flexibility and yet she was at the bottom of the gymnastics ladder.
Gymnastics is for superheroes and you better believe it.
And Britain (as Kitson rightly points out) is football’s equivalent of the Isle of Man (reserves) on the world gymnastics stage.
So, the fact that Tweddle crashed and burned in her top apparatus (the asymetric bars) where she had previously gained our ONLY EVER world gold, yet picked herself up to qualify for the floor final was a feat of incredulity in itself.
But that wasn’t the end.
She won it.
Yes. She won it.
Unlike Andy Murray.
Unlike any British golfer in the sport we taught the world, in a major, in ten years.
Unlike England’s football team since 1966.
Unlike all of our highest paid sports, ahem, personalities in most of their disciplines.
But Beth did.
We voted for Beth to win Sports Personality of the Year the last time she won gold. Fat chance.
This time, she didn’t even hit the bloody headlines. That achievement should have been front page news. Not in the sports sections – in the main papers.
It’s a bloody crying shame.
Beth Tweddle. We, the Gormans, salute you…
Filed under: Arts, Scotland, life, politics, theatre | Tags: Calvinism, Confessions of a justified sinner, drama, Drama in Scotland, Gil-Martin, James Hogg, Mark Thomson, religious intolerance, Royal Lyceum theatre, Scottish Theatre, Terrorism, The Lyceum, theatre
A rather amusing “no animals were killed in the making of this smoke” type announcement preludes the opening of this play and then the curtain rises to reveal a dark, brooding, half-lit miasma that remains throughout.
And yes, it’s smoky.
The darkness is entirely appropriate as this is a tale from the early 18th century when dark deeds were done, folk lived in smogs of half truth, rumour and mountains of religious guilt. And we’re not even talking Catholisism here. No, welcome to the dank, scary world of Calvinism.
YE WILL NOT HAVE FUN. YE WILL NOT FORNICATE. YE WILL NOT SMILE. YE WILL NOT DAE ANYTHING THAT THE LORD WOULD FROWN UPON.
Because the Lord, back then, was all seeing, all telling, all rule making.
This was a land of ignorance and powerful religious figures. The meenister was all.
Sound familiar?
Yep, it’s a fascinating allegory (or is it a metaphor) for our times today where religious extremism, east and west, is a licence for abhorrent and inexplicable sinning.
The early days Obama (Mc)Bin Laden of James Hogg’s novel is played at just the right side of lampoon by the truly terrifying Kern Falconer and he is the axis of evil that the play revolves around. It’s into his house that the naive Robert Wringhim is brought, with his mother, to “enjoy” a life of strict religious instruction. And enjoy it he does, to a point, until the Meenister sets out on a campaign to “justify” his pupil. To make him immune to sin on earth and guarantee him a place in heaven, no matter what. In time, the Damascan moment arrives and Wringhim is indeed (apparently) granted that place in heaven.
His ticket safely tucked away in his inside pocket the charming young Wringham is now granted the right to exact retribution on all wrongdoers that cross his path; and there are plenty of them.
The central premise of the play then unfolds around this – that if a place in the afterlife is guaranteed, rather than has to be earned, where does one draw the line?
If one can sin and not be called to task then surely sinning will follow. And if this sinning is not actually considered a sin then the atrocities that might result are presumably acceptable. Is this not exactly the point that appears to be brainwashed into suicide bombers the world over (because Wringham is essentially Calvinism’s suicide bomber).
Is he mad? Is Gil-Martin his voice of conscience – or the devil? There’s certainly a thin line between schitzophrenia and devotion in this play.
The “11th man” of this astonishing performance is the set. It rocks. Built on a rotating platform the oblique monoliths that seemingly stretch to the sky are variously abstract tables, beds, tombstones and pulpits, but mainly they are dark foreboding skyscrapers of the future. They are the metaphoric twin towers that I believe this play alludes to.
Ryan Fletcher is stunning. He does not overplay his quite considerable hand. Iain Robertson as Gil-Martin nails it. Lewis Howden is a scream. and John Kielty plays his parts with restraint. This is a blokes play. Sure Rae Hendrie carries her part beautifully as the Mother but all the lines belong to the men.
Mark Thomson has to be lauded for both the writing and the direction of this very superior night of theatre. And I’m certain he will be.
It’s brilliant. It’s funny. It’s electric. It’s dark. It is an absolute must see.
Filed under: humour, jokes, life, tv | Tags: eastbound and down, kenny powers, What's his name? Fucking Shrek
Simply the funniest comedy this century.
Please don’t watch this if you are in any way prudish. ‘Cos it’s foul.
Borat on steroids. (Thursdays on FX.)
Filed under: Rants, stories | Tags: boyzone, daily mail, homophobia, jan moir, stephen gateley
I loathe the Daily Mail. I really do.
Yes you are a homophobic bitch with a smug look that one would love to punch repeatedly
And so Jan Moir’s incendiary queer bashing remarks about Stephen Gateley in her column are in one way great because it gives me a real, rather than merely theoretical, reason to bash the fascists.
I sincerely hope Jan Moir is stripped of her job. But at leeast she has been stripped of her credibility. (if she had any, anyway…writing as she does for The Daily Mail).
Did I mention that it is a newspaper for the far right?
Filed under: Arts, music | Tags: 10cc, electronic, Godley and Creme, human league, Phil oakey, synth music, the black Hit of space, travelogue, Under your thumb
Utter class…
Listen to that amazing synth underscore.
Very like “the Black Hit of Space’ by The Human League in places.
See what I mean. This mash up totally rocks. One of HL’s greatest song from their joint best album (Travelogue – the other is Reproduction – Fuck Dare)
Filed under: Arts, books, family, humour, jokes, life, stories, videos, work | Tags: nick cave, The Death of Bunny Munro
“I don’t believe in an interventionist god” sings Nick Cave as the intro to one of his finest songs.
The sheer outrageousness and majesty of his writing hints at what lies in store for readers of “bunny.”
Actually, the tone of this, his finest moment, with its epic scope is closer in tone to the content of “bunny.”
It’s the story of a fundamentalist lothario. All he lives for is pussy. He fantasises about Avril Lavigne’s vagina and Kylie’s ass throughout as he shags his way across the south coast of England.
Meanwhile his wife, aware of this, takes her life as their son pads through rooms scattered in coco pops.
Post funeral Bunny takes to the road with Bunny Junior and seeks solace in yet more pussy with increasingly unsavoury outcomes. His son, meanwhile, fantasises about his deceased mother and nurses scabrous and mind-numbingly painful eyes.
He is, in short, a misogynistic bastard and cares not.
Or does he?
In fact, this foul and bawdy romp, which makes Irvine Welsh read like Enid Blyton is ultimately a tale of remorse and a thing of great beauty.
I wholly recommend it.
Filed under: Rants, Scotland, business, life, stories, work | Tags: Virgin Rail
I travelled by train to Preston last week with Virgin.
Having ordered my tickets online they never actually arrived via the post so after two calls to their helpline I was told to pick them up at the Virgin desk at Waverley.
Arriving at Waverley I discover there is no longer a Virgin desk.
So, having asked someone at the National Express desk in the main concourse I was directed to the ticket hall where I was advised the “floorwalker” would direct me.
There was no Floor walker.
So I was faced with the choice of two queues to stand in. The advance tickets queue (I was travelling the next day) or the “tickets for today” queue.
This poster sealed it for me. It must be the advance tickets queue.
So for 15 minutes I patiently stood in this queue, eventually reaching the head of it. Asking for the Virgin tickets in my name I was told…
“Oh you get them in the other hall”
“So, I’ll have to queue again?”
“There is no queue there” I was politely informed.
“Yes there is, it’s exactly the same length as this one.”
“Oh right, well, yes then.”
So off I trudged and eventually reached the head of this queue and was served by the campest man in Scotland who, after a bit, said…
“Hoy, yir lookin a wee bit flustered sir.”
“Well I am a little irritated at waiting half an hour for these tickets.” I replied, through gritted teeth.
“Well there’s nae need to get in a fankle, yir gettin’ them noo are ye no.”
I could have punched him. I didn’t.
A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon.
As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope
and listened to the bird’s chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said,
“I’m sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away.”
The distressed woman wailed, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead,” replied the vet.
“How can you be so sure?” she protested. “I mean you haven’t done any
testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room.
He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever..
As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind
legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck
from top to bottom.
He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room.
A few minutes later he returned with a cat.
The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from
head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head,
meowed softly and strolled out of the room..
The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this
is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.”
The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a
bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck’s owner, still in shock,
took the bill. “£150!” she cried, “£150 just to tell me my duck is
dead!”
The vet shrugged, “I’m sorry. If you had just taken my word for it,
the bill would have been £20. But with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan,
it’s now £150.
