I was always taught at university that it was bad form to begin an essay with a dictionary definition. Well, I think that's what they said. I never really listened that much, to be honest. But I'm all about smashing conventions man, you know, like the punk rock auteurs of our past. SMASH IT! SMASH IT ALL DOWN! HANG THIS MOTHERFUCKING BLOG IN THE TATE MODERN!
Yeah.
Random is defined (I could have made this more wanky by quoting what dictionary I took this from and listing it in the bibliography. Have you ever seen someone do that? I have. Yeah, it was me. "Ooh, what wider reading did he do? A fucking dictionary?") as "made or occurring without a definite aim, reason or pattern".
I once went on a date with a girl who described herself as "well random". I must stress that she described herself in that way AFTER the date had begun, otherwise I would not have attended at all - no matter how desperate or lonely I may have been. And I won't lie, I have been both of those things in the past. Especially as a teenager, where I would have probably been willing to sleep with a bristle-faced dinner lady in a caravan in Mablethorpe.
It's worrying enough that she prefaced using the word that stokes my ire so much with the word "well". So, let us overlook the fact that she chose the wrong word to describe herself. Even if she did think she was truly "random", it's not a word that needs quantifying. Random is random is random. You cannot be any more or less random.
And don't get me started on the lottery. It is not randomly generated. If it was then the same number could come out twice in a draw, so it's not random in the slightest. Well, it is almost random. But it's not slightly random - it strives to be random and just falls short.
So yeah, she rocks up for our date in a Vauxhall Corsa (one of the most popular cars in the land), she's a quite pretty 26 year old (quite an average age), she's dressed in clothes bought from All Saints (a major high street brand these days) and her shoes are from Office (ditto. I asked). She worked in an office (not exactly the most bizarre career path) and liked to drink Magners - one of the most beloved of all the boozes.
What I'm saying here is that she wasn't exactly different, controversial, bizarre or however you would choose to describe someone a bit odd. She was normal. Perfectly nice, but normal. No-one ever describes themselves as normal. Ever. Even though most of us are perfectly normal - and there is no shame in that. None at all. If anything, I would enjoy the honesty. We're a normal country full of pleasant normal folk. Is that such a crime?
The date didn't go well, of course. Because I have an inbuilt be-a-dickhead-if-you-think-you-have-a-point device buzzing away in my brain. She casually said that she was "well random" and my tone changed, my smile dropped and I immediately quizzed her on this. A more pleasant human being would just let these slide, but as you can tell from my daily rants I care not for the opinion of others and am spurred on by the dead ghost of a 1970s trade union gobshite that has possessed my soul. I can't leave things be, ever scratching at the surface of arguments that don't need to happen until something or someone is bleeding. Metaphorically.
I quizzed her:
ME: Why are you "well random"?
HER: Well, you know. Me and all my mates, we're all random.
ME: So, you didn't choose your friends? If you go out for a drink then you don't know who is going to show up and it could be anyone from the billions of people walking the face of the Earth?
HER: (Laughing nervously) Er, no. We're just all, you know...
ME: So, you have the same friends each time...
HER: Yes...
ME: But they're completely random people in terms of their character?
HER: Er...
ME: So if I was to check one of their passports, for example, they would always have the same name but they could turn up for a night out in one of a million different forms? So your friend Sarah, for example, could turn up one time as a twentysomething...
HER: I've got a friend called Sarah!
ME: ... and the next time she could be a bright pink Llama? And the next a bowl of Mulligatawny Soup?
HER: That's not really what I meant... we're just, you know...
ME: (Shouting) What? Different? Zany? Wacky? Is that it? Hmm? You're not random. Stop using the word. You are not a 21 year old student. STOP IT! STOP IT! (I'm weeping by now) STOP IT!
She went then.
Simple rule of thumb. If someone described themselves as "random", there is a fair chance that they are as regular and normal as a person can be. And this isn't a sin. Bad English should be, but that isn't either. More's the pity. The same applies for zany, wacky, outgoing, different, alternative - we're who we are, don't try and sum yourself up in one word. Let us try to not live in text messages where we can't use more than 160 characters to describe ourselves.
I, Jim Smallman, am not random. I'm a short tempered, badly-coiffeured stand up comedian without the slightest hint of wackiness opr zaniness. There is literally nothing to set me apart from anyone else in the world, because we're all essentially the same mix of blood, guts, water and fudge. I cheerfully admit my enslavement to the world of normality, the dirty words "normal" and "regular".
See, no-one admits that, ever.
I'm well random.
Monday, 16 March 2009
Sunday, 15 March 2009
4: Creosote
Spring is finally here. Every morning I curse the fact that light creeps through my blinds and that I don't have curtains, before remembering that I'm meant to - as a supposed regular human being - be excited at the oncoming of spring. Little lambs gambolling around buttercup-flecked fields, adorable puppies frolicking in waterfalls, baby deer being harvested for their meat for the rich and uncaring. It's all good.
Yesterday I wore my sunglasses for the first time this year. Admittedly, quite a lot of that was to do with the fact that I'd only had a few hours sleep and my eyes resembled the hastily scratched crosses etched into cheap bullets in a war torn part of the world - but it was remotely pleasant to look like a rockstar in deepest Leicestershire. The part I enjoyed about the onset of brightness was wandering around Leicester city centre with my music on as loud as possible, staring at the tops of buildings and noticing things that it seems like I've never noticed before. Of course, I have noticed all of these things before - it's just that winter has a way of greying out the tops of buildings, shrouding them in a metaphoric fog as the rain, sleet and snow makes everyone keep their heads down and scurry from place to place like robotic mice.
It'll be Easter soon, an event which has something to do with Jesus being a chocoholic and the disciples being reincarnated as Creme Eggs. As I understand it, anyway. Which means the first Bank Holidays of the year and a chance for people to feel remotely motivated to get themselves along to a garden centre or a DIY place and start to spruce their place up.
I am not one of these people.
DIY around the home is a neccessity. If something breaks, fix it. I can understand that. Gardening is a waste of time - but that's another rant. DIY outside the home is the most pointless exercise in the existence of humanity. Allow me to explain.
If you go to Homebase on a bank holiday and buy a fence, chances are you won't need one. I'm willing to bet that your current fence didn't need replacing. If it did because there was some kind of hurricane in your part of Glamorgan (or wherever you are, I merely like the name "Glamorgan") then I'll allow that - but note what colour your new wooden fence is.
It's wood coloured.
I'm constantly perplexed by the need for people to paint wood in another wooden colour. And better yet, paint it with something that fades after a year so you need to repaint it. Creosote is godforsaken stuff that is clearly deliberately pointless and addictive. It fades, so you must buy more. It smells funny, polluting the air from March to June in every part of the UK (you'll note that creosote isn't anywhere near as popular in the USA, for example) but maybe there's something in the smell. It's probably all a part of a global conspiracy led by the Reptilian hordes. (This theory copyright David Icke, 2009).
Don't even get me started on fucking decking. That stuff is just quadrupling the sadolin / ronseal grasp on the global woodstain economy.
And that stuff is toxic, too. It's carcinogenic, causes breathing difficulties, is poisonous and caustic. It's not exactly in tune with the environmental yin and yang, the essence of spring and rebirth that it's meant to represent. I don't care how few coats it takes to slather your fence in the godforsaken stuff, or how rapidly it dries to a rich woody colour. All I know is that if your pour it into your eyes, it'll probably cause severe burning and potential blindness. And how do I know this? Easy.
It does exactly what it says on the tin.
Yesterday I wore my sunglasses for the first time this year. Admittedly, quite a lot of that was to do with the fact that I'd only had a few hours sleep and my eyes resembled the hastily scratched crosses etched into cheap bullets in a war torn part of the world - but it was remotely pleasant to look like a rockstar in deepest Leicestershire. The part I enjoyed about the onset of brightness was wandering around Leicester city centre with my music on as loud as possible, staring at the tops of buildings and noticing things that it seems like I've never noticed before. Of course, I have noticed all of these things before - it's just that winter has a way of greying out the tops of buildings, shrouding them in a metaphoric fog as the rain, sleet and snow makes everyone keep their heads down and scurry from place to place like robotic mice.
It'll be Easter soon, an event which has something to do with Jesus being a chocoholic and the disciples being reincarnated as Creme Eggs. As I understand it, anyway. Which means the first Bank Holidays of the year and a chance for people to feel remotely motivated to get themselves along to a garden centre or a DIY place and start to spruce their place up.
I am not one of these people.
DIY around the home is a neccessity. If something breaks, fix it. I can understand that. Gardening is a waste of time - but that's another rant. DIY outside the home is the most pointless exercise in the existence of humanity. Allow me to explain.
If you go to Homebase on a bank holiday and buy a fence, chances are you won't need one. I'm willing to bet that your current fence didn't need replacing. If it did because there was some kind of hurricane in your part of Glamorgan (or wherever you are, I merely like the name "Glamorgan") then I'll allow that - but note what colour your new wooden fence is.
It's wood coloured.
I'm constantly perplexed by the need for people to paint wood in another wooden colour. And better yet, paint it with something that fades after a year so you need to repaint it. Creosote is godforsaken stuff that is clearly deliberately pointless and addictive. It fades, so you must buy more. It smells funny, polluting the air from March to June in every part of the UK (you'll note that creosote isn't anywhere near as popular in the USA, for example) but maybe there's something in the smell. It's probably all a part of a global conspiracy led by the Reptilian hordes. (This theory copyright David Icke, 2009).
Don't even get me started on fucking decking. That stuff is just quadrupling the sadolin / ronseal grasp on the global woodstain economy.
And that stuff is toxic, too. It's carcinogenic, causes breathing difficulties, is poisonous and caustic. It's not exactly in tune with the environmental yin and yang, the essence of spring and rebirth that it's meant to represent. I don't care how few coats it takes to slather your fence in the godforsaken stuff, or how rapidly it dries to a rich woody colour. All I know is that if your pour it into your eyes, it'll probably cause severe burning and potential blindness. And how do I know this? Easy.
It does exactly what it says on the tin.
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
3: Manufactured pop music (with the exception of Girls Aloud)
Music is mankind's greatest artistic achievement. I may love comedy, graffiti, video games, films and brightly coloured trainers but nothing affects my mood more than music. In my 30 years on the planet music has evolved tremendously - even more so if you look back earlier.
Composers would sit in isolation for months, even years, to bring their ideas to reality. Musical visionaries in the twentieth century were brave enough to try new things, to push boundaries: Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, James Brown, The Clash, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, The Beastie Boys, Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Burial - you could probably look through your iTunes and pull out another dozen names of geniuses to add to my ramshackle little list.
I'm fairly sure that you would not include Five, A1, 911, S-Club 7, S-Club Juniors, Gareth Gates, in fact any of the X-Factor / Pop Idol / Fame Academy solo winners or the godforsaken Spice Girls in your list. Unless someone had taken your brain in the night and replaced it with a chewed tennis ball and some mandarin jelly.
The Monkees started the manufactured pop music phenomenon, but they were still half decent. They had a funny TV programme, they had remotely catchy pop tunes - and in the 1960's, that's all you had to do. I used to write a column for an American website about music and I once described The Beatles as the most overrated band in the history of the universe - maybe a little harsh, but their early output was no more cerebral than the Monkees. Just because you have guitars and such it doesn't mean you're not a boy band.
COUGH Busted COUGH McFly COUGH.
I could accept it if our chart music output these days was Monkee-esque. But it isn't. It's an obvious point to make that our charts are ruled by whoever wins the latest reality show - but that's not what is to blame for the homogenisation of the greatest of all the art forms. I'll tell you what is.
We've got no imagination.
If you turned up at a record label now and had somehow recorded the British equivalent of Captain Beefheart in a dilapidated shack in Wales, the record label may be interested in your potential. But they'd take you to Top Man and buy you a pair of skinny jeans first, then some pointy shoes and a trenchcoat. Then they'd overproduce and water your music down until somehow your hours of genius sounded like the fucking Kooks. Again, this isn't the fault of the record labels - it's all down to us. And I'm just as bad as everyone else.
When I was a student I would spend all of my time and money on two things: Video games and music. The video games I would buy would be Japanese imports, and I would spend hours researching them and seeking them out. Music was a similar thing: I would read magazines, books, websites - all in a quest to discover something new, something exciting. Just as I no longer buy my games from the Far East, I no longer put my effort into looking for music. Because I'm lazy. I can put MTV2 on and sometimes find something I like, or I can click through iTunes and find something vaguely interesting and download it. But I don't put the effort in anymore. And no-one does. X-Factor winners dominate the chart because we let them and we're too lazy to stage a revolution. I'd love to say that we're about to have another 1976 style musical overhaul but we're not.
In the same way that it's easy to buy fast food, it's easy for teenagers to buy manufactured music. Some of it is tolerable - you'll note from my disclaimer for this little rant that Girls Aloud are excluded. This is not because I'm an FHM reader who values them merely on how they look. I mean, they're pleasant enough - if a little too WAG-esque. I can't really tell them apart, if I'm honest. My personal favourite is Nicola, and the howls of derision that this brings when I tell people so merely underlines my point about us being an unimaginitive society. She IS the prettiest, with porcelain skin and the most striking looks - but it's the easy and simple thing to do to fancy one of the blonde ones and be done with it. Or that racist one.
My positive attitude towards Girls Aloud comes because their music isn't bad. It's pop, yes - but inoffensive and almost subversive because it's actually remotely interesting. Despite the fact that "Sounds of the Underground" made my ex-wife sick when she was pregnant with our daughter (what can I say, little Amelia has good taste - her favourite songs are by MIA, Kings of Leon and Animal Collective), songs like "Love Machine" and "Biology" actually crackle with personality.
No, I'm not going insane.
They can even get away with lyrics like "I don't speak French / So I let the funky music do the talking". Because they're cheeky, the musical equvalent of a saucy 1920's postcard. The Saturdays can try and take their mantle but, cute short-haired singer aside, they have nothing visually to offer and certainly nothing at all musically. They're merely the Mr Pibb to the Girls Aloud's Dr Pepper. I would rather that Girls Aloud have continued success rather than any of the identikit Indie band out there with their lookalike £75 Toni and Guy haircuts.
I'd love to offer a solution for this problem with our music industry. But I can't. I am merely one man, and a slightly tired one at that. For all my pontificating I'm not going to make you change your music taste. And I would rather people liked SOME type of music than nothing at all. But just consider it next time you buy a CD or a download. Are you promoting the rise of a generic, own-brand music industry? Or did you purchase something interesting, vibrant, different, creative?
And if you think you're helping by buying Duffy records, you're not. She sings like a fucking mallard.
Composers would sit in isolation for months, even years, to bring their ideas to reality. Musical visionaries in the twentieth century were brave enough to try new things, to push boundaries: Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, James Brown, The Clash, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, The Beastie Boys, Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Burial - you could probably look through your iTunes and pull out another dozen names of geniuses to add to my ramshackle little list.
I'm fairly sure that you would not include Five, A1, 911, S-Club 7, S-Club Juniors, Gareth Gates, in fact any of the X-Factor / Pop Idol / Fame Academy solo winners or the godforsaken Spice Girls in your list. Unless someone had taken your brain in the night and replaced it with a chewed tennis ball and some mandarin jelly.
The Monkees started the manufactured pop music phenomenon, but they were still half decent. They had a funny TV programme, they had remotely catchy pop tunes - and in the 1960's, that's all you had to do. I used to write a column for an American website about music and I once described The Beatles as the most overrated band in the history of the universe - maybe a little harsh, but their early output was no more cerebral than the Monkees. Just because you have guitars and such it doesn't mean you're not a boy band.
COUGH Busted COUGH McFly COUGH.
I could accept it if our chart music output these days was Monkee-esque. But it isn't. It's an obvious point to make that our charts are ruled by whoever wins the latest reality show - but that's not what is to blame for the homogenisation of the greatest of all the art forms. I'll tell you what is.
We've got no imagination.
If you turned up at a record label now and had somehow recorded the British equivalent of Captain Beefheart in a dilapidated shack in Wales, the record label may be interested in your potential. But they'd take you to Top Man and buy you a pair of skinny jeans first, then some pointy shoes and a trenchcoat. Then they'd overproduce and water your music down until somehow your hours of genius sounded like the fucking Kooks. Again, this isn't the fault of the record labels - it's all down to us. And I'm just as bad as everyone else.
When I was a student I would spend all of my time and money on two things: Video games and music. The video games I would buy would be Japanese imports, and I would spend hours researching them and seeking them out. Music was a similar thing: I would read magazines, books, websites - all in a quest to discover something new, something exciting. Just as I no longer buy my games from the Far East, I no longer put my effort into looking for music. Because I'm lazy. I can put MTV2 on and sometimes find something I like, or I can click through iTunes and find something vaguely interesting and download it. But I don't put the effort in anymore. And no-one does. X-Factor winners dominate the chart because we let them and we're too lazy to stage a revolution. I'd love to say that we're about to have another 1976 style musical overhaul but we're not.
In the same way that it's easy to buy fast food, it's easy for teenagers to buy manufactured music. Some of it is tolerable - you'll note from my disclaimer for this little rant that Girls Aloud are excluded. This is not because I'm an FHM reader who values them merely on how they look. I mean, they're pleasant enough - if a little too WAG-esque. I can't really tell them apart, if I'm honest. My personal favourite is Nicola, and the howls of derision that this brings when I tell people so merely underlines my point about us being an unimaginitive society. She IS the prettiest, with porcelain skin and the most striking looks - but it's the easy and simple thing to do to fancy one of the blonde ones and be done with it. Or that racist one.
My positive attitude towards Girls Aloud comes because their music isn't bad. It's pop, yes - but inoffensive and almost subversive because it's actually remotely interesting. Despite the fact that "Sounds of the Underground" made my ex-wife sick when she was pregnant with our daughter (what can I say, little Amelia has good taste - her favourite songs are by MIA, Kings of Leon and Animal Collective), songs like "Love Machine" and "Biology" actually crackle with personality.
No, I'm not going insane.
They can even get away with lyrics like "I don't speak French / So I let the funky music do the talking". Because they're cheeky, the musical equvalent of a saucy 1920's postcard. The Saturdays can try and take their mantle but, cute short-haired singer aside, they have nothing visually to offer and certainly nothing at all musically. They're merely the Mr Pibb to the Girls Aloud's Dr Pepper. I would rather that Girls Aloud have continued success rather than any of the identikit Indie band out there with their lookalike £75 Toni and Guy haircuts.
I'd love to offer a solution for this problem with our music industry. But I can't. I am merely one man, and a slightly tired one at that. For all my pontificating I'm not going to make you change your music taste. And I would rather people liked SOME type of music than nothing at all. But just consider it next time you buy a CD or a download. Are you promoting the rise of a generic, own-brand music industry? Or did you purchase something interesting, vibrant, different, creative?
And if you think you're helping by buying Duffy records, you're not. She sings like a fucking mallard.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
2: Roast Lamb
The Sunday roast is a British tradition. Ask any be-backpacked traveller (that's a convenient term for "middle class and on holiday for three months") in the deepest darkest jungles of Cambodia what they miss most about Britain and they'll probably answer that they miss sitting down with their nearest and dearest for prime roasted meats, potatoes and vegetables, shrouded in rich gravy and topped off with Yorkshire puddings the size of Chichester.
My family is arguably odder than most; but not for any terrible reason, I love them all dearly. It's quite rare now that my immediate family unit (Parents and sister) sit around for dinner, just the four of us - both me and Liz having flown the proverbial nest and spawned children over the last decade. And it's a shame, because I think we're the perfect eccentric family. We'll leave me out of the descriptions, because I'll presume that you know I'm daft... the constant stream of hate-filled blogs pays testimony to that fact. My sister is the butt for the least of my jokes onstage, the hardest working person I know, a brilliant mum, sister and daughter and someone who you can have no comeback to, regardless of the base insults she casually tosses in my direction. A typical exchange between us would go like this:
ME: Hello, Liz.
LIZ: You look like a twat in those trainers.
ME: You have a point. I'm going over there to think about the many mistakes I've made.
My Dad is known to most of the people who know me through comedy as the wonderfully robust gentleman who sometimes drives me to gigs for no reason other than I'm doing OK out of comedy and I was always shit at football as a kid. He only wears black, not because he's the world's oldest and chunkiest goth, but because it's all he likes. He's got a wardrobe like a cut-price Don Simpson (I held back from the more obvious Johnny Cash reference there) - swing the door open and there are reams of black shirts and black jeans from K-Mart, and my parent's garage is full of bottles of Dreft Dark, purchased in the fear that one day it'll be discontinued and my Dad will no longer be the enigmatic man in black, more the slightly peeved man in Charcoal.
My mum is a wonderful woman. She's an awesome influence on my life, and the bravest woman in the universe. She's also responsible for quite a lot of my material, through sheer daftness. Why, just the other day she was talking to people over dinner and she said the following:
"Of course, young people don't go courting these days, do they? What do they call it now? Trapping?"
The fact that she has such a great sense of humour regarding my material is reflected in the end of my hour long show where I tell what I think is quite a touching story about her attending one of my gigs after getting the all clear from her cancer treatment. Steve Bennett called it a "pathos tinged climax", which meant I had to explain what that meant to my family. My mother thought it was a Greek Island, my sister one of the Muskahounds. I tried telling her that they were based on the Muskateers but I chickened out. I like the idea that Dogtanian was the original story, it was better.
On the rare occassions we get together for Sunday Lunch it is always a jovial, enjoyable and memorable affair. But I can guarantee that one thing will happen. I will enter the house and ask what we're having for lunch. My father will inevitably answer "Roast Lamb" with a smile on his face. He does this for a reason.
If you rank Roast Lamb as the king of all Roasts then you are a filthy liar. My order of roast preference goes like this - and therefore is completely reflective of society as a whole, because I'm a 30 year old male.
1: Roast Beef
2: Roast Chicken
3: Roast Turkey
4: Roast Pork (not a fan, but I appreciate it has a place)
5: Roast Duck
6: Roast Pheasant
7: Roast Ostrich
8: Roast Kangaroo
9: Roast Centipede
10: Roast Sea Slug
11: Roast Lemur
12: Roast Flying Squirrel
13: Roast Lighthouse-Keeper
14: Roast Bellybutton Fluff
15: Roast Lamb (at a push)
Just thinking about roast lamb makes me gag a little. Some meats are not meant to be roasted. If to enjoy a roast meat you need to cover it in mint sauce (the sauce of the devil, let's be honest) then it probably doesn't taste nice. Why enjoy the wondrous texture of beef when you could have the sliminess of lamb? Why savour a melt in the mouth slice of roast turkey when you could be chewing on a slice of baby sheep for half an hour?
The people who enjoy a lamb shish kebab or curry, I bear you no ill will. The meat of the sheep was intended to be diced, skewered and slathered in herbs and spices. For every one roast lamb someone has to be without a curry and eat Tandoori Trout. Do you want THAT on your conscience?
My family is arguably odder than most; but not for any terrible reason, I love them all dearly. It's quite rare now that my immediate family unit (Parents and sister) sit around for dinner, just the four of us - both me and Liz having flown the proverbial nest and spawned children over the last decade. And it's a shame, because I think we're the perfect eccentric family. We'll leave me out of the descriptions, because I'll presume that you know I'm daft... the constant stream of hate-filled blogs pays testimony to that fact. My sister is the butt for the least of my jokes onstage, the hardest working person I know, a brilliant mum, sister and daughter and someone who you can have no comeback to, regardless of the base insults she casually tosses in my direction. A typical exchange between us would go like this:
ME: Hello, Liz.
LIZ: You look like a twat in those trainers.
ME: You have a point. I'm going over there to think about the many mistakes I've made.
My Dad is known to most of the people who know me through comedy as the wonderfully robust gentleman who sometimes drives me to gigs for no reason other than I'm doing OK out of comedy and I was always shit at football as a kid. He only wears black, not because he's the world's oldest and chunkiest goth, but because it's all he likes. He's got a wardrobe like a cut-price Don Simpson (I held back from the more obvious Johnny Cash reference there) - swing the door open and there are reams of black shirts and black jeans from K-Mart, and my parent's garage is full of bottles of Dreft Dark, purchased in the fear that one day it'll be discontinued and my Dad will no longer be the enigmatic man in black, more the slightly peeved man in Charcoal.
My mum is a wonderful woman. She's an awesome influence on my life, and the bravest woman in the universe. She's also responsible for quite a lot of my material, through sheer daftness. Why, just the other day she was talking to people over dinner and she said the following:
"Of course, young people don't go courting these days, do they? What do they call it now? Trapping?"
The fact that she has such a great sense of humour regarding my material is reflected in the end of my hour long show where I tell what I think is quite a touching story about her attending one of my gigs after getting the all clear from her cancer treatment. Steve Bennett called it a "pathos tinged climax", which meant I had to explain what that meant to my family. My mother thought it was a Greek Island, my sister one of the Muskahounds. I tried telling her that they were based on the Muskateers but I chickened out. I like the idea that Dogtanian was the original story, it was better.
On the rare occassions we get together for Sunday Lunch it is always a jovial, enjoyable and memorable affair. But I can guarantee that one thing will happen. I will enter the house and ask what we're having for lunch. My father will inevitably answer "Roast Lamb" with a smile on his face. He does this for a reason.
If you rank Roast Lamb as the king of all Roasts then you are a filthy liar. My order of roast preference goes like this - and therefore is completely reflective of society as a whole, because I'm a 30 year old male.
1: Roast Beef
2: Roast Chicken
3: Roast Turkey
4: Roast Pork (not a fan, but I appreciate it has a place)
5: Roast Duck
6: Roast Pheasant
7: Roast Ostrich
8: Roast Kangaroo
9: Roast Centipede
10: Roast Sea Slug
11: Roast Lemur
12: Roast Flying Squirrel
13: Roast Lighthouse-Keeper
14: Roast Bellybutton Fluff
15: Roast Lamb (at a push)
Just thinking about roast lamb makes me gag a little. Some meats are not meant to be roasted. If to enjoy a roast meat you need to cover it in mint sauce (the sauce of the devil, let's be honest) then it probably doesn't taste nice. Why enjoy the wondrous texture of beef when you could have the sliminess of lamb? Why savour a melt in the mouth slice of roast turkey when you could be chewing on a slice of baby sheep for half an hour?
The people who enjoy a lamb shish kebab or curry, I bear you no ill will. The meat of the sheep was intended to be diced, skewered and slathered in herbs and spices. For every one roast lamb someone has to be without a curry and eat Tandoori Trout. Do you want THAT on your conscience?
Monday, 9 March 2009
1: People Reversing Into Parking Spaces
We live in a culture where people are desperate to save time. My generation is responsible for the rise in convenience food, with entire dinners distilled into plastic-bound microwave form. Our days are filled with labour saving machinery - my kitchen has the aforementioned microwave (that to be honest, I don't really trust - but that's because it has a mean face), a dishwasher, a washing machine and an iron that virtually irons clothes itself. By virtually, I mean that's what I dream of at night - that I wake up and somehow live in a Disney film. And if that ever happens, I'd like a wisecracking animal sidekick. Possibly an Otter. Called Simeon.
Not "Simon". That's important.
I won't lie to you. The time-saving elements of my kitchen are redundant as I can't cook, as I result I rarely eat off proper china (and by that I mean cheap Ikea plates, the idea of me having Royal Doulton or Spode crockery is as hilarious as it is unlikely) and I tend to do the washing when I run out of clothes and it's either put the machine on or turn up to gigs wearing tracksuit bottoms and the 1997 Leicester City shirt (with Izzet 8 on the back). And that's not the look I'm going for.
But for most people these time-saving measures are a boon. It gives them more time to work themselves into the ground at their stressful jobs, to write oddly obsessive blogs about things that irk them, to concoct complicated plans on how best to form your own army of bejeweled scooter-riding super-pandas. Essentially there are so many time and labour saving devices in our lives that we should not need to rush around anywhere. We shouldn't need to take yet further steps to speed up our day. We should be able to spend an extra five minutes a day on, lets say, our daily commute, doing whatever we like because dammit, we earned that extra time. Let us stop and pick up litter from a lay-by. Help a stranded motorist change a tyre. Park outside a nunnery playing "Regulate" by Warren G and Nate Dogg. That's all healthy and fun.
Don't use that extra time you've made to reverse into a parking space. Because as a rule, if you choose to park in this way it WILL take you all of that time to do this one simple exercise. And for what? So you can merely drive away at the end of your working day or shopping trip? You can start up your engine and drive away, giving us poor normal-parking folk a regal wave from your fucking Mini Cooper whilst we suffer the mind numbing tedium of - holy crap - reversing just the once and driving away?
I used to work in an office with its own multi storey car park. I could guarantee that every single day the person in front of me in the car park - usually a woman in their mid twenties, trying to prove their fashionista status by carrying a Bloomingdales Brown Bag and of course, driving a fucking Mini Cooper - would reverse into their space, as if to look at me and taunt me about my life. They need to get away as quick as possible at the end of the day and that additional 30 seconds they may have to spend reversing at the end of said day (as opposed to the five minutes they wasted at the beginning of their day trying to jab their fuckwitted car repeatedly into a space like a teenage virgin with a nerve-induced semi trying to coax himself into the correct hole) would merely get in the way of their important plans. The gym, coffee with friends, dinner with one of their many suitors at their perfect flat overlooking the river. Five minutes of my day may be wasted but I'm a mere regular parker, with my life limited to eating cold beans from a tin and driving a diesel Focus.
If I ever build a car park - and let's be honest, that's the dream - then I'm equipping each space with those spikes that burst your tires of you drive over them a certain way. That'll teach them.
Not "Simon". That's important.
I won't lie to you. The time-saving elements of my kitchen are redundant as I can't cook, as I result I rarely eat off proper china (and by that I mean cheap Ikea plates, the idea of me having Royal Doulton or Spode crockery is as hilarious as it is unlikely) and I tend to do the washing when I run out of clothes and it's either put the machine on or turn up to gigs wearing tracksuit bottoms and the 1997 Leicester City shirt (with Izzet 8 on the back). And that's not the look I'm going for.
But for most people these time-saving measures are a boon. It gives them more time to work themselves into the ground at their stressful jobs, to write oddly obsessive blogs about things that irk them, to concoct complicated plans on how best to form your own army of bejeweled scooter-riding super-pandas. Essentially there are so many time and labour saving devices in our lives that we should not need to rush around anywhere. We shouldn't need to take yet further steps to speed up our day. We should be able to spend an extra five minutes a day on, lets say, our daily commute, doing whatever we like because dammit, we earned that extra time. Let us stop and pick up litter from a lay-by. Help a stranded motorist change a tyre. Park outside a nunnery playing "Regulate" by Warren G and Nate Dogg. That's all healthy and fun.
Don't use that extra time you've made to reverse into a parking space. Because as a rule, if you choose to park in this way it WILL take you all of that time to do this one simple exercise. And for what? So you can merely drive away at the end of your working day or shopping trip? You can start up your engine and drive away, giving us poor normal-parking folk a regal wave from your fucking Mini Cooper whilst we suffer the mind numbing tedium of - holy crap - reversing just the once and driving away?
I used to work in an office with its own multi storey car park. I could guarantee that every single day the person in front of me in the car park - usually a woman in their mid twenties, trying to prove their fashionista status by carrying a Bloomingdales Brown Bag and of course, driving a fucking Mini Cooper - would reverse into their space, as if to look at me and taunt me about my life. They need to get away as quick as possible at the end of the day and that additional 30 seconds they may have to spend reversing at the end of said day (as opposed to the five minutes they wasted at the beginning of their day trying to jab their fuckwitted car repeatedly into a space like a teenage virgin with a nerve-induced semi trying to coax himself into the correct hole) would merely get in the way of their important plans. The gym, coffee with friends, dinner with one of their many suitors at their perfect flat overlooking the river. Five minutes of my day may be wasted but I'm a mere regular parker, with my life limited to eating cold beans from a tin and driving a diesel Focus.
If I ever build a car park - and let's be honest, that's the dream - then I'm equipping each space with those spikes that burst your tires of you drive over them a certain way. That'll teach them.
Hatred.
I've not been in the best mood all week, so I've been ranting about quite a few things. In the interest of promoting my own creativity and somehow channelling this terrible whining and stunted aggression into something positive, I shall now attempt to write a blog on each of the following and why the irk me so.
So yes. 50 things that I have registered my hatred for in the last seven days:
1. People reversing into parking spaces
2. Roast Lamb
3. Manufactured pop music (with the exception of Girls Aloud)
4. Creosote
5. Improper use of the word "random"
6. Cocaine
7. The Nintendo Wii
8. Alcohol
9. Furniture
10. Fresh mint (especially on potatoes)
11. Racism
12. Psychics
13. People (normally younger than me) who make everything sound like a question?
14. 30 year olds exhibiting playground homophobia
15. The music press
16. Robbie Williams
17. American TV Casting
18. Strawberries
19. Film remakes
20. Being the oldest person at music gigs
21. Coventry
22. Ageing
23. Hulk Hogan
24. Religion
25. People blowing the paper bit of restaurant straws off
26. The Daily Mail
27. Condom adverts
28. Maths
29. U2
30. My hair
31. Dancing
32. Mowing the lawn
33. Bad tattoos
34. The Now albums
35. Brie
36. My diet
37. Student music chauvanism
38. Swearing for the sake of it
39. Apple
40. Migraines
41. Stupidity
42. Punk rock imposters
43. Guitarists in shit bands spinning around like twats
44. N-Dubz
45. Txtspk
46. Fizz
47. Burlesque as an excuse
48. Dating
49. Hair straighteners
50. Cricket
They're not in any order. I'm already aware that racism is to be hated more than roast lamb - this is merely how the ideas poured into the blog, stream of consciousness stylee.
Now there's a phrase I haven't used since A-Level English, 1996.
The writings of an irritated old man to come.
Jim x
So yes. 50 things that I have registered my hatred for in the last seven days:
1. People reversing into parking spaces
2. Roast Lamb
3. Manufactured pop music (with the exception of Girls Aloud)
4. Creosote
5. Improper use of the word "random"
6. Cocaine
7. The Nintendo Wii
8. Alcohol
9. Furniture
10. Fresh mint (especially on potatoes)
11. Racism
12. Psychics
13. People (normally younger than me) who make everything sound like a question?
14. 30 year olds exhibiting playground homophobia
15. The music press
16. Robbie Williams
17. American TV Casting
18. Strawberries
19. Film remakes
20. Being the oldest person at music gigs
21. Coventry
22. Ageing
23. Hulk Hogan
24. Religion
25. People blowing the paper bit of restaurant straws off
26. The Daily Mail
27. Condom adverts
28. Maths
29. U2
30. My hair
31. Dancing
32. Mowing the lawn
33. Bad tattoos
34. The Now albums
35. Brie
36. My diet
37. Student music chauvanism
38. Swearing for the sake of it
39. Apple
40. Migraines
41. Stupidity
42. Punk rock imposters
43. Guitarists in shit bands spinning around like twats
44. N-Dubz
45. Txtspk
46. Fizz
47. Burlesque as an excuse
48. Dating
49. Hair straighteners
50. Cricket
They're not in any order. I'm already aware that racism is to be hated more than roast lamb - this is merely how the ideas poured into the blog, stream of consciousness stylee.
Now there's a phrase I haven't used since A-Level English, 1996.
The writings of an irritated old man to come.
Jim x
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Lists.
Word up, Gs.
As it's nearly the end of the year it's time for me to blog shamelessly in a good old review of the year kind of way. Because I've always loved lists. My favourite magazines of the year as a teenager were the end-of-year editions of NME / Kerrang / Empire / C&VG and so on - thus setting me on the path to nerdishness that I now tread most firmly on a daily basis.
Anyway, these are my lists. Tell me yours, oh Facebook friends! Because I'll read them and either nod with my chin cupped in my hand... or tut like an irked librarian.
Lets get on it.
TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2008
1: "Angles" - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2: "Glasvegas" - Glasvegas
3: "The Hawk is Howling" - Mogwai
4: "Third" - Portishead
5: "Sunday at Devil Dirt" - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
I'll be honest, I nearly said the Kings of Leon album, because that's ace. But just missed out. I know that they'll be gutted, of course. I tried to dislike them for years, I really did. But they're quite good. Angles is the best album in years, I reckon. More people need to own it.
TOP 5 SONGS OF 2008
1: "Letter From God to Man - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2: "Evil Urges" - My Morning Jacket
3: "Revelry" - Kings of Leon
4: "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" - She and Him
5: "Wayfaring Stranger" - Jamie Woon (Burial Remix)
I really like "Handlebars" by Flobots, but if I listed it here I'd be stoned to death by the music chauvanist illuminati. I spent most of 2008 listening to every song from "Untrue" by Burial, but as that was released in 2007 I can't bloody choose any of it. Bah.
TOP 5 GAMES OF 2008
1: Fallout 3
2: GTA IV
3: Soulcalibur IV
4: Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix
5: Saints Row 2
Look at all the sequels. Saints Row 2 is bloody good fun (and Amelia likes stealing cars and respraying them pink, so who am I to argue?), SSF2HDR is an amazing update of arguably the greatest game ever (and apt after the tattoos I've had this year), SC4 is awesome and GTA4 was worth the wait, just about. However, Fallout 3 is one of the greatest games that I've ever played. And I've wasted a lot of my life. My Xbox got the red ring of death when I was 30 hours in and I nearly cried. If you don't own it, buy it. Seriously. Words fail me. It's amazing.
TOP 5 GIGS OF 2008 (Watched)
1: Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip (Manchester Academy 3)
2: Radiohead (Old Trafford CC)
3: Those Dancing Days (Summer Sundae, Leicester)
4: Cadence Weapon (Manchester Academy 3)
5: Laura Marling (Manchester Academy 3)
Not many gigs this year, but what I did see ruled. Didn't think that after a 15 year wait to watch Radiohead that they would be topped by a beardy bloke in a hat and a fat bloke with a laptop doing a pretend business presentation in a basement in Manchester.
TOP 5 FILMS OF 2008
1: In the Valley of Elah
2: Cloverfield
3: Persepolis
4: Juno
5: Mad Detective
I didn't watch many films this year. And I know that #1 has no proper ending, #2 is daft, #3 is black and white, #4 is overrated and #5 is mental.
TOP 5 THINGS I'VE BOUGHT IN 2008
1: The girls (on my arm, not whores)
2: All the trainers
3: My phone, which now works remotely well
4: Fallout 3
5: iPod bracket for my car
My arm rules. You knows it.
TOP 5 GIGS OF 2008 (Performed at)
1: February 12th, Bambu, Leicester - First ever hour long solo show
2: October 21st, Student Union, Leicester - I love mental students
3: December 20th, Lonestar Comedy, Folkestone - Last pre xmas gig, was lovely
4: September 16th, Cheeky Monkeys, Birmingham - Fun MCing times
5: July 5th, Jumping Jaks, Bournemouth - Crazy gig with me delirious from 6hrs of tattooing
RESOLUTIONS FOR 2009...
1: Global domination
2: Eat less cake
3: Have more tattoos
4: Finish the book
5: Stop playing Fallout 3
That's it. Now swear at my lists! Have a lovely 2009, everyone.
Jim x
As it's nearly the end of the year it's time for me to blog shamelessly in a good old review of the year kind of way. Because I've always loved lists. My favourite magazines of the year as a teenager were the end-of-year editions of NME / Kerrang / Empire / C&VG and so on - thus setting me on the path to nerdishness that I now tread most firmly on a daily basis.
Anyway, these are my lists. Tell me yours, oh Facebook friends! Because I'll read them and either nod with my chin cupped in my hand... or tut like an irked librarian.
Lets get on it.
TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2008
1: "Angles" - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2: "Glasvegas" - Glasvegas
3: "The Hawk is Howling" - Mogwai
4: "Third" - Portishead
5: "Sunday at Devil Dirt" - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
I'll be honest, I nearly said the Kings of Leon album, because that's ace. But just missed out. I know that they'll be gutted, of course. I tried to dislike them for years, I really did. But they're quite good. Angles is the best album in years, I reckon. More people need to own it.
TOP 5 SONGS OF 2008
1: "Letter From God to Man - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2: "Evil Urges" - My Morning Jacket
3: "Revelry" - Kings of Leon
4: "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" - She and Him
5: "Wayfaring Stranger" - Jamie Woon (Burial Remix)
I really like "Handlebars" by Flobots, but if I listed it here I'd be stoned to death by the music chauvanist illuminati. I spent most of 2008 listening to every song from "Untrue" by Burial, but as that was released in 2007 I can't bloody choose any of it. Bah.
TOP 5 GAMES OF 2008
1: Fallout 3
2: GTA IV
3: Soulcalibur IV
4: Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix
5: Saints Row 2
Look at all the sequels. Saints Row 2 is bloody good fun (and Amelia likes stealing cars and respraying them pink, so who am I to argue?), SSF2HDR is an amazing update of arguably the greatest game ever (and apt after the tattoos I've had this year), SC4 is awesome and GTA4 was worth the wait, just about. However, Fallout 3 is one of the greatest games that I've ever played. And I've wasted a lot of my life. My Xbox got the red ring of death when I was 30 hours in and I nearly cried. If you don't own it, buy it. Seriously. Words fail me. It's amazing.
TOP 5 GIGS OF 2008 (Watched)
1: Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip (Manchester Academy 3)
2: Radiohead (Old Trafford CC)
3: Those Dancing Days (Summer Sundae, Leicester)
4: Cadence Weapon (Manchester Academy 3)
5: Laura Marling (Manchester Academy 3)
Not many gigs this year, but what I did see ruled. Didn't think that after a 15 year wait to watch Radiohead that they would be topped by a beardy bloke in a hat and a fat bloke with a laptop doing a pretend business presentation in a basement in Manchester.
TOP 5 FILMS OF 2008
1: In the Valley of Elah
2: Cloverfield
3: Persepolis
4: Juno
5: Mad Detective
I didn't watch many films this year. And I know that #1 has no proper ending, #2 is daft, #3 is black and white, #4 is overrated and #5 is mental.
TOP 5 THINGS I'VE BOUGHT IN 2008
1: The girls (on my arm, not whores)
2: All the trainers
3: My phone, which now works remotely well
4: Fallout 3
5: iPod bracket for my car
My arm rules. You knows it.
TOP 5 GIGS OF 2008 (Performed at)
1: February 12th, Bambu, Leicester - First ever hour long solo show
2: October 21st, Student Union, Leicester - I love mental students
3: December 20th, Lonestar Comedy, Folkestone - Last pre xmas gig, was lovely
4: September 16th, Cheeky Monkeys, Birmingham - Fun MCing times
5: July 5th, Jumping Jaks, Bournemouth - Crazy gig with me delirious from 6hrs of tattooing
RESOLUTIONS FOR 2009...
1: Global domination
2: Eat less cake
3: Have more tattoos
4: Finish the book
5: Stop playing Fallout 3
That's it. Now swear at my lists! Have a lovely 2009, everyone.
Jim x
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