Deuteronomy 90210

Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management

2011-06-29T21:08:00.002+01:00

2011 06 24_0029.JPG, a photo by rolpolpolpon on Flickr.

I pass by Streatham Common most days, when travel from work to head office. There is a tantalising point, when driving down the hill, where you can see for many westward miles, so I decided to stop one lunchtime to see if I could capture it.

I marched purposefully between the trees, trying to ignore the drunk having a torrential slash, and set up a tripod. Sadly it appeared that the best view was to be had from the centre of the A214, not a place to be standing in the middle of the day. Still, I managed a few snaps, got back in the car and pootled off to work again.

Later on I stuck one or two of the pics up on twitter, and an old friend of the family popped up and said 'Did you know Van Gogh did sketches of the Common right where you were standing?'

Indeed old Goghy once wrote to his brother "Enclosed is a little drawing. I made it last Sunday, the morning when my landlady's little daughter died; she was thirteen years old. It is a view of Streatham Common, a large grassy plain with oak trees and gorse. It had been raining overnight; the ground was soaked and the young spring grass was fresh and green." Apparently he would often walk to Kent from his pad in Brixton, (still quicker by foot than by public transport to this very day) and would bash out a quick sketch on his travels. Most of these have been lost now, and are worth many thousands of pounds.

http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let032/letter.html

However this guy really knows how to tell the story!

As he says, like Van Gogh i believe there is a limitless subject on our doors steps and don't need to travel further than you can walk to find inspiration and beauty. We can but try...

Fly High Michelle

2011-06-23T20:33:00.001+01:00

2011 06 23_0005.JPG, a photo by rolpolpolpon on Flickr.

I am trying to make a habit of using my lunch break to take a snap or two of the places I pass through during work.

However, today was a very trying day, so I spent lunch trying to relax in the sunshine. But every time I disengaged my mind another bloody bunch of happy holiday people passed over my head, looking down at me with chuckled pity and schadenfreude.

I merely hoped each and every one got cavity searched at their destination, then decided to stop being silly...

Battle Metal

2011-06-20T21:15:00.003+01:00

20110620_1894.JPG, a photo by rolpolpolpon on Flickr.

I love these outrageous 'shops, possibly as most shots I take (and discard) are so blandly grey and nondescript. I was walking through Mitcham Common today and when I saw this scene I thought to myself 'I wonder if Ganching likes pylons as much as gasometers?'

But by the time I got home I realised I would have to work on the photo I had taken, and then somehow turned it into a Tripods/War of the Worlds piece of juvenalia...

I hope to take a witty photo one day, but until then I shall simply do things that make me giggle instead...

In other news my hard drive is failing...

Ramble On

2011-06-18T13:17:00.001+01:00

20110615_1819.JPG, a photo by rolpolpolpon on Flickr.

It probably wasn't the best of ideas to start fooling around with a dslr camera within weeks of Baby #2 appearing, but we still manage to get some time to play with the toy. Evening times are the best for free time, and the worst for available light...

We are slowly replacing the kit that was stolen from The Wife when she was on holiday, (it was the cleaner at a Haven Holiday Camp in the south west of England, and one day I'm going to wring the scabby little fucker's neck), one lens at a time as EBayers allows.

The insurance didn't cover the old wide angle lens so I had to try a second-hand Sigma. It's a lovely piece of work, weighty but not too ott, and the images are clear even when the light is very low. And the light is usually very low indeed by the time the wine comes out chez rolpol nowadays!

(Sigma 10-20mm lens, 2 second exposure, f4, 10mm focal length, 400 iso, saturation boosted a little in pse9)

Return to Yggdrasil

2011-02-27T21:14:00.001Z

20110226_0028
Originally uploaded by rolpolpolpon

Back to work tomorrow. This does not bode well..

Time Stand Still

2011-02-21T00:07:00.002Z

I find myself with time on my hands and a brain that is neither inebriated nor exhausted; I'm not sure how this has been allowed to occur...

My son is swaying gently in his hyper-modern cradle, and I am waiting to give him his first feed of the day. My daughter and my wife are sleeping in the bedroom. I can hear their breathing in the baby monitor that we use more for communication than eavesdropping; a quick demand for nappies or calpol, followed by a slyly military reply in the two-way radio.

I am sipping a robust Bordeaux and demolishing some Bavarian cheese with the assistance of Mr Hovis' fine crackers, meanwhile Fritz is chuckling to himself as he analyses an old defeat of mine. An ancient power trio rocks politely at minimum volume.

The inlaws descended today, young Aaron's great Grandmother and Uncle meeting him for the first time. "You must be happy to have a son, " said Great Grandmother, "not like a daughter for a man." I'm not so sure that's true anymore, as it certainly isn't true for me.

Abigail has had a fairly difficult time of things lately; just as she is becoming aware of her identity, and of the infinite possibilities of free will and that terribly egocentric lie of do unto others, she is confronted with incontrovertible proof that the world does not revolve around her. She could not get off to sleep tonight, and I held her in my arms until she became drowsy, telling her about all sorts of inconsequential things while she serenaded me with every word she knows how to pronounce. Then I went back in the lounge to coax my young little geezer into a terrific belch before bedtime; how could any man choose between?

I am lucky to live in a place where life is less unequal than in many dark corners around the planet. Whatever these two children become is more their choice than at any other time in human history; entire libraries of knowledge and information are open to them, and the works of Hardy, Dickens and co are theirs to own. They shall know of Sherlock Holmes early in life, George Smiley when they are ready to hear of the disillusionment of adulthood. They shall have languages and sciences, art and music.

But most of all they will know how lucky they are to have all that at their podgy little fingertips. The will be instructed that there are many Berlin Walls yet to fall, that few revolutions are velvet, and that there are places where fathers are happier to have sons than daughters.

However, that is for another day. Today I shall relish another day of leave and cherish time with my family.

But before that I must away, as this glass of wine will not drink itself....

Sons of Northern Darkness

2011-02-08T23:01:00.003Z

In the centre is Aaron Michael, on the left is the Michael he was named after...

...and on the right is the guy who just can't stop using inadvertently West Wing references for first names.

Not pictured is Aaron's brave and beautiful mum, who is also doing just fine.

Birth Of The Cool

2011-02-06T14:47:00.003Z

I must admit I haven't been able to follow the NFL as much as I used to (way back in the 80's), but I generally manage to catch the Superbowl each year. It used to be a Big Event for me, especially when friends came around for burgers and beer simply to spend an evening stressing the first syllable of 'defence', but nowadays it's getting harder and harder to give the night the full pseudo-yank treatment.

The idea of making it up till 4 or 5 am is actually frightening nowadays, especially as Abigail seems to enjoy waking at ten past six every morning. Even two years ago, before she came on the scene, I only got to see the fantastic game between Pittsburgh and Arizona because the snow was coming down so hard I wouldn't be able to get to work the next morning anyway.

In fact I pretty much missed the entire MLB season last year too, what with being in bed before ten pretty much every night and up before six each morning. But tonight is different. Tonight may well be the last night where I have any choice over getting no sleep whatsoever, as minirolpol #2 will be joining us on Tuesday whether we're ready or not. Sleep will be a thing of the past.

So I have my (alcohol-free) beer in the fridge, my (low-fat) snacks in the cupboard, ready for a night of glorious self-pleasurement. It's as good as it gets when you live in a time of un-postponeable consequences!

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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - Tomorrow Never Knows
via FoxyTunes

Selfless, Cold and Composed

2011-01-30T08:30:00.003Z

I have somehow managed to contract my third cold of January, something of an achievement given I managed to get through December suffering no more than the odd bout of Wine 'Flu.

Still, it has been a busy, stressful time. The secondment job is difficult-to-impossible, and yet I still hold out hope that they offer me something full-time. I've been lucky enough to have two great bosses in my working life, and I want to keep working for the second one...

Things have been complicated by my proper workplace suffering a serious case of The Cuts; I have to reapply for my job, (which is annoying) and take a cut in pay (which is more than annoying). Altogether there could be 60% job losses at my level, which is acceptable if it means there are no job losses on the shop level where all the real work is done. I have, however, purchased Phillip Blond's Red Tory to figure out how all this is going to create a Big Society. I have a sneaking suspicion we should just consider ourselves lucky not to live in Greece, or worse still Egypt, right now.

Of course life is about to become 110% more complicated at home, just over a week to go 'till the Bump becomes the Boy (or Girl). Abigail's reaction to the possibility of a new brother is documented below....

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

2010-12-23T17:41:00.000Z

While Beckham Washed His Socks By Night

2010-12-18T15:28:00.004Z

It was doing this outside,

so we did this inside...

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Now playing: Huddersfield Choral Society - While Shepherd's Watched Their Flocks By Night
via FoxyTunes

Strange Place For Snow

2010-12-04T14:30:00.002Z

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Now playing: Queensrÿche - Roads To Madness (Live From The Hammersmith Odeon)
via FoxyTunes

Stop Pretending You Care, You Self-Important Scum

2010-10-23T08:36:00.003+01:00

I spent Wednesday on a training course, surrounded by social workers. As some of you may know I have been seconded from my job, with a charity professing itself to be the voice of learning disability, to work with the LD team of a London Borough.

The conversation turned, naturally, to public spending cuts but, to the disgust of the youngest attendee, there was broad agreement that Something Needed To Be Done. The Young Socialist produced her week-old iPhone and read out a series of media predictions, how many jobs cut, how many lives ruined, how many ensuing deaths. Eyes rolled, shoulders shrugged, the head of commissioning muttered something about nothing actually having been announced yet.

"Oh really? How many of US sitting here RIGHT NOW are going to lose OUR jobs? A quarter? A HALF?!"

The commissioning head pointed out that she was the only person in the room who was in danger of being cut. The Young Socialist snorted. "We need to fight NOW, not ONE SINGLE CUT can be JUSTIFIED! They'll take us back to the DARK AGES!"

Sardonic sniggers sounded from ever corner of the room. You see, some of us actually work with the most vulnerable people in society, instead of merely Feeling Their Pain. And we've been in the Dark Ages for at least a decade and a half.

I'd been in the Labour Party for about eight years (voted Beckett in '94, it seemed like the right thing to do, but it turned out to be the first in a series of meaningless gestures) when the Valuing People White Paper was published. We'd been waiting years for it, Labour boasted it would lead to fulfilling lives for some of the most vulnerable people in society, rights, independence, choice, inclusion. But how much did they actually value people?

£0.00

The entire project was 'revenue neutral'. No new funding, costs to be met through closing outmoded services. This made Labour's tuition fees look like a paper cut. I tore up my party card and sent it to Number Ten. No reply, but none was expected.

It turned out that Labour needed the money for the self-serving NHS boost. Blair and Brown had already boasted they would double the Grauniad's jobs section, and all of a sudden there were plenty of white-collar jobs for intermediary managers and red tape specialists. A new left-leaning middle class comprised of public sector workers who would always vote Labour in the future to protect their self-interest. This was gerrymandering on a scale that Dame Shirley Porter could only dream of.

In the meantime LD and Elderly care was cut again and again and again. The staff team at the Challenging Behaviour unit where I had my first job is half the size it was in 1997. Staff pay rises have been below inflation for ten consecutive years. Social Services are no better off, indeed the staffing situation is so bad that for many people the only way to get services reviewed is by way of a Safeguarding alert, in other words they have to be abused before anybody thinks they might be in danger.

Like the sexual assault of a woman with Downs in the High Street of a South London Borough, in the week before Christmas. Hundreds of shoppers ignored a group of teenagers as they wrestled the woman to the ground, groped her whilst taunting her for her size, and then ran of with the few quid she had in her purse. Despite being caught on CCTV the CPS wouldn't proceed as the woman's testimony would be torn apart by the dimmest of defence counsel. The youths got sexual awareness counselling, which gave everyone a rosy feeling of faith and completeness....

We all told the young Socialist our tales of woe, neglect, abuse, impoverishment, but she wouldn't listen. It didn't fit her picture. Labour Good, Tory Bad, that's all she needed to know. She was in a mood with us for most of the morning and much of the afternoon, and even went out to her nice Audi to eat her Waitrose sandwich alone during the lunch break. By the time we got to Afternoon Coffee we were hearing how the spending review was taking shape, and then I got a text from my old boss.

"Social care's been announced," I told the room, "two billion..."

"Two billion cuts!" cried the Young Socialist triumphantly "That's much worse than what you were talking about!"

"Increase," said the commissioning head, "two billion increase for social care".

So we started scribbling down what it would mean. Childrens services were first as always , mental health would probably get a slice, as would the elderly. Not that we begrudged that, if dementia services don't get some extra funding soon we may as well reopen the old Long Stay hospitals as battery farms.

But LD would be near the bottom of the pile, as ever, simply because people with learning disabilities don't vote, people with kids do.

The Young Socialist was quiet as a mouse, seething with anger at the devious Tories for increasing spending. We asked her how it would affect her department, but she didn't reply, choosing to go back up to the training room alone.

I could contain myself no longer, and asked "Who IS that dreadful woman?"

"Oh, ignore her. She does the monthly glossy magazine we send out to all the ratepayers."

She, like all of the other thousands who suddenly developed a social conscience when Clegg first buddied with Cameron, have all the moral authority of a public mourner reading a tabloid at Diana's funeral. And people like Dave Prentis, whose union has been absolutely fucking nowhere for all the years that vulnerable people have been suffering unnoticed on the fringes, are building a dirty great bandwagon out of them to drive themselves back to the power they believe is their birthright so they can continue fucking things up in the name of progress

I'm fucking sick of it, where have you been? Yes the cuts are awful, the social housing situation alone will be disastrous , but where have you been? You didn't speak out when the worst off were being robbed, but now the lollipop ladies are under threat you're on the march? To quote Mr Milliband, "Come off it. Let's have a grown-up debate about this." Let's talk about how much YOU want to be taxed, let's put your money where other peoples' mouths are. Stop blaming everyone else, the country's a mess so where have YOU been? And what can YOU do to put it right again?

It's nice you've started caring, we need all the help we can get, but do me a favour will you? Don't start acting like you're Keir bloody Hardie simply because you've suddenly realised that bad things are happening and it's wrong.

Where have you been all these years?

Now playing: Napalm Death - Scum
via FoxyTunes

All Night Petrol

2010-09-10T21:07:00.002+01:00

Well I think I'll leave it a bit longer to tell you whether I like the new job or not, as I haven't had the opportunity to do very much yet, apart from clock up over 500 miles during my first week. I don't mind trundling halfway round the M25 and back every day, as it gives me a chance to spin a few of the albums Mrs Rolpol doesn't let me listen to in the house (which is pretty much everything I own). The volume tends to rise as the journey goes on, so I entered the car park of a certain London Borough's social services department blasting out Paradise Lost yesterday morning, and finished the home journey with some fantastically mad Dir En Grey.

The neighbours are used to it by now though, but I don't think the pompous smoking beardie, who stared in disgust as I passed him at the gates whilst Burzum rattled my little noddy car, will ever figure it out...

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Now playing: Bruce Dickinson - Freak
via FoxyTunes

The Alphabet Business Concern (Home Of Fadeless Splendour)

2010-08-30T16:01:00.002+01:00

It was rather disconcerting to hear, as I entered our local curry house last night, the head waiter gasping Oh fuck, it's Mr Creosote, but then the past few weeks have been a little hard on the waistline. Somewhere along the line we managed to have our main meal moved back until after our little bundle of joy goes off to sleep, and so this often means the cutlery doesn't start clinking until gone 8pm. So to stave off instant death by starvation I am often to be found grazing from the time I get home, and this constant gannetry is turning me into a globe...

It didn't help that we stayed at my parents' home over the weekend, the butcher is excellent, the Chinese takeaway so welcoming, and the freezer so delightfully full...

But then I haven't actually recovered from The Sonisphere and the wonderful array of food on offer there. All three major food groups, (white bread, red meat, beer), were represented thoroughly, and I took full advantage of the situation to stuff my fat little face every three hours without fail.

Of course none of this will be of any interest, except that nice Mr Capello has been on the phone and offered me my first cap on Friday. I was a little economical with the actualite, but I'm sure he couldn't have misinterpreted my request for my England shirt to be supplied in XXXL?

After all, Mr Capello doesn't do misinterpretation, right?

Misplaced Childhood

2010-08-23T21:04:00.003+01:00

Well, I guess once a month is still regular, right?

It's not as if you can blame me either. There was the pressure of me getting picked to do the secondment, ok?! Then the worry of figuring out how to actually get to nigh on Dartford every bleedin' day. Sheesh! You really don't want to read me wibbling about the relative merits of the A2 and the A232, fuel consumption and average speeds during rush hour, right?

Then there was Knobworth, where they have a thing called a Sonisphere. It's a hard rock and heavy metal festival, and I long ago decided to keep such stuff in a separate blog to protect the more sensitive of you from my feelings on such subjects. Suffice to say it was very heavy, in a sort of rocky, metallic, sort of fashion, (or complete and utter absence of fashion if you prefer), despite being something of a chore for one reason or another.If you're interested in such things you may be delighted to learn I kind of got stuck at 1986 in the metal blog, which is rather ironic enough to merit a chuckle or two in itself.

Then of course there is the powerful fecundity of my testicles, a subject that never fails to horrify the good folk of this country who fear they may be fertilised by the power of my sneezes, or a particularly firm handshake, such is my intense fruitfulness. Fingers crossed for a February hatching...

Mind you, it's not as if the first one came out so bad, is it?

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Now playing: Marillion - Childhood's End? (1998 Digital Remaster)
via FoxyTunes

All The Fools Sailed Away

2010-07-22T19:44:00.004+01:00

I am so bloody bad at chess it actually hurts. Every time one of their little men takes one of my little men I am consumed by an impotent maddening rage that threatens my ever-slimming sanity. I hate being a chess doofer.

My problem is the glass ceiling between beginner and progressor. I keep smacking my calloused head against it, and the only results are a hollow bonging sound and the dull pain of another angry headache. I want to be good at chess. President Bartlett was good at chess. Stephen Fry probably plays blindfold chess against massed armies of brains, winning with the regularity of an atomic clock. Even Freddie Frigging Flintoff, a man who thinks spaghetti is complicated, is a fair player of the second-oldest game in town.

I, on the other hand, am increasingly shit at chess.

I am the statistic in the other players' win columns. I am the pleasing sight on their horizon. I am their meat and drink, their sluttishly easy conquest. Over a glass of wine or a fast-food fix I can be bent over and buggered in twenty measured moves, my shrivelled King twitchingly exposed when badly-deployed defences are predictably swept asunder with girlish ease.

I am embarrassingly, hopelessly, infinitely, bad at chess.

I just postponed all my Gameknot games for a month, with the message "FED UP OF BEING CRAP AT CHESS" attached for all my opponents to see. They were probably wondering when I was going to figure it out....

A Grand Declaration of War

2010-07-20T22:31:00.002+01:00

I shillied and shallied, shallied and shillied, over the new job and eventually didn't enter. I was shocked to receive a phone call asking where my application was, and slightly cowed to learn the deadline was being extended so I could participate.

Worrying times.

In other news I have been to the library again. This happens every now and again when I remember I used to enjoy reading in my previous lives, then I remember I will never ever have time to read another book until my retirement comes about (quite rightly) on my 71st birthday. I have already bought books for When I Stop Work, mainly chess manuals and biographies that will be hopelessly out of date when I eventually crack them open. This is frightening.

The saddest aspect, (and there was obvious and viciously strong competition for that particular title), of my trip to Download Festival was the fact I spent most of Wednesday evening and the whole of Thursday devouring a recent Le Carre by the door of my tent, oblivious to the siren call of friends old and new. "Come see the tattooed strippers!" they'd cry, and I'd wave them away as I turned page after page in search of the truth behind all the fusty lies.

The only way I get that kind of time to myself at home nowadays is if I have chronic diarrhoea...

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Now playing: Mayhem - A grand declaration of war
via FoxyTunes

Xanadu

2010-07-18T18:43:00.000+01:00

At the end of the day we all have our ways of winding down. For me it is a bottle of Bordeaux, but Mrs Rolpol is not imbibing at the moment...

I'm actually starting to look forward to Sonisphere now, as it had all started looking like a bit of a bloody palaver after Download had been such a knackering disappointment. In 14 days time I shall be getting ready for Iron Maiden with some smuggled Jager...

But it is time to decide if I am going for a new job at work. No extra lolly, but a nice juicy arse to lick. Shall I?

With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept

2010-07-18T15:33:00.002+01:00

So, one Sunday afternoon, I finally found myself with a period of free time long enough to actually contemplate what I should do with my free time...

And I remembered I used to do this old blogging thing.

Abigail is, as I type, eating her teddy bear and uttering one of the three syllables she has mastered. She can now crawl and will try to stand up at any given opportunity so I daren't look awa for too long. Children are like dreams of course, in that your own are only fascinating to yourself no matter how convinced you are of their unique spellbinding qualities, but I don't think I am overstating things when I say that we now have a brighter future as a species because of Abigail's existence.

Mrs Rolpol is out gallivanting, too shellshocked by the thought of her own free time to know what to do with herself but knowing instinctively that there used to be a big wide world out there and now is as good a time as any to see if it still survives.

And me? Well, the sad thing is I'm the proof that nothing ever really changes. Oh well, back to the nappies then...

Good Morning Good Morning!

2010-06-10T12:35:00.000+01:00

To appreciate this picture fully you should soak some bad lager into denim, and then leave overnight. Add a thousand tinny speakers pumping out every variety of metal you can think of. Then, and, believe me at some point you WILL have to do this, inhale....

How's that hangover doing anyway?

FW: Home Away From Home

2010-06-09T16:53:00.002+01:00

The trek from the car park to campsite is a harsh one, especially for those who had a drink on the way. The path was littered with the debris from a thousand shattered sack trucks and a million empty lager cans, not to mention the knackered and the drunk. I was a good boy and did my chores before my first Guinness.

And god did it taste all the better for it!

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Now playing: Fish - Big Wedge
via FoxyTunes

We're Here Because We're Here

2010-06-09T11:09:00.000+01:00

This means only one thing

2010-06-08T10:11:00.001+01:00

It's festival time

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T10:51:00.001Z

Too Cool For School

2009-10-25T23:22:00.001Z

Abigail has discovered the art of rebellion, and the new Enochian Theory album

How Nice...

2009-10-24T19:24:00.000+01:00

...a framed shot of my nemesis...

Fuzzy N00b's First Day Out!

2009-10-23T14:49:00.001+01:00

It's Not That My Nose Is Out Of Joint

2009-10-20T19:51:00.000+01:00

I just don't know what to do to get some attention round here!

Don't Cry

2009-10-16T14:21:00.000+01:00

Sweet Child O' Mine

2009-10-15T19:09:00.000+01:00

Abigail Lily, six pounds twelve ounces, born just before five pm BST

New Cast Of Scrubs Revealed

2009-10-15T14:49:00.000+01:00

Blizzard Beasts

2009-06-19T15:35:00.000+01:00

Young Mogwai has been very poorly, but the vet says she'll be ok...

Get 'Em Out By Friday

2009-06-16T13:39:00.002+01:00

I had decided to return to the heavy metal festival at Donington, after a gap of thirteen years; one last tilt at being a rock kid before October makes me a full-time father and all-round responsible person...

The first two days were dedicated to getting over the walk from the car to the campsite. I had overpacked, to the point where security couldn't be arsed to check my various bags and just waved me through the checkpoint. A long wait for security to open a new campsite bore fruit though and, after a mad dash, I had my tent set up and was ready to start a party.

However, there were clouds both real and metaphorical. I went to join up with the rest of a Facebook group for people going alone, and found myself regretting it. Some people were fine and chatty, but far too many were distinctly unfriendly. One person, after finding out I hadn't attended last year, told me I only talk to people who were here last year and turned his back on me! Then it started to rain, which wasn't funny, and I dropped my wallet in the mud (luckily finding it after a few seconds). I hat mud, I hate wet, and I hate poncey fucking snobs who think they're too good for me...

Thursday was fine though, and really hot. I sank a few beers and chatted to my neighbours, while polishing off an old Le Carre and whirling the old i-pod through a few tunes, and generally felt at ease. Bollocks to Camp Loner anyway...

So pretty soon it was Friday and I actually got to see some bands! First up were Sylosis, a British band with a penchant for Thrash. They bashed away for 25 minutes, but weren't much out of the ordinary, and sounded like Value Price versions of pedigree acts playing later in the day...

Dir En Grey were completely different, perhaps they should have that as their by-line. Featuring a singer who can literally wail, squeal and grunt like any death metal vocalist and then croon lovingly, and operatically, this band should have been on the main stage instead of the utterly dreadful Billy Talent. Dir En Grey completely failed to interact with the audience, their only fault on a nigh-perfect performance.

Killswitch Engage are one of those bands that made it a bit difficult for me to get into the current metal generation. Their records are frighteningly similar, lowts of grunting and sub-Patton wailing, and all for little or naught in the way of memorability. But live, well, that's something different. My Curse sounded incredible and the band had just the right mix of melody and brutality to come across well. The lead singer seemed like an affable chap too. By the time they closed up with a cover of Dio's Holy Diver I was grinning like a fool...

Then on to Voivod. To say I was looking forward to this band would be something of an understatement indeed, I only saw them with their mid-period line-up and was gagging for this moment. It's difficult not to disappoint with only a short set to play with, but Voivod did their best and pretty much succeeded with some brutal musicianship and some lunatic performance art dancing from Snake. Can't wait till the next time!

That Opeth took to the stage during daylight was difficult enough, that they did so to a relatively sparse crowd (they were up against Korn and Backyard Babies) was unforgiveable. They played a goodly portion of their latest album, and the lead singer/guitarist joked about being too clever for the audience at Download. Many a true word spoken in jest.... Opeth were another band that could have benefitted from a bigger stage to play on.

Finally, Faith No More. Back from the dead, and, controversially, headling the first night of Download. They kicked off with a cover of Reunited, which was pretty funny, but their set sagged just a little for the first half. The later albums were better represented than the first three, and there didn't seem to be the furious hunger that a band with new material to sell might have. Still, the songs were good, played well, and Patton's gentle teasing wasn't as disrespectful as it might have been. But right up until the point of We Care A Lot, Faith No More were in danger of making the festival smaller by their presence, with too much irony and casual self-awareness. I suppose the fact Patton didn't merely roll around on the floor screaming made up for them not playing War Pigs, but only just. In the end the only legacy that was harmed by this band was their own. They've come back, fine. Have a round of applause. Now what's next?

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Now playing: Dir En Grey - 慟哭と去りぬ
via FoxyTunes

RRROOOAAARRR

2009-04-11T17:27:00.001+01:00

Thrilling news from the Voivod website; they will be playing Donington! The last time I saw them was when they supported Neurosis, a bill so heavy that gravity itself was ashamed.

Yesterday was spent doing nothing, for the first time in nineteen days I had a day off. My chore list took me to Leatherhead, where I was surprised to discover that either Tesco has become pikier or I have become even more of a snob. Still there is no danger of the chocolate industry going under now...

A familiar face in The Times magazine reminded me I have a long way to go before becoming too insufferably snobbish for my own good.

Which stands me in good stead for the distant rumbles of thunder coming from the direction of work....

Squonk

2009-04-04T13:13:00.001+01:00

Alas, a long time again between posts. Little has changed; I am still trying to manage two care homes, still trying to lose unsightly fat, (yes, there is such a thing as sightly fat, I direct the humble reader towards the human female breast), and still trying to Do Better at Socialising.

News? Well, after the nutsack-bolstering news of my last post, there has been the undoubtedly British air of anti-climax to life as a father-to-be. In a silly effort to raise Funds For Farleys I have been working a lot, which has meant no day off since the middle of last month and none due till next friday. Rolpol is truly a dull boy.

I have become very fond of drug dealing and casual violence since buying GTA Chinatown Wars, and I am greatly looking forward to my last hurrah at Castle Donington for the Download Festival. There is too little excitement to go around for the time being though.

However, as I reminded myself when Mein Frau and I celebrated our anniversary in an otherwise empty restaurant, that will all change soon enough....

My Father My King

2009-02-28T20:10:00.000Z

Behold the power of my sperm! My mighty balls! BEHOLD!

Yes, I am going to be a father.

Pity the poor kid...

Good News First

2009-02-20T12:29:00.001Z

I used to be a complete sucker for current affairs, when done properly of course. I was a fanboy for Newsnight, Question Time and whatever Brillo Pad Neil's late night show's called, but the thrill is long gone now.

Maybe because there's so much in the news that is completely unworthy of attention, (how about a story about cancer rates in the under-thirties instead of fist-bitingly Diana-esque false empathy for a strikingly ordinary lumpenproletarian), or so much that is poorly or patronisingly explained, (if you are still broadcasting 'so what does the Credit Crunch mean?' segments then your audience will never ever comprehend much above the pretty pictures in the weather forecast and you are wasting everybody's time).

Or maybe it's the stories that keep coming back in much the same manner as summer sequels at the cinema. Next year look out for a 13 year old fathering octuplets with a dead immigrant weightlifter on incapacity benefit.

Mind you it does go a long way toward showing the news isn't made up. No-one would have the nerve to pass this shit off as real without documented evidence.

All I check nowadays is FARK and the Download 2009 website for clues as to who the third headliner is. The rest is merely semolina....

And The Bands Played On

2009-02-11T19:05:00.001Z

I thought it was just a passing fancy, or a quick agreement just to shut me up, but it seems Mein Frau really does want to go to Download 2009. Yep, the one with Da Leps, Trousersnake, ZeeZeeTop, Da Crue and, quite possibly Manofuckinwar.

Mein Frau likes Drum N Bass and cheesy dance music.

Maybe she's more interested in the NuMetal bands on the bill like Slipnuts or Nork, or hoping that My Chemical Toilet turn up to have a cry....

I'm doing her a mixtape just in case...

Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret

2009-02-07T11:30:00.002Z

I don't really have a problem with privacy, probably because I don't really care much for other people's business and assume, (quite rightly considering the fantastically less-than-massive readership of this page), that other people care little for mine. I'm sure I would have issues if I was an attractive female newsreader or the subject of tabloid speculation* but short of that I am probably safe from prying eyes.

So I considered Google Latitude to be relevant to my interests; it would be especially useful for selected others, including my work minions, to know where I am, and for me to be able to see others on a map too. Very 21st Century, very exciting for a techno-geek like me.

But of course my phone, a Palm Treo 500, won't play ball. And it's another six months before my next upgrade.... Damn this Millennium, damn it all to hell!

*indeed I have always found media worries about government invasion of privacy to be a little laughable; they can't even get TV License detection right. It's far more likely to be the selfsame privacy-obsessed media that will try to rake through your muck given half a chance and a quantum of provocation and there won't be a thing you can do to stop them

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Now playing: Saxon - Wheels Of Steel
via FoxyTunes

By-Tor And The Snow Dog

2009-02-02T19:17:00.003Z

Day One of The National Snow Catastrophe, and your correspondent has braved the elements in search of The Story.

Irritatingly, every fucker in the county couldn't help but virtually line up to say self-importantly stupid things to every passer by. I considered a sandwich board or placard proclaiming; Yes, it is a large amount of snow. No I have not gone to work. Yes it does look pretty. Yes it is cold. Now fuck off, before I batter you to death.

We walked down the hill into Dorking, whilst really stupid people tried to drive back up to The Village and failed. Knowing that conditions could seriously worsen we were only after a few basic essentials.

Bread
Milk
Some salad to accompany our pizzas
A nice pub lunch
A couple of bottles of wine and some Belgian beer

There were so many people out, marvelling at thefact it occasionally snows heavily during the winter months, that we were forced into the fields for some peace and quiet. This is why strangers do not converse under normal circumstances; everything we have to say is dull, repetitive, meaningless and time consuming.

Luckily the winter chill was just right for my bottle of Leffe, so we ignored local by-laws and drank it on the way home, whilst snarling at any passers-by. It's how the war was won, and it's tragic that so many have forgotten this icy-cold fact. Any more of this and I'll be glad to go back to work...

Strange Place For Snow

2009-02-02T11:57:00.003Z

I left work at 2030 hrs yesterday, and got home around 2330 after some particularly skillfull driving on my part. High-powered Beamers were sliding around and getting nowhere, unable to climb the slightest of slopes, but my little Noddy car overcame all obstacles. There was one hairy moment coming down the one-in-four hill from Headley Common where I somehow managed a controlled skate down the hill, round the abandoned 4x4, and finally round the tight right hander at the bottom, all at over 30 mph and all without any traction whatsoever.

I poured a great big whiskey when I got in, and raised it to the people I'd seen waiting at bus stops in South Croydon. England truly is a nation of optimistic fuckwits.

Earlier I had been driving through Brixton and Streatham; throughout all my travels I didn't see a single gritter. I saw the M25, when going over a bridge just shy of Junction 8, looking like a disaster movie. If only there had been some kind of method of predicting the weather so that action could have been taken. Fuckwits.

We're off to the pub. We are the humanity everybody has been cut off from....

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Now playing: Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Strange Place for Snow
via FoxyTunes

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner

2009-02-01T17:49:00.001Z

Like most people, I am suspicious of fads. Revolutions, when heralded, often turn out to be nothing more than some revoltingly stupid idea masked by novelty and regurgitated by the bored and the ignorant.

Communism springs to mind, as does fashion journalism (which seems to have infected The Times on Saturday to the extent that one yearns for a sexually-transmitted blindness to ravage their legion of hacks).

However I have occasionally found the hype to be worthwhile, among all those ex-forests of tragic crap written about tower speakers and must-have lampshades. The Wire is indeed very good. Facebook is not entirely evil and pointless. And Wii Fit is something quite revolutionary.

The beauty is in the reward system, much as it is for Brain Training on the DS. Do better, get more points. Do really well and go on to a harder level. Last but not least, you really are only cheating yourself.

For a gamer such as myself, casual but playing on computers since the Vic 20 era, this is probably the only way I will ever equate exercise with enjoyment and fulfillment. My meals are now regulated so I can get a better score when I weigh myself. I have started jogging in real life in practice for the WiiFit jogging challenge, much as I read The Art Of War in order to be better at Command And Conquer; Red Alert 2.

The simple truth is that most of us will never be able to compete in sport to the level we would like. Football, cricket, tennis played badly are all worse, and indeed far more dispiriting than not played at all. And of course why go out and be crap at football when you can stay inside and be magnificent at Pro Evo Soccer?

The problem with this, and especially so for women it seems, is that your Playstation triumph is completely meaningless. You beat the computer. So what. The draw of games like World Of Warcraft, which should be a dog-whistle heard only by Genesis fans and pre-pubescent middle class pale boys, is that you are playing with other people. It has meaning even after you shut the computer down.

And so it is for WiiFit; exercise for the bodily incompetent, competition for the terminally crap. I've lost 4 lbs that would never have gone any other way, and if that's not revolutionary for a late-thirties slob then nothing ever will be...

Nude Disentegrating Parachutist Woman

2009-01-31T09:45:00.003Z

More to come, but I have to bugger off to work in a minute so I shall leave you with my favourite new Wii game to play while I'm away....

Yes, I have been laying too much WiiFit....

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Now playing: Budgie - Napoleon Bona, Pts. 1 & 2
via FoxyTunes

Intruder

2009-01-17T20:25:00.000Z

I saw Cloverfield yesterday. What a load of shit, what a waste of film and special effects. The last time I wanted that many people to die in that much excruciating pain I was holding a meeting at work. I really should imdb the actors so I can boycott them for all eternity. Or just disfigure them...

At least the film was short...

Carpet Crawlers

2009-01-17T20:15:00.001Z

Ask and ye shall receive...

Snakes And Arrows

2009-01-11T20:33:00.001Z

The World Professional Darts Championship, not to be confused with the inferior version held on Sky, is bollock-achingly hardcore. Let me, for the very few of you not following avidly, set the scene; Mr Hankey The Christmas Poo is playing Andy Hamilton From The News Quiz in the final.

Mr Hankey has been leading for some time but hasn't been able to see Andy Hamilton off for the past two sets. Lazarus himself has nothing on the exocets Hamilton's been whacking in just to keep in the game.

But finally, Lakeside sees Mr Hankey take his third bite of the cherry after throwing away two golden chance, leaving the bitter taste of of John Smiths for Hamilton.

Mind you it was better when you could smoke... When's the snooker on?

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

2009-01-08T21:34:00.000Z

I was stumped by a question from Mein Frau during a conversation about careers after I had admitted to not really liking what I do for a living.

"What would you like to do?"

Well. I had to sit down and think it over, which wasn't a particularly good sign, and came to the following conclusions...

1; I'm fairly sure that there aren't many overweight thirty-six year olds becoming Premiership footballers.

2; It's probably a similar situation where rock stars are concerned. Furthermore there haven't been any great albums released since the early nineties, never mind the fact that no-one's buying discs anymore.

3; Even decent writers are having trouble getting rich these days, I don't think anyone's going to pay for my scribblings.

4; And nor will I ever make a penny from chess.

Mein Frau tried to steer me back to the real world but I vehemently refused. I don't like the real world, I decided, and that's why I dislike what I do for a living! I know I'm not alone, I bet that most overweight thirty-six year olds hate their jobs too. The role of a male grown-up is thanklessly dull, when you think about it.

Satisfied with my brilliant childishness, I got wankered on sherry and fell asleep on the sofa. Ambitions? Maybe in the next life...

Get Back

2009-01-06T18:25:00.001Z

Now I know Flash 'Arry's got this reputation for wheeler dealing but, now he's bought sulky little Defoe twice in eleven months, the universe is in danger of imploding.

However if that were not to occur then jealous little beeyatch Jermaine's ego would still be the largest mass known to man.

Nevertheless if other possibilities pan out I would be much Appiah...

Garden

2009-01-03T15:33:00.001Z

To Kent, as a part of Mein Frau's never-ending mission to own every item on E-Bay for a fleetingly optimistic moment or two. This time we are picking up a Pilates machine Mein Frau bought on E-Bay to replace the Pilates machine she has just sold on E-Bay. Apparently this has yielded a profit and we can now afford lunch. After which, presumably, we shall pilate ourselves.

I was rather disappointed in the BBC 4 Prog documentary last night; it was supposedly structured into three parts but it seemed to have only a sprawling beginning and a fumbled premature ending featuring the repetition of the hideously inaccurate theory that punk killed prog despite showing videos of successful prog bands in the early eighties. I think The Other Blog might have something more to say on the subject...

Anyway, it was almost as crap as the 1988 Arena Heavy Metal special, a programme so poor that even special contributors fought to have their credits removed. One day they shall employ me to tell the story properly...

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T19:53:00.001Z

And the very best of British Luck... Errr, scratch that last thought!

A Picture Of Doris Travelling With Boris

2008-12-31T16:59:00.004Z

The Year In Photographs:

The Great British Summer

The Top Of The Hill

Getting Married

Mav's Man Weekend

Where the banshees live (and they do live well)

Second-Eldest Gets Hitched

Mogwai's Entertainment System

Berlin In June

Iron Maiden at Twickenham

The Honeymoon

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Now playing: Dream Theater - Eve
via FoxyTunes

Lost In Germany

2008-12-31T13:58:00.002Z

There has been a quiet sense of things left unfinished over the past few days. The turkey and trimmings have been ravished, molested and finally demolished, The Hill (all 650 feet of it) has been mounted thrice armed only with wellingtons, hipflask and a supreme lack of haste. Family and friends have been visited, toasted and their good health drank to. The Year has been evaluated and a hearty feast prepared for its send-off tonight. But something was amiss, a feeling that became most itchingly persuasive whilst watching The Italian Job yesterday morning.

It was only when I read through the tv schedule that I realised what it would take to blow the bloody doors off The Season. I was so delighted with my Virgin discovery that I climbed up to Ranmore Common again this morning before returning to continue The Battle Of The Bulge from the sofa with a bottle of Bucks Fizz and Henry Fonda. For tonight we have, each time always as good as the first time, The Great bloody Escape. Pour the champagne, sing your nonsense midnight song, just don't get in the way of the bleedin' telly especially when Donald Pleasance is on screen. I'm happy as long as I can see.

I can see perfectly... I can see that pin down there! Splendid!

So the year is completed to my satisfaction, and all that remains for me to do is to wish you a very happy New Year, from me, Mein Frau and from our great escapologist Mogwai xxx

Oh and someone needs to work up a 'Which Great Escape Character Are You?' meme thing. I've baggsied Werner.

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Now playing: Rush - The Trees
via FoxyTunes

Runnin' Up That Hill

2008-12-30T10:42:00.001Z

I think I'm getting altitude sickness!

Time Stand Still

2008-12-29T16:28:00.002Z

Finally some time off; time spent Wii-ing and sipping at some of the fine wine provided by Santa via parental units.

Christmas itself was something of a blur. I left for home at eleven or so in the morning, having been at work since the previous afternoon, to find three generations of Mein Frau's family on their way and a Marks and Sparks dinner from heaven waiting to be put together. I opened a bottle of Bucks Fizz and started my calculations....

Of course I was so shattered by ten-thirty that I more or less passed out from the exertions of carrying those extra pounds from the sofa to the breakfast bar and back again, carrying a glass of smoky whisky each time.

Boxing day was a bit harsh, a walk up our Hill followed by another two day shift at work. I hadn't had a day off in about two weeks and was really feeling it. By the time I got home on Saturday afternoon I was so shattered I think I could do little but Balvenie myself to oblivion. So the last thing I needed on Sunday morning was an emergency call from work to say my wonderful staff had locked themselves out....

So today has been more than welcome; a chance to catch up with friends and an opportunity to start thinking about this crazy year. And then I saw that Ivan has decided that Stalin is the third-greatest Russian of all time, so I have done little but laugh and laugh and laugh today at just how mystifyingly meaningless the whole fucking shebang is.... Time for a Glenmorangie methinks...

Bomber

2008-12-22T20:44:00.001Z

I have bought myself a new enemy for Christmas, and his name ist Fritz. He's pretty fucking annoying; he prefers sarcastic punishment to helpful hint, but I've got to do something to get me beyond my beginner's level rating and Fritz (11, if anyone's counting) might be an unwitting aide in my thrust for glory.

Now all I have to do is figure how to make the German bastard work...

Childhood's End?

2008-12-21T01:32:00.000Z

Argh! The dreaded Man-Lurgy has struck, leaving me phlegmy and restless in the early hours. Worse still, I have only finished Day Six of a fourteen day stretch of work and I simply cannot go off sick as there is No-one Else who can step in for me. This is what comes of stopping bucks...

However I am still enjoying it; I have accomplished things my predecessor completely failed to do, and I have secured the future of the unit (although not of my own job, sadly, that has a mere ten months to run). What's more, I have done it gracefully and without bullying or begging.

And yet here I am, bunged up and bleary eyed before the prospect of getting up before sunrise on a Sunday, my alarm rings out in a few short hours. It's worth it though. Duty is a funny thing, but the rewards are no laughing matter.

And I mustn't forget to raise a hot toddy to D in thanks for cheering me up with his message, here's hoping the snow clears and the bottle shop is stocked with Erdinger!

In The Deep Midwinter

2008-12-16T17:23:00.000Z

Do pop by for some Seasonal Goodwill if you're in the area. If not, let us know so we can raise a glass or two in your direction

In The Mood

2008-12-05T18:16:00.000Z

Assassing

2008-12-05T18:00:00.000Z

To Surbiton, for cocktails and conversation. Since moving to the country we seem to spend our leisure time in the nicer suburbs of the very southernmost reaches of sprawling London, preferring to avoid the more exciting (to coin a euphemism) areas we once frequented. After all why bother heading for confrontational Balham or bitter Waterloo when one can find a far classier form of fight amongst the Pythhonised middle classes?

If you can't beat 'em, Clapham...

So Tired

2008-11-30T14:53:00.001Z

There is so much to running two care homes that everything else seems to get swamped; however I have been trying to get more out of life recently. I even managed to sneak my Telecaster out for a quick burst of powerchords, and of course The Other Blog is starting to take shape. I even managed to sort out subscriptions to The Speccie, Private Eye and Classic Rock, although my Prospect sub seems to have done a Kursk. So I should be a better-informed and more interesting rolpol....

I'll let you know if anything happens...

Have A Drink On Me

2008-10-17T20:24:00.004+01:00

I ws going to post more honeymoon pix nd tell more about Mexico, but I hit the Manhattans and stuck the new* Acca Dacca album on.

So you'll have to wait until tomorrow....

* I don't have the new, unreleased, Acca Dacca album at all, at all, at all. No, nope, nada. Your Honour....
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Now playing: AC/DC - She Likes Rock N Roll
via FoxyTunes

Island In The Sun

2008-10-12T18:31:00.006+01:00

Any regular readers left around may be sulking due to the lack of posting but consider this for a long gap; after six months of marriage we finally got around to our honeymoon....

Our towel decoration on the four-poster bed upon arrival

Mein Frau took on the heavy duty of planning, and so she got First Choice to take us to the El Dorado Royale, a nice little hotel south of Cancun. I was left in charge of making sure we got to the door of the plane. It was easy to decide on valet parking at Gatwick, especially at half-price, but I ummed and ahhed over booking an executive lounge. Seventeen quid? Each? For three hours? That's almost as expensive as going to the bloody cinema! Fear not, dear reader, I chose wisely and well, and will never share an ordinary departure lounge with chavs, northerners and any other inverted snobs again.

The grounds of El Dorado

We gained entrance to the lounge at around seven in the morning, and after viewing the beverage situation I fell to my knees in glorious rapture. Our plan for combatting jetlag on the ten hour flight was simple and unsurprising, get totally fucking muntered and then drink more on the plane. The executive lounge really was the place to do it. The first thing I saw after the check-in desk was the ominously large drinks cabinet laden with scotch, whiskey and bourbon, two brandies, two vodkas, martinis rosso and blanc, and many more. Underneath were four fridge cabinets with beers and mixers. The other side of the wall had the breakfast bits and bobs.

Heavy drinking in the classiest manner possible

I looked for the bartender; there was none. An Englishman, even if hell-bent on alcoholic destruction, is never served at breakfast, so I tried an Irish coffee for size and filched a couple of croissants for camouflage. Suddenly hooters, bells and alarms filled the air! Had I broken some rule? Would there be consequences for my seven a.m. slosh-intent? No, someone had burnt some toast but, fearing an attack on the godless infidel, we had to troop outside for twenty disgustingly sober minutes whilst the fire brigade snooped around. Finally we were let back in and there was a gentlemanly surge back to the drinks cabinet for trebles all round in salute to our good fortune. Eventually, shome time later, (hic), we had to leave to go to our plane. The horror of a Gatwick North Terminal full of screaming kids and bad-tempered shouting hordes was even less palatable after the polished wood of the Lounge, but we rushed through and got to our gate as boarding started.

Lobby check-in at El Dorado

I have never travelled long haul before, my longest flight previous to this was around the two hour mark. Ten hours on a cramped 767, ten hours surrounded by a multi-generational extended family from hell. Grandad and grandma shouted at their four grown-up daughters, who themselves shouted at their own besnotted offspring and were in turn told to shut their fucking mouths by their unsuitable (current) partners. I ordered several scotches and a bottle of bubbly, and put on my industrial headphones and got through Helloween's opening set at Donington '88, Miles Davis' Milestones album, the new David Gilmour live effort, Dark Angel's third (and finest) album, a bit of Aerosmith's support slot at Donington '90 and some old I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clues before the trolley dollies told us the plane was coming down as planned.

Lobby at El Dorado

The rain didn't matter, nor the thirty-plus heat. We were away from most of the other passengers and on a briefish coach ride down a dusty a-road bordered by rancid 7/11s and burger kings (made more bearable thanks to Miles' Miles Ahead), and finally, thankfully, we were there. 22:30 in the UK, a time-travel-tastic 16:30 local time. We checked in and a golf cart was summoned for the bellboy to drive full-tilt through the grounds. The room was large, lovely and cool, and a bottle of bubbly was chilling by the jacuzzi. Two hours until dinner, but we must now draw a respectful veil for the time being.

Well, it was a honeymoon after all ;)

Tonite Let's All Make Love In London

2008-09-15T18:29:00.002+01:00

Ta-ta Rick, wish you were still here....

Everyone should have this Floyd stuff...

A Farewell To Kings

2008-08-09T11:16:00.002+01:00

Seasoned Deuteronomists who are missing their infrequent and unstable updates should point themselves towards this new blog. I think this guy might turn out to be a really good writer.

Look after yourselves, thanks for watching.

Codex Gigas

2008-07-16T08:56:00.001+01:00

Day Two in my phenomenal new job, (yes I know I never told you of day one but, frankly, there are only a finite and ever-decreasing number of days in any given week where I'll give the faintest arse about this underwhelming webpage; yesterday was not one of them), and I'm still being shown ropes.

The change in culture from managed to manager is subtle, yet profound. The only time you'll see your manager, unless you're in the shit, is when they aren't doing anything and so, like Schrodinger's sleeping carp, it is very difficult to observe what a manager is supposed to be doing.

Until you spot a big pile of paperwork on your new desk and discover it consists entirely of to-do lists...

Neon Knights b/w 2 a.m.

2008-07-14T12:34:00.001+01:00

I had a very funny post to put up, but my phone has been stupid about not sending emails and I refuse to type it out again.

Furthermore, it wasn't even that funny in retrospect. Perhaps it is only funny at 3 a.m., as this was when it was written.

However, should an overly self-aware night-themed post, with an awkwardly failful attempt at humour, appear then my phone's gmail is working again.

This is not likely, however, as I have been mailing in draft articles I've been writing towards my exciting book-esque project. A project my phone seems to dislike so much that it has embarked on a devastatingly petty campaign of clog-in-machinery.

Ah well, all true art is born of struggle, n'est pas?

Rock Of Ages

2008-07-10T15:04:00.001+01:00

An office day at work, and I really shouldn't have sunk three man-strength filter coffees before lunch... The old tummy, grumbling over a vastly reduced calorie intake, decided to pass the issue straight from the in-tray to the out-tray with nary a thought or regard, so my usual efficiency, microscopic at best, is now too small to be measured without invoking wossisname's Uncertainty Principle...

However it must be noted that complete inaction at the middle-management level is to be applauded, nay, demanded. I heard a suggestion for increasing voter turn-out at elections, from a Suit talking on Radio 4 of all places, that involved all voters being placed in a prize draw. I'd like to see that in place for the next General Election in Zimbabwe....

I have a better suggestion for motivating a spoilt, lazy and moronically counte-intuitive electorate that can't seem to realise they are merely getting the government they deserve; five years of military dictatorship. And then we can also have some kind of perspective on the difference between not having anyone worth voting for, (get off your arse and stand yourself) and having no choice at all....

Seven Days Of Falling

2008-07-08T11:55:00.001+01:00

Firstly, thank you to the kind person who forwarded a link to the Donington 88 bootleg, you made an old man very happy...

And thus a thick, firm black line shall be drawn under all things Maidenite and we can start afresh...

A week until I start my new job, and the terror is starting to take root. How can I possibly do this, a frantic flying leap into a black chasm of wailing doom? Well I have to; I've already spent the money. I've been finding it hard to cope with living in the margins between the moribund present and the exciting future, drving for three hours a day to and from my lame-duck employment, and I have yet again been wishing my days away.

Having said that, I have been doing well at trying to lose weight due to the swimming and recent vigourous Wii-ing, (Wii-owning Deuteronomists are welcome to become Wii friends should they so wish, drop me a line and so on and so forth). Results haven't been entirely positive, the fetid ballooning has been arrested but the much-anticipated slimming is yet to become noticeable, yet the general sense of wellbeing created by these attempts is addictively tangible.

And so onwards to a bright new future. It seemed that life was starting afresh twelve months ago as I prepared to move from Streatham to The Village, now that feels like a mere qualifying lap for the big race ahead. If I had more time I'd firmly insert a big Grand Prix joke here but I'm in a hurry so you'll have to settle for a lazy double entendre instead.

But just think; when I am back in the living again you'll actually get stuff to read about here insead of self-reverential tripe!

Southbound Pachyderm b/w Sour Times

2008-07-06T09:27:00.006+01:00

And so, finally, to Twickenham to see Saint 'Arry and the lads. Something of a difficult day for the touts, one told me as I tried to sell Mein Damen's unused ticket, they were selling at half face-value at best. He then offered me his wad of standing tickets, free, gratis and for nothing, grumbling that "no fucker's buying at any price, they all wanna sell like you...." A large batch of standing tickets was released in the weeks before the gig, thus screwing the touts, as did a pathetic support bill, but I got a good-ish price for my poor, ill, beautiful wife's one in the end and then proceeded in a northerly direction with growing confidence and growing strength in the air....

There seemed to be a lot of people milling about outside the stadium, creating the atmosphere of 'English 'Eavy Metal (Mate)'. Take black cotton, infused with liberal lashings of stale beer and nicotine, wrap around profound unpretentiousness and a little mockney to mask the blistered self-confidence, bake at 20 degrees in the sunlight and don't forget to discard your liberal romantic notions of working class culture before serving... Thousands of them, necking cans of knock-off lager and swapping excited matey chatter, all profoundly not watching the support bands. If this was anything to go by, first act Lauren Harris must have performed to a bemused sprinkling of ShowSec guards and concessions stall staff.
I must admit I did not buy an event t-shirt, as they were mostly bloody awful. The only event-specific one was a bastardisation of the already-naff No Prayer album cover with a contrived rugby theme, and the rest were even more lazy in concept and execution. I was starting to have a bad feeling about all this. I chatted to a few people, as I had my solitary can of Guinness and tried to hoover up secondary smoke without looking like I was offering oral sex to passers by, and they too seemed a bit underwhelmed. It's always the case at a large gig; you think your custom is special to a band then you see all the other punters and you start multiplying the ticket revenues, the t-shirt sales, and you start to feel like the rump of a very large, very juicy cash cow....

Into the stadium, to shake off the negativity, and to catch the end of Ignored Sevenfold. In terms of mental outlook, a stadium is always half-empty, never half-full. For Ignored Sevenfold, who sounded like a shoddy amalgam of every nu-metal apoplexy from the last eight years, the stadium was three quarters empty at best, with a few thousand converted to preach to. I sat at the back and started the crossword. 29 Down seemed to be a strangely apt prophecy; "Guitar sound falling short in festival - stage without much life yet".

Sevenfold spluttered to a halt and I eagerly wandering towards the stage. The stadium began to fill up a bit, but I couldn't help noticing there were large gaps in the seated areas and the pitch standing seemed to be very empty at the back too. But then the p.a. started blaring out UFO's Doctor Doctor, and it was time.... Churchill's Speech, and then the intro to Aces High, a blast of pyro and Iron Maiden were on stage in front of a sea of furiously pumping fists and horns of the devil....

I remember a review of a Maiden show I saw back in 1990, that said it was so easy to get carried away by the first few minutes that it made the Nuremberg rallies appear tasteful. Hyperbole, it makes British journalism what it is today.... But after the adrenaline rush of the first two songs reality set in; I was busting for an old-man's piss. Damn that Guinness! I hurried out of my hard-won spot and relieved myself, returning in time for the last half of Revelations. It sounded absolutely awful....

The bass drum was clear and loud, as was the singer, but the rest was a wall of mud. No treble, no cymbals, guitars indistinguishable unless solos managed to struggle above the murk. I went up front to the left p.a. stack, where I could make out the bass if I concentrated hard enough. That Times Crossword clue was definitely on the money... Another couple of songs, including the disco-fabulous Wasted Years, and I moved back towards the mixing desk where the sound appeared to be at its least worst.

So there I was, on my tod and desperately trying not to be milked for more cash while the sound of the band wafted away towards Teddington. Disappointed? Pissed off? Sorry, but no, not at all. Sixteen years since I last saw them and Iron Maiden are still the best live band I've encountered. By the time Bruce Dickinson, seeming a little lost for words throughout the gig, bollocksed his announcement of the epic Rime Of The Ancient Mariner I was having a great time, and so were the cheerful, friendly guys around me who wouldn't allow someone to be on their own at a Maiden show. The sound got a little better, a little louder, and every song was a winner too. The show may well be heavily choreographed and the set-list never changing, and that lack of spontaneity can stifle any notion of Maiden being anything but a rock equivalent of The Mousetrap, but this is still theatre at its absolute finest.

By the time Mummified Eddie was bursting out of his sarcophagus Twickenham, front to back and up to the highest tier, was going absolutely fucking mental. The encores, from the mighty Seventh Son album, were augmented by a fifteen foot Robot Eddie from Somewhere In Time, playfully mocking guitarist Dave Murray with a well-known hand-gesture. The last song, Hallowed Be Thy Name, was my cue to disappear for the train station as I have heard it so many times already. Still I was satisfied, if not overawed.

Death, taxes and Iron Maiden, Seasoned Deuteronomists, meaning that despite the sound quality, despite the fist-clenching, cheek-bulging greed, despite the mismanaged ticketing, it was the inevitable predictability of it all that somehow made it a bloody good show.

Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band b/w Heaven Can Wait

2008-07-05T08:45:00.013+01:00

My Mummy took me to see Iron Maiden, back in '88. I was a month short of my sixteenth birthday and a little resentful of the enforcement of parental supervision, especially as I am (as Seasoned Deuteronomists may have noticed) a selfish little bastard at times. Afterwards I could appreciate Mum wanting to share in the experience, and cherish being with her nervous, excited boy waiting to go to his first concert, but at the time I wanted to go by myself, get up close, and see Iron Maiden from the front of the crowd... This parental concern may well have saved my life.

I'd been up late the evening before, listening to the Friday Rock Show, but I was up even earlier and raring to go. I spent hours watching minutes go by, fidgeting from one skinny buttock to the other. I had bought a flag to take and wave at my heroes, and kept furling and unfurling it. Surely it was time to go? Can we go now? WE'LL BE LATE!

Eventually we did set off, on an irritatingly haphazard route chosen by my motorway-avoiding father. I watched the other cars for other Donington-goers, expecting the same kind of scarf-hoisting camaraderie as when I'd gone to see football matches at Wembley. There were a lot of other cars to see though, a lot of stationary, beeping cars....

I don't think anyone had expected the volume of crowd that day, which, in retrospect, seems a bit myopic. The opening act, Helloween, had a selective appeal, but the rest of the bill were hugely popular. Guns N' Roses, who were the new hottest thing in showbiz, Megadeth, David Lee Roth, and Kiss would be playing. The M1 was closed for two junctions to allow traffic to subside, all approaching roads were jam-packed (you might want to note this if you want to go to the British GP in 2010...), and the ground inside the racetrack was already a mass of long-haired hard drinking heavy metalling fans.

We were still listening to Simon Bates when people started getting killed. I had been staring at my watch, whining to myself that I had already missed Helloween and moaning that Guns N' Roses would be well into their set by now. Axl and co were certainly onstage at that point, but they weren't playing anymore. Bodies were being pulled from the crowd.

Conditions were bad at the front of the stage. There had been video screens set up either side of the p.a. stack, but high winds had blown one of them over causing a surge of people away from and towards the scene. The site itself was a sea of mud from days of summer rain, and there were heavy showers throughout the day too. The eyewitnesses testify to the crush being so heavy that their feet didn't touch the ground for minutes at a time.

I've seen video of the crowd during some of the other acts that shows groups of people pushing, like a scrum, just for a few more feet forward. When they did this during the GN'R set about fifty people fell over, down into the thick mud, and the rest of the crowd merged unwillingly over the top of them. GN'R stopped their show, and Axl Rose asked for people to take a step back, saying "We've got some people unconscious still".

The report is chilling. Mick Upton, head of security, describes retrieving thirty people,

"all covered in mud, some were bleeding and others had obviously vomited. When we reached the bottom of the pile we discovered one person unconscious.... Unfortunately, as we removed what we took to be the last of the casualties, we discovered another two bodies underneath them. These two were both lying face down in about four inches of mud and they were almost covered over. At first I did not realise they were people. The pressure load on these two victims was such that we had to dig under them with our bare hands to turn them over. We managed to extract them from the mud but they appeared to be lifeless."

Newspaper reports blame the crush on the sheer weight of the huge crowd, and on moshing. But photographs show the site to be half-empty at most, and you can't mosh when your arms are pinned to your sides and your feet are dangling inches off the ground. It was the people who were mindlessly, selfishly pushing through a packed crowd that killed Allan Dick, 18, and Landon Siggers, 20, and it was a bitter miracle that they didn't kill more throughout the rest of the day.

I was blissfully unaware of all this.

We arrived onsite in time for the start of Megadeth's set, which we spent queuing for toilets and buying event t-shirts and programmes. My flagpole had been confiscated by a zealous security check at the gate, where we were frisked for glass bottles and weapons, and we also saw evidence of one of the most confusing alcohol policies in the known universe.

You could take alcohol into the arena as long as it was in a one-gallon plastic bottle. For your own safety you must bring a gallon of beer with you. A gallon. Eight pints. Just to keep you going until you get to the bar, right?

We eventually found a place about three quarters of the way back from the stage.

The crowd was enormous, I had never seen so many people before. David Lee Roth came on and was terrific, despite the intermittent rain and an unfortunate incident where a security guard, traumatised by earlier events, got on stage to ask Lee Roth to pause while a woman could be rescued from the crowd. Lee Roth's security threw him off the stage... Kiss were next, more relaxed and playing a greatest hits set. They announced that "a hundred thousand people can't be wrong" to a huge cheer. I was simultaneously over-and-underwhelmed. A hundred thousand people! But it was cold and wet and I was a long, long way away from the stage....

Kiss finished, and then it was time for the two great Donington pre-headliner traditions. Firstly the carcinogenic bonfires of all the rubbish laying around, sending thick black clouds of throat-catching smoke across a crowd already desensitised by the stench of burnt burgers, raw onions and flat gallons of lager. By now all the gallon bottles were empty, and many, many people were filled with a gallon or more of piss. These are the ingredients for the second tradition, the massed bottle fight. The easiest way to propel a gallon bottle full of urine, apparently, is to bend forward with the handle in both hands and, with one smooth, swift movement, hurl it up and over your head. Thousands were doing this down the front, and the stench of 5% proof piss wafted back to those of us with the space to be more civilised and set our bottle deposits to one side.

I don't have many memories of watching Iron Maiden themselves, except that I enjoyed it a great deal. I have a partial recording of the set, and I keep trying to find a full bootleg (to no avail). I faintly remember waving my pole-less flag for a while, then feeling like a bit of a tit as I was so far away from the band. We had arranged to be picked up at half eleven and had an hour to kill after the show had finished so, after the crowd had slowly melted away, we walked down the treacherously steep and slippery slope to the front of the stage.

It looked awful, the waterlogged mud was pockmarked with calf-deep footprints even as far back as the soundboard, which was a good forty metres away from the stage. A police officer approached us and asked us to move away from the area, and we slowly made it back to our pickup point where my dad was waiting frantically for us.

It had been on the news all afternoon and evening, that two had died and many more were injured in a stampede at the festival. The reports were a fry cry from the truth, but dad wasn't to know that. He had watched thousands walking past, drunkenly singing their way to coaches and cars, and then thousands more before the flood became a trickle. Two killed, they'd said on the news, and still we hadn't turned up. His nervous hug was rough and genuinely relieved. "I knew in my head," he said at the time, "that you were ok but that was a long, long wait for you." He then told us about those two young men who wouldn't ever be going home, and I was heartbroken. There was the guilt for leaving dad to wait for so long, and the guilt of watching a rock show while the dead were being taken away. We went home, counting our blessings. I went to Donington a further six times but never ever went close to the stage. Indeed I have become expert in finding quiet, calm areas in concert crowds.

I'll be taking my old Iron Maiden flag with me today, a kind of tenuous link to the happy little mummy's boy I was twenty years ago, and a solemn reminder of two young lads who simply went to a rock concert only to be horrifyingly crushed to death in the August mud and rain....

(From ukrockfestivals.com)

For all of us it was our first concert and if we had known what was going to happen we would never have gone.

We caught the train from helensburugh central that morning totally buzzing about the gig we then travel from Glasgow to donnington,
We got our tickets from the portacabin outside the main gate and went in to the grounds.

I don’t remember much of the gig other than maiden kicked ass and g 'n' r were amazing however I remember plenty about after the gig.

When I got back to the coach the first thing I noticed was no one was buzzing or talking about the gig , it was then I saw Joe and he told me what had happened, the arse fell out of my world I didn’t believe him at first and thought yeah right shit joke mate, but when the 2 cid officers boarded the coach and took us to the local hospital to identify Allan’s body it hit me like a fucking train.

The guy that had been the first to show me friendship when I moved to rhu ( the village we stayed in) and he was the guy who introduced me to guns n roses was lying on a morticians slab covered in mud and shit and a colour that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Three of us went to donington and two came back, dicky (Allan) was the salt of the earth, he was a good mate and a really nice guy in general, his funeral was mobbed there was a 100 plus attended it. I wasn’t there as I couldn’t bring myself to watch my best mate being cremated.
One thing is for sure he will always be remembered. His full name was Allan Dick , he was from the village of Rhu near Helensburgh in Scotland .

I haven’t been to another gig since and do get pretty nervous in crowds but for me Donington 88 was my first and last concert.

Regards...........
Mark Bradshaw.

A Matter Of Life And Death

2008-07-04T11:51:00.000+01:00

I had my first pre-event anxiety dream about tomorrow night's gig last night. Essentially, I was unable to enter the stadium until the encores, whereupon most people left thus giving me a great view up front. Especially as the stadium had turned into a big-top tented stage.

Then something else went wrong, can't remember what but it was, of course, a dream and therefore tremendously dull to relate. The pattern matters though.

I used to go to Reading festival every year, especially after they introduced a North-South dividing sister event in Leeds that kept the riff raff away, and would have similar anxietymares, mostly regarding bizarre camping tragedies or travel disasters. Come the day of departure I'd be so wound up that people surrounding me would edge away slowly whilst never turning their backs. Second Eldest got a throttling once, when suggesting a change in travel details, but then I was only doing what so many have dreamed of and so no protests were raised.

I couldn't ever be allowed into Glastonbury though, as the bad karma brought would herald a blackened sun burning in a blood red sky as the multitudes shriek and scatter in beshitted howling terror. Much like '97 then, but without Radiohead....

The first ever anxiety dream was about my first ever gig, the immense Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington. There, implausibly, was a large quadruple decker pub sited one hill away from the stage where the mighty Maiden would make their headlining debut and I, implausibly couldn't find my way out, and when I did it took me so long to walk across the hill the gig was all but over when I got there. However most people had left so I had a great view of the last song....

And that's the bit that gets me every time, that despite dreaming of an event attended by tens of thousands of individuals my mind can only imaginate a couple of hundred people at pathetic best.

It seems, dear reader, I have a PSone brain in a modded Wii world....

And to prove it there'll be plenty more Maiden-generated content over the weekend....

.

Lights Out

2008-07-03T10:18:00.002+01:00

It appears I may well be coming to the end of my seemingly relentless search for seventies rock albums, although there might be a couple of Budgie lp's out there awaiting me. I have even managed to slip some jazz on lately, a rare thing nowadays probably because my commute-from-heck is where I listen to music most often and anything less subtle than drums, bass and astoundingly loud guitars gets lost under the sound of my sewing-machine-sized engine.

There just doesn't seem to be very much time around at the moment....

I've been swimming again, but managed to strain muscles in my back doing so. This was something of a shock; I thought all my evidently-rare muscles had atrophied after being encased in layers of rolling fat. The fight against flab continues though, and I am constantly hungry and tired. Boo-hoo-hoo, serves me right for all those cocktails and steaks I borrowed from the bank...

Work is surreal at the moment, sorry, I meant to say more surreal than ever. I announced my imminent departure to an unshocked silence. There was a point where I thought no-one had heard me, as the afternoon shift continued planning the evening's tasks, then one person piped up with "Croydon? That'll be nice.... Ok, who's going to do the pick-up from the Day Centre?"

My work there is well and truly done....

And now I am watching the Red Sox get swept by the Rays in delayed NASN coverage. Even baseball has taken a back seat during the Footballing Xenophobia Championships, but I find that the Sox are still inconsistent and occasionally complacent. Still, Nancy Drew and the kid Pedroia seem to be doing alright and one day I might even get to watch a whole game in realtime.

We'll file that one with catching up with IRL people though, as even Maverick was rain-checked after a scheduling error last weekend. I have managed to find a peace offering for when we do eventually meet up though. I had to bail out on Second-Eldest's stag do due to tightness in the funding area, which was an awful wrench as it has all the makings of a classic lost weekend.

But it is the upcoming weekend that is the most exciting as I shall be seeing Iron Maiden for the first time in sixteen years. How old, how sad am I? Mind you I did talk Mein Damen into accompanying me... That's all the news for now, here's Tom with the weather....

Good News First

2008-06-29T13:57:00.001+01:00

Just a quick note to say all is quiet here.

*yawn*

More to follow....

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Now playing: King's X - Visions
via FoxyTunes

Prayer To God

2008-06-22T12:04:00.000+01:00

Oh dear God no, not the fucking Turks. Please, I don't mind if all that seventy two virgins and martyrdom crap turns out to be sanctioned by You, or even if I burn eternally in Hell for not acknowledging Mohammed, just, please, for the love of You, stop the fucking Turks.

I used to watch England internationals, back when Wembley was a concrete shithole and Gazza hadn't been invented, and once saw the fucking Turks get stuffed (intended) eight bloody nil. Lineker got a hat-trick, and Bryan Robson, John Barnes, Glenn Hoddle and Cyrille sodding Regis played. Ancient history now.

The Turkish fans were a bad joke though, large groups of angry men chanting in the coach park that the infidel must be sacrificed to avenge the insult. It turns out that if the fucking Turks win it's down to Your intervention, and if the fucking Turks lose it's despicable sacrilege. That's all very amusing, especially as it's widely know that You, with Your lack of self belief, are Church of England, but, seriously, what the Hell do you think you're doing?

I know You had to send Croatia to the Euromeisterschaft to get rid of McClaren, and the cruelty of letting the Croats to the quarters, then dangling victory before them before smashing their dreams was particularly sublime, but why the fucking Turks? You really cocked up in Group A didn't You, sending the Czechs home with another Mighty Will Of God finale? Remember '04, when the only tool you had left for smiting the dirty, cheating Portugese was the demonically awful Greeks? That left a bitter taste in the mouth, remember? Especially when You had to let them past the poor Czechs...

Or is this some Master Plan, to draw the fucking Turks into trusting entirely in Your Benevolence before using The Germans to destroy them and their odiously pompous fans? Have I underestimated you? I was confused by the Dutch thing, but if you're setting up a Russia-Deutschland final I can only stand and applaud Your genius.

Let the future unfold then, just as long as things go better than last time. And please, I beseech You one last time; not the fucking Turks. They give You a bad name....

In It For The Money

2008-06-19T18:34:00.000+01:00

Off to work, for a break from trying to convince The Mogwai that her remaining parts are indeed hers to keep. The Mogwai's expanded monicker celebrates the impressive hissing-and-slashing hatred shown to vets, and also her defiant mewling and growling at having to move under her own steam...

Anyway, given that I am off to manage another service soon, being around my co-workers isn't that much fun. No-one else knows of my departure, and so I have to pretend to be all warm and caring whilst, on the inside, screaming ONE OF THESE DAYS I'M GOING TO CUT YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES at my wonderfully mature and forward thinking colleagues. Bastards.

It was also my turn to collect petty cash, which involves going up to the counter of a certain High Street bank in Camberwell. You'll have seen it on Crimewatch. Once at the counter I gently, softly, almost imperceptibly, ask to withdraw a large amount of cash. The dopy woman on the safe side of the visibly bullet-proof glass then shouts FIVE HUNNERT POUNDS? Y'WANT THAT IN TWENTIES DARLIN OR SHALL I THROW SOME TENS IN FOR COMPANY? COUNT WITH ME DEAR, FIVE HUNNERT POUNDS IN CASH STIRLING. NOW YOU BE A GOOD BOY! Meanwhile roughly fifty inhabitants of Camberwell and Peckham are waiting right behind me....

Luckily Barclays, so generously rhyming-slanged by Kenneth Williams, have installed a safety feature for nervous customers with five hundred nicker three inches from their testes. The ubiquitous free pen. Now your average male might use it to scrawl a brief description of their assailant, upon a bloody and limp limb, but I've seen The Bourne Identity and thus am impervious to physical attack when in possession of a cheap biro....

And for any enterprising criminal, I will never have to pick up petty cash again and the chances of me having any money upon me at all are rare to say the least.

And so, back up the hill past The Maudsley and King's College Hospital, and to the distant-relative safety of work. The past couple of nights have been a bit rough, especially the first one when I spent all night lying on the floor next to The Mogwai to stroke and comfort her as she was terrified, twice to the point of writhing and screaming, by the fact she couldn't stand, so a bit of calm is welcome on this shift. So, no more money runs, and no more unnanounced absences.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll sleep in my bed tonight...

Doctor Doctor

2008-06-18T09:10:00.001+01:00

Ai wents to the vetriuns an orl ai ends up wiv was a 'tard-hat!

An' tho I kept mai hoomins up orl night ai still dun't gets bbc four or the secks channuls.... Must be lookin wrong way :-(

Sinner's Prayer

2008-06-17T15:21:00.004+01:00

I am feeling awful today, little Mogwai is at the vets, and there's been complications. We're waiting to find out, poor Mein Damen is biting her nails to the quick at her college course and I'm trying to be busy but unable to concentrate on anything....

edited to add: Mogwai is home and resting, and feeling very sorry for herself, and will hopefully be ok
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Now playing: The Replacements - Trouble on the Way
via FoxyTunes

Watching Brazil (It's Just Like Watching Brazil)

2008-06-12T20:19:00.001+01:00

So, halfway through the group stage of the Dirty Cheating Continental's Meisterschaft and things are hotting up. The hot-tempered Dutch destruction of the filthy Italians was Golden Age football, and the diving Portugese seem to have developed a little luck to go with their undoubted talent they occasionally use when supergravity isn't toppling them over. Greece, pleasingly, seem to be crashing back to earth after their undeserved victory last time 'round, Spain might actually stop shirking, and no-one likes the French.

And of course, without The Home Teams attending, the Feast Of Football should taste all the better....

Except...

Being both fickle and sentimental, I have transferred my affections to The Germans. I must admit it does take a little mental effort to forget Kuntz and co dominating Der Englischers in tournaments past, but I made that journey of the mind with only small amounts of anguish and settled down to enjoy The Germans' matches. Poland, as one might historically expect, put up feeble resistance and were despatched with admirable Teutonic efficiency, but The Bloody Croats (© Steve McClaren) have thrown a spanner in the works with a 2-1 defeat of The Fatherland and now, before you can say 'Don't Mention The Anschluss', Ballack and the boys need a result against Austria next Montag.

When the second Bloody Croat goal went in I suddenly realised what was going on.These weren't The Germans playing; I was watching England in disguise. And then the thought developed to its logical conclusion and the undeniable truth hit me.

I make teams crap by supporting them.

Consider England. By the 1970 Weltmeisterschaft they were one of two or three truly great teams in the world, but two years later I was born and the National Side was plunged into a twelve year wilderness. Fate dictates that the team do extraordinarily well every six years or so, just to keep my unrealistic hopes alive, but as long as I am breathing England will have to settle for the Fair Play trophy at best. Sorry about that.

And of course I owe The Germans a big ' tut meir leide' too, for I have jinxed Fritz, cursed Schweinsteiger and rendered Ballack sterile with my well meaning love for them Entschuldigung, my adopted fellow countrymen, but please remember that, if I'd been supporting The Germans back in '96 then Gazza would have made that semi-final tap-in and you'd not have had Frau Windsor handing you the European Trophy at Wemberlee.

Besides, Austria know which side their Brot is buttered on, we'll be fine. And it's not like teams I support have been knocked out of three of the last four tournaments by the diving Portugese, is it?

Oh fich....

Master Of Puppies b/w

2008-06-10T21:26:00.002+01:00

Dear Mr Rolpol,

It has been just over a year since our last communication with you. Since then you have been snide, vindictive, bitter, cruel, spiteful and retaliatory. You have continued to deride the efforts of your co-workers, and, not content with setting unrealistic targets in supervision, you have set up a 'rewards' system called the Stakhanovite Board where no-one can possibly win the prize of being allowed to go home on time.

Congratulations. You are now a fully qualified home manager. Please accept this 40% pay rise and carry on the good work.

Yours Sincerely, etc etc....

The best bit is I'm not even joking. Not about the money anyway....

Why Don't We Do It In The Road? b/w Anti-Everything

2008-06-08T13:32:00.005+01:00

The next day in Berlin highlighted the value of an integrated transport system in getting a man towards his beer. By tram to Alex, for a coffee, a sausage, and a bit of musing. By bus to Zoologischer Garten, the infamous 100 with the legendary bus-driver who, to the delight of the natives, delivered a commentary in Berlin-accented German ....

And finally by S-Bahn out to Spandau, site of the now-demolished prison. Spandau is a nice little medieval town centre, with a relaxed atmosphere (relatively unsullied by the nearby power station), and is unnecessarily twinned with Luton. And on this day it was overrun by Goths.

No, not visigoths, but self-obsessed teens and twentysomethings all asserting their individuality by dressing to a strict identical dresscode. Black, none more black, none more ripped, fishnetted, dyed, tattooed ber-lackkkkkk. All, morosely, blackly, off to an all-day music festival on the hottest day of the year so far.

We, unnervingly, appeared to be heading in the same direction: Zitadelle. And so it was; our touristy ambitions were thwarted by the Goths and we had to settle for wandering around the outside of the castle. However, unlike the goths, when we undressed that night we did not discover our legs were now covered in a fetching pattern of blotchy red diamonds outlined in pasty white.

From one bastion of German defence to another; the Deutsche Mannschaft. We went to a large bar with a large screen to watch the final friendly for the German team before going off the Dirty Cheating Continentals Championship. Amusingly, amongst all the posters for dodgy 80's metal reunion tours, Berlin is plastered,with ads for the team featuring the damaging boast of "Eleven Men: One Love".

The game was a bit ballacks, he scored the winner in a 2-1 defeat of Serbia. We shot back to the hotel for a bit of a siesta and, lo and behold, Angela 'Hard -G' Merkel was doing post-match telly analysis alongside Rudi Voller. I think the Earth's rotation slowed for a minute just to take in the spectacle....

Refreshed by rot-wein, it was off to the Hackescher Hofe for the evening where we found some shops of interest to those back home.

Mein Damen also found a fantastic pool bar and went on to thrash me 4-1 without batting an eyelid or finishing her beer.... This was something of a problem, so we went to the main courtyard for an incredibly strong dopelter espresso and Southern Comfort.

It was such a lovely place to end a Saturday night, the heat of the day ebbing away while cheerful waiters brought the last drinks to the hardiest souls. In the end, defeated by fatigue and alcohol, we left them to it and went back to our room...

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Now playing: The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
via FoxyTunes

(We're All Going On A) Summer Holiday

2008-06-04T10:31:00.003+01:00

South of Mitte, down on Gitschiner Strasse, lies the Sommerbad Kreuzberg. And since we'd barely had breakfast before the mercury was nudging thirty, that was where we were laying too.

The first pool, for lane swimmers, was normal in size, but the second and third were absolutely huge. We noted, with some childish amusement, that there were no sun-loungers for us to place towels on, but made our home by the largest fun-pool and decided to burn off the last of the late-night wooziness we'd woken up with before going for a little swim. It was glorious, especially in the 90 fahrenheit heat, and we paused only for a quick bite to eat at the kiosk before having a little nap in the shade. Unfortunately school finished for the day and the pool was invaded by a stroppy cloud of spectacularly overweight Turkish kids...

Under such circumstances one can easily find oneself in the pinkest parts of town, and we soon found ourselves in Nollendorfplatz, heading south towards Winterfeldt Platz for a beer. Simply sitting in the shade across from the St Mattias Kirche, watching mothers walking the school-run and the crazy antics of the seemingly invincible cyclists, was such bliss that we almost felt bad about leaving for West Berlin.

A hot summer evening in Savignyplatz, the Wessie equivalent of the Hackescher Markt, is a bewilderingly pleasant experience. Our waiter was much amused by my attempts at communication and, although the meal was indifferent, we were equally happy. Apparently it is easy to become disorientated in Savignyplatz, but we stayed on the S-Bahn side of the square and found ourselves at a fantastic cocktail bar called Helva that we'd somehow missed on previous trips. Darkness fell unnoticed in the romantic evening as we alternated between arabic coffee and impressive Manhattans....

Back in Blighty people were planning the Circle Line Cocktail Party for the following night, but perhaps they should have been using the S-Bahn to see how a friendly atmosphere in a multi-cultural city is incompatible with drunk attention seekers. A Friday night crowd, long past midnight, relaxed and smiled and chatted and flirted and went home with not a single selfish loudmouthed jerk to be seen. It all sounds so terribly grown-up, don't you think?

Blue Skies

2008-06-03T12:05:00.004+01:00

We'd left the single-figure foggy cold and wet at Stansted, and found it was already 24 degrees when we landed at nine am in central Europe, so we figured that a little siesta was in order after we'd made it to the hotel, (especially after our few beers and Nurnbergwurst lunch). We tend to use the same hotel when we go to Berlin as it's five minutes from Alex on one of the several tram-lines right outside. Of course it is spectacularly basic, but who wants to pay for minibars and the like when one can check in in a few seconds and go on up to enjoy the balcony view of a horrid pink apartment building?

So, after a couple of fuzzy hours in happy happy dream land, we freshened up and headed out to watch prostitutes give directions to nervous tourists. But first by tram to Hackescher Markt, and the infamous am pm bar for a couple of quick Manhattans, before going on up Oranienburger Strasse to our favorite restaurant for a perfect steak dinner.

Hackescher Markt

am-pm bar

The glorous thing about the pavement dining here is that while one waits for the meal to arrive, or afterwards when nursing noch eins beer, one can watch the trams clunking up and down as the prostitutes wait for proper customers to approach and the ambling crowds saunter by.

Then it was on to the Bellini Bar, just up the strasse, for a few more drinks. They used to have a huge fish tank here, which was almost as much fun to look at as the nudes on the wall at the pricier Newton Bar with its more mature clientele over at Charlottenstrasse, but it was empty this time. Still, the glasses were soon full, and that was enough to round off a lovely evening.

So we wandered back towards Hackescher Markt, and took in a cheeky couple of bedtime drinks at Alex before retiring just after midnight. A glorious summer evening, (and on a day where rain reigned back home), and a perfect reintroduction to Berlin.

Take My Breath Away

2008-06-03T10:07:00.004+01:00

One of the first things one should do, had one arisen at 2:55 am, driven a hundred miles to the airport in order to sit on the runway for forty-five minutes, before flying to Germany where one could finally take an efficient 20 minute train journey from Schonefeld to Alex, is take in some shocking architecture, some wheat beer and a plateful of sausage.

So we stowed our luggage in a locker (and, in tribute to the shot of Jason Bourne leaving his bag in an Ostbahnhof locker, when we later rerieved our suitcase I left a dog-eared copy of From Russia With Love with a meaningless string of binary written on the inside cover underneath the name P. Landy) and we S-Bahned off to Hauptbahnhof.

We wandered around the shops and marvelled at being able to see five levels of various trains all coming and going, then Mein Damen spotted a nice little terrace bar and we decided to have a little sit down in front of a statue of a horse having sex with a cylinder, something to do with vorsprung durch Technic, methinks.

Herr Ober shuttles across to us, and a strange little linguistic battle of wills starts up. I refuse to speak English, while he refuses to speak German, much to the amusement of Mein Damen.

HO: So?
Mich: Morgen! Ich mochte gern zwei Weizenbier bitte.
HO: Two beers, certainly.
Mich (irritatedly): Und, wir mochten etwas zu essen.
HO: Of course, the menu....

And so it went on, while passers-by and folk at other tables became interested in the Thursday lunchtime sport between the Englischer and the staff. Finally I played an impeccable Kann Ich bitte bezahlen in response to a query about refilling our empty Erdingers, and a rustle of applause echoed around the terrace. Silence came with Herr Ober, he placed the receipt on the table and announced the numbers, in English. A breeze of murmers met this, but I wasn't beaten. I dropped a twenty, and as Herr Ober began to fiddle with his purse I raised a dismissive hand and drawled stimmt so.

Herr Ober couldn't help himself, he blurted out a das freut es mich loud enough for all to hear. Wild celebrations ensued, the terrace exploded into cheers, shouts and a standing ovation. Someone put Beethoven's Ninth over the tannoy and skipped to the Ode To Joy, whilt Herr Ober, gracious in defeat, wished us a happy holiday.

Of course this was a hollow victory for, back at Alex, we'd gotten a sleazy fast food fruhstuck to keep us going and I'd been stumped by a McDonalds employee asking if I was eating in or taking away... Still, it was, as always, a hearty welcome to Berlin....

See Emily Play

2008-05-27T19:42:00.003+01:00

A thunderously proud day for two people close to my heart... Well, more for the writer than the subject, well done old chap.

I'm off to Berlin early on Thursday morning, where the temperature will be above 30 degrees C and I will be on a man-made beach drinking Erdinger after Erdinger and illicitly squeezing my wife's bazzoms.

Pictures, naturally, to follow....

Driving South

2008-05-25T12:35:00.003+01:00

Not all the Work Holiday was bad, (I'm assuming you won't be needing the previous paragraph I've omitted for your Reading Pleasure), for instance there was the joy of driving in the countryside. There are two speeds in rural Britain; terminal crawl for villages, horses, Plod etc, and Christ-we're-going-to-die pedal-to-the-screeching-metal fast for everywhere else. The isolated farm where we were begrudgingly accommodated lies on a very narrow, very straight three mile lane and so return journeys, from the many thunderously overpriced heritage attractions we visited, resembled that freaky bit towards the end of 2001: A Space Oddyssey.

Even the Tom Tom started begging me to slow down during journeys, but hinterland logic told me that the shortest amount of time on the road meant a more narrow opportunity for buggers coming the other way to force me to move aside to allow passage.

The driving impluse, (pun so grindingly intended) behind all this is brutally simple. Yes, there is opportunity; a Gatso round here would get the flaming tyre treatment in minutes of erection, but the logic of going so fast in a place so painfully slow is symptomatic of the desperate relativity of time to an ever-present treacle-sticky history.

Time is not yours, it flies and crawls at its own whim, so make sure you make up for time stuck behind tractors and idiotic tourists. Besides, other than scrumpy and incest, there's fuck all else to do so you may as well do it at speed....

Let There Be More Light

2008-05-24T18:46:00.003+01:00

More pictures from the work holiday...

Last Bandit

2008-05-24T18:15:00.001+01:00

Been away with work, some pix for you to glance at:

Somebody Put Something In My Drink

2008-05-11T18:39:00.002+01:00

If anybody wondered how much winning the title means to Man U, well, the cash-cow/litmus test of mindless obeisance that is MUTV is actually free to view for the time being so that all can watch the celebrations.

Special thanks to Arsenal, for giving it all away after being in a commanding position, to Chelski, for not being quite good enough and being so self absorbed, petulant and unsympathetic that one could enjoy watching Ronaldo, and also to Liverpool for being as threatening as Sir Trevor Fucking Brooking, but, at the end of the day, all, surely, must hail Manchester United, the least odious of The Top Four....

On a slightly more serious note, I shall raise a glass to Martin Jol, a decent man treated with vast disrespect despite building a team capable of winning silverware. I repeat yet again that he will be in the Champions League a long time before Tottenham qualify, and point the doubters towards Spurs' form over the past three months and the fact that Berbapout will be gone before the last Brit is knocked out of Wimbledon.

But, Jesus! MUTV free to air? I'm too busy scanning the sky for pigs to watch it, to be honest....

And also a special thanks, in advance, to my father's team Stoke City, for the six points next season. And the laughs....

Big Balls

2008-05-11T14:44:00.002+01:00

There's two ways to read a 'paper, my Dad once told me, back-to-front or the wrong way. No matter what was on the front page, and more often than not in those days it was strikes, bombs or outright war, the back pages were where the real men started reading. (Or merely looking at the pictures).

Of course football is so much more popular nowadays but in the bad old days before the Premiership Our National Game was dying on its arse, what with hooligans on and off the pitch and being banned from Europe. Italia '90 changed everything though and now many people ignore the traditional calendar year in favour of marking annual milestones in line with the football season.

I moved from Streatham to The Village at the beginning of the 07/08 season, in time to wander down into town to watch Spurs get humiliated by the less-than-mighty Sunderland. The weather was much as it is today, hot and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, yet so much has happened in those months between. A consolidation season, definitely, but a few little victories to savour along the way, (including in a Big Final), we're in Europe again and managed a respectable finish despite a few big wobbles mid-season whilst picking up a valuable new addition or two for good measure.

A bit like 'Spurs then....

Rockaway Beach

2008-05-08T12:25:00.002+01:00

Some photos from last Saturday's Manly Goodness:

Hopefully the final photo is anonymous enough to preserve identity and yet obvious enough to delight those who know the perpetual-motion-fearing gentleman in question....

Wolverine Blues

2008-05-06T21:32:00.001+01:00

We had pasta tonight, and the aroma of simmering tortellini took me back an awkward-teenaged fourteen years to when I spent the summer off from my Polyversity with my aunt and commonlaw husband...

Commited vegetablarians and Grauniadistas both, he was on a Ruskin scholarship when he met her at the start of her post-Greenham-student years. By the time I came to stay they were firmly part of Cambridge's Gown sector. He worked as an OU lecturer and had long, drunken conversations with his heavily depressed bet mate about how Gramsci could sort out the problems of overcrowding in swimming pools After The Revolution, whereas she ran a College Halls.

The summer was balmy and the beer was cheap. I paid no tax and was able to afford my newfound obsession with Tchaikovsky as well as my longtime love for howling metal. There wasn't any meat in the house, but there was takeout. I learnt to love crosswords as much as England-free World Cup football. And, for the very first time, I was treated as a grownup by my family.

Even though I didn't much go for pasta....

Black Like Sunday

2008-05-06T12:00:00.001+01:00

Saturday saw me en route to Brighton in search of manly pleasures. To say that starting out had been something of an adventure would be to seriously underestimate the hazardous nature of the term, but further explanation would require more frankness than I am willing to give here...

So there I am, sat at Dorking's lessest of its three train stations, trying to get to Maverick's Man-Do. There's four cans of stout, I'm puffed out and frustrated, and there is absolutely no trains coming or going for the best part of an hour. You know what happens next...

So, fast forward a couple of hours to me being poured off the train. In a little while I will be introduced or reintroduced to successful doctors and writers, but at the moment I am trying to not to be a drunken arsehole. This, for those interested in logical conclusions, is like trying not to think of oranges.

Things went ok, although I did end up arguing without listening late on in the evening, and I awoke on sunday without any feeling of horror or shame. And yet I still spent the day wondering why I had to shackle myself to the grain and the grape, wondering what would have happened if I had been a little less self-absorbed, and,of course, if the other Men had been less tolerant...

Mostly, though, I wondered about myself amongst these successful and happy people, about whether I was the anomaly and whether I had made myself so or if it had ever been that way.

Hangovers are getting longer and longer just lately....

Supply And Demand

2008-04-29T11:30:00.003+01:00

Well, I could go and blame the lack of posting on the fact that I simply cannot be fucking arsed but, while acknowledging there is an element of truth in that, such an excuse merely masks a Clarkish economy with the actualite. Put simply, I have been far too dull to provide any interesting content.

Not that I haven't been busy.

I feel squirmish blogging about work though, as it involves supporting some very vulnerable people indeed and a lot of the humour, whilst well-meaning, can be reduced to a simple "laugh at the 'tard" in webprint.

For instance I can reveal that, yesterday, I managed to weasel out of supporting a person to go shopping in Brixton, as he currently likes to shout "you're black CUNTS!" whilst spitting at and slapping anyone within reach.... I could somehow arch my web-brows and simultaneously register my disgust at such racist language whilst explaining how he uncomprehendingly uses the phrase towards all ethnicities without (and I use the phrase advisedly) discrimination.

But you don't know the man, don't know how gentle, kind and softly spoken he is, how badly he was treated in previous care homes, how disgustingly rancid his upbringing was and how he doesn't understand what the words mean but he knows how nasty the people who use them are, how he feels like being nasty now too, and how heartbreaking it is to know that there is something going terribly wrong for him and we don't know how to help him....

On a lighter note, and with the uneasy feeling I have about blogging workmates as well, there is a relatively newboy at work who is fist-clenchingly towards the redder shade of left, just as I was when I was, *sigh*, his age. During a discussion about whether the market economy is viable I deliberately let slip that I once stood as a Conservative in local elections, and the look on the poor guy's face was a mixture of terror and revulsion.

But, as many people claim to have first said, a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart and a man who isn't a Conservative at 40 has no head. I am, in so many ways, ahead of my time.... But I'm sure my colleagues would feel as uneasy as I do about them becoming incidental characters, with lines and all, on the web.

So, aside from the coalminefield that is work, I have been playing a lot of chess, and doing not so gud akshully. I really need some coaching, so if anyone wants to thrash me thoroughly and make me glad for it then follow the link and look for rolpol.

And, in the meantime, if all things are quiet here then just be patient. Remember, I can't be fucking arsed at the moment....

----------------
Now playing: The Hives - Supply and Demand
via FoxyTunes

Mornington Crescent b/w Bad Penny Blues

2008-04-25T22:39:00.003+01:00

Ta-ta Humph, one of the very very few British jazz legends....

Here's hoping that heaven is full of Samanthas for you, Humph.....

Don't Mix Your Drinks

2008-04-23T12:17:00.003+01:00

There are rumours in the UK's most left-wing seaside town, rumours of some kind of massive disaster, a Judgement of sorts, that looms over the South Downs. It will plunge, without mercy, one weekend and all around will be laid waste.

They're not wrong.

And this will be the cause....

Can I Play With Madness?

2008-04-22T12:58:00.002+01:00

Something of a novelty on Channel 4; a documentary that wasn't dramatised speculation masquerading as fact. Rather the reverse, actually....

Of course the idea of a documentary where the subject is the only person not shown on screen is a little odd, but Ruth Wilson was very convincing in portraying the young doctor suffering from schizophrenia so it all seemed to work quite well and I didn't, for once, feel like I was being spun a yarn by someone with an agenda or a point to prove.

The whole problem with mental illness is that it's so very hard to cure. I work with people who have spent years, decades, taking anti-psychotics but have received little or no counselling because they also have a learning disability. The most distressing case involved a woman who had lost her sight, and pretty much most of a normal life with it, and now lived in a nightmarish hinterland where she couldn't tell the difference between the voices in her head and those in the outside world. The really low blow, the harshest card dealt, was that sometimes she could see things, although those things weren't actually there. Usually it was dead people, descending from the ceiling and pointing at her.

It is sometimes said that most care workers are trying to heal the damage in others because they can't or won't do anything about their own issues, and are so deep in denial that they'd bristle at that very suggestion. (Well, it's not true for me either!) The story of Ruth and Dr Rufus May showed a little of that, and maybe it does take first-hand knowledge of a situation to know what to do.

"This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
"A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on

"Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

However, it must be said that the methods used in the documentary are downright dangerous; get it wrong and there's at least one funeral involved, but the way mental illness is portrayed, treated and brushed under the carpet is just as controversial as Dr May. Maybe it's safer to have people who still hear the voices but are too stoned to care, but it's no less wrong...

I'd have had my faith in Channel 4 restored had it not been for the trail, screened in every ad break, for the disgusting lynch mob of a programme called Heather Mills: What Really Happened.

Funnily enough, talking of not quite having faith restored, on Saturday I'd asked someone to get me a copy of my Reassuringly Right Wing 'paper and ended up with The Grauniad, as said person thought I was joking and that nobody working in Social Care could possibly be anything other than Old Labour. Grunting and sighing at the lack of alternative reading material, I waded through it and was especially delighted with an article by David Edgar. I also thought the sports coverage was much improved too... The rest of the 'paper was pretty much as I had expected though, and I was much happier by the afternoon when I had Matthew Parris tucked under my arm....

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Now playing: Elbow - Mirrorball
via FoxyTunes

Prog

2008-04-21T01:51:00.000+01:00

Further to my previous thoughts on popular music, you should really listen to The Bad Plus' cover of Tom Sawyer if you have a need to realign your yardstick for measuring demented genius. If not then you're probably one of those people that is blissfully unaware of who wrote the damned thing in the first place and tends to think that demented genius is dangerous, wrong and quite possibly illegal.

In which case may I suggest Pop Idol and a full frontal lobotomy?

Repeater

2008-04-20T19:36:00.001+01:00

To Herne Hill in the line of duty, in search of circus fun. After negotiating the flagrant lawbreaking that is necessary when parking a minibus in Sarf Lahndun we went to the ticket office only to discover that, even in this brave new millenium of downloads annd dvda, the crowds still flock to see the clowns...

The parks of Sarf Lahndun are quietly spectacular when the seasons are changing. There is an air of renewal, all too brief but genuinely pleasurable, across the pathways and grass where happy games take place. It will last until the heat comes to shorten tempers and quicken the afternoon drinking...

So we sat across from Brockwell Park, watching the people stroll by, and chose to think of the positives instead of wondering when the next shooting will be....

Invincible

2008-04-20T01:03:00.001+01:00

Of course, should we be negotiating some form of evaluation of this year's new releases then one would be churlish not to mention Muse's live offering for, if nothing else, its honesty...