Words

 

"Pete Dougherty has just been arrested on suspicion of holding class A drugs."

 

Children? I think we can let the word 'Suspicion' go now.

 

There's no suspicion. He is a drug addict. If he wasn't holding any he was on his way to score.

 

He's a millionaire that can afford the finest drugs that mankind has to offer.

 

 

Git.

 

Crappy tuesdays.

I never could get the hang of tuesdays. I've got nothing really to do in work as tomorrow is my last day for two weeks so the day is dragging-dragging-dddddddddrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaagggggggiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnggggggggg.

Just trying to find little issues I can deal with quickly rather than getting involved in problems that are going to be a few days in the solving.

MEt with the registrar yesterday and she was very encouraging. Nothing was a hassle and it was all clear and straightforward. Which to be fair is exactly what you need to hear at this stage in the proceedings.



Oh and 'Overnight' is brilliant but I can't help feeling that if I'd had the same shocking introduction to the world of celebrity I might have turned into the same kind of ass-munch.

I'd have formed a better band though.

The joy of crappy movies.

I watched two movies yesterday, in between the rugby, family guy and pizza fest at andys.

The first film is one of my favourites purely for the sheer joy of filmaking that blasts out from every frame. ARMY OF DARKNESS is a fun stupid movie that just revels in the fact that its being made! Its a spoof heroic action adventure horror with bits of actual horror and the most quoteable dialouge in Christendom.

Hail to the King, Baby.

It works on so many levels because it is just having fun with what its doing. It both obeys and enjoys the genre. Its hard to belive its directed by the same guy thats made three po-faced spiderman films.


The other movie I watched was much much worse. Despite featuring a couple of interesting conceits (all knicked and done better by other films) Willam Dafoe in drag and Billy Connolly as a hard as granite hitman (yes, THAT Billy connolly) its a contender for a bad movie monday award. With a five cent simplistic take on morals and values its a hatchet job of a film badly made terribly thought out and missing key pieces of footage. And the script is wankier than something I knocked out with a friend at the tender age of sixteen. I'll see if I can dig it out for you to compare and contrast.

THE BOONDOCK SAINTS is totally shite and yet oddly compelling. The story behind it is fasinating. Now I haven't watched the Documentry OVERNIGHT yet but thats on the agenda for this afternoon. It concerns the writer director of the film being feted as the next big thing based on the script for this movie. I am incredulous to say the least!

Stoned Jones, Jim Prophet, Clearly Evil and ...

I've finally found the fourth name to join the above triumvate. They're names i've collected over the last few years and i've been waiting for the fourth and final name, knowing that with it the story would come. Ladies and Gentlemen the final name is ... Terminal Bob.

Writing

I am rarely happy with what I write and its even rarer that I get a good feeling when I finish a piece. I've just completed a five part short story called Switch that I'll unleash on you slowly. And I am more than happy with it, in fact I am very very happy with it. Now I just have to fulfil a promise to an actor friend and turn it into a radio play.

 

Actually looking at it in its current state it would die on its arse on Radio as its mostly monologues, good monologues but monologues nonetheless.

 

Have to rejigg the whole thing. But that's part of the appeal. Watch this space.

 

UPDATE: A friend has just emailed asked if he can use one of the lines from part five as his Email signature. I can think of no higher honour.

 

 

Things

Woke up at six and couldn't get back to sleep. Many many people over the course of the last few weeks have asked me if I was nervous yet. Well for the first time I woke up this morning and I was. I just kept on thinking about all the things that could go wrong over the next eleven days. There so many variables and so many people involved that almost anything could happen. Pigs falling from the sky wouldn't surprise me now.

 

The basics of it, the fundamentals, are in place and have been for months now. I have the rings and the booked the person to turn them into a legally binding contract. Everything else is really just window dressing, as vital as they may seem to the process if we had only the two of us and two tramps we dragged in as witnesses we would still get married and that's the part that doesn't scare me at all.

 

Committing myself for life to the one person that means everything to me is a real no-brainer. With her I am more than the sum of my parts. With her I can actually achieve the potential of who I could be. 

 

 

*Bleugh*

 

Sorry, got a bit soppy there. But its the toing and froing of people and events and the ephemera that surrounds the wedding that worries me. Not the actual event itself.

 

 

 

Travelblog: Catch-up

Its lovely seeing friends you dont get to see very often espically as this is the last free weekend before the wedding.

Thats right, in fourteen days Em will lumber herself with me for the rest of her life!

Is this the point where I should be getting worried? Because my calm impassive demeanor is still the same.

It was an appointment.

So, Its 5:30 in the morning in 1976 you're in Paris and bored. What do you do?

Well you attach a gyroscopic camera to the bumper of your Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 and drive like a madman through the streets of paris .

wikipediaHas an excellent page on its inspiration and creation. its quite an astounding bit of motoring.

aaaaaah Saturdays.

I love me some early saturday mornings!

When I lived in Atlanta I'd get up about 6 or 7ish, grab a coffee and sit out on the veranda overlooking the wooded area at the rear of the house. I'd smoke and lose myself in the world coming alive around me. All the strange bird song and animal noise would just calm me.

And then of course the neighbours starting waking up and turning on raidios and cars and all the other noise pollution. but for a while for half an hour each day, the world was mine.

Works been good, now I've got tentative leave date I know what I'm working towards. I could have said "Screw you guys! I'm leaving then and I don't care what you think!" but that would have made me the bad guy. They asked if I could leave a week after I'm meant to so I can help run the payrolls through in September. I think its only fair. Also a number of people that have used the oppourtunity of leaving the company to tell the bosses and everyone exactly what they think of them and then been on the phone a month or two later begging for their job back. They're so suprised when the people they annouced were douchebags won't rehire them.

Had a night night last night, some friends came around to sample our homebrew which we concluded needs another week or so to attenuate. Luckily though they'd brought some of their own, its really really good stuff for homebrew, not too strong not too fizzy just really pleasant drinking. I made chilli (without beans of course) and we played on the wii. All in all a successfull night!

Notes from the road 12

 

Chapter 12

 

Sounds of laughter and music emanated out of the house like radio waves broadcasting into the night. The suburban street was lit only by the faintly yellow streetlights and their reflections from the still wet tarmac below them. Aside from the house of noise it was a quiet little suburb in a quiet little corner of a quiet little town in a medium-boring state. Nothing, good or bad, ever seemed to happen here and as in most places Youth (with a capital Y) had to make its own fun.

 

For Vicki, Lola and Rachel being 15 this mostly involved going around to each others houses, laughing at bad TV and discussing the pressing school issues of the day. Too cool for the geeks and no where near pretty enough to be popular, they surfed the high school wave of invisibility, safe in their anonymity.

 

It was a hot Friday night in June when the air seems to prickle with the promise of something greater just around the next corner. They were sitting in the front room with all the windows open and the TV blaring out the latest marketing campaign disguised as music video. This one involved a new-wave punk band, too young to have sex, playing on a beach surrounded by impossibly attractive women in silver-sliver bikinis.

 

"As if!" Scoffed Lola, self consciously bringing her knees up to her chest on the couch.

 

"Fake band playing a fake song on a fake beach surrounded by fake women with fake tits," Opined Vicki "The only thing that's real is my hatred and loathing for all of them."

 

"Get a load of you!" exclaimed Rachael doing an impression of Vicki's self righteous face "Its just a crappy song, don't get so tangled about it."

 

"I'm not getting tangled, I'm just bemoaning the state of 'pop' music today. It meant to be our generation right? Its meant to reflect our hopes and desires, not some fat bald sweaty chairman's thoughts on what the youth market wants."

 

Lola leaned forward on the couch to grab a handful of popcorn.

 

"So what do we want? What's representative of our doomed generation apart from teenage pregnancy, bad music and capitalism run amok?"

 

"Cynicism?"

 

"Ha Ha."

 

The beach song finished and the next video came on. It was your usual rap video crap about how nice to was to go to a club, sell drugs, shoot the guy you sold them to, smoke the drugs you've just stolen from his corpse and beat up a hooker on the way to another club. It was so bad it was beneath even the Invisibles contempt and so did not warrant comment.

 

The house was Vicki's mums here she'd lived  ever since she was born. It wasn't large but with just the two of them there since her Dad left, it was comfortable and had enough space for a sleep over. Her mum was out with Tim again and probably wouldn't get back for another couple of hours when she'd come in and make them all cinnamon toast and hot chocolate with marshmallows before going to bed.

 

"So, " said Lola with a wicked glint in her eye "You want to get high?"

 

Rachael and Vicki stared at her.

 

"What?"
 
"Get high? You know? Puffing the L? Lighting up a sweet doobie? Smoking up the 'erb? Taking hits from the bong?

 

"Yes we understood what you meant we just couldn't believe you meant it Lo."

 

Lo smiled.

 

"Why not? Because I'm too sweet and innocent?"

 

"Only comparatively sweet and not at all innocent," Chimed in Rachael "You've known Vic far too long for that."

 

"Hey!" said Vic with a grin "That'd be quite offensive if it wasn't true."

 

"I couldn't believe you meant it because you only ever talk to us and we aren't selling." said Rachael moving closer to Lola on the couch "Who did you get it from?"

 

"Just this guy I know." Lola tried to look casual as if the TV still held her attention but inside she was thrumming, desperate to tell all.

 

Rachael and Vic shared a look, their interest piqued as they continued their questioning.

 

"This guy? You don't know any 'guys' ! Who is he?"

 

"Just a guy, in French class."

 

Vic jumped up and began in her best acting voice,
"Their eyes met across a declined verb. She could feel the weight of his pronouns as he began to speak..."

 

Rachael fell about laughing whilst Lola started to turn a further shade of red.
"Its not like that. He just sold me some weed, that's all there is to it."

 

"What's his name?"

 

"Not telling."

 

"Well if you won't give up his name there must be more of a story!"

 

"There isn't. I barely know him, he just asked if I wanted some dope and I said yes. That's all there was too it."

 

Vic pulled up short in her gentle mocking
"Hang on, he asked?"

 

"What?"

 

"He asked if you wanted some weed?"

 

"Yeah. So?"

 

"Let me take a look at the bag"

 

Wordlessly Lola handed over a small plastic pouch filled to bursting with chopped herb.   Vicki opened it and took a long smell like a wine connoisseur identifying a particularly obscure vintage. The other two looked on in breathless anticipation.

 

She opened her eyes and looked straight at her.

 

"Sorry Lola its the oldest trick in the book. What you've got here is a particularly fine blend of oregano."

 

Lola snatched the bag back from her spilling some of the now worthless contents on the floor.

 

"How would you know?" she snapped. "You're no expert!"

 

"Smoke it and get ill then, but I know dope and that is not it."

 

Lola looked gutted.

 

"I should really have known, one moment I don't exist the next second he's super friendly like he's selling me something special."

 

"Yeah, men can be a bit like that." Replied Rachael "At least you didn't fuck him for it."

 

All three started laughing.

 

"Look," Said Vicki " I can show you something but you've got to promise not to tell."

 

"Okay."

 

"I'm in"

 

They walked through into Vic's mums bedroom which was decorated in a very plain Mexican style with a poncho hung on one wall as a decoration and a lakeside scene on the other. The furniture was as Spartan as the room, except for the bed which took up most of the far wall.

 

Vic walked up to the huge bed and reached under it to pull out a large dark rosewood box. She placed it on the bed itself and the friends could all see the concentric circle pattern carved deep into the lid.

 

She looked at both her friends who were silent realising the magnitude of what they were about to see. With a little flourish Vick flung back the lid and began shuffling through the items contained within. There was her Mums wedding veil and long neglected rosary but she was looking for something on the other end of the moral scale.

 

"I know about weed," Said Vicki building up to a triumphal finish "Because," She held up her prize "My mum smokes it!".

 

She was brandishing a sandwich bag with a small amount of brown leaf clustered in one corner  more damming however was the well used wooden hash pipe inside the baggie.

 

The girls looked vaguely disappointed.

 

"I was expecting a couple of ounces worth at least!" Said Lola.

 

"Yeah at least enough to steal a little bit!" Added Rachael."

 

"I think my mums hippie days of smoking are well over." said Vic," She's had the same amount in there ever since I knew about it."

 

"So," Lola said, the pain of an original thought slowing her speech and furrowing her brow "If we swapped the real stuff for the Oregano ..."

 

"She'd never notice!" finished Rachael beaming down on the dubious looking Vic.

 

"I don't know," Said Vic, slowly "Its a bit of a risk..."

 

-------

 

One careful replacement of herbs and application of a bic lighter later the girls were sitting with the box back in the lounge feeling a lot more relaxed about the whole situation.

 

 Rachael who had for the last ten minutes been stroking the still open inside of the rosewood box said

 

"What's this box within a box?"

 

Vic couldn't tear her gaze away from the test pattern on the TV
"Hunh?"

 

"This box within a box?"  Rachael said pulling out a miniature version of the rosewood box.

 

"Oh that." Said Vicki " I don't know I've never been able to get it open."

 

"I've seen one of these before," said Lola "give it here."

 

Reluctantly Rachael handed it over. It was roughly the size of a box of chocolates but felt quiet heavy for the actual size.

 

"Right, You've got to force the hinges on these things." Said Lola taking a strong grip on the box.

 

"Force it?" said Vic her eyes going wide "No no! No forcing! Gentle encouraging, yes. Forcing no!"

 

"Don't sweat it. I know what I'm doing!"

 

"I know what you're doing and I don't want you to do it! Stop"

 

"You want to know what's inside don't you?"

 

"No!"

 

Vic reached out towards Lola just in time to see her fumble and then drop the box. It spiralled down in slow motion catching the corner on the unyielding stone floor and breaking the lid off splitting the wood and spilling its contents under the sofa.

 

"What did you do? What did you do?"

 

"Vic. I'm really sorry." True regret burned dully in her friends eyes.

 

Vic glared at her and picked up the box and tried to start fitting it back together whilst Lola and Rachael started pick up the splinters scattered all over the floor.

 

"That's funny," Said  Rachael from under the bed.

 

"What?" Said Vic failing to see the funny side of anything at the moment.

 

"The only thing that was in the box was this book," She replied holding aloft an aged well thumbed paperback.

 

"Is it porn?" Asked the suddenly interested Lola looking up from behind the side table.

 

"I don't think so. Unless someone's idea of a horny title is 'Notes from the Road'."

 

---------------

 

My careering career

Morning!

Got a new job today and I'm all excited! Been waiting for the phonecall for a couple of days and been so nervous I couldn't actually write properly. I won't subject you to the graveyard of abandoned post. Needless to say grammar and form weren't really included in a post that simply would have read;

"Geeeeeeeeennnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyrrrrrrrrrr,!".

So, allowing for a physical, I'll be working for Conwy county council on their payroll. For those unfamilar with Conwy itself, its a walled town with a castle that was never meant to accomodate traffic. Hence my new commute will follow the road through the walled town and out the other side.

It looks a little like this and is astoundingly pretty.

Anyway still really happy.

England 62-5 Wales

No excuses. No talking around it. No questions. We. Got. Beasted.

England were a quality side ready and prepared for a genuine international. We looked like we'd been in the pub all morning and then emerged, blinking, into a packed Twickenham that just laughed at us.

The only thing that makes it worse is I now have to buy an English colleague lunch on friday as we put a small wager on the result.

bah.

Mad Capsule Markets

Japanese Metal with a strong punk influence?

Llion, this one's for you.

trouble afoot

I got into work today to find a load of new software on my and everyone elses PC with a note from a trusted guy in tech. Turns out management arent happy that people are growing their ebay empire in work time but rather than blocking the sites theyre noting which sites people goto and how often.

so whilst i might be able to explain a lunchtime visit to my email or news sites, blogger quests at 11 in the morning are a strict no no.

so future daytime posts might be a bit rushed!

response and responsibility

due to illness and holidays I've been in charge of the payroll for the last three days and quite frankly even though its quiet season its scary being ultimately responsible. I'm certainly not paid enough for what they're expecting and I don't think my manager is paid enough for her job!


Anyways aside from that everything's okay, the final preparations are going in for the wedding, I never realised when you see couples in deep and meaningful discussions about the colour of the bridesmaids dress EXACTLY matching that of the rose worn by the best man that its actually a displacement activity. If you're as well organised as I think you need to be, with this short amount of time to go, you'll do anything to avoid actually thinking about the wedding itself.

Reading that back it make it sound like I'm unsure about the wedding and I'm not. Its just everything is getting a little close right about now!

Anyway here's a picture of the hotel we're staying in on Honeymoon. The reviews say its a bit noisy but its right in the centre of Paris so you can't really avoid that! I think earplugs are the order of the day, and if not a couple extra bottles of the Vin de table should sort you right out!

Been a funny old week. I've started a brand new writing project that I've been aching to try out for years now but still haven't finished Switch part five even though the bare bones have been lying there waiting for weeks now. The mood will strike me soon and I'll finish it, which would be good as I've already got the beginings of the second episode playing out in my head.

bad head.

You know it's a bad headache when you have to keep checking your ears to make sure your brain isn't trickling out of them.

I blamed it on the hangover from Claires wedding on Saturday but I think its the bird flu finally come to finish me off. Darn avians!

I work with Claire and She and her husband kev have accompained us on many a rugby trip. And yes that is a pint of bitter in her hand!

With their wedding done and they both looked great, its Em and my turn next which isn't quite as scary as I thought it would be. Still a bit terrifying though.

Off to scout out some paracetamol, or aspirin, or a bat to club myself into unconciousness, which ever come first really.

A new entrant?

I didn't realise Ferengi could run in the presidential race!

Vote Quark/Rom in 2008!

The worlds third best spectator sport

I am of course referring to American Politics which is the third most compelling sport in the world.

Numbers one and two are Rugby and Sumo which of course are just different flavours of big bastards running at each other with murder in their eyes. And no padding.

The media seems to focus more on the candidates quirks than their actual policies because to be brutally honest the physical characteristics and differences between the candidates is the only thing that's interesting about them.

People complain that politicians are lying scumbags who'd pimp out their own grandmother to get that extra vote.

"Why can't they ever tell the truth?!" people moan.

Well interestingly enough the reason they can't ever speak the truth is that we won't let them.

Any person that has got to be a candidate for either of the major parties is a career politician. They have made their fortune or used Daddies, to get where they are today and they've done that by being obsequious and veiling everything they say in the cloak of denyability.

When we as the public hold people to such close account and such close scrutiny they simply can't afford to be seen to be wrong. No Pol can ever say 'Yep. Okay. I goofed up, there were no weapons in Iraq. Sorry about that. My bad.' because the public outcry would be enormous. 'What else have they got wrong?' the press would scream and it would be goodbye bye Mr Politician.

Instead they make statements that can't possibly be argued with and can't be quantified.

They could say, "We need to clamp down on some dissenting voices so we're going to start monitoring all your communications that go outside of our borders."

But instead we force them to say "I want to increase the security of our country."

How can you argue against security? "I disagree with my honourable friend, I think this country is just too secure. I want more danger for all our citizens. I will plough your tax dollars into increasing the variety and spread of the threats ranged against us."


So now with the race for the democratic candidacy under way we're back to listening to a bunch of people all trying to convince us as the voters they they are the right man/woman/crustacean for the job.

In these 'debates' every word is spun sanitized and polished up to a gleaming shine before its launched forth so the only part that holds the interest once our bulls%%t filter falls into place is their actual appearance.

And thank God, it used to be a choice between boring white guy number one and boring white guy number two. Now its a choice between racy ex-First lady with balls of iron and boring white guy disguised as interesting black guy number 2.



But we want a boring guy, don't we? We want someone who won't fly off the handle when the Russian bear wakes up and starts growling. We want someone who can go to those endless meetings on sanitation and discuss policy changes and all that dull dull dull crap SO WE DON"T HAVE TO.

sunset tranquillity

There's a road in Texas in between Amarillo and Albuquerque just before you hit the New Mexico border. Its not especially pretty, its not spectacularly stunning and its arrow straight as the roads over there tend to be.

It was getting to dusk when I was driving through it and the windmills that were the only presence at the side of the empty road were black sentinels standing out against the pink setting sun.

When I'm especially stressed or feel I've got too much coming at me, I switch off and pretend I'm driving that road again. The empty blacktop stretching off ahead and the sound of the tyres on the tarmac a mantra beneath me.

One day, before I'm forty, I'm going to drive that road again.

Happy birth-daze.

Had a great birthday spent in the bosom of my family and friends whilst simultaneously in the bosom of the pub. How could things get better you ask? Well some poor fools bought me all the kit I need to start brewing my own beer! Its bubbling away now, like a giant vat of fun waiting to be matured and drunk in the next 3 to 4 weeks. I've always wanted to be the mad scientist type, rubbing my hands manically in front of vats of coloured liquids with electricity sparking off in the background.

I may even cackle.

Anyways it was a wonderful way to celebrate being thirty, and today in work I got given cake! woot! I should birthday more often.

About a third of my way through Harry Potter, not from any great love of the series but because it is a cultural event. How many books can claim that? There's always a must see movie or a must listen album, but a must read book? The measure of it is if people who rarely read are compelled to do so. It's very different for we bibliophiles that devour any material that hoves into our field of vision. So Potter as a phenomenon should be appreciated and studied but I don't think there will be anything quite like it again, in spite of the multitude of pretenders to the throne, there won't be certainly in our lifetimes anything approaching the Potter mania that is currently manifest.

Having a weird brain day were its hard to focus on one thought for longer than ten seconds, I'll blame the hangover from yesterday.