Fake xmas is a go!

Jane and Wez braved the snow the ice and terrible terrible british rail sandwiches to join the Welsh side of the family for fake xmas and new year.

Fake xmas is a Taylor famliy tradition that we like to uphold. We have xmas with our new families variously in Georgia, Kent and Rhyl and then at some point we all head for St Asaph for festive cheer, turkey and a tradtional game of Mah Jong.

This year was no exception with a lovely piece of turkey, three different stuffings, leeks and all the trimmings! We played a few gamres of UNO where I got the rules mixed up and then MAh jong with plenty of beer/wine/nog.

Today is New years eve where we're meeting all our friends and family for more drinks. I think JAnuary should be delcared as 'detox month!'

vickys pint.

Xmas time... Mistletoe and something or other.

Yay!

Broken up for xmas which is a joy as there now a whole 4 days between me and the next time I have to wear a tie! Woo!

In other news Rage against the Machine are the xmas number one single instead of Xfactors what's face singing 'The Zzzzzzzzz.....' Thank God. When did Karaoke become the cultural lodestone that we're all meant to worship?

Sorry, not making much sense at the moment. the brain hasn't been clear for days and I've got a temper shorter than an essex girls christmas skirt at the moment. Not the best way to be writing really . If I tried writing anything at the moment it would just end up being a whole page with the single word

KNOBJOCKEY!

Repeated all the way down it.

I have done a butt load of research for writing and structure but without actually getting much written. It would be worth getting something on the page but it would need totally tearing down and starting again once I felt better.

Had the works do last week which was ace seeing everyone out of the office and meeting up with some friends that have moved on to bigger and better things.

Xmas day tomorrow! Woot! Its my favourite time to see the family and friends. And nog of course! Lets not forget the Nog!

Cheers!

Llandudno in the morning.

'Ghost Em' in cinemas this Jan.

what was that about red sky in the morning?

Grabbing onto memories

A long time ago, what seems like many lifetimes ago there was a club in Rhyl. It was the only place that didn't play the usual chart tunes and bland antiseptic dance music. The carpets were sticky and the beer was quite frankly horrible but the people and the music made it fabulous. It was friendly in a town where friendly didn't count for anything.

The legends around the doorman were that he'd been one of Ali's sparring partners when he come over to the UK for one fight or another. He was certainly old enough but he was built solid and had a shock of white hair, mustaches and a pipe firmly and continuously clamped between his teeth. He very rarely said anything but it was always worth listening when he did. It always amused me this dichotomy of this gentleman in full black tie and dinner jacket surround by scruffy grunge kids moping around the dance floor.

What The Bistro, for that was its name, represented to me was something more than a club, it was the environment where I thought I fitted. Everyone in there was a misfit of one sort or another so I felt right at home. I'd been to dance clubs before but I rapidly found I had nothing in common with most of the people in there, who were there to get drunk, get dancing and get laid or any combination of those three. I've always been a bit strange but that didn't sound like a good time to me and if I was going to have to listen to obscenely loud music I felt it should at least be something I'd like to hear at home.

The bistro played rock grunge, indie, alternative basically anything that you wouldn't hear at a regular club, I remember they had to ban 'smell like teen spirit' because the moshing ** was making the chandelier below swing precariously.

(** moshing:- jumping up and down and into each other with careless abandon trying not to fall over. Surprisingly fun. murder on the ankles though!)

In a way every indie club I went to after that was a echo of The Bistro be it London, Liverpool or Atlanta, that smell of sticky carpets and indie kids always gave me a certain thrill.

And it closed sometime after I left for parts unknown and there was no where for any of us to be anymore.

Theres a reunion planned and I'm in two mind whether to go or not. One part of me wants to drink foul lager and bounce around like a fool for an evening like I used to. The other half of me wants to let the memories stay as they are. We'll have to see when the night comes if I'm still a teenager at heart or pessimistic old sod.

Boston Park.

There's a park in the middle of Harvard University which is surrounded on all sides by coffee shops and book sellers. The park itself has benches and a layer of cigarette butts so deep in places walking through the fag ends and discarded filters is like wading through tar soaked snow. I don't think they've been collected since the time John Adams was there. I swear I saw a little clay pipe at the bottom of one pile.

We stopped for a coffee and a sit down having walked through most of upper Boston on our way here.

In the park under a tree was a guy who couldn't have been more than twenty, on his own, singing and playing guitar. Normally buskers will play something instantly recognisable and catchy to get peoples attention. I think that's why they're so reviled, they only play what they think you'd like to hear so they play the most inoffensive dreck and by not offending anyone they usually alienate everyone.

I didn't identify this tune at first but it wasn't unpleasant, so I sat, sipping my coffee, listening to his strumming. It was only after I got past his strong Bostonian accent that I realised what he was singing this beautiful song that he had written about how painful his breakup with a particular girl was. He was singing a personal song about how he himself felt. I could see him pause occasionally and take a small stub of pencil and mark up a legal pad he had next to him.

I don't think it would have mattered if there had been ten people in that park or a thousand. He wasn't there to entertain others. He would still have been singing that song on his own in an attic if he had to. Because he HAD to sing it. Because it was the only way he could process the emotions he was dealing with. And that what I love about good art. Good artists will do what they do not for the pleasure of others or for praise, adoration and cash but because if they had no fans, no crowds, no public, they'd still be doing it anyway.

Somehow I don't think Damien Hirst or Tracy Emin would still be artists if they'd had no success. They'd be turning out copies of quaint Landscapes so fast it would make your head spin.

Real art is passion. Real art is a gnawing desperate need to vent these feelings by singing, writing, painting, or whatever before those very emotions burn you out from the inside.

andy is happy

my wife is very talented

I like driving in my car...

...except when I can't.

After a moderately hard day at work the only thing I wanted to do was sink into the couch and lose myself in the rather excellent Ravenor collection of novels by Dan Abnett. (Available at all good book shops and also some rather dubious ones.) Or maybe watch some of the superb True Blood, Generation Kill or Dollhouse TV shows which are finally airing on terrestrial channels. But no, the shopping had to be done and I was just the man to do it. Or rather I was the only man that was going to do it. I reckoned to get to the shops, buy the essentials, get back, put them away and be on the couch with a book and something single and malty would take about half an hour. Not a large amount of time from my evening off.

So upon entering my car which has sat in the car park without complaint since Saturday, I tried starting it only to hear the noise that all car owners dread. That crunchy, whiny sound non-starting engine sounds that translates from car-speak to English as "This is going to be expensive". So after a couple more attempts (I'm nothing if not persistent) I did what every bloke with no mechanical expertise at all does. Called my breakdown service.

Unfortunately I'd forgot that as a cost-saving measure I'd neglected to tick the box that says HOME START. Ah. The lady was most apologetic and explained that I'd need to be further than a quarter mile away from my house in order to get the breakdown service that I was paying for. For them to come out as things stood would cost a squillion quid before they could even look at the problem. I politely declined the offer and instead decided to jump start the car from our second motor hoping to at least have enough power to get it to the Motor shop where I presumed they would have a battery tester and a new battery to sell me. It was then I discovered EXACTLY what they mean by 'Power' Steering. With no power to the car and it being about the same size and weight as your average Sherman tank, manoeuvring my car was no mean feat. I was certainly glad I didn't have to push it much further than 10 meters or so to the waiting maw of the donor car.

One quick jump later and we were away to our local brand of our national chain of car type stores (Not named here for possible legal implications). I approached the Helpdesk and to my relief it was manned by a gentleman in the prime of his middle ages rather than a scrawny YTS geek who's all neck and no nouse. This gentleman oozed calm experience from every pore. I explained the situation and he nodded sagely.

"It certainly sounds like the battery is failing we'll just test it first. Albert?"

Albert appeared from behind the desk the epitome of adolescent ineptitude with the spots and greasy smell to match. My heart sank as he lollopped his way over to my waiting car and after prodding ineffectually under the bonnet proclaimed that "The machine says you'll need a new battery."

I selected my battery and he started the installation procedure getting as far as removing the old battery and connecting the negative terminal before saying "Urm..."

"Urm...?" I said, the model of politeness.

"Urm.. I've never seen this type of connection before."

He was right, on carefully checking the old battery it appeared a specialised widget has been attached to the positive terminal which the shop did not stock. He struggled with the widget on the old battery for a minute or two before pronouncing it 'hopeless' and it was decided to refit the old battery, jump start the car again and drive it to my local garage for them to ponder over it in the morning.

It was at this point that Albert broke the negative terminal.

He was tightening the clamp and obviously went one twist too far. The whole thing broke away in his hands leaving me with a non-functional non-fitting battery and a functional non-fitting one.

Having dismissed Albert I redialled my breakdown service trying to keep the note of irony out of my voice as I explained I was now further than a quarter mile away from my house and so would like someone to come and look at the car.

It was an hour later that the Breakdown service arrived and as he emerged from his van I breathed a sigh of relief.

The Breakdown man had a beard you could trust. This was a beard that explained in calming dulcet tones that it had seen it all before, nothing could ever ruffle, surprise or vex this man or his beard. In a flash he had the widget removed from the broken battery and attached to the shiny new one and my car was running as fine as ever before.

A nod a wink and he was away to his next job leaving only a working car and a credit card receipt as proof he had ever been there.

So much for a night off, hunh?

Nick Griffin Haiku

Nick Griffin smiles like Eagle,
But has black heart of snake.
Much like mythological namesake

Why would I want to live anywhere else?

Geocaching with friends.

chocolate heaven.

'za?

thats how WE roll

awwww

the 'parry' half