November 2008
13 posts
7 tags
From my mate Sophie to Dr Iain Stewart.
My mate Sophie is currently house-sitting for an amazing woman with an even more amazing house. She works for an independent theatre company, and is currently in Nepal for a year while they tour. Meanwhile, Sophie is Queen Of The Cleaning Rota in her beautiful old Victorian house on Allan Road. Not only does it have a red Aga and brilliant indoor-outdoor semi-conservatory, it comes with a...
4 tags
An as yet undecided number of points about Waltz...
1. It looks incredible. This is not the first time I have used the word ‘incredible’ in a blog today, but please be assured that, this time, I mean it the most. 2. It is about the war in Lebanon that took place in the early 80s, which also had something to do with Israel and Palestine. Apart from these two facts, I still don’t know much about the world in which it was...
9 tags
Not a blog about THE BIG FANMAIL PROJECT
I was supposed to be logging back in again here to tell you that I began THE BIG FANMAIL PROJECT last night, by writing not to Stuart Murdoch, but Simon Armitage, but I’ve just heard an advert for Zane Lowe’s Masterpieces on the radio and it’s jumped right up the list of priorities. I only listen to Radio 1 at work, because if I don’t put my foot down over a station that at...
3 tags
Tim and Sam's Tim and The Sam Band with Tim and...
I first saw The Tim and Sam Band on the 6th of January last year, and in my old MySpace blog I called them “music for the entrance foyer of Heaven”. They still make luscious instrumental folk-pop loveliness, but last night they really filled the Sacred Trinity Church with gorgeous sound, whereas at earlier gigs they’ve often been a bit too quiet to overpower pub chatter. ...
1 tag
Things to do:
Do not forget to write to Stuart Murdoch. Pull your bloody finger out.
4 tags
Brilliant to Excellent, via A Bit Boring
I finished reading Espedair Street by Iain Banks earlier in the week which was largely a disappointment, bookended by a couple of sublime chapters. Iain Banks is the king of the opening line; I’ll always remember Miss Mills writing the first line of The Crow Road on the blackboard in year 7 English. “It was the day my grandmother exploded.” Espedair Street opens with the...
6 tags
"So, what do you do now?"
This lack of internet is now officially my own bloody fault, rather than BT’s, as I’ve ummed and aahed about service providers like a proper Yorkshire miser. I’m sure not all people from Yorkshire are tight bastards, but whenever I’m on the penny-pinch, I feel the need to put on a pseudo-Rotherham accent. Speaking of accents, I read my poems at Freed Up at Greenroom last...
4 tags
S'pose I'll have to slim down to go to the desert,...
I still have no internet at home, and the BT Broadband Sales Team are a bunch of callous liars. On the up-side though, Rope by Alfred Hitchcock is really brilliant, especially the shot where the kitchen door swings back to reveal the murder weapon going back into the kitchen drawer. The man was a master of composition, even if it was more like a play than a film really. In other news,...
3 tags
Picture the scene:
I’m sitting in my living room on Saturday evening while me housemates have gone off for a curry, reading the paper and considering my future. It dawns on me that my job at Futuresonic comes to an end at the same time as my current tenancy agreement, and my eyes light up with the thought of endless possibilities. World travel, record label management and child-rearing are all unavailable...
8 tags
Scarlett O'Hara good, lobster bad.
I think I’m intimidated by choice. Variety packs of crisps are annoying because there are always chicken packets left well after the last prawn cocktail tongue tingle is a distant memory. In a massive Waterstone’s like the one on Deansgate, I either have to spend £200 or run away with my eyes fixed firmly on the carpet. And take last night, where I had three different invitations for drinking...
3 tags
Hello again Mojo, nice to see you.
This is the third day that my horoscope has proclaimed as successful and energetic. It was spot on for Wednesday, although all the excitement of a day at the new job culminated in falling off my abstinence wagon at The Wheatsheaf after work. Yesterday is worth mentioned for other reasons though, because I feel a little bit like I’ve got my mojo back. Having sat in the house reading books...
5 tags
Eye candy.
Got this from The Guardian website when I should have been doing about a hundred other things. Pretty though, yes? It’s in Poland.
3 tags
If you're reading this Hugh, I could do with some...
Today is Monday, therefore I’ve got the urge to marry Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, move to rural Wales and start nursing stray cats back to health. There is a vegetable garden involved too, and a homebrew kit. Sadly, instead I am faced with a mammoth payroll run and a load of complaints to ego-massage. My bloody horoscope doesn’t help much. I think it finished its 30 words of...
