February 2009
30 posts
8 tags
HRRRRNK!!! MAJOR NERD ALERT!
I have discovered Tweetdeck. Moreover, I have discovered the #6nations tag on Twitter. I am now the kind of person who sits in front of the rugby with her laptop on her knee, tweeting about how Martin Johnson looks like a vampire from Buffy, and talking about exactly how many points Wales need to beat Italy by… My life is officially over. (Actually, that’s a lie. It’s over...
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Geese, monkeys and Denis Jones
Although he died when I was only wee, my grandfather was famous for doing this little head-shake “pah!” thing when he was impressed with something. My Dad does it perfectly, partly because he’s probably seen Granddad do it about seven million times, and partly because it’s just in his genes. Well, the apple don’t fall far! I’ve been doing the very same thing today, and last night, while I was...
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Is Edgar Müller the greatest street artist of all...
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Who watches the Watchmen? (Answer: people who...
This evening I have been trying to calm the palpitations that followed the massive balls-up of my student finance application (and thus, massive ruination of future and entire life) so decided that instead of whale soundtracks and a joint, I’d read the super-violent final chapters of Watchmen. While it has postponed thoughts of imminent suicide, it’s probably going to to be the first...
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Adventures in Fuzzy Felt with Meg and Kristine
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Never mind all this Watchmen business...
…this is enough to impress me.
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Sideways Saloon
There appears to be a trend in the alternative pubs and bars of Manchester; that the more gaudy retro crap you have on the walls, the more attractive your patrons are. This may just be a false perception, because plastic junk shop shit, wooden enormo-lizards or neon Dolly Parton wallpapers may simply detract from the mingers in the crowd, but, generally speaking, The Deaf Institute and Odder will...
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"Just so you know Meg, this film leaves a really...
I went round to my friend Nick’s house last night with, if I may say so myself, a rather marvellous home-made cottage pie. Nick is my personal film advisor. I joined LoveFilm after he had successfully integrated me into the modern cinematic world again, with stuff like American Splendor and The Squid & The Whale, but so far LoveFilm just keep recommending Will Ferrell shit while Nick...
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The Road (to perdition)
I finished reading The Road last night, by Cormac McCarthy, and although it’s been the most gripping, most stunningly written book I’ve read in months, I am definitely relieved that it’s over. Another couple of days and I think the last glimmer of happiness inside me would have died away completely. I don’t think I’ve ever read something quite so desolate, so utterly bleak and void of any kind of...
Scene of crime: Yew Tree Road, 1800 hours.
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Some things about True Love Lies, which I saw this...
It was much funnier than expected. They had used the word ‘fudge-packer’ about four times before the first ten minutes were even up. The ending was very good, but in a subtle, warm and content kinda way, rather than needing any pyrotechnics. I saw the people who play Earl Kelly and that Head Girl chick in Waterloo Road at the bar in the interval, and I told them I really liked the...
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Is this the greatest tagline for anything that has...
From The Guardian website today: “Stories for London parks: Will Self, Ali Smith and Nicola Barker are among eight authors set to publish stories set in, and sold by, the famous green spaces.” Nope, didn’t think so. They only need to bring Kurt Vonnegut back from the dead for the full set of my ultimate favourites. Thankfully, you’re going to be able to buy the books from...
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From Apes to Zombies with Adam Marek
Last year I made a fanzine full of music and books and other good stuff, and it went down a storm. Then I decided to make the next one even better, even more chock full of witty commentary on youth culture and interviews with the great new creative hopes of our times. And then the people with the money disappeared. Sad face: Lots of boring things have happened since last autumn, where I...
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It's only Rock'n'Roll but I like it
I went to see the new play at the Library Theatre on Friday, Rock’n’Roll by Tom Stoppard. It’s about Communism in Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1990, and Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd, and the relationship between a family in Cambridge and a Czech academic who collects records. I loved it. Like when I went to see Waltz With Bashir at the Cornerhouse, there was plenty that went...
Another installment of Blutak Modelling
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OK Crayola
It was the first of a new batch of Ok Crayola last night, which is a night run by a guy called Rob Lee in Manchester. He used to only ever wear country and western shirts, but yesterday there was a waistcoat involved, which is an exciting development. Ok Crayola used to be at Trof in town, but now it’s moved just down the road from me, to Fuel in Withington. There’s live music of...
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Some choice graffiti from ladies toilets in the...
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Impressing me today is... Michael Bosanko
I’ve taken these images from The Guardian website. They’ve been made by a light artist called Michael Bosanko, who eschews Photoshop for long exposure shots and simple torches. Some of the exposure times are up to an hour, and the backdrops are mostly from Newport, Cardiff and the Brecon Beacons. There are more here if you like what you see.
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And Dharma Initiative beers...
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My friend Kristine is amazing:
She has made a Lost cake for our Lost Catch-up Social. Makes me wish I was unemployed.
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My Bucket List (subject to change)
1. Go to Antarctica to see penguins 2. See a total solar eclipse 3. Get a book published 4. Subscribe to Granta 5. Appear in Granta 6. Grow my own vegetables 7. Have a baby and don’t fuck it up 8. Go to Varanasi (probably to get rid of Dad’s ashes) 9. Move to the States, if only for a few years 10. Visit all 50 US states 11. Learn to play the piano 12. Learn to speak French 13. Get a degree 14....
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Televisual Injustice
Where the fuck has History Of Scotland gone? They were only up to Mary Queen Of Scots, and I was all excited about the Jacobite Revolution, which all kicked off where I used to live. I wanted to be all “Ooh! That’s the turn-off to Lochailort!” like I was when they used Glenfinnan in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. Neil Oliver was really good on it too. I felt like...
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Zen and the Art of Supermarket Shopping
You know when you think you know what a word means and you use it liberally and confidently, until one day, in private, you suddenly realise that you’ve been entirely wrong, and you blush at all those times when you’d used the word incorrectly and everyone around you must’ve been like, “what a moron”? I thought that ‘hostile’ meant friendly throughout most...
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Burglary, bodices and brains
At 4.20am this morning I got burgled, and my poor housemate had a bread knife poked through his bedroom door by the offender. Then I had to walk through the dodgy streets of Rusholme to get £100 from the cashpoint in order to pay the bloody locksmith. Then I had to go to work. And yesterday the Welsh rugby team did not manage to convert a single one of their tries, and Shane Williams limped off...
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The first Post-It of the day
You probably can’t read that bottom bit, but it’s just nonsense about how I am reminded of the pink toothbrush and blue toothbrush song that my mate Alice had on cassette when we were seven years old.
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Match Analysis: first day of the Six Nations.
Well, I was kidding myself yesterday. I was at work until three today, and then as soon as I got home I flaked in front of the first two games of the Six Nations. But it took me less than ten minutes to remember how fucking brilliant rugby union is, and Wales haven’t even played yet. Inevitably, England beat Italy (boo), although the Italians weren’t quite as embarrassing as previous...
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Putting plans on ice
I think I’m going to spend some of my weekend writing a new bit of THE GREAT NOVEL. Yesterday I suddenly remembered I’d planned a bit with a guy suffering from intense paranoia, ordering takeaway pizzas and not leaving the house until he receives a message in magnetic letters on his fridge. Maybe that will be what the cover is like when it’s done; a fridge with my name and the...
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Behindlings; this is what they should've called...
I seem to’ve been reading Behindlings by Nicola Barker for ages, but then I have been busy with birthdays and the like. I bought it just after I’d finished Darkmans and was living in a haze of jester ghosts and matchstick models, and wondering why anyone ever bothers with stories that make sense when life is filled with inexplicable nonsense most of the time anyway. Darkmans, if you remember,...
Mr Bluetak the penguin
A slow day in the office…
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Megan Vaughan, 1984-2009 - "she lived a full life"
A few years ago I took to writing a special birthday blog in the form of an awards show, but that was when my life was cool and exciting and I was riding high on a wave of P.A.R.T.Y. Now that I am twenty five (that’s ‘halfway to fifty’, or ‘a quarter of a century’, or even simply ‘old enough to know what to do with your life’ if you’re a cruel and...
