2006 was a ….strange year. One of treading water, really. 2005 was probably the year of biggest change I’ve had – the birth of my wonderful daughter, homelessness, and a new stable home. 2006, started pretty well, with a lot of good intentions, but no that much action.
Like always, ive been very good at procrastination. Putting things – everything – off. I still haven’t finished decorating, and this is where I was a year ago. I need to paint, and sort out carpets. A year ago I couldn’t imagine spending another year like this, and I just did – one day at a time. I’m sadly a little lazy.
2006, also involved a few other things. Not much worth reminiscing fondly over, except a few good movies, a couple of interesting gigs (David Gilmour in particular), a couple of spectacularly cathartic nights out (I don’t go out much), a couple of great books, a day job with a lot of shouting at me, and that’s about it.
I watched my daughter grow up a little bit, from a small baby into a running around, inquisitive, little girl who loves everyone. She alone makes all the shit worthwhile.
I finally resolved not to take all the shit anymore, from someone up north. I really hope they are ok; I still care about them, but I know its hopeless. They have their life to live, I have mine… and their life will be without me. So be it.
The most important things about 2006 came …..in 2005.My daughter, and my home. Which says a lot about how memorable 2006 was. 2006 was just… there. Nothing much happened. Nothing much got done. My life is still moving on, day by day. Mostly not very interesting, or notable. SO many great songs, most of which i had no idea who they were until I check out Swiss Tonis top 25. So, now at last i know what that na na na song is, or that one that sounds like headswim without a chorus (snow patrol).
Life is maintenance, maintaining the day to day existence. So many plans, so little achievement. Isn't that the way it is for all of us? And, as Helloween once sand, time marches on....
2006? a bit rubbish overall.
I hope 2007 is better. ta ta. Off to a friends for new years, see you in 2007.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
They call this justice.
I call it savagery.
I call it execution.
If they call this justice, I call for it to be equally applied to all those responsible for the murders of other by official decree, of death by government.
I call for the same legal sanctions to be applied to Bush and Blair. For if we do not, this is not justice. If we do not, it one rule for one, and another us, the glorious, victorious west. If we do not, it is nothign but Hypocrisy. For if this 'justice' is to have any meaning, let it be applied to the ones who sold him the weapons, knowing full well what would happen - the complicits, the accessories to murder. Let also the full process of law apply to those who have killed hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, in the name of a political end.
Those people are no less guilty, whether they name is Saddam Hussein - or Tony blair, or George Bush.
Until then, I call it hypocrisy.
I call it savagery.
I call it execution.
If they call this justice, I call for it to be equally applied to all those responsible for the murders of other by official decree, of death by government.
I call for the same legal sanctions to be applied to Bush and Blair. For if we do not, this is not justice. If we do not, it one rule for one, and another us, the glorious, victorious west. If we do not, it is nothign but Hypocrisy. For if this 'justice' is to have any meaning, let it be applied to the ones who sold him the weapons, knowing full well what would happen - the complicits, the accessories to murder. Let also the full process of law apply to those who have killed hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, in the name of a political end.
Those people are no less guilty, whether they name is Saddam Hussein - or Tony blair, or George Bush.
Until then, I call it hypocrisy.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Ok, A few links.
Work again...work was dull. And Boring. Watchd a few films...
Transporter 2 . Which brilliantly, ludcirously, incredibly entertaining.
The Tv remake of the Posideon Adventure (crap).
Enemy Of The State
And here we are
i) When peoples over obsessive sense of self worth is related to the intermaweb...its called WikipedepressioN , I discover. "According to Dr. Rhoid, the root of wikipedepression is that the individual's hyperinflated ego is completely at odds with their meager (or non-existent) talents as a writer, editor, or image-manipulation artist"
ii) Did you mean
iii)OR Google the Company? Love their business plane of '1. Inject nanobots 2. ???. 3. Profit!.'. (Its an ultra obscure South Park reference I know it is)
iv) Scary, like SPIDERZ!
I reallt love uncyclopaedia. it does chher me up when i need it. Need it a lot at the moment, so it seems.
v) Famous Shipwrecks? a The Andrea Doria then
I'm tired. If only tongiht I could sleepzz.....
Hey, this album is SUPPOSED to be so great - but its nothing exceptional. Three ok songs (one of which, Wake Up is fantastic) do not an album of the year make. Hell, just another hype. I mean, if i wanted moany american narcissism with integrity and talent, I'd listen to Sparklehorse, which this is, only done by a band who seemed to love Iggy Pop. Anyway, collobs, here some quiz...stolen from some place I saw linked from someone else’s blog –
Two Word answers:-
1. Explain what ended your last relationship? The distance
2. When was the last time you shaved? This morning
3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? sleep again
4. Were you any good at math? Im ok
5. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? shitchatting
6. Your prom night? staying in
7. Do you have any famous ancestors? No, never
8. Have you had to take a loan out for school? Student loan
9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile? Whats murdochspace?
10. Last thing received in the mail? Phone bill
11. How many different beverages have you had today? Many kinds
12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine? Mostly not
13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Lilac Time / Nitzer Ebb
14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? No.
15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had? Any.
16. What is out your back door? Something I can never have
17. Any plans for Friday night? Alone
18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? What hair?
19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? Nah, never
20. Have you ever been to a planetarium? Yes. Then I grew up.
21. Do you re-use towels after you shower? Uh-huh
22. Some things you are excited about? Life itself
23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO? Whats jello
24. Describe your keychain(s)?Dull
25. Where do you keep your change? Wallet thing
l8rs, and don't drink the h8r-ade!
I must be in a gothic mood, a really gothic mood. Tonight, I’ve listened to Depeche Mode (Playing the Angel), The Cure (DinsintergratioN), Arcade Fire (Funeral) , Cliff Martinez (Solaris) In the Nursery (Ambush of Ghosts).
There was work today – It wasn’t that bad. Just not what I expected at all. I had expected it to be hectic and nasty, but It was generally Ok. Not what I expected today. But I’m still housesitting, and hadn’t been home so going to work in trainers was the only option I had. I did go home and get shoes after work though, then came back. I didn’t watch any movies, I listened to music.
I chilled out. I love the soundtrack to Solaris. Not a lot of music takes you to that other place, but Solaris always does. That and the music of Glass. (“Mishima” is a bloody masterpiece, I must say). I did some searching for some links, more of which below. I read some blogs. And then, late at night, about half one, mark just set me a mental challenge, and about half an hour later, I’d brainstormed something pretty good.
Anyway, here’s the links:-
i) What is Canon?
ii) Not exactly how finest hour - and Inflation adjusted for 1945, says the Lienz Cossacks - in one of the worst betrayals Churchil ever did. Mayeb this is why he had that black dog chasing him at his end days?
iii) Google continues to manipulate search results just to ensure they are getting advertisers a piece of ass, so to speak. Remember - to google, you are the product, they are serving you up to advertisers... the content you seek doesn't neccessarily pay. Anyway, links here , here , and here Some not safe for work, though.
iv) Operation 'Fly illegal prisoners into Poland and torture them' go!
v)And this is West Midlands nomination for the Darwin Awards, right here . Idiots!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Wednesday? Wednesday wasn’t a very great day.
I was awoken at the crack of Afternoon by Mark. He was asking me some question about some DVD he was thinking of buying; it appears I’m encyclopaedic about such things. Sometimes I am. I’m certainly anal. Its part of my personality – the meaningless trivia that consumes and endangers our lives. For some people, its sports results. For some people, minutae about the running of train rolling stock, or military insignia, or cars, historical re-enactments. Not for me, no, my area of specialised absurdity is Metal/Indie Rock 1985-2005 and DVD format variations. I am such a geek, and not necessarily in a good way.
I spent the day watching some crap movies and doing some clothes washing. In no particular order, and with a couple of CD’s thrown in.
- Judgement At Nuremberg
- Rocky IV (hilarious)
- That thing on the BBC about the sweeney
- Total Recall
- The Cures Disintergration
- Instrumental by Acoustek.
The last CD is particular good – a London string quarter re-arranging and playing versions of techno classics. So in comes ‘Forever’ by orbital, ‘Smokebelch’ by Sabres Of Paradise, ‘Sparrowfall’ by Eno, that sort of thing. Very very well done.
Here’s some links, Partly inspired by then fact I watched ‘Missing In Action’ featuring Chuck Norris the other night. Hilarious, for the wrong reasons…
i) The mighty Chuck . HAIL CHUCK!
ii) And the land where MIGHTY CHUCK lives.
iii) A slightly comedic page about homo inferior . We also call ‘em Chavs
iv) In terms of blurring the line between Wiki and parody, which one of the two does this description of Travis Barker (blink182) sound like ”Travis Barker was manufactured in Tokyo, Japan, by Honda. It is believed by many that he was the precesessor to the robot ASIMO…..seeing as he's a robot and everything.”. Yep, that’s on the wikipedia page. (Don’t ask What I was doing there, it has a lot to do with hidden video game characters. The Story of Ermac is particularly fascinating.) Perhaps Travis is a Bro - a punk? The neutrality of that page could also be disputed, given that it states that they are homosexual every second Tuesday.
iv) And what is the rarest Mario game of All time? , why it is the promotional only 1986 “All night Nippon” , which added characters from a radio show into the game, only given away as a competition prize…And where is Minus World ?
v) And what is Speedrunning? The act of completeing a video game in the fatest possible time. See Tool-assisted Speedruns, for example. linky .But fascinating in its own geeky way; such as how to exploit certain defencies in games engines to get the quicker, and how one person spent two years creating a speedrun using an emulator which they had faked, wall hugging, and other such idiosycracies.
vi) And on a similar topic, why not try some Bunny Hopping
vii) And talking of gaming, does this character from a dungeons and dragons manual look familiar at all to anyone who has ever played Doom Cacodemon
viii) My favourite phrase of the year is ‘the daikatana line’ linky – which referes to the point after which the publics anticipation for a long awaited product turns from anticipation to amusement and ridicule and utter frustration at the inability to deliver. Also see Chinese Democracy – an album so notorious that there’s even tributes beign done before the albums release under the title chiense hypocrisy. (The Phrase originates from the much hyped, extremely late and extremely disappointing PC game Daikatana, from one of the brains behind Doom)
ix) Did you know that James Brown (Cmon, Cmon!) has his real eyebrows replaced with tattooed ones back in 1991? Fascinating
x) And here some really geeky stuff – further related to the fact (related to Daikatana and Chinese Democracy) that throwing moneya nd people at a complicated and technical task won’t necessarily solve the problem The Mythical Man Month the basic idea of which is "the idea that throwing people at a late project will solve it. It won’t It will make it LATER.” its also related to the rather geeksome Brooks Law ; a variant of which says, "The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned."
xi)And finally, something I appear to suffer from in my own life - Second System Effect . over ambition, too much planning, and hubris, in FULL effect."Try to do everything and you will do nothing."
back at Work in 6 hours, 38 minutes...
I was awoken at the crack of Afternoon by Mark. He was asking me some question about some DVD he was thinking of buying; it appears I’m encyclopaedic about such things. Sometimes I am. I’m certainly anal. Its part of my personality – the meaningless trivia that consumes and endangers our lives. For some people, its sports results. For some people, minutae about the running of train rolling stock, or military insignia, or cars, historical re-enactments. Not for me, no, my area of specialised absurdity is Metal/Indie Rock 1985-2005 and DVD format variations. I am such a geek, and not necessarily in a good way.
I spent the day watching some crap movies and doing some clothes washing. In no particular order, and with a couple of CD’s thrown in.
- Judgement At Nuremberg
- Rocky IV (hilarious)
- That thing on the BBC about the sweeney
- Total Recall
- The Cures Disintergration
- Instrumental by Acoustek.
The last CD is particular good – a London string quarter re-arranging and playing versions of techno classics. So in comes ‘Forever’ by orbital, ‘Smokebelch’ by Sabres Of Paradise, ‘Sparrowfall’ by Eno, that sort of thing. Very very well done.
Here’s some links, Partly inspired by then fact I watched ‘Missing In Action’ featuring Chuck Norris the other night. Hilarious, for the wrong reasons…
i) The mighty Chuck . HAIL CHUCK!
ii) And the land where MIGHTY CHUCK lives.
iii) A slightly comedic page about homo inferior . We also call ‘em Chavs
iv) In terms of blurring the line between Wiki and parody, which one of the two does this description of Travis Barker (blink182) sound like ”Travis Barker was manufactured in Tokyo, Japan, by Honda. It is believed by many that he was the precesessor to the robot ASIMO…..seeing as he's a robot and everything.”. Yep, that’s on the wikipedia page. (Don’t ask What I was doing there, it has a lot to do with hidden video game characters. The Story of Ermac is particularly fascinating.) Perhaps Travis is a Bro - a punk? The neutrality of that page could also be disputed, given that it states that they are homosexual every second Tuesday.
iv) And what is the rarest Mario game of All time? , why it is the promotional only 1986 “All night Nippon” , which added characters from a radio show into the game, only given away as a competition prize…And where is Minus World ?
v) And what is Speedrunning? The act of completeing a video game in the fatest possible time. See Tool-assisted Speedruns, for example. linky .But fascinating in its own geeky way; such as how to exploit certain defencies in games engines to get the quicker, and how one person spent two years creating a speedrun using an emulator which they had faked, wall hugging, and other such idiosycracies.
vi) And on a similar topic, why not try some Bunny Hopping
vii) And talking of gaming, does this character from a dungeons and dragons manual look familiar at all to anyone who has ever played Doom Cacodemon
viii) My favourite phrase of the year is ‘the daikatana line’ linky – which referes to the point after which the publics anticipation for a long awaited product turns from anticipation to amusement and ridicule and utter frustration at the inability to deliver. Also see Chinese Democracy – an album so notorious that there’s even tributes beign done before the albums release under the title chiense hypocrisy. (The Phrase originates from the much hyped, extremely late and extremely disappointing PC game Daikatana, from one of the brains behind Doom)
ix) Did you know that James Brown (Cmon, Cmon!) has his real eyebrows replaced with tattooed ones back in 1991? Fascinating
x) And here some really geeky stuff – further related to the fact (related to Daikatana and Chinese Democracy) that throwing moneya nd people at a complicated and technical task won’t necessarily solve the problem The Mythical Man Month the basic idea of which is "the idea that throwing people at a late project will solve it. It won’t It will make it LATER.” its also related to the rather geeksome Brooks Law ; a variant of which says, "The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned."
xi)And finally, something I appear to suffer from in my own life - Second System Effect . over ambition, too much planning, and hubris, in FULL effect."Try to do everything and you will do nothing."
back at Work in 6 hours, 38 minutes...
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Everytime I cough, my head pounds like a hammer.
I wish I could get back to the writing I've been meaning to do. i wish I copuld sort out oh so many things. I wish i didn't hold people up as moral arbiters when all they are is as fucked up as me. I wish I could be tidy. I really do.
i wish I could shake that dog that follows me like a wet puppy that just won't let go.
My head hurts, I'm goign to bed.
I wish I could get back to the writing I've been meaning to do. i wish I copuld sort out oh so many things. I wish i didn't hold people up as moral arbiters when all they are is as fucked up as me. I wish I could be tidy. I really do.
i wish I could shake that dog that follows me like a wet puppy that just won't let go.
My head hurts, I'm goign to bed.
Not a very productive day. lots of movies.
Rocky. Hitch. Crash. The Constant Gardener. Channel5's 'David Icke Was He Right?'. The Machinist.
Some washing up. The Joy Of cooking. Pasta and pasta sauces, three jumbled up together as one, with my own special recipe and mincemeat. Then cook in the pan, until caked onto the side and blackened.I think I need to improve my cooking skills, to be honest.
I'm tired. Sleep soon.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Some crappy memes....
Your results:
You are Hulk
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...
Can't say I actually am the Hulk though, Though I know some days are better than others, and i occasionally get annoyed by things....I mean, if I was any superhero I'd probably be him from Americna Splendour instead really...
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Anyway, can't agree with this next one either. I'm more 'hardcore' i reckon.
Which Pulp Album Are You?
Different Class (1995)Pulp's first album to hit number one on the UK charts. You are great mix of social irony, sexual innuendo, and anthemic rage. How anyone can hate you is incomprehensible.
Take this quiz!
Quizilla |
Join
| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code
Your results:
You are Hulk
| You are a wanderer with amazing strength.  |
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...
Can't say I actually am the Hulk though, Though I know some days are better than others, and i occasionally get annoyed by things....I mean, if I was any superhero I'd probably be him from Americna Splendour instead really...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, can't agree with this next one either. I'm more 'hardcore' i reckon.
Which Pulp Album Are You?
Different Class (1995)Pulp's first album to hit number one on the UK charts. You are great mix of social irony, sexual innuendo, and anthemic rage. How anyone can hate you is incomprehensible.
Take this quiz!
Quizilla |
Join
| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code
1.What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Go inside Battersea Power Station.
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I made none, and broke none.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes – a couple of people. (Hello Mark Richards! Hello my friend Paula!).
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year – but there was a burial. They wouldn’t release the body before Christmas last year, hence the delay.
5. What countries did you visit?
Scotland… and Tyne & Wear.
6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
Happiness. To accept the love of my daughter, to recognise that sometimes the people whoa re best for you have been right under your nose the whole time.
7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
May 22. My friend Giles’ birthday, and the day I started work.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I couldn’t possibly say. I haven’t done much. Looking back over the 12 months sees a distinct lack of achievement for me.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Oh, being lazy and unmotivated when it comes to decorating.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, sort of. Usual scrapes and pains, like right now. (See below, and above). And
11. What was the best thing you bought?
This year? A Sesame St. vacuum cleaner.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Not mine, really. Though I have been a good boy,
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
On a personal level, Di Gallagher. Sorry, I know that won’t make me any friends, and that saddens me. Its for more than one reason.I will explain another time. I'm really sorry I can't be happy when it involves another persons misery, and I can't pretend to plaster on a false fake smile and pretend everything is alright when its not. I never do. I never can do. Never will. (On the the other hand, I absolutely no problem with her bloke Lord Bargain or mr Toni at all, though I suspect they might find this difficult. Neither of them ever told me off for being a reprehensible human being not worth the time of day to talk to and then refused to adhere to the same moral standards they expect me to keep, but is somehow OK when they let people down and break them. Don't pretend to be something you're not, and she's not the good person she made herself out to be).
Oh, And Angela in Scotland; whose behaviour is beyond being forgiven. Way beyond. Next time you want to dump someone, don’t make ‘em travel 200 miles to see you and then run off without even saying goodbye, leaving em trapped in someone else's flat for seven hours with a unusuable £45 train ticket to see 'em again; let alone the abusive three o'clock in the morning phone calls. No, she can fuck off too; She's obviously rather be a chaotic abusive drunkard than the good person she obviously could be. In the harshest possible way, being an alcholic is a choice, because you aren't born that way; and the choice I made was not to go down in flames with her. I just hope she realises I've done everythign I feel I could for her, and it wasn't enough; and it hurt like hell.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Paying rent and electric bills, the CSA, travel cards, the occasional DVD.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Bond, probably.
16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
“Lying is the most fun a girl can have” by Panic! At The Disco. And some other stuff too.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Better. But a little sadder. Some delusional hope I had had has now evaporated into nothing, and I’m getting along with life.
ii. thinner or fatter? Probably the same.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer in friends, and money – now that I am employed.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
A lot of things. Happiness, probably.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work. And self-indulgence.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Alone. I’ll eat Pizza, and watch Tv, and mong.
21. Did you fall in love in 2006?
I fell out of love. I finally realised that someone I admired, someone I looked up was ….hiding behind all that … a pathetic alcoholic who would rather have a drink than happiness. It was the realisation that they were nothing I had ever seen in them that killed it, stone dead.
22. How many one-night stands?
Two in 16 years. Nothing this year. I don’t let go – I don’t let anyone in. I won’t. I won’t waste my body on people I don’t trust. Its more important to feel what you do about someone, before I let those walls down, to break that wall of loneliness. I’ve Been hurt too much to let you in. To you, it might be a fuck if we have a one night stand to you– but to me, its not. Its about trust, and I don't have that trust. I've sepnt too long throwing myself away on the wrong people - I’m not going to let a fuck fuck me up. Sorry.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Oh, I don’t do television. But I would recommend “David icke: Was He Right?” on Channel 5 on boxing day. How can you fail with a title like that?
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don’t hate; its petty. But I do really dislike a few people. Normally people I don’t know, who sap and rain me. I call them ‘customers’; this job takes a psychic toll somedays, and now, I don't care if you have just got out of prison and are calling me a 'prick' to my face and threatening to meet me outside to sort it out. Honestly. There’s a couple of other people I could happily live without ever seeing again too – people disappoint, no matter how much faith or hope you invest them, they will always let you down. Just remember, that when you build yourself up to be so great and morally better than anyone else, sometimes they just might believe that image you have projected of yourself – no matter how hypocritical, no matter how bullshit it is.
25. What was the best book you read?
This year? A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick.
26. What did you want and get?
Oh, a job, probably. And a few other things too.
27. What did you want and not get?
The decorating finished. (and Scarlett Johanssen, but that’s another matter)
28. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Oh….Panic! At The Disco. Just like millions of other emo sheep. (makes baa-ing noises)
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
In alphabetical order, then, because I have too many. Breaking and Entering. Children of Men. New World.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
July 3rd. 33. it was a monday, and I took the day off work. I went to the library, blogged, and slept in late I think.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Love. It’s a many splintered thing. And even when someone does love you, can you accept it? Can you accept its real? Because how can anyone love you when you don’t even love yourself? Its difficult to accept that love from others, when you see nothing in yourself.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Messy.
33. What kept you sane?
Who said anything about being sane? Given that I am currently seeing a psychotherapist for help, I don’t think I can make any great boast about that. I just well, Im not that hard to get along with….just impossible.
Go inside Battersea Power Station.
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I made none, and broke none.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes – a couple of people. (Hello Mark Richards! Hello my friend Paula!).
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year – but there was a burial. They wouldn’t release the body before Christmas last year, hence the delay.
5. What countries did you visit?
Scotland… and Tyne & Wear.
6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
Happiness. To accept the love of my daughter, to recognise that sometimes the people whoa re best for you have been right under your nose the whole time.
7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
May 22. My friend Giles’ birthday, and the day I started work.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I couldn’t possibly say. I haven’t done much. Looking back over the 12 months sees a distinct lack of achievement for me.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Oh, being lazy and unmotivated when it comes to decorating.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, sort of. Usual scrapes and pains, like right now. (See below, and above). And
11. What was the best thing you bought?
This year? A Sesame St. vacuum cleaner.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Not mine, really. Though I have been a good boy,
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
On a personal level, Di Gallagher. Sorry, I know that won’t make me any friends, and that saddens me. Its for more than one reason.I will explain another time. I'm really sorry I can't be happy when it involves another persons misery, and I can't pretend to plaster on a false fake smile and pretend everything is alright when its not. I never do. I never can do. Never will. (On the the other hand, I absolutely no problem with her bloke Lord Bargain or mr Toni at all, though I suspect they might find this difficult. Neither of them ever told me off for being a reprehensible human being not worth the time of day to talk to and then refused to adhere to the same moral standards they expect me to keep, but is somehow OK when they let people down and break them. Don't pretend to be something you're not, and she's not the good person she made herself out to be).
Oh, And Angela in Scotland; whose behaviour is beyond being forgiven. Way beyond. Next time you want to dump someone, don’t make ‘em travel 200 miles to see you and then run off without even saying goodbye, leaving em trapped in someone else's flat for seven hours with a unusuable £45 train ticket to see 'em again; let alone the abusive three o'clock in the morning phone calls. No, she can fuck off too; She's obviously rather be a chaotic abusive drunkard than the good person she obviously could be. In the harshest possible way, being an alcholic is a choice, because you aren't born that way; and the choice I made was not to go down in flames with her. I just hope she realises I've done everythign I feel I could for her, and it wasn't enough; and it hurt like hell.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Paying rent and electric bills, the CSA, travel cards, the occasional DVD.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Bond, probably.
16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
“Lying is the most fun a girl can have” by Panic! At The Disco. And some other stuff too.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Better. But a little sadder. Some delusional hope I had had has now evaporated into nothing, and I’m getting along with life.
ii. thinner or fatter? Probably the same.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer in friends, and money – now that I am employed.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
A lot of things. Happiness, probably.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work. And self-indulgence.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Alone. I’ll eat Pizza, and watch Tv, and mong.
21. Did you fall in love in 2006?
I fell out of love. I finally realised that someone I admired, someone I looked up was ….hiding behind all that … a pathetic alcoholic who would rather have a drink than happiness. It was the realisation that they were nothing I had ever seen in them that killed it, stone dead.
22. How many one-night stands?
Two in 16 years. Nothing this year. I don’t let go – I don’t let anyone in. I won’t. I won’t waste my body on people I don’t trust. Its more important to feel what you do about someone, before I let those walls down, to break that wall of loneliness. I’ve Been hurt too much to let you in. To you, it might be a fuck if we have a one night stand to you– but to me, its not. Its about trust, and I don't have that trust. I've sepnt too long throwing myself away on the wrong people - I’m not going to let a fuck fuck me up. Sorry.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Oh, I don’t do television. But I would recommend “David icke: Was He Right?” on Channel 5 on boxing day. How can you fail with a title like that?
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don’t hate; its petty. But I do really dislike a few people. Normally people I don’t know, who sap and rain me. I call them ‘customers’; this job takes a psychic toll somedays, and now, I don't care if you have just got out of prison and are calling me a 'prick' to my face and threatening to meet me outside to sort it out. Honestly. There’s a couple of other people I could happily live without ever seeing again too – people disappoint, no matter how much faith or hope you invest them, they will always let you down. Just remember, that when you build yourself up to be so great and morally better than anyone else, sometimes they just might believe that image you have projected of yourself – no matter how hypocritical, no matter how bullshit it is.
25. What was the best book you read?
This year? A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick.
26. What did you want and get?
Oh, a job, probably. And a few other things too.
27. What did you want and not get?
The decorating finished. (and Scarlett Johanssen, but that’s another matter)
28. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Oh….Panic! At The Disco. Just like millions of other emo sheep. (makes baa-ing noises)
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
In alphabetical order, then, because I have too many. Breaking and Entering. Children of Men. New World.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
July 3rd. 33. it was a monday, and I took the day off work. I went to the library, blogged, and slept in late I think.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Love. It’s a many splintered thing. And even when someone does love you, can you accept it? Can you accept its real? Because how can anyone love you when you don’t even love yourself? Its difficult to accept that love from others, when you see nothing in yourself.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Messy.
33. What kept you sane?
Who said anything about being sane? Given that I am currently seeing a psychotherapist for help, I don’t think I can make any great boast about that. I just well, Im not that hard to get along with….just impossible.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Ok, i know it says 3.26 or somethign in the mornign on Boxing day, but I've just written a whole laod of posts to go up as one.It'd be even better if I could change the date/time stamp, which it doesn;t seem to want to do. After all, its got to that time of morning and sleep Deprivation (Ok, 5 hours sleep in the past 42) where only Zooropa will get into that headspace I find myself in. Its a album of tremendous dislocation and abandonment....
I’ve been quiet for a couple of days. They have been busy and I’ve not even been near the internets. And as is fitting for Christmas, I’ve been a bit lazy. Sadly, some of this has been due to expedience, as I’ve been really unwell. For most of the past three days I’ve been sneezing almost constantly, and everytime I sneeze, the muscles in my body ache, like I’ve just run into the wall. I’m all bunged up. I’ve been in bed, alternating between sweatingly hot and shiveringly cold. Merry bloody Christmas to me, then; I can’t think of a better way of spending Christmas than being ill and unwell. I just want to sleep and hide and get well, and stop coughing, stop that burning sensation I get in the back of my throat every four or five minutes…Aaaargh, I hate beign unwell.
Christmas was spent being boring. I was tired, but ploughed on til stupid o’clock in the morning. I watched Bad Santa (I love that film, by the way), as the clock turned midnight. I had a Christmas present, from Giles, to whom I’m incredibly indebted. I had to bring over some boxes of washing last night, which there’s no way I could have brought over on the bus; and there’s no sense in paying double rate for a taxi at £15. It was nice to see Giles though, and I do owe him immeasurably for his help, and was nice just to talk rubbish with him until stupid o’clock in the morning. (Sadly though, I did get a bit ratty at about two in the morning; I’d been up since 9.18AM that day, and Giles had got up about half six. So he was wide awake, and I was fighting sleep).
I woke late on Christmas day, though the fact I was unwell – everytime I cough my heads slow throbbing turns into a constant pounding that just doesn’t go away – mean I didn’t sleep well at all. Worst thing about this is, its made my voice drop a couple of octaves, so I sound like I’m going through a second puberty. Grrreat; Now I can’t even sing along to the songs I love without sounding like a broken foghorn. Can’t even mumble to ‘em in fact.
I came downstairs and stuck on the Tv, and cooked Christmas dinner.
Contrary to what I told everyone, I didn’t decide to have Pizza in the end. I decided to have Turkey Escalopes (Discounted in Somerfield due to being shortdated) , and barbecue flavoured potato fries, with mayonnaise. Well, closest thing to Christmas dinner I get. Then I watched some Movies.
i)Charlie And the Chocolate Factory (A very good – and very burtonesque – remake).
ii)Glengarry Glen Ross (good, but hardly enjoyable).
iii)Polar Express (very well done, but empty and soulless. Nice Animation though).
iv)The Day Today (Satirical Genius, but hardly a movie).
v)Sin City (again, brilliantly done, but all substance – I just didn’t connect with the film really. I always thought Frank Miller was all substance, no depth, and much preferred Alan Moore)
vi)The Laws of Attraction. (mostly inoffensive, except if you’re Irish.)
No one rang. A couple of IMs, a few texts – but no one rang. I spent Christmas day alone. I didn’t speak to another human being.
Yeah, Merry Christmas.
I’ve been quiet for a couple of days. They have been busy and I’ve not even been near the internets. And as is fitting for Christmas, I’ve been a bit lazy. Sadly, some of this has been due to expedience, as I’ve been really unwell. For most of the past three days I’ve been sneezing almost constantly, and everytime I sneeze, the muscles in my body ache, like I’ve just run into the wall. I’m all bunged up. I’ve been in bed, alternating between sweatingly hot and shiveringly cold. Merry bloody Christmas to me, then; I can’t think of a better way of spending Christmas than being ill and unwell. I just want to sleep and hide and get well, and stop coughing, stop that burning sensation I get in the back of my throat every four or five minutes…Aaaargh, I hate beign unwell.
Christmas was spent being boring. I was tired, but ploughed on til stupid o’clock in the morning. I watched Bad Santa (I love that film, by the way), as the clock turned midnight. I had a Christmas present, from Giles, to whom I’m incredibly indebted. I had to bring over some boxes of washing last night, which there’s no way I could have brought over on the bus; and there’s no sense in paying double rate for a taxi at £15. It was nice to see Giles though, and I do owe him immeasurably for his help, and was nice just to talk rubbish with him until stupid o’clock in the morning. (Sadly though, I did get a bit ratty at about two in the morning; I’d been up since 9.18AM that day, and Giles had got up about half six. So he was wide awake, and I was fighting sleep).
I woke late on Christmas day, though the fact I was unwell – everytime I cough my heads slow throbbing turns into a constant pounding that just doesn’t go away – mean I didn’t sleep well at all. Worst thing about this is, its made my voice drop a couple of octaves, so I sound like I’m going through a second puberty. Grrreat; Now I can’t even sing along to the songs I love without sounding like a broken foghorn. Can’t even mumble to ‘em in fact.
I came downstairs and stuck on the Tv, and cooked Christmas dinner.
Contrary to what I told everyone, I didn’t decide to have Pizza in the end. I decided to have Turkey Escalopes (Discounted in Somerfield due to being shortdated) , and barbecue flavoured potato fries, with mayonnaise. Well, closest thing to Christmas dinner I get. Then I watched some Movies.
i)Charlie And the Chocolate Factory (A very good – and very burtonesque – remake).
ii)Glengarry Glen Ross (good, but hardly enjoyable).
iii)Polar Express (very well done, but empty and soulless. Nice Animation though).
iv)The Day Today (Satirical Genius, but hardly a movie).
v)Sin City (again, brilliantly done, but all substance – I just didn’t connect with the film really. I always thought Frank Miller was all substance, no depth, and much preferred Alan Moore)
vi)The Laws of Attraction. (mostly inoffensive, except if you’re Irish.)
No one rang. A couple of IMs, a few texts – but no one rang. I spent Christmas day alone. I didn’t speak to another human being.
Yeah, Merry Christmas.
Lemme at 'em! lemme at 'em!
Rebecca Loves Christmas…
Here she is with her then-still-wrapped presents the other day. Not that she knows what it is. But large boxes with bright primary colours appearing out of nowhere always, always pique her curiosity. Mind you, so does everything. If I wrapped them in newspaper or brown paper bags she’d still be fascinated. She just wants to explore everything with an insatiable curiosity, that girl. It’s a wide world of wonder out there….
I just wish I could regain that innocence for a second sometimes.
Anyway, Rebecca loves Christmas. I’m housesitting for a friend, so I’m not with her, but I’m surrounded by her presence – her toys, her little pink boots, and the photos of her last Christmas. Can’t believe she was ever that small, now that she is so big and loud. And counting.
Now, at pains of being terribly, terribly sexist – which is like buying a boy Action man toys - here’s what I got her for Christmas.
An elmo giggle vacuum.
There’s no subtext to it being a vacuum its just that Rebecca loves pushing things – she loves getting behind her little buggy and pushing it everywhere. And what could be better than a toy you can push? And talks? Its just what she loves. That’s what you does with this. And love it she does. Apparently shes been cleaning the floor at her grandma’s with it for a couple of hours now, and no one else is allowed to play with it, she runs to it and takes it and pushes it. I hoped she’d like it, because hell, I wanted to keep it for myself, it was that cool.....
I don't care if you think I'm soppy.
Rebecca Loves Christmas…
Here she is with her then-still-wrapped presents the other day. Not that she knows what it is. But large boxes with bright primary colours appearing out of nowhere always, always pique her curiosity. Mind you, so does everything. If I wrapped them in newspaper or brown paper bags she’d still be fascinated. She just wants to explore everything with an insatiable curiosity, that girl. It’s a wide world of wonder out there….
I just wish I could regain that innocence for a second sometimes.
Anyway, Rebecca loves Christmas. I’m housesitting for a friend, so I’m not with her, but I’m surrounded by her presence – her toys, her little pink boots, and the photos of her last Christmas. Can’t believe she was ever that small, now that she is so big and loud. And counting.
Now, at pains of being terribly, terribly sexist – which is like buying a boy Action man toys - here’s what I got her for Christmas.
An elmo giggle vacuum.
There’s no subtext to it being a vacuum its just that Rebecca loves pushing things – she loves getting behind her little buggy and pushing it everywhere. And what could be better than a toy you can push? And talks? Its just what she loves. That’s what you does with this. And love it she does. Apparently shes been cleaning the floor at her grandma’s with it for a couple of hours now, and no one else is allowed to play with it, she runs to it and takes it and pushes it. I hoped she’d like it, because hell, I wanted to keep it for myself, it was that cool.....
I don't care if you think I'm soppy.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Last night, was the works do and the xmas party. It mainly involved drinkering in the pub, and that was really it.
Wednesday night I saw Deja Vu...
Wednesday night I saw Deja Vu....
Couldn't resist. Its' a terrible, terrible joke. But its the only one I've got.
Mind you, the film is preposterous, ludicrous, utterly abusrd, and played entirely seriously; and you know what? As long as you accept the ludicrous scientific premise (which is wrapped up in enough vaguely sound and correct terminology, plasma screens, and ultra obscure propellorhead humour referencing 80s comedies (there is a Killer reference to Airplane! which absolutely no one but me actually got in our completly packed screening the other night), to seem believable. its all hokum, but brilliantly done hokum.
I've been busy at work, and right now, the last day at work before christmas, I'm still here late trying to work stuff out that needs to be done so that people don't kick off at us when they don't get paid. It happens, you know.Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit working over.....
I will be away over Christmas. Just staying at a friends house, housesitting whilst I am away. its just one of those things. In the meantime, there is this horrile horrible column that littlejohn wrote last week. I relly can't believe how offensive it is; what a small minded man he is. Pathetic.
Though, apparently, I was being selfish last week when saying how I was the only person who should be allowed on the streets at Christmas, which isn't quite what I intended. What I had in mind was quite simple; when at christmas, when people can't get pasty you at the busiest time of year, the last thing you shoudl do is with your three strong party is block the only walkway in the german market in new street, stand dead still, and make cooing noises at somethign at a stall. Blocking the pavement and holding up hundreds of people trying to do their christmas shopping because you are too stupid to stand in a line rather than abreast is just selfish AND inconsiderate AND bloody rude. I don't care how pretty it is, just don't be so selfish as to hold up dozens and dozens of people. please show some consideration.
Maybe I'm just glad that I seem to have sorted out my Christmas shopping now. Mind you, given that i don't celebrate christmas, I only buy presents for my daughter. Who is wonderful, by the way.
And there is something else which I've read about which has absolutely astounded me.
So much so that when i read it, I was open mouthed. Some people act like butter wouldn't melt, but really, they can act all high and mighty, yet they are just as human and falliable as anyone else, even me; no matter how much they can have a go about me, and thney have in the past told me in no uncertain terms they consider me a disagreeable human being....well, they aren't above reproach, aren't perfect, and far from it. It may cost me a friendship from someone I used to hold in high regard, but I really do think that to criticse me after what they've done is the height of hypocrisy. Judge not yet ye be judged...and thought I don't consider one of them having done any wrong in the slightest, the other I certainly do. They are no better than me, no matter how much they think they are. Some people disgust me with their hypocrisy that they pretend to be so much better than everyone else, yet they aren't - they are just fcuked up human beings like all of us. its time for them to not so much fall of as jump on their high horse.
Sorry, but when someone passes judgement on me, make themseleves out to be so much better than me AND then acts they way they have done.... well, don't be surprised to be brought down from your holier-than-thou high cloud.
Who knows, they might even read this. Sorry, but I won't pretend not to be shocked and amazed with the hypocrisy of whats happened - nor will I be any less brutally honest in my opinion of them as they were of me. After all, I will only judge them and be as unforgiving of them as they were of me. Thats fair. thats equal. And its the cold harsh reality of one day waking up and realising you weren;t the nic eperson they thought they were. Oh no, we're all failed, falliable, messed up human beings. And to pretend otherwise is the height of hubris. I know I'm not infalliable, I knwo I'm not perfect, but I don't make myself out to be. And don't be surprised when I find you falling off your cloud of lofty moral pretension with a big thump.
I think I really am still quite shocked and stunned. I also think I'm off their christmas card list... I'll check in tomorrow for the hate mail, or something. I think I've said it all. They know who they are. I've said enough for a little while
Anyway, feedback from the appointment yesterday is that, like Mark, they suggested Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. (I'm aware there's another meaning to the phrase CBT, but I really do think its best kept to its particular erm.... spheres (or is it balls?) of interest. Literally). Fact that both he and I seem to suffer the same issues and the same suggested ways of that pattern of behaviour means maybe it has somethignt o do with the enviroment in which we were brought up.Anyway, the mental health professional said Its best If I go back and see them again. I do have problems with my outlook on the world sometimes; over sensitive, try to over rationalise, I try to organise, set plans that turn into endless pages of scribbled lines, and yes, it does get me down. its that what gets me down I'm trying to get over from, those moods that swing from up and down, from euphoric to glum in minutes. It doesn;t help me much.
I'm spending Christmas on my own. its how I prefer it, to be honest. No one but me to get on my nerves. None of that Christmas bullshit, the trimmings and trappings, the charade of everyone spending hundreds of pounds trying to be happy when its driving them to bankruptcy, the endless charade and empty shallow promises. Balls to it all; its just a lie. Its a day off work, thats all, with good telly, and no buses....just a charade, just an empty charade.
Merry Christmas, anyway. Ho ho Bloody Ho.
Wednesday night I saw Deja Vu...
Wednesday night I saw Deja Vu....
Couldn't resist. Its' a terrible, terrible joke. But its the only one I've got.
Mind you, the film is preposterous, ludicrous, utterly abusrd, and played entirely seriously; and you know what? As long as you accept the ludicrous scientific premise (which is wrapped up in enough vaguely sound and correct terminology, plasma screens, and ultra obscure propellorhead humour referencing 80s comedies (there is a Killer reference to Airplane! which absolutely no one but me actually got in our completly packed screening the other night), to seem believable. its all hokum, but brilliantly done hokum.
I've been busy at work, and right now, the last day at work before christmas, I'm still here late trying to work stuff out that needs to be done so that people don't kick off at us when they don't get paid. It happens, you know.Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit working over.....
I will be away over Christmas. Just staying at a friends house, housesitting whilst I am away. its just one of those things. In the meantime, there is this horrile horrible column that littlejohn wrote last week. I relly can't believe how offensive it is; what a small minded man he is. Pathetic.
Though, apparently, I was being selfish last week when saying how I was the only person who should be allowed on the streets at Christmas, which isn't quite what I intended. What I had in mind was quite simple; when at christmas, when people can't get pasty you at the busiest time of year, the last thing you shoudl do is with your three strong party is block the only walkway in the german market in new street, stand dead still, and make cooing noises at somethign at a stall. Blocking the pavement and holding up hundreds of people trying to do their christmas shopping because you are too stupid to stand in a line rather than abreast is just selfish AND inconsiderate AND bloody rude. I don't care how pretty it is, just don't be so selfish as to hold up dozens and dozens of people. please show some consideration.
Maybe I'm just glad that I seem to have sorted out my Christmas shopping now. Mind you, given that i don't celebrate christmas, I only buy presents for my daughter. Who is wonderful, by the way.
And there is something else which I've read about which has absolutely astounded me.
So much so that when i read it, I was open mouthed. Some people act like butter wouldn't melt, but really, they can act all high and mighty, yet they are just as human and falliable as anyone else, even me; no matter how much they can have a go about me, and thney have in the past told me in no uncertain terms they consider me a disagreeable human being....well, they aren't above reproach, aren't perfect, and far from it. It may cost me a friendship from someone I used to hold in high regard, but I really do think that to criticse me after what they've done is the height of hypocrisy. Judge not yet ye be judged...and thought I don't consider one of them having done any wrong in the slightest, the other I certainly do. They are no better than me, no matter how much they think they are. Some people disgust me with their hypocrisy that they pretend to be so much better than everyone else, yet they aren't - they are just fcuked up human beings like all of us. its time for them to not so much fall of as jump on their high horse.
Sorry, but when someone passes judgement on me, make themseleves out to be so much better than me AND then acts they way they have done.... well, don't be surprised to be brought down from your holier-than-thou high cloud.
Who knows, they might even read this. Sorry, but I won't pretend not to be shocked and amazed with the hypocrisy of whats happened - nor will I be any less brutally honest in my opinion of them as they were of me. After all, I will only judge them and be as unforgiving of them as they were of me. Thats fair. thats equal. And its the cold harsh reality of one day waking up and realising you weren;t the nic eperson they thought they were. Oh no, we're all failed, falliable, messed up human beings. And to pretend otherwise is the height of hubris. I know I'm not infalliable, I knwo I'm not perfect, but I don't make myself out to be. And don't be surprised when I find you falling off your cloud of lofty moral pretension with a big thump.
I think I really am still quite shocked and stunned. I also think I'm off their christmas card list... I'll check in tomorrow for the hate mail, or something. I think I've said it all. They know who they are. I've said enough for a little while
Anyway, feedback from the appointment yesterday is that, like Mark, they suggested Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. (I'm aware there's another meaning to the phrase CBT, but I really do think its best kept to its particular erm.... spheres (or is it balls?) of interest. Literally). Fact that both he and I seem to suffer the same issues and the same suggested ways of that pattern of behaviour means maybe it has somethignt o do with the enviroment in which we were brought up.Anyway, the mental health professional said Its best If I go back and see them again. I do have problems with my outlook on the world sometimes; over sensitive, try to over rationalise, I try to organise, set plans that turn into endless pages of scribbled lines, and yes, it does get me down. its that what gets me down I'm trying to get over from, those moods that swing from up and down, from euphoric to glum in minutes. It doesn;t help me much.
I'm spending Christmas on my own. its how I prefer it, to be honest. No one but me to get on my nerves. None of that Christmas bullshit, the trimmings and trappings, the charade of everyone spending hundreds of pounds trying to be happy when its driving them to bankruptcy, the endless charade and empty shallow promises. Balls to it all; its just a lie. Its a day off work, thats all, with good telly, and no buses....just a charade, just an empty charade.
Merry Christmas, anyway. Ho ho Bloody Ho.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Ok, Since Friday? Lots of stuff. Mainly Firday Night and Saturday night.
But I’m not going to stay at work for hours typing it all out. Not really.
Friday, I left work. Eventually – about half six. I was trying to sort out what to get Rebecca for Christmas, which took a little time and a little bit of searching, and a little bit of running around. Nic asked me If I was doing anything, except Christmas Shopping, so I met her in the pub. We drank, had a couple of pints. I was coming straight from work and wearing my work shirt, which is never a good thing to be wearing when out on the drink in a rockpub ona Friday night. There was a guy in there ina brown jumper, and four days stubble, and smoking. Fine. Except that he was drinking at the same time, (ok…), and smoking, and then the cigarette kept on going out. This is because he kept on passing out. Slowly his body arched forward, leaning towards the table, until it met the table, and then he slumped – often for minutes at a time, onto the newspaper he was reading – the politics section of the Guardian. This was not good, because he had been resting his pint on it previously and it had got wet. So when he woke up, he had newsprint all over his forehead. Not very alluring, I must say. Even setting ona panic alarm into his ear would not rouse him, but throwing ice cubes at his neck did, for…oooh… seconds.
Make no mistake, I think this guy may have had a drink problem.And then he left.
And then he came back, and sat next to some other pretty girls there. Erm, no surprise. Then he left again, shortly after. I left about ten, ate, and went home.
Saturday, I woke up, and went off to do the Christmas shopping. Which I did. I ran off to get Becca’s presents, and then back to Harborne to pick something up, and then to the library where I blogged (as you can tell), and then back into town, where I finally picked up some more Of Becca’s presents from the greek god of catalog shopping – Argos. I was supposed to meet Ashley in the pub, so I made my way there, complete with presents in tow. The plan was mooted to go to the Academy to ROCK. But you can’t rock with baby toys, so I went home, dropped them off, and changed my T-Shirt, and went back into town. And then off to the Academy.
Which was damn good. Much better than last time. And you know why? Because the small room now played old school metal rather than this ska-rubbish It had been playing before – and certainly better than the new-style emo-metal crap in the main room. I basically spent the entire night running into the small room, playing air guitar without shame, and having a great time. I left alone,
Though in the middle of Pantera’s “Walk”, a quite attractive woman – 27, blond, long hair, slimmish, was mouthing every word with me, and flirting with me. I just rocked back. I can’t let anyone in, I can’t let myself go like that – I’ve gone beyond the stage of random encounters and meaningless flirtation. I don’t trust my body to just anyone, its just not for me. Yes, she was attractive, probably the kind of girl I’d normally look at and think to myself I had no chance with – but this time, she was trying to flirt with me. It wasn’t reciprocated – I just can’t do that, the walls have gone up. Those walls of loneliness that I need to break, and I don’t know how to , I don’t know how to let anyone in or bring them down. Not even with the person I have been seeing; which is another reason why I wouldn’t have done anything with this girl. I’m not available. I’m locked in my own little prison of recovery from the relationship with my wife, and I still got some way before I can truly let go and leave it behind.
The fact I had a sudden nagging urge that I was a five to two prince was also playing with my mind. Was she only flirting with me because it was the end of the night and she hadn’t pulled yet? Mmmm. IS that just perfectly normal paranoia, or just low self-esteem? Didn’t help either way. I didn’t want to end up with someone just because she hadn’t had anyone better offers that night, you know? If ya wanna be with me, its because of who I am, not because you're desperate and its five minutes from closing time. Call me bitchy, but I'm not a slab of meat like a chicken waiting to be plucked (obscure reference to the Scarface TV Version here, I know, But I am such a geek I got the highest score in the Works quiz for 'name that movie', earning this section here a box of Cadbury's chocolates). Ok, Ok, I know its true, but I just find it odd to adjust back to that whole pulling in nightclubs thing. thats why I don't anymore.
Sunday was dull; it involved going to Iceland to get frozen food.
Monday, was work. Work was hard and long and frantic. I did a favour for someone.,expecting them to turn up, but they didn’t. typical. Bend over backwards for someone, yet nothing happens. I worked late, but not too late, and went to see Rebecca, along with bringing her presents to her. I have a cute pictures of her trying to reach these brightly coloured things on the sofa in wonder, awe and Christmassy joy, but…. Alas, it wasn’t Christmas day, so she didn’t get them early. Sorry Becca. She started counting … one…two… three… clapping, and making wub-wub-wub noises, in amongst walking pretty much everywhere, running, and crawling over Daddy. I left late, got home late, and then I slept. I was in bed for midnight.
Tuesday I got up and went to work. Again, another hectic hard, frantic day. I worked over, went home, and was in bed too late, though I did spirit myself into Blockbuster and bought some cheapo DVDs (McLibel for £1, Lords Of Dogtown for £1, that sort of thing), and then ate,and slept.
Wednesday was Work. It was even worse than Monday or Tuesday. Though I did notice that mark read by blog and commented about me spending four years on the dole – I presume he got those wap features on his phone working, or an internet café, or something. Cheers Mark. I would like to point out in the four years on the dole, I didn’t go abroad once. I haven’t left this island since 1997.
Linkees then:-
i) new Trek animated series? Sounds a bit lame to me . Not as good as my pitch for a live action series, of course.
ii) the Sunken U-Boat and the dying ocean .....
iii) I want a Moobys cup… dammit. And Clerks II, come to think of it. (Look at the best buy exclusive…) here can you imagine how great it would be to have a Moobys’ Funployee nametag and Cup?
iv) Whoops, sorry about that. one of our coders has a sense of humour . (As found on a google image search for minge, apparently)
v)And here and the wierdest gadgets of the year. Some sound quite useful mind you...
Probably gonna be quiet tomorrow. I have an appointment with a mental health professional to unscramble the broken circuits in that one off brain wrong of a man-mental that is my cranium.((c) Chris Morris)
Ciao
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Another day at work. it wasn't a very good day - busy, hectic, and hassled. There's not many customers, but an awful lot of work, for each; hence why i think I had about five minutes spare today. But What a five minutes it was.
lots to write, but not much time. last night I saw Rebecca, and took over her presents. Wonderful girl. "Go to daddy", says her mum, and she rushes over to me and falls onto my chest, giggling.
I'm tired, feel rubbish, Slept a full eight hours and was in bed about half an hour after getting home, but Monday night I could hardly sleep, and was lying awake in bed at three thirty in the morning, my brain racing SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP whilst my body stayed awake.
Anyway, here's another still from underdog - the new kiddie movie about the flying dog. Brilliant. Actually, I think its just a FX mock up - given that its being shot aroudn Rhode Island, what is he doing flying over St. Pauls in London? Oh, nothing to do with the fact that the digital effects are done by Framestore in Soho, I presume? (In fact, I really do like framestore - I think its great that there's a UK digital effects house so prominent in the business, based in a dingy area of London 100 yards away from the Raymond Revuebar and knocking shops. Clarse, i tell you). And the other effects are by Cinesite UK too. mmm
I really must go home. Sorry. Its been a crap blog entry, hasn't it?
lots to write, but not much time. last night I saw Rebecca, and took over her presents. Wonderful girl. "Go to daddy", says her mum, and she rushes over to me and falls onto my chest, giggling.
I'm tired, feel rubbish, Slept a full eight hours and was in bed about half an hour after getting home, but Monday night I could hardly sleep, and was lying awake in bed at three thirty in the morning, my brain racing SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP whilst my body stayed awake.
Anyway, here's another still from underdog - the new kiddie movie about the flying dog. Brilliant. Actually, I think its just a FX mock up - given that its being shot aroudn Rhode Island, what is he doing flying over St. Pauls in London? Oh, nothing to do with the fact that the digital effects are done by Framestore in Soho, I presume? (In fact, I really do like framestore - I think its great that there's a UK digital effects house so prominent in the business, based in a dingy area of London 100 yards away from the Raymond Revuebar and knocking shops. Clarse, i tell you). And the other effects are by Cinesite UK too. mmm
I really must go home. Sorry. Its been a crap blog entry, hasn't it?
Monday, December 18, 2006
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Aaaargh.
I hate this time of year. I hate christmas. I hate all those commercials on TV for those overpriced, gaudy, plasticky toys, To be bought as presents by overstressed, overworked underpaid parents on £5.35 an hour. I hate baubles. I hate jingly songs on the radio that start somewhere at the end of October. I hate too many people on the streets who stand in the middle of aisles so you can't get past when my brain is calculating them to keep on walking, ducking and diving and dodging though holes in the enedless traffic of pedestrians like a game of frogger, those people who stop, just STOP, and then no one can get past while they admire chaeap shabbily produced goods make in thailand for children paid 5p a day, full of tinsel and baubles and green stuff which makes sense to no one but advertisers, and Coca Cola, who invented Snata Claus anyway. I hate all those people walking around the city streets rammed with shopping bags, people who don't seem to ever leave the house any other time of year, who just seem to end up in town in the weekends before christmas. Honestly, please, just GO HOME, leave the streets empty so I can do my christmas shopping in peace, just leave me alone, leave me be, just go and buy the stuff off amazon or something. You are the generation that bought more and more and more and more shoes and you get what you deserve.
did you hear me?
I hate christmas, and all the pulaver, the enforced jolliness, the mandatory christmas hits, the obligatory kids film on BBC1 and the bond film at 3.10 after the queens speech, the drunken father in the pub watching the sport, the utter self-congratulatory way we congratulate ourselves for surviving yet another year after choking the planet to death with SUVs, dependent on oil, hydrocarbons, and shiny little plastic gadgets. I hate it all, the consumerism, the fact that having a roof over your head and a job isn't enough. You need this overpriced pap to be happy, it says. Happiness is a state of mind, not what you spunked away on your credit card bill this month. I hate it all, that naked consumerism, and christmas is the time of year when its blatant exploitation of our insecurities is at its most naked, its most offensive.
And the worst thing is, Santa Claus isn't real. Coca Cola Made him up in the 30's, and still we do it every bloody year like consumer sheep. Bah! Bah! Bah!
I won't celebrate Christmas this year much - hell, if the buses ran and work was open, I'd go in and work instead. But thats not the point.
The point is I won't celebrate Christmas this year. But my daughter will. I love her to pieces. She sees pictures of me on the blog, and gets very excited, and started babbling and jabbering away and talknig and smiling and touching the monitor. Awwwww.
I'll celebrate christmas for her, instead. I hope it'll be great for her.
P.s. I'm not very christmassy, by the way.
I hate this time of year. I hate christmas. I hate all those commercials on TV for those overpriced, gaudy, plasticky toys, To be bought as presents by overstressed, overworked underpaid parents on £5.35 an hour. I hate baubles. I hate jingly songs on the radio that start somewhere at the end of October. I hate too many people on the streets who stand in the middle of aisles so you can't get past when my brain is calculating them to keep on walking, ducking and diving and dodging though holes in the enedless traffic of pedestrians like a game of frogger, those people who stop, just STOP, and then no one can get past while they admire chaeap shabbily produced goods make in thailand for children paid 5p a day, full of tinsel and baubles and green stuff which makes sense to no one but advertisers, and Coca Cola, who invented Snata Claus anyway. I hate all those people walking around the city streets rammed with shopping bags, people who don't seem to ever leave the house any other time of year, who just seem to end up in town in the weekends before christmas. Honestly, please, just GO HOME, leave the streets empty so I can do my christmas shopping in peace, just leave me alone, leave me be, just go and buy the stuff off amazon or something. You are the generation that bought more and more and more and more shoes and you get what you deserve.
did you hear me?
I hate christmas, and all the pulaver, the enforced jolliness, the mandatory christmas hits, the obligatory kids film on BBC1 and the bond film at 3.10 after the queens speech, the drunken father in the pub watching the sport, the utter self-congratulatory way we congratulate ourselves for surviving yet another year after choking the planet to death with SUVs, dependent on oil, hydrocarbons, and shiny little plastic gadgets. I hate it all, the consumerism, the fact that having a roof over your head and a job isn't enough. You need this overpriced pap to be happy, it says. Happiness is a state of mind, not what you spunked away on your credit card bill this month. I hate it all, that naked consumerism, and christmas is the time of year when its blatant exploitation of our insecurities is at its most naked, its most offensive.
And the worst thing is, Santa Claus isn't real. Coca Cola Made him up in the 30's, and still we do it every bloody year like consumer sheep. Bah! Bah! Bah!
I won't celebrate Christmas this year much - hell, if the buses ran and work was open, I'd go in and work instead. But thats not the point.
The point is I won't celebrate Christmas this year. But my daughter will. I love her to pieces. She sees pictures of me on the blog, and gets very excited, and started babbling and jabbering away and talknig and smiling and touching the monitor. Awwwww.
I'll celebrate christmas for her, instead. I hope it'll be great for her.
P.s. I'm not very christmassy, by the way.
Friday, December 15, 2006
And whilst he goes to Tenerife, I go to work...
i)Belgium fooled by split of country under EU law. here
ii)Tawny Kitaen – ex Whitesnake wife and rock star girlfriend, falls prey to the ravages of time…. and rehab
iii)Rammstein DVD furore – 250 Euros from retailers squeezing the fans dry? Fans not happy shocker
iv) Greatest letters page ever. Especially the rant about ID cards vs. Planetkilling Asteroids…
v)And this film looks like it’s gonna be fantastic – Underdog. A flying superhero dog in a Superman cape. . Kick Ass/
Nothing else to report....
Last night wasnt veryinteresting - went a preview screening of Night At The Museum ; thankfully the movie is much better than the awful trailer (aimed clearly at the childrens Christmas family market) made out.
Basic premise is quite simple and fantastical - Ben Stiller is a divorced dad who is rapidly fading from his sons affections, can't hold down a job, and takes a job as a Night Guard at the Museum of Natural History, replacing the three existing wizened and slightly bitter guards nearing retirement age, and being given a series of dog-eared yet surreal instructions on a piece of paper. The reason soon becomes clear - at night, every single exhibit in the Museum from the T-Rex skeleton to the dioramas of soldiers become alive and run rampant. And the reason why soon becomes obvious - a 24 carat gold breastplate of a mummified Egyptian Emperor possessed with magical powers....
Suspend your disbelief here and Enjoy the ride ; this film and its premise soon fall apart as soon as you ask yourself what sort of Museum in this day and age with such valuables doesn't even install CCTV or laser detection systems to safeguard 24 carat gold exhibits ; or for that matter could come to life every night for 50 years without anyone in the outside world noticing. As a fantastical children’s movie, this owes a lot to previous movies such as Jumanji; Museum just oozes the touch of Chris Columbus in every frame - only except minus the composition which elevates Columbus from hack to talent. Its almost as if they have tried to make the perfect kids movie by committee ; Spotwelding the premise of Toy Story (What happens if inanimate objects become alive when no one is looking?) & Small Soldiers with vampire mythology (they turn to dust if hit by sunlight) and the monsters on the loose in America aspect of Ivan Reitman’s Evolution. It just feels in many ways like its ticking the boxes approach to film making, but worse still is that it seems like no one realised it at the time.
Its far from original, but it does have its redeeming features ; whilst the T-Rex skeleton idea is almost taken from Jurassic Park wholesale, the idea of seeing it play
fetch and its playful puppy like behaviour is a refreshing change from Jurassic Park Dinosaurs of Spielberg. Unsuprisingly, this relies more on slapstick - the Monkey Slap sequence being a particular highlight, as is the prehistoric savages eating extinguisher foam for kicks - and a lightness of touch which is refreshing - after all, in how many other movies (SPOILERS) have you seen an Easter island Statue that is addicted to bubblegum? Or a T-Rex Skeleton chasing through Central Park chasing a remote control car? (SPOILERS OFF)
Kudos especially go to Owen Wilson - who steals this movie as a cowboy, and Steve Coogan, who as Roman Centurion Octavius both present a sendup of masculinity with their obsession with conquering and killing. I’m sure there’s some subtext here about how smallmen have to compensate for something with violence, but its certainly lost in the melee. You may have heard some good reports of Robin Williams as Theodore Roosevelt, but he pales in comparison to Wilson here. Stiller on the otherhand, does his usual comedy funnyguy thing, which whilst nowhere near as lofty as Zoolander, does exactly what the sacript demands of him; have fun, and make 'em laugh and watch the last shot closely too - its a wry payoff to a small joke set up about 15 minutes in. The only weak point - and this is glaringly obvious in by far the worst performance here - is Ricky Gervais as the Director of the Museum ; like everything else he has ever done, he just plays a one dimensional, repressed, socially awkward Brit. Its nothing we haven't seen before over and over again, and is just obvious casting reflected in a lazy uninspired performance, complete with comedy bad guy teeth. If you try to imagine what someone like Cleese or Bill Nighy could have done with this role instead, you get the Idea just how stilted and wooden he is here.
Night at The Museum won't win many awards for originality, but is easily accessible to children over Christmas and their parents won't mind it too much either; often consistently funny than hilarious, slapstick rather than crude, it won't hold as warm a place in childrens hearts as a Pixar classic,and never could - but its certainly worth idling a couple of inoffensive hours with – and the predictably cheeseball happy ending doesn't help either. All in all pretty good, it'll keep the kids quiet and entertained, and what else is a Christmas movie supposed to do?
Asief from have something other than one dimensional characters? bah, I am so too old folr this sort of film anymore...
Basic premise is quite simple and fantastical - Ben Stiller is a divorced dad who is rapidly fading from his sons affections, can't hold down a job, and takes a job as a Night Guard at the Museum of Natural History, replacing the three existing wizened and slightly bitter guards nearing retirement age, and being given a series of dog-eared yet surreal instructions on a piece of paper. The reason soon becomes clear - at night, every single exhibit in the Museum from the T-Rex skeleton to the dioramas of soldiers become alive and run rampant. And the reason why soon becomes obvious - a 24 carat gold breastplate of a mummified Egyptian Emperor possessed with magical powers....
Suspend your disbelief here and Enjoy the ride ; this film and its premise soon fall apart as soon as you ask yourself what sort of Museum in this day and age with such valuables doesn't even install CCTV or laser detection systems to safeguard 24 carat gold exhibits ; or for that matter could come to life every night for 50 years without anyone in the outside world noticing. As a fantastical children’s movie, this owes a lot to previous movies such as Jumanji; Museum just oozes the touch of Chris Columbus in every frame - only except minus the composition which elevates Columbus from hack to talent. Its almost as if they have tried to make the perfect kids movie by committee ; Spotwelding the premise of Toy Story (What happens if inanimate objects become alive when no one is looking?) & Small Soldiers with vampire mythology (they turn to dust if hit by sunlight) and the monsters on the loose in America aspect of Ivan Reitman’s Evolution. It just feels in many ways like its ticking the boxes approach to film making, but worse still is that it seems like no one realised it at the time.
Its far from original, but it does have its redeeming features ; whilst the T-Rex skeleton idea is almost taken from Jurassic Park wholesale, the idea of seeing it play
fetch and its playful puppy like behaviour is a refreshing change from Jurassic Park Dinosaurs of Spielberg. Unsuprisingly, this relies more on slapstick - the Monkey Slap sequence being a particular highlight, as is the prehistoric savages eating extinguisher foam for kicks - and a lightness of touch which is refreshing - after all, in how many other movies (SPOILERS) have you seen an Easter island Statue that is addicted to bubblegum? Or a T-Rex Skeleton chasing through Central Park chasing a remote control car? (SPOILERS OFF)
Kudos especially go to Owen Wilson - who steals this movie as a cowboy, and Steve Coogan, who as Roman Centurion Octavius both present a sendup of masculinity with their obsession with conquering and killing. I’m sure there’s some subtext here about how smallmen have to compensate for something with violence, but its certainly lost in the melee. You may have heard some good reports of Robin Williams as Theodore Roosevelt, but he pales in comparison to Wilson here. Stiller on the otherhand, does his usual comedy funnyguy thing, which whilst nowhere near as lofty as Zoolander, does exactly what the sacript demands of him; have fun, and make 'em laugh and watch the last shot closely too - its a wry payoff to a small joke set up about 15 minutes in. The only weak point - and this is glaringly obvious in by far the worst performance here - is Ricky Gervais as the Director of the Museum ; like everything else he has ever done, he just plays a one dimensional, repressed, socially awkward Brit. Its nothing we haven't seen before over and over again, and is just obvious casting reflected in a lazy uninspired performance, complete with comedy bad guy teeth. If you try to imagine what someone like Cleese or Bill Nighy could have done with this role instead, you get the Idea just how stilted and wooden he is here.
Night at The Museum won't win many awards for originality, but is easily accessible to children over Christmas and their parents won't mind it too much either; often consistently funny than hilarious, slapstick rather than crude, it won't hold as warm a place in childrens hearts as a Pixar classic,and never could - but its certainly worth idling a couple of inoffensive hours with – and the predictably cheeseball happy ending doesn't help either. All in all pretty good, it'll keep the kids quiet and entertained, and what else is a Christmas movie supposed to do?
Asief from have something other than one dimensional characters? bah, I am so too old folr this sort of film anymore...
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Blogger just doesn't want to fix the links in yesterdays post - and I've spent all day trying to work out the HTML bugger ups. I'm out of patience after about six hours of it, to be honest.Saw stranger than fiction last night. More about that tomorrow.
I don't talk about work very often. In fact, I try to avoid it wherever possible.
But today I will talk about something I came across at work. And it's shocking. sometimes there's things you see which you just need to talk about, and today was one of them.
In quick precis, and without being too in depth : My job is working for the Benefits Agency, and in this role, the only people I tend to see are the great unworking; one to one, every day. Sometimes helping them back to work, sometimes assessing their eligibility for benefits, offering advice and so forth; a lot of these people I generally tend to see are ex-convicts, those recently released from prison, for example.
Sometimes we can't help them, sometimes the way the system is set up is that it actually pays for them NOT to look for work. Sometimes a system that is set up to safeguard for people penalises them and stops them from getting on with their lives. And One of the things I see a lot at work - and this is something that governments ministers don't tend to see with their narrow myopia when deciding on reforms - is how one area of government policy directly and drastically impacts elsewhere. Today showed a particular and rather extreme example.
Its a little bit complicated and will take a few paragraphs to explain, though. Bear with me on this.
I asked a client what he had been doing in the search for work. " I haven't been looking for work", he explains, "not can I for the next few months". And then he explained quite simply that in his current circumstances, even though he is supposed to be actively seeking work, if he did take a job or was offered a job, he would be on the street.
Literally. On the street. Until I looked at his address, and it just clicked into place.
Does that sound crazy to you? Because it sure does to me. But the way this particular system is set up, with how different benefits interlock, mean exactly that - If he did start work or was offered work, he would be on the street.
He's just come out of prison, and had no fixed place to live. No home. So he went on the homeless register, awaiting a place to live according to the council, and in the meantime, they put him in a hostel. Now, like a lot of people coming out of prison back into the employment market, the odds are stacked against him getting him back to work. His circumstances are by no means unique, as I see probably two dozen people each week who fit this example.
Just a quick CV:-
- Lack of formal qualifications,
- Erratic and broken employment history, punctuated by long periods of not working or imprisonment
- Experience and employment History in manual trades such as labouring, , ground work, painting / decorating, factory work.
- Currently living in a homeless hostel
The last fact is the hinge upon which everything, everything else follows. Now, you read about homeless hostels, but many of us have experience of them, or how they work or are funded. And this is the crux of the argument...
The cost of living in a homeless hostel is phenomenonally expensive.
£239 a week.
I'll repeat that: £239 a week. £12,500 a year.
That money has to come from somewhere. Now, bear in mind that these costs are paid by a combination of authorities, and in order for these to paid the resident has to be receipt of benefits such as Jobseekers Unemployment Benefits.
The breakdown is as is as follows:
- Residents contribution from benefits: £20 a week
- Housing Benefit contribution: £120
- Payments from local authority to provide temporary accomodation:£120.
Aside from the horrendous cost, if someone staying in a hostel starts work, they instantly lose the Housing benefit contribution and the local authority payments. They instantly have to find the money to pay for it all out of their own pocket - all £239 a week - or they will be evicted.
Now factor in a few other things - such as travel to work, having to buy food, and taxation - and you'd really need to earning about £500 before tax ; taking home about £300 a week at bare minimum (£57.45 dole money, £239 rent just to live) to be better off than being on the dole, and about £350-400 in order to be able to afford to stay in such a place at the absolute bare minimum. Which at an average 37.5 hour week means you need to be earning at least £11-£12 an hour. Over twice the minimum wage, over the national average, instantly catapulting you into the top 15% of wage earners in the country.
Now bear in mind a lot of these people are generally in transient situations, rootless, poorly educated, a history of unskilled work such as roofers or manual labourers. Such sorts of jobs pay on average the minimum wage - £5.35 an hour.
IS it just me that sees the maths not working out here?
So what incentive have these people to work? If they do offered get a job, they will have to take it, or face i)having their benefits stopped (or sanctioned, to give it the technical term) and ii) due to the stoppage of benefits, they will have their housing benefit stopped, and thus be evicted from the homeless hostel. Realistically they have zero chance of finding work that will be worth taking up, because of the way the system is set up for paying for their hostel accommodation. Which they could stay in for months. And its impossible to explain the intricacies of why you didn’t work due to the way this system is set up to an employer in such a way as to not make them switch off - they'll just wonder why this guy has been on the dole for the past few months without even looking for work.
Throwing money at the problem won’t solve it – but throwing brains at it will.
The only light at the end of the tunnel is the £2.28 million transfer from the DWP to test a ‘block’ grant approach to try and overcome this.
If they do accept the job, they will get minimum wage, and will not earn enough to stay ; quite simply, getting, or even being offered a job, will make them homeless. Admitting they are not looking for work either will make them homeless too.
Catch 22 isn't just the words, its a vast understatement.
What sort of insanity is this? What sort of insanity is it that recently saw a government minister suggesting we stick yet more people in homeless hostels in this circumstances?
Even IF It has been recognised by government reports and other associations, such as here that “One of the major disincentives to work for homeless people living in hostels is that they get into a ‘benefits trap.’ Hostel fees are expensive and so if they move into work, virtually all their income would be spent on hostel fees. The issue of the benefits trap needs to be addressed. “ Also See here )
Its this sort of social pressure that means ex-prisoners on probation coming out of jail trying to turn their lives are often actively encouraged not to try to find jobs, not to turn their lives around, thanks to the intricacies of funding for the homeless; of how one part of the government bureaucracy causes vast implications elsewhere because people who instigate such reforms don't understand how it impacts in the whole picture. These ex-prisoners are actively disencouraged from going on the straight and narrow by housing problems such as this, and then are more likely to go back into a life of crime by having oodles and oodles of free time which you might logically expect them to spend with people they know, such as other criminals....
Another example is this: the often lengthy wait for benefits claims to be processed causes huge, huge problems; especially for ex-prisoners such as in the circumstances I've outlined. When entering a homeless hostel, they will often give you 28 days 'grace' to allow the benefits agency to process any such claim. Now, the average turn around tends to be less than that, but that raises the issue of discharge grants:- The discharge grant is about £46.75, which is designed to give the recently released some moeny on which to survive in the time in which the claim for benefits is being processed. They often tell ex-prisoners that this is about a week - which is about two weeks of the average waiting period - and anyway, even if it is decided that quickly, the system pays a fortnight in arrears and wouldn't generate a payment until the 14th day, which then takes three working days to be paid due to clearance at the bank. So that £46.75 has to last someone SEVENTEEN days, when they've been told by the liason officers in the prison they will get paid in seven. How is someone supposed to last that long on £46.75? (NB: This is the higher figure - for sentences under thee months or prisoners under a certain age, it decreases).
Returning to the issue of the person with the 28 days grace period who is staying in the hostel:- if there's any hold up (such as an unresolved claim in the past, not having discharge papers, that sort of thing) it can be delayed pending paperwork such as discharge papers. And once that 28 days is up, they're out on the street instantly. Bang.
Its almost the classic and dramatic of an unescapable benefits trap, and on all sides.
And there's no doubt that serious and immeadiate reform is required, but it won't happen. They are willing to treat the symptom, but not the cause; simply because they either don't understand what the causes are, or are unwilling the accept the unpleasant truth of the matter of exactly what is going wrong.
And the way its worked out is quite often insane too ; though there is a tremendous focus on Working Tax credits (as highlighted with an example here http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/archives/001660.php),
And here's another example: Earlier today, I had a girl sat on my desk, crying; in this case, she had been in a hostel and had been offered a flat, which she accepted. So when she accepted the flat, they transferred the housing benefit across, and she had to move out instantly and immediately. Council flats though, are let unfurnished - Which would be fine, if you had any furniture to take with you, but she hadn't. Hardly anyone who moves under such circumstances has. Nor is the electric, or gas on. So...
You've got your own flat. No furniture. No heating. No electric. No cooker, no nothing at all. You can make an application for help from the Social Fund - be it a Budgeting Loan (which you have to pay back), or a Community Care Grant, but neither of which gets sorted out quickly. It takes about 10-14 days. So by that point, you've spent two and a half weeks in an unfurnished, unheated, flat with nothing. And if you need money quickly, you can try the Crisis Loans department, which is an 0800 number. Which is permanently engaged. And an 0800 number isn't free from a mobile phone - you still have to pay. You can spend the entire time zapping down your credit to zero just trying to get the help you are entitled to, but its so understaffed and underworked you've got nothing but a chance in hells chance. And when you do get through, they have 2 working days to give you a decision, which can then take up to three days to be received due to how long it takes to clear at the bank. Bear in the mind that banks are shut at the weekend, and by that point, you've had no electric for a week.
Its Ludicrous.
Even with the best of intentions and a system in place, it often fails the people it needs to help the most, when they need it most; by being overworked and understaffed, subject to needless delays and being over officious, buried under layers of administration and red tape caused by wellmeaning officials who have never ever had to live through the consequences, live through the reality of being thrown out of a hostel because of hold ups with your claim, because of the unthinking inflexibility of housing benefits, because of all these things.
I needs drastic and immediate change, to stop failing the people who need it the most. In the short term, it needs the following:-
- More staff to do the job, to do it promptly and quickly ( see claims)
- A transition period of housing benefit to allow people to make a property fit for habitation when transferring from one property to the next
- Prompt and speedy processing of Community care grants, Budgeting Loans and so forth.
- Increased discharge grants to ensure easier transition to civilian life
- Approved suppliers of furniture where people can get cheap, and quick access to basic household furnishings when moving from periods of homelessness into a new stable property
- the continuation of housing benefits / council funding for hostels costs for those who enter fulltime work to ensure they do not end up homeless again, losing employment etc.
- An equalisation of housing and unemployment benefits paid to those under 25 who are currently prejudiced against on the grounds of age.
However, all these are symptoms of a larger cause:- quite simply, the lack of social housing. There simply isn't enough Social housing, and a continued lack of its availability and its not being built quick enough. We are turning into a nation of 'buy to let' landlords, where artificial inflation of house prices is an artifical growth sector of the economy, and often caused by restrictions on planning and housing construction - frequently mandated by things like lack of public transport and designated use of brownfield sites and so forth - mean a lot of people simply have tremendous difficulty just meeting the rents. I mean, its funny how councils can keep on approving all these super branches of Tescos the equivalent of three football fields in size, but fail to wonder just how much the quality of life would improve if they stopped building superhuge supermarkets and started buildings where people could live affordably, cheaply. How many thousands of people could they house in the same space as a super Tescos? How many lives would they help? How much money would they save by getting these people out of homeless hostels? I mean, they would save £180 per person, per week comparing the average council rent to the average cost of a hostel, so how can this NOT make sense?
it can't.
Now, lets look at it another way - take the example of the gentleman I saw earlier. he will remain unemployed as long as he remains in the hostel , which could be months, simply because of the way the system is set up, which gives him no other alternative. He could not be able to find work and remain housed due to this short term solution of hostel accommodation.
We need to break out of this cult of insanity, of the obsession of houseownership, and concentrate on the long term problem - the long term and immediate severe lack of suitable accommodation which causes vast social impact on all fronts. Here's something to think about - did you know that some 46% of children in the London are technically growing up under the poverty line? Do you think its in anyway related to the lack of availability of social housing, Because a lack of affordable social housing means that people have to live in places which are exorbitant in their rent, meaning money that should go on food and electric goes to pay an exorbitant, inflated market rent? IS it any way related to the fact that maybe some of these are single parents , under the age of 25 - which means the housing benefit they will receive is only deemed enough for a room in a shared house? So instead, the money for the baby goes on the rent due to shortfall caused by this arbitary housing benefit rule? (because after all , we all know that those under 25 get a discount from landlords, don't we? And Similarly as those under 25's get a lower rate of Jobseekers Allowance, we know that they similarly get a discount at supermarkets, don't they?)
I'm not arguing here that we get caught in a cylic argument where people throw accusations of just rewarding people who open their legs or come out of prison with a council house - what I'm saying is try to imagine a world where these arbitarily imposed, drastic social pressures no longer cause such misery... and tell me, would it be a better place?
The system, for all its good intentions, is failing the people it needs the most, and a change is rapidly and immediately required. Otherwise we are just storing up more problems for the future ; a future which politicians who don't think beyond the next election hardly ever think about.
And they can still find billions for nuclear submarines we don't need, but not find enough to ease the misery of the very people they are supposed to be protect. After all, Hospital closures will kill more people than terrorist attacks such as 7/7 ever will. But only one of them will ever make the news. And it won't be the girl who was sat on the desk in front of me this afternoon, who asked for a tissue when she was crying, living in an unfurnished, unheated flat, a girl desperate for help, but who just couldn't get through, who was being failed by the very people who are supposed to be helping. This system needs drastic change soon - and if that isn't thinking the unthinkable, nothing is.
Such a thing would be a better legacy for the Blair years peerages for cash, and an unwinnable war in Iraq, and nuclear submarines no one wants, surely?
I don't talk about work very often. In fact, I try to avoid it wherever possible.
But today I will talk about something I came across at work. And it's shocking. sometimes there's things you see which you just need to talk about, and today was one of them.
In quick precis, and without being too in depth : My job is working for the Benefits Agency, and in this role, the only people I tend to see are the great unworking; one to one, every day. Sometimes helping them back to work, sometimes assessing their eligibility for benefits, offering advice and so forth; a lot of these people I generally tend to see are ex-convicts, those recently released from prison, for example.
Sometimes we can't help them, sometimes the way the system is set up is that it actually pays for them NOT to look for work. Sometimes a system that is set up to safeguard for people penalises them and stops them from getting on with their lives. And One of the things I see a lot at work - and this is something that governments ministers don't tend to see with their narrow myopia when deciding on reforms - is how one area of government policy directly and drastically impacts elsewhere. Today showed a particular and rather extreme example.
Its a little bit complicated and will take a few paragraphs to explain, though. Bear with me on this.
I asked a client what he had been doing in the search for work. " I haven't been looking for work", he explains, "not can I for the next few months". And then he explained quite simply that in his current circumstances, even though he is supposed to be actively seeking work, if he did take a job or was offered a job, he would be on the street.
Literally. On the street. Until I looked at his address, and it just clicked into place.
Does that sound crazy to you? Because it sure does to me. But the way this particular system is set up, with how different benefits interlock, mean exactly that - If he did start work or was offered work, he would be on the street.
He's just come out of prison, and had no fixed place to live. No home. So he went on the homeless register, awaiting a place to live according to the council, and in the meantime, they put him in a hostel. Now, like a lot of people coming out of prison back into the employment market, the odds are stacked against him getting him back to work. His circumstances are by no means unique, as I see probably two dozen people each week who fit this example.
Just a quick CV:-
- Lack of formal qualifications,
- Erratic and broken employment history, punctuated by long periods of not working or imprisonment
- Experience and employment History in manual trades such as labouring, , ground work, painting / decorating, factory work.
- Currently living in a homeless hostel
The last fact is the hinge upon which everything, everything else follows. Now, you read about homeless hostels, but many of us have experience of them, or how they work or are funded. And this is the crux of the argument...
The cost of living in a homeless hostel is phenomenonally expensive.
£239 a week.
I'll repeat that: £239 a week. £12,500 a year.
That money has to come from somewhere. Now, bear in mind that these costs are paid by a combination of authorities, and in order for these to paid the resident has to be receipt of benefits such as Jobseekers Unemployment Benefits.
The breakdown is as is as follows:
- Residents contribution from benefits: £20 a week
- Housing Benefit contribution: £120
- Payments from local authority to provide temporary accomodation:£120.
Aside from the horrendous cost, if someone staying in a hostel starts work, they instantly lose the Housing benefit contribution and the local authority payments. They instantly have to find the money to pay for it all out of their own pocket - all £239 a week - or they will be evicted.
Now factor in a few other things - such as travel to work, having to buy food, and taxation - and you'd really need to earning about £500 before tax ; taking home about £300 a week at bare minimum (£57.45 dole money, £239 rent just to live) to be better off than being on the dole, and about £350-400 in order to be able to afford to stay in such a place at the absolute bare minimum. Which at an average 37.5 hour week means you need to be earning at least £11-£12 an hour. Over twice the minimum wage, over the national average, instantly catapulting you into the top 15% of wage earners in the country.
Now bear in mind a lot of these people are generally in transient situations, rootless, poorly educated, a history of unskilled work such as roofers or manual labourers. Such sorts of jobs pay on average the minimum wage - £5.35 an hour.
IS it just me that sees the maths not working out here?
So what incentive have these people to work? If they do offered get a job, they will have to take it, or face i)having their benefits stopped (or sanctioned, to give it the technical term) and ii) due to the stoppage of benefits, they will have their housing benefit stopped, and thus be evicted from the homeless hostel. Realistically they have zero chance of finding work that will be worth taking up, because of the way the system is set up for paying for their hostel accommodation. Which they could stay in for months. And its impossible to explain the intricacies of why you didn’t work due to the way this system is set up to an employer in such a way as to not make them switch off - they'll just wonder why this guy has been on the dole for the past few months without even looking for work.
Throwing money at the problem won’t solve it – but throwing brains at it will.
The only light at the end of the tunnel is the £2.28 million transfer from the DWP to test a ‘block’ grant approach to try and overcome this.
If they do accept the job, they will get minimum wage, and will not earn enough to stay ; quite simply, getting, or even being offered a job, will make them homeless. Admitting they are not looking for work either will make them homeless too.
Catch 22 isn't just the words, its a vast understatement.
What sort of insanity is this? What sort of insanity is it that recently saw a government minister suggesting we stick yet more people in homeless hostels in this circumstances?
Even IF It has been recognised by government reports and other associations, such as here that “One of the major disincentives to work for homeless people living in hostels is that they get into a ‘benefits trap.’ Hostel fees are expensive and so if they move into work, virtually all their income would be spent on hostel fees. The issue of the benefits trap needs to be addressed. “ Also See here )
Its this sort of social pressure that means ex-prisoners on probation coming out of jail trying to turn their lives are often actively encouraged not to try to find jobs, not to turn their lives around, thanks to the intricacies of funding for the homeless; of how one part of the government bureaucracy causes vast implications elsewhere because people who instigate such reforms don't understand how it impacts in the whole picture. These ex-prisoners are actively disencouraged from going on the straight and narrow by housing problems such as this, and then are more likely to go back into a life of crime by having oodles and oodles of free time which you might logically expect them to spend with people they know, such as other criminals....
Another example is this: the often lengthy wait for benefits claims to be processed causes huge, huge problems; especially for ex-prisoners such as in the circumstances I've outlined. When entering a homeless hostel, they will often give you 28 days 'grace' to allow the benefits agency to process any such claim. Now, the average turn around tends to be less than that, but that raises the issue of discharge grants:- The discharge grant is about £46.75, which is designed to give the recently released some moeny on which to survive in the time in which the claim for benefits is being processed. They often tell ex-prisoners that this is about a week - which is about two weeks of the average waiting period - and anyway, even if it is decided that quickly, the system pays a fortnight in arrears and wouldn't generate a payment until the 14th day, which then takes three working days to be paid due to clearance at the bank. So that £46.75 has to last someone SEVENTEEN days, when they've been told by the liason officers in the prison they will get paid in seven. How is someone supposed to last that long on £46.75? (NB: This is the higher figure - for sentences under thee months or prisoners under a certain age, it decreases).
Returning to the issue of the person with the 28 days grace period who is staying in the hostel:- if there's any hold up (such as an unresolved claim in the past, not having discharge papers, that sort of thing) it can be delayed pending paperwork such as discharge papers. And once that 28 days is up, they're out on the street instantly. Bang.
Its almost the classic and dramatic of an unescapable benefits trap, and on all sides.
And there's no doubt that serious and immeadiate reform is required, but it won't happen. They are willing to treat the symptom, but not the cause; simply because they either don't understand what the causes are, or are unwilling the accept the unpleasant truth of the matter of exactly what is going wrong.
And the way its worked out is quite often insane too ; though there is a tremendous focus on Working Tax credits (as highlighted with an example here http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/archives/001660.php),
And here's another example: Earlier today, I had a girl sat on my desk, crying; in this case, she had been in a hostel and had been offered a flat, which she accepted. So when she accepted the flat, they transferred the housing benefit across, and she had to move out instantly and immediately. Council flats though, are let unfurnished - Which would be fine, if you had any furniture to take with you, but she hadn't. Hardly anyone who moves under such circumstances has. Nor is the electric, or gas on. So...
You've got your own flat. No furniture. No heating. No electric. No cooker, no nothing at all. You can make an application for help from the Social Fund - be it a Budgeting Loan (which you have to pay back), or a Community Care Grant, but neither of which gets sorted out quickly. It takes about 10-14 days. So by that point, you've spent two and a half weeks in an unfurnished, unheated, flat with nothing. And if you need money quickly, you can try the Crisis Loans department, which is an 0800 number. Which is permanently engaged. And an 0800 number isn't free from a mobile phone - you still have to pay. You can spend the entire time zapping down your credit to zero just trying to get the help you are entitled to, but its so understaffed and underworked you've got nothing but a chance in hells chance. And when you do get through, they have 2 working days to give you a decision, which can then take up to three days to be received due to how long it takes to clear at the bank. Bear in the mind that banks are shut at the weekend, and by that point, you've had no electric for a week.
Its Ludicrous.
Even with the best of intentions and a system in place, it often fails the people it needs to help the most, when they need it most; by being overworked and understaffed, subject to needless delays and being over officious, buried under layers of administration and red tape caused by wellmeaning officials who have never ever had to live through the consequences, live through the reality of being thrown out of a hostel because of hold ups with your claim, because of the unthinking inflexibility of housing benefits, because of all these things.
I needs drastic and immediate change, to stop failing the people who need it the most. In the short term, it needs the following:-
- More staff to do the job, to do it promptly and quickly ( see claims)
- A transition period of housing benefit to allow people to make a property fit for habitation when transferring from one property to the next
- Prompt and speedy processing of Community care grants, Budgeting Loans and so forth.
- Increased discharge grants to ensure easier transition to civilian life
- Approved suppliers of furniture where people can get cheap, and quick access to basic household furnishings when moving from periods of homelessness into a new stable property
- the continuation of housing benefits / council funding for hostels costs for those who enter fulltime work to ensure they do not end up homeless again, losing employment etc.
- An equalisation of housing and unemployment benefits paid to those under 25 who are currently prejudiced against on the grounds of age.
However, all these are symptoms of a larger cause:- quite simply, the lack of social housing. There simply isn't enough Social housing, and a continued lack of its availability and its not being built quick enough. We are turning into a nation of 'buy to let' landlords, where artificial inflation of house prices is an artifical growth sector of the economy, and often caused by restrictions on planning and housing construction - frequently mandated by things like lack of public transport and designated use of brownfield sites and so forth - mean a lot of people simply have tremendous difficulty just meeting the rents. I mean, its funny how councils can keep on approving all these super branches of Tescos the equivalent of three football fields in size, but fail to wonder just how much the quality of life would improve if they stopped building superhuge supermarkets and started buildings where people could live affordably, cheaply. How many thousands of people could they house in the same space as a super Tescos? How many lives would they help? How much money would they save by getting these people out of homeless hostels? I mean, they would save £180 per person, per week comparing the average council rent to the average cost of a hostel, so how can this NOT make sense?
it can't.
Now, lets look at it another way - take the example of the gentleman I saw earlier. he will remain unemployed as long as he remains in the hostel , which could be months, simply because of the way the system is set up, which gives him no other alternative. He could not be able to find work and remain housed due to this short term solution of hostel accommodation.
We need to break out of this cult of insanity, of the obsession of houseownership, and concentrate on the long term problem - the long term and immediate severe lack of suitable accommodation which causes vast social impact on all fronts. Here's something to think about - did you know that some 46% of children in the London are technically growing up under the poverty line? Do you think its in anyway related to the lack of availability of social housing, Because a lack of affordable social housing means that people have to live in places which are exorbitant in their rent, meaning money that should go on food and electric goes to pay an exorbitant, inflated market rent? IS it any way related to the fact that maybe some of these are single parents , under the age of 25 - which means the housing benefit they will receive is only deemed enough for a room in a shared house? So instead, the money for the baby goes on the rent due to shortfall caused by this arbitary housing benefit rule? (because after all , we all know that those under 25 get a discount from landlords, don't we? And Similarly as those under 25's get a lower rate of Jobseekers Allowance, we know that they similarly get a discount at supermarkets, don't they?)
I'm not arguing here that we get caught in a cylic argument where people throw accusations of just rewarding people who open their legs or come out of prison with a council house - what I'm saying is try to imagine a world where these arbitarily imposed, drastic social pressures no longer cause such misery... and tell me, would it be a better place?
The system, for all its good intentions, is failing the people it needs the most, and a change is rapidly and immediately required. Otherwise we are just storing up more problems for the future ; a future which politicians who don't think beyond the next election hardly ever think about.
And they can still find billions for nuclear submarines we don't need, but not find enough to ease the misery of the very people they are supposed to be protect. After all, Hospital closures will kill more people than terrorist attacks such as 7/7 ever will. But only one of them will ever make the news. And it won't be the girl who was sat on the desk in front of me this afternoon, who asked for a tissue when she was crying, living in an unfurnished, unheated flat, a girl desperate for help, but who just couldn't get through, who was being failed by the very people who are supposed to be helping. This system needs drastic change soon - and if that isn't thinking the unthinkable, nothing is.
Such a thing would be a better legacy for the Blair years peerages for cash, and an unwinnable war in Iraq, and nuclear submarines no one wants, surely?
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Ok, just a few links then:-
Sorry if the links are broken - Word automatically converts them to hyperlinks, whcih then have to bre removed and retyped manually in order to make them pastable into a text document blogger will accept. Word is infuriating, and I dont have hours here to undo their so called clever ideas that actually hinder and add hours to my efforts here....you might have to remove any 'lonely town blogspot' prefixes it auto-inserts in here. Infuriatingly stupid, it is.
i) heres a pic of SS Stockholm , after being involved in a mid sea collision which fatally wounded the Andrea Doria ; That downed liner later served as inspiration for the shlocky horror film that was Ghost Ship
ii) And talking of gory films, heres the wikipedia page on it here
iii) Which includes the Starship Troopers - a film so shlocky (yet utterly brilliant), that its working title was Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine.
iv)Talking if Aliens / Soldiers hybrids, The Register celebrates 13 years of the first PC game I ever truly loved – and still do. DOOM with more on the letters page here , and magnificent BFG 9000
v)And the Register then tells us ot the strange BDSM side of the sexlife of shellfish . tres bizarre
vi) Who similarly report of Britney’s apology for not wearing underwear in public Im not convinced
Vii)And who could they be gossiping about here, eh eh?
viii) And whatever happened to – the INXS live album that was never released? Here it is, itunes only here
ix) The tediously long and interminable DaVinci Code gets a directors cut, now at three hours long – and reviewed here . No UK Edition available, apparently.
x) Talking of which, what is Dan brown working on, and why? The mysterious Kryptos, a sculpture at the CIA headquarters at langely… Kryptos (more links here and here)_
xi) Read more about all the obscure stuff massive attack have done and you’ve probably never heard here - such as what is hot knives? And have you ever heard of a track they did called wire? Well, its out there jim. Kinda geeky, but fasinating to see just howprolific a notoriously reclusive band actually are….
xii) Is this just a big hoax a plug for BRMB radio… or is it instead really just what it says it is? janes revenge ?
More tomorrow<
Sorry if the links are broken - Word automatically converts them to hyperlinks, whcih then have to bre removed and retyped manually in order to make them pastable into a text document blogger will accept. Word is infuriating, and I dont have hours here to undo their so called clever ideas that actually hinder and add hours to my efforts here....you might have to remove any 'lonely town blogspot' prefixes it auto-inserts in here. Infuriatingly stupid, it is.
i) heres a pic of SS Stockholm , after being involved in a mid sea collision which fatally wounded the Andrea Doria ; That downed liner later served as inspiration for the shlocky horror film that was Ghost Ship
ii) And talking of gory films, heres the wikipedia page on it here
iii) Which includes the Starship Troopers - a film so shlocky (yet utterly brilliant), that its working title was Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine.
iv)Talking if Aliens / Soldiers hybrids, The Register celebrates 13 years of the first PC game I ever truly loved – and still do. DOOM with more on the letters page here , and magnificent BFG 9000
v)And the Register then tells us ot the strange BDSM side of the sexlife of shellfish . tres bizarre
vi) Who similarly report of Britney’s apology for not wearing underwear in public Im not convinced
Vii)And who could they be gossiping about here, eh eh?
viii) And whatever happened to – the INXS live album that was never released? Here it is, itunes only here
ix) The tediously long and interminable DaVinci Code gets a directors cut, now at three hours long – and reviewed here . No UK Edition available, apparently.
x) Talking of which, what is Dan brown working on, and why? The mysterious Kryptos, a sculpture at the CIA headquarters at langely… Kryptos (more links here and here)_
xi) Read more about all the obscure stuff massive attack have done and you’ve probably never heard here - such as what is hot knives? And have you ever heard of a track they did called wire? Well, its out there jim. Kinda geeky, but fasinating to see just howprolific a notoriously reclusive band actually are….
xii) Is this just a big hoax a plug for BRMB radio… or is it instead really just what it says it is? janes revenge ?
More tomorrow<
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Quickly, whilst I am at the library....
Saw Rebecca last night. All I can ever seem to do is make her smile, and then she crawls, and walks, and is extremely tidy. She certainly likes shutting the fridge door all the time.
(This is, by the way, my favourite picture of her of all time. And not just because its in focus; theres also another pic here which I really like).
Got back fairly quickly, which took abotu 20 minutes. This is what happens in journey time alone, because one bus turned up, I got off got the next connecting bus behind it and then got off that straight onto the last bus I needed to get. Which is amazingly good timing, especially when each of the buses only seems to run about once every half an hour. i was quite scared I was goign to be left stranded needing to walk home, as it was quite late: it is truly absurd that sometimes it takes me an hour and a half to get back from seeing her when she only lives five miles away but its three bus routes: and is it any wonder people say that public transport is crap? It is, and it needs addressing. The frequency, that is.And regularity - today I've spent 20 minutes waiting for a bus on a major arterial route (target: one bus every four to five minutes at minimum), but instead about four come at once. bloody stupid.
And it certainly doesn't make me any less late for work in the morning if they do decide to run three at once. A friend of mine the other day discovered it took them two hours to travel from quinton to northfield in a morning when it rained. You'd think in england we could be prepared for a bit of rain wouldn't you?
I will write later at home and post tomorrow. I have somethign which concerns me, and its about housing...not the obvious angle you might expect.
In the meantime, I will need to go home. the news worries me: the bodycount in ipswich is mounting. Five in a week; this isn;t a mass murderer, but could be a spree killer. May I suggest that as they all seem to be prostitutes, you might investigate someone who has used prostitutes.... there's no shortage of online forums for that in england apparently (I gather there's one called punternet, which seems relatively wellknown and probably a good place to start or something). The average mass murder by the way always seems to be the following: male, isolated, middle class employed ina job which allows long periods unsupervised and mobile (ie travelling salesman/sales rep etc.), 30-35, mobile (car owner), recent history of trauma in his life (divorce/bankruptcy/job loss), bit of a loner... its such a cliche but the mjaority of them are. And after all, only 5% of the criminal population is female...
No, I havent been watching CSI too much. But I havent noticed only one comment in two weeks? bah.
Saw Rebecca last night. All I can ever seem to do is make her smile, and then she crawls, and walks, and is extremely tidy. She certainly likes shutting the fridge door all the time.
(This is, by the way, my favourite picture of her of all time. And not just because its in focus; theres also another pic here which I really like).
Got back fairly quickly, which took abotu 20 minutes. This is what happens in journey time alone, because one bus turned up, I got off got the next connecting bus behind it and then got off that straight onto the last bus I needed to get. Which is amazingly good timing, especially when each of the buses only seems to run about once every half an hour. i was quite scared I was goign to be left stranded needing to walk home, as it was quite late: it is truly absurd that sometimes it takes me an hour and a half to get back from seeing her when she only lives five miles away but its three bus routes: and is it any wonder people say that public transport is crap? It is, and it needs addressing. The frequency, that is.And regularity - today I've spent 20 minutes waiting for a bus on a major arterial route (target: one bus every four to five minutes at minimum), but instead about four come at once. bloody stupid.
And it certainly doesn't make me any less late for work in the morning if they do decide to run three at once. A friend of mine the other day discovered it took them two hours to travel from quinton to northfield in a morning when it rained. You'd think in england we could be prepared for a bit of rain wouldn't you?
I will write later at home and post tomorrow. I have somethign which concerns me, and its about housing...not the obvious angle you might expect.
In the meantime, I will need to go home. the news worries me: the bodycount in ipswich is mounting. Five in a week; this isn;t a mass murderer, but could be a spree killer. May I suggest that as they all seem to be prostitutes, you might investigate someone who has used prostitutes.... there's no shortage of online forums for that in england apparently (I gather there's one called punternet, which seems relatively wellknown and probably a good place to start or something). The average mass murder by the way always seems to be the following: male, isolated, middle class employed ina job which allows long periods unsupervised and mobile (ie travelling salesman/sales rep etc.), 30-35, mobile (car owner), recent history of trauma in his life (divorce/bankruptcy/job loss), bit of a loner... its such a cliche but the mjaority of them are. And after all, only 5% of the criminal population is female...
No, I havent been watching CSI too much. But I havent noticed only one comment in two weeks? bah.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Just a few words about Wiz....
Back in the ninties, there was a band called Mega City Four .Wiz (aka Darren Brown) - the singer / guitarist / songwriter, died on Thursday.
Its wierd to see those people who you once met, whose bands you eagerly awaited a new release of, who you once gossiped about this new song you'd heard live once being the best thing they'd ever written, who you tried to track down the Swedish only 7" singles of in utter futility.....these people who you once thought were at the front of the music press and not that much older than we were, suddenly dying. It certainly makes you aware of your own mortality, very much so. People you once met, were sort of your peers, young gods now dead. All but a few years older than me.
Some of them did stupid things - Coke and Amphetamine Speedballs in the example of Zak Foley (a man who was acutely scared of me, and last time he saw me he ran off at high speed. This probably had a lot to do with my then-girlfriend who was a huge EMF fan spending a night at his hotel room without me, and him wanting to escape the venue unscathed; it appears his stupidity caught up with him instead) - and some of them were tragic accidents - a blood clot on the brain (in Wiz's case) or a traffic accident (in the case of Martin Gilks, of the Wonderstuff) or cancer (in the case of Rob Heaton, New Model Army).
The fragility of our life continues to amaze me exactly how far I've got in life without having any major problems such as breaking a leg or anything - As a general rule, i tend to look after myself pretty well, look both ways when crossing the road, that sort of thing. But all of that doesn't count for much compared to the things that kill you without you even know what evil lurks in the bodies of men.
I met Wiz once or twice - I find it hard to believe he's dead. I saw Mega City Four three times; Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall in June 1993, Middlesbrough Arena in October 1993 (I've still got the setlist somewhere for that one), and Birmingham Hibernian in oct 1995. The first time was odd - the Wulfrun is a long, thin, terrible venue with rubbish sightlines and no atmosphere, but the Middlesbrough Arena show was the best of the lot. The Arena is a 400 capacity nightclub, a sweaty dive in a small provincial town where no one ever visited. So I went there in the soundcheck and saw Wiz just sat down with his legs hanging off the stage, guitar on his knees, not even plugged in, just playing acoustically to himself and no one else, just lost in the notes he was playing in a grabbed moment in the quiet, just for the pleasure of it. We talked for a few minutes, and he seemed almost painfully shy, quiet and gentle and disarming. Not exactly the kind of guy you'd expect to have found back in 1981, spending an entire month hitch hiking around the country following Motorhead.....
What came out in the records was that Awkward kid, that one on the perhiperal, on the outside looking in, the one who wouldn't really ever speak to anyone except spoken to, but he didn't need to. Everything he needed to say ....he used words that say. And songs to say those words in. Until you listen to them again, its easy to forget the post-Nirvana whitewash where all of a sudden nothing England could do was ever any good ever again, but in many ways, I think of Mega City Four as like the English Nirvana - small releases, long extensive tours, brilliant songs, shy frontman, they just never crossed over.
But hell, those songs were great - maybe you'd heard a couple like Stop, Words That say, maybe even Shivering Sand at a push - but if you ever doubt how great they were, stick on 'Inspiringly Titled - the Live Album' (their classic album, and closest thing to a greatest hits they ever did), and you'll discover a band who pretty much developed the genre of what was derisorily called 'fragglepop' by its detractors, but one that lives on today in bands who merge emotional, introspective lyrics and melodies and loud guitars. Nowadays you'd call it Emo, but they were doing it 15 years ago, covering Husker Du songs before Green Day had ever got off the plane at Heathrow.And know its a case of forget everything you think you know....
You'd be hard pushed to ever know just how good they were - you can't buy their records in the shops, haven't been able to for about ten years, and there's no real chance they ever will be issued again. Which is more the shame, because they were bloody brilliant; even the stuff that you don't probably had never heard and don't know (Peripheral or Finish, to name but two) is great. All consigned to the great dustbin of history and music press rewriting history whilst the latest Nirvana compilation grabs enough press coverage to fell a Brazilian rainforest; lets not forget that when Nirvana were playing the Kilburn national on the Nevermind Tour in Autumn 1991 Mega City Four were only days away from selling out the same venue, because back in those days they were in the same ballpark.
Last time I saw Mega City Four, was at the Hibernian in Birmingham, playing to a shockingly small number of people - about 80 - at the height of Britpop, their mate Bob from long forgotten Birmingham indie legends Tarbrush (who were bloody great, incidentally) on the t-shirt stall; when I was to play the same venue six years later, it would be a crowd yet bigger again, which is a frankly bizarre thought given how much I really liked Mega City Four. I remember rushing out to buy tickets the day they went on sale, because I was convinced it would sell out incredibly quickly - Megas gigs always had before, and always used to be in venues so much larger than this; after all Three years before they had been able to play to about 1200 or 1600 people, selling out those venues, and now they were playing half empty pubs to the faithful for whom good songs meant more than musical trends and whoever's press agent had paid the drugs bill for the NME that week thus ensuring blanket coverage. Here were a band plowing on the good old fashioned way, devoid of union jacks and dapper tops and visits to the Dagenham dog track festooned everywhere - a band playing songs that mattered to people for whom the trends and fashions meant little. Killed by the fickle music press and their endless quest for the new grunge, they overlooked some of the best bands England had to offer in favour of some tailors dummies with sharp suits and sharper cheekbones who hadn't played a gig in their lives (Menswe@r ,anyone?); and mores the pity. Because the more I think about it, the more I think that MC4 were just one of the best bands of their time, and a damn sight better than most of them around since.
And all I can think of is that guy on stage, lost in the music, playing the chords to himself, just for the joy of it, singing the words that say. Its too late to say those words....
Back in the ninties, there was a band called Mega City Four .Wiz (aka Darren Brown) - the singer / guitarist / songwriter, died on Thursday.
Its wierd to see those people who you once met, whose bands you eagerly awaited a new release of, who you once gossiped about this new song you'd heard live once being the best thing they'd ever written, who you tried to track down the Swedish only 7" singles of in utter futility.....these people who you once thought were at the front of the music press and not that much older than we were, suddenly dying. It certainly makes you aware of your own mortality, very much so. People you once met, were sort of your peers, young gods now dead. All but a few years older than me.
Some of them did stupid things - Coke and Amphetamine Speedballs in the example of Zak Foley (a man who was acutely scared of me, and last time he saw me he ran off at high speed. This probably had a lot to do with my then-girlfriend who was a huge EMF fan spending a night at his hotel room without me, and him wanting to escape the venue unscathed; it appears his stupidity caught up with him instead) - and some of them were tragic accidents - a blood clot on the brain (in Wiz's case) or a traffic accident (in the case of Martin Gilks, of the Wonderstuff) or cancer (in the case of Rob Heaton, New Model Army).
The fragility of our life continues to amaze me exactly how far I've got in life without having any major problems such as breaking a leg or anything - As a general rule, i tend to look after myself pretty well, look both ways when crossing the road, that sort of thing. But all of that doesn't count for much compared to the things that kill you without you even know what evil lurks in the bodies of men.
I met Wiz once or twice - I find it hard to believe he's dead. I saw Mega City Four three times; Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall in June 1993, Middlesbrough Arena in October 1993 (I've still got the setlist somewhere for that one), and Birmingham Hibernian in oct 1995. The first time was odd - the Wulfrun is a long, thin, terrible venue with rubbish sightlines and no atmosphere, but the Middlesbrough Arena show was the best of the lot. The Arena is a 400 capacity nightclub, a sweaty dive in a small provincial town where no one ever visited. So I went there in the soundcheck and saw Wiz just sat down with his legs hanging off the stage, guitar on his knees, not even plugged in, just playing acoustically to himself and no one else, just lost in the notes he was playing in a grabbed moment in the quiet, just for the pleasure of it. We talked for a few minutes, and he seemed almost painfully shy, quiet and gentle and disarming. Not exactly the kind of guy you'd expect to have found back in 1981, spending an entire month hitch hiking around the country following Motorhead.....
What came out in the records was that Awkward kid, that one on the perhiperal, on the outside looking in, the one who wouldn't really ever speak to anyone except spoken to, but he didn't need to. Everything he needed to say ....he used words that say. And songs to say those words in. Until you listen to them again, its easy to forget the post-Nirvana whitewash where all of a sudden nothing England could do was ever any good ever again, but in many ways, I think of Mega City Four as like the English Nirvana - small releases, long extensive tours, brilliant songs, shy frontman, they just never crossed over.
But hell, those songs were great - maybe you'd heard a couple like Stop, Words That say, maybe even Shivering Sand at a push - but if you ever doubt how great they were, stick on 'Inspiringly Titled - the Live Album' (their classic album, and closest thing to a greatest hits they ever did), and you'll discover a band who pretty much developed the genre of what was derisorily called 'fragglepop' by its detractors, but one that lives on today in bands who merge emotional, introspective lyrics and melodies and loud guitars. Nowadays you'd call it Emo, but they were doing it 15 years ago, covering Husker Du songs before Green Day had ever got off the plane at Heathrow.And know its a case of forget everything you think you know....
You'd be hard pushed to ever know just how good they were - you can't buy their records in the shops, haven't been able to for about ten years, and there's no real chance they ever will be issued again. Which is more the shame, because they were bloody brilliant; even the stuff that you don't probably had never heard and don't know (Peripheral or Finish, to name but two) is great. All consigned to the great dustbin of history and music press rewriting history whilst the latest Nirvana compilation grabs enough press coverage to fell a Brazilian rainforest; lets not forget that when Nirvana were playing the Kilburn national on the Nevermind Tour in Autumn 1991 Mega City Four were only days away from selling out the same venue, because back in those days they were in the same ballpark.
Last time I saw Mega City Four, was at the Hibernian in Birmingham, playing to a shockingly small number of people - about 80 - at the height of Britpop, their mate Bob from long forgotten Birmingham indie legends Tarbrush (who were bloody great, incidentally) on the t-shirt stall; when I was to play the same venue six years later, it would be a crowd yet bigger again, which is a frankly bizarre thought given how much I really liked Mega City Four. I remember rushing out to buy tickets the day they went on sale, because I was convinced it would sell out incredibly quickly - Megas gigs always had before, and always used to be in venues so much larger than this; after all Three years before they had been able to play to about 1200 or 1600 people, selling out those venues, and now they were playing half empty pubs to the faithful for whom good songs meant more than musical trends and whoever's press agent had paid the drugs bill for the NME that week thus ensuring blanket coverage. Here were a band plowing on the good old fashioned way, devoid of union jacks and dapper tops and visits to the Dagenham dog track festooned everywhere - a band playing songs that mattered to people for whom the trends and fashions meant little. Killed by the fickle music press and their endless quest for the new grunge, they overlooked some of the best bands England had to offer in favour of some tailors dummies with sharp suits and sharper cheekbones who hadn't played a gig in their lives (Menswe@r ,anyone?); and mores the pity. Because the more I think about it, the more I think that MC4 were just one of the best bands of their time, and a damn sight better than most of them around since.
And all I can think of is that guy on stage, lost in the music, playing the chords to himself, just for the joy of it, singing the words that say. Its too late to say those words....
Taking a cue from Mark..... Ten Years On...
01.I was working at a company that no longer exists. I had been hired as a supervisor, but it soon became clear that I gave good interview but had bluffed my way into it, talked it in the interview and not exactly walked it. Five years later, one of the people who was an underling of mine at the time ended up running the store of 30+ staff whilst I languished on the dole. I see a general pattern on unfulfilled potential here really.... Anyway, life at Tower for £3.95 an hour was crap. I had moved into the job from another record shop in Birmingham (Tempest; gross pay £125 a week for 42 hours as a retail grunt), which was a hobby I got paid for in my opinion; a starter job. It was crap, but I made a bad move of moving elsewhere in the same retail industry when I should have been moving upwards, not sidewards.Oh, the benefit of hindisght. I decided to leave pretty quickly, for five reasons.
i)working until eleven o'clock and not getting home before midnight followed by an 8AM start the next day was really utterly unacceptable;
ii) one of the supervisors (Vicky was her name) was knocking off the marketing director of Europe (who looked like Bob Rock, but ugly), and seemingly getting promoted simply because everyone knew what underwear she wore (not that she seemed to wear it very often). The fact she was knocking off the marketing director seemed to be a good bet, but she kept her 6ft 5in alpha male boyfriend very much in the dark about it; this career progress didn't make me feel very hopeful about my future there.
iii)Said supervisor moving my lunch from 1PM to 2PM, and not telling me. Cathy (my girlfriend) had come in to meet me and do lunch, and there I was, unable to go on lunch on her. Said supervisor hadn't bothered to tell me, which really did cause a huge row between me and Cathy.
iv) On the last day, said supervisor stuck me on the graveyard shift ending at eleven o'clock in the evening; which pretty much is social ostracisation by ensuring no leaving drink. On the other hand, I worked my contracted hours by turning up at 9AM and leaving at 6PM. They had to pay me the hours I had worked, and they did, and they couldn't fire me because it was my last day. Safe to say, my conscience was utterly clear.A couple of days later, I popped in to clear my locker (on one of my holiday days), and Vicky said "Thanks for the other day", making clear it was reference to my ot being there. "No problem, any time" I said - completely free of irony. I don't think she liked it that her telling off was completely ignored.
v)The End of day / cashing up training for supervisors was arranged for the weekend I moved house. How much of a coincidence was this? None at all I suspect, because It meant I couldn't be the shift supervisor they had originally said I would be. Funny that. Constructive dismissal, more like.
Tower has since gone bankrupt and folded.. Highlights: meeting marcus, bassplayer of Volume; unlimited overtime , because in the first 4 weeks, I averaged 78 hours a week at time and a half; I would have worked later, but couldn't have got home If I had, meeting the Spice Girls, and getting a box of free promo CDs not for sale which brought me some magnificent records I still love, and some clag I soon traded in. Lowlights: everything other minute of the goddamn place. I really hated the job, and left as soon as I was eligible for my holiday days - three months exactly. Incidentally, if any word of this was untrue, Tower can sue me. As they are currently in receivership, I don't think they will somehow...
2. I went to gigs occasionally - I can't remember how many gigs I saw that year. It averaged once every month at least, maybe more. I went to see the Manics three times, Suede twice, Divine Comedy, three colours red....
3.I was living with Cathy, a girl from Nuneaton. (Anyone who knows Mark in london might occasionally meet her, for she works at Pret a Manger now I gather). We sort of knew each other vaguely by going to the same gigs all the time, bumping into her on the periphery of people you did know. For example, she knew Nick (son of a police man) from Middlesbrough who used to follow Carter USM around on all their dates, and occasionally shacking up with Josh (who lived in the next tower block to Cath). Josh and Cath knew Andy, my mate in Scarborough who I went out to the Academy the other month, as did my friend Donna, who I've known since January 1994. Funnily enough, Scottish Girl also knew Nick and Josh, having attended many Carter gigs herself. Its a very small world, I suppose. Anyway, Cath went out to Edwards one night with Andy, where Andy had arranged to meet me, and that's how me and Cathy met.
4.I kept a diary for a couple of years, that ended on exactly the day I moved into my first shared home, with Cathy, in Kitts Green. A newish two bedroom house for £325 a month, (I pay less now, thank god) about half way to the airport by Lea Hall railway station. Half five every morning, the low flying jets would wake me up. The buses were bloody dreadful, as they'd only run once every half an hour, and often whilst at Tower I was rota'd in at 8AM on a Sunday - problem was that the first bus didn't run that early. The kids used to like throwing snowballs at the windows at random moments, which freaked Cath out no end, and Cath was convinced that the owners of the house kept coming in and out of the house and snooping around at random moments. (This had a lot to do with her violent ex, though). They sold up months later.
5.I had sex with one (1) woman, though I snogged many more because Edwards was still open and I've never really pulled anywhere else. I can't remember how many I kissed, their faces or names, though one was a slim petit redhead with glasses who was about sixteen, another a Shirley Manson lookalike, and another the sister of someone who was once on semi-finals of Pop Idol. (Incidentally I stopped counting how many I've snogged in nightclubs a long time ago, at about 52 or so; once I could remember every face and name, now I can't even remember the number; its just not important any longer) Its funny how when you are in a relationship, you suddenly seem to become more desirable to others; because many others certainly tried once me and Cathy got together. They weren't successful because me and Cath stayed together for three years in the end.
6.The beginning of 1996 started with my usual quipping, and the worst Christmas I ever seem to remember having. My mother had died a couple of months before, and I seem to remember my dad parading me around in front of friends to prove how musically talented I was. I was basically bullied into playing an utterly terrible, utterly unfinished song at the Christmas dinner table. It wasn't very good, and i feel utterly appalled I ever played it to anyone. Sorry
7. In 1996, I spent most of the year working in a 'cool' record shop (ie an independent shop specialising in metal/hardcore/punk) ; accordingly, I ended up having lot of fairweather friends who only wanted a cool person to hang out with to impress their mates. I always - like now - kept such people at a distance, at arms length. If you want to know me, its me you want to know; not what I can do for you, not who I am, not the chimeriac mirage of some cool guy in a record shop.
8.I didn't do any writing, I didn't write any songs, I stayed in a lot, went out a lot, watched a few videos, made homemade compilation tapes. I went to the cinema once or twice that I remember - Trainspotting. and possibly Mars Attacks. I go to the movies a little bit more now. I was supposed to go to a date with a girl from a shop over the road to see Independence Day , but she rang me on a Sunday about five minutes after I'd gone out to a record fair. (I should really have stayed indoors, shouldn't i?)
9. I cooked a lot. Me and mark had a deal - I cooked when I got home from work, and he did the washing up and clothes. I wasn't a very good cook, and there was a awful lot of Pasta consumed. Sorry. I've not really wanted to cook pasta since.
10. And now, I'm in a much better way. I've got a job, my own place, a freedom I never could have imagiend before - I've always shared or lived with someone, and I can't imagine ever compromising like that. I'd be hell to live with, and hell, i even annoy myself sometimes.
I'm not much tidier though.
01.I was working at a company that no longer exists. I had been hired as a supervisor, but it soon became clear that I gave good interview but had bluffed my way into it, talked it in the interview and not exactly walked it. Five years later, one of the people who was an underling of mine at the time ended up running the store of 30+ staff whilst I languished on the dole. I see a general pattern on unfulfilled potential here really.... Anyway, life at Tower for £3.95 an hour was crap. I had moved into the job from another record shop in Birmingham (Tempest; gross pay £125 a week for 42 hours as a retail grunt), which was a hobby I got paid for in my opinion; a starter job. It was crap, but I made a bad move of moving elsewhere in the same retail industry when I should have been moving upwards, not sidewards.Oh, the benefit of hindisght. I decided to leave pretty quickly, for five reasons.
i)working until eleven o'clock and not getting home before midnight followed by an 8AM start the next day was really utterly unacceptable;
ii) one of the supervisors (Vicky was her name) was knocking off the marketing director of Europe (who looked like Bob Rock, but ugly), and seemingly getting promoted simply because everyone knew what underwear she wore (not that she seemed to wear it very often). The fact she was knocking off the marketing director seemed to be a good bet, but she kept her 6ft 5in alpha male boyfriend very much in the dark about it; this career progress didn't make me feel very hopeful about my future there.
iii)Said supervisor moving my lunch from 1PM to 2PM, and not telling me. Cathy (my girlfriend) had come in to meet me and do lunch, and there I was, unable to go on lunch on her. Said supervisor hadn't bothered to tell me, which really did cause a huge row between me and Cathy.
iv) On the last day, said supervisor stuck me on the graveyard shift ending at eleven o'clock in the evening; which pretty much is social ostracisation by ensuring no leaving drink. On the other hand, I worked my contracted hours by turning up at 9AM and leaving at 6PM. They had to pay me the hours I had worked, and they did, and they couldn't fire me because it was my last day. Safe to say, my conscience was utterly clear.A couple of days later, I popped in to clear my locker (on one of my holiday days), and Vicky said "Thanks for the other day", making clear it was reference to my ot being there. "No problem, any time" I said - completely free of irony. I don't think she liked it that her telling off was completely ignored.
v)The End of day / cashing up training for supervisors was arranged for the weekend I moved house. How much of a coincidence was this? None at all I suspect, because It meant I couldn't be the shift supervisor they had originally said I would be. Funny that. Constructive dismissal, more like.
Tower has since gone bankrupt and folded.. Highlights: meeting marcus, bassplayer of Volume; unlimited overtime , because in the first 4 weeks, I averaged 78 hours a week at time and a half; I would have worked later, but couldn't have got home If I had, meeting the Spice Girls, and getting a box of free promo CDs not for sale which brought me some magnificent records I still love, and some clag I soon traded in. Lowlights: everything other minute of the goddamn place. I really hated the job, and left as soon as I was eligible for my holiday days - three months exactly. Incidentally, if any word of this was untrue, Tower can sue me. As they are currently in receivership, I don't think they will somehow...
2. I went to gigs occasionally - I can't remember how many gigs I saw that year. It averaged once every month at least, maybe more. I went to see the Manics three times, Suede twice, Divine Comedy, three colours red....
3.I was living with Cathy, a girl from Nuneaton. (Anyone who knows Mark in london might occasionally meet her, for she works at Pret a Manger now I gather). We sort of knew each other vaguely by going to the same gigs all the time, bumping into her on the periphery of people you did know. For example, she knew Nick (son of a police man) from Middlesbrough who used to follow Carter USM around on all their dates, and occasionally shacking up with Josh (who lived in the next tower block to Cath). Josh and Cath knew Andy, my mate in Scarborough who I went out to the Academy the other month, as did my friend Donna, who I've known since January 1994. Funnily enough, Scottish Girl also knew Nick and Josh, having attended many Carter gigs herself. Its a very small world, I suppose. Anyway, Cath went out to Edwards one night with Andy, where Andy had arranged to meet me, and that's how me and Cathy met.
4.I kept a diary for a couple of years, that ended on exactly the day I moved into my first shared home, with Cathy, in Kitts Green. A newish two bedroom house for £325 a month, (I pay less now, thank god) about half way to the airport by Lea Hall railway station. Half five every morning, the low flying jets would wake me up. The buses were bloody dreadful, as they'd only run once every half an hour, and often whilst at Tower I was rota'd in at 8AM on a Sunday - problem was that the first bus didn't run that early. The kids used to like throwing snowballs at the windows at random moments, which freaked Cath out no end, and Cath was convinced that the owners of the house kept coming in and out of the house and snooping around at random moments. (This had a lot to do with her violent ex, though). They sold up months later.
5.I had sex with one (1) woman, though I snogged many more because Edwards was still open and I've never really pulled anywhere else. I can't remember how many I kissed, their faces or names, though one was a slim petit redhead with glasses who was about sixteen, another a Shirley Manson lookalike, and another the sister of someone who was once on semi-finals of Pop Idol. (Incidentally I stopped counting how many I've snogged in nightclubs a long time ago, at about 52 or so; once I could remember every face and name, now I can't even remember the number; its just not important any longer) Its funny how when you are in a relationship, you suddenly seem to become more desirable to others; because many others certainly tried once me and Cathy got together. They weren't successful because me and Cath stayed together for three years in the end.
6.The beginning of 1996 started with my usual quipping, and the worst Christmas I ever seem to remember having. My mother had died a couple of months before, and I seem to remember my dad parading me around in front of friends to prove how musically talented I was. I was basically bullied into playing an utterly terrible, utterly unfinished song at the Christmas dinner table. It wasn't very good, and i feel utterly appalled I ever played it to anyone. Sorry
7. In 1996, I spent most of the year working in a 'cool' record shop (ie an independent shop specialising in metal/hardcore/punk) ; accordingly, I ended up having lot of fairweather friends who only wanted a cool person to hang out with to impress their mates. I always - like now - kept such people at a distance, at arms length. If you want to know me, its me you want to know; not what I can do for you, not who I am, not the chimeriac mirage of some cool guy in a record shop.
8.I didn't do any writing, I didn't write any songs, I stayed in a lot, went out a lot, watched a few videos, made homemade compilation tapes. I went to the cinema once or twice that I remember - Trainspotting. and possibly Mars Attacks. I go to the movies a little bit more now. I was supposed to go to a date with a girl from a shop over the road to see Independence Day , but she rang me on a Sunday about five minutes after I'd gone out to a record fair. (I should really have stayed indoors, shouldn't i?)
9. I cooked a lot. Me and mark had a deal - I cooked when I got home from work, and he did the washing up and clothes. I wasn't a very good cook, and there was a awful lot of Pasta consumed. Sorry. I've not really wanted to cook pasta since.
10. And now, I'm in a much better way. I've got a job, my own place, a freedom I never could have imagiend before - I've always shared or lived with someone, and I can't imagine ever compromising like that. I'd be hell to live with, and hell, i even annoy myself sometimes.
I'm not much tidier though.
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