i'm bursting for a wii

ah, mii

well, thanks to a lovely couple of days at Troubadour Mansions i have sustained my first injurwii.
mr. troubadour has recently purchased that new-fangled technology known as THE NINTENDO WII!

it's a little white plastic work of japanese genius. at last, a games console that everyone can join in with. no longer will games machines be limited to geeky boys with muscular thumbs. everyone can play this thing, everyone. in fact, my sister and troubadours grandfather have turned out to be the ultimate wii bowling warriors.
but i've destroyed my right arm.
because the wii controls utilise ACTUAL BODILY MOVEMENT instead of the thumb twiddling we're used to, after two days of bowling, tennis, baseball and golf i've pulled my bicep, shoulder and the right hand side of my back.

so this is exercise.

but its so much fun, i will have to get one.
wiiiiii!!!!!

i'm terribly rude

oh, my mother would be so proud...

please forgive me; i'm about to get all giggly for a bit. this evening I sat down with The Shoelace to indulge in a bit of viewing of the new Mighty Boosh Live DVD. you may be a fan of the show. you may never have heard of it.

i fall into the previous category.

so we decided to watch the behind-the-scenes documentary on the disc. about ten minutes in i realised that much of the footage was taken at Brixton Academy on the night i was there. 'Hurrah,' thought i, isn't it nice to see something you were at; on screen at a later date. you, like, get a little insight as to what was going on backstage and stuff.
how lovely.
then the camera swoops out over the audience.. and there i am in all my Plain Lazy-hoodied glory.
ah-ha!
what a thrill.
me, on a dvd.
lovely.

so that was nice. but it didn't end there. that same evening, the performance was riddled with what can only be descibed as an idiot-fuckwit who thought he was funny, heckling... badly, and generally getting on everyone's tits. especially Noel & Julian, the mighty boosh themselves.
i'll cut a long story a bit shorter. noel, so irritated by this idiot encouraged the audience to shout 'shut the fuck up' at him.

i didn't think this quite enough
i thought he deserved more
and at the very tippetty-top of my voice
for all to hear
added the words
'YOU CUNT'

a little event that made it onto the DVD.
also, cut to backstage later where the guys are talking about the twat heckler
and they mention someone shouting 'you cunt' at him.
and they liked it.

and part of me is sorry for shouting that word.
but a bigger part of me is quite smug that the boosh said i have "really good comic timing."

and it IS only a word.

hey, some people I know sell cunt colouring books in their shop.

anyway, i don't care, Noel Fielding said i was cool on a top-selling dvd.

awesome in a tin.

i'm pc

if you're reading this blog on a mac or through firefox it'll probably look all shitted up.

sorry about that. the code was written for internet explorer, i'm not sure why it looks so bad on the others.

okay bye.

i'm goose-stepping to freedom & unity

What a shocker. The irony is it started from a queen's speech that reflected on the broad differences between age groups and ethnic and religious faiths.

Now I don't really watch the queen's speech normally. I can't imagine she has anything particularly interesting or useful to say. I'm sure her speech has been exstensively and expertly prepared by a team of PR twats and spin doctors anyway. I watch The West Wing, I know how it works.

But I was in the lounge when my grandparents gazed admiringly at the loveable old dear in her flourescant green two-piece and matching hat, and my siblings gazed pleadingly at me; asking for help with only the moisture around their eyes. I was taking a drinks order, you see.

So the Queen's speech this xmas day was orchestrated from a school. Hard done by and - to be honest - bored looking children were scattered nonchalantly about, working on collages and other such christmassy art. And there was the teacher overseeing (causing me to question the suggestion that its a live broadcast as I feel it should be*). A teacher of African origin dressed in traditional Ghanian style 'sunday best' brightly coloured and garishly patterned robe and head-dress.
To which my wonderful good christian grandma exclaimed, 'ugh, why did they have to let the blacks on it?!'

Holy.
Shit.

Did she really just say that?

Yes. She did.

The royal old dear's speech went on to talk about the growing divide between religious beliefs. Cut to some stock footage of some praying muslims.
'Oh for goodness sake!' came the little voice from the armchair in the corner of the lounge.

Disbelief flushed over the faces of my siblings and I. The room momentarily blurred. What. The. Fuck?

I don't ever remember my grandma being quite so racist before. There were always elements of it, but never loud, brash exclamations. I'm still a bit dumbfounded. Especially when you add the following:

Later that evening the entire family sat round and added ourselves to the nationwide list of families sitting around watching shite christmas TV. Hurrah!
The Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special! (though Emma Bunton is welcome to... ahem... anyway...)

'where's he from?' questioned my granny about a sprightly young italian ballroom dancer.
'italy,' we replied.
'wop.'

... Silence

...

'what's a wop?' asked my brother's girlfriend.
'a racist term for italian.' says I.
'it's not racist,' explained nan, 'they are wops. theres nothing wrong with them as long as they stay in their own country. like the other foreigners.'

And so the evening went on. There were many more similar conversations. I couldn't quite believe a lot of what I was hearing. Especially as Shoelace sat next to me, my sister's husband, a notable fraction of whom is of Indian descent.

And my other grandma told of when she recently 'went down the paki shop.'

!

Seriously. I know.

It's lucky we have the older generations to pass down their wisdom isn't it? Today I also learned that Germans are untrustworthy and learning a foreign language is pointless.

We did agree on one thing though; Eastenders is pathetic.
They still watched it all the way through, though. The whole hour.

Oh well. Let the oldies be nutters I say.

Auf wiedersehen,
Dos vedenya,
Au revoir,
Bye bye.

[* she doesn't appear to do an awful lot the rest of the year unless someone dies.]

i'm handling santa's bulging sack

merry christmas everybody

merry. frickin. christmas.

(woo-yeah!)

i'm here

so the year draws to its inevitable close
the time when we all look back over the past 12 months and say things like "wasn't it traumatic" and "i hope next year will be better" and other very british ways of putting our lives down and conveying to the world that we're not very content without actually saying we're not very content.

cheer that shit up, i say.

i have nothing to complain about. not even subtley.
this year i have replenished relationships with some very dear people, i have won a court case, a friend paid for me to go to new york, i have been promoted at work, i have discovered the fun of dating, i vision-mixed the live stage-show of dick an dom in da bungalow, i did a musical in a professional london theatre, i survived a bike crash, i sound engineered the royal philharmonic orchestra, i've nearly filled an 80gb iPod... big stuff.

i also fired myself into a project with my nearest and dearest which has been, and looks like it might continue to be the most rewarding chapter of my life.

there was also going to be a list of people i've met completely new this year that improved on what was before: lois, rachel, space-cat, anisa, sarah-louise, red, amy, golbey, gus, amish, warren, lizzy... but it's not exhaustive and i know if i try to complete it i'll leave people out. if i met you this year, consider yourself on the list.

and, 'hi'

i'm in quite a contemplative mood, but i also have to be up early to go to work. yeah. bummer.

i'll just leave it with:
well done 2006, you knocked it up a notch

and i go to mongolia next year! aiight.

i'm about to broaden your horizon

i've just discovered that another of my loved ones has been writing a blog.
a new link hath appeared to your left entitled "the music"

read and enjoy.

i'm spiralling in and out

or christmas one comes but once every three years

it's funny how your emotive response can still catch you off your guard and take you by surprise. i've had 26 years of first-hand experience with my neurological reflexes, so i thought i would pretty much be able able to predict how my mind would react to certain events.
turns out, you can't always know where your emotions are going to take you.

christmas one happened yesterday. it travelled light, but it did bring with it a beautifully leather-bound volume of nostalgia, a huge ladle-full of laughter and a bucket of contentment. strangely though, it added a little pinch of frustrating salt. it added flavour, but it was unnecessary.

two salty emotive responses. two steps back. two deep breaths of stale history.

but believe me, not enough to ruin the day. and to prove it i will tell you about the day, and how much i loved it. and how i wish these people hadn't disappeared for 4 years. and how every moment relaxed and entertained and enriched. and how a smile appears from the dark and a happy tear falls.

like returning to the womb. like pulling in the blankets. like stretching open welcoming arms.

like i had been for a long long walk during which i'd forgotten what home looked like, only to return to it years later. it was the same home, but older. and wiser. evolved. with a rich, sweet life of it's own. but with the same sofa, and the same smell. and the same heat of the open fire that never went out.


i love these people. an elastic bond has been stretched in many directions. so thin in places that it's almost invisible. microscopic. but reel that bond in, relax the tension time brings, and that elastic returns to its original breadth. sorry about the fucking cheesey metaphor. i'll leave it there and won't mention it again.

i love these people. there is a chapter of my life that is almost without blemish. not so much as a crease. these people are largely responsible for it. six irreplaceable loved ones. people who enrich the world with all their faults and triumphs.

a feast.

just a shame about the two unexpected reflex actions. but they'll disappear with time.

i expect.

i'm in need of some rest

i just found a grey hair.

i'm effortless

yesterday I was asked the strangest of strange questions.
it went like this little morsel of buttock clenching drama:

FROGLOVER: Jon, can I ask you a strange question?
COWBOY: Is that the question? [I always say that, I’m not sorry]
FROGLOVER: Um….?
COWBOY: Always.
FROGLOVER: Okay, er… is your cheeriness natural and effortless, or is it quite hard work keeping it up?
COWBOY: …….

oh, there are so many threads I can go down from that.
1stly; yes this did actually happen. The Whackwit was there and I’m sure he’ll testify.
2ndly; it’s not a question I’ve ever had to think about answering (see thread 3) so I was a little stumped to say the least.
3rdly; it wasn’t too long ago that I was repeatedly referred to as the grumpy old man who hated everything and everyone that wasn’t me. This was only partly true and was more of an act than my real feelings.
4thly; am I really terrible at putting on my grumpy old man act?
5thly; am I actually a really cheery person? I didn’t know that.
6rdly; what a weird question to ask someone.
7thly; but actually quite a nice thing to say all things considered, I guess, I s’pose… is it? I don’t know really. Um… yeah.
8thstly; I suppose if I didn’t realise I was doing it, that means it comes under the effortless/natural realm of answers.
monthly; I now have this strange feeling of pressure that I have to remain cheery all the time, from now on. This is quite easy at the moment as I’m pretty content and am looking forward to a lovely lovely festive weekend with a selection of the finest people in existence.
tree; but what about when something bad happens?
thee-ly; it’s only the opinion of one person. I’m sure everyone else thinks I’m a grumpy old man.
1.1enthly; I’m more comfortable with that so we’ll leave it there.

just thought it was odd, in a confusingly nice way so I though i’d share it.

i'm animated

thought i'd do one as the others have. baaa!

i'm philharmonic

well, there you go. i done-did sound-engineered my first solo music gig. a little bit of being thrown in at the deep end, yuh. that be the royal philharmonic orchestra. indeed. and the choir of london.

admittedly they didn't need much in the way of engineering, but the soloist's did. so i had to balance soloists against the might of the 'phil.'
i had a smashing time, what.
most proud moment would have been clara sanabras (the spanish soprano soloist) who played a beautifully hand-carved baroque guitar - the quietest of instruments.. well, her manager came over to me and said how impressed he was how good she sounded.

*quiet little victory dance*

so, yeah... i wanna do more music. maybe i will, but i think i should probably get the mongolia trip out of the way before i look for a new job, yeah?

(woo!)

i'm backward

look-see
a countdown to when i return to return to the forbidden planet

(available at the top)

i'm soon to be another embarrassing memory

it's an exciting time. this weekend i travel off to mummy and daddy cowboy's eastern town-house to take part in that event that we all know and cherish... the official family photograph.

i'm so happy.

actually it'll be quite fun... compared to the last one, which was taken about 15 years ago. back when mr. & mrs. cowboy decided on what clothing the little cowboys and girl should wear. ah, those were the days.

back when paisley patterns were the norm.
back when trousers weren't meant to hang below the ankles.
back when side-parted hair prevented the grandparents getting too confused.
back when skin was afresh and lacked experience.
back when i had no more influences or life experiences than your average mop.
back when my waist was still waist high.

but at least i won't look back on this one and think i looked like a twat.

unless i pull a funny face.