deliverance

shunt

i must tell you about one of the best venues and one the the funnest cabaret ideas what i did experience on friday, these...

shunt is an awesome 'members club' underneath london bridge, hidden in the shadows of railway arches amongst the strange, the circus and the unusual. it's a performance art club and anything goes.

anything.

the time i went before, the evening was interrupted by a rather large naked dude who ran amongst the revelers only to have a bucket of tinned tomatoes fall from the ceiling on top of him. after throwing himself around a bit in a frenzy of ketchup manufacture he ran onto a small stage where another bucket (this time of sand) fell atop his head. more writhing about then back into the crowd/dancers/audience whereupon a bucket of water drenched him and anyone standing nearby.

he was one of the owners it turns out.

so yeah.... anything.

but last friday i went off to the good old freakshow in support of an old friend of the troubadour's who was performing with her band - karauke - please do go to the website for information, but in short they are a ukulele band who put on karaoke gigs. like karaoke, but with a 15-piece ukulele band instead of a little machine with a microphone attached to it.

check them out. go and see them. and sign up early to do a song. don't hesitate like i did and by the time you've psyched yourself up enough to go on stage and you're really excited... time has run out and the gig is over.

shame, because my ukulele backed rendition of kaiser chiefs "oh my god" was to be the stuff of legend...

karauke

basic instinct

fight club

a view to a kill

view from the top

for those of you who give a monkey's, some more things of my new job that is nice, yes.
a big fat screen

deep impact

i did my first day of my new job.

i was given a lot of information.

my head feels like it will burst open.

this is sort of like my new office and that:

east bound & down

well, that's it. my time at central hall, westminster has come to an end. at the risk of sounding institutionalised it's been my life since december 2005. jeez, that sounds like a long time.

working there has been a big fat mixed bag o' nuts, featuring the all time lowest points of my mental and physical states, all the way up to laughing uncontrollably and the occasional immense & warming sense of pride in my abilities and dedication. i will miss the place, whether i like it or not. there are some fantastic people there, a couple of fucking morons, but generally through the years i have seen some brilliant people come and go. and it's been great to be honest.

i'm so glad i'm leaving to go and do a new, interesting, varied, better-paid, different job... but as my emotions got a little better of me last night at my good-bye drinks it turns out i do actually really love the place and it's a bit hard for me to leave. thanks to all who turned out to my leaving do, loads of people came to see me off (probably to make sure i was actually going), i think you are all excellent.

also thanks to those who didn't come but gave real reasons.

i'm sure i'll see you all when i pop back now and again. the cafe does a mean jacket potato.

the lost world

right now i'm watching a documentary about steven hawking and how he proved that the world is being sucked slowly into a kind of warp thing made by the sun. he's said that stars shrink to the size of atoms and eat light, and that the entire of existence was once "infinitely small" and you could've fit the universe in your pocket. he can 'prove' that the universe began from a singularity, but doesn't know what a singularity is.

it's a very interesting theory, but one that he can't prove until he manufactures a black hole. which is impossible. i'm not denying that he is a very intelligent man. stupidly intelligent. but while he can put a load of maths and physics to his hypotheses, it is still speculation until it is demonstrated.

i think that black holes are created by space monkeys who build them using a machine that looks like a petrol generator with a bucket under it that you throw clam shells at. if you give the monkeys ikea furniture then they'll rustle up a new galaxy for you.

i can prove it with this diagram:

lonesome town

Beneath the ounces of foundation and mascara'd lids you can almost detect a sense of immense beauty. She hides it away under number seven and a layer of self depreciation. The late night holds a secret; some shocking encouragement so forth her lap is filled with a thorntons white chocolate easter egg.

Half eaten.

Melted milky magma coats her fingers and fingernails like something off-white and unspeakable. Her sweet banquet is momentarily blocked by the gaggle of unbalanced party goers rocking into the train, all high-heels and legs and giggles and indiscriminate flirting.

She sighs and places the egg back in its package. It nestles guiltily. Licking her fingers is her final battle.

inner space

a bunch of my energy has recently been directed to The Odd Cast. you should subscribe too it if you haven't already. do it here if you like:
subscribe to the odd cast

it's the hard knock life

yes, you are right; i haven't written in a while. not at length anyway. the age-old excuse will suffice - i've been busy at work dear. to be honest it's been a bit ridiculous and the last few months of last year drove me quite near to the edge of insanity. i was only ever at work, barely a spare moment to myself let alone to the ones i love. there was actually a point around mid-november where i realised i hadn't seen any friends or family for a month. four weeks! to be honest, that's just utter stupidity: work/sleep/work/sleep, for 28 days. nothing social in that time, only a selfless contribution to someone else's paycheck. this in the midst of a whole year of nightmarishly hard labour and dwindling social activity.

then a meeting, with some monkey who supposedly manages the company. "as a department we thrashed our targets to pieces this year, individually i have been instrumental in this and have taken on the work of someone in an entirely different pay scale. how about i get a pay rise and some indication as to when i will stop having to work 75 hour weeks?" said i.
"unfortunately the rest of the company didn't do so well so your department's contribution isn't really worth a rat's cock," came the reply, or something similar, "and we can't give you a pay rise now because you only had one 11 months ago and we can only look at salaries once a year."
"because of what reason?" me.
"because that's how it works." him.
"oh, that makes perfect sense. and what about the unreasonable amount of time that i've spent in this building over the last few months?"
"you won't find a job in this industry that allows you a 40 hour week, mate."
"don't call me 'mate' you ignorant patronising fuck."
(i may have paraphrased that a little for dramatic effect, but the sentiment was certainly there)

well, to cut a longish story short i handed my resignation in a few days later; when i found that i had spent 5 days in a constant state of teetering on the edge of losing my temper. bearing in mind that i've only lost my temper once before in my life and that was when when someone hit me with a mercedes, this wasn't a mind set i enjoyed wallowing in. so i quickly wrote a letter and gave it in.

it was a nice feeling. then i thought - i should get a new job, then..... um, yeah.

"you won't find a job in this industry that allows you a 40 hour week, mate."

except... i have.

here:

and they're going to pay me much more money.

suck on that you morale-destroying cocktard.

oranges are not the only fruit

i have recently spent a stupidly large amount of money on a lovely mac laptop. i will be running this (what i am typing on right now) and my windows based PC for the time being; subconsciously comparing the two i guess, whether i want to or not.

much as i am purposefully going to resist becoming one of those horrible self-righteous militant apple users that you encounter far too regularly, it does seem that OS Leopard is quite ridiculously a lot better that XP. no surprise there i suppose.

as long as i don't have to go any where near Vista, i'm a happy man.

the italian job

if - by some very strange and pleasant set of coincidences - the gorgeous girl i met today with a coat of the same name and trouble with her mackerel, is reading this... please do get in touch. this would be most agreeable.

super mario bros.

the odd cast

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the young ones

i casually look out of the side of my eye at the menu on his ipod; as i like to do when i'm sitting there waiting for my wheeled tube to reach its destination. i like to see what different people choose to hear when they adjourn. you see

he wears a conservative trenchcoat and business tie. grey makes cameos on his temples. his shoes are sensible, but to him a luxury. the celebrity page of a badly written free newspaper holds his attention.

he is listening to a dora the explorer audio book.

walk the dinosaur

for all of those thousands of readers out there who are completely enamoured by everything i do and say, you have another chance to update your life on my life on a regular occasion. me, shoelace and troubadour have just embarked on a slippery route to recording a podcast. i've bought a load of recording equipment and we've sat down and talked inanely for a few hours.

click here and you'll be whisked off to a page where you can download "The Odd Cast." eventually it will be on iTunes and you can automatically do it for free automatically. presently there's only the first episode, with more to come very soon. the first one is a bit rough, but bear with it they are getting awesome.

or just listen to it here:

The Odd Cast Episo...

of course you may just be completely bored by it, but it passes the time on a journey to work now and again doesn't it?

I've been to the year 3000

I got a new phone. It does a lot of things like push email and video calls. I am using it to do this blog while I'm sitting on a bus.

It doesn't let me type in only lowercase letters though, as is my normal style.

To be honest, the only reason I'm writing this entry is to see whether this phone has the same layout problems that my last one did in transfer from handset to internet. Pretty dull for you guys.

Yep.

it was a very good year

yes, it's 2008. the year i become older than i ever thought i'd be. and it's the time of year when you look back at last year and mull over how goodish it were. then you look at the year ahead and wonder how goodish you can make it be.

as for last year:
i took an amazing trip across eurasia, ran a youth theatre event for some amazing kids, i bought a massive jeep, kissed some mighty fine ladies, didn't crash ANY vehicles, bought an expensive suit, got drunk & smoked with my equally sober best friend, spent a great deal of time with my wonderful friends, stood up to my boss, went to at least one gig every month, worked through tonsillitis, threw caution to the wind a good few times, ate a snake....

it'll be a tough one to beat, but to encourage a good beating this year i plan to:
1 get a new job
2 have two proper holidays
3 throw caution to the wind a good few times
4 marry each one of you in turn
5 seize every opportunity to do good stuff
6 discover a new favourite band
7 wear hats a lot
8 see my wonderful friends more

quite generic, i know, but... whatever

if i can pull off 5 of those 8, i will consider it perfection.

one down

i am legend

his face is familiar. as he climbs from a silver car an earring glints in the lights, flickering like a strobe. he smiles at no-one and smooths down a crease in his jacket. calmly he hides a wince as the december cool pokes a finger under his shirt with exploratory depth. acting, i guess.

hollywood teeth.

i expect he has spent most of the day in front of a mirror with a thousand well paid amazons stroking and carving and licking where possible. there is a response in the area that i don't quite understand. i spend the next ten minutes pondering it as i walk away, buffeted by latecomers desperate to glimpse his million dollar smile or his pristine wife.

they could just wait for tomorrow's edition of london lite, if they could stand the words.

it is noisy back there, and camera flashes are busy using up expensive batteries. it must be a little weird for him.
sometimes.
if he thinks about it.

i'm no superman

he thinks he's clark kent or something. hair, glasses, suit and tie all measure up. There is a giveaway though. underneath it all, he's a couple of feet shorter than me and about half as wide.

his tie is left only half done like he was in mid-change in a phonebox when he got the call from the tube.

it may be a fake tan, but i'm not so sure. he seems the type though.

if it were twenty years ago he'd be shouting down a big grey breeze block of a phone, struggling with the weight of its solid polycarbonate aerial. this would continue even into the tube system to keep everyone in the know about his business expertise, wealth and self-belief. today, instead, he covers the cover of his spy book with a dorothy perkins bag.

he maintains a puffed up chest in order to make him appear bigger and more solid. the breath control needed for this results in a constant look of concern.

big

he is enormous. before we settle in opposite seats we stood by each other with him towering above me as far as the roof allowed. tall and wide and thick. he has grown his hair long, thrown carelessly into an elastic banded horses tail.

i count 10 badges on his donkey jacket, each a weird tribal or comic book design apart from one pink ribbon. one has fallen off leaving just safety pin and some glue.

his head is slightly over sized for his features. his eyes are no where near symmetrical.

he is studying a badly written paper that will have been handed to him by some guy dressed in purple. there is an ironic smirk on his face as if to say "these guys are terrible journalists, but this is a free paper."

his fingernails are long and his arms are more hairy than average.