Kicking Fish

More Top-Class Youtube

2011-06-08T02:11:00.000+01:00

Inspired to put finger to key this week by The Guardian's excellent Classic Youtube rundown, and one link they threw up in particular. Only on Youtube will you find a video of a kid doing a bicycle kick degenerating into an argument about the War of 1812. You couldn't write, you really couldn't...

Just me?

2011-05-19T14:26:00.000+01:00

Wasting time fucking around on other people's blogs, you see some odd things. This is one of those things. Don't know what it is, but the sight of all these tiny cars, dead silent on the grid, scares the crap out of me. Answers on a postcard...

Plus the Japanese guy at the end's a fucking hero. Pretty much as you'd expect a Japanese professional toy car driver to look.

Trying something different

2011-04-26T13:57:00.000+01:00

If I'm going to be sitting around doing nothing, I reckon it's time to try and get one of these books out of me. Haven't finished one in years. So I'm going to change things up a bit.

When I used to get things done, I always worked solid for two or three hours from the end of school till the folks got back with dinner, then generally another few hours late at night until sleep happened. So I'm going to try imposing this schedule on myself again, see what I can get done. Yesterday I managed to get a fair amount of background work done on a novel I tried to write for NaNoWriMo a couple years back, which fell flat on its face. I'll keep you posted.

-j

"Well excuse me all to hell..."

2011-04-13T15:26:00.002+01:00

Interesting Diversion of the Day: The people at ToolShed got annoyed that March Madness (whatever the fuck that is) ended, and have instituted Tool Madness, a round robin tournament to determine the greatest Tool song. Get on it here.

Turns out Tool is the best room-cleaning music known to man - I've just turned my hovel from a Fukushima impersonator into something resembling human living quarters in the time it took Maynard and the boys to get through three songs. The things a man does when he's nothing better to do...

Speaking of, a documentary I found myself watching yesterday. I want that guy to be my granda... and this guy on my da's side. The family functions would be immense.

Keep it simple, keep it honest
-j

I have a new favourite sport

2011-03-25T14:41:00.002Z

Fan as I am of men with unusually co-ordinated feet and men falling over, on discovering these lads, I decided we should all just stop inventing games - it's been sorted people, everyone just get onto their nearest oversized net dealer and have a nice game of Sepak Takraw. I'll see ye's in hospital.

Keep 'er airborne

-j

Fuckit, why not...

2011-03-24T02:05:00.002Z

I may - *hack hack cough* blue thundering fuck it's dusty in here - as I was saying, I may just have been persuaded to scribble about things over the tubes again about things slightly less fictional, by Grieve, the man behind TheGrieve and Capsuleering (I may have had a hand in the latter, you can tell by the foulness of some of it). So I thought I'd give this place a spring cleaning while I'm about it. Updates to follow.

[Wow, six... seven spurious links and two cusses in under a hundred words? Right back in the saddle...]

Footballing Philosophy Corner

2010-11-12T21:28:00.001Z

This week, Spurs legend Danny Blanchflower, on seeing a 35-yard punt let in by a woeful keeper in the formative years of US televised sah-kerrr, and being told by TV chiefs to 'be positive' about it, i.e., not slate the ballbag. The bigwigs told him "We think there are two truths, a positive truth and a negative truth." They struck a nerve.

"Why had such inventive souls stopped at only two, I wondered? Why not four truths? Or 10? The philosophical winds of it swept through my mind. If they had two truths they must have two gods … But if there was no bad, how could there be good? What would their reactions have been if I had said of the goalkeeper at St Louis: Well, folks ... that sure was good negative play on his part, making it easy for them to score that great goal."

More great criac in the footballing sense here, here and here.

For a Few Dollars More...

2010-09-13T11:22:00.002+01:00

Return to Belfast is it, aye? Not fucking likely.

Predictably enough, you find me in a fairly strident frame of mind. Here I sit, with the flat in a reasonable state of repair at last, at half nine in the morning, with fuck all to do, and a little fire in my belly (along with some Nesquik cereal).

Since my last little missive I've been turned down for a gig in Teletech, the job equivalent of a Roma accordion player throwing your twenty pee back in your face. Cue an exponential increase in the applications being sent out - everything from window cleaner to shop manager, from sofa salesman to financial advisor- if there was a hole in a business in Liverpool, Belfast, or anywhere else, I stuck my oar in it. I thought I'd sniffed out a few promising leads, and was kind of half-way preparing to shift myself back off to Belfast.

But no. Every alley turned out to be a blind one. Never has one man been told politely to fuck off so many times. And with the landlord having the cheek to threaten legal action, despite the walls being the only consistently working thing in the flat, I was forced to pawn my guitar and bass. In all my years of dodging creditors, this was a new low. But I suppose there's no point having an electric instrument if it's getting wrecked in the rain as you sleep in the park.

I may well have skipped town at this point, and probably would have done if I hadn't signed a nasty little contract on the flat, which would have nicely shafted my new housemates. And just as I was about to steal a dirigible and start paddling, I got a call back off one of the sheaf of call centre applications I'd fired out over the last month. They told me to land down with some paperwork, and I'd have an interview that week. So pausing to thank whatever idiot spirit it is that smiles on me at these times, off I strut to a dole office in town.

Imagine my pleasantly surprised face as Blue Bill (one of my housemates - rampant Protestant but nice bloke, as long as you're not female and within fifty yards) sashays up for the same interview. Now imagine my look of can't-believe-my-lucktitude as the interview goes thusly:

Bint Interviewer: You done this kind of thing before?
Me: What call centre work? Yeah, I worked in-
B: Good. Have you got a valid passport and some National Insurance details?
M: Yeah, I-
(B stands up, and snatches my vaguely waved passport)
B: Good stuff, I'll just go and get these photocopied...
(B blusters out the door. I sit and twiddle my thumbs for five minutes, not moving much in case this is the Hidden Camera portion of the interview.

I started quite enjoying myself at this point, as I sat visualising myself rolling around in a big bath full of money, with my bass back, and a guitar I actually liked, with a bottle of Morgan's Spiced in one hand, and a sandwich larger than my head in the other. Full-time employment goes to my head rather quickly.

In she swings again, this time with a scowl halfway between confusion and indignation, like I'd just sneezed splatteringly over her dog)
B: This letter won't do at all, oh no. Haven't you got anything else?
M: But my housemate just landed up with exactly the same paperwork, and you said he was sweet-

Cue garbled conversation with many interruptions and talking-overances, which resulted in my having to naff off up to a different dole office to get a slightly different shade of letter from them. This proved difficult. Another cock-up had been made with my paperwork, and I wouldn't be able to get the appropriate letter until I'd submitted a form (which should have been done a month and a half earlier when I changed my address with the dole folks), which was likely to take a good week to process. Which meant the job was out the window.

But did I despair? Did I up and sell the rest of my furniture, and lope off to Belfast to hide? Not likely. And why? Because whenever you get a stroke of luck of this kind, you inevitably get a barrage of them, if you know where to look. Mine came along rather quickly.

As I sat in a not-particularly-greasy spoon eating a halal fry (how could I tell it was halal? No bacon, and beef sausages. Wasn't the best) I got a call from a number I didn't recognise. I answered tentatively. Over came a voice that suggested a forty-something divorcée with a short skirt and a smoking habit that ran into its second box by tea time. Could I make my way to Kirkby by the end of the day, she asked? No, I said. I hadn't a clue where Kirkby was, and was unsure about finding out. Could I be there by eleven tomorrow morning, she asked? I said I'd try. She husked an address to me, bade me wear a suit and bring a passport, and hung up.

I sat and sipped my mediocre tea, unsure what to make of this. Had I slipped into a Bogart film? What the hell kind of jobs had I been applying for? Only one way to find out.

The reality was a little less cinematic. The place was a call centre on the other side of Liverpool, with the feel of an airport- tight corridors, air conditioning, not enough natural light and a scrubbed formica cafeteria. It turned out I was right about the voice on the phone- she had strawy bottle-blonde hair, she'd seen far too much sun over the years, but she kept in shape. She took me to an office at the back and asked the standard call centre interview questions. I jumped through the hoops. I didn't even remember applying for this job, but I wasn't going to argue. Then she said something they always say on TV, but never in real life: "You start on Monday." I very nearly kissed her, but didn't like the thought of the sexual harassment suit.

That was a month ago. During that month I've sat and slogged through some of the most stultifyingly boring call centre training I've ever been a party to. The job doesn't seem that bad, but my classmates are idiots. Not just stupid people, the loud kind that shout over you and then blame you because they're not picking anything up. Must be hell teaching these classes, and that hell is reserved for a quiet mousy grandmother from the Midlands somewhere, who avoids passive-aggressiveness by being incredibly nice (actually unbelievably- no idea how she does it).

So what am I doing lazing about the house, with a very nice bowl of cereal, on a Monday morning, when by the terms of another nasty little contract I should be sitting wringing my hands taking my first couple of calls? Well for that you can blame banks. Generally a good crowd to blame if you're stuck, but this time may well be justified. For some reason Santander are refusing to give me the last twenty or so quid out of my account. This means I can't afford a bus, which means I can't get to work. Which is nice. And may well lead to me sitting about the house like this more often on a Monday morning. Either way, expect more of these scribblings over the next while. I'll give myself carpal tunnel otherwise.

In the words of James Brown, "Uuunnnn"

-J

Another Day, Another Dollar...

2010-07-09T14:05:00.002+01:00

...and another fucking library. As a fat scouse mother mewls to a spluttering milk-covered baby, and some teenagers outside bray away to each other in that cadence reserved solely for young Liverpudlian reprobrates and mentally ill Norwegians, it becomes irritatingly clear to be once again that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

You find me in a n uncharacteristically foul mood. We moved into a new house on quite a nice main road over here; the place was looking quite nice, if a bit unfinished, but Plastic Gav (the new landlord- a six-foot-plus rugby-shaped Southsider with a penchant for see-through shirts) assured us that despite the disarray of the electrics and appliances that the joint would be finished within a week.

One week on, there's no washing machine, cooker, internet or light bulbs in the hall, and the lad's only come round to fix the hot water today. So off I trot, in my usual fashion, to the library, to get some of the tension out of myself.

And to add to all this tension, every bank I've ever talked to seems to be asking me for money. And there aren't any jobs. So I'm sober. And it's not very nice.

Upshot? Well, I may be coming back to Belfast, at least for a few weeks. I hear Teletech are still hiring. Think it's time to report back to the Sky Broadband barracks... Lance IT Ballbag Lackey Hutcheon reportig for duty, carrying the last shred of my soul. It's overrated anyway.

Cigarettes

2010-05-26T20:04:00.000+01:00

Another trend I've noticed about the Dodgy Hipsters of Liverpool, of which there are an irksome number now I know where they skulk about: why do so many of them smoke rollies? Hobo chic? Retro thingy charm? A display of dextrous attention to detail, being handy, dainty and at the same time laissez-faire, cavalier and all those other words the types probably quite like throwing into their own blogs.

It's not as if they're nice. Maybe it's an effort to save money, better spent on vintage just-above-the-waist leather jackets and pointy tan Chelsea boots. And razors that don't work properly. Dicks.

I realise the blatant cheek of slagging a gaggle of people I'd be a hair's breadth of joining if I had the money. Not intentionally mind, but I like caffeine, literature and music that isn't shit. So, apparently, do they. I also smoke rollies occasionally, but not by choice. This leads me to ponder what the difference is between the Hip and the rest of us. I know for a fact some of the other lot, the squares, the Dicks if you will (I say 'dick' because that's what we say we look like when we do something particularly maladroit or spastickish: "I was dancing like a dick last night"; "I split me pint over him- must've looked like a dick"; "Dunno what I said to her, but she thought I was a dick") listen similar same tunes, drink in the same bars, read the same dodgy novels... and yet they don't get my hackles up in anything like the same way. Bollocks to it, this is a thought for another time. To quote Bernard Black, I can feel bits of my brain falling away like a wet cake. I've been off my tiny porcelain balls on cheap coffee, running round the commercial district of Liverpool (it turns out there is such a thing) trying to hoodwink recruitment companies into setting me loose on some unsuspecting prick's call centre. I'll be back when I've had some sleep. Then some beer. Then some more sleep.

Justin Bieber's Male?

2010-05-24T15:32:00.001+01:00

I just found out Justin Bieber, instead of being the lesbian dyke-child I thought it was, is actually a male boy-child. There was me thinking "Good for her- rare to see an out-and-proud lesbian woman doing well in pop, especially one as full-blown and butch as that. Bit of an unusual name for a girl, but she is American. Nuff said." Oh how wrong I was.

My main reason for this erroneous guess at the manboything's gender orientation was its singing voice: too high to be a bloke, too low for a typical pop songstrel. And the fact that it got a boo at Radio 1's Big Weekend there (what? The radio in the kitchen comes on by itself and I can't turn it off. I was making an omelette) was proof that the Bieber wasn't some kind of androgynous girl-looking child sex symbol, as I know recognise he/she/it/they is/are.

Admittedly I should've been wary of a jump to this conclusion. When I was a kid I thought Tracy was an odd name for a man. Then I found out Tracy Chapman was a lady, with an exceedingly deep voice (even after having seen videos on the old Top 30 Hits). Several friends have made similar mistaken assumptions about Nina Simone. Still...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaahahahahaha

2010-05-07T01:33:00.000+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/northern_ireland/8666196.stm

Off to get honking drunk and celebrate. May have some more to say tomorrow when I stop laughing.

There's Only One Team in Europe

2010-04-30T19:52:00.000+01:00

I was singing this to my United supporting friends last month. Little did I know it'd be true. I did know it'd take a team of fucking Argonauts to knock Fulham out, but I didn't think Liverpool would shaft themselves again (no idea why). But what now? A sea change in football? Dunno if there'll be a full-on kicking out of the old guard, but I may well stick a cheeky tenner on Paraguay for the World Cup.

Keep safe,
-j

Why Milk Cures Heartburn

2010-04-23T17:45:00.005+01:00

It's only a theory, which still needs perfecting, but hear me out. Heartburn is called heartburn because it's fire, but it's like that greek fire stuff- it sits on the top of your stomach acid (a liquid). When you drink too much the level of the acid gets too high, and, straying beyond the asbestos-like lining of your stomach into your pansy-by-comparison throat, the lapping tongues of flame cause havoc. Or at least distinct annoyance.

Milk helps because it curdles when it gets to your stomach, especially in the presence of alcohol. And what does fermented milk make? Cheese. And what, although maybe not one of its better-known properties, does cheese do in the presence of fire? Very little. It's pretty much flame retardant. Also, quite a lot of types of cheese float, the kind of cottage cheese-ish brand you get with this sort of experiment among them. The layer of molten cheese goo rises to the top and, like a wet teacloth on a chip pan, quenches the irksome blaze.

Some people have higher natural levels of burn than others, hence some people never seeming to be afflicted, while others are persecuted, and also the phrase "fire in the belly". Need time you see someone get really passionate about something, ask them if they often get heartburn*. If ten in a row say yes, send me a decent coffee mug. I just broke my last one.

Obviously the theory needs work. Why are Rennies effective? Something to do with CO2 I imagine, killing oxygen flow. What about food? Probably working as a heat sink. But still, it's something to think about if you're waiting for a bus.

Now excuse me while I go and get sunburn on the underside of my arm, to match the now peeling top side. It was leant out behind me for wobbly support last weekend and got a fucking roasting. There's a hilarious tidemark where my watch was. Oh the pain, the pain of it all...

*My own fire level is pitifully low. Means I don't get heartburn, but it also means I've done nothing for the last month. Off to fix that.

Left hand down, give it the beans
-j

Tweet Tweet

2010-03-14T16:08:00.000Z

Anybody on Twitter - which I'm reliably(ish) informed is the rest of the world - feel free to give this a going over. If any further evidence was needed that the twenty-first century has finally happened to me, here's another dollop. Now I'm off to try and finish a book, and fail because of my pitiful attention span and constantly vibrating tricorder.

Keep it up, you're doing rightly
-J

PS: Speaking of wrecked attention spans, this little piece of brilliant is also worth a look. They kick out a new one every day, and put them here.

"Who was General Malaise?"

2010-03-12T13:59:00.001Z

Keeping this thing up and running's a pain in the arse while I've got actual things to do. Time was I could roll out of bed at four in the afternoon, stagger into a pair of marginally decent strides, and molest some library hardware for a while until my fingers woke up. No longer though.

For example, my comments about hair have proven prophetic- up until this morning I was forced to use shampoo of all things, to stop Saudis trying to put up a derrick on my forehead. To avoid this ridiculous, unnecessary and frivolous expense, I have got a man to bald me again. Still, strikes me as an awful waste of time and a fiver, even though I seem to have a good rhythm down: get sheared twice annually, and if any of it annoys in between times, hack it off with whatever razor comes to hand. This tactic backfired recently however, when a girl asked if I had been fighting a cat on seeing scratches on my neck. Daft business all told.

Then there's finances. There's only one thing worse than having no money, and that's having a small amount of money. When you're picking up gutter change and cutting the backs of alley sofas before the Romanians get to them, you at least know that the seventy-six pee in your hand represents the entirety of what you can spend on food. And if you want to drink or smoke, then you'd better get your charmingest smile and your cheesing trousers on. And hope you've some soap left.

It's hellish when you've a limited supply of funds, say enough to keep you in a bar for about a week straight, and you know that you will have no more for a month-odds until the next unfeasibly, incomprehensibly large student loan installment, because to get a job would be to necessitate the use of public transport, which you can't afford if you want to eat as well. And it's no fun whatsoever doing call centre work with nothing in your belly but Tesco Caffeinated Sawdust Coffee Substitute and smoke from someone else's roll-up. And that's all I'm qualified for until I get this spackering degree.

But Paddy's Day approaches, and the idea being floated is a game of Edward Ciderhands to start the day off. For anyone unfamiliar with the rules, (*clears throat, and puts on best Blue Peter presenter voice*) you will need:

-Two bottles of cider, at least two litres apiece, preferably three;
-Some sticky-back plastic (obviously), gaffer tape, or failing that a hell of a lot of sellotape;
-A good party, and some forbearing housemates.

Fairly self-explanatory- tape a bottle of cider to each hand, and on pain of a very nasty (and extremely plastered) forfeit, no freeing either hand until both bottles are empty. That means no smoking without an assist, no dancing unless it's the Running Man, and no toilet breaks whatsoever. Unless you have an incredibly helpful and understanding girlfriend. This is one of the most destructive drinking games I have yet come across, rivaled only by the Winning Streak game. But that's another story for another afternoon.

Well in any case, after whatever silliness the universe has in store for my first Paddy's away from the Old Country, I will almost certainly have no more money at all. Back to a more familiar set of gripes. Now I'm off to draw up a budget or something. Be good, keep it holy, and whatever you do, don't pull a Dara O'Briain.

-J

Well that wasn't so bad, was it?

2010-03-09T02:17:00.002Z

Despite a late change of venue, mUmU was pretty good. The fourth pill was a definite mistake, and among other things turned me into a puddle for the following day and a half, but apart from that it worked very well. Need a good dose of rock for a while now though. Hence me spending an assload of time on Richter Collective and Smalltown America. Now, off for a jangle...

I Thought It Was a Kind of Hawaiian Dress...

2010-03-06T18:28:00.004Z

...but apparently mUmU is a place where scousers go to listen to obscure techno till five in the morning. In fairness it may not be obscure for all I know- Mathias Kaden may be a platnum-selling Fabergé-egg-snorting chart behemoth. Still, I'm assured the tunes'll be good and the craic'll be as near ninety as possible. I'll keep ye's informed.

Now to go about the nightmareish task of finding a printer at seven o'clock on a Saturday in Liverpool. Light a wee candle for me...

Spring Cleaning

2010-03-06T04:12:00.002Z

Ye gods, it's been a while. I've been floating about this winter in a haze of white powders, inferior beverages, pish music for the most part, and disappointment from a football team I wish I hadn't started watching again. Wouldn't change a thing though- the talent in this town is uncanny, and the competition being what it is (Englishmen who can't drink, can't dance and say things like "brap") I've been doing fairly well.

So what about writing? How have I been employing my hands besides hamfisting together rollies and doing the fingerbang (don't look at me like that, it's a dance)? Well there've been some short stories and a stack of flash fiction, which can be found here. Then Fantasy Bob talked me into playing space-based spreadsheet-'em-up EVE Online for a while and blogging about my experiences, the results of which can be found here - hint: my entries are the incoherent ones that slag everything off. Other than that, well, this is the first time I've had my own personal internet connection and computter, plus a lock on my door. What do you think I've been doing? That's right- listening to stolen Tony Robbins CDs and checking my Bakebook every thirty seconds. Fun fun reflexive fun.

But now there's a riffling buzz in the back of my head, as though a hive of bees is waking up. Springtime's upon us again, and with it a certain amount of energy seeps back into my sinews. And although I enjoy winter, its quotient of darkness being more conducive to acting the drunken maggot (what can I say? I get self-conscious being rubbered too often in the daytime), I've got a good feeling about this spring. Maybe it's the wide-eyed glee with which people here approach their partying, maybe it's the creaking and crackling of a long-dormant wing of my brain trying to convince me a girlfriend might be a good move, or maybe it's the five-day trip back to Belfast I've been eyeing up around Paddy's Day - if it comes off, it'll be monumentally messy - but I've got a bit of fire in the belly and an itch in the bones. I'll be back.

Taking Stock

2009-10-26T21:58:00.002Z

It would appear that I've been in Liverpool for a month. The fact that I can say that - and with a roof over my head, which will be paid for tomorrow, honest - comes as a nice surprise. I still have yet to hear a decent band, although happening upon this fella in a dingy basement full of Englanders glistening with sweat slightly less alcoholic than things I've paid good money for at the bar was a welcome diversion. Bartenders in this country don't seem to know the difference between vodka and water. And with the spirit measures being quite a bit smaller on this side of the Channel, drinks have a nasty habit of sneaking up on a body.
Now to teach my self how to drink vodka and coke, a skill that for one reason and another I never learned in Ireland. There's a time for everything I suppose, and the time when the offy's run out of everything else is better than most. I'll keep you posted.

The Town Where Rock is Dead

2009-10-11T00:01:00.003+01:00

And as if by magic...

Liverpool! Made it easily enough, although I now owe every bank in Belfast money. Fuckit, clearly a problem for Future Jim. The mug.

I've been here for three weeks, during which time I've drank pretty much nothing but under-priced, watered down vodka and listened to nothing but remixes of dance and r&b numbers no-one particularly liked to begin with. Turns out the English can only dance to music they recognise. May have been the same in Belfast too, but Buckfast and incisive social commentary aren't easy bedfellows.
Speaking of, while meandering around looking for a pizza that doesn't taste like an inferior Pizza Hut (exactly as good as it sounds), I happened upon an off licence. In itself, quite unusual, because anyone who doesn't but their vodka at one of the sixty million Tescos, Tesco Expresses, Tesco Metros, Tesco Alfrescos or Tesco Putanescos, or else Sainsbury's, Asda slash Walmarts or Aldis or any of their bastard offshoots, is a fool. But being slightly twisted, I found myself drawn through the door into a massive perspex box with an off-licence scrunched in round the outside. Kind of felt like a guinea pig in a Scottish guy's flat.
And lo and behold, jemmied in on the right-hand side- Buckfast, several bottles of, price six round pounds apiece. So two bottles I lift. I've been forcing it down me; tastes wrong here for some reason, even wronger than it tasted in Belfast. I always maintained that a bottle drunk anywhere but the walls in Derry in anything other than darkness with dirty orange light pollution bouncing off clouds that mean business, is an inferior bottle. But as with them all, you stop caring after two mouthfuls.
So I regained a familiar state of mind at least. You know where you are with a Buckfast hangover. A bottle also forms a perfect base for a load of vodka when you intend to have a boogie. Disjoints the mind nicely, and gives a nicely twisted perspective, perfect for the appreciation of dubstep, which is something that never made a lick of sense to me in Belfast, but now strangely does. Anyways, my brain's starting to fall apart round the flu-ridden edges and my head's about to pop, so I think some more Generic Lemsip Substitute, a rum-based digestif, and an attempt at sleep. As you were...

-Jim

Quick Fix

2009-08-17T18:05:00.003+01:00

Had to fiddle with the colours on this thing; it's started fucking with my eyes. I'm just taking some time out of my busy schedule of scamming bank managers out of 0% overdrafts (three new accounts opened, and counting), which I swear to James Mason I'll stop doing when I've funded whatever rent I owe. And a bus slash flight slash RIB to Liverpool. And an Electric Picnic ticknick. And a drink of some kind.
Well at least the Taste of the Summer 2009 (as coined by Stone Cold Steve Shipman- Jacques; the red stuff, I'm not a complete fruit) has started to get sickening. This is the appellation Steve places on a beverage, generally a sugary refreshing fruit-based one, at the start of every summer. Last summer (such as it was) my drink was Tesco own-brand 4% lager, which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. The summer before it was snakebite, the summer before that it was Kopparberg, before it became as riotously expensive as it now is. Every year we drink these things til our kidneys fall out with us, and you can tell when the summer's on its way out because the drink becomes sickly and does nothing but give you a headache. This has now happened with Jacques. Just as well, because I was just starting to fear for my eye-teeth.
So what now? The landlord is still clamped to my back like someone else's shirt on a muggy day, and the bank managers may start talking to each other at any moment. Only one course of action remains- switch to dark rum for the autumn, polish the brass on my neck, and get up them stairs. Word to your mother...

Derry Is An Odd Place

2009-08-06T18:49:00.004+01:00

Another town, another hangover, and another library. I've been out of The Town I Recognise So Easily (there's a tune Phil Coulter never wrote) for so long things keep jarring with me every time I'm back.
For example: I had to carry a guitar and a bass to the Dungloe for a gig we're doing tonight. It's a fundraiser for Rich Coast, a film being shot in Derry as I type - upstairs Dungloe, stacksabands, land if you're about. Now for anyone not acquainted with the Walled City, the distance from the depot to the Dungloe is a couple of hundred yards, five minutes' walk uphill. I was stopped three times, by three separate old men, who used to play in bands, and wanted to talk the ear off me about them. Apparently everybody who was young in Derry in the seventies was in a band, and also probably the Ra. Derry's a very strange place to be at half six on a Thursday in August. There's kids up to the age of eighteen, then nobody else younger than 30, except the occasional flock of foreigners swaddled in clothes that would boil my blood if I wore them in the Alps. Prime tourist season this, so they tell me. Must be a very sad place to visit. "Vere are all ze yunk peepil? Vere is all ze laife?" I know from experience, Herr Schneider- they've fucked off to Belfast and England and Scotland and generally have neither the bus fare nor the inclination to get back. You'll see a strange class of individuals come out after dark, fellas and fillies just about to fuck off to uni in the autumn, or reprobates back for a sesh, or the people who found a paying gig and never left. But we don't talk about them.
Anyway, before I get any more on my own nerves.... I dumped my various crap up the stairs in the Dungloe, which brought up some very unusual memories. I was never out of the joint before I fucked off to the West Glasgow that is Belfast. but that's another set of anecdotes to tell in my anec-dotage. I'm off to work on another hangover, and fund a film while I'm at it. Where else would ye get it? To the Walls, and don't spare the Buck...

I Fucked Up

2009-07-10T20:46:00.002+01:00

Turns out Gogol Bordello are quite good. Maybe a bottle of gin and a bottle of dark rum were a factor. Who knows? Sorry Laurence, chalk it up as one-all...

Torn Again

2009-07-09T17:17:00.005+01:00

Another hangover this time the result of a going-away party for the Cov Beetle, during which we kicked the shit out of his house and tried to make a zombie film on his mobile phone. Upshot is, I lengthened a worrying trend I've been noticing recently, in that I ripped a fuck-off hole in the crotch of my trousers while performing my own stunts in said film. Not as dirty as it sounds. Anyway, partly because I'm off Liverpool at the end of September (they let me in to study Law, the fools) and didn't want to be burdened with unnecessary shit to move over, and partly because I was too damned lazy to carry all the shite from Delhi Street to my current abode round the corner, I chucked out the majority of my trousers and jeans - they hadn't been worn in donkeys, so I figured fuck them. Now the downside to this comes during the move, when I tear a frayed gash in the fork of my jeans trying to pick up a box, thereby leaving me with two other functional pairs of trousers. One bit the dust when I drunkenly tried to wrest my guitar from the mount of shit it was under in my room, the other in the filming of the aforementioned short.
This led to my having to make a bad choice between waddling to Botanic without a gusset in my trousers, or dandering up with a massy hole in the front, and hoping to Hell my boxers did their job,. I chose Boxer Roulette, and set off for a charity shop to replenish the stocks.

A few things I pondered on the way:
- Having a haircut is an expensive and bothersome hobby, not unlike windsurfing, but far less fun - complicated apparatus, dependence of wind conditions etc. Why does everyone look this way if it's so much hassle?
- But then when has that ever mattered to people who worry about the fashion of the day? Botox? Arsenic? Belladonna?
- There was a lot more scope to get off your kite if you were wealthy before Wall Street crashed the first time. It must have been a lot easier to get on with drug stores, rather than shitty Numark chemists, on the corner. That is until the economy went splat, then another World War happened, making the rich poor and the poor dead. And we're still squabbling over who's who today.
- That odd time of day, round about five, when the bakeries and charity shops are closed or closing, but before decent bars or take-aways open properly- what to do if you've £3 in your pocket? Nothing to do really, unless you count going to Witherspoon's for three pints of pish ale, which just about gives you a thirst, and is therefore counter-productive.
So I fucked off here to the old faithful library, to vent some spleen and kick my brain into order again. This weekend will be messy. The one fucker I know in Liverpool's coming back over for his 21st, so we're going to say goodbye to Belfast. You have been warned.

The King is Dead, Long Live the Republic

2009-06-26T17:19:00.004+01:00

Library's about to close, so I'll keep this brief. Michael Jackson, the last true globally successful pop star, is dead. Some good tunes, pity about the going mental and subsequent kiddy trouble. Now cue the era, already well-underway despite what Time-Warner-AOL-Behemoth says, of small-time hustlers in the music business, with loads of people bringing the margins down, and far less people making ridiculous money. More will probably come on this subject. One thing though- when did Peter Pan become a euphemism for child molester?

Well that's torn it

2009-06-23T11:24:00.002+01:00

It's that time again. What time, you ask? Well, it's that peculiar time where it doesn't matter what time it is. For I, dear reader, am unemployed again. I've made my share of fuckups over the last four years of drug-sprinkled poverty in Belfast, and by and large I like to think I've learned something from them. These things are best handled with a sense of humour, and humour works best when it has a point. But then I do something so staggeringly fucking daft I feel like I've been kicked in the back of my head by my own drunken spastic self.
This something happened (probably the wrong word; 'happened' sounds like it could be someone else's fault) on the 15th of this month. I'd been drinking the night before, not caning it you understand, but because I was working the next afternoon and didn't want to inadvertantly shout at anyone, had drunk sensibly and gone home at some point. Now up I get at one-ish, and out I dash to take calls from people picking bones with Vodafone. Dandy I thought. So down I sit, ten mintues early for my shift, and down I settle to read the BBC website through again. Well at least I thought I was early.
I checked my online worky schedule-checky thing, and found to my bewilderment that I was supposed to be in from 9 that morning, and since there were no managers in the shithole they'd marked me down as AWOL. Again. Then I recalled that I'd made a note of the shifts I was supposed to have been working about three weeks in advance, and not bothered my balls checking it over the last week for any changes. Then, even more bedevillingly, I remembered that because I'd done this sort of thing a couple of times before, and was on a final written warning for this other similar silly-buggery, I was sacked. And I had a cunt of a hangover.
So I decided to cut my losses, and fucked off for a Snickers.
Two plus sides: one, I was paid the Monday after that, and so was able to square up my current landlord for the last of the months' rent I'd not paid the last time I was habitually bothering librarians, and b) I managed to get an interview with Abbey the day I got fired, and as such have only two weeks or so to kill while very skint. An an eye over my shoulder in fear of a Richard Hammond-esque jinx, how hard can it be?

Dylan and the Provincial Craic Vacuum

2009-05-31T09:49:00.005+01:00

Been meaning to update this for a while, but what with not being unemployed anymore - although that might not be the case for too much longer - I can't laze about in the library or up in Queen's titting around on a publicly-owned computer. But this morning I find myself in Terry's living room, with lots of sun happening outside, and I wouldn't mind delaying walking home and getting the fuck fried out of me.
's been an odd month, this one. Strange being able to afford to do things again. Even went down to the Dublin to see the Dylan on the 5th there. Although apparently I saw him on the wrong night (bastard typical) because the next night was the end of his tour or some such guff.
I went down with my brother, whose student loan had just come in, the lucky prick, and so was bankrolling the expedition. We got off the bus at four or so, and stationed ourselves in the first bar with an offy attached. Drinking in the street in central Dublin is a lot easier than I thought it would be. Then to the O2 for a bit of Bob.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised; he played with two guitarists, a bassist and drummer, and a mentalist who switched between lap steel, banjo, guitar and I believe accordion at one point. The man himself was mostly on organ with occasional harmonica, and picked up a guitar for Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. Now I'd heard he sits at the side now, facing the band and hiding behind an organ (Zimmerman-frame?), but I didn't really expect to enjoy it. Which I did. Hugely. It was as organised and regimented a set as you'd expect from a man who's been touring solid for forty-odd years, treading the knife-edge between trying to affect people and make a statement, and just knocking it out, going through the motions. I was standing somewhere near this guy, and it sounded great. The major letdown of the evening was the crowd. Of course you're not going to see the same angry young man as you would have in the sixties or even the seventies. But for God's sake, try to enjoy the spectacle when one of the best songwriters ever gives a performance, and appreciate it for what it is. Don't fucking talk over it, maybe dance a little, and for crying out loud TURN ROUND AND WATCH THE STAGE. At times I felt like I was the only one paying attention. And I wouldn't call myself a big fan.
That may have been it though- I went in with pretty low expectations and enjoyed myself more than I thought I would, with a very danceable bluesy set with some well-worked versions of classics and, I'm told, the live debut of a track from the new album. It would have been easy to be disillusioned if you went in with high hopes. For one, he was doing a very good club singer impression. Two, he finished at about 10PM, and that's after three encore tunes. But anyone who goes to see Dylan for his vocal gymnastics is a spoon, and although he probably should have had a support act, I thought a two-hour set of that standard was good value.
After the man himself me and the brother cleared off to a slightly sweaty bar which had rock on the jukebox and a decent stout, and got quietly twatted in a corner. Then we hopped in a taxi to Rathmines, where the rich fuckers live, and snuck into Trinity's halls, which were fucking palatial compared to the borstal I stayed in on the Malone Road. But I suppose at five grand a year it'd need to be. There we drank Bavaria with Scruff (Derry fella who's down there getting a proper education), and I slept on a busted airbed. Dublin's an incredibly nice town if you have money in your pocket. I was only there for a day, but it convinced me I'm going to have to live there at some point. It struck me when I was there that I'd never lived in a properly big city; Belfast may be self-contained and horribly full of its own importance, but a big city it isn't. Johnny Tiernan played And So I Watch You From Afar in Lavery's the other night, and I've never seen a more smug self-congratulatory circle jerk in my life. I think that typified Belfast for me. I'm certainly not alone in the view that nine out of ten bands here are pointless. I know we shouldn't slate local talent, that we should give it the help and the props it deserves, but people here have a very skewed view of what's talent and what's dross. I'd love to say that's the last time I'll be in Lav's, but I'd be lying. Because that's where the tail is. And that's what really matters, after all.

Hair and Soup

2009-05-13T17:49:00.000+01:00

Just realised how inaccurate my profile picture yoke is. I got blocked a couple of Saturdays ago (nothing unusual there), and being as it's more clement in Belfast than it's been in a while, and I had a kid sister to christen the next day, I got all my hair sliced off by a Turk with limited English. I now have a hairdo. It stands up by itself. Probably the result of years of yanking my locks out of my face, and shovelling hair out of the way of food or drink intake. Very unsettling, I can tell you. Haven't got a more acurate photo though. I dodge cameras quite well.
Now to go back to work, with a big wobbly belly full of tomato soup, and a big muzzy hangover head that won't go away. A banana, a banana, my kingdom for a banana...

Fuckit

2009-05-08T14:35:00.000+01:00

Just found out you can't draft posts on this cunting work computer. I'll be back when I have a full-formed thought. Wouldn't mind venting some things...

Caliban Again

2009-04-23T12:36:00.005+01:00

Finished it, to an extent. It's up on Bibiofaction, an online yoke with loads of short stories on. There are several of these about, but this is the only one that:
a) doesn't have a shit name like Booksie, and
2) works. Nearly.
Main problem with it is that you can't edit your story after it's gone live, so if like many of us you're a spoon who can't spell his titles and doesn't bother proofreading, you're stuffed.
Still, fairly pleased with how it turned out- never written a story about nothing before, and I think it went well. Give it a glance, tell us what you think.

'Party Down and Go Fuck Yourself' indeed...

2009-04-18T14:51:00.001+01:00

I'd forgotten how horrible call centre work is when you're overhung. It's just as bad when you're learning how to do it, as I am now. At FirstSource there's one computer you can use teh Innernetz on, and Facebook doesn't work, so I might as well try to bash my brain into order by writing something. Tried to read some of Heart of Darkness there. I could feel grey matter dripping onto my shirt, so I called a halt to that. And I took all the skin off the middle knuckle of my middle finger playing an air conditioner like a reco-reco in Lavery's. Helluvan enyjoyable though.
I've been thinking about this- the last time I bothered my arse dancing on a night out for any more than thirty seconds at a stretch. Time was me and Laughlin would pull outlandish shapes until one of us got hit for spilling someone's drink or girlfriend or something. Wonder why I stopped? But the point is I bothered my arse making a tit of myself, rather than working on getting as blocked as possible in as comfortable a fashion as possible. And it was great craic. I remember the buzz now, of actually having to sit down for a while and take stock, pick things out of the blur of stuff happening, and not just sitting on my hands and then wondering why I've got no money left and naught but frown lines to show for it. Someone remarked last night than I've become awful quiet recently. Self-consciousness seems to have snuck up and bike-locked itself round my neck without my noticing it. Must try and do something about this.

I do WHAT now?!

2009-04-17T17:22:00.000+01:00

Finanlly recovered from Friday. Turns out I've worked a whole week in a call centre without realising it. I feel strange. Now to go finish Caliban before the odd weasrs off. Back in a minute...

Early Doors

2009-04-10T10:35:00.002+01:00

Today is the pagan festival of Good Friday. Or something to that effect. This means that bars close early; no-one knows why this is, but it seems to be a law of nature. As such, me and the fellas (the Brothers Bacchus) and some other fellas (Sang By Fire and Connor Hutcheon) will be playing some tunes upstairs in Lavery's, then clearing off somewhere else where we can drink without fat bald men in black jackets telling us to go home at some daft hour. Land down. Should be fun.

Crossbows?!

2009-04-03T11:38:00.003+01:00

Very well done to the XKCD man. It would appear he's got half the internet asking what the fuck a Higgs excitation is. The internet is a horrible place. And here are some reasons why.

Caliban

2009-03-30T18:35:00.002+01:00

No point going round calling myself a writer if I'm not doing anything with it. Easy trap to fall into, that one. Like calling yourself a sculptor or a doctor of philosophy or something. Very difficult to disprove. I know a fella claimed to be the spider monkey handler at Belfast Zoo, and he got away with that. I suppose you're not going to get asked to demonstrate your technique unless you're in the bar, making this claim, and someone runs up to you wide-eyed and shaking and says "Oh thank God you're here! There's a rabid spider monkey scampering around the place, biting and dry-riding all and sundry!" You'd have to come clean at that point.
The same with literature. You're not going to have someone come running up with pen and paper and implore you for a couple of chapters about the Spanish Civil War. But fuckit, I start the nine to five again next week, so I've a week to batter out at least a short story. It'll be about a man and his mirror. I'll tell you how I get on.

Earth Hour

2009-03-27T16:51:00.003Z

Apparently the good, if rather hairy, people at the WWF are organising an hour of darkness and leckylessness. At half 8 of your local time, they would like you to turn off all your lights and things. Might as well I suppose. Whether you're paying for your electricity or not. Take a gander here. Or slag the whole idea here. Although that guy looks like the type I drunkenly bullied at school. Not proud of it, but clearing off to the bar seemed a helluva better idea than double German, and I like to shout at people after a bottle of Buck. Some of my fellow students didn't join me in seeing the funny side.

Bollocks to this, I'm off for a job

2009-03-20T17:00:00.006Z

In celebration of Tuesday Kid's 46th day off the pipe (tenuous I know, but fuckit, it got me writing), I decided that doing bugger all is more difficult than working by some distance, and got meself an interview for some pishy call centre work like they do so well here. Think I nailed it too, but you always say that when you've made a cunt of yourself in an interview. I don't know how people sit on the dole for any longer than a couple of months. At least in a job, you've something to complain about all the time - boss, incompetent colleagues, how the hot girl's fucking some idiot and won't give you the time of day - and isn't that what the vast majority of us want out of life? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick again? When I'm on the dole I always end up doing far less writing, tunes or otherwise, than when I'm doing it to distract myself some fat co-workers shooting banal shite about Saturday night TV any straight man would be embarrassed to flick past, let alone actively watch and talk about. That and any time I've tried to get money out of the government I've managed to get a job before they see fit to give me a full Giro. I find it a damn sight easier showing up, switching off and blethering at English types ovet the phone than I do running round Belfast from one jobsworth civil servant to another, compiling their fragments of knowledge to find out who to tap for an application form, to find I'm not eligible because the month has an E in its name or something.
Fuck that. Back to the drudgery I think. The pay's marginally better, and my colleagues will probably be better looking than my housemates. No offence Paul.

Madness

2009-03-11T16:29:00.002Z

Just got informed I've got a new kid sister. Madness indeed. Fair fucks the folks, but that's going to be the gingerest kid in the history of ginger kids. Now to Starbucks, where they're giving away free coffee if you ask them nicely. Sticks in my throat a bit, but needs must when the devil farts in your kettle...

Waste Of Time

2009-03-10T19:10:00.000Z

Turns out I'm far worse than I rememeber at the first Metal Gear Solid. I decided to have a crack at it, being as I'm doing bugger all else at the minute other than alternating between twenty cups of coffee a day and none to see what happens - a very saggy face apparently. I distinctly remember being able to batter through both discs in one sitting at one point. Not so now. And now today, after spending four hours fighting Metal Gear and that blond wank Liquid, and dealing with Otacon driving like a paraplegic in a horse and trap, the game goes and crashes on me, for no apparent reason. The disc's grand, the Playstation's in fairly good nick. I think the message in this one's fairly clear- Stop fucking repeating yourself. You'll only end up frustrated, with a banging headache, and with far less wine than you started.
Now to go and take the Movie House up on their offer of Kerrrrrrrazy Tuesday and see Watchmen for three ding. I have it on good authority it'll make me so angry I'll immediately go out and write a classic death metal album. Or kick someone in the face (finally, something in this blog about kicking things). I've discovered also that I couldn't give a tuppenny fuck if Liverpool win anything this year, which is nice to know. It's not healthy that a group of wealthy men I've never met have an effect on my moods at all. Makes far more sense supporting your local side if you're going to watch football. I'd probably follow Linfield, if they were any fun to watch, but I'd probably have more fun watching the mouldy pot in the living room in its slow quest for civilisation. It doesn't bother me particularly that all their fans' songs are bigoted dirges, but it does make for an interesting game when they play Derry City - one crowd of balding hallions screaming themselves hoarse about how they all live in the randy Brandwell (hoo ha), and the other keeping schtum for fear they'll get arrested. Very odd country, this.

Hibernating Again

2009-02-09T18:24:00.004Z

It's getting that way anyhow. Last night I lay about smoking some very stale grass I had left over from my last visit to Cork, and playing Forza, which is a racing game. I hate racing games. But I also hate sucking at things. So I lay about, smoked, and played it till I could drive round in the big complicated circley thing without writing myself off too badly.
So today, when I had stuff to do, like scour Belfast for a job, then fuck off to Derry to beg more money out of the Credit Union, I was incapable of rousing myself till gone 4, which is less than no use to anyone. Just enough time to roll into some kind of clothes and dash off up the town for a pointless walk which was essentially a cold shower. The only thing of any use I managed to do was direct a lovely French woman with a silly long cardigan and an enormous nose to that Victoria Square joint. Don't trust that place. Is it outside or inside? If it's inside, why's it so cold? And if it's outside, why do they stop you smoking?
But none of this matters. The fact is I'm sitting in Queen's library again, mostly hiding from the landlady, who's probably beating the door down about now looking for two months' rent. The internet isn't the nicest place to be relegated to. So far I've applied for every job in Belfast where they let you sit down, and looked up everyting from the Ibanez Roadster series guitar to Jimmy Krankee, the scary little fucker. I've even applied to take online surveys, because they apparently pay quite well, and I've a bank account I'm using for nothing else. It's not as if they can scam money out of me, is it? And did you know, it takes at least two weeks before the dole will give you money, after you first apply? I mean, what if I was really in the shit? With kids to feed, bills piling up, mortgage and whatnot? It's a good thing I'm a radge, with no needs other than the occasional drink and the odd bowl of stodge, dodging the landlady and the electricity people (who, I'm reliably informed, couldn't catch AIDS in a Malawian whorehouse), because if I'd a lifestyle to support I'd be fucked. As me granny used to say, "Thank God for nothin', fer there's no bother with it." Must be a full-time occupation holding onto money.

...Or not

2009-02-05T17:47:00.008Z

It turns out hangovers don't help when you have to audition for shite U2 ripoff ballbag bands either. I intentionally stopped drinking at the perfectly reasonable hour of half 5 in the morning on Monday night, so as to be perfectly rested for the audition with the Beat Poets in Warrenpoint at half 11. Imagine my surprise when I'm woken at half 12 by the singer of said cunts, asking where I was, and not to bother showing. They'd found their bassist, and would be holding no more auditions.
Fair enough I suppose. Punctuality is an important trait in the world of professional rock and roll. It may just be sour grapes that I didn't show enough self-control to at least land out to the audition, that makes me feel just a leetle irked that these cunts are having any kind of success at all. Have you heard the pricks? This is precisely the gutless, soulless, pointless shite that made me pick up a bass and an overdrive pedal in the first place. Why even bother writing songs, if this is all they amount to? I applied to play with them for two reasons. One, as Graham Chapman put it, there's no laugh as good as a supressed one. Imagine playing to hundreds of screaming fans every night, when you know they're wrong and they've wasted their money to see a nonentity of a band. Second, they're looking to tour fairly extensively during spring and summer of this year. I thought it'd be quite a nice way to waste a cpuple of months, then jump ship to clear off to Edinburgh and do something enjoyable. Like study Law for 6 years.
Still, this episode has taught me something. Never deny something you write because you think it's not good enough. Get it out of your system, and move on. There are enough people in the world with godawful taste that some schmuck's going to like it.

Note To Self...

2009-01-28T11:54:00.003Z

...Hangovers help neither the ability to blog (hate using that as a verb) nor to fill out application forms. And Colm lied, the eggs did nothing. Never liked him anyway.

Jesus, these mornings are getting addictive...

2009-01-27T10:36:00.003Z

Look at this shit! It's daytime, for the second day in a row, and I am not only vertical, but fully-clothed, have fed myself, and can type out sentences and that! I like it a lot.
Turns out yesterday evening, before falling asleep at a computer in the library (I woke up about a minute and a half later with a snort, and made an old lady soil herself and have to leave), I went on Fastfude, where all the Belfast tuney-makey people go for a good old-fashioned virtual circle jerk. Anyway it would appear I replied to an ad in which an apparently established band requested a bassist with a degree of flexibility for practicing, and especially flexibility for touring Ireland, the UK and the Yankee Places. Looks like the fuckers are positively crying out for an unemployed ginger bastard to swan into their ranks for a spot of world domination. The only thing left to do is to to find out if they're any good, and indeed who they are, then meet them and convince them I'm indispensable. Shouldn't be too hard; they're only musicians after all.
That said, the last time I replied to one of these types of ads, I ended up in Ballymacash in the flat of an obese ex-drummer who can neither sing nor play the guitar, who I still owe money, and who now wants me to shell out £200-odd quid towards recording his bullshit songs. And the fat prick's got me bass.
Still though, I've always quite liked the idea of hijacking another cunt's musical dreams and making a mint out of them by going "dumdy dum bum bum" when he asks me to. 'S why I picked up the bass in the first place.
The lad wants an audition at the start of next week. That gives me this week to find the bus fare to Warrenpoint and back. Expect more on this subject.

New Year, or so people tell me

2009-01-26T12:13:00.001Z

I really should do this more often. Being awake in daylight I mean. At the minute I'm in Queen's library, which unlike my house has heating, blinds on the windows, working chairs, a floor that wouldn't get you drunk (and very, very sick) if you walked on it without footwear of some kind, and computer-type facilities. Nice of them to have kept my computer accounts open, despite my getting heaved out last year. I think I owe them money too. Lovely people, these academics, I've always said so; must be nice having an attention span that can encompass a three-year degree. As always, I blame my sleep patterns.
See, when it comes to about the end of October, start of November, my brain apparently notices that the days are becoming shorter than the nights, and I start waking up when it gets dark, around 5 or 6 in the evening, and crashing again when it's light, about 9 in the morning. Now this isn't much of a problem when I've still money in my pocket to afford the essentials of such a lifestyle, namely Buckfast and the occasional dose of pills. But the rub lies in the fact that I always but always get fired from whatever I'm working at, usually mongrel reading-out-loud duties at Teletech, because I'm pissed/pilled/asleep/not there, so the money dries up, so I'm dodging landlords full-time for the first two months of the new year.
At the minute I'm in a period of very sober limbo, while I wake up at about 1 in the morning, stay up for about 30 hours, then collapse for about 16, as my body and brain have conflicting ideas on how to wake up at a reasonable time. Not too conducive to getting a wage out of somebody. So now the plan is get hold of the bastard layabouts at the Revenue and Customs and find out why they haven't employed me yet, then go home and kill all the lights in the house so the landlady thinks no-one's in if she calls about the two rubber rent cheques I gave her for December and January, while I waste the batteries in Rodgers' Wiimote playing Mario Galaxy over a couple of bifties. And who knows, maybe I'll make a start on this book... Probably not, but what's life without a good lie to yourself once in a while?

Stay sharp, peace to your kid brother

WOW... or not

2008-11-17T14:51:00.000Z

Grieve, of http://www.thegrieve.co.uk/, came up with a rather interesting idea the other night. He intends to get some form of podcast on the go, in which himself, Matt the kiwi and Resident Protestant John talk about MMO's. Matt and John play EVE and WOW respectively, and Grieve is now playing the Warcrafty thing after a long addiction to EVE. He intends to get me involved in an unbiased everyman-type capacity, as I start playing one game or the other. Could be interesting. There shall be more on this.

More Priorites

2008-11-06T18:40:00.001Z

Obama's won it then, by 349 to 161 with a couple too close to call and Nebraska tied, I think. Ain't it nice the way they only actually count the votes if they can't guess who's won a state? Very enlightened way of doing things, I think.
I had intended to stay up and watch the whole thing, with McCain's home state of Arizona being too close to call until about half 4, which I thought was great. What stopped me staying with it, though, was the fact that I could only get BBC and ITV coverage of the thing, both of which ragged my pish.
I started watching it on ITV, who coverage was quite slick and well done - quite Amercian actually, as usual - but it annoyed me how simpering it was. It was pretty much "Countdown to Obama-rama '08", which is fair enough, but as far as I could make out the polls were looking a damn sight closer than to warrant that. So I flicked over to the Beeb for some unbiased reporting. It may as well have been a Top Gear Election Night Special.
I didn't so much mind that none of the VT seemed to work (which it didn't), or that this bewildered and annoyed the presenter David Dimbleby (which it did, greatly). What got me, predictably enough, was the tone the whole thing was presented in. The programme had the air of... I don't know, did you ever meet a distant older relative in a bar when you're both a bit smashed, like the mouthpiece uncle no-one's that fond of? You know that condescending look on their face that says "Aw diddums, look at the wee babby actin' all growed up", when they're falling about the shop at least as bad as you are?
It seemed the whole of the BBC's current affairs staff had been briefed specially to find a Republican and pick a fight. They even had John Bolton as one of the guests, which I thought was inspired, although after about an hour of baiting it became clear that the majority of the BBC's staff knew far less about American politics than they thought they did, or than they should have if they wanted to go arguing with a former UN ambassador and unabashed flaming bastard of a rag-hoisting American. I actually found myself siding with him. Sweet and gentle Jesus.
Between Rajesh Mirchandani's interview slash argument with a high-ranking Republican in Colorado, where he plainly didn't know his facts, Katty Kay's assertions that Mitt Romney would have been a far better running mate for McCain than Palin despite the fact that as far as I can see no-one in the Republican party even likes the man, and Simon Schama's quite interesting scrap with Bolton being stopped by Dimbleby to go to a video feed which turned out not to exist, I thought it was a great laugh. But if it had have been made in a basement by teenagers in their spare time, it still would've disappointed me a bit. Good thing I don't pay me TV licence then, isn't it? Maybe I will when I get round to buying an aerial. At the minute I'm using an Ibanez bootlace guitar lead, resting on the pin at the back of my TV, held in place by Goldeneye for the N64, and I've yet to have a problem with it. What an age we live in, eh?

Priorities

2008-10-31T13:45:00.001Z

I haven't been inclined to go near this blog for a while, but at this point I find myself compelled to. We in the UK are quite happy to look down our neighbours across the pond for being crass, whipped up their media into pointless frenzies over nothing in particular. We pride ourselves on being higher-minded, not as petty, with a healthy dose of cynicism.
Why then, are the American people, to a man, having a (mostly) considered debate on who they want to implement their needs and protect their interests for the next four years, in a time when a lot of previously quite cash-strapped Americans are facing even more testing times? I didn't think their brains'd be dense enough for such cogitation, on account of all the air and water in their Wonderbread. But here's the real kicker- what are we, custodians of measured argument and logic in a world gone to fickle shite, debating, as we do, in the oldest and most truly representative democratic institution in the world? What great issue have we been turning our collective cultured mind to for the last week? Two dickhead Londoners abusing an elderly gentleman on radio.
It wasn't very clever, I admit, but I'm not going to discuss the ethics of it. That's been dealt with quite sufficiently by every single journalist and talking head in the country over the last week or so. It still amazes me, though, that the infamous incident got two - count them, two - complaints at time of broadcast. Then, of course, the Daily Mail picked up the story. Last I heard, the number of complaints received by Ofcom had passed the 20,000 mark. This sickens me. The story is still on the front pages of all the red-tops and the Independent, and only a pensioner foiling an armed robbery keeps it off the front of the Mail today. It came up at Prime Minister's Question Time, for fuck's sake! And that ended up on the front pages earlier in the week.
I know quite a lot of middle-class England are sick of hearing about this Credit Crunch jobby, but I don't think a story like this has any place on any newsstand, especially when our American cousins have (for the most part) realised where sensationalist pointless journalism has got them in the past, and are actually putting some thought into electing their leaders this time around. And we still resent Gordon Brown, because he just doesn't smile as nicely as Mr. Blair did. This is why I try not to talk about politics...

Random Question

2008-06-28T13:39:00.000+01:00

I asked this site to give me a random question earlier, and it got uppity when I tried to answer it in more than 400 characters. So I'm sticking it here, because I feel like it.

Q. Sponges and tongues are frequently misspelled. Is it because both are thirsty?

A. It is indeed. But the question I think we should be asking is- why are both thirsty? This is because your tongue is not a muscle, but actually a fish, living in your mouth in a kind of symbiotic relationship. It can only breathe in water, hence your production of saliva to keep it going. However, occasionally the saliva in your mouth gets too alkaline, which annoys the tongue. It then tells its buddy the brain (actually a mollusc) to make the rest of the body drink either very fizzy, very sugary, or very alcoholic beverages, to foster its preferred slightly acidic environment. So if you're an alco, don't blame yourself; your tongue and brain are bastard fish.

Call Centres, and What They Drive You To

2008-06-22T18:55:00.000+01:00

I s'pose this'd be my first blog entry then. And I s'pose hello's always a good place to start. I'm Jim Hutcheon, I'm a 21 year-old currently kicking up a stink as best I can in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and I have once again been ensnared by the slimy tedrils of call centre work.
Apparently the Northern Irish accent is one which the Enlgish, used of course as they are to being spoken to all day in that mangled, braying quack in which their compatriots communicate, will readily trust, and apparently buy things from, the Irish. I don't understand this. Surely if the world relates one thing to the Irish race, it's drunkenly trying to flog shoddy merchandise or labour? Who among you can say truthfully, that when someone says the word 'Irish', you don't immediately form a mental image of a red-haired, profoundly bladdered man, wearing a grubby overcoat with a pig under his arm? I know I do. But apparently there are enough people willing to trust a race who've spent the last century or two scamming our colonisers and the richer peoples of the world to warrant a burgeoning trade in outsourced call centres. It's so easy to get a job in one of these establishments, where one can do anything from broadband tech support to selling legal books that I, a self-confessed malingering bastard, have never had to actually try and get a job. I swanned into the interview for this one half-cut, and now sell holidays to the general population. No-one seems to have a problem with this.
There is, of course, a downside. The downside to this particular job, aside from having to listen to the English nyam at me all day, is that I have a little too much time on my hands. And being as the good people who run this joint don't let you read- heaven forfend - anything but The Sun's website, I might as well keep my hands occupied and tap some scribblings into a computer. This may even become a regular occurence if I could be arsed. You have been warned.
Fuckit, a manager approaches. Time to look busy. Although not too busy. That's how they know you're not working.

Anyways, all the best

-Jim