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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?"

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?

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...

...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

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

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

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