I’m Only Twenty-Nine

Yes, it’s my birthday today. I’m not at work today (yippee!) so these are my plans for the rest of the day.

1. Become delighted that I managed to find a song mentioning being twenty-nine in it. Confusingly, it is titled Seventeen. For some reason I find the way Mr Rotten says “I can’t even be bothered” hilarious every time. I’m not sure I’m supposed to.

2. Become impressed, slightly disturbed and flattered by MJ’s birthday tribute to me. (note: NSFW, natch)

3. Do the washing. Tedious but it’s needs to be done. I don’t want to be wandering around in launderette chic on my birthday.

4. I’m meeting a friend of mine for lunch. In McDonalds. Oh yes, I’m reet classy me.

5. I need to go to the bank.

6. I might go shopping.

7. I intend to have nine wanks.

8. I may have been lying about the last one.

9. Pub tomorrow. Intoxication awaits!

Honey In Heat

One of the most annoying phrases is that one about Britain and American being separated by a common language, you know the GB Shaw quote.

Never mind all the stuff about “bumming a fag” and so on, what about songs about bees? Ask someone from Britain to compose a song about bees and you end up with something like this.

An American on the other hand, will take an alternative interpreation of bees and their products, represented here by some British people who often pretended to be American and who were so good at it that lots of Americans pretended to be them; i.e. Americans pretended to be British pretended to be American which is starting to confuse me somewhat.

This is nothing to do with the fact that Slim Harpo is nowhere to be found on YouTube. Oh no.

I’m Not Planning To Sit In The Bath Smoking A Cigar

It’s my birthday on Friday. I’ve got the day off, which I don’t usually do. I had a lengthy theory about why some people like having their birthdays off work and some don’t mind, possibly linking in with what time of year they were born and how that tied in with the school holidays, but I long came to the conclusion that it is total bollocks. So never mind that.

I’m going to be 29, which means I’m just about old enough to star in a “teenage” drama, although it’s still a few years before I can safely listen to Steely Dan or Rush with impunity.

On Saturday I plan to have a celebration at a local pub. All are welcome, so if you want to come along drop me an email billywilliwaw AT gmail DOT com

I Like My Candy Black

For those of you who can’t cope with my “singing” voice, here’s somone who sings much better. Oh and check out the drumming.

Have an excellent Bank Holiday weekend. I’m looking forward to overhearing some nearby reggae.

This Is How I Start Another Day In My Kingdom

So, if you are so inclined you can hear me singing.

I was bored and thought I’d add my dulcet tones to a drum loop, rumbling bass, cheesy keyboard riff and erm… a sample of a women overplaying her orgasmic pleasure.

So I got drunk and made sure that none of my flatmates were about to walk in mid-performance. And attempted vocalisation.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t really know what I was doing and so mumbled some random stuff over the top. It took 5 attempts and 3 of those were me trying to work out how to add the audio track to my existing tracks.

If you’re on the sinister MySpace, it’s already up there. Or you can try this alternative method.

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously – “The Torture Never Starts Round Here”

A word of explanation about the title, it is a combination of two song titles, by Arab Strap and Frank Zappa who would bookend my CD collection if I kept them in order.

I Need To Get To Maidstone To Donate Bone Marrow To My Sister

I was off to the shop earlier, having totally run out of everything in the world ever. There was nothing else for it, unless I felt the urge to have a takeaway.

On the way to the shop I was accosted by a woman.

Have you got 30p? she said.

No, I replied. And there’s a funny story behind that…

I didn’t bore her with the whole story but I can bore you with impunity. I went to buy some gazpacho soup for my lunch earlier on and realised to my horror I had neglected to go to the cashpoint earlier and so only had a fistful of change. Luckily I did have enough to buy my lunch and left myself with a mere 8p.

So I wasn’t lying when I said that.

Normally I’m very intolerant of anyone trying to sell or get anything off me when I’m on the street. Once stopped by a chugger I protested that I didn’t bother him during his break so why did he feel it was okay to bother me on mine? He responded that he wasn’t allowed in my office. I laughed, but didn’t sign up to anything.

For some reason, I didn’t feel in a pissy mood today which resulted in us having an impromptu conversation after she revealed she didn’t really want 30p off me and she was only doing it to test people’s reactions as part of a project for her daughter’s GCSE.

Whether this was true or not I have no idea, but her daughter did manage to do a wonderful “Oh God, Mum! You are so embarrassing talking to complete strangers, for crying out loud!” face and flounced off in the middle of the conversation to look at the traffic-fume coated vegetables outside a nearby shop. So I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Especially as I didn’t leave the conversation poorer.

As we parted she said that I had earned good karma. I resisted the urge to point out that कर्म could only be apportioned by the cosmos and went on my way.

And what do you know, I found some crunchy peanut butter in the shop. They haven’t had any in ages. That must be prarabdha in action. If peanuts count as fruit.

Shit From An Old Notebook

Found this clearing out some stuff. I was going to attempt to scan it, but it didn’t come out very well.

There’s a list of fabric shops, several people’s telephone numbers and a planned pub-crawl, that when it went ahead, ended up with me chucking up outside Holborn tube.

Lovely.

Richmond – Hampstead Heath. The Magdala, 2a South Hill Park, NW3. Auntie Annie’s Porter House, 180 Kentish Town Road, NW5 (KT tube). Mornington Arms, 2-3 Mornington Crescent (M’Crescent) The Island Queen, 87 Noel road N1 (Angel). The Ivy House, 8-10 Southampton Row, WC1B (Holborn), Molly Moggs, 2 Old compton Street, (Leicester square), The Opera tavern, 23 Catherine St, Wc2B. The oratory, 232-234 Brompton Road, SW3.The settle inn 186 Battersea Bridge Road, cross keys 57 black lane, W6

Then the notes on the actual experience

(1) M: pleasant surroundings, wooden chairs, sofa, times newspaper, oz barmiaids, food: plum sauce, baby crying

(2) rugby rush; 6 nations contigent, candles on the tables – low tables

(3) shiny tables, clerks, reefer madness, outside, bangles in stereo F/G

(4) Earl of Essex, like the Flag in Wivenhoe, tottenham supporters with arsenal on telly. pool tables

(5) Ivy House gathering. like being punched in the race with an angel delight

As you can see, I write less and less each time and we only make it to the fifth pub. Most, most shaming.

If You Can’t Leave Your Mark On The World, Try To Leave A Stain

Drunk. Arriving home from the pub. Need something to eat. Can’t find anything other than bread and piccalli. Attempt to combine the two into a sandwich. Take large bite out of sandwich. Mustard-coated pickled onion slips out of bottom of sandwich and leaves a long yellow streak of piss down the front of my shirt. Irritated, I mutter to myself. At least, I think, I don’t have to go anywhere looking like this.

Next time I wear the same shirt I realise the washing machine has failed in its basic duty and there is still, faded but visible, a yellow streak on the front of me. Someone makes a snarky remark about it. Not so bad, but what about all those people who were too polite to say anything? Polite people are always seething with surpressed anger and contempt. Look at waiters for goodness sake. And waitresses, naturally.

I hate stains. Especially as I am somewhat clumsy and erratic and tend to attract them. There is a particular kind of pen, then if I write as little as a note on a post-it to all someone back, at least three fingers on my right hand become drenched in ink. On a hot day, I might not realise and wipe my forehead with the still-wet ink, adding some very attractive black smeared fingerprints to my facial look.

Toothpaste gets left on the side on my mouth sometimes, like I’m a hapless adolescent trying to get rid of a rogue spot.

And soot from underground tunnels sticks me like I’m a chimney sweep or something. I don’t have the hat or the accent. Why does this happen?

My favourite staining item is beetroot. Like a small inner-city child who has never realised the connection between chips and potatoes, I never realised that beetroot in its natural state was a round purple parsnip and was not naturally pickled.

Whenever you have a meal with beetroot featuring there’s always the moment of complete anxiety when the beetroot touches something else on the plate AND MAKES ALL YOUR LETTUCE AND FISH FINGERS GO TOTALLY FUCKING PINK. They are still edible, but something feels very wrong, like those fizzy-pop cartons that were allegedly raspberry flavoured, despite the liquid contains within being bright blue. I wouldn’t have wanted to spill one of those where it would have been noticed.

And don’t even start me on the spilling of various bodily fluids. They’re never fun. Any of them.

It’s Political Correctness Gone Mad

Over the past few weeks, my lunchtime frolics on the internet have become increasingly restricted.

You see, the software (I assume it’s software because I’m not sure how else you’d do it) that prevents us from looking at porn or gambling from our work computers seems to have got ideas above its station and has been banning all manner of things.

There were always a few blogs I didn’t even bother trying to look at when I was at work, MJ’s for one. But the list of banned blogs was most odd, and I was spent most of the time trying to work out what the pattern was.

My own blog wasn’t blocked, which was helpful. Tim and Annie were blogged. Rosie wasn’t, then she was, then she wasn’t again. Betty ‘n’ Geoff were okay. First Nations was lost to me.

Then suddenly there was an explosion of blocking. The evil nature destroyer, Bebo (whatever that is) and almost every blog and forum in existence. Even pretend ones like the Guardian does.

Apparently you can email some director of IT or other and make a business case for unblocking anything. I don’t suppose “It helps me get through the pain of life” counts.

Hilariously, the main front page of the Daily Mail was blocked today. Where else can I go for my frothing right-wing outrage?

Why I Am Not A Vegetarian

One of the most annoying things (apart from multiple exclamation marks – inverted ones excepted) is when people say “I would be a vegetarian but I really like bacon sandwiches”.

Doesn’t including exceptions, whatever your reasons, negate those reasons, if only in the utilitarian sense?

I don’t go for bacon sandwiches myself, although I do like the smell. It’s similar to coffee in that the smell is much better than having to sit down and consume the fucking stuff.

However, I am a total hypocrite. To use a snowclone of the sentence I quoted at the start of this post as annoying me. “I would be a vegan, but I’d miss yogurt sandwiches.”

Trust me, they’re amazing.